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

by Archer, Angelique

  “‘Evil Dead’ much?” she quipped.

  “I don’t know what that means, but chainsaws are incredible. Think about all the zombies you could mow down,” he said as he put it back on the shelf.

  “You’ve seriously never heard of it? Ash? Chainsaw for an arm?” She mimicked the action of fastening something to her forearm and waved it around.

  “Sounds stupid,” Colin told her nonchalantly, but inwardly, he was intrigued.

  “It’s more campy than stupid, but it’s classic American horror.” Kennedy gestured behind him through the shelves. “Grab some of those cucumber seeds.”

  “Not happening,” he responded resolutely. He started whirling around the pitchfork from his cart, doing so easily and naturally. Colin didn’t notice Kennedy watching him in admiration. “Cucumbers are horrible.”

  He was rounding the corner to another aisle full of plumbing supplies when he heard a distant beeping. Cocking his head to the side, he strained to pinpoint the direction of the sound, growing louder with each passing second.

  Colin turned around just in time to see Johnny B. drive by on a forklift, multiple bags of soil, pots, and other gardening items precariously placed atop the two metal arms. The forklift appeared once more when Johnny B. reversed it after noticing Colin.

  “Got something for you, sweetheart.” He tossed Colin a wide-brimmed straw hat with a pink silk flower on the side. “Thought it’d look real pretty with your eyes.”

  Colin threw it aside and pointed at Kennedy. “The man has a forklift. I never want to hear anything about my chainsaw being obnoxious again.”

  This got a hearty laugh from her, and Colin mirrored it, finding it contagious.

  An hour later, Kennedy surveyed their carts, each one piled high with supplies. “Let’s go load this stuff up, and then see how much room we have left.”

  “We can’t exactly take the stairs again,” Colin pointed out, looking dubiously at the contents of his own cart.

  “I know. I found the parking garage entrance that doesn’t involve stairs when I was searching for supplies. There’s a ramp.”

  He thrust a thumb over his shoulder at Johnny B. who was still riding around the store in his forklift. “Should we tell him we’re headed to the truck?”

  “Nah, he’ll be out soon enough,” Grady answered. “This is more fun for him than he lets on.”

  On their way out, Kennedy grabbed all of the plastic bags at a checkout counter. It wasn’t long before they had bagged most everything and unloaded their carts, strategically organizing their finds in the truck bed with enough room left over for whatever Johnny B. had collected.

  Colin had just finished closing the door to the tailgate when he froze.

  “Hey, who closed the gate after we broke in?”

  Kennedy was placing her rifle in the back seat, but turned her head at the sound of alarm in his voice.

  “Shit,” she muttered, yanking the rifle back out. “I’ll check. We have to open it up anyways. You two keep watch and wait for Johnny to get back. I’ll be waiting up there with the gate open and ready to go.”

  Colin shook his head. “I think I’d rather take my chances with you than with that psychopath.”

  Kennedy rolled her eyes and started running back toward the entrance of the parking garage. The light from her flashlight bounced up and down as she ran, casting eerie shadows along the concrete walls, but if she was scared, she didn’t show it.

  “This way,” she said as she rounded the corner onto the next level of the garage.

  Colin winced at the noise their boots made as they pounded against the ground, but running quietly was impossible.

  Suddenly Kennedy came to an abrupt halt. Colin skidded to a stop behind her, nearly pushing her forward. Somehow her hand managed to catch his arm, and her fingers dug into his flesh.

  As his eyes strained to focus, he could finally see what Kennedy had just noticed.

  Shadows resembling heads bobbed up and down in the blackness, moaning reverberating in the hollow space. The garage was no longer still and silent, no longer a peaceful tomb to the vehicles it held.

  Now the darkness was alive and ravenous, lethal.

  He grabbed Kennedy around the waist and pulled her behind one of the pillars.

  “Sshhh,” he whispered, pressing her against the column as he peered around the edge.

  The cacophony of moans grew in volume, and the pair focused on not making even the faintest of noises as the zombies drew closer.

  Kennedy shifted ever so slightly to raise the rifle pressed between them. The metal of the weapon clanked against the buckle on Colin’s kilt.

  She held her breath anxiously and looked up at him, the whites of her wide eyes glowing.

  They didn’t see us, they didn’t see us, they didn’t see us... Colin’s mind desperately repeated over and over again.

  When he heard eager footsteps shift in their direction and hungry wails heighten in rabid anticipation, Colin grabbed the rifle and stepped in front of her, firing into the crowd. The images captured in the muzzle flash were horrifying, illuminating the ghostly faces otherwise obscured in shadows and darkness.

  “I can’t see!” she yelled, her ears ringing as she shot as many zombies as she could with her handgun. Not enough bodies fell permanently.

  “To hell with this. Run!” Colin bellowed.

  Kennedy didn’t need to be told twice. Although shorter than Colin, she kept up with him with strong, determined strides.

  Without warning, an orange blur slammed into the creatures closest to them.

  The forklift easily impaled their soft, gooey flesh, lifting them off the ground as they flailed against the thick metal. Johnny B. whooped victoriously, hooting and hollering like a cowboy out of an old Western movie.

  The zombies followed the beeping forklift immediately, its bright orange color and flashing lights making it a more obvious target. Johnny B. jumped out of it, hitting the ground on his side, and rolled a few feet away from the horde. He leapt to his feet and took off alongside of Kennedy and Colin toward the truck. Like lemmings, most of the zombies continued to pursue the forklift, but many of them broke away from the hungry pack and chased the trio instead.

  Johnny B. was faster than the others, reaching the truck first. He hopped into the driver’s seat next to Grady, who had been providing cover fire from the truck, and the engine roared to life seconds later.

  Kennedy was running so quickly down the incline of the garage that she almost catapulted into the vehicle. Breathless, she grabbed Colin’s arm and yanked open the passenger door for him.

  “Get in!”

  “Ladies first,” he said gruffly, hoisting her up and then climbing in behind her and slamming the door shut.

  Vitiated hands smacked the windows as soon as the door closed, a rhythmic staccato of frenzied hunger.

  Johnny B. shifted the truck into reverse, then with a heavy stomp of his boot on the gas, navigated the vehicle backward, narrowly missing pillars and zombies.

  He swerved around the monsters as they trickled in from the entrance, the tires screeching, until bright sunlight greeted them, and they’d cleared the dangers of the darkness.

  Chapter Six

  “Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty. We’re here.”

  Colin rubbed his eyes sleepily as Kennedy gently shook his leg to wake him up.

  The low rumble of the truck had lulled Colin into a deep slumber after narrowly escaping the dead-filled tomb of the Home Depot parking garage.

  He sat up slowly in the back seat.

  “Where are we?” Peering out the window, everything he could see was painted a sun-bleached, glaring white. He craned his neck to get a better view through the windshield. “Is this your camp?”

  “Arbor Oil and Fuel Supply. It’s a fuel storage terminal,” Kennedy told him, hopping out of the truck. “I’ll close the gate.”

  Colin opened the door and stepped out warily, watching Kennedy jog to the entrance.
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br />   The storage terminal was enclosed within a tall chain-link fence with razor wire looped around the top. There were giant white tanks all over, rows and rows of them, tall as skyscrapers. The pavement was almost as white as the tanks, so blinding and reflective that he felt he was standing on the white sands of a beach staring into the sun.

  “What do you need this much fuel for?” he asked her when she returned to the truck.

  She took off her gloves and grabbed a bottle of water from the truck. Taking a quick sip, she tilted her head at him. “Patience is a virtue.”

  “Come on. You still don’t trust me?”

  “Takes longer than a couple of days to build trust.” When Colin gave an exasperated sigh, she tossed the bottle to him. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t.” When he was done, she threw the bottle back into the truck. “Plus I kind of want to see your reaction when you get to our camp. If I tell you now, it’ll spoil the reaction.”

  The chain-link fence rattled, and Colin shielded his eyes to get a better look. A group of zombies had congregated on the other side of the fence, growling and tugging at the metal like trapped animals.

  “Is it safe?”

  She nodded. “About as safe as it can be, at least every time we’ve been here. Luckily they don’t seem to be coordinated enough to climb the fence.” She walked up to the zombies and ran her hand along the fence, enticing the creatures to press their faces against the gaps in the metal. They lapped at the fence wildly while Kennedy flipped a knife in her other hand and began thrusting the blade into their skulls.

  Colin had to give her credit; the woman was fearless.

  The rumble of an incoming vehicle caused them both to turn around. A small orange and white tanker truck with a silver fuel tank on its chassis pulled alongside of the pick-up.

  Kennedy waved and cleaned the knife on her pant leg before making her way to the driver’s window. She tapped on the glass as the window rolled down. “Nice to see you again, Jackson,” she drawled. “Any problems?”

  A man about Colin’s age with blond hair and a thin, wiry frame, shook his head. Colin saw dog tags hanging around his neck and wondered if he knew Kennedy before the outbreak.

  “Nothin’ bad, but I did get one hell of a surprise,” Jackson told her.

  Kennedy leaned over the window, interested. “Yeah?”

  “So some of those assholes must have climbed up a ladder going to the top of the tank—who knows why, maybe to signal for help or get away from the rotters. Whatever the case, they turned while they were up there. And when they heard me at the bottom, they just started falling like rain. One landed right beside me while I was filling her up.” He patted the side of the fuel truck and started laughing. “I never jumped so high in my life.”

  Kennedy didn’t seem amused. “I should have sent J.B. or Grady with you this time. I shouldn’t have let you go out alone.”

  He waved her off. “Meh, they weren’t a bother. They were so smashed up by the time they hit the concrete there was pretty much nothing left. Just an explosion of bones and guts.”

  “I wonder why we didn’t see them the last time,” Kennedy mused. Then she looked to Colin. “Colin, this is Jackson. Former Marines like J.B. and me.”

  Colin shook hands with him. “So this is the ‘other half’ of your team?”

  Jackson puffed out his chest and grinned. “You’re looking right at him.”

  “Normally, we split up evenly,” Kennedy clarified. “This time we didn’t, and it won’t happen again.” She took out a pair of Aviator sunglasses. “Alright, let’s head out to Mitch’s. We’re losing daylight.”

  “Who’s Mitch?” Colin asked after they piled back into the pick-up.

  “A friend of ours,” Johnny B. said before starting the engine and handing Grady a map.

  “Trade post stop along the way,” Kennedy elaborated a bit more.

  They pulled up to the gate, and Grady hopped out to open it. Colin opened his mouth to warn him of the zombies on the other side of the fence, but closed it when he remembered Kennedy had gotten rid of them.

  Grady waited until the tanker truck had cleared the entrance before closing the gate once more and securing it with a heavy chain and padlock.

  “We don’t want anyone tapping into our supply,” she explained. She buckled her seatbelt and leaned back, stretching her legs. “The drive to Mitch’s isn’t too much further. It’s a pretty drive, worth seeing if you haven’t before.” She tugged her baseball cap down over her eyes. “There isn’t much beauty left in this world. You gotta appreciate what little is left.”

  The sun was beginning to set as they cleared the storage terminal grounds and got back onto the main road. Farmland stretched out for miles, a welcome sight. Colin hated cities, and their near-death excursion earlier that morning only solidified that hatred.

  He watched the tall, spindly towers holding the power lines pass by in a blur. As a kid, he used to want to climb the towers, excited that he might be able to see everything for miles, like a sailor in the crow’s nest of an exploratory ship.

  But now all that would be seen was a husk of the world as it slowly withered away. Maybe Mother Nature just needed a fresh start, to reset the clock, and this virus was helping her do that.

  Colin pondered this for a while until Johnny B. turned onto a dirt road. He saw a “No Trespassing” sign hanging precariously on a wooden fence. He noticed an old tire swing swaying gently in the breeze from a large oak tree. He saw a big red barn and even from within the truck, smelled the rich, organic, earthy scent of cow manure.

  “Is this where Mitch lives?”

  “Yep. Mitch is one of the good guys. Not many left nowadays,” Grady answered.

  Kennedy pulled her hair through her cap and yawned, turning to look behind them. The tanker truck jostled over the dirt road a few meters back.

  Johnny B. parked the pick-up in front of the red barn, and the tanker truck sidled up alongside them.

  Colin heard a steady thud approaching and saw a man wearing a cowboy hat galloping up to them on horseback.

  “There he is,” Grady announced.

  “Looks like something out of a John Wayne movie,” Colin remarked.

  Kennedy shrugged. “That’s what happens when you have a total shut-down of the world. Things start movin’ backward to how they used to be before we all had iPhones and Amazon.”

  “I never had either,” he admitted.

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Kennedy told him as she got out of the truck.

  Colin followed the group over to the barn and waited while Mitch dismounted and walked up to them, horse in tow.

  He greeted Kennedy and the others first, embracing them warmly. Mitch was in his fifties with light blue eyes and tan, weathered skin. His Wrangler jeans were worn and dirty, and the mud on them nearly matched the shade of his russet-colored cowboy hat. He studied Colin. “You’re new,” he said coolly. When Kennedy nodded her approval of him, Mitch took off a leather work glove and stuck out his hand. “Mitch Cannon.”

  “Colin MacConnell.”

  Colin gave him a small smile and looked around. There were cows everywhere, grazing about in blissful ignorance, not knowing that the world had gone to hell months ago. “Nice place you got here.”

  Mitch touched the rim of his cowboy hat. “We do the best we can.”

  Kennedy gestured to the fuel truck. “Let us know where to fill ‘em up, Mitch.”

  “Next to the house’ll do fine. Margaret and Jenny will be in there. Just knock on the front door. They know you’re comin’.” At this, Jackson hopped back into the tanker truck and took off in the direction of the large two-story house. Mitch tethered the horse to a fence post. “I got y’all’s meat salted and packaged up in the barn. Dried fruit and veggies, too. Should last you until your next trip down.”

  “We’ll start loading her up,” Johnny B. told Kennedy. He gestured to Grady, and they left for the barn.

  Colin’s eyes darted back and forth in
confusion. Kennedy noticed. “Mitch gives us beef, chicken, any crops he can spare… stuff we can’t get anymore on supply runs in exchange for fuel to keep his generators running.”

  “How do you keep this whole place going by yourself?” Colin questioned in astonishment.

  Mitch chuckled. “Oh, it isn’t just me. I got my family here helping out. My daughters, their husbands, my son… even the grandkids do little things here and there, like feed the chickens. It keeps everything rolling and keeps folks busy. I think that’s the trick to maintaining your sanity these days; just stay busy.”

  Colin couldn’t agree more. He almost asked Mitch if he could stay on and help with the farm. The tranquil serenity of the landscape coupled with the necessity to be efficient and productive was a tempting possibility for him. He didn’t know anything about Kennedy’s “camp.” What if it was just a mess of tents in the woods, and he’d spend his days either freezing his arse off in the winters or battling mosquitoes and blistering heat in the summers? If he even lived long enough to see another season…

  He saw Kennedy staring at him in his periphery. Blinking a few times, he cleared his throat and met her eyes.

  She didn’t say anything, but her keen green eyes were perceptive. When Johnny B. and Grady returned, their arms filled with brown paper parcels, she moved toward the pick-up. She paused to rest a hand on Colin’s shoulder as she passed before opening the tailgate of the truck for her men.

  “It’s getting late,” Mitch announced. “It’ll be too dark to see anything on the roads pretty soon. Margaret’s surely got food ready. Why don’t y’all stay the night and head out in the morning?”

  The men looked to Kennedy. Johnny B. wiped the back of his neck and leaned against the truck.

  “That’s very kind of you, Mitch.” She nodded to the others. “Grab your stuff, boys. Let’s call it a night.”

  Colin followed them, staying behind a bit. He looked over his shoulder, watching the sun disappear on the horizon, yellows, oranges, and reds bleeding together as dark blue clouds began to dominate the sky.