Divided We Rot (One Nation Under Zombies Book 3)

by Raymond Lee

  He didn’t know what any of it meant, whether she was dead and reaching out to him to torture him like the dreams he had of the people he’d failed to protect, or her image was being used as some sort of supernatural trail guide for him. If he was supposed to save her, he didn’t know how. It had been months since she’d first appeared to him and he’d barely survived the harsh winter himself. If she’d managed to survive it she was good on her own. Everyone around him had a tendency to die horribly.

  Richards ate the Pop-Tart he’d saved for breakfast and downed the last of his water before packing his meager belongings together and pulling on the coat he’d used as a blanket. The fire he’d built in the fireplace the night before had burned out so he slid his arms through the straps of his pack, secured his weapons, and left the small house that had served its purpose.

  He didn’t know where he was going, he only knew Raven’s ghost wasn’t going to leave him alone any time soon. As long as she came to him in his dreams and directed him where to go, he would follow, hoping someday he’d find some form of peace.

  He headed north for no other reason than it appeared to be the direction Raven had pointed the last time she gave him a direction. He saw a restaurant called Denver Dogs which still placed him in Colorado. He’d been in that state a while and hadn’t come across any survivors, just zombies, and some of them had learned how to run.

  “Anything good?”

  He froze, hearing someone on the next street.

  “It’s been pretty wiped out, like the other stores in this area. I got some pickles and some cereal.”

  A man and a woman, judging by the voices. He walked to the end of the block and peered around the building on the corner. A heavyset bearded man with a shotgun stood guard as his much thinner female companion stocked the back of their SUV with the loot she’d found within the store they had parked in front of.

  A young girl with a curly brown ponytail walked out of the store, carrying boxes of cereal. She wore baggy jeans, hiking boots and a coat open to reveal a gray sweatshirt underneath. As if sensing him, she looked over at where he watched and stopped in her tracks, frowning.

  Richards blinked, sure he was imagining things. The little brunette girl looked familiar to him, but she was far from home and with people he’d never seen before in his life.

  “Hurry up, girl!” The man snapped and the woman smacked her hard enough in the back of the head to send her sprawling, cereal boxes scattered on the ground, before the pair started laughing.

  “Do something!” Raven’s voice ordered him clearly in his head.

  “I know what you need me to do now,” he said as he raised his gun and lined up his shot.

  The little girl rose to her hands and knees and looked up at him, pure fury burning from behind her eyes. The right one was bruised, evidence of abuse and he had no doubt who had hurt her. “Shoot him!” she yelled.

  The man turned, raising his gun to aim as he did. Richards pulled his trigger the moment the man’s eyes locked onto him, sending a bullet into his throat. The man went down choking on his own blood before falling flat on his face. The woman screamed and lunged for the man’s shotgun which had fallen from his hands and landed near his body.

  Richards ran toward the girl as she rose to her feet, his gun ready to use again if need be. He skidded to a stop four feet away from the girl as the woman straightened with the shotgun in her trembling hands. She stood between him and the girl, her eyes showing none of the fear given away by her trembling limbs. He aimed his own gun on her, acting on pure reflex. “Lady, I will put you down too. Step away from the little girl and go on your way. I’ll let you leave here.”

  “She’s my daughter! You’ll take her over my dead body!”

  Richards knew the stringy-haired dishwater blonde in the prairie dress, cardigan, and boots was not the child’s mother. Closer to the girl now, there was no doubt in his mind he was looking at Raven’s little sister, the one she’d cared for since their parents had died. “That can be arranged,” he said, cutting a glance toward the girl as she tried to edge her way around the wild-eyed woman with the shotgun. “The girl is coming with me.”

  “Go to hell!” the woman screeched.

  The girl rammed into her side. As thin as she was, the woman immediately toppled over, the gun going off in her hands as she fell to the ground. The shot went wide, breaking glass in a building behind him. The second dinner bell rung in less than ten minutes.

  “Fuck,” he muttered as the girl clobbered the woman on the ground, oblivious to the danger they were in. He took a quick look around, thankful not to see any infected predators headed their way, but he knew if any had been in earshot they would soon be there, especially if any were runners.

  “We gotta go, kid.” He snatched the back of the girl’s coat and pulled her off the woman. The woman rolled over and came up swinging.

  Richards effortlessly set the little girl aside and grabbed the woman by the throat with his free hand. Six feet tall and with long limbs, he simply held her away from his body as she swung her arms like a windmill. He looked toward the girl. “Did she hit you too?”

  The little girl nodded which was all he needed for justification. He turned, the woman’s body still in his grip, and slammed her head into the side of the SUV until she went limp then dropped her body to the ground.

  “Where’s your sister?’ he asked as he walked over to the man and searched his body for keys.

  “She left me.”

  He stilled, turned toward the girl, his heart a heavy rock in his chest as it ceased to beat. “Left you as in left this world or…”

  “She just left me. I don’t know where she is.”

  He exhaled, releasing his pent up breath and stood, scooping the shotgun up in the process. “Grab those cereal boxes and toss them in the SUV. We’ll take it.” He looked through the passenger side window, relieved to see the keys he hadn’t found on the man’s body were in the ignition. He turned toward the girl to see she hadn’t moved, except to cross her arms. “We rang two dinner bells with those shots, kid. We gotta move. Come on.”

  He scooped up the cereal boxes and tossed them into the back of the SUV. A quick glance showed the couple who’d recently parted the world had scavenged a decent amount of food, more than he’d had in a while. He closed the hatch and found the little girl still standing with her arms crossed. “Problem?”

  “I’m trying to decide if I should go with you or stay by myself.”

  “Seriously?” He did another perimeter scan, coming up lucky again with no zombies in sight. “Think you could consider your choices inside the vehicle? I don’t know if you’ve noticed but some of these things are running now.”

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t even look afraid of the zombies. The skin around her right eye and down that side of her face was a mix of black, purple, and blue. He sighed, realizing she might have gone through something far worse than zombies, especially if she’d lost her sister.

  “Look, kid, I don’t know if you even remember who I am, but I knew Raven. I have no idea what happened between you two but she loved you more than anything so I know she didn’t just up and leave you. Whatever happened that led you to these two assholes, whatever you’ve been through, I’m sorry, but you can trust me not to hurt you.”

  “I know who you are. My sister said you were a lying, cheating dickwad.”

  Richards grinned. “Yeah, that sounds like her. Honestly, I may have hurt her but in an emotional way that comes with grown-up relationships. I cared about her though. I still do. I never hit her and I won’t hit you. I swear on my own life I will never harm you. Now, can we go?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Do you even know my name?”

  “It’s Sky. Now can we go? I’m not leaving here without you so either we get in this SUV and go or we stay here and eventually get eaten alive. Your choice.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You’d really stand here and get eaten if I didn’t go with you?”
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br />   “Well, first I’d try to save our lives by tossing you into the damn vehicle, but yeah. Truth is, your sister has been coming to me in my dreams, leading me, and now I know what she was leading me to. Or I should say who. I probably sound nuts, but I don’t care. Raven guided me here and I don’t want to face whatever nightmares I’ll have if I fail in taking care of you so cut me some slack, kid, and quit fighting me on this.”

  Sky looked down at the people she’d been with, curled her lip, and walked over to the passenger side, kicking what was left of the dead man’s head in the process.

  Richards walked around to the driver’s side, removed his pack and slid onto the seat, a little unnerved by the girl’s lack of disgust, unusual for a young girl, but then again, the world had been infested with monsters for over six months and she’d been with two of the uninfected ones for who knew how long. He tossed his pack into the back along with the shotgun he’d just acquired and studied the girl. There was no telling what she’d seen or been through. He pulled his door closed, buckled up, and started the engine. The moment the vehicle came to life, a group of infected shuffled into view from around the building he’d been standing in front of when he’d heard Sky’s captors taking.

  “Looks like you quit being a pain in the ass right in the nick of time,” he said, grinning, as he put the vehicle in motion, made a U-turn and drove in the opposite direction of the monsters. He glanced in the rearview mirror to see a runner bearing down on them.

  “Shit,” he muttered, pressing down harder on the gas pedal. “I hate those runners.”

  “I hate them all,” Sky said, looking out the window. She’d buckled herself in and scooted as far away from him as she could get. Her arms were folded protectively over her chest and her legs pressed tightly together, her knees pointed toward the door. Other than the bruise marring the right side of her face, she was smudged with dirt, her hair appeared to be tangled, and her clothes were dirty. Richards knew he wasn’t much of a sight himself but he’d managed to stay clean, even shaven most of the time. He thought about asking her if the man had sexually assaulted her, if that was why she sat turned away from him, but there wasn’t much he could do if the man had hurt her in that way. He’d already killed him, and he didn’t know if she’d answer him anyway.

  “I’m sorry if I frightened you back there. They were armed and dangerous, and it was pretty obvious you were in a bad situation.”

  “They deserved to die.”

  Richards cut a glance her way to see her still looking out the window, body turned away, no emotion showing. He returned his eyes to the road so he didn’t jam them up further by wrecking. It was nice having wheels again and he didn’t want to have to go back to walking until they absolutely had to, if ever. “How long were you with them?”

  “What month is it?”

  “March. Just turned March, actually.”

  “They found me in November. I think near the beginning.”

  Richards cursed under his breath. She’d been with them for four months. “When did you and Raven get separated?”

  “When it started.”

  “In August? Were you alone between then and November?”

  She shook her head as a tear glided down her sunken in cheek but offered no further information.

  Richards continued driving, no real destination in mind other than the base he’d been told had been established in Nebraska after the original had been blown to hell. He’d lost all contact with the military shortly before losing every last member of his squad so he had no idea if it was still there, but he had to have a destination or else he’d be wandering around aimlessly and he was pretty sure doing that would drive him crazy, or worse, make him give up. He glanced over at the little girl next to him and knew giving up wasn’t an option, no matter how many nightmares he had about his fallen friends or his family that had been taken from him in the most horrible way. His son had been robbed of his life, but Raven’s little sister didn’t have to meet that same fate. Raven didn’t have to suffer the same loss he had.

  Images from his dreams flooded his mind as he drove toward the interstate. How had Raven known? Why had she come to him of all people, and more importantly, how had she come to him? He looked at the girl beside him and prayed Raven was still alive somewhere out there in the hell the world had become. He wasn’t parent material. He’d screwed up his marriage, left his son with a mother who’d turned and eaten him. He couldn’t take care of another kid and risk going through that, fearing it for the rest of his life, but he could protect her long enough to hand her over to someone who could. He hoped Raven would come to him again and this time lead him to her. He frowned, looking at the signage on buildings he passed. The last he’d seen Raven she’d been in their hometown of Louisville, Kentucky waiting tables and playing gigs with her band. She’d inherited her parents’ house after their death and he doubted she’d had enough money to leave it. Waiting tables didn’t pay that much and she had no time for school. Hell, she’d barely had enough time for him. Sky was the number one priority in her life. Sky was where her time and money went. Something horrible had to happen for Raven to lose her. She’d never just leave the girl given the condition of the world. He had to find her but there was a lot of land between him and the last place he’d seen her. She could be anywhere. He glanced over at Sky as they neared the interstate. “Kid, how in the hell did you end up in Denver?”

  Hal jerked upright, threw his blanket off and rose into his fighting stance, alarmed by the shrill noise disrupting his sleep, sleep he’d finally gotten after tossing and turning for most of the night. Damian was already next to him, wild-eyed and looking to rumble, having jumped down from the top bunk. Men rose from the other bunks around them, mostly oblivious to the sight of two men in battle mode. A few shook their heads as they stood and stretched.

  “Stand down, newbs,” Simon, the gangly young man assigned to the bunk across from Hal’s said as he sat up slower and reached over to the dresser they shared to retrieve his glasses. “That was the morning alarm. No one is allowed a day to sleep in around here. It’s Sunday so we all go to church after breakfast at the hall. Any other day we get up, grab breakfast, and go straight to our assigned jobs. Have they assigned you a job yet?”

  “No,” Hal said, watching Elijah as he climbed down from the bunk above Simon’s bed. Judging by the bags under his eyes, he hadn’t slept well either. Of course he hadn’t slept well since his father died. No matter what he or the others told him, Hal knew the boy couldn’t shake the guilt he felt over the way he’d treated his father before his death.

  “We haven’t decided if we’re actually staying here,” Damian said, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “I don’t think we’ll have jobs.”

  “This isn’t a resort,” Simon said as he stood and extracted clothes from the shared dresser that sat against the wall between their bunks. “If you’re sleeping in these beds and eating the food they’re going to make you earn it. You have fresh clothes in the dresser. Put them on. Make your beds, fold your pajamas, and put them at the foot of your beds. Pajamas get put in the laundry bins every Monday morning to be washed. The other laundry is done daily, except for Sunday, of course. Only the medical staff and the security work on Sundays. Breakfast is prepared before midnight and set out so no one actually has to work making it on Sunday. It’s usually just fruit and bread items, like muffins. Don’t go near the bran muffins if they have them today. One of the older ladies makes them and I ate one once. Those things are worse than a colonic. ”

  Hal watched the man walk away toward the bathroom and turned to Damian and Elijah. They’d been given flannel pajamas and fresh sheets for their beds along with clothes and toiletries. Their new shelter consisted of several bunk beds, a dresser shared between each set so each man got a drawer to himself, a large open common room with couches and chairs, tables, and bookshelves filled with reading material and board games, and a functioning locker room-style bathroom complete with showers and flushabl
e toilets. They had electricity courtesy of the solar panels but no television or radios. Most of the inhabitants more than likely thought that was due to there being nothing on either, but Hal knew that while that may be true for television, David would keep the radio away from the people in order to keep them dependent on him for news about what happened beyond his barbed wire fence.

  “Do we have to go to church?” Elijah asked.

  “I wouldn’t piss them off not going,” Damian said, keeping his voice low enough none of the men walking past would hear. “If anything, maybe they’ll actually have a good choir. This place could use some entertainment.”

  “If anything, hopefully we’ll find Leah there,” Hal said. “I’m worried about her.”

  “Same,” Damian said, crossing over to the dresser. He withdrew their clothes and passed the garments out. They’d been given jeans, T-shirts, and flannel shirts along with socks and blue cotton boxers. “If church is mandatory we should definitely see her and get some answers.”

  Hal took the clothes but said nothing. He’d learned long ago not to put anything past people. The flesh-eating creatures outside the compound were monsters, but people… people could be much, much worse.

  As Simon had told them, their breakfast consisted of fresh fruit and baked items set out the night before. Hal loaded his plate up with fruit and grabbed a plain donut. Damian grabbed three donuts and a banana, and Elijah took a donut. They all gave the bran muffins a wide berth and grabbed glasses of milk to wash down their meals.

  “I didn’t think I was ever going to have milk again,” Damian said as they took their seats.

  Hal didn’t respond, busy looking around the large room for their missing friend. He saw groups of women file in, assumed they’d come together from the women’s quarters, and studied each of them. No Leah.

  “This waiting for someone to say some words before I eat thing is getting old already,” Damian muttered.