“It’s beautiful,” Stephanie whispered, marveling at what must be a million-dollar build.
“I think I saw this on HGTV’s Dream Home last year.”
Wrinkling his brow, Curtis slowly turned to Billy.
Billy shrugged. “What? You didn’t see that one?”
“There are tracks everywhere.” Paul scanned the aimless – and sometimes bloody – footprints on both sides of the driveway before turning to inspect the trees. The prints wandered to and from the large pines and aspens, making it impossible to follow them for a surprise attack of their own. It was almost like the dead had purposely covered their tracks with wandering steps. Like they were working together. Like poisonous ants. He swallowed thickly and turned back to the group. “Remember the plan and stay together. Nobody splits up.”
They stood and listened for a moment longer in the unnerving quiet. No moans. No screams. No wildlife. Paul looked at Calvin, gripping the M4 tightly in both hands. “Stay on me, Cal.”
He nodded back, racing breaths fogging his glasses. They moved as one, taking methodic footsteps while keeping a close eye on all sides. At the end of the circle drive, they crept past two trucks – a Toyota Tacoma and a Cadillac Escalade with meaty tires – and stopped next to two snowmobiles parked near the front porch. Paul stared up at the arched front doors, eyes tripping over the big round knockers.
Billy looked from the massive doors to Paul, his voice barely a whisper. “So do we knock or we don’t knock?”
“I say we kick it in and storm the place,” Curtis said, inching closer.
“You’d need a battering ram to open that thing.” Paul surveyed the covered windows, searching for a sign of life. A moving shadow. A peeled back curtain. Anything to prove they weren’t too late. Anything to avoid failing again because they couldn’t afford anymore failures. The dead were winning the battle and Paul needed a win and right fucking now or this was lights out London. “Billy, go knock.”
Billy opened his mouth to protest but Paul’s thin eyes made him blow out a frustrated breath of air instead. “Alright man, I’m going.”
Before he could take another step, one of the two front doors cracked open and they all drew on a gray haired man with a long beard running into a red flannel shirt.
“Quickly,” he whispered, frantically waving. “Get inside.”
Paul took the lead, pushing through the arched door with the M4 going first. “Hands.” The man backed into the living room with his fingers pointing to the vaulted ceilings with thick beams running through them like veins.
“I’m Brian, you must be Paul.”
“I must be,” he replied, eyeballing the three people sitting on the leather couch near a stone hearth. They were gaunt and cold and just as quiet as the rest of the place.
“Hands up, people.” Curtis gestured with his weapon.
Two of the three did as ordered, shooting their hands into the air, while the third hugged a stuffed dachshund to her chest and began to cry.
Billy shut and locked the door behind him. “Clear.”
Curtis kept his weapon trained on the couch, scanning the living room through dubious eyes. “Clear.”
Wendy moved into the kitchen, sweeping her firearm across the granite countertops and long dining room table. “Clear,” she shouted, returning her tight gaze to the people on the couch. “How long have you been here?”
The man on the couch shifted uneasily, raised hands already turning white. “About a month and a half.”
Wendy sharpened her gaze. “You were here before the outbreak began?”
He traded a look with Brian. “For the most part.”
“For the most part?” She stepped closer. “What do you mean?”
Calvin came rushing back down the hallway with Stephanie bringing up the rear, boots clomping against the hardwoods running throughout. “Bedrooms and bathrooms are clear,” he said, trading a tight smile with Brian.
Stephanie crossed over to the people on the couch, pushing past Wendy and kneeling at their feet. “Are you hurt?” she asked, studying the little girl with dark pigtails for signs of trauma.
The man and woman sitting on either side of her shook their heads without lowering their hands. “We’re fine,” the man replied, glancing at the little girl sitting between them. “I’m Brian’s brother, Gary.” He looked as if he were about to get up and start shaking hands but the gun barrels pointed his direction made him rethink it.
“Thank you for coming,” Brian said, still reaching for the sky and nodding at the couch. “This is my wife, Dot, and our daughter, Olive.”
Stephanie pushed the end of Curtis’ gun away from the couch and smiled at Olive. “It’s okay, sweetie. I’m sorry we scared you but we’re here to help. Okay?”
Olive used the stuffed dog to wipe at her tears and barely nodded, unconvinced of their valiant nature.
“I thought you said you were trapped.”
Brian’s eyes shifted to Curtis. “We are. They hid in the trees when they heard your truck.”
Paul’s jaw came unhinged. “They what?”
“They’re crafty bastards,” Gary said, struggling to keep his hands up.
Paul’s eyes roamed the place, taking in the rustic furniture and pictures of the family that still lived there. A silver frame resting on the mantel drew him closer. He turned to Gary, pointing to the redheaded woman he had an arm around in the sunny snapshot at some nearby ski village. “Who’s this?”
Gary stared hard at the picture for a moment and then lowered his gaze. “My wife,” he said faintly, dropping his arms and pulling Olive against him.
“Your wife?”
“Janice was bringing in some snow we set out to melt in mixing bowls when one of them bit her.” Dot traded a disconcerted look with her husband. “That was when they started hiding.”
Wendy’s incredulous gaze drifted from the picture of the redhead they just saw standing on the side of the driveway, landing on Paul. “That’s her,” she whispered, drawing confused looks from the family.
Paul slipped out of the backpack and handed it to Brian. “There’s some food and water in there,” he said, crossing the room to a sliding glass door overlooking the backyard of rising mountain and trees.
“Guns and ammo in this one.” Billy set the other backpack at Gary’s boots and Paul gave him a cautionary look, prompting Billy to snatch it up off the floor and flash Gary a tightlipped smile. “Why don’t I hang onto this for ya?”
Brian stared at the backpack in his hands before tearing the zipper back and handing out the water, protein bars, crackers and beef jerky inside. The family ate and drank greedily, skin sagging on their bones, no crumb left unturned. Leaving Curtis and Calvin to keep an eye on them, Paul and the others wandered off to secure the rest of the spacious square footage. The rooms were large and the bathrooms smelled like death.
After clearing downstairs, they huddled around a pool table in the middle of the walk-out basement.
“Looks like they were telling the truth,” Billy said, coming out from behind an ornate bar and lowering his weapon.
“I don’t like it.” Paul scanned the bar and old-fashioned pool table with leather pockets, everything in perfect order. “Something’s off.”
Stephanie grunted. “With the family? Or the things hiding in the trees?”
“Both.” He turned to a set of French doors leading to a tiled patio with a built-in fire pit and huge gas grill tucked in next to its own sink. “If those things were really hiding out there, why not jump us at some point? I mean, what’re they waiting for, an invitation?”
“But one did try to jump us.” Billy tossed the cue ball across the red felt, curving it into a corner pocket with a hollow kerplunk.
“Yeah and maybe the other stragglers saw what happened to her and thought twice about attacking us.”
Wendy studied Stephanie, eyebrows pulling together. “Now you’re talking about a-whole-nother level of awareness.”
�
��Hey, self-preservation is a powerful thing. Even for the dead.”
Paul turned from the majestic view, a faint smile playing on his lips. “I say we fight fire with fire and set a trap of our own, see if they’re really out there or not.”
Billy tossed the eight ball up into the air and caught it in his hand. “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked, honing his gaze. “Oh come on, man. No way.”
Chapter Ten
Billy lay writhing and moaning in the middle of the circle drive, dripping in ketchup and humiliation without overselling it. Paul leaned against the balcony railing, trying not to move an inch. His thoughts returned to the naked woman playing dead in the snow. Two could play at that game. He scanned the trees through the M4’s compact scope, the setting sun stretching the shadows to the east and masking the patchy woods in black stripes. Something flickered in the trees and then again. A wolf howled off in the distance and, suddenly, it was as if the trees had come alive and were literally sneaking closer. But those weren’t the trees coming closer. Those were the dead people hiding behind them, the ones coming out to play. Despite their bone-chilling presence, Billy continued acting like the bullet wound to his stomach was real and Paul gave him silent props for it. Billy was the bait car and they would have to wait until those things got close before frugally spending their ammunition. Unfortunately, twilight was hot on their heels and this would have to be a short-lived operation before losing much more daylight.
A thin woman in a tightfitting North Face coat was the first to boldly stumble from a nearby grouping of pines. Tar-black blood matted her blond hair and she was missing an arm. Her shapely legs, however, worked just fine. Plodding through a thin layer of snow in the knee-high boots pulled up over her painted on jeans, she ambled closer to Billy, emboldening the other stiffs to leave the safety of the trees and limp out into the open. Paul wasn’t worried about the skinny woman, who was probably very attractive before getting ambushed on her way to the lifts or nearby bars. He was worried about the fat ones holding back in the shadows. The ones waiting to see what would happen to the others before springing into action.
“Holy shit,” Curtis said in a hushed tone, watching the corpses creep from the woods and enter the waning light. “They’re all over the place.”
The bloody gashes in their hands and faces grew imminently clearer with each beat of Paul’s galloping heart.
“Oh my God,” Stephanie whispered, peering through the scope of her M4. “Where are they coming from?”
“I think most of them came from some apartment complexes down the road.” Brian spoke softly, aiming a bolt-action rifle over the railing with the steady ease of a seasoned hunter patiently waiting for a ten-point buck to draw nearer. “It’s housing for a lot of the employees at Copper Mountain.”
Paul’s watched the lumbering corpses shuffle closer. “Look at em, they’re like ants,” he said, ignoring the cramp pinching his right thigh. Billy squirmed and moaned in the driveway, drawing them in from all directions. “It’s like someone dropped a piece of candy.”
Curtis snorted. “Maybe they’re just playing Pokémon Go.”
Wendy clutched Sophia’s pink gun in both hands with her legs spread wide, eyes darting between Billy and the blond. “Do you think she smelled him? Or did she see him and hear him?”
“Good question,” Paul replied, watching the dead ski bunny in the North Face stagger closer. They had to assume the undead were watching from the trees, which called for a solid plan. Paul felt silly yelling at Billy on the front porch before pretending to shoot him in the gut, but just in case those rancid creatures were smarter than they gave them credit for, it had to look good. From start to finish. His eyes followed the thin red trail from Billy to the front porch where Gary and Calvin were stationed below the balcony. Fortunately, Olive had a bag of balloons and filling two of them with ketchup was a functional idea – one Billy sold like an Academy Award winner.
“Now?” Curtis shifted in his crouched stance, index finger hugging the trigger.
“Not yet.” Paul glanced to the others lining the balcony railing down from him. Aside from six-year-old Olive, watching from one of the many patio doors, everyone had a gun. There was no way Paul was taking a chance of losing Billy to a stupid mistake. Murderer or not, they would need his shot to get out of this mess alive. “Hold your fire,” he whispered. “Let them get a little closer.” The pretty blond reached for Billy with her only arm, boots shuffling through the white stuff, edging toward the wet pavement. More corpses gave up their position, closing in from all directions. Another ten feet. That’s it. Just a little more.
Paul pulled his eye from the scope, heart dropping in his chest when the woman stopped just short of the asphalt. The other corpses halted as well. He stared at her over the railing with his breath snagged in his throat, watching her study Billy like something was off. Tipping her head back, she sniffed at the air while Billy moaned and pleaded for help on the Everything grew eerily still. The other stragglers remained just as frozen in place as Paul and his crew. With a quick twist of the head, the blonde’s hollow gaze landed on the balcony, turning his blood to ice.
“Oh shit,” Curtis whispered, not daring to move a muscle.
The woman peeled her lips back and screamed so loud, Paul had to shut his eyes to keep them from rupturing in their sockets. When he opened them again, she was already turning for the trees, spitting grunts and moans at her dead companions along the way. The corpses watched her limp back into the tree line for a bewildered moment, eyes blank and mouths gaping, before turning tail and filtering back into the shadows as well.
When the last of the stiffs disappeared from view, Paul straightened up and stared into the trees after them. “Sonofabitch,” he murmured, grimacing with the cramp stabbing at his leg.
“Told ya they’re crafty bastards.” Brian lowered the bolt-action rifle and blew out a long breath. “Can you believe that?”
“They knew it was a trap.” Paul kept his eyes and gun on Billy just in case a fat one shot from the tress. Even though Paul set the trap, he suddenly felt like the one being played for the fool. Knowing his luck, the stragglers had a better plan up their sleeve. One that made his look like child’s play.
Curtis spit over the railing, splatting the Escalade’s front windshield. “Damn, dead Carrie Underwood just literally sniffed that whole thing out.”
“Did she just…communicate with the other ones?” Stephanie kept her M4 pointed at the trees, hesitant to even ask. “Am I the only one who saw that?”
“I saw it,” Paul groaned, trying to walk off the cramp. “Fuck!” He noticed Olive shrink at his outburst and didn’t care. This was bad. Real bad. If those things could communicate, the situation just got fifty shades darker.
“Looks like they’re still utilizing their respiratory system to a certain degree as well,” Brian said, huffing in and out like he just finished a marathon. “Way she was sniffing at the air like that, there may be a chance we can gas them out, or even poison them.”
Paul searched the darkening hillside, a stunned wonder subduing his voice. “That’s not a bad idea.”
Billy sat up and looked all around, revealing the handgun he’d been holding to his stomach. “Where’d they go?” he yelled, scanning the trees.
“That girl made noises that the others not only heard, but understood!” Wendy kept her eyes glued on Billy, the breeze toying with her long blond hair, voice laced with panic. “She just told them it was a trap, to go back. Did you see that?”
“I saw it!” Paul roared, making everyone flinch. The fire burning in his eyes made her shut her fucking trap and swallow whatever she was about to say next because he was in no mood to hear it. Not after this. Those things were definitely getting smarter and he couldn’t help wondering how much of their intelligence would return by this time next month. Next year. Exhaling a worn-out breath, he softened his tone. “We have to take new precautions. This changes everything.” He looked over
the railing. “Come on back inside, Billy!”
Billy jumped to his feet and bolted for the front porch where Calvin and Gary were armed with guns and deep-seeded frowns.
Curtis snorted. “Personally, I was kind of hoping for the zombies you can kill with a letter opener on TV.” He shook his head. “This shit is bad.”
“From now on, nobody steps foot outside this house alone. They are obviously out there, waiting for the right moment, and we won’t give it to them.” His eyes landed on Olive, who was now hiding behind her mother’s leg. “Listen, we are smarter than they are and we always will be. We have guns and they don’t. Everything is going to be fine.” Holding her frightened eyes, he tried on a smile that didn’t fit. “I promise.”
“So what do we do now?” Curtis asked, staring into the hillside. “Should we go after them? Clear em out while they’re close by?”
“No,” Paul replied, rubbing his thigh and looking to the west. “It’s getting too dark. This operation is over.”
“Man, what do we have to do to trick them?” Wendy turned from her post when the front door slammed shut downstairs. “Actually shoot someone in the stomach.”
Paul headed for the patio doors, legs dragging like sandbags. “I don’t know but I need a shower to clear my head.”
Curtis lowered his weapon and arched an eyebrow at Brian. “So you got any booze left or just ketchup?”
Chapter Eleven
The water was cold, heated by a solar panel that, unlike the beach house, had seen better days. Tipping his head back, Paul let the rain shower head wash the soap and dried blood from his face, sending a swirl of pink circling down the drain between his feet. He leaned a hand against the sand-colored tiles and hung his head, his promise to Olive ringing hollow in his ears. Everything wasn’t going to be fine and he damn well knew it. But what was he supposed to tell her? They were screwed and it was only a matter of time before her crying or slow little feet got them all killed? Spitting cold water from his mouth, he pushed it all from his mind and tried to concentrate on what came next. Tried to envision them succeeding in this world gone mad because if he could see it, it would come to pass. If he kept focusing on the worst that could happen, then it would. Life was like that. Sometimes it just needed a push in the right direction, and so did Paul.
Dead Series (Book 3): A Little More Alive Page 9
