She smiles. Mary knows she will have to force him to control himself. Make him go slow. Once she lords over him in the bed she will control him forever. She touches the hidden button. The floor hatch rolls open. “Now, baby. This will make you king.” She leads him down the stairs.”
“Fuck me.” He beats on the glass. “How did… How do we open these? I’ll beat it out of the government chick.”
“When you allow me to handle—” she grabs his crotch through his jeans “—the more sensitive issues, nothing will stop you.”
“You got Lindsey to tell you about this place?”
“Yes.” She bats a coy eye.
“Where is she?”
“I released her.”
Mary finds she’s unable to breathe as fingers clamp her throat. He has no intention of forgiving her or listening to her. She holds up the metal key card.
Kaleb releases her, snatching the card.
Mary drops to her knees, submissive.
He raises his arm poised to backhand her. “You may be mine, but you never make decisions without me.”
She coughs, catching her breath. Wheezing, she insists, “She had to trust me. Use the key. You have guns and gas. You have the power to rule. I love you. I did it to win you all this.”
God please let the key work, or I’m dead.
Kaleb slides the key into the lock.
Nothing.
Mary has to clamp her legs in order to prevent wetting herself. “May I try, baby?”
Her shaky fingers swipe the card in the lock. A green light flashes and the door seals break. Mary’s face spreads into a full grin. From now on, she rules Kaleb.
DAKOTA KICKS OVER an infected skeleton more than a dead body.
“I thought they only ate a body until it turned?” Tom ponders.
The vehicles belonging to the caravan survivors now blends in with the abandoned cars stalled out on the original evacuation attempt of the city.
“There were so many in the herd when they caught a person they consumed them before they died,” Darcy says.
“It moved like a Tsunami wave,” Danielle adds.
“Thousands died, leaving behind their survival gear.”
“Where do we start?” Dave asks.
“I don’t know what cars carried what supplies. Let’s search, take what’s useful and move back to the plane,” Tom suggests.
“Who decided Tom would lead us?” Dakota demands.
“Dusty’s dead,” Darcy says. “We need—”
“Why does it have to be him?” Dakota raises his voice, illustrating he demands the job.
Dave opens a car door. “If we go by experience, Tom has dealt not only with rotters more, but his time as a fireman means he’s resilient in a crisis.” He digs through a duffle bag, pulling out nothing but clothes. He drops the bag, selecting another one.
Danielle draws a brush through her hair. “Dakota, you’re too hot tempered to lead. You want to rush in fast.” She ties it back with some hair bands she takes from a purse.
“I patrolled the camp and Dusty still got shot. I won’t make mistakes again. I should have shot those people,” Tom says.
“How are we going to deal with new people?” Danielle drops a pistol into a backpack. She paws under the seat of the car she searches.
“We don’t need a leader to decide how we want to handle future encounters.” Dave pops a trunk. “Bingo.” Cases of bottled water fill the back.
“How do we carry all those back?”
“Maybe we need to mark the useful cars for when we return,” Darcy suggests.
“Maybe you should just drop your weapons and put your hands up,” an unfamiliar voice demands.
Surrounding Tom and the Ds are two dozen black men all wearing police-issue tactical combat vests and bandanas for headbands—a combo of blue and red.
“Caught by gang members,” Dakota mumbles.
“North side. West side. Doesn’t matter anymore, white boy. We all food. Now put down your guns.” He levels a 9mm at Dakota aiming to kill, foregoing the sideways wrist turn.
THE BITER’S TEETH sink into Ethan’s arm. Never has he allowed an undead get so close. He’s taken most out from afar. The beating has slowed more than his reflexes.
“Run!” he orders.
Becky swings her machete, cleaving off the top half the biter. Coagulated blood and bile covers his arm. She admires Ethan. He saved her. How could she end him? Her heart jumps into her throat. He must be the kind of person to end it himself.
Ethan discharges the Berretta. Hot brass pings across the pavement.
Blood, mud, and the oozing gelatinous goop fermenting inside each monster splatters across the gas pumps.
With a path clear they race inside the store. Ethan jams a fresh clip into the pistol. More biters fall.
Chad slams the door, wrapping a bicycle chain lock around the door handles.
“How bad is it?” A terrible question to ask. Becky knows even the most superficial bite leads to returning as living corpse.
Ethan chucks an object at her.
She fumbles the goop-covered shape. She grabs the mass, rubbing her thumb over the porcelain and scraping away biter snot. “False teeth!”
Ethan grabs a whiskey bottle from a shelf, smashing the tip. He splashes the brown liquor to cleanse his forearm. “No skin breakage. It would burn like hell. With a rotten mouth, the creature could get a proper bite without Fixodent.”
“I thought you were dead,” Becky breathes again.
“It will take more than one old lady biter to kill me.”
Becky reaches up and pulls down a roll of scratcher tickets. She rubs her knife across the sliver cover, sending gray confetti all over her lap and the floor.
“What are you doing?” Ethan leans over the counter.
“I’m going to win a fortune, so I never have to work again.”
“Sounds great. The Powerball was up to like 240 million. See if we can get a couple of those as well,” Ethan says.
Becky chortles, holding back a bubbled laugh. The milling biters outside answer in a chorus of moan-howls.
“What the hell was that?” Ethan asks.
“I don’t know. You like to berate me over my desire to text and yet you’re supporting my gambling habit. You’re fucking insane. You just were bit and treat life like a fucking joke.”
“I figured you need to blow off some steam. I’d rather have you playing scratch-off than hitting the liquor bottles.” Ethan ignores her concern.
“I’m not old enough to drink.”
“You’re not old enough to buy lottery tickets.” He points at the shelf before her. “Toss me one of those airplane bottles of whiskey.”
She reaches for it. Tears cloud her vision. She tosses him the bottle.
“Why are you crying?”
“I’m never going to get to buy alcohol,” she mumbles, “legally.”
“Lottery was a tax on the poor anyway.” Ethan swallows the entire shot of warm rotgut.
“Lottery money was to cover all that tuition I did for A+.” She leans over the counter opposite him. “Why are you drinking?”
“I’m not. Whiskey kills what ails you. In the Old West, it was safer and cleaner to drink whiskey over the water. The liquor also killed mouth germs. I’m just helping out my immune system.” He reaches over the counter and fumbles for a pint.”
“Is that true?”
“That’s why I chide you over your iPhone. You young ones don’t know anything without having to look it up. Yes, it’s true, but a little goes a long way.” He cracks the seal on the bottle, and offers it to her. “Take a swig.”
“You’ll contribute to the delinquency of a minor with liquor, but you won’t sleep with one?”
“I’ll sleep just fine tonight knowing I gave you whiskey. Putting my dick into a girl just a few years older than my daughter—not something I can live with.”
“You had a daughter?” Becky choke-coughs on both the burning flu
id and the knowledge—no one in the camp knows about Ethan’s past.
“See what alcohol does. You lose all control of your faculties. I’ve not shared that.” He takes the bottle back and takes a swig before capping it. “And that’s all you’re learning about me today or ever.”
He stuffs the bottle into meshing on the end of his pack. “Finish your scratch-offs. We move out as soon as the biters clear.”
Chad props himself in the corner where he watches the door. “They’ve set up camp out there. We may be here for the night.” He adds, “Since we have to kill time. What caused the undead to rise?”
“Why does it matter?”
“It matters a lot,” Chad says.
“Chemical spill. Meteor crash, which actually would bring a virus. Viruses. Parasites infesting the brain. Mutated rabies. Neurogenesis of brain cell tissue, medical waste, global warming. The Rapture.”
“The Rapture?” Becky’s shocked Ethan would suggest Divine intervention.
“God releasing the unworthy from Hell. None of that matters. We lack the ability to fix it. None of the theories are within my control to prevent. And do you want to be in the control group that’s going to inject a vaccine? Last time I checked, that involved injecting part of the diseases inside you. It matters not how it started only how it ends. How we endure the end.”
“I want to know,” Chad says.
“What if you find out the government did it? It’s not like you’re going to sue the soda company for giving you cancer,” Becky snaps.
“There’s no way to undo this plague. It’s not a video game with a reset button. Best scenario would be a functioning vaccine,” Ethan says.
“I know they say they have one, but I remember being five. Terrified in the health office. Skipping my loving mother’s explanation of the torture they were to perform. They fucking shot dead measles into my arm,” Becky says.
“How it works, your body attacks the dead measles by learning what they are and creating an army of antibodies to swim around inside you until the living measles attacks. Only to be met by a prepared army able to defeat them.”
“We’re on the same page of understanding. They are going to inject whatever makes the dead reanimate into you. No way am I being stuck with whatever creates the undead.”
Becky spins her wrists, twirling both machetes. She sinks one into a biter. Most of the herd disappeared in the middle of the night. As the sun rises, Ethan and Chad fan out from the entrance. Ethan keeps his Beretta drawn but uses the hunting knife to smash through biter skulls.
“You know, a bat… A spiked bat would be perfect,” Chad theorizes.
“Shut it.” Damn kid! We don’t need noise bringing more back. Each kill Ethan makes moves him closer to the road. Having lost half a day’s travel, he will waste no more time on these biters. If the other side of the hill remains clear they will move on. I have plans. I have a search I must make and still reach Memphis within the two-week window. I may have to break down and use cars.
Ethan stabs another biter. I’ve ended so many. How could anyone keep track of giving peace to so many?
Becky’s blow deflects off the skull of an undead. Without the death impact to slay it, the beast’s rancid finger claws at her shirt. She panics. Her backpedaling sends her tumbling over her own boots. As she falls, the biter plummets on top of her. She maintains enough of her facilities to bite her own bottom lip to hold in a scream.
Chad tosses the beast off her. It rolls to a stop on the pavement. Ethan plants his boot on the biter’s chest. Its limbs flail, attempting to reach him.
Ethan holsters his pistol. “Machete.”
Chad tosses Becky’s blade.
In one fluid motion, Ethan catches the handle and brings the weapon down to tap the skullcap.
Tink. Tink. Tink.
Chad pulls Becky to her feet.
“What the hell?”
Ethan flicks the blade, peeling off the top layer of skin. Covered in blackish blood, but still shiny is a metal plate.
“Metal?” Becky seems confused.
“I’m unable to tell from this face how old he was before death, but I thought they switched to ceramic plates to fix broken crowns.” Ethan pushes down on the blade through the eye socket, puncturing the brain. The biter’s limbs collapse to the ground.
“Will we run into many metal plates?”
“Doubtful. Don’t lose your cool. If the blade won’t go in the skull one angle, try another. Keep your head as you take theirs.”
“Didn’t you ever wonder what would have happened if all technology, fast food, and unnecessary material wealth just went away? Money hoarding should have been made illegal and spread around so everyone could attend college,” Chad says.
“I like tweeting on my iPhone.”
“I enjoy showers.” Ethan ponders about Chad becoming a poor choice for this trek.
“Then why do you leave the camp so much?” Chad asks.
“You’re our leader. It’s a full-time job. You get back and are gone again in a day. You only stayed a week the last time because those raiders beat the hell out of you,” Becky says.
“There are plenty of others who would take their turn scouting for supplies and bringing in survivors,” Chad says.
“Not all those survivors have an intention of returning to civilization.”
“You mean like the dude who cut off those poor girl’s hands. You mean like him?”
“He was bad. How do you help people who have to have hands to function?” Chad asks.
“Dartagnan survived,” Becky points out.
“Because they had a gas stove and chickens. He could cook eggs. I’d hate to check his cholesterol level. He cooked them for his dead mom, too. I found him preparing for her. I don’t know how messed up he was before but I’m certain no human contact for five months didn’t help him. I don’t let him get away with his fits. I did have to give in and go back and get that damn chair. He had to sit in it when he misbehaved. After I figured it out he does what he should. He’s super smart. He builds his model of the town to scale and he grows a garden and tends the chickens. He keeps enough eggs for him and sends the rest to the kitchen.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Becky asks.
“Nothing. He has one of those –tisms, but he’s the exception to the rule. In ten months, I haven’t seen even one paraplegic. Alzheimer’s, bed-ridden, and children haven’t made it.”
“How could they?”
“I wonder how many people died trying to save relatives that were of no use. We spent a lot of money on people unproductive to society,” Chad says.
“How can you say that?” Becky asks.
“I accept the harsh reality of it. Society spent millions on people who no longer served a purpose. They use up resources but do provided jobs for those who give them care,” Chad says.
“Let me tell you, when I forget how to wipe my own ass or what boobs are for then it’s Old Yellow time,” Ethan breaks in to cut the tension.
Becky snickers.
“What’s funny, little girl?” Ethan asks.
“You do think about boobs a lot.”
“I’m a man. Of course,” Ethan says.
“Then what’s wrong with Emily?” Becky asks. “She has some. I don’t.”
“She doesn’t have any,” Chad points out.
“Did you tag along on this trip to try and hook me up with a fifteen-year-old girl? We’re not passing notes in gym class. I’m not interested,” Ethan says.
“Finding cans of cream corn isn’t all you have to look forward to. There are no rules anymore. If Emily’s too young, then Private Sanchez. Her eyes flash at you with a little more than respect,” Becky says.
“It won’t work.”
“What?”
“Don’t be coy. You’re pressing the issue until I cave and tell you my reasons for not choosing a mate. Never worked on me in my old job.”
“What was that?” Chad asks.
“There�
��s a betting pool, you know, as to what you used to do before the end of the world,” Becky says.
“Then it wouldn’t be fair to tell you unless we split the kitty,” Ethan points out.
“I’ll give you the whole cash if you tell me why you don’t want a girlfriend or wife,” Becky says.
“I don’t think it’s an option anymore. Partners would be better. Maybe even something more tribal. Everyone in the group raises the kids. Maybe you don’t even know who the daddy is and it’s socially acceptable,” Ethan says.
“Are you saying that everyone just sleeps with everyone?” Chad grins.
“The girls still have to want to sleep with you,” Becky jabs.
“Open relationships might be better. Husband and wife teams could never patrol together. Love would get them killed.”
“You’re so cynical,” Becky chides.
“I’m a realist. If trapped by a herd or forced into a hostage situation by the living, people will not be rational. They’ll protect their mate even if the choice kills the group,” Ethan says.
“People would still fall in love,” Becky says.
“Don’t have sex with anyone you don’t want,” Ethan says. “Love never lasts.”
Chad chimes in, “If no one bothers to keep track then won’t the next generation hook up with a brother or sister and not know it?”
“Does it bother you when he actually is insightful?” She smiles.
“A little.”
“Make jokes even when I’m right,” Chad pouts.
“Sounds like a problem for the next generation to hash out—if we even have one.”
THE BLACK MAN hands Tom a backpack. “A pistol and twenty rounds for each of you.”
Tom grabs the bag.
The man jerks it back, refusing to release it. “Don’t get any bright ideas. The rounds are still in a box. By the time you load one we’ll be gone.”
“Why hoard all the supplies but release us with guns?”
“We need everything to take back The Lou. We figure you’ll kill a few Zone-heads, which only helps us. Head west, cracker, and stay away from the caravan,” he warns.
No Room In Hell (Book 2): 400 Miles To Graceland Page 23