The Dead Won't Die

“A rising star on the horror scene!”

—FearNet.com

 

“Joe McKinney's first zombie novel,
Dead City,
is one of my all-time favorites of the genre. It hits the ground running and never lets up.
Apocalypse of the Dead
proves that Joe is far from being a one-hit wonder. This book is meatier, juicier, bloodier, and even more compelling . . . and it also NEVER LETS UP. From page one to the stunning climax this book is a rollercoaster ride of action, violence, and zombie horror. McKinney understands the genre and relies on its strongest conventions while at the same time adding new twists that make this book a thoroughly enjoyable read. That's a defining characteristic of Joe's work: the pace is so relentless that you feel like it's you, and not the character, who is running for his life from a horde of flesh-hungry monsters. “And, even with that lightning-fast pace, McKinney manages to flesh the characters out so that they're real, and infuse the book with compassion and heartbreak over this vast, shared catastrophe. “This book earns its place in any serious library of living-dead fiction.”

—Jonathan Maberry,
New York Times
best-selling author of
The Wolfman

 

“
Dead City
is much more than just another zombie novel. It's got heart and humanity—a merciless, fast-paced, and genuinely scary read that will leave you absolutely breathless. Highly recommended!”

—Brian Keene

 

“The pace never lets up as McKinney takes us through the zombie apocalypse in real time—every second of terror is explored in depth as the world goes to hell.”

—David Wellington, author of
Monster Island

 

“
Dead City
is an absolute must-read for zombie lovers, but McKinney's excellent storytelling makes it a great read for anyone who loves the thrill of a gruesomely delicious page-turner.”

—Fran Friel, Bram Stoker Award–nominated author of
Mama's Boy and Other Dark Tales

 

“
Dead City
is a zombie tour de force—the story moves along at breakneck speed and never lets up. Joe McKinney knows how to toy with readers' emotions, masterfully capturing the essence of humanity in the face of unspeakable horror.”

—Amy Grech, author of
Apple of My Eye
and
Blanket of White

 

“Joe McKinney's
Dead City
is a tense, thrill-a-page nightmare, written with great passion and authority. Surely one of the best zombie novels ever set down in blood.”

—Lisa Morton, two-time Bram Stoker Award–winner

 

“
Dead City
wastes no time jumping straight into mile-a-minute thrills and gruesome action. This seminal zombie novel culminates in a heart-wrenching finale, and I found that as the undead hordes multiplied, so too did my respect and admiration for author Joe McKinney. If you like your thrillers served with an extra helping of intensity, you're going to love
Dead City
!”

—Joel A. Sutherland, Bram Stoker Award–nominated author of
Frozen Blood

 

“
Dead City
is an action packed, pedal-to-the-metal zombie novel that never loses sight of its humanity. McKinney uses his background as a homicide detective to bring a level of realism to his vision of the apocalypse that is both urgent and frightening. A timely nightmare that you will not put down. I can't wait to see where this series leads.”

—Gregory Lamberson, author of
Personal Demons
and
Johnny Gruesome

 

“McKinney writes zombies like he's been gunning
them down all of his life.”

—Weston Ochse, Author of
Empire of Salt

 

“
Dead City
is a full-throttle page burner that torques up the terror and does not let up. You'll want the shotgun seat for this wild ride. Bring a crash helmet.”

—J. L. Comeau, Countgore.com

 

“Welcome to Joe McKinney's
Dead City
universe, a relentless thrill ride where real characters do bloody things on nightmare streets. Break out the popcorn, you're in for a real treat.”

—Harry Shannon, author of
Dead and Gone

 

“
Dead City
is a well-written and compelling first novel. A scary, fast-paced ride, full of hair-raising twists and turns that keep the reader spellbound. Do yourself a favor and snag a copy . . . thank me later.”

—Gene O'Neill, author of
Taste of Tenderloin
and
Deathflash

 

“Fast-paced, entertaining . . . five headshots out of five.”

—D. L. Snell, coauthor of
Demon Days

 

“A fantastic tale of survival horror that starts with a bang and never lets up.”

—Zombiehub.com

 

“McKinney continues to lead the genre of zombie fiction.”

—Craig DiLouie, author of
The Infection

 

“
Mutated
delivers pulse-pounding action with precision, intelligence, and most importantly, heart. McKinney proves once again that he understands the power of the zombie subgenre better than any other writer.”

—Peter Giglio, author of
Anon
and co-author of
The Dark

THE DEAD WON'T DIE

A DEADLANDS NOVEL

J
OE
M
C
K
INNEY

PINNACLE BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

P
ROLOGUE

Chelsea leaned over the side of the building and watched as the dead fell on her brother. They started to feed immediately, tearing him to pieces, fighting like dogs over every scrap of flesh they pulled from him.

Jacob stood next to her. He was exhausted. So many people had died, and he just couldn't watch anymore. He turned away, and focused instead on the young girl's back. Her chest was hitching with sobs. Part of him wanted to tell her that her brother wasn't worth the tears, but he held the words back. Chris Walker had betrayed them, tried to kill them, but he was still Chelsea's blood brother, and that counted for something. Even out here, surrounded by the dead, blood was blood.

Even bad blood.

“Jacob,” said Kelly, from behind.

From her tone he knew something was wrong even before he turned around.

Casey was standing there by the ladder.

His face was blackened and blistered from the burn he'd taken when the aerofluyt exploded, and most of his hair was missing. He'd been shot in the leg and twice in the left arm, and yet it didn't seem to slow him down. He had Sheriff Taylor's gun pointed at Kelly's ear. He took the weapon from her hand and pushed her toward Jacob and Chelsea.

“Get on your knees,” he said.

“Kiss my ass,” Jacob said.

Casey tossed Kelly's gun behind him, then quickly stripped the magazine from the M4 and slammed in a new one. Jacob could see the white smiley face on the bottom of the magazine as Casey charged the bolt and brought up the rifle to center it on Jacob's head.

Taylor's little surprise, Jacob thought, remembering what he'd said about the magazine with the smiley face. Good God, please work. Please, please, please.

“Get on your knees,” Casey repeated.

“No way,” Jacob told him. “Shoot, if you're gonna do it. But I won't die on my knees.”

“You'll go to your knees one way or the other,” Casey said. He lowered the muzzle so that it was pointed at Jacob's legs and pulled the trigger.

The weapon exploded in his face.

Screaming in rage and pain, Casey threw the gun to the ground. He lurched to one side, holding his bleeding face in his hands.

Jacob saw the gun Casey had taken from Kelly and ran toward it. He almost had it when Casey tackled him.

Both men went over the side of the building, and Jacob landed hard on his left arm. He felt it break. The pain was so intense he nearly blacked out. Casey was already on his feet. The man was a tank. He roared and lashed out, half-blind, but still managed to land a crushing haymaker across Jacob's chin. Jacob's legs wobbled beneath him, but he didn't fall. He took a few steps back and turned his hurt arm away from Casey.

Still bellowing in rage, Casey charged him again, wrapping his arms around Jacob as he dragged him to the ground. Attracted by the noise, more zombies closed in around them. Casey got on top of Jacob and twisted his broken arm. Jacob screamed and his vision went purple. When he opened his eyes again, Casey had flipped him over. He was holding Jacob by the hair and he had his legs pinned so he couldn't move. There were three zombies coming toward them, and Casey was holding him still for them.

“Which one of them do you think will take the first bite?” Casey whispered in Jacob's ear.

Jacob thrashed, but couldn't break Casey's hold. He tried to lash out with his right arm, but Casey was just out of reach.

“I listened to all that bullshit you said about your Code, and you know what? For a little bit there, I was impressed. But it's all bullshit, isn't it? Every word. What kind of code allows you to let a pregnant woman die? Can you answer me that?”

The zombies were just a few feet away, closing fast. Jacob struggled, but couldn't get free.

“You ain't got an answer? You gonna go to your death without an answer?”

Jacob lashed out. He tried to push his way to his feet, but Casey leaned forward and held him down.

“I'm gonna watch you die, Jacob. And I'm gonna enjoy watching every step your dead hypocrite ass takes as you walk this earth. Get ready to die, asshole.”

A gun went off somewhere to Jacob's right. Casey lurched to one side with a loud grunt. Jacob jumped to his feet, ducked his shoulder, and ran into the zombies that were closing on him. Before any of them could react, he knocked them to the ground, then wheeled around and found Casey climbing to his feet.

Jacob swung at his chin. Casey's snapped back. Jacob swung again and again. Casey tried to raise his arms to block the hail of punches Jacob threw at him, but Jacob overpowered him, and eventually Casey sank to his knees.

“Look who's on their knees now, motherfucker,” he roared.

Casey looked up at him. His face was a ruined mess, his eyes nearly swollen shut. Jacob glanced up at Kelly and nodded.

She fired twice, hitting Casey in the chest.

The man shook with the impact, and then collapsed to the ground. Jacob stared down at the dead man, and he could feel the anger and the hate and all the rest of it draining away, leaving only emptiness in its place.

“Jacob,” Kelly shouted. “Behind you!”

The zombies had regrouped. They circled around him, fifty of them at least. “Throw me the gun,” he said.

She tossed it at his feet.

With his left arm useless, Jacob scooped it and started firing one-handed. He needed to clear a hole to the ladder so he could get back on the roof, but every time he hit one, three more took its place. Firing one-handed wasn't working very well, and he was only landing headshots every third or fourth shot.

And he was almost out of ammunition.

“Behind you!” Kelly shouted.

Jacob wheeled around just in time to see a zombie's head get blasted into a red mist. When the body fell to the ground, Jacob saw three of the gray space suits he'd seen back in the aerofluyt's cargo bay. The three figures made the same hydraulic sound as they moved, yet they were far more coordinated than the one he'd faced on the aerofluyt. These moved with purpose, their movements powerful but precisely controlled.

The figures spread out, their suits clanking and sighing as they brought up strange-looking weapons. They fired at the zombies, but their weapons made no noise. They pointed, shot, and another head would explode. In a few quick seconds they'd cleared most of the field, leaving dozens of headless corpses on the ground at Jacob's feet.

One of the figures advanced on Jacob, and he raised his rifle.

“Jacob, no!” he heard Chelsea shout.

The suited figure caught the rifle and turned it away. There was so much power in his grip. The figure pulled the gun out of Jacob's hand as easily as if Jacob had given it to him.

The figure seemed to study Jacob's clothes. He examined the shirt and shoes Jacob had gotten from Chelsea's father's closet, and then raised what looked like a white microphone with two small wings up near the head. He ran the device up and down Jacob's right arm. A little green light blinked on it, but it didn't make a sound.

“Wait!” Chelsea yelled.

Jacob glanced over his shoulder and saw Chelsea and Kelly climbing down from the ladder. They ran toward Jacob.

The figure released him and turned to face the girls.

Kelly stopped short, but Chelsea walked right up to the figure in the space suit. “I'm Chelsea Walker,” she said. “Are you Templenauts?”

The helmets and high protective collars of the space suits made it hard to see the men inside the suits, but Jacob could recognize their surprise. The three suited figures glanced at one another. Chelsea stuck out her right arm. The figure with the microphone-type device ran it over Chelsea's arm, and right away the thing beeped and the light began flashing faster.

The figures glanced at each other again, and the one with the microphone twisted his helmet off. He was an older black man with a gray beard and a dense network of lines at the corners of his eyes. He had earphones in his ears and some kind of flat black electronic device secured to the side of his throat.

“You're from the
Darwin
, aren't you?” the man asked.

“Yes,” Chelsea said. “Yes, that's right.”

“Are there any other survivors?' the man asked.

“No,” Chelsea said, after what seemed to Jacob to be a thoughtful, measured pause. “No, I'm the only one.”

“I'm Lester Brooks, from the
Faraday
. We saw the explosion. We've been surveying this area ever since, trying to determine the degree of environmental impact. It's lucky for you the wind was blowing south during the explosion. If it had been blowing north, we'd be up in Jacksonville instead of down here. We'd have never found you.”

“I'm glad you did,” she said.

“I bet. It's been a long time, Chelsea. Are you ready to go home?”

“Yes,” she said. “More than you could ever imagine.”

“Who are your friends?”

Again that thoughtful, measured pause before she answered. “That's Kelly Banis, and that's Jacob Carlton. They're from Arbella.”

“Arbella?” Brooks asked. He looked to Kelly, and then to Jacob.

Jacob was in so much pain he could barely stand. He tried to speak, but managed only to mutter.

Kelly said, “It's on the maps as New Madrid.”

“Ah,” Brooks said. “Yes. Yours is a very successful community. We've been watching you.”

“You have?”

“Yes, for several years now. Yours is one of about twenty successful outposts east of the Rocky Mountains, and one of the largest.”

“Twenty others?” Kelly asked, stunned.

“Twenty-two, actually,” Brooks said. “Most are smaller than Arbella.”

“You say you've been watching us? Why haven't you made contact with us? With all the things you can do, we could have learned so much from you.”

“You still can, now that you've contacted us. That's our way, Kelly. Our law. We don't force ourselves on others, but once another society reaches out to us, we offer what we know freely. If you and your friend want to come with us, we will share all we know with you.”

For Jacob, it was too much. His head had become a soupy mess, and the world around him started to swirl. He grew dizzy and fell over. He woke with his head in Kelly's lap. Chelsea was next to her. Lester Brooks was pressing a series of white tabs onto his face and arms and chest. Jacob could feel electricity move over his skin, prickling at his hair.

Brooks was looking at a flat black device that looked like a small TV. “Left arm is broken in four places. Two broken ribs. Internal bleeding. Brain swelling. Massive infection from the injuries on his arms.” He put the device down. “Your friend is in some serious pain. We'll need to get his fever down right away.”

“You can help him?” Kelly asked.

“Oh yes. He'll be in bed for a while, but we can patch him, no problem.” He touched the device on his throat. “Brooks three-ninety, requesting extraction. We have three packages. Have a medic standing by for our arrival.”

A few moments later a dust cloud appeared on the road. Jacob rallied enough to sit up and stare in amazement at the gigantic ten-wheeled armored vehicle that rolled through the ruins, crushing zombies in its path before finally pulling up next to them.

Brooks opened the back door to the vehicle and helped them inside one after another. When Jacob was seated and buckled in, Brooks said, “We'll get that arm fixed up for you in a bit.”

Jacob nodded. “Thanks.”

“Hang on,” Brooks told them. “It gets a little bumpy out here.”

He closed the door and the vehicle took off.

Jacob leaned his head against the window and watched the ruins of Little Rock slip into the distance. The armored vehicle trundled through the abandoned city, causing Jacob to sway in his seat. In places the streets were black rivers seething with bodies. In others, ivy climbed the sides of buildings, creating green canyons through the past glory of man.

And what of glory?

It made him think of Sheriff Taylor, the man who had meant so much to him, and so much to Arbella, gone now, dead and rotting in the sun on some nameless street in a small town a million miles away.

He thought, too, of Bree. She'd been so young and so devastatingly gorgeous, yet the only image of her he could hold in his mind was of her slipping to the grass under a hail of bullets. She had, in his memory at least, seemed almost grateful to receive them.

But mostly he thought of Nick.

He watched a solitary zombie lumber down the road, reaching for their vehicle even though it was much too far away to put its hands on them, and he thought of the time he'd had with his dearest friend. He felt heartsick at all that had happened. He had loved Nick as a brother. For all the tension that had run under the surface of their friendship since that fight twenty years earlier, they had been the best of friends, and Jacob couldn't shake the memory of the tears running down Nick's face right before he pulled the trigger. What had he cried for? Was it out of remorse? Or for what had happened to their friendship? Or was it simply for his own life?

Jacob looked across the darkened cabin of the armored transport. Chelsea had her eyes closed, a blanket pulled up under her chin. It didn't look to Jacob like she was sleeping, more like she was trying to wipe the last seven years from her mind.

Next to him, Kelly was looking out the window, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Jacob looked away. Though this journey of theirs was really just beginning, in so many ways, it was the end of the man he'd thought himself to be.