Dead Series (Book 2): A Little More Dead: Gunfire & Sunshine (15 page)

“Holy shit,”
Curtis cried, eyes bulging as he took a large plastic bag the size of a small
pillow from the top shelf. “Look at all this weed!”

Wendy laughed.
“That oughta keep you happy for a while.”

Paul grabbed the
snub-nose revolver in the baggie and pushed past them. “Maybe there’s some
paperwork on him out here.”

Wendy holstered
her gun and began rifling through the papers scattered about the floor.

“This could take a
while,” Stephanie said, kneeling down to help.

Wendy held up a sheet
with a footprint on the back. “Look at this one. The handwriting is in perfect
cursive at the top and then just goes into crazy scribblings down the rest of
the page.”

“Okay, that is
super creepy.”

“Right?”

“What are these
anyway?”

Wendy shook her
head. “Looks like some of the calls they took back when it began,” she said,
bringing another sheet to her eyes. “Homeowner’s dachshund found partially
eaten.” She flipped a page, making a swooshing sound. “Five month-old baby
named Layla missing from her crib.” Another swoosh. “Caller shot his neighbor
after he broke into their home and tried to kill them.” Swoosh. “Bodies missing
from the morgue.”

“Jesus,” Stephanie
murmured, holding up another sheet. “Listen to this one… Woman barricaded in
bathroom with her children. Irate husband trying to break down the door to get
inside. Code 10-18.”

Paul looked up
from a sergeant’s desk, face folding. “Seriously?”

Standing up, she
gestured with fistfuls of papers. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything
in here. These look like calls they received between the power going out and
the phone lines dropping.”

Paul slammed a drawer
shut and leaned back in a chair on wheels, kicking his Adidas up on the desk
and rubbing a thumb across a shiny badge he found inside. “Then we have a
decision to make.”

“We could handcuff
him and take him with us,” she suggested, letting the papers teeter-totter back
to the floor.

“Fuck that,
Steph,” Curtis said, coming out of the evidence room with a three-foot bong the
cops, apparently, confiscated at some point along the line. “We’re not here to
babysit anyone who’s handcuffed, especially convicts, not after those last two
assholes. The last thing we want to do now is get tangled up with a murderer.
We’ve got enough problems on our hands already.”

“Yeah but what if
he’s telling the truth? We’re going to just leave him here to die because he
got a DUI?” Stephanie let her hands slap back to her sides. “Curtis you got a
DUI in high school. Come on, you know that’s not fair.”

He shrugged. “Yeah
but, we don’t know if he’s telling the truth about that,” he said, looking
around. “And we probably never will. Look at this place. How are we supposed to
find out for sure? We can’t.”

“Curtis is right,”
Paul replied, bringing a proud look to Curtis’ wiry face. “We either leave him
here or we trust him with a gun; there is no other option. Everyone pulls their
weight on this team. Nobody rides for free.”

Stephanie folded
her arms across her chest and tapped a finger against her lips for a few
seconds. “Maybe there’s a newspaper lying around,” she finally said, checking
behind the front desk. “If he did something more serious, it probably would’ve
made one of the last papers to come out.”

Wendy stood up and
tightened her ponytail. “Do people still get the paper?”

“Small town cops
probably do,” Paul agreed, rummaging through the other desktops.

Curtis came out of
the evidence room and exhaled a cloud of skunky smelling smoke, coughing until
his face turned beet red. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked up.
He gestured with the smoking bong, eyes watering. “What? I always wanted to get
baked in a police station.”

Paul tried a small
police radio off to the side that no one answered and, after some more
searching that came up empty, went back downstairs.

“Oh thank God!” Billy
exclaimed, the mop handle in his hands now snapped in two. “I thought you were
going to leave me in here to rot with Jonny.”

Wendy looked from
the splintered end of the bloody mop handle to Jonny’s newly rearranged face,
her brow crumpling. “What’d you do?”

“I tried putting
him down but his skull is thicker than I thought.”

Paul pulled the
cop’s keys from his jeans. “You can’t stab them in the head with anything; I’ve
tried that. The only way to bring them down is to shoot them in the head.”

“Or run them
over,” Curtis grinned, smoke seeping between his teeth.

Billy’ gaze
dropped to the keys in Paul’s hand. “Does this mean you’re letting me out?”

“Do you know how
to shoot?”

Billy stared at
him for a thrown second or two before bursting into laughter. “Man, I’m from
Detroit! Of course I know how to shoot,” he said with a drawn out laugh that
made Jonny reach through the bars.

Curtis snorted. “Yeah,
you look real gangster, homie.”

“Is this yours?”

Billy stared at
the snub-nose revolver Paul held up. “Yeah, it’s mine and I have a permit for
it too.”

“Why’s it in this
baggie?”

“Because when the
cops find a gun on you after getting a DUI they confiscate it, permit or not. I
made a mistake that night by driving drunk with a loaded gun but that doesn’t
make me a terrorist. They would’ve given it back after all my shit checked
out.”

Paul studied the
lines creeping through Billy’s forehead, indecision swimming in the air.

“You gonna let me
outta here or what? Come on, man.”

Paul looked to the
others for any last minute objections but their silence was their consent. He
turned back to Billy and spoke gravely. “If you try anything stupid, I’m
telling you right now, I will kill you dead.”

Billy vehemently shook
his head. “I won’t; I swear to God, man. I just wanna live.”

Releasing a
dubious sigh, Paul stuck a key in the cell door and turned it with a loud click
that made Jonny scream. “You may rethink that after you step outside.”

“Oh shit, thank
you, thank you, thank you.” Billy came out, walking like the floor was made of
thin ice and rubbing his wrists like he just got let out of handcuffs. “Thank
God you people came down here. I mean, what’re the odds, right? I was out of
food and the clock was ticking. Thank you, Lord!”

At the bottom of
the steps, Paul stopped and tossed Curtis the cop’s keys. “Unlock Jonny and
this time…let me do this, will ya?”

Chapter
Fourteen

“M
an, I was making
bank blowing neon lights for bars and restaurants and beer distributors, had my
own shop and everything. Fat cash too!” Billy grimly shook his head in the
backseat of the pickup, wedged between Wendy and the door. He hit a smoking
joint and held his breath. “Then LED came along and the orders for neon lights
started drying up fast.” He exhaled through the open sunroof and passed the
joint back to Curtis, voraciously returning to the Baby Ruth bar in his other
hand. “Oh sure, I got some repair work for awhile there, which at sixty-five
bucks a pop wasn’t too bad, but then even that stuff stopped coming in.” He
grunted while chewing. “Then I lost the shop. Then I lost the condo. Then I had
to move back in with my parents until I got a new job, which, for the record, I
hated with a passion.”

Curtis steered the
F-150 northbound and down, blowing smoke out the window and glancing at Billy
in the mirror. “Man, do you ever stop talking?”

“Sorry,” Billy
said, taking another huge bite. “I get chatty when I’m nervous.”

Paul turned around
in the front seat to face the women scrunched in the back with Billy. There
were five of them now and they would need a bigger vehicle soon but bigger meant
more stops for gas and every siphoned tank could be their last with those
things hiding out there. He studied Billy, mind drifting back to Jay and
Marvin. He didn’t trust him and why should he? Just because Billy had changed from
the orange jumpsuit back into the street clothes he was arrested in didn’t mean
he wasn’t a criminal anymore. In Paul’s mind he was, and the DUI story was all
a little too convenient. Paul wasn’t stupid. Prisoners and lies went together
like peanut butter and jelly.

Stephanie leaned
forward to peer around Wendy. “So you were stuck in that cell with those things
this whole time?”

“Pretty much,” Billy
replied, unwrapping a Milky Way. “And that dead cop was tryin to get me out
from under the bed the whole time too. I tried taking the mop from him once and
he nearly yanked me through the bars.” He pounded some water and sighed,
kicking at the mountain of candy bars and Pop-Tart wrappers growing around his
feet. “I figured he’d give up at some point and take off for an easier meal but
he stayed there for weeks, just poking at my feet and banging that mop against
the floor, even when I was trying to sleep. Jonny too. I almost went insane.”

Stephanie shook
her head. “That is horrible.”

“What’s really
horrible is those bastards don’t sleep. They just kept trying to get after me every
minute of every day.” He looked to Wendy, a solemn look pulling on his face.
“And of course the toilet was on Jonny’s side of the cell so every time I…evacuated
my bowels I had to lean way forward so he couldn’t grab me.”

Wendy covered her
mouth to stop a laugh or signal her shock. Paul wasn’t sure which.

“Tell me about it.”
Billy shifted for more room between her and the door. “Sorry, but I had more
room back in that cell.”

Curtis looked into
the mirror. “Maybe we can find you a motorcycle and you can follow behind us.”

Billy laughed. “Yeah
right! Why don’t I just sleep in a tent while I’m at it?” He shook his head at
Wendy. “Always makin the black man sleep outside.”

Paul turned back
to the road. “We’ll find something bigger soon.”

Billy stuffed half
a candy bar in his mouth. “Man, we need like a SWAT truck or something.”

Looking at Paul,
Curtis lowered his voice. “We should’ve taken that Porsche back at the house.
Two of us could’ve ridden in that and it would’ve been a lot more fun to drive
than this tank.”

“There were no
keys. Remember?” Paul told him, peering into the back of the truck again.

“So,” Curtis grumbled.
“Could’ve hotwired that thing in a flash.” He pressed his lips together. “Cayman
GT4 too; talk about a waste.”

Billy tugged on the
silver badge pinned to his gray Adidas t-shirt, shifting uneasily in the seat
again. “Why you keep looking at me like that, man?”

Paul’s eyes
dropped to the Taser tucked into the police duty belt around Billy’s waist. “You
get a flu shot this season, Billy?”

“Flu shot?” His
eyes bounced around the cab. “Hell no, I hate needles.”

“How much
further?” Curtis asked.

“Just up ahead.”

“This is stupid. They’re
dead and we all know it.”

“Yeah, well I
don’t know it, Joe.”

Curtis glared at Billy
in the mirror. “Call me Joe Dirt one more time, motherfucker, and I’ll put a
hollow point through your left eye.”

“Jesus Christ,
Curtis,” Paul laughed, glancing at the others. “Take it easy and relax, man.
You’re not Suge Knight. And if anyone’s putting a hollow point through Billy’s
eye it’s me. Okay?”

Billy stopped
chewing. “Say what now?”

“Don’t listen to
them.” Stephanie cracked her window. “We ran into some bad seeds yesterday and
everyone’s a little on edge.”

“What happened to
them? The bad seeds.”

Gazing out over
the road, she twisted the sapphire ring on her finger. “They’re dead.”

Billy grew quiet
and looked out his window. Idyllic countryside passed by in a perfectly normal
blur…until a bloody body or mangled pickup tainted the scene. “I just need to
make sure, man. It won’t take long. I haven’t stopped by for almost two months
now.”

Curtis rolled his
eyes. “Ain’t like we got room for em anyway.”

“Turn right up
here.”

Grudgingly, Curtis
took a right on a paved street lined with small houses and tall trees.
Uncollected garbage bins dotted the curbside, drawing flies and dust, a grim
reminder of what once was and what will never be.

“Up there on the
left with the maroon minivan in the drive.”

Curtis pulled in
and threw it in park, leaving the engine running. “Make it quick.”

Billy slid out and
looked back. “Aren’t you guys coming with?”

Resting an arm out
his open window, Curtis drummed his fingers against the wheel. “Guess not,
Montel.”

“You want me to go
in there by myself?”

“They’re your
parents, dude.”

Billy’s stunned gaze
drifted from the Taser in his police belt to the small brick home behind him. “Well,
can I at least have a gun?”

Paul checked the
mag in his Beretta and then slammed it home. “You have a Taser. Use it.”

“Man, I may’ve
been stuck inside a cage for a while but I saw what happened to Jonny and
Chubs. I know what could be waiting in there and a Taser ain’t going to do shit
to those things.”

Curtis grinned at
him. “Won’t know till ya try.”

Billy stared
blankly back, the engine softly idling between them. He threw his hands out.
“Come on man, I told you I got a DUI. I’m not a murderer! You can trust me.”

Curtis turned to
Paul. “That’s how it always begins.
I’m
not a murderer. You can trust me
.”

Wendy slid over
and got out. “I’ll go.”

Paul sighed. “Godammitt,
we all go,” he griped, getting out and grabbing the M4 from the duffel bag in
the truck bed. Scanning the house, he pulled the strap over his head. The
residence looked like any respectable home in small town USA and the ramp
leading to the front door – combined with the handicapped plates on the minivan
– corroborated Billy’s story about MS confining his mother to a wheelchair.

Inside the sun
porch, it was hot and stinky and Billy fumbled with his keys. Paul could tell
he was terrified to open that door and he had good reason. Whatever was waiting
on the other side would, more than likely, make him forget all about his
gruesome month in the clink with Jonny and Chubs.

“How much do your
parents weigh?”

Billy frowned and
looked back at Wendy. “I don’t know. My dad’s skinny as a rail but my mom’s
been in a wheelchair for almost twenty years. She’s put on a few pounds. Why?”

“Because the big ones
are fast,” Wendy whispered, pointing her gun at the floor and nervously looking
around.

“What?”

She nodded.

“Oh great,” Billy
mumbled, returning to the lock. “With America’s obesity problem we’ll be dead
in a week.” He dropped the keys and Curtis shoved him out of the way, kicking
the front door open and storming inside. Paul grumbled under his breath and flanked
him, sweeping the living room before flowing into the dining room – both of which
were outdated and smelled like someone just took a hangover shit in a potted plant.

“Damn,” Curtis said,
aiming at the dead woman lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of dried blood. “Did
she get up out of her chair and walk?”

“Oh my God,” Billy
said softly. “That’s not my mom; that’s my grandma.”

Curtis began to
step over the body and Paul stopped him, freezing the entire group in place.
They stood side-by-side and listened, sunlight glinting off the police badges pinned
to their shirts and coats. “You hear that?”

Billy drew his Taser,
making Paul tense. “It’s coming from one of the rooms down the hall.”

Framed photos of Billy
and his family lined the hallway, everyone wearing big smiles and seated at the
same height as the woman in the wheelchair. Billy on one knee in a clean football
uniform, Billy in a graduation cap and gown, the entire family huddled around a
busy Thanksgiving dinner table with forks and knives clenched in their fists
and beaming smiles stretching their faces.

“You’re married?”
Paul nodded to a picture of Billy holding a pretty woman in a flowing bridal
gown with a sunlit barn in the background.

“
Was
married,” he whispered. “She left me
after the shop closed.”

Paul turned to
Billy and sharpened his gaze.

“Not exactly
something I like to brag about.”

Swapping a quick
look with Curtis, Paul pressed on. The pounding at the end of the hallway grew
louder and the stench worsened. Stopping in front of the last door on the
right, he listened to the thudding behind it before turning back to Billy.

“My parents’
room.”

Paul moved to one
side of the door and Curtis took the other while Wendy quietly twisted the knob
and gave the door a gentle shove before stepping back. The door slowly swung
inward on squeaky hinges, prickling their nerves with its rusty song and releasing
a putrid smell into the hallway that made Stephanie gag. Paul and Curtis swung
their guns inside, wrinkling their noses as the thick smell of decay slapped
them in the face. The grossly obese woman in an electric wheelchair backed up
and ran it forward into a sliding glass door leading to a patio out back. Oblivious
to their presence, she backed up and rammed the door again, the motor sounding
nearly as dead as she was.

Billy’s eyes
dropped to the dead woman on the floor. “Holy shit, that’s my aunt.”

“I thought you
said your mom packed on a
few
pounds,” Curtis said, ready to shoot her.

Billy watched his
mom ram the door again, jaw dangling. “Mom?”

The chair backed
up and stopped. She stared out the glass door as if the voice had come from
outside. No one moved as she searched for something that wasn’t there. Then,
with their blood pumping in their ears, she turned the chair around to face
them. Paul’s heart sank when he saw the bloated eyes hiding behind her glasses
and the scratches running down the jowls sagging into her neck.

“Keep an eye out
for the dad,” he whispered to Stephanie and Wendy guarding the doorway.

“Mom, it’s me Billy.”

The woman tilted
her head to one side and examined her son, her curly wig nearly sliding off as a
faint glimmer of recognition crept into her cloudy eyes. Paul was about to tell
Billy the cold hard facts about her irreversible condition but waited to see
what would happen next instead. There was a learning curve to this world and
the way these
things
were picking it
up bristled the hair on his arms. They had to learn quicker than those things
did because this thing just operated the chair as if it was still human and it frightened
Paul to death. They were up against the wall as it was, let alone dealing with
the prospect that these things were adapting.

Learning.

Evolving.

“Where’s Dad,
Mom?”

“That’s not your
mom,” Paul said, ready to end this.

Straightening her
head, the woman stared at Billy and, for a moment, Paul thought she would get
up out of that chair – magically cured by the infection – and rush into her
son’s arms. But that didn’t happen. Instead, she growled and jammed the chair’s
joystick forward, charging at a low rate of speed. Curtis took aim at her
hissing face.