Zombie Apocalypse Series (Book 4): In Shadows Read online

  In Shadows

  Zombie Apocalypse Series 4

  Jeff DeGordick

  Contents

  Copyright

  Foreword

  1. The New Breed

  2. A Quick Burial

  3. Company

  4. Cold Trail

  5. Moving Out

  6. Sleepwalking

  7. Firefight

  8. Mutiny

  9. The Shadow Man

  10. Shot in the Dark

  11. Rebirth

  12. Hide and Seek

  13. No Way Out

  14. In Shadows

  15. Going Down

  16. Gray Matter

  17. Discovery

  18. Countdown

  19. Reconnaissance

  20. Disarmed

  21. The New Mission

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2016 by Jeff DeGordick

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover images copyright © Shutterstock

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  Other books in the Zombie Apocalypse Series:

  The Fall of Man

  A Rising Tide

  Ashes in the Mouth

  Coming soon:

  Scourge of Evil

  1

  The New Breed

  Something felt wrong. She didn't know what it was; it was fleeting... hidden under the surface. But it was there.

  Sarah scanned her eyes across the street, looking for something to match the feeling to, but everything was peaceful. The wind swept across the rows of buildings on either side, creating an eerie whistle. The fire behind her cast a warping orange light on the fence and just the closest parts of the street, but everything stretching beyond its grasp was tinged only by the faint moonlight shining through an occasional part in the clouds.

  "What'cha lookin' at?" Carly asked her.

  Sarah turned around on the wide crate. "Nothing," she replied.

  "That's a lot of staring for nothing," Carly said.

  "It's just..." Sarah hesitated. "...you don't feel that? Like something heavy in the air?"

  "Nope."

  "Well, never mind." Sarah stepped down from the crate and walked away from the wooden fence surrounding the back of the lawn mower repair shop. She passed the fire and walked under the garage door into the shop as Carly followed. A few candles were lit around the garage, creating just enough light to see, but doing nothing to assuage her uneasy feeling.

  Wes came up to her, polishing a pistol with a cloth. "I finished cleaning all the guns," he said, "and I did an inventory of everything. It's all accounted for."

  "Are Derek and Susanna back yet?" Sarah asked.

  "No, not yet. But they should be back any minute."

  "Is the front door locked?" she asked, unable to shake the dreadful feeling in her stomach.

  "Yeah, it's locked up tight... why?"

  "Don't worry about it," she said. "Can you just do another quick inventory of the food and water and double check how much we need to get tomorrow?"

  Confusion grew in his eyes, and when he noticed it, he let it slide away. "You got it," he said, before turning and disappearing into the hallway leading to the front of the shop.

  Carly put her hand on Sarah's shoulder. "Relax, Sarah."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I can hear it in your voice," Carly said. "You're practically shaking. What's gotten into you?"

  "Nothing," Sarah replied. "It's just..."

  "Right. That spooky feeling in the air." Carly suddenly snapped her head toward the back fence and lowered her body as if in fear.

  Sarah's heart jumped. "What is it?"

  "Don't you hear that?" Carly asked, her eyes wide.

  "Hear what?"

  "The wind! It's whispering your name! It's saying, 'Sarah! I'm coming for you when you fall asleep! I'm going to sink my windy teeth into your neck, and then I'm going to send all my vampires and werewolves and mummies after you!'"

  Sarah started to relax and Carly cracked up laughing. "That's not funny," Sarah said, hitting her in the ribs.

  "What? You don't think vampires, werewolves and mummies exist? 'Cause if you haven't noticed, we've seen some shit."

  "Just go to bed," Sarah teased. "Take a Xanax or something."

  "You got any?" Carly asked with a grin.

  Sarah nudged her in the ribs again and walked away, shaking her head. She went into the office of the shop and sat down behind the desk, putting her feet up and her hands behind her head. She closed her eyes and tried to shake the dreadful feeling of foreboding. She saw images behind her eyelids, but it was like something flashing in her peripheral vision and when she went to look, it would disappear. Her eyes opened and closed, trying to glimpse the fleeting image, but it remained elusive and eventually she became frustrated and gave up. She rubbed her temples and noticed how tired she was. She enjoyed the sleepy feeling sitting in the chair, and she decided as soon as the other two survivors returned, she would head to bed and get some sleep.

  Not a moment after she came to that conclusion, Wes called out: "They're back!"

  Sarah got out of the chair and returned to the wooden fence that had been built to enclose the back driveway of the shop. It had most likely been constructed by other survivors after the apocalypse occurred so they had a safe enclosure to cook food over a fire; the fire pit was already there when Sarah and Carly found the place.

  Wes stood on the crate propped against the fence, peeking out into the street. Derek and Susanna spotted him in the distance and called out to him, saying something that Sarah couldn't quite make out. Wes waved them over and stepped off the box, walking to the gate and opening the latch. He pulled it open and stood halfway in the threshold, leaning out and watching the two survivors travel down the street. "What took you guys so long?" he asked, then he clapped them on the shoulders as he held the gate open for them.

  Derek walked in, followed by Susanna holding up a green garbage bag. "There wasn't much, but we got what we could," she said.

  Wes started to follow them inside when a zombie attacked him from the darkness. It tore a chunk out of his neck with its grayish-yellow teeth. A quick splash of blood hit the gate and more poured out of the wound and rolled down his neck. Wes stumbled into the enclosure, holding his neck and spinning around, not even aware of what happened.

  Everyone gasped and Susanna screamed as they all watched in horror.

  The zombie came through the fence into the driveway and craned its neck around at each of them like a hungry person at a buffet.

  Sarah acted quickly and rushed toward the zombie. Before it could react to her, she kicked it in the sternum and sent it staggering back toward the open gate. She grabbed the gate and swung it closed on the zombie, hitting it with its arc and causing it to fall into the street. She shut the gate and picked up the padlock sitting on the ground next to the crate, using it
to secure the latch.

  The zombie got to its feet and banged on the other side of the fence. The whole thing rattled, but it didn't have the strength to break through.

  Sarah turned her attention to Wes, who was lying against the outer wall of the building next to the garage door, still holding his neck as blood oozed out.

  Everyone stood around staring at him, not sure what to do. The remaining few survivors who had been inside the building came out to see what the commotion was.

  "Someone get him a rag!" Sarah shouted.

  Carly took off into the garage and tossed around long-abandoned tools and supplies on shelves and workbenches, finally bending over and finding an old rag on a shelf near the ground that looked clean enough. She rushed over to Wes and bent down, bunching up the cloth and holding it against his wound.

  "Keep the pressure on it," Sarah told her.

  Carly nodded at her, and they both shared a knowing look; if the victim of a zombie bite died, they generally tended to transform into an undead flesh-eater more quickly than someone who was still alive, and they both knew they had to buy as much time as possible until they made sure they were secure.

  Wes's eyes swam in his head. His arms fell to his sides and twisted on the ground like beached whales uselessly writhing on the sand. He occasionally brought a hand up to his neck, only for it to fall down again a moment later. He looked into Carly's eyes as if he were pleading with her, though he spoke no words. His throat gurgled uncomfortably as he tried to breathe and swallow. Carly tried to look away from his gaze, holding back tears at the corners of her eyes.

  The zombie groaned on the other side of the fence as it impotently pounded on it. Then the fence started to shake harder as more strikes hit it.

  Sarah leapt onto the crate and peeked over the fence.

  Another zombie had shown up with the first one, no doubt attracted by the noise. The two of them reached up and tried to jump at Sarah, spotting the top of her head over the wooden boards.

  More groans echoed in the night and Sarah was horrified to see two more zombies shamble out from the shadows and join the other two at the fence, pounding on it and voraciously slobbering.

  "What's happening?" Carly shouted, still tending to Wes.

  "There's four of them," Sarah called back. "The fence will hold." She turned to step off the crate and help Carly when she noticed someone at the end of the street. A person stood in the middle of the road, and the glow of the moon illuminated him just enough for Sarah to know he was a zombie. But something was different about this one; its torso was tilted and twisted to the side at an awkward angle and its arms bent at the elbows with its hands extended outward and its fingers curling and twitching. It took a few shuffling steps forward, then stopped suddenly, spinning its head on its shoulders in every direction. It stopped and started, its movements at some moments akin to the quick, staccato motions of a bird, and at others it was smooth but restless, like someone gone mad from a high fever.

  Sarah couldn't bring herself to look away from the zombie as it slowly made its way down the street toward her. It seemed like it was attracted to the noise but it didn't look like it had spotted her.

  But then it stopped and its head snapped straight toward her. Despite the distance, she could see its mouth drop open, baring its teeth. Its body began to shake and its eyes narrowed, and it seemed to be filling with something Sarah had never witnessed in a zombie before: utter, aggressive rage, to the point where it began to shake.

  It took off running. Sarah waited for the zombie to make a beeline for the side of the fence, but its direction seemed a little off-course. As it got closer, she realized it wasn't coming for her at all; it was coming for the other zombies.

  She watched in a mix of shock and intrigue as the zombie's legs pumped faster and harder than she'd ever seen before. Its gait shared nothing of the wobbly, hobbled run of other zombies, and it seemed to approach speeds that only a normal human could achieve—perhaps faster.

  The zombie reached the others as they stupidly turned their heads toward it. It tackled the first one it came to down to the ground, chewing its diseased flesh with insatiable hunger. The slower zombie wiggled underneath, trying to return to its feet to no avail. It didn't seem to pay much of any attention to the new zombie even as it swallowed mouthfuls of its flesh.

  Sarah clung to the fence so hard that her fingers turned white. She was stunned at what she was seeing, and the vicious noises the new zombie produced as it feasted on the other one drew the worry of everyone else inside the property.

  "What's going on over there?" Carly called.

  Sarah opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She watched in silence as the new zombie got up and ran to the next one, pinning it to the fence and chomping on the back of its neck. It worked its way down the line, attacking each of them as the first zombie returned to its feet, seemingly unperturbed by the attack and none the worse for wear.

  But by the time the strange zombie had made its way to the end of the line, the first one it attacked began to exhibit strange symptoms. Sarah watched in horror as the zombie took on the same odd qualities as the new one. Its neck twisted in jerky movements as it stood on the spot, almost seething under its breath like an irate and crazy hobo. Its eyelids fluttered open and closed in an uneven and strained fashion. Its lips peeled back, revealing all of its dully-colored teeth in a look that could only be described as uncontrollable fury. Zombies often became visibly frustrated or angry when they had trouble reaching a source of food they had spotted, but this was different.

  One by one, each attacked zombie transformed into this new monstrous version before Sarah's eyes. She gasped when they all looked at her and immediately launched themselves at the fence.

  The whole thing shook violently, and Sarah stumbled off the crate, nearly falling to the ground. "Get the guns!" she cried.

  Each of the half-dozen or so survivors looked at each other, telepathically sharing the same confused thought, knowing that Wes was the one who looked after the guns and he was currently bleeding to death.

  When no one took action, Sarah bolted past them into the building, rounding the corner into the hallway and flying into the storage room. She stuffed a couple of pistols into her jeans and pulled a loaded M1 Garand off the shelf, grabbing a handful of loose ammo before she left. The rooms and hallway merged into a fuzzy blur as she raced back through the garage door. She doled one of the pistols to a survivor, keeping the Garand for herself, and when she looked at Carly, who had stopped applying pressure to Wes's neck and stood up, shaking her head, she handed a pistol to her. Sarah glanced past Carly to Wes's body and saw the shiny layer of glaze on his eyes that she had seen time and again. Carly silently gave her a look as if to say, "I'm sorry," and then the two of them turned their attention to the zombies.

  The fence continued to bend and twist as the undead threw their bodies at it with tremendous force. Their methods were still crude, but they had turned into incredibly vicious and stronger forms of their old selves.

  Sarah yelled at everyone to get inside as she, Carly and the other survivor aimed their weapons at the fence, each of them trying to guess where the breaking point would be. Sarah's arms shook and her eyes felt heavy, like her gaze was pulling them down. She was distracted and anxious, and there was a constant buzzing in her head like a fluorescent tube baking her brain. Just before her eyes started to cross and her consciousness began to go fuzzy, the fence broke and a burst of adrenaline brought her back to reality.

  The latch burst apart from the fence and the gate flew open. The five zombies flooded through the opening, bumping into each other and the fence, but still slipping through at an alarming speed.

  Sarah opened fire and hit one of them in the brain, causing it to fall to the ground. Carly and the other survivor followed suit and unleashed a barrage of bullets as fast as their fingers could pull the triggers. One bullet hit a zombie in the cheek and caused its head to wobble, disorienting it and making it stumble
. Two others came from a flank and one approached steadily from behind them, its eyes like two ancient stars peeking out of the dark depths of space.

  Sarah glanced behind her as the zombies quickly closed the distance. "Get inside!" she yelled to the others as she began to back up and fire at the same time. As the three of them moved, their aim became erratic. They started to land only ineffective shots or miss completely. When they were all in the garage, Carly jumped up and pulled down on the heavy door, slowly gliding it along the track. Sarah crouched down and aimed the rifle, squeezing the butt of it between her cheek and her shoulder. She pulled the trigger and shot another zombie in the brain before the door came down.

  It collapsed to the ground and its dry skin scraped against the concrete, ripping it apart and letting out a surprisingly loud and sharp sound akin to someone squeezing a bag of flour and causing it to burst.

  Just before the garage door slammed shut, one of the remaining zombies hurled itself onto the ground, pinning itself under the door. It squirmed as the other two zombies darted their heads and shoulders into the narrow space. The three of them wildly bucked, occasionally lifting the door a full foot above them before it would slam down again.

  The unarmed survivors huddled at the back of the garage as they watched the horror unfold. Everyone was startled at what they were seeing; in all the years of surviving in this desolate world, everyone had become accustomed to how zombies acted and how they moved until such things were the new normal, but they had no idea how to handle this.

  When the armed survivors regained their senses, they took aim again and continued firing. The few remaining rounds each of them fired failed to be the killshot for any of the zombies, except for an unexpected shot that Carly landed just above the eye socket of one of the pinned zombies, causing its lights to go out immediately.

  The other two undead squirmed under the door, slowly pulling themselves through as their flesh soaked up bullets.