The Deadland Chronicles (Book 1): Running From The Dead, page 1
part #1 of The Deadland Chronicles Series
The Deadland Chronicles 1
Running From The Dead
A Books of the Dead Novel
By R.J. Spears
Other Books by R.J. Spears
Books of the Dead
Sanctuary from the Dead
Lord of the Dead
Dead Man’s Land
Into the Deadlands
The Living and the Dead
Dead Run
Dead End
Forget the Zombies
Forget the Alamo
Forget Texas
Forget America
Author’s Note: This book takes place in the universe of the Books of the Dead Series. The events in this book occur during Book 7 of the Books of the Dead series.
Chapter 1
Escape Plan
Thirty-eight. The was magic number. Thirty-eight zombies.
Henry looked out across the school parking lot and began counting again. Just to double check the number one more time. Thirty-eight deader shuffling and shambling around aimlessly the way they always did when they couldn’t find food.
The question was whether they could handle thirty-eight zombies. And the follow-up was how many more were out there among the dried out corn stalks surrounding the parking lot? He knew there weren’t hundreds, but there could easily be more than their small group could handle. Both their weapons and ammunition were in short supply. They had even less qualified and competent shooters.
What he was sure of was that any shooting would bring them on the run. Or the shuffle.
Henry wasn’t sure how the decision to make a break for it came down to him. He was just a fifteen year old kid. What business did he have making the decision that would risk the lives of forty-two other people?
Most of their little group were either older people, kids, or injured, meaning Henry didn’t have a big talent pool to draw from. It came down to him, his mom, Doc Wilson, a one-armed man named Calvin, and their resident wild child, Molly. If they got desperate, they could draft Mrs. Hatcher, but that was a last resort.
In the end, he knew why the responsibility came down to him.. He was the son of Greg Lewis. Greg Lewis, the legend. The former leader of their refugee band of survivors. Greg had all the answers. He protected all of them through attacks by zombies, by soldiers, and by marauders. And he had done a great job of it, never looking like he would break a sweat while doing it.
That was until he died after an attack by the so called “Lord of the Dead,” a mad genius who had learned to control the zombies. But that seemed an age ago. Their small group of survivors had been driven from the two sanctuaries, both times by soldiers. It seemed to Henry that their lot in life was to always be on the run.
They were currently on the run from soldiers they had rebelled against. These same soldiers seemed hellbent on chasing them down, using helicopters as eyes in the sky in their search.
They had been virtually trapped at this school for two days after their trucks ran low on gas. It didn’t help that helicopters roamed the sky above them on a regular basis. As a building the school was relatively safe. It was remote and off the beaten path, but they were low on food. Nerves were frayed and morale was circling the drain. Henry felt every eye was in him to make a decision and he felt every bit of that responsibility as it wore on him.
Within a day or two, they would be forced to make a run for it, but that meant getting the two of the school buses that sat in the parking lot up and running. And, of course, they had to have gasoline in their engines.
All the while, Henry watched, waited and prayed that whatever decision he made didn’t get anyone killed. It was a lot for his teenage shoulders to take on.
Broken footsteps sounded behind him. When he turned and saw Ellen hobbling toward him. She was stooped over and had an arm wrapped around her middle in an effort to ward off the pain she so obviously felt.
“Mom, you’re not supposed to be up and moving,” he said.
“I’m fine,” she said through gritted teeth.
“No, you’re not,” Henry said. “Doc WIlson said you, for sure, have bruised ribs. He said they could be broken.”
“Yes, it does hurt to breathe, but it’s not all that bad,” she said as she came up beside him. She had an arm wrapped protectively around her ribcage on her left side. Her face was pinched tight, fighting back the pain. “What are you seeing out there?”
“You can’t change the subject,” he said.
“Looks like I just did.”
He shook his head knowing, if the situation were reversed, she would have him on total bedrest. As it was, he wasn’t all that close to a hundred percent health. His right shoulder was one mass of black and blue bruises. That’s what happens after you go chest first into the dashboard of a truck after it collides with a building. But he had a full range of motion, where she looked ready for a geriatric home.
“Okay,” he said, letting out a long breath. “There are thirty-eight zombies out there. The school buses are there, there, and there.” He pointed at each one. “The truck is there.
A voice sounded behind them, “So we’re going with that same lame-ass idea?”
Henry looked over his shoulder, and Ellen pivoted her whole body slowly to avoid too much stress on her ribs.
Molly was striding towards them with her trusty piece of metal pipe swinging at her side.
“Unless you have a better one?” Henry asked.
Molly moved in beside Henry and said, “Well, I don’t, but I do know we need to get the hell out of here. We ate the last can of baked beans, and Calvin is farting like a bastard.”
“I’m glad you shared that,” Ellen said as she rolled her eyes. “But I do agree with you. This place is relatively safe, but we don’t have that much food. Plus, we don’t know if the soldiers at the Manor are still looking for us. The further we get away from there, the better.”
“But what about all those deaders?” Molly asked.
“Well, we’ve done the whole routine of mowing them down with a truck,” Henry said. “But I think I have a better idea.”
Ellen raised an eyebrow and said, “And what is that?”
“You know the gymnasium at the back of the school?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I’m thinking we draw those zombies into the gym and lock them in.”
“You make it sound so simple,” Molly said. “How the fuck are we going to do that?”
“Give them what they want,” Henry said. “Food.”
“Food?” Ellen said.
“Well, more like the promise of food,” Henry said.
“I can tell you that I don’t like the sound of this,” Molly said. “Because we are their main freaking dish. If that’s what you’re saying.”
“Yes, it is,” Henry said, “but I think I can keep us safe.”
“Who is us?” Molly said.
“You and me.”
Chapter 2
Clever Plans
“Like who the fuck is ready for a horde of zombies?” Molly asked.
“I just asked if you were ready. And do you have to use the F-word all the time?” Henry asked as he peeked out the side entry door of the gymnasium of the school.
“How can you stop yourself from saying it?” she asked. “I mean, it’s the fucking zombie apocalypse. I’m scared shitless all the time. It seems like decorum up and got the hell out of Dodge.”
“Let’s table that for now,” Henry said as he spied a small group of zombies shambling around in the parking lot.
“Let’s table that,” she said. “What are you, some kind of egghead professor?”
He waved her off and went back focusing on the zombies. He knew their thinking capacities were limited, but he guessed they had some sense of memory and they remembered that humans had once been inside the building. Humans meant food. So, they must have felt the need to wait until food arrived again.
Thoughts and questions like those tumbled through his head for several moments. If they ran out of a food source, would they starve? His dad had mentioned that he had seen a group of them in some sort of stasis back in the high school in town. Maybe that was some sort of conservation mode and they hibernate like bears, only coming out when there was a food source. What did that mean? Could they go for days, months, or years without eating and still rev back into full blown eating mode when they sensed food? How did their bodies maintain their muscle mass in stasis?
That brought on a whole sundry of questions of how humans would eat because sooner or later they were going to run out of what they could scavenge. They had tried small scale farming back at the Manor and even pulled it off for a while. At least until the Manor was attacked by a man who could control zombies. That memory led him back to his dad.
Henry could still see his dad’s face in memory, but it was less sharp. Most guys had contentious relationships with their dads, but Greg and Henry had been tight. His dad had taught him about hunting and fishing. He taught him a little about cars, but that wasn’t Henry’s thing. He was into electronics and computers. His dad was always on him to get his nose of his computer and to get outside, but most of it was playful teasing. While they diverged in terms of Greg being more the outdoors man and Henry being more bookish, Greg had told Henry more than once that he had admired how Henry could puzzle out electrical problems.
How long has he been dead now? Henry asked himself. It seemed l
ike forever, and it seemed like yesterday.
“Hey, Harry Potter, are you waiting for some magic sign?” Molly asked as she wiped her long, dark hair from her face.
That broke Henry from his reverie. “Uh. Hmmm. I guess we can start any time.”
The plan was simple. Henry and Molly would shout and make noise to draw the zombies into the gymnasium. As the undead staggered in, they would slowly pull back and then exit out the main doors and lock them. Then they would head around the building and lock the zombies inside. Presto chango, the zombies are out of the parking lot and locked inside, leaving the area free for them to get busses up and running and the people loaded and on their way.
But Greg had drilled into Henry that plans were plans. When plans went operational, then you had to know how to improvise and move with the flow toward your objective.
Henry stepped outside the door, put his hands next to his mouth and let out a long and resonated war whoop. His voices carried the length of the parking lot and beyond. It also had the desired effect of gathering the attention of the zombies shambling around near the school.
Molly wanted in on the fun, so she stepped outside too, and shouted, “Hey, you undead assholes, come and get it!”
Henry cast a sideways glance her way but was glad to have company in his task as zombie bait.
The two of them continued to yell, and the zombies came, like moths to the flame, shambling, staggering, and sometimes crawling, ready to get something to eat.
“Damn, they sure are slow,” Molly said.
“Would you rather have them running at us?” Henry asked.
“Shit no, but they’re so spaced out, getting most of them into the gym without leaving too many outside is going to be fucking hard.”
Henry took a quick assessment and agreed with Molly’s observation. “Then we’ll have to find a way to slow down the ones in front to the let the stragglers catch up.”
“How the hell do you plan to do that?” she asked. “There is only two of us, and you’re still banged up.”
“Nothing’s wrong with my legs. I can still run.”
“Run where?” she asked.
He lifted his arm and pointed out into the parking lot. “Out there.”
“Out there with all those dead assholes? You’re fucking crazy.”
“No, I’m faster than them. If I can get out there and run in a figure eight among them, then I can get them to group up better.”
“But you’re out there…” she said but couldn’t complete the sentence.
“I do have this,” he said and held up an aluminum baseball bat they had found in a closet in the gym.
“But you can’t hit them all.”
“Actually, I don’t want to hit any of them. I just want them to get here in one mass.”
Henry watched the realization of what he just said pass over Molly’s face. Her expression changed from apprehension to fear and then finally steely resignation. He liked that she just didn’t fold her cards and leave the table.
“What if something goes wrong and they swarm up on you?” she asked.
He pulled a pistol out of his waistband and said, “Then I use this.”
“Why don’t we just shoot them all?”
“Because we are low on ammo and that would take a lot of bullets. We don’t know what’s in store for us once we get on the road. Besides, I’m pretty fast. I can dodge these undead bastards for a long time.”
“You sure about this?” she asked, and for once, he heard her with all the false bravado gone from her voice.
“No, but I need to do it if this plan is going to work,” he said. He hefted the bat in his hands and felt the ache in shoulder, but it felt better than the day before. Not a lot better, but probably enough, and he would push through.
“You stay by this door, no matter what,” he said as tucked the pistol back in the waistband of his paints. “I will definitely be running by the time I get back here.”
“Okay,” she said.
Making a plan and actually going through with it are two very different things. Drawing them in by making noises seemed relatively safe, but herding zombies into a mass was something entirely different. Doubts filtered through Henry’s mind. Maybe the original plan was best. But when he looked across the parking lot one more time, he saw what Molly had pointed out was true. They had limited real estate inside the gym. There would be no running and dodging in there. Outside in the parking lot was the best place to get them to group up.
“Here I go,” he said, and he took his first step away from the doorway.
The leading zombies took immediate notice and started tracking Henry with their eyes. He wondered if they thought he was coming to them. But he had no idea what they thought. They were just walking and eating machines, sort of like slow moving land sharks. He knew musing on these things was just a distraction, and he put them out of his mind to focus on the task at hand.
He cut off at an angle, and the zombies changed their path to match his. He saw a path through two groups and angled toward it. The zombies’ course corrected to match his movements, but he had speed on his side. He shot through the gap, envisioning himself as a running back, making his way across the field of defensive players, only these players would eat you.
He made another hard cut and slid around what was the leading group, and they swiveled his way. His quick movement set them off-balance though, and one zombie tumbled into two of them, and that small group fell into a tangle to the pavement. Henry counted that as a small victory.
He weaved through two more small groups of two and three zombies then saw an opportunity to tie another three groups together if he took a certain path, but it had more risk than the more conservative paths. The safer way would be to move in a large loop around the accumulated groups, but he figured that would lead him further out into the parking lot and take a lot more time. The less time he spent out in the open and exposed, the better.
Unconsciously, he ducked his head a little and tucked in his arms then diverted to the narrow gap between the two groups. He picked up speed as he approached them, but they upped their shambles, too, and the gap he was shooting for was getting narrower by the second.
As he approached, he saw that there was no way he was going to get by unscathed, but he took comfort in the fact that he had a baseball bat. He untucked his arms and got a grip on the bat, readying it for a swing.
The closer he got to the zombies, the more eager they seemed to get a piece of him as they shot out their arms, clutching the air expectantly. He worked to time his swing, targeting the zombies on his right.
The closer he got to them, the worse their rotting smell got. A small wave of nausea swept over him, but he shook it off.
Just as he got to within five feet of them, he jerked the bat forward and made a direct hit on a tall zombie wearing a torn and tattered baseball uniform. His bat struck the zombie in the jaw, and he heard and felt the cracking of bones on impact.
But he also felt a searing pain shoot across his shoulder like a lightning bolt. The pain staggered him for a moment, and he nearly lost his balance, teetering along for a few steps. He let out a high-pitched grunt of pain.
The bat nearly slipped from his hands, but his left hand still held onto it as he staggered for several more steps until he got back on balance. He did a quick reassessment, and it looked like his gambit had paid off. The zombies were nearly in one large mass. A few stragglers dotted the perimeter, but they were manageable in his mind.
The new dilemma was how to make it back to the gym door. Again, he decided not to take a long looping arc around the now rather large mass of zombies. That would take time and risk letting the group break back up into smaller packs that would leave them back with their original dilemma.
“Come on, Henry,” Molly shouted. “Get back here.”
Henry looked through and around undead shoulders and heads and saw Molly poised by the door with her piece of metal pipe in hand, bouncing on her feet. It turned out that a few of the zombies had stuck to the original plan and were heading her way.
“Hey, you ugly bastards, here I am,” he yelled but only seemed to attract the attention of the zombies closest to him. The few that had been heading for Molly continued their path toward her.
