Dead America: Lowcountry | Book 4 | Lowcountry [Part 4] Read online

  Dante nodded thoughtfully. “I think we should do a drive-by of the jail,” he suggested, “just to see what we’re up against.”

  “It’s a fucking jail,” Maddox drawled. “I mean, what are you expecting us to be up against?”

  Dante cocked his head. “Well, we had a crowd of zombies around the TV station when we went,” he explained. “These things have a tendency to congregate around buildings if they think there are people in it. If we’re going to have substantial company, it might be good to know, don’t you think?”

  Maddox glanced at his brother in the passenger seat.

  Tate shrugged. “Man’s got a point,” he said.

  “Yeah yeah, all right,” Maddox said with a sigh. “Ace, I’m gonna be hauling ass, so you stay on my bumper.”

  “Lead the way, brother,” Ace called.

  Maddox smacked the side of his truck to fire himself up before slamming on the gas. Ace hit his, easily catching up to him.

  They cut straight through the center of town, moving at a fast clip. As they went by the streets, Dante and Lily peered down to see what was going on.

  “Focus on the left,” he instructed, “I’ll cover the right.”

  As they flew by the side streets, they looked down them for zombies. While there weren’t any major congregations of them, there were still several packs numbering as high as what looked to be two dozen in a single group.

  Dante furrowed his brow with worry. If they weren’t careful, they could have a horde fairly easily.

  “There’s the supply store,” he said as he spotted it down one of the empty streets. “We’re looking good down there, at least for now.”

  “Let’s hope it stays that way,” Ace replied.

  They came out of the downtown area into a residential community, which was a lot quieter than downtown. There were still a few packs of ghouls roaming about, including one or two that ran out in front of Maddox’s truck.

  He plowed right into them, crushing them under his tires as he didn’t even let up on the gas. Each time, he’d pump his fist out of the driver’s side window.

  “Enthusiastic, isn’t he?” Dante asked dryly.

  Lily rolled her eyes. “That’s an understatement,” she replied. “No matter how trivial the accomplishment, he’ll let you know how awesome he was.”

  “I can see why you dumped him,” he said with a chuckle. “That sounds exhausting.”

  “You have no idea,” Lily drawled.

  Ace slammed on the brakes, lurching everyone forward and barely missing Maddox’s rear bumper in the process. Muttering obscenities, Ace curled the wheel and backed up, driving around to come up alongside the other vehicle.

  “What the hell, man?” he demanded.

  Maddox pointed in the direction of the jail.

  The trio stared front and froze at the sight of two dozen ghouls clustered by the front entrance.

  “Well, ain’t that a kick in the dick,” Ace breathed.

  Maddox nodded sheepishly. “Yeah, hoping you boys got an idea of how to get past them,” he said. “Because that front entrance is the only one there is.”

  “Let’s get back to the farming supply store,” Dante suggested. “Maybe we can find something in there.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The two trucks pulled up outside of the small farming supply store a block off of the main road in a row of shops. They quickly hopped out, looking around for any ghouls that were wandering around, luckily finding none.

  Maddox immediately headed for the front entrance, but Dante held out an arm to stop him.

  “Hold up there, bud,” he said. “We have to be prepared for anything in there.”

  Maddox stopped in his tracks, nodding and taking a step back. Ace approached, holding out to Dante.

  “You wait here for a moment,” the larger man said, and approached the front door, peering in through the large glass panel. He didn’t see any movement, so he jammed the tip of the crowbar into the door latch to pop it free with a single push.

  As soon as he breached the store, he heard shuffling and moaning, followed by multiple sets of feet rushing towards him. He stood his ground in the doorway, watching intently in the dimly lit store.

  A moment later, a zombie tore around the corner, almost running completely past him before spotting him and adjusting course. As it whirled, Dante cracked it in the head with a horizontal swing, sending it flying face first into the ground.

  The second ghoul tore up the aisle directly in front of him, moving considerably slower than the other one, though still faster than a shambler.

  As he waited for it to reach him, the rest of the group clustered around his back, watching it.

  “Please tell me that’s going to happen to all of them,” Lily breathed.

  “One can only hope, Lil,” Ace said, shaking his head. “One can only hope.”

  “Goddamn, what the fuck happened to it?” Maddox moaned, staring wide-eyed at the multiple bite marks across the zombie’s body.

  “That’s what those things do to you,” Lily replied. “They rip you up.”

  He didn’t respond, simply watching in horror as the ghoul grew close enough for Dante to impale it with the crowbar. With its skull crushed, the corpse crumpled to the floor.

  Once it was down, there was silence. Just to be sure, Dante leaned down and smacked the floor a couple of times with the metal, but there was no response.

  “Let’s get what we need and get moving,” he instructed, leading the way inside. As he secured the door behind them, he pointed to his companions as he spoke. “Lily, Ace, start pulling everything we need for the farm. Just stage it by the door, and we’ll load everything up at the end. You two, let’s figure out how to get past those zombies at the jail.”

  Everyone leapt into action, Lily and Ace rushing off with the list to pull things from the shelves.

  Dante and the brothers headed over to the closest checkout counter to game plan.

  “Okay, I’m open to ideas,” Dante declared.

  Tate shrugged. “In my experience,” he said, “a propane tank and a flare seems to work pretty well in clearing a crowd.”

  “And leveling the front half of the building,” Maddox added dryly.

  Dante shook his head. “Not to mention attracting every zombie in a two-mile radius,” he replied. “We need something smaller.”

  “There are probably some smaller propane canisters for torches and stuff,” Tate suggested. “That could work.”

  Maddox raised an eyebrow. “That ain’t gonna pack enough punch, is it?”

  “We’d have to get several of them, that’s a given,” his brother confirmed.

  “Is it going to create enough shrapnel?” Dante mused. “These things aren’t going to be hurt by the concussion blast.”

  Tate shook his head, pursing his lips in thought.

  Lily passed by with an armload of seed packets and dumped them into a shopping basket by the cash. “Why not just make some potato cannons?” she asked.

  “You want to attack these things with potatoes?” Maddox drawled, rolling his eyes.

  “No, dumbass,” she snapped, “I said a potato cannon. You do realize you can fire anything out of those, don’t you? Just has to be packed tightly.”

  He sneered at her. “Potato, rock, whatever,” he said dismissively. “It’s still not going to take out the horde.”

  She shook her head, pointing to a display against the wall behind them. The three men turned and spotted the nuts and bolts section, filled with thousands of small metal objects.

  “You’re a genius,” Dante breathed, nodding in approval.

  She smirked. “Just motivated to get you boys done with your planning, so you can help us carry this shit,” she said flippantly. “But thank you.” She winked at him and hefted a bag of potting soil over her shoulder and strolled over to the door.

  “I’ve never made a potato cannon before,” Dante admitted to the guys, “is it difficult?”

 
Tate shook his head. “Nah, just need some PVC pipe, a drill, and some sort of flammable agent,” he explained. “Shouldn’t be difficult to find here. However, they aren’t very durable, might only get a shot or two out of them before they risk shattering, especially with the velocity we’re going to need. So we’re going to need to make a few.”

  “What about the tightly packed object?” Dante asked, studying the wall. “Can we get the bolts tight enough?”

  Tate approached the display and looked for a moment, hand over his chin. Finally he found a plastic bag dispenser, and tore one off, pouring a couple handfuls of bolts before wrapping up tight. He tossed it over to Dante, who inspected it with a smile.

  “I’d say that works,” he said. “Let’s get to building.”

  Tate nodded. “If you want to start bagging these up, Maddox and I will start building the cannons,” he suggested. “Get ‘em about halfway full and set ‘em to the side. We’ll adjust the size when we get ‘em assembled.”

  Dante nodded and headed for the display, but as he reached for a bag, Ace yelled from the front door.

  “We got company!” he barked.

  Everyone tensed, drawing their guns and ducking.

  “What do you see?” Dante called.

  Ace peered out from behind the wall. “Car load of people, three… no, four, just got out,” he said. “They’re walking this way.”

  “QXR?” Dante demanded.

  “No, civilians,” Ace replied.

  “Armed?”

  “Yeah.”

  Dante took a deep breath. “Stay low, I got this,” he declared, and then turned to Tate. “Let’s flank them. I do the talking and don’t fire unless I do. Good?”

  Tate nodded and moved down a few aisles before heading towards the front of the store. Dante moved down the aisle one over and crouched down by the side.

  The front door opened, and somebody said, “I don’t know about this,” in a worried voice. “There are trucks out here.”

  “We need ammunition, and this is the only place in town to get it,” somebody else said. “We’ll be in and out quick, I promise. These trucks are probably abandoned anyway, like all the others we passed.”

  Dante emerged to face two men and two women, varying in ages between thirty and fifty. “Sorry to disappoint you, but those trucks aren’t abandoned,” he said.

  The oldest man’s eyes widened, and he raised his hands. The other three immediately raised their hands too, one of them holding a shotgun by the barrel, arm shaking.

  “Now, we’re not going to hurt you, but I’m going to need you to put that shotgun on the ground, slowly,” Dante instructed.

  The man nodded and slowly placed the weapon on the ground. As soon as it was town, Tate emerged from behind them, grabbing the weapon and stepping back into the main aisle, out of their reach.

  “Now, what are you doing here?” Dante asked, crossing his arms.

  The man shook his head. “We don’t want any trouble,” he said shakily.

  “I appreciate that, but that’s not what I asked,” Dante said firmly. “What are you doing here?”

  “We’re getting out of town,” the man explained, “but we used up most of our bullets just getting out of our house. We came here to restock before hitting the road.”

  “Road to where?” Tate asked.

  “My brother has a farm a couple hours north of here, near Kingstree,” the man said, and the woman behind him tugged on his shirt in a panic. “Oh, relax woman, if they wanted us dead they’d shoot us here, they aren’t going to track us to Kingstree.”

  Tate cocked his head. “City life ain’t cutting it for you anymore?” he asked, lowering his gun.

  Dante motioned for the group to put their hands down, and everyone relaxed.

  “Not after what we heard about Beaufort,” the oldest man replied.

  “Beaufort, huh?” Tate asked. “What did you hear?”

  The man turned to his companion. “Billy, you want to tell them?” he asked.

  “My girl and I live in Beaufort… at least we did until this morning,” the younger man next to him said. “A bunch of men with guns started going through neighborhoods, shooting those things, but also pulling people out of their homes. Not a lot mind you, but a fair number of people that were just holed up hoping for rescue. We were like that too, until we saw them roughing them up and throwing them into the back of a truck.” He winced, swallowing and shaking his head. “We got in the car and took off.”

  Dante cocked his head. “How did you get across the bridge?” he asked.

  “Dumb luck, really,” Billy replied. “They were just pulling up to block it off when we sped by them. They fired a couple of shots, but didn’t follow us. We didn’t know what to do, so we came here to her Uncle Jack’s place.”

  The older man, apparently Jack, nodded. “And when they told me all that, I loaded them up in the car and we came here,” he added. “I don’t know who those boys are, and I get the sense I don’t want to know ‘em. I’m too old to be fighting.”

  “They’re mercenaries from the QXR group, and you’re right, you don’t want to know them,” Dante said.

  Jack raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like you know that firsthand,” he said.

  “Wish I could say otherwise,” Dante replied.

  Tate inclined his head towards the group. “You said you came here for ammunition?” he asked. “Didn’t know they had that here.”

  “There’s not much, mind you, but they got a cage in the back room,” Jack explained. “Come on, I’ll show you.” He stepped forward slowly, and Dante motioned for him to lead the way.

  Jack reached underneath the counter behind the register, pulling out a set of keys. He led them into the back room, which was a small storage area. There was a four-foot tall metal cage with a swinging gate, and he unlocked it, opening it up.

  “Well I’ll be damned,” Tate breathed as he looked over the forty boxes of ammunition. “I had no idea this was back here.”

  Dante cocked his head. “So what do you need, old timer?”

  “Could use a couple boxes of twelve gauge,” Jack replied. “Maybe a couple of nine mil, if you can spare it. If you’re sticking around here, you’re going to need more bullets than we’re going to.”

  Dante and Tate shared a look, nodding in agreement.

  “Go ahead and take you a couple boxes of each,” Tate said. “We’ll manage.”

  Jack nodded in appreciation and grabbed four boxes. He shifted from foot to foot and then lowered his voice. “For the love of god, don’t tell my wife what I’m about to tell you,” he said quietly. “She’s not really the trusting type, and there’s already enough things out there trying to kill me.”

  “We got your back,” Dante assured him, chuckling.

  Jack took a deep breath. “My brother’s arm is isolated, and mostly automated, so he’s going to have food,” he whispered. “Has a whole processing set up right on site. If this thing stretches on like I think it will, and you boys get hungry, you come see us up in Kingstree. I’ll leave a map to the farm in the Kingstree post office, under the register.”

  The boys nodded, and Dante shook his hand. “Very kind of you, sir.”

  “We do appreciate it,” Tate added as he shook his hand as well.

  “I fear hard times are ahead of us,” Jack said, shaking his head. “Good people are going to be harder and harder to come by. The fact you didn’t put us down and take our stuff shows me you’re better than most.”

  They headed out of the back room, and then Dante clapped the older man on the back. “Hey, before you go, I think I saw some jerky by the counter,” he suggested. “Can’t have a road trip without snacks.”

  “Billy, why don’t you get us something for the road?” Jack asked, and Billy broke away from the door to load up on jerky.

  The group congregated by the door, and Jack poked his head out to make sure the coast was clear.

  “You boys be safe out there,” he said. �
�And remember my offer.”

  “We will, sir,” Dante said. “And you be safe, so that your offer can stand.”

  Tate nodded in agreement and handed the shotgun back over to him as they bustled outside to their car. Once they fired it up and headed off, Dante nodded and secured the door.

  “All right, let’s get back to work,” he declared as Maddox emerged from hiding. “We have us a jailbreak to get to.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The two trucks pulled up within a block of the jail, stopping next to each other.

  “All right badass,” Maddox drawled, “how do you want to do this?”

  Dante nodded. “We got three guns total,” he said. “Ace will drive us to the other side of the lot, which should attract a good number of them. Lily and I will take out as many as we can with our shots. You block off the other side of the lot and do what damage you can.”

  “And what if there are some still standing after we hit ‘em hard?” Tate asked.

  “They can’t climb,” Dante explained, “so just hang out in the truck and beat them down.”

  Maddox furrowed his brow. “Well, why in the hell didn’t we just do that in the first place?” he demanded.

  “Because dumbass,” Lily piped up, “you get enough of those things, and they can tip over a truck.”

  He thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. “So we doing this, or what?” he urged.

  Lily and Dante climbed up into the back of the truck, sitting against the cab, their potato cannons beside them. They sat on top of several bags of soil and other goods for the farm, which made a decent seat.

  When they were in position, Lily pulled out a can of compressed cleaning solvent, spraying a generous amount into the firing chamber of the cannon.

  “That looks like a lot,” Dante commented.

  She nodded. “Oh, it is,” she agreed. “But it needs to be. We need this stuff to hit hard, right?”

  Dante smiled and nodded as she primed his cannon as well. She banged on the back of the truck, prompting Ace to start driving.

  “Y’all hang on,” he said through the back window, “this might get bumpy.”

  His passengers in the back braced themselves as Ace sped through the parking lot of the jail, hitting a speed bump and sending them up off of their seats a bit. When he reached the other side, he slammed on the brakes.