Dead Heat: A Hollow Dead Novel

by Young, D. M.

  His gun was in his hand, and he was staring into the room. Matt called his name, and Bill turned to face him. His face was expressionless as he spoke. “The side door was open. I guess one of those things must have shown up before we got here. She’d locked herself in this room. When I opened the door, she came at me. She was – I mean – Well, anyway,…” Bill sighed deeply, and tears began to run down his face. He sobbed a few times and then took a deep breath and composed himself. He looked back into the room for another few seconds and then back at Matt who was standing frozen at the other end of the hallway.

  Matt wanted to speak, but he had no idea what to say. Before he could collect his thoughts, Bill spoke again, “We celebrated our twenty-fifth anniversary last month.”

  With that, Bill raised his gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER 18

  Alicia sat on the bed to avoid the bloody scene in her living room. She’d tried to call 911 roughly a thousand times now. Nothing was going through. Clearly, something was going on out there that she didn’t know about.

  Now, she pulled up Facebook and scrolled through her feed hoping to figure out what it was. She saw a few posts about something that had happened at the hospital. Digging deeper, she found more of the story. So, whatever had happened at Ray’s trailer and here in her house tonight had also happened at the hospital. The last post was from a few hours before.

  Ray stepped out of the bathroom, freshly showered. His hair was wet, and he was wearing one of her old oversized tee shirts. His jeans were still stained with blood. She could see wet spots where he had cleaned them as well as he could, but there was really no way to get the blood out without a full wash. She figured this wasn’t the best time to have his only pair of jeans in the washer. Still, he looked a little less like a crazy axe murderer now.

  She called him over and motioned for him to sit beside her on the bed. “The calls still aren’t going through, but check this out.” She handed him the phone, allowing him to read the post about the hospital.

  Ray read it and the handful of comments below it. Then he handed the phone back. “People eating each other. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” He was quiet for a moment before continuing. “It looks like the cops are going to be busy for a while. So, what the hell are we supposed to do, just sit around with a couple of dead bodies until they find the time to come and check it out?”

  Alicia sat the phone down and lay down on the bed, her arms crossed behind her head. “I don’t know. We could try to drive down to the station ourselves and report it in person. They still might not get out here any quicker, though. At least, we wouldn’t be sitting in the house with…them.”

  “Yeah, there’s that,” Ray said. “I’ve done some shit in my life, but I’ve never killed anyone before. I don’t think there was anything else I could have done, but I still don’t want to sit here and look at the guy. I feel sick enough already.”

  “Then again, we might be better to stay put,” Alicia said. “I’m afraid, if we go out, we’ll run into more of those people. In that fog, we might not see them until it’s too late.”

  Ray murmured his agreement. They heard noises from outside. It sounded like the neighbors were talking. They heard car doors slamming. Alicia stood up and grabbed the shotgun. “That’s coming from Clara Bingham’s house next door. I forgot that she works for the sheriff’s department. Let’s see if we can catch her. She might know something.”

  Ray followed her outside through the kitchen door to the driveway. At the house next door, a man was loading a heavy suitcase into the trunk of a car while a woman attempted to shove another suitcase into the backseat.

  “Clara,” Alicia called out as she approached the woman. The woman spun around, startled.

  Recognizing Alicia, Clara relaxed and walked over to meet her. “Keep your voice down. Don’t want to draw any attention to ourselves. I guess you heard what was going on.”

  “Not really,” Alicia replied, “I heard you guys and came to see if you could tell me anything. I don’t know if you heard the gunshots a while ago, but some people, a man and a woman, barged into my house and tried to attack us. Ray killed the man, and I had to shoot the woman. I’ve called, but I can’t get through to 911.”

  Clara looked nervous and took a step backwards, “Did they bite you?”

  Alicia’s eyes narrowed. Not even a question about the whole killing thing? “No, but the man was attacking the woman when they came through the door. What’s going on?”

  Clara looked relieved, “People have been attacking each other. It’s just like Ray told us this morning. A bunch of folks went crazy up at the hospital. I don’t even know everything that happened, but I know you don’t want to get bitten. My advice would be to pack your stuff and get out of town as quickly as possible. That’s what we’re doing.”

  A car was coming down the street now. They turned to face it as it passed, and the driver hit the brakes and reversed. The car pulled into the driveway beside Clara’s car. Matt stepped out of the driver’s side, and Clara waved him over. He joined them in the driveway, and Melissa stepped out of the car to follow him. Alicia recognized her and waved.

  “Did you hear about the hospital?” Clara asked Matt.

  “I was there. Saw the whole thing. Bill was with me, but…” Matt dropped his head.

  “Oh my God,” Clara said quietly, “Does Susan know?”

  “She’s gone, too,” Matt said gently. “Clara, I’m sorry.”

  Clara clapped her hand over her mouth, and her face went white.

  Matt put his hand on her shoulder to comfort her, “Look, we can’t stand out here talking about this. It’s not safe. If you want to go inside, I can give you the short version. Then we’re leaving. Looks like you guys are planning to do the same.”

  Clara invited them into the small living room and shut the door. They huddled just inside the door as Clara told them what she had heard as she wiped tears from her eyes. “I got a text just before 2 a.m. from Eric, one of the deputies,” she added for the sake of the others. “He was at the hospital and wanted to let me know what was going on. He told me about what happened with Brody,” Clara eyed Matt for a moment. Alicia wondered what that was all about.

  Finally, Clara continued “Anyway, his last text said they were being attacked again. When I didn’t hear anything else, I woke Joe. We decided we’d stay at our daughter’s place for a few days. We’re trying to catch her before she leaves for work. She lives over in Marshall Springs so it usually doesn’t take more than a half an hour to get there. ‘Course, the fog is going to make it a little slower, but still...”

  Matt picked up the story from there, going back to fill in some of the blanks for Alicia and Ray. He told them about Brody and the second attack on the hospital and what happened at Bill’s house. He held nothing back, and nobody called him crazy or objected when he referred to the attackers as zombies. When he was finished, Alicia explained what had happened at her house.

  The whole thing took fewer than ten minutes. They all stepped back outside. As Clara and Joe locked the house up and pulled out of the drive, Alicia turned to Matt, “I think you’re right. Considering what you just told us, I think it’s best if we just leave. I hate to ask, but would you guys stay long enough for us to get a few things together and throw them in the car? Safety in numbers and all.”

  “Actually, I think that might be best. It was hell just trying to get across town in this fog, and morning is so close.” Melissa said looking at Matt, “Why don’t we just stay here and help them get packed up. We could help them move the bodies outside. They sure don’t want them shut up inside the house while they’re gone. Then, once the sun comes up, we’ll leave.”

  Matt agreed, and they moved their conversation indoors. Melissa looked at Alicia, “Where are you guys planning to go?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea. Until now, we didn’t plan on leaving at all. Any ideas?” she asked.

  “Well,” Melissa replied,
“Now that you mention it, I don’t think we’d settled on a destination either. We’ve got an aunt in Missouri, but she’s not big on visitors. Matt seems to think that the governor will send in the Guard and get this all cleaned up pretty quickly. So, we really just need somewhere to stay while we wait it out.”

  Ray spoke up, “We could head up past the lake and keep going on across the state line. Might be a hotel or something up that way where we could spend a few nights. You think that’ll give them long enough to get their shit together?”

  “Maybe,” Matt said, “If it isn’t, we’ll just wait, I guess. I’ll see what information I can get once we get out of here. Right now, let’s take care of the bodies.”

  Alicia pointed, “They’re still lying in the foyer. We didn’t want to move them until the cops showed up.”

  “Well, you know how it is with cops. Bastards are never around when you need ‘em,” Ray said, smirking at Matt.

  Alicia glared at him, but Matt ignored the statement and stepped through the door of the living room. “Fuck me!” he said staring at the mess. Alicia followed behind him. Looking at the foyer now, she understood his reaction. It was a disaster area. Blood and bits of flesh were splattered across the walls and the front door. The ceiling was splattered with blood, and the carpets were saturated around the bodies.

  Matt’s shoulders slumped. “We’ll go ahead and move them, but we don’t have time to clean this up. I’m not sure we even should since the police haven’t been out. We probably shouldn’t even move the bodies, but I think they’ll understand. Truthfully, you’re probably going to need to get a professional cleaner in here when you get back. The carpet will have to go, and…”

  Matt’s words trailed off as stepped closer to the dead woman. He stared in horror. He turned to look at the body of the man beside her. He was lying face down, and his head was bashed in.

  “He ran over the nurse,” Matt spoke the words without realizing it.

  “What?” Melissa asked from the doorway of the kitchen, and Matt snapped back to reality.

  “I – the woman is Brody’s wife. Those are the same clothes she was wearing at the hospital last night, and I recognize the necklace. That man, he ran out of the hospital as we were shooting. He backed over one of the zombies. I remember the ripped khakis, and he was limping pretty badly. How the hell did they end up here?”

  No one answered. “Alright. Nothing to do for them now, I guess. Let’s get them outside,” he said.

  Alicia brought two pairs of kitchen gloves. Matt and Ray put them on and got to work. Melissa followed Alicia to the bedroom to help her pack.

  “I’m surprised to see Ray here,” Melissa said casually.

  Alicia rolled her eyes, “Yeah, I’m not thrilled, but he had nowhere else to go. I mean, there’s a reason for that. The man has pissed off everyone he knows, but I still felt a little sorry for him today with the whole Amber thing.”

  Melissa shook her head. “Trouble just seems to find that man.”

  “That’s the damned truth,” Alicia said as she threw an empty suitcase on the bed.

  Alicia wasn’t interested in discussing Ray’s presence right now. She knew Melissa didn’t like him, but she couldn’t leave him without a place to go, not tonight. Thankfully, Melissa said nothing else about it. When they were done packing, Alicia moved to the kitchen to pack up some food, and the others joined her.

  CHAPTER 19

  Adam Keeling peeked out of the curtains that covered the front window. The heavy fog still obscured the view of everything beyond the front yard. Still, as far as he could tell, no one had responded to his emergency call. Even through the fog, he should have seen some hint of lights. He certainly would have heard the sirens, but the night outside the window was as still as ever.

  He returned to the kitchen chair that he’d positioned near the door and dialed 911 again. It was busy. Not a good sign. The police should have gotten control of the hospital situation by now. If they were still that busy, something else must have happened. He wondered if he should wake the others, but then realized he had nothing concrete to tell them.

  Adam thought about everything that had happened since yesterday morning, and wondered at just how quickly a person’s whole belief system could be turned upside down. Yesterday, he would have laughed at the very idea of flesh-eating zombies wandering the streets of Hollow Springs. He had always been a logical person. He believed in facts and statistics.

  He understood the desire to believe in the afterlife, but he couldn’t convince himself that there was any such thing. Death was final. You lived; you died. The world continued spinning without you. Yet, here he was sitting in a stranger’s house, hoping that the dead would not find him.

  He guessed, for him, it all came down to evidence. Granted, he’d seen no definitive proof that the homicidal creatures at the hospital were dead, but he was standing right beside the bed when Brody sat up. All the fancy medical equipment said he had no heartbeat. He wasn’t breathing. The nurses who checked his vitals and found nothing. Adam himself had seen no signs of life. Then, without warning, Brody sat up, grabbed the nurse, and tore her throat out.

  That should have killed her, but, minutes later, she was running through the hospital attacking other people. Then there was the matter of the truck’s driver and passenger. Could they have survived that wreck? Maybe. Was it likely that they had? Nope. None of this was absolute proof, but it was damned close. Close enough for him, anyway.

  From the hallway, Booger coughed and Adam snapped out of his thoughts. He watched as the old man stepped carefully over the dog that was stretched across the living room floor and made his way to the window. Booger pushed the curtains aside and stared out the window for a moment before grabbing a chair and pulling it up beside Adam’s.

  “Anything happening out there?” Booger asked as he carefully dropped into the chair and groaned quietly.

  Adam shook his head, “No, and that’s the thing. Nobody has even responded to the accident. It’s been totally quiet.”

  Booger’s eyes narrowed. “You try calling ‘em again?”

  “Yeah, it wouldn’t even go through. Just got a busy signal.”

  Booger raised his eyebrows at this news. “Well, that’s not good. I wish this fog would let up so we could see more’n ten feet. It’s not long ‘til morning now. The sun will burn it off real quick, but we could be surrounded by those things by then. Hell, they could be wandering around out there in the street right now, and we wouldn’t know it.”

  Adam smirked grimly. “I could have done without that thought,”

  Booger shrugged, “It’s the truth. Anyway, I’m up. If you want to get a couple of hours of sleep in before we head out, go ahead. I’ll keep watch.”

  Adam stood up and stretched, “Nah, I’m not tired. I will fix myself a drink if you don’t mind.”

  “Go ahead and grab you something,” Booger said, “I got some canned Cokes in the fridge, if you want one. There’s a package of cookies on the counter and some sandwich fixin’s, if you’re hungry.”

  “Just a drink will be fine, thanks” Adam said and opened the refrigerator.

  In the living room Sammy stood up and stretched. The sound of the refrigerator door had gotten his attention, and he padded over to Adam, hoping for an early breakfast.

  Booger saw this. “I think the dog’s hungry. Give him a couple of pieces of that sliced ham and a slice of bread. That should tide him over for a while.”

  Adam opened the package of ham, made a half-sandwich, and held it out for Sammy. The dog swallowed it in a couple of bites and stood waiting for another, his tail thumping against the cabinet.

  Adam grinned, “Nope, buddy. That’s all you get for now.” Sammy stared at him for a moment, chuffed, and then began sniffing the floor in search of crumbs.

  The others were stirring now. Booger repeated his speech about drinks and food for their benefit, and Rose made her way to the kitchen.

  “Do you mind if I mak
e some coffee?” she asked already filling the pot with water.

  “Fine with me,” Booger replied from his chair, “so long as you make it a strong. I can’t stand brown water, and I have a feeling we’re going to need the energy before this day’s over with.”

  While Rose made the coffee, everyone else grabbed drinks and food. Gracie grabbed a cookie and a Coke and returned to the blanket on the floor. Sammy joined her and rolled over, waiting for a belly rub to start his day. Adam saw this and joined them on the blanket, rubbing Sammy’s tummy so that Gracie could eat her cookie. Rose poured Booger a cup of coffee with cream at his request. Eventually, they all settled back down in the living room to wait for the sun to rise and finalize their escape plan.

  Booger spoke first, “Doc says nobody came to check on the wreck last night. I’d say that’s a bad sign.”

  Edward’s brow furrowed. He looked at Adam, “Did you try calling them again to see if maybe they just got busy and forgot? I wouldn’t think that was possible on a normal day, but last night was…unusual.”

  Adam shook his head, “I don’t think they just forgot. The phone lines have been busy all night. I can’t even get a call through. I think something more must have happened overnight.”

  Booger leaned forward in his chair. “The cabin’s about ten miles out of town, not too far from the lake, but further up the mountain. Not a lot of folks live up that far. Land’s rugged and the roads are pretty rough up that way. Still, I suggested going there because I figured this thing would be mostly over by morning. If things has got worse, the cabin might not be far enough away.”