“Where are we?”
“Bumblefuck, Kansas. Crossed the border a ways back.”
Paul looked at the others in back, his gaze snagging on Billy’ puffy eyes. “You okay?”
“I was until you woke me up with that bloodcurdling scream.”
“Welcome to the new world, Billy.” Wendy slapped a full mag into her gun and racked a load. “Where the beer’s always warm and the nightmares never end.”
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Paul got out of the truck and grabbed the M4 from the bed. The front porch steps groaned beneath his weight, protesting his trespass. He stopped at the house’s mouth with a bad feeling taking root in the pit of his stomach. “We check every room, including the attic.”
Billy blinked at him, Taser gripped in his hand. “This is how you people live now?”
Stephanie clicked off her safety. “Were you expecting a concierge?”
“This place looks haunted as shit,” he whispered, eyes snagging an old rocker at the end of the porch. “Black people don’t do haunted.”
“Oh, but you’ll do gizzards,” Curtis muttered.
Paul could almost feel the chills running through Billy just by the twisted look gripping his face. He swallowed dryly. “Maybe we should check the next house.”
“Fuck that.” Curtis glanced into the overgrown yard behind them, the tactical shotgun snug against his shoulder. “Passed some stragglers a mile or two back and I’m not going back out there.”
“Let’s just make do,” Stephanie whispered, holding her gun in both hands like Paul taught her. “I can’t be in that cramped truck another minute.”
“Me neither.” Wendy arched her back. “I was sitting on a seatbelt the entire time.”
Faint clouds swept across the crescent-shaped moon like ghosts, dimming the sky. “Alright, everyone sticks together; nobody splits up.” Paul nodded at Wendy, who clicked on a flashlight and tried the knob. The door clicked open and swung inside the house with a high-pitched screech that made everyone shrink.
“Damn,” Curtis said, wrinkling his nose. “Place smells like cat piss.”
Wendy jerked her gun to Stephanie.
Stephanie gasped and raised her gun, drawing an eye-level bead on Wendy’s nose. “What’re you doing?”
Wendy nodded behind her, eyes widening. Stephanie hesitated before spinning around to the empty rocking chair at the end of the porch. A wet squeak pierced the silence coiling at their feet as the chair slowly rocked back and forth over a loose plank.
“What the…?” Billy’s wild eyes traveled to Curtis. “That is some paranormal activity right there, man. Just like what happened to that one white girl with a boyfriend named Micah.”
Curtis lowered his weapon. “For a guy who hates horror movies you sure know a lot about em.”
“It’s just the wind,” Paul said, scanning the yard and street.
Wendy slowly turned to face him. “There is no wind.”
“Oh my God, she’s right.” Stephanie backed away from the chair without taking her gun off it.
Billy shook his head. “Even the wind is dead, man. What the fuck?”
“You stay right behind me and do not Tase me.”
Billy nodded at Paul, eyes gravitating back to the rocking chair. “No problem.”
“Stephanie, you got our six.”
She glanced behind them into the driveway like she just heard something while Wendy swung a flashlight into the house. Paul followed the beam inside, eyes burning with the unmistakable stench of rot and decay. With the M4 hugging his shoulder, his pulse thudded in the hollow of his throat. Tall piles of books, papers and other random boxes filled the living room. He followed a tiny path weaving through the stacks of clutter like a city street, winding past a large hutch lined with old school dolls watching from the shelves inside. Their glassy eyes winked at them in the jumpy light.
“Oh my God,” Wendy whispered. “This is so creepy.”
“Maybe checking the next house wasn’t such a bad idea after all,” Curtis said, yanking the tactical shotgun to someone standing on the other side of the room. Staring down the barrel, he watched his reflection relax in a long mirror hanging above the fireplace. “Fucking-A, I shouldn’t have done that last bong-hit. This place is messing with my head.”
“I hear you, man,” Billy whispered. “I’m totally shitting my pants right now.”
Paul frowned at Curtis. “Wait, you were pulling tubes while you were driving?”
He shrugged. “Not like I was going to get pulled over for it.”
Paul’s heart jumped when he bumped into something. Swinging the M4 around, he looked down at the walker on the carpet beside him. The dented metal bars wore tennis balls for shoes and the grips were old and worn. “Jesus,” he breathed, trying to control his racing heart.
“Fucking hoarders,” Curtis whispered, stepping over a pile of clothing.
Wendy jerked the flashlight across the room. “Something just moved over there.”
Forced to go single file down the thin path, they crept past the dolls watching them with playful looks in their eyes.
“I don’t see anything.”
“I think it went into the dining room.”
Easing into the dining room, they discovered two trails forking around a long table with shit stacked over every square inch. A massive hutch sat against the far wall with more dolls lining the shelves.
“They probably didn’t even have kids,” Stephanie whispered, pointing her gun at the floor. “That’s what’s really creepy.”
The front door slammed shut behind them and Wendy squeezed a round into the hutch, bringing dolls to their feet.
“Jesus Christ, Wendy, relax!” Paul hissed, checking the front door. “It’s just the wind.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s a rookie move.”
“It was an accident.”
“Yeah, that could’ve killed one of us.”
“I said I’m sorry, Paul! What do you want me to say? It scared the shit out of me, okay?”
“God!” Angrily, he shook his head and claws latched on from behind, tearing through his scalp. Crying out, he blasted three holes in the ceiling, raining down plaster. The corpse ripped at his head and hissed, biting into his scalp and Paul knew it was game over. The unspeakable had come knocking and today was his turn to open that door. Reaching behind him, he grabbed the thing by the hair and yanked. Crashing into the dolls with an angry shriek, a black cat landed on a stack of Rachel Ray magazines and skittered back into the shadows.
“Sonofabitch!”
“Are you okay?” Wendy asked, shining the light in his face.
He pulled a hand from the back of his head and stared at the blood in the light. “Great, now I’ve probably got rabies on top of everything else.”
Curtis chuckled. “Well, at least if you turn you’ll only want Meow Mix.”
“Funny.”
“Paul.”
“What?” Wiping blood on his jeans, Paul followed Stephanie’s nod through the archway behind him. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the skinny old woman standing in front of the kitchen sink with her head tipped down. Drawing on her, he aimed for the salt and pepper hair covering her face. “Hello?” His voice cracked around the edges, gaze running the length of the stained nightgown leading to her arthritis-twisted toes. “Are you okay?”
She stood there and stared at her feet with dirty dishes overwhelming the sink behind her.
“Damn,” Billy whispered, peering around Paul. “I’m literally shitting my pants right now and I’m not even kidding.”
Paul stepped closer. “Mam, are you okay?”
Deathly silence was her answer and if he could just see past the stringy hair hiding her face he could tell if she was dead or alive because the last thing he wanted to do was mistakenly shoot an innocent person. Shooting guilty ones had been hard enough. Taking baby steps across the dining room, warm blood trickled down the back of his neck from the scr
atches in his scalp.
“Be careful,” Wendy whispered, holding the light under the pink gun.
Paul kept the M4 trained on the woman, breath hitching when something ran across the toe of his shoe. He jerked the gun to a shadow darting into a hallway and disappearing into the dark. Stephanie shrieked and covered her mouth, drawing Wendy’s light.
“Something just touched my leg.”
“Let’s just get the hell out of here,” Billy pleaded, jerking his Taser around the dining room.
“Take it easy with that thing,” Paul whispered, turning back to the lady who still hadn’t moved. A gunshot went off behind him, making him whirl around to see Curtis pointing his shotgun at a dead cat on the floor, this one white with brown spots and no head.
“Goddamn,” Curtis breathed. “Sorry, thought it was a straggler. Fucking cats are all over the place.”
Paul pivoted on his heels, certain the old woman would be standing right behind him when he did, ready to sink her teeth into his face like a cobra. But she wasn’t. She stood in front of the kitchen sink with her head tipped down so Paul went closer, ready to blow her face off in necessary. In the kitchen, he noticed a row of litter boxes off to the left and several bowls of... A grunt shot from him when someone bum rushed him from the other side of the archway and slammed him up against an old-fashioned refrigerator. Paul shoved the M4 against the old woman’s chest to keep her snapping teeth at bay while salt and pepper hair swung wildly across her furious face. She’d moved so fast from the sink he didn’t even see her coming. Then, out the corner of his wild eyes, he saw the old woman still standing in front of the sink with her head down. It wasn’t possible. The other woman sprayed a smelly scream across his face and that’s when it hit him.
Twins.
There was a loud snap and she started shaking against him. Paul pushed with the gun and sent her stumbling backwards. A gun blast went off, spraying his face with cold blood and jerking the bag of bones to the floor. His eyes went to the smoke rising from Wendy’s handgun to the wires connecting Billy’s Taser to the thing crumpled on the floor. The old woman standing in front of the sink issued a pissed off scream and limped forward. She reached for them with saggy arms, moving so slowly Stephanie had more than enough time to drop her next to her sister on the cracked linoleum floor.
Paul wiped blood from his eyes, ears ringing. “I knew we should’ve gone somewhere else.”
Stephanie pointed her gun at the bodies. “They look exactly alike.”
Curtis spit to the floor. “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the kitchen.”
Paul scanned the cans and boxes and dirty pans covering the kitchen counters, gut wrenching. He looked back to the dead women on the floor. “They were working together.”
Everyone slowly looked up.
“It was an ambush.” He met their baffled gazes. “They were working together, like lions when they hunt.”
“Or velociraptors.”
Paul turned to Billy, who offered up a limp shrug.
“Haven’t you ever seen Jurassic Park?” He looked down at the woman he’d zapped with the Taser. “Clever girl.”
“Love that movie,” Curtis muttered.
“That’s impossible.” Fear rattled Stephanie’s words. “Most of these things can barely walk let alone think.”
“No, Paul’s right,” Wendy said, swinging the flashlight around the kitchen. “The woman standing in front of the sink was the bait. Her sister, hiding over here, was the ambusher.”
Paul ran a hand through his hair, flinging blood to the floor. “We told you about those two back on the beach. They worked together to keep us from getting out of the water. Some of these things are getting smarter.”
“Like Chubs back at the station.” Billy stared at the dead twins. “He used a mop as a tool.” He looked up, eyes widening. “And what about my mom controlling that chair? It was like she wasn’t dead, man.”
“This isn’t the first time we’ve seen behavior that indicates some level of cognizance.” Paul nodded at Wendy. “The car show guy hiding in the attic for one.”
“Or the dead girl riding a bike in Brock’s driveway,” she countered.
Billy frowned. “Say what?”
“Hey, even monkeys can use tools.” Curtis pumped the shotgun. “Don’t mean they can outthink us.”
Paul swept a hand out. “These two just about did!”
Billy raised a finger. “Hold on. What if they’re getting smarter with every person they eat?” He nodded sternly, like he was on to something. “Flesh is their fuel, but what if when they eat someone they also take a part of that person with them.”
“Yeah, like a leg,” Curtis said.
“No, I mean like a piece of their DNA or something.”
“When did the cop start using the mop?”
Billy turned to Paul. “About two weeks in.”
“But he didn’t eat anyone.”
“That’s not true. Didn’t you see the blood on his hands and mouth?” Billy swallowed hard. “Chubs would take off for a few hours now and then and come back with fresh blood on him.”
“They’re not getting smarter with every person they eat; that’s not even possible.” Wendy set her hands on her hips. “Is it?”
Stephanie shook her head. “I’m getting a very bad feeling about this and I don’t mind saying it. I mean, what’s next? Using humans for bait in their traps?”
Paul’s gaze slowly rose to find her staring back at him, insides twisting as he imagined Stephanie tied to a chair in some living room with zombies hiding behind the curtains.
☠
After clearing the rest of the decrepit house and dragging the twins out the back, the group huddled in the kitchen to collect their thoughts. Paul washed off with a wet towel as another cat slipped out the backdoor they left propped open to clear the air. During their tedious search, they turned up at least a dozen cats – most dead and the rest skinny as rails – and no shortage of mice skeletons either. The smell alone was bad enough, but there was so much stuff piled everywhere they couldn’t even stretch out to sleep, not in the same room anyway.
“Let’s just find another house,” Billy suggested for the fifth time, his dilated eyes darting around the room like bats.
“We need some rest.” Paul leaned against the sink, the thought of clearing another house in the dark draining what little energy he had left. If they ran into more trouble, they might not be as lucky (if you could call this lucky). They were tired and jumpy and it was only a matter of time before someone made a fatal mistake. His gaze floated to the holes in the ceiling. “I say we clear a spot in the living room and call it a night.”
“I don’t think I can sleep in here,” Stephanie said, scanning the filthy kitchen. “There’s mouse poop everywhere.”
“You’d think with so many cats, there wouldn’t be any mice.” Wendy blew out an exhausted breath that fluttered a loose strand of her bangs. “This really is disgusting.”
“Let’s just clear the living room and get some sleep.” Paul didn’t wait for anyone to agree with him before crossing into the dining room, junk crunching beneath his feet.
Waking up at three twenty-three, disappointment set in when he checked his watch to see it wasn’t even four in the morning yet. He wasn’t even entirely sure he’d fallen asleep and was ready to put this place behind them and get back home. With the faint moonlight slipping through the windows, he noticed Curtis missing from the room and peeled back the blanket to find Wendy snuggled up against him. He felt guilty for getting used to waking up with her by his side like this but that’s how things worked in this world. Things moved fast.
Too fast.
He tried getting up and she pulled him to the blanket they’d thrown over the carpet to alleviate some of the cat piss smell which didn’t work. “Where are you going?” she whispered, pulling the other blanket over them to ward off the cold.
“To check on Curtis.”
Leaning
up on an elbow, she brushed hair from her face and looked to Stephanie and Billy sleeping at their feet. Paul suddenly got the uneasy feeling Curtis had taken off in the truck and left them for dead. His eyes snapped back to Stephanie and he forced himself to relax. Curtis would never leave her behind like that and probably just went to take a leak in a litter box out in the kitchen.
“When that crazy old lady slammed you up against the fridge tonight, my heart almost burst from my chest.” Her fingertips rubbed soft circles into his arm. “You’ve saved me so many times, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Wendy, you’re a strong woman who would do just fine without me,” he said, staring into the blue eyes he could almost see through the darkness. “It’s almost like you were born to do this.”
She smiled and pressed her lips to his, catching him off guard and tasting like strawberries. Paul hesitated for a second or two that lasted forever and pushed her away. The soothing touch of another woman could almost heal the scars incurred over the past few weeks but the guilt stood strong.
“Paul, I need you.” Her hand slithered beneath the blanket, quickly finding the bulge in his jeans and quickening his breath.
He removed her hand. “Wendy, I told you I can’t do this.”
Her fingertips traced the stubble on his cheek, faces inches apart. “I know what you’ve been through and I also know what we’re up against. There are no guarantees anymore and I may not be here tomorrow.”
“Come on.”
“It’s true, Paul. Each day is a gift and I don’t want to waste a single one.” She kissed him on the lips as if he were made of glass. Pulling away, she peered into his eyes. “We need something to hang onto now more than ever.”
“I can’t.”
“But I know you want to.” She didn’t wait for a reply and kissed him again, her sweet saliva mixing with his as her hand disappeared beneath the blanket again. She broke their kiss to flash him a devilish grin. “See? You do like it.”
Paul threw the blanket back and strapped his gun on before tying his shoes. “I should check on Curtis.”
“Paul.”
Shaking her hand from his arm, he tip-toed to a window facing the driveway, being extra cautious to avoid knocking over a stack of books, which, in this world, could get you shot or eaten. He released a pent-up breath, seeing the truck parked outside and feeling foolish for thinking the worst of Curtis. Going back around Wendy and the piles of clutter, he made it to the hallway where a faint noise came from the bathroom at the end. Going closer, he pressed his ear to the door and listened to the soft sound of someone weeping inside. His imagination ran away with him, conjuring up the image of one of the dead old ladies as a ghost, crying on the toilet and ruing the brutal end to a long hard life.
Dead Series (Book 2): A Little More Dead: Gunfire & Sunshine Page 14
