Resurrection: A Zombie Novel, - [ereader manga .TXT] 📗
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“We’re friendly!” he said. “We’re not here to take anything!”
No movement. No sound.
“Looks like nobody’s home,” Kyle said.
Hughes frowned. Somebody had tied a boat to that dock. Kyle was being complacent again, and complacency kills. It would not have even occurred to Kyle to call out ahead. He’d have just strolled up the path and knocked on the door—or, worse, just walked right on in.
But all seemed to be well until they reached the overgrown lawn in front of the house. Two corpses lay on the grass. Hughes saw a third around the right side.
“Everybody get back.” He raised his rifle and pointed it in the direction of the dead men. “Use some trees for cover.”
The forest began just a dozen or so feet from the gravel path. Hughes took a knee as the others scrambled into the woods.
The corpses weren’t skeletons. Whoever had been killed here hadn’t been eaten. Looters, perhaps, shot by whoever owned the property.
“Hello!” he said again. “We’re not here to steal! If there’s anybody home and you don’t want us here, just say the word and we’ll go!”
Nothing. No movement. No sound.
“Frank,” he said. “Cover me. I’m going to check out the porch.”
He switched weapons with Frank. He’d need the shotgun for close-quarters fighting while Frank needed the rifle to cover him from a distance.
They were short on ammunition, but they had enough for a firefight if it came to that. They couldn’t fend off a horde, but they could handle a pissed-off gunman or two.
He passed the corpses in the grass. They hadn’t shaved in weeks. Their clothing was filthy. One had a pistol in his right hand. A shotgun lay on the grass near the other. Hughes figured the dead man on the side of the house was the owner. Most likely the man was defending his property against two intruders. The three of them must have shot each other to death at the same time.
Hughes retrieved the shotgun from the grass—a 12-gauge Baikal MP220—then held his breath and extracted the pistol from the second corpse’s grip. A Jennings J22, an absolute piece of crap. It jammed constantly, which might explain why two men couldn’t take one down without everyone getting killed. He placed the Jennings in his jacket pocket and vowed not to even try firing it except as a last resort.
Nobody was home—nobody left alive, anyway—but all the same Hughes banged on the door with the flat of his fist. “Coming in! And we’re armed! We don’t want any trouble, so if there’s anyone in there, now’s the time to speak up.”
No answer, not even the creak of a floorboard.
When Hughes opened the door, it took everything he had not to throw up.
Parker gagged when he stepped into the house. He could taste the stench of rot. This wasn’t the first time he’d breathed putrid air in the last couple of months, but he’d never get used to it.
The dead man in the chair must be the homeowner. He was covered with fat flies. Parker had no idea who the three men outside were, but it seemed awfully unlikely that a stranger would make his way to this house on a remote island just to blow his own head off.
It was obvious that he’d blown his own head off, because his oozing fingers still gripped the shotgun. Another weapon, then, for the taking, but no one was in any kind of hurry to extract it.
The house was unusable. It didn’t make the slightest bit of difference where in the world Parker went. Death preceded and followed.
But there was a guesthouse alongside the main house that had looked like a separate wing of the same house from the shore below.
He, Hughes, and Frank made sure both were clear, then everyone sat on the porch in front of the guesthouse.
“We’ll be all right here for a while,” Kyle said.
“Well isn’t that a relief,” Parker said. “Don’t worry about all the dead people, folks. Kyle here thinks we’ll be fine.”
“We’re only going to rest here. Until we’re ready for the next phase of the plan.”
Parker exchanged glances with Frank. Hughes raised his eyebrows. Annie looked a little perplexed.
Parker had his green light. “Listen up, Kyle. Your ass is done making plans for the rest of us. Done. That’s twice now you damn near got us all killed. Both times because, despite what you look like, you’re twelve fucking years old.”
“All right!” Annie said.
Parker ignored her.
“From here on out, you’re not allowed to piss without permission from both me and Hughes,” he said.
“That’s enough,” Hughes said and stood up.
Annie glowered at Parker. Kyle wouldn’t look at him.
“Fine,” Parker said. “What’s your plan, bright boy?”
Kyle sat on the top step of the porch and rested his elbows on his knees. “You are going to hate the idea. Of that I have no doubt.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it either. But let’s hear it. Let’s have everyone hear it so we can agree to take your pissing privileges from you.”
Kyle sighed. Annie looked away and into the trees.
“We have the guns and ammo from the dead guys in the grass,” Kyle said. “Most likely every house on this island has more. These people lived in the middle of nowhere. The cops aren’t minutes away—they’re hours away, if not days. They were in charge of their own security. They had to be.”
“That worked out well,” Parker said. At least the corpses outside didn’t smell too bad from a distance.
“So here’s what we do,” Kyle said. “We hit every house on the island and stock up as much as we can. Then we get back on the boat and go sweep and clear Orcas.”
Nobody said anything.
“We can sweep and clear from the water,” Kyle said. “We don’t even have to get off the boat until we’ve killed most of them.”
Nobody said anything.
“That’s it?” Parker said. “That’s your plan?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Your plan is that we go to war.”
“You have a better idea?”
Parker did, in fact, have a better idea.
“Not a terrible plan,” Hughes said.
“The hell it isn’t,” Parker said. “You know what we do? We take this boat and sail up to Alaska. Every single one of those fuckers is going to freeze to death stat in Alaska. Most of them are probably meatsicles already.”
“You want to live off the land in Alaska?” Annie said. “Where it’s too cold to farm?”
“We can hunt,” Parker said.
“Hunt what?” Kyle said. “Bears?”
“Would you rather hunt up there or be hunted down here?” Parker said.
“Guys, I think I’m with Parker on this,” Frank said.
“Well, I’m not,” Annie said. “I’m from the South. I can’t survive on an ice cap.”
“Sweetheart, Alaska isn’t an ice cap,” Parker said.
“I’m not your sweetheart.”
Kyle stood up. What, did he want to fight? He’d get his ass kicked for sure.
“Everybody just chill,” Parker said. “How about we sleep on it and discuss it again in the morning?” He would not change his mind—that was for damn sure—but maybe by morning everyone would be a little less touchy and see that peace in Alaska was better than war in Washington.
“Fine,” Kyle said.
“There are islands up in Alaska, you know.”
Kyle sighed.
“We could go up for the winter and then come back down,” Parker said. “See if those things have died off.”
Kyle nodded, but Parker could tell he wasn’t listening. Nor was he interested.
But Kyle needed to get interested. The dumb shit moved through life as though he had duct tape over his ears, but what he needed was duct tape over his mouth. Kyle had managed to convince Parker that Orcas Island was safe. He was as persuasive as he was naive and delusional, and his ludicrous ideas were sure to get everyone killed. The group needed joint leadership by Parker and Hughes with Kyle beaten down and shamed into obedience. That’s exactly what was going to happen, and it was going to happen first thing in the morning.
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