Authors: Armand Rosamilia
"I rolled in after I saw you heading this way. I buried myself in the leaves and debris and rolled onto my stomach. To tell you the truth, I fell asleep. Luckily, I don't snore unless I'm on my back."
"I would've slept but one of the bastards actually stepped on me and fell onto the other side of the ditch," John said.
"What happened?" Heath asked.
John pointed at the body, motionless on the ground. "I made sure he didn't make a sound. The bonus of killing the stupid ones. They don't complain when you stab them in the base of their neck."
"Did you check for any survivors?"
John shook his head. "If there are any, they're in hiding. I've been sitting and waiting for night so I could start moving."
"Moving at night is too risky, especially out in the middle of nowhere. We need to hole up inside one of these abandoned houses until morning," Heath said.
"I have to find Darlene and my son."
"You think we can walk to Daytona Beach, at night, through thousands of ninja quiet zombies? I don't. We need to come up with a better game plan than driving down Route 1 and trying not to die. It didn't seem to work for Lincoln." Heath walked over to a body on the ground and knelt next to it, turning it over. He sighed loudly. "Speak of the Devil."
"He was a good man," John said.
"He was too trusting." Heath glanced up at John.
"I'm not. I'm sure one of us will end up killing the other before this is over, but right now we need to work together," John said.
Heath stood and put out his hand. "Agreed. I think you're an asshole but as long as you watch my back I'll watch yours. But the first sign of trouble and you get knocked down and allow me to live."
John took Heath's hand. "Fair enough. I feel the same way."
Heath looked at the pile of blood and bones that used to be Lincoln. "I followed him for many miles. What a waste. I told him to let you go back to find your wife and let us head north. There was nothing for us in Daytona Beach."
"What's for you north?"
Heath shrugged. "A month ago a wandering pair came into our camp. They said they were from Jacksonville. Said a madman was holed up in one of the office buildings downtown, shooting at anything that moved. He must have rooms filled with ammo. But he probably has rooms filled with food and supplies, too. I wanted to go and see for myself, but Lincoln always talked me out of it. Even when Dana left in search of your baby and the chick who stole it, I wasn't allowed to go."
John snickered as he went to see if any of the motorcycles or vehicles was salvageable.
"What's so funny?" Heath asked.
"Lincoln wouldn't allow you to go? I don't get it."
Heath looked pissed and John thought he was going to throw a punch, in which case all bets were off. Heath looked away and his body relaxed.
"I owed a lot to Lincoln. More than you can imagine. He saved me in Orlando," Heath said.
"You told me."
Heath stared at John for a minute and John thought the man was going to cry. "He... saved me from myself."
John didn't say a word, letting Heath run everything through his head. If he wanted to tell John, he'd tell him. But they were wasting time standing on the road, in the open, while the sun was going down.
When Heath made no move to speak or check the vehicles, John shrugged and went to the first motorcycle. The saddle bags had been removed and the tires cut and flat. He had a feeling everything of value had been taken and all modes of transportation broken.
John looked back at Heath, who hadn't moved. "We need to get out of here before they come back. Or something else finds us. We're not safe."
"There's nothing for us, anyway," Heath said. "You and I both know the zombies stripped us of anything we could use."
John grimaced as he took a few steps. Besides sitting in the ditch for so long, his injury was acting up again. His leg wasn't going to be of much use if he didn't get off of it. "We need to find a place to hide for the night."
Heath pointed at John's leg. "I knew you'd figure this out on your own. We need to rest up and see what tomorrow brings. And hope it isn't more shit."
"Agreed." John looked at the pile of gore that had once been Lincoln and thought of Darlene and the baby again. He needed to keep his focus. He needed to find his family, but do it smartly. Limping around at night wasn't going to get him to Daytona Beach.
Heath began walking down the road and John tried to keep up.
* * * * *
No
, Vee screamed in her head.
There's no way...
The body was female and had been butchered, arms and legs missing. The head was a few feet away half-buried in a pile of debris.
Vee was alarmed at first because it meant the security had been breached. She turned and looked around, but she didn't see any zombies. She went to the closest fence and walked it twenty feet in either direction. No breaks.
Back at the body, she turned it over slowly with her foot. There were no bite marks.
And when Vee looked at the head again she knew it was one of the new people. Lola.
This was no zombie attack. She was sure of it. An even worse thing had happened: someone inside the compound, someone living and breathing, had done this to her.
She sighed when she realized where she was standing, too: right behind the bar where Jeff was living. The sonofabitch didn't even have the common courtesy to bury Lola's body or hide the fact he'd done it, either. He was such an arrogant prick. He'd gone too far.
Vee went to the back door and knocked, fist slamming on the building because she was so mad. How could he do this to another person? And she knew in her heart Jeff was the killer, and she also knew he wouldn't deny it.
"Open up, Jeff. I know you're inside," Vee yelled. She tried the door and it was locked. She stormed around to the front of the building but now wondered if he was even in the compound. Jeff and his crew came and went without notice, doing the bidding of The Lich Lord.
Another round of banging on a locked door brought her no closer to Jeff, and as she walked away she was suddenly glad.
Are you insane? What do you think he'd do if you accused him of murdering Lola? He'd smile and say something rude before plunging a blade into my side or shooting me in the face
, Vee thought. Jeff wasn't someone you went toe to toe with. She looked back at the bar one last time before starting the walk back to The Ocean Center. She'd see if she could get an audience with The Lich Lord and voice her concerns.
At this point, she didn't know who the lesser of two evils really was.
Chapter Fourteen
His initial thought was to let the bastard run and hopefully get himself killed, but on the off-chance the annoying guy made it out alive and down to the compound, Mitchell didn't want to have to explain it.
Mitchell also wanted to know this asshole's name so when he finally killed him he would know. He didn't know why it was important, though. And right now the guy was gone.
The food court was quiet. All of the tables and chairs had been piled up neatly on either side of the main doors, which had been covered over with plywood. A table on either side had been used to look outside and watch the parking lot.
Mitchell approached the tables, expecting an attack from the closed fast food restaurant to his left or the many food places to his right, but nothing stirred.
The tables themselves were well-worn but reinforced underneath. Mitchell was sure they were occupied at all times. The glass of the doors had been broken out and there was a space on either side at eye-level. Perfect for watching and shooting. But where were the watchers?
He was expecting an attack, at any moment, from the annoying guy or the inhabitants of the mall. As he moved slowly around the food court, he saw a pile of takeout plates on the end of a table, waiting to be discarded. Six plates and half-empty cups filled with water.
Six occupants of the mall.
Mitchell didn't know if he'd been setup by the annoying guy or not. Was he part of the mall group, or just took a chance getting away from Mitchell and Red Shirt? The guy knew he wasn't going to leave the mall alive. Two out of three of them weren't going to exit if the other two could help it.
He didn't blame the guy. If he were in his shoes, he'd have done the same. But now Mitchell was pissed because he'd have to waste time better spent in the safety of the compound.
The food kiosks and permanent restaurants in a semi-circle looked empty but Mitchell needed to check each of them. The guy could easily be hiding behind a counter. The first one, a juice place, had debris on the floor behind it but nothing else.
He went to the second which used to be a pizza place and his mouth watered thinking about it. The pizza oven was still intact and he'd read a zombie book years ago where a guy had hidden in a Pizza Hut oven, so he hopped the counter and checked. It was empty but he made a mental note to tell someone about it when he returned. Imagine how cool it would be to make pizza again.
He looked around but there was no one in the food court and he didn't hear any tell-tale sounds. A hallway split the rest of the food units. Bathrooms. He decided to do a quick glance through the rest of the food area before going into the hallway.
The last area was a candy store, which had been ransacked. Even the counters had been removed.
Looters liked their candy
, Mitchell thought.
He turned to go check out the hallway when he saw something coming at him. He pulled the trigger and dropped to the ground, rolling towards a pile of broken tables and chairs in the main area.
When he popped his head up, he didn't see anyone, but he knew he'd shot at someone. And if there was anyone else in the mall, they'd been alerted. Mitchell knew it was time to leave.
He started walking slowly away from the food court, weapon held and ready to fire again. When he got three paces to his left, he saw the thin trickle of blood from behind a turned over table about where he'd seen the movement.
Should I stay or should I go?
He began singing the damn Clash song in his head as he took a tentative step to the blood. If he heard anything coming at him from any direction, he was going to flee.
Someone was breathing heavy from behind the table but Mitchell didn't want to get suckered in and killed. He hoped he was too smart to fall for a trap.
"Come out and show me your hands or I will shoot through the table and kill you," Mitchell said.
"Don't... shoot..." Annoying guy rolled out from behind the table, his arm and side covered in blood. Mitchell had shot him.
"Where did you think you were going?" Mitchell asked.
Annoying Guy looked up and Mitchell could see the fear. "They're all dead."
"Who?"
"The people who were living in the mall. Six men." He looked down at his wound. "I used to help them every now and then. Tell them what we were doing across the street in exchange for food or sometimes clothing. In return they left me alone. Never shot at me. I figured if everything outside went south I could come to the mall and put in with them."
"But they're all dead. Killed by zombies," Mitchell said and stepped a few paces away so he had a better angle of the main hall behind him. The undead didn't make a sound except their movement. He didn't like the thought of six zombies sneaking up from behind.
Annoying guy shook his head. He coughed and spit on the ground.
Mitchell thought he heard something echoing faintly down the hall, or it could be his mind playing tricks on him.
"They were all executed. Tied up and shot," Annoying guy said. He looked at Mitchell and grinned. "I saw it, too. I never told anyone. But I saw the bikes. They came in through the same door we did. They captured and shot all six and left them in front of the pretzel kiosk. There's a weird irony in that somewhere."
Bikes
? Mitchell had a good idea who had done it.
"Why didn't you tell me before we went through all this shit?" Mitchell asked.
"My goal was to lure you both in and shoot you. The jerk with you made it too easy by dropping his guard. I wanted to sneak up on you and eliminate you and then go to your compound and give them a story. I knew as soon as your boss sent you and the other guy with me he wanted you dead."
"I'm guessing your people didn't know what happened here."
He shook his head. "I knew the threat of them would keep everyone from coming here. I had all of this to myself."
"Then why not just stay here?"
"I couldn't do it by myself and didn't trust anyone to help me. There are many back doors that don't lock anymore. At the far end the glass doors to the mall have been broken and I saw a few zombies already. I was going to pack up as much stuff as I could and eat the rest of the food and then go to Main Street and start over. Without anyone knowing. And then you shot me."
Mitchell thought he heard another sound, this time closer. "Is this the point where you beg me for your life?"
Annoying guy moved his hand from the wound and the blood was seeping out quickly. He shook his head. "I won't last an hour. My life isn't worth shit. You wasted a good bullet on me."
"What's your name?" Mitchell asked.
"Alan."
Mitchell shot him in the head and ran back the way they'd entered. Jeff had set him up to die, and now Mitchell was going to get some revenge. Payback was truly a bitch.
* * * * *
Taylor watched Scotty walk away and she smiled. What a perfect gentleman. He'd made sure nothing happened to her and went with her to The Ocean Center, waiting until she'd gone inside before strolling back towards Main Street.
Some of the elderly she watched over were waiting up for her, Miss Stansky smiling when Taylor entered.
"What's so funny?" Taylor whispered, trying not to wake anyone. She saw most of the room was awake and staring.
Miss Stansky clapped her hands. "We're just waiting to hear all about your gentleman caller. Karl saw him walk you to the building. Is this the first date? I always kissed on the first date."
"I need to take you on a date," Karl said from his bed near the door.
"What were you doing up and wandering around? Were you spying on me?" Taylor asked Karl. He was one of the strongest in the room and sometimes, on a good day, helped her with the others. He was their unofficial spokesperson and team leader.
"I always walk around the hallway," Karl said.
Taylor didn't like this. She thought when she was done for the night and went to her room, everyone was tucked away in bed except for the occasional bathroom call. And if The Lich Lord caught anyone in The Ocean Center at night when he was coming or going...
"You need to stay in your room. It isn't safe," Taylor finally said.
Karl waved his skinny hand at her and winked. "I get in my exercise, I patrol the grounds like I used to do when I was a cop in Atlanta, and every now and then The Lich Lord and I have a conversation."
Now Taylor was very worried. "Please tell me you're joking."
Karl shook his head. "He's really not a bad guy. Trust me, after twenty years as an officer, I can tell the good from the bad. The Lich Lord isn't evil. He's just... different from us now. And I think he's struggling with it. What the changes are in his body and mind, you know? He is protecting us. He likes me wandering the halls but told me not to tell anyone... like you. He said you'd just be worried. He knows I worry about my friends." Karl looked around. "This is my family. This is all I have going for me. My good years are behind me but I can still do what I know how to do best: protect and serve."
Chapter Fifteen
Darlene followed The Lich Lord into what had once been a dressing room for The Ocean Center. The room was empty except for a lamp with a low-watt bulb on the floor and two cages, separated with a longer cage in the middle.
"What are you doing?" Darlene asked when she saw what was in the two far cages: a man, with one arm tied down to the outside of his cage and dangling into the long middle cage, stared at her.
"Help me, please," the man said.
Darlene looked at the opposite cage. A zombie was trying to push through its own cage to get at the man.