She wanted a natural death, when the time came, not a violent one.
However, what she told Jim back at the store almost two weeks ago still held true. When her time came, she would embrace it.
She would see her Virgil again. She had no doubt about it.
She thought maybe it took a bit longer if a person was a zombie though…she wasn’t sure.
The dead man in the hallway hadn’t yet attempted to break into the room. It was likely he hadn’t yet figured out that his food was in here. All it would take was one sound, one whiff of her, and he would be clawing his way in.
Jean hoped the crowd outside cleared off before then. She drew the line at retreating to the bathroom and having it become her final resting place— or lurking place, as the case may be.
A lady had to have some pride, after all.
◆◆◆
The sun was now high in the sky and the temperature had risen.
It must have been close to one hundred degrees, or more. She wiped the thin layer of sweat from her forehead, hating the feel of it dripping through her hair.
Her perm had been ruined a long time ago, and now she looked like frizzy mess. She wished she had kept her boonie cap on her. She left it sitting on the counter back at the sporting goods store.
She drank some water, ate a small fiber bar, and visited the bathroom. She was terrified to pee too loudly, lest that creature out there hear her. She turned on the faucet, hoping the pipes didn’t rumble if there was air in the line.
Cold water trickled over her hands, and she patted it over her face. It felt like heaven!
She went back to the room and resumed her watch.
◆◆◆
Later in the evening, perhaps two hours before dark according to her watch, she heard gunshots.
She had been peeking out the window.
The dead were leaving, slowly. It was unnerving. At the first shot, they had all paused in unison, then turned and shuffled toward the cracking of gunfire.
She listened closely.
Yes, it came from the direction of the store. She was sure it was Cam and the others. The firing was rhythmic and even. She thought about it for a minute. If they were in a panic, they would be firing rapidly and more sporadically.
Maybe they had got up on the roof and were trying to clear a way out.
It wouldn’t work. They didn’t have enough ammo to take out both Zulu hoards.
They didn’t know that!
She needed to get out there as soon as the way was clear. She needed to draw away as many as she could. She watched out the blinds carefully, being sure not to reveal herself to the dead, and ruin everything.
Suddenly, a loud smacking began on the wall nearest the door.
“UUURRRGHHHGHG,” the thing in the hallway groaned.
She heard a scrabbling of fingernails on the grain of the wood and shivered in revulsion. She hated that!
The dead man began pounding on the door, harder now. She didn’t know how he had discovered her presence, and that worried her. What if they had some sort of instinct about it? That would be bad.
The door wouldn’t hold for long, and the crowd outside was still stumbling along the yard. They didn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry, but she was.
The doorframe made an ominous cracking sound, and she saw it splinter along the lock. She was out of time.
She looked again out the window. The last of the herd had reached the end of this small street. It would be close. Very close.
She raised the blinds and opened up the window. She grabbed her weapons and her bag and climbed down, sitting on the ledge in order to get her legs over. It was only a short drop to the ground, less than a foot. She hopped down and checked all around.
Inside the room, the door banged open, and the hungry man inside lunged for the open window.
She ran, reaching the cruiser. The stragglers of the herd turned and spotted her. The obese zombie was up and lurching toward the back of the car.
She turned the ignition, suddenly sure that it wouldn’t start for some stupid reason, but it did.
She put it in gear and punched the accelerator. The powerful engine caused the car to jump forward, nearly ramming the crowd of dead directly ahead. Behind her, the fat one fell to his face, his balance upset by the car’s sudden movement.
She yanked the wheel to the left, spinning the car around in a complete one-eighty. The tires squealed on the slick asphalt.
She looked back and saw the herd had stopped following her, so she braked. Glancing down at the mysterious buttons near the console, she started flipping switches.
The siren wailed over the slumping army of dead things. They lurched forward, seemingly as one unit…and she smiled.
She rolled forward more, giving them time to catch up.
She was the Pied Piper of death, apparently.
She gained a side street that would take her back to the small town. She saw the herd gathered around the store. Its ranks had swollen since she left.
She trembled with fear at the sheer mass of the seething, surging dead. She couldn’t imagine the scale of the herds in the cities. There was no way people there could survive, not for long anyway.
Her smaller pack of dead followers caught up and she edged forward, siren still blaring. Now, it was echoing around the small collection of stores and buildings. She saw figures on the roof of the sporting goods store, they were waving frantically and pointing.
“Yes, I am well aware of the legions of dead on my tail. They must think I’m stupid.”
Oh well, better she be underestimated than overestimated.
She flashed her lights three times, then turned on the cruisers red and blue flashers and sped up.
Heading straight for the herd of dead surrounding the store, she yelled in horror and excitement, a true rebel yell. As she got to the intersection in front, she whipped the wheel to the right, rotating expertly onto the four-lane highway.
She stopped and honked the horn, holding it down. She was attracting the dead. She could draw them all away, then catch back up with Cam and the others later. She knew where they were going.
She was their only chance to get out.
As they started gaining on her, she pulled forward more, eventually making it to the edge of the small development. The two herds converged, forming one large solid mass of rotting, stinking dead. The stench inside the car was overwhelming and they were still a little way back.
She carried on, stopping and starting, until she had drawn them out several miles.
She hoped there weren’t too many stragglers left back there at the store….
Chapter Nine
Can’t Take It Anymore
Peggy
Peggy was done.
She roused herself from her nearly catatonic state, pushing all emotions away, pushing all thought away. She was a shell. She was a nobody. She didn’t exist.
She wanted release from the pain, and anguish, and memories, and this horrific existence.
She heard Ed leave his room early in morning. She heard others moving about. She would have to be quick and quiet.
She trembled and stole along the upstairs hallway. She made it to Ed’s room and looked around. Spotting the nightstand next to his bed, she ran over and opened the drawer.
She had found what she was looking for.
She made it back to her room without being seen, and she locked the door. She scribbled a few words on a sheet of paper and left it on the bed.
She went to the bathroom and sat in the large shower, hoping to contain most of the mess. She didn’t want to make any more trouble than necessary. If she thought she could get out of the lodge and into the lake, then she would have done it.
She was going to miss Ed and the others, but it was better this way. Maybe they would all see each other again someday, in another place, at another time.
She put the cold, oily barrel of the small pistol to the side of her head, hoping she didn’t screw
it up.
She pulled the trigger, hearing a split-second deafening report… then nothing at all….
Chapter Ten
Digging a Hole
Jim
Jim woke suddenly sometime in the early hours. A loud pop! still echoing through the silence.
“What the fuck was that?” he shouted.
He jumped out of bed, yelling for Angie to stay put, and pulled on his jeans. He didn’t even stop to button them. He grabbed his pistol and opened the door.
Were they being attacked?
He peered around the edge of the frame and saw nothing. He heard shouts from downstairs, and a door down the hall opened.
“Go back in your room!” he shouted to Jessica.
Instead, she darted into Jack’s room next door and slammed it behind her.
Heavy thudding and shouting came up the stairs. It was Ed.
“Ed, where did it come from?!” he yelled.
“It was up here somewhere…. Oh shit! Oh no!” Ed yelled before dashing toward Peggy’s room.
Jim had a terrible feeling.
He ran after Ed, trying to stop him. He had seen gunshot victims before, and it was never pretty. He wanted to spare Ed the sight.
He dashed through the door and wrapped his arms around Ed, lifting him bodily to the side, and blocked him from going further.
He held him there while he looked around Peggy’s room. It was empty, a lone piece of paper on the bed.
“Oh fuck…damn it!” Jim shouted, bringing his knuckles up to his mouth. He was suddenly nauseous.
He handed Ed the note. It was for him.
I’m sorry Ed. I couldn’t take it anymore.
Ed fell to his knees, sobbing, as Jim called for Nick and Bradley.
Nick appeared quickly, having heard the shot and returned to the lodge.
“What the hell happened?” he shouted to the room, looking from Jim’s stricken face to Ed’s hunched form, shoulders heaving with sobs.
“Peggy, she shot herself,” Jim said, still in shock.
Nick ran his hands up through his hair and pulled roughly, his eyes tearing up. He sat heavily on the bed, near Ed, who was still on the floor.
“Get him out of here. Take him to the kitchen,” Jim instructed.
Nick heaved Ed off the floor and guided him out of the room. Bradley, standing near the doorway, looked pale and stunned.
“Go to the basement. Grab a few extra blankets and some duct tape,” Jim said.
Bradley nodded and ran off.
Jim closed the door and went to the ominously silent bathroom. He knew he needed to go in. What if she was only injured and needed help?
That was almost more terrifying than the thought of her being dead in there. There would be nothing he could do to help her.
He turned the door handle and braced himself for the sight he knew he would find.
He pretended this was a police call, just like any other he would respond to. He pretended he didn’t know her. It was the only way he could look. He closed his eyes and pushed open the door, expecting a large mess.
His eyes slowly drew closer to the epicenter of the tragedy, scanning past the blood splatter and the other substances he refused to name. She wasn’t as damaged as he had feared.
Her face was spared the destruction that the back side of her head suffered. Perhaps she had done it that way on purpose. Tried to make it easier for them to look at her, after…
Her body was sprawled delicately in the shower.
The bullet had passed through her body and stuck in the wall to the side. Fortuitously, it had stuck into the outside wall and not an inner wall, where it could have potentially hit someone else.
Perhaps she had thought of that as well.
Her face was slack and peaceful. She looked more like herself than she had in over a week.
Why hadn’t they expected this? How had they not realized she was not only capable of suicide, but considering it?
Another soul lost from their group, and it weighed very heavily on Jim.
They had been vigilant with security. They had been vigilant with healthcare, as much as they could.
They hadn’t given any thought to mental health. They should have seen it. It should have been obvious. Maybe they could have stopped it or did something more.
He pulled down the shower curtain and wrapped Peggy in it gently, making sure her head was well covered. He heard a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Bradley. I’ve got the things you need,” he said.
“Come in then,” Jim answered.
Bradley stepped into the room and stared at the wrapped body. He immediately covered his mouth and rushed for the toilet, vomiting violently.
Jim ignored him and grabbed the supplies. He wrapped her in two separate blankets, taping them up well. When he was finished, he set her body gently on the bed and covered her with the spare blanket. He went back into the bathroom.
Bradley was rinsing out the shower, but some things just weren’t going to go down the drain.
“Run and grab some gloves and a box of black trash bags,” he said, surveying the mess. “And the bleach,” he added.
Bradley came back with them, and they did the grim work in silence, finally bleaching the evidence of the tragedy away for good.
They would never be able to remove it from their hearts.
They would need to watch Ed closely. Jim didn’t want a repeat of tonight’s events.
“Go take these to the shed outside,” he said, handing Brad the trash bag of unmentionable things and soiled gloves.
Bradley left to do as bid, and Jim left the room. He sought Ed out, knocking on Jack’s door on the way.
“Come downstairs,” he told Jessica.
“Is it true?” she asked, eyes wide and shining with tears.
He nodded and continued in toward the kitchen.
He stopped off in the dining room and poured a couple of shots of whiskey into two glasses. He entered the kitchen and saw Ed sitting, staring at the countertop in front of him. He slid him a glass, and Ed gulped it down.
“I’m going out to get things ready,” Jim said. “She’s cleaned up if you want to sit with her for a bit. I covered her up.”
Ed nodded, took Jim’s glass, and drank it down too. He stood and walked toward the stairs.
Jim looked over at the others, all gathered around. “We need to watch him for a while. Don’t let him be alone.”
Angie gave him a hug, and he returned it.
He held back the tears he wanted to cry, there was digging to do. It was too hot to wait.
“I love you, Angie,” he whispered softly, uncaring for the moment that she didn’t want his love.
She squeezed him tightly. “I love you too.”
He just wished it was in the right way.
Cam
Cam, Jack, and Monica were up on the roof.
They were going to attempt to clear enough of the dead so they could get out. They fired round after round. Heads burst, sometimes violently, and bodies fell. They didn’t seem to be making a dent in the crowd.
“There are too many!” Monica shouted.
“Keep firing! Watch your aim! Headshots only!” he shouted in return.
They fired for a solid twenty minutes. The mob below was packed in so tightly that they couldn’t even see the ones they had taken down. They had no choice but to keep going.
There was a pause in the shooting, as two were reloading.
They heard a siren.
“Is that our cruiser?” he asked Cam.
They looked toward the direction they heard it coming from and waited. It seemed to be creeping closer, but they had yet to see anything.
“There!” Monica said, pointing.
Sure enough, the cruiser crept forward to the stop sign at the end of the street. It held there.
What was she doing?
“What is she doing?” he heard Jack echo his thoughts.
/> “What the hell knows. She’s crazy,” Monica said acidly.
Cam thought he knew what she was doing. It was a good plan if she could pull it off.
“She’s going to lead them away,” he told them.
They waited several more seconds, just staring. Finally, they spotted Zulus creeping up on her. They watched in horror as the dead got closer and closer to the car.
“Go, old woman! Freaking go already!” Monica shouted, gesturing wildly in the air.
Jack joined her, trying to alert Jean to the danger.
Headlights flashed and she took off, speeding toward the intersection, siren wailing loudly. She screeched to the right and came to an abrupt stop.
Monica put a hand to her forehead. “She’s a maniac. A complete maniac.”
“She’s a maniac that is saving your ass, so shut the hell up,” Cam retorted harshly.
She shut up.
They watched Jean’s plan unfold, and when the dead from the back of the store finally turned the corner, they ran and climbed down the ladder and rushed to the back.
They gathered the small pile of supplies they accumulated through the night hours and waited at the back door.
Cam cracked the door, then pushed it all the way back against the wall.
“All clear!” he said, and they raced out.
They threw the extra gear into the back of Cam’s SUV and loaded up. Monica rode with Jack. Cam spoke into the radio.
“Blackbird One-Two, proceed home.”
“Roger. What about Leadfoot? Over.”
“Leadfoot will be along. We’ll wait en route. Out.”
Cam drove back through the streets, following the route they drove in on. They didn’t see any more dead. Apparently, they were all following Jean.
They reached the turn for the highway that would take them back to the lake and pulled far enough along it, so that they weren’t visible from the four-lane.
They waited.
Refuge From The Dead | Book 2 | Dead Summer Page 11
