Dead Earth: The Green Dawn (12 page)

He raised the shotgun.

If the creature understood what was
happening, it did not show it.

“Do they believe in Hell where you come from?
I hope so.”

The thing’s thin, lipless mouth twitched.

Jubal pulled the trigger. The alien head
exploded in a geyser of thick, black blood.

He shot it again for good measure.

His eyes burned with hot tears, but he had no
time for remorse. The dead army was getting closer. He returned to
the cruiser.

Before he climbed into the vehicle, the sun
glinted off something metallic. A few feet from the corpse of the
alien thing, a strange silver rod lay among the rock and sandy
soil.

He didn’t know what it was, but it made his
skin crawl just looking at it.

It belonged to that thing. That’s what he
used to control the dead army.

Jubal got into the car and backed over the
staff. It broke into many pieces.

He put the cruiser in drive and drove away,
clipping a few more zombies along the way.

The zombie demolition derby had damaged the
cruiser’s radiator. He kept going long after the temperature gauge
climbed into the red. Just outside of Van Horn, Texas, the engine
seized up with a grinding crunch and a cloud of smoke.

He gathered his weapons and supplies and
walked into town.

The streets were deserted, but he took no
chances. The first building he saw was a Rexall drug store. He
hammered the glass door open with his Glock. There was no alarm. He
let himself in and shoved a heavy cosmetics display case against
the broken door. At least it would give him some warning. He curled
up behind the checkout counter and slept for a long time.

When he awoke he was parched and his neck
wound and elbow hurt worse than ever.

He located hydrogen peroxide, antibiotic
cream and bandages.

Why go to the trouble if I’m turning into a
zombie?

He dressed the wound anyway.

The power was still on in the store and he
found a fully stocked soda case and plenty of candy bars and chips.
He ate until he was sick, then slept again.

The next morning, he shoved the cosmetics
case away from the door and watched the brilliant emerald strip
running across the horizon.

Gathering his supplies, augmented with
several cans of Coke and a dozen candy bars, Jubal went out into
the empty streets.

He found a used car lot two blocks down. He
blew the lock off the door of the office with one of the shotguns,
no longer afraid of drawing anyone’s attention. The town was dead.
He could feel it. He didn’t know where the zombies were, but he
would worry about that later. Jubal grabbed a handful of keys from
a pegboard in the small office and unlocked vehicles until he found
one with plenty of gasoline. It was an old truck. He tossed the
guns and the rest into the passenger seat and drove away.

Sometime that afternoon he crossed into
Mexico.

He slept in the desert that night, stretched
out in the bed of the truck.

The sky was clean and clear and full of
stars. Jubal wondered how many people were left to wish upon
them.

He dozed for a while, only to jerk awake for
no apparent reason. He couldn’t remember any dreams.

Then he heard it. A nearly silent hum.

Jubal lay quietly in the truck’s bed, afraid
to move. High above him something passed over the face of the
moon.

It was one of the alien flying machines.

He held his breath until the hum was long
gone.

The next day he drove to the Gulf. He waded
out naked into the warm ocean until the salt water burned the wound
on the back of his neck, as if scalding it clean. He floated for a
long time, allowing the ebb and flow of the water to carry him away
from the beach.

It would be so easy to just give up, to allow
the sea’s embrace to deliver him down to a peaceful surrender.

After a while, Jubal rolled over and swam
back to shore.

The plague hadn’t reached this far. Not
yet.

Jubal found a small house on the beach. It
had no power, but there was a bed and a lot of canned food in the
kitchen.

He also found others who were still alive.
More arrived every day.

He had been here nearly a week. The wound on
his neck had scabbed over. It looked like Fiona had been right. He
didn’t have the disease and apparently wouldn’t get it.

The newcomers had all seen the zombies. Most
had to deal with family who had changed. One man from Del Rio had
to put down his own wife and kids. After he told his story, he
didn’t say much more.

Every night there were more fires on the
beach. It had become a regular refugee camp.

But Jubal couldn’t forget the sight of the
alien flyer in the desert.

They couldn’t stay here much longer.

Most of them wanted to keep moving, stay on
the run, hide until there were no more safe places.

There were a few who felt like Jubal, who had
nothing left but the screaming in their heads that could only be
silenced through vengeance.

It was something he could use.

They would travel to the Pacific, then make
their way through California. Eventually they would reach ground
zero. Nevada.

He hoped they would pick up others along the
way. It was a suicide mission; they all knew that. Jubal just
wanted to take as many of those red-robed alien fuckers with him as
he could.

For his mother and Fiona and the rest.

For Serenity.

He sat on the porch of the cabin and cleaned
his guns, watching the sun set in the green sky.

The saga continues in:

DEAD EARTH: THE VENGEANCE ROAD

Available now from Permuted Press!

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