Dead Series (Book 2): A Little More Dead: Gunfire & Sunshine (10 page)

Stephanie smiled
at him, a sparkle in her eyes he hadn’t noticed before. “Yeah,
and
we got ice cream.”

“I bet the look on
his face when he got home was priceless.”

“Oh it was! He was
so pissed; he wanted to hire a private eye.”

Paul smiled,
holding onto her almond-shaped eyes. “Sounds like that was one case best left
unsolved.”

“My dad had to pretend
call the police and file a report just to get him to settle down.”

Holding her warm
gaze, his lips pulled back into the corners of his mouth, the others fading
into the background with the lightning flickering through the glass front doors.
“That is too funny.”

“It was soooo
funny.”

Wendy got up and
crossed over to the snack bar, stopping in front of Paul and blocking his view
of Stephanie. “My mom played piano on an old upright we used to have and would
make us all sing church hymns. It was a daily nightmare.”

His brow dipped.
“Sounds like it,” he said, peeking around her to catch Stephanie biting back
another laugh that brought a smile to his face.

“So did you cut
your stripper teeth on the jungle gym pole at the playground?”

“Curtis!”
Stephanie laughed.

“You’re not funny.”
Wendy hopped up onto the snack bar next to Paul. “So how much money did you
make racing in NASCAR anyway?” She crossed her legs and let a sneaker rock
through the air. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I mind.” Curtis
took a long gulp of red Gatorade and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Hey Paul, if any of those things still have a charge, what say we race to see
who drives tomorrow?”

Paul stuck a chip
into his mouth and crunched down, following his gaze to the go-karts. “What say
we race for the hell of it and I drive either way?”

“Only because you
know you’ll lose.”

“If you were that
good you would’ve been in the Sprint Cup series by now.”

Curtis gritted his
teeth until a vein popped out in his neck.

Paul’s subsequent laughter
echoed throughout the cavernous building, bouncing off the freshly painted walls.
He hopped down from the bar and left the shotgun on the counter. “I’m just
messing with you, kid. But let’s see what you got.”

The women grabbed
their snacks and flashlights, following them to the low-to-the-ground karts
parked behind the starting line booth.

Curtis bent over a
kart, turned a key and the engine started right up, bringing a shit-eating grin
sliding across his face. “Bam!” he said, hopping inside. “Let’s do this, Howard
Stern!”

Paul climbed in
and buckled up. “You might wanna grab a helmet.”

“Fuck that, these
things are like a scooter.”

Paul turned the
key, starting the kart on the first try, and followed Curtis down pit road, stopping
next to him at the checkered starting/finish line. “All the pressure’s on you, Jeff
Gordon.”

“Never call me that,”
he replied, turning to the red, yellow and green stoplight that was as dead as
everything else. “Let’s get this party started, Steph!”

Stephanie stepped
into the middle of the track and held her flashlight up high like she’d done
this before on some back street after midnight with dark hair cascading over
her shoulders in oily rivers. Wendy’s flashlight lit up the glimmer in Stephanie’s
eyes.

“Ready, set, go!”
Dropping her arms to her sides, Paul and Curtis shot past her, bumping each
other down the stretch as their karts quickly picked up speed. Curtis squeaked
into the lead but Paul stayed on his bumper, nudging Curtis just enough to make
him wiggle. Skidding into the turn, flashlights illuminated the determined
looks on their faces. The beams also lit up a huge man exploding from the tall
cabinet against the wall. Just before Paul’s kart straightened out, he saw a
man in a black t-shirt and jeans jump onto the track and give chase at an
alarming rate of speed.

“Oh shit!” Paul mashed
the accelerator to the floorboard, giving the kart everything it had down a
long straightaway. Flashlight beams jerked back and forth across the track.
Thunder rattled the walls. He could hear the women yelling over the high-pitched
whine of the motor. Glancing over his shoulder, lightning flickered and he saw
the corpse’s sneering face right behind him. Dead fingertips grabbed at the
back of his hair. Screams and choked grunts assaulted his ears. Paul focused on
the approaching bend in the track. The thing smacked him in the back of the
head and then did it again. This time harder. Leaning forward, Paul willed the
kart to go faster and plowed through a rubber barrier at top speed. He jerked against
the seatbelt, grunting with the abrupt stop in motion as the corpse toppled
over him. Fingertips grazed his scalp just before the dead man cart wheeled
into a metal wall outside the track. Springing to its silver Converse, the man
sneered and charged again. With little time to spare, Paul fumbled for the
Beretta strapped to his side, the seatbelt hindering his ability to draw. Blood
pumped thickly in his temples as he watched the stiff race closer in slow motion,
the cuts and gashes in its face growing clearer with each bone rattling step. Gunshots
rang out but the man kept coming as the girls missed their mark. The handgun finally
popped free. Paul raised it. The thing screamed so loudly his vision doubled, threatening
his aim. He squeezed the trigger. Gunfire echoed off the walls. The big man’s head
snapped back but his momentum sent him crashing into Paul.

Blood and slobber
flew into his face. He shoved the body off to the side and shot him in the head
one more time for good measure, flinching with the loud report. Staring at the
dead guy, who couldn’t have been older than nineteen or twenty, Paul chased his
breath as the girls sprinted over with guns drawn and jaws dragging. Unclicking
the harness, he pushed himself from the kart, eyes snagging on the building’s
logo on the dead guy’s shirt.

“Are you okay?”
Wendy asked, examining Paul for signs of trauma.

He wiped his face
and rubbed his neck, grimacing with a bolt of pain. “I’m fine.”

“That was the
fastest one I’ve seen yet,” Stephanie panted, checking their six.

Curtis skidded to
a stop next to them in his kart, staring in abject horror at the oversized dead
thing lying on the concrete floor. He looked up, face drawn and pale. “Guess
this means I’m driving tomorrow.”

Chapter
Nine

DAY TWENTY-FOUR

T
he next morning,
Paul grimaced with the sting of a sore neck and a strong desire to get back on
the road. Today was the day he would lay flowers on Sophia’s grave and nothing
else mattered. Not the fact that he almost died last night or the unsettling
notion that the dead go-kart employee might’ve left the backdoor open as a trap
before hiding in the cabinet. Or maybe he was just standing in there like an
idiot and the kart noise drew him out. Either way, it didn’t matter. Paul
couldn’t see his wife’s face again and he prayed that getting closer would help
put the fuzzy pieces together in his mind. If not, it would only take another
day or two to reach his house in Des Moines, where the photo albums would kick
start the memories in high-definition color. He hoped that by then, a plan
would start taking shape in his mind because, at this point, he was running on
empty.

Sunshine broke
through the clouds, pouring in through the pickup’s windows as Paul navigated a
northbound course he hoped was correct. Getting lost in this world could cost a
lot more than time and gas. He already felt guilty enough for not sharing their
next destination but didn’t have the stomach for any arguments against it. He
was selfish. Plain and simple.

Wendy looked up
from a map in her lap. “Where are you going?” she asked, drawing everyone’s
eyes and igniting his irritation.

“I have to make a
quick stop.”

She looked back
down and traced their course with her finger. Looking up again, she stared out
over the road. “You’re going back to that house.”

Curtis leaned
forward in the backseat, straining to see the map. “What house?”

“It won’t take
long.”

“What house?”

Wendy studied
Paul’s profile and spoke in a dull voice. “The house Sophia died in.”

Curtis stared
blankly at her for a moment, biting his tongue as long as possible, which wasn’t
long. “And when were you planning on letting us in on this little pit stop,
Paul?”

Paul gripped the
wheel tighter, clenching his teeth against the fury budding inside. The tires
droned in his ears. Skeletal trees passed by in a blur. He pressed harder on
the gas pedal, eager to get there before anyone could talk him out of it.

“Hey, it’s cool if
you want to stop there,” Curtis said. “I just wish you’d keep us posted on your
plans.”

“It’s on the way,”
Paul replied, growing quiet and hoping Curtis would as well. Right now he just
needed to be alone with his thoughts. This visit would change him and it was
important he didn’t let it change him too much, not for him but for Sophia. She
would be crushed if he let his misery get in the way of their safety. Whether
he liked it or not, he was responsible for each one of them and the last thing
he wanted to do was become numb to losing people, which, in this world, was
easier done than said.

Still too early in
March to find any wildflowers growing along the roadside, every flower shop they
stopped at was just as dead as the flowers wilting away inside. So Paul took a
fake bouquet of pink carnations from a weathered gravestone in some small town
cemetery along the way. The seventy-eight year-old man had been there since the
thirties and Paul figured he wouldn’t mind. Despite that, Paul couldn’t stop
seeing a bony hand shoot through the ground and grab his wrist as he pried the
flowers from the headstone vase. At this point, nothing would surprise him now.

The miles passed
with the time until eventually a large white house appeared in the distance. The
Jacobsen house. Paul slowed down, ignoring the butterflies launching in his
stomach and the tears welling in his eyes. He didn’t want to do this but he had
to. If he didn’t, who would? One thing he would not do was step foot back
inside that Godforsaken house, not with that bloodstained sectional waiting to
stir his pain.

Backing down the
driveway, Paul got out and stared at the naked willow perched atop the hill in
the backyard. Fake flowers clutched in one hand. Tactical shotgun hanging in
the other. Everyone followed him up that hill which stretched forever, past the
back deck and covered pool, one lethargic step after another. The black leather
jacket he took from the house fluttered in the wind and despite the sun, it was
cold. At the top, the four of them fanned out and stared at the crudely made
cross fashioned from some leftover white trim Paul and Dan found inside the
garage. It seemed like years ago. Digging this grave with his friend in the
warm sunshine, the willow providing no shade while Wendy prattled on and on about
the fucking view.

“It’s a beautiful
view,” Stephanie said, gazing over the valley of trees below with the sun
shining in her face. She gave Paul’s hand a quick squeeze and backed away.

Wendy bent down
and ran a hand across the still fresh dirt, tucking her hair behind an ear. “I
miss you, girl,” she whispered, voice cracking. “I wish I could’ve gotten to
know you better.” She paused and a Blue Jay screeched out from below. “Thank
you for saving my life, more than once. I will never forget that.” The Kohl’s
store slipped through Paul’s whirling mind as Wendy slowly rose to her feet and
gave him a weak smile before leading Stephanie down the hill to the house’s large
back deck. The same deck Dan taught Wendy to shoot on.

Paul blinked a
tear out. He still couldn’t believe Sophia was here.

Dead and buried.

Gone forever.

A fleeting memory.

Curtis set a soft
hand on his shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. “I’m sorry, bro,” he said,
standing there for a few seconds, at a rare loss for words. “It really is an
amazing view.”

Paul kept his eyes
on the grave while Curtis retreated to join the others, the sun warm on his
face and the pain sharp in his heart. Setting the shotgun on the ground, Paul
knelt down and placed the pink flowers on the grave, searching for words that
didn’t exist. What could he possibly say after leaving her here like this? She
wasn’t from here and no one knew her name. Reaching inside his coat, he pulled
out a Sharpie and scribbled something across the wooden cross. He should’ve
done this before but the shock of it all made thinking clearly a losing feat.
Leaning back on his haunches, he stared at the words before him, the ones that cemented
the impossible.

Sophia Hessler
.

His tears watered
her grave and it wasn’t fair. She was so young and full of life and had so much
more left to live but here she was, buried in some fucking stranger’s backyard.

No funeral.

No casket.

No nothing.

“I’m back, baby,”
he finally whispered, scooping up some dirt and letting it slip through his fingers.
“I’m still alive but Dan… Dan didn’t make it. He got bit shortly after we left
this place and I don’t know how much longer any of us have.” His gaze drifted
out over the valley below. “Those things outnumber us a thousand to one, maybe
more.” A faint smile pulled into his lips. “I keep seeing you everywhere I turn
and I get the feeling I’ll be seeing you again real soon. But this time for
real and, believe me, I’m more than ready. I miss you so bad.”

The tears came
harder, blurring his vision. “I just can’t wait to hold you again and I’m sorry
for everything that happened.” Rebecca flashed through his mind with her shiny
nails and deep cleavage, spearing his heart with a poison-tipped arrow. He pounded
his fist into the soil, knowing he should come clean right now and tell Sophia everything
about that night. Tell her what kind of a shitty husband he really was. She
deserved to know the truth, even in death. He’d never done anything like that before
and if only they’d had that little baby they’d been trying so hard to have none
of this would’ve happened because that’s not the kind of man he is. He’s the
kind who would always be there, the kind who would never hurt his family. But
that family never came to be so he fucked up and she deserved to know the truth.

“I tried telling
you this before but couldn’t.” He paused to wipe away a tear, Adam’s apple bobbing,
lungs cinching. “That weekend you went to Minneapolis for that seminar, I…” He
hung his head and closed his eyes against the shame, unable to even look at her
grave right now. Taking a deep breath, he blew it back out and forced his eyes
to open. “That weekend I brought someone into our…”

A piercing scream
rang out behind him, killing the words on his lips. He whipped around to see a
man pointing a rifle at everyone on the back deck. Acting on basic instinct
alone, Paul scooped up the shotgun without looking and sprang to his feet,
tucking the weapon into his shoulder and sneaking toward a swath of trees he
could use for cover on his way down the hill. A hammer clicked back behind him,
freezing him in place.

“Put the gun back
on the ground.”

Paul slowly turned
to see a large man step out from a nearby tree, heart dropping as he stared
down the barrel of a machine gun with a black man behind it and an all business
look pasted across his whiskery face.