Dad punched numbers into the phone again. “If I can’t get anybody at 911, I’m just going to call the main number for the Spring Valley Police station.”
“Are you even sure he’s dead?”
“I’m sure. I checked his pulse. He’s dead.”
Chelsea nodded. The shriek of police sirens rose from blocks away, heading to different destinations. Maybe if they headed outside, hiked over to Route 501 and waved down a cop car, they could get somebody to the house.
“Still busy.” Dad disconnected again and pulled the phone book out of the cupboard drawer. He began flipping through it. “Don’t worry, honey, everything will be okay.”
Chelsea barely heard him. She was looking out the window into the back yard, hoping somebody in the neighborhood heard the gunshot. She knew her dad wouldn’t get in trouble for killing Gordon — he’d clearly acted in self-defense and had left Gordon’s body the way it had fallen, even left the knife in Gordon’s hand, didn’t even touch the weapon — but she was still afraid for what might happen anyway. It didn’t matter what she or any of her friends did; if Gordon Smith and his crew were involved, they would make it look like she and Tim, and George and Al, were somehow to blame.
And for the first time in her life she didn’t really give a shit.
Realizing this made her feel more confident. It was exhilarating.
Dad found the listing he was looking for. He’d replaced his handgun in the inner pocket of his sport coat and was dialing the number, glancing at the phone book as he did so. Chelsea watched him from her spot at the kitchen table. Her back was facing the living room and the front door.
Neither of them saw or heard Gordon Smith rise to a sitting position in the foyer, then get to his feet.
Chapter Twenty-Six
He was growing weaker by the moment, but Scott Bradfield was determined to reach his destination or die trying.
He was dying anyway.
Scott didn’t even pay attention to the police cars that were whipping this way and that during his drive to the Gaines house. It was hard enough keeping Dave’s vehicle in a more-or-less straight line. His left eye was gone, and blood continued to drip into his swollen right eye from his flayed scalp, making it sting. The flesh of his right cheek had been torn away, revealing tendons and gristle and a hint of jawbone. His breath was coming in rasping gasps, made worse by the deep gouges in his trachea. Likewise, he’d lost muscle mass thanks to Dad’s strong fingernails — who would have thought Dad would have had the strength to tear his biceps to shreds with his bare fingers?
Well, he had, and he’d done a lot worse.
Scott still didn’t know how he didn’t wind up dead like Dave and Steve. The last thing he remembered was his father launching himself at him, knocking him backward down the basement steps. He remembered fighting his father off in the initial few minutes of confusion, and he remembered hitting the back of his head at some point. Before he blacked out he remembered the other zombies coming down the stairs after Dad. He didn’t remember anything after that.
The next thing he remembered was lying on the ground, his vision blurry, pain rocketing from his head and face and arms. Through blurred vision, he caught a glimpse of Dave being torn apart by the guy in the Dr. Chud T-shirt and he was pretty certain one of the other zombies, the short skinny one, was wandering around the basement with a bemused look in its eyes. Scott could tell he was losing blood, that he was seriously injured, but he was alive. And he had to get out of that basement.
And somehow, amid the violence that had visited his house in the form of his father and those still unknown shambling creatures of the dead, one of Dad’s power tools had fallen off the shelf and now lay within easy reach.
Dad’s chainsaw.
Without even thinking about it, Scott reached out with his left hand and, ignoring the pain, grasped the chainsaw’s handle. He dragged it over and, with his other hand, reached for the ripcord. He sat up, chainsaw held firmly with his left hand, and started it with one savage tug.
As it roared to life, Dr. Chud turned toward him. Scott stood up and cut Dr. Chud in half as the zombie lurched over to him. Dr. Chud went down in a spray of blood, his guts splashing on the floor to land wetly at his feet. Scott stepped around Dr. Chud’s dismembered torso and brought the whirling blade down on the short-and-skinny zombie, who gave one semi-frightened bleating noise before being chewed up and spit out.
The other zombies had left the basement, and presumably the house. Scott had taken a quick look around, then turned his attention back to Dr. Chud, who had fallen in such a way that he’d landed on the open wound that bisected his torso. He looked like he was growing out of the basement floor. Dr. Chud waved his arms toward Scott and opened his mouth in a silent hiss. The floor around his torso was wet with blood; more ran out of Dr. Chud’s mouth. The zombie’s eyes were open and blank, like the eyes of a cow. Scott grimaced and brought the whirring blade of the chainsaw down on Dr. Chud’s head. “Here you go, you fucker.” The chainsaw cleaved through Dr. Chud’s head, dividing it neatly in two. Dr. Chud’s skull split down the middle, presumably his brain separating at their hemispheres perfectly, and the body flopped backward on the floor.
Scott had paused, his eyes lighting on the short, skinny zombie. It wasn’t nearly as mobile as Dr. Chud, and seemed to be having a hard time trying to maneuver itself. No way was it getting out of here without legs.
Scott had headed up the stairs, the blade of the chainsaw wielded like a weapon. He was able to make it out of the house and outside where he quickly dashed over to Dave’s car. He’d clawed the door open and got inside, dropping the chainsaw on the backseat. For a moment he’d almost passed out in the front seat.
He’d grabbed Dave’s keys — they were sitting in the drink container in the center island between the front bucket seats — and started the car. He’d backed it down the driveway and headed out of the development.
And now he was nearing his final destination.
Scott turned down Maple Drive. He’d taken a roundabout route to the Gaines house because he wanted to avoid driving down Main Street. Every time he passed a street that fed into Main Street he detected heavy police presence. Several times he’d heard amplified voices, had even seen Army vehicles turning into the various residential streets that snaked off from Main Street. Scott had turned on the radio to hear what was going on and the news brought him up to date. The National Guard had been called in. A shitload of them from what it sounded like. The entire county was surrounded by the military, and troops were arriving from Fort Detrick, Maryland. He’d heard sirens and the steady whirring of helicopters flying overhead, so he knew the military and the police were stepping in to destroy as many of the zombies as possible. That was fine with Scott. In fact, he hoped they would step up their assault.
It would provide him with the perfect cover for what he needed to do.
Scott’s left arm started to twitch and he almost lost control of the car. He stopped, the vehicle jerking, and he took a deep breath. He wasn’t far now. If he could just get there…
It didn’t matter if Count Gaines wasn’t home. As long as he got inside Tim’s house, he would wait.
Better yet, if his parents were home that would be even better.
He was pretty sure Tim’s parents didn’t possess any weapons. They’d always struck him as pansy-assed liberals, the kind that wanted to take everybody’s guns away. That would make them pretty easy to take down with a chainsaw.