Wake the Dead 2 (Wake The Dead Series)

by Vanucci, Gary F.

  “So, all good?” Selina asked, hands on hips.

  “All good,” Nick answered, as Phil, Hannah and Liz climbed atop the wall-walk facing the parking lot and waited. “We lowered them into the river easily enough and kept an eye on them as long as we could. Bryan has a short-range, walkie-talkie and we stayed in contact most of the time.”

  “How’s he carryin’ a walkie? It waterproof?” Alex asked.

  “Nah, he’s got all his supplies in a watertight canvas bag for just such an occasion,” Nick said, waggling his eyebrows, which seemed oddly out of place to Alex. “And we know he found a vehicle, so we should be hearing some kind of commotion soon.”

  As if on cue, the distinct sound of a horn blaring broke the relative silence, followed by the sounds of the song, ‘Who Are You’, by The Who, in between the sporadic honking.

  “He must have really picked through ‘em to find a cassette player stereo with that big a sound system,” Phil commented, smiling and shaking his head knowingly.

  Other than a few stragglers remaining behind focused on Shadow as he snarled fiercely at them, the majority of the zombies raced off at rapid speeds—trampling each other in some cases—toward the disturbance.

  “You stay here and kill any zombies that come near,” Alex instructed the wolf, who growled in response.

  The rest of them ran toward the gate as Nick cranked it open. Phil and Liz led the charge outside, their swords and shields working in unison to halt the attacks and subsequently kill whatever undead creatures remained behind. There were only small pockets of resistance as Alex, carrying two gas cans, followed them. They dumped gasoline all over the remaining structures nearby and along the ground as they went.

  Alex was followed by Hannah, Selina, and Kelly, all working to spill fuel all over the fairgrounds. The gate was open wide, and Shadow stood guard at the entrance.

  Nick stood at the rear of them with two pistols, both equipped with silencers to make their firing less conspicuous. To Alex, It was like a scene out of a movie, and he couldn’t believe how well the plan was working.

  He heard the sound of something whizzing past his ear as he dumped the last of the fuel out of the second gas can and looked up to see a zombie stumble backward and fall to the grass motionless.

  He looked up to see Nick aiming his gun in that direction, clearly having shot the unseen attacker. Alex glanced at the zombie, seeing that it was once a man, wearing a pair of denim overalls, and with a huge bullet hole now occupying the right side of its skull. Alex looked to Nick and back again to the corpse.

  “Thanks,” he said, feeling the reassuring steel of his own gun tucked in his belt at the small of his back.

  “Don’t mention it,” Nick said, watching the field intently as a shepherd watches his sheep, before stopping right beside Alex. “Why don’t you get your van before it’s caught in the fires, too? Park it there right outside the gates,” he whispered to Alex. “There’s a path along the right wall where you can get a vehicle through. Be quiet as a mouse until you start that engine. The flames will already be rising when you do.”

  Alex nodded and took a step. ”And Alex. Try not to get yourself killed.” There it was again, the familiar smile that inexplicably reassured Alex to the core. He nodded and ran off. As he did, he heard the sounds of footfalls behind him, stopped, spun and raised his own gun toward the source of that sound.

  It was Selina.

  “Shit, woman! I almost shot you!”

  “You ain’t goin’ nowhere without me,” she teased, ignoring his comment and taking the lead, her sword out and at the ready. Alex tested and made sure his own silencer was attached and at the ready, too. Thankfully It was, and none too soon as a trio of zombies appeared out of nowhere, charging straight at them. Alex fired two quick and precise shots, downing the two on the outer edges, as Selina waited. As the center one neared, she shifted to the side, nimbly stepping out of its path, and sending its head flying away. They continued on, not stopping to admire their handiwork.

  Seconds later, the van was in sight. Half a minute later and they were inside, buckling their seatbelts. Alex turned the van’s engine over and gave it gas, pulling the vehicle forward and then spinning it around to face the preferred direction.

  As the van spun around, he saw the smoke begin to rise, followed quickly by flames.

  In his rear view mirror, the wooden gate jerked violently from the thunderous blows of the undead that was no doubt gathered before it. He watched for another few heartbeats as the gate trembled over and over, but held, until finally it was no longer in his sight in his rearview mirror.

  He continued driving the van along the right side wall as Nick had instructed. He shuddered as he felt the impact of what had to be another crazed zombie, perhaps more than one even, as is struck the passenger side of the vehicle. He glanced over there for a second and saw divots in the metal from the ferocious power of the undead force. He took a deep breath to steady himself and looked to Selina, whose eyes were wide with fear. That look was something that he hadn’t really seen from her to this point. She was understandably scared, and so was he. Horrifying mages of what a group of these zombies could do to a human being penetrated his mind’s eye as the van kept speeding forward. Alex felt his foot pushing deeper on the accelerator, understanding that their current speed was reckless, but he didn’t care.

  Another zombie was suddenly in his line of sight in front of him and he gunned it on the straightaway. The zombie insanely ran toward them and he gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles and fingers were white under the strain.

  A massive crash ensued as the zombie leaped and crashed into the windshield. It hit so hard that it snapped its own neck and cracked the passenger side of the windshield, top to bottom, before rolling away and off the hood. Selina rolled down the window on her side and stared back toward the undead monster.

  “Well?!” Alex asked, staring at the spider-web pattern on the windshield.

  “You don’t wanna know,” she said as calmly as she could.

  The flames grew in intensity as they grew closer to their destination. The castle walls were near and within seconds, Alex could make out more and more detail on them as they rounded the final corner.

  Almost there!

  Alex saw another figure clouded in smoke and drew his weapon, knowing the van couldn’t take another hit like that. As he leveled his weapon, and put pressure on the trigger, he recognized Kelly, waving them in, and diverted the slug’s course at the very last second.

  “Fuck me,” he whispered under his breath, Kelly not even having seen the action. Alex sighed and lowered the gun, shaking his head at the almost-tragedy.

  “You guys okay!?” he yelled through the smoke and fire. “C’mon, hurry!”

  Alex and Selina grabbed their weapons and exited the vehicle, Alex forgetting the keys in the ignition, and having to run back to get them.

  As he slammed the door shut the second time, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and knew that someone—or more likely, some-thing—was behind him.

  Before he could even spin to face that direction, something of rather dense proportions slammed into him. He quickly found himself uprooted as his entire body, and especially his right shoulder, crashed into the inflexible earth. He was summarily pinned beneath the creature, his head bouncing off the ground, and he knew that his shoulder was at the very least dislocated.

  Pain was the only thing that registered for the next few heartbeats as his eyes involuntarily teared up.

  The next thing he felt was something tugging his bow from his shoulder. He blinked away the tears and through hazy vision, saw that a crazed zombie, its gray eyes filled with an insane hunger, had chomped down on his composite bow, just missing finding his flesh. The zombie was three times his size, draped in a gory flannel shirt, and had Alex pinned to the ground. As it tried to find purchase in his flesh, it abruptly lost its center of gravity and shifted its weight to Alex’s right. He t
hanked his lucky stars as the zombie’s weight shifted, and Alex freed his hand from beneath its weight, trying to get the gun out of the small of his back, but he couldn’t quite reach it. The undead horror released its bite on the bow and was set to find something much softer to sink its rotted teeth into when Alex heard something go whizzing past his ear.

  The zombie’s skull exploded.

  It immediately went limp and its full weight came to rest on top of Alex. He fidgeted and rocked, trying to move the heavy creature off him, until finally, Kelly was able to assist.

  Alex glanced back to see Nick standing behind Selina, his gun still raised and pointed in Alex’s direction. His ears were ringing and his vision fuzzy suddenly, feeling the aftereffects of having been slammed to the ground with such violence.

  Kelly and Selina got to either side of him and helped him up, and he saw the entrance to the castle growing near through the smoke that enveloped the area. Through the ringing, he could hear shouting from the others and knew that the undead horde was coming to investigate this latest event. The flames and smoke would certainly draw them near, too. Alex gave thought to the fact that the undead weren’t able to reason that the fire was unsafe to them and that they would burn to death in the flames.

  As they hurried through the gate, Alex witnessed Shadow lying down and being tended by Hannah, the remains of a zombie nearby. Its body was missing pieces and a sword rested in the ground, embedded in its skull. In that instant, adrenaline rushed through Alex, and he raced over to the wolf’s side just as the sound of the gate slamming shut behind him echoed throughout the grounds.

  “Is he okay?!” Alex asked in a panic. As he bent to one knee, his world began to spin and he felt hands on him, steadying him once more.

  “Alex, be careful!” scolded the voice of Selina. “Or it’s gonna be you needing attention!”

  As he steadied himself, he could make out that Shadow was bleeding in two spots and Hannah had two rags pressed against his flank. One was worse than the other and she called Selina to her and had her keep pressure on the lesser of the two wounds. Just then, Phil appeared from the castle with a first aid kit and another bag, dropped them beside her, and Hannah instantly went to work.

  She removed a needle, filled it with something and shot it into Shadow’s side.

  “What is that?” Alex heard himself ask her.

  “It’s anesthesia. He’s got a pretty bad wound there and I can’t stitch it up unless he’s out,” she said sternly, the pair seeing Shadow twist in an attempt to lick his wound. “Won’t need that many, but I need him to be still.”

  “Is he gonna be okay!?”

  Hannah nodded and examined the wolf again, as he stirred and growled groggily through the haze. She refilled the needle and shot him up with another dose of the anesthesia. She shook him again. He did not shift or move at all this time, and then she checked his heartbeat, appearing to be satisfied with the results as she nodded.

  She began her work, and Alex watched intently, as did Selina, still holding her compress tightly against Shadow’s side.

  “He protected the gate, just like you asked,” Nick said in a congratulatory way before turning and heading up the steps to the wall-walk.

  “He’s a good pup,” Phil added, standing over the dead zombie, then yanking free his sword and cleaning it on the dead zombie’s stained shirt.

  As Alex stared up at the blaze inside the fairgrounds through the steel bars of the gate, he slowly stood and wandered over to see what was happening out there.

  His vision was occupied with flames for as far as the eye could see. Through that inferno, he could see as the undead wandered into the area, hypnotically drawn by the flames, and were engulfed in them upon entering the boundaries of that conflagration.

  He could see many of the shops, kiosks, and stands as the flames consumed them, along with ample numbers of the undead. He felt saddened that they had to destroy the inner makings of the Renaissance Faire in order to kill the undead horde. Or, at least thin them out, he corrected, hoping that it would kill them all, but not confident that would be the case.

  They were careful not to pour very much gasoline right in front of the gates or where Alex had parked the van outside. They had gone out about thirty or so paces in every direction, dumping gasoline and half-full gas cans in strategic spots where Nick had mapped them out. They knew that it might spread further out, but it was a calculated risk. It was the only way they had even the slightest chance of clearing the outer fairgrounds that made any kind of sense.

  He could see that the fire had indeed spread and wondered how much further the fires would go before dying out. There was a pretty good chance that everything out there would go up in flames.

  Liz and Nick were standing on top of the wall and confirmed what he thought, which was that the fire was spreading further. The flames also had not gotten to or damaged any of the surrounding fencing around the grounds up until this point, He really couldn’t make out much from his vantage point under the intensity of the blaze and he could feel the heat even though it was thirty or so paces away.

  He backed away from the gate and rejoined Hannah and Selina as they worked together to stitch Shadow’s injured side. Selina looked up at Alex with a sympathetic visage upon seeing him. He realized that he must be wearing his emotions on his sleeve and took a deep breath to try steadying his breathing. A lump was caught in his throat at seeing the injured animal who had become not only his companion, but his best friend, too.

  “Can I help?” he asked. The women shook their heads no in unison and continued working. Alex slumped to the ground and watched as the ladies did their work. He glanced up at the gate to witness the occasional zombie, moaning monotonously with limbs and head alike set ablaze by the fire that continued to rage outside the castle walls.

  A pair of the undead attempted to get through the gates, helplessly pounding their charred hands against the steel, before finally falling over, dead once again, consumed by the purifying flames.

  All Alex could do was watch and wait.

  The fairgrounds were burning, his wolf was being stitched up after a vicious zombie bite, and he felt like hammered shit.

  His right shoulder throbbed and his head still rang with even the slightest movement.

  Things can only get better from here.

  Chapter 3

  Alex felt a hand on his shoulder and stared up into the eyes of Selina. He recalled the day’s events as he was rudely reminded of them with the slightest shift of his head and shoulder. His body ached and he found himself lying in the grass of the courtyard.

  Selina held out an open palm with a pair of pills and a glass of water for him.

  “Drink.”

  “What happened to Shadow?!” he asked in a panic, sitting up and immediately regretting that. He took the water and waited for a reply.

  “He is stable, still unconscious. We had to use even more anesthesia on him. He’s a tough cookie for sure. But Hannah says he’ll be good,” Selina said positively, smiling at him in an attempt to ease his worries. Alex grabbed the two pills from her hand and tossed them into his mouth, washing them down with the water.

  “That’s a relief,” he said, before laughing at his own absurdity.

  You might have a concussion though, Lancelot. And that shoulder is gonna need some rest, too. Hannah says she has a shot for your shoulder to numb it up. Might help,” she said, grabbing the glass of water from him. “She also said we’re gonna need to make a medical supply run.”

  “Last Nick said, we couldn’t go to the hospital ‘cause the grounds were overrun with the undead. Did anyone ask him what he thinks? He really didn’t like that idea. And if that’s true, then I'm not a fan either.”

  “He’s the one that said we should at least try it.”

  “Great, then. Should make for an honest-to-goodness suicide mission,” Alex quipped, rubbing his head and eyes.

  “The hospital in question is a good thirty miles east, too,�
� said the familiar voice of Nick. Alex turned to regard him and saw him standing over them, his arms crossed.

  “The fire? How long have I been out?”

  “It’s still going. Not intense like it was, but still going. Pretty much took everything along with it, far as the eye could see.”

  “That was a calculated risk,” Selina countered, staring into Alex’s eyes. “Follow my finger,” she added, moving it back and forth, up and down, performing a concussion test, as Alex followed it.

  “Indeed it was. Was just hopin’ for the best there. Can’t win ‘em all. Good news is, it seems to have drawn in and burned most of the undead that were surrounding the fairgrounds,” Nick added with a grin. “Gotta crack a few eggs and all that, right?”

  Alex winced, catching a foul smell in his nostrils.

  “You okay?” Selina asked.

  “Yeah, but that smell is pretty nasty.”

  “That would be the bodies burning,” Nick answered again. “It’s not there all the time, but when you catch it….”

  “Right.”

  “Bodies burning don’t smell like that,” Nick commented, drawing an odd look from Alex and Selina both.

  “Well, they don’t!”

  “You saved my life, too,” Alex said thankfully, nodding to the man. “I wanted to thank you.”

  “It’s fine. You’re welcome. You’d have done the same for me, right?”

  “”I’d like to think so,” Alex teased.

  “Well thanks, kid. It’s gonna be a few more hours before the fires die down. Why don’t you guys get some rest?” Nick suggested, dropping to one knee and staring at Alex. “You okay? You got your bell rung pretty good.”

  “I’ll live. So, what’s next then? The hospital or the food supplies?”

  “Well, we need both. If we can get out, we’ll get the food and whatever supplies we can get first at the grocery store. I wanna make sure we got enough to make it through winter again. Then we’ll try the hospital after that. I’m thinkin’ we might need to make use explosives for that one,” Nick said, folding his arms over his chest. “Just to avoid things like this again,” he added, nodding toward the gate.