Dead Series (Book 3): A Little More Alive (7 page)

Paul flashed him a
tightlipped smile and stood up, knees cracking with the movement. “One hour,
Cal.” A loud thump drew his attention. Turning, he saw Rebecca lying face down on
the table with her arms hanging limply at her sides. Walking over, he pulled
the gun from the small of his back and sat down across from her, checking the
magazine and flipping the safety off. She didn’t open her eyes when he set the
gun between them on the table and that weighed heavily upon his lungs.

Curtis came over
and bent down, whispering softly in Paul’s ear. “You don’t have to do this. Let
me.”

The Jacobsen house
sliced through his mind with broken claws, plucking his heartstrings until they
snapped. Déjà vu settled in around him like the quiet buzzing in his ears. Paul
kept his eyes on Rebecca, waiting for the unspeakable to rear its ugly head and
take another swipe at his wavering resolve. “I got this.”

A clock ticked
against the wall.

His heart pounded.

Ears rang.

“Are you sure?”
Curtis whispered.

Rebecca’s eyes
opened.

“I’m sure,” Paul
replied, pulling the hammer back until it clicked into place.

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN

E
veryone always said Iowa was flat. But Nebraska was
pancake flat and boring as hell to drive through. The quiet monotony sat in
complete opposition with what was waiting for them on the other side. The calm
before the storm, deceiving in its stillness, pulling at Paul’s eyelids with
both hands. But this was their road. Their path to a new beginning. And even
with the dead lurking in the shadows, it was easy to think – this time – things
would be different. Because, sooner or later, no matter how bad it is, things
always come back around. Pushing against the steering wheel, he cracked his
back and glanced at the others in the rearview mirror. Calvin stared vacantly out
his side window in the backseat, his reflection just as morose as the real him
that hadn’t said two words since leaving the base. Paul turned back to the road
before them and almost smiled. He was proud of Calvin. It wasn’t easy making
the right decision but burying his wife in a shallow grave helped. As did the
six people with shovels to make quick work of it.

The sun calmly
rose behind them, brushing a far-off speckling of westerly clouds with pink and
orange swirls. Taking his hand from the wheel, Paul put on his shades and flexed
his fingers, glancing at his palm in the light creeping through the windows. He
could still feel the gunshot haunting his hand. Could still see the abandonment
in Rebecca’s yellow eyes when she lifted her head from the table and lunged. He
wiped his palm on his jeans to clear the image, tired of thinking about what in
the world could be causing everyone to turn into monsters. Tired of thinking
how to stop it. Tired of…

“Are you okay?”

He turned to
Stephanie in the passenger seat next to him, tires humming beneath them. “I
just had the weirdest dream.”

She bit back a
smile. “You’re not funny,” she said, uncrossing her legs. “Do you want me to
drive for a while?”

“I’m good.”

“The sky is
beautiful,” Calvin muttered to his reflection, head leaning against the glass,
eyes distant and blank.

Paul and Stephanie
looked at each other, silently communicating their concern, the dirt from
digging Maria’s grave still under their nails. Turning back to the lonely
stretch of Interstate 80, Stephanie grew quiet. The tires clicked with the
cracks in the road as she twisted a ring around her finger in her lap. “What if
we can’t find them?”

Paul grimaced. The
thought had crossed his mind several times since signing off with Brian this
morning and, unless they stopped to find another ham radio somewhere, there
would be no way to contact them for better directions. If push came to shove,
he guessed there would be no shortage of maps and emergency radios in Colorado.
They could probably find one of each at a police or fire station but right now
they had to keep moving. Gas and pee breaks were the only stops and even then,
he didn’t know if they’d get there in time. But one thing was certain, they
would have no problem dispatching the corpses buzzing around the cabin like
angry hornets. The armory at Camp Dodge had more than they could carry. The big
stuff was long gone but there were enough M4s and handguns to go around. He
wished they had time to hook up a trailer and pack every last bullet but it
wouldn’t be difficult to find weaponry down the road. After all, this was
America. He snorted, gobbling up the dotted white lines. “We’ll find them,” he
finally replied, flashing Stephanie a tightlipped smile.

“I’m sorry about
Rebecca,” she said in a soft voice only he could hear, staring out the front
windshield.

He glanced at Wendy
in the mirror who was leaning against Curtis in the backseat, both fast asleep
with their jaws dangling. Billy’s head hovered in the background, stuffed in
amongst the gear in the tailgate, and Paul couldn’t tell if he was asleep or
not. Returning his attention to the interstate, he got into the gas and checked
the dashboard clock again. They were making good time. Outside of relocating a
big ass Dr. Pepper truck several miles back, the road was mostly clear. Most everyone
had heeded the government’s travel ban and stayed off the roadways and that was
a break. A big one. Like scoring the guns and ammo at Camp Dodge. But they
would need more breaks if they were to survive this scourge thrust upon mankind
by Satan himself.

“Did you know her
long?”

Paul’s hands tightened
on the wheel, searching for a way to steer the conversation down a different
road. “Just from work. She lived in Chicago and stopped in town every so often.”

He could feel
Stephanie studying his profile as he stared straight ahead, could almost see
the thin lines creeping into the corners of her eyes like she knew exactly who
Rebecca was and what he did with her when his wife was out of town for a long
weekend just before everything changed. No, Stephanie was no fool. She could
smell the guilt hiding on his breath so he tried not to breathe but his heart
was beating too fast.

“I bet you’re
getting tired of people telling you they’re sorry.”

He looked at her. “Just
a little.”

She patted the
back of his hand. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“No, I’m not,” she
replied, biting back a grin with sunshine pushing through the back windows.

Paul intercepted
an icy look from a suddenly wide awake Wendy in the mirror and turned back to
the road, clearing his throat with a drink of Coke. “Have you ever been to
Colorado?”

“I haven’t.”

“Well, after we
save this family, I’m going to take you snowboarding and you will love it. On
fresh powder, it’s like flying on a magic carpet.”

She bent an
eyebrow at him. “Didn’t you learn your lesson after going surfing at the beach
house?”

Longhorns began dotting
the landscape and Paul wondered how the cattle managed to survive this long.
How anything managed to survive this long. “Come on,” he said, “we can’t stop
living our lives. Besides, what could possibly go wrong?”

“Knowing our luck,
we’ll end up with a toboggan full of stragglers chasing us down the mountain.”

He pressed his
lips together. “Good point. Let’s make it snowshoeing instead.”

“Ha ha.” She pulled
hair over her shoulders and combed it with her fingers, watching the cows stare
back from inside their fences as the Suburban whizzed past at a hundred and
fifteen miles an hour. “But I wouldn’t turn down some cheeseburgers on the
grill.”

Paul laughed a
little too loudly, causing Billy to stir in the back. “Throw on some cheesy
twice-baked potatoes and stuffed mushrooms.”

“Oooooh, and top
it all off with some apple pie a la mode!”

He grew quiet, the
wheels clacking every few yards against the tar-filled cracks separating the massive
slabs of concrete while Calvin stared blankly out his window in the backseat.
Paul exhaled a forlorn breath. “I’m so sick of eating candy bars and chips.”

“Oh my God, me
too.” Stephanie pulled a bag of mini Chips Ahoy! from under the seat. “If I
wasn’t nearly starving to death…” she said, tossing one into her mouth.

“The funny thing
is those cookies are still fresh today but imagine what they’ll be like next
year, or the year after that. They’ll be like chocolate chip dog treats. You
ever try eating a frosted dog treat? Those things will crack your teeth.”

She shook her head
and sipped some Gatorade. “Gas station food. That’s what we’re left with,
especially when we’re on the move. Everything cold has spoiled. All the good
stuff is gone.” Her thin gaze turned to him. “What do you think will last the
longest? Out of all the junk food left out there?”

His eyebrows went
up. “Beef jerky?”

She shook her
head. “I say Corn Nuts.”

“Corn Nuts?”

“Think about it. I
mean, what are they anyway? Because they’re not nuts. I can tell you that.”

“I think they’re
genetically mutated pieces of corn.”

“See?” She twisted
in the seat to face him. “I bet if we find a bag of unopened Corn Nuts hiding
in some glovebox ten years down the road they will taste exactly the same as
they do today.”

He grunted,
bouncing with a bump in the road. “That sounds like wishful thinking.”

“Why? They already
taste stale.”

“No, I mean the
part about us still being alive ten years down the road.”

Stephanie couldn’t
stop a laugh and the playful sparkle in her eyes kept pulling his attention
from the road. Smiling, they shared a comfortable moment of silence, absorbing
the unfolding scenery around them, something unseen stretching between them.
Something that gave him butterflies. Something that managed to live in a world
with no light. He shifted in his seat and nodded at her. “Can I have one of
those cookies.”

“What cookies?”
she smirked, taking one from the bag and bringing it to his mouth. Jerking it
away just before he bit down, she laughed and then gave him the treat. “Good
boy.”

“Hey, when you two
are done slobbering all over each other up there, put in some GB.”

Paul stared dully
at Curtis in the rearview, jaws grinding the cookie as he mulled it over. “Mmm,
I guess not.”

“Come on, Paul,
I’m tired of listening to your stories about drinking blood with Marilyn
Manson.”

“That really
happened!”

Curtis leaned forward.
“Look, just grab one of the CDs from the console and put it in. Okay? It’s not
that hard.”

“Dude, those CDs
aren’t even in here anymore.”

“Bullshit. Pull
back the console and let me see.”

Paul leaned an
elbow on it and traded a coy look with Stephanie. “Somebody must’ve broke in
and stolen them while we were inside the base.”

Curtis sighed and
lowered his voice. “Paul, come on, man. I need it.”

“Oh, you
need
it?”

“That’s right.
Just a little somethin to take the edge off.”

Paul and Stephanie
shared a good laugh. “And Garth Brooks is going to take the edge off?” he said.
“You’ve lost everyone you know and love. The world has fallen to the living
dead. And Garth fucking Brooks is going to take the edge off?”

Curtis sharpened
his gaze. “That’s right, Paul. Some people do crack, I do Garth.”

“I tell ya what,
I’ll put on some Chris Gaines. How’s that sound?”

“It sounds
horrible! Chris Gaines isn’t even a…”

The words died on
his lips and Paul’s heartrate accelerated into overdrive. Hitting the brakes,
he slowed down and squinted against the sunshine reflecting off two brand new
pickups parked nose-to-nose across the interstate ahead. Three men with cowboy
hats leaned against them with shotguns and rifles cradled in their arms like
they were about to embark upon a leisurely day of pheasant hunting.

“Everyone get
frosty,” Paul yelled, stopping fifty yards out.

Billy’s head
popped up in the back. “What the hell is this?” he said, snatching up an M4 and
blinking the sleep from his eyes.

“Ambush,” Paul
answered, watching the men watch him back. His mind raced. The engine idled.
The ditches on both sides were too steep to risk going around and the bullets
the men would surely unleash if they did would be even worse.

“Let’s go back,”
Wendy panted, drawing her pink gun and checking behind them.

“I’m not going
back,” Paul replied, locked in a stare down with the men coolly leaning against
the trucks. “There’s no time. We’ll get lost for sure.”

“Paul, don’t be…”

“I’m not going
back,” he shouted, making everyone shrink. “That family doesn’t have time for
us to
go fucking back
. I am tired of
going back. From here on out, we only go forward!”

“What do you think
they want?”

He glanced at
Billy in the mirror and lowered his voice. “Everything.”

“Fuck em,” Curtis
said, drawing a new M4 from the back. “There’s six of us, and they only have
shotguns.”

Open fields
surrounded them on both sides and there was nowhere for anyone to hide. These
pricks were terribly bold to set up a roadblock like this and obviously
desperate. Paul’s eyes flicked to Calvin in the rearview mirror and anger was
quick to follow. “Calvin!”

Slowly turning
from the side window, he blinked softly like he just woke from a long nap.
“What?”

“We’ve got
company; get ready!”

“Paul, let’s just
go back.” Wendy looked behind them again. “The road is wide open.”

“We can take
them,” Billy added, doing what he promised and backing Paul’s plan. “We all
have assault rifles now.”

“Billy,” she
hissed, twisting around to glare at him. “The last time we ran into assholes
with guns I almost got raped. There could be more of them hiding.”

“Where? It’s all
dead fields.”

Paul watched the
men, their cocky stances grating on his nerves. He shifted into drive, eyes snagging
on the police badge pinned to Stephanie’s brown leather coat. “Things are
different now, Wendy. We don’t back down from anyone ever again.” She started
to protest and he cut her off. “Ever!”