Ultimate Undead Collection: The Zombie Apocalypse Best Sellers Boxed Set (10 Books)

by Joe McKinney

  The skinny, younger boy spoke first. “When Mom came home from graveyard shift at the hospital she started fighting with Daddy. They fight a lot but this was the worst ever. We usually just get out of their way until they chill.”

  “I hustled Ike up into the tree house. We thought we’d wait until they calmed down,” the older of the two added. “Things got real quiet for a while and then we decided to go back into the house. I opened the screen door and it squeaked like it always does. The next thing I see is those,” he said while pointing at his dead parents.

  Cade told the two boys what he had learned, “It’s all over the news. A virus or something is making people die and then come back to life or un-death, or whatever; they only want to eat. You, me, your dog... anything living... they don’t discriminate. They don’t even recognize family.”

  “We were wondering why they kept circling the tree and wouldn’t answer us. I was tripping because Dad was all bloody,” the older boy said, wincing as he again looked at the dead bodies. The brothers, eyes tearing, embraced each other and cried.

  Cade gave them a moment, then got their attention to add one last important detail. “The people on the news are saying the only way to stop the infected if they attack you is by destroying their brain. Hit ‘em anywhere else and they just keep coming.”

  The whole exchange took just moments. Now undead were moaning all around them and it sounded as if they were drawing nearer.

  Cade holstered his pistol, secured the ice axe to the bike’s utility rack and quietly whispered to the two boys, “Follow me if you want to live.”

  The nerve wracking sounds coming from the large group of walkers, about a hundred yards away, were more than enough to convince the brothers to follow the stranger on the bike.

  Chapter 5

  Day 2 - Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

  A woman’s piercing scream came from downstairs. Sitting bolt upright, it took a minute for Brook to remember where she was. The clock read 8:37 A.M. Raven had shared the queen-sized bed with her. She was eleven now, but still a little small for her age. Being a heavy sleeper, she was slower to wake from the commotion downstairs in the kitchen.

  Brook kept quiet, fearing an intruder had entered the house and attacked her mom. She stared at her daughter as she awoke with a start. She kept Raven quiet with a serious glare and a vertical finger to her lips. Stillness pervaded the house. She strained to hear anything more. Brook thought, Dad must still be in bed, how could anyone sleep through that?

  *****

  Brook’s dad was an emergency room physician at Grand Strand Regional Hospital. Yesterday evening about 9:00 P.M. he was bitten by a patient. The feverish, hallucinating man bit him as he was leaning over, probing with his stethoscope to listen to his heart. As the orderlies tried to restrain the combative dying man, the hospital’s first confirmed pandemic victim also bit one of them.

  Before her dad came home, one of the other ER doctors cleaned the bite wound, bandaged him up and administered a shot of antibiotics. He had gone to bed before everyone else the previous night. He had cramps and was burning up with a high fever. The superficial bite wound on his abdomen was the least of his worries; he had a strong suspicion he was sick with the new flu pandemic. The man that had bitten him had shown identical symptoms to the ones he was suffering from. Keeping his distance just in case, he had said, “See you in the morning. I love you Brook and my little bird, Raven.”

  *****

  The noises resumed downstairs. To Brook it sounded like someone was moving furniture around. She silently ushered her daughter into the adjoining bathroom and gingerly pulled the door shut.

  On stocking feet, she crept along the upstairs hall to the closed door of her dad’s study. He kept an antique Ithaca shotgun displayed in his office on the wall behind his desk.

  She found the closed office door unlocked. As she entered, the familiar smell of Dad’s personal quiet space greeted her: leather, tobacco and of course Old Spice aftershave. Happy memories of her childhood flooded her brain.

  Everything was where she remembered it, a black leather swivel chair behind his big wooden desk, and two maroon red overstuffed leather pub chairs, one in each corner by the door. All types of artifacts filled every nook and cranny. Above the bronze wild bronco statue and world globe was Dad’s prized over and under Ithaca shotgun. Its pale walnut stock gleamed and the light from the hall reflected in the ornate etchings on the blued metal.

  Cade had introduced her briefly to the basic workings of a firearm. They practiced a small amount of target shooting every time they went camping together.

  Brook retrieved the shotgun and opened the breech. As she suspected, it was unloaded. After quietly rummaging through a couple of drawers, she found some loose shells. Carefully, she loaded both chambers. Then she descended the steps slowly one at a time. Loaded shotgun in hand, she went to investigate the noises, pausing on the bottom step to listen.

  What she heard reminded her of a big dog greedily wolfing down wet canned dog food. Gun poised at the ready and safety off, she said, “Mom, Dad... is that you? I’ve got Dad’s shotgun, it’s loaded.”

  She thought, I’ve lost the advantage now if there is an intruder in the house.

  Just then a mournful, haunting moan came from the kitchen. The sound made her hair stand on end. She had an urge to flee but stood her ground between the kitchen and the dining room. Craning her head to the right, she could see the blood-splashed travertine tiles beyond the black granite island. It looked like a slaughterhouse floor. Making her way into the kitchen, she noticed that breakfast ingredients were on top of the island. Eggs were broken on the floor and a plastic gallon of milk rested on its side, most of the milk pooled on the floor.

  A strong coppery odor hung in the air, overpowering her mom’s potpourri. The sight, smell and volume of blood caused Brook to gag. She could see a foot twitching on the other side of the island. She willed herself to put one foot in front of the other and cautiously rounded the corner enough to see the backside of her dad, still in his pajamas, tending to her mom.

  Letting the barrel drop, she approached the scene frantically, calling out, “Dad, what happened to Mom? Did you call 911 yet?”

  He rose slowly, turning towards her. She expected to see pain and anguish. Instead she saw his pale, slack face, bloody teeth and expressionless glassy eyes staring her down.

  Leveling the gun without conscious thought at what used to be her father, Brook backpedaled. He came for her with a clumsy but determined, steady pace.

  She had a feeling someone was watching her. Brook glanced back towards the bottom of the stairway where Raven, eyes wide as saucers, watched the horrifying events unfold.

  Raven screamed “Grandpa!” as he neared the business end of his own shotgun.

  Returning her attention to the advancing ghoul, Brook made the split second decision that saved their lives. She aimed for center mass, just as Cade had taught her. Brook pulled the trigger. The boom was deafening in the small hallway and the buck of the big gun caused her to fall back; the barrel rose and the buckshot blasted the creature in the neck and underneath the chin. Jaw bone and teeth disintegrated and its head whipped backward, impacting between the shoulder blades before tearing free, falling and rolling out of sight under the table. For a brief moment her dad’s body trembled, and then with a slow motion tilting movement like a felled tree, the headless body smacked onto the tile floor like an unconscious boxer hitting the canvas.

  Brook rushed around the island. What she saw sickened her. There was barely enough of her mom’s neck left to feel for a pulse. Brook’s training as a nurse dictated she check anyway. Putting the shotgun aside, she checked a wrist and found no pulse.

  She fell to her knees next to her mom, crying uncontrollably. After allowing herself a moment of mourning Brook pulled herself together, grabbed the phone and called 911. She got a recording saying all circuits were busy. She tried repeatedly, never getting anything but the same recor
ding.

  Brook bolted from the house with her daughter in tow and together they went next door.

  Chapter 6

  Day 2 - Southeast Portland

  The boys were silent as they followed the man. All three were beginning to sweat. It was July, so in the midmorning sun it was already 75 degrees and probably would reach 85 by noon.

  Cade took a different route back to his house in case the dead had followed him. When the three were a block east of the house, they heard walkers well before they saw them. There were two: a female with a blood saturated cotton sundress pasted to her body, and a male minus most of his face. He wore a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer shirt, cargo shorts and only one flip flop which slapped the pavement as he walked.

  Cade thought, Probably a couple of Reed college students on summer break. Looks like school’s out forever.

  The three of them hunkered down and remained quiet.

  Just as the undead pair passed by, Cade’s neighbor Rawley came speeding down the street in his older model white Ford Bronco. Cade liked to kid him about the “O.J. Simpson” truck he drove. The Bronco skidded to a stop abruptly in front of the green house two lots down and across the street from Cade’s. It looked like he had been on a supply run, as he was hurriedly taking bags and boxes up his stairs and into the house.

  Their attention aroused, the two infected college kids about faced and set course for Rawley. Bone chilling moans and the slapping of the frat boy’s lone flip flop on the street signaled their approach.

  Finished with his task, Rawley jumped into the still running SUV, cut a wide U-turn in the street and careened past the two, barely missing them. This again influenced their direction of travel and they clumsily about faced and followed the white Bronco.

  *****

  Rawley’s house backed up to an alley and it was where he usually parked his truck. Cade guessed that was his destination.

  The three-minute distraction allowed the trio to stealthily slip back into the alley from the east and proceed to the rear of Cade’s home. They avoided detection and knelt in the thigh high grass near the back fence. After making sure all was clear, Cade helped the boys, one at a time, scale up and over the barrier. Next, he vaulted it with ease and double checked to make sure they were alone in the enclosed backyard. The yard was clear and the back door was still locked. Nothing seemed disturbed and the house was silent as they entered the kitchen.

  They lived in a brown, two-story Craftsman style home with a two car garage; the driveway sloped down about thirty feet to the street. Next to the garage a padlocked wooden gate the same height as the rest of the fence opened into the backyard. The front door was sturdily constructed from solid oak. The back door led into a sun porch followed by another dead bolted door leading into the kitchen.

  When everyone was in, Cade closed and locked the outer door. He had installed an extra dead bolt for added security. It wouldn’t stop a determined intruder but it would slow them down.

  Once inside, the boys relaxed a little. They jumped at the offer of something to eat.

  While he prepared some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, he introduced himself to the older boy. “My name is Cade.”

  With a furtive glance the bigger boy curtly replied, “Leo.”

  “And your brother’s name?”

  “His name is Isaac; he goes by Ike.”

  Ike had taken a walk around the family room while Cade and Leo talked. When he returned to the kitchen he asked, “Who is the little girl and lady in the pictures above the fireplace?”

  Not wanting to go over it in detail, Cade simply said, “My wife and daughter.”

  Leo continued the interrogation. “Where are they now?”

  “They’re in South Carolina visiting my wife’s parents.”

  “Why didn’t you go with them?” Ike asked.

  “I have a lot of projects that need finishing around here.”

  Abruptly ending the conversation Cade picked up the remote control and turned on the television. When the LCD flat screen came to life, the silent images of carnage and looting said more than words. They watched the muted television until the scene changed to the Oval Office of the White House and the President strode in and sat down in his plush chair. This was orchestrated to put the American people at ease. Seeing the man in his comfortable office as opposed to him standing and reading from his ever-present teleprompter was supposed to have a psychologically calming effect. To Cade it did the opposite. He couldn’t put a finger on it but something didn’t feel right about the scenario.

  Cade turned up the volume in time to hear the anchor introduce President Bernard Odero. The President started off by telling the television audience he had been forced to declare martial law in Washington D.C. It was the first city to see signs of the infectious disease. Other areas of the country were also affected by the contagion. Los Angeles, San Francisco/Oakland and San Diego were the hardest hit on the West Coast. He recited a litany of Midwest cities including his hometown of Chicago. The entire Eastern Seaboard of the United States, Florida on up to Maine, was battling the epidemic as well. Air, maritime and rail travel had been canceled until further notice. High-speed transportation had initially led to the disease’s prolific spread, while the localized pattern of outbreak seemed to start in the hospitals and radiate outward into the communities. President Odero emphasized that all resources were being utilized to determine the cause of the outbreak and find a cure.

  While the President spoke, the crawl on the bottom of the television screen displayed a list of the countries already affected. The list was not short.

  President Bernard Odero finished his speech by imploring the American people to remain home and stay strong; he promised the United States Government would not fail them.

  Cade noted the absence of any mention of God at the end of Odero’s speech. Being politically correct to the nth degree, it was par for the course for the President. Cade knew this would be the “perfect crisis” that Odero’s advisors would not let “go to waste” as some in the President’s administration were fond of saying. Since the 9/11 attacks the sitting politicians on both sides of the aisle made every attempt to give themselves more power and the people less freedom. An event like this was sure to permit them free reign to make any constitutional changes they deemed necessary. As far as martial law in Portland was concerned, he was sure it loomed on the horizon.

  Cade was baffled by the fact that the President was still in the District of Columbia at all. It also astonished him at how the most protected city in the world could fall so fast to the walking dead. One word quickly came to mind: “Rome.”

  After the President finished his somber speech, a White House pool reporter’s head filled the screen and indicated that the President and his family would be moved to a secure and undisclosed location until the “unknown threats facing our nation were dealt with.” The reporter’s next piece addressed immigration and borders. Apparently, it took a pandemic of biblical proportions for the U.S. President to finally grow some balls and seal the southern border with Mexico. Between San Diego and Tijuana at the border checkpoint, hundreds of people on both sides had been attacked by the cannibalistic infected, resulting in upwards of three hundred deaths and counting. The capital, Mexico City, was a blood bath. The violence inflicted on the population by the infected made the Mexican drug war pale in comparison.

  All day long the talking heads on every news channel were reporting about a deadly virulent new strain of flu that had not been encountered before. The Fox news anchor said a full-blown pandemic was rolling across the nation. Anyone that was bitten by a carrier also became infected. Death followed, sometimes quickly. Sometimes it took hours, but the main thing they stressed was that after succumbing to the infection, the newly dead would re-animate and attack any living thing they saw. The infection made the afflicted patient feverish, hallucinate and violence prone. Unconfirmed reports suggested a few cases had even ended in homicidal violence and then escalated to cann
ibalism. The anchorman finished by adding, as Cade had already discovered first hand, that the only way to kill them was to destroy their brain.

  Cannibalism. The word alone made the hairs on the back of Cade’s neck stand on end, especially after what had happened at Ted’s house. Cade turned the TV off and went upstairs to the office to retrieve his phone; he passed the wall covered with photos of his family in good times: skiing, camping, holidays and school milestones. Cade felt a lump forming in his throat. His eyes lingered on the photo of the three of them all bundled up on Mount Hood, enjoying a family ski outing. Raven and Brook’s smiling faces seared into his memory. He made up his mind at that moment; it was time to leave Portland and go locate his family.

  Chapter 7

  Day 2 - Southeast Portland

  Since the outbreak started, cellular service had been nearly non-existent, and the DSL and land line phone was down and worthless. With a determined set of the jaw, Cade grabbed his phone and punched in the numbers to Brook’s cell. A busy signal droned on in his ear. Taking a look at the phone’s display, he was not surprised to see that there were no new voice mails or text messages. On a whim he tried again to call Brook on her cell. He was relieved to finally at least get her voice mail; he left her a brief disjointed message.

  “This is Cade. I am worried about your safety. How is your Dad? He may be infected. Be careful. There is a serious contagion on the loose. It is transferred by saliva contact. The infected seem to go comatose or die and reawaken prone to violence. If anything happens there, if you see any of the infected… leave immediately and get to Fort Bragg and contact Mike Desantos. Call or text me when you get service. I love you two. Give Raven a hug for me, Daddy loves you. Bye.”