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  Into the Deadlands

  Books of the Dead 4

  By R.J. Spears

  Cover Art by: R.J. Spears

  Copyright.

  R.J. Spears

  ©2017, R.J. Spears

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book, including the cover and photos, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher. All rights reserved.

  Any resemblance to persons, places living or dead is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction.

  Books of the Dead

  Sanctuary from the Dead

  Lord of the Dead

  Dead Man's Land

  Into the Deadlands

  Chapter 1

  Night Run

  It was a dark and stormy night.

  Oh geez, I know I sounded like the worst book ever written. It wasn’t raining cats and dogs, either. This was a monster storm. It was raining elephants and blue whales. The raindrops came down like hammers, pounding on the exterior of the truck. Water seeped through gunshot holes that peppered the exterior. Those were a result of a recent battle to the death with a madman I liked to call the “Lord of the Dead.” More about him later.

  By the way, we won the battle to the death. If we hadn’t, we would be dead and not riding around in the middle of the night in a driving thunderstorm. But the battle had cost so much. Friends lost, and we were on the run.

  I could barely see out the front windshield. It didn’t help that I couldn’t use my headlights, leaving me virtually blind, navigating on a hope and a prayer. The only thing that helped me see at all were the sporadic strikes of lightning which simultaneously illuminated the road and blinded me with their brilliance.

  Why was I driving with no headlights, you might ask?

  Two attack helicopters were diligently swooping across the sky, ready to unleash their heavy weapons on us, that’s why. They would turn our truck and us into Swiss cheese if they spotted us driving wildly in the night. We had seen and heard them in the night sky despite the near-constant thunder. When you are about to die, it makes you keenly aware of what is going on around you.

  We were fugitives from a military contingent that had taken our home base and had taken all of our friends hostage. They came in like the cavalry, shooting up the place with their flying death machines. They had taken the place using a surgical strike much like the Germans invading Poland in WWII. Now, they were after us.

  Periodically, when the thunder and rain let up, I could hear the whomping of their blades in the night sky, distant, but close at the same time. I saw what the guns on their birds could do, and it scared the living shit out of me.

  My traveling companions were my girlfriend, Kara, Brother Ed (our resident sour puss), Naveen, a young girl I had rescued from certain death, and one that Kara and I had unofficially adopted. Last, but not least was a young man named Jason. He was special and the reason we were driving in the night with killer attack helicopters chasing us. The military wanted him in the worst way.

  Why was he special? Well, he was immune to the zombie virus and maybe the only hope for humanity to survive.

  The military wanted him, too. Except I’m not sure they wanted him alive. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand that, but it was my theory that dark forces were at work and they had co-opted whoever was in charge of the military strike force.

  Did I mention that we were in the middle of a zombie apocalypse? Sorry, we were.

  Let the good times roll.

  Speaking of zombies, one made its appearance just as I ran the truck around a long curve in the road. At that point, I didn’t know it was a zombie. In the darkness and the pouring rain, it was just an inky black form in the road. A humanoid figure with two arms, two legs, and a head, standing erect in the center of the road, arms outstretched as if beckoning us to stop. That was the best I could discern because the truck smashed into it.

  “SHITTTTT!” I yelled, slamming on the brakes on pure instinct. In the old world of the living, that’s what you did. Old habits die hard. Of course, then you called the police and your insurance agent. Those habits were now just relics of days gone by.

  I did what I could to keep the truck in a straight line but the tires lost traction on the wet pavement, and we went into an uncontrolled spin. My view out of the windshield became a swirl of darkness in which I saw shadowy glimpses of trees, the road, and the night sky, all in a kaleidoscope-like fashion. It almost made me want to toss my cookies. Our little detour ended with a resounding thump on the back fender as the truck skidded to a stop with all of us close to hyperventilating.

  “Joel, I think you hit someone,” Naveen said, her voice small and quavering.

  When I looked back at her, her eyes were wide in the middle of her light brown face.

  “Yep, it looks like I did,” I said, trying to downplay the incident.

  After being tossed around inside the truck like a salad, it took a few moments for all of us to get our bearings. Brother Ed, all five foot, ten inches of lankiness, was the first one out of the truck, rifle in hand, ready to take on whatever was out there. There was something about his all-legs and arms appearance that conjured up in my imagination the likes of someone like Ichabod Crane.

  I jumped out next, making sure I grabbed my rifle, but not quite as ready and eager as Brother Ed. I looked behind us and saw that the truck had collided with a small sapling, cracking the tiny thing in two, with half of it draping sadly across the road. Brother Ed moved around the front of the truck, sweeping his rifle back and forth, watching for any movement in the darkness while the rain swept across us in sheets.

  Kara jumped out behind me, rifle in hand, and let out a small yelp as the shock of the cold rain assaulted her on all sides.

  We both moved out in front of the truck to come alongside Brother Ed.

  “What was it?” Kara asked, having to almost yell to be heard over the storm.

  “I have no idea other than it looked like a person,” I shouted back.

  “A live person?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, feeling a lump of iciness slip into my midsection contemplating the idea that what I hit could have been a real live person.

  “No, it ain’t,” Brother Ed said as he raised his rifle and aimed it a mass in the road. The mass was moving our way, pulling itself along on its arms, its legs broken and useless, dragging behind it like a snail’s tail.

  Even through the rain, we knew what was coming our way wasn’t human. No living, breathing human could take that kind of hit and still come for us. Only one type of creature, feeling one kind of feeling could do that. And that was a zombie, driven by its insatiable hunger.

  Some things never change.

  I shot out a hand and pushed down Brother Ed’s barrel. “No use advertising our presence to the eyes in the sky,” I said, thumbing toward the night sky.

  “I don’t hear any choppers,” Brother Ed said.

  “I’m not sure what they can hear over this storm,” I replied. “It’s best not to take any chances.”

  I saw him pondering my assertion, but then I heard a slight snapping noise behind me and a beam of light shot through the rain and landed on the zombie in the road. Its face was smashed in, revealing its teeth and an almost inverted nose. It pushed out a broken hand onto the road and pulled its ruined body toward us, one painful foot at a time.

  My concern, at that point, wasn’t the zombie. No, that wasn’t shooting up my bloo
d pressure. It was the light. I snapped my head around and saw Naveen standing in the rain beside the truck. She looked soaked to the bone already as she held the light on the zombie, her hands shaking.

  “Get that light out,” I shouted to be heard over the storm, immediately regretting the harshness in my tone.

  Naveen jumped at my voice and tried to thumb the flashlight off, but couldn’t get the switch to snap to the off position as the beam jumped up and down.

  “Let me help,” Kara said, now standing was beside the truck. I saw Jason craning his head out of the window, getting a look at the zombie slowly crawling our way.

  “No, I can get it,” Naveen said snapping the flashlight away from Kara’s grasp. The motion was too fast and the flashlight too heavy. It was a large metal flashlight, with some heft to it, good to light things up and also to bash in zombie skulls, if necessary. Slick from the rain, it slipped from Naveen’s hand and hit the asphalt hard with a metal clank and started rolling down the road, the beam flashing up and down again, picking up speed on a slight downgrade.

  I ran after it, but the road was slick from all the rain, and I nearly fell after my third step. It forced me to slow down or else I would end up on my ass. The flashlight rolled along the road, its beam flashing on the trees and bushes along the side of the road like a strobe light. I kept after it, my heart racing as I went.

  The flashlight finally hit a lip in the road and jumped in the air, sending its beam into the night sky. It flipped over a couple more times before coming to rest in the soggy grass beside the road. I scampered down the road, managing to maintain my feet, and snatched it up, pushing the beam into my stomach. It took a couple of seconds, but I finally was able to get the sticky on/off switch to yield. The light shut off with a click.

  No sooner had I flipped it off than we all heard the whomp-whomp-whomp of rotor blades coming through the thunder and teeming rain. The iciness I felt in my gut before became a glacier.

  “Oh shit,” I said, under my breath and all of us looked up into the sky as rain splashed across our faces.

  Everyone froze in place. The roar of the helicopter came closer as we all hoped it would fly on into the night, off in another direction.

  Our hopes went unanswered as a sun-like beam flashed on in the sky and began sweeping the trees off to the west of the road. Like a giant eye, it swept its gaze closer and closer to our group.

  All of us remained like statues. If the others were like me, they were holding their breaths.

  I weighed our choices. We could make a dash for it in the truck or we could abandon ship. I guessed the helicopter had all sort of advanced devices including night vision. The pounding rain and all the territory they had to cover was the only thing that had saved our asses up until then.

  “Get out of the truck!” I shouted, breaking our stasis.

  The others looked at me with vapid expressions. “Get away from the truck. They’ll target it.”

  Jason clamored out of the truck ten seconds later holding a couple of things in his hands. One was my trusty zombie killing baseball bat, and the other was a small duffle bag.

  The sound of the helicopter’s engine grew ominously closer as Jason moved away from the truck. All of our eyes went to the sky, scanning back and forth looking for anything that could tell us where the helicopter was, but the storm, which had veiled our escape in the night, made it nearly impossible to see anything as the rain kept falling in torrents, battering our faces when we looked up.

  I kept watching while the others grouped up on me. A flash of lightning seared my eyes, followed by a crack of thunder, rolling across the hills. But in that flash, I thought I saw the outline of a large dark form just to the south, hovering in the night sky.

  “Get into the woods,” I yelled as I pushed Kara and Naveen ahead of me toward a stand of trees off to our right. Brother Ed and Jason followed close behind. We were barely off the road when the sound of the rain was trumped by the terrible staccato blast of the helicopter’s rapid fire guns.

  I watched over my shoulder as a string of bullets ripped down the road, shredding the asphalt, leading in a trail toward the truck. It happened in only seconds, as a river of bullets slammed into the side of the truck, tearing into the metal, sending sparks, and pieces of it into the air like confetti. Given another context, I might have found it awesome, but it was just mind-numbingly terrifying.

  I guessed that they were taking no chances and shot up anything moving that night.

  The helicopter zoomed overhead and passed by us, but I could tell from the sound of its engines that it was swooping around for another pass.

  “Run,” I yelled, but the others didn’t need any urging.

  We ran through the trees, barely knowing what was in front of us, but being torn apart by a rain of bullets was a great motivator as we stumbled along. Kara’s foot caught on something, and she nearly went down, but I caught her arm in time, buoying her up. There was no time for ‘thank yous’ as we ran pell-mell through the woods, listening to the helicopter and its heavy guns making brief work of our truck.

  I tried my best to keep track of our group, but in the dark, it was a real challenge. I focused on Kara and Naveen as we ran as fast as the thick underbrush would allow. More than once, I felt the tug of a vine or the tearing of a thorn bush, but shook them off, knowing they were nothing when compared with the caliber of bullets that the helicopter could bear down on us.

  The firing from the helicopter continued for a few more seconds as we ran, but then let up. I decided to stop running to get some sort of assessment on what they were doing. That turned out to be a big mistake. As soon as I let up, Brother Ed slammed into my back and sent me sprawling forward face-first onto the muddy trail. I must have slid fifteen feet like I was on a water weenie, only there were no giddy screams of delight as I slid past Kara and Naveen who fortunately dodged out of my way.

  My slide ended just two feet in front of a large oak tree. Brother Ed must have followed me in my slide because he collided with my feet.

  There was no time for pride or dignity. I shook off the mud that collected on my face and arms and got back to my feet. Somehow, I managed to hold onto my rifle throughout the slide.

  “What were you thinkin’?” Brother Ed hissed out, obviously dismayed at my abrupt stop.

  “Apparently, I wasn’t thinking,” I said and put out my hand to help him up from a sitting position. Reluctantly, he grabbed my hand, and I pulled him to his feet. “Let’s group up here,” I added.

  Kara and Naveen came back to where Brother Ed and I stood next to an oak tree, and Jason huddled up with us. Each one of us looked worse for the wear as water dripped off our hair, and our clothes were completely soaked. The old oak offered a slight reprieve from the full effects of the punishing rains.

  “How are we doing on weapons?” I said as quietly as I could. I had a rifle and a pistol, but I doubted any of us were better off than I was.

  “I’ve got my rifle,” Kara said, holding out her trusty rifle. She was a crack shot with it, so it was a good thing she hadn’t lost it.

  “I have my gun,” Naveen said showing us her .45 caliber automatic. It looked enormous in her small and delicate hands. She wasn’t a great shot, but we needed everyone we could to be armed.

  “I have my assault rifle and a few mags,” Brother Ed said.

  “How about you, Jason?” I asked.

  He shrugged and held out my baseball bat and a small duffel bag that I recognized as our extra ammunition bag.

  “What happened to your weapon?” Brother Ed said with an obvious scowl.

  Again, Jason just shrugged because that was the best he could do. Did I mention that he was mute? That came as a result of experiments conducted by the same military contingent that made us go on the run, and that was chasing us with helicopters. They wanted Jason, dead or alive it appeared. I couldn’t see why they would want him dead because dead people were hard to experiment on, but I feared that their commander wa
s a bit off his rocker. I also feared darker forces were at work.

  Yes, from time-to-time, God sent me messages. They were mostly of the cryptic and frustrating text message variety, rarely making much sense, but He had picked me as His conduit for some mysterious and unfathomable reason. To any impartial outside observer, I would have been at the end of the line as a spokesperson for God, but go figure. God moves in mysterious ways.

  His last dispatches were less clear than ever, but I got a sense that big moves were happening on some sort of universal chessboard that ruled our chaotic world. Where in the past, it was us staying alive in a battle versus the undead, it now seemed like the big players were at work in a cosmic showdown. We were only pawns, as usual. The only thing we knew for sure, was that we were to head north. The rest of the plan was fuzzy, which was par for the course.

  These recent snapshots and thumbnail messages were confusing and less than clear signals but Naveen and Jason felt the same way. They, like me, were now getting the transmissions and confirmed my uneasy vibes that things were coming to a head.

  None of us knew where they would lead is, and didn’t like the veil of doubt that lay before us, but we had our orders, and we were sticking with them.

  I decided to cut to the chase about our resources and asked, “How is everyone with ammo?”

  After everyone shared their meager supplies, we learned just how costly our hurried escape from the truck was. Between us, we had five mags for our assault rifles, Kara had two for her rifle, and Naveen only had what was in her gun with what it held. We didn’t have a huge stockpile in the truck, but it was considerably more than we were carrying. We also lost almost all of our hand-to-hand weapons with exception of my baseball bat.

  The picture was worse when it came to food and water. We came away with jack squat. That meant we were already in trouble. My stomach rumbled with hunger at the thought of another day with no food.