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

by Flint Maxwell

  Not to mention your brother, Jack, who you stabbed to death.

  Now Roland actually does drop to his knees, sobbing.

  My voice turns stern. “Roland, you have three seconds.”

  He doesn’t reply. He doesn’t even look up at me.

  In my head, I count. One…two…three…and then I punch him as hard as I can in the back of the head. I hate myself for it, but it’s either do this and knock him out or let him stay here with Mandy and Nacho so he can die with them.

  Roland falls like a sack of bricks.

  “Sorry, man,” I say, but he’s not hearing me. He’s out.

  One of the zombies strays from the pack, its hanging jaw and stringy hair waving with each movement it makes. Then it takes a swipe at me, and I barely dodge it.

  A gun goes off, drowning out the moans of the dead and the roar of the flames. The zombie’s head explodes, the body driven back about five feet, where it lays motionless.

  “Jesus, Jack! Come on!” Abby says. I look at her. She’s holding a smoking pistol in her hand. Lilly has kept going, trying for a head start.

  I bend down and pick Roland up, throw his limp body over my shoulders. Luckily for me, he’s light, though I’m no longer young or as strong as I once was.

  With him draped over my shoulder, I turn away from the dead and their stink, and run toward Abby and Lilly.

  Five

  Running from zombies is not hard. I’ve been doing it for almost twenty years. What’s hard, what can prove fatal, is when they corner you, when there’s so many of them that you don’t have a chance in hell to get out alive or unharmed. I’ve been in that situation many times before; I’ve come out hurt, not fatally, but damn near close enough.

  Luckily for us, we aren’t cornered. Not yet, at least. I’m sure the time will come… it always does. Maybe I’ll get out of the situation alive, or maybe I won’t this time. My days are numbered. All of ours are. Really, with where we’re at now, surviving this long after the world has ended, we are playing with house money. Every extra second on this Earth is a bonus.

  Abby and I catch up to Lilly, and Abby puts her arm under Lilly’s to help speed her up.

  I don’t look back. Norm taught me never to look back. Not metaphorically, but literally. Especially if you’re getting chased by zombies.

  So, yeah, I don’t look back, but I know they’re far behind us now. One thing they have going in their favor is that they never give up. They keep coming and coming because they feel no pain, they need no sleep or rest, they have no obligations. All it is with them is eat, eat, eat.

  “Right here,” Lilly says.

  She’s pointing to a bookstore. My heart breaks at the sight of it. It’s been ransacked and burned and destroyed by Father Time and the apocalypse. I wonder if any of my books are inside. Does Johnny Deadslayer live on? But I doubt it. There aren’t many books inside that haven’t been destroyed.

  I step through the threshold and put Roland down on a chair in the cafe area. He’s out, man. I must’ve hit him harder than I thought.

  “Sorry, dude,” I say, but of course he doesn’t hear me.

  We manage to barricade the door with an empty bookshelf that’s not totally burned to a crisp. It does a good enough job blocking the opening from prying, dead eyes.

  Then we wait.

  For a long, long moment, we wait in silence. Abby sits on the floor and Lilly takes a seat next to Roland. I don’t sit at all; I remain standing by the barricade, listening.

  I hear nothing but the heavy silence of the forgotten world.

  Until I don’t. Until the zombies make their way past us.

  Peeking through a crack in the blockade, I see them trail down the road. There are legions of them, shambling dead, going against every law of nature. Their eyes are like those of spooked horses, rolling around in their sockets, searching… for a piece of meat, an arm, a toe—anything. I honestly almost feel bad for them. Almost.

  When the last zombie walks by, I turn to Abby and Lilly. They both look wiped out, totally exhausted. I feel for them. Just carrying Roland that short distance has my back and arms screaming. Then again, it could be worse. I could be like Mandy and Nacho. Gone. Dead.

  The nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach after seeing them hasn’t subsided. I don’t know if it ever will.

  “Now what?” Abby asks.

  I look around the bookstore. It’s not much, but it’s a shelter.

  “We spend the night here,” I say. “Rest up. Then we hit the road hard tomorrow, at first light.”

  “Good idea,” Lilly says.

  “Judging by how hard you punched Roland, I think he’s going to be out until then,” Abby says.

  “It wasn’t that hard,” I say. “And it was either that or let him die, and we don’t need any more deaths on this journey.”

  “You always say that.” Abby stands up and bends backward, her spine popping satisfyingly. “I’m good to go once he gets up. We probably shouldn’t waste too much time.”

  “But the night…” Lilly says. She looks scared, more scared than I’ve seen her look since I met her.

  “I know, I know—the zombies become bigger assholes when the sun goes down. But so do I. And I’m already sore, hungry, and pissed off. The advantage is definitely in my favor,” Abby says.

  “Abby,” I say. “Just rest.”

  She eyes me warily and wearily, but after a moment, she lies down. Before I know it, she’s snoring as loud as a tornado. Lilly, too.

  I don’t sleep. Sleep doesn’t come as easily as it once did all those years ago, plus it’s my job to keep watch. I mean, someone has to do it, right?

  The day stretches on. I am alone with my thoughts and the snores of the others. Near what I would guess as five in the evening, Roland sits up, groaning. He rubs the back of his head, bending forward. I see there’s a lump poking through his hair.

  “Ouch,” he says. “What happened?”

  I could lie; Abby and Lilly are asleep, though they’d probably go with the lie anyway. But I’m not a liar.

  “I clocked you on the back of the head because you wouldn’t move. The zombies were coming.”

  “Oh…right,” Roland says. “Thanks, Jack. I’m—I’m sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” I say. “It’s okay.”

  “So, Nacho and Mandy? I didn’t dream it?”

  Slowly, I shake my head. “It happened.”

  “How? The explosion, I mean, how did that happen?”

  I shrug. “It beats me. Honestly. But if I had to guess, I’d say it was an old booby trap. Someone rigged the station to explode, trip wire or pressure points. A zombie deterrent, I guess.”

  “And people deterrent, too.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “also gives a fair warning to whoever rigged it. I’m sure that explosion was heard all over the county.”

  “Where are we?” Roland asks. He sits up straighter and looks around with wide, tired eyes.

  “A bookstore on the outskirts of the city. I still don’t know what city. Doesn’t really matter though, does it?” I answer.

  Roland shakes his head.

  “You should get some sleep,” I tell him. “I hit you pretty hard. It won’t hurt if you’re asleep. I’m sorry again.”

  “I’ve slept enough. You, man, are the one who needs sleep. Look at you. You look almost as bad as the zombies out there.”

  I used to fight sleep, mainly because of the terrible dreams I would have of Darlene, Junior, and the one-eyed man, but lately, those dreams are fewer and fewer. Still, nothing is more terrible than the real world. I’m not going to fight sleep anymore.

  I stand up and stretch. A yawn takes hold of me. Through our barricade and the small storefront windows, the night approaches.

  “Sounds like a good idea,” I say. “Wake me in a couple hours. I don’t need eight.”

  “Yeah, you do,” Roland says. “Sleep well, Jack.”

  I find a spot in the back. Instead of t
he floor, I sleep on a pile of boxes. Before I lie down, I look inside of them. They’re filled with hardbacks; the near two-decades-old newest James Patterson thriller. I don’t pick one up to read because I know once I start I won’t stop, and sleep seems all too good now.

  I close the box and lower myself atop the stack. I use a roll of paper towels as a pillow. It’s not ideal, but it works just fine. My body is wracked with pain. All of the recent stresses have hit me hard.

  For a while, I don’t think I’ll be able to fall asleep at all, that I’ll just lie there thinking of Norm and Darlene and Junior and revenge.

  But soon, the stress and pain begin to slough off, and sleep starts to hit me. It’s amazing.

  Six

  When I wake up, it’s full dark outside. I feel better—well, as good as I can considering the circumstances. My mouth is beyond dry and my stomach grumbles with hunger. I get up and sit on the boxes for a moment, trying to get my head right. That’s not an easy task whatsoever, but it’s worth a shot.

  Outside in the front room, amidst the scattered books and trash and broken and splintered tables and chairs, Lilly is up, sitting in the spot Roland had sat before I went to sleep. Roland is on the floor, just below Lilly’s feet, snoring away. He must’ve needed it. We all do.

  Lilly has a book in her hand, that newest James Patterson novel, cowritten by someone else, their name much smaller beneath Patterson’s.

  “You all right?” I ask her.

  She looks up from the book. She still has scorch marks on her face from the explosion, and I think maybe a few strands of hair had been singed away by the blast. Her forearm is dirty and bruised. She looks the furthest thing from ‘okay’.

  “Not really. You?” she asks.

  I rub at my back. It’s sore. “I’ve certainly seen better days, that’s for sure.”

  “You and me both.”

  “Has Abby been up?”

  Lilly shakes her head.

  “Good,” I say, “she needs the rest.”

  Lilly then closes the book and sets it on the arm of the chair. She looks intensely into my eyes, so intensely that I almost want to look away. I’ve known her only a little while, but she has never seemed so…serious.

  Her lips move and she asks a question I’m not prepared to answer.

  “Is this the end, Jack?” she says. “Do we go on after this?”

  I hesitate. How can I answer that question?

  Honestly, a voice says in the back of my mind, a voice that undoubtedly belongs to Darlene.

  That voice is right. Lilly is with me on her own free will; she deserves the truth.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I can’t tell you that because it’s a mystery to me.”

  “You know,” she says, accusingly. “Your right eyebrow does this squiggly thing when you’re lying, Jack.”

  Darlene used to say the same thing, though I did my best to never tell a lie.

  “I know it’s the end for me,” I say. “But for you, I’m not sure. If I’m being totally honest with you, and with myself, I don’t think any of us will be getting out of this alive. We already lost Nacho and Mandy.”

  “They would’ve come in handy,” Lilly says.

  “More than that. They were friends. Without them, I’d probably be dead.”

  “Me too.” Lilly runs a hand through her short hair. “And Mandy was going to tell you what that thing is,” she points to the bulge in my jacket pocket.

  I pull it out. It’s the cell-phone-shaped electronic that Norm gave me. He said it would help. How so, I have not the slightest idea. When Mandy saw it, she told me it was the key to the kingdom. Electronics and technology was her specialty. It has never been mine. Back when I was typing thousands of words on a laptop for a living, I would’ve gladly exchanged my Macbook for a good old-fashioned typewriter. This thing in my hands now, this little PDA-thing, looks both retro and futuristic.

  “Did she tell you?” Lilly asks.

  I shake my head. “Never got the chance. It wasn’t exactly at the top of my list of priorities. Norm was. But if it can help, that’s a bonus. If not,” I shrug, “it doesn’t matter. I’m going into the Overlord’s kingdom one way or the other, and my only purpose is to kill everyone who gets in my way.”

  “Maybe Abby knows,” Lilly says. “She was pretty hands-on in the District.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  The conversation drifts into silence and hangs around the air like bad weather. I lean my head back against the front cashier’s stand and flip through a magazine. It’s a Time, dated before the fall of civilization. There’s a striking black and white photograph of a burning mosque in some Middle Eastern country. In the background, just barely, you can make out the crooked shadow-shapes of the reanimated. This was before the term ‘zombie’ had really caught on. Of course, ‘zombie’ was in the general population’s lexicon, but no one truly believed such a thing could happen.

  Seeing the image makes me sick to my stomach. I put the magazine down. I need something with less pictures. There’s not much left in the store, and what is left is destroyed: pages ripped, covers sodden.

  I get up in search of something I may like to read, something that’ll get my mind off of the road ahead for the time being, but as I stand, my back creaking, my knees and joints stiff and cold, I hear the rumbling of an engine.

  Seven

  Lilly drops her book, not bothering to mark the page where she left off. Abby sits up fast, her eyes wide open. She looks like she has been awake for hours instead of sleeping at all. Roland remains snoring, and in his dreams, he mumbles words I wish I couldn’t make out.

  He says, “Nacho,” and “Mandy,” and “Nooo, please.”

  “District?” Lilly asks.

  It seems neither she or Abby have noticed Roland’s unconscious cries for his lost friends, or if they have, they don’t say anything about it.

  “Could be,” I say.

  Abby shakes her head. “Doubt it.”

  “Whoever it is,” I say, stepping toward the barricade, “they heard that explosion and they’re curious.”

  “Took them long enough,” Lilly says.

  “Maybe they were waiting until the sun went down,” I say. “Creatures of the night, you know. I used to be like that. Zombies are bad, but running into a group of hungry, apocalypse-crazed people is way worse.”

  Abby nods. “He’s got a point there. For once.” She crosses the bookstore toward the barricade.

  I nudge her with my elbow when she’s close enough.

  “Old age is treating you well, Jupiter,” Abby says. “But you’re still weak.”

  “Stronger than you.”

  “Can you dummies be quiet a minute?” Lilly seethes.

  Abby makes a zipper motion across her lips. The rumbling of the engine comes closer now. It sounds like a large vehicle, maybe a military truck of some kind. A gas guzzler.

  I peer through the crack and see yellow headlights sweeping down the road. They are high up. I think I’m right in assuming it’s a military truck. It trundles past the bookstore, knocking a few books from the few remaining shelves and rattling the windowpanes. It seems to slow as it rolls by, but then again, the streets are riddled with debris and trash, and I may just be imagining it. It doesn’t stop, and I suppose that’s a good thing. If it stopped, we’d be completely outmatched and outgunned here.

  Then at the intersection, it turns left toward the gas station. I can’t see the station from here, but the black smoke still funnels into the sky, inky and oily. The rumbling grows distant.

  “Well, now we know we’re not alone,” Lilly says.

  “Never are,” Abby says.

  After a moment, when the engine is no longer within hearing distance, an intermittent burst of popping sounds fills the air. Gunshots.

  “Seems our friends have found the last undead stragglers,” I say.

  “Wonder where they came from,” Abby says.

  “Me too,” Lilly echoes.

>   I smile, a plan forming in my head. “What do you say we find out?”

  “I’d say you’re crazier than you look, Jack,” Lilly replies.

  “Thanks.”

  “The plan?” Abby asks.

  “Not a whole plan,” I say. “Just a semblance of one. Come on, Ab, you know me.”

  She nods and then shakes her head in disapproval.

  “Don’t worry.” I head to the back, where those boxes of old-new Patterson books are stacked. They follow me. “It’s not as crazy as you might think. I’m just going to get a higher vantage point and see where they go back to.”

  “Sounds easy enough,” Lilly says.

  “Knowing Jack, he’ll fuck it up,” Abby laughs. I glare at her. “I’m only joking, only joking,” she reassures me.

  “Eh, you’re probably right,” I say, then I’m walking around the backroom, searching for a door that leads out.

  Covered by a few more stacked boxes is an emergency exit. As I look at the setup of the boxes, I think they were probably deliberate, that someone may have had their last stand here while the zombies rampaged the streets outside. I picture a small, bookish man, his glasses barely hanging on the crook of his nose, sweating in the corner as gunshots ripple and cars crash and people scream.

  There is no smell of decay here, no bones. If a survivor was ever barricaded inside, they are no longer. Which begs the question, the one always on my mind when I think of the world and how it used to be: What happened to them?

  Maybe they escaped, got out, got someplace safe. At least, I hope.

  I have my handgun with only a few rounds left, so for good measure, I grab an orange-handled box cutter sitting atop a stack of broken-down cardboard in the corner. The blade is sharp, though spotted with rust on its broadside.

  “Be careful,” Lilly says.

  “Don’t jinx him!” Abby replies, slapping her on the shoulder, which makes Lilly moan. “Oops, sorry. Forgot you were injured in the explosion.”