Z-Risen (Book 2): Outcasts

by Long, Timothy W.

  “It’s a tough spot they got set up. The Marines, Navy, and Bright Star brought in a lot of hardware to build the walls. Got moats and everything. It’ll be there.” Markus sounded sure.

  “Speaking of bases, we should set up a base for a day and then do some scouting and build up our supplies. We can move out again in the morning,” Joel said.

  “Damn fine idea,” Markus said from the front seat.

  “Agreed, boss.” Donny smiled over his shoulder.

  If he got touchy feely with anyone, I was going to put my foot in his mouth.

  ###

  We pulled across someone’s lawn after bouncing over a couple of roads clogged with cars. The town sported a shitload of cookie-cutter houses and strip malls. We passed a Mexican restaurant that had been burned to the ground. Across the street, a Krispy Kreme was also a smoking ruin. The bank next to it had all of its windows smashed in.

  Night had arrived and talk of sleeping outside was quickly shot down. None of us wanted to be exposed, so we picked this place out of a half dozen we passed.

  Fortress, Mark II was a dilapidated hotel off Interstate 5. It had been a piece of shit before the world went to hell. The (former) Hotel Palomino had two floors and a metal gate we’d managed to wedge shut. On the top floor we’d found adjoining rooms and made our nest for the last few days but it was temporary.

  “Why are we locking ourselves on the second floor? We should set up camp on the first floor so we don’t get bottled up,” Donny opined.

  “Back the HUMVEE right under the railing.” Joel pointed at the second floor. “That’s our escape route. See those metal gates at the end of the hallway? That’ll buy us a lot of time if a horde locates us. Slow, but we can get in the transport through the gunner’s portal.”

  “It’s a solid plan,” Markus said.

  He spun the transport around while we pushed an electric hybrid out of the way.

  The five of us – Joel, Roz, Christy, Anna Sails, and me – stuck together in the larger room while Markus and Donny took the room with two twin beds.

  There were other empty rooms, but not a single one had less than one body. We got lucky with our set. There was a Z with an arrow through its head blocking the door, but we hauled his corpse across the landing and tossed it near a dumpster overflowing with trash.

  I guess Joel was feeling cocky. He pressed Markus and Donny for info about their outfit, but they were tightlipped. When Joel pressed harder we got an earful.

  “You guys want to sit out the end of the world right here or do you want to stick with us and our armored vehicle?” Markus said. His scars gave him a sneer but I had a feeling he would wear the look, regardless.

  Half an hour later we took stock of our gear and I did a proper ammo and weapon count. My .45 was down to one backup mag and a couple of spare rounds. One thing I’d kept handy was my pipe wrench. Damn thing had been worth its weight in gold.

  Joel laid out a couple of magazines. He slipped over the side of the balcony and came back a few minutes later with nondescript boxes of fresh ammo. Joel tossed me one and gave one to Sails.

  Roz dug out a handful of rounds from my box and filled her 1911 .45. She checked the action and then asked Joel for a quick lesson on how to strip and clean it. Jesus Christ. The way she said strip and clean made Joel’s eyes go wide.

  Later we joined the mystery men in their room and took stock of our other food supplies. Donny carried up a satchel full of Meals Ready to Eat and we used water from the toilet to fire up the little chemical pouches. I waited a full two minutes, saliva filling my mouth, before ripping open the brown packet. I devoured it by squeezing the contents from the pocket into my mouth while it was steaming hot.

  Joel ate his cold with a plastic spork.

  Show off.

  Donny and Markus studied a map while they ate from the various pouches.

  “We’re here and Bravo is here.” Markus pointed out two big red splotches.

  “Bravo?” I asked.

  “Home base, for now. That’s where we’re headed.” Markus said.

  “Safer than the place we just left?”

  “Better be. That was a cluster fuck, man. We knew that horde was on the move, but they got there a lot faster than we’d anticipated.”

  “Might have been the noise. I heard a chopper crashed the night before,” Donny said.

  I coughed and didn’t say a word. Anna Sails kept her poker face while Joel Kelly’s eyes tightened.

  Donny had this reedy voice that was like nails on a fucking chalkboard. He also had pinched in features and a long nose. He wore digital cammo that bore no insignia and he carried a huge bowie knife strapped to his side. He’d set his Mossberg pump action shotgun across the map while we chatted. I studied it with interest.

  “Can I check out your piece?”

  “Yeah. Just don’t blow your head off,” Donny handed me the gun.

  “Beautiful.” I said.

  “That’s a special order right there,” Donny went on. “It’s a Mossberg 500 with a tactical upgrade. Holds five plus one in the chamber. It’s got a sweet grip, feel it. Gun wasn’t mine. It belonged to that Bailey guy.”

  “You say Bailey like you didn’t know him.”

  “I didn’t. He was guard and that was his personal weapon. He was a prepper I guess.”

  I lifted the gun and put it to my shoulder. The front rail was fitted with a sloped grip. Bailey had outfitted the shotgun with a rail near the chamber and it contained six rounds. The rear rail held five more.

  For a split second I had the desire to turn the gun on him and blow his fucking head off. Then I’d have to kill Markus because he’d probably be pissed about me shooting his buddy. The thought left pretty quickly. These two might have questionable agendas, but they’d saved our asses.

  The shotgun felt good in my hand and probably packed enough load to disintegrate a Z at close range.

  “I gotta get me one of these.”

  “Look at that. Creed’s got a crush,” Kelly said.

  “Love at first sight, I’d say,” Anna added.

  “Oh, haha. Sight. I get it. You two should write a comedy routine and go on the road.”

  I stared back until they both looked away, but Sails wore a little smirk.

  “We’ll crash here for the night and then scout in the morning. We may get lucky and find enough supplies to get us through a few days. Then we move out around noon.” Markus said.

  “We might stay here for a while longer,” Joel said.

  That was news to me. I liked the sound of us going somewhere safe. I liked the thought of having a bed and water. Food was great but I was so thirsty I was ready to start making some kind of piss filter.

  “Suit yourself,” Donny said and looked at Markus. The big guy shrugged his shoulders and went back to chewing on a straw that poked out of his camel pack water system. It was dry as a bone, but I didn’t blame him for the wishful thinking.

  “We haven’t discussed staying anywhere. I’m with you guys,” I said, but wondered if I meant it.

  Joel, Roz, and Anna looked at me.

  “Or I guess we’ll talk about it.”

  “Do what you gotta do. All I know is we’re headed toward safety. The base has a real command and control structure, and they’re taking orders from Washington. Someone over there is still calling the shots.” He trailed off.

  That was the first we’d heard about any kind of authority existing. Didn’t really matter. Everything was so fucked it wasn’t like they were looking for me, Joel, or countless other enlisted.

  “Is the President still alive?” I asked.

  “Don’t know. I just know that we got orders. They come into the vehicle from time to time but the system is on some kind of repeat, so we’re hearing what a lot of others are hearing. They keep rattling off safe havens in different parts of the country.”

  “So…military.”

  “Yeah, let’s go with that,” Donny said.

  “Just tell u
s what the fuck is going on. Come on, man, be straight with us,” Joel said.

  Markus sighed and went to sit on the side of a bed.

  “Your call,” Donny said.

  “Fine, man. We’re with a group of peacekeepers called Bright Star. We were in Iraq and then we went into Afghanistan. We take care of security when the U.S. pulls out.”

  “So, you’re like Blackwater.” I thought out loud.

  “Not quite. We’re smaller and better organized. Right, Sails?”

  “I only did one tour, man. Lee asked me to join his last mission because I was having issues,” Sails said.

  She took a seat at the table and toyed with the rest of the pouches in her MRE. Sails tossed me her pepperoni sticks so I gave her my crackers and fake cheese spread.

  “Lee? What do you know about Lee?” I couldn’t help it. My face flushed at the mention of his name.

  “Lee’s in charge for now. He went ahead to LA to help secure the base. I heard that he’s got family there. Heard he had them flown all the way across the country,” Donny said.

  “Lee’s an asshole. He tossed my friend Craig, just a kid, out of our helicopter.”

  “He was infected, Creed, you big dummy. Get it through your head. I saw the test results myself and I know what they meant. That kid could have turned at any moment. Any second. Then we could have had a Z right there in the helicopter. One bite and we were all going to be fighting for our lives,” Sails said.

  I couldn’t believe she was defending Lee.

  “So what, you all got a nice little brotherhood thing going on here? Got your secret name and decoder rings? Tell me how this makes the world better,” Joel Kelly demanded. He gripped the edge of the table so hard I thought it was going to snap.

  “Secure that shit, Marine,” Sails said.

  Markus and Donny nodded. Was that it? Did Sails outrank these two yahoos?

  “Look, man,” Markus said. “The military is fragmented and it’s got no command structure. No way to gather forces in one place and enact some kind of plan to deal with this threat. Two hundred years and we’ve never had an occupying force on American soil. That changed a few weeks ago when someone attacked us.”

  “Wait. This was an attack?” I couldn’t believe it.

  “Something hit multiple locations. Some virus, and I swear that’s all we know.”

  “Fuck me.” Joel Kelly said before I could.

  “We were already here and preparing, ready to deploy, when the main bases were hit. The military took devastating losses. Did you guys see what happened at Coronado?”

  “We were there.” I said.

  Markus expelled a breath.

  “Then you know first hand what happened. Bright Star is new, small. We were under the radar so now we’re doing our best to cope. That’s why you should stick with us if you want to survive and fight back. Fucking do what we tell you for a few more days.”

  “That’s terrific.” I choked back a snarl. “Sounds like you guys have all the answers. Don’t need us, right?”

  “We need everyone.” Sails put her hand on my arm.

  She didn’t wear that usual frown and looked like she meant it. I resisted the urge to yank my arm away.

  “And only my unique skills at bashing in Z heads can help save the world, right?”

  “You’d be surprised what one man can accomplish with the right motivation,” Sails said.

  Shit. This was not the way I wanted the conversation to go. I wanted to stay mad at these people for killing Craig, but there was that little part of my brain that kept telling me that there was truth to what they’d told us—that Craig had been one of them. Infected.

  I got sick of thinking about it and changed the subject.

  “We need water,” I said.

  “Should be an ice maker on the floor. If it’s still got water, we can use these.” Donny produced some filtration tabs in little brown packs.

  Joel smiled and snapped up a couple.

  “Come on, Creed. Lets scout.”

  “Fuckin A. I hate it when you say those words.”

  “The fuck do you want, squid? A love poem?”

  “Yeah. Serenade me.”

  “You guys are both idiots,” Sails said.

  “You’d be surprised what two idiots can do with the right motivation,” I replied.

  Sails actually smiled. Well, score one for the good guys.

  “Great. Now we’re all friends again. Hey Sails, if you get bored you can always bunk in with us,” Markus said. “Right guys? There’s enough of the women to go around.”

  Sails moved like a whip. Her hand shot to her side and in the blink of an eye she came up with her Smith and Wesson M&P R8. Ten and a half inches of dark steel met Markus stare.

  “Say ‘the women’ one more time.” She spoke through gritted teeth, and then she did that cool thing they do in the movies where she cocked the trigger. Silence fell in the room while we waited to see if Markus would lose his head.

  “Just fucking around, Sails.” He gulped. “You used to have a better sense of humor.”

  “You used to not be an asshole,” she replied.

  Sails arm still hadn’t trembled. She holstered the gun, shot everyone in the room a flat look, then went to the adjoining room and shut the door.

  “Woman is out of her mind,” Donny said. “She used to be more fun.”

  “Sails had a fun side? What the hell happened?” I asked.

  “She was on her way back when she heard about the outbreak. Her husband ran off a year ago but her kids were at her mother’s house. It was right in the middle of the first horde that razed San Diego. She was on her way to the house when it was overrun. She got there just in time to see the worst of it.”

  “Shit,” I said.

  Joel echoed me.

  “What did she do in Bright Star? She seems like she’s used to being in command,” I said.

  “She was, in a fashion.” Markus took the gun from me and put it back on the table but didn’t bother to elaborate.

  “She’s a badass,” I said.

  “She’s got a sweet ass,” Donny said.

  I thought about hitting him hard enough to make him talk stupid for the next week.

  “Let’s go, Creed. I’m thirsty.” Joel interrupted my little fantasy.

  ###

  10:15 AM Approximate

  Location: Clairemont, Undeadville USA

  Joel and I did a perimeter sweep and verified that any Z’s hiding out in the other hotel rooms were dealt with.

  We kept it quiet by using close-in weapons. We cracked open a door three rooms down from ours. She was facing a wall and didn’t even move until we stepped inside. That was enough to creep me out. She spun, looked at us with those milk white eyes, and then stumbled toward me. Joel stuck his big Marine knife into the woman’s head and she went down without a sound. The woman’s suitcases had been emptied all over the room. The refrigerator was a bust. We didn’t stay to investigate further because the smell wasn’t worth it.

  The next room held a man dressed in rags. From what we could tell, he’d been stuck in there from the very beginning. He had a couple of bullet wounds to his chest, and in the room we found a single snub-nosed .38 and a pair of shells. I pocketed the gun and we moved on after a quick inspection turned up nothing but more gore. The poor son of a bitch had tried, as best we could tell, to kill himself. He had one bite mark on his neck. He’d chewed his fingers to the second knuckle and then started on his arm.

  I put him out of his misery by driving the pipe wrench under his jaw. His mouth shattered, and when he fell back I moved in and crushed his skull like it was a thick egg.

  When Joel and I entered room 223B, we found what had probably been a husband and wife wrapped in a fatal embrace. She had eight inches of steel buried in the back of her skull.

  I stared at them and then turned to inspect the room.

  That was a mistake.

  The guy wasn’t dead. He lurched to his feet and
nearly tackled me. Joel wove in for a slice, but I grabbed the Z just as his nasty mouth was inches from my shoulder and tried to toss him away.

  He got ahold of my shirt and wouldn’t let go.

  His face darted in again and I fought my gag reflex. Of all the rotted stinking things I’d smelled over the past few weeks, this was the worst. His breath was a horror. His teeth were a horror, and his nose was a crushed horror that had dried blood crusted all over his mouth and jaw.

  I hit him in the temple, but the blow was short and it barely rocked him. He fell backward, almost taking me with him.

  “Out of the way, Creed!” Joel cried.

  “Think I’m not trying?”

  The biter dove in again, and this time I hit him across the face. His jaw snapped shut, but he managed to fall back against the bed and pull me with him.

  I rolled to the side but he stuck with me. Something closed on the back of my shirt and I think I screamed like a little girl.

  I whipped my elbow back and cracked him across the shoulder. He fell away and I was free. Rolling to the other side of the bed, I let Joel do his thing.

  Kelly moved in and stuck the guy in the throat with his knife. He ripped the blade back so forcefully that the Z’s head nearly came off. The guy’s second life ran out as he fell off the bed and onto his wife’s half eaten corpse.

  I sat up and gasped for breath. Nothing like fighting for your life when you’re already exhausted, hungry, thirsty, and pissed off.

  “Goddamn,” was all I could get out.

  Joel wiped his blade on the bedspread and then sheathed it.

  “That’s why I never got married.” Joel stared at the dead couple.

  At least the pair were in something resembling a loving embrace.

  ###

  Panting and shaking, I sat for a minute and caught my breath. Joel looked me over and pronounced me still alive. I wobbled to my feet and checked all my extremities. No bite. Christ. That was not how I wanted this scouting mission to begin.