Paul shut off the engine and light snow melted against the windshield. The quiet was unsettlingly deceptive. It looked clear from here but, as he’d learned over the past month, looks can be deceiving. This was the city and those things were, undoubtedly, lurking around every corner, waiting to strike. What was the old myth about always being within six feet of a spider? The same now went for the walking dead.
“Maybe we should just keep going to this Camp Dodge place,” Billy whispered from the backseat, nervously counting the bodies littering the front yard. “I think that guy by the tree is still moving.”
“Just stick together and we’ll be fine,” Paul said, getting out on rubbery legs and hanging the M4’s shoulder strap around his neck while painful flashes of the past made his head spin. And not the good past either, like when he and Sophia moved in and celebrated with champagne and Chinese surrounded by unpacked boxes, or when friends dropped by with beer and wine for the very first time. No, the bad stuff like when the world fell to the dead. His eyes drew to Dan’s Ford Fusion parked at an awkward angle in the front yard, stomach tightening. The man in a cheap suit and tie was still leaning over the porch railing and Paul could still feel the poor bastard’s bony hand locked around his wrist. He barely got out the front door that day without dying and it was a wonder he was still alive.
Or a curse.
“Outside of the dead lawn ornaments, nice crib,” Billy muttered, guardedly following Paul to the front door.
“I guess fart jokes and crank calls really paid the bills,” Curtis added.
Up on the front porch, Paul discovered the door shut and locked. He frowned because he sure as shit didn’t take the time to lock it before blasting his way to the Jeep with a Mossberg 500.
Curtis arched an eyebrow at him. “Don’t tell me you forgot your keys.”
“Let’s go around back,” he whispered, leading them over the bodies in the driveway to the backyard where there was no locking the shattered patio door.
“Sweet pool,” Curtis said, sweeping the tactical shotgun over the backyard.
“Never even got to use it.”
“No shit? That sucks.”
Paul stepped through the broken slider, glass crunching beneath his shoes. Inside the kitchen, he saw the dining room chair he’d thrown against the dishwasher and, through the grand archway, could see the pregnant woman in the parka lying on the dining room floor. His first kill. The gray daylight brought out every jagged crack in her face and Paul wondered if the fetus inside tried eating its way out. Looking away, he saw the dead man bent over the dining room table. Sophia’s first kill. Just before stepping into the dining room, the pantry door in the corner of the kitchen caught his eye. It was open and emptier than he remembered, which struck him just as oddly as the locked front door. Creeping through the dining room, they spilled into the living room with its vaulted ceilings and fireplace, everything triggering a flashflood of heartache. The coats and scarves hanging from the coat rack by the front door, a Valentine’s Day card from Sophia, her cell phone charger still plugged into a dead outlet, and the black leather purse he’d made her leave behind just before Dan rolled up in his Fusion sparked a sequence of events in his mind that all led back to the same place: his wife was dead and never coming back.
Society had lost.
Darkness reigned.
“Let’s get these photo albums and get the hell out of here,” Billy whispered, nervously jerking his gun around the living room. Just like everyone else, his eyes were playing tricks on him and, in this world, that would never change. “Which room?”
“Spare bedroom at the end of the hall,” Paul replied, stuffing the phone charger in his coat pocket and stopping when he saw the spare bedroom door closed. His eyebrows pulled together, pulse thudding in his ears. Unless Paul and Sophia were having a guest sleep over (which they only did twice in this house), that door was always open. A cold shiver ran down his spine as he told himself it was just the wind from the broken door in the kitchen. Looking back to make sure the others were still there, he forged on, tucking the M4 into his shoulder.
Curtis flanked him in the wide hallway and, together, they approached the white door at the end, their ragged breaths filling their ears. Paul kept his eyes on the door, seeing it burst open before it happened. Mentally preparing himself for those things to come charging out. Ready to spray the hallway with lead.
“Is this your wife?”
He turned to see Stephanie step closer to a picture of he and Sophia at the Santa Monica Pier hanging on the wall. With a Ferris wheel in the background, the easy smiles smeared across their suntanned faces squeezed his lungs and threatened to stop his heart. He hadn’t seen her face in how many days now? And there she was, clear as the life burning in her eyes and it nearly brought him to his knees. If Sophia had known when that picture was taken she’d have less than a year to live she probably wouldn’t be smiling like that. He let her down and there was no way around it. They never should’ve left this freezer box. “Yeah,” he replied, trying like hell to push the grief from his mind before it got them killed.
“She’s beautiful.”
Paul took one last look at his wife’s radiant face before continuing down the hallway, remorse clouding his vision. Oh, how he had failed her and oh how he would somehow make it right. If he saved a thousand lives maybe God would bring her back. If he saved ten thousand more, maybe He would let her stay.
Stopping in front of the closed bedroom door, he glanced at Curtis who nodded back. Paul held his breath and turned the knob, brow crumpling when the door didn’t budge. Curtis stepped back to kick it open and Paul stopped him. They might still have the element of surprise on their side if they hadn’t already blown it because something was in that room.
He put his shoulder into the door and gently shoved. The door gave a few inches, barely moving something heavy on the other side. A booby-trap flickered through his mind. Shoving again, he gained just enough entry to slip through the crack in the doorway. The others followed him inside, staring at the heavy dresser pushed up against the other side of the door. Confusion swam in Paul’s eyes and it took him a moment to notice the dead woman bursting from the long flowing curtains across the room.
Everything slowed down in his mind and he had time to realize the dresser wasn’t much of a trap, but good enough to give the charging corpse with long black hair and a bloody North Face a slight jump. Eyes wide and untamed, her bloody hands reached for Paul like he was her ticket to salvation. Curtis took aim as she rushed across the room. Paul watched her come in slow motion, bringing the M4 around and more than ready to blow her twisted face out the back of her head. Dark hair flowed wildly behind her like a villain’s cape. Smeared blood masked her face and when she got closer, his heart dropped. Paul continued swinging the M4 around until it made contact with Curtis’ shotgun, forcing him to put a shell through the large window across the room.
“What the hell!” Curtis cried, pumping the gun.
“Paul!” The dead woman slammed him up against the wall and threw her arms around him, burying her face in his neck.
She squeezed so tightly he couldn’t breathe while something wet ran down his shirt. Prying her off, Paul held her out by the arms for a better look and the floor dropped out from beneath him. Bewilderment clawed at his face. Shock stabbed at his eyes. He stared at her with the M4 hanging from his shoulder and everyone pointing their guns at them.
Finally, he managed a single word. “Rebecca.”
Squeezing more tears out, she pressed her lips together and nodded.
Wendy examined the girl with raven-colored hair spilling from her stocking cap, face souring. “Rebecca?” Looking to Paul, she tilted her head to the side. “Thee Rebecca?”
“Who’s Rebecca?” Billy whispered.
“I can’t believe it’s you.” Rebecca hugged him again, planting her face in his neck and soaking his shoulder while everyone slowly lowered their guns. Everyone except Wendy.
&
nbsp; Paul held her out again, unable to believe his own two eyes. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, lip quivering.
“What’re you doing here?”
She wiped at her face with bloodstained hands, darkening the smear marks. “They closed the airport and I couldn’t get back to Chicago and I didn’t know where else to go,” she said in a breathless burst. “I thought you might still be here and I was so scared and alone and…”
“You’ve been here this whole time?” He swapped a dubious look with Stephanie.
Rebecca turned to the rest of the group as if she just noticed they were standing there. “I spent the first week or so locked in my hotel room but it got overrun so I stole a taxi and…” Breaking down, she fell against him. “I didn’t know what else to do; those things were everywhere so I came here and you were gone and I didn’t know what to do.” The tears came harder, muddling her words. “I couldn’t go back out there so I just hid in this room and prayed someone would find me.”
“Jesus Christ,” he breathed, rubbing the back of her coat while trying to come to terms with the photo albums scattered about the bed behind her.
Wendy shifted in her stance. “Wait, this is Rebecca?”
“Everything’s going to be okay, we’re here now.”
Rebecca looked up and set a hand on Paul’s chest, searching his face. “Where…where’s your wife?”
Pressing his lips into a thin grim line, he solemnly shook his head.
“Oh Paul,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, I hate to break up your little class reunion,” Curtis said, “but let’s get the photo albums and go find this Camp Dodge before this place is crawling with dead heads.”
Rebecca frowned at him. “Camp Dodge?”
“It’s a National Guard base not far from here,” Paul explained, eyeing the food wrappers and cereal boxes littering the floor behind her. “We’re going to use their radio and find some help.”
She smiled at him, eyes glassy and large. “What if we don’t?”
“We will, and we’ll be safe there until we do. There’s a huge fence surrounding the entire base and probably more than enough food to last us for a while.”
“Paul, everyone’s dead.” Rebecca looked at the others. “There is no help.”
“We helped you, didn’t we?”
She turned back to him and stared for a moment before hugging him again. “I can’t believe you came back. I thought you were those things.”
He sighed and caught another odd look from Stephanie as she crossed the room. Rebecca just complicated his game plan in a big way. She was a train wreck and in no shape to handle a gun without killing one of them. Baggage. Plain and simple. And baggage was the last thing they needed in this brave new world. “Come on, let’s go while we still can,” he said, turning for the closet where he thought he’d find a small carry-on to pack the photo albums in.
Rebecca grabbed his arm and spun him around. “Wait, why did you come back?”
His eyes drifted over her shoulder to the photo albums lying on the bed, heart lodging in his throat. “I…”
Something broke out in the living room, or maybe the kitchen, snapping Paul’s attention to the hallway behind him.
“Too late,” Billy whispered.
Wendy darted into the hallway and the subsequent blast of her handgun made Paul cringe. They were already inside the house. She glanced back into the bedroom. “I think I just killed your mailman.”
“They’re all over the place,” Stephanie said, peeking out the broken window Curtis just shot out – which must’ve rang the dinner bell loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear.
Paul stuck the M4 in his shoulder and turned to Rebecca, heart racing. “You stay right behind me! We have a Suburban out in the…”
Glass broke and Stephanie screamed. He turned just in time to see her legs getting sucked out the window.
Curtis rushed across the room in slow motion, bringing the shotgun up and around. “Steph!” he cried, shooting at something out the window and then climbing through.
“Curtis!” Paul screamed.
But Curtis was already gone.
Another handgun blast thundered down the hallway.
Then another.
“Come on!” Paul yelled, throwing the dresser back and darting down the hallway with Rebecca and Billy in hot pursuit. In the living room, he found Wendy staring at three new bodies lying on the floor. Movement off to the side drew his gaze. A man he recognized as the neighbor across the street with the dog that never stopped barking limped into the dining room. Paul peppered him with the M4, cutting his head off and shooting out the bay window behind him.
“Let’s move!” he cried, hurriedly unlocking the deadbolt and throwing back the front door. His eyes bulged in their sockets when he saw how many of them were outside. Raising the M4, he held down the trigger. The machine gun jack-hammered against his shoulder, spraying the dead with hot lead and dropping them like flies. Wendy and Billy joined him on the front porch and opened fire, unleashing hell upon the rancid wave of corpses shambling closer through the falling snow. Paul locked in on the fat ones coming at a quick clip, taking out a heavyset grandma before blowing the head off a chubby little boy who couldn’t have been older than nine or ten. It was a cluster-fuck of gunfire and sunshine, the prior as deafening as the other was blinding.
Paul saw everything in explosive pulses. Corpses staggered out from the houses and bushes. The M4 jumped in his hands. The dead fell while more blocked the path to the Suburban.
Screams.
Moans.
Panic.
“Stephanie!” he yelled over the mayhem, barely having time to see that she and Curtis were nowhere in sight.
“Goddamn!” Billy popped one ghoul in the face only to have another take its place. “There’s too many of them!”
The M4 started dry firing. “Shit!” Paul hissed, swinging the buttstock into the jaw of a bearded man trying to tear into Rebecca’s arm and knocking him down the porch steps.
“My gun’s jammed!” Wendy cried, sending a shudder rolling through Paul as he fumbled for the new magazine tucked in his back pocket.
Everything slowed down in his mind and he had time to clearly see the bloody gashes and festering soars in the faces coming at him. Billy’s gunshots grew quieter in his ears as he realized there had to be over fifty of those dead things closing in. Slapping in the new mag, Paul fired at will, understanding that he’d come full circle and nothing more than dumb luck had kept him alive this long because he was just an average man and average men don’t survive something like this.
Today was his turn to open that door.
As the dead limped closer and he recklessly spent his magazine, it was all so clear to him now. Paul had come home to see her and see her he would. And a part of him couldn’t fucking wait because, as it turns out, dying was the only true escape from this scourge.
This nightmare.
This plague.
This was his swan song…and it might just be the darkest one played yet.
To be continued…
Thank you for reading A Little More Dead: Gunfire & Sunshine!
Before you go, I hope you’ll turn the page and leave a quick review. In a world where an indie author such as myself can sometimes get lost in the crowd, I appreciate every honest review I can get and thank you in advance. Look for book 3 in the A Little More Dead series in the summer of 2016 and be sure to like my Facebook page for release dates, special offers, end of the world forecasts, and safe-house locations.
In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for my new Supernatural Thriller, The Hunting of Malin, coming very soon. Thank you again!
If you are reading this, you are the resistance...
Chapter Nineteen
TWO DAYS BEFORE OUTBREAK
Billy drove way too fast, his boss’ words rattling around in his head like coins in a can.
I’m sorry, Billy, but y
our heart isn’t in this and we’re going to have to let you go.
Pounding the steering wheel, he laughed sharply. How was his heart supposed to be in something that was below him? And how was he going to tell Janet he couldn’t even keep a job at fucking Jiffy Lube when their bills were piling up like late autumn leaves. She’d already turned distant after losing the shop and, subsequently, falling behind on their mortgage. Groaning, he went faster and set his jaw. “Shit!” He cursed himself for settling for a shitty job like that in the first place because he could do better. He had more to offer than that. Slamming on the brakes for a red light, Billy released a pent-up breath, terrified of getting a ticket and compounding their money woes. Leaning against the door, he rubbed his forehead and blurred the intersection into a gray moving blob. He needed a drink. No, make that several drinks. The bar around the corner from his condo called to him like a mistress in the night, and, at this point, what could it hurt?
The light turned green and he mashed the accelerator to the floor, deciding that digging in deeper wasn’t the best course of action. He could still fix this. Janet wouldn’t get off work for three more hours and the best thing he could do right now was go home, clean the place from top to bottom and start submitting applications online. With his skill set, he could probably find another shitty job by the day’s end.
Laughter took him by surprise when he pictured himself rounding up carts in a Walmart parking lot or flipping burgers on a greasy grill because that wasn’t him. Unfortunately, most places didn’t give a flying fuck about blowing a neon sign in the shape of a cowboy hat. No, there had to be something else, like making furniture or designing t-shirts. Something with some meaning! He was good with his hands and mind and missed his old shop. Losing that place was like losing a limb.
Goddamn LED lights!
Dead Series (Book 2): A Little More Dead: Gunfire & Sunshine Page 18
