The Zombie Chronicles - Book 4 - Poisonous Serum (Apocalypse Infection Unleashed Series)

by Peebles, Chrissy

  “That’s absurd! I didn’t kill anybody in this compound,” Nick said, defending himself.

  “Ma’am, I don’t know who you are or what your relationship is with Howard,” I interjected. “But you’ve got your facts all mixed up. If anything, it was the other way around. Nick and Claire are dating, and Howard wanted to break them up.”

  The woman glared at all of us and walked away without another word.

  I glared right back at her. I couldn’t believe Nick was being accused of something as ridiculous as fatal jealousy and murder. Nick had done some horrible things in his life, most of them sanctioned by the Army, but he would never kill the competition over a girl.

  She glanced at me. “Wanna come with me to hunt for Howard? I told Lucas to go ahead with another group.”

  “Yeah, sure. Let’s go,” Nick said, pulling her down the hall.

  Again, he’d answered for me, and that was the exact kind of bullying big brother crap that caused lots of hostility between us. I rolled my eyes and followed Val and a group of people up to the second floor. It was so dark and eerie that it sent chills down my spine.

  “Half should go east and the other half west,” Nick suggested.

  “Hey,” Val said to the group heading to the west side, “just so you know, there’s a mannequin in Room 214 that looks like it ran into Jason Vorhees in Friday the 13th. They used it for CPR training. It’s lying on the bed, so don’t get freaked out.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up,” a lady said.

  I headed to the first room on the left side of the east hall. With my gun drawn, I opened the door. I held my breath and shined the light but saw nothing. I quickly slid back the divider curtain. Deep shadows danced around, as if grasping, trying to seize me. I observed my surroundings and was on high alert for any trouble I might encounter. If anything jumped out, I’d be ready.

  We decided to split up so we could search each room faster and more efficiently, and Val and I darted off to the next room. I heard rustling coming from behind the divider curtain this time, and a cold shudder ran down my spine. I wondered if it was Howard or his attacker. Val met my gaze and held up her fingers for a countdown. When she got to one, I pulled the divider curtain. I gasped when I saw a figure, and a woman screamed.

  “What’s going on?” Val shouted.

  It was only a member of our team who’d gotten ahead of us, so I let out a sigh of relief. It was Asia. My hands were trembling something fierce; what terrified me the most was that I might have easily shot her, just as I’d done with the CPR dummy. Fortunately, I remembered the hard-learned lesson not to shoot until I saw the whites of a zombie’s eyes.

  “We could’ve killed you!” Val yelled.

  “I was bitten!” she said hysterically. “That thing…it…I…oh my gosh, it knocked the gun right out of my hand!”

  I shined the light on the fresh bite wound on her arm. “Nick!” I shouted. “Come quick.”

  Val placed a white towel on it and applied pressure to stop the bleeding. “Did you see what bit you?”

  “It was a zombie,” she said. “What else?”

  Nick rushed into the room, and I pointed at Asia’s bite.

  “What the heck?” he said.

  “She says a zombie bit her,” Val said.

  Nick’s eyes widened, and he spun around and took off.

  Kate burst in. “Asia!”

  “She’s been bitten,” Val said. “She needs to be quarantined in one of the empty rooms immediately. She can’t be in contact with anyone. I’ll come find her and bandage her up later.”

  Kate nodded, and Val and I shot out of the room, into the dark corridor. I held my gun and flashlight tightly. The floor creaked as we walked, and my heart raced. Suddenly, my light beam landed on a figure down the hall. This one clearly had glazed-over white eyes that showed no emotion, no life whatsoever. Rotting, putrid flesh hung from its bones as it met my gaze. “Zombie!” I shouted, every nerve in my body on edge.

  Without hesitation, Nick bolted down the corridor toward it. I raced behind him, holding my flashlight tightly, the circle of light bouncing in the dark corridor with each racing step.

  Nick suddenly stopped.

  “What is it? What’s the matter?” Val said.

  “It stopped right here,” he said, pointing to one of the rooms. “Right here!”

  My throat tightened as I bolted inside, my gun drawn, and frantically glanced around the room. Droplets of sweat rolled down my face as I pulled open the divider curtain. My ears strained for any sound, any rustle, any slight movement or noise, but I heard nothing.

  “Check the bathroom!” a woman shouted.

  Preparing myself, I opened the creaking door and shined my light around. I saw nothing but a sink and toilet. I let out a breath. “It’s not here.” I rushed into the corridor and shined my light up and down it, looking for the zombified culprit.

  Nick came bursting out of one of the rooms. “I’m telling you, I lost the thing right here!”

  “It’s not lost. It’s hiding,” Val said.

  Nick froze, disbelief etched on his face. “But it can’t…they don’t know to hide.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “They aren’t intellectually capable of that. They’ve got no deductive reasoning skills.”

  “Well, I’m not all studied up on Zombie Psyche 101 like you two, but I’m telling you, that thing is hiding!” Val said. “If it wasn’t, it’d be out here trying to make a meal out of us.”

  “Val’s right,” I said. “The second a zombie spots a human, it tries to move toward the person, not away from them.”

  I shot Nick a questioning look. “Do you really believe Asia’s story? That a zombie tried to knock the gun out of her hand and then bit her?”

  A frown of concentration perched between his brows. “That’s just not possible. It was probably trying to bite her hand and she lost control of the gun.”

  “Well, I believe her,” Val said. “That girl was scared to death, and I personally saw the bite and the zombie. The thing hid from us, guys! I know it’s peculiar, but maybe this one’s some kind of zombie genius. If it somehow kept some of its brainpower in the transition, maybe it could have knocked a gun out of Asia’s hands, and maybe it’s smart enough to hide.”

  Nick’s jaw dropped. “Great. Like we really need them to develop high IQs.”

  “What do you think’s going on?” Val asked.

  “Maybe the virus is mutating,” I suggested. “Maybe it’s making them smarter.”

  Nick started frantically searching the other rooms. “I pray to God that’s not the case.”

  “How did a zombie even get in here in the first place?” I asked. “We’ve kept this place on lockdown, constantly guarded. All the windows and doors are boarded up.”

  “I don’t know how it got in, how it’s managing to hide or think, but we’ve gotta find that thing now!” Val screamed. “We need to do a room-to-room search. I won’t get any sleep knowing one of those creeps is running around here.”

  A woman in the ugliest, gaudiest Christmas sweater I’d ever seen—clearly something she’d pilfered from somebody’s closet—approached. “Maybe we should leave, just cut our losses and pack up and go.”

  “In this downpour?” Nick asked, pulling another privacy curtain. “It’s too dangerous to travel. The wind must be gusting at fifty MPH. Besides, if it’s only one zombie—even the valedictorian of the group—we can take down one zombie.”

  “What if there’re more we don’t know about?” she asked. “And what if it ate Howard?”

  “I’m sure it attacked Howard,” Nick said. “When a person’s missing and a zombie is spotted…well, you can just about put two and two together.”

  “I’m gonna put out a zombie alert,” a short guy said, darting off.

  I pondered, “If there are more, surely we’d know it by now, right? How were we able to stay the night without anyone getting attacked? If they’re here, surely they would have come looking for a
midnight snack.”

  “Obviously, there’s not a herd in here,” Val said. “If there were, we’d be dead. I think what we have is a straggler, even if I have no idea how it got in.”

  I shook my head. “Simple. It’s smarter than the others. The zombie Einstein just found a way in.”

  “Whatever’s going on, we know there’s at least one zombie in here and two possible victims already. We need to regroup and formulate a plan,” the woman said.

  “Are you sure it was even a zombie?” asked another man, who suddenly joined our search party out of nowhere. “Don’t mean to play devil’s advocate here, but maybe you guys made a mistake. It was so dark, and—”

  Nick squared his shoulders. “I know what I saw, and now we’ve got some hunting to do.”

  “We’ve already searched this place with a fine-toothed comb,” the guy said. “How could a zombie have gotten in?”

  “If there’s an opening, we’ll find it,” I said.

  “All right,” Val said. “Let’s do another top-to-bottom search.”

  “Hey, is Nick down there?” a guy called from down the hall.

  “Yeah,” I shouted back. “Why?”

  “Lucas sent me to find him. You’re never gonna believe what they found downstairs!”

  Chapter 10

  We hurried downstairs to a room in the east wing. Shafts of light burst through the gaps of broken wood. There was a gaping hole where something had broken in through the window, and rain and wind were gushing inside. Instantly, a bunch of questions entered my mind: Did the zombie break in? Does it really have more brainpower than the others? Maybe somebody let it in…but why? Who would be that heartless, that stupid? If somebody broke in here to steal our supplies, I guess the zombie could have followed. What is going on? No zombie, no zombie body, and… What if Asia was mistaken and only imagined a zombie going for her gun. It could’ve been trying to take a big bite of her arm and caused her to drop it. It was such a mystery, and we were all clueless as to what had really happened. None of it made much sense, and all the unanswered questions did little to calm our nerves.

  “We’ve gotta patch that hole ASAP!” a man said, rushing in the room with hammer and nails.

  “At least we know how it got in,” said a stick-thin woman.

  I shook my head. “Uh-uh. A zombie couldn’t have done this.” It’s just not possible. They can’t even open doorknobs, let alone have the sense to break through our blockade.”

  “Yeah,” a tall man with a moustache concurred. “It’s pretty obvious that someone either let it in or it came in after somebody else made the hole. When I find the jerk who did this, I’m gonna rip him in two—or her.”

  I looked up to see Jackie and Claire approaching, and I quickly filled them in.

  “Maybe it was someone looking for shelter,” Claire said.

  Jackie cocked a brow. “Then why wouldn’t they block it up after they came in? I mean, what good is a shelter if you leave a door open. It’d be a freaking dinner invitation.”

  Nick met my gaze. “Jackie’s right.”

  “Maybe someone was just after our supplies,” Lucas said, confirming my earlier suspicions. “If they just came in to take our stuff, they wouldn’t have cared if they left the hole open or not. They’d just wanna get in, grab all they could, and get out. Maybe a zombie followed them in.”

  “Very plausible,” said a man with dark, bushy hair. “A human broke in, was too dumb to cover the hole, and a zombie followed.”

  The blonde cocked a brow. “Maybe it was a survivor, running for dear life, who didn’t have time to cover it back up. If a zombie was coming, the last thing you’d be thinking about would be a hammer and nails.”

  “I’m inclined to believe that,” the bushy-haired guy said.

  Nick’s finger ran over the wood. “One problem with that theory.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Look at the way the wood is cut.”

  Lucas walked over and examined the window. “It looks like someone was trying to break out, not in. The wood is chopped from the inside.”

  “Exactly.” Nick peered out the window. “Look! One of our axes is out there in the grass, and I know we brought them all inside.”

  As I looked out, the flashlight beam glinted off the blade, and I swallowed hard. None of it made much sense, but the little bit that was coming together was entirely unnerving.

  “Who would try to break out?” Claire asked. “We’ve already got an exit, and it seems like any member of our group would have had enough sense to re-block the window once they crawled out.”

  “We searched this place from top to bottom,” the woman said. “There was nobody here.”

  “But we spotted that disappearing zombie,” I said, helping Val patch the window.

  “Ya think it was the zombie trying to break out?” Jackie asked. “Maybe that’s why we can’t find it.”

  “What are you saying?” Lucas asked. “A zombie somehow hid from us while we did a sweep of the building, then attacked Howard, hid his body, and escaped? Maybe it took Howard with him. Maybe we’ll be getting a ransom note from a zombie.”

  Nick let out a sigh. “That’s outrageous.”

  “My point exactly,” Lucas said.

  “Well, something happened to Howard,” Claire said. “That much is obvious.”

  “Let’s gather everyone up and do an organized sweep of the building,” Lucas said. “We’ll at meet back in the lounge afterward.”

  A lady ran up to us in a panic, flailing her arms. “Now Judy’s missing! We can’t find her anywhere. She’s the skinny lady with the long, blonde, curly hair.”

  “I remember her,” I said. “Don’t worry. We’ll keep a lookout.” I was trying to remain calm so as not to incite a mass hysteria, but I was struggling to make sense of any of it, and I couldn’t believe yet another person had gone missing.

  “Thanks, guys,” the woman said.

  Jackie shook her head. “What’s going on?”

  “That straggler zombie is still here,” Nick said. “I thought it left through the hole we found, but if people are coming up missing, that leaves me only one conclusion. Clearly—”

  “It’s still here,” Val finished for him, the color washing out of her face.

  “Maybe this will get Nick off the hook. I’m tired of people whispering behind our backs that Nick executed Howard in a jealous rage over me,” Claire said, rolling her eyes.

  “Hopefully,” Jackie said. “This totally throws out the jealous boyfriend scenario.”

  We searched the building three times and found nothing. Lucas and I decided to take a pit stop and visit the room where Asia had been quarantined. Two men and a woman were guarding the door.

  When we walked in, Asia was under the covers in the second bed, by the boarded-up window. “I suppose you’re here to question me,” she said.

  I smiled. “We’re just trying to figure out this mystery, that’s all.”

  “Can I look at the wound?” Lucas asked.

  “First, answer a question for me.”

  “Anything.”

  She tapped her chin, “Why did Nick kill Howard?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Nick didn’t kill anyone, and for your information, another person’s missing.”

  “So Nick’s some kind of whack-job serial killer?” she asked. “Staying in this room all by my lonesome is giving me the creeps, big time.”

  “No!” I said. “How could you even say that?”

  “Can I please see the bite?” Lucas asked.

  “Only if you promise to give me your honest opinion—even if I hate it.”

  “I won’t lie to you,” Lucas said.

  She held out her arm, and he examined it. It wasn’t red or puffy, and when I did a double-take, I noticed that it wasn’t as swollen as before. The signature zombie-bite green pus was not present.

  Lucas shook his head. “This is no zombie bite.”

  “What?! You’d better get some glass
es, Doc,” Asia said. “I’m telling you that a zombie bit me. It smelled like death, was missing half of its nose, and had those awful-looking, dead eyes.”

  Lucas met my gaze. “It couldn’t have been—”

  “What do I need to do, give you a detailed description of its green, droopy skin and skeleton face?” she asked.

  Lucas cocked his head, pondering. “Tell us what happened, Asia—exactly what happened.”

  She crossed her arms. “You don’t believe me! You know what? I’m not saying another freaking word. I don’t think there’s any point if you’re just going to accuse me of lying.”

  “We’re just gathering the facts,” I said, smiling. “I do believe you. How could I not? I saw the zombie myself.”

  She smiled back.

  “Now, can you tell me what happened?” I asked.

  “For you, I’ll do anything.” She batted her eyelashes.

  I grinned, finding it funny that she was suddenly flirting with me. “What did you see, Asia?”

  “I heard this weird scratching. When I went into investigate, a zombie jumped me and deliberately knocked the gun out of my hand.”

  “But zombies can’t do that,” Lucas insisted.

  She let out a huff. “That one did.”

  Lucas sat on the bed. “It was dark, and our nerves were on edge. Are you sure it was a zombie? Could’ve it have been another person, a stranger?”

  “Nice try,” she said. She then turned her gaze on me. “It must suck that your friend doesn’t believe you either.”

  “I believe a zombie was spotted,” Lucas said.

  “Good. In that case, we’re moving in the right direction. Now spill it. Tell me what you’re thinking…and don’t hold back.”

  “I’m wondering if you really fought a zombie, because that bite came from a human being. Also, you said the intruder knocked the gun out of your hands. A human would do that in a fight, but not a zombie. Maybe you fought off a human intruder that bit you and your imagination got carried away. It wouldn’t be unthinkable with all the stress we’ve all been under. I’m not saying you’re lying—just that you might not be remembering things correctly.”