Mail Horror Bride (One Nation Under Zombies Book 1)

by Lee, Raymond

  She looked back at him with a sly grin. “I know all about you, Hallelujah Brown. What exactly do you think my dad was training me for?”

  “Self defense?”

  “That went along with it. He was training me to help you, to become the first female member of CROSS.”

  Hal’s mouth dropped open. He’d had no idea Paul had told her about the secret organization they belonged to, Christian Righteous Order of Sacred Soldiers. “No. I don’t know what Paul was thinking or what he told you about me—”

  “That you hold the record for most smites, and that he helped you from the beginning, becoming a cop after the military to help cover your tracks, enabling you to do your work. The two of you planned for your capture so you could get into that prison and destroy Lester Higgins, a man convicted of over fifty cases of child molestation and sodomy, and for your escape so you could continue your mission on the outside. Neither of you planned for the zombie apocalypse though.”

  The sly grin dissolved as her bottom lip trembled. She sniffed and let out a breath, gathering herself. Too strong to cry while under threat of immediate danger, just as her father had trained her. Hal shook his head. He was glad she knew how to handle a gun, she would need to if she was ever attacked by one of those zombies but his work was bloody work, even if righteous. For every godless enemy he destroyed, some of their darkness tried to creep inside him. It took a strong-willed soldier to stay true to the cause, and Angela was just a girl. A little girl grieving the loss of her family to monsters. It wouldn’t be hard for vengeance to take over the true goal of the mission and taint her heart and soul.

  Then again, she was Paul’s child. That had to count for something.

  “What do you feel when you see them?” he asked as a test as he nodded toward the zombies strolling aimlessly through the front yard.

  “Pity.”

  His eyebrow raised. Interesting. “Even though they killed your family?”

  “They didn’t kill my family. The Russian government did. Russia injected the virus into Elena. She didn’t ask for that. None of these people asked for this to happen. Their bodies were taken over, used as weapons to kill off their own country. I just pray you’re right about them being dead already. At least then, their souls are free.”

  “What would you do if you were face to face with the people who did this to them?”

  “I’d kill them. As a soldier of The Order, it would be my duty to destroy such evil before it could harm more innocents. I wouldn’t enjoy it, but it would be the right thing to do so I would do it quickly, that way they went with as little pain as possible. It would be more mercy than they deserve but my inner light would remain unblemished.”

  Hal smiled as the zombies left the yard, traveling down the street, away from them. “Congratulations,” he said.

  “For what?” Angela looked up at him, her brow crinkled in confusion.

  “On becoming the first female member of CROSS.”

  Hal woke to the sound of screaming. He jackknifed up off the bed, hand immediately reaching for the gun he’d left on the bedside table. He’d been sleeping fully dressed for the two weeks he’d been at the house, and had instructed Angela to do so as well, just in case something happened and they had to act quickly.

  When he reached the living room Angela was already there, gun in hand, knife sheathed at her hip, peering out the window.

  “What is it?”

  “Not sure,” she answered, keeping her eye on the street, what she could see of it through the narrow space left board-free, as another blood-curdling scream rent the air. “That sounds like it’s coming from the next street over.”

  “The woman’s in excruciating pain,” Hal surmised as he joined her at the window. “She’s probably been hiding in her home and some of those things got in. I doubt she was stupid enough to go outside.”

  “Do you think they’re smart enough to open doors? They mostly seem to wander around in a fog.”

  “Even an animal knows how to get in a building if it wants to, I don’t know why they wouldn’t too.”

  “I was in my room when Elena turned. Dad yelled at me to watch Mira and lock the door. I didn’t see what she looked like or how she acted, I only heard her growling and later scratching at the basement door when he locked himself in there to get away.”

  Another scream ripped through the night but Hal focused on the girl next to him. “I can only imagine how horrible it was experiencing that.”

  “That was the easy part,” she said, voice small, as she stared out the window, her eyes seeming to lock on something that could not be seen. “My dad was a cop and a soldier. He was armed. I didn’t know about the virus or that he was already infected so I had every reason to believe he would survive. I liked Elena but I loved my dad more. If he had to kill her to survive, then I would get past it. The hard thing was seeing my baby sister lie lifeless in her crib, then rise again as a little monster, snarling and growling at me. Harder than that, was my dad telling me he’d killed Elena, but she’d already infected him and Mira, because then I knew I was alone.”

  “You’re not alone, Angela.”

  Her mouth curved upward slightly. “Not anymore.”

  A large blast caught their attention. The sky lit up above the houses on the next street before three more booms shook them.

  “Bombs?” Angela asked, the high pitch of her voice giving away her fear.

  “Grenades. Any other military families live in this neighborhood?”

  “My dad’s friend, Daniel, lives about twenty minutes from here. By car. That’s the closest I know of.”

  “Maybe he got ran out of his own home, or somebody else managed to get their hands on some.” Hal watched smoke float up, indicating the danger they were in. “Houses and who knows what else are on fire. I doubt the fire department is going to come to our rescue.”

  “Time to move?”

  “Time to move.” The first thing Hal had done after burying Paul, Elena, and Mira was develop an escape plan for if things went south. They had already packed clothing, food and medical supplies, extra gas and weapons in Paul’s minivan. The garage was attached to the house so they’d already be in the van before they had to face the outside world.

  “Holy crap!” Angela’s eyes widened.

  Hal’s mouth dropped open as he saw what had alarmed her. Flaming people were pouring onto the street, spilling out from between houses.

  “Zombies?”

  “Yes. They must have caught fire from the grenade blasts and since they’re already dead they’re still moving, spreading the fire.”

  “They’re headed this way.”

  “Good thing we’re headed somewhere else. Come on.”

  They ran through the house and into the attached garage. Paul had been smart enough to get a battery backup for his electric garage door so no time was wasted. They’d barely closed the van doors before Hal hit the button clipped to the visor and the garage door rose.

  Blackened, burning zombies roamed the street, but the sound of the door raising caught the attention of a few. They started to fill the driveway, carrying the scent of roasting skin with them.

  “Ewwwww, southern fried zombie stinks.” Angela waved a hand in front of her nose.

  “Hold on,” Hal advised, flooring the gas as soon as the garage door raised enough for them to exit.

  They plowed through the zombies before they had a chance to group together compactly and form a solid wall, blocking them in. Hal cut a hard right and traveled through the suburb, avoiding as many zombies as he could and flattening the ones he couldn’t.

  “Look out!”

  Hal slammed on the brakes, bringing the van to a screeching halt before they could hit the woman now standing paralyzed in the glow of their headlights, hands out before her as if she’d have had a prayer of pushing the vehicle away if they’d hit. She wasn’t burning and she’d been running away from where the fires seemed to have started. She also carried a backpack and a mach
ete, not something he’d seen a zombie do yet.

  “We should help her,” Angela said.

  Hal looked at the girl next to him and sighed. She was right, but only if helping the woman didn’t endanger her. She was his priority. A quick glance in the rearview mirror showed he had a little time to decide.

  He opened his door and lowered one foot to the street, staying halfway in the van in case he needed to retreat quickly.

  “Are you alright?” he called out to the dark-haired woman.

  She lowered her hands and he was relieved to see her eyes looked normal.

  “There’s so many of them and they found a way into the house I was staying in. I made it onto the street again but I got surrounded.”

  “Were you bit?”

  “No.” She shook her head emphatically. “I had grenades. When it looked like I wasn’t going to make it, I tossed some. They liked the noise they made, maybe the bright light. I fried a bunch of them and I just ran.”

  “You don’t have a vehicle?”

  “No. I was going to use my fiancé’s but I couldn’t get the garage door up with no electricity. I tried to drive through it but all that accomplished was setting off the airbags.” Her eyes widened as she looked past his shoulder. “They’re coming.”

  Hal thought quick. She looked safe enough. She had a machete and had obviously acquired some grenades. Those could have been found in a house. Paul had the same weapons in his and he was one of the good guys. She was hardly a criminal mastermind if she didn’t even know how to manually open an electric garage door when necessary.

  “Get in. You can ride with us.”

  She chewed her lip and shifted her feet. Hal saw the refusal forming on her lips, but then her gaze shifted to Angela.

  “That’s not your daughter.”

  Hal nearly rolled his eyes at the suspicion he saw in her eyes. “My goddaughter, actually. A black man can have a white goddaughter, can’t he? Look, lady. We’re leaving in a few seconds before those flaming zombies catch up. You wanna go with us or travel on your own without a vehicle?”

  The woman glared at him but survival instinct clearly won out against her obvious suspicion of him. She ran over to the van and slid into the back seat.

  Hal ducked back in to the van and hit the gas before the door fully closed.

  “Where are you going?” the woman asked, eying Angela curiously.

  Hal shook his head, knowing she was checking Angela for signs she’d been abused. “There’s a military camp set up in Nebraska. It’s supposed to be a safe place for the uninfected to find refuge. I figure we’ll head that way. That work for you or would you like to be dropped off somewhere along the way?”

  The woman glared at him. “Without a car? Hotwiring isn’t one of my skills so I’ll go wherever you all go.”

  She’d go wherever Angela went, she meant. Hal grinned. If the woman didn’t trust him, so be it, but maybe that was a good thing. A woman concerned with a strange child’s safety wasn’t a likely enemy. If anything, she’d help keep Angela safe which worked out well in case something happened to him. He didn’t intend on Angela ever being alone again.

  “Nebraska it is then. You don’t have any friends or family here? We can get them if they need help.”

  “No, it’s just me now. I was with my fiancé but a zombie got to him. I couldn’t save him.”

  “I’m sorry,” Angela said. “I lost my family too, but luckily I have Hal. He’s a good guy and he’ll keep us safe. I’m Angela. What’s your name?”

  “Maura,” the woman said. “Maura Seton.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Still in Nevada, I think, I’m not really sure,” Damian answered. “Where are we, Cruz?”

  “Closer to Kansas than we were the last hundred times you asked,” the actor answered, never taking his gaze off the road in front of them as he continued navigating the SUV.

  “Ya know, there’s a reason I asked you and not him,” Raven muttered low enough that the jerk wouldn’t hear her.

  “Sorry. I guess I keep expecting him to remove the stick from his ass.”

  “If only we were that lucky.”

  A soft snore from behind them indicated Jeremy had finally cried herself to sleep. She’d been silent about it but the periodic sniffles and the glistening tracks wetting her cheeks gave her away.

  “We’re entering Utah.” Damian nodded toward the sign.

  “Good, so we should be avoiding Arizona all together. I was starting to fear Cruz might dump me and Jeremy off at that military camp.”

  Damian grinned. “Nah, he wouldn’t go out of his way for you.”

  “I bet.”

  “I’m a little surprised you wouldn’t rather go there. It would get you away from him.”

  “Yeah, well, there might be worse guys in Arizona.”

  “You dated a soldier there, didn’t ya?”

  Raven grinned. “That obvious?”

  “The animosity is rolling off in waves, honey. I knew it had to be a man. It always is. On the bright side, a zombie might have eaten him.”

  Raven laughed but quickly stopped. “I shouldn’t be laughing at that. Good people have been killed by those things.”

  “Or worse, turned, but I’m a believer that we have to find the bright side in everything otherwise the dark side will take over our soul.”

  Raven thought about that, remembering how she’d made jokes when Jeremy told her what she’d done, despite the fact the girl was clearly deeply upset. “Maybe joking about it means the darkness has already crept in.”

  “Oh, it can creep in. It gives us the edge we need so we can do what we have to do.” He let out a huge yawn. “You just can’t let it take over.”

  “Shit!” Cruz exclaimed.

  The SUV came to an abrupt stop, causing them to jerk forward and Jeremy to roll off the back seat, a rude awakening from the slumber that had taken so long for her to fall into.

  “What the hell, Cruz? Learn how to—” Raven’s jaw dropped as she saw the reason why he’d had to slam on the brakes.

  Cars blocked all lanes in both directions, doors hanging open, windshields smashed, and blood… Blood was everywhere.

  “Damn,” Damian whispered. “We aren’t getting through that.”

  “Nobody made it through this,” Raven added, noticing an arm hanging out the open door of one of the cars.

  “Dammit!” Cruz hit the steering wheel. “First the damn boats, then this.”

  “The boats?”

  “When the outbreak first happened, everyone headed for the coast. Figured we’d hop on a boat and sail away from the whole damn thing. The military, ours and foreign, had other ideas.”

  Raven’s stomach sank. “What happened?”

  Cruz answered. “Foreign governments made it known that they would fire upon anyone who sailed into their waters and our own government did their part to avoid that by not letting anyone near a boat.”

  “Our own government is keeping us here?”

  “We’re quarantined,” Damian clarified. “The whole damn country.”

  “So you two were going to leave the country when this happened?” Raven looked at Cruz. “You were going to leave your mother?”

  “She told me to.” Cruz narrowed his eyes on her. “She begged me not to come save her.”

  Raven looked away. How could she judge after she’d sent her baby sister running into the monsters’ arms? “We have to turn back. Take a different way.”

  “That’s going to take forever.”

  “We don’t have any other option.”

  “Dammit.” Cruz turned the SUV around and drove back to the nearest exit. “No wonder we didn’t see any other vehicles. I just thought it meant everyone left sooner than us, or didn’t leave at all.”

  “Most people are probably holed up somewhere secure. I imagine those who headed for the military camps did so early on, and headed to the closest one, which was in Arizona. Why’d it take you two so long to leave?�
��

  Cruz shrugged, leaving Damian to answer.

  “I didn’t have anywhere to go. My mom died a few years back and I’m an only child. Never knew my dad. I headed for the coast first, but the military wasn’t letting anyone leave that way. I figured I could head to one of the camps, most likely Arizona, but everybody and their mama was headed that way and the news said there were people walking around infected and didn’t even have a clue so I kind of thought maybe it’d be safer to be on my own. With everybody gone, the city was mine. Or so I thought.”

  “Being alone wasn’t so safe?”

  “No. I’d went to the movie lot where I worked doing makeup and was staying in one of the actresses’ trailers. I don’t know where they came from but I found myself under attack. Cruz saved me. He was there looking to see if any of the stunt guys left behind a helicopter or something. He knows how to fly them.”

  “A helicopter would have been nice to have.”

  “But then we wouldn’t have met.”

  Raven smiled at her new friend, and delivered an icy glare to Cruz after she felt him giving her the evil eye in the rearview mirror.

  “Need any help?” Raven asked, climbing into the passenger seat. Damian had nodded off, joining Jeremy in slumber. She’d tried, but she just couldn’t seem to get her mind to turn off. She figured she might as well try to make nice with the grumpy bear.

  Cruz frowned at her. “Help with what?”

  “Navigating? Now that we’re off the expressway I figure you could use some help with the map, or maybe you’d like someone to take over? You’ve been driving forever.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You have to be tired, at least a little bit.”

  “I don’t sleep much. I’m fine. Why don’t you go to sleep?”

  “Ya know, I’m not the reason why we had to get off the expressway and Jeremy and I haven’t done anything to you. You can get rid of the attitude.”

  Cruz’s frown deepened then he laughed. The action surprised Raven. “You actually know how to laugh?”

  “Sometimes, yeah.”

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You. I’m not used to people talking to me like you do.”