Mostly Dead (Barely Alive #3) (11 page)

The walk o
utside sapped my reserves. Gray had reached my elbows. I could make it. I breathed through my mouth. Humans smelled so damn good. The memory of their taste rippled over me in slow wavelets that seemed to move with my tongue. How had I weakened so much and so fast?

Someone screamed in my ear. I opened my eyes and pushed a
t a woman flailing at me. Blood dripped down her bicep. A rock fell from my hand. Had I cut her with the rock?

A group of men and women surrounded me in
a half-circle, yelling and shouting something that sounded like, “He’s one of them. We got one. Kill him.” Or something equally horrifying. I didn’t plan on sticking around to have them repeat it.

Escape was the only thing on my mind
. I had to get out of there. But they were everywhere and more came fast. I turned south and ran through a field. Dry grass pricked the bottoms of my jeans, rustling as I sprinted toward the tree line.

No one followed me.

And it’s a good thing. I might have bitten one of them.

The war had begun and because I hadn’t prepared, I had placed myself on the wrong side.

I dodged overhanging tree branches, my arm up to protect my face. Something. I’d take anything. I couldn’t even think right.

Breaks in the trees
revealed flashes of cars and people walking. I weaved the opposite direction. The last thing I needed was to catch the scent of a stray human. Just because I’d been labeled as the bad guy, didn’t mean I
had
to be him.

A few minutes of fleeing and I allowed myself to stop. I bent in half, resting my hands on my thighs and gasping. How many heart beats did I have left? My body would die. I’d still be able to function for a little while until my body deteriorated.
Rotting muscles don’t work like fresh ones. Skin sloughing off. The images from Tom and the others in Dominic’s dungeon shot a chill down to my heels.

Scratches sounded behind me from low to the ground.
I froze. The lingering musk of a skunk didn’t stink as bad as I remembered from my human days. I rolled my eyes to the far right and down. The slightest movement gave his position away and I sprang. He didn’t stand a chance.

My hands broke his neck
and tore the skin from his flesh. I ate without real awareness, yanking and pulling and shoving into my mouth. But the gray didn’t recede. The small amount didn’t seem to fill even a tiny portion of the hole in my stomach. Muscles in my abdomen clenched and twisted.

No. I refused to believe that the only meat I could eat…
that could sustain me… was human. Dammit. I dropped the carcass at my feet and hung my head. My mortality loomed closer. I couldn’t go back to Heather and James like this.

The
shame-filled walk back toward the freeway passed like a dream. I stood just within the tree line and watched the uninfected seeking the vaccine. I couldn’t move. They smelled delicious. Not what I wanted to be thinking.

Someone yelled.

A man about Travis’s age motioned towards Coeur d’Alene. “There’s another guy with the vaccine back here. He’s passing them out from a truck!”

No way. I joined the throng of people suddenly running away from Sandpoint.

No one noticed my graying skin. Exclamations and squeals filled my head. Feet pounded like a damn stampede. We reached the truck where an unknown handed out boxes of syringes. Dominic couldn’t be involved, he’d still be in Spokane.

An
Idaho license plate and friendly smile on the man lulled me, along with everyone else.

Maybe Connie and Grandma Jean had worked
this step into their strategy. They had Mom on their side, after all. She might have suggested sending more vaccines down the line. I hadn’t been with them in a while and had told them to figure things out. Good move, if you asked me.

The boxes were passed
out. Each person took a syringe and moved the boxes along. One went through my hands. I took a syringe.

The small plastic body
had an intimidating significance. I fingered the needle, pulled off the cap. What would happen? I was already infected. Would a vaccine have the potential to cure me? Did I dare test it out? The smallest chance that the vaccine could act as a cure grew as hope in my chest. In my hour of darkness, the smallest glimmer of hope blinded me.

Surrounded by the crowd, no one noticed that I stared at the needle. They were all wrapped up in the urgency of protecting themselves. A woman stood feet from me, smiling at a four-year-old boy. “It’ll only hurt for a second, okay?”

People one-by-one lifted their shirt sleeves or yanked down the back of their pants to reveal a hip. Small grunts and squeaks filled the highway as each person popped themselves or helped with another.

Clear fluid filled the base of the syringe. Muscle mass would be thickest in my ass but I di
dn’t have the balls to drop my drawers in the crowd. There were girls around.

I lifted my left arm and stuck the needle deep into my tricep
s and pushed the pump. The empty syringe slid easily from my skin.

A hazard
ous materials box sat at the edge of the ambulance. I dropped my needle and turned toward the trees.

W
hite flashed across my vision.

Someone groaned.

Why hadn’t Connie and Grandma Jean sent someone out here to give the vaccines the right way? It didn’t sound like something they would do.

I blinked, twice.

Why was that old man chewing on that kid’s arm?

I held my hands out like I might fall. I think I pushed someone.
They turned on me and hissed, their pupils dilated. My answering growl subdued them. I’m not sure if it was a male or a female. Details slid in and out of my conscious. I couldn’t get my head on straight.

Screams filled the air, but they changed to growls and groans.

I reached the trees, falling against rough bark as I slouched for support against a thick pine. The scent reminded me of my Dad’s old cars and their air fresheners.

Dominic
’s laugh filled my mind. A sound I swore I’d never hear again. He was there. He’d made it. The ass was in my head. I gripped my ears. Pushing up from my spot on the tree, I stumbled further into the woods, further from him. But the sound didn’t stop.

I’d made it about ten feet, my going slow, when a hand gripped my shoulder. I spun, too weak to hold my hands up to defend myself.
I should have eaten one of the idiots before they’d turned zombie.

Dominic’s fist connected with my lower jaw. Momentary darkness filled my sight. I think I bounce
d off a log before landing in a pile of dry pine cones. I closed my eyes.

A foot slammed into my right side. I curled and rolled
, hoping to avoid more attacks. He grabbed my hair, the tear as it pulled from my scalp louder than my breathing. Now I would match Heather.

“You really are panting after that bitch.” Dominic wasn’t immune to exertion either. His shallow breaths underscored his efforts. I rolled to my back. “
Where is she? I’m craving brunette bitch tonight.”

I couldn’t move. He stood above me, his hands on his hips. At least my heart still beat.
I licked my lips. “How did you find me?”

“That’s
my
saliva you jabbed in your arm.” He crouched beside me. “You’re one dumb kid, aren’t you? You already have the virus, why would you take the vaccine?” His smirk should have warned me. The humor morphed to calculation. “Hey Paul, want to see what I did
before
I found James?”

Before he found James? I had assumed he’d hunted, eaten someone
, recruited the other guys. The things I knew about Dominic, the things I’d seen so far… nothing could beat that.

Dominic shook his head. “I had your
dad as the main contact in your file. I love research.” His lips curled like a cartoon snake’s.

And if pain were alive, min
e just reproduced like rats, gnawing at my insides. He had found my dad. I swear if he told me he’d turned him into a zombie, I would dig his heart out with my bare hands. I closed my eyes again, trying to block out Dominic’s face. How could he show me if my eyes were closed?

An image flashed like a sixteen millimeter film in my head. Shit. He
could
show me.

My dad’s
face flooded my mind. James had always looked the most like him. Dad stood at an open door. The smile I hadn’t seen in years welcomed me in.

But it wasn’t
me
. I relived Dominic’s memories. I was Dominic. ‘Cause that sure as hell was not my hand on the door jamb.

Dominic’s memory had him talking
. Compared to how I was used to hearing his voice the words sounded hollow and weird. “Hi, Mr. Ledger. I’m looking for your son, Paul. Have you seen him?” Dominic actually wanted Dad to say no. His desire rippled through him. He sniffed the human odors in the house. Oh, how quickly he’d given over to the cravings. Something I had wanted to do so bad.

His thoughts
were mine as he remembered the taste and texture of a previous kill on the way to the house.

Trapped in Dominic’s memory, I could still feel the forest floor under my back, the sore spots where Dominic had attacked me. The hunger. The scents from the memories affected me
as well and a sob tore from my throat.

A
mental laugh like background music echoed through my head. My dad’s quizzical look, his eyebrows lifting, his confused smile. “No, I’m sorry. I haven’t seen Paul in a long time.” Was that regret? Did he miss me?

But Dominic didn’t focus on the reactions.
Elation filled him like a tidal wave. Dad had answered exactly how Dominic wanted.

“Would you like to know what Paul has been up to?” Dominic’s sly reply held mountains of excitement, anticipation, joy. Joy.

I don’t know how I would ever feel happiness again.

My dad’s confusion increased as I, no, I mean Dominic, pushed the door open and sh
oved my dad inside. Children’s laughter and a woman’s tinkling giggle caught Dominic’s attention. His smile spread across his face, the skin tight and unused to the movement.

I tried opening my own eyes, but the memory covered my vision, like it’d taken over my senses. Even my dad’s cologne drifted over me.

Dad tried to run, but Dominic’s slimmer, more athletic build created an opponent Dad wasn’t ready for. Dad had turned to run toward the back of the house, calling out for his family to get out.

We laughed
and reached for my dad. In that instant, it was me. I was Dominic. With his newfound strength due to the virus, Dominic knocked my dad out. He didn’t kill him, made sure not to in fact. Just reached out and rapped him with a couple knuckles. My dad crumpled to the floor.

Weird Al Yankovic’s song,
Just Eat It
, came out of Dominic’s mouth. He hummed the tune and filled in the words when he came to the chorus.

Grabbing my dad’s foo
t, Dominic dragged him to the back of the house, toward the voices. Just over the threshold my dad came to and struggled as he yelled from the ground, “Are you one of them? Did you kill Paul? Where’s his brother, James?”

Two kids sat at a table.
I didn’t look too closely at them. Dad’s new wife stood beside them, her hand outstretched. Dominic noticed her hair and her chest. He grinned. I wanted to scream, but the mouth wasn’t mine. I couldn’t yell at them to run and I couldn’t escape the memory.

He turned and lowered his face close to my dad. Dominic’s voice boomed. “I am their
god
and Paul is
wasting
the power I gave him.” His laugh filled the room. Filled the forest. “But a brother? I never knew.”

Dad’s horror twisted his features.

I
clenched grass and fallen needles in my hands, but I couldn’t see them. Dominic’s mind forced me to watch.

“Where to start, Ledger?” Dominic lifted my dad by the arm and shoved him to the dining room table, across from the two kids. Dad’s wife cried. Two new guys pounded on the sliding glass door inches behind her. Dominic m
otioned for her to open it. “Let them in. They’d like to help.”

She slid the door open, her hands shaking. Her fear excited Dominic. He leaned down to my dad and sneered, “I think I’d like to have your wife
first.” My dad struggled against Dominic’s vise-like grip. Dominic marveled at his own strength, gave an extra squeeze to test it out.

My dad’s collar bone snapped and he moaned.
The woman shrieked. Their children whimpered.

Dominic leaned down and pointed at the kids. “You stay with them. I’ll take your wife. If you leave the kids, they’ll eat them.” He jerked his fingers toward the woman.
She looked from my dad to the kids and back to him. Something in her eyes hardened and she straightened her spine. Dominic’s smile faltered, his confidence revealed itself as false bravado.

He showed me his weakness.