The Zombie Plagues (Book 2)

by Sweet, Dell

  "Nope," she answered. "But I'll probably wish I did..." She looked at him, "You'll really stick it out?" She watched his eyes.

  "Yeah... I'll do it," he said.

  "Liv," she said.

  "Brian," he said. He stepped toward her.

  "Well, Brian, better get me into the fucking car before I pass out," she said as her vision blurred. She wobbled, but he was right there. More substantial than he had looked. Stronger. He pushed the plastic bag off the passenger seat, belted her in, and then went around to the driver's side. He backed out into the street.

  "Where... Where to, Liv... Where are we going?"

  "Down south... Stop and buy a map at a gas station. Take us south. Get a motel when you need to. When I... When I get crazy... Okay?"

  He nodded as he drove. The BMW accelerating smoothly on the rain slicked streets. "I only have about 20 bucks," he said.

  She laughed, worked her way into the bag, drew out one of the stacks of money and handed it to him. She pawed through the bag taking out all the money, stacks of it: Slipped the bottom bag off, put the money in it and then tied the bag with all the drugs in it.

  "You saw all the money? That bag's got a lot in it. Take it wherever you go and be careful," she said. "This shit?" She lifted the other bag and pressed the switch to roll down the window. The air felt cold, but good. She flung the bag into the woods that lined the side of the road. And then she burst into tears. It was gonna be so hard.

  She pressed the button and the window whispered closed.

  "Take care of me, Brian. Take care of me," she said. She closed her eyes, rested her head against the glass and passed out.

  SEVEN

  Manhattan

  Jilly

  Jilly sipped her diet coke and browsed through the directory of the website. She had her FTP client up and she was downloading the entire content section, which she could sell to someone else before she sunk the site for good.

  Jilly did things for people: Bad things for bad people, but only because they paid well she told herself. She was 23, owned her own apartment, a loft: A big loft. She didn't owe anything to anyone. All the latest and newest computer equipment: Not many women her age could say the same. Bad people paid well. She did the bad things; got this bit of information that bit: Did this thing or that thing. Bad things, but they paid well.

  Her e-mail alert chimed and she popped the window up over her browser window. She read the e-mail and smiled. A big payoff, maybe. She reached for the phone, dialed a number and waited.

  "Yeah," she said. "The dead guy, Neo? He bought himself a new car... Yeah... Yeah... Got it all on a phish: License, make, model, where... It's on its way to you... Yeah... The usual... Oh...! Thanks, you're so sweet to me." She hung up, checked her downloads and sipped at her diet coke. Bad people, good money, she reminded herself. She picked up the phone and called the other interested party.

  Tennessee

  Billy Jingo

  The Suburban was so smooth it was like being in another world, Billy thought. The sun was up, early morning, 9:00 AM his watch said. All the money in the world and he had walked into a Kmart and bought himself a $29.00 Timex. He liked it. It suited him.

  They had passed over into Tennessee. It was not far to the border and then they would be in Alabama: From there they would follow I-65 down to Mobile. He had tried to call Rich at 8:00 AM as they had arranged, but no one had answered. It bothered him. He knew two numbers for Rich. The one just rang. The other just beeped and then hung up on him after a few seconds, which meant the messages were full. The one that rang and rang was Rich's cell phone. It made no sense that it should ring and ring. Rich was a businessman. He never missed phone calls.

  He picked up the phone and tried the cell phone again. It rang on and on, a dozen times. He was just about to hang up when he heard the click of an answer. No hello, no anything; just an open line.

  "Rich... That you, Rich?" Billy asked.

  Nothing, then "Billy...? Billy Jingo... Don't hang up, Billy, just listen to me. Don't..."

  Billy clicked off the phone, looked at it as if it had betrayed him, pushed a button for the window and tossed the phone out onto the highway. He watched in the mirror: Just an explosion of parts catching the sunlight as the phone came apart.

  "What?" April asked.

  "Some dude answered Rich's phone, but it wasn't Rich," he said.

  "Might not be bad," April said. "Doesn't have to be anyway."

  "He knew my name," Billy said.

  "Shit," April said.

  "Yeah; tried the cop trick too: Keep them talking. Told me not to hang up," Billy told her.

  "Don't panic," April said. "They don't know anything. Think about it. They can't know anything or they would have us. Might have been a lucky guess on their part. Maybe they... Maybe they were supposed to answer. Supposed to see if it was you," April reasoned.

  "Maybe, but it felt wrong. And how are we going to know where to go. We'll probably be in Mobile sometime in the early morning," Billy said.

  "Baby," April said. "We'll do what we said. If we don't hear back or we don't feel right about it, we'll just drive on through. We don't need the money or the headache. There's nothing wrong. We don't have to do it."

  "Yeah," Billy said. He tried a smile back on. "Yeah; okay."

  Watertown

  Richard Dean's House

  Sammy and Don

  The phone rang and rang. Don wasn't going to pick it up, but it was still ringing when he finally got a latex glove on. What the hell, he thought. He clicked the button and listened: The sound of travel; tires singing on pavement a radio low in the background, nothing else for a minute. He was about to say hello when the kids voice spoke. "Rich...? That you Rich?"

  He was usually quicker; maybe it had been the lack of sleep. He knew the voice from somewhere, it just took a few extra seconds to figure out where from. The kid: Billy Jingo; it was his voice, Billy Jingo's voice...

  "Billy...! Billy Jingo?" he had said. "Don't hang up, Billy. Listen to me. Don't trust these guys. Rich is dead. They'll kill you too... Billy...? Billy...? Fuck," Don said and slammed the phone into is free hand.

  Sammy looked at him over the small bar where he had found the phone sitting on a high shelf along with two rubber banded stacks of fifties.

  "Hung up," Don said. "It was the kid. I know the voice. He hung up." Don ran his fingers through his hair. His eyes were shot with red. His temper was frayed, even after the time he had spent with Janet: Maybe because of it. He would sure rather be back with her than here looking through the glass at the horrors in the exercise room.

  He looked back at the high shelf. It went back deep. Impossible to see what else might be up there. He pulled over a stool and climbed up on top of it. Sammy walked away toward the garage to let the techs know the scene was secure. He looked for a long time at what was hidden in the dust.

  Mobile Alabama

  Jimmy West

  Jimmy punched in the number Rich had given him. No answer, the phone just rang and rang. He folded his phone, dug up a small piece of paper and reread the phone number to make sure he had gotten it right. He had. He chose the alternate number and punched that in. It rang four times before it was answered. The young woman's voice: The kids' girl, April; had to be. "Is Billy right there? This is Ronnie Lee. I've been trying to reach him." He tried to make the accent believable. Not too heavy, but there nonetheless: Nothing but silence. He moved around the counter top. The guitar shop was quiet, dark, a little dirty light coming through the front glass. Ronnie lee was tied to a tall metal backed chair. His eyes were missing.

  "Did I dial a wrong number?" he asked.

  "No," April said at last. "Billy can't talk right now, Ronnie lee. John told us about you," April said.

  "Who the fuck is John?" Jimmy asked. "There shouldn't be anyone in this, but us and Richie."

  "I meant to say Richie," April lied.

  Sure you did you little bitch, Jimmy thought.

  "Well, w
ho are you. You know who I am... The girl, I know that. Rich told me, but he didn't say your name," Jimmy said

  "Annie," April lied.

  "Annie, okay. Annie, do we have a deal? I pulled together an amount of money that should work, but I can't seem to reach Rich at all. His phone just rings. I'm a little spooked, I don't mind telling you, Annie," Jimmy said. “Know what I mean? Then you guys don't answer on the other cell phone number... Made me wonder, you know?"

  "We can't reach Rich either," April said.

  "So it isn't just me?" Jimmy said.

  "Billy called, someone picked up. He thinks it was a cop. We nearly changed our minds about this. I mean it's squirrelly," April told him.

  "Annie, I went to a lot of trouble to get all this money together. I wish the two of you wouldn't pull out. I'd understand it if you did, I just wish you wouldn't," Jimmy said.

  "I didn't say we would. It's just... It just spooked us too, I guess," April said.

  The silence hung for a few minutes.

  "Where we at, girl?" Jimmy said at last, figuring he would play it a little hard.

  "Don't call me girl," April said.

  "Sorry," Jimmy said. "It's my Alabama showing; I don't mean nothing by it."

  "Let me talk to Billy... Where can I call you back?" she asked.

  "Call me at my guitar shop," he ran off the number that went with the phone on the wall.

  "When?" April said.

  "When you're ready... It's all about you now, Annie: You and Billy. I'll be here," Jimmy told her.

  "Okay," April said and clicked off.

  Watertown

  Richard Dean's House

  Sammy and Don

  Sammy came back in with the techs. "Okay, Don?" he asked.

  "Yeah, let them do that exercise room after the hallway. At least that way we'll have someplace to go where we don't have to look at death." Don said.

  Sammy nodded and led the techs into the living room. They stopped just inside the doorway.

  "Who else?" the lead guy asked. His name was Dennis Jones. Sammy had worked with him before. "Just me and Don," Sammy answered.

  Dennis looked around. "Probably the kitchen is okay, since you have already been in here. Anything in there?" he asked. He looked down at the bottles in the rack, the refrigerator that sat under the bar, then back up. Don wagged his head no, and then pointed at a phone and two stacks of fifties that sat on the counter top. Sammy walked over and whistled. "Where?" Sammy asked.

  "Up next to the phone," Don said.

  "Did you touch them?" the tech asked.

  Don held up his gloved hands. "But before you do the hall, do the kitchen and the phone, bag the money. I will need to answer the phone if it rings and we need a place to set up, okay, Dennis?" Don asked.

  "Yeah, just," he looked around and spotted the short hall that led to the front door. "I'll just hit the short hallway first, then this. That way you guys got an entrance and a place to wait... The rest is gonna take a while."

  Dennis crossed to the short hall and printed the door. Vacuumed the carpet and bagged it, then turned it over to them. He bought the phone to Don a few minutes later.

  Don walked out to the car he had parked at the curb, and pulled it up onto the lawn next to the front door. He took his jacket off. Folded it carefully and put it on the back seat. The day was warming up a little, although the forecast said cold later. Either way the jacket was off and would stay off. He walked back inside the hallway and stepped up beside Sammy. They watched as the techs worked the other end of the hall that picked up on the opposite side of the kitchen and led to the garage.

  "Twenty five grand in those fifties," Sammy said.

  Don nodded.

  "Would have been tough for me to turn that in," Sammy said.

  "Not you, Sammy. You're a straight arrow, you would've done the same thing," Don said.

  "Yeah, but it still would've been hard," he sighed. "You and I are both the same... I think that's what happened to the kid: Temptation; there all at once. Something he must've saw in the cars," Sammy asked.

  "Positive of it," Don agreed quietly.

  "Temptation's a bitch. I'm sure the kid just folded. Sometimes it's hard to walk away, even when you know you should."

  Sammy nodded and glanced back up at the mess in the hallway.

  Don's own cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pants pocket. "Yeah?" he answered. He listened and then pulled out his note pad and began to write. "Slow, slower," he said. "I guess all the information comes at one time," he whispered to Sammy. He wrote as he listened, watching the techs work the hallway.

  Fort Deposit Alabama

  Billy Jingo

  Sunday afternoon.

  They were parked in a rest area just off I-65.

  "Did you believe him?" Billy asked.

  April shrugged. "He sounded real. It's the right name. He knew your name. He didn't know my name, but he knew I was here. I told him my name was Annie. I figured it was close enough. I figured if he said he thought it was April I could fake it. He didn't. He didn't even hesitate when he said Annie, or if he did, I didn't catch it. I just don't know. He even said he was a little spooked by not being able to reach Rich himself. He told me we could call it all off if we wanted to. He doesn't want us to, but he said he would understand. Would someone trying to set a trap try to push us away? I wouldn't think so, baby, but I don't know. Even so, something about it has got me bugged big time," April finished.

  "I can't see Richie setting us up. But I also can't see Richie not answering his phone either." He looked at the map. "Let's find a motel... Kill some time... It looks," he traced the route down I-65 with his finger and compared it to the scale. "Maybe six, seven hours to go and we'll be in Mobile. If we crash for the rest of the day get some sleep, we can leave at midnight and be there early tomorrow morning. I don't wanna get there at night, or come in at night."

  April nodded. "We should get another vehicle as soon as we get there too. I like this truck, but it's too hard to maneuver in tight places. We need a car. Something fast so we can get away if we need too."

  "We'll look, let's go to Mississippi," he traced a route with his finger. "We could rent a car and a room in Pascagoula. That's maybe an hour drive from Mobile. We'll leave the Suburban somewhere there; maybe we can leave it in the airport's long-term lot, something like that. That will allow us to cruise by the meeting place tonight. We'll call him back; tell him we'll be a little late, sometime early tomorrow morning. We'll ask for the directions to the place now. That will give us some level of protection. About the best we can do," Billy said.

  "That makes sense," April said. "But we still call it off if it feels wrong tomorrow morning, right?"

  "Absolutely. If we wake up tomorrow and get a bad feeling, we just take the car back and head for Mexico," Billy agreed.

  "All right," April said. She leaned forward and kissed him. "Call him." She handed him the phone.

  Watertown

  Sammy and Don

  "Okay... We know it was a drug deal, but there's word on the street, not our streets, Manhattan, that it was a deal between Tommy Murphy and Jefferson Prescott that went bad. A couple of million dollars in cocaine, heroin, and some high grade pot thrown in for good measure; and I mean their prices and that means that not only were the drugs there, but the money was there too," Don said.

  "Holy shit, no wonder so many people are getting dead," Sammy said.

  "Yeah," Don agreed. "There's a contract out on both of them, Billy and April. They don't care how they get them either, so long as they get the money and drugs back."

  "And let me guess, if they're admitting to a few million dollars it's probably a lot more, right?" Sammy asked.

  "No doubt," Don looked at his notes. "They found the kids truck in Rochester. Wrecked into a house and burned out. Three local gang bangers roasted inside the truck. The rumors say a chase and shootout prior to that, two white kids in a Jeep. Some say two guys, some say a guy and a girl," he re
ad from his notes.

  "So the gang bangers steal the truck somehow?" Sammy asked.

  Don shrugged. "The dead guy in the Ford missing the top of his head: Benjamin Neo." Don asked.

  "Yeah?" Sammy said.

  "Fake name... Real name's... Rustle Roberts. Funny thing is, other than an arrest twenty years ago for an assault charge; he has absolutely no record under that name: Doesn't own anything; hasn't paid taxes. Nothing. Benjamin Neo on the other hand owns three homes, two in Rochester, one in Barbados."

  Don raised his eyebrows.

  "Hot," Sammy said.

  "And guess what, yesterday he bought himself a brand new GMC Suburban. I mean top of the line, over sixty grand for the price tag," Don said.

  "Our two?" Sammy asked.

  Don shook his head. "The salesman swears the guy was Benjamin Neo. No girl with him. Said the guy had ID."

  "Not hard if they took it from the car," Sammy interjected.

  Don nodded. "There's an APB out on the Suburban, but we also got the Jeep that April Evans bought. Hasn't been a single sighting, but it sounds like the Jeep that was involved in the thing in Rochester."

  "So why did they each buy vehicles?" Sammy asked.

  "Well, it's a day apart in different states. They bought the Suburban in Ohio, Cleveland... Maybe the Jeep was damaged in the thing in Rochester, so they had to ditch it," Don shrugged. "The thing is, with Murphy and Prescott gunning for them they won't last long. Gang intelligence in Rochester says the shootout was probably motivated by the drugs and the money."

  "You think they knew?" Sammy asked.

  "Yeah: The word's out there. It's a big reward; plus a direct in with two of the biggest names in the dope business. Whoever finds them can probably write their own ticket." Don looked toward the hallway, where the techs were cutting out sections of the carpet. At least the bodies we're gone, he saw with relief. "That's probably what most of this was all about," Don finished.

  "We wouldn't even know this if not for the missing paper boy," Sammy said. “The kid's route manager called when he found the kids bag in the driveway early this morning abandoned. Fresh blood on the pavement, despite the light rain that had fallen earlier had him worried. First responder looked through the front window and all hell broke loose.”