Life of the Dead Box Set [Books 1-5]

by Urban, Tony

  “It’s my son.” Grady looked down to Josiah, then back to the gangster. “He’s sick. He’s having trouble breathing.”

  “So, call an ambulance, man.”

  “My phone was out. And I don’t have a car.”

  The man grabbed a cell phone from his pocket, dialed, listened and frowned, staring at the phone.

  “All circuits are busy. What the fuck that mean?”

  Grady reached out and grabbed hold of the man’s baggy jeans. “Please. Please, help us. My son’s going to die without help.”

  The man looked down at Josiah as he pocketed his phone. He then stared up and down the empty street. “All right, man. All right. You wait here.”

  He jogged away. Grady watched him disappear behind a row house, then resumed breathing into his son’s mouth. Less than two minutes later, a black seventies Lincoln Continental with obnoxiously large chrome rims roared to a stop in front of them.

  The passenger side window rolled down and the gangster banged his hand against the door. “Yo, man! What you waitin' for?”

  Grady grabbed Josiah under his knees and shoulders and lifted him into the backseat of the Lincoln, then climbed in beside his son.

  A different man was driving. He too was black and about the same age, but much larger. Long coarse dreadlocks tumbled down his plus-sized head. He didn’t say a word as Grady sat down. He only stared.

  “That’s O’Dell. He don’t say much. But this is his ride.”

  “Thank you so much. You’re a Godsend.”

  O’Dell only nodded. As soon as Grady pulled the door shut, Odell hit the gas and the Lincoln sped away.

  A wreck on 40 blocked the entire street. Grady could see a Cadillac Escalade flipped on its roof and a smoking Dodge pickup with a crushed hood only a few feet away. Despite the crashed vehicles, he saw no one.

  He gave it little thought as he clutched Josiah tight. He felt the coldness taking over the boy's body, but refused to admit it to himself. He continued giving breath after breath. Soon he’ll breathe again. I believe it. I have faith. God won’t take my boy.

  O’Dell made a hard left onto a side street, almost throwing Grady and his son off the seat. The original gangster, who had identified himself as LaRon, glanced into the backseat.

  “Hold tight back there. How’s he doing?”

  Grady didn’t meet his eyes. “He’ll be okay. Just please get us to the hospital.”

  LaRon looked down at Josiah. “We’re getting there, little man. You hang on.”

  After a few more turns, LaRon called out, “Almost there,” and just as he did, Josiah opened his eyes.

  Grady gasped. He put his hands on Josiah’s chest — So cold — and tried to feel it rise and fall. He couldn’t feel anything, but the boy’s eyes were open and they looked at him. Grady raised his son up and embraced him so hard he worried he’d injure the boy, but he couldn’t stop himself.

  Thank, God. Thank you, God!

  Josiah squirmed and struggled against Grady’s grasp and, now afraid that he had hurt his son, Grady let him loose. The boy looked around the car, then caught site of the driver.

  Before Grady knew what was happening, Josiah lunged forward, tumbling off Grady’s lap. He caught hold of one of O’Dell’s dreads on the way down and yanked the man’s head sideways

  The car swerved to the right, then O’Dell pulled the wheel to the left to regain control. Grady tried to pull Josiah’s hand free of the gangster’s hair but couldn’t break his grip. The boy used his other hand to claw at O’Dell’s face. He pulled himself toward the driver, their faces just inches apart, then bit the side of the man’s ear off.

  “Motherfuck!” O’Dell yelled.

  Grady didn’t have time to process what just happened before the front wheels bounced over a curb. There was a loud crash as the grill of the Lincoln slammed into a row of steel newspaper machines on the sidewalk. The sudden halt threw them all forward. At last, Josiah let go of the dreadlock.

  O’Dell threw open his door and jumped out of the car. He then threw open the back door, grabbed Grady and dragged him out of the Continental. Grady slammed into the sidewalk and felt a rib break.

  LaRon exited the car from the passenger seat. He was so worked up he bounced on his feet like a jumping bean.

  “Your fucking kid bit him!” LaRon said.

  O’Dell held his hand against his bleeding ear.

  “He’s sick.” Grady said.

  “No shit he’s sick! What the fuck he got? Rabies?” LaRon said.

  O’Dell dove into the car after the boy. Grady tried to jump up, but a jolt in his ribcage dropped him back to his knees. He watched the gangster grab his son by his frog pajamas and pull him from the car. He tossed Josiah like a rag doll and the child slammed into the ground in front of his father.

  Grady tried to grab Josiah, to hold him close and protect him, but the second the boy hit the ground he was back on his feet and moving toward O’Dell.

  “You best control that bitch!” O’Dell yelled. It was only the second time he’d spoken since Grady and Josiah got in the car and rage filled his voice.

  Grady again reached for Josiah, but he was just out of reach. Grady struggled to his feet and stumbled toward Josiah, who was still heading for the big gangster.

  O’Dell held out his arm to block the boy, but Josiah dove for his hand and caught the fatty hunk of flesh between his thumb and forefinger in his teeth. The gangster’s eyes grew wide and Grady saw blood.

  The gangster screamed and jerked his hand free. He ignored the blood and pulled the pistol from his jeans and aimed it at Josiah’s head.

  “No!” Grady screamed. “Don’t. Don’t shoot him!” He grabbed his son and tried to shield him. Why is this happening? God had just given him back his son, he couldn’t take him away again. It wasn’t fair.

  O’Dell pulled back the slide to chamber a round and Grady sobbed. The boy struggled against him, but this time Grady held on.

  LaRon grabbed on to O’Dell’s meaty, tattooed arm, the one holding the gun, and pulled it down. “It’s just a kid, man.”

  O’Dell glared at him, then returned the pistol to his jeans. He jumped back into his wrecked Lincoln and threw it in reverse. The tires squealed as it pulled loose from the newspaper boxes and bounced back onto the street. Then he drove away.

  LaRon watched him go, then turned back to the crying father and his biting son.

  Grady loosened his grip on Josiah. He saw the boy was eating the flesh he’d bitten off O’Dell. Grady’s stomach did a cartwheel and a second later, the remains of his hamburger helper dinner landed on the sidewalk.

  Josiah swallowed the skin, then tried to pull free of Grady, who held on.

  “No!” Grady ordered.

  Before that moment, Josiah never seemed to hear a word he said, but now he looked up at his father and stopped squirming. The boy held out his hand and Grady took it in his own.

  “Crazy fuckin’ white people,” LaRon said, then turned away from them and jogged up the street.

  Grady ignored his exit. He was entranced by the way his son looked at him. Josiah was seeing him, for the first time ever.

  “Josiah? Are you okay?”

  The boy gave a wet, gasp that came out like “Ah-bah,” but Grady heard “Da da.” He embraced his son and the boy didn’t pull away. Grady kissed his cold cheek and tears streamed from his eyes. He couldn’t remember being that happy in years. God hadn't just answered his prayers, he'd performed a miracle.

  They walked down the sidewalk, hand in hand, both still in their nightclothes and shoeless. Grady thought gripping Josiah’s hand was like holding a piece of raw chicken that had been recently removed from the refrigerator. Somewhere inside, he knew the boy was dead. But that didn’t matter.

  This was the miracle he’d been praying for. God had saved Josiah and now Grady was prepared to do whatever God asked of him.

  Chapter 37

  Mitch darted his tongue in and out of Rochelle’s beautifu
l pussy which, as far as he believed, was more perfect than anything David himself could have sculpted. It tasted like strawberries and he could have stayed between her toned legs forever. Then she coughed. Her body convulsed and her thighs bucked, pushing his mouth away from her groin. When he looked up, he saw her face had gone blue, starved of oxygen. Her eyes bulged, blood red. She’s choking, he thought.

  Mitch scrambled up her naked body. He grabbed her lower jaw in his right hand and with his left pressed against her forehead. Her skin felt molten hot. He pulled her mouth open and when he did a thick, black tongue fell out.

  ”Oh, fuck!” he screamed. She was dying. She couldn’t breathe and she would die if he didn’t help her.

  He leaned in toward her, their faces inches apart. He closed his eyes and pressed his mouth against hers, the only bit of CPR he could remember.

  When her black tongue entered his mouth, the taste of rotten meat was overwhelming. He felt his stomach flip and fought not to puke, but it was a losing battle and he could feel the vomit rushing up his throat.

  He went to pull back, to separate his mouth from hers, but before he could she sank her teeth into his lips. The pain was worse than anything he’d ever felt. Even worse than when he jumped off a swing in third grade and tried to fly, breaking his left arm in the process.

  Mitch shrieked in agony, but the rotting mouth pressed against his own muffled screams. He felt the puke gush from his own mouth and into hers, then splash back against his bleeding lips, and tried again to scream. That was when he woke up.

  His heart beat so hard in his chest he could have seen it if the room was illuminated, but it wasn’t. He sat up fast and smacked his forehead against the bunk above him. Although it hurt like hell, it helped push away sleep and that horrible, revolting, dream.

  That’s when he realized he could still hear screaming. He brought his hand to his mouth, thinking it was himself, but as he covered his own lips, the screams continued.

  A red light flickered and danced on and off like a strobe in a nightclub. In the crimson flashes he could see the chaos in the room.

  Two men held down a guard and ate intestines from an open wound in his midsection.

  Dark.

  A nurse chewed on the arm of a boy who Mitch had earlier seen crying about not getting lime Jello.

  Dark.

  A bearded man dragged another man from the top bunk and chomped into his throat.

  Dark.

  A naked woman with blood covering the entire front of her body sprinted a collision course toward Mitch.

  Dark.

  Mitch jumped out of his bed and backed away. The light came back on and she was only feet away from him. He tripped over something and fell backward, landing hard on his bony ass and the light went off again.

  Someone grabbed him from behind and dragged him. Mitch flailed and struggled and his fist connected with something hard.

  “Stop fighting, you shit!”

  The voice was familiar. The light blinked back on and Mitch saw it was Winebruner. He pulled Mitch toward the exit as the light went off again.

  “What’s going on?” Mitch asked.

  “Shut the fuck up!”

  The red light went off as they reached the glowing exit sign and Winebruner swiped a card through the slot by the door. Mitch saw the bloody woman still running at them, but Winebruner kicked the door open and dragged Mitch through it.

  The steel door slammed shut behind them and they were in a puke green hallway. The woman hit the other side of the door and they watched through the narrow slit of a glass window as she clawed and scratched. When that failed, she started smashing her head against it.

  Mitch jumped to his feet. “Holy shit! They’re zombies, aren’t they? They’re fucking zombies!”

  Winebruner nodded. “I really thought those rumors were bullshit. But there’s no denying it now.”

  The woman on the other side of the door had split her forehead open and bone showed through under the mangled skin.

  Mitch looked back to Winebruner, who wasn’t looking too hot himself. Even under the dim fluorescent lights, the young man looked haggard and his eyes had sunk deep into the sockets. Snot oozed from both nostrils and, when he saw Mitch looking, he hurriedly wiped it away.

  “Do you know where our parents are?

  “Supposed to be in E wing. But who knows now?”

  After being shown to his bunk, Mitch was left with nothing to do but study an informational booklet on the bunker in which they were now housed. Built in the 1950s at the height of the Cold War, the bunker sat a few hundred yards under the Greenbriar Hotel. It could hold over two thousand people and survive a nuclear holocaust.

  But what about zombies? That’s the real test, Mitch thought. The book had included a map, which he’d reviewed over and over again in the intervening hours and had almost memorized. E Wing, if Mitch’s memory was correct, was two lefts and four hallways from their current location.

  “I think we should go there.”

  Winebruner looked skeptical. “What if there’s more of them?”

  The zombie at the door had now obliterated its entire face and nothing remained but bits of bone and sinew and two droopy eyes that dangled loose from what had been their sockets.

  “Well, we can’t go back in there. What else should we do?”

  “Wait. Or look for booze?”

  “Yeah, let’s not do that.”

  Mitch started up the hallway. When he got ten steps ahead, Winebruner followed.

  They navigated the labyrinth of halls without making a single wrong turn. When they reached the steel door labeled simply “E,” Mitch tried the door and found it locked.

  “You need these to get anywhere.”

  Winebruner held up his key card.

  “Where’d you get that, anyway?”

  Winebruner flashed a shit-eating grin. “Lifted it from one of the guards. Being a delinquent brings with it a certain skill set.”

  Mitch nodded. He knew that all too well. “Well, do your thing, man.”

  Winebruner swiped the card, and for a moment, the pinpoint LED light above the pad remained red. Then it flipped green and Mitch pushed the door. It opened. He turned back and held the door for Winebruner, but when he did, he saw a zombie racing toward them.

  Winebruner’s back was to the creature and he didn’t see the soldier, all six and a half feet and two hundred and fifty pounds of it, approaching. He didn’t see that the soldier’s nose was gone, creating a black abyss in the middle of his bloody face. And he didn’t see the soldier’s throat was ripped out and blood from the gaping wound had turned his green uniform a dark, muddy brown.

  But Mitch saw all of it. When Winebruner realized the boy was looking past him and not at him, he started to turn, to see what Mitch was staring at. When he did, Mitch’s hand darted out, and he snatched the key card away.

  Winebruner looked down at his empty hand, like the straight half of a magic act trying to figure out what was going on, but he was too slow. Mitch gave him a hard shove in the center of his chest and Winebruner stumbled backward.

  He tried to regain his balance, but before he could, the soldier zombie was on him and snatched a handful of the delinquent’s perfectly messy blond hair. Mitch hopped through the open door and swung it shut. As it closed, he saw Winebruner’s eyes grow as big as ping-pong balls, staring at him as the zombie clawed at his cheeks.

  Its fingers caught inside Winebruner’s mouth, and in one swift jerk, it ripped away half of the man’s face. The zombie shoved the handful of shredded flesh into its greedy mouth and chewed it like it was prime rib. Even through the heavy metal door, Mitch could hear Winebruner’s shrieking. He watched until the screams, and his pointless struggles, ceased.

  “Nice knowing you, friend-o,” Mitch said as he slid the key card into his pocket.

  Chapter 38

  Juli woke disoriented and groggy. She looked to the nightstand but the alarm clock was blank. The power had gone out
around nine, she remembered. The night was black as molasses outside her bedroom window.

  She was a sound sleeper and wasn’t sure why she’d woken. She reached out and felt the other side of the bed with her fingertips. It was empty. Not just empty, but cool. Mark had gone to bed with her, but apparently he’d been away long enough for his side of the bed to return to room temperature.

  Her eyelids were getting heavy again and Juli let them fall shut, but a crashing noise erased her sleep. She knew the sound the way a mother can recognize the crying of her own child in a sea of toddlers. It was the sound made by a dropped pan. Not just any pan. Venice Cookware. Juli squirmed out from under the sheets and fled the room.

  She used the flashlight app on her cell phone to illuminate the way. The mahogany floor was cold under her bare feet and sent a little shiver up her back as she proceeded down the hall. She stepped in something moist and reached down to wipe the wetness from her foot. She held her fingers up and saw the tips were dark red.

  Now she ran down the hall and into the kitchen where she saw her husband leaning over the sink, cradling his head.

  “Mark? What’s going on?”

  He spun around and wiped something from his mouth. What was that smell? Vomit? Was Mark sick?

  “Juli. Don’t.”

  She didn’t listen and kept coming toward him.

  “Don’t! Don’t come over here!”

  Juli slowed her pace, but continued on. “What happened? Tell me right now, Mark!”

  She approached the granite topped island, above which her treasured cookware hung and noticed an empty spot where her eight inch omelet pan should have been.

  “Mark?” She was panicked now. Why wasn’t he answering her?

  “Oh, God, Juli. I… I can’t… Just don’t.”

  Juli rounded the island, still watching Mark. She noticed a racquetball sized wound on his naked shoulder. Before she could again ask what happened, she followed his gaze which he directed at the floor. There was something there.

  No. There was someone there.