“We know that they were basically enslaving us since almost all the way back from when this thing started,” Brooke said. “We know that Judah, their leader, was a psychopath.”
Raylon raised an eyebrow. “Was?”
“I killed him,” Jon said.
Lennox laughed. He took the last toke of the joint, flicking it away and out into the backyard.
“I think it’s time for you all to leave.”
“Hold on,” Brooke said. “What’s going on? Were you allies with them?”
Lennox scoffed. “Hell, no.”
“Then what’s the matter?”
“I don’t think you truly understand the scope of what you’ve done. You think your fight is over? Your fight is far from over.”
“What are you talking about?” Terrence asked.
“The Vultures aren’t just some small group of bullies,” Raylon said. “They’re part of a bigger organization.”
“What?” Brooke asked.
“Some people who aren’t gonna be happy that your boy here killed Judah.” Lennox looked at Jon and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but we can’t help you. We have a silent but mutual understanding with these people. We can’t risk starting a war by aligning ourselves with you all.”
“We aren’t asking you to align with us,” Brooke said. “Just to trade.”
“Those are one and the same to Malcolm,” Lennox said.
“Who’s Malcolm?” Jon asked. He wondered if this could be the man who Judah had hinted at in the final moments of his life.
Thunder clapped, and they all glanced up at the overcast skies. Brooke stuck out her hand, and a small drop of rain splashed onto her palm.
Lennox stood. “You seem like good people, so you’re welcome to stay until the storm passes, even if that means being here overnight. But after that, you need to leave.”
Lennox went inside, but Jon followed and stepped in front of him.
“You’re willing to let our people die?”
“I am if it means saving mine,” Lennox said. “I’m sorry. But I just can’t risk it. Now, please leave my house. Raylon can show you where you can rest for the time being.”
14
The place smelled of death, with nothing left but ashes in its wake. But Malcolm showed no emotion as he looked out over what had once been the Vultures’ camp.
Not everything was gone. Some of the buildings still remained, though none of it was worth trying to rebuild. Especially not with so many other places in the empty world where they could lay down a new campground. This place would be left to rot with the rest of the world, another ruin on an already dying planet.
But Malcolm had wanted to see it for himself. It wasn’t that he hadn’t believed what had happened here. It was more that he’d wanted to witness with his own eyes how the Vultures could’ve been taken down by nothing more than a group of everyday folks. Malcolm had never met a single person from Hope’s Dawn, but he’d received plenty of reports about what the people were like there. Their leader, Garrett, was weak. As were the people he’d surrounded himself with. The rest of the camp was nothing more than kids, housewives, and the sorts of people who couldn’t be a threat to a bug on the ground.
So, how could this have happened?
And that was the point. The Vultures would never have had this happen if not for the Savage.
Both Bryce and Bennett had accompanied him to the camp, along with three guards. Two of the guards stepped away to take care of two zombies off to the group’s right, but Malcolm didn’t take his eyes off the camp’s remains. He walked forward as the guards used silenced pistols to take out the two undead intruders. Malcolm heard them snarl and hit the ground, but never averted his gaze.
All that was left of those Vultures who’d perished in the fight were the bloodstains on the dirt. A row of lumps in the ground ran to Malcolm’s left, where they’d been laid to rest by the few survivors who’d hung around. None of this affected Malcolm. The Vultures had been no more than a tool to him, used to hold his thumb down on the weak. Only one Vulture had truly mattered, and he’d hardly been one of them at all.
Up until this moment, Malcolm had not allowed his eyes to go to the one main reason why he’d come. They followed the trail of blood through the center of the camp and up the hill at the end of it.
The house on the top of the hill had once been the centerpiece of this camp, glowing in the horizon as you stood where Malcolm was standing now. But, now, there was nothing.
Malcolm walked forward, his hands still at his sides. It was as if nothing else were around him now. He ignored the surrounding destruction and kept his eyes on the top of the hill.
As he climbed, he heard the footsteps still following behind him. Malcolm stopped halfway up the hill and turned his head only just enough to signal Bryce.
“Come on,” Bryce said to the others, demanding they make their way back down the hill.
Malcolm stood alone now, staring at what remained of the house. It had burned to the ground, leaving nothing but charred brick and ash. Under the rubble, anything else was hard to make out, and Malcolm wasn’t interested in getting a closer look.
Instead, he stayed put and thought about what Judah’s last moments inside the house must’ve been like. Witnesses had seen a man meeting the description of the Savage coming out with a woman as the house had gone up in flames. Malcolm couldn’t imagine what it must’ve been like for Judah, and he only hoped the man had died before the fire had taken hold of his body.
Malcolm could hear the others talking at the bottom of the hill, but he didn’t turn around. He instead focused on the debris.
Reaching under his shirt, Malcolm took hold of the pendulum necklace he always wore. He gripped the jewel tight enough to where it could easily have broken if made of plastic. Seeing the place where Judah had died tested his ability to remain stoic. The thing Dr. Stewart had shown Malcolm earlier hadn’t been Judah. It was why Malcolm had been quick to order Bryce to bury it. Malcolm didn’t want to remember Judah that way. But seeing the man he loved that way wouldn’t scar Malcolm’s memories. At this moment, he wanted nothing more than to watch the Savage burn.
“I’ll kill that son of a bitch for what he did to you.”
Behind him, someone cleared their throat. Malcolm squeezed his eyes closed, taking a deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” Bryce said. “But one of our scouts just showed up with an important message for you.”
Malcolm placed the pendulum back under his shirt and turned around.
The man standing alongside Bryce and Bennett was scrawny, probably in his mid-twenties. Malcolm had seen him around the camp. He thought maybe his name was Chris.
Bryce slapped the kid on the arm. “Quit wasting time and tell him what you saw, Calvin.”
“Sorry,” Calvin said, finally looking into Malcolm’s eyes. “Sir, I was working patrol near Freedom Ridge a little earlier, and we saw three new people enter the camp with Raylon, one of their leaders.”
“And?” Malcolm asked.
Calvin swallowed. “It was a woman and two men. And one of the men matched the description of the Savage.”
Malcolm tensed. His eyes darted to Bennett.
“It’s him,” the Vultures’ leader said. “From the way they described him, it has to be.”
“And you got a good look at him?” Malcolm asked.
“Yes, sir,” Calvin assured him. “He was sitting in the back of a pickup truck, and I got an excellent view. I promise I’m not wrong about my description.”
“We need to go get him,” Bennett said. “We can’t let him stand clean for what he’s done here.”
“It’s not that simple,” Bryce said. “We can’t just roll into Freedom Ridge, guns blazing.”
That was precisely what Malcolm wanted to do. He wanted to go and take this Savage and show him the same fate that he’d shown the Vultures, and most of all, Judah. But he knew he was in no position to do such a thing.
“Ar
range a meeting with Lennox,” Malcolm said to Bryce. “We may not be able to ride in there and take the murderer, but Lennox will do the right thing once I talk to him.”
15
When they stepped outside, Jon didn’t stop with the others. He marched down the patio and to the street, ignoring people’s stares. Most had gone into their homes to escape the oncoming storm, but some had remained outside. Perhaps to get another glance at the strangers.
“Hold on, Jon,” Brooke said.
Jon turned around. “For what? You heard him in there. Let’s not waste our time.”
“He’s right, Brooke,” Terrence said. “There’s nothing left for us here. We need to go try to search at least one other place before dark and before this storm gets too bad.”
Brooke sighed, but nodded. She and Terrence headed down the porch as Raylon emerged from the house.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To try to find what we need elsewhere,” Jon said.
“Where do you think you’re going to find it? We’ve covered every nook and cranny within nearly fifty miles of here.”
“Well, you didn’t know about us, so apparently you all aren’t as thorough as you think you are,” Jon said. “We’ll take our chances.”
Brooke shrugged. “If you aren’t going to help us, then we don’t have any other choice.”
Raylon put his hands up. “Don’t leave yet. At least not until I show you something.”
“Is it where you keep your medical supplies?” Terrence asked.
Shaking his head, Raylon said, “No, but—”
“Then there’s nothing we need to see,” Jon said. He waved to the others. “Come on.”
They headed out to the road, but Raylon hurried down the porch stairs and chased after them.
“Just hold on a minute, goddamnit.” He stepped in front of Brooke and Terrence. “No, I’m not going to show you where we keep our antibiotics. But I might have a way for you to convince Lennox that we should help you. You just need to go with me somewhere, and you’ve got to trust me.”
“And why should we do that?” Jon asked. “Why should we trust you?”
“I brought you here, didn’t I? We didn’t hurt you. Didn’t steal any of your shit. And even when Lennox found out what you did to the Vultures, it’s not like we threw you right out of here. He offered to let you stay here until the storm passes. Let me try to help you.”
“Why do you want to help us?” Brooke asked.
“Because there aren’t many good people left in the world, and I know good people when I see them.”
“But Lennox—” Terrence said.
“You just let me handle him. He’s my cousin; he’ll listen to me.”
Jon wanted to leave. These people had already wasted enough of their time. Lennox had seemed hellbent on not helping Hope’s Dawn once he’d learned what they’d done to the Vultures, and Jon doubted anything would change that.
But what if they had been right in saying that there was no medicine out there to be found? They might waste even more time and precious gasoline trying to find what they needed, only to possibly come up empty-handed and for the injured back at the camp to die anyway.
Jon turned to his friends, and they studied each other’s reactions. Brooke shrugged.
“What have we got to lose?”
“I agree,” Terrence said.
Jon turned and studied Raylon again. The man had meant them no harm yet and had no real reason to help the folks from Hope’s Dawn. He hadn’t asked them for anything, and also hadn’t tried to harm them. In fact, he and his small team had saved them. If they hadn’t shown up, the three of them would likely have still been trapped in that office at the pharmacy, or worse.
“What exactly do you need help with?”
“I’ll show you. Come on.”
Terrence’s eyebrows squeezed together. “Now? The sky’s about to open up.”
“It’ll be alright. We don’t have to go far.” Raylon gestured with his head. “I’ll drive us.”
Just as the distant thunder had warned, the sky opened, and rain poured down to the earth. They rode in a four-wheel-drive pickup truck that could navigate through muddy terrain with ease, but they traveled on the main roads for now. Raylon turned the windshield wipers up to their highest setting as large droplets beat down onto the glass.
The storm briefly made Jon flash back to his motorcycle accident, which had been the catalyst for him ending up at Hope’s Dawn. The wreck had been a scary moment, but somehow it had turned out alright in the end. If he hadn’t wrecked the bike, he would never have ended up at Hope’s Dawn. Instead, he might have been lying dead in the woods somewhere, or even wandering around as one of the dead bastards now.
He rode in the backseat with Terrence as Raylon cautiously navigated the road, weaving in and out of the remains of abandoned vehicles. It was clear he’d driven this path many times, as he seemed to have memorized where each car was, almost like it was a level in a video game he’d played over and over again.
“How long have you been out here?” Brooke asked Raylon.
“Pretty much since the beginning of when all this shit went down. I’d come up here from Columbia, South Carolina for a family reunion. Like I said, Lennox is my cousin, so he was there. The reports started coming out in the middle of our trip, and several people in our family left to go back home. But then the virus hit the place nearby where we were staying and...” Raylon’s voice trailed off, and he gripped the steering wheel tightly. “Well, Lennox and I were the only two to make it out.”
“Jesus,” Terrence said.
“I’m sorry,” Brooke added.
“We obviously couldn’t stay where we were, so we jumped in my truck and left. We hung low for a couple of weeks before we found Freedom Ridge.” He shook his head. “It’s not the sort of digs I’m used to, but I feel lucky we found the place.”
“I don’t think any of us are the same people we were before the outbreak,” Brooke said.
Jon knew he wasn’t, but the statement from Brooke sparked something in him. He didn’t know much about her past. She’d never mentioned Lucas’ father, and Jon had been curious about him, though he hadn’t been so rude as to ask.
Raylon pointed ahead. “We’re coming up on the place.”
Peeking around the front seat, Jon looked ahead, curious about what he’d see.
The large gray building was surrounded by a twelve-foot-high barbed wire fence. It only took Jon a second to realize Raylon had brought them to a prison.
Raylon pulled all the way up to the fence and stopped. He took off his seatbelt and got out of the truck. Jon and the others joined him.
They walked up to the fence, the top of it lined with barbwire. Snarls of dozens of zombies sounded through the air. Jon looked through the fence and watched the creatures lumbering around in front of the prison.
“Jesus,” he mumbled.
“Nah, man,” Raylon said. “This is the devil’s work. Though I’m not sure that even he could have thought up a hell quite like this.”
“Has it been like this the whole time?” Brooke asked.
“As far as we know, no one has gone in or come out of here. I’m sure some of the officers got out when the outbreak first happened, but the prisoners....”
“They just left them in there,” Jon said.
Every zombie that Jon could see wore a prison jumpsuit, each differentiated only by number. He saw no one wearing the uniform of a police officer or guard.
Raylon pointed at the prison. “But if no one has gotten in there, which it’s pretty apparent they haven’t, then you have to think it’s a goldmine in there. Consider all the food it takes to feed this many prisoners. Think about all the supplies they have to have to keep them healthy.”
Terrence put his hands up. “Hold up. So, you’re suggesting that we get into this prison for you, and then you’ll be willing to help us?”
“Not for us, but with us. I’ve been
trying to convince Lennox for a while to go into that prison, but he hasn’t wanted to take the risk. But if I can tell him I’ve recruited some other folks to go in there with us, then he might change his mind.”
Terrence scoffed. “This is crazy. Why the hell wouldn’t we bring our own people up here and take the prison ourselves?”
Raylon narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “You don’t want to do that.”
“What, you’re threatening us now?”
Brooke held Terrence back. “Look, Raylon’s right. He trusted us enough to show us this place. And even if we wanted to try to break into this prison on our own, I don’t think we’d have the people or the resources to do so.” She turned her attention to Raylon. “I’m not sure we could do it even with you guys.”
Raylon raised his eyebrows at Brooke. “So, you’re out then.”
She shrugged. “I just don’t know—”
“We need a guarantee,” Jon said, interrupting her as everyone turned to look at him.
“A guarantee?” Raylon asked.
“If we do this, I want to know for sure that you all are going to help us. Lennox has to agree that we’ll go in together, and anything we find, we split down the middle.”
“You’re really thinking about this?” Terrence asked. He looked at Brooke for back-up, but she remained silent.
“We’re going to have to talk to him again,” Raylon said. “But I think he’ll agree.”
“We can’t do this without talking to Garrett and Hugo,” Terrence said to Jon.
“They’ll be fine with it,” Brooke said, nodding at Jon. “They’re just going to want to know we have a plan.”
Jon looked around. “I think I have a pretty good idea of how we can make this happen.” He stuck out his hand to Raylon. “We got your support?”
Raylon hesitated for a moment before shaking Jon’s hand. “You got it.”
Jon walked to the fence again and stared through at the zombies. One of the creatures finally saw them, and it screamed, gathering the attention of the others. Dozens of the monsters then ran toward the fence, snarling and clawing. Everyone backed up from the fence except for Jon. He didn’t budge as the horde slammed against the fence, some of them even spitting on him.
Dead South | Book 2 | Dead Lies Page 6
