Badlands Trilogy (Book 2): Beyond the Badlands (11 page)

Ryan sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I think there’s an armory there, too,” Danny added.

Ryan’s face lit up at the mention of the armory. “You sure about that?”

“Yeah,” Danny answered, nodding. He wasn’t entirely sure this was true, but he said it with conviction. “Probably some good shit there. AR-15s and whatnot. Put a pretty damn big hole in the walkers.”

Ryan smiled, his eyes cold. “That does sound like fun.”

“But I don’t want to go to Kansas City,” Beth said. A protruding lower lip now accompanied her deep frown.

Danny could see Ryan’s expression change. Beth had a way of getting what she wanted and she seemed to be steering their ship in the opposite direction.

“We wouldn’t be going
to
Kansas City,” Danny added, “we’d be going
through
it. Just a stop along the way before we get to the ocean.”

The frown persisted on Beth’s face. “I don’t know.”

The sparkle returned to Ryan’s eye. “C’mon, babe. Guns and supplies. We won’t stay long.”

“Sometimes I think you love those guns more than me.”

“Babe, you know that’s not true.”

Beth folded her arms, locking Ryan in a stare.

“Come on, baby.”

“Alright then,” Beth replied. “But we go right through to the beach, you hear?”

Ryan grinned. “Come here.” He reached out and pulled her close, kissing her. As they broke their embrace, Danny saw Beth’s eyes follow him. They held a look, an accusation, maybe even a warning.

Then it was gone, as if it had never happened.

With the decision made, Danny folded up the map and jammed it into the backpack. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he followed his two companions to the railroad tracks.

Kansas City might just be a stop along the way for Ryan and Beth, but if Danny had anything to say about it, he’d be forever parting ways with them once they walked into the city. For now, he just needed to bide his time.

One minute Ryder was searching the darkness for the whore who killed his brother, the next a deadwalker had its teeth buried in his neck. Reflexively he grabbed at his attacker, dropping the flashlight. He found a handful of the deadwalker’s tangled and matted hair and pulled with all his might, attempting to force the carrier off, but it only gripped harder, sinking its overgrown fingernails into his shoulders.

Yelling, Ryder threw an elbow, connecting with the deadwalker’s face. It growled, biting down and tearing at his flesh. He threw another elbow, smashing the carrier’s nose. Blood poured. It lifted its teeth from his neck and released an ear-piercing scream.

He slammed two more elbows into the thing’s face, knocking it backward. It staggered, temporarily stunned. The carrier shrieked with teeth bared, lunging for a second attack as Ryder pulled the pistol from his hip holster and leveled it. He pulled the trigger and the shot exploded like a bomb. The carrier fell, hands clutching its stomach as it writhed and moaned on the floor.

With the carrier down, he turned to find the girl. Suddenly white-hot pain seared in his lower back. His legs suddenly gave out as he collapsed to the floor in a heap.

* * *

With all the strength left in her, Trish rammed the knife into Ryder’s back. He dropped fast and hard, knocking the gun from his grasp. It skidded across the floor, coming to a quick halt a few feet away.

“You bitch! I can’t feel my fucking legs!” he cried as he lay on the concrete floor, the knife still lodged in his spinal cord.
 

Near him, the carrier lay bleeding from the gunshot wound. The smell of blood and fresh feces from its exploded gut mingled with the odor of rotting meat and urine. Trish stooped quickly, retrieving the gun and the flashlight. The pistol went into her back pocket as she walked to where Ryder lay, still cursing her.

“What did you do to me?” he yelled, writhing as he struggled to retrieve the knife from his back.

Placing a foot on his back, Trish shoved him, pinning him face down on the concrete. Gripping the knife, she yanked hard, tearing it out of Ryder’s back as he fought. He yelled again, arms flailing as blood leaked from the knife wound, speckling the dirty concrete floor.

“I’ll fucking kill you,” he bellowed, grimacing and breathing hard. The carrier moaned loudly beside them, its voice traveling throughout the expansive warehouse. Trish walked quickly to the stinking monster, pinned its head to the floor with her foot and slashed its throat with the knife. The loud groaning quickly turned to quiet, wet gurgles.

Ryder continued to threaten as he dragged himself slowly across the warehouse floor. “I haven’t even begun with you yet.” His voice sounded labored and tired. “I’m gonna open you up.”

Trish surprised herself by laughing out loud. An image of the Black Knight from Monty Python’s
The Holy Grail
entered her mind, but she couldn’t bring herself to laugh. “Face it, Ryder. It’s over. You lost.”

“Bullshit. You don’t get to tell me when it’s over, bitch.”

Trish knelt in front of him. “If you have a god, I’d suggest you get right with him.”

Ryder glared back at her. “You don’t have the guts to kill me.”

She shined the light into his eyes. “I don’t have the guts
not
to.”

Ryder’s eyes widened as she leaned in with the knife.

Then a shrill scream tore through the air behind her. Only feet away, four figures limped out of the shadows, snarling and growling, closing the distance quickly. From the dark recesses of the warehouse more wailing erupted.

Trish knew that if she wanted to live she had only one choice.

She ran.

“Wait! You can’t just leave me here!” Ryder yelled, his voice diminishing as she darted through the darkness. The flashlight barely illuminated the way, its pale yellow light cutting only a few feet into the pitchy darkness. She gripped the pistol tightly, her finger resting on the trigger.

Boxes and equipment lined the shelves around her, creating menacing shapes in the shadows just beyond the flashlight’s reach.

Behind her Ryder screamed, his cries intermingling with the sound of the carriers.

She passed through the first aisle and ran into the darkened intersection of another perpendicular aisle. The darkness seemed to swell around her like a suffocating blanket. The howls echoed, bouncing off the walls until she couldn’t tell from where they’d come. She could think only to run, away from Ryder and away from the infected.

Another intersection approached, lurking and threatening. She rested her finger lightly on the trigger, readying herself. Anything could be waiting in those shadows. Ignoring the voice in her head telling her to keep running, Trish slowed to a walk and crept into the darkened convergence of aisles. She flicked the light left and right. Empty.

She picked up speed again and ran through another aisle, also empty. Brittle screeching surrounded her now, growing louder, as if the deadwalkers were gaining on her. She could imagine them tracking her through the darkness, their bodies twitching and jerking as they pulled themselves along, cornering her before tearing her to bits.

Another darkened intersection loomed ahead. She slowed, shining the flashlight, finger still poised on the trigger...

The carrier seemed to appear from nowhere. It screamed as the light struck its face, its eyes glowing. It snarled, recoiling from the unexpected blast of light. Reflexively, she raised the pistol and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

Panic tore through her. The carrier shook off the blinding effect of the flashlight, taking a deep breath and belting out a ferocious screech. Its black eyes pierced her as its body tensed, ready to leap.

She squeezed the trigger again. Nothing. Glancing at the gun again she quickly found the problem.

The safety.

The carrier leapt just as Trish released the safety. She aimed and pulled the trigger. The muzzle flashed and then the carrier was on her. She pulled the trigger again, point-blank, punching a softball-sized hole in the carrier’s back as the bullet exited its body.

Trish and the carrier landed together in a pile on the concrete. Warm blood leaked onto her shirt, the thing’s matted, stinking hair fanning out over her face, falling into her open mouth. It reeked of sweat and filth. The smell overwhelmed her and she vomited bile onto the floor.

Summoning up her strength, she shoved the dead carrier aside and stood. Wailing and moaning erupted from the Stygian shadows, more intense than before. Stunned and running on adrenaline, she kept moving. She no longer slowed at the dark intersections between the aisles. The flashlight bobbed as it cut through the murky darkness, the sound of her own breathing filling up her ears like the repetition of a ticking clock.

She nearly hit the wall when she reached it. She skidded to a quick stop and frantically searched for an exit. Seeing none, she found herself at a crossroads. If she chose wrong it could be the last decision of her life.

Without the luxury of time, she chose a direction. Around her the shrieking seemed to multiply, blending into a horrific chorus. She could almost see the infected taking shape in the shadows around her.

Moments later, another flick of the flashlight revealed the red reflection of an EXIT sign, beckoning to her from above a heavy metal door. She slammed into the door’s panic bar with all her weight.

It didn’t budge.

Her shoulder and hip sang with pain.
No
, she thought.
It can’t be locked. Not when I’m this close.

Desperate, she reared back and slammed her body harder into the door, her hip again triggering the panic bar. The jammed door groaned on rusty hinges as it gave way, popping free so quickly that she lost her balance and tumbled forward onto her hands and knees. Rough pavement shredded the skin from her palms and tore small holes in the knees of her jeans.

Ignoring the pain, she pulled herself to her feet again. She glanced back at the door, sure that a stream of deadwalkers would immediately emerge into the dark night, right on her heels. The doorway remained empty, only wild moaning and manic screeching funneled through.

A half moon hung in the sky, covered mostly by clouds, casting the palest of light. It wasn’t much, but it was enough by which to navigate. She turned off the flashlight and ran. Behind her the carriers’ screams intensified. Her legs burned as a stitch formed in her side, threatening to slow her down to only a walk.

Then she caught sight of a dumpster, no more than thirty yards away. A dumpster had saved her life once before and she hoped could again. Without looking back, she bolted toward the giant trash bin, taking deep breaths, hoping to mitigate the crippling pain in her side. She closed the distance quickly, keeping her attention focused. All that mattered was getting to that dumpster.

She ran into the thing when she got to it. Frantically she lifted the lid, tossing the flashlight and the pistol into the dark interior. She placed a foot on the square outcropping welded to the side of the metal box and dove in headfirst, striking her already bruised hip on a rough wooden pallet. She eventually came to rest upon bags of old, desiccated trash.

She sat as still as possible inside the dumpster, cloaked in darkness, trying desperately to quiet her panting. Her side ached and her head still hurt from whatever drug Ryder had used on her.

Moments later, she heard the first sounds of the infected; feet striking pavement, grunts and moans, growling and shrieking. The dumpster shook and she nearly screamed. The minutes passed slowly as the infected kept up their search outside the confines of the dumpster.

Eventually exhaustion overtook her. She drifted off to a fitful sleep, still clutching the pistol in her hand as the carriers ambled about the warehouse’s parking lot, unaware their prey was right under their noses.

“Are you boys hungry?” Rose asked once inside the house. She sifted through her backpack and pulled out a few cans. “We have some soup in here. And some Sterno we can use to heat it up for you.”

“That’s okay,” Zach replied. He sat beside his brother on a couch in the living room. “We have some food in our bags.”

Max waved away Zach’s objections. “It’s okay. Seriously. We’ll share.”

“It’ll only take a few minutes,” Rose said. “It’s no trouble at all.”

“Well, I guess so.”

“How does chicken noodle sound?”

Both Jeremy and Zach nodded. Rose smiled in return.

Max placed both backpacks on the floor next to the boys. “Here you go. Told you we’d take good care of them.”

“Thanks,” Zach said, pulling the packs closer. Having them back again made him feel a little less anxious.

“Those are pretty heavy. You guys are stocked up, eh?”

“We’ve spent a lot of time on the road.”

“Us too, before we ended up in St. Louis.” Max turned toward Rose, who was now removing the lid from a can of chicken noodle soup. “How long have we been on the road now?”

“Ever since-” Rose began, stopping as quickly as she’d begun. “A few years now.”

She and Max exchanged a furtive glance, so quick that Zach wasn’t sure he’d seen it.

“It’s good to cook for someone again,” Rose said, looking up from the warming pan.

Max went to her and wrapped an arm around her waist. “How long was your family in St. Louis?”

“About a year.”

“Are you from there?”

“No. We walked there from the east coast.”

“Geez. Just how long were you guys on the road?”

“About three years.”

“You weren’t kidding about being on the road a long time. You guys were lucky.”

“Yeah.” Zach paused. “How long were you and Rose in St. Louis? I don’t remember seeing you guys there.”

“Not long. Only a couple of months.”

“What do you think happened? You know, with all the explosions?”

Max shrugged. “Don’t know for sure. Hard to believe it was an accident though.”

“You think somebody did it on purpose?”

“Seems that way.”

Jeremy frowned. “Why would somebody do that?”

“Hard to say. You know how crazy people can get.”