Zombie Rules | Book 8 | Who The Hell Is That? Read online

  Who the Hell is That?

  Zombie Rules Book 8

  By David Achord

  www.severedpress.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  © 2021 David Achord. All rights reserved.

  Chapter 1 – The O’Malley Brothers

  “I don’t know, brother. This is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.”

  Logan glanced over at Liam. The two of them were sitting motionless in their SUV, gazing out the front window. Powdery snow covered the road and surrounding countryside. The wipers moved the fresh flakes from side to side every few seconds.

  “I’d say two inches, and the snow is still coming. We’ll have another couple of inches before sundown,” Liam said. He made a head gesture at the falling snow. “And, as for needles, we’ve solved tougher cases.”

  Logan grunted. President-elect Rochelle VanAllen and three of her cronies had gone missing a week ago. Mount Weather’s Quick Reactionary Force, better known as the QRF, conducted a search several hours after it was determined they were overdue. Their search proved futile.

  The conspiracy theories started almost immediately. Another search was conducted by a group of volunteers whose skills were better suited for gardening and KP duty in the cafeteria. A meeting was called, and much like a Dickens satire, the politicians began endless debates on what should be done. Finally, Grace Garret sent a note to Senator Duckworth reminding him there were two veteran police officers living in the Mount Weather community. Another meeting was held whereupon an hour of superfluous debating was conducted before an emergency resolution was passed.

  On a cold November day, it was resolved, the Mount Weather community created an official police force. It consisted of two members: Logan and Liam O’Malley. Their first official case was to find president-elect Rochelle VanAllen and her entourage.

  “This isn’t going to be easy,” Liam said.

  “Never is,” Logan added.

  “Alright, let’s talk this through,” Liam suggested. “Rochelle VanAllen and three of her cronies load up a van with their personal belongings and leave Marcus Hook, destined to Mount Weather, whereupon she was going to be assuming the duties of president of the United States.”

  “Yep, that was exactly five days ago,” Logan said. “The QRF was sent out after they were four hours overdue.”

  “It was headed up by First Sergeant Crumby, so we both know he took it seriously and did not slouch in his duty,” Liam surmised.

  “Agreed, brother.”

  “His written report stated they found absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, not even zed activity, but it’s not zeds who did this.”

  “Definitely people,” Logan concurred. “But if Rochelle is doing this as some kind of hoax, I might be tempted to go ahead and kill them off.”

  Logan let off the brake and the SUV crept forward. Travel was slow due to the snowfall, but they had a job to do and they were not going to let a little snow stop them. They’d packed enough supplies to last them for two weeks. They knew this would be a slow, laborious process. Even so, both brothers wanted this to be over as soon as possible so they could get back to Mount Weather and their respective girlfriends.

  Crumby’s search party had driven the entire journey to Marcus Hook and back again with no success. A different search party tried again the next day with the same results. A team from Marcus Hook had also conducted a search. Now it was up to the O’Malleys.

  “We’ll get back on I-70 and head toward Marcus Hook, but we may need to find a place to hunker down for the night,” Logan said.

  “Funny, I figured we would have run into at least a few zeds,” Liam said.

  Logan agreed. They had not seen a single zed all day. They had not even spotted any zed tracks in the snow.

  The O’Malleys figured there were two possible scenarios –

  Scenario One: Rochelle was playing an elaborate hoax of staging their own disappearance. At some point, probably when their food ran out, they’d miraculously show up at Mount Weather with some crazy story about how they were kidnapped. They figured Rochelle was entirely capable of this deception and would use it for sympathy and to solidify her power base.

  Scenario 2: Someone had ambushed them. Since there was no ransom demand, they figured it wasn’t a kidnapping, but an actual ambush. The kind of ambush where they got killed. If that had happened, they needed to find the bodies.

  Also, if it were indeed scenario 2, they would be expected to identify the suspects. They were cops, after all.

  The rumors had already started. The day before the president’s scheduled arrival, Zach and his family had packed up and left in the middle of the night. When Rochelle failed to show, this was enough for some people to believe Zach was the culprit behind her disappearance.

  After leaving the downtown area of Frederick, the brothers had to take a detour off I-70 due to a snarl of over a hundred vehicles blocking the roadway at a bridge overpass. Crossing the Monocacy River, Liam pointed at a subdivision on the south side of Route 144.

  “We should probably drive through these subdivisions and look for that danged van, but first things first, I need to take a leak.”

  Logan slowed and, out of habit, parked on the shoulder. Killing the engine, he hopped out and joined his brother. The two men proceeded to urinate their names in the snow, something they’d done at least once every snowfall since their childhood. Finishing, they zipped up and started to walk back to the car, but Liam stopped in his tracks.

  “You see something?” Logan whispered, thinking Liam had spotted zeds.

  Liam pointed at a subdivision consisting of approximately twenty homes. “A couple of homes have burnt since the last time I’ve been through here.”

  “That van you boys are looking for is over there.”

  The two men jumped and turned toward the voice. A man on a horse was sitting under a large tree. The overhanging branches, filled with snow, nearly obscured him. He was wearing a tan duster and a Stetson hat pulled low on his head. A rifle rested across the saddle. Even though the man’s collar was turned up, the brothers knew immediately the apparition staring at them with cold steely eyes was Fred McCoy.

  Chapter 2 – Fred

  The two burly brothers would later admit, but only to themselves, that the hairs on the back of their thick necks were not only standing out straight but were having seizures and trying desperately to run away at the sight of Fred McCoy.

  Fred stared at them, unmoving. Even with the brim of his cowboy hat hiding most of his features, the men could feel his eyes staring holes through them.

  “Easy, brother,” Logan cautioned.

  “I know,” Liam whispered back.

  Both men knew if Fred wanted them dead, they would already be sprawling on the ground drawing their last breath. Logan smiled and spoke up.

  “Hello, Fred. What brings you out on a day like today?”

  “Same reason as you boys,” Fred replied. “What you’re looking for is over yonder where those houses are burned up.”

  Fred clicked his tongue and the horse, a beautifully colored Arabian, walked out from under the tree. Fred’s hat rubbed against a couple of low hanging limbs, knocking some snow loose, but he seemed not to notice. Walking his horse by them a few feet, he stopped and peered back.

  “You boys coming?”

  Logan and Liam hastened a cautious glance at each other, wondering if they were being led into a trap. Nothing was spoken, but the two men tacitly agreed they weren’t here to stand around and do nothing. They jogged and c
aught up with Fred, who led them to one of the burned houses. Stopping, he tilted his Stetson toward it.

  “The van is in that one,” he said.

  The brothers exchanged another look before walking toward the burnt house. They spotted the van in what used to be the garage. Part of the roof had collapsed on top of it.

  “It’s the same model van,” Logan remarked. “I don’t see the trailer anywhere though.”

  Liam nodded and used a tactical light to look through a broken window. He then forced the side door open for more access. After a few minutes, they exited the garage.

  “It looks like the van, Fred,” Liam said. “It’s got bodies in it.”

  Fred stared but didn’t respond.

  “Four bodies,” Liam added. “It’s most likely them.”

  Fred continued staring for another long five seconds before speaking.

  “There are some people who have already decided that Zach was involved in this, and some people are probably believing that I might’ve had a hand in it as well.”

  “Yes, sir, there’s a few who’ve made mention of that,” Logan said.

  Fred grunted. “You boys conduct your investigation. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

  He then turned his horse and trotted off without another word. They watched until he disappeared out of sight.

  “I have a question, brother,” Liam said.

  “Let me guess. How in the hell did Fred find the van while riding around the area on horseback?”

  “He lives almost twenty miles from here,” Liam said. “So, how did he know where to look?”

  “I don’t know, brother. He’s either got an uncanny sense of intuition or he’s got some other game up his sleeve.”

  Liam shook his head. “That man doesn’t play games.”

  Logan looked back toward the garage. “Welp, you know what we need to do next. Why don’t you bring the SUV up, I’ll start us a little fire to keep our fingers warm, and we’ll get this investigation underway.”

  “We’re going to do this here?” Liam asked.

  “There’s not enough room in our ride to load them up and carry them back,” Logan answered. “We could strap them on top, I suppose, but I don’t think that’d go over well if we rode back to Mount Weather with the dead president and her entourage strapped to the roof like trophy deer.”

  Liam grunted. “Yeah, and what we’re about to do won’t endear us to them either.”

  “We’re policemen, brother; it’s a thankless job,” Logan said.

  Liam agreed. They’d been police officers most of their adult lives. It was a childhood ambition for both men, and it had never wavered.

  After scanning the area for zeds, he trotted off back toward their vehicle. Logan surveyed the area and decided he could safely build a small warming fire in the driveway leading to the partially collapsed garage. Kicking at the snow, he located paving stones surrounding what was probably a mulch bed once. He put them in a circle at the head of the driveway and then located some dry branches under some nearby trees. He gathered an armload and got a flame going as Liam drove up in their vehicle.

  Liam parked and brought out some equipment from the back of the SUV. The first thing he did was set a teakettle on one of the stones as Logan began adding wood to the growing flames.

  “Some hot tea will hit the spot,” he explained.

  Logan nodded in agreement and maneuvered his way back into the garage. The rear of the van was facing the garage opening. He opened the doors and took several photographs with his cell phone before dragging the burnt remains out. After several minutes of finagling, the two men had the remains of the four corpses lined up on the soot and snow-covered concrete. He then took additional pictures of the corpses as Liam handed him a mug of tea.

  “This is not going to be pleasant,” he remarked.

  “But necessary,” Liam replied. “I wonder if an autopsy has ever been performed under these circumstances.”

  “Who knows,” Logan said. “But at this time, we can’t trust anyone else with this task.”

  Logan was referring to the few doctors living in Mount Weather and Fort Detrick. They had not yet eliminated anyone as the assassins or co-conspirators. No, this was a task they were going to undertake themselves.

  The snow was still falling, causing the men to fashion a tarp over the bodies which was held in place by bungee cords and rope. They stood there, staring at the burned corpses as Logan sharpened a blade on his pocketknife.

  “Remember that bus wreck about, what, twelve years ago now? All those old people were burned to hell. What was it Warchovski called them?”

  “Crispy critters,” Logan said. “Ski said that’s what they called the burned bodies back in Vietnam.”

  “Yeah, well that’s what we got here.”

  “A hundred years from now, when people read about this case and what we’re about to do, do you think people will be amazed or appalled?” Liam asked.

  Logan grunted. “A little bit of both, I imagine.”

  “Yeah,” his brother agreed.

  “I suppose I need to get started.”

  Logan squatted down at the first corpse, said a silent prayer, and then started. He made a Y-incision on its torso. It was dirty work, and the smell was horrendous, but it did not deter the burly man. He took the pair of pruning shears from his brother’s outreached hand but paused.

  “You know, I think I need to start down below, make sure these are women and not men.”

  “Understandable, brother. I hope you remember the difference between a uterus and gonads.”

  Logan’s reply was a grunt. He worked his knife in the groin area and confirmed the first corpse was indeed female. He said as much to his brother.

  Liam paused in taking photos to notate this in a small pad as his brother continued working. He stopped a couple of times to add fresh wood to the fire, but that was the only noise he made. He knew his brother hated distractions and preferred it quiet when he was working on something important.

  It took a little over four hours. Logan was not a doctor, nor had he performed an autopsy back in his previous life, but he’d watched plenty and he had studied the subject extensively.

  It was easy to determine the most likely cause of death in two of them. Multiple bullets were found in them, including a spent projectile in the heads.

  The third corpse was interesting though. As much as Logan cut and dissected, he could find no projectiles. After much effort, he was able to find a deep serration to the hyoid bone.

  The fourth and final corpse was interesting. There were also no projectiles found. The burning of the tissue limited his observations of any injuries to the skin, but he did find gouges in two ribs.

  After he was satisfied that he’d done all he could, Logan lined up the projectiles on the ground and then cleaned his hands in the snow. Liam handed him a fresh mug of tea when he was finished. Logan nodded his thanks and gestured at the third corpse.

  “Those two weren’t shot. It appeared as though one of them was stabbed multiple times and this one may have had her throat cut,” he declared. “Their assailants were able to not only get them to stop their van, but they also got up close and personal with two of them. Oh, and none of them had soot in their lungs. They died before the fire.”

  “Interesting,” Liam said, and paused in thought for a moment before speaking. “You know, brother, they’re going to ask us to tell the cause of death. I’m thinking something.”

  He peered at his brother quizzically as he warmed his hands by the fire. Liam continued.

  “I think we agree the corpse with the gash in her throat is Rochelle, right?”

  Logan nodded. “Her physique is similar to Rochelle’s, so I’d agree with that.” He pointed at the second one. “She’s a big gal. That matches the Lillard woman.”

  “I’m thinking at least two assailants.”

  Logan thought a moment before speaking. “Let’s do something, brother. Let’s tell, or at least
imply, that they were all shot to death and not mention the knife wounds. False witnesses and all that.”

  Liam thought about it before responding. “We keep a little info to ourselves in case somebody comes forward claiming to have information or witnessed it.”

  “Yeah, exactly.”

  “Good idea, brother. We can’t tell Priss or Grace,” Liam said and then chuckled slightly. “Do you know the only person who comes to mind whom I’d trust with such a secret?”

  “Fred McCoy,” Logan instantly said.

  “Yes indeed. Isn’t that funny?” Liam asked.

  “I’d add Zach to that list of trustworthy people, but he’s gone. Justin would tell his wife, and she’d tell somebody, and they’d tell somebody. Same with everyone else, including our girls.”