Dead Series (Book 2): A Little More Dead: Gunfire & Sunshine (5 page)

Paul and Wendy
didn’t reply.

“He could be!”
Curtis snapped, reading into their silence. “You never know what could happen
in this messed up world. Maybe it skips some people, like chicken pox or
measles.”

Back inside the
beach house, it was hot and quiet with no one in sight. Paul set the duffel bag
down and stared at the empty couch basking in the sunshine, a bad feeling
creeping into his marrow. He pulled his handgun, seeing stragglers hiding in
the corners, waiting to pounce.

Crossing the
living room with his gun pointed at the floor, Curtis stopped and held a hand
up, rotating his head slightly to the left. “You hear that?”

A faint whimpering
carried down the glass hallway leading to the bedrooms on the lower level.
Wendy clutched her pink gun in both hands and crept barefoot across the sand-colored
tiles, nervously swinging her head in different directions, seeing the same
ghosts as Paul. The further down the hall they got, the louder the whimpering
became. Stopping at a shut door covered in bloody handprints, they traded quiet
looks while someone sobbed on the other side.

“That doesn’t look
good.”

“Steph?” Curtis
whispered, slowly reaching for the knob.

The door cracked open
and their guns jerked to Stephanie’s teary-eyed face. Paul unlocked a pent-up
breath and lowered his weapon, glancing behind him.

“Get in here,” she
whispered, towing Curtis inside and locking the door.

“What happened?”

Stephanie
nervously pulled wet hair over the shoulders of a clean tank top. “I think he
killed Cora.”

“What?” Paul said
way too loud, his voice echoing in the spacious five-piece bathroom.

Curtis stepped
forward. “Who? Troy?”

She nodded, shaking
more tears loose. “He was fine just a few minutes before and then…”

“Then what?”

Rubbing her bare
arms, she trembled like an October leaf. “Then he just…” She shook her head,
letting her eyes go blurry.

Curtis pinched his
gaze into razor thin slits. “He just what?”

“Turned.”

“Jesus Christ,”
Paul whispered, glaring at Curtis. “I told you this would happen.”

Curtis kept his
eyes on his sister. “What? How?”

“It was the bite,”
she answered, looking at Paul. “You were right. He just kept getting worse and
worse.”

Curtis leaned against
the sink to keep from collapsing into a puddle of despair. When he looked up at
Stephanie in the mirror, his words came out in a chilled voice. “Did you kill
him?”

She dropped his piercing
gaze and twisted a sapphire ring on her finger, shifting from one combat boot
to the other.

“Did you kill him?”
he slowly repeated.

“No, I took a
shower and then was fixing him something to eat in the kitchen,” she explained,
wiping wet tracks from her face. “When I shut the fridge door he was standing on
the other side, staring at me with this…
look
in his eyes.” Stephanie studied the tiled flooring, the hint of a smile
brushing the corners of her lips. “At first, I thought he was feeling better
and that he was finally hungry for something to eat.” She looked up. “And then
he attacked me.”

A tendon flared in
Curtis’ neck. “Bullshit! He would never do that.”

“He smashed me up
against the sink and I stabbed him in the head with a butcher’s knife and he
kept coming!” She turned to the bathroom door and spoke in a soft voice. “But
that wasn’t Troy out there. That Troy is gone.”

Curtis staggered
back into a wall, stunned and unnerved. “You stabbed him in the head? Are you
fucking serious?”

“The blade bounced
right off his skull and didn’t even faze him.”

“Knives don’t work
on them,” Paul said, inspecting the magazine in his 9mm. “Their skulls and
bones don’t deteriorate as fast as the rest of them.” He slapped the mag back
in with his palm. “They aren’t piñatas; not yet anyway.”

“But it was enough
to make him stumble back a few steps.” Stephanie gestured to the clawfoot tub. “So
I ran in here and locked the door. He beat on it for a while and I didn’t have
my gun so I just prayed the door would hold.” She tried on a smile that didn’t
fit. “It did.”

“Where’s he at
now?” Curtis asked.

“I don’t know.”
Stephanie massaged her temples. “He finally gave up and then I heard a scream that
sounded like it came from upstairs.” Her glassy eyes jerked to Paul. “It
sounded like Cora.” She swallowed thickly. “Then someone started hammering on
the door again and it stopped right before you got here.”

Paul exhaled a
heavy breath. “Why didn’t you have your gun?”

“I-I left it on
the kitchen island when I was making him lunch.”

Curtis frowned. “You
know better than that, Steph!”

“It was hurting my
hip and I didn’t think I’d need it! He was fine two minutes before.” Her eyes
fell to the floor and turned distant. “We were talking about that time we all went
camping at Devil’s Lake, when Dad fell out of the boat.” She looked up. “You
remember that?”

He blew out a low
breath. “I remember.”

Paul’s eyes
bounced between them, his hand slowly going to the doorknob.

Curtis smacked it
away. “I’ll go first. He’s my brother.”

Paul took a step
back and swept his gun out. Curtis filled his lungs and quietly opened the
door, jumping back into Paul, who fell against Stephanie. They stared in horror
at Cora standing in the hallway just outside the door. Dark circles rimmed her
eyes and blood ran from a gash in her neck, staining the tattered robe hanging
wide open. Curtis raised his handgun.

“Paul,” she said
weakly.

“No, don’t,” Paul
screamed.

Curtis pulled the
trigger and shot Cora in the face. Her head snapped back and dark blood sprayed
the glass wall behind her just before she slid to the floor.

“Noooo!” Paul
slammed Curtis up against the bathroom wall, clenching his teeth. “Why did you
do that?”

“She was a
straggler!” Curtis pushed back and Paul slammed him against the wall again,
bringing down a towel rack.

“She just said my
name, you asshole!”

“There was a bite
mark in her neck!”

“You don’t know
that!” Paul pushed harder. “She said my name.”

Curtis turned to
Cora’s crumpled body, grasping at words and lowering his voice. “I’m sorry,
bro, I thought she was one of them. It was an accident.”

Paul pushed off
him and spun around to Cora, running a hand through his hair. “Jesus Christ,”
he said, tightening his grip on his gun. Troy was still out there and he needed
to stay frosty but the blood pooling around Cora’s head made that a difficult
prospect. Checking up and down the hallway, he knelt down and rolled her over.

“Was she bit?”
Wendy whispered, peering over his shoulder with her gun clutched in both hands.

Paul looked away from
the horror etched into what was left of Cora’s face, stomach tightening. “Yes.”

“See?”

Paul shot to his feet
and slammed Curtis up against the same wall, rattling the mirror on the
opposite side. “That doesn’t mean shit! She hadn’t turned yet!”

“But she would’ve,
man. She would’ve.”

Paul drilled him
with a piercing glare before storming from the bathroom and going back out
front. The others followed with their heads on swivels.

“Troy!” Curtis
yelled, making Paul cringe.

“Curtis.”

“I’m trying to
draw him out.”

“It doesn’t always
work like that. Now he knows where we are.”

“Good.” Curtis
entered the lower level living room where the bloody couch was just as empty as
it was when they returned from Wavy Gravy. The sunlight streaming through the
glass walls turned everything into a silhouette. A man standing in the corner
turned out to be a coat rack with a sunhat and raincoat draped from the hooks.

Their heads jerked
to the ceiling at the same time.

Thump
.

Thump
.

Thump.

Trading silent
looks, Curtis nodded to the staircase and Paul followed, climbing the naked
steps on rubbery legs, expecting Troy to reach through and grab an ankle at any
second. The thumping grew louder and the hair stood up on the back of Paul’s
neck. This was going to end badly and he just wanted it to end.

At the top of the second
floor landing, the thumping was loud and steady as a clock. Cautiously spilling
into a large game room with the same glass walls as the rest of the place, the
group stopped in front of a massive billiards table with leather pockets. Paul
stared past the red felt with his mouth agape and a lump wedged in his throat,
watching Troy pound a bloody fist against a glass wall overlooking the horses
below.

Thump
!

Thump
!

Thump
!

Troy wanted out. That
much was clear. He wanted a piece of those horses and Paul had time to think
about how much more confused Troy was as a newborn corpse than Mike & Molly
were back at the beach.

“Troy?” Curtis
said in a shaky whisper.

Troy stopped
pounding on the glass and everything got quiet. He stared out the window and Paul
adjusted his sweaty grip on the Beretta, intrigued and terrified.

“Troy!”

Hesitating for a
moment, Troy slowly turned to Curtis with a blank look in his sunken eyes and
blood running from the corners of his mouth. Purple veins spider-webbed through
his ashen skin like thin worms burrowing into his flesh. His mouth began
opening and closing as if he was trying to tell them something. Maybe that he
loved them and to chin up or that he was sorry about Cora. But the only thing
that came out was a stream of thick dark fluid that oozed down his Chevy
cut-off and slapped to the hardwood flooring around his bare feet.

Paul took aim,
curling his index finger around the cool trigger and lining up white dots with
Troy’s forehead. They’d seen enough.

“Don’t you fucking
dare!”

He looked over to
find Curtis pointing the Glock at his head. Wendy swung her gun on Curtis and
spread her legs.

“He’s gone,
Curtis,” Paul said, not lowering the weapon.

“You don’t know
that for sure!”

“Curtis stop!” Stephanie
pleaded.

“Drop it, Curtis,”
Wendy said, her voice as steady as her aim. “Or I’ll drop you where you stand.”

Paul jerked his
chin. “That’s not your brother anymore. That man is gone.”

“Paul, put the gun
down,” Curtis said calmly.

Troy watched them
with what almost looked like amusement in his vacant eyes.

“Like you did for
Cora,” Paul replied, an imaginary bull’s-eye floating on Troy’s forehead.

“We can still save
him!”

“I told you there
is no cure! There is no reversing this. He-is-dead!”

Curtis set his jaw
and tightened his grip on the Glock. “And you will be too if you don’t drop
that fucking gun.”

“And you’ll be
next,” Wendy added.

Paul hesitated, a
scowl wrenching his face, and then lowered the gun with a scream like he just
dropped a three-hundred-pound deadlift. “You’re going to get us all killed!”

Stephanie stepped
forward. “Curtis, you have to stop and think. That is not Troy.”

Curtis returned
his attention to his older brother, studying him through thin eyes as waves
rolled to shore in the background. “Troy? Can you hear me, brother?”

Paul hung his
head, the car show guy flickering through his memory banks. He’d tried
communicating with that poor bastard and it nearly got him killed but Curtis needed
to figure it out on his own. Jamming the Beretta into its holster, Paul folded
his arms across his tank top and leaned against an ornate wooden bar, watching
the show unfold with an impatient look dancing in his eyes.

Wendy slowly
lowered her gun as Curtis went closer to Troy.

“Curtis!”
Stephanie’s hand slid to the empty holster on her hip. “Stay back.”

Around the pool
table, Curtis stopped in front of a stand-up Asteroids machine playing on
demo-mode and stared into Troy’s dark eyes. “Are you in there, Troy-boy?”

Troy cocked his
head to one side, flexing his bloody fingers open and shut. Open and shut. Open
and shut.

“Curtis, please
get back.”

“Shut up, Steph, and
go find some rope.”

“
Rope
?” she gasped. “For what?”

“To tie him up.
What do you think?”

“I think you’re
insane!”

Curtis turned a
heated glower her direction and Stephanie huffed out a frustrated breath and
galloped downstairs.