Sam reached back for the hand gun and opened the driver door. He aimed and fired at the zombies, making clean shots every time even from a distance. It didn’t take long to obliterate them, but more were coming.
“What are we going to do now?” he said. The zombies emerged from the trees and headed straight for them. “I don’t have enough bullets left to take them all out. Shit, that one is looking right at me.”
“Because you shot it,” Dallas said.
“I haven’t shot that one yet!” Sam cried. He jerked the wheel sharply to the right.
“What are you doing?” Talia cried.
He ignored her and slammed his foot on the accelerator. The car shot forward, nearly rear ending the pickup truck in front of them. He steered the car to the road’s shoulder and drove around. As they approached the horde, he mowed right through them.
Several zombies hit the windshield, rolling off quickly but leaving cracks or streaks of blood on the glass. Dallas heard the crunching of bones as Sam ran over them.
The traffic jam continued for nearly a mile. More hordes made their way up. Less than twenty-four hours ago, Dallas would have insisted they stop and take them all out. Now, all she wanted to do was get away.
Sirens sounded a few yards ahead, and a police car swerved in front of them, blocking their way. Sam slammed on the brakes. Behind them, several more cop cars pulled up.
“You can get around them,” Talia said. “Go, go go! Now!”
Sam hit the accelerator again, this time veering even further to the right, almost into the ditch. A few cars still on the road honked furiously. There were sirens behind them, but even they faded away as he sped up, faster and faster down the highway until the road got rocky and the cars behind them faded into the distance.
Chapter Fourteen
Dallas’s ears popped as they continued into the mountains, but she barely noticed. “Are you okay?” Talia said.
“I’m fine. What about you guys?”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Sam said.
There were no more zombies on this road, but she kept a constant lookout. Every time one on the highway had come anywhere close, she’d seen Pierce’s mutilated face again.
They were silent as the path continued. It eventually dwindled to a rocky, one car road, surrounded by cliffs. “Wow,” Sam remarked. “This path really is steep.”
“It is,” Dallas agreed. “Hopefully it’ll keep too many people from coming up.”
“But don’t we want people to come up?”
“Some people. Did you tell Ali and David about this road? Might want to warn them.”
“I’ll definitely do that when we stop,” he said.
Uncle Jack’s farm was a sprawling fifty acre ranch that Dallas and Talia’s grandfather had spent his entire retirement building and maintaining. A winding dirt road led them into the clearing where the house sat. The two story cabin was unpainted and built entirely of wood.
Uncle Jack was their mother’s oldest brother. He inherited the cabin after his parents’ deaths and had lived in relative peace and comfort ever since. It seemed that nothing, not even hordes of the living dead, could disturb that peace. He had a liberal open door policy, allowing anyone who wasn’t a convicted serial killer or rapist to stay as long as they needed. Dallas suspected it was partially because the secluded location and treacherous mountain road kept most people from venturing up there at all. But she was still grateful.
As it had always been, the property was surrounded by a wooden fence half as high as the house itself. “See there, guys?” she said, pointing to the fence. “He said he was electrifying them too. If that doesn’t keep the zombies out, nothing will.”
Jack Christopher was a tall man in his mid fifties. He had a thick beard and raggedy hair, not because he wanted to give off a certain impression but because he had nobody to impress. Today, just like most days, he was dressed in a plaid shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. His hair was slightly grayer than it had been the last time Dallas saw him, and he might have had an extra wrinkle or two. But he seemed otherwise unfazed by the seemingly apocalyptic events going on around them.
“Dallas! Tally!” He scooped his nieces up in a bear hug so tight Dallas stopped breathing for a moment. He got out quickly and turned his attention to Sam, who gave up trying to get a phone signal and looked up. “You must be Sam,” he said, giving him a hearty pat on the back. “I’ve heard quite a bit about you. You can call me Jack. It’s a pleasure to have you up here and, please, if you need anything at all, don’t be afraid to ask. Unless it’s a ride to the mall.” He chuckled. “Here, let me help you with your stuff. Then I’m going in and making a pot of coffee.”
It was nearly dusk, and Dallas wasn’t used to coffee so late in the afternoon. But she hadn’t gotten much sleep in the past few days, so she didn’t object.
“Y’all are welcome to turn on the TV,” Uncle Jack said as they stepped inside. “But the cable goes in and out. Sometimes it’s out for hours. Same with internet. Not that I use ‘em much anyway. Shoulda gotten rid of them years ago, but I like a little news of the outside world now and then. Electricity isn’t a problem with the solar power, and neither is hot water. And I’m in bed by nine anyway. Hope you kids don’t mind that.”
The house looked even nicer than it had the last time Dallas visited. Not only were sections of the walls painted, but everything was more organized. She opened several cabinets and found plates, bowls, and cups neatly stacked. Another drawer, previously filled to the brim with sporadically placed silverware, now held a row of steak knives.
“That’ll come in handy,” Sam said. “Well, hopefully we won’t have to use them. But we’ll have them if we need them.”
Sam went to shower after his first cup of coffee, leaving Dallas and Talia alone with their uncle. A platter of beef and fresh fruit sat at the center of the table. Uncle Jack grew (and killed) all of his own food, another reason Dallas had long ago selected his home as the go-to shelter in a zombie apocalypse.
Uncle Jack poured his second cup of coffee and sat back down. “So this Sam fellow,” he said. “What’s going on there?” He chuckled and popped a piece of pineapple into his mouth.
“Oh, he’s um...he’s great. We’ve been friends for awhile, but then it just sort of hit us this summer that...well...we should be more.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Talia fidgeting. If Pierce was still here, no doubt Uncle Jack would be grilling her the same way the second Pierce left the room. Talia would have hated it a few days ago. Now she probably would have welcomed it.
Uncle Jack must have noticed too, or maybe he just wanted a change of subject. “So just how bad is it out there?” he asked. “I stopped keeping up after the first day or so. Too depressing. I was scared to death you girls wouldn’t make it. Still worried about your mom and dad.”
“We almost didn’t make it,” Dallas fingered the rim of her coffee cup. “Two of our friends didn’t. I just keep thinking about how easily it could have been me. I’ve risked my life so many times in the past few days. So have Sam and Tally. And today, we watched so many people die. How did we survive but Ash and Pierce and all those other people didn’t? Should we have survived?”
“You can’t think about that, Dal,” Talia said. “You did the best you could.”
“I did a lot of stupid things to get here, Tally. You know that. Things that should have gotten me arrested.”
“So did I. We’ve both been through a lot of shit, even just today. But we’re here now. That’s got to count for something.”
“Tally’s right,” Uncle Jack cut in. “You can’t feel guilty just for surviving. Think about the past few days. All the things you’ve done. All the brave things, according to Talia, and hell, all the stupid things too. Now, would you change anything? I’m not talking about your friends and what they did, because God knows you can’t control them. Would you change anything you did?”
Dallas shook her head without
hesitation. “No. No, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Uncle Jack nodded. “You’re survivors, Dallas. New Orleans is a long way away. Y’all would have to be pretty brave and resourceful to make it out of there if it’s half as bad as you say it is.”
“Well, we’re here,” Dallas said. “Mom and dad are coming soon, and so are Sam’s sister and brother-in-law.”
“Excellent!” He took a sip of coffee. “We can form our own little community. It’ll be just like pioneer times. Except we’ll have hot water and electricity, and you kids’ll have to show me how to take out those zombies. Destroy the brain, right?”
Even though he had recently showered, Sam agreed to join Dallas in the hot tub after dinner. There had been no hot tub last time Dallas visited; Uncle Jack had apparently been hard at work.
The hot tub was on top of a hill that overlooked the sprawling farm land. Even though there wasn’t much to see other than fences, the barn, and the occasional cow, it was breathtaking.
Dallas sat in the bubbling water, Sam’s arm around her, her head on his shoulders, and looked up at the stars. Shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit, she had spent nearly an hour one night in her aunt’s backyard in Mississippi. Her family pulled out lawn chairs and sat in the driveway, looking at the stars. At one point, her father remarked on the lack of working street lights. “Don’t the stars look different without so much artificial light?” he had asked them.
“Yes,” her mother agreed. “They look much better.”
Sam leaned in closer to Dallas. “I love you,” he whispered against her hair.
She sat up until her lips were almost touching his chest. “I love you too.” She reached her neck up and kissed him gently. The kiss grew deeper and his hands fiddled with her swimsuit strings. They broke apart.
“Marry me,” he said.
A lock of hair fell across her face and stuck to her cheek. “What?”
“I know it sounds insane.” He wrapped his arms tighter around her middle. “But I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of days. Your uncle used to be a pastor and...it just sort of makes sense. We came here for a reason, didn’t we? To start over. You, me, Tally, your parents, Ali and David. I know that’s not a lot of people, but...”
“But we could have kids, right?” she finished for him.
He ducked his head down and smiled. “I know we don’t technically have to get married to have kids. But Dallas, I just took a shower for the first time in a week. The last time I took a shower I didn’t even know if I wanted kids because I didn’t know what the hell I wanted. Well, I did, but I didn’t think...”
“Didn’t think what, Sam?”
“I didn’t think we’d ever work out. All I’ve ever really wanted, I mean really, really wanted, was to be with you. And now we really can have a fresh start here, and a good life. We don’t have to do it right away or anything, but will you at least think about it?”
“I’ll do it,” she said.
He smiled furiously. “Really? You will?”
She nodded and kissed him. “Just be sure to take more showers from now on, okay? Because we’ve only been gone five days and you said you just took your first shower in a week.”
“Well, that was a rough estimate.”
She laughed and kissed him again. “And be sure to put plenty of bullets on the registry, okay? I have a feeling we’re going to need them.”
Chapter Fifteen
Dallas woke the next morning to pounding on the front door. It took her several minutes to fully realize what it was; when she did, she worried that the hordes had once again caught up to them. But as she bounded down the stairs, she remembered they were expecting visitors.
She ran into Sam and Talia at the bottom of the stairs. “Do you think that’s mom and dad?” she asked. “Or maybe Ali and David?”
Talia shook her head. “Definitely not mom and dad. They’d say something, or ring the doorbell.”
“So would Ali and David,” Sam said.
They all hesitated, and a few seconds later there was a final pound followed by a smack. Dallas motioned them forward and poked her head into the kitchen. The man standing in front of the now open doorway and holding a gun in one hand and garbage bags in the other was not anyone she recognized. She couldn’t have anyway, due to the ski mask that covered his face.
“Oh good,” the man said. “Someone is here. I was beginning to think I’d come to an empty house.”
“Who the hell are you?” Sam said. He stepped forward in front of the girls, shielding them.
The stranger chuckled. “Doesn’t really matter anymore, does it? For the past four days I’ve been Mrs. Allison Stephens of New Orleans. Occasionally I was her husband...David, was it? I presume you’re close to them from the way you’ve been speaking to them. Or, rather, from the way you think you’ve been speaking to them.”
“What did you do to them?” Sam said through clenched teeth.
He chuckled again. “I didn’t do a thing to them. But let’s just say your friends are currently feasting on everything their non-beating hearts desire.”
Talia gasped. Sam shot forward but the man held his gun up to Dallas. “Try anything and I shoot her.” He motioned with the gun to the far corner of the kitchen. “Up against the wall!”
They did as they were told. Dallas attempted to peek out the window as they leaned against the cabinets. Uncle Jack should still be in the fields, oblivious to what was going on in the house. She wished she knew how to get his attention, but he was nowhere in sight. He must have been far out, or maybe in the barn.
The man turned his back to them. His attention was now on the cabinets by the refrigerator a few yards away. He threw down all but one of the trash bags in his hand, opened up a cabinet and peeked in. Cereal. He made a face — at least Dallas presumed he did from the way his ski mask slid up — and stuffed a box into the bag.
Dallas’s heart pounded. “You won’t find much in these cabinets,” she said. “We barely have anything. It’s as hard for us as it is for everyone else.”
Sam craned his neck to look at the cabinets behind them. Dallas glanced at him in an attempt to communicate silently and he winked. Her heart pounded. He reached in the drawer and, quicker than lightning, pulled out one of the smaller steak knives they had found the previous night. He slipped it into his back pocket.
The man was sifting through a cabinet full of bowls and mixers. “Shit,” he said, slamming the cabinet shut. “Don’t you have anything useful in this god damned house?”
“I told you, we don’t have much,” Dallas said.
The man smiled and nodded. “Uh huh,” he mumbled, drawing out his syllables. He stepped forward, his shoes squeaking as they hit the wooden floor. “Not much you say?” Just inches from Dallas now, he reached out a gloved hand and ran a lock of her hair through his fingers. “Well...I’m sure there’s something you can give me.” His gaze fell to her chest, and he let go of her hair and his fingertips moved down her collarbone.
Sam clenched his fists and bolted toward the man. “Get your god damn hands off of her,” he said.
The man let go of Dallas and held the pistol in front of Sam. “What was that?”
Sam took a deep breath, shaking as he exhaled. “I can show you the weapons if you like. That gun won’t do you much good. Zombies like noise, so even if you take a few out you’ll just attract a horde.” He motioned to the cabinet he was leaning against. “There are plenty of appliances you can use. That’s all we have to offer, but you can take anything you want as long as you stay away from these girls.”
The man paused less than a foot from Sam’s face. “I can have all of your weapons?”
Sam nodded.
“And you’ll have nothing? All you want me to do is leave your little girlfriends alone?”
Sam swallowed and nodded again.
The man chuckled. “Dumbass.” He turned his head toward the cabinets, and the three of th
em moved. As he crouched over, Sam reached in the back pocket of his pajama pants and pulled out the knife.
The man propped himself up on his knees and Sam bent down right along with him. The man picked up a blender and held it in the air for a moment, as if deciding what to do with it. In a flash, Sam lunged forward and stabbed the man in the back of the throat.
Stabbing a living person, Dallas noticed, was similar to stabbing an undead one. The man gagged and held a hand to his throat. Talia leapt up and headed for the kitchen island, and Dallas followed. Sam let go of the knife and the man fell backward. He gagged one last time before going silent. He lay on the floor in a pool of blood, his eyes wide open.
Sam examined the bloody knife. “Zombies may have evolved pretty fast,” he said, “But humans sure as shit haven’t.”
The back door opened and Talia screamed.
Chapter Sixteen
“Well hell, I know I haven’t showered in awhile, but do I really look that bad?”
Dallas exhaled. Uncle Jack stood in the doorway, his boots caked with mud and his brow line sticky with sweat. He held a cowboy hat in his hands.
“Uncle Jack...” she said.
“What’s going on here?” He stepped into the kitchen and almost dropped his hat. “What the hell is this? Dallas? Tally?”
“He was pretending to be Ali,” Sam said. “He took my sister’s phone and...”
“Holy shit.” Uncle Jack stood in the kitchen, staring at the body and the pool of blood on the floor. “Are you kids okay?”
They nodded.
“Well then,” he said, “I guess we should get this cleaned up before your parents get here. Pick a spot in the field, any spot. And...let’s just keep this between us for now, okay?”
The rest of the day was devoted to polishing up the defense system. Uncle Jack had put up wooden fences when he first inherited the property, but he wanted to finish the electric ones in front while Dallas and Talia put them up in the back. He didn’t expect to get the entire fifty acres covered any time soon, if at all. But with the three of them working together, they could cover substantial ground before long. At least enough for them to feel secure. Working through the day, they covered several hundred feet, only stopping for breaks a handful of times.
State of Emergency Page 14
