The Last Town (Book 4): Fighting the Dead (2 page)

“So what we gonna do?” Big Tone asked.

Doddridge had been formulating a plan of attack when one simply devised itself. The door leading into the house from the car port opened, and a blue-haired old lady shuffled out. She wore a powder blue dress, a big hat, and absolutely huge sunglasses that were probably really fashionable back in the 1970s. She shambled toward the Cadillac Fleetwood sitting in the meager shade the car port offered, rummaging around in a bright yellow purse that was the size of a life preserver she held in one hand. The men were laying flat in the dust only forty feet away, and Doddridge heard the clink of keys as she pulled a key ring out of the purse.

“We taking her down?” Auto asked, and Doddridge thought there was a bit too much excitement in his voice.

“No, man. We’ll let the ol bitch drive away, then we’ll take the house,” Doddridge said. “We’ll see what she got, then wait for her to come home.”

“We ought to take her, man.”

“Auto, what the fuck for? Let her go out and do whatever she needs to do. We got all night to deal with her when she comes home. Don’t worry bout it. We take her down and the people who might be waitin’ on her could get curious why she don’t show up to bingo or whatever old white bitches do in the desert, and that leads to cops. Forget that shit.”

Auto made a disagreeable noise in his throat, but didn’t press the matter further.

The men spent the next few minutes taking in the rather unenviable entertainment that came from watching an old woman clamber into a big Cadillac. While Doddridge couldn’t see her face, he figured she had to be in her 80s judging by the sluggishness of her movements. Finally, she got herself situated inside the great white beast and started it up. The Caddy had an engine that still had some balls to it, and Auto nodded appreciatively beside him.

“That’s the old seven liter,” he said.

“Great, so we have our getaway car,” Big Tone said.

“Damn, I sure hope so,” Auto said.

“So what the fuck is taking her so long?” Shaliq said. “I got to take a piss.”

“Probably waiting for the air conditioning to kick in,” Auto said. “She’s old. She probably likes it like a refrigerator.”

For sure, the old woman didn’t close the driver’s door for another two minutes. When she did, she wrestled into her seat belt, and then spent another minute backing the Caddy down the twenty foot driveway. Carefully maneuvering the big car as if it was a battleship in a tight harbor, the old woman turned the vehicle until its chrome grille was pointed north up the street. She then accelerated away as if she was in the pole position in a NASCAR race.

Doddridge laughed at that.

The deadbolt on the door had been set, but the wood was old, and Auto was almost able to push the door open. He had been right—the old woman liked her environment to be cold, and Doddridge luxuriated in the air conditioned bliss of her home. The door from the car park led into a small and rather outdated kitchen. It was clean. The old lady apparently took pride in keeping her home spotless, and for a flickering instant, Doddridge felt sorry he and his new crew had despoiled such a pristine speck in the middle of the endless desert. The regret died almost instantly. He wasn’t one to carry much baggage, and he dropped the remorse as if it was too hot to hold onto.

The rest of the small house was much like the kitchen. A near living room with an old tube TV, a sofa wrapped in plastic like in the old days, newspapers on the coffee table, a well-used easy chair and ottoman. A single bathroom, so clean and bright that it almost looked alien to him—the lack of institutional hues struck him almost right between the eyes as he regarded the gleaming porcelain and the spotless glass of the sliding shower doors that sat above the tub. Two bedrooms, one with a pair of single beds that looked like they’d never been used. The second was the master, and it held a freshly-made queen bed and smelled of lavender and sandalwood. All in all, the small residence made Doddridge think he and his crew had taken residence inside one giant doily.

“Okay,” he said to the others as he returned to the living room. “Let’s get us squared away. Let’s see what the old lady has to eat.”

“I’d like to use the bathroom and take a shower,” said the pasty-faced white boy who had pissed himself on the bus. His voice was soft and almost sibilant, the way an extremely shy person might speak. Doddridge didn’t know anything about him, other than he had whimpered the entire trip from northern California.

“What’s your name?” he asked the white kid.

“Bruce,” the kid said.

Doddridge motioned to Shaliq. “You gonna tell me you’re nineteen, too?”

Bruce shook his head. “No. I’m twenty.”

Shaliq clucked his tongue and shook his head. “Shit, I’m still the baby.”

Doddridge nodded toward the bathroom. “Yeah, sure,
Brucie
, knock yourself out. You smell like piss, anyway.”

“Hey, hold on.” Big Tone stood by the low-lying coffee table. He tapped the newspaper he held in his hand. “You gotta see this.”

Doddridge scowled. “I ain’t got time to read no paper,” he said. The truth of the matter was, Doddridge was pretty much illiterate. While he could read at the first grade level on a good day, going through something like a newspaper article was roughly akin to him grappling with the theoretical possibilities posed by quantum physics.

Tone tapped the paper again. “There’s some sort of plague going on, man. People are dying all over. New York City’s burning down. Check it.” The older Latino turned the paper around so that Doddridge and the others could see it. The full color picture showed half of Manhattan island on fire, emitting huge columns of smoke that dwarfed those that had erupted during the attacks on the World Trade Center.

“Holy shit,” Auto said.

“That real, man?” Shaliq asked.

Tone shrugged. “Fuck if I know. It’s in the paper. Says that a few million people have died across the world over the last few days.” He shook his head. “LA’s getting it, too. Army’s mobilized. Food riots. And get this, people who die, they’re saying they ain’t really dead. They get up and start biting other people, spreading the plague.”

“
Bitin’
people?” Doddridge asked. “What, like they’re some kind of damn zombies?”

Tone seemed to go pale at the word. “Look, I don’t know.”

Shaliq pointed at the television. “Let’s find out.”

Hell yeah, I could watch me some TV.
“Go ahead,” Doddridge said. Shaliq moved to the television and switched it on. The old lady had a satellite subscription, and Shaliq turned it to CNN after consulting the viewing guide.

Sure enough, New York City was on fire. And so was Chicago. And Los Angeles.

“Holy shit,” Doddridge said after staring at the TV for less than thirty seconds.

The picture showed a horde of shambling people attacking cops in New York. The attackers didn’t appear to be bothered by tear gas or riot rounds or even real bullets. They just kept on coming, walking through the shit storm the cops sent their way. The only time one went down was when a leg had been hit, but even then, the crazies came at a crawl. They stopped for good only if they were hit in the head.

“Man,” Tone said, and his voice was small and weak. Doddridge glanced at him, and saw the Latin King’s face was ashen as he crossed himself.

“Fuck, man—I got to get back to Seattle,” Auto said suddenly.

“No one goin’ anywhere,” Doddridge shot back. “We gotta sit tight, learn about this shit. If somethin’s going down in the world, we need to know about it before we do shit.” He glanced at the thin white guy. “But you can go take your shower, faggot. Please.”

“Okay,” Bruce whispered, staring at the television with blank, blue eyes. “Thanks.”

Doddridge ignored him and looked at the TV for a few moments, listening to what the anchor was saying about the violence they were watching. Some sort of plague that actually reanimated the dead? People eating each other? No cure, no vaccine, no defense, but the president urged calm?

What the fuck? I finally get outta prison, and
this
is where my black ass fucking lands?

###

“We’ll need to start weapons training once the outer defenses have been finished,” Corbett told the council. “Everyone needs to know how to shoot. Everyone needs to learn how to defend themselves.”

Max Booker didn’t have time to even do a face palm before Hector Aguilar exploded.

“Everyone needs to learn how to
shoot
?” the pharmacy owner said, his eyes wide and incredulous behind his glasses. “What lunacy are you talking about? This is a town full of
people
, not jack-booted thugs!”

Corbett stood before the council table in the meeting room, hands in his pockets. He wore jeans and a long polo shirt. He favored Hector with a frosty glare before his pulled his right hand out of his pocket. Booker thought for an brief moment that he might pull his .45—Booker knew the man was armed, had seen the tell-tale bulge of a big pistol tucked into a holster in the small of his back—but instead, Corbett merely pushed his own glasses up his nose.

“The dead apparently need a very specific injury in order to stop attacking,” the billionaire said. “That is, a shot to the head. Anywhere else doesn’t bother them. Might slow them down some, but won’t stop them. Head shots are the only guaranteed way to put them down for the count. Sounds easy, but it’s not, especially if the shooter is under stress, in an uncomfortable position, and isn’t properly trained.”

Hector laughed. It was an unpleasant sound. “So you think that arming the people and training them to kill is the answer?” He laughed again. “My God, you are a lunatic. Tell him, Chief.”

Chief Grady stirred a bit at the end of the table. “Mister Corbett, I understand what you’re saying, but I’m not sure that a lot of our people are qualified or able to handle firearms.”

Corbett’s face swiveled to lock onto Grady like a turret on a battleship locking onto a target. “The Second Amendment doesn’t seem to cover that particular detail, Chief.”

“That’s not the point!” Hector almost shouted. “This is a peaceful place to live, and you want to turn it into a right-wing police state!”

“Chief, I think the answers regarding who can or cannot possess a firearm can be found in the California Firearms Law Summary released by the attorney general’s office,” Corbett continued, ignoring Hector. “If there are people who are mentally incompetent or who might be precluded from possessing a firearm due to previous criminal activity, I have no problem denying them access. On the other hand, folks who aren’t in a restricted category should be allowed to learn how to defend themselves, their fellow citizens, and the town. Remember, they’ll be shooting at the walking dead, not live people.”

“But we don’t even know if these people are actually
dead
!” Hector snapped. “No one has proven anything to the contrary! These are very, very sick people who need our help!”

“Hector, you saw an attack yourself!” Gemma Washington said, turning toward the mustachioed pharmacy owner. She sat between Hector and Chief Grady. “You were there—was Wally Whittaker still alive when he attacked Lou?”

Hector rolled his eyes. “Of
course
he was still alive! How else could he have bitten Lou?”

Corbett looked back at Grady. “Chief, what’s your take on that?”

“I’m not a doctor.”

“No, but you’re a policeman.”

Grady fidgeted a bit in his seat. “Listen, I’m not qualified to say—I didn’t see him drop. When I got to Hector’s he had already attacked Lou, and he was going after Hailey, so I did what I had to do. He was definitely dead afterwards, though. That much is for certain.”