Generation Dead (Book 3): Beyond The Gates

by Joseph Talluto

  “Left!” I called, heading towards the zombie that was in that general direction.

  “Got it,” Jake said, slipping off to the right to deal with the dead one over there.

  Mine was your typical walking deader. It once was a man about thirty, and by the looks of him, he’d not been a zombie for very long. If I had to guess, I’d say he’d been ghouling it up for less than a couple of years. His face was torn around the mouth and right eye while his left arm hung useless at his side. There was a lot of dried blood around the shoulder, so it was likely something vital had been torn there.

  I stepped up to him and kicked him in the hip on the right side, making him fall to the left. His useless arm crumpled underneath him, and he struggled with his right arm to get himself back on his feet. I didn’t give him the chance. A straight shot with my tomahawk to the back of his head ended his budding zombie career.

  Jake was wiping off his pick with the shirt of the zombie he had killed. It was another one that seemed to be somewhat new to the zombie scene. He was looking at it for a moment before he looked up at me.

  “Well, that’s a start. We’d better see about the other ones,” Jake said.

  “No need,” I said, pointing to the side of the building. Three zombies were making their way around the corner, and when they saw us they groaned long and loud. Answering moans came from the other side of the building, and I knew the hunt was on.

  “It’s going to get real interesting fast, and we’re going to get swarmed pretty soon,” I said, backing up.

  Jake looked thoughtful for a second. The zombies, in the meantime, were moving at a pretty good clip towards us. They cleared the side of the building and fanned out, stumbling in their hurry to tear us apart.

  Jake shifted his feet, then jumped forward, swinging the pick from the left side. He slammed the pointed end into a short female zombie’s head, which knocked her off her feet into the path of the other zombie. Jake left the pick in her skull and stepped on the back of the zombie who had fallen. One quick stab of his knife, and the struggling zombie went limp.

  Jake had some pretty amazing knives. They were simple but extremely deadly. They had a thick blade that allowed for strength in the cut and thrust. The point was like a needle, but thick enough to punch through bone with ease. The edge was curved, with a straight edge that swept upward sharply halfway towards the point. This gave them slashing ability that could take off an arm. Originally, they had come with a simple handle, but Jake had added a small hilt to keep his hand from slipping off and getting cut during a stab.

  I thought about this as I watched him work, and distracted myself enough that the third one nearly got to me. She was a teenager and faster than your normal zombie. The younger the faster, and usually more dangerous. This one was no different. She came at me with teeth bared and hands out. I stepped to the side to avoid her rush, and she checked her progress quicker than I had hoped. She turned towards me, got both hands on my forearm, and yanked my hand towards her mouth for a bite.

  Normally that would be a problem. In past encounters I would have to jam my tomahawk into her mouth to stop her from biting me. But this time she had grabbed the hand that held a seven-inch blade. I just let her pull the knife towards her face and at the last instant turned the blade upwards. She literally stabbed herself in the head with my knife. No matter what you wanted to call it, I’d take that one as a win.

  Her body fell away as more zombies came stumbling around a corner. I looked back at Jake, and he just shook his head.

  “Run or hole up?” I yelled, bracing myself for either.

  “Let’s get back inside. We can control the access better from in there,” Jake said, turning back towards the building.

  “Right behind you.”

  We ran up to the real estate building and leaped back inside. I left the door open because I wanted the zombies to come in. We could restrict their access and take them out from one direction only as opposed to trying to fend off multiple targets from every angle. We could also bottle them up at one entrance and make for the other when the front end was clear.

  In a perfect zombie world, that would have happened. In the real world, God has a way of laughing at your plans. I barely got through the door when Jake grabbed my shirt and threw me at the stairs leading to the second floor.

  “Get up there, now!” He snarled.

  “What the hell?”

  “Just go, dammit!”

  If it spooked Jake, I was all for running until I could figure out how to deal with it. Despite all the stories of people doing supposedly really heroic things while fighting zombies, the best defense was usually called Run Like Hell.

  At the top of the stairs I turned and waited, watching as Jake jumped up the steps, taking three at a time. Nearly at his heels was a pair of zombie kids racing after him. I started my swing before Jake even passed me, and my tomahawk cut the air where Jake used to be after he ducked out of the way. The solid steel axe head connected with the little zombie right where her nose reached her forehead. Her head stopped immediately, but her feet flew up off the ground, allowing the little zombie behind her to duck under and continue pursuing Jake.

  But my brother had gained a second with my killing the first zombie, and that was all he needed to turn at bay. The pickaxe made a whistling sound as it cut the air and a heavy thud as it crushed the little devil’s skull.

  I didn’t waste time like I had outside, since there was another zombie kid on the stairs. This one was coming up slower, but still faster than any adult zombie outside. I wrenched my axe out of the first one and spun the blade, facing the ghoul with a blackened knife and a spike. I spun as it charged, using the momentum to backhand the sharp end into the back of its skull. The child fell to the ground and joined the other two Jake had tossed down the stairs.

  “Quick moves, brother,” Jake said, taking a two handed grip on his pick.

  “Got a better one for the rest,” I said, circling the stairs and laying hold of the banister that kept people from falling down the stairs.

  Chapter 15

  Jake looked at me quizzically for a second, then got what I was going to do.

  “Nice.” He went to the other side and took hold of the banister there. A couple of hard wrenches, and we were able to rip the old wooden railings away from the edge of the stairs. Below us the zombies from the outside were becoming the zombies on the inside and were working their way up the flight of stairs. I wiped my blades and axe off on the clothes of the dead zombies and pulled out my falchion for this next bit of work. I’d need the extra reach. Jake was fine with the long handle of his pick, and we had nothing to do but wait for targets.

  Luckily, these targets came to us. The first one Jake took, smacking it on the head as soon as it cleared the level of the floor. I took the next one, cracking its skull underneath my heavy blade.

  This went on for a bit, with Jake whistling to keep the zombies from getting interested in anything else. He picked some nonsensical tune and seemed to always hit a high note when he killed another zombie. I tried to keep up, but the zombies weren’t exactly accommodating. I always seem to hit them on the low notes.

  The stairs were becoming crowded, but that was okay, since we were running out of zombies. Jake took the second to last one, and I killed the last, a short man with tight black hair streaked with dried blood. He had made a supreme effort to climb over the dead corpses of his dead friends and joined them in the afterlife as a reward.

  The building was silent as Jake and I listened intently for any movement downstairs. I went so far as to throw a few chairs down the stairs to see if anything was interested in coming up to the second floor for a chat. Nothing.

  “Well, that takes care of that. Any others outside?” I asked Jake.

  Jake went over to three of the offices and looked out the windows. He came back to the stairs and shook his head.

  “All clear. But there’s another problem,” Jake said.

  “What’s tha
t?”

  “How are we getting out of here?”

  I looked at the pile of corpses and chairs that were in some places five feet deep. The doorway at the bottom was nearly blocked completely with bodies.

  “Window, I guess,” I said, heading over to the front of the building. I looked out, and the scene was rather calm. No one would have known there were twenty or so zombies out there a little while ago. I opened the window and looked out, hoping to see something I could climb out to. Luckily, the front door had a bit of a roof extending out a ways, and I was able to jump over onto that. Using the beard of my tomahawk, I hooked the edge and swung over. Using my other hand, I freed my axe and dropped to the ground.

  Jake took a different route. He jumped out of the window and caught the edge of the awning with both hands. In a few seconds he was standing beside me, rubbing his hands together.

  “That seemed like a better idea in theory,” he said, pulling a bottle of spray out of his pack and burning the virus off of his weapons.

  “They usually are,” I said, sanitizing my own.

  We had just packed up the spray and put away our weapons when we heard the sound of an engine. Up the street our van was rounding a corner, and it came quickly to our side. Julia was driving, and she threw me a huge grin.

  “You guys look bored!” she said, laughing with Kayla at the joke of leaving us by ourselves.

  I climbed inside the van. Jake gave me a knowing look, and we decided silently not to mention the episode at the office. I pulled out the maps I had taken from the place.

  “Not yet, and I think we won’t be for a while,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Kayla asked, turning in her seat.

  Jake pulled out his own maps.

  “We have enough here to figure out where those people were coming from and how to backtrack to where they are,” he said.

  Julia and Kayla starting talking at once, but I interrupted.

  “Let’s get out of this town first and make our way west a bit towards Casper. I’d rather spend the night in some place other than this van. We can search for answers after dinner,” I said.

  I didn’t have to hear the grunts of assent, but I knew they were there.

  Chapter 16

  On the ride to Casper, I rolled around the numbers in my head. My mother held Jake and me to a pretty high standard when it came to our education, and there wasn’t a book within twenty miles that we hadn’t read. The local schools, the safe ones anyway, were raided with regularity for materials and supplies. Jake tried to argue out of going to school once, but our father ended that quickly by reminding Jake the he was the son of not only a seriously effective zombie killer, but also a former school principal. And said principal would be dammed if any son if his was lacking in the finer points of academia. Dad backed up his argument with a look that froze lava, and Jake’s argument wilted.

  I knew the general lines of latitude that ran across North America, and backing that up with what I thought I knew about longitude, I had a general notion of where we thought we wanted to go. I wasn’t completely certain, but if I was right, we’d bitten off a chunk taking this on.

  “Casper coming up,” Jake said. “What did Dad tell us about these people?”

  I stretched. “They’re slightly nuts, but they take their way of life seriously. They decided to roll back to the Old West, whatever the heck that means.”

  Julia spoke up. “If I remember my dad right, he said they all still wear their guns out in the open, old west style, and have been known to have gunfights to settle their differences.”

  I didn’t need to hear that. I was about to protest going around, but Jake killed that notion.

  “We’re here,” he said simply, “and you aren’t going to believe it.”

  I looked through the windshield. “You gotta be kidding me.”

  After everything I had seen in my life, I figured I couldn’t be surprised. What stared back at me from the outside sure surprised the hell out of me. Jake pulled the van over to what looked like a purpose built parking lot that held about forty vehicles. We gathered our gear and packs and stepped out into the past.

  A small trail led the way towards the town, and when I say town, I mean it in every sense of the western word. Out on the plain on what may have been someone’s pasture was a full blown, fully functional western town. There was a main street that ran along for nearly a quarter mile, and two rows of streets fronted dozens of houses. The buildings on the main drag were equipped with boardwalks, false fronts, and horse rails. As we made our way through town, more than one man on horseback looked us over before tipping his hat to the ladies.

  Stores had goods in them, and the music from several saloons spilled into the dusty street. The sun was tilting past the mountains, and dusk was not far behind. I counted four saloons, a doctor’s office, a dentist’s office, three law firms, and two banks. At the far end of the street I could make out what looked like a church, and there were two other buildings whose purpose I could not discern.

  “Here we go. Hotel,” Jake said, bumping my arm.

  I looked up at a massive two story building. It had to be all of a hundred feet wide, and who knew how deep. A balcony ran the entire length of the place on the second floor, and there were a few people lounging in the evening air taking in the sights and sounds of the town.

  “Looks like the perfect place,” Kayla said. “I hope they have good food.”

  “Amen to that, sister,” Julia said, taking my arm and leading me up to the building.

  I smiled and allowed myself to be led, stepping into the lobby. Two feet into the place, and I nearly stopped short. The main area was huge, extending into the second floor. An arching stairway curved upward from the edge of the polished mahogany wood of the main desk. Several leather chairs were scattered around the well-lit room, and a large fireplace on the far wall added a warm glow to the overall effect.

  “Damn,” said Jake.

  “Yep,” I said. I noticed a man look us over before he stood up from a chair and hurry out of the building. I didn’t think much of it, since it could have been he had someplace to be.

  “May I help you?” a young clerk over at the desk called out, and we made our way over.

  “Looking for a couple of rooms if you have them for the night,” Jake said.

  The clerk, a bookish looking soul who couldn’t have been a day over twenty, looked us over before tipping his head back ever so slightly.

  “We have rooms, certainly. Are you married couples? We are a respectable place,” he asked, with a slight arch of his eyebrow.

  Well, that was a question I hadn’t been asked before. And before I could answer, Julia and Kayla were stepping forward displaying their wedding rings very close to the man’s face.

  “To answer your question, yes,” Julia said. “These are our husbands, and before they kill you, you might want to reconsider being rude.”

  The clerk looked at the rings and then over to Jake and me. We must have had some serious scowls on our face because the clerk turned visibly white and stammered.

  “N-no offense i-intended!” he blurted out. “The o-owner w-wants to k-keep this a h-higher class p-place than the other h-hotel!”

  Jake reached forward and gently pulled the wives back. “Ladies. Let’s just get to our rooms.” He looked at the clerk. “Keys?”

  The clerk broke a speed record getting our keys to us and had a single request before we went upstairs.

  “C-could you please sign our register?” he asked quietly.

  Jake looked at me and I shrugged. Things were different everywhere. Jake signed his name, and we started for the stairs. About halfway up, the clerk looked at the book and blurted out.

  “Jake Talon?”

  My brother turned and gave the young man a cold stare. “Something wrong?”

  “You’re Jake Talon?” the clerk asked, with a weird smile on his face.

  “Yes. What about it?” Jake turned and fully faced th
e clerk. His hand rested casually on the hilt of his knife.

  The clerk shook his head. “Nothing, just heard the name before.”

  Jake gave the man another look before turning back up the stairs. Down the hall, he looked at me. “What do you think that was about?”

  I shook my head. “Beats the hell out of me. Let’s get washed up and get some dinner. We have some planning to do.”

  Chapter 17

  An hour later we all met back out in the hallway. Julia and Kayla had put on some of their nicer clothes in anticipation of a decent meal in a nice restaurant. Kayla was wearing a form-fitting shirt and vest, with tight fitting jeans tucked into her signature boots. Julia was in a similar outfit, but without the vest. Her shirt was open at the throat, and she stuck out in all the right places. Jake was in a black shirt and pants, and I wore a simple flannel shirt and jeans.

  If anyone thought we were defenseless, they would have found out differently in a hurry. Julia and Kayla both had knives in their boots, and Jake had a knife up his sleeve in a sheath attached to his forearm. My blade was in a sheath on my back, and a quick grab behind my neck would bring it out in a hurry.

  I looked over the girls. “You ladies look fantastic,” I said smiling.

  Kayla and Julia beamed. “You two clean up well,” Kayla said. “Love the shirt, Aaron.”

  “This old thing? Some old house find, I think.” I winked at Julia.

  “Huh!” Kayla sniffed. “See if I get you a Christmas present ever again.”

  We walked down the hall and to the stairs. At the top of the staircase both Jake and I slowed. There was a tension in the air that hadn’t been there before, and both of us were suddenly on alert. I could see it in the way Jake moved, and I knew Julia and Kayla were aware of something being wrong. I scanned the lobby for threats and couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. A few men were sitting in the chairs, but that was all. But there was a heaviness , anyway.