Dead World (Book 1): Dead Come Home (15 page)

God, please just don’t let the other two crazies start coming this way.

Joseph charged straight in and swung the bat at the man’s head. Both the infected man and his victim dropped to the pavement. Joseph didn’t waste time trying to finish off the man with no throat. He turned and began to run back to Mike and the Blazer.

“Don’t just stand there … run!” He screamed at the dumbfounded bystanders. “Get your friend and run!”

Joseph got back to the truck. As he approached, Mike caught him across the face with a right backhand. The blow sent a sharp sting through Joseph’s check.

“You try another stunt like that and I’m leaving your ass behind. You get me? Shit. They’ll be coming this way any second. Get in the truck; we gotta go.”

Joseph picked himself up and climbed into the passenger seat. Mike slid into the driver’s seat a second later. He turned the key, slammed the truck into gear and peeled out. Joseph looked out his window and saw the other two flesh eaters emerge from the store and grab the young man he’d just tried to save, the one who’d already been bitten in the face.

One of the young man’s friends made the fatal mistake of trying to help him. The third zombie, a woman, turned and sank her teeth deep into the man’s arm. Joseph watched with morbid fascination as the woman peeled the flesh from her victim’s arm. The third person in the ill-fated party finally had enough sense to take Joseph’s advice and ran back to his vehicle.

Mike guided the truck to the far end of the parking lot and turned left on Kemp. He ran the red light and accelerated.

“I’m sorry I hit you back there,” Mike said. “It was uncalled for. But listen to me, okay? As much as you or I don’t want to admit it, we’re going to have to act like a team for the time being. If that’s gonna continue to happen, there needs to continue to be
two
of us. Understand? … How’s your cheek?”

“S’alright. I deserved it. I could’ve been killed or bitten, and I know it,” Joseph said, rubbing his jaw. “Still … that really fuckin’ stung.”

“You’re conscious aren’t ya? It was just a love tap.”

“Yeah? Well I’d love to tap
you
.”

* * *

The newscaster did his best to read the news clearly, calmly, without displaying any visible signs of panic. If he panicked, he knew his viewers would do the same. He had a duty to them, a responsibility to inform them, and it is one that he fulfilled diligently. The newsroom crew also was aware of this responsibility, and they too remained calm as they carry out their various tasks. After years of dealing with emergencies, they have learned all-too-well how to shut down their emotions. They do their jobs, even when every part of their being begs them to start running around in circles, screaming like brainless banshees, as a majority of the regular public is already doing.

He was halfway through reading an “authorized” statement from local officials when his chief camera operator falls to the floor. The boom operator, Mitch, saw his fellow crewman in distress and dropped his microphone, unleashing a wailing complaint of high-pitched feedback. He bent over to examine his fallen colleague.

“Hey, Stan, are you ok? Stan, can you hear me?” Mitch asked, praying that Stan is just overcome by stress or exhaustion. He reached over, picked up Stan’s left arm, and checked the wrist for a pulse. He put his ear over Stan’s face, hoping to feel evidence of any “signs of life.”

“Holy shit, guys! He’s got no pulse and he’s not breathing! Jim, dial 911! Bob, grab the AED,” Mitch yelled. He gave his orders clearly and to specific individuals, just as he’s been trained to do in every CPR class he’d taken every year for the last five years since his father had nearly died of a heart attack.

“What are you talking about, Mitch? He’s sitting up,” Bob said to him, pointing over his shoulder.

Mitch began to turn around; his racing heart briefly relieved. Before he could face his fallen colleague, however, Stan lunged at him. The cameraman took hold of Mitch’s shoulders and tore into the flesh of his neck.

“Get him off me,” Mitch cried, trying to hit his attacker and pull away at the same time.

Mitch pulled away and lost a chunk of bloody skin and meat from the left side of his throat. The man wasted no time, jumping back onto Mitch and pinning him to the floor. Mitch turned his head and shoved his forearms into Stan’s chest, trying to protect his face. Not soon enough. Stan snapped his teeth down hard on the upper half of Mitch’s right ear. Mitch screamed in pain.

Bob finally reached the melee, and smashed the cameraman on top of the head with a fire extinguisher. Stan slumped over.

“Jesus Christ, Mitch! I thought you said you took CPR! How could you say he had no pulse,” the newscaster said with a scolding tone. He leaned down to take a look at the damage to Mitch’s ear and neck.

“He didn’t. I could have sworn. I know he didn’t have any life signs,” Mitch insisted, pushing the body the rest of the way off of him and sitting up. “I know it’s been a few months since my last CPR and first aid course, but there’s just no way to miss the signs of life.”

Mitch got up with a little help from Bob and the pair head to the washroom to get cleaned up. That’s when Mitch noticed something red and bright in his peripheral vision. The “on air light” was still glowing. He pointed to it without a word. The newscaster straightened his tie, ran his hands along the sides of his coifed hair, and returned to his place at the desk … in front of the cameras. The remaining crew finished the scheduled program, while the anchorman did a terrible job of explaining what they had just unintentionally broadcast.

* * *

Mike figured he didn’t have to worry about violating any more traffic laws. He sped up. The Kemp Boulevard swept left and slightly back to the right. Mike looked out his window at the state hospital as he passed it.

Several people were milling around in the courtyards. More clustered near one of the ground floor windows of a building behind the main entrance. Smoke was starting to billow out of one of the buildings further back. The guard shack’s windows were smeared with drying blood. Mike turned his attention back to the road.

“Mike, about half the slack-jaws back there were in uniform,” Joseph said, turning back around in his seat.

“I imagine so. One of the ones you helped me lug out of the living room was an orderly,” Mike said without taking his eyes off the road. “When we get back to the house, grab the tools out of your car and put ‘em in the back seat. Grab a helmet. I’ll grab a couple of our new tools and meet you at the door.”

Joseph obviously didn’t like the plan but nodded anyway.

Well, the kid might have a fighting chance after all.

Mike drove past the car wreck at the first intersection in Lakeside City. He slowed down so the Blazer would make less noise on the way to the house. For the first time he noticed the person beating aimlessly on the windshield of one of the crippled vehicles. He wondered for a moment why the person didn’t open the door and get out of the vehicle.

“Won’t even hazard a guess. Hell, if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t know as much as I do,” Joseph said, looking to the sides of the road for signs of potential trouble. “But the guy from work I had to kill, it looked like he had just kept reaching into his cabinet and dropping stuff on the floor, until I walked in the room.”

Mike nodded. What Joseph said fit with what he had already seen first hand—if the infected people didn’t have something to attack, they would just stand stupidly or begin a repetitive behavior until a target presented itself.

He let the Blazer coast to the stop sign and rolled through it. Mike eased the truck up the street to the house. Nothing moved. He was sure that if he had the windows down, it would be dead silent too. He hated it. The quiet before the storm may be cliché, but it was generally true, especially before a battle.

The body of the one they ran over on their way into town was still in the middle of the street where it had landed. Joseph’s car was still sitting where he had left it.

“Looks clear,” Joseph said.

“I don’t care a whole lot about how things look,” Mike said as he scanned the house across the street again. The out-of-place shadow was still peeking out from behind the fence. Mike pulled into the driveway and turned into the yard. He put the truck in reverse and backed up to the door.

“Wait,” Mike said, pulling the truck halfway between the end of the twenty-foot driveway and the front of the house. “Okay, now you can go.”

Mike killed the engine and reached into the back to grab the Winchester. Joseph had already climbed out and was creeping towards his car. Mike checked his left side and climbed out of the Blazer. He shut his door and went to the back of the truck. He opened the glass window and pulled out two hatchets, two claw hammers and an ax.

He sidestepped to the front door. With his back to the door, he watched as Joseph quietly opened the trunk of his car. Joseph set the bat against the bumper and used both hands to lift out a large, heavy-duty plastic tool chest. He left the trunk open and walked back to the Blazer. The tools clanked softly as Joseph approached shut his door with his elbow. Carefully he took one hand off the handle and opened the rear passenger door. He shoved the toolbox onto the back seat and shut the door.

Mike signaled Joseph to come to him so he could open the front door. Instead, Joseph stalked back to his car and retrieved the Louisville Slugger. Almost without a sound Joseph quickly made it to the front door.

“Turn around so I can get the keys off your belt,” he said, tucking the bat under his arm.

“It’s the rounded silver one,” Mike said.

Joseph fumbled the keys, making them jingle before he closed his hand around them. He unlocked the door, clipped the keys to his own belt loop and readied the bat.

Mike nodded and Joseph pushed the door open.

“Clear,” Joseph said before stepping through the door and to the side. Mike shuffled in and past Joseph. Joseph pushed the door shut and locked it.

Mike led the way to the master bedroom. He deposited his load in the middle of the floor. Joseph grabbed a hatchet and slipped the handle into the back of his belt. Mike watched Joseph start to sit down with his back to a wall.

“Where are the helmets?”

Joseph slapped his forehead. He stood back up and moved toward the door.

“Wait. You need to change into something more practical,” Mike said. He went into the closet and quickly found what he was looking for, a spare set of BDU trousers and a pair of steel-toed work boots. “Put these on.”

Joseph looked at the pants and boots with mute confusion. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he was wondering what was wrong with what he was wearing.

“You’ll be grateful for the extra pockets later, and the boots are better than those flimsy sneakers you’ve got.”

Joseph shrugged and picked up the pants. He walked to the bathroom and changed pants. He left his shoes and pants lying in the middle of the floor. Mike waited until Joseph had finished putting on the boots.

“At least throw your old stuff in the bathtub or something. We really don’t want to be tripping over stuff later.”

Mike walked to the front door while Joseph was picking up his clothes. He looked through the peephole and thought he saw a shadow move.

This is like trying to track ghosts.

He went into the kitchen, squatting as he crossed the window. Careful not to move the light curtains more than necessary, he peeked toward the truck. He saw one for sure and thought two more were coming from the other side of the truck.

Mike walked through the living room to the kitchen table. There were some paper stacks and boxes on the table. It was good solid wood, Mike knew because he tried hitting it once and nearly broke his hand. He started clearing stuff off the table. Joseph followed suit.

“We’re gonna stand it up between the wall and the island.”

Joseph grabbed his end of the table and they carried it the 15 or so feet to the gap. They stood the table on end and shoved it into place.

“Hold it,” Mike said and started removing the legs at the top. He shoved them under the bottom legs so the table wouldn’t fall over on its own.

They put a small bookcase, still loaded, in between the table legs to help brace it. The living room furniture, a recliner, a sofa, and the remains of the coffee table became a heavy, waist-high, half-circle barricade in the middle of the living room. They pushed two full-sized bookcases in front of the broken windows, and they pulled the small desk out of the office and used it to brace the bookcases.

Joseph wiped the sweat from his brow. Mike looked at the results of their hour of labor. It was far from a long-term defense, but for what he had in mind, it would be more than enough.

“Hey Mike, I know you have probably already thought of this, but we should hang blankets or something over some of the other windows.”

“Actually, I hadn’t really thought about that.”