Dead South Rising: Book 1 (36 page)

She eyed David dubiously, then said, “That’s okay. I’ll come back when you’re free.”

“Alright, Luz. Sounds good. Oh, Dave here’s gonna pick up what you asked for.”
 

“Good. Thank you, David.”

“Sure. No problem.”

“How’s the hand?” she asked.

David lifted his wrapped wrist, turning it. “Still a bit swollen, tender. But I’ll live.”

“Wish I could x-ray it. Just go easy on it, okay? Tylenol’s your friend.”

“Will do. Thanks again.”

Gabriel took three steps, then added, “Give me about ten minutes, okay, Luz?”

The doctor nodded, started away, shooting random glances behind her at the two men as they continued down the hall toward the dock.

When they reached the door to the warehouse, it swung open, and Lenny stepped into the hall. “Oh, hey, Janitor.”

“Lenny. Great timing. Need your help with something.”

“You gots it. Whatcha need?”

“Come with us.”

On the back dock, the three men stood scanning the area, their heads revolving randomly like an old police light bar. Their presence didn’t go unnoticed.

“See what I mean?” the Janitor said. “Like ringing the dinner bell, just being out here.”

“Still ain’t as many as up front,” Lenny said.

“True,” Gabriel said, “but we’ve been up front most the morning.” He stepped to the edge of the loading dock. “Leonard, would you open the gate, please?”

Leonard glanced at the Janitor. Question marks danced in his eyes, but never jumped off his lips. “Okay.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

The hulking man hopped off the dock’s edge, crossing concrete to the wrought iron palisade. The roaming bodies seemed rejuvenated by the prospect of brunch, and Lenny made quick work of unlatching the lock while avoiding the scratching and clawing from the other side.

“Good to go, Janitor.”

The muscle-man’s shudder did not escape David’s keen eye.

Gabriel dipped his chin at the gate. “Good luck to you, Dave.” Without another word, he turned and started back inside.

Say something, asshole. Don’t let him just walk—

But the time for talk was gone. The door slammed shut behind the old man.

Lenny stood by the gate, his trepidatious gaze all over the hungry mob on the other side of the steel. “David? I don’t mean to rush you, man, but …” He cocked his head toward the bustling bodies, his hand falling to the double-edged hatchet hanging at his side.

“Coming.”

David trotted down the stairs, and around the loading dock to the Dodge. When he started to climb in, Leonard spoke.

“Listen, bro,” he said, his voice riding the air with the hisses and snarls, “I ain’t gonna tell ya how to handle your business. Just handle it, alright?” He scratched the back of his neck. “That boy and that girl in there? And Randy? They look up to you. Way up.”

David’s insides crashed into themselves, his organs a bunch of whomping bumper cars. What the hell was he doing? This selfish mission of catharsis. One that could end it all—

for better or for worse

—
if he slipped up. It seemed necessary to him, if he wanted to move forward, embrace the future without guilt. Without obligation to another, a wiping of the slate. Mandatory.

He tried to steal a deep breath, but it eluded him, and his gaze floated from Lenny to the burgeoning horde of frightful hecklers. They dared him, called to him.

Watching the Lumberjack watch him, he wondered what difference a day—or two—would really make. He could wait. Natalee wasn’t going anywhere. She’d been there every day for twenty-one days. He’d locked the place up tight, and he assumed she was still at home, right where he’d left her.

Was he being egocentric and uncaring? Was he making the right decision?

Right, because we want to do the right thing.

Was staying the right thing? He’d tried to undo a wrong—what he
believed
was a wrong—by going back for Sammy and Gills, and that decision nearly cost him everything. And what if he got there and couldn’t go through with it? It was one thing killing anonymous shufflers with whom he had no prior personal relationship. It was another entirely to put down someone he’d loved, cared for—vowed his life to.

But if he was any kind of merciful, he’d do just that. He might have thought he was bestowing kindness and compassion by keeping her ‘alive’ in their home, but maybe she was stuck in a dead and decaying hell, screaming for freedom, for release. To go home. To a
new
home. Her soul rotting away right along with her body. What if her spirit died when her body did? Was it too late? The damage done?

David didn’t hear Leonard approach. It wasn’t until the man put a hand on his shoulder that David snapped back to the here and now.

“If you changed your mind …”

David shook his head with quick snaps. “No, I’m good. Sorry. Was just …” He finally found that deep breath he’d been groping for. “I’m ready.” And he disappeared into the cab.

Jessica sat beside Randy, choosing one of two identical horseshoe chairs that seemed to kneel before the massive oak desk. Leather creaked as she settled into the gaping maw that swallowed her petite frame in one voracious gulp.

She sighed lightly and with a shiver. Meetings like these played a nerve-racking rhythm on her psyche. She’d done nothing wrong, of course. Nothing that she knew of, anyway. Nor had Randy for that matter. They wouldn’t be chastised or punished. It was just that, well, there was something about being brought before the head of anything, sitting on the submissive side of that imposing desk. That power barrier. A desk that screamed command, control … ownership. But when she looked up at the Janitor, he appeared just as uncomfortable, and out of place, in the huge swiveling leather throne that proclaimed power just because it resided behind that dominating desk.

It was obvious the old man never sat in that power chair. He hopped up and down in his seat a couple of times, ensuring the lever had engaged, so he wouldn’t go sailing to the floor. Satisfied, he leaned back, tenting his fingers.
 

Jessica anticipated a serious conversation. And she got one.

“I normally do this one-on-one,” Gabriel said, “the whole ‘getting to know you’ conversation. But I wanted to talk to you both at the same time.”

“Is it about David?” Jessica guessed. She couldn’t imagine what else he wanted to talk to them both about, simultaneously.

The Janitor averted his eyes as he nodded. “Yeah.”

Randy chimed in next. “Did something happen?”

Lifting his eyes to the heavyset man, Gabriel said, “I believe he’s a good man. And maybe I’m telling tales out of school here, but y’all seem like a close-knit group.”

Jessica and Randy responded with shallow nods, eyes fully focused on the old man.

“So I’ll cut to it. I’m worried about him. Lenny’s worried about him.”

Randy dipped his chin again, giving the impression that he and Lenny had broached the subject already.

“He was adamant about going out today. Now, before you go getting any ideas about how we run things around here, let me make this clear—this ain’t no prison camp. People can come and go as they see fit.” He brushed his fingers along his thick mustache. “But it ain’t no country club, neither. We’ve only lost two people”—he held up two knobby fingers—“since this whole shitstorm started. And they were careless. Stubborn and bullheaded.”

He pivoted the chair, looked out the window, pointing a finger toward the fence. “This is the worst I’ve seen it. Not sure what’s drawing them, but something tells me it’s time to hunker down for a spell.” He swiveled back to his audience, thumb to the window. “Ain’t safe out there.”

Jessica spoke up. “So you let him go?”

He tented his fingers again, chair rocking. “Like I said, this ain’t no prison camp. I tried to talk him out of going, but he insisted.” He paused a beat, then hinged his lean frame forward. “I don’t like discussing other folks’ business, ain’t my nature. Ain’t kosher. But I don’t want his blood on my hands. He’s got demons. Demons he’s got to deal with on his own. Nothing you or I can do about ‘em. But I think he can beat them. I really do. And I think he’ll have great potential once he does.”

Jessica had already started to stand before the Janitor had finished. “Well we’ve got to go after him. We can’t let him go by himself. He barely made it back the last time.”

The Janitor released a long sigh. “Again, I don’t advise going out there. It’s a dangerous place.”

“Which is why we’ve got to go after him,” she reiterated.

Gabriel said, “I just don’t think it’s a good idea. You’re still on antibiotics—”

Shaking her head, Jessica said, “No, I need to go.”

Randy started to object, citing her recent illness just as the Janitor had, but Jessica abruptly shut him down.

“I know where he’s headed,” she confessed.

“I’m going on record as opposing the decision, but if you’re going to go—”

“Yes, we’re going to go,” she interrupted, cutting a sideways glance at Randy.

The Janitor exhaled deeply again, then leaned back, the chair spring squeaking beneath him. He seemed to consider this for a moment, then rocked forward again. “If I can’t talk you out of it, then take this.” He slid a two-way radio across the desk. “I don’t want to tell you how to handle things, but if I were you, I’d hide out somewhere nearby, somewhere safe. Give him a chance to work out whatever needs working out.”

Randy pressed to his feet. “That’s a good idea.”

Following suit, the Janitor stood. “We have a few vehicles out back. You’re welcome to—”

A blood-caked hand slapped the window, startling the office dwellers.

“Jesus,” Randy said, his hand hopping to his heart. His ham hock legs practically rocketed the chair into the far wall. He adjusted his glasses, looking through the window, big gulps of air ruffling his whiskers. “How did …?”

“Every now and then, one’ll slip through.” Gabriel eased around to the other side of the desk. The less powerful side.
 

The decaying beast beat at the window, hungry, craving a taste of those behind the glass. Grimy crimson smeared the view, the thing finger-painting a masterpiece that comprised blood and dirt. Just whose blood was anybody’s guess. Not that anyone in the room cared to play that guessing game.

As the group gazed at the window, a familiar face crept up behind the dead wannabe artist, double-edged axe high. The rotting interloper lifted its chin, nose in the air, bloody nostrils flaring. Just as it turned, Lenny hitched the blade deep into its skull. Dying a second death, it sunk out of sight, only Leonard the Lumberjack’s huge head and shoulders in view, rippling as he easily tugged the weapon out of his target. When he was fully upright again, he gave the thumbs up, though the expression on his face failed to match the normally jovial gesture.

“He hates doing it, but he knows it’s gotta be done,” the Janitor said. He started walking the two visitors to the door. “When you get back, we’ll all sit down—you two, me, David—and we’ll dole out duties and responsibilities. Right now, just go take care of your friend. I can send Leonard with you to help out.”

“Randy and I will go. Looks like you need Leonard more than we do right now.” She nodded to the live program playing silently in the window, Lenny in process of dispatching another undead intruder.

Gabriel reluctantly agreed. “You need weapons?”

Randy said, “We should be good. Jess has her Sig, I’ve got my rifle and we both have our knives.”

“Ammo?” asked the Janitor.

Jessica and Randy traded glances. “Could probably use a few extra rounds.”

Gabriel pulled the door open. “Follow me.”

The first thing David noticed when he pulled up to the curb was the out-of-place ’87 Chevy pickup parked across the street about half a house away. Everyday for twenty-one days, he’d slogged back and forth from Mitch’s place, to here, and back again. And he’d never seen that truck before. Ever. Shouldn’t surprise him, though. He’d seen other random vehicles come and go, especially in the last several days. As supplies dwindled in the obvious places, people started scouting out potential spots to strip and ransack. Looked like his place was on that list today.

He’d seen looters. He’d seen shufflers. But mostly, the neighborhood was left untouched, undisturbed, Mother Nature being the primary presence making herself known these days, a prevalence that overshadowed and emphasized the absence of humans. Living ones, at least.
 

The second—and more disturbing thing he noticed—was the splintered doorjamb. Now, this was something he suspected he’d inevitably come home to one day. Just not on the day he decided to reconcile his outstanding balance with his undead wife.

Of all the damn days.

He considered for a brief moment giving the ignition key a life-sparking twist, firing up the chrome-winged chariot, and leaving. No telling what or who he’d find in there in addition to his wife, if she was even still in there. But the thought was short lived—a mere photo bulb flash on his conscience—because in an instant, a furious anger wrenched his gut, like someone had pulled the string on a party popper, his rage shooting out like pissed-off streamers and confetti all over everything and everyone.

How dare—
how dare—
someone violate
his
space, his sanctuary. His
home.
And he immediately became equally concerned and enraged for his wife. In his mind’s eye, a ‘B’ horror movie flickered and flashed: intruders kicking in his door, murdering his wife, and taking what wasn’t theirs to take.

But the truck, the Chevy, was still there. Which meant that the burglars—
murderers—
were still in there. Or somewhere nearby. He needed to move, and move quickly, if he had any hope of saving her. Because
he
was the one destined to free her soul,
he
was the one ordained to set her spirit free. He and he alone.
He
would do it, and no one else.

David thumbed the release snap, tugged the Walther from the leather.