The Scattered and the Dead (Book 2)

by McBain, Tim

  What if he didn’t come, though? That idea had never even occurred to her at any stage prior to this moment, and now it seemed more likely than not. Maybe picking the guard post had tipped off who she was, and he was happy to settle this later, on his own terms. She doubted that, though. She’d stayed so invisible, he didn’t think he’d have any reason to make that leap in logic to pin his sights on her.

  She replayed that moment in her head, when she leaned in to whisper to him, took a step back, and watched him nod.

  She’d walked away from the bonfire after that, climbing the wooded hill on the trail that led out toward the hole. For just a moment she’d looked back, looked down upon the burning pile of wood from on high, upon the light flickering over the dancing fools, and she wondered what for. Why did this little society continue to function? Why did all the people wake up and perform their tasks every day, all of them huddled in little cabins every night? Why did they gather at this bonfire to drink spiked punch once a year? What purpose did any of it serve?

  Why did they bother?

  Something rustled outside, twigs snapping and weeds hissing as something – someone – brushed through their leaves and stalks and stems. She listened to the footsteps moving closer, knowing it was him after all.

  She got the chills just then, her torso shaking with great force for just a beat and then relenting. The skin crawled on her arms in the moment after that, goose bumps protruding, all of them seeming to creep toward her shoulders.

  She pinched the little cylinder tighter, rolling it back and forth a little between her thumb and fingers just to feel it. Soon. She let the sleeve of her robe fall over that hand, concealing it.

  Then she leaned over the table and turned the knob on the lantern. It didn’t seem to take, the minuscule orange flame holding firm, refusing to grow. She gasped, her fingers fumbling. She could feel that he was close now, could feel that the dark left her at his mercy.

  She twisted again, and the glow bloomed, the orb of light filling the small shed, spilling over the tabletop in a growing circle.

  Something caught her attention, a dark shape in the corner of her eye. She turned her head, flinching in surprise to find him already leaned in the doorway in a nonchalant pose.

  “Sorry. Did I scare you?” he said, and then he hissed out a laugh between his teeth.

  She couldn’t see his face very well. Just a silhouette – a shadow that was somehow speaking, somehow laughing. His voice was deeper than she’d imagined, and he sounded toothy when he said his “s” sounds. She expected him to lunge, to pounce. He remained motionless in the door frame.

  “Well, I don’t know what you think I did, but you’re-”

  “But you walked out here for no reason, eh? You didn’t do anything. You just walked several miles out here for nothing. For the exercise, maybe.”

  Her voice came out deadpan, totally even. She imagined that would bother him, just like it’d bother him to be interrupted by a woman.

  His eyes caught the light and flashed for a split second, white flares shining out of his pupils. It was like seeing a predator in the dark, some mountain lion stalking, waiting for her to turn her back. It was just a glimpse, but it made the hair on the back of her neck prick up.

  “Now hold on… We’re just here to talk, ain’t we? Why would I shy away from a chance to straighten things out?”

  The earlier sound she’d noted was no fluke. His teeth almost whistled with every s.

  “Whatever you say,” she said.

  Now he pushed off the door frame to stand upright, hesitated there a moment to brush off the shoulder that had touched the wood, and strode forward. He moved slowly, and the illumination revealed his face in slow motion – from black to gray to an almost blue glow, and finally, he stepped into the orb of light surrounding the lantern.

  Instead of a smooth, porcelain face, she found one coated with dark stubble. Pouches of skin seemed to pucker under each eye, as though he hadn’t slept in a week. She realized that he was concentrating to keep his balance. A few too many cups of punch, perhaps.

  She was glad the table lay between them, and she had to remind herself to not brandish the cylinder clenched in her fingers, to not reveal it at all until it was time.

  He smiled, but his eyes were dead.

  Decker

  Dundalk, Maryland

  295 days after

  As he moved down the hall, motion caught his eye in one of the bedrooms. The hair on his arms pricked and tingled. He did a double-take, freezing in that spot, a gun in each hand. Some part of him knew that he needed to drop one and ready the other, but for some reason his brain short circuited as far as which hand held the M4. He just stood there, a blank look fixed on his face.

  But wait. There was nothing moving in the bedroom. It was motion out the window that had caught his eye, movement in the grass field behind the house. Relief swelled over him as he realized that the threat wasn’t an immediate one, at least not yet. His vision zoomed in on the figures in the distance.

  Heads bobbed. Knees rose and fell. Arms swayed at their sides.

  The tall grass waved around the zombies, lurching and snapping out of the way as they tromped through it. Their movements were slow. Listless. All of their mouths hung wide open. A battalion of mouth-breathers that didn’t bother with the whole breathing thing anymore anyway.

  He crossed the bedroom floor, pressing his face to the window to get a better look. There must be twenty of them, at least from what he could see. He suspected there were more he couldn’t see.

  He swallowed, a lump shifting in his throat. And when the idea settled over him, when the pieces he’d tumbled around finally fit together in his head, he closed his eyes and exhaled long and slow.

  These were the hostiles.

  Mustache Rick had sent him in here knowing that a zombie horde ruled this piece of land, knowing that no one else dared to brave it for just that reason. He was sure of it. All of the stuff about the bridge and traffic situation? Pure and utter bullshit. They must have wanted him to die here. Must have. It was the only explanation that made any sense to him. The only question that remained, as far as he was concerned, was whether or not Dalton himself wanted him sent here, wanted him sent into this death trap on his own.

  He opened his eyes and watched the dead things limp around out there. They headed his way. Not all of them and not directly, but in the vaguest sense, they all crossed the grass field moving in his direction. He knew that he should turn back now, go out the way he came in while he had a nice lead on them. He knew that, but he couldn’t resist. He had several clips of ammo on him after all.

  He unlatched the window, pried until it popped loose from the frame, and flung it open. The glass juddered and rattled from the force of this effort, and he lowered himself into the opening, leaving the shotgun aside and aiming the assault rifle out the window.

  A handful of the creatures seemed to perk up at the window noise, though they didn’t seem certain where it’d come from. Their necks jerked, and their shoulders swiveled back and forth, perhaps scanning for further sounds or movement.

  He squinted his eye and gazed down the barrel, taking dead aim at a fat zombie head. This one wore a suit with brown blood crusted in a perfect semi-circle under his chin like he’d gone to an all-you-can-eat brain buffet and not bothered with a bib. Its oversized head reminded him of a celebrity — an NFL quarterback. The one with the fat face. He couldn’t think of his name.

  His finger hesitated upon the trigger, rubbing back and forth on it, feeling that curved piece of metal in every arch, loop, and whorl of his fingerprint, and then he squeezed. The gun blazed and cracked, rocking back into his shoulder.

  And the head burst in the distance, the fat body disappearing out of the frame of his vision all at once, swallowed up by the swaying grass. He focused on that spot of land for a moment, but nothing moved.

  The rest of the horde heaved into action, all of them squaring their shoulders toward his win
dow and staggering that way, picking up speed. It looked wrong. Almost funny. All of those human figures jogging toward him with their arms dangling at their sides as limp as spaghetti noodles. Something about that body language cemented how dead they were even more than the rotten flaps of skin decorating their skeletons, he thought.

  Adrenaline detonated in his head, that surge of current coursing all through him again. His hands trembled. Yellow static flickered along the edges of his vision. Every breath drew frigid swirls into his lungs, cold feelings that lurched and swayed in his chest.

  He wheeled the gun to the left and rattled off a few shots, cutting off an old woman zombie at the knees. He aimed further downfield from there, taking out a couple of zombie kids. The first with a clean headshot, the second sawing him off with several blasts to the neck that looked to decapitate the thing, or damn near it.

  He moved with efficiency, swiveling and aiming and firing and killing. The jogging dead toppled into the grass one by one. Most were dead. Some were merely immobilized, which was more than good enough for the moment. It was just like playing a video game. A good one, even, he thought.

  Still, that electric throb thrummed in his chest, fear pumping into his bloodstream with every beat of his heart. He could handle the dead in the field, which he knew pretty well going in. If the sound of his gunshots drew more interest, though, he could be in trouble. He needed to wrap this up before that happened.

  Two more headshots cleared the field. A lady in a Wal-Mart uniform went first, and a portly postal worker closed things out, toppling backward so hard that his legs kicked up, momentarily visible above the grass. He supposed that made for a decent grand finale.

  He scooped the shotgun and hustled down the steps, feet pounding out a staccato rhythm all along the descent. He hit the bottom, and six paces later he was out the front door and running down the front walk. He jumped when he saw the body flopped over the bush out there, the original zombie that he’d killed on the way in. That all felt so long ago that he’d forgotten about it.

  And that current flowed up into his skull, prickling and pulsing and making him dizzy. Lightheaded.

  He got a little ways down the street and stopped. He listened.

  Moans called out over the empty world, numerous throats lifting together like a terrible choir. Everyone off-time and out of key. Hundreds by the sound of it. Maybe thousands. And their footsteps accompanied the howls, a faint beat laying underneath the vocals. The volume seemed to increase, seemed to suggest they were getting closer, but he wasn’t sure.

  He scanned the bit of the field he could see between the houses and saw nothing. No movement. They could be a ways off yet, the bulk of them, anyway.

  He laughed. Just a little. It felt crazy. This noise that he thought should have made him piss himself only elicited a chuckle. He couldn’t think of what was funny about it. He remembered reading once that all comedy is cruelty. Maybe the answer lay in there somewhere.

  He walked on, making one last stop before he fled the impending death horde. He wanted to grab a can of ravioli for the road.

  He walked down the middle of the empty street, the sun shining down on him and glaring off of the asphalt. The can of ravioli lay wedged in his jacket pocket, and it rocked into his body over and over with the sway of every step he took, the little taps reminding him to eat it again and again.

  He’d calmed enough to get his thinking straight upon crossing the bridge, the panic and adrenaline receding just enough for him to feel human again. Still, emotions flared and retreated, shifting and morphing in rapid succession as he remembered different bits and pieces of what had just occurred.

  Rage bubbled up to the surface when he thought of Rick’s dumbfuck mustache. He was a little confused by it all still, the idea of them sending him out here to die. They couldn’t be that incompetent. It couldn’t all be some misunderstanding or mistake. He saw real intent to it. But he didn’t know who might really be responsible for these choices, and he didn’t know how to respond. Going back all aggressive would prevent him from gaining more information, he thought. Better to not confront them, maybe. To bide his time and get revenge on his own terms.

  And then the rage guttered out and elation came over him as the image of the field took shape in his head, movies playing of zombie head explosions and floppy bodies tumbling into permanent hiding spots among the tall grass. He couldn’t say what was so satisfying about solving a problem in such visceral fashion, but he thought there was something primal in it, something that traced back to the origin of mankind and possibly went further back still. He killed. He triumphed. He survived for a while longer yet.

  A crack snaked down the middle of the road here, a jagged opening that stretched out in front of him for as far as he could see. It looked like the asphalt was pulling apart at the seams. And it would only get worse from there, he realized. Nobody would come fix this. The wound would never heal. None of them would. The rain and snow would keep their pressure on it, wear it down, gnaw at it, until the concrete crumbled and the blacktop buckled. Until it all fell apart.

  But destruction wasn’t all bad, he thought. There was something stimulating about it. Something that felt right about it. He didn’t know why, really. Some part of him wanted it. That was all.

  The strongest emotions had winked out now, and his focus returned to his immediate surroundings.

  He’d moved away from the skyscrapers downtown and out into a residential area, houses surrounding him on all sides now for as far as he could see. Upon realizing this, he stopped and stretched, swiveling his head back and forth to eye the homes and pick one out.

  He’d get out of the city, get back to the camp where the people may or may not want him dead, but first he thought he’d break into one of these houses and whip up a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli.

  Erin

  Triadelphia, West Virginia

  262 days after

  Waiting in the woods was like the worst game of hide-and-seek ever. She made Marcus and Izzy go deeper into the cover of the trees, but Erin stayed at the edge, watching. A fleet of men rode up to the overpass. Six motorcycles, as she’d thought, but also a truck. For hauling whatever loot they found, she supposed.

  Raiders.

  Bastards.

  She gripped the gun in her hand a little tighter, noticing that her whole body was trembling from the adrenaline

  The raiders poked around for a while. Talking. Pointing. Maybe arguing about where all the sweet shit went.

  She remembered the vulture, the one she noticed just before the first bullet hit. Something about it had nagged at her. No, it wasn’t the vulture itself, but what it was dining upon. A corpse. A fresh corpse.

  Because…

  Because these guys watched the bridge and shot at anyone that crossed. And then they came to plunder the supplies.

  Her eyes narrowed in disgust.

  She gripped the Glock tighter, raised it, aiming at the men. But her finger did not touch the trigger. She made little “Pchew!” noises with her mouth and pantomimed the recoil.

  The men filed back to their vehicles, and Erin watched them ride off, probably back to their shooting spot somewhere to the north of the overpass.

  When the engines had faded into the distance, she tramped back to where Marcus and Izzy were perched on a fallen tree.

  “Once it gets fully dark, I’m going back for the rest of our bags.”

  “By yourself?” Izzy stopped scratching Rocky’s head. “You can’t go back out there alone!”

  Marcus fidgeted, zipping and unzipping his hoodie. The sound made Erin think of the bullets whizzing past her head.

  “Maybe we should just leave,” he said. “Forget the stuff we left under the bridge.”

  “No way! There’s shit we need in there. Food. Medicine.”

  “Mall Mania,” Izzy offered, and Erin rolled her eyes.

  Marcus shook his head.

  “We can’t carry it all. Just leave it.”

&nbs
p; “I can bring it back here, and we can go through it to decide what to take and what to leave. But I’m not leaving all that gear. Who knows how long we’ll be on the road? We need some of that stuff.”

  Marcus looked down at his hands, palms up and folded in his lap.

  “Then let me go.”

  “Nope.”

  He lifted his eyes to meet hers. “Why not? I can carry more than you. I’m bigger.”

  Erin tossed her pack down and sat on it, letting out a sigh.

  “Because it’s my stupid idea.”

  When she got to the break in the trees, she crouched down by instinct. Nothing like being sniped at to stir up all those animal safety mechanisms. She scooted forward, covered by a cluster of honeysuckle.

  She surveyed the landscape before her. The path down to the road was mostly exposed. A few patches of long grass and some scraggly shrubs. She’d have to crawl if she really wanted to stay hidden.

  Izzy and Marcus, but mostly Izzy, had insisted on escorting Erin to the edge of the woods. Before Erin entered the clearing beyond the trees, she considered chickening out. This whole plan had seemed less scary when the sun was up. But as the light crept out of the sky, doubt crept into her mind.

  She squeezed her fists. No, she had to do it. Ditching the bikes was a big enough blow. She couldn’t leave all of their supplies, too.

  And at least Marcus was there, so she didn’t have to worry about leaving Izzy alone in the woods at night. That made her think of something else. Something she’d been meaning to do. And Izzy wasn’t going to like it. Her voice came out in a whisper.

  “Give Marcus the gun.”