The Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Line

by Millard, Adam

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  When the rain finally stopped they were all suitably wet and miserable. . .

  And they would have been lost if Lukas had had his way; lost, wet and miserable would have been too much for one day.

  Shane hadn't told the newcomers about the jets, about how he had heard a helicopter hovering overhead shortly after their collision rendered both of their cars useless. Even he didn't know why he retained this information; though he didn't trust the man – Lukas – and there was something about the way the kid looked, unloved and apprehensive, that made Shane wonder if everything was right with these people.

  Perhaps, he thought, the apocalypse had broken them. What had once been a tight-knit family were now practically strangers, surviving together only because they have to, through necessity and not love. The stresses and tribulations of the past few weeks could be directly accountable for their lack of familial traits, though it seemed to be the boy who was suffering the most.

  Abi and Lukas were all over each other like love-struck teenagers. It was embarrassing, and Shane could see that neither Terry nor Marla were comfortable.

  It was a good thing; it meant it wasn't just him being stupid and reading into something that wasn't there.

  Something was definitely odd about the trio, and Shane couldn't quite put his finger on it just yet.

  'This road should take us all the way to Brookhaven,' Shane said. 'We're probably looking at a whole day, maybe longer depending on the terrain.' The pack on his back was already digging into his shoulders and armpits, and the thought of eighteen hours of solid walking wasn't just daunting, it made him feel physically sick. He could only imagine what Terry, with the other pack, was feeling. And Lukas was carrying a Bergen filled with ammo; Shane had watched him fill It from the overturned Oldsmobile's trunk. Truthfully, it frightened him how many shells the guy had. It also made him wish that he had more. . .

  'It's three now,' Lukas said, checking his watch. 'We're gonna have to find somewhere to sleep before dark, which only gives us five – maybe six – hours of walking-time.'

  Shane sighed. Even that sounded too much. 'If we come across somewhere to rest for the night between now and nine,' he said, 'I think we should take it and start early in the morning. That way we'll make it in one go.' He hoped it didn't sound like he was making excuses, but they weren't carrying the weight he was. . . so fuck 'em.

  Marla dropped back so that she walked between Terry and Shane; River was up front with Saul, talking at him, bombarding him with questions that he couldn't answer. Marla felt sorry for him.

  'What do you think?' Marla mumbled, though she was pretty sure that Lukas and Abi were out of earshot.

  'About what?' Terry asked, oblivious to the fact they were being quiet so as not to alert the newbies. Abi turned and smiled; Terry smiled back. It was an exchange that suggested nothing was wrong, even though Marla thought there might be.

  'About them,' Marla whispered. 'I don't know about you but I've been treading on eggshells this last hour. It's as if the air around them is twice as dense. I don't even know how else to explain it.'

  Shane knew what she meant. The atmosphere had changed since the arrival of the new family. It was tense, as if they were in the company of unwelcome relatives that they just wanted to leave.

  'We've not come across anyone else,' Terry said, his voice low enough to be audible to only them. 'I don't think we have the luxury of picking and choosing our allies, not in this world.'

  'I know,' Marla sighed, 'but I don't know whether I like it. I was talking to the girl – Abi – and I got the distinct impression she'd been drinking. She was slurring, though it might have been from the crash.'

  'I smelt booze on the guy,' Shane said. 'I don't think you were imagining things.'

  Marla's mouth fell open. She couldn't believe that two parents would endanger their own son's life by driving drunk. With the roads treacherous enough as it was – with broken-down cars haphazardly scattered and burnt out vehicles from the riots that followed the outbreak – it was impossible to fathom why they would put themselves at increased risk by pounding the good stuff. . .

  'We don't know anything,' Terry said. 'All we know is that we have three survivors, and I sure as hell feel a bit safer with the amount of ammo that guy's packed.'

  Shane thought about telling Terry that, for him, it was the complete opposite. It put him on edge; Lukas, for all they knew, was a loose cannon, a maniac liable to shoot anything that moved before turning the gun on himself.

  He was built like a mercenary, and Shane didn't think it was unfair to treat him as such until they could be sure of his fealty.

  'We're screwed, by the way.' Marla said it as an aside.

  'We're no worse off than before,' Shane said; now seemed like a good enough time to tell them about the fuel. 'We wouldn't have made it much farther on the gas we had. The crash only slowed us down a little.'

  Marla shook her head. 'So you hotwired a car with enough fuel to run a zippo? That's just precious.' She was angry, but Shane's grin lightened the mood and her intense expression eased.

  'What we need to figure out now,' Shane said, 'is where to bed down. We'll need to keep watch, so as long as the bullet-hoarder up front doesn't mind taking in turns with Terry and me, we should be able to get through to morning in one two-hour post each. Four hours sleep should be enough for us to hit the dirt again tomorrow.'

  'You know me,' Terry said. 'I only sleep when I have to, anyway. I've got no issues with going first, either.'

  Thinking about sleep this early in the afternoon was not the best idea, and Shane felt his pack expand with the merest thought of throwing it off and calling it a day.

  They still had miles to cover, and with the rain turning the ground to mulch beneath their feet it was best to keep moving, or risk making up for it tomorrow.

  The rest of the group up ahead had slowed to a halt on the road and were examining a bullet-pocked brown sign. River was gesturing frantically for them to hurry; whatever it was, she deemed it as quite a find and couldn't wait for the lagging trio to see.

  Though they didn't know it, that filthy, pock-marked sign was about to shape their immediate future.

  *

  'What do you think?' Lukas said dusting the light coating of rainwater from his leather jacket. 'Worth checking out?'

  Shane reread the sign, as if it might tell him something new on a repeat viewing. It didn't. CN FREIGHT YARD. It was pretty self-explanatory.

  'There might be lurkers there,' Shane said, slipping the pack from his shoulders and lowering it to the road. It felt so good that he was already dreading the thought of putting it back on.

  'Lurkers?' Abi asked.

  Marla stepped up and examined the sign. 'Yeah, lurkers,' she said. 'You probably call them something else. It's what we call those things.'

  Lukas laughed, unexpectedly, and it caused them all to start. 'I like that. . . Lurkers.' He laughed again; this time, nobody flinched. 'You make them sound like paedophiles.'

  The distaste on Marla's face suggested she was about to respond. Shane got there before she had a chance.

  'What do you call them?'

  Lukas thought; he looked surprised that he was being tested. 'We call them fucking dead bastards. Zombies, though I guess you think zombies are the shit from films. Well, they're exactly like the things we used to watch in the movies, so it's a good enough name for us.' Then, under his breath, he added, 'Lurkers, for fuck's sake.'

  'Look, it doesn't matter what we call them,' Marla spat. Shane could see that she was doing her very best to show restraint. They all were. 'What matters is that if we go there,' she pointed to the sign, 'there might be some, and we don't need to put ourselves in needless danger.'

  Lukas cocked his shotgun and smiled. Abi huddled up to him – her hero – and fluttered her eyelashes like some wannabe pinup from a bygone era. 'Ain't no danger,' he said. 'Not any longer. I don't know what these gentlemen have been doing fo
r you, honey, but Lukas is here now, and ain't none of your lurkers gonna be fucking with you while I'm here.'

  Terry thought about intervening, and Shane was too busy staring at the sign to hear, but when it came down to it, Marla needed no help.

  'Wow,' she said, biting her lip as if his flattery had done something remarkable for her. 'Well, I'll try to bear that in mind when you're getting your ass chewed off by one of our lurkers.'

  'The sign says it's only a mile off the road,' Shane said, interrupting what was quickly turning into a nasty exchange. He turned to face them. 'If there are lurkers there, I doubt there'll be many, not enough to worry about.'

  He was asking for opinions, and all he got in return was blank expressions. Lukas's frown and twitching eye suggested that Marla's words had affected him, though he would never admit it.

  'Your call,' Terry said as he slowly unfolded his arms and wiped his damp palms on the seat of his pants.

  Marla nodded. 'If you think it might be worth something,' she said, 'then, sure.'

  Shane didn't know whether it would be worth a shit, but the road ahead was a long and arduous one; a few hours rest and a look around an abandoned freight yard was as appealing as a fortnight in Greece to him right then.

  'Let's get walking,' Shane said. 'River, Saul, no more going off ahead. We need to stay close now.'

  River turned to Saul and shrugged as if they had been told, sure you can play out, but don't be crossing the road and I want you back at four for dinner. . .

  Lukas and Abi went up front and were whispering surreptitiously to one another, though Shane caught two of the words that passed between them, and he knew that he would need to remain vigilant while they were around and remained a part of the group.

  The words were shoot and bitch.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  James “Dredd” Foster landed on the Bay St. Louis to the usual gathering of disinterested people. They were busy eating and talking amongst themselves, and as the Wave Hawk's rotors slowed, revealing the incessant drone of chitter-chatter, he wondered if anyone actually cared about what he did day after day.

  Not for much longer.

  Tomorrow, with a bit of luck, he would be on board one of the ships leaving the port; a new life ahead with Emma and Gabriella, one where the constant threat of being bitten, infected, was no longer a threat at all.

  The survivors here, in the bay, were fortunate enough to be surrounded by trained personnel. Snipers were positioned on eight towers running the length of the North Beach Boulevard; if any creatures wandered off the beaten path – which they sometimes did – they were quickly and expertly dispatched with a single shot to the head. Such was the rarity of a shambler, though, that the eight snipers maintained radio-contact just so they could argue which one of them got to take the shot.

  It was technically the safest place in America, though not safe enough. The menace was still there, and none of the survivors would rest until there was an ocean between them and the creatures.

  Which was exactly what they were doing.

  'Took your goddamned time,' a voice said. Dredd turned to find Frank Pimlico striding towards him through the detached crowd. 'Thought you'd stopped for ice-cream.'

  Dredd saluted; the general waved his gesture away – as he always did – because rank meant very little and Pimlico was not the kind of guy to stipulate respect; he just got it.

  'So I take it you didn't come across a bus-load of day-trippers since the last time we spoke?' He shook Dredd's hand so viciously that it felt like his shoulder had come unhinged.

  Dredd nodded dissent. 'I didn't come across anything out there,' he said. It was time, he thought, to saddle up and ride into the sunset; any remaining survivors would have made themselves known as he flew over, and he'd seen nobody. If there were people in hiding – perhaps at the mall or in some derelict apartment-complex – there was nothing he could do to help them now.

  'So we're just about done here,' the general said. He was staring at the ground, at the loose sand which blew on a breeze around their feet. 'Pity.'

  It was a pity, because come tomorrow, the jets were making a delivery; six B61 nukes, 340 kilotons each, were to be launched strategically from three planes, leaving nothing between Louisiana and the Delta National Forest but smouldering rubble and enough radiation to make Chernobyl look like a gas-leak. It was a manoeuvre meant for only one thing: Destroy all living – or dead – things within a thousand miles. In doing so they would be free of worry for long enough to complete their assignments. Just knowing that all undead close enough to cause problems had evaporated would satisfy the survivors no end.

  It was for the good of humanity; for the success of a controlled regeneration of mankind. Excessive, but necessary.

  Like taking missiles to a cockroach-infestation.

  'Have you seen Emma?' Dredd asked, sensing the moroseness of the atmosphere and needing to be a way from it.

  Pimlico brightened. 'Ahhh, the good lady wife. She's been working on a special meal for you over by the base. I don't know what you did to deserve her,' he smiled, 'but you've damn well got the only decent woman left alive in this godforsaken place.'

  As Dredd walked away from the general, nodding, his stomach growling to remind him just how hungry he was, he knew that Frank Pimlico was not far wrong with his elucidation.

  *

  The food was amazing, though it would have been just as delicious if it had been beans and rice again. Dredd didn't know where Emma had managed to find ripe apples, and because he was enjoying himself too much forgot to ask.

  Gabriella ate with a few of the other children a little farther down the beach, which made the meal he shared with Emma somewhat romantic. There was a candle in the centre of the table, which continued to flicker even now they had finished their food. It was, Dredd thought, one of the nicest things to have happened to him since the nightmare began.

  Emma was without make-up, as she had been for weeks, and Dredd was thankful for it. She was naturally beautiful, the kind of woman who would turn heads just wandering around the cereal aisle of a supermarket. She didn't need any artificial beauty to enhance what she already possessed.

  As she sat opposite, the wind flowing through the gazebo causing her hair to flutter, Dredd could see that she wanted to ask something. She had that look about her; the eyes were up and she was chewing the inside of her lip, awaiting the best way to approach whatever it was that needed asking.

  He would have to pre-empt her.

  'They're doing it tomorrow,' he said, guessing that that was what bothered her so visibly.

  She nodded, reached for her glass – water, since wine had become something of a rarity – and proceeded to quaff thirstily from it.

  Dredd waited. There was no point embellishing until she responded.

  She placed the glass down, keeping hold of the stem so that she had something to play with while they talked. 'And nothing's going to delay them?' She shook her head. 'Shit, James, there could be survivors back there. Hundreds of people, hiding away from those things—'

  'I know. Don't you think I know that?' He paused. 'I've been out there scouring the streets for days, and I haven't come across anybody. I don't like the idea of the bombs any more than you do, but they want to neutralize any potential threat from the north, and that's the best way to do it.'

  Emma rotated her glass nervously. 'They don't need to make certain, not like this. We're going to the island; those fuckers can't swim. The nukes won't make any difference . . .'

  Dredd relaxed back into his seat. It was raining heavier, now, pattering on the polyester above, a rhythmic drum-roll that seemed to ease the tension beneath the canopy.

  'Those things terrify me,' Emma said.

  'The snipers are doing a good job of—'

  'No, the bombs,' she said. 'When we were kids, that was the only thing that frightened me. My dad would tell us about Russia, about how they had more nukes than we did and were more likely to use them. I rem
ember sitting in my bedroom listening to the radio, and thinking to myself just how little we would know about it if someone launched one of those things. If the Russians actually nuked us. I'd seen videos, and it always frightened me how massive the destruction was.' She sipped the last of her water before lowering the glass. 'And tomorrow we're going to launch six of them. Forgive me for freaking out a bit.'

  Dredd didn't know what to say; her father's scaremongering had obviously affected her. He reached across the table and grabbed her hands in his, enveloping each tiny digit and stroking the wedding-band with his thumb.

  'You know I would never let anything bad happen to you, to Gabriella, to us. Those bombs will be detonated so far away you won't even see them. Honey, we'll be on a boat down the Mississippi this time tomorrow, and when we reach that island we're gonna build us a new life, a fresh start, and everything that's come before won't matter. The future is all we have left, and I know that as long as we have each other, then there is absolutely nothing to be scared of.'

  The torrent of rain was dripping all around them now; they were surrounded by their own personal waterfall. Dredd wondered if people could see in, see what they were doing. He sure as hell couldn't see out.

  'You been practising that?' Emma asked, her lips curling slightly into a smile.

  'All improv, babe,' Dredd said. 'Did it sound scripted?'

  'Kinda.'

  Dredd squeezed her hand and let go. He glanced around at the cataract beleaguering them. 'At this rate we won't need to get on the boat.'

  Just then, Gabriella appeared, rushing through the rain into the gazebo. She was soaked to the bone; her hair was painted to her face. She must have been freezing.

  'Honey, what are you doing?' Emma stood and picked their daughter up. She pushed the clingy bangs away from her face and dried her – albeit unsuccessfully – with her palm.