Mostly Dead (Barely Alive #3)

Mostly Dead

Book #3
Barely Alive Series

Bonnie R. Paulson

Captiva
Publishing

Bonnie R. Paulson

www.bonnierpaulson.com

Copyright © 2012 Bonnie R. Paulson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
       

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the purchase-point and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

A
cknowledgments

To My Husband – Life is worth more with you by my side. I love you.

To My Critique Partners: Jill Cooper, Brooklyn Ann, and Shelley Martin – this story owes you its existence. Thank you.

To my beta readers: Kammie, Chelsea, and Cassie. Thanks for the help, ladies, your enthusiasm gave me confidence!

Hamlet
, William Shakespeare

Chapter 1

To eat or be eaten is the question.
William Shakespeare had nothing on me.

Days. I had days to live. Hours, really. And a long ass drive with Dominic riding my tail didn’t sound like the best way to spend that time. I could think of much more satisfying activities involving Heather.

I leaned across the front seat of the freezer truck and shook Brian’s shoulder. “Hey, you okay?”

He turned toward me, his pupils dilated and his eyelids suspiciously red-rimmed
. He was too new to have discoloration. He could have been crying. I didn’t mention the redness and risk embarrassing him. I’d been talking for a good five minutes without any response. He’d stared and stared into the darkness outside the cab. But nothing was out there.

The
only thing on my radar for the last forty-five miles was Dominic’s headlights. And the frozen zombies in the box – but I couldn’t see them.

Euphoria slithered through me. I hadn’t been able to let go of the
strange freedom that accompanied accepting my upcoming death. Facing the truth that in a day or two I’d die had been altogether uplifting – at the risk of sounding loony. Or like a girl. Could a boy be too sentimental?

Brian lifted his gaze to meet mine. Monotone, he answered, “Yeah?”

“Dominic is being really quiet. He knows I’m up here. What do you think he’s planning? Should we pull over and confront him?” If we could find a shoulder off the side of the road or a rest stop minus the walking dead, maybe we could ambush him and save the girls.

He wiped his eyes. “And what? Eat or be eaten?”

I laughed, a little surprised. “I was just thinking that.”

Pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes, Brian nodded. “I know.”

Right.
Adrenaline pumped through me and must have shoved the thought to the back of my mind. He could hear my thoughts under my control. Unfortunately for Brian, he couldn’t forget and I couldn’t make him. “Okay, so, what do you think? Would it do any good?”

He shrugged, a habit of his that would drive me crazy before too long. “I think we’re stupid to
think anything with Dominic would do any good.”

And I agreed… to an extent.
I clenched the steering wheel. Dashboard lights made it next to impossible to see into the inky night. Red radio buttons connected us to Dominic, taunting me. But he needed something we had – desperately.

I avoided Brian’s eyes.
I had an ulterior motive. I just didn’t want to admit it. “Well, if we don’t ambush him, maybe we could suggest a deal or something. Maybe a trade? I don’t want to have anything to do with him. But he has quite a few girls back there that aren’t infected. He’s keeping them alive for food.” Embarrassed, I muttered. “I think we should try to save them.”

If there was a syndrome that caused a person to believe they were a superhero, I had it.
Why else would I run around thinking I could save every girl in trouble? What Dominic did with them shouldn’t bother me, and yet, their life or death situation bugged the hell out of me. Rape didn’t sit well with me. Women trapped in a truck while they waited to be eaten didn’t either.

Since Dominic
had made it out of the road trap, I had to assume the girls did, too.

Thankfully, I
didn’t need surround sound. Brian’s words didn’t carry far. “How? We aren’t superheroes. We’re walking dead.” He pressed his hands on his upper thighs. “I don’t know that they’re safer with
me
than with
him
.”

Eating humans wasn’t on my wish list either. I’d made it so long without eating any and then bam! twice in the same day
. Could I guarantee I wouldn’t cave to temptation either?

Brian coughed a
rusty laugh. “If you’re not sure you can abstain, then I know I won’t be able to. Let’s just ditch Dominic. Those girls will be dead one way or the other. Let’s just get away and do what we need to do.”

I consider
ed his suggestion. Damn, I’d left one version of hell for another. I scratched the side of my face, my nerves maintaining some semblance of normal and not quite so sensitive yet. I didn’t need food. At least for a bit.

Another mile or two passed in silence. I’d faced my mortality and found myself to be less morbid than I’d assumed. I wasn’t willi
ng to trade my integrity for a full stomach and end my unsatisfied longings. Yet.

And
I had
longings
. Heather leapt to the front of my mind. She lingered in the back, her image waiting to pop into view at the most inconvenient times. Had she fixed her hair where Brian had chopped the chunk out? Was she okay after being bitten? Hell, was she okay, period? My brother, James, escaped with her. He had more time than I did. More time. To impress her. To love her, if he wanted.

And why wouldn’t he? Who wouldn’t want to be with her?

I loved her. I’d fallen for her.

I just couldn’t have her.

Ever.

My teeth dug deep into the flesh of my inn
er cheek. The sting stopped tears from pricking my eyes. Odd, but it worked. I’d be eighteen soon. Well, I wouldn’t live long enough for that, but an almost-eighteen-year-old doesn’t need to cry over a girl he’d never get to be with.

No electricity left the lights
black on the northbound highway. Our truck sliced through the night, the path lit up ahead and from behind. The fact that Dominic was so close applied pressure between my shoulder blades. We would need gas and sustenance soon. To get away from Dominic, we would need a severe advantage. Or he would need a flat tire. Or to die. Whatever.

I’d give anything to catch up to Heather, see her home, have her see me before I start
ed falling to pieces. Best not to focus on the impossibility of that situation.

“La
st fall, I sat behind a girl in English I swore I’d be taking to prom.” Brian shifted in his seat. He blew hot air on the window and traced a line with his still peach-colored finger. “I copied a sonnet and passed it to her. Told her we were
star-crossed lovers
.” He glanced at me and tilted his head in my direction. “Sorry. But you’re making me melancholy with your whiny thoughts about Heather.”

“Whiny?
”
Dickhead.
I’d tried showing him nothing but compassion – okay, not really, but somewhat. Jeesh. “Do you really want to go there?”

We both shut up. I tried emptying my mind, but foun
d myself running through various scenarios between me and Heather, possibilities if only I weren’t infected or she weren’t immune. Try as hard as I could, I couldn’t bring myself to hate the virus that had changed me. I had met Heather because of it. Dominic had forced me to kidnap her. Oh, yeah, I still hated him.

P
lains spread out on either side of the highway. We rolled forward during the darkest part of the night – just before dawn – and in our case the most dangerous. Zombies didn’t need light to find food, just smell. And we’d eat anything that moved. Or didn’t move.

“Can you stop thinking? Just stop. My head feels like it’s going to explode. It’s crowded in here enough without adding you to it.”
Brian’s growl took me aback.

L
aughter escaped me before I could reign it in. “Really? You’re trying to tell me you have so much going on in
your
head, that you can’t handle a few extra thoughts?” I rolled my eyes. “I find that hard to believe.”

Cutting across his rep
ly – if he had one in the works – hell, according to him, his mind was too maxed out – the cell phone rang. He picked up, answering with a subdued tone. “Yeah.”

Beep. Beep. The
radio interrupted my eavesdropping efforts. How flipping annoying. “Paul. You there?”

I grabbed the handheld mouth
piece and snarled. “What do you want, Dominic?” He didn’t need to know we’d just been discussing options. He didn’t need to know he was even in the picture.

“I want my army back. But since I can’t pull them from those people’s mouths, I want what’s left.” Static filled his pause.

The dark road ahead absorbed my glare. Too bad there wasn’t some way to put his ass in front of my truck. I’d gladly run it over, turn him into a zombie pancake. Then I’d climb out and roll him up into a Dominic churro. And feed his ass to the mindless zombies roving the countryside. “I’m not stopping. Do you think I’m stupid?”

Dominic didn’t
reply. I caught the end of Brian’s sentence. “…I don’t think that’s important. We’re headed that way. We’ll just pick you up on the way north.”

Pick up someone?
We already packed an unknown number of male popsicles. No way in hell was I going to add to that. Where were they going to sit? Back with the undead? Sheesh. I pushed my irritation toward Brian, hoping he picked up the pissed off vibes.

Finally, Dominic spoke. “I don’t care if you’re stupid or not. You’ll stop eventually. Your rig eats through gas. It’s not diesel. Only mine is. When you need fuel, we’ll talk.”
The menacing promise was there, like he breathed down the back of my neck.

A sigh escaped me. Of course. Diesel. I was screwed with the freezer unit running and all the weight in the box. I’d run through my gas in no time.
I couldn’t turn off the freezer or Dominic could mentally order those damn zombies in the back to eat my ass. Thanks, but no thanks.

If I could get a bite on each of the boys in the back, they’d be my army – not Dickhead’s – and then I could make them eat him. That’d be awesome. As soon as Brian got off the phone, I would tell him my plan. I’d have to find the freezer on/off button to start the thawing process. Biting frozen zombies may or may not spread my
saliva.

Brian hung up th
e phone. He turned to the window. “That was James. They’re stuck.”

“What? Where?”
I swerved the steering wheel to the right and then corrected. James and Heather couldn’t stop. Getting north was the most important thing. Zombies would be surrounding them, grabbing Heather. Mauling her. Eating her. Killing her. “Did you tell them they couldn’t stop? My hell, Brian.”

I stomped on the gas pedal, pushing the truck past
the fifty miles per hour speed limit. The truck climbed past sixty, sixty-five, up to seventy, abandoning Dominic’s in the dark.

“What are you doing?” Brian’s eyes grew wide. He stared at the speedometer as it
rocketed to seventy-five. Eighty.

“We can’t help her sitting on our asses, can we?” She needed me. We needed to get away from Dominic.
And, thanks again to the bastard, I was going to see her before I died… sooner rather than later.

Had I mentioned how much I needed Heather?

Brian held onto the phone like a magic cord that was going to yank him from the mad-man-driven-truck. “James said they were at the rest stop off exit one-thirty-three. We should be there soon. We just passed one-hundred-and-twenty when I was on the phone.”

I gritted my teeth. Mile markers would have been easier to gauge. An exit could come out at you before you knew it was there. I’ve been known to pass exits before.
Road trips suck.
Fleeing seemed to be my new MO. I hated looking like a wimp. “Watch for the exit. Did he say what happened?” My plan to claim Dominic’s minimal army as my own flipped out the window. I didn’t have time to thaw out the boys, even if I did bite them frozen. They wouldn’t do me any good frozen stiff.