Life Among The Dead (Book 2): A Castle Made of Sand

by Cotton, Daniel

  The guy is donning an old fashioned hockey mask while performing Kelly Peel’s signature moves and gyrations. The dead certainly appreciate the show, for they eagerly hobble towards him and pass Dustin once more. The peculiar figure doesn’t seem scared in the least, for he continues to mimic the pop star’s suggestive dancing as the corpses draw near. He obviously wants them as close as possible.

  Dustin can no longer see the carefree figure shrouded by the zombies. He cranes his neck to peer around the backs of the departed, but it’s no use, for they’ve clogged the view completely.

  A loud staccato erupts, drowning out the innuendo heavy tune. Dustin ducks below the seat at first, but just can’t help peeking up over headrest. The dead begin to dance a convulsive shimmy before falling to the asphalt. Heads pop open in geysers of thick gore, and the dancing Peel fan now crouches behind one of the sandbag bunkers, manning a .50 caliber machine gun. The weapon shakes violently as it spews its projectiles into the hungry zombies. Once the gun goes silent, and all the dead lay still on the road, he simply heads off, taking the music with him.

  Dustin climbs back into the driver’s seat. He isn’t sure if it was the man’s intention to clear the dead for him or just a personal vendetta, and he doesn’t care. He just wants to get moving.

  During his quick trip into the back, he had lost his pistol. While retrieving the gun from the floor mat, he hears a sound. More shuffling feet approach his car, so he tries to start his engine, but it’s being stubborn, and all the warning lights are flashing behind his steering wheel. He has to give up on the key to point his gun at his window when a hand slaps upon the glass.

  “Whoa! Don’t shoot!” A heavyset man in fatigues puts his palms up. “I’m alive.”

  The rotund soldier proceeds around the Altima after the driver releases the door locks. He removes an olive drab bag from his shoulder and an assault rifle from his other. “Thanks for the rescue.”

  “Uh… Sure thing,” Dustin has no qualms taking the credit.

  “A swarm of them just came outta nowhere,” the soldier says. “Where’re you heading?”

  Dustin doesn’t mind the man joining him. He figures it can’t hurt having a soldier along, even this doughy-boy. “Out of town,” Until he saw the state of the city, he had planned to go home and wait it out. Now all he wants to do is find a quiet place.

  “Can you by any chance take me to West 8th?”

  “That’s a bit out of my way, actually.”

  The soldier aims his rifle at the driver. “I’m afraid I have to insist.”

  The Altima rolls. “Where is West 8th exactly?”

  “Just beyond Shepard Park, west of the city.” The soldier relaxes his weapon. He starts taking magazines of varied fullness out of his bag so he can combine the rounds and make a few containing the full capacity. “Sorry to force this on you… I have to get home, see if my wife is all right. Say goodbye.”

  “Goodbye?”

  “I got bit. Means I’ll be one of them soon. When those fuckers surprised me, I couldn’t hide fast enough. One of them got my calf.”

  Dustin knows the mishap was indirectly his fault for leading them to the scene, but he isn’t about to say as much to the guy.

  “These things are like sharks, man. Sharks on land. Always on the move, looking for food. They track us by sight, sound, and smell.”

  “Smell?”

  “Blood. They can smell it. At least, that’s what it looks like.”

  “What are they?” Dustin asks with frightened wonder.

  “Zombies.” The man taps one of his new magazines against his palm like he was taught in boot camp to align the bullets and prevent jamming. He loads it into the carbine. “I’ll make you a deal. Hunker down at my place, or take my wife with you, and I’ll give you my gun and show you how to use it.”

  Although he doesn’t like the idea of having to take care of someone else, he knows he’d fare better with the rifle. Ultimately his guilt over leading the dead to the man’s location guides his decision. “Deal.”

  The solider digs in his cargo pockets. “Do you want some beef jerky?”

  “Sure.” Dustin always skips breakfast, preferring to graze from the vending machines at work. That type of eating isn’t so much about the sustenance, but more of an anti-depressant--frosted happiness with sprinkles.

  “Once, after coming back from the field, my wife found a pouch of Levi Garrett in my gear. Now she always sends me out with pounds of this stuff. It’s actually quite a good substitute, and much healthier than chew.”

  The man is silent, staring at a cell phone in his hands that he had removed along with the jerky. “I’ll never get it back to him, I guess.”

  Dustin is too busy navigating around the dead autos to fully understand the soldier’s meaning. “What’s that?”

  “A guy dropped his phone when we were mobilizing. He got put on a bus before I could get it to him. I just figured I could give it to him at the debriefing when this was all behind us.”

  The soldier feels a twinge of guilt as he puts another person’s phone to his ear after punching a series of numbers.

  “Calling home?” Dustin asks.

  “Yeah… It’s busy,” He stashes the cell away then stares out the window. His hands tap upon his thighs nervously. “With the holidays coming up, she’s probably taking orders.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She has a rather successful home baking service.” Corporal Silva digs into yet another of his many pockets. “You may have seen her treats around the area. Pies, cookies, cakes, and such.” The soldier holds a photo for the young driver to steal a glance at.

  The man’s wife is a morbidly obese woman that he does recognize from logos.

  The man goes on to say. “She’s always loved baking.”

  No shit, Dustin gives a grunt of approval, having learned long ago saying the wrong thing to the wrong person could cost him dearly.

  Dustin turns the music down so they can talk, but his passenger sits in contemplative silence. So Dustin tries for conversation. “I once thought about joining the military. Was boot camp as bad as they say?”

  “No.” The man laughs. “It was worse. Think about a world where everything you say and do is wrong…”

  Sounds like my life.

  “…where you wear tee-shirts and tighty whities with your name stenciled into them. All must be folded in the most anal manner possible and stored in a tiny locker. Lord help you if it ain’t perfect. Hard as it was, I always look back at it and laugh, thinking that it was the best mistake I’ve ever made.”

  The man pauses and chuckles when the youth stops at a stop sign. “What are you doing? You’re not going to get pulled over.”

  “I forgot.” Dustin feels embarrassed as he pulls onto Park Boulevard.

  “It looks quiet.”

  The vehicle brakes hard and every warning light illuminates on the dash.

  “Gas! Gas! Step on the gas!”

  Dustin tries but is too late, and the car dies. Turning the key doesn’t revive the Altima. It doesn’t even make a sound.

  “Don’t bother,” the solider says sadly. “Your alternator is shot. We’ll be hoofing it from here.”

  The kid gathers his things from the back while the soldier investigates what caused the sudden stop--a Kevlar helmet lying in the road. The ‘brain bucket,’ as his compatriots call it, was left by a fellow soldier. There’s no nametape on it to tell who its owner may have been. The solider is about to offer it to his companion, but can see he is already overburdened by enough. A bag is slung over one arm and a guitar on the other. “That stuff will just slow you down.”

  Dustin ignores the warning, not about to leave his things behind. The two begin the trek through the park.

  4

  “Farnsworth! Farnsworth!”

  Kelly can hear Randy scream from upstairs. She has allowed the man to pack up his possessions while she watches the people gathering just outside the gates of her pr
operty. It's a large estate for a single person yet far below what she can afford. She always expected to have children with the man she married. Of course, this was her intention before meeting the guy she ultimately wed, because he is no one to have kids with.

  “Where the devil is Farnsworth?” Randy storms into the foyer.

  “I sent everyone away,” she tells him absently.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me that over the intercom? I’ve been yelling for fifteen minutes.”

  “Power’s out… And it was funny.”

  “Are they still out there?” he asks her, heading to a different window to look for himself.

  The mob of gawkers all turn to something on the street that catches their collective attention. Slowly they proceed like a swarm around Kelly’s neighbors. She’s never met the family but has waved to them when coming or going. The opening of their gate had prompted the movement, when they tried to leave their home in a convertible but failed.

  As far as Kelly knows, the people are of no public interest, so the paparazzi shouldn’t be as fervent as this. The journalists are getting more than snapshots and sound bites, they are taking actual bites. Though her neighbors are strapped into their seats by their safety belts, the mob tears at them and fight each other over their flailing limbs. Kelly has to look away.

  “I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” Randy says, unable to take his eyes off of the carnage. “Is someone making a movie?”

  Kelly is unable to talk. She feels sick to her stomach and has to sit down. She feels bad for the family, and wishes she had done more than just exchange courteous waves in passing. And she wishes she could do something now to help them, but she’s too scared.

  Tires screech to a halt outside. Kelly is curious but can’t bear the thought of looking out the window again. “What is it?”

  “It’s Wayne Gretzky.” Randy nicknames the man based on the hockey mask he wears.

  The aggressive journalists leave the mutilated family to converge on the newcomer, who meets them readily armed with a machete. The man fearlessly engages them, hacking away at their necks and heads. He slaughters the lot in the middle of the street, in broad daylight. Bodies and body parts lay strewn on the asphalt, and when the last of them falls to his blade he sets his eyes on the Peel residence.

  “Are the phones up?” Randy asks urgently.

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “There is a guy out there who has just massacred the group that has massacred the neighbors… He’s climbing the gate.”

  She has no choice but to look out the window now. Randy is telling the truth, and she watches the man drop from the top spikes of the wrought iron. He is coming up the walk.

  “See! If we were in LA, we’d be far from this,” Randy quibbles. “Even if it did happen, we’d have our panic room to hide in.”

  “Not the time,” she tells him as they back away from the door.

  Deep knocks cause them to draw ragged, fearful breaths. The raps grow louder the longer they go unanswered. It becomes evident that, at some point during his beseeching entry, the man decided to use his foot rather than his hand, because the door is kicked in.

  He steps into the foyer, and the long blade in his hand drops thick clumps of gore on the immaculate white marble flooring. Scanning slowly, he sets his sights on the cowering pair as they retreat backwards into Kelly’s office. There is nowhere else to go from this area of the house. Before Randy can slam the door shut, the man has his hand in the frame. The wood rebounds off of his knuckles and it’s as if he can’t even feel it.

  Kelly and Randy search for a means of defense against the intruder, but they come up with only award statuettes. My wife may be leaving me, Randy thinks, but I will still protect her, or at least, more than likely, die trying. “Now see here, Mr. Voorhees, I’ll have you know that I have been in more than a few action films, and have picked up a few moves from some rather large and imposing men.”

  The man takes a few steps into the room; he doesn’t so much look past the scrawny British man but right through him, at the petite woman behind him. He drops the machete.

  “Don’t be scared.”

  The voice is gravelly, the words seem preposterous, and Randy is surely not one to let such a thing slide. “I’m sorry… Did you really just say ‘don’t be scared’ in that Swamp Thing voice of yours? Coming in here with a machete, after butchering all the reporters in the entire mid-west, wearing that mask, all covered in blood and… other stuff?”

  “Reporters?”

  “We are famous, you know?” Though the threat may be over, Randy keeps himself between this man and Kelly.

  “That’s why I’m here.” He looks around the scruffy faced husband, to the songstress. “I’m here to save you.”

  “Save us from what?” Kelly leaves the ‘safety’ of her future ex’s protection to address the gentleman.

  “The zombies.”

  Randy is compelled to ask the obvious question. “Are you fucking mad?”

  5

  Though the suburbs are quiet, Dustin and Corporal Silva proceed with caution. The heavy set commando is perspiring in the cool afternoon, and Dustin has to wonder if it’s his fitness level or the bite he has sustained.

  A chopper flies overhead, circling before heading back towards the city. The craft’s altitude is too high to tell if it’s military.

  “If you do stay at my place,” Silva huffs. “Put a sign on the roof to let them know you and my wife are alive inside.”

  “’Kay.”

  “If you decide to leave the area, head for one of the nearby bases. Eagle Rock up north, or Foster west of here.”

  “Are you ok?”

  The man has started to lag behind.

  “Yeah.” Silva mops his brow. “We’re almost there.”

  “How long does it take to change?” Dustin tightens his grip on his pistol.

  “Couple hours.” He sees the kid’s tension and smiles. “Don’t worry. I ain’t dying until I see my wife.”

  They head towards West 8th on a road that connects all the residential streets. With the exception of a few solo zombies, the neighborhood is without movement. A yellow sign warns them that they are about to enter a dead end, and Dustin is apprehensive about this. Even more so upon seeing the bodies that lay on the pavement. He and the limping soldier pass an abandoned go-cart and a pair of wrecked cars. Smoke billows into the air from a few of the properties. One such smoldering home adds vigor to the injured man’s labored strides.

  “Oh my god!” Silva hobbles quickly to a door that hangs off of its hinges and enters. He disregards the charred, twitching bodies strewn across his lawn and those hanging over the sills of his blown out windows.

  Dustin stops at the smoky void, unable to summon the courage to enter. Dustin sets a hand on either jamb and listens. The man is weeping inside, but the crying ceases after a single shot rings out.

  Dustin retreats off of the stoop. He has no idea what to do and only shifts from foot to foot like a dog left out in the cold. He stares into the hazy gloom at a shadow that moves slowly toward him. Then he takes a step closer with his pistol ready. “Hey… sir? Is everything all right?”

  A charred hand’s emerges from the threshold, followed by a second. The stiff and blackened flesh cracks as the fingers flex, reaching for him, but he recoils backwards. In his haste to evade capture, Dustin misses a step and falls onto his back.

  A crispy skinned man falls onto him. All of the ghoul’s hair has been singed off, and his shirt has melted to his torso. Dustin pushes the creature away, knowing not to let its mouth near him. Lips like overcooked sausages split open as the dead man attempts to widen his jaw for a bite. The kid fires his weapon into the thing’s face.

  Rolling the limp carcass off gives Dustin little comfort, and more burn victims are exiting. He can easily assume his companion had forgotten about him and their deal out of grief, and in turn he must forget about the rifle he was promised. Dustin heads for the stre
et, dropping a round into the chamber of his pistol. He is alone and on unfamiliar ground. Facing the city, he sees zombies entering West 8th. Some stagger out of neighboring homes and from the alleys between. He has no choice but to head farther down the dead end street.

  The superfluous merchandise slung upon his back batters against his shoulders with every step. He must change his course, moving from one side of the street to the other to avoid clumps of walking dead that appear from behind objects that obscure them. The interest of the dead has been piqued by the gunfire.

  He tries car doors but all are locked. He can get into a delivery truck but there is no key in the ignition. He’s running out of road as he nears the end of the cul de sac, and he is losing hope until he sees one special car on the roundabout. Dustin has never been a fan of late model Camaros, but he sees a recent edition parked that he does fancy. He is drawn to its grinning grill and rock star purple paintjob, but the greatest attribute is its open door.

  A peek inside reveals that the keys are in the ignition. He quickly tosses his gear in the back before sliding in. He prays that the battery has enough juice to start, considering the door has been open for who knows how long. Fortunately, it turns over.

  “Thank you,” he says with a sigh, releasing the breath he has been holding, but a slap on the window causes him to swallow that air once again.

  A distorted male face with blue shadowed eyes and a crooked lipstick sneer stares into the purple car.

  “Ahh! What the fuck?” Dustin screams as he throws the car into drive and floors the accelerator. He races down West 8th slowing only to negotiate the cars that block the way.