A Little More Dead (16 page)

Chapter
Twenty-Eight

DAY THIRTEEN

Morning pushed its way inside the house,
casting too much light on the couch. Sophia’s blood stains had turned dark red overnight
and were rough against Paul’s cheek. After sleeping the rest of yesterday away,
it was time to leave. He could see it in Dan’s eyes, hear it in his voice. Paul
made a play to stay here which fell on deaf ears. There was nothing here but
haunted memories that Dan knew would render Paul useless so Dan finally got the
something
off his chest he’d been wanting to say but couldn’t.
Something
about how sorry he was, and
how things will get better and something about something else. But
it was Sophia who finally convinced him to go, not Dan
.

Paul circled the house’s location on a
map he found inside an upstairs office plastered with Dallas Cowboys
memorabilia. Slices of sunlight crept across the floor, reaching Paul’s shoes
as he sat slumped in the armchair and stared at his wife’s dried brains on the sectional.
Gunshots rang out behind him but he didn’t flinch. Dan and Wendy laughed as
they took some last minute target practice on the back deck. Their laughter fed
Paul’s throbbing headache. He balled his hands into fists, hating himself for
giving Wendy that pink gun but that’s what Sophia wanted so he did. Still, it
wasn’t right. The thought of leaving her alone up on that hill hurt the most.
She’d never been to Texas before and no one would ever visit her grave. His
beautiful Sophia would be alone under that willow tree without a single
connection to anyone or anything for hundreds of miles around. No one would lay
flowers on her grave. No one would know she was there. So he vowed to come back
and visit no matter how many of those things stood in his way. That much was
for sure.

Wendy and Dan came back inside with
anxious looks imprinted into their faces. Their tip-toeing around Paul only
pissed him off more. He took one last look at the soiled couch before getting
up and leaving the room while his legs still somewhat worked. Every muscle in
his body ached. His back screamed with each step. Digging his wife’s grave had
taken a toll in more ways than one.

In the backseat of the cop car, Paul
twisted around and watched the large white house slowly disappear behind a
gentle hill. His eyes clung to the chimney stack for as long as possible and
then, just like that, Sophia was
on her own
. Left to
fend for
herself
in a cold drizzle. He turned back
around, fighting the tears welling in his eyes. She didn’t deserve this. None
of them did and someone had to pay.

Chapter
Twenty-Nine

Trees and houses and abandoned vehicles whipped
by in a dizzying blur. Dan glanced into the rearview mirror at Paul, who was
sitting alone in the back. Paul snorted, not believing his wife wasn’t in the
car with them. How did they get here? It was a miracle any of them were still
alive.

Or a curse.

Through vacant eyes, Paul watched the
foreign land unfold before them, regret taking him by storm. This was a
mistake. He should go back. Who cares if Dan and Wendy
needed
him? Mentally and physically exhausted, Paul couldn’t
imagine another gun battle. Not now. His legs throbbed and his head pounded and
he wasn’t sure he could even stand, let alone shoot. He slid on a pair of
sunglasses to block out the gray light stinging his eyes. It hurt to even
breathe.

 
Dan
pushed against the steering wheel and cracked his back.

“You want me to drive?” Wendy asked.

He looked over to her in the passenger
seat.
“Maybe in a little while.”

They passed a newer looking RV that had
smashed head first into a telephone pole now leaning at an awkward angle. The RV’s
side door hung on a single hinge, like something had ripped it open. The more
miles they tucked under their belts, the more it sank in. Sophia was dead. Paul
looked out the back window. How far were they from her now? Would she be okay
by herself at night?

“
Soooo
, what
happens once we get to the ocean?” Wendy finally broke the silence as she
stared out over the empty roadway ahead. Stationary oil rigs, longhorns and
brown grass sprinkled the vast terrain on both sides of the road.

“I’m not sure,” Dan said, glancing at
Wendy. “We’ll find a beach house and gather some supplies with the ocean
protecting our backs.”

Wendy snorted.
“Or
trapping us.”

The sound of tires turning on asphalt
filled their ears, lulling Paul’s tired mind back to Carla, Mike and Matt. He
could still hear Sophia telling the boys they’d be playing volleyball on the
beach in no time. They should’ve been here and it was Paul’s fault. They
trusted him with their lives and he failed them. The scoreboard does not lie. Herds
of longhorns looked to them for help from within their enclosures as the state
patrol car flew by without a wave. Paul rolled down the window and let the wind
run through his matted brown hair. He leaned back and closed his eyes, a light
drizzle cold on his face. God, he missed her smile. The termination of the
car’s soothing buzz opened his eyes. He squinted at the rundown gas station out
in the middle of a flat stretch of nowhere. “Where are we?” he asked, peering
through the cage.

“Probably a few hours from the Gulf,”
Dan replied, surveying the area. “Not exactly sure but we need gas.”

“What! How long was I out?”

“A few hours.”

Paul sank into the backseat, unable to
believe it. He had just closed his eyes a minute ago, two tops.

Wendy twisted around. “How’re you
feeling?”

“Fantastic,” he replied between the booming
claps of thunder exploding inside his head. There was a storm brewing behind
his bloodshot eyes.
A bad one.

Dan nodded to a light blue mini-van
parked next to an old payphone. The van had a rusty dent in the back bumper from
where someone carelessly backed into a pole – back when things like that mattered.
Dan pulled alongside it and stopped. “You want to stay in the car for this
one?”

Paul pushed his shades up the bridge of
his nose and opened his car door. “I got this.”

“Paul, we can…”

“I got this!”

“Alright,” Dan breathed, climbing out
and hitting the car’s sirens in the process. The alarm rang out in a rapid
rhythm as if they were in hot pursuit of a stolen vehicle at ninety miles an
hour.

Outside the car, Paul hunched over in
pain, trying to cover his ears while holding a shotgun at the same time while Dan
dove back inside and fumbled with the switches on the dash. The siren
ricocheted off the gas station walls and bay doors, slicing Paul’s head in two.

“I can’t find the switch!”

Paul’s vision blurred. Snot ran from his
nose, or maybe it was blood. Wendy yelled something he didn’t understand and
then the blaring scream stopped. The screech of a nearby Blue-Jay cut through the
siren’s wake.

Dan popped up over the roof of the car.
“Sorry about that.”

Wendy eyeballed the gas station, pink sidearm
at the ready. “Nice one, Dan! You just rang the dinner bell.”

“Then we better hurry.”

Paul bent over and threw up into the dirt
lot, splashing his new sneakers with half-digested cookies and chips. He
dry-heaved a few times and wiped his mouth, catching Dan and Wendy trading a
wary glance behind his back.

“You okay?” Dan asked.

“I’m fine.” Paul spit to the ground and
leaned against the car, letting sprinkles fall on his face.

Attaching the siphon to the minivan’s
gas tank, Dan turned to see how his cover looked. Wendy stood ready with
Sophia’s gun pointed at the ground. Paul wore sunglasses and could barely
stand.

“Maybe we should clear the van first,”
Dan suggested.

Paul rested the short shotgun on his
shoulder. “Go for it.”

Dan stared at him for a long moment,
pulling an annoyed sigh from Paul’s lips. He spit again and stumbled to the
van, bringing the butt of the gun into his shoulder as he went. Maybe blowing
the head off of something would make him feel better. No, there was no maybe
about it. He would get payback on these things one corpse at a time and it might
as well start right fucking now.

Dan pulled on the van’s side door.
Locked.
He met the same result with the other doors so they
stuck their faces to the tinted glass for a better look. Inside, they could
make out some drapes and…

“Damn!” Wendy cried.

 
Paul peeled himself from the van and spun
around, ready for unwanted company. The three maggots slumbering from a beat-up
camper parked next to the pumps immediately caught his eye. The man, woman and
teenage boy hobbled down the side steps, wearing tattered shorts and t-shirts,
now on a permanent family vacation. They reached for Paul. He took aim on the
dad and fired, stumbling back a few steps with the powerful recoil and missing
his target.

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” Dan held his hands
up, looking at the camper behind him.

Paul pumped in another shell and unleashed
two more earsplitting reports, blowing out the camper’s front windshield and
missing the encroaching family yet again. The three things
ambled
closer, sunken eyes locked on Paul.

“Paul!” Dan ran over and forced the
shotgun down. “What’re you doing?”

Paul shook him off as the dad reached
for Dan’s curly blond hair. “Look out!” he said, firing another shot that made
Dan duck. Paul staggered backwards again, sunglasses askew and sweat running into
his eyes.

Dan recovered and wrapped him a bear hug,
pinning the shotgun between them. “There’s no one there, Paul! There’s no one
there!”

Paul shoved him away and removed his
shades, wiping the sweat from his dirty face with his coat sleeve. The family
was gone. He blinked at the camper in utter disbelief, a headache pulsing behind
his left eye. He went closer, wobbling in the dirt. “You didn’t see that?”

A frightened look seared itself into Dan’s
face and Paul wasn’t sure if Dan was afraid of being without Paul or being with
him. “See what?”

Paul shook the fog from his head, unable
to form a complete sentence.

“Why don’t you get back in the car and
relax,” Dan said. “Wendy and I can handle this.”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine. You look sick.”

“Just get the gas!” he barked, examining
the deserted camper.

Dan bowed his head and exhaled a salty
breath, resigning his objection just as the minivan’s backdoors burst open with
a startling
bang
. Paul spun around to
see a heavyset Mexican lady roll out the back and hit the ground running.
Operating on instinct and adrenaline alone, he brought the shotgun into his
shoulder, unsure if his mind was playing tricks on him again or not.

Long black hair flew wildly through the
air behind her as she ran at them, her shredded skirt and satiny top fluttering
with each thundering step. Her bare feet kicked up dirt, an angry sneer stamped
into her rotting face. Wendy fired a single shot, confirming this was the real
deal. The lady didn’t flinch. She shrieked instead, hurting Paul’s ears. Her
massive quads shook as she rushed closer. Dan took aim and fired. The woman
jerked with the buckshot shredding her shoulder and kept coming. They were out
of time. With ragged breaths shaking his weapon, Paul pulled the trigger. The
shot went high and Paul thought the woman was another mirage because there was
no way he could’ve missed from this close range. Wendy’s second shot jerked the
lady’s head back, dropping her like a charging rhino. She somersaulted across
the parking lot and stirred up a cloud of dust, coming to a rest at Paul’s feet.
The cloud floated away on a lazy breeze, revealing her wide open eyes staring
up at the sky. He stared at the decomposing woman with his heartbeat jack
hammering inside his ears.

“I did it!” Wendy cried, still clutching
the gun in both hands. “I did it!”

The aroma of spoiled fish and stale beer
spilt from the van, polluting the air around them.

Paul covered his nose and gagged before drawing
a steadying breath and looking up. His vision doubled. He blinked against the
sweat in his eyes. “The fat ones are fast,” he muttered, sliding down the side
of the cop car to the ground.

Chapter
Thirty

DAY ONE

The tangerine-colored Subaru
Crosstrek
pulled into the driveway and Paul burst outside
before Sophia could open her car door. Relief overwhelmed his system, leaving
him lightheaded as he descended the front steps on rubbery legs. Paul could
tell she was scared shitless as she rushed into his arms and buried her face in
his chest. Light snow fell around them and she felt wonderful in his arms,
Rebecca the last thing on his mind.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathed into her
hair. “I was so worried.”

She pulled away and studied him through
terror-filled eyes. “What’re we going to do?”

He cradled her cheeks in both palms, his
breath rushing across her heart-shaped face in white plumes. “Everything is
going to be fine.”

“My mom won’t answer her phone. I tried
her the whole way here.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” he lied, looking
her in the eye. Sophia hadn’t seen the new video yet but Chicago was unraveling
fast, with infection and lawlessness spreading like careless campfires and it
wouldn’t be long before Des Moines burned next. He scanned the gated community
they moved into three months ago, an unsettling quiet meeting his gaze. “We’ll
keep trying to reach her.”

“I listened to the news the whole way
home. What’s that video from Chicago all about?” Her brow creased. “Have you
seen it? Are people really killing each other?”

“They just released it. How were the
roads?” he asked, already thinking three steps ahead.

“Deserted.”

“Were they blocked in places?”

She shook her head. “I thought the cops might
be enforcing the travel ban but they weren’t.” She tucked a loose strand of
hair behind an ear. “Everyone must be home watching the news.”

Paul nodded, his spine tingling. He was
just grateful the snow held off long enough for her to safely make it home. As
if this shit wasn’t bad enough already, a winter storm was coming and Paul feared
what would be hiding in the snowfall.

Sophia hugged him. “What do you think it
is?”

“They’re saying
it’s
bio-terrorism but I have a hard time believing that a bunch of guys living in mountain
caves and driving twenty year-old pickups have the brainpower to pull something
like this off.”

She drew back. “What if it’s airborne?”

“It’s not,” he said, looking behind him A
fresh coat of snow gave the two story colonial the same warm glow that had wowed
their families this past Christmas. It was their dream house and as soon as
they moved in he bought his first handgun to protect it, the timing of which
couldn’t have been better. A siren raced off in the distance and Paul swallowed
hard, stomach turning.

“Come on,” he said, the February wind
chilling him to the core. “Let’s get inside.”

Headline
News
blared on the flat screen in the living room as Paul locked the front door.
Whatever
it
was, there was no
stopping it now. The incoming videos just kept getting worse and, at last
count, there were reported cases in seven countries, including the United
States and the United Kingdom.

“What’s this?” Sophia asked.

He followed her gaze to the Beretta PX4
Storm lying on the coffee table next to three full clips and four boxes of
nine-millimeter rounds. “Insurance,” he said, slipping the loaded gun into a drop-leg
holster and strapping it on for the first time in what would become a daily
ritual down the long road ahead.

“What’re you doing, Paul?” she almost
laughed, the overcast daylight coming through the large windows turning her
face an ashen gray.

His gaze snapped to the TV. “Here it is.
Watch this.” Paul turned up the volume. He didn’t really want his wife to see
this but it was important she knew what they were up against.

Sophia sat next to him on the couch
without taking her coat off, eyes glued to the fifty-five inch smart TV. Her
brow folded as a mob of people attacked one another during a Chicago Bulls game
at the United Center. The video was clear and crisp, the bright arena lights
illuminating every rip and tear in the faces of the attacking dead, which – as
Robin Meade spouted – is exactly what they were.
Dead.
Sophia slapped a hand over her mouth when a security guard in a yellow shirt
slammed a young boy against a concrete wall and bit down into his neck while
the boy’s, assumed, father beat and pulled on the guard from behind. People
dashed back and forth across the screen in a mad flurry of chaos. In the middle
of it, the security guard threw the lifeless boy to the ground and turned to
the boy’s father, eyes dark and sunken, blood staining his lips and yellow shirt.

“Watch this,” Paul whispered.

The father pulled a gun from beneath his
coat (a proud CCW holder no less) and shot the guard one time in the face,
dropping him to the concrete floor. The father rushed to his son’s side, sliding
to his knees and shaking the brown haired boy to the screams and gunfire
punctuating the arena around them. A cop ran past with his gun pointed at the
domed ceiling, a pack of snarling individuals nipping at his heels. The father
looked up from his son just in time to see a black man in a Bulls jersey tackle
him to the floor.

Paul scooted to the edge of the couch,
pointing at the screen. “Watch this next part. You won’t believe this.”

Sophia swallowed thickly, a hand still
covering her mouth. The furnace kicked on with a low hum, pushing heat through
the house’s many vents. On the television, the father rolled over and mounted
the Bulls fan before shooting him in the face, but
it was the
camera man who noticed something else
. The camera panned to the right just
in time to capture the little boy getting to his feet. The dad also noticed and
ran over, wrapping his son in a tight embrace that would be their last. Sophia
set a hand on Paul’s knee and dug her nails into his jeans as the camera zoomed
in. The boy opened his mouth and tipped his head back, exposing a blackened
tongue and bleeding gums.

“Oh my God,” Sophia whispered through
her fingers.

The boy sunk his teeth into his father’s
shoulder and the TV went black.

Paul frowned. “What the hell?” he
murmured, hitting buttons on the remote.

The TV remained as dark as the sinking feeling
in his stomach.

“What’s happening?” Sophia asked,
scanning the room through startled eyes.

“Power’s out,” he replied, noticing the gas
fireplace had shut off along with the blue digital clock on the microwave.

“Oh that’s
great,
it’s like ten degrees outside.”

Paul’s cell phone vibrated against the coffee
table, startling them both. “It’s Dan.” Paul slid a finger across the screen.
“Did your power just go out?” he asked without preamble.

“Yep.”

“Holy shit,” Paul sighed into the phone.
It was already here. He thought they might have a day or two but it was already
here.

“Listen,”
Dan said,
urgency coating his tone.
“My phone’s
about to die and I don’t know where my car charger is, but my car is packed and
I’m coming to your place right now.”

“Okay, we’ll be here. The Jeep is ready
to go.”

Dan exhaled.
“I can’t believe this is actually happening.”

“I know.”

“Like really happening.”

“It’s insane.”

“Right
when I finally get the new
Playstation
too!”

“You?
I just bought a
boat two weeks ago.” Paul ran a hand through his short brown hair. “This was
going to be the best summer of our lives!”

“I’m
leaving right now.”

“Hurry.”

 
“Don’t leave without me.”

“We won’t.”

“Paul!”

Paul’s gaze tripped over Sophia’s
frightened eyes. He took her hand in his and squeezed.
“Yeah?”

Dan spoke slow and clear.
“Do not leave without…”

Paul’s eyebrows pulled together, making
Sophia tilt her head to the side. “Hello? Dan?” When there was no answer, he
pulled the phone from his ear and stared at the greasy screen.

“What happened?”

“His phone died, but he’s on the way.”

“He is?”

“Don’t worry, we have a plan.” Paul
leaned forward and traded the cell phone for a small black case on the coffee
table. “It’s time to take this,” he said, cracking the case open.

Disdain washed over her face at the
sight of the pink gun nestled inside, turning her into someone else. “Paul,”
she said in her soothing voice. “You’re overreacting.”