Generation Dead Book 2: What You Fear (16 page)

I needed to send a message though, so I retrieved my weapons and collected the firepower of my pursuers.  One of them had a really nice Winchester rifle that I thought Jake would like.  He always liked westerns for reading.

The thought of westerns gave me an idea.  I pulled the bodies out to the old road and using some lengths of rope, I hung them from three different trees.  After they were up there, I spayed them with a little kerosene and set them on fire.  I figured the smoke and smell ought to send some attention their way.  I wanted to send a very powerful message. 

Hunt
me, and you’d better be ready to go all the way. 

Chapter 35

I kept walking, following the canal.  I knew where it was going, and I held out the hope that I might find some kind of boat which would get me to the capital sometime in the near future.

I passed under one of the big highways that my dad used to talk about.  He said they were the biggest reason so many people died.  Back in the day, people relied on their cars for everything, and when the end came, they thought their cars could get them to safety.  Dad figured, if they all stayed put, hunkered down for a week or two, then a lot of people might not have died and the world might not have ended.  Who knows?

As I walked, I noticed the vegetation getting a little thin on the
land side.  I wasn’t too familiar with this area, so I poked my head through the brush.  I was surprised to see there was a serviceable road running along the same direction as the canal.  I wasn’t one to ask a gift horse to open wide.  If there was a decent path to take that kept me from slugging it out with brush and mud, I was all for it.

I walked cautiously, making sure to keep quiet though the area had long been overrun and abandoned.  I could see a few tendrils of smoke from cooking fires here and there, which told me at least a few people were trying to make a go of it away from towns.

I was just past a road called Ridgeland when I began to hear things that were out of place.  I expected some noise, and was fully prepared to dismiss what could be considered working routine noises.  However, a chorus of groans and a scream, followed by some more groans was something else entirely.

I listened for a second to get my bearings,
and then headed to the remnants of a subdivision across the way.  I slipped over a fence and went through a backyard, stepping over a small plastic pool, which I swore was in nearly every yard I ever visited.  A sandbox in the corner had a small tree growing out of it, and the ground near the house crunched as I went past.  A look down revealed a glittering trove of broken glass.  The house had nearly every window broken out.  I looked over the edge of the fence I went through and listened again, focusing on the sounds and zeroing in on the location.  It seemed to be coming from a little further south.

I flicked the safety off on my rifle
and jogged across the street, moving around the burned out remains of several houses.  Once I reached the back, I could see where the problem was.  On the edge of a cul-de-sac, a house was surrounded by about twenty zombies.  They were dark enough in color to make me think they were originals, and I wondered briefly, where the heck they came from this far south from the city and highway.

However,
another scream pushed me into action and I ran into the middle of the cul-de-sac bringing my rifle up as I did so.  I didn’t have much of a plan except just kill the dead guys.  I fired three times, killing two of them and causing everyone to look my way.  I didn’t wave; I just fired again, killing another one.  After that, it was going to become a free for all, except a voice cut through the groans.

“Please save our daughter!  We’ve been
bitten and we can’t hold off the ones in the house much longer.  The virus is making us weak!  My wife is down already!”  A man waved from a second story window, and I could see, even at that distance, his arms were bloody and torn.  Another scream came from the house and he ducked back inside.

Damn.  There
were about ten zombies between the house and me. Who knows how many more were inside.  To make matters worse, I couldn’t shoot towards the house anymore, since I didn’t know where the girl was.  .308 bullets didn’t give much thought to houses as they generally passed right through them.  I had to get past this bunch and get to the house, or things were going to get ugly.  I put my rifle back over my shoulder and pulled out my sword.  If it had been two or three ghouls, I would have used my ’hawk, but anything over five go to the attention of the big cutter.

I didn’t wait for the zombies to come at me
. I ran at the first one and cut him down, hacking his head in half.  I used the momentum of the swing to cleave the skull of another in two, and after I pulled the blade out of his face, used the position to thrust the point into the eye of another.  I had a little bit of wiggle room after that, and ran to the edge of the group that was trying to encircle me.  I swung one-handed to bring down another, and the backhand swipe off that took out a fat little bastard with no nose.

I ducked under the grasp of a female that was a little quicker than the rest, slamming the edge into her temple and slicing the top half of her head off.  It was ugly, but effective.  The last four came at me as a group,
and I decided to run around the cul-de-sac and spread them out.  They couldn’t all be the same speed.

As it turned out, they weren’t.  Two of them were faster than the others
were and I ducked around a mailbox to put something in between us.  One of the zombies walked right into it, knocking itself down.  The other fell to my sword and the first died as he was trying to get up.  The last two were easy pickings as they were slow and ungainly when trying to run me down.

I wiped off my blade and sheathed it, running over to the house.  The man saw me coming and went back in, reappearing at the window holding a small girl, about seven years old. She looked terrified, and clung to her father.  I couldn’t hear what he was saying to her as he spoke his final words, but they were quick because he suddenly dropped her into my arms.  I caught her easily and she covered her eyes with her hands.  I looked up just as the man caught my eye and
he was dragged back into the bedroom.  There was a throaty roar and suddenly the window burst out as a zombie was thrown from the second floor.  The man was certainly paying his way into the afterlife.  I took a second to spray a little kerosene into the first floor window and light it.  I hoped the house would catch and the rest of the zombies inside would get caught.

Chapter 36

The girl took her hands away from her face for a second and looked up at me with big brown eyes.  She looked terrified, and I realized I hadn’t cleaned the mud off of my face.  I must have looked like hell.  I tried to be reassuring

“Don’t you worry, sweetheart. My name is Aaron, and I’m going to take you somewhere safe.  Is that okay?” I said, hurrying away from the house.

The little girl nodded and curled herself into a small bundle, no doubt trying to wipe from her mind the last couple of hours of hell.  I was still curious as to where that many zombies had come from.  I would have heard of an outbreak like that, especially with some original zombies.  As we walked, a lone zombie stumbled out the back door of the school, tripped over the threshold and smacked its head on
the concrete. It lay still so I called that one a win and kept moving.

Suddenly, it made sense.  The father had probably moved into the home because of the open land behind it, and one day he went to see if anything
was in the school that he could use, never knowing there was a small horde of zombies that had been dormant for years.  That happened from time to time as new areas were opened up and old zombies came out to play.

I walked along, making my way back to the canal as best I could.  I knew I couldn’t carry this girl all the way back to the capital, so I really was going to have to find some kind of transportation now.  The girl didn’t say anything, and when I looked down, she had closed her eyes.  I figured she’d have to be exhausted, given what she had been through.

The sun was getting to its zenith and I was getting tired.  Carrying what was essentially fifty pounds of dead weight in front of me was starting to take a toll, and after a good hour of walking, I was getting tired.  So it was with some relief I saw what looked like a small settlement built up along the canal.  Several boats were docked along small makeshift piers, and I had renewed hope that I could secure at least passage to the capital, if not the purchase of a boat outright.

The road split the settlement in half, with several occupied homes in the old subdivision on the
land side.  On the water side, there was a small gathering of cottages, and two large buildings in the center.  One looked like a tavern, with a wide porch and several tables inside that I could see from the road.  Six or seven men were relaxing on the porch, while a serving girl came in and out of the front door.  The other building looked to be some kind of trading post, with several recovered items for sale on its front area, and a quick peek inside the door showed quite a few items on tables and on shelves.

As I approached the tavern, one of the men on the porch got off to look me over, and I couldn’t hear what he called over his shoulder, but it gathered a few people from the interior.

I was about twenty yards from the porch when I happened to look down at the girl I was carrying.  I expected to find her still asleep.  What I didn’t expect was to find her staring up at me, with bloodshot and black-rimmed eyes. 

When my gaze met hers, she bared her teeth at me and twisted suddenly, looking to sink her teeth into the flesh of my upper arm!  I was literally hugging a child that had died in my arms and come back as a zombie.

“Shit!”  I reacted by pure reflex.  I dropped the girl, stepping back as she fell to the ground, her teeth snapping shut on empty air as she barely missed biting my bicep.  I didn’t give her a chance to recover, as the only way to deal with the little ones was to kill them as quickly as possible.

I stepped forward, kicking her off her hands as knees as she struggled to get her balance and stand up.  I didn’t stop there.  When she was on her
back, I stepped on her chest and held her to the ground as she grabbed and pulled at my leg.  Her face was a mask of rage and pain as she futilely tried to bite my boot. 

I pulled out my tomahawk and smacked her in the head with it.  I must have been holding back for some
reason, because it took me three strikes to kill the little monster. 

I stepped off the girl and shook my head.  All that fighting her father did for her was for nothing.  I wondered how she caught the disease, and figured
that maybe she had put it in her own eyes when she rubbed her father’s blood into her face.  It was sad, really.  This one wouldn’t ever get a chance to grow up, ever get a chance to play anymore, or ever get the chance to see the big cities and the capital.

I snapped out of my little daydream when a word penetrated my thoughts.

“Jesus.”

Chapter 37

I looked up and saw about thirty people staring at me
. Some had their hands over their mouths, some had a sad look on their faces, and some looked at me with open hostility.  One man ducked inside and came out with a rifle, which he pointed right at me.

“Hands up, mister!  I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you, but you better drop that axe and get your hands up
now
!” The man yelled at me and I could see several other men starting to edge out over the road in an effort to try and surround me.

I looked down at the girl, then my ‘hawk, which was dripping zombie brains and blood into the road.  I couldn’t help
myself; the stress of the morning just came pouring out.  I tilted my head back and just laughed.  When I came back to earth, the men were closer, but stopped when I glared at them.  I pointed to the girl with my axe.

“Relax, she turned into a zombie in my arms.  I was trying to rescue her from an attack on her folks’ place.  She got infected somehow.”  I wiped my ‘hawk off on the girl’s clothing, and another person gasped. 

At the word attack, several faces turned to each other and looked worried.  I helped them along.

“About two miles back, there should be a house on fire.  Guy living there opened up a school which had some sleepers in there.  They took him out and his wife.  He tossed this girl to me, not knowing she was sick.  Believe me, if she was well, I’d be handing off a scared, tired little girl to one of you right now
,” I said, trying to keep the rising dread of another fight out of my voice.

“Can you prove she was infected?”  The man with the rifle spoke, and I was glad to see he wasn’t pointing the gun at me any more.

I thought about that for a moment.  How would I prove she was a zombie? As she looked now, she just appeared to be sleeping, albeit with three large cuts in her skull.  I looked at my hawk and then I got an idea.

“You all know the virus burns red, right?” I asked, getting several nods in reply from a few of the older patrons.  “Okay, then let me torch my tomahawk, and you’ll see the red flame.”  I sprayed some kerosene on the axe, noting as I did that my supply was getting dangerously low.  I pulled out a match and lit the blade, seeing with some satisfaction that the flames burned bright red, even in the noon sun.