Deadies: Book 1, 2 & 3

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Deadies: Book 1, 2 & 3 Page 8

by Krystell Lake


  “She’s good. I’ve trained her well.” Nick interjected on my behalf.

  “I’m sure you have.” Joe smirks. What is up with this overtly chatty Joe? Please go back to no comment Joe. I like him better.

  “Let’s talk to Doc and get the location and get moving before its dark.”

  “Wait.” Joe raised his hand as Nick turned to leave the kitchen. Nick stops just as I do. “Are we going to give this prick a gun?”

  “We have to. He’s going to have to be able to defend his self against the freaks. When this is all over I know you have the ability to seize the gun from him. He is a plastic surgeon. He may be able to give you pec implants but I know you can disarm a civilian.”

  Point made. Joe grinned at the obvious stated truth. I smiled as I envisioned Marine Joe with his knee in Doctor Mark’s neck.

  Nick, Joe and I returned to the common area. All grew quiet as we entered and took various stances amongst the other five survivors.

  “So what was the private meeting about?” I knew Michelle wouldn’t be able to stay quiet for long. Her question was directed at Nick. Oddly she hadn’t realized that nine times out of ten he ignores her and today was no different.

  “So where are your ex-wife and son?” Nick asked the doctor.

  Doctor Mark is sitting on the couch next to his daughter. He looks up at Nick, hopeful, eager, anxious. “My ex lives in Mundelein”

  “How far away from here is that?” Nick ran his fingers through his greasy blonde hair.

  “About an hour.”

  “It will be dark soon, we need to get our shit packed up and hit the road.” Nick said.

  “What do I pack? I never stepped foot outside this house since I got here.” Mark admitted, frustrated by his own inadequacy.

  Nick gazed over at me. “The basic survival gear, flashlight, walkie, water, Jesse will help you get it together.”

  I will? Doctor Mark glanced at me and nodded, his eyes willing but apprehensive. He was at the cusp of breaking down.

  “Hey Doc, don’t forget the cellphone. We might have to use it when we get to Mundelein.”

  We spent the next thirty minutes gathering up our gear and concocting our little rescue plan. The plan was fifty percent Joe and fifty percent Nick. They worked well together. Maybe I was wrong to think they were not genuine friends. Since I was a loyal and faithful disciple of Nick’s it really didn’t matter to me. I cosigned whatever Nick said and did.

  It was time to hit the road. Everyone watched as we loaded backpacks on our back and guns in our waistbands. Doctor Mark kissed Kait on her cheek and gave her a hug that lifted her off her feet. Kait was holding back tears.

  “Dad, I know you can bring them back.” Kait whispered and I was sure I was the only other person in the room to hear her declaration. Although she was talking to her father, her words gave me the kick in the ass I needed. Cool words, from a cool kid.

  Our descent through the garage and out the back of the house goes off as planned. There are no deadies in sight. I take this as a sign of good luck. Thank God for small miracles or is he the cause of all this? Doctor Mark and Joe will ride together in the Escalade. Nick and I will take his grand chariot, the Camaro. This beat up dusty black Camaro saved my life and when I see it a smile radiates on my insides.

  We quickly load are gear into our vehicles. We don’t have much but you never know what could happen out in Zombieland, USA. We quickly pull away from the old postal house. Nick and I file behind Doctor Mark who is driving the truck about twenty miles over the speed limit. Seatbelts seem so unnecessary so I don’t buckle mine but I do give it some thought. Old habits die hard and sometimes they just die.

  I sat next to a man I thought of as fearless. His demeanor is my anchor of strength. I placed my back against the passenger door so I could get a good look at him. I noticed a pack of cigarettes sitting in the opened astray. Nick smelled like cigarette smoke the day he picked me up on interstate fifty-five but I had never seen him smoke a cigarette.

  “Are those your cigarettes?” I asked as if they could belong to someone else, stupid question Franjessca.

  “Yeah,” He said but didn’t bother to grace me with his blue-gray eyes.

  “I have never seen you smoke. Why is that?”

  “I quit the day I found you. I don’t know why? It just happened that way.” He half shrugged off his explanation.

  “Jesse.” Yes that’s my name. Why did he call me when I’m looking straight at him? “I want to loan you something.” Nick reaches under the seat and grabs his Glock. “This is my good luck Glock, my favorite gun.” Geez, he has a favorite gun. I used to have favorite Christian Louboutins. “I will loan it to you today.”

  “I have the other gun you gave me, the Colt.” A nice beautiful black Colt .45 1911 semiautomatic handgun, I call her Tyra.

  “I know but two guns are better than one.” He hands his Glock 19 Gen 4 over to me. It’s a really nice gesture and that’s one of the many reasons I like this man, maybe love.

  I take the Glock and place it on the floor in front of me. “Thanks.”

  “Do-not- stray away from me. Do-not-get yourself killed. Do-not-lose my good luck Glock.” Nick gazes over at me as he scolds me. I refrain from laughing because I find this rather loving albeit threatening rant rather comical.

  “Yes dear.” I forge a ladylike smirk that forces Nick to sneer.

  “Baby girl you’re going to drive me bat-shit-crazy.”

  “Yeah I know.” I smile widely. Our communication may not be deep and profound but it is representative of the trials we’ve endured since the deadies came into our lives. I was ready to dig deep and learn a little about my own personal Peter Parker but he beat me to the punch.

  “Tell me something.” Nick put on his serious voice, a slight variation from his non-serious voice.

  “Sure what?”

  “When we first met, I asked you if you ever killed a freak.” He glanced over at me. “You said that you hadn’t. What was that?”

  Shit! He caught me in a lie, not a big lie but a lie nonetheless. “Yeah I lied because we just met. I didn’t know you. I was a woman out here all by myself. People judge me by the way I look. They think I’m stupid and helpless. So I have lied, played helpless and stupid just to get by. Bad things have happened while I was on my own, really bad things. I wasn’t sure I could trust you so I wasn’t honest, initially.”

  “It’s not a thing. I just wondered about it.”

  “I killed one yeah but it was Laura my neighbor. I know she was a deadie but it’s still hard to admit.” Time to change the subject, I had explained enough. I felt like I was blathering. “You never told me your story. How did you learn about the deadies?”

  “There’s not much to tell?” Nick gripped the steering wheel with one hand.

  “This is not an appropriate time to be mysterious? We have an hour long drive.”

  He sighs and glares over at me. Am I nagging him? “What is it you want to know?” He concedes and I feel a slight victory on the side of feminist.

  “Where were you when you saw your first deadie?” I’ve wanted to know this the first day I met Nick but I had just survived running from a horde of deadies. I could barely hold a decent conversation. That situation was not an appropriate time for twenty questions.

  Nick was my savior and the personification of bravery. I was sure that his story was heroic in some way or another. Did it involve a burning building, an elderly lady or a handicapped wheelchair bound person? He is my fierce sexy hero. Oh Nick, Nick, Nick. I love running my fingertips over his abs and down to the trail of hair that crept from his hotspot. Oh how I would rather be naked with Nick then on this damn rescue mission.

  Nick looked over at me and frowned as I daydreamed. All four creases in his forehead were prominent. “Baby girl, you still here?”

  “Yeah, start talking.” I instructed. “Tell me your story.”

  “I was at my shop. I own an auto body shop in Aurora. I was
there with one of my mechanics. We were closing up and we were waiting on one last customer to pick up his car. I put a new transmission in and the customer called the shop ten minutes before we closed. He wanted us to wait for him. He said he would show up in ten minutes. He gave my mechanic the traffic is backed up, there was an accident on I-eighty-eight bullshit. It wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t have a problem with staying a little longer. I really needed to work on this Pontiac’s carburetor.”

  “What day was this?” Curiosity struck me. My first encounter with a deadie was July tenth.

  “July eighth, it was the day after it first appeared on the news. They made it seem like it was a virus that was confined to a small population on the west side of Chicago. I remember the first mention of it was in China. My first thought was it was something like Sars. What’s weird is how quickly it spread. I mean it was unreal. One day there are people everywhere going about their day then it’s like half the population is dead or infected.”

  Nick gazed out the window. Maybe he was remembering something from the past, something upsetting.

  “Well anyway I was working under a car, in the hole, you know under the car. I heard a scream. Not really a scream. It was more like a series of screams. It was a man screaming just like he had ovaries, just like in a horror movie. I couldn’t recognize the screams. They were coming from the customer waiting area. I know it wasn’t Greg.”

  “Greg?” Is Greg a customer or an employee?

  “My mechanic, I called out to Greg. He was standing on the other side of the car I had jacked up. Greg bent down under the car and asked me where the screams were coming from. I didn’t have a clue so I told him to get his ass down here with me. He was really skinny. He slid under the car and into the hole with me. I wanted to crank the car down some but I thought whoever it was might hear it or see it so I decided to nix that idea.”

  Nick tapped the steering wheel twice with his thumb. “I always keep my loaded Glock in the hole where I work, precautionary measure. Some punks tried to rob my shop about a year ago. They didn’t succeed. My shop is in Aurora, there’s crime and gangs and you know the riverboat casino is out there so all types come through. I grabbed my Glock and me and Greg ducked down in the hole. There was all this banging and shit. Honestly I thought we were getting robbed. Then there were the sirens and helicopters. It was like one minute it was quiet then after the screams there was noise everywhere, car horns, police cars, fire trucks, fucking everything. We just stayed down and then I saw two sets of legs just walking around the garage going in circles. There was a lady will filthy scrapped up and scarred legs. She had one dirty bare foot and a sandal on the other foot. Then there was a man with dusty black leather loafers. I’m peeking up at them like what the fuck.”

  Nick tilted his head toward me as he recalled the events as they occurred to him.

  “First I’m a little confused then I’m fucking pissed. I wanted to jump out the hole but I’m trying to talk myself into staying put. I knew that if I jumped out the hole I was going to shoot to kill. I really didn’t want to take someone’s life but I was fucking pissed. Greg whispered to me ‘shoot them in the leg’. I thought about it but I was so pumped up. I wanted to reclaim my shop. I didn’t know if there were more of them or what. These bastards were just walking around in circles. I had enough so I yelled out ‘get the fuck out of here now’.”

  Nick looked over at me and then turned back to the open road. “The man’s legs stopped right at the edge of the hole. I thought he was going to try and jump down in the hole with us. So I just shot him in both legs. It was real quick ‘pop, pop’ and he was down. That’s when we saw his face. His skin was gray, wrinkled and caved in. He’s eyes were fucking huge. He looked like he had cancer or something. But he looked like he died from it a long time ago. He was in a suit and tie that was dirty with mud. I thought it was mud but it was blood, gooey, thick and murky. I had shot him in both legs but suit and tie was still moving, trying to drag his way to us with legs that didn’t work. I had only wounded him. The female stepped right over him. She started banging on the car windows. She hit the driver’s side window so hard she broke the fucking glass out.”

  Nick glanced back over at me as if he couldn’t believe his owns words as he rehashed them. “The guy was on the ground moaning and shit. He had gross black shit running out of his mouth. I cranked the car up and me and Greg got out the hole on the passenger side. The one shoe chick came running around the car right at us like an escaped mental patient. She was bloody and topless. The entire top half of her body was covered in blood. There was a big ass hole in her side by her hip. Greg yelled out ‘shoot this bitch’ so I shot her in the chest. I know I hit her in her heart. I’m a good shot but she kept on coming. She was right up on us and I popped her right in the head, one shot and she was out. We went around to the other side of the car and suit and tie was breaking his finger nails off trying to claw his way to us. I just walked up to him and bent down on one knee and put the gun to his temple and pulled the fucking trigger.” Nick shrugged his words off like shooting someone in the head was an everyday occurrence.

  I waited for more of his horror story. Nick chose to be mute. “What happened to Greg?” I finally asked after I recognized he wasn’t going to elaborate.

  “Last time I had seen him he was getting into his car and going home to his girlfriend and kid… I went over to his place when I thought it was safe enough to roam around. He wasn’t there. His girlfriend wasn’t there… His kid was there. I came to the hospital when Greg’s kid was born, Jacob. He was this bald wrinkled, noise machine.” Nick half smiled at the memory of infant Jacob before darkness filled his eyes.

  “I walked into Jacob’s room, the blue room. There was baby stuff everywhere, a big giant stuffed Elmo. There was a foul stench in the air but I guess I was just in a shock. Shit there were zombies walking around eating people. I went over to the crib. Jacob was laying there in the crib on his stomach. I wished he was sleep. I really wished he was asleep. I turned him over with one hand… He wasn’t sleep… Jacob was dead. I never seen a dead baby before. It’s, it’s, something I’ll ever forget.”

  Nick’s glassy glare was intense. Now he is only focused on the road. I shouldn’t have asked about it. Now Nick has retreated back into his turtle shell. We ride in silence for a few miles. I’m afraid to speak. I need Nick to bring his “A” game today. I hope I didn’t make this rescue mission hard for Nick to endure. I hope too much in this incredibly hopeless situation.

  “What now?” Nick wakes me from my stupor.

  “I’m afraid.” I admit because I feel comfortable with the truth. “I’m afraid of what’s out there.”

  “That’s normal. We may die.” Nick at his curtly best.

  “I just love your pep talks.” I joke to lighten the foggy mood.

  Nick peeks over at me and shakes his head. “You will be fine. Just trust your instincts. You’re a pretty good shot for a supermodel.”

  “That’s low.” I brandish my middle finger. I’m far less refined then I used to be. But I’m still a lady.

  “I’m kidding. You are a good shot. It’s the hand to hand combat I’m worried about. Don’t freeze up. Don’t overthink this. Don’t let them bite you. We don’t want to use our guns because the noise attracts the freaks but I would rather you shoot a freak then get bit by one… I’ve grown quite fond of you.” He winked.

  “Really fond of me, well I love you.” I confessed. Why did I do that?

  Nick takes his eyes off the road to gaze at me and soak up the weight of my words. “You used the L word.”

  “I sure did.” I stood firm in my romantic confession.

  “I think you throwing that word around because we’re in the midst of a zombie apocalypse.” He arched one eyebrow. He was eager to hear my response. I had to choose my words carefully.

  “Not true. If I had a car and it broke down and I came into your shop, I would have definitely flirted with you. You just wouldn�
�t have asked me out.”

  “True. You are the best thing that came from this freak zombie bullshit.”

  “That’s such a sweet thing to say. Stick your tongue in my mouth.” I lean over to Nick. He smiles before he meets me half way. He grabs my chin and rams his tongue down my throat. Just the way I like it, rough. I slid my hand down onto his crotch and a take in a handful of his manhood. I feel him grow in the palm of my hand. The car veers to the left. I almost fall in his lap as he quickly swerves to align the wheels.

  “Stop distracting me. I almost killed us.” A complete exaggeration. Nick places my wandering hand back into my own lap.

  “Sorry. I needed one last kiss.” I confessed.

  “That was more than a kiss.”

  “I know.” I smile widely and he glances over and catches me daydreaming.

  “Fuck it, I love you too.”

  This declaration sends me beaming. I feel like a kid on Christmas morning. My smile gets so wide I think my teeth will spill out. I literally feel like my face will break.

  Nick peeks over at me. “Would you stop smiling like that? You look like a chick flick movie poster.”

  “Okay.” I wipe my smile away with my hand and stare at the man who just professed his love for me. Why am I thinking about him naked? I should be thinking about fighting deadies and rescuing Doctor Mark’s ex-wife and son.

  “Jesse, please stop looking at me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model.” Nick raises one eyebrow and half smiles. He is turned on.

  “You’re so funny.” I can’t help but reek of sarcasm. Now Nick is even making jokes about my previous profession. When did being a supermodel become a running joke?

  “I don’t want to think about sex while I should be thinking of killing freaks.”

  An intrusion, a brash Marine, “Hey what’s going on back there?” Joe’s voice statics loud and clear over the walkie-talkie lodged in the seat between Nick and me.

 

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