Time of Death Book 2: Asylum (A Zombie Novel) (16 page)

"What?" I asked my mouth dry from having
fallen open. Wiping the drool from my chin, I couldn't help but
notice the amused expressions on their faces.

"It sounded like you swallowed a hairball,"
offered Elorie from the kitchen.

"My bad," I replied.

Intent on not embarrassing myself any
further, I straightened up and focused on the conversation.

"So, you live here?" Vinny asked Striker, who
sat stone faced. He nodded once in reply.

Dom took up the thread of conversation when
it was clear Striker wouldn't be expanding on the nod.

"We've tried for days to convince him to come
with us, but he doesn't trust the people at Asylum."

That certainly piqued my curiosity; I
suspected a man like Striker had keen instincts. The fact that he
had reservations about the group made me apprehensive.

"Why?" asked Vinny. "Did something
happen?"

Striker only shrugged. "Just a loner."

Okay, so that was a bit more comforting. At
least they hadn't done anything sketchy, he was just a loner.

"You'd rather live all alone?" Meg asked.

"Yup." He seemed uncomfortable being the
center of attention, and I'm certain I saw him look relieved when
Casey rang the proverbial dinner bell.

The mother and daughter team filled our
plates with ziti topped with some frozen meatballs and pasta sauce.
Casey had been thoughtful enough to chop up a couple meatballs into
a dish for Daphne, which she managed to empty before we even pulled
our chairs up to the table.

"Aw, someone's hungry," Elorie said to Daphne
in a baby voice. The dog answered with a hearty belch, shocking us
all.

"Be glad it came from that end," mumbled
Vinny between bites. "That dog is a landmine. When you least expect
it, boom, she detonates. And trust me; you do not want to be in the
blast range."

The Daltons and their silent savior were
still eating when the rest of us sat back and sighed with the bliss
usually reserved for Thanksgiving dinner.

After our meal, along with some after-dinner
conversation, Casey showed us to an apartment down the hall.

"There's no food or anything really useful
here, but there's two bedrooms and a functioning bathroom. I'll
come get you when breakfast is ready, but you may want to set an
alarm just in case you don't hear me."

I was out before I even hit the pillow, and
the sound of an alarm jarred me awake. It was still dark out.

"Jeez, Jake why'd you set the alarm so
early?" I groaned at him, rolling over and holding the pillow over
my head to drown out the loud bells.

"I didn't. It's coming through the wall."

Striker's apartment was next door. Jake was
already pulling on his military-issue boots when Vinny slammed open
the bedroom door and turned on the light, effectively blinding
me.

"There's something going on out front. Get
your shit together."

A loud knock sounded at the front door
followed by a single command. "Get Up!"

The presence of so much stimuli had Daphne
incensed, and she darted between the bedroom and front door to the
apartment like a little bullet. She took a moment to stop and bark
each time she reentered the bedroom.

"I don't know what you're so excited about,"
I grumbled at the speeding dog. "You're just going back in the
bag."

Chapter 10: Godspeed

The clock read just after three in the morning as I
stuffed Daphne into her carrier and slung my pack across my
shoulder. After a particularly scary experience of nearly being
taken down by a mob by the bag, I stopped looping the backpack over
both shoulders. It made running a bit awkward, but it was still
better than being harnessed into a deathtrap when a zombie got hold
of the pack. Some lessons are learned the hard way.

Out in the hallway, the others waited for us.
"What's going on?" Jake asked, surprisingly calm and alert. I felt
better when I spotted Meg, her usually perfect hair mussed from
sleeping, and looking how I felt: like shit.

"Frontal assault, we've been breached,"
Striker said.

"I thought this place was impenetrable?" I
asked, my voice shrill with panic. "Are you telling me we're on the
Titanic, and it's going down?"

Striker just looked at me, his stare making
me wilt. I tried to look anywhere else, but his death stare was too
powerful. I was afraid if I turned my back he would shiv me.
Finally, he looked away, leaving me feeling sufficiently
chastised.

"They can't get through the fire doors,
unless they exert enough pressure and come through the walls. We go
out the side. Follow close, and don't stop for anything. You lose
the group, you're on your own," said Striker.

Fear of God? Check. Potentially about to piss
my pants? Double-check.

We got to the bottom of the stairs and
Striker counted down from three before flinging open the door and
stepping into the crisp night air. Dom, the last one through the
door, slammed it closed with an echoing bang and earned a withering
scowl from the angry man.

"Sorry," he choked out, clearly as
uncomfortable under the stare as I had been.

Striker led us in a wide arc around the
building, crossing to the other side of the street when we were far
enough away to remain unnoticed. The moon was bright, producing
enough light to make out the shadows of hundreds of corpses
fighting to enter the small front door of the apartments.

My throat constricted with fear, threatening
to cut off my airway, when I saw the massive horde. I turned my
attention back to Striker's dark form as the distance between us
grew and increased my pace so as not to lose him. I did not want to
be on my own, even though I knew with every fiber of my being that
my family would never leave me behind.

Elorie was tucked between Dom and Casey. They
had armed themselves with large kitchen knives. The teen convinced
them to allow her a weapon when she begged to copy Meg's knife
sharpener, rationalizing that it wasn't sharp enough for her to
hurt herself. I don't think they intended on letting anything get
close enough to her to give her the opportunity to use it
though.

Rounding the corner of a dilapidated house,
we came face-to-face with a group of zombies. With buildings on
either side of us, our only options were to go back the way we
came, or through the group in front of us. I turned back, finding
our escape blocked by several stragglers. Forward it was.

Like a cat stalking its prey, Striker
launched himself at the first of the undead, penetrating its brain
with one swift motion of the hammer. He turned, and struck another,
effectively dispatching it with the grace of a ballerina. Silently,
he, Jake, and Vinny cut down their numbers.

Confident the men had our front covered, I
turned to the approaching group again. A runner broke free from the
pack and rushed at us, colliding with Dom before I could shout a
warning. The force knocked the knife from his hand, and Dom was
driven into a window, shattering its glass on impact.

With the dim light and spasms of movement
from the struggle, I couldn't risk striking out with the crowbar
for fear of hitting Dom. Instead, I grabbed the zombie's bare
shoulders and pulled, managing to only move him out of immediate
bite range. Slimy skin slid beneath my hands and my grip loosened.
The moonlight glinted off something in Dom's hand, a shard of glass
from the broken window. He plunged the jagged piece repeatedly into
the zombie’s face until it no longer moved and fell to the ground
like a rag doll.

Casey rushed to her husband, doing her best
to check him for bites in the dark. "Did it get you?" she asked. He
shook his head, unable to form words yet, and dropped the glass to
land next to the corpse.

His wife reached out for his hands, crying,
and Dom winced in pain when she grabbed the hand he'd held the
glass with. She gasped and stepped back, bringing her hand close to
her face to find it slick with blood.

"Oh, my God, Dom, you're bleeding!" She
exclaimed, crying harder now. Elorie ran to her father and wrapped
her arms around his waist, burying her head in his shirt.

"It's okay, Case. It's not a bite. I cut
myself on the glass."

Jake and the others backtracked to us,
confused by the emotion the girls were displaying.

"Everything okay?" asked Jake.

"We're good. Dom cut his hand on a piece of
glass." With our path clear, we started moving again. I touched
Jake's arm, holding him back a moment, and put some distance
between us and the others so they didn't hear us.

"What's up?"

"Dom cut his hand," I whispered.

"No shit. You just told me that."

"He was using it as a weapon." I saw his
expression change as soon as he picked up my train of thought.

"Fuck! We need to say something."

I thought about it while we jogged through
the next set of buildings, pausing to answer so I could pay
attention to our surroundings. Vinny looked back, shrugging his
shoulders and nodding at us, presumably to make sure everything was
copacetic. Striker halted and we caught up to the group.

Leaning into Jake, I whispered, "I think we
should wait a bit. We have some time before he turns, assuming he's
even infected. I don't want to start a panic." Observing the cold
determination in the man leading us, I added, "Plus, I don't know
how he'll react. He's unpredictable."

"You're right," he agreed, "Get in the
middle, and keep a close eye on him."

Vinny switched places in line with me, and I
caught the two of them huddled close for a minute before rejoining
the rest of us. Striker looked annoyed at the delay, but to his
credit, he didn't ask for an explanation.

"Hey, Dom, how's your hand?" I asked, taking
a moment to look at him. The darkness made it impossible to see his
features clearly; I could only make out his form. He had an arm
around Elorie, making them look like a connected blob.

"It's okay. Hurts pretty bad and I think it
could use a couple stitches, but I'll live."

Would he? I thought. That was the million
dollar question.

"I'll take a look at it when we get somewhere
safe."

"If you're done chatting, can we get a move
on?" Striker asked, the sentence oozing sarcasm.

"Yeah, sorry," I replied, only half turning
to him.

We were at the Sarasota Shipping Yard. Rows
of metal containers were stacked five high, creating what looked
like a small town. He pointed to a row on the far right, where the
containers stood only one high.

"That's our destination. Third container on
the left. We need to clear any dead in range before going in, or
we'll just be trapping ourselves like sardines."

We wove our way through the rows on either
side, clearing the few zombies that wandered the aisles. Well,
technically, it wasn't a joint effort. Striker cleared while we
followed his path. Before opening the metal door, he dragged the
corpses to the end of the row and dropped them in a heap, adding
them to an existing pile of remains buzzing with flies.

The large piles already amassed were evidence
that he'd been spending a lot of time here over the last few
months. The smell of decomposition was suffocating but diminished
as we approached the container he'd pointed out. And for that, I
was grateful.

Rusty hinges groaned as he pulled open the
steel door and motioned us inside. Elorie paused, pulling on her
father's arm. "Won't we run out of air?" she squeaked out in
fear.

"No." Striker's lack of people skills were
beginning to grate on my already-frayed nerves. I had to bite down
on my tongue to stop myself from snapping at him when he started
physically pushing us through the opening and into the dark
space.

He closed the door behind us, which left us
with not even an ounce of light. For a few seconds, I panicked at
the thought of Dom turning right then and there. My breathing
increased, and I sucked in big gulps of stale air. I reached out my
hand in search of a warm body to connect with. I pulled my hand
back, not wanting to grab the wrong person, and clutched Daphne's
carrier like a security blanket. Even though the container was
bathed in darkness, I couldn't bring myself to close my eyes.

Movement to my left caused me to jump back. I
whimpered in fear when I felt a hand on my hip.

"It's okay, Em. It's me," Jake comforted. My
body relaxed, just a little, and I leaned into him. Something fell
to the floor on my right, echoing, and I heard someone crying
softly. The sound was muffled, like they were crying into their
hands, and I couldn't identify who the sound was coming from.

"Shit," Striker exclaimed. His voice sounded
distant in the enclosed space.

My eyes darted around, still able to see
nothing, until an LED lantern slowly lit the area to reveal rusted
blue walls, and ceiling, and a floor covered in a collage of area
rugs.

* * *

Striker stood at the back of the unit where
the lantern sat on an overturned milk carton next to a shabby
floral sofa. A small card table with a single chair was in the back
corner, and a rectangular shape rested on top of it. Various wires
stuck out from the unknown box.

"Is that a ham radio?" asked Vinny, striding
forward to get a closer look when Striker ignored the question.

Doors on either side of the container were
folded back to sit flush against the interior walls and led into
the adjacent containers. The small lantern illuminated only a few
inches into the connecting metal boxes, giving an ominous feel to
the dark spaces beyond. Large maps labeled with the names of
surrounding cities were duct taped to the walls with green and red
Xs, similar to the tacks used on Sanibel Island. These marked
several locations. In many areas, green marks had been covered with
red ones, no doubt an indication of areas that had been overrun. A
small white box stacked on another milk carton caught my
attention.