The Dead Series (Book 1): Tell Me When I'm Dead (18 page)

“Holly Mitchell Pulaski.”

He gave our IDs a cursory look and handed them back. “Tres Marias High School,” he said. “But I can’t let you through. Only authorized personnel.”

I was about to object when Landry took my arm. “Come on, Dave. The man’s doing his job. Thank you, sir.” He signaled to Ben and Aaron and climbed back into the truck. Reluctantly, I got in too.

“What the hell, Irwin?” I said.

“Can’t you see you’re not going to get anywhere with these guys? They have orders to shoot.”

“So what do we do?”

“Try being creative.”

I pulled around the military traffic, with Ben following, and got back onto the freeway heading north. We drove for five miles. I spotted an exit that looked clear and got off.

“There’s an old fire road that connects Tres Marias with Mt. Shasta,” I said. “If I can pick it up, we might have a shot.”

“I know that road. Go right.”

When Jim and I went out drinking, we’d end up on unfamiliar back roads “using the force” to get home. Landry and I did that now, feeling our way by sheer gut instinct. It worked.

After waiting for Ben to catch up, I turned into an entrance that was barely noticeable from the main road. It was shady and covered by trees. Jim and I used to hang out on this road, drinking and chasing down deer. About a hundred feet in, we saw a locked gate. I didn’t see anyone else there. Landry and I got out and examined the lock and chain up close.

“We could shoot the lock off.”

“That’s bound to attract attention,” Landry said. “Where’s your axe?”

Ben, Aaron and I took turns whacking at the lock. After a few minutes, we were drenched in sweat. At some point the lock gave. We drove through, then I shut the gate and replaced the chain and broken lock to make it appear secure.

The fire road was dusty and full of ruts. I had to be careful not to drive too fast, or I might break an axle. It was around ten miles to town via the winding road. Though we didn’t see any military personnel, we passed a number of undead along the way—out-of-shape tourists wandering like addicts, looking for fresh meat. We didn’t risk stopping to deal with them.

Once we reached Tres Marias, I thought we’d be stopped again. But the troops were preoccupied with keeping order as merchants closed up their shops before evacuating. Some civilians wore surgical masks in the vain hope that they were protected against an airborne virus. One of the merchants, a toy shop owner I recognized, had taped a hand-painted sign in her window that read
See You on the Other Side
. At the bottom was a smiley face.

As we made our way through downtown, I saw the graffiti covering the buildings. One message read
Attention Tourists: You Should’ve Chosen San Diego
.

Approaching an intersection, I saw soldiers, their AR-15s fixed on something in an alley. Several undead staggered into the sunlight, covered in blood from a fresh kill. I heard someone give a command, and they fired. At first they aimed for the chest. When that didn’t work, they aimed for the head and dropped them in seconds.

Up ahead, another group of soldiers patrolled the sidewalk. I noticed a drunk coming out of the Beehive.

As we waited at the intersection for the signal to change, we saw the drunk weaving bad. I got scared.

One of the soldiers said, “Halt!”

The drunk must not have heard. As they raised their weapons, he kept weaving towards them. My stomach went up into my throat as they drew a bead on him.

“God, no,” I said.

Then it happened.

The drunk went down in a hail of bullets. This was when I knew, if the people in charge couldn’t tell the difference between a drunk and the undead, we were all doomed.

As we cruised past, Landry said, “Poor bastard.”

A chain-link fence with concertina wire strung across the top surrounded the high school. Armed soldiers manned a single entrance. On the roof, more soldiers trained their weapons on the ground below.

We stopped at a sentry station. A soldier wearing body armor came over to the driver’s window.

“I’m Dave Pulaski,” I said. “I live in this town.”

“What do you want here?”

“I’m looking for my wife.”

“I’ll need to see your ID,” he said. Then to Landry, “You too.” He nodded towards the motor home behind us. “They with you?”

“Yeah.”

He signaled to another soldier to deal with Ben and Aaron.

We waited while our IDs were processed using a magstripe reader attached to a laptop. I hoped that the police hadn’t flagged me over Jim’s death. Then the sentry handed back the licenses and waved us through.

“Not sure how much parking is left,” he said.

We circled for ten minutes, which, come to think of it, made no sense. Nobody was leaving, so we gave up and parked along a fence that separated the school from a residential street.

The gym was full. It smelled of sweat and feet. It was hard to hear over people talking and arguing and babies squalling. Sleeping bags lay everywhere. Families with small children, couples, old people. And everyone was scared. I wondered what they’d been told.

“This is unfortunate,” Landry said.

“What do you mean?”

“They won’t be able to defend these people. Look at all these small kids—the elderly. It’s going to be a bloodbath.”

“I guess positive thinking was never your style.”

“I’m facing facts, Dave. Let’s see if we can locate your wife.”

Though I knew it was hopeless, I texted Holly to let her know we were here, but found that I had no bars.

We had left our weapons locked in our vehicles on Landry’s advice. Sure enough, we were checked for guns when coming into the facility.

“I’m going to look for Holly,” I said.

“I’ll find out what I can from the authorities,” Landry said. “Ben, why don’t you and Aaron come with me.”

I took my time, starting at one end of the gym and going down every aisle looking for my wife. It was hard to walk in places—peoples’ stuff was spread out everywhere. One woman screamed at me because I almost stepped on her toddler. Everyone was on edge.

The last time I was in this gym was for high-school graduation. My dad had passed away the year before, but my mom, sick as she was, made it to the ceremony. Though it was no big deal to me, I remembered how proud she was. She had never finished high school. Right before she died, I promised her I would find a way to go to college. Another one of my commitments washed away in a river of beer and regret.

There were a lot of people whom I recognized from the town. They all had that scared, hollowed-out look, like their spirits had already departed.

Mrs. Hough, one of my parents’ neighbors, touched my arm as I passed by. Her hair was white—the last time I’d seen her, she was still dying it. She was in her early seventies, but she looked older and frailer.

“Dave?” she said.

“Mrs. Hough. How are you?”

“Not well. They rushed me down here, and I forgot my medication. It’s at the house, and I’m too afraid to go back for it.”

She was kind of a chatterbox, and I wanted to find Holly. But I remembered how the old woman used to come over and look after my mom during those last weeks and months, bringing her soup and magazines and helping with bathing. So I sat on the floor next to her and listened.

“They won’t tell us what’s going on,” she said. “They keep saying there’s been some kind of, of outbreak. I don’t even know what that means. Who are these people?”

“What’s the medication for?”

“Diabetes and blood pressure mostly. Don’t ever get old, Dave.”

“Tell you what. I’ll take a run over there.”

“Oh!” she said. “That’s so kind. My son sent word that he was coming to get me. I told him not to leave school, but he insisted.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I have to find someone, but I’ll go to your house in a little while, okay? I promise. Think you can hold out?”

“Here are my house keys.”

“Don’t worry. Why don’t you try to rest?”

I fluffed her pillow and helped her lie down. She didn’t seem to want to let go of my hand.

“God bless you, Dave,” she said and closed her eyes. “You’re a saint.”

It took me a few minutes to cover the rest of the floor. I didn’t see Holly anywhere. I didn’t think she would go back to the house, so I tried to think where else she might be. Why hadn’t she called or texted? There was an obvious answer, but I refused to think about it.

“No luck?” Landry said when I rejoined the others.

“No.”

“They’re telling everyone it’s an endemic outbreak.”

“Yeah, I heard. What exactly does that mean?”

“It means there’s a virus that’s prevalent in this area, and it’s spreading from person to person,” Landry said. “Pretty much what I guessed. We can’t stay here.”

“Why not?” Ben said. “Look at all this protection.”

Landry signaled for us to follow him outside, away from everyone. “Because,” he said, “once the undead discover that there’s a whole building full of fresh meat, they’ll attack without mercy. And these guys won’t be able to stop them, I don’t care how good they are. This place is Hell’s waiting room.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Ben said. “These soldiers are trained. They have weapons.”

“And if it was just a few undead attacking, I would agree with you. You’ve seen it. These things travel in hordes. All they have to do is bite a soldier and he becomes one of them on the spot. We can’t risk it.”

“How many do you think there are out there?” Aaron said.

“At this point,” Landry said, “could be in the thousands.”

“So where do we go?” Ben said. They looked at me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Shit, I forgot. I promised a neighbor I’d get her medication. She’s sick. I can do it on my own.”

“Take Aaron with you,” Landry said.

“No,” Ben said, grabbing his son’s arm. “I’ll go.”

Though Aaron was pretty green, I didn’t have a lot of confidence in Ben. He was an even worse survivalist than me. And with that artificial hip, I felt he was a liability.

“Dad, it’s fine. I can do this. You stay here with Mr. Landry.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ll be fine, I promise.”

“I love you, son. Be careful.”

“I will.”

“We’ll stay in the motor home until you return,” Landry said. “Then we’ll all leave together. Try to hurry.”

As Aaron and I headed for my truck, a soldier stopped us. “You need to get back inside,” he said.

“A neighbor of mine is in there,” I said. “I’m going to her house to get her medication.”

“We’re not supposed to let you people come and go.”

“I get that, but she’s not doing too well. She’s pretty old.”

“What’s her name?”

“Eleanor Hough.”

He signaled to a soldier with a laptop, who looked her up. Then he said, “Make it fast.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Hey, what’s going on with the cell-phone service?”

“Last I heard, we were looking into it.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’re looking into it.”

“Okay, thanks,” I said, but he’d already turned away from me and had started a conversation with another soldier.

“What do you think is going on with the cell phones?” Aaron said.

“Maybe it’s part of their plan to contain this thing.”

Driving out of the parking lot, I almost hit a kid on a skateboard. It was strange to see someone taking things so lightly—just another day at the skate park. He couldn’t have been more than thirteen. Dressed in jeans and a black Hurley T-shirt, his long, blonde hair falling over his shoulders. I wondered how long before he wasn’t human.

Mrs. Hough lived on a cul-de-sac across the street from the house where I grew up. When we drove in, I imagined how we could get trapped in there, with one way out.

“Which house?” Aaron said.

“The one with the pinwheel petunias.”

“Cute.”

“Is that sarcastic cute?”

“No, just … Yeah, sarcastic.” Aaron laughed self-consciously.

The street was deserted. I remembered a flock of wild parrots that used to hang out in the maple trees, squawking their heads off. Now there was silence.

Before getting out of the truck, we scanned all the houses, looking for movement of any kind. Then we grabbed our guns.