Among the Dead Book 2 (Among the Living)

by Long, Timothy W.

  Among the Dead

  Title Page

  Introduction

  Epilogue

  This one’s for Ellie Keen.

  A PERMUTED PRESS book

  published at Smashwords.

  Among the Dead copyright © 2013

  by Timothy W. Long.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by Zach McCain.

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  Introduction

  In the summer of 2009, I completed my first book, entitled Among the Living. This was a momentous occasion for me, because I had wanted to write a book for as long as I could remember. In fact, one of my earliest writing memories is sitting in the back of my parents’ car, eagerly putting the finishing touches on an epic story about a Conan-type warrior who gets into a battle with a monster that comes apart and then puts itself back together. I was into all things Elric of Melniboné at the time. I wrote in a pad of paper with a pen or pencil and had dreams of becoming a bestselling fantasy novelist.

  Then 30 years went by.

  In 2008, while I was chatting with my friend Ellie Keen, who would later help me edit my first book, she pointed out that she was sick and tired of working for other people and wanted to take up writing. Her goal was to take a few classes, and I thought I would tag along. I figured a ten-week course would help me get back on track, and maybe I could write a few stories and even see one published.

  The class was eye opening, to say the least. I wrote my first few stories and even the first disastrous third of a science-fiction novel. None of it was very good. I continued to take classes and continued to learn and hone the craft. See, writing is like any other skill. It’s a matter of learning and practicing.

  My first book came out with a tiny publishing house called Library of the Living Dead, and it immediately started to sell. I was more surprised than anyone. Who in the world was buying zombie literature? Who were these kooky people who wanted to read about shambling undead devouring the living? Sure, it was my thing, but there couldn’t be that many more of us out there.

  How wrong I was.

  Since 2009, I have been fortunate enough to write five novels and see them published, but I have always wondered about the characters in my first book and what became of them. See, I didn’t intend on writing more than one book in the “universe” in which Among the Living takes place.

  But from the moment I wrote the words “The End” in the first book, I wondered if the characters had a future outside of their narrow escape in book one. What happened to Mike, the damaged leader of the bunch after his love was ripped from his arms? What happened to Les, the drug dealer with a rum-soaked heart of gold? What happened to Kate, my budding young serial killer, and much to my surprise, fan-favorite character? Did they even live through the next day of the zombie apocalypse?

  It took a long time, three years to be exact, but I have finally finished the sequel to Among the Living. I often joke that the real monsters in my books are the main characters, and I’m not going to try to fool anyone into thinking they are any different in this book. I can assure you, they are still just as confused, messed up, and devious as they were in Among the Living.

  So welcome back to the real battle for Seattle and the next few days of the zombie apocalypse.

  Timothy W. Long

  June 2012

  Prelude

  Scared, and so were they.

  PFC Robert Elrod sighted along his assault rifle and took another deep breath. He’d been puffing in and out so quickly that he felt dizzy. His vision narrowed to a tunnel that contained the red-hued real world and a mob of people that represented another reality. They weren’t real. That was what he told himself over and over again. In Afghanistan, he had crouched behind barricades and shot at forms, but they had been enemies he could identify, and if he had trouble with orders, he could just think back to the attacks on his country, and a sense of duty would flood his mind.

  This was not the same thing.

  The people before him didn’t choose to be put in this situation. They didn’t wake up this morning and decide to get sick, turn into mindless shambling—or, in some cases, running—monsters and attack other people. These were peaceful, if not God-fearing, folks who deserved more than a bullet to the brain.

  But that was what he was here for. PFC Elrod had a day job that required him to show up before nine a.m., clock in with a code, and then sit at a desk and calculate payroll for a multinational company.

  Most of his coworkers knew he was in the National Guard and respected the fact. When he’d been shipped off to Afghanistan a few years ago, he had returned to his job almost a hero. There was no question about his loyalty to the company or a single doubt from his managers that he was not entitled to his old job. Besides, no one wanted to end up on the five o’clock news in this town. Contrary to the rule that there is no such thing as bad publicity, that kind of attention was sure to raise the ire of the entire city.

  Now Robert Elrod had a new job that required punching an entirely different kind of clock. He bit down on his tongue when he thought of that ridiculous analogy. Then he bit down on the inside of his cheeks until blood filled his mouth, but he kept his eyes on the target.

  Robert wanted to call it mission over. He had been in the city for exactly one day, and it was already worse than his entire tour of the Middle East. Sure, he’d seen some crazy shit over there, but it was nothing like this.

  They approached, so he checked his rifle one more time. He slid back the receiver and watched a copper-lined bullet pop into the breech. He then let it slam home, satisfying himself that he was locked. He fingered his safety, but he already knew it was in the up position. He knew the weight of his gun almost as well as he knew the weight of his wife when she was on top of him at night. She was beautiful, with an almost ethereal quality. Her hair was dark but thin, and it covered her face at the slightest hint of a breeze. Green eyes that were almost spooky, thanks to their clarity. They rose up in an almond shape that always made him think she was smirking at him.

  Her body was thin, but she had high breasts and dark areolas. Her skin was dusky, and sometimes he would lie in bed next to her naked form and obsess over how gorgeous she was.

  These thoughts filled his mind, but they were a long way from arousing him. At twenty-two, he could count on a stiffy if the wind was right or his wife was in the shower. Now it was just about the last thing on his mind.

  There were only the deaders.

  So many of them. Over the past couple of days, the city had turned out for the worst party of all time. The deader plague spread and sucked the inhabitants into it. It wasn’t even a subtle wave. As more and more left the confines of their homes, whether because of lack of food or just boredom at being cooped up, the virus reached out for more and more victims. It could be a loved one or a stranger, but no matter the person, if he was infected and managed to get his teeth on you, it was lights out.

  And so it went.

  His post was on Fourth Avenue just south of Madison. He didn’t know the area well, having mainly driven through it with nary a look at his surroundings when he absolutely had to go downtown. What had been a bustling street with busses and nonstop traffic was now a dead street littered with bodies and debris rather than automobiles stuck at stoplights.

  The wind shifted to
ward him. Something he didn’t care for, because it brought their stench. The group still had a block or two to go before they reached his position, but they didn’t show any sign of slowing down, no matter how many deaders the group of soldiers and civilians they pursued shot.

  “Is the cam up?” That was his friend Rebecca, or Becca as she preferred to be called when they were just hanging out. Becca had a wicked sense of humor, and she was all girl. None of that tough-gal act so many of the other Guards liked to put on. When she took off her uniform, she was as at home in a dress as she had been one weekend a month in fatigues.

  “It’s live, check it out.” The screen was high tech, but it was built into a metal-and-plastic shell that probably cost the military enough to pay for a few precision missiles. It was GI proof, as they liked to say.

  The feed came in from a helicopter positioned a mile outside the city. The man piloting it kept the chopper as steady as a rock as he fed the camera’s view to units on the ground. Elrod’s eyes were glued to his high-resolution matte display as the deaders chased his squad across half the fucking city. He clenched his automatic and fought down the urge to lead his small crew against the insurgents … no, people, not insurgents.

  Rebecca covered her mouth, but a gasp still escaped.

  He didn’t have long to wait.

  The wave broke over the barriers at the end of the block. The group of National Guardsmen, at least fifteen strong when they departed, was down to a measly five.

  “What do we do?” Rebecca screamed.

  “Alpha?” he said into his mic.

  “Fucked!” came back the ragged breath of Frebe. Jake was a good kid from a small town. A few years ago, he’d beaten back a brain tumor and lived to tell the tale. When asked what it was like, Jake just looked at him and said, “I don’t remember. It’s all dark.”

  Elrod raised his rifle and tried to aim between the running soldiers, but he couldn’t get a clean shot.

  “Can you guys make it?” He’d given up on all military protocol. Those were his friends out there.

  “Don’t know. We’ve been running for days, seems like.”

  Elrod raised the binoculars and studied the mass. His guys were in bad shape, and Frebe, being the soldier that he was, had another guy—looked like Potts—draped over his shoulder. The two ran, but it was like one of those races where the competitors tied their legs together and tried to run in tandem on three legs.

  Elrod switched to his gun and went to red dot. He shifted his aim, trying to get a bead on the mass of red-eyed monsters that pursued his men.

  He grabbed Becca’s hand in his sweaty one and pulled her.

  “Wait, what about them?” She gestured toward the oncoming mass.

  Elrod stared for a few seconds as they approached. His team was hurt, and he wanted to run and help, but he had his orders. Fucking orders!

  He howled as Frebe and Potts went down under a sea of deaders and were swept away before his eyes. He clenched his hand so hard that Rebecca cried out in pain.

  “Echo station eight, echo station eight. Lazarus, Lazarus. I say again, Lazarus, Lazarus,” he said after changing the dial on his coms.

  “What now?” Becca said and tried to pry her hand free.

  “Sorry,” he said and looked behind him once again. He stared at the expanse of road that lay there. He wanted to get home to his wife and children. He’d done his job, made his assessment, and that was the real jab. His words over the radio a moment ago were going to be remembered for a good long time, and he would have to live with them.

  Live with them. The words echoed in his brain and made him want to scream.

  PFC Robert Elrod snatched his hand away and strode to an emplacement. He ripped the cover off of the massive machine gun and turned to nod at Becca. She looked at the horde, fear in her eyes, but it seemed to be overridden by her desire to stay. She was resolute and went to his side.

  They only needed a few seconds to prepare the big gun and then a few more to aim it.

  Seconds until the mass reached them, but it was already too late; the last of his team were overtaken.

  He started firing when they were at less than a hundred paces. Bullets the size of hot dogs fed into the machine, and it spat death at high velocity. The first of the deaders fell, and those behind tripped on them. But it was nothing but a hindrance.

  Becca stood her ground for as long as she could. Elrod was sure he heard a keening noise coming from her.

  “GO!” he screamed, and she complied.

  He fired until the gun ran hot, but it was too late. As the first of the scrambling dead reached him, he stepped away from the gun and ripped a pair of frag grenades off of his chest. The pins flew, and he held them out like an offering as the wave reached him. One of the deaders, a man with ribs showing through his torn shirt, got a hand on Elrod before the grenades exploded in their faces.

  Shayne

  The room had a musky scent—fear, sweat and smoke. Someone thought it would be a good idea to light a fire in a sink so they could cook food extracted from a frozen meal, but they lacked any kind of metal. Now the place smelled like melted plastic, and the reek wasn’t going anywhere. Neither were they.

  The carpet was like something out of the eighties. It was orange and had yellow-and-red patterns worked into it. The shapes looked like lollipops with fat stems. It was atrocious, but the owner thought it was cool and fed into his company’s retro style. It was all marketing, after all. You could have a shit product, but if you created enough viral videos, any preteens could talk Dad into being cool at least once a month.

  Shayne had one foot over the arm of a swiveling office chair that was covered in only the best faux leather. He didn’t do this to look languid or bored. He certainly was not cool enough to affect such a pose. He did it out of sheer need.

  “If they don’t get here soon, how’re we supposed to get out?” Kara asked for what seemed the fiftieth time; her voice had reached hysterical pitch more than once today. Shayne was just glad she was losing her voice. A banshee wail was more pleasant than her yammering.

  “Who the hell’s this they you keep talking about? We’re on our own. No one’s coming,” Pete shouted, his voice rising to meet her volume. Volume, that was how he preferred to get things done.

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know what’s going on out there, since all you men are too goddamn scared to go near the front door.”

  “Set foot out there? With those monsters?” Pete sounded downright mad now. “News flash, princess: Those things’re eating people!”

  “They are not. It’s just ... it’s just confusing is all. We can’t even see anything from up here.” She gritted her teeth. “And don’t fucking call me princess, jerk-face!”

  “Jerk-face? That’s real fucking mature. See, I can swear too, Kara. I can say the F word and sound grown up.”

  “I wish you were a grown-up. Or had at least grown a pair,” she said, looking at his crotch.

  Shayne suppressed a giggle with a snort, then pretended to cough before Pete could notice. He didn’t need Jerk-Face riding his ass. It was hard enough just coping with the light streaming in from the too-bright sun, in the too-bright room that was way too hot to even think. Shayne tried to remember if he had ever been more miserable in his life.

  “Whatever. Just go back upstairs and stare out the window of your precious ivory tower. Maybe someone’ll see your greasy blond hair and come to the rescue. You should get your Starbucks order ready. Hey, anyone else want coffee? Kara’s buying.”

  Your ivory tower? Who said stuff like that? A jerk-face, that was who.

  He let the argument roll on, wash over him, penetrate the back of his head and rattle around like a gigantic marble. The voices rose in pitch to match the pain in his skull. He stewed in it along with the throbbing in his back, legs and arms. At least the one leg he had up in the air wasn’t hurting as badly. If they didn’t get out of here soon, he was going to climb up on the roof and contemplat
e the long drop to the ground.

  Pete really was a dick. Shayne wished he could stand up on two steady legs, body suddenly a full foot taller. No longer stooped in pain, arms and shoulders rippling with lean muscle. Then deliver a stunner of a right hand to Pete’s ugly half-bald head. Watch him flop across the floor while his nose poured rivers of blood and snot.

  He might as well wish for his own personal pharmacy filled with all manner of painkillers while he was at it.

  Three days ago, he left home late, missed the usual bus and took an alternate. It was packed, and he was being bounced along Third Avenue when a flare-up started. He was thinking about the minute he would arrive at work, pull up the chair to his desk, pop open his pill box and suck down a pair of painkillers. A lovely dose of Percocets to drive away the demons that dug around inside his brain. Saliva flooded his mouth at the thought. He could almost taste the bitter drugs as he let them sit in his mouth, under his tongue, in the hope that some of the opiates penetrated his system sooner.

  The other passengers stared at him. A teenager chuckled and nudged his friend, an equally snot-nosed punk wearing baggy pants and a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt. An older woman with a cane at her side was the only one to even offer him a hand, not that it was much help. She would be right next to him on the floor of the bus if he took her grip. He pulled himself up by the metal pole as the bus hit a pothole. He was thrown forward, and his chest smashed into the metal bar. It sent fresh pain up and down his body. It radiated from his core, pulsed along his appendages and made his eyes water.

  The others watched him as he grimaced, squeezed his eyes shut and tried to concentrate on how it would feel when the painkillers pushed the pain away. After he had a dose or three, he could count on going to his happy place, because nothing said happy like an ice-cold Coca-Cola, opiates and a mile-wide smile. Can I get an Amen, Brother Pain?