The Dead Years (Volumes 4-6) Read online

  The pair got as low as possible as they ran to the store. In the camouflage of the night, coupled with the heavy showers, they were confident in not being spotted. Shaking off the rain as they moved under the overhang at the front of the store, the men stood to the right and squinted into the windows, barely able to see anything inside.

  Coming from behind the hair products isle and nearing the front of the store, a lone man rummaged the shelves, throwing as much as he could fit into the already half-full shopping cart. Turning his attention to the vehicle parked in front of the store, Mason tapped Randy on the shoulder and pointed it out to him. No longer needing to shout he said, “Must be his.” Randy didn’t say a word.

  Mason continued. “Should we wait for him to leave and then go in?”

  “There’s no time, we need to get in and back out to the RV.”

  “He looks like a good guy and I’m sure he’s about to leave anyway.”

  “Go back to the RV Mason, I’ll go in alone.”

  Nothing was going to bring his son back and his wife needed him. Mason leaned back just as the man in the store turned his attention to movement outside. The man wasn’t sure what he had seen, although he knew there was something outside the store and the odds on favorite was a group of Feeders. They watched as the man walked in their direction and slowly raised his shotgun. They stepped forward, threw their hands in the air and came into full view with only a thin sheet of glass separating them from the weapon now trained on their heads.

  “WAIT,” Randy yelled as the man turned off the safety and fingered the trigger. “We don’t want any trouble. We just need…”

  “SHUT YOUR MOUTH!” The man said as he shuffled to the door and came out to confront them. “Put your gun down boy,” he said with a slow southern drawl to Mason, completely ignoring Randy.

  “Listen guy…” Mason said.

  “I SAID DROP YOUR WEAPON, THIS IS THE LAST TIME I ASK!”

  “Ok… Ok,” Mason said, although he had absolutely no intention of doing as requested. He instead gripped the nine millimeter that much tighter and readied himself. He’d seen enough.

  Out of nowhere the man appeared to have lost his train of thought. He winced through some sort of internal agony, shook his head and looked up, this time his attention focused on Randy. It was obvious this man hadn’t slept in days and was in really bad shape. His eyes were three shades of red and his pupils completely dilated. His front pockets were overflowing with the prescription medications he retrieved from inside the store and a few of the bottles spilled out onto the ground as his muscles convulsed. “She killed them, all of them and I’m going to kill her.”

  Mason finally spoke, trying to break this man’s thought process. “Hey bud, we understand.”

  “You don’t understand anything! You’re not coming in here and taking my stuff.”

  “We aren’t here for you. We just need a few things…”

  His eyes darted wildly back and forth as he interrupted Mason, “I’m not letting you do this to me again. You guys killed them for her. Now you’re going to pay!” He raised the shotgun once again, this time to Randy’s throat and blinked through the tears now rolling down his dirty face. “I’m sorry…”

  17

  The incessant pounding was so obnoxious that at times he couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from. The fire on the inside of his head boiled hotter with each passing minute and he couldn’t imagine the pain getting any worse. He screamed as loud and hard as he could, only his mouth wouldn’t open even wide enough to take a single breath and the sound remained inside his head. Every action his mind demanded went unheeded by the shallow unresponsiveness of the rest of his body. Justin hoped this was all a bad dream and that he’d wake up back in bed, although the pain originating from his lower leg reminded him that he’d been infected.

  Every conversation, every rain drop and for that matter every single sound from the outside world battered his eardrums as he lay seemingly unconscious on the bed in the rear of the RV. His mother, now seated next to him, caressed his face and talked in hushed tones to what he could only imagine was Savannah. They were concerned for him, although they spoke as if he was already gone. He wanted to sit up straight and let them know he was still here, although he could feel himself being pulled in the opposite direction by a force much stronger than his will to survive.

  . . .

  Her back against the door frame and her head hung low, Savannah, still mourning Adam’s demise, wanted to be strong for this woman she’d only met a few weeks ago. They hadn’t really gotten to know one another as they were both caring for others since the world died just a short time ago. Tears continued to make their way down her cheeks and dropped from her chin to the ground as she wiped her face once again. Leaning in she laid her hand on April’s shoulder and spoke quietly, “We’re going to figure this out. Mason and Randy are two of the smartest, toughest guys I know and we will get through this… together, I promise.”

  “If my son doesn’t make it…”

  “April, we’ll figure it out. Justin will get through this.”

  “How do you know? No one can know that. We don’t even know what this is. He is out and for all we know he’s dying!” April said.

  “We need to stay strong, for each other and especially for Justin.”

  Looking down at her son and back at Savannah, April said, “If he doesn’t come back… I don’t want to live either.”

  There was nothing anyone could say at this point to console her and Savannah just wanted to get on with whatever they were going to do. The anticipation of what might happen grew by the second. She moved to the window and separated the curtains, peering out into the night, unable to see more than twenty feet from the RV. She’d hoped to see the men heading back with the medicine and wondered what they had in mind for the days ahead.

  With the slightest bit of optimism, she wanted to know what they would do if Justin were to wake up. No one seemed to want to talk about it, although it appeared inevitable. This caused her the most fear as the close quarters inside the RV would make any escape difficult for her and utterly impossible for April. She decided to stay close enough to the bedroom door so that she could reach in to grab April and also get out the main door in a reasonable amount of time. Neither option thrilled her. “April, I’ll be back,” Savannah said as she moved to the front of the RV and rifled through the duffle bags. She withdrew a small caliber handgun and sat at the table, looking out through the main door into the heavy rain.

  “One, two, three, four…” April counted as she waited for her son to take another breath. “Eight, nine…” His chest finally expanded once again and she let out a sign of relief. Watching Justin slowly slip into whatever this was caused the headache from earlier in the day to come rushing back with a vengeance. Her eyes felt as if they were being pushed out of their sockets from the inside of her skull and this was still the least of her worries.

  Taking quick glances into the back of the RV from her spot at the table, Savannah tried to avoid eye contact with April as she continued to monitor the situation. She longed to close her eyes and drift off somewhere free of this mess and start over. The mental pictures of Adam being executed haunted her every thought. The sounds and smells of the field threatened to pull her back from sanity. The only reprieve she had from these haunting thoughts was listening to April’s voice. It wasn’t the words as much as it was the calming tone with which she spoke to Justin. It reminded her of her own mother’s voice.

  Growing up in a house with a different man around every other month was confusing for a child, and Savannah quickly learned to hate the frequent packing and unpacking of her life. Her own father decided months before Savannah’s first birthday that his own wants and needs overrode any concern for his family, so without warning, he left. Her mother was devastated for quite some time, although when she did rebound, she took revenge on every man that was unfortunate enough to court her. Savannah lost count of the men she met f
or the first time at the breakfast table long before she turned sixteen.

  Troy, the greasy mole of a man that finally tamed her mother, came from money, although you would never know it. He wouldn’t spend any more than he had to on Savannah or her mother and only very rarely did he even share his wealth with his two boys. Everyone hated this man and even though they secretly wished he’d die in his sleep, they treated him like a king. Savannah figured her mother was waiting around for the big score and that was why she acted the way she did. Any other man who treated her mom as badly as he did quickly saw the rear license plate, as she and her mother drove away.

  The night her mother passed, Savannah was working late at the bar and was once again being harassed by the two idiots she called step-brothers. They made sure to order another round of drinks just before last call and one last plate of wings, knowing she’d have to stay late once again cleaning up after them. Her manager hated them just as much as Savannah, although “They were paying customers, just like anyone else and deserved to be treated as such.”

  They were both drunk as usual and didn’t realize that between the two of them they ingested a full bottle of the hottest sauce the county had to offer. The wings were doused with this liquid fire and Savannah’s payback would most likely take effect the following morning.

  When she arrived home an hour later than normal, the paramedics were already performing CPR on her mother as they rushed her to the ambulance. Troy waited thirty minutes before calling 911 and her mother died before reaching the hospital. The asthma that her mother usually had under control took her before Savannah could say goodbye. She missed her mom more than anything in this world and only wished she could tell her. Savannah closed her eyes and listened to the tone of April’s quiet voice as she continued to count. “One, two, three…”

  “I love you Mom.”

  18

  The time for fairness and rationalization had vanished long ago. All that was left was survival. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he already knew this, although he consciously held on to the last shreds of civility left inside him. He struggled to admit what the world had become and more importantly, he resisted the change that had already taken place deep within his mind. Mason wasn’t a savage, although at the moment he needed to be.

  The man standing before them in the midst of a full mental breakdown and quite possibly also strung out on prescription meds, hesitated for a fraction of a second. Reacting without thought, Mason quickly raised the gun to this man’s chest and pulled the trigger. He was dead before his drug riddled body hit the sidewalk. The blowback sent a fine pink mist and fragments of skin and bone through the now shattered window and into the store. Caught off guard by his own action, Mason looked to Randy for validation, although his friend appeared to be just as surprised.

  The gravity of what he’d done hadn’t surfaced. He simply acted on what needed to be done. If he hadn’t, Randy would certainly be the one on the ground, if not both of them. “Come on,” Mason said. “Let’s get what we need and get back to the RV; I’m sure every Feeder for miles is already on the way.”

  Randy didn’t say a word. He simply bent down, pulled the shotgun from the man’s dead clutches and made his way into the store.

  The heavy rain diluted the moonlight, which made digging through the already ransacked store that much more frustrating. In the dark, the pair quickly walked the store to check for Feeders or anything else looking to do them harm before meeting back in the pharmacy.

  “Mason, grab anything ending in cillin, preferably Penicillin or Amoxicillin. I’ll get the rest. Holler if you spot any trouble.”

  “What are you doing?” Mason asked.

  “Getting everything else,” Randy said. “Be ready to go in two minutes.”

  Was killing him the right thing to do? Recalling the desperation in the man’s eyes just before he pulled the trigger, Mason wanted the chance to go back and ask him why he was so agitated. The confrontation escalated so quickly, neither side had a second to state their case. He knew this would be a growing concern as they came across more people out in the world. Most would rather kill you before you had the chance to draw down on them. They would use the infection as an excuse to throw their morality out the window every time they had the chance.

  Searching behind the counter, he imagined that everything they may need would have been scooped up as the uninformed masses blew through the area in the first few hours after the infection surfaced. They would have picked the stores clean in every city, long before now. As he squinted through the darkness, the back wall looked mostly untouched. Maybe they hadn’t seen it or were overrun as they hurried through the store. Whatever the reason, a whole section of this area was still standing. Mason rushed to the wall and couldn’t believe his eyes. Unopened, prepackaged and labeled, prescriptions of every kind hung there like little paratroopers waiting to jump. Most, if not all of these people, were now already long gone in one way or another. The tiny slivers of moonlight reaching in through the window produced just enough light to read the first few names. As he reached for the first package the entire store began to shake violently.

  . . .

  The earthquake began with a sharp jolt that threatened to pull him back from the excruciating trance that held him just on the other side of this reality. As the RV swayed back and forth like a boat on the open ocean, he arched his back and let out the first sound in almost an hour. The yelp-like scream, combined with the rocking of the RV, brought both April and Savannah to their feet in an instant. They both stood over Justin as he contorted his sweaty mess of a body into positions that seemed odd given that minutes ago he appeared to be catatonic.

  His mind was fully aware of his surroundings, although he was unable to command any sense of control over his body. Justin vigorously fought to calm himself and to speak, although not even a single word left his lips.

  As the rumbling continued, both women braced themselves in the doorway, not knowing why the RV was moving so violently. Just as quickly as it began, the shaking stopped and Savannah went to the door. Looking out through the window, she chambered a round and was half expecting to see an angry horde pushing and tearing away at the RV. She did see a horde starting to form, although they were closer to the storefront and appeared to have little interest in the RV or what it contained.

  Tapering off a bit, the rain still came down, although now Savannah could actually see most of the store and the man lying on the sidewalk where Mason had killed him. She also noticed the smashed front window and the Feeders working their way through. “April, how is he?”

  “Justin is ok; he’s back to sleeping or whatever it is he’s doing. Why?”

  “That was an earthquake, right?” Savannah asked.

  “I don’t know, I thought we were being attacked. Scared the hell out of me.”

  “Me too, but…”

  “But what?”

  “Not to worry you, but I think we have another problem,” Savannah said still staring out into the parking lot.

  “I can’t handle another problem. My son is all I’m concerned about. Mason and Randy will have to take care of whatever it is when they get back.”

  “April, that is the problem. I don’t see them and there are a ton of Feeders starting to pile into the stores. I also think that I heard a gunshot.”

  Every joint in his wrecked body was being blasted by thousands of needles all at once. The limitless pain controlled everything about him. He could hear every word spoken between his mother and Savannah, although once the sound entered his mind the words were reassembled in a manner that had no meaning. Their tone was hopeful and quiet; he could at least ascertain that, although everything else frustrated him. Justin only wanted to die and with everything beginning to slow, he figured death wasn’t far off.

  The poor deranged man lying in front of the store had caught the attention of a few of the Feeders as the rest waded through the broken glass and downed shelves at the front of the store. April knel
t on the bench and looked out, witnessing the same scene as Savannah. “Where are they? What’s taking them so long? Do you think they are still in the store?”

  “I don’t know. I’m giving them one minute and if they don’t come out, I’m going to help,” Savannah said.

  “You’re not leaving me here Savannah, I can’t…”

  “April, if they don’t come back, we’re done. Either way, I have to go!”

  She looked out once again as April sat back on the bed and began to cry for her son. Savannah reached back for the black bag, pulled it in next to her and grabbed a few extra clips and a few small explosives she had little idea how to use. Sitting quietly at the foot of the door, the seconds ticked by as the horde outside grew in numbers. She wasn’t prepared to leave the RV alone and if she was going to die out there in the rain tonight, she sure as hell was going to take some of those things down in the process.

  “April, I’m going…”

  19

  Pushing through the downed shelves, he could hear death making its way toward them. Struggling to right himself, Mason grabbed what he could from the floor and shoved four small packages of prescription medication into his front pockets. He had no idea what he had taken and if it would even do them any good, but time was up. Pushing to a standing position, he could see the growing horde outside the store and three curious members clawing their way through the broken glass and over the initial row of shelves.