DEAD (Book 12): End Read online

  They returned to camp and met with the rest of their little thirty-seven person army. Gable recited Randi’s idea once more for the entire group. More than once somebody groaned or grumbled about the futility of the plan. A few brought up how the previous attempts by other groups to try and retake London had all ended poorly.

  “That was before Dolph did us the favor of leading the zombies away like the Pied Piper,” Algernon pointed out.

  “Have we not experienced enough war and death?” Mike finally rose from the stump he’d been using as a chair up to this point.

  Mike Sellars was not what most people pictured when it came to the leader of a group. He was average height, average weight, and soft spoken to the point where you often had to lean close to hear him. His left hand was missing and the limb capped with a hook that would make a pirate envious.

  He’d lost the hand early on when his fellow survivors had made a terrible and eventually fatal mistake. He’d been bitten and one of them had insisted on amputating the hand in hopes that it might save him from turning. That had been before the knowledge of immunity spread and became better known by the survivors.

  “If we run now, then we will do so again and again. That crazed and delusional man wiped out a settlement…one of the largest in existence I would be willing to wager,” Vix spoke, standing as her emotions surged. “Men, women, and children who had managed to rebuild their life and start something wonderful and new.”

  “Using that same logic,” Mike countered, “if we fight, will we simply continue to wage war every single time somebody we don’t like pops up? Ideological differences are a reality. We might not agree, but—”

  “That’s rubbish and you know it!” Vix snapped. “This is not about ideological differences. This is about some delusional twat who wasn’t breast fed long enough and now fancies himself as some sort of leader who can rule any way he sees fit. It would be splendid if everybody could simply live and let live, but human beings always find a way to muck up the pudding.”

  “Muck up the pudding?” Paddy snorted. Vix shot him a nasty glare and he made a gesture of locking his lips and tossing away the key.

  “All in favor?” Gable said with a shrug.

  Everybody raised their hands after a brief pause during which Paddy appeared to be warring with his decision. Once it was settled, they returned to their own camp and packed up everything. An hour later, the group was headed west to London.

  Each day passed with a surprising lack of the undead until Algernon reminded them that it had seemed like most of them were part of that massive mob that had taken out Vix and Chaaya’s old home.

  By the second day, they were doubting their decision as they had yet to encounter a single living person either. It was late in the morning part of the group’s hike when one of them spied a curl of smoke that melded with the gray sky full of low hanging clouds that had kept up a steady misting since just after they had broken camp.

  The group angled their direction towards that sign of life. It proved to be farther than they had originally thought as it seemed that the landscape was a continuous sea of rolling hills that could not be avoided.

  It took until just before dusk—a condition hastened by the blanket of dark clouds that were now dumping buckets of water on the group—but at last, the palisades of the settlement came into view. As was the custom when they approached an unknown settlement, the group held back and sent only a small envoy detachment.

  Randi, Gable, and Vix were chosen for this encounter. Vix was more than a little surprised. After all, she and Chaaya were the newest additions. Paddy had pulled her aside to tell her of the decision and its reason.

  “You believe in this. Most of us are still on the fence. If we want to recruit others, then we need to send in the people who truly believe that this is the right course of action.

  That was good enough for Vix. And so, as a series of lanterns were lit up on the distant wall, whether simply to ward off the night, or to signal the arrival of her and the others, Vix marched towards the massive and gated entrance of this settlement.

  For the first time in a while, she felt like a hero in one of her stories. She was about to try and spearhead a campaign against a force of evil that had reared up in the zombie apocalypse. She only wished she had a flair for words so that she might jot it down for future generations.

  Easy, old girl, she thought. It has not yet even begun…much less ended with a positive outcome.

  ***

  Chad moved through the house with a smile on his face. They had been in the same place now for several months. His daughter seemed happy, and the two of them were getting along better than ever. Today was a shining example of that as she would be showing up any time now for their little vacation excursion.

  Just the thought of it made him laugh. Here it was, over a decade since the zombie apocalypse had jumped out of mainstream fiction and wiped out most of humanity, and he was planning a vacation!

  After they’d taken that first one, his relationship with his daughter had grown and become so much deeper. Of course he had scored even more points when he had assured his daughter that this trip would still be just the two of them.

  He’d recently begun seeing a woman named Monica Wu. It was getting serious, but the woman had been very understanding about this trip just being Chad and his daughter. Ronni was still getting to know Monica and had not yet become entirely comfortable with the situation.

  “Dad?” a voice called from the tiny living room of his one-bedroom apartment. “Are you almost ready?”

  Chad stuck his head out of the bedroom. The look on his daughter’s face was absolutely priceless.

  He’d learned that she used to love the old Tweety Bird cartoons. Monica had an amazing knack when it came to knitting. In fact, her job was in the garment complex. Last night, she had handed him a box.

  “Just a little going away present,” she said with her shy smile, a lock of her hair drifting down over her eyes as she stared down at her lap and waited for him to open it.

  The box had contained a knit cap made to look like the yellow cartoon bird. Chad had jumped up and hurried to the bathroom to try it on. It was exactly like he remembered the cartoon figure to have looked back in the day. That cap was now pulled down on his head as he peeked out at his daughter.

  “My God!” Ronni laughed and shook her head. “That is so…yellow.”

  “Do you have all your gear? It is gonna be cold where we are going,” Chad said, accepting his daughter in his arms as she gave him her customary hug in greeting.

  “Yes, Dad,” she said with a huff that was the same one he’d heard from her as a teen.

  He gave her a look from head to toe as he held her out at arm’s length. Her sandy blond hair was beginning to darken as the summer gave way to fall and winter. It was cut just below her shoulders; long for the norm considering most people had become accustomed to keeping their hair short in order to avoid allowing the zombies anything they might be able to grab hold. Her brown eyes sparkled and he saw just a hint of her mother’s mischievous gleam in them. Her lips curved in a slight smile and she tilted her head to the side.

  “What?” his daughter asked with an arched eyebrow.

  “It is just so hard to believe that Daddy’s little girl is a grown up young woman,” Chad said with a sigh.

  “Daddy’s little girl?” Ronni chuckled. “You haven’t called me that in forever.”

  Chad nodded. “That is because you are so dang grown up. I guess I didn’t think you’d want me calling you that anymore.”

  Ronni renewed her hug of her dad and then looked up at him with a softness in her smile that was rare. “I’ll always be your little girl, Daddy. Isn’t that what you used to tell me?”

  Chad kissed her forehead and enjoyed the moment of closeness for just another few heartbeats before stepping back and picking up his backpack. They had a long couple of days to hike up into the woods. The sun was going to be coming up soon and they nee
ded to use every bit of daylight they could if they were going to make it to their destination as planned.

  “Yeah,” Chad agreed to his daughter’s earlier comment. “It just feels so strange sometimes now that you are so old.”

  That earned him a kick in the rear end and an indignant huff. “Old?”

  “Didn’t you always say that anybody over age twenty-five was old…and once you hit thirty, you are ancient?”

  “That was when I was a teenager.”

  “And now that you are about to turn thirty yourself…thirty isn’t looking so old anymore is it?” Chad laughed.

  “No, but fifty-five is like dinosaur age.” Now it was Ronni’s turn to laugh.

  The two shouldered their gear and headed outside into the early morning chill. Their breath turned to vapor and was snatched away by the breeze. It certainly felt cold enough for snow, but the light drizzle indicated otherwise.

  They reached the main gate and checked out with the sentry. The young man found their names on the list and made a few notes. He gave a whistle.

  “Heading up into the mountains…nice. I hear the snowboarding is epic right about now. In fact, some folks returned the day before yesterday and said there was a pretty gnarly base and that there was fresh powder almost every day.” The sentry looked up and gave Ronni a wink. “Watch out for the old-timer. A few of the slopes are way nastier than they look from the top.”

  “Actually,” Ronni gave the young man a level gaze, “if this goes well, that old-timer is going to teach me how to snowboard. I’ve never done it. Always wanted to but just never had the chance.”

  The young man flushed and handed them their papers. Chad and Ronni headed through the small gate and began the long hike that would take them to their ultimate destination.

  They were about an hour into it when Chad pulled up and grabbed Ronni by the shoulder. She instantly went for the knife on her belt, but her dad gripped her wrist. She looked up at him and he gave a slight nod of his head.

  To their right stood an amazing buck just off the main path that had once been an old logging road. The deer had a huge rack and Ronni counted five points on each side. They stayed still for several heartbeats until the animal finally bounded into the woods and vanished from sight.

  By midday, they had reached an elevation where the ground was dusted with snow. They reached a fork and veered left towards the area where the old ski lodge would be waiting. While the lift had long since fallen to time and disrepair, the building had been maintained by a group of survivors that now acted as hosts for some of the surrounding communities. With money no longer used, people who stayed in one of the cabins and used the slopes would bring supplies and put in some work tending to whatever needed doing in exchange for staying.

  Chad and Ronni were both carrying bundles of candles and several other items that were part of a list sent down the mountain every few months. Chad had marveled at the system in place during the first few trips.

  “What’s that, Dad?” Ronni asked. She was pointing to the left where the embankment dropped off suddenly and the view of a valley unscrolled for what seemed like miles.

  Chad stopped and shielded his eyes from the glare of the little bit of sun managing to burn through the gray sky above as it reflected off the coating of snow. He eventually spotted the curl of smoke rising into the sky. He pulled out his map and checked. He knew the mile marker they had passed and was quickly able to figure their approximate location and traced a line with his finger. There were no known settlements listed as existing in that general area.

  “Maybe some travelers passing through?” Chad mumbled as he folded up the map.

  “We should go check it out.”

  Chad shot a look at his daughter. He knew that taking this “little detour” would chew up two days of their vacation. Also, if they did not report in within the forty-eight hour window, they would be listed as missing. He was about to say exactly that when Ronni shrugged her shoulders.

  “It’s probably nothing. I just thought it might be fun to do something adventurous.”

  Chad thought it over before he replied. “How about we check in and then, when we come back, we can see if it is still here. We can inform anybody heading out to pass along the information and that we will likely be four or five days late on our return.”

  “You are getting so old!” Ronni snarked.

  Chad frowned. “I thought that you wanted to go snowboarding and just have a laid back vacation together.”

  Ronni looked back out across the valley. She spun back to her dad with a mischievous grin on her face. “They might be some of those Outland traders we keep hearing about. Supposedly, some of them have solar battery chargers and iPods with music loaded on them.”

  Chad felt the crease in his forehead deepen. This was so unlike his daughter. It was Ronni that had gotten so mad about their having to move around so much back in the old days. Still, he had to admit, he had heard some of the stories about the merchants that specialized in the next-to-impossible-to-find items. And while he doubted that he would find a solar powered iPod, he had heard rumors that actual bottles of Jack Daniels as well as single-malt scotch had been dealt by some of these wanderers.

  There had been a stigma that had its origins in the early days. Way back when the whole zombie problem started, there were some catastrophic events in some of the larger cities that had nothing to do with the undead. Fires raged; chemical and petroleum plants were some of the worst. It was not long before rumors began to circulate about how some of the nuclear plants had gone Chernobyl. That began a ban on items from the eastern side of the nation. Chad laughed, considering San Onofre was not too far away. Still, fear was easy to muster back then and that had caused a ban on traders known to delve in items scavenged from out east. He doubted that Lynchburg, Tennessee had anything by the way of nuclear power in the area, yet Tennessee was part of the quarantined zone. That had effectively meant the end of Jack Daniels.

  “I guess it can’t hurt.” Chad gave a shrug of his shoulders. “After all, it’s your weekend, sweetie. Whatever you want, that is the plan.”

  Ronni gave a squeal and clapped her hands. For that moment, she was not the grown up woman, she was his little girl. They shifted their gear and resumed their hike to the check-in point of the resort. The deep trench laced with spikes and the wall with watch towers set every fifty yards or so was the only thing that gave away the fact that danger still lurked and the undead remained a nuisance.

  Still, things had really gotten ordinary the past several months. The zombies were almost all concentrated into the large herds. Lookout posts had replaced cell towers as the communities in this region of about a hundred square miles banded together to keep eyes open for any such problems.

  Some of the smarter types had put their heads together and made these huge, portable noisemakers. Any herd that came within view of the perimeter towers was easy to spot and the noisemakers were deployed to divert the raging rivers of the undead that tore through the area from time to time. Life was almost normal.

  As they checked in and were given their cabin assignment, Chad wondered if maybe all those years of living on the edge had changed him and his daughter. Were the two of them nothing more than pair of adrenaline junkies? He was pretty sure the answer to the question from his perspective was a solid no, but he was having doubts about Ronni all of a sudden.

  “We got cabin twenty-three!” Ronni hissed as they headed up the trail that led away from the main lodge and out to the dispersed cabins. When Chad did not say anything in response, Ronni punched him gently in the shoulder and shook her head. “That is the last cabin all the way out by the lake. All we need to do is skirt the shore and we are actually just to the south and east of that valley. We could hike out there and nobody would have to know.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Chad shrugged.

  Perhaps this distraction would work in his favor. He’d been hit with some bad news a few days ago and was struggling with
how he could break it to his daughter. He had not wanted to ruin her birthday, and he thought that perhaps he would just wait until after the holiday season was past before he dropped this bomb. If this was a black market merchant’s camp, perhaps they would have some good booze. This was news best given over a stiff drink, and the homemade stuff that passed off as drinkable alcohol these days was truly awful.

  ***

  The head rolled away and bounced twice before coming to a rest in the grass. There was a scream of anguish and George Rosamilia came around the corner of the house wearing full battle gear. He had a helmet and face shield, heavy gloves, arm and leg guards, and the body of Bill Pitts in front of him as a human shield.

  “One of yours for one of ours!” George roared. He brought up a nasty looking blade and sawed it across the throat of Bill Pitts. A wash of red flowed down the front of his body and the man was shoved away as George turned to face Gable Matczak who was already coming down the stairs and stalking his direction.

  Jody could not help but fixate on the body of Bill Pitts. The man had been a lot of things to Jody over the years. Hell, there was even a time when he considered the man an enemy. The relationship he’d had with the man was complicated. They had never really been friends, but there was always something about the man that Jody had trusted on some level. Even if he was being an ass, Bill Pitts had spoken directly and truthfully.

  He looked back up to see Gable and George still considering each other. That was what Jody thought to be happening until the two figures dressed in full battle gear much like George came around the other corner of the house. They were moving up behind the man very carefully. Jody brought his crossbow up and sighted on the lead person. Taking a deep breath and holding it, he squeezed the trigger. Almost before the bolt had reached its target, he was already reloading.

  The first person stopped in their tracks and then appeared to look down and try to brush something away. Of course those were simply the final firings of the brain as the bolt through the heart had been almost instant in its fatality. The second figure stopped, reflexively trying to catch the person who was now on their knees and would have been facedown if they had not been grabbed. Jody used that opportunity to line up his next shot. He fired, but the person had apparently figured out what was happening and dove for cover.