Charon's Blight: Day Two (the Rotting Souls series Book 2)

by Timothy A. Ray

  “Yeah, but she bit me,” Raleigh replied, blushing.

  Hard to imagine she’d have a hard time missing with those big ass hands of his.

  “I don’t hear her screaming,” he observed, probing. There had to be more than that judging by the large man’s color. He may be big, but he was too soft. If he didn’t get to growing up, he wouldn’t last long out here.

  “I hit her, then taped her back up,” Raleigh said, sounding embarrassed.

  He shook his head in wonderment. All the things they had seen and the guy was fretting about that.

  “Can’t we just let her go? Why do we need her?” the larger man pursued, looking nervous.

  He had asked himself that a few times and hadn’t come up with a reasonable answer. It just felt right; even though in many ways he knew how ugly it was. Ever since he had killed Caesar and seen that look on her face, it had done something to him; injured him somehow. He couldn’t stand the way she had glared at him and could only think of how to punish her for it.

  Having her tied up in the backseat, unable to talk, having to suffer every indignity he could come up with—felt like a justified response.

  Besides, if he couldn’t find Sabrina, he could make due with her; for now. He had never been one of those guys that would force himself upon someone, but that was in the world before. Now, with all this power coursing through him, this new sense of self, he began to wonder—why couldn’t he? Who would stop him?

  The people following him were mindless sheep following their shepherd. None of them had it in them to stand up to him; they were relying on that hope he had given that they would survive.

  Maybe Loki had it right in that Avengers movie, was kneeling not their natural state?

  It was a dark thought, but one that he couldn’t argue against.

  Raleigh had gone back inside as the next vehicle pulled up to the pumps. What gas station only had four pumps? Shaking his head in frustration, he looked up at the sun—time was fleeing him.

  One of the men at the northern part of the parking lot had his rifle up and was pointing it down the street. He motioned to a few of the other’s and Robert stepped off the walkway to see what the excitement was about. As he rounded the corner to the sidewalk, freeing his view north from the trees next door, he felt his blood quicken; a large group of zombies was shambling their way.

  They hadn’t been seen yet but it was only a matter of time. They would be upon them in minutes and he had to make a quick judgment call, flee or fight?

  He motioned to the other members of his group. The few scattered women among them also grabbed their weapons and joined them at the curbside. “You six get over that fence,” he directed towards the yard next door. It was a house with a sturdy fenced yard and they moved immediately without asking any questions.

  “You three get on top of those trucks and be ready to assist. Do not shoot unless you have a clean shot,” he warned. He hadn’t been in a battle with these people and he was unsure of their skills with a gun. They were well prepared from that sporting goods store they had raided, but could you ever be prepared enough?

  “The rest of us, spread out, but keep close to each other. Only use your guns if you have to. You won’t have a chance to reload.” As he said the last part, he took his new bat out of the sling on his back. He had a .357 in a holster under each arm and a rifle slung over his shoulder. He flipped the catches off the holsters with one hand and brought the bat around with the other. Gripping it tightly, he moved to the center of the group and looked at the approaching horde.

  There were more than fifty zombies limping towards them; nowhere near what it could have been but enough to give anyone pause.

  He would have liked a less exposed position but he knew that he would have to lead them from the frontline or watch as his men were picked apart.

  An older woman stood on his right. She had long brown hair pulled back, her face cute but stern, and she held a machete in each hand. Dressed in blue jeans and a black t-shirt, it was easily one of the sexiest things he had ever seen.

  Raleigh stood on his other side, two large hammers gripped tight enough to make the man’s knuckles turn white.

  He took a step further to the right, wanting to get out of the swing radius of those hammers and grinned. The blood was pumping and the adrenaline was filling him with more than enough energy for this. They could have run, but he needed this. It would be a good test of his group, let him know who was good at what and where work would be needed. If it had been a larger group coming at him, he might have changed his mind about doing this, but somehow— this seemed perfect.

  He brought his fingers to his lips and whistled.

  The zombies at the front of the herd looked up. He could see the sudden awareness on their faces and he began to grin wider. As the herd surged forward, he tensed his arms—this was going to be fun.

  A flash of red caught his eye and in the distance he thought he saw a vehicle passing from right to left, but he put it out of his mind as the first creature reached him. He brought his bat around; flattening the head of the mechanic that had raced to eat him.

  Chapter 27

  Pee break

  Saint

  Safford, AZ

  She noticed how empty the city looked as she drove along the highway heading west. There were abandoned cars on the street, but she navigated around those, and none had impeded their progress so far.

  Where were all the people?

  She didn’t know what she expected to find, but an empty street on a town this size? Maybe some were hiding in their homes, but not all of them could be. No, there was something else going on here that she couldn’t see.

  Erik was constantly on the lookout for danger and she was glad that he had come along.

  She only wished that Alicia could have been there as well. Ever since that Quickmart, she had felt comforted by the young girl’s presence, a bond having grown between them that no one else could share. She knew that she had made the right decision, sending her with Todd’s parents, but that didn’t make it any easier. She wasn’t old enough to be the girl’s mother, but that didn’t prevent her from feeling overly protective of her.

  They passed through an intersection where the 191 turned south and Superstition Highway began. Erik was looking south along the highway as she swerved around an abandoned police car. “Whoa, holy shit!” he exclaimed as they cleared the intersection.

  She almost stomped on the brake and had to physically yank her leg back. “What?” she asked with concern, trying to look south but buildings had gotten in the way.

  “There was a large group of zombies back there just walking down the highway,” he answered; eyes wide.

  Her foot wanted to hit the gas and get as far away as she could, but there were too many cars abandoned along the road to make that feasible. “We must have missed them by minutes,” she said dryly, her eyes focusing on navigating their way through the mess before her.

  If things weren’t as deserted as they seemed, they’d have to be even more careful driving forward. What if another one of those groups appeared in front of them? How much damage would a human body do to this truck if she tried to force her way through?

  “If we had come through a few minutes ago—” Erik trailed off, fear in his voice.

  “I know,” she said, thinking of how stupid it was to be doing this; regardless of how much Todd wanted her too. She was risking her life for a complete stranger.

  Hell, she didn’t even know Todd that well. Why was she doing this? She was no hero.

  “Help me keep an eye on the road ahead,” she said, nudging him as he continued to look out the back window.

  Her eyes cut to the left as they began to enter a more open area of the city. The buildings were less packed here and she saw the big box stores on the left. There was a Taco Bell, but the building looked abandoned. The parking lot was full of abandoned vehicles and she wondered where all the drivers had wandered off too.

  Standi
ng tall in the distance was a large Wal-Mart Supercenter. She couldn’t see anyone, but the store windows looked barricaded, reminding her of what happened earlier the day before when she had been trapped at her work. That brought an image of her former boss’s face to the surface and she grimaced, trying to force it back down.

  She slowed as movement caught her eye.

  There was someone standing in the garden center behind the gate waving at her. They were using the large building for shelter and by the number of cars she had seen, quite a few must have been hiding out in there.

  She ignored him; she didn’t have time to stop. Within moments, he was gone and the Wal-Mart was out of sight. How many could hide in that store? How long would their supplies last? It might have seemed like a smart thing to do when this began, but how smart would it seem later?

  She was passing through a town called Thatcher now, though she didn’t remember there actually being a break between the two towns. Safford had a suburb?

  “We’re going to need gas,” Erik mused. “I have no idea where we are or how many we’re going to see after we leave here.”

  She had already been considering that and wondered why she hadn’t thought to stop at the gas station by the Wal-Mart. She couldn’t afford to be overlooking such a simple necessity. Getting stranded out here without gas just because she hadn’t looked down at the gauge would be infuriating.

  Pulling into the first gas station she found, Erik went inside to turn on the pump and she looked at the digital read outs denoting the price of gas and types. How long would the electricity be on and how would they get gas if it failed? Running inside, she grabbed as many gas cans as she could and told Erik to get them some supplies. The place hadn’t been looted yet and there was no reason she couldn’t add to what she already had in the back of the truck, was there? Taking a moment to enjoy the freedom that came from being a looter, she pushed her old reservations aside, and the two threw back the tarp and added to their “treasure hoard”.

  She popped another cigarette in her mouth and picked up her phone. She dialed Todd but no one answered. Why wasn’t he picking up? What else did he have to do?

  Again, she felt the anger rise at what she was doing—this woman had better be worth it. If it weren’t for the kid, she’d have begged off. Every time she considered that little girl in the attic, she thought of that little boy she had left on that road in Tucson. Somehow, going after this little girl was like her trying to make up for leaving that boy.

  It would never balance, but maybe it would help relieve some of the guilt she felt.

  She stood there puffing her cigarette, looking west. There was no smoke, just a deserted highway stretching off into the distance. She knew that Phoenix was ultimately at the end of the road and she would have to find some way of avoiding the city altogether.

  The map that Todd had uploaded on her phone looked promising and she thought she’d avoid Google’s attempt at telling her the fastest route. It wasn’t designed to anticipate the safest route to avoid a zombie outbreak. Maybe after all this she should try to get them to make an app for that with interactive updates from all the users on outbreak sightings.

  She chuckled. She was no geek, she was a doer. She did not feel at home behind a computer, she was a go out and do it kind of girl. Maybe that’s what got her in this position in the first place; why Todd was sending her instead of someone else.

  She threw the last carton of cigarettes into the back of the truck and they refastened the tarp. Well, that shit went two ways; she may be the right one to send out after his best friend, but she was also the one that would kick his ass when she got back for making her do it.

  She sighed and got back into the truck. “Ready?” she asked the man as he jogged towards her, zipping up his pants.

  “Yeah, just had to pee,” Erik replied, closing the door of the truck and looking at her expectantly. “What?”

  She thought of the last penis she saw and shivered. “You want to keep that thing put away or you might just lose it,” she snarled and threw the truck into drive.

  “What? What did I say?” he asked concerned, his hand absent-mindedly falling to cover his crotch.

  “Nothing,” she growled again as she hit the gas. “Just wouldn’t want it bit off, would you?”

  “Why would you ask something like that, you’re evil,” he replied, eyes wide.

  Laughter followed after as the truck plunged down the highway and out of sight.

  Chapter 28

  Walkie

  Todd

  Coronado National Forest, AZ

  He didn’t hear his phone going off; he was too focused on where he was driving. He saw a whiff of smoke through a break in the tree line and veered in that direction.

  Oh no! his mind screamed at him as he broke through the trees and into the clearing beyond.

  The Huey had crashed nose first and while most of it appeared intact in the rear, the front had a crumpled look to it. Ben had said that Michelle wasn’t flying them back, hadn’t he? Had she been in that co-pilot’s seat? He couldn’t see through the broken glass and the panic was overwhelming him. He slowed as a man emerged from the back of the Huey and leveled his rifle at them.

  Who the hell was this? Someone they were bringing with them?

  He tried to warn his wife off but it was too late as she roared past and came to a screeching halt on his right. “What the fuck is this? Who are you?” she thundered, making to get off her quad.

  “Uh, uh, uh,” the man said loudly, waving her back down. The man picked up a gun from within the chopper and wielding it in his left hand, pointed it in his wife’s direction. “Let’s just keep those hands where I can see them,” he ordered.

  He had brought his quad to a stop on the left, not putting himself in the same line of fire as his wife, his hands twitching to go for his weapon.

  “I just want to talk,” the man said, holding both guns steady. “At the end, we can both walk away, there’s no need for this to go any further.” The man was calm and sure of himself, not something he was willing to face with his wife and daughter on the line.

  Then again, an unhinged individual probably would have shot them both by now.

  Reluctantly, he raised his hands. “So talk,” he replied, noticing movement from the cockpit. Someone was alive and moving around in there, and he had to fight the urge to run forward to their aid. “Are they alive?”

  “For the moment,” the man replied. “Though the guy in the back is zombie food. Iced the zom munching on him for ya,” the man stated with a grin. He looked like he had just done them a favor and deserved a pat on the back.

  Was he saying Paul was dead? Who else was traveling with them? Had Matt died as well? The questions were burning through his mind as slid off the quad and took a tentative step forward.

  Monica had already gotten off hers as well, despite the man’s warning, and she roared at him as she strode forward. “I’m checking on my daughter, shoot me if you have to, it’s the only way you’re going to stop me.”

  “Monica!” he hissed, but she was already yanking on the cockpit door, ignoring the man with the gun. He would easily be able to grab her and there was no way he’d get to her in time.

  For fuck sakes did the woman ever think anything through?

  The man actually laughed. “Got some steel balls under that suit?” he asked her. When she shot him a dirty glance he chuckled again, “don’t think I don’t recognize the two of you. One of you gave me this,” the man said, lifting his hair to show a red and black scrape along the side of his head.

  “We did no such thing,” he returned, not sure what the guy was going on about. What was he doing here?

  “You know, now that I get a good look at ya’ll, I’m beginning to think the nurse chick was right, ya’ll ain’t military.” He said it like he was mourning in some way, that he had done something that he shouldn’t have and was now regretting it. He said he had killed a zom—a zombie? Had someone turned? Were
they alive or dead when the Huey struck the ground?

  His head was pounding and he struggled to work it through. He just didn’t have enough information.

  “My arms are getting tired; I’m going to put them down,” he told the man, not waiting for a response. His shoulders were aching, but his legs were straining to dash forward, only the strength of his will kept him in place.

  “Eh,” the man considered. “I actually like yours being up, your hand keeps twitching for that sidearm of yours.”

  “If you’re going to shoot me, then shoot me,” he told the guy, not giving in. He was too stressed and exhausted to be dealing with this shit right now. There was just too much going on, too much death around him. First Sean, now Paul? Who else was dying in the chopper while they stood out here chatting?

  Monica couldn’t get the cockpit door open and she was getting frustrated. She moved towards the bay of the Huey and the man raised his gun at her. “I am going to check on my daughter,” his wife told him. She unslung her rifle and undid her firearm. Throwing both on the ground, she glared at him and moved forward. “Just try to stop me, see what happens.”

  “Dude, you got any balls left or did she take them all?” the man laughed again.

  He moved towards the man but he just brought the .45 around, lowering the rifle, and kept that trained on him as his wife pushed into the Huey and disappeared from sight.

  “She’s alive,” he heard his wife call from within and he started breathing again. “Matt looks injured, but Rosilynn seems okay. It looks like Matt was shot!”

  The man coughed and Todd’s eyes drew together. “Let’s just keep those hands up,” the man in fatigues said, bringing his rifle back up and pointing the .45 towards the Huey. “This has just been a misunderstanding.”

  “You call this a misunderstanding?” he heard his wife shout; she was getting quite pissed at this point. “Are you saying you shot him? Wait, were they in the air when you did this, you fucking lunatic?”