Life Among The Dead (Book 2): A Castle Made of Sand (19 page)

Months of planning ironically didn’t involve
an out clause. Dustin scans the grounds for a suitable place to lie
low, finding a pillbox building in front of him that will do
nicely. Since their arrival on base, the soldier he escaped
Waterloo with has been keeping himself busy in the armory. Though
they haven’t seen much of each other, he knows Deatherage will
vouch for his character and whereabouts.

Muffled chaos erupts behind him in the Mess
Hall.

“Hey, look what the wind blew in!” Deatherage
smiles from behind the steel mesh of the gun cage, his home away
from home.

Dustin locks the door behind him before
walking among the tall rows of supplies. He tries to look and sound
casual, “Hey, Deatherage. Been awhile.”

“Yeah, I love this place. I’m working on a
project right now,” Deatherage explains. “Do you know Sergeants
Rash and Lynton?”

“I think so,” Dustin tries to control his
breathlessness and racing heart. “Why?”

“In a couple of weeks, when they start going
out looking for survivors again, I get to join their team,” he
says. “They’ve asked for silenced weapons for when they have to put
down a zombie and don’t want to give up their location to the other
dead.”

Dead
. The word echoes in Dustin’s
mind.
He’s
dead
.
He’s
going
to
rise
.
All
those
people
are
probably
trapped
in
the
hall
by
the
smoke
…
trapped
with
him
.

“…My grandfather was a gunsmith. He told me
all about silencers and how they work. Apparently our base doesn’t
keep them on hand, so I had to make my own in the machine shop.
Check it out.” Deatherage holds a large revolver out for Dustin to
see. His excitement obviously blinds him to Dustin’s inner turmoil,
as he explains how his addition uses a series of chambers called
baffles to release the gases that issue forth with a bullet once
fired. “…like a champagne cork! Tomorrow, I’m taking her to the
range to squeeze a few off.”

Dustin is at the pillbox’s only window near
the door. Drawn by a rising commotion, he can see folks rushing to
the hall. He must hold Deatherage’s attention. “Cool! Can I see
it?”

“Sure.” Deatherage hands over the shiny hand
cannon. The already long barrel has been extended even farther, and
it’s fat on the end. “It’s not loaded. Wanna go to the range with
me tomorrow?”

“Will they let me?” Dustin nervously looks
around for bullets. “I’m not a soldier anymore. I quit today.”

“Trouble at the Mess Hall?”

“Nothing I want to talk about.”
Or
,
admit
to
.

The topic is not so easily deflected, and
outside people are screaming.

Deatherage swiftly jogs to the window. “Holy
shit! It looks like trouble.”

He grabs several rifles from his racks and
hustles to the door. Folks are already trying to get in, and they
pound and jiggle the locked knob, clamoring for weapons.

“Chachi, grab some ammo!”

Dustin must teach himself how to open the
cylinder on the spot. “Don’t go out there!”

“What are you talking about? They need our
help! There might be zombies on post!”

Deatherage reaches for the lock. The last
thing he sees, in the quickest of flashes, is the contents of his
own head against the white door in front of him. He never got to
enjoy just how silent his gun is--as quiet as a mouse’s sneeze.

Those wishing entry into the armory have no
idea if there are walking dead among them or how many, they simply
know that they need weapons just in case. Dustin imagines folks are
panicking inside the smoke filled Mess Hall and these people want
to get in here, because they sure as hell don’t want to go in
unprepared. So they smash the singular window, only to meet their
death at Dustin’s hand. He erases every face that enters the small
square frame.

He falls to his knees and trembles. Not only
did he kill his enemy and only friend, he’s led to the downfall of
the entire base. Without access to the weapons, soldiers and
civilians alike are about to die.

Dustin’s actions were not the only selfish
ones that lead to the fall of Fort Eagle Rock.

Randy Russell sat backstage at his ex-wife’s
concert, watching her prepare for the show. She had none of the
outlandish costumes or make-up, no body paint or back-up dancers.
She just had her voice and an acoustic guitar. The singer had been
putting on performances for the survivors, singing her songs as
they sounded when she first wrote them in her head so many years
ago. Randy saw how truly happy she was and it was like a dagger in
his heart. Living like a common person, without the mansions and
money, without him, she looked happy. Kelly was able to do what she
always wanted--deliver her music to folks who appreciated her for
her art.

Kelly disregarded him, taking the stage
without so much as a word. Feeling lower than usual, Randy had been
seeking comfort in whatever drugs he could scrounge, and in any
woman that might be too star struck by him to remember her
standards.

Randy had always had a rule about cheating:
if one must do so, at least make sure the other woman is a step up.
That was before he met Kelly and had to amend the law, since he was
hard pressed to ever cross paths with a more beautiful girl. The
new custom was volume. Since he couldn’t find a 10, he sought out
enough women to overshadow Kelly’s ranking. This very night he felt
fortunate to have located not only a pair of willing 8s, but also a
plastic bag of random pills.

Whether it was the first palm full of pills
he took before having his way with the girls, or the second batch
he swallowed post coital, it didn’t matter. Randy Russell’s
melancholy heart stopped beating. As people listened to Kelly Peel
sing, seeking a small slice of normalcy, the dead comedian arose
from the afterglow. The nameless conquests had thought that the man
was simply ready for another round, until he sunk his teeth into
one of them.

Applause drowned out the screams of terror
and pain. Randy mauled the naked woman as the third horrified
member of the ménage a trois ran out of the room for help. With
everyone watching the show, no help was found amid the labyrinth of
halls. The star struck young woman ran as bare as the day she
entered the world, fearing she may exit it the same way.

Dustin waited in solitude long after the
gunfire and screaming had stopped and was replaced by moaning. He
has no idea how many days he’s been locked within his fortress, but
time is irrelevant. Subsisting on MREs for days, possibly weeks, a
new sound draws him to the window he has been avoiding. A crash.
Dustin hears the distinct noise of metal on metal and the roar of a
large engine.

A cautious peek at the outside world he no
longer feels apart of reveals a deuce and a half--a M35 6x6 as
Deatherage had called it--careening out of the motor pool. The
olive truck is heading towards the front gates and the dead are
following.
This
could
be
my
chance
if
I
can
grab
my
car
and
join
them
.

Dustin knows his car is behind the garage the
survivors have just hastily exited. All civilian transports were
put there for storage since the civies weren’t allowed to drive on
post.

Armed with the whisper quiet revolver and an
assault rifle, he tries to be brave, to boldly race across the
asphalt plane, but he can’t do it. The folks making their escape
aren’t so hesitant, and he can hear the reports of their guns.

It takes several moments before he feels
courageous enough to make a run for it, though he has already
missed his chance to join the others. He hasn’t seen a corpse since
the ones that followed the fleeing folks. He wonders if they had
all pursued the truck off base. Dustin sprints for the motor pool
after several preparatory breaths. He aims to grab the Camaro and
bring it back to the armory for supplies.

The rockstar purple car is a sight for sore
eyes, and an even greater sight are the keys that are still in the
ignition. He makes his way back to the armory unfettered, not a
dead menace in sight.

As fast as he can, he loads his car with
packages of food and rifles, and he tosses crates of grenades and
claymores into his trunk. The curved explosive devices scare him
upon inspection, and written on them in raised lettering are the
words:
FRONT
TOWARD
ENEMY
.

Screaming and gunfire from the civilian
sector draws his attention and tells him that not all the zombies
have departed. Dustin can see folks running beyond the chain-link
that divides the base; he can also see the mob of figures on their
heels. From this distance they look small, like action figures. He
tries to equate them as such as he slides behind the wheel; he has
the means to save them, just not the fortitude. So he leaves them
behind to fend for themselves, because there’s somewhere he wishes
to be. Though his gig has come and gone months ago, he figures it
can’t hurt to at least see the venue.
What
else
do
I
have
going
on
?

##

Dustin drives for what feels like hours
before he becomes suspicious.
I
should
have
seen
a
sign
for
Fallen
by
now
. He slows to read the notices that are offered to him,
and one announces a turn for Poland Creek. He remembers that name,
just not how he knows it. The next placard reports how many miles
to a location he remembers all too well, and it also tells him that
he’s heading the wrong way.

“Waterloo! Fuck!”

So he takes the Poland Creek exit; he’s
wasted a lot of gas and needs to take a break. The sleepy little
town is still as he cautiously fills his tank at Gary’s Gas and Go.
The pump gurgles fuel into his car while his gaze darts around, not
wanting to be taken by surprise. On the street he sees a line of
cars he can’t help but take a second glance at, because they look
familiar. A closer inspection allows him to see that their steel
hides are peppered with bullet holes; it’s the convoy he and his
group helped out on their way from Waterloo. The folks are all
gone, and he can’t help but notice one vehicle is missing.

He puts back the nozzle and screws on his gas
cap. Dustin wonders if any of the bodies around him belong to the
group. Perhaps the remaining members took off in the missing ride.
He didn’t have much contact with civilians at Eagle Rock, not
enough that he’d remember one of them, except for the girl he had
attempted to chat up.

He fights off thoughts of the pretty girl who
is probably dead, which only leads to thoughts of the base he had
recklessly brought down.
Stop
it
, he commands himself
once behind the wheel. He has a lot of ground to cover and knows
that he can’t change what has happened.

Dustin cruises out of town, trying to find
his way back to the highway. As he’s about to turn onto the main
artery, he sees a glorious sight through the dense trees. At the
end of a long driveway sits an estate that beckons him. He would
have missed it had he not been driving so slowly.
It
can’t
hurt
to
check
it
out
.

A tall stone wall towers over him where he
parks outside of the place’s wrought iron gates. Dustin uses his
hands as visors against the glare of the sun above so he can see
the home. The palatial abode is the aspiring rock legend’s dream
home.
It
looks
like
the
Playboy
mansion
. The overgrown lawn aside, he finds the place to be
the perfect degree of opulence, and he hasn’t even stepped foot
inside yet.

Dustin enters a small booth that juts from
the wall. He assumes there once was a person stationed here to
admit visitors. Just below the window is a bank of monitors that
show him several views of the manor, and he figures out the
controls to cycle each screen through even more vantage points.
Though it puzzles him that such a secure and secluded place should
not be occupied, he sees no one inside.
I
wonder
who
used
to
live
here
.

Prison is hard on everybody, unless you are a
man like Benito Sartori, then it can be downright easy. The Italian
born successor of the long defunct Sartori crime family, Benito had
revitalized the old syndicate and brought it into the modern age.
The capo, known to his peers as ‘Papa Bear,’ holds to the old
traditions of omerta, honor and respect. His family still dabbles
in the old sources of revenue, but rely heavily on technology and
cyber-crimes these days. Prostitution brings in money, but not
nearly what their internet porn rings and bootleg movies earn them.
The family still makes fast cash through robberies and hijackings;
however their scammers and hackers are far more lucrative. Despite
his crimes and the people he’s had killed, or killed personally,
what he had been incarcerated for is inconsequential. He’s actually
innocent. He was set up.

While locked away from the world among
similarly violent people, Benito had decided to escape. His plan
involved the use of a distraction, and he found a patsy to kill for
him. The murder turned out to be unnecessary since the guards had
disappeared.