Frenzied - A Suspense Thriller Read online

  Do it, while you still have some dignity left, Alex.

  Then he heard laughter downstairs. The women, who apparently had been battling like tigers only a short while ago, sounded as if they were sharing a joke.

  The music of their laughter broke his resolve. He imagined them smiling. Eyes sparkling. Skin so gloriously smooth and tasty.

  His mouth watered with hunger.

  He tore off his shirt.

  And left the room.

  ***

  Emily didn’t consider herself a weapons expert by any stretch of the imagination, but she was able to instruct Hannah—it was tough to call the doctor by her first name, but she insisted on it—in the basics of using the shotgun. How to load, hold, and fire it; just as important, how to reload it. Zack had taught her well during their numerous trips to the local firing range, and though she had merely tolerated those visits at the time, she appreciated the lessons now. They could save her life.

  Hannah was a quick study, too, but whether she would be capable of pulling the trigger on anyone was another matter entirely. Emily wasn’t sure she would be able to do it, either. Her entire focus in life was to become a healer. Could she draw a weapon on someone if she had to? Thus far, she had been spared that difficult choice.

  “You’re a good teacher,” Hannah said. She carefully placed the shotgun on the kitchen counter, and lined up the extra shells. “I feel as if I’m prepared for anything.”

  “Sure thing,” Emily said. “You’ll have to teach me some of those judo moves sometime.”

  “Of course. Every woman should know how to defend herself. I’d be happy to show you a few things.”

  They exchanged a smile. Emily was embarrassed when she reflected on their altercation, but they had clearly progressed beyond that incident, thankfully. It was beginning to feel as if they were developing a genuine friendship—sort of a big sister, little sister bond—and the idea excited her. She had a handful of friends, but they were all people her age, hyper-focused on school and positioning themselves to launch successful careers. It would be refreshing to hang out with someone like Hannah, a woman who—

  The sound of approaching footsteps diverted her thoughts. She turned.

  It was Alex.

  He shuffled into the candlelight. He had stripped off his shirt. Elaborate tattoos decorated his skin: one around his neck that resembled a rosary; another on his arm of a robed skeletal figure holding a scythe; yet another on his chest of a horned, demonic visage.

  Emily had once watched a cable documentary about Mexican drug cartels. The ink on Alex’s skin marked him as a member—a former one, no doubt—of that deadly fraternity.

  But fresh crimson sores mapped his body, too. His deep-set eyes, ringed with inflammation, seethed like glowing embers.

  A blade of tension twisted through Emily’s chest. Hannah had been right about him. Emily had known it, too, but she hadn’t wanted to accept the truth.

  Beside her, Hannah tensed.

  “Alex?” Emily asked. “You don’t look well. How are you feeling?”

  “I . . . can’t help it,” he said in a voice as coarse as sandpaper. “Help . . . can’t . . . I . . . so delicious . . .”

  Gaze shifting between Emily and Hannah, he licked his lips.

  “So delicious,” he said again. “Bite . . . wanna . . .”

  “We’re your friends, Alex,” Hannah said in a tremulous voice. “You don’t want to hurt us.”

  “Friends,” Alex said, as if the word were alien to him. He squeezed his eyes shut for a beat. A grimace contorted his face. “Dios lo que está mal conmigo?”

  Emily had taken several units of Spanish during high school, but that had been years ago. She thought he had said, what is wrong with me?

  “Estás enfermo,” Hannah said. “Usted debe estar. Nosotros nos encargamos de usted.”

  Hannah was trying to persuade him to rest, Emily realized. Trying to convince him that they would care for him.

  Moaning, Alex clasped his head between his hands. Emily edged closer to the counter where the gun lay. She met Hannah’s gaze. Hannah seemed to understand Emily’s intent, and nodded.

  Emily closed her fingers around the butt of the shotgun. She quietly dragged the weapon toward her.

  Alex uttered an unintelligible sound of primal anguish, as if he were being devoured from inside out. A shiver coursed through him—and then he drew his pistol with the quicksilver speed of a gunslinger. He swept it across both of them, back and forth. Sweat streamed down his face in fat rivulets.

  “No,” Hannah said, raising her hands. “You don’t need to do this, Alex. Por favor.”

  By then, Emily had both hands on the shotgun, but she had no chance of getting off a shot before he did.

  “Dios perdoname,” Alex whispered.

  He jammed the pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  ***

  Both Emily and Hannah screamed.

  Alex collapsed forward. His head struck the edge of the granite island. Blood and dark bits of flesh seeped from the ragged exit wound at the top of his skull. A final death spasm jittered through his body, and the movement sent him sliding to the floor, where he hit the tile with a lifeless thud only a few feet away from Emily.

  “Oh, God,” Emily said. Her heart felt as if it had lurched into her throat. Shock had flash-frozen her in place.

  Hannah, too, stood as still as a wax figure, one hand raised to her mouth, teeth clamped over her thumb.

  “You tried to talk him down,” Emily said, finding her voice. “I know he didn’t want to hurt us.”

  “Yeah.” Hannah lowered her head and let out a deep sigh. “We should move him somewhere. Leaving him on the floor like this, it’s not right.”

  “He deserved better,” Emily said.

  “Help me lift him, okay?” Hannah bent to grasp his ankles.

  “Wait, what was that?” Emily had heard a banging sound, close by. At first, she thought it was another gunshot. Then she heard heavy footsteps in the foyer, and realized the initial noise was an opening door.

  Front door, someone’s inside.

  She tightened her grip on the shotgun. Perspiration trickled into the corners of her eyes.

  “Do you think that’s Deacon?” Hannah whispered.

  “Not sure,” Emily said.

  The roaming footsteps sounded as if the walker was barefoot: Emily picked up the squishy noise of bare flesh slapping against wood.

  Naked, she thought. That means it’s one of them.

  She edged backward. Hannah had sensed it, too. She sidled along the island, retreating from the vicinity of the doorway.

  The door banged again, and more footsteps clapped inside. A woman cackled, a sound that sent a chill coursing down Emily’s spine.

  The gunfire had attracted them. Probably, it was the same frenzied mob they had eluded at the clubhouse only a short while ago. They were winding through the streets, seeking out those unlike them, eager to tear and destroy for reasons they no longer understood themselves.

  Something shattered in a front room of the house. A man let loose a stream of pure gibberish.

  Emily caught Hannah’s gaze, and they communicated without verbalizing a single word: Let’s get the hell out of here.

  Together, they raced across the kitchen, opened the patio doors, and plunged into the night.

  Chapter 30

  The buzzing of Deacon’s walkie-talkie summoned him back to the world.

  Deacon didn’t realize he had dozed off. He had been dreaming about Pops, a dream of a beloved childhood memory. When he was five, on Saturday mornings, Pops had begun taking him to a local barbershop to get his hair cut, and in the beginning, Deacon would squirm in the chair as the barber buzzed the clippers across his scalp. Boy’s a little jumpy, but he’ll settle down, Pops told the man. After getting his hair cut, Pops would usually take him to the park and shoot baskets with him.

  When Deacon came to he found he was in the passenger seat of the
Hummer. Jim was behind the wheel, but they weren’t moving. They were parked somewhere dark and quiet. Rain dribbled on the roof.

  He reeked of smoke, and his mouth tasted like ashes. His throat ached, too, but his heart hurt most of all.

  Pops is gone, my daddy is dead . . .

  He wanted to dive back into the comforting womb of unconsciousness, but the two-way radio was buzzing.

  “Gonna get that, chief?” Jim asked. He lifted his head; he sounded as if he had slipped into slumber, too. “Might be the girls calling. We still have a job to do.”

  Moving as sluggishly as a sleepwalker, Deacon activated the walkie-talkie. “Deacon here.”

  “It’s me,” Dr. Bailey said. “Listen, where are you?”

  The urgency in her voice pulled him up in his seat. Clearing his throat, he looked around at where they had parked, and didn’t immediately recognize the area, but his brain was still foggy.

  “Memorial Court,” Jim said softly.

  “We had to leave the house,” Bailey continued. “Alex is . . . dead. We ran into some infected.”

  “Where are you?” Deacon asked. “We’re on Memorial Court—that’s the street name. We’re parked in a cul-de-sac. We’re in a black Hummer.”

  “Hang on,” Bailey said. Deacon heard Emily’s voice in the background. Bailey said, “Hey, that’s literally right around the corner from where we are. We’ve been hiding out in someone’s backyard gazebo.”

  “Finally something goes our way,” Deacon said, and his voice nearly broke. A wave of grief had risen in his heart, threatened to pull him under. He bit his bottom lip and blew out a breath. He could not grieve. Later, there would be time to properly mourn his father, but right then, he had people counting on him, and he couldn’t let them down. Pops would have wanted him to do that—stay focused on the job, regardless of what was going on with him personally.

  Jim had twisted the key in the ignition. The vehicle awakened with a rumble. Jim steered out of the cul-de-sac and crept along the road.

  “Sit tight, but stay on the line and keep talking to me,” Deacon said. “We’re coming to get you.”

  ***

  The women had given them the address of the residence where they had hidden in the gazebo on the property. Jim pulled the Hummer in front of the house; it was an elegant Colonial, utterly dark. Both Dr. Bailey and Emily emerged like shadows from the back yard. They dashed to where the truck idled at the curb.

  Deacon got out of the vehicle to receive them. He pulled both of the ladies into an embrace. He and Dr. Bailey were still holding on to each other after Emily had slipped away and climbed into the backseat.

  Dr. Bailey clutched him tightly, her head buried against his chest. She felt good in his arms. She felt right.

  Or perhaps, after what they had experienced in the past twelve hours, they both simply craved a good hug.

  “Sorry, Doc.” He released his hold on her. “I’m suffocating you here.”

  “It’s Hannah.” Her eyes glimmered. “No need to apologize. I think I could get used to that, in fact.”

  Her smile was like a promise of the future, one that he desperately hoped could arrive soon. A future beyond the hellhole of South Haven, somewhere he could laugh and love again.

  He held open the rear passenger door for her, and then got back into the shotgun seat.

  “Where’s your father?” Hannah asked. “You were going to pick him up?”

  “It didn’t work out,” Deacon said.

  “Oh.” Hannah reached from the backseat and touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  Deacon didn’t elaborate—he couldn’t talk about his father without falling apart—and thankfully, neither Emily nor Hannah pressed for more details.

  “Where to folks?” Jim asked. His fingers drummed the steering wheel.

  “Let’s pull into the driveway of this place and cut the engine,” Deacon said. “We’ve found a pocket of quiet here, but it’s best to lie low until we’re ready to move. We need to discuss some things.”

  Jim maneuvered the big SUV into the driveway under the sodden boughs of an elm tree. Once he shut off the vehicle, the only sound was the relentlessly thrumming rain. The neighborhood was dark as a forest, not a single light burning in any of the homes.

  “All right.” Deacon shifted in his seat to face the women. “Fill me in on what went down. You said this guy Alex is gone?”

  “Alex was infected.” Emily dragged her fingers through her hair. “He tried to fight it, but he couldn’t. He took his own life.”

  “Damn,” Deacon said. “I knew him, not well, but I was acquainted with him. He had that frozen yogurt shop over on Main. Seemed like a good guy.”

  “We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him,” Hannah said. “But after he was gone, we ran into more of the infected. Their numbers are growing, and they’re wilder than ever as crazy as that sounds.”

  “Fighting them isn’t our priority, we only need to steer clear of them,” Deacon said. He unfolded his marked-up community map. “Our priority—mine and Jim’s anyway—is getting to Kent Falcon. He’s the criminal, and he’s going to be held responsible for what he’s done to us, and everyone else who’s suffered here.”

  ***

  “He lives in that old mine off the greenway?” Emily said. “I heard about that place but obviously never went in there since it looked like it was off-limits to everyone. I thought it was shut down?”

  “We all did, but that’s where Kent Falcon has been hiding out, according to his niece,” Deacon said. “Most important, she says he’s got his own service road that he uses to travel in and out of there, and it takes him beyond the perimeter of South Haven.”

  “In other words, it’s our only way out of the community,” Hannah said. “Since the military clearly has established a blockade at the fence and the gates. If we could get into the mine and find this service road, we could slip out under their radar.”

  “Right.” Deacon studied the faces of the women. They looked exhausted, but resolute. Nevertheless, he said, “You don’t have to go through any of this with us, you know. I’m sure Angie Falcon would let both of you wait it out at their estate. They’ve got a panic room.”

  “No,” Emily and Hannah said in unison.

  “We don’t know what we’re going to run into in the mine,” Jim said. “But we keep hearing that this Kent asshole is crazy as hell. Both of you girls up for that?”

  “Going there is as much my job as it is both of yours,” Hannah said. “My boss might have shut down my investigation, but I’ve still got a responsibility to uphold.”

  “And I’ve got personal reasons for going—things I’ve lost,” Emily said, eyes shimmering. She clasped a silver locket she wore around her neck. “Hiding out isn’t an option. I have to see this through.”

  “Sounds like we’re all in, then.” Deacon looked from the women, to Jim. “Let’s divvy up our gear, and head over there.”

  Chapter 31

  Deacon was grateful Angie Falcon had loaned them the Hummer. It did a more than adequate job of transporting them through the night-swept woodlands of the South Haven Greenway. Off the paved path, the land was bumpy, rife with clumps of grass, dense shrubs, and towering pines, elms, and magnolias. Jim plowed the Hummer across the wilderness as if it were an Army tank, mowing over weeds, crunching past tree branches, ripping through vines.

  It was a rough ride, and Deacon’s head had banged against the ceiling a couple of times, but they made it to the fenced perimeter of the old mine all in one piece. Rusty barbed wire bordered the top of the seven-foot-high fence like rows of miniature teeth. A faded sign warned: Private Property - No Trespassing.

  A shiny ATV stood outside the open gate. Elaborately detailed images of falcons adorned the vehicle’s body. Deacon could only shake his head.

  “As expected, Mr. Falcon beat us here,” Deacon said. “Nice of him to leave the gate open for us, too.”

  “Think he’s already taken care o
f his shithead brother?” Jim asked.

  “If so, he’s done us a great service.” Deacon glanced behind him at the two ladies. “Ready to roll?”

  “Let’s do it,” Hannah said, and Emily nodded.

  The women had brought along a twelve-gauge shotgun they had picked up in their travels, and plenty of ammo. Emily kept the weapon, and Deacon had given his fully-loaded Glock 17 to Hannah along with a spare magazine. Deacon kept the .357 revolver and the Remington shotgun he had taken from Falcon’s arsenal.

  He climbed out of the Hummer. The rain had kept up a steady, maddening drizzle. The only light came from the headlamps of their vehicle.

  “You can kill the engine,” he said to Jim. “If all goes as planned, we’re not coming back here.”

  Jim shut off the engine, and the headlights died. Darkness rose, and surrounded them like a broad cloak.

  Deacon approached Falcon’s ATV. His hope was that Falcon had left behind something that might come in handy, but a quick search of the vehicle yielded nothing of use.

  “He had a bag of explosives,” Emily reminded them. “He must have taken it with him.”

  “I would think we would have heard dynamite going off,” Hannah said. She shrugged. “But we’ve admittedly been preoccupied.”

  “The mine looks intact.” Deacon peered ahead, squinting against the raindrops. The entrance was about a hundred yards away, a dark passage embedded in the craggy hillside. “We’re not going to know what’s happened until we get in there.”

  He realized they didn’t have anything that would have qualified as a master strategy. Their objectives were simple. Get inside the mine. Track down Kent Falcon. Interrogate him using any means necessary. Grab evidence proving his crime. Get out of the mine, and hopefully, out of South Haven without alerting the armed guard on the community perimeter. It was a straightforward plan, but there were so many unknowns that everything could go catastrophically wrong.

  They were about to proceed through the gate when Jim halted.

  “Hey, hear that?” he asked in a near-whisper. He cocked his head, eyes narrowed to slits.

  Deacon listened closely. Under the ceaseless patter of the rain, he heard it, too: distant barking, growing louder. Cold dread stirred in his gut. “Dogs.”