Generation Dead (Book 3): Beyond The Gates Read online

  “How far?” I asked, curious about the skill of the assassin.

  “Not great,” Jake said. He looked back over the hills. “Probably no more than one hundred yards, give or take a few.”

  I was somewhat relieved. A good shot could make a hit at over three hundred yards on a man-sized target using open sights. With a scope, that distance triples. I have a cousin somewhere who could make consistent shots at a thousand yards look easy. This was looking like the average shooter, no more. I didn’t feel like I had a big bulls-eye on my back anymore.

  “All right,” I said. “What’s the next move? Do we track the one that got away, or the one that did the killing?”

  Jake shrugged and looked up at the sky. The morning sun was sending warmer air our way, and the winds were picking up as a result. The tall grasses waved in a pulsing, tidal fashion that was hypnotic and beautiful. I watched the wind play with the grass while he made a decision.

  It didn’t take long. Jake looked back at the dead guy and cocked his head to the side. Kayla frowned, and Julia didn’t look happy. I knew what was coming, and for once I had to agree with it.

  “I’d say our work here is done,” Jake said. We know there was a shooter, but he’s gone, likely long gone. If the other runner survived and got away, obviously they don’t want to be found. Not much left but that little bit of paper with numbers on it. Hardly worth killing over, but we’ll take it with just in case.”

  Julia spoke up first. “There’s been a murder! How can you just let it go? That’s crazy!” She was angry, and looked to me for support, but I had bad news for her.

  “Sorry, babe, but Jake’s right. We’re done here,” I said, looking away to avoid the coming storm in her eyes.

  “I can’t believe you!” Julia raged. “A man was shot in the back! Running away from something awful enough for him to take the risk! How can you say it’s done?”

  Kayla jumped in. “You two are some heroes. If this was happening back in Illinois you’d be all over it. Don’t feel like getting involved on vacation?”

  That was the wrong thing to say. Jake’s eyes flashed angrily and answered his wife. When he spoke, his voice was low and measured.

  “Your call then. What do you propose to do? Where will you lead us? Which direction? Should we split up into two groups and maybe get picked off while chasing the sniper? Should we chase down a ghost of a trail, not knowing where it will lead, not knowing if the person making the tracks even wants to be found? “ Jake stared down the two women. “You want to go; go where? Where should we leave the van and our supplies? Who can we trust out here in the middle of nowhere to guard our stuff? Remember that town a ways back? Aaron killed a man over a goddamn bottle of water.”

  That was true. It was a bad situation. The man was clearly crazy, and decided the water bottle I was drinking from was his, even though it had made the journey from Starved Rock in my pack. He’d kept coming and eventually tried to stab me for the water bottle. I had to use my ‘hawk on him, and it wasn’t a pleasant memory.

  Julia stared back at Jake, and I knew she was considering his words. But she’d rather die than admit he was right, so she just continued to stare. Kayla was the one who diffused the situation with grace.

  “You’re right, honey. I’m sorry. I just wanted to see justice done, and I hate seeing this kind of thing happen.” Kayla put her arms around Jake’s neck, and I could see the tension flow out of him like water from a bucket.

  Julia wasn’t so forgiving, but I caught her eye and winked, and she tried not to smile, but it didn’t work.

  “Let’s get moving. We need to cover some ground before we camp for the night,” I said, starting back towards the van. “Besides, we can argue over what the numbers mean, anyway.”

  Julia still didn’t move. “Can we at least bury the man?” she asked.

  I didn’t look back. “Shovel is in the van, sweetheart. Unless you’re planning on digging with your gun?” I ignored the rock that flew past me. Julia was too good with anything thrown to miss, so I knew she did it on purpose.

  Chapter 4

  We made it back to the van and headed north again, for no other reason than Jake was too damn stubborn to turn the vehicle around. US 385 wasn’t very interesting, but it was better than the other side of the state. That had been boring in the extreme, and we had made poor time due to the difficulty of the roads. But the other side of the state was better, and aside from the dead guy, it wasn’t so bad. The hills made it seem like we were getting closer to our destination.

  After a little while, we passed through a heavier concentration of hills and trees. Julia pointed out that we were passing through some kind of state park, but Kayla remarked that the whole state was basically a state park since no one seemed to be here.

  I perked up from my window gazing when I began to see signs of civilization. It was a familiar pattern. There would be nothing but road and scenery, then there would be a home or two, perhaps a ranch or farm. Then there would be another home, then another. Pretty soon there would be several in a row, then a few more, then a full blown subdivision. After that it was just a matter of time. When we passed the sign for Ridgeview Country Club, I knew something was over the horizon.

  Jake kept us moving north, and we passed a few more homes and shells of homes. Some houses were so covered in weeds and bushes that they looked more like hills than houses. On the outskirts of Chardron, Jake decided to stop at the corner of Crazy Horse Memorial Highway and Gold Rush Byway. In numbers that meant 385 and 20.

  I got out of the vehicle and took a look around, trying to figure out what kind of town my brother had brought us to. On the left there was a Taco John’s, at least that was what the faded sign told me. Down the street was a McDonald’s, but I only knew that because I could see the arches on the ground. A gas station was closer, and I thumped the cans on the roof of the van to see if we needed any. Two of the cans sang deep songs, telling me they needed filling.

  “I’ll get the gas, you all find out if there’s anyone living around here,” I said.

  “We’ll head over to the Walmart and see if there might be anything worth salvaging,” Jake said, checking the chamber in his gun.

  “Good luck on that,” I said. It had been our experience that the big stores were usually the ones looted first. Dad had explained that some of them had actually become small villages with people living off the supplies inside. Bitter fights had erupted in the early days, and a lot of people died over supposed important items. When I looked at them with a critical eye, I could see the allure at first. Lot of space, lot of supplies, limited access for zombies to get in, and if tightly controlled, a dedicated group could live for a long time. Problem was, you would see your supplies getting lower and lower on a daily basis, and none were coming in. It was just a countdown to eventual starvation or dehydration. Personally, I’d take my chances with the zombies.

  I walked over to the gas station carrying a hose, a pump, and the cans. We’d been doing this for years, so I wasn’t a stranger to siphoning fuel. The hard part was getting to the fuel and making sure it was still usable.

  The first tank was dry, and the second, and the third. The fourth held promise, and I tossed the hose down the hole. Pumping the handle on the siphon, I was rewarded with a good flow of gas that easily filled the two cans I had brought with me. I was encouraged enough to take them back to the van, then grab the others to top them off. Never hurt to have full tanks.

  Walking back to the pump I was overloaded and wound up dropping one of the cans. It let off a load boom that was amplified by the awning above me. I winced at the noise, but didn’t give it much thought. We hadn’t seen any zombies in a long time, not since the last fight in Chicago.

  I pumped the gas and filled the cans, taking care to make sure the caps were on tight. Leaking gas all over the van wouldn’t win me any friends.

  I placed the last cap back on the can and hefted two of them, not trusting myself to not drop one on the way b
ack to the van. As I started to walk I heard a noise behind me. It sounded like a slow tapping noise, like someone was trying to wake someone on the other side of a window without waking the house. I put the cans down and turned around, drawing my tomahawk as I did so.

  Chapter 5

  My initial scan revealed nothing. The gas station was intact, no problems there, the propane tank near the back of the lot wasn’t doing anything strange, and the lot was pretty empty.

  I shrugged and went back to my cans, putting my tomahawk back and picking up where I left off. I took three steps when I heard it again.

  Tap…tap…tap…

  I put the cans down and pulled my ‘hawk again, slowly walking towards the main building. My dad always said once was coincidence, twice became a pattern. Something was here, and I wanted to know what it was. Experience had taught me the hard way that ignoring strange things led to uncomfortable situations, and I hated being uncomfortable.

  The station was dark inside, but I could see enough through the windows to see that it had been turned upside down. The door was completely broken in, and old shattered glass lay over the floor. All the foodstuff was gone, as well as all of the drinks in the coolers. I did see something of great value, and I stepped through the glass to get it. On the near side of the register was a small display, and tucked in neat little rows were road maps of Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and South Dakota. I grabbed one of each and tucked them in my side pocket.

  A quick look in the back showed that the place had been empty for a long time. The only thing I disturbed was a small raccoon that scurried out the open back door. If there had been anything in here, it wouldn’t have stayed to tap on the glass.

  Outside, I looked around, and then waited. Patience wasn’t one of my virtues, but every now and then you had to sit back and let things happen. You couldn’t always force it. Five minutes into my vigil I heard it again.

  Tap…tap…tap…

  That was on my left. I knew for certain because there wasn’t a damn thing on my right. Towards the left was Big Bat’s Car Wash, and there were several windows facing me, as well as big garage doors on the front and rear. I decided to go through the front, since that would let in the most light, and I didn’t feel like battling a locked door when I didn’t really have to.

  Walking to the front of the building, I looked hard through the cloudy plastic but couldn’t see very much aside from large colored brushes. I took hold of the handle near the ground and gave a pull. The door lifted about a foot, then stuck. I got a grip with both hands and heaved. Whatever had held up the door gave way, and the garage door flew upwards. It smacked into the back of its rails and crashed down again, cracking the plastic in several places near the bottom.

  My first thought was I was lucky I wasn’t standing underneath it. My second thought was I was glad Jake hadn’t seen what had just happened. My third thought was I was very grateful the door had come down, because two sets of very dead hands slammed into the plastic window a second after the door had come down.

  One pair of hands was very dark, and likely the owner had been a zombie for quite a while. The other pair were more white, with what looked like recent defensive tears. If I had to guess, new hands had gone into the car wash for shelter, not realizing it was already occupied until it was too late.

  Faces replaced hands, and I was grateful the plastic was cloudy. Oldy was definitely uglier, and Newby just in bad shape. By the looks I could get, Oldy had done a number on Newby.

  Question now was how do I deal with these two? I could leave them there, but there was something odd about Newby that I wanted to check out. If I opened the door, they’d be on me in a second. I looked around for a solution, then realized the door was the solution. I went back to the station and found an empty milk crate. At the window of the car wash I banged on it for a while with the side of my tomahawk until I was rewarded with a hand thump from the other side.

  I quickly went to the front and lifted the garage door, jamming the milk crate under it to keep it open. It made a big enough space for the zombies to crawl through, but not enough to let them move quickly.

  I stepped to the side of the garage door and waited, using my hand to pound on the door. Sure enough, the hands and faces were back, and they were making their own noise.

  After about five minutes, I realized the zombies were too stupid to figure out to go underneath the door ,and I was going to have to do this the hard way. I was hoping to trap them underneath as they tried to crawl through, but that wasn’t going to happen. I went to the side of the door again, and with one hand shoved it upward. I backpedalled at the same time, trying to put some distance between myself and the coming dead.

  Chapter 6

  They came out of the car wash at a decent clip. The dark old zombie was moving pretty good on legs that must have been mostly intact. His hair was gone, and his clothes were nearly completely rotted away. All he had on were tattered jeans that had gaping holes in them from thigh to ankle, and a shirt that was torn away on one side, revealing dark grey skin underneath. His face was nasty, though, with nearly all of the skin from his cheeks and chin ripped off. It was as if the top half of his head was fine, then it went completely skeletal. I had seen some rough zombies in my time, but this guy was running to the front of the line.

  The other zombie was a woman, and she was in much better shape. Her color was mostly white, but bloodstains covered her legs and hands. If I had to guess, she lay down somewhere, and the old guy got her legs first, biting her hands when she tried to fight him off. Her black clothing was torn around her legs, revealing deep bites and tears. Not a nice way to go. Her face was clear, though, and it was easy to see she had been pretty when she was alive. Now she was dead and coming after me, which made her ugly as hell in my book. Her speed was better than the old guy, so she was going to have to be put down first. As she advanced, I saw what made me want to let the two of them out. Pinned to the shoulder of her shirt was a small piece of paper.

  I hadn’t seen that sort of thing before, and I didn’t have time to figure it out right now. I backed up and put a fuel pump between myself and her. She was making good progress, but she was single focused as zombies tended to be. She kept her eyes on me and walked straight into the gap between the two pumps. It was just large enough to let her in, but not large enough to let her through. She bumped into the garbage can wedged in there, and with that distraction I slammed my ‘hawk into her head. She crumpled over the can and lay there, her arms dangling down.

  I didn’t give her any thought as I turned to face the other zombie. He was a bit trickier, since he had been cooking for a while. When zombies age, they tend to evolve a bit, and even develop some problem solving skills. We’d all seen their crude ambushes and ability to manipulate doorknobs and such, so I figured Smiley here was no ordinary ghoul. That didn’t change the fact that I was going to kill him permanently, it just encouraged a little more caution.

  Smiley weaved around the pumps and walked towards me. He kept his eyes on me, alternating looking at my face and my weapon. That was new. I half wondered if he would duck if I swung at him, but I really didn’t care. I waited until he got close, and I raised my weapon. He looked up at it and missed the foot I planted in his chest, shoving him backwards and onto the ground. His head smacked against the little concrete island that held the pumps, and that stunned him just long enough to let me bury the spike end of my tomahawk in his forehead. His eyes rolled up and looked at it as he slumped back and died.

  Wiping my blade off, I went back to the other island and retrieved the piece of paper pinned to the woman’s shirt. I couldn’t figure an explanation for it being there, just that it was curious. Opening it up, I could see it wasn’t paper at all, but a kind of thin cloth. On it was written:

  45-28-10

  117-12-7

  The numbers were neat and precise, like someone had taken great care to make sure they were legible and distinct. I had no idea what they meant or what they were
for. But somebody had thought them important enough to make sure they stood a chance of being found.

  “What do you have there?”

  I turned at the voice of my brother. He was lounging by the road, and I was used to his sitting back and letting me deal with situations. I knew he would have stepped in had he felt it necessary, but with just two zombies there wasn’t too much of a danger. I would have done the same in his place.

  “Just a small piece of paper with some numbers on it,’ I said, holding it up so he could see.

  Jake perked up. “Really? Let me see.” I handed them over, and he looked at them quickly. “Huh. These are the same numbers that were on the piece of paper the girls found on the dead guy.”

  It was my turn to perk up. “I’ll be damned. Wonder what they mean?” I said.

  “Not sure. But you know what dad says, ‘Once a coincidence…’”

  I finished the sentence. “‘Twice a pattern.’ Yeah, something is weird, but we can’t figure it out unless we know what the numbers mean.”

  “Let’s get back to the van,” Jake said.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I replied.

  Jake looked at me funny. I had never expressed any sort of sentiment like that before. “Why?” he asked cautiously.

  “You can help me carry the gas cans,” I said.

  Chapter 7

  Back at the van the girls were waiting outside, taking in the sun and enjoying the air. The two of them had their heads turned to the sky, and the gentle breeze blew back their long blonde hair in slow, easy caresses. If I had a camera I would have taken a picture, but these two had the models I had seen in old books beat by a mile.

  I lashed the cans to the top of the van and rummaged around until I found our kerosene sprayer. I gave my tomahawk the once over and set it alight, getting a curious look from my wife.