Lord of the Dead Read online

  The two men outside the truck leaned in towards each other and whispered something that I couldn’t make out. Wisps of heated vapor wrapped around their heads as they spoke. One was very tall and lean. The other was shorter, but broader through the shoulders. Both wore dark clothing making it hard for me to make out any more details.

  The tall one shouted. “How do we know you won’t shoot us?”

  “You don’t,” I said. “But if we were going to do that, we probably would have already done it.”

  They spoke quietly again, then turned and put their rifles in the bed of the truck. They came forward slowly, looking up at the guard tower and then back at the others in the truck.

  Both of the men had scraggly unkempt beards, and their faces were splotched with dirt. The tall one spoke first, “We’re not here to cause any trouble.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” I said. “But what brings you here?”

  “We’ve been out looking for supplies, and we saw your place and thought we should check it out.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “About thirty miles back that way,” he said pointing over my head.

  His non-specific answer bothered me, but I could imagine his position. Still, it put us at a disadvantage because they knew where we were, but we didn’t know where they came from.

  “Near any place that we’d know about?” I asked.

  “Just outside Minford.” Another non-specific answer.

  “How many people are with your group there?”

  “Around thirty or so.”

  “What can we do for you?”

  “We were wondering if you could spare any food or other supplies. You look pretty well setup here and we’re not doing so well. The winter has hit us really hard.”

  “Well, looks can be deceiving. We’re spread pretty thin when it comes to food.” I wasn’t lying. With as many people as we had, even with limiting the food and rationing, it was a mammoth job to keep us stocked with any type of reserve. In these winter months, things were looking dire.

  “We’d be much appreciative if you could spare anything,” the short one said with a grin that revealed a mouth missing several front teeth.

  “Let me see what I can do,” I said, retrieving the walkie-talkie and stepping away from the gate about twenty steps.

  “Greg, come in.”

  It took a few seconds, but he responded. “Joel, what is it?”

  “They’re looking for food supplies. They say they have thirty people somewhere near Minford and they’re running low. What do you think we should do?”

  A new voice came over the walkie-talkie. It was Steve Hampton. “I say send them packing.”

  “Hold on, Steve,” Greg said. “We can’t go with a knee-jerk reaction.”

  Another voice sounded, “Can’t we give them something?” It was Kara this time.

  “That might be a good idea,” Greg said. “It would be a show of good will, and maybe we could downgrade the chance of any trouble.”

  “You guys are too soft.” It was Steve Hampton again. “Our food supplies aren’t that great. When was the last time one of your guys shot a deer?”

  “While I wished we had discussed this potential sooner, we can’t have a lengthy debate,” Greg said. “Hub, are you listening in?”

  Hub spoke up, “Yes. I can see Steve’s point, but I think we can show some charity and give them some food.”

  “Then, we’re in agreement,” Greg said.

  “No, we’re not,” Steve said.

  “We’ll take this discussion up later,” Greg said. “We need to get this issue resolved and come up with a long-term policy later. Kara, can you get some boxes of food prepared? Just two or three boxes, okay?”

  Kara agreed and I went back to the gate. “Gentleman, we can spare a few boxes of food, if that will work?”

  “We were hoping for more,” the short one said. But beggar’s can’t be choosers, can they?” He looked to his companion and grinned.

  I filled in Brandon and Aaron on what the decision and returned to the gate. We stood in an uncomfortable silence for several seconds as we waited. The air was crisp and clean, chilling my throat each time I took it in. When I looked up to the brilliance of azure blue sky, it seemed more intense than I had ever remembered. Chalk one up for the zombie apocalypse — less pollution.

  “How many people do you have in there?” The tall one asked.

  I decided to lie and said, “We’re just over eighty.”

  “I see a lot of lights on inside. How do you have electricity?” The short one asked.

  “We have a generator, but we only run it a few hours a day. Fuel is getting tough to come by, but we have a few solar cells on the roof.”

  “Sounds like a nice setup. We haven’t had an electric light on in months,” the short one said.

  “We are blessed,” I said, looking back at the Manor.

  Again, we waited in silence. After about a minute, the front doors of the main building opened, and Kara pushed out a cart stacked with boxes. Henry, Greg’s son, helped push it through the snow, but it was a difficult ride as the cart bumped over the ruts of ice. Both of them carried rifles slung over their shoulders.

  Filling the quiet, I said, “Here they come.”

  The distance between the gate and the Manor was just about a football field. The cart bounced along. It took another two minutes for them to make it to just inside the gate.

  “What have you got?” The tall one asked.

  Kara replied, “We have a couple of boxes of canned tuna fish, a box of peanut butter, and a couple of boxes of canned vegetables. Sorry, it’s the best we could do.”

  “That’s okay,” the short one said.

  “Gentleman, could you step away from the gate?” I asked.

  Initially, they seemed hesitant but then moved back a couple of steps. I motioned for Kara to stay where she was, and I went back to her and grabbed the cart handle.

  “I can get it,” she said.

  “I know, but I’ll take care of it,” I said, as I started toward the gate with the cart. She started to follow, but I gave her the stop signal.

  “Gentleman, I’m going to pull the cart outside the gate, and I’m going to take the boxes off the cart,” I said. “When I move back, you’ll come forward and get them.”

  “You don’t have to go to all that trouble,” the short one said.

  “But I’ll do it just the same,” I said as I made to it the gate. “Steve, go ahead and open the gate.”

  The gate stayed closed, and I looked up to the guard tower to see Steve glowering down at me. “Steve, you can open the gate. It’s going to be okay.” He emitted a less than subtle grunting noise and hit the mechanism that opened the gate. The gate swung gently outwards, brushing along the upper crusts of the snow, squeaking slightly as it went.

  As soon as it was fully open, I started moving forward with the cart. It bounced along on the snow ridges, and I wondered if we would have been better off pulling it on a sled. I stopped once I got the outside gate and started off loading the boxes. I made it through the tuna and the peanut butter, setting them on the snow, but when I lifted the final box of vegetables off the cart, my foot slipped, and I went to one knee.

  The short man moved up to catch me and said, “The road sure is slippery. Let me help.” He was beside me in a moment and grabbed my arm, helping me up. I was glad for the assistance, knowing my cheeks were flushed with embarrassment after my stumble. It just went to prove that pride still existed even in the face of the zombie apocalypse.

  Any sense of embarrassment slipped away in an instant when I felt the short man jab something hard into my side. “Don’t say a word. That’s a pistol, and I won’t hesitate to pull the trigger.”

  “Now, you don’t have to do this,” I said.

  “You’ve got a lot more food in there and other things my people could use. We want it.”

  “I think we’ve been more than generous.”


  “It’s not enough. If you don’t want your guts blown out, you’ll have them give us some more.”

  “That’s not happening,” I said, but my heart was racing. Playing brave was easier than being brave.

  “Maybe, we’ll just come in and help ourselves.”

  It was time for me to make something happen. “He’s got a gun!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

  “You shouldn’t have done that. Duane, Harley. Pop on up,” the short one said and two guys with rifles rose from the bed of the truck. The tall one now had a large pistol aimed up at the guard tower.

  “We don’t want no trouble,” the short one shouted. “We just want some more of what you gave us and we’ll be on our way.”

  “This is no way to get what you want,” I said.

  “It’s worked pretty well for us in the past,” he said in a half-whisper.

  “Drop your guns,” Steve Hampton shouted aiming down at them with his rifle. Even at the distance I was away, I could see the barrel shaking almost convulsively.

  “Put them down,” Kara said, she was down on one knee, aiming her rifle at the men. Henry had moved away from Kara and had his rifle up and ready. Brandon and Aaron had their weapons out, too.

  “If you don’t put down your guns, I’m going to have to shoot this man,” the short one said, his breath reeking of cigarettes and weeks of not brushing; proving yet another victory for the zombie apocalypse — the lapse of dental hygiene.

  “They’re not going to give in,” I said, trying to deescalate the situation.

  “We’ve got men up in the ridges of the hills, and they have targeted each one of you,” the short one shouted. Steve Hampton ducked out of view from his place in the guard tower. “You need to back off and let us come in and see what we can get from you. That way everyone stays alive.”

  “You’re not getting inside,” I said. “No way in Hell. You had better just back-off and I mean now.”

  “You’re a brave one,” he said to me, then shouted, “Now, I’m going to count to three. I want all your guns on the ground before I get done or else I’m going to shoot this man.”

  “Go ahead and shoot him!” I said back to the folks on my team.

  No one moved. Kara had her aim locked in on the short one. I could see Henry, standing rigidly, his rifle targeting the tall man. The barrel of his rifle shook just a little. Brandon and Aaron were spreading out in different directions, aiming at the men in the truck. I couldn’t see the men in our two front-facing guard rooms on the third floor. I only hoped Steve Hampton had regained his courage enough to be ready for a possible shoot out.

  “One…,” the short one shouted.

  “Two…”

  “Three…”

  I actually expected him to back down, but to my surprise, he pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 3

  Foes

  A mule kicked me in the side, and I immediately fell back and away from the short guy, hitting the ground hard, my rifle sliding away from me across the slick driveway. An intense throbbing pain rippled across from my chest from the impact of the bullet, and I found it hard to catch my breath.

  That’s when the shooting started. The short guy knelt down next to me, thinking that he had finished me off and began firing back at Kara.

  It took me about five seconds to regain my senses and react. He must have thought I was dead, but Kevlar vests were such a great invention. Despite the fact that the vest had saved my life, I still felt as if someone had slammed my chest with a ten-pound sledgehammer.

  I peeked up at the guard tower by the gate. Steve Hampton was nowhere to be seen. The men in the bed of the pickup fired repeatedly in the direction of The Manor. I also saw motion on the other side of the pickup, followed by muzzle flashes. A couple more shooters had to be over there.

  I looked back and saw Kara drop to the ground and roll to avoid the bullets flying at her. Henry also scrambled for cover. Something in me snapped, and I shot out a foot, planting it directly in the short guy’s face, knocking him backward. Blood gushed from his broken nose. As he went down, he dropped his gun into the snow between us.

  Bullets whizzed past me, and the tall man spun, blood gushing off his torso, and he fell. Sporadic shots came from the guard rooms in the building, but I had to guess they were taking careful shots, afraid of hitting me.

  Someone cried out behind me, and I heard something metal hit the ground. The voice sounded like Aaron, but I wasn’t sure.

  Things were getting out of hand. Without more support, we were going to be in big trouble.

  The short one started to stir, and I considered pulling my Glock but wasn’t sure I’d be able to retrieve the gun from under my snow gear fast enough. Getting his gun seemed to be the best bet before he rallied. So I lunged forward and grasped for it. My hands felt like frozen clubs in the cold and glanced off of the gun, sending it sliding away.

  He sat up and saw me moving. For a split second, he seemed stunned, blood dropping in big globs from his shattered nose. He broke from his momentary trance and shot into action as he went for the pistol, too. A barrage of bullets flew over our heads in both directions

  I don’t know which of us was in worse shape, but the race was on as we both scrambled forward on our hands and knees, staying beneath the gunfire. The hard crust of the snow cut into my knees as I fast crawled towards the gun. I could tell the race was going to be close, and he beat me to the gun by an instant. I was in a proverbial no-man’s land. Retreat wasn’t an option, so I pushed off with my legs, propelling myself forward. I slammed into his torso as he began to rise, just before he could get a good grip on the gun. We rolled across the ground as I tried to wrestle it away from him, but he had the advantage after getting his hands on it first. The only thing going my way was that he grabbed the gun from the top, leaving his fingers millimeters from the trigger. Those millimeters were keeping me alive.

  We rolled about ten feet, ending with him on top of me. My focus locked on the gun, grabbing at it with both hands. He reared back with his free hand and popped me in the face twice. The punches jarred me, snapping my head back against the frozen ground. My grip loosened as stars danced in my vision. He wrenched the gun away, took a split second to get his finger on the trigger, and started bringing the gun down in a quick arc towards my face.

  At the last instant, I brought both my hands up and interrupted that arc, grabbing his hands where they met at the wrist. I looked up into his face, and his expression was one of pure rage; his eyes filled with bloodlust. He grunted with exertion as he tried to force the gun down toward me. His weight and gravity worked against me as the gun’s barrel inched towards my face. Blood dripped off his ruined nose onto my chin as he pushed the downward.

  I saw him smile as he pulled the trigger. Thunder boomed in my ears as a bullet flew just past my head, knocking up chips of ice and snow that landed in my eyes, blurring my vision.

  The muscles in my arms screamed at me that they had had enough. There was no way I was going to keep him from shooting me. He had everything going for him, so I radically changed my tactics. I rolled to my right and simultaneously jerked his arms down. He was completely taken by surprise; his eyes went wide as he flew towards the ground. When the gun impacted with the icy driveway, it went off again, and the bullet shot a hole through the hood of my coat.

  I rolled back to my left and slammed my right shoulder into the side of his head, sending him rolling away from me in the snow.

  My only option was to roll away in the opposite direction, hoping that someone else might take him out before he righted himself and shot me. With my first revolution, I saw his body come to a stop. In my second revolution, I saw him come to his knees and start to bring the gun up in my direction. With my last revolution, I saw him taking dead aim on me. That’s when his face exploded, and he went down, flopping in the snow. I stopped rolling after my final revolution and saw his legs kick in a convulsive death throe. After about five seconds, they went still.
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  I reached inside my coat and retrieved my Glock and took aim towards the pickup truck. The tall guy dragged himself along the ground to safety. The guys behind the pickup laid the fire power on. Snow and ice sprayed across my face from the bullets that landed just in front of me.

  I returned fire but still felt like a sitting duck out in the middle of the driveway. My bullets plunked uselessly into the side of the truck. The only good they did me was to force the guys behind the truck to duck for cover. Kara and Henry fired at the truck, and the guys in the guard rooms now fired unfettered at them. Still with all this in my favor, it was only a matter of time before one of them popped up and took me out.

  “Joel, pull back,” Kara shouted behind me, “we’ll cover you.”

  It was against my every impulse, but I rose to a crouching position and started moving back, firing at the truck. Bullets flew past me at a dizzying rate.

  One of the guys in the bed of the truck cried out, and it looked as if he had been punched in the back as he fell over the side of the truck and onto the ground in our direction. That shot had come from behind him.

  That’s when the tide turned in our favor. The shots had to be from Greg and Travis. They had flanked the attackers, leaving them sandwiched between our two forces. After only a few more shots and the men behind the truck dropped their rifles and put their hands in the air.

  Silence fell over the scene and felt unnatural after the cacophony of battle.

  “Keep your hands in the air, and move out from behind the truck,” a voice shouted from one of the sloping hills behind the driveway. The men complied, looking over their shoulders at the cavalry coming over the hill.

  Greg and Travis appeared and worked their way down the hill slowly, their guns still trained on the men around the truck.

  “Anyone hurt on our team?” I shouted.

  “Aaron took a shot in the leg, but it looks like it grazed him,” Brandon said. I looked back to see Aaron sitting in a heap, a grimace pulling his face tight.