The Rotting Souls Series (Book 5): Charon's Vengeance

by Ray, Timothy A.

  He swiped it out of the air, balled it up, and threw it back like he was a pitcher for the Yanks. He missed by a mile, so he would have totally made that team.

  “The Diamondbacks never knew what they were missing,” Carrie snarked.

  “Eat me.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  He broke into laughter. “Gonna have to rethink that one. Okay, I’ll be back.” Sneaking out before anything further could be said, he ducked out the front door and reached for the pack of cigarettes in his pocket.

  I wonder if they’re growing any tobacco plants at this Compound of theirs?

  Not bloody likely. Still, the death rate from cancer was going to be quickly overtaken by the undead, so smoke them while you got them, right? Jerking his pack upward, a few cigarettes freed themselves, and he used his lips to pull one free, then lit it, took a deep drag, and stared at the cabin across from them.

  His OCD was really getting to him about how that fucking truck got parked. Like, they couldn’t have sobered up and straightened it out this morning? Why the hell did it even matter?

  It was eighty degrees atleast, but when you came from Phoenix, that was a cool fall afternoon, so he basked in the slight breeze, listened to the trees swaying around him, and breathed in the fresh air.

  He heard a squawk and nearly jumped out of his skin. A white and black feathered Osprey was bouncing up and down near Randy’s corpse, it’s beak diving down and pecking at the skin. Watching as a piece of skin was torn free, his mind revolted and forced his eyes away. He should take the time to bury the man and his family, but he felt someone watching him even now and didn’t think they had that kind of time.

  Studying his environment for any signs of life outside of him and the bird, he didn’t hear or see anything else out of the ordinary and came to the conclusion that it was just his imagination getting the best of him. He knew someone had been spying on them the night before, so his brain was playing up on the fear generated from that, making him jump at shadows.

  The only thing to do was to get moving, get busy doing something; it was the only way he’d be able to distract himself from the terror boiling just beneath the surface.

  Walking down to the mini van’s driver door, he clicked the door lock with his FOB and popped the hood after a cursory glance inside. It didn’t look like anyone had been fucking with it, but that didn’t mean they didn’t hide it well. Though, if they were a true mastermind, they wouldn’t have left the damn ladder where it’d be easy to find, they’d have hidden it under the porch or in the trees or something. Having it lying there next to the house was either lazy or purposeful, and the latter made his skin crawl to think about.

  He brought the hood up and used the thin metal rod to hold it, then realized he needed a rag. Damn. He didn’t keep any in the back of the van, so he walked over to the SUV, unlocked the passenger doors, and grabbed the bloodied shirt Jessica had thrown in the back. It was clumped up, had a metallic smell to it, and his heart hurt just holding it.

  He couldn’t afford to fail his family as he did her.

  He slid the dipstick out, wiped it on a clean part of the shirt, then stuck it back in. Oil was good, that was rare. Maybe his wife had finally put some in rather than waiting until he got home from his trip? It was kind of a requirement of driving a car, but one that she liked to put off or get a mechanic to do instead of doing it herself.

  The reservoir was three-quarters full, they had power steering fluid, and the transmission fluid was only a pint low. Maybe she’d gotten a fluid change at Wal-Mart recently? Maybe that’s why she seemed unconcerned with how the van would do on the road.

  Still, he might follow after her in the SUV, double their odds on making it okay. Sure, it was only a couple of hours, but then that two days journey here was supposed to be a third of what it’d taken. He really hoped that they wouldn’t have to set out on foot, that would suck ass.

  Verifying that the battery cables were on tight, he reached up to lower the hood, if anything else was wrong, he wouldn’t know until they were on the road. Best to start it up and listen to the engine, check the gas levels, maybe hit the gas station in town, as risky as that was. He hated siphoning gas and would skip that for as long as possible.

  Severe pain erupted in his right bicep, his arm jerking as teeth latched on and tried to pull flesh free. Panicking, he struck the twenty-year old jock in the head, knocking his teeth off his arm and taking an automatic step back. The man had gore on his mouth and neck, his eyes glazed but focused, his short blond hair covered in blood and flesh; not his. He had recently fed.

  It took half a second for the creature to recover, claws coming up, jaw dropping, the taste of blood pushing it into madness. He acted as fast as he could, dodging forward, grabbing the walking corpse by the left shoulder and shoving him into the engine compartment with all the strength he could manage, the rod breaking loose as the hood fell. It nearly broke his arm, but it also slammed into the corpse and pinned it there.

  “Fuck! Carrie!” he nearly screamed, blood running down his arm, the adrenaline pumping through his veins the only reason he could think clearly. It was a deep bite; the bastard had nearly torn his arm off. Reaching up to undo the clasp on his gun, his fingers slipped off them, his fine-motor function compromised. “Damn it! Carrie!”

  He couldn’t get the gun out of the holster and his left hand wouldn’t twist right. The zombie was bucking, trying to squeeze out of the engine compartment, so he did the only thing he could think of, slammed his hand down and held it with all the weight he could summon, his arm dropping to his side, blood pooling at his feet.

  “What’s—oh my God, Kyle!” Carrie screamed, and he could hear her rushing his way.

  “No! Go get something to stop this bleeding or I’m going to bleed out!”

  It was getting harder to hold the struggling zombie in place, it would be loose in the manner of minutes, maybe seconds. When that happened, he would be defenseless. The only thing he could do was run and he didn’t trust that the undead jock wouldn’t run faster.

  Leaning harder, he glanced through the front window at the cabin across the way, checking to see if anything else was trying to sneak up on him and started at the sight of someone on the roof watching him. They had a baseball cap on, black shades, and they were laying on their stomach, trying to stay out of sight. If he had a bucket of popcorn, he could be watching a Drive-In movie from on top of his house.

  This fucker was enjoying the show!

  “I’m going to get you for this, you son of a bitch!” he screamed.

  He thought he heard laughter.

  The legs of the jock kicked at him, trying to knock him over, he barely held himself in place. Where the fuck was Carrie? Had she run to Wal-Mart? Oh wait, the van had a corpse in it, it wasn’t going anywhere at the moment.

  Her hand touched his arm and he flinched violently, sure that another zombie had just snuck up on him to finish the job. “Who are you yelling at?” she asked as she hurriedly tied a belt just above the bite and cinched it tight. “Hope you’re not going to ask me to cut it off. I’ll do anything for love, but I won’t do that.”

  The body bucked again, driving him back a step.

  “Not the time for jokes,” he uttered, placing a knee against the dead man’s ass and leaning into it. “Running out of time here. I’m starting to feel my strength fade.”

  “Okay, what do you want me to do? I can’t stitch it up with this thing trying to eat us,” she returned hastily.

  “What I want you to do is take the gun out of this holster and blow this thing’s head off when I let go,” he told her, brow drawing together in concentration. It was getting harder to think straight. He was feeling nauseous.

  “You’re kidding right?”

  It bucked again, and he thought he heard a new noise, the sound of rending flesh. It was trying to squeeze its way out regardless of the damage done to its body.

  They were out of time.

  “Do
it now Carrie! I would if I could. You have to do it. Hurry! I’m about to pass out,” he responded, feeling his knees wobble.

  She reached across him and pulled the gun free, her face filled with worry. “You can try to use your left hand,” she pleaded with him.

  His strength faded a bit and he got pushed backwards hard as the jock finally got the best of him, bucking him off. “Carrie, shoot it!”

  She hadn’t had time to think about it when she’d used the pan on their neighbor, but she obviously had time now as her hand trembled, finger lightly hovering over the trigger, her face screwed up in terror. To her credit though, she pulled the trigger twice, the bullets striking the man in the back and driving him down again.

  “Wait til he’s up then go for the head,” he muttered, falling onto the ground, his arm held limply in his lap. His shoulder was in agony, his bicep on fire, and the blood in his temples was flaring as it tried to supply some sort of oxygen to his brain.

  The man’s body pulled free and twisted about, a severe laceration to his chest from battling to free himself by any means necessary. He seemed unsure of which to go after, barely keeping his feet as his head turned to look at Carrie. Then the smell of blood got lifted with the breeze and the eyes focused on him once more. The rage was terrifying to behold.

  The creature’s brains splattered the windshield, skull fragments splintering the glass as the body crumpled and fell to the ground before him, the gunshot echoing around him and making him flinch. She’d pulled it off.

  Thank God.

  By the full force of his will, he got to his feet once more and looked at the roof of the cabin; the asshole was still there. “Give me the gun.”

  “What? Why?” she stammered, frozen with shock.

  He reached over tenderly with his left hand and softly pulled his gun from her tight grasp. “Go get your rifle and stay inside, keep the kids safe.”

  Eyes shifted in his direction and her bottom lip trembled. “Where are you going?”

  “To make sure we don’t follow this dead man’s journey to hell,” he muttered, feeling some of his strength return, the blood loss slowing as his whole being got wrapped up in what he was about to do.

  She paused and gave him a questioning look, then forced her face to calm. “I should be going with you, or instead of you. You are in no shape.”

  “No.”

  “Babe.”

  “No.”

  “Fine. I’ll go get the rifle, then I’m coming after you.”

  “Not while you have the kids to protect. Take care of them. How many drunken assholes did you see?”

  “Four.”

  “Then there may be three more coming our way. I need you to take care of our kids. Please.” His eyes flittered to the cabin roof, the man hadn’t budged, but he appeared to be fidgeting a bit; he wouldn’t remain there long, the action scene was over. “Go. I love you. I’ll be back as soon as this shit is done.”

  It was time to wrap it up and roll credits.

  Chapter 19

  I

  As he ran around the back of the other cabin he saw a long ladder leaning against it on the back porch. A figure in a blue hoodie, ballcap, and blue jeans was in the process of running down the stairs and into the woods, intent on disappearing back into the shadows to strike at a later time.

  Bringing up the gun, he brought himself to a stop, aimed and lightly squeezed the trigger. The shot hit the ladder, knocking it free of the roof; he was forced to dive to the ground to prevent from getting hit by it. He couldn’t shoot with his left hand, he knew that, but that didn’t mean he sure as shit wasn’t going to try.

  “Missed me old man! Don’t worry, I’ll see you soon,” a young voice called out to him, increasing his anger and driving him back to his feet. There was a path behind the cabin that led to the nearby lake and he saw a flash of blue at the end of the bend, swiftly disappearing around a tree and out of sight.

  He heard laughter.

  Dashing forward, he pushed his legs faster than he had since high school P.E.; he was not going to let this little shit get away. His arm hurt with every step, but instead of flinching away from it, he embraced it. As long as it hurt, he wasn’t dying. The second it started to go numb, he was screwed. It wasn’t like he could dial 911 and go to the hospital. If the belt came off, if the wound reopened and gushed blood, if he got an infection from the asshole’s mouth that bit him, he could die; horribly.

  Running around the bend, his legs started to feel a little relief and he had to back off the speed, as gravity and a downgrade started pulling him forward. The kid could have darted into the woods, making it nearly impossible to be found; he was not a tracker. Instead, the kid was overconfident in his ability to get away and was probably getting an adrenaline rush knowing that he was seen, had some distance, and could easily make an escape at any second he chose.

  He was feeling winded, his thighs were burning, and running with his arm against his chest was slowing him down, his bicep throbbing with the pain. He knew that he was pushing himself to the limits, but he wasn’t going to stop until either he passed out or the other guy was dead; he would not spend the rest of his life living in fear of this kid’s psychopathic cravings.

  Glimmers of light played across his vision through the trees, the lake was drawing closer. The kid could have a boat down there waiting, an escape preplanned. Well, that was okay, his father’s boathouse was just to the right of the path and it wouldn’t take much to get it running, if the fucker hadn’t thought ahead and disabled it, that was.

  It probably wasn’t gassed up though, that might take a few minutes, giving the kid a head start he’d never be able to recover from. He could just make the asshole out through the trees. He hadn’t broken for the forest yet, meaning he was either going to run along the shore or go for a boat. Either way, his strength was starting to give, his labored breathing causing him to be light-headed, and the pain was getting to the point where it was going to force him into unconsciousness or break him.

  He couldn’t afford either.

  The shoreline appeared through the trees but there was no hoodie in sight. Had he darted into the woods after all? Reaching the end of the path, he stood there for a moment and tried to catch his breath, bending over and coughing, then heaving a bit as his stomach gave way.

  Where had the shithead gone? Had he hidden behind a tree, watching as he ran past, then running in a totally different direction? There was no boat, nothing on the water, just the empty shoreline on either side and two boathouses, theirs and Randy’s.

  The sound of a motor cord being yanked emanated from his father’s boathouse; the kid was trying to steal his boat. He wasn’t ready to continue the chase, but then he had an image of Jake hanging in his closet, the belt cinched around his neck, eyes bulging as he struggled to get free, and his legs were moving before his mind was even aware of it.

  The light brown deck of the boathouse had fresh soiled footprints and the door was slightly ajar. Grabbing the handle, he yanked it open and burst through the doorway, his left hand raising his gun and pointing it at the empty boat rocking in the waves.

  What the fuck?

  WHAM!

  He pitched forward, lights splintering his vision, the gun dropping on the deck as he floundered and fell to the ground, nearly falling into the water.

  “Couldn’t just leave it alone, could you?” the boy asked, standing over him.

  He was seeing two of him, his vision refusing to refocus as his mind struggled to stay awake. “You killed people, you tried to kill me, my family.”

  “No, I just kill one, then let them do the rest.” Giggle. “It’s the so much more badass than any of the other video games I’ve played. Like, sick shit.”

  “This isn’t a game!” he hollered, forcing himself up onto his elbow. “Those are real people you’re murdering, not some virtual avatar!”

  His balls erupted in pain as the kid kicked him in the nuts, causing his body to clench and form a fetal
position. “Oh, you fucking bastard.”

  “I can nearly feel that myself,” the kid cackled in mock sympathy. “But you’ll get over it soon enough. I’m going to take this boat a ways down the shore, then make my way up to your cabin. When you get there, your wife should be munching on your kids. Or maybe I start with the little girl, let her feast on her brother and that other midget you temporarily saved. All fruitless man. You’ll all be dead in the end.”

  “I mean, I could kill you now,” the boy paused, a foot nudging his inner thigh and making him involuntarily flinch, “but where would the fun be in that?”

  The ripcord was being yanked again, the engine beginning to sputter.

  Where was the gun?

  He couldn’t let this happen, could not let this piece of shit kill his family.

  Get up!

  He opened his eyes, his gut on fire, his balls drawn up into his stomach as he turned on his side and pushed himself into an upright position.

  The engine caught.

  He was up on his knee, the blades of the engine just a foot or two away, nothing but a mooring line keeping the boat in place.

  He had seconds.

  Eyes focusing, force of will empowering him, he drove himself to his feet, rounded the side of the boat and dove in, slamming his shoulder into the kid as he struggled to undo the rope fastened to the deck.

  He felt gratification as the whelp hollered in pain, his arm being driven downward at a bad angle, the bone snapping and piercing skin, spraying his face in a fine mist. He yanked the hoodie back and grabbed the kid by the hair, clenching it tightly as he pulled the kid’s head back and slammed it into the bow of the ship, another bone snapping; probably his nose.

  Laughing, he yanked on the hoodie and tossed the kid towards the stern, that way he could see the kid’s pain as he finished the job. “Not so fun now, is it? Still think this is a game?”

  “Ebeywon as do die domedime,” the kid snarked, his left arm broken, bone showing through the torn flesh, his nose leaking profusely in the process.