The Dead Series (Book 4): Dead End (17 page)

“You checking out my butt
or something?” Steve asked with a grin.

“No,”
Tick-Tock replied in a dead pan voice, “it’s because if the shit hits the fan, I’m using you as a meat-shield.”

Steve had to
cover his mouth to stifle the laughter that poured out of him.

***

Tick-Tock raised his hand and halted everyone when he saw one of the scouts coming at them in a faltering, loping run. Knowing the woman’s gait was due to the grass and not that she had been bitten, he looked down and cursed the thick growth that constantly seemed to tangle around their feet and threaten to trip them.

The group had travelled for three hours without incident
, but it was slow going. Even though the grass was brown, brittle and dry from the cooler temperatures of winter, it was still thick. Constant calls of “Wait a minute” came from up and down the line as people stopped to unwrap the long strands from around their legs, feet and ankles. Point was the worst and had to be switched every twenty minutes since whoever walked out front had to break a trail through the virgin waves of weeds. One of Tick-Tock’s people had brought along a machete from the mansion, but it was cheaply made and the handle broke off within the first few minutes of use. A rag was wrapped around the tang, but it was still awkward to use.

Not yet knowing what the scout was coming back to tell them, whether it was
that a horde of the dead were coming at them at full gallop or that they had come across some kind of oasis in the middle of the woods complete with blackjack, whiskey and dancing girls, Tick-Tock was grateful for the chance to rest.

Feeling a presence on his right,
he turned to find Steve standing next to him. The two of them had alternated with Brain on point, but the grueling labor had taxed all three of them to the point of exhaustion.

“We need to switch this
trailblazing crap out with someone else,” Tick-Tock told him. “What about Igor?”

Steve shook his head and replied, “He won’t leave Cindy’s side, and I’m not bringing her up here.” Pointing to the
scout that was still dozens of yards away as she made her way through the thick grass, he said, “If this is not a dire emergency, we’ll get a couple of your people to rotate with us.”

Steve and Tick-Tock waited in silence for the woman to reach them. Noise discipline had been drilled into them with such force
that the scout didn’t speak until she had stopped two feet in front of them. After catching her breath, she said in a loud whisper, “We’ve got a whole bunch of dead in front of us.”

Steve and Tick-Tock instantly went on the alert, scanning the woods on
both sides and their front for sign of any Zs.

Seeing their reaction, the scout said, “Not zombies, but dead zombies.” Looking at Tick-Tock, she added, “The good kind. We ran across them a few minutes ago.”

“Show me,” Steve said as he pointed for her to lead the way.

***

The stink was one that they had all smelled before, but not to this degree. Hundreds of dead lay scattered across the opening of the firebreak, so many that they flattened the grass for at least two hundred feet in either direction. By the aroma that rose into the air to gag him and the signs of decay on the bodies closest to him, Steve estimated that they had been disposed of days before and then left to rot under the Texas sun. Head wounds and upper body trauma were readily apparent on all of the bodies, with some sporting multiple impacts from what looked like a small caliber weapon on rapid fire.

After reaching the scene of the slaughter of the dead and seeing no threat, Steve had sent the scouts back to bring the main body of the group
forward.

When they were gone, he turned
to Tick-Tock and said, “Looks like the military has been through here.”

His friend shook his head and replied, “I don’t think it was the
Army.”

Curious at his second in command
’s take on what might have happened, Steve said, “But look at the headshots.” Pointing to the torn up foliage on both sides of the firebreak, he added, “It looks like they set up on either side of the way and just waited for the dead to stagger into the kill zone.”

Tick-Tock shook his head and replied, “But the woods are torn up
directly across on both sides. If it was the military, they would have never fired across the opening and risk hitting each other. If it was an ambush, they would have set up in an L shape so they didn’t kill one another. This was some kind of mechanical ambush.” Pointing to the dead lying in the grass, he added, “And whatever happened, it happened in just a few seconds. You can see where none of the dead even made it close to whatever was attacking them. Most of the wounds are on the sides of their heads and bodies.”

Starting off toward the line of denuded brush to his left, Tick-Tock
added, “Let’s go see if we can find any sign of what did this.”

Using a game trail leading into the forest, the two men only had to follow it a few feet before finding themselves in a clearing. The sun was well up, showing them all they needed to see.

Pointing to two sets of ruts dug into the soft dirt and dead leaves, Tick-Tock said, “Looks like someone moved a couple of mounted weapons in here and set them up side by side. I’d bet my top hat and my house cat that we find the same marks across the way.”

“And probably the same thing further down the firebreak,” Steve added
as he picked up on how so many of the dead had been exterminated in such a short time. “Whatever hit the Zs hit them at the same time all along their line. Maybe it was the military. Maybe they came up with some type of new weapon that takes out a whole bunch of the dead at the same time.”

Walking over to a lone tree standing in the clearing, Tick-Tock reached out and tugged a small, straight object from its trunk. Turning it over in his hand, he said with a smile, “Or maybe an old weapon.”

***

N
ow that the woods on either side of the trail had to be scouted as well as the trail in front of them, the group moved cautiously. With a new, unknown threat lurking in the woods that could be either friend or foe, their progress was slowed down to less than a mile an hour. Coming to an area with overgrown fields on both sides of them, instead of speeding up to minimize their exposure, they slowed even more when they saw that some of the fields had been freshly plowed. Most of them were still fallow, but a few had been cleared for planting. In addition to this, just before coming out of the woods they had seen where the posts holding the electrical wires above their heads abruptly stopped. The only things remaining were huge holes in the ground and gouges in the earth where they had been dug up and dragged off.

The signs were obvious that the
re was a human element nearby, but after their last few interactions with the survivors of the zombie apocalypse, it left the group with an uneasy feeling. Besides Delightfully Grimm and her crew, the few people that they had come across had tried to kill them and take their supplies. With a bad taste in their mouths from what humanity had sunk to, hope that this new group of farmers was friendly was but a fleeting ghost.

The signs of habitation grew as they travelled further along,
including more plowed areas, as well as a few empty lean-tos. The firebreak gradually rose to a seventy foot wide swath of grass with empty fields on either side, leaving the group on high ground. Feeling exposed despite the cover the waist high grass gave them, Steve was relieved to see where the woods picked up again on either side of the firebreak. Cutting through the woods might give a potential foe the advantage in ambushing them, but the woods also provided cover if they needed to make a break for it. He knew that as long as they were conscious of their surroundings and scouted ahead of them, they should be okay.

Preparing to call a break when they reached the
end of the fields, Steve’s voice caught in his throat when he saw both of the scouts running toward him at full-tilt boogie. Looking past them down the corridor formed by the woods on either side of the firebreak, he could see what had spooked them even before one of them screamed out, “Zs. A whole shitload of them.”

The woman with him called out between gasping for breath, “We saw them from a ways off.
Don climbed a tree for a better look. They’re stretched out for at least a quarter-mile.”

Knowing there was no way they could take on so many of the dead, Steve looking around wildly for a place to hide.
Seeing only plowed fields on either side of him, he judged the distance to the closest cover. The nearest was a clump of trees a few hundred feet away. It was near the end of the day, and the group was already exhausted from the exertions of the day, so there was no way they could get there. They wouldn’t make it halfway across before the Zs spotted them and gave chase. He could see in his mind’s eye as they were picked off one by one as their bodies gave out and they fell behind.

With only the strip of grass on the raised portion of the firebreak to hide in, Steve made a quick decision as he called out, “Everyone down.”

The group had seen their predicament and already dropped to the ground, so he was the only one to obey his command. The last thing he saw before ducking down was the rustling of the grass as the two scouts scurried through it on hands and knees to join them.

Raising into a half-crouch
so he could see the approaching dead, Steve knew in an instant that it was useless. As far down the firebreak as the eye could see, the dead were staggering toward them. They might break left and right when they reached the open fields, but they would still sense or smell the group when they passed. Once that happened, they would fall on them in a wave of dead flesh that would be impossible to repel.

With no choice, Steve called out an order that he dreaded ever having to give. “Everyone circle around Cindy and prepare to be overrun.”

Without hesitation, the group crawled through the grass to take up position around the little girl. The stress and strife of travelling through a land populated by the walking dead might have caused distraction, but in the end they all knew that their only hope lay in the little girl that was immune to the HWNW disease. Past differences in politics, religion and race were forgotten as the group formed up, facing outward from where Igor and Linda crouched next to Cindy, their weapons ready to deal a second and final death to anything that threatened her.

Steve felt a body settle next to him and knew it was Heather. Without turning, he said, “It looks bad, but if the Zs
take the easy route through the fields, they might bypass us.”

Heather laughed nervously and said, “Don’t blow smoke up my ass, babe. I saw what’s heading toward us. That and the order to prepare to be overrun kind of gave it away.”

Steve grimaced and said, “There’s always a chance that they’ll bypass us.”

Feeling his lover
’s gaze on him, Steve turned his head to find Heather studying him intently.

Before he could ask what she was looking at, she said, “I love you, but don’t bullshit me. If wors
e comes to worst and the Zs do spot us, do you think we can fight through them and make it to safety?”

Steve started to answer yes,
but seeing the look in Heather’s eye, he didn’t even have to think about it before answering honestly, “No.”

Turning her attention toward the thick grass in front of her, Heather said, “Then this is where it will be.” Raising her voice, she said
just loud enough to be heard by the circle, “Everyone hold fast. If the Zs spot us, we’re finished. The chances of that are pretty good, but don’t open fire until you hear the order.”

Turning back to Steve, she found him half
-standing, stooped over as he checking the progress of the dead. Hearing him say, “They’re almost to the open area,” she felt her heart sink at the thought of losing the man next to her. They had been through so much together, and while they had come very close to death in Galveston Bay, once they made it through, she thought they would be home free.

It looked like that was not to be.

Reaching up to pull Steve down next to her so that she could hug him, Heather’s hand flinched at a loud, thwanging noise, followed almost immediately by a series of thumps that echoed across the barren fields around them. She could see Steve start to drop down at the sudden sound, and then raise back up to stare intently across the grass. Within a heartbeat, the loud thwang-thump was repeated again and again, too many times to count.

Wanting to see what had happened, but with enough discipline to stay in her position, she
called up to Steve, “What the fuck is that?”

By the time she had gotten the sentence out of her mouth, he had already
dropped back down and said, “I don’t know, but whatever it is, it just about wiped out the Zs. Take a look.”

Heather rose into a crouch.
The longer blades of grass still blocked her view, so she rose by centimeters until she could see above and between them. Looking toward where the firebreak disappeared into the woods, she could only see a few of the dead staggering around. Gunfire erupted, causing her to drop back down, but not before she saw even these few sacks of dead meat fall to headshots. Voices could now be heard calling out to each other, but the distance distorted their words. Then, the sound of engines starting up completely drowned them out.