by Steve Kuhn
WE ARE THE END
Dext of the Dead – Book Five
By
Steve Kuhn
“Fans of The Walking Dead are going to love this series. The characters are realistic and witty, the dialogue is great and the writing is quickly paced. The series should do well. Recommended.”
~ Weston Kincade, author of A Life of Death
- BOOKS of the DEAD -
LOVE READING?
Sign up for BOOK-ie and find the best deals.
It's free!
This book is a work of fiction. All characters, events, dialog, and situations in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of reprinted excerpts for the purpose of reviews.
WE ARE THE END
BOOKS of the DEAD
Copyright 2014 by Steve Kuhn
Edited by Wake Editing
Cover Design by Small Dog Design
For more information, contact: [email protected]
Visit us at: Booksofthedeadpress.com
Read All 5 Books In Steve Kuhn’s Amazing
Apocalyptic Series Dext Of The Dead:
WE ARE THE PLAGUE
WE ARE THE INFECTED
WE ARE THE ENTOMBED
WE ARE THE EXTINCTION
WE ARE THE END
Entry 141
I’m shaking so badly that I can barely write. I don’t wanna do this anymore. I don’t want this kind of life. I don’t even know if I want life at all anymore. The only thing I know for sure is that I don’t want to become one of them.
This morning I looked around. I mean, I really took a minute to just look… and think. Seth and Nick were made for this life. They took pleasure in the bloodshed. Well, Seth did anyway. Nick was way more levelheaded, but still, both of them were suited for this. Take right now for example. They’re out in the street with Kylee stripping all the corpses of ammo and usable weapons. To me that was always a mundane and sad task to undertake—not those two, though. They’re out there crackin’ ‘yo’ mama’ jokes, and I just watched Seth punch Nick squarely in the balls while wearing a metal gauntlet. I don’t know. Maybe that was just the way they coped with shit—same as me writing all of it down.
Kylee’s seemed fine of late. Her already short fuse has gotten shorter every day, but been more or less the same. Her hair’s grown into stubble, and with her dead eye, she started looking more killer. She acquired more than one bite scar and even more scars on her heart. She was betrayed by her own father, lost her husband, lost her eye, lost her baby, found her husband, realized she didn’t really love him, and on and on and on. The world had thrown so much at her, yet she still adapted and carried on. She made adjustments, both physically and mentally, that most of us just couldn’t seem to make. She wasn’t made for this life, but she could sure as shit handle whatever was thrown at her.
Chalmers spent his entire career living lies that he told for other people. His heart was in the right place, but his head was up his ass. I don’t know if he’s cut out for life on the road. I do know that at least he’s been trying to make a change. He’s been trying to do what’s right and make up for the stuff he’s done and said in the past. That’s gotta count for something, right?
Earlier, I watched Cutty and Boyd packing up D-Prime. Boyd was supposed to be in with us just long enough to get to Vegas. We were just supposed to be returning a favor, because that was the civil thing to do. In the short time I’d known him, he’d been nothing but solid. The kid was a beast—sharp wit, deadly aim, and I honestly grew to find his stutter endearing. In my opinion it’s been one of his greatest assets, because people underestimate immediately when they hear him speak. Truth be told… we need a guy like Boyd around, especially after today. Nothing will ever be the same.
After picking through the bodies, we started the trip back to the South Strip with heavy hearts. D-Prime lumbered down the street with Cutty at the helm and the rest of us sitting atop the trailer, trying to enjoy the cool, morning air before things heated up. We left the carnage of yesterday behind us and began chatting idly amongst ourselves, trying to make sense of what happened. Seth told us that it would be best if we let him and Nick do the talking when we got back. There was no way I was gonna argue with that. Regardless of having to break the news to Gino and Fat Tony, we were excited to get back to some sort of population. Unfortunately for everyone, though, the peaceful morning was about to shatter.
Ever on watch, Boyd spotted the first few stragglers and called out, “Heads up. I d-don’t remember p-passing them on the way up here.”
We took a look for ourselves as Cutty slowed the truck down considerably. About fifty yards ahead, there were four bernies shuffling up the strip together in a tight pack. Seth pounded on the top of the cab, and Cutty took the hint, stopping D-Prime completely.
Nick explained, “We gotta take ’em out. They shouldn’t be here in the first place. Can’t have them changing course and making it down to the others.”
Boyd shrugged and took aim. Seth, once again wearing his ridiculous, medieval gauntlets, smirked and put his hand on Boyd’s shoulder. The weight of the metal glove caused Boyd’s shoulder to dip, and he missed his first shot. He glared at Seth for fuckin’ him up and said, “D-don’t f-f-fuck with me when I’m shootin’, okay?”
Seth backed up and apologized with a sincere smile. “Ma bad, man. Leave me one, though. I wanna try these out.”
Boyd said nothing as he fired three shots downrange in quick succession. Three of the four bernies dropped with surgical precision. The final one, still on its feet, picked up the pace of its staggering and began to approach us with arms outstretched.
Nick bet Seth with, “I’ll give you twenty if you can drop him with one punch.”
With a cocky pose, Seth remarked, “You’re on. What happens if I lose?”
Nick thought about it for a moment before telling him, “You get to tell Gino what happened yesterday on your own.”
Seth nodded and half jogged to meet the snarling corpse and swung his right arm heavily. The gauntlet weighed quite a bit, so it looked like he was fighting in slow motion… like trying to punch someone underwater. He connected solid as fuck, though, and the bernie fell over immediately. Seth stood above it and put his foot on its chest, raising his hands above his head like an old-school boxing champ. I could see that the bernie’s entire bottom jaw had torn from its place and now hung uselessly by threads of sinew and torn flesh. Nick told him, laughing, “You hit like a girl! No chips for you!”
Kylee scoffed and quipped at Nick, “Wanna see how hard girls can hit, Nick?”
He blushed slightly, realizing his mistake, and offered an apology. “Umm… shit… sorry… No thanks, ma’am.” He bowed dramatically.
Cutty called out, “A’ight. Dat’s good, y’all. Finish dat shit, and le’s go!”
Seth brought his boot down hard and squished the bernie’s head like an overripe melon before jogging the few yards back to the truck. After we dispatched a second, slightly larger pack of the dead, Nick began to worry. He told us nervously, “This is too many. They shouldn’t be here. We really gotta step it up and get back now.”
Boyd and Chalmers poked at the downed corpses and inspected them more closely. Chalmers added, “Blood. This is fresh. They’ve been eating.”
Approaching the Southern Strip territory was like getting punched in the stomach. It was completely overrun. Bernies were scattered all over the streets, milling around aimlessly, while others were in small groups voraciously eating the former residents. They held vari
ous limbs in their hands and tore stringy bits of bloody flesh from them, chewing like sloppy children. Having pulled most of their security detail off of the entrance to handle the NGC, the strip was left exposed to this massive herd. They must’ve been taken by surprise. No one could’ve expected this many to come upon them so quickly.
Cutty stopped D-Prime and dismounted while Boyd screwed the noise suppressor on his pistol, swapping out his ammo as well. Taking steady aim once again, Boyd dropped two of the dead that had noticed us in the street.
We gathered together and checked our gear briefly. We’d have to be as quiet as possible, or they’d surely attack en masse. If that were to happen, we were all dead. Nick drew his kukri, and Cutty unsheathed his trusty machetes, one in each hand. Boyd was using his silenced setup, as mentioned—crowbar for me, baseball bat for Kylee, and a broken piece of fencing shaped into a spear for Chalmers. That left Seth. We all stared at him blankly as he obliviously sized up the twenty-plus dead ahead of us in the streets. Finally catching his attention, he said to us, “What? I’m good,” as he clanged his two metal gauntlets together.
I shrugged. “Whatever works for ya, dude.”
Kylee spoke the obvious, saying, “All right. We go quickly and quietly. Find Don and Lilly… and anyone else who might be around. We’ll fall back to the north after we figure out where all the survivors are hiding.”
Chalmers asked Nick, “You guys know a back way into your casino. I’ll assume Gino, Lilly, and the others are probably holed up in there.”
Nick nodded, pointing slightly to his left, and said, “Double doors in the alley. It takes you right into the bar by the casino floor. We can take the stairs across from the craps tables to the rooms.”
Cutty told him, “Dat’s whassup. Y’all hold the alley and keep da bernies from gettin’ to those doors.” He pointed to Chalmers and me. “Y’all come wit’ me to the doors, and we gon’ get da floor clear. Heard?”
Nods from everyone.
We snaked our way along the fronts of the buildings to the alleyway and broke left, leaving Boyd, Seth, Nick, and Kylee crouched at its mouth on guard detail. The dead were everywhere. The entire strip stunk of decay, and the air was filled with flies. Birds circled overhead in a huge, black cloud, awaiting their turn to feed.
We hit the double doors and made ready. The very moment Cutty swung them open, we were bombarded with the growls and wails of the dead. The entire casino floor was crowded with them. Chalmers wretched, gagging at the sight of Gino’s skeletal remains lying in a pool of jellied blood and surrounded by the feasting dead.
We heard our li’l Lilly scream for help from across the room, though I had to strain my eyes to see her. Over my shoulder I heard gunfire in the streets, but the alleyway held.
Cutty entered the room and slashed into two of them, brutally decapitating one altogether. The other fell with a huge split down the center of its head. Cutty shouted to Lilly, “Hang on, baby girl!”
Lilly was on the opposite side of the room, trapped. She had somehow managed to climb up onto the bar and then onto a giant liquor shelf that hung behind it. She cried out, “Help me! I don’t have any bullets left! Don’t let them get me!”
The dead at the bar were nearly seven deep and lined all along its length. They reached and clawed at her, leaving her shivering and alone mere inches from their grasp. There were just so many of them—well over fifty… it had to be. She was just frozen there, screaming, and none of us knew how long she had been there, left to sit, petrified, waiting for help that might not even show up.
I swung my crowbar into a group on the casino floor that had finally noticed us. Thanks to Chalmers’ stepping up to help, we were able to down four, but they just kept coming. Cutty swung wildly at anything within arm’s reach, but he was getting swamped. He just pressed on and on, further into the group, leaving a trail of limbs and blood behind him.
We tried to hold the position in the doorway, but all I could focus on was Lilly’s screams. They just… kept… coming…
I lost count as the floor piled with bodies.
I heard Cutty shout to her, “Throw the bottles, Lilly! Throw all of ’em! I’m comin’, baby girl!”
She complied and began throwing the liquor bottles at the dead below her. They shattered, littering the floor with glass and soaking everything as they crashed open. Her crying never stopped. “Hurry, guys. Please,” she pleaded.
Cutty roared as he shrugged off one that grasped his arm, then kicked it into some others. As he reached back to swing down and finish it, two of them latched onto his blade, pulling his arm unnaturally backwards. He shrieked in pain as the teeth tore into his flesh, spraying bright-red blood into the air.
My heart dropped into my stomach.
He growled angrily and dropped both of his machetes. Grabbing the two by their stringy hair, he smashed their heads together so hard that his hands touched.
Lilly cried out, “No, Cutty!”
He called back to her, “It ain’t nothin’, baby girl! I gotchu!” Then he shouted over his shoulder to Chalmers and me, “Don’t y’all dare come in hurr. You hold dat fuckin’ door, ya heard?”
He charged into the alcohol-soaked crowd of the dead at the bar, bowling most of them over. One of the ones that had fallen to the floor grabbed him and tore into his calf, tearing away a huge chunk of flesh. He cried out in pain and stomped on its head, exploding it instantly. He snapped at Lilly, “Jump to me, baby! I’ma catch ya, I promise.”
Another bite into his thigh shot a searing roar into the air as Lilly hesitated. He begged her, “C’mon, baby girl! Trust ol’ Cutty. I won’t drop you!”
She did it. She let herself go from the shelf and landed in Cutty’s arms. The dead snapped at her, but Cutty put his forearm right into their mouths to block Lilly. He growled at them, saying, “Dat all you got, nigga? Dat all you got?”
He hoisted Lilly above his head and began slogging through the mass of biting dead towards us. They began tearing at his flesh as tears streamed down his face and Lilly cried hysterically with fear and panic. The dead ripped at his ribs, tearing his old tee shirt and soaking it with his blood. He kept pushing through, paying attention only to keeping Lilly safe above the crowd.
With his last ounce of strength, he made it to within eight feet of us. He heaved a mighty shout and threw Lilly to me and Chalmers. She landed heavily, knocking Chalmers to the ground. He scrambled to his feet and scooped her up, disappearing through the double doors into the alleyway.
The frenzy surrounding Cutty built to a crescendo, and I was left all but alone by the dead as they homed in on him, taking bite after bite. He looked me right in the eyes through tears. I’ll never forget that look of sorrow and pain. It seared itself into my brain forever.
He told me through his teeth, now red with his own blood, “Gimme it, Dext. Just gimme it, man.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my Zippo. I tossed it to him and said the only thing I could think to say… “Shouldah niggas.”
He smiled through his pain, still shrugging off the biting dead, and said, “See you on the otha side, ma nigga. I luh y’all!”
With that, he flicked the lighter to life and ignited the alcohol. The room burst into flames, the heat washing over me as if to cleanse me of my sins, and sent me falling back out of the doorway into the alley. His screams faded quickly.
I…
We won’t be able to bury Cutty. He burned up like the rest of the dead. That hurts more than anything else in the world to me. I’m going to miss Cutty the most. This one… hurts. More than any of the others, this one hurts. He lived and died as most heroes do, caring for others more than himself. He taught me so much about being human and about not judging others at a glance. He taught me that I can fit in and that family matters more than anything in the world—not just your blood, but those friends that you would call family.
I never thought I would be able to sacrifice myself… my life… for another person who was
n’t my blood relation. Shit, man, there were even some blood relatives I wouldn’t do that shit for. Cutty was the best man I ever knew—my best friend. He was my brother… my muthafuckin’ shouldah nigga.
Rest in peace, Cutty. I hope you were right about God and heaven. If you were, then I have no doubt you’re sittin’ next to Him right now, chillin’. No one else deserves to be right more than you…
Entry 142
Two days—no pen to paper, just us.
We knew we were going to have to go back on the road eventually. That much had been true since we arrived in Vegas. I, myself, figured Boyd would make his home on the South Strip and find work with Gino. Also, I figured Seth and Nick would wave us a good-bye and watch D-Prime disappear into the sunset.
None of that would come to pass.
Seth, Nick, and Boyd found Don locked inside the building where Lilly had received her medical attention during our first night on the strip. He was pinned down in there with the doctor and seven of the dead. He, too, had run out of ammo defending the strip and retreated indoors. With the help of the doc, they managed to kill the bernies, but the doc was bitten. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I heard that Don tried a transfusion of his blood with the doc to try and save him. It failed, and the doc turned immediately. Don handled it swiftly and competently. He emerged onto the street when the gunfire started up again.
Seth tossed him a pistol during the fight, and they covered our exit from the alleyway. During that whole mess, probably when Cutty tossed Lilly to me and Chalmers, a few of her stitches tore open. She seeped blood from the wound for the first day, and we were worried about infection—not so much now, thankfully, because Don had the presence of mind to fill his pockets with meds and shit from the doc’s building. She seems okay physically, but she’s a fucking mess emotionally. We all are.
