DEAD Snapshot Box Set, Vol. 1 [#1-#4]

by Brown, TW

  “Who was that?” Jason asked, pointing to the barn as he climbed out of the truck.

  Ken filled him in on the details. When he was finished, Jason stared at the ground for a moment. Just as Ken was about to ask him what he was thinking, Jason’s head popped up and his grim expression said it before the words escaped his lips.

  “I guess we go to war.”

  Ken thought that was a bit melodramatic, but he understood the sentiment. Together, the men began to sift through their firepower and select the weapons each felt the most comfortable using. For Ken, it was his Glocks, an M4, and then one of the double-barrel shotguns. For Jason, it was a .30-06 with a scope, a pair of .357s, and the street sweeper. Additionally, Jason poured three bottles full of some kerosene that was in a can in the barn. Ken was not entirely on board with the idea, but Jason insisted, saying that if they could force them into the open, it would be easy pickings.

  “And what about the hostages?” Ken asked plainly.

  “You are thinking like a cop,” Jason gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “We might lose one or two, but it would be better than nothing, and, in case you forgot, we are outnumbered.”

  By Cherry’s account, there had been seven of them. All men, but she could not recall that they were heavily armed, and Erin had insisted that the weapons be stored someplace outside the house apparently expressing her concern for just such an event.

  Once the men were both happy with the guns and ammo that they had loaded, they each grabbed a machete for that “just in case” moment that Jason insisted always seemed to happen in his stupid books.

  “Yeah, remind me to tell you what I think of those books when we get done here,” Ken grumbled as they headed out of the barn for the fence that bordered the two properties.

  ***

  Jason crouched down and brought the rifle up to his shoulder. There is no way it is this easy, he thought. Once more, he made a head count just to be sure that he was seeing things clearly. Again he came up with one group of five men standing around the large fire pit and another two men dragging bodies from the house; obviously the men in Erin’s group that they had killed the night before.

  He flicked off the safety and took a deep breath as he sighted in on the men around the pit. He figured he could drop one and get a good shot off at a second before they reacted. They were far enough away from the house that he was confident that he could get at least one more of the “bad guys” before they managed to reach the safety of the house.

  Lining up his shot, he said a silent prayer that Ken was smart enough to see their situation and that he was just as ready. With a squeeze of the trigger, he saw his first target spin and actually fall into the fire pit. His screams were almost an answered prayer for Jason as the men turned their attentions to the horrified screams of pain from their compatriot.

  Jason sighted in and got off his second shot before the men actually realized they were under attack. The second victim fell and then the sounds of another weapon being fired came right on the heels of Jason’s second shot. Three men were out of action, but the other four were running full-tilt for the house. Jason got off another shot, noting that the men were too frightened to think of doing anything clever like zig-zagging. They seemed to be taking that good old straight-line-is-the-shortest-distance-between-two-points approach. That allowed his fourth shot to hit a man in the middle of the back and send him sprawling on his face.

  Ken had taken down another of the men which left only two. One of them made it in the door and slammed it behind him, leaving his last remaining partner outside banging on it for only a heartbeat before a shot from Ken ended his life. The man slumped to the ground in a heap, a swath of blood marking his decent.

  Jason was just considering what to do next when the front door flew open. A man emerged with a woman that Jason did not recognize held in front of him as a human shield. He held a wicked knife to the woman’s throat.

  “You either back off or I cut this bitch! You hear me, mother fuckers!”

  Jason got a good look at the man’s face through his scope. He looked to be at least partially of Asian origin. His hair was buzzed down to a crewcut, and Jason even made out a scar on the man’s cheek. He was about to squeeze the trigger when Ken’s voice made him pause.

  “You go right ahead. Makes no never mind to me. I don’t know that woman from Eve. And then I get to take a much cleaner shot at you.”

  Jason pulled his eye away from the scope and glanced over in the direction of Ken’s voice. Sure enough, the man was stepping out from a cluster of untrimmed Christmas trees. He had his Glock out in front of him with that two-handed grip that cops seemed to like to use. Jason was more of a rifle and shotgun kind of guy, and so his actual experience with a pistol was pretty minimal. Perhaps there was something to that kind of grip; he would ask Ken later when they had some down time.

  “This bitch’s blood will be on your hands!” the man screamed.

  “No, I won’t get a drop on me.” Ken took another step closer, but he nodded his head once.

  Jason took that as a sign that Ken wanted him to finish this guy. He brought his rifle back up and sighted in on the man’s head once more. He was pretty confident that he could nail this guy without hitting the woman. Mostly. Sort of. Okay, he felt he had at least better than a fifty percent chance of not hitting her. But his options were pretty limited. And if the man did slit the woman’s throat, well then, she would be dead anyways. Better a quick death from a bullet to the head if he missed. And that was just an ‘if’ at this point. He was pretty close, no more than thirty or forty feet at the most by his best guess.

  “One more step—”

  The report from the rifle drowned out the next word. The bullet that crashed through the front of the man’s skull cut off the rest. The woman screamed and dove away without a scratch on her.

  Ken rushed to her and knelt down, holstering his pistol in the process. Jason broke from the trees and rushed past the woman and into the house. His eyes lit on three more women, each bound and gagged. Since he knew her, he went to Erin first and removed the gag. She spat as if clearing her mouth of something foul and then looked up with narrowed eyes.

  “So…what kept ya?”

  There was a single moment where Jason did not know how to respond. His lips moved, but no sound came out. Then Erin smiled. Of course her smile was slightly marred by her blackened and swollen left eye, giving her look a lopsided quality.

  Jason quickly recovered and then, with a straight face, he grabbed the cloth gag and put it back in place. He heard her muffled protests as he rose and went to the next woman sitting against the wall. After he had freed the other two, he bent down in front of Erin.

  “Are you gonna behave?” Even behind the gag he could see her good eye sparkle with mischief and a smile tug the corners of her mouth up as she slowly and deliberately shook her head in the negative. “Suit yourself.”

  Jason stood and headed for the door to a chorus of thumping as Erin pounded the floor with her bound feet. He was not a step out the door before one of the other women had obviously hurried over and removed the gag. What followed were a string of profanities that would have impressed or perhaps embarrassed any convict.

  ***

  Ken sat on the tailgate of his pickup and sipped at a canteen of lukewarm water. The sun was out and in full effect. He and Jason had just unloaded what was likely the last of what they would be able to scavenge from that small residential community that would never reach completion.

  In a grassy area on the far side of the barn, Gabriel was delighting himself as well as Imp and Stupid as he threw an orange tennis ball and watched the two dogs bound after it. For just a moment, he wished that he could swap places with that kid. Just as suddenly, he was hammered with a wave of sadness. That child would never know a normal world. Whether the zombies simply fell over and died after a few months, or (and this was not looking to be likely) the government got things back under control (even less likel
y), that child would live in a new era. From what he’d seen in just this short time since everything suddenly fell of the ledge, it was going to be a rough existence.

  Humanity had never lacked the capacity for evil or the ability to do horrible things to each other. With no sort of deterrent, it was likely that so-called civilized society would be taken further into the abyss. He capped the canteen and wiped his brow with the handkerchief he kept stuffed into his pocket. Just as he was about to close up the truck and head into the barn for whatever Cherry and Juanita would be serving up for lunch, he spotted an approaching cloud of dust.

  It was far enough away that he had time to signal Erin and Jason to come out and join him. They had a plan in place for strangers—proof of how bad things had already gotten if that took precedence over finding a map and making plans for where they would search next for supplies.

  Jason was long gone and in position by the time a rickety old cart being pulled by a grizzled man on a bicycle came to a stop in front of the gate where Ken and Erin stood, each with a pistol in hand since it had been decided that precious seconds might be lost in drawing them after trouble reared its head.

  “The days of being polite are likely to be a thing of the past,” Ken had reasoned during one evening around a campfire.

  “Rag and Bone!” the man cried cheerfully as he came to a stop.

  Ken looked past the man and saw a dozen or so of the undead arriving in the man’s wake. He checked out the cart and arched an eyebrow in question at the man.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Erin spoke the very words that were on the tip of Ken’s tongue.

  “Rag and bone, missy!” the man crowed. He climbed off his bicycle, seemingly oblivious to the pair of handguns that were trained on him and following his every move.

  The man scuttled to the rear of his cart and began to rummage through it, muttering under his breath the entire time. At last he made a bit of a hooting noise and popped up with a few things cradled in his arms.

  “Is this guy nuts?” Ken whispered.

  “I’m gonna go with yes,” Erin replied as the man did a bit of a hop and skip back to the gate.

  “What I have here is some of the finest in self-defense. Nothing more satisfying than knocking down the stench bags with their own parts.” With a flourish, the man produced a long cudgel with what looked like a leather-wrapped handle. The bludgeoning end had a metallic spiked knob that took Ken a moment to identify.

  “Is that…?” Erin’s voice faded and she cocked her head, too fascinated to be horrified.

  In the man’s hands was what Ken had to assume was a femur. The “leather” used to wrap the base and form the handle looked to be dried human skin. The crowning piece was a skull that had been dipped into some sort of heavy, amber colored resin that had a number of metal spikes of varying sizes and types frozen in place.

  “I see you are dubious…let me demonstrate.”

  With that, the man set down four more similar weapons and scurried off in his hop-skip sort of dance towards the small pack of zombies that had been following him. Ken and Erin could only watch as he danced around from one to the other, swinging the femur club. It was a brutal and violent demonstration, but neither he nor Erin could deny the apparent power of the weapons.

  After every single one of the zombies had been taken down, the man bounded back to them. He stopped at the gate and made a bow, sweeping the long, tattered coat he wore aside as if it were a magnificent cape.

  “What can you trade?” the man asked as he stood up holding out the used weapon to Ken.

  “Ummm…” Ken was still awestruck by the display. The weapon had pulverized the heads of the undead with a single blow, and this frail looking man had swung it like it was nothing.

  “Hand it over.” Erin stepped forward. “I want to check it out for myself.”

  “Ah, the lady speaks.” The man handed her the femur-club and then skipped back to his cart singing a song about rags and bones that Ken actually found to be sort of catchy.

  Erin holstered her pistol and then hefted the weapon, stepping clear to swing it around a bit. She used it with a single hand and then with both as if taking a practice swing while stepping up to bat. Meanwhile, the old man had tossed his tarp aside and was dragging something from the back. Ken was only partially surprised as the man hauled a zombie out. From the looks, it had been a girl in her early teens which probably accounted for how easily she had fit in the cart. It was bound and gagged.

  “Shall I cut the bonds and let you try for yourself?” the man cackled, giving Erin a salacious wink.

  Erin glanced at Ken who shrugged and nodded. The man hooted with glee as Erin gave consent. He started to bend down to cut the twine binding her wrists and ankles when he suddenly froze.

  “Sneaky eyes in the bush.” The man popped up and turned, placing his tattered sneakered foot on the zombie girl’s chest. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” he sing-songed.

  There was a pause, and finally, Jason emerged from a nearby hedge. The man did not seem perturbed in the slightest. He simply waved and returned his attention to Erin.

  “So, are you ready?”

  Erin gave Ken one more look and then climbed over the gate and out onto the road. Ken noticed that the man had adjusted his position so that he was out of range if Erin suddenly decided to swing at him. Ken conceded that, while the man might appear just a bit crazy, he was apparently no fool.

  “Okay,” Erin said tightly as she re-gripped the weapon and choked back on it.

  The man cut the final bonds around the zombie girl’s wrists and then gave the gag a tug, pulling it free from the zombie’s mouth. He scurried around behind his cart, leaving Erin and the zombie to their grim business.

  The zombie took a moment to gain its feet, then it turned in the direction of the cart. It began in slow, awkward steps away from Erin. Ken watched as Erin hurried around to get between the monster and the cart. The zombie refocused its attention on Erin and altered its course.

  “Kill it already,” Ken urged.

  Erin shot him a nasty look and then swung. The resin-coated and spiked skull struck the head with a nasty sound that was part shattering bone and part bursting melon.

  “Holy crap!” Erin exclaimed, pointing to the nearly headless body that crumpled to the ground at her feet.

  If Ken had come across this body without having seen the demonstration, he would have believed that it had suffered a shotgun blast at close range.

  “We’ll take all of these that you have,” Erin exclaimed as she toed the corpse at her feet.

  After a transaction that included some canned food, a blanket, two tubes of toothpaste and a pair of sunglasses that were dangling from the visor of Juanita’s car, the man handed over six of the oddly crafted weapons. As he pedaled away, he called out over his shoulder, “Peace, dudes. And remember…keep Portland weird!”

  16

  Normal?

  “Get your head down!” Jason yelled.

  Gabriel ducked and slid on his belly as he’d been shown. He skidded to a halt and looked up through the cloud of dust he had kicked up with his tiny body. Jason was looking down at him with a stern expression.

  “You’re out!” Jason held up the ball and winked.

  “Jeez, Jason!” Erin snapped. “You could cut the kid some slack. Maybe take it easy on him.”

  Gabriel rolled over on his back and sat up. Wiping the dust from his hands, he did his best impression of Ken’s stern face. “The easy way gets ya killed.” Coming from a six-year-old, it was not a spot on impersonation, but everybody knew instantly who he was imitating.

  “Yeah,” Jason agreed, reaching down a hand to give the boy some help up.

  The boy accepted it and walked back to the piece of wood that had been designated as home plate. Picking up the plastic bat—one of the treasures that Jason had brought back several weeks ago when he’d made what had been the last solo run anyone from the compound would ever make
again—he brought it to his shoulder and nodded for Erin to pitch him another. Their little baseball play time went on for another hour before everybody agreed that they were all hungry and would set it aside until the next opportunity arose.

  Jason, Cherry, Erin, Linda Bauer, and Sandra Ellison were hot and sweaty from their hours out in the hot summer sun. Yet, none of them minded the heat in the least. It was a welcome change to the extended spring they’d just seen pass. Spring in the Pacific Northwest was often a chilly, wet, and windy time. This year had been no different, and it was made worse by the fact that the world had ceased to exist as they’d known it.

  There had been many miserable nights where everybody was huddled in as close as possible for warmth. This past week of sunshine had not only improved everybody’s spirits, but it had brought young Gabriel out of his shell. He’d been Jason’s shadow all week; following him when he went out to work on the barricade, and even dragging along his own small shovel to help them dig the trench that would encircle both properties.

  They entered the barn to discover Juanita and two newcomers, Gene and Rachel Fellman, in the act of setting the two long picnic tables for the evening meal. These were just two of the newest members to join their growing community. The Fellman’s had come in the middle of the night just a few days ago. They’d been on the move from what they simply referred to as the Hellscape. That was Portland.

  With fires still burning out of control, many set by warring factions of the countless gangs that had spawned with the end of any actual law and order in place, the few people who were more set on survival versus preying on others were abandoning the remains of the Rose City. When the Fellman’s arrived, it had been Gene by himself who had approached the fire. After hearing some of the horrific tales about how things had so rapidly decayed in the city, it was no surprise that the man had made his wife hide before he approached the barn and the small group gathered around the fire that night.