State of (Book 1): State of Decay

by Martinez, P. S.

  “I don’t want to have to kill you, but I will,” I said loudly, my eyes narrowing in on the guy. He laughed loudly one time, his gun moving away from me for a second, giving me the exact opening I needed.

  My bullet entered right between his eyes.

  When he dropped to the pavement, there was a moment of absolute stunned silence.

  I ran over to his body and spun, training my gun on Sun. Her mouth was hanging open and she had already lowered her gun.

  “I didn’t see that coming,” she said after a pause. I shrugged, but inside I was shaking.

  “We don’t have to fight each other!” I shouted into the crowd, secretly terrified to see so many zombies now pouring through the gates, nearly swallowing the bus whole.

  “We’ll be glad to take all of you with us. We have supplies and shelter. But we have to go right now.”

  I took out a zombie that had come within two feet of Sun and then lowered my rifle to jerk my knife from its sheath. Her eyes met mine. They were tired eyes, tired of seeing all the crap we had all been through.

  Sun shrugged and nodded over to the body on the ground.

  “I never like that asshole anyway,” she said, smiling at me.

  I smiled back and winked at Jude.

  “You guys might want to get your weapons. Shit’s about to get real up in here,” I said.

  They jumped up and immediately ran to help others fight back the wave of undead.

  The pathway to the bus was completely cut off.

  We fought hard. But we were fighting a losing battle.

  In the past, if you shot a gun, zombies would make their way to you from every direction. Some moving fast. Some moving slow. But all of them moving on their own accord. But now, because they were moving in such huge groups which had grown hundreds-deep, when they arrived, it was like a tidal wave.

  Impossible to fight through, impossible to escape.

  Thirty minutes into the fighting, Jude found my gaze, his brown eyes clinging onto mine, his face glinting with sweat. He looked desperate—and furious. By shooting his gun and knocking down the gates, the man I’d killed had summoned an entire herd of zombies earlier than their normal routine. We were swarmed.

  Our only hope was to find a place to hole up and wait out the herd, hoping they’d stick to their routine and move on through the area later. Several young people from the group had already fallen and I was so sick of seeing people die.

  “Melody!” Jude shouted over the noise to get my attention.

  “The cafeteria freezer!”

  I nodded and ran over to Manuel. He whistled, a sharp ear-piercing sound to get everyone’s attention. I caught Sun’s eye and made a motion for her to round up her group and follow us into the school.

  Pretty soon all of us were making a run for it down the abandoned hallways of the high school. I was surprised when I reached the cafeteria doors to see the majority of our group and Sun’s right behind me. When Jude brought up the rear, Manuel barked orders for everyone to move tables and chairs up against the doors and windows.

  “Is that everyone?” Jude asked between breaths. “Is everyone accounted for?”

  Sun nodded, her eyes raking over what was left of her group. Besides her, only a dozen dirty and injured people remained.

  “What about Mike?” Manuel shouted over the noise. Jude shook his head, frowning.

  Manuel cursed. We were down to eight people ourselves.

  About that time, a zombie ran itself into the window that faced the courtyard in front of the cafeteria. Several more immediately joined in. It would only be a matter of time before so many showed up that they broke the glass and got inside.

  “Let’s go everyone, let’s get to the back storage room where the walk-in freezer is,” Jude announced.

  “That’s your plan? To go and hide in the freezer?” A young girl with short, spiky black hair asked, her eyes wide in disbelief.

  “As a matter of fact, it is,” Jude snapped, his eyes daring anyone to cross him.

  “If you all had paid better attention to the zombies and the way they were acting around here, maybe you’d notice how they are moving herd-like,” I said.

  “We figured it out in the first few hours of coming into the area. It’s our best bet. We wait until the herd, hopefully, moves on after the sun goes down and the rest of the undead masses move through this neighborhood. And then we make a run for the bus and get the fuck out of here.”

  “Any other questions?” Jude asked sharply. No one said anything, but the sounds coming from the zombies were growing more desperate by the second, and I was sure the glass would be breaking sooner rather than later. “Good, let’s go.”

  We all ran to the back room. When we got to the freezer and Jude opened it, the smell of two-year-old rotting food welcomed us.

  Sun shook her head. “I get claustrophobic,” she said.

  I looked inside the freezer and had a moment of panic myself. It was a huge freezer, but with twenty people jammed into it for God-only-knew how long, it wasn’t something I was looking forward to.

  Manuel, his thick brows knitted together and a fierce look in his dark brown eyes, shocked the hell out of me and grabbed Sun by the hand.

  “We’ll get through this together. All of us. Just like we all have survived everything since the beginning, we’ll survive this too.”

  Sun gulped and nodded. Manuel and Jude entered first, jerked two shelves out of the freezer, and threw them into the storage room. They made quick work of shoving all the rotten food containers out into the storage room, and not a moment too soon. I heard a loud cracking sound, and everyone froze in place, and then I heard the gurgles of the zombies who were filling the cafeteria.

  They had arrived.

  “Inside, everyone. Quickly!” Jude said.

  We all obeyed immediately and once we were inside, we shut the door behind us and bolted it from the inside. Manuel turned his flashlight on and shone it around the room. We had only enough room on the floor for all of us to sit. And no telling how long we were going to be stuck in the freezer. I just prayed our theory would be correct and the zombies would move on when the herd swept through.

  “Are we going to be able to breathe long in here?” Someone asked in a whisper.

  Manuel shined his light up into the ceiling of the freezer. “There’s a fan vent there where the cold air used to blow through. We’ll have oxygen coming in from there. We’ll be fine,” he reassured everyone. “How many of us have flashlights?”

  Jude, Manuel, James, and I all had flashlights on us.

  “Good,” Jude said wearily. “We’ll turn on one for a few minutes periodically.”

  I don’t know what made me do it, but I reached out and squeezed Jude’s larger, rougher hand. His eyes found mine in the semi-darkness. I nodded in encouragement, and he nodded back in thanks.

  A boom from outside of the freezer rattled the door. The zombies were in the storage room. They started banging on the freezer door.

  We were in for a very long day.

  Deafening Silence

  Several hours later, we were all sitting on the floor listening to the constant sounds of the undead right outside of the freezer door. I felt like I was about to lose my shit in the dank, dark room, shut up with nineteen other filthy survivors, and unable to do anything but cross my fingers that the zombie wave would go through our area soon. Before I went batshit.

  “Man, I’d give anything to be in my old man’s beachfront condo right about now. Zombies or no, I’d sure like to hit some waves,” a young man from Sun’s group said, and the entire room groaned in agreement.

  “What about you guys?”

  “Alaska. Might be cold, but that could mean fewer zombies,” Sun answered hesitantly.

  “A deserted island. No zombies,” someone else chimed in. “Just me and wide-open beaches, pineapples, and coconuts.”

  “Piña coladas,” someone agreed with a laugh.

  Laughter floated through the
room and I smiled at that. A frozen beverage full of pineapple and coconut? Sounded like heaven to me.

  “My grandmother’s house,” a young girl said. We all sobered up. “She made the best banana nut bread and pot roast.”

  I smiled into the darkness. The small things we once took for granted from before would mean so much more to us now. Retrospect was a bitch.

  “A fully functioning, zombie free, Mexican restaurant,” I said into the silence. Everyone laughed. “With a bottomless bowl of chunky, fresh salsa.”

  “Loaded tacos? Crisp tortilla chips?” I added for extra emphasis. “Am I right?”

  “Margaritas,” the same person who mentioned the piña coladas added in, and everyone laughed again.

  Silence once again fell over the group and all that we could hear were the sounds of the zombies on the other side of the door, clawing and gnashing their teeth against it as they tried to get in.

  Several hours later, Jude switched his flashlight on to check his watch. It was late—really late. Darkness should have already fallen, and that meant we had to stay put and wait out the zombies. We were going to end up stuck in the freezer overnight and that prospect did not sound all that enticing to me.

  I scooted over next to Jude and hesitantly placed my head on one of his broad shoulders. He tensed but didn’t jerk away. No matter what happened, he would feel responsible for this snafu. He’d feel responsible for each and every person sitting in that freezer.

  Even if he couldn’t have foreseen the other group attacking us, even if half the group weren’t our people to begin with. He’d shoulder the responsibility. Now, no matter what, we had to get these people to safety.

  I understood that; I felt the same way. A few moments later, his body relaxed enough for me to doze off on his shoulder. I was grateful he didn’t shrug me off.

  I’m not sure how long I slept, but I woke to the faint pounding and groans of zombies close by.

  “No change?” I asked in a whisper.

  “They’re more sporadic now. Less enthusiastic,” Jude explained.

  I listened to the noises and I had to agree. They didn’t sound quite as insistent and frantic as they had before. This is good, I thought.

  “What time is it?” I asked in a whisper.

  “It’s two a.m.,” he answered softly.

  Holy crap. I’d slept that long?

  I turned on my light and flashed it around the room, careful not to flash it directly in anyone’s face. Almost everyone was asleep though.

  “So, what do we do next, Jude?”

  He sighed and I knew he had to be exhausted. I could hear it in his voice. No telling how long it had been since he’d slept last. He shifted and his arm brushed against mine, sending tiny tingles of awareness through my body. I flexed my hand.

  “Once the sun is out, we make a run for it. No matter what, we can’t stay shut up in here forever. We have to get to the bus and pray that at least half of the zombies have moved on.”

  I patted his arm and then reached for his hand, intending to give it an encouraging squeeze. Jude’s rough palm closed gently around mine hand before I could pull it back. He laced his long, warm fingers with my smaller ones.

  I stiffened slightly, unsure what to do, but only for a split second. For some reason, holding Jude’s hand in the dark felt okay. More than okay, really. It felt safe and good. I sighed contently.

  “We have several hours then. Why don’t you try to rest?”

  He immediately stiffened next to me.

  I tsked beneath my breath at his stubbornness.

  “You won’t be any good to the group if you can’t shoot worth a damn because you’re dead on your feet.”

  “There’s no way you’ll oversleep,” I said added gently.

  Jude’s shoulders slumped and his body relaxed for the first time since we’d entered the freezer. Pretty soon, much to my dismay and delight, his head was in my lap and I was stroking his hair while he snored softly.

  I’m not sure how much time passed, but the next thing I knew, Manuel was kicking my foot. I jumped, which caused Jude to jerk off of my lap, his body immediately ready for any threat.

  “Do you hear that?” Manuel whispered loudly. I strained my ears. Jude’s entire body was thrumming with adrenaline.

  “What is it?” Sun asked from the back of the freezer.

  I switched on my flashlight and shone around the room. Everyone was wide awake now and listening intently.

  “I don’t hear anything,” I said into the silence. I flashed my light back around to Manuel’s smiling face.

  “Exactly,” he answered. “Silence.”

  There weren’t any banging or any gurgles, just the sweet sound of nothing. Jude flashed his light down at his watch. It was almost six thirty in the morning. We had to move. No matter what happened, this was our best chance.

  “Alright everyone, let’s get ourselves prepared to move,” Jude whispered into the room. We all stood, grabbing our weapons and our packs, getting ready for whatever lay on the other side of the door. Whatever it was, we were all going to face it together.

  “I suspect that even if the wave of zombies has blown through and even if the area is pretty clear,” Jude said, “there will be enough zombies left in the area to give us a fight to get to the bus. Don’t do anything stupid. No guns. Only knives. Get to the bus so we can get the hell out of here.” He paused. “Understand?”

  We all answered to the affirmative.

  I gripped the handle of my knife and prepared for the worst-case scenario, which would have been a horde of zombies right outside the doors, or in the cafeteria area.

  Manuel unbolted the door and the room took a collective breath in anticipation.

  I adjusted my grip and tightened my fist around the hilt of my blade.

  Manuel raised his hand and pushed the door.

  It didn’t budge.

  I glanced up at Jude. His face was a mask of shock and “oh shit”.

  Manuel and Jude put their shoulders to the door and heaved with all of their might. The door came open slowly, pouring light into the room and our sensitive eyes from the ruined storage doorway. I stumbled through the door and came up right behind Manuel and Jude.

  We didn’t have time to be shocked. You never did when you didn’t have much left in the world that could shock you.

  Several overly ripe zombies were dead and laying on the floor in a pile of their own gooey demise. But six more zombies were hovering together in a shadowy corner of the room.

  We didn’t wait. We launch over the dead zombies that had been blocking the door to the freezer and began our attack.

  “The fuck?” I heard a kid say as I drove my knife into a skull.

  “Melody, to your left!” Jude yelled out.

  I jumped back just in time to avoid a rather slow, bumbling zombie in a black and white striped midriff shirt and high waisted stone wash jeans. She was slow on the uptake and dropped easily.

  “Let’s move, people!” Manuel shouted.

  And then we ran.

  Most of the zombie herd had indeed move on as the sun rose, but smaller packs were hovering here and there in darkened corridors and classrooms.

  I was relieved when we made it to the where the bus had been parked and still found it there with all the supplies packed tightly into the back.

  “All aboard!” Jude shouted to what was left of not only our crew, but the sepia group now led by Sun.

  I was shocked when Jude chose to drop himself into the seat next to me, but I didn’t say anything. Truth was, I felt a little shift in our relationship ever since I’d come back from the bus run alone. Maybe even before that, but I didn’t know what to make of it, so I ignored it.

  That was all I could do right then. I was glad to have him near me though. And that muddied my feelings even more.

  We’d left the Army base and headed in Gastonia with fourteen of our own people.

  We’d lost Jeffery, Z, Nate, a guy named Michael,
and . . . Ghost.

  Ghost. My heart squeezed at the thought of his cavalier bravery.

  That left only nine of our original group.

  But we were headed back to the base as a group of nineteen which now included Sun.

  We would be glad for our gains, and later, when Ava had her insulin, and we’d all had showers, we would mourn our losses.

  PART FOUR

  We All Float Down Here

  It had been a week since the Gastonia mission.

  Ghost’s absence was a sore reminder of all that’d we lost on the trip. I found myself glancing around, looking for his contagious grin, only to remember that he was no longer with us.

  Still, I smiled. Ghost would have been happy to know we had saved little Ava.

  Jude walked over and sat next to me, sitting his lunch down next to mine.

  “No word?” I asked. His clenched jaw answered me.

  I shifted in my seat.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked.

  “I’m going to have to go and see what happened.” Jude stated before slurping up the soup on his spoon.

  My mouth popped open unattractively. I sat back in my seat.

  The day after we’d arrived back from our Gastonia mission, Big Ben and Manuel had gone to the Charlotte rendezvous point to find out what had happened with our contact there. We were afraid for Major Parsons, Jude’s uncle, as well as the soldiers and civilians the base there housed.

  “They should have been back days ago.” Jude said softly, not wanting to alert anyone around us there was anything to worry about.

  I nodded.

  Even if they had run into trouble, they’d have been only delayed a day or two. Not four or five. I set my jaw.

  “When do we leave?” I asked.

  Jude coughed and sputtered. I reached over and whacked him on the back.

  “Melody . . .” he began, a warning tone in his voice. I held up a hand.

  “Save your breath, Agent. I’m going.”

  Jude stared at me and I stared right back.

  “Short of tying my ass to the bed in my room, nothing is going to stop me from going,” I warned. I had my own reasons aside from our team members to go to Charlotte.