Dead America: Lowcountry | Book 3 | Lowcountry [Part 3]

by Slaton, Derek

  “We’re good,” he finally said, turning back to the window. He climbed down as the others got out of the truck, walking around to survey the pile of bodies.

  Ace let out a low whistle. “You got a mean swing, brother,” he drawled.

  “If it’s all right,” Dante said, holding up the crowbar, “I’m going to hang on to this.”

  The shorter man grinned. “Consider it yours,” he said.

  Dante nodded and headed for the door. He paused in front of it as they clustered around and turned to his companions.

  “Melee as much as you can,” he said quietly. “The building is going to muffle the sound somewhat, but with our luck, they’ll be a mob within earshot. Ace and I will go in first. Once we’re through, I’ll need you to secure the door.” He put up a hand as Lily began to protest. “I know you’re capable,” he assured her. “But we don’t know what we’re up against in there. If we start getting overrun, Ace and I are going to have an easier chance of holding them at bay while you get the door open. That’s all.”

  He held up his palms, and she nodded begrudgingly.

  “I’m ready when you are,” she said firmly.

  Dante and Ace got into position to storm the building as she put her hand on the door. She did a quiet countdown and then jerked it open, allowing the boys to rush inside. She slammed it shut behind them and threw the deadbolt, waiting with her hand on it just in case they had to make a hasty exit.

  The entry hallway looked like a battle zone, blood coating everything. As soon as the trio stepped forward, a zombie about fifteen yards away at the far end turned and rushed towards them. Dante lashed forward, holding up the crowbar with the pointy tip outwards.

  When the ghoul came within range, he shoved it forward, combining the creature’s momentum with his own force, driving the metal right into the bridge of its nose. The corpse crumpled to the ground, and Dante shook its face loose from his weapon, quickly raising it again just in case something else was nearby.

  All was quiet, and he motioned for his companions to join him. The trio moved cautiously towards the door at the end of the hall. They looked through the small window into the newsroom.

  Four zombies stood off to the right, and somewhere out of sight there was a chorus of banging on the far side. As they scanned, they spotted a zombie off to the left, standing in front of another door, all by itself.

  “I can take out that one on the left,” Ace murmured. “You just cover me in case the others see me.”

  Dante nodded and quietly opened the door. He and Lily knelt down next to it, staying out of sight in the darkness, with most of the light focused on the news set.

  Ace drew his hunting knife and crept along the shadows as he approached the lone zombie. It stood there, virtually motionless, staring at the door as if it had given up trying to get in. Ace reached striking distance, studying the ghoul to make sure it hadn’t seen him. He readied his knife before stepping out of the shadows, darting forward silently.

  He closed the five yard gap, managing to plant the blade in the back of the monster’s skull before it even knew he was there. He did his best to catch it as it fell, but the corpse was a little too heavy, falling into the door.

  Its head smacked against the wood with a light thud, but thankfully not causing enough of a sound to alert the ghouls on the other side of the room. It was, however, loud enough to draw the attention of a zombie on the other side of the door.

  Ace jumped back, startled by the sound of a ghoul smacking into the door, moaning and scratching against it in hungry fury. He was frozen for a moment, but then looked back frantically, seeing the other four zombies turning to rush him.

  “Fucking hell,” he breathed, and when they were halfway across the room, he broke to the left and raced towards the news desk. He managed to dart behind it, grabbing one of the padded swiveling chairs and tossing it back hard enough to knock one ghoul to the ground.

  The other three bunched up, tearing for him. He quickly grabbed the other chair and held it out in front of him to brace himself. He cracked one ghoul in the ribs with the wheels before flattening his back against the wall for extra support to hold them at bay.

  The ghouls pushed against it, but he managed to stack them up safely behind the flimsy barrier.

  Dante appeared then, immediately swinging. He cracked one creature in the back of the head, dropping it, and the sound made a second zombie whip around. He stabbed it in the face as it turned to him, and then Ace used the distraction to slam the knife into the skull of the third ghoul.

  A gunshot went off, and the two men startled, turning to stare open mouthed at Lily, who stood in the middle of the newsroom, lowering her handgun.

  “What the hell you do that for?” Ace demanded, setting down his chair barrier.

  She didn’t respond, just pointed to their left. Both men looked over to see the fourth zombie only a few yards away from Dante, its arms outstretched even as it lay on the floor dead.

  His breath hitched, realizing he’d almost been blindsided. “Thank you,” he said sincerely, turning to her.

  “Anytime,” she replied with a shrug.

  Dante nodded and then turned back to Ace. “What the hell caused them to rush you like that?” he asked.

  “Something is behind that door, and really wants to get out,” the shorter man explained, pointing back to the door in question.

  Lily shook her head. “It can keep wanting,” she declared, “cause I’m not going near it.”

  “Come on, let’s go see if our new friend is still alive and kicking,” Dante said, and led the trio across the newsroom to the control room door. It was slick with bloody splotches from the ghouls bashing at it.

  He stepped aside and motioned for Ace to knock, and the redneck gave an excited shave and a haircut rap on the wood.

  “Kind of predictable, don’t you think?” Lily asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Her cousin shrugged. “Just paying respect to the classics.”

  A few moments later, the door unlatched, and a dark-haired woman opened it. “Hi there,” she said, as casually as if they weren’t in the middle of an apocalypse. “I’m guessing you saw my message?”

  “Nah, we’re just looters who have a hard-on for high end camera equipment,” Ace drawled with a smirk.

  Lily smacked him on the arm, rolling her eyes. “Ignore him,” she said, “his favourite snack as a kid was lead paint chips.”

  The girl chuckled and slipped through the door, quickly shutting it behind her.

  Ace’s brow furrowed. “That wasn’t suspicious at all,” he said, cocking his head. “You, uh… hiding something in there?”

  “Nothing you would want to see,” she replied sharply.

  He crossed his arms. “Oh, really?” He stepped past her and opened the door, a putrid stench immediately hitting him in the face. He gagged and slammed the door shut, gasping for air. “What the fuck is that?!”

  “I’ve been locked in that room for thirty hours without air conditioning,” she replied, crossing her arms. “Or a bathroom.”

  Ace held up his hands in surrender. “Yep, that’s it,” he choked out.

  “You got a name?” Dante asked.

  “Katie McClure,” she replied.

  He nodded. “Okay, Katie McClure,” he said, and put a hand to his chest. “I’m Dante, and this is Lily and Ace.”

  She nodded, regarding everyone, and he watched her glance quickly over his face before focusing on his good eye. “I can’t thank you enough for risking your lives to come rescue me,” she said.

  “It’s our pleasure,” he assured her. “Just didn’t feel right knowing someone was in danger and not doing anything about it. Even if it meant risking our wellbeing.”

  She took a deep breath. “So is it bad out there?” she asked.

  “Shit’s spreading faster than STDs at an unregulated strip club,” Ace said, and his cousin looked at the ceiling, shaking her head at his example.

  “Yeah, it�
�s pretty bad out there,” she added.

  Katie pursed her lips for a moment and clasped her hands in front of her. “I hope this doesn’t come off as a callous transition,” she said slowly, “but do you happen to have any food or water? There was a strict no food policy in the control room, so my stomach is rumbling, to say the least.”

  “We… kind of neglected to bring anything with us,” Lily said with a wince. “Not that we had a whole lot going around to begin with.”

  Katie nodded in understanding. “No worries,” she replied, “the break room over there was set up for a party before… well. Food should still be good though, as it was in the fridge.”

  “Where’s the break room?” Dante asked, looking around.

  She pointed to the door that Ace had declared a zombie on the other side, and he grimaced.

  “I’m afraid one of those things is in there,” he said apologetically.

  “Wait, wait, you said party,” Ace piped up before anyone else could react. “Is there cake?”

  Katie nodded. “I brought ice cream cake,” she said.

  Ace turned to Dante, pressing his palms together, eyes wide and pleading. “Come on, man,” he whined, “this is probably the last chance we’ll ever have to eat one of these! And besides, we could use the practice going through doors.”

  The bigger man chuckled and shook his head before looking around the newsroom. He focused on a giant camera, and headed over, pulling the cables off of it.

  “If we’re going to do this,” he declared, “we’re going to do it safely.”

  “Yes!” Ace hissed, fist pumping the air, and trotted over to follow Dante as he rolled the camera towards the door.

  He adjusted the stand so that it was as low as it could go, resting about waist high. He placed it in the middle of the doorway, and the beastly machine was large and wide enough to cover the majority of the opening.

  “Lily, if you’d do the honors,” Dante invited, getting a good grip on the camera.

  She nodded and turned the knob, pushing the door open before leaping back out of the way. The lone zombie inside immediately rushed them, and Dante shoved the camera forward, holding it at bay with the giant lens. Ace lunged forward, lashing his arm over the threshold to stab the ghoul in the face.

  Dante nodded and pulled the camera back, letting the corpse fall to the floor. He grabbed it by the collar and dragged it out of the way, then motioned for the others to enter the break room with a flourish.

  “Looks like it’s party time,” he said.

  Katie entered first, looking around the break room that was a huge mess. The corner had a giant pool of blood, where it appeared the zombie had bled out as a human after being bitten, escaping the newsroom carnage.

  She raised her chin and headed for the fridge, opening the door and pulling out trays of snacks, bottles of soft drinks, and finally the ice cream cake from the freezer, setting it all on the table. She removed the plastic coverings and then sat down before grabbing a handful of pasta salad and shoving it into her mouth like an animal.

  The trio stared at her, stuffing her face for a few moments, amusement on their faces, before she finally noticed and swallowed a mouthful, face going red.

  “Sorry… I was just…” she trailed off helplessly.

  Lily shook her head, taking a seat next to her. “Honey, you should see these two,” she drawled. “You never apologize to them, or me.”

  Katie gave her a relieved smile, and continued to eat, albeit slower than before. The others joined the table and started dishing up food for themselves.

  “So what is it that you do here at the station?” Dante asked as he grabbed a few mystery meat triangle sandwiches.

  She swallowed her current mouthful and inclined her head to him. “Little bit of everything really,” she replied. “Sometimes work the teleprompter, sometimes in charge of party planning. But mostly I was our field reporter coordinator.”

  “What’s that?” Lily asked as she scooped some potato salad onto a plate.

  Katie took a sip of cola. “I was in charge of setting up interviews and basic facts of a story so that our reporter knew exactly what was going on,” she explained.

  “Did you ever do a story on Theo Atkinson?” Dante asked, leaning forward.

  She nodded, swallowing another mouthful of food. “Of QXR Group, oh yeah,” she replied. “He was quite the target in recent months with the controversy up at the Marine base.”

  “Controversy?” Lily asked, raising an eyebrow. “What was going on?”

  Katie shook her head. “Some of the military brass wasn’t happy with the QXR Group being given space on the base,” she explained. “A couple, like the base commander General Whitley was particularly vocal about it.”

  “Must have been a big deal if the base commander was making a public stink about it,” Ace put in, his chin already covered in ice cream. “That kind of shit can get you removed from your post.”

  Katie shook her head again. “He was an anonymous source feeding us information about how someone higher up the food chain okayed the move,” she said. “He never went on camera or on the record, but the General and I spoke quite often about it. He was hoping to raise enough public awareness about it that the pressure would get them removed from base.”

  “What were they even doing there, anyway?” Lily wondered.

  Katie wrinkled her nose. “Officially? They were there to help train the marines in hostile suburban combat scenarios,” she said dryly. “Unofficially? They were using the base as a launching pad for covert operations, or at least that’s what the rumor was.”

  “I can see what that would be controversial and put a General on edge,” Ace agreed through a mouthful of cold dessert.

  Dante chewed thoughtfully and then set down his sandwich. “So I’m guessing they’re well trained?”

  “Oh, without a doubt,” Katie replied, chasing her pasta with more cola. “They not only recruited from our military, but from special ops around the world. These guys were some of the best in their field, and commanded top dollar, which was what Theo Atkinson was happy to pay.”

  Dante leaned his arms on the table. “How big is their force?” he asked.

  “They had a thousand men stationed there,” Katie replied. She furrowed her brow as the others all shared concerned glances and motioned around at them with a fork. “But why all these questions about Theo Atkinson?”

  Dante let out a sigh. “Because his men took over Hilton Head Island,” he said.

  Katie stopped chewing, blinking at him rapidly. She almost choked as she swallowed her mouthful, shaking her head. “I’m sorry,” she croaked, “did you just say they took over Hilton Head?”

  “Took it over,” Dante confirmed, nodding. “They’re executing people they think are infected with the virus causing all this, and…” He lowered his gaze.

  “Kidnapping,” Lily spoke up. “They took his sister yesterday.”

  Katie set down her fork, shaking her head. “Unbelievable,” she breathed, putting a hand to her forehead. “They’re executing civilians? If they’re that brazen, then it doesn’t bode well for anyone, or the world as a whole.” She lowered her arms and picked up her cola, swirling it for a moment before regarding Dante. “You said virus that’s causing this. What did you mean by that?”

  “One of the people with us was sick,” he explained. “They demanded to know her blood type, and when she said A-positive, they shot her down like a dog.”

  “A blood type?” Katie mused thoughtfully. “A blood type… and you said she was sick?”

  Dante nodded, raising an eyebrow in question. “Yeah, flu-like symptoms.”

  She took out her phone and started flipping through screens.

  “Whoa,” Ace said between scooping more ice cream into his mouth, “didn’t realize that the phone service was still up and running.”

  Katie shook her head. “It’s not, however, my notes from upcoming stories are on here and…” she said, and then
straightened up. “Bingo. Two days ago, one of my contacts at the hospital said they were getting a huge influx of people with a mysterious virus showing up to the ER. The doctors were dismissing it as the flu, but my contact wasn’t convinced. We were preparing to do a story on it later this week, but it turns out we don’t need to.” She chewed her lip as she scrolled through her notes, and then her eyes widened. “Holy shit.”

  “What is it?” Dante asked, leaning forward.

  “My source at the hospital said that every patient had the same blood type,” she replied. “Which is what made her think this wasn’t the flu.”

  Ace pointed his spoon at her. “Let me guess, A positive?” he asked.

  She shook her head, swallowing hard. “All A-type blood,” she said. “Which if true, explains why this stuff got completely out of control seemingly overnight.”

  “I don’t follow,” Ace admitted.

  “Roughly forty percent of the population has A-type blood,” Katie explained. “If most… or all of them are affected by whatever this virus is…”

  “It would mean between that and the bites being infectious that in the span of a day, we pretty much became outnumbered by zombies.” Dante finished.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Zombies?”

  “Yeah, it’s crazy,” Lily cut in, waving her off, “but just roll with it.”

  Katie nodded slowly. “Okay then.”

  “So what’s our next move?” Ace asked, serving himself up a third slice of ice cream cake.

  “I say we get Bailey’s family,” Dante put in, “pick up some food, and get back home.” His brow furrowed, and he turned to Katie. “I’m sorry, do we need to go by your place? Anybody there we need to get?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m all alone down here,” she replied. “However, based on what you’ve told me about what QXR is doing on Hilton Head, we should go to the Marine base. If General Whitley finds out what they’re doing, he’ll put a quick end to it.”

  Dante glanced at Ace and then nodded, laying his hands flat on the table. “Okay, new plan,” he said. “We’re going to go get Bailey’s family. Lily, I’m going to have you escort them back to Ace’s while we go to the base.”