The Decaying World Saga Box Set [Prequel #1-#2 & Books #1-#2]

by Garza, Michael W.

  “This is crazy,” he said, “look what you did to me.”

  “It’s not crazy,” she said. “This is love.” Her eyes went toward Alex and back to him. “We are responsible for him. You were supposed to provide for us.”

  She jumped up on the table and stood there looking down at him with a wild, untamed stare. John was awestruck by the madness on her face. She growled some unintelligible ramble and held her arms out from her body. She leapt like an animal reaching for its prey. Her body struck John with full force, and they fell backwards, catching the rear of the couch and flipping over onto the living room floor. John was on top of her by chance and used all his strength to keep her arms pressed against the floor. The blood from the cut over his eye ran down his face and dripped onto hers.

  “Just wait a damn minute,” he said.

  Angela fought for a few seconds and appeared to give up for a time. He wanted to reason with her. He wanted to tell her there was a way this was going to work out, but if there truly was, he couldn’t figure out how they would do it. He looked into her eyes and found nothing of the woman he was in love with looking back at him. The dark pools staring at him were void of any emotion he could name.

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do about Alex,” he said and shook his head, refusing to look back at her eyes. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about any of this. Everything’s out of control.” He could hear Alex moaning but couldn’t see him. “My boy’s gone; my wife’s freaking lost her mind…”

  Angela roared like an animal beneath him and then turned her hips and snatched an arm free. She sliced into his cheek with her fingernails and tried to push her way into his mouth, through his skin. John punched her in the face as hard as he could. His knuckles smashed into her jaw, and he felt her body go limp for a split second.

  She managed to shake it off, carried on by her adrenaline and rage. She drove the palm of her free hand into his chin and snapped his head back. John’s teeth smacked against one another with the impact of a car crash. He lost his balance and fell over, and Angela took advantage, scrambling to her feet. John gathered his bearings and leapt over the couch as she ran for the kitchen. He avoided Alex by inches, snapped up the hammer off the floor, and turned in time to see her reappear holding a knife.

  “All right, bitch,” he said as his stare hardened. “If this is what you want, come get it.”

  On cue, they ran toward one another both hollering at the top of their lungs. Angela took a swipe at him, the blade missing his mid-section by a hair. John let her hand go by and brought the hammer down as hard as he could. The metal mallet hit her wrist, and the bones snapped instantly. Her face soured in the blink of an eye, as she dropped to her knees trying to cradle her arm and hold onto the knife at the same time.

  She fumbled with the knife as it slipped from her hand and slid across the floor. John’s anger swelled in his chest as the fury of what she’d done fueled his actions. He grabbed a handful of hair and shoved his knee into her face. Angela gurgled as blood gushed from her nose. He pulled her off the ground with strength he did not know he possessed.

  Eye to eye, they glared at one another, John through blinding hate and Angela from behind maddening pain. He shook her violently and her head snapped back. She tried to yell, but the blood from her broken nose drowned out the sound as it flowed down the back of her throat. Her arms swung like mangled flesh as her legs flailed.

  “This is what you wanted,” he said, screaming in her face. “You want to feed the boy, don’t you?” Blood ran down over her teeth from her gapping mouth. John jammed his fist in her stomach and the impact thrust her body in the air. The blood exploded from her mouth, covering his face. He held her as she hung like dead weight, gasping for air. “You know what? I’m going to give you what you want.”

  He swung her around and tossed her to the floor. She landed like a sack of bricks, slapping her head against the wood in the process. Her eyes rolled back as she desperately tried to keep herself from blacking out. It wasn’t until Alex wrapped both hands around her arm that she realized what was happening.

  John’s rage quickly subsided as he watched his undead son grab his wife. Her screams were buried beneath his rotting body as he pressed himself on top of her. She kicked her legs and reached for John as Alex opened his mouth wide. John instinctively took a step forward but then stopped himself. The first bite tore into her cheek and the next went into her throat.

  ♦

  It was nearly dawn. The horizon was pale blue and the night’s sky was losing its grip. The morning air was cold and gusts of wind brought shivers. There was an eerie silence across the open field beyond the Mason house and the usual morning sounds of wildlife were missing.

  John watched the horizon from outside his front door. He knew the government would return, this time with enough firepower to level the house and everything in it. He planned to be long gone before it came to that. The hunting trail was still the best bet and that was where he would go. He turned away from the sunrise and went back into the house. The living room was unrecognizable, resembling a scene from an eighties slasher film. He stepped over the remains of the coffee table and headed to his bedroom.

  He made one last check around the house, ending in the dining room. He pulled the cigarette lighter from his pocket and crouched down to the floor. The pile in the middle of the room consisted of the remains of the dining room table, the clothes in Alex’s closet, and whatever paper he could find in the house. He lit the paper around the edges of the pile and stood back to make sure the flames caught. He pulled a burning shirt from the center of the pile and headed for the door, dropping the shirt on the couch on the way out. A few seconds later, he was in the camper truck and the engine roared to life.

  He pulled off the driveway and headed around the house, and the truck shifted on the bumpy ground. The hunting trail was a narrow dirt road and most of the trip would be as turbulent or worse. He heard the pounding coming from the camper as the weight shifted. John thought about Benkelman, Nebraska. It was the first town he’d reach after he crossed the state line. Benkelman was a farming community far off the beaten path. The folks there lived on large plots of land, distant from one another. They were big families built on hard work. Big families were what John was looking for. He turned the truck toward the overgrown path behind the house and knew the big families of Benkelman were what he needed because now he had two mouths to feed.

  THE END

  THE LAST INFECTION

  A Prequel to the Decaying World Saga

  By

  Michael W. Garza

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

  in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including

  photocopying, recording or by any information and retrieval

  system, without the written permission of the author, except

  where permitted by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and

  incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or

  are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,

  locales or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Michael W. Garza

  All rights reserved.

  Proofread by Karen Robinson of

  INDIE Books Gone Wild.

  1

  There was fear in the little girl’s eyes. Alicen was eight years old and at the moment, the only thing she wanted was not to be eaten. Her older brother Jake had one arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her close. The two kids were held up underneath a truck, their eyes focused on several pairs of feet moving in their direction.

  Alicen and Jake’s parents were close, but not close enough to help. The parking garage had several floors, but the Bradley family only made it to the second story before their pursuers caught up to them. The news had called the growing mobs the infected. Alicen and Jake heard terrible things from school and their frien
ds. Some called the infected vampires because they wanted blood. Others called them biters because they chewed through your skin. Jake didn’t know what to think. He only wished he hadn’t heard all the stories that were stuck in his head.

  “Don’t let them get me,” Alicen whispered.

  Jake gave her as serious a look as he could muster and then shook his head. Both kids risked a glance underneath the blue SUV parked three stalls over. Their parents’ pleading eyes stared back at them, shifting from the nearing pack of feet back to their children. Their mother was crying with both hands wrapped over her mouth trying to keep the noise from escaping. The horror on her face told the kids all they needed to know.

  “I want Mama,” Alicen said.

  “Hold on,” Jake said. “I told you we have to hide first.” He spoke so low, he had to move his lips against her ears before she could hear him. “Please stay quiet.”

  There was nothing in Jake’s twelve years that prepared him for what was happening. He’d spent the last few weeks terrified, held up in his family home as his parents tried to figure out what to do. The man on the news promised they’d find a cure and this would all be over soon. That was three weeks ago. A few days later, the news and every other channel went black. The family stayed in the house for a week without going outside.

  “They’re getting closer.”

  The horror in his sister’s words pulled Jake’s attention back to the advancing pack of people. He was thankful to only be able to see them from the knees down. The infected had an awful look about them, and they made unnatural lurching motions with their arms that scared the heck out of him. He hoped they would give up and move on thinking the family had gone farther up in the parking garage. As far as he knew, the infected couldn’t smell any better than anyone else.

  Jake counted about a dozen before he stopped. The erratic steps would have given away their nature, but the sporadic growls were an unmistakable sign of what they were. The group moved in a pack, first around a car, then down the lane. They were coming directly toward the kids. The anguish in their parents’ eyes spoke volumes, but there was nothing they could do.

  Jake felt Alicen shake and the violence of it rocked him. He urged her to bury her face in her hands. He didn’t want her to see what was coming. He’d witnessed an attack with his dad at the grocery store, and the vision of that onslaught clung to him. Two men beat a woman as she tried to get in her car, and then before his dad could turn him away, they tore into her, biting at her neck. It scared him more when his dad wouldn’t talk about it on the drive home. That was the first time he ever saw his father cry.

  The pack was drawing closer and their guttural sounds grew louder. They were only a few cars away when Alicen raised her head. She looked first at Jake and then over at the nearing group. The shock in her eyes was evident, but Jake couldn’t move fast enough to stop the yelp before it escaped her mouth. The infected stopped all at once and then, in an excited urge, raced forward.

  The kids heard their mother scream, but it didn’t stop Jake from reacting. A moment later, he was out from under the truck, pulling Alicen with him. He heard his father call him, but the full sight of the horde of infected rushing toward him froze his mind with fear. He didn’t know what he was doing or where he was going, but he was running. He clutched his sister’s hand with all his might and ignored her pulls to break free.

  The two kids dashed between cars and trucks, breaking out into an open driveway as they passed rows of parked vehicles. A ravaging mad score of shrieks and bloodthirsty screeches echoed across the parking garage as the infected neared. Jake’s heart beat wildly in his chest. He thought the organ might burst from his body at any moment. He heard Alicen’s panting breath behind him and the weight of her resistance told him she couldn’t keep up for much longer.

  He searched frantically for any sign of help but found nothing. He dared not look at their pursuers even as the sound of their shoes smacking the pavement echoed all around them. Alicen cried out with an anguish of dread, inhuman to his ears. He felt his heart seize up as the terror of the moment consumed him all at once. The sound of his father’s voice came over the noise in a rush.

  “Over here.”

  There was an abrupt end to the trailing chorus of death. Jake risked a look over his shoulder without stopping to focus on what was going on. He saw a glimpse of his father, jumping up and down several rows away. He was yelling at the top of his lungs, saying things Jake would have been grounded the rest of his life for repeating.

  Jake couldn’t see his mother, but he could hear her cries. She was still calling out to her children, begging them to get away. His last sight was the full vision of the infected closing in behind him. The faces of the plague-ridden were as twisted and evil as their twitching limbs. Lifeless gray skin clung to their bodies, hanging over their bones. The bloodstains of their heinous acts covered the remnants of the clothes they wore, which was the only hint to who they were before they lost themselves to the madness. The front of the pack charged for the kids, hollering in some vile call, while the rest turned back for the parents.

  “Run, Alicen, run.”

  The kids darted between two cars as the infected leapt over the vehicles after them. Outstretched hands swiped at Jake’s head as he urged Alicen to move faster. The volume of screams swallowed them as the mob closed in. Alicen yelled and cried as terror consumed her. Jake was reduced to dragging her until the strength in his arm gave out. He stepped into an open driveway when Alicen’s hand jerked free from his grip.

  “Jake!”

  The boy turned back and found several bodies diving over a parked car to get at the little girl. One of them had her by the hair, his body lying across the hood of the vehicle. Sheer panic urged Jake to run, but he found his courage and moved back toward his sister. He grabbed her arm as the first few infected hit the ground and got to their feet.

  It was a female among them who had a hand around the back of Alicen’s neck. Only a patchwork of hair remained of the woman’s once long-flowing locks. Gouges in her head revealed bloody wounds and fragments of skull. Her mouth was open, showing teeth stained in an amber hue. Her free hand clawed at the little girl’s neck, drawing blood as she leaned in to bite.

  Jake pulled back and threw the first punch of his life he’d ever thrown in anger. His fist caught the woman on the bridge of her nose as she leaned in, and it split the decaying dull skin open in an awful gash. The hit was enough to release her grip, and Jake smashed his hand down on the remaining clutched hand and then pulled his sister away. The rest of the infected mob was on them as he turned to run.

  The kids dashed down the last open driveway between the cars with their pursuers close behind. The edge wall of the parking structure was directly ahead and coming fast. The concrete barricade rose several feet from the floor, leaving the rest of the way up to the ceiling open to the outside air. The moon loomed large in the distance, its light revealing the outline of adjacent buildings. A cool wind whisked through the opening as a reminder of the long cold winter ahead.

  A flash of movement pulled the kids’ attention from the outside view. Their parents were running for their lives on the adjacent driveway between the parked cars. Jake could see his mother was bleeding. Scarlet spots stained her shirt as a fresh flow poured down the side of her head. The boy cried as the weight of the moment pressed on his young mind. His dad urged him to continue running as he slowed, trying to keep his wife moving.

  The kids reached the edge of the parking structure, and Jake forced his sister to climb. The infected closed in as he pushed on her backside to get her up on the thin ledge of the barricade. He grabbed the edge, once she was steady, and then he jumped and pulled himself up the rest of the way. He sat down on the ledge and discovered the infected only a few feet away. The full ferociousness of their gnashing teeth and ripping clutches froze him stiff.

  It was a final yell from his father that shook Jake free. The man rushed between the cars and leapt at the i
nfected, throwing himself at them. The infected turned their attention on him, ripping into his skin. Jake used the time bought from his father’s sacrifice to act. He peered over the edge into a dark alleyway, then grabbed his sister and pushed. The girl’s shrill scream echoed all the way down until she landed in a dumpster two stories below.

  Jake never looked back for his parents. He knew he would never see them again. He angled himself, slipping his legs over the edge, and then pushed off. A rush of cold washed over him as the sensation of falling hit the pit of his stomach. The impact was hard, but he couldn’t find anything broken.

  A quick search revealed Alicen already out in the alleyway. Jake jumped out and grabbed her hand. The girl’s eyes were swollen and red. Jake pulled her close and forced her to look at him.

  “Stay close to me, you hear?” The little girl nodded and tightened her grip on his hand. “No matter what, you never let go.”

  The kids started off toward the street, forced to listen to their parents’ dying screams echoing from up above.

  2

  The shifting movement was a dead giveaway. The sunlight only reached the nooks and crannies of the long-abandoned mall. There was never enough light. Staying inside for too long would only ensure an untimely demise. They would either get to you or you’d starved to death; one of them was a sure thing. You had to keep moving, and at the moment, Chris was trying to do precisely that.

  He swore under his breath. He’d let down his guard and fallen asleep in what was a sporting goods store before the infection. The mistake left him trapped with only one way out into the rest of the mall. The quad outside the entryway was crawling with a group of infected. He’d counted two dozen, but more were coming. Their quick twitching movements identified their infliction at once.