“That’s disgusting,” Julie said, bringing her hand to her mouth to try to hide her retching.
“Did you even see what was going on out there?” scoffed some yuppie in a fraternity jacket and a ridiculous baseball cap.
“What happened?” Samantha asked.
“How the hell am I supposed to know?” the same frat boy snapped in response.
“Hey, easy, we are all here together. She just means, how did they get inside? I thought you guys were, well, vetting people or whatever,” Jared said, staring at the frat boy as if he had a serious problem with his presence.
“For beer, dude. Christ on a cross, if they had beer–”
“Or were really smoking hot,” another voice interrupted, much to the frat boy’s amusement.
“Yeah, if they had beer, or were really freaking hot, then that paid for admission. I mean, come on, it’s a kegger, school’s out forever!” The guy laughed and cheered, causing a round of hoots to echo around the room.
He stopped the instant Jared’s head collided with his face. The blow shook the man and wobbled his legs. Blood streamed from the broken nose, painting the lower half of his face a deep crimson.
“What did you do that for, mate?” someone asked.
“You guys really don’t get it, do you?” Jared said before the other frat boys in the room came to the aid of their stricken brethren.
Chaos erupted, with fists and feet flying in all directions. Jared fought like a man possessed and held his own for a long time. The numbers game was to his disadvantage however. Despite how many of the group he knocked to the floor, they just seemed to keep coming at him.
Two men grabbed his arms and pinned them behind his back while a third picked himself up off the floor and drove his fist into Jared’s gut. Even with the two men holding him up, Jared was doubled over by the blow, the air driven from his lungs.
A knee to the side of the head sent him to the floor, which should have been the end of it, but the first frat boy stood up again, an evil smirk spread across his blood-stained face. Moving like a pack, they started putting the boot to Jared, stamping and kicking at him as he tried in vain to get back to his feet.
“Stop it.”
“You’re killing him.”
“Jerry, Jerry, give it a rest.”
“Get off him,” a cacophony of voices cried out as the beating continued.
Dwayne moved toward the group, his ham-sized fists balled and ready to cause some damage, but he was hauled backward. Caught off guard, he stumbled as the blood-covered figure they had saved charged forward.
Diving into the group, he yelled and pushed, not striking but still managing to clear a space around helpless Jared.
“Quit it. What the fuck, guys?” It was only when the figure spoke they realized who it was beneath the gory disguise.
“Ian?” a young woman asked, pushing both Sam and Julie out of the way.
“Pack it in, everybody. We need to work together if we want to survive this.” The blood-soaked frat boy roared.
Ian Spencer was the richest kid in the university. His family held long-standing connections through all levels of faculty and alumni. There were two different locations on campus that shared his name. There were even strong rumors he was related to the British Spencers and Lady Diana, but nobody ever dared ask.
“Shit, Ian, what happened to you, bro?” one of the frat boys asked.
“What the fuck do you think, Tank?” Ian snapped, clearly not in the mood for small talk. “These guys saved my life, they are solid, and you will leave them alone. Do you understand?”
For many years, Ian had been the popular kid in school because of his money. He was not the biggest, fastest, or the strongest. He was smart, and not that anybody would know it from his public persona, but hardworking, too.
“He fucking chinned me, the bastard. He got what he deserved,” the bloodied-up man spoke.
“Well, you kind of had it coming. We all did.” The remorse in Ian’s words cut through the room.
“Bullshit. It was a party. Heck, it was your idea, man,” said Tank, a big man with cold blue eyes and a mop of nearly white-blond hair.
“Yes, and I was wrong. Look at me, look at this place. We were wrong, and if we want to survive, then we have to work together,” Ian said, reiterating his first statement.
“Fuck that. We are waiting in here for those things to leave,” another of Jared’s attackers spoke.
“Then you will die here.” Sam took a chance at injecting herself into the conversation. “Do you want that?”
The man looked at Sam and smiled, tilting his head as he answered. “If I got to die with you by my side, baby, then why not.”
Sam gave him a belittling laugh, walked forward and slapped him across the face, hard enough for her hand to go numb.
The ruckus threatened to kick off again before Dwayne interjected himself into proceedings. His sheer size turned the tide of the conversation just long enough for the temper flare to subside.
“We are getting out of here. You can come with us if you want, but we are not going to stand around waiting to be eaten,” Sam spoke up, looking around the group rather than focusing on anybody in particular.
There were eight others in the kitchen, which when added to their four, made for a close quarter’s discussion. Emotions hung rife, the atmosphere charged and balanced on a delicate edge.
“Dude, maybe she’s right. I mean, look around, the party is kind of over,” one from the group spoke, looking at Tank.
“There’s safety in numbers, man,” Ian added, trying hard to convince them to leave.
“We’d better arm ourselves because those things don’t back down from a fight,” Tank spoke, and while his words were defiant, he never took his eyes off Dwayne.
“That’s a good idea,” Julie said, speaking for the first time. “We’ve all seen the movies, we know how this works.”
A few moments later, they were all armed with varying degrees of effectiveness. Knives had disappeared fast, with Tank insisting he needed two. The kitchen furniture had been ripped apart with chair legs becoming clubs with minimum effort. Others had turned to the broken bottles, holding the jagged things out before them like some sort of holy item.
“Are we ready?” Sam asked, as she once again found herself preparing to open a door to the unknown. She swallowed hard. They were not safe in the house. She knew that and accepted it, but what threw her off kilter was the knowledge that they would be in equal peril on the other side.
The increased space also meant an increased number of zeds, and that was something she was keen to avoid.
“Get on with it,” Tank growled, clutching the knives in his white-knuckled fists. He had a strange, showboating smile on his face.
“That guy will die first,” Jared leaned in close and whispered to Dwayne.
Jared had not spoken much since his beating but had dusted himself off, armed himself, and took center position immediately behind Sam.
The door opened and the cool air of the early morning rushed in, ushering with it the echo of the growling terror that was their world.
***
The fraternity house was located on the outskirts of the university campus, or technically speaking, off campus, for that ended on the other side of the road, out front. In turn, the university was nestled outside of the city, in a quiet and picturesque rural area.
The rear of the property gave way to an extended garden area, marked by a makeshift fence, but it all fed seamlessly into the sprawling fields and meadows that bordered the woods and eventually carried on through to the mountains.
As the group snuck out of the house, creeping like naughty teens sneaking out without alerting mom and dad, they looked around them, shocked that everything looked so normal. The garden was still there, overgrown and in need of some maintenance before the first barbecue parties started in the spring. The pool, which the frat house had paid for with the profits from their near legendary parties,
still stood, uncovered and uninviting given the cold weather. The hot tub attached to it was not only steaming but occupied. The two figures sat arm-in-arm, and from a distance, appeared to be lost in a heavy lip-locking session.
“Hell yeah!” Tank slapped Ian on the back, pointing at the couple. He surprised them all with his calm and quiet tones.
“Grow up, you fool,” Sam snarled at him. “They are going to get themselves killed.”
“Maybe you’re just jealous,” Tank shot back, garnering a titter of flirtatious giggles from the women who had been part of those holed up in the kitchen. “You might not be so uptight if you got laid now and then.”
Sam clenched her fists in an attempt to control herself, but the laughter that was being directed at her, in response to his cheap, schoolboy antics made her blood boil. She spun around to say something, but once again Ian interjected himself as a peacekeeper between the two groups.
“Cut it out, Tank. It’s not funny, and now isn’t the fucking time.” Turning back to Sam, he gave her a shy smile, which she returned, feeling unusually awkward about doing so.
“The rest of the garden looks clear,” Jared said as he and Dwayne returned to the group. Julie knew of their plans and had seen them wander off. The others, it appeared, were still oblivious to the danger around them.
“Great, so we are outside in the cold, sober, and well, lost. This sucks,” one of the pretty young things in the new group said, her whiny voice an instant source of irritation.
“Then go back inside again,” Jared snapped, standing up straight as one guy in a university football shirt moved in front of the girl.
Dwayne sensed the trouble and instantly put himself between the two men. He took hold of Jared and tried to laugh it off, but there was something in his eyes that gave Dwayne reason to pause. There was a fearlessness in them, not a cocky edge, but a cold one.
“Calm down, man, just let it drop. Like Ian said, we are in this together, so let’s try to get along.” Dwayne relaxed when he saw Jared’s shoulders slouch, and the stiffness disappear from his jaw.
“But seriously,” the other girl said, “what’s the plan?”
For a few moments, nobody spoke. Half of the group was afraid to come up with a suggestion, some were lost and wanted nothing more than to move where they were told, and the others were still staring at the scene in the hot tub.
“I say we head back to the campus,” Tank said, once again talking as if he were on some jock-fueled campaign trail. “There are enough buildings there and places to hide. People too. There’s bound to be enough people there. We can hole up somewhere and wait for the cops to come through.”
“Cops?” the jersey guy said, tilting his head in visible confusion.
“Cops, the army, anybody with guns,” Tank replied, annoyed at having to offer clarification.
“No offense,” Jared said, holding his hands up when all eyes turned to him, “but that plan sucks balls.”
“Oh, really, shit-for-brains, then tell us, how are you going to save us?” Tank growled as a vein began to show on the side of his neck.
“We should head for the mountains. Right now, the key to all of this is survival. That means getting out of the city, away from the populace. The zeds won’t necessarily come out that far, not straight away at least, and any that are there will be far less in number than around here.” Jared outlined his plan as the others stood around him open-mouthed. “It seems as though you only get turned into one of them if they bite you. That means it’s not airborne, yet, and isn’t contagious, like the flu or anything like that, so we have a chance. The higher ground of the mountains offers us everything.”
It took a few seconds for the words to fully sink through, and while Dwayne, Julie, and Sam were nodding their understanding, it was clear the second faction of their delicately constructed group held differed views.
“That’s bullshit. The military won’t sweep through the mountains looking for people. Heck no. We are going to the university, get some food, some sleep, and wait for them to come save our asses. I mean, come on, dude, this is America, not some backwater country in European or something,” Tank snapped. “Our military is the best, and they will save us.”
“Well, first of all, it’s Europe, not European, meathead, and second, if you really believe that, then you are a prime example of everything that is wrong with this country at the moment. But you know what? Fuck it. Head off that way. Go get eaten. I think you would be doing us all a big favor.” Jared turned, done with the group and the conversation.
He heard Tank grunt and had no time to brace for the impact as the football player tackled him from behind. Jared’s body bent backward with such dexterity it looked as if Tank had snapped his spine. The two men collapsed to the floor, Tank threw a series of heavy, clumsy blows to the back of Jared’s head.
Jared was able to cover up and fend off the worst of the attack and roll himself over in the process. Once he was on his back, his movements changed. He locked Tank’s left arm––his dominant arm in their altercations so far––under his own and threw a heavy fist off the side of the man’s head. Not aiming for the jaw, he made a solid connection with his temple and immediately saw the stunned look wash over Tank’s face. Grabbing him by the shirt, Jared pulled Tank down to him while thrusting his head forward. The connection of thick bone with the soft cartilage of Tank’s nose was a heavy one. The sound alone seemed to ring out, the crisp snap followed by the deep grunt as first shock and then pain radiated through the football player’s head. Blood flowed in copious amounts, and Tank fell limp against Jared, who grunted and shoved the man off him.
Getting back to his feet, Jared waited for another attack. He was ready and willing to fight anybody who came near him, but they held back. Their eyes were focused over his shoulder, down the garden.
The young woman whose comments had started it all opened her mouth to scream, her trembling arm raised to point out the source of her fear. Before any sound could emerge, a thick stream of sour-smelling alcohol-infused vomit spewed from her mouth. She doubled over, emptying the contents of her stomach onto the ground.
Turning, Jared looked behind him. Down the garden, their arguments had disturbed the loved-up couple in the hot tub. Both had risen to face the group, making it clear why the girl had decided to abandon her stomach contents.
“Holy shit, look at that,” the football jersey guy said, his words overflowing with fear and repulsion.
The pair had indeed been having a heavy session, only it was not just their lips that were locked. The naked girl stood, her curvy frame glistening wet in the shallow light. The mixture of water and blood made her look like a creature not of this world. Beside her, she held the boy she had fallen in love with, and whose face she had decided to eat. Even from a distance, and in the murky light, they could see she had torn through the man’s face and shattered the bones, chewing right through to his brain. The grey-pink mass hung, half-devoured, from the gaping wound.
The zed woman made no effort to get out of the pool to attack them, but nobody wanted to wait long enough to find out why or challenge the thing to come and get them.
A crash from inside the house pulled their attention the other way. The barricade had given way, and a host of the undead, the majority of which were freshly woken partygoers––friends and fellow students, for the most part––spilled through the destroyed defenses, some stumbling only to be crushed by those who followed.
“Shit! What do we do?” Tank asked, his voice several pitches higher than normal.
“Run,” Dwayne said, “around the side of the house.”
They started to move, but before they made it halfway, the dead appeared there, too. Two shambling figures, nothing more than shadows in the dark, stopped the group in their tracks.
“Through the fields! The zeds are slow, so we just need to keep moving,” Sam called, but it was too late. Panic was starting to set in.
One of the young women bolted from the
group. She ran blindly toward the pack of zeds that had spewed from the house. At least fifteen had re-awoken from the carnage inside and followed their single remaining instinct toward the location of their next meal.
“Belle,” Tank screamed, breaking into a powerful sprint.
“No, don’t,” Julie cried out, but Tank did not hear her.
The girl ran toward the group and would likely have avoided their initial charge had it not been for Tank’s cries for her to stop. Turning around, she lost her footing and fell just as three hungry zeds stumbled down the steps from the house. They landed on her, their hands unceremoniously tearing into her flesh. The slender stomach was ripped apart, her navel piercing glinting as it was yanked out and up toward her face.
Blood bubbled in a flood from her gaping stomach, and like a pack of animals, the three zeds lowered their heads and lapped at the well they had struck. The girl continued to scream long after they shoveled her flesh into their mouths.
Tank let out a bellow as he saw Belle meet her fate. Shifting his direction slightly, he launched a flying tackle to the closest zed, hitting with such force they could hear the dead man’s spine snap.
Tank landed hard and pushed himself back up to his feet, ready to take on the next creature. Five of them met him, their hands heavy and uncoordinated. While Tank put up a good fight, it ended swiftly when an undead hand forced its way into his mouth and ripped off his jaw. Tank remained standing long enough for his gaze to find the others. He cried out, but his deformed face was unable to construct any final words. He fell to the floor where hungry mouths were waiting.
“Fuck. This can’t be happening,” the second girl screamed, sinking to her feet, sobbing and rocking back and forth.
“We don’t have time for this,” Jared growled. “We need to move.”
Sam crouched down by the girl, gently taking her by the shoulders and raising her head so that their eyes could meet. She then drew back her hand and slapped the girl across the face so hard that her head nearly spun from her shoulders.
ZPOC: The Beginning Page 5
