Dead World (Book 1): Dead Come Home (18 page)

The news anchor was a young white woman with bright brown eyes. Her tailored blouse and jacket were crisp and clean. Her hair was styled and perfect, as was her makeup. She was calm, composed, and almost smiling as she started reading the headlines. Mike felt that her well-kept appearance and mild demeanor meant the news wasn’t reporting the entirety of what was really going on. He wondered how long the government would be able to avoid hard questions from the media. How long would they keep up this ridiculous riot façade?

Local police, county sheriff, fire department, and the highway patrol have recalled all off-duty personnel following a rash of fatal traffic accidents. More than twenty multi-vehicle accidents have brought the normally mild traffic of the area to a near standstill. Police officials have declined to comment on a possible cause for the surge of accidents. The extra officers are being deployed to help clear the accidents and get traffic moving again.

Mike flipped to one of the other local news channels. An older gent with terribly outdated hair and a tacky suit sat alone behind the anchor desk with the words “Trubble in Texas” at the bottom of the screen. Mike tried not to wince when he saw the painfully misspelled letters.

Dallas, Fort Worth, and surrounding communities have activated all available law enforcement personnel to shut down traffic coming into and out of the Metroplex. Officials said this will offer Tactical units and SWAT teams maneuverability to bring the riots under control.

The screen cut to footage that Mike had seen pieces of and heard about earlier—a young, panic-stricken woman with most of her ear ripped off, among other things. Joseph didn’t need or want to see any of it. He had seen enough carnage on his way out of Dallas, but he kept his eyes glued to the screen despite his repulsion.

The montage of footage was a mish-mash of pieces from professional cameramen in addition to short clips and low-resolution photos taken by amateurs with home video recorders and even camera phones. The montage started with a few shots of police officers behind their squad cars, which were completely blocking certain roads. The shot cut to a group of maniacal people surrounding and pounding on a small car with bare and bloodied fists. They broke through the driver’s side window and dragged the driver halfway out of the car. Then they fell upon their victim in mass, so much so the camera was blind to what they were doing to her. However, the woman’s screams for mercy were enough to give any viewer nightmares.

The picture cut to a small tactical unit firing teargas canisters into a group of “rioters.” The horde kept walking forward with the same toe dragging, forced steps that they’d seen more than enough times. One of the officers fired his sidearm when one female offender got too close. She took hold of his arm as he discharged his weapon. Her knee blew apart, she fell away, and her chest sprayed blood and bone as he emptied his weapon into her. The line of police officers in full riot gear began to move their barrier back. No one noticed when the woman the officer had just splattered all over the concrete stood up and rejoined the ranks of the “rioters.” Even the news anchor didn’t seem to see it, or at least didn’t say anything about it.

While Dallas and Fort Worth officers man perimeter roadblocks, National Guard and Reserve troops have been deployed to assist tactical law enforcement units dealing with the riots. As of six p.m. Central Standard Time, the President of the United States authorized the use of lethal force. All residents of the areas in and around the Metroplex have been ordered to stay indoors until further notice. We would like to emphasize to our viewers that you are advised not to make any attempt to rescue loved ones within the metroplex area.

Mike and Joseph locked eyes with one another.

“Looks like I got out of there just in time,” Joseph said.

The coverage returned to local news topics. The screen showed emergency workers crawling over a trio of wrecked cars fused into a single mound of disfigured metal. A handful of firefighters and paramedics swarmed around what looked like the bed of a pickup truck.

Mike had already seen more than enough to know three things with absolute certainty—one, Wichita Falls wasn’t getting any safer, and Bennett was probably right that west was the safest direction to go; two, like it or not, he and the P.O.G or “Person Other than Grunt”, Joseph, stood a better chance together than individually, and three, these infected people were impervious to pain, savagely cannibalistic, and would come crawling out of the woodwork if even one of them found “food.”

He glanced up at the clock on the wall.

“I’m gonna get some shuteye,” Mike said, sliding to the floor next to the TV. “You’ve got first watch. Wake me up around two. We’re hittin’ the road ‘bout six.”

Joseph channel surfed for about an hour. He knew that nothing new, or at least worth watching, was likely to be on the tube, given the state of things. Almost every channel was running the same useless information about Dallas and a few other major cities, telling everyone to stay indoors, and/or reporting the record-breaking frequency of car wrecks. He pulled out a random DVD and dropped it in the player. Turned out … he’d chosen
The Goonies
. Joseph hadn’t seen it since he was a kid.

Halfway through the movie, as he watched a young Asian kid plummet into a pit only to be saved by a spring-loaded set of false teeth, a light bulb went off in Joseph’s head. He crept into the closet and pulled out every pair of old shoes that they planned to leave behind. He sat back down on the chair, removed all the shoelaces, and began rolling them up into neat bundles.

The movie ended shortly before 1 a.m. Joseph browsed through the modest O’Connell family film library and selected another. Before he pushed play, he decided to go into the kitchen to get a pair of scissors and a plastic storage bag.

Joseph pulled the bedroom door closed behind him as he left. These things were like moths; they were attracted to any light or sound. He couldn’t think of anything else that would have gotten those things’ attention earlier. They had already made the mistake of leaving the front door open and the living room light turned on when they’d loaded their bags in the Blazer. It wasn’t a mistake Joseph planned to repeat.

The smell of death wafted from the back rooms, making him want to gag. He could hear the moaning and wailing of several of them as he passed the main entry hall. The sounds were too faint for them to be trying to get in. Joseph kept one eye over his shoulder just in case.

He moved slowly and stealthily into the kitchen, as though he was trying to sneak up on a late night prowler. He knelt to open the sink cabinet door … which, of course, creaked. Joseph cringed at the sound. A full minute passed before he did anything more than look side-to-side and listen. He didn’t hear anything to indicate that they’d heard him. He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. The outlines of sandwich and storage bag boxes were barely visible in the small amount of light escaping from under the bedroom door. He found storage bags in front on the left.

Joseph placed the box on the floor next to his booted foot. He shut the cabinet doors; they closed with a low squeak. He felt around for the countertop knife stand, where he remembered seeing a pair of scissor handles earlier.

Scissors and box in hand, he stole his way back to the bedroom. He opened the door just far enough to squeeze through. There was a soft click as the door latched into place. He pushed the towel back into its position along the bottom of the door and returned to his chair. He pushed play on the second movie, made sure the volume was as low as possible for him to hear, and unhooked the ice pick from his belt.

Joseph cut the end off one of the shoelaces. He wrapped it tightly around the handle of the ice pick. The string slipped a little when he tested it. He unwrapped it and started over. Slowly, he wrapped the shoelace around the handle, stopping every quarter turn to pull the shoelace tight. On the final turn he wrapped it around his pinky in order to leave a little slack for him to feed the extra string through. He fed the excess through the loop and secured it with a jerk. This time, when he tested it, the cording didn’t slip. He left about half-an-inch of the shoelace sticking out, tied it into a knot, and cut off what was left.

Joseph packed the remaining shoelaces into a plastic storage bag and shoved it into the backpack Mike had given him. He settled back into the chair and propped his feet up on Mike’s vacant seat. He’d chosen
The Monster
Squad, though he failed to find the irony. When the movie ended, Joseph stood up and stretched. The clock read 2:45am.

Crap … I should’ve woke him up already. Lucky bastard just got an extra 45 minutes of sleep.

“Mike wake up. It’s your turn for watch,” Joseph said, touching Mike’s shoulder.

Mike’s eyes snapped open and he lashed out instinctively, putting Joseph in a painful wristlock. He let go almost immediately, soon realizing where he was and what he was doing.

“Sorry man,” Mike said sincerely, “Should have warned you. Don’t touch me when I’m sleeping.”

“Least you didn’t break it,” Joseph said, cradling his tender right hand. “By the way, it’s almost three, and I didn’t fall asleep.”

“
Monster Squad
.”

Mike just stood there, rubbed his eyes, and shot a sideways glance at Joseph.

“Get some sleep, Joe. You’re driving first leg,” Mike yawned, then said with a smirk, “Besides, it’s the monsters out there we gotta worry about.”

Dead Come Home

Chapter 8

A Good Idea at the Time

Well … It sounded like a good idea at the time
, Mike would later think to himself.

The small town of Seymour had looked all but abandoned. Short of the tell-tale signs of past horrors that littered the streets, the place looked like a ghost town. At first, Mike had initially felt relieved to see that their drive through Seymour would be fairly trouble free. Then he’d seen four gigantic red letters painted across the white bricks of a small mason structure—G-U-N-S.

Guns they had, but Mike knew they were going to need more ammunition before they reached their destination at Hanse’s remote safe house in Arizona. They had a few hundred rounds for his father’s old
Winchester
. However, they only had about 50 rounds for the 9mm and the
Desert Eagle
had just a full clip of eight rounds.

As Mike scanned the vacant streets, those large red letters screamed opportunity. If they could loot a few more weapons, at least a shotgun or two (or three or four), and load up on as much ammo as they could find, he knew they’d be much better off.

“Guns, yes. But what ammo we have is gonna run out soon enough. And it wouldn’t hurt for us to have some shotguns on board. Round the block.”

“What?”

“Go … around … the block. Let’s make sure there ain’t a mob of dead guys waiting around the corner before we go exposing ourselves.”

“Okay. So zombies it is … and that
doesn’t
sound crazy to you?”

And it had been easy. They’d driven into the side alley and found a back door to the building so they weren’t exposed on the street. They’d smashed in the door with one of the sledgehammers and gone to work. The place was pretty slim on stock, but they’d been able to come away with a few boxes of .44 rounds for the
Desert Eagle
, as well as a pair of pump action Mossberg 12 gauges and two double-barrel 10 gauges. There had been plenty of shells for both, enough to fill two small duffle bags.