So, a few of you have sent me emails saying that they wanted just one more taste from the new DEAD which is due out this July. The most oft requested plea has to do with Billy. Apparently many of you do not trust my ability to keep a character alive. Or, better yet, feel I have a propensity for killing off the ones you come to know and love. I offer up to you one final taste from DEAD: Spring. July is not that far away. Enjoy.
2
New Friends, New Enemies
“This sucks,” I whispered.
Looking around the landing, zombies were pouring out from a pair of long,
dark cooridors. The walking dead were packed in pretty tight and there was zero
chance that I could make it through; plus, I had no idea where those corridors
went…if they actually went anywhere.
Spinning around, I saw something that had me positive that child zombies
were something to be worried about. The children had lagged to the rear of the
swarm that was now making its way up the stairs towards me. Another cluster had
moved to the doors that I had come through when I first entered this building.
I let the magazine drop to the ground with a clatter as I pulled out a
fresh one and slammed it into place. If I was to die right here in this spot, I
wanted a damned statue built of me standing atop a pile of zombies.
“Billy died, but he took a shitload with him,” people would say. Hell,
maybe they would put that on the plaque at the base of my monument.
Taking the last two steps so that I was now standing flat, I took aim at
head level and fired a few short bursts. Zombies were dropping, but that didn’t
mean much when looking at the big picture. It really seemed that for every one
that fell, two more emerged from those gaping black maws from Hell.
“Fuck you all!” I screamed, but nobody would have heard it over the sound
of my M4. Another magazine dropped and I knew that I had two left after the one
that I was swapping in. I had not even realized it, but I had taken at least a
dozen steps away from the defunct escalators. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw
the first of the ones from below come into view.
I fired another burst at the closest group and then made sure my pistol
would come clean from the holster in a hurry. I wonder if I will feel anything? That morbid thought was shoved down,
but the same voice was also now reminding me to make sure that I aim the weapon
up instead of back. More than one attempted suicide had failed because the
person simply shoved the barrel into the back of their mouth and fired. I
wanted to be certain that I blew my brains out.
My M4 dry fired and I went to swap out magazines again. There were bodies
littering the floor, but there was still way too many of them coming for me. A
few were close enough that it was a race to reload in time. I kicked one back
just as I brought the weapon up and fired a round into its head.
I was not going to get to that fifth mag. The walkers from below were now
pouring out into the open balcony area and had effectively boxed me in between
themselves and their brethren. Death was now just a moment or two away.
An explosion sounded and was amplified to painful, eardrum-splitting
levels by the vast open space of the enormous entryway of this cursed building.
Another followed almost immidiately, but since my ears were still ringing from
the first blast, it did not seem quite as loud.
Thank God for zombies being stupid; or, at the very least, easily
distracted. Most of them turned at the sudden and new sound. The ones closest
to me had a mixture of reactions. Only one, a female that had been in the act
of reaching for me when the explosion sounded, still kept its focus on me. I
was able to shove her back and draw my KA-BAR as she regained her footing and
took a deliberate step forward. Driving the blade into her forehead, I gave
another shove and snapped my arm back so that she slid off the blade.
Seeing my chance, slim though it was, I made a dash for the far
stairwell. I knew that it had been almost totally free of zombies. If I was
going to make it back down to the lower level and out of this place, that was
my best option. My brain tried to scream warnings about the odd child zombies
and their peculiar behavior, but I was at a “one thing at a time” point in my
plan. Shoving aside a few of the undead that had turned towards the new sound,
I was just reaching a point where my ears were not ringing.
“Billy!” a female voice called. It sounded tinny and distant, but it was
the sweetest sound I could imagine. It was Jessie, the lady that I had figured
to be the leader of this expedition. She was the one who had been giving the
orders; she was the one who had sent me and Frank here.
“Yo!” I hollered as I reached the escalator; thank goodness it was still
clear.
Down below, the scene was a nightmare of body parts flung everywhere.
Unfortunately, damage of that variety was not enough to end the zombies. I
could see a lot of movement in that goulash of arms, legs, and torsos. I
glanced to my left and saw over a hundred zombies packed in to that narrow
escalator. It looked as if a bit of a log jam had occurred. That might have
saved my life, because only a few had made it to the landing. I suppressed a
shudder as I took the metal steps two and three at a time on the way down.
“You might have gotten us all killed!” Jessie scolded as I stepped over
the upper half of a child zombie that tried in vain to reach for me as I
passed.
“You see all of this?” I threw my arms wide to indicate the carnage. “I
was in a fight for my life.”
“I made it very clear that there is a herd nearby and that firearms
should only be used as the last resort.”
I felt my eyebrows arch as I glanced around at the carnage and then cast
one quick look up to the landing above. The undead were crowding into the
escalator that I had used for my escape and were already starting to get lodged
in so tight that it was causing a backup.
“I don’t know where you get your definitions of ‘last resort’ from, but
this was about as last as my resort gets.”
“They are coming through the fence!” a voice called from outside.
“One life that costs us everything—” Jessie looked at me like I was
something she had just stepped in.
“Easy to say when it isn’t yours,” I snapped.
I was not going to stand here and listen to this crap. I stepped over
another creeper and out onto the landing. What little that remained of Frank
was not much more than a big red smear and a handful of zombie children that
were now sporting a variety of head wounds.
I had to move away from the building to get a peek at the entry drive to
this place. Sure enough, a pretty big group of zombies were headed our way. I
looked to my right and saw a Dumpster sitting in the middle of a debris strewn
section of parking lot.
Without a word, I jogged over to the big, metal garbage container. Both
hatches were thrown open already which allowed me to look inside and ensure
there were no nasty surprises. Looking around, I had my plan. This section of
parking lot was slanted; not much, but enough for what I had in mind.
Treating the large green Dumpster like a tackling dummy, I put my
shoulder into it and started to push. The wheels shrieked in protest and the
lids began to clang. Basically, the noise was tremendous. I knew that I had
plenty of space between me and the approaching herd, so I did not even bother
to look back over my shoulder.
In a dozen or so steps, I had some momentum. Giving a shove for all that
I was worth, I heaved the Dumpster forward. It rolled away and actually picked
up a bit of speed as it reached the steepest section of the parking lot. The
wheels had eased up on their squeals, but the metal lids were slamming into the
side of the mostly empty, metal garbage bin.
I veered to the left and ducked behind some odd shaped brass and concrete
thing that was supposed to be art of some kind. It just looked like a bunch of
weird shapes in my opinion, but at least it was tall enough for me to duck
behind and use as cover as I dashed for the narrow alley between two long buildings.
I picked up my tempo to a fast jog. Moving down this chute, I had the
sudden fear that the group would take off back to La Grande without me. Not
that I was afraid of making it on my own, I’d done it before. My concern was
that they would run back and tell some crazy story about how I endangered the
lives of everybody in this little expedition.
As I emerged, I could feel my heart thudding in my chest. Some of it may
have had to do with pushing that big Dumpster and then my spint up a hundred
yard long alley, but by the time I had reached the end, I was feeling what I
imagined a panic attack to feel like.
Looking around, I was relieved to see the group formed up at a loading
dock jutting from the side of one of the buildings. I did a quick head count
and only came up with eleven; Jessie was now the only female in the group, so
that meant that we’d lost the other two female members in addition to Frank.
“Neat trick with that Dumpster,” one of the guys said with a laugh that
died on his lips as Jessie shot him a scowl that would peel paint.
“How are we going to transport all of the equipment?” one of the men from
the science team asked. “There is more than I thought, and some of it is too
heavy to lift, much less carry all the way back.”
I squinted my eyes in confusion. Hadn’t these people known what we were
coming for? How was it possible that we had run this mission and not made any
allowance for getting the stuff we came for back to La Grande?
“The group from the last run made large wagons,” Jessie said, but she was
still glaring at me. “We will take turns being harnessed to them for the
journey home. Each wagon has a harness setup that will allow four people to
pull as a team.”
“So we are going to be freakin’ pack mules?” the same guy who had
complemented my Dumpster distraction asked.
“We are going to do what it takes to get this stuff back home,” Jessie
snapped. Standing, she gave us all a hard stare. “We have a lot of work to do,
so I suggest that we get to it.”
“What about that herd?” another of the men asked, glancing back toward
where the zombies had all trudged in pursuit of my noisemaker.
Jessie looked around at all of us and then her gaze settled on me once
more. “Since Mister Haynes is so confident in his abilities out in the field, I
will leave it to him to continue to ensure that the zombies are distracted. The
rest of us will load out all we can and start back.” She looked around the
group as if she expected rousing approval. When she was greeted by blank stares
and a few open mouths, her gaze became even fiercer. “Is there a problem?”
“It’s just that…” the guy who had so far been the only one to really
speak up started. He looked around to see if he had any support and decided to
press on anyway when none looked to be forthcoming. “You are sending one guy
out to try and distract a giant herd of those things. No backup or anything?”
“You’re right,” Jessie said with a shrug. “You can go with him.”
Like I didn’t see
that coming, I thought
In a few short days, 37 year old Emma Rossi’s hard work
will finally pay off. She will don her cap and gown and graduate with a degree
in nursing, but not before she loses her first patient and is confronted with a
new reality. In Cape Coral, Florida, a storm approaches. The dead are coming
back to life.
