Dead 09: Spring Read online

  Other Titles by TW Brown

  The DEAD Series:

  DEAD: The Ugly Beginning

  DEAD: Revelations

  DEAD: Fortunes & Failures

  DEAD: Winter

  DEAD: Siege & Survival

  DEAD: Confrontation

  DEAD: Reborn

  DEAD: Darkness Before Dawn

  DEAD: Spring

  DEAD: The Reclamation (coming December 2014)

  DEAD Special Edition

  DEAD: Perspectives (Vol. 1)

  DEAD: Vignettes (Vol. 1)

  DEAD: The Geeks (Vol. 1)

  Zomblog

  Zomblog

  Zomblog II

  Zomblog: The Final Entry

  Zomblog: Snoe

  Zomblog: Snoe’s War

  Zomblog: Snoe’s Journey

  Miscellaneous

  Gruesomely Grimm Zombie Tales Vol. I

  That Ghoul Ava: Her First Adventures

  That Ghoul Ava & The Queen of the Zombies

  That Ghoul Ava Kick Some Faerie A**

  Next, on a very special That Ghoul Ava

  Dakota

  Spring

  (Book 9 of the DEAD series)

  TW Brown

  Portland, Oregon, USA

  Dead: Spring

  ©2014 May December Publications

  The Split-tree logo is a registered trademark of May December Publications, LLC.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living, dead, or otherwise, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author or May December Publications.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  A moment with the author…

  What’s in a word?

  Authors love to talk word count. How many they got each day, that sort of thing. One of the issues that I had with A LOT of the zombie fiction out there was that the word count was maybe 60-70,000. That might seem like a lot, and it is respectable, but there are others who do not even hit the 50,000 word benchmark that classifies a piece of work as novel length.

  The norm in the DEAD series is 100,000. Decent by most standards; maybe not as lengthy as some, but still respectable. This baby is something that I am very proud of. And not just the words count (over 173,000!), I am happy where the stories took me (and you as you dive in). The bottom line is that I feel good about this book.

  So what can YOU do? Honestly? Your reviews make all the difference. It moves my book into the “Amazon Consciousness” so that those little “If you read this, you might like…” emails that Amazon sends out go to more people. Tell your friends. Start a book club. Heck, I am always willing to do something special for a book club. You get seven or so people together and make a run through the DEAD series, you can bet that I will be happy to host a Q & A, or just about anything.

  Here is the reality…I am not Stephen King. And while I do make a very good living as a writer, it is not as glamorous as you might believe. I am a stay-at-home kinda guy with OCD (I say it is minor…but my wife laughs when I say it, so…). My wife goes to work and I do the cooking, the cleaning, and the writing. She says it is a little like being married to Adrian Monk because I am a very scheduled kind of person and a “clean freak.”

  So let’s talk just a little about this book. I wanted to really reward the reader for hanging this long. Nine books is a BUNCH, We are closing in on a million words! I really left you hanging in the last book…so this is your “prize” for being such a good sport.

  I catch a lot of flak for having main characters die. I think that is one of the things that keeps this “real.” Besides, isn’t it a bit more fun when bad things start to happen and you DON’T know that somebody is safe? Me personally, I always hated that when I read. When my heroes go into a situation, I want to feel the danger.

  One other thing that I will address: in real life, you don’t always get a clear answer. You sometimes get an answer that you need to interpret and decide which aspect of it you want to use. Then, based on what you know of a situation or person, you come to a conclusion. I think it gives the reader something to chew on if they have a series of facts and a few suppositions and then they get to decide why they think something happened or a person acted a certain way. I know not everybody will agree, but that is what makes the world a great place…differing views.

  One more thing; the DEAD: Snapshot series will be coming very soon. I have received a lot of requests from people that want to see what happened to their town in a DEAD universe. I will say that the first (after the 12th book in the DEAD series…so we have a little while still) will be DEAD: Snapshot—Portland, Oregon. So you might get a guest appearance by a few familiar names. But keep those requests coming. Who knows…you may see your hometown on an upcoming cover. And in this one…size DOES NOT matter. I would be just as likely to write about Mudhole, Wyoming as I would Tokyo, Japan.

  I do have a few people to thank, so indulge me just a few more seconds. To Sophie, Tammy, Tim and Debra, my Beta readers for this one, as well as David Redding who comes in after and sweeps up all the messy details, you have my gratitude. And, as always, my family; despite my insistence of being left alone to work…I still need you to be that very important part of my life.

  TW Brown

  June 2014 2014

  For my friends

  You know who you are

  Contents

  Geek Pain and Nightmarish Discoveries

  New Friends, New Enemies

  Vignettes XLIX

  No Geek, Just Girls

  Battle

  Vignettes L

  Geek Girls Gone Wild

  Muddy Waters

  Vignettes LI

  Geek on the Run

  No Mercy

  Vignettes LII

  Geeks Making Tracks

  Soul Scarring

  Vignettes LIII

  The Geek’s Last Leg

  Welcome Home

  Vignettes LIV

  1

  Geek Pain and Nightmarish Discoveries

  “They don’t look like Guardians,” a woman said as she stepped forward from the group that had Kevin and the others hemmed in with weapons pointed.

  Kevin scanned the group and counted fifteen; each was carrying a rifle or pistol which was currently pointed in his general direction. As soon as he heard the word “Guardian”, he had a feeling that he knew what he was dealing with.

  “You’re right,” Kevin spoke. He took a step forward, making sure to raise his hands just a bit higher as he did so in hopes that he would not simply be shot out of principle.

  “But we did run into some of them as well as a few of their hostages.” Kevin watched faces for any signs that he was about to be shot. He would have no problem shutting his mouth if it came to it.

  “Is that right?” a man sneered, stepping forward and raising his gun to his shoulder, the barrel aimed at Kevin’s head. “And where would those hostages be?”

  “I believe the area was called Eggers Grove,” Aleah spoke up and stepped beside Kevin, taking his hand in hers. “But they were in no condition to travel. We were simply passing through and sort of got caught in the middle of whatever is going on here. We did invite them to join us, but they refused.”

  As Aleah gave these people a rundown of what had happened, Kevin scanned the group. They all looked pretty healthy. He had to assume that they were members of that compound just to the west. Of the fifte
en, six were females. One of them had a disfiguring scar on her face. Better yet, what remained of her face was mostly twisted tissue that looked puckered but obviously from a wound that had long since healed. She had an eye patch over her left eye and, judging by what he saw, there was not likely to be an eye remaining in that socket.

  “Hey!” the woman who had spoken first said, snapping her fingers in Kevin’s direction. “Let’s see it.”

  Kevin blinked and looked around. Everybody was staring at him…including the woman with the disfigured face that he had been eyeballing. If she was self-conscious about his obvious visual examination of her facial scarring, she gave no indication.

  “Show them your arm,” Rose whispered with an elbow to his ribs.

  Suddenly understanding the situation and reason for the request, Kevin displayed the recent wound from the bite he’d sustained just a couple of days ago. Their captors—Kevin could not think of a better word for them at the moment since they all had weapons drawn and pointed at him and the rest of what remained of his group—moved in and examined the bite.

  “Yep…that’s legit,” the woman who Kevin now saw as the leader said out loud before taking a step back. “So at least two of you are immune…and the others?”

  “Nobody really wants to test the waters,” Aleah said with a forced laugh.

  “You mind if I ask you a question?” Kevin rolled his sleeve down and shrugged his coat back on.

  “Sure,” the woman agreed with a nod.

  “Can at least of few of your people lower their weapons?”

  “Stand down,” the woman ordered. “Now, perhaps some introductions, my name is Latricia Jones…”

  The woman went down the line and gave everybody else’s names. There were three Patricks and two Seans (one male, one female); beyond that, Kevin simply did not bother to commit any of the names to memory. If he had his way, this would not be a lengthy encounter.

  “Are we going to stand here and wait to see if that ocean of zombies finally notices us?” Rose blurted after Heather had shot Kevin a dirty look and introduced their group in a return of the extended courtesy.

  For the first time since the two groups had met, Latricia’s people seemed to actually notice the seemingly endless stream of undead now pouring through the CTA lot. Another section of the train took that moment to topple and allow for a second tributary of zombies to pour in and add to the horde that was pushing everything forward in the lot, creating a tsunami of derelict vehicles and roadwork equipment.

  “Jesus Chri—” one of the men started, but Latricia’s bark cut him off.

  “Ramirez! What have I told you about taking the Lord’s name in vain?”

  “Sorry, Lattie” The man gave a small bow of the head.

  Great, Kevin thought, religious freaks. Anything else to make this just a bit worse?

  “You say that there were Guardians up in the Eggers Grove neighborhood.”

  “Yeah…they blew up a church for no reason and were really making a lot of racket,” Aleah said when, once again, it looked as if Kevin was going to remain silent.

  “Oh…there was a reason,” Latricia muttered. “They were trying to draw me out…get a little payback.”

  “By blowing up a church?” Rose asked. “That seems a bit much.”

  “Long story,” Latricia waved a hand in dismissal.

  “We should get back home,” one of the women suggested as she stared in a mix of horror and amazement at the sheer number of zombies now pouring through the CTA lot. “And if possible, we should probably recall the troops. I think this is a storm that we need to batten down for and just sit out until it is gone.”

  “Crap!” Latricia spat. She turned to face Kevin and the others. “We don’t really have time to deal with you folks. You don’t seem like the enemy, so we are going to let you go. You are welcome to return with us, but if you do, there will be protocols and some time in isolation while we assess whether or not you are people that we want in our community.”

  Nothing that the woman said held any appeal to Kevin. There was something about these folks that gave Kevin the heebie jeebies. They all had what he would classify as a fanatical look about them. In his mind, it was all about extremes: anything in moderation, be it alcohol, food, or even God, was okay. But anything in the extreme is a recipe for disaster.

  “No thanks,” Kevin finally answered with a shake of the head. He thought that he saw a look of disappointment cross the faces of all three females; most noticeable was Rose. “But if any of the others want to stay…well, that is their choice.”

  With no more ceremony than a curt nod, Kevin started walking. He did not even bother to look over his shoulder to see if the others would follow. It was Aleah who caught up to him first and grabbed him by the arm, spinning him around.

  “Whatever this is…” she threw her hands up in his general direction, “…it has to stop. You have been acting strange for a while. Did I do something?”

  By now, Heather and Rose had caught up. The overpass was empty as if Latricia and her people had never even been there. A distant low tone carried from the huge swarm of undead, but other than that, there was nothing. Not for the first time, but certainly it had been a while, Kevin marveled at the fact that they were in what had once been a thriving metropolis that was basically devoid of life. No cars, no planes, no people…just a slow reclamation by Mother Nature as multi-lane highways sprouted foot high weeds that were methodically pushing apart the rivers of asphalt that man had thought to be so permanent.

  The world was dead.

  “I am a carrier,” Kevin whispered. When nobody spoke, Kevin sighed. It was embarrassing, and deep down, he knew that he was being selfish.

  “If everything that we have heard is true, then I could infect you,” he glanced up at Aleah, but quickly found that he could not maintain eye contact. “Perhaps something as simple as a kiss, but there is definitely no way that we could ever become intimate again.”

  There was a long silence. Then, Aleah placed her hands on Kevin’s shoulders. When he continued to stare at the ground, she nudged his face up to hers and looked into his eyes with so much love that it made Kevin weak in the knees. Never in his life had anybody, much less a woman as beautiful as Aleah, looked at him in that way.

  “For somebody so smart, you can be a real idiot,” she said with a slight hitch in her voice. “And as for the possibility of you infecting me, we can figure something out. There are ways.”

  “Ever heard of condoms?” Rose muttered. Heather gave her a sharp elbow to the ribs.

  “And now is as good of a time as any to make an announcement,” Aleah said, turning to include the others in the conversation. She pulled Kevin beside her and took his hand, squeezing it gently. “I’m pregnant.”

  Those two words hung in the air long enough for Aleah to begin to think that perhaps she had made a mistake in sharing her announcement. Kevin’s hand jerked away sharply from her own and she was about to burst into tears until she realized why.

  Kevin had fainted.

  ***

  Kevin awoke with a start. Confusion was the most dominant emotion, but it was quickly replaced with fear when he looked around and discovered that he was in a small room not much larger than a closet. He was on the floor and it was dark; of that much he was certain.

  Feeling around, he actually confirmed that his guess had been accurate; this was a supply closet of some sort. There were shelves at about shoulder height and a deep sink against the back wall. He found the doorknob and turned, hardly surprised to discover it locked.

  He kicked it a few times and shouted to be let out. When he stopped, he could hear the sound of jangling keys. Doing a quick pat down, he was dismayed but not in the least bit surprised to discover that he had been stripped of all his weapons.

  The door opened and Kevin braced himself for what would greet him. It was not what he expected.

  “Jeez, do you have to make so much racket?” Rose huffed.

&
nbsp; “Where am I…where are the others?” he asked, shoving past the girl to get out of the closet. He looked around and easily recognized the hallways of academia. They had to be inside the college; even more important, that meant they were with Latricia’s people: the immunes.

  It took Kevin a few seconds to realize that Rose had not answered his question. When he looked down at her, he saw something that led him to believe that, just perhaps, he might not want that answer.

  “It’s Aleah.”

  Rose barely spoke the words above a whisper, but they slammed in to Kevin with all the force of a hurricane. The girl actually had tears in her eyes now as she looked up at Kevin with a stricken expression.

  “What about her?” Kevin asked. He saw the girl wince and looked down to discover that his hands held her shoulders in a firm grip. When had he done that? Very gingerly, he let go and took a step back.

  “Right after you fainted, she let loose with a scream…” Rose drifted back to that memory and shuddered at the sound. Up until that moment, she had thought that the sound of a person dying at the teeth of a zombie was the worst thing that she had ever heard.

  “She was bent over at the waist and had her arms tight around her belly. Then…” Rose’s voice faded. She did not want to say what happened next. Swallowing hard, she continued. “Then blood began to pour from her…from between her legs. She fell to the ground and started screaming and crying and thrashing around.”

  Kevin felt sick. His mind was painting a horror far worse even than the actual event. He quickly jumped to the worst possible conclusion. Rose saw the look on his face and guessed at what she had led him to believe.

  “It was a miscarriage, Kevin,” she blurted. She grabbed Kevin’s face in her hands and stared into his eyes. “The guess, last I heard, had something to do with whatever toxic stuff we breathed in down by the trains. It was not the baby…it was the poison. The doctor said that it probably prompted a spontaneous abortion. She lost a lot of blood, but they say that she will be okay.”