DEAD: Reborn (29 page)

“You know what?” Trent yelled. “Screw all of you! You can go ahead and take this little pack of delinquents
, and I hope you get what you deserve.”

“I do wish you the best.
” Kevin almost felt bad for the two men; but since he didn’t really know them, he did not feel that bad. Besides, that Trent person seemed a little too hot-headed.

“And you are welcome to stay the night,” Catie added. She shot her cold stare at a few of the children who looked about to speak up—most notably, Sean.

“Well la-di-frickin’-da!” Trent spat. “And what is to stop us from just following you when you leave? This is a free country.”

“You are still using that old way of thinking,” Kevin said with a shrug. “If you follow us, you’re right…there isn’t really anything I can do to stop you. However,” he looked around at the faces of some of the children, “I don’t think it would go well for you. These children are survivors.
They haven’t made it this far on luck…luck ran out after the third or fourth month. Anybody alive at this point…is a fighter and age stopped meaning anything around that time.”

“Yeah, well we ain’t stayin’ here…like I said, s
crew you all!” Trent raged.

“I can’t go,” the other man, Doug, rasped from the floor. “I don’t feel so hot.”

In that instant, the man began to convulse. His eyes rolled back in his head and a pink froth began to bubble from his lips. Everybody stepped back…everybody but Catie. She drew the blade on her hip and simply stood up. With one deft motion, she plunged the tip of the blade into the man’s head. His thrashing ended instantly.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Trent darted over to the corpse of his friend and knelt at his side as Catie yanked her weapon free.

“To end his misery,” Catie said, and turned away.

“Don’t you turn your back on me,” Trent snapped. “You killed my friend…the last person I had left in this world. The least you can do is look at me when I’m talking to you.”

Catie stopped, but she did not turn around. “There is nothing left to say. Your friend is dead. He was suffering and I ended it.”

“He’s not a dog!” the man snapped, rising to his feet.

“No, but the least he deserved was the same kindness that we would extend to an animal.”

“You said his eyes were clear, no sign of the infection,” Trent pointed out.

“I said no sign of turning. I also said that his wound showed
serious
signs of standard infection,” Catie countered.

“How does he just up and die like that…” Trent’s voice hitched and he stared defiantly, not bothering to wipe the tears that were starting to roll down his cheeks.

“People are not the healthiest these days,” Catie said with as much warmth as she could muster. “And we have grown up relying on drug stores and instant cures. Maybe we hurt more than helped ourselves. I’m just guessing, but if I had to try and nail it down, I would say that it was as simple as the fact that he was already weak. Whatever was coursing through the saliva of that dog zombie that bit him took its toll. A cut on the finger left untended can kill you these days.”

“But that fast?”

“It has been hours for one…and I am not trying to make light of this, but somebody as frail and weak as your friend appeared, would be like a field of dry grass to a wildfire when it came to disease or infection. And honestly, this is all just a guess. Nobody is going to be able to do an autopsy and see what really happened. It may be that a zombie dog bite doesn’t turn the victim…it simply kills them outright. You want me to throw out five or six more random guesses…fine…but I’m telling you what I think.”

Kevin turned to the children once again. “Now that this man is alone, I am going to ask you all
once more. Do we let this person come with us, or do we leave him to his fate?”

Unlike last time, the group of kids all huddled around Sean. Kevin noted that Deanna was right at
the young man’s side and obviously not shy about voicing her opinion. The discussion looked and sounded heated, but Kevin thought it best to leave them to it. Meanwhile, he went over to Heather.

“How you feeling?” He leaned over and gave the girl an awkward hug, not sure if that was the right thing to do after she’d just been assaulted by a man. It was almost like meeting her at Heath High School all over again.

“A little shaky. He said that he heard something out front and just walked over to me like no big deal. The next thing I knew, he cracked me in the head with something and had me at knifepoint before I could do anything.” Heather rubbed at her head and pulled her hand away to confirm that there was no blood.

“You and Catie really kicked ass,” Kevin said with a smile, leaning over and planting a kiss on Aleah’s cheek.

“I just didn’t see any way out of this other than taking the guy down hard and fast. I learned a few covert signs and gestures with Catie when I was out with her on that patrol.”

“Now we need to decide what to do with…
him
.” Heather spit that last word out like it fouled her mouth.

“We don’t really have a choice,” Kevin said with way less emotion than he was suddenly feeling.

“Are you saying what I think you are?” Aleah asked.

“He was right…we won’t last if we don’t deal with threats in a way to ensure they don’t come back to haunt us.” Kevin glanced over his shoulder at where Derek still lay u
nconscious on the ground a few feet away. A clothesline was digging into the flesh of his wrists, and his hands were already a shade of ugly reddish-purple.

“So we just kill him?” Aleah asked.

“What other choice is there?” Kevin posed.

“Then let’s do it quick,” Aleah conceded.

“I wasn’t planning on some long, torturous death.” Kevin gave her a reassuring hug just as Sean and Deanna came over.

“We decided that he can come,” Sean said. “But the m
oment he does anything shady…he’s gone. We still don’t trust him, but we also can’t just leave him like this…most of us know what it is like to be abandoned…alone.”

Kevin looked at Deanna who gave a very slight nod. It might be Sean that had been the voice of order with these chi
ldren since they’d lost their other leader, but he had a feeling that Deanna was pulling the strings. He was struck suddenly by how this event, this zombie apocalypse or whatever you wanted to call it, had probably not changed people as much as brought out their true nature.

That was a sobering and terrifying thought. How many pe
ople had been constrained from acting on their twisted desires simply due to the deterrent of the potential time in a state prison or jail? He’d seen enough of that sort of behavior being paraded on the nightly news to almost become desensitized to it all. But at his feet was yet another example of a sick mind allowed to run free and without fear of reprisal.

On the flip side, he looked at these children. Surely all of them could not just claim bad homes or a poor living enviro
nment on the actions that had led them to be in that detention center…but now he was seeing more than one of them showing an amazing amount of maturity and ability to handle rough situations.

This had allowed them all the life equivalency of a pla
yground do-over. Many of them were embracing it. Perhaps those who survived this journey—and he held no false illusions about the fact that some would fall along the way—would shape a new world. Perhaps hope was not lost.

“Get everybody bedded down for the night,” Kevin said. He turned and grabbed Derek by the hair and headed outside.

“Where are you going?” Aleah asked, although she knew full well. It was more of a reflexive question than anything else.

“I am going to take out the trash, honey,” he said in a voice dripping with mock pleasantry. “Be back in a jiff…you tuck in the kids and I’ll be back before you know it.”

Aleah bounded over and wrapped her arms around him. Looking up into his eyes, she felt that familiar tingle in her belly. She loved him beyond words. She saw that love being given right back, but she also saw something else. Something…broken and sad.

Kevin kissed her and headed out into the darkness of the night that had spread its blanket over the world once again. A gentle rain fell and a chill in the air reminded that winter was not too far gone. Kevin felt the man he was literally dragging behind him by the hair begin to stir.

The back side of the complex was a maze of stacked pipes of varying diameters. Kevin broke one of their homemade glow sticks. That only reminded him how low they were on supplies and that the need would be exponential now with all of the extra mouths to feed. For the first time, he wondered if perhaps he had bitten off more than he could chew.

As he wandered down an alley between two stacks of pipe that were well over twenty feet high, Kevin stopped at the mid-point and unceremoniously let go of Derek, the man’s head lan
ding with a wet squish in the forming mud. A soft moan accompanied the thud.

“What the…” a groggy voice asked the darkness.

“Your time is done,” Kevin said.

He didn’t know what he expected exactly. Pleading? Ba
rgaining? What he got was…laughing. Maybe the man had snapped. Kevin didn’t know, but the sound of it was enough to make the hair on his arms stand up.

“What are you gonna do, you scrawny little punk? You gonna kill me?” the man asked. The darkness gave it an eerie effect since it was just a disembodied voice coming from the nothingness.

“Yes, I am,” Kevin finally answered.

That brought a sudden silence. Once more, Kevin thought he might hear begging, bargaining, or perhaps impotent threats. A heavy sigh came.

“Then do it.”

There was so much in those words that Kevin cursed the same darkness that he was initially thankful for
, since it would prevent him from having to look into the eyes of a person he was about to murder. Yes, he could call it execution or anything else he liked, but his rational, intellectual mind would always call it what it was in reality: murder.

For a moment,
Kevin thought to ask the man a series of questions as to why he had acted the way he had with first the kids, and then Heather. It was something so foreign to him that he could just not comprehend the drive or motivation behind such things. He was a person who hated not knowing the answers.

“You just gonna stand there…you chicken out or som
ething?” Derek’s voice called. “Because if you are just gonna leave me like this…I will get loose and I will do everything I said I’d do…plus some. I ain’t gay or nothing, but I might just give you a work over out of spite, you pathetic little bitch.”

Kevin was more perplexed than before. What was the pu
rpose of these useless insults and threats? In that instant, he decided that he didn’t want to know. Like a virus, or the zombie plague, whatever was wrong with this individual might be contagious; spread by the passing of knowledge or insight—if that is what it could be called—to any who gave listen. Perhaps it would plant its dark seed in his own brain, and he would become…but no, he didn’t actually believe that.

The time for stalling was ended. Kevin drew the knife from his belt and knelt beside the prone form. He reached out, hand fumbling in the pure black of a moonless and cloudy night. He yanked the man’
s head back and cut his throat in one single, deep slash.

When the warmth spilled over his hands, Kevin received another surprise. His stomach roiled and he barely had t
ime to move away before he vomited. It felt as if his insides were trying to rip free from their moorings and empty into the muck with every bit of what little he’d eaten in the past who knows how many days. He continued to dry heave for several moments after. All the while, he was almost certain that he heard Derek’s wet laughter echoing in his ears.

Finally, when he was sure that his legs would hold him, he stood and made his way back to the building where the others would most likely already be asleep. He reached the door and was met by Trent Lomax standing just inside.

Kevin was still so wrung out by what he’d just done that he didn’t even react to the sudden appearance of a figure from the shadows. If he were being totally honest with himself, a small part hoped that a zombie would just step out and end it for him right now.

“That was some pretty hardcore stuff you just went and done,” Trent said, placing a hand on Kevin’s shoulder. “Jud
ging by your reaction, you either ain’t killed a living man yet…but that seems unlikely if you made it this long. Or, maybe you just don’t care for it that much. In either case…you are the man I want to follow.”

Kevin was dumbfounded. How could this total stranger simply commit himself to following another person based on so little knowledge? For all this guy knew, he could be a friggin’ idiot!
No
, the voice spoke up in Kevin’s mind,
the idiots have probably been weeded out for the most part by now
. All that are left are the folks that have survived on either brain…or brawn. Now it was up to natural selection to decide which of those two camps would dominate and lead humanity into the next era.

“I’ve had to kill a few…but never like this…never so…” His voice faded as he struggled for the right word. “Personal.” That was the one, he decided with an inner nod.