Dext of the Dead (Book 5): We Are The End

by Kuhn, Steve

  Parker told the three men from the recon team, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything. Give Hicks a minute then go give him your report. The rest of you start digging the grave.”

  I helped them dig.

  Entry 159

  One city down, but not without more death. I had nearly forgotten how vicious they are in large groups. They’re a lot like us that way—power in numbers. It’s just that their numbers will always be higher than ours, no matter how many we exterminate, and that scares the shit outta me.

  The goal was never to eradicate them from the cities ahead of us; nor were we even hoping to diminish their ranks. We just have to get past them. I can’t help but find it darkly humorous that the targets for extermination this time around are more of the living. How ironic? Especially when you consider that a personal victory for us at the end of the line is, by definition, a defeat for humanity. What a fucked-up and double-edged sword—kill the dead to protect the living; kill the living to protect the living. I’m left to wonder if that’s the greater plan. Is that vengeful son of a bitch some men call God forcing us to kill each other off in the name of survival? What a cruel joke.

  It is the time of our extinction. Like the dinosaurs, an asteroid slammed into us and killed many on impact. Still more died in the aftermath, and whatever was left killed each other, scrambling for the resources to survive. The dead are our asteroid, the aftermath was our journey to this point, and we are whatever’s left.

  Hope is dead in the form of the child. Innocence died with Wyatt. Happiness died with Trey. Family died with Rebecca. Redemption died with JC. Friendship died with Cutty. All that’s left to die now is love. Kylee is love, and the lump in my throat right now tells me that it’s all I have left. Or maybe I’m just too much of a pussy to admit I’m already dead—just waiting in line for my turn. I hate life, but I can’t seem to let it go for some reason.

  The recon team must have given their report to Hicks because he emerged from the rear of the convoy and approached our gang of misfits. Seth and Nick stood by me. They knew. Yeah, there was no getting around the fact that they could smell the fear on me every time I reeked of it, but they tried. They tried to prop me up, and for that, I was grateful.

  Hicks surveyed the road ahead, standing quietly in our midst and inhaling deeply, then letting the breath leave his lungs heavily.

  “How bad is it?” Seth asked. There was no fear in Seth’s voice—not like in mine.

  Hicks spat on the ground, careful not to hit the place where Riggs had died just an hour ago. “It’s fucked.”

  I scanned the horizon. “They’re coming now. You know that, right?”

  The black cloud of birds was growing larger with each minute that passed. Lilly’s shot carried across the empty landscape and alerted every bernie to our presence. In the blurring haze of the heat rising from the asphalt, the first whispers of them began to take shape. There were hundreds, maybe thousands. They were coming, slowly, like an avalanche of rot moving forward at a snail’s pace to gorge themselves. Hicks crossed his arms and nodded, saying, “Yep. They’re comin’.”

  I asked him, “You mad? About the shot, I mean.”

  He nodded again. “Yep. Livid.” He stood there like a statue, expressionless.

  I told him, “I’m sorry about that. She didn’t think.”

  Hicks took his eyes off the road and leveled me with his icy stare. “I’m not mad at Lilly, boy. I’m mad at myself. That little girl has more of what we’re fightin’ for in her pinky finger than you and me combined. It’s humanity, boy. And I’m an asshole for not having much of it left.”

  Nick asked Hicks, “We’re gonna try and take ’em on then? We’re ready, man. If you’re ready, we’re ready.”

  Hicks snorted a laugh. “That giant pair of balls you got is gonna be the death of you one day. Even the mighty United States Marine Corps knows better than to run headlong into those odds. See, boy, all the dumb people are dead. Those headstrong idiots that thought they could blast through the herds are long gone, except for you, I suppose. Nope. We’re smarter than that.”

  Seth scoffed, “So, what then? We run? Try and flank them somehow?”

  Hicks spat again. “Somethin’ like that.”

  The plan was beautiful in its simplicity. We pulled the vehicles up about a quarter mile, which was nerve wracking on its own because it only pushed us closer to the herd. But there was still a good bit of distance between them and us. We left one truck behind. It looked almost pitiful, abandoned in the middle of the road to our rear. The men occupying it had stripped it of any useful gear, and it stood there alone like a lost child.

  Parker jogged back from the side of the road, carrying a dry branch about the thickness of his wrist, and jabbed it into the headrest of the driver’s seat. After a few adjustments, he managed to wedge it against the truck’s horn and stepped away, leaving it to blast loudly before running to catch up to the rest of us ahead of him.

  We packed as many men, along with Lilly and Kylee, as we could in the trailer of Prime and the stragglers were hunkered down under the canopy in the rear of one of the larger trucks. There were four more vehicles, each manned by a single marine, hunkered down in hiding on the floor of the driver’s seat. I hid in the sleeper of D-Prime with Seth and Nick, sweating profusely from both the heat and my nerves. We stunk, probably worse than the dead, and my nostrils burned as our body odor mingled in the tight quarters, threatening to make me wretch.

  I couldn’t see Hicks, but I knew he was struggling to keep silent, too, as he lay on the floor of the truck carrying the men that wouldn’t fit in the trailer. We waited.

  I peeked through the curtain and was instantly reminded of the day the herd passed by in the same manner. I was with Kylee that day, and she almost lost it. Her anger had flared to the point that I had to knock her out just to keep her from challenging them alone. It sounds stupid, but all I wanted at this moment was to hold her hand and wait for them to pass us.

  The herd was on top of us now, and the fear was palpable. The horn blaring behind us, the stink of our bodies and the dead, the sky blackened by birds hovering like a storm cloud above all of it added to the tension. And the moaning—the moaning and wails of the dead packed together, that many, that tightly. It plagued my mind.

  I peeked again. Most of them had wandered right past us, but there were still a bunch coming. They bumped into the trailer, and the thumps just added one more element to the growing mindfuck. I dared to pull back the curtain just a taste more to look in the side mirror, trying to get a look at what was going on behind us. The mass of the herd had reached the blaring horn of the abandoned truck, and they swarmed it hungrily, pawing at the doors and bursting the windows in search of an easy meal. They found it, too.

  The pressure must’ve been too much for the young marine. I don’t know. Or maybe he moved and made some noise. Either way, they were on him. He was in the last truck in our line, and he bolted out of the driver’s-side door, trying to duck and dodge them as if he was some subpar running back. There were too many.

  I winced when the first pair of hands got at him from behind. They reached around his head and hooked their boney fingers into the corners of his mouth, pulling him backwards. He screamed as his cheeks split, his lips parting like bloody lightning bolts. Blood spewed from the wound as the bernie nearly tore his face off, and the man was dragged to the ground, writhing under the weight of them. The last thing I was able to see before closing the curtain was the dead fighting each other over the limbs they had torn from his corpse as he was devoured. I never caught his name.

  We waited.

  We were down to singles. They wandered still, now more so because there was feeding going on. I hate to say it, but that probably got them past us faster than the blaring horn, which by now was driving into my brain like a jackhammer. I slowly edged into the driver’s seat, pressed the clutch in, and cranked the key in the ignition. D-Prime bucked into gear, and I ran it full bore int
o the limits of the city ahead, checking only momentarily to our rear to see that Hicks and the remaining three vehicles were following closely behind us.

  I can’t tell you how many I slammed into and ran over. Dull thumps and the patter of bodies rolling under D-Prime’s weight filled my ears, and I gave pause to wonder about how the large group in the trailer was holding up. We had to conserve the ammo. We weren’t interested in killing the dead here—just push through, making it to Bragg.

  We finally pulled off after the city was a few miles behind us. D-Prime’s windshield wipers couldn’t clear my view anymore, and all they were doing was smearing black-red gore to blind me. I dropped down from my seat and walked around the front to begin pulling the arms and feet from the grill of the truck.

  First obstacle done. Two dead. We rest here before the next stop.

  Entry 160

  Last night sucked. The dead kept trickling out of the city behind us, leaving everyone on edge until daylight crept over the horizon. We had to take shifts, with half of us staying up to fight for two hours and then switch off to rest.

  During my shift I was lucky enough to have Boyd watching them approach as well as Nick and Seth, Parker, and the one they call Big Stank backing me up on the ground. Big Stank was a massive, white dude, ugly as fuck, in his late twenties. He was well over six feet tall, and I’d say he weighed more than Cutty did when we first met back at the water tower all those months ago. He kept his head shaved with a bowie knife and always wore the same blood-soaked clothes, all crusty and funky. My guess was that there weren’t any other fatigues around that fit him, so he just didn’t bother changing.

  There were lots of other guys around, too, but I didn’t even bother to learn their names. It seemed easier that way—if they died, I mean. If I didn’t humanize them with a name, then they were just another body on the pile. Seth and Nick called them “redshirts.” I was unfamiliar with the term, but was left to assume they were like the JV squad of a high school football team.

  Boyd stuttered over the muffled whispers of the watchmen as the first wave approached, “S-s-six inbound. L-l-look alive.” I chuckled under my breath at his choice of words.

  Six was nothing. I could probably handle six on my own without a weapon at that stage of the game. I stepped up, but Seth waved me off, saying, “Let me and Nick handle these. I need the practice.”

  I shrugged and told him to be careful. Big Stank stepped forward and told the two of them, “I’ll watch your asses in case it gets sketchy.” Then he cracked his knuckles and passed his e-tool to Parker. I correctly assumed he was going in barehanded like a bernie bouncer or some shit.

  Nick quipped, “I’d prefer you watched the jerks and not our asses. Our asses are just fine, thank you.”

  Taking the opening, Seth put on his best effeminate lisp, performing like a female, joking, “Oooh, Nick! You so right! Yo’ ass is fiiiiiine!”

  Big Stank was not amused. He scowled and told them, “Knock that shit off.”

  The six approached slowly, and Nick stepped forward to meet them with Seth by his side. Surprisingly, Seth swung first, crashing his gauntlet across the side of one’s head. It was already well into decay, so as Seth popped back like they had practiced, it fell to the ground in a heap. If the gauntlet hadn’t killed it, the fall certainly did, as evidenced by the shards of skull littered across the road.

  Nick swung his single blade into the second in line as the others began snarling and gurgling, eager to get a piece of him. It was a surprisingly strong swing for Nick’s size, and it split the bernie’s face in half. The top of its head, what was left of its nose included, plopped sickeningly to the ground, and the lower jaw, now with nothing to keep it in place, hung by strings of sinew and old connective tissue. Two down.

  As the remaining four spread out to encircle the two of them, Big Stank made his move. He grabbed a pair, one in each hand by their hair, and held them in place as they fought against his grip. He kept them steady while the two free ones were taken care of. Seth and Nick worked as a unit, first with Seth backhanding them to the ground, then Nick making the killing blow with his kukri as the creatures struggled to get back to their feet.

  They faced Big Stank, standing there holding the final pair, and Nick gave Seth the nod to go ahead and finish up. Seth obliged, and in seconds, Big Stank held only patches of hair and bits of scalp in his hands.

  This went on, one way or another, for the entire two hours of our watch, and at one point, a group of nearly twenty materialized out of the haze. The Kilo boys fought well, though, and in about ten minutes their e-tools, sharpened into makeshift hatchets, had reduced the pack into a pile of limbs and snapping heads.

  During my second shift there was a lull in the action, but not really. We used the time to pile the bodies, now numbering near seventy, into a knee-high wall across the road, slowing the approach of any others.

  The second break I had was pretty awesome, though. I had the sleeper of D-Prime to myself, and Kylee joined me for a bit. It was becoming a running joke with the all guys now that we were an item, and we exited the trailer to a somewhat quiet round of golf claps. Seth had scrawled a sign on an old piece of cardboard that read, “If Prime is a-rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’,” and placed it across the driver’s-side door. He also gave me shit about the marks on my neck and said, “Uh, I thought we were dealing with the jerks, not vampires.”

  Kylee rarely blushed, but she was beet red. She didn’t stay that way for long, though, as she ran a finger across Seth’s face and said with a sassy wink, “Sucked him dry, Seth. Sucked him dry.”

  I finally managed to get some sleep. I woke up feeling like ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag, though. My body ached more than usual, and I had this burning in my throat. Parker gave me the once-over and told me to stop sleeping on my back with my mouth open and it would go away. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Sleep was precious, and as long as I was getting some of it, without the nightmares, I couldn’t give a good Goddamn how I was positioned. I’d take a sore throat in place of exhaustion any day. I thought about trying to talk him into giving me something for the aches and pains, but the thought of Riggs reminded me that not only was I going to be told no, it would be a dick move to even ask. I let it slide and fought through it.

  We departed for the second stop, but not before having to dig more graves. We lost another three men last night during one of the tussles. After Parker saw to me, we joined the small service for the fallen, where I was surprised to learn Parker also acted as the company’s chaplain. He said a short prayer, but we were cut off by another wave coming in. We left them in the dust.

  We’re expected to hit the city in about two hours or so. I spent the first leg of the drive in the trailer with Lilly, going over our ammunition situation and checking on the food. Kilo was still well stocked with MREs, even though I hated them, and we were actually doing pretty well. Our biggest achievement to date was our water supply. I forgot to mention this back when Seth offed Jenny and Andrew, but we made out damned good at that store. We had bottled water for weeks, unless the Kilo boys decided to start hittin’ it.

  After inventory, Lilly played idly with some things we jacked from the toy store—nothing major, just some dolls and shit. At first I wasn’t even paying attention to her until I started hearing these thumps. They were sharp and came one after another to the point that it started to get annoying. When I raised my head in her direction, I saw that she was throwing knives at the dolls. I watched her for a minute, repressing the urge to bark at her to stop because my head was beginning to pound, but I ended up leaving her alone. She was sticking them one after another with perfect, end-over-end tosses of the blade. I swear she only missed, like, three out of fifteen or more.

  When I finally asked her what she was up to, she told me, “I’m pissed off, Dext, pissed right the hell off.”

  I hadn’t done it in a while, so I reminded her that while cussing was fine with me, she at least had to make
an effort to express herself better than that.

  She huffed and asked me, “What part of ‘pissed off’ is hard to understand? You guys won’t let me fight, you barely let me talk, and you and Kylee haven’t been paying attention to me. You two are acting weird.”

  I was taken off guard, I can’t lie. What’s worse is, now that I think about it, she was right. Part of it was having been busy as hell since we hit the road for this latest round of shit, but it was also because Kylee and I had been spending whatever ‘free’ time we had together. I offered a sincere apology to her and told her we’d try to do better. As for the fighting bit, I had nothing for her on that. She could get pissy all she wanted. I wasn’t gonna let her run headlong into the fray when trained fighters, men that were practiced killers, were dropping left and right. Fuck that.

  She told me that she was going to be hanging with Seth instead of us since we didn’t have time for her. Said that Seth and Nick let her fight all she wanted. It hurt me to hear that she thought we didn’t have time for her. It also didn’t sit well with me that she was suddenly all about Seth and Nick. I’d never say it to their faces, but I didn’t think they were the best examples for her. That wasn’t to say that I was any better… I dunno.

  Whatever. I’m just gonna try and spend this last hour on the road trying to sleep off this headache. The rest of the day is sure to suck balls, and I’d rather not spend the afternoon dying on a street in some nameless city. Gotta keep sharp. Love clouds the mind. I’ve said it before. It makes you sloppy.

  Entry 161

  Boyd was on the scope, perched atop D-Prime, scanning the city streets when I finally got out of the trailer. I asked him what sort of shit storm we were about to face, and he replied, puzzled, “N-n-nothin’. There’s n-nothin’ there. Only a f-few in the streets, b-but it’s pretty much empty.”

  That was the best news in days. The men were happy to hear it, too, and the relief that washed through the crowd was almost tangible. With the pressure off for the moment, I decided to take Lilly and Kylee off to the side for a few minutes to set the record straight. Kylee was equally disturbed by Lilly’s sentiments regarding our time spent together lately. She told Lilly, “You’re right. What else can I say besides we’re sorry? Neither of us realized you were this upset.”