“The living leaves a heat signature, and I can easily pick it up with my scope. If they’re cold as, well, a fucking dead person, I blow their fucking head off. Case closed.”
“Recently deceased people still have a small amount of heat.”
“Nah.” Barry dismissed her with a wave of his hand as he scanned the highway behind them. “They die and the heat goes with them. It only takes a few minutes. My daddy was a doctor, trust me.”
“Your daddy was a doctor?” Darlene asked skeptically.
Barry winked at her. “He was a janitor in the state hospital in Rhode Island. Same thing. He knew stuff.”
“By that logic I’m a five star general.” Darlene held up her Desert Eagle semi-automatic. “I know how to shoot a gun at things.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Barry wiped the sweat from his forehead. Even in his early sixties, Barry had more energy than most of the people she’d met. His wiry gray beard stopped right below his large ears, his head bald and sunburned. A single diamond earring in his left ear was his only jewelry, his clothes nondescript. He wore over-sized work boots and carried a hunting rifle with his bedroll and supplies tied to his back. A Beretta PX4 was always in his hands.
They’d been moving steadily south for three days, with Barry and Darlene part of the Rear Guard. Six groups of two were spread out across a half-mile line, and the occasional sound of a weapon discharging had become so common that no one bothered to investigate unless signaled.
Darlene was the only female in the Rear Guard and only because she was one of the few females that had a weapon and knew how to use it. It was better than being on the Death Squad or on the Scavengers.
“It will be light soon,” Darlene said. She didn’t know if the nights or the days were worse; at night the undead would enter their flashlight range from out of the blackness, rotting limbs and gore-streaked clothing. The males were the worst, with engorged dicks and wagging tongues. During the day it was easier to see them, but it was easier to see how many followed the group. Sometimes the road took them past a large metropolis and hundreds of the former residents would get in behind them.
Barry estimated that they’d been leading over twenty thousand behind them at this point, shuffling slowly from New Haven, Connecticut to their present location just south of Baltimore. It was pretty impressive when you considered that they currently had about two hundred living people in their makeshift caravan. The odds were against them.
“We need to get moving a bit faster,” Barry said loudly. The rear walkers of their group were right behind them, the slow and the weak stragglers. Several times each night they would be yelled at, pushed and cajoled or risk behind left behind.
Darlene was reminded of the ambush in Weehawken in Jersey about ten nights ago, when scores of undead came from all sides and wedged them into a parking lot, where they used too much ammunition and lost too many living to escape. Most of the ‘back group’ had been sacrificed, torn to pieces as the healthier broke free and got away.
It seemed like every few miles another two or three living would hear them coming, see the spotlights from the trucks, buses and cars and join them, bringing whatever food and weapons they had.
There was no organization. Six military men, still in uniform and using their Army lingo and hand signals, were trying to lead the group toward an unspecified rendezvous point due south. Darlene hadn’t bothered to speak with them personally. They seemed either too shell-shocked or too arrogant to deal with.
Barry had been to the front of the group each day to get the same orders as the last: guard the rear, shoot the undead and keep people moving. So far they’d done a serviceable job of it.
Darlene had been in the group about three weeks, hooking up with them just outside of the Connecticut/New York border. At first she’d followed at a safe distance. The last large group she’d encountered before that had been in Buffalo, a militia faction from upstate that had taken the apocalypse as reason to kill the living and the undead. She’d escaped with her life and only a few bruises.
“Incoming,” Barry said.
Three silhouettes appeared just beyond flashlight range. “Living,” Jonathan shouted from their left. He was in his late teens, a gangly kid with glasses and a few wisps of a moustache. He’d been the first person to befriend Darlene and to recommend her for the Rear Guard.
They stopped and watched warily as the three approached. Lately the living were presenting problems as well, with beggars and thieves latching onto them. Two nights ago a man, who everyone thought had been paralyzed from his waist down in an attack and who rode on the back of one of the pickups, tried to highjack the truck with a box cutter. He had perfect use of his legs, running away when his robbery was thwarted.
One of the military men had put a bullet cleanly through the back of his head at fifty paces and they’d left the body.
“Hands where I can see them,” Barry said. When they got to within ten feet he stopped them with a raised hand. “How can we help you?”
The three were filthy. Darlene could smell the rot from where she stood, gun trained on the oldest one’s head. It seemed to her that the survivors were getting sorrier by the day.
“We need help, that’s all, some food and safety. I’m Russ.” He held his hands up and tried to smile. “We just need help.” Darlene thought he was in his late forties but it was hard to tell with all the dirt caked on his face and clothes.
“This is Tiff, she’s my daughter.” The girl looked to be around Jonathan’s age. She was looking down at her feet and her hands were shaking. Her dress had been torn and besides mud she had streams of dried blood coating it.
Russ turned to the third member of his party, another man covered in muck. “I’m sorry, I can’t remember what your name –“
Jonathan shot the girl between the eyes.
It took several seconds for Darlene to register what had happened. Russ wailed and fell upon his daughter’s body while the Rear Guard took a step or three back, guns before them.
“Did you smell her?” Jonathan asked.
“You did well. Believe me, you did well,” Barry said. “She was ripe and she would have been dead soon enough.”
Russ stood, tears streaking his dirty face, and made an angry lunge toward Jonathan. Darlene put her pistol to the man’s head. “She was dying and you know it.”
“She was getting better; we just needed food and rest. And you killed her.”
“She would have killed you,” Darlene whispered.
Russ turned his eyes to Darlene. “She was my daughter.”
“In a couple of hours she would have been like all the rest, and she would have killed you and everyone here if we’d have let you join us.”
Russ fell to his knees. “She was the reason I was alive, she saved me back there. She saved her father’s life.” He started to cry again.
Darlene pointed her gun at the third member of their group. “What’s your story?”
The man audibly gulped. “I’m Daniel. I’m just in need of some food, looking to join you guys and get to safety. I just met them yesterday and stayed away from her when she got bit, I swear. I have a .357 in my right pocket with three bullets left. I was planning on using one on her if I had to.” He smiled and nodded at Jonathan. “You saved me a bullet.”
Barry nudged Russ with the toe of his work boot. “What now?”
Russ looked up at him. “What do you mean?”
Barry glanced over his shoulder. “While we’ve been here talking the group has moved off, too far for comfort. If anything is around they’ve heard the gunshot and are on their way to eat us. We need to move right now.”
“Okay.” Russ wiped his eyes with a filthy sleeve and bent to pick up his daughter.
“I don’t think so.” Barry gripped the man by his arm. “She’s been infected, and we don’t know if it spreads any other way besides the biting and the, uh, other ways. Besides, we only have a few pickups and trucks and we use them to c
atch an hour or two of sleep. Space is limited; we can’t carry the dead with us.”
“I won’t leave her.”
“That’s your prerogative,” Barry said and turned away. “Good luck.”
The Rear Guard jogged to catch back up with the group, Daniel in with them.
Darlene hoped that the man came to his senses and left the body, but she doubted he would. More than likely he’d be overrun by zombies and they’d rip him apart before starting on her corpse. She supposed it was better that it was still dark. She’d only be able to hear his screams. Eventually, during a rest stop, father and daughter would catch up to them and Barry would blast them both between the eyes. It never failed.
The newest member, Daniel, moved forward to see if he could be useful while the Rear Guard continued to patrol and scan the horizon for undead.
An hour later they were relieved, and they climbed onto a nearby pickup truck and spread out as much as possible. Darlene, Barry and Jonathan were joined by five others, who Darlene knew by face but not by name.
“Another day, another death,” Barry said. He rubbed his bald head and then his eyes. “I hope I can sleep.”
“I wish I could sleep with my eyes open. Closing them shows me too many bad things.” Jonathan leaned his head against the side of the truck. “I wonder if the Scavengers found any food. I can’t remember the last time I ate.”
“I can’t remember the last time I had a decent meal,” Darlene said.
“I can. It was at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket. Two Monster Dogs, cheese fries and three draft beers.” Barry closed his eyes and grinned. “I’d give my left nut for a Monster Dog right now.”
“Gross,” Darlene said but laughed. “I’d give anything for a nice Maine lobster right now.”
“You from Maine?” Barry asked.
“Born and bred. Just outside of Dexter.” Darlene patted her Desert Eagle. “My daddy actually made this pistol in the factory and bought it for me and trained me on its proper use.”
“Touching,” Jonathan said. Everyone laughed.
“Anyone have any idea how this shit started?” a woman asked. She was fit and in her thirties but only wore dirty ripped jeans and a soiled bra. This was the first time Darlene had heard her speak even though some shifts they walked a few paces apart on Rear Guard. Darlene had no idea what her name was.
“That voodoo guy in Montreal who killed his kids,” someone said.
“Nah, it was the oil spill in the Gulf that brought up those black creatures, I saw it on CNN right before the TV went out.”
“I know for a fact it was because that pilot in Alaska crashed and had to eat his wife and son. It was like mad cow disease.”
“It’s because we’ve pissed off God and he’s purging the earth of the sinners.”
“Hell was full.”
“I saw that story about the chick with O.C.D. and she swears when she stopped counting shit this shit happened.”
“Some crazy fucker had sex with a green monkey and instead of another strain of AIDS in created undead.”
Darlene curled up and closed her eyes. “Good night, my friends.” No one knew the real reason and she didn’t want to hear another thirty conjectures before she slept.
“Night,” Barry said, followed by the rest.
Her dreams were troubled but she woke a few hours later and couldn’t remember them. She was always thankful for that. They’d all gotten used to the rough ride on the back of the trucks and flatbeds, sneaking as many winks as possible before going back to their job.
“Where’s Jonathan?” Darlene asked Barry. He was already sitting on the tailgate of the truck watching the sun creep slowly on the horizon.
“Military guy came by about an hour ago. Jonathan was awake so they recruited him.”
“For what?”
The pickup stopped and everyone shook off their meager sleep and hit the ground.
“We’re running short of everything again, especially fuel. There is a library a block or two over and it looks intact.” Barry pointed at the road they’d come from. “There’s a huge mass of the dead about a mile behind us, maybe a thousand. We’re moving way too slow to outdistance them, so we might try to hole up and let them pass.”
Darlene slapped the side of the pickup truck and it stopped. They hopped off the back and immediately followed along with everyone else, a stream of bodies heading through a convenience store parking lot.
Two men carrying baseball bats stood outside the shattered store. “It’s already been picked clean,” one of them said to Darlene when she looked their way.
“She does have a great ass,” the other man said to his partner, loud enough for Darlene to hear. She ignored it. She’d seen enough sexual violence in the last month or so, either done to her or by the undead to others, to last a lifetime and to keep her dreams filled with terror and death. The last thing she needed was sex. “Who are you trying to kid?” she whispered. Without trying to seem obvious she glanced back at the man to see what he looked like. He was handsome, rugged and dirty like everyone else. He was also smiling and staring at her. She turned away.
“Let’s get the hurt inside,” someone kept shouting over and over from the steps of the library, a small building with glass windows. As she stopped on the steps to let people file past her she could already see the efficiency of the group: wooden boards were being used as covering on the windows, both shattered and intact, while three men were dragging the tables and chairs outside to use as kindling or for the defenses. An older woman began whittling on a chair leg with a pocketknife.
One of the military men approached her. “You Death Squad?”
“Rear Guard.”
“You’re Death Squad now.” He pointed to a sickly old man sitting on the back of a pickup truck. “Take him over to the next block and take care of it. He won’t last another hour.”
Darlene swallowed hard. “I’m Rear Guard.”
“Right now you’re helping all of us to stay alive by taking dying people and shooting them in the head.” He eyed her. “Do it.”
“Sir, yes sir,” she said sarcastically but he was already turned away from her. Darlene went to the back of the pickup truck. The man was in bad condition, with a plethora of cuts and bruises. His thumb was sheared from his left hand and it was wrapped in a dirty shirt, a bandage around his head, blood seeping through the soiled cloth from his eye socket.
“I need some help,” Darlene said to the driver as he got out of the truck.
He smiled and shook his head. “I’m just the driver, I ain’t the Death Squad.”
“Dickhead.”
“Bitch.”
Darlene closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. This day was getting worse and worse. The prospect of holing up in a library with a roof over her head and perhaps some food and water kept her going. “Hurry up, bitch, and get this done so we can relax for a bit,” she whispered.
“Let’s go.” She helped him off of the truck.
The fear was plainly sketched on his face.
“I can do this, I have to do this,” she whispered. She tried not to look at him again, preferring to ignore the fact that she’d have to kill an innocent person before he died and tried to kill her. It didn’t make it any easier. She took the Desert Eagle out and held it low as they moved.
A block away they stopped. “I’m sorry,” was all she could muster. Darlene had begun to cry at some point.
“Let me go,” he said. “My name is Paul. What’s your name?”
Darlene shook her head. “No names.”
“I promise I’ll get as far away as possible, clear across this city.”
Darlene hesitated. How far could he really get on his own before he died or was attacked and turned into a zombie? “I can’t.”
“You can, you can. Does it make a difference if we’re killed out there or by another living person’s hand at this point? Can you have that on your conscience? I know I couldn’t kill another human being.” The old man shif
ted on his feet. “Turn away and we’ll be gone.”
“I can’t risk that. What if you died and came back and killed me? Remembered me or where we were hiding?”
“Do you really think those mindless things can do that?”
“I don’t know. I can’t take a chance.” Darlene held the gun at eye level. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“But you can,” Paul pleaded falling roughly to one knee and folding his hands together in prayer. “You’re better than this, I know you are.”
Darlene tried to keep her hand steady as she held the pistol. She needed one clean shot to his head to end it, and her violent shaking might force her to shoot him a second or third time before he died. She didn’t want to pull the trigger once, let alone another.
“You’re good people, raised right, I know you are,” Paul was saying, words rushing out of his mouth now as he pleaded for his life. “I’m fine, I feel better, and I could walk back with you to the library or help you find us some food and water. I could be your servant, yes, I could, help you with your patrols and watch over you while you sleep.” Paul tried to stifle a coughing fit.
“I can’t. Stop talking.” Darlene lowered the weapon and rubbed her temple with her free hand.
“I have a wife out there, and grandchildren.” Paul stood slowly. “I have pictures of the grandchildren in my wallet, let me show you little Michael.”
One moment the old man was standing there, trying desperately to look fit and trim despite the fact that his feet kept buckling under and his many cuts were bleeding. The next his head shattered, spitting gore and crimson and death several feet in any direction.
Darlene moved by instinct, the last weeks of running taking her over the edge and beyond. Before she could catch her breath or blink she’d already lifted the Desert Eagle and pulled the trigger twice to her immediate right.
“Oh my God.” She went to Jonathan just as he fell, his .357 slipping from his grip. His eyes were wide and unseeing, two bloody holes growing on his chest.
Jonathan had come out of nowhere when he’d shot the old man. “Why didn’t you say something? Why not show yourself before doing that?”
Highway To Hell (Dying Days Book 1) Page 7