Four (Their Dead Lives,1) (55 page)

Sofia stepped off the wooden steps and stared down at him. “Why did you play with that girl’s mind?”
 

Perhaps we’re simply pure evil.
 

“Exactly,” she said.
 

“Well, we better head back for the clinic then.”
 

Cloak was waiting for them on the highway, the sun dying at their side. The Embracer held its red spear in both hands.
 

“Did you get Declan?”
 

No response.
Not sure why I bothered asking.
 

They sprinted, three blazing bodies headed north. Kale turned to Sofia as they ran. “So, how long have you been a — you know?”
 

Sofia looked at Cloak. “I like it better when they don’t talk.”
 

The eldest Embracer ignored them as they continued a race to the clinic. Kale grumbled and fell back a little.
 

Then their master, the Eradicator of Life, graced their ears.
“We will rule this world. The human race is a weak species of pests. They will destroy this planet. We won’t let them, children. Together we shall eradicate this planet. The only threat left is a mere distance from you. Get there swiftly, for this is our time. Get there and finish them all.”

The voice left Kale’s ear. The top of his lip raised into a sinister semblance of a smile.
 

They charged.
 

A nearly full moon lurked in the bright night as the Embracers crouched along a small building’s rooftop. They were a couple of blocks from the clinic.
 

The dark trio surveyed the roof of an apartment complex. A helicopter. Kale, with his newly enhanced vision, noted Scot and Kelsey chatting by the aircraft.
Lovers reunited. Heh, not for long.
“I want the roof,” he snarled.

Sofia nodded. “You two take out that helicopter. I’ll head into the clinic and annihilate any living left.”
 

“Any way to summon some zombies?” Kale’s dark eyebrow raised.
 

“Yeah, fill the area with noise.”
 

Kale shrugged. “How?”
 

“Look around you.”
 

Kale’s gaze wandered around the street. It was a perfect junkyard of deserted cars. “Sound the alarms,” he grinned.
 

Sofia leapt from the rooftop, landing on the hood of a car. A boisterous car alarm shrieked across the street. She bounced, smashing another car, causing a wail of an alarm to erupt, followed by another. No sound from the third, unlike the fourth and fifth.

The area, their final battleground, filled with flashing lights and ear-striking alarms. Kale felt the undead army approaching from a few blocks away. Behind them, Nicole wiggled. A taped mouth muffled her moans. She tried to escape while their backs were turned, but she did not get far. Cloak yanked her over his shoulder, touched Kale, then nodded at the helicopter. Kale agreed and followed, leaping from the roof to the street. He felt no pain on impact.
 

Cloak hopped over the wailing cars, a black wave fluttering through the dark, and soon reached the other side of the street. Kale followed until he paused by a fire escape. Cloak wanted him to climb, then vanished around the corner of the building with Nicole.
 

The young Embracer did as directed, watching Cloak enter through the front entrance. His ascent was quick and his mind wandered with blazing thoughts. Everything that led him to this point was of meaningful purpose, he knew. The well, his friends ditching their destiny, his kidnapping off the yacht, and last, his transformation into the villain they needed. This was all fate’s doing and anything that happened from there on out, to Kale, was fulfillment of his destiny. He thought about all those moments him and his friends had spent together.
 

Wasted potential.
 

Means to an end.
He knew he deserved this new power given to him, even if it wasn’t for good. Kale even sympathized with the Eradicator’s mission to destroy the human race. No turning back, only killing forward, this world would be his playground and he couldn’t wait. All he had to do was destroy the last two people who posed a threat to him.
 

Below him, undead corpses wandered without aim, for there were no living meals in sight. But soon the clamor of the car alarms attracted them. Men, women, and children, once living beings, now damned to a ravenous state of suspended death. Some would take a quick strike at one another, only to realize it was not the correct meat, the sole thing they desired. Those weak from starvation crawled along asphalt. The ones that had recently fed moved quickly. A number of them sprinted at full speed. A few tumbled over with careless footing. But no matter what condition or what shape the undead were in, they all had the same goal: Devour the living.

Kale climbed. He climbed for power. He climbed for revenge. He climbed for his soon-to-be kingdom.
 

As alarms echoed through the streets—
 

As lights flashed beneath the night sky—
 

As his teeth clenched, reaching the helicopter—

Kale felt nearly complete. Killing Alec was the beginning. Jeff and Scot were next.
 

He lusted for their blood.

JEFF
 

He waited in the apartment complex lobby with Pvt. Malone, staring at the clinic.
Please be in there still.
 

“You know that was bullshit, right?” Malone lay in the prone position, hovering over his M240 machine gun.
 

“What was?” Jeff was crouched by the glass door with his carbine.
 

“Arm wrestling back at Numark. You got lucky.” Malone’s hulking ripped arms stuck out his torn off sleeves.
 

Jeff shrugged. “I suppose so.”
 

“No.” He lifted his head. “I say so.”
 

A light quickly flashed twice from the clinic. “Moving in.”
 

Jeff went first. Malone followed, much slower with his heavier machine gun. They were the two biggest members of the VTF. Although Jeff respected the man, he found Mercury Malone to be an asshole.
 

When they reached the clinic, they greeted Sgt. Slinger who had covered them from in the waiting room.
 

Jeff’s world slowed as he stared at the massacred deputy on the floor. “Jimmy...”
 

“You knew him?” Slinger asked.
 

“Same high school.” Jeff knelt by the body. A glass bottle had beaten Miller’s face into an unrecognizable pulp. Jimmy’s heart lay wetly by his hollowed-out chest. His eyes were missing.
Who could do something like this?
He stood as Evans entered the waiting room.
 

“Alec? Nicole? Dylan?”

Evans grabbed Jeff. “Dylan is dead. Alec and Nicole are gone.”

An illness filled his words, “What happened?”
 

“Kale,” Evans said, possessed with an emotionless stare.
 

The illness in Jeff exploded. He had to sit down to cope with this news. “What?”
 

“Dylan lasted long enough to tell us. Kale killed him. He killed the deputy. He took your friends.”
 

No. How? Why?
Jeff stood. “Are you sure?”
 

“Jeff, my dying uncle lived long enough to tell me. I’m sure.”
 

Jeff lowered his carbine. “I’m sorry, I just— Kale? He’s not a killer. He’s a good person.”
 

I should’ve been here. I should have saved him.

“No, Brennan. He
was
a good person. Not anymore.” The specialist went for the glass doors. “Let’s get back to the helicopter, back to Numark. We’re done here.”
 

“Agreed,” said Slinger. The three VTF members stepped to the street.
 

Jeff stayed frozen in shock.
Did Kale turn? Did he become one of them?
He knew he could save Kale, just needed to find his friend and talk sense into him.
 

“Brennan, let’s move.” Slinger’s order was sharp.
 

The first alarm struck through the night. A second. Jeff turned to the street, stepping over Jimmy. A third. A fourth.
 

Malone raised his machine gun. “The hell is happening?”
 

Jeff turned for the exam room. “I’ll meet you guys up there. I need to see if there’s any sign of Alec.”
 

“Brennan, get back here! That’s an order.” Slinger followed after him.
 

Orders are for Evans.
Jeff kicked an exam room door open. Blood stained the walls, bed, and counter. A scalpel. He raised it.
Kale or Alec’s blood?
 

“
Jeff, we need to move!” Evans was in the waiting room.

Then the machine gun unleashed. Malone roared over his blazing bullets, “Cum, dumping, ZOMBIES!” Waves of rotting flesh stampeded for the shattered glass entrance of the clinic, only to be ripped apart by Malone.
 

Slinger turned, standing at his side, yelling over the firepower. “Find us a way to the roof!”
 

Jeff did as told while the others held the rush of zombies back. He climbed through the exam room window, landing softly on grass. A wall of brush stood before him. At his side, a dumpster, perfect to climb upon. He swung his carbine around his back and went to push it to the lowest part of the roof.
 

A ready-to-barf moan belched into his ear. Tiny eyes. Sharp hair stuck from its flopping cheeks. A big belly hung from under its shirt, bouncing with every step. Both arms snagged Jeff’s shoulders, and its mouth stretched wide, large enough to consume his entire face. He kicked out of its grasp and spun behind it. Before he could swing his carbine off his back, a child flew into his legs. Teeth ripped his black pants open, barely missing flesh. He smacked one hand at the kid’s face, knocking it to the ground. The kid looked like a mini Justin Bieber.
 

Fatty struck for him again, saliva spilling off its moldy lips. Jeff ducked, swung up, and kicked Fatty’s head, causing it to stumble. Then it fell. The zombie Bieber let out a shriek before Fatty smashed down on it. Blood and flesh splattered across grass.
 

Fatty rose, zombie Bieber’s insides sticking to its belly.
 

Jeff aimed his carbine at its head. “Goodbye, ugly.”
 

The roof was at its lowest where Fatty and zombie kid had mushed as one, so Jeff returned to the dumpster and dragged.
 

Then they came.
 

Sprinters flooded around the side of the clinic. Five. He took careful shots at the closest, never missing. The last two blazed on him before he had a chance to aim. His carbine nailed one in the chest and he shoved the other back with his free hand. Soon, they both had him, pushing him into a wall of brush as they tried to rip his flesh open. Both his hands pressed against their decayed necks. He had lost his carbine. Their jaws stretched wide, lunging for his face.
I made it this far without a bite!
He tried to grab his carbine but there was no way of reaching it.
The scalpel.
He rushed a hand away from one of the zombies, letting it strike down for his skin, but before it could bite, he jammed the scalpel through its skull. He shoved the other zombie off and its head exploded, misting Jeff with blood.

Behind the now headless zombie, Evans winked, holding his smoking carbine. “Miss me?”
 

“I was about to do my scalpel throw!” Jeff kicked the corpse off his feet, snagged his gun, and smiled. “Cover me while I move the dumpster.”

“You got it.” Evans moved to the brush, getting a wider aim at the clinic’s sides.
 

Jeff dragged the dumpster, listening to the sound of machine gun fire coming from the front of the clinic.
Another minute, Malone.
Evans fired off a few rounds. But Jeff kept dragging, arms straining. He guessed it weighed around 300 pounds. With clenched lips, he gave his hardest pull.
 

The machine gun died. Through the exam room window, he saw Slinger and Malone retreating. He still had a few yards to reach the lowest part of the roof. Slinger flung outside first.
 

Malone paused at the window and dropped his machine gun outside. Spinning while releasing two pistols from their holsters, sweat splashed off his shaved head. “Come on, mommas!”
 

Slinger helped Jeff. “Brennan, how are you moving this alone?”
 

Long story.
 

They reached the spot to climb. Evans kept the horde off one side of the clinic. The other side was empty.
 

“Mercury, get out of there!” Slinger clambered on the dumpster first. She helped Jeff on and he heaved her to the roof. Evans side-stepped to them, firing.
 

Malone jumped out of the window. He grabbed the machine gun and roared as he threw it toward the roof.
 

Jeff caught it. “Come on!”
 

Evans climbed the dumpster next, right as a swirling force struck it. He flew off, landing onto grass, losing his carbine. Twirling on the ground, he equipped his pistol and shot at a Spanish woman.
Another Embracer?

The Embracer flew over Evans, hand slashing at his neck. He dropped his pistol, grabbing his throat.
 

“Jon!” cried Slinger. She fired at the creature, and it vanished into the night.
 

Evans released his hand, holstering his pistol and lifting his carbine. “A scratch.”
 

“Get up there, Jonny,” Malone growled, firing pistols in every direction as his ballet with the dead continued. Slinger and Jeff helped cover them from the roof.
 

The helicopter whirred in close.
 

Evans climbed, blew a few heads open while on the dumpster, then leapt to Jeff’s arms. His legs kicked until he stood next to them.