Mail Horror Bride (One Nation Under Zombies Book 1)

by Lee, Raymond

  “I only made rice so often because it was in a box, not canned. Also, it required more water to make. I wanted to save canned goods for travel in case we had to leave.”

  “Smart,” Hal commented after swallowing a mouthful of Spam and taking a sip of the canned Ginger Ale they’d brought back from a recent scavenging mission. “And I think it’s about that time.”

  “You don’t think we’re safe here any longer?” Angela asked. “We can give Janjai some more training, work on her aim.”

  Janjai lowered her head, embarrassed by her uselessness during the attack earlier.

  “Janjai is fine. Ideally, she shouldn’t have to shoot at all. We’ve had too many incidents around here and today’s was right outside the house. Besides, you know it isn’t right to hole up inside a house when there are others out there who could need our help.”

  “Yes, because we owe others so much,” Maura murmured.

  “If Hal hadn’t thought to help Hank and I, I would be dead,” Janjai reminded her.

  Nobody pointed out that Angela had ended up killing Hank not long afterward. They didn’t speak of Hank, ever. They’d forgotten him like the waste of flesh he was.

  “I have a sister in Colorado,” Janjai told them. “I don’t know if she is dead or alive.”

  “We’re in Missouri right now,” Hal said. “We’d have to cross through Kansas to get there. I think we have enough gas and supplies for that.”

  Janjai looked up, surprised. “You would go to Colorado to find my sister?”

  “Why not?” He shrugged. “We don’t have any family. If she’s alive and needs help, we’ll help.”

  Overcome with emotions, Janjai fought down the urge to leap across the table and hug Hal. Instead, she choked out a, “Thank you,” as she kept her head lowered and willed herself not to cry.

  “I wouldn’t get too excited yet,” Maura said. “Better be braced for the worst possible outcome.”

  Hal glared at Maura. “Have you no faith?”

  “Yeah, I got faith,” Maura replied. “I also have ears, two eyes, and common sense. I know what’s out there. I’d rather Janjai expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised than expect a happily ever after and find her worst nightmare.”

  “I also know what is out there,” Janjai said. “I keep praying for a miracle. You found me when I was in a bad place with a bad man. I believe my sister is praying as am I. The strongest prayers are those that are shared. I have always believed that.”

  “We’ll pray with you,” Hal promised, shooting another glare in Maura’s direction.

  “I pray we even make it to Colorado,” she grumbled. “We were supposed to be going to Nebraska. You know, to safety?”

  “We have the same destination, only a new course,” Hal shot back. “We leave in the morning.”

  Maura sat at the window, staring out into the night, her pack snuggled close to her chest, the only thing of her own left in this world. “I don’t know what to do, Daniel. I could stay here. There’s shelter, food, more houses to search through when I run out. I mean, this can’t last forever, right? The military is doing something, right? We just have to survive long enough for them to wipe out this virus and all the infected.”

  She waited, listening for the sound of his voice to whisper on the wind.

  “You’re right. I have to make it to Nebraska like you said. I guess it is safest to go in a group, even if that group has a criminal in it. Yes, I know we all have sinned. Yes, I know what I did, Daniel. I know it was wrong but you left me no choice and don’t forget it was that woman who really killed you. I lost you long before I arrived.”

  “Maura?”

  She turned to see Angela standing in the doorway, brow wrinkled in concern.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you alright?”

  “Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Angela looked around the room. “Were you talking to someone?”

  “Myself,” Maura said quickly. Angela was far too young to understand the concept of a love that transcended space and time, even death. “Do you need anything?”

  “No.” Angela eyed her with curiosity a moment longer before crossing over to the bed she’d claimed as her own. “We leave early in the morning. Hal said to make sure you’d packed everything. Also, he said we should enjoy what might be the last comfortable night of sleep we get for a while.”

  “How long have you known Hal?”

  “Long enough.” Angela pulled back the pink covers and slipped into her bed. “You ask a lot of questions about him, like you don’t trust him.”

  “He’s a man, Angela.”

  The girl frowned. “And?”

  “You can’t fully trust men. Ever.”

  “Hal is a good man.”

  “There’s no such thing, not really. You’ll learn the older you get, provided you’re smart enough to survive that long.”

  “I don’t believe that. My dad was a good man and he trusted Hal to take care of me.”

  “Well, I hope he does.” Maura crossed over to her own bed and pulled back the covers. She doubted she’d sleep, her stomach in knots over the choices overwhelming her. Stay or go, save this foolish girl or let her stay with the criminal she trusted… She wished Daniel was more than just a voice now, wished that he stood with her. He could stand against Hal. He was a soldier. He’d know what to do to keep them safe, even if he’d failed for himself by allowing that Russian piece of trash to blind him.

  “If you’re thinking of leaving us, just know you’ll be going alone. Hank wanted Janjai and I to leave with him. It didn’t go well for him.”

  Maura stood at the side of the bed, frozen in place as Angela rolled over onto her side and went to sleep. A cold chill crept along her skin and she wondered if she was too late to save Angela from Hal’s criminal influence.

  “Are we there yet?”

  Hal frowned at Angela as she sat in the passenger seat, ignoring the book he’d given her to read over an hour ago. “That quit being funny about twenty minutes after we left. Read the book. It’ll make time pass quicker.”

  “You’ve never read this book, have you?” She raised the book, Twilight, in her hand.

  “No.”

  “Didn’t think so. If you had then you would know that reading this book would not make time fly. It would make time drag on endlessly and only intensify my desire to throw myself out of this moving vehicle in hopes that the zombies would put me out of the misery of having to read another word.”

  Hal laughed. “It can’t be that bad.”

  “It has sparkling vampires in it. Sparkling, Hal. Like glitter.”

  “Take a nap then,” he suggested, checking the rearview mirror and seeing the other women were doing just that, albeit uncomfortably.

  “I’m not sleepy. Just bored.”

  He opened his mouth to tell her to enjoy the scenery but a zombie chose that moment to stumble out of the woods, its arms reaching toward their vehicle, its mouth open as it made that horrible groaning sound indicating its hunger, or maybe its frustration? Anger? Hal tried not to think about that, if those monsters had feelings or were able to process any form of thought. It didn’t matter. He could slice it a dozen different ways and the situation remained the same. Infected people died and became zombies. Zombies were monsters. Zombies had to die.

  “Look out!”

  Hal quickly turned his attention back to the road before him to see a large buck leap from the cover of the woods to run across his path.

  He turned the steering wheel hard, attempting to swerve around the large animal, but didn’t succeed. The deer jumped right in his path and froze, its gaze meeting Hal’s as the Explorer bore down on it. Time seemed to slow as the two beings shared an unspoken thought. This was going to be bad.

  The vehicle hit with a thunderous boom, flipping the ten point buck over the hood as it screeched to a stop. The airbags deployed, blocking the view but Hal heard the windshield crack seconds before the thump on the roof indi
cated the deer was still in motion.

  The loud bang it made competed with the screams from his passengers, two of which had been rudely awakened and had no clue what was happening until they saw the deer hitting the road behind them.

  The Explorer died and Hal pushed against the deflating airbags, relieved to see none of the broken windshield glass had fallen on them, though it looked as if it could fall at any time. “Anybody hurt?” he asked, checking Angela.

  “Yeah, the deer,” Maura replied. “You couldn’t swerve around it?”

  “I tried.”

  Angela’s temple was bleeding from a small scratch and she held her head, wincing as he checked her for other injuries.

  “How you feeling, Ang?”

  “Fantastic,” she muttered, her eyelids fluttering as if coming out of a deep sleep. “I banged my head on the passenger window.”

  Hal saw the web-like crack in the glass and carefully checked her hair for glass fragments, relieved to find none. “You should be fine as long as nothing’s broken. You just can’t go to sleep anytime soon, ok?”

  She nodded, then groaned. “Ouch.”

  “Maura? Janjai?” He turned to check on the women in the back.

  “We’re good,” Maura replied, looking out the back window. “But not for long. We have incoming.”

  “How many?”

  “One almost on us, and it looks like a bunch coming up the road.”

  Hal quickly shoved the rest of the airbag out of the way and attempted to restart the Explorer. The engine wouldn’t turn over. He tried again, the sinking feeling in his gut intensifying as he strained to see past the glass web in front of him.

  “Get this thing moving, Hal.”

  “I’m trying.” He turned the key again, hoping the third was the charm. It wasn’t. He tried to pop the hood but that didn’t work either.

  “How screwed are we?” Maura asked.

  “We’re walking until we find another ride, unless I can fix this thing,” Hal said, checking his gun. He stepped out of the Explorer and whistled, looking at the front of the vehicle. The front end was completely smashed in, explaining why the hood release wouldn’t work. The whole thing looked like a crumpled piece of paper. “Yep, we’re walking. Angela, stay inside until I say otherwise.”

  He closed the driver side door and walked toward the back of the vehicle, quickly joined by Maura and Janjai. Janjai’s hands trembled as she held a large bowie knife. Maura seemed too angry to be nervous. The hand holding her machete didn’t shake at all. Her glare could burn skin.

  “I didn’t hit the deer on purpose.”

  She didn’t say a word to him, simply took the ten steps toward the groaning zombie that had reached them and drove the point of her blade into its skull. Beyond it, a group of a dozen or more lumbered forward, drawn by the sound of the accident.

  “What do we do now?” Janjai asked, voice trembling. “Can we outrun them?”

  “We need to get our stuff,” Hal said. “We packed for a ride, not a walk. We need to get rid of these guys and then pack bare essentials into backpacks.”

  “Can’t you shoot some from here?” Maura suggested. “Thin out the herd a little?”

  He looked over at them, now fifty feet away. Far enough he could pick them off one by one. “Gunshots can draw more.”

  “So the three of us are just supposed to hack our way through what, fifteen or so of them?” Maura jerked her head in Janjai’s direction.

  The woman stared straight ahead at the zombies, eyes round, both hands white-knuckling the handle of her knife. The deer they’d hit jerked and she jumped, crying out.

  Hal checked his gun again as the deer thrashed its front legs, making sounds of distress as it tried to stand but couldn’t get its back legs to work. Thirteen bullets. Twelve after he took care of the deer.

  “What are you doing?” Maura asked as he squatted next to the injured animal.

  “Sorry, friend.” He shot it in the temple, ending its suffering.

  “No!” Maura shoved him, knocking him down. “How could you kill it?”

  “It was in agony!” He gestured toward its back legs as he stood. “Its back legs were broken, probably its hips as well. Letting it die slow would have been cruel.”

  “You’re a bastard.”

  “A bastard would have let it feel pain.” He turned toward the zombies, now twenty feet away, and aimed at the closest one. He lined up the shot and squeezed the trigger. The body went down so he moved to the next, picking them off one by one. “I’ll pick off the majority then we switch to blades. Be ready in case any get past me.”

  “They won’t get past me.”

  He turned to see Angela come around the other side of the vehicle before taking aim and dropping one of the zombies.

  “Angela! I told you not to come out here.”

  “I’m fine.” She shot another zombie. “Stay alert.”

  Hal blinked, registering the sharp tone coming from the young girl.

  “Hal!” Janjai pointed her knife at an approaching zombie, bringing him back into the moment.

  He turned and pulled the trigger. Between he and Angela, it only took a matter of minutes to shoot them all down. No one had to draw a knife.

  Until one that no one had seen approaching from the other direction snuck up behind Janjai.

  She screamed and Hal turned, but before he could move another inch Janjai’s survival instinct kicked in. She twisted around, knife raised, and sank the blade into the zombie’s neck as she used her free hand to shove its chest. The zombie, what looked like a blonde female, fell on its back and Janjai followed it down, her knee weighing it down as she stabbed it in the forehead, then repeated the move over and over, blood and brain matter flying.

  Hal allowed her ten strikes before grabbing her wrist. “She’s dead, Janjai. You got her.”

  She dropped the knife, shaking, tears streaming down her face. He saw her struggle for words but none would form so he pulled her up and turned her around.

  “Hey.” He placed his hands on her shoulders. “You’re all right. You did real good.”

  She nodded, her breaths sharp.

  Hal led her to the back of the Explorer where he opened the hatch and rooted around for something to clean her up with. He shook his head as he moved aside a large container of cat litter, having no idea why Maura thought to bring that, and opened a box of baby wipes.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said, careful to keep his tone soft as he removed a wipe and gently wiped the crimson blood spray off her face. “How’s that?”

  Janjai nodded. “Better. Thank you. I, I never killed anyone before.”

  “You still haven’t. Those monsters aren’t people.”

  He rooted around the cargo area again, retrieving plastic storage bags and a clean knife. “The front of this thing is more folded than an accordion. It’s not going anywhere. You all need to pack the bare essentials. Food, water, weapons. As much as you can carry. I’ll pack my own as soon as I carve us some meat to take.”

  “Carve some meat off what?” Maura crossed her arms, machete still in her tightly fisted hand.

  “The deer.” He gestured toward the dead animal at their feet. “We haven’t eaten real meat in what, a month?”

  “Was that your plan when you hit the poor thing? A free meal without having to waste a bullet?”

  “Are you serious?” He stepped closer, his normally calm temperament heating up. “Do you really think I would wreck our mode of transportation just to get some venison? And I did use a bullet, to put this creature out of its misery. If you want to have a PETA protest you’ll have to save it for after all the zombies have been exterminated. Right now, our survival depends on us moving and staying healthy. We’ve been eating rice and vegetables for over a month. We need the protein in that meat. I’m taking it. If you don’t want to eat it, that’s on you.”

  Maura turned away but not before Hal saw the pure hatred in her eyes. He grabbed her by her upp
er arm and pulled her a few feet away from the others, carefully stepping over zombie bodies.

  “What is it with you?” he asked after releasing her, his voice low so the conversation stayed between the two of them. “I haven’t done anything but help you and the others. There is no reason for this attitude you’re constantly throwing my way. I didn’t kill the deer on purpose, but even if I had it would have been to feed us. Deer are for food. You act like I killed your family pet.”

  “It’s not about the deer,” she said between clenched teeth.

  “Then what is it about?”

  “Who are you?”

  “What?” Alarm bells sounded in Hal’s head. “I gave you my name.”

  “Yeah, you did. I wonder what results a Google search would give me on that name, if it’s even real. I guess it’s good for you we don’t have internet access, huh?”

  Hal narrowed his eyes. “What are you getting at?”

  “I heard you and Angela the night she killed Hank. Hank knew something about you and wanted to take her and Janjai away. What’s your dirty little secret, Hal? What did you do to make that man fear you?”

  Hal smirked. “I imagine not much. A man who beat his wife wasn’t much of a man, now was he? I don’t know what you think you know, but this needs to stop. We need to work together, not be at each other’s throats.”

  “I heard you,” Maura said again, enunciating each word. “Hank’s brother was a cop and knew what you did in Mississippi. What happened in Mississippi, Hal? What are you doing with that little girl and why should I let you keep doing it?”

  “It doesn’t matter what happened in Mississippi. All that matters is what happens here.” Hank stepped closer, invading Maura’s space, fueled by the fierce protection he felt over Angela. “Know this, woman. I don’t care who you are or how you feel about me. All I care about is that little girl. My best friend, a man who was my brother in spirit, trusted me to look after his child and I will do anything to keep her safe. Anything.”

  He heard Maura gulp and knew he’d delivered his message effectively so he turned around and headed back to the vehicle, turning after a few steps. “I’m going to go carve some meat off this deer and then we’re headed for Colorado. You can bury whatever feelings you have about me and come with us or you can go your own way. Just know that if you come with us, you’d better not even think about doing anything to separate me from that little girl or it will be the last thing you do.”