Zombie Chaos Box Set | Books 1-4

by Martone, D. L.

  After scarfing down my second sandwich and wishing I’d remembered to breathe, I took a few fortifying sips of water. Feeling more sated than I had in a while, I suddenly recalled why Europeans typically took a siesta after lunch. Eating to fullness fatigued the body, especially one as out of shape and overtaxed as mine.

  “Listen, guys, I think we should bunk down here for the night.”

  “What, why?” Clare asked. “I thought you wanted to hit the road.”

  “I do, and I know it makes more sense to drive in the daylight… but honestly, I’m fucking exhausted. Contrary to popular opinion, being knocked unconscious for thirty-six hours isn’t exactly like taking a really long nap. I’ve been running and gunning pretty much nonstop for thirty hours, and I’m not sure I’d make it far before having to crash on the side of the road. Which doesn’t seem like the smartest idea.”

  Clare sighed, her brow pinched in thought. “Fine,” she said. “It’s almost noon. Why don’t we all get some rest and then leave tonight?”

  I nodded, then glanced at George and Casey. “So, have you two made a decision?”

  The teacher-turned-warrior grinned. “We’re in.”

  “Awesome,” I said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna clean up a bit before grabbing some shuteye.”

  “About time,” Jill muttered.

  I chuckled, too tired for any other response. Besides, for once, she was right.

  Chapter

  17

  “Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep.” – Nancy Thompson, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

  I might not have managed to squeeze all of our most essential items into my go-bag, but I’d at least made room for a couple outfits for me and Clare. Not that she needed any extra duds at the moment. Beyond what she’d brought to her mother’s house, she could also, if necessary, fit into some of Jill’s old clothes.

  At one time, the two of them had been roughly the same height and weight, but over the years, Jill had shrunk in size, while Clare had, like me, expanded a bit. Unlike her husband, however, whose extra heft had collected in his midsection, my wife had a natural hourglass figure, so the thirty or so pounds she’d gained during our marriage had distributed themselves evenly between her breasts, hips, and thighs, making her still as alluring as ever.

  Yes, even tired, I’ve got sex on the brain. So, sue me.

  Naturally, there were no clothes for me in Jill’s closet, so I was grateful for the stuff in my bag. Cuz I had no desire to venture out to the van again.

  While the others discussed the sleeping arrangements, I retreated through the kitchen and into the master suite, where Clare and I usually slept on the rare occasions we’d stayed overnight at Jill’s house. In the small master bathroom, I discovered that someone had plugged and filled the tub as well as both sinks. I’d been ready to use any excess liquid in the toilet tanks or hot water heater, but luckily, I didn’t have to.

  Once the epidemic had spread to Baton Rouge, Clare had likely decided to store as much water as possible. A prepper at heart, she would’ve anticipated the power outage, which had obviously hampered municipal pumping stations in addition to household appliances.

  That’s my girl.

  The satisfied grin slipped from my face as I turned toward the mirror above the nearest sink. It was the first time I’d seen my full reflection since using the bathroom at Home Depot, and even in the dim natural lighting, I could see what a complete fucking mess I was. My shaggy, dark brown hair was greasy and matted, my clothes were covered in blood, sweat, and zombie goo, and even my bearded face sported its share of gross shit.

  Hard to believe Clare was willing to hug me, much less kiss me. Guess true love really does know no bounds.

  I kicked off my shoes, stripped off every stitch of clothing, took care of some overdue biological needs, and scoured myself from head to toe. It had rarely felt so good to clean myself – even if it was just a whore bath.

  Relatively fresh again, I grabbed one of the outfits from my go-bag and hoped I wouldn’t have to change until we reached northern Michigan.

  Cuz at the current rate, I’ll run out of jeans by tomorrow.

  Somewhat presentable, I stuffed my soiled clothes into yet another garbage bag, popped a couple aspirin for my ever-present headache, and ventured back to the living room.

  In my absence, George and Casey had agreed to take the guest bedroom that doubled as Jill’s “girl cave.” My mother-in-law, meanwhile, had decided to stand guard as the rest of us slept.

  Although I appreciated her offer, it didn’t exactly fill me with confidence. For all Clare and I knew, her scratch could worsen over the next few hours, and she might turn into a full-fledged zombie while we were asleep. I’d seen enough post-apocalyptic movies and TV shows to realize that wouldn’t turn out well, but since George and Casey weren’t yet aware of her injury, I opted to keep my trap shut.

  Honestly, if I’d thought she might turn while we were all sleeping, I would’ve mentioned the scratch to George. But since Jill wasn’t displaying any undead side effects, I decided to let it go.

  For now.

  After ensuring that every door and window was as secure as it could possibly be, we quickly rehashed the plan, then everyone but Jill headed to his or her appointed room. I had mixed feelings about going to sleep. It seemed more desirable to load up the vehicles and get the hell out of southern Louisiana, but at the age of forty-five, I didn’t possess an unlimited supply of energy – and I’d need all I could muster out on the road.

  As exhausted as I was, though, I didn’t want to leave Azazel roaming around the house, at the mercy of my mother-in-law, whether or not she turned into a zombie. So, while Clare changed her clothes and spruced herself up in the bathroom, I rescued our cat from an upper shelf in the laundry closet, moved her bowls, carrier, and litter dish into the master bedroom, and locked the door behind me.

  Just in case Jill gets peckish while we’re unconscious.

  Finally, Clare and I were alone, and I couldn’t have been happier. Before climbing into bed, we just stood barefoot on the carpet, hugging each other harder than we ever had before. Realizing I could’ve lost her forever, I had more than mere hugs and kisses on my mind, but honestly, I was too tapped out for that.

  “Oh, Joe,” Clare said, her voice muffled against my chest, “I was so scared you didn’t make it out of the city.”

  “I thought I’d lost you, too,” I replied.

  True, we were being a little repetitive. Hadn’t we had a similar exchange in the driveway? But honestly, I couldn’t have cared less. Considering how many Louisianians had bitten the dust in the past few days, we were both understandably grateful and relieved.

  Eventually, Clare and I slipped under the covers of my mother-in-law’s enormous bed. On previous overnight stays, I’d usually grumbled about the extreme softness of the mattress, which, incidentally, Jill never used, preferring the front bedroom instead. But oddly enough, I no longer gave a shit about the bedding. I was just thrilled to be lying down at all, with my curvy, nearly naked wife curled against me.

  Before drifting off to sleep, I shared an abbreviated version of all that had happened to me since awaking in our courtyard. Of course, I skipped the bit about reclaiming her grandmother’s ring at Troy Blanville’s house. Not only because I felt guilty for having pawned it in the first place, but also because I knew Clare would rightfully scold me for taking such an idiotic risk to get it back.

  “Jesus, you really did go through a lot,” Clare said as I wound down my strange, action-packed tale. “I love you for helping so many people, but I wish you hadn’t put yourself in such danger.”

  “Well, to be fair, I didn’t help them all for purely altruistic reasons. A trade-off of some kind was usually involved.”

  Clare squeezed me tightly and giggled. “That’s my Joe.”

  Once Azazel had finished her investigation of the master suite, she leapt onto the bed and claimed her usual spot across Clare’s pe
lvis.

  As my wife lovingly stroked her with one hand, she said, “I just can’t believe you were out cold for thirty-six hours. You must’ve taken some hit to your noggin. Lucky you didn’t get a concussion.”

  “Who says I didn’t?” I chuckled. “To be fair, it doesn’t shock me that I knocked myself out. What I find harder to believe is that no zombie took the opportunity to climb over the fence and eat my face off.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re pretty lucky for surviving so long out in the open.” She squeezed me again. “Well, I, for one, am very grateful.”

  “Me, too,” I said, then kissed her forehead.

  A few seconds later, she said, “You know I love you to death, and I listen to pretty much everything you say, but I have to admit… I can’t believe it all came true. Samir and Dibya warned us, I know, but it’s still hard to fathom. I mean, for fuck’s sake, a zombie apocalypse? Really?”

  I sighed. “Yeah… we always said the world could use a do-over. But I think the fiction sounded a lot better than the reality.”

  “So many people gone or turned,” she lamented. “It’s horrible to consider.”

  “It is… but, hey,” I said, kissing her nose, “we’re together again. Me, you, and Azazel. That’s all that matters.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed, tears glistening in her eyes. “I just hope my dad’s OK.”

  “I know, baby, but there’s not much we can do about it. He thought you were nuts when you tried to warn him, and we don’t have time to check on him before heading up north.”

  “Maybe, but I still feel awful about it.”

  “I get it, I do. I mean, hell, I’m in the same boat. Getting to you mattered most of all, but that doesn’t mean I’m not worried about my parents and my brothers. All I can hope is that they heeded my warning. Cuz there’s no getting in touch with them now.”

  Clare nodded, kissed my lips, then closed her eyes and drifted into unconsciousness. Usually, she took much longer than I did to fall asleep. In fact, it had been a running joke between us that, even if we went to bed at the exact same moment, I’d often be halfway through my first dream by the time her head hit the pillow. The downside was that I slept much lighter than she did. Any little sound or flicker could awaken me, whereas Clare had once snoozed through a late-night, four-car accident and its aftermath right outside our old Ursulines Avenue apartment. The only occupant of our building not to have emerged in a sleepy stupor, she hadn’t found out about the damage caused by a drunk driver loose in the French Quarter until late the following morning.

  But after three days of intense stress, fear, and worry in a world overrun by zombies, it hadn’t taken much to knock her out – just the utter relief at being reunited with her family.

  Though relieved as well, I found it harder to fall asleep. My overactive brain had become a minefield of horrifying memories, pressing concerns, future worries, and unanswered questions. But while staring at the boards that crisscrossed the daylight-fringed curtains, listening to Clare’s gentle breathing and Azazel’s tiny snoring, I sensed the stress dissipating – if only temporarily – and I gradually joined my girls in la-la land.

  Chapter

  18

  “You have to be very careful. If you call out to one of the dead, all of them can hear you.” – Elise Rainier, Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015)

  Though I felt more bone-weary than I had in years, I didn’t exactly get the best sleep. Uneasy nightmares invaded my brain, filled with mindless undead hordes and hairy, muscular creatures bent on ripping the flesh and innards from my body. As Clare could attest, I rarely remembered my dreams and nightmares. But this time, one particularly terrifying scene made a permanent impression on my mind.

  Like a horrendous omen, I’d dreamt about the impending trip from southern Louisiana to northern Michigan. Somewhere along the route, I’d apparently crashed our badass zombie-mobile into a tangled grove alongside the highway. With smoke pouring from under the mangled hood and the engine too compromised to function, I’d found myself trapped in a gore-covered step van, as countless moaning, hissing zombies pounded on the outer panels and rocked the vehicle so violently it nearly toppled over.

  As more and more zombies emerged from the woods and surrounded the van, I retreated toward the sofa, where Clare and Azazel huddled together in abject terror. The moaning and pounding continued to crescendo, until a bloody, decomposing hand busted through the fortified glass behind my wife and grabbed her throat, choking off her scream.

  In the recesses of my stressed-out brain, I realized more than my own fear had influenced the nightmare. Abruptly, my eyes popped open, as if sensing the real-life danger. Sure enough, an undead hand had broken through one of my mother-in-law’s bedroom windows. I could see it flailing between the boards, rustling the curtains, and both Clare and Azazel were sitting upright on the bed, staring at it wide-eyed. A cacophony of eerie moans and hisses came from the backyard, and I could hear pounding and scraping along the rear exterior wall of the house.

  I also heard a persistent knocking on the closed bedroom door.

  “Mr. Joe,” Casey said urgently from the other side. “Mr. Joe, wake up!”

  “Coming,” I replied groggily.

  Based on the daylight fringing the curtains, I suspected my nap had been shorter than planned. Likely just a couple of hours.

  No wonder I’m so fucking out of it.

  Not only had the aborted rest rattled my brain, it had also deepened my various aches and pains. As I slowly sat upright, I felt every one of my forty-five years, and then some. My head throbbed, all the cuts and bruises I’d collected on my journey stung, and the muscles in my legs, back, neck, and arms had stiffened with strain and fatigue.

  Sleeping on Jill’s marshmallow mattress hadn’t helped, of course, but I couldn’t entirely blame my current condition on my mother-in-law. Over the past day or so, I’d put my out-of-shape body through the ringer, and two hours of restless sleep had only made it worse. Unfortunately, based on the unsettling sounds outside, I knew naptime was over.

  Back on the fucking clock.

  “Joe,” Clare whispered, “what are we gonna do?”

  “Don’t worry, baby.” I kissed her pale cheek. “I’ll figure it out.”

  Maybe I should get that tattooed on my face, too.

  With a groan of my own, I slipped out of bed and tried to rise to my full height, which was much more difficult than it should’ve been. Everything I’d done during the last day – or, really, days – had left me stiffer and sorer than I’d ever felt before. I didn’t have the stamina to run for my life and get my loved ones to safety, but we had obviously overstayed our welcome in southern Louisiana.

  So, ready or not, here we fucking come.

  Leaning against the wall for some much-needed balance, I wriggled into my jeans and then unlocked the door.

  “Let me guess,” I said to the wide-eyed young man standing in the kitchen, “we’re surrounded.”

  As if in response, the moaning and pounding beyond the back entrance loudened.

  “Pretty much,” he admitted. “They’re blocking both doors.”

  “Fan-fucking-tastic.”

  “So, what should we do?”

  Same thing Clare had asked. All at once, I wanted to scream at everyone to stop relying on me to make all the fucking decisions, but I didn’t have the luxury of embarking on a nervous breakdown.

  Not yet anyway.

  “Are Jill and George awake?”

  He nodded. Apparently, Casey hadn’t slept well either, so after about an hour, he’d relieved Jill of guard duty and kept watch while she rested. Once the zombies had returned, though, everyone had awakened. Ironically, I’d been the last one to get up – a rarity for me, light sleeper that I usually was.

  I stepped toward the nearest kitchen window and peeked between the boards. “Looks like a mob scene out there. At least twenty zombies, if not more.”

  “About the same out front,” Casey lamented.

>   “Wonder why they came back,” I mused. “Hard to believe they’d remember this specific house.”

  What a horrendous thought: zombies with working brains and a sense of direction.

  “Maybe it’s just a different group,” Casey said. “Lured here by the smell of fresh meat.”

  I turned back to him. “Well, it doesn’t matter. Either way, we have to get the hell out of here.”

  Another shattering of glass punctuated my point. Quickly, Casey and I darted into my mother-in-law’s master bedroom, where Clare and Azazel were still huddled on the bed, fixated on the windows. Following my wife’s shell-shocked gaze, I noticed a second decomposing hand had managed to bust through the glass.

  “Help me block the windows,” I said to Casey.

  He nodded, and together, we pushed the heavy mahogany dresser against the rear wall, temporarily keeping the grappling zombies at bay.

  “Clare,” I said, trying to snag my wife’s attention. “Clare!”

  The zombies outside groaned in response to my raised voice, but it did the trick.

  Blinking, my wife pivoted her head toward me. “I’m OK,” she said. “Just scared as shit.”

  “Me, too.” I smiled reassuringly. “So, what do you say we get going?”

  She pursed her lips and nodded, a little color returning to her cheeks.

  Twenty minutes later, everyone was fully dressed, packed, and ready to go.

  Admittedly, Jill hadn’t made the process easy. Having once lost nearly all of her belongings and memorabilia in a hurricane down in New Orleans, she’d found it difficult to pack for the journey north. I’d considered telling her not to worry: She likely wouldn’t live long enough to miss anything she left behind. Instead, though, I had persuaded my wife to help her assemble some essentials and a few personal items while I’d focused on the all-important, rarely easy task of wrangling Azazel into her carrier for the umpteenth time.