“We don’t have any other option,” Quaid answered. “We can stay on the peripheral of the city, but we need fuel, supplies, gear, food- there’s no better place to find all that than a city. And that’s the closest one.” Quaid was silent for a moment and then looked up at Dean. “You know I’m right.”
Dean avoided answering by looking out in the distance. Westward, in the direction they came from. He was surprised that he actually saw something. A faint light flickering as it traveled toward them. “Headlights,” he announced. “We don’t have time to argue anymore. If Quaid says south, we go south. Everyone get loaded up and on the truck.” He paused to look at Kai, “Does that work with you?” Kai nodded in response.
“What about the car?” Elias asked.
Dean moved toward it. “We’ll take it,” he said. “I’ll drive and follow behind the truck. If these guys catch up to us, we can use the car to hold them back until the truck gets away.”
Kai climbed up to his feet and said, “I’m coming with you.” Dean turned to give him a puzzled look. “You’re not driving that alone,” Kai said with as much authority as he could muster. To this, Dean shrugged and continued toward the station wagon. Kai turned to Jadon, “Throw the kid in the back of the station wagon. We’ll use him as a hostage if we have too.”
The kid protested and pleaded for them to leave him. He promised that he would tell the others to give up and turn around. In response, Elias slapped a strip of duct tape on his mouth and the group threw him in the back of the truck.
Two minutes later, the entire group was loaded up and the truck was heading south, headlamps off, with the station wagon in tow.
17
Dante took a moment to enjoy the ocean breeze as he stared at the Templar. It was a brand-new, pearl-white yacht. Dante could tell most of its expenses went into its interior comfort and top of the line technology rather than its size. It was exactly how Lisha liked things; frivolously spending money on toys that would never last more than a month.
Dante gave one final scan of the area. It was fairly quiet, with a few people here and there. A pair of Duffy boats were out doing laps around the harbor. In the distance, a pack of paddle boarders worked too hard for the distance they traveled. But on the docks where the Templar was parked, it was a ghost town. Dante couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a terrible thing.
Dante knew he would only lose his nerves if he waited any longer, so he walked around to the side of the boat and climbed on board. He found Lisha sitting comfortably on a plush couch with her legs crossed. She was staring at him with indifference. In one hand was a glass of tonic water; in the other was a pistol with a silencer pointed directly at Dante’s chest.
“Your weapon,” she said calmly. Dante locked eyes with her for a moment and then pulled out a revolver from his pocket and flung it out into the water. Lisha’s flashed an ugly smile and then tossed her pistol onto the coffee table in front of the couch. “Such dirty weapons,” she said and then studied Dante’s face to see how he reacted. After a moment, she gave up and leaned forward. “Can I see it?” she finally asked.
Dante walked up to the table and brushed the pistol aside causing Lisha to tense up for a moment. But before she could react, Dante had pulled out a lead sphere from his jacket. He held it up for her to see for a moment before setting it in the center of the table. It wobbled around as it tried to find the slope on the softly rocking boat.
Lisha wasted no time snatching it up and looking it over in her hands. “Something so simple-” she whispered. After being satisfied, she slowly leaned forward and set it back on the table before springing up to her feet. “Well, should we go then?” She asked as she brushed past Dante. Very nonchalantly, she climbed down onto the dock and untied the line from the horn cleat and then climbed back aboard.
Dante shook his head in confusion. “A boat is our escape?” he asked.
“You thought this boat was just a meeting point? Come now, you don’t really think I’m that eccentric, do you?” Lisha took another drink of her tonic water while she studied Dante’s face a bit more. “No. The boat is not our escape. The boat takes us to our escape. Do you really think me that naïve, Roishk?” Lisha studied Dante for a minute before setting down the glass of tonic water and strutting up to him. She softly put a hand on the side of his face and gave him a knowing smile. “Before we go, there is one thing- You know that I am showing you a mercy you don’t deserve- because of our history together… and because of this unfortunate weakness I’ve developed for you.” Lisha paused and her smile fell into a grim stare. “But do not think that I will forget your betrayal.”
Dante slowly reached up and rested his hand on Lisha’s wrist. In a cold whisper, he replied, “I know,” and his grip tightened like a vice.
Without warning, Dante outstretched his arm, jerking Lisha away from him. His other arm worked in lightening fast unison, reaching under his jacket and ripping out his Wahaika. With a fluid motion, Dante swung it upward at Lisha’s outstretched arm and cleanly severed it from the body.
With her body free from his grip, Lisha stumbled backward and fell onto the couch. She stared, in shock, at her detached limb hanging from Dante’s hand for a second and watched helplessly as he tossed it away like garbage. When it bounced against the deck, the fingers twitched and fidgeted like a dead lizard overcome by frayed nerve endings.
A white-hot rage overcame Lisha’s plastic face turning it into an inhuman terror. She lunged forward for the pistol on the table, but Dante was already there, kicking the table over on its side. The lead sphere struck the deck hard, next to the pistol, before beginning to slowly roll away toward the back of the boat.
Lisha rose up and violently swung her arm at Dante, her nails outstretched like a wild animal. But again, Dante was ready, casually ducking and then slamming his fist hard into her chest and knocking one of her implants sideways beneath the stub of her severed arm.
Lisha swung a leg up, catching Dante off-guard a kicking him back. Again, she went for the pistol, diving onto the ground to snatch it up. In a single motion, she rolled and swung the gun up at Dante’s chest. But before she could fire, her arm went limp and the gun slipped out of her grip as Dante slammed the Wahaika down into the center of her skull.
Without pausing to take in the moment, Dante let go of his weapon and sprinted to the back of the boat. The lead sphere was just inches from the edge of the deck, its roll determined to send it into the harbor. Dante dove and slid rough against the textured deck. He reached out with on arm and snatched the sphere just as it broke the edge of the boat.
Dante let out a deep breath of relief and then stood up. He pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sphere off with a deep care. When he was satisfied, he placed the sphere back into the specialized pocket in his jacket.
Dante took a quick scan of his surroundings. He was relieved to find the dock still empty. No one had seen him murder Lisha. Dante returned to her and gave her dead body a long look. For a moment, he thought she looked like he remembered her all those years ago. For a slight moment, a barrage of emotions flooded him; regret, sorrow, guilt. But as quickly as they came, he swallowed them back down.
Very slowly, he reached down and yanked the Wahaika from her skull and then wiped the blood off with her dress. Her body fidgeted and writhed like a dead snake from the misfiring nerves.
Dante stood back up and made his way to the steering wheel. The Templar was at the edge of the harbor; it was almost a straight shot out into the open ocean... almost. He debated what to do and in doing so, he couldn’t help but look up at the sky. Damn the sky, he thought, too much open sky.
Dante gave his options a little more thought and then powered up the engine. It roared to life in a low rumble. Dante casually pushed the throttle forward to low and then strolled to the back of the boat, sweeping up Lisha’s silenced pistol into his hand along the way and firing straight down into the hull of the boat a few times before tossing the gun out
into the water.
Dante hopped off the boat, onto the dock, just as the Templar pulled away. He watched it as it slowly trudged out toward the open ocean. In all likelihood, it would hit some rocks or whatever else on its way out, but the retreating tide would help suck it out of the harbor.
Even if it didn’t, Dante would be long gone before anyone found Lisha’s body. Hell, shit would probably have hit the fan by then, anyway.
That’s when Dante’s problems would begin- the real problems. There would be no escape for him anytime soon. So, he would need to hide. To blend in.
The plan was still the same as it had always been. Disappear until he was forgotten. It had already been countless years, but Lisha had made it clear, he was still far from forgotten.
18
Kai held the station wagon’s passenger side rearview mirror steady as he used it to watch Tonopah disappear into the darkness. He watched intently until he saw four pairs of headlights move like a pack of wolves from the hills into the town and then stop. They remained there for a few minutes, Kai turned up the radio hoping for any clue.
“Come on,” Kai whispered to himself, hoping that it would inspire the lights to go east or north. But when they did move, they split, all of them heading in separate directions. And a few seconds later, as if to make matters worse, the lights went out one by one. “They split up,” Kai said to Dean. “One’s coming this way. So, what’s your plan now?”
“When they catch up to us, we knock them off the road. Do our best to keep them away from the truck.” Dean answered calmly, keeping his eyes locked in front of him. “Maybe use the kid in the back as some kind of bargaining chip.” The kid moaned at them in anger from where he lay.
“We should warn them,” Kai suggested. Dean looked at Kai for a moment and then nodded, accelerating the station wagon until it was side to side with the cab of the dump truck. Kai unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed halfway out of the passenger-side window. Hector already had his window down. He gave Kai a curious nod. “They split up!” Kai shouted, trying to push his voice past the sound of the wind and motors. “They’ve got a scout behind us. If anything happens, you just keep driving.”
Hector shot a fruitless look in his giant side mirror and then gave Kai a nod. Kai climbed back into his seat and Dean slowed the station wagon down and resumed trailing them. Kai looked over at Dean, His pupils were unnaturally wide making his eyes seem to glow.
“What happened to you?” Kai asked in a disgusted awe. His eyes fell down to the bandage that was covering the still infected crescent moon on the side of Dean’s neck; it had soaked through showing the shape in a black blur.
“You know what happened.” Dean coldly answered.
“But how the hell are you still alive?”
“I don’t know. I just am.”
“You’re different now,” Kai said, cutting into the heart of what he wanted to get at.
“Yeah,” Dean said, extinguishing the conversation. The two men sat quietly for a moment letting the silent tension build.
Finally, Kai broke the conversation with a sharp and cutting whisper. “After we get to Vegas, I want you gone.” Dean shot Kai an equally cutting glare, his eyes were like those of a wolf; dangerous and unpredictable. “How do we know you’re not going to change- more,” Kai continued. “You’re already out of control, Dean. I won’t allow you to become a danger to the group.”
“You think I’m a danger?”
“Elias told me about a man, back at Costco. He was living in the next building. He was a man, but also something else- something in-between us and the dead. Elias said, he kidnapped one of the women to lure them into his building, and then he murdered a dozen of them.” Kai paused for a moment to let it sink in and then, very carefully as if walking on glass, he continued. “I’ve been thinking about what he could have been. Now, I’m beginning to think I know.”
“You think I’m the same as him?” Dean choked out.
“Not yet,” Kai answered pushing the conversation back into a tension-laden silence.
“I’m not a murderer,” Dean said a moment later. His tone was weary, as if he were trying to convince himself. Memories of his dreams had consumed his mind. Dreams of eating human flesh. Dreams of tearing Lucy apart with his hands and teeth.
Kai wanted to say that he knew, but instead what came out was, “We need to keep it that way, Dean. That’s why I need you away from the group.” And with that, they plunged back into silence. This time, without any attempt to break the tension.
They remained in that silence, slowly following the White Whale, as the night sky began to lighten, and the stars began to fade away. The sun was still buried beneath the horizon, but slowly it was climbing its way up to bring light to the desert. It was still dark, but it was a relief to know that this night was almost over.
Suddenly, the White Whale’s horn erupted, shattering the silence with a deep roar. A second later, it sped up.
“What’s going on?” Kai asked.
Dean answered by pulling the station wagon into the opposite lane, ahead of him was a huge mass of bodies blanketing the road and the desert around it. The ghouls had all been awoken out of their stupor by the dump trucks horn and already they had begun to chase after it, clumping tightly together on their target. Dean swerved back behind the truck, dodging a few stray ghouls. Kai rolled up his window and in an uncertain tone, Dean said, “Hold on.”
The White Whale dove into the mass of undead like a snowplow, pushing bodies to the side to create a wake of blood-stained road behind it. But there was simply too many to push to out of its way. Many were dragged beneath it, creating piles of flesh and bone for the station wagon to bounce and jump over like speed bumps. Dean flexed his muscles to steady the car’s course through the sea of death.
The station wagon made it a respectable distance through the mass, taking minimal damage. A few flailing corpses slammed against the windshield, cracking it before rolling over the top. The side windows were smeared with a coat of reddish-brown bodily fluid. But before it could completely break through, the car jolted upward, hard, and screeched to a stop, high-tailed.
“Shit!” Kai yelled, fear forming on his face.
Dean slammed his foot hard on the gas pedal, but it only spun the wheels and inched forward. Dean shoved the shifter into reverse and tried to the same result. He kept trying, throwing the transmission into drive and reverse, turning the wheels to get loose. But all the while, the mass gathered on the station wagon, covering it in bodies that banged on the glass and the doors, desperate to get their part of the meal.
In the back, the boy screamed in a muffled terror as he watched the gnashing teeth and banging claws work up into a frenzy. The two men up front watched helplessly as the White Whale continued on. Through the corpses, they could see Jadon and Elias stare back at them, their faces locked in terror. But still, the dump truck went on. When it got through the undead mass, it sped up and retreated down the road.
Kai’s last conversation with Hector flashed through his mind. He told them to keep going, no matter what happened. Famous last words, Kai thought and an ironic smile passed across his lips. The truth was, he still wouldn’t have them turn around if he could somehow talk to them. The further away they were from here, the better.
As the ghouls continued to bang on the station wagon, rocking the car back and forth and cracking the windows, a voice came through on the radio. It was a man, maybe in his thirties, with an effeminate voice. “Holy shit. Guys, this is Tim. It looks like they went south. But either they got away, or they’re dead.”
“What’s up? What do you see down there, Tim?” another voice came in. This one was much deeper, like the one they had heard in Tonopah.
“There’s a huge ass mass of dead-heads down here. Thousands of them, all bunched together. There’s no way in hell we could get through this.”
Kai reached out and grabbed the radio’s mic. “We made it through, you fuckers!” he yelled. “You keep
following us, we’ll feed your guy we got to these things!” With a grim smile, Kai threw down the mic and switched the radio off. “Let those fuckers chew on that,” he said. But a moment later, Kai’s smile faded as his face became pale. The ghouls continued to engulf the car, the weight of the mass, smearing the ones near the car harder into it. Kai looked around, it wouldn’t be much longer until they were inside. He sucked in a choked breath. “So, this is it,” he said in a weak voice, “there’s no way out.”
“Yeah,” Dean quietly answered. “We can make it quick, though.”
Kai looked over and saw the handgun resting in Dean’s lap and the solemn look on his face. “What the fuck?!” Kai erupted. “You’re gonna put us down?”
“Would you prefer the alternative?” Dean quietly asked.
Kai shook his head and then asked, “so, you’re gonna do me and the kid, and then do yourself?” Dean shook his head in response. Kai swallowed hard and nodded. “Okay,” he whispered, “Let’s get it over with then. Do it.” Dean slowly raised the gun to Kai’s temple. Tears began to run down Kai’s face and he gritted his teeth. And then the conversation he had with Dean earlier ran through his mind. “Just prom-” Kai began, but he was silenced by the blast of the gun. Kai’s body went limp and he let out a deep, peaceful moan.
The boy in the back let out a muffled scream. He fought desperately to free himself from his constraints- to pull off the duct tape and yell, “please, let me live!” But even if Dean freed him, the boy would die. There was no escape from this. Dean turned, steadied the gun and fired a shot directly into the boy’s head.
Dean lowered the handgun and sat there quietly for a long while. He waited until the bodies cooled and the ghouls lost interest.
And when they gave up on the station wagon, Dean pulled Kai’s assault rifle from his stiffening hands, pushed the door open and climbed out into the mass of undead flesh.
The Plague: Dead Solstice Page 8
