Authors: Julie Cooper Brown
She reached down and gouged her thumbs into the eyes of the infected mauling her leg. Unaware that the zombie on her shoulder had been shot and fell away from her until the head she had her hands on exploded in a gory mess right befor
e her eyes. Still she did not relent from stomping on it and kicking it. Then she dropped down to the ground weeping and holding Allen, who was still hanging on but the blood now bubbled from his mouth and his stomach was a mass of entrails. She held his hand and kissed his face. All the memories of his birth, his growing up and his pain when his father died flooded her mind, the pain of her failure to protect him as she had promised. She was not afraid to die, now. In fact, she welcomed it with open arms.
She looked up after seeing legs in front of her and it was John. He was crying and pointed the gun at her. She closed her eyes and nodded her head. “I Love You,” he said before he shot and the bullet entered her face just below the cheekbone, but it did the job, and he shot Allen too. By that time everyone had gathered outside, all were quiet and surprisingly, there were no other infected around. John dropped the rifle on the ground and hung his head as he walked back inside of Tank’s. Troy picked it up and followed in behind him. Mojo shut and locked the door.
“I’m going up to check on Tank. He didn’t come down.”
No one said a word as John went into the bar ahead of them and cuddled up to Angel, who seemed to still be sleeping soundly. He stifled the scream that threatened to leave his lips in fear of frightening her awake. He could not believe that his whole reason for living had just died and he had fired the bullet that had made it final. Somehow, he needed to find the strength to carry on.
Angel was only pretending to be asleep. She had heard the screams from outside and when she sat up, she saw no one. She got up to go see if anyone was left inside and ran back into her pallet when she heard the door open. She didn’t know if it would be her friends or the scary monsters. And now that John was lying behind her crying, she wanted to cry herself, because that meant that someone was hurt. She missed her mom and dad, she missed Kate and she didn’t really understand what was going on, she only knew that her little purple heart was very important. She snuggled closer to John who then put his arm around her and held her tightly.
“Mojo’s been up there a while,” Kristen said as she looked toward the door that led to the hall.
“Stop, Kristen. I’ll go up and see what’s going on. He’s probably just talking to Tank. I’ll be right back.” Troy said getting off the bar stool and grabbing the shotgun to take with him.
“You never know.” He said. Troy went through the door and up the stairs, he could see Mojo standing still in the office and he was looking at something. He didn’t see that Tank was lying dead on his couch until he entered the room. Tank’s face and body was bloated and discolored, but the look on his face was one of peace. Neither of them said anything, but Troy handed Mojo the shotgun and patted his shoulder. He turned and went back downstairs with everyone else.
Kristen looked at him and Belinda asked “Well, are they okay?” Troy looked down and said, “No, Tank’s gone. I reckon Mojo will be back down in a minute.” He said with a heavy sigh.
“I’m gonna go up with him.” Kristen said as a sob broke from her lips and she stood to go. “No, just stay here. You don’t need to see it. It won’t be long. I think he needs a minute.”
The shot rang out loud and it echoed through the bar and they had known that he shot Tank only because he didn’t want to take the chance that he might rise. A few seconds later they heard the sound of him coming down the stairs and Mojo entered the room and spoke quietly. “No one is to go outside, for any reason. If you want to go outside, you go out alone and you don’t come back.”
“Hey man, it looked safe; he only wanted his i-pod.” Troy said and Mojo slammed his fist down on a table to silence him.
“It looked safe? So, you let them go outside? It’s a fucking zombie world out there now! Looked safe?” The volume of his voice increased on the last two words and everyone looked at him in shock. Troy bowed his head and said in a low voice “I’m sorry, man.”
“Why the fuck are yall looking at me like that? You’re sorry? We have just lost three people! For a goddamn I-pod! What the fuck? And yall are looking at me, like I’m nuts!” He took a deep breath, “Now Tank is gone, too. I don’t know why. It could’ve been natural but I am not sure. I had to shoot him and I am fuckin’ pissed right now. Don’t any of you, go back outside. You want to do something? What? There’s
NOTHING BUT DEATH
out there! Be my guest; just don’t pull the rest of us down with you.” With that he went through the basement door and Kristen followed him.
“No, Kristen. I need to be alone.” She turned and went back to sit at the bar with the rest of them.
Chapter Thirty One
Kate walked for several hours and never found a vehicle that had gas, or keys or wasn’t housing some sort of dead or undead body. She’d had a few run-ins with infected and was able to take them down without injury to herself. It seemed that roads were becoming more clogged up the further north she had gotten and soon she may not be able to make it down the road, she would have to veer off into surrounding territories, and that would make the trip much longer and less predictable. At least on the open road she could see what dangers lie ahead and she would travel it until she could not get by.
Soon she heard a slow approaching vehicle and turned around to see it as it pulled up and came to a stop behind her. The driver had his gun aimed out the window at her and she threw her hands up in the air to show that she was indeed alive and coherent. She did not want to get mistaken for the dead. The driver looked around before exiting the vehicle and she walked towards him at a slow pace, looking around herself for signs of more undead. They approached each other and held out their hands for a shake.
“How far have you walked?” The stranger asked.
“Oh, about forty five miles,” she replied and he noticed that she looked worn out and tired, he could see that she was limping before he stopped.
“Hurt yourself, I see. Jump in. Let’s get out of here.”
Without another word she got in the SUV and felt exhausted suddenly. The walk and fighting had really taken it out of her and her ankle was on fire.
“Where are you headed to?” He asked.
“I’m going to Ohio to look for my friends. They had managed to escape the situation we were in and they were going there. I hope they made it. Where are you going?”
“I saw a blue van travelling north a day or so ago. I was in a helicopter but had to land, I ran out of fuel. Then I walked a bit and found this vehicle. Thought I’d try to catch up to them. I am in search of a little girl.”
“Your daughter or..?” She asked.
“No, a friend’s daughter. She has something we need. I’m Jack Kelly. I am…well, I was a secret service agent. We have a shelter and a way to kill the infected, but she has a key that we need. I need to find her. I thought she might’ve been in that van.”
“Where did you see the van?” Kate asked, knowing that Tank’s van was what he was searching for.
“Back in Georgia.”
“Well, I can tell you that I was in the blue van along with my friends and two little girls. One got attacked by birds and then mauled by some infected. I ended up killing her just hours ago. She had become one of them. The other little girl...” Jack pulled out a picture of Angel and her father.” Is this one of the girls?”
“Yes, that’s Angel. She was still alive when they left. I’m going to find her, too. I hope she’s okay. I hope they’re all okay, but I think that might be asking a little too much.”
“Where did you meet Angel?”
“My friend,” and she dropped her head as she thought of him. “My friend Dave and I found her in a trapped in a house in Florida. We had to kill several of them. I was surprised to find her. We had to kill her father, too.”
“I made a stop there as well and saw him. He was beheaded and shot between the eyes. What happened there? Aren’t they supposed to go down with a head shot no matter what?” He asked.
“Yea, they are. We were just as surprised when he got back up several hours after we shot him. Don’t know why that happened. Haven’t seen it happen to anyone else before or since. Anyway, I watched out for her until we came to a church where the Pastor had locked his congregation in a room infected people and allowed them to die. My friend blew the place up and the rest of us got away. I could have gone with them but I wanted to check on Dave. He was infected already but had not changed yet, so I had to find him. But I didn’t. So, now I am going to Ohio to find my other friends.”
“Well, let’s hope we find them alive. I think we will. What are the chances of me running into you, looking for the same person? It will be okay. I have a son and a couple friends already inside the shelter. It’s back in Georgia, though. Hopefully we’ll make it. Without the key the girl holds, we won’t be able to kill the infected. I was lucky enough to find the code in the pocket of Dr. O’Dey’s pants. Angel’s father, that’s his name. Carl O’Dey. He was a renowned scientist.”
“I don’t think she has anything on her, Jack. Though, she does have a teddy bear. Maybe it’s in the teddy. What does the key look like?”
“I don’t know. It could be just a regular key, maybe a card. If we find her we find the key. Gas will be difficult, but we are in Kentucky now and getting closer to them with every mile. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and get the girl and whoever we can carry and get back to safety.”
Kate thought briefly about the little heart that Kimmy had shown her but did not say anything. She was comfortable for the moment and the trials of the day had taken its toll on her and she nodded off to sleep.
Jack looked over at her thinking she was very attractive for a pale-skinned redhead, but quickly pushed those thoughts aside. They were on a mission and he would take whoever he could back to the shelter with him once he found Angel and the key. He drove on in silence and hoped that the roads didn’t become any more difficult than they already had and the rain began steadily falling, again.
“Hey, wake up.” Jack said to Kate as he shook her shoulder to jar her. She woke and rubbed her eyes as she readjusted herself upright in the seat.
“Where are we now?” She looked out the window and they were crossing a bridge and saw signs for Liberty and U.S. 50.
“We just crossed into Cincinnati from Kentucky. Dayton is still a little over and hour or so away, if traffic were normal. Hopefully we don’t encounter too many more road blocks.” Jack said as he slowly maneuvered his way through the clusters of cars on the bridge. “I thought you might want to wake up a bit before we actually get there.”
“Yea, I do. We have to be ready for anything. Thanks for letting me get some sleep. I must’ve needed it.” Kate said. “I sure wish I had a cup of coffee.”
“Don’t have coffee but do you want a smoke?” He asked taking a crumpled pack of Marlboro out of his shirt pocket and offering them to her.
“No
thanks. I don’t smoke often. Don’t think I want one right now, though I might take you up on that later. Have all the roads been this clogged?”
“Well, most of them. I’ve had to take a few detours and run over a few infected but it hasn’t been so bad, and we’re just about there.”
“I’m hungry.” Kate said as she reached into the backseat to get her pack. “I have some extra rations. You want something?” She said and unzipped her pack to pull out a couple granola bars. She really liked those. They didn’t taste bad and gave her energy to boot. He was pretty hungry himself so he took the granola bar that she held out to him.
“Thank You.”
“Not a problem.” She said and they ate their granola bars and rode in silence for several miles before Kate said “Some of them have a conscience, you know.”
He looked over at her and saw that she believed what she was saying, though he really didn’t know about that. “No, I didn’t know that. How did you come to that conclusion?”
“I’ve seen it.” Kate proceeded to tell him about what she read in Jillian’s’ papers and told him that she still had them if he wanted to read them. She told him about Jillian herself when Kate had called her name and how undead Jillian reacted.
“I haven’t heard of that. It’s a first, but then we really don’t pay too much attention to what their faces and emotions are. We’re too busy trying to kill or run from them to stand and try to analyze their emotions. He thought on this for a while as the road to Dayton seemed to open up and there weren’t as many cars to dodge and creep around. They got up to a steady forty miles an hour and
cruised the rest of the way.