Dying Days 2 (15 page)

Darlene handed her the Desert Eagle. "Will this work?"

"Sure."

"I'd like one of my bullets to pierce his black heart."

Tosha stepped into the waves and took aim.

There were definitely two figures out there. She figured in the waves, the movement of the boat, the wind… she pulled the trigger and both figures went down, but she didn't know if she'd hit one or if they'd both just reacted to the sound of the shot and hit the deck.

Her next shot hit the boat, but just barely. "They're out of reach. Sorry. I'm not sure if I hit him or not."

John shot a zombie in the head as it walked out of the surf.

"I think we need to get back home," Darlene said.

"Are you coming?" John asked Tosha.

"Where is home?" Tosha handed the Desert Eagle back to Darlene.

"Follow A1A south to the Matanzas Inlet. The stilt houses are to the left on the beach. We're there." Darlene put her gun away. "It's not far."

"I have something to do first. How about I take a rain-check for a couple days and then pop over for lunch?"

John thanked her.

"You want the bus?" Tosha asked.

"Not really. We'll be fine." John put his arm around Darlene.

"You two make a cute couple." Tosha got back in the bus. "I'll see you around."

Tosha hoped to find true love someday. She smiled as she watched John and Darlene kiss and embrace like school kids.

Chapter Nineteen

Ellen and Trish stayed in Kimberly's in the upstairs bar area for two days, until refugees came trickling back in and cleared the city of zombies once again.

St. Augustine, the oldest city in America (or what used to be America) was rebuilt on a smaller scale, fencing off the center of town and barricading the Bridge of Lions once again.

Ellen—Kimberly from now on—served some drinks, cooked some food, and spent her days telling stories about that scary night to anyone who would listen.

She buried her husband and daughter in the lot across the street, and she and Trish helped organize a better way to gather supplies for the small community.

*   *   *   *   *

The Cessna soared overhead, headed due south, and Doug decided to follow it. What else could he do? Where there was a plane, there was, hopefully, supplies. And people. And food.

He ate the last of the canned corn and sighed. He was sun-burnt, dehydrated, and weak. Doug had been on the water for sixteen days since fleeing St. Augustine. Every time he steered close to land there were dozens, sometimes hundreds, of zombies waiting for him.

The kid (he couldn't remember his name anymore) had succumbed to the lucky gunshot that rang out just as they were escaping St. Augustine. He didn't know who had shot him, and he didn’t care. All he cared about now was finding food and water, and, hopefully, gathering another crew.

His plan for world domination hadn't ended. This was a minor setback.

The Sons of the New Patriots would rise again.

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Dying Days 3

Prologue

Frank
.

He had a name, once, and it was Frank. He had a last name, but he couldn't remember it. His thoughts, at the moment, were on trying to figure out what exactly a last name was.

The noise he heard was the ocean and he moved his stiff neck and looked down to see his shuffling feet kicking up sand on a beach. Frank had never been to the beach. Never felt sand on his toes, but he was doing it now. He was barefoot. He didn't know why.

Frank couldn't stop walking. He was being driven by something, an anger… but he didn't know who he was mad at. He knew he was raging, though, and needed to strike out and rip someone apart. He didn't know why, but, suddenly, knew it was the only reason to keep moving.

There were others on the beach, but he felt nothing toward them. No anger and no need to destroy them. They moved in the same flowing, general direction as he did. One would veer off and walk into the waves or over the dunes, and he could see more stepping out of the surf and joining the walk.

Zombies.

The word came unbidden to his mind. These were zombies, undead, monsters… and they were in search of the living, to tear them apart, to rape them, violate and break all in their paths. They weren't evil. They were just hungry.

Frank willed himself to stop. A man, with his head broken and at an odd angle, bumped into him. Frank lashed out, with creaking arms, and knocked the zombie to the ground.

It felt right. This mindless creature struggled to rise on battered legs but seemed incapable of simply rolling over and pushing himself up.

Frank knew how to stand. He knew the mechanics of how to drive a car, how to brush his teeth, how to make love to his wife.

His wife had been sick? Frank remembered bits and pieces of memory. He lived in Montreal. He worked in a dead-end job selling newspapers. His wife had been back to Sweden to see her sick mother. By the time she'd returned to Canada, she was coughing and wouldn't talk about the visit or her mother.

He couldn't remember his wife's name, but he remembered the bite mark on her forearm. The wound festered and he'd taken her from the airport right to hospital.

There was an incident. Frank remembered a nurse and doctor being bitten. By his wife? Chaos in the emergency room, followed by stampeding hospital personnel and patients. He went for his wife; she was out of the bed, dragging smashed equipment as she moved.

Frank remembered trying to extricate her from the machines, pulling needles and wires from her body. She stared at the blood as it spurted from her wrist and onto his chest.

Then she'd bitten down on his neck and the pain was intense. He saw red and then… he was dead. He couldn't remember his wife's name.

Warmth on his feet, as the sun beat down. This was no Canadian beach. He had no idea where he could be, but he was walking, so it couldn't be too far.

Frank remembered biting people and savagely attacking their bodies. He remembered ripping apart orifices and, actually, having brutal sex with people until they died. The thought appalled him at first.

The zombie was still trying to get up on the beach. Frank was about to help him, but then he stopped. Why should he? It dawned on him: this monster was after the same dwindling thing he was looking for. The living.

Frank reached up with stiff hands and felt his neck wound. It was just a sliver of ripped skin, although, he swore she'd done a number on him before he died. He flexed his legs and it felt good. How was this possible?

The blood.

Frank knew the blood, coursing over and into his body, made him stronger. It made him grow closer to whole again. With each living body he consumed, he was closer to being fully formed. He needed to find humans before the rest of these weaklings did.

He knew by looking at them, as they walked by, they weren't conscious of their surroundings or aware like he was. He didn't know why, and he didn't care.

"I was in the first wave. My wife was patient zero," he actually whispered through cracked lips, and was amazed he'd spoken. He felt his vocal chords flexing for the first time in, what, days? Weeks? Months? Years?

The zombies around him were growing as well, but they were nowhere near where he was. But, in time, they would rival him, and grow aware. They would try to destroy him as the enemy. Frank couldn't have that. He was even angrier now, but he let it wash over him. He could control it, little by little. He knew his brain was now his driving force, and not the insatiable hunger.

With his back threatening to pop, Frank bent down and lifted the zombie to its feet. The mindless creature began to shuffle away without a notice to Frank or the help.

Frank moved behind him and wrapped both arms around its neck, crushing the unused windpipe and yanking as hard as he could, trying to dislodge the head from the body. He struggled for several minutes before stopping. The zombie didn't fight back; its feet still trying to propel it forward.

Finally, the head snapped back and the zombie went lifeless. Frank dropped it to the beach. One less to contend with. The beach was filled with them.

Claudia.

His wife's name was Claudia, and he'd met her online. In a chat-room. They'd talked and had webcam dates for months before she flew from Sweden for a visit. She never really left, moving in with him, getting a job at the local daycare, and only returning to Sweden to pack her things and for family emergencies. They'd been wed six months later, a small ceremony attended by friends and family. Their honeymoon was spent in Florida, a week holed up in a hotel room making love while the sound of the waves crashed outside their balcony.

Frank knew he wasn't in Montreal, and he wanted to find his wife. Or did he? She would try to feed off the living as well, and once the stock was gone, he knew he would become a dried husk. He needed the living.

Another zombie got too close and Frank twisted its neck until he heard the snap. These creatures had no fresh blood he could use, but they needed to be eliminated.

Frank trudged down the beach, weaving back and forth as he came across new undead, breaking necks with wild abandon and feeling better and better as he did, using muscles he'd not used in a long time.

There was a pier up ahead and he made his way to it, dropping bodies as he moved from side to side. He went to the dunes and snapped the neck of a little girl, bloody and carrying a small yellow shovel. Two men came out of the surf and he made his way to them. They didn't resist or seem to notice him. He dispatched both, feeling his atrophied muscles seeming to come back to life.