Dying Days: Origins 2 Read online

  Albert was poking his head up and staring at David.

  The idiot is going to get spotted and his head blown off, David thought. He kept one eye on the old man and was obvious about it so when Albert did something that went against them, David could kill him. He had no qualms about it, either.

  When he was sure Albert wasn't going to run or call out right this second, David put his ear to the boards on the window. It was silent, but when he peered inside he could see a sitting room. No one was inside and the furniture had been pushed against one wall.

  He could see through an open doorway. In the hall, looking at the front door, was a man in camouflage holding an M4. "Come on already," the man said. "We need to go hunting."

  A little girl ran up to him and hugged his leg.

  "Go back with your mama and lie down. It's too late for you to still be up," he said. He looked up at the ceiling.

  David had seen enough. He turned back to Albert.

  The man was gone.

  Oh… shit…

  Cursing under his breath, David slipped around to the side of the house and dropped his night vision goggles down to find the old man.

  There were cars in the drive and scattered nearby, but David couldn't pick up any heat source. He could easily be hiding behind a truck or tire right now, though.

  David had no time to say anything to Cheryl, either. If she were in the right position, she'd have a bead on the front door but wouldn't fire until he gave the signal. He decided the signal was going to be to shoot because it was obvious Albert was a damn liar.

  Everyone in the house was family. Albert had sworn his grandkids and women had been abducted by a pack of militia but now David knew the truth: he was part of the militia. He'd probably been up at the gas station collecting a few things when they'd unexpectedly arrived.

  He was going to remind Cheryl about his gut instinct and how it had never let him down. Yet again, his first thought was the right one. He'd second-guessed because of Chris and his family and the situation at hand when the shooting began.

  David scanned again for the old man. At this point, he would shoot him in the head and let the battle begin. If he died tonight, it would be because of him so he might as well kill him.

  There was another, smarter option: leave. Run back to the truck and drive away. Of course, as soon as they got a field away, Albert would tell his family and they'd chase them down in the cars.

  David thought he saw movement near the cars but his goggles weren't picking up a heat source. With the moon out, they didn't work as well as he wanted them to.

  He could slip back off the deck and try to locate the old man. Maybe it would cause Albert to run to the safety of the front door, and then David could take him out. But, if the man had even half a brain, he'd find a hiding spot nearby and call out before the shooting could begin.

  David decided to sit and wait, pressed against the corner of the house with his head constantly swiveling so he wasn't attacked from behind or through the slats in the railing. He also kept one eye on the front door, waiting for it to open.

  At that point, it wouldn’t really matter if Albert called out, because he was going to light it up with gunfire. He knew at least two men would be coming. He also knew Cheryl was under the porch, so his shots needed to be aimed high.

  What had they gotten themselves into? If he thought for a second the militia would let them go, he would simply go back to his truck and be on his way. But the world was now an even scarier place. If he wanted to protect his wife and Chris and his family, there were things that needed to be done.

  Bad things.

  Like shooting an old man or killing fathers in front of their children, if it came down to it. There weren't going to be winners after tonight, because one side in this was going to be hurt.

  David hoped it wasn't his side and said a silent prayer Cheryl would be protected once the shooting began.

  Then he stopped and sighed.

  Vern, the teen, was under the porch with her. If Albert had run away, David could safely assume Vern was in on it, too. Maybe he'd be stupid enough to try to kill Cheryl. In close quarters underneath the porch and with surprise on his side, he might be able to do something…

  David was about to yell out to his wife and tell her to cut Vern loose and run when the front door opened and there was no time to do anything but shoot.

  Chapter Seven

  There was someone talking low inside the house, a male with a deep voice. Cheryl was next to the side window. She made sure Vern was on her hip, but she didn't have to coax the boy.

  He'd followed her from the field, both of them squatting and crawling as they moved. Cheryl caught a glimpse of the teen staring at her ass, and when she realized her undies were sticking out and she pulled her shirt down, he actually sighed.

  She pointed to a break in the latticework under the porch and sighed herself. The kid would have to crawl behind her and she was sure he'd be staring at her crotch while she did. It would give her incentive to move fast.

  Cheryl stopped where she figured the front door would be above her and flipped to her back. Vern did the same next to her even though he didn’t have a weapon and she wasn't going to hand the kid a pistol.

  "Now what?" he whispered in her ear, getting a little too close.

  Cheryl aimed the gun in the darkness, trying to get a better understanding of where they were with the thin light through the wooden slats above her head. She moved to her right, pushing him away from her, and sighted through a knothole in the wood, a perfect access to see the door. "We wait."

  When she turned her head and looked at Vern, she saw he was staring down her body. At first she was going to chalk it up to hormones and him being a teen and her being a woman, but then the way he looked away caught her off-guard.

  He wasn't trying to check out my ass or get a peek at my lady parts, she thought. He was looking right at the knife on my side. Sonofabitch.

  "I need you to move about ten feet to your right. Away from me," Cheryl said to Vern. "Now."

  He just stared at her and she could see he looked nervous now.

  Cheryl pointed the weapon at him. "I'm not asking you, kid. I'm telling you. And keep your hands where I can see them."

  "I don't understand," Vern said, but she could clearly see in his eyes he did. He'd been found out, and he knew he was going to die if he made the wrong move.

  "I'm sure my husband will figure out your grandfather played us soon enough. If you don't move, I won't have to kill you. Is that understood?"

  He nodded slowly. "I didn't want to do this. You seem really nice."

  "I am really nice. So keep your mouth shut when the door opens above me, got it? Or I will shoot you in the face," Cheryl said.

  When tears started running down his face, illuminated in the scant moonlight, she turned and looked back at the hole. She could still keep an eye on him but, truth be told, she didn't want to think too hard on their situation. She was sure she'd start crying herself.

  "You need to move ten feet away from me. I'm serious," Cheryl said. The last thing she wanted to do was shoot this teen and leave him, for dead, under the porch, but it might come down to her or Vern. She was leaving in one piece. "Now, or everyone in the house will get to hear me kill you. Is that what you want?"

  "No. I just want this to end. Daddy said if we lure people to the farm from the highway, we'll have people to help us."

  "How many have you lured so far?"

  Vern looked away. "Seven or eight. I don't know. I'm never allowed to leave with my cousins and uncles or daddy. I'm not allowed near the root cellar."

  "You were helping your grandfather when we arrived," Cheryl said. "He didn't want to make a move because you were there with him. He figured your family would see us from the house and come investigate and kill us, so you could take our things."

  "We're in the middle of nowhere. Daddy said this was going to happen, which was why we started hoarding food and guns. But it wasn't
enough he said. We needed more. People like you would take our stuff," Vern said.

  "People like me came looking to gas up and leave. Nothing more. Your family did this, not us. We would've been a hundred miles away if your grandfather had said he was out of gas. That's it," Cheryl said. She waved the gun. "I swear to God, I am about to shoot you for not moving away from me."

  "Sorry."

  David and Cheryl had planned everything for years. While the neighbors and their family thought they were nuts for hoarding food, ammo and water and buying the property in Canada, they'd loved every part of it.

  Did Cheryl really think in a million years a plague of zombies was going to upset their lives? Of course not. Neither did David. They prepped everything for any natural or man-made disaster striking. They bought items based not on the here and now but on the viability of it for the future.

  And they had spent thousands of dollars over the years, not on vacations and expensive clothes and meals, but on things they would need.

  Items stored safely in the wrong direction. There was enough food, supplies and weapons for six to last the next year without needing anything more.

  But they'd also picked an area untouched by man and packed with deer and many other animals to hunt. Cheryl remembered how proud David was when she'd caught her first raccoon in a trap. They'd purchased fifty different traps over the years and stored them neatly in the bunker.

  She knew how upset David was that their plans had changed so quickly, and that their parents were no longer part of the equation. But he would never admit defeat. If south was where they needed to go so be it. As long as they survived to fight another day. The Monsour family would always survive.

  The door above opened and Cheryl swung back and aimed into the hole, keeping enough room so she could still see.

  Several things happened all at once, before Cheryl aimed and pulled the trigger.

  At least three men rushed from the door.

  She heard David's weapon being fired and he called out: "Cheryl, it's a trap."

  Albert yelled from a distance to take cover.

  Vern still hadn't moved and now reached for her knife. "I'm sorry," he managed before she shot him in the face.

  Chapter Eight

  At the sound of the gunshot underneath the porch, David knew Cheryl had figured it out. At least it's what he told himself so he wouldn't worry.

  He ducked back behind the door as bullets riddled the wood near his head, sending chunks of wall into the air. David relaxed, making sure no one was trying to sneak around the side of the house or look through the window to shoot him.

  A small face appeared near the crack in the window. A little boy.

  "Go and hide and get the rest of the little ones," David said before smacking his hand on the wooden barrier and scaring the kid away.

  Three more blasts rained wooden splinters on David. He slipped off the porch and ran to the front corner, in a crouch, just as four men bolted for the cars. David got off two shots and struck a man in the back, pitching him onto the grass.

  He heard shots being fired from the porch and looked up just as a man with a rifle was shot in the crotch from below, dropping him to the wood, where the next shot took his face off. Cheryl was doing alright so far.

  With his wife covering the front door, David began shooting at the two pickup trucks that were started. He didn't know what they were doing until he saw Albert slide into the passenger side of the lead vehicle.

  David aimed and took the shot as the pickup kicked up gravel but, except for blowing the side window out, he was sure he hadn't shot and killed Albert.

  A bullet zipped past his head and David turned to see a woman with a pistol at the side of the house. He had no trouble shooting her in the head. Kill or be killed.

  He tapped the radio on his belt three times, which was the signal to Cheryl to retreat. There were too many people with guns aimed at them, and too many variables. They weren't going to storm the house and have to come face to face with little kids, or kill all the grownups and leave children to fend for themselves.

  Four shots fired in rapid succession and Cheryl came running around the side of the house and right into the corn field.

  David stepped to the first row but stopped and waited.

  Two men with shotguns rounded the house and David fired, hitting one and driving the other back for cover.

  "Escape clear," Cheryl said into the two-way radio. "Follow path."

  David knew corn stalks wouldn't offer much cover if someone had a large caliber weapon or if a few members of the militia started to fire into the field, but he couldn't sit here and take fire, either.

  He slipped into the corn field and moved in the general direction of Cheryl, trying to remain as quiet as he could while zigzagging so anyone behind him couldn't get a clear shot.

  With more gunfire, he hit the ground and could hear the stalks above his head and all around him getting sliced by bullets racing through the field. He hoped Cheryl had taken what little cover there was. And was far enough into the corn or had already gotten to the next field or to where they'd parked the vehicle.

  David estimated three different shooters, but they were all standing in roughly the same area, so he had almost no chance of crossfire or getting trapped between weapons, which was a good thing. He kept low and began moving to his right, trying to get back to the road if he could, where Cheryl would swing by and pick him up.

  At least, that was the plan. Most of his plans so far had gotten changed or destroyed, and he wasn't too happy. He knew Cheryl was wondering if they'd be able to complete at least one part of their plan without a hitch.

  There were too many unforeseen circumstances affecting their progress, but David knew it was just an excuse. They had to keep moving forward and work their way through the difficulties and whatever was thrown in their way. Starting with getting out of this corn field.

  He broke through the stalks, the sound of gunfire getting further away, and looked around for the truck and his wife.

  When he saw her driving at him without any lights on before stopping, he smiled.

  "Need a lift, sailor?" Cheryl asked as he climbed into the passenger seat.

  "You sure you know how to drive this thing?"

  "You can walk." Cheryl drove away, circling the area so they didn't have to pass by the main road. This direction would add an extra ten minutes to the trip, but it would be worth it. If they were being followed, it would take their pursuers in another direction. It would also keep anyone from being led right back to Chris and his family.

  It was slow going without the lights on, and Cheryl kept her foot off the brake so there wouldn't be anything to hone in on from a distance. "I don't see pursuit yet," she said as she glanced in the rearview mirror. "How many do you think there are?"

  "I'm not sure. I do know Albert got into a truck and took off. I'm hoping it isn't back to Chris, but there's no way we'll lead the rest of them right to that family."

  "I shot Vern in the head," Cheryl said casually, but David could see the pain on her face. Killing zombies was one thing, but killing a living person takes a toll on your psyche. "Thanks for the head's up, but I'd already figured it out. He stopped staring at my ass and kept getting closer to my boot knife."

  "It was stupid bringing them back to the farm," David said. "I should've left them with Chris and Jean."

  "Why? So we'd drive back to a hostage situation or worse? I'd rather we had them close to us. At least we eliminated one of them," Cheryl said.

  "This is going to piss off the rest of the family. We need to get as far away from here as we can. We really need to get out of Iowa."

  "We still need gas. I don't think both cars are going to make it more than fifty more miles. We won't even be in Missouri by then." Cheryl glanced in the side mirrors and then at her husband. "Are we just going to keep running south?"

  David looked away from Cheryl. "I don't know. I need to think. We need to figure out what our nex
t move is, once we get away from this militia."

  They drove in silence, watching the road in front and behind, and making sure nothing came out from the endless rows of corn fields they passed.

  When a zombie stepped out, the headlights being off hiding it before they were past, David sighed. Suddenly the undead were the least of their worries.

  Chapter Nine

  Chris smiled when he saw the headlights in the distance. That was quick, he thought. "Get ready to move if we need to."

  "Is it them?" Jean asked.

  Chris glanced at the girls, sleeping in the back of the car. "Yes. Who else would it be?"

  "What was their signal?" Jean asked.

  "I don't remember. Flashing headlights, I think." Chris frowned. He'd been too stung by them not letting him go back to the farm to pay much attention. Now he wished he had, because it was one of the problems they had with him.

  "David said two flashes at the intersection." Jean got out of the car. "They passed the crossroads and didn't flash."

  "Maybe they forgot," Chris said. He looked at his wife, knowing there was no way in hell David and Cheryl would forget to do something like that. David had even taken Chris off to the side and told him the signal away from Albert and Vern.

  Jean looked worried. Chris didn't blame her. He held the M249 and Jean was holding the Sig Sauer P220 Cheryl had given them before she had left.

  "Get in the car and start the engine," Chris said.

  "Why?"

  "Because I said so." He looked at the sleeping girls. "Because it isn't the Monsours and we're in trouble. Do it."

  Jean slid over the seat and started the car. When one of the girls woke and asked what was going on, Jean told her to lie back down and go to sleep.

  Chris kept the passenger door open and stood in a defensive position. "Keep the lights off and your foot off the brake."

  "Why?"

  "Godammit, Jean, stop with all the questions. Just do what I asked. There isn’t time for me to constantly have to explain myself." Chris was about to say more, maybe even a few things he would regret in the future, when the pickup truck (not the Monsour vehicle) stopped twenty feet from them, the headlights angled to blind Chris.