Stephanie raised her gun, nervously looking at Paul who drew his Beretta PX4 Storm and took aim with the M4 hanging at his side like a guitar god. Rebecca backed against the double doors, covering her mouth with bloodstained hands as the man thundered closer, snarling and snapping, rage tightening his black, soulless eyes.
“Paul,” Wendy said softly, adjusting her aim with the moving target.
“Wait!” he ordered.
The wretched thing picked up speed. Blood ran from its eyes and nose. Foam bubbled from the corners of its mouth. A young woman bolted from the velvet curtains covering a side wall and Billy cut her in two with a three-round burst. Paul kept his eyes fixed on Chris Farley, setting his jaw and squeezing off a single shot. The big man’s head snapped back but his racing momentum carried him forward. Rolling, he crumpled into a ball at their feet. A deathly silence was swift to follow and Paul would never get used to it.
Ears ringing, he holstered the nine, grimacing when the smell hit him. He’d never get used to that either. “Step back,” he said, using the M4’s barrel to nudge the guy in his meaty shoulder. The guardsman fell onto his back, arms flopping out to his sides and blood trickling from a hole in his forehead. Paul centered the weapon’s neck strap and waited for Rebecca’s dilated eyes to rise from Chris’ outstretched body. “The fat ones are fast,” he said, holding her unnerved gaze.
Brow dipping, she turned to the others for verification and the solemn looks on their faces did the talking for them.
“Way faster than the skinny ones. Never forget that.”
“But why?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Maybe a muscle mass or pituitary gland thing. Nobody knows for sure.” His eyes moved to the dead woman who was now completely unrecognizable thanks to Billy’s generous offering. “They also work together to set traps and ambush their prey.”
“Like velociraptors,” Billy panted, eyes darting around the theater like he just heard something behind him.
“Farley was the bait.” Curtis spit next to the dead man staring blankly at the ceiling.
“And she was hiding off to the side.” Stephanie slowly lowered her gun and looked from the dead woman to Rebecca. “Just waiting to make her move.”
Curtis snorted. “When they start setting tripwires, we’re really gonna have some problems.”
Rebecca stared in horror at the young man bleeding out on the carpeting. Foam oozed from his gaping mouth like yellow lava while dark blood leaked from the corners of his eyes and dripped to the floor. Her chest heaved. Words formed on her lips but wouldn’t release. “When do I get a gun?” she finally asked, looking up to meet Paul’s thin gaze.
“Have you ever shot a gun before?”
She took a few seconds to think it over, chasing her breath. “No,” she whispered, looking back down at Chris.
Paul turned to Billy and arched an eyebrow at him, the stench stinging his eyes. “Three shots? Really?”
“What, man, it’s dark. She scared the shit out of me.”
Sighing, he jerked his chin to the double doors. “Let’s find that radio.”
Stephanie watched him pass her by, bending an eyebrow of her own. “Bring him? Really?”
Paul gave her a cocky wink and quietly pushed through one of the double doors while Curtis opened the other, wondering how many of those things were hiding on the other side, lying in wait. Wondering how long the dead could stay quiet like this. With guns drawn, they eased into a lobby with more red carpeting and that old school smell clinging to the couches and chairs. Framed posters of Blade Runner, Cloverfield, and Jaws adorned the porpoise-colored walls and off to the left, sat a snack bar with a popcorn maker and soda fountain, all free of the living dead. Turning his flashlight to the glass doors straight ahead, twilight peeked back, sinking his shoulders. This might be as far as they get tonight and his patience was wearing thin. He wanted to find a radio and right fucking now; not in the morning when they could all be dead. Glancing at the bathrooms to the right, he wondered if they still worked. Wondered if anything worked.
Wendy took a green flier from the snack bar and brought it to her light before holding it up to the others. “This was the last movie these people ever saw.”
Curtis bent closer. “Jarhead? Those poor bastards. That movie sucked donkey tits.”
“So what do we do now? It’s getting dark out.” Stephanie studied the two doors just past the restrooms. One was made of wood with the word Office inscribed in the top half’s glass, the other solid metal from head to toe.
“They’ll never make another movie again,” Billy said with a wistful sigh, scanning a framed poster of an angry Jack Nicholson from A Few Good Men.
“Never say never,” Paul replied, forcing his muscles to relax and trying to think.
Curtis shifted his weight from leg to the other. “They stopped making good movies a long time ago. Bunch of superhero reboots and shitty sequels. Hell, I haven’t been hit by a movie since Avatar.”
Billy raised his brow. “What about Twilight?”
Curtis did a double-take at him.
“Come on, you can admit it.” A slow grin slipped through Billy’s stubble. “A Garth Brooks lovin cracker like you bound to be a romantic at heart.”
“Wait.” Stephanie rested a hand on a hip and gestured with her handgun. “Didn’t we see Deadpool together and you loved it?”
“No, that was Troy. I went to The Force Awakens with Dad. Member?”
“That explains it,” Billy chuckled, running a hand back and forth across the dark peach fuzz carpeting his head. “Black Stormtrooper, my ass, man.”
Curtis frowned. “Wait, that offended you, Montel?”
“All Stormtroopers are cloned from Boba Fett’s dad, who, for the record, is white! So how is it even possible that a black man…”
“Put down the weapons or we will shoot!”
The sound of the man’s voice made Paul’s heart leap into his throat. The man sounded scared and desperate and open to mistakes. Wasting zero seconds, Paul spun around and sprayed the snack bar with a barrage of bullets, barely seeing two people duck down for cover as drywall rained down on their heads. He cringed each time the buttstock hammered against his shoulder because this was his last magazine. To top that off, Curtis lost his shotgun while saving Stephanie back at the house but, outgunned or not, there was no way they were going down the Marvin and Jay road again. Not today. Paul let up off the trigger. “Come on!” he said, darting past the restrooms. Gunshots peppered the walls around him as he flew past the office while Stephanie and Billy brought up the rear and returned fire. Gripping the metal door’s cold knob, Paul prayed it wasn’t locked. Prayed it didn’t lead to a dead end that would seal their fate. The knob turned in his hand, flooding him with a burst of short-lived relief.
Bullets pelted the doorframe around him, bringing plaster and debris down on their heads. The hallway was long and narrow, constructed of cinderblock walls holding in the cold. The door slowly shut behind them. Their shoes slapped against concrete, echoing loudly in their ears. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw everyone still on their feet, flashlights and guns swinging in their hands. They slowed down at the end of the hall, inspecting a t-intersection with another metal door perched at each end. Another choice with life or death hanging in the balance.
“Which way?” Curtis panted.
The door flew open behind them and banged against the wall. A younger man wearing glasses followed a pear-shaped woman with dark skin and a heavy scowl into the hallway, both wearing street clothes and guns blazing. Paul ran to the right, thinking it would lead them to the backdoor they came in through. Billy and Stephanie ran backwards, wasting precious ammo that ricocheted off the walls and stung their eardrums. Bursting through the door, Paul’s heart sank. He ran hard for the two doors sitting at the end of another long hallway and everything slowed down in his mind. He had time to realize they were quickly becoming corralled like cattle. Had time to understand that if he picked
the wrong door at the end of this hallway they were as good as dead. Had time to see Dan poke his bloody head out the door on the left and give Paul a quick nod before disappearing altogether.
Seizing the doorknob on the left, Paul whipped it back and burst outside, leading them through the falling snow and searching for Dan’s footprints in the frosted grass. They weaved between rows of similar looking brick buildings with white-painted trim and dead bushes, gasping for air to cool their burning lungs. Paul took a sharp right, cutting through a tree line that scratched at his cheeks and grabbed at his clothing. Then they were free, spilling into a small town that looked like Main Street, USA back in the 1950s. The group raced down the deserted street, passing different shops and restaurants, legs aching and guns clutched tightly in their hands. Halfway down the block, Paul steered them into a coffee shop and slammed the door shut behind them. His face fell, taking in the raw two-by-fours holding the façade up and the gray sky hovering above. Confusion swelled in their eyes. The dead guy in fatigues leaning against a diagonal support beam only added to their dismay. The bullet hole in his forehead pulled a stubborn sigh from Paul’s lips.
“What is this place?” Billy whispered, snowflakes lighting on his face.
“It’s a fake town.” Paul peeked through a pane glass window, canvassing the street for the man and woman trying to kill them.
“Fake town?” Billy scrunched his nose up. “For what?”
“Probably practicing military drills.”
Curtis spun Paul around by the arm. “Who the hell was that?”
White plumes of smoke jutted from Paul’s gaping mouth. “Somebody just as afraid of us as we are of them.”
Curtis shook his head. “No, I mean the guy who stuck his head out that door back there.”
The floor dropped out beneath Paul and suddenly he was freefalling through the Earth’s core at a hundred and twenty miles an hour, passing layers upon layers of crust, mantel, and liquid nickel. He slammed Curtis up against the front wall, rattling the windows on either side of the door and curling his jacket into his fists. “You saw him?” he yelled, tendons throbbing in his neck.
“Paul,” Stephanie said, setting a hand on his shoulder.
Curtis stared up into Paul’s heated glower, pinned against the wall with bewilderment creasing his brow. “Blond guy missing half his face? Yeah, I saw him.”
He stared hard at Curtis with his ears ringing and disbelief pressing against the back of his eyes. Pushing off, he turned away and ran his hands through his messy brown hair because this couldn’t be. Because this was just as impossible as the dead walking the streets of America. “What the fuck,” he whispered, sheets of plywood creaking beneath his footsteps.
“Who was he?” Curtis asked again.
“That was Dan.” Everyone looked at Wendy. She swallowed thickly, holding Paul’s harrowed gaze with everything she had, breath rising from her lips in vaporous wisps. “Paul’s best friend.”
Chapter Three
Poking his head up over a big green dumpster, Paul watched Billy lay motionless on the sidewalk in front of a flower shop with no flowers inside. He couldn’t see the blood on Billy’s forehead but knew it was there because he put it there with the blood from the deceased soldier in the fake coffee shop. For all intents and purposes, Billy was dead and all they could do now was wait. Ducking down behind the dumpster, Paul traded glances with Stephanie and Rebecca crouching beside him.
“They’re coming,” he whispered, peeking around the side and nodding to Curtis, who was positioned behind a blue mailbox across the street. Curtis gave a single nod and turned his attention to the man and woman sauntering closer with assault rifles wrapped in their hands. Putting a finger to his lips, Paul’s eyes travelled from Stephanie to Rebecca before rising over the dumpster’s edge. The man and woman looked to be in their mid-twenties and didn’t see Paul because they were too busy training their weapons on Billy’s lifeless body, murmuring things to each other only they could hear. Carefully, Paul raised the M4 to eye level, resting it on the lip of the dumpster and peering down the scope. When they got less than fifteen feet from Billy, he called out to them.
“That’s far enough!” Paul thrust his badge into the air. “We are the police and we’re not here to hurt you!”
Their heads and guns spun around in Paul’s direction at the same time, methodically scanning the phony shops across the street. They couldn’t see him and it weighed upon their faces.
The thin guy with long bangs tickling his glasses laughed abruptly. “The police are dead, asshole!”
“Not all of them,” Paul replied, lowering the badge and clipping it onto his belt.
“Then why don’t you come a little closer so we can take a better look at your badge.” The hint of a smirk graced the woman’s face and Paul knew she would shoot as soon as he came out.
“Drop the guns or you’re dead,” Curtis yelled, yanking their gazes back to his side of the street. “I’m not playing.”
Indecision mixed with panic, cementing the duo in place. The deer-in-headlights look Paul was hoping for glazed over in their eyes. Most everyone got it, not quite used to having guns pointed at them yet. Whispering something to each other, only their lips dared to move.
“Drop em!” Wendy stepped out from the alcove of a grocery store two doors down, Sophia’s gun wrapped in her hands. “You’re surrounded and have no chance.”
The short woman jerked her weapon to Wendy and sharpened her gaze. “My money says that after all this time out there with those things, you’ve been out of ammunition for the past week and a half.” Her smile tightened. “We, however, don’t have that problem.”
Paul fired a short burst, making sparks dance on the concrete around their feet.
“Alright,” she screamed, raising her hands and pulling the gun strap over her head. “Alright!”
“You too, Screech.” Cautiously, Curtis came out from behind the mailbox with his Glock pointed at Glasses.
Glasses swept the barrel of his weapon to Curtis. “Fucking raiders! I knew it!”
Billy rolled onto his back. “Go easy,” he blurted, pointing Chubby’s sidearm at the man’s long-hooked nose.
“Hey, my bad, man.” Glasses quickly relented, putting his hands into the air and pulling the weapon strap over his head.
Billy pushed to his feet without taking the gunsights off them. “Put them on the ground, real slow like.”
They did as told, moving too casually for Paul’s liking. When their assault rifles hit the pavement and they straightened back up, he unlocked a pent-up breath and came out from behind the dumpster. Stephanie and Rebecca followed him into the street, guns locked on target while Curtis rounded up the surrendered weapons and got back on point.
With his hands in the air, Glasses nervously shifted in his skinny jeans and boots. “Are you guys really cops?”
“We are now,” Curtis grumbled, looking like he might still shoot them.
“Hey man, we’re not looking for any trouble.”
“No, you’re just looking to kill innocent people,” Curtis spit back, stopping next to Paul in the middle of the street. “The fuck you shooting at us for?”
The man’s already insipid skin continued to whiten, like the blood wasn’t just leaving his elevated hands. Like it was leaving his entire body through the soles of his shoes.
“You’re trespassing!” the woman snapped, her scowl unflinchingly sharp. “I work here and local law enforcement has no jurisdiction over Camp Dodge!”
“You know who has jurisdiction now?” Paul gestured with the M4. “The people with the guns.”
The snow began to lighten as they took stock of each other, a western showdown on a Hollywoodesque set, the silence as cold and gray as the sky above. The man couldn’t have weighed more than a buck twenty soaking wet and sported the same tight jeans and sand-colored hoodie as his companion.
“You’re in the guard?”
She nodded, drilling Paul with
a malicious stare.
“What’s your name?”
“Maria,” she said curtly, nodding to the man next to her. “This is my husband, Calvin. Who are you?”
“Survivors,” he replied, glancing at Billy. “Pat them down.”
“Spread your feet,” Billy ordered, tucking his nine into his police duty belt and starting down around Maria’s ankles. His palms moved up her left leg and then her right, fluttering against her tight-fitting jeans like butterfly wings.
“Hey, easy!” Calvin said as Billy’s hands reached Maria’s breasts.
“Shut up,” Wendy said, gesturing with her gun.
“Everyone relax, we’re all on the same team now,” Stephanie said in a calm voice. “We only want to help.”
Calvin cocked his head to one side. “How? By feeling up my wife’s tits? Because that was kind of rude.”
“I didn’t feel up your wife’s tits.”
“I saw them bounce!”
“Cal,” Maria groaned in a low voice, eyes locked on Paul.
Billy stepped back to the line. “They’re clean,” he said, looking around like he just heard something in the empty tavern behind them.
Lowering his weapon, Paul stepped a little closer. “My name’s Paul. How many people are in here?”
Maria snorted in amusement. “Alive or dead?”
“Both.”
“Alive?” She traded a look with Calvin. “Just us. Dead?” She pressed her lips together and shrugged limply. “We’ve killed a lot of bees but not all of them. A few are stuck in the barracks and other buildings; some are outside on the loose. Hiding.”
Curtis folded his brow. “Bees?”
“Yeah,” Calvin said. “Ya know, like zom-bees?”
He stared dully at Calvin for a few seconds. “That is the gayest nickname I’ve ever heard.”
Maria’s eyes toured the half circle of guns staring back at her. “Where’d you come from?”
Paul ignored her. “Is there a radio on the base? Something that still works?”
Dead Series (Book 3): A Little More Alive Page 2
