Dead South Rising: Book 1 (6 page)

David saw Mitch’s lip twitch, like he wanted to interject, but David’s glare shut him down.

Instead, Mitch tugged a rag from his back pocket and wiped his neck. Sucking the last bit of fire from of his own cigarette, he let the filter drop to the dirt, mashed it with his boot. Extinguished.

Despite the staggering heat, David’s heart pumped a cool calm through his veins. He couldn’t believe what he was feeling, this boundless influence, and that Mitch actually acquiesced to his critical demands. The balance of power had shifted in a second, without violence, without death. It was almost too easy. But David knew that it wouldn’t always be this easy. Or without violence. Or death.

Randy sat quietly on the bench rocker on the porch, an ATR long action bolt rifle in his lap. He wasn’t as good a shot as Mitch, but he did okay. Sort of. His eyes roved the large yard, the tree line, the driveway. With both Mitch and David gone to who-knows-where, and Jessica’s incapacitation, he was it. The first—and last—line of defense. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, grunting as he shifted his bulk, and wiped his face for the umpteenth time that morning. As hot as it was outside, it was even more miserable inside. To this, he said,
no thanks
.
 

He chewed his beard to pass the time, a nervous habit that started when he first grew one years ago. It comforted him and kept him, in some deep-seated psychological way, grounded in the now. It represented that baby blanket he had loved so much as a child, the one he had gnawed the edges down to frays. How he’d loved that thing.

He toyed with shaving several times since he’d grown the beard. But he just couldn’t let go. Scratchy and hot, it served only to amplify his physical discomfort. Even the others suggested he should. But it was a part of him. His baby blanket.
 

The rusty squeak of the screen door surprised him.
 

“Oh, thank god,” he whispered in a breathy exhale. He wiped his forehead again with the damp handkerchief, then fanned his pink face.

Jessica stepped onto the porch, one hand on the doorjamb, the other gripping the screen door. “I scare you?” One side of her mouth rose to the sky, the other lazy. She guided the door back to the frame, not allowing the rusty spring the chance to yank it back. No need in making noise and attracting unwanted company.

“I wouldn’t say scared, necessarily.” He smiled big for her.

She smiled back, a full one this time. She limped to the porch railing, a hand on her kidney, and half-sat, half-leaned against the wood. Picking paint chips, she shot cursory glances around the yard.

Randy started to chastise her for pulling her IV and coming outside, but he simply settled on, “Feeling better?”

She didn’t answer right away, but continued to fiddle with the flaking paint, flicking bits of it over the side. Finally, she said, “I think so. Starting to feel a little bit human again. Just had to get some fresh air.”

Randy nodded. “Good.” Then he added, “I’m sure you’ll be fine. David told me that was the last of the antibiotics in the place, so we lucked out.”

Jessica raised her brows, “Oh, yeah? Jeez, guess I am lucky, then.”

Another few awkward moments of silence slipped by before Jessica spoke again. “Do you think …”

“What’s that?”

She flicked another paint chip. It started to look like the yard had dandruff. She exhaled, looked like she was nibbling her cheeks to keep herself from speaking. “Do you think we’re safe—”

Randy cut her off. “Oh, yeah.” He nodded forcefully, his extra chins bouncing in agreement under his beard. “I think we’re safe here. I mean, we’ve got plenty of fish in the pond and water—”

“No, I don’t mean are we safe
here
.” She ran her fingers through her short, tangled tresses, choosing her words as though they were the combination to the conversation lock. “Do you think we’re safe … with Mitch?”

He twisted his lip.
 

She continued. “I know you two have been friends for years, army buddies from way back and all that. I get your loyalty to him. I’m not asking you to choose sides or anything. But, well …”

Sweat beaded on Randy’s furrowed brow while he listened intently.

“… I don’t know if the medicine’s got me talking or what, but …” She stole a large breath, holding it hostage, before finally letting it loose. “Before all this, I was planning to leave him.” She glanced at him for his reaction.

Randy’s brows raced up his forehead. The normally loquacious man sat speechless, which compelled Jessica to fill the silence.

“I had a suitcase packed and ready. I was just about to pick up the phone and call David to come get me when Mitch showed up, babbling on about … zombies … and the end of the world.” She shook her head. “I honestly thought it was some stupid juvenile trick to get me to stay, even though I hadn’t even told him I was leaving yet. I just assumed he had figured it out.”

Randy shifted, tugged at his soaked collar.

Jessica continued, like she was at Catholic confessional. “It got so bad, Randy, that at times I wanted to kill him.
Kill
him. Can you imagine? I was that desperate to get away. But he’d sweet talk me—baby this, baby that—and get me to change my mind.”

“Did he … hit you? I mean, you know … was he violent, and stuff?”

She shook her head sharply. “No, no, nothing physical. It was all verbal, the things he said. Those words. I’m telling you, those words stung more than any fist he could throw.”

“So … what now?”

“I can’t stay, Randy. I just can’t. Not with Mitch here.”

From behind thick glasses shot sparks of concern. “Where are you going to go? I mean, it’s not like you can just high-tail it out of here, crash at your mom’s or rent a hotel room or go to a women’s shelter. It’s dangerous out there—”
 

Randy was great with fixing people’s bodies, but struggled sometimes when it came to their hearts and minds.

“I know, Randy, I know. I’m telling you this because David mentioned this morning that it ain’t safe here, that we need to move on. I want to convince him to move on without Mitch. It’s no secret he doesn’t care for him. At all. He’s made that perfectly clear. I’m surprised they’ve lasted this long under the same roof.”

“I’m sure it has a lot to do with dead people walking around trying to take bites out of us.”

Jessica nodded, the ghost of a smile turning her pale lip. For some reason, the comment struck her as funny. Randy never failed to make her laugh, to feel better, even if it was by accident half the time. She quickly got serious again. “I’m sure it does. But I’m telling you all this because … well, I want you to come with us.”

Randy began rocking in the bench rocker, and weathered boards creaked angrily under his weight.

Sensing his nervousness, she added, “Mitch can take care of himself. He doesn’t need us. And we don’t need him.”

He twitched a nervous finger on the gun, mulling over Jessica’s proposal of dumping Mitch. He dreaded this day, this moment. Mitch treated him well, for the most part. Sure, he razzed him about his weight, his beard, his goofy glasses from time to time. But he’d been a good friend, like a big brother. Mitch could tease him, but dared anyone else to. If some jackass hurled hurtful sentiments, Mitch stepped in, shielded him. And if telling that person to go to hell and leave Randy alone didn’t work, his fists got involved, effectively ending it.

“Well?” Jessica asked.
 

He didn’t realize he’d not said anything for quite a while. “Can’t we wait until this whole thing blows over? I mean, David seems to think all this is temporary, that the government will get things sorted out—”

Jessica huffed, slapping her thigh. “Randy, take a look around. I’ve been stuck in the bed and bathroom for most of this, and even I can see that things ain’t going back to the way they were. Not any time soon, anyway. This is the way it is. If the government was going to do anything, they would have done it by now. It ain’t happening.” She crossed her arms, wobbling on her precarious perch, then settled her blank gaze on nothing. “We’re shooting … walking dead people, for Chrissake. How can we ever go back? How can things ever be the same again?”

Randy, too, had just assumed things were temporary. But Jessica was affirming what his heavy gut had been telling him all along—get used to it. Get used to the new norm. Get used to dead people shuffling around trying to bite you like oversized mosquitos. Mosquitos that just happen to require flyswatters in the form of a shotgun to squash them. Get used to no power, no grocery stores, no modern conveniences. Get used to fearing for your life every time you step out of the house, if you can stand to stay in the house. He already missed air conditioning and air freshener something fierce.

“Randy,” Jessica said, her shivering finger pointed at the tree line. Something scary lit her tone.

Then Randy saw why. He pressed to his feet, the rocker sliding backwards out from under him. He squeezed the rifle, holding it to his chest, dreading the inevitable. Squinting, he tried to confirm what he was actually seeing. He counted. Two of them, aimed straight for the trailer house.

“Jess—”

She was already off the railing and beside Randy.
 

He swallowed hard. The first and last line of defense. In that moment, he remembered watching monster movies featuring dead humans ambling about. The movies made it look easy. People knocking those things down with one shot while spinning in the air kung-fu style, or slashing them to bits with some fancy Japanese sword or crazy custom hatchet. How he wished this was all a movie.

The two figures moved closer.

Jessica nudged him. “Randy.” She plugged her ears with her fingers, ready for the
bang
.

He lifted the rifle, shouldering it, taking aim. Mitch had taken the nice one, the one with the fancy scope, but Randy didn’t think it would make a difference. This rifle held more bullets, and he figured he’d need every one.

He sighted one of the figures, the barrel wavering slightly, his breathing shallow and shaky. He recalled what Mitch had told him about controlled respiration to steady a weapon—inhale, exhale partially, hold, sight, squeeze …

He fired off a round, and both figures dropped into the high grass.

Jessica’s head darted back and forth. “Did you get him? I don’t see them. Did you hit them both?”

Randy shifted his glasses on his face. He couldn’t believe he had shot one of them, let alone both.
 

“I … I don’t see them.”

“There!” Jessica practically climbed his arm, pointing toward the dropped beings.

Randy saw a head peeking above the grass, and he aimed again. Not wanting to miss the figure or his chance, he quickly fired again. The shot echoed across the field, ricocheting off the trees. Jessica stood so close to Randy that the gun recoil nearly shoved her finger into her eardrum. The head disappeared, but Randy still couldn’t tell if he’d hit his mark.

Jessica pulled her fingers from her ears, her brows furrowed, her eyes narrowed. “Did you hear …?”

Randy’s ears rang, Jessica’s words a muffled mess. “What?”

She leaned closer rather than raise her voice. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“That.”

“I can’t …” Randy lowered the gun, stuck his pinky in his ear and wiggled it wildly, trying to clear the whistling in his head.

“Voices,” Jessica said. “I think they’re yelling something.”

* * *

Randy strained to hear, thought he heard something, but guessed it his imagination. Jessica would have to be his ears for a while, until the incessant ringing subsided.

Jessica pointed again, as if pointing would help him hear. “There! Do you hear it?”

“What is it?”

“Someone shouting.” She squinted against the harsh morning rays pummeling her vision.

In the distance, someone screamed, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

“Those ain’t shufflers, Randy. Someone’s out there. Someone
alive
.” She started toward the steps.

Randy hooked her arm, “Are you crazy? You can’t go out there.”

“They may need help.”

“They could be dangerous.”
 
His eyes pleaded. “And you ain’t well enough to be going out there.”

She seemed to seriously consider this, then nodded. “Yeah … You’re right.”

More yelling from the field. Then a hand peeking from the tall grass like a periscope. “Truce! We just want to talk!”

“What do we do?” Randy asked, his voice a near whisper. His nerves fired on all cylinders, sweat overflowed his brow, spilling into his eyes. He pulled his already soaked hank from his pocket, plucked his glasses from his face, and cleared the salty, stinging pools.

“They know we’re here.” She blew a breath, antsy fingers running through her hair. “Keep the gun aimed at them, let’s see what they want.”

When he could see again, he replaced his spectacles and his handkerchief, then re-shouldered the gun. He gave a quick nod.

Jessica cupped her hands around her mouth. “What do you want?”

The far-off voice said, “Just want to talk.”

“About what?” Her drawl seemed more pronounced the louder she yelled.

Whoever it was did not answer right away, and this concerned Jessica. She waited before hollering again. “I said,
about what
?”

“Mitch there?”

Randy and Jessica traded glances.

Jessica called out, “Who are you?”

Another brief moment of silence followed. More nervous glances, Randy gripping and re-gripping the gun.

“I said, who are you?”

 
“Sammy. Sammy Thompson.”

Jessica’s head rode a slow swivel, her jaw slack, her eyes tense. She burned a disbelieving stare straight into Randy. “Sammy Thompson? I thought …”

Randy let the barrel dip. “Mitch said Sammy died a couple years back.”

Jessica had only heard stories about Mitch’s older brother, Sammy. And they often involved women, weapons, drugs, and ultimately death. Hesitation and apprehension gripped them both, not sure whether to believe this man purporting to be Sammy Thompson.