Afternoon

by Kody Boye

  AFTERNOON

  The Daylight Cycle, Book 3

  A zombie novel by Kody Boye

  Afternoon

  (Daylight, #3)

  By Kody Boye

  Copyright © 2017. All Rights reserved

  Edited by Holly Ann Kasprzak

  Cover art by Corey Hollins

  Interior formatting by Kody Boye

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronically, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the proper written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events and situation are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  “RUN!” Rose screamed.

  The gun fired.

  The horde roared.

  They ran.

  Dakota Travis tried not to look over his shoulder as the pack of zombies descended upon the small convenience store they’d just been raiding. His heart pounded in his chest and sweat beaded on his brow as he pumped his legs to run as fast as he could, yet no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t help but think of Erik and Ian and how they’d said they’d distract them.

  Don’t worry about us, Erik had said. We’ll lure them away.

  How couldn’t he not worry, though, when the horde was now upon them?

  Rose spun about and fired a shot into a nearby zombie’s face as it gained on him, screaming for Dakota to run as the others took notice and began to give chase. He jumped, over a downed shopping cart, and grimaced as his leg gave out and he collapsed.

  “Come on!” Rose cried, clawing at his clothes to haul him to his feet. “We’ve gotta go!”

  “Erik,” Dakota managed. “Ian—”

  “Will be just fine on their own. We—”

  A bloodcurdling scream cut her off.

  *

  There was nothing Erik could do as the zombie sunk its teeth into Ian’s shoulder.

  “GO!” the bigger man cried. “RUN!”

  Erik was torn between running and staying—between trying to save the man he already knew was dead and fleeing for his own life. Trapped within the confines of the convenience store, there was little he could do as the pack snarled, bayed and screeched at the two of them. Ian—whose gun had been trained on something behind Erik—fired a shot off just in time for a zombie to collapse at his feet.

  Erik’s question was answered for him just then.

  Ian pushed his gun into his mouth and fired.

  The man’s brain matter sprayed the zombie behind him and momentarily stunned it as he fell. The zombie then descended and began to tear at the lining of his shirt.

  Gotta run, he thought, panicking, no longer able to choose for Ian.

  He turned, fired at the legs of a zombie that was running toward him, and sprinted out the back door and through the alleyway. He used the momentum earned from his constant track practice in high school and then subsequent military training to launch himself off the zombie’s back and into the open.

  The zombies chasing Rose and Dakota turned as they heard footsteps coming their way.

  Shit.

  He dodged an overturned shopping cart and continued running, scrambling to make his way through the increasing crowd as it continued to gain on him.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about Ian.

  Ian, Ian—

  Poor Ian.

  He shook his head, cleared his mind as best he could, then fired a blind shot behind him.

  Glass exploded.

  The window caved in.

  The horde—whose attention had been split between he and the smaller group of two—instantaneously turned.

  Shit.

  *

  Dakota and Rose spun as the gargantuan sound of a pane of glass shattering and then sprinkling across the icy ground broke the chaos of the afternoon. Erik—sprinting desperately through a crowd whose attention was now fully set in his direction—screamed for them to run, dodging around shamblers and flat-out running from those fresher corpses who still had full mobility.

  Rose—whose attention had been set on the army man—grabbed Dakota’s arms and began to pull him aside. “Come on,” she said. “We have to keep moving.”

  “We can’t just leave him.”

  “Dakota—”

  “We can’t—”

  “He’s faster than us. Look at him. Look at him!”

  Dakota took off as fast as he could, shortly followed by Rose, who quickly outsprinted him and turned to fire as a runner gained headway in its pursuit. Two shots were fired before the thing went down—one grazing Dakota’s shirt, the other flying right by his head.

  Fuck, he thought. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

  Rose gestured to a nearby alley and the fire escape ladder that led onto a business’ roof within it.

  “There!” she screamed, jabbing her gun in the direction of the store. “GO!”

  Dakota ran past her as she took position, then vaulted into the alleyway and began to climb up the ladder, his fingers slipping on the snow and ice that had accumulated on its surface. His feet slipped and he nearly went sailing back to the ground, but he was somehow able to maintain his composure and continue going regardless of his sheer panic.

  Rose, he thought.

  With a free hand, he unholstered his gun, fired a shot into the crowd, then continued to climb, not bothering to look back or down until he managed to roll onto the roof.

  Up top, he gasped, chest heaving, then pushed himself into a sitting position.

  He looked over the roof just in time to see Erik scale the ladder behind Rose.

  “Come on!” Dakota screamed, training his gun on the mass of zombies flooding into the alley. He tried to take a shot, but missed completely and instead sent shards of brick sailing to the icy ground. He swore and tried again, but was surprised to find that his magazine was empty.

  There was nothing he could do, nothing he could say, nothing he could even think that would get them out of this dangerous situation.

  They were fucked. Fucked.

  Unless—

  He was just about to spin to try and locate some debris he could throw when he heard a cry of pain.

  He looked down.

  What he’d expected to see was someone bitten. What he was instead was Rose scramble the last few rungs to the top and then Erik follow shortly behind her.

  The moment the pair hit the roof, he was upon them.

  “Which one of you is hurt?” he asked.

  “Me,” Erik said, clawing at his pantleg. “I—they—”

  Dakota paled.

  There was no bite mark, no tear in the skin, no blood coming from a seeping wound. There was only—

  A scratch.

  He tried not to quiver in his boots—tried, without success, to remain complacent in the face of mortal danger—but found himself unable to do so.

  Though Erik had not been bitten, there was a very distinct chance that he was infected.

  He’d never heard of anyone contracting the plague after being scratched. Did that mean—

  Rather than think on the matter at hand, Dakota tore a piece of his shirt off at the hem and wrapped it around Erik’s wound, taking extra care to cover as much of the abrasion as he could before settling down on the flat part of the roof to look at the man. “Do you feel sick?” he asked.

  “What?” Erik replied.

  “Do you feel sick?” Dakota replied.

  “I don’t know,” Erik said. “I—”<
br />
  “Quiet,” Rose said. “We need to try and get them away.”

  “With what?” Erik asked.

  Rose lifted a finger to her lips before lifting a small rock into her hands. “We’ve only got a few chances at this,” she said, her voice a mere whisper above the sound of groans and screams coming from just below them. “Give me five minutes in complete silence. That’s all I ask.”

  Dakota and Erik nodded.

  When the five minutes had passed and the noise below had not ceased, Rose rose from her crouched position, hurled the rock as far into the distance as she could, and waited.

  A car alarm started blaring.

  Dakota peeked his head over the roof and saw the zombies turn instantly.

  It worked, he thought. But how—

  Their escape would have to be fast, efficient, and completely idiotic.

  They’d have to go back down into the alley. Which meant getting back on the ground. Which meant—

  He couldn’t dwell on it any longer.

  As soon as the last zombie had left the alley, he flung himself onto the railing and slid down, the rungs biting into his palms and threatening to tear skin.

  At the bottom, Dakota drew a hunting knife and waited for Rose and Erik to descend.

  Come on, he thought. What’s taking you so—

  Another rock went flying, this time further into the distance. Wherever Rose had aimed proved to be fruitful, as a second, then third car alarm went off.

  Erik slid down, followed shortly by Rose.

  They cut out the back alley and began to make their way toward their designated safe zone: a small gas station whose windows had been boarded up.

  They had to be quick, had to be cautious, because if anything slowed them down, it would surely spell death.

  Dakota threw a quick glance over his shoulder only to find that they were not being pursued.

  “Thank God,” he said, slowing his pace so he could fall back alongside Erik and Rose. “Are you guys ok?”

  “I cut my hand on the way down,” Rose said. “But other than that, I’m fine.”

  “My ankle’s killing me,” Erik said.

  Fuck, Dakota thought.

  He shook his head, knowing he couldn’t dwell on it at the moment, and took off at a quick pace, trying desperately to draw air into his lungs now that the adrenaline was seeping from his system. He wouldn’t be able to keep up this pace much longer. He had to stop, had to rest, had to sit down or lay down and sleep.

  They drew ever closer to the gas station.

  The doorway—which had been secured by a set of iron chain links—loomed in the near distance.

  Rose darted ahead, slung the chains free of their handles, and threw a door open.

  It didn’t take long for Erik and Dakota to make their way inside.

  Once secured within, Rose snarled the chains through the handles, ducked down behind the cardboard that had been affixed to the glass doors, and took a deep breath. “Finally,” she managed. “We’re safe.”

  Dakota could only look at Erik and think, But for how long?

  Dakota tried to keep his guard up as they waited the hours that felt like days for the horde to disperse. In deathly silence he watched—eyes focused, ears alert—and tried his hardest not to succumb to the sheer panic of the situation. Though he was nervous by nature, this was unlike any hell he had ever experienced.

  Even running, he thought, from the asylum wasn’t this bad.

  At least then he, Jamie and Desmond had had a vehicle. They’d been able to outrun the zombies. But here, in a gas station, where all it would take was one false move to draw the entire pack upon them, they were nothing more than sitting ducks.

  He bowed his head and tried not to consider the reality at hand. Having been scratched, Erik posed a far greater risk than anything outside, yet so far he’d shown no signs of infection. Rose had checked his eyes, his mouth, the site of his wound, and though reddened by force and exertion, none of them had shown the telltale discoloration that precipitated one’s death from the virus.

  Was he really not infected? Had he really gotten a second chance?

  More than anyone else could ask for, Dakota thought.

  He stole a breath through his nose and curled into a ball along his side, watching Rose as she peeked over the cardboard at the outside world, her gun held firmly in her hand. It was almost dark. At this rate, it’d soon be nightfall. They could run through the darkness back to the homes they’d fortified for themselves.

  “What if it snows though?” he whispered.

  “What?” Rose asked.

  “I was wondering,” Dakota clarified, “what we would do if it snowed.”

  “We’ll stay here for the night,” she replied. “Huddle up. Sleep together.”

  “What about Erik?” he asked.

  “What about me?” Erik finally said. “Shit. I’m getting a fucking migraine.”

  “Is that one of the symptoms? Headaches?”

  “How am I supposed to know?” Rose asked.

  “Your roommate—”

  “Went to bed and died alone. Besides—Erik’s already said that he suffers from them.”

  “So don’t start thinking you need to put a bullet in my head,” Erik said.

  “I’m not,” Dakota replied. If anything, he was thinking of how to subdue Erik without making noise. The most likely option was his knife, but that wouldn’t fit through one of the man’s eye sockets. They could also crush his head, but that would make too much noise.

  Dakota paused.

  What was he thinking? He couldn’t imagine killing his friend—not now, not while he was still relatively healthy. He—

  A noise from outside the station caused Rose to huddle down. “Quiet,” she whispered.

  They waited—breathless, unmoving, to see if the sound would come a second or third time. When it didn’t, Rose expelled a breath and leaned back against the secured door. “Probably just a dog or something,” she said.

  “Just so long as it doesn’t start barking,” Erik said. “Fuck. Can one of you get me an aspirin?”

  “The place is pretty cleared out,” Dakota said.

  “Could you at least look?”

  Not wanting to deal with Erik’s mood any longer than he had to, Dakota went in search for the desired aspirin—first crouch-walking through the aisles to examine the metal shelves, then crawling to see if a small packet had managed to fall on the floor. When he found none, he went searching for alternatives; and when he could find no Advil, Tylenol or Ibuprofen, he sighed, leaned back against a nearby shelf, and fingered through the trash on the floor—wishing, with little hope, that one of the small packets would materialize in his hand.

  Nothing, he thought.

  The world was empty of everything but them.

  “Sorry,” Dakota said through the silence of the small station. “There isn’t anything.”

  “All right,” Erik replied with a slight groan. “Thanks anyway.”

  Dakota lifted his eyes.

  Though most of the station’s windows had been blotted out by beer cases or cardboard, what little light he could make out was waning.

  It wouldn’t be much longer before night was upon them.

  If it snowed, they would stay. If it didn’t, they would leave.

  Neither was a particularly-appealing option.

  Under cover of night they walked, pursued by nothing more than their inhibitions and fears. Erik’s condition had continued to deteriorate throughout the day and his headache had only continued to worsen—which threatened to blow his fucking skull out if he didn’t get some Tylenol or Aspirin or something to help it.

  Everything’ll be fine, Dakota thought. You’re almost there.

  The man’s labored breathing was like knives in the silence of the night, carving from the lambs their delicate hides as they tried their hardest not to scream. So far, they’d seen nothing to indicate any zombie activity, but that didn’t mean they weren’t hi
ding in the darkness—watching, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

  Shaking his head, Dakota trailed behind to allow Rose—who was assisting Erik—to catch up with them.

  “How you holding up, Erik?” Dakota asked.

  “Fucking brilliant,” the other man replied. He shrugged away from Rose’s grasp and reached up to hold his head. “Dear God it fucking hurts.”

  “Do we need to stop and rest?”

  “No!” he cried, then cursed when he realized how loud he’d been. He waited, hand trembling toward the gun at his side, for anything to appear. When nothing did, he let out a long, steamy exhale that lit his breath in shades of blue. “I’ll be fine,” he continued, trudging a few steps forward. “Stopping here when we’re so close is worthless. And besides—even if I did lay down, I might fall asleep, which would only make the headache worse.”

  “You have to power through them?” Rose asked.

  Erik nodded. “Yeah,” he replied. “I do. So let’s finish the last leg of our trip and get home.”

  With that settled, Dakota turned and continued to lead them across the street, through a series of yards and then over a swell in the hill that predicted their homecoming. Erik’s difficulty at maneuvering with his bummed ankle and his throbbing headache was conquered by none other than Rose—who, with a delicate hand, assisted him as they trampled through the snow and up the icy hill.

  When they reached the top, the three homes and the impressive wall around them could easily be seen—sentinel in the darkness and like giants sleeping on the horizon.

  “See?” Rose asked. “Almost there.”

  “I can see it,” Erik snapped. “I’m not fucking blind.”

  Rose glanced at Dakota, who only shrugged and shook his head to dismiss her. There’d be no point in arguing with a man in pain, especially a man like Erik.

  They continued on through the darkness until they reached the gate. About this time, Dakota lifted his hand and began to wave sporadically—hoping, by some sheer dumb luck, that Steve or Jamie or maybe even Kevin would be awake to let them in.

  I really don’t want to be out in the cold tonight.

  Though they could always take refuge in Rose’s SUV, it would still leave them exposed to not only the elements, but the zombies within them.