Shades of Gray

• Title Page
  
• Part One:
  
• Prologue
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Part Two:
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Part Three:
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Epilogue
  

A PERMUTED PRESS book

published at Smashwords

ISBN (trade paperback): 978-1-61868-044-0

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-045-7

Roads Less Traveled: Shades of Gray
copyright © 2013

by C. Dulaney.

All Rights Reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

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To every action there is always an

equal and opposite reaction.

—Newton’s Third Law of Motion

Through the nighttime woods he ran, gradually slowing, gradually giving up. The harsh sound of his labored breathing could be heard over the noise his boots made stomping through the dry leaves. He’d been running for almost an hour, and while he was in good physical shape, no living body could sustain such a hectic pace for long. Dead bodies, on the other hand, were a different story. His pursuers knew nothing of fatigue; they would hunt him until he dropped dead on his feet. They were easy to outrun over short distances. The problem arose when the living hit physical limits that the dead would not. Then it was only a matter of time, and time was always on the dead’s side.

The man was middle-aged but well-built. He had to be, considering his previous line of work. He once thought his job had been the best thing that had ever happened to him. Then the world ended, and he realized that the death of civilization was even
better
. He’d mistakenly thought his purpose in life was “rehabilitating” convicts. Now he knew it was killing things.

Hell on earth for everyone else had been his own personal heaven.

Right up until a pack of runners had ambushed him in the last town. Each time he stopped to rest, the pack caught up, forcing him to continue on. They ran him like mad dogs run sheep; chaotic, careless of direction, nothing but the thirst for blood driving them, until the sheep fall dead from exhaustion and fright.

Of course he had weapons; he’d escaped his previous place of employment with a rifle and handgun. The noise of the shots would only draw more to him, though he would use a single bullet to end his life before ever giving the runners the satisfaction.

“To hell with that,” he gasped, casting the thought of suicide from his mind. He wouldn’t give up, he
never
gave up, and he’d be damned if he was going to start now.

He glanced over his shoulder for a second, trying to judge the distance between himself and the pack, and didn’t notice the abrupt change in scenery or the difference in the ground beneath his feet until he heard a gruff voice barking an order directly in front of him.

“On the ground! Now!”

He whipped his head around and saw he was running directly into a line of soldiers. Instinct took over. His knees buckled, his hands went down, and he dropped to his belly on the pavement. He’d run onto a highway. At least a dozen men, all armed, were aiming their weapons on the tree line behind him.

“Fire!”

He flinched when the soldiers opened up on the runners emerging from the trees. His hands slid from the asphalt to cover his ears and his mind screamed for him to escape. In a matter of seconds it was over. The lead soldier issued a few orders, then walked over and helped him to his feet.

“You’re coming with us. We’re headed back to Command, you’ll be safe there.”

At a loss for words, and so exhausted he could barely talk, he merely nodded his thanks and let the soldier lead him to the tarp-covered truck idling in the middle of the road. He wasn’t happy about handing control of his life over to someone else, but at the moment he’d take whatever assistance he could get. Before climbing into the back of the truck, the soldier clasped his hand and shook it.

“Where you from, sir?”

He smirked and hitched his thumb to the north. “Blueville Correctional. Used to work there.”

The soldier looked at him sideways. “Blueville? That place was overrun a month ago.” His hand inched closer to his sidearm.

“No shit,” the man replied. “I barely escaped. Been on the road ever since.”

“So you haven’t been to Blueville recently?”

“Why would I go back to that hell hole?”

The soldier’s hand moved from his sidearm to the man’s shoulder. “Come on. You can ride with us. You’d eventually end up at Command anyway.”

20 years before Z-day

I shot my first deer when I was nine years old. So I guess you could say I’m a professional killer, though I’m not sure how long a person has to do something before they’re considered a “professional.” A lifetime?

I understand the difference between deer and zombies. One you eat, one you decidedly do not. One is tracked and pursued with purpose, and that purpose is generally to feed you and your family. The other is avoided because they want to feed
on
you and your family. My rational mind truly understands the difference. After fighting for so long, killing so many, everything blurs together into one massive homicidal tendency.

I remember it like it was yesterday. Dad had pestered our mother for weeks, trying to convince her that her oldest child was, in fact, ready to hunt with him. These conversations always turned into arguments, a few into full-blown fights. I knew Dad would wear her down eventually.

“No, she’s too young.”

“Sweetheart, I was her age when the old man first took me out.”

“Well that was different!” Mom’s voice always had an edge to it. When she raised it, the sound felt like a razor blade sliding down the back of my neck.

“The only difference is this is your baby girl we’re talkin’ about.”

Mom fell silent and pouted for several minutes. Dad sighed and took her in his arms.

“You know she’ll be fine with me. I’ll look after her, she’ll never leave my side.”

I kept my mouth shut and never intervened on my own behalf. If I had, the dance would’ve been over. I stayed out of the way, either leaving the room once “the discussion” started, or slinking around the corner so I could listen in. Dad would always catch me, though he never gave away my location. He’d simply shoot a subtle wink my way and carry on as though I wasn’t there.

The night before the first day of doe season, he finally got his way. Mom, of course, had a list of conditions. It didn’t matter. I was going hunting with my Dad. No amount of fussing from her could dampen my excitement.

He woke me up before daylight, helped me dress in the new hunting camo he’d secretly bought for me before even broaching the topic with Mom, and gave me yet another refresher on my rifle. What to do, what not to do, how to load it, where the safety was, all that. I rolled my eyes but bit my tongue. He’d been teaching me everything he knew about guns since I was old enough to hold one, yet I remained patient with his fatherly fretting.

“Stop fidgeting.”

“Sorry.”

We’d been in the tree stand for only thirty minutes. I was
nine
. A half an hour was like three days in kid-time. I watched him closely, mimicking his actions. I wanted to be just like him. Quiet, calm, enduring. That only lasted another ten minutes.

Two hours later, I had fallen asleep and was drooling down Dad’s coat sleeve. He shook me awake as gently as he could, covering my mouth with one hand and pointing into the trees with his other.

“There. See it?”

I gasped. Sixty yards to our right stood a doe.

I didn’t think much of it at the time. Why would I, I was nine? Later in life I would look back on this exact moment and wonder what it said about me that my first reaction was to kill, instead of being awestruck or some other such nonsense by the beauty of the animal. The excitement of an upcoming kill, that’s what I felt.

My rifle lay across my lap. As soon as my eyes found the big brown beast, I jerked it up, making a fair amount of noise in the process.

“Shhh, easy does it. Slow movements, remember?” Dad whispered. My nod was barely perceptible. “Just like we practiced. You can do it.”

My little hands gripped the rifle, one on the stock, one around the grip. I ran over our lessons in my head and pulled the butt against my shoulder. Dad talked me through it, his mouth pressed to my toboggan-covered ear. The doe still hadn’t moved. She was standing broadside with her head turned, watching us.

“Can you find her in the scope?”

“Yeah.” My voice dropped to the same excited hush as his.

“Steady. Put your crosshairs behind her shoulder, remember?”

“Okay, Dad.”

Then he said something that would stick with me the rest of my life. “Exhale slowly. At the end, squeeze your trigger.
Squeeze
, don’t pull.”

What we learn young, we never forget. I killed that doe with a single shot. Dad was very proud. I was so happy I nearly peed my nine-year-old pants. It was a good day. Even now, years later, most of the details of that day are fuzzy, having faded with age. But I’ve never forgotten Dad’s advice.

Exhale slowly. Squeeze the trigger.

* * *

November 16th: thirteen months after Z-day

The town of Laurel Grove glistened like diamonds in the early morning sun. A storm the night before had blanketed the area with three inches of fresh snow, giving everything a surreal, dreamlike appearance. The roofs sparkled, the streets shimmered, and the lawns gleamed. Smoke drifted from a few chimneys in the center of town, the smell of burning wood faint in the air. Overnight the valley had taken on the form of a Christmas snow globe.

Only one thing seemed out of place.

“How long ‘til they break in ya think?” Jake asked from the saddle of his new mount.

“Not long,” I answered.

Kneeling down on one knee at the edge of a rocky outcropping, I’d been surveying the situation through a set of binoculars as Mia and Jake sat quietly on their horses behind me. A distress call from the survivors here a week ago had led us to this particular location; a wide valley between two mountains, roughly seventy-six miles from the Winchester, the former country club we’d been living in since the previous spring. We’d only arrived an hour before dawn and set up a cold camp halfway down the mountain closest to Laurel Grove. It served as a safe location to study the town while we planned our next move.