Mad Swine (Book 2): Dead Winter (25 page)

“Maybe it’s not even one of those things in there,” Lara said. I turned my attention back to her. I could see she was scared.

I took her hand in mine. “Lara, it doesn’t make sense to lock someone in if they’re not one of those creatures or were infected. Either way, whatever is in there is a threat.”

“What the hell happened to you?”

Lara and I both jumped when the voice spoke. Her hand clenched tightly against mine, grinding the bones in my fingers together with ferocity. As though we were synchronized dancers, we both spun in the direction of the voice.

Brian and Chandra both stood near the glass doors looking at us.

“Well?” Brian said. “Why do you have blood all over you?”

“It’s not mine,” I said. I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Come here. We have a situation.”

Both came forward. I could see Chandra eyeing me cautiously but I paid her no mind. Brian took in the barricaded door and then looked at my bloody pants again.

“Did you do that?” he asked.

“No. I slipped in some blood in one of the rooms back there.” Before Brian could ask, I continued, “It was a dead dog. What are we going to do about this?”

Examining the tape, Brian came to the same conclusion as had I. “Something was trying to get out. The tape is all stretched and the wood is gouged from the hammer.”

“I think we should leave it alone,” Lara spoke up.

“Sounds good to me, girl,” Chandra said. “If it hasn’t got out it ain’t gonna get out. Unless we let it out.”

I raised my eyebrows to Brian and said, “Well?”

“You’re in charge. It’s your call.”

“I’d like your opinion on the matter.”

He looked carefully at the tape and hammer again, studying it in the beam of his own flashlight. He stretched the tape a little with his finger, testing what remained of its tensile strength. Finally, he stood up and said, “I think the girls are right. Whatever is in there tried its best to get out and failed. I have no qualms leaving it there.”

“You’re not worried about sleeping and not knowing what’s behind those doors?” I asked. I was feeling a bit salty. I had expected Brian to side with me on this.

“We’re going to set up camp on the other side of the building. Even if whatever was in there is still kicking, which I doubt, and gets out, it’s going to have to go through a lot of other doors to get to us.”

Shaking my head again, I replied, “I don’t like it.”

Lara took my hand and started to put her arm around my waist but stopped short when she remembered the blood. Instead, she put her hand on my neck. “Let’s not take any unnecessary risks. We had a close call back there; we don’t need another one.”

“Listen to the lady,” Chandra spoke up. “Let’s get those folks in out of the cold and call it a night.”

Brian said, “Chandra’s right. We need to get everyone inside. We don’t want to risk someone dying of exposure.”

With a deep sigh, I relented. “Fine. Show me where we’re making camp tonight.”

Brian took point, followed by Chandra. Lara was at my side, holding my hand again. Just as Brian reached the glass doors, something thudded behind us. The sound came again and we all turned, trying to get a fix on the noise. Suddenly, the thud was followed by a quick rattle.

“Damn it,” Brian said. He strode forward, brushing my shoulder as he passed. “Looks like you get your way after all.”

We crowded around the double doors to the chapel and watched as the half-inch gap opened and closed, opened and closed as whatever was inside pushed and pulled, trying to free itself. More likely trying to get at our tender flesh.

Brian reached out and removed the hammer. He almost tossed it aside but then realized it could make a useful weapon. Stepping back slightly, he drew the machete from its sheath on his right hip. He looked at me and said, “You ready, brother? Chandra? Lara?”

We all nodded our heads getting our weapons at the ready. “Spread out,” I told the women. “Give yourself room to swing without taking one of us out.”

“Get to the sides,” Brian admonished. “Don’t stand in front of the door. Get ready now.”

He took a deep breath and then swung the machete, severing the tape that still bound the doors together. No sooner had the tape split when the doors flew open and the thing behind it came sprawling out. The crazy wore a doctor’s coat, the white front stained with blood. His face and hair were covered in dried blood, as though he’d been bathing in it. As it hit the carpeted floor in front of us, I heard Chandra gasp.

“It has my foot!” Chandra shouted. She kicked away from the thing, breaking its grasp on her boot. The force of the kick made her lose her balance and she fell awkwardly onto her left side.

Even as Chandra was skittering away from the fallen crazy, I was stepping forward into the fray. Pumping my leg back and letting loose, I kicked the former doctor in the ribcage hard enough to hurt my ankle. The blow pushed its body onto its back where it struggled immediately to get its feet under it.

“Move back!” Brian shouted, trying to clear the way so that we could effectively engage and dispatch the undead.

Lara moved to aid Chandra, helping her to her feet, they both took up their weapons, ready to jump in. The doctor got to his knees and looked upon us with wild eyes. Each time his head whipped from side to side, spittle flew from his gaping maw. The thing seemed confused, unable to settle on which one of us it wanted to attack first. Before it could decide, Brain swung the machete, decapitating the former doctor.

Chandra yelped and Lara jumped back as the head hit the ground and rolled in their general direction. Totally disgusted, Chandra squinched her face up tightly and used the toe of her boot to push the head away so that the dead eyes were not looking in her direction. “So gross! He was looking right at me.”

The chapel was small, just four rows of pews, each about six feet long. At the front of the room, a large crucifixion statue hung on the wall. A table with rows of red-glassed candles sat below Christ. Seated in the first pew was a woman, her blonde hair hanging over the back of the wood.

She remained still, as though Brian’s flashlight beam held her paralyzed. From this distance I could not tell if she was dead or undead.

“What do you think?” Brian whispered.

“Go check it out.”

“You check it out. I took care of doctor McDreamy back there.”

“Is there another one in there?” Lara asked.

“What’s going on?” Chandra said.

I waved my hand at them, indicating they should just stay where they were. To Brian I said, “You suck.”

Stuffing my own flashlight into my pocket so that I could take a two-handed grip on my splitting maul, I moved forward, closing the distance between myself and Blondie. Brian’s light did not waver, but continued to pin the woman. I stopped at the second pew, just to her right. No more than three feet separated us.

“Hello?” I asked in a whisper. I expected the woman to react by jumping up and attacking. My mind was on overdrive. Every horror movie I’d ever seen was running through my mind right now.

The woman didn’t respond. She was probably dead. No one could remain that still. Certainly she’d have heard my voice. I was as close as I wanted to get. Using the splitting maul, I put the head of the axe against her shoulder and nudged her slightly. Her body shifted slightly in the pew, canting a few inches to the left. She was dead.

Turning to Brian, I signed to him that the woman was dead. When she grabbed my arm and sunk her teeth into my coat I almost shit my pants. I let out a startled sound and instinctively pulled back, wanting to create distance between myself and the threat. Blondie managed to hold on with her teeth and I merely succeeded in pulling her off the pew and onto the ground.

The axe was in my right hand, which Blondie was currently trying to gnaw on. She’d gotten a grip on one of my legs, as well. Acting out of instinct, I cocked my left fist and swung at her face, connecting squarely with her right jaw. It was a solid blow and I felt bone crunch beneath my knuckles. Yet she still clung to me. I struck her again and then a third time, this time with enough force that her jaw was dislocated, causing her to lose her grip.

Now that I had a little more room, I kicked her away with my left foot, but almost fell. She still held on to my right leg and her momentum when she fell almost carried me to the floor with her. I kicked her again to no avail, but now my arm was free and I swung the axe. With very little arc, there was not enough force behind the blow to sever the arm, but her shoulder was knocked askew and finally I was free from her claw-like grip as well.

Fueled by anger as much as fear, I drew back and landed a series of stomping kicks at Blondie’s head, each blow knocking her skull against the blue carpeted floor. The skin on her forehead split open above the eyebrow and her cheek tore open as the sharp tread of my boot ripped against her skin. When I was winded, I stepped back a few feet and bent forward slightly, elbows resting against my thighs. The woman writhed on the floor, but she really made no attempt to get up.

“That was…I don’t know what that was, dude. But it was fucking funny. You screamed like a bitch.”

“I didn’t scream,” I said between breaths. “Why didn’t you help me?”

Brian shook his head and couldn’t keep from laughing. “Dude, you just did the scene from
Goodfellas
when DeNiro stomps Billy Batts in the bar!”

Usually, I cherished my brother’s sense of humor, but right now I wasn’t feeling it. My hands were shaking and I still couldn’t catch my breath. For all I knew I was having a heart attack.

“Something is seriously wrong with you, man. Grow up.” I turned my back on him and made for the door. I needed to get out of this damn tomb and catch my breath.

“You’re just going to leave her here? Finish this shit.”

“You fucking finish it, asshole.” I shot him a middle finger over my shoulder.

Lara immediately hugged me. Chandra put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m going to be seeing that in my nightmares.”

The sound of Brian’s machete cutting through Blondie’s neck and slamming against the carpeted floor made Lara twitch in my arms. In my ear, so only I could hear, she whispered, “I love you.”

* * *

We set up “camp” in the emergency room. The room was large enough to accommodate our entire group. With minimal rearranging of furniture, everyone was able to lay out their sleeping bags or blankets and hunker down for the night. Although there were four operating tables, no one wanted to use one as a bed. Instead, we flipped the metal tables onto their sides, stacking one atop the other, and used them to block the glass doors on each side of the room. Using overturned medical equipment, we shored up the tables. The makeshift barricades would never stand up to a horde of crazies, but would at least provide cover from prying eyes.

After hearing about our adventures, Justin was salty, feeling left out of the action. Those of us who had been there felt differently. To make him feel better, I sent him with Al Sanchez and a few others to scrounge around and collect whatever they felt would be useful and that we could carry. Lara reminded them to get the toilet paper and hand towels. I added that they should get as many bandages, gaze and medications as they could carry.

While Brian and Chandra worked together to set up a security schedule for the evening, I sat in one of the corners with Lara. We piled both of our sleeping bags on top of each other for maximum comfort. Having changed out of my bloody jeans and coat, I felt fresh and clean. Finally letting my body rest, I soon became aware of all of the aches and pains.

With my head in Lara’s lap, I watched Brian and Chandra. Obviously, he was full of jokes today, because he had her laughing. By the way Chandra constantly touched his arm whenever she spoke I could tell that she was crushing on him. Perhaps she was attracted to stupid jokes; oh well, to each his own, I suppose.

Lara started to stroke my hair as I looked around at the rest of our group. Now that we were no longer required to stay in formation, the group naturally split into their own cliques; I was happy to see that no one was alone. The Sanchez’s had their makeshift bed set up near the center of the room. As I watched, Araceli extracted a brush from her bag and began brushing her daughter’s hair. I expected Belinda to protest, but instead the young woman closed her eyes and let her mother do her thing.

The Finnegans found their place next to Brian’s bundle. Ian and Liam were engaged in serious conversation and the two women, Jenna and Maureen, were busy getting chow together. Maureen had collected items from each person and was heating up some concoction. Jenna was heating up water to brew tea from her own stash. Stanley hung around Maureen, offering his assistance, although the woman was more than capable of handling the job herself. I think Stanley was smitten with the Irish woman. Maureen didn’t seem to mind him hovering.

I spotted Ray and Wesley next to Justin and his wife. Ray sat in his chair, his back slightly turned toward me. Wesley put a blanket over Mr. Ray’s legs. After attending to the man, Wesley sat down on his own blankets and called Cody over. The dog trotted to the boy, his tail wagging a mile a minute. Wesley threw his arms around the dog’s neck and pulled him down. Cody offered no resistance when Wesley rolled him over and started to scratch the golden fur on his belly.