The Plague: Dead Solstice

by M. Scott Burgess

  “You really think those guys are just gonna let us be?” The spitting man shot back. “They’re down at Tom’s Place, man! And you saw what they did to that kid. They fucking shot him! Who shoots a kid?! I’m telling you, those people are ruthless and sooner or later, they are going to come for these kids.”

  “They don’t know the area,” the third voice responded. “They don’t have the hills. They don’t have the advantage. If they try to attack, we will take them out right there and then.”

  “Oh yeah? Our rifles are gonna stop that dump truck of theirs? That thing is like a tank compared to what we got. They just needed to hold the pedal down and they would’a gone right through our barricade. Give it a little time, they’re gonna get the confidence to come for us. It’s all a matter of who attacks first.”

  Cece realized at that moment that these men were scared. Just as scared as Cece and her friends were. Just as scared of Kai and everyone as she was of them.

  Suddenly, Cece jerked back as something exploded outside. She drove herself back into the corner of the room. The men were yelling and grabbing their guns.

  “I told you,” The spitting man yelled. “I fucking told you!”

  “Shut up!” The third voice shot back. Cece could see him now. It was the man she thought it was; the one with the big nose and the lightning bolt hat. “Check outside,” he ordered to the man breathing through the cigarettes.

  Cece felt a soft hand grab onto hers. She turned to see Claudia. Her eyes were wide with fear. Her bottom lip was quivered under the top one. Behind her, both the twins were crying hysterically now.

  “Shit! A fucking arrow,” The man breathing through the cigarettes cried out. “Shit, gha’ damn.” He stumbled back into view before falling down onto the floor. Two arrows were sticking out of his chest. He was grasping at them with desperation until his arms went limp and fell to his side.

  “You see where it came from?” the man with the big nose asked as he slammed the door closed.

  “I don’t see nothing!” The spitting man yelled.

  Suddenly, a door squeaked open from the other side of the house. “You hear that?!” The man with the big nose whispered. “Back of the house.” Both men headed to the back with their guns pointed ahead of them.

  A moment later, Cece heard a scream and a burst of gunshots. The spitting man ran back into the room yelling, “No! No! No!” He looked directly at Cece with eyes full of fear. He swallowed hard and then swooped in on Cece, grabbing her by the front of her shirt and pulling her up and in front on him. He shoved the hot barrel of the pistol against the back of her head. He was breathing hard, harder than she had been. “I’ll kill this girl, man!” He yelled toward the back of the house. “I swear to god, I will! I’ll shoot her in the fucking head and then kill the rest of these kids!”

  As if to answer him, the room began to grow darker and darker as the lanterns in the other room went out one by one.

  “What the hell is he doing?!” The spitting man whispered in a trembling voice.

  The only light left came from the lantern on a coffee table in the den they were in. From behind it, Dante walked into sight. He held a bow with an arrow pulled back. It was aimed right at her. He was silent as he looked down at Cece. His eyes were no longer the dead dull eyes she remembered but instead bright and sharp. They were eyes unlike anything she had ever seen- the eyes of a monster. But somehow, as they looked down at her, they weren’t scary or frightening. They were comforting. They made her feel safe.

  “I’ll fucking kill her, I swear!” The spitting man threatened before his breathing turned to a shivered gasping. Cece knew that he had now seen Dante’s eyes as well. “What the hell, are…” The spitting man’s voice suddenly ended and his grip on her loosened enough for her to break free.

  Cece darted forward and wrapped her arms around Dante’s legs. She shot a look back to see the spitting man leaning back against the wall. His arms were limp and hanging at his sides. One eye was wide in fear. The other oozed with dark red blood around the arrow that stuck out of it. It took Cece a moment to figure out how he was still standing- he wasn’t; the arrow had made it into the wall.

  Dante pushed through Cece and walked up to the spitting man. He picked the man’s pistol up off the ground and put it in his pocket. Then he reached up to the arrow and pulled it hard out of the man’s head. The spitting man collapsed and slid down the wall and onto the floor.

  Dante put the bloody arrow in the quiver on his back and then looked at the Wills and said, “Come with me.”

  Claudia Will and her brothers hesitated. “What about the boy?” Claudia asked.

  Dante looked at the strange boy, still writhing on the ground in pain. “Leave him,” Dante said.

  “But…” Claudia started to protest.

  “Leave him!” Dante shouted.

  He grabbed Cece by the hand and took her into the darkness outside. Claudia was right behind them pulling the twins by their arms. Dante guided them to a truck, two bodies lay motionless near its tires. Dante tore the quiver from his back and threw it into the truck’s bed with the bow. Then he swung the passenger door open and lifted Cece onto the seat.

  “There’s not enough room,” Claudia protested.

  Dante looked at the twins. “You two, get in bed. Stay down and keep quiet,” he said in a hard voice. They did as he said. “You get in next to Cece,” he told Claudia before climbing behind the wheel himself.

  Dante started the ignition of the truck and casually drove the truck down the road. Cece stared out the window at Blair’s dirt bike- it was roaring with fire and smoke on the front lawn of someone’s cabin. Dante drove past it and then turned a corner. He then stopped the car and pulled it in reverse into someone’s driveway.

  “What are we waiting for?” Claudia asked in a panic.

  Dante said nothing. Instead, he reached inside his pocket and pulled out a pair of contact lenses, which he very carefully put into his eyes. He blinked a few times to get them correctly into position. “Why do you wear those?” Cece asked.

  “They help me see,” Dante responded calmly. Cece could tell he was lying, but she remained quiet, unsure if Claudia could tell or not. “Buckle your seatbelt,” Dante said. Cece and Claudia did as they were told.

  They remained parked in the driveway until a group of lights came flying down off the freeway toward them. Two cars full of men flew past the truck going toward the house they were in. The moment they passed, Dante pulled on the truck’s stick shift and took off down the road, in the direction the two cars had come from.

  When he pulled onto the freeway, Dante put the pedal down and drove faster than Cece had ever gone in a car. The headlights were off, but up ahead they could see a barricade of cars and trucks. It was the place where the men had taken Cece away from her mom.

  Dante reached behind them and slid open a small window that opened to the bed of the truck. “Hold on and stay down,” he yelled at the twins.

  Cece could see the men up at the barricade in a panic. They were running behind the cover of their vehicles and raising their guns toward the truck. Dante switched on the headlights and then pulled back on one of the sticks behind the steering wheel, causing everything ahead of them to light up even brighter.

  “Get down!” Dante yelled and Cece collapsed onto Claudia’s lap. Claudia bent down on top of her and the two girls hugged each other tightly.

  A second later, the windshield exploded with gunfire.

  14

  Dean jerked up violently out of a deep sleep. He had no idea how long he had been out., but it felt like weeks. His eyes were crusted together, and his throat was sore. It was dark. He had no idea where he was. The only thing he was sure of was that he heard a gunshot.

  A feeling of déja vu swept over Dean. He felt as if he were back home somehow. As if everything were starting over. It took him a moment to decide that this wasn’t his room. He was on a couch in a living room. It was a cabin. Across the room, Quaid was
snoring away on a blowup mattress.

  Maybe that’s what he heard. Maybe it wasn’t a gunshot, but just Quaid sawing logs. It was just a dream. But the moment Dean lay back down again, he swore he could hear it again and again. A hundred faint pops coming from an unknown distance. Dean yawned and got to his feet. He decided he probably had enough sleep anyway.

  Dean picked up his jeans off the ground and pulled his father’s bronze pocket watch from the rear pocket. He opened it and looked at the time, then remembered he had forgot to wind it. The last time Dean had woken up the pocket watch read noon. Everything was in havoc. Dante had stolen the dirt bike and a mass of ghouls had been spotted on the other side of the highway. Some of the group had begun to pack up the White Whale and argue with Kai about leaving. Kai, however, didn’t budge. He said they were staying. He said that he wouldn’t be going anywhere until they got the children back.

  It was weird to Dean to see a single man so stubborn about other people’s children. The Wills, Elias and a few others tried to convince Dean to help them out and support their cause. It didn’t make sense to Dean why the group thought he could change Kai’s mind. He wasn’t a leader; he was a kid just out of college. Dean let them try to persuade him while he ate his breakfast. But when he finished and looked up at the bright sun, he knew there was no way he could persuade Kai. He was exhausted and was doing all he could to keep his eyes open.

  Dean had never felt that tired in his life. He could barely function and thinking about anything other than sleep made his head hurt. He had no idea how he had survived the bite, but it took a whole hell of a lot out of him. He went back to the couch and let sleep have its way with him.

  Only now did he finally begin to feel somewhat recharged. Dean pulled on his jeans and his hoodie, shoved his father’s watch in his back pocket and went outside. The night was cool and refreshing. It was a nice break from the summer heat they had been subjected to. He took a look out at the twilight-covered landscape. Everything seemed bright and colorful under the half-moon.

  Out on the roof of a building toward the highway, Dean spotted Jadon sitting on a folding chair acting as a lookout. Dean stretched his back until his sternum popped and then headed toward the building. He found a ladder nearby and climbed up it.

  “Back from the dead?” Jadon whispered as Dean sat down on the roof next to him. “Again,” he added with a smile.

  Dean yawned. “You hear that gunfire?” He asked.

  “Gunfire? I haven’t heard anything like that.”

  “I think there’s something going on out there,” Dean insisted.

  “You know,” Jadon rebutted, “I’ve always heard too much sleep is a bad thing. There ain’t nothing going on to worry about.”

  “Let me see those binoculars.”

  Jadon handed them to him. “You know these don’t work so well at night, right?”

  Dean walked forward to the edge of the roof and used the binoculars to look out on the road. It was empty, devoid of all life. But still, Dean looked out, swearing he could hear some kind of rumble. And then Dean saw it, a truck with no headlights flying down the road. Smoke billowed from its hood like an old steam engine.

  “There’s a truck coming,” Dean announced. “Get your gun.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?” Dean tossed the binoculars at Jadon who instantly pulled them in front of his eyes. “I don’t see nothing… Wait… I think I hear it.” Jadon lowered the binoculars and squinted as he tried to scan the highway with his naked eyes. And then he saw it, the truck was coming toward them like a bat out of hell. Jadon pointed his gun at the sky and squeezed the trigger letting a warning shot ring out for the group. “Come on!” He yelled at Dean and then climbed off the roof as quickly as he could.

  By the time the two men reached the main building, Kai was already outside, holding his assault rifle. “What is the hell’s going on?” he shouted at Jadon.

  “A truck’s coming down the road,” Jadon replied.

  From one of the cabins, Elias came out pulling on a jacket and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Get everyone, tell them to grab their guns!” Kai yelled at Elias. His eyes then turned to Dean. “Good to see you’ve finally woke up,” he said with more than a tinge of sarcasm.

  As the group evacuated the buildings, Kai directed them to hide behind the cover of the various abandoned cars. Everyone waited in anticipation as they listened to the truck slow down, pull off the highway and come their way. It sounded terrible, more like a snare drum than a truck engine. Its wheels were flat on one side. The entire front side was smashed in and cratered with bullet holes. Dean couldn’t believe it was still moving at all.

  The truck’s horn erupted in a series of blasts as it approached and then slid to a stop in front of the group. A second later, the passenger door flung open and Claudia jumped out of the truck followed by Cece. Being them, the twins emerged from the bed and jumped down before running toward their parents.

  “Claud?!” Cliff Will shouted in amazement. He dropped his rifle and ran to his kids. Tears already began watering out of his eyes.

  From the driver side, the door slowly opened. A second later, Dante climbed out. He met everyone’s smiles and cheers with a deeply serious scowl. “We need to go,” he said grimly.

  “Go where?” Kai responded. “What the hell’d you do?”

  “I did what it looks like,” Dante responded coldly. “I retrieved them. But we need to go. Those men will be coming soon.”

  “And where the fuck are we supposed to go?” Kai shouted.

  “Anywhere,” Dante answered. “Just so long as it’s right now.”

  15

  “We stay here,” Kai ordered. “Get the children inside and some guns on the roof.”

  “What are you doing?” Dante challenged, “I told you those men are coming!”

  “We have nowhere to go. We can make a stand here,” Kai shot back. The group stared at Kai in a tense silence.

  “Load the truck,” Dean announced, breaking the silence. Immediately, Hector and Elias moved toward the supplies to push into the back of the White Whale.

  “Load only what’s necessary,” Jaden yelled out as he joined them.

  “Do not do that!” Kai objected. He pulled out his pistol in an attempt to show dominance.

  “We can’t fight them, Kai,” Dean said calmly.

  “Says who? The guy who’s been asleep for days?” Kai spit out. “Suddenly, you’ve woken up and you’re the leader?”

  “Those men. This is their home,” Dante cut in. “You are outgunned. Outnumbered. And logic suggests, they’ve got reinforcements in Mammoth. If you somehow survive the night, more will come tomorrow.”

  “You keep saying ‘you.’” Kai said with disdain dripping from his tongue. “You trying to suggest something.”

  “Forgive my subtlety. I’m leaving, with you or not.”

  Kai locked his jaw and glared at Dante as anger rose to a boiling point. Dean walked up to Kai and put his arm on his shoulder, but Kai pushed him away as he recoiled backward. “Don’t touch me.”

  In a cold voice, Dean responded, “We’re leaving. All of us,” and as if at his command, the White Whale roared to life with Hector at the wheel. Everyone was helping each other into the back. They abandoned tents and anything that was left unpacked – the only items of importance were food, water, and weapons.

  Kai stood there, defiantly standing his ground. He wanted to say something to make them stop, he wanted to punch someone. But it would all be futile. Already, he was ignored. Dante was handing Blair her bow and quiver from the back of the bullet-torn truck he stole. Elias was searching the buildings making sure everyone was loaded up.

  It was Jadon who finally pulled Kai back to reality, “No one’s ever won a war by dying on a hill.”

  “It’s not about that!” Kai shot back.

  “Then don’t make it about that,” Jadon countered. He climbed up into the back of the truck. “Come on, let’s go.”

 
; After a moment of defiant hesitation, Kai climbed in and collapsed at the opening. He sat there in silence as the White Whale pulled onto the highway and went down the hill back toward Bishop. He hated the idea of going back down there, back into the undead wastes. To calm himself, Kai stared out into the darkness behind the dump truck. A few times he could swear he saw a dark shape stalking them on the road, but despite his squinting, he couldn’t be sure if he was right.

  Kai could tell they were in Bishop as buildings popped up on both sides. An occasional ghoul chased after the truck as it passed by. Kai tried to mentally backtrack the route they took as he watched the casino and gas station burst into view and then fade into the distance. In his mind, he anticipated the White Whale would veer to the right as they followed the road south, but he was surprised when the road south flew by and without them. Whoever was in the navigator seat was keeping them to the north of town. Kai didn’t mind this decision – it was better than going south back the way they came from. But still, he turned to face the group in the back of the truck to see if anyone knew anything about this decision. But he quickly found himself reaching for something to hold on to as the truck smashed through a mass of ghouls on the road. He realized that he was the only one caught off guard by this. It struck Kai how strange it was that plowing a vehicle through walking corpses had already become commonplace for everyone.

  Kai decided to look away from the road and rested his gaze on Cece. She was asleep, lying peacefully in her mother’s arms. The dirt on Irene’s cheeks was smeared with dried tears. Her face looked like it ached with a heartbreaking grin. It made Kai happy to see that they were reunited, but also guilty that he could take no responsibility for it. The responsibility lay entirely with the one man who no one trusted. Dante sat across from them, his face stuck in a frozen stare at Cece.

  About a half hour in, someone realized that Cat Lerman wasn’t in the truck with them. Somehow, she had been forgotten, which struck Kai as strange, given she was always awake and always with the group. They talked about going back for her, but it was hopeless. There was no way to communicate to Dean and Hector up in the cab. And besides, Tom’s Place would be crawling with the men from Mammoth. Cat was either captured or dead.