Just Another Day in the Zombie Apocalypse (Episode 6)

by L. C. Mortimer

  He wondered if this was the same creature that Kyle had talked about, if this was the same monster that had been watching his friend.

  If it was, no wonder Kyle had been so damn scared. The thing was fucking terrifying. It was tall and skinny. Its cheekbones were hollow and its lips were black. Even from across the lake, Mark could tell that this wasn’t an ordinary zombie.

  Mark could tell this one was different.

  And Mark knew he was in over his head.

  Chapter 11

  “There’s a problem,” Mark said.

  “Yeah, you’re not wearing any fucking pants,” Kyle turned away when his friend stepped into the lodge. “And you’re dripping everywhere. Seriously. Didn’t you bring a towel for your bath?”

  “No, Kyle. There’s a problem.” Something was different about Mark’s voice this time when he spoke. Something was strained. Kyle jerked his head around and this time, he saw something he didn’t like, something he didn’t know what to do with.

  Yeah, Mark was naked, but he was shaking.

  Big, powerful, tough-as-nails Mark was shaking.

  “Holy fuck,” Kyle said. “What the fuck happened?” Mark wrapped his arms around himself and Kyle hurried to grab a blanket from the couch. Luckily, Torrance had been reading earlier and left her quilt on the couch. Now, Kyle offered it to Mark, who wrapped it around himself.

  Instead of talking, Mark’s eyes glazed over. Kyle pulled him the rest of the way into the lodge and peeked outside.

  Had someone come?

  Had someone found them?

  He didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anyone.

  He stepped back inside and closed the door. Mark had managed to move to the couch and was sitting there.

  “Alice!” Kyle called out. She was somewhere in the lodge. She was probably off reading or working on a project with Torrance. Kyle wasn’t sure. Still, his voice echoed throughout the huge space. “Bring me a blanket!”

  He didn’t say “please.”

  He wasn’t being polite.

  Right now, though, it didn’t matter.

  Something was the matter with Mark and Kyle had a sinking feeling in the pit of his gut that it was something bad.

  “Alice!” He called again. Where the hell was she? Kyle went around to Mark and knelt on the floor in front of his. Mark’s eyes had glazed over and he had a far-away look in his eyes.

  What the actual fuck?

  Mark, who had survived losing his friends in battle, was freaking out.

  Mark, who had been through one hell of a divorce, was completely losing his shit.

  What the hell could it be?

  “Alice!” This time, Kyle heard her barreling down the hallway upstairs and darting down the stairs.

  “What?” She asked. “What’s so important you had to scream for me across the whole lodge?”

  Kyle didn’t answer. He just waited for her to get close, waited for her to see what he was looking at, and that was all it took. She saw Mark when she got over to Kyle, and she dropped to her knees, too.

  “Mark? Baby? What happened?” She asked. Kyle ignored her pet nickname. He didn’t want to think about her and Mark hooking up, though to be fair, it was inevitable. They had always had a chemistry between them. It just took the zombie apocalypse for the two of them to finally admit it.

  “He hasn’t said anything,” Kyle said. He heard a noise at the top of the stairs and tore his eyes away from Mark to see Torrance gingerly making her way down to the first floor.

  Good.

  They were all in this together. When Mark finally decided to speak, he wanted to be ready.

  “Alice, go make sure the back door is closed and locked,” he said. “And bring me back the .38 special.”

  She didn’t ask questions, and that said something about how she’d changed. Before, Alice would have rolled her eyes when Kyle tried to give her an order. Alice had grown, though. They all had. They’d all matured in different ways and they’d all figured out that if they wanted to get out of this mess alive, they’d do whatever it took.

  That meant standing up when they wanted to be lying down.

  That meant sucking it up when they were scared.

  Alice would be right back. Kyle knew without a doubt she’d do exactly what he needed her to because they were a team. They were a team and they were a family and they weren’t going to let each other down.

  And they weren’t going to let anything happen to Mark.

  Kyle turned back to his friend. He placed his hands on Mark’s knees. The touch was intimate, even for friends, but something told him that Mark needed physical contact right now to jerk him back to reality.

  “Mark,” he said firmly. “Look at me.”

  This time, Mark’s eyes met Kyle’s.

  That was good.

  This was progress.

  A minute ago, Mark had completely flipped out. He had gone catatonic. Now, he was at least responding to basic words, phrases, and questions. Kyle was encouraged. He would keep trying.

  “Mark,” he said again. “What happened at the lake?”

  This time, there was nothing. No response. Mark just kept looking at him.

  “You went to take a bath,” Kyle pressed. “You went to get clean, to wash your body. Did something touch you? Mark, did something bite you?”

  Mark didn’t move, and Kyle’s heart plummeted. What the fuck was happening with Mark? Why couldn’t he snap out of it? Had he gone into shock? Was the stress finally overtaking him?

  What was happening?

  Alice came back and pressed the .38 into Kyle’s hands, then she gently pushed him aside. She took Kyle’s place in front of Mark and Kyle didn’t protest or argue.

  “Baby,” Alice took Mark’s hands, and Mark looked at her.

  He really, really looked at her.

  Maybe Alice would be able to get through to Mark where Kyle had failed. Maybe Alice would be able to break past Mark’s barriers because she was closer to him, knew him more personally.

  She was more intimate with him.

  “Mark, what happened outside?”

  This time, Mark spoke, but Kyle almost wished he hadn’t. Kyle almost wished Mark had kept quiet, that they kept wondering what his secret was because the words that tumbled out of Mark’s mouth terrified Kyle.

  They chilled him to the bone.

  “It’s here,” Mark said. “The watcher is here.”

  Chapter 12

  As a girl, Torrance loved running through the forests of Raven. She would pretend she was a pirate trying to find buried treasure or a princess trying to save a knight in peril. Her imagination could run wild in the woods and her heart could be free.

  She could be herself in the forest.

  She could just be her.

  Every so often, she’d hear a noise that was foreign to her and she’d stop to listen. Could it be real pirates coming to take her away? Could it be a real knight who wasn’t in danger, but who wanted to hurt her?

  She ran wild, but she was also cautious. She stopped when she heard something new, something that didn’t quite make sense. She stopped when something made her uncomfortable. She knew when to press her luck and she knew when she needed to pay better attention to the world around her.

  Torrance wasn’t dumb.

  Anytime Torrance heard a strange, new sound, she’d stop and try to find the source of the sound. Despite her wild imagination, there was always a logical explanation for the noises she heard.

  Sometimes it would be a bird building a nest.

  Sometimes it would be a squirrel hiding its nuts.

  Sometimes it would be a snake slithering through the leaves.

  After awhile, Torrance stopped investigating new sounds. She was allowed to go play outside after school and no one checked on her, so she’d head into the woods to pretend and to explore.

  Then one day, she heard a sound she hadn’t heard before.

  She heard a sound that was different.

  A
t first, she didn’t go check it out. It was probably just a bird, she reckoned, probably just something silly that had an easy explanation, but then she heard a muffled scream, and she realized it was not, by any stretch of the imagination, just a bird.

  Torrance crept toward the sound.

  She played in the forest so often she was able to move without making a sound. She could carefully avoid the fallen leaves and when she couldn’t, her step was so light it didn’t make a sound. Torrance moved silently until she reached a large tree that would shelter her from view, and then she peeked around.

  She bit her lip when she saw it, bit her lip when she saw what had just happened in the forests of Raven.

  A man stood in a clearing she’d played in many times before. It was Mr. Fischer. He ran the butcher shop in town, but he wasn’t butchering a pig or a cow today. He was butchering his daughter, Millicent.

  “Should’ve listened to your old man,” he was muttering. “Shouldn’t have been creeping around with those boys, shouldn’t have been smoking that dope.”

  Millicent was bleeding, and Torrance almost screamed. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t. She should have. She’d never seen anything like that before. Mr. Fischer stood over his daughter, who was lying on the ground.

  Millicent’s hands were bound behind her and there was something dark in her mouth. It was a towel, Torrance thought, or maybe a rag.

  “Should’ve listened,” he said again. Millicent was wiggling on the ground, trying to get away. Her shirt was red with blood and Mr. Fischer was holding a knife. He’d stabbed his daughter. Torrance could see it. He’d stabbed her and he was going to do it again.

  She knew exactly what was going to happen.

  Torrance knew, in that moment, that her life would never be the same again.

  She knew, in that moment, that her life was on the line.

  She couldn’t scream because if she did, Mr. Fischer would come after her, too. Torrance was fast, but the butcher was stronger and bigger than her. If Torrance twisted her ankle or slipped or fell, she’d be dead. He’d kill her just like he was about to kill Millicent.

  Torrance tried to close her eyes.

  She tried to look away.

  She tried to do anything but watch the butcher slaughter his daughter.

  Only in that moment, Torrance was bound, fated to see what was going to happen.

  Millicent shook her head desperately as Mr. Fischer approached her one last time, but it was no use. He’d made up his mind. He knew what he was going to do, knew what he’d come to the forest to do, and he did it.

  Then he dropped the knife and he left.

  Torrance stood behind the tree for a long time after Mr. Fischer had gone. She waited until she could no longer hear his footsteps, waited until she was sure he wasn’t coming back. She waited until the sun had started to set and she was sure her mother would begin to worry, and then Torrance went out from behind the tree and went home.

  She never played in the forest again after that.

  She should have told someone, but she didn’t. She was just a kid, and Mr. Fischer was a well-respected man in the community. He pretended to worry and mourn when his daughter was pronounced missing and when the community members of Raven decided to set up a search party, he was the first one there.

  No one ever figured out that it was Mr. Fischer who had killed his daughter.

  Torrance thought they should have known, thought the cops should have figured out what had happened, but they never did.

  Hooligans, the police had said.

  A murderer from another town.

  A drug deal gone wrong.

  There were a million excuses and they were all lies.

  When Torrance heard the words drip from Mark’s lips about the watcher, she thought of Mr. Fischer for the first time in a very long time, and she remembered why she fucking hated the woods of Raven.

  She remembered why she hated the forest.

  She remembered why she didn’t like walking around during the daylight, much less the darkness.

  She remembered why she carried so much anger inside of her.

  The watcher had found them.

  She wasn’t sure how it had figured out their hiding spot. She wasn’t sure how it had located their lodge. She wasn’t sure of anything except that the time had come to stand up for her new family.

  Torrance wasn’t about to go down without a fight.

  Not this time.

  Not ever again.

  Find out what happens next in Just Another Day in the Zombie Apocalypse, Episode 7! Get updated on release day by joining L.C.’s mailing list or following her on Facebook.

  About the Author

  L.C. Mortimer lives in Taiwan with her husband and two kids. When she’s not writing zombie stories, she’s playing zombie video games, which are almost as fun. Her current favorite is 7 Days to Die.

  More from L.C.

  Want more L.C.?

  Check her out on Facebook at facebook.com/authorlcmortimer.

  You can also find more of her books on Amazon or join her mailing list.

  The Haunting of a Ghost

  Coming soon from L.C. Mortimer

  There is a ghost in Dane’s house.

  It likes Doritos and Sprite and loud music.

  Dane and his ghost get along just fine until Dane buys a strange music box at an auction and brings it home.

  When his ghost starts complaining about being haunted, it’s time to take matters into his own hands.

  Coming May 14th, 2017.

  Pre-order your copy here.

  Lost in the Apocalypse

  Want more zombies? Please enjoy the first few chapters of Lost in the Apocalypse by L.C. Mortimer.

  Prologue

  Staff Sergeant Neil Swift stared at the stopwatch in his hand and frowned. He hated running PT. Hated it. Physical training was an important part of military service, but he hated it just the same. Thompson had finished running and was standing off to the side, drinking water. Baker and Allen were still making their way slowly – too slowly – around the track.

  “Pick up the pace,” he called out. “Let’s go.” He frowned. He was supposed to be the one pushing them to do better. If they failed their tests, they’d be the one to suffer the consequences, but he’d still get his ass handed to him.

  This was already a makeup test. None of them had made it to their originally scheduled test the week prior. Now Neil was stuck, sitting around, counting pushups for people who could barely meet the minimum requirements for staying in the Air Force.

  Airman Allen slowly made his way around the track. Allen, who was at least 15 pounds overweight, but somehow still managed to pass his waist measurement every time. Neil glared at the pudgy airman. Allen was nice enough, but he was slow and lazy.

  Neil just wanted to go home, shower, and have a cup of coffee before he went to the office. Oh, he’d spend his day doing paperwork, but it was better than being out in the blistering heat timing runs and counting pushups.

  “Sorry we’re late.” Neil turned at the sound of voices. Two airmen ran up to him: one male, one female. They were both in PT gear, complete with their reflective belts, so he wouldn’t bitch too much, but they were at least half an hour late.

  “Where were you?” He asked, giving them weary looks. He knew them both, but only barely. The male, Airman Peterson, was a strong runner and a hard worker. The female, Airman Albert, had her hair pulled back in a half-assed ponytail. Her makeup wasn’t within regs, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to go home: not complain about her heavy eyeliner.

  “Medical,” Peterson said, slapping the tiny bandage on his shoulder. “Had to get my vaccine this morning.”

  “I had to drive him,” Albert added helpfully. The look they exchanged told Neil that she didn’t have to drive him, but rather, he had slept over the night prior and didn’t have his car with him.

  It was a bit early for their yearly required flu shot, but there was a new recomme
nded vaccine out that everyone was getting: Artovax. It was supposed to be a two-in-one AIDS and flu shot vaccine.

  Neil was skeptical, but rolled his eyes. He was scheduled to get his after lunch. He glanced at his watch again. It was already 0900. He was supposed to be at the office in ten minutes. Apparently, that paperwork was going to have to wait.

  Baker and Allen both made it back and picked up their water bottles while Albert and Peterson took off around the track. It was a tiny track overall, but a few laps got the job done. With military budget cuts every year, the base couldn’t afford something nicer. They didn’t need it, though. The track worked well enough.

  Neil squinted against the rising sun as he watched his airmen run. The only sounds were the chugging of water and the slapping of rubber against pavement.

  Run. Run. Run.

  The airmen maintained the same pace during their first lap but broke off during the second. Peterson began to fall behind, much to Neil’s surprise. He was usually ahead of the others. Neil watched as Peterson began to slow, then stopped altogether on the opposite side of the track.

  Albert slowed and looked over her shoulder, but didn’t stop. She ran another lap. When she reached Peterson, she stopped and said something to him, then glanced over at Neil.

  “What’s the problem?” He shouted across the track. Suddenly Peterson lay down on his stomach. Was he seriously getting sick from the run? He had barely even started to run. Maybe he was coming down with something. Fuck. Maybe he was a diabetic.

  “Somebody’s hung over,” Thompson said in a sing-song voice. He finished his water and headed to his car. “I’m out,” he said over his shoulder, and drove away.

  “What’s wrong?” Neil yelled again. Peterson still wasn’t up.