Among the Dead Book 2 (Among the Living)

by Long, Timothy W.

  Kate sat across from us and to the side as if aloof. Nelson told me later that she wanted to be out of the direct light so she could have a sense of those around us. She was the cautious sort. He asked me if she had been in the military.

  He knew just about as much as I did.

  Kate was a mystery and would remain so if she had her way.

  Lester, our hero, sat next to the long-haired guy who had fought beside us as we made what I thought was our last stand. He was a weird one.

  Hair to his hips, now bound up in a ponytail. Pumping rounds into the deaders as they closed in on us. We had all been scared, but he was a monster with that gun. When he ran out of shots, he bashed a deader over the head and howled like one of them.

  Lester smiled at the guy, who insisted we call him by his stage name, Grinder. Someone had worked out that his real name was Duane, but we went along with the game. Just like us, he had lost someone. I wasn’t sure what trick of fate had brought him our way, but I was certainly glad for it.

  Lester told us later that he just wanted to run down as many as he could on his way to the football stadium. He’d done a hell of a job of it too. Jumped a curb and plowed right into the center of Pioneer Square, where we were making our last stand. I was sure we were all going to die at the hands of the deaders. Then we would rise, like them, and continue until someone filled our heads with bullets.

  We had free reign now, to kill with impunity. I knew that many must be questioning the fact that we were killing at will. Taking lives like we were gods.

  There must have been thousands of us in the stadium. People sat in clumps, huddled, and stretched out their own tiny fiefdoms. I saw a man walking in circles while he stared at the sky and chanted or prayed. He had his hands clenched in front of his chest, and a steady stream of tears leaked down his face.

  The seats rose like an ocean of plastic and aluminum. Some were filled, and if I craned my neck far enough back, I could make out a group of kids playing on the highest deck. Below them, a gang of angry-looking men armed with bats talked and glanced around furtively as they whispered. They looked like trouble to me.

  The smell of food assaulted my nose and made my stomach growl, but I ignored it for now. I had to get to the gate, and I wasn’t looking forward to the carnage. If I ate, there was a good chance I would feel like throwing up.

  Someone had fashioned a kind of grill out of a large metal trashcan. They had meat cooking, but I wasn’t sure where it had come from. Maybe someone raided one of the many vendors that lined the upper decks of the stadiums. They would have had enough food on ice here to feed fifty or sixty thousand people if a football game were coming up. But it was the middle of summer, and we wouldn’t see any action here for about a month.

  I would stick with military rations when they were handed out. Some managed to take a few and hoard them. At first, I was shocked at such behavior, but I realized that some of them may have been locked up inside buildings, apartments, or homes with nothing to eat. Hoarding would become the norm in a few days if powers that be didn’t get the virus under control.

  A woman held two young boys close to her blue-wrapped legs. A skirt that had seen better days was torn on one side. One of the kids moved, and I got a look at the damage on her leg. If she didn’t get it tended to, she could expect an infection. Her sons were no more than four or five, and they both had vacant looks in their eyes. They watched as I walked by, and I smiled at them, but they did not return the gesture. I couldn’t blame them. They might have seen the worst that the world had to offer in the last few days. They had been snatched out of their idyllic youths and transformed into unwilling refugees.

  Enough of those had poured through the gates at all hours while the National Guard set up makeshift checkpoints and did their best to pat down new arrivals. A lot of weapons were confiscated, but not all. Not with the numbers. It was simply too hard to get everything. The second night, a man had been stabbed over a petty argument. I wasn’t sure if he survived, but now the Guardsmen were much more cautious.

  I would be happy if no one had a knife or gun, but what the hell would we do if the dead ever came over the fence?

  Then something happened overnight. Some of the deaders slowed down, and a few even looked confused. Wandered toward the gate like lost children. God. They were a mess, missing parts and covered in blood. The men in green formed a cordon and funneled them off the side, where they were shot in the head. I hoped and prayed none of them was alive—confused refugees that were just looking for salvation or stupidly hiding among the dead.

  They stacked the bodies as best they could and covered them with a tarp. Later that night, the first massive wave reached the stadium, and the military was forced to retreat. They came in their shambling mass, some walking, others running full-bore like they saw the finish line. Some had that odd loping gait that reminded me of dogs. People on all fours, who rose up from time to time as if sniffing the air. Only they weren’t people in any sense of the word. They were the dead. And before them ran a rag-tag group of survivors.

  I stood far back, behind a fence, content to be a bystander.

  Someone yelled for the gate to be locked, and one of the soldiers near me bellowed that he would shoot the person who did it. They weren’t that far out when the massive metal chain-link door started to slide shut.

  I felt a wave of terror as hundreds of them ran through the streets and straight at the warriors. They howled, as did the men and women who shot at them. I screamed as much as they did, my voice joining their horrible calls for help.

  It was a scramble at the end, and not everyone got inside. Once the mob had ridden down the stragglers and finished them off, the military set up a firing line and held them back. The shots went forever.

  It was a massacre. So many faces, the eyes all red as if filled with blood, a curious side effect of the Registrop virus. Some went down with multiple shots to the upper body, but most got it in the head. Old fears and paranoia took over and made the shooters aim high. I knew from experience that if you got them there or in the general spinal-cord area, it was game over for the deaders.

  If I’d had a gun, I would have done my part. I would have shot and killed more of the things. Later, I tried to curl up and forget everything that had happened over the last few days. I wanted to die, but I didn’t have a weapon. Even if I did, I didn’t think I’d have the balls to put a barrel under my chin and blow my brains all over the place.

  Lester

  Lester dipped into a bag of coke and drew a tiny scoop before his eyes. White flecks mixed with yellow. Ground up and mostly pure. He used to be cautious by nature and never cut his coke much. If word got out that his goods might have a little baby formula in them, he would be one out-of-work drug dealer. Or no longer with the living, after an angry customer came back and shot him in the face. Not the end Lester had in mind. Not that it fucking mattered now. If someone walked up to him with a shotgun, pressed the barrel to his chest and asked if he wanted to die, he might just lean over and kiss the bastard. At least he wouldn’t hurt anymore.

  He glanced around in the twilight morning and saw more than a few eyes studying him. He dumped the tiny scoop onto the webbed space between his thumb and forefinger, put it to his nose and snorted it. He should have been more careful, but he didn’t see any cops around. Didn’t see any Army dudes either. They were all up at the gate, shooting the shit out of anyone they could hit.

  It burned a line of fire up his nasal cavity and then into his brain. The world exploded in a rush of euphoria that rocketed him straight from half-assed asleep to wide-eyed awake. Felt like someone smashed his head in with one of those hammers they used to drive a ball of lead into a bell at the fair. Do a line and win a prize; that was how life should be.

  He tucked the bag back into the waistband of his dirty jeans. They still had grass stains from when he fell off his damn roof a few days ago. A controlled fall, that’s what it would have been called if it were some kind of sporting
event. He thought he’d done all right, slid down the line while Angela coached him, and hit the ground hard because the gas line had broken open, allowing gas to spew forth.

  Then he was staring at the ass of a deader as Angela screamed her head off. But that had all worked out, for a change, and he thought they might even be home free. However, he was far from anywhere near the home stretch. Within moments, his girl was gone. Attacked and turned into one of those things even as they had reached safety.

  Les missed his house. Maybe he never should have left. They had the upstairs barricaded; the deaders would have wandered off sooner or later. Or someone would have come along and rescued them. Hell, they might have just died up there together. A real Romeo and fucking Juliet moment. Sure, someone would have found their bodies wrapped around each other and commented, “Ah, they must have really loved—or strangled—each other.”

  Even in the confines of the football stadium, where everyone seemed to be surrounded by everyone else, there was a little bit of space if you looked hard enough. His space came in the form of a tiny family bathroom on the second level. He had been exploring a couple of days ago when he found it. It was small but cold as a tomb when he closed and locked the door.

  A few people knocked, but he ignored them. Go change your kids somewhere else. Find your own damn hotel room. This one was his—for now. He didn’t need food, and he had water. Besides, he had the next best thing to food. He had pills. He also had two necessities here: water and a shitter.

  He curled up the first night and tried not to think. He tried to let the hours roll past. He tried to forget everything that had happened in the last few days. The horror of being stuck in the house and the pain of losing Angela. He saw her face flash once again like an afterimage. Her pert chin and upturned nose. Her blue all-American eyes sweeping up to his in utter terror. She screamed in his head one more time. A cry that echoed even now. Every time he closed his eyes, it seemed like she was there to remind him of his loss.

  That was in the past. He was supposed to be a pragmatic man, as well as a few other ten-dollar words his lawyer used to use. Was his lawyer even alive? The last time he had talked to Jerry, the man had been hopped up on so much coke, he was screaming into the phone. He was on and on about Lester’s rights. His right to stay in his house when the National Guard were kicking everyone out of the neighborhood.

  There was that first night. The light was just giving up its ghost, sinking behind mountains and making the back yard the funniest shade of red he had ever seen. Angie was prancing around in practically nothing, because that was what she did when no one else was around. “I like to keep my man interested,” she’d said on more than one occasion, even though it didn’t need to be said. Any man in his right mind would find her interesting.

  Oh Christ, how he wished that whole day had never happened. He should have just left his house when he had the chance. If he had done that, at least Angela would still be alive. Now she was gone, not even roaming as one of the undead things. He had seen to that when he blew his house to smithereens.

  “Should have just listened to Lightfoot. Asshole,” Les muttered to himself, unsure whether the insult was directed at the soldier or at himself.

  Now he had just about nothing left except an increasing urge to go out and destroy every single deader he could find. There was a whole city waiting on ol’ Lester’s vengeance.

  Kate

  They made it the couple of blocks in one piece. For the most part, they didn’t see that many deaders. Most seemed to catch on that blind rage wouldn’t protect them from lead. Did they even think? Probably not, but like animals, they had some kind of survival instincts. Soon they would be back in force, and the survivors would have to shoot everyone.

  There had to be thousands of the crazy red-eyed bastards still roaming the streets. Anders held up his fist as he crept to the door. The other Guards stopped and spun around to cover their backs. Kate wasn’t on point. She wasn’t one of the boys, so she was stuck in the middle with a female soldier who was shorter than she. Her name was Anne, but they called her Bug.

  The nickname pissed off Kate to no end, but Anne seemed to take it in stride and had pet names for the boys as well. When she called Anders “Andy,” he always got a look of hatred in his eye, but he covered it with a sly look to the side even as his lips curled down in distaste. They all called the big guy Jones, even though his name tag said Haller.

  When they assembled the tiny squad, the Guardsmen had been wary of a civilian joining them.

  “I won’t get in the way, and I know how to take down deaders,” she had replied, which got her a blank look. Kate wasn’t about to set out to prove herself to these guys. If they wanted to see how capable she was at killing, she would be more than happy to offer front-row seats. The stars of the show would be their junk and then their heads.

  “This it, Anders?” Haller wore the National Guard gear, but he had covered some of his extremities with duct tape. Deaders had trouble biting through that stuff. Since the epidemic had begun, rolls of silver tape had become a precious commodity.

  “Hold on,” Anders replied. Sweat ran down his pale face in a cascade. He took a long swig from his canteen before he dropped to a crouch. He fought his way inside his jacket pocket and came out with a large piece of paper. It looked to Kate like a tourist map.

  “Jackson …” He glanced up at a signpost at the end of the street and scratched his head.

  Kate stared at the street sign for a second before shaking her head. She’d told Anders this was Jackson Street half a dozen times since they left the football stadium.

  A motorcycle cut across their field of vision. A big bastard of a Harley with a noisy exhaust and clanking chain. She half-expected to see one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse perched over the handlebars. The smell of gas and exhaust filled the air as it puttered up the road. Most of the torso of a deader was attached to the seat by a chain that rattled as the bike sped away. Kate got a look into the still-working eyes of the thing before it was tossed end over end. It left chunks of flesh and smears of blood. The deader had its mouth open. There were no teeth, but it had part of a tongue.

  A group of deaders followed close behind. They howled for blood, but not for long. A pair of doors opened up, and three or four of guys with heavy-caliber machine guns stepped out. Their guns opened up in a steady but controlled staccato. Once the dead stopped twitching, the men high-fived each other and started comparing kills.

  The guy on the Harley nodded his helmeted head at the shooters, then drove toward First Avenue, presumably to start the nightmare train up again.

  Anne just looked on in horror, but Anders nodded to himself. He didn’t say a word, simply motioned for his small squad to drift to the left. They faded from sight before the guys with machine guns mistook them for a group of deaders.

  “Gnarly,” Anders muttered. He even had a smile on his face.

  Kate had seen and done some sick shit in the last few days, but were firing squads the answer to the deader problem?

  “I’m pretty fucking sure this is it, but we got a problem. The stairs are blocked off, and the elevators aren’t working.” Anders stared up at the building, hand shading his eyes.

  “So how the hell’re we gonna rescue the nerds?” Jones looked up at the building in disgust, then turned his head and spat.

  “Hey, one of those nerds is my sister, and if you so much as look at her sideways, I’ll shoot you where the sun don’t shine,” Anders said.

  “Your sister? Oh for fuck’s sake. If she’s half as ugly as your ass, I say we go back to the stadium and have a few cold ones.”

  “You wouldn’t know a good-looking girl if she kicked you in the nuts, right, Bug?”

  Anne looked the men up and down and then flipped them off.

  Kate watched the exchange in amusement.

  “So back to work, eh? Anyone have any bright ideas?” Anne put her finger away and addressed the small group.

  A
nders didn’t say a word. He walked to the edge of the building and pointed up. The others shuffled behind, guns bristling. Kate had a handgun in a holster around her slim waist. She felt like some kind of sheriff. Wouldn’t her neighbor Bob be proud? Just a few days ago, he’d shown her how to aim a big revolver. Now she was a seasoned vet.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Haller sighed.

  Kate followed their gaze and couldn’t help but grin.

  Shayne

  “Why do you have to be such a jerk all the time?” Kara asked in her simpering voice. She was dressed in the same thing she had worn for the last two days. Black slacks and a white silky blouse that buttoned up to her neck, only it was open in front, and the sleeves hung limply like flags with no wind. Her normally curly hair, dirty blond ringlets, lay in limp clumps around her pale face. She looked tired. She didn’t bother with shoes or makeup. They had all been cooped up in the building for days, and everyone was getting on everyone else’s nerves.

  “I’m not. I’m just trying to be logical. If you’d think it through, maybe you’d see that. I don’t want us to all get killed. Jesus. It’s crazy out there, and the only thing keeping us safe is this barricade.”

  “But it’s not that far to the stadium. If we ran for it, we would make it. I bet a bunch of those soldiers would see us and come help,” she whined.

  Yeah, with that shirt hanging open and your fake boobs bouncing. Sure the soldiers would help you, but they would give us the finger. Not that I could even keep up. Maybe if I had another bottle of pills. Maybe if I had four or five and the room would stop spinning. Maybe then I could make a run for it.