Year of the Dead (Book 2) Read online

  Nature abhors a vacuum, thought Marco with grim humor, recalling the line from a science show he remembered seeing. He maintained his position on the observation deck, watching the carnage below, wondering if the fence really would hold or if he should give the order to fall back, to relinquish the hill.

  It might be too late for that.

  Reports were coming in. The zombies had them surrounded on all sides.

  “Kill them all!” Marco shouted into the fray. “Every last one of them!”

  On and on the zombies approached, scrambling and clawing their way up the hill, seemingly possessed by some new energy acquired during their days of hibernation. Gunshots and explosions rang out in an endless cacophony.

  “Boss, look,” Sanchez shouted into his ear, pointing toward the city.

  Marco saw it: a light flashing on and off atop one of the taller buildings.

  Some sort of signal?

  “Where’s Jimmy?” Marco asked aloud, struck by the realization he had not seen the kid since nightfall.

  “No idea,” came Sanchez’s distracted reply.

  A memory:

  Sitting in his living room with the kid, smoking stale cigarettes and watching the snow come down through the obscenely wide bay window. Jimmy telling him about life in the city following the outbreak, the office building where he and a band of fellow survivors had been staying. How they used to go to the roof at night and watch as the lights came on across the top of Mt. Washington.

  “The others resented whoever lived up there. Hated them. ‘They’ve got it so good.’ I got sick of hearing them talk about it, hearing them complain. So I left even though I had no idea if I would make it. Just knowing I had to try…”

  The light continued to flash. On. Off. On. Off. Until…

  Marco heard the roar of an explosion from the direction of the gate.

  He left the observation platform, took off running, Sanchez right behind him. Before long, he came within sight of the ruined gate, the two dead soldiers lying in the street. Further on, he saw the headlights of multiple vehicles headed their way. Zombies, too many to count, wandered toward the opening while a small, lithe figure moved among them, past them.

  Another memory:

  “I got sick early on,” Jimmy was telling him. “Thought for sure I was gonna die. But I didn’t. Lucky, I guess. In more ways than one. The zombies…” He had fallen silent then, shaking his head.

  Why am I thinking about that now?

  Whatever the reason, it would have to wait. Freeing the handgun strapped to his hip, Marco took aim at the first set of approaching headlights, squeezed the trigger until the clip was empty.

  I need some real firepower.

  “Let's go,” he told Sanchez, backing away from the gate. He realized he was smiling.

  Nothing like a little excitement to get the blood pumping.

  Marco laughed. It was good to be alive. Even when the odds were against remaining that way for much longer.

  Saturday, December 12th

  Rachel and Howard loitered near the side of the road a few blocks from the hotel where they had been staying. Overhead, a large military helicopter flew by, the second such aircraft they had seen in the past ten minutes. Rachel could tell from Howard’s fidgeting that the sight of the military machines, the thwup-thwup-thwup of their rotors was making him nervous.

  “We shouldn’t be out here,” he said, giving voice to his anxiety.

  “You’re probably right,” Rachel conceded. “Let’s head back to the hotel.”

  Along the way, Howard kept casting glances at the sky.

  “We should think about leaving Tampa. Maybe leave Florida altogether.”

  “Why? Expecting trouble?” Rachel wanted to know, rubbing her hands together. Temperatures had been dropping over recent days. Nothing like what the northern states were experiencing, Rachel assumed, but more than cold enough for her liking.

  “Got a bad feeling is all.”

  Howard had been around a lot longer than Rachel and through a lot more. When he said he had a “bad feeling” about something, Rachel knew not to take it lightly. For all she knew, it had been a long succession of bad feelings—warnings formulated in the more primitive parts of his brain—that had helped keep him alive this long.

  “Any idea where we’d go?” she asked as they walked.

  “Not really,” he admitted. “No shortage of possibilities, I suppose. Don’t know if the destination’s all that important. Might just be the going that matters.”

  As they neared the hotel, increasing numbers of zombies came into view. Rachel’s “entourage,” as Howard often referred to them, stared as they went by, silent witnesses to their passing.

  Well, mostly silent, thought Rachel.

  The zombies moaned and growled in their usual way. Though they posed no threat to Rachel, they still made a rather intimidating sight, even if the majority of them looked more pathetic than frightening these days. Time had not been kind to the undead. Whatever strange science animated them could not fend off the effects of entropy and starvation. Some of the creatures resembled little more than stick figures, always on the verge of toppling over. Most of them had lost some if not all of their hair by now. Their skin looked like old parchment left too long in the sun, rough and brittle and easily torn.

  “Can you still… hear it?” Howard inquired as they approached the hotel’s front entrance.

  Rachel did not have to ask what he meant by “it,” knew exactly what he referred to.

  “Yes,” she told him. “A little less each day.”

  Like a broadcast satellite traveling away from Earth, its transmission weakening with distance, so too had the “voice” of the Other continued to fade as the drug she had been given worked its way out of her system.

  It won’t be long, she felt certain, until we won't be able to hear each other at all.

  The thought did not comfort her as much as it should have.

  Damn, I think I’m going to miss it.

  Unbidden, an image came to mind: a child on the verge of tears, waving goodbye. Translation:

  I will miss you, too.

  In the hotel, they took stock of their possessions, ascertaining what would come with them and what they should leave behind.

  “So does that mean you want to do this?” asked Howard, a hopeful look in his eye.

  “I guess it does,” Rachel said with a nod of consideration. “You’re right. We’ve spent enough time around these parts.” She thought about all the days and nights Major Daniels had held her captive. “More than enough.”

  A subtle but noticeable tension left Howard’s body, the tight-lipped expression adorning his features morphing into something like a grin.

  I owe him this, Rachel told herself. And more.

  Together, they packed what they needed for the journey ahead, wherever it might lead.

  Sunday, December 13th

  If the light glaring through the window had not awakened him, the engine’s roar definitely would have. The amplified voice only helped to seal the deal.

  “Hello in there, ladies… Sisters… Would you mind coming outside so we can talk face to face?”

  The voice had a southern drawl to it, a good ol’ boy quality that may have been charming under any number of other circumstances.

  Pastor Lewis got out of bed and approached the window, moved out of the way when the spotlight swiveled in his direction.

  “Me and my boys, we’re just looking for a little companionship. That’s all. No one’s going to get hurt. Scout’s honor.”

  The engine roared once again as someone stomped the accelerator pedal of the monster truck parked at the gate. The pastor, moving cautiously toward the window once again, could make out a pair of figures standing in the back of the truck, peering over the roof.

  Four altogether? he wondered, counting the driver and an inside passenger if there was one. He had no way of knowing for sure in the darkness.

  “It’s been
a while,” the voice went on, “too long, really, since we’ve enjoyed the company of women. Actual, living women that is.”

  Pastor Lewis had seen and heard enough. In the nearly nonexistent lighting, he left the room then made his way along the hallway and into the foyer. By the time he got there, the quartet of nuns with whom he shared the convent was already waiting for him. The sight of them with their hair down, wearing terrycloth robes or modest nightgowns served as a momentary distraction. Another roar of the engine outside grounded him in the moment once again.

  “What do we do?” asked Sister Clara, standing closest to the pastor.

  “I’ll go talk to them,” offered Sister Margaret, looking somewhat less stern than usual sans the predominantly black attire of her order.

  “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Pastor Lewis objected.

  “I’ll go talk to them,” she repeated. “Do whatever you feel is necessary to ensure the safety of these girls.”

  A couple minutes later, after the owner of the amplified voice threatened to drive the truck through the gate, Sister Margaret opened the front door of the convent and went outside. Positioned near the bedroom window once again, Pastor Lewis watched as the elder nun came to a stop halfway across the grounds, hands clasped behind her back, her bearing regal and unafraid.

  “Well, look what we have here,” emitted the voice from the truck.

  The spotlight beam had zeroed in on the sister who said something Pastor Lewis could not hear.

  The response: “You expect us to believe you’ve been living out here all by your lonesome?”

  After opening the window a couple of inches, Pastor Lewis grabbed the shotgun leaning against the wall next to the bed. He imagined the younger nuns doing much the same, holding the weapons he and Clara had brought back from their trip into town, that they had practiced using behind the main building of the convent. Some of the things Brother Randall had taught the pastor in their time together had come back to him. He had equipped the nuns with the lighter gauge rifles and shotguns scavenged from the derelict sheriff’s office, kept the double barrel twelve gauge for himself.

  “It would be a real shame if you’re lying to me,” said the amplified voice with all of its southern charm. “Davey… Give her some idea of what will happen if she’s lying.”

  Pastor Lewis saw movement from the back of the truck, followed by a flash of light and the crack! of gunfire. A spark jumped off the walkway near Sister Margaret’s feet.

  Okay, then, thought Pastor Lewis, wishing it never would have come to this, knowing all along that it would. He slid the twin barrels of the shotgun through the opening of the window. And just as the voice from the truck said, “I'll have him put the next one—”

  The pastor opened fire.

  Sparks ignited off the metal gate. One of the truck’s headlights went out and its PA system offered a piercing squawk. Sister Margaret turned and hurried back to the convent. Then the night was filled with a chorus of barking weaponry as the nuns joined in on the action. By the time the shooting had ceased, the truck’s spotlight, headlights, and engine had stopped working.

  Everyone met in the foyer once again. Reloading his shotgun, Pastor Lewis told the others he would go out and assess the situation.

  He turned to Sister Clara. “I’ll need the key to the gate.”

  The night was cold and quiet. At the truck, the pastor found the bullet riddled bodies of four men: two up front and two in the back. Standing there, taking in what he and the sisters had done, the pastor tried to figure out how he felt about it, realized he felt nothing.

  Not yet.

  “God is great,” he said in a low voice as he headed back to the convent and the waiting nuns. “God is wrath…”

  Monday, December 14th

  “Where you headed?” asked the woman.

  Rhonda, the man reminded himself, the famous Beach Boys song playing in his head. Her name is Rhonda.

  He had always been bad with names, often forgetting them within moments of hearing them, a shortcoming that had led to embarrassment on past occasions. So he was making a point of remembering the name of the first person with whom he had exchanged words in weeks.

  “Nowhere in particular,” he replied. “Rhonda.”

  Snow fell out of a slate gray sky, enough of it in recent days to cover the ground up to his knees. During the latter part of the journey that had brought him to this place, he had found a decent pair of boots along with some thick socks to keep his feet warm. As for the rest of his cold weather gear, he wore long johns, a pair of jeans, a hunter’s cap, a heavy coat, and a pair of faux leather gloves.

  From nearby, a gunshot went off, causing him to flinch, then another one from slightly further away. Movement seen out of the corner of his eye drew his attention to a large man using a sledgehammer to crush the skull of a motionless zombie shrouded in snow. There must have been close to a hundred of the undead things lined up along a wide section of wooden fencing, leaning against it or sitting on the ground. None of them moved. When any of the twenty or so living, breathing people milling about got close to them, ready to put them out of their undead existences once and for all, the zombies did nothing to prevent their imminent demise.

  Like hibernating animals, thought the man with the faux leather gloves, unaware of anything taking place around them. Then he corrected himself: No, more like robots with empty power supplies.

  Returning his attention to Rhonda, the man had to admit she had a pretty face despite the red nose and the chapped lips. A pretty smile, too, when she decided to show it, which she did as she gazed at the dog standing in the snow at their feet.

  “He got a name?”

  “She,” said the man. “Her name’s Goldie.”

  “Goldie, huh?” Rhonda squatted down, reached out and patted the dog on the head. “Looks like you’ve kept her pretty well fed, all things considered. She must mean a lot to you.”

  “Yeah, she does.”

  The man wondered why he was having this conversation, what had possessed him to stop when he chanced upon these people. Although, the reason was pretty obvious. Loneliness. It had been a good, long while since he had spoken to anyone at all let alone been around such a large group of people. And he found that he enjoyed it, had been caught a little off guard by how much so.

  Standing up, Rhonda said, “You’re welcome to stick around, if you want. Unless you’ve got somewhere else you need to be.”

  The idea had its appeal.

  “I appreciate the offer,” he said. “But I have to ask… What makes you think you can trust me? For all you know, I could be a bad guy, some sort of lunatic.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. With all that’s been going on, a bad guy would never have taken care of Goldie here the way you have.”

  The man found this to be rather flimsy evidence of his good intentions. But why argue? Instead, he looked at Goldie.

  “What do you say, girl? You want to stay for a little while? See how it goes?”

  The dog barked and wagged its tail.

  “I guess you have your answer,” said Rhonda.

  When asked if he minded helping out with the “dispatching” going on around them, the man’s thoughts went to his wife, what the red-eyed, ravenous creatures had done to her.

  “Not at all,” he replied.

  Then he showed Rhonda and everyone else how much he meant it.

  Tuesday, December 15th

  Eric sat up, heart racing, the remnants of the dream clinging to his waking mind—the same dream that had awakened him the previous two nights:

  Running with the slow motion speed of nightmares. A dark figure chasing him through the hallways of the apartment complex. Trying random doors, finding them locked, pounding on them to no avail. The figure gaining ground. The lights in the building fading to black. And a voice…

  “You’re one of us now,” Eric whispered.

  Outside, the wind shrieked and moaned. Snowflakes ta
pped against the window.

  The dream. Was it his subconscious mind’s way of warning him, trying to tell him something? Something he already knew?

  In the room’s darkness, he reached out and lay a hand on Amanda’s slumbering form, taking comfort in her presence. The wind howled like some ancient spirit come to warn the building’s residents: You reside on hallowed ground. The storm had rolled in two days ago, making its nasty disposition clear from the onset.

  “Not to worry,” Buck had informed the building’s residents after they had all gathered in the main lobby. “We’ve got plenty of provisions to ride this thing out. All the essentials: light, heat, food, water…”

  “And beer,” said one of the guards. “Let’s not forget about the beer.”

  That got a scattered round of applause and laughter.

  “What do you say, folks?” Buck had asked. “Maybe we should have us a blizzard party.”

  That had sounded just fine to pretty much everyone present. Eric had kept the drinking to a minimum, a practice instituted following his basement bash with the not-so-dearly departed Tory. Not that it had been easy. The temptation to get fall down drunk, to escape from the world around him—and his mounting fears—at least for a little while nagged at him. He knew that he needed to keep his wits about him, though, stay mentally prepared for whatever was headed his way. Because there was something, he felt sure of it. And he felt equally sure that Buck was the one who would bring it.

  The blizzard continued to wage its assault on the building as Eric sat on the bed, thinking about the dream that had chased him out of sleep, what it meant, and what he should do about it.

  We should go, he told himself. Right now. Before anyone realizes we’re gone.

  “Amanda.” He nudged her. “Wake up.”

  Fifteen minutes later found Eric, Amanda, and Mitchell bundled up against the cold, Mitchell pulling on his boots, eyes puffy with sleep. Much of what they wore had come from the cache of garments kept in one of the ground floor apartments. In lieu of a rope, Eric had tied together some bed sheets, their combined length enough for what he had in mind.