Haven’s heart pumped wildly, the heartbeats so strong she could hear each one and feel its vibration in her ears.
If they didn’t get the door open, they were going to be torn to pieces and suffer a horrible death.
She was only a couple of feet from the approaching zombie when Brett finally broke the lock on the door, sending a blast of icy air into the house.
Haven’s long hair billowed forward, strands of it snaking into the zombie’s outstretched hand. It closed its fingers around a thick lock and pulled, twisting her hair in its grasp, its mouth descending to her neck. Jerking her head sharply to avoid its lethal bite, she cried out in pain as the hair in the zombie’s hand ripped roughly from her scalp.
“Haven! Come on!” Brett called out to her.
Every inch of her body fueled by adrenaline, she sprinted away, feeling whooshing air behind her as desperate hands unsuccessfully swiped at her retreating form.
As soon as she was outside, she shut the door, relaxing only a little until she saw more figures shambling around the house toward them. Brett picked up Mark again and joined her.
“That was too close,” he breathed.
“Move, and we shoot,” someone threatened behind them.
The three of them turned in unison. Two men had rifles aimed at their heads.
Mark looked at Haven and Brett, waiting to see what they wanted him to do.
Haven slowly lifted her hands.
Bodies pounded against the back door from inside the house, and she shuddered, knowing it wouldn’t be long before the door caved from all the pressure.
“Don’t move,” one of the men warned them as he began to back up. His smile was decidedly unfriendly.
Just as the door exploded forward, the Jeep charged out from the side of the house and slammed into the two men, their bodies folding unnaturally around the hood. When they disappeared beneath the vehicle, it easily bounced over their fallen bodies as if they were nothing more than speed bumps.
The impact alone didn’t kill them, and in some ways, Haven was glad for it.
It wasn’t until the rear tires jostled along their limbs, their bones making a meaty crunch as blood spurted from their mouths, eyes, and ears, that they stopped flailing.
She didn’t have time to appreciate their demise.
Zombies poured steadily out of the entrance, pale faces gleaming horrifically as they swayed their arms, trying to shuffle faster toward the living.
Some dropped to their knees and began feeding on the still-warm corpses Houston had just run over, the coppery scent of their fresh blood intoxicating and irresistible.
Houston swerved the Jeep beside the trio and reached across the seats to throw open the passenger door for Haven. “Get in!” he yelled.
Once everyone was inside, Houston hit the gas, and they rocketed forward.
Mark clutched Brett as though his life depended on it and shut his eyes.
“Where were you?” Haven asked hoarsely, staring at Houston.
The moon peeked out from the clouds, simultaneously a blessing and a curse because they could now see the sheer volume of zombies hobbling down the driveway to meet them.
Houston smashed body after body, trying to strike them with the corner of the front bumper instead of ramming them head-on.
“I saw something flashing in the forest and went to check it out. I didn’t want to wake you. I never thought…” The Jeep fish-tailed as it careened onto the road. Houston exhaled shakily. “I’m so sorry.”
Mark turned around, watching as the house became smaller and smaller in the distance and knowing he’d never see Texaco again.
Out of nowhere, bright lights flooded the entirety of the Jeep, blinding them from behind.
Haven whirled about in her seat, dismayed to see multiple sets of headlights cresting a hill.
“Houston,” she whispered tensely.
“I see ‘em,” he replied and pressed harder on the gas, knowing it was the same white truck from earlier that day leading the caravan of vehicles.
He should have killed them.
Glancing up at the rearview mirror, he realized just how close they were, and if he was going to do something, he needed to do it now.
“Watch out!” Haven screamed.
He shifted his eyes down just in time to see a cluster of zombies huddled together in the middle of the road, crouched over a motionless body.
Houston swerved right, but it was too sharp of a turn. The vehicle smashed into the cornfields and catapulted onto its side, a burst of crunching metal and breaking glass. It skidded past row after row of corn stalks, dried husks flying across and over them in a yellow and brown blur.
When the Jeep finally came to a stop, Haven took off her seatbelt and instantly crumpled against the passenger side door. “Is everyone okay?” she rasped, trying to climb over the seats to her brother and Mark in the back. The window had cracked when the Jeep flopped onto its side, and little splinters of glass burrowed into her palm as she pushed herself off of it.
Mark moaned. “My arm hurts.”
Brett winced when he tried to move. “We’ll get you out of here in no time, buddy.”
Haven heard the panic in her brother’s voice and knew that he was hurt, too. Ignoring the bits of glass in her hands, she lifted her legs above the dashboard and kicked the windshield with her heels. Her frustration increasing by the second as her foot bounced off the glass with each kick, she scooted around so that she could reach Colin’s sword that they’d packed earlier that night. Holding onto the hilt, she thrust her hands upward and sliced through the canvas top, stabbing ferociously at the fabric.
Haven slipped her hands through the newly-torn opening and pulled herself through it, wiggling her shoulders around until only the lower half of her body was still inside the Jeep. Her fingers digging into the lip on the outside of Houston’s door as leverage, with one final hoist, she squirmed her hips around until she was free.
When she stood on the side of the Jeep, she noticed three vehicles surrounded them, including the white truck from earlier that day. Squinting to see past the blinding glare of the headlights, she could vaguely make out the silhouette of a tall man with close-cropped blond hair standing at the front of the vehicles.
Cade.
Her heart raced, but she shoved the fear into the furthest recesses of her mind and quickly dropped down to her knees to help the others.
There was a click from inside the Jeep and then a grunt, as Houston undid his seatbelt and collapsed against the passenger side window. His hands stretched apart the tear in the canvas she’d made, and she crouched down, tugging on his wrists to help him get out.
“Can you guys undo your seatbelts?” she asked Mark and Brett as she and Houston peered into the Jeep. “We can pull you out.”
The corn stalks rustled loudly, and she heard the doors to the other vehicles slam shut. She straightened and looked around. Her nostrils flared, her sense of smell more evolved than her sight. Almost always, she smelled zombies before she saw them.
As soon as she caught whiff of them, the corn stalks parted widely, and a sea of undead flowed between them.
Brett and Mark would be trapped inside and unable to escape before the undead swarmed them, reaching in with gnarled fingers through the broken glass and weakened frame of the Jeep to rip strips of skin from their bodies.
Cade was going to sit in the safe confines of his truck and watch as zombies tore her and her family apart.
He thought he’d gotten her.
Like hell.
“Haven!” Houston shouted. “Brett’s stuck. I need your help!”
He was already inside the Jeep, and she scrambled back through the canvas to the others.
Once she was in the back seat, Brett grabbed her wrist. “Get Mark out of here.”
“Not without you,” she told him, shaking her head resolutely.
“No.” His forehead was coated in a thick layer of perspiration. “It’s my leg. I’m st
uck. I won’t make it out in time.”
Houston yanked at Mark’s seatbelt and undid it hastily. Once the boy was free, he sat him in the front. “Keep watch.”
Mark’s eyes were as round as saucers. “They’re everywhere,” he stated softly.
Brett’s seatbelt was already unfastened so it wasn’t what kept him trapped in place.
The door on his side was severely dented inwards, pinning his leg.
“Alright, on the count of three, we are going to yank you out,” Haven calmly explained.
Brett nodded and took a deep breath as Haven and Houston each grabbed one of his arms.
“One… two… three.”
Brett screamed when they pulled, the scent of blood filling the air, and fell against them when he was free.
“Let’s move,” Houston said, crawling to the front and exiting through the hole in the canvas for the last time. He pulled Mark out beside him, then helped Brett.
Just before she left the Jeep, she snatched Colin’s sword and tumbled out the hole after them.
They were in the middle of the field, and the zombies that had oozed out of the corn stalks were now closing in on the Jeep.
A particularly fast one approached them unexpectedly, rounding the corner of the Jeep with arms that gesticulated wildly.
Brett shoved Mark behind him protectively and hobbled forward, extending his gun. He pulled the trigger on his Glock and shot it in the face, its corpse dropping mere feet in front of them. As it slumped to the ground, its fingernails scraped Brett’s bloody jeans.
Another zombie clawed its way through the corn stalks, pushing them apart and looking from side to side until it saw them.
Haven spun around with Colin’s sword. Sidestepping the creature as it lunged at her, she then pivoted to bury the metal into the back of its skull.
It didn’t take long for them to run out of ammunition.
Houston rushed past her, ready to attack, and she swiveled around, her gaze following him.
A zombie had ambled right behind her, shrouded in the shadows, almost going unnoticed.
The skin around its mouth was pulled back like an open package revealing red gums and dirty, broken teeth with a tiny bit of something gelatinous hanging from them. It was nearly a head taller than Houston with the squared, colossal shoulders of a linebacker, its arms hanging stiffly by its sides.
Houston collided with it, intending to knock it down and stab it in the head. Instead, the impact only sent the creature backward a couple of steps. Its eyes previously fixated on Haven, it looked down momentarily to Houston before grabbing him around the shoulders and dragging him toward its unnaturally wide maw.
Haven ran to him frantically, and just as she slammed into the zombie, wrapping her arms around its torso, Houston shoved his shoulder into its massive chest, and the two of them pushed it to the ground. Caught off guard, it bent back unsteadily, the full force of its weight causing the spine to pop.
Its hunger unforgotten, it struggled to regain balance and swatted at the air in an attempt to reach them.
Haven crouched beside the zombie and plunged the sword into its eye, gouging it over and over again. When she pulled it back, a misshapen little ball with tiny hairs clung to the blade.
Laughter came from the vehicles, followed by horns honking and guns firing. Haven’s blood boiled in anger.
Before long, the entire cornfield would be overflowing with zombies.
All they could do was run.
Chapter Eleven
Haven paused, breathless. Her lungs burned as she inhaled, the icy air prickling her throat.
Houston turned back to her, readjusting to get a better grip on Brett, who leaned against him for support.
“What are you doing? We have to keep going,” he panted.
She shook her head, concentrating. “I thought I…”
The ravenous howls of the undead now coupled with unwelcome human voices shouting behind them.
Houston grabbed her arm. “Haven, we’ve got to keep running. They’re not far.”
She dug her heels in and strained to listen one last time, but couldn’t pinpoint the source of the noise.
“Haven,” Houston implored.
Her heart pounded furiously in her chest. She was certain she’d heard something.
Mark tugged at her hand. “Come on, Haven.”
She looked down at him and nodded. “Let’s go.”
Brett and Houston stayed a few steps behind Haven and Mark to shield them, firing into the crowd. Mark struggled to match her long strides, but she pulled him along with her, clutching his hand so tightly she was certain her nails were biting into his skin.
There was a clearing ahead of them. Grass turned to stones just as her boot hit something firm and unyielding.
Railroad tracks.
This time the rumble was unmistakable.
“Listen!” she demanded.
Houston and Brett cocked their heads to the side.
The crack of gunshots had faded behind them, and the moans of the zombies had been swallowed up by the wind. Faintly, something thundered in the distance, growing louder and louder with each passing second.
Brett searched the sky for signs of an impending storm.
Mark jumped suddenly, pointing in excitement. “Look!”
Haven spun around and saw spindly beams of light cutting through the darkness, illuminating everything around them.
The ground shook beneath her feet, and she turned to her left, dropping Mark’s hand.
Bright lights rounded the corner, and she heard clunking and clanking against metal.
The flashlights from Cade’s men bobbed up and down in the distance.
They would always be running from this man whose obsession with her had no bounds, not even in a nightmarish world where the undead hunted the living.
She looked at her family.
How much longer could she keep them safe?
How much longer until she lost Houston?
Brett?
Mark?
They would always be hiding, moving from town to town, house to house, trying to survive, but always on the run.
Her fists balled at her sides.
No more.
No. More.
With a deep breath, Haven stepped out onto the tracks.
Cade had gotten separated from Cliff and Manuel, and he didn’t know if they, along with the others with him, had made it or been devoured by the pursuing horde.
It didn’t really matter either way. If they were still alive, he would contact them over the walkie-talkies, and he could rendezvous with them later. His men were scattered across the county, groups of three or four men posted at various points so that the entire swath of terrain was fully covered and responsive via handheld radios.
While Cade didn’t care about any of them on a personal level, he was more than aware that each one served a purpose, and he would never be able to carry out his plans without those dedicated men at his back, road warriors he could count on.
And he had big plans.
He always thought on a larger scale; he wanted it all.
To win a war, a man had to have legions of loyal bastards behind him.
He remembered watching “Scarface” as a kid. Tony Montana’s epic slogan emblazoned across the fountain in his mansion had hit home hard with him. “THE WORLD IS YOURS.”
Yes.
This fucked up world was his, his own perfect, twisted little kingdom where he reigned supreme. Anything he wanted… it was all his for the taking. No one could stop him.
He had wanted Haven since high school. And after he got locked up, she’d likely thought she would never see him again. Yet here they were, together again, amidst all the carnage and chaos. And as of tonight, he’d made sure the circle of revenge he had been plotting against her for so long was finally complete.
Cade had played it out so many times in his head, how he would give her “the big reveal” about sweet little Faith.
<
br /> Slaughtering her sister hadn’t just been fun; it had been cathartic.
Cade had grown drunk on her innocence as he ravaged her, drinking it down in steady gulps like a finely aged wine.
He’d gotten his first taste, and damn, it was fucking delicious.
He thirsted for more.
Cade had tried to find that same gratifying deliverance by killing others in the weeks that followed Faith’s murder. But it just hadn’t been the same. It didn’t carry the same weight, the same glorious gravitas that it had when it was someone Haven loved.
Faith’s tortuous demise would destroy Haven, and that knowledge intoxicated him in a way he hadn’t been able to replicate. There were only so many people still alive who were beloved by Haven, and he had demented deaths planned for each and every one of them. He wanted to prolong them, savor them.
Drag them out.
Soon she would have no one left.
He skidded to a stop.
“What the hell…” he murmured, tilting his head to the side.
Cade’s fingers tingled, and his whole body buzzed as though electricity flowed through it.
Where was she?
He broke into a run again until he had cleared the cornfields.
At first, he barely registered the giant train slithering along the tracks.
No, what immediately captured his attention was the woman standing on them, her arms outstretched as though she had the power to stop the metal beast with just her mere hands.
She was a dark silhouette against the blinding white light before her, and she looked magnificent.
His obsession with her magnified in that moment, if it was even possible, creeping up to occlude every corner of his deepest and darkest thoughts.
But he wasn’t obsessed with having her anymore, not in that way; he wanted to extinguish anyone, anything she had left and watch hopelessness and despair bleed into every pore of her being as she realized she was completely alone in the world.
Then he’d keep her as his pet, and she would live out her days in relentless, unyielding misery, doing whatever he bid.
Raising his gun, he aimed the barrel at the man running up to her. Cliff had told him about this man and their encounter in town that morning. He wasn’t her brother, whom Cade remembered from school. He could only assume it was her lover.
The Good, The Dead & The Lawless (Book 2): The Hell That Follows Page 14