by White, Amber
Tonight the World Dies
By Amber White
Smashwords Edition
Copywrite 2014
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Chapter One
Ah, the open road- fresh air, minimal traffic, and undead zombie freaks that want to bite your freaking face off. Story of my damned life.
“We should steal a convertible.” Dean said. His muscular frame filled the space between the front seats of our stolen black Escalade.
“Not on my watch.” I replied.
“Why not?”
I slowed down. “Think about it moron. A convertible leaves us vulnerable to attack. Say we get swarmed. They could easily reach in and kill us.”
“So, we’ll get a hard-top convertible.” He said with a smile.
I frowned, turning around in my seat to look directly at him. “A hard-top requires you to physically remove the top and put it somewhere. It’s not going to fit in the trunk.” I turned back around and focused on the road, speeding up.
“It’s so warm and nice out. Can we just lounge around somewhere for a while?” Billie said, smiling sweetly at me in the rear view mirror. I couldn't help but notice yet again how much she looked like a smaller version of her twin, but with longer sunny blond hair.
“No.” I said, another frown turning down the corners of my mouth.
“But it’s so nice! And we don’t get to have fun very often!”
“Have you forgotten where we are?” I asked her.
She looked out the windows. “I’d say we’re in the middle of nowhere, with no chance of being attacked.”
“Please!” She and Dean said together.
“If you two want to risk being eaten, fine by me. But if they start swamping us and you’re not back in the car by the time I start the engine, I’m leaving your sorry asses behind.” I slowed down again, stopping in the middle of the road, directly in a large patch of sunlight.
They cheered loudly. The sound reverberated in the car, making my head ache.
“Shut the hell up!” I hissed, “Do you want then to find us?” I looked wearily around at the trees. Normally I would be all for a bit of fun, but when I couldn’t see more than a mile in any given direction, I became the worry wart.
They grinned at me, then at each other as they climbed out of their windows and onto the roof of the car.
“Sully, wake up.” I poked him in the shoulder repeatedly. “It’s time to wake up, sleeping beauty.”
He groaned, pulling his hat off his face. “What?” he looked around, confused in his half sleeping state. “Where are we? Why did we stop?”
“Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee have decided that they want to risk our lives for a bit of sunshine.”
Sully rolled his eyes. “Morons.” He mumbled. “You should start the car back up and drive off with them on the roof.” He ran a hand through his spiky black hair, ruffling it into an even greater mess.
I laughed. “I thought about it. It would leave more room for supplies.”
Billie’s head popped into my window. “You wouldn’t be thinking of hurting us would you?” She grinned, her long blond hair framing her face as it hung in rivulets of pale gold below her. Her skin was turning a slight red. “Or leaving us behind?”
I looked directly into her watery blue eyes with as straight a face as I could muster with her looking as ridiculous as she did. “Yes.”
“You would really speed off down the road with us up here?” she asked, her eyebrows furrowing.
I smiled sweetly. “Only if you annoy me.”
She laughed and disappeared from view, probably returning to her stretched out position on the roof.
“You keep watch for a while. I need some shut-eye.” I told Sully.
I relaxed into my seat, letting the sun streaming in through the windshield warm my face. Closing my eyes, I let my mind wander for a bit. I thought of all of us in high school, back before all this started. It was lunch time, and we were all sitting in our favorite spot, talking about random things.
“What if there’s a zombie apocalypse?” Dean said.
“You’d be fine.” I said
“How do you know?!??!” he looked slightly worried.
“They’re zombies. They eat brains.” I grinned into my hamburger.
“Oh good, I thought I’d die there for a second.” He let out a sigh of relief. Billie and Sully laughed. “What are you laughing about?” He said. They laughed harder, and I joined in. He was still confused, looking from one smirking face to another until it dawned on him. Red faced, he joined in the laughter.
We didn’t know it at the time, but our occasional open discussions about zombies and how we would survive an outbreak would prove vital to our future.
It had seemed like that had happened eons ago but, in reality, it was only last year. The whole world had gone to hell in one massive hand basket in a single freaking year.
We had heard only stories for a while; people all over the world getting sick and ending up hurting their family, friends, or the hospital workers who attended them. When it hit our town, all of our parents were concerned, so my Dad gave me the keys to the family hunting cabin and told us to stay there for a week. Cell reception was crappy, as usual, but we had a radio we could use to contact each other if need be. Every day for five days, Dad would come on the radio and give us a status update. More and more people were getting sick, and the government had no idea what was going on. Or so they said. On the fifth day, he came on, frantic.
“Take the reloading equipment, the guns, the bows, and the food. Take it all and get the hell out of there. I taught you how to use everything, so you should be fine. Stay out of big cities, don’t stay in one place too long; scavenge what you can, when you can. Just go. And whatever you do, do NOT come back for your families. Oh God, NO!” Something banged against a wall, my dad screamed once, and then everything was silent.
“Jo. JO!” Sully shook my shoulder. I had dozed off.
My eyes snapped open and I immediately spotted what had made him wake me. A horde of zombies was shambling out of the trees toward us, their stench of rotting flesh preceding them by a few hundred feet. My hand flew out the window, tapping the roof lightly.
“Get in the car. Now.” I ordered.
Dean and Billie slithered back in through their windows and grabbed their guns, perching themselves on the window frames. We stared at the zombies, waiting to see if they had actually noticed where we were. Fifty pairs of decaying eyes were on us, hungry mouths moaned in our direction. They knew we were there, and they planned to make a meal of us. Great.
They still looked fresh, like they had only been turned recently. Except for chunks of skin and muscle missing, they were mostly intact. Some had limbs cut or savagely ripped away, entrails dangled from other’s stomachs. One zombie in particular stood out. He was completely nude, his pale flesh sticking out from the crowd like a sparkling vampire in a sea of red-clad humans; his genitals had been torn off, most likely from a very hungry zombie, before he turned.
“That had to hurt.” I said, pointing him out. “First person to shoot Junkless over there gets to pick out the music tomorrow.”
Sully and I exchanged wicked smirks, each of us reaching down to grab our pistols. Poking my gun out of the window, I took aim and fired a single shot, hitting the poor bastard be
tween the eyes. I put the pistol back and started the car, rolling up my window nonchalantly. Dean and Billie slid back inside, staring at me wide-eyed. As I inched the car forward, they rolled up their own windows, never taking their eyes off me. I hit the gas, letting the car gain speed.
“How the hell did you do that?” Dean asked.
“He must have been two hundred feet away!” Billie said.
I pulled my gun back out and pointed it at them, activating the laser sight with my index finger.
“You cheated!” They said in unison.
“Not fair! I want a do-over!” Billie pouted.
Sully just laughed at us.
It had been too easy. I was raised by an ex-military man who took every chance he had to go hunting, and with his only child being a girl, I was naturally taught all the tricks of the trade. My friends, however, had been terrible shots when everything started to go down. But they learned fast.
“Just for that, I’m going to make it my personal mission to find a Bieber CD, blast it in the car, put it on repeat, and break the eject and power buttons.” I laughed.
Their faces became perfect masks of utter horror and revulsion.
“You know, I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.” Sully grinned at me.
“You know, I’m pretty sure I don’t care anymore. Besides, there is no government, and there sure as hell isn’t a Geneva Convention anymore.”
“Meaning…” Dean said.
“Meaning we’re screwed.” Billie answered.
“Damn straight.” I sped up, pushing the car over 80. The horde had picked up speed, though most of them hadn’t reached the road yet. Those that had, went flying as I hit them and some crunched beneath the wheels.
I felt my side of the car lift up slightly as I mowed down a gaggle of zombies, their heads bursting beneath the weight of the tire. Brains, blood, and pieces of skull gushed out, the red mass looking like an exaggerated version of someone stepping on a ketchup packet. After the initial attack, everything became quiet again.
The silence still bothered me sometimes. I had gone on road trips before all this happened, but it was never this quiet. No matter where we were, be it city or the middle of nowhere, it was like someone turned off the sound. No other cars sped by us, no radios rattled any windows, no barking dogs, nothing.
We drove for hours, the gas gauge slowly turning to empty, following the disturbingly barren road. We had gone through a few cities, the speed never dropping below 60 mph. It had taken most of the day for us to emerge from the green of the trees encompassing buildings, through a few more towns, and into a salt flat. There were only miles and miles of nothingness, where no freaks could sneak up on us and no buildings or shrubbery for something to hide behind. This was exactly the kind of place I would set up for the night, or even permanently should traveling become too difficult. We had gotten about half way through the flat when I realized the engine was overheating.
“We’re going to have to stop soon.” I said. No one answered. “Are you guys asleep?”
Glancing up in my rear view mirror, I saw that my friends in the back were leaning against each other, their chests rising and falling in time with their slow, steady breath. I prodded Sully back awake, covering his mouth with my hand.
“Shh.” I said, nodding my head toward the back seat. I removed my hand from his mouth and fiddled with the CD player. I put in my old Avenged Sevenfold: City Of Evil CD, and turned it to Beast and the Harlot, jacking the sound up to an earsplitting level as the song started. Sully covered his ears with his hands, snickering to himself. The first notes of the song blasted through the speakers, making Billie and Dean jump so high off their seats their heads banged against the roof. Dean was shouting something. I turned the volume down to a more manageable level.
“Yes?” I said.
“What the hell did you do that for?!” He said, his voice cutting through the now relatively quiet air like a knife. His ears were probably still ringing. I grinned.
“Do what?” I tried to look innocent but I couldn’t hold back the laughter long enough.
He glared at me, making me laugh even harder.
“She’s a dwelling place for demons, she’s a cage for every unclean spirit, every filthy bird and makes us drink the poisoned wine to fornicating with our kings. Fallen now is Babylon the great!”
Billie and Dean glared at us, rubbing their heads.
“Come on, sing!” I said. “The city dressed in jewels and gold, fine linen, myrrh and pearls. Her plagues will come all at once as her mourners watch her burn, destroyed in an hour.” They sat in stony silence, still glaring.
“Geez, you guys have lost your sense of humor.” Sully said, looking up at them in the rear view mirror.
“I do have a sense of humor. For example, I’d laugh hysterically if you got ran over. What I am losing, however, is my sanity.” Billie said, half smiling.
“When did you find it?” I asked. Her smile brightened. “Ok, we’re going to have to stop soon for gas and food. We may need to switch cars too.”
“There’s a promising looking RV down the road,” Sully pointed out.
“Cool. Let’s check it out,” Dean said, forgetting his grudge against me for waking him up.
I pulled the car over a few yards from the RV, cutting the engine. Dean and Sully slid out of their seats, guns in hand.
“We’ll get this one.” Sully said, seeing my hand on my door handle.
I narrowed my eyes at him, wanting to tell him chivalry is dead when it comes to guns, but nodded instead. No use arguing with him when the boys wanted to play commando. They stalked forward, their mouths set in a straight line, concentrating. It took them five minutes to thoroughly check the vehicle interior, underside, engine, and gas reserve. They waved us forward.
It was nice inside. Hot, but roomy. It had four separate bunks in the back with heavy partitions hiding each one, should someone want privacy. The bathroom was immaculate, with an actual shower and soap. That was an extreme luxury. I looked in one of its cabinets, and spotted the holy freaking grail of cleanliness: Shampoo! A kitchen and dining area separated the living quarters from the front, with stiff bench seats and a sturdy table. The windows, thank God, where reinforced with thick metal slats that opened wide enough to allow a gun barrel to poke through and swivel. Best of all, the key was in the ignition. This was the kind of luck you’d expect in horror movies or novels, not in real life. But who was I to argue with fate?
“Fuel?” I asked.
“Half a tank and a few gallons in the storage area below.” Sully said.
“Good. And that table will work well for the equipment. Let’s start loading stuff from the car guys.”
Although I marveled at our astounding luck, I couldn’t help but wonder what could have happened. Well, someone had to have turned, though there was no blood. Could they have been overrun? Did they have to hoof it? Herds didn’t move that fast, and there wasn’t much dust inside. They had to be near-by, but there was no one in sight. Did . . . did someone else happen across them? In a world full of freaking zombies, the real danger is the people.
Billie skipped forward, holding something behind her back with both hands. In the blink of an eye, she swung it out and hit me square on the head. Though the impact was light, it still hurt. The thing was small, black, and heavy. I recognized it at one.
“Did you just hit me on the head?”
“Maybe.” She said.
“With a bible?
“Maaaaaybe.”
“Oh, you are so going to hell!” We looked at each other for a moment and then all four of us doubled over laughing. If we couldn’t enjoy the little things, there was no point living. All thoughts of what happened to the former residents of the RV was pushed to the back of my mind as we started loading our few belongings into our new mode of transportation.
Sully and I struggled under the weight of my bullet reloading equipment while Billie and Dean walked behind us with our boxes of empty shells a
nd a box of water bottles, our duffle bags of clothes slung over their shoulders, the lucky jerks. They weren’t carrying fifty pounds of solid, squat metal with their fingers. While I was busy securing the reloader to the table, Sully started up the engine and Dean and Billie found places to store our stuff. We felt euphoric, our spirits sky high as we relaxed into our seats, occasionally looking through cupboards and shelves.
“We hit pay dirt!” Billie yelled from the kitchen, her head shoved in a cupboard. “Food!” She yanked out a couple boxes of crackers.
There was such a shortage of food that, quite often, we would have to eat pet food just to sustain ourselves long enough to get to the next place that might have something for us to take. In that train of thought, did you know puperoni dog treats really do taste like pepperoni? It’s true.
Billie opened a package, handing out five crackers a piece, which we ate slowly, relishing the stale flavor. “Ok Sully my boy, you’re the one that used to drive these behemoths all the time, you’re going to be the first to drive.” I nodded at him, mouth full of crackers.
He jammed his last cracker into his mouth and swiveled his seat around to face the steering wheel. “Let’s do this thing.” He said, casting a sideways grin at me.
I rolled my eyes. “Onward and forward to town. We could use some bomb supplies and power tools.”
“Power tools? Dean asked.
“Yeah. If we get the battery powered kind, with enough batteries, we could use them as weapons.”
“Like chainsaws?” His eyes lit up.
“Well, they take gas, but I don’t see why we can’t check them out.” I smiled. Chainsaws were a rather good idea, if popular culture had been accurate.
We could probably do with a few new axes if they had any, and baseball bats. The last few people we met had talked about writing down what they had learned, claiming they could fight all they wanted, but the knowledge they had gained could die with them. Well, the pen is mightier than the sword, but a baseball bat can be pretty effective too, if you know how to swing it right.
On the ride through the flat, I let my mind wander again. It was the last semester of high school, just a month before word got out that the zombie apocalypse was upon us. Billie had come running up to me before school, grinning widely.
