Life Among The Dead (Book 3): A Bittersweet Victory (12 page)

A flash of red precedes the smaller truck
flying at him through the smoke, and it narrowly misses him.
Luckily, he hears the black behemoth barreling down and rolls out
of its way, but the act causes his bullet wound to stretch and
tear.

In a haze, Brad turns to where the trucks
have gone, and he watches the swirls left in their wake then awaits
their return pass. He listens for their engines but hears nothing.
They’re gone.

Able to catch a breath, he relaxes. He is out
of danger and very grateful, but the gratitude is fleeting when he
hears what drove off the raiders. The sound of feet, lots of feet,
grows close.

Zombies plod down the hill faster than they
can control with their unsteady limbs. Brad can’t see them through
the thinning cloud but he hears them moan eagerly. Their quickened
pace makes the sound reverberate as it leaves their gullets. Brad
heard the dead might be drawn to the scent of blood, and he reeks
of it.

As fast as his pain will allow, he gets to
his feet. The smoke screen is still too thick to see the zombies
until they are right on top of him. The dead veer towards the
promise of food, unwittingly using the momentum bestowed upon them
by nature. All they know is that they are very hungry.

Brad takes out the ghouls as fast as he can.
He must keep his rifle moving from side to side as he backs away,
firing into each slack face that presents itself in his scramble to
get to his jeep. He hobbles on his nearly useless leg, finding it
difficult to move faster than them, though their pace slows the
longer they pursue him on level ground. He has lost count of how
many rounds he has spent already and knows he must conserve ammo.
The revelation regarding his ammunition comes too late, for the
M-16 is empty.

Vida never learned to drive a stick shift,
but she knew she wouldn’t be able to push start one without the
key. She could get the Charger to coast down the hill, only she
wouldn’t be in it. After opening the door to every unlocked home to
release whatever may lurk inside, all she had to do was speak
softly into the shadowy domiciles to gather her reinforcements. The
dead hit the hill, following the departing car while she slipped
away down another street, safe in the knowledge that the things
wouldn’t be able to pursue her once they got going fast enough.
They would instead continue down the road to greet whoever was in
the Charger’s vicinity when it came to a stop.

She skirted the war being waged in the quiet
town and made it to one of the points on her tiny map, Ted’s Used
Car Lot. Ted’s is a small place, and the word ‘lot’ seems a bit of
an overstatement as she looks for a new ride. She isn’t planning on
being a choosy shopper. She’s willing to take anything she can get
a key to. While the boys duke it out, she strikes north in a
Taurus. Though her mini-map may not be to scale, the directions are
spot on. Before she knows it she is speeding up the highway as fast
as she can. She isn’t sure who will win the Battle of Worchester,
but oddly she finds herself rooting for the zombies.

###

The speedometer’s needle passes 90 miles per
hour once more after she slows to negotiate tight turns within a
canyon of rock she wasn’t expecting, located in a region known for
its vast wind farms and cornfields. She also wasn’t expecting to
see much traffic.

Focusing on the open road, her eyes peeled
for signs indicating the location of Fort Eagle Rock, she has
neglected her rearview mirror. She gives it a glance now as she
slows, fearing she may have missed her turn. What she sees
reflected is like something out of a horror movie. The jeep follows
her.

Though Vida has reduced her pace, Brad does
not. He rams into the back of her stolen sedan. She hasn’t seen any
indication that she’s passed Eagle Rock, nor any sign that it’s
coming up soon. She has no choice but to floor the accelerator and
hope for the best.

The needle rises, but not fast enough, and
she’s hit from behind once again.

The jeep gains on the Taurus, creeping up
along its left side. Instead of overtaking her, Brad paces Vida,
keeping his front fender up against her rear end. He pushes her
car, forcing it to skid.

Vida is terrified as her back wheels lose
traction and she is involuntarily spun around 180 degrees. She
tries to speed off in the direction she has come from, but the jeep
reverses and causes them to move diagonally along the road with a
grating whine of steel on steel.

Their tires squeal as Vida is forced to the
shoulder, and the overworked wheels spew gravel and dirt when they
leave the road. With no regard for his own safety, Brad causes them
both to tumble down an embankment like toys.

A stunned Vida finds herself on the ceiling
of her vehicle. Though battered and dazed she is able to move, and
realizes she must. It takes a moment of frantic thinking to
remember how to open the door in its new disorienting position, but
she manages to get out and scramble up the steep incline and back
onto the road.

Standing on the highway, she is at a loss as
what to do next. She could start running, but doesn’t know where to
run to. In the world before, she could flag down a fellow traveler
for help, but not anymore. Scanning the area, she sees a sign for
Fort Eagle Rock, though she is not certain if putting herself at
the mercy of yet more soldiers is a good plan. However, it’s all
she has.
They
can’t
all
be
like
him
, she thinks as she heads for the long dirt road to
safety.

Vida looks over her shoulder to the scene of
the accident, fearing she’ll spot Brad, her knight in sheep’s
clothing, ascending the embankment. The jeep’s front end actually
wound up on top of her overturned sedan. Brad is on the move,
attempting to lower himself from the pitched back tailgate.

Brad grunts and groans his way up the hill as
Vida sprints towards safety. Once on level ground, he disregards
his injuries to catch her, and the bullet fragments in his leg
pinch and scrape the tender muscle that holds them. He surprises
himself with his speed as he closes the distance and tackles Vida.
They leave the dirt road and tumble onto a dusty field. A grey
cloud stirs up, filling the air they breathe and making their teeth
gritty. They fight, rolling along the rough terrain. She for
freedom, he to subdue her.

There is no way Brad can keep his prize if
they go to Eagle Rock, but he knows just the place to take her,
Fallen.

He hasn’t set foot in the sleepy, sleazy town
since the night he and a buddy got a little rough with a dancer on
stage at the strip club there, and then got thoroughly pummeled by
a guy twice their age. He’ll take Vida to a small shop in the town
that sells sex toys--an array of devious devices to have fun with
his new plaything.

Brad pins her to the ground, and the tussle
awakens more dark fantasies within him as he rubs his body
pleasurably against hers. He forgets about quieting her and
remembers how badly he wanted to take her earlier. His victim
certainly has other plans, and is not about to go easily.

Vida squirms beneath him, and the friction
brings a smile to his face. She shifts her weight suddenly and
reverses his hold on her, like a Mexican wrestler. In a flash,
she’s on top and he is face down in the rocky soil.

Vida’s grandmother taught her how to play
guitar, but her grandfather taught her to fight. At this point, her
grandfather told her to scream for help. If no one responds, she
should slam her opponent’s head into the ground before releasing
him, then run. So Vida pulls Brad’s head back and drives it into
the hard packed surface.

While dashing off of her limp opponent, her
ankle becomes ensnared and she falls. The wind is knocked out of
her, and it takes a second to realize Brad has grabbed her foot.
The swirling dust chokes her as she regains her breath, and before
she can come up with a counter move he flips her on to her back and
places a long blade across her throat.

The edge bites into her flesh just enough to
let her know it’s there. All she can do is look up into his eyes
and see his desire. His gaze could almost be mistaken for love.

The loving look grows into an unsettling
grin, and whatever his intentions Vida has no desire to surrender
her will. She’d rather be killed than live out the rest of her days
at his mercy.

Still able to move her right arm, she finds
the wound in his leg and digs dust caked fingers in. Her nails are
short, but they might as well be razor blades. Brad lets out a wail
as she penetrates his flesh with the same brutality he planned on
showing her.

She’s filled with contempt and disgust for
her captor. “How do you like having things shoved into you against
your will?”

His wails of agony continue as he applies
more pressure to the blade at her throat. Vida can’t speak, and she
can barely breathe as the cold steel constricts her windpipe. If
she so much as swallows the saliva accumulating in her mouth, the
movement will cause an inadvertent slit. She no longer cares if he
kills her, though. If only she could muster the strength to meet
the knife and end this. She does manage to spit in his face.

The urge to drag the blade across her supple
neck is hard to overcome, but he resists. He refuses to give up his
sweet reward by reducing her to just another body along the
roadside. Besides, he can make her pay for it later. Brad drives
his combat knife into the ground all the way to the hilt, right
next to her, then he bites her instead.

His teeth gnaw deeply into the tender spot
where her neck meets her shoulder. She screams out in horror and
shock as he tears into her flesh, shaking his head like a dog with
a rawhide bone once he tastes blood. He makes certain to leave
undeniable evidence of ravaging teeth before releasing her.

He gets off of her after that, leaving her
clutching her wounded neck while he stands over her. “There. It’s
over. Now you have no choice but to come with me. We’ll get my jeep
back on the road and go to base together,” he lies. “You’ll need me
to tell them that it wasn’t a zombie that bit you. Otherwise you’ll
get a bullet to the head.”

She rises to her feet and bursts into
laughter. “So… you’re going to tell them that
you
bit me?
I’m sure they’ll be relieved.”

“Don’t laugh at me!” he snarls.

She knows he won’t take her to Eagle Rock.
Her only recourse is to enrage him enough that he makes a mistake
or kills her. “How’d you ever get into the military? I thought they
had an intelligence test…”

He charges at Vida, driving his shoulder into
her stomach hard. Then he snatches his knife from the ground and
straddles her body, holding the dirty blade high over his head.

Exhausted, Vida waits for the dagger to come
down and cease her suffering. She’s won. But after a pop in the
distance, Brad falls off her torso. A single gunshot from the
highway saves her as well as robs her of escape from the cruel
world.

She’s too weak to feel relief, even after
seeing Brad’s head snap back in a puff of blood. She’s too tired to
be afraid of what’s to come. All she can do is look up at the sky
as shadows creep in around the edges. Vida surrenders to the
darkness, thinking,
What
now
?

While fleeing from the dead through the smoke
filled streets of Worchester, Marko ordered his men to make for the
hideout. They took the rural roads that Marko knows intimately to
avoid any further tussles with soldiers. Now they stare out at the
highway from the patrol office windows on the second floor, looking
for movement.

Marko’s dream of lawlessness has been
challenged. He fears not being able to do whatever he wants and
living like a king.
The
only
way
is
numbers
, he thinks.
I
have
to
get
more
subjects
.

“Why do you think that guy attacked us?” Biff
asks again.

“I told you, I have no idea!” Marko snaps,
tired of repeating himself and agitated by the day’s events. “Just
keeping the peace, I guess.”

Draining yet another beer, Marko tries to
relax. He is fairly confident that they can’t be seen from the
road, though they can see it just fine through the foliage. “You
idiots get the trucks unloaded and the shit stowed. We’ll cool our
heels for the night. Head back out in the morning.”

Before the sound of automatic gunfire drew
Marko from the gun shop, he loaded up several crates of ammo and a
few armfuls of guns that now need to be sorted and stored. But Biff
and Jessie hesitate in carrying out the order. Instead they look to
one another with puzzled expressions, more puzzled than usual.

Jessie asks, “Why are we going out again so
soon? Shouldn’t we wait a few days for the heat to die down?”

“There has to be more people out there,”
Marko says. “The longer this goes on the less there’ll be. We need
to recruit.”

Being lifted from the ground wasn’t enough to
stir Vida from her slumber, nor was being lowered into the back of
a car. She didn’t awaken when the vehicle started to move, but
voices draw her back into the world.

Three people speak, but she can’t make out a
single word in her foggy return to reality. A deep, male voice
calmly mumbles, while the other two squabble back and forth.

All gibberish at first, but the closer she
gets to consciousness the more she understands.

“She’s been bitten, Dad!” one says.

“He wasn’t dead,” the calm man says.

“You don’t know that.”