Stay Dead (Book 2): The Dead and The Dying Read online

  The Dead & The Dying

  Stay Dead Book Two

  Steve Wands

  Copyright © 2013 Steve Wands

  All rights reserved.

  Smashwords Edition

  SMASHWORDS EDITION, LICENSE NOTES

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  DEDICATION

  Dedicated to Drew, Eddie, Joe, Nonni, and Big Richie

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Road warriors

  Barbie the Zombie Killer

  All messed up

  Wheels

  We’ve got company

  Scavengers

  Loose end

  Expect delays

  When Sarah met Jim

  Special occasion

  Only in dreams

  Impulses

  Left behind

  Mashed brains

  Old man moment

  Off-Roading

  Raiders

  Hold on

  Free lunch

  Big bad wolf

  Nothing but darkness

  Something wicked

  Back on course

  Despair

  Are we there yet?

  Heart of the matter

  Just the wind

  Low on options

  Nancy Nedermeyer

  End of the road

  Starting to pile up

  Like a graveyard

  Yard work is hard work

  The Bridge

  Stockpiling

  Through the wreckage

  Endurance test

  The Cell

  Don’t look in the car

  A familiar Odor

  Now or never

  Suicide Run

  Teeth and glass

  Skin mask

  Goodbye, New Jersey

  That sad smile

  It’s always crowded

  The Protean

  Captain Chuck

  Farewell

  Living dead

  A dead city by the sea

  Just one more day

  Fading light

  Wishful Thinking

  Vengeance on the wind

  Epilogue

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To my family and friends for your support. To my wife—for everything. To my son—for being awesome. To Adam Staffaroni for coming on board as editor. To my first readers, Keith Latch, Darryl L. Pierce, and Desmond Reddick. Thank you all.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This novel takes place in a fictionalized version of our world. We spend a lot of time in New Jersey and up the eastern coastline with a quick glimpse at West Virginia but they are not quite the states as you know them. Any resemblance to actual incidents, or to any person living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: His eyes are closed.

  –Albert Einstein

  PROLOGUE

  (back to top)

  West Virginia.

  Mount Weather Special Facility.

  Rachel Lucas and Doctor Gregory Tran put in a request to work together. They had to justify the request with their superiors and upon furnishing their findings they had gotten what they wanted. With a catch, of course.

  A young soldier sat restrained on the examination table usually reserved for the dead. He was a blond haired kid from Texas barely old enough to drink. He was heavily sedated but his eyes were penetrating, and nothing but terror and oblivion could be seen in them. It was gut wrenching just to look at him.

  After hearing what the catch was Rachel tried everything she could to stop it from happening, but failed. When she was given the choice to take the soldier’s place she decided to keep her own. As a result she felt responsible for the young man’s predicament. She tried to tell herself he’d end up dead anyway, but it still hurt.

  The kid soldier was hooked up to a mechanical respirator in the hopes that once given a lethal injection his brain would still be getting oxygen. In theory it would present Rachel and Tran with the best possible specimen in which to continue their research. They also had a medical infusion pump and a dialysis machine in the corner of the room should they decide to use them.

  Several guards stood outside of the room accompanied by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, William T. Pymn II, who nodded for Tran to carry out the lethal injection. Tran grimly nodded back. He too didn’t want to sacrifice a soldier of all people, but figured it was better than the alternative.

  He administered the injection and the young man tried to squirm but was too heavily restrained to move. Tran and Rachel watched the monitors as the young man died before them. His heart stopped first and then all brain activity ceased. The mechanical respirator kept him breathing as planned.

  Moments later his eyes opened even though clinically he was dead. He had no pulse, no heartbeat, and brain activity that reflected it was dying. Yet he could speak.

  “Brains,” the thing muttered. “Flesh,” as his jaw moved and his eyes flitted around the room.

  “What is your name?” Tran asked.

  “Death.”

  “Are you Private Richard Barret?”

  “Deatthhh.”

  Rachel asked, “Is Richard in there?”

  “Yesss.”

  “Can we speak to him?”

  “Hee sssscreammsss.”

  “Is he in pain?”

  “Yesss.”

  “Is death painful?” Asked Tran.

  “Yessssssss.”

  “I think his speech is starting to digress.”

  “Why are the dead coming back to life?”

  “Flessshh.”

  “Answer the question. Why are the dead coming back to life?”

  “Tiiiime…ffforrrrr theeee…unnnwiindinnngggggg.”

  “What is that?”

  “Yyyyoourrrr…ffffleesshhhh—

  “Hold it together!”

  “What is the unwinding?”

  “Yyyoourrrr…ennnnd…yrrrrrrrrgggggnnnuhhhh.”

  “I can feel it. Whatever we were talking with is gone.”

  Tran nodded in agreement. He could feel it too. His hands were like ice, but the back of his neck was wet with sweat.

  He pulled a surgical gag from a cabinet and put it in the dead Private’s mouth.

  “What the fuck did I just hear?” The Deputy Secretary of Defense, William T. Pymn II, asked as he stormed into the room.

  “It would appear,” Tran started, but couldn’t believe what was about to come out of his mouth, “that we just spoke with the entity of Death.”

  “This is absurd. We just put a good man to death, and his drug-addled last words are supposed to be those of the boogeyman? I should put a bullet in both of your heads right now.”

  “With all due respect, sir, you can’t ignore what just happened. You don’t believe it, that’s fine, but I’ll put my life on the line here and say that if we did this experiment again, it would yield the same results.”

  “You put your life on the line the second you opened your mouth, Tran, and if you open it again I’ll strap you down to that table myself and l
et this little lady over here experiment on you.”

  Tran new better than to push any further, so he stood there and took the verbal affront as if he were a dog being scolded for snatching bread off the table.

  “Ms. Lucas, would you put your life on the line as well?”

  “Yes, sir, I would.”

  “Fine. I’ll clear you to do it again, but I’m not wasting another man on so little. I thought we would have seen something more definitive than this. Report to me first thing tomorrow and I’ll figure out another way of getting you fresh bodies.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Deputy Secretary of Defense turned and left the room as if he had somewhere better to be and his armed guards left with him, aside from the one stationed at the outside of the room.

  Rachel waited till Pymn was out of sight before she took a deep breath and said, “Well, that was interesting.”

  “Yes. Nothing like staring the devil in the face and convincing yourself it’s a Halloween mask.”

  “Maybe Pymn doesn’t believe in things like Death as an entity.”

  “Regardless of your belief system, the dead are alive and walking. I don’t know about you, but for me, that changes the way I look at everything—even something as archaic as religion, or as existential as death.”

  “What do you think he’ll do?”

  “I know what I would do. Are you familiar with the area, Ms. Lucas?”

  “Not really.”

  “West Virginia Penitentiary.”

  “Prisoners? So much for cruel and unusual punishment.”

  “I don’t think the rules of yesterday matter much anymore.”

  “I suppose not, and I suppose its better to use the condemned than it is to use our own soldiers.”

  “Of course, I’m just taking a guess here.”

  “Well, I’ll bet a hundred bucks you’re right.”

  “If only I were a gambling man.”

  “Not like money has any value now.”

  The Deputy Secretary of Defense, William T. Pymn II, went right to work on solving the problem of finding non-military test subjects. Three days after the world went to hell Pymn has suggested using prisoners to assist military units on the ground war. He had little political backing for the proposition and was unable to gain any traction. By the time he was given the green light he was already sequestered away to the Mount Weather Special Facility and swept up in the day-to-day of the facility.

  He was not entirely convinced that the voice from the dead soldier was Death itself, but the prospect of it was chilling to say the least, though Pymn would never show it. Even if it ended up being nothing, at least it would give him the opportunity to acquire the prison—if it was still operating—either by force or cooperation.

  He had thought on it a great deal. He had already gone so far as to approach some of his own men with the prospect of commanding such a unit, and many of them could see the upside of commanding a unit of prisoners—especially prisoners on death row or serving life. It didn’t matter if you sent a man like that to his death, because as far as society was concerned they were better off that way.

  He decided it was time to make some calls and send a unit to the West Virginia Penitentiary.

  1 ROAD WARRIORS

  (back to top)

  The mostly leafless Oak trees and cold grey skies made the world seem all the more dead on its feet. The sun hung in the air, but its heat could not be felt—it was a chilly day and bitterly so. The wind howled through the trees, shaking loose whatever resilient leaves still hung on by a thread. On one tree, a small spindly Black Maple that looked almost sickly, a beautiful red and orange Maple leaf hung on longer than all the others. Its stem holding strong against the blustering breeze while its brethren had given up and fallen to the ground, only to dry up and be crunched underfoot of an animal and the dead things it scurried from.

  An abandoned Labrador with a black collar and matching leash erratically ran through the woods away from the dead things. She would stop and bark at them, attempting to scare them off, but then she would run away again—as if she knew they would not scare. Following the dog were several deaders as lifeless as the leaves under their feet. The dog looked ragged and wafer-thin. Its hair was beginning to fall out and like the leaves on the trees its life wasn’t long for this world.

  The chocolate Labrador labored heavily to suck in enough oxygen to keep its legs pumping. Up ahead was a road, she just had to push herself a little harder to get up the hill, and then maybe she could loose them. She didn’t let up and her legs carried her up the small hill and to the edge of the road where she didn’t even bother to stop and look. She ran straight across, hooked to the right, and then disappeared into the woods on the other side.

  “Whoa! Did you guys see that? It was a dog. Just ran across the road,” Dawn said.

  Dawn had been aching for a cigarette. She had only a few left and couldn’t wait till they stopped so she could have one. When she used to work late nights at the diner she’d be outside smoking as often as possible. When she couldn’t make it to work on account of the living dead, smoking and surviving was all she had left.

  Jon-Jon pointed to the woods and struggling to get to the street were the several deaders that had been chasing the dog, “Looks like those fuckers over there were chasing it.”

  “Ugh. You think they’re going after animals now, too?” Dawn asked, thinking one of the deaders looked like one of the younger dishwashers.

  “I don’t see why not, but maybe they were just chasing the noise? Maybe their eyeballs are all gone? Who the fuck knows,” Jon said, returning his attention to the road.

  Dawn stared at the dead things in disgust and anger. They raised their arms toward the van. Whether or not their eyeballs were working they knew that something edible was nearby. Dawn flipped them the bird and her look of anger shifted into a look of pure hatred.

  Jon-Jon turned the radio on again.

  “It’s just going to be the same thing,” Dawn protested.

  “Well, I like the way it sounds—fella has a nice deep voice.”

  … those areas we will reinstate the Emergency Transportation System to aid survivors in getting to those locations.

  We will continue repeating this Emergency Alert System broadcast until we have new information.

  This is an Emergency Alert System broadcast originating from the Mount Weather Special Facility in West Virginia.

  There is a worldwide phenomenon occurring where clinically dead humans are reanimating and attacking living humans in an attempt to eat living flesh. Early attempts at dispatching the reanimated hostiles, destroying the brain, seemed effective. However, new evidence suggests we now warn that this is insufficient. Specimens assumed dead continue to reanimate. There is no consistent timeframe for which a hostile will reanimate. The only permanent way of dispatching the hostiles is by incineration, or the use of a chemical agent to dissolve the remains.

  It is also safest to stay off the roads and out of heavily populated areas. If you have found a safe haven it is recommended you remain there. Specially equipped units of the military are in the process of reclaiming key strategic areas around the nation. Once we are able to reclaim those areas we will reinstate the Emergency Transportation System to aid survivors in getting to those locations.

  We will continue repeating this Emergency Alert System broadcast until we have new information.

  “Looks like we got an accident over here.”

  “Can we get through?” Eddie asked from behind them.

  “Looks like no problem. I don’t see any deaders either.”

  Jon-Jon cautiously drove up to the accident. A small sedan was wrecked by a larger SUV. The SUV had smashed in the side of the car and most of its front. A third car looked to have been unable to break in time and rear-ended the SUV. There were no bodies in the cars, only a trail of old blood that looked like dirt coming from the smaller sedan.

  Eddie had moved forward from the back a
nd crouched down in front to peer out the windshield, “Guess if there were any they’re long gone now.”

  Dawn turned to him, “Looks that way.”

  Dawn looked worn out. Her cheeks had sunken in over the course of the few days that they had come to know each other. They hadn’t much food left, and the lack of sleep and constant levels of elevated stress weren’t helping much. Dawn could probably say the same thing for anyone in the van or in the two vehicles behind them. Eddie himself, who had become somewhat of a leader of the group, looked wild and ragged. His hair was all over the place, his eyebrows looked crazy and his beard was growing bigger by the day—and unevenly.

  The van itself smelled like a gym locker room—and that was with the windows down.

  Chuck, who missed his home in sunny Florida, fell asleep, though every time the van hit a bump his head bounced off the window and he woke for a moment, only to fall back to sleep again. Sitting next to him was Janice—Eddie and Joseph’s mother—and though she wasn’t sleeping she looked catatonic and a breath away from death. Losing her husband and two younger children to the living dead seemed to take all but a sliver of life from her. Chung-Hee sat on the floor and tried to stretch. His legs had become cramped and he thought it was because he wasn’t drinking enough water, and he was right. When he was holed-up at Mal-Mart he hadn’t worried about that, there was plenty to be had.

  Eddie left the front of the van to sit back at his brother’s side. Joseph, who was physically larger, and stronger than his older brother, looked just as tired as everyone else, but maybe his age allowed him to deal with it better. His disposition seemed better every day, as did his resolve. He was pulling a strength from some place unseen whilst just about everyone else was losing it. Next to him was Frankie, who had been one of Eddie’s closest friends since middle school, and Frankie just looked sucked dry of color and emotion. He had that two-thousand-yard stare that veterans would often talk about; the look from Thomas Lea’s painting of the same name, the one with the soldier staring right at you with his eyes so wide and his mouth only slightly agape.