Dead South Rising (Book 2): Death Row (22 page)

Warning shots. Gabe was right, after all. They won’t shoot us. Only trying to scare us. Subdue us with faux firepower muscle.

But the snap of gunfire on the air caused something just as dangerous to snap inside of David. He fought the sudden, overwhelming desire to pull his own pistol, and blow the man’s face off.

Fire that fucking gun again. I dare you.

With precarious precision, David stepped to the apex of the wheel drum. His arms no longer pinwheeled, his footing sure. He almost chuckled to himself, positive that he looked like some lithe circus performer balancing atop a treacherous rolling prop. Should have been an elephant up there, not him.

Look at me, folks! The amazing Death-defying David! Will he get squashed? Will he live to see tomorrow? Watch him balance atop the world’s largest rolling waffle iron while he blows the face off some fuck that thinks it’s hilarious to shoot at him.

He reached out, fingers of his injured hand wrapping the railing that surrounded the driver’s seat. Pain streaked through his wrist, his arm. Could feel it zip through him. Immediately, he grabbed the same steel with his left hand, then pulled himself against the chipped yellow bars.
 

The Infirmaries were closing in. If he and Gabe were going to make their stand, it had to be right then. No more time for bullshit reminiscing. No more casual strolls down memory lane. He had to get his motherfucking head in the game. There was still tons of work to do. He had to find Jess. Find Bryan. Save Randy. Lenny. Figure out just what the fuck they were going to do once he flattened out every dead fucker roaming the field and fence line. And God help the living that got in his way.

David tossed his leg over the railing. Then the other. He stood upright in the cab, then let his body fall into the weathered vinyl seat. His eyes darted around the controls, figuring things out on the fly.
 

The key… the key. Where’s the goddamned key? Gabe said the other day it was in the ignition…

It was Highway 204 all over again, commandeering the Dodge dually. Tossing dead-but-not-dead Jimmy to the pavement. The man’s bones cracking, tangled in the seatbelt. Leaving the shuffler to die again in the middle of the highway by another’s hand. An undead speed bump.

My truck now, motherfucker.

A sudden malign anger surged through him, more powerful—and welcome—than even the superpower-bestowing adrenaline his heart so graciously pumped through his swollen, thirsty veins. Someone else had started this, and he damn sure wanted to finish it. Goddamnit,
needed
to. Only three days had passed since he’d killed his first shuffler. And now, he was about to commit a mass slaughter of historic proportions. He was ready. Able. And way more than willing.
 

And fucking looking forward to it.

Fuck ‘em. Fuck ‘em all. Even the living. Fuck. Them. Too.

And right then, something else happened. Something pricked his conscience, his very being, like a ship that had mistakenly run into the shallows. He felt the bump, realized he’d nearly run aground, but had managed to keep the vessel at sea, averting a major disaster. But not before the damage was done. Not before cracking the hull, ruining it. No longer would it be whole again. Pure. The water would get in. Eventually, the ship would sink.

And so it was with David. Something, in that moment, happened to him. His hull breached. A poisonous saltwater, a mere oozing drip now, that over time would eventually scuttle his ship. He welcomed it, unsure exactly what he was letting in, just knowing that it felt and tasted good.

The Dodge started pulling away, alerting David to the then and there. As if by divine guidance, his fingers found the key, and he twisted it.

The universe smiled on him. At him. Patted him on the back and encouraged him for a change, because the engine turned over on the first try. The massive machine spewed a sick, thick cloud through a heavy cough. But it was alive, started with barely a stumble. And then it roared like some pissed-off dragon when his hand found the gas. And David smiled as he clutched the wheel.

The single-drum compactor chirped its telltale backup beep, the metallic beast’s muscular frame vibrating like mad, buzzing David’s bones and teeth and the ground beneath. Across the way, a flock of birds erupted from the tree tops like a fireworks display. Game on.

David was already feeling an acute numbness in his hands as he gripped the wheel hard. Given the pain in his right wrist, he welcomed the desensitizing effect. Actually dreaded when he’d be able to fully feel it again.

The four men jogging toward him stopped, and they tossed around unknowing and unsure glances, obviously confused about what to do. How to stop him, if they even wanted to. They’d never faced such a strange threat, and it showed in their hesitation and expressions. These four were the only barrier between the rumbling soil squasher and the shufflers.

After lining up the massive machine with the Alamo, David revved up the rpms, jerked another lever, and the vehicle lunged forward, the knobby drum grabbing and groping the ground. It moved faster than he would have guessed, but that was okay with him. Time was his enemy, and the less of it on the Infirmaries’ side, the better.

Already, his mind played ahead, envisioning a tamped field paved with the bodies of the dead. The Infirmaries were helpless to stop him, or so David believed, a cocky, brazen hubris filling him. Making him heavy and impenetrable. Such a dangerous thing. He’d been a cocky asshole to Sammy and Gills. And it got him hurt. Badly hurt. A lesson quickly learned, just as quickly forgotten.

But he just couldn’t help feeling like he’d already won this battle, like he was reliving something again rather than engaging in it for the first time. The highlight reel spun in his mind. Saw himself on the winners’ podium, hoisting a gleaming trophy into the air—a severed, silver head, shining resplendently. The confetti falling, fluttering, a colorful snow. Pats on the back. Congratulations abound. Champagne for all.

So just what was going through your mind, El Jefe?

Well, Bill, I’ll tell ya. I was in the zone.
 

In the zone?

Yes, Bill. In the motherfucking zone.

And just how does one get into the ‘motherfucking zone,’ El Jefe?

You gotta be born in the zone, Bill.

Born in the zone?

That’s right. You’re either in the zone, or you ain’t.

Another lie.

Backing up, nearly stumbling, one of the four Infirmaries lowered a rifle at him.

David kept one hand on the wheel, his other gripping a control lever. He considered for a moment drawing his Walther. And using it. His anger wanted him to.

But he trusted the Janitor, that these four were just scared and harmless, brainwashed by Luz Gonzalez. He could just imagine them pissing themselves the closer the compactor got, preparing to dive out of the way at the last possible moment like stuntmen in a big-budget action movie. Surely they wouldn’t shoot. Surely.

These men stood their ground. And even though they’d probably not try to kill him, he had no plans of promising them the same. If they weren’t smart enough or have the presence of mind to move, then they weren’t smart enough to live.

To live. Natalee was once alive. She once… lived. Karla once… lived.

And immediately, his mind betrayed him. Took him out of the now, painted reality with a deceitful color dipped in and dripping hatred and regret.
 

All at once, he was back in his living room, Sammy Thompson and Guillermo Torres flanking his sides. But this time, in this altered memory, they didn’t get the jump on him. That sledgehammer fist didn’t connect with David’s jaw. Guillermo’s alligator boot didn’t plunge into David’s stomach. And Doc Holliday didn’t escape like the slippery coward he was. No, none of that… happened.

What is
wrong
with you, man? You’re fucking losing it…

Vicious, virulent passion guided his hands as he aimed the monster of a machine straight for the living barricade now only yards away. And in David’s eyes, that barrier looked like four identical Doc Hollidays, all clad in long leather dusters and wide-brimmed cowboy hats, mustaches and soul patches twitching in anticipation of a dirt nap. David didn’t flinch. But they did.

As he closed the gap, the four men relented, sidestepping the rumbling, shaking beast. David swore he saw non-existent coats flare. No one tripped. No one slipped. Nothing as dramatic as someone getting a foot caught in a gopher hole, trapped and doomed to death by drum compactor.

David rolled right by them, and the four men just stared, guns no longer pointed at him. They twisted their heads, gauging and predicting where the machine would end up, if anyone else alive was in danger.

Pivoting his head, David saw the Janitor stop the pickup beside the men, yell something to them, pointing. They looked bemused again, not sure who was in charge, who they should be listening to. What they should actually be doing. This was good. This was very good.

But then they realized what Gabe was telling them.

Get in. Get in, now.

So focused on David and avoiding the knobby drum, they’d become oblivious to the obvious undead dangers stumbling around them. And that, for David, summed up everything that was wrong with Luz’s and Roy’s way of thinking—complacency toward the dead resulted in even more dead.

One of the men narrowly escaped a shuffler, yanking his elbow out of its grasp. Still under the sick spell of the Infirmaries, he didn’t shoot it or even fight it, just pulled away, an innocent game of chase on the schoolyard playground.

Gabe patted the Dodge’s door, urging the men to hop inside or jump into the bed, to get out of danger. And the men obliged, climbed aboard as another couple of shufflers closed in on them.

With the living barrier removed, David tried to shake away untrue images and refocus on his morbid mission. He aimed for the plodding dead in the field, lining the palisade fence. Even some of the cadavers appeared befuddled and distracted, not sure whether to retreat to within the confines of the gated area, or to charge headlong into this heaving, rumbling menace bearing down on them.

Again, David’s brain duped him, the ambling undead figures transforming into the faux gunslinger that haunted and hunted him. There were Docs everywhere. And David was determined to run over every last goddamned one of them.

From around the corner of the building, another group appeared. A living group, led by Luz Gonzalez. David didn’t recognize all the faces, though he did spot Randy and Lenny. They seemed safe, unharmed, but concerned. David and Gabe’s army of two had just doubled.

He gazed at the group, his hands spinning the steering wheel as if on automatic pilot, one that knew exactly where to go. As if he’d driven these machines all his life.
 

Behind the bars, people cupped their hands to their mouths. Wide eyes screamed at him not to do it, to stop. Hands latched onto shoulders. Fingers pointed. Jaws unhinged.

And as he rode the beast of blight into the swarming Doc Holliday corpses, David was thankful. Thankful he couldn’t feel the bones cracking and splintering beneath the metal. Thankful he couldn’t hear the gurgled groans as their bodies were squeezed like tubes of toothpaste. Thankful he could not see their skulls and bodies pop from the pressure. And he was thankful he could not hear the terrified yells of onlookers who had rounded the building just in time to witness the first mass-crushing of the ‘sick.’

Get well soon, fuckers.

David worked the machine like a giant riding lawn mower, steering it south and parallel against the fence, aiming to tame those hard-to-reach, stubborn weeds. Weeds that just happened to feed on the living. Bodies fell like bloody blades of grass, sucked under the rotating drum. The rusting metal morphed into a slick dark crimson. Along the rotating cylinder, severed and squashed body parts were pinched randomly between the knobs, like the massive mordacious monster had food stuck in its teeth as it chewed away. And still, it kept rolling, mangling and roaring. And eating.

He’d swear on Natalee’s grave—if she had one—that a cowboy hat was glued to the drum with blood, being crushed over and over with every rotation.

Those men and women that had circled the building to investigate the raucousness stood rapt, unable to turn away from the live horror movie playing right in front of them.

Inside David, a cathartic geyser sprang, like Old Faithful. Despite his eyes tricking him into seeing a mob of Doc Hollidays, his mind knew better. But still, with every cadaver crushed, feelings of requital surged.
 

At the southern end of the east fence line awaited a turn too sharp to make. David jerked to a stop, backed up, straightened a couple of times. He still cut it too close, clipping a corner pillar of brick and mortar. Two sections of iron bars buckled, collapsed to the ground. The horrified flock of temporary tenants following along the inside of the fence jumped back to avoid being smashed themselves.
 

David chanced a glance behind him, surveying the carnage. It was like a huge, out-of-control boulder had rolled over everything along the fence line, leaving a noxious, nasty mess.
 

Stifling his sour stomach, he churned his way along the south fence, working toward the front, to the west. More shufflers succumbed, body parts sticking and clinging, a human tomato paste clogging the wheel. Didn’t matter. It rolled onward, forward, the tough alloy too resilient—too
hungry
—for mere flesh to render it immobile. It was insatiable.

David glanced over the fence at the swimming pool. The strident engine stirred those trapped in the manmade hole, their arms raised, swaying. It was as though they were moshing to the heavy metal racket. His captive audience. He considered plunging the soil compactor into the pool for an encore performance when he finished his business along the fence and in the field. His lips slanted into a malicious smile at the thought. He’d like that. He’d like that very much.