Beyond Dead | Book 4 | The Island Read online

  BEYOND DEAD

  The Island

  Copyright © 2017 Christopher Frost

  This is a book of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and even events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places of persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  ALSO BY CHRISTOPHER FROST

  NOVELLAS

  SCORNED

  LAST EXIT

  COLLECTIONS

  SURFACE

  NOVELS

  THE OATH

  THE LOST ONES

  BEYOND DEAD SERIAL NOVELS

  THE COUGH

  THE DAY THE WHOLE WORLD WENT AWAY

  ON THE ROAD

  For Mariano

  Chapter 1

  There were pockets of survivors everywhere.

  Each town appeared to have their own rallying group to defend the living from the undead. The Hobo King had gotten better with his stitching and sewn a girl with hair as dark as night – he guessed some would have perceived her as beautiful once – but she had filled her imperfections with silicone and poisons. He had filled her with his own concoction of poisons to keep her placid as he wove his sharp needle and threaded it between her eyelids and the small patch of flesh below her eye so that both were sewn shut. The mouth, he had found, he didn’t particularly like sewn completely shut. So, the thread was able to spread between her lips about as wide as a person could stick their finger in her mouth. This allowed for the Hobo King to hear all of her screams and pleads, whimpers and whines.

  He had taken a U-Haul trailer and tied a group of six zombies like a dog sled to pull the trailer. From the trailer, he suspended a cage that he put his perfectly fake prize in and watched as she writhed and twisted against the metal enclosure trying to find a way to get free in the darkness that he had sewn her into. She was completely naked and at first this gave him great pleasure but he was getting tired of the sight of her now and thought soon he would have to find something new to play with.

  For now, she was a terrifying sight to any of the survivors that lurked inside of buildings or watched as small militias waiting to strike. The Hobo King walked with his army of undead and waving the one living thing among all the dead from a dangling metal cage.

  The Hobo King thought that her false beauty would rally some of the younger men to want to save her. Chivalry wasn’t truly dead, could it be? No. They would come for the bait.

  At the edge of the road was another sign announcing another town.

  Derry est. 1719

  The sign was carved from wood and the Hobo King found himself walking toward this sign. It was unmarked as others had been in previous towns that he had conquered. There were no signs of graffiti or warnings or help (spray painted in red of course) with the number of survivors still located in town. That last part always helped especially when they left direction for him. This sign was unmolested and the Hobo King was drawn to it.

  “I know you,” he stuttered as his hand reached out and his fingers pressed against the cold wet wood and the carving of the town’s name.

  Chapter 2

  The two-vehicle convoy that had driven from Tilton around the lake had come to their final destination. Bob engaged the blinker and slowly the Ram made its way onto Summit Avenue. Everything was as quiet as they had come to expect as they drove through town. There had been zombies walking about but nothing as large as any of the hordes they had come across. Summit Avenue was also empty but gave way to a bridge that sloped so far up you could not see the other side without first getting to the top.

  Blocking the entrance were a couple cars. The men got out and moved them in neutral and pushed them out of the way of the road and then everyone got back in their vehicles.

  “Why are you not going?” Rebel pushed between Kiefer and Bob and pointed out the window. “We’re here. Let’s go.”

  “Calm down, girl, and sit back,” Bob told her and continued to stare at the large hill of pavement and guardrail.

  Bob saw the flash of the headlights from the Audi behind him. He was being flashed rapidly and if the large truck wasn’t smack dab in the middle of the road, he thought that Tuck might have just driven around him. He unrolled his window and put his hand out to signal for Tuck to hold up a minute. Tuck got out of the car.

  Seeing Tuck get out, Bob threw the Ram in park and got out himself.

  “You got the same weird feeling I do about this?” Tuck asked.

  “Depends what weird feeling you got, Tuck? I was thinking you were going to just try and go around me, but I don’t like the look of that bridge.”

  “It’s not the bridge I don’t like,” Tuck said standing beside Bob, “It’s what’s waiting at the bottom on the other side.”

  “Zombies?”

  “Maybe.” He took a couple paces closer, “I’m looking at all these houses and Rebel told us most of them go for ten million plus. Would you just leave your investment or home to the dead? Almost all of them are gated in some way she said except the beach and we haven’t seen any swimming Michel Phelps yet.”

  “What do you have in mind – ” Bob almost called him ‘son’ again but caught himself at the last second and let the sentence hang.

  “Kiefer, you, me and Rebel go – ”

  “No,” Bob interjected.

  “No, what? You haven’t even heard what I’m going to say.”

  “Rebel stays. We aren’t taking a child with us up there, Tuck!”

  “Last time I checked, Rebel, is anything but a child. And she is the only person in this group that is not an outsider walking into a floating fucking castle of rich assholes in a state that hands out guns like fucking candy. I don’t want this turning into the O.K. Corral.”

  “Rich people with itchy trigger fingers. Got it. What is this plan?”

  Chapter 3

  Rebel was behind the wheel of the Ram. She had the Springfield Armory .45 that she had pilfered from that abandoned house her and Forrest had crashed the night in. It sat between her legs because she was unable to hold it while she drove but Tuck had assured her there was one in the chamber and all she had to do was pull the trigger. Tuck had wanted to be on her side but Bob had insisted and in the end Tuck relented to the old man. Rebel steered and was barely going five miles per hour as they approached the base of the bridge. The plow was lifted so it was high enough to almost block her view and Tuck had told her she could lie down in the cab and be safe behind the metal if things went south. Bob and Tuck had both the driver side and passenger side doors open and were using them as shields with the hunting rifles perched in the open windows. Kiefer was in the back. Tuck had told him to stay down and out of sight and wait for his signal – this signal that she had expected Tuck to make up would be all Hollywood and him making bird calls or something and instead it was him just going to scream ‘BACK’ – and if he gave the signal she was to throw the truck into reverse, get down, hold the wheel as straight as she could and floor it.

  Simple plan.

  In all her years that her parents had owned the house on Governor’s Island she had never tried to sneak onto it. Just off. And always been successful. So why did she feel so much dread as the truck inched forward to the top of the bridge?

  “We got company,” Tuck said and readjusted his rifle.

  Rebel felt her stomach ti
e in a knot at her bare thighs clench the cold metal of the gun.

  “Okay, okay,” Tuck whispered to her and his eyes fell to Bob, “That’s far enough. Remember the plan.”

  Yeah.

  The plan.

  Rebel was supposed to stop the truck but throw it in reverse and keep her foot on the brake but ready to pound the gas if Tuck gave the order. Her heart was pounding and her mouth was dry. She licked her dry lips but it did nothing to moisten them.

  “Who goes there?” A voice yelled from beyond the front of the truck like a sentry guard in some medieval movie with castles and knights and fair maidens.

  “We’re escorting a resident of this island to her home. Will you let us pass?” Tuck asked in a kind of voice that didn’t fit him at all. He sounded kind – no that wasn’t it he always sounded kind – no, Tuck sounded meek, small and not threatening at all. As if he were some scrawny man in an oversized dress up shirt with tie and glasses like Clark Kent. Just like Clark Kent, Tuck, presented this disguise of a weaker man when underneath there was a super-man ready to strike.

  “We’ve had looters trying to get on,” the voice responded as if this was to make perfect sense to them.

  “If we were here to loot, we wouldn’t have come up so calmly. May I step out?” Tuck asked the voice that Rebel still could not see.

  “Toss your weapon.”

  “Afraid I can’t do that anymore than I would ask you to do the same. Life has changed and changed fast. We have zombies walking around the world now and people turning into monsters. I don’t know you and you don’t know me. Fair enough. But I can’t toss this weapon and more than I would expect all of you to lower yours,” Tuck said.

  All of yours?

  Jesus, how many people were down there? Rebel thought.

  “Tell you what I’ll do,” Tuck continued with his speech, “I’ll lower my weapon. Point it right down at the pavement and I’ll come out from around this truck and we can discuss how to move forward like civilized people and not monsters. You can take your chance and meet me half way. Hell, all your boys don’t even need to lower their weapons I’m so confident we are going to come to an agreement. It’ll just be me.”

  There was a long pause that Rebel could only assume were the others on the island trying to figure out what to do with this smooth-talking man. She wondered if any one of the sensed as she did how dangerous Tuck really was?

  “Tuck what’s going on?” Rebel whisper-yelled at him.

  He pushed his hand out to silence her and kept his eyes on the unknown number of people ahead of them. Bob was quiet and still. He hadn’t moved. Not even to wipe the sweat from his brow that occasionally trickled around his eyes. Bob viewed through the sight on the rifle and kept still with his finger laced around the trigger. She couldn’t see Kiefer but imagined he must have been feeling a lot like her. Out of the loop and maybe a bit scared. Even if she didn’t want to admit that last part.

  “Just you,” someone said. Rebel didn’t think it was the same voice that had been talking to Tuck before. It sounded older. Mature.

  “Sure thing.”

  Tuck slowly stepped back away from the passenger door and withdrew his weapon immediately lowering the barrel toward the worn light grey pavement with its faded double lines. He stepped out to the right so that he was fully exposed to whatever waited at the bottom of the hill.

  People with guns.

  Who could move faster than zombies and probably outnumbered Tuck, Bob and fucking Kiefer in the back with his ball cap pulled so far down over his face he probably couldn’t even line up a shot properly.

  As Tuck stepped away Rebel reached for the shifter and as quiet as possible, she shifted the Ram from reverse to park. Her hand came down to the gun and wrapped around the cold steel, her finger feeling the triggers resistance. She crawled across the cab keeping her head down and out of sight.

  “Rebel?” Bob whispered with anger in his voice at her actions. She ignored him as always. Like she had told him before she already had one shitty father and didn’t need another. Even though she would have secretly been grateful to have a man like Bob as her father. “Rebel? Get the fuck back in the truck.”

  She ignored him.

  Of course.

  Rebel stepped out of the truck and gripped the trigger of her gun as she walked up beside a placid Tuck that was trying to calm the situation. Whatever it was. Her weapon rested on her bare shoulder where her Billy Idol shirt hung off and midriff caught the breeze from the lake.

  “Holy shit,” Rebel laughed and waved her gun around. At the bottom of the hill on Summit Avenue were a Cadillac Escalade and Mercedes Benz GLC parked nose to nose. There was a small gathering of people all of whom Rebel knew. Only one of the group actually lived on the island year round. The rest were transplants like herself. Rich people with too much money so they buy lavish houses on a small island on an even smaller bit of land where they park their hundred thousand dollar cars and million dollar boats that belong in an ocean rather than a lake. Even a massive lake like Winnipesaukee.

  “Amy?” it was a woman’s voice. She stepped from around two men that also held hunting rifles. They appeared unsure who to being pointing them at Rebel or Tuck, when the woman grabbed one of the men’s rifle by the barrel and pushed it down, “Fredrick Pike, do not point that rifle at her!”

  “Mrs. Bhattacharjee!” Rebel ran into the arms of the woman that she had known for most of her life. While the rest of the neighborhood children had always called the Bhattacharjee mister and missus bee it was Rebel alone who had taken the time to learn how to properly pronounce her neighbors Indian name. Mostly while watching her paint inside her studio shed her husband had built for her as an anniversary gift. “I didn’t think – ”

  “I know, Amy. It’s alright.” Mrs. Bhattacharjee said as she held Rebel like only a mother knows how to hold a child, and stroked her hair while she let Rebel cry silently into the crook of her neck.

  Chapter 4

  “Why are you here, Rebel?”

  “Who are your friends?”

  “What’s the deal?”

  Three boys stood out from behind a pickup. All toting guns like the other residents on the bridge. They wore masks made from the skulls of deer with long antlers and black make up or shoe polish around their eyes to better hide them through the skull’s eyeholes. The skulls were painted in different colors each unique the one wearer with symbols or sigils painted on the forehead.

  Rebel lifted her head from Mrs. Bhattacharjee’s neck and wiped her eyes across her shirt as she let her hair fall in front of her face so no one could see that she was crying.

  Rebel was giggling, “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

  “Amy?” Mrs. Bhattacharjee scolded for the language. She always allowed Rebel to be herself and vent her frustrations with her parents and whatever boy she was hooking up with at the time, but she had no use for foul language and Rebel knew better.

  “So, the world ends and the Trinity Twins go cosplay super villains.”

  One of the Trinity Twins behind the dark red mask said, “Fuck you, Rebel!”

  “We did. Twice, I think. You guys were the worst lay I ever had. In fact,” she waved a finger at the three of them, “one of you couldn’t even get it up. Take off your mask so I can point you out.” Her smile grew.

  “Ha, you think you can tell us apart?”

  “I may be a self-declared slut,” Rebel said as she started walking towards the three brothers, “but I a fucking smart and have a hell of a memory. So, you wanna take those masks off boys?”

  “Bitch!” One of the Trinity Twins screamed and lifted his rifle pointing it at Rebel’s head.

  The gun went off.

  “No!” Mrs. Bhattacharjee screamed as she lunged for Rebel.

  The gun went off harmlessly into the air as Tuck tore it out of one of the boy’s hands and used the butt of the rifle to smash the fingers around the trigger of the boy. The third and final boy he swung the rifle
at and hit him in the nuts and as he crumbled to the pavement Tuck stripped him of his weapon as well. Rebel picked the rifle up off the ground from the Trinity Twin with the smashed fingers and leveled it on her shoulder looking down the barrel at his ridiculous mask.

  “This is my friend, Tuck, boys. You ready to play nice?”

  Chapter 5

  The Hobo King walked through the empty streets. He could feel eyes on him and saw other wandering zombies. He did not call to them to join his horde. Instead he continued on down Broadway toward the white chapel he saw down the road.

  There was so much that was different. This restaurant on his right had once been a steak house and was now an Italian joint. The dusty train tracks were now a paved bike and running path. Old apartments over storefronts had been converted into luxury condominiums.

  “Lies,” he whispered as he picked up his pace.

  Adam was right at his heel with Christine. He could feel his son’s apprehension but the Hobo King had to peel the scab from this lie and expose the grotesque wound that was beneath.

  “Somebody knows me,” he mumbled.

  The Hobo King stood in front of the church on the corner of Broadway and Crystal Avenue. He looked up at the chapel that had once been all there was to the small church in the old town, until it was lifted up by the community as if it were the hands of God and a larger vestry built underneath, in addition to the steeple pushing into the sky like a phallus.

  The windows of the church were boarded up and two of the other doors were barricaded with cars and other debris to keep people or zombies away. Only the stairway to the front double door was left unobstructed. The Hobo King stood on the pathway that led to the stairway. His zombie horde surrounded the church and fanned out along the street. He could feel the living inside of the church. He could hear them rustling around on the main floor, down in the basement as he watched shadows moving along the boarded windows. There were people on the roof, in the steeple, and if he was a betting man, he would assume there was a gun pointed at him. That made him smirk. Why would such Holy people need guns against the dead? Would their God not save them?