by TW Brown
Dead: Reborn
(Book 7 of the DEAD series)
TW Brown
Dead: Reborn
©2013 May December Publications
The Split-tree logo is a registered trademark of May December Publications, LLC.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living, dead, or otherwise, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author or May December Publications.
Printed in the United States of America.
A moment with the author…
I admit it…I wait like a kid on Christmas morning for that first review to show up on Amazon. Believe it or not, I read every single one. I often try to pass on a word of thanks. You see, that is how I know if my stories are hitting the mark. This deep into the series, you are invested in these stories, and while I know there will always be highs and lows, favorite parts, and bits that fall flat for you…I also know that it is because of YOU that I am able to do what I love. So I encourage you to go in and post that comment that comes to mind when you read this newest DEAD book.
It is hard to believe, but when I first thought out the story for DEAD, I wondered if I could write four books in the series…but then it grew and that world became more real for me (and hopefully you) as I learned more about these people.
I love the zombie genre, but I think it has much smarter readers than those on the outside of our little circle may believe. Sure, we love the cheap thrill and the blood; but we also want to care about the characters. Think of some of the epic series out there…what sets them apart? The characters. They have to be people that you can connect with on some level…and they have to change with their environment. They can’t live in a vacuum. An event like this would have dramatic effects on all who manage to survive.
With the first year about to come to an end, the zombies are still a problem, but now there is the whole pesky matter of survival. I often feel odd when several days’ worth of writing pass without a single zombie scene, however, I am finally over the compulsion to throw in an obligatory zombie…you are smarter than that, so why would I waste your time. If you are still with me after the first six books, you are here because you want to see what Kevin or Juan is up to…or how Billy is faring as his group seems to have lost its direction.
So, I guess now I can talk about the death of Steve without spoiling anything. First, I did not intend for him to die so soon. I always knew that he would eventually fall. The problem I ran into was that I let him get so beat up…and the reality is that, unless he was a superhero, he had taken too much damage to make it any farther. Some criticism came that it was without enough fanfare. I had to put that story in somebody else’s hands…and I chose Billy. Had I chosen Melissa, all you would have read was weeping and misery. But there would not be much story beyond that. So a teenage boy is your new first-person narrator. He felt Steve’s loss, but in a different way. He’d just lost his best friend when Jamie died…and…he is a teenage boy. His has his own problems. I hope that I can give him a voice of his own and that you will come to love him like you did Steve. But I did warn you a long time ago…there is only one character that I have deemed as “safe” for the duration. I won’t even tell my wife who that is in case you are wondering.
I hope to hear from more of you this time when it comes to the “bonus material” that I will include in the special editions of this series once these next three books are finished. I hear from a core group, and I love that…but don’t be a stranger. If you read something and wonder, “But what happened between point ‘A’ and point ‘C’ in a particular spot. I mean, haven’t you ever seen a movie or read a book and wondered how they got from one place to another? Or something is mentioned in the dialog and you just know there is a story there. Well, now is your chance. I take your input when deciding what scenes to include as I add another ten thousand words or so to the compilation when I separate the three stories into their own books for those who get frustrated with that chapter rotation format that I use. I just figure there should be more in those editions than just the same story that you read in the original.
So, as you settle in to this newest leg of the journey, I hope that you enjoy it. This is the first leg of the next three book arc. Yes, there will be cliff hangers to pull you into book eight (coming in January 2014!), but I will always try to give you closure on the major plot lines by that third book.
I have plenty to be thankful for, and I always try to name a few names. This time I want to give thanks to Mark Tufo and John O’Brien. You both have expressed your belief and support in me as your editor and looked past all those dark clouds. I want to thank Catie Rhodes and Gregory Carrico for carrying on about my stuff on your blogs and making me feel like a star. I want to thank Rhonda Hopkins for her unwavering support. I want to thank Wanda Beers for being so amazing…and yes, Denise and I will be taking you up on that offer in the not-too-distant future. I want to thank Donna Chaney for being my zombie killing buddy, and the only woman that my wife would let me run around with on an island paradise; you handle the roads and I will pilot the waterways. And as always, you for sticking it out and indulging my musings.
TW Brown
August 2013
To Selina Maeder
…thank you for sharing,
and even more for believing.
Contents
Something Wicked…
Vignettes XXXVII
Geek Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts
Nasty Surprises
Vignettes XXXVIII
Geek in the Grave
Purging and Packing Baggage
Vignettes XXXIX
Geeks on the Warpath
Pain and Suffering
Vignettes XL
Rock, Geek, Hard Place
La Grande
Vignettes XLI
You Don’t Mess With The Geek
Life and Death
Vignettes XLII
Geeks on Two Wheels
1
Something Wicked…
The best thing about today is the fact that the damn rain finally seems to have stopped. Beyond that, everything is in the crapper. Thalia beat the snot out of Misty…again. Melissa is ready to pop she is so pregnant—I stay as far away from her as possible for lots of reasons. Jake and Jon left three days ago without a word to ANYBODY! And Dr. Zahn is busy patching up the three new people that arrived last night.
I get to pull double duty on the watch rotation because of the flu that has pretty much everybody else spewing liquid out of one end or the other. The only other person not down with whatever this nasty bug is would be Shelly.
“Didn’t I relieve you?” Shelly asked.
“Yep,” I answered, hoping that I didn’t sound like I was whining. “So, anything worth noting?”
This was the ritual. I had seen a few zombie movies back in the day; I don’t remember any long boring stretches of time where absolutely nothing happened. Reality is seldom as exciting as the movies.
“Actually, yes.” Shelly’s answer was such a departure from the norm that it took my brain a few seconds to register it. “I can’t be positive, but I am pretty sure that I have seen a single zombie walking our perimeter. It hasn’t tried to come in past the trees.”
Taking my binoculars, I scan the tree line slowly. A few times I pause, thinking that I saw something, but each time, it turned out to be nothing but a bush or s
hadow.
By the time I finished my scan, Shelly had already slipped through the trap door and was gone. Settling in on the uncomfortable bench seat, I started my watch. Looking out, I can actually see patches of ground starting to show. Honestly, I didn’t think that the snow would ever melt. This is the main focus of our watch lately—the grounds surrounding the area. It has been a while, but those initial days when it started to warm up, we began finding the creepers. Who knows how many we discovered the first few days when the rains were coming down hard and washing away a majority of the snow that had to be at least eight feet deep—and that did not include the places where we dug the tunnels.
I still shudder thinking how many times we walked right over those things. It is a wonder that the only casualty that we suffered was that poor girl, Emily. And even worse, I was on the detail that dug most of those passages we made to allow us at least some limited access outside of the cabin. I was probably passing by dozens of them every single day.
Today, a steady and strong wind is coming out of the west. I can’t be sure, but I almost swear that I can smell something rotten. It has to be just me; otherwise I am sure Shelly would have mentioned it during turnover. Still, I will keep a majority of my concentration looking that direction. I don’t want to be daydreaming when a herd comes tromping into our camp.
That is just another reason that I hope folks hurry up and get over this flu or whatever it is that they are all down with at the moment. It would really be a good idea to send a few people out that direction to at least take a look.
Just as I drop my binoculars and pop open my canteen, I catch a glimpse of something moving just inside the darkest shadows of the trees. I bring the glasses back up and try to zero in on where I saw it.
Nothing.
If I didn’t know better, I would swear that, if this was in fact a zombie, it was screwing with me. Us…if I included Shelly. I searched for what felt like forever, but was really probably nothing more than ten minutes.
“I’m seeing things,” I muttered.
Picking up my canteen that I had forgotten about in those few minutes of mental fatigue, or whatever it was, I took a long drink. When I lowered it, I momentarily became a cartoon character. I say that because I am almost positive that, if you had been observing me, you would have seen my eyes pop out of my head about three feet. Oh yeah, and I spit out a mouthful of water.
Standing at the edge of the clearing was a lone walker. I knew it had to be a zombie because, while it had warmed up in the past few days enough to start melting and washing away the snow, it was still pretty dang cold and this figure was stark naked.
I had no idea how well it could see—or if zombies actually ‘saw’ anything with those white-filmed, bloodshot-with-black eyes. Still, even from this far away, I could swear that it was looking right at me. I don’t mean that it was looking around at the huge cabin welcome center that we called home. I mean that this thing was looking at me up in the crow’s nest. I felt a chill ripple through me and I was overcome with the urge to pee.
Keeping my eyes on it, I felt around with the toe of my boot for the handle of the trapdoor. Flipping it open, I whispered as loud as possible, “Hey…anybody down there?”
“What’s going on, Billy?” a voice drifted up from below. It sounded like Jamal. He was one of the new arrivals and probably the closest to my age of the bunch. I hoped Dr. Zahn would clear these newest group members to stand watch soon.
“Can you come up here for just a moment?”
“Sure, let me grab my coat.”
I left the door open and moved back to the rail and brought up my glasses to take another look at this zombie. It looked like a girl with long hair that went a few inches past the shoulders. Most of her midsection had been torn apart. Now that I was looking at her with my binoculars, I could make out what I was pretty sure had to be the remnants of a bra, but there was so much gunk caked on her that it was more of an outline. Honestly, the closer I looked, she didn’t actually seem old enough to be wearing a bra. If I was forced to guess, I put her at eleven or twelve years old.
“What’s up?” Jamal said over my shoulder. I jumped a little and almost dropped my binoculars. “Something gotcha spooked?”
“You could say that.” I pointed to the lone zombie and handed Jamal my binoculars.
“She just seems to be standing there watching us…creepy.”
“I want you to keep your eyes open. I am going to take it down.”
“I got your back, brother,” Jamal said with a nod.
I climbed down the ladder and had to wade through the people in sleeping bags and such that were all over the place. We had more people than could fit here comfortably. I sure hoped that Jon and Jake got back soon with some good news. Hell, if I were being totally honest, I just hoped that they got back soon. I still can’t understand why or how they could just take off like they did.
I got outside and took a deep breath. That was another thing with all these new people cooped up inside the cabin…the smell was less than pleasant. The old locker room from my high school had nothing on this place. The worst part was that you actually got used to it when you were inside for a while. Then, as soon as you went outside and got hit with that first blast of fresh air, you almost wanted to be sick because you realized what you had been breathing in.
Standing on the long porch, I could look across the parking lot and the open field at the bottom of the hill. Sure enough, the zombie was still there. I headed over to the trail that led down to the drawbridge. The protocol was that you were not supposed to lower the drawbridge if you were alone and nobody was there to raise it again, but I didn’t really see how one zombie could be a problem.
Heading across the trench that circled the hill, I noticed a few walkers had stumbled in during the night. I made a note in my head to ask Shelly why she had failed to mention something that important. She had said during turnover that there had not been any activity. Once again I was hearing Steve in my head as he had torn into us all for being too complacent. The facts remained that zombies were still just as deadly. Also, you never knew when a few would turn into a herd.
I started across the field towards the lone zombie that still seemed content with just standing there at the edge where the trees ended and the grass began. I could not help but be creeped out by the fact that it was obviously watching me. To test my theory, I even started to walk in a zig-zag, forcing it to turn its head to follow.
I was probably about twenty yards away when I stopped dead in my tracks (no pun intended). At this range and also being level instead of above the trees like I was in the crow’s nest, I could see into the woods a little better. Back in the dark shadows of the canopy of pine trees were dozens…perhaps over a hundred small figures.
And they were all focused on me!
I took a step back, and that seemed to be the signal that they were looking for as the entire group started my way. I had to walk backwards because I did not dare take my eyes off of these things. For the first time in a long time…I was scared.
The thing is, you just don’t see that many child-zombies. There are a lot of theories. The most prevalent being that there probably just is not enough left to come back. I mean, if a handful of zombies gets a hold of a full-grown man or woman, there is usually a point where they stop eating. Again, we do not really know what that point is or what causes a zombie to stop feeding on a victim. Dr. Zahn believes it may have to do with that moment where a person dies. Who knows. And unless you are the one being eaten, I imagine it doesn’t really matter. Anyways, the thing is that with the little ones, if they get torn into by five or six zombies, they are going to be ripped apart and there is just not going to be anything that could come back. Like I said, that is what most of us suppose.
So as I am backing up, I watch these child-zombies start oozing out of the woods. They are locked on me, but they seem to be hesitant. I can’t explain it any better than that. I mean, zombies already move slowly. But
these things are taking a few steps and stopping. Then, and here is where it gets really creepy, they look at each other and then back to me with their heads cocking one way and then another.
I saw the movie Jurassic Park a few times and always thought that those velociraptors were sorta cool the way they acted so smart. After all, dinosaurs are just giant lizards, but when you have one that seems to actually be thinking, it is kind of scary. Well…when zombies do it, it makes you have to pee. Not for the first time, I wondered how guys like Jon and Jake do what they do. Nothing seems to bother them.
As I kept walking backwards, not daring to take my eyes off of these little monsters, I noticed how they kept looking at each other and then me. Also, I swear they were fanning out and trying to circle me. Thank goodness these things do not move any faster.
“Hey, Billy!” Jamal called down. “You got a problem.”
“Yeah, but if I just keep my eyes on them as I walk, they won’t be able to surprise me. You might want to call down and tell anybody that can move to get out here and help deal with this. I could take down a lot of them, but there are too many for me on my own.”
“Already called down, but the problem is not those in front of you…it’s the ones moving up from the other side. You got another thirty or more coming out of the picnic grounds. By the looks of it, they will reach the parking lot before you and cut you off from the house if you don’t move your ass.”
That was not what I needed to hear. Well, I was really hoping that these child-zombies did not have any nasty tricks up their sleeves. If these things could run…I was going to be very upset.
I turned and began to run for the cabin. The ground was a bit muddy and by the time I made it to the drawbridge, the ones from the picnic grounds were pouring around the ridge. A couple got jostled and ended up tumbling into the moat, but the rest were coming for me with hands out and mouths open.
