The Wild Ones (Book 2) Read online

  I got up and brushed myself off. I was annoyed when I arrived, I was even more pissed now. “That’s all I saw. Besides, Finn would have told us if there were more.”

  “Yeah, I don’t put much faith in that guy.”

  I tossed him a confused expression. “Why?”

  “We’re in this mess because of him.”

  “Ryland, they killed his family.”

  “And Zs killed mine.”

  “It’s different.”

  “Maybe,” he replied. “Still, we are here because of one man’s choice. Eli is dead because of him.”

  “This is not the right time.”

  “It never is,” Ryland said before breaking away and moving into a new spot.

  I aimed at the windows and shot out the glass. The sun was reflecting off it, making it hard to see. When no rounds were fired back, I knew that was my cue to make a dash for it. I burst out of the tree line across the lot and made it over to the second structure. I pressed my back against the wall and readied my rifle to provide cover for Ryland as he hurried to join me.

  “You got a bead on him?”

  I shook my head and slid up the side of the building and cut the corner to see if he was inside. Nothing.

  More gunfire erupted, this time coming from the front. It wasn’t targeted at us. I assumed it was Nick and Jamal but it could have been Dominick. Confident he wasn’t in the building we continued around back. There was no one there either.

  “He has to be up front.”

  We slipped alongside the pool area to the rear of the main building. As gunfire continued near the front, we used it to our advantage and approached the rear. I dropped down and waited until more rounds were fired before taking a look.

  Sure enough, there he was. That little bastard.

  Daniels and Diane were bound to a radiator. I could see Daniels trying to get free, but he had his work cut out for him as they were metal cuffs. As Dominick turned, I ducked down and hoped to God that he hadn’t seen me. I heard his boots approach as he hurried from the back to the front and repeated the process. Who was he trying to fool? I motioned with a hand to Ryland. “Stay down.”

  He nodded and pressed his back against the wall.

  We waited, hearing him fire at my brother. I knew I had to time this right. I had Ryland shuffle up. He would swing the door wide and I would unload every round I had into him before he could react. In theory it could work. But that’s the thing about theory, it’s not always based in fact.

  At the sound of more gunfire, I assumed it was him. I was wrong, it was my brother. However, I didn’t know that until I gave Ryland the all-clear and he swung back the door and I burst forward. Dominick launched himself at me and we collided and hit the ground, rolling across the floor. The gun in my hand went off, but he kicked it out of the way. He grabbed me and I held on for dear life as he tried to toss me into the pool. Stupid guy had no idea that I’d trained for years in jujitsu. Holding on for dear life was my specialty. As he flung me, I did a rolling motion with my body, using his energy and counter-acting. Both of us hit the tarp like someone dive-bombing a swimming pool. I was going in either way — just this way, he went with me.

  Several things happened in that moment.

  I heard Ryland yell.

  The tarp swallowed us.

  We sank to the bottom of the pool.

  And I entered a fight for my life.

  It is one thing to hold a man down when you’re rolling around on mats, another when you’re being suffocated by a plastic tarp, underwater and dealing with an individual that is twice your size.

  One second I was fighting with the tarp, the next I felt his fist in my face. Now instinctively you gasp when someone strikes you as it knocks the wind out of your lungs. Sucking air underwater? Yeah, it doesn’t go together. Still, I fought my way to the surface if only to get one breath. That’s all I needed — one decent lungful of air so I didn’t pass out. Now only those who’ve found themselves drowning in a pool will understand this. Everything inside you is screaming out for air. The average person can only hold their breath for about thirty to sixty seconds, and that’s going on the basis that they actually take a breath. When you’re thrust into a pool, the last thing on your mind is preparing for being underwater for sixty seconds.

  That’s why when my mouth breached the surface and I opened it for air, I was devastated when he dragged me back down and I gulped water. Any second now and I would reach the breaking point. It was supposed to come after eighty-seven seconds according to lab experiments but I’d already hit it. My chest was spasming. Pain shot through me.

  I used every ounce of strength to fight him off, and for a brief few seconds I managed to escape his grasp and catch a breath before I was pulled back under. He was using me like a ladder to reach the surface. And each time he attempted to, I dragged him back down. That only infuriated him more. I felt the jab underwater, but it wasn’t as hard as it would have been above. I reacted by doing the one thing we humans are good at — being animals. I lunged forward, sinking my teeth into his arm. Even under the water I heard him scream. He kicked away, and I took a piece of flesh with me.

  With blood mixing with the pool water, I tried to reach the surface.

  But again he dragged me down.

  I was pretty sure I would drown, that everything had led up to this one moment of losing my life at the hands of some skinhead in the middle of the Adirondacks, in a location that was known for fun and freedom. The irony was not wasted that’s for sure.

  My only saving grace was what happened next. As Dominick came up for air, someone else jumped in. I didn’t know who the hell it was, only that I felt the rush of water, and a hand grab me and haul me out. Like a fish out of water I gasped, coughing, over and over again. On the side lying there like a drowned rat, I tried to make sense of my surroundings. Coughing and spluttering I could now see who was in the pool. It was Daniels. Thrashing around in the water, with more energy and air in his lungs than Dominick, it didn’t take long before his flailing ceased. Daniels had wrapped his meaty arm around his neck and was holding him under. Once his body went limp, Daniels rose to the surface and hauled himself up onto the ledge. He looked over at me and attempted to crack a smile but winced instead.

  “You look as bad as I feel,” I stammered.

  “Kid, you’re…”

  Before he could curse at me, say you’re welcome or tell me that I was the bravest guy he’d met, Lola came barreling over and wrapped her arms around him. Ryland helped me to my feet and smiled. “Once again, Evans, you steal my thunder.”

  I offered back a faint smile and shook my head laying a wet hand on him as Nick came into view. His eyes bounced to the pool, which had partly changed from a dirty aqua color to a scarlet red. Dominick floated on top, face down, his bomber jacket flaring out like wings.

  It was over for him but only the beginning for us.

  “Gather up whatever food, gasoline and clothes you can find. I don’t want to stop again until we get there.”

  “Nick, I’m pretty sure that’s going to be unavoidable.”

  He ruffled my wet hair and entered the building to begin collecting whatever he could find.

  “How did you get out of your cuffs?” I asked Daniels as he walked with his daughter back to the truck. Soaking wet but happy to be alive, he pointed to Ryland.

  “Kid has one hell of a shot on him. I figured either the bullet would break the chain or put me out of my misery,” he said breaking into a smile only to wince again. Lola looked pleased to have her father back. She rubbed his back, and he gave her a kiss on the top of the head.

  We filled up the truck with supplies, siphoned the gas from the few vehicles in the parking lot and prepared to embark on the remainder of the journey.

  There was still two hundred and twenty miles between here and the big city.

  After all, we’d been through, the thought of not making it didn’t enter my mind.

  We were damaged, broken
by the pain of losing Eli but alive and prepared to go through hell if need be to reach Boston.

  Safe Zone

  It’s all well and good building a safe zone that keeps everyone… well… safe. But it only works if good people can actually get in, and those who aren’t, stay out. That’s the reason why so many flee the cities and flock to the country and seek out places of solitude, because there is less chance that a horde is going to screw everything up.

  Seriously!

  Why, oh, why did they have to build the safe zone in the tenth-largest metropolitan area in the nation? Whose bright idea was it to erect fences and haul in big-ass shipping containers in the middle of a city with 673,184 people, most of which are infected, I might add. And, how the hell did they manage to pull it off when all hell was breaking loose? These were just a few of the long list of valid questions I had for whoever was leading this shit brigade.

  Now of course I ran a few of those whoppers by Diane on our long road trip through God’s country but all she could offer was a nod, a smile or a frown. None of which was of any help to me.

  Of course I eventually figured it out.

  Ryland pulled the binoculars away from his eyes.

  “Well, it looks like we are screwed!” he said rising to his feet.

  We were standing on top of a high-rise building in downtown Boston near the Convention and Exhibition Center. Don’t even begin to ask me what the journey of getting here was like. Since George Town it had been one hellish nightmare after the other, most of the dead kind. Upon arriving in the big city, we had to dump the truck because the noise of the engine attracted too much attention. I thought Tupper Lake had a lot of infected. Man, was I wrong. This place was overloaded with those pus bags. However, someone, and I assumed the powers that be had been smart enough to realize that navigating these streets wasn’t going to be easy if all the infected were slapping their dirty little mitts all over their front door, so… they had come up with a creative idea to draw away a large number. Now I say a large number as it didn’t appear to work for everyone but regardless it was still effective in controlling the masses. They had set up large chunks of bloody meat dangling from buildings all over the city to tease the Zs away. If that wasn’t enough, throw in the song “I Want to Break Free” by Queen playing on repeat and blasting out over large speakers and you had yourself an effective way of drawing the dead away from some of the central streets.

  And I’m pretty sure if those two things hadn’t been in place we would have been zombie chow by now. Instead, we had skillfully made our way to the top of a high-rise so we could scope out the city and figure out where this damn safe zone was. Oh, that’s right, I forgot to tell you — Diane had no idea. All she knew was that it was in Boston. Yeah, you can imagine the comments from the peanut gallery when she dropped that one on us.

  “What?” Ryland and Jamal yelled in harmony.

  I’ll leave it at that. You get the picture.

  “So can we reach it?” Alexa asked Ryland.

  “We need a boat, wings or an armored tank to get over there,” he replied.

  The safe zone had been set up in an area of Boston called Jeffries Point. It encompassed the international airport and a large mass of land on the east side of the city. There were several ways to enter though none appeared easy. First was by air, second by boat, the third was by land across the water via I-90, then there was the option of going below the water using the Lieutenant William F. Callahan Tunnel, crossing via Chelsea or using one of the many roads around the coastal area of Winthrop.

  “Let me take a look,” Tobias said grabbing the binoculars out of Ryland’s hand. The guy didn’t believe a damn word anyone told him — always the doubter.

  Tobias squinted. “Yep, he’s right.”

  “Well people must be able to get in there somehow.”

  Of course we weren’t about to give up. We’d traveled too damn far and had lost too much to turn around with our tails between our legs. Nick, Daniels and Diane were standing on the far side of the building discussing something, leaving the rest of us to twiddle our thumbs and come up with some creative way of plowing through the masses or skirting around them.

  “How far do you think the Boston Channel is between here and the other side? A mile wide?” Jamal asked.

  “Too far,” Ryland replied. “And I don’t even want to imagine what it contains.”

  “I could swim it,” Tobias said confidently.

  “Yeah, I bet you could,” Ryland mumbled on the edge of the building, lighting up another cigarette. Tobias walked over and prodded him, making him think he was going to push him over.

  “Hey, careful now. That’s a long way down.”

  I rested a foot on the lip of the building and stared out. “They have to go on supply runs. How do you think they do it?”

  “Probably use one of those choppers,” Tobias replied. “Land a bird on a roof like this, head down, get what they need and are back out before those freaks even know.”

  “Well then all we need to do is commandeer ourselves a chopper,” Ryland said sarcastically. “I bet you can fly that too, can’t you, Tobias?”

  He flipped him the bird.

  “We need to alert them,” Jamal said. “Light a few fires.”

  “Um, yeah, a great idea. Look around you, Einstein. There is nothing but fires in this city. No, we need something they’ll recognize. Something distinct.”

  You see, it wasn’t as easy as driving up to the gate and asking them to open up. We had to reach the gate. That was the challenge. There were thousands of the dead clogging up the roads leading in. Even if we managed to plow through some of them, they would eventually overwhelm the vehicle. Nope, that wasn’t going to work.

  “A flare,” Alexa said. “We need to get our hands on a flare gun. They’ll have them down at the harbor. Nearly all boats have them.”

  I clicked my fingers and pointed at her. “Good idea.”

  I crossed the roof to Nick to fill him on what we had in mind.

  “We’re thinking of heading over to the harbor to see if we can find a flare gun.”

  “Best of luck getting over there,” Nick said. “The harbor is swarming with them.”

  “Then what do you suppose we do?”

  “I don’t know, that’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

  He turned to his back to me and they continued discussing among themselves. I tapped him on the back. “You want to include us in this?”

  Nick cast a glance over his shoulder and chuckled.

  “Feeling left out, little brother?”

  “Alexa has a good idea. I think we should at least consider it. Worse-case scenario we have to swim.”

  He turned back to Daniels and Diane. “What do you think?”

  Daniels opened his mouth and looked as if he was about it shoot it down.

  “Ah it’s worth a shot,” Diane replied. “Besides it will be dark soon. I don’t want to be stuck out here. We’re so close.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later we worked our way down D Street heading for Boston Fish Pier. Now my brother wasn’t overexaggerating, the streets were crawling with the dead. Droves of them staggered forward, many falling into the choppy waters, sinking down to a watery grave. Between Congress Street and Park Lane we had to take cover under a truck for close to half an hour because the road had become blocked.

  As I lay beneath the greasy underside of the truck, hundreds of legs shuffled past. This was where it would end. Torn out, less than a mile from the entrance to a safe zone, less than a mile from the protection of military, from a warm bed, hot food and… oh who was I kidding, it was probably a shithole behind those walls — nothing more than a concentration camp like Guantánamo Bay.

  Not a word was exchanged between us.

  As we waited for the horde to pass, I felt a hand grip mine. I turned my head to find Alexa looking out her side. My eyes dropped to the hand she’d gripped. She turned her face towards mine and for a
few seconds I felt a connection.

  Of course I’m not gonna say it was love, or fireworks or anything like that, as I don’t think that was the reason why she held on to me. If I had to guess it was simply because she wanted to know that she wasn’t alone. I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze even though inwardly I wasn’t sure we were going to make it.

  Slowly but surely it became quieter. I’m not sure what the dead were following but as long as it wasn’t us I was happy.

  I heard Nick make a low-pitched whistle. He motioned for us to move and move we did, fast, quietly and without any commotion.

  That’s how we progressed past the snarling masses.

  It was a lot like driving through the eastern side of the United States — lots of stopping and starting, but mostly stopping and waiting for danger to pass before venturing out. Eventually we made it to some fancy Italian restaurant called Salvatore’s on the corner of Northern Avenue and D Street. The windows were smashed, and we had to clamber over broken tables and stay low in order to avoid the next group heading our way.

  We were so close.

  I could see the pier, the fishing boats and huge masts from there. Ryland brought up his gun and checked the magazine inside. I placed a hand on top of it and shook my head. So far we hadn’t fired one shot. Those that we’d killed had been with blades. It was the reason we were alive. I pointed to what Ryland couldn’t see drawing near. It was a cluster of about twenty Zs. All of our communication so far had been what Sean had taught us. The very thought of Sean seemed surreal, like a vague dream. We’d come a long way.

  Crouched down hiding in the shadows of that restaurant, we expected the grisly mass to pass as they had done before and we’d be on our way to the final stretch. Unfortunately that wasn’t to be. Not having a chance to sweep the building because of the infected approaching, we weren’t aware of the four that had entered through an open rear door and were now making their way through until they appeared behind us. Snarling, moaning, and gnashing their teeth they came forward scratching and clawing at the air.