“Sweet Jesus.”
Tuck looked up at the sound of the voice and saw Fredrick Pike standing at the top of the embankment with a shotgun in one hand and a flashlight in the other.
“You stopped them,” he said astounded. “You actually stopped them. How’d you do that?”
“I don’t know.” Tuck was still brandishing the fire at the zombies and looking at their communal gaze of obedience. “I don’t know what’s happening.”
“You’re bit.”
“It’s fine.”
“You’ll turn.”
The flashlight was pointed at his face and so was the shotgun.
“Just give me a fucking second, Fredrick!”
“What if you change?”
“I’m not going to change.”
“How do you know?”
“Because.” Tuck showed Fredrick the pink marks on his skin from where he had been bit earlier, the spot that perfectly showed the outline of human teeth. “It’s happened before.”
“What are you? Some kind of monster like them?”
Monster.
Monster?
Had fucking rich ass Fredrick Pike actually called him a monster?
Tuck’s head started to throb and he pressed his empty hand against his temple.
Monster?
Tuck threw the five iron at Fredrick and as the distracted man fumbled to make sure there was no fire on him Tuck had raced up the embankment and taken his belt from his waist. He wrapped the leather belt round his hands and struck Fredrick Pike in the nose breaking it instantly. The belt came down and he looped it around the old man’s neck and twisted his body into him so they were back to back. Tuck lifted the man off the ground so he hung from the leather belt off Tuck’s back and he felt the old man squirm and struggle for breath. Tuck squeezed his shoulders together to make the noose that much tighter and held it until he felt the man go slack.
“Are you listening to me?” Tuck screamed at the zombies as he let go of the belt and felt Fredrick fall to the ground. The zombies were still coughing but their eyes were on him. “Is it true? Am I a monster?”
There was no answer because the dead could not speak.
“You do what I say? Then burn in that fire!” Tuck pointed to the bridge and the fire and the zombies looked away from him and at the fire. They didn’t move. Not toward the fire or him.
Tuck reached down and grabbed Fredrick’s shotgun and screamed into the night as he walked down to the beach and right up to the zombies and pulled the trigger as he watched their heads explode. When he was finished with the zombies, he went back to Fredrick Pike and dragged the old man toward the bridge fire and tossed his body into the flames. He would also have to do the rest of the zombies and Kiefer but he was paralyzed at the moment.
As he stood in front of the roaring fire he was feeding with his bare feet and chest, sweat running down his body, he saw Brittney standing on the road. Her hands were covered over her mouth and tears streaked her face. He didn’t need to ask how much she had seen. It was written in the horror of her expression.
Tuck sighed and stepped down from the bridge back to the beach. By the time he dragged the first body of the zombie back up to the bridge to throw it in the fire Brittney was gone. He would never see her or Garrett again. The next day he would assume they had taken a boat in the night to the mainland but there was no trace of them except the mess they had left in the house and the lingering smell of their sex in the basement.
Chapter 16
Ransom Palmer stood in the mirror rinsing his razor in the cold water he had poured from the gallon jug retrieved from the basement’s supplies. The supplies were scarce and used mostly for short-term power outages. He swiped the razor back and forth in the cloudy water then leaned toward the mirror and touched his skin with the cold blade. He dragged the blade over the stubble above the Abraham Lincoln like chin strap that he kept neatly groomed. He nicked his skin and hardly noticed as the blood began to grow in a great bubble that released and splashed in the center of the basin turning the white water a pinkish shade. Ransom took a small piece of toilet paper and put it on top of the nick. That was the third one this morning. He was missing the amenity of hot water.
When he finished shaving Ransom buttoned the top two buttons of his dress shirt and tightened his tie. He checked his pocket watch and saw that it was almost six am and then wore his watch single Albert style. He was seventy-seven years old and still spent every morning with the same ritual of readiness.
He left the Cadillac in the garage and decided to walk down the remains of the bridge. There was a full tank of gas in the car and he wanted to save it for the generator if needed. Summer was almost at a close and winter would be upon them soon. He could suffer the warm nights better than the freezing ones. His sterling silver wolf head cane struck the concrete with every other step. A mannerism he had perfected over the years since he lost his wife in a fatal car accident because of his drinking. The wheelchair he had been shackled to became crutches and eventually the cane. It was a few of his paralegals that had given him the silver wolfs head cane as a Christmas gift one year. He hadn’t needed the cane in almost a decade but used it as part of his courtroom theatrics. At the end of the world Ransom still walked with cane keeping the visage SP? That he was a helpless old man. It helped for the others – the younger – to think and believe of him this way.
“Tuck?” Ransom poked the passed out man in the back seat of the Mercedes Benz. “Tuck, wake up.”
With a stir and a grunt Tuck woke with the empty bottle still clutched in his hand and spat the dead filter of cigarette out of his dry mouth.
“All the houses on the island and you choose to sleep in the car?”
“We all ain’t used to this – ” he waved his hand around at the island, “posh living, old man. Some of us are just fine with the confines of a smaller…situation.”
“And your lady friend with her son? Where are they?” Ransom looked around as though they might be tucked away in one of the other vehicles.
“Gone. Left sometime in the night.” Tuck got out of the car and pulled another cigarette – one of the last – from the pack and lit it between his lips. He stood in only pants with the finer dressed Ransom Palmer in front of the destroyed bridge that at some time during the course of the night had finally burned itself out. “We weren’t that close. Didn’t even know her last name.”
“Interesting that they would leave the safety of the island for the unknown out there,” Ransom said.
“Stupid is more like it. But what do I know? Fuck, maybe they just saw something they didn’t particularly like.”
“Such as?”
“You’d have to ask them.”
“Hmm?” Ransom looked around as though the answer were just in front of him all he had to do was look hard enough.
“What’s the plan now?”
“Why ask me?”
“Because, Ransom, you seem to be the chief around here. I don’t see that Pike fellow and you’re all dressed so dapper and such I think it’d be unkind if it wasn’t you in charge.” Tuck gave him a grin and took another drag of his smoke. “Plus, I don’t see those boys listening to me. What do you think boys?”
Ransom turned around to where Tuck had his eyes leveled and the three Stockholm boys came out of the woods. They emerged wearing the same painted skull masks they had the night before and as they came closer they made no intention of taking them off. Ransom was going to ask them to but thought better of it. He wasn’t sure what the three were planning but it was usually no good and now they appeared to have taken it to some new level.
“What do you think boys? Let the eldest have the high seat?”
“Depends?” Jesse stood in front of the other boys.
“On?”
“Is this a democracy or a monarchy?”
“It’s the end of the fucking world, kid. It ain’t anything anymore.”
Chapter 17
Rebel got out of bed
and went to the bathroom. She sat down on the toilet and relieved her bladder before she leaned over to the sink and wet a towel – cold water only – and wiped away the sticky mess that Forrest had left inside her last night. She hoped she didn’t get a yeast infection or worse she would have to find a way to get more birth control. There was enough left to ride out the month but after that? If she was still alive it would be a problem. This wasn’t the type of world to bring a child into. You would have to be some kind of…monster. Or was it really any different than the monster she had become at fourteen when her mother had brought her to the clinic and life inside of her had been extracted? She could call her mother the monster as much as she wanted but it would be a lie. She hadn’t wanted the thing growing inside of her body any more than her parents wanted the stigma of their perfect Amy being a teenage mother. So, out it came.
In front of the bathroom mirror Rebel was subconsciously rubbing her stomach while she brushed her teeth. In the mirror she could see Forrest still sleeping in her bed. Her father hadn’t even checked on her in the night. Not that she had expected him to.
Once she finished cleaning up, she put on some cut off sweat shorts that didn’t even hide the bottom of her ass and grabbed an AC/DC shirt of the pile of clothes that still needed to be washed. The shirt a souvenir from some older guy that had been in town for a concert at Meadowbrook and never bothered to ask her age when he gave her a ride back to her house on his Harley and bent her over her pink bed.
“Morning,” Paul said as he sipped at his drink.
“Coffee?”
“Heated some up on the stove. We still have some propane left.”
He didn’t offer her a cup but she took one anyway.
“What do we do now, dad?” she asked. She hated calling him dad. Absentee D was such a better name because it could have stood for ‘dad’ or ‘dick’. Most of the time she settled for Paul but was too tired and a little scared to start a fight with her father now over absolutely nothing. Literally there was nothing left to fight about. If he had heard her and Forrest fucking last night, he acted like he didn’t. Or maybe he just didn’t care. She thought the latter.
“Wait it out. There are plenty of supplies. Some of your new friends are going out on a raiding party this morning. A little barbaric but they are taking our boat so we get a cut of the supplies. Let them take the chances and we’ll stay here on the island and wait for the cavalry.”
“And who’s the cavalry, dad?”
“The military, Amy. I’m sure the president is in a bunker and all sorts of men are figuring out what to do about this terrorist act.”
Terrorist act?
Holy fuck, Rebel, almost started laughing so hard at how blind her father was that she had to bite down on her cheek until she tasted metallic on her tongue. Terrorist attack. What a fucking idiot he was.
“Right. The military,” she repeated his words and took her coffee with her as she left the table. “I’ll be in my room waiting for the cavalry.” She couldn’t help herself but get one dig in.
Neither of them mentioned her mother. Rebel could only assume that she was zombie lunch or walking around eating people with the rest of the dead. It didn’t matter. Sooner or later they would all be dead.
As she walked through the foyer to head back up the grand staircase to her bedroom, she grabbed the keys to the boat – someone would be by for them later – and ran upstairs to grab her hiking boots. If everyone was going into town than so was she.
Chapter 18
“You’re going to be a good mom.”
“That isn’t what I signed up for.”
“Too late.” Fletcher smiled up a Kat.
For the last twenty miles his head had been on her lap in the backseat. Justin had taken over driving – it had been slow going and sometimes almost impossible but the Jeep had been a good pick – thirty or so miles back when Fletcher started to fade in an out of consciousness. Robby held baby Bowen on his lap and both men tried to keep their eyes on the road ahead of them and not look back at the Boston SWAT officer and the maternity nurse.
A blue sign appeared on the side of the highway indicating what services were available at the coming exit.
“Is there a hospital?” Kat yelled to Justin.
He shook his head.
“Fuck!” Kat punched the back of the seat.
“No more. Please. All you are doing is putting everyone in danger every time you pull off the highway to look for a hospital. We know what we are going to find. It’s the same everywhere. The sick went to the hospitals and the infection spread worse and faster there. No more hospitals, Kat. No more detours.” Fletcher broke into another coughing fit from speaking for so long and sprayed red spit that coated his lips and droplets fell on his pale skin like pimples around his mouth.
“We are going to keep trying.”
He shook his head again.
“You don’t get a vote in this,” she told him.
He smiled up at her again, “You’re going to be a damn fine mom.”
“Stop.” Kat dabbed sweat on his forehead with a rolled up tee shirt they had found in the Jeep.
“I miss my wife, Kat,” Fletcher said. In the corner of his left eye, just above his warm smile, a tear rolled down his cheek and into his ear. “I miss my kids.”
“I know.”
He took a large breath.
“I want to go home.”
Kat knew he didn’t mean turn around and head back to Boston. Boston was dead. She knew what he meant but shook her head at him anyway. Kat wasn’t ready to let him go. It wasn’t up to her.
Fletcher took another deep breath and when he exhaled this time he never inhaled again. His eyes were open and looking into Kat’s and her tears fell on his face.
Justin was leaning against the door rubbing the wetness from his eyes while Robby held baby Bowen close to him and shushed him even though the baby was asleep.
Chapter 19
Bob had been riding all morning and switched from the southbound lane of 93 to the north bound when things got tight. He had taken his time for most of the morning hoping that Kiefer would catch up to him, but so far he hadn’t seen anything moving in his rear view accept the occasion zombie. He had only been a few miles past the city of Manchester when he saw the movement on the side of the road. Two men. One looked like he was holding a baby.
Don’t get involved.
That was what he told himself.
If it weren’t for what he was damn sure was a baby in that young man’s arms than he would have directed the dirt bike into the median and driven on past without so much as a courteously wave. But there was a child. He was sure of it.
Even with a child he had to be careful. Maybe even more so. These people didn’t know him and to just ride the bike right up to them seemed like a dangerous idea. Bob parked the bike, threw down the kickstand, and walked the half mile toward the two men and a baby.
“You friendly?” Bob hollered across the dead highway.
One of the men hollered back, “What?”
“I said are you friendly?”
The two looked at each other in what Bob could only assume was confusion.
“Jesus fucking Christ goddamn generation of fucking morons,” he said to himself and then yelled, “Are you going to shoot me in the head if I approach?”
Again, the two looked at each other and then one cupped his hands around his mouth.
“No.”
No, I can’t approach, Bob thought or ‘no’ we aren’t going to shoot you in the face when you get over here?
Bob took his time approaching. He had shifted the pistol he had from the back of his pants to the front so that it would be easier to draw if he needed to. As he came up on the Jeep and the two young men – they couldn’t have been any older than their early twenties and he was right one was holding a sleeping baby – he knew his wouldn’t have to touch the handle of his gun. Both young men had red and swollen faces from crying and Bob saw off to th
e left of the highway there was a woman gathering rocks from all the 93 expansion. She was building a mound in the lush tall grass and wildflowers. Already there was a cross made of two sticks put together and tied with a piece of torn clothing.
“It would seem dickish of me to ask ‘how are you doing?’” Bob said, “Do you need any help?” he asked instead.
“Is there any help left out there?” Robby asked while he gently bounced the baby.
“No,” Bob said, “I don’t think there is. Where are you headed?”
“North,” Justin answered this time.
“That appears to be the consensus with anyone left alive.”
“Except you.”
“I went north. Got some good people where they needed to go. Now I have some things I need to do on a separate path.”
“Boston?”
“No.”
“Good. Avoid it. At all costs. You won’t survive.” Justin’s eyes looked away from Bob for just a moment to the grave that was being built beside the road.
“Thanks for the advice.”
Kat had placed her final stone. She came walking back to the group of men saturated in sweat and painted in dirt. Her hands were cut and bleeding from the digging and moving of stones. Robby returned the baby without being asked and a dirty Kat looked over Bob.
“Miss,” Bob said. He didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t think it would be appropriate to offer condolences to girl that he had just met and they all had lost someone since this outbreak of zombies had begun. Was there really any point in condolences any longer anyway?
“You heading for Boston?” she asked.
“No,” Justin answered for Bob, “We already warned him about that.”
“Good. We should be going.”
“Where is that if you don’t mind me asking?”
Kat turned and looked at Bob. She was quiet for a few seconds and then said, “North. Canada, I guess.”
“Any specific destination you kids have in mind?”
Beyond Dead | Book 4 | The Island Page 5
