As The World Dies Untold Tales Volume 3 (12 page)

Chapter 3

While You Were Sleeping

A Week Later

Walking light-footed across the floor, Ruben approached Charlie. The younger man was seated in a window, hunting rifle lying across his lap, staring over the darkened street. They were holed up in a small town museum and night had settled firmly over the land. Only the full moon gave any light to the room.

Behind them, Senator Brightman was snoring loudly, fast asleep on a cot tucked into a recreation of a World War II bunker.

“Charlie,” Ruben said, his voice barely a whisper.

Charlie sluggishly swiveled his head toward him. The boy’s face was pinched and a little gray. The food they had salvaged two days before had been bad. They were all a little shaky still.

“Wazzup?”

Ruben crouched next to the nineteen
-year-old. He had eight years on the boy, but he felt fatherly toward the younger man.

“Time to go,” he whispered.

Charlie glanced toward the senator, then at Ruben. Nervously licking his lips, he worked up the nerve to say, “Gonna wake her?”

“No.” The word was said softly, but with conviction.

Relief flooding his face, Charlie slid off the windowsill. “Okay,” Charlie answered, nodding. He stood on still shaky legs and took a deep breath. “Is it right? To leave her?” His voice was thick with guilt.

“I listened in on her last conversation with Central,” Ruben said oh so quietly. “Everything she’s been saying is bullshit. They aren’t telling her to find a safe location for extraction. They’re telling her they ain’t gonna get us.”

Charlie pressed his lips firmly together. In the moonlight, his eyes glistened with tears. He was an East Texas bayou boy. All he’d been talking about was getting home to the swamps. Ruben was from south San Antonio. He wanted to go home, too, but he knew that there was nothing left. Central had given Charlie hope and Ruben had just killed it. He felt like a dick doing it, but they’d made enough mistakes. Siding with the senator was the biggest of them all.

“We left those people in the mall…” Charlie muttered, his voice catching. “We saw the smoke, but we kept going…”

“I know. We fucked up.”

Charlie lowered his eyes, then nodded. “Yeah.”

“Look, kid, we stay with her, we die. You saw what she did to Raleigh. She’ll do it to us. We’re her fucking bodyguards. She doesn’t give a shit about us,” Ruben said firmly. “I was going to stick with her until Central rescued us, but after hearing the truth, I’m done with her bullshit.”

Charlie sighed, then picked up his backpack very quietly. “I know. I just wanted to go home.”

Ruben grabbed the boy firmly by the back of the neck and pressed his forehead to his. Behind them, the senator snorted in her sleep. “I’m gonna get you to a safe place. I promise.”

“The fort?”

“No. We fucked up like the devil and we’re cast out of paradise. We gotta find another place.”

The younger man looked fragile in the light of the moon. He reminded Ruben of his younger brother and it hurt like hell.

Without another word, they crept across the floor, careful not to make any noise, before stealthily creeping down the stairs. The zombie infestation was minimal in this town, but they carefully looked out the windows before unbolting the door. Stepping out into the cool spring air, they hurried to the truck.

A zombie lurched from the shadows, uttering a low moan. Its rotting hands reached for them as its yellowed teeth champed together. Ruben firmly cold-cocked it with his rifle. It fell to the ground, still moaning. Ruben brought the rifle butt down again and silenced the fiend.

Charlie slipped into the driver’s seat of the truck and flung his bag on the floor. It held a few personal possessions and the senator’s radio she used to speak to Central. It also contained the ammo for the hunting rifle he had picked up a few towns back. “I got her radio.”

“Good.” Ruben slid into the truck and shut the passenger door. “Fuck her.”

“Where are we going?”

Ruben stared at the silent street. A few zombies staggered through the gloom, washed gray by the moonlight.

“West.”

Charlie nodded. “Okay.”

The truck roared to life and sped along the road for a block before the headlights flipped on. It increased speed as the undead shambled into its path. Zombies bouncing off its grill, it turned a corner and was gone.

Meanwhile, the senator snored on.

Chapter 4

Best Served Rotting

Patting her hair once more, Paige regarded her image in the mirror. Armed with a teasing comb and the best hairspray on the market, she’d manipulated her blonde hair into a bubble of perfectly-coiffed golden locks. Spritzing more hairspray onto her bouffant, she closed her heavily made up eyes, complete with false eyelashes, and enjoyed the fragrance of the spray as it fell in tiny drops over her hair and face.

“I’m in heaven,” she drawled.

Opening her eyes again, she studied her reflection in the soft, white glow of the chandelier over her head and smiled. It was her best smile. Her trademark. The pearly-white, freshly scrubbed teeth glistened between her bright pink lips. Perfect.

Tilting her head, she fastened diamond and pearl earrings to her ears as the tranquil sounds of Frank Sinatra wafted in from the intercom. Blanche, her dead sister, had the decency to keep some good music in the mansion. At least the power was still on in this area of Texas. She supposed it was the hydro-electric plant she had been so adamantly opposed to, but she’d never admit that the opposing political party had been right to sink federal money into it.

“I don’t look a day over forty,” she declared to the mirror. She was nearing her fifties, but was sure she wasn’t showing it even if she’d lived through absolute hell since the zombies had the audacity to ruin the world.

Walking away from the vanity, she studied herself in the full length gilded mirror in Blanche’s enormous closet, rotating first one way
, then the other. The dark pink suit looked perfect and the nude sling back heels were very nice. Her nails on her fingertips and toes were trimmed and freshly polished.

Nearly three weeks ago she had awakened to utter silence in that dank old museum and realized the chickenshits had run off without her. Sitting up, she had studied the room while listening for sounds of any undead in the building. At least the assholes had been decent enough to shut the door behind them.

“Fuckers,” she had hissed, then picked up her hunting rifle.

It had been a bit harrowing escaping the museum and finding a working vehicle, but she had managed without the buffoons. After making sure that the idiots had really run off without her (and her precious radio), she slipped off the safety on her rifle, slung her bag over one shoulder, and walked into the morning air. Comfortable with the weapon (she was a Texas girl after all), she’d taken a deep breath while she walked to steady her nerves. If she remembered correctly, she’d killed about five zombies before commandeering a truck standing in the middle of the road with the keys still in the ignition. Ignoring the dried blood and guts on the seat, she had climbed inside and shut the door just before a small horde of zombies had descended on her. For several gut-wrenching seconds she fought to get the engine to turn over. The moment had been too similar to the morning she had pushed Raleigh out of the truck. For a second she’d feared she was about to meet his fate, but then the engine sputtered to life. She’d been damn lucky. The zombies banging on the windows had been damned determined.

“Oh, shit,” she now muttered, and fussed with the collar of the jacket. It was refusing to sit properly

The last few weeks had been hard. She’d even cried once or twice. It had been horrible not being able to fix her hair and makeup. Worse yet, she’d been forced to eat convenience store junk food, and was often sick to her stomach. Sticking to back roads, taking long roundabout ways around towns and that damn fort, and fighting for her life a few times, she’d slowly found her way to her sister’s mansion. Just a mile from her destination, she’d found a car stalled off the side of the road, full of supplies. It looked like someone had been fully stocked and making a run for safety when their car had stopped working.

She’d hoped to find Blanche and her brother in law, Steven, holed up in the safety of their lovely home, but when she’d driven up the driveway, she had found the front door open and dried bits of bone and flesh on the doorstep. No zombies had been loitering around thankfully.

Thoroughly searching the house, Paige was relieved that she found nothing dead and smelly to greet her. The water had been on when she turned the handles on the faucets, but there had been no electricity. Checking the breaker box, she saw that the main one had flipped. In a few seconds, the mansion lit up and the air conditioning switched on. That was the beginning of a whole new life for her. Secure in the mansion with plenty of supplies, she was now in her own element, free from the drudgery of the open road.

Going over to Blanche’s dresser, she drew a nice string of pearls around her neck and secured it. She studied her reflection in another mirror.

Yes, much better.

Frowning at the sound of the zombies outside moaning, she walked over to turn up the music. She really had no time to deal with the disgusting creatures that refused to stay dead. Besides, they were definitely not getting in past the heavy doors and reinforced glass.

Feeling pleased with herself, she went downstairs and into the kitchen. Her dinner of rosemary chicken was just about done and she inhaled the rich fragrance. Shooting that little shit’s head off as it had run around the yard had been fun, but eating it would be so much better. There were quite a few wild chickens now and she didn’t think she’d be starving any time soon. Pouring herself a glass of wine, she leaned against the counter and watched the decaying remains of what looked like a Mexican field worker bang on the kitchen window.

Stupid spics. Even dead they were annoying.

For a moment she missed Raleigh chiding her for her bias. He’d been amusing while on his many tirades about her behavior. Oh, well, he was gone, that little annoying faggot, and she was still alive.

Another zombie joined the one at the window. It had no face and was missing one of its blue eyes. Its skeleton face leered at her through the glass. Clumps of what may have been blonde hair clung to the rotting sinews of its neck.

Tilting her head, Paige studied the new creature. It was really one of the more hideous ones she had seen. Then something glinted in the light cast by the fixture over the window and Paige’s eyes narrowed. Leaning closer to the glass, she stared at the object that kept catching the light and sparkling brightly.

“Grandma’s diamonds!” she gasped.

Even though her and Blanche’s mother had married a no-good, poor sack of shit, the one thing their mother had never done, no matter how pressed for money and food they’d become, was sell her grandmother’s diamond earrings. It was the only thing of worth that Blanche and Paige inherited upon their mother’s death. For years the sisters had traded them back and forth, and now they glittered in the ears of a disgusting zombie.

“Blanche?” Paige said, awed and repulsed.

Her beautiful younger sister was now nothing more than a shredded corpse.

“Well, this ain’t right!”

In a rush, Paige hurried upstairs to Blanche’s closet and found a pair of sturdy low-heeled boots. Discarding the heels, she tugged on the worn leather footwear and flexed her toes. They would do. Grabbing her rifle and the messenger bag with the extra shells, she hurried downstairs and to the side door.

Peeling back the curtain, she studied the back porch. It was empty of zombies except for the Mexican and her sister. Wrenching the door open, she stepped out, aimed and fired. The field worker crumpled in a shower of blood and brains. The zombie that had been her sister let out an unearthly howl and surged forward.

Paige took careful aim and fired.

The shot shredded the remains of Blanche’s neck and sent her head flying in one direction and her body tumbling to the ground. Side-stepping the body and the other zombie, Blanche hurried over to the decapitated head rolling along the walkway. Using her boot, she finally got it to stop by pinning it to the wall. The blue eye rolled wildly in its socket while the grisly broken teeth gnashed hungrily.

“Sorry, Blanche.” Paige smashed in the skull with the butt of her rifle. A few more jabs assured her that her zombie sister was gone, but that her ears remained firmly attached to the side of her head. Crouching, Paige reclaimed her grandmother’s diamond earrings. “I just can’t have you wandering around wearing these. It wouldn’t be right.”

Low moans in the surrounding foliage alerted her to the presence of other zombies. Swiftly, she retreated into the house, locking the door. After washing her hands, she set the diamonds in a china bowl and let the hot water run in the sink until it was nearly scalding. Adding a dash of detergent to the bowl and filling it with water, she set the earrings inside to soak.

“There much better. I’m setting just all sorts of things right.”

Washing her hands again after handling the earrings, she claimed her chicken and baked veggies from the oven and set her dinner on the counter. The fragrance was divine. She uncovered the biscuits she had made earlier and left to rise on the baking sheet and placed those in the oven. Soon, she’d have a real meal.

“I’m back in control,” she said aloud. Pouring a glass of wine, she smiled. “Yes, I’m back in control.”

She didn’t need Kevin, Gordon, Ben, Raleigh, Ruben, Charlie, or any of the other men who had followed her out of the mall. All she needed was herself.

A zombie banged on the window, drawing her attention. She glared at it. After dinner, she’d deal with it.

Now that a few days had passed and she was feeling more like herself, her thoughts were focused on the one thing that had eluded her control.

The fort in Ashley Oaks.

There was no way in hell she was going to give up on claiming it. That fort was the new world and Paige needed to be part of it. Therefore, she’d concentrate on making a foolproof plan to bring the fort under her power. That would show that upstart spic fake president cloistered on Galveston Island. She’d prove to the survivors who was the true leader of this new world and one day Castellanos would find himself out of a job.

“President Paige Brightman,” she said. “I like the sound of that.”

Smiling, she turned her back on the moaning zombie at the window and sipped her wine.