New DEAD series (Book 4): DEAD [Don Evans Must Die]

by Brown, TW

  “I know you think this is a done deal,” Marshawn said calmly. “And I guess when you look at it one-dimensionally, you would seem correct. But that might be one of your many short comings. You look at things with such a limited scope of vision.”

  “What on earth are you babbling about?” Don snapped.

  “Yeah,” I whispered out of the corner of my mouth. “You want to clue me in?”

  Then I heard the whistle. At almost that same moment, Marshawn barked for everybody to get down. I glanced up to see Selina standing beside me with a confused expression. I reached up and grabbed her by the wrist, yanking her to the ground hard enough that she cried out. The thing is, I barely heard it as the hard thump and then the explosive blast followed. I covered my head with one arm as I hugged Selina tight to my side in a feeble attempt to protect her from the blast fallout.

  I looked up and saw a big cloud of smoke and debris where I’d figured Don and his people to have been standing just a moment ago. I couldn’t really see, and I wouldn’t get the chance as Marshawn was urging everybody to their feet.

  I was up, and then the pain hit me and put me back on my knees. In the rush of excitement, I had a moment of adrenaline-based painkiller. That seemed like a bit of a rip off since its respite was mere seconds, but I didn’t have long to think about it as two hands reached down to help me up. I didn’t recognize either of the people, but I gratefully accepted the help and climbed to my feet.

  Our group started toward the football field. We were just passing through the gate when I heard a barrage of gunfire. One of the people that had helped me to my feet staggered and fell facedown. I could see the dark stain spreading across his back and with his face turned mostly my direction, I knew he was dead.

  I had no idea about the second person. I knew that stopping or even slowing down was going to be a way to end up dead. All I could do was hope that I was one of those that made it.

  I could see Selina and Marshawn ahead of me, so at least I was certain they were both still okay. I was basically bringing up the rear and was almost certain that the next rounds would find me.

  That is likely what would’ve happened except for another explosion that vibrated under my feet and caused me to stagger just a bit. I glanced back to see another cloud of smoke and debris. Again, I had no idea if Don Evans was among the casualties.

  I kept going and actually breathed a sigh of relief when I reached the far side of the football stadium complex. Selina was standing there and grabbed my arm as soon as I came through.

  Marshawn was in the yard of the ruined house and waiting. When I got there, he looked at everybody and nodded as he took a head count. I counted fourteen nods.

  “Okay, we need to move. I have a group and we have wheels. But we need to head to the Safeway. That is the rendezvous location,” Marshawn announced.

  “You’ll just let us come along?” a man said, skepticism dripping from his voice.

  “Should we not?” Marshawn replied with a pointed look at the man.

  “Do we have to come with you?” another asked.

  “Nope. You can do whatever the hell you want. But I am not going to stand here and debate the merits of bringing you along and I am sure not going to force anybody to come along.” And with those words, Marshawn started down along the side of the blackened home.

  I didn’t waste any time. I kept hold of Selina’s hand and we followed. I waited until we emerged on the next street before I bothered to glance back. What I saw were nine people. None of them looked like they were ready for a fight. None looked prepared to make the trip to McIver. A couple didn’t look like they could make the less-than-a-mile trip to the Safeway parking lot.

  Considering how I felt, I wasn’t entirely sure that I was up for the brief trip. Not that quitting was an option, but I felt awful.

  “Is Michael with you?” Selina asked as we kept a brisk pace cutting through a few yards as we headed for the highway.

  “He is back at our camp,” I answered.

  I heard her say something, but it wasn’t loud enough that I could make it out. I bumped her shoulder with my elbow enough to get her attention.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  Selina looked around, presumably to ensure that she couldn’t be overheard. Once she was certain, she leaned closer to me. “Carl said he cut his head off.”

  I glanced at her with a raised eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

  “Jerkface sent him back when one of the people with him said that a little boy escaped. Carl told him he knew where the boy hid and could probably find him.” Selina was fighting not to cry, that much was obvious with her strained voice and the tears welling in her eyes.

  “I promise you, Michael is fine. In fact, he and Chewie are like two peas in a pod these days,” I offered with a smile and a shrug of one shoulder.

  “Chewie is okay too?” she blurted and then looked around to see if she’d drawn the attention of anybody. “Chewie is okay too?” she whispered, her cheeks flushed a bright red.

  “She is fine. She was a little messed up when we got there, but she was in the bushes and luckily, none of the zombies found her.”

  “How did she get to the bushes?” Selina said more to herself than anything else.

  I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I could tell her mind was churning. She was deep in thought about something. And as she ran it through her brain, her lips moved as if she might be having a conversation.

  “We got incoming,” Marshawn said over his shoulder just loud enough to be heard.

  I looked up to see a smallish herd of perhaps thirty or so of the undead coming for us from out of a side street. I was really bummed to have lost that weapon the Rag-and-Bone Man had given us.

  Oddly enough, all the people that Selina had urged to come along pulled an assortment of weapons free and advanced on the herd. Selina glanced at me and gave me an appraising look that ended with a frown.

  “Maybe you should stay back.” She put a hand on my chest and then turned and dashed into the fight.

  I watched her, my heart turning into a lump in my throat as she ducked under the arms of the first zombie she reached. As it tried to stop and then turn to seek out the tasty morsel that had just evaded it, she kicked it behind the knees and then thrust her blade through the back of its head so that it came out the mouth. A dribble of dark fluid oozed from the blade tip just before it vanished as she yanked it back and let the corpse fall to the ground on its face.

  Already the next one was on her and I was about to scream out for her when she dropped to her knees and spun with one leg extended. She swept the little female zombie from its feet and popped up quick enough to stab down into its face.

  As I watched, I had to wonder what the hell she’d been through. She was a miniature warrior. I could see her face most of the time and I never saw her flinch or show even the slightest bit of fear.

  She even moved in once and jumped on the back of one moving up behind Marshawn. Riding it to the ground as she plunged her blade into its temple. When it was all said and done, everybody had come away without a scratch.

  Selina wiped her blade off and said something to a few of the people from the gym as she made her way back to me. My expression must’ve been obvious because she gave me a scowl and planted her hands on her hips.

  “You think boys are the only ones that can fight zombies good?” she challenged.

  “Not at all, but that was some pretty impressive stuff,” I said.

  There was a splatter of blackened blood on her cheek. I pointed it out and she scrubbed it away with her sleeve.

  “When did you learn that?” I asked as we resumed our trek to the rendezvous point.

  “Every week, we had to fight for our spot in the food line,” Selina explained. “And if you didn’t hold your own, they sent you out with the patrols.” She dropped her head. “The first time I had to fight, I got beat up really bad. They made me go out the next day with a food patrol. I got paired with this woma
n named Lisa.”

  “Long blonde hair?” I asked.

  ‘Yeah.” She drew that word out like she was curious as to how I might possibly know that. “She was one of Donnie’s slave girls. Called a porcupine or something.”

  “Concubine?”

  “Yeah…that!” Selina answered with a nod.

  “And she taught you how to fight like that?” I asked.

  “Yeah. She kept me with her. We used to slip away sometimes, and she would lure one zombie over and then show me how to kill it. The first time that one of them got her, I started to cry.”

  “Got her?” I had a feeling I knew what she meant, but I wanted to make absolutely certain.

  “One of them bit her on the hand one time. It had broken teeth and she was only wearing regular gloves. It tore through and I was scared that she was going to get sick. Then she showed me that she had four or five other old bites that were just scars now. She said that I could never tell anybody in the camp.”

  I had to wonder how she would be able to keep her status of being immune from Don. That was especially true if she was his concubine or whatever.

  “She was nice to me, but she would get kinda mad when I lost in the weekly fights. She told me that I had to treat my opponents like zombies. After I learned that…it got easy.”

  “What got easy?” I asked, not liking the tone her voice had just taken. There was an emptiness that made me shiver.

  “Fighting.”

  That one word just sort of hung in the air. There was something I was missing. I wasn’t sure what. And I didn’t have any time to think on it as the Safeway came into view.

  I could make out at least four military trucks that I am pretty sure are called Deuce-and-a-halfs. There were several people forming a line from the busted entrance to the store and they were passing items down that line and into the trucks.

  “Marshawn,” a woman exclaimed when she saw us approach the work detail.

  “Hey, turns out my friend Evan wasn’t dead after all,” Marshawn said by way of greeting.

  “That is great, but we will have to save the introductions and stories for later,” the woman replied, her demeanor growing instantly serious. “We got word that Don Evans survived the attack and is on the move. We think he might be headed this way.”

  “How did we miss him?” Marshawn snarled. “You said your guy had this all sewn up.”

  “He gave us a good set of coordinates for the first volley, but then we lost him.”

  I didn’t need a translation. That meant that their guy on the inside was dead.

  “We are clearing this location in five with all the supplies we have loaded. Your people can come along.”

  “What direction you headed?” I asked.

  “The depot,” the woman replied and then turned back to the job of helping with the loading of supplies.

  “Over on 224?” I asked.

  “Correct,” the woman called over her shoulder as she handed forward a large pack of toilet paper to be loaded.

  I turned to Marshawn. “Have you seen their place?”

  He shook his head. “I ran into them outside their encampment. I actually did something kind of stupid when I think it over. I was crouched down in some bushes when I saw this convoy coming up the road. I decided that they at least looked legit and I stepped out to flag them down.”

  “Not like you had much of a choice with that herd on your ass,” the female soldier hooted.

  Marshawn frowned and shot a nasty glare that went unseen. He turned his attention back to me and shrugged. “They turned out to be useful.” My eyes went wide, and he nodded. “Yeah, that herd that swarmed Don’s compound…we led them there. But I’d been on the run from them for several hours and couldn’t seem to slip them.”

  “You couldn’t escape a group of zombies?” I challenged.

  “Bastards kept finding me. Seriously. It was like they were being led.”

  The first thing I thought of was the children zombies. It was very possible they’d been hunting him like they’d done with me. This sort of disturbing behavior was starting to add up to a problem.

  I continued to think on it as I joined in with the loading assembly line to get as much moved over from the store to the trucks as possible. Once the time came for us to climb in and split, my body was one giant ache.

  “You should see our corpsman when we get to the base,” the female soldier said.

  “Oh, I can’t stay at your base.” I shook my head and winced as even that hurt. “I have to get to my people.”

  “Yes…you have a camp somewhere up in the foothills.” The soldier glanced at Marshawn and gave a tight smile. “Your friend here was very adamant about not revealing your location despite us picking him up and discovering that we were in the process of launching our own attack on our mutual enemy.”

  “You don’t expect me to tell you, do you?” I snorted a laugh that also caused me to wince. “I don’t even know your name.”

  The woman had the decency to blush just a bit. “Where are my manners. I’m Captain Bernice Burrell. I apologize for not giving you my name sooner. Things have been a little crazy.”

  “Evan Berry.” I shook her offered hand and admired the firm confidence she put into that brief physical exchange.

  “Maybe your people would like to come down and join our little group.” Captain Burrell sat back and rested her head against the canvas that acted as a shell over the back of the big truck that rumbled along with its loud diesel engine that I figured had to be drawing any undead for miles around.

  “And be that close to the populated areas?” I scoffed. “No thanks. I’ve seen the size of the groups that are flowing down 205. And you have no actual cover. Anybody will be able to see you from miles away and that just leaves you open to problems I don’t care to be bothered with.”

  The captain opened her mouth and then shut it. She looked at me and didn’t say a word for long enough that I started to get more than a little nervous. Had I come across as threatening or something of that nature? Had I simply been rude and was about to be kicked off the truck still a good couple of miles from Highway 224?

  “Sounds like you have given this a lot of thought,” the captain muttered.

  “I wouldn’t say I’ve given it that much thought.” I didn’t want to come off seeming like some nerd that spent all his free time “what-iffing” how I would respond to a zombie outbreak. I mean, who hadn’t had the occasional conversation?

  “Listen, we have a few problems in our camp. One of them is a solid faction that still think this might be reversible,” Captain Burrell said in a whisper, leaning close to me. “And our major is a damned minister that insists this is the Rapture or some crazy shit.”

  Because an unexplained zombie apocalypse wasn’t crazy, I thought.

  I glanced over at Marshawn who just shrugged. Obviously he didn’t know these people all that well. The more I took in, the more I felt this was more of a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” situation. I still hadn’t met the male voice that had denied our request for more time when Marshawn had asked for it.

  These people had problems, in my opinion, and were now officially the second to last group I wanted to join up with. Racists and religious fanatics were tops on my list. Both were an extreme point of view. I have always felt that anything, in extreme, is bad.

  I glanced at the handful of strangers and was distressed that I didn’t really know which ones had joined us from Don’s compound and which ones might be part of the captain’s detail. Her eyebrows rose as she must’ve figured out my thoughts.

  “Look, some of us might be planning to abandon our post,” the captain whispered. Still, the diesel engine was so loud that her voice had to be made louder and it was unlikely that everybody in this cargo area hadn’t heard it. The few nods from around the group confirmed that suspicion.

  “Then why would you ask us to join you at your base?” I challenged.

  “Numbers. Hopefully you wo
uld be likely to be on our side of things if the situation went south.”

  While I appreciated her possible honesty, her reasoning did not sit well with me. I had to school my features and voice to keep from tipping her off to how I really felt.

  “So we would be human shields or just meat for the grinder. Numbers to give your side weight and then bodies to be used and thrown away?” I felt my voice tighten as I spoke, but it couldn’t be helped.

  “No…I just figured that you might be more likely to be normal than to be some extremist. And our numbers would act like a deterrent,” the captain explained.

  “And if it came to a coup or some sort of battle for power?”

  “Then we would decide whether to fight or leave.”

  That was admittedly a good answer. I still had no idea why she was dumping so much information on a relative stranger. And no matter what she said, I wasn’t going to give up my group’s location.

  We drove on in silence for a few minutes. I stared out the back since I was sitting closest to the opening. I watched the road zoom past, but when I would look up, the scenery seemed to be moving so much slower. It was one of those strange optical illusions.

  I was just zoning out when a sound caught my ear. It was not my imagination, and when I looked up, I could see that we were heading down a hill. The road was twisting and winding which had us moving even slower. I knew where we were now. Once we reached the bottom, we would be on Highway 211. To the left, the road would take us to Estacada. Turn right and we would go through the Carver Curves. Both directions would allow us to return to McIver Park.

  As I was considering which direction to take, I strained my hearing to try and make out what was behind us. Just as we ducked around a bend, I saw it. The nose of a school bus.

  “He’s back,” I spat.

  Everybody in the back with me scooted or stood in order to look out the back, I could feel how we all held our breaths while we waited for the vehicle to round the bend behind us. When that easy to identify yellow nose came into view, the swearing replaced the tension of our collective held breath.