Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set, Vol. 2 [Books 4-7] Read online

  The cow whined in distress and ran around uselessly, pulling on its chain. There was nowhere for it to go as the zombie closed in. When the crazed flesh-eater reached it, it leapt at the cow and sailed through the air, landing on the broad side of it and immediately sinking its teeth into the thick hide. The cow wailed and bucked, using its tremendous mass to push the zombie around, but it was like a ravenous tick, unable to be shaken. The zombie climbed on top of it as the cow spun from one direction to the other, the chain whipping and rattling and suddenly snapping taut each time the cow pulled away from it. The zombie pulled itself forward and chewed the back of its neck. The cow wailed again as its movements slowed. Its legs wobbled, and before long, they buckled. The front end of the cow went down first, then its rump tipped over and crashed onto the forest floor, sending a huge plume of dirt into the air. The cow's whines turned into whimpers as its eyelids slowly slipped down over glassy black marbles. Soon it became still and quiet as the zombie continued to feast.

  Sarah peeked around the tree and watched it. She had never seen any of the dead with that amount of ferocity, not only in its movements but in its eating tendencies as well.

  It tore huge chunks of flesh at a time off of the animal's corpse, chomping with great strength in its jaw and swallowing the meat in gulps. Blood coated its entire face as the zombie lustfully buried it into the open wound.

  Carly sat with her back to the tree. She didn't move a muscle, but her body shook. Sarah knew she wouldn't be able to control herself much longer and she stared in the direction they had come from, trying to judge if they could sneak away, or if the only way would be to shoot the zombie and kill it once and for all.

  She ejected the magazine from the pistol and saw she only had three cartridges left, with an extra one in the chamber. She slid it back in and held the back of the pistol tightly to her chest as she leaned around the tree.

  Sarah had a profile view of the zombie, leaving her with a clear shot of its head. After eating voraciously for a while, it began to slow down, sluggishly raising and lowering its head as it took its time to chew the rest of its meal. Periodically its head would pause before moving again, and Sarah knew that it was their best chance.

  She planted her foot on the ground and braced herself against the tree as she raised the gun and aimed. She lined up the sights on the gun with the zombie's skull just as it sank its head back down to bite off more meat from the cow's corpse. She held her aim, waiting for it to come back up. Her finger wrapped around the trigger and started to squeeze.

  Before the zombie raised its head again, there was noise in the distance. At first Sarah thought it was a gust of wind, but before long the unmistakable sounds of dry twigs being kicked up and crunched echoed somewhere far ahead into the woods. The sounds got closer and closer, and Sarah's aim began to shake. Her heart rate increased and she held her breath, not daring to make a sound.

  Three figures appeared in the distance, snaking their way through the trees. Their tattered clothing and gray skin gave them away, and the incredible speed at which they ran demonstrated that they too were the strange new type of zombie.

  She lowered the gun and slipped back behind the tree, pressing her back to it and squeezing against Carly. Carly snapped her head at Sarah and gave her a look of terror. It conveyed a curiosity of what she saw, but also a fear that asked Sarah not to tell her.

  Sarah stared ahead in the direction they came from, just barely able to see one end of the wheelbarrow and Wes's legs sticking out behind a tree. She knew her time to decide was over and she gave a sharp point in that direction to Carly as she stowed the gun away and grabbed her by the arm. They crept across the dirt, staring down the whole way to make sure they didn't trip over any rocks. Their hurried footsteps kicked up small twigs and grazed through some underbrush that was just starting to grow in.

  They made it back to the body and the supplies that they left, and Sarah continued to run, but Carly stopped, and the unexpected force of her weight pulling back on her almost made her fall to the ground.

  Carly stared down at Wes and the shovel, then looked at Sarah, silently telling her that they couldn't just leave Wes like that. Sarah shot back a look that told her they had no choice, and with another yank on her wrist, Carly began to move again. They climbed up the hill, their hearts beating madly in their chests, and it wasn't until they crested the top of it that either of them looked back to see if they were being chased.

  The noises of a wild and ravenous feast were carried up on the wind, but nothing followed them.

  Sarah and Carly continued to run, all the same, and they didn't stop until they made it back to the shop. By the time they returned, the fire had been put out and the whole area reeked of cooked zombie meat. Sarah banged on the garage door and shouted and it opened a moment later.

  Two of the survivors stood on the other side, and the rest waited in the back of the garage, looking like they had been pacing around nervously. They all looked up at Sarah and Carly, eager to hear how it went. They saw the fatigue in both of them, and they started to worry that something went wrong.

  "You burned the zombies completely?" Sarah asked.

  "Uh... yeah," one of the survivors said. "They were getting down to the bone, just like you said, and then I put the fire out."

  "Good," Sarah replied. She moved past the survivors and Carly followed. They headed for the hallway before the same survivor spoke up behind her.

  "How... how did it go?"

  Sarah turned. "It went fine." She exchanged a look with Carly, both of them trying to keep the horror out of their eyes. "We buried him." The survivor nodded and started to calm down, and Sarah added, "Lock up and make sure everyone gets to bed."

  She stepped into the hallway and headed for the flimsy cots they had set up in the front of the shop. The garage still reeked of gasoline fumes and old oil when they found the place, but the front of the shop where customers came in was scentless and cozy. She generally kept the front door locked at all times and she had boarded up the window in the door to make it nice and dark for sleeping. Her whole body was tired and longed to feel that momentary loss of balance followed by a crash landing on the narrow green fabric, but she forced herself to find some alcohol in the first aid kit they kept stowed under the front desk and cleaned the wound on her neck first. When she finished, she put her gun on a shelf and flopped down onto her cot. Carly fell on the one next to her and they stared at each other for a moment, their eyes just faintly visible in the candlelight coming from the other end of the hallway, before they both closed their eyes and fell asleep.

  3

  Company

  When morning came, they both opened their eyes at the same time, like they were synced to the same alarm clock. It was nearly pitch-black in the room and it took Sarah a while to adjust and realize where she was. She thought she had a strange and languid dream, but in the early morning she had trouble discerning what had been dream and what had been reality. Carly rolled over on her squeaky cot and placed her feet on the floor, leaning forward and rubbing her temples. They both had the same overly tired feeling from the events of the night before, and they reacted like they were living the aftermath of a frat party.

  Sarah eventually stood up on wobbly legs. She drowsily slid her hand across her face, brushing away the stray hairs and then taking out the crusty bits from the corners of her eyes. The other cots around her were empty and motion at the end of the hallway told her the rest of the survivors were already up. Perhaps they had been as restless as she was; she felt that her sleep had been deep, but she was sure that she had woken up far too early.

  The old musty smells of the garage filled her nostrils and told her it was going to be another dreary day. The bloodbath from last night drifted through her head, and she dreaded the cleanup. She just wanted to go back to bed, but she was the leader of the small group and she had to put on her mask for the day, even though it felt heavy and cracked.

  She poured herself a glass of wa
ter and slowly drank it down, letting the liquid roll across her tongue and slide down her throat, savoring it. As she stepped into the garage, the other survivors began to swarm her earlier than she hoped.

  "Sarah! What are we going to do with the fence?" Susannah asked as she sidled up uncomfortably close.

  Derek crept up to the other side of her and added, "What about breakfast? Should we dip into the canned reserves, or should we go out and catch something to cook on the fire? I mean, I took a whiff outside this morning, and the smell of those zombies is still unbelievable. Should we try replacing the wood?"

  "I don't know," Sarah said to both of them as she stood in front of the closed garage door.

  She bent to grab the handle when Derek paused, deep in thought, and said, "Jesus, is it even safe to go out anymore? What if more of those things are out there? Fuck, what are we going to do?"

  He started to pace around and Sarah stood up and turned to him. "Relax. We're safe right now and we'll take it one step at a time." She intended her words to be comforting, but she felt her own fears seep through her.

  Susannah tapped her on the shoulder. "I just don't know if it's a good idea to open that door until we have a plan for how to fix the fence," she said as she wrung her hands nervously into each other in front of her chest.

  Sarah tried to stay calm. "Well I have to look at it first," she replied coolly. She bent to grab the garage door handle again and began to pull it up.

  Amongst nervous whispering from other survivors in the back of the garage, one of them called out, "Is it safe to stay here anymore? Are we going to have to find a new place?"

  "I don't know yet," Sarah replied bitterly as she threw the door up with all her might. It slid up on the track, and when it hit the end of it, something crunched and popped. It shifted two inches left of where it was supposed to be and Sarah felt all of her energy for the day immediately drain as she stared up at it.

  "What was that?" someone behind her asked.

  Sarah tried to yank down on the door, but it wouldn't move. It strained down an inch or two before springing back up and locking into place. And suddenly, anger replaced all else. "Fuck!" Sarah yelled. She put a hand on her forehead and took a step out into what should have been a refreshing morning. All the nattering voices behind her fell silent. They knew better now.

  That skin-crawling whiff of charred zombie flesh filled her nostrils and made her nauseous. Her brain got fuzzy and her vision darkened. Everything just hit her at once: the smell, the nausea, the frustration, and the feeling of being utterly lost.

  Carly came down the hallway and poked her head into the garage. "Sarah, can I talk to you?"

  "In a minute!" she barked.

  Carly faltered, and she considered Sarah with an unexpected sense of timidity, then she pulled her head back and disappeared down the hallway.

  Sarah bent over and let the overwhelming feelings pass. She righted herself and put her hands on her hips, looking from the blackened mess that had been made with the firewood to the fence that still—in spite of her wishes that it had all been a dream—was torn apart, leaving a wide opening that would allow anything to come in. She glanced at the broken garage door and sighed, trying to force some kind of Zen on herself that she wasn't sure she'd ever felt. She came back into the garage and told Derek to grab a rifle and stand guard at the fence. And she had just enough fortitude left to instruct another survivor to take some canned food and make sure everyone got fed before she dragged her tired feet down the hallway and slipped into the office. She wanted to go back to bed, but the feeling of her body crashing down onto the cushioned seat and relaxing into the soft leather wasn't so bad. A minute barely passed where she got to close her eyes and drift away before Carly came in.

  "Hey," she said softly.

  Sarah opened her eyes. "Hey."

  "Sorry if this isn't a good time," Carly said. "I can always come back."

  "No," Sarah said, then she remembered how she barked at her. "No, it's fine. I'm sorry about earlier. I'm just still exhausted from last night. Not ready to face the day, you know?"

  "Yeah, I hear you, buddy." Carly feigned a smile, but Sarah could tell her usual chipper energy was missing.

  "What's wrong?" Sarah asked.

  "I've just been thinking about Wes and how we, you know... left him out there. Do you think we could—"

  "Sarah!" Derek yelled from outside.

  Sarah and Carly both snapped their heads toward the open door. They could tell there was panic in his voice. Sarah bolted from the chair and sped down the hallway.

  He stood at the fence, and when he caught sight of her, he started to point something out.

  "Someone's coming!" he whispered.

  "From where?" Sarah questioned.

  "Over there!" he said, pointing to the right side of the fence.

  Sarah took a step forward to lean her head past the fence and get a look, but Derek clamped a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back.

  "They'll see you!" he hissed. "They're coming this way!"

  "Is it zombies or people?" she asked.

  "People, I think. One of them had a gun. A big one."

  Sarah was silent and the two of them listened as the other survivors in the garage stopped what they were doing and looked on in bemusement.

  The faint sounds of footsteps clapping against the pavement grew audible. As each second ticked away, they grew louder and louder, and it sounded like they would be heading right by the fence.

  Sarah stepped back toward the garage, motioning for Derek to do the same.

  "Everyone... hide!" she whispered.

  The survivors bolted and filed down the hallway as quickly and quietly as possible, some into the storage room and the rest in the office, closing the doors behind them. Sarah grabbed the M1 Garand that Derek had been guarding the fence with before he hid, and she waited at the end of the hallway, just hidden from view of the garage door. The only other one who hadn't taken refuge within one of the closed rooms was Carly, who nervously stood at the other end of the hallway by the front of the shop.

  Sarah listened as the clapping footfalls came to an end around the corner. She had squeezed her eyes shut, trying to discern how many people there were, but it was difficult to tell. Five, maybe six. She wanted to peek around the corner, but she didn't dare. She didn't have to look to know that whoever was there had stopped to inspect the broken fence. A hot ball coiled itself up in her chest that felt like it was vacuuming the air out of her lungs and leaving nothing but two empty chasms every time she tried to suck in breath. Her hands tightened around the rifle as she kept the tip just barely behind the wall, ready to spring it up and aim at any moment.

  Unintelligible muttering drifted into the garage from outside. Feet shuffled once more, and for one glorious moment, Sarah thought that they would move on. But then they stopped again. One more phrase was spoken by someone with a deep voice, then just one set of footsteps echoed in the garage and clawed at Sarah's eardrums like a cheese grater. They became quieter as the person got closer, and she knew that whoever it was was checking for any signs of occupancy, living or dead.

  At the other end of the hallway, Carly inadvertently pressed herself to the wall, her fingernails almost digging up the paint. She was holding her breath and hadn't noticed, and at the same time her body had started to slink away toward the front of the shop. She didn't know what she was doing or what she would do if worse came to worst, but she kept her eyes glued ahead, waiting on pins and needles.

  A long shadow crept into the garage, piercing through the sunlit floor. The person look tall, but with the stretching, misshapen form of the shadow, it was impossible to tell. Its head slowly craned from side to side, and the rest of it seemed to not move at all; it was like the entire shadow slid into the garage as if it were being pushed on a set of wheels. With each stride there was an almost inaudible rattle of a gun.

  Sarah's hands felt sweaty. She argued with herself whether she should just jump out
from around the corner and start shooting or not. In her franticness to hide, she didn't even check how much ammo she had, and she had no idea if the others waiting outside were armed or if she had enough bullets for each of them.

  The footsteps crept forward one by one, like nails slowly being pounded into a coffin. And then at last a figure emerged. The front of it was still shrouded in shadow, leaving its features and identity indiscernible, but the sun lit up its back brilliantly, creating a thin outline around the hair and muscles of who was very obviously a man. He took another step forward and the coiling hot tension inside Sarah unraveled all at once, springing her forward.

  "Don't move!" Sarah snarled. She lifted the gun up and pointed the barrel at the side of the man's head.

  He stopped dead in his tracks and continued to look forward. He lowered his own rifle which hung down from his neck on a strap and he slowly raised his hands. Before Sarah knew what was happening, he snaked an arm over and knocked the barrel of her rifle to the side, then twisted his wrist and clamped down onto it, pulling the gun away from her. Her grip had become like a vice and the force pulled her whole body with it as she stumbled into the garage. The man turned and grabbed hold of her shoulder, using her momentum to throw her over his outstretched leg. When she hit it, she spun like a pinwheel and her legs did a full rotation in the air before she slammed onto the hard concrete floor with a grunt. The man wasted no time in dropping a knee on her chest to pin her down. The force was intense and the air expelled from her lungs. He pressed the barrel of his rifle to her forehead and said absolutely nothing.

  Carly stormed down the hallway holding an old heavy clock. She hoisted it above her head like Leatherface wielding his chainsaw as she flew into the garage and swung it at the man's head. With machine efficiency he shifted his body forward and threw his arm out, hooking her with it. He twisted his torso and redirected her inertia, sending her sputtering and crashing to the floor. Like his focus and intensity hadn't skipped a beat, he was staring back down at Sarah as his finger held steady on the trigger.