Mail Horror Bride (One Nation Under Zombies Book 1)

by Lee, Raymond

“Is the car alright?” Angela asked.

  “Yeah, just dinged up.” No sooner he’d spoken the words and a pile of mangled car parts appeared before them. “Hang on!”

  He tried to swerve around the remains of the wrecked car but couldn’t avoid all the pieces. They jostled as he ran over some of the twisted metal and a loud pop like a gunshot indicated they’d just blown a tire.

  “Are we about to lose this car too?” Angela finished the last of the Snickers she’d been munching on.

  “I’m thinking so.”

  They made it off the expressway but the car made a lot of noise. Beside the fact they were driving on a rim, something had caught on the bottom of the car and was currently screeching on the road as they dragged it along.

  “Do I smell gas?” Janjai asked.

  “Yep.” Hal looked at the gas tank, noticing it going down. “I think we sprang a leak.”

  “How long we got?” Angela asked.

  “Not very.”

  “And where are we?”

  “Somewhere in Kansas. Check the map.”

  The lone headlight flashed on a trio of zombies in the road and Hal swerved again, leaving the road entirely. He dodged trees as the car started to die.

  “Hal?”

  “Just hang on. We’ll be ok.” He silently prayed as he gripped the wheel and turned, barely avoiding a large Oak before the car came to a stop.

  They were on a hill overlooking a large building and parking lot where a mob of zombies walked around aimlessly. A building with light showing through the cracks of the boarded up windows.

  “That building has power,” he said. “What is it?”

  They looked closer. The name of the building wasn’t lit up, smart considering it saved electricity.

  “It looks like a Wally’s Club,” Angela said. “They have everything there. Groceries, guns, ammo, furniture, clothes, a pharmacy. It’s a huge megastore. How is the light on inside?”

  “Generators,” Hal answered. “There must be someone inside.”

  “We have to get inside,” Janjai said, sitting forward. “Trust me on this.”

  Hal turned toward her. “If there are people inside they could be dangerous.”

  “We will be safe. I dreamed of it.”

  “You what?” Angela asked.

  “I dreamed of this. I did not know it was this until just now, seeing it. My sister has dreams that give her direction. I never have but I have dreamed of this place. I know it is where we should be.”

  “And finding your sister?”

  “If my sister were with me she would tell me to follow the dream. We must.”

  “So how are we supposed to get inside?” Angela asked. “The parking lot is crawling with zombies and it looks like the front windows and doors are all boarded up or blocked.”

  “There should be another entrance beyond that gated area there,” Hal thought out loud as he pointed to the gardening area at the back of the building. “We just need to get to that fence and climb it.”

  “What about the people inside?” Angela asked. “Did your dream show anything besides the building?”

  Hal turned to see Janjai’s eyes averted with embarrassment. “What is it Janjai? What did you see?”

  “I saw a big bird land on the roof and the doors opened.”

  Angela burst out laughing then froze, pointing ahead. “Holy crap.”

  A helicopter zigzagged through the night, its shadow under the moon looking like a large bat or a bird with broken wings. “There’s our bird,” Hal said, smiling, feeling more hope than he had in a long time.

  “It looks like it’s about to wreck.”

  “Or land on that rooftop. Let’s go.”

  “You’re forgetting something,” Angela said as they got out of the car. “How are we supposed to get past all those zombies and make it to the building?”

  “In my dream we came through smoke.”

  “The smoke bombs we got from Maura,” Hal reminded them as he searched through his pack for them. “The smoke will help hide us from them since they can’t see well. We’ll send the car down the hill ahead of us, aiming for over there.” He pointed to the farthest edge of the parking lot where a group of cars sat. “The noise will draw their attention from us as we make our way down the hill at another angle, toward the back of the building.”

  “I don’t know about this.” Angela peered down the hill. “It’s going to reach the bottom faster than us. How long do you think it will hold their attention?”

  “Long enough. If you don’t think you can run fast enough, use those guys as encouragement.” He jerked his head back toward the direction of the road they’d swerved off of, gesturing toward the group of zombies lumbering through the trees. “We can’t fight all those off without guns and shots will draw the attention of the ones below us. We have to make it to that building.”

  “Alright.”

  “What do we do?” Janjai asked, panic rising inside her as the group of zombies from the road approached.

  “Our bird just landed.” Hal pointed to the helicopter which now sat on the Wally’s Club roof as people spilled out of it, running toward a door. “Angela, put the car in neutral and turn the wheel to the left. Then we push. Once it gets rolling we run and meet up with those people inside.”

  III

  Shelter

  “This is where you choose to land?” Damian shook his head. “In the middle of a whole freaking crowd of zombies?”

  “No, on top of a building in the middle of a whole bunch of zombies,” Cruz clarified, “and there’s a door. We can get inside. Wally’s Club has everything. It’s the best place I could think of to land before this thing fell apart. We couldn’t have made it much farther.”

  “What if what’s out here is in there?”

  “Highly doubtful,” Cruz said, coming around to help him with Raven, who hadn’t spoken a word since she’d quit that awful ear-splitting, guilt-fueling screaming fit. “Once the virus hit businesses shut down. This place should be empty.”

  Damian hoped he was right. Raven was a warrior princess with that katana but in the state she was in now, he doubted she’d even swing if they came up against anything. That meant it was up to the three of them to protect her and themselves until she snapped out of the daze and came back to them.

  “Come on, Raven. We need to get inside and see what’s in there.”

  Raven just looked at him, her eyes blank.

  “Maybe we leave her here?” Pimjai suggested, having gotten out of the helicopter with Damian. “Until we check the inside?”

  “No,” Cruz said firmly, then lowered his voice. “I wouldn’t trust her not to jump. Jeremy’s death is hitting her a lot harder than it’s hitting us.”

  “You think she’s suicidal?” Damian looked back at her, taking in the vacant look in her eyes, the sag of her shoulders. “She’s just in shock, and mourning.”

  “I just don’t want to take any chances.”

  “You should have thought about that before we took that little trip to your mom’s place. I thought we were going to see if she was alive and save her, not beat the hell out of her corpse.”

  Cruz looked away. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I understand. You acted like you wanted to save her, took us all there despite the danger, and all you wanted was to see the woman dead and get your last damage in. I don’t know what that woman did to you when she was alive but we didn’t ask to come along on this little revenge mission. We could have been safe at the Arizona military camp instead of traveling across all these states with you.”

  “Both of you, stop,” Pimjai ordered, pointing at the edge of the roof. “Do you see the buckets?”

  Damian turned his head and followed the direction of her pointed finger. Various buckets lined the farthest edge of the roof in three rows. “What about them?”

  “Why do you think they are here? To collect rain. Someone is in the building.”

  “Huh?”


  Cruz answered for her. “She’s saying someone must be in the building because they’ve set buckets out to collect rainwater. Nobody would have done this before the outbreak.”

  “Great.” Damian removed his rock hammer, feeling more secure with its weight in his hand. “Raven is definitely coming with us. We have to be careful. We don’t know if whoever is inside is going to be friendly or not and I don’t think Raven’s up to fighting right now.”

  “I’ll protect Raven. You go in front, Pimjai takes the back.”

  Damian started to argue but held his tongue. The man had a thing for Raven even if he was nuts. He’d protect her so his formation was good. Damian needed to be in front as the lookout and Pimjai watching their back was the best place for her.

  “What is that?”

  They looked where Pimjai was looking, past the parking lot, and saw a car careening down a large hill toward the far side of the lot. It was too dark to see anything else on the hill but Damian thought he saw something moving.

  “We can’t worry about whoever is in that car,” he said. “Let’s get inside and see what the situation is in there.”

  The door was unlocked, saving them the hassle of picking it or flexing muscle trying to kick it down. They entered quietly into the stairwell, Cruz guiding Raven as Damian led the way and Pimjai covered them from behind. It was dark so they went slow, careful not to misstep and fall headfirst down the stairs. They reached a door at the bottom.

  Damian looked back at his friends and raised his index finger to his lips, not sure if they could see it but he didn’t want to risk being heard telling them to be quiet.

  This door was also unlocked, he discovered as he turned the knob slowly and pushed it open. It led to what appeared to be a stockroom with boxes of various sizes stacked on metal shelves. Their eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness that they could make out the shapes.

  He crept forward, knowing they’d follow behind. Light spilled from ahead so he walked toward it, knowing that was where he’d find the person or persons staying there, if they were still alive. He kept his rock hammer in his hand just in case he needed it, the pistol he’d taken from the house was in his waistband in case he needed to grab it too.

  They reached the light. It spilled through the windows on two swinging doors which led to the store. He peered through one, seeing nothing, so he pushed through, careful that the door didn’t swing back on his friends. They were in the sporting goods section, bikes lining the wall behind them and aisles filled with exercise and tennis equipment on either side.

  As they moved in farther, they heard music. “What is that?”

  “The Veronica Mars theme song,” Cruz answered in a hushed voice.

  “Well, I guess that’ll be in my head all night.”

  “It’s catchy.”

  Damian glared at him for five seconds before getting back to task. “So there’s a crap load of zombies outside and someone’s just hanging out watching Veronica Mars up in here?”

  “Beats chewing your nails down to the nubs worrying about it. The windows looked blocked from outside so I’m sure they got this place sealed up tight.”

  “Really? We walked right in.”

  “Well, they weren’t expecting a helicopter to land on the roof, were they?”

  “Point taken.”

  “That’s far enough.” An older Hispanic man with a thick mustache stepped out from the shelving unit to block the aisle. “You got them, Elijah?”

  “Yeah, Dad.”

  They froze, turning their heads to see a younger Hispanic male, around seventeen, give or take a year, pointing a shotgun at them. His arms trembled. They could take him if necessary, but he might fire a bullet before they reached him.

  “We don’t want any trouble,” Cruz spoke up. “We’re just looking for a place to stay until we can get a vehicle and get to the camp in Lincoln.”

  “Holy crap, Dad. It’s Cruz Thomas!”

  The father frowned.

  “From the Action X movies and Mom liked him in Bleeding Heart.”

  “You are an actor? Why are you in Kansas?”

  To kill his already dead mama and get one of us killed in the process, Damian thought, but said nothing.

  “We were headed to Lincoln, Nebraska, to the camp there. We found a helicopter but it wouldn’t make it much farther in the condition it’s in so we saw this place and landed on the roof while we could still land safely.”

  The man seemed to think about this. “Why are you armed if you do not want trouble?”

  “Because shit’s crazy out there,” Damian blurted. “Why the hell you got your boy holding a gun on us? You already know.”

  “The gun is to keep you from robbing us … or worse. We don’t know you.”

  “We know Cruz Thomas,” Elijah said. “I doubt he’s going to just kill a person.”

  Wanna bet? Damian almost laughed but knew it was the worst thing he could do at the moment. “We’re good people. We only use these weapons on those things out there.”

  That much was true. Cruz had killed Cliff with his hands.

  “Are you with these men on your own free will?” the man asked Raven.

  “Yes,” she answered, the first time she’d spoken since she quit screaming for Jeremy. “You can trust them.”

  “Why do you look so upset? What did they do?”

  Raven shook her head as tears streamed down her face. The man’s expression showed suspicion.

  “We lost someone today,” Damian explained. “A young girl. We got surrounded by zombies. We tried to save her but there were just too many. They were on her and we couldn’t do anything to save her at that point so we got in the helicopter and we looked for a safe place but everywhere in this area is crawling with those things. We started having engine trouble and Cruz was struggling to keep the helicopter up so we landed on the roof here. It was the safest place we’d seen for miles. Raven’s taking it the hardest.”

  “Women and children often do,” he said sadly, the hint of a haunting memory in his eyes. “So you’ve been out there in that mess all this time? Why didn’t you stay somewhere safe?”

  “This is the first somewhere safe we’ve seen,” he answered. “Some of us had family out here we wanted to check on so thought we’d check on them on our way to Lincoln. They were dead already when we found them. The zombies got to them. Now it’s just us together right here looking for a place to stay or a vehicle that’ll get us the rest of the way to Lincoln.”

  “Good luck finding a vehicle,” the kid said, lowering the gun. “Last I checked there were about a thousand zombies surrounding the one we came here in. I say they stay here.”

  “Oh, is that right?” the man asked.

  “Relax, Dad. It’s Cruz Thomas. Personally I like having a badass action hero on my team during the zombie apocalypse.”

  “Those are movies,” his father reminded him, “and watch your language. There are ladies present.”

  “Oh, we’re not offended,” Damian said.

  Elijah laughed. His dad did not.

  “I can’t in good conscience send anyone out there but if any harm comes to my son I have a gun too, one I’m going to start carrying.”

  “We understand.” Damian smiled. “We appreciate this.”

  “I don’t understand nothing,” came another voice and a red-headed white man with tattoos adorning every inch of his arms and a white T-shirt stepped out beside the Hispanic man, gun in hand. “I don’t understand how you think you can just invite these people in here without even asking me.”

  “They need help, Kurt.”

  “That’s the difference between you and me, Carlos. You see people that need help. I see conniving leeches that wanna suck us dry. That’s four extra mouths to feed and our supplies are limited.”

  “We have a whole grocery,” Elijah said.

  “Watch your mouth, kid. You don’t make the rules.”

  “Neither do you,” Carlos snapped, “and you watch your tone
with my son.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “You mean what are we going to do about it?” Damian asked, picking up on the situation. He’d known plenty of Kurts in his life, but in Oakland they were usually gang leaders.

  “This ain’t your problem, boy.”

  “Boy?” He looked at the hooded figure tattooed on Kurt’s bicep above the KKK letters and laughed. “I ain’t your boy, bitch, and a whole crew of your hooded friends couldn’t make me.”

  Kurt stepped forward. “You need to leave.”

  “We were invited to stay.”

  “Come on, Kurt,” Elijah pleaded. “This place is huge. We have plenty of food, water, and everything else. It’s not like the generators are going to use up any more fuel with extra people.”

  “They’ll eat our food.”

  “The food will not last forever, with or without them,” Carlos said. “Eventually we will need to leave for a military camp or at least forage elsewhere. It is best to have more people for that. These people have been out there all this time. They are skilled. I’d say they are a help, not a hindrance.”

  Kurt glared at them as his eyes raked them over. He took a particularly long moment sizing up Pimjai and Raven. “Well, we wouldn’t want women out there, would we? What are your names, ladies?”

  Raven glared back at the jerk. Pimjai stood there, looking confused.

  “Your names?” he asked again.

  “Little English,” Pimjai said, adopting a heavily accented timid voice as she averted her eyes. “Sorry.”

  Damian looked at Cruz and the other man shrugged so slightly only he would pick up on it.

  “Fucking foreigners,” Kurt muttered. “She ain’t some infected mail-order bride, is she?”

  “Does she look Russian?” Damian asked.

  Kurt pointed his gun at Damian’s face. “Don’t give me no attitude.”

  “Everybody cool it,” Cruz said. “You help us and we can help you. Fighting against each other is stupid.”

  Kurt ran his tongue over his teeth as he smiled, lowering his gun. “That’s right. We share things here. We have food and shelter we share with you. You share what you have with us.”