Zombie Waltz (Book 2) Read online

  “Yeah…it must be shitty to have to kill someone you know. Sorry about that.”

  “I didn’t kill her. She was already dead.”

  “True…but still you knew her. That must have been hard. I am just saying sorry for making that tasteless joke.”

  “It’s okay. It gets easier.”

  “I bet.”

  Chris looks thoughtfully at the principal’s corpse for a moment and then looks back up at me and there is real sadness in his eyes, “We’re friends. Right?”

  “Well…yeah. Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know…I just never had a friend like you.”

  “What do you mean like me?” I ask.

  “Ya’ know…cool.”

  I chuckle to myself. “Yeah that’s me…Mr. Cool.” I am really starting to like this kid.

  The Swangate

  The bikers take Jill and Lynne west, right to the beach and then north along the beach highway to a secluded area near the Ringling Museum’s Banyan forest. After the short and awkward introductions, Jill inspects the building where theystopped. A sign at the front of the parking lot in flat black and white reads: The Swangate Motor Lodge. The silhouette of a swan swims on calm water through an open set of white arched bar gates.

  It is a single building two stories tall with only the office and windows from the rooms facing the street. A waterfront motel, it is old and run down. Not a mile south, therewere twentyhuge hotels and condos between them. In her opinion, one of those would have made a much better choice.

  In front of the office, a white extra-long van sits with its front half splashed red like someone stacked open buckets of paint in front of it and the van plowed through them. There are no other vehicles in the parking lot except two more motorcycles. The three men that had rescued them line their bikes up with the other two and stroll back to where Jill stands, arms crossed looking up and down the motel and street and shaking her head slightly as Lynne stares at the ground fists clenched, eyes squeezed shut and rocking. She is lightlychanting something too softlyfor even Jill to hear.

  “This is where wehangout ladies.” The youngest of the threesays, smiling goofily towards Jill. He motions and Jill and Lynne wordlessly follow the other two men towards the office. Jill wonders for a moment if she would be able to have her own room.

  Beside the office, a narrow corridor divides the motel into two buildings that are only connected by one continuous roof. There are old narrow metal staircases attached at both ends. The men travel down the corridor that will open on the other side with a walkway and possibly a pool, but Jill imagines that it is not clean. The beach is beyond that. Jill yearns to get a big warm towel and go lie on the sand in the sunlight. She thinks that the men must already have the rooms open because she doubts that this motel is still open for business, but the two older greying bikers don’t continue out into the sunshine. Instead, they turn up the rickety metal stairs that go to the second floor. Jill follows but can’t help but wonder why these men would want rooms on the second floor. It seems to her that a quick getaway would be better from the ground level.

  She remembers the first day, climbing out of her third-floor dorm room at Ringlingand down the black metal fire escape. She freezes on the stairs, stuck in the horror of that memory until Lynne bumps into her.

  “Come on. Move it.” The demand comes from the younger biker behind.

  She shakes away the screams of her friends and dormmates and doubles her pace to the second-floor landing but the men are not walking through to the sunshine still. They turn and take an even scarier black all metal ladderand continue to climb. The slightlyyounger lookingone with the big smile that called himself Rodney, turns to Jill and quietly mutters, “Almost home.” His smile grows in the dark until, at least in Jill’s mind, it is a sadistic grin. She grabs the first rung of the ladder, closes her eyes and climbs. When her head emerges into the light she opens them and gazes across the flat roof. She thought while climbingthe ladder, this must be a joke. After looking at it, she is mesmerized and pulls herself off the ladder and into a sea of tents and more company than she had expected to find.

  Upstairs

  We search the office. There’s really nothing useful there so we return to the quad. Chris explains that the hall on the far side of the building, behind the island of lockersleads through the historydepartment and then through a covered walkwayto the gymnasium. Beneath the stairs that go up to the science department is another foyer that branches into two halls: one for English and the other for math. It is pitch black under the stairs but Chris wants to go down there anyway.

  He insists that I wait in the quad while he checks the halls under the stairs. I hear his footsteps until he gets to the foyer beneath me and then I hear nothing. To save time I decide I will go down the far hall to the gym. I get to the locker bank where I picked up the mop handle and look towards the office. The principal’s corpse still lies in the hall where we deposited it.

  The onlylight ahead of me comes from small rectangular windows in the classroom doors and similar twin rectangles in the double doors at the end of the hall. The sun is high in the sky so I can see into all the classrooms. The halls are dark because they are not equipped to rely on natural lighting.

  I plan to check the right side on the waydown, and the left coming back.I move to the closest door turn the handle and look in. It looks like an ordinary classroom. There are books left open on the desks and half a sentence written on the chalk board: ‘The war of …’ with more time, I would like to search this school inch by inch. I am sure there were a thousand useful things left here when the building was abandoned. I lean back out of the room and pull the door closed with a click. Taking quick steps, I come to the next one.

  With the teacher’s desk soaked in blood and most of the student’s desks piled in front of it, this room is ransacked. Even the posters have been torn off the wall. Books and stacks of paper have been thrown on the mound too. It looks as if someone meant to light it up but didn’t. There is also a body in this room which takes me aback. I am used to seeing zombies jump out of dark places and I have seen my fair share of bodies, but most are standing and walking or devoured near completely.

  I open the door and walk up to the body. The face is blue and purple but there is very little blood; just a trickle from the man’s nose. The broken handle of a baseball bat lies behind the man’s head as if he lied there to use it as a pillow. It looks like he was going to go up on the pyre. I am nauseated. It stinks, but everything does these days. The really revolting truth that disturbs me much more than the look or smell of the scene is that this was done by people; this was murder.

  I stand and peer around the room a moment. I wonder what stopped them from setting the fire. I turn and Chris is behind me. I jump a little even though his gun is down by his side, “Shit, man you scared me.”

  “Sorry…I think we need to go upstairs.”

  “Why?”

  “Someone’s up there. I heard them.” “How many do you think?”

  “No idea…except there is more than one. They were talking to each other. Icouldn’t hear everything theywere sayingbut…it was weird. They were planning some strange attack on a trail or a road or something. They were making funny sounds too. It almost soundedlike laughter.” He turns and walks out. I follow him to the door but look back. I hope whoever was going to light up this classroom is long gone. I pull the door closed and start down the hall after Chris. When I catch him, we are passing the lockers where I picked up the mop handle.

  “How’d it look downstairs?”

  “Dark…it was quiet. There was a lot of blood and…you know. I didn’t see anything as bad as Mr. Lang back there, but the place was a pretty big mess.” We get to the stairs and Chris lifts his foot to the first steps and looks up through his scope. “Someone is up there.” He says and then starts up the stairs, walking with his scope held to his eye.

  I take the other banister and walk beside him. It is dark until we get o
ff the stairs but I can see well enough. There is a wall in front of us with homecoming posters hung up. The hall makes a T and we turn left and start down it. “I was down below here when I heard the voices.They have to be this way.” Chris steps past the first doorway.

  There is a window in it like the ones in the history hall. I look in as I pass; just an empty classroom…not even torn up. Only books and papers thrown everywhere…not even any blood. Someone took the time to write Mrs. Whitman is a whore on the chalkboard before the classroom was abandoned, but that is the worst in it. Chris is creeping ahead of me. I follow behind and soon hear noises.

  We walk past three more classroom doors, two on the opposite side of the hall and one more on the close side. The next has something dark on the inside covering its little window. As we get closer and lean up next to it, I hear a voice within. It is a girl’s voice; sweet and soft. But the words she says are bizarre and don’t match the voice at all, “Okay. I am going to swing at you with my massive arm and try to swat you to the ground.”

  Then there is a male voice, “I lift my bastard sword to block the blow and brace for impact…that is if my constitution allows.”

  Another boy’s voice. Neither sound like men but this one is softer and higher pitched. “You are going to get crushed! I will use steeling resolve on Tharradux to fortify his constitution!”

  The girls voice returns, “Okay roll for initiative.” I turn my head towards Chris and he is looking back at me, stooped and leaning his ear toward the door as well.

  “What the fuck?” I mouth and reach for the handle.

  Chris shrugs and pulls his gun up taking a step back. He says, “Clear the door quick.”

  I turn the handle and charge into the classroom. Chris runs in behind me and both of us turn to see a science lab filled with ceramic topped tables with sinks sat into each. The room is clean and clear of debris and some of the tables have stacks of cans and books and boxes on top of them. At the large teacher’s desk across the classroom, two chairs have been pulled up. Two boys, about 14 or 15 are turned looking back at us. They have an assortment of dice and paper in front of them and are both holding mechanical pencils.

  One of the boys still has his hand held up and a die rolling slowly to a stop in it. On the other side of the desk is a frail-looking girl with a thin exhausted face sitting in a wheelchair. She has a black cardboard screen in front of her. On it is a picture of a large green dragon breathing fire onto a plate-clad knight’s big white shield. The knight is holding the shield up against the flames and shoving a shining sword towards the dragon’s belly.

  “What the heck is going on in here?” Chris asks from just behind my right shoulder.

  They all sit still as stone for a moment. The girl looks frightened and the boys both sit on the edges of their chairs with muscles tensed. The boy on the left who has black hair and thick looking glasses pushes them up on his nose. When he moveshis arm Isee arevolversitting on the desk. Iturn myhead and see Chris still aimeddown on them. “Take it easy man. They are just kids.”

  “You don’t look like you are too close to retirement either.” The girl says, blinking at me. I watch her gulp slowly. Chris lowers his gun and I hold my empty hands up and take a step closer to them.

  “We don’t want any trouble. We are just looking for a safe place to stay for a while.” I say, trying to smile sincerely at them.

  The boy on my right stands. He has light brown hair and a dark tan. He walks over to me and offers a hand. “Phillip. This is my sister Gretchen and our friend Ian.” I take his hand with my scarred one and shake.

  “I’m Chris and this is Dead Boy. What were you guys doing?” Chris steps up next to me, sits the stock of his rifle on his foot and holds the barrel. He offers his hand and Phillip shakes it.

  “Dead Boy?” Ian says, “That is a funny name. It looks like you have been through a lot though.”

  “I have.”

  “Excuse Ian. He has a habit of being blunt.” The girl blushes a little and sits down the cardboard screen and then reaches down and pushes levers on her chair, “Ian.” She says, nodding her head at the boy in the glasses. He jumps up and circles the desk. Grabbing the handles on the back of Gretchen’s chair, Ian pulls back and then turns her. He wheels her around the desk and over to us. She reaches a hand for mine saying, “We were just playing a game…Myths and Monsters.” She chuckles oddly and clears her throat, “It’s an RPG.”

  “What’s an Arpeegee?” I ask, taking her hand and give it a soft shake. Her hand is weak, her skin pale and milky and her brown hair is lifeless.

  Chris answers, “It is a role-playing game...”

  Ishake myhead at him. The largerboy, Phillip, kind of laughs and turns, scratching the nape of his neck and looks at his sister.

  Ian pushes his glasses up on his nose and looks at me, leaning slightly forward, “Are you okay mister?” At this question I reach up and touch the scaron myface. Ithink of Kevin who is most certainlynot okay.

  “I’m fine. There is a little boy with us that has been shot and we need to get him some place safe so we can check him out. Is this school clear? I mean are there any other people here besides you?”

  “I don’t know. There were. People came. Some of the things that were downstairs may still be drifting around here but after the cafeteria was looted it has been quiet. Most people that come look around downstairs and then leave.” Gretchen answers.

  “Shot?” Ian asks with a puzzled look.

  I won’t waste any more time; this place will do. There is another door into the classroom at the other end, but the kids piled everything that wasn’t nailed to the floor up against it, including a small refrigerator. Itell Chris, “Let’s use this one. Stayherewith these guys. Iwill bring everyone else up.”

  “Okay.” He says. I turn and bolt from the room.

  Get Away

  “Rodney Schleck is the name.” The salt and pepper haired biker says to Jill and Lynne and turns to his near-twin and clone. “This is Thad, the brains of the operation.” He adds and winks at Jill. “And this is my boy, RJ.” Then the men shuffle away towards a camp fire burning right on the roof, and surrounded by assorted lawn furniture and tents.

  A dozen tents, at least, surround them haphazardly. Part of what makes the place so odd is the sheer number of tents compared to roof campers. The group is also odd that they are choosing to camp on a roof rather than hide behind the solid walls of hotel rooms just below. In the middle of the camp, the large fire pit smolders with a fewcrumbling black logs. Beside the fire pit, two men are hog tied on their knees with their heads covered by black sacks. It looks terribly uncomfortable to Jill. Rodney pulls his hand through his hair. Then he scratches at his stubbly chin. “This is Fat Shaun Titus.” He points at a younger man emerging from a little yellow tent. He is very heavy and despite growing low hung side burns and chin stubble. he looks all of 20…maybe. Jill nods nervously at the large young man. Another man, this one bald, walks out from behind the flap of a large black tent. He has a revolver in his hand half pointed at the group but slides it into his belt and walks up to the fire pit. “The paranoid one is Jackie Whitley.” Jackie bows oddly at the introduction and Jill nervously giggles. Lynne and all the men turn and stare at her.

  “Excuse me.” She says.

  Rodney shrugs.

  Jackie eyes up and down both Jill and Lynne and snorts, “Well five boys five girls, now it’s a party.” Jill instinctively crosses her arms. She mentally notes that counting the tied men, there are seven and only four females. The two other women move up past the bikers who gather around Rodney across the fire pit, and beside Jill and Lynne. The elder of the two turns from the group directly in front of Jill. Up until this point, a big plastic smile painted her face but as she turns from the men, the smile dissolves.

  With a slate wide eyed face, she mouths to Jill.Hereyes are glazed and red and she appears to have been crying. The other girl looks like she has too much blush on her cheeks and no oth
er make-up and has a cut on her lip and some bruises on her neck. Though Jill is not adept at reading lips, the woman’s words are as clear as if she had screamed them.

  “Get away.”

  Odd words and horrifying ones, it is hard for Jill to hold her smile and not react. But somehow, she succeeds. The woman’s smile reappears, “I am Jane Allen-Perkins. And um this is Therese.” The other girl nods but holds herarms tight around hermiddle. Lynne doesn’t reactat all. She still stares straight at Rodney with a mixture of anger and disgust in her gaze. Rodney stares back and although he grins, Jill is certain he is studying this exchange closely. She starts to truly fear him and the more the fear builds, the more she tries to hide it.

  “Thank you, Rodney. All of you, we would have been killed back there if you hadnot come.” Jill smiles and approaches the fire pit. Rodney turns his gaze to her and nods.

  “It’s most definitely our pleasure.” He says.

  “Your friend said there were five women?” Jill asks looking around at each of those present.

  “I said girls.” Jackie near snarls from beside Rodney.

  Jill looks him directly in the eye and he sneers. His icy gaze is filled with an almost hatred. Jill’s heart drops into the pit of her stomach. “There are only four though?” Jill says, almost in a whisper. She turns her eyes to her toes.

  “No, there are five gals.” Rodneysays. “Rosey? Where you hiding at little darlin?” He looks around at the tents. Jane turns toward one and starts to walk but Rodney holds up his hand.

  “I can get her.” Jane says quietly but Rodney waves her away.

  “Rosey Posey? Come on out.” Rodney says to a closed tent flap across the fire pit. A small hand emerges from its middle and pushes it open. A very small girl emerges. She wears a little pink dress and holds a small metal lunch pail tightly in her other hand. She does not smile at the man. But she does look over at him before walking towards Jane and the other girls. On her cheek is a large red splotch that at first Jill thinks is blood.