Stay Dead 2: The Dead and The Dying

The Dead & The Dying
Stay Dead Book Two
Steve Wands
Copyright © 2013 Steve Wands
All rights reserved.
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DEDICATION
Dedicated to Drew, Eddie, Joe, Nonni, and Big Richie

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Author’s
Note
Prologue
Road warriors
Barbie the Zombie
Killer
All messed
up
Wheels
We’ve got
company
Scavengers
Loose end
Expect
delays
When Sarah
met Jim
Special
occasion
Only in
dreams
Impulses
Left
behind
Mashed
brains
Old man
moment
Off-Roading
Raiders
Hold on
Free
lunch
Big bad
wolf
Nothing
but darkness
Something
wicked
Back
on course
Despair
Are we there
yet?
Heart
of the matter
Just the
wind
Low
on options
Nancy
Nedermeyer
End of the
road
Starting to pile up
Like a
graveyard
Yard work is hard
work
The
Bridge
Stockpiling
Through the
wreckage
Endurance
test
The
Cell
Don’t
look in the car
A familiar
Odor
Now or
never
Suicide
Run
Teeth
and glass
Skin
mask
Goodbye, New Jersey
That sad
smile
It’s
always crowded
The
Protean
Captain
Chuck
Farewell
Living
dead
A dead
city by the sea
Just one more
day
Fading
light
Wishful
Thinking
Vengeance on the
wind
Epilogue

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my family and friends for your support. To my wife—for
everything. To my son—for being awesome. To Adam Staffaroni for
coming on board as editor. To my first readers, Keith Latch, Darryl
L. Pierce, and Desmond Reddick. Thank you all.

AUTHOR’S NOTE
This novel takes place in a
fictionalized version of our world. We spend a lot of time in New
Jersey and up the eastern coastline with a quick glimpse at West
Virginia but they are not quite the states as you know them. Any
resemblance to actual incidents, or to any person living or dead,
is purely coincidental.

The most beautiful thing
we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true
art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can
no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as
dead: His eyes are closed.
–Albert Einstein

PROLOGUE
(back to
top)

West Virginia.
Mount Weather Special Facility.

Rachel Lucas and Doctor Gregory Tran
put in a request to work together. They had to justify the request
with their superiors and upon furnishing their findings they had
gotten what they wanted. With a catch, of course.

A young soldier sat restrained on the
examination table usually reserved for the dead. He was a blond
haired kid from Texas barely old enough to drink. He was heavily
sedated but his eyes were penetrating, and nothing but terror and
oblivion could be seen in them. It was gut wrenching just to look
at him.

After hearing what the catch was
Rachel tried everything she could to stop it from happening, but
failed. When she was given the choice to take the soldier’s place
she decided to keep her own. As a result she felt responsible for
the young man’s predicament. She tried to tell herself he’d end up
dead anyway, but it still hurt.

The kid soldier was hooked up to a
mechanical respirator in the hopes that once given a lethal
injection his brain would still be getting oxygen. In theory it
would present Rachel and Tran with the best possible specimen in
which to continue their research. They also had a medical infusion
pump and a dialysis machine in the corner of the room should they
decide to use them.

Several guards stood outside of the
room accompanied by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, William T.
Pymn II, who nodded for Tran to carry out the lethal injection.
Tran grimly nodded back. He too didn’t want to sacrifice a soldier
of all people, but figured it was better than the
alternative.

He administered the injection and the
young man tried to squirm but was too heavily restrained to move.
Tran and Rachel watched the monitors as the young man died before
them. His heart stopped first and then all brain activity ceased.
The mechanical respirator kept him breathing as planned.

Moments later his eyes opened even
though clinically he was dead. He had no pulse, no heartbeat, and
brain activity that reflected it was dying. Yet he could
speak.

“
Brains,” the thing
muttered. “Flesh,” as his jaw moved and his eyes flitted around the
room.

“
What is your name?” Tran
asked.

“
Death.”

“
Are you Private Richard
Barret?”

“
Deatthhh.”

Rachel asked, “Is Richard in
there?”

“
Yesss.”

“
Can we speak to
him?”

“
Hee
sssscreammsss.”

“
Is he in pain?”

“
Yesss.”

“
Is death painful?” Asked
Tran.

“
Yessssssss.”

“
I think his speech is
starting to digress.”

“
Why are the dead coming
back to life?”

“
Flessshh.”

“
Answer the question. Why
are the dead coming back to life?”

“
Tiiiime…ffforrrrr
theeee…unnnwiindinnngggggg.”

“
What is that?”

“
Yyyyoourrrr…ffffleesshhhh—

“
Hold it
together!”

“
What is the
unwinding?”

“
Yyyoourrrr…ennnnd…yrrrrrrrrgggggnnnuhhhh.”

“
I can feel it. Whatever we
were talking with is gone.”

Tran nodded in agreement. He could
feel it too. His hands were like ice, but the back of his neck was
wet with sweat.

He pulled a surgical gag from a
cabinet and put it in the dead Private’s mouth.

“
What the fuck did I just
hear?” The Deputy Secretary of Defense, William T. Pymn II, asked
as he stormed into the room.

“
It would appear,” Tran
started, but couldn’t believe what was about to come out of his
mouth, “that we just spoke with the entity of Death.”

“
This is absurd. We just
put a good man to death, and his drug-addled last words are
supposed to be those of the boogeyman? I should put a bullet in
both of your heads right now.”

“
With all due respect, sir,
you can’t ignore what just happened. You don’t believe it, that’s
fine, but I’ll put my life on the line here and say that if we did
this experiment again, it would yield the same results.”

“
You put your life on the
line the second you opened your mouth, Tran, and if you open it
again I’ll strap you down to that table myself and let this little
lady over here experiment on you.”

Tran new better than to push any
further, so he stood there and took the verbal affront as if he
were a dog being scolded for snatching bread off the
table.

“
Ms. Lucas, would you put
your life on the line as well?”

“
Yes, sir, I
would.”

“
Fine. I’ll clear you to do
it again, but I’m not wasting another man on so little. I thought
we would have seen something more definitive than this. Report to
me first thing tomorrow and I’ll figure out another way of getting
you fresh bodies.”

“
Yes, sir.”

The Deputy Secretary of Defense turned
and left the room as if he had somewhere better to be and his armed
guards left with him, aside from the one stationed at the outside
of the room.

Rachel waited till Pymn was out of
sight before she took a deep breath and said, “Well, that was
interesting.”

“
Yes. Nothing like staring
the devil in the face and convincing yourself it’s a Halloween
mask.”

“
Maybe Pymn doesn’t believe
in things like Death as an entity.”

“
Regardless of your belief
system, the dead are alive and walking. I don’t know about you, but
for me, that changes the way I look at everything—even something as
archaic as religion, or as existential as death.”

“
What do you think he’ll
do?”

“
I know what I would do.
Are you familiar with the area, Ms. Lucas?”

“
Not really.”

“
West Virginia
Penitentiary.”

“
Prisoners? So much for
cruel and unusual punishment.”

“
I don’t think the rules of
yesterday matter much anymore.”

“
I suppose not, and I
suppose its better to use the condemned than it is to use our own
soldiers.”

“
Of course, I’m just taking
a guess here.”

“
Well, I’ll bet a hundred
bucks you’re right.”

“
If only I were a gambling
man.”

“
Not like money has any
value now.”

The Deputy Secretary of Defense,
William T. Pymn II, went right to work on solving the problem of
finding non-military test subjects. Three days after the world went
to hell Pymn has suggested using prisoners to assist military units
on the ground war. He had little political backing for the
proposition and was unable to gain any traction. By the time he was
given the green light he was already sequestered away to the Mount
Weather Special Facility and swept up in the day-to-day of the
facility.

He was not entirely convinced that the
voice from the dead soldier was Death itself, but the prospect of
it was chilling to say the least, though Pymn would never show it.
Even if it ended up being nothing, at least it would give him the
opportunity to acquire the prison—if it was still operating—either
by force or cooperation.

He had thought on it a great deal. He
had already gone so far as to approach some of his own men with the
prospect of commanding such a unit, and many of them could see the
upside of commanding a unit of prisoners—especially prisoners on
death row or serving life. It didn’t matter if you sent a man like
that to his death, because as far as society was concerned they
were better off that way.