Praise the Dead

by Gina Ranalli

  “Rick, frisk her again,” Jude ordered.

  “I already frisked her,” Rick said. “She’s clean.”

  “I didn’t come here,” Jado said coolly, “I was dragged here.”

  “Somehow, I doubt that,” Jude replied.

  Andrew was surprised by how much spunk the albino woman seemed to have. She suffered quite a beating from Rick; her face already turned a dozen shades of purple, blood streaming from what was clearly a broken nose, and both lips were puffed up to twice their normal size. Yet, she still appeared to be unafraid. He could only hope that someday, he would be just as brave when he was on his own deathbed.

  Returning his attention to Lindy, he saw the girl was staring at him. He blushed. He didn’t think he’d ever seen such a pretty girl.

  “I have a pool,” he told her proudly. “You can use it if you want.”

  Everyone else gave him astonished looks, but not Lindy. Her face remained a stone mask. “I’m going to kill you,” she said.

  Andrew scowled. What was her problem, anyway? Didn’t she realize what a great team they would make? What a great couple?

  Interrupting his thoughts, Jado addressed her brother. “You lose again, Jude. Just like always.”

  Jude laughed bitterly. “I’m not the one with a shotgun four feet from my face and no knives to speak of. So, from where I’m standing, you lose.”

  “You know I don’t need knives, so maybe you should stand someplace else.”

  “Even you aren’t fast enough to duck a shotgun shell, Jado.”

  “Are you willing to bet your life on that? You haven’t seen me for a long time.”

  Jude laughed again and Rick joined in.

  “You think this is funny, Rick?” Jado asked without taking her eyes off her brother. “That’s your name, right? Rick?”

  Still chuckling, he said, “Yep. That’s my name all right. Remember it, sweetheart.”

  “Why do you suppose I tackled you outside?” she asked. “Was it really out of uncontrollable anger?”

  Rick laughed harder, but Andrew noticed that Jude’s laughter was quickly dying.

  “What do you think, Jude?” she asked. “What do you suppose dear old Dad would have to say about such an unchecked display of emotion at a time of crisis?”

  “I . . .” Jude trailed off, his brow creasing.

  “Three weapons, right, Rick?” she asked. “The shotgun, plus two other firearms, including the one you took off the guy outside. The one who ‘captured’ us.”

  “RICK!” Jude took a step forward, but it was too late. Rick was confused, distracted for a single second, and that’s all the opportunity Jado needed.

  In a single fluid motion, she rose from the sofa, knocked the barrel of the shotgun up towards the ceiling, pulled an automatic from her coat and blasted Rick’s face off.

  Andrew screamed as the gun swung towards him and exploded again, aiming for Jude, who dove behind Andrew’s chair with a yell.

  Before he’d even fully registered what was happening, Lindy had sprung from her seat and lunged for him, hands turned into claws, reaching for his eyes. Jado marched across the room, gun still thrust out in front of her.

  It all happened so fast he couldn’t think.

  “JUDE!” he screeched, blocking Lindy’s attack by throwing up his arms defensively.

  The guardians. He needed the guardians . . .

  Wrestling with the girl, he managed to get to his feet and shove her away.

  Focus, Andrew! FOCUS! Why were you so stupid? FOCUS!

  He raced from the living room, tripping but managing to keep his balance as he ran for the front hallway. He just needed to reach the door. Behind him, another shot rattled the windows and the chandelier above his head. In terror, he bit down on his tongue and tasted blood.

  His own blood.

  The pain enraged him, and for a moment he forgot all about being fearful. He wasn’t supposed to feel pain. Not ever! He caused pain, he didn’t feel it. It was wrong! He was the messiah!

  Just as he reached the front door, Lindy crashed into him from behind, wrapping one arm around his throat and yanking him back.

  “Get off!” He barely got the words out the pressure against his throat was so strong. He stumbled as he tried to fling her away. “You’re crazy! Get off me!”

  Andrew spun around and bashed her into the wall. She released her grip and crumbled to the floor with a gasp.

  Finally, he managed to open the front door and screamed, “Help me, guardians! HELP!”

  Beyond the gate was pure pandemonium.

  The guardians were doing their best to respond to his cries for help, as were some of the living people, at least until they were attacked by the undead.

  Andrew’s face fell as he realized the mistake they’d all made. It was so obvious now that he saw it: the zombies were on the wrong side of the fence—the outside of it—and though they pulled and yanked at the bars, they were completely useless to him.

  From beside him, Lindy whispered into his ear, “Hey, Andrew. You screwed up.”

  Chapter Forty-two

  Lindy dragged Andrew back into the house by his hair.

  The boy wailed in pain and fought to free himself, landing blow after blow against either side of her head, but still, she refused to let go. She had to get him back to the living room where she could hopefully grab one of the weapons and finish this once and for all.

  “Jado!” she yelled, moving towards the living room, inch by painful inch. “I got him! Help!”

  “No!” Andrew shrieked. “LET ME GO!”

  To Lindy, the struggle seemed to last forever, but when she finally managed to haul the monster into the living room, it abruptly ended. Not because he’d gotten free of his own accord, but because she saw Jado laying in the middle of the room, a throwing knife protruding from her neck.

  “Jado!” she screamed, releasing Andrew and running to her friend’s side.

  Jado’s almost-white eyes rolled towards her as she tried to speak. Her words came out in a low, weak gurgle. Lindy couldn’t make them out.

  Lindy grabbed her hand, repeating the word “no” over and over, crying.

  A scraping sound came from behind the armchair in which Andrew had been sitting a few short minutes ago. Lindy tried to ignore it, but then realized who it was: Jude.

  Sniffling, she stood up and walked to the other side of the chair. Jude lay on the floor in a spreading pool of blood, one foot kicking in slow motion, the sole of his boot scraping the floor. His sunglasses had been knocked off and his eyes—Jado’s eyes—glistened in their sockets.

  Lindy dismissed him for now and turned back to Jado. The woman’s gaze was fixed on her and Lindy said, “It’s okay. I’ll get help.” But as she moved towards her, she realized that Jado was no longer breathing, her eyes dulling even as she watched.

  Collapsing to the floor, Lindy crawled to the woman, sobbing, and held her hand once more, bringing it to her lips and repeatedly kissing it.

  “Why?” she asked through her tears, not even knowing who the question was directed at. “Why?”

  But, of course, she knew why.

  Knew exactly why.

  Andrew.

  Wiping her nose with the back of her hand, Lindy turned, expecting to see the monster looming over her with a butcher knife, but he wasn’t.

  He was gone.

  She couldn’t allow that. Wouldn’t allow that.

  Hoping he hadn’t fled the house, she shakily got to her feet once more and began to search for him. The front door was still closed and she doubted he would have closed it behind himself had he run outside.

  Nevertheless, she opened it and stepped onto the porch, gazing around the yard, and then at the crowd and zombies beyond the gate. They wouldn’t still be fighting to get in if Andrew had found safety among them.

  She was about to turn away and go back inside when a fat black crow swooped down and landed on the porch railing, studying her with its black eyes. It ca
wed at her several times.

  Lindy nodded and wiped away her tears. “Thank you.”

  In the house once more, she made her way through the kitchen and found the basement stairs. As she descended them, she wished she could stop crying. It would give Andrew too much satisfaction to see her like this, but, she supposed, it didn’t really matter. One of them was about to die and after that nothing would matter much anymore.

  When she reached the basement, she looked around quickly, taking it all in. Andrew was hiding, but that was okay. She knew where.

  Addressing a closet door, she said, “You may as well come out of there, Andrew. If you don’t I’ll just drag you out.”

  No response.

  She waited a moment. She was so tired; her head was beginning to throb with the old, familiar hurt.

  “You can’t stay in there all day,” she said.

  But evidently, Andrew thought differently.

  Without knowing how she would kill him, she walked right up to the door. She supposed her bare hands would work. She was confident she could do it. She killed plenty of times before after all. But then again, so had he.

  As she reached out to grasp the knob, the closet door flew open and Andrew charged out at her, a twenty-inch piece of broken pool cue held high over his head. Lindy sidestepped and tripped the boy, who screamed as he fell.

  She had no need to gloat.

  Snatching the broken stick out of his hand, she bent over and thrust it forward, plunging it deep into his chest, putting all of her weight behind it.

  The shocked expression on his face was almost comical, but Lindy felt no humor. She doubted she’d feel like laughing ever again.

  She kept her full weight on the stick as his eyes glazed over and probably would have stayed that way for a long time, but the sound of shattering glass broke her trance.

  Spinning, Lindy saw Jackson peering in through a broken window. He looked like he’d aged a decade since she’d last seen him. When had that been? An hour ago? Less?

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes flicking from her to Andrew’s corpse and back again.

  Bursting into tears, she nodded. “I did it,” she managed to say. “I did what I was supposed to do.”

  “I know you did, sweetie. I’ll be right there.”

  “I just stabbed him! It happened so fast!”

  “It’s okay. It was the right thing to do.” He paused. “He wasn’t worth a noble ending.”

  A minute later, he hopped down into the basement and rushed to her, taking her in his arms and squeezing hard. Through teary-eyed vision, Lindy saw Dusty’s face framed in the window. The older woman was also crying.

  “You did it, Lindy,” Jackson said. “It’s all over.”

  “Jado.” Lindy sobbed even harder, burying her face in his chest.

  Jackson said nothing, but she felt him sigh, felt his body slightly tremble. After a while, he asked if she was ready to leave. Dusty and Max were waiting outside.

  She sniffled and nodded, no longer feeling like a warrior, but like exactly what she was: a teenage girl.

  Together they climbed the stairs and Jackson went into the living room. He stood over Jado’s body and Lindy was even more saddened as she saw his eyes well up with tears. She could barely stand to look at her dead friend anymore. Instead, she went to check on Jude.

  He was gone, as she’d somehow known he would be. A trail of smeared blood led off into a den area and out through a side door. There was no sign of him anywhere.

  “He’ll get his,” Jackson said. “Cowards always do.”

  They made their way around to the other side of the house where Dusty and Max waited. Dusty leaned against Max, holding her side. Blood seeped through her fingers.

  Dusty saw Lindy’s glance and said, “I’m afraid I got nipped on the way in.”

  “She got shot,” Max said. “With an arrow.”

  Her vision went gray around the edges and Lindy gripped Jackson’s arm to steady herself.

  “I’ll be fine,” Dusty tried to reassure her.

  From the sky, a circling crow screeched down at them and Lindy knew Dusty wouldn’t be fine. Not ever again, but she kept this knowledge to herself and let Jackson help them all over the fence and lead the way out from a hole in the tall green shrubs.

  Everywhere she looked, the dead littered the world, having fallen the moment she plunged the pool cue into Andrew’s chest. The living wandered around in a daze, stepping over bodies and scratching their heads in bewilderment.

  No one else could have done it.

  Yes, certainly someone—anyone—could have killed Andrew. He was human, after all. But only she had been chosen and could have ended the entire mess and restored some semblance of order to the world.

  And so she had.

  Like everyone else, the four of them carefully picked their way around the corpses and across the tremendous bloody battlefield, braced against each other, exhausted soldiers wandering through the aftermath of a long and merciless war.

  About the Author

  Gina Ranalli is the author of several books, including Sky Tongues, Chemical Gardens, Mother Puncher and Wall of Kiss, among others. You can visit her on the web at www.ginaranalli.com

  Also by GINA RANALLI

  Chemical Gardens

  Suicide Girls in the Afterlife

  13 Thorns (with Gus Fink)

  Wall of Kiss

  Mother Puncher

  Swarm of Flying Eyeballs

  Sky Tongues

  House of Fallen Trees

  The Coscom Entertainment Zombie, Monster, Mash Up and Superhero Books

  Please go to www.coscomentertainment.com for a plot synopsis and more information on the books. All are available in eBook and paperback at your favorite online retailer. Thanks.

  Zombie Books:

  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim by Mark Twain and W. Bill Czolgosz

  Alice in Zombieland by Lewis Carroll and Nickolas Cook

  Axiom-man: The Dead Land by A.P. Fuchs

  Bits of the Dead edited by Keith Gouveia and illustrated by Sean Simmans

  Blood of the Dead by A.P. Fuchs

  Dead Science edited by A.P. Fuchs

  Don of the Dead by Nick Cato

  Praise the Dead by Gina Ranalli

  Revolt of the Dead by Keith Gouveia

  R.I.P. by Harrison Howe

  Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie Killers by Paul A. Freeman

  The Lifeless by Lorne Dixon

  The Undead World of Oz by L. Frank Baum and Ryan C. Thomas

  The War of the Worlds Plus Blood, Guts and Zombies by H.G. Wells and Eric S. Brown

  World War of the Dead by Eric S. Brown

  Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes: Zany Zombie Poetry for the Undead Head edited by A.P. Fuchs

  Zombie Fight Night: Battles of the Dead by A.P. Fuchs

  Zombifrieze: A Zombie Graphic Novel by W. Bill Czolgosz and Sean Simmans

  Other Monster and Horror Books:

  Animal Behavior and Other Tales of Lycanthropy by Keith Gouveia

  Anna Karnivora: A Vampire Novel by W. Bill Czolgosz

  Bigfoot War by Eric S. Brown

  Dracula by Bram Stoker, Illustrated by Sean Simmans with an Introduction by Nancy Kilpatrick

  Emma and the Werewolves by Jane Austen and Adam Rann

  Hound: The Curse of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Lorne Dixon

  Magic Man Plus 15 Tales of Terror by A.P. Fuchs

  Snarl by Lorne Dixon

  The Summer I Died by Ryan C. Thomas

  Superhero Books:

  Axiom-man (The Axiom-man Saga, Book 1) by A.P. Fuchs

  First Night Out (The Axiom-man Saga, Episode No. 0) by A.P. Fuchs

  Doorway of Darkness (The Axiom-man Saga, Book 2) by A.P. Fuchs

  The Dead Land (The Axiom-man Saga, Episode No. 1) by A.P. Fuchs

  The Wraith by Frank Dirscherl

  Valley of Evil (The Wraith Series, Book 2) by Frank D
irscherl

  Cult of the Damned (The Wraith Series, Book 3) by Frank Dirscherl

  Bookazines:

  Dry Ice Dreams (Bumper Sticker Shine No. 1) by A.P. Fuchs

  The Macro Mechanic’s Manifesto (Bumper Sticker Shine No. 2) by A.P. Fuchs