The Dead (a Lot) Trilogy (Book 2): Wicked Dead

by Howard Odentz

  If it weren’t for Dorcas blocking the road with the bus, we might all have been captured by now—or worse.

  I looked in the rearview mirror, making sure that no one was following, and caught a glimpse of Sanjay with Andrew on his shoulder. Did I really think that Diana or any of her people would deem Sanjay as worthy to live? What about Jimmy or Trudy Aiken? He was crippled and she was ginormous. What about Randy Stephens or Eddie? Not so long ago, people like them got beat to death and hung on fence posts along backwater roads lined with corn fields.

  Dorcas saved us all.

  Up ahead I saw the ambulance’s rear lights turn red. I think my father or Aunt Ella was driving. I’m not sure which one. I was really proud of all of them—Mom, Dad, and Aunt Ella. Uncle Don was gone and I’m sure that my aunt was dying inside, but she was putting up a brave front. I couldn’t even fathom how hard that was for her. As for my parents—they had grown so much in the past couple of days. A little over a week ago I wasn’t even allowed to drive a car. Now, here I was driving a bunch of kids at breakneck speeds through a road in the woods that twisted and turned and went up and down like a roller coaster—and they didn’t bat an eye.

  A week ago I was a kid.

  Trina and I weren’t kids anymore. My parents didn’t have any allusions about that now.

  I’m not even sure that Bullseye could be called a kid, and Sanjay, all things being equal, was smarter than all of us put together.

  Krystal was a kid. I just didn’t know for how much longer. We were in a new and cruel world and if you didn’t grow up fast you didn’t grow up at all.

  I hoped Krystal would have a chance to grow up.

  The ambulance slowed to a stop in front of us. I pulled the van up behind it, opened my window, and craned my head out as far as it would go, but I couldn’t see anything.

  “Can someone take the wheel?” I grumbled as I opened the door and stepped out of the car.

  “No can do,” said Jimmy. “Unless you don’t care about the gas pedal.”

  Gimp jokes. Hardy har har.

  “I got it,” said Trina and reached for the door handle with a bandaged hand.

  “NO YOU DON’T,” I screamed, almost taking her head off. “You’ve done enough.” I left the door open and walked away. I knew the only other person in the car who could drive was Prianka. I heard her say something to Trina, then my sister sucked in a ragged breath. She was holding in tears.

  Who cares? It was Trina who started the fire. If it weren’t for her, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe Dorcas would still be alive.

  Immediately, I mentally slapped myself upside the head. I was so, so wrong. No one planned on a poxer in the woods at Gate 29. No one planned on there being a site at Black Point Fort. No one planned on a helicopter or the fire.

  Trina sure as hell didn’t plan on burning her hands.

  I only took a few steps before I turned around and went back to the minivan. Prianka was maneuvering herself into the driver’s seat. I bent down and stuck my head in the window. She stopped and looked at me with wet eyes, but it wasn’t her eyes I wanted at the moment. It was my sister’s.

  “I’m an ass,” I said to Trina. “Can we just leave it at that?”

  Jimmy had his arm around my sister and she had her head on his shoulder. He nodded at me as if to say it was all good.

  “You’re a big ass,” Trina murmured, not looking at me.

  “Gaping,” said Prianka.

  “Huge,” agreed Jimmy.

  Bullseye didn’t say anything. He just took his arms and stretched them out as far as they could go. Then Sanjay said, “Equus africanus asinus is a domesticated member of the horse family. You’re not a horse.”

  “No,” said Trina. “Just a horse’s ass.”

  “Huge horse’s ass,” I said. “Like a Clydesdale’s.”

  “Let’s go with that,” she said.

  I smiled and gave her two thumbs up. Then I clomped away, stifling an urge to whinny.

  47

  THE ROAD SIGN IN front of us said ‘Apple—3 miles. Apple Business District—2 miles’. My dad sat in the driver’s seat of the ambulance with the window down, his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. Aunt Ella was in the passenger’s seat with Krystal on her lap. A seat belt wrapped around both of them. My aunt looked scared. Krystal looked like she was having the time of her life.

  “I’m riding in an ambulance,” she said to me with eyes wide.

  “Cool,” I said. “Isn’t it awesome?”

  From somewhere in the back I heard either Freaky Big Bird or Nedra Stein say, “No, it’s not AWESOME at all.” Someone else was sobbing. I think it was Trudy Aiken. The same voice said, “Shut up, you cow. Dorcas is dead. Be thankful you’re not.”

  My dad ignored them all. He turned to me. “Are you guys okay?”

  “No,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. We have to keep going.”

  He looked at the sign ahead of us. “We have to go through the Apple business district,” he grimaced. “There are going to be a lot of . . . a lot of . . .”

  “I know,” I said. “But if that’s what we have to do, then that’s what we have to do.”

  “Maybe we’ll find a couple of side streets.”

  “Maybe.”

  Aunt Ella combed her hands through Krystal’s curly mop of hair. “Apple’s like Greenfield,” she said. “I think it’s big enough to have a Walmart.”

  I’m not sure what qualified a town as being big enough to have a Walmart, but big enough to have a Walmart meant big enough to have Walmart shoppers. I couldn’t even imagine what kind of carnage was inside that place. What about the stench? Suddenly Ross Esi Allan III’s cellar hole was starting to smell like one of my mom’s scented candles.

  “Is that where we’re going?” I asked. “To Walmart?” I bit at my lip. “There’re going to be poxers there.”

  “Then we’ll handle them,” said my aunt. “As long as we’re off the roads.”

  She was right. Given a choice between helicopter people and soldiers in jeeps or a bunch of poxers, I think I’d take the poxers any day. I’d even roast marshmallows over them as they burned.

  My dad looked scared. I hated seeing him like that. He was always the strong one, the one who was there to fix everything. He stared at the sign in front of us with fear in his eyes. I knew what that looked like. I had a lot of experience with fear over the past week. Too much.

  I decided to throw him a bone. “Dad, we’re going to go ahead of you. Follow us, okay?”

  His whole body tensed. “No. Why?”

  I stared at his worried face for a long moment. “I have more practice driving through poxer-populated areas than you do,” I said. “There are going to be car wrecks all over the place, and yeah, there’s going to be a lot of dead people. Why don’t you keep your eyes on my bumper and just do what I do.”

  “No,” he said automatically, but he stared into my eyes and I knew what he really meant was ‘yes’. I smiled and he nodded as if to say thanks, and without a word we agreed that I would take the minivan first and he would follow in the ambulance.

  My mother stuck her head out from between the seats. Her skin still looked a little sallow, but I could see she was definitely better—almost back to normal.

  “You be careful, Tripp,” she said.

  “Me? Careful? Why, Molly—careful’s my middle name.”

  My mom gave me a look that was freakishly like one that Trina would give me. “My name’s Mom, not Molly,” she said with deadpan seriousness. I just smiled, saluted, and went back to the minivan.

  Prianka scooted over when I opened the door. “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “We’re near Apple. Aunt Ella says it’s like Greenfield so there are going to be a lot of poxers there. I think we’re heading for a Walmart.”

  Jimmy gulped. “A Walmart? A week ago any store like that would have been hopping on a Friday night. Do you know how many dead things are going to be in there?�
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  “A lot,” I said. “And we’ll deal with them.”

  Bullseye pulled the gun from his pants and held it in his palms. “Can I shoot them?” he asked.

  I looked through the rear view mirror and stared at his face. “As long as you don’t like it too much,” I said in all seriousness.

  He looked out the window. “I don’t like it at all.” His words sounded a little hollow—like a lie—but I didn’t want to think about that right now.

  Maybe he did like it, maybe he didn’t. I wasn’t sure anymore. Prianka let go of my hand and placed both of hers in her lap. I could see her quietly digging her nails into her knees. It reminded me of those stories you hear about when girls cut themselves with razor blades to relieve stress. Right now, I actually understood why they did it. I know that’s weird, but anything had to be better than the stress of running for our lives through the back end of Massachusetts, being chased by who knows what. Anything could be better—even a little pain. Pain that is self-controlled is infinitely better than pain coming from someone or something else.

  I was quiet as I pulled the minivan around the ambulance and started down the road again. The trees on either side of the tar were thick, but soon they gave way to a stand of pines that were all perfectly tall and straight, like someone had planted them that way.

  “Why are the trees so straight?” murmured Bullseye.

  “They’re hetero,” I said.

  No one laughed, but I could actually hear both Trina and Prianka roll their eyes.

  Twice, we had to pull around cars stuck in the middle of the road, and both times, poxers, with their gaunt faces and gray skin, tracked us with their eyes from the drivers’ seats. I was reminded, once again, how stupid they are. They couldn’t even figure out how to open a car door. Eventually, the Necropoxy parasites would die of starvation, and then the host bodies would kick too, and finally find some peace.

  My father followed behind us in the ambulance. Every time I looked in my side mirror, I caught a glimpse of his face, pale but determined. ‘I’m not cut out for this,’ Eddie had cried when we were standing on the porch as Swifty’s. My dad was a doctor. Dorcas had been a bus driver and Mom was a realtor. I didn’t know what the others were, but I bet none of them were ‘cut out for this’.

  In a weird way, Trina and I, Jimmy, Prianka, Bullseye, and Sanjay were all expertly suited to survive what was going on. We didn’t know any different. One day it was school and video games, the next it was poxers and helicopter people. This life was just another thing to learn. It’s like we weren’t old enough yet for whatever neuroses we were going to have as adults to gel and harden into permanency. Transition was easier for us.

  I sort of felt sorry for everyone in the ambulance—sorry and a little concerned. I wondered who would be the first to snap under the pressure. Nedra was probably the oldest, which by all accounts probably meant that she was the most rigid; but Freaky Big Bird was high-strung. Trudy cried a lot, and my father was tough, but a worrier.

  Didn’t they say it was the tough guys who sometimes cracked first? Weren’t they the ones who went rampaging through playgrounds or offices, shooting everyone who ever looked at them funny?

  Nah, my dad wasn’t like that. At least I hoped he wasn’t.

  About two miles further down the road, we started seeing buildings. The first one was a nursery that had set up big displays of pumpkins, gourds, and bunches of Indian corn. They also advertised fresh fruit and Macintosh apples. My stomach growled. What I would do for a nice crisp apple. Apples always tasted the best this time of year, when the leaves were falling and the orchards were cold at night and warm in the day.

  After that was a car dealership. I made a mental note to go back there once everyone was safely at Walmart. I bet most of the cars were gassed up. Maybe we could even pick out a new set of wheels, or at least have a ready supply of gas for syphoning.

  I saw a soft serve, a couple of office buildings, and then more buildings than I could count. Along with the buildings came the car pileups—first only a couple and then more than that. Some car doors were open and some still had poxers stuck inside, sitting and staring at us as we went past.

  There were poxers on the road, too. They shambled back and forth, stopping to watch us as we slowly drove by. They all turned and followed us, as though they thought they had a chance at a meal.

  Newfie growled as he saw them, his ears up and his eyes alert. Sanjay closed his eyes and held Poopy Puppy up in front of his face.

  “This is awful,” whispered Prianka. “It’s like Greenfield all over again.”

  “But no Stella,” said Jimmy wistfully.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “Greenfield didn’t have a Walmart.” I pointed down the road. About a half mile away, a large, square sign rose above everything like a beacon. “We do.”

  48

  “I’M GOING WITH you,” barked Trina stubbornly as I pulled the minivan around the back of the store, with my dad right behind us.

  “No,” said Jimmy.

  “Jimmy, shut up.” she said wearily and shook her head. “Don’t you get it? I’m immune. So’s Tripp. The worst thing that can happen to me is a nasty bite. I already have a nasty burn so what’s the dif?”

  Jimmy looked pissed off.

  “She’s right, dude,” I said.

  “What do you expect to do if you get attacked?” he snapped at her.

  “We won’t,” we both said in unison.

  “Trina will be my eyes and ears,” I said. “She’ll be the lookout. I’ll do the dirty work. Give me the bag.”

  Jimmy hesitated for a moment, then sighed and handed me the fire fixings he religiously carried around with him.

  Prianka knew better than to argue with me. She still sat in the passenger’s seat, her hands pressed against her thighs.

  “We’ll be right back,” I said to her, but she said nothing back. Oh, great. What did I do this time? Frankly, I’m not sure I cared. There were too many truly bizarre things happening to have to worry about another Prianka puzzle. If she was miffed, she was miffed, and she’d either have to tell me what was bothering her, or suck it up and move on

  I wasn’t in the mood for playing twenty questions. I was in the mood to get someplace safe. Also, not being girly or anything, but my jeans were starting to feel like they could move on their own. It would be great to take a detour through the men’s section and find a nice pair of 30/34s. Nothing stone-washed or anything, because only mega losers wear stone-washed. I just wanted something that didn’t smell, because I had a sinking suspicion that I was beginning to stink. How much longer could I blame Newfie for the stench in the car?

  Dad got out of the ambulance, carefully, as though he thought a horde of poxers was going to descend on us at any moment.

  “What are you doing?” he said.

  “Trina and I are just going to take a quick look.”

  He started to say something but stopped. “Be careful,” he said. “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “We’re cool,” I told him.

  The back of the ambulance opened and Randy Stephens hopped out, all tall and lanky, like one of those characters in a Disney cartoon. He pushed his glasses up on his face and shoved his hands in his back pockets.

  “Were there a lot of zombies in the parking lot?” he said. “I couldn’t see much through the back window.”

  “Cars mostly,” said my dad. “But a few dead people, too.”

  Randy stared down at the paper bag in my hands. “Where are you two going?” he asked.

  “We’re just checking it out,” I said. “Making sure it’s safe.”

  He took a few strides toward us like a giant crane. “Mind if I come with? There’s just a little too much estrogen in the back of the ambulance.”

  “What about Eddie?” asked Trina with just a little bit of snarkiness in her voice.

  “Like I said,” shrugged Randy, his skin still a little gray from being sick. “There’s just a
little bit too much estrogen back there. Besides, my mouth tastes like a sewer. It would be great if I could find some mouthwash.”

  Trina and I glanced at each other. “Fine,” she said. “Just be careful.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Randy smiled. “I’ve got the drill down. Burn first, ask questions later.” He pulled a lighter out of his pocket and rolled it around in his hands. It was old and nice, like he had been carrying it around for a zillion years. He caught me eyeing it. “It was my dad’s,” he said and tossed it over to me. I caught it with my free hand. The casing was tarnished silver. I flicked it and the flame shot to life. In this world, having a lighter was more important than having a gun. “I’ve been carrying that around since I was twenty-five,” said Randy. “Ever since he died.” He looked at the lighter sadly. “He was a great guy. That lighter’s my lucky charm.”

  “Let’s hope so,” I said and walked over to an overflowing trashcan. I pulled a wad of paper out of the top, brushing the fat flies away, rolled it up, and handed Randy back his lighter along with the paper. “You’re going to need both of these.”

  He looked at the two things in his hands and gulped. His Adam’s apple was huge, like he had swallowed a tennis ball. It bobbed up and down in his throat.

  “Ready?” I said to him.

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  All along the back of the building was a chain-link fence. Behind it was a little hill. We could see the tops of trees beyond that. Okay, there were no poxers coming from that direction, and if there were, my dad and Prianka had the wheels.

  Behind us, right in the middle of the back of the Walmart, was a series of big gas tanks that almost looked like Sanjay’s hyperbaric chamber back in Littleham, but mega-sized.

  “What are those?” asked Trina.

  “Propane,” said Randy. We both just looked at him like he had three heads. “For power,” he explained. “Sort of like oil or electric. Apple’s so far out in the middle of nowhere, the Walmart probably has a back-up propane system.”

  It took me a second to fit the puzzle pieces together. “So there might still be power in there?” I asked him.