“That ain’t happening, Ace. We always and forever, blood for life,” Marquell replied. But following the motto of The Black Lords might be impossible under the circumstances, and for Marquell, self-preservation was much stronger than brotherhood.
Defying all logic and common sense, the man dressed like a pirate walked towards the crowd of zombies carrying a mere crowbar. In moments the beasts would be upon him and the stranger would add to their ranks as just one more hungry mouth.
Only it didn’t quite work out that way.
“What the…” Marquell’s words trailed off as the crowbar clanged against a zombie’s forehead and flew from the man’s hand, sticking into the dirt. But the zombie ignored both the attack and the man, and still focused intently on Ace’s feet.
“The name’s Russ and I’ll have you boys down in a jiffy,” the man said. He picked up the iron bar, smashing it into the zombie’s face and killing it this time. Blood oozed off the crowbar as he looked at Marquell with eyes deadish and empty. “That is, as long as you’re not kiddie-diddlers or lawyers. You’re not, are ya?”
“No man,” Marquell managed to sputter out through his disbelief. Russ nodded and continued the slaughter of the defenseless zombies, a task made more difficult by the fact that he really sucked at it. The ‘slaughter’ consisted of Russ slipping in blood, falling down, and missing his targets all while cursing heartily.
“Watch this one Trent, I’m like Bobby Bonilla over here.” A swing and a miss. He paused to take a drink from a brown bottle, and it became clear to Marquell just what was going on. Russ was shitfaced.
Trent rolled his eyes at his idiotic antics and walked closer as Russ finished off the last of the infected. But then he recognized Marquell, and his hair stood on end. The muscle-bound man in the middle was the leader of the raiders they’d scuffled with the day before.
How the man had ended up in his current predicament was unclear, but Trent instantly questioned his own call. He thought about leaving them behind to their fate, but the memory of shooting an innocent man was weighing him down, and if rescuing a couple scumbags could lighten the load he would do it. Not to mention, Trent couldn’t shake the feeling he was being tested by a higher power.
He climbed the cross and used his pocketknife to sever Marquell’s polyethylene bonds, then tossed the knife to Russ before jumping to the ground.
Russ scaled the second cross while Trent gave Marquell a stoic look. “Don’t try anything funny. We’re gonna cut your buddy down and then you two are on your own.”
Marquell nodded. “That’s straight. I’m Marquell, he’s Ace.”
“How’d you end up out here anyways?” Trent asked, arching a suspicious eyebrow.
“Bitches, man, you know how it is.”
“Yeah, I sure do.” Trent rubbed his sore jaw with sliced up hands, compliments of his own female problems. “You guys should—”
“Auuugh! Auuugh, ughh—” Ace Kool screamed in pain and then stopped abruptly as Russ severed his vocal cords with a nasty bite. His body went limp briefly and then reanimated, but the heroin dealer was now but a shadow of his former self.
Russ clung to the man in an awkward embrace while a vein dangled between a gap in his front teeth, dribbling out hot crimson blood. The drunk looked more like an entrant in a wing-eating contest than a ravenous beast, but for a moment, that’s just what he was. “Juicy,” Russ said as he licked his fingers.
Chapter 3: Creeper
Charlie closed the dead child’s eyes and turned to the other boy, who was now rolling on the ground in hysterics. Left-Nut was screaming bloody murder even louder in the distance.
“Shut him up, quick,” Charlie said while patting the anguished scout’s shoulder.
The kid paused his whimpering when Charlie spoke to him softly. “Buddy, please take it down a notch. He’s gone.”
“No crap, you killed him. He was the one friend I had left. Now I’m all alone.”
“What were you thinking, shooting at us for no reason? I thought it was the Chinese again, so of course we were gonna shoot back.”
“He thought you were the monsters and started firing, and I just kinda followed him. That’s what I always did.”
Charlie sighed and changed tactics. “Look, what’s your name, partner?”
“Sam. My name’s Sam. And you’re not my partner.” The boy pointed to the dead body. “He was.”
“I promise, we won’t hurt you. Believe it or not, we’re the good guys,” Charlie said and looked towards Left-Nut, who was still screaming every curse word known to man. “Sort of.”
Sam sat up and wiped the last tear from his eyes. “We’ll see.”
Left-Nut continued to yell, and by now the noise was drawing in random zombies from the other side of the field.
“I said shut him up!” Charlie whisper-shouted at Rob once more.
Big Rob’s beefy fist slammed into Left-Nut’s jaw and knocked him out effortlessly. “Night night,” he said and calmly grabbed his baseball bat with the bent handle. The zombies running towards him from the bean field were soon met with a trio of headshots. A school nurse, yoga instructor, and tax lawyer all went down in an instant. The gentle giant finished the poor nurse off with a coup de grace and fought the urge to vomit as he wiped the brains off his weapon. At least the killing part was getting easier.
Charlie looked to the surviving kid and struggled for the right tone of voice to use. “I’ll prove that you can trust us. You can have your gun back as soon as you calm down.” He nodded at the fallen scout. “What was his name?”
“Colin. He was the troop leader’s son.”
“Was it just you two out here?” Smokey asked, not wanting any surprises.
“There were eight of us at first. We were camping out when everything happened and, and…”
“That’s fine, little dude,” Smokey said. “We’ll talk later.”
Charlie nodded. “Yeah, we better get moving. Need to find a place to hide out and treat Left-Nut’s leg.”
“Left-Nut?” Sam asked.
“Umm, Matt’s his real name,” Charlie said. “He got stuck in a bear trap over there.”
Sam nodded. “Colin’s dad was using those to catch the creepers. He went into Biggsburg a few weeks ago and never came back.”
“Is that the town right across the way?” Charlie asked.
“Yeah, it’s where we all lived.”
“It looked pretty messed up,” Smokey said, and Sam started crying again. “But we were just on the outskirts, so it’s hard to tell,” he added hastily and unconvincingly. “Was your family there? I mean, is your family there?”
“No, I’m a foster kid. I don’t care what happened to my foster family. The scouts were the only people who gave a damn about me.”
Charlie looked at the freckle-faced boy and struggled to maintain his own composure. The kid had already been alone his whole life, and now this turd sandwich of an apocalypse had been thrust into his face.
“Sam, I’m a good judge of character, and I’m looking at you and seeing a dude that’s about five foot tall and maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet. Your stats on paper aren’t real good, but the fact you’re even alive at this point leads me to believe you’re a total badass.” Sam wiped away his tears and stood up a little taller as Charlie continued, “Now, what just happened here was messed up, but it was an accident. So you can either dwell on it or you can move forward and join our crew. Since you’ve made it this far, I’m betting I know your answer.”
Sam smiled slightly, which was amazing given the circumstances. “Yeah, I guess I don’t have much of a choice. What about Colin though?” he asked as Smokey handed the rifle back to him, an old .22 Sam had earned a merit badge with by shooting tin cans.
“There’s nothing we can do for him, but we need to get going,” Charlie said. “How close is your camp, and is there anything useful there? Supplies, food?”
“About a quarter mile into the woods, but it’s bare. We used
up pretty much everything. I’ve got about ten bullets left in my pocket. That’s why we were out here hunting rabbits.”
“Gotcha,” Charlie said as the group rejoined Big Rob and Left-Nut.
After introductions were made they settled on a new route. Sam had told them that nothing useful lay west for miles, and since the city was off limits they decided to see what was to the north. Rob slung Left-Nut over his shoulder like a sack of defective Christmas presents, and their already slow pace trickled to a crawl. Losing the four wheelers earlier in the day now appeared to be an even bigger disaster, and Charlie reminded Smokey of this fact numerous times.
The next hour was a boring slog as the group traversed yet more fields and wooded areas, as well as a few much-appreciated pastures. They were no longer able to run across open areas, and if a Chinese patrol caught them in a clearing it would be a massacre.
Through a little prodding from Smokey, Sam told them of his months in the woods, and it was a rather depressing tale. His group lost two members on the day of the outbreak as they came in from the woods, gunned down by a panicking sheriff’s department. Down to six people, several more died a week later, gobbled up as they slept in their tents. Running low on supplies, another scout was shot while approaching a farmhouse he thought was abandoned.
After that fiasco, the scout leader kept them in the heart of the woods and scavenged for supplies by himself. One day he never came back, and Sam and Colin were on their own, left scared, hungry, and confused.
“The tent incident was horrible. The kids were screaming one second and attacking us the next. Colin’s dad, Frank, built a platform onto a tree stand the next day and then the creepers couldn’t find us.”
“A tent’s a bad idea, it’s just a sandwich wrapper as far as I’m concerned,” Smokey said. “You call them creepers?”
“Yeah. It’s because they’re all quiet and they just creep up on you.”
“Makes sense, but we just call ‘em zombies. The infected kind, mind you – the undead ones are a whole different ball of wax,” Smokey added, always one to show off his knowledge on the subject matter.
“The biggest creeper you’ll meet is this guy right there,” Charlie said and pointed at Left-Nut.
“Why’s that?” Sam asked.
“Just wait until he wakes up, you’ll see,” Rob said and shook his passed out friend gently for emphasis, causing blood to ooze from his injured leg. “Whoops. He did go out like a light, though. Talk about a one-punch pussy.”
“Damn, that’s a lot of blood. We gotta find somewhere to get him cleaned up,” Charlie said, and then a sinking feeling came over him. “Sam, did you say your scout leader was using those traps to catch the creepers or zombies or whatever the hell you want to call them?”
“Yeah.”
Charlie frowned. “I hope Left-Nut didn’t catch the infection. Getting caught in that bloody trap would have to be like sharing a needle.”
“It doesn’t work like that. We’ve been covered in blood and nothing happened. Shit, Rob’s practically bathed in the stuff,” Smokey said. “It’s all about the bites. I’d say something in the saliva spreads the infection.”
“Just keep an eye out. If he starts acting funny, drop him on the ground and back up quick.”
The walk to nowhere in particular continued, and it was Sam who struck up the conversation this time. “If we’re going to be travelling together, why don’t you tell me a little about you guys and where we’re headed?”
“Fair enough. I’m a teacher—”
“Substitute,” Smokey cut in.
“I’m a substitute teacher, Smokey’s a pothead, Rob’s a fighter and Left-Nut’s a psychopath. Big Rob, Lefty and myself grew up together, and we met Smokey in college.”
“It’s cool that you’re with old friends.”
Charlie continued, “We were living in Chicago, and like you, our original group was much bigger… we left the city and now we’re trying to meet up with my girlfriend and some others at a military base by Cantonville.”
“Sounds plausible,” Sam said. He didn’t entirely trust his new companions due to the circumstances, and the fact that nobody in his life had been worth trusting so far. Plus, being abandoned as a toddler and getting shipped around to five foster homes had left deep emotional scars. Seeing his friends eaten alive hadn’t helped.
“Since we don’t have the four wheelers we started on, thanks to Smokey, I’m sure you’ll know everything about us within a few days. Perhaps more than you care to.”
Charlie stopped talking as they exited a particularly thick patch of woods and came upon a clearing. A hundred yards out was a stone building complex surrounded by a blacked-out chain-link privacy fence. No roads or sidewalks led to the odd structure that resembled a Spanish presidio. It just looked plain out of place.
The men cautiously approached the main gate with Sam crouched behind them, taking no chances. Charlie pointed to a small sign by the locked entrance and read it aloud. “Poor Sisters of the Cross Convent. No trespassing, no solicitors, no visitors. Violators will be prayed for on site.”
“That’s a relief, I thought maybe Count Chocula lived here,” Smokey said with a snicker. “Man, do I miss cereal.”
There was no movement around the compound, so Charlie scaled the fence and opened the gate from the inside. Next was a quick jaunt to the main building that left them all totally exposed. A man with a rifle could have taken them down with little effort.
However, no such man was waiting, and moments later Charlie knocked on the front door as the others looked around for signs of life. Twisted gargoyle statues leered down at them from above and all the windows had been painted black. The place was as quiet as a cemetery, and a well-kept vegetable garden was the only hint that it was occupied.
Charlie took a few short breaths and opened the steel door, finding a locked wooden door behind it. He knocked on the small viewing window and backed up, his finger on the trigger of his Chinese assault rifle.
Nobody answered, so he knocked much louder the second time. He looked to Smokey and whispered, “Why don’t you run around the place and check for more doors.” Smokey took off, but just as Charlie turned back, a nun appeared in the window, startling the bejesus out of him. The woman wore a white coif and a traditional brown habit, looking like something straight from the 1800s. And she was drop-dead gorgeous.
“Whoa, you kinda snuck up on me there,” Charlie said while trying to regain his composure. The nun stared quietly for an awkward minute and then turned her head, revealing a massive, bubbly scar that covered the entire left side of her face. “Fucking zombie!” Charlie gasped and prepared to blast the woman through the door.
“Whoa dude, chill!” Smokey shouted as he reappeared with an elderly nun close behind him.
The old nun gave Charlie a look that could have melted his own face off. “Put down the toy gun, you probably scared Sister Katya half to death. Now just what is going on? This gentleman informed me that someone is injured?”
Charlie pointed to his unconscious friend. “He got his leg stuck in a bear trap.”
“Oh my,” the nun said and raised a hand to her mouth. “You’d better get him to the hospital in Biggsburg. I’m afraid we have very limited resources here.”
“Lady, um, I don’t think tha—”
“Not lady, my name is Mother Agnes Vukavka, and I’m the Mother Superior of this small order. By the way, you gentlemen are trespassing. And Halloween isn’t for a few weeks so I am a bit confused by your outfits.”
Dressed like a comic book hero, a cowboy, a Boy Scout, a 70s porn star, and a rather convincing drug-dealer, they did look like a strange offshoot of the Village People. But Charlie focused on the most important aspect of the conversation. “Lady – I mean, Mother Superior, we can’t just stroll into town and go to prompt care.”
“I suppose you don’t have insurance?”
“Wait, what? No, it’s not that. Seriously, don’t you know what kinda s
hit-storm hit us these past couple months?”
The nun took a step away from the men. “This is all a bit confusing, and frankly you people are putting off some bad vibes. Are you on drugs or something?”
“Dang, I wish,” Smokey said under his breath.
“You’re telling me you don’t know about the zombies?” Charlie said.
“What in the world is a zompy?” the nun asked, now thinking she was dealing with conmen at best and criminals at worst. “I think I should call the sheriff and he can sort this out.” Of course, this was a bluff as she had no phone.
Charlie lost his cool. “Sheriff? There’s no freaking sheriff left! There aren’t any cops, no hospitals, no churches, no schools, nothing, it’s all gone!”
Rob tapped Charlie’s shoulder. “Calm down, bro.”
“Now are you gonna open this door or do I have to kick the damn thing in?”
“This conversation is over, gentlemen. Please leave.”
Charlie refused to take no for an answer and ran at the front door, kicking it as hard as he could, and failing spectacularly. “Son of a bitch,” he said with a groan and fell to the ground, rubbing his throbbing foot. To his credit, the door had a slight scuff mark on it.
The yelling had not gone unnoticed, and a nightmarishly disfigured man emerged from the forest and quickly made its way to the fence. Here it found the gate still partially open, thanks to Smokey being the last one to enter.
As the gate clanged against the fence and the zombie lurched onward, all eyes turned to the incoming abomination. It had wandered the forest for months, having been plagued by stinging insects, thorns, curious coyotes, and the summer elements. Now the hungry creature was nearly unrecognizable as a human. Its skin tight from dehydration and its eyes shrunken, the zombie locked in on a target and charged. Mother Agnes stood frozen in both fear and disbelief as it closed in.
Rob fumbled with his bat, then accidentally kicked it away as he reached to pick it up. Charlie and Smokey raised their guns but didn’t have enough time to shoot. The zombie hammered the nun to the ground and opened its festering mouth wide. A split second later it was dead, felled by a rifle bullet through the eye socket.
Dead Drunk II: Dawn of the Deadbeats (Dead Drunk: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse... One Beer at a Time Book 2) Page 2
