Waking Up Dead eodl-1

by Emma Shortt

  Chapter Two

  Luke Granger could hear them pounding on the ceiling of his underground bunker. The noise was constant and unrelenting, edging its way into his consciousness, pulling him from a nap that had been far too brief.

  He lifted his head from his arms, glanced around the empty room, then reached for his—now cold—mug of coffee, downing the remains in one long swallow. The taste was vile, but then instant beans with powdered milk was never gonna win any medals, was it?

  He scowled into the empty mug, remembering the hot lava java he used to drink, before shouting, “Give it a fucking rest.”

  They pounded again.

  Jesus Christ. What the hell was wrong with them? You’d think that after weeks and weeks of trying to get through the thick metal they’d realize they couldn’t. But no, they had to interrupt what little sleep he could get. He looked up and sent the ceiling the foulest glare he could muster. “I’m going to kill every last fucking one of you when I come out there.”

  They pounded some more.

  “Every single one,” he hissed, straightening in his chair and giving himself a shake. A sharp pain shot through his shoulder from the movement and he rotated the muscles, cursing himself as he did so for falling asleep at his desk again. The papers he’d been trying to read through before he’d nodded off were now scrunched up, and his headphones were dangling from the desk.

  Luke picked them up, pushed back his chair, and stood. The ceiling was maybe three feet above him, and he walked across the room until he was directly underneath the spot they were busy bashing away at. He visualized the building above in his mind and suspected they were in the basement gym. Abruptly a meme he’d once seen filled his mind and Luke frowned. The picture had been of a house, and surrounding it were a few dozen treadmills. Zombies ran on the treadmills, arms outstretched, while a triumphant group of people looked on from inside the house. The caption had said, zombie defense mechanism.

  If only it were that easy.

  Luke sighed and stomped back over to his desk. The coffee mug was balancing precariously on the papers, and he righted it before sitting back down. The headphone cord was tangled from where it had fallen, and the jack was half out of the socket. Luke plugged it back in, then gave the cord a sharp tug. Damn thing constantly curled in on itself.

  The zombies increased their pounding.

  How many were up there, Luke wondered? Five. Ten. Twenty? He had no way of knowing and really, in the end, it made no difference. For all his threats, Luke had no intention of opening the trapdoor and entering the house. That many against just him? He’d probably get eaten and then he’d be…well dead, and wouldn’t that be a kick in the shitter?

  Ignoring that depressing thought, he closed his eyes, lifted his headphones, and put them on. The heavy padding muffled the noise of the zombie party slightly, and he sighed in satisfaction.

  It would be so easy to fall back asleep…to try and go eight hours straight without thinking about them. He could indulge in one of his little fantasies, the one that featured the battered old villa his family owned in Barra de Potosi, down in Mexico. He could almost see it in his mind. The red-tiled roof, the faded brown shutters, the scrubby brush. The sun would be beating down on it, making everything bake.

  “You’d hate that wouldn’t you?” he said, trying his best to ignore the pangs that remembering the old house made him feel. “The heat. Slows you fuckers down. Easy pickings.”

  The zombies pounded harder, hard enough for him to hear even through the headphones, almost as if they were answering him. But then it wasn’t like anyone else was going to respond to his ramblings. There wasn’t anyone else but him. Hadn’t been for quite some time.

  Luke sighed and leaned forward to switch the radio equipment on. A shiver of pain shot through him and, almost automatically, he reached under his shirt to rub the still-red wound by his rib cage. It itched constantly, which he guessed was a good thing. Surely it meant it was healing. And healing was essential in his lonely world. He couldn’t afford to be slow, because those fuckers could run! Damn, could they run, as evidenced by the finally closed hole in his stomach where some dead bastard had dug its finger in and poked around. Not to mention the bite marks down his arms, and the particularly attractive one on his ass. His chest gave a nasty sort of ache as he remembered the kid clamping on his left butt cheek and sinking her teeth in. It ached a little more as he remembered slicing the point of his ax through her head…

  The headphones crackled once the equipment was on, and Luke settled himself in the chair. He picked up a sheaf of the crumpled papers, his hand nudging his laptop as he did so. Laptop. Tablet. Phone. He wasn’t even sure why he kept them—wasn’t like they were much good to him now. Still…he frowned…no point thinking about that.

  He turned the radio dial to find the first of the frequencies on his long, long list, his heart fluttering as a hissing sound came through over the airwaves.

  He almost laughed.

  How many nights had he sat in this exact same position fiddling with the radio, hoping against hope? Too many. But he had to try. What else was there?

  The pounding grew dimmer as the minutes ticked by, as if they were putting less effort in, and Luke sighed with relief. Despite the fact that the zombies could not get into the basement bunker, he hated knowing they were close by. Hated the thought of them grunting and slathering on the other side of the metal.

  Hated them full stop.

  He flipped to the next frequency, letting his mind drift a little, imagining a lazy day on the bay, doing a little bit of fishing, drinking whiskey, eating a few olives. The last mouthful of olives he’d eaten had been out of a jar he’d found in a condo by Evergreen Park. He was sure they’d been bad. Certainly he’d suffered for a few days after eating them. Yes, a day on the beach, without a zombie in sight. He wouldn’t even need to take his ax, never mind a gun. He imagined the sun shining down on him, basking in the silence…the silence… He bolted upright and cursed.

  The pounding had stopped completely. He couldn’t even hear muffled footsteps now. Sure, he wanted them to shut up, but wanting it was not enough to make it reality. They could still smell him in the sprawling mansion above, even though it had been a good month since he’d been up there, and they wouldn’t stop until they gave him the steak-and-sauce treatment. No, only one thing would drag them away.

  A burst of energy hit his system, jolting him awake in a way the caffeine had not. Luke stood up quickly and dropped the headphones—the wires of which immediately tangled back up, knocking the coffee mug aside in the process.

  Only one thing…

  Another meal close by…and that might mean…another person.

  Luke’s heart raced as he considered that amazing prospect. It had been so long since he’d seen or talked to someone. So fucking long…and yet… He looked upward, eyeing the ceiling again. It was possible the zombies had simply heard a dog or a fox—they didn’t give much of a shit what they ate, would follow the noise regardless. He could be going out for no reason. But if it really was a someone, rather than a something, close by, he had to go help. Didn’t matter how tired he was. How much he ached. How dangerous it might be. Even the faint possibility of someone else being out there was enough.

  He righted the coffee mug, surveying his living area, or as some would call it, the heart of his bunker, as he did so. He’d been beyond lucky to find this place and he knew it, was thankful for it every single day. From what he could tell, it had been a giant panic room for the very rich guy who owned the mansion above. It was well stocked and had two exits—neither of which the waking dead had found—and walls thicker than Mary Lou’s thighs. Ah, Mary Lou, his first ever girlfriend. She was dead now, of course. Lots of people were.

  “Time to get moving,” he said, pushing the thought of all those people to the back of his mind. “Time to go actually, finally, find another person.”

  Another person. The thought was almost unbelievable, and as Luke pick
ed up his army-grade sweater from the back of his chair, anticipation curled in his gut. The hole in his stomach protested, but Luke had no time for that shit. He pulled open the desk drawer and grabbed a half-full Johnny Walker bottle, lifted his tee, and splashed some over the wound. It stung like a bitch, but the alcohol removed any possible infection, and that shit counted. Luke had no intention of getting sick, or worse, turning into one of them, though as far as he could tell it wasn’t as simple as just a bite or a finger in the stomach—he was proof of that. Whiskey seemed to be the key. He’d splashed all and any wounds with the stuff and he was still breathing.

  He shrugged the sweater on before bending back down to lace up his boots. A film of red goo layered the front of one and he splashed some whiskey over it. Jesus, he’d be drunk soon from the fumes, and with his current sleep level he’d probably pass out.

  He snorted at the image.

  Luke shucked on his leather jacket—nothing said fashion like bite marks—and locked his Glock to his waistband. A few grenades in his pocket and his ax in hand and he was ready to go. The question was—which exit to use? It’d be a lie to say he wasn’t tempted to try the trapdoor that led into the basement area. Both because he was curious and because he would have liked to kill any of the zombies still hanging around—bastards deserved it, waking him up constantly. Only that’d be stupid, and Luke had not survived for so long by being stupid. He nodded to himself, mind made up, and headed across his living area to the tunnel that ran the length of the property. He picked up a bottle of Old Spice en route and splashed a liberal amount over himself. Combined with the whiskey, the Old Spice made him feel light-headed for a moment. Still it was necessary. For some reason the stench covered his tracks. Maybe they disliked the manly smell. Go figure.

  Time to go save someone, anyone, he thought, and for a moment he hoped it’d be a female someone—preferably of the noncanine or nonfeline persuasion. Maybe even a luscious blonde with a dazzling smile, looking for someplace safe to stay.

  He snorted again. Yeah, and why not ask for a rocket launcher, a new supply of grenades, and some way of getting down to Mexico while he was at it? The image of the villa came to him once more and he sighed. He doubted he’d ever see the place again. He’d suspected as much two years ago and nothing that had happened since had suggested otherwise.

  Two years…the day nightmares came true and everything went to shit. The day the waking dead came calling.

  Chapter Three

  In a perfect example of timing actually working in their favor, Jackson and Tye burst out of the alleyway just as the zombies reached them. Tye was in front and he immediately lifted his ax, swinging it at the nearest one. It was a female and she was naked, dripping pus from various wounds that had yet to heal, growling in that horrible way they all did.

  Tye’s swing missed as the zombie swerved at exactly the right moment. He kicked out at it instead, hitting it on the hip bone, and it stumbled, falling into the entrance to the alleyway right in front of Jackson. She didn’t even think about it. Jackson simply lifted her Doc Marten boot and kicked the zombie in the face—her forward momentum giving her more power than she would normally have had. Something crunched and she heard a snap. Its neck maybe? There was no way to tell and it didn’t matter anyway.

  Jackson skidded to a halt, lifted her booted foot again, and stamped down hard on its face. Fluids oozed rather than spurted as she made contact, and Jackson gritted her teeth as the stench of zombie filled her nostrils. Rotting garbage, urine, and a million other smells that were just as bad, all vied for prominence, making her gag. Another stomp, this one squashing the eyes and turning its nose into nothing more than a bloody pulp, then another, opening up the muscle and fatty tissues to the skull beneath.

  “Balls to the walls!” Tye shouted and Jackson gave one more stomp before lifting Mandy.

  A male zombie was heading straight for her. He was dressed in what looked like pajamas which were old now and had been slowly rotting. Jackson could see the mottled skin beneath them, more of those pus-filled wounds dripping. It held its arms out, those weirdly elongated limbs desperate to get to her, and Jackson swallowed down the hatred as she looked at its face.

  Predatory. Feral. The bastard.

  A moment later, it reached her. Jackson lifted Mandy and swung hard. The blade arced through the air with a speed that was shocking. It caught the zombie in the spot between the shoulder and the neck on the left side. About an inch of the blade went in, opening up the artery, creating a shower of blood. Jackson moved to the side to avoid the spray, pulled Mandy free, and swung again. But the zombie hit out wildly as she rotated, smacking her on the shoulder, and Jackson overbalanced, falling to her knees. She felt the impact rather than the pain, and immediately righted herself, rolling and standing in one smooth move. Her second swing worked, the blade went in to the face this time, right along the cheekbone. The force of it made her arm spasm at the shock of the contact.

  The zombie shrieked. Blood was spouting from its neck, half of its face was hanging off, and still it tried to get her. Jackson kicked it in the stomach, a perfect front kick. It hit the floor and she followed it, bringing her blade down on its head, cracking the skull bone and biting into brain. Once again the contact made her arms spasm, and Jackson had to grit her teeth as she pulled the blade back out.

  Her arms shook as she spun around, looking for the rest of them. One, a teenage girl, was headless, Tye’s ax having cleaved right through her neck. The other, Tye was busy stamping on, and Jackson clenched her fists as she watched bits of skin and muscle splatter upward from his heavy boot.

  A flash of something that looked suspiciously like an eyeball shot past her and Jackson clamped her lips shut, the disgusting thought of a bit of zombie flesh finding its way into her mouth making her mentally gag.

  “Where’s the other one?” she asked the moment the flesh stopped flying. “The one that was on the roof?”

  Tye wiped his boot against the grass—the zombie now still—and turned to face her. “It wasn’t one of these?”

  She shook her head as she looked around the area. “It couldn’t have got down that fast.”

  A bang sounded from the alleyway. Jackson stepped back quickly so that she and Tye were right next to each other. Another bang, coming from the other direction, and a nasty chill slithered down Jackson’s spine. The quiet of the street just a half hour earlier reminding her that the noise could only mean one thing.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “There’s only ever five at most in a pack,” she whispered.

  “Four here and one on the roof.”

  Jackson tightened her hold on her weapon and took several, quick breaths. “No. There’s more. Listen.”

  “Where—”

  A zombie, the one that had found them, jumped from the garage, falling into a roll, before standing up so quickly that Jackson almost skittered back. Almost but didn’t. That would be unacceptable. The zombie would smell her fear and would come straight for her. Like animals, Jackson had long since suspected that they could sense the weakest person, and that person would never be her. Never.

  “Hello, Mr. Fucking Crash the Party,” Tye growled.

  If things had not been so tense, Jackson would have rolled her eyes. “Really?”

  Tye shrugged. “Just trying to mix it up.”

  The zombie paused in front of them—and that in itself was odd because when did zombies ever pause with food in front of them?—before letting out a shrieking howl. The noise echoed in the space around them, unnaturally loud and menacing. It was almost like it was answering. Tye and Jackson glared.

  It took one step forward, its movements jittery. Jackson could see its chest rising and falling far more rapidly than it should have done. If she stepped up close and put a hand against its chest she knew its heart rate would be frantic.

  “Cross over?” she asked and next to her, she felt Tye nod.

  Together they
ran at it, and had it had any sense of survival it should have turned and bolted in the other direction, but of course it didn’t. With painful predictability it came straight for them.

  Tye swung his ax at its head and Jackson ducked below him to swing her machete at its stomach. The weapons hit at almost the same time. Her blade—her perfectly formed blade—slicing right through the zombie’s skin, the fat, the muscle, and through to who knew what else. A moment later it crumpled to the ground. Jackson quickly averted her eyes, not wanting to see its internal organs decorating the sidewalk. God knew she’d seen enough intestines to last her several lifetimes.

  They both paused, both slightly out of breath.

  It was a zombie that broke the silence.

  Jackson snapped into activity, sprinting across the lawn, the waist-high grass and scrub whipping around her thighs as she moved. Her foot wobbled slightly on an uneven patch of ground and she glanced down, surprised to see what looked like a hole in the muddy ground—a deep hole. Before she could work out exactly what it meant, Tye reached out to steady her.

  She jumped over the hole, straight into a scraggly bush, before racing across the remaining lawn. Despite the fact she knew there were no zombies crouched and hiding in the vegetation—they didn’t have that kind of patience—Jackson couldn’t help the relief she felt as her feet touched concrete. The relief was short-lived. More zombie howls filled the air and Jackson grabbed Tye’s arm, pulling him across to the overturned SUV with her.

  She crouched behind it again, trying to pinpoint the source of the howls. A moment later and she realized exactly where they were coming from. Her heart sank and she had to wipe her palms on her jeans. It was only when she did that Jackson realized she was coated with sweat, and it was cold, so the sweat chilled her skin. Or maybe it was just the fact that they were completely in the shit.