Dead Last: A Zombie Novel (Jack Zombie Book 8)

by Flint Maxwell

  “I have nowhere to stay. I can’t stay home, they’re looking at the house,” Mary says.

  “You can stay here,” I say. “Mother says she’d gladly keep you company.”

  And safe.

  “Really? She did?”

  I nod.

  Some relief shows on Mary’s face. She looks at least slightly relaxed. I imagine she’ll fall asleep as soon as she’s in the relative safety of Mother’s place.

  I put my hand in the middle of her back and guide her toward the door.

  “Don’t worry. Things are all going to get a lot better around here,” I tell her.

  She looks up at me with those wet eyes, and I find myself wanting to hug her, to assure her things will be more than okay, but I don’t.

  “Promise?”

  “I promise,” I say, then I stick my pinky out. “Pinky promise.”

  She laughs a young, carefree woman’s laugh, and it fills me with hope and happiness. Nick, awake and alert for the time being, sticks his little finger out, too, and I take it in my own, my heart swelling as I think about all the good times I shared with my own son.

  They go inside. Mother is sitting near the doorway in her wheelchair, blanket over her legs, a smile back on her face. She gives me a wave. I wave back, then I shut the door behind me.

  Abby stares at me like I’m a monster or something.

  “Wow,” she says. “I thought sensitive Jack went extinct a long time ago.”

  Grinning, I say, “I surprise even myself sometimes.”

  Lilly laughs.

  “Come on,” I continue. “Let’s get to the south side.”

  “And topple this empire!” Lilly says, whooping.

  Abby walks a little ahead of us, shaking her head.

  31

  We watch from the shadows about a mile from Mother’s place, on the south side of the shantytown.

  Three guys sit in the cab of a pickup truck. They’ve driven the vehicle right through someone’s house. The people that once lived there are outside of the ruins, picking through the debris for their belongings. I hope there was no one inside when the truck barreled through. Didn’t look like it hurt the truck at all, either.

  Sons of bitches.

  It’s one of those big trucks with even bigger wheels, sitting high up from the road. Reminds me of a tank. Back in the day, it was usually driven by some man who was insecure about the size of his penis. It must’ve rolled over the hovel without even bouncing on its shocks.

  One of the guys gets out. He’s tall and thin, skeletal. He laughs at the people as they dig through their belongings. Walks up to a middle-aged woman wearing a shawl over her head. Other people have inched out of their homes. They look on with a mixture of fear and gratitude, grateful it’s not their house that has been smashed to pieces by some hot-shot District collectors.

  I imagine we could stand out in the open now and no one would say a thing. We look worse off than most of the people who live here.

  The skinny guy stands about three feet from the woman in the shawl. She looks up at him slowly, fearfully, the way you might look up at a wolf you’ve stumbled upon in the wild. Still, her hand continues patting through the rubble. She finds something. I think, though I can’t see as clearly as I wish I could, that it’s a picture frame. Inside of it is probably one of the last vestiges of her old life, the life she had before the end of the world stole it from her. Maybe a lost son or daughter or mother, someone who had contracted the virus, who died, who came back as a monster. Without the picture, she might only remember the person as the monster they became, and that’s a truly scary thing, especially as the mind starts getting older and older, and memories grow weak.

  I touch the locket I wear around my neck, buried beneath my clothes. In it is the picture of my family, now gone. I have almost lost this necklace many times, and each time I do, I think I might die. I know how this woman feels, thinking the picture—if it is a loved one—is gone for good.

  Her twisted features relax as she pulls up the frame. It’s gold, glittering in the firelight from the torches.

  The driver, still laughing, kicks it out of her hands, then kicks the woman to keep her back. He picks up the frame, looks at it, makes a kissing face. He looks so fucking stupid. I want nothing more right now than to draw my gun and blow his face off.

  Steady, Jack, I tell myself. Steady. There are bigger fish to fry.

  One of the woman’s family members, a husband perhaps, makes a move toward the driver, but the driver pulls his pistol off his belt and points it at the guy’s head. All the fight goes out of the guy as soon as he’s looking down the barrel of the weapon.

  “Piece of shit,” Abby says.

  I can tell she’s seething, too, frothing at the mouth like a rabid dog wanting to attack anything that moves. I don’t blame her, can’t blame her. Thankfully, Lilly’s here to rein us in before we do something stupid. If headstones were still the norm, I think ‘Did Something Stupid and Got Himself Killed’ would eventually be writ across mine.

  Lilly puts a hand on each of our shoulders, gives me a reassuring squeeze.

  The driver’s examining the picture, really studying it—all for show, no doubt, all to just be an asshole. His friends get out of the truck. One’s fat, but in a powerful way, like a lineman in the NFL; the other’s about as skinny as the driver, with long, red hair. They’re all three covered in pockmarks, and I wonder why. Maybe it’s a form of torture used on the District soldiers. I wouldn’t doubt that one bit.

  Driver shows the picture to his buddies. They start yukking it up like it’s the world’s funniest joke, and I’m thinking, Seriously? Don’t these assholes have better things to do with their time?

  The driver drops the frame on the ground, steps on it with the heel of his boot. There’s a sickening crunch. I don’t know if it comes from the breaking glass or the poor woman’s heart.

  He digs around and pulls the crumpled photograph out of the new wreckage. Then he pulls out a big cigar. He sticks it in his mouth and says to the fat guy, “Got a light?”

  Fat Guy presents him with a book of matches, hands it over to Driver. Driver doesn’t light his cigar, though. He’s just chewing on it, slobbering all over the paper. Instead, he brings the match to the crumpled picture. It catches instantly.

  The woman screams in pain, like she’s the one on fire, not the photo, but soon, her scream is drowned out by the three idiots’ cackling.

  I stand up now, I can’t take it. I’m ready to risk it all just to kick these guys’ asses. As I stand up, I’m offered a better view of what’s in the back of the pickup.

  Bodies.

  Lots of bodies.

  It seems a wave of steam and stink rises off of them. Flies buzz sluggishly around limbs, there’s a congealed pool of blood, wide, unseeing eyes, and gaping wounds. I feel sick, nauseous for the moment, until Lilly and Abby both grab me simultaneously, and pull me down hard enough to make me take a seat on the ground.

  “Don’t,” Abby snaps. “Control it, Jack. I am. They’ll get theirs, don’t worry.”

  And I know she’s right, that they’ll get what they deserve, because I’ll make sure they do.

  The fat guy pushes the woman, who’s already on her knees, scrabbling at the ashes of her cherished photograph, and she falls backward nearly as hard as I did when Abby and Lilly pulled me down.

  My muscles are flexing, vein in my head throbbing.

  “Enough,” the driver says. “Find those bodies.”

  They leave the family, turning their backs on them, and head down the road. Whatever direction they look, the civilians peeking out from behind curtains or cracked doors disappear in a flash.

  This is our chance. I don’t discuss it with Lilly or Abby, I just move. I run while crouching, using the big pickup’s bulk to hide me. Pretty soon, I hear Lilly and Abby’s footsteps.

  We get to the tailgate, and the smell is so bad, it almost knocks me back to where I started.

  Lilly
gags, bringing a sleeve up over her mouth. That won’t do much good, though, I know that from experience. What we really need is a few gas masks for the stench.

  I boost Abby up. She doesn’t hesitate. She knows all about getting her hand dirty.

  “Cover up well, and make sure you look dead,” I tell her, then I’m looking at Lilly, and she is close to vomiting, her face a pale green color, her brow sweaty, teeth chattering. I give her a head nod in the direction of the truck bed. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath through her nostrils.

  “Oh, God,” she says.

  “Smell’s the weakest sense,” I reply. I heard that a long time ago on a cop show, after the detectives walked into a particular grisly murder scene. “It’ll go away before you know it.”

  “It’s not the smell I’m worried about. It’s bad, yeah, but I can deal with it.”

  “Hold on!” one of the collectors shouts. “Forgot my shovel!”

  It’s the fat guy. I peer around the pickup and see him jogging our way. Probably the first time he’s ever jogged in his life.

  “Now or never, Lill,” I say.

  She shakes her head and says, “Dammit, gimme a boost.”

  I do, and she slips in among the bodies. They’re silent, of course, but Abby is not. She grunts as Lilly lands on top of her. Luckily, they don’t rock the truck; unluckily, I’m not quick enough to get in before the fat guy is too close. If I jump in now, he’ll see me.

  So I drop down into the dirt and roll over to the other side.

  32

  I feel like James Bond or something. It’s ridiculous, a guy over six feet tall rolling around like a pig in the mud. I stop on the ground by the passenger’s side, looking under the truck at the big guy’s feet. There’s a chill in the air, but I’m sweating, and the wind is making that sweat run cold. To my left, because I’m leaning up against the back passenger’s wheel, the woman whose picture was burned is looking at me.

  She’s startled, brought out of her nightmare.

  I think she’s about to scream.

  I bring a finger over my lips. Shhhh.

  She continues staring at me. It’s like she’s never seen a human being before.

  Jesus, do I look that bad? I know I’m gaunt and pale and way too hairy, but am I so scary to this woman that I’m going to make her scream?

  In the background, two men—her husband and son, I’m guessing—look on with fear. They, too, think the woman is about to scream, yet they have a basic understanding of my situation.

  Mentally, I’m willing them to come over and soothe her before she can blow my cover. It’s not working. I don’t possess any psychic abilities like the Mothers. Unfortunately.

  Also working against me is Lilly and Abby. They’re both currently buried under a bunch of bodies that are disease-ridden and bloody; I bet they’re both trying to hold their breath because of the smell, because of the taste of death on the tips of their tongues. Any moment now, I know they can explode, sit up, gasp for breath, scream.

  Then it will all go to hell.

  Scratch that. We’ve been in hell for a long time now. The best I can do is just bide my time.

  I turn back toward the truck and look under it. I see the fat guy’s massive boots. He opens the driver’s side door. The truck rocks on its shocks as he leans in.

  I turn back to the woman. I mouth ‘Please’ to her and hold my hands out, fingers laced together, like I’m begging.

  She’s still looking at me, studying me.

  Oh God please don’t please don’t—

  I grab my gun and cock it because I think she just might blow my cover, and if I have to fight, you best believe I’m going to do exactly that.

  The woman steps forward. Her hands are smeared with soot, the ashes from her picture. Something changes in her expression. She no longer looks scared and defeated. Now she looks defiant, like she’s ready to start a rebellion.

  I know that look.

  God, I know that look all too well. She’s going to do something stupid. Something really stupid.

  She screams, screams unintelligible words in a voice so high that my skin prickles and my blood curdles.

  “What the fuck?” Fat Guy says from inside the truck, his voice muffled. He gets out. The truck springs up from the force of his weight no longer pressing down upon it.

  Now the woman is not only screaming, but running away from the ruins of her house.

  The older man with her shouts, “Kate! No!”

  She doesn’t listen, just keeps running. She whirls right past me and comes around the back of the truck. We catch eyes for a split second and then she’s back to being crazy. In that moment, I see she’s not crazy-crazy. She’s faking it. She’s helping us. She’s buying us time.

  “Hey, you little bitch!” Fat Guy says. “Hey, watch it!”

  I can’t see what she’s doing, but I hear slaps connecting. I think she’s slapped him a good one, started beating at him with her flailing limbs.

  I look under the truck. Two sets of feet—worn but intact boots and shabby sneakers, the soles duct-taped on—are tangled together until the shabby sneakers take off running across the other side of the road.

  “Get back here!” the fat guy shouts. “Get back here. I’ll fuckin’ kill you!” He takes off after her, though remarkably slower.

  This woman has possibly sacrificed her life for me. I’m beyond grateful, but I hate it. There’s no reason she should’ve done that, a complete stranger.

  Maybe she knows like Mother knows, little bro, Norm says. Maybe you’re like Jesus around here.

  “Shut up,” I mutter.

  I know he’s not real, I know he’s gone, but damn, I also know he’s trying to get on my nerves.

  Listen to yourself, he says, you’re losing it!

  “I know.”

  I risk a glance around the front of the truck, at the other two collectors. They’re standing a few hovels down from me, laughing and pointing. Driver’s got that cigar jutting from his mouth, it bobs up and down with each deep, rumbling guffaw.

  “Get back here!” Fat Guy shouts again. He sounds distant.

  The others are distracted. Now’s my chance.

  I slip around the back of the truck and slither over the tailgate, careful not to move too much, not to draw any attention to us. Luckily for me, I barely weigh anything these days. I’m a beanpole, though there’s more muscle on my body than ever. It’s not bulk, it’s a wiry strength one gets from traversing the wasteland and killing zombies all while nearly starving to death.

  On top of the bodies I go. Lilly and Abby are looking at me in sheer confusion. What’s happening? their eyes say, but I can’t risk talking.

  I nestle between them, my back against the wheel well, a dead man’s rank hair falling over my head. Flies crawl all over me. Maggots squish beneath my hips and legs. Congealed blood on the truck bed’s floor soaks through my clothes. It’s cold. The smell seems to get stronger, and the lurching in my stomach changes into a tsunami wave. I think I might throw up. I don’t, though…not yet, at least.

  With my free left arm, I grab one corpse’s legs by its bloodstained jeans and pull them over us like a blanket.

  Lilly has her rifle, but she has tucked it under her so it’s not visible. I think it would be hard to spot anyway, among the grayness and black of death here. But I keep my fingers on the butt of my handgun, ready to use it at a moment’s notice.

  Come to think of it, the three of us blend in pretty well. We aren’t too far from corpses ourselves.

  “This really sucks,” Lilly whispers. “Like, the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

  I shush her gently, but I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing myself silly. She’s right: this is easily the worst thing we’ve done, and I once jumped from a window twenty stories up.

  I don’t laugh, though. I just think to myself, Oh Darlene, Junior, and Norm, if you guys could see me now.

  And then we wait.

  33


  Each minute that ticks by in the back of the collectors’ truck is an eternity, it’s another second I get closer to vomiting, to blowing our covers.

  When I think I can’t take it anymore, the sounds of footsteps fill my ears.

  “You get the bitch?” a voice says. It’s Driver. I can tell because he still has that cigar in his mouth, and it makes him mumble.

  Fat Guy replies, “No. She got away. But I ain’t forgetting about her. The dumb broad cut my face with her dirty nails. Next time I find her or her fuckin’ family, I’m gonna cut their fingers off one by one.”

  “Sure you are,” says the third guy. “Come on, help us get these bodies inside. The doc’s gonna love this haul.”

  “Brady’s a crazy bastard,” Driver says. “Fuck him. I don’t care about the haul, just as long as I get to eat.”

  I keep my eyes closed. I try not to breathe. Try not to twitch. Suddenly, with the guys this close, I’m aware just how stupid this plan is. We are hiding in plain sight, barely covered by dead bodies. On top of the fact that it’s disgusting, there’s also the chance of contracting disease. I’m not too worried about that, but if Abby and Lilly got sick somehow, I’d blame myself.

  Drastic times call for drastic measures, little bro. You need a way into that lab, you need to get closer to the Overlord, and since I’m just a figment of your imagination and I can’t kill these assholes for you, you need to do something drastic. There’s so much damn security near the old Leering facility that you’d be shot dead before you got within a hundred yards of the place. Maybe that’d be a blessing, though, because if the Overlord gets his hands on you while you’re alive…oh boy, that wouldn’t be good.

  I mentally tell this voice to shut it, since I can’t risk talking aloud, can’t risk a slip-up. Now it’s time to focus.