Books of the Dead (Book 3): Dead Man's Land (21 page)

I felt the vehicle start to rotate as the man standing in the trail slid out of my direct field of vision which now was filled with the flash of trees and dark green leaves whooshing by my face.    Futilely, I gripped the handlebars, trying to force my way out of the skid, but the ATV was having nothing to do with my efforts, and, in fact, I think, scoffed at them. 

The ATV bounced violently off a tree, sending a shockwave up my arms and spun nearly 360 degrees from the blow.  Nearly at the end of this out of control spin, I felt an impact on the back fender. It wasn’t gentle, but it wasn’t the sledgehammer it could have been.

The ATV faced back toward the complex when it finally came to a complete stop.  I didn’t wait for whom or whatever I had hit to recover, but yanked out my pistol. 

Whomever I’d just hit was splayed across the trail and looked completely out of it. 

Anthony watched from the ridge of the hill, a smile of satisfaction spreading across his face. Yes, it hurt to smile because of the scars from his burns, but this one was worth the pain. He was winning.

The people in the complex were putting up what looked like a token resistance. Anthony
did
concede that he was taking heavier losses than he had expected from his front line soldiers and they still hadn’t breached the building yet. 
In time
, he thought.   

He swiveled his head to look over to Felix, who was locked in total concentration as he maneuvered his soldiers into position on the battlefield. Felix’s soldiers were being battered by grenades and fierce fire coming from the first and second floors of the building, but that wasn’t going to last. The third floor was starting to burn as a result of the mortars Norman was dropping on the roof. The fire would burn the people out like rats. It was either burn or face down the undead. Not much of a choice, but one that he had engineered and he was just fine with that

Anthony’s smile widened, but then, the world changed – dramatically, because life was like that at times.  Felix’s head exploded in a corona of blood, and he fell backwards on the ground, his legs kicked convulsively and his arms stretched out above his head – or what was left of his head.  Blood pooled around his neck and shoulders in an ugly red puddle.

The sound of the shot followed, echoing in the hills.  Something in Anthony told him to get down, and he listened to this voice, ducking down just as he heard a whizzing noise, followed by the dull thud of the bullet striking the side of one of the buses.  Anthony frantically looked to right into the woods, and then to the south, he saw a muzzle flash.  An instant later, Norman cried out. 

Anthony shot his gaze in Norman’s direction and saw Norman down on one knee, holding his shoulder as blood seeped between his fingers. 

“I’ve been shot,” Norman cried out.  “Holy shit, I’ve been shot.”

“Get down, you idiot,” Anthony hissed as he fell to the ground.

Norman swiveled his head and looked at Anthony with an expression of disbelief, as if to say,
This isn’t supposed to happen.  We’re the winners.

Another shot came and Norman finally got the picture and threw himself to the ground. 

“What are we going to do?” Norman asked, his voice rising.

Anthony pulled out his pistol and said, “Two can play at this game.” He popped up and fired off three quick shots into the woods and then ran in a crouch, back toward a bus situated behind the other vehicles.

“What about me?” Norman asked, like a small child pleading for help.

“You have a gun!  Use it!” Anthony shouted back at him.

Anthony climbed onto the bus, and when he felt it was safe, he stuck his head up to survey the situation. Norman had his rifle in play and was firing unrestrained into the woods.  Limbs and leaves fell to the ground like snowflakes. Anthony thought he saw a dark shadow rush deeper into the woods, but he couldn’t be sure.

Rats are in the woods
, he thought.

Norman burned through a magazine and stuck in another one as he backed toward their tractor-trailer.  He fired a few shots more as he retreated.

Anthony’s fingers went to his control panel, and with carefully controlled finger presses, he sent Norman’s soldiers headed off into the woods in search of the
rats
. He looked out to the battlefield and saw Felix’s soldiers wandering aimless without direction. He ran his fingers over the keyboard again and re-engaged those soldiers, back onto the attack. The armored zombies went back into the fray, trudging toward the front of the main building.

Although his view on the north side of the building was now somewhat obscured, he saw something that was disturbing. Ryan’s zombies were no longer on their path to the back of the complex, but instead wandered aimlessly like Felix’s zombies had done.

A fissure broke in Anthony’s facade of self-satisfaction, and he shouted into his headset, “Ryan, what the fuck are you doing?”

Chapter 28

Facing the Enemy

Things were going slower at the dock than Russell wanted. Despite Joel’s outburst, only a few vehicles had left the building. There were still four trucks going nowhere fast. People milled about as if it were a breezy summer day and not a zombie apocalypse. Some internal clock told him that they were running out of time. He wanted to scream at these people, but knew he’d get  nowhere.  They didn’t know him and his credibility with them was quite low. He pivoted and looked around the loading dock, spotting Kara.  Maybe she could tell them?

He ran to her and said, “We need to get these people out of here.”  There was a slight edge of panic in his voice. 

“I know; I know,” Kara said while looking around at the half-loaded truck.

“People are taking entirely too many things,” Russell said.

“Hold on a second,” she said and turned her attention back to the interior of the truck, where Naveen, Madison, and Jason sat.  “Girls, don’t get out of the truck for any reason. Do you hear me?”

Both of the girl’s eyes went wide, and they just nodded. 

“Let me see what I can do,” Kara said, and then she strode across the dock to the other vehicles. When she got in among them, she put one hand to her lips and blew out one of the loudest and shrillest whistles ever heard. It was doubtful a gunshot could have been as effective.

All heads turned in her direction.

“Listen up, everyone,” she shouted.  “You need to stop taking time for supplies and get out of here.”

Some of the people stood still, vapid looks on their faces, but most
did
move and grabbed the last couple of items they could, leaving the rest littered around on the ground. Someone fired up the engines of two of the trucks and sped out of the dock area.

Steve Hampton and Mrs. Hatcher were in the vapid crowd and just stared at her.

What a pair
, Kara thought. 

Mrs. Hatcher broke from her spell and asked, “If you think we’re in such an all-fired hurry to get out here, little missy, then why are
you
still here?” 

“Apparently wasting my breath on you,” Kara said, pivoted, and went back to the truck.  When she got alongside the truck, she said, “We’re leaving in two minutes, with or without these fools.”

I stood over the body lying in the path, my gun trained on him when a voice exploded from the body, “Ryan, why aren’t your soldiers attacking?”  The voice was tinny, as if coming from a small speaker.  It also sounded supremely pissed.

I jumped back when the voice sounded, but kept my gun poised on the body. 

The voice shouted again.  “Ryan, respond immediately, or I will bring the lightning down on you.”

By now, I had figured the voice was from a walkie-talkie, and I leaned over the body and spotted an antenna sticking out of the vest pocket this guy was wearing.  He also had a side arm, which I quickly grabbed and threw back toward my ATV. 

“Maggie, hold your position on the north.” There was a brief pause; then the voice came back, “Ryan this is your last warning.”

I snatched the walkie-talkie up and pressed the talk key, “I have your man, asshole.”

“Who is this?” the voice asked.

I wasn’t sure who the voice belonged to, but I suspected it was our Lord of the Dead. 

“
Who is this
?” the voiced boomed from the speaker, vibrating the walkie-talkie in my hand.

“Someone who is going to kick your ass,” I said.

“You don’t want to make him mad,” a voice came from below me.  It was the guy I had nearly run over.  When I finally took a good look at him, I saw he was no more than a kid, maybe fourteen or fifteen.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because he’s a bad ass son of bitch, and when he’s mad, he’s liable to do something dangerous to you,” the kid said as he rose to his elbows.   

“You’re not kicking anyone’s ass,” the voice said.  “You’re going to die screaming when my soldiers get done with you. You and all your people.”

My walkie-talkie squawked to life, and Travis spoke, “Joel, I just took out one of their men and shot another one.”

I switched walkie-talkies and pressed the talk button. “I have one of their people. Where are you?”

“In the north woods, but I had to pull back because the one I wounded is shooting at me,” Travis said.

“Are you still there, rat?” the voice asked.

“Hold a second, Travis,” I said and switched walkie-talkies again. 

“Yes, I’m here asshole,” I said, “and I still have your man.”

“He is of little consequence to me,” the voice said, “watch and learn.”

The kid on the ground started screaming a second later, and it was a sound I never wanted to hear again.  The kid clutched a yellow collar wrapped around his neck as his body bucked and writhed about on the ground. His face went beet red and strained; the blood vessels in his forehead looked as if they might pop at any moment.  His movements were so violent that I had to step away, or he was going to take me down.

A part of me felt an utter helplessness, the kid’s agony was excruciating, but another a part of me felt he got what he deserved.

Suddenly, the convulsions stopped, and the kid gasped for breath, as if he had been drowning.  I thought I smelled something burning.

“Do you see?” the voice asked.

“I see that you’re a cruel and ruthless son of a bitch,” I responded.  “That’s not going to stop me from killing you.”

“Such big words,” the voice said.

“You should run,” the kid croaked out, “or he will kill you.”

“What about you?” I asked.

“I wish I were dead. He killed my family. He made me do this, or he’d kill me.”

It was then I saw this kid’s plight. What would I have done at his age? 

“What’s that collar?” I asked.

“It’s how he controls us.”

“Can’t you take it off?”

“It has fail-safe mechanisms. If we do, it will shock us. If we try to run, it will go off in twenty-four hours.”

“Are you listening to me?” the voice asked, this time, with no small sense of irritation.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said into the walkie-talkie.  “You talk big, but one of your people is dead, and another is wounded, and I have another one. I don’t think you’re such hot shit as you think you are.”

I pressed off the button and asked the kid, “What is this guy’s name?”

“Anthony,” the kid responded while he rubbed at his red and raw neck.

“How does he control all the zombies?” He started to answer, but I cut him off.  “I know about the individual controllers on the zombies.  How does he get the commands to them?”

“All of the buses and one of the trucks have transmitters.”

Just what I thought.

“How many people does this Anthony have?” I paused and added, “living people.”

“There were six of us with Rex.”

“Rex?”

“Yeah, Rex was his right hand man before Anthony killed him.”

“I will take great joy in killing all of you,” the voice broke in and said.

“Do you get this dialogue from old science fiction movies, or what?” I asked into the walkie-talkie.

The voice boomed again, “You think you can joke with me? You think you can
fuck
with me?”

“This is getting old,” I broke in.  “We’ll talk face-to-face soon enough. Until then, go fuck yourself.”

The voice started to rage at me, but I ignored it and turned down the volume as he continued to shout.

“Right now, he’s pissed at me,” I said to the kid, “so this is your chance to run.”
              “You’re letting me go?” the kid asked.

“I need your control vest first. Can you get that off without a problem?”

“Sure,” the kid said and started to work, unsnapping the hard plastic vest with a wide field of buttons across it.

“Think I could figure this out?”

“Not in a short amount of time.”

“Okay,” I said, still holding the vest, “I’m not sure if letting you go is a blessing, if what you’re saying about that collar is true, but it gives you a chance.”

He stumbled to his feet and took a couple staggering steps away from me. I think he expected me to shoot him in the back, but when I holstered my gun, he turned and sprinted off into the woods to the south. He disappeared into the trees in less than fifteen seconds.

I retrieved my other walkie-talkie and spoke into it, “Travis, there are four or five people up there controlling the zombies with a leader of some kind. Those buses and trucks have transmitters.  We have to take out the people or the vehicles.”

Travis broke in and said, “I’ll do what I can. I only have my rifle, and there’s somebody shooting from the hill.”

“Take out as many people as you can, but the leader is the key. Take him out if you can.”

“I’ll give it a try.  What are you doing?”
              “Leave the vehicles to me,” I said.

I jumped on the ATV, fired it up, and headed north on the trail, ducking under low hanging branches and doing my best to avoid encroaching trees. I came to a branch in the path that headed west, and I took it.  A showdown was in the making, and I only hoped that our team came out on top.