HVZA (Book 2): Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse 2

by Zimmermann, Linda

  The crosshairs of her hunting rifle settled just above Mr. Reggie’s right ear, but pure hatred and anger drove her to reposition her target to his abdomen. She wanted him to have time to think about what was happening. The gut-shot Mr. Reggie grabbed for his stomach with both hands and dropped to his knees, squealing like the proverbial stuck pig.

  When the shot rang out, the four men scrambled for defensive positions behind the ATVs and a car. Not knowing where the shot came from, they had no idea which side of the vehicles to hide behind, which left two of them completely exposed to Becks’ rapid second and third shots. Although less vindictive with her aiming, the shots would nonetheless prove equally fatal.

  The two remaining men now knew Becks’ position, and a flurry automatic fire peppered the side of her safe house. Ducking down, she was surprised when she heard more shots, but this time, none of them hit the house. What were they shooting at?

  When Becks peered over the edge of the window sill, she saw that dozens of zombies were now within twenty feet of the two men behind the car. Some of the zombies stopped to begin munching on Angie’s scattered brains, and the severely wounded, but still very conscious, Mr. Reggie. The ensuing screams were unlike anything Becks had ever heard, and god help her, but she felt no sympathy as the tyrant who had terrorized, abused, and no doubt murdered, many innocent people was being chewed into tiny pieces.

  One of the men made a dash for his ATV with guns blazing, but before he could start the engine he was overwhelmed. He was yanked off the ATV to the pavement, and his screams bothered Becks for some reason—perhaps because they caused her to recall her own terrifying experience of lying on this road being bitten—and she covered her ears against his death shrieks. She might have taken a shot at his head or neck to try to end his suffering, but she decided to conserve her precious ammunition, so the bloody murder couldn’t have bothered her that much.

  The remaining man—more of a teen, really, was also quickly surrounded, but managed to fight his way out of the thick of the crowd. Injured, but still able to run, he scrambled into one of the backyards across the street with the horde of zombies in close pursuit. While she couldn’t see what was happening, Becks heard more screaming, and assumed he had also met his fate beneath the filthy teeth of the undead.

  There was nothing more she could do, at least with her rifle, so she went downstairs to start packing food and gear in duffle bags. It wouldn’t be long—maybe only hours—before more Rovers would be back, looking for their missing leader and men. With any luck, Angie hadn’t known the house number or name of the street, which might buy her a few more hours, possibly a day, if darkness fell quickly enough.

  If only she could hop on one of the ATVs and take off right now, but she saw what had happened to the last person who tried that. And now that there were six dead humans and dozens of dead zombies to feast upon, the street would be filled with the undead, packed shoulder to shoulder, fighting for scraps of muscle and lumps of organs.

  On the plus side, with so many zombies jamming into Sparrow Lane, she could probably slip quietly through the property of the house behind her safe house, into that street, make her way to the main road and attempt to go west again. First, she would have to retrieve more of the MREs she had hidden in the shed.

  Cautiously opening the back door, she didn’t see anyone in the yard. Staying low, she crept to the side of the RV, and then used it to block any view from the street as she rushed back to the shed. There was quite a lot of noise from the feeding frenzy on the street, but she still slid open the squeaky metal shed door ever so slowly. Once inside, she removed the lawn Santa and boxes of icicle lights from the tops of the cases of MREs. She obviously couldn’t carry all of them with her, so she just chose her favorites; as many as she could stuff into a backpack.

  Replacing the Christmas decorations as cover—in case she ever had to come back, god forbid—she hefted the backpack over her shoulder as she exited the shed and headed back toward the house, until the butt of a rifle against the back of her head made the world fade to black.

  When Becks woke up on the cold, dirty concrete floor of the basement, she was clad only in her bra and panties, and her left wrist was handcuffed to a pipe. Her head was pounding in pain, and although the blow hadn’t been to the area of the skull that had sustained the fracture, this second concussion brought back more vertigo and nausea. But that was the least of her problems.

  “So this is the great doctor Angie told us about!” a young male voice said from the shadows of the basement, startling Becks. “You don’t look like much of no doctor to me.”

  “Yeah, I get that a lot,” Becks replied, in too much pain to let fear get the better of her, for the moment.

  A figure emerged into the patch of fading sunlight filtering through the grimy basement window. He was average height, and had a rather scraggly beard on his otherwise fresh-looking 19-year-old face. He appeared to be well fed and healthy, except for the bloody rags that had been wrapped around his hands and arms. This was the boy who Becks had assumed had been killed behind the neighbor’s house, and she was now paying for that hasty assumption.

  Although sustaining multiple bite wounds, there didn’t appear to be any life-threatening injuries, if they could get to some Eradazole, of course. The boy saw Becks focusing on his makeshift bandages.

  “That’s right, bitch, you’ve killed me,” he said, pulling off a rag on his right forearm to expose an ugly bite wound. “And you killed Reggie, and all my friends. Wait until I get you back to Reggie’s brothers. You’ll wish you had been killed, too.”

  “I really am a doctor, and if you help me get to the highway, or to the Picatinny Arsenal, we have medicine that can save your life. We can help all of your people,” Becks said, trying to project an air of confidence and authority.

  “You can’t help my friends out there who are being torn apart and eaten by those filthy bastards, can you?” the boy shouted, tears filling his eyes from both grief and rage.

  “Your people killed Angie, how was I supposed to react?” Becks said bluffing, hoping that he hadn’t seen that it was Angie who made Reggie pull the trigger. From the boy’s reaction, it was clear she had scored points with that comment.

  “Angie…she never hurt nobody. Reggie shouldn’t have done that to her,” he whispered, rubbing the sides of his head trying to figure it all out, while coping with the virtual death sentence he thought he had received with the zombie bites.

  Becks saw her opening and told the boy all about West Point, the Arsenal, Eradazole, Trident, the strawberries and ice cream, and all of the things that could possibly persuade him to let her go. He was clearly wavering, and just as she thought she had won her case, an awful moaning sound arose from the street as a new pack of zombies arrived on the scene and started struggling with the ones already eating for whatever bits of flesh remained. It was a chilling and effective reminder that the boy’s friends were the ones on the menu.

  “No! You’re lying! Reggie told us there was nothin’ left of the army, and there was no cure. You’re a liar and a murderer!” he shouted, wild-eyed. “When I bring you back they are going to make you suffer!”

  “Please, calm down and listen to—”

  Becks words were cut off as the boy rushed forward and grabbed her by the throat.

  “Shut up! I won’t listen to any more of your lies,” he screamed into her face. But then his grip loosened and his expression changed to one that really made Becks’ blood run cold. “Maybe there’s some other ways you can convince me to let you go? Maybe you and me can have some fun?”

  As his hands began to wander, there was a sudden banging noise coming from above.

  “Shit!” the boy whispered, grabbing his pistol and running for the stairs.

  When he dragged Becks into the house, had he locked the back door? As he quietly ascended the stairs to check it out, Becks sprang into action, or at least tried to. Tugging on the handcuffs until her wrist bled, she quickly realized t
he pipe was not budging. She then sprawled out face first on the floor, trying to grab something, anything, but nothing was within reach. For the first time, panic was beginning to set in with the realization she could not talk her way out of this, and she had no weapons.

  “I can’t very well kill someone with my underwear!” she said out loud, sobbing and laughing simultaneously.

  But then she calmed down and also had a strange change of expression. Fumbling with the clasp of her bra, she yanked it off and hurriedly went to work.

  Upstairs, the boy carefully moved from room to room, shaking with fear. He couldn’t stand the horror of being bitten again, and if a pack of zombies had entered the house, before he could be surrounded, he would put a bullet in his own brain. Barely able to catch his breath, he silently went through every room in the house, but it was clear. Both the front and back doors were locked, and no zombies were on the doorsteps. So where had the noise come from?

  Suddenly, the banging sound shook the house again, and it had definitely come from the back door. With wobbly pistol raised, he moved quickly down the back hall again, just as another gust of wind blew open the unlatched storm door, and promptly slammed it again.

  “Son of a bitch!” the boy said laughing.

  To shake off the jitters, he pulled a bottle of tequila from a cardboard box in the kitchen and took a few big gulps. He decided to linger over a few more hits of the bottle, just to put him more in the mood and give his helpless captive some time to think about what was going to happen to her. It was the least he could, so he thought, to pay her back for what she had done.

  Twenty minutes later, full of liquid courage, he staggered down the basement stairs, fully prepared for the time of his life; or at least what was left of it. And with any luck, he would also infect her in the process so she would know the terror and pain of the zombie parasites spreading through her body and brain.

  “You ready for me, bitch? Because here I—” the words caught in his throat as he saw Becks seductively leaning back against the wall—topless.

  “You’re right,” she said in a deep, throaty voice. “We’re both going to die, so why not have all the fun we can before we go?”

  The tequila bottle slipped from his fingers and smashed on the concrete floor. Still fumbling with his belt buckle, he fell upon Becks like a starving vulture. But all the blood that had been rushing to his groin was suddenly spraying out of his neck. The doctor had specifically targeted his left common carotid artery with her thin, curved weapon, and had obviously punctured it with deadly accuracy.

  Falling onto his back, the boy desperately clutched at his throat, as his life quickly spurted away in measured heartbeats. Becks grabbed for the boy’s pistol from the holster on his thigh, then calmly reached into his pockets for the key to the handcuffs. Once freed, she started for the stairs, but something made her go back to the dying boy. Perhaps she felt the need to justify her actions to him, or prove to herself that she hadn’t completely lost her soul.

  “I’m sorry it had to come to this,” she said, actually placing a comforting hand on his chest. “I really was telling the truth—I could have saved you.”

  A terrible sadness filled the boy’s eyes, making him look like a lost and frightened child.

  “N...Nick…my…name is…Nick…” he said between gasps, as his eyes suddenly went glassy and his hands dropped away from his throat. Two weak spurts of blood later, and the heart Becks had felt beneath her hand stopped beating.

  Only then did she let her weapon drop to the floor.

  In her frantic scramble for any kind of defense, she pictured Angie fighting a pack of zombies with just a knitting needle, which had given her an idea. Years ago, she had a favorite pink satin bra that she liked so much, she wore it until the underwires in the cups poked through the fabric. Even then, she wore it until the little protective plastic caps at the ends fell off. Finally, when the tip of one of the hard, sharp, flat wires had poked a hole into her, she threw the bra away.

  Using her teeth to tear through the fabric of her bra, she had pulled out one of the underwires, and scraped it on the concrete to remove the plastic tip and sharpen the end to a deadly point. Then it had just been a matter of distracting her attacker, which she knew would be all too easy.

  Her quick thinking and handiwork had saved her life, but as she looked at the arterial spray dripping down the cinderblock walls, and the lifeless body of the boy—Nick—she didn’t feel like congratulating herself, especially when she heard the distant roar of more ATVs.

  The blow to her head had made her woozy enough that she had to sit down while putting on her clothes. There was no question about trying to make a run for it now—with this latest injury, and zombies and Rovers in the neighborhood, she would just have to hide and hope for the best. She would have liked to get Nick into the street to dispose of his remains, but now there was no way she was in any condition to carry a body up the stairs. She had enough trouble getting herself up the stairs.

  Fighting back a few dizzy spells, she carried her weapons and supplies into the attic. The crowd of zombies was still so thick on Sparrow Lane that she doubted any rescue party would risk coming up the street, but she had to be prepared.

  I’m not going to get caught with my pants down again, she thought, too focused on the task at hand to realize the irony of her choice of words.

  From the attic window facing south toward the main road, she heard two or three ATVs, and maybe a motorcycle, a street or two away to the east. From what Becks could tell, they appeared to be methodically searching street by street. That was the best news, because if Angie had told them the Serviss house was 37 Sparrow Lane, they no doubt would have made a beeline to that address.

  It took several minutes, but the group eventually turned off the main road onto Sparrow, where it came to an abrupt stop. Through the rifle scope, Becks could see two ATVs driven by short, chubby, bald men with glasses and red cheeks. These weren’t just Mr. Reggie’s brothers; they had to have been triplets! They were accompanied by a very big, brawny man on a motorcycle, who demonstrated his strength by picking up an elderly male zombie who had gotten too close, snapping the old zombie’s back with his knee, and then tossing the body away like a ragdoll.

  Note to self, Becks thought, don’t get within arm’s reach of that gorilla!

  One the Reggie look-alikes reached for a megaphone, while the other scanned the street ahead with binoculars. Even with the dense pack of zombies, he could see glimpses of the missing ATVs. It was obvious that at least some of their friends must have been killed, but they held out hope that some had survived and had taken shelter in one of the houses.

  “It’s Mickey,” the man’s high-pitched voice echoed through the streets. “Can you hear me, Reggie? Can anyone hear me? Give us some sort of a sign.”

  The noise of their vehicles, and now the screeching voice over the megaphone, shifted the pack of zombies en masse toward their direction.

  “Come on, Reggie, please give us some sign that you’re alive,” Mickey said with genuine emotion. “Chris…Nick…Jason…Morris…anyone!”

  The only response was the collective moan of hunger and desire for fresh flesh that arose from the pack. Unlike the stubborn Reggie, though, his brothers were not about to confront these overwhelming odds. Scrambling up and over a front lawn, they turned around and headed back down the main road at high speed. Once the sound of their vehicles had faded into the distance, Becks finally relaxed her finger from the trigger.

  Only after night fell, did her body relax, as she curled up in the fetal position in front of the woodstove. Her mind still raced with thoughts, though, as so much had happened that day. An innocent woman Becks had befriended had died for her sake, she killed four people, and had been injured and barely escaped much worse.

  While she looked upon shooting Reggie and the others as just another day at the office, initially, she felt very bad about the death of Nick, as it was her first “up close and persona
l” kill with her own hands. But then a little voice in her head reminded her of what Nick was about to do to her, and she quickly erased all regrets. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more pleased she was by the clever and bloody manner in which she had vanquished her would-be assailant.

  Her thoughts then turned to an unlikely subject—Buttons and Smidgey. They would miss Angie terribly, if they were still alive. Becks literally shuddered at the thought of the Rovers feasting on Shih Tzu Stew. She just had to hope that some of the other people in the community had adopted the two dogs, and would care for them even half as much as Angie. It was the only conclusion she would allow herself to make, as even with all of the human carnage of the day, the thought of any harm befalling the silly pampered pooches with the ribbons in their hair was the one thing she couldn’t handle.

  Sleep was not coming easily, but she didn’t dare take any sleeping pills and risk not being fully aware, or awake, if the Rovers returned. Becks chose instead to think of Cam, and the long nights they spent in front of campfires, fireplaces, and woodstoves. Often they laughed, sometimes they sat silently just looking at the stars or the falling snow, and some very memorable evenings when they made love on the grass, carpet, or bare wood floor next to the warmth of the fire.

  Any combination of those memories warmed her now, heart and soul. Cam was another reason for her to persevere and get out of this suburban New Jersey hell. And if that meant killing every one of Reggie’s ugly brothers, every Rover, and every zombie, she would do it if all she had were fly swatters and toothpicks for weapons.

  With those lovely thoughts swirling through her drowsy brain, sleep finally came.

  Chapter 6

  A frigid, bleak dawn greeted Becks as she stretched and yawned. She thought about a real cup of coffee, crispy bacon, an omelet, and a thick slab of her mom’s homemade bread, toasted and dripping with butter, and decided she just might literally kill for a meal like that. The pork sausage MRE she heated up didn’t quite cut it, but at least it was a hot meal, and for that, she was very thankful. She was also thankful that the pain in her head had subsided to some degree, and she only felt dizzy if she leaned over or lifted anything heavy. That was still not good news, but it was better than having the entire room spin just by standing.