Zombie D.O.A. (36 page)

I sprinted up
the
stairs and crossed the foyer to the Warder’s office. This side of the building had taken the full force of the explosion, and while the structure itself remained standi
ng, all of the front windows had
been blown in, turning to shrapnel and shredding everything inside.

The bar, most of the couches and the pinball machines had been completely destroyed and the walls were blackened and smoldering.  There was a misty sheen of smoke that got in my throat and started me coughing.

It was dark in the warder’s office with the only light coming from the open door. I crossed to the key rack, looked at the mess of keys and realized that I had absolutely no idea what I was looking for.

There was a strip of masking tape running above each row with words written in marking pen. I scanned the rows hoping something would somehow clue me as to which set of keys I needed.

I’d reached the forth row, when I spotted it - a bunch of keys with the word ‘Larder’ printed above. Earlier in the day, when Kelly had been taken from the Z Zoo, Pratt had said, ‘take the kid to the Larder.”

I’d just lifted the keys from the hook when a voice spoke behind me.

“Find what you’re looking for?” the man said, and when I turned I saw the silhouette of Virgil Pratt outlined by the rectangle of light in the doorway.

“Sure,” I said, and threw the heavy set of keys at him, bowling underhand. Pratt had the drop on me, he knew that and perhaps it made him overconfident, but still he drew with lightning speed.

He managed to get the gun clear of the holster as the keys stuck his wrist. Pratt got off a shot and then I heard him scream and he fell to the carpeted floor and grabbed hold of his foot.

He kept screaming like a kid throwing a tantrum and I walked over to him and picked up his six-shooter. The bullet had ripped through his boot and removed the two small toes of his right foot.

“You son of a bitch!” Pratt screamed. “Look what you made me do! Ahh, Christ, that hurts.”

I leveled the gun at his head and he forgot about his mutilated foot in a hurry. “Don’t do it, Collins,” he pleaded. “Don’t do it.” Tears welled in his eyes and he started sobbing, “I don’t want to die! Please, don’t kill me.”

“Stop
being a pussy,” I said, “I’m not
going to shoot you.”

“You’re not?
” he said uncertainly.

“No,” I said, and tossed the gun away.

“Oh thank you Collins, thank you. You won’t regret this.”

“Don’t mention it,” I said and started walking away.

After a few steps I stopped and turned back towards him. “By the way,” I said, “you’ve got company.”

I turned away then, catching as I did a glimpse of Zelda, rising from one of the charred couches.

After I’d released the prisoners, Kelly and I hustled them onto the bus and we left the prison. I drove back to 412 and turned left
towards Tulsa. Two miles down the road we passed Tom’s old pickup, still with the hood up.

It was hot and my eyes felt heavy, and the previous nights exertion was starting to take its toll.
I felt myself drifting off. The bus veered dangerously right and swiped one of the wrecks at the side of the road. I turned hard on the wheel, righted the bus, then slammed on the brakes. The
vehicle
shuddered to a halt and stalled, and I sat there, taking in deep breaths and feeling the adrenalin course through my veins.

“Sir?” someone said behind me and I turned to see a thin, auburn-haired woman of about mid-thirties, standing in the aisle.

“I drove a rig for about five years before all this happened,” she said. “Maybe you ought to let me drive for a bit. You look like you could use some rest.”

I was grateful of the offer and happy to let her take over. I walked to the rear of the bus and spread out on the back seat
and fell asleep even before we’
d pulled away again.

Immediately, I was in a dream, with the three year-old Ruby running ahead of me in her blue and yellow bathing suit,
towards
the white house with the red roof and parapets at the end of
the
shingle path.

The door opened as Ruby reached it and she turned towards me and smiled, then stepped through.

I started running up the path towards the door, which still stood ajar. There was a brass plate on the door with a word etched on it. The sun was reflecting off the plate, so I could only make out the first three letters of the word, P-E-N.

Then the door swung shut and the whole word was visible to me, PENCORP.         

I sat up, immediately awake. For a moment I was unsure as to where I was. The dream still clung to my consciousness and the words PENCORP, hung there like a ne
on sign in a ghost town, PENCORP
, Pendragon Corporation. Either Agent Roy had lied to me, or the information had been above his pay grade.

Downtown Tulsa loomed large on the horizon and I moved to the front to tel
l the driver to turn left at
the overpass. I wanted to give the town as wide a berth as possible.

We were just passing the area where me and Babs had taken down the bikers when I spotted something at the side of the road and shouted, “Stop the bus!”

The diver stood on the brakes and the bus came skidding to a halt burning rubber. It swayed right and then the driver corrected far better than I could have done. Still, she managed to coax a few stifled screams from the passengers.

“The door,” I instructed and when it hissed open I clambered down the steps. I walked a few paces towards the rear of the bus and crouched in the dirt and the dog came trotting up to me. He looked a bit worse off than at our last encounter, in Giuseppe’s, but he following the same ritual he had then, sniffing my face, licking my ear and urinating on my boots.

“Hey feller, you want to go for a ride,” I said, and he followed me back to the bus and climbed the stairs after me.

We got back on the road and I returned to the back seat where, after a while, I fell asleep again. When I woke, the dog was on the seat next to me with his head in my lap. Kelly was there too, sitting off to one side. It was dark.

“Where are we?” I asked him.

“I think we just passed into Texas.”

“Wow,” I said. “I’ve been asleep that long?”

“Um mm, snoring too.”

“Really?”

“Just kidding,” Kelly said and I could almost hear him blush.

“There’s a gas station coming up,” the driver called, “I’m going to have to stop, we’re running kinda low.”

We pulled into a dusty and ancient station with two pumps, a couple of huddled buildings and an auto graveyard that was bigger than the station itself.

I asked Kelly to climb the ladder up to the roof and keep a lookout, while I
stood guard with the dog beside me,
and
the driver checked out the pumps.

“Dry,” she reported back, “and we’re not going to be able to go much further.
She’s
running
on fumes right now.”

“We’re gonna have to pitch camp here then,” I said. “See how things stand in the morning.”

Just then I heard a growl rumble in the dog’s throat. I’d heard that sound before and I followed his gaze
towards the darkened buildings of the gas station
.
I could make out a shape back there and now heard a low moan.

“How far will this crate take us?” I asked the driver under my breath.

“No more than a mile or so, why…”

“Get Kelly down from the roof, get back on the bus, start the engine and be ready to shut that door the minute I’m on board.”

“But…”

“Just do it.”

The dog had now taken a couple of steps forward and stood rigid as a pointer, staring into the darkness, his hackles raised.

I looked in that direction too and I could now clearly make out a silhouette, darker than the blackness surrounding it. I brought the shotgun to my shoulder and lined the shape up in my sights.

Behind me I could hear Kelly descend the ladder, jump to the ground and run up behind me.

“Chris” he whispered, his tone urgent, “There are lights coming up the road.”

“How many?”

“Lots of them.”

The Dead Men

(Book
Three
of the Zombie D.O.A. Series)

by

J.J. Zep

PUBLISHED BY:

JJ Zep

Copyright © 2012

www.jjzep.com

“Mister,” the shape in the darkness said, “You fire that thing at me you’re gonna bring every Z for miles down on our ass.”

He was right of course, but I wasn’t about to put my trust in someone hiding in the shadows of an abandoned gas station on a desolate stretch of north Texas road.

“Who’s back there?” I demanded.

“Name’s Nate, but that’s not important right now. If what the boy said is true, you got a road crew heading this way, more than likely Dead Men. They see that bus and the Z’s are going to be the least of your problems.”

“Show yourself,” I said. The man stepped forward and I could now make out a figure of about medium height, a rifle held loosely in his hand.

“You alone?” I asked.