Dead and Dead Again: Kansas City Quarantine by Dalton Wolf Read Free Book Online

come I don’t see any real
people running around? He wondered while he waited, knowing it was because
most stayed to fight the dead. Most people were natural protectors. What
does that say about us? He wondered, but only felt slightly guilty.
    “I need another quarter,” she held
out her hand.
    After a minute of both arms digging
into his pockets in a frenzied search, he stared back with eyes wide in dismay.
    “I don’t have a quarter!” he
shouted.
    “Well, it’s two-seventy-five. I’ve
only got two-fifty and a bunch of twenties.” She held up a twenty in
consternation.
    “Are you fucking kidding me?” He
snatched a twenty and slipped it into the money slot and the gate began to lift.
    He heard the change drop into the
coin holder, but slammed on the gas, squealing out of the garage sideways and sending
smoke pouring up the street and his ride drifting back and forth in the other
direction after the doctor.
    “I’ll owe you,” he promised the pouty
frown eying the retreating ticket machine.
    They caught sight of the Doctor three
blocks down. “There he is,” Tripper noted with a smile. “They’re almost on him.
Man, he looks tired. That serves him right.”
    “He said he didn’t start it,
Tripper. I believe him.”
    “OK, but I’ll bet he personally knows
the guys who did.”
    Sarah shrugged. “Probably.”
    The doctor scurried along the right
sidewalk with the dead now hobbling close on his heels in the hop-skipping jog
of football players with sprained ankles trying to exit the football field
before the play commences. At last seeing the grey car approaching, and nearly
on his last legs, the doctor darted across the street, his pursuers shambling
at various speeds spread out in a long line across the street in pursuit.
    “Perfect.” Trip crowed.
    He didn’t even have to think about
it; he knew what the Doc had in mind. Gunning the motor as he approached the
line of undead and yanking the wheel at the last moment, the aging sedan
slammed full-broadside into the group of walking cadavers, coming to a dead
stop. He then slammed into reverse and backed into the two he’d missed. With a
primordial scream, Trip jammed the shifter into first and ran them all over again,
sickening both himself and Sarah with the stomach-churning crunches of shattering
bones while the spinning tires sprayed blood and skin onto the side of the
building behind them like stucco. A yank of the wheel spun the car to follow
the Doc, who had continued running twenty or thirty more feet up the street
before he had to finally stop, holding out a pasty thumb as he stood
doubled-over trying to catch his breath.
    “Nice,” Trip said. It was nice to have something to smile about given he’d just mangled seven beings who
not a half-hour before had been innocent Humans just out for a good time. Pulling
up to the curb, he pointed to the back seat and the Doc jumped in.
    The next issue started as he pulled
away from the curb. “Uh-oh,” grumbled Trip quietly, eying down at the steering wheel
in horror.
    “What is it?” the Doctor asked and
both he and Sarah leaned over to look.
    “No, it’s…” he spluttered, and
nodded towards the front of the car. “The steering is pretty tight. I’m
fighting to get away from the curb. I think I bent something.”
    “Shit,” the doctor understated.
    “Oh my God!” Sarah cried.
    “It’s OK. I don’t see anything else
around,” Trip assured her calmly.
    He pulled on one side of the wheel
and turned the car out into the street, but then overcompensated and headed almost
immediately for the other curb.
    “Damnit!” he slammed the dash and
jerked the wheel back the other direction with both hands. “Bent tie rod and
who knows what else. We need another plan. I can get us a few blocks away, but
after that…” The car continued down the street, zig-zagging as if they were
heading home at 3am on a Saturday morning.
    “My work,” Sarah said excitedly.
    “What?”
    “My building. I