Dead Series (Book 3): A Little More Alive (5 page)

An incredulous
laugh pushed past his lips.

Wendy grabbed his
hand, staring up at him from the chair. “It could help us, Paul.”

“I’m not doing a…”

“It won’t take
long,” Maria said, cutting his protest off at the knees. “And we can use every
edge we can get. You might be surprised what is waiting for you out there.”

Tipping his head
down, he spoke through clenched teeth. “Fine!” He stormed off toward the
mattresses and blankets on the other side of the cafeteria, annoyance pushing
the sleep from his eyes. “And if that doesn’t work, maybe we can try a fortune
cookie or, I don’t know, maybe go rescue that family.”

▼

An hour and forty-five
minutes later, Paul sat up like a waking vampire inside his coffin. Without
moving, his eyes quietly searched the dark outlines of the bodies lying around
him, the faint glow from a small lantern across the room giving off just enough
light to make everyone appear to be sleeping. Tip-toeing around them, he went to
the bathroom to make it look good, peeing in a urinal that was still taking a
drain while eyeballing the séance bullshit on the counter.

Séance.

The thought of him
sitting around holding hands in a candlelit bathroom while that family got one
step closer to dying brought the hint of a callous scowl to his lips. Fucking
stupid. Washing his hands in the sink, he looked up into the mirror, heart dropping
when he saw the dead man staring back. He turned off the water and dried his
hands on a paper towel, shaking his head in disbelief at the amount of weight
he’d lost and the wrinkles lining his face. The old Paul was gone. Just like
everyone else. And what was left was something different. Something half dead.

Taking another
quick look for an outlet he wished to God was there because this would be so
much easier in here, he left the bathroom and crept into the sprawling kitchen.
His Maglite was small but more than enough to light up the stainless steel
countertops and commercial appliances lining the walls. Unplugging a commercial
West Bend coffee maker, he took Sophia’s phone charger from his jeans and
plugged it in. Then he attached Billy’s cellphone, took a deep breath and held
it. The image of a low battery popped up, kick starting his heart. Setting the
phone on a counter, his eyes slipped through the lunch line sneeze guard,
searching for signs of movement out in the mess hall while the battery
collected enough juice to power up.

Less than three
minutes later, an eerie glow washed over Paul’s face as he flipped through some
harmless texts and emails. He didn’t have to scroll back far, however, because
Billy hadn’t used the phone since getting locked up just before the outbreak
brought the nation to its knees. Paul’s thumb stopped flipping screens when he
found what he was looking for in the gallery. Enlarging the image, his throat
tightened, blocking his windpipe. He stared at the picture of Billy’s wife, her
eyes shut and hands folded over a bloody mess on her chest. Paul recognized her
from the wedding pictures hanging on the walls in Billy’s parents’ house and,
at this stage of the game, knew a corpse when he saw one. He checked the date
and air wouldn’t come, throat coiling tight as a leg cramp as his eyes drifted
to a floor mixer across the room. Billy wasn’t in jail for a DUI; he was in
jail for murdering his wife. Paul’s insides twisted into wet ropes. Blurring
the large mixer into a gray blob, his mind outraced his shooting bloodstream,
flipping through options at the speed of light. Shacking up with a murderer was
one thing. Trusting him with their lives was another. He turned the phone off,
plunging himself into the darkness tugging on his spirits. There was only one
thing to do and, whatever the outcome, it wouldn’t be good.

B
illy pried his eyelids
apart and squinted, holding up a hand to block out the Maglite’s narrow beam.
Jumping to his feet, his eyes skipped across the cafeteria. “What’s going on?
Are they inside?” He reached for his gun and panicked when it wasn’t there. “Oh
shit, my gun’s gone!”

“Relax, Billy.”
Paul lowered the light to their feet so Billy could see everyone standing
behind him. “Everything is fine.”

His face stretched
longer when he saw the others staring back. Shifting in his socks, he glanced
at the covered windows. “Is it morning already?”

“Not yet.” Paul
held up the picture of Billy’s dead wife, the bright screen turning Billy’s
face an insipid shade of gray. “You weren’t in jail for a DUI were you?”

Slack jawed, he
studied the picture as if this was the first time he’d seen it. As if this was
news to him. Then his shoulders slumped with a long exhale. His eyes fell to
Paul’s right hand which was resting on the butt of his handgun. “Guess you
found some juice.”

“Guess I did.”

Interlocking his
fingers behind his head, Billy blew a breath to the ceiling. “Figured you would
sooner or later.” He rubbed his hands back and forth over the black peach fuzz
blanketing his scalp before dropping his arms to his sides. “I can explain,
man. She cheated on me with some guy from work and I know that doesn’t justify
what I did, but I…” He took a calming breath to steady his voice. “I lost my
job and came home early one afternoon, caught em red-handed in
our
bed and I…I just lost it.”

With fingers
tickling their handguns, the group cautiously studied him like he was a wild
animal.

A threat.

Dangerous.

Unpredictable.

“Look, I know what
y’all are thinking but it’s not like that.” He paused. “I know it was wrong but
I would never…”

“Put your hands behind
your back,” Paul said softly, pulling the cuffs from his belt.

“Paul, come on,
man.”

“Do it, Montel!”
Curtis drew his Glock and pointed it at Billy’s face.

Billy opened his
mouth to rebut and after a few long seconds, hung his head and turned around
instead. Once he was handcuffed and seated on a metal stool in the kitchen,
they gathered around a table in the cafeteria and quietly deliberated his fate
through a fluttering of hushed whispers and nervous glances.

Maria handed the
cellphone back to Paul and shook her head, scrunching her little nose into a
repulsed ball. “What a sick bastard,” she whispered. “No way we can bring him
with us to Colorado. We have to leave him here.”

Calvin gave her a quick
double take. “Wait, we’re going to Colorado?”

His wife took his hand.
“We can’t just stay here and do nothing, Cal.”

A faint smile
pulled back into the corners of his mouth. “I wouldn’t call it nothing. I mean,
we’ve been using the gym and theater quite a bit, and don’t forget about the
hot tub.”

“We have to help
them save that family. There’s a reason why we survived and this is it.”

He blew out a slow
breath. “I know.” Brushing bangs from his glasses, he gave her a warm smile. “I
mean, how often do you get to be a hero, right?”

Maria kissed him
on the lips. “Thank you,” she whispered, pumping his hand.

“You haven’t been
out there.” Paul glanced into the kitchen through the lunch line. “It’s
extremely dangerous, which is why we need Billy.”

“Paul’s right.”
Stephanie threw her long chocolate-colored hair over a shoulder, eyes puffy
from a disturbed sleep. “He’s saved all of our lives at some point along the
line. We couldn’t have made it this far without him.”

“Paul, we can’t
trust him. Think about it, man.” Curtis traded a harried look with his sister.
“He’s a woman killer.”

“That was in a
different world!”

“And how long
until he gets pissed off after someone eats the last candy bar and puts a
bullet in their chest like he did to his wife?”

 
Leaning back in a plastic chair, Paul tried to
keep his voice under control because this was going to be a tough sell. Billy
could’ve killed them ten times over by now but he hadn’t. If ever there was a
way to repent of his sins, saving the world just might be his golden ticket.
Resting his elbows on the table, Paul spread his palms. “Listen, his wife
ripped his heart out by defiling their marriage in their own home. She ruined
everything in the blink of a margarita lunch. Now, that doesn’t defend what he
did; it absolutely doesn’t. But comparing his wife’s affair to
eating the last candy bar
is ridiculous.
Billy lost his business, his marriage and their condo, but despite his
transgressions, he has proven himself a soldier, time and time again. He can
keep his head in the tough times and shoot straight when it counts, which is a
BIG deal. In the old world, I wouldn’t bat an eyelash if he got the death
penalty but the
old world
, and
everything that happened in it, is dead. We are all born again and without
Billy’s shot, we’re never going save those people in Colorado, let alone save
this country.” He pointed out the locked double doors leading to outside.
“There are millions of dead people out there trying to eat us and Billy can
help stop them.”

Maria leaned back
in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not going anywhere with
a murderer.”

Calvin rapidly
shook his head, folding his arms across his chest as well. “Yeah, we don’t
usually hang with killers.”

“We’re all killers
now!” Paul shot up from the chair, rage tightening his eyes. “What do you think
I am?”

Calvin shed a
timid smile. “Killing those dead things out there doesn’t really make you a
killer killer
.”

Paul’s glare
turned icy, chest rising and falling beneath his black t-shirt. “I’m not
talking about those
things
out there,
Calvin.”

“Oh.” He cleared
his throat and sat up a little straighter. “W-What’re you talking about?”

Wendy dropped a
cigarette into a Diet Coke can, making a hiss. “The bottom line is, we need all
the gunslingers we can get and Billy is a gunslinger. I’d rather take my
chances with him against those things than without him.” She stopped to gauge
their expressions, smoke seeping from her lips. “He won’t hurt us.”

“Oh, how do you
know, Paulina Gretzky?” Curtis fanned a hand through the air at her. “Did you
have a little séance in the bathroom while you were taking a dump?”

“Curtis stop.”
Stephanie took off her combat boots and straightened her socks. “Billy’s wife
hurt him bad and we could never hurt him like that. We barely even know him.”

A bitter laugh
squirted from her brother. “Well, we’re getting to know him better every day
now, aren’t we?”

“Can I talk to you
for a minute, Paul?”

Sighing, Paul
followed Calvin across the mess hall, dragging his feet and dreading whatever
what was about to come out of his mouth. Finding the picture of Billy’s dead
wife already knocked the tiredness from him and they were losing precious time
because at first light they were ghosts. And if they were going to travel
twelve hours to a major shoot out, they would need to be somewhat clearheaded by
the time they got there and getting zero sleep was just plain stupid.

Calvin stopped
next to a table with their coats piled on it and rested his hands on his hips,
trading glances with his wife across the room. “If you want us to come with
you, that’s fine. But we can’t take Billy. I’m not going to give him the chance
to rape and murder my wife while I’m tied to a pipe in the basement of some
grain elevator.”

Paul’s face soured.
“Huh?”

Folding his arms
across his chest, he shifted his weight. “I’m cool with helping you save those
people. I mean, I’ve basically been training for this my entire life on
Playstation but I’m not about to let that guy around Maria.”

“Playstation?”

“Well, that and
Walking Dead
marathons, but the point is…”

Paul stepped in
his face and looked down on him, his shadow falling over Calvin like a cold
black wind. “This isn’t a game, Calvin, and it sure as hell isn’t a movie. A
screwdriver isn’t going to do shit to those things out there!”

Calvin held his
hands out and backed against the wall, an uneasy smile shaping his lips.
“Actually, it’s a TV show but yeah, man, totally. I hear you, fo sho.”

Paul pointed to
the locked double doors without taking his hardened eyes from Calvin. “Things
will happen out there that will change you forever and there is no taking it
back. There is no
reset
button.”

“I’m not afraid.”

Tipping his chin
down, Paul’s voice fell to a grave whisper. “You will be, Calvin.”

Calvin shrunk
against the wall and swallowed dryly. “We just want to do the right thing and
be of some help, but this Billy guy is a flat-out…”

“Bees!”

Maria’s voice was
high-pitched and laced with panic, cutting the room in two. Paul’s head snapped
around to the two men in bloody fatigues standing in the open double doorway
leading to the restrooms down the hall. Heart jerking, his eyes located the M4
on a table all the way across the room. Sinuously peeling the Beretta from the leg
holster strapped to his thigh, he stomped closer to the skinny corpses, coming
to a standstill when three more appeared behind them. Taking out the first two
with pinpoint accuracy, he backpedaled when a half a dozen cadavers stumbled from
the hallway and entered the cafeteria. A high-pitched shriek rang out behind
the pack of undead, hurting Paul’s ears over the chorus of gunfire and screams going
off around him. Widening his stance, he brought three more flesh-eaters to the
floor, clearing a path for the fat woman standing behind them. Sprinting from
the hall, she blazed past Paul and tackled Maria onto a table. Sliding across
the smooth surface, it tipped, sending them careening into a wall. Calvin
screamed out his wife’s name and took off running, handgun pumping in his fist.

Paul turned just
in time to deflect a gray-haired man wearing stripes on his sleeves,
redirecting the officer’s momentum into a table and chairs with a quick kick to
the face. The man’s legs tangled with some chair legs, giving Paul plenty of
time to blow the back of his head out through his mouth. On the other side of
the room, a soldier pulled Rebecca’s arm to his pointy teeth. She screamed and
tried to yank away. Wendy took aim at the man’s head but didn’t fire, swinging
the gun back to the peeling mob shuffling closer instead. A burst of heavy gunfire
peppered the air and Calvin released a painful sounding cry. Paul barely heard
him over Rebecca’s screams as the man tore a chunk of flesh from her wrist.
Veins dangled over his lips like Ramen noodles and Paul put a long-distance slug
through his neck that left his head hanging by a thread. Calvin screamed
Why?
over and over and over again, pulling
Paul’s panic-stricken gaze to the fat woman lying on top of Maria. He dashed over,
terrified of what he would find.

“I shot her! I
shot her!”

For a moment, he
wasn’t sure who Calvin was referring to until he rolled the heavyset corpse off
Maria. Recoiling, his eyes drew to the bullet hole in Maria’s left cheek.

“Shit!” Calvin
turned and opened fire on the stream of undead funneling in from the restrooms,
his entire body pulsating with each punishing round. “You fuckers!”

Paul noticed two
stragglers in uniform disappear into the kitchen and heard Billy’s subsequent
cries for help. “Shit,” he breathed, darting around the metal lunch line to
find Billy backing away with his hands cuffed behind him. The man and woman
limped closer, moaning like they were in constant pain and backing Billy up against
a wire shelf stocked with pots and pans. Running to find an angle that wouldn’t
get Billy killed with an errant shot like Maria, Paul wasted four rounds and
dropped them at Billy’s feet.

Billy looked up, eyes
bulging. “Holy fucking shit, that was so close,” he panted, nodding at Paul. “Unlock
me, man. Please.”

Paul let a small
key dangle from his fingertips and checked his six. “If I unlock you, you back
me up on every plan I bring to the table from here on out.” His gaze tightened with
his jaw. “And I mean
every
plan.”

Billy nodded
vehemently. “I will. I swear to God.”

Paul studied him
for a long moment, trying to see into his soul, trying to find the reins.

“Every plan, Paul!
I will.”

“Turn around,” he
said, unlocking the handcuffs and slipping them back onto his belt.

Billy rubbed his
wrists, looking all around. “Where’s my gun?”

“I don’t know.”
Paul knelt down and pulled a handgun from the camouflaged holster strapped to
the dead man lying at their feet. He handed it to Billy but didn’t let go. “You
better be cool, Billy.”