“Here.” Lamar said.
He pulled a bottle of water from our bag and his hand shook while doing it. He didn't dare hand it to Spook but gifted it to his brother instead. Ben handed it off.
“What do you have to trade?” I asked.
Somebody had to look out for our group. Between Pam's new schoolgirl crush and Lamar nearly shitting himself with fear, someone had to step up.
“Information, a few candy bars,” Ben said. “Also have a .38 pistol, but no ammunition.”
“What good is that?” I asked.
“It's a hell of a conversation piece.” Spook laughed, drinking his water. Drawing a look from his brother.
“The shells are the easiest to find around here.” Ben replied.
“Which explains why you don't have any.” I said.
“Did I mention we have candy bars?” Ben asked. Reaching into his front pocket, I could see the desperation on his face. “I also have two pennies and my grocery store savings card.”
“OK,” I replied. “So we may have a little more than I first let on. You seem nice enough. We can trade a decent meal for each of you in exchange for information and that pistol.”
“The one with no ammo?” Ben smiled.
“I like the look of a nice .38.”
A few minutes later, Ben sat with Pam and Lamar. I chose not to as a precaution and Spook said his legs never got tired. What was the use? We traded off two sodas, one grape and one cola, and two cans of beef stew. The .38 revolver was nicer than I had imagined. It was solid and a blued steel, with a thick rubber handle. It was also a very dependable brand. But most of all, the information was good.
“If you took the vaccine, you're stuck in the middle,” Ben said. Spooning out beef stew like a starved hobo. “Some of the betweens resort to killing folks. We've seen that firsthand. But some of them, my brother included, never quite got to that point.”
“I like a mean steak,” Spook admitted. “But not a human one.”
“I don't know if it's a DNA thing...all I know is he can usually sense when they're around. Spook has kept me alive. He can move about an entire group of infected and they don't think anything of it. That's how I came across that revolver. Spook picked it up at a police roadblock that had been overrun.”
“What do you know about Charlotte?” I asked.
“That place is a lost cause,” Ben said. “Most of the infected seem to be too stupid to wander off very far. I reckon they'll eventually leave the cities, but last I heard they were real plentiful in Charlotte. If anyone's still there and alive, they'd do well to keep their asses inside. If you know what I mean?”
“What do you know about the rest of the world?” Pam asked.
“Ran across a soldier who was half-starved and traded a can of beans for information not a day ago,” Ben said. “Going on what he told me, the infection started here. Where I don't know. But with the flights in and out it spread fast. Most of the world was infected before they knew it. I'm not sure if Russia saw this as a chance to prosper or if they believed the infection was intentional, but he told me that the Russians hit us somewhere out west first. Our own military was so caught up with fighting them off that the infection spread rampantly throughout the United States.
“Our own government is still operating, but they're doing it somewhere down in the Hawaiian Islands. Not sure where. Russia, China, Germany, France, and Japan are all standing and fighting amongst each other. There could be others, I don't know. Believe me, there's as much misinformation as anything out there. I've also heard that North Korea, Saudia Arabia, and Australia are on the brink. If that's true, they may still be operating. The only thing that's for sure is that we're not living in the same world anymore. No place seems to be safe for very long. We've been coming across a few living each day and trading for food as best we can.”
“You could stay if you wanted.” Pam said.
“Pam,” I said harshly. “A word.”
Walking away from the group and leaving Lamar there to shit his pants in fear, I planned to scold Pam for offering. But the truth was she was too beautiful to be upset with.
“Pam, we don't know these people.”
“They can help us, Derick,” she began. “If that infected isn't killing people, he could potentially go in and collect things we need from places we can't normally get to. Like back at the Bass Pro Shops...he could have gone in with a shopping list and-”
“If these people are who they say they are.”
I wasn't about to risk my neck for it.
“If they're not,” Pam said. Looking at me with her gorgeous blue eyes, that flowed like deep ocean water. “You know what to do. You promised to protect me and I mean to see that you do.” As she smiled, my heart caved in.
For better or worse, I was now the group's killer. I was the only one with the stones to get things done.
I nodded.
“I'm a good, rational thinker,” she said. “Lamar knows about the kinds of things we need. And you...you're the enforcer. The protector. My protector.”
Pam smiled and my heart picked itself up and clung to her words.
“I can be Derick the protector.”
“I know you can.” she smiled.
“OK,” I said. “But the first chance I get, we're grabbing this revolver and you're going to carry it with you at all times. And that's not optional.”
“Deal.” she grinned wide.
“You both can join us,” I said. Loud enough for everyone to hear, though quiet enough as to not draw in stray infected. “But Pam makes the rules. And your brother is going to have to help us fetch supplies. We don't have a lot. Everyone in this group has a place. Lamar is good at knowing what we need to survive and I usually do the killing. You seem like you have a way with people and your brother will need to collect things. None of us are experts, but I believe that we have a better chance of surviving in numbers.”
“Yeah, we can do that.” Ben said.
He had a trusting look. I dunno what it was, but my gut told me that he was a good man. Still, I had to make things abundantly clear. For him, for his brother – for Lamar, too.
“We had a guy named Rudy with us not so long ago,” I admitted. Preparing to overcome the truth of it. “He did something he shouldn't have and I left him to die,” I could see the look of betrayal on Lamar's face. Fuck him, he didn't know the first thing about losing a woman he loved. “And I liked Rudy a lot better than I know either of you. Are we clear?”
Ben was nearly a foot taller than I was and Spook was infected for God's sake! But I didn't care. I was the one covered in blood. Brain fragments had dried to my clothes and I'd earned my stripes and then some. My days of delivering oxygen were long past. I was now a hunter and protector. I was any damn thing I chose to be.
Both Ben and his infected brother agreed with a nod.
Chapter 8
“So we're doing this?” Carlos asked.
The hospital door behind them was shut. It was thick, but they still took enough caution to speak without yelling.
“I don't see any other way, do you?” A.K. asked. “Our guns are out there. We're too high up to jump for it and they'll kill us both if we don't do this.”
“There has to be another way.”
“Oh come on,” A.K. began. “You've wanted to swing on me since this whole thing first started. I've known that deep in my mind.”
Carlos stared him down for a moment. He certainly couldn't deny the fact that, at one time, he would have loved to beat on the former prison guard.
“It's not like that anymore,” Carlos admitted. “You're not a prison guard and I'm not an inmate. We're just two people trying to survive in a world that's ripped apart.”
“You're too naïve,” A.K. said. “Quit thinking like a normal person, those days are over. Now it's us against the infected or us against each other. Fighting is the only way to survive. I don't like it, but the guy has a point.”
When A.K. agreed with the lunacy
beyond the hospital room door, Carlos realized there was no going back.
“Well then,” he began pulling his sleeves up. “I want you to know that it's not personal. I know you just had a job to do at that prison. And I also want you to know that when I walk out of here, God willing, I will kill Drake.”
“If you win this one – keep surviving,” A.K. smiled.
He did so with friendship, which struck Carlos as odd. They were preparing themselves to fight to the death.
“Yeah...you do the same.”
A.K. extended his hand for a final shake of friendship. Carlos locked hands.
Then suddenly, A.K. pulled the former convict close and smashed his own forehead into Carlos' face. A.K. then landed two stiff punches to the face. Carlos could feel them for sure but never saw them coming. His eyes were blanketed with a veil of blood and tears.
His son was out there somewhere. He needed to live.
“Forgive me for doing this,” A.K. said.
Carlos imagined he was grabbing the room's only weapon – a sturdy knife. His vision was still heavily blurred, but he could now see shapes well enough.
“I watched a good friend of mine get shot by our own military,” A.K. said. “He was a much better man than you. Then I saw the old man get eaten in front of me. Yeah, he was a better man, too. I've got no intention of being left in this room to die.”
“Intentions or not-” Carlos uttered.
Suddenly, he leaped up a little and grabbed hold of the dark shadow that towered over him. Grabbing it in a very strong choke hold.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
His fist smacked the thick wood three times. Slowly, the door opened and Carlos found himself staring at several weapons.
“Well hell,” Drake began. “I would have figured the other guy. Either way,” he drew a deep breath. “You're one of us now. You've earned your stay. No hard feelings, right?”
Carlos looked at him for several moments. Finally shaking his head.
“Good. Now go sit down for a spell and rest. Grab a soda or something.”
Carlos nodded. Making his way to a nearby seat at the nurse's station.
Drake looked at A.K.'s body and felt betrayed – he'd picked the wrong person to win and lost a pack of cigarettes in the process.
“Shit,” he mumbled as he approached the body that he would eventually drag out of the wing and toss into the hallway for infected. It would be his peace offering to them, plus it kept their wing nice and clean.
As he grabbed the body, A.K. sprung up fast and drove a knife right into Drake's throat. It was the same knife that Carlos had insisted he hide, and right now it was covered in deep red blood, which gushed from the meaty part of Drake's neck. Even if he would have had time to yell for help, it wasn't possible. He'd lost the ability to speak...eventually he lost his life
“You aight?” Jimmy asked.
“Yeah, I'm fine,” Carlos replied.
Suddenly, and without the least bit of warning, Carlos drove his arm around Jimmy's neck and began choking the thin man who posed as a security guard. He wouldn't have long before the others saw him. He knew that. So Carlos used every fiber of muscle he'd built up in the prison yard and vital things inside of Jimmy's neck began to pop and burst. He was finished.
Gordon entered the hospital room where the fight had taken place in order to check on Drake. He exited moments later at the tip of A.K.'s knife.
“Easy now,” A.K. said. “Nobody else has to die.”
Beth began running for them and it became clear that she and Drake shared some sort of love interest. A.K. could see it in her eyes. He'd killed the man she loved, but he had to in order to survive.
She yelled, but a gunshot eventually put her down. Carlos stood behind the nurse's desk and had used the stolen security revolver to hit her in the leg. It wouldn't end her life, but her fate was in her own willingness to survive now.
“Gordon,” Carlos said. Holding the revolver in the big man's direction. “I can see you care about Brooke (who'd been forced to use the name, Candace). She came to us for help,” he admitted. “Now we don't want to kill anybody, especially you. So you need to think about your next move here. You can go with us and help us protect Brooke or you can rush us both, but I promise you that you're not going to win that fight.”
More than mad, Gordon was confused. He'd ran into a hospital to escape monsters and found himself surrounded by people who were worse than monsters. All he'd ever wanted to do was just survive.
“I never wanted to kill no one,” Gordon admitted. “I had to do what I had to do. Brooke is a youngin', they'd have killed her or worse, y'all know that.”
“We do,” Carlos said. “And you did her proud by keeping her safe up here. But we need to make sure that you don't plan to kill us.”
“I don't wanna kill nobody,” Gordon said.
“Then you take some food and water and you give it to Beth and lock her in that room with Drake.”
“What?” she yelled.
Still nursing her leg, Beth wasn't about to be left for dead.
“We're leaving and when we go, it's going to open up a lot of entry points for the infected to get into. They'll likely be crawling through this wing in a day's time, but this door is thick enough to hold.” A.K. said.
“Take me with you!”
“I don't think so,” Carlos began. “Gordon and Brooke here, they're not OK with killing, but you are. You've been a part of this whole damn thing, best I can figure, so I'm going to leave you in the hands of fate. A few days' worth of supplies and a locked door. That's more than you gave the other people on this wing. The people who worked here.”
She didn't want to admit it, but Beth had definitely taken part in clearing the wing. She'd killed six people herself. On orders from Drake, sure, but he hadn't twisted her arm to do it. Beth deserved whatever she got.
“Gordon.” Carlos waved his revolver to the door.
The big man grabbed hold of one of Beth's arms and even as she cried, he dragged her across the recently waxed floor and into the room where Drake's body lay dead. He pressed the door to the locked position and shut it easily.
“OK then, so we're good?” Carlos asked.
Gordon nodded.
Carlos eased the security revolver down into the back of his pants and started collecting what supplies were left. Gordon checked on Brooke, who'd been a perfect stranger prior to the infection spreading.
“When I got here they were gonna kill her,” Gordon said. “I didn't know the girl, but she reminded me a lot of my daughter. I mean, my daughter wasn't in college or nothing like that, but they're the same age. They both got that innocent smile, you know?”
“Yeah,” Carlos admitted. “I do.”
He'd picked up on it too. But he didn't have a daughter – he had needs. Carlos had been in prison long enough to know a beautiful woman when he saw one. Surviving was first on the list, though.
“Drake mentioned some of the people making it to those woods.” A.K. reminded
He pointed out a large treeline to the east of the Emergency Room entrance, but there were at least a hundred dead roaming between the hospital and the woods.
“Long way.” Carlos replied.
“Not if we can make it back to our Hummer first.”
-
“You OK?” Pam asked.
She lay beside Derick on sleeping bags, while Lamar pulled his shift of watch. A very small campfire flickered and provided just enough heat to avoid freezing, while putting off the kind of light that helped the group see, and not drawing the wrong kind of attention.
“Yeah.” Derick replied.
“You don't seem like you're OK.” she added.
It was in his eyes. A storm of emotional distress behind the clouds of Derick's deep blue pupils.
“It's the killing.” he admitted.
“You had to do what you had to do.”
“If I would have stopped and tried to help Rudy-”
“Then y
ou might be dead, too,” Pam said. “When it comes to something like that, there aren't any do-overs. At that time, when everything was going down the way it was, your instincts told you that he was already gone. It's easy to second guess yourself later, but your first instinct is usually the right one.”
Except it wasn't. He'd left Rudy to die and had done it deliberately. Why? He wasn't sure exactly, but a lot of it had to do with the fact that Rudy had led to Lisa being killed. Plus, as Derick looked into Pam's eyes, he also started to realize that he'd held resentment against Rudy. Those beautiful eyes of Pam's once looked at Rudy in a way he wished they'd look at him. She'd always been the one – he knew that.
“I miss the diner,” she grinned. “I miss the smell of bacon and eggs, and seeing all of the new faces stop in each day.”
Derick wasn't sure he wanted to be her protector, and he certainly didn't want to be the guy who followed a woman around like a puppy dog when she obviously had no interest in him to begin with.
Rather than reply, Derick offered Pam nothing.
He turned away from her and went to sleep.
-
“Ain't got lots of gas,” Gordon said.
Trust within the small group was still sort of an issue, so, having made it back to the military Hummer with very little time to spare, A.K. put himself in the back of the vehicle with Brooke on purpose. If Gordon was going to try something, A.K. would be able to reach up and take care of it. There was no way in hell that he was letting the big man sit behind him, and Carlos was in total agreement on that. Out here, where ravenous dead were now stalking the living, trust was everything.
Carlos was driving, and he had no problem running any infected down. The Hummer thumped every few seconds and it wasn't hard to imagine dead flesh bouncing off of the concrete beneath them. The vehicle had plenty of power, though. Just not a lot of gasoline.
“Nope,” Carlos replied as he finally took a moment to glance down at the dashboard. “I think our best move it to get as far away from this hospital as we can and when she runs dry, we'll break for the woods. That way if we get our hands on some gasoline we can come back and there won't be a thousand of these damn things to contend with.”
Deadworld Page 14
