New York holds painful memories for Chris Collins and he swore he’d never go back there. But when his daughter goes missing and shows up being displayed in Times Square like is caged beast, Chris has to take action.
Now, he's going back to Dead City on an operation that Joe Thursday describes as "one step up from a suicide mission". Going back to challenge his old nemesis Bronson Chavez, the one-time street thug who is now runs New York like his private kingdom, with a zombie army at his beck and call.
Only one of them will survive and Chris has the odds seriously stacked against him.
Click the "Read More" link below to read an excerpt from
Return To Dead City
one
“Chris? Chris, are
you okay?”
I woke sitting upright in bed with Kelly’s hand on my arm.
“Are you okay?” Kelly said again. “You were shouting.”
For a second I was unsure where I was, and then I began to make out
the familiar features of our bedroom. The closet papered with Sam’s juvenile
artwork, the high-backed chair in the corner that looked like a torture device,
the framed photographs on the bureau, reflecting back the moonlight streaming
through the security bars on the window.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”
“Was it a bad dream?” Kelly said sleepily.
“I’m fine, get back to sleep, Kel.”
“Night,” she mumbled, already halfway there.
I slipped from the bed and made my way to the bathroom, closing the
door so the light wouldn’t bother Kelly. I took a leak and then splashed water
on my face. I studied myself in the mirror and decided that I could really use
a couple of nights where I slept right through. My nightly sojourns were
starting to leave dark smears under my eyes.
The dreams had started a few weeks ago. In them, I'm back in New
York, standing in front of the ruins of my old apartment block. It is early
morning with the first rays of sun just penetrating between the buildings.
Then, like one of those demolition sequences played in reverse, the building
seems to reconstruct itself before my eyes. I climb the staircase to the front
door and step into the foyer with its chessboard tile pattern. I half expect to
hear classical music coming from the Kranski's apartment, but there is none.
The place is silent as a crypt. I climb the stairs to my apartment taking them
two at a time. The front door is ajar, and as I step through, I hear a baby
crying. Then the cries are accompanied by an off-key melody, Rosie's voice
singing “The Greatest Love of All.” Even in the dream I can feel gooseflesh
rise on my arms. I have a strong urge to run, but instead, I find myself
stepping towards the sound of the baby's cries. I walk past the sideboard
trailing my hand along the boxing trophies that are displayed there. I step
across into the bedroom, which is dark except for a sliver of light from the
half-open bathroom door. Rosie is sitting on the bed cradling the baby,
cradling my daughter, Ruby. She looks up at me, only it's not her face I see,
it's the face of Bronson Chavez. He smiles and even in the half-light I can see
his jagged teeth and predator's eyes. "Took your time getting here,
homes," Chavez says and angles his mouth in towards Ruby's neck.
Usually at this point in
the dream, I wake up. But tonight there’d been a new twist. Tonight I’d watched
as Chavez buried his face in Ruby’s neck and came up with his face dripping
blood. That was what had caused me to cry out and wake Kelly, and had then deprived
me of sleep for the rest of the night.
Back when I was
still living in New York and making my living as a professional boxer, I used
to rise at five every morning to do my roadwork. We’d been in Lancaster,
California almost ten years now, and it had been even longer since my last pro
fight, but this was still part of my daily routine. I loved being out while it
was still dark and the city was asleep, loved the crisp, early morning taste of
the desert air and the feel of stretching and taxing my muscles. I’d slip my 9-mil into a shoulder holster and
then set off on a circuitous course - rounding the school, cutting through the
park and making sure I passed by the barricades, where I’d exchange a few words
with the sentries. Usually, they’d fill me in on the evening’s zombie activity.
More often than not there’d be nothing to report. The Zs, for the most part,
had gone into hibernation - at least that was what the Corporation would have
us believe.
On my return route, I’d head back through the park, stopping off to
do a few sit-ups and chin-ups and a bit of shadow boxing. Then I’d head for
home, getting there as the sun was coming up.
Today was no different. I got back to the house, let myself in
through the array of security locks and doors, did my best to rouse Kelly
(usually I’d have to pull the covers off her, and even then I’d sometimes come
back to find she’d gone back to sleep) then hit the shower. I took my time,
enjoying the feel of the warm water on my body. I got out, toweled off and
dressed. Kelly had managed to get herself out of bed and was not in the room. I
figured she’d gone to wake the kids, a job that took some doing. In the
rise-and-shine department, Joe, Charlie and Sam definitely took after their
mother. Still the house did seem inordinately quiet. Normally at this time of
the day there’d be a riot down the hall with the twins arguing about who gets
to use the bathroom and Samantha complaining that it should be ladies first.
Today, though, it was as though a bathroom truce had broken out in the Collins
household.
I walked down the passage towards the boy’s room. Both Charlie and
Joe were already out of bed. Sam’s bed was similarly empty, and they weren’t in
the bathroom either, that door stood ajar. Somewhere during my search an alarm
bell started to jangle. By the time I’d reached the empty kitchen at the end of
the passage it was wailing like an air raid siren. A feeling akin to déjà vu
washed over me. Only I knew this wasn’t déjà vu, this was a memory of a morning
back in New York fifteen years ago, when I’d stepped out of a shower to find….
I pushed that thought from my mind.
“Kel? Guys?”
Nothing. Even Luigi hadn’t barked.
I headed back down the passage - half-jogging now - and entered the
lounge. It was empty. The front door stood open and I crossed towards it in a
hurry. I’d just about made it to the door when I heard a man’s laughter and
then Samantha screamed and I broke instantly into a sprint. I burst onto the
porch realizing as I did that it was a damn fool thing to do. If there were Zs
out there I’d have run right into them, if there was someone with a weapon he’d
have been able to pick me off easily.
There was a man standing on the path. He had an arm around Kelly and
another around Sam. Sam was squirming and struggling to get away from him as he
tickled her. At the other end of the garden the twins were tossing a football
to each other while Luigi ran between them following the ball. “Hey, Dad,”
Charlie called out. “Look at the cool presents Uncle Joe brought us.”
two
I hadn’t seen Joe
Thursday in close on four years, and time had not been good to my old friend.
Joe had never been particularly athletic but he’d been solidly built and
remarkably quick for such a big man. Now, though, I could see that his profile
had taken a turn towards the decidedly paunchy, and with his prematurely white
hair and the wire-framed glasses he was wearing, he looked older than his
forty-nine years.
“What’s the matter, Chris?” Joe said releasing Kelly and Sam and
spreading his arms. “Don’t you got a hug for your uncle Joe?”
“How the hell have you been, Joe?” I said and walked forward
allowing him to wrap me in a bear hug.
“Pretty damn good,” Joe said. He pushed me to arms length and squinted.
“Now my eyes ain’t what the used to be but I reckon you’re just about as ugly
as I remember. How’d a rough and tumble Irish hoodlum like yourself land a
beauty like Kelly and raise such handsome kids?”
“Must be my sparkling personality and good genes,” I said.
Joe pulled me into another embrace, “Good to see you again,
compadre,” he said in my ear. “It’s been too long.”
“That it has,” I agreed.
“Boys!” I heard Kelly call, “Come on, time to get ready for school.”
“Ah, ma,” the twins said in unison.
“Move it!”
While Kelly corralled the kids and got them into their morning
cleansing and dressing routines, I led Joe to the kitchen, sat him down and
started brewing some coffee.
“How are things in L.A., Joe?”
“Oh you know, swings and roundabouts, strikes and gutters, some days
we eat the Zs, some days they eat us.”
“Really? I thought you had things pretty much tied up down there.
You up for some coffee?”
“You wouldn’t perhaps have a brewski would you?”
“Beer? At this time of the morning?”
“It’s all good, oats and hops and spring water, the breakfast of
champions.”
“Yeah, I think we can do you one. Bud Light, okay?”
“One rung up the ladder from mineral water, but if its all you got,”
he said. He took the can, shucked it and drew a long dram.
“Breakfast of champions,” he repeated.
“So you were saying, Joe, you’re having some trouble down in L.A.?”
“I wouldn’t say trouble exactly, more like –”
“Has Chris offered you some breakfast, Joe?” Kelly asked as she
walked into the kitchen.
“I’m good Mrs. C.,” Joe said. “That’s is unless you’re on the menu.”
“Not today, I’m afraid,” Kelly giggled. “You fellers mind taking it
into the lounge, so I can get this pack of wolves fed and off to school.”
Joe finished off his beer and crushed the can. Kelly shot me a look.
I shrugged.
“I’ll take another brewski for dessert if you got one,” Joe said. I
passed him another Bud and we moved to the lounge as Kelly started pouring O.J.
and fixing breakfast.
“You were saying, Joe, about L.A.?”
“Was I? Ah hell Chris, let’s not talk about that crap now. How you
doing?”
“I’m doing good. Got myself a little gym set up, giving some
self-defense classes, got a couple of promising young fighters. The kids are
doing great in school, Kelly’s great. Lancaster’s a great place to live. I’m
doing well, Joe.”
“Glad to hear it compadre,” said Joe, quaffing the foam from the top
of his beer. “You deserve it after the shit you went through. I’m surprised you
haven’t asked though.”
“Asked what?”
“About Ruby.”
I looked at Joe squinting at me through his early morning beer buzz
and realized he was right. I hadn’t asked about Ruby, hadn’t even thought to
ask.
“Nothing to feel bad about,” Joe said. Even after all this time he
could still read me like a billboard. “You had a call to make, way back when.
You made the right one. You gotta look forward. Never back, Chris, never back.”
“So how is Ruby?” I said, feeling deeply ashamed for treating my
daughter’s wellbeing like an afterthought. I received monthly reports from the
Corporation, of course, but it wasn’t the same thing.
Joe looked at me through bleary eyes, magnified by his glasses and
looked like he was about to cry. “Ruby’s –”
“Hey hon, I’m going to drop the kid’s at school and I need to stop
at the market on the way back. Anything I can get you?”
“I’m good,” I said.
“You can get me a quart of Makers,” Joe said, then added, “only
kidding, only kidding,” when he saw Kelly’s expression.
“Okay, I’ll be going then,” Kelly said, giving me a peck. “Joe, I
hope you’ll still be here when I get back.”
“If you’re coming back, sweet thing, you can count on it.”
“Bye, Uncle Joe, bye Dad,” the kids chorused and Samantha came over
and gave me a hug and a kiss, and then Kelly shepherded them out. The house was
suddenly very quiet. Joe finished his second beer of the day and stared blankly
at a Magritte print on the wall – something that Kelly liked, but that made no
sense to me. Kelly’s SUV started up and reversed down the drive.
“I don’t suppose –” Joe started to say. I got up and headed for the
kitchen and fetched the last beer out of the fridge. I was glad it was my last.
I had a feeling that Joe would keep drinking them as long as I kept bringing
them. And this was something new to me. Joe had always been partial to a drink,
but he’d never been a ‘beer for breakfast’ type boozer.
“Here you go,” I said handing him the beverage. “Last of my stash,”
I added, just so he knew.
Thanks, amigo,” he said taking the can from me. Joe sat there
looking stooped and old, and when he looked up at me there were tears in his
eyes. “Ruby’s gone, Chris,” he said.
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