Death Plague Omnibus [Four Zombie Novels] (69 page)

Chapter Seven

The casing from the shotgun clattered across the wet asphalt before disappearing down a drain. He looked into his brother’s shining eyes and laughed. “Come on, admit it, Daniel, this is way better than playing with all those Legos!”

The light in his brother’s eyes died like a broken flashlight. Mortimer had put his foot right in it again.

“You’re just like all the others at the camp!” he hissed. “You’re just like Martin.”

Mortimer’s eyes stayed fixed on his brother’s crossbow, watching it rise higher and higher. “Enough of the pity me act, Daniel.” He leaned closer to him. “Listen to me.” He pushed the crossbow down to face the ground. He had no wish to receive a bolt in his flesh, either by accident or on purpose. “Did you honestly think that I brought you out here to humiliate you? I’m the only one who’s ever stuck up for you. Even when Martin tried to beat you up, it was always me who jumped between the pair of you.”

Mortimer grabbed his brother’s wrist and jerked him forward. “Look at that,” he hissed, pointing at the fallen zombie. “I know you think that everyone is out to get you, Daniel, but you don’t exactly do yourself any favor by shunning the others. That is your enemy. That thing is definitely out to get you. It would have done anything to clamp its teeth around your flesh. As for the others at the camp?” He snorted. “They’re too busy trying to stay alive, nobody hates you.”

“No, you’re wrong,” said Daniel, violently shaking his head. “You don’t know what they’re like to me when you’re not around. They all hate me, and Martin is the worse one of them all. I wish he was dead.”

Why was he even bothering? Mortimer turned around and stormed off. Fuck him. He was tired of all of this shit. This conversation had been played out countless times already. Hell, even back before the invaders had brought the plague, the fireworks had always been flying between the three of them. He should have left Daniel with his stupid bricks. He was never going to change his tune. Daniel was his own worst enemy.

“Wait up, Mortimer!”

He tensed, expecting to feel the thud of a crossbow bolt thudding into his back at any second. Mortimer spun around, both his hands gripping his shotgun very tight. Daniel was running right for him, but instead of the enraged face of fury, he only saw a great big soft lump of a man who looked about as dangerous as a frightened puppy. His crossbow dangled by his hand like a forgotten glove. Mortimer relaxed his grip and took his finger off the trigger. It looked as though his brother wasn’t the only one with trust issues.

“I’m sorry,” said Daniel. “I didn’t mean to fly off at the handle like that. It’s just that back at the camp, the insults always start off with some innocent-sounding jibe and it inevitably snowballs out of control.”

“Forget about it, Daniel. Come on, we should keep moving. To be honest with you, I shouldn’t have fired off that shot. It would have been better for both of us if I’d let you shoot it or whack it with the gun butt. The noise will travel for miles. I daren’t think how many of those things will be hiding in the city.”

His brother nodded, his head moving up and down with every snippet of info that Mortimer uttered. Daniel didn’t have a clue about how to survive out in the open. Even the most basic of survival tips had flown straight over his brother’s head. All Daniel seemed to care about was his dumb models.

“It doesn’t look like there’s that many of them about, Mortimer. I can’t hear any footsteps. I thought they moaned a lot when they were close to you?” Daniel looked back at the one that Mortimer had shot. “Maybe that’s the only one around here? I mean, why would they bother to stick around when there’s obviously nobody about?” Daniel wandered over to an abandoned car. “You know something?” He turned around. “I feel as if I know this street. How can that be? I’ve never been here in my life, and yet …” He walked past the car and onto the sidewalk. “How is it that I know that there’s a huge toyshop just around the corner?”

Mortimer knew exactly what he meant, but he would have preferred not to hear his brother voicing the same thoughts that had plagued him ever since he’d started to visit the city. “I have no idea,” he lied. “To be honest, the only reason why we’re here at all is because I’m just following a standard search pattern. I’ve already checked out the other areas and found nothing of value.” He shrugged. “There’s nothing special about this place.” He had no intention of telling Daniel that he’d been drawn to this part of the town ever since coming to the city. The pull had always been there, only this time, in the company of his brother, there was no way he could resist its attraction, no matter how hard he tried.

“Bullshit.” Daniel started to walk past the abandoned shops. “I know that there’s a toyshop in the next street. I’ll prove it to you.”

Oh Jesus, their mom had raised a complete idiot! Daniel casually walked along that street without a care in the world, still holding the crossbow by the strap. He wouldn’t stand a chance if any of those things were inside any of those shops. Mortimer ran after him, looking out for anything other than Daniel moving about.

His worst fears solidified. Over a dozen shadows began to move in the grocery store that Daniel had just walked past. “Get your ass back here!” yelled Mortimer. There was little point in stealth at this point. The bastards had already sensed Daniel. He raced over, watching the shadows move towards the broken shop windows. “For crying out loud, Daniel, get the fuck over here! They’re coming after you.”

He reached his brother, grabbed the man’s collar, and pulled Daniel off the sidewalk. The first grey face appeared out of the blackness. Mortimer pushed the stock into his shoulder, took aim and fired. The roar split the sky. He didn’t bother congratulating himself on the fact that the top of his target’s head had just disappeared in a crimson cloud of gore; another dead thing had already shuffled past the fallen zombie.

“What are we going to do?”

He glanced at his brother’s terrified face, then looked back at the dozens of dead things shambling out of the shop windows. Daniel moaned.

“There’s more of them over there!”

The fear in his brother’s voice was tangible. He dare not answer him for fear that his voice might break as well. Daniel wasn’t wrong. He now saw movement in windows and open doorways all around them. They didn’t stand a chance of stopping every one of them. Mortimer tapped his brother sharply on the top of his arm before turning and pelting down the street, staying in the middle of the road. He glanced back once to make sure that Daniel hadn’t decided to stay.

His brother was right behind him, waving the crossbow at the dead things shambling after them. There seemed little point in wasting his breath informing Daniel that the zombies didn’t really understand threats.

There were about a half a dozen already in front of them now. He didn’t believe they posed much of a threat though. Mortimer raised his shotgun and fired once, watching the head of the closest zombie, a middle aged man, explode. Two more emerged from an alcove and joined the rest. He sighed, maybe he just ought to keep his big mouth shut.

“They’re getting closer!”

He turned to see his brother had stopped. He was bending down to pick up a bolt that had fallen. “Christ!” he muttered. Mortimer ran back and grabbed the man’s arm. ”Leave it,” he hissed. “We need to move. Stay with me, don’t stop for anything!”

He ran straight for two dead things while spinning the shotgun. He lifted it up by the barrel and swung it hard at the first zombie. The stock crashed into the side of its head. Mortimer jerked the weapon back, grunting in satisfaction as the barrel slammed against the other one’s neck. It wasn’t down but the movement had given the pair of them a clear path through.

“Where are we going?”

Daniel wasn’t the only one who thought he’d been here before. The sense of belonging had increased with each passing moment. He knew exactly where to go. “Just hush and keep up, Daniel. Keep your head about you, for Christ sake.”

There were a few more dead things in front of them, not many though. It looked as though they had left the bulk of the foul creatures behind them. Even so, he wasn’t going to allow his optimism to overtake his mood just yet. Mortimer slowed down to allow his brother to catch up. “I need your crossbow,” he said. “Swap, just don’t fire it. The last thing we need is to get them excited again.”

Reluctantly, his brother passed him the weapon. Mortimer notched a bolt and pulled back the bow. “Can you see that white building in the distance? The one that’s next to the …”

“Next to the clock tower, where the newspaper office is.”

Mortimer slowly nodded. “Yeah, that’s the place.”

“How do we know where to go?”

The dead things were catching up again. Glancing over his brother’s shoulder, he guessed that there were now at least a hundred bodies making their way towards them. Yet, looking at his brother’s expression, Mortimer was more concerned about how they both seemed to know where to go in this city when neither of them had ever been here before. Mortimer had no answer himself. Unlike Daniel, his practicality had taken control. “We’ll figure that out later.”

He raised the crossbow, aimed, and fired, taking out an old woman that was getting too close for comfort. He ran forward and pulled the bolt out of her forehead. “Follow me,” he said, wondering why he was even bothering to speak, considering his brother must know exactly where they were going now. He ducked under the arms of another one, jumping at the sound of a meaty dull smack. He spun around to see Daniel standing over the zombie that Mortimer had just avoided. His brother was grinning from ear to ear, holding the shotgun like a caveman gripping a club.

“Good man,” said Mortimer, turning back around. He raced across the street, happy to see there weren’t any dead things close by now. His target was just in front of him. Mortimer ran around a delivery truck and stopped under a metal fire exit, waiting for his brother to catch up. “Daniel, climb on my shoulders and try to grab the end.” He kneeled down and gritted his teeth while his brother placed his dirty feet beside his head.

“I’ve got it!”

“Yeah, great,” he muttered. “Then get off me, you heavy bastard.”

His brother jumped off him and pulled the ladders down. Mortimer looked behind them, watching the horde get closer. He shook his head. It
was
a horde now. It looked as though the whole city had turned out.

“There won’t be much of us to go around,” said Daniel, grinning.

Mortimer looked up, seeing Daniel was already on the next set of steps. He quickly followed him and, with Daniel’s help, they pulled the last set of ladders back up to their original position. “How do you feel?”

Daniel shrugged. “Well, apart from not being able to shift that increasing feeling that I’ve been here before, I feel pretty good.” He grinned and pointed to the crossbow. “Do you mind if I keep the gun? I promise I won’t fire it, honest.”

Mortimer sighed. “Yeah, because the last thing we want is for the zombies to know that we’re here.”

Daniel chuckled. “Yeah, that would be very bad. You know something? I think you’re right, this
is
better than playing with Legos.” He raced up the next flight of stairs and leaned over the railings. “The view from up here is awesome. I can almost see the camp.” He looked back at Mortimer. “I’m hungry.”

The dead things below them were hungry as well. The last thing Mortimer wanted to do right now was to push a pin into Daniel’s happiness bubble, but he might have to. If they didn’t find anything to eat in here, chances were that they might not get out of here alive. Those dead things were not going anywhere anytime soon. They knew that their food was in here, and the one thing that all those foul monstrosities possessed in vast quantities was patience.

It could be a couple of days before they were able to escape. Mortimer watched his brother grinning away. It did make him feel good inside to actually see Daniel do anything than snarl or sneer. He’d almost forgotten what his twin looked like with a smile plastered across his face.

Daniel reached the roof and disappeared from view, leaving him alone with his thoughts. “If only Martin was here to see this,” he mumbled. Mortimer watched the crowds of the dead continue to approach the building and, for some weird reason, he actually had the feeling that the rest of his family were in that mass of animated bodies. Just like the ‘been here before’ feeling, this new thought would not leave him.

The rest of their family were dead alright, but their demise had occurred over two hundred miles north of here, way before the time of The Change. Their parents had perished in a car accident two years before the world turned into complete shit. For the last few years until all this happened, it had been their brother and his girlfriend who had kept an eye on the younger brothers. Sure, they’d still lived in the same house that they’d been born in, but the painful memories of their loss had given them all deep scars. Their older brother had always been a bit dominating, but at least they’d been able to have a bit of a laugh with him. He’d got far worse after Mom and Dad had died. Although, for some unknown reason, it had been Daniel who had taken the brunt of Martin’s mood change.

Mortimer raised his eyes to the edge of the building, spotting the top of his brother’s head coming into view. It was the old Martin who would have loved to see Daniel smile. He took a deep breath and yet again wished things had turned out differently, that none of this raising the dead shit had happened.