Bills to Pay- Part 3 of the Undead Chronicles

Three weeks after the CIA collected samples, a young man awakes to find himself in the hospital with a gunshot wound carved into his side. He recalls the previous night...

He woke up to the blinding brightness of the hospital lights reflecting off the white walls and flooring. He jolted upwards, disconnecting the IV from his wrist. His hospital gown was covered in sweat from the heat. He looked up to notice the tape on the AC unit was not blowing. The air conditioning system was out in the room He brought his hand up to wipe the beads of sweat from his forehead and stood up from the bed. He took a step forward and stumbled, catching himself on the wall. The bandages around his abdomen began to hurt and he gripped his ribs tightly, hoping the pain would dissipate from his body but to no avail. He took another step forward and stumbled again. He decided it best to brace himself on the wall as he made his way to the closet in the corner. Once he reached the closet, he opened it up and picked up his clothes. He untied the gown and began to dress himself.

After he was dressed, he opened up a drawer to look for his engraved ring.  The silver sparkled in the bright lights of the room; the gold letters of “ECH” were etched into the gem on the top with the names Brandon and Mary looping the outside. The date 2023 was blazoned around the gem. He slid it onto on his ring finger and closed the closet back up before making his way back to the bed. His side started to hurt again and he clutched the bullet wound once more before the previous night came to view in his mind…

He was sitting in the backseat of his friends’ ride, a 2010 Chevy Camaro, black with a white stripe on the far left side of the center of the car. The muscle was parked outside a rundown house on the south side of the city. The house was known for its cheap but potent drugs but more so infamous for the person that ran them. The man was named Vlad. Whether it was his birth name or one picked up on the streets was anyone’s guess but none really cared to. He sold everything from dope to bath salts.

Yet the gang was not here for drugs as they usually were. Vlad came into debt with Brandon’s crew and his group was sent to do some collecting on the payment that night. Everything was set, another car was parked around back and the snitch said that Vlad would not be doing any business at this hour. Now would be the perfect time to collect some of the cash, if not all of it. The sun had been hidden behind the skyscrapers for the past two hours and the neighborhood had slowed down to a crawl.

“You ready Einstein?” asked Luke as he pulled out his pistol. Einstein was Brandon’s nickname since he was the only one in the gang to actually finish high school and it had grown on him within his past three years as a member of the crew.

“Ya dude, I’m ready. Frank… please don’t shoot at me again? We do not want a repeat of Washington Avenue. Ya ‘bout damn near took my face off shooting like that,” spoke Brandon as he pulled out his own gun, his father’s M1911.

“D****t boy, I thought I apologized enough for that. I told you a thousand times- if I hadn’t shot…” exclaimed Frank in defense as Luke slid his seat back, ramming it into Frank’s legs. The three got out of the car and made their way to the door of the house. The green paint was chipped and the glass of the windows was dirty, so much so that it appeared as if they had never felt the spray of Windex.

Luke wiggled the door knob to discover it was locked, just as expected. Frank pulled out a hammer and smashed a hole in the door next to the knob, ripping apart the locking mechanism in the door. Brandon slid the door open, surprisingly without a creak, and stepped inside, his pistol pointed up the staircase that greeted him upon entry. Luke followed and moved into the kitchen, his gun checking the doorways and corners of the room. Frank brought up the rear and closed the door before heading right, towards the living room.  No movement came down the stairs so Brandon turned and followed Luke.

The house was dark, making it hard to see anything at all. Luke tried the light switch but to no avail. The power was out. Brandon pulled out his cell phone and turned it so the light was facing away from him. The kitchen was coated in white paint, stained with the yellow tint of a smoker’s habitat. Green tiles covered the eroding floor and broken glass littered the ground. Brandon pointed his light at the cabinets and the countertops, taking in the cracked Formica of the counters and the collapsed cabinets that were strewn across them. The whole kitchen was a wreck with the dining table being overturned and a trail of blood leading down a hallway. Brandon and Luke looked at each other in shock and readied their guns before following the eerie trail. Picture frames were lying broken on the wooden panels of the floor. The sound of glass crunching under their feet echoed like gunshots throughout the silent house. Bloody handprints dotted the turn of the hallway that made its way to the living room, completing a square path around the staircase. The other three gang members walked in from the back room and the whole team met in the living room, all in shock about what was there.

Upon the floor was Vlad. He was covered in blood and pools of it spilled out from his body, staining the dirt covered carpet. Three women were dead in the room as well, all of them half naked and covered in blood. One was lying in the hallway and the other two were next to Vlad. There were no bullet holes in the building and no gunshot wounds were found on the bodies.

“Well s**t man… how we gonna collect from a dead man? Huh? What we suppose to tell the boss?” questioned Jacob as he threw his fist into the wall, leaving a hole in the drywall.

“Calm down Cobble. Just take pictures and we will show the boss. Frank get out your phone. Brandon, check Vlad for anything of value. M**********r always liked his bling,” commanded Luke as he turned to go check the top floor. Frank pulled out his cell phone and started taking pictures, his other hand still clasped around his pistol. Brandon bent down and turned Vlad over onto his back. Black liquid covered his chest and lips. The smell was horrid and made Brandon want to puke as he pulled a gold necklace out from around Vlad’s neck. The necklace was covered in blood and black liquid. Brandon rubbed it on the carpet before wrapping it around his hand. Brandon stood up and turned around to face the backdoor, taking in the pickup truck parked in the backyard. It was well past midnight by now and everyone in the neighborhood was sound asleep.

A loud growl filled the still air of the room and Frank cussed out God as Vlad stood up and lunged at Frank. Brandon turned around, his gun still in his back pocket and watched as Jacob dropped his phone and fired three shots into Vlad. One of the bullets went straight through Vlad and slammed into Brandon’s side, sending him sprawling onto the floor. The undead Vlad continued to make his way towards Frank as Frank unloaded a complete clip into his attacker before falling onto the ground at the base of the stairs. Vlad loomed over him like a spawn from hell, ready to drag the poor man down to Tartarus. Brandon stood up and limped over to the stairs as Luke came down and tackled Vlad out of the front door and onto the grass.  Jacob, Frank, Brandon and Don ran out the door as Vlad turned over, pinning Luke to the ground, preparing to chomp at his face. Don kicked the crazed man in the face, knocking him onto the ground as Brandon pulled out his pistol and shot out Vlad’s kneecaps, causing the man to tumble over. The zombie-like drug dealer began to crawl towards Brandon as the wounded gang member fired three shots into his skull at point blank.

Brandon fell over, still clamping his side as Luke came and put his arm around his shoulder and carried him to the car. Police sirens could be heard in the background as the gang piled into the cars and drove off. The first stop would be the hospital so that Brandon could get cleaned up properly.

Fifteen minutes after the gang left, a lone woman, only of about twenty years of age, walked onto the lawn of Vlad’s drug domain. She noticed the broken down door first but her eyes slowly drifted to the dead man lying on her husband’s lawn. Three bullet holes filled his forehead as she turned him over. Tears fell down her face and onto the grass as the police pulled closer and closer to the home.

“If I had made it home on time… I would probably be dead too.”

Author's Note

Trying to show the connection of the stories. Ignore grammatical stuff etc. Please rate adn review and message me i you have advice or would like to help.