Arcadia (Book 1): Damn The Dead Page 8

  Sam bent a little lower, arms out in front of him, head swiveling slowly to the left, and around to the right. He looked ridiculous. If the situation weren’t so dangerous, she might have laughed at him.

  As quietly as possible, she removed her sword from the scabbard. She held it in both hands, a white-knuckle grip. She stepped off the trail into the trees on the left, and Sam followed. They wove their way deeper into the thicket, stepping carefully.

  It was dark under the canopy of trees.

  Blackness surrounded them. It would take a few minutes for their eyes to adjust. Char just hoped they had minutes.

  They could not see the town lights, nor the moon or stars in the sky. They stood still, listening for movement.

  It could be anything. It didn’t have to be infected. It could turn out to be worse, a bear, or mountain lion. Either way, Char now felt as if they were being hunted. A point was coming when staying still would not cut it, would no longer be the safest thing to do. They would have to decide whether to stand their ground and fight the unknown enemy, or just risk it and run.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Sam said.

  “Shhh!” Char held a finger up to her lips. She rolled her eyes. Was he kidding?

  Slowly, the darkness ebbed away. She could make out shapes and shadows. It was little more than trees that took form. Detecting movement seemed an impossible task. What worked to her advantage was the wind.

  “Infected,” she said. She repositioned her grip on the sword. She whispered, “Stay still. Stay quiet. Stand back to back.”

  Char could see between the trees, and the main trail. She was thankful her eyes kept adapting better and better to the night, and that the adjustment hasn’t stopped. “How are your eyes doing?”

  “I wish I ate more carrots as a kid,” he said.

  “Can you see?”

  “I can see. I can see the trail.”

  “Me, too,” she said, “let’s keep moving.”

  Another branch snapped. Then another. Leaves rustled. The infected was not trying to mask its presence.

  “I can’t tell where it’s coming from,” Sam said. “The sound is bouncing. It’s impossible to narrow down where it is.”

  Char shook her head. It wasn’t impossible to narrow anything down. The sound wasn’t bouncing. The sound was coming from more than one location. “We’re surrounded, Sam. I think they’re coming at us from every direction.”

  Chapter 9

  “It’s the lights,” Sam said.

  “What?”

  “The town. Their lights. It’s got to be attracting them like moths. What do we do?”

  It was a good question. Char looked around. She still could not see a single infected. It was more than one. They were getting closer. The stench of rot was pungent and overbearing. “I don’t want to run blind. We could wind up dead center and trapped.”

  “Just stand here?”

  “I don’t want to do that, either. I’m thinking we climb a tree. Get up high. The damn things won’t look up if they can’t smell us.”

  “But then we are trapped,” Sam said.

  “Not if you’re right, if it is the light they’re after. I say climb.” Char replaced her sword into the scabbard. “Give me the machete.”

  Once the weapons were away they each selected a tree. Char grabbed onto a branch and pulled herself up. The limb was thick. She stood on it, staying close to the trunk, and maneuvered up another few feet. She twisted around, and set a foot onto the next branch, while reaching up for others. She heard Sam. He needed to quit the grunting, otherwise their plan to hide was for nothing.

  Once she was twenty feet or so up, Char stopped. She knew she was high enough to be out of reach, and had a good enough head start that if any of the infected evolved enough to climb a tree, she’d still be alright. She stared down at the ground.

  She heard Sam. He was a tree over. Not more than fifteen feet away. She couldn’t hear what he said, but knew he was talking to her in a loud whisper.

  Forced to reply, she said, “What?”

  “I cut myself. Scraped my wrist on fucking bark.”

  Char closed her eyes. The infected reminded her of sharks, or vampires when it came to blood. They seemed drawn to the scent much in the same the way a normal person could smell a hot apple pie pulled from an oven a mile away.

  Branches still snapped underfoot, but pinpointing where the sound came from was still impossible. The only thing that was obvious was that the noise was louder, and the sounded like it was much closer.

  She wanted to know how bad he was bleeding. It didn’t matter. An answer would not change a thing. If he was bleeding a lot, they’d be found for sure. If it was a little they might be able to keep hidden until the horde passed by them. It came down to time. It would tell.

  “I don’t know if I’m high enough,” she heard him say. The tremor in his tone of voice was annoying.

  Then climb higher. “Will you shut up?” She almost yelled. She almost screamed. She kept her calm. She kept her cool.

  Sam would have been dead in hours if he’d spent any time in Mexico.

  # # #

  2 ½ Years Ago

  Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico

  Char had not been a prisoner, but neither was she free to come and go as she pleased.

  Antonio Velasquez occupied a piece of property down a dirt road off the Reynosa-Monterrey highway. It was the only parcel of land with green grass. The other homes along the street were built on rectangular plots of sun-cracked dirt. Halfway up the paved and winding driveway was a swimming pool. It wasn’t kidney shaped but more oblong and resembled a huge pond. Erected in the center was a small concrete island complete with a hammock strung between a pair of palm trees. No one added chemicals or vacuumed the water, so it actually did look and smell exactly like a stagnant pond. Velasquez always said he’d like to sit in a kayak with a bottle of tequila and talk about grand plans of commandeering all of Mexico and making it his country, but there were far too many mosquitos, and he never trusted mosquitos not when it came to possible ways the zombie virus could be transferred.

  Too many times Char had been tempted to remind Velasquez that zombies ruined any real planning, and that Mexico was too dry and hot to bother fighting over. She never did. She was well aware of the pride he felt for his country, regardless of when he once told her he made a steady bundle smuggling Mexicans into America. Then there was his temper that prevented her from saying much of anything, ever. She’d witnessed too many of his own people wind up flat on their backs when on the receiving end of a flare-up. Velasquez suffered from —undiagnosed— bipolar tendencies.

  The main house was shy a bathroom or two of being called a castle. The three-tier structure contained fourteen bedrooms, two kitchens, a game room with four billiard tables, three stocked wet bars, and a spa complete with a sauna and hot tub. The full basement resembled a liquor store. There was an all mahogany, temperature and climate controlled wine cellar, too. When the electricity was up and running, the place had to have resembled a mini version of Heaven. The owners must have thrown wild, talked-about parties. In the backyard, once off the sprawling marble block patio and well past the double row of ten-foot high shrubs were two in-law homes set on the property corners. Each house was at least 3.000 square feet, dwarfed when compared to the main residence, but not small either, and each house also had a good sized in-ground pool of their own.

  Velasquez might not have worked to earn a place like this, and might have only killed residential zombies to get where he has gotten, but the guns and ammunition were all his. His band of followers feared and then respected him. He was a leader. Char knew that much. She wasn’t sure she had respect for the guy, but there was enough fear for her to feign respect.

  It was while stumbling midday along the highway when he first found her. Dehydrated, sunbaked and weak from lack of nutrition, Char knew she could not survive. She’d been in Mexico less than a year, and stayed mainly because it was where
her father thought she’d be safest. What she really wanted was to go home, back to New York. It didn’t matter if she holed up in her father’s old apartment with the door and windows boarded up, and had to fight zombies day in and day out. She’d be home, somewhere familiar. She’d die home, somewhere full of memories.

  Mexico held nothing for her. She didn’t want to die out here, alone and lost in an expanse of aluminum homemade huts and dust-covered everything.

  She might have fainted, or was just delirious enough to want to lie down on the road. She was staring blankly up at the perpetually blue and cloudless sky when she heard revving engines approach. Every instinct inside her body sad to get up and run. Every muscle wanted to respond accordingly. Unfortunately, Char lacked the strength and ability even to roll on her side to see what was coming at her.

  The man that stood over her was Antonio Velasquez. He was dressed in well-worn cowboy boots and blue jeans; the red and white checkered button-down shirt was unbuttoned and flapped in the slight breeze revealing a once white undershirt. The blue bandana wrapped over his head must have been used to sop up sweat, while the yellowed cowboy hat in his hands did its best to keep the heat from the sun at bay.

  He introduced himself and stared with dark, dull eyes. The flat nose between pockmarked cheeks didn’t help his appearance. Char tried shielding her eyes from the sun with a forearm across her forehead. Velasquez stepped to the side. His back blocked the sun, his body a black silhouetted form above her. “Can you stand?”

  It was an immediate plus that he spoke English.

  She hadn’t realized just how dry her throat was until she tried to talk. “I’m not sure.”

  She also realized it may have been days since she talked last.

  Velasquez held out a hand. She reached for it, and he pulled her up onto her feet.

  After nearly a year of living in what she considered a commune—someone living in every available room, taking up every square foot of space among the three locations on the 3 acres of land—Char had had enough, but it came down to more than packed-in discomfort.

  Although the band of Mexicans protected the property armed with assault rifles and handguns along the fenced perimeter day and night. Safety from zombies was not the issue.

  The need to flee was essential to her survival.

  Velasquez was a violent man, especially when drinking and he drank often. The way he treated her the last few weeks prior to deciding it was time to leave had changed, drastically. She noticed it first in the way he looked at her. He looked hungry. It was the only way she could describe it. At night, he visited her room when she was asleep, or when he thought she was asleep. He’d stand by the window, lean against the wall and finish off a bottle of tequila in silence. She knew better than to open her eyes. She heard his heavy breathing and could only assume how many more nights he’d allow her sleep to go uninterrupted before deciding to climb in next to her.

  Getting away would not be easy. If anyone else at the commune fled, she did not think Velasquez would care. She had a feeling if she attempted to run he’d come after her. The best way to run would be not to leave the house.

  In order for this to work Char knew she would have to hide somewhere and not make a sound. It might be a day or two before she thought it would be safe to move. She figured initially Velasquez would go looking for her, maybe bring a guy or two along and that they’d drive up and down the streets searching. When he couldn’t find her, she hoped he’d round up more men and go back out expanding the scope of the canvas. At that point, when most of the commune was left unguarded, she would have the best chance to slip away undetected.

  That was the plan, anyway, and it worked. However, it was nearly three days before a chance to run presented itself. She chose to hide in the attic. It felt like living in the belly of a furnace. She’d stored water and her weapons up in the attic ahead of time. On the day she “disappeared” she brought up food, too. She ate and drank sparingly. She held in urine, and refused to move her bowels until she was free on the outside. She spent hour after hour silent, and still. She worried about a floorboard creaking under shifted weight, and that sound alone would be enough to give up her location.

  When the house was silent, she snuck down the stairs to the first floor. She opened windows and doors in the giant house, hoping zombies would filter in before leaving. She took the doors to the back patio and walked across the yard. It was flat land. There were no trees or structures to hide behind for miles in any direction. The best bet was to walk and just keep walking until she was no longer visible even if someone like Velasquez used binoculars. She stayed away from roads, cut through yards and hoped she’d make her way back to the border.

  She just wanted to go home, back to America. It might be crawling with zombies, but facing the walking dead seemed like the lesser of two evils.

  The entire time she walked she felt like Velasquez and his men were closing in on her. Many times she wanted to run. Running caused two problems, it used up her energy, and it looked suspicious. Conserving strength was important, that went without saying. She only had limited supplies left, and rationing them was going to be essential to her survival. Although a woman walking in what appeared like nothing more than the middle of nowhere was already suspicious. Running without being chased would raise a flag to anyone who noticed.

  Chapter 10

  “They’re coming this way, Char,” Sam said. He hadn’t climbed any higher in the tree, and was still talking. The quiver was apparent in his voice, the tone an octave or two higher than normal. Char was almost certain she could hear him sweating.

  She did not answer him. Eventually, he would have to catch on and realize just how golden silence truly was. She tried listening to the night. Sam might be right, the infected seemed to be headed toward them. It could be the scent of fresh blood that Sam dripped onto the tree trunk that aroused their senses.

  This gave her second thoughts about climbing into the trees now. A pack of infected would just stay at the base of the trees and moan. She couldn’t imagine being stuck in a tree with the tree surrounded by infected. The more noise they made, the more moaning they did, the more infected would show. They often reminded her of seagulls. When her dad, Cash, and her went to McDonalds, they oftentimes ate in the car in the parking lot. The seagulls knew the cars in the area were filled with people eating food. One seagull always approached. He’d caw, squawk and slowly make its way closer and closer. Cash was notorious for throwing at least one French fry out the window. Dad would yell, but not as if he was seriously upset. Just before that seagull snatched the fry up off the asphalt, it would give out one last high-pitched squawk. That was the tone, the alarm the other seagulls waited for. Once it sounded, they all came. It was almost as if Char could understand Seagull. If translated, the seagull would have said something along the lines of: “They’re giving away fooooooood!”

  They were in trouble. “We should get down. Now. Make a run for it,” she said.

  “Climb down?”

  “Before they get here.”

  “They sound close, Char. Real close,” he said.

  Their conversation wasn’t helping the situation. It wasn’t like he had very far to climb down, either. Wasting time debating didn’t help any. Char started down the tree. She took each step carefully, one branch step at a time.

  “And then what? What are we going to do?”

  “Get down from the fucking tree now, Samuel!” She jumped the last five feet and bent her knees to absorb the impact. It was distant, but distinct. The moaning was awful, a steady groan that was both guttural and phlegmy. Char wanted to plug her ears and block out the sound. There wasn’t much point, though, once it was heard it could never be unheard. It was one of the only sounds she vividly recalled from nightmares that plagued her sleep when she actually did sleep.

  Sam landed on his feet.

  “Back to the trail. We’re making a break for the town.” Running along the road would be easiest. There woul
d be less obstacles, no fallen branches, or wild weeds to trip them up. Char always hated movies when someone, usually a female character, tripped and injured an ankle. Half the time directors didn’t even have the actor trip over anything. They just tripped. They’d sit up and coddle and ankle, without even having put any weight on it first. It was part of what made cheesy movies classics.

  “Why not back to Tony and Grace?”

  Char ran past Sam. If he was more interested in asking questions, then he could. She just wasn’t planning to hang around an answer them.

  “We might be running straight into them!”

  Char heard heavy footfalls, and heavier breathing behind her. At least he was running, following her lead. If she could only get him to shut up she would be as close to happy as she could be in a situation as dire and dangerous as this. As she ducked under branches, and jumped over stumps, she almost smiled. More and more she was looking forward to thoroughly kicking his ass.

  For all the moaning and all the groaning, Char was surprised they had not yet seen one infected. They had to be close. It had sounded as if they were closing in on them at one point. So where were they? Where were all the infected?

  Char saw the trail. They had not been that far away from it in the first place. She slowed, and then stopped by the last row of trees. Sam came up behind her and wheezed.

  She cringed waiting for him to talk. Just to be safe, she pressed a finger to her lips and he nodded, a hopeful indication that he might finally get it.

  They stood still.

  The woods had fallen silent.

  She walked out from between trees and stood on the trail. She did a three-sixty searching for signs of anything in the brush around them. There was nothing. Not a single infected. She motioned for Sam to join her.