DEAD Series [Books 1-12]

by Brown, TW

“So this is it,” the man who had identified himself as Jordan Cranston said to the pair. “Inside there is a big map on the wall of the area. You can get your bearings and be on your way.”

  “Just so you know,” Rose looked up at the man with absolutely no emotion on her face, “don’t bother looking over your shoulder…you’ll never see it coming when I kill you.”

  The man shook his head and scowled. “You do realize that I could simply kill you here and now. You have a simple machete…oh…wait…” He reached down at his hip and tapped the hilt of a bladed weapon that was sheathed and hanging from his belt. “You don’t even have that yet. Say something else, little girl. Maybe we just leave you two here with nothing but the clothes on your back and see how long you last.”

  “You ain’t—” Rose lunged forward, but Aleah grabbed her and pulled her back.

  “Rose! Enough.” The woman stepped through the gate after one of the men with Jordan untwisted the wire that kept the hasp on the gate secure and pulled the younger girl with her.

  “That punk took Kevin,” Rose yelled as she spun away from Aleah. “Maybe you are okay with that, but where I’m from, we handle our business when people screw with our family.”

  “A real shame you ain’t immune,” Jordan said with a laugh and a shake of his head. “We sure could have used somebody with your spirit. I have no doubt that you will be just fine.”

  A low moan sounded from some nearby buildings. After Aleah and Rose entered the gate, Jordan shut it.

  “If you need some time to get yourself together, feel free to stay for one or two days. If it ain’t too much to ask, please shut the gate and secure it when you leave. And if you don’t, just remember that you won’t be hurting me at all. This is where we bring anybody who is not admitted to the colony. So if you leave the gate open and zombies get in, then you just put somebody in danger…somebody just like yourselves. We simply bring them here for drop off. We don’t step inside this gate…kind of like your own little sanctuary.”

  With that, Jordan handed over a sheathed machete to both Aleah and Rose, then he and the rest of his escort team turned and headed back the way they’d come. Jordan gave a wave which received the middle finger in response from Rose.

  The walk had been almost an hour, but Aleah was already finding herself to be tired. She headed for the doors to the building while Rose secured the gate behind them.

  Inside, there was a distinct smell of human waste mixed with staleness and rotting garbage. The floor was littered with old discarded bandages and assorted trash. The walls had been covered with more quips as well as names and dates and various town and city names that were probably the likely destinations of the authors.

  A few old and weathered photos were tacked up, many with added mustaches, goatees and devil horns scribbled. However, one table stood out from everything else in the dank environment. It was a six-foot long table with a dark sheet spread over it. A bit of dust had gathered, making Aleah wonder when the last time was that somebody had been brought here.

  On the table were a stack of books. The two headed over and took a look. Aleah almost laughed. Written on a piece of notebook paper and inside a plastic page protector was a simple, handwritten note:

  To whom it may concern,

  While the world has certainly come to an end, there is no reason that a few of us can’t try to cling to a bit of humanity. If you are reading this, then you have been deemed unworthy by a group of individuals that seem to be immune to this terrible plague.

  My group was one such band. Well…half of us were anyway. The problem was that when we got here, we had to wait a week for one of our own to heal up from a badly sprained ankle. If you are alive, then you can certainly understand the idea of boredom. Who knew that the zombie apocalypse could be so dull at times?

  Anyway, a few of us ventured out and came across a small, locally owned bookstore. We grabbed all we could carry. We would have grabbed more, but, as with all good things, eventually the zombies showed up and we had to lay low for a bit.

  In any case, we got a few books and ask that, if you do take one, treat it well. It doesn’t look like there will be anymore release dates any time soon.

  Sincerely,

  Paul Cowan

  The stacks of books had obviously been shuffled through, but it was a variety of titles that were scattered across the table: Dying Days 3, A New World: Chaos, Zombie Fallout 6, The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor.

  “Kevin would love this stuff,” Rose chuckled.

  “Actually, not so much,” Aleah said with a wistful sigh. “We found some zombie books one time while out searching for supplies. He said why bother reading about it when we are living it.”

  “Hey…here is something.” Rose picked up a battered paperback.

  “Wuthering Heights?” Aleah asked with a skeptically raised eyebrow.

  “My mom said it was one of the greatest books ever…but I never got around to reading it,” Rose replied with her own deep and sad sounding exhalation.

  “Well, it is here for a reason…take it.”

  Rose wiped at the cover with one hand and got a faraway look. She walked over to a small square of sunlight that was drifting in through a window that had been busted out who knew how long ago.

  Aleah found her own space in a corner and lay down after clearing a place on the floor. She just needed some rest. After a few decent hours of sleep that would come whether she wanted it or not, she could figure out what to do. One thing was for certain…there was no way in hell she could just abandon Kevin.

  As she drifted off, her mind could not stay away from those last moments…

  A handful of men filtered into the room with weapons drawn. It all seemed too surreal for Aleah.

  ***

  Her last memories had been of a terrible pain that seemed to rip her apart from the inside out. Her only thought was that, for some strange reason, the baby inside her had turned into a zombie and was trying to eat its way out of her. She felt warm liquid gush from her and the last thought she had before losing consciousness was that she could not believe that she wet her pants again…but at least Kevin was out cold and would miss the whole embarrassing moment this time.

  When she came to the first time, she had been terrified. Staring down at her were people wearing white surgical masks and tight fitting caps so that all she could see were their eyes as they stared down at her.

  “My baby,” she had tried to say, but that was when she was aware of a mask over her own face. This one was plastic and gave a faint smell of bananas for some reason.

  “We need another dose…she is coming out too soon,” a man’s voice said.

  Aleah was aware of a presence beside her, but when she tried to move her head, she discovered that it had been secured in place with a strap across her forehead. She was sending messages to her arms, but they did not seem inclined to respond either.

  Also, there was a sound. It was that sound that haunted her. It sounded like a vacuum. And why did she suddenly feel so empty?

  The next time she opened her eyes, Kevin was there. He’d been holding her hand and talking to some woman, but none of it made any sense. Then the men with guns arrived.

  They were talking about things, but for some reason, she was having a terrible time following anything. It reminded her of when her best friend had taken her to see the movie, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. She had sat through the film and been amazed as her friend gasped and clucked throughout the whole confusing thing. She’d had no more idea what was going on when she walked out of the theater than she had when she’d walked in.

  She’d heard things that sounded like Kevin was going to be some sort of living sperm bank…but he would be in a coma…and Heather had a boyfriend? That just could not be right.

  Kevin had squeezed her hand and said something about it being worse than the horror movies. What had he meant by that?

  They had taken Kevin out of the room after a bit of a scuffle, and a moment l
ater Rose came in. She was handcuffed and the man with her had what looked like a busted nose. There had been yelling, and one of the men—the one in the baseball hat who she would later come to know as Jordan Cranston—had backhanded Rose really hard and told her that their “hospitality had its limits.”

  Then she saw the woman who Kevin had been speaking with when she first woke up escorted out in the cuffs that they had removed from Rose. And before she could ask anybody what was going on, the door to the room she and Rose were in had been shut and locked. Seconds later, the lights went out and they were plunged into perfect darkness.

  “Rose?” she called out softly into the void of black.

  “Aleah…are you okay?”

  “I don’t know. I feel a bit woozy.”

  “Keep talking so that I can find you,” the girl called out from somewhere in the room.

  Aleah was at first puzzled by the request but, as the fog was slowly lifting, realized that the girl could not find her despite the fact that they were in the same room. No windows, and somebody had turned out the lights.

  Once the girl reached her side, they both just hugged each other for several minutes without speaking. It was comforting to feel the arms of a friend encircle her. Eventually, she moved her head a little and asked Rose the question. “What the hell is going on?”

  The story that Rose spun was hard to follow at times. She had miscarried and Heather had run after the people that they had met on the overpass. They’d actually argued about whether or not to help until Heather revealed the fact that Aleah was pregnant. Suddenly, everybody was very helpful.

  They had carried her and Kevin back to the compound, and somewhere along the way, the four of them had been split up. At some point, Rose had been asked to watch the door where Kevin had been locked up and told that she could let him out once he came to.

  After Kevin emerged from the closet and gotten caught up on the situation, a group of the compound’s security team had arrived and escorted him away. She had basically been ignored. Obviously they had not considered her a threat. Once again she had been thankful for being so small and young looking.

  She’d hung back, but followed along to hear most of what had been said. When she realized the situation for what it was, she had slipped out of the auditorium with the mindset of finding Heather and trying to figure out the best and quickest way to escape.

  She had been made when the man who she’d heard identify himself as Ken Tucker stepped out from around a corner and told her to “come along peacefully”. Of course she ran, did he really think it would be that easy? And it had gone fine until she rounded a corner and found herself in a dead end hallway with a locked door on either side.

  She told Aleah about how she had pretended to cry and dropped to her knees when one of Tucker’s men approached. Just as he reached down for her, she came up with her head and drove it into his face, smashing his nose in a nasty sounding crunch. Aleah did not miss the hint of smug satisfaction in the young girl’s voice as she recounted it all. Nor did she miss the anger when Rose recounted being cuffed and brought to the room where they’d spent the remainder of that night.

  Of course she had known all the rest…how the men, led by Mister Cranston, had come and roused them. How they’d been marched out the gate with people walking past as if nothing were happening.

  The sleep she managed to get was rife with images and nightmares of Kevin being tortured, beaten…or worse. When she awoke, she did not feel all that refreshed. Thankfully, it was still dark and she was able to roll over and get a little more rest. She did not sleep, but instead just lay there listening to Rose’s deep and regular breathing…and the occasional moans of the undead.

  ***

  The sound of the regular pattern of rain turned to a thrumming as a storm swept in; complete with thunder and lightning. At one point, the sounds of rain began to intensify in such a way that both women rushed to the window to discover that peanut-sized hail was coming down.

  A trio of undead staggered to the nearby intersection and came to an unstable stop. They were simply standing there, heads cocked to the side in a dog-like parody. A noise—that both Aleah and Rose felt before they actually heard it—began to grow in intensity.

  Rose looked at Aleah with a questioning expression that the older woman could only shrug at in response. Debris began to whip up in the wind that was starting to grow stronger by the second. Aleah’s face paled as the dawning of what might be the cause suddenly came to her.

  Running to the door, she turned the knob and had it almost ripped from her hands as the door flung open, almost sending her sprawling. Gathering herself, she spun and looked in the same direction that the zombies had their attention focused at the moment.

  It took a few seconds to see it through the buildings and trees, but there it was…a funnel cloud. She realized that the reason it took her so long to actually locate it was the sheer size. The black funnel filled a good part of the horizon.

  She tried desperately to recall exactly which direction it was back to the compound, but the best she could do was generalize. The problem was that this funnel cloud was in that “general” direction.

  “Back inside!” Aleah yelled as the sound of the howling wind continued to grow.

  The two ducked into the building, and Aleah’s eyes scanned for a sign. She was more than a little elated when she saw an arrow pointing down a set of stairs. Grabbing Rose by the hand, she made a run for them.

  Yanking the door open, Aleah had just a split second of regret. If there was anything on the other side, they were done for. Thankfully, the door opened to simple darkness. A sniff test gave a smidge of reassurance that there would be no nasty surprises.

  Since they did not have any form of light, the best they could do was see the area immediately lit by the open door—which was not much. However, when several seconds passed with nothing coming for them out of the pitch darkness, Aleah assumed that it was safe. Her mind sing-songed that old phrase about assuming, but she was out of options. The sound of the tornado was deafening, and things were slamming into the building. Something wet splashed her face, causing her to recoil, but she quickly realized it was rain; a section of the roof had already peeled back.

  Venturing further into the darkness, the pair moved until they found a corner and then hunkered down with arms clutching each other tightly. Aleah felt her ears pop with the pressure change, and the noise was such that she could not hear her own screaming.

  A pair of zombies tumbled down the stairs. Aleah and Rose could see them in the light of the door. Both watched in morbid fascination as they landed awkwardly at the bottom of the stairs and then, seconds later, began to lift off the ground like a cheap magic trick. The two undead swirled in the air for a few seconds and disappeared skyward, vanishing from the open rectangular viewing area of the doorway.

  It seemed to last forever, but slowly, the roar died down and was reduced to nothing more than the sound of a steady rain. The two girls looked at each other and finally made their way to their feet. Creeping forward, they both could hear the unholy chorus of moans and groans that seemed to be close and constant.

  Reaching the door, they crept up the stairs, peeking over the lip to scan the open area of the main floor. The destruction was complete. All that remained of the building were the stark, skeletal ruins of one corner of the building across from them. Doing a slow visual scan in a complete circle, they caught glimpses of movement in every direction.

  “We need to get out of here,” Rose whispered unnecessarily.

  “Ya think?” Aleah said through clenched teeth and lips that did not move.

  The two scrambled up and were making their way through the rubble and debris when a moan froze them in their tracks. Aleah looked over her shoulder to see just as a zombie pushed its way out from a jumble of splintered branches and a section of fallen roof.

  The zombie had a three foot long beam through its chest and kept getting tangled in all the debris. It d
id not move towards them, but stood with what could easily be perceived as caution while its head twitched first one way then the other to examine the two living persons that stood a dozen or so feet away. There was something familiar about this relatively fresh zombie. It took Rose to jar the memory loose.

  “Sheila.” Rose stepped forward and swung her machete down with a scream of anger.

  Sheila was one of the younger girls, probably eight or nine, and quick to get into a scrap if she thought somebody was even looking at her wrong. Deanna was always pulling her away from one of the other children; boy or girl did not matter.

  The zombified version of Sheila hissed and opened her mouth to display bloodstained teeth just before the machete cleaved her skull in two.

  “Being a zombie hasn’t done her any favors,” Rose huffed as she elbowed past Aleah and out to the twisted ruins of what remained of the wrought iron fence that had surrounded this place.

  “So…I’m thinking…” Aleah started, but her voice faded as three more familiar faces emerged from a nearby building that had lost the entire front façade while managing to keep the other three sides relatively intact.

  “They shouldn’t be this far south,” Rose said as she started to move in to dispatch more of the children that had been part of the group that had headed north with Catie.

  “You think everybody was trying to make it back to us?” Aleah asked.

  Rose seemed to think about it for a second before shaking her head. “Everybody just ran. I don’t think any of them knew where they were going. And with whoever those people were in that hospital…I just don’t know.”

  Rose stopped a few feet from her former companions. She knew each of them…knew their stories…their dreams. And while she might not have gotten along with every single person in her pod back in juvenile detention, she did not wish an ending like this on any of them.

  Steeling herself, she moved in and made to put them down. She was expecting them to come at her just like any other zombie, but once again they looked to be observing her just as Sheila had just a moment ago.