The Good, The Dead & The Lawless (Book 2): The Hell That Follows

by Archer, Angelique

  The stranger smirked. “Let me guess. Protocol?”

  Kennedy pointed her finger at him and winked. “Bingo.” Her expression turned serious. “We’ve had plenty of encounters with other survivors that didn’t end well. We’re here to help people, but we also can’t afford to be stupid. Just like you don’t trust us, we don’t trust you. Yet,” she added.

  He lowered the crowbar and crossed his arms, leaning back on his heels to study her. After a moment, he shifted his gaze to the two men.

  “Alright, big guys.” He set the crowbar on the ground. “But you do anything funny, I’m warning you… I don’t go down easy.” When they started stripping his clothes off, he turned to Kennedy. “Since we’re about to get real personal here, figured I’d introduce myself. The name is Colin.”

  Chapter Two

  Clusters of weeds popped through cracks in the concrete. A few cars sat abandoned on the sides of the two-lane road. Some of them still held their occupants captive.

  Haven rode past a dusty blue Buick, noticing that the driver was slumped over the steering wheel. Dried blood coated the windshield. The passenger beside the motionless corpse reached out suddenly, a hoarse moan emanating from its parched throat.

  Haven patted the horse’s neck encouragingly when it nickered in fear. “It’s okay, girl. They can’t get to us.”

  The driver slowly lifted its head, and as it did so, the flesh clinging to the side of its face smeared off on the steering wheel. The zombie quickly joined the other in its hungry howls, pressing itself against the window, eyes weeping with pus and blackish blood as it glared at her in rabid madness.

  Haven ignored them. They were locked inside the vehicle and would probably never leave it unless someone set them free.

  It certainly wasn’t going to be her. She had bigger fish to fry.

  Up ahead, a group of four zombies shuffled down the road, their steps quickening in anticipation. Gleaming white eyes glowed like lanterns in the darkness.

  The moon peeked out from behind the clouds for a moment, and moonlight reflected off of pale blonde hair shifting between the trees.

  Haven froze and pulled on the reins.

  Without thinking, she dismounted, not bothering to tether the animal. The palomino’s ears were alert, and its nostrils flared as it snorted nervously at the impending danger. With wide, anxious eyes, it took one final look at the quartet of monsters and galloped off into the woods.

  Haven watched the horse disappear, a flurry of white mane and tail there one second and swallowed up by darkness in the next. She briefly pondered the fact that she now had no transportation and only a backpack with scant supplies, but almost as quickly, she turned back and frantically searched for the blonde hair.

  When she spun around, she was alarmed to see that the four zombies were almost upon her. She had forgotten they were much faster at night, even more dangerous.

  Ignoring them was not an option this time. They wouldn’t stop following her unless closer and easier prey appeared.

  Haven had no desire to gain a tail of zombies during her quest. She yanked her knife out of its sheath, hoping to avoid using her firearm and possibly drawing any others lurking in the woods.

  The first zombie was less decayed than its counterparts and reached her quickly. She thrust the blade into its temple and kicked its body away so that it flopped into a ditch.

  The other three were almost perfectly in-step with one another. Haven scanned each of them, looking for weaknesses in the pack. It would be impossible to face all three of them at once.

  If she went for the one in the center, the plump, well-fed one, it would mean the other two could close in on her from both sides.

  She looked at the zombie on the right, tall and sturdily built, probably a handsome man in its former life. However, the elements hadn’t been kind to the creature. Half of the skin on its face was gone, revealing brownish-red muscle and tendon beneath, and what was once a full head of hair sat in greasy bald patches along its scalp.

  The zombie on the left was a woman, white nightgown and black hair wiry and coarse, hanging in matted clumps down its back. In the dark recesses of Haven’s mind, the zombie fleetingly reminded her of the ghoulish, unfortunate wife of Mr. Rochester in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. The character had always frightened her as a child, and even today, seeing the woman in white creeping toward her, the hairs on the back of her neck stood alarmingly erect.

  Nothing like facing your fears, she thought and subsequently chose the zombie on the left.

  She dodged its groping hands and twisted around so that she was behind it. Yanking it back by its long black locks, she grimaced when the hair sloughed off its scalp. It continued to swipe at her, unaffected. Pushing its face up by shoving a hand under its jaw, Haven jammed the blade between its eyes, its predatory hiss cut off abruptly.

  The other two zombies’ eyes danced with excitement, almost lust, at the prospect of a tasty meal. The plump zombie turned around to follow her, its penguin-like waddle almost comical, but the tall zombie took a few lengthy strides toward her, closing the distance between them in mere seconds.

  Haven lashed out with her foot at the shorter one, her boot making contact with its squishy stomach, no doubt bloated with human remains. It shuffled backward a couple of steps, struggling to regain its balance.

  The other zombie was behind her, and she swiveled around quickly, circling it. It continued to lunge at her, snapping its jaws, rotting teeth clashing together rapidly so that bits of black spittle dribbled out onto the concrete. Haven waited for it to sway forward once more, then tripped it and hastily straddled the zombie, pinning it down while her feet clasped around its thrashing legs. With a vicious grunt, she shoved the knife into its forehead.

  She could hear the footsteps of the fat one approaching, inches away. It grabbed her from behind with a vice-like grip. Had she not been wearing her leather jacket, its nails would have easily broken her skin. Launching herself backward off of her feet, she threw her weight into the chest of the zombie, and they toppled onto the concrete, the zombie’s head hitting the gravel first with a wet, cracking noise, almost as if someone had taken a rotting pumpkin and slam-dunked it onto the road.

  Haven lay limply on the ground, gasping. In spite of the freezing temperatures, sweat pooled in every curvature of her body, making her shirt stick uncomfortably to her skin.

  When she finally caught her breath, she walked back to the old Buick she’d passed before. The two zombies were still there, trapped by their seatbelts. She drew her knife and opened the driver’s side door just a little. A foul stench, the result of decomposing bodies roasting in the vehicle for such a long time, infiltrated her nostrils, and she coughed. Waving her hand rapidly in front of the windshield to distract the creature, with her other hand she quickly stabbed it in the back of its head repeatedly until it slumped once more against the steering wheel. The passenger was driven into a frenzy by all of the action and reached for her with straining hands and long, broken fingernails. Walking to the other side of the Buick, the zombie watching her and viciously struggling against its seatbelt, Haven opened the door just enough to let the monster’s head poke out, then slammed it back and forth against its skull until it caved in, and the creature sank down motionless.

  Tossing the corpses out of the vehicle, she got in and ran her fingers under the steering wheel where she found the key still in the ignition. She turned it multiple times, but unsurprisingly, the car refused to start.

  Haven stared out the windshield and contemplated her options. She had driven down this road before, many times in fact, on her way to college. If she kept up a brisk walking pace, she would be at her grandmother’s in a couple of hours. She could search for her sister, hotwire a car, and be back before Houston noticed she’d been missing.

  With a deep sigh, she trudged down the barren road, stepping carefully and quietly to make as little noise as possible, walking the way her grandmother had taught her to avoid being
detected.

  Snowflakes landed on her eyelashes, and she instinctively opened her mouth to try to catch them on her tongue. The wetness of the snowflakes melted into the dried, cracked crevices of her lips. She was thirsty and tired and broken, but she had to keep moving forward.

  It wasn’t until she came across a fallen chain-link fence deep in the forest that she stopped. Crouching behind a bush, she saw that the fence was surrounded by dozens of corpses. Already, wild animals had been nibbling away at them. There were jagged rib cages and chewed-on femurs and broken skulls with mouths wide open in permanent hunger, a hunger they’d taken with them all the way to hell.

  In spite of the cold, her hands were clammy. She clutched the knife more tightly, sweat oozing out between her fingers as she grasped the handle.

  There were no birds here. There was no sound.

  Something horrible had happened in this place. She could feel it in her bones, and it chilled her to her very marrow, but she didn’t know why.

  “So where are you from in Scotland?”

  Colin was walking side by side with Kennedy while Grady and Johnny B. flanked them from behind. The clouds shifted ever so slightly, beams of moonlight illuminating the face of the woman next to him.

  Her straight red hair had been pulled into a ponytail through a black baseball cap. She wore camouflage pants, a heavy black down jacket, and gloves that were cut off at the fingers. Kennedy was likely his age, but there was something about her that made it seem as though she had seen a lifetime’s worth of hardship.

  “Tiny town. You wouldn’t know it,” he answered coldly.

  She smiled as she moved her ponytail out of the way to shoulder the sling of her rifle. “Try me. I was stationed over in Germany back in 2010. Got a little leave and did some traveling while I was there. Spent a week in Glasgow and a few days in the Isle of Lewis.”

  Colin nodded. “I had a feeling you were ex-military.”

  She adjusted her baseball cap and glanced up at him. “What gave that away?”

  He looked over at Johnny B. who had his crowbar tucked into his belt and almost growled. He wasn’t pleased that they took his sole weapon away from him. It was insignificant compared to the efficacy of his dad’s old sword, but it was better to have something than go up against the undead with just his fists and Scottish balls.

  “I don’t know,” he said dismissively. “The way you carry yourself. The lingo you use. The camo pants. Doesn’t take a genius, sweetheart.” He scratched his neck. “Don’t you guys have a car around here somewhere?”

  She ignored his question. “Why were you in the States? Business?”

  Colin stopped walking and turned to look at her incredulously. “What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?”

  The other men paused and raised their weapons a few inches higher. Kennedy held up her hands defensively. “Whoa there, cowboy. Not trying to pry. Just making small talk.” She signaled for her men to lower their guns.

  He stared at them in frustration before continuing to walk, mumbling something under his breath. “Not that it’s any of your business… but I was visiting my dad in Atlanta.”

  She nodded. “I remember reading about the first attacks there. Some medical student got bitten after giving mouth-to-mouth to a rotter and ended up infecting a whole hospital. That’s insanity.” She glanced at him before quickly averting her eyes. “Is your dad…?”

  “Yeah,” he responded, his jaw tightening.

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice wavered, but he didn’t hear it. “We’ve all lost so many loved ones. It never gets easier.”

  A crow cawed above them and took flight from its perch. Colin studied the bird warily, wondering if something other than their presence had irked it.

  “Where were you before we found you?” she inquired finally.

  Colin’s thoughts flitted to Haven for the briefest of seconds before he blinked, expressionless. “Fighting zombies in a patch of mud ten feet from where you actually found me,” he replied sarcastically, although some of the earlier malice had vanished from his tone.

  “So he does have a sense of humor. Just so we’re clear, I’m not trying to dig up intel on you or anything. Just being polite.”

  He sighed in exasperation. He was in a bad mood. Since leaving Haven, a dark cloud was following him around, and it wasn’t going to disappear anytime soon. “I don’t need your damned manners. I want to know where we’re headed.”

  “Hey, show some respect,” Johnny B. barked at him.

  Kennedy gave him a slight nod to let him know it was alright. “Well, we started out safe and sound in a little pick-up. In these times, you don’t want to be runnin’ around on foot. But the old girl broke down, just our luck. We had to cut through the woods to get to the city, and while we were in there, we found you. I won’t give you the location of our camp yet, but trust me… when we get there, it’ll be unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.”

  He looked at her skeptically. “The cities would be infested. Why would you go there?”

  She swatted away a fly. “Because they’ll also have the most supplies, and we need a lot. We just stick to smaller cities though.”

  “So you have a big camp then?”

  Shrugging casually, she said, “Big enough. Want to help us out?”

  He stopped walking, and the men immediately stiffened and lifted their weapons again. Holding up his hands, he gave her a stern glare. “Hey, I’m not trying to get myself killed by going into a death trap.”

  Kennedy walked over to Johnny B. and extended her hand. When he set the crowbar in her palm, his eyebrow raised, she turned back to Colin. “Here,” she told him, handing him his weapon. “This should make you feel safer.”

  Colin scoffed at her. “We’re gonna need a lot more than that if we’re going up against a city of those mother—”

  “Look, Braveheart,” she continued, cutting him off, “I’m not going to beg you. Either you come or you don’t; the choice is yours. To put it simply, we could use another able body, but there are a lot of hungry mouths to feed, and bringing you on board just adds to that number. If you’re going to join us, you have to pull your weight. And you’re going to have to learn how to take orders.” When he made a face, she stated, “That’s not up for negotiation. I run this camp. My rules.”

  He clenched his jaw tightly, thinking. He was alone in this land, no friends, no family. What the hell else was he going to do? Twisting the crowbar in his grip before pushing it into his belt, he mentally kicked himself, knowing he would regret what he was about to agree to with this group of strangers.

  “This deal just keeps on getting better and better.”

  Chapter Three

  Only one word could describe the cityscape before them.

  Haunting.

  The once sparkling skyline, veined with streets bustling full of cars and buses and passersby, was now silent.

  Colin, Kennedy, Grady, and Johnny B. stood on a billboard less than a mile outside of Columbus, Georgia. It had taken them a few tries to climb the advertisement, but once they had, the whole city was clearly visible from their unusual vantage point.

  And it wasn’t pretty.

  Plumes of smoke drifted up from the tops of high-rises. Flickering fires burned brightly around the city, dotting the horizon like fireflies. Few buildings were left unscathed from the chaos. Entire sides of them were missing, jagged steel rods and demolished concrete jutting out from their skeletal infrastructures. A sky bridge connecting two buildings had been completely blown apart. Colin could see corpses strewn about the dilapidated remains, many of them skewered on broken steel, and he briefly wondered if the occupants of one building had attempted to cut off people in the other from coming over.

  Looking further east, he saw that the roads were congested with stalled cars packed in bumper-to-bumper, many of them overturned or laying sideways in the ditches running along the highway. An overpass crossing over the heart of the city had suffered the same fate as th
e sky bridge. Cars were mashed in a heap beneath it, creating a sizable barrier to anyone trying to drive through.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. The city will be crawling with those things. There’s no way we can get in and out alive.” Colin shook his head and sat down, letting his feet dangle off the edge of the billboard.

  Kennedy disregarded his pessimism as she looked through her binoculars. “There it is.” She handed the binoculars to Grady. “Big orange sign. Kind of hard to miss.”

  Grady took them and nodded. “I see it. Now we’ll be meeting Jackson up there. That’s the storage terminal Tucker was talking about that links up to the closest refinery.” When he was done, he passed them back to her and pointed.

  Colin squinted to see what they were rambling on about when there were so many other important things to consider.

  Like getting out in one piece, he thought grumpily.

  “Someone care to explain this to me?”

  Kennedy smiled at him. “You’ll see.”

  Colin wagged a finger at her. “Oh, no. We aren’t playing that game. If I’m putting my arse on the line, I had damn well better know what it’s on the line for to begin with.”

  “Don’t get your panties in a bunch. We’ve been through this. Once I know you’ll pull your weight and can be trusted, I’ll divulge more details. Until then, you’re on a need-to-know basis. And besides, it isn’t like I’m asking you to march ten miles across the city and haul stuff back to our location in a trash bag. We’ll have a big truck—I hope so anyways. Depends on what we find at that Home Depot,” Kennedy added.

  “What’s a Home Depot?”

  “A store with a lot of shit we need,” Johnny B. answered.

  Colin looked at them expecting further elaboration, but Kennedy turned away from him and began unrolling a small foam mat that had been fastened to the top of her pack.

  “Alright, let’s get cozy, gentlemen. Tomorrow is going to be a big day, and I want us up and moving before sunrise. I’ll take first watch.”