Dead Life (Book 4) (12 page)

              “Who the fuck was that?” I demanded of Edgar.

              “I have no idea. The one car was Jenny's but I didn't recognize the other. Please hurry.”

              “I'm going as fat as I can,” Lily said.

              We came to an intersection and Lily hardly slowed to make the turn. She turned right again and sped toward the farmhouse. In the distance we could see a car headed in our direction. It got closer and  I could see that it was one of the cars that had been in front of the house. Lily slowed to meet the car and the puke green Oldsmobile flew past us. I could see two men in the front seat and no one else.

              “Keep going Lily,” I said.

              A few seconds later we pulled into the driveway. All of us jumped out of the SUV and ran into the house. The horde was only a few hundred yards away and getting closer by the second. Edgar ran up the stairs. I followed him while Lily and John checked the first floor. When I reached the second floor I saw Edgar run through a doorway. I followed him into the room. It was the kids room. They were both lying in their beds. Their pillows were covered in dried blood. They had obviously been dead for a while. Both had been beaten to death, their little skulls crushed. Edgar sobbed and turned and left the room. He went to a different room and went in. I followed him into what must have been the master bedroom. Lying in a fresh pool of blood was Edgar's wife Jenny. Her throat slashed. She was nude, her body covered in fresh bruises. From the bruising and scratches all up and down her inner thighs it appeared that she had been repeatedly and savagely raped.

              “What kind of God lets this kind of thing happen? She was a good woman. My innocent babies never had a chance. Why would he make them pay for my sins?”

              I didn't know what to say. I was sickened by what I saw. He was right. What kind of God lets this happen? Not just this but everything that has happened in the past few weeks. It's like he turned his back on mankind. Decided it was time to clean house.

              “I don't know if I believe in God anymore Edgar. You can't blame yourself for this. Even if there is a God, nothing you could have done could justify this kind of retribution.”

              “You have no idea what kind of man I am.”

              John came into the room. “Oh my God,” he said, seeing Jenny lying there. “Tim we gotta go. They'll be here any second. Edgar, I'm so sorry.”

              “What do you want to do Edgar?”

              He didn't answer me, only turned and walked from the room. We followed him down the steps and out of the house. He walked off the porch and toward the horde.

              “Edgar,” I called after him. “Come with us.”

              I went to go after him but John grabbed my arm. “Let him go.”

              I pulled my arm free. “We can't let him do this.”

              “If that was your wife and kids in there would you want to keep living?” he asked me.

              I looked back at John. He was right. I just couldn't bring myself to let Edgar die like that. Lily came out of the house, tears streaming down her cheeks.

              “Let's go get those son-of-a-bitches,” she said. “Where's he going?”

              “I think Edgar wants to be alone,”  I said. “Let's get out of here.”

              The noise from the horde was getting louder. They had seen Edgar and the moaning had begun. It got so bad I couldn't hear what Lily was trying to say to me. She finally gave up and ran back into the house. She was only gone a few seconds when she ran back out. Smoke billowed from one of the windows. She had set a fire. We went to the Kia and I looked back at Edgar. The horde was almost on him. They were fighting and jostling for position trying to be the first to get to the fresh meat. Just as they were about to pounce he turned and ran over to me.

              “I need my bag,” he shouted.

              Edgar and I went to the back of the Kia and I got his bag for him. He rifled through it, throwing most of it's contents to the ground. He finally found what he was looking for, a pistol.

              “Don't try to follow me,” he said. “I have to do this alone. I owe them that much.”

              He went to his wife's Subaru got in and drove away.

              The fire was going pretty good by now. The sound of the crackling flames helped draw some of the zombies attention away from us. We gave Edgar a thirty second head start then left. I had Lily drive slow for a while. I didn't want Edgar to think we were trying to following him.

Chapter 10

              I got the first aid kit out and did the best I could to wrap Rick's head. Al told me to go ahead and pour alcohol on what was left of his ear. I think he hoped it would burn so bad Rick would come around. It didn't work. Cindy had a better stocked kit somewhere in the truck that Al told me had some smelling salts. After tearing through everything in the back of the truck we finally found the bag that contained the rest of her medical supplies. Al frantically searched through the bag and finally found what he was looking for.

              “You guys need to be careful with him,” Gina yelled back at us. “He's probably had at least one concussion in the past few hours.”

              “He's our only chance of finding Cindy,” Al said.

              There was no way Gina could have heard what he said. He was talking to himself, not either one of us. I could see the desperation in his eyes. If we didn't find Cindy soon we most likely never would.

              Al opened the vial and waved it under Rick's nose. The reaction was immediate. His eyes came open and he looked around. His pupils were dilated and I could tell he was in a lot of pain.

              “I shouldn't have left them like that,” Rick said, just above a whisper.

              “Who did you leave, Cindy?” Al asked.

              “Who's Cindy?”

              “He's still out of it Al. Give him another whiff of that stuff,” I said.

              “No, don't. I'm okay. My wife and kids, I left them like that. Shouldn't have done that.”

              “You were in an accident Rick, you and Cindy,” Al said. “Do you remember anything at all?”

              “Yeah, Clete tried to take her to the farm. I shot him in the face.”

              “What farm?”

              “I don't know. It's only a few miles though. We'll be there soon,” Rick said before closing his eyes.

              “Stop the truck,” Al shouted.

              Gina stopped the truck and Al and I went to the front of the box.

              “Have we passed any side streets?”

              “I haven't seen any, no.”

              “No dirt roads, gravel roads, anything?”

              “Nothing. What did he say?”

              “He said something about a guy named Clete taking Cindy to a farm. That it was close.”

              “Yeah but he also said he shot Clete in the face,” I said.

              “There was more than one of them,” Al said. “Keep driving. First side road or driveway you come to turn down it.”

              “Al you ride in the front with Gina. I'll stay back here with Rick. If he comes around again I'll let you know.”

              Al climbed over the seat and I went to the back to sit with Rick. He was still out and I had the feeling he would be for quite a while. There was no reason to try and wake him again. He'd already told us everything he knew so I left him alone. There had to be a way to find this farm and it had to happen fast. Rick was an easy going kind of guy. If he felt it necessary to shoot someone there had to have been a good reason. I wondered how many side roads were on this stretch of rural highway and how many we'd have to drive down before we found the right one. Assuming we ever did find the right one. There had to be something we hadn't thought of yet. A way to narrow down our search. I racked my brains trying to come up with an idea, anything that would help us find Cindy.

              I was getting claustrophobic trapped in the back of the truck like this. I was used to riding in the Hummer feeling the breeze on my face and being able to look out the window. I looked up at the vent. It was still blocked by my rucksack. I pulled a crate over and stood on it and pulled at the bag. It was wedged in there pretty good and would only come out if I got back up on top of the truck and pulled it out. That's when it hit me.

              “Stop the truck!”

              Before Gina had the truck stopped I had the lift gate opened. When we came to a full stop I jumped down and ran around to the passenger side of the truck. I climbed on the running board, grabbed the mirror, and pulled myself up to where I could get a foot on the sill of the window.

              “What the hell are you doing?”

              “My rucksack,” I said, as I stepped up on to the top of the cab.

              “Goddammit Steve, get that later,” Al said and got out of the truck. “We don't have time for this shit!”

              “No, it made me think about having to get back on top of the truck again. Fire! There's no electricity anymore. Anyone living out here would most likely keep a fire burning all day long for cooking and heating water. We need to look for smoke.”

              Al stared up at me with a blank look on his face, then smiled. “Well, get your ass up there.”

              I got on top of the truck and looked around. All I could see was the trees lining the road. We needed to find a higher spot.

              “Do you see anything?” Al shouted. He was now out of the truck and standing in the road.

              “I need to be higher than this. We need to find a two story house that's sitting on top of a hill or something like that.”

              “Get down from there,” Al said. “Little girl, what do you think?”

              “Sounds like a good idea to me,” Gina said from where she sat on the sill of her window looking up at me smiling. “He may not be good looking but he has a good idea every once in a while. That's why I love him.”

              “Who says I'm not good looking? I get lots of nice compliments all the time.” I said as I climbed past Al's window.

              “Yeah, from every zombie you meet,” she came back.

              “Get back there. We're running out of time,” Al said, getting in the truck and slamming the door. “I just hope there really is a farmhouse.”

              We drove a little further and came to a gravel road running off to the left. Gina turned in and we finally came to a small farmhouse. The place had obviously been abandoned long before the virus struck. The house was only a one story and not much taller than the truck. It would be of no use to us. There was however a rundown old barn adjacent to the house with a loft that would hopefully serve our purposes.

              Al and I cleared the barn and went up into the loft while Gina waited out by the truck. I would need to get up onto the roof so I could get a 360 degree view of the area. Al found a ladder leading to a roof hatch so I went up and forced the door open. The whole structure was rotting and climbing out on the roof I nearly fell through as soon as I stood up. In the distance I could see smoke coming from the motel, the tanker truck, and the smaller car fires we'd set on the highway. There was nothing else though.

              “I don't see anything.”

              Al stuck his head trough the hatch. “Move over let me up there.”

              “I don't think that's a good idea. This whole roof could go at any minute.” I could see the disappointment on his face as he looked up at me. “Let me get back down then you can get up here.  You might see something I missed.”

              Al looked back at the smoke from the highway. “I think I see something. It's back by the highway. Look closer, it's right in front of the big fire from the motel.”

              He was right. I could just make out a small column of smoke coming up out of the trees. “Looks like we might have missed something. That's back the way we came. How far back do you think that is?”

              “No more than a mile. That's on the other side of the road from where we are now. I'll bet they've got some bushes or something covering the opening,” Al said as he climbed back down.

              I worked my way back to the hatch and climbed down. We hurried back to the truck. Gina was in the back with Rick when we got there. She was hunched over him talking to him when I climbed into the back.

              “How's he doing?”

              “He came out of it a few minutes ago but he just passed out again,” Gina said. “He was a little more lucid this time though. He was able to tell me more about what happened. Al was right. There were two of them. When they tried to split them up Rick shot one of them. Cindy tried to drive off and they must have shot out one of the tires. That's when she lost control of the Hummer and crashed. He told me he remembers the guy that was driving the pick-up pulled Cindy out of the Hummer and he took her with him.”

              “Did he say anything else?”

              “No that was about it. He did say that he thought she was in a farmhouse somewhere close to here.”

              “Al did you hear that?”

              “Yeah, we need to get going. Gina we missed something back the way we came.”

              “So you saw smoke somewhere?”

              “We sure did. Al thinks it was about a mile back.”

              “Shit I'm sorry Al,” Gina said.

              “Don't feel bad. I missed it too. We'll drive back about half a mile. Then Steve and I will get out and walk the road. You follow in the truck. It's there somewhere, we just gotta find it.”

              It wasn't long before we'd driven about a half a mile back the way we'd come. Gina stopped the truck. Al and I got out and started walking. We hadn't gone far when the all too familiar smell of zombies filled the air around us. I couldn't see any of them but they were definitely there. The further we went the stronger the smell of rotting flesh became. Al motioned for Gina to stop and we walked over to the truck.

              “Something's around here, I know it,” Al said.

              “Where are they? I smell them everywhere. It was bad in the truck, but fuck it's ten times worse out here,” Gina said. “I think I'm gonna throw up.”

                            “Try to be quiet if you do,” Al said.

              “Thanks,” she replied.

              “I'm serious. I don't know why we haven't seen any zombies yet. It smells almost as bad here as at the motel.”

              “We need to keep moving,” I said and started back down the road. I hadn't gone but a few steps when I saw tire tracks heading off the road into some thick brush. “Got it.”

              “What did you say?” Gina asked.

              I turned around and pointed into the woods. They both ran over and the three of us stood there trying to see anything through the dense brush. Al walked over and grabbed a handful of bush and pulled. A whole section of underbrush came towards us.

              “Don't just stand there, help me.”

              I could make out where the brush ended and butted up against a steel pole. I got between the two and pushed. What I now could see was a gate opened to reveal an old logging road leading off into the forest.

              “We'll never get the truck down that road. Besides if we go driving up there we'll lose the element of surprise,” Al said. “You two stay here with Rick.”

              “That's bullshit. I'm going with you,” I said, cutting Al off. “Honey, you'll stay with Rick, won't you.”

              “Yeah I'll stay. Promise me you'll be careful. I lost my dad today. I can't lose anyone else, not today. Bring her back.”

              “Don't worry kid. I'll take your sweetie.” Al said. “Let's get loaded up.”

              We went to the truck and gathered our gear. From what Al was outfitting us with you'd have thought we were going off to war. We each carried two pistols, a fully automatic rifle, a shot gun, assorted knives, and of course several hand grenades each. I had my sword and Al took a small hatchet and pushed it through his belt. With all the shit I had strapped to my body I hoped we didn't have too far to go. We each had to be carrying at least forty pounds of equipment. Whatever was waiting for us, we were prepared for a sustained campaign. I had never served in the military but I felt like we were headed off to fight in the Gulf War.

              There was a bend in the road a few hundred yards down the road back towards the motel. Al told Gina to move the truck around that curve and to wait for us there. He told her “we'd be coming back in one of their vehicles” and to “stay away from the gate” because “those son-of-a-bitches might be right on our asses when we came crashing back through”. The man definitely has a way with words. We would be taking a radio with us and would let Gina know when we were on our way back with Cindy. She was to have the truck facing the gate and we would be going in the opposite direction of the motel when this was all over.

              We had left the zombie horde a few miles behind us but I was still worried about strays. Gina promised me she would stay in the cab of the truck and keep an eye in front of her. At least the truck was high enough off the ground that I felt Gina would be safe from any zombies that came up behind her. If she ran into trouble she was to drive away and head for the little farmhouse we had just left.

              “I guess we're ready to go,” I said.

              “You guys be careful. If they hurt her, even a little bit, do me a favor.”