“Hey, take it easy,” Dante protested.
The lead guy whipped around, glaring at him. “You stay right there, cowboy,” he snarled. “You’ll have your chance to get felt up in a minute.” He looked him up and down. “Oh yea, you look big and strong, you’re going to be put to good use.”
Bailey and Dante exchanged a concerned look at his choice of words, and the pretentious guy sauntered over to the three about to have their pat down.
“Okay, listen up,” he barked. “Bites will turn you into one of those things, so we need to make sure you’re not bitten. That means a forceful pat down. If you refuse, then you’re free to leave.”
Grace looked at Dante with a questioning gaze, but he nodded at her, hoping she’d understand to just roll with it.
Before they could start their inspection, June dissolved into a massive coughing fit. All the mercenaries took a step back in shock.
The leader held out his palms. “What is your blood type?!” he yelled.
She shook her head in confusion as she stifled her coughs, finally calming down. “What in the hell are you talking about?” she wheezed as she caught her breath.
“I said, what is your fucking blood type, bitch?!” the guy barked.
June coughed again, putting a fist to her mouth. “What the fuck did you just call me?”
“Tell me your fucking blood type, now!” he demanded.
She straightened up finally, glaring at him. “It’s A-positive motherfucker, what the—”
The mercenary pulled his handgun and shot her in the face.
As she slumped to the ground, her quartet of friends left behind blinking in shock. Grace let out a scream of rage, drawing the handgun from the back of her pants.
“No!” Dante yelled, and the second that the lead mercenary turned to look at him, his face exploded as Grace shot him in the back of the head.
The other three raised their weapons, all aiming at Grace, screaming at her to drop the gun. She couldn’t do anything, however, because she was frozen with shock, the moment overwhelming her.
“Everybody calm the fuck down!” somebody boomed, and a large man stalked over to the standoff. He stopped five yards away, unarmed. “Somebody want to tell me what the hell is going on?”
“Your boy there shot our friend in the face for no reason!” Troy yelled, voice shrill.
The tall man crossed his arms. “No reason, huh?” he drawled. “Somebody want to expand on that?”
“She had A-type blood,” one of the guards said.
The man cocked his head. “Is that so, huh?” he asked, running his tongue over his teeth. “And even so, he thought it was a good idea to execute her in front of her friends? I know we have orders to kill, but goddamn, show some fucking common sense, or else you may end up like Zack here.” He kicked the dead man’s leg.
“Orders to kill?!” Troy demanded. “Why?”
The man shook his head. “Whatever this virus is, targets people with A-type blood,” he explained. “All we know is that they get sick, die, and then come back as those things. So our orders are to kill on sight, which this dead dumbass took a little to literally.” He glanced at Grace, who still stood holding the gun, breaths coming out in panicked pants. “Ma’am, I’m sorry about your friend, I really am,” he said, tone considerate and gentle. “But she was not going to last longer than a day. Now, I can’t excuse what this man did, but it would appear as though I don’t have to, since you dealt with him appropriately. We don’t have a wish for more bloodshed, so please, but down the gun.”
“Grace, listen to him,” Dante said carefully. “These boys mean business, and you’re not shooting your way out of this. Please, put it down.”
She looked at her brother, tears filling her eyes as the gravity of what she’d done took root. She lowered her arm, and then, as if in slow motion, laid the gun down on the ground, covering her face with her hands.
The man walked over and gently picked up the weapon, tucking it into his belt. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, as she scrubbed her hands down her cheeks. “You can call me No Name. May I ask who you are?”
Her brow furrowed as she stifled her tears. “I’m Grace,” she said shakily. “But you really don’t have a name?”
“When you are asked to do the things I’ve been asked to do, it’s best not to have an identity,” he replied. “Especially when there are people I still care about in the world… or at least there were, before today.”
Before he could continue, a grizzled thirty something man stormed over to them. “Goddamn, what the fuck happened to Zach?!” he barked. “He seems to have misplaced his fucking face!”
“He did something stupid, and paid for it,” No Name replied.
The angry man planted his hands on his hips. “Oh, he did something stupid, did he? What would that be, huh?” he demanded, and then spotted June’s dead body on the ground. “Let me guess, he shot that fat bitch because she was sick and one of these fuckers took offense. That sound about right?”
“Close enough,” No Name replied.
“Then why the fuck haven’t these people been put down yet, huh?” the angry man bellowed, throwing up his hands. “Or are you sweet on this one, you no-named motherfucker? They won’t let you have a name, but you think they’ll let you have a piece of pussy? Is that it?”
No Name glared at him, jaw tight.
“Oh yeah, get pissed, big fella,” the angry man snarled, smirking. “Okay, if that’s the way you want it, then so be it. Fuck it, we aren’t going to put them down, we’re gonna put them to work. Boys, slap some cuffs on ‘em and let’s get them processed. Lots of buildings to get cleared.”
“Dante, go!” Grace screamed.
He didn’t want to leave her, but he knew he didn’t have a choice. If he wanted to save his friends, he had to be alive and get help. He struck the throat of the guard next to him, causing him to double over and gasp for air. Before the other guards could turn in his direction, he grabbed Bailey and leapt over the edge of the bridge.
The young woman screamed the whole way down, and Dante kept a tight hold of her, positioning them so that they’d hit feet first. They splashed down, vanishing underneath the murky waves. Safe, at least for the moment.
CHAPTER NINE
Dante and Bailey tread water, bruised from their fall from the bridge. He spotted a small island just off of the shore of the main Hilton Head Island. There were several small personal boats that ran up on the shore, a few hundred yards away.
“Are you going to make it?” he sputtered.
Bailey struggled a bit, trying to keep her head above the cold water. “Yeah, I think so,” she huffed.
He shook his head and grabbed her, flipping her onto her back. He held her arms as she flailed in a panic.
“Don’t move,” he said gently, “just do your best to float on your back. I’m going to pull you for a bit, okay?”
She stopped fighting him, just went with it. She did her best to stay above the water, and he grabbed the back of her shirt collar, pulling her along while swimming with one arm. This tired him out more than the swimming, but he was bound and determined not to lose another person today.
When he started to get tired, still a hundred yards away from the island, he thought about Grace, who was stuck on the bridge with those maniacs. Rage flowed through him, white hot fire that he’d let Troy convince him it was a good idea.
Troy, who was in the same situation as his sister now.
You’d better watch over her, he thought bitterly. God help you if you don’t.
He kept going, his splashes attracting the attention of a young man on the shoreline about fifty yards away from the boat.
“Lily, Phillip, get over here!” he cried. “We have some company!”
Dante watched a young couple join the man, the trio standing on the shore as he found his footing in the soil below. Bailey touched down and then helped him to shore, the two of them collapsing in the sand.
“Holy shit, are you two
okay?” the woman, apparently Lily, asked. “Where in the hell did you come from?”
Bailey pointed vaguely back the way they’d come, her arm like lead. “We… jumped off the bridge,” she huffed.
“Nothing like a little daredevil action to get the blood pumping,” Phillip quipped.
“What did you go and do that for?” the first young man demanded.
“Armed assholes tried to shoot us,” Dante said through his heaving chest.
The trio exchanged concerned looks.
“God, have they taken the bridge already?” Phillip asked.
Lily rubbed her forehead. “It makes sense, given what they’re doing on the island.”
“There’s more of those guys?” Bailey shivered, more from fear than from cold.
“A lot more,” Phillip confirmed. “At least we think there are.”
Dante sat up, rage flowing through him even harder than before. The trio stared at him, eyes wide at either his anger or his facial injuries, he couldn’t be sure.
“Did…” the third guy trailed off. “Did they do that to you?”
Dante’s brow furrowed, and he shot an indignant look at him.
Lily smacked her companion hard on the arm. “Man, what the hell is wrong with you?” she snapped. “No, they didn’t just do that to him, that’s just the way he looks. And if you had any common fucking sense, you’d look in the mirror and realize you’re in no position to be commenting on appearance.”
“Yeah, what she said,” Dante said tiredly.
“Forgive him, he’s an idiot,” she continued, turning to the duo. “I’m Lily.”
Bailey offered a tentative smile. “I’m Bailey and this is Dante.”
“The short one over here is Phillip,” Lily said. “The tall moron is Cam. Nice to meet y’all.”
Bailey nodded and then hugged her knees to her chest. “If you don’t mind me asking,” she said slowly, “what are you three doing here?”
“We’re from the hotel just across the water,” Lily replied. “When the shit hit the fan this morning, a group of us got out along with some of the hotel guests.”
Phillip took a deep breath. “We thought those things running around were bad,” he said, shaking his head, “but they were nothing compared to whoever those armed assholes are.”
“They’re mercenaries,” Dante said flatly.
“Mercenaries?” Cam blurted. “On Hilton Head?”
“Long story, that doesn’t really matter at the moment,” Dante replied, waving him off. “What matters is, can I use one of your boats?”
Lily’s brow furrowed. “For what?”
“No no no,” Bailey croaked, grabbing his arm, tears swelling up in her eyes. “You are not going to the island.”
“I have to get Grace,” he said firmly.
She clutched him harder. “Dante!” she pleaded. “You are not going to the island!”
“Listen to your girl here,” Phillip said, pointing at her, “you really don’t want to go to the island.”
Dante growled. “I don’t care how many of them there are,” he snapped, “I’m going to get over there and find my sister.”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Lily said slowly, “but you wouldn’t make it within fifty yards of the docks.”
“She’s right,” Cam added. “We barely made it out before those assholes started shooting the place up. Even shot at our boats as we got out.”
Dante clenched his fists and tore away from Bailey, peeling himself off of the ground and beginning to pace back and forth.
She followed him, walking alongside him, trying to catch his eye with her pleading gaze. “I know you’re upset,” she said. “We’ll get Grae. But right now, we need to find someplace safe to get to.”
He stopped moving, screwing his fists into his eyes for a moment, hating that he felt so helpless.
“Where is that hotel employee with my lunch?!” a shrill woman squawked. “I was told that there would be lunch on this little unscheduled trip that I was so rudely forced upon!”
They glanced over at a middle-aged woman sitting on a log in expensive clothes and oversized sunglasses, fiddling with her phone.
“And why can’t I get any service in this godforsaken place?” she demanded, voice like nails on a chalkboard. “I thought you people would have made sure I could get cell phone service!”
Dante blinked at her. “Is this bitch for real?” he asked.
“Unfortunately, she is,” Lily muttered.
“Spoiled trust fund kid who never had to work in her life,” Cam quipped, “so she spends months down here making our lives a living hell.”
“Phillip!” the woman barked. “That’s your name, Phillip! Where is Phillip! I demand to be helped!”
He shook his head. “I’d better go calm her ass down,” he said with a sigh. “With our manager out of commission, she’s just going to carry on until someone appeases her.”
“What happened to your manager?” Bailey asked.
Cam swallowed hard. “One of those crazy people bit him.”
“Is he on the island?” Dante demanded, Bailey stiffening beside him.
Lily nodded, brow furrowing. “Yeah, he came over on one of the boats with us,” she replied, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. “He was just hurt, but we weren’t going to leave him behind.”
“Pretty sure a few of the others were bitten, too,” Phillip added.
“We can’t stay here,” Dante said quickly.
Cam shook his head. “What? Why?”
“Because those bites are infectious as hell,” Dante explained. “They’re deadly and they turn the people who are bitten into those zombie things, whatever they are.”
The shrill woman continued to scream for Phillip. He finally threw up his hands. “I’m going to go calm her ass down,” he said, turning away. “When you figure out where we’re going, come get me.”
“Are there any other islands out here?” Dante asked.
Cam nodded. “Yeah, but chances are they’re going to be in the same position we are.”
Bailey opened her mouth, but Dante put up a hand to silence her.
“I know you want to go home to Beaufort,” he cut in, “but we need sparsely populated. I promise I’ll get you there. Just not right now.”
She closed her mouth and nodded, sighing but trusting him to keep his word.
“Sparsely populated, huh?” Lily asked. “We can go to my cousin’s house up in Tillman.”
Dante shrugged. “I’m from Seattle,” he said flatly, “I have no idea where that is.”
“Hell, I’m from here, and have no idea where that is,” Bailey added.
“Not surprising,” Lily replied, “it’s a one stop-sign town with about twelve houses and a gas station.” She motioned vaguely with her hands as she spoke. “It’s on highway three-twenty-one on the other side of the interstate. Can’t be more than twenty, twenty-five miles from here.”
Dante sighed. “Sounds great, except for the fact that my rental car got totaled,” he replied with a shrug. “And going back to the hotel for yours isn’t exactly an option.”
Lily shook her head and smirked. “Ironic, entitled bitches like that are actually going to be useful for once,” she said.
“I don’t follow,” he admitted, brow furrowing.
“A few months ago, some bridezilla came in with her entourage and started throwing a level five bitch-fit about how there wasn’t enough parking in the lot for her limo and all her friend’s cars,” Cam explained. “She chewed our limp dick manager’s ear off for twenty minutes, and instead of explaining to her there was a major conference going on at the hotel, he promised to handle it.”
Lily raised a finger. “And by handle it,” she declared, “he meant make the staff park offsite and carpool in one vehicle.”
“And that offsite lot?” Dante asked, a smile beginning to form on his face.
“It’s off-island, just across the water there,” Lily replied, poin
ting.
Bailey wrung her hands. “Won’t that take us too close to the bridge?” she asked, worry evident in her tone. “I don’t really want to get shot at.”
Cam shook his head. “Not only is our manager limp-dicked, he’s also a cheapskate,” he explained. “The lot he rented for us is a mile down a gravel road running alongside a swamp. Those assholes will never know we’re there.”
“I like it,” Dante replied, pointing at him. “Let’s get Phillip and anybody else you want to bring along, and get out of here before things start getting real bad.”
Lily lowered her gaze. “None of our other friends made it,” she said hoarsely. “And unless you want to listen to that while we escape,” she continued, motioning to the shrill woman, “I would recommend leaving everyone behind, because they’re all just like her.”
“Not that they would listen to us anyway,” Cam muttered.
“Okay then,” Dante agreed with a nod, “let’s move.”
The four of them marched over to where Phillip stood in front of the entitled customer.
“Now you’d better be remembering all of this,” she squawked, “because if you don’t and my room isn’t refunded in full and my next stay comped, then I’m going to have you fired! You understand me, little man? You don’t know who you’re dealing with, my father is—”
Lily tugged on Phillip’s arm. “We’re out,” she said.
The woman gaped at them, eyes wide with fury. “Excuse me, did you just—”
“Ma’am,” Phillip interrupted with his best customer service smile, “if you would be so kind as to go fuck yourself, I would be forever in your debt.” He raised both of his middle fingers and backed away.
“Bye bitch,” Lily said, giving a playful wave. The woman leapt up and grabbed her arm, and Lily’s eyes blazed. “Oh hell no,” she snarled, and her inner redneck flared. She swung hard, catching the woman on the bridge of her nose, shattering her designer glasses and sending her tumbling into the sand.
“I’m going to have you all fired!” she screeched through the blood pouring down her face. “Every last one of you! And my daddy is going to sue you for everything you got!”
The group clambered up into the boat, a smallish single engine vessel, ignoring the angry woman’s wails. Cam was about to start it up, but Bailey glanced at Dante with a wide-eyed look.
Dead America | Book 1 | Lowcountry [Part 1] Page 6
