Year of the Dead (Book 2) Read online

  I guess you need red eyes and a limp to be seen as a threat around here.

  By nightfall, he had acquired a room in a house where three others currently resided, close to the woods at the edge of town. The room came furnished with a comfortable bed. The bathroom down the hall offered running water. All told, things could have been a lot worse. He was among people once again, nearly fourteen hundred of them at last count—or so he had been told. Plenty of opportunity to feed the hunger calling for his attention more insistently as the days went by. How long had it been since he had last given in to it?

  Too long.

  With some planning and a little bit of luck, he would be able to correct that situation soon enough. In the meantime, he would just have to play it cool, rely on the inability of the sheep to recognize the wolf that walked among them.

  On this particular morning, he meandered among the stalls and tables occupying a couple of blocks at the center of town, where the post office and a number of small businesses had once operated. The stalls offered everything from cured meat to hand-stitched clothing to a rather impressive variety of weaponry, the tables a wide array of knickknacks, cooking utensils, and books for the most part.

  “Watcha got?”

  Simon looked up from the book in his hands, a hefty tome on the history of psychology.

  “Excuse me?” he asked of the woman seated across the table from him.

  “To trade,” she said.

  “Oh. Nothing, really.” Simon closed the book and returned it to the table. “Just looking.”

  “You new here?” asked the woman.

  He nodded. “Arrived last night.”

  “Well, you sure found a good place to settle in for a while, if that’s what you have in mind.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

  “New Hope is a special town. Blessed, some would say. The plague, it just…” She flicked her fingers, blew a puff of air. “Passed us by. Not a single person who lived here got sick. And not a single zombie has ever been seen within its borders.”

  “Wow. How about that.”

  The woman smiled. “When you find something worth trading, you come and see me.”

  Simon offered a smile of his own. “You can count on it.”

  He made his way to another table, doing his best to fit in, to wear the proverbial sheep’s clothing as convincingly as he could. No one offered any indication they found him even mildly suspicious. Which was only to be expected. He had been fooling the people around him for about as far back as he could remember, had long since perfected the art of convincing them that he, too, was just another sheep.

  Wednesday, October 7th

  Eric opened his eyes in the pre-morning darkness. Something had roused him. Something close. Threatening…

  A dream, he told himself as he lay in the silence of the room. Nothing more.

  The dreams had visited him over the past several nights, bleak, fearsome things chasing him up and out of sleep. They were filled with monsters forever gaining ground on him as he moved with a terrible slowness that would surely spell his doom. It was not too difficult to understand why.

  The night he had left the boat and gone ashore in search of supplies, he had been well aware of the risks inherent in his actions. Or so he had told himself. Yes, the world was filled with awful, hungry creatures that would do whatever they could in order to capture him, to tear the flesh from his body.

  They have to catch me first, he had told himself as he headed inland, taking in his surroundings, searching for any structures worthy of investigating, that might yield something useful. Food. Weapons. Medication and first aid materials.

  Night vision binoculars.

  As far as he had been concerned, the only way the zombies could get him was if he did something careless. Because they were slow, stupid creatures, after all. And he was anything but that.

  Stay alert. Keep moving. All will be well.

  Put like that, it sounded simple. And as he had made his way through the darkness along a deserted street, that was exactly how it had gone. Simple.

  About fifteen minutes into the mission, passing one obviously looted building after another, he had felt his spirits start to sink.

  I’m risking my life out here for nothing.

  Then he had seen it, a miraculously intact storefront. Above the door, a sign printed in dark, bold lettering on a white background:

  Woody’s Military Supplies.

  Bingo.

  The shop stood near an intersection, traffic signals long defunct. It would have taken only a matter of seconds to check the street that had been out of view around the far side of the building. But in his excitement, Eric had hurried to the store’s entrance, turned on the flashlight he had brought with him, spent a moment making sure nothing moved within the deeper darkness of the store’s interior. His jubilation had withered, however, when he saw the empty shelves, tried to convince himself there might be something useful hidden behind the counter along the far side of the room, or in the storage room further back. As he stood there debating whether or not he should go inside, something scratched his neck.

  With a yelp of surprise, he had backpedaled across the sidewalk in front of the store, stepping awkwardly off the curb and rolling his ankle. Pain had flared in several places throughout his body as he crashed to the street’s unforgiving surface.

  Shit!

  The flashlight had flown from his hand, casting a wild, spinning arc of illumination, giving him a clear, momentary glimpse of the zombies pouring into the street from around the building. One of them had actually managed to sneak up and get close enough to touch him.

  Dumbass!

  Climbing to his feet, he had cried out as a white-hot ball of agony exploded in his ankle. Trying to run, he had instead found himself stumbling along like one of the things from which he fled. Every time he looked back, the number of moaning and groaning creatures chasing after him had grown larger. As he hobbled along without direction, he had searched frantically for somewhere to hide, the pain in his ankle threatening to send him back down to the pavement with each step that he took. He had stopped long enough to check the door of a cargo van parked near the side of the road. When it opened, he had dragged himself inside then slammed the door closed behind him. Within seconds, the first of his pursuers had arrived and began slapping at the windows.

  And there he had remained, trapped within the cargo van for the next three days.

  Luckily, the vehicle had come equipped with a sunroof. And, luckily again, it had rained on a couple of occasions, allowing him to satiate his thirst. Throughout, the zombies had stayed tightly packed around the van, moaning all the while. By day three, the endless droning had threatened to undo his sanity.

  When he heard the music—Judas Priest’s “Screaming for Vengeance”—he thought he had finally snapped, that it was a figment of his imagination. But when he popped his head up through the sunroof, he had seen a truck less than a block away that had not been there before, a group of armed people getting out of it.

  “Move to the back of the van,” someone had shouted. “And stay low.”

  Eric had done as he was told. When all the shooting was over, he had considered it a miracle that he, too, had not ended up riddled with holes.

  His rescuers had taken him to a nearby apartment complex. Then they had brought Amanda and Mitchell to him. In the interim, he had spent most of his time in bed, recovering from his injuries. Fortunately, the ankle had not been broken, only badly sprained. As for his mind, though…

  He took a deep breath, shuddered at the memory of those three days in the van, of the dream he had only recently escaped. Physically, he was more than capable of leaving the apartment where he had been staying. Amanda had encouraged him to do this very thing. But he did not want to leave, go out and face the world again. The world and all its monsters.

  Maybe tomorrow, he told himself, much as he had been telling himself for days now. Yeah, tomorrow…
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  Thursday, October 8th

  Pastor Lewis sat on the ground, cross-legged, his back to the wrought iron gate denying him access to the convent beyond. His hunger was a terrible thing, a constant companion that had become as familiar to him as the loneliness he had known for too long now. If not for the berries he had scavenged from the bushes growing near the woods, the eggs he had taken from nests among the trees, and the turtle he had found near the pond a short distance away, his condition would have undoubtedly been a lot worse. Memories taunted him of what now seemed like lavish meals from what he could only think of as a bygone age.

  Do the red-eyed demons feel a similar hunger? Or something far worse?

  He thought about the turtle, the rock he had used to crush its head and open its underbelly. With the cigarette lighter he carried in his pocket—he could not recall from where he had gotten it—he had started a small cooking fire after gathering some branches and fallen leaves. The turtle’s shell had served first as a pot in which to boil the animal’s meat—along with its more palatable innards—then as a bowl when the meal had cooled enough to eat, a meal he would have sworn was one of the finest had ever eaten in his life. When he was done, he had offered up a sincere “thank you” to God for the bounty he had been given.

  As for today, his findings had been rather meager, more so than usual. So it went. Some days he ate better than others but never enough to feel satisfied.

  Standing up, he stared between the bars of the gate, studying the building a good fifty feet away. In the daylight, it did not appear quite as foreboding as it had the first time he had laid eyes on it. Three stories tall, it had been constructed out of some sort of gray stone, the front wall adorned with a number of tall, rather ornate looking windows. A shadowed archway marked the entrance. At night, Pastor Lewis would see candlelight flickering behind some of the windows. On occasion, shadows would pass by.

  Someone’s alive in there. Maybe a few someones, he told himself when he had first seen the ghostly light. He had received further proof of this in the form of a blanket, a tube of toothpaste, and a bar of soap that had been left for him while he lay sleeping on the ground, wrapped in his raincoat.

  He had considered scaling the fence but only briefly as the top of it was lined with metal spikes. One slip, he knew, might very well result in a lot of unpleasantness.

  Following his arrival, he had made a circuit of the fence, looking for a way in, had come up empty. And so he had waited, sure that whoever was staying at the convent would eventually come out to say “hello” or, failing that, show up with a gun and try to run him off. So far, neither event had taken place. Whatever got him some face time with the convent’s mysterious inhabitant—inhabitants?—was fine with him. He felt confident God had not brought him all this way to get him shot by someone living on holy ground.

  Every morning, he would approach the gate, stand there waiting and hoping for someone to come outside. But no one ever did. Not while he was awake, at least. Not while he was watching. After a few minutes of this, he would sit with his back to the gate, facing the road where it headed into the woods, not wanting to be surprised by any zombies taking the same route he had followed. During his stay, less than half a dozen of the demon spawn had emerged from the woods, each of them efficiently dispatched with the same fist-sized rock the pastor had used to kill the turtle. He missed his sword. It had allowed him to put a little more distance between himself and the hellspawn he considered it his duty to destroy. But destroy them he would no matter the weapon at hand.

  “You must be hungry.”

  Startled, Pastor Lewis leaped to his feet, stared wide-eyed at the woman watching him from the other side of the gate. She was young, early to mid-twenties, wearing a nun’s habit. Blue eyes stared back at him while a hint of blonde hair peeked out from beneath the edge of her headpiece. In her hands, she held something wrapped in a checkered cloth.

  “Would you mind backing away a few steps?”

  When the pastor did as asked, the nun approached the bars where she set the object she carried on the ground.

  “I would have brought you something sooner, but Sister Margaret…” An apologetic smile. “Anyway, I hope this will help.”

  With that, she turned and headed back toward the convent.

  “Wait! Please,” said Pastor Lewis. But the woman kept going, did not even look back. Before long she reached the entryway to the building and disappeared inside.

  Pastor Lewis retrieved the gift that had been left for him. It felt soft and warm in his hands. Unwrapping the cloth revealed a fresh-baked loaf of bread.

  “Thank you,” he said to the Lord Above and to the woman who was no longer there. Then he tore off a chunk of bread and stuffed it into his mouth. It tasted like a tiny piece of Heaven.

  Friday, October 9th

  Susanna came to with the jarring report of a gunshot ringing in her head. Sitting upright in the darkness, she reached for the pistol she knew lay nearby. Once her fingers located the cool metal of the weapon, she got to her knees, ready to face any threat that might present itself, only to find that none existed.

  Just a dream, she told herself as the waking world settled in around her. She was in the back of the van she, Dominick, and the two younger children had found shortly after nightfall. They had been driving for several hours at that point, having recently skirted a town where thick, twisting columns of smoke ascended into the sky. Not long after sunset, she had looked for somewhere to pull over, to get out of the jeep and bed down for the evening. Driving at night made her nervous. The poor visibility coupled with the need for headlights—shining beacons for any wrongdoers they might encounter—made her feel vulnerable to attack. Unfortunately, every house they had passed looked rather foreboding.

  I’m getting skittish in my old age.

  When the van had appeared at the side of the road, she had pulled over, told Lisa and Eddie to stay in the jeep while she and Dominick went to check things out. Communicating in hushed tones, they had circled the van, Susanna shining a flashlight through the windows before checking the doors—unlocked—and confirming that there was no one hiding inside.

  A few minutes later, Susanna and her three charges had entered the van. Susanna had taken the driver’s seat, pistol resting on the dash before her, a shotgun on the passenger seat next to her. And there she had sat, shifting her gaze from the windshield to the van’s mirrors, alert for any signs of movement along the road in both directions. Meanwhile, the children had relaxed on the carpeted floor in back, eating energy bars and washing them down with bottled water. After an hour or so, they had drifted off to sleep, leaving Susanna alone with her thoughts, the memories of what had brought her to this place, and the fear of what the coming days—and weeks and months—might bring.

  A breeze had entered the van through the windows which she had opened a few inches, carrying hints of the cool autumn months ahead, coaxing Susanna to relax, to find some contentment in the fact that she and the children had made it this far. How much further they might go was anybody’s guess. If she had a plan, some sort of destination in mind, she figured their odds of long-term survival might be better. Since leaving the house where Irene had ended her life, they had found themselves in a near constant state of movement. Everywhere they had ended up had failed to meet Susanna’s standards for sustained defensibility.

  There’s always Lawrence’s, she knew. But in light of what had happened there, the idea of going back left her unsettled.

  After several hours in the driver’s seat, Dominick had taken her place, allowing her to go in back and lie down next to the other children. It had taken her a while to fall asleep. When she did, the dream had been waiting for her. Lawrence’s house. Ramos sitting on the couch, lifting the gun to his head and pulling the trigger…

  Awake once again, she was surprised to find the darkness outside fading, that she had slept so long. “Anything?” she asked Dominick when she joined him up front, keeping her voice low, not wa
nting to wake Lisa and Eddie.

  “Nope,” came the reply. “All quiet.”

  As if on cue, something appeared out of the gloom directly ahead. Susanna’s fingers tightened on the grip of the pistol in her hand as the zombie made its slow, stumbling way toward them, passed by the side of the van and kept right on going.

  A short while later, the edge of the sun’s golden disk rose above the horizon. A new day had dawned, one alive with a million possibilities. Most of them bad, Susanna was all too aware. She would push on, though, if not for herself then for those who had come to rely on her.

  With that in mind, she told Dominick to wake Lisa and Eddie, get them ready to head out. Then she exited the van and made her way back to the jeep, wanting to take stock of their supplies, an act she performed each morning like some sort of ritual. A ritual that, along with a few others—cleaning the guns, checking the jeep’s fluid levels and tire pressure—had served them well so far.

  Yeah, so far…

  Saturday, October 10th

  Marco stood near the railing of the observation deck, gazing through a pair of high-powered binoculars at the city below, plainly visible in the afternoon sunshine. He trained the field glasses on the stadium at the far side of the Point where the three rivers merged, checking for signs of excessive zombie activity. Seeing nothing unusual, he lowered his gaze, moving across the rippling waters of the Allegheny River, stopping when he reached the Point itself. He lingered on the park and the Fort Pitt Museum located there, the view rekindling his desire to visit the place, to find out if anything remained that was worth stealing.

  Is it really stealing, he wondered, if there’s no one to steal it from?