Dead America: Lowcountry | Book 5 | Lowcountry [Part 5] Read online

  DEAD AMERICA

  LOWCOUNTRY

  PART 5

  BY DEREK SLATON

  © 2021

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Morning, Princess,” Troy drawled as Grace stretched, groaning as her back crackled.

  She wasn’t quite awake enough to level him with a proper glare, so instead she twisted back and forth, relishing in the crackles of her spine. A ragged yawn overtook her, and she rubbed her eyes.

  “Needs her sleep after yesterday’s badassery,” Hawk said, his deep voice echoing through the cells. “I’ll be honest, girl, I didn’t think you’d be so good at this.”

  She wrinkled her nose and pulled out her saggy ponytail. “Killing zombies?” she asked dryly. “Or trying to survive under threat of getting eaten or killed by a group of insane assholes?”

  Hawk chuckled, shaking his head. “All of the above,” he admitted. “No offense, but you don’t look like much in a fight at first glance.”

  “You know, when somebody starts a sentence with ‘no offense’, it’s usually offensive,” she said as she wound her unruly hair back up into a messy bun.

  He shook his head. “Just being honest,” he said. “I mean granted, you survived this long, but seeing you in action yesterday was surprising.”

  “Can’t say the same about the others they had with us,” Eddie muttered, stretching his lean frame down to touch his toes. He was a stark contrast to Hawk, who was a beast of a man, but despite his wiry body, he was ruthless out in the field.

  “Yeah,” Troy agreed, shaking his head as he lounged back on his bed. “Those poor suckers didn’t know what hit ‘em. It was almost more of a liability having to deal with them then an asset having extra bodies to help out.”

  Grace sighed. “They’re fucked either way,” she mused. “Either they’re useful and they try to help and die, or they refuse and QXR kills them.”

  “What else are any of us supposed to do?” Troy asked, though he wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular. “We have to do as they say, with who they say.”

  She grabbed a water bottle from beside her bed from the night before and took a long swig.

  Troy shrugged. “At least we’ve got a warm bed and food and drink,” he amended.

  “I’d rather have to find that shit myself and be free,” she replied.

  “We’d be fighting zombies either way,” he said.

  She shook her head. “On our terms, though. Everything we do right now isn’t for us. It’s so that QXR can solidify their own position of power.”

  “What do you think they’ll do with us once the island is clear?” Hawk asked, and the insinuation hung in the air.

  Grace took another long swig and swallowed slowly. “I don’t think we have to worry about that anytime soon,” she replied. “Seems like the clearing is endless.”

  “Except it’s not endless,” Eddie cut in as he stretched to the side. “It’s going to run out. You think they’ll carve out a little community for us to just chill in?”

  Troy snorted. “Not likely,” he said, and crossed his feet at the ankles, making the most of their relax time. “Though I don’t think we’ll be useless. There’ll be floors to sweep and dishes to do.”

  “I guess it’s better than being shot,” Hawk muttered.

  Eddie rolled his eyes as he twisted his torso back and forth, hopping from foot to foot. “Not by much,” he retorted. “But the fact still stands that we need to make sure that we’re as useful to them as we can be. It’s not like this is going to be a vacation spot for us once all the zombies are cleared out.”

  Grace leaned forward, resting her arms on her knees. “Maybe for them.”

  “Rise and shine, pissants!” Mosley declared as he descended the steps to their cell block, clapping his hands loudly. “Oh, you’re already awake. Such excited puppies, ready for their next playdate.”

  Grace clenched her jaw, resisting the urge to glare at him. How she hated this man.

  “Get some good rest?” he asked with a sneer. “What about you, city boy?” He tapped on the bars to Troy’s cell and clicked his tongue. “Accommodations up to snuff for you?”

  “Oh yeah, five stars,” the New Yorker drawled, not sitting up.

  Mosley glanced over the crew, making sure they were paying attention. “You fuckers get to go clear the mall today!” he said brightly, spreading his arms. When there was no response, he looked back and forth, eyebrows raising. “What, no cheers? You should be fucking ecstatic that you get to go out and do this instead of taking a bullet to the head, no?”

  “We’re already doing all your grunt work,” Eddie declared, leaning on the bars. “Is it a requirement to be happy about it, too?”

  “Gratitude would be nice,” Mosley snapped, narrowing his eyes. “I could kill all of you.”

  Grace finally looked up at him, feigning surprise and putting a hand to her chest. “But then who would do all your dirty work?” she asked, fluttering her eyelashes. “You’re clearly incapable of doing it yourself.”

  “Bitch, I have no problem showing you exactly what I’m capable of doing,” he growled, drawing his lower lip between his teeth.

  She forced herself not to wither under his leer, but her skin crawled at the insinuation. If he made a move on her, she knew she could probably hold her own in fighting him off, but that would likely mean death. But the other option—just laying down and taking it—was just not an option.

  “What do you say, hm?” he asked, voice sickly sweet. “You need me to show you what real dirty work is like?”

  “Go fuck yourself,” she snapped.

  He growled, taking a step towards her cell.

  “That’s enough,” No Name declared, entering the hallway from the stairwell. He carried a tray of steaming bowls and set it down on a small table next to the door.

  Mosley scowled at him, eyes narrowing. “I’m busy,” he snapped.

  “So am I,” No Name replied, crossing his arms and straightening his broad shoulders. “These four have a big job today and I need to get them to it, so get lost.”

  Mosley snarled, stalking up to him. “You don’t get to tell me what to do,” he said petulantly, but there was a hint of a quiver in his voice.

  No Name glared down at him. “You want to put your fists behind that?”

  The shorter man shriveled and threw a glance back at Grace before heading up the stairs in a huff. No Name shook his head with disgust and then began doling out the bowls, shoving them one by one into the cells.

  “I’d say thank you for getting rid of that creep,” Grace said dryly as she picked up her bowl, “but you’re also keeping me in a cell and forcing labor, so… not exactly much to be thankful for.”

  He didn’t respond, simply finished handing out breakfast, which turned out to be bowls of scrambled eggs and ground meat.

  “No hot sauce?” Hawk muttered. “Terrorists.” He scooped a forkful into his mouth.

  “Today’s target is the mall,” No Name announced once everyone was eating, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. “It was an impromptu rescue shelter when everything started to go to shit. We were able to lock it up tight day one, but it’s full to the brim.”

  Eddie raised an eyebrow. “A mall? Full to the brim?” He shook his head. “How the hell are we going to deal with that?” he asked, flabbergasted.

  “That’ll be for you to figure out,” No Name replied. “It’s going to be a major operation, and you’ll have to get a lay of the land. You’ll be going in with four other civilians.”

  “Wait, only eight of us for the whole mall?” Troy exclaimed. “No backup fro
m your trigger-happy mercenary buddies?”

  Hawk and Eddie both opened their mouths, and No Name raised his hands.

  “I know,” he said loudly to shut them up, “I know. If it were up to me, I’d be going in there too. This is too big. But orders are orders, and orders are to send the eight of you in to do this.”

  “Why?” Grace demanded. “I get that we’re expendable to you assholes, but this is just inefficient for your timeframe.”

  No Name shrugged, shaking his head. “I don’t know. I just get my orders.”

  “Woof woof,” Hawk muttered. “Follow blindly, little doggy.”

  Their captor glared at him, but had no rebuttal. “Eat your breakfast,” he said. “We’re moving out in five.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Grace sat in the passenger’s seat as No Name drove them out to the mall, the men in the back. She stared out the window, but didn’t really see the landscape passing her by. Her time in the cell was spent thinking of her brother, hoping he was okay, torn between wanting him to mount some kind of rescue and wanting him to just stay away, stay safe.

  There was no way out of this for her, or at least it didn’t feel like it in the near future. She would do everything she could to survive, and that was all she could do. There was no real standing up to these men. At least if she was really good at what they were sending her to do, she could prove useful for after.

  After. What came after? These thoughts plagued her in her cell as well, in the quiet, when she struggled to sleep. Her body was exhausted after missions, but her mind reeled. These days were nothing but determination and fear and survival, the nights terrible simply for not knowing what the next would bring.

  She spotted a line of civilians being offloaded into a processing area, and her gaze perked up, focusing on the here and now. “Where did they come from?” she asked.

  No Name glanced over. “We’ve been finding quite a few survivors in Bluffton. They’re transporting them all here.”

  “What happens to them all?” Hawk piped up from the backseat. “The ones who don’t get sent off to die clearing out zombies?”

  No Name shook his head, and Grace noticed the tight line of his jaw, as if he were reluctant to answer. He didn’t say anything, and that was answer enough. She studied him as he drove, glaring daggers into the side of his head. She wasn’t naïve enough to think that she could gain his sympathy, but there was definitely something about him that was different from the others. He didn’t seem to take pleasure in tormenting them. He didn’t seem to take pleasure in really anything he was doing to them. And by the tense muscles in his upper body at Hawk’s question, she didn’t think he took much pleasure in the whole slavery thing.

  But he was still doing his job, still following orders. And that meant he was not her friend, and likely never would be. If he cared about the civilians more than his own livelihood, then he would have done something about it before now, instead of just falling in line.

  Woof woof, Hawk had said. Woof woof, indeed, Grace thought bitterly, and turned back to the window.

  They reached the mall, seeing several mercenaries standing guard around it and on top of it. She assumed that it was to make sure that the ghouls didn’t figure out how to escape. It boiled her guts to think that they were allowed to just stand outside in the safety, while sending untrained civilians inside to do their dirty work.

  No Name pulled up near the front entrance, and a mercenary approached, slinging his gun over his shoulder as they all piled out of the van.

  “I’ve done some recon on the roof,” he said, pulling a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolding it. He held it out so they could all see as they clustered around. “There’s hundreds of those things in there, but the majority of them are in the big department store, here.” He pointed to the giant square on the far side of his crudely drawn map.

  Grace pursed her lips. “What are the chances it’s sealed off from the rest of the mall?” she asked.

  The mercenary shook his head. “It’s not,” he replied. “The main floor is closed, but the second floor doors are open. They must have been opening those up for employees to get in when everything went to shit.”

  “If you want to stand even a slim chance of surviving this, you’re going to have to get those doors closed,” No Name said.

  Grace glared daggers at him. No shit, she thought, but held her tongue. She took the map and studied it. Crude as it was, it was fairly detailed, with all of the entrances marked clearly.

  “There’s a service entrance on the first floor that seems to stay pretty quiet, so you can get in safely,” the mercenary said, pointing to one of the marked entrances. “You should be able to fight your way up to the second floor easily from there, with that escalator. Once the doors are shut, and you thin out some of the horde, you’re to make a call to No Name here so we can take out the rest of those things.”

  Grace pursed her lips in thought. “What’s this big store here?” she asked, pointing to one just beside the department store doors.

  “It’s a sporting goods store,” the mercenary explained.

  She nodded. “Probably our best bet is to get up there, close the doors, and then hide out in there for a few minutes to take the heat off of our initial run, and get a lay of the land,” she suggested.

  “Are you going to be coming in after us?” Troy asked, crossing his arms.

  “Once the main mall is clear, your job will be to bang on the doors to draw those things in the department store towards the access panels above,” the mercenary said. “We’ll kill them all from above.”

  Grace continued staring at the map and then looked up as No Name held a walkie talkie in front of her face.

  “Call me when you’re ready,” he said gruffly.

  She snatched it out of his hand and shoved it into her back pocket. “Not if we’re in trouble?” she asked dryly. “Guess there’s nobody coming in to help us if we get cornered, huh?”

  He shook his head, not meeting her gaze. Another van pulled up, and the sliding door opened, four civilians reluctantly getting out.

  “Oh, fuck no,” Hawk muttered at the sight of Aaron, a middle-aged man that had nearly gotten them killed the day before. “No way we’re taking him in with us.”

  Aaron scowled at him as they approached. “I don’t wanna go in there any more than you do,” he snapped.

  “You should stay out here then, since you can’t follow directions and you only care about your own ass,” Hawk shot back.

  No Name held up his hands. “The eight of you are going in. You need all the hands you can get.” He reached into his holster and grabbed his handgun, holding it out to Grace. “She’s in charge. Listen to her if you want to live through this.”

  “No pressure,” she muttered, and shoved the gun in the back of her pants. The weight of it was like a ton of bricks. Eight, eight of them to get through this. She took a deep breath. “I think our best bet is to split into groups. One group to cause a diversion, one to secure the sporting goods store, and one to get those doors closed.”

  The mercenary returned with a plastic bin full of melee weapons, crowbars and tire irons and the like.

  “How come she gets a gun?” one of the new civilians whined.

  Grace took a deep breath. “Because I’m getting us through this, if you listen to me,” she said firmly. “This isn’t my first rodeo here, and if you complain too much, these guys will shoot you, so stay focused.”

  Her speech had the intended effect, and the group stood there, staring at her expectantly, clutching their weapons.

  “You and you, what are your names?” she asked, pointing at two of the newcomers.

  “I’m Aly, and this is Joseph,” a middle-aged woman said. They both looked like they hadn’t seen a lot of action in their lives, but at least seemed in good enough shape to run and swing a crowbar. Joseph’s forehead shone with a thick sheen of sweat, fear written all over his face. But who wasn’t afraid these days?

&
nbsp; “Okay, you and Hawk are with me,” Grace continued. “We’re going to secure the doors. Then we’ll need two groups of two, one to cause a distraction to clear the area, and another to clear the sporting goods store so we have a safe place to regroup.”

  “I’ll take the distraction team,” Eddie said, raising his hand.

  Troy glanced at Grace, and she shot him a knowing look, hoping he understood that she wanted a person she trusted on each team.

  “Yeah, I’ll do the sporting goods store,” he said with a sigh, and smacked Aaron on the shoulder. “You ready for a proper mission, following orders?”

  The older man glowered at him, but nodded, gripping his crowbar tightly.

  “Guess you’re with me,” Eddie said brightly, turning to the final man, a wiry guy that looked like he’d sat in front of a computer his whole life. “What’s your name?”

  “Leo,” he said, taking a deep breath. “You?”

  “Eddie,” came the reply, and they shook hands.

  Grace nodded and pointed to a section of the map. “We’ll have to get a lay of the land once we’re in there, and think on our feet,” she said. “But I’m thinking probably over here would be a good place to make a ruckus. It’s far enough that it shouldn’t draw too many from the department store, but enough to thin it out a bit where we’re working.”

  Eddie nodded. “You got it.”

  “We’ll go up the escalator as a group, and then split up at the top to do our jobs,” she continued, looking around the group. “That make sense?” There were nods all around, and then she turned to No Name. “I guess that means we’re ready. Are we free to go, or does somebody need to intimidate us first?”

  He pressed his lips into a thin line and shook his head, not saying a word.

  Grace took a deep breath and folded up the paper, shoving it into the pocket of her jeans. She grabbed a crowbar from the bin and gripped it tightly. “Okay, let’s go.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Grace reached the service entrance and motioned for Troy to come forward as she stepped to the side with her crowbar raised. “Open it just a little and then be ready in case there’s pushback.”