Sammy laughed a hearty laugh. “Whoo! Now that’s how you take care of business!” He blew a wispy breath over the barrel of his revolver and laughed again.
Guillermo smiled wide, equally pleased with himself, and nodded while holstering his own pistols.
Randy looked as though he wanted to pass out, his face red and dripping with sweat.
Sammy slapped the big man on the arm. “Nice shooting, Tex. I think you actually hit one of ‘em.”
Gills muttered sarcastically, “In the foot.”
Mitch’s brother laughed again, shaking his head. The two men started back around the house.
Jessica just stood there, unable to speak, surveying the carnage. She hadn’t seen many shufflers, being too sick to really go anywhere, but she knew they were normally slow and cumbersome. At least David and Mitch thought so. She surmised that the true danger lie in their sheer numbers. A one-off here and there could be dangerous, sure. Get taken by surprise, it could be all over. But get surrounded by a pack of them? Alone? They may be slow, but there was no way someone by himself could take them out quickly enough.
Jessica and Randy could only gawk, their gazes rolling over the rotting mess. The horizon seemed to bob and sway, like they were adrift at sea. And seasick. Their jaws unhinged, Jessica couldn’t push back against the lava flow of bile anymore and let nature take its course.
Drawing the back of her hand across her lips, Jessica said, “Randy?”
He stood there, staring at the mass of bodies. “… Yeah …”
“What have we done? What’s happening to us?”
“They … we … murdered …” The big man swayed.
Jessica shook her head with quick snaps, her throat and mouth a fiery wreck. The taste was making her sick all over again.
A fight raged in Jessica’s mind, one that she was willing to lose. These bodies, these …things … weren’t people. Not anymore. She was still having a hard time convincing herself of this. But she realized that she must come to understand this new fact of life. These things were dangerous. David had seen it, told her about what he saw in town. He’d been lucky to make it to Mitch’s.
When they finally made it back to the front, they found Sammy and Guillermo making themselves at home on the porch. Sammy was in the rocker, dropping fresh rounds into his Smith and Wesson 686. Perched on the railing, Gills was reloading his own pistols—two chrome Colt 1911s.
From Randy’s old spot, Sammy glanced at the approaching duo in the yard, and the balance of power seemingly shifted. “‘Bout damn time.” He nodded toward the door behind him. “How ‘bout that water, missy? Killing cannibals makes me thirsty.”
His shit-eating grin reignited Jessica’s stomach, and she could taste the bile again. She squeezed the Sig’s handle like a stress ball. For a fleeting instant, she thought of pressing the barrel to Sammy’s head, fingering the trigger, and sending him somewhere that would appreciate his black heart.
Instead, she whispered to Randy, “C’mon inside with me. I need to tell you something.”
He still seemed dazed, but managed a nod.
“We got this out here,” Sammy said. “You women folk go on inside. Take care of the cooking and cleaning and such.”
Jessica tossed him a glare that could topple towns.
“Whoa, easy, girl,” he said, then chuckled.
Gills snickered.
Randy and Jessica pressed past them. From outside, Sammy added, “Now you two behave in there.” They could hear Gills laugh.
“Assholes,” Jessica whispered. She tucked her pistol back into her waistband, then decided to give the two bullies their water so they’d leave her and Randy alone for a few minutes.
“Stay here,” she told Randy. “I’ll be right back.”
She took the glasses to the two men, endured another round of harassment, then came back inside.
Busying his hands, and thirsty himself, Randy had gotten two more glasses of water and had one outstretched as she crossed the living room. She took it from him and drank before setting it on the table.
“What is it?” he asked, questioning the tear rolling down her cheek. “What did they say to you?”
She huffed and cleared the tear. “It wasn’t them this time.” She sniffled. “It’s David and Mitch.”
Fresh off the slaughter, Randy tried to play the optimist, to comfort her. To be the strong one. “I’m sure they’ll be back—”
She waved him off. “The CB, Randy.” She was having trouble with her words, the room blurring. “The man … on the radio …”
He arched a brow. “The man on the radio?”
She nodded, her chin tugging at her quivering, downturned lips. “He said they were dead.” Tears crashed over her cheeks.
Barely able to understand her, he said, “Wait, what? What man?”
The sobs had started, robbing her of clarity. “The man on the two-way.” She tried drying her cheeks with already damp fingers. “He told me that”—she sucked shallow breaths—“David … and Mitch …” She couldn’t finish her sentence.
Randy scratched his beard, perplexed, then regarded her with a patronizing gaze.
“You don’t believe me.” An angry, hurt note rang in her tone.
“Wait, I didn’t say that. I’m just trying to understand.”
“On the radio,” she said, starting to show impatience, as though Randy should read her mind, “the man said David and Mitch were dead.”
“I don’t … What man? What was his name?”
“He didn’t say.” She was catching her breath again, extinguishing her tears.
“He didn’t say?”
“No Randy, he didn’t say what his name was. I picked up the radio, tried raising David and Mitch, this other guy came on and told me they were dead.”
She stopped, letting this sink in, giving Randy a chance to digest what she’d just told him.
Randy asked, “How would he get David’s radio?”
Jessica cocked her head, compounded her stare.
He thought about it for another moment, then said, “Probably just some jerk messing with you, some ham radio operator guy with his own radio, or someone who just happened to be on the same channel you were on—”
“Randy, he called them by name. He knew David’s first and last names. He said, ‘Morris. David’s last name was Morris.’”
“Was Morris? Past tense?”
She nodded, fighting back a new round of tears. She brought her fist to her chin, bottom lip clamped between her teeth.
“And this man knew Mitch’s name, too?”
Another nod.
“And he kept calling me ‘darling,’ but he pronounced it really funny, really southern, like: dahlin’.” She raked her chin with her knuckles. “Sounded like he was trying to be some 1800s cowboy or something,” she added, almost as an afterthought, then shook her head, wiped away another tear.
They stood there, face to face, but not eye to eye.
The far-off sound of a growling diesel engine changed that.
Chapter 9
David emerged from the tree line about a football field away from the Dodge. It was quiet now, save for the insects singing their summertime songs. He was sweating a bucket a minute, his only reward for negotiating the thick underbrush. Nausea knocked, signaling heat exhaustion, and he wondered just how much time he’d spent chasing a ghost through the woods.
He rubbed his neck, stepping carefully through the high grass in the ditch until the soles of his boots met the road. Out of habit, he looked both ways, expecting a car to come rushing by, but none did. The hottest part of the day quickly approached, and a glance down the highway revealed a beckoning oasis. Of course, he knew it was just the typical summer mirage, the heat rising off the road, masquerading as cool, crisp water. He would find no drink there. And should he be naïve enough to chase it, it would disappear, only to reappear farther down the road to tease and elude him again.
He started toward the truck, where
he knew he’d find authentic reprieve from the unrelenting rays. The heat under his feet implored quick steps, threatened to melt the rubber from his boots. Still, despite physical discomfort, he could not stop wondering about what happened to Mitch, why he couldn’t find him.
When he reached the truck, he stole one last look around, noting nothing had changed, then climbed into the truck.
Bryan looked at him, his expression the same as when David had left him. Charlie rested in the boy’s lap, eyes closed, napping.
David stared at them a moment, taking in the peaceful picture. He almost hated to start the truck, to disturb them. Something so simple as a boy and his dog reminded David why life was still worth living, worth protecting, even in this new deranged and deadly world. He’d wondered if he was going insane, planning to kill Mitch. But he would, in an instant, if only to protect Bryan. He’d known the boy barely an hour, but he felt like his own.
“You thirsty, Bry? Hungry?”
Bryan’s eyes dropped before meeting David’s again. His hair stuck up in a cowlick on his crown, and it bobbed when he nodded.
“Well, I hope you like bacon, ‘cuz we’re gonna have plenty of it.” He smiled.
“I like bacon. Pancakes, too.”
“Well, good.”
The engine rumbled to life, and he fiddled with the air vents, anticipating the cold that would soon swirl around them. Finally, he raised the windows fully.
“Did you find that man?” Bryan asked, almost as an afterthought.
David shook his head. “No Bryan, I didn’t.”
The boy twisted his lip. “I told him to wait for you.”
The smile faded from David’s lips, his brow tightened. He swallowed hard. “What did you say?”
Bryan seemed confused by David’s reaction, as though he’d said the wrong thing and made David mad.
“I … I told that man to wait for you. That you’d be right back, ‘cuz you promised me you would.”
David’s heart started running away. He twisted in his seat so he could face Bryan. “What man, Bryan? What did the man say to you?” Mitch had been right under his nose.
“He asked me what my name was.”
David ran his fingers through his sopping hair. “Did you tell him?”
Bryan nodded, sprigs of hair bouncing. “He thought I was Jimmy, but I told him we were just borrowing Jimmy’s truck, that we’d give it back when we were done with it.”
Something twisted in David’s gut, a new nausea replacing the old.
“Was the man’s name Mitch?”
Bryan furrowed his brow, turned his eyes to the sky, like he was thinking really hard, then shook his head. “No.”
Now David’s insides were twisting, squeezing him from the inside out. He reached out, resting a hand on Bryan’s shoulder, giving it a small squeeze. “Bryan, what did this man look like?”
The boy thought hard again, wanting to be sure and get every detail right. “He had a hat.”
“Like a cap? A baseball cap?”
“No, like my grandpa wears sometimes.”
David arched his brow.
Bryan said, “Like a cowboy.”
Nodding, David said, “What else?”
His finger to his chin, Bryan said, “And he had a … a … what do you call it? Like the devil has …”
David’s eyes widened, fear flashing in them. “Horns? He had horns, Bryan? A tail?”
He shook his head frantically. “No, no, no. Not horns.” He pointed at his upper lip and chin.
“A goatee? Like a pointy mustache?”
The guess was met with exuberant nodding.
David did not like the picture Bryan was painting. “Is that all, Bryan?”
His finger still at his chin, he scrunched his lip, tapping into his short-term memory banks. Eyes alight, he pointed at David’s waist. “And he had a gun on his belt, just like you.”
David’s heart punched through his chest. Bryan was not describing Mitch at all. Nor was he describing a shuffler. Not unless shufflers had learned to talk, or maybe some of them could, and they just hadn’t run across any of them yet. David’s mind was spinning on overdrive, a virtual blender turning his thoughts into a discombobulated smoothie he didn’t care to taste.
“Two of them.”
“What?” David said, trying to put himself back into the conversation.
“He had two of them.” He pointed at David’s hip. “Like a cowboy.” He put his hands at his sides, pretended like he was drawing two pistols in a gunfight. “I thought he might be a policeman, just like I thought you were a policeman. But he said he wasn’t a policeman, either.”
David’s breaths were shaky, shallow; he fought to maintain his composure.
“And he had a radio like a policeman, but he said he wasn’t.”
“Bryan, did he tell you his name? Who he was? What he wanted?”
“He said he was a doctor … um …” He scrunched his face in hard thought. “A doctor on holidays.”
David gave him a quizzical look. “A doctor on holidays? That works on holidays?”
Bryan thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. He said his name was Doctor Holiday.”
“Doc Holliday?”
His eyes lit up, and he nodded enthusiastically.
A rush of fear ran through David. Some nutjob was running around in the back country, pretending to be some famous long-dead dentist-turned-gambler-turned-outlaw. Some asshole who thought it was funny to mess with little kids, make them believe he was something he most certainly wasn’t.
Or the good doctor rose from his grave to join the rest of the undead. Welcome back, Doc. Wyatt’s over at the saloon, playin’ a hand as we speak. Wanna join in? I’ve got a pocket full of chips and my homeboys do, too.
“He talked funny.”
David pulled himself from his musing. “What was that, Bry?”
“Doc. He talked funny.”
The urge to leave the area struck David with such force that a shudder coursed through every bit of his being, and he jumped in his seat like he’d been shot by the long-gone cowboy. He typically didn’t scare easily, not since he’d grown up enough to realize that the monsters under his bed weren’t real. But he’d been more scared in the last twenty-one days than in his entire life, squared. He thought as time went on, he’d become less frightened, more numb. It was only partly true.
Deliberately, David asked, “Bryan, which way did the man go?”
The pad of Bryan’s forefinger came to rest on the passenger window, pointing to where David had entered the woods.
Another shiver racked David.
The right thing to do, at least in his mind, was to hunt down this Doc Holliday impersonator. Corner him. Figure out his game. An avalanche of questions buried his mind.
Who is this guy? Really? What is he doing? Did he take Mitch? Did he kill Mitch? Does he know Mitch? Does Mitch know him? Has he killed anyone? Anyone living, that is? Why is he pretending to be Doc Holliday? What’s this fool’s real name? Where did he go? Why did he leave? Is he watching them right now?
Too many questions. Zero answers. He wanted to find Mitch, but he would not risk Bryan. And wasn’t David going to kill Mitch, anyway? He knew they needed to leave the area, find a new place to live. The farmhouse seemed a viable option, a tantalizing possibility. But now David didn’t think so. Not with Doctor Dipshit running rampant. He wasn’t sure where they would go, but he was sure about one thing. They would leave. Tonight.
* * *
Bryan cringed, his nose scrunching, lids pinched tight.
David glanced at him, one corner of his mouth climbing. Seems Bry disliked the branches raking the sides of the truck as much as he did.
“Like nails on a chalkboard, huh, Bry?”
The boy looked up at him curiously, though the contorted expressions continued with every squealing scratch.
David, realizing Bryan was too young to understand the old adage, started to explain, then thought better of
it. Besides, it would give them something to talk about later while they were busy getting the hell out of Dodge. Then David realized he would have to explain that saying to Bryan, too.
Later. We’ll have Maxims 101 later.
They continued to bounce along the dusty driveway leading to Mitch’s trailer. Months ago, torrents of rain had scooped out sections of earth, carrying rock, dirt, and anything else not tough enough to withstand the erosive flow. But not a drop had fallen since, leaving two long cracked unhealed scars as an ever-lasting reminder. Mitch had talked about borrowing a Bobcat to perform reconstructive surgery to smooth out the gashes. Functional and beautiful. But that’s all Mitch ever did—talk.
As they approached the trailer, David’s eyes narrowed, his gut overflowing with dread. He slammed the brakes, and a cloud kicked up by locked tires wrapped the dually. He leaned forward on the steering wheel, staring at the porch. A man in a cowboy hat rose to his feet.
“Son of a bitch.”
Bryan lifted his chin, trying to see over the dashboard, see what would make David talk like his grandpa.
“Bryan, stay in the truck. Do not get out. Do you understand?” he said, unholstering his newly acquired pistol.
The boy was still struggling to see, but David’s tone made Bryan stop and look at him, instead.
“Do you understand?” David said, much more forcefully.
The tone scared Bryan, and he nodded snappy nods that bobbed the little sprig of a cowlick on the back of his head. Concern danced with fear in his eyes, and he held Charlie tighter. The puppy whined.
“Good. I’ll be back for you. Just sit tight.”
He dropped the windows a bit before he killed the engine, then opened the door, never taking his eyes off the man in the cowboy hat. He gave the boy one final glance before sliding off the seat and out of the truck. He slammed the door and locked it.
He knew his handgun was loaded, had checked it a few times while in the woods. Still, it was an untested weapon. He hoped it wasn’t just for show.
David strode on fortitude and frazzled nerves, making sure the former was on display for all to see. He would keep his wits about him, tried not to think the worst about Jessica and Randy. Had to. He’d left this morning with every intention of killing a man. And now, it seemed like he just might get that chance.
Dead South Rising (Book 1) Page 8
