The Zombie Chronicles - Book 3 - Deadly City (Apocalypse Infection Unleashed Series) (6 page)

I glared at him. “But Earl stabbed you. Nice family you have.”

“
Like I told you, Earl was nuts!” Tahoe said. “He came up with my alias, Tahoe, on our road trip.”

Suddenly, I heard rumbling through drawers in the kitchen. I had been so caught up in the conversation that I’d forgotten about Lucy. I scanned the room from top to bottom, wondering where she’d sneaked off to.

“
Watch out!” Nick yelled. “She got loose.”

Spinning around, I gasped when I saw the crazed woman racing toward me with a giant steak knife. With lightning reflexes, I kicked her in the stomach. She dropped to the ground, and the blade went hurling out of her hand before she had a chance to cut any meat with it—particularly mine. I grabbed the rope and began tying her up—more tightly this time—as she flailed on the ground. “Boy, you really are pissed about that pool game, aren’t ya?” I mocked.

She struggled in her bindings. “You’re an idiot, Dean!” Then she winced again, as if someone had kicked her in the side of her head. “Ah! Stop!”

“
Don’t hurt her!” Tahoe yelled. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing. It’s this town. They’re all insane.”

“
Yeah, kind of figured that one out,” I said with a sneer.

“
I noticed it when I got back. Everyone’s angry, irrational, unpredictable, and dangerous. While Lucy was at the bar, I was out investigating, trying to see what happened to the people here.”

“
And? What did you find out, Sherlock Holmes?”

“
It’s the water supply, I think. It’s been contaminated.”

“
How?”

“
They’ve been tossing dead zombies in the river.”

Nick shook his head. “No wonder everyone we met has turned into a lunatic.”

“
It’s not contagious,” I said, letting out a sigh of relief. “It’s not airborne, right? That means the town’s
not
turning into zombies, and there is no wild experiment that went haywire.”

Lucy lifted her throbbing head off the floor weakly. “You didn’t drink the water while you were here, did you?”

I tested the knots, and they seemed tight. I thought back to the bottled water we carried, and I recalled Jackie giving the housekeeper a drink from the sink. “No. Luckily, apparently.”

“
Good,” she said. “I’ve only been drinking bottled water brought in from elsewhere. I hope the bacteria washes out of my system soon. I keep losing my mind, and I can’t stand these headaches.”

“
I hope so too,” I said, really feeling for her. “But we’ve gotta be going now. Hopefully, by the time you get out of those ropes this time, we’ll be long gone and out of town.”

Before she could respond, thumping and yells echoed outside on the porch. My heart thundered as two men burst through the door and tackled Nick. He screamed for me to go, but there was no way I’d ever desert him like that. I grabbed a nearby vase and hit one over the top of the head, spilling water and flowers everywhere, then aimed for the other. When I hit them, they dropped, as if temporarily stunned. Nick broke out of their stronghold and ran into the kitchen. We overturned a huge table and made our way out the back door in a hurry while the overturned furniture acted as a blockade.

Racing down the street, I glanced over my shoulder. An angry mob had gathered, and the screaming posse had their sights on us. I swallowed hard, fearing they’d put us through an old-fashioned lynching right there in town square if they caught up to us.

“
Start it up!” Nick yelled.

The truck started, and Nick and I hopped in the passenger’s side, sitting on top of the girls’ lap.

“
We got it! We got the vials!” I said.

Jackie hugged me. “That’s awesome. See? I told you we’d figure it out!”

Tires squealed as we sped off in victory.

Jackie gripped my hand. “I knew you’d get it.”

“
We can save Val now,” I said, unable to hide my excitement and feeling like a kid on Christmas morning. “Now we just have to find her.”

We all laughed and shouted out for joy until Claire caught a glimpse in the rearview mirror and stated flatly, “Uh, guys…we’ve got company.”

I turned to look behind us and, sure enough, the neighborhood watch was hot on our tail.
Can’t anything ever be easy anymore? I
thought, wishing I could just wake up from the nightmare our lives had become.

Chapter 6

Behind us, a caravan of trucks and four-by-fours followed, in hot pursuit. I hung on tightly as Lucas tried to lose them in the labyrinth of side streets.

BOOM
!

Out of nowhere, the back windshield exploded, glass shards flying everywhere like a shower of rock candy.

“
What the heck!?” I yelled.

“
Don’t stop!” Jackie yelled to Lucas through the broken window. “Drive faster!”

Lucas sped up as we tried to zoom away from them.

BOOM
!

The air echoed again with the sound of a rifle blast, and intermittent shots rang out. The truck swerved, and I heard
kathump-kathump
slicing through the air.

“
They shot out the tires!” Lucas yelled.

I held my breath as the truck came to a rocky stop. Vehicles surrounded us from every direction, and car doors opened. People sprang out, armed with rifles and guns, payback for breaking into Tahoe’s house.

A guy in his thirties, dressed in
faded blue jeans, a white t-shirt, and black boots, stepped closer to the truck. “Get out with yer hands up, or we’ll blast y’all to smithereens!”

I glanced at Nick, then at Lucas and the girls. Claire was slumped over, and I feared the worst when I saw a trickle of blood running down her neck. “Claire!”

“
She’s been shot!” Lucas felt her neck for a pulse, then let out a trembling breath. “I don’t believe this. She’s…dead,” he said, confirming my fears. “They killed her!”

“
What? No!” Nick shouted.

I gasped.

“
No!” Jackie echoed, sobbing as she scooped Claire’s lifeless body into her arms.

First Val and now Claire? Why is this happening?
I didn’t know what was going on or why, but I swore revenge.
Claire was one of us, part of our newfound family, and they had no right to…
“I’m gonna kill every last one of them!” I shouted.

Nick grabbed my arm. “No, Dean. Don’t be stupid. We’re sorely outnumbered, and we don’t need another casualty.”

“
Let go of me!” I demanded, irritated.

“
I said no!” he barked like a drill sergeant.

“
Why not? They killed her, Nick! We’ve gotta take ‘em out for that!”

Lucas looked at me, his eyes serious. “Dean, don’t let your emotions take over. Survey the situation before you go down in a blaze of glory in Claire’s honor.”

Nick gritted his teeth. “There’re too many of them, brother, and they’re armed. We don’t stand a chance. Claire wouldn’t want us to be idiots and get ourselves killed over it.”

“
But why were they firing on us?” Jackie asked, in utter hysterics. “Shouldn’t we all be sticking together? We’re not the enemy here! The zombies and that virus are!”

“
They’re not rational,” Lucas said as calmly as he could. “You remember what Shakespeare said, right?” Lucas asked, trying to sound intelligent.

“
No. What?”

“’
Dispute not with her. She is a lunatic.’”

I nodded in agreement with my friend and a literary genius, but it still angered me that instead of facing off against zombies as one combined army of many, we were stuck defending ourselves against other humans who were just trying to survive.

The tall guy—the leader, I assumed—motioned again for us to get out.

I slowly opened the door and complied with his gun-bearing wishes.

He grabbed my shoulder and forced me to the ground. “Get down! All of you! Now!”

Jackie lifted her head off the grass. “But you jerks just killed my cousin! I’m gonna—”

“
You ain’t gonna do nothin’, doll,” someone said, kicking her in the gut when she tried to get up.

She fell back down with a groan and drove her face into the grass, weeping in heartache and defeat.

I couldn’t take seeing them treat Jackie like that, so I scrambled up and met the dude’s green gaze. In my book, anyone who puts his hands on a lady deserves a beating, and I couldn’t just stand idly by and do nothing by way of retribution, whether his buddies and him were armed or not. I punched the abusive brute right in the gut, and he returned the favor with a solid fist to the side of my face. Suddenly, pain exploded across my entire body as his friends joined in on the action, Nick and Lucas yelling for them to stop.

“
You’re killing him!” Jackie shouted.

Pain and anger flooded through me. Stars danced in my vision, and I crashed on the grass.

“
Man, calm down! Just do as they say,” Lucas pleaded.

Letting out a long breath, I lay on the ground as one of the men frisked me for weapons.

“
He’s all clear!” he shouted back to his buddies.

“
Get on yer feet, boy!” the leader said from beneath his thick beard that was as scraggly as his dirty-blond mane.

I slowly stood. “You killed one of my friends. Why aren’t you saving your bullets for the zombies? Who do you think you are?” I roared.

“
The president, the mayor, the police—everything,” said the guy. “Welcome to our city…and you’re messing with the wrong people.”

Another guy chimed in, “Nobody comes into our neighborhood uninvited, son.”

“
Why would you shoot an unarmed girl?” Lucas demanded.

“
Just let us go,” shouted Jackie, stepping closer, as if to plead with them, with tears in her eyes.

“
Honey, the old rules don’t exist anymore. We make up our own now. We run this town, and we gotta fight to keep it that way. When trespassers like you wander in here…well, we’ll do whatever the heck we want to ‘em!”

“
You ever heard of Darwin?” another one said, spitting on the ground.

“
Of course,” Nick said.

“
Good. Then you oughtta understand survival of the fittest,” he said snidely.

“
We understand it just fine,” Nick answered, “but I’m surprised you do.”

“
And why’s that, you smart-mouthed little punk?”

“
Well, from the looks of it, you toothless, bearded, pricks don’t seem like the book-learnin’ type,” he insulted. “Look at you, all big and tough, hiding behind your gun and your buddies and picking on helpless girls,” Nick went on, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

The man stepped in Nick’s path and pointed the rifle at him. “Hold it right there, buddy,” he said, stopping Nick from moving.

The leader smiled. “I’ve heard enough of that one’s mouth. Put a bullet in him, would ya, Jason?”

“
It’d be my pleasure,” the man said, grinning from ear to ear like the cat that was about to eat the canary.

As Jason aimed his rifle at my brother, my adrenaline surged, and I did something totally crazy and unexpected: I ran at him and jumped, tackling him like a linebacker.

Jason kicked me in the gut hard.