A Little More Dead (5 page)

Chapter
Eight

The good news was they crashed next to
an empty field where nothing could sneak up on them except the wind. The bad
news was the rig wasn’t going anywhere ever again. The crinkled right front end
looked like an accordion, the tire beneath it peeled off the black rim.

“
Unfuckingbelievable
,”
Paul muttered, staring at the mangled tire.
“Of all the times
for something like this to happen.”

Dan frowned at him. “Don’t tell me you
let your Triple
A
run out.”

“Are you ever serious?”

“Oh yeah, look who’s talking!”

Paul kicked the tire. “Fucking airbags
didn’t even deploy. We could’ve been killed.”

Dan released a white stream of breath.
“My underwear is starting to freeze.”

“Shit!”

The wind stung their cheeks and eyes and
the worried looks staring back from inside the car broke Paul’s heart. This
wasn’t good. They had kids now to think about for fuck’s sake!

“There’s
gotta
be a car we can snag at the next exit,” Dan said, shielding the sun with his
hand.

Paul followed his distant gaze south,
squinting against the bright white. What other choice did they have? They would
have to hoof it from here, and even though six or seven hours of daylight
remained, they had to hurry. “Let’s grab everything we can carry and get going.”

Sophia was a strong twenty-eight year
old woman and had grown a lot stronger over the past week, but when she found
out they would have to walk…she finally lost it. This would be the first time
they went anywhere on foot and she didn’t want any part of it. None of them
did.

“I don’t
wanna
do this anymore,” she said faintly, tears glistening on her cheeks.

“I don’t either, Sophia, but we don’t
have a choice.”

Fortunately, they’d only come across two
walking corpses all day and that was way back when they got on the interstate.
At first glance, Paul thought they were hitch-hikers, but quickly realized they
were two Schwan’s guys with no interest in delivering frozen pizzas and corndogs
anymore. Purposely ambling into the SUV’s path, the men tried stopping them on
the ramp but Paul swerved around the gruesome twosome and kept going. He prayed
their luck held out on foot and things remained just as quiet.

“This is a bad idea,” Carla concluded aloud,
literally shaking in her boots outside the open tailgate.

Paul stuffed his coat with full clips
and boxes of ammo. “You got a better one?”

Carla looked around. “Yeah, let’s stay
in the truck and wait for someone to come along.”

“The only person that is going to come
along,” he started, looking down to Mike and Matt and swallowing the rest of
his statement.

Dan clipped a spare holster on Carla and
showed her how to shoot a nine millimeter without actually firing it. The last
thing they needed right now was to attract unwelcome attention. Her new weapon
clicked as she practiced loading and ejecting the fifteen round
clip
.

Paul insisted everyone keep their
safeties off. Safeties were for dead men now and reaction time was everything.
He assured Carla they would get some target practice in after finding another
vehicle, but for now silence was golden.

“Where’d you get these guns?” she asked,
aiming out over the field and staring down the sight with one eye closed.

“Some we had, the others we looted from
a gun shop on the way out of town,” Dan told her, straightening her arms.
“There was hardly anything left.”

She popped off a pretend shot and turned
to Dan.
“Once in the head, huh?”

His brow folded. “Yeah, haven’t you ever
seen
Night of the Comet
?”

She snorted and holstered the weapon. “I’m
more into
rom-coms
.”

Paul rolled his eyes and didn’t bother
shutting the tailgate. A few hundred yards later, they crested a gentle hill,
the wind painting their cheeks red. He took one last look back at his
incapacitated truck. Sunlight gleamed off the black paint. The Jeep winked at
him and then it was gone. Turning back around, he plodded through the thick
snow and wiped his nose with his glove. “Unbelievable.”

“Two Miles!” Dan shouted out from behind
a pair of binoculars.

Paul squinted up ahead.
“Gas station?”

“And a McDonald’s,” Dan reported,
focusing on a blue interstate sign down the road.

“There has to be a car there,” Carla
said, fidgeting with her new sidearm.

“And a kid’s
meal!”
Matt added.

“You hungry, buddy?” Paul asked,
watching his boots disappear into the snow with each step.

“I’m starving.”

“We’ll find something soon. I promise.”

When the woods crept closer to the road,
Paul kept seeing blood-thirsty fiends spring from the tree line out the corner
of his eye. Just like the deer. The trees were bare but there were so many of
them in
places
it would be easy for someone to get the
jump on them. He flexed his cold trigger finger, worried his stiff joints would
flub the shot at the worst possible time.

“I’m so scared,” Sophia whispered, peering
into the woods like she’d just seen some of Paul’s imaginary flesh-eaters
herself.

“Everything is going to fine.” He
wrapped an arm around her as the snow crunched beneath their boots and the cold
wind stung their faces. “We’re almost there.” A shriek went off up ahead,
making them stop. Even the sunshine couldn’t wash away the horror lurking in
that scream.

“Damn,” Dan muttered, stopping to rest
his shotgun between his legs and break out the binoculars again.

Carla drew her gun, eyes wild and jumpy.
“Why do they keep doing that?”

“You just take it easy,” Paul told her.
“And keep that thing holstered for now. Do not shoot me.”

“Looks like we’re definitely going to
have company,” Dan said glumly, peering through the glasses.

Paul sighed, a sinking feeling in the
pit of his stomach. “Let’s just get there before we freeze to death.”

The snow made it a much longer walk than
it appeared. The quiet didn’t help matters either. It was too quiet. No cars,
no planes, and no snowmobiles racing up and down the white countryside. The
woods crowded both sides of the interstate now, pressing against Paul’s lungs.

“I wish I could talk to my mom,” Sophia
muttered, concentrating on her footing.

“I know you do.”

Her watery gaze swung over to him. “I’m
sorry, Paul. I don’t why I said that.”

“It’s okay. I’m sure she’s fine.”

Sophia studied him for a moment and
could tell he was lying. “I just really miss her.” She turned her attention
back to where she was stepping and Paul didn’t respond. Two years ago, her mom
took a job in Chicago and Paul knew she didn’t stand a chance in a city that
size. Not without guns. Sophia knew it as well.

“I don’t even have a picture,” she said
distantly, her sniffles multiplying like wet Gremlins. “Sometimes I think I’m
starting to forget what she even looks like.”

Paul blew out a long breath. She
couldn’t have picked a worse time to throw a pity party. They needed to stay on
point. Anything could happen at any second. His heart ached for her as he
searched the woods for the perfect words to make everything better. But there
was nothing to find. Right now someone had to focus because another scream just
came from the gas station gradually getting closer.

Chapter
Nine

Paul passed the binoculars back to Dan,
who peered through them again. They stood at the beginning of an exit ramp with
an old Shell station sitting on the other end and a new McDonald’s across the
street.

“He’s just doing circles,” Dan whispered,
rotating the dial in the middle.

“Just the one?”

“Hard to tell.
There’re two
cars at the pumps but that’s all I can see from here.”

“I say we cut through this field and
sneak up from behind,” Paul said. “Come around the front and start blasting
until we find some car keys in somebody’s pocket.” He looked back to the others
for any better ideas. No one spoke and, in his book, silence was consent.

He eyed Carla and the boys. “You guys
ready for this?”

They nodded with chattering teeth,
looking like they were about to skydive for the very first time.

Dan stuffed the binoculars into his coat
pocket as Paul double-checked his weapons for the umpteenth time before quietly
leading them into the snow-covered field basking in the sunlight. A pheasant
fluttered into the air from a nearby patch of thickets. Everyone drew on it in
a heartbeat. Cooing, the game bird stopped flapping its wings and glided across
the field ahead of them, scouting out their bumpy path.

Dan lowered his shotgun, watching the
ring-neck disappear into a distant tree line. “We should’ve shot it.
Could’ve had pheasant
McNuggets
for
lunch.”

“Gross,” Matt groaned.

Paul trudged onward. “Let’s keep
moving.”

“Hey, shouldn’t I have a gun or
something?” Mike whispered to Paul, plodding through the deep snow.

“Maybe we’ll get you a knife instead.
How does that sound?”

His eyes lit up.
“Really?”

“Yeah, maybe a
Rambo knife or something.”

Mike frowned. “What’s a
Rambo
knife?”

“
Ya
know, from
the movie.”

His eyes narrowed. “What movie?”

“Never mind.
We’ll get you
something later, big-timer. I promise.”

“What about me?” Matt piped in, trying
to keep up. “I’m a Cub Scout!”

“You are?”

“And this one time I helped an old lady
cross the street.”

“Wow,” Paul smiled. “That was really
nice of you, Matt.”

“Yeah, but she smelled like chicken
soup.”

“That’s not good.”

“Yeah, and this other one time I killed
a werewolf.”

Paul stared down at Matt, eyebrows
dipping beneath his ski cap. “You did?”

“Don’t listen to him,” Mike said. “He
also thinks he can create force fields around him.”

“I can and you know it,
Mikey
!”

“Then let’s see
ya
stop this.” Mike pelted his younger brother in the face with a snowball and
laughed.

Matt brushed the snow from his eyes,
face
turning a bright shade of blistering red, and charged,
tackling Mike to the ground in a plume of white powder.

“Whoa!” Dan said, stopping as they
tumbled at his feet.

“Matthew!” Carla rushed over to untangle
them. “You two are going to get us all killed! This isn’t a joke. People are
dying and you’re out here playing?!”

Paul glanced at Sophia, who mirrored his
nervous expression.

They looked around and then kept walking,
the backside of the dated gas station getting larger with every step.

“So,” Matt said, working his short legs
to catch back up to Paul. “Can I have a rainbow knife too?”

“
Rambo
knife,” Paul corrected. “And we’ll see what we can find.”

“Hey Paul?”

He looked down to Mike. “Yeah buddy?”

“Will there be a Christmas this year?”

He swallowed hard. “Of course there will.”

“How do you know that Santa didn’t turn
into one of those things?”

Paul opened his mouth and paused. “Because
his reindeers can fly and they all got away.”

“Even the elves?” Matt asked.

“Even the elves.”

Mike frowned. “What about Mrs. Claus?”

“She got away too,” Paul replied,
watching Sophia crack an actual smile that warmed his heart. “Who do you think
was driving?”

Mike mulled it all over for a few
seconds in his head, high stepping through the snow. “I don’t want Santa coming
down my chimney if he’s one of those things.”

Paul smothered a laugh.

“Why? Will Santa eat us instead of the
cookies we leave out for him?” Matt asked, catching back up and quickly falling
two steps behind.

“Just keep walking boys,” Carla urged,
saving Paul the trouble of answering such a morbid question.

“If I have to,” Matt panted, “I’ll take
Santa out with my Nerf gun.”

Paul smiled. “Now you’re talking.”

The gas station grew larger while visions
of dead Santa danced through Paul’s head. He imagined a bloodstained St. Nick
absent-mindedly knocking a plate of cookies to the floor with a clatter before
lumbering upstairs to where the children were nestled all snug in their beds.
Shaking the grisly thought from his head, he tightened his grip on the Mossberg
500. One way or another, they would have Christmas again.

He refused to let those things win.