Books of the Dead | Book 9 | Dead of Winter

by Spears, R. J.

  He gave me a quizzical look.

  “Zombies,” I said.

  “Okay, yeah,” he said.

  I reached down to my holster and pulled out my automatic. I flipped off the safety and handed it to him. “You have thirteen shots. I’m guessing if that doesn’t do the job, then we are in big trouble.”

  I hated the idea of shooting our way through this little herd of zombies because the gunfire would surely bring more. The truth of the matter was that there was a swarm of zombies about to crawl up our asses, so the only way to go was forward and do it as fast as possible.

  “I’ll shoot the ones on the left,” I said. “You take the ones on the right, okay?”

  He nodded, but I wasn’t a hundred percent sure he was up to it.

  “I can do this,” he said.

  With nothing better to do, I took a spaced step to the left and took aim at the lead zombies. I wasn’t sure if I would have time to reload, so I decided to make every shot count.

  I sighted the forehead of my target and pulled the trigger. As there had always been before, blood and brain shot out of the back of its head, and that was it for that deader. One down, twenty more to go.

  Nathan fired his gun, and a zombie about fifteen feet away took a slug to the chest, staggering it backward.

  “Try for headshots,” I said, but I knew that had to be challenging for a ten-year-old kid with a handgun, so I added, “If you can.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  I slipped my aim to the next zombie and put a bullet in its brainpan. Nathan fired, and a zombie’s face disappeared. We repeated this for a cycle of five more shots each. I took down all five, but Nathan only put down two. One lost a knee, so it was out of commission.

  “Watch behind us,” I said as I targeted the next one. One pull of the trigger, and it was done for.

  Nathan’s gun sounded behind me. When I turned to look, a half-dozen zombies were coming around the corner. They had made better time than I had expected, which was not a good thing. In fact, it was decidedly a bad thing.

  When I turned my attention to the ones in front of me, I discovered another ten shuffling around the corner in the distance. This wasn’t working. We were in a narrow corridor with nowhere to go. I checked the buildings on each side and only saw long flat walls.

  I felt a chill slip up my spine because I think I may have just led us into a death trap.

  Nathan took that moment to collide with my back again. I jerked my attention around and saw that the zombies coming from behind us had doubled in size. There were easily over a dozen, and I thought I saw the shadows of more on the way.

  In my head, I counted my bullets and knew we possibly had just enough to take them all down, but we would have to be damn good, and I knew Nathan wasn’t. He was better than I could ever expect, but nothing less than perfect was going to work. That left the two of us bashing our way through what was left. That seemed like a long shot.

  I felt a sinking feeling in my center, knowing that I had just not only gotten myself killed but also this little kid. And I was supposed to be his rescuer.

  It was in that moment that I made the cold equation and decided that I would hold back two bullets, no matter what. A bullet in the head was a lot better than being ripped apart by zombies in my book.

  The zombies were closing in on us from both sides, starting their deadly squeeze. I aimed and pulled the trigger, knowing that I had to make each shot count. Nathan even took a few shots, but I could see that his hand was shaking so badly that his shots had little effect.

  “Hold off shooting until they’re closer,” I said as I switched from shooting the deaders coming from my way to taking down the ones coming from Nathan’s direction.

  “But they’ll get to us,” Nathan said, his voice quivering.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I can keep them back for a while. If they get on top of you, then shoot.”

  “Okay,” he said, nodding his head jerkily up and down, making me think of a bobblehead doll.

  I just kept shooting, switching from his group of zombies and then mine. I made each shot count, but the gaps between them and us were getting tighter by the second.

  I ticked off each shot in my mind, and I calculated that there was no doubt that I would run out of ammo shortly. I bloody well knew the zombies would not take a time out to give me a chance to reload. That would mean going hand-to-hand, and I didn’t like our chances.

  I was about to give up hope when I heard gunshots coming from behind the ones coming right at us from the east. A zombie’s head at the back row of the mob coming our way exploded, sending a geyser of blood into the air. Two more coming from that direction fell, and then more went down at the back of the crowd, too. Some of the deaders turned to face whatever was coming their way. I knew what was coming.

  The cavalry had arrived.

  I turned to focus on the ones coming at Nathan from the west.

  “Let’s take these down,” I said. “It looks like help is on the way.”

  A few moments later, Alex and Brother Ed appeared around the corner at the end of the corridor. They took down zombies with skill and even a little style. It took our combined forces to thin the herd enough to clear an escape path.

  Alex asked when she got close enough to be heard, “What the hell were you thinking? You should have stuck to the street. This corridor is a good place to get overrun.”

  “I think I learned that already,” I said as I took out another zombie.

  Richard shouted from the end of the corridor, “It’s clear for now, but we have more on the way.”

  “Well, let’s not waste any more time,” I said as I squeezed Nathan’s shoulder. “We’ll get inside where it’s safe.”

  And that’s what we did. It only took taking out fifteen more zombies to make that happen, but we made it.

  Chapter 27

  Aftermath

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Alex shouted at Brother Ed as we entered Doctor M’s laboratory.

  Richard whirled on Brother Ed and shook a fist in his face. “The next time you decide to act on some kind of fucking death wish, either give us a clue or do it yourself.”

  For his part, Brother Ed looked chastened with his head down, but that didn’t last long.

  “Ya’ll just stood there,” Brother Ed said. “Somebody had to do something.”

  “And that was Joel’s job!” Richard shouted. “He was the one to give us the distraction. We were supposed to get the boy.”

  “What does it matter?” Brother Ed asked. “We got the boy here, safe and sound.”

  Richard stuck an index finger in Brother Ed’s face, and it looked as if Richard was about to explode.

  “Brother Ed does have a point,” I said. “We got the boy, and we made it back safe.”

  Lori stepped away from the window that overlooked the courtyard five stories below and asked, “Who is this boy?” She held a hand out toward Nathan as she wore a stricken expression.

  “His name is Nathan,” I said with my free arm wrapped protectively around the boy. “He was with the...the people at the hospital.”

  Doctor M stood across the room, looking more than a little nervous. We all knew that anything that brought him close to any real danger scared him senseless.

  He asked, “What happened to those people?”

  I wanted to let him know what happened, but Nathan was clinging to me like a monkey. Making him relive all that seemed almost cruel.

  But Nathan surprised me and spoke up, “They all died. The zombies killed them.”

  That’s when a quiet voice spoke up from behind us. “So, are you the only survivor?”

  When I turned around, I saw Naveen standing in the doorway. She held onto the doorjamb as if it were some kind of emotional anchor.

  Naveen knew all too well what it was like to see everyone you knew wiped out by zombies. Early on in the outbreak, she and her parents were traveling when they had been overwhelmed by a swarm of zom
bies. They retreated to the safety of a farm owned by a family I had known from my old church in Southern Ohio.

  When food got scarce, Naveen’s father had suggested that they try to make a run for it. He didn’t want to be a burden. The farming family begged them to stay, but Naveen’s father insisted. Besides, he was a research scientist. Maybe they could get back to Columbus and find something to help treat or cure this virus.

  They struck out late one afternoon, but they ran into a small horde of zombies, and their car floundered on a mass of the undead. The zombies killed Naveen’s mother, and one bit her father . They managed to get away from the undead, but the virus slowly took Naveen’s father down. He ordered her to head south on her own. The farmer had suggested they go to my church if things got ugly on the road.

  Well, things had gotten very ugly, and despite not wanting to leave her father, Naveen set out on her own. Miraculously, she made it to town on a bicycle and was almost to the church where I was holed up with a bunch of people when her bike broke down. A mob of the undead was hot on her tail. That’s where I came in. I somehow managed to work up the courage to run out on the street to rescue her. The rest was history.

  Nathan clung to me tighter and began to cry.

  “They’re all dead,” he said between sobs. “My mom. My dad. They’re gone.”

  Lori moved over and put a hand on Nathan’s back to calm him down. His body convulsed in grief, and I felt my own heart breaking for this kid. He had lost everything.

  As she rubbed his back, Lori asked, “Is there anything we can do?”

  I glanced over at Doctor M, who looked supremely uncomfortable with the scene being played out in the room. I already knew that if he had gone into medicine, he would have had a horrible bedside manner, but this just confirmed it. Touchy-feely was not in his toolkit of responses.

  Naveen appeared beside our little trio of grief. Tears rimmed her eyes, but I saw something else behind them. I took it to be the resolve of having experienced what Nathan had gone through and knowing you could live through it.

  She reached out and touched his shoulder and said, “I know what you’re going through.”

  He looked over to her with tears still streaking down his cheeks.

  “I do know,” Naveen said. “My family was killed by…by the creatures.”

  I’m not sure if I ever had heard Naveen call them zombies. I wondered if it traced back to the fact that her father had become of the walking dead and just might still be out there wandering around the world.

  Nathan slowly released his grip on my arm and looked to Naveen. It took a couple of attempts, but he finally got out a question. “You did...they were?” But that’s where his question ended.

  “Yes,” Naveen said, holding her eyes on Nathan and seeming to get stronger with each passing second. That was strange to me because I felt more like melted butter. “I know your pain.”

  Nathan rubbed his coat sleeve across his face, trying to wipe away the tears.

  Naveen took her second hand and placed it on Nathan’s shoulders, then locked her eyes on his. “I know when it happened to me. It helped to talk about it.”

  I knelt down to get closer to Nathan’s level and asked, “Why did you and your family come to the hospital?”

  Nathan started to talk, but his face almost broke again. Somehow, he steadied himself.

  “My mom,” he said. “She is a nurse.” He paused, and his face cracked a little. “Was a nurse.” He wiped at his eyes with a hand. “She wanted to get something to run some tests. There was something about a person in our group and it seemed important. They didn’t tell me what it was about other than that. Anyway, they thought they could find what they needed here at the hospital.”

  “Where did you come from?” I asked, trying to be as gentle as I could.

  “We lived north of the city,” Nathan said. “It was scary to come down here.”

  “I know, I know,” Naveen said, patting Nathan on the shoulder. “I remember being scared when we ran into all those zombies on the road.”

  “But they came into the hospital and killed everyone!” Nathan cried out, and the dam was open again, and I didn’t see it closing anytime soon.

  I put my hands up and said, “The shows over, folks.”

  I regretted those words as soon as they came out of my mouth. I’m not always the most tactful person when it comes to my speech. Let’s just say, I can be a walking, talking idiot at times.

  “Naveen, can you take Nathan back to your room and get him settled in?” I asked.

  Naveen nodded her head, put an arm around Nathan, and started to lead him out of the room.

  Lori said, “I’ll go with them.”

  As soon as Naveen got Nathan out of the room, Richard took a step toward me and said, “You know, it was your girlfriend that led those zombies to the hospital. She is the reason that the kid’s parents are dead.”

  Any sense of embarrassment I had felt a moment ago swept out of me like a storm surge. It was replaced with a super-heated fury that overwhelmed my senses, rushing in so quickly that I felt dizzy. I tried to blink it away, but the feeling swamped me.

  Before I knew it, I had my hands on Richard’s jacket and had yanked him close.

  “You had better shut your damn mouth,” I growled out.

  Initially, Richard looked shocked, but that quickly changed. “Get your fucking hands off me.”

  “You take back what you said,” I said, my face inches from his.

  “Joel, she led them there,” Richard said, drawing out each word.

  “I said shut up,” I said.

  “You saw what happened,” he said. “We all did.”

  I drew my fist back and felt a force building within me. One that I couldn’t stop and was about to erupt.

  Just as I started to bring my arm forward, two hands gripped it. Still, I tried to take the punch.

  Richard noticed it and took a step back but didn’t have far to go as he bumped into the lab benches. I’m pretty sure I saw fear in his eyes.

  Whoever had my arm did not let go, and that turned out to be a good thing.

  “Joel, my man, take it down a notch,” Alex spoke into my ear from behind me.

  The volcanic forces flowing unfettered within me cooled, and I let my arm fall to my side.

  “You are certifiably crazy,” Richard said. “You know that?”

  “Oh my,” Doctor M said from across the room.

  When I glanced his way, he held a hand to his mouth, and it was easy to see that he was shaken. Even though we lived in the apocalypse, he had insulated himself from the hands-on violence.

  “Richard, same goes for you,” Alex said, but she held onto my arm with one of her hands. “There is a time and a place, and this was neither. It would probably be best if you left the room.”

  That was probably a good idea because I still rode the edge of anger.

  “He’s the one that should be leaving,” Richard said, shaking a finger in my direction.

  “Richard, we’re all on the same side here,” Alex said. “Tempers are up. We all need to take a time out and calm down. It would be best if you left.”

  Richard shook his head back and forth, not wanting to listen, but ended up waving a hand at me. A second later, he stormed out of the room, letting the door slam behind him.

  “Hey Doc,” Brother Ed said, “you and me ought to leave Joel and Alex alone for a minute or two. Ya’ got me?”

  “Oh, yes, sure,” Doctor M said.

  It was clear that he wanted to steer clear of any potential violence, so he skirted around the dangerous animal in the room, which happened to be me.

  Unlike Richard, he shut the door quietly, not wanting to disturb me any more than I was. This animal might just attack him.

  I heard the sound of his footsteps decay in the hallway as he walked to wherever he slept when he wasn’t in his lab. It’s funny because I didn’t know where that was. He always seemed to be in the lab. He was a dedicate
d man.

  “Dammit!” I yelled as I slammed my hand down onto the lab bench, and the blow caused a few items to jump off onto the floor.

  “Did that make you feel any better?” Alex asked.

  I let her question hang in the air for a few seconds before I answered. “A little.” I paused, then added, “But my hand hurts like hell.”

  “That was predictable,” she said.

  My breathing returned to a somewhat normal level as I felt the anger slowly wash out of my system. For her part, Alex leaned patiently against one of the lab benches, her arms crossed. She looked at me as if she were as patient as the Sphinx.

  “What are you looking at?” I asked.

  “You,” she said, not offering up anything else, even with her eyes.

  I’m not sure what I wanted her to say, but I had questions.

  “Was Richard right?” I asked.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear her response.

  “I have something to say,” she said, “and I want you to hear me out. Can you do that without losing your shit again?”

  I let out a long breath, then said, “Yeah.”

  “Richard was right, but only partially,'' she said. “Yes, we did watch Kara bring all those zombies right to the hospital--”

  I broke in and said, “But she’s not herself. What she is...what she’s become--”

  Alex raised her hand and put up an index finger in the air, telling me to stop, and I did.

  “You said you’d let me have my say,” she said.

  “Okay, okay,” I replied, surrendering the floor to her.

  She took a moment to compose her thoughts, obviously measuring what she had to say.

  “She did bring all the zombies to the hospital, which is a horrible fucking thing, but I noticed something,” Alex said. “She didn’t go inside.”

  “No, no, she did not,” I said. “Maybe she’s still in there. The real her.”

  “Hold up, buttercup,” Alex interrupted. “Don’t get your hopes up. She led those horses to water, and while she did not drink, they certainly did.”

  “Who’s side are you on?” I asked, feeling my ire start to rise again.