Generation Dead Book 2: What You Fear

by Joseph Talluto

  Jake stabbed down with the syringe, stopping just short of the man’s chest when the killer screamed in terror. Jake pulled the needle away and the man’s relief was almost tangible.

  “Nothing bad, huh?” Jake asked. The man deflated, and refused to meet our eyes. The sky overhead was beginning to take on the early morning purple of sunrise, and I suddenly had a nearly overwhelming desire to go to sleep.

  “Who sent you?” I asked again. I touched the tip of the sword to the man’s throat, and he tried to burrow into the grass with the back of his head.

  “I don’t know! “ The man said. “I just get a bag of coins, a metal box containing the needle, and the name of a town. That’s it!”

  “That’s it? You go to cause outbreaks, death and destruction, and you have the nerve to say ‘that’s it’?” I was getting angrier by the minute. “I ought to kill you right now on general principles.”

  “Think you’re so great?” The man sneered. “Why are you defending these sheep? A new world is coming and you can’t do anything about it.”

  “I can,” Jake said quietly. He placed the tip of the needle against the man’s neck. Just enough to let him know it was there, but not enough to break skin. “I’ll ask you one last time, and then I’m going to inject you with the ‘not bad’ stuff you wanted me to inject into myself.”

  “Aaaagh! Wait! No! I’ll tell you what I know!” The man tried to twist away, but he didn’t dare move too quickly. Any thrashing around his head and he was dead.

  “Quickly, then. I get tired of games,” Jake said.

  “All I know is the leader of the group who wants to take over is named Ben. I don’t know his last name. But I know he hates this world and he hates the man who made it happen,” he said.

  That didn’t make any sense to me. “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “I heard the man who built society again is the same man Ben blames for his brother’s death. I don’t know any more!”

  I looked over at Jake, and he was deep in thought. He shifted forward and started to ask a question. “Tell me something…”

  Suddenly the man screamed and pulled away, scrambling to his feet and trying to hobble away. His leg kept giving out on him, and he kept falling to the ground, but he still got up repeatedly. I followed him with my sword, figuring to smack his legs and trip him up, but as I got closer, the man suddenly turned and lunged at me. I brought up my sword reflexively and he ran himself through. His face was a study in pure hatred, and he died cursing.

  “Jesus, what the hell?” I asked, pulling my blade out of the man.

  “Better give him one on the noggin, Aaron,” Jake said.

  “What? Why?” I asked, bringing up my blade.

  “’Cause I accidentally poked him with the needle. Sorry.” Jake was actually apologetic.

  “Well, it would have been nice to get some more info, but we have a good start,” I said.

  “Not that good,” Jake said. “We don’t know where this man got his information and weapon from, or where this new threat is coming from.”

  I thought for a second. “I blame you,” I said.

  Jake gave me a lopsided grin as he picked up on of the man’s hands and dragged him off the lawn.

  “So do I, Aaron. So do I.”

  Chapter 6

  We waited until the first vestiges of sunrise came creeping over the horizon, then we made our way over to the center of town. We still hadn’t found the fifteen missing zombies, and that was cause for some concern, since all it took for a real mess to start was one of them. If all of them decided to drift off in different directions, we were going to be slightly busy. Add to the fun that a group was deliberately causing outbreaks, and I was seriously considering going back to bed and hiding under the covers.

  We walked along the street that paralleled the river, and I was again surprised at how nice this little community was. If I were ever to leave the lodge, this would be a nice alternative.

  I mentioned it to Jake, who nodded and then threw cold water on my dreams.

  “Would suck if the river flooded,” he said casually, looking at the water flowing by.

  I had to resist the urge to throw him in the water. He did still have the syringe full of zombie virus. The plan was to take the virus back to the capital and see if there was anything extra special about the serum, or if it was just your standard, run of the mill zombie goop.

  When we reached the main road, we turned east towards the town. There were a lot of businesses in that area, and it looked like many of them had made a kind of comeback. One restaurant even had a balcony, which reached out over the river.

  A small dam ran the width of the river at this point, raising the north end about four feet. A power plant was located across the water at this point, and seemed to be managing the power needs of the small community. The sky was bluing up nicely as the sun regained its proper place, and I was looking forward to seeing Julia again.

  Jake began crossing a stone bridge when he stopped suddenly. “I’ll be damned.”

  “What?” I asked, trying to twist around to see what was the matter. I looked down and joined Jake in his personal religious assessment skills. “I’ll be damned.”

  The business district had a series of deep ditches which captured overflow from the river and sent it out a massive storm drain. The ditches were brick lined and ran around the foundations of the buildings, allowing some bridges to add to the charm of the community. When the ditches were flooded, I’m sure it actually looked nice, although you probably couldn’t hear yourself think out here when that drain was flowing. A huge aluminum grate kept out most large things from flowing away, while smaller stuff would go through easily. A ladder was located next to the grate, and a small, two-foot high fence kept the little ones out of the ditch.

  That wasn’t what had caught our attention. What had, was the mini-horde of zombies that milled about in general and groaned in particular. They must have wandered this way in the night, and tumbled as a group into the ditch. The fence was just high enough to hit the zombies in the knees and allow them to fall over the edge.

  As we looked on, we could see several zombies that had managed to commit suicide by landing on their stupid heads. I glanced around, and although the zombies were right there for the killing, there wasn’t any safe way to engage them.

  “Any thoughts?” I asked. We could use the ladder, I supposed, but it had its own risks and I wasn’t a fan of fighting on unstable ground.

  Jake looked it over. “Well, we could…no. Um…we could…wait.” Jake scowled at the zombies. “Huh.”

  I knew then he was as stumped as I was. There wasn’t any way in hell I was going to jump in there, and we sure weren’t going to let them out. If we had something long, we might be able to get away with it, but not right now.

  “Hang on, I have an idea,” Jake said as he jogged back the way we had come. I had nowhere to be right now, so it wasn’t hard to remain true to the charge.

  About ten minutes later, Jake came jogging back with a cinder block on his shoulder and a length of rope. He tied the rope to the cinder block, and then carefully lowered it until it was about three feet from the ground in the ditch. Several zombies touched and grabbed the block, but after they realized it wasn’t anything to eat, they weren’t interested.

  Jake held the block down, and then tied the other end of the rope to the fence, making sure he kept the length the same. I watched curiously, since I wasn’t sure where this was going.

  When Jake had everything he needed ready, he pulled up the cinder block and looked over at me, holding the stone above his head.

  “Got this idea from Dad’s journal. You want to go first, or can I?” Jake asked.

  I suddenly realized what he was talking about. “That’s brilliant. You can go first, you thought of it.” I leaned over the rail and watched as the hungry ghouls reached up in frustrated hunger at the food that they would never be able to reach.

  Jake hurled t
he cinder block down, and it cracked the skull of a middle-aged man. As he went down, the rope went taut and kept the block from hitting the ground. Jake hauled up on the rope and handed the stone to me.

  “Your turn.” He said with a smile.

  “This will take a while, methinks,” I said, looking for a target. The rope limited our range, but that was okay, since the zombies always came to us, no matter what.

  “I’m open to suggestions,” Jake said testily.

  I threw the block down, nailing a teen in the face as he looked up. His forehead flattened from the impact, and he fell over.

  “I was thinking of holding you upside down while you smacked away with your mace,” I said, pulling on the rope. A zombie took hold of it and hung on. I gave the rope a few quick jerks, and the zombie let go.

  Jake didn’t dignify that with an answer; he just took the block from me and killed another zombie.

  We worked that crowd for about a half an hour, and managed to kill nearly all of them. The last one was tough, since he had to climb over the bodies of his comrades, and both Jake and I missed several times trying to nail him. Finally, on what seemed like the hundredth throw, Jake caught him perfectly on the top of the head with the cinder block, dropping that annoyance for good.

  “All right, then. Let’s get Julia and get out of here,” I said. “We need to get that crap in the syringe to the government.”

  “Yeah, I’d hate to see what someone else might do with it,” Jake said.

  Chapter 7

  We had a bit of a mystery on our hands. Someone was obviously trying to cause an outbreak, but the purpose behind it was unclear. Did they want to wipe out everyone, throw us back into the dark ages, living in caves and hoping the zombies don’t find us? Granted it would be different this time, since there weren’t as many people around to get infected, but in the last twenty years of relative peace and quiet, people have been doing a pretty good job of getting things running and rebuilding the population. There were a lot of kids around, and as I thought about it, I realized that if someone got a bunch of kids infected, we’d all be in trouble.

  We moved towards the other side of town, heading towards the restaurant. It was the most easily defended place in town, and was a backup location in case of an outbreak. That much we had learned when we arrived here.

  Jake retrieved the needle from its hiding place, and carefully carried it with him. I thought that having it out in the open was probably a bad idea, so as we walked, I looked for something we could store it in. I wanted to find something that was sealed, so in case the thing broke, the virus would be contained.

  As we made our way to the holding area, we passed a small food store. I looked in, and saw they had a lot of canned goods on the shelves. That gave me an idea, so I went into the back room and found a number of jars and lids. Jake saw what I found and happily transferred the needle into the jar. I put the lid on, and then transferred the small jar to my pack. As I looked at the liquid in the light, I swear it swirled on its own. If I had put some on a counter, I firmly believe the evil stuff would have tried to make its way over to me. That’s how creeped out I was over it. If I had to think about it, I was angry, too. I couldn’t figure out how anyone could hate so much that they would be willing to kill the world. It didn’t make any sense.

  With the needle secured, we made our way to the river, and then the restaurant. Along the way, we burned off the remnants of the virus from the killings at the houses. As we did that, I started to get angry about the number of orphans that were needlessly created. Sure, someone would take them in, but why was it necessary? If someone hated the world that much, why cause suffering? Just suck a gun barrel and pull the trigger. All hate would be gone.

  I said as much to Jake, and he nodded in agreement.

  “It does seem like a lot of trouble to go through. If you wanted to start an outbreak, why bother with all the secretive stuff? Doesn’t make any sense. There are still plenty of zombies in the cities. Just knock down a wall or two and wait for the fun to begin,” Jake said.

  “Makes you wonder why they are trying to do things this way,” I replied.

  “Well, if we can figure out the plan, we can get ahead and finish this before it does become a major outbreak.”

  “Good luck with that,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Right now we’ve got two small outbreaks which we handled. Taken together, they seem to be a part of a plan, but the communities are nowhere near each other. Right now, it’s looking like just experimentation, with something else to hit us at another time.”

  “Think we’re being tested?” Jake speculated.

  “Not us. I think society is, and how it reacts will determine the next move by our mutual enemy,” I said.

  Jake looked at me sideways.

  “What?” I asked, not liking his look.

  “You sounded like dad just then.”

  I thought for a minute. “Not a bad thing, considering.”

  Jake looked off into the distance. “Wouldn’t hurt to have the old man around right now,” he said quietly.

  “Yeah,” I said, just as quietly.

  At the restaurant, we made our way through a number of people who looked at us with anxious eyes. I found the leader of the community and quickly relayed what we had found and where they would need to send crews to get bodies out of houses. When they asked about how the outbreak started, I hesitated for a minute, but then realized they needed to be on alert, more so than they had been.

  “It was a deliberate infection. Someone came and injected those poor people with the virus, trying to start a major outbreak up here,” I said, bracing for the response.

  I wasn’t disappointed. Several gasps and many curses followed with a few questions being shouted, along with numerous threats.

  I held up my hands for quiet as Julia worked her way forward from the back of the restaurant where she was entertaining some of the children.

  “I don’t have answers for you. I truly don’t, but someone is trying to unmake everything that we’ve done over the past twenty years, and they don’t seem to care how they go about it. We have a lead, and we’re working on that, but for right now, you people need to be wary of strangers, keep your eyes open, and lock your doors at night. It would probably be a good time to pull out the weapons and start practicing again.” As I said this, several older heads in the room nodded, and I knew they would be just fine. It was the younger ones I worried about.

  “There’s a bunch of turned folk down in the ditch, so someone will need to get them out. You guys will be fine, just keep on your toes, and listen to your veterans,” I said as I moved towards the door. Julia was right behind me and I had a feeling she had questions. Jake was at the door, but as I finished he slipped out.

  I was right behind him and Julia took my hand in hers. I gave her a smile and she winked at me, making me feel a whole lot better after having spent the night chasing zombies and getting absolutely no sleep whatsoever.

  “What’s the next move, Jake?” I asked as my brother made his way back to the truck.

  “We need to get that syringe to the capital, and see if we can’t get a meeting with the president.” Jake said.

  “What for?” Julia asked, beating me to the punch.

  Jake stopped and turned around. “In case you hadn’t noticed, there are just three of us. What if there’s a large outbreak that we can’t control? What then? We can’t throw rocks at all of them.”

  It made sense, and we were very lucky so far in that we had been able to contain the infections we had come across so far. But if that zombie party hadn’t fallen in that ditch, we’d probably still be fighting.

  “All right, let’s get it going then,” I said. “But I’ll likely sleep on the way, so one of you drive.”

  Jake shook his head. “I stopped sleeping a while ago, so I got this.”

  Chapter 8

  We reached the truck and I let Julia stretch out in the back while I made m
yself as comfortable as possible. We only had a three-hour drive to the capital, so I needed to make the most of it. Jake was silent as we drove, which helped, and Julia was out cold, so that helped even more. As I drifted off in the morning sun, I couldn’t help but think briefly about why we were the ones chasing ghosts and not leaving it up to others.

  The next thing I knew, I was being awakened by my brother opening the door I was sleeping against. I grabbed the nearest thing to me to stop my fall. Unfortunately, for Jake, that happened to be his collar, and I ended up yanking him down to the ground on top of me.

  “Oof!”

  “Ouch! My neck, you stupid fool! Hey! Quit…” Jake’s verbal harangue ceased when my hand that was clutching his collar inched up and fastened itself on his neck.

  I tossed Jake off of me to see a grinning Julia standing there refreshed and lovely.

  “Little help?” I asked, holding up a hand.

  “Of course, sweetie.” Julia grabbed my hand and heaved me to my feet. She was remarkably strong for her size, something easily forgotten until it was used against you.

  Finally upright, we pulled Jake to his proper vertical position and I held up a warning hand to his angry stare.

  “You choose to open a door I was sleeping against. Am I responsible for your actions?” I asked, holding his gaze.

  Jake was wrestling internally with agreeing with me or punching me. I knew what he chose when he shook his head and turned on his heels. We walked quickly through the streets of Leport, winding our way towards the presidential residence.

  Despite the name, it was simply a modest Victorian home, nestled within the confines of a hillside community. Our father originally chose the place, saying that the president should not live in a palace, or reside anywhere that the people who elected him could not stop by on occasion to just chat. The presidents, and there had been three since our father had been one, all agreed to the duty to the people, and hadn’t changed anything since.