The Dead Collection Box Set #2: Jack Zombie Books 5-8

by Flint Maxwell

  He opens his mouth to spout off his bad guy nonsense. Before he gets a word out, I shoot him in the gut.

  He grunts, the words dead on his lips. The sandy color of his shirt, which is already stained with mud, now darkens with the color of his own blood.

  “When will you assholes ever learn? Don’t monologue. Don’t even try to monologue,” I say.

  Sure, anticlimactic, but that’s life. There’ll be enough climaxes in the future.

  He drops to his knees, still holding the wound, trying to keep his guts from falling out. It’s a sad sight, really. I don’t relish it or anything like that. Maybe Paul wasn’t such a bad guy, maybe he could’ve turned had he been given a second chance. I don’t know. But I do know he pulled a gun on me and I do know he was going to flay my horse and cook him for dinner.

  I look at him as the life slowly goes out of his eyes.

  Clopping of hooves. Lilly is coming up behind the truck on Bilbo. She sprays shots off toward the house. Over their echo she shouts, “Go, Jack! I’ll cover you!”

  I don’t linger.

  Running as fast as I can, I rush to the barn. There’s a lock on the doors. I don’t have time to think about anything besides breaking it.

  I shoot at the padlock and it falls to the dirt, sending a cloud up around my boots.

  The doors burst open, one of them hitting me harshly in the chest, almost as harshly as the smell hits my nose.

  Zombies.

  “Fuck,” I say.

  There’s half a horde inside of the barn. I was wrong. I looked in the wrong—

  “Help us!” a woman shouts. She’s in the back of the barn, her fingers gripping the bars of a cage. Inside are about a dozen people: men, women, children. They are dressed in dirty clothes, ragged, barely hanging on to their emaciated bodies. What kind of world are we living in where they cage humans and not zombies?

  I stumble back as a rotter lunges at me. Rather than waste any of my ammunition, I club it over the head with the butt of the gun. The blow makes a sound like two bowling balls colliding, but it’s not enough to kill it. It just falls backwards and bounces off the shambling bodies of the other zombies. There are about thirty of them. Not all of them have noticed I’ve involuntarily given them their freedom, and those who haven’t are too distracted by the fresh meat they can’t get to in the cage.

  I keep backing up as the zombies stream out of the barn. The only way I can reach the people is by going around the whole building. There has to be another entrance to the human’s side, a back door, otherwise there’s no way they can get those people in and out without moving all thirty or so of the zombies at once.

  Fear tastes terrible in my throat, almost as bad as the dead stink. Another lunges at me, two stick-like arms with loose flesh dangling from the bones swiping at my torso. I jump back. This zombie isn’t even close. As it stumbles forward, I swing downward as if my rifle was a sledgehammer, and this time I get enough power in the swing to bust the creature’s head wide open. Inky-black blood spills from the wound and the zombie twitches. The others don’t care. They’re unabashed by my feat of strength; all they care about is tearing me apart, chewing on my flesh. I break away from the pack as more gunfire erupts behind.

  Only a select few keep their glowing eyes on me and fewer follow. The sounds and wide open space in front of them is much too enticing.

  I round the back of the barn. There’s another door here. The paint on the handles is worn away, and a thick chain and padlock snakes its way around them. I aim and turn my head, pull the trigger. The sound is monumental, thump-thump-thump on my eardrums. Some blood may be trickling down the side of my face. Whatever, no time to worry about that.

  Once the gun smoke clears, the handles reveal themselves to be obliterated. I push the chain out and yank the doors open. The people inside have tears in their eyes; they’re scared. So am I. Damn it, I am.

  I’m with you, Darlene says.

  So am I, Dad.

  It’s Junior’s voice now. It hurts to hear it, but it’s so sweet.

  I’m so proud of you, he says. Don’t give up.

  Fighting back tears, I say, “Stand back,” and aim at the cell’s lock mechanism.

  A young man with dark hair and a swarthy complexion says, “Look out!” and before I can turn around and see what he’s pointing at, cold fingers wrap around my neck. The clicking of a dislocated jaw opens near my ear, muted by the never-ending reverberations of the gunshots that got me into the back of the barn.

  Guess one of the dead followed after all.

  It falls on me. I’m not sure if it was once a male or a female, but I feel long, greasy hair slapping down the front of my chest. Chances are it was a female. The gun drops from my hand, clatters off the dirt floor of the barn. The sound is muted, but I couldn’t hear it anyway with the groaning right next to my ear. The breath of this beast is putrid, and suddenly, I feel the rough texture of a saliva-less tongue touching the right side of my jaw. Fear freezes in my gut and I get the sensation you get when you’re coming up your basement steps in the dead of night, when you’re sure there’s something at the bottom, some beast, some monster—maybe a zombie?—waiting for you to stumble just once so it can pounce on you and drag you deep into the darkness where no one can hear you scream. I get this sensation and more.

  My knees buckle because the zombie has fallen on my back, putting all of its dead weight on my shoulders. You would think I could handle this, but nothing weighs more than dead weight. Nothing.

  I begin to fall.

  Inside of the cage, the people are clamoring, some of them are screaming, calling for help.

  I have to do something. I can’t let it all end here, now, on some farm run by the District with a guy named Bandit in charge. No, I’m better than that, better than this.

  Fight, Jack! Darlene says in my head. Fight, damn it!

  Reaching inside of me for that inner strength, I find it has retreated to the bottom of my soul, farther than it has been since Darlene and Junior were brutally murdered. My fingers brush this strength, the tingling of it running through the tips.

  If I could just—

  My hand reaches back. I imagine I am drawing my sword, only now I have to ignore the clamping jaws of some unholy creature in the process. My fingers find the zombie’s stringy hair. I pull with all my might. My intention is to flip it over my shoulder, but death and disease have not been kind to the zombie’s scalp and as I yank, I feel more than I hear its scalp give way. My clenched hand is in front of my face, and knotted between my fingers are clumps of hair, mottled with dirt, with blood, with disease.

  Cold lips brush against my neck. Then teeth.

  Would it really be bad to die now? Would it really be bad to reunite with my family, with all those who I’ve lost?

  Fight, Jack!

  Fight, Daddy!

  Real voices or not, they’re right. I have to fight.

  I lean my head away, but that can only go so far. I have to do something else and I have to do it fast, before this monster rips a chunk out of my neck and ends me for good.

  Twenty

  I do.

  With the beast still on my back, the proverbial monkey, I rush forward. Each step is a pain and I’m afraid I won’t build up enough momentum to shake it.

  But I do.

  Nearly falling on my last step, I ram myself into the cage. The solid steel beams rock me in the face, and to an outsider watching me do this, I probably look like the biggest idiot who has ever set foot on the planet.

  Doesn’t matter.

  The explosion of the zombie’s skull is both satisfying and revolting. What feels like a cold, diseased egg cracks on top of my scalp. Thick liquid and pus rolls down the sides of my face, and the dead weight crushing my shoulders somehow gets heavier.

  A couple of the people inside the cell squeal at what has just happened.

  I roll over and shake what’s left of the corpse off of my body. The adrenaline coursing through me is
enough for my muscle memory to take over now. I spring up and shake the brains and gore off. Unsurprisingly, most of it is as black as tar and as disgusting as only the insides of an infected, reanimated corpse can be.

  I don’t even have the urge to vomit as I look over what’s left of the zombie. There’s a mission to complete. Each second I spend feeling bad for myself, or sick, is another second closer the bad guys get to becoming victorious.

  I pick up the gun, shake it a few times. Thick globs of brain fall from it. Then turning to quickly scan the door, making sure there’s no zombies coming in for another surprise attack, and seeing there isn’t, I aim down the lock mechanism and squeeze the trigger. The door practically pops open as sparks fly and thick, acrid smoke fills the air.

  The men, women, and children inside are hesitant, looking me up and down. I see in their eyes that they wonder if they can trust me. I understand this, especially considering how I look. But there’s no time to ease them into an escape. It’s now or never. A war is being fought outside. Zombies are running rampant. Guns are going off like fireworks on a Fourth of July night.

  “Go!” I shout, my voice serrated and harsh. “Get out of here. Run as far as you can.”

  A woman steps through first. The others seem to gather around her. She looks to be in her fifties, long, matted brown hair with a touch of gray, harsh wrinkles around her eyes and mouth—a woman who has spent more time out in the sun than anyone should.

  “We can fight,” she says.

  “No,” I reply. “Get out of here. You’re free.” Anger comes up my throat like bile.

  “Monster!” a boy says from behind an older man. Before I turn around, I notice the boy wears a dirty, blood-stained burlap sack.

  The zombie he has pointed out doesn’t get to break the threshold of the barn before I put a single shot between its eyes. It falls back, arms out, yellow eyes dimming to black, the sweet black void of death. Of peace.

  “We are going to fight. There is no denying it,” the woman says. “If you do not have weapons for us, we will take pitchforks and rakes.”

  My mouth is a grim line. I’m resisting the urge to bite my lips into shreds. There is no convincing this woman.

  Listen to her, Jack, Darlene’s voice says. She knows what she’s doing.

  And now I’m really starting to question my sanity. For real this time.

  “Fine,” I say. “Those who can fight, fight, but someone has to lead the children to safety.”

  The man next to the boy in the burlap sack steps forward. As he does, I see his arm is not around the boy because that arm is not there at all. It is missing at the shoulder, a puckered red wound with jagged scars.

  “I will.”

  I nod at him, hoping he sees the admiration in my eyes. Turning back to the woman, I say, “If you can get to that U-Haul, there’s an entire armory inside.” I’m pointing out the other door where the zombies have come from. The front of the U-Haul is barely visible. More guards have come out from the house, relegated to the porch as the thirty or so zombies push forward. I don’t see Lilly. I don’t see Bilbo. This worries me more than I care to admit.

  The woman nods and turns to the rest of the people. “Revenge,” she says.

  The others echo her in a soft voice I can barely hear over the intermittent sounds of gunfire.

  Then, to the man, “Be safe, Bob, and godspeed.”

  He nods and touches the woman lightly on her forearm. “Children, with me,” he says. The five children, ranging from probably eight to thirteen years old gather behind him.

  They begin to stream out. I go through the door, raising a hand as I peek around the corner of the barn. “I’ll cover you,” I say.

  Only a handful of zombies too stupid to find all the action mill about in the yard by the truck. The closest of these is a shirtless man with a bloated right side. He is looking toward the road. His jerky movements remind me of C-3PO from Star Wars. I suck in a harsh breath, aim, and pull the trigger. The gun recoils, but my aim is true—as it almost always is. A small explosion of red on the zombie’s head lets me know I’ve hit my mark. He falls lifelessly to the ground in a bundle of gray skin and twisted bones.

  “Go!” I yell.

  The woman takes off. She moves surprisingly fast for someone of her age. Then again, this is a woman whose most recent years revolve around pulling a tractor that weighs a couple of tons in the beating sun. She’s going to be tough, no doubt about it. Still, I can’t shake the uneasy feeling in my stomach.

  I think it’s because Lilly and Bilbo are nowhere to be found. The farm is big, but it’s mostly flat. I would be able to see them… Unless something bad has happened.

  Here I go caring again. Not good.

  I don’t allow myself to harp on the thought. Mostly because a zombie has caught sight of the few men and women who’ve taken off for the U-Haul. I aim down and shoot. The first two drop dead, clean headshots, but the last one is off. I strike its neck. A fountain of blood pours from the wound. The zombies don’t notice, don’t care.

  I aim again. Can’t let them get too close. One of the men has already noticed it and has slowed down. Fear is doing its age-old trick on this man, freezing him up.

  Just as I’m about to squeeze the trigger, a horse bursts into my field of vision. Lilly is still on his back. Bilbo slices through the scene like a bolt of lightning, barely visible. She clobbers the zombie’s head with the butt of her gun and yanks on Bilbo’s broken reins. He shudders to a stop, rears up on his hind legs. Lilly dismounts quick and slaps him on the rump, then takes cover behind the truck with the freedom fighters. She is breathing hard, but somehow finds the strength to wave the men and women toward the spot where all the weapons are.

  I spin around and check my left. It’s all clear. Bilbo is running in my direction. The guards don’t bother wasting their ammo on a riderless horse, and for that I’m grateful. He slows when he reaches me. I grab him by the reins and guide him behind the barn.

  Now, scanning the horizon, I see the one-armed man with the children. He leads them to the far fence and the trees beyond. They are specks. I just hope no zombies coming from those dense woods spot them while they are there.

  “Bilbo,” I say, my voice loud. The horse’s eyes roll crazily with fear. “Run toward them! Run toward them and help them to safety!” It’s my turn to smack him on the backside. He takes off in the direction of the man and children. Will he make it? I don’t know, and I don’t have time to watch. I have to get Lilly and the others out of this war zone.

  Spinning back around to face the truck, a barrage of gunshots rock it back and forth on its shocks.

  thwap-thwap-thwap

  creak-creak-creak

  The last woman coming out of the back of the truck, clutching a rifle to her chest, is cut down by some of those bullets. She falls face-first, her lower body half-hidden behind the wrong side of the U-Haul. She twitches as the bullets hit her. One of the men yells out, “Claud!” and springs forward to try to grab her, but the older woman in the lead grabs his collar before he can do anything stupid. It hurts my heart to see the pain on his face, to see the tears streaming down his cheeks. I know all too well what it’s like to lose your loved ones.

  But I shake it off. Have to.

  Lilly sees me and points above her head. I follow her finger. She is pointing to the roof. Two men holding long rifles have taken up residence behind the house’s thick chimney. They pop out from behind their cover and blast off a few shots in revolving turns.

  I wait for one, pull the trigger. It’s not a headshot, but it takes him in the chest. He drops his gun; it goes sliding down the shingles, twitching the closer it gets to landing on the grass below, and then the man quickly follows after it. Like he’s diving for dear life.

  He lands no less than three seconds after his rifle does. It’s about a three-story drop, and he’s missed the grass altogether, hitting the concrete walkway to the front porch instead. The sound his head makes as it cracks a
gainst the hard surface is satisfying. And a little gross.

  I’m waiting for the other guard to pop out.

  He doesn’t. Not after his partner has been cut down by me.

  Still, the others on the opposite side of the truck are blasting at it, turning the metal into Swiss cheese. They seem to have an unlimited supply of ammo in the house.

  Since the man on the roof is no longer shooting, I see this is my chance to regroup with Lilly.

  Running as fast as I have in a long time, I get there just before the man on the roof musters up the courage to shoot. A barrage of bullets chase after me, spraying chunks of grass and clumps of dirt in my wake.

  “Thought you were gonna cower over there all day,” Lilly says. I can’t tell if she’s joking.

  “Hardly,” I reply. “We gotta take those people on the porch before they decide it’s a good idea to surround us.”

  “We’re pinned down,” the older woman says. The others—three men and two women of varying states of malnutrition and sickness—aren’t talking, just looking back and forth to one and another in utter terror.

  I nod at her. Yeah, we’re pinned down, but this isn’t anything new to me. I’ve been pinned down before, had my back against the wall, no way out, all that bullshit, and somehow always managed to get myself out of it. Right now is no different.

  “Grenades,” I say. “There’s a box of grenades in the truck.”

  Before Lilly can ask what the hell I’m going to do with the grenades—Blow us all to hell?—I turn toward the back of the truck and I take off, hoping for Darlene or Junior’s voice to help get me through this. Needing their voices.

  Twenty-One

  Shots follow me the entire three steps it takes to slip into the back. I have to avoid the corpse of the woman named Claud. Even in my haste, I note the lifeless expression in her eyes, the long rivulet of blood that flows from her nostril and the corner of her mouth.

  Death.

  All around us.