Six Feet From Hell: Books 1 - 3

by Coley, Joseph

  “To be quite honest, I don’t remember.”

  “Well take the night off, then. Curtis and I will take this shift and we will worry about getting someone else if we get tired. We can sleep in the Humvee if this storm doesn’t let up soon,” Chris said, joining the men in the terminal. “We have some more work to do tomorrow. Jamie and I had an idea about getting the SINCGARS radio up in the tower tomorrow and seeing about getting some kind of power goin’ too.” Chris patted Joe on the back. “Don’t worry, we will have plenty to do tomorrow too,” he said with a grin.

  Joe tried to hide his anticipation of getting some quality sleep, but he did so poorly. He grinned in spite of himself, thanked the men, and went off to grab a sleeping bag and pillow from the stack of sleeping bags (how Balboa managed to squeeze in as much stuff as he did was unreal) and a cheap airline pillow from behind the counter. Joe dragged himself off to another one of the abandoned offices that was unoccupied after doing a quick glance of his two slumbering patients. The man was still unconscious, but seemed to be sleeping a little more relaxed. The woman did not seem to be making any improvement, but it was still too early to tell if the antibiotics were going to make a huge difference. He would check on them again in the morning.

  Joe continued his lackadaisical state as he moved about the terminal, having a difficult time moving about due to the lack of light indoors. The only light that came in was from the still-flashing lightning from outside. The wind howled and threw up dirt and other debris against the aluminum-sided building, pinging the structure regularly. Through the flashes of lightning Joe could see Rickey sleeping curled up against Buffey as she slept soundly. Joe’s mind began racing again, another one of the difficulties he had in sleeping. A thousand ideas and worries flew at Mach one through his mind in the average day and now that the civilized world had come to a screeching halt he had more and more thoughts stacked on one another. Even if he was to the point of exhaustion it was difficult for his thoughts to slow down enough to carry him off into any kind of relaxed state. He needed to come to terms with the fact that she was having difficulties coming to terms with the way life was now, and shedding some worry off on him did not seem like the adequate way to make life any easier, but whatever she needed to do, he would try to carry on. He would still take care of everyone to the best of his ability, no matter what.

  Joe felt his legs and eyelids getting heavy as he walked into the abandoned office that would be his bedroom. By the time he rolled out the sleeping bag and tossed the pillow down, he barely had time to unlace his boots before he felt the exhaustion completely settle in. More lightning flashed. He laid his head down, boots still on, and closed his eyes. He was asleep by the time the thunder rumbled in behind of it.

  CHAPTER 9

  The person that she once was had left. The pain of turning dissipated into a complete numbness that she would never feel. The toxin that was in the air now swam and multiplied throughout her body as the unidentifiable cocktail of viruses that were in her body split and took over in a matter of a few minutes. She soon had no recollection of her former life, no reasoning ability beyond her urge to spread the infection by any means necessary. The virus that had already been in her body was reactivated by the toxin that the Earth had released. Little to the rest of humanity’s knowledge, there had been many other instances of the gas that had seeped up through the ground invisibly. There were many other occurrences of the dead returning to life; Roanoke Island, the Alamo, and certain aspects even of the American Revolution, Civil War, the first Gulf War, and the Spanish Flu of 1917 were merely preludes to what had become a large-scale pandemic now.

  The world had nearly ended in 1917 when a small group of British Tommies was taken over by the toxin as it seeped out of the ground when they dug a little too deep for a trench line in World War I. There was no exact cure for it then, and doctors scrambled to come up with a treatment or cure as it ran through the military ranks in Europe during the Great War. The “Spanish Flu” as it became known as (after and intense military cover-up) spread worse that the Hun did during WWI, killing more soldiers than the fighting itself.

  The zombie’s limited vision, made worse by early stage cataracts, could not see through the total blackness of the night. Only when the lightning flashed did it see anything at all and then only in short bursts, coordinated with the lightning. The low boom of thunder attracted it’s attention away from the flash, it’s hearing acutely aware of the world around it. Sounds made it more acutely aware than sight did. It sniffed the air quickly, like a Doberman on the prowl, and started moving. It moved slowly at first, the rigor mortis loosening as it did, and began sensing it’s way around.

  The first thing it stumbled over was the man lying next to where she had just risen. No familiarity was present in her nominal thought capacity, only the need to attack and speed up the virus’ process of going through the body that much faster. It immediately pounced on the unsuspecting sleeping man, going for the only exposed spot it could find – the face. It grabbed for whatever it could and clamped down with it’s still-healthy teeth, the active virus escaping from it’s saliva and entering straight into the bloodstream of the poor individual that had once been the zombie’s husband. The man left out a strangled yell and tried to remove his former wife from his face, to no avail. He was still too weak from the illness that had plagued his body before the virus that reanimated it came back to life. The virus, like the zombie that carried it, had been brought back to life itself by the release of the as-yet-unidentified gas that had been buried deep below. It simply needed the gas to act as catalysts to activate the long-dormant virus inherit in everyone.

  The zombie’s husband continued his flailing and desperately trying to get the zombie off him, but after a short thirty seconds or so, the zombie defeated it’s target. The man laid there as the zombie continued munching on the man as the virus coursed through his body. After another two minutes of gnawing, what now remained of the man got up as one of the undead. It felt the same as his zombie counterpart, who upon noticing that he was reanimated, abruptly stopped trying to spread the virus. Both zombies got up and made their way through the terminal. Through their limited vision, they saw next to nothing, but they sensed that more victims for them lay somewhere near. The next two people they saw were Rodger and JoAnn, sleeping not ten feet from where their former selves were. Both zombies quickly pounced on their intended targets, biting arms, hands, legs, faces and anything else they could get their hands on. The choked sounds of panic and struggle woke some of the others in the terminal as well. Chris shot up out of his recent sleep; he had only been dozed off for an hour or so. He grabbed his M4 from beside him, switching the light on immediately, and scanning the room for the source of the strangled sounds that had awoke him. The grunting of the two zombies that were recently Rodger and JoAnn signaled that there was trouble.

  Big trouble.

  Chris aimed the light until it shone on the sound that he heard. The first one he noticed was JoAnn, her neck ripped nearly in half, as if a giant mouth had taken a nearly perfect crescent shape out of the side of it. The muscles, tendons, and bone glistened with the blood that oozed from the wound as Chris was momentarily mesmerized by the sight. He had killed his fair share of zombies, but this was the first one that he actually knew anything about. He had not spoken much to JoAnn, but it was a familiar face nonetheless. He raised the M4 to his shoulder, aimed, and fired two shots into her head and another two quick shots into Rodger’s, which was effective in waking up everyone else in the airport. Jamie and Ashleigh bolted into the room first, followed by the rest of the troupe in quick succession. Chris quickly went over to

  Chris lowered the M4 slightly, took his eye off the sights, and scanned around the room. “We got zombies in the terminal! Get everyone up and do a head count!”

  Jamie bolted out of the room to get his M4 and was met by Buffey. “Get everyone up and in here, pronto!’

  “What the hell is going on? Where is Rick
ey?” Buffey yelled as she grabbed Jamie by the wrist.

  “I'm right here, mom. What is goin’ on?” Rickey said, entering the room behind her.

  Joe was the last to wake from his slumber. He groggily got around and heard the commotion as everyone was moving about in the late hours of the night. He stumbled over his unlaced boots, grabbed his AR-15, and switched the light on. He darted out into the terminal with the rest of the group and met them as everyone was being awakened. The wind whipped about harder than it had before Joe had fallen asleep. The building flexed and bowed as it was swayed by the intense wind outside. The combination of sounds and the occasional flash of lightning were very disorienting to him. He quickly ran into the terminal to find Chris and Jamie searching around the room.

  “What is it? Who was shooting?”

  “We got zombies in here! I don’t know how but I got one already, so start searching around to see if there are any more!” Chris shouted as he darted around with the M4’s light.

  “Will do! Jamie, Curtis, on me! The rest of you get into the office and lock the door! Do not come out until we come and get you! Chris, stay with ‘em and keep ‘em safe!” Joe said as he waved Curtis and Jamie towards him. The three men each had their rifles at the ready. “We will clear from the offices to here, and then hit up the other end and the snack bar. Stay close and don’t stray away, you might get mistaken and get shot.” Each man nodded silently, Joe did not need to see their faces to know that they understood exactly what they needed to do. Joe referred back to his training in the Army; room clearing was always his favorite thing to do in training. The only difference now was that he did not have the luxury of entering the building first; he was already in it and was going to have to backtrack to make sure that they hit up all of the rooms without doing them in any particular order. He stalked forward with his AR-15 raised and led Chris and the others into the small office where he had been sleeping. After a quick glance around with his rifle, he ushered them in as Jamie and Curtis stood on guard for some of the other zombies that may or may not be in the building with them.

  “Keep’em in here until we get done and get everybody’s head down. The last thing I want is to accidentally shoot through these thin-ass walls and hit somebody.”

  “Alright, you guys be careful. Amos and I got this, don’t worry,” Chris said and offered Joe a fist-bump, to which Joe obliged. His nerves were still rattled form his unexpected wakeup, but having Chris and Amos watch his back was a little bit more reassuring. Joe swept out of the room, his rifle at his shoulder, with Curtis and Jamie in tow.

  Joe led the way through the main room of the terminal, the bodies of JoAnn and Rodger lay on the ground, blood pouring from excellently placed headshots from Chris. Joe sighed and shook his head. He did not know Rodger or JoAnn that well, but he did not like losing any more people than he had to. There was no easy way to deal with death, but after a career of working in emergency services, it became easier and Joe became more desensitized to death and dying. Joe shook of his musings and continued through the airport. There was no way to pinpoint sounds in the room, as the wind was still whipping about outside. His eyes darted back and forth as his light did, scanning every corner of the room, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

  “Hey, check this out,” Jamie said from behind him. “Did either of ya’ll happen to see if the two sick people were in the office with the rest of ‘em?”

  Jamie’s light was shining behind the counter where the two sick people had laid. Both of the areas that they slept in were empty and the closer area was soaked in blood and sinew, evidence of an attack.

  “Shit, so there is at least two of ‘em. JoAnn and Rodger just happened to be the first that they came to,” Joe observed.

  “Poor bastards. They probably never even woke up,” Curtis quipped.

  Joe looked to his right and into the office where their supposed immune woman was. He had not learned her name yet and never would. The woman had obviously turned at some point in the night, the infection taking her over finally. Whatever immunity she had was apparently not enough as she joined the ranks of the undead with everyone else. The once beautiful woman was now replaced by a drooling, spitting, generally pissed off creature that was pounding at the window of the office, desperate to get out. Joe did not hesitate raising his rifle to the infected woman. Placing the crosshairs of his ACOG directly on the woman’s skull and fired. The pounding immediately ceased and the glass exploded inward, followed by a large whump as the twice-dead woman fell harmlessly to the floor. After he was sure the zombie was not going to get back up, Joe turned back to his right and looked around.

  Joe shook the end of his rifle out in front of him to signal Curtis and Jamie to move forward. Joe stepped over the bodies of Rodger and JoAnn, moving forward ever so slowly and scanning the area as he did. The weather was getting worse outside, as evidenced by the wind that was getting stronger. Rain came down in sheets, and as Joe glanced outside as he scanned, he could see that it was blowing in nearly sideways. Paper, trash, and other debris flew by the windows as not even the undead dared to come out from wherever they may be hiding or lost in to brave the winds.

  They continued forward with Joe in the lead, flanked by Curtis on his left and Jamie on his right. Joe strained to hear anything other than the howling wind outside. The low guttural sound that answered the wind gave notice to another zombie somewhere nearby. Joe stopped, as did Curtis and Jamie as they too heard the sound.

  “Guys, over here I think,” Jamie said, moving towards the sound off to his right. Jamie took the lead and came around a corner to his right. There was a floor-to-ceiling partition that cut off most of the wall, an opening that was just wide enough for all three men to go through. To Jamie’s far right was the glass front of the terminal, and through the partition was the snack bar. It seemed like an odd name for the room, as it was being snacked in, by the undead.

  Jamie came around the wall first and saw Eric being eaten by the unnamed elderly man. The man had attacked Eric much like he had taken Rodger and JoAnn – while they slept. Eric was laid out on his back with his intestines strewn out of his abdomen. Eric had not yet reanimated because, much to the three men’s horror, he was still alive. Jamie winced as the light fell on the elderly man still tearing away at Eric’s entrails. The elderly woman was at Eric’s left arm, gnawing away at it, down to the bleach-white bone. Jamie aimed his AR-15 at the woman as Joe aimed his at the man. Both fired nearly simultaneously at the heads of their respective targets exploded against another flash of lightning, creating a macabre flash of blue and red. The remains of both zombies fell limp on the linoleum floor. Joe stepped in front of Jamie and Curtis, raised his rifle once more to Eric’s head, and paused. The young man had been eviscerated and was somehow still alive. His eyes looked to Joe and met. He mouthed two words that would stick with Joe for a long time.

  Thank you.

  Joe mercifully pulled the trigger, ending his suffering and once again adding more to his own. Joe let out a painful sigh of relief. They had covered the terminal to the best of their ability so far, and were greeted with a small speck of light on the horizon. The wind still whipped around violently as the storm had progressed from bad to worse. Joe, Curtis, and Jamie walked back through the terminal, clearing out the remaining offices and the rest of the snack bar, and then made their way back to the main office where they had left the rest of the group to hide. Chris stepped forward as they approached.

  “Looks like our head count is missing a few. We have all of our people minus one,” Chris turned to address Curtis. “But it looks like we are several short on your people Curtis. I’m sorry.”

  Curtis looked somberly to Chris. “Don’t worry, brother. I think we can account for all of ‘em unfortunately. The only one I didn't see was Brittany.”

  Chris frowned. “Well that’s funny cause we are missing Lucy as well,” Chris turned to Joe. “Looks like you might have been wrong about that bitch. You should have just let
me or Buffey shoot her ass when we had the chance.”

  It was another decision that Joe had made that he now regretted. Lucy would not have taken off with Brittany, would she? Joe pondered while Chris ushered everyone back out of the office. The faint light of the day grew ever so slowly as the storm, for the moment, let up and did not exactly let sunshine in, but slacked off enough to see the light of day. As horrible as the night was, they had work to do today, and they might as well start now.

  It was time to get some real help.

  CHAPTER 10

  Joe finished an official head count along with everyone’s name and kept it on the dry erase board that functioned as a makeshift menu for the snack bar. The limited resources of the bar had at least enough facilities to make a good sandwich or bowl of soup and salad, but not much else. Joe brought the dry erase board and hung it on an unused peg, the marker dangling down from it. Most everyone was filing into the snack bar for something akin to breakfast. Balboa had managed to get several boxes of MRE’s (again, no one knew how he could fit so much stuff into such a small space) and passed them out, one per person. The regular MRE had between 2,000 – 3,000 calories, more than enough to power them through the day’s activities. Joe stood in front of the board as everyone ate and tried to give some reassurance to his people. No one spoke as they tore into their respective meals. Joe cleared his throat and got everyone’s attention.

  “I put up this board so we can track and make sure everyone is accounted for. No matter what you're doing, write it down on here,” Joe said, gesturing to the board. “It will be your own responsibility to put your activity beside your name. We are going to lock this place down and fortify it if we can find the necessary tools to do it with. So what I need everyone to do today is pair up and start looking around for anything useful. There is a hangar with something in there that I'm sure we can use, so let’s find out. For that job, I would really like three people on. I need two people here in the terminal to get our supplies in order; stock up the food in the kitchen, put TP in the bathroom, that kind of thing. The rest will be with myself and Curtis taking care of something that I think is of the utmost importance, which is making some kind of communication with the Coast Guard or Navy.”