Shadow Of Doubt: Z Is For Zombie Book 3

by catt dahman

  “Huh?” Ashley looked at him uncomprehendingly, “you’re hard to understand. I didn’t go to school with many black people; I didn’t understand what you said.”

  “He said to get your ass up before Ted bites you,” Len yelled. He was almost out of patience. She had insulted two people with her stupid remark; to her, it wasn’t insults but just ignorance of proper behavior.

  “Hey,” John said, “you said you shot him in the head. He has a shot in his gut.” He knew something about the man lying across the window seal was bothering him; he just now figured out what it was, cursing himself for being so slow. Also, the man hadn’t begun to change into a zed, and he didn’t have bites that John could see.

  BJ launched himself at John, and they went down in a tumble; the skinny man was fast and hit John in the stomach and the jaw before John could even take it all in that he was being beaten up.

  Rae slammed out of the bathroom on her hands and knees with a man behind her, his pistol pointed at her back.

  Before Len and the rest could think or much less react, Ashley squealed, sounding like a high-pitched rat caught in a trap. Ted had her left hand in his mouth, his hands holding on to her arm and crunching down on her finger bones, shaking his head like a dog worrying at meat. Already, blood flowed from his mouth and down his chin in slimy drool. “Get it offa me….” Said who?

  BJ turned his head for just a second, and John hit him hard in the nose, splattering blood everywhere as it broke. Kicking the man back, John grabbed his rifle and tried to line up a shot; BJ didn’t stop but kept scrambling to fight. “Come on you son of a bitch,” he snarled.

  John fired into BJ’s chest to save himself, but if anyone had asked, John was somehow glad there was a good reason to put the guy down; BJ came across as a dangerous person. A switchblade tumbled from BJ’s hand, and John knew the man had meant to kill him.

  The man, with his gun pointed at Rae, also glanced at Ashley as she slapped at Ted, screaming in pain and fear. Rae used the man’s sudden inattention to kick her leg back and sideways, as she had been taught long ago, making him fall over her.

  She rolled out of the way, and Big Bill moved fast; in a split second, he had his gun right on the man’s temple.Rae scooped up the pistol and shoved it into the man’s crotch, daring him to move.

  On the bed with arms flying all over, Ashley fought Ted, but he finished eating her fingers and latched on to her neck, biting in deeply as she screeched and begged for help with her terrified eyes.

  Ashley’s breast popped free of the blouse, and she looked somehow very pitiful. Len shot Ted, destroying his head as Rev fired at Ashley, finishing all the movement.

  “Rae? John?”

  “Five by,” Rae said.

  “Okay,” John said as his hands shook after killing the man. Len told him to sit down a second since the adrenaline was making him shake; it was never as easy to take a life as people imagined even when they were threatened.

  “Now, tell me again how you plan to fuck me until I scream? Tell me again how big your dick is?” Rae prodded the man’s crotch with the pistol. “Tell me just once more how you plan to fuck me until I can’t walk?”

  “I’m sorry,” the man gasped.

  “I bet you are,” Rae said, “Have you been raping women? You get off on that?” She tilted her head, eyeing something on his hand, and then made a funny sound. Like lightning, she had her Bowie knife out, ignoring his huge, pleading eyes, and stabbed it into his crotch.

  Her anger shocked the rest.

  Len was already there, grabbing her knife arm and pulling her off of him. It took him and Rev both to keep her off of the man as she spit and fought to stab him.

  Big Bill fired once into the man’s head, and they dragged Rae out. Rev stayed an extra minute and then joined them.

  Once outside, Len took her jaw and stared at her, “Calm down. Now.”

  “He had a tattoo, Len, one eye on the back of his hand: homemade and just done a few days ago,” Big Bill said quietly, looking at Rae as if she were possessed.

  She quit fighting and sat there. Len handed her the knife and told her to put it away. “I’m sorry. I was out of line, but he said those things when he grabbed me in the bathroom, and he put his filthy hands on my breasts and….” Her eyes were moist.

  “And you were mad as hell,” Len finished. He looked at John, “We aren’t always this violent.”

  “I don’t blame you, Rae,” John said, “I felt a lot of rage when I saw they had just killed that guy in the window. I understand about the eye tattooed on his hand and for you to be that angry and scared; I know falling in with you all is my best bet for sure.”

  “I was scared…me. Of all people, I was terrified of that man.”

  “You wouldn’t be normal if you weren’t scared after what he said and did,” Len told her. “I bet we’d find tattoos on the others, just maybe not the man at the window.”

  “You would have; that’s what I was checking,” Rev said. “Hey, I do have a brain, too. I looked for that.”

  “And they were inked the same?

  “Yep, that creepy one eye and the man hanging out the window didn’t have a tattoo, but I didn’t check his entire body, but yanno, I don’t think he has one like they do. Theirs were easy to find.”

  “You okay?”

  Rae said she was, and they moved on; Len knew getting them back into the job was best.

  In the next mobile home, no monsters were found, only a cache of rifles, handguns, water, food, and more items they wanted. The cache put them in a better mood, and John began falling into their routine: watching and learning how to go in safely.

  After three more searches of homes and finding no more zombies, they loaded the truck, full, unable to take any more supplies. The SUV was packed as well.

  “It is time we headed back to the compound; we call it Hopetown,” Rev told John, “we gonna come back tomorrow?”

  “I think we should.”

  “You feel like loading some more stuff?” John asked, “We can fill my SUV and the truck I liberated.”

  “Let’s do it.” Big Bill grinned. “Len, do you have a problem understandin’ what I say when I talk?”

  “No, and don’t let that white trash girl get to you about that. Trash comes in all races, colors, and religions, just like racists and assholes come from all races….”

  “And regardless, you are here, and she was in the damned bed with a zombie, go figure,” John added, “hey, when we get back, I have a few people with me. They’re in the house.”

  Len nodded, “Sure, we welcome all. If they’re with you, then they must be okay....”

  John looked worried. “I have to tell you about them. Trip is fifty, and he’ll want to join a team and help out; he’s a great guy and smart; his wife didn’t make it.But his daughter is with him; that’s Ines; she’s nice and helpful but pretty quiet since she lost her kids to the Red. She’ll want to help with medical or teaching…some where she can be useful and stay quiet.”

  “No problem. They sound fine.”

  “Then there is Jet. I doubt that’s his real name, but he’s a smart, pretty cool kid, seventeen and Gothic; you have to overlook the tattoos and ‘piercings’, but he’s the type who will die trying to save a friend; he’s a good kid. He’ll want to be on a team, too, and he can handle a gun since I taught him. I know he’s really young to help but….”

  “It’s not strange to us….” Len chuckled. “We have a girl on a team who is twelve; she is like some prodigy and can bully people to get her way, but she is cool; she spent her days before she came to us chopping zombies up with an axe.”

  “That’s brutal,” John admitted, “we have two others, Jenna and Sandy, but they don’t talk much at all and stay to themselves. If you ask them to weed a garden, they’ll do a good job…or clean something…whatever needs to be done, but they’ll go together and not say a word.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “After everything, some men
grabbed them and…you know…their husbands were killed, and they were put with some more women. They said the men talked about an army they were going to join; I think Sandy and Jenna were like a way in for them to join…an offering. They got away and hid mostly; then, they ended up not far from here. Ines was able to get through to them and get us to join.”

  “Okay, we can handle it,” Rae said.

  They met John’s group and liked them at once. Jet was dressed all in black, with big black boots and metal set all over: in his eyebrows, lips, and nose.Tattoos covered both of his arms, but he was friendly and excited to be part of a bigger crew. Trip was calm and straightforward, with an easy-going personality and sharp eyes that caught everything; he was highly valued for the teams at once.

  Ines shook their hands and asked a lot of questions as they loaded an SUV and a truck with all the items that John’s group had accumulated. She had been a pre-school teacher once, and Len asked her to help with the education section; she was enthusiastic about getting involved.

  Sandy and Jenna looked at the ground as they worked, not saying but a few words. Then, they went off with Rae for a few minutes, and when they returned, they spoke more, even glancing up at the newcomers a few times.

  “How did you transform the women?” Len asked Rae in a whisper.

  She grinned, “I told them what I did to my would-be rapist…sticking him in the nuts; they admire that we have ethics and are the good guys, yet we don’t hesitate to punish those who are evil.”

  “You are as deadly as Julia now,” Len said, snickering, knowing Rae would tell Julia what he said.

  “Thank you for the compliment,” she said with a grin.

  They had a caravan going back with four vehicles full of new supplies and six new survivors; it had been a good expedition except for the infected children and nuts that had wanted to kill them. Len thought about how this day was pretty much what he was used to.

  Outside the compound, the crews had erected a fence with a deep ditch on two sides and a gate to enter.

  Once they were inside, guards approached as they were trained to. Normally, they would be thoroughly searched, but because it was Len leading the incoming people, the search was wavered.

  “We’re all clear,” he told them anyway, “six.”

  The guards were new at this, but they still looked things over, and visually checked the people with Len, and waved them through to the next checkpoint. The crew had erected a second corral. Julia came through the gate on horseback and dismounted. “Everything okay?”

  “We have some stories to tell, for sure,” Len said, “but we’re clear, and we have six new survivors: three for teams.”

  We just have the partition and will get something better, but it will work for now; each of them needs to be checked as well as your team.”

  Len sighed. That was his rule.

  After they were checked for bites, they were waved through the next gate and greeted. Rooms would be found for them, and they would be shown around; everyone was excited about the newcomers. The supplies would be inventoried and added to the rest.

  “So, what did you see out there?” Julia asked.

  “Child zeds…unborn zeds…and some druggies who had one-eyed tattoos.”

  “I’m assuming you are serious? Damn, chingadera,” Julia fumed, “you handled them?”

  “Yep. One crossed Rae, and that was his death sentence. They were murderers. We had a rough time today, but these are some good people, and we got a bunch of items, even for the children.”

  “So you’re finished with the trailer park?”

  Len chuckled, “I don’t think so, more to be searched. After that, homes in neighborhoods…the whole city…maybe the whole state….”

  “And then when we have it all and it runs out, we are back to the old ways; do you think that’s for the best or what?”

  “George says it’s best that humans need to go back to the old ways; we got too big for our britches, and this is what we got for it.”

  Julia thought about that as she mounted the horse and rode back to patrol.

  She would get more of the story later, but as she rode by, she called to Rae, “Hey, I hear you don’t like rapists, murdering maricons.”

  Rae smiled, “If that means men who shouldn’t rape and kill and get their dicks cut, then yes.”

  Julia just smiled and reached down for a high five.

  Justice was justice.

  6

  Arkansas

  Nick cursed as he tried to run over another zombie that scratched at the SUV and beat at the windows. The moaning was giving him a headache.

  “There are too many; Walt is having the same problem.” He looked in the rearview mirror at the SUV behind them. He had come too far to die like this; there had to be a way out that they just needed to think of. Quickly.

  Tory stared at the things that drooled and bit at the car windows, trying to get to them. Zane huddled beside of her, hiding his face.

  In a second, the monsters would turn the SUV over, and they’d be fighting for their lives with nowhere to run. “Dad?”yelled Tory.

  Charles gritted his teeth, “Hang on, Honey. Nick, you need an idea and fast….”

  Nick wondered about Zane. Should they ask the little boy if he could do something to help? Was that in the rules? Nick didn’t know anymore, but he was coming up with nothing at all. Then he blinked, looking out of the window.

  “What about a miracle?” he asked, pointing.

  In the road ahead, a huge monster truck suddenly raced towards them, crushing a few zombies and then stopping. The truck was a red Dodge Ram 4x4 long bed, with huge shocks raising it high, and forty-one-inch radial tires. It was lovingly outfitted and the owner, no doubt, had never imagined that it would be in this type of service.

  A man with long hair in a ponytail wore a flannel shirt with cut-off sleeves and wrangler jeans with boots; he was the stereotype redneck, but he waved at them and began calling the zeds.

  “Come on you stupid bastards; come get me.”

  They shambled his direction, and he shot them in their heads as they moved toward him.

  The red neck soon would be over run, so Nick and Charles rolled down the windows and climbed up on the window ledge of the SUV to sit as soon as the creatures moved away from the SUV, and they shot at the ones on the ground who were still moving.

  Behind them, Walt and the boys were doing the same thing.

  In a little while, the trucker backed up and did a three-point turn, mashing more of the horde when they got too thick.

  The others rolled their windows up, and following the truck, they sighed with relief and excitement in seeing another survivor.

  The walking dead people still grasped at them and moaned as they followed, but the three vehicles quickly outran the threat.

  The big, red truck finally pulled over at a little area, which seemingly was clear of the creatures.

  “Y’all okay?”

  “We are thankful to you. Appreciate it, Buddy,” said Charles as he got out of the SUV while Nick kept watch. Walt joined him.

  “No problem. Gotta ask you: headed south or north?”

  They knew he was asking which side they were on. “South.”

  “Hot damn. I had a good feeling.” He extended his hand, “Carl. Nice to meetcha.”

  “We’re really glad you came along.” They were even gladder, knowing he was on the same side as they were.

  “I saw another group heading along, but they were heading north.I got a creepy feeling…didn’t like them one bit. Then day before yesterday, I had two of them draw down on me.”

  “Two of whom?”

  “Those meeting up with the Reconstruction Army, RA, you heard about them?”

  “Yes, we have,” Walt said, “how did you get away if they had guns on you?”

  Carl laughed, “I just let the Z behind them help me out; it was a man who wasn’t moaning like they do…got right on them.I didn’t say a word though I
could have pissed my pants, seeing it and knowing, but they had guns on me.”

  “Did it get them?” Charles asked.

  “Got one, chomped right down on his shoulder. He screamed like a bitch and shot in the air. His buddy went all chicken shit and tried to run; I drew and shot his kneecap out. Don’t know after that, I got the hail out in case their friends were nearby.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “I wasn’t always like that…violent but….” Carl stared at the road and kicked a pebble.

  “I hear ya,” Charles said, “I expect we’ve had to change a lot to survive, yet we’re still the good guys,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Makes you know how bad the bad ones are,” Walt added.

  Carl nodded with understanding. “You wanna follow along or lead the way south?” he asked, smiling and whistling, as he adjusted something in the bed of the truck; he had supplies there and a tarp tucked over them.

  Walt felt a weird chill. It wasn’t bad, like a warning, just like a goose walked over his grave. Something made him think.

  Charles figured it out. “What’s that tune you’re whistling?”

  Carl blushed. “It is from an old movie starring that woman…what was her name…Cinder Montaine?”

  “I thought it was familiar,” Charles said.

  “It’s been in my head for days; it’s that song, damnit; what’s the name?” Carl looked puzzled and couldn’t recall. For some reason that bothered him because he had a good feeling, a positive vibe about these men.

  For the first time, he felt as if it were right to join up with a group traveling, and although they had a lot of people in the cars, he knew they were all okay. So he hated not being able to answer Charles about the song. “I like old movies; I used to watch them, I mean, before this.”

  Walt knew the name. “It’s called ‘Hope’. It goes: Take my love and my dreams; nothing is as it seems; I can lose my heart; we may ever be apart, but never shall I let go of the hope in my soul….” He blushed because he knew the words and sang them only slightly off-key.

  “What was the movie the song was from?” Charles asked. “I know it was that one with the people leaving their bad lives and riding the train, waiting for the stop of their dreams, always seeing something better on the horizon; it was always shown on late night TV.”