The Infected (Book 3): Nightfall (8 page)

Karen thought quickly,
“Baby, eat up and I promise I will tell you all about it when it’s bedtime.
Okay?” Karen and the tear ducts had come to an agreement. She would give them
most of the day off, but when the sun set and it was time for bed she was
allowed to cry herself to sleep.

Deal?
Karen pleaded.

Deal.
The tear ducts conceded.

Troy set his sandwich
down, “My stomach feels upset.”

Leon’s eyes lit up, “I
read about this in the medical handbook. Okay, he might feel nauseous and
that’s normal. It also said he could be fine in a few hours or a couple days.
It said everyone was different and it would be difficult to say how long it
would take for him to heal.” He paused for a moment to internally thumb through
his files. Okay, he found the next section. “We need to keep him alert, but try
not to make him think too much or do too many activities for the next few days.
Oh, and we need to keep ice on it for about twenty minutes at a time.” Leon
searched the far corners of his mind to see if there was any other tidbits of
info he needed to tell her, but that was it.

Troy leaned back in his
chair and rubbed his stomach. “I think I’m going to be sick.” He stood up from
the table and raced to the bathroom.

“He’ll be fine. Book said
it’s normal,” Leon said as he scooped the last of his dinner into his mouth.

Karen had also just
finished and in the nick of time. The nasty sounds coming from Troy in the
bathroom would have made it impossible to finish her meal.

“Once we get the windows
blocked up, then what?” Leon asked as he set his dirty dishes in the sink. He
tried his best to ignore the vomiting going on less than twenty-feet away.

“I don’t know. We have
food and water. We need you to get another ride. Other than that I really don’t
know,” Karen stood up, joined him in the kitchen and dropped her dishes off in
the sink too.

“Well I’m sure I can find
us a hot set of wheels. Most of these houses had a truck or car out front,”
Leon beamed with pride. He loved that his skills were so handy in this new
crazy world.

“Maybe you could show me
how to get a car going? Just in case.”

No one had ever asked Leon
to train them. He was the master and now he had an apprentice. The idea excited
him. “No problem. If we clear a spot in the garage we could pull a car in there
and I could show you the basics.” Leon really lit up about this new idea. Some
alone time with Karen. Just the two of them in the front seat of a car. It
would be like they were in high school and on a date. Except that they would be
in a garage with the world falling apart outside. He would show her what wires
to cross under the steering column instead of trying to touch her sweet
boobies. Plus her children from her current marriage would be there and constantly
asking questions, but other than that it would be just like a date.

Nice.

Troy reentered the kitchen,
one hand rubbed his belly the other was rubbing his forehead, “I think I broke
the toilet. It won’t flush. I keep hitting the lever and nothing happens. I
need to sit back down I’m getting dizzy.” Troy left the kitchen in a hurry and
headed for the couch in the living room.

Valerie smiled at her
sister, “Uncle Troy broke the toilet.”

“Uncle Troy broke the
toilet?” Robin repeated it and was also asking a question at the same
time. 

Great, the toilet is
broken!
Karen rolled her eyes. It
wasn’t like she could run down to the plumbing store and get a new lever. Then
the thought hit her.

What are we going to do
about bathroom breaks if the water gets cut off and we can’t go outside?

She closed her eyes and
gritted her teeth. One problem at a time. They needed to get this place locked
down and secure first. Then she would worry about where the hell everyone was
going to take their shits.

Jim felt his face go flush
and sweat instantly soaked his brow. He was frozen. Fear had taken complete
control. An asshole with a shotgun had got the drop on him.

How many of them were
hiding in the dark corners of this store?

Could Frank finish this
jerk off before the asshole squeezed the trigger on the shotgun?

Is Frank willing to
kill a human to save me?

“I said drop the spear!”
the voice called from the shadows.

Sara and Frank snapped to.
Frank had his rifle up and ready, but not sure where to aim yet. He stepped
close to Jim’s shoulder. Sara had her bat in the air, itching for a fight, but
it was not going to help much unless she could hit a fastball pitched by a
twelve gauge.

“Please, we don’t want any
problems. We thought the store was abandoned,” Jim pleaded.

The shotgun cocked. They
flinched and Jim raised his hands into the air.

“We’re low on ammo!” Frank
growled.

The man behind the gun
said nothing. Seconds felt like minutes to Jim.

Frank’s eyes adjusted to
the dark and he could make out the barrel waving in the air.

“No one has to get hurt
here!” Sara shouted into the darkness.

“Drop the weapons, or I will
open fire!” the voice sounded desperate.

Jim thought maybe he could
reason with this person.

“Look, my name is Jim
Blackmore, we have an injured man back at our place that needs the medical
supplies we picked up at RS Medical. Please let us go so we can save his life!”

BOOM!

The Stranger fired the
shotgun into the floor directly in front of Jim’s crew. The buckshot ripped
into the cheap carpet and then he cocked it again. Jim didn’t know what scared
him more, the pellets that landed at his feet or the sound that shotgun made
when it was cocked.

Jim dropped his spear
right away and Sara let go of her bat a second later. The weapons crashed to
the floor at their feet. Frank released his SKS and the gun swung by its
shoulder strap and ended under his armpit. They held their hands high in the
air.

“What do you want?!” Jim
screeched at the Stranger.

“Kick them over here and
drop that rifle.” The Stranger barked his orders. “On your knees, hands behind
your head!”

“Motherfucker!” Sara spit
the word out at him.

Frank unslung the shoulder
strap and laid his gun on the floor. They kicked their weapons across the floor
into the darkness. 

Jim gritted his teeth and
grunted as he dropped to his knees. Sara and Frank joined him on their knees.
What choice did they have? They weren’t trained negotiators, they weren’t
military, and there was no back up coming to save them. Jim’s hands slid down
the back of his head and stopped at the base of his skull.

They were fucked.

How many times was Jim
going to have a gun shoved in his face today? If they somehow got out of this,
Jim swore to himself that in the future they would be better prepared before
entering any building. He was not sure how he was going to be better prepared,
but he would be damned if he let himself and his crew get ambushed again.

The Stranger stepped from
the darkness. He was a weasel of a man with a thin body and a gaunt face. He was
dressed like an accountant in black slacks and a white button up short-sleeved
dress shirt. His brown hair was slicked over tight to his scalp and one of the
lenses in his glasses had a crack that ran rim to rim. He was the kind of man
that would give you the creeps if he stood next to you in line at the Post
Office. The guy every kid was warned about and no one went near his house. He
held the shotgun tight to his shoulder with one hand and gripped a set of
handcuffs in the other. He paused for a moment when he stood out into the
light. He looked over the humans on their knees. The Stranger’s face held a
smug smile. He was so satisfied with himself. No one else stepped from the
shadows. It was just the one weasel. That really pissed Jim off.

One goddamn Poindexter?
One guy had us trapped?

Something rattled the half
closed gate at the entrance of the store. The Stranger stepped farther across
the shop and opened fire.

BOOM! BOOM!

Jim glanced over his shoulder
at the front of the store. Two infected were released from their misery and the
extra buckshot peppered the back of the PT Cruiser.

“Keep your goddamn hands
on the back of your heads!” The Stranger cocked his shotgun again and aimed it
back at the gang on their knees. He kept the barrel pointed at them as he
pulled the gate shut. It slammed metal to metal, but the lock was shot off by
Frank so the Stranger used the handcuffs to secure the gate. The wristlocks
clicked into place around the metal frame and the gates door. Now they were
locked in.

“What the fuck do you
want? Money? Food?” Sara’s tone dropped.

The Stranger produced
another set of cuffs from his back pocket. He moved over to the group and stood
behind Frank. His lack of communication was driving Jim nuts.

What does he want?

If it’s not to kill us
then what?

Jim’s mind ran wild over all
of the different horrible scenarios that might happen to them. The Stranger
noticed Jim staring up at him so he cracked the butt of the shotgun into the
top of Jim’s spine. The wood stock landed just above the backpack strapped onto
Jim’s torso. The impact sent Jim to his stomach, his hands came off his skull
just in time to keep his face from crashing into the unforgiving floor.

“Leave him alone, you
animal!” Sara’s hands came off the back of her head to help Jim up. As she
reached for him the Stranger aimed the gun at her beautiful face.

“Do not touch him,” the
Stranger said with no emotion.

Pain radiated all through
Jim’s body. It felt like he pinched a nerve. Laying there on his belly he
clutched at his spine and grunted through the agony. His hands pressed down on
his spine trying to push the sting away, but nothing helped.

“Get up!” the Stranger
yelled at Jim as he grabbed Frank’s wrist and slapped one side of the cuffs
onto it. Then he pulled Frank’s arm down off his skull and placed it at the
small of his back.

Before Jim lifted himself
up off of the floor, his hands worked to nurse the bones of his vertebrae. As
his fingertips rubbed at his sore back the pinky on his right hand brushed
against the cold steel head of the hammer cradled in his backpack. The nose of
the tool peeked out from a small opening in the zipper.

The Stranger had Frank’s
other hand down off his head and at the small of his back. He clicked the last
cuff around Frank’s thick wrist.

Jim pretended to nurse at
his wound as he pushed himself up off the floor. He rocked back onto his knees
and pivoted himself on the floor to face the Stranger and hid what he was
doing. With both hands behind his head, he worked to get more of the hammer
free from the bag without the Stranger noticing.  

“This is bullshit, man.
The world is going to hell and you’re fucking around with us!” Frank’s words
grumbled out of his mouth.

That’s it Frank, keep
talking.

The Stranger stepped
around to face the mouthy old man. He held his shotgun inches from Frank’s
grizzled mug. 

“I got better shit to do
than sit around here with a pencil-dick like you.”

There we go. I almost
got it.

The Stranger squatted down
in front of Frank. They were eye-to-eye.

“Do you even have a
fucking clue? What are you doing?” Frank spit in the man’s face as he finished
the sentence. It landed on the Stranger’s glasses and hung from the black rim.

Just a little more.
Jim could feel that most of the head of the hammer was
free now.

“What do you want with
us?!” Frank flexed against his restraints.

“I am going to do things
to you,” as the Stranger talked his voice grew with excitement. “I am going to
do all of the things I have always wanted to do, but were too afraid I would
get caught.”

“You don’t have to hurt
anyone. You could let us go.” Sara pleaded with the monster.

He kept his eyes trained
on Frank as he spoke, “But I want to hurt you. I want to hurt you so, so bad.”
The Stranger’s upper lip twitched with anticipation. He stood up quickly and
stepped over to the counter. Another set of handcuffs laid out on the glass. He
snatched them up and moved across the floor towards Sara. She couldn’t help
herself and tears began to fall as she cried quietly. No matter how tough she
was this monster was too much for her to take.

“Stop that! Do not cry
yet! You will know when it is time to cry!” The Stranger grabbed a fist full of
Sara’s long red hair and snapped her head back. She yelped sharply.

All of the yelling and
gunshots had attracted a few more infected zombies to the gun shop’s front
door. The dead beasts pulled at the metal gate but the cuffs held firm.

“Let her go asshole!”
Frank fought to get to his feet.

“Well, look at this. We
have an audience,” the Stranger said as he used Sara’s hair like a handle to
pull her around to face the zombies at the entrance. She gripped his wrist and
pulled it tight against her skull trying desperately to keep her bright red
hair in her head, instead of it being yanked out.  

“I am going to give them
one hell of a show.” The Stranger belched out a full and hardy laugh.

Jim noticed the Stranger
was relaxed with his shotgun. It pointed lazily off to the side. This was his
chance. He had a good grip on the head of the hammer. Frank was yelling a
barrage of curse words. The Stranger was engrossed with the power he had over
the helpless humans and continued to laugh maniacally.

Jim had to move fast. He
mustered all of his strength and told his brain to calm down and shut the hell
up. He did not care how much his body ached. He needed it to move like a bolt
of lightning. Jim held the hammer upside down and he gripped the wood handle
tightly as the head of the tool poked out the bottom of his fist. Jim was a
fraction of a second away from preforming a one hundred percent true
hammer-fist on this weasel. Over the years he had thrown thousands of Krav Maga
hammer-fists in class. It’s when you make contact with the butt of you fist
against the target. It was a safe way to deliver a powerful strike with less
fear that you would break your wrist.

Jim leaped to his feet,
but was still in a crouched position, he caught the shotgun by the stock and
aimed the hammer-fist at the Stranger’s knee. When Jim made contact with the
knee cap it made a gut churning snapping sound. The Stranger squealed in agony and
pulled the trigger on his gun. The shot destroyed a nearby glass display case
of sunglasses. Jim cocked his fist and landed another strike dead center in the
weasel’s chest. A deep sounding crack resonated out of the Stranger’s torso.
All of the air huffed from his lungs like a bellows. Jim knew the man couldn’t
breathe so he used this moment to yank the gun from his hands. Sara saw her
opportunity to thank the man for a wonderful time and she delivered an elbow up
into his dick and balls.

As the Stranger stepped
back, the blunt force trauma to his knee caused it to buckle. He fell straight
back onto the floor. He gasped, one hand clutching his wrecked nut-sack the
other held tight to his sternum. The weasel wasn’t going anywhere.

Jim fumed. A rage burned
inside. The same white hot flame he felt when he first saved Sara in the
graveyard. He helped her up to her feet and released the shotgun into Sara’s
hands.

“Holy shit, Jim! I was
wondering why you were so quiet.” Frank called out across the shop, he had only
seen Jim fight against the zombies and couldn’t believe the speed and accuracy
in which Jim had delivered the strikes.

Jim let the hammer’s
handle slide out the back of his fist as he stepped closer to the Stranger
writhing on the floor. He chewed at his bottom lip and fought off the urge to
put the hammer through this asshole’s face.

He took a knee next to the
Stranger and grabbed him by the throat. As Jim leaned closer to the weasel’s
face he held the hammer in the air. Threatening to lay it down at a moment’s
notice.

“Where are the keys?”

The Stranger coughed out a
few half words but he was in no condition to talk yet. Jim released the man’s
neck and searched his pockets for the keys to the cuffs.

“What should we do with
him?” Sara asked as she helped lift Frank to his feet. Jim found the keys in
the Stranger’s back pocket.

What should we do?

How do you handle a man
like this?

Can’t take him to jail.
I can’t kill him either.

He tossed them up and Sara
snatched the keys out of the air. She released Frank from his shackles.

“I got a couple of ideas!”
Frank launched himself across the floor and dropped the heel of his boot into
the man’s ribs. A triplet of cracks popped from the Stranger’s ribcage. Another
set of zombies hit the gate at the front door. If they didn’t get going fast
they would have another horde of sixty waiting for them outside.