Dead America: The Second Week Box Set [Books 1-6]

by Slaton, Derek

  “I promise you, I value their lives a whole hell of a lot more than I value yours,” Bretz warned, voice like steel. “I assure you that this is not a road you want to go down.”

  Johnson narrowed his eyes at the sight of one of the shutters on the second floor moving ever-so-slightly, and the glint off of the tip of a barrel in the sunlight. “Contact!” he yelled, and leapt to his feet, opening fire immediately on the threat.

  The shutters imploded, and the gun barrel disappeared inside.

  Linda took the opportunity to point her handgun at Shawn and fire a few shots. She missed by a mile, but the offensive move sent him barreling back into the building to take cover.

  Kersey and Kowalski skidded around the two cars, having sprinted as soon as Johnson fired. Kowalski felt a hard impact on his back and flew to the asphalt, bringing his arms up just in time to break his fall.

  The Sergeant cried out and grabbed him by the back of his vest, dragging him behind cover. “Holy fuck, are you okay?” he demanded.

  “I am gonna kill the motherfucker who shot me!” Kowalski snapped, clenching a fist.

  Kersey shook his arm. “Are you okay?” he asked firmly.

  “Yeah, it just caught my vest,” the Private assured him, shaking him off. “Motherfucker!”

  More guards came out of the woodwork in the school, opening fire on the soldiers ducked behind the cars in the parking lot. Shutters opened, and snipers popped up on the roof, a few more guards bustling out the front doors and taking cover behind their own cars.

  “Great plan, General,” Kersey drawled, raising an eyebrow at his Corporal.

  Bretz shrugged. “Hey, you’re out, aren’t you?” he asked, holding out his handgun.

  “We’ve gotta fall back,” Kowalski said as he took another handgun from Johnson.

  “Hell no!” Linda cried, slapping her hand on the side of the car in frustration. “We’re not leaving my people in there.”

  “Lady, we’re pinned down,” Kowalski argued. “So unless you have a way to flank those ground shooters and keep them occupied long enough to take out the top shelf assholes, we need to fall back.”

  She pursed her lips in response.

  “That’s what I thought,” the Private snapped.

  Linda glanced down at Baker’s utility belt, and snatched one of the grenades free. She held it up in front of Kowalski’s face and pulled the pin out, giving him a wink before lobbing it over the car and straight towards the zombie pen.

  The grenade smacked into the brick wall of the school, skittering across the pavement to rest a few feet from the chainlink.

  The guards barely had time to react before the explosion racked the battlefield, shrapnel flying in all directions. As the smoke cleared, everyone peeked up from their respective cover to see the zombie pen in tatters. Quite a few of the corpses that soaked up the blast painted the pavement and walls with rotted goo, but the remaining ones from the back flooded out into the parking lot.

  The guards ducked behind cars screamed and turned away from the soldiers, firing on the horde closing in on them. Many of them not being highly trained gunmen, they were unable to hit the zombies in the head, and couldn’t fell enough of them to protect themselves.

  “Help us, help!” one of them screeched up at the windows, but the angle was too hard for the second-floor shooters to hit anything substantial.

  Two of the guards managed to make it to the front doors, but when they yanked on them, they realized they were locked. Shawn had barred the door from the inside. They turned around just in time to meet the gnawing teeth of the rotted angels of death descending on them.

  “Fuck this!” another guard threw his weapon and raised his hands, jumping out from behind his car. His partner followed suit, looking hopefully at the soldiers in hopes that they could surrender instead of facing such a grisly fate.

  The soldiers held their fire, but one of the second floor shooters obviously adjusted his aim down at the two defecting guards. Bretz and Baker spotted it and shot them, shredding the shutters on that window and destroying the position. The rest of the soldiers stood up to join, but all of the shooters on the roof had retreated back inside as well.

  Johnson and Kowalski dove out and grabbed the surrendering guards, shoving them back behind cover and pinning them facedown on the pavement.

  “It’s real simple boys,” Kowalski grunted as he secured his prisoner’s hands behind his back with zip ties. “You stand up, we’re going to put you down. And if you think it’s a good idea to go back on your surrender, just know that we’re all about bullet conservation. So we’ll feed you to those things rather than waste the ammo. We clear?”

  The two bound guards nodded furiously, holding position and keeping their mouths shut with wide eyes.

  Johnson and Baker kept their guns focused on the second floor, Bretz focused on the roof. Linda and Kersey kept their eyes on the small horde, still clustered around the door and feasting on their now-quiet meal.

  “Looks like everybody retreated,” Bretz mused.

  The Sergeant turned to him. “So, what’s your plan, General?” he asked, unable to keep the playfulness out of his voice.

  “You know, keep calling me that and I’m going to assume it was a real promotion,” the Corporal teased.

  Kersey chuckled. “We can’t have that now, can we?”

  “So, what’s the layout like in there?” Bretz asked, tone back to business.

  “Long hallway when you get in, classrooms on either side,” Kersey replied. “Gym is on the left and the stairs are straight ahead.”

  The Corporal sighed. “So basically a shooting gallery and we’re the ducks.”

  “Pretty much,” the Sergeant agreed.

  Bretz pursed his lips. “Any idea on numbers?”

  “At least five, based on who was shooting as us here,” Kersey said.

  Kowalski shuffled up next to him. “We saw at least a dozen or so armed men in the gym too, who knows how many more hostiles are in there.”

  “They aren’t all hostile,” Linda cut in.

  Kowalski gave her the side-eye. “They looked pretty fucking hostile to me.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, some of them are.” She put her hands up, palms out. “But a lot of them are just afraid of Shawn. You cross him and you get selected to play the rope game.”

  Bretz furrowed his brow. “The rope game?”

  “Gym glass from hell,” Kowalski explained.

  “Fun,” the Corporal said flatly.

  Kersey sighed. “So, any ideas on how to get them not to shoot us?”

  “The principal’s office is five doors up on the right,” Linda suggested. “If you get me to it, I could make an announcement that Shawn’s reign is at an end.”

  “How you gonna do that?” Johnson drawled. “There’s no power.”

  “It’s an old school system on a battery backup,” she explained. “Also doubles as the town’s tornado warning system, which is why they made it work without power.”

  There were some fresh excited groans as a few of the zombies finished their meal and turned towards the source of conversation in the parking lot.

  “Baker, see what you can do about them, will you?” Kersey asked.

  The Private stopped his second floor sweep, and drew a long knife from his belt. He kicked the first zombie in the chest, sending it tumbling back, and then slammed his blade into the second one’s face. Before the first one could get back up, he descended on it and plunged the knife into the back of its skull.

  The noise unfortunately attracted a half dozen more of their friends, and Baker backed up. “Shots coming,” he warned.

  “Just make them count,” Kersey instructed.

  Baker sheathed his knife and drew his handgun, carefully lining up each shot, timing his breaths and steps backwards as he dropped each corpse. Falling into the zen state was almost peaceful, and dropping zombies that wanted to eat him was always a source of satisfaction in this cruel world.
r />   “Well, I think we have us a plan,” the Sergeant declared as his Private came back around the car.

  “Half of one, at any rate,” Bretz corrected. “Not really looking forward to a run down a long hallway Those assholes aren’t the best shot in the west, but I’m betting they could hit us in that scenario.”

  Kowalski glanced over at the remaining zombies approaching, and tapped Baker on the shoulder as he began to take them out as well. “Hey, make sure you leave one of them alive. I have an idea.”

  “Do I wanna know?” Baker asked.

  Kowalski grinned. “Probably not.”

  “Well he might not want to know, but I sure as hell do,” Kersey piped up.

  “This thing is dinged up and probably isn’t gonna stop another shot in the back,” Kowalski said as he unclipped his bulletproof vest. “I figure if we put it on one of those dead fuckers we can use them to lead the charge, get some good use out of it.”

  Bretz shrugged. “Guess it won’t really matter if a bullet cracks through it,” he agreed. “And frankly if one of those boys manages to land a shot that goes through two kevlar panels and a torso, we deserve to catch a bullet.”

  “Kowalski, go help Baker,” Kersey instructed.

  The Private nodded and moved over to his reloading friend.

  “Which one do you want?” Baker asked, motioning past the large pile of corpses.

  Kowalski cocked his head and tapped his chin, then pointed towards a six-foot-tall zombie missing a significant portion of his face and neck. “Let’s get that big boy over there,” he said.

  “All right,” Baker agreed, and took out the last two on either side before holstering his gun. “Any thoughts on how to do this?”

  Kowalski nodded. “Get behind him and secure his arms.” He waited for his companion to flank the creature before clapping his hands a few times. “Hey big fella, come at me!” He stamped a foot and the zombie screamed, lunging at him.

  Baker took the distraction and leapt forward, grabbing its arms and pulling them back hard. He was able to hold its wrists with a firm foot planted in its back, keeping its snapping jaws safely in the other direction.

  Kowalski reached for his knife, and then remembered it wasn’t there anymore. “Shit,” he muttered.

  Baker paled. “Shit? What do you mean, shit?”

  “Hey lady,” Kowalski barked, turning to Linda, who was closest to him. “I need your knife.”

  She headed over and drew it, handing it to him, hilt first. “Here you go, soldier boy.”

  The Private took it and braced a hand on the zombie’s chest before gently shoving the knife up into the bottom of the corpse’s chin. He was careful to angle it so that it wouldn’t pierce the brain. The zombie tried to snarl but the knife held its mouth closed.

  “Thanks.” Kowalski grinned at Linda.

  She shrugged. “Anytime.”

  “Hey Sarge, we got one,” the Private declared. “Help me get the vest on him and we’ll be good to go.”

  Kersey picked up the vest and headed over, Bretz on his heels. They managed to shimmy it over the confused and enraged creature, and then the Sergeant turned to Johnson.

  “Go get that door unlocked, but leave it shut,” he instructed, patting their new pet zombie on the shoulder. “We’re gonna do this thing.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Bretz held fast to the back of the zombie’s vest, the corpse struggling and unable to understand it didn’t have the ability to bite. Johnson finished unlocking the door before moving behind the Corporal, holding tightly to the back of his vest, to keep him steady for their charge. The other four stood behind them, checking their weapons as they got ready to breach the door.

  “Bretz, Johnson, Kowalski, you three push forward and get to the stairwell to secure it,” Kersey instructed. “If anybody’s hostile, don’t be afraid to shoot them.”

  “That definitely wasn’t going to be an issue, Sarge,” Kowalski quipped.

  Kersey nodded. “Baker, Linda and I are going to hit the principal’s office. Hopefully when that announcement goes out, we’ll have people laying down their arms.”

  “What are we going to do with them if they do?” Bretz asked over the frustrated grunting of his undead prisoner. “There’s only a handful of us.”

  “There’s a cage in the gym with people who need to be freed,” Linda explained. “They’ll be able to help out.”

  Bretz shrugged. “Good enough for me.”

  “Okay, let’s do it,” Kersey said, and nodded to Kowalski.

  The Private reached around the zombie and wrapped his fingers around the handle of the door. He gave a silent countdown from three with his fingers, and then yanked it open.

  The bulletproof zombie caught a shot in the chest as soon as it breached the door, followed quickly by several more cracks as Bretz maneuvered his meat-shield forward. There were only four men firing, two in the stairwell and one on each side of the hall, poking out of classrooms.

  The soldiers moved at a swift pace, easily shoving the giant zombie with their combined weight. Kowalski and Baker leaned out from opposite sides of their single-file charge, firing downrange towards the guards. Their shots missed, but it forced their attackers to get back into their cover.

  When they reached the principal’s office, Baker dove for the door, taking cover there to lay down fire at the shooters. Kersey and Linda slipped by him into the office, the Sergeant sweeping the area quickly to make sure there were no straggling hostiles there.

  “It’s clear,” he said, “get to the intercom.”

  Linda didn’t need to be told twice, and rushed over to start it up.

  Bretz pushed on, nearing the stairwell. The zombie was no longer walking, as most of its body had been completely shredded, chunks and limbs falling off in droves by the time they got closer to their attackers.

  The Corporal yanked the knife from the zombie’s chin before shoving it face-first into the stairwell door. Regardless of the fact that it had no working limbs, it was still starving and latched on to one guard’s shoulder with gnawing teeth.

  He screamed in pain and fell backwards against the other shooter, who leapt out of the way and lunged towards Bretz, gun raising. The Corporal batted the barrel to the side and buried the knife into the guard’s bicep, causing him to drop his weapon and scream. Bretz drew it and then plunged it into the guard’s throat, kicking the gurgling man back onto his companion and the pile of rotting flesh still feasting away.

  Kowalski and Johnson hopped over the tangle of bodies into the stairwell, the former keeping post at the door frame to keep an eye on the hallway. Johnson fired three times, putting a bullet into each of the twitching bodies’ heads.

  “You two, secure the hall,” Bretz said, moving past Johnson to the stairs. “I’ll make sure nobody comes at us from above.”

  A loud beep echoed all around them as the Corporal headed up the stairs. There was a click and then the sound of Linda clearing her throat.

  “All right, everybody, listen up, it’s Linda,” she began. “You all know what’s going on here is wrong. My new friends and I are here to put a stop to it, and end Shawn’s reign of terror. If you lay down your guns and step out of the gym and classrooms with your hands up, you get to live. You’ll also have the opportunity to build this city back up. I’ve made a deal with the military and they’re going to be bringing in food and other vital supplies so we can thrive. All you have to do, is put down your weapons and come out. If you’re going to do it, do it now.”

  She released the intercom button and let out a deep breath.

  Kersey raised an eyebrow at her, half-smiling. “We made a deal with you?” he asked.

  “Not yet.” She cocked her head. “But it sounded more believable than saying I got you to promise them hookers and blow. Whatever gets them to surrender, right?”

  The Sergeant nodded. “Spot on, girl.” He headed over to Baker, still guarding the door. “How we looking?” he asked.

  �
��Clear on this end,” the Private reported. “Should be save to move up to the stairwell.”

  The trio moved quickly down the hall, Linda in the middle, and as they reached the stairs Kowalski and Johnson stepped out, aiming towards the gym. The doors to the gymnasium opened and a dozen men stepped out, unarmed with their hands raised. Their eyes were wide and fearful, with a hint of relief when they saw Linda surrounded by soldiers. Bretz emerged from the stairwell, having cleared the landing above.

  “I don’t see Shawn,” Kersey muttered.

  She shook her head. “Me either, but I didn’t expect to.”

  “Anybody else missing?” the Sergeant asked.

  She studied the group, lips pursed. “Two, maybe three more, not including Shawn.”

  “Bretz, help Johnson and Kowalski corral these assholes,” Kersey instructed. “Baker, you’re with me. Linda, can you come with us? You know this place better than I do.”

  She nodded. “Let’s go.”

  The three of them turned and headed up the stairs, pausing at the top landing. Kersey did a silent countdown before pushing on the door, and a hail of bullets immediately ripped through the wood. The trio flattened themselves against the concrete wall, staying stock still in hopes of playing possum.

  After several seconds of quiet, tentative footsteps sounded in the hallway, moving closer to them. Kersey ducked down, laying on his side so that he could aim out the door. He gave Baker a thumbs up and the Private gave the latch a shove.

  Gunfire ripped again, but it was at chest height, and Kersey fired from the floor, hitting his target in the face. As the body fell, the Sergeant caught a glimpse of Shawn and one of his lackeys diving back into a room. He remained on the floor, the door resting on his knee as he continued to aim at the room.

  “Baker, move up,” he whispered.

  His companion stepped over him, keeping his gun trained on the offending door down the hall. Once he was clear, Kersey got to his feet, and began to move up the hallway, Linda quietly following.

  “Give it up Shawn, it’s over,” the Sergeant called. “Your men downstairs have surrendered. You and your little friend there are all that’s left. So why don’t you be a good boy and come out with your hands up? Linda here might even let you live.”