Dead Series (Book 3): A Little More Alive (9 page)

Curtis stared out
the side window and sighed, fogging the glass. “How’re we supposed to stand a
chance against these things when the US military got their asses kicked with
all of that firepower?”

“Because they were
caught off guard. Things happened fast in the beginning and nobody knew what
the hell was going on.” Paul stared out the front windshield, seeing those
first news reports play against the dirty glass. If they could go back in time and
do it again, they would’ve known you can’t save the infected. That the corpses
aren’t as brain dead as first thought. That you have to kill the fat ones
first. If they would’ve known all that then, maybe they could’ve stopped this
nightmare from snowballing into something unwinnable.

“Listen, we’ve got
two things going for us: One, we all have M4s now and we know how to use them.”

“Sort of.”

Paul’s eyes shot
to Wendy in the mirror and thinned. “And two, I’m sure the US military took out
a shitload of corpses for us because if they hadn’t…” He trailed off, eyes
sliding through the shadowy trees. “We’d be seeing a lot more of them out
walking around. They’d be everywhere but they’re not.”

“Unless they’re
hiding.”

He glanced at
Billy and turned back to the road, pressing his lips into a tight line.

“But you’re right,
I’m sure most of them are already dead,” Billy said, trying to redeem himself.

“And let’s not
forget about your ghost friends trying to help us along the way,” Wendy said,
zipping her coat up.

Curtis blew ash from
the joint and smiled at her. “Assault rifles and apparitions,” he said. “Hell,
maybe we stand a chance after all.”

Paul stopped the
Suburban in the middle of the road and let his gaze climb a long driveway
snaking through the pines and aspens before disappearing over a bend where the
cabin must be tucked somewhere in the hillside. “This is their mailbox.”

Calvin stared out
the right side window. “I thought they were surrounded. I don’t see any Bees
anywhere.”

“I’m getting a bad
feeling about this,” Wendy whispered.

“That’s because
you’re high as shit and paranoid.” Paul looked at Stephanie. “Stephanie is the
only one I completely trust right now.”

“Aww, thank you,”
she blushed, rubbing the back of his hand.

“Paul, I’d be hurt
if I thought you really meant that.”

He turned off the
engine and let the quiet soak into his bones. High or not, Wendy was right.
Something felt off. “I say we walk in from here.”

“What if there’s a
sniper in the trees or something?” Billy whispered, nervously looking about.

“If anyone shoots
at us we take cover and spray the shit out of the place. No hesitation.”

Calvin cleaned his
glasses with his hoodie. “Okay, but let’s say it’s not a trap for a second, where
are all the dead people walking around?”

“Maybe this is the
wrong place,” Wendy suggested, exhaling a cloudy stream and passing the joint
to Billy.

“It’s not.”
Stephanie handed her the address and directions Maria jotted down in the radio
room last night back at the base. “Check for yourself.”

Paul watched
Calvin’s eyes snag on his wife’s handwriting as Wendy took the sheet of notebook
paper and matched it with the address on the mailbox.

“Yep, this is it.”
She started to pass it back to Stephanie when Calvin snatched it from her
fingertips.

Paul’s face
tightened in the mirror. “Calvin.”

Bringing the
writing closer to his glasses, Calvin’s eyes rose and fell with each looping
letter, lips moving but nothing coming out.

“Cal!”

Staring a moment
longer at Maria’s pretty cursive, he looked up to meet Paul’s awaiting eyes in
the mirror.

Paul tapped at a
temple. “I know it sucks but please stay with me. Just for a little longer,
then I promise you can let go for a while.”

Examining him for
a few uncertain seconds, Calvin turned the offer over in his mind. He was
grieving hard and Paul didn’t blame him, but if Calvin didn’t push it back down
someone would get bit. That much was certain. This wasn’t like playing armchair
quarterback from the safety of your own couch where all the right decisions came
to you between bites of popcorn and Junior Mints.

No, they were
hurting.

Scared.

Hopeless.

This was
different. Dead people were trying to kill them. And when you combined the exhaustion
and terror with the boredom that breaks it all up, sometimes the correct answer
wasn’t so easy to spot. Not from the safety of this world. Because in this
world, there was no such thing as safety. That fell to pieces right along with
everything else, which made it difficult to breathe, let alone think. Everyone
had to stay on point.

Folding the paper
up, Calvin slipped it in a back pocket and nodded weakly. “I’m with you.”

The driveway was
gradual and steep, curving through a swath of naked trees and thick pines and
shrubs. Other than the ground, most everything was free of snow. Trudging
cautiously up the asphalt snaking through the hillside, the backpack filled
with food and water cut into Paul’s shoulders, slowing his progress. The
setting sun threw the group’s shadows ahead of them on the mostly dry blacktop,
stretching them into alien-like creatures. The Kohl’s entryway sliced through
his mind and he winced with the pain that always followed. It was the little
things that killed. The jumbled footsteps disturbing the thin blanket of snow
off to the sides of the driveway spiked his pulse. A branch snapped off to
their left and everyone drew on the trees in a flash. Relaxing, Paul gave Billy
a warning glance after bringing the M4 around with Paul in line for a
split-second. Billy acknowledged his mistake with a quick head nod and moved on.

It was the little
things that killed.

“It’s too quiet,” Curtis
whispered, eyes following his gun barrel from side to side.

“I agree.” A bad
feeling wormed into Paul’s veins like venom, corrupting his footsteps. The
driveway kept climbing and his legs kept burning. He saw somebody standing behind
a tree. His heart jumped. He blinked and they were gone. Rubbery legs pressed
on, eyes hitching on tree trunks and bushes, breath faint and fast. The suspicious
quiet sat on his chest, weighing him down even more than the thin mountain air.

“Man, I am seeing
shit everywhere, big time.” Curtis whipped his head around to the other side of
the driveway and slowed to a crawl. “I am way too baked for this.”

“I hear you,
brother.” Billy jerked his gun to a small grouping of pines, walking sideways
up the hill. “It’s like the trees are moving.”

Paul forced his
legs to keep working, lungs on fire. “I told you not to smoke that bud.”

“You were right
again, Paul,” Billy whispered, hiking his backpack of handguns and ammo higher up
his shoulders. “I fucked up super bad. Maybe I should go wait in the truck.”

Paul stopped and
shot a hand out, locking the group in place. He stared at the dead lady up ahead
on the right-hand side of the drive, trying to determine if she was real or
not. Standing straight and tall, her hair flowed over the shoulders of a torn
ski jacket in crimson rivers. Her face was nearly as white as the snow around
her boots and there was something off about her eloquent stance.

Curtis drew on her,
confirming her authenticity.

“Wait,” Paul
hissed, shoving a palm out.

Lining her up
through the scope, he caressed the trigger. “Why?”

“Who is she?”
Stephanie whispered. “Do you know her?”

“No,” Paul
replied, a cold shiver running through him. His body tensed when a bald head appeared
over the ridge in the driveway past the redhead. The head bobbed up and down
with uneven steps, the setting sun lighting up the man’s severely decayed
forehead and then his cheeks. His shredded jumpsuit came into view next,
followed by a pair of white New Balances – one of which was pointing in toward
the other. Limping down the drive, he came closer, reaching and moaning into
the sunshine lighting on his ghastly face.

The dead woman raised
an arm like it was made of granite and pointed off to the other side of the
driveway. Paul followed her crooked finger to a bristlecone pine ten yards to
his left. Bringing the M4 into his shoulder, he reminded himself to breathe. Reminded
himself to use his new scope, which put him too close to the action. The
branches rustled and an obese woman sprang from the tree’s shadow, right where
he was looking. Right where he was aiming. There was a clear path between the
naked corpse and Paul so he put a quick round into her. Somersaulting, her
thick limbs flew through the air in a white plume and came to an abrupt rest
against a fallen tree. She laid face down in the melting snow, as still as the
breeze no longer sweeping through the trees, decomposing back fat rolling off
her in gray waves.

Paul turned back
to the redheaded woman, who was nowhere to be found, and swallowed against the
lump in his throat before sinking a slug in the bald man limping closer. Turning
back to the obese thing, he pointed the M4 at the back of its head, his breath
rushing out in smoky trails.

“She’s playing
possum,” Curtis whispered.

“I know.” Paul
watched and waited, dying to see how far this wretched creature would go to
escape with a win. There was no way out, yet she played her hand. No, she
wasn’t dead. She was just playing dead.

Pretending.

Acting.

Thinking
.

“Where’d you hit
her?” Billy panted, eyes sweeping the trees behind them.

“I think I got her
in the neck.” Paul nudged her with his shoe. “We know you’re not dead,” he
said, taking a step back. “I know you can hear me.” When there was no reaction,
he used the end of his weapon to poke her in the spine.

Slowly tipping her
head back, she found them in her soulless sights and sneered, pushing off the
ground and getting to all fours in slow-motion. The woman hung her head,
seeming stunned by the hole in her neck leaking blood to the snow around her
hands.

“Billy, stab her
in the head.”

Billy turned to
Paul with his face folding in like a tent. “I thought you said knives don’t
work on them.”

“That was then.”
Paul shifted in his sneakers, snow seeping through the thin material and into
his socks. “Maybe their skulls are weaker now.” He nodded to the squirming
corpse. “Try it and see.”

“No way, man. I’m
not getting close to that thing.”

“Just shoot it,
Paul.”

He looked at
Stephanie. “We can’t give up our position with another gunshot.”

Falling to the
ground, a silver streak arced through the air in Curtis’ dropping hand. The
bowie knife glanced off the woman’s skull. She snatched his ankle and Paul shot
her in the head. Curtis rolled onto his ass and stared up at him with his chest
heaving. “Well, that didn’t work. Her skull is like a bowling ball.”

“Who was that
woman?”

Paul followed
Stephanie’s eyes up the driveway to where the redhead had been standing a
minute ago, brain scrambling for answers.

“I don’t know but
she just warned us about this one hiding in the tree.” Wendy nudged the dead
woman with the toe of her shoe.

“But…she was just
as dead as this one right here.” Billy looked up from the dead woman, horror
mixing with the sweat running down his face. “What exactly is going on here?”

Paul helped Curtis
to his feet and adjusted the backpack. “Let’s keep moving. If they’re still
here, they heard that for sure.”

“So hang on a
second.” Calvin took a hand from his weapon to push his glasses up the bridge
of his nose. “You’re saying the dead redhead lady just…
helped
us.”

“You saw it, Cal,”
Billy said in a loud whisper. “She pointed right at this tree. Right where this
straggler was hiding.”

“But that’s
impossible.”

“Right?”

“Let’s go,” Paul
said, leading the charge up the driveway and examining the spot where the redhead
had been standing in the snow as he passed by.

“No footprints,”
Curtis breathed, scanning the same area, chest pumping beneath his jacket.

“Okay, so wait a
minute.” Calvin cleared his throat and stepped around the dead bald guy lying
in the middle of the driveway. “You’re saying she was, what? A ghost?”

Curtis looked over
his shoulder. “Don’t tell me you don’t believe in paranormal activity after all
this shit, McLovin.”

“Yeah, but come on.”
Calvin blew out a long breath. “Like Bees weren’t bad enough.”

“Oh my God,” Wendy
mumbled, stopping in the driveway.

They followed her round
eyes up and over the ridge to the cabin sitting fifty yards away. On the radio,
Brian had clearly used the word
cabin
loosely because this was no
cabin
in
the woods. This was a dream home in the woods. From the dark timbers and
cultured stonework, the construction looked recent and blended nicely with the
surrounding hillside. The grand balcony and front porch below it were both
empty of people – dead or otherwise – and the eerie quiet left a bad feeling in
the pit of Paul’s stomach.