Zombie Apocalypse Series Books 1-3 (Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set)

by Jeff DeGordick

  She dragged a hand across her dry lips and felt skin sticking to skin. She was parched and would need water soon. It had been a month since she left Noah's Ark, and the small amount of food she took with her was long gone, leaving her to forage from the land and the critters that crept across it. All she had left on her was a small bag of clothes she threaded through a belt loop on her jeans, the hatchet, and the bow and arrows. She still didn't know where she was going or what she would do when she got there. Images of the coast kept popping into her head and she wondered if it would be better to get out on the water, but the endless blue supplanted the endless green, gray and brown she saw now, and she knew it would just be changing one color for another. For now, she traveled wherever the wind blew her, and the December wind was fierce. But it was warmer than it should have been for the season, and she was thankful for that.

  The highway curved and winded through the dense forest on both sides, leaving only slight visibility ahead or behind. Once in a while she would pause and glance around, thinking that she'd heard a noise, only to discover it must have been a phantom in her mind.

  A thicket of evergreens leaned into the road ahead and covered her view past the slight bend in front of her. Just as she approached it, she heard screaming. It was distant and it was accompanied by other sounds, like banging and vicious snarls.

  Sarah trotted up the road, keeping her eyes ahead and trying to be as quiet as possible. She kept her hand on the hatchet hanging from her hip, ready to pull it out.

  When she passed the bend, she saw a tiny rest stop consisting of just two washrooms down the road on the left shoulder with a few abandoned cars sitting next to it. A zombie stood in front of one of the closed restroom doors, angrily hammering on it, trying to get in. When Sarah got closer, she could tell the screams were coming from inside; someone was trapped.

  Her first instinct was to rush ahead and save the desperate person, but suddenly she faltered. Her gait slowed and she nearly came to a full stop, stricken by indecision. All the guilt and trauma she had felt washed over, and a very selfish thought came to her: maybe it would be better to just sneak past and continue down the road; just block out the screams and the hungry groans—cover her ears if she had to—and just walk on by. It seemed like everyone she tried to help or protect just got hurt anyway, so what would it matter?

  Her feet started up again and she moved along the road. Her legs sputtered here and there, sure of her decision one moment, then unsure the next. She tore herself between keeping along the right shoulder of the highway—maybe even hopping over the guardrail and skirting along the woods below—and heading for the rest stop on the left.

  The zombie didn't pay any attention to her and her erratic movements in the middle of the road, and finally she wrestled herself into running for the cars next to the small building for cover. There was a silver SUV closest to the building and she hid on the other side of the engine from the zombie, rising and peeking over the hood.

  The door to the restroom started to buckle as the screams inside continued. With every slam of the zombie's hand, it moved inward an inch or two, like the person hiding inside was leaning their bodyweight against it.

  Sarah grabbed the bow slung over her shoulder, but she didn't take it off. Her whole arm shook, and she couldn't understand what was coming over her. The swelling feeling paralyzed her and finally she had to sit down on the ground with her back leaning against the SUV just to catch her breath. Her chest rose and fell rapidly and her head felt faint. Her muscles were fatigued, her lungs constricted.

  The screams and groans and bangs were loud behind her, and she knew she wouldn't have long to act. Her paralysis was incomprehensible and she forced herself to fight through it.

  Each movement felt like she was in deep water, trying to move her limbs against a crashing tide. She turned and planted one foot flat on the ground and hoisted herself up, then she removed the bow from her shoulder and pulled an arrow out of a secondary quiver she acquired—a small leather pouch—for arrows that were dirtied with zombie blood. She leaned forward against the hood of the vehicle and steadied her arm on it as she placed the arrow against the bowstring and pulled it back. Her arms were still shaking, but she held her breath and used all of her focus to aim.

  The zombie's side was visible to her, about twenty feet away. It wouldn't be a hard shot to make.

  But then the door finally burst inward and the zombie's weight was hurled into the restroom, disappearing from Sarah's sight.

  She stood against the SUV in shock as the pressure she applied on the bowstring lessened.

  A series of short and quick screams came from inside the restroom, more frantic than ever before. The zombie yelled in a frustrated groan, followed by the most bloodcurdling scream amplified by the small room, shooting out and echoing around the wilderness. Then everything went quiet.

  Sarah slumped back down onto the ground, letting the bow and arrow fall by her side. She sat on her butt and leaned her elbows against her hiked knees, pressing her face into her hands and weeping. She only cried for half a minute, though, finding herself running out of tears. Every spell of guilt and depression on her latest journey had drained her ability to feel things more and more, as if some receptor or function of an organ inside her had been damaged and no longer operated. What was intense sadness a moment ago was now utter apathy, and she remained with her face slumped against her open palms, staring through the cracks in her fingers and feeling nothing.

  When her quiet sobs had ended, she could hear the faint and almost tender sounds of munching drifting from the darkened restroom behind her. The sounds filling and highlighting the sereneness of the nature around her was almost peaceful, as if she were half-listening to an old nature documentary on TV.

  She got up at last, knowing there was nothing more for her here. She had once again made the errant decision to intervene in something that was no business of hers and was met with a familiar old result, almost as if the scene was constructed for her to stumble upon in mockery of her; available to help, but totally impotent to do so.

  She returned to the center of the highway and continued on, passing the restroom, when she heard another groan, this one less amplified from the cramped confines of the room. She turned and saw the zombie standing in the doorway, fresh blood oozing from its mouth and down its chest. It stared at her with blank eyes, considering its next meal. When Sarah saw it, her heart jumped in her chest and it gave her a terrible scare; she knew that zombie. It was Jenny.

  She wore the same clothes that she had on the day Mark was killed and Kenny tossed her out with her children. Her skin took on the same diseased, gray tone as all the rest, but she hadn't yet been exposed to the prolonged rigors of the older zombies that shredded their moldy clothes and ripped at their leathery flesh.

  Jenny froze in the doorway, an action uncharacteristic of zombies. For the longest moment, all they did was stare at each other, both seemingly sharing the same shock. Finally, Jenny walked forward. Her mouth opened and more dark blood seeped out. Her arms started to rise in the air, her fingers curling like the stem of a plant bending for the sun. She broke out into a very slow trot, never seeming to reach the speed of a normal zombie.

  Sarah's body found the ability to produce another short burst of emotion and tears streamed from her eyes. She took a few steps back as Jenny approached her, and all she could think about was how sorry she was... sorry that she didn't help Mark when she asked her to... sorry that it all came down to this. The hopeful fantasy in her head of Jenny relaxing safely on a deserted island with her kids and eking out a life for them shattered in front of her, pierced by the dull whites of Jenny's very eyes.

  Jenny slowly closed the gap and Sarah pulled the bow off her shoulder and took out the same arrow she had aimed at her before. She mounted the arrow against the bowstring and reluctantly drew it back. She backed up until her calves bumped into the guardrail and she had no more room to retreat. She was struck by what almost seemed l
ike recognition in Jenny's eyes, though she didn't know if it was real or imagined.

  The fletching at the end of the arrow felt heavy against her fingers, but still she couldn't let it go. It was pointed right between Jenny's eyes, but those eyes told her not to.

  Jenny let out a soft and raspy sound. It wasn't angry or hungry. She didn't know what it was, but it cooed to her, as if even Jenny's corpse was persuading her to put the bow down.

  And in that moment, she considered it; she was visited by the thought that maybe it would be better to close her eyes and let Jenny take care of everything. She wouldn't have to worry anymore; she wouldn't have to be afraid or wonder where she would go or how she would get there; she would finally be put to rest and join the rest of the crazed world, no longer a walking shadow damned to flutter through its decrepit annals. It was nature's gentle way of telling her that humanity's time was over.

  Jenny was only a few feet away. Her hands reached out for her, and Sarah knew that this was it—her time had come. Sarah squeezed her eyes shut, pressing out her final tears as sadness and fear clutched her chest. She let out a gasp and then held her breath. And she let go of the arrow.

  Her eyes stayed closed for a long moment, then she took a deep breath, joyously feeling the fresh air fill her lungs again. She heard a heavy thump on the ground in front of her and her arms lowered the bow and she took a moment to just stand there and compose herself. When she felt that she was calm, she returned the bow over her shoulder and turned to her right, starting to walk along the road. Her eyes were still closed the entire time and she waited until she was a good dozen paces before she opened them. She didn't want to look back and she didn't want to retrieve the arrow. She wanted to immediately put the episode behind her with all the rest and never look back again—on any of it.

  When she had rounded another few bends in the highway and the rest stop was far behind her, she stared blankly ahead, feeling dead inside. A few minutes ago, she had been ready to accept her fate and cross over to the other side, but something in her wouldn't allow it to happen. Whatever it was was hidden deep inside, unknowable and veiled. And it was damnable and wretched; an evil worse than all the rest around her, tasked with prolonging her torment for as long as possible.

  The dull green trees swayed around her and a heavy scent hung on the air. It reminded her of that old, rich smell of burning firewood, but she knew there was no one around and nothing was burning. It was just another phantom on the wind, taunting her with comforts that were no longer there. But the smell was bitter and so strong that she could almost taste it, like ashes on her tongue, and she suddenly pictured arches of burning wood and blackened walls collapsing into ruin in flames all around her. The imagery was vivid and felt similar to déjà vu, but she got a powerful sense that it was associated with the future.

  After another mile down the road, the clouds bunched up densely to each other and it started to rain. It was light at first, but, looking up at the sky, she knew it would soon start to pour.

  The woods on her right had been shored up into an even elevation with the road and she could see a trail up ahead cutting through the trees. It would get dark before long, but she didn't want to get soaked in the cold weather and freeze in the night; at least the canopy of evergreens would provide some cover.

  She left the road at last after a full day on it and she ducked along the trail into the woods. She noticed suddenly that her feet were really starting to get sore and that she should rest soon.

  The trail was tight and winding as she traveled through. She rounded a sharp corner and it widened a bit. The trees gave way to the start of a clearing, and she could faintly hear running water up ahead. A large rock almost bigger than her body sat on the edge of the trail, and there was something behind it. The grays of the sky had started to dip toward blacks, and it made the object difficult to see at first. She walked closer to it and suddenly it was unmistakable.

  A pair of legs jutted out from behind the rock as if someone was sleeping or dead.

  She cautiously moved around it and the body came into full view.

  It was a man who looked to be in his forties, and he was dead. He lay flat on his back with his face pointed up at the sky, a look of mild horror on his face, as if it had been great horror when he was killed and then his face slid toward indifference as his soul departed.

  There was a chunk of flesh missing from his neck and it was apparent that it was torn out with a set of teeth, and a very human one at that. But yet his skin, while pale, was still the normal shade of a human and not the muddy grays of a zombie.

  Sarah was puzzled and she nudged the body with the toe of her shoe to see if she would get a reaction. The body remained still. She knelt down to get a closer look, lifting one of his eyelids and shaking his head, but there was still no reaction; he was certainly dead.

  She couldn't understand how he could be bitten by a zombie without becoming infected and turning into one of them.

  She moved her hands along his body, searching for something else that could explain it. When she got down to his belly, her fingers glided over thin cuts in his navy blue coat. She pried at them and her fingertips were met with something wet. Pulling them out, she saw that they were coated in blood. She unzipped the man's coat and saw that the whole front of his tan sweater was stained with blood, fresh, but starting to dry. She lifted his sweater and saw a mess had been made of his stomach, with many deep and rough gashes cut into the flesh, drawing blood and other bodily fluids up to the surface.

  They looked like stab wounds, and she knew that the man had been viciously attacked and killed with a knife. Her eyes went back up to the wound on his neck, and there was no doubt that the same person had bitten a chunk out of it. When she saw the stab marks, her first thought was the bandits, but she couldn't reconcile the bite. She had never known or heard of any bandit doing something like that; this was on a whole other level of depravity, and maybe something not quite human—at least nothing resembling someone with anything close to a sound state of mind.

  She stood up at once and quickly moved along into the clearing, giving one last glance at the body behind her. She didn't know what was wrong, but suddenly she felt cold and watched.

  2

  Rained Out

  Sarah leaned over and splashed water on her face, then cupped her hands and scooped some into her mouth. It hit the back of her throat as she swallowed and it must have been what Heaven was like. She leaned back on her knees and let out a long sigh, exhausted from the day's travels. She had easily gone ten miles without stopping, and now that she had stopped, her legs and feet were killing her.

  She sat by the edge of the creek and relaxed, enjoying the sounds of nature all around her. Most of it was masked behind the rain that was starting to come down, but she could hear the odd scurrying of a creature here or there. She reached her arms back behind her and propped herself up on them, stretching out her fingers and letting the sandy stones squish between them. There was a large rock beside her and she shifted her weight and leaned against its hard and cold surface, staring off ahead at the grouping of trees on the other side of the thin creek.

  A figure walked right in front of her along the other side. The surprise caught Sarah off guard and she instinctively let out a gasp and fell backward onto the ground.

  Darkness had started to fall, but the figure was only a dozen feet away, and it was plain for her to see that it was a zombie. Its shoulders were slumped and its arms dangled by its sides limply. Its feet shuffled through the muddy stones surrounding the creek and it stared straight ahead as it passed from right to left in front of her. It never turned its head when she gasped and apparently hadn't noticed her at all; the rock she was hidden behind might have saved her life.

  She stayed perfectly still as she watched it pass, then when it was a good distance away, she grabbed onto the rock and started to pull herself up.

  Then the rest of them came. They passed in front of her one by one, following t
he first zombie. Their feet shuffled through the stones, creating a dreadful symphony of sounds to accompany the pattering rain.

  Sarah clung to the rock and stayed crouched, her eyes bulging in her head and her lungs squeezed tight and motionless.

  Twenty of them had walked by before there finally appeared to be an end to their parade. They traveled along the creek for a couple dozen yards before breaking away from it and wandering into the woods ahead.

  Sarah peered over the rock to see if there were more, but it appeared as if she was once again alone. She got up, ignoring the protest of her legs and feet, and she headed back for the trail to the left. The zombies had stumbled farther into the woods where she intended to go, but she was starting to think better of the idea. She didn't want to be back on the road in the rain, but it was better being out in the open if there were zombies around. Maybe she could take cover just inside the umbrella of trees by the road and wait out the rain.

  She thought of that body again and it immediately disturbed her like it had when she first came upon it. She ignored the thought and walked back along the trail where she had come from.

  But she didn't make it a hundred feet before she heard more groans. The storm clouds above grumbled and shook out a fresh torrent of rain, streaking across the woods in front of her. In the near darkness, she saw their faces weaving in and out of the trees. She couldn't tell how many of them there were, but that was the problem: the final stroke of sunlight was quickly being pulled to the other side of the world, and soon she wouldn't be able to see anything. She wanted to retreat back to the road, but they blocked her path and she couldn't even tell exactly where they were. Her only choice was to go deeper into the woods.