Dead Series (Book 3): A Little More Alive (14 page)

“Holy shit,” Billy
whispered, ready for the fattest straggler that ever existed to spring from the
woods at any moment. Ready to do anything to not end up like Calvin. “That was
the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard.”

“He was a good man
and he’s with his wife now.” Paul hit a button on the key fob that electronically
popped the tailgate. “Let’s get this stuff inside and regroup. We leave
tomorrow at dawn.”

“
Dawn
?” Wendy wrinkled her brow. “And go
where?”

His eyes shifted
to Brian and hovered on him for a moment before words slipped past his lips.
“To start a brushfire.”

C
oming out of a Jack and Jill bathroom down the hallway,
Stephanie stopped in the doorway of a spare bedroom and smiled at Paul while
the others devoured the food from the Suburban out in the kitchen. He looked up,
body heavy and sinking into a loveseat set into a nook with a bay window behind
it. Her black tank top fit almost as snugly as her jeans, stirring a dormant
swarm of butterflies inside his stomach. Catching himself on the verge of
staring, his eyes drifted over her shoulder to Dot, who walked by with a pair
of scissors and black hair all over her Atlanta Braves t-shirt. Stephanie’s
combat boots strolled through the stripes of sunlight cutting across the floor
and stopped in front of him. His eyes traveled up her long legs until finding
the sheepish grin gracing her face.

Running a hand
through her wet hair, her eyebrows went up as the others laughed at something
down the hall. “Well?”

He sat up a little
straighter and cleared a lump from his throat. “You look like a totally
different person.”

She flashed him a
faint smile. “I am,” she replied, sitting next to him and massaging the back of
her head. “That guy almost pulled the hair right out of my scalp.”

“Looks like that
won’t happen again,” he said, admiring the way the sun shone against her oily
locks. Shorter in the back and sides, her bangs fell a bit longer than the rest
and she was almost as unrecognizable as Dan. Almost.

Warmed by the sun,
the smell of shampoo floated from her hair, mixing with the wood burning in the
guestroom’s small fireplace. “I haven’t had a pixie cut since fourth grade,”
she said, toying with her new ‘do.

“I’d say Dot’s got
some skills with the scissors.” Paul fell headfirst into her dark pools,
melting into the sparkles residing within. “You look…amazing.”

A smile bloomed on
her lips, creeping back into her flushed cheeks. She set a hand on his leg and
squeezed, sending an electric charge shooting through him. “Thank you.”

“Most girls can’t
pull off short hair but you…”

“No, I meant thank
you for saving my life back there.” She wet her lips. “Again.”

Words dangled from
the tip of tongue as the heat from her hand passed through his jeans and seeped
into his leg. “You’re welcome.”

Her hand lingered
past the point of proper, filling him with a calmness he hadn’t felt for a long
time. “I feel heartless getting a haircut after something like that happened to
Calvin,” she said, taking her hand back.

“As long as you
didn’t get your nails done too, I think you’re okay.”

She stared into
his eyes for a split second before bursting into laughter and shifting to face
him on the loveseat. “That appointment isn’t until next week.”

“Right after the
bikini-wax?”

Her brow folded.
“What?”

“I’m sorry, that
was inappropriate.” Sitting up, Paul examined her bare shoulder with his
eyebrows dipping. “Jesus,” he whispered, tracing a round bruise with his
fingertip. The contusion was already turning purple and reminded him of the imprint
the pharmacist’s teeth left in Sophia’s shoulder. Blowing out a drained breath,
he leaned back into the cushions. “That was way too close.”

Her face sobered
in the light coming through the window behind them. “I know.”

“Maybe Kevlar
really isn’t a bad idea.”

“Are you sure you
want to leave here tomorrow morning? It’s so nice.” Her eyes drifted to the fireplace
popping against the bedroom wall. It wasn’t even eleven in the morning yet and,
with the sun penetrating the house’s many windows, it was already getting hot.
Since they would be leaving here in the morning, most likely forever, Brian
decided to splurge on the kindling stacked outside the patio door downstairs.
Three fireplaces were going in the house and the laughter erupting in the
kitchen got on Paul’s nerves. Calvin was just torn to pieces and, though no one
knew him, the death of another shouldn’t be so easy to forget. “And safe.”
Stephanie’s lips squished into the side of her face. “Well, it’s getting there
anyway.”

“We have to take
this entire town back, not just this place, and we need more people. A lot
more.”

“I know. I just
really don’t want to go back out there. Not yet.”

Calvin’s screams
stomped through Paul’s mind, stepping on his appetite. He needed to eat but
couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Out of respect for Calvin, he would wait just a little bit
longer. Laughter burst from the kitchen again, drawing Paul’s eyes to the
hallway. He couldn’t see them but could imagine the smiles pulling into their
faces and it wasn’t right. But it was like that now. Here today, gone tomorrow.
Short memories were for the best in this world but Paul couldn’t shake those
screams. Not yet.

“I think we should
leave while their numbers are down. If we wait much longer, more will come. We
need to build an army faster than they can.”

She held his eyes
for a long moment, turning something over in her head. “How’d you get so good
at this?”

“Bad luck, I
guess.”

Stephanie leaned in
closer, voice dropping to a whisper. “If it weren’t for bad luck…”

“I’d have no luck
at all,” he breathed back, staring into her eyes.

Her lips pressed
against his, catching him off guard and sending sparks streaking across his
field of vision. She smelled like shampoo and tasted like cherries. Her tongue
was even warmer than her hand and Paul almost forgot everything that had
happened since he shot a pregnant corpse in his dining room. Almost forgot
where he was. When they broke for air, he saw something in Stephanie’s eyes he
thought he’d never see again.

Hope.

When he noticed
Wendy standing in the doorway, he traded an embarrassed look with Stephanie and
hid from Wendy’s angry eyes. Stephanie leaned back and crossed her legs, swinging
a combat boot through the air and nervously toying with her new haircut.

Wendy stormed off
down the hallway, her sneakers slapping against the hardwood. The slam of the
bathroom door at the end of the hall made them jump.

Paul cringed and
straightened his black t-shirt, licking Stephanie’s cherry gloss from his lips
and wanting to taste her again. In his mind, he saw Wendy pulling her gun from
the corpse that bit into Rebecca and it made him grimace. He would have to have
another coming-to-Jesus-party with her and soon. They needed her shot but if
she wouldn’t take it when the time was right, Stephanie could be the next to
fall and if that happened…

“Do women always
throw themselves at you like this?”

He turned to
Stephanie and swallowed hard, sweat sprouting across his brow, the room buzzing
around him. “Yes.”

Biting back a
flirtatious smile, she swatted his leg. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done
that.”

Paul blew out a
long breath and sank lower into the loveseat, watching a stripe of sunlight
inch closer to his feet. “You should be. I hate it when NFL cheerleaders put
the moves on me like that. It’s so cliché.”

“
Former
NFL cheerleader.” The fireplace
tugged at her morose gaze and she grew quiet, the logs popping and sparking. “I
can’t stop thinking about Calvin.”

“Me neither.”

“That was so horrible.”

“They did that on
purpose.” Paul grimly shook his head. “They’re fucking with us; trying to cripple
our drive.”

“That can’t be
possible. They’re skin and bones.”

“Have you ever
seen them take their sweet time with someone like that before?”

Her gaze fell to
the fingers she was twisting in her lap. “I know it’s selfish to say, but I
also can’t stop thinking about how it could be me tomorrow. I can’t even
imagine what that would feel like.”

“It won’t be you,”
he replied, anger building behind his eyes. Calvin should still be here and it
pissed him off because they couldn’t afford to lose a single person. Not now. Not
ever.

“You don’t know
that.” She sighed, embarrassment painting her cheeks. “Normally, I’m not so
forward with men but this world has…”

He took her hand
and squeezed it, forcing a smile. “Trust me, I get it.” That margarita night
aboard Wavy Gravy whisked into his stream of thoughts. The swimming. The
dancing. The laughing. It seemed like ten years ago when Wendy kissed him on
the boat and the ensuing guilt had nearly crushed him. His eyes fell to his
hand covering Stephanie’s, accelerating his pulse. But this was different. Time
had watered-down his grief and that frightened him. Wendy was right. It was too
soon to get tangled up with another woman and the last thing he wanted was to
forget his wife. He didn’t want to be with anyone else and couldn’t wait to see
her again. But Stephanie had a point, each day could be their last. The odds
were stacked against them and things moved fast in this world and if you didn’t
keep up…

“Why do you think
we all saw Dan this time, and not just you?”

His eyes rose to
find her staring back. Pulling his hand away, he locked his fingers behind his
head and turned to the fireplace while Olive sang some children’s song about
monkeys in her bedroom down the hall. “They’re trapped.”

“Trapped?”

“They can’t rest until
we restore the balance. It’s about all of us, not just me.”

“
They
?” She rested an arm along the back
of the short couch. “You mean the people taken by the infection?”

Barely nodding, he
kicked his bloodstained Adidas out into the stripe of sunlight and tried not to
think about how many
people
that
might really be. If the last few weeks were any indication, it was astronomical
because there was hardly anyone left and this was going to be an uphill battle
for the rest of their wretched lives. The damage inflicted was massive, nearly
catastrophic, and only their great-grandchildren would begin to see the fruits
of their labor in the way of some passing breaks in the clouds. They were doing
this for them. All of
them
.

“Where are they?”
Stephanie asked coldly, studying his profile while he blurred the flames into skittish
yellow streaks. “The ones who’re trapped.”

He turned to face
her, sleep already pulling on his eyelids and it wasn’t even noon yet. “I don’t
know.”

“Will they help
us?”

Calvin flickered
through his mind and it was like staring into the sun. “I hope so.”

Exhaling a forlorn
breath, she ran a hand over the back of her short hair. “I guess there’s only
one way to find out.” She paused. “So where do we start?”

Paul turned back
to the fire and let it jump in his eyes. There was no need to hit up the local
police station for weapons and ammo. They had all they could carry and he
wondered how long it would last. For now, however, they needed people.
Soldiers. Warriors. This army had to start snowballing right out of Leadville
or else the undead would run rampant, devouring whatever was left to take. “We
start with the closest place where survivors could be hiding.”

Her eyebrows
dipped a little. “And where’s that?”

DAY TWENTY-NINE

S
iphoning gas was never a gimme. With his assault rifle
clutched in both hands and the sun peeking over the eastern horizon, Paul
watched Brian stick a short hose into the tank of an abandoned F-150 at a
McDonald’s on the way out of Leadville. If there wasn’t much left in the Ford,
they’d hit the CUV parked next to a new looking Fed-Ex truck across the way.
And if push came to shove, they’d go to the 4Runner with a roof-mounted cargo
box and small U-Haul trailer hooked to the hitch. Traveling with two vehicles
would require twice as much fuel and double the time it would take to get it,
especially with the cracked pump on the siphon. With any luck, they’d reach
their target destination within the next forty-five minutes and their numbers
would stop falling with the gas needle.

“Can you order me
a fish sandwich and a chocolate shake?” Brian said over his shoulder before
sucking on the tube and spitting gas to the pavement. “Hold the whipped cream
and cherry though,” he said, jamming the tube into an empty gas can and
spitting again. “Trying to watch my figure.”

Sunshine glinted
off Paul’s aviator shades as he turned from Brian to the glass front doors
painted in golden arches. There were sixteen thousand decaying McDonald’s
outlets in the United States alone, and all of them reminded him of just one.
The one across the street from a gas station in northern Missouri where his
rookie moves cost Carla’s entire family everything. He’d nearly come full
circle and that dark day would always live on in his mind. The impact with the
deer. The flutter of a pheasant’s wings. The bang of the restroom door against
the wall. He would never outrun it and that was his punishment for being sloppy.
That one was on him and he would never let it happen again.

A car door opened
and he spun on his heels, grimacing when he saw Wendy hop out of the Escalade
and slam the door shut behind her. Slowly lowering his weapon, Paul released a
pent-up breath and rolled his eyes behind his shades. Brian gave him an odd
look and turned back to the siphon as Wendy stopped in front of Paul and folded
her arms across her chest.

“This is
ridiculous.”

Paul bit his lip,
the pink gun riding her leg silently stirring his aggravation. Wendy thought
she would simply replace Sophia and they would live happily-ever-after. But she
was sadly mistaken. She could never replace Sophia. No one could. “It’s really
not that big a deal. It’s just for a little while. Okay?”

“I always ride
with you!”

“Not today you
don’t.”

Her blue eyes
pressed into arctic slits against the golden light, blond hair blowing wildly
in the wind. “Paul,” she said, “how many times do I have to say
I’m sorry
?”

“Can you just get
back in the car, please?” he asked, watching Brian pull the tube from the F-150
way too early. Paul groaned, knowing they’d have to hit the CUV now and this
could take all fucking day.

“Do you love her?”

His shades snapped
back to Wendy, brow creasing.

She glanced at
Stephanie sitting shotgun in the Suburban.

“Jesus Christ,
Wendy, I just met her. Okay?”

“That’s why I was
so shocked to catch you kissing her yesterday.” Her lips pressed into a thin
grim line, arms tightening around her jacket. “If you want me to stay out of
the way, just tell me and I will. I’m a big girl and can take it.”

His lips pulled
back into a ghastly perversion of amusement. “I want you to stay out of the
way.”

Her face hardened.
“Fine.”

“Good.”

“That’s all you
had to say.”

“I’m glad.”

She stood there
glaring at him as Brian packed up and started for the CUV. “Say no more, Paul.”

“Wasn’t planning
on it, Wendy.”

She shook her head
in disgust. “You men are all alike. You’re just primates who use people until
you get bored with them and move on to something shiny and new.”

A heated sigh
pried itself from his lips because this was the last thing he needed to be
thinking about right now. They were less than an hour away from a major sweep
and he needed to be on point or someone would get killed. Paul was far from a battle-hardened
soldier, used to staring death in the eye. But then again, no amount of
training could prepare someone for
this
.
This
was unlike any war that came
before it and, in the end, there were two options: Sit around and talk about
it. Or go out and get after it.

“You know what? I
miss the old Paul.”

“Will you just shut
the fuck up and get back in the goddamn car?” he shouted, drawing a look from
Brian as he popped the gas cap on the CUV. Movement in Paul’s peripheral drew
his eyes to a thin man in a shredded suit and tie shambling around the small bank
next door. “Company,” he yelled, pulling the M4 into his shoulder and taking
aim. Wendy gasped when the dead started pouring from the McDonald’s like the
place was on fire. She drew the pink nine and by the time everyone jumped from
the Suburban and Escalade, the corpses were closing fast.

Gunfire started
going off around Paul’s head as the group unloaded a hail of bullets and, in
his mind, everything slowed to a crawl. He had time to fire pinpoint accurate
headshots. Had time to think about how the dead must’ve been hiding in the
kitchen because when he took a quick look inside the lobby before Brian hooked
the siphon to the F-150 the place looked empty. The majority of the dead
customers came at a quick clip. They were overweight and, in hindsight,
McDonald’s might not have been the best place to stop for gas. The M4
jackhammered against Paul’s shoulder as he mowed them down. The ones in front
hit the pavement and the fat ones behind swiftly picked up the slack, hurdling
fallen corpses and charging with morbid battle cries bursting from their wide open
mouths.

Paul squeezed the
trigger on a short guy in a Slipknot hoodie and baggy black pants. Swinging the
barrel to a woman in mom jeans and an oversized sweater, he realized this was
going to be closer than he thought. The assault rifle pounded his shoulder and
she crumpled at his feet. The doors slid back on the Fed-Ex truck and more
stiffs stumbled out into the sun splashed lot. They swarmed the group of
survivors with their arms out and death moans wafting from their split lips. “Shit!”
Paul widened his stance, trying to draw a bead on a fat man in overalls racing
closer with thundering strides. He put two rounds in him and jumped to the
side. The man smashed into the Suburban, leaving a dent in the quarter panel,
and slid to the ground. Turning, Paul barely saw Wendy elbow Stephanie into the
arms of a skinny old man wearing khakis and a red sweater with a striking
resemblance to a decomposing Mr. Rodgers. The dead thing snatched Stephanie’s right
hand with an angry growl and she screamed when he bit down into her wrist.

“Stephanie!” Paul
raced closer. She shoved Mr. Rodgers back with just enough force to give Paul
room to blow his hollow moans out the side of his head. Helping to steady her
on her feet, his heart raced so fast it left him dizzy and gasping for air. “Are
you okay? Did he get you?”

She stared at the slobber
coating her wrist, holding her arm like it was broken and flexing her fingers.
“He didn’t break the skin,” she panted.

His gaze fell to a
pair of dentures lying on the ground between them and a calming breath left his
lips. Turning a harsh scowl Wendy’s direction, he set his jaw but she was too
busy killing stragglers to notice. Stephanie and Paul quickly rejoined the
battle and, after dispatching the rancid mob with way more ammunition than any
of them wanted to spend, he grabbed Wendy’s arm when she tried to get back
inside the Escalade. He spun her around hard. Her hand dropped to the pink gun strapped
to her leg but he beat her to it.

Pointing Sophia’s
gun at her face, he clenched his teeth, drawing alarmed looks from the others
who missed her little
nudge
.

“Paul, don’t!”

At that moment,
his rage was so high the only thing keeping him from killing Wendy with his
dead wife’s handgun was the sound of Stephanie’s voice cutting through the fog.
“She tried to kill you, Stephanie!” he replied, glaring at Wendy.

He could feel
Stephanie grasping at words just beyond reach as they struggled to catch their
breath.

“She what?” Curtis
panted, coming closer with the M4 clutched in both hands.

Paul nodded to Mr.
Rodgers, who was lying in the parking lot a few feet away with his legs folded
beneath him. “She pushed Stephanie into that old guy in the red sweater!”

Curtis followed
his eyes, face warping.

“What?” Wendy
gasped, throwing her hands over her heart in feigned horror. “No, I didn’t!”

“I saw you, Wendy!”

She backed against
the Escalade, the color draining from her face. “That’s bullshit and you know
it, Paul!”

Curtis turned to
his sister, cocking his head to one side. “Is that true?” Stephanie’s eyes
bounced to Wendy and landed on Paul. Hanging her head, she replied with a
shallow nod that told Curtis everything he needed to know. He looked back to
Wendy, anger flaring in his eyes. “Why would you do that?” he shouted, aiming
the weapon at her face.

“I didn’t! I fell
into her by accident.” Her watery eyes went to Paul, quietly pleading for his
understanding.

Curtis followed
her stare. “What? Because of him?” he said, gesturing with the gun barrel. “You
think my sister is going to steal him from you? Is that it?!”

Paul lowered
Sophia’s gun. “I was never hers to begin with.”

Things got quiet
as everyone took each other in with bloody bodies painting the parking lot
around their feet. No one spoke and the only thing to move was an American flag
proudly flapping in the wind at the bank, defying the evil that brought everything
else to its knees. Anxious pairs of eyes shifted between Wendy and Paul.

“Paul, I tripped
and fell into her. That’s all. I swear it!”

Without taking his
eyes from her, he spoke to the others out the corner of his mouth. “Get the
gas, Brian! Curtis you cover him!”

Wendy rolled her
eyes and tried getting back inside the Escalade but Paul stopped her and slowly
shook her head. Her face folded. So she tried getting inside the Suburban and
he stopped her again.

“Not that one
either.”

Her jaw came
unhinged, the wind tugging harder at her hair. “You’re just going to leave me
here?”

He didn’t respond,
wishing Brian would hurry the fuck up with the gas already.

Blinking a tear out,
her voice fell to a shaky whisper. “After everything we’ve been through, you’re
just going to leave me here?”

“You’re lucky I didn’t
end you after what you did to Rebecca. And now this? I can’t trust you anymore
and if I can’t trust you...”

“Paul, please!”
She turned on the waterworks to bolster her case which only pissed him off
more. It was an act, like when she used to take her clothes off for money and
make every John inside Dancers think she was madly in love with them and only
them. “Don’t you do this. Not to us!”

“There is no
us
, Wendy! I’ve told you that a hundred
times but you don’t listen.”

She turned to
Stephanie and softened her voice. “Can you please talk to him? Please?”

Stephanie’s thin
eyes slid to Paul. She opened her mouth, silently recalling what happened to
Rebecca. Quietly ruminating on what just happened to her in this very parking
lot. Shutting her mouth and pulling the M4 over her head, she got back inside
the Suburban, slamming the door shut behind her without a single word.

When both vehicles
were gassed up and everyone was inside and ready to go, Paul set Wendy’s
backpack at her feet and listened to her sob even harder. She knew this was a
death sentence and so did he. But so was having her around.

“Paul, I’ll never
do anything like that again. I promise.”

He swallowed past
the kink in his throat and tried not to let his voice crack when he spoke. “I
know you won’t.”

Tears streamed
down her face, glistening in the early light and mixing with the clear liquid
running from her nose. Scowling, she slapped his cheek. “You bastard!”

He backpedaled to
the driver’s side of the Suburban, weapon hanging in his hands and Sophia’s gun
tucked in the small of his back.

“You can’t just
leave me here! I don’t even know where we are!”

Opening his door,
he pulled the pink gun from his waistband and set it on the console next to
Stephanie before passing her the M4.

Wendy pulled at
her hair with both hands. “You’re not even going to give me a gun? You might as
well just shoot me now!”

“We’ll throw it in
the ditch on our way out of town. Billy put some ammo, food and water in your
backpack.”