The Zombie Chronicles - Book 5 - Undead Nightmare (Apocalypse Infection Unleashed Series)

by Peebles, Chrissy

  Another moan came, and I squinted through the vegetation, trying to mentally prepare myself for whatever might come next. My jaw clenched as my eyes focused on every blade of grass. More were coming, and I winced at the horrible reality of the never-ending onslaught, my head reeling.

  Chapter 8

  I spotted three more zombies coming straight toward me, with more rustling around in the weeds. I bolted toward doors of the grocery store, peered into the darkness, and yelled for Val and Kate. “You guys!” I drew in choked breaths and peered around me, a sense of dread settling in the pit of my stomach. “We gotta hurry. We’ve got company out here!”

  Growling came from behind me, and I spun around. A zombie with matted blond hair, a dislocated shoulder, and a misaligned jaw met my gaze. Its hollow eyes fixated on me, and the smell of death and decay emanated from it, filling my nostrils with its putrid, gut-wrenching, nauseating stench. The creature reached for me but let out a long, guttural cry as I ended its life with one single swing of the bat. I nearly gagged from the noxious odor, then yelled again for Kate and Val.

  The next one howled for my flesh, and just as I tried to swing, I felt dead fingers grab my left arm from behind. Adrenaline surged, enabling me to bring my foot forward, like I was in the middle of a heated soccer game, and forcefully slam it into the middle of its leg. That creature slumped to the ground, but the other zombie still had a tight grip on me. Yanking my arm away, I spun around and clobbered it. Meanwhile, the one I’d kicked in the shin lunged at me again, snapping its jaws. I ignored my aching muscles and swung as hard as I could. BLAM! Its skull crunched as it crumbled to the ground.

  Another zombie leapt for my gut, and yet another foul monster wrapped its bony hands around my ankle. I kicked it but lost my balance and fell backward. Instantaneously, a shadow loomed over me. As it went for my neck, I warded off the attack with my bat, and it crunched down on the aluminum rather than on my flesh, shattering its rotted teeth.

  More zombies shambled into the open, surrounding me, at least six of them. Raspy moans filled the air, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold them off forever without a gun. My breath quickened, and I yelled for the girls one last time.

  In a blur, Kate and Val appeared at my side like guardian angels. Val swung her axe, chopping one zombie’s head off, and Kate kicked the corpse off me in one hefty kick. I scrambled up and started swinging and fighting, sending blood, goop, and guts flying everywhere. As a team, we took them out in no time. I glanced at the dead bodies littering the ground and pondered. My life wasn’t reality. Nobody faced constant challenges the way I did. My life read like an action movie and I fought every minute to stay alive out here. It was a battle for every breath I took. There’s no winning or losing…just living…just fighting for another day…just moving forward.

  “Val,” I said, breathing heavily and wiping my face with my sleeve, “are you okay?”

  She gasped and tried to brush off her clothes with her filthy hands, which only made them dirtier. “Never better.”

  I looked at Kate. “What about you?”

  She nodded, too out of breath to say anything, and leaned against the brick wall, clutching her chest.

  I glanced around. “Looks like we got ‘em all…for now.”

  Hard angles dominated Kate’s face. “I’m tired of these hard-fought victories. These caveman weapons aren’t working. We need guns and ammo…and a good set of wheels.”

  “I know,” I said. “We’ll find some, but first things first. Please tell me you’ve got the antibiotics.”

  “Sorry,” Val said, shaking her head and wearing a grim look on her dirty face. “We looked everywhere. The place is all cleaned out.”

  I blew out a frustrated breath, realizing we’d risked our lives in vain—again.

  “I found some bandages though,” Kate said. “It’s not what we wanted, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

  I nodded. “Thanks, Kate. It will definitely help.”

  “We’ve gotta check out the other pharmacy,” Val said. “Lucas is counting on it.”

  “Uh-uh,” Kate argued. “It’s too dangerous here. We need to go back and round up the others and—”

  Before she could finish, as if on cue, a zombie with bite marks all over its bald head moaned and stumbled out of the bushes. It walked toward her, dragging its feet on the concrete.

  With one swing of her crowbar, she knocked it backward. “See? This place is overrun, and the humans who raided this store probably already got to the other one anyway. We’ve gotta find the antibiotics somewhere else. I say we head for another town.”

  “We can’t. We don’t have time,” Val said, sounding uncharacteristically hopeless. “Lucas could die by the time we find another place, especially if we have to go on foot.”

  “So we don’t go on foot,” Kate said. “We can find a car and get the heck outta Dodge.”

  I peered at Kate intently. “It doesn’t matter where we go, Kate. There is no safe zone. The entire flippin’ world is dominated by those dead corpses. We’ll have to fight for our lives in any city, county, state, or country we’re in. We might as well fight here. Lucas would do that for us.”

  “He would, Kate,” Val agreed, nodding. “I know it’s hard, but we have to give him a fighting chance.”

  Kate sighed. “You’re right,” she finally said. “Let’s go.”

  We walked down the deserted street and past the church. Rather than the comforting, familiar sounds of a choir or bells ringing out, we heard a few gunshots. As I listened intently, I could hear the garbled groans, the moaning of the infected, followed by shouts and screams.

  “What the heck?” Kate said.

  “You think Nick and his crew found a gun store or something?” Val asked with a hopeful lilt in her voice. “That was more than one gun.”

  “I dunno. C’mon,” I said.

  At the next stop sign, we turned onto the next block. I cringed at the sight of dried blood on the concrete; it looked as if someone had been dragged down the sidewalk. I jerked my gaze up from that gory sight and saw an RV, shaking violently as a mob of undead clawed and banged on it, trying to fight their way in, desperate to end their ravenous hunger. The hood of the vehicle was open, so I assumed the potential victims were having engine problems. For the moment, they were stuck in there like sardines in a can, just waiting to be devoured. “What do we do?”

  Kate’s blonde hair whipped in the wind. “We should help them, but we’re outnumbered and definitely outgunned. We’ll never be able to fight all those zombies off that thing with these pathetic weapons,” she said, holding up her bloodied crowbar.

  “She’s right,” Val said. “This stuff is meant for ballgames and carpentry, not battle. Besides, there’re only three of us. It was hard enough to get away at that grocery store, and there must be twice as many of them here.”

  “But…” I trailed off as I looked at my sister and Kate, then helplessly back at the RV. It was horrible enough to fight for our own lives, but the thought of leaving other humans to die was even more awful.

  “Don’t look at us like that,” Kate said. “You know we’re right.”

  I stared at the camper as the undead continued their endless pursuit of the humans inside. I refused to accept that grim fate for the stranded family, and a few ideas began to bounce around inside my head. Somewhere in my mind, a voice screamed, Are you crazy? You’d risk your life and the lives of Val and Kate just to save a bunch of strangers? What’s wrong with you, Dean? Ultimately, even if it meant I was crazy, it was a risk I was willing to take. I couldn’t stand by and do nothing. Living with myself after that sort of betrayal wouldn’t have been any kind of living at all.

  Kate grabbed my arm, and a deep frown perched between her brows. “Like Nick says, sometimes you have to make hard decisions to survive out here, Dean.”

  I knew that deep in her heart, she didn’t want to leave them either; she was only trying to think rationally, looking after our sa
fety. There was no way to defeat so many zombies when we were so sorely outnumbered, and we would definitely die trying, but when I saw three screaming little girls peeking out of the yellow curtains of the RV, then more kids peering out other windows and pointing at us, I simply couldn’t walk away.

  “They see us!” Kate said.

  A woman with short blonde hair rolled her window down a few inches, and her husband beeped the horn as she frantically screamed and waved to us. My heart sank at the sound of the mother’s cries for help. When my eyes caught sight of another little girl crouched under the RV, clutching her teddy bear tightly in her arms as her tears dripped down on it, a sudden dread crept up my spine. She was crying, but she was quiet and as still as a mouse; otherwise, she would have been ripped to pieces. “Look,” I said to Val and Kate, pointing at the little one.

  Val’s jaw dropped. “No way!”

  “She won’t last much longer,” Kate said, her voice wavering. “I don’t know how, but we’ve gotta help her.”

  “Not just her,” Val snapped. “We’re gonna save them all.”

  There was a moment of silence as we looked at each other in complete shock. We refused to let any of them be killed, and knowing that came as a huge relief to me. We had been through hell, but unlike the zombies we’d slaughtered, we still had hearts after all. Biting my lip, I tried to think of what we could do, and I hoped we could save the little girl in time.

  It wasn’t long before a straggler zombie noticed us, and it came at me with a lurching hiss. I jumped back, startled, and instinctively swung and hit it in the neck. Kate kicked its chest with a powerful thrust, knocking it back into a telephone pole, and then she used her crowbar to crush its petrified head in one swift blow.

  I peeked around the building we were huddled up against. There were so many of the beasts surrounding the RV, and the sight of that snarling, raging, undead army made my hands shake. They began banging on the walls, windows, and doors. There was no way we could fight them all off, and we couldn’t risk going to get help either, because the family would likely be devoured before we got back. I glanced at the little girl under the RV again. She was still silent, but she was trembling, and her eyes were wide with terror. Despite the danger lurking before my eyes, I knew we had to save that family.

  “Help us!” the blonde woman yelled out the window as a zombie in tattered rags reached for her, forcing her to immediately roll up the window.

  “I’m a fast runner,” Val said. “I’ll lead them away, and you two can get the family out,” she said, starting to get up.

  I grabbed her arm. “No!” I said.

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures, little brother,” she said.

  “Maybe, but not stupid ones,” I scolded. “There’s gotta be another way to distract…” Just then, an idea struck me. “The bells!” I said, recalling the high tower of the church.

  “Huh?” Kate asked.

  “If I can get to that bell tower and ring those bells, it’ll surely distract them away from the RV—or at least a good portion of them.”

  “Right!” Val screamed. “Dinner bells!”

  “They’ll surround that church in no time!” Kate said.

  “That’s the point,” I said.

  “But what about you, Dean?” Val asked. “You’ll be trapped.”

  I glanced up and saw that the buildings were pretty close together. “I’ll just hop to the next roof.”

  Kate studied the buildings. “I don’t like it.”

  “I can do it,” I said. “It’s just a short jump.”

  “I’m sure you can, Spider-Man, but the thing is, you’ve got no idea what might be waiting for you in that dark church,” Kate said. “I’m pretty sure zombies have no problem killing on sacred ground, and holy water and crucifixes only work on vampires.”

  “That’s why he’ll need us,” Val said.

  I nodded and looked up at Kate. “Well? You in or out?”

  She blinked. “I’m in,” she said, with a bit of hesitation in her voice that didn’t escape me.

  Without another minute to spare, we bolted to the church.

  I could hear the lady screaming for us to come back, begging us not to desert them, but I had to tune out her cries if I was going to rescue her and her family. We had no time to explain our plan to her.

  Kate gripped the brass door handles of the church and tried to force them open. “They’re locked!”

  We had an axe, but time wasn’t on our side, and every precious second counted. Val and I tried other entrances, to no avail. If that little girl makes one peep… I thought. As panic struck me like a lightning storm, I scanned the structure, looking for a way in. A broken window on the second floor caught my attention as sweat dripped from my brow. “Look!”

  “If we climb that tree, we can reach it,” Val said.

  I raced over to the towering tree and looked up it, trying to figure out how I could climb it while still holding on to my bat; I knew going into the church without a weapon would be suicide, since we had no idea what might be waiting inside. I stuffed the bat in my waistband and clambered up the tree, branch by branch.

  I kicked out the rest of the window, shattering glass but allowing daylight to pour in, giving us some visibility. I carefully slid in through the jagged window frame and stepped inside, crunching glass beneath my boot. Alert for signs of danger, I listened intently. More droplets of sweat rolled down my face, and silence filled the air. I was sure there was no way the zombies could have broken in with the doors locked, and the windows didn’t seem to be broken anywhere else; what I didn’t know was whether or not anyone trapped inside might have turned when the place was locked up.

  Val and Kate came in the window behind me, and Val held her axe high in the air.

  “We’re all clear,” I told them.

  We all walked around the room and looked for a way to get up to the bell tower. So many lives depended on us, including our own, and my heart began to race at the thought. I hurried down the corridor and into another large room. It was harder to see in there because of the stained-glass windows.

  “Where’s the door leading up to the belfry?” Kate asked.

  Val pointed. “There!”

  We scrambled up the stairwell, each of us gripping our makeshift weapons tightly. At the top of the stairway, I pushed the squeaky door open and immediately began to scan our new surroundings. “Looks clear,” I said, glancing high up into the tower; I knew what I was looking at because my dad had been a bell ringer, and he often took me with him when he rang our church bells three times a day. I wouldn’t have to climb any further, because a long, white rope hung to the ground, tied to a lever on the axle. Please let this work! I pulled the rope hard, then released it, listening for the chiming sound.

  Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!

  The rope hurtled upward, then jerked back down abruptly. The bell swung from side to side, and I repeated the process again, ringing the bell like a madman. My ears throbbed immediately. It was loud, even louder than being at a rock concert. I glanced down at the multitude of infected shuffling in my direction, and I smiled. Our plan was working like a charm.

  “They’re coming our way!” Kate said. “Keep ringing the dinner bell!”

  Val said. “When they get closer, we can hop to the next building.”

  A few minutes passed, and I kept right on ringing, summoning the flesh-munchers to us and away from the trapped family’s trailer.

  “That’s enough. Let’s go!” Val said.

  That was our cue to leave, but as the clanging fell silent, something pounded on the door. We all looked at each other, stunned. We knew it couldn’t be regular humans, because they would have easily been able to open the door.

  “What’s that?” Kate asked in a panic. “They couldn’t have gotten in the church. It was all locked up down there.”

  “They were probably trapped in the church, just like I was afraid of. The bells lured them up here.” I peered ar
ound and quickly spotted the best roof for our emergency exit. “C’mon!” I yelled.

  Wood cracked and splintered as zombies broke through. They stumbled forward, reaching and grasping for us, their dead eyes fixated on me. We bolted and raced to the edge, and just as they reached for us one last time, I jumped to the other building, with Val and Kate right behind me, and we quickly made our way down.

  As we walked down the street, the RV pulled up beside us, and the driver poked his head out. “Thank you so much,” he said, voice trembling. “You kids saved our lives. We didn’t even know Leah was under the trailer. My heart dropped when she scurried from underneath screaming when the zombies left. How can we possibly repay you?”

  “Well, we could use some weapons,” Kate said. “Got any guns?”

  The man shook his head. “I’m so sorry. We have one, but we’re all out of ammo.” He let out a breath. “Where are you heading?”

  “To the pharmacy, just down there,” Kate said. “Think you can give us a lift?”

  “Get in,” the blonde said from the passenger seat, peeking around behind her husband.

  The doors slid open, and we hopped inside.

  I extended my hand to the woman and grabbed hers tightly for a shake. “I’m Dean.”

  “Mary,” she said, smiling at me. “And let me introduce you to the rest of my family. My husband is George, and this is Leah, Marcus, Jessica…”

  I couldn’t believe there were eight kids, and each and every one of them made sure to thank me. I was especially touched when Leah, the littlest girl with the teddy bear, gave Val, Kate, and me a big hug and told us, “You guys is my heroes.”

  Tears streamed down Mary’s cheeks as she gazed into my eyes. “You saved our lives. Thank you.” She embraced me and sobbed into my chest.