Dead Highways (Book 0): Prelude Read online

  Book Description

  DEAD HIGHWAYS: PRELUDE

  Bodies littered the streets. Not dead. Not alive. Victims of a worldwide coma, lulled to sleep by a mysterious plague. If it had stopped there, if they had all just died, that would have been bad enough.

  But the coma was just the beginning.

  Soon the infected will wake, just not as the people they once were. They’ve been reprogrammed.

  The only question is . . . by what?

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ______________________________

  Dead Highways: Prelude

  Copyright © 2013 by Richard Brown

  All rights reserved.

  ______________________________

  For more information about the author visit:

  www.richardbrownbooks.com

  ALSO BY RICHARD BROWN

  ______________________________

  - Novels -

  Dead Highways: Origins

  Dead Highways: Passage

  Dead Highways: Discord

  Titanic with Zombies

  - Comics -

  Knifed – A Horror Comic

  - Poetry -

  The Rebirth: Collected Poetry

  Want to know when new books come out?

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  Contents

  Book Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 1

  March 10, 2012, was the day the apocalypse began.

  But we’ll get back to that later.

  Chapter 2

  February 13, 2012, was the day before Valentine’s Day, and I (your loyal guide, Jimmy) was at the gun shop.

  Guns Unlimited.

  I wasn’t there to get a present for my imaginary girlfriend. I wanted a gun for myself—needed one, just in case things got worse.

  The biggest problem was I knew nothing about guns. I'd never held a gun before, let alone fired one. Sure I'd seen plenty of guns on TV and in movies, but how much of that was just camera tricks and special effects? How many times would I have to shoot someone to make sure they stayed down? But first I needed to know—

  “Where do you put the bullets?” I asked, thoroughly examining the pistol Ted handed me. The gun was cold and heavier than I expected.

  Ted was the owner of Guns Unlimited. He was a rather large man with equally large hands. His skin was darkly tanned and he had freckles everywhere, more than I think I'd ever seen on one person. I found myself staring at them curiously, even while he did his best to ease my anxiety and answer my stupid questions.

  He took the gun from me. It looked like a toy in his hands.

  “See this,” he said, pointing at what looked to be a button or switch of some kind on the left side of the gun, near the top of the handle. “Push it to release the magazine.”

  He demonstrated and then handed me the magazine.

  “And so the bullets go in here?”

  He looked at me like I was an idiot.

  I suppose that was fair.

  “You sure you want to buy a gun? I mean, you've thought this through?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  He looked at me like I was a liar.

  “Okay then, hang tight.”

  He turned around and walked through an archway to the rear of the store.

  “I really appreciate your help.”

  “It's no problem,” he said from the back storage room. “We all have to learn from someone. My dad taught me when I was young.” Ted returned to the counter with a small box of ammunition. “I could sell you a gun even if you have no clue how to use it. I could let you shoot yourself in the face, and my hands would be clean. But that's not good enough for me. I want a clean conscience, too. So I take gun safety very seriously. I really hope you're listening. I don't want to see on the news that you committed suicide. You ain't depressed or anything, right?”

  “No sir. Though it might be hard to shoot myself if I can't figure out how to load it.”

  “I'd say it would be difficult to shoot someone else too, assuming you must. You said you wanted the gun for protection.”

  I nodded.

  “Well then, since an unloaded gun is about as useful as a pecker on a priest, I guess you'll need a crash course. Follow me.”

  He led me across the store and through a heavy wooden door to an adjacent building. The building was colder than the store and had a funny smell. Later I would know the smell as gunpowder. To say I was out of my element would be an understatement—I stuck out like a headless man in a hat store.

  Ted explained to me that this was a gun range, a place for people to come and practice their marksmanship. Ten dollars for a half hour was the current rate, but freckle face was happy to let me shoot a few rounds for free.

  There were six stations with a maximum shooting distance of fifty feet. Ted set my target up at half that. He showed me how to load the magazine, and then outfitted me with a pair of earmuffs and protective eyewear.

  “Is all this really necessary?” I asked.

  “Yes, it’s the law.”

  “Like wearing your seatbelt?”

  Ted pointed out the different parts of the gun and then took a few shots downrange to demonstrate.

  Holy crap!

  I still didn’t know why I had to wear the goggles, but I was glad I had the earmuffs on.

  Ted had put two holes in the paper man-shaped target right between the eyes.

  Next, it was my turn. He handed me the gun.

  “Always keep the safety on until you’re ready to shoot,” he said. “Did you pay attention to how I was holding it?”

  “A little.”

  He helped me into the correct position. “Go ahead and take the safety off. Then aim and pull the trigger. Try to hit the target in the chest.”

  “Shouldn’t I try and hit the head like you?”

  “No. The chest is a much bigger target, and just as effective.”

  I took a deep breath and then pulled the trigger.

  “Nice. Not bad for your first shot,” Ted said.

  I had hit the target in more of the stomach region, but at least I hit it.

  “The gun almost flew out of my hands. Is that normal?”

  “You did okay. You just gotta get used to it. Every gun is gonna have a little kick, some more than others. It just takes practice. Go ahead and shoot off the rest of the rounds.”

  I wanted to buy the gun that day, but Ted said I had to wait three days.

  Three days later, I went back to pick it up. Over the course of the next few weeks, I would spend a lot of hours hanging out at Guns Unlimited. Ted was glad I hadn’t killed myself or someone else, and was just as glad to take my money to use the range. My speed and accuracy was improving. I was feeling more and more confident that when something did happen, I’d be ready. It was like preparing for a hurricane I knew was on its way; only instead of food and water, I wanted guns and ammo. It was only a matter of time.

  Now, I know how all this must sound. But so that you don’t think I’m some psycho with an itchy trigger finger, let’s back up a little and I’ll explain how
I came to need a gun in the first place. It’s (how do I say this?) complicated.

  Chapter 3

  For much of my life, it had always been grandma and me. I won’t get into what happened with my parents. Let’s just say I hate them both.

  Moving on.

  Grandma owned a small used bookstore in a nice part of Cocoa, Florida, and by nice I mean in the 1980s when she bought the place. By 2012, it was only nice if you wanted to score some rocks. So the market for book buyers was rather limited, especially since crack heads don’t have much free time to read, what with doing crack all damn day.

  But the store was paid for and so sales didn’t matter much to grandma anyway. She liked to read, as did I, and that was what kept us going. Our love for books. That and her monthly social security check. Those two things.

  The few customers we did get were usually people who knew grandma—most of them old ladies.

  Mrs. Harrington with the pacemaker.

  Mrs. Rose with her house of cats.

  Mrs. Goldie with the bad perm.

  Old ladies.

  They would come by on a regular basis, talk about the results of their latest blood test, and then be on their way. I would usually be sitting in the corner reading a fantasy novel, trying to ignore them, wishing I were in another world.

  Middle-Earth. Oz. Canada.

  Anywhere.

  The bookstore had two stories (get it? stories), the second floor being our apartment space. Yeah, that’s right. I was twenty-two and still living with my grandma. Probably why I was still a virgin too. Go ahead, have a laugh on me.

  Moving on.

  The apartment space was no more than eight hundred square feet, with two bedrooms, one bath, and a shared living room. It also had a “kitchen,” but no bigger than what you’d find in an RV, cramped and useless. The second floor was only accessible via a narrow staircase in the back room, so no customers could curiously wander up.

  I often tried to persuade grandma to move, fearing one day she might take a tumble down the stairs. She was almost eighty, after all. But she refused to stray too far away from her pride and joy.

  No, not me, her only grandchild.

  The bookstore.

  Still, for as old as she was, she was as lively as they come. No walker. No memory loss. No old person smell. Her hearing was the only thing that didn’t quite make the trip into her senior years. I constantly had to yell, even when I wasn’t angry.

  Forgive my lousy painting, but I think you get the picture. My life sucked more than those Paranormal Activity movies. Nothing that an apocalypse couldn’t solve.

  And now that I’ve established where I worked, where I lived, and the fact that the only girlfriend I ever had was imaginary, we can move on to the next phase.

  Chapter 4

  Don’t.

  Do.

  Drugs.

  Remember that, kids.

  Or you might end up like Kevin.

  Kevin was the nicest addict I’d ever met. Hell, he was the only addict I’d ever met. He would shuffle by the bookstore twenty times a day, much like a zombie, always looking ruffled and beaten like he’d just gone for a long ride in the trunk of some maniac’s car. And maybe he had.

  His hair was long and dirty and blonde, like Kurt Cobain’s before he killed himself. He wore the same clothes every day. Ripped blue jeans. Black T-shirt. Old pair of scuffed-up boots with the heels hanging off. I don’t think he owned any other clothing. Or anything else, for that matter. And my God did he smell—worse than the dumpster behind the building, worse than the TV dinners grandma always made.

  But Kevin was nice.

  He never tried to rob me, not that I had much money to take. He got his fix by doing good, honest work, begging for spare change at the Haji-Mart across the street. I even donated a few coins to the drug fund, usually after buying a hot dog or taquito for lunch. And why not? Finally, here was someone I could feel bad for. Here was someone more pathetic than me.

  Then came the day when Kevin decided to pay me back for all my charity, in the only way he knew how.

  By offering me a joint.

  You know, even after all that has happened, and let me tell you there is a lot left to tell, I still remember that day so clearly. I suppose you never forget the first time you’re offered drugs.

  It was a really cold day, which doesn’t occur often in Florida, and it caught me by surprise. I was halfway to the Haji-Mart before realizing I should have grabbed a coat. I jogged the rest of the way across the street to keep my blood from freezing.

  Kevin was sitting outside when I arrived, head down, coatless, huddled against a black trash can for warmth. He was pulling the last drags off a cigarette he’d probably picked from the community ashtray. Gross.

  He looked up at me and nodded.

  I nodded back and rushed inside the store.

  Few things feel better than entering a warm building after being out in the cold, even if the warm building is just an old, filthy convenience store.

  I made my way to the hot dog roller and fountain drink stations located on the far end. Ah, yes, that was where I usually spent my lunch money. The rest of the stuff on the shelves was usually expired. It didn’t matter if it was candy, potato chips, or even headache medicine for crying out loud, it probably went out of date last month. Even some of the ready-to-eat stuff, like the donuts sitting in the glass case with the big sign saying Fresh Donuts, looked like they’d shriveled up and died long ago. And don’t get me started on the fresh-brewed coffee. It seriously looked like shit water. I guess the manager, an East Indian man named Aamod, believed in a different definition of the word fresh than me. The only exception to this seemed to be the hot dog roller, which Aamod was forced to restock throughout the day due to the strict budgets of people like me, the neighborhood poor, and there were a lot of us going around.

  I paid for my hot dog and soda and then left the store. Few things feel worse than going outside in the cold after being in a warm building. Kevin was still leaning against the trashcan, still looking miserably cold. I felt extra bad for him on this day, so I gave him all my leftover change, a whopping two dollars and fifteen cents.

  “Gee thanks, bro,” he said to me.

  I smiled politely and then walked away. I did my part to help the less fortunate. I could sleep soundly that night, knowing my good deed for the day was done. Two dollars and fifteen cents? Why, he could buy a few cups of that shitty-looking coffee for that. I call that progress.

  By the time I finished my hot dog, I had realized I could do better than two dollars and fifteen cents. I patiently waited for Kevin to shuffle back by the bookstore to wherever he went, and when he finally did, I met him outside with a present. It was an old coat, and an ugly one if I may be totally honest. Grandma got it for me years ago, back when I was in high school. Since then it sat in my closet collecting dust, like a lot of the clothing she’d bought me over the years. Until now.

  “I thought you might want this,” I said, holding the coat out to him.

  Kevin looked down at the coat, then back up at me, then back down at the coat. “Are you for real? I mean...that’s a nice coat, bro.”

  “If you say so,” I said. “I mean...yeah. It’s yours if you want it.”

  “Sure, sure, I’d love to have it. What do you want for it?”

  “Nothing. I’m just trying to help out, that’s all. I know the cold doesn’t give much warning around here.”

  “Nah, man.” He took the coat and tried it on. “Fits real good,” he said. “How does it look?”

  “Looks fine,” I said. Not really a lie. The coat was actually an improvement over Kevin’s other clothing. At the very least, it was clean and still smelled rather new.

  “Well, if you want your money back, you got it.”

  “No, no. It’s no big deal, really.”

  “You sure? Hey, wait a minute. I got something for you.” He reached into the pocket of his ripped jeans and pulled out what I at first th
ought was a crumpled up receipt.

  He held it out to me so I could get a closer look.

  Nope. Not a receipt.

  “Is that a cigarette?”

  “It’s a joint. Take it. What do ya say, even trade?”

  “No thanks, I don’t smoke.”

  “Everybody smokes, bro.”

  “Not me.”

  “Why not?”

  I thought about the question for a moment. “I don’t know. Never had the urge, I guess.”

  “Well, today’s your lucky day,” he said, still holding the joint out for me to take. I looked around nervously for any sign of police, but didn’t see any around. “It’s the least I could do, since you’ve been so kind to me. I don’t have much else to offer. Take it, and I’ll leave you to your books.”

  The debate continued for another five minutes before Kevin won. I grabbed the joint from him and shoved it into my pocket, feeling like a criminal. By that point, I would have done just about anything other than sexual favors to get him to leave me alone. I never had many friends growing up, so this was the closest I’d ever come to experiencing peer pressure. And it worked. I felt like I was living inside one of those after school specials.

  We said our goodbyes and Kevin headed off with my coat, and I headed back inside the bookstore with his joint.

  Of course, I had no intention of smoking it, officer. I only took it so he’d leave me alone, your honor. I wondered if the law would accept that rationalization. Grandma would certainly be upset if she knew I had it, so I’d have to get rid of it as soon as possible. Until then, it would stay hidden out of sight under my mattress.

  For the rest of the week, I avoided going to the Haji-Mart, fearing I’d run into Kevin and he’d ask me about it.

  Truth was; I was wrestling with the idea of smoking it, but I was also scared of what might happen to me if I did. I had never done anything so crazy in my life. The craziest thing I’d ever done was spend a whole weekend reading the Lord of the Rings for the third time.