The Coalition: Part II The Lord Of The Living (COALITON OF THE LIVING Book 2)

by Robert Mathis Kurtz

  Only Oliver’s coughing brought him out of the sense of euphoria that was coursing through him, with the realization that his new family was safe. It was the stench of the deaders, he knew, and not some other toxin in the safe house. For the first time, he looked down at the things, seeing them for what they were.

  “I recognize this one,” Ron said, pointing at the one who had been gnawing on Jean’s gloved hand. “His name was Daniel Weller.” His eyes drifted to the one whose head he had caved in. It had been a teenaged girl, her jeans gone from blue to a tacky black, what was left of her yellow shirt hanging in wet tatters like the petals of a wilted flower around her waist. “I didn’t know her,” he said.

  “They must have come in here to escape from the deaders,” Oliver said, now that he had caught his breath and could speak. “They used your combination to get in, but they…well, they must have been bitten and died in here.”

  Jean was nodding in agreement. “We’ll have to get them out of here. I can hardly breathe. Is there a way to dump them out without opening the door?” she asked.

  Ron pointed to the open doorway that led to an even smaller room in his safe house. “Yeah,” he told her. “There’s a bolted window in there. I can open it and push them out. It leads into a little loading dock on the other side.” He snorted, trying to get the smell out of his nose. “Fuck ‘em,” he said. And without hesitating, he pointed to the feet of the man he’d known as Weller. “Get his ankles. I’ll take his shoulders. Let’s get them the hell out of here before we get sick.”

  In a few minutes they had dragged them into the other room. Opening the steel-shuttered window, Ron and Jean pushed the dead weight of the two corpses out into the shadowed, damp space that had once been the loading dock Ron had described. Zombies at the far side of the space out there saw the activity and moved toward them. But before they could take more than a few steps, they had finished their work and the dead things were left with nothing but a pile of rotted and infected meat at which to stare, perhaps to contemplate a similar fate in days to come.

  Inside, Ron was already busy. He hauled out a jug of mild disinfectant from a closet. It was something lemon-scented and not filled with either ammonia or chlorine. In a few minutes, he had mopped up the worst of the gore and the rooms now smelled more of citrus than of rotted meat. Only then, did he and the others pause to sit. Ron dragged a chair to the center of the main room and unfolded two lawn chairs for the others. For the first time since leaving the spot across from the Trust Building, they felt able to breathe easy.

  “What was this place?” Jean asked. She sat, leaning back in the chair, exhausted both physically and emotionally. Raising one arm, she examined the dark stains left on her jacket where the flesh of a dead man’s reanimated corpse had peeled off on the fabric.

  “It was a shipping office,” Ron told her. “Used to be full of phone banks and bills of lading, clip boards, that kind of thing. They didn’t store anything here but temporary paperwork. That’s why the little loading dock is out back. Truck would pull in and pick up the records a couple times a week. The warehouse was somewhere else. Don’t know where it was or what the fuck they were selling. I don’t fucking care.” Ron stopped talking, his face a scowl. He looked at Jean and Oliver.

  “I’m sorry,” he told them. “Didn’t mean to…” He stopped trying to get a handle on what was going through his mind. “I’m just trying to cope,” he said.

  Jean finally sat up and leaned forward. Then she was on her knees beside him, her arms around Ron as she pulled herself close to him. “That’s okay,” she told him. “We’re okay. We’re going to be okay. All we have to do is lay low for a little while.” She turned her head, surveying the space in which she’d found herself. She realized that the lighting was coming from above, a skylight in the ceiling that allowed sun to filter in through a thick, dirty lens of Plexiglas set in an aluminum frame.

  “You’ve got provisions here, right?” She blinked those green eyes. “If not, we carried in enough food and water in our packs to last a couple of days. More if we have to get serious about conserving our stuff and laying low.”

  “Yeah.” Oliver felt the need to add to the conversation. Ron grinned as he saw the boy smiling, still a kid even after the horror they’d just experienced. “We don’t have to be scared of anything in here.”

  “Oliver’s right,” Ron agreed. He reluctantly disengaged himself from Jean’s welcome embrace. Standing, he walked across the room to a cupboard made of particle board and overlaid with cheap tiles. Opening the cupboard doors, he examined the contents. There were five-gallon water jugs stored inside, all of them still filled, the water sparkling through plastic walls. Drawing another pair of doors open, he revealed a stack of boxes, one of which he dragged out on the floor and opened. Inside were various other containers that revealed its contents to be military meals-ready-to-eat, boxes of crackers, and various other emergency supplies. He nodded at the box and then to his family. “We’ll be just fine,” he told them.

  But in fact, he just wasn’t sure.

  For the first time in over a year, he didn’t know where he stood with the world.

  **

  The sun finally began to set. Ron had opened the various vents in the little safe house and had turned on the fans powered by the minor solar array on the roof. There was even battery power for use, the batteries fed and charged by the trickle system he’d taken the time to assemble months before. He had installed LED lights that were wired to the corners of the rooms. Once they’d finished cleaning the gore from the floors and wiped away the stains from where the muck had spattered the walls, they were breathing relatively fresh air. They could breathe easily, and they had eaten, filling their bellies with the MREs stacked neatly in boxes. The toilet in the tiny bathroom still worked if you primed it with a gallon or two of water from the stored jugs. They took turns using the facility and ridding themselves of the waste.

  Oliver had succumbed to fatigue first, and they had prepared an air mattress for him and rolled out a light sleeping bag. His two guardians then watched over him until he fell into a deep sleep. They left him in the smaller of the two rooms, away from the metal entrance, and made up their own sleeping pallets, whispering as they worked.

  “What do you think happened? With our guests?” She was talking about the zombies who had been in the safe house when they’d entered it.

  “Who knows?” Ron said. “That guy…Weller. He was an OK fellow. Watched out for himself, but I saw him help out other people when they needed a hand. Once I saw…” he shrugged. “Hell, it doesn’t matter what I saw anymore. He’s dead.

  “If I had to guess, I’d say he needed some refuge, knew about this place, and used the combination to get in. And I think the girl was already in here and already dead. She looked riper than he did. They were both covered in bites, if you noticed. I figure she came in already bitten, died, and when Weller needed to use the place, he let his guard down and wasn’t expecting a deader to be in here. Hell…she could have been sitting in the other room, or in the head. Who fucking knows?” He lay back on his pallet, letting the tension go out of his body for the first time that day. “It doesn’t matter anymore. He’s dead. The girl—whoever she was—she’s dead, too. They’re both lying out there on the loading dock where they’ll rot and go to dust.”

  Joining him, Jean reclined on her side of the makeshift bed. She was quiet. Oliver’s even breathing came to her from the adjoining space.

  “He’s fast asleep,” she whispered to Ron. “If we’re quiet, we won’t wake him.”

  Ron made no reply and when he realized that she was taking her pants down, he helped her pull them off. Carefully, he kicked off his boots and unzipped his own jeans, tugging them down as quickly as he could. He almost groaned when she reached out and gripped his already erect shaft.

  “Hush,” she whispered, and pulled him toward her, guiding him into her where he began to quietly and carefully thrust. She was already wet and the
re was no need at all for the foreplay in which they customarily engaged.

  “I need this,” she groaned under her breath. His reply was only to continue stroking away, giving her more of what she needed.

  Through one of the vents, they could hear the casual shuffling of dead feet as the shamblers slowly tired of waiting for them at the door and, one by one, wandered off into the darkening night. When they could no longer hear the undead at their door, they gave up all but the sounds of their passion, Ron thrusting into Jean’s vagina, his woman’s legs forcing her pelvis up to meet those thrusts.

  “I’m cuming,” she said, breaking the silence, just barely, her lips at his ear. “Cum with me baby,” she groaned.

  As he spent into her, Ron held back his own calls of pleasure which died in his chest. Collapsing, he lay beside her, his breath labored, but still quiet, his attention on the even and almost silent snoring of Oliver. “Jesus,” he whispered.

  “We’d better get our pants and boots back on,” Jean said, rolling to a sitting position to gather the clothing to her.

  Ron nodded, realizing that of course she couldn’t see him in the darkness that had enclosed them, but he did as she suggested. You could never take any chances in this world. Not anymore. He drew his pants on and then laced his boots. “You go on and sleep,” he told her. “I’ll take the first watch.”

  “You sure?” she asked.

  He nodded again, realized what he was doing, and replied. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. Sex is a mighty fine sleeping pill and all that, but you go ahead. I’ll just sleep all the better when you’re up.”

  “Wake me in a bit,” was all she said. Hardly had she pulled the edge of a light blanket over her than she was out, her own breathing matching that of the boy lying so near to them.

  Ron turned his chair to face the door, put a flashlight in his lap and, with his .45 unbuckled at his hip, he did first watch. The night was mainly silent, but a few times, he thought that he could sense the vibrations of the great elephants moving back and forth along the city blocks, searching for the one who had killed the calf. He hoped that if they found the man, they’d be satisfied with killing him and leave the rest of the people alone. Ron had heard that elephants had very long memories, indeed.

  He would speak to Colonel Dale about that and other such things the next time they faced one another.

  **

  Two days passed before the pachyderms moved on. Now and again, Ron would edge one of the armored windows open and use a makeshift periscope to look out into the streets. Jean had assembled it from some cardboard tubing and some bits of mirror they’d found in one of the cupboards. Even if he’d thought of such a thing, he wouldn’t have known how to make it.

  “My dad used to make them for me when I was a little girl,” she’d said, smiling, her gorgeous face beaming at the thought of the man who’d raised her.

  “The more I hear about that guy, the more I’m impressed,” Ron had told her.

  At that, she’d kissed him lightly on the lips. “You do remind me of him. Even if you don’t know how to make periscopes out of old toilet paper rolls.” And then she’d laughed.

  “I want to look through it, too,” Oliver had told them.

  “Of course you can!” And Jean had snatched the fragile thing gently from Ron’s gloved hands and passed it over to Oliver.

  The boy had stood at the edge of the window, using the scope to peer out onto the street. Left and right. Up and down. Above and below. “Cool!” he’d told them.

  It was finally safe to emerge from the tight quarters that had given them refuge. When they came out onto the street, their weapons slung and holstered, their packs cinched securely on their backs, the city was silent, except for the sounds of hundreds of birds and the buzzing of tens of thousands of insects. Spider webs glittered in the rising sunlight, touched with dew. A dog barked and Ron even saw it darting off in the distance, running from building to building, calling to other dogs who answered from somewhere far away.

  At the horizon, the sky was reddish with the edges of distant clouds, but otherwise the sky was clear.

  “Red sky in morning, sailor take warning,” Jean said as she peered toward the horizon, visible as a tiny line down at the far end of the avenue.

  “What’s that mean?” Oliver asked her.

  “It’s an old sailor’s poem,” she informed the boy. “It goes like this:

  ‘Red sky in morning, sailor take warning. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.’”

  “But what does that mean?” the boy pleaded.

  Ron laughed, and cut in. “It meant to sailors out on ships far at sea that if they saw the sky turn red early in the morning, there was soon be a storm. And if they saw the sky turn red in the evening before sunset, then there would not be a storm.”

  “Oh.” Oliver handed the little periscope to Jean who took it from him then ordered him to turn around while she unzipped his pack and tucked it safely inside.

  “It’s yours now,” she told him. The boy smiled. A big smile.

  “But is it true?”

  Ron shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s only an old poem my mom used to recite.” He shrugged again. “Maybe.”

  “There is some truth to it,” Jean finally told them both. “It denotes the approaches of weather patterns that dictate one type or another. It’s not foolproof, of course, but sailing men did really take stock in it.”

  “Well, we’re not sailors,” Ron informed them both. “Today we are scavengers and explorers. Things we need are running low and we have to go shopping. Also, I have a secret that I want to show both of you.”

  “A secret?” Jean’s face lit up like Oliver’s; in a most child-like way. Ron liked that. It was something he’d never seen out of her. He’d like to see that on her features more often. “What is it? What can it be?” She tucked her pleading hands under her chin and fluttered her eyelids at him.

  Ron laughed. “No, I won’t tell you. But I’ll show you, if you’ll just follow me.” He strode off, walking point, suddenly becoming more serious than before. This was life, these days. Life was serious. But he did turn back to speak. “We’ll look for supplies while we move, and soon enough, I’ll show you both what I mean.”

  They moved off, watching the buildings for anything that might mean danger. And they squinted at every window and door and structure, thinking of what may lie inside that could do them the most good, and trying to judge each. But that was always a risky matter, and you could very well pass up a real treasure hiding in a ruin, while the preserved remains of a fine mansion might hold only garbage. It was all a roll of the dice.

  “Watch out for that big pile of elephant shit.” Oliver pointed. There were more of them. Huge piles that appeared to have been dropped from a great height. And technically so: the height of an elephant’s asshole.

  “Hard to miss those,” Ron judged.

  “Pee yew,” came the commentary from the beautiful Jean. And so things passed, as they trotted quickly like curious cats through the shattered remains of what had once been the biggest city between Washington, DC and Atlanta, Georgia.

  They were lucky as they journeyed along. They found canned foods in a padlocked container made of thin and rusted metal. It had been Oliver who’d noticed the old lock on it, and realized that someone must have wanted to protect something inside of it.

  “That’s good thinking,” Ron had told the boy. “And a good eye, too. I didn’t give that thing a second glance.” When he’d bent down to look at the roughly casket-sized container sitting in the middle of an old office that had gone to mucky ruin, the first thing he’d noticed was that the lock, too, was rusted. No one had been around to open it in ages, and so it would be nothing like stealing if they jimmied it open and took at least some of what was inside.

  One blow of his faithful ball peen hammer was all it took, and he pulled the door open. Revealed, were cans of corned beef, lima beans, crushed pineapple, minced tomatoes, and grapefruit juice. They each
took what they could carry and left the rest of it inside, putting the lock back on the door and hanging it so that it appeared to still be locked.

  “Maybe someone will need it like we do,” Jean said.

  Afterwards, they pushed out of that room and back onto the street, looking here and there for things that might be useful to them. Ron thought of their home. He’d all but abandoned most of his other safe houses. The penthouse had become something more than a place to find refuge when he needed it, and had turned into a house with hearth and family intact. He didn’t want to lose that. From time to time, he kept looking back at Jean and Oliver, stealing glances at them, soaking in their faces, their movements, and their voices. They were his and he was theirs. There was no going back.

  At the end of the street, Ron looked at his wristwatch. “We’ll have to turn back soon. If we’re to get back home in time to cook supper and watch the sunset,” he added. “But first…” he smiled mischievously, “that surprise I was telling you about.”

  “Oh, boy!” Oliver yelled it and actually jumped into the air, despite his heavy load of canned goods.

  Pointing at a wide alley across from where they were standing, he led the way. Listening for danger and looking always for any movement that could hint at an attack, he pushed on before stopping before a big, pale rolling door. It looked to be something like a garage bay; a trio of them. Two of the bays were partially opened and oily water oozed out from beneath the broken metal doors.

  “Pistols out,” Ron said. “I’ll need you guys to do the work because I have to lift the door.” He knelt and gripped a solid handle of the front of the sliding door, twisted it first to the left, then the right, and finally in the middle position, the grip standing vertically to the concrete. With a sound of clanking chains and old rust, the door went up.

  Jean and Oliver had their guns at half mast, ready to aim and start firing if the need came.