Only The Dead Don't Die | Book 4 | Finding Home

by Popovich, A. D.

  The survivor, a white-collar man in a sweaty soot-covered suit, who looked like he had been to hell and back, made his way across the courts, waving away the embers. Dean headed for him when the tennis net burst into flames next to the girls.

  Scarlett took off with the cart where Twila hid. No doubt the child was lost in a meditative state. Luther hustled to Mindy and Ella and gathered them to the northern end of the courts as the ominous smoke slithered about.

  “Can’t see a damn thing!” Luther wheezed, struggling to fight back a hacking spell.

  With no time to greet the visitor, Dean grabbed a blanket from his cart and started beating down the tennis net’s flames. It was pointless.

  “Good God Almighty!” Luther’s cry of desperation.

  Ella screamed.

  Scarlett aimed the M4.

  “Now what?” Dean twisted toward their wild-eyed stares. He about had a heart attack at the horrific sight. A swarm of flaming bodies climbed the fence. Their shrilly cries stabbed at his eardrums. Was there no end to those bastards?

  Scarlett and Luther fired into the horde. Dean caught a fiery skull in the crosshairs of his Glock. One down, a hundred to go. Damn it all to hell! They needed their ammo for the Lost States.

  Dean made the tough call. “Save your ammo. Only get the ones that make it over the fence,” Dean shouted.

  The heat and the toxic stench of melting asphalt was getting the better of him. But the fear of not making it kept him sane. By God, I’ve got women and children to protect. Sometimes he had the notion they were the only reason he remained on this god-forsaken planet.

  The shrieking in the background turned out to be sirens. The smoke began to dissipate with the wind’s sudden shift. From what he could see, the grass fire had burnt itself out, except for scattered spot fires in the distance. Sirens blasted closer. He had been wondering if Tent City or Last State would send in the fire department.

  “Holy shit!” Justin piped.

  Dean turned in the kid’s direction. The fence-climbers had finally bit the dust, burnt to a skeletal crisp. Their charred skinless fingers clutched the chain-link like cicada skins in a hokey scene right out of a grade-B horror movie.

  The newcomer made a run for the north gate when a fire truck pulled into the sports park’s parking lot. He bounded off for Tent City.

  “We better get moving.” Dean corralled everyone out.

  Dean shoved his cart onto the burnt grass. Was the ground too hot? He tapped the smoldering ground gingerly with his boots. The soles might melt a bit. Better than his feet.

  Dean did a mental rollcall, making sure the gang had exited the courts. “How’s my little munchkin?” Dean patted the top of Scarlett’s basket.

  Twila poked her head out long enough to reveal her flushed, tear-streaked face. It must have been unbearable for her, feeling the newly Infecteds’ pain and fear.

  Scarlett replaced the tarp. “Stay down.”

  A firefighter crew hosed down the embers. It looked like they had the fire contained due to the lack of fuel and flat terrain.

  “Say, Luther,” Dean shouted. “Hold up the rear. I need to talk to Justin.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Dean scurried to the front of the line. More immigrants approached from the south. “Justin, wait up.” Dean slowed down his panting. He was too old for this sorted life.

  “Guys,” Justin belted out, “we’ve got to get in Tent City’s gates before the military gets here.”

  Justin had spent some time in the notorious Tent City, smuggler’s paradise. “What are our chances of securing passage—with all these people to contend with?” Dean asked, trying to think as clear-headed as possible.

  “Well, they don’t know the lingo,” Justin yipped. “I do.”

  “Give it to me straight. Are you absolutely sure we can buy our way across Zoat?” Dean braced himself for the answer. This entire time, escaping Last State had been his sole focus.

  “We have to. Or what’s the freakin’ point!” Justin’s voice tremored with threatening tears.

  Reality cold-cocked Dean square in the jaw when he realized they were bound to lose someone in this impossible plight . . .

  Chapter 28

  Justin Chen anxiously scanned Tent City’s entrance for Enforcers as he and his friends sought refuge along with a bazillion white-collared Zoners. The sandbagged wall that stretched as far as the eye could see was an add-on since he’d been there earlier that year. It might hold back the regular slow-poke Zs. Not X-strains.

  Ella kept glancing at him with beseeching eyes, asking if they were going to be okay. Twila moaned from the cart while Dean and Luther pried him for info. Justin struggled to keep his cool. He just wanted everyone to shut the heck up. He didn’t see how they were escaping through a tunnel with two babies and a little girl, but he didn’t dare say it.

  “Don’t be so negative!” Twila screamed into his mind.

  “Chillax!” Justin clapped back mentally. From out of nowhere, a calming energy replaced his angst. He glanced back to see Scarlett smiling. It was the third time in the last two days she had sent him calming energy. He had to admit, her ability was awesome.

  He didn’t understand why it had taken him so long to accept his friends’ unique abilities. But he finally had. Sort of. Although why they had been gifted such lame superpowers irked him.

  Four Tent City guardsmen stood against the sandbagged wall’s entrance, overseeing the crowd. They were probably itching for a chance to play with their nifty riot gear. Justin led the way, following the narrow corridor into the city with pop-up stands lining both sides. This was where newbs bought supplies, only he had never seen so many sellers there. It rivaled the Zhetto Market.

  He turned back and nodded reassuringly at Dean’s irritated questioning expression. “Keep the line tight,” was all Justin said. From what he knew, the tunnels were at Zoat’s northwestern and southwestern borders about a half a mile past the tents and ramshackle huts.

  The electricity snaking up his tailbone forewarned the place was a ticking time bomb. Ready to explode. The crowd in front of him thinned as cits stopped to barter for last-minute supplies. It was the break they needed. He picked up the pace through the windy path of vendors shouting, “Tents! MREs! Sleeping bags! Camp stoves! Propane!”

  Justin wondered what the history books would say a hundred years from now—if humanity had a history to write. Texas had made the ultimate decision to save Americans by seceding from the Union and sealing itself off from the rest of the world. Or, it had violated every freaking amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

  As his history professor had once lectured, “History’s rewritten by its victors.” Justin finally grasped the significance of that profound statement. For the only way to know the truth was by living it. World leaders and their governments were built on a foundation of untruths—embolden lies—to further their personal agendas.

  “Boring!” Twila yelled.

  “Urg!” He had to mask his thoughts—if only from her. “Go back to your happy place and leave me alone.”

  Justin swore he heard Mateo and Starla fussing. He hurried his friends along, hoping the clatter of their carts and the vendor’s barking muted their cries.

  Finally, they made it past the small-time vendors attempting to cash in with their price-gouging antics. Life in Tent City had always been expensive. That’s why most resorted to smuggling in resources from the Lost States, making a living at the Zhetto Market. Only the Oklahoma and New Mexico border towns had pretty much been looted out, forcing smugglers to venture farther and farther into the Lost States—where the undead ruled the earth.

  Once out of the crowd, Justin stopped to get his bearings straight. The scene ahead could have been CNN footage of a third-world refugee camp, complete with the stench of piss, sweat, and Zoat’s rotting Zs. Tents and shanties stretched across the northwestern border, creating post-apocalyptic neighborhoods. As he recalled, vehicles were allowed in the east side entra
nce, where the well-off Zhetts lived in RVs, renovated buses, and vans.

  He scoped for a place to set up a temporary camp. Awesome, those guys are breaking down their site. “Dean, come with me. You guys hang back. I’ll wave you on if we can take their campsite.” The sooner he found a spot to park, the sooner he could start looking for the tunnel. He certainly wasn’t venturing deeper into the slums with babies—not until he had secured the tunnel passage.

  “You want us to stay—here?” Ella’s eyes blared.

  “I’ll only be a sec.” Justin kept the impatience out of his voice. The Ella he had first met would have totally freaked out by now. She was so much braver now.

  “I got them covered.” Luther fist-bumped him.

  “What’s on your mind?” Dean asked as they trekked toward the campsite where five men hastily packed their carts.

  “We need a place to hang ’til I find a tunnel,” Justin said in a low tone as they approached the men.

  “Guys, whas-up?” Justin drawled, acting cool.

  The grungy men glanced their way but ignored them.

  “Do you mind if we take your spot?” Justin asked as a group of well-dressed cits walked past warily; they didn’t have a chance.

  “Whatever gets you off,” the burly dude said.

  “Did you hear ’bout the horde just outside the city?” Dean asked.

  The burly dude stopped rolling his sleeping bag and eyed the eastern horizon. “Old-timer, that ain’t nothin’. Word on the street is, the Zones were invaded.”

  “Shit, yeah,” the taller guy garbled with a packed jaw of chew. Tobacco dribbled down his chin. “The Zones got more Infecteds than cits.”

  “Don’t get too comfortable here.” The burly man covered his cart with a tarp and started lacing a paracord through the tarp’s rivets and cart’s rungs. “They’re sending reinforcements to reclaim the defectors.”

  Justin wanted to test the waters. “Sooo, you guys found a tunnel—”

  Dean flashed him a “be careful” look.

  “Done with that. Only one tunnel left. The jackass charges an arm and a leg. Your best bet, in my humble opinion—” The burly dude eyed him for a second as if Justin might be an undercover agent, and then must have decided against it. “The Pecos is the ticket out of here.”

  “As in the Pecos River?” Dean asked.

  “They say, you can Uber a boat ride to the other side. But, you didn’t hear that from me.” The burly dude tugged the tie-downs and glanced at his buddies. “The site’s all yours. Catch you on the other side.”

  “Best of luck,” Dean offered as the men tromped off with their overladen carts.

  “Don’t much like the sounds of that,” Dean grumbled. “It’ll take days to get to the river with our precious cargo.”

  “No worries,” Justin said in response to Dean’s beleaguering expression. “We’ve got gold.” According to urban legend, the Uber boats were scams. They required the money upfront, and then the boat never showed up.

  Justin waved the gang over. “I’ll snoop around the Zoat border and check out the action.”

  “Son,” Dean practically wheezed, “don’t want you gallivanting ’round by your lonesome. Take good ol’ Luther. Doubt anyone will recognize you under that hoodie, hat, and those sunglasses. I’d better stay put. I don’t want to run into any of Mad Dog’s cronies.” He chuckled. “As I recall, we gave them a mess of rancid beans back at Boom Town.”

  “Your Awesomeness!” Justin quipped with an exaggerated hand-rolling bow. “You got Mad Dog that day.” But Mad Dog never forgot a vendetta. Payback was his middle name.

  “Whut up?” Luther said as everyone parked their carts.

  “Dean wants you to come with me to negotiate the,” Justin whispered, “tunnel passage.” He snatched the pharmaceutical pillowcase from the cart. Their campsite was several yards away from the others—until someone just decided to camp next to them.

  “Alrighty then, best you two get going,” Dean said, looking around.

  Justin reached out to hug Ella goodbye. Dean quickly stepped between them. Oops. They couldn’t show affection. Love you, Justin mouthed.

  Love you back, her sad puppy eyes answered.

  “Dude,” Justin said to Luther’s ear, “bring the gold. And act like you belong. But don’t look too intimidating.”

  “I get what you’re saying, bro.” Luther eyeballed the place. “This ghetto’s on the verge of rioting.”

  Luther was right. It was like Justin saw the insanity wafting in the breeze. The newbies wandered the camp with hopelessness stamped across their despondent faces, recklessly asking questions, begging to get scammed. The only reason Justin wasn’t tweaking out was he knew what Tent City was like. Although today, the insanity was an eleven on the scale from one to ten.

  He maneuvered through the crowd, switching on-and-off his eidetic memory as needed. Zoat Street backed up to Zoat and was where the hardcore smugglers did business. The stink so bad, even the homeless didn’t camp there. For some reason, his cool memory thing wasn’t detecting any tunnels. Had Last State shut them down? Probably only the ones he knew. There had to be others. Right?

  Luther grabbed his shoulder. “Check it.” Luther pointed to a long line of grungy Zhetts and well-dressed Zoners.

  There was only one way to find out. “C’mon.” Justin tugged Luther’s sleeve.

  They doubled-timed it to the back of the line. Justin tapped the scruffy man in front of him. “Excuse me, what’s this line for?”

  The man responded with an are-you-stupid stare.

  “Tunnel?” Justin husked under his breath.

  “Could be. If you got something they want,” the tight-lipped man finally answered.

  “Like LSCs?” Justin baited.

  The man spittled out a sputtering sigh. “Stupid-ass Zoner. LSCs are worthless.” The man turned his back on them.

  Justin offered a reassuring smirk to Luther. “This is it.” He readjusted his funky sunglasses and pulled the hoodie lower over his forehead. Stop stressing. Mad Dog had probably retired to that Montana ranch he always raved about.

  A rough voice blasted over the murmuring crowd. “What do you see?” Justin couldn’t stop his angst.

  “Two heavily armed men making their way down the line.”

  “The Toll Takers,” Justin presumed, reminding him of the ruthless bridge-builders they had encountered in the Lost States of America. Did they have enough to get all six adults out of Last State?

  The two Toll Takers reached the man in front of him. They spoke in hushed tones. The man handed him a large brown bag. The Toll Taker in a Jimi Hendrix muscle shirt opened it. “Hell, ought to shoot you for being a dumb ass.” He threw the offering to the ground. Not a good sign.

  The Toll Takers stopped beside Justin and Luther. “Whatchu got?” The guy in the muscle shirt rubbed his greedy fingers.

  Relieved, Justin didn’t recognize them. “There’s six of us,” Justin started, flashing open the pillowcase of pharmaceuticals. He knew to start low to see what he could get. Then seal the deal with the gold.

  Apparently, the dude in the muscle shirt was the head Toll Taker. He sneered and snatched the pillowcase, pillaging through it. “Expired shit.”

  “Duhhh,” Justin slurred, counting on his careless quirky attitude to ease their bad-ass façades.

  The head guy nabbed a prescription bottle from the bag. “Viagra—don’t mind if I do. Not that I got a problem.”

  “Hey, I want a cut.” The other Toll Taker grabbed the booty bag.

  Luther was dying to say something. Justin elbowed him. It was customary to get a piece of the action before getting down to business.

  “Penicillin.” The jerkweed smiled, revealing a mouth of broken teeth.

  “So, we’ve got six.” Justin reeled them in while their moods were good. He pulled out two bottles of pain pills he’d been saving. “These will take off the edge.”

  “I’ma liking this kid,” the head guy sa
id to his sidekick. “Not so sure about your friend.” He looked Luther up and down through squinted eyes.

  “He’s cool.” Justin smirked wider, his mouth sore from faking the smile so long.

  The head guy grunted. “This’ll get ya two one-way tickets out of Shit City.”

  “All six of us—or no deal.” Luther’s deep voice cut through the fake niceties. “Hypothetically, what’s the going rate per person—in gold?”

  The two men laughed obnoxiously like it was a hilarious joke. “More than you got,” the guy in charge spouted.

  Asswipes. Justin and Luther laughed with them.

  “The going rate as of now”—the head guy looked at his watch—“ten ounces per head. But it goes up. Whenever I say it does.”

  Regular Zhetto coins were only minted with one-twentieth of an ounce of gold, too bulky to conceal large amounts. But the gold credit cards were ninety-nine percent gold. Easy to carry and conceal. Justin caught the faint smile curling the corners of Luther’s mouth. They had enough gold. Luther reached into his pocket.

  The Toll Takers’ guns came out, cocked and ready.

  Justin raised his hands in the air. “Guys, chill.”

  A stone-faced Luther held out Zac’s CombiBars with a steady hand.

  The head guy’s eyes bugged-out like a horny Z. “Elite gold? Damn, boy. Where’d you—” He bit into it. “Sweeet.” He admired his bite marks. “Get the boss on the line.”

  His sidekick called into the handheld radio, “Hey, scumbag, you there?”

  “What you want, shithead?” the guy on the other end roared.

  Justin’s heart ricocheted against his chest. It was Mad Dog . . .

  The head Toll Taker grabbed the radio. “Got a party of six.”

  “We’re booked,” Mad Dog grated. “Why ain’t you on point, watching for those tanks.”

  “Tanks?” Justin whispered, meeting Luther’s wary gaze.

  “Ah, that’s Pinky’s detail, remember, boss?” The head Toll Taker twirled his fingers around his ear and whispered, “I done told him that after lunch. He must be tweaking out on something,” he whispered to his partner with his hand over the radio. “Boss, you’re gonna want this. Elite gold.”