Dead Frontier/Issue 112

This is a preview for Issue #112 of Dead Frontier, titled Next in Line. This is the fourth issue of '''Volume 19. '''The entire issue is planned to be posted by October 03, 2013.

Issue 112 - Next in Line
Cole rises from the bed immediately when he hears Lucy shriek. He can't tell why she looks so shocked by, what he assumes, is just an infected that got a little too close to the house. But upon closer inspection, it's clear her reaction is justified.

"Is that...Mae?" he asks, squinting from his position on the bed. He stands and uses the wall as support as he walks over. He stops a few feet behind Lucy, grimacing as Mae uselessly claws at the window, leaving thin streaks of blood along the glass "Jesus Christ...Go--go wake everybody up. I'll deal with her." Lucy takes one last glance at Mae before disappearing out of the room.

Hesitantly, he inches closer to the window. He lifts it open, and Mae growls at him almost eagerly. She sticks her head and arms in first, but before she can pull herself into the room completely, Cole grabs the window and brings it down hard on her head. There's a small explosion of blood and brains as her head is smashed between the windowsill and the actual window. He makes no effort to hide the disgusted look on his face, wiping away the small bits of blood that have flown onto his chest.

Just a few seconds later, the door flings open wildly and Adam appears, his eyes tired but still darting around nervously. It only takes a minute for his gaze to lock onto the bloody mess at the window. He looks at Cole wordlessly for an explanation. “That was Mae,” Cole says simply, backing away a few inches.

“It was just a--a tapping. It went on for a while, and she went to go check it out,” Cole says, gesturing to Lucy, who sits next to him on the couch. She still looks a little flustered from the rude awakening, so she lets Cole explain the situation as best as he can. "And then...infected Mae, just scratching at the fucking window."

Everyone is gathered around, their sleep-filled faces trying to take in all of the details. The sun is barely out: it can’t be past 5 AM, and their drowsiness only makes everything that much harder to believe.

“Okay,” Adam says slowly, folding his hands on his lap. “Gonna need a few people to go...deal with the body.” No one says anything for a short while until Duke raises his hand reluctantly.

“I’ll go,” Duke says. “Not tired anymore, anyway.”

“Anybody else?”

Dean looks around. He can easily tell no one else is going to raise their hand, and after all the commotion of yesterday, he wants to paint the most positive picture of himself as he can. Seems like no better time than now, selflessly volunteering to dispose of a poor group member’s body. He raises his hand with a shrug. “Sure,” he says passively.

As Duke and Dean walk around the side of the house, Mae’s body comes into view. Her body hangs uselessly as her head is stuck firmly in the window. No chance of her going anywhere.

Duke lets out a disgusted groan as he and Dean meet around the window. A steady stream of her blood drips down the side of the house, and the bottom half of the glass is stained in a dark red. Dean takes a few steps back and gestures for Duke to take over. Duke shoots him an annoyed glare, but carefully reaches over to grab hold of the window. He lifts it up with one hard pull, and Mae’s body tumbles backward.

Besides the clothes, there’d be no other way to tell this was her. “Did she get bit?” Dean asks.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you check?” Duke asks. Dean looks as if this might be the worst thing he’s ever had to do. “I did the first part.”

Dean moves into a crouch and pulls his shirt up over his mouth and nose. Still, he can smell her, and he’s not sure he can prevent last night’s dinner from making a reappearance. Everything from the neck down looks intact; he can’t see any scratches or bites. Her clothes are clean, besides the bits of blood that cover them. “Oh, God…” he says as he grabs her by the arm. He carefully turns her onto her side. As he does so, some of her hair falls to the side, revealing a large, missing chunk of her neck. “There we go.”

Duke kneels down next to him and takes a look at the grisly bite. His lip curls up at the sight of it, the blood dripping and staining the back of her shirt. “Damn,” he he says under his breath.