Death & Decay (Book 2): Divided Page 5

  With a short cry, Alex fell from his own beam, dislodged by the same quick stop on the second-story balcony. He landed on his back in the small stretch of grass that surrounded the apartments.

  Shit! Struggling to see Alex around the pillar, Colin almost fell.

  “Get up!” Colin hissed, trying not to attract the attention of the freaks. A blur raced by the edges of his peripheral vision.

  Colin gripped the bottom of the railing around the second-floor balcony and let his legs dangle. He dropped to the ground, falling to his knees. In an instant, he was back up and racing to Alex’s side.

  As he rounded the corner of the small closed-in patio, he saw Alex lying on his back in the bushes, struggling with a freak. The woman leaned over him, her teeth snapping as her fingers clawed at his face.

  “Alex!” Colin pulled the crowbar from his belt and raised it above his head. Before he could swing, Alex’s grip on the woman’s blood-slicked arms slipped and she struck like a viper. She buried her teeth into Alex’s neck. She reared back. Clenched tightly in her teeth, the skin and muscle stretched until it snapped with a sickening wet sound.

  Colin punched the crowbar through the back of the woman’s head. Her body went slack and she collapsed forward over Alex. Colin quickly heaved the woman aside. Underneath, Alex coughed and sputtered. Blood bubbled over his lips and gushed from the gaping wound in his neck. Colin pushed his hand to the wound, knowing the feeble attempt would do no good.

  The window next to them rattled as something smashed against it. Colin’s gaze snapped up and he locked eyes with a woman on the other side of the glass. Her emerald-green eyes were wide as she stared out at him. Her fiery-red hair created a frizzy halo around her head. She slammed her palm against the glass again, her lips moving.

  “Kill him!” The sound returned to Colin’s ears like a tidal wave. Dozens of footsteps echoing throughout the stairwell. Screams and growls of the freaks. His own heart thundering in his ears. Alex’s wet, ragged breathing.

  “You have to kill him!” the redheaded woman screamed at Colin again.

  Colin looked down at Alex. His face grew pale as his blood drained away into the dirt beneath him. Delicate black webbing snaked away from the wound. Alex gasped, blood spraying across his face.

  His friend was dying. Once he died, he would return as one of the freaks.

  As Alex took a long shuddering breath, Colin gripped the shaft of the crowbar tightly in his fist.

  “Do it!” the redheaded woman screamed.

  When Colin looked back down, Alex snarled up at him, his lips curled pulled back to reveal bloodstained teeth, delicate black veins creeping up the side of his face. Colin’s breath hitched as he drove the crowbar through Alex’s eye. After a moment of resistance, the bone gave way with a crunch and Alex went still.

  Colin stepped back, swiping a hand across his brow and leaving a bloody streak in its path. As an afterthought, Colin reached down and plucked the hammer from Alex’s waistband. Doing so felt wrong, but they might need it later.

  The others appeared on the third-floor balcony. Colin looked to the woman at the window. She looked to be a few years younger than Colin. A baggy university t-shirt hung loosely off her shoulders.

  Colin motioned for her to follow him. She slid open the window and with a hard shove popped the screen out. In one lithe movement, she pushed herself up and hopped out of the window.

  “Come on!” Colin urgently beckoned her forward as he took a few steps towards the car. After a moment’s hesitation, the woman slid the window open. She quickly hoisted herself out and raced across the lawn after Colin.

  Colin hurried the woman to the car and flung open the back door, shoving her inside. Samuel was already on the ground. Eric was fumbling with his grip on the second-story balcony as Rotna climbed over the railing on Samuel’s side.

  The climb down had seemed to take forever. Colin wondered if it had actually happened so quickly.

  As Samuel, Rotna, and Eric sprinted the few steps to the car, the freaks began to pour out of the stairwell, some falling over the railing in their single-minded haste and landing hard on the concrete. Before they had even closed their doors, the car jerked out of its parking spot. Colin yanked on the steering wheel, whipping the car around and bringing it to an abrupt stop. He jammed the shifter into drive and the little car sped off down the road.

  “Who is she?” Eric pointed at the new woman. “Where’s Alex?”

  “A freak got him.” Colin couldn’t look at Eric. “He’s dead.” Eric stared back at Colin in wide-eyed shock, his mouth opening and closing.

  “There was nothing that could be done for him,” the woman said quietly. “He was bitten.”

  “Bitten?” Eric asked.

  “Just like the woman at the mall.” Colin nodded.

  “Just like Charles,” Rotna added.

  “That’s how it spreads,” the woman said.

  “How do you know so much?” Samuel turned in his seat to face her.

  “It doesn’t take a genius. People get attacked. The infected bite and scratch. People die then get back up and now they’re infected too. It has to be the bite,” she answered confidently.

  Samuel nodded. “Makes sense.”

  “My name is Laura,” the woman offered. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

  They fell into silence as Colin made a hard right, swinging the car around the corner and losing sight of the apartment complex in the rearview mirror.

  Colin eyed the Mobil gas station on Ladue Road. Even though hours had passed since they had left the apartment, they had only traveled three and a half miles. In actuality, they had traveled much more than that, but the roadways were jammed with stagnant cars. And the freaks. More times than he could remember, they had been forced to backtrack and try to find another way around.

  They had spent the last few hours scouting for gas stations as the gas gauge crept ever closer to empty. Most of the stations had been packed with cars and freaks stalking in between the empty vehicles. The gas stations were infested with more freaks than the five of them could have defended against.

  Samuel had seen this gas station a few times while out on calls. It was on a quieter stretch of Ladue that was mostly bordered by houses. The gas station was hard to see from the street and shared its parking lot with a Domino’s and a music shop. Though half a dozen cars sat at the pumps, only a handful of freaks milled around them.

  As Colin pulled the car up alongside the last empty pump, the freaks screamed and darted for the car.

  “Everybody out!” Samuel bellowed. “Pick a target! Take ’em down quick before we attract more attention.”

  The doors flung open and the five of them spilled out of the car. Directly to Colin’s left, one of the freaks was slowly shambling towards him. Its right leg was a mangled mess. His pants had been shredded and the flesh had been stripped off his right shin, leaving the pearly-white bone exposed. A loop of intestines hung down from beneath his bloodied shirt on his right side, slapping against his thigh as he stumbled forward.

  Colin choked back the bile rising in his throat. These really weren’t people. The man snarled, his teeth snapping together hungrily as Colin moved towards him.

  As the freak raised his arms, Colin ducked underneath them and stepped around behind the man. Colin raised the crowbar and smashed it down as hard as he could on the back of the man’s head. The creature crumpled to the ground in a heap.

  Colin looked around for the others. Samuel planted his booted foot in the center of a woman’s chest and wrenched his ax from her forehead. Eric had the baseball bat he had taken from Samuel’s apartment propped against his shoulder as he walked back towards the car, a jumbled mess of arms and legs behind him. Rotna held her hands out, her face wrinkled in disgust. Her hands were red and slimy with blood.

  A cry cut off by a low guttural moan ripped Colin’s attention away from the others. Laura threw herself back against the far pumps as she dodged the grasping fingers
of a female freak. The freak’s short blonde hair was matted with blood. Her t-shirt was torn and a chunk of flesh had been ripped out of her side, leaving several ribs visible.

  Her face contorted into a vicious snarl as she shrieked and launched herself at their new companion.

  Laura shrank away but she had nowhere to go. The woman grabbed a fistful of Laura’s shirt. She pushed back against the freak’s shoulders, but the creature held on tightly, her teeth snapping just inches from Laura’s face.

  “Help!” Laura gritted her teeth, locking her arms in place to keep the freak at bay.

  Colin sprinted towards Laura, but Samuel was quicker. Samuel ran through like a bulldozer, wrapping his arms around the freak’s waist and tackling her to the ground.

  “Are you alright?” Colin skidded to a stop and knelt down next to Laura, who sat gasping on the ground against the gas pump.

  “I…I think so.” Laura felt her fingers along her face, reassuring herself that her flesh was unbroken. Satisfied, she sighed with relief.

  Colin glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Samuel push the woman back down to the ground on her stomach. With a roar, he swung the ax and cut cleanly through her neck.

  “She didn’t bite you?” Colin looked over Laura’s gore-stained shirt.

  “No.” Laura shook her head. Colin stood and offered Laura a hand. With a smile she took it, and Colin pulled her to her feet. Samuel’s heavy footsteps resounded behind him.

  “You alright?” Samuel asked, his breathing ragged.

  Colin glanced back at his cousin. “I don’t see—”

  “What the fuck?” Laura’s eyes suddenly grew wide. “Oh my god!” With a gasp, she buried her face in her hands and spun away from Samuel.

  “What? What’s wrong?” Colin asked, alarmed by the sudden outburst.

  “She’s still fucking moving!” Laura shrieked. Colin jumped up as Samuel whirled around, ready to find the woman’s headless body standing right behind them.

  Her body still lay on the ground, unmoving. Her head, separated by a few feet from her body, wiggled ever so slightly. Colin swallowed the bile that rose in his throat as he watched the rocking head.

  “It’s just twitching.” Samuel shrugged. “Like they said people used to do after going under the guillotine.” He strode around the head and crouched down beside it. A disgusted grimace slid across his face.

  Colin walked up next to him. The head wasn’t twitching. It was still alive.

  The woman’s eyes darted between the two of them. Her teeth snapped together so hard it made Colin own teeth ache. Their clicking was the only sound her disembodied head made. Blood still trickled out of her neck and pooled around her head.

  “Oh god!” Rotna covered her mouth upon seeing the gruesome head.

  “That is…” Eric knelt down next to Colin and Samuel. “That is really fucked up.” Eric’s lips were set in a grim line as he looked over the angry head. “How can that even be happening?”

  No one said anything.

  “Well.” Samuel stood up. “Everybody stand back.”

  Colin glanced up confusedly, but stood and stepped back all the same. Samuel raised his booted foot and stomped down hard on the bodiless head. Colin looked away as he heard a crack. The head stopped moving. Samuel raised his foot again and stomped on the head twice more. Colin didn’t look back at it. He wasn’t eager to see what it looked like now.

  “We should probably get the gas pumped and see if we can scrounge up some food from the gas station.” Samuel tapped his boot against the ground, dislodging some of the brains and hair that clung to it.

  “Laura and I can stay outside and pump the gas,” Eric offered.

  “Yeah, I’m done exploring for now.” Laura smiled sheepishly. “We can keep watch out here.”

  “Thanks.” Eric smiled at Laura.

  “I can help search the store,” Rotna volunteered. “I want to walk around a bit anyway. I might as well be useful while I’m doing it.”

  The large glass windows at the front of the gas station allowed Colin, Samuel, and Rotna to see inside the store. Nothing stirred, but that didn’t mean something wasn’t there.

  The inside was trashed. Most of the shelves were bare or the contents had been knocked over and trampled flat on the floor.

  Colin sighed as he looked over the mess. “I don’t think we’re going to find much here.”

  “Why don’t you two see what you can find and I’ll check the back and make sure nothing is going to jump out at us?” Samuel gestured with his ax to a door behind the front counter.

  “Are you sure you don’t want someone to go with you?” Colin asked.

  “Nah.” Samuel shrugged. “Those rooms are usually small. It’s probably empty but I’d rather take a look to be sure.”

  Colin nodded before turning to his own task. “Rotna, why don’t you start here and I’ll start at the other end and we’ll meet in the center?”

  “Sure.” Rotna looked at the mess around her feet. Bags of chips had fallen to the floor, their contents spilled and ground into a fine powder that coated the floor.

  Colin moved to his own end of the store, carefully picking through the debris. He snatched up a basket, though he doubted he would even fill it. He grabbed a lone can of chili from one of the empty shelves and a granola bar that lay forgotten on the ground next to one of the shelves that was still standing.

  Knocking resonated throughout the convenience store. Samuel paused at the door, listening for movement.

  Colin moved on to the next aisle. He grabbed a bar of chocolate that sat alone on a shelf.

  A loud bang startled him. He looked over just in time to see Samuel raise his ax and hit the doorknob again. It clattered to the floor.

  He hated how quiet it was. The world had taken on an eerie stillness, like standing in the middle of a forest. The ever-present hum of cars, the sound of footsteps as people bustled about, the music or television that played quietly in the background of every store, even the birds outside were quieter. Now, every sound was like thunder.

  The sounds of a scuffle and quiet grunting interrupted Colin thoughts. Rotna noticed them as well and bolted for the room. Colin dropped the basket and sprinted after her, vaulting over the fallen shelves in his way.

  Samuel roared. Colin wasn’t even to the door yet. His heart was thundering in his chest. Rotna reached the doorway, her feet sliding across the garbage as she came to a stop.

  Something heavy hit the floor and the scuffling stopped. Colin almost slammed into Rotna as he reached the doorway. Samuel pried his ax out of a man with shoulder-length, stringy black hair. By the look of him, he was still in his teens. Colin felt his mouth tug into a grimace as he looked at the teen’s blank acne-covered face.

  “What happened? Are you alright?” Colin shoved past Rotna.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” Samuel gave Colin a small smile. “This one got the drop on me. That’s all. He didn’t make a sound. Not one peep.”

  Colin looked back at the man. His clothes were dirty and bloody like all the rest. “He didn’t bite you, though?”

  “No. No.” Samuel waved the concern away dismissively. “Like I said, I’m fine.” Samuel turned to Colin. “Did you find anything good?”

  “Not really.” Colin shook his head. “I found a few things, but the place has been pretty well picked clean. How about you?” He looked to Rotna.

  “A couple bags of chips and a bottle of soda.” She shrugged.

  “I guess it’s better than nothing.” Colin sighed. They had each put some food in their packs, but it wasn’t much for five adults. The food would be gone quickly and they needed to find more.

  Samuel nodded. “We’ll get more. With all the freaks around here, the food has to be somewhere. We just have to get our hands on it.” Samuel gave the destroyed convenience store a final look over. “Let’s get going.”

  Outside, Eric and Laura had popped the truck of a silver minivan. Eric was leaning into the ve
hicle while Laura looked out over the gas station and street, keeping an eye out for danger.

  “Hey!” Laura called, a bright smile spreading across her face. “You’ll never guess what we found!”

  Colin, Samuel, and Rotna walked around the back of the minivan and stopped. The back was crammed full of camping equipment and food.

  And toys. There were several boxes of children’s toys among the supplies. Colin swallowed the lump in his throat.

  Maybe they got away, he thought. They hadn’t seen any children around the gas station.

  “I also found this.” Eric picked up a recurve bow. The weapon was all one solid piece of wood and fiberglass. Without the string in place, it was more like a stick than a bow. A broad smile spread across his face as his fingers caressed the bow’s length. “Someone knew what they were doing. This is perfect!”

  “What are we going to do with that?” Laura asked inquisitively, examining the bow with interest.

  “Well.” Eric tested the draw on the bow. “I’m pretty good with a bow. I used to teach little kids how to shoot at the YMCA.” He glanced over at Laura. “A bow might be useful because it won’t attract attention to us.”

  “Good thinking!” Samuel leaned into the van and looked over the findings.

  Laura’s eyes lit up. “That’s awesome! Could you teach me how to use it?”

  “Sure.” Eric shrugged. “We’ve got nothin’ but time now.”

  Eric turned back to the group. “I think we should switch cars,” Eric said. “There’s a lot of stuff in here that we could use. The keys are in the ignition and the tank is full.”

  “Doesn’t this belong to someone?” Rotna asked, voicing exactly what Colin had been thinking.

  Eric rubbed his head. “I hate to say it, but I don’t exactly think they’ll be missing it. If they aren’t here, they’re probably dead or one of the freaks. We could really use this stuff.”

  Colin chewed on his lip. It felt wrong to take it, but he had to admit that it didn’t make sense to leave behind so many things.