The Zombie Chronicles - Book 3 - Deadly City (Apocalypse Infection Unleashed Series) (7 page)

Sucking in a deep breath, I staggered to my feet.

“
The sheriff is on his way, Jason!” one of the men yelled. “Let him deal with these jerks.”

But the dude was crazy and wasn’t done with me yet. “No! It’s time this little punk learn a lesson or two about respectin’ his elders, and I’m gonna be the one to teach him!” He whipped out a knife and rushed toward me. “You ready to take me on, boy?”

“
Dean, they’re
crazy
,” Nick said under his breath. “Don’t engage them!”

The idiot smirked. “Ready to meet your Maker?”

Before I could let out one word, he lunged at me with the knife. In a blur, Jackie jumped to my rescue, stepping into the psycho’s knife-wielding path, and Jason thrust the knife into her gut. In the next horrific second, a bloodcurdling scream ripped from her throat.

My stomach lurched as she dropped to the ground. “Jackie!” I yelled, scooping her up in my arms.

Blood spurted from the wound in her abdomen as she sucked in a gurgling breath. Her gaze met mine and she whispered my name. “Dean…I…”

“
What the heck!?” my brother yelled at the group inching closer.

Jackie’s breath came in short pants as I cradled her close in my arms. “Hang on,” I whispered in her ear.

“
We’ve gotta get her to the hospital, or at least to a doctor,” I heard Lucas say in the cloud of fog surrounding me.

Her eyes fluttered shut, and I touched her cheek as she took her final breath. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, like I was stuck in some kind of nightmare. “No!” I roared at the top of my lungs.

I kissed her on the forehead and gently set her down on the grass, then jumped to my feet, ready for vengeance. When I turned, I met Jason’s glare; his eyes were cold and lifeless. He was going to pay if it was the last thing I ever did. When he lunged at me, I sidestepped.

The idiot lost his balance, dropping his knife, but he was still armed with his gun and spun around to point it at me. “Any last words from that flippant little mouth of yers?”

My heart was racing faster than it ever had before, but I was ready to take him down. Without hesitation, I charged him.

BANG
!

As we struggled, a shot went off.

“
Dean!” Nick screamed.

Jason dropped, falling down at my feet. I looked at my brother and Lucas in shock. Their jaws dropped too, as if they couldn’t believe I’d survived the skirmish. I watched Nick let out the breath he’d been holding.

“
You…oh my gosh! You shot Jason!” a female voice yelled hysterically.

What have I done?
I thought, feeling instantly guilty for taking a man’s life, even after he’d taken my Jackie’s. I sucked in a deep breath. “I-I’m so, so sorry. I just…he…” I stuttered in disbelief at my own rage. I couldn’t believe I’d killed a man.
How did things get so out of control?

Jackie and Claire were dead—not at the decaying, greenish hands of the zombies, but the very human, very cruel hands of small-town vigilantes. Val was a zombie. She needed that antidote, and fast.

Countless hands held me down, and I could have sworn somebody hit me with the butt of a gun. Stars flooded my vision, those little dancing amoebas again, and darkness finally consumed me.

Chapter 7

Nick’s and Lucas’s voices cut through the thick fog in my mind, and my eyes fluttered open. Beams of sunshine shone in my face from a small window lined with rusty bars. The smell of mildew hung in the air, and institutional green paint cracked and peeled from the wall. Clearly, we’d been arrested and thrown in Kingsville lockup. My throat felt dry, and my voice was barely a whisper as I uttered, “Please tell me they didn’t get the vials.”

“
Dean!” Nick said. “Are you okay? You’ve been out all night. It’s morning now.”

“
Morning?” I asked. “What about our bag? Where is it?” I feared the answer, already knowing, deep down, what he was going to say.

“
They have it,” Lucas said.

Anger flooded through me. We’d finally found the vials, and again they’d been taken away from us. I wanted to hit something—anyone or anything.
We need to get our butts to the lab.
I was sure Val was there.
Why else would they be bringing zombies into the city?
I assumed they wanted to experiment on them, to see if my cure would work, and I was sure they were experimenting on all the strangers who dared to drift into Kingsville.

Staring at the prison bars, I scrambled to my feet as the painful memories flooded through me. The girls were dead—both of them. With every ounce of rage I could muster, I punched the wall. “They killed Claire and Jackie for no reason,” I said, my voice wavering with anger and heartbreak. “I-I didn’t mean to kill that guy.”

“
Stay strong, buddy. Now’s not the time to crack,” Lucas said.

“
I’m not cracking!” I shouted at him. I pounded the wall again, until blood oozed from my knuckles.

Nick clapped my shoulder. “If you hadn’t shot that guy, you’d be dead. It was self-defense.”

My stomach clenched. “I still can’t believe Jackie and Claire are… They murdered them!”

“
I know,” Lucas said. “It’s freaking horrible. Those girls didn’t deserve that. Nobody does.”

Anger rose up inside me. “They had names, Lucas! They were not just ‘those girls’! Call them Claire and Jackie, for goodness’ sake!” I said, my emotions raw and touchy.

“
I’m sorry, man. Of course they had names. I’m sick over their deaths too, Dean, but right now, we have to stay focused and try to get our hands on that cure and bust outta this town. Otherwise, they…er, Claire and Jackie, will have died in vain.”

“
Don’t forget Val,” Nick said. “We can’t give up hope on her. I’m not leaving here without our sister.”

I nodded my head in agreement. “She’s our blood. I couldn’t bear facing Mom and Dad and telling them we just left and didn’t do a thing to try and save her.”

“
You
did
try to save her,” Nick said softly. “You stole a cure. You broke her out when they were going to execute her.”

“
Well, we obviously didn’t try hard enough,” I said.

“
Stealing that cure might be our best miracle yet.” Lucas ran a hand through his buzzed hair. “Look at it this way. If she hadn’t got bitten, there would be no hope for mankind. She’s already a hero.”

The room seemed to grow hotter, and it became hard to breathe. Something about his words suffocated me. “What are you talking about?”

“
You woulda never grabbed that bag of vials if she hadn’t gotten bitten, right? Think about it. By leaving the city, you saved that batch of serum before the lab was bombed to smithereens. If this cure works, it’ll be salvation for humankind. The doc said he was gonna save everybody if it was the last thing he did. He swore that batch would work. You’re a hero…and so is she.”

“
Some hero,” I said. “I couldn’t even save the ones I loved.”

“
And Nick,” he continued, ignoring my disdain, “if your brother hadn’t gotten you out of that city, you’d be dead.”

Nick shook his head. “Yeah, I know.”

The door cracked open, and Tahoe walked in, casually sipping a cup of coffee. To my surprise, he was dressed in a police uniform. His newfound squeaky-clean image fit the part, especially in that crooked town.

I looked at Nick in stunned disbelief. “I get one phone call, right, Lake Tahoe?” I asked, sarcastically knowing full well the town didn’t have working phones.

“
What’s with the uniform, Deputy?” Lucas demanded, scowling at him.

“
My dad’s the chief of police here,” he said, cocking his head. “I told you that, right? When I was in your trunk? Oh yeah, that’s right. You boys refused to believe me.”

“
You didn’t exactly inspire trust,” Nick said. “So what? You stole your dad’s police uniform? Are you here to break us out or what?” he asked, his tone sarcastic.

Tahoe chuckled. “Break you out? Heh. Good one, Nick. You’re a regular stand-up comedian.”

“
Look, Tahoe or Sam or Slime Ball or whatever your name is, we
need
to get to that lab,” I said. “I’m sure Val’s there. How well do you know your friend who runs the lab?”

Tahoe laughed again, as if I’d said something absurd. “I assure you he’s not experimenting on your zombified sister,” he said. “Wow. You must really think I’m crazy.”

“
Why are you in that get-up?” I asked the weasel.

“
Well, with the zombie outbreak and everything, they made me a deputy.”

“
Unbelievable!” Lucas said.

I reached through the bars, trying to grab Tahoe to wring his neck, but he jumped back just in the nick of time to save me from committing yet another homicide—this one while I was behind bars. I wanted to pound him so hard.
If only I could have five minutes alone with the idiot.

Tahoe glared at me coldly. “Nice try, Dean. Just remember, I’m always a step ahead of you.”

“
I don’t care how many steps ahead you are! You’re gonna pay for everything you’ve done!” I yelled. “Because of you, I’ve lost three people I cared about.”

“
I didn’t
ask
you to come to my house, did I? You just showed up, uninvited, like those flipping zombies. The blood of those girls is on your hands, Dean.”

“
What?! I can’t believe you’d blame me for their deaths. How dare you?!” I shouted at him.

Tahoe stepped close to the bars again. The lines in his face hardened, and he shot me a fierce look. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why
he
was so pissed, but his eyes narrowed into angry slits, like the snake he was, and he sneered at me and said, “You have no idea what’ve you done!”

“
What’s your problem? You won!” I roared. “You’re a deputy, we’re in jail, and you even walked away with the black bag, filled with the most precious thing in the entire world.”

“
The black bag wasn’t recovered from your truck,” Tahoe snapped. “I hope you know you’ve screwed everything up. All my plans… They’re ruined because of
you
.”

I pressed my face between the bars. “
Your
plans are ruined? What about my plans to save Val? You screwed everything up the second you left with
my
bag!” I shouted.

“
You, Tahoe, are an absolute idiot,” Nick said, gripping the bars tightly. “If I ever get out of here, I’m going to rip you to shreds just like one of those zombies!”

“
Why do you want the bag so badly?” Lucas asked.

“
I’ve got my reasons,” Tahoe said. He touched his chin, as if pondering. “But time is fleeting. I need those vials, and I need them right now. Where did you hide them?”

“
We didn’t hide them anywhere,” Nick said. “One of your good ol’ boys must’ve taken them.”

Tahoe vehemently shook his head. “No, I already asked them all. It wasn’t them. It had to be you. Listen, I need that bag!”

“
Yeah, and so do we,” I said. “Now you know how we felt when you stole it from us, Tahoe, you selfish, greedy jerk!”

He didn’t even flinch at my insults. “The name’s Sam, buddy, but you can call me Deputy Maloney.”

Nick met Tahoe’s gaze. “All right, Officer Baloney. Whatever we call you, know that we hate you, and I want to kill you. But we both want that bag desperately. Can’t we just put our differences aside and work together to find it? If you’ve got a brain in that head of yours, surely you’d see how wise that would be.”