Generation Dead Book 2: What You Fear

by Joseph Talluto

  Looking at the truck again, I got an idea. I sheathed my sword and ran to the back of the truck on the left. It was a long box truck, with a lift on the back. The back end was jammed tightly against the side of a building, and I wasn’t going that way. However, since around and under was blocked, and through wasn’t an option, I decided on up. Stepping up on the back bumper, I put my foot up on the side rail and pushed up, reaching to grab the roof of the truck. One hand made it and I used the momentum of my legs to roll the rest of myself onto the roof. It was dirty, dusty, and covered in filth, but it was empty and looked great to me.

  I stood up and gestured to my family. “Get over here, I’ll hoist you up. Dad, give me your pickaxe.”

  My father understood immediately and handed up his axe. I reversed the weapon and held the handle while they grabbed the metal. I pulled up Duncan and Tommy, and then pulled up Charlie. I think he expected me to struggle with him, but in truth, he was lighter than I expected. My dad came up last, and it was a near thing with the horde of zombies right on his heels. The moaning they started bounced off the narrow walls of the buildings and echoed out towards the open lands.

  On top of the truck, we looked out over the barricade. In front of us was a sea of cars, stretching south as far as we cared to see. The cars were rusted hulks, with the glass long smashed away and weird things growing inside them. Several had given way to the elements, turning into small mounds of grass and dirt, accumulated from wind and rain. There were even a couple of trees working their way through the old vehicles.

  Spaced out all over the place were about a hundred zombies, and even in the few seconds I watched them roam around, another twenty or so joined in from the side streets. Apparently, the word had gotten out about an All You Can Eat buffet.

  We were safe where we were, but in a short amount of time, we were going to be trapped with no way to go but to hell.

  Chapter 56

  “If we move fast enough, we can get past most of them,” I said. “The way we want to go is right there,” I pointed to a space between two buildings and I could see a white building with an interesting curve to the architecture. If I was right, and I was pretty sure I was, then we were a block away from where we wanted to be. Trouble was, that block was going to be a fight.

  “Let’s rock,” said Duncan. “You prefer left or right?”

  “Right,” I said. “Most of my swings start there.”

  “So I’m right where they end up? Don’t you love your favorite uncle?” Duncan gazed at me with big eyes, which on him looked downright ridiculous.

  “I’ll take both if you’re not up to it,” I said, matching his big eyes with my own.

  “Will the two of you show-offs just move already?” Tommy said, pointing at the drift in our direction.

  “Gone,” I said, moving to the front of the truck. I jumped onto the cab, which was a risk, since I could have fallen right through. But it held, and I stepped down to the hood. A single zombie stepped forward to challenge me, and I took the opportunity to jump off, bringing my sword down in a single heavy chop to the top of its head. The razor edge slashed through the head, through the neck, and completely through the torso. I barely managed to stop the swing before I slammed the blade into the ground. The two halves of the zombie fell in opposite directions and I stood up with my gore-encrusted blade dripping onto the ground. As I looked down at my work, Duncan joined me at the front of the truck.

  “Cool,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

  “You get the next one,” I said. “Let’s move before Uncle Tommy yells at us again.”

  “You get used to it after thirty years.”

  “Damn. That long?”

  “Yup.”

  We moved down the side street and I was grateful it was only two car lanes wide. There were no stores on the side street, just windows to the stores on the other side. There were a couple of displays that had mannequins in them, and I slowed down to take a look at one of them.

  I passed and said to Duncan, “Did that dummy have a bite out of it? Like, around the shoulder?”

  Duncan looked back then nodded. “Seen that before. Z’s aren’t the smartest things around, you know?”

  I just kept running, but I had to admit my opinion of zombies just went a notch lower. We burst out of the small roadway into a larger area, and a very interesting building reared up in front of us. It was seven stories tall, and was curved in and out like an ‘S’ lying down. The building had balconies on all the windows, and they bulged out like white bubbles all over the place. The structure looked like it had been made from really big cauliflower.

  “That where we going?” Duncan asked.

  “Dead ahead. Follow me,” I said. I glanced once to see where the others were and I was glad to find they were right behind me. On the north side of the street, several zombies were coming down the sidewalk, while the south side had a good dozen lurkers that immediately began the undead shuffle. I wasn’t going to wait for an audience. I went directly to the building and located the entrance. It was one level above ground, and still in one piece.

  I pulled on the handle and was somewhat surprised that it opened. I went inside and approached the second door while Charlie secured the first door with a length of wire.

  The inside door was locked, but I had a cure for that. I took my knife out and using the point, jammed it into the metal of the latch that secured the door. A second of twisting and I pulled the door open to let my relatives through.

  When we got inside, my dad closed the door and pulled a can of spray paint from his pack. He quickly covered the glass with patterns, swirls and shapes, obscuring the view. When I cocked my head at him, he shrugged.

  “Seems to work. If they can’t see us, they’ll lose interest since they can’t smell us either. The paint patterns screw up their sight and they can’t make us out,” he said.

  I’d have to remember that one. However, we had to get through before we attracted any more attention that might alert Ben. For all we knew, he had lookouts stationed on rooftops all over the city. I moved on down the steps towards a large lounge area. There was a lot of papers and furniture about, but no signs of serious violence. It looked more as if people just grabbed what they could and left, hoping for the best. I was hoping they had decided to leave by more conventional means and we would find some much needed transportation help.

  “What is this place?” Charlie asked, looking around. There was a bar off to one side, and the remains of a restaurant. A small concierge desk was overturned at one corner, and there was a looted convenience store off to the far side.

  “Looks like it was one of those high-end river condo complexes,” Tommy said, pointing to the west side. “People would take their boats off the lake and sail them down here for a private mooring.”

  My dad slapped me on the back. “Goddamn brilliant, Aaron. Let’s see if we’re really lucky today.”

  He moved over to the huge glass windows that looked out over the river. The water itself was about twenty or thirty feet below us, and it was impossible to see if anything was still parked at the piers.

  Chapter 57

  “What do you want?”

  The voice came from above us and we spun around, whipping our guns up. I didn’t have my rifle up, but my pistol was out and ready. My father stepped forward, not lowering his rifle and spoke.

  “We need a boat, if you have one. We can buy or trade, your choice.” He lowered his rifle slightly, but kept it ready.

  Above us, four men with bolt-action rifles looked down from a balcony. A fifth man, a man with blond hair and a lean look to his face, stood off to the side. I thought I had seen him before, and when I stared at him, he seemed to get a little nervous and shifted to put a pillar between us.

  “Nothing is for sale or trade. You have no reason to be here, so please leave.” The man had an imperious tone that would have been grating in the best of circumstances, and these sure weren’t them. I knew my dad was in
a hurry because he wanted to get back to Jake, and the fact that he bothered to talk at all to this prick was an exercise in extreme patience.

  “We’re leaving, and we’re taking a boat. We need to settle some business, and then we will return the boat. I’m sure we can work out some kind of arrangement,” my dad said, lowering his rifle further.

  “I don’t deal with your kind. I will tell you one more time, and then the security team will open fire. Your choices are to stay and die, or leave and live,” the man said.

  Suddenly, I knew I had seen him before. Worse yet, I knew where I had seen him. I needed to make the right move and not get us killed in the process. My dad was about to speak when I signaled him with my hand. I had to holster my gun to do it, but I made it seem like I was trying not to get shot. I held my hand straight down, then held out two, then three fingers.

  “All right, we’ll get moving. Just tell your men to stand down, okay?” My dad said, lowering his rifle all the way.

  “Move now and I’ll consider it,” the voice said.

  “Deal,” my dad said. “Go!”

  That was the signal. Uncle Charlie and I ran under the balcony on our side and my father, Tommy, and Duncan run underneath on their side. The walkway spanned the entire atrium from one end to the other, and there was a single spiral stairway from the ground floor leading to it. We stayed out of sight under the structure and I used the quick breather to sheath my sword and pull out my heavy rifle.

  “Hey! Get out of here or we’ll shoot!” One of the security men yelled.

  “Don’t mind if I do!” I said, bringing up my M1A and firing through the floor. The .30 caliber bullets blew through the metal walkway as if it wasn’t there. There were screams, shouts, and a couple of heavy thuds on the walkway.

  “Stop! Stop! You’ll hit the homes above us! Stop!” The rude man spoke up, much more contrite now that we were in a better position than he was.

  “Throw the guns over the side. Now,” Tommy said. Four rifles clattered to the ground and he bent over to scoop them up.

  Duncan swept up the stairs and there was some snarling, but five men came down the steps. One was limping from a bullet wound in his leg, and another was being helped by third, holding his rear. As he passed by, I saw that one of my bullets had opened up a furrow in his ass cheek.

  The blond man stepped in front of my father, and nearly spat his words.

  “Fine. Take what you want. Just get the hell out of here. We never wanted your help, and we just want you to leave.”

  Dad looked him over, and was about to speak when I stepped in. I had put my M1A back and had taken out my sword. Without a word, I rammed the blade through his chest, shoving a foot of steel through his sternum. The man gasped loudly, then pawed weakly at the steel as he slowly fell to the floor. The big blade stuck a little as the man died, and it took a foot in his gut to pull it out.

  My dad stared at me with a look I hadn’t seen before, and I was sure he was wondering what kind of son I had become. The other men were in shock, and one threw up on the tiled floor. My uncles didn’t say anything, they just spread out slightly, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see Duncan slowly raise his rifle to the low ready position.

  I looked back at my father. “I met this man before. He was working with the kidnappers at the capital. He was the middleman between the sheriff and Ben. I had seen him before when Julia and I had a run-in with some lowlifes who wanted to take Julia. He probably had a way to get in touch with Ben, and would have told him we were here the second we left.”

  Charlie spoke up first. “I’m not happy with this, Aaron.”

  “No?”

  “Nope. I wish you had let me kill the son of a bitch.”

  The tension broke and my dad gave me a half smile that meant more to me than him coming out and saying he was proud of me. It was a look that said he was very glad of how I turned out.

  “Your mother would have been proud,” he said. “She worried that you would take too long to think about things and hesitate when work needed to be done.”

  “Wasn’t she always saying things like, fools rush in.” and all that?” I was a bit confused.

  “Yeah, she contradicted herself on a number of occasions. She was who she was, God love her.” He shook his head and turned his attention to the four men on their knees in front of us. The men were having a hard time taking their eyes off the body. He squatted down and said seriously, “Now, what do we do with you?”

  One of the unwounded men spoke up. “Please don’t kill us. We’re just security here, taking care of the people who live here.”

  “How many people?” Dad asked.

  “About two hundred.”

  I was stunned. I had no idea there were that many people alive in this city, let alone in one place. “Why are they here?”

  The man shrugged. “There’s water, food if you’re careful, and we trade with the capital all the time.”

  “What kind of trade?” Charlie asked.

  “Anything we can find. We’ve been doing well with a few medical buildings and clothing stores,” the man said.

  I could understand that. There was always a market for clothing and medical supplies were always in high demand. A walker or a wheelchair could cost as much as a full five pieces of silver.

  “You ever meet a man about fifty or so, white hair, dead eyes?” I asked casually.

  All four men shook their heads. “No one like that has ever been around here. Around fifty? No, sir. Oldest person here is thirty five.”

  That made no sense. Anyone who stayed here after the Upheaval would be older, and in some cases, considerably. Unless blondie here cleaned house and populated it with friends and kidnap victims.

  Suddenly, the light bulb went on. Of course! There wasn’t enough zombies at the place in Blue Island to cover the number of people kidnapped, and they had to be kept somewhere they couldn’t leave, but nice enough they might not want to leave. Especially if their home back at the capital was a small house or shack.

  I waved my dad over. “We need to get out. Let’s go while they haven’t figured out who we are yet.”

  Dad nodded. “Agreed. We haven’t mucked this up yet, so let’s not start now.” He turned back to the men. “We’re going to use one of your boats. Which one do you use to go on the lake?”

  The men looked down, and one answered. “The black one.”

  “Thanks. We’ll bring it back, maybe by this evening,” Dad said.

  Chapter 58

  We left the unwounded men tied and gagged, while the wounded men, we treated and locked in an office. It would be a couple of hours before anyone came looking, or was brave enough to investigate the shots, and we would be long gone by then.

  The boats were well maintained, and we chose the smallest of the four. It was a bass boat, with a trolling motor and oars. The other boats were too large for our purposes, and would likely raise questions if we showed up unannounced. The biggest one was a large cruiser with black tinted windows. It was easily seventy-five feet long, and would be a very nice boat on the lake. On the canal, though, it would ground itself in a heartbeat past the locks.

  We piled into the boat and Duncan pushed us off. If I remembered the river right, we had a little ways to go, follow the water as it flowed to the right, then we’d be making our way across a small harbor to Navy Pier. It was going to get really interesting then.

  The trolling motor started right away, and quietly pushed us along the river. Duncan kept us to the shadows cast by the tall buildings, and steered around some debris that looked like it had been there a long time. Under one bridge there was a submerged car.

  I used the opportunity to wipe off my weapons and to top off my magazines. My dad watched me for a while, and I knew what was on his mind. But I wanted to wait until he said something.

  “You’ve grown up a lot, Aaron. I have to say that,” Dad said. “For a while there, I thought you’d be willing to let us take care of business, but you s
ure put that fear to rest.”

  I shrugged. “If you’re worried about the man I ran through, don’t be. He’d have done the same a hundred times over without batting an eye. He was in league with Ben, and I wouldn’t want to guess how many of those girls at the school he was personally responsible for kidnapping. Should I have faced him armed? Maybe. But you were the one who taught me fair fights were for fools.”

  I could see that Dad was torn a bit inside. One the one hand, I had stabbed an unarmed, surrendered man. On the other, it was a really bad man. In the end, Tommy was the one who broke the dilemma.

  “He’s dead, and how he got there really doesn’t matter, as long as he got there, right? His usefulness was over. If it means anything, Aaron, I’d have shot him, myself, and not cared which side I was facing,” Uncle Tommy said.

  The rest of the men nodded, and I finally think the matter was at an end. We had more pressing things to worry about. As we travelled, the dead came out to see us by. Hundreds of zombies lined the walkways and the streets, moaning softly as they tracked our progress. One reached out over a rail and fell into the water, disappearing in a swirl of deep green.

  We rounded the bend and Duncan slowed the motor, moving as quietly as possible. Charlie, Tommy, my father, and I kept a watchful eye for lookouts and sentries. Our weapons were ready to hand, but not up, keeping our profile as simple as possible.

  “What’s the layout of this area, Aaron?” Charlie asked quietly.

  “The harbor is enclosed, and if we make our way along the north side, we can anchor and get out without being seen,” I said. “But the hard part is getting to the Pier itself. It sticks out in the water, so there’s no way to approach it without being seen. We’d be under fire the second we pulled out from the harbor.”

  “What about on land?”

  “Odds are better, but we’d have to be really lucky. If there was a way to keep everyone’s attention away from the land, then we could make a run for it,” I mused.