Machines of the Dead 2

by Bernstein, David

  “Sure.”

  “Actually,” she said, “I need to talk to all of you.” She took a moment, then looked at Maria. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the things I did, and the way I acted.”

  Maria said nothing, only nodded.

  “I’ve learned a lot over the last couple of days. I have a new view on the world and I feel I have a duty to perform now. I want to help people. Spread the word about the bot-epidemic. I want to come with you guys.”

  Don’s eyebrows shot up.

  Jack was taken aback. He didn’t know what to say. “Don’t you want to stay here, be a part of Cliff House?”

  She looked at Don and smiled. “I like it here, but it’s not for me.” To Jack, “I need to be out there, helping people, killing the undead. The information about the plague is too important. I’ll come with you, help you guys in any way possible. And if it comes to it, I’ll go out on my own to keep spreading the cure.”

  Jack turned to Maria. She shrugged. “As long as she doesn’t slow us down, and promises to do as we ask . . .”

  “Fine with me,” Zaun said.

  “Okay, Jill,” Jack said. “Welcome aboard.”

  The girl smiled warmly, then hugged him and Maria at the same time, pulling them in tightly.

  After a few more goodbyes, the group climbed onto their snowmobiles and headed down the driveway and onto the road.

  Chapter 31

  Cable situated himself on the second floor of a two-story strip mall that was located along the Thruway, opposite the Palisades Mall, a grand, four-story galleria. The pain was almost gone from his chest, that Zaun character did some job on him. Just two days ago, he’d been on his way north, ready to forget about Cannibal, Jack and all the others, but then something extraordinary happened.

  He’d acquired a snowmobile from one of the local residences. Knowing that leaving the area was a wise decision, he headed down to the highway, aware the snowmobile would be able to get him wherever he wished to travel—of which he had no clue.

  The wind was gusting, blowing drifts of snow across the road and cars. Cable hated running, especially when he had unfinished business—Jack. Zaun had beaten him fairly, but Jack hadn’t. But to stay around could prove his downfall.

  Sitting there, facing north along the Thruway, Cable was startled by an explosion, one he not only heard clearly, but felt in his bones. It came from behind, down by the bridge. Interest peaked and with no destination in mind, he turned the sled around and headed south.

  He stopped before reaching the overpass that ran over the Thruway just before the bridge. From his position, he was hidden from the bridge and anyone that might be there. Killing the sled’s engine, he proceeded on foot, rifle slung over his shoulder. He trudged through the snow, entered the overpasses underneath and hugged the wall, creeping along it until he reached the end.

  Peering out, he saw a black SUV moving slowly across the highway. The wall of cars had been blown open, the undead pouring out. A parade of zombies was following the vehicle. He saw Jack through the passenger window. When the SUV reached the hill, it went up and he saw Maria sitting in the rear.

  It took a moment to consider the scene, and then it hit him. Jack and his companions were geniuses. No wonder the man had eluded him back at the house and in the forest. Cable had underestimated him, Zaun as well, to a degree.

  They were leading the dead up the mountain, no doubt to Cannibal’s place, like the Pied Piper of legend. This was most unexpected and intriguing. He couldn’t leave now, not without seeing if this most dangerous, incredible plan was going to work.

  He headed back to his sled and then made his way up the mountain through the woods and backroads until he reached a place that allowed him a view of the Cannibal house. But it wasn’t enough, so he scrambled down through the woods, and to a position just off the road where he saw four of Cannibal’s men. They were standing around, each holding a rifle.

  Before long, a gun battle broke out, which was clearly a ruse to get the dead to follow Cannibal’s men to the house.

  Cable grinned to himself, glad he made the decision to leave when he did. Looks like Cliff House was the winner. Jack and his friends were simply too interesting to leave behind. He’d never be able to forget about them, and since he had nowhere to go, he decided to make Jack and the others a part of his life, at least until he killed them or they killed him.

  Now, he was approximately four miles north of the Tappan Zee Bridge, far enough to make sure his friends wouldn’t make it back to Cliff House on foot, should they choose that path. They would be taken off guard, frightened and most likely look to dig in somewhere. Maybe the mall? That would be a great hunting ground, he thought.

  Cable was taking a gamble though. He had no idea when Jack and his companions would leave Cliff House or if they’d even come his way. He figured since they came from the city, they wouldn’t head back there, let alone south—so north it had to be. The Thruway was the only main artery for miles around and the easiest route. Odds were in his favor, but waiting for them might prove difficult. He had limited supplies and it was cold, his little fire keeping him warm, but if a blizzard came through, he’d be in for a tough time.

  He’d wait a week, if they didn’t show, then he’d have to forget about them and move on. He remained awake throughout the day, feeling comfortable about sleeping at night, figuring no one would dare travel during that time.

  He awoke early the next morning, both the military and prison conditioning his internal clock, and climbed onto the roof where he’d cleared an area, and waited.

  Two hours later, he heard the sound of multiple high-pitched engines. He peered through the scope of the Browning 300 and saw the first of two snowmobiles. They were moving at a decent pace up the roadway. The noise had attracted a few undead from the area.

  Each sled had two passengers. Jack’s group had three. Cable wondered if this was a different party, or maybe Jack’s group had picked up a fourth? It appeared from the type of outfits and hair whipping around from the helmets that each machine had a male and female member, though Cable could not be certain.

  He had a decision to make: act, and hope these were his targets, or let them go and hope Jack and the others hadn’t come along yet. Then he saw the Samurai sword. It was strapped to a rider’s back. Excitement coursed through Cable, his fingertips igniting with electricity. His lips curled into a smile.

  Now all he had to do was decide which member to pick off, and let the games begin. Zaun was riding on the back of one sled; the woman driving had to be Maria. Jack was operating the other machine, but who was behind him?

  Decisions, decisions, Cable thought.

  He finally decided, took aim, and fired.

  Something jolted the snowmobile. Jack thought he might’ve run over a large piece of debris buried in the snow, but then the sled’s engine started smoking and sputtered to a halt.

  “What happened?” Jill asked.

  “I have no—” Jack began when he heard what sounded like a rifle shot. Jill was thrown from the snowmobile as if by an invisible force. Maria pulled up next to him. She was pointing to his right.

  “We got a shooter,” she yelled over her sled’s idling engine.

  They were easy targets, completely out in the open. Instinct took over. “Get out of here,” he yelled, frantically waving for Maria to speed off.

  “Not without you,” she said. “Come on.”

  Jack saw Jill’s form lying in the snow, a huge hole in the side of her helmet. The snow was reddening around it. He knew she was dead. His sled was finished. He stepped over the seat, ready to hop onto the back of Maria’s machine, Zaun having scooted up on the seat, when another shot rang out. Jack felt immense pressure in his upper thigh as he was twirled around like a rag doll and tossed onto the snowy ground, the bullet’s impact having a sledgehammer-like affect.

  Pain engulfed his right leg. Looking down, he saw blood spurting from where he was hit. He looked at Maria and Zaun. They were
sitting ducks, ready to be shot down like himself and Jill. “Get out of here now!”

  Another gunshot sounded and a piece of exposed seat burst apart, the yellow foam cushion cascading the area.

  Zaun reached for Jack, but he was too far away. Jack saw his friend attempt to rise and get off the machine, but Maria held Zaun back with her arm.

  “Get to someplace safe,” Jack yelled, blood gushing from his leg. He hoped Maria’s smarts would kick in, the woman a trained military personnel knowing that to stay where she was would mean certain death for them all. A moment later, Maria hit the gas on the sled. The tread spun, kicking up snow and covering Jack in the fluffy white stuff.

  His leg was in bad shape. He was bleeding out. The bullet must have hit his femoral artery.

  More gunshots rang out, but Jack heard Maria and Zaun’s snowmobile, which meant it was still operational. Good.

  He lay there, exposed, waiting to be finished off, but the killing shot never came. He wondered what the shooter was waiting for. He arched his neck and saw Jill’s body. Poor girl. But his sympathy quickly turned to terror when he saw the first zombie. It stopped at Jill’s corpse, knelt down, and ripped her clothing away to get at the meat. Three more quickly joined in, the zombies obviously alerted by the noise of snowmobiles and gunshots.

  Reaching down, Jack pulled his .45 from its holster, the M4 still on the sled. Resting the gun on his chest, he pulled out his knife and sliced off the sleeve of his jacket and wrapped it tightly around his leg to slow the bleeding, then cut a strip of his sleeve and made a tourniquet above the wound. Maybe it’d buy him a little more time, give Maria and Zaun a chance to find the son-of-a-bitch and kill him, then get back to him. He’d like to be around long enough to see that they were safe. And even though he was losing a lot of blood, he couldn’t give up trying.

  Feeling the icy cold of winter creeping into his bones, he crawled to the sled’s engine and leaned against it, feeling a modicum of security by the heavy machine. The plastic engine cover was warm, the heat a blessing, but he knew it wouldn’t last long.

  Damn, he’d lost so much blood already.

  Now, all he could do was make sure he remained awake, and defend himself. He’d wait for his friends to return after they took out the shooter. Deep down, he knew even if they did this, the probability of him lasting long enough to see them again wasn’t good. But he had hope, which was about all he had left.

  Movement from his left caught his attention. Jack raised his gun arm and blew a hole in the zombie’s head. Another came from his right. He adjusted his aim and fired, missing his mark. He fired again, this time downing the thing as its brains flew from its skull.

  He could do this. He could fend them off. It was better than waiting without anything to do, he thought, almost laughing. Another zombie was coming. He raised the weapon and fired, but the bullet went wide as he was attacked from behind, the stench of rot falling over him. He felt the corpse’s teeth sink into the side of his neck. Jack brought the gun back, pressed the barrel against the thing’s head, closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger. The zombie fell away, dead forever this time. A warm sensation spread over his neck and he knew the zombie had broken the skin. If the leg wound didn’t kill him, maybe the bite would.

  The zombie that had been coming for him turned and joined the others that were eating Jill. He laughed, enjoying the bit of luck that finally swung his way. Exhausted, he lay back, breathing hard. He wasn’t ready to leave this world, but sometimes things just didn’t go as expected.

  Another zombie was walking toward him. Jack smiled. He raised the .45 and fired.

  The End

  (or is it?)

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  David Bernstein is the author of Machines of the Dead: Book 1, Tears of No Return, and Amongst the Dead, with more novels forthcoming, including the highly anticipated, Machines of the Dead 3. He lives in NYC and still hates car horns and traffic. You can visit him at davidbernsteinauthor.blogspot.com, email him at dbern77@hotmail.com and visit him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/david.bernstein.3. He’d love to hear from you.

  One

  It was going to end tonight. It had to.

  Amanda Church had never been through New England before, and if the current surroundings were any indication of what it had to offer, this was going to be a one-time stop.

  There was nothing to see as the navy blue Chevy pick-up barrel-assed down the narrow two-lane blacktop. The night sky was dark and stretched endlessly over rows of roving farmland. Darkness was everywhere beyond the yellowish glow of the truck’s headlights, strengthening the illusion that she hadn’t just crossed state lines, but also traveled back through time.

  Did places like this really still exist?

  She cracked the window as her eyelids threatened to close. A gust of cool mountain air wafted into the cab, chasing sleep away like an unwanted friend. She cranked the volume on her Sirius radio and found herself rocking out to REM’s Pretty Persuasion.

  It was all she could do to keep driving.

  The road, Route 90 East, was as rural as rural got. Signs of life were sporadic at best, often coming in the guise of dilapidated farm land and homes that resembled a shantytown in 1930s Chicago. Occasionally, a fellow traveler would zip past, leaving only trailing taillights to disappear into the black void.

  They weren’t big on streetlights out here, either. Hadn’t been one since the edge of New York. Amanda was surprised by how isolated she’d been made to feel by the Massachusetts countryside. Never mind the fact that she’d grown accustomed to living in Los Angeles - the lack of a two-hour traffic hold up freaked her out – but the absence of sufficient light made a motorist’s life a living hell. It meant having to kill your speed at every twist in the bend. The road was the beginning of a mountain range and the blacktop was ever rising and falling. Bad enough her job resulted in the occasional skirt with death, but one wrong turn out here could send her careening to a certain demise.

  An anticlimactic end to this life, she thought while reducing her speed to 35 around the bend.

  There was a lot that needed to be done tonight, she needed to do it, and there was no time to die in a car wreck. With fresh air circulating in the cab and her attention pulled back from the brink of dreamland, she flexed her eyes and tapped her palms against the steering wheel. There was still five hours of darkness left in this early Tuesday morning. Enough time to get the job done if she could find this fucking place.

  “The Thunderbird, is it?” That’s what her contact had said before adding, “You’ll know it when you see it.” Instructions had been to follow Route 90 right to it. That meant it had to be the first motel this road had to offer. Not many options out here. If Massachusetts had a pulse, and people claimed it did, Route 90 wasn’t about to show it to her.

  Amanda shuddered at the thought of her ‘work.’ She hated thinking about it beforehand. It aroused a bevy of mixed emotions in her that she hadn’t figured out how to deal with. Anxiety, anger, fear, excitement and, strangest of all, pride. She held a certain satisfaction for what she did, even when it fucked with her head.

  At last, the road wound back into a straightaway. Amanda heaved down on the pedal, determined to make up for lost time. Now she was jamming to The Smiths’ William, it was Really Nothing. Morrissey could do no wrong and she sang along as enthusiastically as possible, while the unpleasantness of the day dangled over head like sinister mistletoe.

  The song fell into a brief instrumental bit and Amanda took the opportunity to take a few deep breaths to steady her nerves. Nothing to fret, she told herself. How many times have you done this, anyway?

  But her rationale failed to quell the apprehension chipping away at her cool demeanor. She’d done this before – many times - but that didn’t make it any easier. You never got used to it…just wasn’t possible. She wasn’t manning a teller window, or answering phones for an important CEO. There
were times when she wished she were, though. Structure and routine were things her life could use but she hadn’t come to expect it. Normalcy had been a tricky thing to obtain ever since childhood and as an adult, Amanda had learned to dismiss it as a myth.

  A bright, intrusive light wrestled her attention back to the lonely stretch of road. Ahead, a red neon glow beamed just above the tree line. It looked ridiculously out of place against the quiet wilderness. Her contact’s words rang true in her head: “You’ll know it when you see it.”

  Amanda pulled into a small dirt patch off the side of Route 90, killed the engine and waited. Her neck lolled from side to side and her heart thumped heavily against her ribs. Through the trees ahead, she could see a motel, or at least, the loud sign used to advertise the place. It announced the Thunderbird and incorrectly (she guessed) promised luxury accommodations in every room. Last summer’s trip to Dubai was lavish, this looked like a dive. No way was the sign telling the truth. Suddenly, she realized how much she missed the 24-hour masseuse service. After this job, a Caribbean sabbatical sounded like the only option. Days spent lounging on a white, sandy beach while sipping margaritas and enjoying endless back massages were the only incentives to survive this.

  Amanda sat quietly and observed her surroundings while watching the next hour tick past. What little indicators of life she’d seen on her way here had ceased entirely. There hadn’t been one vehicle in either direction since stopping. A good sign, she hoped. It was impossible to gauge foreign surroundings accurately, but when a job needed doing, a power hour of observation would help. Despite the lack of action out here, Western Massachusetts shared many traits with other sparsely populated and rural areas. Commuter traffic typically wound itself down by 7 PM and straggler traffic all but ceased by 9 or 10 during the workweek. Since there’s not much in the way of nightlife in these small towns and outreaching areas, the local bars saw the most activity. They were usually found closer to the town center. If there were to be any travelers on a quiet stretch of road such as this one, it would likely be some teenagers out for a bone ride or a blowjob. But even the dope smokers petered out before now. In the early morning hours of Tuesday, there was barely an excuse for someone to be traveling on a desolate road.