Murphy's Law (Roads Less Traveled Book 2)

by Dulaney, C.

  “John, this is Michael,” Jonah heard over the radio in his hand. He watched the large man walk away from the other three, raise the radio to his mouth, and answer.

  “Go ahead, Mike.”

  John didn’t sound right. There was something in his voice, an edge the cowboy had heard before.

  “Hey, John, is there anything going on over there? Screaming, or anything else out of the ordinary, besides the shitload of zombies outside?”

  “Yeah─” John paused to run a hand over his stubbly chin. “Kasey’s here, ran up from the infirmary. Said Keegan was down there in her room. He attacked her, beat her up pretty good. He’s infected. She got away before he could infect her, but she says he turned right after she got away, says she closed him in the room.”

  There was that edge again. There was something John wasn’t telling Michael. Either purposely or accidentally, it didn’t matter.

  “Keegan?” Michael yelled. “Keegan’s infected? And he’s inside?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, Kasey shut the door, trapped him in the room. We’re going down now to check it out.” Jonah watched John turn away from the ledge and walk back to the other three, who he now realized were Kasey and most likely Mia and Jake judging by the way they hovered over her.

  “John, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Jonah came back over the radio. He didn’t want to get involved, butt his nose in where it didn’t belong, but he knew what he had heard, and he had heard screaming coming from the first level of that building. It hadn’t been made by a living person.

  He was also watching someone who had just come tearing out of the front entrance. They weren’t alive either.

  “C’mon, Jonah, what the hell are you talking about? I have to go put that bastard Keegan down, you’re wasting my time!” John yelled.

  “Take a look over the ledge.”

  Jonah was already backing up, reaching out his free hand and picking up his rifle. He didn’t want to make any sudden movements, didn’t want to alert the other snipers on the wall. Last thing they needed was mass panic. It was bad enough the other two snipers on the adjacent rooftops who had radios were already walking to their own ledges, catching the conversation and becoming too curious for their own good.

  “Oh shit…” John said.

  Jonah could see him standing at the ledge, looking down on yet another screeching banshee who had thrown itself out the doorway. Jonah looked to his right and saw the rubbernecker on that ledge was in fact Michael.

  “Oh my God—they’re inside! Snipers, turn towards the courtyard and open fire!” he shouted, then Jonah watched him gesture frantically to the snipers with him.

  John was doing the same on the south building, and Abby was repeating the gesture on the east building. Rifles turned inwards and opened fire as one runner after another burst from the south building entrance. Jonah held his fire, his mind working through the bells and whistles towards the root problem.

  “John,” he said, his mouth pressed close to his radio.

  He watched the large man shoot once, then turn to argue with one of the Road Crew, Jonah’s nickname for Kasey and her gang.

  “John,” Jonah repeated.

  His eyes darted to the other two rooftops where the shooters were all focused on the three-ring circus below. The deadheads outside had been forgotten, and everyone was now shooting with a speed they weren’t accustomed to. These runners were a different story, a breed apart, and if you weren’t quick, you were dead.

  “John!” Jonah finally shouted.

  John stopped arguing with the other person and grabbed the radio off his belt. “What?!”

  The situation was threatening to spiral out of control, and Jonah was damned if he was going to get sucked down with it.

  “You said Keegan was infected. Did Kasey see any others?”

  Silence.

  The person John had been arguing with was shaking her head. Kasey, he thought.

  “No, she didn’t see any others. Like I said, Keegan didn’t turn until after she left. After, Jonah.”

  “Well then, I’d say Keegan got out, and found himself something to eat.”

  Jonah clipped the radio to his belt and laid down fire on the entrance of the east building, where three runners were grabbing at the door and throwing it open.

  “Abby, stay sharp! Three just got in and they’re coming to you!” Michael shouted over the radio.

  “Same to you. Four headed your way!” Abby answered back.

  Damn things could open doors. They were too fast. Jonah knew they couldn’t stop them all from getting inside the buildings. He turned to one of his snipers and ordered the man to keep his rifle aimed on the stairwell.

  “If anything pops up, you blow its head off, boy.” His gruff voice was tinted with fear.

  The other man did as he was told and moved his shooter’s bench around so he was facing the stairwell. He glanced around at the other rooftops before he resumed shooting; each of the groups was positioning someone at their rooftop doors.

  “Damn,” he whispered.

  Kelly had just burst out of the south door. She was missing an arm, half her torso, but her pretty face was still intact. She was screaming as she ran, seemingly random at first, then Jonah noticed her veer off suddenly and head straight towards the west building. Michael’s building.

  “Well, ain’t that disturbing,” he muttered, then put a bullet into the side of her head, just above her ear.

  She fell flat on her face, hopefully before Michael had recognized her. Jonah glanced over at the man, who was still firing over and over at the south door, and decided he hadn’t. Then he watched Kasey and her two friends duck into the south rooftop door and disappear. He shook his head and kept firing, doing what he could to keep the runners off his wall.

  Chapter Ten

  March 25th: Just After Dawn

  “Behind you!” I screamed at Jake.

  We had walked ourselves right into a wasps’ nest. Except the things buzzing around us, throwing themselves with a unified fury, weren’t bees. And they did a little more than just sting.

  “Shit!” Jake hit the floor on a dead run.

  He rolled headfirst into the wall, then slammed his feet into the chest of the runner who had nearly taken his head off. He jerked his handgun around and shot, snapping the zombie’s head back and knocking it off its feet. Mia and I were occupied with our own pair of deadheads, kicking and dodging until we put ourselves into a position to fire.

  “Holy crap, what a rush,” Jake said in a high-pitched voice.

  We had been ambushed in the main corridor of the second floor, on our way to the garage. We’d heard enough of the radio conversation between Jonah and John to put two-and-two together. Harvel’s bitch, whose name we now knew to be Keegan, had evidently escaped the infirmary room I’d shut him in, made his way to the closest source of food, the garage, and started his feeding frenzy. The only thing catching me up was why had those people turned so quickly? Keegan had obviously taken quite some time to change, and from what Jake had told me, Mike what’s-his-name had too, during their trip to West Virginia last October.

  Jake had been explaining his theory on this when we were ambushed, just around the corner from the stairwell leading to the bottom floor.

  “You alright?” I asked Mia.

  We looked each other up and down, I suppose checking for bite marks or wounds. She nodded and turned to Jake.

  “You?” she asked him. He got to his feet, dusted himself off, and did a quick check of his arms and legs.

  “Yeah, seem to be in one piece.” Then he grabbed his crotch. “Yep, all here.”

  “Jesus, Jake,” I said, rubbing my back close to my kidney. Mia smacked me on the arm and started off towards the stairwell.

  “Let’s go,” she said. Jake reloaded his pistol and turned to follow her. I brought up the rear.

  Mia stopped at the door for only a short moment before throwing it open. Jake had his handgun raised to cover the ope
ning, but nothing came charging out at us. I blew out a breath and followed the two down the last flight of stairs.

  “So, Jake, you were saying before?” I asked.

  Our steps echoed in the dark hallway, our voices slicing it like a knife. We figured, why be quiet? Better to let the zombies know where we were, than to be sneaking around and be surprised by one when it jumped out of the darkness. Least this way we would hear them coming.

  “Oh, yeah. Like I was sayin’, I think the time it takes to turn is directly correlated to the victim’s life expectancy. For example,” he said and cleared his throat like a college professor. “If a dude gets scratched, or even bit, those aren’t mortal wounds, see? So however long it takes that person to die, is how long it’s gonna take that person to change. Now, if the dude is ripped to shit, and gonna die in like a matter of minutes? Well then, he’ll change in a matter of minutes. It’s common sense, really. I don’t think it has anythin’ to do with who’s doin’ the infectin’, slow deadhead or fast deadhead.”

  We’d stopped at the bottom of the steps and were waiting for Jake to finish his lecture before yanking the door open.

  “Thanks, Mr. Wizard. Let’s do this,” I teased.

  He turned so suddenly neither of us could stop him. The door was open and he was through it even before Mia or I could raise our weapons. The first thing I noticed while we were running to catch up with Jake was the screaming. We weren’t even close to the garage yet and already we could hear it.

  “Hey, just how many people were in that garage anyways?” Mia asked as we jogged down the corridor.

  We were spread out, Jake in the lead, Mia and myself on his left and right, just behind him, snapping our heads back and forth, our eyes focused and our attention razor-sharp.

  “I don’t know,” Jake panted. “Grandma said there were a lot, but she never said exactly how many.”

  We made the first turn, leading us away from the infirmary and closer to the garage. None of us really knew where we were going, but all we had to do was follow the screaming.

  “I’d say the majority of the townsfolk. Think about it. The Blueville residents all came here after the shit hit the fan, right? They’ve lost people, but those were mostly younger folks who went out with the salvaging parties. Michael said that only the young and fit were assigned to that, and to watch duty. And you both know how many snipers they have. So I’m guessing, three-quarters of Blueville actually survived. Say, a third of them are on the roofs now. That leaves a shitload of people in the garage,” I surmised as we closed in on the last turn. So far, we hadn’t been jumped on by any more insane zombies, so unless our voices called them away from the garage, we probably wouldn’t run into trouble until then.

  “Yeah, I’d say you’re right,” Mia said.

  Jake remained silent. He was now totally focused on finding Nancy; he couldn’t keep his mind off of the possibilities any longer.

  Another thing I noticed was the distinct lack of gunfire. Not from outside. No, those boys and girls were lighting it up out there like the Fourth of July. But from the inside there was nothing. Those people in the garage had packed plenty of weapons. Hell, they had all the weapons, save one rifle each sniper had kept for him or herself. What the hell had happened in there? Then another realization hit me.

  “Wait!”

  They both stopped just short of running into each other.

  “What? We’re almost there!” Jake motioned towards the door with both his arms.

  “There’s too many,” I answered. Mia opened her mouth to argue with me, but I didn’t give her a chance. “That’s where they’re coming out! We can’t just bull our way headfirst down their only exit just because we’re in a hurry. What do you think happened in there? People freaked and didn’t use their heads! We open that door, and we’re fucked!”

  His face twisted and his jaw clenched, then he blew out a breath and kicked the floor. “What the hell are we supposed to do then, Kasey? We have to get to Grandma!”

  Mia grabbed Jake’s shoulder and held out her other hand to me, the one curled around her pistol. “Wait a sec. Isn’t there another exit in this building? There has to be, to the stables and shit, right?”

  It made sense, but I hadn’t spent enough time exploring the complex to know for sure.

  “I don’t know, maybe. I think I remember seeing a small door on the side, back before we took off to Ohio.” I strained my memory trying to remember the layout. We’d walked past that side of the building more than once, going to the stables. For the life of me I couldn’t remember if there was a door. Jake suddenly snapped his fingers, and hope filled his face again.

  “There is! I remember seein’ it when we rode off that day!”

  He spun on his heels, running past me and back the way we came. Mia and I again raced to catch up with Jake, each footfall sending a bolt of pain through my kidney. If we could get outside, skirt around the perimeter of the hell that was breaking loose out there, and get around to the back, where the garage door was, we might have a chance. Nancy might have a chance. I just hoped that the snipers on the rooftops would recognize us, see that we weren’t one of the infected, and mow our asses down the second we hit the grass.

  * * *

  “What the hell are they doing?” Jonah watched Kasey and her friends bolt out the side door of the south building.

  He and his snipers had already had to kill a few runners who had found their staircase, but they seemed to be the fortunate ones. Michael had to finally barricade his rooftop access door to keep the runners at bay, after several overwhelmed them and killed Mike’s buddies. Everyone on Abby’s roof was also dead. Abby, now there was a girl with balls. She was currently scaling her way down the side of her building, and it looked to Jonah as if she was trying to make it to John’s roof. John was still alive, though he had taken some hits. Just moments ago, Jonah had watched the big man fight off his own shooters after they’d been turned by a runner who’d come barreling through the door.

  He knew the prison was lost. He’d realized that lovely fact just after the sun had risen. Somehow the slower bastards had gotten inside as well, and thanks to the runners, who had broken the main south door off its hinges, the slow ones now had free access to the courtyard. Jonah figured they had come in through the garage door. What he wouldn’t give to know just what the hell had happened in there. All the time these good people had put into organizing, planning, and making their lists, sure didn’t count for shit when things got bad. Once again Jonah was reminded why he had always preferred being on his own.

  “John,” Jonah said into his radio.

  Everyone still alive on the roofs had stopped firing once the sun came up, seeing it was useless and a waste of ammo. Now everyone was waiting and watching their access doors. Waiting for what, Jonah didn’t know.

  “Go ahead, Jonah,” John panted.

  He had just finished shoving everything that wasn’t bolted to the rooftop over in front of the access door. He walked to the ledge, wiping his forehead with his large forearm, and looked out over the dead-infested courtyard to where Jonah stood on his own ledge.

  “Kasey and her pals just left the building on the west side. They tucked tail and ran around the corner, so keep your eyes open behind you. They’re probably thinking about getting inside from the back,” Jonah explained.

  “At least they’re still alive then,” Michael said.

  Jonah looked over to the man, who was now sitting on his ledge and wiping his face. No doubt mourning the loss of not only Smith and Martin, but after realizing the fate of those in the garage, his sister as well.

  Jonah pointed in the direction of the stables. “I think it might be a good idea to keep the runners away from the stables. Those horses might be our only chance of getting out of this mess.”

  “Yeah. Doesn’t look like we’ll be able to reach the garage,” Michael said, then lowered his radio and covered his face with his other hand.

  From the looks of his
slumped and shaking shoulders, Jonah guessed he was crying. It was obvious now that all those people Michael had sent there, to prepare and wait for the evacuation order, had been killed. Even his sister, though Jonah doubted Michael had actually seen her after she’d changed and before he’d killed her. But it didn’t matter. The fact was she was dead. They were all dead, and Michael would have to live with it. They all would.

  “Hey, Jonah,” John said. “Why don’t you and your guys climb over to Mike’s roof. That’d put us all closer to the stables. If Abby makes it over here, that is.”

  Jonah saw Abby flip John the finger. She’s still got her radio, he thought. Atta girl.

  “Will do.”

  Jonah motioned for his men to move to the far side of the wall. The west building’s roof was conveniently butted up right against the wall, the only problem would be the seven or eight foot difference between the roof ledge and the wall itself. Well, not so much a problem as a pain in the ass. Jonah slung his rifle across his body so that the strap cut across his chest at a diagonal, and jogged over to the brick wall.

  “Let’s go,” he said, bending his knees, planting his feet, and cupping his hands in front of him, making a sort of stirrup for the next man to use for a leg-up.

  Each man went up without a catch; Jonah was tall and strong, so he was able to push each guy up until they could reach the roof ledge. Michael was waiting up top, giving each man a hand and helping them climb.

  “Hurry, Jonah,” Michael urged.

  Jonah looked up at the man, but Mike’s eyes were staring at something behind the cowboy.

  “Hell,” Jonah uttered and drew his revolver.

  He spun around and saw four runners scrambling over one another, stuck in the stairwell exit, all trying to get onto the wall at the same time. Jonah holstered his gun and jogged to the closest shooter’s bench. He dragged it over until he was directly under Michael, who was hanging over the ledge as far as he could with his hands outstretched, his eyes still glued on the runners. Jonah didn’t pay any attention to them, however. He didn’t rush, didn’t panic. He just climbed onto the shaky bench, wiped his hands on his jeans, bent his legs, and jumped. He latched onto Michael’s hands and scared him; he’d been too focused on the runners, and hadn’t noticed Jonah jumping up towards him.