The Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Weight (33 page)

Steve could still remember his amazement at the wide array of weapons she had scrounged from the cars
and trucks on the highway. A majority of them were hunting rifles and pistols, but there were a few automatic rifles and one sub-machinegun. There was a lot of ammunition stacked in boxes and laying loose in two ammo cans, but to Steve’s dismay, very little of it would work in their rifles. Added to that, they only had one hundred rounds left for the .50 caliber machine gun. Their plan was to set it up outside the gate and use it first. When it was empty, they would abandon it and get behind the fence.

Turning to go inside, he stopped when his eye caught something moving
out in the field. Looking closer, he saw in the fading sunlight that it was a Z. The dead thing reached the fence and tried to climb it but kept sliding down. Steve started to raise his rifle and call out a warning, when he was stopped by a voice from behind him saying, “I’ll take care of this.”

Grimm brushed passed him and
said over her shoulder, “It’s not the zombie invasion yet. We do get stragglers through here from time to time.”

Steve watched as she strode purposefully to
the gate and opened it. After closing and locking it behind her, she walked along the fence as she occasionally banged her scythe against it to attract the Z. He could see that she only had to do it twice before the thing noticed and started running toward her in the loping fashion of the dead.

Grimm stopped and waited, her scythe at the ready.

To be on the safe side, Steve raised his rifle and sighted in on the Z. He saw it get within a few feet of Grimm before she moved. The blade flashed out almost too fast to be seen, and the dead thing’s head literally flew from its shoulders. Grimm sidestepped as the body’s momentum carried it past her to tumble to the ground where it lay twitching.

Even from
the porch, he could hear her shout, “Oley,” before turning in his direction and taking a bow. She then wiped her blade on a piece of cloth she pulled from beneath her robe and tossed the soiled rag on top of the body.

Walking
toward where Steve stood in awe at the sight he’d just witnessed, Grimm said, “Tomorrow I will be with you. You can use your guns and explosives, but I prefer my ways.”

“You should have a gun with you just in case,” Steve told her.

Pulling the right flap of her robe away from her, Steve saw that she wore a jet-black body suit under it and carried an MP5 on a sling over her shoulder.

“I
don’t leave home without it,” she said with a laugh. “Now come inside and get cleaned up. I’m going to turn on the generator in a few minutes and that means it’s time to cook. I think tonight we’re having roast beef hash on crackers as the appetizer but I’ll have to check with the raggedy twins. It’s their turn to cook tonight.”

As Steve followed her inside, he considered her and Igor before wondering what talents the raggedy twins had. And what about the fifth person who was supposed to live here, where was he? They’d asked about him but had only received the vague reply
that he was around somewhere.

Steve decided
to ask again, “Hey, Grimm -.”

Before he could say
anything else, she cut him off by saying, “The fifth person is Claude Rains, but don’t tell Igor he’s here.”

It took Steve a minute to get it. When he did, he laughed and said, “The invisible man. Well, at least he won’t have any problem getting away if everything goes to hell.”

***

Steve walked to where Tick-Tock was setting up the .50 caliber heavy machine gun on a makeshift base. The
Hilti nail gun banged as he secured it to a tripod of wood, the noise echoing off the ground fog that had gathered overnight. It was so thick that they hadn’t even bothered to watch the group to the east since they couldn’t see them anyway. When the sun rose, it was a faint glow on the horizon, scattering its light through the mist. Grimm had assured them that it would burn off before her children arrived, but they were still jumpy due to the limited visibility.

Nodding to Denise and Linda
, who had volunteered to stand guard, Steve asked, “Did you eat yet?”

Denise said, “Not yet.
Tick-Tock wanted to get his toy set up. We’ll grab something later.”

“Both of you head on up to the house and grab some chow,”
he told her. “I’ve got this.”

Grateful to get out of the creepy fog, Linda
instantly accepted his offer and started toward the mansion. Denise hesitated, so Steve said, “Don’t worry, I won’t let anything happen to him.”

Reluctantly, she followed Linda. The two women had barely travelled a
dozen feet before they disappeared.

When they were gone, Steve said, “Good thing we
didn’t get hit in this fog or we would have been screwed.”

Tick-Tock shot the last nail in and stood before saying, “No doubt. If they hit us at night
, we could still see well enough to pull this off, but in this shit…”

After a moment, Steve asked, “So what do you think our chances are?”

“Fifty-fifty,” he answered without hesitation. “If we can bust up the main wave with the dynamite, I think our chances go up to about seventy-thirty.”

“I don’t like the idea of leaving Grimm behind,” Steve said.

“Her choice,” Tick-Tock told him. “I wish the others had the balls to stand up for themselves like that.”

With a sigh, Steve said, “
We’ll only have Sean and his crew with us for a little longer. It’s almost over. I’m thinking only a few more days and we’ll be safe.”

“
Now that we’re close, did you think about what you’ll do if Cindy doesn’t hold the cure?” Tick-Tock asked.

“Every day,” Steve answered.

“What if there is no cure?” Tick-Tock asked.

Steve shrugged and said, “Then I’ll do something else.”

“
What?”

Steve shrugged and said, “I’ll deal with that when
, and if, it comes.”

***

Brain carefully made his way down the slope of the roof with the antennae in his hand. Passing it down to Connie, he said, “Take that down to the truck along with whatever else you can carry and I’ll get the rest of our things from the room.”

He dropped through the hatch
and found her standing by the door with a worried look on her face.

“What’s the matter, babe?” He asked.

“I’m scared,” she said with a tremor in her voice. “We’re surrounded by those things, and I just don’t see a way out.”

Trying to reassure her, Brain said, “I explained what we’re going to do, honey. It’s real simple. We’re in a good solid position here, so
all we have to do is let the Z’s hit the fence and then we blow a hole through them and break out to the south.”

“It sounds simple,” Connie said quietly, “but what if something goes wrong?”

Taking her in his arms, he said, “Nothing can go wrong. If worse comes to worse, we hole up here in the house and shoot all the dead with our rifles. Grimm has enough ammunition to fight a small war. We may have to use a couple different guns since she’s got so many different calibers, but we’ll be fine.”

Laying her head against his shoulder, she said, “I’m just worried about you. I already lost my entire family and I don’t want to lose you too.”

“You won’t lose me,” he promised. “All I have to do is set off the dynamite and then I’ll be hauling ass to the truck. Steve and Heather have the really dangerous job, they’ve got to open and close the gate. All we have to do is drive.”

“I know but -,” she started to say.

Holding a finger up to her lips, he said, “No more buts. When it comes down to it, we really have no choice since we can’t stay here. Look on the bright side, once we get past this group, it should be clear sailing all the way to Fort Polk.”

Forcing a smile, Connie said, “I’ll be brave, it’s just that I have a bad feeling about this.”

***

Mary and Sheila
appeared through the thinning fog, each holding one of Cindy’s hands in theirs as they swung them back and forth in time with their steps. A few feet behind them, Igor and Linda kept pace while Pep ran back and forth to sniff at things. Approaching the Dodge Ram, they could see that the hood was up and Denise was leaning into the engine compartment.

“
Got a problem?” Mary asked. “Maybe we can help.”

Denise stood and wiped her hands on a rag as she said, “Nope, just making sure everything’s running right.”

Noticing the pistol stuck into the waistband of Mary’s pants and the hunting rifle slung over her shoulder, she realized how much the woman must have changed. Tick-Tock had told him stories about how she used to be, so the transformation was amazing. She now looked competent and resourceful. Chalking it up to the shock of actually seeing how bad everything was, Denise was glad to have another gun in the group.

Turning her attention to Sheila,
Denise could see where her dyed blonde hair was growing out red again, giving her a punk rock look. Tick-Tock had told her about their time on the Dead Calm and how they’d fooled the Reverend Ricky’s people into thinking she was Heather. Sheila was also armed with a pistol and a rifle.

“Well
, is it a problem?” Sheila asked bluntly. “If you think you’re going to have a breakdown or some shit, we can put Cindy in the other truck.”

“No problems at all,” Denise assured her. “It’s running like a Swiss watch. It might get a little cramped with five of us in there even though it’s an extended cab, but we
’ll make do.”

Linda stepped forward and said, “I tried to talk Igor into riding in one of the vans but he wouldn’t go for it.”

“You actually talked to him?” Denise asked.

Smiling, she said, “It was a pretty one sided conversation, but I could tell he wasn’t going to budge
by the way he kept shaking his head and giving me the finger.”

“So who’s driving the other truck?” Denise asked.

“Brain,” Sheila answered. “Connie is riding with him and they’ll take Pep since you’re already full. Heather and Steve are going to drive the minivans and Mary and I are going to ride shotgun for them. Two of the others are going with Brain to make room for us.”

Denise winced at the thought of
all those people crammed into the vans. It would be tight, but they had to cut down on vehicles to make their gas go further. Eventually, they would probably all be on foot, but the longer they could drive the better.

“What about the others?” She asked. “Are they ready yet?”

“The last of them just came downstairs,” Mary told them. “We’re going to get them sorted out in a minute and get their packs loaded in the other truck. They are all such worthless pains in the ass.”

Denise choked back a laugh, as this was exactly how Tick-Tock
had described Mary.

Handing Cindy off to
Linda, the two women disappeared into the mist.

***

The sun rose, burning off the fog and giving them a good view of the field and driveway. Mist still clung to the trees, but now they could see any target approaching the mansion from over one hundred feet away.

Steve stood at the gate waiting for Heather. She had radioed earlier that she was at the place where the fire road intersected the highway. Brain had been monitoring the CB and
relayed to Steve that she was going to wait and see if the dead kept moving north.

This had been
a critical question. Would the dead make the ninety-degree turn to head east and join up with the mob on the other side of Jasper, or would they continue on in a straight line and by-pass them completely?

His question was answered a few minutes later when he saw Heather’s truck speeding down the lane. She slid to a stop next to him in a cloud of dust as she rolled down her window.

“Get ready,” she said urgently. “They’ve turned east and they’re coming this way.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Washington DC:

General Eastridge looked at the communication slip in his hand
as he asked the Captain standing before him, “Why wasn’t this delivered to me yesterday?”

“I didn’t deem it as
urgent, sir,” he answered.

Standing up and leaning over his desk, Eastridge said in a low voice, “So
, what I hear you saying is that you know better than me. I was the one who asked the NSA to search for certain keywords like immune and requested that any communication containing this word be brought to me immediately. Yet you decided that you would disobey my orders. Is this correct, Captain?”

“I didn’t know you were the one who requested the search, sir,” he said quietly.

“It shouldn’t matter who the fuck requested it,” Eastridge exploded. “If we’re taking the time to use our limited resources with the NSA, then you can take it to the bank that it’s important.”

Wisely, the Captain remained silent.

Settling himself in his chair, the General asked in a soft voice, “Which do you prefer, the cold or the heat?”