Among the Dead Book 2 (Among the Living)

by Long, Timothy W.

  Johnny swung again, aimed right for the fences this time. Not the fence but the proverbial one that existed at the end of the ballpark. That particular ballpark was the deader’s head.

  This time, he made impact. It was a doozy. He drove the fucker’s forehead so far into the concrete, he was pretty sure the dead man’s kids felt it. Assuming he’d made some little rug rats when he was in a better state.

  A cold splash of blood. Cold? How the hell could that be? Shouldn’t that stuff be warm? He once executed a Vietcong fighter right on the spot just under the suspicion of having laid a bunch of mines. That field had been freshly plowed, and when the men of the Eighth passed through, a number of them did it in pieces. Johnny knew it was that sumbitch. He just knew it. They didn’t understand a word the gook said, but Johnny just smiled back and shot the guy.

  “I got you, you asshole. See that? See how that feels? I bet you didn’t think you was gonna end up splashed all over the ground thanks to Johnny Lee LeBeau, now did ya?” He was screaming now, yelling at the top of his lungs at the dead man. LeBeau didn’t really have a governor on his temper. He went from lukewarm to hot as a torch at the drop of a dime.

  “If you had left them alone, they would have avoided us. Do you think you can keep it civil once you kill the other one?” Gramps asked.

  LeBeau looked at him like he was a pile of moose shit.

  “Shut the fuck up. I ain’t killing no more white boys for yo’ ass. Here, do it yourself,” Johnny spat, and dropped the pole at the man’s feet. He looked down at the twitching deader and noticed there wasn’t all that much blood.

  The other deader was scrambling out from under the fence now, but LeBeau was done with this game. He walked to a beat-up Chevy Nova and smashed in the window with a brick he found along the way. He looked around the back but didn’t see any bags. In the glove box, he found a bunch of paperwork and an old gun. Looked like a .38 revolver. He swung the chamber open and checked, but there were no bullets.

  “Don’t no one pack a gun and forget the heat,” he muttered, then rummaged around under the seats. A whole lot of trash there. Old French fries—way too old to eat, if his fingers’ well-developed sense of finding treasure in a trash can could be believed. Some receipts and a bottle of something or other. He pulled it out and found it was some cheap vodka.

  Looked half-full to him.

  He dug around a bit more and found a small pouch with cylindrical objects in it. He felt and felt and then finally pulled it up. He unzipped the little pouch and found treasure all right, in the form of bullets. And weren’t they pretty?

  He popped the cylinder open and slid in a bullet. It fit just right, so he went ahead and loaded the rest of them. Six hot. He was hot all right, hot shit with a gun. He had at least six more bullets, so he tucked those into his pocket and tossed the coin purse onto the back seat.

  Vodka wasn’t really his drink. He preferred wine, but this would do for the show.

  He sat back and stretched his long legs up and onto the dash, then spun the screw top off of the bottle with a flick of his fingers. The lid hit the seat next to him and bounced onto the floor. He’d get it later, for now it was time to partake.

  He chugged back a few hefty swallows and held his breath to keep the burn down. When he did let in some air, his throat protested against the line of fire that raced into his gullet.

  “Aw, yeah,” he muttered.

  Kate

  Head to the side. Nose dripping blood. Face stinging. Body bruised. Arms so tired they worked on instinct and muscle memory alone.

  Her hand, so close to her body, became a blur as it rushed past her chest, wrist turning before the palm of her right hand smashed into the would-be rapist’s nose. Speed turned into power as she shattered the cartilage. Blood exploded, but she didn’t feel the warmth.

  Her left hand also swung up this time, with her fingers in a grasping motion like she intended to catch a tiny ball. She jammed her digits into his eyes and missed the left one, but got him in the right.

  Then a practiced motion that she had known since she was eight, she kneed him in the balls. He simultaneously tried to curl up, strike her and block the blow with his leg. He accomplished one of these, ending up in a ball on the dirty ground. She raised her foot and drove her heel into his head with a shout. He didn’t move after that.

  Tall, dark and greasy had a gun, and it was pointed right at her head.

  There were a few times over the last few days when Kate had received firsthand lessons in firearms, but not enough to tell her anything useful in this situation. Was the gun loaded? Was the safety off? All the stuff Kate had seen in movies wasn’t worth a damn right now.

  She could feint one way and go the other. Maybe he wouldn’t be quick enough. Maybe his eyes glued to her tits would keep him from firing, but she seriously doubted it. So she raised her arms. It felt like she was moving them through Jell-O.

  “‘Snot gonna help you, bitch. I’m going to shoot you just the same,” he drawled like he had all day.

  The rest of his gang picked that very goddamn moment to stroll into the building. She kept her hands in the air as they all stared at her naked figure.

  The men were a motley assortment. Some looked homeless; others looked like office workers. Most of them wore some Rambo-style bandanas around their heads. The last thing she needed was for them to think they were here for a gang-bang.

  “She just killed Rudy.” The guy looked from face to face as the others sized her up.

  “What, that little thing?” One of the men couldn’t stop staring at her breasts. She half-covered them with one arm.

  “Help me! He raped me, and the other one was going to do me next, but he got jealous!” she shrieked, pointing at the man with the gun.

  “The fuck I did!” he yelled. The others looked on, but none moved.

  Idiots, she thought. Here she was, a hot piece of damsel in distress, and all they wanted to do was stand around and have a circle jerk. This was not going to end well for her.

  “Drop it!” a loud voice interrupted.

  Everyone turned to look. A figure stood in the doorway. Light streamed in from the half-open door, making a golden halo around the shape. He was tall and had a large gun lowered to his waist, just below a chest that would have been at home in a football jersey. He seemed damned familiar, a friend of Kate’s? He probably fancied himself some kind of hero, here to play the card by rescuing her. He probably wanted to slip his jacket over her nakedness, tell her it would be all right. Everything will be okay. There there, darlin’. It’s going to be peaches and cream.

  And how the hell did she know he had a slight Southern drawl?

  She didn’t need rescuing. The others did.

  Kate flowed to the side to present a smaller target. Then two quick steps, and she was in front of the rapist with the gun. She snaked her hand around his arm and got it behind his shoulder. Up close and personal now, she slammed her other palm against his back and kneed him in the gut. It didn’t have a lot of power, but it forced him to bend over. Kate applied pressure to help his forward momentum. Arms straight, he was pressed against her body, his shoulder trapped under her laced fingers.

  She kept on going until he was slammed to the ground.

  Turning away, she took the gun with her, trapped it between her body and arm, and snatched it before it could hit the ground.

  She popped off one round, hoping that the rescuer didn’t open up with his assault rifle and hose down everyone in the room.

  Men dove but not before she caught one in the arm. Another lifted an axe like he was going to throw it at her, but she put a bullet into his side, and he went down in shock. It took about two seconds for him to start screaming.

  A bullet ripped across the space she’d occupied a split second ago.

  “Stop shooting!” GI Joe yelled. “I’m with the military, and a platoon’s on the way.”

  Kate opened up, unsure how many rounds she even had in the pistol. She ran
for cover, shooting indiscriminately.

  As she dove for a huge box, she realized the room was some kind of storage unit with boxes of computers and parts all over the place. Bullets rippled overhead, so she kept low and returned fire, hand over the huge heavy-duty shipping container, firing in the direction from which she thought the shots had come. Kate knew better than to stay in one place. She slithered to another box and made it without a bullet ripping her head off. She eyed the handgun and realized the slide was locked open. She was out of ammo. This day just got better and better.

  Kate cursed and scanned the ground for something to use as a weapon. She almost smiled when she saw the lump lying discarded in the corner.

  Gunfire from the direction of the door made her duck back into place. The shots were different this time. She recognized them, because they sounded like the gun Kate had used. Maybe Mr. Action Hero had decided to protect the naked girl. More ripples of gunfire, and she made for the pack she’d seen in the corner. There was a grunt, and someone flew as if kicked in the chest. The man, dressed in a heavy leather jacket and dark shades didn’t get up. Who was her rescuer, Superman?

  A bullet pierced the wood over her head, reminding her that she was awfully exposed. However, if she could get her hands on a particular item, it would be worth the risk.

  Bullets hammered around her as she dove behind another box. It wasn’t serious protection, but at least no one could see her.

  She leaned around the box to get a look at the situation. Mr. Just-Got-Kneed-in-the-Chest had his eyes on her, or at least in her direction. He kept looking from her to the doorway from which the man in green was shooting. She couldn’t see the gunman, because he kept leaning around the doorframe to shoot, then ducking back around to avoid return fire.

  “Kate! You okay?” he yelled, then blew a box into tiny pieces.

  Someone scrambled away from it and made for the doorway at the other end of the room. The runner slammed into it, but it seemed to be locked, so he dropped to a fetal position.

  “Yep,” she called back and threw her empty gun at the asshole who had raped her. He grunted and clutched his leg. Good, son of a bitch. Too bad she hadn’t thrown a knife.

  “These assholes raped me. Shoot every one of them!” she screamed.

  More bullets, and people dove for cover. A man’s head snapped back from a well-placed shot. Blood erupted from the back of his head before his body landed lifeless on the ground. She practically cheered.

  She dove for her pack. There were extra clothes in there, but that wasn’t what she wanted. She felt free in her skin. She remembered reading an article on fighting and how people forgot how to do the simplest things just because they were worried about their modesty. She had no objective just now other than finishing every one of the men in this room.

  Her hand closed on the hilt of her sword. She yanked it free and almost wept at the feel of the blade.

  A stream of bullets rattled at the back of the room, and the door that was blocked flew open as the lock was shot out. Men made for it. There must have been five or six in the room, the nearest just a few feet away. She didn’t wait for more of an invitation and went after them.

  The first man went down with a chop to the back of the neck. He didn’t even sense her lunging at him, probably just felt a rush of air as the blade passed through his spinal column.

  A second man, dressed like a biker, complete with studded wristbands, raised a hand and screamed, “NO!” She put the blade right through the center of his hand, then into his mouth. It got hung up on something, so she gave it a hard tug as he collapsed. A stream of blood glistened in the air before cascading across the floor. Some of it splashed her bare legs as she pulled the blade was free.

  The man tried to scream, but all that came out was a gurgle.

  A quick glance around the room revealed that the shooters were down. There were three of them, and the asshole with the bald head was nowhere to be found. The door at the back of the room swung shut, and another person dove for it.

  Kate spotted a gun in the waistband of the man dying at her feet. She ripped it free and hoped it was loaded. She raised the handgun and emptied it in his direction, but she had no idea if she hit him. There might have been a cry, but it might have been her imagination, or someone else in the room expressing his own misery.

  She came to her feet, blade low but steady. The first guy raised a bat and charged at her with a howl. She sidestepped and took him across the abdomen. He kept going, but his voice turned into a scream as the razor-sharp blade opened up his middle.

  The next one stumbled as he reached for something in his pocket. He raised his other hand to beg for mercy, saying “sorry” over and over. She didn’t know this man, hadn’t seen him before. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because he’d picked the wrong team. She sliced his hand at an angle. His fingers had been pointed at the ceiling as he begged, but most of them hit the floor. He had about half a second to prepare a scream before she cleaved in his skull. The blade stuck, so she braced her bare foot against his chest and pulled.

  Sword free, she leaped to the top of a large wooden, box oblivious to the myriad broken straps, chunks of wood, and splinters scattered over the surface. A man came to his feet, wielding a huge hockey stick. She leaped and smashed the blade into the hilt of his weapon. The sword sank into his shoulder, and she had to fight to keep from being pulled along with him as he fell to the side in shock.

  A form smashed into her as she tried to keep her balance. Kate went down hard, losing the grip on her blade. Dammit!

  A tall guy with dreads whipping around his face fell on top of her, then raised a fist and brought it down. She got her hand up in time to deflect the blow into her right shoulder, which went numb. She grabbed his ear and pulled as hard as she could. Right arm useless, she could only hope he’d give up the fight under some properly applied force.

  He fell, screaming, next to her, and she just went with him. She aimed a quick punch at his nose. He had his hand half in the way, but she shoved past it, and his nose burst under the blow. More blood.

  She leaned over the howling man and snatched the sword off the ground. She sat up, taking the short blade with her, then drove the point into his chest. It skittered across bone until it found a space between his ribs. Then she ripped it to the side, breaking part of his sternum and most definitely ruining his day.

  Words tried to form between his cries, but they didn’t make any sense.

  She rolled to the right and came up in a crouch. A voice behind her, a hand on her shoulder. She spun in an arc, blade in two hands, and slid it into the attacker’s chest. Then she ripped up as she stood so that it tore through his shoulder. Shock filled the tall man’s eyes. She reversed her grip and finished him with a quick slice to his throat.

  The man in green went down, gurgling blood. She recognized him as the one who’d been firing from the doorway, the one who wanted to rescue her. She stared down at his corpse as it twitched. After a moment, it went still, and life faded from his eyes.

  She surveyed the room. One man was still moving. He crawled toward the back door, leaving a trail of blood. He wore a Hawaiian shirt that might have been blue and green at one time. Now it was soaked in crimson. She stopped his escape with a thrust to the back of his neck. The blade slid in and severed his spinal cord. She yanked it to the side, nearly decapitating the man.

  Where was the bastard? Where the fuck did he go?

  The last image she had of him was his ass moving away from Hero Boy at the main entrance.

  She moved to the back door and nearly collapsed as exhaustion caught up with her. But she didn’t have time to fall. She needed to stop him. She ripped the shirt off the dead guy in green. There was a hole though it, and it was covered in thick, warm blood, but she didn’t care. She had to get the rapist. It was all she cared about. Deaders could rip off a limb, and she wouldn’t care as long as her last breath was seeing him gurgling under her sword.

  She gr
abbed the handgun from the body at her feet and dashed to the table to retrieve her ripped pants. She shimmied into them, fighting to stay on her feet. Then she slammed her feet into the Army boots they had given her at the stadium. They were still clean, but there was a spot of blood on one of the shoelaces, and it became her focal point for a few seconds as she fought down vertigo. Was it her blood? Someone else’s? An image of a big guy floundering on top of her. Her father … no, it was the deader that a man had pulled off of her in the office building. The very man whom she had killed in her haste to destroy everything in the room.

  She tucked the laces in without tying them. She didn’t have time. Every second was the rapist getting farther and farther away.

  As she sped out the door, she passed the body of her would-be rescuer. He was so familiar, so damn familiar! It was like a long-lost photograph, something you remembered late at night when you couldn’t sleep. An image that rang from the past but you couldn’t quite figure out where it came from, couldn’t remember the details.

  Except for one thing. He’d had a name, and it had been Mark.

  Mike

  I fired wildly and pegged one in the side. The deader was less than two feet from the men, but I had to take the chance. I decided they would have to handle dispatching the pair so I could concentrate on backing them up.

  I worked the gun free of the fence and moved down a few feet. This time, I carefully sighted along a hole in the chain-link and popped one between the eyes. It was a shambler, probably one of the early ones to turn, judging by its stiff and slow movements.