“About taking this place back from the dead.”
Mangy looked through the scope again. “Already beat ya to it, slick. Cleared the undead out of here over two weeks ago.”
“Most of em anyway,” the tall man grumbled under his breath, drawing a heated look from Mangy.
Paul shook his head. “No, I mean all of it, not just the mountain. The entire country.”
A wave of stunned looks and murmurs rolled through the crowd. They exchanged questioning glances, sobering Mangy’s face. “Jibe-ho!” he yelled, causing the others to take two steps closer to Paul’s group like North Korean soldiers, feet clapping against the floor in unison, weapons drawn and fingers hugging the triggers.
Paul held his ground, clenching his teeth and popping a vein in his neck. “Jesus Christ, just take it easy!”
Curtis swung his gun around the room, picking targets. “And just for the record, Captain Jack, Jibe-ho is a sailing term. Not an attack command.”
“Put the guns down or we’ll drop you where you stand on the count of three.” Mangy Beard tipped his head down to show Paul his I mean business face.
Curtis smiled at Brian. “Now that’s more like it. On the count of three,” he said, shaking his head. “An oldie but a goodie.”
Stephanie shrieked when someone stuck a shotgun barrel in her back. Brian and Billy were next to find the long end of assault rifles poking them from behind. When it became clear they were outnumbered and outgunned, Paul held his hands up and let the M4 hang from his neck.
“Okay, okay,” he said, showing them his palms. “What’s your name?”
The man turned his heated glare a few degrees higher and spoke in a low, slow voice. “One.”
Curtis looked at Billy. “One? What the hell kind of name is that?”
Billy shook his head, chest pumping. “I think it’s Jedi,” he panted, stiffening when the man behind him jabbed him again. “Okay, take it easy, brother!”
“Look, we don’t want any trouble,” Paul said, scanning the crowd. “We just want to help. We’re not the enemy.”
“Two.”
“Alright!” Pulling the strap over his head, Paul set the weapon on the table next to him. He nodded at his team to follow suit, prompting Mangy Beard to boldly step closer. Paul glanced at Curtis, ready to communicate his silent plan to ambush this fucker on his command. If Paul guessed right, most wouldn’t remain loyal when push came to shove. Most would stand and watch. Or run. This is what he wanted to communicate with Curtis using just a single head nod but Curtis was too busy staring across the room with his jaw dragging on the floor and the color fleeing his cheeks. Mangy Beard noticed the warped look gripping Curtis’ face and turned to follow his wide eyes to a man with dark wavy hair standing by the hostess stand. The man just stood there like he was waiting for someone to seat him. Like the blood running from the corners of his mouth and the purple veins spider-webbing through his ashen skin were completely normal and shouldn’t interfere with enjoying his meal in the slightest. He opened and closed his mouth but the only thing that came out was a stream of dark fluid that oozed down his Chevy cut-off and slapped to the floor around his bare feet.
Curtis stepped forward. “Troy?” His voice was barely audible but Paul heard it and so did Stephanie, who inhaled sharply and clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Troy,” she shouted, drawing her dead older brother’s hollow eyes.
Paul’s gaze flickered to the M4 on the table next to him, mentally preparing for a quick grab because this was it. They were back.
“Corpse!” The tall man with oily hair took aim at Curtis’ dead brother.
“Noooo!” Curtis yelled, elbowing the man standing behind him in the nose. There was a loud crunch when the cartilage broke but it was too late. The tall man opened fire on Troy, spraying him with lead that didn’t last for long. His weapon clicked dry and that’s when Paul knew the ragtag group was low on ammo. He was about to grab his M4 when more of the dead suddenly appeared around the edges of the room, floating from the shadows and glaring at Mangy Beard with hatred coiling in their vacant eyes.
Mangy Beard opened fire as well but, like the tall man, his shots went right through Sophia and Dan, blowing out one of the huge ceiling-to-floor windows behind them. The wind rushed into the room, stirring the dead into closing the circle.
“Lower your weapons or I will have them tear you in two!”
Mangy’s bulging eyes snapped to Paul, fear and confusion stretching his weathered face. “You…” He paused to collect his breath. “You control the dead?”
Paul glanced at his team fanned out behind him. “We control the dead.”
Stephanie stepped forward, reaching for Troy standing across the room. Teardrops raced over her cheeks as she curled her hand into a fist and brought it to her chest. “Paul has the cure!” she said, letting her eyes sweep over the group of survivors. “But it won’t work without you.”
“They have helped us before,” Paul added, looking around the room. “But the question is: will you?”
The tall man was the first to set his weapon on a table.
“Finn!” Mangy Beard shouted. “Pick it up!”
“Fuck that, Ed! I’m done with this shit. These people didn’t do anything to us.”
“Coward!” Ed spit back, slowly backpedaling from Sophia and Dan who were coming closer with uneven steps and outstretched hands. His face fell when he backed into something large and unmoving. Turning, he looked up into Brock’s dead eyes, jaw falling unhinged.
Brock tipped his cowboy hat back with a decomposing finger and spread a greasy grin. “There’s a new sheriff in town, hoss, and y’all best get used to it.”
“Okay!” Ed dropped the rifle to the tiled floor and shot his hands into the air. “Okay.” He backed away from Brock and Cora, startling when he ran into Carla, Matt and Mike. Spinning in circles, his face turned as white as Sophia when he saw the dead gathering around him like ants to candy.
Paul gave Dan a tight-lipped nod of the head, heart swelling in his chest, and wiped at his misty eyes. They were here to help and he couldn’t believe it. If it weren’t for the stunned look on Billy’s face, he’d think he was seeing things again. Would think he was certifiably insane. But he wasn’t.
“Holy fucking shit,” Billy gasped, slowly backing away from the wall of windows.
Paul followed his pointing finger, pulse jumping when he saw all of the dead people standing outside the broken window. They were everywhere, covering the patios and bunny hills, filling the slopes rising to the top of the mountain like the world’s largest amphitheater.
“They won’t hurt you!” Paul’s voice rang through the dining room and slipped out the shattered window. He turned to the forty or so survivors they just came across, wanting to ease the alarm twisting their faces. “They are here to help us; all of us, but only if we work together.”
With terror enlarging their eyes, they slowly set their weapons down and trembled in their boots, unable to look away from the ghastly horde now outnumbering them ten thousand to one. “Who are they?” a gray haired woman asked, leaning against Finn to support her wobbly legs.
“They were the first to fall and the last to get back up.” Paul pulled a chair out and used it to step up onto a table. “Leave him!” he ordered. The corpses surrounding Ed obediently pulled back, revealing the terror in his eyes and the urine stain in his khakis. Paul studied the crowd standing before him, taking in their bewildered faces and catching a weak smile from his dead mother standing at the back of the room. “If you join us, they will help you take this country back. The entire planet back.” The mangled faces watching from outside filled him with some much needed hope that made it easier to breathe, easier to stand tall. No matter someone’s training in modern warfare, a few lucky breaks along the way could, ultimately, be the difference between life and death on the battlefield. And this was the biggest break of all. This would be the difference. When most of the population disappeared
overnight, Paul thought he’d never stand a chance against an endless militia of famished corpses. But he was wrong. Because this time they had the edge. This time they had the numbers. It wasn’t about the dead getting back up. It was about them getting back up.
He stepped to the middle of the table and spread his arms wide open, conviction lifting his voice. “Together, we will bring the fight to the living dead without rest. We will get smarter and stronger and if the undead have a single cell left in their rotting brains, they will run when we come knocking. One town at a time, we will wipe them from the face of the earth until the only thing left is safety and peace for all!” His heart beat against his jacket, white breath rushing past his lips. “I say enough is enough. This is our home and they can’t have it because we are still alive!” He shoved a fist into the air and it was like the entire mountain came to life. Fistfuls of promises thrust into the sky around him in the dining room, rising all the way up the side of Copper Mountain in an imposing display of force that made the hairs go up on his arms.
The survivors looked at each other for an uncertain moment before cheering and hugging and that was the moment when Paul knew they would take it back.
Knew this wasn’t over by a longshot.
Knew that this…was just the beginning.
Chapter Eighteen
DAY ONE THOUSAND TWENTY-NINE
Curtis dropped a fifth of Jack Daniels to the floor where it bounced onto its side and began staining the busy carpeting with gurgling noises. “Fuckin shit, they’re all over the place!” He backpedaled, the worn M4 snug against his shoulder, swinging the flashlight clipped to the weapon around the casino.
Paul glanced behind him to see where he was going, keeping his weapon light trained on the ragtag horde shambling closer in the pale moonlight slipping through the slanted windows above. The dead were skin and bones and how they continued to walk, he would never know. “I told you we should’ve grabbed Billy and Scabs.”
Curtis jerked when he pulled the trigger, putting a round through the nose of an emaciated naked woman with gray hair hanging to her crusty feet. “Those lightweights passed out an hour ago,” he replied, lining up his next shot.
“Which is why I told you this was a bad idea.” Paul absorbed the weapon’s recoil like a sponge, removing the forehead of a slender man sporting shredded black slacks and fingernails that were so long, they curled like a wire whisk around his hands. “I don’t know why I listen to you.” Nearly three years into this mess and he was still making stupid mistakes. Still letting Curtis talk him into things that, one day, would probably get them all killed.
Curtis popped a cap into a young lady with curly hair and teeth so sharp, they were shark-like. “Because I’m your second in command and we’re out of booze! What’d you wanna do the rest of the night? Sit around drinking Arnold Palmers and playing chess.”
Paul shot a white man with long silvery hair in the face. “Hey, I like chess!”
Curtis cried out and teetered in the air. Paul reached for him and, for a glimmering moment, thought he had him. Their fingertips brushed as Curtis fell backwards in slow motion, falling off a single step that must’ve thwarted thousands of drunken tourists over the years. Landing on his right side with an oomph rushing from his lips, his gun went off, striking a dead Wheel of Fortune slot machine right in the kisser. Crying out in pain, he rolled onto his back, clutching his right arm to his chest.
Paul hopped down the step and helped him to his feet, the grisly throng coming closer with slow and determined steps, a certain desperation swirling in their recessed eyes. “Are you okay?”
Curtis staggered a little and tried to straighten the weapon strap around his neck, cringing with the movement and holding his right arm. “I dislocated my shoulder! You have to pop it back in.”
“What!” Paul squeezed off a single round, bringing a middle-aged bridesmaid down that did little to impede the others behind her. “Right now?”
“I can’t shoot like this!”
Together, they backed their way across the colorful carpeting, looking for a way out of the massive casino. Paul wondered if Billy and the others could hear the gunfire from the penthouse suites perched on the top floor and seriously doubted it, especially since everyone was asleep. No, he and Curtis were on their own. “There!” Paul jerked his chin to an emergency exit partially hidden by a palm tree. They ran to it, putting some distance between them and the encroaching pack so Paul could go to work on Curtis’ shoulder. Weaving through some blackjack tables and pit boss podiums, he slammed on the breaks, skidding to a stop in a new pair of Nike running shoes.
“Okay, what do I do?” Paul panted, glancing behind him to see the herd slowly closing the gap.
Curtis held his right arm out from his body at a ninety-degree angle, wincing with the pain ripping through him. “Okay,” he panted, “grab my wrist with your right hand and my elbow with the other.”
The death moans grew louder. Sweat tickled Paul’s temples.
“Okay, what now?”
Curtis took a few quick breaths, body tensing. “Now pull and twist.”
With little time to spare, Paul did a fast pull and twist. Curtis threw his head back and howled his pain to the high ceiling above. “Jesus Christ!” Paul gasped, letting the arm go. “Did I get it?”
Curtis hung his head and shook it to clear the pain, chasing his racing breath. “No, you have to pull and then…” He stopped talking when the double doored emergency exit burst open, releasing a stream of foul smelling undead into the ginormous room.
“Oh shit!” Paul spread his legs and raised the assault rifle, head dizzy with the alcohol coursing through his bloodstream. He fired, feeling the magazine drain like sand in an hourglass, knowing the stiffs had successfully corralled them like cattle toward the exit. Skin and bones my ass.
Curtis started shooting next to him and screamed at the top of his lungs, painting a yellow wall with an errant arc of bullet holes. “Fuck!” he said, letting off the trigger and clutching his shoulder.
Paul unloaded on the things ambling from the emergency exit, glancing behind him to the other rancid mob now passing a long bar with red chairs and no TVs. “Curtis! I need you to fight through the pain and start shooting.”
“I can’t,” he yelled, doubling over. “I’m going to pass out.”
With his head on a swivel, Paul watched both herds approaching from opposite sides of the long room. There was nowhere to run and the one magazine tucked in his black cargo pants (the mag he almost left on the dresser upstairs) wouldn’t outlast the corpses. There were too many of them. “We need to carve out a path this way,” he said, turning to the dead people stumbling past the bar and firing off a controlled three-round burst. The moans behind them got louder. Closer. “You start shooting, Curtis, and that is an order!”
“Goddammit,” Curtis cried through gritted teeth, using his hips to swing the weapon up to eye level. Staring down the barrel, his body tensed in preparation for the bolt of agony about to rip through him. His finger coiled around the worn trigger, long hair sticking to his sweaty face and neck. He held his breath and squeezed, crying out over the gunfire and unloading on the throng of walking corpses. The buttstock hammered against his dislocated shoulder, squeezing teardrops from the corners of his eyes. His first few shots went over the top but quickly corrected course. The dead began hitting the carpet with the tears falling from his cheeks.
“Let’s go,” Paul yelled, heading back the way they came in.
“I’m never going to Vegas again,” Curtis shouted, face red and glistening in the moonlight.
Paul shot a cocktail waitress in the nose and hurdled her fallen body. “I told you we should’ve gone to Yosemite!”
Curtis followed him around a corner and skidded to a stop when a fat man in a black motorcycle vest exploded from a restroom. Curtis blew his head off while the dead slowly advanced behind them. “What’s with you and Yosemite anyway?”
Paul shrugged. �
�I don’t know; they have bears and stuff.”
Curtis stared blankly at him for a second or two before bursting into laughter and punching back in with the M4, screaming like hell at the pain and following Sophia’s ghost into a stairwell next to the defunct glass elevators.
Chapter Nineteen
DAY TWO THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-ONE
Paul hosed sudsy water from the hood of a black Trans Am, freeing the screaming chicken to spread its wings and proudly bask in the late afternoon sun. The car was built in 1977 and looked brand new, inside and out. One of the few things they came across during the purge that he clung to with both hands. A barn find that would make any collector jealous. Besides, he had to put something in the detached three-car garage looming in the backyard behind him. Water sprayed the glass T-tops, creating a rainbow that hovered over the car like a guardian angel. Releasing the handle and stopping the spray, he turned off the spigot against the side of the house, his stomach growling.
“She’s lookin good, Paulie!”
He turned to the similar styled house across the street and waved to Billy, squinting against the sunshine and ignoring the lone straggler meandering through an overgrown yard of one of the unfinished houses outside the cast-iron fence. Today was Bob’s day. The dead could have tomorrow. “So is yours,” he shouted back, coming around the TA and being extra careful not to bang the Beretta PX4 Storm strapped to his right thigh against the glistening paint. He’d pulled that rookie move once before and finding the perfect shade of black turned out to be a royal pain in the ass that nearly cost he and Curtis their lives.
Billy met Paul in the middle of the sun-splashed street, glancing over his shoulder at the silver Corvette Stingray shining in his driveway. “Got it up to a hundred and sixty-five yesterday.”
Dead Series (Book 3): A Little More Alive Page 15
