Dead South Rising: Book 1 (16 page)

David had considered setting the trailer ablaze when they left, erasing a bad memory of a bad time. Removing any and all temptation to return, though he doubted they ever would. Why would they? But he thought better of it. Thought it might draw unwanted attention. Besides, leaving it in tact might delay Mitch, he reckoned. But now, he’d almost wished—

His hand was twisting the key before he realized it, and the burly Dodge’s engine ground with gusto, blowing black clouds, vibrating on its huge frame—a thoroughbred just waiting for the gate to spring. David swore he thought he saw Mitch turn and run toward them. His eyes glued to the mirror, he watched, but no one came. None that he could see, anyway. Maybe Mitch knew what was happening, expected it. Let it.

David cupped the gearshift knob, scratching into first, the dually lurching. They started down the drive, David taking it faster than he normally would. It was like a bad flight full of turbulence, wondering if the plane was going to fall out of the sky. Stuff and people shifted roughly, and all were vocal.

“Be at the end of the drive soon, guys.” David’s foot pressed harder, engaging second gear. Still, the dually commanded the rough driveway much more handily than the rental car ever had. David suspected the unsparing driveway had just as much to do with the demise of that vehicle than any other factor.

Despite his reassuring comments, his heart punched his sternum, his lungs, his ribs, his retreating soul. He felt like he couldn’t go fast enough, that Mitch and his brother and Gills were all breathing down his neck, nearly on top of them. Logically, he knew this wasn’t possible. But he felt it. Couldn’t help feeling it. That fear a little kid has, running through the woods as it’s getting dark, trying to make it home, feeling like something is right behind him, right on his heels. Claws catching wisps of hair. Drawing closer, until—

Both feet. David used both feet to stand on the brake, the shuffler coming out of nowhere. The truck slid slightly sideways, but he still hit it. The motor died, jerking the vehicle as it did. This frightened David for a moment, until he realized that he’d taken his foot off the clutch to press the brake. He started it back up right away, mentally thanking Jimmy and Angela for taking such good care of the Dodge. It ran like a champ despite David’s unintentional attempts at trying to destroy it.

“Everyone alright?”

Nods all around.

“Alright.”

He wasn’t sure what became of the shuffler he’d just made into roadkill, but he quickly decided it was pointless wondering. But something poked at his conscience. He wasn’t completely one-hundred percent sure that he’d hit a shuffler. Could have been a live person. Maybe.

But there was no reason for a living, breathing, thinking being to be walking up the driveway, right? Especially one that wasn’t smart enough to get out of the way. Stay out of the way. It wasn’t like the heavily grinding engine couldn’t be heard from a mile away.

A shudder rattled him, and he glimpsed the rearview mirror. It was a body. He could see it in the wash of taillights’ red glow. He thought he saw the heap move, but couldn’t be sure. He also thought he saw three men running after them, too.

Paranoia kicked him in the ass, and he grated gears until he was back into first, the rear tires spinning, branches clawing the sides of the truck. On the move again, his lungs opened up. Finally, they reached the end of the drive, a highway of freedom in front of them. Two choices: right or left. East or west.

“What do you think, hoss?” David asked, the blacktop pumping new life and relief into his exhausted soul.

Randy looked left and right several times, not wanting to make the decision. “I don’t know.”

David pivoted his head, peering into the backseat. “What do you think, champ? Left or right?”

Bryan scratched his chin, pondering the proposed question as though it were the most important one he’d ever been asked. “Mmmmm … right. Because we should always do the right thing.”

David smiled, and turned his gaze back to the road. “I like it, champ.” The boy had an uncanny way of making him feel better.

He shot one last glance into the rearview mirror to satisfy his own paranoia about being followed, then turned right onto the two-lane rural blacktop.

Despite the feeling of being followed, he forced himself to slow the truck down. The speedometer seemed to chastise him for going so fast, the needle wagging at him like a scolding finger redolent of his father’s.

Slow down, son. Gonna kill somebody.

Too late, dad.

Plus, once in a while, he’d see a shuffler ambling along the shoulder or in the middle of the road itself.
 

He felt like they’d escaped a horrible fate today and didn’t want to jeopardize their safety now.

He settled back into his seat. Randy was quiet, staring straight ahead. Bryan was quiet also, but awake. Jessica had fallen back asleep, no doubt from the residual effects of the pills. She probably wouldn’t be up again until tomorrow. He’d let her be.

Ahead, he could see the reflection of the truck’s headlights off the rental car. He slowed, curiosity tugging hard at him. He knew Mitch made it back, didn’t expect to see the Harley lying in the ditch anymore, but something made him slowdown. Something still off about the scene. He slowed the truck to a near crawl, but didn’t stop.

Then he saw it. In the dark underbrush, just at the edge. Something that gave him chills that no shuffler could give him. Something now scarier than the dead—the living.

PART TWO

The Great Pretender

The stranger stepped from the gloomy underbrush just as the growling dually rumbled by. A Camel cigarette resided on his lips, the cherry glowing red hot when he inhaled. He plucked the vice from his mouth, giving it a flick, then let it dangle at his side to keep one of two Ruger Vaqueros company. With his thumb and forefinger, he smoothed his wispy mustache, then adjusted his wide-brimmed hat. He wore a black leather duster, collar turned up around his neck despite the sweltering heat. He had his reasons.

But this was no stranger. Not to Bryan, anyway. And not to Jessica. They knew his voice. One had looked into his eyes. He doubted he had made a positive first impression on either. Mission accomplished.

He watched the pickup accelerate away, the grinding gears telling on the driver, a driver not accustomed to piloting a manual transmission. For a moment, he thought the dually was going to stop, maybe ask if he wanted a lift. He would have declined the invitation, of course, if one would have come. He had a job to do here.

Thick diesel fumes hung on the air so heavy and dark he could practically taste them and see them in the night time sky. He tried to kill them with another drag of nicotine, and it helped. But he still got what he wanted from the ruckus of the six-wheeled machine rolling by.

The man could already hear them moving about, stirred by the noisy truck. All around him. With only the starlight and scythe moon to guide his steps, he stepped carefully through tall grass and around the abandoned car in the ditch. He leaned his backside against it, crossed one ankle over the other. Flipping back the front edges of his coat exposed the two wheel guns holstered on either hip. Fourteen shots—six in one, eight in the other. With the progress he’d made over the last few weeks, he doubted he’d need more than that. Another drag off the Camel filled his lungs, and he relished the hit. He dreaded the day he ran out.

Moaning from across the road. Squinting, he couldn’t make anything or anyone out. The biter must still be somewhere in the woods. Snapping branches confirmed this, actually made him feel a little more at ease. He had time. Then a dragging sound. On the highway. Twenty … thirty yards, maybe?
 

His eyes were adjusting, albeit slower than he would like. Night after night and day after day, he walked these woods, this stretch of highway, looking for what was once his. He couldn’t sleep, wouldn’t sleep, until he found … her. And he couldn’t have some backwoods redneck mistakenly taking her from him. Maybe his little radio announcement earlier in the day had done its job and scared some of the local yokels away. Maybe that was them in the dually. The kid from that morning, Bryan, didn’t seem all that scared. But he was sure his dad or Jimmy or whoever was driving would be rattled by the story of some legendary gunslinger emerging from the woods, engaging defenseless children in duplicitous conversation. Perception was reality, after all.

Gunshots earlier in the evening concerned him. He had heard them just minutes before the diesel pickup passed by. Actually, anytime he heard shots, his nerves went on high alert. Not because he was worried for himself, that he’d take a bullet or spray of buckshot to the face. No, he was proficient enough to defend himself against an attack of that nature.
 

And he was, quite frankly, content rubbing shoulders with those less-than-alive. They were rather sluggish, most of them. Inattentiveness, carelessness—those were the real dangers.
 

If he couldn’t see undead coming, he could typically hear them. Or sometimes smell them. For supposedly being dead (according to the news reports), their pungency really didn’t bloom until they were truly killed. It was almost as if they’d been preserved, dipped in formaldehyde or something. Glaze-covered donuts, but not near as sweet. That walked. And bit the living.

But once put down for good, they reeked to high heaven. Absolutely odious. It was as though the decay process was accelerated, squared. Cubed. Something. It was horrible. And he couldn’t let that happen to her, his Kate. It was his Kate that concerned him.

His Kate.
 

When they met ten years ago, he deemed it not simply fortuitous, but rather a relationship ordained by heaven itself. She was perfect in his eyes, not a blemish inside or out. She was his everything. She understood him, she got him. Loved him. Only him. And when she fell ill, he prayed hard to that same heaven that had brought them together under the most perfect of circumstances to fix her. Make her better.

But then that heaven, that same benign bliss above, reneged on the agreement. It wasn’t the same halcyon heaven he used to thank everyday. Like the biters that now roamed the woods, it was still up there, pretending to be alive. And he no longer wanted anything to do with it, would hawk on it if he could spit that far. The pearly gates could burn for a thousand years for all he cared. Then he wouldn’t waste his precious saliva, wouldn’t want to risk putting out the condign flames.

When he found her, he would take care of her, until heaven changed its mind and fixed her. Made her better. He would not give her up. God help anyone who tried to stop him.

He pulled a Ruger Vaquero .357 pistol from his hip, cocked the hammer, pointed, fired.
Thud
. He normally didn’t let them get that close.
 

Can’t get careless, lackadaisical. Pay fucking attention. Get on task.

The muzzle flash didn’t affect his eyes too badly. They’d be readjusted in a moment. He made a mental note.

Thirteen. Six on one hand, seven on the other.

It was good to know, to keep up with how many shots he had left. Life and death, actually. He kept more bullets on his belts, but it was important to know where his defenses stood.

He’d learned early on his searches to aim for the head. Much more permanent … quick … humane. He made the discovery after emptying one pistol and half the other into one of the biters. Reluctantly, it had finally gone down. And he’d done enough damage, practically tore it in half, that it didn’t get back up. But it writhed, hissing, for a good while afterwards before it finally succumbed. The next one he took down with one shot to the head. Lesson learned.
 

His eyes now adjusted to the dark, he looked the biter over. Some of them had sores, marks, like other biters had nibbled at them, then decided they were the wrong food. Maybe they’d been involved in a feeding frenzy, like a group of sharks, and had accidentally chomped chunks out of one another. Seemed feasible. Reasonable.

He hoped he wouldn’t find Kate that way.

There was more noise down the road, more dragging sounds, moaning. Behind him, snapping and cracking. Same in front. Time to start paying close attention. He’d rung the dinner bell with his Ruger. He’d seen it time and again during his outings. Noise—gunshots, diesel duallys, motorcycles—attracted them. Even normal level conversation could be enough. There’d been more clamor lately, attracting more of them.

He was torn about this. On one hand, it stirred them up, increased his chances of finding his beloved wife. Maybe even draw her to him. The flip-side was that it contaminated the area with biters from other areas, from farther away. More of them to comb through.

Finishing his cigarette, he flicked the butt onto the blacktop. He’d smoked it down to the filter, so no tell-tale sparks danced across the road when it hit.

Through the woods, another gunshot. Shotgun blast, by the sound, he reckoned. Evidently, not everyone had piled into the dually lifeboat and made for the hills. He favored encouragement through fear, preferring not to kill the living. But sometimes it was just unavoidable. Kate was out there, after all, and he had to protect her. At all costs. In sickness and in health. Till death do us part.
 

 
“I’m comin’, dahlin’.”

* * *

He didn’t like taking down biters with a knife. Despised it. Yes, it got the job done. Yes, it got the job done quietly. Yes, he’d save precious bullets. But there was something about getting the actual blood on his hands.

But stealth had become immediately important. He would practice prudence, not give away his location. And he had a feeling about tonight. That tonight would be the night. He would find Kate tonight. And he’d take her home, care for her, until this dreaded spell of soul death lifted, and she was herself. Again.

He strolled down the middle of highway 204, following the shotgun blasts. He’d heard four more since the last one, wondered what he was in store for when he got there. Every shot brought him closer, but every shot also meant that the unthinkable could have happened.