Plague Z: Outbreak [A Zombie Apocalypse Novel]

by Max Danzig

  “Shit.” Peter got to his feet screaming in pain and joined Rachel to hold the door. The back door window cracked. “We’ve gotta get to the Honda.”

  “Can you hold the door, Peter?” Rachel shouted to make herself heard over the noise coming from the frenzied crowd outside the back door window.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Rachel stepped away from the door and grabbed a kitchen chair. Peter pressed his body against the door with all his might. The glass behind him broke and a rotting hand reached through grabbing at the back of his jacket. Rachel jammed the chair under the doorknob to hold the door closed.

  “C’mon Peter let’s get the fuck out of here.” Rachel said.

  Peter tore away from the zombie grabbing onto his jacket and stepped away. The chair under the knob held. They ran from the kitchen through the living room to the front door and swung it open. To their horror crowds of zombies were already in the front yard around the Honda and on the front porch. Rachel slammed the door and locked it as several creatures tried to rush the opening. She turned to look at Peter, her eyes big and her mouth slack. Peter was in too much pain to feel much of anything else.

  Peter whipped his head around when he heard a chair fall in the kitchen and the back door burst open under the weight of the living dead against it. He looked back to Rachel.

  “Upstairs! Now goddamnit, now!” He yelled snapping Rachel out of her growing shock.

  Rachel took the stairs two at a time with Peter right behind her.

  With no time to waste they ran into the bedroom they shared and slammed the door closed.

  “Help me move the bed in front of the door,” Peter said.

  They slid it away from the wall, and each took an end and tried to lift it.

  “This fucker’s heavy,” Peter said. “Let’s push it.”

  They pushed the bed across the doorway just as the first bodies slam against it. The doorknob jostled, and the door popped out from the frame a fraction of an inch but was blocked from opening by the bed against it.

  “Hold the bed there,” Peter shouted. He rushed across the room and wrestled an old highboy dresser from the wall and walked the heavy piece of furniture end-to-end across the room. He tilted it over on the bed to weigh it down more. They sat on the floor next to each other, with their backs against the bed breathing heavy and sweating despite the cold.

  “This ought to hold,” Peter said over the increasing groans and sounds of creatures trying to get through the door. Rachel and Peter could feel the furniture tremble against their backs with the zombies’ efforts to gain entrance.

  "How are we…" Rachel began.

  A small explosion erupted from the back of the house as the generator’s gas tank exploded. The generator died, and the house was thrown into darkness. Peter and Rachel could see a strong yellow glow in the night sky through the front-facing bedroom window.

  At first, they smelled it. Then they saw smoke seeping into the room from under the door. The zombies kept hitting the door, hissing and groaning.

  “Holy fuck, the house is on fire,” Peter said running to the window. He saw that there were fewer than a hundred zombies in the front yard. Many of them were headed around back towards the fire. Rachel got up and stood next to Peter.

  “We've got to get out,” he said, his voice trembling with pain. “Please tell me you still have the keys to the Honda.”

  Rachel patted her jacket frantically, reached in the right pocket and pulled out the key fob. They both breathed a sigh of relief.

  “How are we going to get out? We can't just...”

  “We will have to jump down from the porch roof,” Peter said.

  “I don’t think I can do that.” Rachel said, her voice was shaking.

  “This is our only chance Rachel. It’s now or never.” Peter said and coughed. His eyes stung as the smoke continued entering the room.

  “But there’s too many of them down there.” Rachel said also coughing and wiping her eyes.

  “Most of them are in the back, hopefully burning to hell. Once we’re on the ground, it’s only thirty feet to the Honda. We’ll have to fight off the ones out front, get in the SUV and go.” Peter said.

  “I don’t think I can jump from this height.” Rachel said. “And how are we going to fight them off?”

  Peter walked to the highboy on the bed and covered his nose and mouth against the smoke. He stomped down on one of the thick curved legs and broke it off, and then another. He walked back and handed Rachel a solid and effective wooden club. As the smoke thickened, they knelt on the floor by the windows.

  “It’s only a ten-foot drop. Jump feet first, keep your knees flexed and roll into the landing then get up and run for the Honda.” Peter said.

  The sound of bodies bumping and bashing against the door got louder. They could hear the furniture scratching across the floor a fraction of an inch at a time, but they couldn’t see it in the dark and smoky room. Peter opened the window. Several zombies in the yard caught sight of him. In a frenzy of rotting faces and arms, they came towards the porch. The cold air coming from the window was refreshing. The smoke moved across the bedroom and billowed out of the upper part of the open window.

  “You first,” Peter said. “Wait for me, and we’ll jump down together and go from there.”

  “Peter, I can’t. I’m afraid.” Rachel said.

  The sound of the furniture shifting several inches alarmed them. Something was entering the room.

  “Go now, Rachel. No time to waste.” Peter said eyes rimmed with white and his nostrils flaring in fear.

  She nodded and held her makeshift club in one hand and put the keys in her jacket pocket. Rachel took Peter’s offered hand and put one leg over the windowsill onto the slight slope of the porch roof. She leaned her body through the window into the cool night air. She could see that the yellow glow coming from the back of the house had intensified.

  Rachel brought her other leg through the window to stand on the roof. She heard the furniture barricade slide across the floor and the guttural groans of monsters entering the room. Then Peter screamed.

  Chapter 62

  Steve found that shooting from the side gun ports was difficult. It provided a limited field of view and no doubt was best used when the truck was stationary or moving slowly, and not at highway speeds. He also found it easier to use the pistols from the side and back ports. The shotgun and rifle were much better suited being shot from the roof hatch.

  When they were going around wrecked cars in the Manchester and Hooksett areas, there were a lot of walkers. Steve took shots at them, but could only hit two of them. Neither of them were headshots. Kendra was right; hitting the head of a moving target was hard as hell. One walker he shot through the chest. Other than make the creature’s clothing and body flinch, it was unaffected. It kept staggering towards them. Another one he hit fell over, but got up as they passed him.

  Once Steve had all the guns reloaded and stowed the way Kendra wanted them, he took his place in the passenger seat.

  “Everything set back there?” Kendra asked.

  “Yep, all set.” Steve said. “Kendra, why d'you want to go with me to get my friends?”

  “Because there’s nothing else to do, plus I was so goddamned alone. It’s nice to know others are still alive. The more survivors we find, the better off we’ll all be. Plus, I wanted an excuse to drive the BearCat.” She said with a big grin.

  Steve laughed. “No, you’re just being a gung-ho, hard-ass cop.”

  Kendra continued grinning and nodded.

  “So…” Steve asked, “why d'you become a cop?”

  “My dad was one,” Kendra said, tears welling up in her eyes thinking about him. She swallowed hard and shook her head. “I wanted to be a cop since I was nine. I like the action and I like helping people. So what did you do for a living?”

  "I was a landscaper," Steve said. "I love being outdoors and not having anybody hanging over my shoulder."

  “
Do you have any family left?” Kendra asked.

  “I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. My mom and sister were dead when I got home that first morning. My older sister Heather is at school in Keene. I tried calling and texting her bunches of times and she never answered. She always has her phone; it’s practically attached to her body. My dad left for work that morning, but I never saw or heard from him again.”

  “Doesn’t he have a cellphone?” Kendra asked.

  “He does, but when he’s at work, he never checks it. I tried calling his office number several times, but it keeps going to his voicemail.” Steve paused for a moment. “So when we get Rachel and Peter, are we going back to the Derry station?”

  “I don’t know, I’m guessing we will unless we can come up with a better, even more secure location.” Kendra said.

  “Are we on Interstate 89 yet?” Steve asked.

  “We’ve been on it for a while.” Kendra said. “In fact we’re almost at the exit that’ll take us to the Goshen area. Once we're on the dirt roads, you'll have to point me in the right direction.”

  “My phone should have enough of a charge by now.” Steve said grabbing his phone and pressing the power button. “I’ll pull up the GPS to see if I can make it easier.”

  “You might not get a network connection out here even if there wasn’t a plague apocalypse. Let’s try this,” Kendra said hitting a button on the computer display keyboard. The picture flashed and provided a GPS map. “This is a real GPS, it links directly to the satellites. No internet connection required.”

  Steve stared at the map to orient himself. After a minute he recognized where they were in relation to the farm. “There,” Steve said pointing to a spot on the screen. “The farm is off this dirt road right here.”

  Kendra slowed the truck to take a better look. "Okay, move that little cursor toggle until the cross is hovering over where you want us to go then tap the button that says 'Set'."

  Steve did as directed and hit the 'Set' button. A tinny male voice said, ‘Acquiring signal setting,’ then 'Signal acquired. In a half mile, take Exit 9 East onto Route 103 for five miles’.

  Kendra picked up her speed. Steve looked over at his phone. A little blue light signaling he had a message was flashing at the top of the screen. He swiped the screen and entered his password and went to messages. As he read it, he stopped breathing, and his hands became sweaty.

  ‘Steve, R U OK? I was trapped for several days. I found this phone and thankfully remembered your number. I got home… I saw the holes in the hallway wall. If you're still alive, I’m at the Hooksett Wal-Mart with others. Dad’

  The message was five days old. There were no others.

  “Dad?” Steve said.

  Chapter 63

  Rachel saw shadowy figures moving beyond the window in the dark and smoky room. She could hear the impacts of Peter hitting things with his makeshift club and cursing, "C’mon you motherfuckers." There was coughing followed by another impact and a thud.

  “Peter get out of there we’ve gotta go.” She yelled.

  The gore encrusted club flew out of the window and clattered onto the roof and she jumped back from it. Peter emerged headfirst, his hands on the sill trying to pull himself out, but then he stopped with a jerk. He looked over his shoulder into the dark room and kicked at clawed hands grabbing onto his leg. Peter cursed with the effort. “No, no, you don’t you fucker, I’ll fucking kill you.” Peter said.

  Then his head snapped forward with his back arched, Peter uttered a gut-wrenching scream. The veins in his neck and forehead stood out from the force of it.

  “AGGGHHH! They’re biting me.” Peter shrieked, and was being dragged backward through the window and into the bedroom they had shared, now filled with zombies. “Rachel help me!”

  Her paralysis broke, and she leapt forward and grabbed Peter’s outstretched hand. She dug her heels in and pulled with all her might. Even with Peter trying to help with his left arm hooked over the sill, Rachel felt herself and Peter being drawn back into the black maw of the window.

  Peter wrenched his right hand out of Rachel’s grasp. “Go Rachel! Go! Get out of here. Fight. I…” bony decaying hands grabbed at his hair and shoulder and a rotting face buried its teeth into the back of Peter’s neck.

  He issued a high pitched scream and let go of the window sill, disappearing into the blackness of the smoke filled room. He screamed again, but it was cut-off and replaced with a cacophony of groans and something wet tearing.

  “PETER NOOOOO!” She screamed from the pit of her soul.

  A dead, grotesque face emerged from the smoke. In a rage Rachel lifted her club high and brought it down in the middle of the head where the skull was showing through the decaying scalp. The skull cracked, and the creature went limp. Another head and upper body appeared. Rachel took a sideways swing at the head and ended that monster. She repeated the process over and over roaring out in fury each time she crushed another skull. She kept swinging the club until the open window was clogged with the corpses of former zombies.

  Spattered with bits of rotting flesh and blackened gore, she stepped away, breathing hard, her chest heaving with the effort and adrenaline coursing through her body.

  She looked up and saw black acrid smoke boiling out of the eaves of the roof, and from the bedroom window. It was thick and oily and smelled of burning meat. Rachel shuffled to the edge of the porch roof.

  Below was a shifting sea of figures. She was close enough to see the deformed faces of the corpses turned towards her with vile predatory hatred in their cloudy eyes.

  Smoke billowed out from under the porch roof, and Rachel took a step back and looked over her shoulder. Fire had reached the bedroom doorway. Burning zombies entered the room and started more fires. Beyond the corpse clogged window, the room was filled with a hideous mass of wild moving shapes silhouetted against the growing fire.

  Below her a throng of bony, ragged arms reached up waiting to tear her apart. All around her smoke filled the air as the fire devoured the farm that had been their sanctuary.

  Chapter 64

  “Your dad? He’s alive?” Kendra asked, glancing at Steve.

  “Yeah… At least he was five days ago. He’s at the Wal-Mart in Hooksett. We passed right by that exit. I don't know how he ended up there when he worked in Merrimack." Steve said.

  Steve sat there for several moments looking at the text message on his phone.

  “When we get Peter and Rachel, we’ve gotta head back to the Wal-Mart to get my dad and the others he mentioned.” Steve said.

  “You’ve got it.” Kendra said sitting up straighter in the seat. “We’re getting close. What’s odd though, is considering we’re out in the boonies; I’m seeing more walkers in the area than I thought I would. What’s even odder is they seem to be moving in the same general direction.”

  Steve looked up and peered through the windshield. In the broad swath of light cutting through the dark were shadowy gray figures moving off to the sides in the woods and in the fields. They were moving in the direction they were heading.

  “It’s getting worse.” Steve said.

  “What is?” Kendra asked.

  “When I left, there seemed to be more and more of the walkers arriving in the vicinity of the farm. We built a barrier fence, but it was a real Mickey Mouse job. I told them I didn’t think it would hold off the crowds of walkers if they grew to be too large. That reminds me, they keep the gate locked. Somehow we have to warn them we’re coming so Peter can unlock the gate and let us in before the zombies overwhelm us.” Steve said.

  Following the directions of the GPS, Kendra slowed and made a sharp right turn onto a dirt road. “Holy shit, is this really it? It’s so fucking narrow.” Kendra said.

  “Like I said, it's all dirt roads from here.” Steve said.

  “When we get close, I’ll sound the horn and flash the lights to get their attention.” Kendra said. “You can stand up in the hatch to let them know it’s you. If t
he walkers get too close before we get in the yard we might have to start shooting. Are you okay to do that?”

  “Yes,” Steve said looking at Kendra focusing on the dirt road and noticing a frown form on her face. As he looked back at the window, there was a flash of movement followed by the sound of two impacts in quick succession.

  “What the fuck was that?” Steve said.

  “There’s lots of those bastards on and along this road. Where in fuck are they coming from, and where the hell are they going?” Kendra said gripping the steering wheel in both fists.

  “I think I know,” Steve said staring ahead. “The turn is coming up soon. Just be careful it comes up quick on the right and then the road gets steeper before you get to the farm.”

  “Goddamn,” Kendra said as she smashed two other walkers off the side of the BearCat and ran over another. “They’re all over the fucking place.”

  “Here, turn here,” Steve said excitedly.

  Kendra cut the wheel to the right and kept the big vehicle on the road and ascended the hill.

  “There’s some sort of light or glow in the sky.” Kendra said.

  Steve leaned forward. “That’s in the direction of the farm,” he said. “Oh shit, I smell smoke.”

  Kendra did too and pressed on the accelerator sending the truck careening up the hill. The tires spun and bounced over the rutted road, kicking up dirt and rocks and running down any zombies that got in the way.

  ----

  Rachel stood on the roof of the porch, the smoke was getting worse. Behind her, the fire was growing more intense in the bedroom. From the body clogged window, a line of black gore ran in a rivulet down the roof spattering onto the upturned faces and outstretched arms of the waiting zombies..