Dead Series (Book 3): A Little More Alive (15 page)

She threw her
hands out, the hint of a sadistic grin tugging on her lips. “So that’s it?” She
laughed madly into the wind. “After saving your life how many times now, this
is where it gets me? Stranded in Leadville-fucking-Colorado!”

He stared at her
for a terribly long moment and watched her cry, wishing things could be
different. Wishing she could come with them. Next to him, she was the only
person who ever met Sophia and Dan and that weighed on his pounding heart,
restricting the blood flow to his head. “Now we’re even,” he said, climbing
inside.

Wendy stomped a
foot into the ground. “Everyone has left me my entire life! So why not you too,
Paul?”

He slammed the door
shut, drowning out her high-pitched pleas, and hit the locks.

“Hey man, you’re
not really going to leave her here.” Billy stared at Paul in the mirror from
the backseat. “Are you?”

“She pushed my
sister into that straggler. She’s in love with the
great one
here and can’t be trusted.”

Billy frowned at
Curtis and slowly shook his head. “Man, that’s a cold ice tea.”

Stephanie glanced
at Paul from the passenger seat, waiting to see what he would do next. Knowing
she just came inches from death’s door, she turned back to the front windshield
when Paul started the vehicle. He put it in drive but kept the brake down,
watching the past play out against the snowcapped mountains rising in the foreground.
It seemed like an eternity ago – the mint-colored couch, the Chevelle, Wavy
Gravy, and the beach house skipped through his mind like a scratched record. They
had been through so much together and this didn’t seem right. His tight gaze
wandered back to Stephanie and, in his mind’s eye, he saw Mr. Rodgers bite into
her wrist again. Blowing out a defeated breath, he pulled onto Highway 91 and
tried not to watch Wendy get smaller in the mirror. Tried not to watch her just
stand there and stare after them. Stephanie tossed Sophia’s gun out the window
into the right-side ditch, tightening Paul’s grip on the wheel, and Wendy
sprinted for the weapon with the backpack swinging in her hand. Turning back to
the road, he got into the accelerator with his stomach twisting into wet ropes.

T
he dead man was still riding the ski lift when they pulled
into Copper Mountain. The sprawling parking lot looked like a massive Carmax
and Paul quietly wondered if a snowstorm had prevented everyone from leaving
when the outbreak ripped the country’s throat open with razor-sharp talons. The
extensive number of condos and shops and restaurants drained what little energy
he had left after leaving Wendy in the rearview mirror. Set against a
snow-covered mountain with manicured runs dripping down its side like melting ice
cream, the ski village was much larger than Paul remembered. It would take days
to clear with only eight people – one of which, he couldn’t forget, was a six-year-old
little girl named Olive. His eyes went to the mirror and squeezed past the gear
tucked in back to the Cadillac Escalade slowly motoring behind them. He glanced
to his left at the dead man heading back up the lift, feeling guilty thinking about
how much harder this was going to be with a child. Shaking his head to clear
it, he pushed the thought from his mind because this army needed children as
much as it needed experienced shooters. Without them, there was no future…but
having them around certainly didn’t make things any less dangerous.

A forlorn sigh
pushed past his lips as he slowly followed a frontage road bordering the far
edge of the lot. After spending the rest of yesterday eating, napping and
packing, they were now on their way to a new world order in a fresh change of
clothes, down one more member of the team. Sometimes it seemed for every step
forward, they took two back. Watching Dot tear up when they left the cabin this
morning reminded Paul of Cora, who had just as stubbornly refused to leave her
house in Victoria, Texas. Unfortunately, poor Brock never got the chance to go.
This time, however, things would be different. Paul could feel it. Could see it
in their eyes. They believed and that was thanks to Dan. Looking at Stephanie
in the seat next to him, she flashed him a reassuring smile he tried to return
but couldn’t quite lift.

“Look out!” Billy
yelled from the backseat.

Paul slammed on
the brakes and jerked forward, the seatbelt cutting into his shoulder, certain
Brian would rear-end the Suburban and knock at least one car out of commission
right out of the gate. The Suburban squeaked to a stop and threw them back in
their seats. The Escalade skidded to a rest just inches from their bumper and
everything got quiet. With his heart pumping and a far-off ringing in his left
ear, Paul watched two brown and white draft horses emerge from a small grouping
of pines on the right-hand side of the road. The massive mounts stepped out onto
the sunbaked lot, their shoes clip-clopping against the pavement. A big sleigh
came out from the pines next, glowing red in the sunshine and looking straight
out of the North Pole.

Billy leaned
forward, watching the horses tiredly pull the sled past the front of the
Suburban with their heads down. “Hey man, maybe that’s a sign we should go
somewhere else. Do you see Dead Dan or anyone?”

“It’s not a sign,”
Paul snapped, shooting him an icy glower in the mirror. “And his name is
Dan
.”

Leaning back,
Billy traded an uncertain look with Curtis in the seat next to him. “Sometimes
I wish I was still back in that jail cell.”

Curtis blew a
stream of rolling smoke into his face. “Me too,” he said, passing him a joint.

“Had I known all
this crazy-ass shit was waiting for me out here, I never would’ve left.” He
brought the joint to his lips and sucked, making the cherry glow and holding
his breath. “Zombie trains and dead cat ladies.” Smoke seeped from his nose as
he grimly shook his head and handed the joint back to Curtis. “I hate cats.”

“Maybe we should
free them from that sleigh. Look how tired they are.” Stephanie craned her
neck, watching the horses weave around a row of abandoned vehicles, the sled’s
metal runners grinding against the cement. “I can’t believe they’ve been
dragging that around this whole time.”

Paul remembered
the Amish man in a buggy with a horse named Benji and he knew that if Wendy was
here she would be thinking about the exact same thing. “We’ll come back for
them,” he said, getting into the gas and cracking his window to clear the smoke
from the cab.

“Hey Paul, if no
one’s here can we hang out for a few days and get in some skiing before everything
melts?”

He glanced at
Billy in the mirror and turned back to the frontage road snaking along the edge
of the sprawling lot that seemed to stretch forever. “No.”

“Aww come on, man.
We need a little R&R.”

Curtis leaned
forward, smoke rising from the joint pinched between his fingers. “Might not be
a bad idea, Jonny Depp. I bet some of the rooms in this place are sick.”

Billy nodded
rapidly. “And you know the bars are stocked and loaded!”

“That’s what’s up,”
Curtis said, fist-bumping Billy. “Hey Paul, you can go tubing down the bunny
hill if you want. All day long too.”

“Thanks, but I
board,” he replied flatly.

Billy looked at
Curtis, eyebrows rising. “Ooh, knuckle-dragger, huh? Okay, I can respect that.
So what do you say, man? Hang here for a few days and chill hard?”

Paul stopped in
front of a tall hotel carved into the base of the mountain that looked like
something out of
The Shining
and was
probably just as old. Putting it in park, he blew out an uneasy breath. “I
don’t know. Maybe,” he replied, scanning the many rows of windows staring back
at them while Brian pulled alongside. “But right now, I need you two to stay
focused.” He swallowed uneasily, seeing phantom corpses watching from the windows.
“God knows what’s waiting for us in there.”

Stephanie pulled
on a pair of tight black gloves she’d taken from the beach house. “Knowing our
luck, probably a horde of rotting werewolves.”

Billy exhaled a pungent
plume of smoke, nervously looking all around. “I don’t know, man. I’m getting a
bad feeling about this.”

“You say that
everywhere we stop!” Paul tossed his sunglasses on the dash, trying to squash
the same damn feeling bubbling in his gut. “This is why I tell you not to get
high before storming places. It makes you paranoid.”

“That’s not true.”
Billy whipped his head around to the glass front doors. “Hey, did you see that?”
he whispered. “I think I just saw someone go in those doors.”

Paul rubbed his
forehead. “No, you didn’t.”

“All these cars in
the lot…” Curtis checked his Glock and holstered it on his hip. “Bound to be a
welcoming party of some kind inside.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”
Paul opened his door and let in the crisp morning air. “But they can’t all be
dead. No way; so pick your targets wisely.” Squinting against the sunshine, he met
Brian and Gary at the back of the vehicles, where they geared up with the
tailgates open.

“I think Gary
should stay with Dot and Olive in the car. Just in case.”

Paul turned to
Brian, gaze catching on the silver badge pinned to his jacket. They all had one
now, deputized under the cover of darkness, charged with upholding laws that no
longer exist. Glancing at Dot and Olive inside the Escalade, Paul’s stomach
sank with the frightened faces peering back. “I think we should stick
together.”

“I think that too
but…” Brian tipped his head back and studied the hotel windows for a short
while. “This place is pretty big. What if we have to run?” His eyes floated
back to the Escalade. “She’s only six, Paul.”

“We’ll be fine out
here,” Gary said, holstering his sidearm and grabbing a shotgun. “Hell, Dot can
shoot better than I can and if anything goes wrong, we’ll honk and do circles
in the lot.”

Paul slipped the
weapon strap over his head and blew out a beleaguered breath. “Okay.” Splitting
up was the last thing he wanted to do but it felt right. His mind proved it by
conjuring up an image of them running down a carpeted hallway with twenty-five
slugs hot on their asses. And what if they had to use the stairs? If the shit really
hit the fan, somebody would have to carry Olive, losing one gun and increasing
the chance of a fatal slip and fall in the process. No, they had to protect her
at all costs. In this world, she was the golden child come to life. She was the
future.

He took one last
pull of water and rolled his head on his shoulders, cracking his neck. “Let’s
do this.”

Inside the hotel,
it was cold and smelled like an old high school that’d seen decades of guests
with their revolving bags and odors and meals. Sunlight streamed through an
entire wall of windows on the mountain side of the building and there was no
one to greet them at the long front desk.

Curtis elbowed
Paul in the ribs. “Hope you made a reservation.”

Paul led the
charge deeper inside, checking behind the front desk before crossing a lobby
called The Copper Lounge – outfitted with a massive fireplace and orange
couches and armchairs with straight lines and white trim. Stepping into a
formidable dining room overlooking the lifts outside, sunlight reflected off
the glass chandeliers dangling from the vaulted ceilings like tangled spider
webs. Red tablecloths masked the many tables dotting the room, some of which still
had plates of food holding them down. Furrowing his brow, Paul crept closer to
a round table with six place settings, heart thudding so loudly in his ears it
made hearing anything else nearly impossible. It was like the infection tore
through the place right in the middle of dinner, disrupting the guest’s meals
before turning them into monsters through horrid screams and painful cries. He
stopped and stared at the food on the plates, gut tightening.

“At least somebody
had one good last dinner before everything went dark,” Curtis said, canvassing
the spread.

Using the barrel
of the M4, Paul poked at some fried chicken and mashed potatoes. A slow moving
frown wormed through his face. “It’s still fresh.”

Curtis picked up a
drumstick and held it up to the light. “Fresh? Hell, it’s still warm.”

Paul spun on his
heels, sweeping the assault rifle around the expansive room, adrenaline
flooding into his system. It wasn’t the infection that interrupted the meal. It
was them. “This isn’t dinner. It’s breakfast.”

“Somebody’s in
here,” Billy whispered, tightening his grip on the weapon.

Curtis dropped the
chicken leg back to the plate with a clatter and took up the M4 in both hands. “Yeah,
and judging by all this food, I’d say a lot of somebodies.”

“You move and you will
die! That I can assure you.”

The voice was
stern and clear, the tone of someone who sounded in charge but scared and
desperate all at the same time. The voice of someone who was a leader in the
old world and still trying his hand today.

“Set the guns on
the floor!” The man’s echo bounced across the spacious room, making it
difficult to pinpoint the source. Paul focused on a moon-shaped hostess stand
where someone could be hiding. The clicking of several hammers pulling back at
once around them chilled him to the bone. Jamming the butt of the weapon into
his shoulder, he took aim at the people stepping from the wait-stations and swinging
kitchen doors. They came from the restrooms, hallways and emergency exits, guns
pointed at Paul and company from all directions. At first glance, he estimated
there were at least twenty of them. Fifteen jackhammering heartbeats later, he
adjusted that number to forty and counting.

Curtis spun on the
balls of his feet, jerking his gun barrel from one frightened face to the next.

Paul readied
himself for the, now all too familiar, recoil he’d grown to love, searching for
words to defuse the situation. He didn’t want to shoot them. He wanted to join them,
but men like Booth ruined his trust in mankind.
Mankind
had changed right along with everything else and, sooner or
later, they would have to change back or they’d never win. “We’re here to help
you, not hurt you!” Paul quickly blurted, holding a hand up for his team to
hold their fire.

A heavyset man in
his early fifties with a mangy beard and, just as mangy, ski cap did the
talking for the others. “Looks like you’re here to steal our food to me.” His
piercing gaze shifted to Curtis along with a hunting rifle that would undoubtedly
put a tennis ball-sized hole through him.

“I can promise you
that’s not the case.” Paul took in the worried faces staring back, hurriedly
evaluating their condition. They’d obviously been eating well but looked scared
to death, like they hadn’t left this place since the outbreak began. Like they
thought they were the only ones left. There was no hiding the surprise in their
eyes and the lack of color in their cheeks. “We came down from Leadville to help,”
he told them, his gaze traveling the room, meeting each set of their startled
eyes.

“And we have our
own food,” Brian added, staring down the barrel of his bolt-action rifle. “Plenty
to go around, friend.”

“Yeah, but not
fried chicken.” Curtis gestured with his weapon. “What’d you people do? Sell
your souls to the devil?”