Dead Series (Book 2): A Little More Dead: Gunfire & Sunshine (19 page)

Curtis sprinted
around the hog truck, the dead and bloated pigs inside stinking up the roadway.
“We gotta get past those tracks!” he said, hopping in the back to help Paul cover
the others.

“I know.” Paul waved
for them to move faster, glancing at the train about to trap them between the
hog truck.

Without incident,
the others piled in the backseat and Curtis slammed his door shut. “Go!”

Paul slid in
behind the wheel and before Wendy could shut her door he hit the gas, lurching
up a steep incline toward the train tracks stretching thirty yards before them.
The clacking grew louder. Stephanie screamed. He slammed on the brakes, narrowly
missing the yellow locomotive rolling past. “Shit!” Pounding the horn, he
backed up, catching a worrisome look from Wendy as the train clicked and
clacked in front of them.

They fell silent, watching
the engineer reach for them out a broken window. The conductor’s eyes were as
wild as his salt and pepper hair blowing in the wind. Bloody scratches ran down
one side of his face and he yelled things at them they couldn’t hear.

“No. Fucking. Way,”
Wendy whispered.

“What the hell,
man?” Billy leaned forward in the backseat. “Those things are driving trains
now?”

“He’s not driving
it,” Paul replied, watching the engine slowly fade into the west. “He must’ve
turned while the train was already in motion. He’s just along for the ride now.”
Paul looked over at Wendy. “Just like that cruise ship captain.”

“Damn,” Curtis
muttered. “How long you think this thing’s been rollin along on autopilot?”

“As slow as it’s
going, probably a while.” Paul tried rubbing the lines from his forehead, feeling
like a caged animal. He checked the hog truck in the mirror and blew out a slow
and low breath. Returning his attention to the train, his heart jumped when he
saw two people leap from an open freight car off to the right. The men hit the
ground and rolled, kicking up a plume of dust and staggering to their feet.

Wendy locked her
door when they began limping closer. “Okay, this isn’t good.”

Paul drew his
Beretta and rolled back the sunroof. “Plug your ears,” he said, squeezing
through.

“Paul.”

He ducked back
inside and looked at Stephanie. “What?”

She thumbed behind
her. “We’ve got company coming.”

His eyes drifted
out the back window, widening when he the ragged horde coming around the hog
truck on both sides. “Oh shit,” he whispered, guessing they must’ve come from
the trees because the cars were empty. Turning back around, he saw the railway
bums nearly to the pickup. “Lock your doors and roll up the windows,” he said,
standing up through the sunroof and staring down the barrel of the Beretta.
Lining up the three white dots, Paul was about to squeeze the trigger when more
people jumped from the train. Heart pumping, he watched the freight train spill
from the trees like an endless metal snake, blocking their escape route for who
knew how much longer. Turning back to the horde, a cold realization settled in
as he saw there wasn’t going to be time to grab the duffel bag with the
majority of their guns in the truck bed – including the M4.

Curtis must have noticed
the same thing because he was already trying to pull the guns through the tiny back
window one at a time. But it was too late for that. A heavyset man in a red flannel
climbed into the bed, making the truck dip in back and diving for Curtis’ arm.
Curtis jerked his limb back inside just as the man’s rotting face plugged the
open window. Billy screamed, narrowly avoiding his gnashing teeth. Tar-dark
blood spilled over the man’s bottom lip and ran onto Billy’s back. Stephanie
fired, blowing the thing out the window and making everyone’s ears ring. Curtis
slammed the window shut and Paul slid back inside and closed the sunroof,
deciding that conservation was in their best interest at this point. There were
too many of them and no sense wasting all their ammunition when the train would
soon be gone.

The F-150 began to
rock as more corpses climbed into the bed and others beat against the windows
and doors. Paul watched the first two train hobos mount the hood and begin
pummeling the front windshield with sloppy fists. A tall man in a hunting vest
yanked on Paul’s door handle. “Jesus Christ!” he yelled. “How fucking long is
this train?”

“They’re going to
break the glass!” Billy cried, waving his gun around inside the cab.

“No they’re not!
It’s tempered,” Paul shouted over the moans and screams. The dead woman in
pajamas at Brock’s house flickered through his mind. She’d smashed her fist
through Shelly1’s window after only a few attempts and this probably wouldn’t
be much different but he didn’t want to tell Billy that because the train would
be gone soon anyway. So what was the point?

Everyone stared past
the raking claws off to the east, impatiently watching the lazy train unfold
from a bend in the trees.

“Sonofabitch.” Billy
cried. “This is the slowest train ever!”

The front window
cracked under a heavy blow from the hobo with a frizzy beard and tattered
sports coat. Paul revved the engine just to reassure himself it hadn’t died
along with everything else in this fucked up world. The beefy V8 roared over
the collective moans and grunts coming from the decomposing faces pressing
against the glass on all sides. In a few more seconds, he could punch it and
send the corpses toppling as the pickup sped off to safety.

“Paul!” Wendy
shrieked, leaning against him.

He turned to see a
mountain of a man barreling toward her door at an alarming rate of speed. The
man came hard, tucking his dark beard into his chest and head butting her
window with a thunderous crash. Glass exploded into the cab and Wendy screamed.
The man latched onto her hair and pulled her to his teeth. Paul took aim but couldn’t
get a clear shot, not with the truck shaking like an earthquake. She pushed against
the door to keep from getting sucked out the window and just when Paul thought
she would be lost like Sophia, everything slowed down in his mind. Everything
got quiet. His heart relaxed and he had time to see the tattoo of a four-leaf
clover on the man’s neck. Had time to hear his angry rumbles and snorts stretching
like a record playing on slow. Had time to line up a clear shot and sink a hollow
point into his Cro-Mag forehead and knock the mountain to his back.

Free of the man’s
grasp, Wendy dove into Paul’s lap to escape the other mangled hands now reaching
through her shattered window. The truck rocked back and forth while Paul unloaded
his magazine in a controlled manner that would’ve made Brock proud.

Pop!

Pop!

Pop!

One by one, decomposing
bastards flew back outside the truck and hit the ground. And one by one, more
replaced them. A young blond woman – probably very pretty before the outbreak -
took one to the face. A senior with stringy hair hanging down one side of his
head…
boom
…gone.

A frat guy in a
Sooners tee.

Pop!

Down.

A black girl
missing her nose.

Bang!

Dead again.

A Boy Scout.

Click.

The gun ran dry.

“Come on!” Paul
cursed the lethargic train unraveling from the goddamn fucking tree line. He tried
getting to the extra magazine in his holster while stiffs came through the window.
“Curtis! I’m out!”

Curtis leaned on
the center console and started blasting, each gunshot a hammer to their ears in
such close quarters. But their hearing was the least of their problems and it
was only a matter of time before another window broke out and if this stupid fucking
train didn’t get the hell out of the way they’d be dead in less than sixty
seconds.

Paul’s fingers hit
metal. He slapped the mag in just as the back window exploded. Putting their
backs against the front seats, Stephanie and Billy peppered the dead reaching
through the small window while Curtis and Paul popped the ones coming through
Wendy’s. Shell casings fell like copper rain. The moans and screams grew louder,
more desperate. The pickup shook. Wendy raised her head to help out and Paul
shoved her back into his lap like some horny teenager at the drive-in. At this
point, she would only block his shots.

The locomotive
blew its horn off in the distance and Paul had time to think about what that
meant. Had time to envision the undead conductor pulling on that whistle chain
as mad laughter rolled from his split lips. Sinking a slug into a man wearing a
Carhatt, Paul felt the hot sting of a shell casing slide down the inside of his
coat. The caboose finally slithered from the trees, injecting a shot of much needed
hope into his racing bloodstream. The driver’s side window blew out and someone
wrapped their slimy fingers around his face and pulled. His gun went off, blowing
out the sunroof and raining down jewel-like pieces of glass upon them. Paul
could taste the rot on the fingers fish-hooking into his mouth, could feel the
teeth biting into his neck before they even broke the skin. Could see Sophia’s
hand reaching from the vapor and he was ready to take it. Just before he shut
his eyes, he watched Wendy rise from his lap in slow motion and point her gun
at his face. Saw the muzzle flash and felt the heat of the bullet whizzing past
his ear. The clammy hands went limp and fell away from his face. He spun around
in the leather seat and spent his magazine on the things coming through the
window, praying to a God he wasn’t sure existed anymore that his rounds would
last longer than it took for that red fucking caboose to cross the sonofabitching
road.

Decomposing
corpses swarmed Paul’s window like bees to an open can of Orange Crush, lining
up to be sent back to Hell where they came from. The hail of gunfire inside the
cab made his head spin, threatening his aim and reflex. Wendy’s muzzle blast
lingered in the corners of his eyes. Blood and brains flew into his face. The
PX4 clicked dry and he stomped on the gas pedal, sending the things in the
truck bed tumbling out the back. Wendy braced for impact. The caboose wasn’t
all the way across the road yet and it was going to be close but it was now or
never.

Fuck it.

Paul cranked the
wheel to the right and the truck bounced with the massive tires steamrolling the
bodies in the road. The garish sound of twisting metal filled the cab as the
left side of the pickup grazed the caboose steps, shearing off the undead and the
truck’s outside mirror. Then they were free. Sort of. Paul jetted into the open
road stretching before them with angry corpses clinging to the hood. Wendy shot
the Boy Scout hanging onto her door, sending him cart wheeling across the
pavement and losing a leg in the tumble.

“Hang on!” He mashed
the brake pedal to the floor, launching the stragglers on the hood into space.
When they landed with a roll he stepped on the gas and ran over their heads, the
sickening sound of crunching bone making him wince.

Then they were free.

Really free.

The wind whistled
through their hair.

Nobody said a word.

Sunlight glistened
off the cracks in the windshield and the abrupt silence was as deafening as the
gunfire that got them here.

Two miles later,
Paul stopped in the middle of the road and got out, pulling his shirt up and
letting the shell casing inside clink to the pavement. Pacing back and forth
across the road, he shook off the near death experience with his ears ringing
and heart hammering against his ribcage. The others climbed out and brushed
chunks of flesh and glass from their hair and clothing. They looked like they
just finished a late October shift at the most gruesome haunted house on the planet.

“Goddamn!” Billy
rested his hands on his knees behind the truck and caught his breath. “That was
the most fucked up shit I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh, just wait,”
Curtis said, using his shirt to mop blood from his face. “It gets better.”

“Man, I am telling
you, black people do not do zombies.”

Curtis spit to the
ground. “They do now, Montel.”

Wendy hurried around
the front of the truck where Paul was simply trying to breathe with his fingers
locked behind his head. “Are you okay?”

He nodded. “You?”

She stared at him
for a moment before rushing into his arms and bursting into tears. “I don’t
know how much more of this I can take.”

He wrapped her in
his arms, too exhausted to do much else.

Tears mixed with
the blood splatter on her cheeks. “That was too close.”

“But we made it. Again.”

She pulled back
with a frown, a light breeze tickling her matted locks. “I love you,” she
whispered.

A shell-shocked expression
blanketed his face while Sophia’s words drifted through his head like ghosts.

Let me go.

“Don’t say that,”
he whispered back.

“It’s true.”

“You don’t even
know me.”

“I know you more
than you think.”