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

by Garza, Michael W.

  Chris adjusted his grip on his newly acquired aluminum bat as he readied himself to move. Experience told him waiting was not an option. In time, they would figure out how to get into the store, and he wouldn’t survive against a mob of that size. His only chance was to get out in the open, and by the sounds of their growing howls, his window of opportunity was shrinking.

  The main entrance was a suicidal choice and he knew it. He’d survived this long by thinking outside the box, and his next move needed originality. Chris slid the bat between the pull strings on his backpack and tied it off. He pulled the backpack into place and grabbed the base of the clothing stand he was currently hiding behind. The remaining assortment of Colorado Rockies apparel was the only thing keeping him hidden.

  In one quick motion, the clothing stand came off the ground. Chris rushed forward, trying to keep the metal stand level long enough to accomplish the task he had in mind. He rushed the tall window farthest from the store’s entrance, and with one final thrust, he pushed it toward the glass. Chris felt the impact through a fierce vibration in his hands, and the blow nearly knocked him off his feet. To his shocked horror, the window splintered but didn’t break. The sound, however, drew all of the attention of the infected in the quad directly toward him.

  “Crap.”

  Chris didn’t consider his options. He managed to lift the stand up and rush forward. The metal tip hit the center of the pane of glass, this time breaking through with a resounding crash. He dropped his makeshift lance, dashed through window, and picked up speed as he headed toward the escalators beyond the quad. The erupting sound of bloodcurdling cries echoed across the long vacant shopping center as the infected rushed after him.

  Chris risked a look over his shoulder and discovered his initial head count was woefully low. The mob rushed after him in a loose gaggle, their sole focus on his beating heart. The clothing that once defined their place in life now clung in various states of disrepair, most stained with blood that hinted at a hellacious end. It was the blood they craved, that much everyone was sure, but it was the why and the how that was never answered before the breakdown came.

  The infected were fast, not like the zombies they became after death. The speed made them truly terrifying. Chris could outrun a horde of undead, but the infected was a whole other matter. The infected were still technically alive, and they retained their physical attributes as long as they fed. If the government discovered how or why the transformation happened, it never made it out into the public before everything went dark.

  Flipped tables and broken chairs littered the food court. The smell of rotted produce permeated everything. The cages covering the food stalls were bent and battered from when the first of the rioters broke in. The stench of the dead was all around. Similar gathering places had been a feeding ground for the first of the infected when the breakout started. Those who could still control themselves in the first stages of the disease willingly sought out the blood of others.

  Chris dodged the clutter as his eyes swept across the way ahead. He would have to make it to the first floor, and the escalator he’d climbed upon his arrival was the closest option. He didn’t know what would be waiting for him at the bottom. The sounds reverberating through the open space told him all he needed to know about his pursuers. They were gaining on him.

  He would have been furious with himself if he had the time to think about it. He’d survived on his own for eight long months and most of that time with little or no help from anyone else. No one made it that long by making mistakes. The only reason he was in the mall in the first place was thanks to a habit he’d been forced to kick. At least he thought he’d kicked it.

  The guy who used to manage the sporting goods store turned Chris on to a dealer. Why in the hell he thought the guy would still be held up in the store was beyond him. Addiction was a funny thing. He’d run out of smack three months after everything went to hell. Detoxing alone in the basement of an apartment building was enough to make him want to die. Now that he was clean, dying was something he wanted to avoid.

  His legs cramped and his lungs burned. He hadn’t eaten much in two days and the strain on his body was showing in his strength. Long shadows of the infected reached out along the walls around him. They were close now and he didn’t have the energy to push himself to move faster. Their panting breath replaced the sounds of their blood lustful shrieks. They were right on top of him and he knew it.

  The way ahead parted and a glimpse at freedom revealed itself. The escalator had long lost the power to move, but it offered a chance to reach the first floor. The hint of escape was short lived as a powerful grip took hold of his backpack. Chris was nearly brought to a standstill.

  He made one last attempt to get away and drove his feet into the ground. Chris spun his body, sliding his arms out of the backpack straps as he turned. He managed to catch the bat midair and then pull free. He was running again, the sight of the infected fresh in his mind. There were more of them than he had ever seen at once and his heart raced as panic took full control of his mind.

  Chris took a giant leap and landed on the divider between the escalators. A few unsteady steps forced him to sit and try to slide the rest of the way down. He reached the midway point when the figures at the bottom of the escalators came into view. Their arms slashed violently in every direction as their senses picked up on him. There were two infected, both women, made obvious by their exposed chests. Gashes from ripping fingers left an opening in one’s mid-section and the other looked to have lost most of the tissue around her jaw.

  They ran directly at him. Chris reached the bottom and leapt from the base of the escalator’s divider. His momentum angled him over the outstretched hands of his welcoming party, but the fall beyond slammed him into a bench. The impact knocked the wind out of him, but he had the presence of mind to keep moving. A strong grip took hold of his shirt from behind, and instinctually, he turned, swinging the bat with vicious intent. A quick smash broke the limb at the forearm, but the jawless woman took little notice of the pain. Her eyes were covered with the haunting jaundice shade of the infection, and she would not be denied her meal.

  A deafening roar of bloody desire raced down the escalator as the crowd of trailing infected poured downstairs. Chris brushed the broken arm aside and sent his heel to the center of the woman’s chest. He made contact between her exposed breasts and the bone buckled. Her howls were reduced to gargling drool as she collapsed. The second woman stepped on her fallen companion’s face as she lunged at Chris. He caught her with her feet off the ground, hitting her square in the nose with his fist. Blood splattered as her face was reduced to a broken mess.

  Chris focused on the corridor leading away from the atrium. A breeze hit him in the face, promising a way out. He reached another descending set of stairs before he realized where he was. The main exit to the mall, as best he could remember, was not far away, and the sounds of the throng chasing after him didn’t give a moment to spare.

  He started for the exit as the wave of infected reached the top of the stairs behind him. He kept his bat at the ready until he reached the boarded glass doors. Chris wiggled his way between the barricaded exits and then edged underneath the chain lock he’d avoided on the way in. The sunlight hit him full force as the heat of a clear Denver day engulfed him. The massive parking lot beyond the entrance was riddled with lifeless cars.

  Chris caught a sound in the air in between the howls of the infected rushing for the doors behind him. The moans of the walking dead were clear to his trained ears. Any infected not disposed of properly would end up among the scattered shambles moving toward the mall entrance in between the rows of vehicles. They moved with slow purposeful steps. Their wretched wails brought with it an engrained terror. Chris kept moving. He’d survived the morning, but there was no promise he’d live to see tomorrow.

  3

  The morning light brought safety. Chris looked out over the Denver skyline as the light worked its way across the
building tops. He hadn’t slept in a full day, and the burning in his eyes told him he would regret it. Sleeping during the day was the safest way to go because you didn’t have to worry about the infected, but Chris was hungry and needed supplies. His mistake in the mall not only nearly got him killed, but he also lost a week’s worth of scavenged provisions.

  He got to his feet and settled on a list of things to do for the day. Food was most important followed closely by a source for fire. Food was essential and not the easiest thing to come by. His tastes had changed over the past several months. He wasn’t above eating dog food if he had to, or a dog for that matter.

  He quietly slid his bat from the handle of the rooftop door. Roofs of buildings were his favorite place to rest. The entrances could be secured with relative ease, and there was rarely more than one way in or out. Most times, he searched for a fire escape to get down the outside of a building when the morning came, but his mind was set on the soft light of the vending machine he’d seen on the third floor on the way up the night before.

  Buildings were not safe during the day. The infected used them as hives to hide out from the sunlight, but at the moment, Chris was thinking with his stomach. He’d kept a watchful eye on the building’s main entrance as dawn neared, and as best he could tell there’d been no new arrivals. He was well aware that it didn’t guarantee the building was safe.

  The bat felt good in his grip. The converted weapon was becoming a new favorite. A quick pull and two steps brought him inside the door and up to the railing, looking down over several flights of stairs. He moved down the first flight with agile strides, the taps of his boots echoing ever so slightly in the silence. He made the turn and continued down to a landing. He came to a stop and listened for the signs of a coming attack. Once satisfied, he focused on the door leading out onto the floor.

  A thin window embedded in the door was illuminated by an eerie red glow from the exit sign in the interior hall. He wondered how long it would be before the last of the artificial light would go out. There was no rhyme or reason as to why some lights kept running or why others died out long ago. He was grateful for what he could get.

  Chris slid his face up to the window and peered in. The hall was cloaked in darkness, but a sliver of sunlight at the end of the corridor was within his vision. The light cascaded through an outer wall of windows and revealed an opening to a breakroom. Chris could see a small table and a set of chairs from his vantage point. The outline of a vending machine near the opening in an inner wall called to him.

  It was impossible to tell if the machine had been looted, but it was worth the risk. Chris had gotten some of his best hauls out of vending machines. Those hauls were to blame for his desperate need for a dentist, but it gave him hope that there would soon be food in his stomach. He could accept the cavity implications that were sure to follow any success.

  Chris turned the door handle and pulled with delicate ease. He stepped through swiftly and placed his back against the wall. A quick scan of the way behind revealed a similar picture to the front of the building. The rear exterior glass wall was giving way to sunlight although heavy blinds reduced the light to rows of thin slits against cubical walls. The interior floor space was consumed by a cubical farm from one outer hall to another on the opposite side of the building. The front of the floor, beyond the breakroom, appeared to be one large open space.

  Satisfied with the stillness, Chris crept forward keeping his back against the wall. He tried to keep his eyes moving in both directions as he walked. He knew his ears were his best chance at detecting any signs of trouble. He was midway between the front of the building and the door to the stairs when the noises started.

  The shuffling of feet froze Chris in place. Zombies, he knew. He felt his heartbeat rise in his chest as he fought with the decision to go forward. His hand shook as he tried to keep his bat at the ready. The steps continued, slow and unsteady. The infected always moved with a hurried purpose. He was sure it didn’t know he was there because whether infected or undead, neither ever turned down a chance to feed.

  Chris held still for a long time, glancing back at the exit doorway. Sweat built on his brow and rolled down his forehead into his eyes. The warmth of his skin was far beyond what the temperature could do and he knew it. The fear in his heart had hold of him, and he needed to act now or retreat. The smart thing to do was to get out while he could, but the gnawing in his stomach was hard to ignore. If he turned down this chance, he didn’t know how long it would be until he would eat again.

  He finally convinced himself that the sounds couldn’t have been steps. He swayed himself enough to reach the end of the hall. His courage earned him his first view of what was in fact a vending machine. More important were the few dozen shiny wrapped snacks contained within. Chris smiled despite himself.

  Another series of steps brought him to the open breakroom doorway, and Chris cautiously gazed in. There was no sign of movement, but the soft glow from the sign above the machine only covered half of the room. The outline of chairs and tables was obscured by the darkness on the other side. His concern could not overwhelm his hunger, and two long strides brought him to the front of the vending machine.

  His mind was busy counting the number of treasures through the front Plexiglas while his hands fumbled at the button on the side pouch of his cargo pants. The button gave way as he calculated that this would be his best haul by a long shot. He removed the set of oddly shaped keys and began thumbing through them one by one. The keys were a gift from a recently deceased vending machine repairman, and they were Chris’s prized possessions.

  He sized up the lock on the machine and looked back at the keys. A spark of hope came as he flipped feverously through the set and stopped on a match. The moment he took hold of the key, a low but obvious sound hovered over his shoulder from somewhere behind him. In one quick motion, he dropped the keyring to the ground and spun around with his bat at the ready.

  The noise was close and Chris focused on the dark side of the breakroom, cursing in the process. The light from the front wall of windows penetrated the room’s doorway, but not much farther than the entrance. He scanned the assorted tables and chairs looking in vain for something moving toward him. The pounding of his heart returned to his ears and a familiar shake made an appearance in his hands. He listened so intently to the silence that he was sure he could hear the wind blowing in the street below. Chris held still with his bat up and ready to strike, waiting for a clue of what was to come. Several painstaking minutes crept by, and the first sound he heard was not at all what he’d expected.

  “We just want some food.”

  The voice was high-pitched but consciously meek. The speaker was close, undoubtedly within the breakroom beyond the light. Chris would have sworn it was the voice of a kid, but he couldn’t be sure. Whoever it was, at least they were smart enough to whisper.

  “Show yourself,” Chris said. “Come out into the light.”

  There was a hushed conversation followed by slow movement beyond the tables and chairs close to the back wall. A figure stepped forward into the light. The kid was a rail-thin boy, his jeans and jacket stained with dirt and only God knows what else. He swept his bangs out of his eyes with one hand, while sheathing a long knife in his belt with the other. The two studied one another for a few tense moments, and then Chris pushed for information.

  “You said we.”

  The boy hesitated and pursed his lips. He waved at someone still hidden by the darkness after a moment of internal debate and urged them forward. A little girl about half a foot shorter than the boy stopped at his side. She instinctively grabbed his hand and stared at Chris. She was as filthy as the boy, her long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail that any good mother would be ashamed of. Chris was at a loss for words, not sure what he should do. The boy got straight to the point before he could gather his thoughts.

  “We want some of that food,” he whispered, pointing at the vending machine.

 
“Why should I share?” Chris asked.

  “We saw it first,” the girl added, raising her voice louder than necessary.

  Chris lowered his bat and motioned for her to keep it down.

  “And how did you plan to get inside it?”

  “We were working on a plan,” the boy said.

  Chris risked a look back and found signs of prying on the edge of the machine.

  “You’re not going to get in it that way,” he said. “At least not without making enough noise to attract attention to yourself.”

  The girl eyed him suspiciously. “So what’s your plan?”

  Chris held up a finger with one hand, then leaned down and picked up his ring of keys. He found the key he needed and went to work on the machine, turning his back to the kids. A moment later, the lock was undone. He pulled the face of the machine open and stood back out of the way. He looked at the children and smiled.

  There was a moment when he thought the kids might try to get past him. The girl leaned forward as if drawn by some unseen force. The boy squeezed her hand and pulled her back on her heels. The resemblance between the two adolescents was unmistakable. Their faces were nearly carbon copies of one another, save for the softer impressions of the little girl’s cheeks and mouth. A number of questions stuffed Chris’s mind, but he tried to push them aside. He quickly reminded himself that he didn’t care or at least didn’t want to.

  Chris looked at the contents of the vending machine and verified that it was in fact the largest haul he’d ever seen. He thought for a split second about shooing the kids away, but his guilt quickly got the best of him. He rolled his eyes and his shoulders relaxed. “Fine,” he said more to himself than the kids. “I’ll split some of it with you.” He swore under his breath and the kids stepped forward. The little girl’s sudden stop grabbed his attention. The expression on her face hardened as she turned her focus toward the doorway. “What’s wrong with her?”