The Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Line (10 page)

'Shit, should have paid more attention in jail,' Shane said, yanking down the red wires and brown wires and yellow wires and deciding which sequence to try first. He stripped the insulation off the wires using a shard of glass he found next to his knee, almost in his knee. The red wires were ready, so he connected and twisted them, expecting a shock and, remarkably, not receiving one. The car beeped, though, as if he had reanimated it, brought it back from death like the mechanical equivalent of Victor Frankenstein. An indicator flickered, creating a heartbeat within the car.

He must have done something right. He reached up and flicked the indicator arm down a notch; the heartbeat stopped, and it was then that he heard screaming for the first time.

He climbed to his feet and stared out across the lot, keeping out of sight just in case any lurkers spotted him.

River was leading them away, over to the side of the lot where there was an opening in the fence. Her screaming was simply a ruse to keep them coming, make them think they were onto something, when in fact she would probably finish them – and any others that decided to get involved.

Shane dropped back down and resumed. The brown wires were next, and he had a feeling they were the bad ones, the wires that would kill him if he wasn't careful, though nobody had ever died hotwiring a car, had they?

Shane didn't want to be the first. It was too ridiculous a notion to entertain: Man survives the zombie apocalypse only to swallow his own tongue after receiving small electric shock from battered Toyota Camry.

Thank God there were no printers or publishers left to print such a story.

He stripped the brown wire, receiving only minor shocks – which was much better than he had anticipated – and as he held them by the insulation with sweaty fingers, trying to decide what to do next, he listened to River's screams as they disappeared further into the distance.

Where's she going? Run them around, I said, not take them on a trip.

With no time to waste, Shane pushed the exposed brown wire against the joined reds. There was a spark, and the engine spluttered as it tried, desperately, to turn over.

Behind him, a voice – Terry – said, 'That's it, Shane. You've got it!'

Shane started and almost dropped the brown wire. He turned to find Marla and Terry crouched low behind him, hopeful expressions painted upon their faces.

'Don't do that,' Shane said. 'What if I'd slipped?'

Terry gestured to the brown wire. 'Try again. Sounded like it wanted to start.'

'Sounded like it wanted to
die
,' Marla added, unhelpfully.

Shane touched the wires together once again, creating yet more sparks. This time the engine ticked over, and Shane felt a sense of achievement the likes of which he'd never experienced before. He dropped the brown wire and climbed in behind the wheel, being careful not to connect with the exposed wire . It was still dangerous, but they didn't have time to safety-proof it just yet.

Terry raced around the car and climbed into the front; Marla, in the back, gagged at the sight of the overspilling ashtray. Then she saw the child's rattle, put two and two together, and said, 'Oh,
great
parenting.'

Shane drove off the parking-lot without speaking, going straight over the fallen lurker as it continued to struggle to its feet. It felt
good
.

The car seemed to be in decent condition, other than the busted panel beneath the steering column. The clutch was a bit light, but Shane put that down to the fact that he hadn't driven for so long.

He would get used to it.

Like riding a bike.

He screeched out onto the main road, the wheels slipping ever-so-slightly on the thin coating of rain covering the tarmac. It was still raining now, though it wasn't as torrential as it had been. He located the wipers and flicked the lever.

As the rain pushed aside on the windscreen, Terry leaned forward and began to scan the street for any sign of River.

'Where the hell did she go to?' Terry asked. The three lurkers that had pursued her off the lot were shambling along the road just ahead. Before Terry had time to suggest it, Shane aimed the Camry straight for them.

Two of them rolled over the hood, and subsequently the roof, before hitting the road behind. The third – a female lurker with a bowl-haircut and shredded tattoos – was caught up on the front of the car.

'Shake it off!' Marla screeched. Shane pulled the wheel left and right, hoping to release the lurker, but she wasn't going anywhere.

'There she is!' Terry suddenly said, pointing across to where River was getting her breath back. 'So much for Bob Hope; she looks tired as hell.'

Shane slammed the brakes on. River was already moving towards the car, and when she saw what was hanging onto the hood, her face brightened. She pulled the machete out of its sheath and asked, silently, whether Shane wanted it off the hood.

'If you don't mind,' Shane said. 'But be—'

She swung the machete, decapitating the lurker instantly. The head rolled down the hood, landed somewhere by the front offside wheel. The body was upright, viscous mess spurting from the agape neck.

'—careful,' Shane said.

River sheathed the machete, grabbed the creature's feet and pulled. The lurker shot forward and disappeared over the edge of the hood. River slapped her hands together, the way one might after an hour or two of intense gardening, before climbing into the back seat next to Marla.

'So,
Forrest
,' Shane said, 'just felt like running, huh?'

River sighed. 'Something like that.

'Don't suppose you want to fasten your seatbelt?' he asked her, already knowing the answer.

He pulled away; squished the twitching head beneath the front-left wheel.

CHAPTER TEN

The trees drifted along outside the window, and Abi was lost in her thoughts and memories. The half-empty bottle of vodka between her legs had worked its magic – as it always did – and she was just about on the right side of nice with her buzz.

The rain was intermittent, and only a few areas were peppered with the remains of snow, though it was more of a muddy slush now.

They had survived the previous week's blizzard in a pool-hall, which had been fun to begin with. They had spent the majority of the time drunk, or fucking, or a combination of the two. The bar had been fully-stocked, and the pool-hall had been set down in the basement, so it had been relatively secure, with only one way in or out. Abi didn't like pool, and so it had been Lukas and the kid who'd spent most of the time playing, though the kid had purposefully lost every single game to prevent another beating.

Lukas was such a sore loser. She knew it, and the kid wasn't as dumb as he made out. He hadn't made it obvious, but every now and then he would miss a shot or accidentally knock the wrong ball, gifting Lukas extra shots or points, and Lukas had willingly taken them, deriding the boy for his ineptness.

If she'd told him that the kid was making a fool out of him, letting him win, it would have been
she
that felt his wrath, and so she had remained silent, drinking herself into oblivion and wishing, on a daily basis, for it all to end, one way or the other.

They'd had weed; what was left of Lukas's dead buddies' secret stash, which they had managed to procure for nothing once they were all dead or missing. It hadn't lasted long, down there, and it hadn't done anything to ease the paranoia they were all feeling about what was going on outside. The drugs had intensified everything, and Abi wasn't disappointed in the slightest once they were all smoked out.

But staring out at the passing trees, feeling marginally woozy from the vodka, she could think of nothing better to enhance her current mood than a nice, fat joint.

In the back seat, the kid slept. She could hear him snoring; it was as if somebody had shoved a micro-pig in the fucking car when they weren't looking. It was amazing that he couldn't muster a solitary word, but he could grunt with the best of them when he was unconscious.

Lukas lit a cigarette and handed it to her, before taking the bottle from between her legs and unscrewing it with his teeth.

She smoked, and tried to remember just what it had been like before . . . before everything had rotted and crumbled around them.

It hadn't been much better; of that she was certain. Her life had been a string of silly mistakes, coiled up, tangled, and she had been responsible for all of them. Kicked out by her parents at fourteen for stealing from them, prostituting herself by fifteen to any Tom, Dick, or Harry that had a green bill and a pack of smokes, addicted to crystal meth by sixteen – her face had taken a turn for the worse after that, but she managed to get clean before it was irreversible – and then, along came Lukas. She'd loved him from the moment she met him. He wasn't nice, he wasn't the ideal boyfriend – but who was? – and he certainly wouldn't have met with her parents' approval, not that she gave a flying fuck since they had pretty much written themselves out of her life once and for all.

Lukas . . . the man on a mission, the guy with one solitary purpose in life . . .

To have
fun
.

It didn't matter what anyone else thought; if what he did pissed people off, he did it
more
. He antagonised the shit out of anybody stupid enough to cross him – or her – and she liked that.

Even when he started hitting her – as if, once the honeymoon period was over, he felt more comfortable in doing so – she blamed herself. He wouldn't hurt her if she didn't deserve it; he wouldn't dream of harming her if her mouth hadn't run away from her, or she'd looked at him incorrectly. She would make a mistake occasionally, and Lukas would show her the error of her ways so that she wouldn't make the same mistake again.

She loved him for it.

He'd offered to pay her parents a visit, show them that they had made a huge mistake, teach them a few things about how to look after another human being.

And she'd told him no.

She knew what he was capable of, even then. As much as she despised her mother and father for the way in which they had disposed of her, she didn't want them hurt, not the way Lukas wanted to hurt them.

But it was nice, knowing that he would be willing to do that for her. He told her that any time she changed her mind, just say the word and he'd sort it, and she believed him.

On the day of the outbreak, she'd tried to call her parents, to check they were okay, and Lukas had stumbled into the room, drunk on whiskey – which seemed to be the best way to deal with all the mad shit happening outside the window. He'd snatched the phone out of her hand and beaten her with it, not stopping until she was crawling away on all fours, her head spraying crimson blood like a geyser.

She knew why he did it; she knew that he'd taken care of her, earned enough money through dealing to prevent her going back on the street. He'd done all that, and simply expected a bit of respect in return, not for her to go running back to mommy and daddy at the first sign of trouble.

It didn't matter. Even as she was taking the beating, the phone clattering at her temple bringing bright stars to the space between her eyelids, she could hear the call ringing out.

They were already dead. She'd spoken her last with them.

After the infection spread, Lukas had taken her on a kill-spree. The things they had gunned down were no longer human; it wouldn't be classified as murder . . . or manslaughter, not that there were any active courts to convict them.

The law had fallen by the wayside, and they had found themselves with way too much time on their hands, more bullets than they could ever use, and a whole new species to fucking eradicate.

It was the stuff Lukas's dreams were made of.

'You sleeping?'

Abi turned to find Lukas staring towards her. He swigged from the vodka-bottle, grimaced as the booze hit his stomach, and returned it to the space between her slightly-parted legs.

'I wish,' she said. 'I was just thinking how fucking awesome it would be to have a bag of weed, or some coke right about now.'

Lukas nodded. 'That would be something, baby-girl.'

She loved it when he called her that. A shiver, beginning at the nape of her neck, worked its way down her body, terminating somewhere near her uterus. She squirmed in her seat as a sudden, unexpected heat filled her up.

The cigarette between her fingers had all but burned away. Ash had fallen from the tip, scattered across her skirt. She flicked what remained of the butt out of the window and asked for another one.

Lukas lit it, handed it to her, and said, 'Quiet out there today. Think those fucking things might be dying out, or something. We passed a couple a mile back, but they were just wanderers, must've got away from the pack.' He sighed, as if the low population on this particular stretch of road was a bad thing.

'Don't think they've reached this far from the city yet.' Abi knew there would be small pockets of infected out in the sticks, but it was the major population they were more concerned about, and those huge hordes were behind them, shambling through what remained of the urban areas.

What they had discovered at the house that morning was shocking because of the rural surroundings. You expected something like that in the city, not out in suburbia where people ought to know better.

The woman that Lukas had fucked and killed had been unsullied by the virus, or he wouldn't have touched her. She had been a lot of fun, too, and put up quite a fight – which only served to make her demise more enjoyable.

But it wasn't the woman, or what they did to her, that continued to bother Abi.
That
she could deal with; they had done it a lot since the outbreak, and she was acclimated to it as if it was second-nature.