Read Online Stay Dead: A Novel by Steve Wands - Free Book Online Page B

beyond the park was a school, a modern building with
a brick façade. There were two sets of oversized double doors on
the front of the building and a fenced in area at the back. Down
the road, about a quarter of a mile, was a library, and then the
start of a housing development. Anything beyond that was lost in
the growing darkness of the evening.
    Jon-Jon came to a stop in front of the school
and the rest of the convoy followed suit. Jon-Jon, Boone, Eddie and
soon a mess of folks gathered on the lawn of the school. Some
people were looking for some comforting words or even a pep talk.
They didn’t get one. Jon-Jon grabbed a flashlight out of his bag
and grabbed his pistol. He grabbed Shorty by the shoulder and
whispered something in his ear. Jon-Jon then walked away and Shorty
followed.
    The two of them approached the school. The
others talked amongst themselves and paid them no attention.
Walking close to each other, they were now at the side of the
school building. Jon-Jon shined the light into the first window. It
was an office room, perhaps belonging to someone in administration.
It looked clear and undisturbed. They moved over to the next
window, which was the first in a long series of similar windows.
Beyond those windows was a classroom, clean as a whistle, chairs
and desks were neatly lined up and even the chalkboard had been
washed. With each set of windows it was the same deal. At the back
of the building, Jon-Jon leaned into the fence, moving his
flashlight back and forth in an attempt to see what—if anything—was
beyond the fence. Shorty stood almost on top of him. They could see
two soccer goal posts in the distance, and glimmers behind that,
which they assumed was the flashlight reflecting off the other end
of the fence. All seemed well.
    Shorty and Jon-Jon rejoined the group.
Jon-Jon turned to his side and noticed a shadow moving to the side
of them. He heard the crinkle of leaves and sure enough emerged a
dead creature from the darkness. It was a woman, a younger looking
woman, who, apart from being dead, didn’t appear excessively
damaged like many of the other creatures they had encountered. She
was almost attractive. She walked with a stagger, and her head
twitched violently to one side and back, only to repeat the action
again. Without the twitching had one could easily see how the dead
things were able to do so much damage: she looked hurt and in need
of help, and a few days ago any one of the group would have tried
to help her.
    Jon-Jon grabbed one of Judy’s pipes from her
and he turned to face the broken-neck-bitch. He swung into the
woman’s throat propelling her onto her back. Judy came up from
behind Jon-Jon, brandishing her other pipe and began to beat the
woman’s head into the ground. The two of them mashed her into a
puddle of soft mush and red earth. They finished the job before
anyone else could be of help. The dead woman’s hand continued to
twitch as they walked away.
    Jon-Jon quickly looked around and noticed a
few more moving shadows. He headed for the doors to the school. The
others followed. Everyone left their cars carrying whatever they
could, crying children included. They needed to put some solid
walls between themselves and the creeping shadows of death that
seemed to follow them everywhere. If Death himself showed up with a
scythe it wouldn’t be a surprise. It might even make more sense.
The main door was locked, and too solid to try to budge open with a
shoulder. They then made a mad dash to the far side of the building
that they hadn’t checked, but was clear when they drove past it
initially. It remained so.
    Two dead things started moving toward them
from the street. One looked like he could be the custodian of the
school. The other was a fat man wearing flannel pajamas and a tank
top revealing the gaping wounds in his throat and chest. Dried
blood covered the front of his body as well as his exposed arms.
Frankie and Eddie took care of the fat man as Damian,