Murphy's Law (Roads Less Traveled Book 2) (12 page)

“That’s right. And I think this qualifies.”

I glanced at Zack again. Blood was beginning to drip from his mouth and pool on the floor where he sat. He stared at me, his eyelids getting heavier, but he forced himself to remain focused on me. He coughed, more blood flowed from his mouth, and he started wheezing.

“Jake, Zack’s hurt bad. We need to get him out of here. He needs help, Jake, please,” I pleaded.

Yeah I was begging now. Desperate times call for that sort of thing. I’d also just realized how severely Zack had been hurt. Odds were, a few of Shannon’s stabs had punctured one or both his lungs, in addition to whatever other damage she’d inflicted on the rest of his internal organs. It all depended on how lucky her stabs had been.

Jake looked over at Zack, as if just remembering his friend was there, and looked sincerely concerned for a moment, just long enough for me to make a move. I used my left arm and batted his gun away from my face, then struck out with the heel of my right palm and slammed it into his Adam’s apple. He dropped his gun, grabbed his throat with both hands, sank to his knees, and revealed Mia standing behind him with her night stick raised and ready to come down on his head. I waved her off and picked his gun up off the floor. Jake coughed and gagged, wheezing and fighting to breathe. I hadn’t hit him hard enough to crush his larynx, just enough to make him damned uncomfortable.

Kyra’s eyes were darting back and forth between the three of us. It was true, I did want her dead. I had no idea what Jake had been alluding to before, but I
did
know that Kyra had shot Mia back in the beginning, almost killing her. Did we have that right? To be judge, jury, and executioner? The world had died around us. If we were to continue living, and I don’t mean just surviving, but really living, then we were going to have to live by some sort of law, have some semblance of ethical and moral standards. If not, then maybe we deserved this, everything that had happened since the first of October, Z-day.

I tucked Jake’s pistol into the back of my pants and hurried over to Zack. He was leaning forward now, blood pouring out of his mouth with each cough and wheeze, which was coming with every breath he tried to take. On my knees, I grabbed him by the shoulders and leaned him back so he could look at me. His skin had gone pale, and his eyes slightly glassy. Damn, he was in bad shape.

How ironic that at that very moment, the first wave of moans ripped through the air. We froze like deer caught in headlights, all of us, and listened to the inevitable swarm of zombies who had found us. Good news was this seemed to give Zack the extra strength he needed to stand and get the hell out of there. Jake struggled to his feet, with Mia gripping his elbow to support him, and I steadied Zack as we met the other two over next to Kyra.

“Mia, cut her down. Leave Shannon, we don’t have time to herd her crazy ass back to the horses. Jake, help me with Zack.” I handed him his pistol, already pulling one of Zack’s arms over my shoulders and dragging him towards the opening we had snuck in through.

Jake took his weapon, glanced back at Kyra, then allowed common sense to win out over his bloodlust and wrapped his arm around Zack’s waist. Mia worked the chain hoist, lowering Kyra down onto her neck and shoulders, then took the knife from her belt and cut the rope around her feet. Kyra slumped to the floor and struggled to stand, her hands still bound behind her.

“Mia, come on,” I hissed after we took our first steps outside.

The moaning was loud, distant. Jake and I all but dragged Zack around the back of the house, retracing our steps from before, then came to an abrupt halt once we had a clear view of the landscape.

“Oh crap,” Jake breathed.

Mia caught up and was next to me, her mouth open and silently working. Kyra was making a racket trying to get through the wreckage with her hands tied behind her back. At the farthest end of the valley, from one rolling hill to the other, were thousands of deadheads. They were so far away it was impossible to tell how many, only that they were so thick it looked like a massive black swarm of bees. I also couldn’t tell how far away they were; these wide open valleys played hell on my depth perception. If I had to guess, I’d say the swarm was a mile wide, and most likely hundreds of zombies deep.

“The horses. They’re at the gas station,” Mia finally choked out.

The first of the “runners” broke away from the main swarm and began bolting towards us.

“Run!” I shouted.

Mia and Kyra took off immediately, Kyra simply running as fast as she could in a random fashion, and Mia slowing to a jog about fifty yards ahead of us to lay down cover fire if the fast zombies got too close. Zack was doing what he could to help us as we ran, which only made our jobs a little tougher. It’s hard enough trying to drag a two hundred pound man when he’s dead weight, but try doing it when he’s bobbing up and down, from one side to the other, trying to run along with you.

The main cluster of deadheads was coming into view, but only enough to make out a few vague details of those in the front line. The runners, however, were almost on top of us. Mia was already firing into them with her rifle, back peddling through the campsite. Kyra was pretty far ahead, just beginning her run up the hillside. Jake and I drew our pistols with our free hands, which meant Jake had to fire left-handed. It wasn’t looking good for the home team.

“Kase, behind you!” Mia screamed.

I spun away from Zack and raised my gun, just in time to nail Shannon in the forehead. The girl was flung backwards and off her feet from the force of the gunshot, and I was shocked stupid for a too-long moment. The moans of the swarm and the howling of the runners were deafening, but I just stood there and stared down at the corpse of the girl I’d saved five months ago. She wasn’t even a zombie, and I had killed her. Murdered her.

“Kasey!” Mia screamed again.

I turned my head and saw them finally starting up the hillside. Jake was having a little trouble with Zack, who was constantly trying to turn around to see if I was alright. Mia was frantically pointing at something to my right and firing her pistol at the first of the runners who had made it to the ridge. I turned my head again, away from them to my right, and there they were.

A pack of twelve runners, bearing down on me, fast.

I took a deep breath and started running, firing on them as I went. Most of my shots missed. Not only was I trying to shoot off-handed while running, my targets were moving, running after me with a rage I’d never seen before. I started up the hill, waiting until the deadheads were almost on top of me before firing again. This improved my accuracy a bit, even though it was suicide. I back-peddled the rest of the way up, then took off at a dead run once my friends came into view.

Mia had caught on to my trick, and was letting the fast ones get insanely close before firing. Jake was still dragging Zack along as fast as they both could run. Mia had the night stick in her other hand and was swinging it as she fired, holding off attacking runners until she could take care of them with her gun. I pulled the hammer from my belt and copied her frantic style, realizing they were all over us like stink on shit.

Which, ironically, is exactly what they smelled like. They didn’t look like the others, the “normal” deadheads. Just like the ones we’d run into in IGA, these zombies weren’t torn up or disemboweled. Covered in blood and other various bodily fluids, yes, but the only wounds I could pick out were simple bite marks. Maybe a few small chunks ripped from their faces, no limbs missing. Granted, I was in the middle of a heated fight for survival, and therefore unable to pay close attention to all the details, but the major differences between the two “breeds” were clear.

I fought my way closer to Mia, both of us spinning around, trying our best not to get our feet tangled up as we fought the screaming runners, hand-to-hand when they were too close to shoot. Jake and Zack were about to start down the other side of the hill, and were increasing the distance between themselves and us, when they suddenly stopped.

“Fuckers got one of the horses!” Jake yelled.

He wrapped Zack’s arm around his shoulder, increased his own grip around Zack’s waist, lifted him slightly, and took off at a full run down the hill. Zack’s feet barely touched the ground as Jake hustled them towards the gas station.

“Go, go, go!” I screamed at Mia when the last of the runners fell to the ground with a bullet-hole between its eyes.

There were more coming in hard, up the hill behind us and along the ridge to our right. I was down to my last full clip and didn’t have the strength to fight off more with the hammer. We had to get to the horses. Mia and I were running so fast we caught up with Jake and Zack at the bottom of the hill within seconds. Kyra was a couple hundred feet ahead, between us and the gas station. The deadheads chowing down on Mia’s horse noticed her. They shrieked and ran at her like synchronized psychos. Their brothers moaned behind us, causing me to turn and look back up the hill. We were boxed in. The five horse-killers charged Kyra, while the ones behind us closed in, more than I could even count.

“Don’t stop, just run!” I shouted again.

Zack had pulled his pistol and he and Jake were firing on the ones running at Kyra. Not out of some misplaced need to protect her, but because those bastards were between us and our ride out of there. Kyra veered off to the right, running diagonally towards the hillside we’d just come down, screaming and whipping her head around. Three of the runners split off and went after her, two stayed on course to intercept us. My head turned to follow Kyra as I bolted past her. For a moment I wanted to scream, “You’re running the wrong way!” But I bit my tongue. I was having a hard enough time trying to breathe, not being used to long-distance sprinting. Mia had gained some momentum and was next to Zack when the two runners reached them. She and Jake put them down quickly, albeit a bit messy and chaotic, with their melee weapons.

A couple of hard whacks across the face with either a crowbar or a night stick is about all it takes to nicely halt a raving deadhead.

Kyra wasn’t so lucky. Her uphill run was abruptly ended. Three runners broke away from the group chasing us and slammed into her with such force they all went tumbling and rolling back down. They took the legs out from underneath the zombies that had been in pursuit, adding three more to their rolling death-ball. The twisted thing about it was it didn’t even seem to slow them. Even in their clumsy fall down the hill, they were tearing away at Kyra with both hands and teeth. By the time they reached the bottom, there wasn’t much left of her, they’d eaten her that quickly. The only thing really left was a long, wide blood smear down the grassy hill.

I gagged and turned my face away from the carnage, a little surprised I hadn’t went ass over teakettle yet, running without watching where I was going. Mia had reached her horse and was raising her pistol to put it out of its misery. Jake tried helping Zack into the saddle and finally gave up, settling for throwing the man across it on his belly, then mounting up and readjusting Zack so he lay across his legs. I skidded to a stop next to Daisy, who was highly agitated by this time, and looked back. The main body of the swarm was just coming into view on the hilltop, and even more runners were breaking free of its ranks and bolting down the hill.

“Jake, you got him?” I asked without taking my eyes off the swarm.

“Yeah, I got him.”

Mia’s shot rang out suddenly, her horse finally stilled. I mounted up and wheeled Daisy around.

“Mia, let’s go!”

She wiped her eyes and climbed onto Zack’s horse. The runners were halfway across the field behind the gas station by the time we got the horses moving. They were terrified and fighting against the reins, wanting nothing more than to just take off in any direction, as long as it was away from the beasts chasing them. I noticed, as we rode at a hard gallop down the pavement and towards Blueville, that everyone had lost their rifles at one point except me.

* * *

“Blueville Correctional, this is Kasey! Please respond!”

I held the radio to my ear as we trotted through Blueville. We’d had to slow down after the first few miles because the pounding of the horses’ gallop had been practically killing Zack. Of course, because we’d slowed down, the runners had gained on us and were right on our asses. Because of that we’d been forced to alternate gaits, from a slow trot to a gallop, and vice versa, the whole way to Blueville, doing what we could to not only ease Zack’s pain, but to also keep the runners from overtaking us.

A horse can outrun a normal man easily, and these runners were no different. However they never tired, or tripped, or fell. We’d pushed the horses so hard in the beginning that they were foaming at the mouth, their chests and flanks already lathered up from the long run. What also screwed us was the deadheads seemed to be smart enough to cut away and cross country, flanking and eventually intercepting us.

“This is Control, go ahead, Kasey,” Shirley finally answered.

“We’re two miles out and coming in fast. We got company, so if you wouldn’t mind, please have the gates ready to open when we get there!”

Silence.

“Did you copy, Control?”

Silence.

“Son of a
bitch
!” I cursed and stuffed the radio back in my saddle bag.

Either they hadn’t received my message, they received it and were taking their sweet damn time answering, or they’d received it and we were shit out of luck. I was having difficulty believing the latter; they had opened their arms to us freely enough, why would they shut their doors to us now? Besides the fact we had a thousand deadheads or so trailing us, and several dozen of the more crazy variety breathing down our necks, that is. The only thing we could do was ride on to the prison, and hope they let us in when we got there.