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

by Jeff DeGordick

  The killer let go of her throat and reached for the hatchet that was coming close to his head. He caught hold of her wrist and tried to pull it down by his side, but she managed to use the momentum of his yank and the heavy butt of the steel hatchet head came down hard on his temple. He closed his eyes and let go of her as his limbs were momentarily paralyzed.

  She scurried out from under him and made it over to the other side of the room. When she got to the door, she glanced behind her to make sure he was still down and saw that he was already back on his feet and marching toward her. His smile was gone, replaced with an utterly blank look. He had dead eyes, and the way he moved was terrifying. He shouldn't have been able to just get back up and be unbothered by the pain she had inflicted, and he moved, in fact, like he had not been inflicted by it at all.

  Sarah ran for the stairs leading down to the main floor when something struck her in the back, knocking her off course and causing her to fall to the floor of the hallway. A mini wooden table painted pink bounced on the ground behind her, and the killer stood in the doorframe of the little girl's room in a long stance with his arm thrown forward.

  Catching her breath, she picked up the hatchet that she had dropped when the table hit her, and she ran for the master bedroom in front of her. She didn't know where she could go, and it felt like her very life was being squeezed out of her and the walls were closing in.

  The bedroom was empty, save for a big dresser and a nightstand sitting next to where the bed used to be before she dragged it downstairs to block the front door. There was a closet on her left with flimsy sliding doors, and two windows were perched in the far wall, looking out over the neighborhood. The walls of the room were painted a dull grayish-white, and they matched the carpet in its depressing grayish-blue, creating a miserable look that didn't appear far removed from a jail cell.

  Sarah spun around to face her attacker, trapped and with nowhere to hide.

  He walked for her, not too quickly, like he was savoring this. He carried the pink mini table in his hand as blood continued to drip from it, staining the carpet with a pattering of deep crimson.

  Sarah backed up toward one of the windows in the far wall and raised the hatchet. She swung it through the air to try to scare him off again, ignoring the results of how the tactic worked the last time. Tears came down her face and her mouth was twisted into a wretched grimace, juxtaposing his demented grin that had returned to his face.

  He held up the table by its legs with both hands, using the flat top of it as a shield to her swings. Step by step, he advanced on her and pushed her back against the window. When her back bumped into it and made her jump, she did what any cornered and frightened animal would do.

  With an awful howl, she lunged forward and swung the hatchet at him with everything she had. It sliced through the air vertically and started its descent to bury itself into the top of his head.

  The killer lifted the table at the last moment and blocked her strike. The blade of the hatchet slammed through the flat surface to the underside in a burst of wood splinters in every direction. The impact sounded like a cannon went off in the small and echoing room.

  He yanked the table and the hatchet wedged in it out of her grip, leaving her to watch in horror as he held onto the neck of the weapon and tried to pry it out.

  Before another thought could race through Sarah's head, the killer pulled out the hatchet and hurled it at her with incredible force. She ducked just in time as the blade brushed across the hair on the top of her head and smashed through the window. The glass exploded with a loud bang and rained down on the sunny, peaceful day outside.

  The killer dropped the table and charged at her, causing her to back up to the window and inadvertently fall out of it.

  She screamed as she tumbled from the second story, not knowing which direction was which; not knowing if she was alive or dead.

  The ground stole the air from her lungs and covered her eyes with a blanket of darkness. Her head rolled around on the weedy grass, but every other function of her body had ceased. Her mouth hung open and her lungs gaped, but all that was drawn in was pain. Her body spasmed and she thought she would suffocate.

  After an indeterminate time spent in her blind panic, the blanket of darkness lifted from her vision and she began to breathe again. The pain was still extraordinary and she thought she had broken several bones and wouldn't be able to get up. She rolled onto her back as her body groaned.

  The killer's head poked out of the window she'd fallen out of and stared down at her. He only looked for a moment, and then he was gone.

  That incredible sense of urgency filled her again and she forced herself to get up. She rolled onto her stomach and pushed her torso up, moving her legs under her and pushing, praying that she was still in one piece.

  A dull but strong ache shot through her legs and she whimpered at the pain, but she got up. She took a few wobbly steps, but it seemed that she hadn't broken anything and could still move, despite the pain.

  Sarah was on the front lawn of the house and the zombies in the neighborhood already took notice of her. A small pack traveling from the lawn of the next house over was already in full sprint for her. She took off and headed back for the highway, glancing at the zombies and at the house behind her, waiting for the killer to emerge at any moment in pursuit.

  Her tired legs pumped for all they were worth, and even her arms pained her just to swing them through the air. Her throat was drier than ever, and it felt like there was a rock wedged inside every time she swallowed. The hunger pangs didn't take long to start, either, but she ignored all of it and just ran.

  Cries and moans came from her mouth and her eyes were filled with tears again. She was terrified. She didn't look back anymore because she knew that if she did, she was dead. She waited for something to catch up to her and grab her at any moment, and the fear of not knowing when that moment would come was the hardest to bear.

  Sarah flew across the highway and ran into the woods on the other side. The killer would catch up to her in no time if she ran down the road, and her only chance was to try to lose him behind the maze of thick trees.

  Each tall trunk whizzed by her and she tried not to slam into it, but her motor skills were starting to fail. She was beyond fatigued and she was going to collapse soon. She thought she heard footsteps behind her, following along the dead leaves, but she wasn't sure.

  She didn't know how much time she had left, but she didn't think it was long. She was terrified of what he would do to her and the fear started to shut her down. She darted into a small clearing covered in orangey-yellow leaves and her legs gave out.

  Her heart leapt into her throat and she fell. She fell much farther than she thought it would take to reach the ground, and then she realized that something was very wrong.

  In the last moment of her confusion, she saw the ground rise up over her head on all sides, covering her in blackness.

  Then she hit the ground. Hard.

  She screamed as intense pain tore through her ankle and her body convulsed. Her head shot around, trying to figure out what happened, feeling like a trapped animal.

  A faint bit of light came down and highlighted walls around her that were crudely made with stone. She was in a box that looked no bigger than a few feet each way, and, looking up, she saw the edges of trunks and the bare branches of the trees that she had been sailing through only a moment ago. The bright sky shone brilliantly through them and seemed to taunt her and her new state of captivity.

  She fell into a trap that someone had built and there was no escape. The cracks between the stones in the wall were too thin to gain a foothold and the hole was at least eight feet deep.

  Sarah tried to rotate her ankle, but was met with tremendous pain. Her chest heaved in and out and she felt nauseated, on the verge of throwing up. Stars swirled around her periphery and she glanced back up at the opening above her.

  The killer stared down at her, his head and shoulders poking just
over the edge of the hole. The features of his face were invisible—just a silhouette in the brightness above him—but his wiry black hair hung down from his head and gently swayed in the breeze as he enjoyed his view.

  And then he began to giggle. It echoed in the tiny space and this time it didn't sound childlike, but truly insane.

  Sarah felt sick, like his depravity was dripping down onto her, and she closed her eyes and turned her head away. When she opened them and looked back up, he was gone.

  But the fear was not.

  7

  In the Hole

  The dank hole smelled of moss and wet leaves. The otherwise benign smell went to her head and made her queasy. The feeling was amplified by her claustrophobia as the dark walls stood guard around her. They didn't move, but bit by bit, it felt like they slid inward to squeeze the life out of her.

  She closed her eyes and tried to block out everything around her, focusing on slowing her breathing. She pulled her legs up to her chest, sliding her left foot very slowly across the dirt floor, careful not to agitate her injured ankle. She was certain that she broke it, and she knew there was no way that she would be able to go on, even if she got out of the hole.

  Delirious fancies of dying of thirst or being tortured by the killer before she was put out of her misery floated through her head. Her face scrunched up at the terror she felt and she waited for more salty tears to come out of her eyes, but none did.

  She was terribly dehydrated, and her body could produce no more moisture. She involuntarily swallowed and felt the ripping pain in her throat. She cried out softly, wanting to wail at the misery she felt, but she just didn't have the energy. Only a few seconds after she fell quiet, she heard noises somewhere in the distance outside of the hole.

  "I think I heard it!" someone shouted.

  Footsteps swept across dried leaves and the sound floated down and echoed into the tight box Sarah was in. They were coming toward her.

  "Yep! I see it!" the person yelled. "Get the ladder!"

  Sarah's heart skipped a beat as she looked up at the sky above her. Though the killer had never spoken a word in front of her except for her name, she knew his voice and she knew that whoever was coming toward her wasn't him. She began to stir in the darkness, but was unable to do much of anything. Her fingers climbed up the walls, limply gripping onto the slightly jutting stones, but she didn't have the energy to pull herself up to her feet.

  "I got you, you little sumbitch!" the man yelled as his footsteps came to a stop at the edge of the hole above.

  A vague mass came into view, blocking out the light from the sky above. Sarah couldn't make out much of it, but she saw the distinct shape of a head poking out the top of a rotund body, and there was the faint outline of something long and narrow pointed at her, like a rifle.

  "What is that?" the man said to himself under his breath. The silhouette of his head swiveled around and he yelled out, "Jimmy! You got the lantern?"

  "Yep!" another voice shouted out as more footsteps came to the hole, followed by another black mass, this one taller and thinner.

  The two men muttered back and forth to each other as the skinny one dropped the ladder on the ground next to the hole and fiddled with the lantern.

  "It don't look like a deer," the first man said. "What do you think?"

  "Only one way to find out," Jimmy said as he lit the lantern and lowered his arm down into the hole.

  The glowing orange light revealed all to the three of them, and they each jumped when they saw the other party. The two men above jumped because the last thing they expected to find was a battered woman stuck at the bottom of their trapping pit, and Sarah jumped for a reason that she wasn't really sure of, other than the fact that she was just chased by a murdering maniac and everything set her on edge.

  "Good Lord!" the first man shouted. "Who are you, lady? What are you doing down there?" He leaned over the hole to get a good look at her.

  As Sarah looked up at him, she was frightened at first, waiting to see what he would do to her. Her first reaction, and rightly so, was that these two men were just more savage degenerates who wished to harm her, but then she saw the sincerity and worry in his eyes. There was a softness to them that she never saw in the eyes of any murderer.

  Then all at once, the floodgates opened and her emotions poured out. She sobbed uncontrollably as she blurted out words that were completely incomprehensible at first.

  The man instinctively reeled back at her outburst, shocked to see someone in such pain.

  "He's trying to kill me!" Sarah managed at last. "He's out there! He's there right now!" Mucus filled her nose and her words came out like she had a bad cold.

  The two men pulled themselves away from the pit and looked around quickly, suddenly alarmed. They took a careful measure of the woods surrounding them, then their anxiety faded and they poked their heads back in the hole.

  "It's all right, lady," the rotund man said. "There's nobody out here but us. Maybe you just saw something strange?"

  "No! He's out there!" she cried. "He's going to come back!" Her chest burned in agony and it felt like she couldn't breathe. She started to hyperventilate and a panic attack stabbed its sharp fingers into her.

  "Okay, okay!" the man said, picking himself up from the ground and glancing at the other man. "Put the ladder in, Jimmy!"

  Jimmy passed the lantern off to him and lowered the ladder into the hole. He did it carefully, making sure not to hit Sarah with it or do it so fast as to scare her. The two men knew she was on edge, and that put them on edge.

  When the ladder was set in place, Jimmy climbed down and helped her up to her feet. She cried out in pain and told him she thought her ankle was broken. She continued to blubber, frantically telling him that the killer was going to come back, and he pulled her in tight and hugged her as she let herself go and every pent-up emotion rolled out of her like hot lava.

  Sharp pain shot up Sarah's leg anytime her left foot so much as brushed the ground, and Jimmy was careful to prop up the majority of her weight until he could hoist her over his shoulder and start up the ladder.

  "Hold on tight, now," he said as they moved up rung by rung.

  When they got to the top, Jimmy set her down and the two men threw her arms around their shoulders.

  Sarah jerked her head around, trying to get a look at the woods around them to see the killer, but the men already started to whisk her away before she could see much. She continued to sob, but she felt a little safer in their presence.

  "What's your name?" the big man asked as they slowly dragged her through the woods.

  "Sarah," she sputtered after clearing mucus from her nose.

  "Well Sarah, I'm Dale, and this is my nephew Jimmy. We just want you to know that everything's gonna be okay. You're safe."

  "No," she insisted, "he's still out there!"

  "Let's just get you inside first," Dale reasoned, "and then we can worry about it." He tried to come off as calmly as possible, but when she wasn't looking, both he and Jimmy glanced around nervously, and he felt the weight of the hunting rifle slung over his shoulder.

  A small cabin stood about fifty yards in the distance, and if Dale hadn't mentioned about taking her inside, Sarah never would have noticed it. It was clearly very old and the wood was faded gray, matching the dull trees poking up all around it. It didn't look like there would be much room inside; not enough for two people, and certainly not for three.

  They made their way to the short set of steps leading up to the door, and they helped Sarah up them one at a time. The wood screamed under their weight and almost felt like it would break. Dale pushed the door open and it emitted a similar cry, and Sarah suddenly thought that the entire thing would cave in on them.

  The interior wasn't any bigger than she had imagined, with two twin mattresses lying on opposite sides of the floor from each other at the far end of what seemed to be the one and only room in the cabin, save for a tiny bathroom next to it. A stone fireplace sat
in the wall at the side of the cabin next to a window, and the air smelled of recently burned wood. Some messy dinnerware sat in front of it, and there was a bucket of clean-looking water between the two mattresses at the far end of the room.

  Dale and Jimmy laid Sarah down on one of the mattresses and she instantly started to writhe around and moan at the pain in her ankle. It had been sharp at first, but now a dull throb began to take over.

  "Just relax," Dale said. "You don't want to agitate it."

  The window let in the morning's light, and Sarah tried to look through it, still convinced that the killer would break into the cabin at any moment to murder them all, but the only thing she could see from where she lay was the sky.

  "Grab her a glass of water, will you?" he said to Jimmy, and Jimmy took an empty cup that sat near the fireplace and filled it with water from the bucket sitting between the mattresses. He handed it off to Dale and Dale lifted Sarah's head and carefully brought the cup to her lips. Sarah grabbed it and drank from it. She wanted to down the whole thing in one gulp, but she felt too weak to do so, and oddly enough, her throat was so raw that even the refreshing water going down felt painful. But it started to soothe her all the same as it slowly rolled down her throat and moistened her dry mouth.

  Dale took the cup away to let her catch her breath, then she drank more. When she was finished, Dale laid her head back down and she let out a gasp, feeling like she could finally breathe for the first time that morning. She swallowed and felt the pain start to subside, then she looked from Jimmy to Dale.

  "He's out there," she said again, but this time she began to calm down. She saw the concern return in their eyes.

  "Who's out there, Miss?" Jimmy asked. "You're making me nervous."

  "Cut it out, Jimmy!" Dale chastised. He turned his head to Sarah and asked, "Who are you talking about?"