The Zombie Plagues (Book 2)

by Sweet, Dell

  "Yeah... Yeah... I do," Ed agreed. He looked nervous. "Do you think we'll have to shoot, Ben?"

  "Sometimes... You can shoot, right?" Ben asked. He knew he owned a 9 mm and that he had taken a weapons class in Syracuse a few years back. He had carried a sidearm and had, had to train on a rifle when he was in the service. He had checked all of that out. He also knew he was a poor shot. Myopic, and even with his thick glasses his depth perception, which was critical to accuracy, was bad.

  "Sure, sure, it's just been a while," Ed said.

  "Just make sure you don't shoot me, or yourself," Ben said.

  They were at the lookout in the park standing near the trunk of the car waiting for the other car. It could be a few minutes, maybe as much as an hour, Ben thought.

  Ed nodded. "I won't," he said, unsmiling.

  Ben had no idea what to expect. He knew what they were driving, but he had no idea how far out they were, all Tommy had told him was the make and model, a big silver-blue Toyota, and their names. They had picked up the stuff in Brownsville earlier that morning, and they were on the way. He popped the trunk lid and snapped open the catches on the big brown suitcase. Neat rows of bills: All hundreds. Ed whistled.

  Ben removed one of the stacks, set it aside and closed the case. "Your pay," Ben told him.

  "How much is that?" Ed asked. His eyes were a little bugged out. He'd never seen that much money anywhere. Not even in gangster movies, which were his favorite kinds of flicks. It was a lot of money.

  "Eighty thousand dollars per stack," Ben told him.

  "You're kidding? I'm making eighty thousand dollars for this deal?" he asked.

  Ben smiled and nodded. "I told you it was big."

  "Yeah," Ed smiled. His mind was thinking about all the things he could buy with eighty thousand dollars.

  Ben's cell phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket, looked at the caller ID window and turned to Ed. "It's my boss, I'll have to take it," he said. He walked away leaving Ed to his thoughts and answered the phone.

  Suncrest Trailer Park

  Lott Road

  April Evans

  It started out bad and got worse. First Alice tried to kiss her when they got to April's trailer. April had pretended she didn't see it coming and turned it into an embrace. But once they were inside she tried again and they had ended up in an argument.

  "It's my fault, I should've walked home. I didn't mean to lead you on, Ali, I didn't," April said.

  "But... You held my hand. I know you want this just like I do. I know it. Why can't we just be together? I don't get it... You're not seeing somebody else, right?" Alice asked.

  "No... It's not about that... It's about compatibility... I'm not like you, Ali. How else can I say it?" April asked.

  Alice broke down into tears. "But you are..." Her voice fell to a whisper. "You've made love to me, April; better than any man ever has... Ever could... You are like me," she sobbed.

  "I'm not," April said. "We did those things. I was drunk. I was upset. I hated what had happened to me, you know that, it didn't mean to me what it meant to you, Ali, it didn't."

  Alice jumped up. "So I'm the one who is sick? Interested in the wrong sex? The Lesbo?" Her anger was barely in check. She was spitting the words out, tears streaming down her face. "Well fuck you, April Evans. I know about that boy at the end of the road. The one you talk about. If that's what you want, then fuck you, take him." She ran to the door, flung it open and rushed down the steps. Her car started as April got to the door, and she heard the gravel spit and clatter against the aluminum siding of the trailer as she took off.

  Two trailers over a curtain parted and a woman's face looked out into the gloom of early morning. Her eyes nearly skipped across April, lingered briefly and then the curtain edges fell back together. April sagged down to the top step and lowered her head into her hands. She got up a few minutes later, went inside and grabbed two of the beers. She left one in the plastic collar, slipped an open collar over her wrist and let the second can hang from it. As she went back out she picked up the aluminum bat, closed and locked the trailer door. She walked out to the end of the gravel road that cut down into the trailer park and looked towards the end of Lott road.

  There was a guy, not a boy that lived at the end of the road. She had mentioned him to Alice. She shouldn't have. He was just a guy. She had seen him go by a few times, but he had never paid any attention to her. She had even waited on him at the store a few times. Nothing: He wasn't interested; Alice had that all wrong.

  She hefted the bat in one hand. There were wild dogs all over the place. They lived in the woods and raided the county dump where it backed up to Lott road for their means of survival. It was best to be prepared. More than once she had driven one away with a quick tap from the bat. She took one of the trails that lead out of the trailer park and cut down toward the end of the road. She sipped at one of the beers as she pushed some overhanging small branches aside with the bat. The sun was finally starting to rise, casting shadows along the dirt path. She wondered about the boy at the end of the road as she walked.

  Watertown PD

  Sammy and John

  "Sammy, what's on for today?" Don asked.

  "You're the boss and you're asking me?" Sammy asked.

  "Yeah, well, sometimes I have to make you feel like you have a choice in these things," Don joked. "We're both on our own today, Sammy. I'll be tied up with some dip shit statements that will probably mean nothing to anyone. I have to go out to Carthage to take them, and God knows where else. I'll have to chase these guys around," Don said.

  "Yeah? Well I have something I had to take care of anyway," Sammy said. "We're back together tomorrow?" he asked.

  "Unless hell freezes over," Don said. "Let me translate that for you. I don't get to make the rules. We should be though," Don said and laughed. He followed Sammy out through the side door and into the municipal parking lot.

  Adams, New York

  State Park Area

  Danny and Daryl

  "I'm really fucked up," Daryl said. "I mean really fucked up." He leaned out of the car door and puked again.

  "You okay, man?" Danny asked.

  "Yeah... Yeah. Never better. I love to puke, man, it's so..." He stopped talking, leaned out the door and dry heaved.

  "We're fucked up, man, really fucked up," Danny said.

  They had both gotten heavily into the coke and mixed just a small amount of heroin in with it. They should've mixed a smaller amount they told themselves now or none at all. They'd both been sick ever since: High, really high, but sick, really sick.

  "We're gonna fuck this up," Daryl said once he caught his breath.

  "No shit," Danny agreed.

  They were pulled off the road a few miles outside of Watertown: Parked on an old State Park road off the woods; the whole area was full of roads like this one; the woods were practically honeycombed with them.

  "Hey... For real," Daryl said. "We're gonna fuck this up." Danny didn't answer. He looked over and he was out cold.

  "Fuck," Daryl said, but a few seconds later he dropped out too.

  The sun climbed into the sky, but the car stayed cool, parked back under the trees. The light didn't wake them. Probably couldn't have awakened them. The day moved on without them.

  Lott Road

  Nikki Moore

  Nikki watched the girl as she walked along. She had been here a few days now, checking the area out, getting it ready for Ben, and this was the fourth time the girl had shown up, walking through the woods and over the trails that cut through them, and it didn't seem to concern the girl how late it was; what or who might be in the woods.

  The night before last she had followed her back to her trailer and watched for a while. She was popular with the trailer park crowd, at least the guys. It seemed to Nikki now that, that popularity might even be the reason why she was out walking in the middle of the night. Maybe the world was just getting to her: Her little world; and she came to the trails to wa
lk it off. Nikki had been in that situation herself and she understood it.

  Last night she had stopped into the little convenience store across the highway at the end of the road and she had been surprised to see her there. April Evans, her name tag had said. She had smiled at Nikki and asked how her day was going. Nikki had smiled back and told her just fine, surprised that this was the same girl. She seemed so completely out of place. A different girl from the melancholy one Nikki had come to know that walked the trails nearly every night: Down to the trailer at the end of the road and then back. She had yet to step out of the trees and walk up to the trailer, but Nikki could tell she wanted to.

  Nikki knew who lived in the trailer at the end of the road, William Jingo, Billy to his friends, but so far she hadn't seen any friends: Just him and April Evans who walked nearly right to his door and then changed her mind and didn't step from the trees to make herself known to him.

  Billy Jingo looked to be one step away from county jail. She had no idea what the connection was between the two of them or even if there was one. The girl simply stared at the trailer for a few moments and then walked back to her own trailer.

  Nikki couldn't even say what had drawn her to the girl in the first place, except having been surprised by her twice out walking on a trail that should have been empty. That had made her take an interest, Nikki supposed. After that she had begun following her around as she walked the trails that cut through the thick woods and then back to her trailer to make sure she wasn't up to something that would interfere with Nikki's own plans. She didn't think that she was.

  Nikki had found her way to the trailer park along the trails through the woods tonight. Empty. The lights were off. The girl was not home, but a few seconds later as she had been about to leave a car had pulled in to her driveway, or the rutted dirt area beside the trailer that served as a driveway. She had come back with another girl, and that girl had looked vaguely familiar, like maybe one of the other girls that worked in the little store across the highway. She couldn’t be sure though.

  So she was surprised to see her now: The two had looked as though they couldn't wait to get inside the trailer and get each other's clothes off. At least that was the impression Nikki had gotten. She had been hiding in the bushes when they had left the car and headed to the trailer. The girl had seemed to be very familiar with April Evans. Like intimately familiar.

  Lesbian, she had thought? There was something about the closeness. The way the other girl looked at her, stepped into her personal space that said she felt possessive of her. She had thought that maybe this girl with her was the reason she avoided the men in the trailer park, yet here she was walking the trail alone again just a short time later. I must have been wrong, Nikki told herself. She watched April Evans from the underbrush and shadow as she walked.

  She had called Ben earlier because she had been worried. He would not be coming this morning. Something had gone wrong. It might be delayed all the way to Friday morning. He would call when and if it changed. Maybe another day and night of waiting, and that had not been the plan, but Ben had not called back again.

  She was bored when it came right down to it, and she was curious about the girl. What was it that drew her to her? She knew that curiosity was against her own rules: That she was becoming obsessed or something. She also knew that she should find other things to do to pass the time, lie low as she was supposed to do: As Ben had told her to do, but she couldn't help it. Something about the girl had caught her attention and held it. Something she could not let go of.

  She watched her still, dropping back far enough so she could light a cigarette and not be seen. She lost track of her as she smoked, but it was no real consequence, she would find her again. She took a deep breath, sucked smoke into her lungs and only barely got turned around when she heard a noise behind her.

  “Now who the fuck are you,” The girl asked, “And why have you been following me?” The question was rhetorical. An aluminum bat hit the side of Nikki's head hard, and she found herself looking at the leaves on the floor of the woods a few seconds later. The leaves were cool, moist; they felt good against her cheek. Something trickled out of her hairline and into her eye. Sweat? Blood? The world went hazy and then winked out for a second.

  The world came back: A second blow was coming down; she saw the bat blurring as it descended. She rolled, barely missing it.

  The swing had thrown the girl off balance and she stumbled forward and crashed to the ground. Nikki was on her a second later. Her head throbbing, a knife at the girl's throat. The girl was breathing hard, making little murmuring noises in her throat.

  “Don't... Don't... Please don't”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? You tried to kill me,” Nikki told her. She pulled the knife back and then poked it at her throat, causing a little well of blood to form and trickle away from the point. “You are gonna tell me all about you; all about you.” She settled her weight onto the girls' chest, rocked back a little and waited.

  Thursday afternoon:

  Thompson Park

  The Cop

  Something was wrong. He couldn't just hang around in the parking lot all day. He'd be missed.

  He'd been listening to the radio and should have called in when the dispatcher had called for all available units to roll to the report of the DB on Lott road. He'd stuck it out though. Someone else had gone, and at least he'd have that unfolding drama to listen to over the radio as he waited. Some female: It sounded like she had been killed and dumped there, maybe as early as this morning.

  Lott road was all scum of the earth as far as he was concerned: Trailer homes; enough druggies, welfare mothers and crack whores to keep any decent people out. Most of the men out that way were sporadic workers at best. They always looked familiar to him; like he had seen them in county jail whether he had actually seen them there or not. They all had a similar look... Similar attitude.

  The body was gone and things had died down, still nothing from down the hill. He'd heard someone earlier and they had left, or at least their car had started. Maybe that was half of whom he was expecting, but that didn't tell him where the other half was. It made no sense. The tip was for this morning, not this afternoon, or wherever this was heading to. He glanced down at his watch: Afternoon and it wasn't heading to afternoon it was afternoon.

  The conversation he had picked up had sounded right. One guy talking to another about how to act: Talking about the deal and how it needed to go down. It sounded right, and he had been sure the other car would be pulling in any second after that, but it hadn't happened. The day was bleeding away, and it made no sense at all. The worst part was that he had no choice. He had to stick it out now, had to see it through.

  Thompson Park

  Ben Neo

  Ed was antsy: Ben was pissed off. Something was absolutely wrong. On one hand he couldn't care less, but on the other hand he had to finish this to get where he wanted to get to: If he had anticipated this kind of deal he probably would have made different plans. In fact, he told himself, there was no probably about it, he would have.

  He was stuck now though. He couldn't call Tommy to find out if something had happened. He wouldn't know anyway, most likely, but he would know something was wrong as soon as Ben called.

  He couldn't call Prescott either for the same reasons: If it took too long he would have no choice, he'd have to call, bite the bullet: Find out what had happened.

  There were reasons why a delay now made him more than a little paranoid. He had gambled himself. He was on the verge of something. He had made some moves and was about to make the big move. And he had been so careful too.

  Or had he? He thought about Carlos. Carlos had been sure right up to the end that he had made the right moves. That he was safe, and nobody knew. Now some of him was in a duffel bag in the trunk and the rest of him was stuffed in Ben's own refrigerator back in Rochester. That was what thinking got you.

  It really bugged him that after he had met Jimmy and
picked up the cash, he had had no idea where Jimmy had gone to. He normally wouldn't know, shouldn't know but now he had a need to know. Was Jimmy coming after him? Had Tommy found out that Ben was about to disappear and decided it would be better if Jimmy disappeared him? It was certainly possible that was for sure.

  Lott Road

  Nikki

  She sat in the Ford and waited. She had pulled down off the little used road into the woods. Apparently people only used it to dump trash. She wasn't surprised that there had been a problem. It seemed there were always problems when it came to counting on other people: If she had only herself to depend on it would be so much better, but the world didn't tend to work that way.

  She was okay with the car. She was positive no one would find it, and anyway she would be able to see it from where she was going to be if anyone did come down onto this road from the other road.

  She looked in the mirror. She looked good. She looked believable even. She had done a good job, and that was all she could hope for. Her cell phone rang. She answered with a quiet hello and then laughed.

  "On board is what I am. Where are you? What's taking so long...? Yeah...? No, I'm about to. No, really, you wouldn't be able to tell, I swear... Yeah... I love you too... Yeah. It's with me. Call when you want... I'm going now... Okay."

  She clicked off, took one more look in the mirror, and then put everything back into her new purse. She got out, walked around the car and started down the dirt road.

  Manhattan

  Lita Prescott

  Lita got up carefully from the bed and walked to the mirror. Her face was black and blue. Her nose was pushed over to one side; encrusted with blood. One eye was closed, the other red and blood filled. She let the robe she wore fall away from her shoulders. Her body wasn't much better. Marks from the belt he had used on her twice, the pain was incredible.

  He had told her he sent everybody away for the week coming up. So there would be no hope of any help at all for the next week and by that time she would most likely be dead.

  She knew Carlos was dead, he had told her: Gloated over the fact that sometime in the next few days he would have his severed head and hands to prove it, along with something just for her. She had shuddered at the beginnings of the thoughts that had leapt into her mind, and then she had refused them: Pushed them completely away; shut down that part of her mind and she had not been back to visit it.