The Undead Chronicles (Vol. 2): Darker Days

by O'Brian, Patrick J.

  A few tense seconds passed before the military men, including Bryce, broke out in laughter after surviving such a close call. Metzger couldn’t share in their fleeting joy, and thankfully they all recalled the gravity of the situation and returned to their normal emotional states a moment later.

  “Are you bit?” Nestler asked Fuller, suddenly turning deathly serious as he stared down the man’s wound.

  Metzger hadn’t noticed blood along the area where Fuller clasped his right arm, and the man didn’t waste one second stripping off his gear to show the group his skin was free of bite marks.

  “Smashed it trying to climb up that building,” Fuller stated firmly. “No, I wasn’t bitten.”

  A few minutes later the eight men divided into the two Humvees, and barely a word was said the entire trip back to the military plane. Metzger sat beside his brother in the rear of the lead vehicle, and Bryce avoided eye contact, much less addressing the talk they had at the factory. Metzger felt certain whatever notion plagued his brother came and went, and any chance of them leaving the group proved virtually impossible as the two Humvees drove straight into the open cargo hatch of the plane when they arrived at the small airport.

  Metzger couldn’t talk to his brother during the return flight, because their headsets were likely on the same channel as everyone else’s. He didn’t know what life held going forward, because he wasn’t in the military, or a spouse, so he questioned his acceptance level on the base. As he watched the Marines sort the items they found, he hoped it led them to the party responsible for the apocalypse, but didn’t expect the search to prove easy. The military devoted a lot of manpower and resources to the investigation, because no longer could they use a few keystrokes to narrow down the suspect pool.

  At one point the same soldier came over to them, requesting a blood draw for comparison to the original sample. Metzger and his brother complied, and for his part, Metzger figured the military wanted to study reactions in the blood after the men were exposed to air outside of the safe zone known as Naval Station Norfolk. Metzger noticed particles floating around in the factory’s sunbeams, though they looked no different than the dust he saw routinely before the apocalypse.

  He wasn’t going to live his life in paranoia, but recklessly navigating any of the explosion epicenters wasn’t wise, either. As he laid his head back to shut his eyes, Metzger wondered how his friends were faring in a land not too far from where he was heading.

  Nine

  Sutton quickly sized up the four men taking aim at him, finding two with shaved heads, one with a fohawk haircut cropped close all around, and one with more piercings than he could count. He quickly assumed he’d encountered some kind of modern Nazi group who banded together after the world fell apart.

  “We should just shoot him,” the one with the piercings said flatly.

  “No,” the larger of the two men with shaved heads replied, still holding a pistol on Sutton. “He’s one of us, or at least he’d better be.”

  Sutton dared not say a word. He felt certain the men didn’t require much of a reason to pull the triggers on their firearms. As though he’d been pulled over by the police, he kept his hands on the steering wheel and tried to avoid provoking his captors.

  “What’s the greatest race on earth?” the same man asked of Sutton. “And I don’t mean racecars or the Tour de France, neither.”

  “The white man, of course,” Sutton answered without hesitation, having contemplated what they would ask him during the past minute.

  “Step out slowly,” the same man said as none of them removed the barrels of their guns from his general direction.

  Sutton complied, and the men quickly retrieved his few belongings from the truck and his clothing.

  “Where you headed?” the same man inquired.

  “Away from the Navy base,” Sutton answered.

  “They turn you away?”

  “The benevolent government is no longer so kind and giving,” Sutton answered, adding a pinch of disgust to his words that didn’t ring far from his true thoughts.

  “What were you doing with our truck?” the man with the fohawk inquired, drawing a penetrating stare from the leader.

  “Didn’t know the truck was spoken for,” Sutton answered on the verge of sheepishness to let them think he was entirely compliant. “Was just looking for transportation.”

  For a moment the four men looked to one another without saying a word. Sutton wasn’t sure if he would be executed without warning or embraced into their fold. Before the apocalypse, such groups thrived on loyal, capable members, and he didn’t suspect much changed after society collapsed.

  “You got anyplace to be?”

  “Not particularly,” Sutton lied, knowing he’d rather reunite with his group, or go search for his sons at his cabin off the lake.

  “Any family left to speak of?”

  “No.”

  Sutton wasn’t about to give out personal details about his past, or his family, to complete strangers. No longer could people simply locate others via the internet, but he didn’t want to place any of his friends or family in danger by mentioning them, or their possible whereabouts.

  “Can you handle yourself in a fight?”

  Sutton looked at him quizzically before answering, sensing he wasn’t being asked a trick question.

  “I can shoot, and I can use my fists, if that’s what you mean.”

  Another silent pause gave Sutton reason to worry, because he couldn’t get a read on what the men thought of him.

  “You’re with us,” the leader said, handing Sutton his firearms, as though Sutton had no say in the matter. “Try anything before we trust you, and the four of us shoot you dead like a dog. We’re just wasting time standing here and debating about what to do.”

  Sutton remembered the dog he left in the care of others, hoping they remained safe during their journey to South Hill. He wanted to join them, but couldn’t afford to make one wrong move in the presence of four men who just put him on notice.

  Holstering his sidearm, Sutton waited for direction about what the group planned next. Although they spoke their distrust of him, he really wasn’t trusting of men who accepted him so easily.

  “Let’s get our stuff,” the leader said. “Hawk, take the new guy with you and grab the boxes from the house.”

  Despite all of his questions, Sutton remained quiet, simply surveying his surroundings as they walked around the side of the house. A glance indicated the three men behind him were tinkering with the truck, as though it wasn’t running properly, or they weren’t the proper owners and needed it to start.

  “If you’re thinking about trying anything, don’t,” Hawk said as they entered the rear door of the old farmhouse. “They aren’t hard to get along with, but I’ve seen what they do to people who break their trust.”

  After a small mudroom, the two men entered a kitchen where two boxes sat atop the long kitchen table, stained a dark mahogany. Sutton picked up one of the boxes, noticing something from the corner of one eye. Behind the table, placed side by side, two bodies were almost certainly the house’s older occupants based on their attire. The man wore overalls and a flannel shirt that appeared stained in numerous spots, and the woman was dressed in blue jeans and a similar shirt. Sutton suspected the couple died and turned before the four men entered their humble farmhouse, but he wasn’t positive.

  Hawk followed his gaze, grunted, and offered no explanation, which caused Sutton to further question the company he currently kept.

  Both of them loaded the boxes into the back of the truck, and within five minutes the group was on its way out of the driveway and heading in the direction Sutton wanted to travel. He rode in the back with the younger man who helped carry the boxes and appeared to be new to the group as well. Sutton asked no questions, and Hawk offered no elaboration on the group or their intentions.
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  He didn’t know a thing about this group except that he didn’t want to be near them any longer than necessary. If an opportunity arose for him to strike out on his own, or make his way to South Hill without being followed, Sutton planned on taking it.

  In the meantime, he studied his new colleagues while the wind from the high rate of speed cut through his clothes and chilled him slightly.

  ***

  Jillian barely spoke a word to her father the first half hour they spent together in the parking lot of the old general store. In part, they felt completely stunned to find one another alive, and the undead refused to let them make up for lost time. Whenever either started to speak, a zombie would come from the rear of the building and head directly for them. Jillian let her father deal with the first two, but when the third straggler emerged, she motioned for him to stay put as she stood and put a blade through its skull.

  “You look good,” Jillian finally said when they sat atop concrete median in front of the car she drove to the store.

  Her father, John Michael Varitek, displayed the beginnings of a beard that likely started the day he discovered his wife’s departure from the living world. She saw the hurt in his blue eyes, but also a spark that emanated from the discovery of his youngest daughter being alive. He possessed a full head of hair, often cut short by his local barber when barbers still existed, but his appearance indicated he didn’t much care how he looked at the moment.

  He sported a gun at his side, tucked safely within a holster. Occasionally, he carried a concealed weapon before the apocalypse, but with the laws of man no longer enforced, Varitek decided to carry in the open.

  “I thought you were gone,” her father admitted, a tear forming in the corner of his right eye. “Some hooligans delayed me from getting home one day, and your mother got worried about me.”

  He hesitated, stifling back tears and emotions.

  “She never should’ve come to town. I didn’t even know until I got home and found her like that. I left the note for you or Deena, but I just couldn’t bear to stay at the house. I planned to bury her, but eventually I lost hope that you girls would come home, so I just left everything inside the house the way it was and didn’t go back.”

  Jillian pulled him into a hug, surprised she needed to support the man who raised her, guided her, and began putting her through college. She understood his loss, because she shared in it, not knowing what her future held with so many familiar people dead and gone.

  “I’ve done the same thing practically every day,” Varitek said. “I can’t imagine the hell you went through to get here.”

  “I’m with friends,” Jillian confessed. “They’re getting supplies, but they’ll be here shortly.”

  She intentionally neglected to mention where the group was loading supplies.

  “What made you come here?” her father asked.

  “If you’d become one of them, I was going to take care of it.”

  Her father required a moment to register what she meant, and the implications of him turning into a mindless zombie.

  “I’m sorry to have put you through any of this,” he said.

  “It’s not your fault, Dad,” Jillian replied with an understanding smile. “I’m the one who stayed behind to find Deena.”

  “Did you have any luck?” her father asked with hope in his eyes that Jillian would crush no matter how she put the ordeal into words.

  “She was abducted by a group near Buffalo, Dad. They put people to work at some school, basically turning it into a prison camp. Deena didn’t make it.”

  Her father said nothing as his head drooped and he sobbed openly. Jillian felt the pain of her sister’s death all over again, and though she’d put on a brave face for the others, she now wept with her father.

  It felt like an eternity before either one spoke again, because they simply shared in their grief.

  “Where have you been staying?” Jillian finally asked.

  “I’ve had my pick of houses,” her father answered with a chuckle, though his smirk quickly ran away. “I only stayed because of you girls. Cleaning up the town became a job that kept me busy, but now I see strangers walking around. They’re usually dead, but sometimes the living pass through, and I never know whether to trust them or not.”

  Jillian understood such a dilemma. The incident at the school scarred her, and a few close calls on the road with her group informed her that not everyone they met could be trusted. What frightened her most were the people who could put on a front and gain trust before mercilessly stealing or killing.

  A member of the undead deviated from the road, crossing the ditch and falling over as its eyes focused on the father and daughter. Jillian had seen it for some time, choosing to avoid approaching it because it would obviously come to them. Standing, she marched over to it before the zombie could regain its footing and thrust her knife into the top of its skull.

  “What do you do with the bodies?” she asked her father when she returned.

  “You’re pretty good at that,” he commented before answering. “I take them to the old cemetery on the outskirts of town. Seems fitting, even if I can’t bury them.”

  He nodded toward a late model red Ford pickup across the parking lot.

  “I got that from one of the neighbors after I had to take him and his wife to the cemetery one day. Never did figure out how they got sick. One week they’re in Tampa on vacation, and the day after they got back they both got real sick.”

  “Why are there still undead in the store?” Jillian inquired, seeing a few of them still pawing at the front door.

  “The door out back came off the hinges. A few things inside make noises that attract them, so they go inside and get trapped like flies on the wrong side of a window.”

  He suddenly looked a bit more serious before addressing his daughter again.

  “Punkin, I know you’ve got friends with you, and they’re welcome to stay a while, but I’m hoping maybe you’ll stick around here.”

  “There’s nothing here, Dad,” Jillian answered. “Eventually you’re going to run out of supplies, then you’ll end up like we are, hitting the road and looking for stuff every day.”

  “I’m too old to be moving from place to place.”

  “You just turned forty-six,” Jillian said, forcing a grin. “You’re not too old for anything. And you can’t stay here with Mom’s ghost forever.”

  “The road is no life, punkin.”

  “Here is no life, Dad. I didn’t come back here to watch you shrivel up and waste away. We’re staying until our other friend catches up with us, and when he gets here, I expect you to be packed and ready to go.”

  “What happened to the little girl I watched drive away for college?”

  “She died at that college, Dad.”

  Jillian hesitated, hearing a vehicle in the distance. Sensing no danger, she returned her attention to her father.

  “That girl has seen and done more in the past month than she ever did in her life before that.” She looked her father in the eyes. “And it hasn’t all been terrible.”

  Jillian watched as the box truck and the van headed her way, holding up her arms so they could see her more easily from the road. She wasn’t sure if her father meeting them would strengthen her case for him traveling with them or annihilate it.

  ***

  Less than an hour into their trip, the truck ran out of gas, stranding Sutton with the four men who took him in, rather than murdering him on the farm. For some reason vehicles seemed cursed for Sutton that day, but the group walked several miles until they came upon a small, isolated house near some untended cornfields. The other four men included Sutton when it came to sweeping through the house for threats. Finding none, they set to searching for food and supplies, and he immediately felt like part of their faction. Some of their beliefs seemed extreme, even t
o an isolationist like him, so he continued to exercise caution.

  Instead of staying inside the house, however, the group decided to use a firepit in the backyard to cook some of the canned goods they found inside. Before Sutton could question why they opted to stay outside as dusk surrounded them, he received an answer that the men wanted to see any threats coming their way. The growing darkness gave the cornfields an ominous appearance, like a thousand undead scarecrows reaching out for unwelcome visitors.

  Sutton was informed that everyone in the group would take an overnight watch shift except for him, because he was still on probation in their eyes. The younger man known as Hawk took the first shift, and once everyone was asleep, and Sutton couldn’t drift off, he decided to converse quietly with the sentry to avoid waking the others.

  “So, what kind of name is Hawk?” he began.

  “It’s a nickname,” the man answered with a bit of a slow drawl. “We don’t use real names. They named me after my haircut.”

  Sutton questioned what nickname they might plant on him in the morning. Part of him wanted to break away from the group, but under the cover of darkness they could still hunt him down, especially without transportation to whisk him away.

  “Is this what you guys do?”

  “What do you mean?” Hawk asked with a furrowed eyebrow.

  “Go from place to place and forage what you can before moving on?”

  “What else is there?”

  “I guess I’m asking if anyone gets hurt during these supply raids.”

  Hawk nodded in understanding.

  “No one who doesn’t deserve it. Usually they’re all dead by the time we get somewhere.”

  “Usually?”

  Hawk shrugged.

  “I just joined these guys a few days ago. It’s just a matter of survival at this point.”