We Are The Plague: Dext of the Dead, Book 1, Page 2

  We got it.

  Now, I gotta say this: Cutty takes out biters like it’s his fucking job. I mean, he’s a beast. We crept up within twenty yards and hunkered down. Junior chambered a round, and I made sure my peashooter had six bullets just in case things didn’t go to plan. I took a look over at Cutty, and he was holding… get this… two big-ass machetes. Cutty, hehe. Now I get it.

  We were in a sparsely wooded area between the field and the service road that led to the depot, so the cover was working in our favor. Cutty went ahead and did the work. He didn’t even bother to flank them as he charged in at a full run and swung hard. The first geek dropped like a rag doll as Cutty’s downward chop split its head straight down the middle.

  I mouthed the words, “What. The. Fuck,” at Junior when I saw that the hit came down so hard, it bisected this bitch from the top of her head to right between her tits. He left the blade in her for the time being and spun full circle, baseball style, catching the second just along its temple. This one fell sideways and landed on the other with its top open like a canteen; not a clean cut all the way through, but it didn’t need to be. Cutty retrieved his blade and stood over them. I shit you not, he fuckin’ flexed on them like the Incredible Hulk.

  Junior winked at me and moved up to meet him.

  It was suddenly obvious that it was no piece of farm equipment that stood in the middle of that blank spot in the field. Junior must have provided cover fire from a distance, hence the ones without heads, while Cutty stood in the middle and did his best helicopter impression. I was beginning to like these two.

  Junior looked at the two on the ground and addressed Cutty as usual with, “Half-assed job, as usual, dumbshit. Didn’t even take his top all the way off.” He spat a mouthful of that foul tobacco juice on them and looked up almost as if he was hoping for a comeback from Cutty.

  He was met with a snort and a headshake followed swiftly by, “I see you was back there spectatin’ an’ shit.”

  I interjected, hoping to avoid another round with these two, and snapped, “If you two ladies are finished, we got a ride to catch.” Lucky for me, they simply mumbled to one another as we moved on.

  We hoofed it the rest of the way down to the service road in silence… focused. I could see the domes of the big salt silos first, but as we reached the fence line of the depot, I knew we were in the shit. We held up to make a plan.

  Cutty looked me straight in the eyes and said, “A’ight homie, time ta earn ya keep. Ma turn to spectate.”

  There were about fourteen shuffling around the yard inside the fence. All of them were wearing state-ish uniforms and were obviously employees. I didn’t want to fathom what happened to turn them all. Nevertheless, the gate a little further down the road was clearly locked up tight, and the little shack they were milling around looked like it held nothing more than a break room and a dispatch office.

  It was also clear that Cutty wasn’t getting his big ass over that fence, leaving me and Junior to get to the plows lined up about twenty-five yards away along the rear fence. Cutty boosted Junior up so he could easily get over, and I climbed on my own.

  Junior broke left toward the dome and whistled, which easily grabbed the attention of the geeks, and they shambled in his direction, leaving me room to break into a full sprint towards the trucks. I had hoped I could hop in, turn the key, and smash the gate, but nothing comes that easily these days.

  With Junior distracting the biters and Cutty keeping watch on the bigger picture, I hit the line of seven trucks and pulled the handle on the first one. Fuck! Locked. Second. Fuck! Locked. Third. Wasting time here. Fuck-fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck. Locked. Sure as shit, the keys are sitting in the office, no doubt hung on a board under the proper truck number.

  I broke for the shack but not before three of Junior’s fanbase spotted me. Junior was kinda funny actually. He was just circling the dome with the pack in tow, all the while hootin’ and hollerin’ like some sort of demented rodeo clown, “Come an’ git it, pussbags! Come an’ git you some!”

  I hit the shack door and flew inside as the three behind me closed the gap. I locked the door behind me and broke right. Inside the office I scanned for anything that might shout, “Hey, asshole! Keys are in here!” Then I smelled it—that unmistakable mix of roadkill, garbage, shit, piss… death. A glance to my rear confirmed that one must’ve been in the break room, and I had just locked myself inside a cramped shack with a Goddamn stinkface. Fuck those keys. I pulled my little .38 and took aim. Bam!

  Now, I can’t shoot to begin with… Add to that nerves and my eyes watering from the smell, and needless to say my first shot, from eight feet away, missed by a country mile. He kept comin’. Making that throaty whine, face all fucked up, eyes sunken in… four feet… I aimed again… three feet and closing… two feet. Bam! Dude, the gun was touching his forehead when I finally squeezed off. Brain, skull, and black blood spray-painted the floor behind him, and you better believe I didn’t stick around long enough to even see him drop. I was grabbing the desk chair and preparing to bust out the window to make my exit. Surely the three from outside had reached the door by now.

  Outside, we were well and truly fucked. All of Junior’s geeks were now heading my way as well as the three from the door thanks to all the noise. I could see behind the pack Junior had displaced that he was taking aim. I also noted Cutty, now up on my left and outside of the gate, shaking it in an effort to distract a few. Some of them broke off from the pack and headed his way.

  And then…. like rain from heaven itself, Junior’s rounds found a home. One of the door biters dropped—then another. Finally the third fell, and I caught a glimmer in the sunlight.

  “Please… please, please, please be what I think you are,” my mind raced. Now, with a lane back to the trucks and with Junior’s cover fire, I headed to the downed geeks and son-of-a-bitch if there wasn’t a key ring on stinky’s belt—the snap-on kind, too. I snatched it off and broke into a run to the trucks while I fidgeted with the keys. One had the number seventeen taped to it. I could only hope.

  I called to Junior, “Seventeen, seventeen… find truck seventeen!”

  He laid down two more geeks and broke for the trucks. I not only beat him to the line, but I found seventeen on my own. At my gesture, Junior hopped in the dump bed and perched his rifle over the truck’s roof. Geeks were closing in on us yet again, but as I fired up the engine, I could see their heads popping like bloody water balloons. Surgical indeed, Junior, surgical indeed.

  I laid into the rest with the plow and accelerated toward the gate. It was the shit! Dukes of Hazzard-style, we busted that bitch right open, and then I slammed the brakes, throwing six or eight geeks that had been gathered by the plow about twelve feet into the woods to the left of the road.

  I scooted over to the passenger seat, and Cutty hopped in to take my place at the wheel.

  He grinned as he took off and said, “Dayum, nigga… You’s a runnin’ muh fucka.”

  I couldn’t say a single thing back to him. I was wheezing like a bitch.

  So there we were. Thirty-five miles to salvation, and I was in the passenger seat of a snowplow with Snoop-Dogg to my left and Garth Brooks back there in the dump bed letting the wind blow through his hair like a retarded labrador. Things were lookin’ up.

  Entry 6

  Just saw a pack beside the road… not a herd by any means, just like six or seven of them. They were feeding heavily on a soldier. We slowed as we approached, and they didn’t even look up.

  It was interesting… made me wonder why I didn’t carry around some fresh meat at all times to drop behind me like feeding treats to an angry, junkyard dog. Maybe it could take the heat off if we were ever in a pinch. Oh yeah! Because finding fresh meat these days is impossible!

  Another thing we saw for the first time as we passed them by was that the soldier finally reanimated and started to get to his feet. At that moment all the stinks backed off. He got up, and it was only th
en that they turned their attention to us in the plow and started their slow approach. Cutty gassed it, and we kept on rolling.

  I’m pretty sure we just witnessed a herd in the making.

  Entry 7

  The roads became increasingly crowded with abandoned vehicles as we made our way, but the plow was making life a bit easier as we jammed through various snags. It slowed us considerably, and night had fallen by the time we neared our destination. It didn’t matter anyway.

  The rescue station was done. We could tell as soon as it was in sight. It was originally a middle school, but now it was a desolate wasteland. There were huge burn marks and rubble from what we could only assume were grenades and shit. Bodies were mangled and burned everywhere, and the playground was a mess of twisted and scorched metal. Even the soldiers there didn’t stand a chance, much less any survivors that made it there looking for sanctuary. As disappointed as I was to see that it was gone, I counted us lucky for not having arrived any sooner.

  I left Cutty and Junior with the truck and told them to keep their eyes peeled while I went ahead to scout for anything useful.

  Junior wanted to come along, but Cutty jumped in the conversation and stated flatly, “If Flo-Jo here wan’ go in that bitch alone, I’ma let ‘im, and I suggest you do da same. Can’t none of us move like dis boy, an’ I ain’t tryna lose two of us.”

  Junior shot him a shitty look and snapped, “You’s a one-way sum bitch, Cutty… If we lose him then I’ll be ‘lone with yer monkey ass ‘gain, and I’m likin’ the fact that we outnumber you at the moment.”

  Here we go again… Cutty moved to face Junior and told him, “I swear ta gawd I’ma knock out yo’ last good toof.”

  That was all I needed to hear. I told them if I wasn’t back in twenty minutes, they should just wait longer. That left them confused enough for me to get a head start.

  I was in full-on stealth mode as I approached the yard toward the school. I noticed a mangled soldier holding a decent-looking pistol lying on the ground at my feet. I knew he was geeked out, but he was a sleeper. Shit if I knew what kind of gun it was, but I knew it was better than my little popgun. Not sure why I did this, but I slipped it out of his hand and replaced it with my old one like I was some welfare version of Indiana Jones. It didn’t even notice me. I don’t know… just felt right to leave him something of mine.

  I snuck along the wall to the stairs that led to the upper deck of the gym. It was a flight of about fifteen steps, and when I reached the top, I saw a small figure sitting with its knees to its chest in the corner next to the double doors. I raised my new piece and prepared to shoot, but the figure didn’t move like a deadhead. It just sat there shivering.

  I got close enough to see that it was only a boy. He was about seven or eight, filthy, and obviously scared shitless… So was I.

  “Psst,” I hissed at him quietly, but he gave no response. I tried again with a whisper. “Hey… kid… you all right?”

  Nothin’.

  Moving up beside him, I reached for the door handle, and he sprung to life. He snapped his head up, and with a wide-eyed stare of absolute terror, he just shook it like, No-no-no, but he still said nothing.

  I peered in the window, and there it was—down on the gym floor below the bleachers, there were no less than two hundred of them: women, men, teenagers, lots of children… all dead… all reanimated. Packed in like cattle, they bumped into one another and stumbled around, just waiting for someone to ring the dinner bell. Ummmmm…

  I looked down at the boy and took note of his appearance. Poor kid. He was white as a ghost and flecked with soot and grease. His clothes were those of an average kid, and they hung loosely like they were a family hand-me-down. His innocent face burned itself into my brain.

  I whispered as harshly as I could, “We gotta go,” but he was back to that hundred-yard stare again. “Look, it’s dangerous here… We gotta go!” My voice was more authoritative this time, but still whispering.

  Nothin’.

  Fuck it… I grabbed his arm and started to drag him along with me. He sprang to life and freaked out… I mean… he just freaked out, kicking and screaming at the top of his lungs, “No-no-no-no!”

  He was fighting me hard, pulling away and just yelling the whole time. Our cover was blown, and they came. They came like a flood. Zeds began pouring out of the downstairs doors, and before we knew it they were at the bottom of the stairwell.

  I shouted at him, “We gotta go. Come on!”

  He kept pulling away as fifty or more deadheads bottlenecked at the stairs and began scrambling up to us. I shot my new piece, firing down at them wildly, but I knew I was just wasting time. Torn between gauging their distance and one-handedly grabbing at the boy, I glanced to my left at the thirteen-foot drop to the ground over the rail. I scooped the boy up, kicking and screaming as they got within an arm’s length. The timing could not have been more perfect… horrifyingly perfect.

  As I climbed up to hop the rail with the boy in tow, a biter got a hold of his foot, and the kid’s finger poked me square in the eye. I fell blindly, and… he just slipped. He slipped from my hands.

  I hit the ground hard, but popped up full of adrenalin and started running. His screams quieted to a gurgle in the distance, and I died a little inside.

  After a hundred yards or so, I reached the plow. Cutty already had the engine running, and Junior moved into the middle seat so I could get in.

  I simply said, “Go.”

  Junior piped in as Cutty took off. “We heard shots, and it sounded like a kid screaming or sum’n… What happened, boy? You okay? You bit?”

  I stared straight ahead through the windshield as we moved further west, trying to make sense of what just happened.

  “No… No kid…. Just me.”

  Entry 8

  Cutty just informed me that the fuel situation is getting serious. I could care less.

  We’ve been riding in silence for about a half hour. The roads are fucked up anyway, and we haven’t even gone more than half a mile. Frankly, we don’t even know where we’re going anymore with the rescue station being a loss.

  I can’t get that kid out of my head. How could I let that happen? He didn’t do anything to anyone. I could’ve thrown him over the rail instead of myself. I could’ve not wasted time taking any shots. I just stirred a hornet’s nest… and these hornets don’t sting… They just wanna eat your fucking face off.

  Oh, lovely, we’ve stopped. What now?

  Entry 9

  Ask and ye shall receive, as the old saying goes.

  We left the truck on the grass median and walked into a small, commercial center in the town closest to the school under the cover of darkness to scavenge. As we surveyed the area, we could make out a few shops: liquor store (mental note, drown sorrows at earliest convenience), gas station, small market, the common stuff. I wanted to get some food for us, some toilet paper (the canned chili from the pizza joint is working its magic), and a good bottle of hooch for the next time we get a safe moment like the tower, if there’s even a safe moment to be had anymore.

  Cutty and Junior were on gas detail, so they went about siphoning from a few abandoned diesel trucks strewn around the area.

  The place was devoid of any geeks that we could see, which I felt was odd—that is, until I realized the majority of them, and probably the majority of this entire little town, were a short distance away at the rescue station, now thoroughly pissed off.

  I was kneeling in an aisle of the market scooping up some grub and putting it in my bag when I felt the barrel press against the back of my head.

  Now, if you’ve never had a gun pressed to your nugget-piece, it’s hard to explain the amount of adrenalin and fear. It’s like, you wanna run, but you know you can’t. You wanna talk, but you don’t know if you should. You wanna close your eyes and hope it goes away, but it won’t. Long story short, it fuckin’ sucks.

  Funny thing is, since I lost that kid ba
ck at the school… I didn’t care. I almost wanted the world to go dark—almost. The will to survive is a powerful drug.

  “Talk,” the voice commanded.

  I replied with the most logical response I could think of saying, “I’m not one of them… Don’t shoot.”

  The voice responded, “Stand up slowly and turn around with your hands where I can see them.”

  This was starting to sound like one too many movies I’d seen. I did as I was told and was shocked to see there was more than one of them—two, in fact—pimply faced, fourteen-year-old kids wearing backpacks and armed to the teeth, each with an M-4 and a sidearm. They were lookin’ like those Columbine fuck-tards who shot up the school all those years ago.

  The kid on the left addressed the one who had done all the talking up to this point with a nasty, juicy-mouthed lisp, saying, “Juscht schoot him, dude. Never schot a real perschon before? Who’sch gonna know? Beschides, he’sch prolly a fuckin’ raider anyway.”

  I smiled. You wouldn’t think that was a wise choice at this point in time. I just couldn’t help grinning from ear to ear.

  The first kid gave a dismissing look at his buddy and turned his attention to me again. Gesturing to his weapon, he said, “Why you smilin’, man? This shit look funny to yo—”

  His words caught in his throat. Both of them turned pale, and their eyes nearly bugged out of their heads. All was quiet as one of Cutty’s machetes less than gently touched each of them on the side of their necks from behind.

  Cutty’s voice was low and almost growly. He spoke slowly. “Anybody move… an’ I’ma get ta cuttin’ bitches up.”

  Both of them dropped their weapons simultaneously. Whether it was out of submission or fear, we’ll never know. My money’s on both.

  The lead kid went into full-on gut-spillin’ mode like the fat kid in The Goonies. “Look, man… we’re just kids… We played video games and shit… We didn’t even know what was going on… We’re not killers or nuthin’. We got a place in the woods. You can have it… Just don’t kill us, man. Please don’t kill us,” he pleaded.