The Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Weight

by Jon Schafer

  This got them going.

  Worried about his own people, Steve ran back down the tracks as he sought them out.

  Pep was standing on the supplies stacked behind the cab of the truck barking at Z’s, so she was okay.

  He saw Denise already sitting in the lead truck’s cab as Tick-Tock fired up the engine. Calling out for them to cover the front, he heard the sharp crack of Denise’s M1 as she echoed his calls for everyone to get on the trucks. At the rear of Tick-Tock’s vehicle, he found Sheila and Mary helping a woman into the back.

  Sheila caught sight of Steve and called to him, “Cindy’s already on.”

  “We’ve only got a few minutes before they’re all over us,” he told her as he raced by.

  Brain and Connie were throwing the last of the boxes into the second truck when he yelled out, “Leave that shit. It’s time to go.”

  Immediately, they stopped what they were doing and headed for the cab.

  “Where’s Heather?” He asked.

  “A couple people ran for the boats and she went after them,” Connie told him.

  As he headed down the embankment to the river, he heard the starter whine when Brain cranked his engine over. It caught with a roar as he looked around for Heather. Steve slid down the loose dirt of the embankment, and then breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her coming toward him.

  Before he could say anything, she said, “They’re coming along the river, too. They’re right behind me. Get back to the trucks.”

  Steve grabbed her by the hand as she neared and pulled her up in front of him. Slinging his rifle, he scrambled on hands and knees up the steep grade to the railroad tracks.

  ***

  Jeff Fahey, a congressman from the great State of California, stood at the wheel of the tugboat and said, “I propose we go back to the Battleship Texas.”

  Kym Mevers, one of his aides, said, “I second that motion.”

  Two other aides that had joined them in their frantic dash from the dead nodded their heads in assent.

  “All in agreement say, aye,” Jeff told them.

  Their response was lost in a series of high pitched whines coming from the shore as one of the dead broke through the brush lining the river and loped across the sand toward them.

  Congressman Fahey’s demeanor changed in an instant from statesmanlike to terrified child at the sight of the dirty figure approaching. When it was joined by two dozen more, a dark stain appeared at the crotch of his pants. He twisted halfway around, lunging for the ignition of the boat and turned the key.

  Nothing happened.

  He pounded on the rail, crying out, “What in the hell’s wrong with this thing?”

  Seeing even more of the dead approaching, he turned to Kym and said, “Get out and push us away from shore.”

  She immediately jumped over the rail and heaved at the beached boat while Fahey and the others moved as far away as possible on the stern. Lifting, pushing and straining, she slowly edged the boat into the water then waded in after it. Kym was about to jump aboard when the first of the dead grabbed her by the hair. Pulling it back to expose her throat, it let out a whine as it lunged forward with its mouth agape.

  Jeff Fahey watched in horror as the thing sank its teeth into his aide’s neck before whipping its head back and forth to rip out a chunk of flesh. Blood flew into the air as Kym screamed out a gurgling plea for help. On the boat, Fahey and the others ignored her as they leaned over the sides, paddling with their hands to get away.

  Until the anchor rope stopped them.

  When he noticed that they weren’t making any progress, Fahey turned to see what the problem was. Following the line from where it was tied to a cleat at the rear of the boat, he could see it ended where the anchor had been buried in the sand, effectively securing them to the land.

  Scared into immobility, he relaxed once he noticed the boat was far enough out in the river that the dead couldn’t get to him. As he watched, a dead woman with a shredded face waded in after them then suddenly disappeared below the water when she reached a drop off. On the shore, hundreds of the dead now gathered to glare at them with hungry eyes. He averted his own eyes from the group that were biting and tearing at Kym while thinking that this is what aides were for, to be of service to their betters.

  Turning to his remaining underlings, he regained his composure and straightened up to his full five foot four. Mindful of the urine stain on his pants, but ignoring the fact that he’d wet himself, he said in a pompous tone, “I know you’re grateful that I saved your lives, but you have some work to do. We must wait here until they go away and then you can go ashore and release the anchor. Oh, and find something to use as oars. Once equipped, you can paddle me back to the Battleship Texas.”

  About to raise an objection, a junior aide turned to point at the dead on the shore and say that this was a collective where everyone worked. But on doing this, he stopped before he could get the first word out of his mouth. Only able to make a gurgling noise, they all turned to see what he was looking at.

  In shock, they watched as a dead thing, dressed in the remains of a Texas State trooper’s uniform, pawed in the sand at the anchor rope, then stared in disbelief as he picked it up. Horrified, they began to shake as he pulled it up.

  Congressman Fahey looked around wildly then squeaked, “Untie the rope.”

  After trying for a moment, one of his aides said, “There’s too much tension on the line.”

  “Then cut the rope.” Fahey said hysterically. “We can drift away on the current.”

  “Cut it with what?” The aide asked. “They stripped the boat of everything.”

  Hearing a splash, Fahey turned and saw that one of his people had jumped overboard and was swimming frantically for the far shore.

  “Coward!” He shrieked at the top of his voice.

  This was followed by another splash as the man trying to untie the rope dove into the water.

  Fahey turned to his final aide and realized he’d forgotten her name. Giving her a friendly pat on the shoulder and a benevolent smile, he said, “Well, at least you showed some loyalty.”

  Shrinking away from him, she screamed, “Only because I can’t swim.”

  He looked up at her and said, “And neither can I, so we must make some kind of deal with them.”

  The whine of a hundred dead voices filled the air, drowning out Fahey’s voice as he turned to the dead and addressed them, “I know we can discuss this like human beings…”

  ***

  Steve and Heather made their way up the embankment and found Brain waiting for them. From the front of their small column they heard the steady sound of gunfire.

  “Where did those people go?” Brain asked.

  “To the boats,” Heather answered.

  Looking beyond them, he asked, “Did you find them? Where are they?”

  “Dead, or about to be,” Heather answered.

  “Call Tick-Tock and tell him to roll,” Steve said as he climbed onto the bed of the truck and reached down to lift Heather up. “Tell him we’re not stopping for shit.”

  Brain pulled the two-way radio out of his pocket and began talking rapidly as he ran for the cab.

  The gunfire from the front died and was replaced by the roar of a diesel engine as Steve and Heather took up positions where they could look over the supplies stacked behind the cab. In awe, they saw that the railroad tracks were packed from one side to the other with the dead.

  From his position hiding in the corner, Sean asked, “Where did they all come from?”

  “The cars on the freeway,” Heather answered as the trucks started rolling forward. “They were inside them.”

  “All of those things were hiding in cars?” Sean asked. Suddenly a thought struck him and he said, “They followed you here. You’re breaking your end of the deal and putting our lives in jeopardy.”

  With a laugh, Steve said, “Okay, the deal’s off then, you can get out here.”

  This shut Sean up
faster than a double wrap of duct tape.

  Climbing atop the stack of supplies, Steve slapped his hand against the back of the canvas covering the cab and said, “Give me the radio.”

  Connie unzipped the rear window and handed it through to him. Pressing the transmit button, he asked, “Tick-Tock, do you read me?”

  “You forgot to say over, over,” his friend’s voice came through the speaker.

  Laughing slightly, Steve said, “Roll right over these things, over. Don’t stop for shit, over.”

  “Brain already told me, over,” came the reply.

  With thirty feet separating his front bumper from the leading edge of the mass of dead, Tick-Tock was only up to five miles an hour when he struck them. The truck shuddered and bounced as it hit and then rolled over the dead. Some stood directly in his path and were mowed down while others were pushed to the sides. These then reached up and whined as they dug at its sides. One managed to hook its arm through the bracket holding the rearview mirror on the passenger side and levered itself up. Denise made short work of it by rolling down the window and shooting it through the mouth.

  In the back of the truck, Sheila watched to make sure none of the Z’s latched on and climbed up. The drop sides were high, but they were also slatted. Dead hands reached through and clutched at her as she made her way around the bouncing bed of the truck. She found a Z near the back that had hooked on and was climbing, so she leaned over the top rail and bashed it in the head with the baseball bat Tick-Tock had given her. Mary sat huddled with Cindy at the rear of the bed in a cubby they’d made between the boxes, while the others moved back and forth as they reeled from the dead reaching toward them. They would scream and jump away from one set of dirt caked hands only to turn and find another sticking through the slats on the other side as it sought them out.

  Tired of their shrieking and getting in her way, Sheila yelled, “Shut the fuck up and get to the center of the bed.”

  They continued on with their hysterics, so she raised the M4 in her hands and fired it twice into the air before pointing it at the nearest of them. This got their attention.

  “I said get in the center of the fucking truck!” She screamed.

  They scrambled to obey and were soon crouched in a rough line, trying to keep as far away from the sides as they possibly could while still flinching back and forth at the dirty hands reaching for them.

  Shaking her head at their stupidity, Sheila cautiously made her way around the perimeter of the jolting bed. A few dead hands slapped against her pant legs but she wasn’t worried. They might be able to reach through, but the openings were too small for them to get their heads in, and their mouths. As the truck sped up, she could see that the dead weren’t grabbing on anymore so she relaxed slightly.

  In the second truck, Brain made it a point to run over the dead bodies struck down by Tick-Tock if he saw them moving. His vehicle jolted as he rolled over a tangle of three of the dead trying to extract themselves from each other so they could come at the food again. Ahead of him, he saw a Z hanging onto the undercarriage of Tick-Tock’s truck. It bounced up and down as it was dragged along the railroad ties. He was wondering how they’d shake it loose when it lost its grip. Swerving slightly, he ran all three of his right side tires down its length.

  Steve looked over the top of the cab to judge how far they had to go to clear the swarm of Z’s around them. From behind him, he heard the thunk of a baseball bat as Heather knocked one of the dead off the back of the truck. He could see there weren’t many Z’s hanging off Tick-Tock’s vehicle, but theirs was just the opposite. After the first vehicle passed by, it was like the dead were ready for them. He and Heather had been hard pressed to knock them off and his shoulders ached from swinging the ball bat.

  The truck jolted, causing Sean to call out from where he huddled, “Tell him to slow down.”

  “If we do, we’re dead,” Steve told him. “Those things will be all over us.”

  His eyes wide, Sean said, “Then tell him to speed up.”

  “We’re working on it,” he replied as he checked to see if Heather needed any help.

  The steady thumping of the truck’s tires rolling over the railroad ties, interspersed with the heavier jolts as they ran over the Z’s, increased. Before, the bed had been rocked back and forth only occasionally as Brain rolled over the bodies of the dead, but now it shook from side to side in a constant motion. Checking to make sure the boxes of supplies were still lashed down, he was relieved to see that the cords binding them were tight.

  Steve looked forward and could see they were now moving too fast for any of the dead to do more than paw at them in passing, but ahead of him was a throng of about fifty coming at them down the tracks. Worried they might knock down enough of them to pile up and flip one of the trucks; Steve raised the radio to tell Tick-Tock to slow down a little.

  Before he could push the transmit button, he heard his friend’s voice over the roar of the diesel and the shrieks of the dead as he yelled at the top of his voice into the radio, “Ramming speed, Mr. Scott.”

  Ducking, all Steve could do was hang on.

  Tick-Tock watched through his windshield in fascination as the dead were mowed down. Black puss sprayed the glass so he turned on the wipers. This caused the viscous liquid the dead used for blood to smear, but wiped away enough of it to see. The truck jolted up and down and right to left as he ran over the dead, killing them for the final time.

  Seeing they were close to getting through the last of them, he said, “Almost there.”

  Denise laughed and said, “That’s what you kept saying earlier.”

  A dead woman in a sundress was the final one they rolled over. Her bluish-green face snarled at them as the bumper took her down. Tick-Tock looked through the sticky black goo smearing his windshield and didn’t see any more dead on the tracks in front of him, so he eased up on the accelerator and checked his rearview mirror. He could see Brain’s truck behind him, bouncing as it rolled over the last of the dead. Turning his attention to the front, he could see that the way was clear.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Russellville, Arkansas:

  Lieutenant Cage didn’t pay much attention to the names of the two new transfers to his unit, but when they marched into his office to report for duty, he recognized the Staff Sergeant immediately.

  “Fagan,” he said with a smile.

  “Second Lieutenant Cage?” Fagan asked. “What are you doing here?”

  Coming around his desk with his hand outstretched, he said, “It’s Major now.”

  Stiffening, Fagan said, “Sorry, sir.”

  With a laugh, Cage said, “Quit being a regular army prick and shake my hand. It’s been a long time since Afghanistan, but it hasn’t been that long.”

  Fagan smiled as he held out his hand and said, “The good old days compared to now, sir.”

  “Yeah, but hopefully that will change,” Cage said. “We’re working on a few things here that might lead to the end of this insanity.”

  Next to Fagan, Jimmy snapped to attention and said, “Private First Class Jimmy McPherson reporting for duty, sir.”

  After eyeing him from head to toe, Cage turned to Fagan and asked with a laugh, “What the hell is this?”

  Chuckling, Fagan replied, “He’s a cherry, sir, but he’s solid when the shit hits the fan.”

  Cage looked at Jimmy, “That’s high praise coming from someone like the Staff Sergeant. What did you do to get transferred here? We only transfer people out, and then it’s to New Orleans.”

  Jimmy started to stammer a reply so Fagan cut him off by saying, “We were in New Orleans and we saved the life of the company commander’s son. We both got a promotion and a transfer here.”

  “Promotion?” Cage asked. “But you were a Staff Sergeant when I last saw you. Did you get knocked down in rank and just make it back?”

  “A few times since then, sir,” Fagan said with a slight smile. “I was a Staff Sergeant when I got promote
d this time but I went out and tied one on. I knocked out an MP when he tried to stop me from taking a Humvee and going into town on a foraging mission for more beer, sir.”

  With a laugh, Cage turned to Jimmy and said, “That’s Fagan. He’s always worried that if he goes above Staff Sergeant, he’ll end up being pulled out of the field and given a desk job.”

  “Can’t ride no desk, sir,” Fagan said with a smile.

  “And you won’t while you’re here,” Cage assured him as he moved over to a wall covered in maps. Pointing to their location on one, he said, “The only secure area we have in this whole area is the base. At last intelligence estimates, over six thousand Z’s surround us. We provide security for the base as a whole, but there’s a separate platoon that provides security for the farmhouse itself along with their other duties.”

  “What other duties, sir?” Fagan asked.

  “They go out to get specimens for the doctors to study,” Cage told him.

  “Specimens, sir?” Jimmy asked.

  “They bring Z’s back so the doctors can cut them up, or attach electrodes to them or whatever the hell it is they’re doing over there. They’re trying to find out what makes the dead tick so we can take them out.” Cage explained.

  “And where will we be posted, sir?” Fagan asked.

  “At the farmhouse,” Cage told him.

  Fagan considered this for a second before saying, “It is what it is, sir. It’s still better than New Orleans.”

  “Anything’s better than that,” Jimmy intoned quietly.

  Cage turned to him and said, “Private, go find the mess tent and get yourself some chow. When you’re done, come back here.”

  Snapping to attention, Jimmy saluted and did an about face.

  Once he was gone and the door closed, Cage motioned for Fagan to sit across from him then lowered himself into his chair. Opening his desk drawer, he extracted a mason jar half full of clear liquid and held it out. “You haven’t joined the temperance movement since your latest demotion, have you?” He asked Fagan.