Zomb-Pocalypse 3 Read online

  I almost give myself up to Silas about a hundred times, but I chicken out at the last minute. The terrain is so rough and bumpy, and to make it worse, the heat vent is blowing directly on me. It’s blistering hot, and soon I’m a disgusting ball of sweat beneath all my layers. At one point, Silas opens his window a bit and I get the tiniest glimpse of cool air, but he still leaves the heat cranked. It makes me want to jump up and scream at him to turn it off! God, why doesn’t he lower the heat? He has to be just as hot as I am.

  I lose track of time, but it feels like a year has passed. Finally, Silas steps on the brakes far more aggressively than necessary, making me roll forward and smack against the front seat. I hold my breath, hoping he didn’t feel it. “Alright, Blondie. You can come out now.” His voice rings through the cab and I freeze, not sure if I should give up my position or not. “Oh come on, I know you’re there,” he says with a chuckle as the truck turns a corner and takes off at a much smoother gait. We must’ve reached the main road at the bottom of the mountain. I glance out the window and see that it’s still dark, but the first few streaks of light are starting to pierce the gloom. “Jane?” Silas calls again. I let out the deep breath I’ve been holding and start to sit up.

  “How long have you known?” I ask as I scramble into the backseat and shuck off my backpack and coat to finally gain some sweet relief. Silas starts to laugh.

  “I knew from the beginning,” he admits, casting me an evil smile in the rear-view mirror. “Why do you think I made sure to hit every pothole on the way down that godforsaken mountain?” It’s too much. I reach out and slap him on the arm, making him laugh harder.

  Even though it’s better with my coat off, the heat is still blowing full blast on my leg, so I climb clumsily into the front seat, launching Silas’ backpack into the back with my own. I slap the heat off, making Silas laugh again. “You did that on purpose,” I accuse him, and he doesn’t confirm or deny it. “If you knew from the beginning, why did you make me ride all the way down here on the floor?” I ask, and he stops laughing.

  “Because, Jane. We are a team, and you tried to get one over on me,” he says, and I know that he’s actually kind of pissed off.

  “Why didn’t you turn me in?” I ask, not really sure what to expect from him. Silas shrugs.

  “For the same reason. We are a team,” he says, and I feel my anger at him melting away. “You have just as much right to help out your family and risk your life as any one of us.” He looks over and sees me grinning at him in the gray morning light. “Don’t read too much into this, you still have some work to do before you’re Annie Oakley, but you can handle yourself as well as anyone else.”

  “Thanks,” I tell him, meaning every syllable. Only Silas would be this chill about me coming along. Even Ryan would have marched me back up the mountain to the cabin if he’d been here. I think back over Silas’ explanation and realize he never did tell me how he knew I was in here. “Did you see me get in, or something?” I ask, and he shakes his head.

  “No, you actually kept pretty quiet,” he says as he continues to stare at the road. It almost appears like he isn’t going to answer, but I am used to Silas by now; he just needs some more time. “I knew when you didn’t say goodbye to me,” he says, sounding awkward. I smile, glad that he knows I would’ve said goodbye to him if I’d had any intention of letting him go out on his own. “I was watching you, and you said goodbye to your dad for show,” he says with a chuckle. “But then you hugged Ryan and your mom, and that’s when I knew,” he sounds like a proud detective who just uncovered the mystery plot.

  “Well look at you,” I tell him, and he chuckles.

  “One thing I can’t figure out though,” he says, and I look over at him, surprised Silas is willing to admit that he doesn’t know everything. “How did you get your backpack out of the house?” He asks the question I had least been expecting.

  “I dropped it off the roof into some bushes and picked it up on my way by,” I admit, and he gives me a sideways look that actually appears a little proud.

  “Well look at you,” he says, mimicking my words to him from a few moments ago. “Your dad’s gonna be pissed though,” he warns me, and I nod.

  “I know,” I tell him. I knew he would be, and I’m willing to take the punishment.

  Silas surprises the hell out of me by reaching over and grabbing my hand off of my lap and holding it. His hand is warm and rough with calluses. I stare straight ahead, feeling a flush come over my entire body as I give in to my urges and squeeze his hand back.

  “So where are we going?” I ask after a few minutes when I start to feel the silence get heavy and awkward.

  “Barry is sending us to a small town about forty-five minutes from the base of the mountain.” He pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and hands it over to me. I unfold it and find a map. The small town is called Wheeley, and I feel my stomach dip.

  “I know this place and it isn’t that small,” I tell him, making Silas glance over at me sharply.

  “How big do you figure?” he asks after a moment, and I shrug.

  “I don’t know but they are big enough to have a Wal-Mart.” I say, making Silas curse under his breath.

  “This is gonna be a shit show,” he tells me, and I can’t help but agree.

  We start to see more and more signs of humanity—or what’s left of it—the closer we get. All the houses look abandoned and dark, garbage litters the streets, and abandoned cars and trucks are everywhere, left with their doors wide open, or worse, closed with zombies inside, scratching at the windows. There is even a burnt up dark thing on the horizon. “What is that?” I ask Silas, pointing it out. It’s too oddly shaped to be a building, but too large to be a truck, car, or even a bus.

  Silas looks where I’m pointing and squints. “I believe that’s an airplane,” he says, and I feel sick as I take in the size of it. Now that he’s said so, I can see that he’s right.

  “It looks like it was a big one,” I say quietly, and Silas nods.

  “A 747, at least,” he agrees, and I can’t help thinking about all the people who must’ve died even way up in the air. If even a handful of the people on the airplane turned from having the rare blood type, it would’ve been a slaughter. Nobody would’ve known what the zombies were at first, and there probably weren’t any weapons either, since you aren’t allowed anything even remotely dangerous on a plane… Silas squeezes my fingers gently, pulling me from my dark thoughts.

  I blink and look around, purposely avoiding looking back in the mirror at the plane. I don’t know why, out of everything, the plane crash is hitting me so hard—probably because I used to be terrified to fly. More and more zombies are visible now, roaming the ditches and roads in their tattered, dirty clothes, and equally tattered and dirty skin. I avert my eyes from a particularly gruesome looking lady in a pink sun dress. “Man, I forgot how terrible they were,” I admit to Silas. Being up on the mountain top, even for those few days, had really made me forget what it was like down here on the ground.

  “Wishing you hadn’t come?” Silas asks, and even though I kind of am, I shake my head. I would do it all again, even though I realize nobody in their right mind would choose to come back down to all of this if they didn’t have to. I gently pull my hand from Silas’ as we pull into the Wal-Mart parking lot behind the other two vehicles, and I know my time for reckoning is coming up.

  I watch as the doors of the other vehicles burst open and Barry, my dad, and the Sergeant emerge with their guns up and ready. Dad’s eyes are sharp and he does nearly a one hundred and eighty degree turn before his eyes land on me. His gun sags in his hand when he sees me. My dad is not an angry man, but the only way I can think to describe the look on his face right now is rage. He marches over and pulls my door open angrily.

  “Jane, what in the hell are you doing here?”

  Chapter Four

  I’m not prepared when Dad grabs me around the wrist and yanks me angrily from the truck. I st
umble when my feet hit the ground but manage to right myself. Silas is out of the truck in a flash and in my dad’s face. “Let her go,” he demands, halting my father’s movements as he attempts to drag me across the parking lot.

  “Stay out of this son,” my dad tells him, but Silas doesn’t listen. His hands lock onto my dad’s wrist where he’s got a hold of me. I can tell he must be squeezing because my dad suddenly releases me, his face going pale.

  “What were you thinking bringing her?” my dad demands, turning his anger on Silas, but I don’t give Silas time to answer.

  “It wasn’t his fault.” I defend. “I hid in the back until it was too late for him to turn around.” My dad’s face turns even stormier at my words.

  “Do you have any idea what your mom must be going through right now?” he asks, his question making me feel a wave of guilt crash down over top of me.

  “What in the hell is going on over here?” Barry demands, storming up with a look of anger that rivals my dad’s.

  “Jane snuck into the truck–” my dad starts to tell him, but Barry cuts him off.

  “I don’t give a crap about that!” he whispers angrily. “You three are going to attract every zombie within a five mile radius if you don’t shut the hell up.” His words make the anger leach from my dad’s face and he looks, if anything, like a dog that’s just been kicked in the guts by someone he trusted. I feel awful for putting him through this—maybe me coming along is actually more dangerous for him after all.

  “Sorry,” Dad says, making me feel even worse. “I need her out of here though. Silas, take her back,” he demands in a whisper this time, but Barry shakes his head.

  “We can’t spare the man. She’s here now, she stays,” he orders in a clipped tone, and I can tell Dad wants to argue, but further discussion is cut short when we hear the moans of the dead. “Damn it,” Barry mutters as we all bring our guns up. Silas reaches into the back of the Ford and grabs both of our backpacks, handing me mine, and I shoulder it.

  I dig my knife out and tuck it at my waist before pulling my gun out and double checking the clip. I catch my dad staring at the gun. It makes me want to apologize for having it despite his objections, but there isn’t time, and it would be crazy to remain unarmed. “Incoming,” Silas mutters as the crowd of zombies becomes visible. They are rounding the edge of the Wal-Mart and I feel my stomach quiver—I haven’t missed this. There are at least twelve of them, but they are still far enough away, and slow enough, that we should be able to pick them off.

  We spread out a little, and Silas starts firing into the crowd. For every shot he takes, a zombie falls to the ground. Sergeant Regg joins in and his shots are just as accurate. Their muzzled pistols let out a faint pop, pop, pop, and the zombies fall to the cement with an audible thunk, but other than that it’s my own heartbeat that is roaring in my ears.

  I step away from the others and raise my gun. Even though I haven’t fired it in nearly a week, it’s just as I remember. I luck out and hit the first zombie in the head, dropping it. I can feel my dad’s eyes burning into the back of my head, and it shakes my confidence a little. I miss the next zombie and hit it in the stomach instead. It doesn’t even slow down as black starts to slowly ooze from the wound to stain his already horribly stained shirt. I take a deep breath and realign my shot. My zombie is an older man, who might have been nice in life, but now he looks horrible with dried blood smearing his chin, blank eyes, and chomping, broken teeth encrusted with gore. He’s also wearing a fedora, which I find odd. How the heck did he manage to keep it on through turning into a zombie and then wandering around for who knows how long? My shot is true this time and pierces his cheek; he falls back and the jaunty fedora finally falls off his head to be crushed beneath the foot of the next zombie in line.

  I feel a hand clamp on my shoulder and I jump, spinning to find my dad. He motions for me to follow him and Barry, leaving Silas and Regg to finish up the remaining zombs. I glance at Silas and he gives me the nod—he will catch up—there are only a few left anyway. I stick close to Dad’s side as I jog across the few feet of parking lot that separate us from the front doors of the Wal-Mart.

  The thought of going inside is terrifying. The doors are shut firmly and, without electricity, they don’t automatically open when we walk up. “Let’s hope this place was closed when shit hit the fan,” Barry mutterers as he lifts a crowbar I hadn’t noticed him carrying, and he starts prying the doors apart. I turn away from what he’s doing to watch our backs and make sure Silas and Regg are alright. They are jogging towards us, having finished with the mini horde. Despite the imminent danger, I let out a small sigh of relief.

  “This is risky,” Silas mutters as he crowds in close to me and turns to the parking lot to keep an eye on things. The parking lot is deserted, save for six vehicles, counting our own, littered across the empty lot. I stare at them and agonize over how they got there. I am reminded of the mall, where the people saved our lives and then stole our truck. I just hope that if there are occupants inside, they are of the breathing variety. We will be far less trusting this time around.

  Regg nods his head in response to Silas’ statement. “Yeah, man. You made this sound like we’d be emptying out mom and pop grocery stores in some one-horse town,” he accuses, but Barry ignores him. He almost has the doors open and, with a final grunt of effort, they start to slide. We squeeze inside and Barry lets the doors shut behind us with a resounding snap. Being locked inside with who knows what isn’t exactly a pleasant thought.

  “Are we sure this is a good idea?” I ask as we creep forward towards the second set of doors.

  “Because you’re the one with good ideas?” Barry mocks as he uses his crowbar to pry open the second set of doors. It isn’t as difficult the second time around, or maybe it just seems that way because the walls on either side of us give the appearance of safety.

  The doors slide open. This time Barry props them open with shopping carts, and we pass through useless theft detectors. “Grab as much as you can, we need to stock up for winter, think things like food and medical supplies.” Barry stops, his eyes landing on me. “Since you’re here, you can take care of the feminine hygiene products,” he assigns, and I grit my teeth in annoyance. “We need to break up into teams."

  “Jane is with me,” my dad interrupts.

  “I’m not leaving her either,” Silas says, eying my dad with a look of challenge.

  “Well, aren’t you the popular one,” Barry sneers, and I’m starting to get the impression that this guy doesn’t like me. “Very well, I’ll take Chad.” I blink for a minute, not really sure who he is talking about. Sergeant Regg steps forward and I feel like a total dummy—of course—Regg isn’t the Sergeant’s first name.

  “Move out,” Barry snaps as we all head for the cart corral and take as many as we can. Silas, Dad, and I each grab a cart that we push inside another cart, and we start off towards the left-hand side, while Barry and Regg take the right.

  This reminds me a bit of the time Ryan and I broke into that pharmacy, and it makes me shiver. Even though that was the defining moment that led to me meeting Silas, I never want to repeat nearly being eaten alive, jumping through a window, and almost bleeding to death in an alley!

  “Keep your eyes peeled,” Dad warns us unnecessarily, and we all nod, not saying anything as we head further into the store. It’s instant darkness as soon as we move away from the doors and around the corner, and Silas brings out his flashlight and snaps it on. It makes me want to jump out of my skin. Every time we are forced to use flashlights in the dark, I can’t help but feel like a giant zombie magnet.

  “I know you hate this,” Silas murmurs so quietly that I almost don’t hear him, and he reaches out and pats me on the shoulder. “Buck up,” he tells me, and I have to smile despite the seriousness of the situation. Just because Silas let me come along on this trip and even held my hand in the truck, doesn’t mean there will be any hand holding for me now. I like him this way tho
ugh; he makes me feel like I’m tough enough to do this. If someone like Silas can believe in me, then I should believe in myself.

  I reach into my pocket and pull out my own flashlight, shining it down the rows of cosmetics. If Silas is going to light the place up, I might as well see what’s coming at me in the dark too. The slight squeak of the cart wheels is the only things that makes any noise—I don’t think any of us are even breathing as we strain our ears for any sign of danger.

  The openness of the store has me jumpy, but we move as one in a pretty tight trio. I look right, Silas looks left, and my dad walks backwards with his back pressed against mine, watching the rear. We are all pushing shopping carts, so I hope those will act as a bit of a buffer between us and any zombies lurking around in the dark. We reach the aisle with the feminine products, and I blush as Silas looks at me expectantly. I can practically feel him mentally telling me to hurry up. I step forward and stare at the wall of boxes and freeze. It doesn’t help that Silas and my dad are watching me so closely that I can feel their eyes burning into the back of my neck as I stand there. Silas steps forward with a cart and uses his arm to sweep an entire shelf of boxes into the cart. He moves the cart forward a bit and does the same with another shelf until the cart is piled high with boxes. “There,” he says matter-of-factly as he heads down the aisle towards the end, and I’m grateful to him, and also impressed by his willingness to deal with this stuff.

  We find a bit more room to squeeze in toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, and as many bottles of Tylenol, shampoo, cold medicine, bandages, disinfectant, and vitamins as we can fit. Silas hands me the overflowing cart and I take over as we leave the aisle. I round the corner and slam into a solid mass, letting out a little squeak of surprise. Silas lifts his gun and his flashlight and illuminates a rotting pile of flesh.