“Oh spare me the good versus evil crap,” Brock groaned with a wave of one hand.
“You don’t believe in evil?” Mick asked.
“Sure I do, but just because someone’s on the other side in a war, that don’t make him evil,” Brock said. “The political aims of his leaders may be evil, but as you put it so readily, men on the other side are just doing what they’re told.”
“You were pretty ready to call us evil,” Jake observed, which brought a slight smile to Brock’s face.
“If the blood-stained combat boot fits…”
“Go fuck yourself, redneck,” Bulldog growled, getting to his feet.
Brock had drawn a revolver, and it was leveled on Bulldog as the marine froze, glaring across the table. But just as quickly, Jake had gotten to his feet, and R.T. was not only on his feet, he was now near the others. Jake shook his head.
“Is this what we’re going to do?” Jake asked. “This is how we’re going to do it?”
“You can go right back out of this place,” Bulldog said. “I don’t need this shit.”
“You know,” Jake said, sitting down again. “Looks to me like there’s only one of us quick to throw bullets around.”
Now, Brock looked mortified that it had been he that was first to draw a weapon, and he lowered it.
“So,” Jon said. “Since we got that out of our systems, and we know who doesn’t like who, can we just maybe get a good night’s sleep and knock this shit off?”
Brock looked over at him, and returned to his chair, while Bulldog also sat, and filled his cup with gin again. Mick shook his head, and then got up to leave the room. After he’d gone, Jake also rose from his chair, and he looked around at the others for a moment, then nodded at Bulldog. The marine looked up from his much-used cup, and gave a casual salute to Jake.
“I’m going to go get the best night of sleep I’ve had in weeks,” he said. “Somebody wake me up when we’re going to head out tomorrow.”
“Will do,” Bulldog promised.
Jake walked to the door from the front room, and then looked back.
“Brock,” he said, which drew the eyes of the man. “Dinner was great.”
He then left the room, and Brock exchanged a glance with R.T., who shrugged.
Mick had already walked along looking around at stacks of chairs, bottled water, and other things that either companies or people had wanted stored underground until needed. Soon, he was noting rooms with cots, and other furnishings in them, and he paused when he glanced into the dim light of one to see someone lying on a large, red couch. A moment later, he could tell it was Ash, and he went to the doorway.
She was asleep, and she was in rather comfortable clothing with still-wet hair. No doubt, she’d taken advantage of the facilities the place had to offer, and he smiled. No doubt, they all could use one, but at the moment, he just watched her sleeping peacefully, and she stirred. Not wanting to disturb her, he decided to see what else the place had to offer, and had turned from the doorway.
“No, wait,” her voice had come from behind him, and he turned to see that she was sitting up on the couch, looking rumpled and unhappy. He walked into the room, stopping by the couch and looking down at her.
“Trouble sleeping?”
She didn’t answer, or even look up at him.
“You’re safe here, so why don’t you try to get some sleep,” he said to her. “I’ll make sure it stays quiet.”
He had started to back toward the door, when her eyes looked up at him. Big eyes, looking somewhat desperate as she nervously bit her lip. It had stopped him.
“Will you…?” she asked, and paused. “Could you just stay here with me?”
He smiled slightly, and nodded, then took a seat on the couch, looking around the room to note that the furnishings were decidedly masculine. But he didn’t have the time to regard who it was that had called the room home at some point. He had expected that Ash would lay back down, glad for his presence so that she could sleep. Instead, she had squirmed herself across the couch, and nestled up against him on his lap.
For a moment, he was taken aback, and he looked down at her as she had closed her eyes and made herself very cozy against him. But after watching her sleep for a few minutes, he began to feel the heaviness of his eyes, and soon enough, he had fallen asleep on the couch as well. Even in her sleep, Ash reached out, wrapping both her arms around one of his.
Jake, on the other hand, had been walking around the place, still fuming about Brock, but letting those feelings slowly fade away. He had not noticed Mick and Ash curled up on the couch, but did notice as he passed another of the rooms that Dawn was just tending to Ray, and she planted a gentle kiss on his forehead before she noticed that Jake was out in the corridor. He entered the room as she sat back, next to the cot where Ray lay shuddering.
“How’s he doing?” Jake asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, her southern accent apparent for the first time to him. “I’m not a doctor.”
Jake smirked.
“I suppose not,” he said. “Still, what does the real doc think?”
“He keeps telling us if we can just manage the pain, maybe this will pass,” Dawn said, sounding near crying.
Jake hadn’t the heart to tell her, but he felt somewhat certain that she had to know what happened when a person was bitten by one of the living dead. They became sick, and then very sick, feeling more and more pain, and less and less human. Eventually, they would die, and then within a matter of minutes to hours, they came back. Still, if she didn’t know that, Jake reasoned it was better it not come from some guy she barely knew.
“How long have you guys been here?” Jake asked.
“Just a couple days,” Dawn answered. “We took off from the wedding, and Ray was okay then, just all bandaged up, but he started getting worse just a bit after we left.”
“Hot and cold?” Jake asked. “Pain? Blurred vision?”
“Yeah, all of that.”
“Have you slept?” he asked her. “Eaten anything?”
“How can I?” she asked quietly.
“You know…” he said, moving closer to the cot, where he took a seat on the other side of it. “If you went up front, there’s a ton of liquor up there.”
She smiled, and Jake noticed just how much it lit up her face when she did so.
“Now that I know I could use,” she said.
“Go get a drink,” Jake told her. “I’ll stay here and watch him.”
“You’d do that?” she asked, her head cocking slightly to the side. “Why?”
“Everyone needs a break from this stuff,” Jake said to her.
She nodded, and stood, then headed for the doorway to the room. When she had reached it, she paused, not noticing that while Jake had briefly studied the tattoo at the small of her back, Mark was in another room, hidden in the darkness as he watched her from the front. She turned back to Jake, and shook her head.
“Jake, is it?” she asked. He nodded.
“That’s right.”
“Jake, I ain’t stupid,” she said to him. “I’ve seen what happens when somebody gets bitten by one of those dead people. He ain’t gonna make it, is he?”
Jake was quiet for a moment, and his face was set in a sober expression.
“When you come back,” he said. “Why don’t you bring a bottle for both of us?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN- A GRIM DAY
The morning had come with the sky turning from black to violet, with the zombies outside the fences having wandered away, save for a few, after the living humans had disappeared inside. Deep inside the facility, Bulldog and Brock had been the first two awake, and Brock had made a pot of fresh coffee while Bulldog was regarding the map. Soon enough, Brock had joined him at the map, just as Jake entered the room, looking refreshed as he saw who else was awake.
“Slept good, then?” Bulldog asked.
“Like a rock,” Jake answered. “I could get used to this place.”
“You sick, sick bastard,” Bulldog joked.
“So where to, today?” Jake asked.
“I think we’ll go here,” Bulldog said, and put a finger on the map as Jake approached it. “Millsboro.”
“All right,” Jake said.
“Doesn’t look too far away,” Brock added.
“Good to know,” Jake said.
Mick had entered the room, followed shortly thereafter by R.T., and they could tell there was some kind of conference going at the map. Approaching, Brock began to offer everyone some of the coffee he’d made, and the group continued to discuss the plan. Jon staggered in just a few minutes after that, and was glad to have a cup of the coffee. After telling Brock so, he then joined them at the map.
“So this place, Millsboro,” Mick asked. “Looks like one road in, and one road out, and that’s likely to be clogged with cars.”
“We can keep the truck clear of that, and maybe leave one of us to guard the truck while the rest of us dig around for useful stuff,” Bulldog suggested.
“I’ll stay by the truck if no one else wants to,” Brock offered.
“We can decide that when we get there,” Jake said, and retrieved his MP-5 from the rack. “For now, we’d better get going.”
The rest of them began to prepare to leave as well, just as Mark was walking into the main room to view the activity. No offer was made for coffee, but Mark didn’t seem in the mood for it, anyway. He sat at one of the tables just as Brock was checking the magazine for his G3 rifle- an assault rifle he’d taken from a fellow traveler that had not made it.
“So what’s your story, boy?” Brock asked, which drew a hard stare from Mark.
“I was on my way to becoming a pretty successful advisor at an investment firm,” Mark said. “Just had a year left of college, and then-”
“Then the world fell apart, and daddy’s money didn’t mean shit,” Bulldog goaded.
“Yeah, so?” Mark asked. “My dad owned the firm. So what?”
“So…” Jake said, leaning on the table. “You coming with, today?”
“Me?” Mark answered, sounding amazed.
“Yeah, you,” Jake said.
“Not stepping a foot outside this place with those damn dead people out there,” he informed Jake.
Jake said nothing, but his smirk indicated he’d already known Mark’s answer before the word had even come out. Mick and Jon exchanged a glance, and then Bulldog hefted the M16.
“All right, everybody on the bus!” he called, and the group began to head up the stairs, with Mark watching them go. Once they were gone, Mark eyed the coffee pot on a different table. He could hear the scrapes of the doors above him, and got up to get himself a cup of the coffee. As he was enjoying the coffee, which seemed to have a hint of cinnamon in it, he heard the doors close again, and he knew that all the super macho guys were gone.
Ash had awakened to find that Mick was gone, and she wondered for a moment if she had imagined him coming in. Not seeing or hearing anyone else, she got up from the couch, and headed out into the corridor, where it was still empty of people. Mark had appeared in the corridor, and she started for the front room, giving him only a nod of acknowledgement as he smiled and passed her.
She could smell coffee, and upon entering the front room, was disappointed to find that it was also empty. She took some solace in the fact that Mark was no longer in the room, and so she wandered over to where one of the tables had the coffee pot on it. The pot was empty, and her face wrinkled up. Bad enough the smell of coffee had been so good, but it was a tease now that she found it gone.
Instead, she sat at the table, and got out the cell phone from her pocket, hoping that there would be a way in the place to change it. She turned it on, and saw that there were no calls, and so she decided to look at the pictures on it. Swiping through them, she saw a passing stream of images that reminded her how much she loved her mom, and her sister. She had just come to an image from a family get together, with Uncle Mike at the grill, holding up a bratwurst as though it was his cock, when a voice came.
“How’s the cell reception?” came the female voice.
Ash was quick to kill the screen, and she looked up to see that a young woman, maybe a few years younger than she was, had entered the room. She was dressed in a blue checkered shirt, and a pair of jeans, and she was smiling. She took a few steps closer, but Ash finally regarded what the young woman had said.
“Reception?” she asked.
“Seen you were looking at a phone,” Dawn said. “Just wondered if you were able to get any signal.”
“Oh…” Ash said, and then looked at the phone. “It’s shitty, but it’s there.”
Dawn grinned.
“I thought all the new people were guys,” Dawn said, looking around, but now it was Ash’s turn to grin.
“No, only the loud ones,” she said, and they both had a laugh.
“I’m Dawn,” she introduced herself.
“Ash,” Ash said. “Any idea where the others went?”
“Most of them already took off, said they were going to some other town to look for things we could use,” Dawn explained.
“All of them?” Ash asked.
“It’s just you, me, the doc, my husband Ray, and… Mark,” Dawn explained.
“Mark,” Ash uttered. “My favorite.”
Dawn smiled again, but shook her head.
“Nobody’s favorite,” she offered, which brought a nod from Ash. “So what do you think of our little dungeon, here?”
“It kind of creeps me out,” Ash said. “But it’s safe.”
There came a sound from further back in the place, and Ash instantly regarded it, as it was a sort of wailing sound. It obviously rattled Dawn, and one of her hands came up, her fingers fidgeting with her bottom lip. Ash was not worried about the sound, but was looking at Dawn instead.
“What was that?” Ash asked, which drew a haunted stare from Dawn.
“My husband Ray,” she answered. “He’s in the back. Got… bit by a dead guy. His best man.”
Ash swallowed a nervous lump.
“That’s terrible,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
Dawn gave a nod, and hurried toward the back, but she stopped at the doorway, and she looked at Ash. There was something warm in her expression as she smiled, and gestured toward the area behind Ash.
“It really was great to meet you,” she said. “But if you want to make a phone call, you’ll get better signal up them stairs.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, last time I talked to my mama, I was right up the top of those,” Dawn explained, and then was gone. Ash looked up the stairs.
It was a grim sight; the entire town appeared burnt, crushed, or both, and as Jake surveyed it, standing next to R.T., he shook his head. The pair of them was near what may have been a two-story brick building in any town in the US. Now, it was a heap of bricks, and charred wood, and Jake scraped his right boot through the rubble, disgusted at their first choice for places to look for supplies.
Bulldog joined them, looking around less than nervously, and slung his rifle as he approached Jake. The air stunk with more than the remnants of fire, and Bulldog’s nose wrinkled as a breeze stirred it. As Jake’s foot scraped again, it stirred up some shell casings in the ash, and R.T. noted them from where he was standing.
“You were asking me about battles,” Bulldog said. “I’d say one happened right here.”
“Yeah,” Jake agreed.
From the distance, elsewhere in the town, Jon and Mick appeared, moving at a jog from within the brick shells of buildings that had remained standing. The others could tell that the other pair hadn’t found anything either, and as they drew close, Jon threw up a hand.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Nothing at all?” Jake asked.
“Looks like the gas station exploded,” Mick reported. “Everything within a block of that is flat, and someone definitely did this on purpose.”
“
How can you tell?” R.T. asked.
“Looks like there was a pretty big firefight,” Mick answered. “There’s brass and shotgun shells all over the place.”
“And there were about three big stacks of burnt bodies,” Jon added.
Jon had taken out his map, and he unfolded it.
“So, what’s the next move?” he asked.
“We can’t go back empty handed,” Jake replied. “Find us a close town, and we’ll check it out.”
“You looking for anything in particular?” he asked.
“Something close,” Jake suggested.
Jon nodded, and began looking over the map.
“Looks like about three miles south of here, there’s town by the name of Adler,” Jon said. “Population four hundred some.”
“All right, south we go,” Jake said. “We can tell Brock when we get back to the truck.”
R.T. had been looking off in the distance, through the chaos of what had once been a town, and he turned to them, adjusting his trucker cap.
“Wonder what the hell happened here,” he said.
“Looks like some people maybe got their shit together and tried to make a stand,” Jake said. “Either it got out of hand, or they moved on.”
“But if they killed all the zombies here,” R.T. continued. “Where the hell are the people?”
“They left,” Jake said. “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe they got themselves eaten by a shitload of zombies.”
“Zombies from where?” Bulldog asked.
Jon grinned.
“Adler,” he said.
“Zombie population… four hundred some,” Mick added, and then started back for the truck. The others began to follow, and Jake took one last look at the town.
“Wonderful,” he grunted.
Ash was up the stairs, but still inside the building, and she had found a desk to sit at while she waited for the others to get back from hunting down supplies. In the desk, she hadn’t found much of anything until she reached a bottom drawer, and that was where she had first seen the cover of a magazine called “Mondo Tits”. She chuckled as she took the magazine out, but quickly found that it was actually a collection of rather unpleasant-looking women who just had enormous breasts. The amusement gone, she tossed the magazine aside, and sighed in resignation.
Escape from the Dead Page 15