by R. J. Spears
Dead Run
Books of the Dead 6
By R.J. Spears
Books of the Dead
Sanctuary from the Dead
Lord of the Dead
Dead Man's Land
Into the Deadlands
The Living and the Dead
Learn more about books and other words by R.J. Spears at:
rj-spears.com
Cover Art by: R.J. Spears
Copyright. R.J. Spears ©2018, R.J. Spears
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book, including the cover and photos, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher. All rights reserved. Any resemblance to persons, places living or dead is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction.
Chapter 1
That Time I Lost My Sense of Humor
The slightly crumpled note dangled in the air just a couple feet from my face. It stated, “We need to go.” My eyes drifted up from the note to the face of its author, Jason, who wore a serious expression of concern and impatience.
Without a second thought, I snatched the note from his hand, balled it up, and tossed it into the corner, where it smacked the wall and fell against the floor like a wounded bird.
Jason brought out his notepad again and hastily scribbled out a message then held it out to me. It said, “We have been here for two days. We need to move north. We don’t know who is after us.”
I didn’t grab this note, but instead, turned away from him and looked to the broken down couch, where Kara lay under a dirty blanket, her face pale and covered in sweat. She looked almost insubstantial, ready to drift away from me and the world at any moment.
I knew how long we had been there, and I knew that there was a great likelihood that a madman was after us. He was being driven by God knows what to eradicate us from the Earth, but that was all in the background. My woman was sick and maybe dying. No mission from God would keep me from pulling her back from the brink.
Jason fidgeted behind me, annoying me even more. I could hear his pencil jotting down another note, brushing across the paper at a feverish pace. The mere sound of the pencil on the paper was enough to drive me crazy. It was too bad that he was mute as a result of experiments conducted on him in search of a cure for the zombie virus. I would have gladly welcomed a voice rather than his infernal scribblings.
After he finished, he tapped me on the shoulder insistently, which I tried to ignore. He was relentless, though, and I whipped around, shouting, “You think I don’t know it. Besides, it has only been a day and a half. I know the clock is ticking, but I’m not going anywhere until Kara is healthy.”
It had been the better part of two days since we had made our narrow escape from a rogue outlaw biker gang thirty miles south of our current location. We had been held at a compound run by a biker despot, who was into things like burning people alive or forcing them into zombie cage matches. Mr. Congeniality, he was not. That same man did unspeakable things to Kara. My Kara.
The only way we escaped was that I had pressed the panic button and used the satellite phone I had been carrying to bring the cavalry to the rescue. This cavalry was group of well-trained and pissed off soldiers. The big problem with them was that they were hell-bent on killing us. This group of military men was led by an off-his-nut Colonel, who was intent on capturing or killing Jason, because he was immune to the zombie virus. Colonel Kilgore and a small contingent of well-armed soldiers arrived in an attack helicopter that rained hell fury down on the compound where we were being held hostage. In the carnage and the chaos, we threaded the proverbial needle, made it out, and took a truck as far north as we could before we ran out of gas, stranding us thirty miles south of Columbus -- which was our ultimate destination.
Our temporary refuge was an abandoned house just off the main drag in a small town called South Bloomfield. Before the fall of man, the town had been a notorious speed trap. Now, it was just another ghost town in a world of ghosts with a few of the undead shambling about in that aimless fashion that they do, looking for something but seeing nothing.
The house was a one-story affair that hadn’t been ransacked and was reasonably clean. Whoever had owned it before the Outbreak had kept it tidy. They didn’t look like they were affluent, but the furniture was in good shape, and there was even some canned food in the house.
Jason pushed the note at me. This one said, “We have a greater mission. It’s bigger than Kara. It’s bigger than us.”
“Well, you may feel that way, but I don’t care if God himself comes down and tells me I have to leave,” I said, feeling the heat of anger in my face. “I won’t move an inch until I know Kara is okay.”
I started to add something to my rant when I felt a gentle touch on my arm. When I turned around, I saw Kara’s hand weakly clutching my arm. Her eyes half-open, looking through a glaze of sickness at me.
“Jason is right, but I need some time,” she said, ”just a day.”
Jason dashed out another note and held it aloft. It read, “This mission is bigger than us. God wants us to do it.”
Yes, did I mention that we were on a mission from God? Yeah, really, we were.
Somehow, we had become the key players in some sort of cosmic chess game between the forces of Good and Evil with the fate of humanity in the balance. No small stakes here. Along with this epic mission, for some insane reason, God had selected me as some sort of modern-day prophet, which was somewhat evident in the cryptic messages he sent me to fulfill His will. In my opinion and almost everyone else’s around me, I was the least likely candidate for the role.
Trying to calm down, I said, “I think I’ve taken us far enough. We’ve lost enough good people along the way. Greg, Hub, Travis, Brandon…” I trailed off, not wanting to click off any more names. Each one of these losses was a stab in the heart, but we soldiered on, surviving and taking it a day at a time because we had no other choice.
Until now.
There had to be a line in the sand that I did not cross. There had to be an “Ask” from the Man above that was too much to ask. I mean, how much were we supposed to sacrifice before it got to be too much?
Her voice weak, Kara said, “I will be fine. I just need some time.” She looked to Jason and added, “Please?”
Jason looked away, not meeting Kara’s eyes, but I wasn’t sure if any of his resolve had diminished.
I said, “I’m tired of giving up the people I love. We’re safe here. Jason, you’re safe. The mission can wait.”
Unbeknownst to me, Jason had scribbled out another note, which he proffered to me. It stated, “Kilgore is after us. How long until he finds us?”
Yes, Kilgore, the crazy Colonel was after us, but he had no way of knowing where we were. We drove out of the compound where we were being held captive, into the dark of night, to parts unknown as far as he knew.
“We could be in Botswana for all he knows,” I said. “God can wait. Kilgore can wait. We aren’t going anywhere until Kara is well, and that is final!” On that fateful declaration, I stood and stormed out of the room. I’m sure that wasn’t one of my finer moments.
Chapter 2
Hail to the Victors
Two Days Earlier
Colonel Kilgore looked off in the distance as the taillights of a vehicle of some sort disappeared around the side of a house. Smoke from the firefight veiled the exact nature of the type of vehicle,
but he thought it was a truck.
At that point, he didn’t know who was in the truck, but some little voice said it was Jason Carter and his confederates, but that line of thought wasn’t completely rational. The problem was that Kilgore was way past rational, though, living most days in crazy-town, driven by nocturnal visits from what he thought had to be the devil himself.
It could be anyone, Kilgore told himself as he tugged at the collar of his shirt absently.
Kilgore and his soldiers, with the help of an attack helicopter, took on a brigade of biker marauders after the bikers had fired the first shot in a very short war. Kilgore’s helicopter and its array of weaponry brought down total devastation on them in retaliation, but one of the marauders got a lucky shot. The helicopter was an older model without the armor of the modern ones, and the helicopter was mortally wounded by the shot. Still, the helicopter kept dealing out significant amounts of damage before it went down near a house just a football field away from the compound.
Kilgore and his crew of soldiers mopped up the remaining marauders, with the exception of one scraggly fellow with a partially singed beard. Mopping up was a take no prisoners action, with Kilgore’s crew silencing the living, the wounded, and even the undead with bullets.
That lone survivor stood trembling in front of them, thinking he only had moments to live. Maybe that was true, but he was alive, and he wanted to stay that way.
“I need to know if you have a man by the name of Jason Carter here,” Kilgore shouted into the man’s face while grabbing a fistful of the man’s shirt. Unlike his crew of soldiers, Kilgore seemed oblivious to the carnage around them. Just twenty feet away, an overturned car burned furiously, emitting waves of searing heat that Kilgore didn’t even seem to notice. The flames cast a bright orange glow over the men’s faces, giving them a demonic look.
The man, his face partially blackened by soot and dirt, glanced at Kilgore, but his eyes darted nervously to the burning car. “Can we move away from that car? I’m scared it could blow at any time.” He had a thick nasal drawl with a lilting Southern accent.
“Maybe you answer my question first, or else I’ll have my men toss you into those flames.” Kilgore leaned in towards the man’s face, blocking his view of the car.
“We brought a lot of people in,” the man replied. “I don’t know all their names.”
“He’s a slight man, probably in his mid-twenties,” Kilgore said. “Plus, he was mute.”
The man’s eyes blinked a couple times, then he said, “I think we got a guy off the highway a couple days ago. He didn’t say anything, but a lot of folks get really quiet when we bring them in. Marlow has that effect on people.”
“Who is this Marlow?” Kilgore asked.
“He’s our leader.”
Kilgore switched the topic back on track. “This quiet guy, was he with a group?”
“Yeah, there was a couple guys, a gal, and some kid.”
“What’s your name?”
“Can we get away from that car, now?”
“Your name.”
“Harley. Harley Blankenship.”
“Harley, where did you take that group?”
The fire around the car intensified and the heat along with it. Harley’s eyes widened in fear. “Over there.” He pointed to a small one-story, brick building with a gaping hole in it. “Can’t we please get the hell away from that car?”
Kilgore backed off, releasing his grip on Harley’s shirt, then said, “Yes, take me to that building.”
Harley was more than eager to get Kilgore and his men, along with himself, away from the burning car. As a group, they started to navigate through the chaos, walking around burning vehicles and bodies of dead marauders. They made it fifty feet away from the burning car when they heard a dull whomping noise behind them as the gas tank went. Flames spurted skyward, licking at the darkness. Everyone but Kilgore turned to look back at the car. He was intent only on the building where Jason Carter had been held captive.
They pushed around a wall of fallen bricks when a broad, partially charred zombie appeared from behind a bullet-riddled truck. It made a beeline for the group. Without hesitation, Kilgore yanked up his sidearm and blew out what was left of its brains. It collapsed onto the side of the truck and slid to the pavement.
They made it to the building Harley had pointed out without further incidents and stood outside the gaping hole in its side. It looked as if King Kong had punched it in. The inside was shrouded in darkness.
“Soto,” Kilgore said, “take your flashlight and shine it inside.”
Soto, who had been the pilot of the now downed helicopter, had miraculously navigated the wounded chopper into a hard but survivable landing. Some might call it a crash, but they all walked away. Blood caked below his nose as a result of the landing. His left shoulder ached, too, but he moved his M16 from his right hand to his left and used his right hand to retrieve a small tactical flashlight from his pants pocket. A moment later, he clicked on the light and splayed it around the dusty room, revealing that it was empty.
“Harley, you’re saying that this group you were talking about was in there?” Kilgore asked.
“Yeah. We put them in there with our doc, his wife, and their kid,” Harley responded. “Marlow had the doc in there because he was pissed at him.”
“Where is this Marlow?” Kilgore asked.
“He’s dead now. Someone shot him up pretty bad over by the main building.”
“Take me to him,” Kilgore said.
The group navigated a circuitous route through the wreckage, having to dispatch only two zombies drawn in by the lights and sounds. The attraction of the battle would be bringing in more and more of them. This concerned Soto and the two other men, but Kilgore was still laser-focused on finding Jason Carter, oblivious to all else.
They made it to the main building, where Harley stopped and pointed out a body just inside a wide and open entryway. “That’s Marlow. Shit, I don’t even think he has a face anymore, but he was so big you can’t mistake it was him.”
Kilgore walked into the hallway, the light from the fire providing just enough illumination for him to inspect the body. And yes, it was a big body. Kilgore estimated that the man had been all of six and a half feet and pressed past the three hundred and fifty pounds mark on the scale. And, indeed, Harley had been correct; most of the man’s face was missing. There were several bullet holes in the man’s body and one very conspicuous shot to his groin. Kilgore could tell that it hadn’t been rounds from the helicopter, but instead, it was small arms fire.
“Harley, who would have done this to him?” Kilgore asked.
Harley hesitated for a moment then said, “Hell if I know. It was crazy down here. Your chopper was shooting the living shit out of us.”
“But someone was very angry with your man here,” Kilgore said, turning and walking out of the shadows of the building’s entryway. “Whoever shot him wanted to let him know that. Did he have enemies here?”
“Well, no one liked him ‘cause he was a mean son of a bitch, but no one here would have shot him. First, ‘cause if you didn’t kill him, he’d definitely kill you. Second, because he was so big and mean, I’m not sure he could be killed. Last, he was our leader, good or bad. He kept us together and safe.”
“But someone did kill him. Who do you think would do that?”
“Well, the doc was in with the new people. Marlow did some nasty things to the doc’s daughter.”
“Anyone else?”
“Well, I heard he was having a little party with one of the women from the new group we just brought in.”
Kilgore took a moment to think. He knew Jason Carter wasn’t traveling alone. He had confederates. Kilgore had spoken with the supposed leader of that group via walkie-talkie just once before communications had been cut off. Certainly, one of the group could be a woman.
The satellite phone had come on and stayed on, and that’s what had drawn them to this compound. Putting tw
o and two together, Kilgore guessed that Marlow’s group had probably captured Jason Carter’s escape party and imprisoned them back in that room across the parking lot. Someone in that group, probably the leader, had turned on the satellite phone in a desperate act, hoping to draw Kilgore to the compound. Kilgore conjectured that Marlow had taken the woman, and that had set the wheels in motion.
Flitting in the back of his mind, Kilgore focused on that truck disappearing into the darkness. That could have been some of Marlow’s men, hightailing it for the hills, but it could have been Jason Carter and his friends.
There was no way to know but to check the area systematically. If they found nothing here then they would spread out the search.
“Harley, do you know this area well?” Kilgore asked.
“I was born and raised in this county,” Harley responded, hoping that his knowledge of the locale might make him useful and also keep him alive. “I know it like the back of my hand.”
“Good,” Kilgore said, reaching to tug absentmindedly at his shirt collar. “You could prove to be useful.”
Harley breathed out a slight sigh of relief, knowing that his life was not measured in seconds anymore. He had some time left.
“Men, spread out and check for any signs of Jason Carter and his friends,” Kilgore said. “If we don’t find him, then we’ll have to get on the road and search for him.” He paused for a moment, surveying the results of the battle and didn’t notice the dejected and exhausted expressions of his men. Instead, he looked through and past the flames and carnage, hoping for some sign of where Jason Carter had disappeared.
“Soto, return to the chopper and see if the radio is working. If we can get help, we’ll bring them in. If not, we’ll do it ourselves.” He tugged at his shirt collar again, then asked, “Harley, does your group have any vehicles we didn’t shoot the shit out of?
