Dead, But Not For Long (Book 2): Pestilence and Promise

by Kinney, Matthew

  When the door to the roof opened, Lindsey remained still, not ready to face anybody just yet.

  “Lindsey?” Wombat asked, walking over to join her. “What are you doing up here? It’s raining.”

  “It was getting a little warm in the ER,” she said, trying to keep her tone level. “I just needed some air.”

  “I didn’t see you come back.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “Well, I’m glad you didn’t leave,” he said, looking over the parapet at the parking lot below. “So, did you see my new toy?”

  “Your toy? Really, Wombat?” Lindsey asked, surprised that he would refer to the blonde that way. “Yes, I couldn’t help but notice.”

  He seemed confused by her response. “She’s a beauty isn’t she? Her name is Roberta.”

  “Roberta,” Lindsey replied, voice strained as she tried to keep her emotions in check. “Yes, she’s beautiful. I can’t argue that. I wish you both the best.”

  Again, he looked confused by her reply. “I’m sure you’ll like her, too, once you get to know her.”

  Lindsey laughed, but there was no humor in it. The last thing she wanted to do was to be around to see the two of them together.

  “I don’t plan on getting to know her,” she said. “I’ll be giving you some space.”

  Wombat looked surprised, and she felt like asking him if he’d seriously thought they could all spend time together while he was in a relationship with Roberta. Lindsey had never liked the woman, and she certainly didn’t want to be around her now.

  “What’s going on? Did Reynolds try to talk you into going with him?” he asked.

  “Well, yes. In fact, he wants me to marry him and have his children. He gave me a week to think about it,” she said, her thoughts turning even darker as they returned to the conversation she’d had with Reynolds.

  “I see,” Wombat said stepping back. “Well . . . good luck to you, then,” he said, turning to walk away without another word.

  ~*^*~

  ~40~

  Barstow, California

  Without natural light to wake him, Dan slept late. Only the smell of bacon roused him from his slumber. As he entered the kitchen, he could hear George saying something about rattlesnakes.

  “Dang, if you had slept any longer we were going to have to shoot you,” Ryan said, sipping a cup of coffee. He seemed happy to see Dan, which probably meant that George had been bending his ear all morning.

  “That’s the first good night’s sleep I’ve had in quite some time,” Hixson said, rubbing his eyes.

  Emily handed him a cup of coffee, and he thanked her.

  “Ryan and I were talking last night,” she said, “and you’re welcome to stay with us if you want to.”

  “I appreciate it,” Dan said, “but since there’s a strong chance that they know we’ve reached town, it’s probably not a good idea to stay here long. I don’t want to endanger you, either.”

  “Dan’s right,” George said, reluctantly. “If we wouldn’t have had the run-in with the guys in the helicopter, it would be another story.”

  “It seems that they’d be putting more effort into a search if they knew it was you,” Emily pointed out. “They had a few men looking around and that was it.”

  “The fact that they shot at us tells me that they assumed it was us,” Dan said, “but there’s no way they could be sure. We were both wearing baseball caps, and I doubt that they saw our faces. I’m just sure they’ll pursue the lead, as persistent as they’ve been so far.”

  “I’ll keep watching for them on the monitors,” Emily promised.

  “Thanks,” Dan said. “When we go, we’ll leave them a trail away from here then we’ll disappear.”

  “Any idea where you’ll go?” Ryan asked.

  “We have no concrete plans yet,” Dan said. “At the moment, our goal is to put some distance between us and them, then to find a place to lay low for a while, though we’re thinking about heading toward Vegas to start.”

  “From the little bits and pieces I’m gathering on the radio, Vegas was hit yesterday, and it’s pretty bad. You probably don’t want to go through there.”

  “I figured we’d have to loop around the city. From there we might go on up into Utah and then head east. Any idea if our friends are still in town?”

  “Emily’s been checking, off and on,” Ryan said. “They disappeared about dusk and haven’t returned. You guys want to hide out here for a couple days to make sure they’ve given up?”

  “I don’t think we dare. I’m hoping we can take off at dark and try to find another vehicle,” Hixson said. “We had to abandon our truck coming into Barstow.”

  “It looked like a twister hit a couple of miles outside of town,” Rayburn added, stabbing another piece of bacon with his fork.

  “You can count on seeing the same thing when you leave,” Ryan said. “When things started to get out of control, a bunch of us got together and blocked every route into the city. We hoped we could slow the spread if we kept out the riffraff.”

  “Obviously that didn’t work,” Dan laughed. “We still got through.”

  “All I can suggest is to hoof it past the roadblock then find another truck,” Ryan said, “and keep your lights off. It should be a pretty clear night, so if you take it slow and easy you’ll be fine.”

  “I was thinking that maybe we should try to pick up a couple of bicycles, just to get us out of town,” Hixson said.

  “That would speed things up,” George agreed.

  “My neighbor has a couple of bikes that he won’t be using anymore,” Ryan said. “He left town last week and said he’s not planning to come back.”

  “Perfect,” Dan said. “We can pick them up when we’re ready to go.”

  “Well, I guess that gives us the day off if we’re leaving tonight,” Rayburn said.

  “Make yourselves at home,” Emily said. “We’re enjoying the company. When you leave, Ryan and I will probably be at each other’s throats again.”

  They spent the rest of the day relaxing. Rayburn and Emily passed their time watching old movies, although George seemed to do more talking than the characters on the screen did.

  Dan, intrigued by what Ryan had accomplished, soaked in all the details the ex-marine could give him about the construction of the shelter. He even took some notes, thinking they might come in handy once he found a place to stay more permanently.

  When evening came, Hixson was anxious to get moving. Rayburn, on the other hand, was in no hurry.

  “We were just about to watch Arsenic and Old Lace,” he protested. “Can’t we leave in the early morning?”

  “I’ll buy it for you when we get settled down somewhere,” Dan said, tension in his voice. “We need to get moving. Ryan said that a couple of military vehicles were just spotted at the edge of town.”

  “Which direction?” Rayburn asked, worried.

  “The way we came in, and they have bloodhounds,” Hixson said. “We need to get going the other way as soon as possible.”

  “So they do know we’re here,” George said, stuffing his freshly-cleaned laundry into his backpack.

  “If they’re here with dogs, they’re following up on their lead,” Dan said, “but I think if they were positive that we were here, there would be a dozen choppers overhead and troops on the ground all over the city.”

  “That’s exactly what I think,” Ryan said. “They’re fishing.”

  “I’m worried that they might track us here and find your shelter,” Dan said. “The dogs can track dead skin cells that we leave behind, but maybe we can confuse them and make it look like we stayed at the neighbor’s house. I don’t want to take too much time, but we could open a couple of cans or something.”

  “Good idea,” Ryan said.

  Once George had his pack ready, he and Dan said goodbye to Emily and Ryan, thanking their hosts for everything they’d done. Emily checked the monitors and let them know that it was clear, telling them e
xactly where the bloodhounds were. Dan worried that the dogs might go straight for the hidden hatch to the shelter, so the two men spent a few minutes walking around the trailer in hopes that they would throw the dogs off.

  Heading out into the dusk on foot, they hurried across the street to a neighboring house where Hixson forced the door open with his crowbar.

  “Rub your face or something,” he told George. “Leave some dead skin cells for the dogs.”

  Rayburn complied, rubbing his face and arms and shaking out his clothing before following Dan into the house.

  George opened a couple of cans and quickly polished off some ravioli. Dan found the bicycles then came inside and shoveled down some stew. They left the empty cans on the counter, along with their forks. After spending a couple of valuable minutes walking around the house, they finally left, pushing the two bikes as Hixson studied the street. Once he was certain that they were alone, they began to ride toward the edge of the city.

  “Can the dogs still track us on the bikes?” George asked.

  “Yes,” Dan said. The moon was up and it illuminated the road slightly, but not enough to make Dan happy. There were far too many shadows for his liking. “We need to be quiet.”

  Moments later, the sound of a helicopter could be heard, and Dan quickly motioned for Rayburn to follow him as he parked his bike under a carport. The chopper passed by, illuminating the streets below with a bright searchlight. Dan and George dove beneath a truck and hoped that their body heat couldn’t be detected through all the metal. As soon as the chopper moved on, the men crawled out from beneath the vehicle.

  Dan’s eyes darted around constantly as they moved down the moonlit street. George wasn’t talking, for a change, and Dan found that a blessing as he tried to listen for any unusual noises. They passed by walking corpses more than once but the dead didn’t seem to notice them until the two men were already gone. The road they were on was a residential street that paralleled I-15. When it came to an end, they had to move onto the freeway. Dan grew tense as they approached the roadblock, and he stopped suddenly, motioning for George to do the same. Up ahead, several lights could be seen moving through the dark. If the roadblock was being watched, they’d almost have to go around it through the desert. The bikes wouldn’t move through the sand easily, so they’d have to be pushed, and the men would be vulnerable to being spotted if a helicopter shone its searchlight their way. Then there was the problem with George’s aversion to snakes. Dan couldn’t imagine him walking through the desert without a light.

  “This isn’t going to work, George,” Dan whispered.

  “What are we going to do?”

  Dan thought about it for a moment, trying to recall the map they’d studied with Ryan.

  “There was a frontage road running along I-40, wasn’t there?”

  “Right,” Rayburn said. “We’d have to cross over I-15 to get to it.”

  “We’ll have to do that fast,” Dan said. “I don’t like the idea of being on an overpass when the chopper goes over.”

  “Me, either,” Rayburn said, pondering the problem. “I think the road ahead of us leads that way, but it dead-ends on the map. We should backtrack and take the other one.”

  “I’ll trust you on this,” Dan said. “You have a better memory than I do.”

  They turned their bikes around and took the street that Rayburn had mentioned. Dan dodged a dark shape ahead of him, but George wasn’t paying attention and almost slammed into the zombie. He let out a cry of surprise, but managed to swerve around the creature at the last moment.

  “Are you okay?” Dan asked in a whisper, after putting his knife through the ghoul’s head.

  “I’m fine,” George said.

  When they reached the overpass, Dan paused to check it out, but saw nothing to cause him alarm. The helicopter was currently on the other side of town, and he hoped it would stay there for a few minutes, at least.

  “Let’s go,” he whispered, starting out on his bike. He quickly realized that they were going to have problems because the overpass was cluttered with cars. He got off his bike and began to push it between the vehicles. When an arm reached out to grab him from an open window, he jerked to the side, and turned to warn George. Heart pounding, Dan continued moving through the cars, careful of open windows. When he saw the chopper start to move their way, he swore quietly.

  “George, we have to move faster, but be careful,” he said, his eyes on the light in the distance. He shook his head. “We’re not going to make it to the other side in time. Let’s find a car.”

  “No,” George said. “If we open the door, the light will come on. They’ll see it.”

  “Damn, you’re right,” Dan said. “We need to find something we can hide beneath.”

  As the lights got closer, the men frantically searched for a suitable hiding place. Dan finally found a truck that had enough clearance under it for them. As they waited for the chopper to pass by, Dan turned his head to see someone standing on the other side of the truck. In the moonlight, he could barely make out the two legs, but as the light of the chopper finally hit the overpass, it illuminated tattered pant legs that could only belong to one of the dead. Hixson hoped that the ghoul couldn’t smell them.

  The light seemed to stay in place for a long time, and Dan guessed that the pilot was trying to get a better look at the figure by the truck to make sure it wasn’t a live person. Then again, maybe it was the two bicycles that had caught his attention. After an unbearably long time, the helicopter moved on and took the light with it. Dan let out a long breath and finally crawled from beneath the truck, pointing at the zombie on the other side. George’s eyes grew wide, but he remained silent as the two men continued their trek across the overpass.

  Once they were on the road that ran parallel to the freeway, the traffic was lighter. They had a couple of close encounters with the dead, but were able to get by. When Dan noticed a jumble of cars and debris on I-40, he tapped Rayburn on the shoulder and whispered a warning to him. There was a quick flash of light, followed by a red glow. Cigarette, Dan thought, moving as quietly as possible on the frontage road.

  The men managed to get by undetected and eventually were able to move onto I-40 once they were well past the roadblock. The stalled traffic wasn’t as bad as what they’d seen on I-15, and they were able to make good time. They rode the bikes almost ten miles before Dan found a four-wheel drive truck. It was an old, beat-up vehicle that looked like it might not make it very far, but it had keys and wasn’t occupied. They took it, hoping for the best. It took hours to travel the first hundred miles, though they were able to increase their speed by cutting through the Mojave National Preserve. There were only a few cars stopped along the way, and Dan was able to make good time once he dared to put the lights on.

  ~*~

  St. Mary’s Hospital, Lansing

  Snake was talking to Wolf in the lobby when Wombat burst out of the stairwell, moving at a fast clip.

  “Dude, what’s wrong?” Snake asked.

  “Everything,” Wombat said, clenching his jaw. “I need to go hit something.”

  “Keith’s got some punching bags set up in the exercise room,” Snake said, concern on his face.

  Wombat headed down the hallway, leaving the two older bikers watching him until he disappeared inside the room at the end.

  “I wonder what that was all about?” Wolf asked.

  “He was going to look for Xena, so I hope she didn’t change her mind and decide to go with Reynolds.”

  “You think she’d do that?” Wolf asked.

  “I’m going to go find out,” Snake said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  When Snake reached the fourth floor, he found Lindsey talking to Jack.

  “Hey, Snake, you need to hear this,” Jack said.

  A young couple rounded the corner and stopped outside one of the doors, laughing as they chatted together.

  “Maybe we should go somewhere more private,” Lindsey said.
r />   The trio went down to one of the small living rooms on the first floor where Jack closed the door and they all took seats on the sofas.

  “Tell Snake what you told me,” Jack said.

  Lindsey repeated her story, telling Snake about the conversation with Reynolds. She told him about the deadline he’d given her and the barely veiled threats. When she was done, Snake sat back, running a hand over his beard.

  “I don’t like it,” he said. “I mean, the guy sounds like he’s losing it, but if he’s telling the truth about these friends of his, there could be trouble brewing.”

  “I’m sorry. I feel terrible about this,” Lindsey said.

  “It’s not your fault,” Jack told her.

  “I wonder if he’s bluffing or if he’s really got the clout to have someone attack the hospital,” Snake said. “I think we need to be ready for it, just in case.”

  “If he’s not bluffing and something does happen, we may need to get out of here,” Jack said.

  “I hate the idea of letting anybody chase us off,” Snake said, “but I’m concerned about the kids. I wonder what sort of weapons this group has at their disposal.”

  “I was wondering the same thing,” Jack said. “If the military is gone, what happened to all their equipment?”

  They were all silent for a few moments as they pondered Jack’s question.

  “Should we have a meeting?” Snake asked. “I’m thinking that this is something that everybody might need to know about.”

  “We should let them know that we’re going to be tightening security,” Jack said, “and maybe mention that there has been a threat, but I don’t want to get everybody in a panic, either.”

  “I think Lindsey should have a couple guards with her when she meets up with Reynolds next week,” Snake said.

  “I’m not sure she should meet with him at all,” Jack replied.