Dead South Rising (Book 2): Death Row (36 page)

Eyes watering. More coughing. Running. Smoke thinning. A crash.
 

Explosion?

Jessica crabbed on all fours, eyes shut tight. Her palms wet and sticky with the crushed dead.

Go! Go! Go!

“God no!” Luz’s voice from behind.

Barking. Yipping.

“Don’t stop!” Randy yelled.

“I can’t”—coughing—“see!” Jess said. Sliding. On her stomach. The stench. Slickness beneath her. Bones. Flesh. Organs. The bodies of the minced dead.

A Slip-N-Slide of corpses.

Nausea. Coughing. She threw up, retched hard, like a fist in her stomach, another reaching down her throat.

“Luz is bit!” Randy’s voice. “Luz! She’s bit!”

“Help me! God help me!”

The sickening thud of fists on flesh.

“No!” Randy yelled. More punches. Kicks.

Jessica’s vision coming back, blinking away tears and smoke and blood and sweat. “Where are—?” She twisted, looking behind her. Bright orange and yellow. Billowing smoke. Shufflers. Six or seven of them. Two of them on Luz. “No!” she rasped.

Randy punching the dead. Kicking.
 

Barking. Beside Jessica.

“Miss Jessica!”

Bryan beside her.

Thank God.

Pressing to her feet, Jessica swiped at her eyes. The horror of the night stared right back at her. Massive flames grabbed at the sky, threatening to pull the heavens down on top of them. Or singe the stars and moon.

“Luz!” Jessica yelled, though only a whisper escaped her lips.

The doors pressed open, the Janitor, Lenny, and Taneesha spilling onto the sidewalk. The Janitor’s jumpsuit in flames.

“No!” Jessica mouthed, her voice gone.

Lenny grabbed Gabriel’s collar, dragged him through grass and smashed flesh, rolled him in decaying blood and bone and skin. Extinguishing him. Burned flesh and hair on the air.

Jessica collapsed, crying, sobbing.

Barking. Then licking. Charlie. A boy kneeling beside her. A small hand on her back.

The sound of flesh punching flesh. Randy trying to save the doctor. Trying to save Luz. Trying.

More crying. Taneesha.

More crackling. Crashing. A ferocious thunder.
 

Got to get away from the building. Get ahold of yourself. Be strong. Get up. Get your fucking ass in gear. Now! Goddamnit, now!

The heat. The incredible heat. Jess pressed to her feet. “Bryan!” Her voice a whispery, raspy mess.

The boy was crying. “Charlie!”

She pulled him close, her lips to his ear. “It’s okay, Bryan! We’ll be okay! But”—coughs—“you’ve got to get Charlie away from here!”

Fierce nods, his hair bobbing madly. “Okay, okay, okay. Where?”

“Over there,” she ordered, pointing at the soil compactor beyond the fence, on the far side of the drive. “Climb it! You’ve climbed a jungle gym before?”

“Yes, Miss Jessica! I have!”

“Climb it!”—more coughs—“Stay there!”

“Okay! Okay!”

“Take Charlie!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Go”—cough—“now!”

“C’mon, Charlie!”

Barking. Yipping. The boy scooped the puppy, made for the machine.

Jess started toward Luz. Too little, too late. Three shufflers fed on her broken, crumpled body. Lenny yanked his hatchet, headed for the beasts.

Randy approached. “We’ve got to get out of here, Jess. Now.”

The God awful heat. They were roasting.

Taneesha tended to the Janitor, who was now sitting up in the muck, his jumpsuit smoldering.
 

“Is Gabriel…?”

Randy tossed a glance at the Janitor. “Yeah, I think so.”

Jessica slapped her hand to her chest. “Thank God.”

But several yards away, the inferno raged, growing hotter and more hellish by the second.
 

“We’ve got to go, Jess. Now.”

“David?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know, Jess. I don’t know.”

Randy pulled her to her feet, and they jogged over to the Janitor, the extreme heat clawing at their backs.

“You okay?” asked Randy, dropping to his knee.

Against unbridled coughs, the old man nodded frantically, silver tresses swinging wildly about his face.

Randy said, “Can you walk?”

More nodding.

“Help me,” he said to Jessica. They hooked his arms, hauled him to his feet.

The Janitor pointed a shaking bony finger, mouthing something though his hacking.

“Shuffler!” Randy screamed.

Against a swaying screen of flames, a massive silhouette rose behind the ambling dead creature, hand axe held high. The blade sliced through smoke and stink, lopping off the cadaver’s head. Its body collapsed, head thudding to the ground. Lenny hurdled both easily.
 

“We gots to get, pronto!” he hollered.

“Anyone else?” Randy said.

Another crash. An explosion inside the building. Glass shattered.

“Ain’t no time!” Lenny said, Taneesha now at his side. “Rattlers! Move it, move it, move it!”

The group limped toward the compactor machine. Bryan awaited them atop the contraption. Lenny broke away from the group, dispatching two more shufflers. Two chops. Two decapitations. Too easy.

The heat was near unbearable, even from a distance.

“We gotta keep going. Can’t stop here,” Lenny said, reattaching himself to the band of survivors. He dropped his hatchet into the leather loop on his belt, reached for Bryan. “C’mon, kiddo!”

Bryan and Charlie now rode the muscle man’s shoulders.

“Where do we go?” Randy said, pressing his voice above the roar of the inferno.
 

“The pond was the plan,” Taneesha said, shaking off shock. “If anything happened, we was supposed to meet there.”

Lenny nodded, “Right. The rendezvous spot.”

“Then let’s go,” Randy prodded.

The crippled group circumvented the burning building, keeping to the extreme periphery until the south pasture came into view. But what they witnessed would change their minds, and course.

“Holy shit,” Randy muttered.

“Lord Jesus,” Taneesha said.

Coughs.

“Quiet,” Lenny said.

In the south meadow, night had become day in the glow of the blaze, the field and tree line awash in lambency. And in the pasture, at least a hundred shufflers—and maybe even a hundred more—shambling, swaying. Searching.

Jessica tossed glances all around, expecting to see just as many behind them, but there were only a few. In her broken voice, she said, “Why are they all coming from that direction?”

Lenny shook his head. “Don’t know.”

“Look at all of ‘em.” Taneesha stared in awe. “Just like that night me and Lenny broke down on 204. The tsunami. All coming from the east.”

“Right,” Lenny said. “You right.”
 

“We can’t stay here,” Randy said. “We can’t take on that many of them.”

Lenny nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, you right. We gotta—”

Jessica slapped his arm. “You hear that…?”

“Gunshots?” Randy said.

The group stood quiet for a brief moment, trying to discern the distant pops of gunfire from the pops within the blaze.

“I heard another one!” Jessica croaked. She pointed toward the tree line. “We’ve got to go that way—”

Lenny gazed at her, his eyes solemn. “Look, Jess. I know you think David’s—”

“We’ve got to try. Please.”

Another crack of gunfire from the woods. The group traded glances.

Taneesha spoke up. “We gotta do something, and quick. Them things gonna start noticing us.”

“Alright,” Lenny said. “Stay close together. Stay tight.” He flicked his eyes upward. “Hold on, ‘lil man.”

“Yes, Mr. Lumberjack.”

“Good job.” Lenny yanked his hatchet from his hip, made eye contact with everyone, then nodded.
 

Moving as one, the group started toward the tree line.
 

It was a beautiful sight, the pond in the moonlight. Stars sparkled on the water’s glassy surface, dancing around the moon. Celebrating. Or mourning. Or both. It was a sliver of sky, handed down from heaven, right there close enough to touch.
   

But as tempting as it was to stop and gaze at the celestial splendor nestled away secretly in the woods, David craved only one thing: to say goodbye to his equally heavenly wife. After that, he didn’t care what happened to him. He’d gladly hand his own existence over to the man now forcing him down a trail, destined for death.

The two men had pressed far enough into the trees that the fire raging the Alamo no longer roared in their ears nor heated their backs. They’d wandered into a new peace, one certainly short lived if Doc had his way. But perhaps it was that very peace in death that David sought. The malicious, ill-intentioned outlaw doing him the most humane favor of his life. Everyone else was dead. David was sure of this. Surviving such a blaze—no,
holocaust
—was unfathomable. Just couldn’t be done. No way. No how.
 

Impossible. Jess. Randy. Bryan. Gabriel. Lenny and Taneesha. Luz… All dead. They’ve gotta be. No way to survive that. I only wished I’d been there…

He didn’t realize he’d halted, his pondering gaze glued on the water’s glorious luster.

“Your blushing bride awaits,” Doc quipped.

David blinked, snapped from his musing.

Natalee.

“How much farther?”

“We’re close.”

El Jefe’s barrel in his back, prodding. Encouraging. The bright light again playing over the path and encroaching foliage.

They were moving again, the Milky Way water disappearing in his peripheral vision.
 

Just let me say goodbye. Tell her I love her. Then you can kill me as dead as you want me.

They rounded the pond, reaching the far south side. The path split suddenly, morphing into two distinct tire tracks of flattened Bahia grass and weeds. Grasshoppers sprung as their boots clomped.

“Where are we going?”

“Does it matter?”

“As long as she’s there… no.”

Their heavy steps trumped the distant, constant thunder of a dying Alamo. There was no point in looking back, the thick vegetation above and behind obscuring even the tiniest of glimpses of a glowing night.
   

David said nothing more, planned to save his last breaths—his last words—for his wife. He was done with Doc, nothing left to say to the bastard.

After another few moments, David caught the glint of chrome ahead as Doc played the light over the path before them. This had to be it. The end of the line. The execution chamber, as it were. The last place on earth David would ever see. Hear. Smell. Touch. Taste. From here, he’d ascend… or descend. Or just… be.

Seconds later, he approached a small pickup truck. A Ford Ranger. White. Nineties model. Not that it mattered. Or that he cared. He held his tongue, waiting for Doc.

“Stop,” Doc simply said, shining his flashlight on the truck. The vehicle was bright in the light, despite not having seen a carwash in months.

David already broke his promise to himself. “She in there? My Natalee?” His voice cracked.

“Yes.”

“Can I… see her?”

“You will.”

A tear slipped down his cheek. Then another. A flood. His throat clogged with emotion. His chest thumped, hammered. He was home. It would all be over soon.

“You try anything,” Doc warned, “I’ll kill you.”

David dropped to his knees. “You’re going to anyway.”

A slanted smile from Doc. “Quite astute of you.”

“Show her to me.”

“In time.”

“Now.”

“Patience.”

Doc plugged the mini-flashlight between his teeth, then approached the driver’s side door. He slipped his newly freed hand under the handle, pulled the door open. He disappeared into the cab for barely a moment, then reappeared, cardboard box in hand.

Natalee!

David started to press to his feet.

“Ah-ah,” Doc cautioned, transferring the light to the same hand carrying the box. “Stay.”

“Please…”

“I’m doing you a favor. I don’t have to do this.”

“Just… please.”

David couldn’t see Doc’s face, the flashlight’s blinding beam aimed straight at him. He swallowed hard, his throat dry.

“This wasn’t the way this was supposed to happen,” Doc said.

Questioning blinks.

“That day… in your house… I planned to kill your wife… and your friends… while you watched. Then, your turn. Not once, but twice.”

David stared into the light in complete silence. He didn’t want to risk not seeing Natalee. He’d listen. Not say a word.

Doc continued, “Sammy and Guillermo altered those plans.” He chuckled. “Quite the double-crossing bastards, those two. Though they made one hell of a mess of you, I’d venture to say.”

David said nothing.

A sigh, then, “You understand why I have to kill you?”

“I just want to see—”

“
No!
” Doc snapped. “You have to understand
why
.”

David didn’t care. Just didn’t… fucking…
care
. “I understand.”

“Do you? Do you really, truly understand why I have to kill you? Why I have to be the one?”

“I ran over your wife.” The cold admission landed on his own ears in a weird, surreal way.
 

I ran over your wife.

“It goes beyond that. You took everything I had away from me. Everything I loved. Cared for. Kate was my everything. And you”—Doc’s voice cracked—“took her…
away
.”
 

David lifted his arms slowly, reaching for the box.

Doc twisted his torso, taking the box with it. “Why should I let you say goodbye, when you took that privilege away from
me?
”

“I didn’t do it on purpose. You have to believe me. It wasn’t my fault.”

“Not your fault? Then whose fault was it, if not yours? You ran over her, David Morris.
Ran her down like a dog.
You killed my wife. My Kate. She’s dead because of
you
.”

David held his hands to Doc, ready to take the package, knowing what was nestled inside. “Please. You can kill me—”

“Maybe I don’t
want
to kill you,” Doc suddenly interjected. “Maybe you should
live
. Maybe… maybe that would teach you the error of your murderous ways. Perhaps killing you so soon is letting you off the hook too easily.”