Breakout

by Craig Jones

  The captain handed me his gun.

  “You’ll need this,” he told me. I knew what he expected me to do, but I had other ideas.

  The glass doors were close to shattering with the pressure of the zombies piling up against them.

  “I’ll need that one too,” I said, pointing at the soldier’s machine gun. “I’ll hold them off so you can get away. I’ll save the last bullet for myself.”

  “It was a pleasure to have known you, Matt,” Bateman said and lifted his walkie-talkie to his mouth.

  “Let’s get this train moving,” he said, then turned to the final soldier. “Get on board.”

  The soldier checked the clip of his gun then handed it to me without meeting my eyes. Bateman’s face swam before me and my legs became weak. The bright red color of the train faded for a few seconds, becoming a dull and lifeless grey. Then I blinked and the red returned.

  “You need to go too,” I told Bateman. I felt my jaw begin tense and spasm. My teeth snapped together. I was losing my self-control. “I don’t think I have long.”

  “Your brother would have been proud of you, kid” Bateman said. He patted me on the shoulder and climbed on board. He slammed the carriage door just as the train began to move. He looked out at me through the window and saluted me, a single tear running down his cheek.

  As the train picked up pace, the glass entrance finally gave way and the zombies swarmed into the building.

  52

  As the train began to pull away, Robbie’s tearful face appeared at the window. He banged on the glass as violently as one of the hungry undead. He was shouting, but his words were muffled and made no sense to me. I held Bateman’s pistol in my right hand, with the rifle from the soldier tucked under my left arm. The pain in my wrist was abating but the burning heat had reached my shoulder.

  I smiled up at Robbie as I tried to jam the pistol into my pocket. I wanted to be able to wave goodbye to him.

  The gun wouldn’t go into my pocket. Something was already in there.

  The cure.

  I dropped both weapons as the zombies began to charge towards the turnstiles. They quickly got snarled up, bottle necking as the ones at the front got trapped and squashed. But they didn’t care. They stomped over their unearthly brethren to get to the departing train. They roared with hatred and frustration as their last big meal rolled away from them.

  I dug my hand into my pocket and pulled out the case holding the world’s only vial of the zombie cure. The back of the train was twenty meters down the track, but it still wasn’t moving quickly. I began to limp after it as quickly as I could, ignoring my wretched body’s pain. I waved the cure, hoping that Robbie would understand.

  He did.

  He pushed down the window and leaned out towards me. Bateman tried to drag the boy back inside, but he wiggled in the soldier’s arms, his hand reaching out for me. I closed the gap between us as the undead began to run in my wake. They closed the gap quickly, but I was getting nearer Robbie with every agonized stride.

  Five meters. Four meters, three, two…

  “Take it!” I shouted, and Robbie tried to stretch closer towards me. The container brushed his fingertips, but he wasn’t able to grasp it. I almost overbalanced and fell but managed to stab my foot out from under my body just in time.

  The train was accelerating and my body was failing, and then I saw Danny’s face. Not the Danny tied up in our garden shed, his jaw dislocated, his eyes that prehistoric grey, but my brother when he was full of life, when he was ready to take on the world. I had to do this for him, for his memory.

  I thrust my legs a final time, slapping the cure into Robbie’s hand like an Olympic athlete passing the baton to a team mate.

  “Yes!” Robbie let out a victorious cry as my knees gave way and I fell to the ground, sliding along the concrete. I lay there face down as the train pulled away towards the channel tunnel. I could just about make out Robbie’s voice. I thought, I hoped, that I heard the words I love you. The train picked up speed quickly, and I knew that not one of the undead would be swift enough to catch it. I wondered how far in the train would get before they blew up the tunnel--cutting Great Britain off from mainland Europe--until the cure could be flown overhead.

  Footsteps and the grunts and groans of the zombies were rapidly approaching me. I refused to have them fall on me like a pack of rabid dogs. If they were going to kill me, I’d face them head on, up on my feet and fighting. I somehow found the strength to get myself upright. I almost fell back down twice, almost gave up. If I’d have had a gun I’d have placed the muzzle against my head and fired a single, final shot. But I didn’t.

  I raised my head and with a steely-eyed stare, challenging the thirty, forty, fifty zombies to kill me.

  But they didn’t attack.

  They stood away from me and glared back. Their shoulders rose and fell as one. Their lips were peeled back, revealing those clean white teeth within their filthy, blood splattered faces.

  How I hated them.

  Danny and I had a good life in Usk, and they came and took that from us. They brought Nick and Jenny and Robbie and the girls to our door, and we couldn’t turn them away. Because of the undead threat, we’d become reckless, trying to save people when we should have held our ground and I lost my brother to them. I thought I could save him and I was wrong. Instead, I had unleashed something much worse--something dead, hungry and clever. We were no match for them. All we could do was hide inside the solid walls of the Millennium Stadium, but even there we weren’t safe. There we had to face the worst of the living. General Rogers was a bigger monster than anything that prowled the streets of Cardiff. But no matter what adversity I was faced with, I’d achieved what I set out to do. I had saved Robbie. In time he would forget the worst of what he saw. He would have a life. But now it was time for me to die.

  I wanted them to strike me down. I wanted it to be over quickly. I had feared their bite for so long, and now I craved it. I raised my eyes to the zombies. I could no longer see the red blood on their faces. They had become just a grey herd to me. I knew what they were because within their heads I could see something vivid and yellow, throbbing, pulsing.

  The amygdala.

  In control of their actions, soon to be dominating mine.

  I looked down at the bite on my wrist. The blood was still fresh and glowed brightly.

  I couldn’t help but bring my wrist to my mouth and lap at the wound.

  The taste made me shudder. I’d never experienced anything like it before.

  I licked again and swallowed, feeling a warm ecstasy explode in my stomach that spread quickly out across my body.

  Since Danny had died, I’d been looking for my own escape, my own end.

  At last I had found it.

  MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

  About the author

  Craig Jones is from Wales, the home of great rugby, great singing and many great writers and artists. Craig lives in Cardiff with his wife Claire, baby son Shane and a rather insane ginger cat called Wookie. He works for Public Health Wales and is the Wales lead on alcohol harm reduction. As much as he loves this job, his dream is to be a full time writer.

  Inspired by the late, great James Herbert, Stephen King and Bret Easton Ellis (Craig says Patrick Bateman is the best character ever created and it is even better that he was played by a Welshman in the movie) he has always been a huge horror fan. From Jason to Freddie, Ash to Rick Grimes, there is nothing scary that he won’t watch, no one he won’t try to scare with his stories.

  Craig writes for young adults because he believes the more they read, the more creative they will become. ‘I grew up with a book in one hand and a tennis racket in the other. I think writers have a responsibility to pen stories to inspire youngsters to read by knowing what kids want.’

  Also by Craig Jones

  Son Of Blood

  Amongst the horror, her love was his salvation.

  Martin is a four hundred year old va
mpire. Together with his son, Christian, he protects the idyllic nature of the coastal town of Skerries, for a significant cost, the blood of the strangers who outstay their welcome. Martin knows his soul is cursed and that, when the time comes, he will burn for eternity in the depths of hell but he strives to ensure that Christian will never have to take a human life and thus be reunited with his human mother in heaven. Revered, respected and feared, the town's people know little about the vampires that coexist with them except that when they are called upon, they come. This is something that the seemingly unassuming town Mayor manipulates for his own benefit. It is not until he learns of the forbidden love between Christian and his daughter and the mysterious death of one of the town's teenagers, that the Mayor and residents turn on their supernatural guardians.

  Outbreak: The Zombie Apocalypse. It begins with a flight into Heathrow Airport. It ends up at Matt Hawkins’ front gate, in a crowd of savage, lumbering bodies. An epidemic is sweeping Great Britain, transforming countless victims into mindless predators and forcing Matt and his little brother, Danny, out of the safety of their late parents’ privileged legacy and into a rapidly changing world.

  Every day is vital. Every action counts. As the brothers make alliances and learn to defend themselves and their home against an unthinkable enemy, choices are made, some with devastating consequences. In the midst of this nightmarish fight to survive, Matt begins to learn what is truly important to him, and exactly what it means to be human.

  Becoming Zodiak. He has the looks, the skills and even the name, but is that enough to win... Becoming Zodiak?

  Zodiak. An unmatched, unbeatable team composed of twelve elite fighters. Their purpose? To rid the streets of crime and corruption, and to fend against a kind of wickedness that runs much deeper than any ordinary crime could. And they were unmatched, they were unbeatable. Until they weren’t.

  After the events of what should have been just another mission, Zodiak finds itself one member short—one member too few. The team is scrambling to fill their empty seat, to find a new number twelve, and this desperation bringsabout one of the largest media events the world has ever seen: a competition.

  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to thank David and the team at POFP for their ongoing support and guidance. My family mean everything to me and I wouldn’t achieve anything without them. And finally but most importantly to you. When you read you bring the words to life. And that’s what makes being a writer so worthwhile.

  Thank You

  Now that you have finished my book, won’t you please consider writing a review? Reviews are the best way readers discover great new books. I would truly appreciate it.

  Catalog

  Resilient. Livia has never felt like she fits in. As normal as it sounds, Livia is anything but ordinary. She can feel every emotion of every single person around her, and it’s maddening. In pursuit of some psychic quiet, she moves with her family from New York City to Whidbey Island in the lush and sleepy Pacific Northwest. But when a horseback riding accident in her new home gives her a broken leg that heals in a day, she finds that another unexplainable ability has manifested, and her life isn’t about to get any easier. Adam has no problem fitting in and making friends. In fact, he’s the top of the school, the boy everyone knows and loves. However, people only see what he allows them to. No one knows what Adam is truly capable of.

  After witnessing Livia’s accident, Adam sees something intriguing in her quick recovery, something that gives him hope that he’s not alone. Adam is the only one whose emotions Livia can’t read. Afraid of not knowing what goes on behind his dark eyes, Livia decides to keep him at a distance. Yet the more she tries to ignore him, the more alluring he becomes, and while their personal quests for identity will inevitably bring them closer together, it is the confirmation of what they really are that threatens to tear them apart. Resilient, told in alternating point of views, is a gripping story of survival and romance, in which two teenagers face the consequences of being anything but normal.

  How I Became A Teenage Survivalist. Bracken is a typical teenage boy, more interested in the angles of the girl’s exposed back teasing him from the seat ahead of him than in anything the geometry teacher could present. His life is filled with school, video games, and thoughts of girls, not necessarily in that order. Life just flows along uneventfully and unacknowledged, like the electricity that courses through the power lines — until PF (Power Failure) Day. On PF Day, the sun strikes Bracken’s world with an unseen surge of electromagnetic fury, which cripples power stations and burns transformers to crispy nuggets of regret.

  No one in Bracken’s world had ever thought about how much they depended on electrical power, but now, without it, they are plunged into survival mode. Without electricity there is no communication, no modern conveniences, and soon, no modern means of transportation, as the reserves of refined gasoline run dry. Worse still is the failure of the water and sewer systems, the impossibility of getting food and supplies to people living in cities, and the deaths of millions of people from starvation, disease, and lack of medical care.

  Bracken soon realizes how lucky he is to live on a farm in the Midwest. What seemed like a dull and backwards life before is now the greatest chance for survival in what seems like a powerless world. Food, water, and heat are readily available, although hard work is required to make use of them. Bracken and his family must learn to survive like their ancestors, who settled their land. Told in the first person, Bracken tells the story of how they not only survive, but how PF Day actually makes their lives better and more satisfying.

  I Am Currency. Would you turn in your books to a corrupt government, or would you join the movement? When a meteor slams into the earth causing a shift in the planet's magnetic core, the age of technology ends and economies across the globe crash. Years later, knowledge is not only power…it is currency. Bookkeepers are invaluable in this post-apocalyptic world. Nevel can never tell anyone he is a bookkeeper. His photographic memory is his secret. With a dystopian government that keeps all known books under lock and key looming as a constant threat and with parents involved as agents in the U.B.M. (Underground Book Movement) to protect the books that still secretly exist, Nevel is in a dangerous position. Never does this cause an issue until the day a fellow classmate, Quinn, appears at his door and proves to know more than she should. Awards: 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist (Children's/Juvenile Fiction).

  Hidden Power. Aurora Turnleaf has lived her whole life hearing fairy tales of mysterious lands, magical beings, and crystal towers. She thought nothing of them until the day she stumbled upon a magnificent city, deep within the woods, built entirely of see-through crystal. It appeared out of nowhere, in a part of the forest she’s never ventured into before, and suddenly all those stories she heard growing up become much less imaginary.

  Her guide is Iragos, a light mage, who introduces her to Kayne, a mage in training for a dark wizard named Kronos. Unbeknownst to Aurora, Kayne had just stolen the Ythra Orb form the Hallowed Hall on behalf of his master and hidden it in her pack. Suddenly Aurora is thrust into a life or death journey to help Kayne find the mystical land of Morgis, home to the Oracles who first created the Orb, in hopes that they can secure its safety against Kronos.

  The path to Morgis will be treacherous enough, but it is what follows the two teens that is more life threatening. For the dark mage’s fierce legion of vicious minions is on their path, with Kronos himself not far behind, and all of them are intent on intercepting Kayne and Aurora at every turn. Meanwhile Aurora and Kayne must battle both the elements and Kronos’ dark magic to complete their quest. And along the way, the two teens from very different worlds must learn to work together to overcome obstacles, one of them being their mutual attraction.

  My Water Path. Mississippi, the late 1950s. After the death of his father, eleven-year-old Jory Sheppard runs away from an unwanted life in foster care. Trying to make it on his own, he is caught in a violent storm
on the Mississippi River, but when he is rescued from the raging waters by an old black man named Moses, it becomes the event that will change his life.

  Taken into Moses’ family as one of their own, Jory is introduced to a world so familiar and yet so very different from the one he once knew. As he learns and grows under the benevolent care of his new family, he struggles to make sense of the society in which he lives—a society that would spit on a man such as Moses simply because his skin is black, and make every effort to rip Jory from the family he loves.

  Quickly entrenched in a struggle that is much bigger than himself, Jory must learn the difference between what feels necessary and what is right, what pity is, and what hate is. If he wants to fight the injustice and uncertainty that surrounds him, he must learn what it really means to stand up for what he believes in.

  Like us on Facebook for giveaways and for all the latest information on all things Pants on Fire Press.