Year of the Dead (Book 2) Read online

  Sheila thought about the fact that, having liked the look of the place, it had been she who suggested they stop there earlier in the day. The brothers had only been too happy to oblige her.

  And look what happened.

  When the windows of the house shattered, the flames reaching out into the cold and the darkness, Charlie said, “The ground’s too hard to bury him here.”

  “I know,” Sheila said. “We’ll take him with us, do something he would have liked.”

  With that, they climbed into the SUV and drove away.

  Monday, December 7th

  Snow covered the town in a thick, ivory blanket. Barry loved the pristine whiteness of it all, marred only by the bootprints he left behind. He only wished that Stephanie could have joined him on these little outings of his. But, alas, it was not meant to be. True, her seething hatred of him seemed to have cooled along with the weather, coming to resemble more of a dull sort of contempt. Still, he knew she would try to escape if given the opportunity. And so he kept her at home and under guard, did everything he could to ensure no such opportunity ever presented itself.

  She’ll come around, he told himself as he so often did. One of these days.

  In the aftermath of the superflu, he had welcomed his solitude, had needed nothing more than the company of the dead. The living, after all, had never been especially kind to him. But as the weeks and the months had passed, he had experienced a mounting sense of loneliness. Then…

  Stephanie.

  Just like that, a living person had been inserted into his life. And despite the contentious relationship—to put it mildly—they shared, Barry had soon realized he was in no hurry to see it end.

  Even if she thinks you’re a freak?

  To his relief, she had recently stopped using that particular term.

  There’s hope for us yet.

  He stood in the middle of the street, a few blocks from the medical center where his zombies had ambushed Stephanie and her traveling companion upon their arrival, the snow descending from the sky like an infinite host of tiny, fallen angels. Admiring it, Barry headed to The Book Stall, a cozy little store he used to visit on the weekends in order to feed his voracious reading appetite. Once there, a bell rang as he pushed his way inside, pausing to stomp his feet out of habit, dislodging the snow. On his way to the fantasy/science fiction aisle, he passed the counter where old Mrs. Eckersly used to ring up his purchases. The store had remained practically untouched during the looting in the early days of the outbreak. Apparently, reading material had not been high on the list of things to steal during the End Times.

  After ten minutes or so, Barry left the store with a “See ya next time” to the ghost of poor old Mrs. Eckersly, carrying a trio of books—two of them with spaceships on the cover, one with a tentacled monster—inside a plastic bag he had grabbed from behind the counter. Across the street, a gas generator grumbled away on the sidewalk in front of a pawnshop. It was not the only such device to be seen along this stretch of road. Several more had been placed next to other buildings, orange extension cables snaking their way in through open doorways, cables that Barry had connected to space heaters in order to keep the buildings’ interiors above freezing.

  Entering the pawnshop, he made his way past the moaning, shadowy figures occupying the place, milling about listlessly.

  How do they keep going? They haven’t eaten in ages.

  When he reached the staircase at the back of the building, he went up to the second-floor apartment he and Stephanie had recently moved into.

  “Honey, I’m home,” he said, moving along the hallway that would take him to the small living room. Once there, he found Stephanie asleep on the couch, an empty vodka bottle lying on the floor. At her insistence, Barry had acquired a supply of alcohol from a local bar. The remains of a fire crackled in the fireplace, filling the room with a tepid heat and the scent of wood smoke.

  With a sigh, Barry set his books on the coffee table. “She’ll come around,” he muttered, the words having become something of a mantra. “I know she will.”

  Tuesday, December 8th

  Dear Diary,

  The first big storm of the season has arrived in fine and furious fashion. (There’s a nice example of alliteration, Diary. Since we’ve moved to the school, I’ve been taking advantage of all the textbooks lying around. I just finished a section on poetry. And, yes, I’ve been thinking about trying my hand at a few poems. Like my stories, I doubt they’ll be very good. Not at first. But as they say, practice makes perfect…) This snow brings back memories from five years ago when we visited my Aunt Betty in Wisconsin over Christmas holiday. My dad and I built a snowman and afterward we had hot cocoa. God, I wish we had some hot cocoa now. Some way to keep the entire school warm would be nice, too. We have enough heaters and generators for the cafeteria. Which means everyone’s been spending the nights there since the cold has settled in.

  As for the snow… We got a good six inches last night. I stayed up late, sitting by the window, watching it fall. It was beautiful. Once the sun came up, I went outside and made a snow angel. I couldn’t help myself! When Luke showed up, I was ready with snowballs, nailed him a bunch of times before he even knew what him.

  “It won’t be long before you’re sick of it, wishing spring would arrive and make it all go away,” I’ve been told (or some variation of it) by more than a few of the people who grew up in these parts. They’re probably right, too. But that didn’t stop me from calling them Debbie Downers anyway. I guess that’s just the way some people are. I wonder, though, if they were always like that. Or maybe everything they’ve been through since the plague came along has something to do with it. I know I have my moments. That’s not going to keep me from enjoying the snow as much as I can, though. And as it turns out, there’s a really good reason to enjoy it.

  About an hour ago, Roger and his group returned from a supply run. From what they’re saying, the snow (or, more likely, the freezing temperatures) have shut the zombies down completely. We’ve known for a little while now that the colder weather has been making them sluggish. I saw it for myself when a few of them recently came near the school. Now it looks as though they’ve stopped moving altogether. Roger said the zombies they encountered while they were out had posed no threat to them whatsoever. They just stood there like statues, frozen in place. Or lay on the ground, snow covered lumps in the middle of the road, in the yards, on the sidewalks. He said that one of them, the way it was sitting there, reminded him of Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining. (A movie I’ve never seen, BTW, Diary. Mom and Dad thought I was too young to watch horror movies. Guess I’m not too young to live through one.)

  So it looks like I’ll be able to go outside more often now, play in the snow with the kids. The ones who were raised around here say they have a few games they can teach me, something I’m looking forward to.

  Wednesday, December 9th

  “Hey, what are you…?”

  From his crouched position, Simon took in the sight of Jocelyn standing in the doorway, nearly laughed when he saw the look on her face—a mixture of confusion and something approaching outright horror. He tried to imagine what could possibly engender a similar reaction in himself. Unsurprisingly, he came up empty.

  On the floor beside him, a flashlight cast weird, elongated shadows across the room. In front of him, a young man lay on the floor, staring up at the ceiling with a hopeless, empty expression. Simon had seen it many times in the past, worn by those who had endured too many indignities of the flesh, who now only wished for the suffering to stop, for it to all be over.

  Just past nightfall, while standing at the kitchen window of the townhouse where he and Jocelyn had been staying, Simon had stared into the darkness beyond, checking the street for any signs of troubling activity. A pack of zombies had gone by, too small to overly concern him. Then a lone figure moving with a steady gait had wandered past in the moonlight, head swiveling from side to side in search of danger.
<
br />   Complaining of exhaustion, Jocelyn had already gone upstairs to lie down.

  By now, she’s probably out cold, Simon had assured himself. She won’t even know I’m gone.

  Grabbing the gun and the flashlight from where they lay on the kitchen table, he had slipped out the front door of the townhouse. Moving with a stealthiness acquired through years of practice, he ascertained the young man he had seen was, in fact, alone. Sneaking up behind him, Simon had placed the barrel of the gun against the back of his head.

  “Don't move. Don't make a sound.”

  A minute later had found the two of them inside a townhouse, several removed from the one where Simon and Jocelyn were staying. They had gone upstairs, the gun pressed into the base of the young man’s spine. In the second floor bedroom, Simon had delivered a blow with the weapon he carried, sending the other man down to the carpeted floor, momentarily unconscious.

  Freeing the hunting knife strapped to his leg, Simon had cut long strips from the sheet covering the bed, used them to bind the wrists and ankles of his victim. Then he had used the knife to remove the man’s clothes who had begun to stir and groan in pain as he returned to consciousness. When he came to, Simon had asked him a single question:

  “What’s your name?”

  “Alex,” came the hesitant reply.

  After using a piece of discarded clothing for a gag, Simon had started to carve into Alex’s flesh, gently at first for there were many carvings yet to come. In the glow of the flashlight, Simon tortured his victim for over an hour, watching him twist and writhe, trying to get away. These movements became less pronounced as, one by one, key tendons and ligaments were severed, as reserves of strength began to fade. Normally, Simon would have drawn out the process, kept poor Alex alive for days. But he knew that, despite Jocelyn’s insistence they were one and the same, she would not have approved of this level of barbarism. And despite himself, he found that he liked having her around, that in some way he had come to value her opinion of him. He thought it best to feed his own particular hunger and be done with it, to limit any chance that Jocelyn might discover what he had done. So he had flayed and peeled and stabbed until…

  An unexpected voice had caught his attention, pulled him out of the moment, disturbed the deep and abiding joy flowing throughout his being.

  “I woke up,” said Jocelyn in a small voice from the doorway, “and you were gone. I was worried so I went looking for you. I saw a light in the window.”

  In that room of long shadows, they stared at one another while the young man on the floor mewled and whined, offered a half-hearted spasm.

  “Who is he?” Jocelyn asked.

  “No one,” Simon told her.

  In a flash of inspiration, he held the bloody knife out to her. She only stood there, eyes wide and unblinking. Then she backed away from the doorway, melting into the darkness beyond.

  Simon returned his attention to the carved, bloody thing on the floor. With a sigh, he used the blade one last time, putting an end to his fun. Then he left the room, went in search of the woman who, after this, had to realize they were not so similar after all.

  Thursday, December 10th

  Susanna got up from the mattress, pulled on a pair of boots and a jacket, then pried loose the section of floorboard at the base of the wall next to where she slept. In the darkness, she found the key hidden behind the floorboard by sense of touch. She had been afraid it would be discovered during the search—the ransacking—that had occurred a week and a half ago. Luckily, it had evaded detection despite the thorough tossing the guards had given the place. Donning a cap and a pair of gloves, she approached the barracks door—the deadbolt holding it shut could be unlocked from either side—pausing before it as a terrible thought occurred to her:

  What if, one day when I was out working, they changed the lock?

  The more she thought about it, the more sense it made.

  They have to know a set of keys is missing. Right?

  There was only one way to find out, she knew. Maybe fate or the universe or whatever would cut her one last break.

  “Please,” she whispered.

  Sticking the key in the lock, she gave it a turn.

  Click.

  “Thank you…”

  Opening the door, she headed out into the full force of the blizzard that had settled in shortly before dusk. By Susanna's estimate, it was now sometime after midnight. Hoping the hour and the weather would allow her to move about the grounds undetected, she trudged away from the barracks, head lowered against the wind. Eight or nine inches of powdery snow covered the ground, pulling at her feet every time she took a step. A minute or so into her journey, the artificial lighting near the barracks faded away, consumed by the storm. She felt relieved she had not been discovered, a mounting concern that she may have wandered off course, that she had gotten lost in the frigid, howling gale. When the shed appeared out of the swirling darkness, just as she hoped it would, she went around back and kicked through the snow, trying to locate—

  There!

  On her knees, she cleared away a patch of snow, tossed aside the rocks she had placed over the handgun. Then she was up and moving again, off into the night and the tempest’s fury.

  Three days ago, Susanna had gone to the “children’s camp” for the first time. She and a couple of the other women had been sent there to aid in the construction of a cage much like the one in which seven of her fellow prisoners, so far, had been fed to the undead. During the trip, she had seen Dominick standing in a line with several other children his age, next to a building nearly identical to the barracks where she had spent her nights ever since arriving at the Farm. Later that evening, it was announced whoever was responsible for killing the guard and burying him in the woods had until the weekend to offer a confession. If not…

  “We will start selecting children to go into the cage.”

  It was then Susanna told herself she had waited long enough.

  At the first opportunity, I go.

  Now here she was, going…

  Hopefully, the right way.

  Bone deep, relentless cold assaulted her. Flitting, swarming specks of white danced through the omnipresent black. Then, from out of nowhere—

  Light!

  It appeared out of the darkness to her right, growing brighter as it neared, separating into a pair of distinct, white beams.

  Headlights.

  She had stumbled onto one of the dirt roads that joined the camps without even realizing it.

  Turning to face the approaching vehicle, she stood in what she assumed was the middle of the road and waited. The pickup truck with its big, knobby tires and raised suspension stopped less than ten feet from Susanna, the rumbling of its engine audible over the storm. Holding the gun behind her back, she went to the driver side door, knowing that if more than one person occupied the vehicle things might get complicated.

  The window rolled down and a bearded face stared out at her.

  “What the hell you doing out here?”

  Susanna shook her head, pretending not to hear.

  The door swung open and the interior light came on.

  He’s alone.

  “I said, what are—?”

  Susanna pointed the gun at the man.

  “Out,” she commanded.

  “Hold on a minute…”

  “Out,” Susanna repeated, filling the word with as much menace as she could summon. “Now.”

  With a curse, the driver climbed out of the vehicle. Susanna figured that by the time he reached the nearest camp and raised the alarm, she would have long finished with the plan forming in her mind this frozen, blustery evening.

  Inside the truck, she took a moment to soak in the heat blasting out of the air vents. Then she drove off in search of the children as the wind continued to howl, a dead man’s pistol lying on the seat next to her.

  Friday, December 11th

  We should have taken care of them when we had the chance. Every last
one of them.

  But now it was too late. The weather had warmed. The snow had melted. And the zombies were on the move.

  Directly toward Mt. Washington.

  Marco stood in his usual spot on the observation platform, the pallid glow of twilight providing enough illumination for him to see the maneuverings of the undead creatures. A vast horde of them filed onto the bridges that would take them over the river to Marco’s refuge on the hill. A large number of zombies had already made it across, spreading out as they shambled and shuffled their way toward the slope leading up to the fence separating them from Marco and his soldiers.

  From one of the other platforms came the repetitive crack! of rifle fire. The order had been given to take down as many of the monsters as possible. Bodies lay sprawled along the near side of the river, giving the appearance of a massacre. In comparison to the amount of zombies pouring out of the city, though…

  “A drop in the bucket,” said Marco under his breath.

  “What was that, boss?” asked Sanchez from where he stood next to Marco.

  “Nothing. Just talking to myself.”

  “The fence will hold. Won’t it?” This from a woman behind Marco.

  Fifteen or so people had crowded onto the platform once news of the zombie exodus had gotten around.

  “It’ll hold,” said Marco loud enough for everyone to hear. Whether it would or not, he had no idea. Sure, the sturdy, metal barrier had done its job until now, easily holding off ten or more zombies simultaneously at various times in the past. But what Marco saw coming their way now was another matter entirely.

  When night fell, flares were shot into the sky, casting a hellish, red glow over the proceedings. The zombies had arrived en masse, relentlessly scaling the hill despite the constant sniper fire. Most of Marco’s soldiers stood near the fence, unloading round after round into the masses of the hungry dead. Grenades exploded, opening holes among the ranks of crimson-eyed monsters, only to be filled by a seemingly endless supply of new arrivals.