Authors: Joseph Talluto
Dead Surge (6 page)
I knew I couldn’t do anything for him, but I tried to get some information from him.
“Who are you? Why did you shoot at me?” I asked.
The man turned his head slowly, blood dribbling out of his mouth. His eyes were vacant, haunted even.
“The teeth…..teeth….click…clicking….” The man breathed a final rattling gasp and his body relaxed slowly in death.
I stood up, and waited for Charlie to join me. He looked at the spreading blood, and said, “Damn.”
“Yeah,” I said, “Doesn’t feel the same, killing a living person.”
“Not supposed to,” Charlie said quietly. “Wonder why he shot at you? It’s not like we came to rob him or anything.”
“Don’t know. Remember the scream? It was like he was afraid of something.”
“Did he say anything before he died?”
I nodded. “Something about teeth and clicking.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“No clue.”
“Pity we can’t ask him.”
“Look, I feel bad enough about this already, okay?” I was getting a little testy. I’ll admit I’m a particular kind of gent, one who tends to shoot back when shot at. It’s a quirk, for sure, but I’m working on it.
Before Charlie could reply, Tommy’s voice came down the stairs.
“You guys all right? We heard the shots.” He called.
Charlie answered him. “We’re fine. John shot a living guy.” Charlie winked at me as I threw him the finger.
“What’d you do that for?” Tommy asked as he came down the stairs. “Damn!” He said as he saw the dead guy.
“Charlie is leaving out the part where he shot at me first. I’m sure his heart would be broken had the man actually managed to shoot me in the head.” I replied.
Tommy knelt by the body. “Well, can’t blame you for that.” He looked closely at the dead man. “Hey, I know this guy!” He exclaimed suddenly.
“You do?” Charlie and I managed to ask at the same time.
“Sure. His name was Pete Desmond. He came with us on the river campaign in the south,” Tommy said.
“Solid guy? Prone to panic, at all?” I asked, looking back down.
Tommy snorted. “Not at all. Dude was steady as a rock.”
Stranger and stranger. “You don’t know what he might have been doing hiding out here?” I wondered.
Tommy shook his head. “He stayed with the military, last I knew. Chances are he was with one of the groups sent out this way by Dot. Too bad we can’t ask him.”
“Too bad his aim wasn’t better. Then you could have,” I said, heading back to the stairs.
“Easy,” said Charlie.
“Hell with that. Let’s bring Duncan down here for a really smartass comment.” I left the basement before anyone could reply.
Chapter 12
Outside the building, I stood on the sidewalk and looked out over the town. The wind had picked up, and I could see the long grass swaying in the wind. Across the sky, clouds competed with each other to block the sun, and spotted sunshine decorated the landscape. I took a few deep breaths, letting out the tension that had been building. Across the road, I could see Duncan sifting through a hardware store, picking up the odd tool, looking over the scattered leftovers from the first panic of the Upheaval.
Down the street, Rebecca and Sarah were chatting by the vehicles. Sarah saw me and threw me a wave, and I replied with a small wave of my own. I turned my back to her and looked back over the town.
Behind me, I heard someone walking over debris, and a duffle bag was dropped at my feet.
“You all right?” Charlie asked.
I took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just don’t like it, that’s all. I mean, not only did I kill a living person, but I killed someone who had managed to survive the Upheaval and the Zombie Wars, and someone who might have been able to tell us what’s waiting for us in Iowa.”
Charlie blinked. “Well, when you put it that way…”
Tommy came out at that moment carrying a small box. “Hate to break up the therapy, but you might want to take a look at this.”
“What is it?” I wondered what Tommy had found.
“The guy downstairs was running scared. He probably thought we were something else.” Tommy opened the box and placed it on the ground.
We squatted around the box, and sifted through the meager contents. There was a small canteen, a map, half a box of ammunition, and a knife. That was it.
“I don’t get it. What is this stuff?” Charlie asked.
I was wondering the same thing. “Where did you find it?”
Tommy looked at both of us. “This was in his pack. Nothing else.”
“Not to sound obvious, but so what? We’ve travelled light before,” Charlie said.
I shook my head. “Not this light. Remember, this wasn’t somebody on the run six years ago. This is somebody who would know better. “I stood up and looked to the West. “Something scared the survival instincts right out of this guy.”
Tommy and Charlie stood up and we were all silent for a moment.
Finally, Tommy broke the silence. “Well, we do know two things for sure, now.”
“What’s that?”
“This isn’t a rogue group. No way could anyone get scared insane like this guy was. He’d have come out shooting, sure, but not jabbering about…what did you say he said?”
“He said something about teeth and clicking,” I said.
Tommy cocked his head to the side. “What do you think that means?”
I shrugged. “It means we still don’t know what the hell is waiting for us, or what might be coming right at us.”
Charlie pulled out the ammo from the box and put it in his pack. “No point in keeping it waiting. We should go.”
I agreed. There was nothing here, especially answers.
Back at the truck, Sarah looked me over and asked what was wrong.
I put away my pack and reloaded my pistol magazine before answering. “Not much, just found some supplies, shot a living guy who might have had answers to our dilemma, and discovered there’s something out there that is scaring stupid even veteran survivors,” I said, somewhat sharply.
To her credit, Sarah just blinked and said nothing. She knew me well enough to know when I needed to settle this one out myself.
Charlie came to my defense. “Just to clear things up, John nearly took one in the head before he fired back. We all would have done the same.”
Sarah nodded. “Let’s get going. We should make the Iowa border by evening and set up for the night.”
I climbed aboard and fired up the truck, turning back onto the highway and heading towards Iowa.
Chapter 13
We passed a number of communities on our way, many living, many more unlivable. For a long time, the standard policy was to simply burn down the buildings we weren’t going to be able to maintain or use. Then someone got the bright idea to send in teams to strip the homes of useable materials, including building materials. We didn’t have sawmills or manufacturers of construction materials. What we wound up with was warehouses of semi-used home repair goods that we could recycle into something we needed.
About three hours past the incident, I decided to pull off the road again. We were about an hour from Iowa, and I wanted to regroup a little. We were heading into unknown territory, and I wanted to make sure our heads were still in the game. With the driving, everyone had time to think, and I wanted to see if we had any new insights. I also had to go to the bathroom.
I pulled off the highway on Route 82 and headed south for a bit. North of us was the town of Geneseo, and they had weathered the storm pretty well. There had been some outbreaks, but since Springfield Armory made their guns there, they had managed to repel the invaders. We did some trading in the past and they were restarting the factory, last I heard.
South of the highway was farm country, though, and I wasn’t going to go too far. There was a small building just a short way from the main road, and it was a good place to stop. The building looked like it had seen better days, as it was a low structure with a large awning to protect cars from the elements. No sign told what it might have been, and as I got out and stretched, I looked over at Charlie and shrugged.
Charlie returned the gesture and pointed at the small house down the road. “I think someone’s living there, I’m going to see if I can talk to them.”
“Good enough. We’ll be here, figuring out where we will spend the night.”
Sarah wandered to the other vehicle, and I walked over to the other side of the building to relieve myself. The building was a bit of a mystery, with closed curtains and a single door in the front. It didn’t look like a church or a banquet hall, although it was big enough for either.
I finished up and walked back to the trucks, stopping halfway to wait for Charlie, who was jogging back from the house.
“Well?” I asked, stepping in alongside him.
“Bad news and worse news, depending on your point of view,” Charlie said.
“Bad news first.”
“They remember seeing our late friend a few weeks ago. He was running along the highway and didn’t stop when they hailed him.”
“That fits with what we already know, what’s the worse news?”
“There may be a breach at East Moline. Zombie activity has been up recently.”
I sighed. “Damn. Well, how are they fixed?”
“They’re good, just waiting for winter to find the hole. It seems to be a trickle, so they’ve been handling it up to now.” Charlie finished as we reached the trucks.
“Guess we have to keep an eye out, now. Great. What else could go wrong?” I asked, looking over the highway. I thought I saw something move, but nothing happened for a minute and I forgot it. I turned to the assembled faces in front of me.
“We’re heading into Davenport, and will probably spend the night there. I think there’s a hotel or something outside the containment zone,” I said.
Sarah spoke up, “Any news, Charlie?”
Charlie shook his head. “Nothing new. Our friend came from the west, running hard. Nothing chasing him, but he was running jus the same.”
“No vehicle?” Duncan asked.
“None. As far as anyone could determine, this guy was just running.”
We all digested that for a bit. Charlie finished with his other news. “Probably a breach at East Moline, so we’re on alert.”
Duncan stretched. “Ahh, the good old days. Never quite leave us, do they?”
Rebecca pointed. “Not quite.”
We all looked and saw a familiar lurching figure stumble into view under the highway. We had never seen this one specifically before, but we’d seen his type. Everyone tensed a bit, but I took the lead.
“Got it, just make sure he’s alone,” I said, drawing my .45 and advancing on the ghoul.
Charlie reached into the van and pulled out his AR, flicking off the safety and stepping into the bed of the truck. I kept walking, glancing down to make sure my gun was loaded and ready. I needn’t have bothered, it had been so long since I had to check, but it never hurt. The one time I let it go would be the one time I got a click when I needed a bang.
About twenty yards up the road I stopped, and waited for the Z to get closer. He was about forty yards out, and while I could hit him, I might not kill him. As he got closer, I could see more details about him. His clothes were torn and shabby, yet I could see he was wearing the remnants of a business suit. His left arm swung a little too far out, balancing the rest of him, since he was missing half of his right arm. Bloodstains across the front of his body suggested his arm had been ripped off while he was alive and he had run for a bit before falling to the virus. Hell of a way to go.
At twenty yards or so, I lined up a shot, aiming just between his vacant eyes. One loud bang later and this dapper zombie was no more. I went over to the body and dragged it into the ditch. It was no fun cruising along and suddenly running over a dead zombie that someone had forgotten to move out of the way.
I walked back to the group and we mounted up. Sarah looked over at me and arched an eyebrow as we pulled back onto the highway.
“Yes, it felt better than the other guy,” I said
“Just checking, sweetheart. Just checking.”
Chapter 14
We got back onto I-80 and kept heading west. Out in the fields we could see a few wandering zombies, but since they were alone, we figured the locals could handle them. The ones that were closer to the highway we dispatched, with Charlie showing off his marksmanship. I was personally impressed with a five hundred yard shot he made, but Charlie tempered that when he told me that was the luckiest shot he had made so far.
I-80 turned north to go around the Quad Cities, and I decided to follow that route, instead of going the I-74 route. If there was a breach at East Moline, it had to be along this corridor, since the southern end of the city was blocked by a river. Also, the bridge at I-74 was impassable due to the car fence we had placed there a while ago.