Paul appreciated her attempt at making him feel better about what he’d done but wished she’d shut the fuck up just the same. This wasn’t a movie where Tom Cruise killed a bad guy with a flick of his wrist and felt zero remorse. This was real. He just took two human lives, two people who had mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. Maybe even kids. He remembered how he felt after shooting that first zombie inside his home and he remembered the horror of discovering the poor woman was pregnant. It took everything he had to keep moving back then and that gunshot still haunted his hand. Flexing his fingers, he longed for the days when killing a spider was the extent of his viscous nature. Paul was afraid to look in a mirror and see what he’d become. This world turned everyone into killers, including him.
Sitting on the end of the couch that didn’t have Sophia’s dried blood all over it, Stephanie stared at the whiskey swirling in her glass and spoke in a hushed voice. “How did that door slam shut upstairs?”
Wendy turned from the French doors. “The windows are all closed. I checked.”
Stephanie leaned back and crossed her legs, letting a combat boot dangle in the air. “I just find the timing of it all a little…strange.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Curtis agreed. “I mean, what’re the odds that would happen right then? Right at the perfect time to make a move.” His eyes shifted to Paul. “And you reacted so fast it was almost like you knew it was coming.”
Paul noticed Wendy staring at him with a knowing look branded into her face so he poured more whiskey into his glass before going out onto the front porch and sinking into the swing, a thousand different thoughts bartering for a piece of his time.
Chapter Thirteen
DAY TWENTY-FIVE
The snow grew dangerously deep and if the Jeep got stuck now, they would probably die. A mile or more between farmhouses, darkness fell with eerie stealth and if they had to walk out there with those things hiding in the moonlit shadows, they wouldn’t make it far. Not in this snow.
“There!” Dan cried from the backseat, pointing up ahead.
Paul slowed down, stingily killing the Grand Cherokee’s momentum up a gradual snow-covered hill, telling himself the Trailhawk package would get them out of the deep stuff if they had to stop. A hooded figure exited the driver’s side of the minivan and waved their hands over their head.
“Wait,” Dan hissed, leaning forward. “What if they’re rapists?”
Paul came to an unenthusiastic stop, trading a nervous look with Sophia in the seat next to him.
“Think about it, man. There are no cops anymore! Even if there are, they’re probably a little on the busy side right about now.”
“Dan, we’re going to help them if we can because that’s what people do in times like these.” Paul put it in park and nonchalantly dug beneath his heavy coat to draw his sidearm.
“Not all people, dude.”
The hooded figure trudged closer through the falling snow.
“You think it’s a trap?” Sophia whispered, drawing the pink 9mm from her hip. After barely escaping Des Moines with their lives, she was jumpy and Paul didn’t blame her. Hell had thrown back its gates and every move could be their last. Death lurked around every corner and caution was as necessary as air and ammo.
The person stopped at Paul’s window, the fur lined hood hiding their face. His right hand tightened around the Beretta as he rolled the window down with the click of a button.
“Thank God!” the woman panted, snowflakes swirling in through the open window. “We’re stuck; can you give us a lift?”
Paul stared at her for a few wavering seconds before nodding to the backseat. “Hurry,” he replied over the howling wind, groaning when he saw her march back to the van and gather up two small kids from the backseat. Where were they supposed to take them? He knew before they even got inside the Jeep that giving them a lift in this world entailed a lot more than dropping them off at an auto repair shop.
Adoption.
That’s what it meant now.
“Thank you so much,” the woman breathed, slamming the backdoor shut and squeezing in next to her two boys, nearly pushing Dan out the other side. “Matt climb in the back.” In the rearview mirror, Paul watched Matt kick Dan in the head as he climbed in back.
“Where to?” Paul asked, catching an elbow from Sophia.
The woman blew out a long white breath and Paul turned up the heater. “I’m Carla and this is Mike,” she said, gesturing to the older kid sitting between her and Dan. “And that’s Matt in the back.”
Sophia twisted around in her seat. “Are you all okay?”
Carla pulled her hood back and shook the snow from her bangs. “We’re fine; just pregnant and scared to death.”
Sophia’s eyebrows drew together. “You’re pregnant?”
Oh great, Paul thought, putting the vehicle in drive.
Carla sighed. “Do you know what in the world is going on out there?”
“We know as much as you do,” Dan replied, pulling a seatbelt out from under him.
Paul gave the Jeep some gas, heart thumping in his chest. It seemed like two more inches had fallen since they’d stopped and this was the moment of truth. The Jeep’s tires began to turn, sinking their knobby teeth into the fresh powder, each wheel getting the independent dose of energy it required. Slowly, he pulled around the minivan, no longer able to tell where the gravel road started and stopped. Relief rushed through his veins as the SUV gained traction. Glancing in his mirror, he half expected to see a hundred of those dead things giving chase but all he could see were red taillights reflecting off the white snowfall.
“Whatever it is, we have to find somewhere to hide for the night. They seem to come out more when it’s dark,” he said, turning to Sophia, who smiled at him through broken teeth and peeling lips. Pressing against his car door, his breath hitched as jagged cracks spider webbed through her ashen skin. Dan leaned between them, missing an eyeball and blood running from the exposed socket onto the console.
“The dead aren’t here to destroy you, Paul,” he said, his jaw dangling by a sinewy thread.
Sophia set an icy hand on Paul’s leg. “We’re here to help you.”
“But you’re going to need more than a rainbow knife,” Matt said from the back, his throat ripped open and blood squirting out in pulsating bursts.
Mike frowned. “Rambo knife, doofus,” he said, a dark trail oozing from a bullet hole in his forehead.
“Michael,” Carla snapped, scratching at a nasty gash in her cheek. “Don’t call your brother names.”
“What the fuck!” Paul screamed, his gaze jerking back to Sophia when she dug her thick yellow nails into his leg.
Long stringy hair hung in her face, nearly hiding her sunken eyes as the Jeep continued down the road on autopilot. “Stay the course,” she said with a squeeze.
Dan set a decomposing hand on Paul’s shoulder that smelled like a soiled diaper. “Get to Camp Dodge and forget everything else.”
Paul looked back to the road and slammed on the brakes as his mom darted across the roadway in an open robe. The Jeep slammed into her, spraying the windshield with blood as dark as oil. His eyelids flipped open to find Wendy staring back and Curtis behind the wheel of the F-150. Slouched in the backseat, Paul ran a hand down his sweaty face and exhaled a pent-up breath. “Jesus.”
Wendy rubbed his leg. “You’re okay. Just another dream.”
He sat up and grimaced with a kink in his neck from leaning against the door, squinting out the sun-splashed windows. “Where are we?” he asked, his dry tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth.
“Bumfuck nowhere, Oklahoma,” Curtis answered, leading the truck down some back road way too fast. “Where the beer is warm and Ethel’s bite is worse than her bark.”
“How long was I out?”
“Since we left,” Stephanie said, twisting around in the front seat and staring at him over a pair of sunglasses. “You were talking in your sleep for a while but we didn�
��t want to wake you.”
“I was? What’d I say?”
“Something about liking it in the ass.”
“Curtis,” Stephanie groaned.
“Never would’ve guessed you for a fudge packer, Paul, but I guess different anal strokes for different folks.”
Stephanie smacked Curtis in the arm, drawing his sharp laughter.
“You kept saying she’s pregnant, she’s pregnant.” Wendy took Paul’s hand. “Who was pregnant? Sophia?”
Sinking into the backseat, the nightmare receded back into the vapor where it came from faster than he could snatch at bits and pieces of it. “Carla.”
Wendy creased her brow while a dilapidated two-story house zipped past in the background. “The soccer mom?”
He nodded.
“She was pregnant?”
“No, she wasn’t.” He blew through his lips. “Thank God.”
Curtis turned on the stereo, wasting no time singing along at the top of his lungs. “I often think about that summer, the sweat the moonlight and the lace…”
Paul dropped his face into both hands, a dull thud knocking behind his left eye.
“And I have rarely held another, when I haven’t seen her face.” Curtis drummed his fingers against the wheel. “And every time I pass a wheat field, and watch it dancing with the wind…”
Paul pulled his face from his hands. “Do you ever listen to anything besides Garth fucking Brooks?” he snapped, searing Curtis in the mirror. “Jesus!”
“U know what, Paul? I feel for everything you’ve been through but I’m about two cunt hairs from kicking your ass.”
“Yeah, you tried that one already, remember? Didn’t work out so hot for ya.”
“Well you know what I always say, if at first you don’t succeed…”
“Look out!” Stephanie braced for impact.
Curtis cranked the wheel hard left, swerving around a little boy dragging a pink teddy bear down the road – both he and the bear missing their left arms. “Sonofabitch!” Curtis yelled, narrowly regaining control of the vehicle and hammering down on the gas pedal. “Fucking retard’s walking right down the middle of the goddamn road!”
“Stop saying that word, Curtis!”
He looked at Stephanie, folding his brow. “Fucking?”
“You know what word I mean! You didn’t get away with it in the old world and I’m not about to let you get away with it in this one. Don’t say it again.”
“Okay. Jesus, I’m sorry.”
“How about you slow down a little before you kill us?”
“How about you kiss my ass, Paul? I’m a professional driver. Remember?”
“Yeah, until you have to make a right turn; then we’re all screwed.”
“Ha-ha. Never heard that one before.”
“Just slow down a little, will ya?”
Curtis shot him a cocky grin and went even faster, stepping on Paul’s last nerve.
He shook his head and bit his lip, resigning to give up now before his irritation made him shoot Curtis in the back of the head. The fact that he was capable of such a thing frightened him, like when an alcoholic wakes up in his car at 4am and has no idea where he’s at or how he got there.
Curtis whipped into the parking lot of a dated, sand-colored building sitting on the outskirts of another small town that looked just like the one before it.
Stephanie craned her neck for a better view out the front windshield, jerking with an abrupt stop in motion. “A police station?”
☠
Curtis was right. They needed handcuffs in case they ran into any more unsavory types, and any guns and ammo would be a bonus. Sunlight poured through the cop shop’s windows, the front door unlocked and intact. Paul double-checked his safety. It was in a foreign spot to him and he’d practiced flipping it on and off a hundred times but this was live action and he had to be sure it was off. A new tick for the new world. Despite distinctly remembering clicking the safety off upon exiting the vehicle, he checked again. It was off and everyone traded quiet glances before stepping inside and locking the deadbolt behind them. With weapons at eye level, they stood shoulder to shoulder, forming a wall of defense that gave Paul a false sense of security. Their shadows stretched before them, falling over some loose papers and donuts scattered about the floor. Other than that, the place looked like it hadn’t been touched, like it probably did the day the station started getting odd calls from the public.
911, what’s your emergency?
Yeah hi, there’s a man standing in my garden in the backyard.
911, what’s your emergency?
Umm, my neighbor is dragging a pitchfork down the middle of the road.
911, what’s your…?
Please help us! I’m locked in the bathroom with my daughter! And my husband is trying to break down the door!
Paul could see it in his head now. It wouldn’t have taken long for a rolling wave of death and destruction to overwhelm the modest police force, which explained the quiet buzzing in his ears. Everyone was gone. Everyone.
Curtis tried opening a metal door behind the front desk. “Locked,” he said, cupping his face and peering through the narrow window running through it.
“There’s some blood on the floor over here,” Wendy whispered, gun clutched tightly in her hands.
Paul reached out and gently adjusted Stephanie’s grip on her gun. “Not the cup and saucer, remember? Wrap your support hand over your dominant hand.”
She gave him a quick nod. “Got it.”
“Bingo!” Curtis shouted, popping open a tall cabinet behind the front desk and staring at the sparse remnants inside. Outside of two handguns, a shotgun, and some police duty belts, there were a few Tasers, handcuffs, badges and random boxes of ammo. Curtis tossed Paul a set of cuffs which he slipped into his back pocket.
“Any silencers in there?” Paul asked, scanning the window of a small office in back.
Curtis laughed. “In this shithole? No, but that’s a good idea. We’ll have to hit a big city cop shop to find those…if we’re lucky.”
“Let’s try to find some keys to that door and see what else is…” Paul’s eyes snapped to a set of stairs leading to the basement. “You hear that?”
They followed him to the top of the staircase where something was making a banging sound below. Descending the steps, the noise grew louder. Paul stopped at the bottom and held a hand out, staring at two empty cells across from him. The banging was coming from around the corner to the left and he was afraid to even look. Heart thudding in his ears, he glanced back at the others and put a finger to his lips before quietly poking his head around the corner where a small window at the end of the hallway shed some light on the mystery. His insides twisted when he saw a heavyset police officer on his knees, poking a mop handle through the bars of the jail cell at the end of the hall. The mop handle banged against the concrete floor.
Clack.
Clack.
Clack.
Meanwhile, a man in an orange jumpsuit stood in the cell next door, reaching through the side bars and trying to get after the same thing the cop was in that fourth cell. Paul couldn’t see anything in there and the policeman growled his frustration, inciting the prisoner to release a high-pitched shriek that echoed loudly off the cinderblock walls. Flinching with the outburst, Paul ducked back around the corner and took one hand off the M4 just long enough to hold up two fingers. The others tightened their grips on their weapons. With Stephanie and Wendy protecting their six, Paul inhaled a deep breath and stepped out around the corner, taking a wide stance with the M4 at the ready.
The cop was so preoccupied he didn’t even notice. Neither did the prisoner with his back to them. Moving together, the group crept closer while the cop jabbed the mop handle into that fourth cell.
Clack.
Clack.
Clack.
Paul struggled to control his breathing as they pressed forward, shocked by what he was seeing. The cop was definitely dead
and definitely using the mop as some kind of tool but for what, Paul had no idea. The prisoner with the blond ponytail blocked his view into that far cell but something was in there. Something the two ghouls were desperately after.
“Boo!” Curtis yelled, grabbing Paul’s arm and making him nearly jump out of his shoes.
“Goddammit Curtis!”
Curtis laughed hard until the banging stopped and the two stiffs slowly turned their heads to Paul and company. The smile slid down Curtis’ face as dead eyes locked onto live ones. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Not even the corpses. Then, in a struggle against gravity, the bloated cop staggered to his scuffed black shoes, spurring Paul and Curtis into shielding the women with their bodies. The way the policeman just stood there and sized them up with a mop hanging in his bloody hand sent a cold finger down Paul’s spine. A glimmer of thought seemed to flash in the thing’s sunken eyes just before the mop dropped to the floor with a loud clatter.
“Hungry?” Paul called out, tipping his chin down and preparing for the M4’s recoil.
The cop snarled and charged, covering ten of the twenty-five feet between them in a disturbing burst of speed. Paul and Curtis unloaded on him at the same time, cowering with the booming blast ricocheting off the hard walls. The M4 pounded Paul’s shoulder. The cop spun around and hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud.
“Goddammit, Curtis!”
“What?”
“That was my shot. I’m trying to get a feel for this new gun and you’re wasting an entire shell!”
“Sorry, I thought you might miss.”
Paul’s face fell. “From here?”
“I told you, man, that’s a lot of gun for a guy like you to handle.”
The prisoner shot his ragged arms through the bars, screaming when no purchase was found.
“Shut up,” Curtis said, swinging the shotgun to him.
Paul pushed it down and gave Curtis an icy look that made him back up. Carefully stepping closer to the thing’s cage, Paul yanked on the cell door and jumped back just before the man latched onto him. “It’s locked; he’s not going anywhere.” The fourth cell at the end of the hall tapped at his attention. He was dying to know what was in there and dreading to find out at the same time.
Dead Series (Book 2): A Little More Dead: Gunfire & Sunshine Page 11
