The Z-Strain Trilogy Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Morris, SJ

  They only cared about being the first to create a successful anti-virus and making sure they were all safe to create a new world order, where they’d be hailed as the men and women that healed the human race because they would be the ones that saved us all from extinction.

  Yeah, bullshit.

  I bet they weren’t planning on telling the survivors they were more or less responsible for the outbreak in the first place.

  German scientists were beating them to the cure, so they sent my team in to steal the research and destroy the laboratory.

  Little did they know, the lab they had us blow up was also the central power station to what they used as holding pens for the infected subjects the Germans were testing.

  With the power out, the infected were free to roam and spread the virus like wildfire.

  I knew in my gut, going back to my old military unit was a terrible idea, but they didn’t really give me a choice. It was either, they kill my entire family and me in a way no one would ever suspect it was murder, or I go back in.

  So, I went back.

  However, with everything that’s happened since, I find myself questioning, more often than not, if death might have been a better choice... for all of us.

  The only thing that allows me to sleep at night is knowing this event would have happened with or without me.

  At least, this way, I could be sure my family was safe. Well, except for the part where my wife became an unwilling test subject.

  “Unit Seven, this is Unit One, please report to base for debriefing.”

  Ugh, I just got out here, and now they want me to come in already. Fuck that, I’ll tell them I was taking a leak and I didn’t hear my radio.

  “Unit Seven, respond!” I continued to ignore the radio. “Unit Seven! Damn it, Jack, you know they’ll chew me out if you aren’t back here in time.”

  To be continued in Z-Strain: Book Two – The Road to Perdition

  Z-Strain:

  The Road to

  Perdition

  Book Two of the

  Z-Strain Series

  By SJ Morris

  Copyright © 2018 by Forever Morris Publishing, LLC

  This book is a work of fiction. The name, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, business establishments, or actual events, or organization(s) is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without written permission of the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of any author’s rights.

  First Edition March 2018

  Published by Forever Morris Publishing, LLC

  ForeverMorrisPublishing.com

  ®

  ISBN: 978-1-980-46872-1

  Chapter 1

  I rested for a few days, but there was no way I was going to stay in my room for the week or longer Doc Baker would have liked. My broken ribs were the worst of my injuries, and even they didn’t hurt that bad anymore. I felt better after I got up and moved around.

  I wanted to help around the house, doing anything at all, but no one would let me. I think the doc talked to everyone knowing I would want to do more than she’d like.

  Chris, my doting companion, well you could call him my boyfriend, brought me coffee and breakfast every morning. We’d sit together in the living room and chat about what he was planning on doing for the day, but today I needed to get up and get outside; I seemed to be facing the onset of cabin fever. I was used to being independent and up and about, not staying inside and not being allowed to do much of anything but rest.

  Weeks went by and I could do more, but Doc was still keeping me on a short leash. She didn’t want me reinjuring myself, so I was given an unofficial prescription to take it easy. Doc said I’d done enough to my body during my last outing and she didn’t want to see me back in her infirmary any time soon. I listened, even though I didn’t want to.

  It was a beautiful morning in northern New Jersey. Chris and I sat on the front porch as the sun barely broke over the trees and burned the light morning fog away. The weather wasn’t cold yet, but it was brisk. It felt amazing to have warm coffee in my hand and Chris next to me, with his arm around my shoulders.

  As comfortable as I was, though, I couldn’t shake a feeling that we were being watched.

  “Chris, have we had any issues with security? Like, any perimeter alarms going off recently?” I asked as I looked all around me at the fences.

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know. It feels like we’re being watched.”

  “Well, we’re almost always being watched. There are people everywhere now. We’ve grown to almost fifty people strong. We’re becoming a settlement of sorts,” he replied, sounding proud.

  “No, not that kind of being watched. Like, someone is watching us that shouldn’t be. I don’t know if it’s everything I’ve been through, being kidnapped and all, or if it’s something else, but I can’t seem to shake this weird feeling in the back of my head.” As soon as I finished speaking, I saw a bright flash out of the corner of my eye. I stood up instantly staring and then pointing at the spot in the hills where the shine came from. “There! Did you see that?”

  “See what?” Chris said, standing up with me and scanning the hillside.

  “There it is again!” I shouted louder than I wanted to.

  “I did see that,” Chris replied as he ran inside.

  I kept staring at the spot the flash came from, looking for it to happen again. I hoped it was just something shiny hanging in the trees and catching the rising sunlight, but I didn’t see it again.

  Shortly after running in, Chris ran back out of the front door, but now he had a sniper rifle with a gigantic scope on it. He brought the large scope lens to his eye and scanned the trees on the hill in silence.

  Starting to freak out, I whispered, “Do you see anything? What do you see?” Now with fear creeping into my voice.

  “There’s movement on the hill through the trees, but I can’t make out what it is. It’s too far away, but there’s no way it’s an infected. It’s moving too fast and not in a straight line. I want you to go inside, grab Tom and Dan. We need to have them put everyone on high alert. I think it’s a survivor, but with the flash we saw, someone is definitely watching us through binoculars or a riflescope like this one. Either way, I want to be sure. We need to see if he or she is just one interested person being cautious or if it’s a scout for a larger group. A scout could be bad news.”

  I ran inside as fast as my bruised body would allow and yelled for Dan and Tom. I knew Dan was down in the security room watching the monitors, but I had no idea where Tom was. I kicked over the can of lima beans that unhinged the hidden door in the pantry leading to the secret downstairs rooms. I made it to the security room in record time and found Dan laughing with my son Tyler about something, but both of their faces dropped the second they saw me.

  “What’s wrong?” Dan immediately asked as I caught my breath.

  “Chris needs you out front quick. Where’s Tom? We need him too. We might have a problem,” I said between heavy breaths.

  “He’s out in the barn with Chuck. What the hell’s going on, Abby?

  “Yeah, Mom, what’s wrong?” Tyler chimed in.

  “Tyler, I need you to stay here and watch the monitors for anything out of the ordinary, and I mean anything! If you see something, radio it to me,” I said, grabbing three radios off the chargers. “I’m on channel two. There was movement off in the hills in front of the cabin, and it looks like someone might be watching us. I mean it, Tyler. Anything you see, radio it in,” I commanded, running back up the stairs with Dan in tow.

  “What the hell do you mean, someone is watching us?” questioned Dan as I dragged him outside.r />
  “Chris, explain to Dan what we saw. I’m going to grab Tom. Here, take this. I’m on channel two, and so is Tyler. I told him to watch out for anything unusual and radio it in,” I said, handing Chris one of the radios before taking off to the back of the house.

  I had to slow down as the tightness in my right side reminded me, I was still not at one hundred percent. I reached the barn and yelled for Tom. He and Chuck peeked their heads out from the back doors.

  “Tom, we need you out front. We might have some trouble. Dan and Chris are already out there waiting for us.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Tom said as he handed his pitchfork to Chuck.

  “Chris and I saw what we think was a glare from either binoculars or a scope like someone was watching us in the hills out front.”

  “Chuck, you got this, right?” Tom said as he hauled ass out of the barn towards the front of the house. Needless to say, I had no idea if Chuck even responded.

  I chose to walk briskly. Resting the last few days was great, but now I felt like I was out of shape, trying to keep up with Tom. By the time I got out front, Dan, Chris, and Tom were already in the middle of planning to go out and have a look at where we had seen the movement.

  “Did you see anything else, Chris?” I asked, almost completely out of breath now.

  “Yes, I definitely saw a person running up and over the hill away from us. Whoever it was knew he’d been spotted and he certainly didn’t like it. He was moving quickly, and he was wearing standard issue camo and looked like he had a ghillie hat too. I’m pretty sure there was also a very large weapon strung behind his back,” Chris said with a serious look on his face.

  “I thought you said whoever it was, was too far away to see, and what the hell is a ghillie hat?” I questioned.

  “I was able to dial in more and get a better look at him. A ghillie hat, it’s like wearing branches and leaves on your head; it’s very realistic camo. I’m not happy we’re being watched, though, so I’m going to take Tom out and scout the area to see if there are any clues as to who our new friend might be. And no, you are not going with us, Abby,” Chris said, staring me down.

  “I wasn’t going to ask,” I answered, timidly letting him have his moment of control.

  There was no way I was going out there in my condition. I’d learned my lesson. Plus, I was hoping Chris and Tom would find out it was just one lone man who was a decent human being. Perhaps he was just being overly cautious before approaching our little community and asking if he could join us. A girl can dream, right?

  “Dan, I need you back in the security room, in front of those monitors. You should keep an eye on half and have Tyler watch the other half to be sure you don’t miss anything. Radio us with any movement. Abby, start getting the word out that we might have a security issue, but don’t freak everyone out. Tell them it’s a temporary security lockdown. They’ll know what it means and what to do. No one goes outside the fences until Tom and I get back. Tom, grab all of your gear and meet me back here in five minutes. Full gear, Tom, since we have no idea what we might run into,” Chris commanded, looking at each of us in turn while he gave out his orders. We all nodded in agreement.

  I gave Chris a stare as everyone broke away, and he looked at me with confusion in his eyes. I grabbed him and kissed him deeply.

  “Come back to us safely, please. Don’t take any unnecessary risks out there, Santa,” I said, smiling as I called him by the nickname I knew he hated.

  Chapter 2

  I found Troy in the lab muttering to himself as he read our notes over and over again. He’d been studying my blood more than anything else lately because I was now seemingly immune to the Z-Strain. Yuck, it felt so stupid to call it that. Back when the world was normal, without the dead walking the earth, eating and infecting everyone, we named viruses with letters and numbers mostly, such as virus T-101 or H1N1. Z-Strain seemed so childish until I remembered what it does.

  It took live, active, healthy cells, and destroyed them. Then it implanted itself into the human body, reanimating the dead cells, one at a time, as copies of the infected cells. Destroy, reanimate, destroy, reanimate. The cycle didn’t end until there was nothing left to destroy, thereby creating a massive army of zombies.

  That word was still foreign to me too. Zombies, ugh. We continued to call the dead the infected even though as of now we had no cure to make them better. We didn’t even have something that would make them truly die unless we killed them all one by one, destroying the brain. As of now, they were just biting and infecting everyone left alive, which unfortunately over the last sixteen weeks this repetitive cycle of destruction didn’t leave many.

  The infection spreads quickly, and from what I saw on my travels back to the cabin after being kidnapped recently, most of the people left were not really what you’d call decent. Most I came face to face with were less than hospitable. Unfortunately, I had to kill the living, which I guess was for the best but overall, but I was still holding out hope we’d be able to save what little was left of humanity.

  Troy and I needed to come up with a cure, or at least, a way to kill the infected in mass so people could start to rebuild from this disgusting human-made tragedy.

  I stood there for a few minutes thinking to myself; I knew Troy hated to be interrupted. Anyone breaking his chain of thought aggravated him. It was his process, and nothing was life or death just yet, so I could give him a few minutes.

  “What’s up, Abby? You have a worried look, and there was a lot of commotion earlier.” Troy said sticking his notepad back in his shirt pocket and sliding his pencil between his glasses and his temple.

  “While Chris and I were on the front steps this morning we saw someone in the hills watching us. Chris and Tom are out now looking for him, but I had an idea. This guy appears to be a professional, and that possibility made me think of the map I took off of Liam, the jackass that kidnapped and tortured me. The map had locations marked off on it. When those other assholes ambushed us at Chuck’s store, they said they found one of the locations that were circled in red on the map. They said it was some kind of military compound, and they saw doctors there too. I’m thinking if this guy’s a professional, he might be going back to one of the closest locations marked on the map to report us to the military or whoever is running those sites. Either way, I want to know what the places marked off on the map are and if this guy is now reporting our home to these people. It would give us an advantage knowing where they are too.”

  Troy shook his head. “You aren’t thinking about going out there and trying to find these places, are you, Abby? You just got back, and you’re still injured. That wouldn’t be the smartest thing for you to be doing.”

  “I don’t have to go out there. I just have to talk Dan into sending his drone to one of the locations, and maybe we can do some spying of our own.” I said with a sly smirk.

  “Well now, that would be a better idea, but have you thought that if these people are professionals, they might see a drone coming… or hear it? Dan’s drone is not the quietest thing in the world.”

  “We could go at night. That fixes everything,” I said sarcastically.

  “Now you’re just being annoying.”

  “Just get me the map, please, Troy, and you can go back to your work.”

  “Speaking of getting back to work, I’m getting close to something that might take the infected out by killing the virus. I need to check on my test subjects today and see if my various antiviruses are doing anything.”

  “Wait…what test subjects?” I said dumbfounded.

  “Well…while you were, ugh kidnapped, I had Chris and Tom bring me four infected and tie them to some trees at the far end of the property. They removed the lower jaw so they can’t bite or moan, and I’ve been trying different antivirus strains on them. So far, nothing has worked until this morning. I have an antivirus that slows the infected cell replication by about eighty percent in a petri dish, so I’m going to administer it to on
e of the test subjects today. I’m excited to see what it does to an actual infected,” Troy said nonchalantly.

  Handing me the map, Troy continued, “The nearest marked spot is up north, in New York. It’s about a two-hour drive from here.”

  “Thanks. Hey, I thought you were studying my blood since I got back. How have you had time for any antivirus work?” I asked, still shocked that we might be closer to a real answer than I previously thought.

  “Actually, it is your blood that I’ve been using. Well, the enzymes in your blood anyway, to create the most recent antivirus, the one that seems to be working.” He handed me the map and turned away as if he was done with our conversation.

  “I figured you’d already mapped the locations, but why didn’t you tell anyone that you were so close, and why didn’t you say anything to me earlier about what you’ve been working on?” I said, getting frustrated dealing with him. Troy was like any other incredibly intelligent person I’d ever known; he had a great mind but the social skills of a pissed off toddler.

  “I didn’t think it necessary since we were never able to confirm there’s anyone actually at the sites, and it’s a two-hour drive with no traffic and clear roads. That could mean anywhere from a half to a full day traveling nowadays. It wasn’t statistically relevant information at the time. Now, it is. As far as the antivirus possibly working, I only saw the results this morning,” he said as he walked away from me to go back to his research.

  “Thanks, Troy, it’s been a pleasure, as usual. I’ll let you know if we’re going to send the drone out. Oh, and if it isn’t too much trouble, please let me know how it goes today with the infected,” I said, even though once he had his notebook out, I knew he wasn’t listening.

  I remember at one point being so excited to have Troy come here so I could bounce ideas off of him and have someone to discuss my theories with. Now, he was so wrapped up in his own work he didn’t even seem to listen when I spoke. The last time I had an idea of why I was practically invisible to the infected, he heard my idea and was instantly off taking it in his own direction before I could finish explaining myself. He didn’t want to discuss my supporting research. He was a dog with a bone. Oh well, I figured it was better to have someone dedicated to finding a fix to this mess rather than a friend in this new world.