Dead At Last Read online

  “It’d be a lot easier if we could just blow them up.” I said in frustration.

  “Blow them up…” a smile started to spread across his face.

  That’s when the massive steel door to our hideout was just about knocked off its hinges with a massive boom. For a second I thought someone was blowing us up before I realized that it was someone knocking. Someone who was insanely strong. Inhumanly strong. Undead Strong. Apparently Brice figured the same thing I did as we ran to our crossbows. I struggled but I got it loaded seconds after Brice got his loaded.

  “Grab your shotgun. Don’t worry what’s in it.”

  “Bullets won’t kill them” I was frantic.

  “Doesn’t matter, you need a backup. I’ve got my pistols.”

  BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM. Each knock sent shockwaves of sound through our hideout.

  “Ok, ready? The door won’t last more than that.”

  “Go ahead.”

  I stood to the left of the door and it hinged on the right side. I did that so I could be farther back but still have a shot. As Brice hit the latch to the door it swung hard to the right and I could see a vampire right off the bat. He saw me and his eyes went red. Fangs elongated and suddenly my arms were jello. Those eyes were hypnotizing. Apparently the vampire only had eyes for me because Brice shot his crossbow from the hip hitting the vampire in the throat.

  Suddenly I could move again and the hissing spitting vampire was stumbling around while I was getting my senses back. Brice missed somehow, so I decided to do my best while I could….. Took aim…. Thump… The heavy impact of the stake almost doubled over the vampire before he disintegrated in fire and ash. That’s when I realized we were in real trouble.

  “Master…….. master is master?” The zombie said as it stepped through our doorway to the tangle of clothes and stakes that used to be the suck head. Never before had we heard a zombie talk, let alone do anything to indicate it was anything other than a killing machine.. stupid but lethal.

  “Master” this time it was an angry comment rather than a question. I started reloading my crossbow when Brice shouted.

  “Guns, that takes too long, shoot…………….”

  And after the first one a swarm of them hit the doorway. It went by in a blur, and I barely remember the details of the entire firefight but when we were done a dozen zombies lay dead and another vampire was thrashing around on the ground till my bud punched a stake through his heart.

  “Guns hurt them, they won’t kill them, but they will knock them down until they heal. Sometimes it gives you seconds, sometimes as much as a minute. Guns are faster than the crossbow. Never Forget.”

  That’s when I noticed that he was bleeding.

  “Were you bit?”

  “I don’t think so, but we aren’t going to take any chances ok?”

  “Oh god” I started to cry….

  “Hey kiddo, if I’m bit, I’ve still got a few days. Honestly I think I’m just scratched up. That little deadhead mousy *****……….”

  That’s when we really took a close look. It wasn’t a zombie that scratched the hell out of him.. It was the mousy haired woman from the meeting earlier.

  “Oh geez, that’s Isobel, no wonder they knew where we were.”

  I didn’t say anything and just stared. It occurred to me that she was the one that had probably been betraying the group. Somehow they got to her without turning her or killing her. She must have been the one helping them. At least that’s what I thought at the time. We cleaned up after we drug the bodies into an old sewer tunnel a ways from our hideaway and then we went to bed.

  Chapter 4 – Ammo - Daytrip

  The next few days were a blur. We didn’t leave the complex at all; we cleaned the guns, and spent some time making more stakes. And played lots of board games. How they all got here was a mystery to me. Every time we went out, it seemed like we picked up one or two for the long days and nights we spent underground. After a few days of boredom like this, you crave the sunlight, regardless of what is upstairs. When you’re underground, time seems to stand still. Eat, sleep, clean guns… then on the fourth day we started planning.

  “Tres, This whole Idea, putting a dent into their numbers has got me thinking. After Isobel, I don’t know who else in the group we can trust, so I think we should start this on our own for now… but we need to gather stuff. More than gun shops and pawn shops around here can give us.”

  “What do you think we need?”

  “As much ammo we can load into the van, and maybe everything we can cram into the trailer..”

  “What trailer?”

  That’s how it started out. We ended up going to Brice’s old house and backing up to his old dump trailer. The deadheads were thick in this part of town, and I ended up driving while Brice hung out the passenger side shooting any zombie who got in our way. Driving with a trailer was different and a couple of times I took corners too short, or ended up running over a zombie with the trailer making it jump and bounce all over.

  “Take her easy Tres, we are going to get onto the highway.”

  “Is it clear enough?”

  “I hope so. Most people seemed to have died close to home and zombies don’t drive.”

  “That makes sense. Which way do I go, I69 is coming up.”

  “Head west. There’s a national guard base on the other side of Lansing in Grand Ledge.”

  “Ok.”

  The drive took almost two hours. Apparently the zombies were in the countryside, but not in the numbers they were in the city. By the time they heard the rumble of the panel van, we were passing by before they could shamble out to the highway. Apparently the military made it a priority to keep the highways clear before the lights went out, and there were cars on either side of the highway in the median or on the shoulder. The highways were clear all the way to the 96 interchange. Whew, I knew the streets around Flint, but highways, switching and new areas? How am I going to remember all of this?

  Turns out Brice knew where we were going exactly and we got off the first exit from 96. We made a left and that’s when the problems started. Two tow trucks were nose to nose blocking two of the three lanes but no one was in sight. I had to back up and make a couple of tries to straighten it out before I was able to use the far left lane and shoulder to get past.

  “That looks like an old roadblock. Vampires wouldn’t do that, most of them can fly if they need to.”

  “Which means…….”

  “There’s people around. Maybe a lot of them. We’re going to take it nice and slow. I don’t want to get shot by a roving band. “

  “What?”

  “There is no more police, no more government. People take the law the way they see fit. Could be lots of loons around. I wish I would have thought of this, but there’s bound to be more of them around an old army base than in the city.”

  “How come?”

  “Things that go boom…..”

  But surprisingly we didn’t run across anybody all day… well other than the deadheads. The base was on the left side of the road so I drove the van up to the gate and stopped.

  “Now what?”

  Brice got out, grabbed his hunting rifle and shot the maglock that was holding the chains on the gate together. Kind of scary thinking that’s all that kept regular people from the really big guns. Since I didn’t know where to go from here I scooted over and let Brice drive. We ended up driving around all these big buildings passing old hummers and other discarded vehicles. We ended up almost to the back till we saw a faded sign that said munitions. Brice got out, forced the door and then we drove the van inside and closed the doors behind us.

  “What is this place?”

  “Where they store all the guns and ammo. Not the rockets, but stuff that humans can use.”

  Turns out he was wrong, well sort of. There were shoulder fired rockets in there, but neither of us knew how to use them so we left them. What we did do though was load the back of the van with as many crates of am
munition we could, and with the room left over, he grabbed a huge rifle and 4 ammo cases that said they held ten rounds each box with 10 boxes per case.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a .50 caliber sniper rifle”

  “That’s some gun.”

  “Yeah, not sure if I can shoot it or not, but I found plenty of ammunition from my rifle.”

  “What about some of these other guns?”

  “Well I got the ammo for a few different guns. That’s what’s going in the trailer.”

  So we grabbed a crate of M-16’s and slid the big crate in the trailer. After we were done Brice had me help him lug some big duffel bags he had been packing while I was stacking the ammo crates earlier. They were heavy and bulky except the last one. It wasn’t bulky but felt like lead. I was really worn out so I didn’t ask. I think we had 5 bags in all by the time we had to stop. I looked around the room and it really was sort of empty. Like somebody had the same idea as us. Or a lot of somebody’s. Suddenly I wasn’t feeling so safe here.

  We were able to get the van turned around with the trailer and I ran to slide open the doors. After we pulled out we slid them closed again and did the same with the front gate. This time Brice drove us back to the city to our hideout. Once we were unloaded and had the van stashed our little hideout looked like a bunker. One that was stocked with enough guns and ammo to start WW3, or at least shoot up a whole city.

  “Tres ole buddy, now all we need is someplace up high that we can use for target practice. You have to learn to shoot some of these new guns.”

  “Aren’t you worried that the Vampire lords will be back?”

  “The fact that they didn’t the night after the attack makes me think that Isobel told them and they came right off, and they didn’t spread the word. I hope we don’t have to move.” He said looking around at all the stacks of food, gun crates and ammo boxes, cans of fuel….

  “I dunno kiddo; I think tomorrow we get to make a lot of noise. I want to learn to shoot that fancy .50 caliber monster. I’m going to be reading the manuals on this stuff late. You can turn in early if you want.”

  I did turn in early but laying in my cot all I could do is think of revenge for friends lost, listen to the metal on metal sounds as my bud worked the bolt on that big gun, and the smell of gun oil and grease. I fell asleep and dreamed of my parents for the first time in over a year. It wasn’t pleasant.

  Chapter 5 – Hunting

  It wasn’t so much a dream as it was a nightmare. My parents were nice and kind people when I knew them, but when they never came home, I never knew what happened to them. After a while sort of hoped they had died rather than be a zombie or worse but I guess because of the dreams I knew better. I should have at least. In my dreams both of my parents looked fine, in fact, other than the long fangs and red eyes they looked just like I remembered them before the lights went out. That’s how I sort of knew they’d been turned into vampires.

  In the dream they told me that they knew I had killed. I killed their minions, and one of their vampire lords. They wanted me to come outside so they could talk to me. Behind this big steel door it was awful hard for them to hug me and tell me how much they loved me despite how much of a pain I am being to them. Whenever I get these dreams they start out this way, and sometimes they get much worse I end up waking Brice up with my thrashing around. He usually ends up waking me up like he did tonight to get me out of it. His best guess is they are what he calls anxiety dreams.

  Waking up to this one was bad. I felt sick to my stomach and was all sweaty. I ran to the bathroom and used the chemical toilet. I guess I stopped myself puking by a small degree, but I won that battle somehow. I looked around the main room in our hideout under the Whiting, and saw that Brice had been busy. The heavy duffel bags from the trailer were open. Inside them were square blocks that looked like were wrapped in brown wax paper, and the other bag had wooden boxes with long copper or brass tubes.

  “That’s C4 and Detonator Pencils.” Brice said walking up behind me.

  “So we’re really going to blow them up?”

  “Tres; you aren’t the only one here having bad dreams. Sometimes I think they are showing us what’s coming up, or they are coming from somebody who wants to scare us.”

  “The dreams are certainly scary.”

  “Get some sleep kiddo, when we wake up I’ll tell you about something I’ve got rolling around my head.”

  And this time I was able to drift off again. Later on, I woke up feeling refreshed. With the buzzing of the windup alarm clock I knew that morning was just around the corner. I bounced out of bed to notice that Brice was still snoring away. Well, maybe I ought to start helping out more. So I lit the Coleman stove, and started frying up some canned potatoes. Just about when they were done I got the coffee started.

  “Hey lil bud, you playing the part of Martha Stewart again this morning?”

  “Yeah, figured you were up later so I’d get a jump on the food. Coffee’s almost done too.”

  And with that Brice came over, and grabbed a mug from the collection hanging from the low ceiling and poured a mug and sat down near the counter in the kitchen.

  “So you want to hear the plan kiddo?”

  “Oh yeah. I want some payback. And Brice, I’m pretty sure my parents…”

  “I know kiddo, I know. We’ll have to figure it out soon, but my belly is empty. Let’s eat!”

  So after the dishes were done, and the dishwater dumped down another unused tunnel we emptied out one of the duffel bags and loaded up the big sniper rifle, a box of ammunition, boxes of ammo for his rifle, and we both got our regular guns out and loaded. I started cramming shells for my shotgun into the pockets of my cammo pants and we were off. We took the longer exit through the old steel door in the rear of the whiting and opened it a crack. There were deadheads wondering around through the parking lot.

  “This can’t be good Tres, Maybe they do know where we are?”

  “Oh no..” but even though I was worried I wasn’t going to let it get me down. Today we were going to do something. I racked a shell in the chamber of my shotgun, popped another shell in the tube. I was about to take aim when my bud held up a hand.

  “Not here, remember the sound seems to attract them.”

  “Ok, I should have, but how are we going to get past all of these guys?”

  “If we’re quick on our feet we can get the door open and wedged shut and run along this back wall till we come out to the courtyard we can cut across and then put some distance between us. You ready?”

  I was, and in the end it worked out well that way. I don’t know how he does it, but he’s got to be really tough. That bag kept slamming into his back with the gun and ammo, he had his hunting rifle, and then his pistols. I was breathing hard just running with my shotgun. I made a vow to myself to get in better shape whenever I could. Our lives may depend on it someday.

  In a roundabout way we ended up at the van where we hopped in and went on a big ride around town. In the end we were on Kearsley road when we headed back towards the old courthouse. I knew there were parking ramps and garages all around here, and the old courthouse was used by the suck heads for quite a while. I shouldn’t have worried though. We ended up at an old cream colored stone building and used the fire escape to climb the 6 stories up where we ended up on the roof. From the roof we could then climb onto the old radio tower that sat on the top. It was a long way down, but I’m glad we pulled the ladder up with us from the first level of the fire escape. Nobody could follow us that way.

  “The way I figure it, any zombie that hears us shooting will have a hard time figuring out where we are because we’re so high up. So we are going to do some daylight hunting up here. Here, I want to show you how to use my hunting rifle. Don’t worry, it doesn’t kick as bad as you think.”

  “How bad?”

  “Your shotgun is worse than this one. It’s just louder.”

  “Ok.” So he showed me how to load, how to l
ook through the scope to take aim and then gently pull the trigger. Never squeeze.. Ok so I think I can do this. I prop the rifle up on the railing of the catwalk we are on and start loading the shells into it.

  “You ready for this?”

  “Yeah, these guys have my parents somewhere.” Somehow my logic was flawed but he let it pass.

  The streets had deadheads scattered around the four corners of the building and I was looking to see where I should start. I decided to start on the north side and switched railings and took aim. BOOM! The zombie I aimed at went down as the bullet hit him in the head. I waited after reloading and looked over the edge to see what the zombies straight below us were doing. They seemed to be wondering about aimlessly. I am glad none of them looked up because it would have been bad news.

  “Go ahead, do it again.”

  I took aim in the same direction and gently squeezed the trigger BOOM! I missed. The bullet flew harmlessly over the zombie but the brick building behind him showered him with dust which he turned to look at. I worked the bolt of the rifle and shot again. This time I hit him in the back just below the neck and he dropped.

  “Good shooting. Now let me try this out.” Brice said as he opened the bag and pulled out the old sniper rifle, and a box of shells. He put the clip in and then worked the bolt putting one in the barrel. I thought he was still figuring stuff out when the gun went off. It sounded like a bomb had gone off right next to me. I jumped maybe a mile, maybe a little more. I looked towards the area his gun was pointed and noticed he had shot out one of the blacked out windows in the high-rise across from us.