Z-Minus Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Perrin Briar

  The zombie snapped at Scorpio, who stepped back.

  “I shall not,” she said.

  “I fear the crowd shall force you all the same.”

  Spiky took the rope off the zombie and pushed it forward. The zombie fell on Scorpio, knocking her to the floor. She held its head back with her arms. The zombie’s jaws gnashed and edged closer to the soft skin at her throat, but Scorpio was not strong, and the zombie pushed its weight fully onto her, and with a snap forward, it bit her neck. Blood spurted up and slicked Scorpio’s grip. The zombie buried its teeth deep into her neck and wrenched a mouthful of her flesh out. Blood splattered over the guards’ uniforms and dribbled down the zombie’s chin. Scorpio let out a wracking scream.

  Spiky gripped the zombie, pulling it up. Then he pulled Scorpio up onto her feet, one hand clasped tight to her neck.

  “Scorpio shall arise untainted,” he declared to the crowd, eyes wide with madness, “and the girl shall die where she stands!”

  He seized the zombie by the back of the neck and pushed it toward Maisie. The zombie’s teeth gnashed and snapped together. Maisie screamed, shying back.

  “No!” Chris said, struggling. “No! Don’t! She’s just a girl!”

  A high beam shot down from heaven, bathing the stage with a blinding white light, and the deep thrumming of the rotor blades spun overhead. The people ran and scattered like ants. The zombie in Spiky’s hand twisted free and fell on the pierced Reaver who had brought him. The man screamed.

  The guards turned to face the light, blocking it with their hands. Dust swirled around in circles, the rotor blades kicking up a maelstrom of dirt. The guards threw their spears, some glancing off the helicopter’s underside. Then they scattered.

  A voice through a loudspeaker said: “GIVE US THE GIRL AND WE WILL LEAVE YOU IN PEACE. IF YOU ATTACK WE WILL RESPOND WITH UNMITIGATED FORCE.”

  The two men holding Chris relinquished him and ran. Chris flopped forward onto the dais, landing on his hands. He grabbed Maisie and led her toward the stairs.

  “She’s mine!” Spiky said, grabbing Maisie’s free arm.

  Chris pulled back but knew he lacked the strength to pull her free. He curled up all his hate and fury into a single tight ball in his chest and threw it at Spiky. Chris’s claw-like hand formed a loose fist and, as he rose, threw a punch, knocking Spiky off his feet and over the edge of the dais.

  Chris looked at his hand. It was twisted and broken, but he felt no pain. He grabbed Maisie by the hand with his free hand and led her across the dais and jumped down on the opposite side.

  Spiky growled at the helicopter hovering above the dais. Spiky seized a random Reaver as he ran past. It was Kevin.

  “Kevin! With me!” Spiky said, running toward a shed to one side.

  Kevin hesitated, then followed. Inside the shed, weapons were arranged along the walls in long lines. Spiky moved to the far end and bent down. He pulled a box out from under the shelf and tucked it under his arm. He sat the box down, got to one knee and aimed the long tube up at the helicopter.

  “Give me the rocket!” he said.

  Kevin looked toward the dais.

  “But the helicopter’s right over her!” he said. “We can’t fire now! She might get hurt.”

  “Give me the rocket now!” Spiky said.

  Kevin studied the rocket in his hand. His fingers wrapped tight around it. He flew at Spiky, striking him, knocking him to the ground.

  Spiky pressed his hand to his head, a dribble of blood seeping from his temple.

  “What the hell are you doing, you fool?” Spiky said.

  Kevin roared, half maniacal laugh, half curse, and brought the rocket down again.

  BOOM!

  Z-MINUS: 59 MINUTES

  Chris and Maisie collapsed against a tree. They shied back, the dust kicked up by the propeller blades stinging their faces. Chris panted with exertion, and when he breathed out, a muffled groan escaped his lips. He’d never been so exhausted his entire life.

  “COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP. WE MEAN YOU NO HARM.”

  The dais was alive with light, which gave way to darkness as the helicopter’s spotlight swept over the car park. The helicopter pulled away, taking its abrasive light with it. Once they were gone, Chris sank to his knees.

  “I'm sorry,” Chris said. “I'm sorry, I can’t go on. I tried to save the world. I just wanted somewhere better for you. Somewhere safe. Somewhere you could grow up and live out your life in peace. But I shouldn't have aimed for the stars. I should have just kept you safe. I'm sorry.”

  “You did the right thing,” Maisie said, touching his face.

  Chris felt barely a hint of the heat he’d felt before at her healing touch. He checked his watch. Less than an hour left. Chris shook, his body thin, weak and frail like the last winter leaf on a dying tree.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Maisie said. “You don’t look well.”

  “It’s just a phase. It’ll pass. Just let me hold you.”

  Chris took Maisie in his arms, though he couldn’t feel her warmth or the softness of her skin against his own cold clammy skin. Footsteps approached from the other side of the tree, grit crunching under heavy boots.

  “Nice to finally meet you,” a voice said. “You’re very hard people to find.”

  The man was a blurry mass against the darkness. Chris squinted and made out early shoots of grey at his temples, a soldier’s uniform. He had his hands up, gun holstered. Chris started back, pulling Maisie close.

  “I’m Squadron Leader Ryan Phillips,” the man said. “I mean you no harm.”

  “We’ve been told that before,” Chris said.

  Phillips stopped, a dozen feet away.

  “I’ve followed you all the way from London,” he said. “You were the one who used the last vial of cure at Saint Barts’ Hospital, aren’t you? I found the jet injector gun. You left it on the floor. Dr Kahn left a helpful message on the white cabinets in her own blood. It took a while before I understood what it meant. I know you tried to get the cure to the Tomorrow research vessel. I know you were kidnapped and brought here. Now I’m here to take you back. Your girl still has a chance to save the world.”

  “We’ll never make it,” Chris said, eyes half closed. “Time’s almost up.”

  “We have a helicopter,” a soft female voice behind Phillips said. “Believe me, we can make it.”

  “This is my pilot,” Phillips said. “If Vasquez says we can still make it in time, trust me, we can.”

  Vasquez had her gun drawn, aimed at Chris. Phillips waved at her, and she holstered it.

  “It’ll be cutting it tight,” Vasquez said.

  “But it’s possible,” Phillips said.

  “It’s possible. But we have to go now.”

  Phillips turned back to Chris and Maisie.

  “What do you say?” he said.

  Chris turned to Maisie. He smile bent his crooked, tired features.

  “Yes,” he said. “All right.”

  He felt hot tears in his eyes. They ran down his face. He brushed them away and found they were red. Vasquez took out a small machine she carried at her waist. It had a blinking red light and made a rhythmic robotic sound. Vasquez passed it over Chris. The machine made an eh eh sound.

  “Try it again,” Phillips said.

  Vasquez did. The machine bleeped again. Phillips looked sad.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “We can’t take you. You’re infected.”

  “What?” Maisie said. “But I cured him.”

  “He’s still infected,” Vasquez said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Try again.”

  Vasquez shook her head.

  “It’s no good,” she said.

  “Try,” Maisie said.

  Vasquez passed the machine over Chris. The machine made the same negative sound.

  “Then I’ll cure him again,” Maisie said.

  She bit the tip of her finger and rubbed her blood over Chris’s lips.

  “Mai
sie...” Chris said.

  “Swallow it!” Maisie said, on the verge of tears.

  Chris licked at the blood.

  “Try the machine again,” Maisie said to Vasquez. “Please.”

  Vasquez passed the machine over him again and met the same result.

  “It says he’s still infected,” Vasquez said.

  “It takes time,” Maisie said. “Just wait a few minutes.”

  “We don’t have a few minutes.”

  Maisie put her finger to Chris’s lips and squeezed more blood out. Chris raised his hands weakly to push her away. His skin was grey and cold.

  “Why isn’t it working?” Maisie said.

  “The cure in your body is getting weak,” Chris said. “You can’t cure me again. You need to go with them.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “No…”

  “Go.”

  “Maisie,” Phillips said softly. “We can’t take him. I’m sorry. He’s infected.”

  “Take him anyway,” Maisie said. “You can give him the cure when we have it.”

  “We’ll give him the cure when we have the cure, the same as everyone else. We’re not going to take an infected man to the Tomorrow with us, not when we have you on board.”

  “But I cured him!” Maisie said. “What happened?”

  “Maybe the cure didn’t work?” Vasquez said.

  “No,” Chris said, looking at them through misty white eyes. “It did. But I got infected again.”

  “When?”

  Chris looked at his thumb, the deep scratch there was turning black, a harsh ring of puckered red around it.

  “Bloody thorn bushes,” he said. “A zombie must have wandered into it, scratching itself, covering the bush in its blood, and I came along and got scratched by it.”

  Tears spilled down Maisie’s face. She wrapped her arms around her father.

  “Take her to the helicopter,” Phillips said.

  Vasquez took Maisie’s hand and led her away. Maisie wiped a hand over her eyes. She turned back, looking at her father for as long as possible before disappearing out of sight. Chris looked up at the night sky, the first evidence of a new dawn just beginning to crest the horizon.

  “It’s a lovely night,” Chris said.

  “It is. Though it looks to last a bit longer yet.”

  Chris nodded.

  “You’ll take good care of her?” he said.

  “Like she was my own. Give me your hands.”

  Phillips took out two pairs of zombie restraints.

  “A bit late for that,” Chris said.

  “It’s not for you. It’s for Maisie.”

  Chris let him put the handcuffs on his wrists and ankles. He bent down and picked up a length of frayed rope, tied it around the handcuff chain links and then wrapped it around the tree.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” Phillips said. “I’ll come back for you when this is all over.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  Chris got comfortable on the ground, his stiff joints making it difficult. He sat with his back against the tree trunk. The grass swelled and tickled at the bare skin of his ankles. The sun was just beginning to rise on a night that seemed ever-lasting, the yellow-orange-red of the sky was the most beautiful thing Chris had ever seen. He let the sun’s warm rays find his pale cold skin, and although he felt no warmth, he felt his spirits lift just a little, pushing back the virus.

  The helicopter rose up off the ground and into the sky. The red light on the underside flashed. The helicopter tilted forward and moved away. Chris couldn’t help but feel a little sadness biting at the back of his throat, the last sliver of his humanity slipping through his fingers. He wished for a moment that Maisie wasn’t leaving, that she was still there with him. He opened his mouth to let out a wave of weeping, but instead came out with a rattling moan.

  Then his heart swelled with the knowledge that he had helped Maisie to escape to safety. He looked up at the tiny black speck against the yellow sky, shrinking and disappearing rapidly, and he laughed.

  MARCH 2015

  Deep down in St John’s of the Vale a small gang of zombies staggered forward, grasping for something on the ground. There was the chittering of teasing squirrels who shot up a tree, turning back to look at the figures below. The zombies groaned and reached up for the small mammals, but couldn’t even reach the lowest branch.

  A steady but consistent drone grew in volume. The zombies turned to face it. Bored of their game, the squirrels leapt into a neighbouring tree. The undercarriage of a crop duster flew overhead. They reached up for it with no chance of touching it. They groaned with disappointment. A blue-tinted gas leaked from the plane’s undercarriage and doused the zombies below with a thick fog.

  The zombies groaned and staggered through the thick mist, breathing it in. Their groans subsided, quieting, those with both sets of jaws closed their mouths and began to gently cough, their breaths coming in ragged gasps. They pitched forward and fell to the ground, breathing in large mouthfuls of gas.

  The mist began to dissipate, revealing the ragged strangers on their hands and knees, breaths coming smooth and clear. They looked up at each other. Their faces were torn, their skin damaged and dry, a deep level of understanding passing between them. They pushed themselves to their feet – some easier than others – grimacing when they eased their weight onto a stump with a missing foot, staring at a missing limb. Then they frowned with thought for a moment before the memory, fuzzy and unclear, would come to them.

  They walked toward the trees and snapped off lengths of wood, using them as crutches. They shook their heads and looked up at the sky as if seeing it for the first time. Some turned and wandered off into the wilderness. Others walked down the road, joining strangers without discourse.

  In the distance on every side, some close, some far, packs of multi-coloured planes flew in formation over local towns and cities, releasing blue-tinted gas from their undercarriages, covering whole counties with a thick blue blanket.

  The entire country, indeed the entire world, was a patchwork of blue gas, a global fog that entered the lungs of every man, woman, and child zombie.

  APRIL 2015

  “The nightmare is finally over. The world has changed, but if the human race is adept at anything it is in overcoming strife and challenges.

  “If you have recently woken up from a long sleep and feel like several days or weeks of your life have been lost, it is because you have. A virus spread across the world and took control of human hosts, rendering them powerless. Acts of aggression were carried out by all infected and any injuries you have were incurred during such activities. Though we are returning to normal it is taking time, and it will be a while before services and the life we once knew fully resume. But we are on our way. We have each of us experienced a tragic loss. The number of casualties far surpasses that of any other global disaster in our history.

  “For now you are suggested to go home, return to your friends and family. Those who find their homes empty should go to their neighbour’s house. This is a time for being together, after so much darkness and isolation. We will come to rely on each other a great deal more as the days wear on and we find ourselves re-entering the world as it once was. It will never be the same again, of course. We have lost too much in too short a time, but we will survive.

  “We will come together, and we will be stronger than we ever were before, because we will rebuild this world as one. Our infrastructure is largely still intact, our computer systems undamaged, but there is a gaping hole in our society that we must work to heal. This is the closest our species has come to annihilation. We must create safeguards to ensure it is not repeated.

  “This is John Jackson reporting for BBC News.”

  MAY 2015

  Local workers wearing hazmat suits picked malformed bodies up and placed them on stretchers, loading them with care onto the back of several large lorries. An old woman brushed the street
s with a worn broom. Children with missing arms ran through the streets, apparently unperturbed by their missing limbs.

  A black jeep moved between the detritus and bodies decorating Francine Street, Nottingham, and pulled up to a non-descript terrace house. The jeep door opened and Maisie climbed out, wearing a pale blue dress.

  She approached the house’s front door and knocked. She adjusted the bow in her hair. The door opened and a teenage version of Maisie answered. Her eyes widened and she screamed with joy.

  “Mum! Come here quick! Quick!” Emily said. “It’s Maisie! She’s here!”

  She bent down and wrapped her arms around her little sister, squeezing tight. Sharon, Maisie’s mother, descended the stairs in a flowery dress. Her face was thin, her bones jutting under her skin like they were trying to pierce through. She stopped when she saw Maisie. Her eyes welled up and she ran down the remaining stairs and scooped Maisie up in her arms, showering her with kisses.

  “You got so big,” Sharon said in her husky voice, stroking her face with her fingers. “Where have you been? I missed you so much!”

  Maisie just grinned, tears spilling down her face. Her mother and sister had matching blue and purple veins up their necks.

  “Have you seen your father?” Sharon said.

  Maisie’s expression turned sad.

  “Not yet,” she said. “I thought he might be here.”

  “Why would he be here?”

  Dust, rubbish, and ownerless body parts skittered across the street, pushed aside by a strong wind into the gutter. People ran for cover into their homes as a helicopter came down, softly and gently landing in the middle of the street, the rotor blades barely fitting between the houses on either side.

  Maisie, Sharon and Emily shut their eyes, blocking the dust with their hands. The engine turned off and the rotor blades slowed and stopped. The door opened and a soldier hopped out, followed by a man in an ill-fitting shirt and trousers. Maisie ran to the man and hugged him around the legs.

  “Daddy!” she cried.