DEAD: Darkness Before Dawn

by Brown, TW

  He peeled off his gloves and shook his fingers out to try and ease the cramps that were building levels of pain that rivaled what he felt in his back. He noticed a couple of blisters that had formed and eventually popped. That was quite a feat considering how calloused they were from all the manual labor this past year.

  A breeze kicked up sending a cold chill through his body. The stench of the bodies down below rode on that breeze and made him gag just a little. No matter how long you were exposed to it, the smell of the undead was just not something that a person ever got used to. Even Ronni stirred a little in her sleep.

  Chad had actually woke her at one point just to see if she might be in a coma. Her eyes had flickered, and in a voice that was barely above a whisper, he heard one word.

  “Daddy?”

  That had been enough to shake him out of his morose emotional state. He would not give up. He had to stuff the shame of where his mind had wandered up until that moment into a dark hole and pray that he buried it deep enough so it never returned. He had gone so far as to hold his knife to his daughter’s temple. His logic had been that anything was preferable to being eaten alive. He would end her and then himself. However, thinking it was one thing; actually committing the deed was another thing entirely.

  Looking out across the growing number of undead, Chad had determined that he would resume killing them. He would shift his position every so often to keep the bodies from piling up all in one spot. When the time came that the first one could gain any sort of purchase on their tiny island of stone, he would make another appraisal of the remaining crowd and adjust his plan accordingly.

  He had stabbed the faces of men and women for longer than he believed his body capable. The one thing that he noticed—although to be honest, it was a fleeting thought that clung to the back of his mind and hardly made its presence known—he had not seen any children; at least none under the age of ten or twelve by his reckoning.

  It was during this break as he scanned the crowd and tried to get some idea of how many remained that he thought he did see a flash of what might have been some zombie children, but they were gone almost as soon as he thought he saw them, and so it vanished from his mind.

  He was well into his second session of killing as the sun began to hide behind the mountains in the distance. He had become so automatic with his actions that he did not notice how his body had begun to slide forward just a little every so often after stabbing or yanking his weapon free.

  What had once been a large man had worked its way to the front of the crowd. It raised its hands in an impotent attempt to grab Chad. Just as he had done to countless prior to this one, Chad raised his arms and then thrust down with a solid stab. However, this man was abnormally tall, and the way that Chad had almost gone into a trance as he killed worked against him.

  The point of the weapon came down, catching the zombie behemoth just below the nose. It went into the mouth and then the throat. The blade lodged in a spot just inside the collar bone and actually got caught in between a couple of ribs. Chances are, he could not have repeated that shot again if he took it a hundred times.

  The zombie jerked back and shifted itself to try and get a better angle on grasping the source of heat just above its head. That movement pulled Chad forward. On instinct, he gripped his weapon tighter to prevent himself from losing it. A split second later, his mind screamed for him to let the hilt of the machete go, otherwise he would be pulled down into a mob of waiting undead. No amount of heavy welder’s leathers, gloves, and a thick jacket would save him.

  There was a war inside his mind that, while rather complex with one side reminding him that he would not only be without a weapon to kill off the zombies, he would also not be able to “take care” of him and Ronni if the situation proved absolutely hopeless; and the other side letting him know that it was all moot the instant he was pulled from his perch and landed in that swirling sea of clutching hands and snapping teeth.

  Chad let go and threw himself back, barely keeping from plummeting to certain death. When he did, he tripped over the prone body of his daughter. With an awkward and graceless pin wheeling of his arms, Chad stumbled backwards three steps…but only had two step’s worth of level surface at his disposal.

  Landing on several bodies, Chad was fascinated at how his decent stopped so abruptly. He had expected to hit the ground and vanish under a sea of filth and decay. He was making his silent prayer of thanks that he had not hit the ground and had the wind knocked out of him which would have made him as helpless as his unconscious daughter with the disadvantage of being very aware while he was torn apart and feasted upon.

  Chad was actually able to turn to his side where he came face-to-face with a set of snapping jaws that missed his nose by a centimeter at the most. Shoving away, he had a moment of regret when he slipped from his perch atop the zombie mob and landed on the ground with a thud.

  Adrenaline came in a rush that, combined with the overwhelming stench of the undead, almost made him wretch. He knew that he was about to be torn apart, but he had to at least try to escape. Lowering his head, Chad charged forward, knocking over the first few zombies.

  A cold, dead hand slapped against his face, but he batted it aside. With no weapon, all he could do was push and shove as he fought desperately to reach the open ground that was only a few yards away.

  Recalling his time years ago on the football field, Chad lowered his shoulder and delivered a solid blow to a few more of the undead. Suddenly, he was out in the open!

  Spinning he saw the closest zombie about five feet away. Backing up, he was stunned now that he got a look at where he had been just seconds before. The seething mass of grasping hands and clacking teeth was like an anthill that had been kicked…only much slower.

  Unable to help himself, Chad laughed as relief flooded his body. More heads turned his way. He was starting to get the attention of the remains of the herd.

  “Well then come and get some!” Chad hollered.

  Still unable to believe that he had managed to escape that mess without a scratch, he continued to check himself as he backed away. He waited until they were almost on top of him before retreating once more. The entire time, he continued to call out taunts, jeers, and insults. He knew that zombies had no idea what he was saying, but it felt good to get it out of his system…and it helped his cause in regards to drawing them further from his daughter.

  He reached the edge of the clearing and his next step would take him into the trees. He needed to be sure that the zombies followed him. Since he was starting to feel a bit silly with all of the cursing and trash talk, he changed over to something else.

  Chad began to sing. At the top of his lungs, and a surprisingly sweet voice, the lyrics to Don’t Stop Believin’ drifted on the afternoon breeze. Like a necromantic Pied Piper, Chad wove through the trees with close to a hundred zombies now following along, adding their own off key chorus to his melody.

  When the tiny figure stepped out of the brush, Chad’s voice cracked. When six more zombie children emerged, the words died in his throat.

  ***

  “Well, well…Corporal Jody Rafe,” the man said with that easy drawl that others used to mimic in his absence.

  The funniest was when Danny would give it a go. A kid from Boston with an accent so thick you would swear he was faking trying to sound like an Old West-style Texan.

  “I don’t have a rank anymore. The unit was overrun. It is just Jody now.” He paused for a moment, and then added, “But it was actually sergeant at the end.”

  “They named you? I would have thought for sure it would have been that sociopath Monterro,” Sergeant Pitts said with an amused laugh. “He and Gould were always meeting late at night. I just figured he would be the one chosen.”

  “Actually, we both were.” Jody left it at that. He was not going to offer up any more information than he felt necessary.

  “So, looks like you got yourself a little settlement,” Pitts said when it was
clear that Jody was finished talking.

  “It’s not really mine. Just a bunch of civvies trying to survive. Stopped there on my way north and decided to stay.”

  “Your civvies in the habit of raiding other settlements?” Pitts became very solemn now, and his steel blue eyes bored into Jody, making him feel every bit the corporal he used to be.

  “Nope. The person who did whatever it is that happened between your people and him is dead…and so are all who were with him.”

  Now it was Sergeant Pitts’ time to be silent. Jody figured he had given a good enough answer, but as the silence drew on, he became uncomfortable.

  “Listen,” finally Jody gave in, “we don’t want any trouble. We are not trying to make friends or enemies. We just want to live in peace and let others do the same. I don’t know about you, but we have actual families in our settlement. Whatever went wrong between you and your people and that prick Remar, that is done and over. Right now, we are trying to get our defensive fortifications reinforced in case of any of those big herds, and in between that and trying to get housing up and in place for everybody, we are trying to start a few gardens.

  “That whole thing with Remar was his doing and his doing alone. We were actually only out with small teams searching for supplies on the outskirts of Jonesboro. I figure that is when he ran into you or your people…” Jody paused again. He was giving away too much information without getting anything in return. Granted, he was not giving out much, but considering the fact that he was not getting anything in way of a response, he figured it was time to stop.

  “He killed two of my best men,” Pitts finally said with a scowl. “Damn jarheads are hard to come by these days…worth their weight in gold, most of ‘em. Not to mention the two dozen other men who were with them. And it was all a set up. But things are starting to at least make more sense.”

  “How so?” Jody prompted, hoping that Pitts would continue on with his narrative.

  “You say you have actual families?” Pitts changed the subject and Jody sighed inwardly. This was going to be tiresome.

  “A few…how about you?”

  “Not any whole ones. Didn’t think any family could come out of this whole.”

  “And how is…” he scanned his memory for a name and came up blank.

  “Reyna?” Pitts finally offered.

  “Yeah…her.”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Jody said with as much feeling as he dared without trying to overdo it.

  “Don’t be, she was a bitch,” Pitts said with a wicked laugh that seemed a bit inappropriate to Jody considering that the man had gone AWOL from his unit to supposedly keep the CDC scalpels from turning her into their personal science project. “But the dog is still fine.” Again he laughed, and just the sound of it made the skin on Jody’s arms crawl with gooseflesh.

  “So…where do we go from here?” Jody asked. He was not entirely sure he wanted to hear the answer.

  Pitts grew serious again and leveled his gaze at Jody for a few eternal seconds before speaking. “Way I see it, we could probably come in and take your little town. Even pop over and hit that little fall back place you set up just to the south…”

  Jody felt his insides turn to water. He didn’t know why he did not figure that Pitts would do serious reconnaissance on any possible enemy. But then, if he was so smart, how had Remar gotten the drop on his boys? And just what exactly had led to them meeting up in the first place?

  “…but then what would that really solve? I figure enough folks have died already. No sense in adding to the body count. The problem is the lack of trust that exists between your group and ours. And rest assured, after what happened with that Remar fella from your little community…trust is in short supply with my people.”

  “But I don’t see why we would even matter,” Jody said with a sharp laugh that he was not able to suppress. “I got a good look at your little group. You guys are armed better than our unit was back in Bald Knob. You have enough firepower to take out a small country, much less our little community. Hell, the stuff we do have were in the windows of pickup trucks and in closets. And as for ammo…” Jody let his statement trail off.

  Actually, their last foray for supplies had yielded a good supply of ammunition. Regardless, they were vastly outgunned by Pitts’ crew. If he came across as sounding weak, his hopes were that he would also be considered not worth the trouble.

  “I tell you what…I have a proposition for you,” Sergeant Pitts finally said after yet another long and uncomfortable silence. As he laid out his “deal” in detail, Jody felt a sinking sensation. He was standing on the edge of an abyss and the ground was crumbling under his feet.

  When it was all laid out, he could not come up with a reason to refuse and turn this into a fight that would certainly end up in most if not every single citizen of this community dead. However, he still had some very deep misgivings about presenting it to the others. Hopefully he was not making a mistake that would cost everybody their lives.

  11

  Inside the Friends of the Geek

  “We could attach trailers to all of our trailers and not be able to load out all of this,” Catie said with a shake of her head.

  “I still don’t understand why this stuff is just sitting here? How is it that nobody has found it…raided it and emptied this place?” Heather asked.

  “Needle in a haystack,” Aleah said, although at first she had not realized she said it out loud. She looked up to see everybody staring at her with a question in their eyes as they waited for her to explain.

  “We found this place by pure chance,” she finally spoke after taking a drink from her bottle of water to get rid of the sudden dryness of her mouth that had hit. “We passed hundreds of buildings and did not go inside. We only chose this one because we were looking to make camp for the night. We could have just as easily gone to the end of the street and looked inside that church. Just because this place turned out to be a jackpot…well…that is strictly coincidence.”

  There was a moment of silence as everybody considered her words. One by one, each began to nod.

  “Like a needle in a haystack,” Rose said as she returned from Kevin’s cot where she had been making sure that he had not leaked through his bandages.

  “More like a specific needle in a stack of needles,” Heather offered. “I mean, who knows what we have passed by. Look at all the stuff we were finding in those houses. And again, we had an entire neighborhood that had not been looted. Evacuated…but that was it. Nothing looked to have been touched in months.”

  Deanna sat beside Sean. He had taken her hand and, for the first time (in public at least) since they had begun “showing an interest” in each other, she had not pulled away. She could not shake her discomfort. Maybe it was the life she had lived up to this point. Every single time anything good came along…it was either not what she had originally thought it to be, or it had simply been ripped away from her.

  She reflected on the week before she had gone to jail. She had come home from school. Her mother was waiting for her in the living room with a nervous look on her face. A man that she had never seen before was sitting beside her. Her first thought was, Great, mom has a new boyfriend.

  ***

  “Deanna, come in and sit down…please,” her mom greeted her.

  Deanna took a seat at the kitchen table after turning a chair to face the couple sitting on the couch. The man was white! The only time a white person was ever in their home was when it was somebody from social services…or a cop. Her mind ticked through anything she might have done recently that would earn a visit by the police.

  “Deanna…” the man spoke now, he gave her mom a quick look and…did he just wink at her mom? “My name is Anthony Collins.”

  “So?” she blurted before she could check herself.

  “I’m…I’m…” suddenly he seemed unable to speak, like somebody was choking him.

  “This is your dad,
” Deanna’s mom finished in a rush.

  The next two days were the strangest and most wonderful of her life. It seemed that Deanna’s mom (he called her “Dish” which was his nickname for Deshonda…a name her mother hated) had dated this guy her senior year. He was from the Beverly Park neighborhood. They had money…lots of it. She had broken up with him after she found out she was pregnant with the child that would turn out to be Deanna. (Her name was a bit of a mash up of both her parents’ names which she had thought was very cool.) Deshonda had not wanted to ruin young Anthony’s life since he was all set to go to medical school.

  The week prior, Anthony had been volunteering at a free clinic for the “less fortunate”…and ran right into his old high school flame. While he gave her a checkup, he shared that he had just gone through a divorce. He asked her to dinner and would not take no for an answer.

  When he discovered the real reason behind Deanna’s mom breaking up with him, he insisted on meeting her. And thus began a whirlwind of events that seemed like one of those cheesy Hollywood movies. Plans were even being made for Deanna and her mom to come live with Anthony at his huge house in Beverly. The moving truck was supposed to come that weekend.

  And then…Anthony was attacked at the gas station around the corner after an amazing day. With the help of some bystanders, he was able to fight them off. He was struck almost instantly with a terrible fever and barely made it back to Deanna and her mom’s house.

  That night, Deanna heard “the scream” for the first time in her life. She ran to her mom’s room to discover Anthony covered in blood…her mom’s blood. He had turned and looked at her, a chunk of meat fell from his mouth as he made some sort of strange cry that immediately reminded her of a newborn baby. Deanna turned and ran, scared to death and totally confused. It had looked to her like Anthony was eating her mother!

  The first thing she grabbed was the aluminum baseball bat that they always kept behind the front door. When Anthony had stepped out into the living room, Deshonda’s blood dripping from his chin in large, dark drops that hit the hardwood floor with a splat that sounded like a drum in Deanna’s ears, she had hit him with all her might right on the top of his head. He crumpled to the ground, but had not been knocked out. She hit him again and again until his head broke open.