Dead Drunk II: Dawn of the Deadbeats (Dead Drunk: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse... One Beer at a Time Book 2) (2 page)

Charlie
closed the dead child’s eyes and turned to the other boy, who was now rolling
on the ground in hysterics. Left-Nut was screaming bloody murder even louder in
the distance.

“Shut him up,
quick,” Charlie said while patting the anguished scout’s shoulder.

The kid
paused his whimpering when Charlie spoke to him softly. “Buddy, please take it
down a notch. He’s gone.”

“No crap, you
killed him. He was the one friend I had left. Now I’m all alone.”

“What were
you thinking, shooting at us for no reason? I thought it was the Chinese again,
so of course we were gonna shoot back.”

“He thought
you were the monsters and started firing, and I just kinda followed him. That’s
what I always did.”

Charlie
sighed and changed tactics. “Look, what’s your name, partner?”

“Sam. My
name’s Sam. And you’re not my partner.” The boy pointed to the dead body. “He
was.”

“I promise,
we won’t hurt you. Believe it or not, we’re the good guys,” Charlie said and
looked towards Left-Nut, who was still screaming every curse word known to man.
“Sort of.”

Sam sat up
and wiped the last tear from his eyes. “We’ll see.”

Left-Nut
continued to yell, and by now the noise was drawing in random zombies from the
other side of the field.

“I said shut
him up!” Charlie whisper-shouted at Rob once more.

Big Rob’s
beefy fist slammed into Left-Nut’s jaw and knocked him out effortlessly. “Night
night,” he said and calmly grabbed his baseball bat with the bent handle. The
zombies running towards him from the bean field were soon met with a trio of
headshots. A school nurse, yoga instructor, and tax lawyer all went down in an
instant. The gentle giant finished the poor nurse off with a coup de grace and
fought the urge to vomit as he wiped the brains off his weapon. At least the
killing part was getting easier.

Charlie
looked to the surviving kid and struggled for the right tone of voice to use.
“I’ll prove that you can trust us. You can have your gun back as soon as you
calm down.” He nodded at the fallen scout. “What was his name?”

“Colin. He
was the troop leader’s son.”

“Was it just
you two out here?” Smokey asked, not wanting any surprises.

“There were
eight of us at first. We were camping out when everything happened and, and…”

“That’s fine,
little dude,” Smokey said. “We’ll talk later.”

Charlie nodded.
“Yeah, we better get moving. Need to find a place to hide out and treat
Left-Nut’s leg.”

“Left-Nut?”
Sam asked.

“Umm, Matt’s
his real name,” Charlie said. “He got stuck in a bear trap over there.”

Sam nodded.
“Colin’s dad was using those to catch the creepers. He went into Biggsburg a
few weeks ago and never came back.”

“Is that the
town right across the way?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah, it’s
where we all lived.”

“It looked
pretty messed up,” Smokey said, and Sam started crying again. “But we were just
on the outskirts, so it’s hard to tell,” he added hastily and unconvincingly.
“Was your family there? I mean,
is
your family there?”

“No, I’m a
foster kid. I don’t care what happened to my foster family. The scouts were the
only people who gave a damn about me.”

Charlie
looked at the freckle-faced boy and struggled to maintain his own composure.
The kid had already been alone his whole life, and now this turd sandwich of an
apocalypse had been thrust into his face.

“Sam, I’m a
good judge of character, and I’m looking at you and seeing a dude that’s about
five foot tall and maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet. Your stats on paper
aren’t real good, but the fact you’re even alive at this point leads me to
believe you’re a total badass.” Sam wiped away his tears and stood up a little
taller as Charlie continued, “Now, what just happened here was messed up, but
it was an accident. So you can either dwell on it or you can move forward and
join our crew. Since you’ve made it this far, I’m betting I know your answer.”

Sam smiled
slightly, which was amazing given the circumstances. “Yeah, I guess I don’t
have much of a choice. What about Colin though?” he asked as Smokey handed the
rifle back to him, an old .22 Sam had earned a merit badge with by shooting tin
cans.

“There’s
nothing we can do for him, but we need to get going,” Charlie said. “How close
is your camp, and is there anything useful there? Supplies, food?”

“About a
quarter mile into the woods, but it’s bare. We used up pretty much everything.
I’ve got about ten bullets left in my pocket. That’s why we were out here
hunting rabbits.”

“Gotcha,”
Charlie said as the group rejoined Big Rob and Left-Nut.

After
introductions were made they settled on a new route. Sam had told them that
nothing useful lay west for miles, and since the city was off limits they
decided to see what was to the north. Rob slung Left-Nut over his shoulder like
a sack of defective Christmas presents, and their already slow pace trickled to
a crawl. Losing the four wheelers earlier in the day now appeared to be an even
bigger disaster, and Charlie reminded Smokey of this fact numerous times.

The next hour
was a boring slog as the group traversed yet more fields and wooded areas, as
well as a few much-appreciated pastures. They were no longer able to run across
open areas, and if a Chinese patrol caught them in a clearing it would be a
massacre.

Through a
little prodding from Smokey, Sam told them of his months in the woods, and it
was a rather depressing tale. His group lost two members on the day of the
outbreak as they came in from the woods, gunned down by a panicking sheriff’s
department. Down to six people, several more died a week later, gobbled up as
they slept in their tents. Running low on supplies, another scout was shot
while approaching a farmhouse he thought was abandoned.

After that
fiasco, the scout leader kept them in the heart of the woods and scavenged for
supplies by himself. One day he never came back, and Sam and Colin were on
their own, left scared, hungry, and confused.

“The tent
incident was horrible. The kids were screaming one second and attacking us the
next. Colin’s dad, Frank, built a platform onto a tree stand the next day and
then the creepers couldn’t find us.”

“A tent’s a
bad idea, it’s just a sandwich wrapper as far as I’m concerned,” Smokey said.
“You call them creepers?”

“Yeah. It’s
because they’re all quiet and they just creep up on you.”

“Makes sense,
but we just call ‘em zombies. The infected kind, mind you – the undead ones are
a whole different ball of wax,” Smokey added, always one to show off his
knowledge on the subject matter.

“The biggest
creeper you’ll meet is this guy right there,” Charlie said and pointed at
Left-Nut.

“Why’s that?”
Sam asked.

“Just wait
until he wakes up, you’ll see,” Rob said and shook his passed out friend gently
for emphasis, causing blood to ooze from his injured leg. “Whoops. He did go
out like a light, though. Talk about a one-punch pussy.”

“Damn, that’s
a lot of blood. We gotta find somewhere to get him cleaned up,” Charlie said,
and then a sinking feeling came over him. “Sam, did you say your scout leader
was using those traps to catch the creepers or zombies or whatever the hell you
want to call them?”

“Yeah.”

Charlie frowned.
“I hope Left-Nut didn’t catch the infection. Getting caught in that bloody trap
would have to be like sharing a needle.”

“It doesn’t
work like that. We’ve been covered in blood and nothing happened. Shit, Rob’s
practically bathed in the stuff,” Smokey said. “It’s all about the bites. I’d
say something in the saliva spreads the infection.”

“Just keep an
eye out. If he starts acting funny, drop him on the ground and back up quick.”

The walk to
nowhere in particular continued, and it was Sam who struck up the conversation
this time. “If we’re going to be travelling together, why don’t you tell me a
little about you guys and where we’re headed?”

“Fair enough.
I’m a teacher—”

“Substitute,”
Smokey cut in.

“I’m a
substitute
teacher, Smokey’s a pothead, Rob’s a fighter and Left-Nut’s a psychopath. Big
Rob, Lefty and myself grew up together, and we met Smokey in college.”

“It’s cool
that you’re with old friends.”

Charlie
continued, “We were living in Chicago, and like you, our original group was
much bigger… we left the city and now we’re trying to meet up with my
girlfriend and some others at a military base by Cantonville.”

“Sounds
plausible,” Sam said. He didn’t entirely trust his new companions due to the
circumstances, and the fact that nobody in his life had been worth trusting so
far. Plus, being abandoned as a toddler and getting shipped around to five
foster homes had left deep emotional scars. Seeing his friends eaten alive
hadn’t helped.

“Since we
don’t have the four wheelers we started on, thanks to Smokey, I’m sure you’ll
know everything about us within a few days. Perhaps more than you care to.”

Charlie
stopped talking as they exited a particularly thick patch of woods and came
upon a clearing. A hundred yards out was a stone building complex surrounded by
a blacked-out chain-link privacy fence. No roads or sidewalks led to the odd
structure that resembled a Spanish presidio. It just looked plain out of place.

The men
cautiously approached the main gate with Sam crouched behind them, taking no
chances. Charlie pointed to a small sign by the locked entrance and read it
aloud. “Poor Sisters of the Cross Convent. No trespassing, no solicitors, no
visitors. Violators will be prayed for on site.”

“That’s a
relief, I thought maybe Count Chocula lived here,” Smokey said with a snicker.
“Man, do I miss cereal.”

There was no
movement around the compound, so Charlie scaled the fence and opened the gate
from the inside. Next was a quick jaunt to the main building that left them all
totally exposed. A man with a rifle could have taken them down with little
effort.

However, no
such man was waiting, and moments later Charlie knocked on the front door as
the others looked around for signs of life. Twisted gargoyle statues leered
down at them from above and all the windows had been painted black. The place
was as quiet as a cemetery, and a well-kept vegetable garden was the only hint
that it was occupied.

Charlie took
a few short breaths and opened the steel door, finding a locked wooden door
behind it. He knocked on the small viewing window and backed up, his finger on
the trigger of his Chinese assault rifle.

Nobody
answered, so he knocked much louder the second time. He looked to Smokey and
whispered, “Why don’t you run around the place and check for more doors.” Smokey
took off, but just as Charlie turned back, a nun appeared in the window,
startling the bejesus out of him. The woman wore a white coif and a traditional
brown habit, looking like something straight from the 1800s. And she was
drop-dead gorgeous.

“Whoa, you
kinda snuck up on me there,” Charlie said while trying to regain his composure.
The nun stared quietly for an awkward minute and then turned her head,
revealing a massive, bubbly scar that covered the entire left side of her face.
“Fucking zombie!” Charlie gasped and prepared to blast the woman through the
door.

“Whoa dude,
chill!” Smokey shouted as he reappeared with an elderly nun close behind him.

The old nun
gave Charlie a look that could have melted his own face off. “Put down the toy
gun, you probably scared Sister Katya half to death. Now just what is going on?
This gentleman informed me that someone is injured?”

Charlie
pointed to his unconscious friend. “He got his leg stuck in a bear trap.”

“Oh my,” the
nun said and raised a hand to her mouth. “You’d better get him  to the
hospital in Biggsburg. I’m afraid we have very limited resources here.”

“Lady, um, I
don’t think tha—”

“Not lady, my
name is Mother Agnes Vukavka, and I’m the Mother Superior of this small order.
By the way, you gentlemen are trespassing. And Halloween isn’t for a few weeks
so I am a bit confused by your outfits.”

Dressed like
a comic book hero, a cowboy, a Boy Scout, a 70s porn star, and a rather
convincing drug-dealer, they did look like a strange offshoot of the Village People.
But Charlie focused on the most important aspect of the conversation. “Lady – I
mean, Mother Superior, we can’t just stroll into town and go to prompt care.”

“I suppose
you don’t have insurance?”

“Wait, what?
No, it’s not that.  Seriously, don’t you know what kinda shit-storm hit us
these past couple months?”

The nun took
a step away from the men. “This is all a bit confusing, and frankly you people
are putting off some bad vibes. Are you on drugs or something?”

“Dang, I wish,”
Smokey said under his breath.

“You’re
telling me you don’t know about the zombies?” Charlie said.

“What in the
world is a zompy?” the nun asked, now thinking she was dealing with conmen at
best and criminals at worst. “I think I should call the sheriff and he can sort
this out.” Of course, this was a bluff as she had no phone.

Charlie lost
his cool. “Sheriff? There’s no freaking sheriff left! There aren’t any cops, no
hospitals, no churches, no schools, nothing, it’s all gone!”

Rob tapped
Charlie’s shoulder. “Calm down, bro.”

“Now are you
gonna open this door or do I have to kick the damn thing in?”

 “This
conversation is over, gentlemen. Please leave.”

 Charlie
refused to take no for an answer and ran at the front door, kicking it as hard
as he could, and failing spectacularly. “Son of a bitch,” he said with a groan
and fell to the ground, rubbing his throbbing foot. To his credit, the door had
a slight scuff mark on it.