Year of the Dead (Book 2)

by Ray Wallace

  Thursday, November 19th

  Dear Diary,

  Yes, we’re still at the school. A few more days here and it will probably start to feel like home. There’s plenty of room for everyone. And now that the place is mostly secured (sheets of plywood over half the windows, rows of two-by-fours nailed over the others to let a little sunlight in) we’ve settled into many of the routines we had back when we were living up in the trees. Groups have been going out in search of supplies and weapons to replace the ones we lost in the fire. Others (including yours truly) cook and clean and look after the young ones.

  I have to admit to feeling less protected than before, though, back when we were spending most of our time ten feet or more above the ground. In case of a “we’ve been surrounded by zombies” sort of emergency, Vicky has been implementing random drills, evacuating us along a specific route from the cafeteria (the new hub of activity for our little community) to a stairway once used by maintenance workers to gain access to the roof.

  “From up here,” she says, “we stand a fighting chance.” I suppose she’s right. But if it ever comes to that, I can’t help but think we’re in some serious trouble, the sort of trouble you normally don’t walk away from. So we just have to hope it never does come to that.

  Armed patrols watch the grounds day and night. So far, a few zombies have been spotted and killed near the school. Not enough of them to cause any major concerns. After Michigan, though, what took place there… Nobody’s pretending something similar couldn’t happen here, that the zombies couldn’t show up in large numbers, trap us and overwhelm us.

  “Keep a small bag packed with essentials, anything you don’t want to leave behind,” Vicky made a point of telling us. “Put it somewhere you can grab it and go.”

  Yesterday, Luke came back from a supply run with a couple of duffle bags, one for each of us. Whenever I’m not sharing my thoughts with you, Diary, that’s where you go. I’m not leaving you behind. We’ve been together too long, have shared too much. All these entries… all these memories… written in this tiny, cramped style I’ve been using to fit them all in. The very thought of losing you…

  Or Luke.

  Or this baby, God forbid.

  I know Luke feels the same way. About the baby, I mean. Whenever I’ve offered to go out and look for supplies, he won’t even hear of it.

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  At first, it made me angry. But then I realized he was doing what he thought was best. For me. For the baby. He said that if anything were to happen, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. So I forgave him. As much as I love him, Diary, I think I could forgive him just about anything.

  Friday, November 20th

  They awoke to gunshots and screams.

  Simon got up from the bed and went to the window where he peered through the blinds, trying to get some sense of what was going on outside. A woman stood in the street in front of the house, hands cupped around her mouth, screaming for all she was worth:

  “They’re here! The zombies are here!”

  Simon felt a hand on his shoulder. Jocelyn, smiling, stood next to him.

  “It’s happening,” she said. “We did it.”

  He nodded his head in agreement. “I guess we did.”

  A few minutes later found the two of them dressed and headed along the hallway to the living room. The house’s other residents had already gathered there, conversing in panicked tones.

  “Jesus, is it true?” Simon heard someone say.

  “It is,” said Jocelyn as she and Simon crossed the room. “Looks like New Hope might not be so blessed after all.”

  Then they were outside, Jocelyn holding a handgun down by her hip, Simon with a gun of his own tucked away inside the jacket he wore, his trusty hunting knife strapped to the lower part of his leg.

  Random shouts and the pop! of gunfire reached them from all directions.

  “This way,” said Simon, making for the side of the house.

  “Where are you going?” Jocelyn wanted to know. “We have to get to the—”

  “Just a quick look.”

  As soon as Simon entered the backyard, he saw them, zombies emerging from the trees lining the edge of the property. They arrived in greater numbers as he stood there watching. Enough to overrun the town? To bring about the Apocalypse that New Hope had avoided thus far?

  If all goes according to plan.

  As far as plans went, Simon had to admit this one was about as flimsy as they got. He had no control over the proceedings from this point forward. All he could do was sit back and enjoy the show. Which was exactly what he planned to do.

  “Can we go now?” Jocelyn wanted to know.

  They made their way to the front of the house then out to the street, following it further into town. When they reached the area where New Hope held its open-air marketplace, they saw the booths and tables had been hastily abandoned, their owners drawn by the sounds of conflict issuing from the town’s perimeter. A block further along, a collection of two- and three-story buildings lined the street, marking the place where the post office and a number of other now defunct enterprises had once done business.

  Simon and Jocelyn headed for one of the taller buildings, went in through the front door which Simon had forced open several days earlier. Inside was a lobby with a stairway that took them up to the third floor. An office there had once served as the base of operations for a local insurance agent. It also offered the best view of the immediate area and the street below.

  A sprawling oak desk dominated much of the room. Leaning against it, ankle chained to one of its legs, was the zombie Simon and Jocelyn had used the van to smuggle into town. As the two of them entered the room, the creature turned away from the window through which it had been staring to look at them. Approaching the zombie, Jocelyn raised her gun and pointed the barrel at its face.

  “I guess your job is done here,” she said, unnecessarily.

  “Away from the window,” Simon told her.

  “Oh, yeah… right.”

  Jocelyn circled around and shot the undead woman in the side of the head, sending bone fragments and chunks of brain spattering onto a nearby bookshelf. Meanwhile, Simon fished a ring of keys from his pocket then undid the lock securing the chain to the zombie’s ankle. After dragging the body from the room, he returned to find Jocelyn at the window, watching as the morning’s events continued to unfold.

  “Anything exciting going on?” Simon asked.

  “Some people running around.”

  The window was lightly tinted, making it all but impossible for anyone passing by outside to see in. The office had seemed the perfect place to house the zombie they had kidnapped. From here, the creature could observe the town and its people while staying out of sight. The office would also double as an optimal viewing area from which Jocelyn and Simon could watch the fall of New Hope. A large cooler in the corner of the room held enough food in the event they ended up stuck there for a while.

  Twenty minutes or so after their arrival, the first of the zombies wandered into their field of view.

  “What if they enter the building?” Jocelyn wondered aloud. “Decide to come up for a look around?”

  “We’ll head up to the roof if we have to, block the door. But they should have plenty to keep them busy down there, don’t you think?”

  Jocelyn’s concerns turned to smiles and laughter as more zombies arrived on the scene, as the sound of gunfire grew louder and more persistent, as the people of New Hope, South Carolina discovered there really was nothing special about their town. That in the end it was just another town, another place for the dead to feed.

  Saturday, November 21st

  Susanna waited. By now, it felt as though the waiting was killing her. The constant stress ate away at her, the thought of what would happen if they found out what she had done. She watched as the woman, Joanne, shoveled slop into the pig trough. As though sensing the weight of Susanna's gaze, Joanne turned
to looked in her direction, gave a curt nod then went back to her job.

  The two of them had never spoken about what had taken place at the shed, which was fine with Susanna. In fact, it was exactly how she wanted it, saying as much to the other woman after they had finished burying the body in the woods.

  “As long as we are here,” she had told Joanne as they walked away from the shed, the rain still falling, “we will never speak of this.”

  She had felt a hand on her arm, a light squeeze. “Thank you.”

  Approaching the barracks that night, Susanna had been prepared to see the door hanging open, guards awaiting her return. But the door had been as she had left it—open only a crack. There were no men with weapons ready to confront her. Inside, the women lay quiet and motionless, the rain tapping away at the metal roof above them. It seemed a miracle she had gotten away with it, the trek to and from the shed in the stormy darkness. The murder. Fate had not been kind to her the day she and the children had been taken prisoner. On this night, however, it had apparently decided to give her a break.

  Now I could just use a few more, she thought as she looked away from Joanne standing next to the trough, dark hair damp with sweat despite the frigid air. Susanna thought about the pistol that had once belonged to the guard, Benny—

  The monster.

  —now hidden away in a shallow hole behind the distant tool shed. His key ring she had brought back with her. After figuring out which one unlocked the door to the barracks, she had stashed it somewhere no one would find it, disposed of the ones she did not need in the trash. Since then, she had heard no mention of the missing man, of his sudden disappearance from any of his fellow guards. Did they even suspect what had happened to him? Or did they assume he had left in search of greener pastures elsewhere? Susanna hoped they had made such an assumption but highly doubted it. She may have caught a break the night of the killing, but she figured there was no way she could be that lucky.

  I have to be careful. Patient.

  Which meant ignoring the near constant urge compelling her to dig up the gun and try to shoot her way out of this place, rescuing the children in the process and taking to the open road once again. No, she had to stay calm. She had to wait for… What, exactly?

  A tornado would do the trick. This is twister country, after all.

  She could picture it: the whirling gray funnel descending out of the sky, tearing across miles of farmland, pulverizing the fences hemming in her and her fellow prisoners, creating the chaos they would all need to escape… Unfortunately, the sky was clear except for a few clouds of the white, puffy, non-threatening variety.

  Some other calamity then?

  Susanna knew that if she was waiting on an act of God, she could be waiting a long time.

  It's going to be up to me, not God, to get us out of this wretched place.

  And yes, it truly was a wretched place. As far as Susanna was concerned, the only thing it had going for it was the fence surrounding it that had kept the zombies out. Since her arrival at the Farm, she had not seen a single one of the undead things. Which meant that the children, too, had been kept safe from this particular threat. Granted, she had no idea what other hardships or horrors they may have been subjected to in her absence. The possibilities haunted her.

  I’ll have to make my move soon, she told herself, gritting her teeth in frustration.

  As she did so often these days, she found herself once again thinking about the gun and the key, the items that could be used to grant their salvation, pictured the places where they had been hidden. Where, for now, they would have to remain hidden.

  One of the guards approached, barking orders.

  Yes, for now…

  Sunday, November 22nd

  Trevor opened his eyes in the darkness. He could hear the wind whistling ever so slightly as it moved past the house. From beside him came the soft, steady cadence of Nadine’s breathing. He tried to take comfort in her presence, in the feeling of calm the cabin and its surroundings had provided throughout the slow, autumn days and nights they had spent there. But that sense of comfort eluded him.

  The dream…

  It was the first one to visit him since the whole Michigan debacle, when he had arrived too late to do any good. In this most recent vision, he had seen windmills, the silver, sleek, modern kind standing in long rows across a wide field next to a four-lane road. There had been a man, too, wearing a black, wide brimmed hat, his face hidden in shadows, features obscured. Something about the man, more than mere physical presence, gave an impression of strength and power. There had been zombies, too, an army of them, their numbers stretching away into the distance. Trevor had also seen a strange word, a name, written in white letters on a wooden sign:

  “Deadhaven,” he whispered into the darkness.

  “What was that?” asked Nadine, surprising him, her voice thick with sleep. He thought she had been out cold, “dead to the world,” as she liked to say.

  “It's nothing,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”

  Trevor wondered if she had been having bad dreams of her own.

  I hope not.

  He wanted to believe she experienced nothing but happy thoughts now that their relationship had taken a more intimate turn. They had been sharing a bed since their time together at Blake and Loretta’s compound. It was not until much more recently, however, that they had found more than simple comfort in the close proximity if one another’s bodies. Whenever he thought about Brenda, his dead wife, the old guilt would return. Not enough so, it turned out, to put an end to what he and Nadine had been doing. Because when they were together like that, when she took him inside of her, all the guilt and the pain he carried with him just went away. And afterward, when the bad feelings came back, they always seemed a little more bearable.

  Will they ever go away completely? he often wondered.

  Trevor had his doubts. Nor was he sure he wanted them to. He deserved it, the guilt, needed it to remind him of his past failures, to prevent him from repeating them. Nadine had told him on any number of occasions he was too hard on himself, that the world had changed in ways no one could have possibly predicted, that everybody had failed in one way or another.

  “On top of that, you’ve been given this extra burden. This ability of yours…”

  The last time they had discussed it, she had taken his hands and looked into his eyes.

  “I can only imagine how tough it’s been. But I’m here now. And I’m ready to help you in any way that I can. Help you carry this burden…”

  The question he had been afraid to ask almost escaped him:

  Why?

  He kept it in, though, told himself he did not want to know, that it was not important, that pressing the issue might push her away. So he left it alone, found what happiness he could in her presence, in this life they had found together. A life that looked as though it might be in for some serious changes in the near future.

  Yes, but not right away, he told himself. We can enjoy what we have here a little while longer.

  The vision had shown him that, too. That they had time.

  Time to do things right, to make sure I don’t mess everything up again.

  Closing his eyes, he let the whistling of the wind lull him to sleep. And as he departed the waking world, a single, last word drifted through his mind, accompanying him into the black:

  Deadhaven…

  Monday, November 23rd

  “We’ve got a runner.”

  Marco heard the call over the walkie-talkie as he wandered along Grandview Ave., shivering against the wind sweeping out of the west. A few blocks away stood the gate at the end of the street. Before that, the station house for the Incline. And closer still, the last of the observation decks offering a view of the city below.

  Stepping onto the observation deck, he clipped the walkie-talkie to his belt and raised his binoculars.

  “Corner of Stanwix and Fort Pitt,” issued the voice from the walkie-talkie.


  Swiveling his gaze in the appropriate direction, Marco zeroed in on the “runner.” Male. Blonde hair. Small and thin. Wearing sweatpants and a loose-fitting jacket. Mid-to-late teens by the looks of him. Marco knew that Johnny, his ace sniper, would be tracking the kid through the scope of his rifle.

  A few minutes ago, Marco had stopped by the deck where Johnny was perched, as he was every morning, and asked him:

  “How we looking today?”

  “Busier than usual.”

  With his binoculars, Marco confirmed this piece of intel. Zombies wandered across the length of Fort Pitt Blvd., more of them emerging from various side streets as he watched.

  Where do they all come from?

  No matter how many of them Marco and his soldiers killed, either by long-range sniper fire or up close and personal during their weekly “raids” into the city, there were always more of the walking corpses to take their place. Plenty more.

  Marco trained his binoculars on the two closest bridges, saw heightened activity along both of them. However, the descent, steep and overgrown, from his position down to the railroad tracks between the P. J. Mcardle Roadway and the base of Mt. Washington remained clear of zombies. This was much as Marco had expected. Aside from the rare, adventurous creature, in recent weeks they seemed to have made a point of avoiding that particular area. Apparently, enough of them had been killed there for the rest to get the message.

  As Marco watched, the runner wound his way among the abandoned vehicles clogging the road, all the while managing to avoid a significant number of would-be predators along the way. He felt a smile pulling at his lips, happy for the distraction offered by the morning’s entertainment. Two of his lieutenants, Sanchez and Miller, approached and stood to either side of him, took in the spectacle through field glasses of their own.

  “He’s not going to make it.” This from Sanchez, standing to Marco’s right.

  “Wanna bet?” asked Miller.

  “Sure. He dies, I get that sweet-looking blade you grabbed last time we were in town.”