The Infected Box Set, Vol. 1 [Books 1-3]

by Zuko, Joseph

  Jim’s voice broke, “I love you so much. I’ll be home soon.”

  “I love you too,” she said as she pulled the phone away from her ear and watched as the small screen told her that the call had been disconnected. She pushed herself up off the floor and walked to her bedroom.

  Karen fell onto the bed and held Valerie. She delivered kiss after kiss to the little girl. Valerie had no idea what her Mama was doing but did not mind the love and attention.

  “Daddy is on his way, baby.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s halfway home.” Karen carefully slid in next to the sleeping Robin and kissed her on the forehead. Valerie lay on the other side of Karen.

  The three snuggled and held each other. Karen focused on this moment. How soft and warm the bed was. How the children’s little bodies felt against hers. She channeled her mind to push out all of the bad thoughts and images and replace them with this moment. This small sliver of time when her children were safe and Jim was still alive. Karen closed her eyes and whispered over and over to herself.

  “We are safe and Jim is alive.”

  The horrible day and last night’s rough sleep had left Karen exhausted. After a few minutes of relaxing and focusing on the golden moment with her children she had drifted into an almost sleep state. Her body sunk deeper into the mattress. Valerie had closed her eyes and breathed deeply as she slept in the nook of Karen’s arm and chest. Karen’s mind drifted out of consciousness and into the dream world where minutes felt like hours, where the dream world felt real and the nightmare happening in the real world disappeared.

  Karen was yanked out of the dream by the sound of gunfire and screams. At first it sounded like someone was watching an action movie in the apartment next door. Karen’s eyes opened and she clutched her children closer to her body. It took her a moment to get her bearings and remember where she was and what was happening.

  The shots fired sounded like machine guns. The noise was coming from across the complex. Maybe out in the street. She worked to get out from under the sleeping children.

  Once she was up, she moved to the window. Karen was so curious to find out what was happening, but she did not want to get hit with a wild round. Not that these super thin walls would do much to protect her.

  She got up the courage to peek out with one eye. It was two men and a woman dressed in camouflage. Each of them was armed with an assault rifle. They sprayed rounds into a large pack of infected humans. The machine guns did a great job of chewing up the dead bodies, but most of the shots missed their actual weak spot.

  The infected charged forward, straight into the line of fire, they never even batted an eye as their comrades fell victim to lead poisoning.

  To Karen they did not appear to be with the Army. They had no badges or patches on their clothing. They looked more like weekend warriors, hunters or doomsday nuts. Although, given the current state of things, she could not call them nuts anymore.

  They fired in short bursts and then fell back, working backwards across the edge of the parking lot. They took turns firing while the others reloaded.

  “That’s it, I’m out!” One of the men yelled.

  “Let’s get back to the church!” The woman called to the others. They took off running away from the apartments. The two with ammo paused every twenty feet and tried to finish off the last of the infected.

  “Back to the church?” Karen repeated to herself.

  There was an explosion in the distance. Close enough to rattle the windows next to Karen’s face. Black smoke rose above the roof of the adjacent building. Karen noticed there were many columns of smoke rising into the afternoon sky. There must have been hundreds of fires all over Vancouver for that much smoke to be in the air. Karen left the window to check the front door. She wanted to see if they were still eating the neighbor or if the noise had caught their attention and they had moved on.

  She was disappointed to hear the sounds of shuffling feet outside the door. Karen stepped up to the peephole and looked out. A set of black eyes stared at the door as if they could see her through the hole. Its face was completely covered in blood and raw meat hung from its mouth. It threw its face into the door and the jolt scared the shit out of Karen.

  She let out a scream. It was more like a yelp, but it was enough to excite the infected monsters on the other side of the door. It crashed into the door again. It hit it with all its force. The metal door groaned and the frame sounded like it had cracked. The others joined in and crashed their bodies into Karen’s front door. The noise woke up both children.

  “Mama!” Valerie called.

  “It’s okay, baby!” Karen answered her without thinking. Her voice riled them up even more. Their bodies smashed into the door over and over again. Karen backed up and pulled her gun from its holster. She heard the sound of a high-speed collision outside. Karen raced out of the hall and back into the bedroom.

  “What was that, Mama?!” Valerie had her arms around her sister and the two held each other tightly.

  “I don’t know baby,” Karen said as she spied out the window.

  “Who at the door?” Robin tried to keep the conversation going.

  “Bad people,” Karen whispered as she looked back at her daughter and pressed an index finger to her lips. There was an accident in the street next to the apartment. A car had crashed into a telephone pole.

  Karen leaned closer to the window so she could get a better angle. It was instantly clear why the car hit the pole. It was trying to avoid the slow moving horde of infected old people. A large retirement community sat on the block next to the apartment complex. It looked like they were having a parade, a tragic old dead person parade.

  The four creatures at the door would not give up. They hammered at the entrance. There was another loud crack after a really hard hit. The cheap apartment door would not hold up. If she couldn’t get them to leave they were going to smash it down.

  The old infected bodies had begun to flood into the parking lot.

  Karen stepped away from the window and walked back to the front door.

  CRACK!

  Every time they hit the door in unison the wood let out another horrible sound. Karen pointed the gun at the door.

  CRACK!

  Each impact made her jump. She clicked off the safety.

  CRACK!

  Karen aimed at what would be head height.

  CRACK!

  The door didn’t have much left.

  BOOM!

  She let a round fly. It smacked the door and left a little puncture under the peephole. A moment later, a body dropped.

  “Mama!”

  “I’m fine, baby. I’m taking care of the bad people!”

  BOOM!

  Another puncture and another body dropped. Karen felt a fire burn within her.

  These motherfuckers killed that sweet old man.

  They want to kill my girls!

  They want to kill me!

  Fuck them!

  BOOM!

  One more hole and one more dead infected.

  Fuck them!

  BOOM!

  The last body hit the ground and everything went quiet. Hot tears ran down Karen’s cheeks. The worst day of her life and it was not even one o’clock.

  Cliff and Tina watched from their window as the old bodies drifted towards the sound of gunfire. There were so many turned people heading for their corner of the complex. They didn’t have near enough ammo to put them all down.

  “And the nightmare continues!” Tina rubbed her temples.

  “This is ridiculous,” Cliff said as he looked at his wife. The two of them shared a moment of complete despair. Tina shut the window and pulled down the curtain.

  In less than a minute the parking lot had over a hundred infected old bodies shuffling around, investigating the sounds and searching for food. Their hearing aids must have been working well because they quickly zeroed in on Karen’s front door.

  Karen holstered the gun and
walked back into her bedroom. Both girls wanted to be picked up right away. She lifted one up into each arm. Their little heads dropped down onto their Mama’s shoulders.

  “It’s okay,” Karen comforted them. She was trying to convince herself and the little ones. “Mama took care of the bad people.”

  “What was that noise?” Valerie pulled in tight.

  “It was Mama’s gun.”

  “So loud.” Robin pointed to her ears.

  “It was loud. I’m sorry,” Karen said as she delivered a barrage of kisses to both girls.

  There was a loud thump at the front door. The noise made the little girls tremble in their mother’s arms.

  “Are the bad people back?” Valerie groaned.

  A wet hand whacked at the bedroom window. It sounded like a squeegee sliding across a windshield. Karen tried to hush the girl’s screams.

  Chapter 13

  Karen carried the girls from the bedroom into the walk-in-closet. She felt claustrophobic as soon as she pulled the door shut. She found the pull string that connected to the light above. Karen gave it a yank and the sixty-watt bulb filled the space with a soft yellow glow.

  As a child, Karen had a deep fear of bedroom closets and the space under the bed. Between the ages of six and fourteen she had developed a routine of checking both spots before going to bed, once in the middle of the night and the second she woke up in the morning. Not once was there a dark creature from another dimension waiting to eat her soul, but it never stopped her from checking. As an adult she made sure that both spots were impossible for an evil spirit to lurk around in.

  The closet door was always left open and had never been shut the two years they lived in the apartment. For the bed they used an old queen box as the frame and set the new box on top of that. It worked great and kept her feeling safe in the bedroom. As she got older the irrational fear of monsters hiding in the dark corners of her room drifted away and were replaced with real fears, like how will we pay this bill and did we get enough food to last the month. When Karen got to her mid-thirties she felt like she finally understood how the world worked and what really needed to be feared.

  Then the world flipped upside down and there were real monsters. They were not hiding under your bed or in your closet. They were out in the parking lot in the middle of the day and their only goal was to tear her family apart.

  Karen could feel the sweat on the back of the girls’ necks. It was so warm in the apartment. They were absolutely trembling in her arms. Karen needed to turn this around and make it a game.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered. There was barely enough room to move and put her children down. Karen slid the hung clothes to the side and positioned the girls against the back wall. She just remembered there was an extra case of ammo for the gun hidden up on the top shelf of the closet. Karen reached up, pulled down the small box and took a knee in front of the girls.

  “We’re playing hide and seek. Okay?”

  There was another thump at the window. The thin closet door muffled the sound. Karen’s hands moved fast to open the box. She pulled her gun, popped the magazine from the bottom and worked to refill the spent rounds.

  “Mama, I scared,” Robin danced like she had to pee.

  “Bubba, do you have to pee?”

  “Yeah,” she nodded her little ginger head. Of course she had to pee right now. That’s how kids work. When is the most inconvenient time for you Mama, because that’s when I have to go.

  “Can you hold it?”

  “No!” she danced faster. Karen looked around the closet for something to help. Old towels sat in a rack unit above them. Karen pulled down a ratty towel and laid it out on the floor. She worked to get the little pants down off Robin.

  Karen held the girl in her arms and aimed the baby biscuits directly at the folded square towel, “Okay, pee on the towel.”

  She did not have to ask her twice. Urine flowed with no problem once she was given permission.

  “What do the bad people want, Mama? Do they want to bite us?” Valerie rubbed a tear from her eye and smiled a little at Robin peeing on a towel in the closet.

  Karen waited for the drips to stop before finishing the job with a hand towel. She used the time to think about her response.

  What should she say?

  What do you tell a five-year-old so she would understand?

  Do you lie and hope for the best?

  Sometimes raising children feels like you’re doing a lot of fibbing and hoping for the best.

  She got Robin on her feet, dried and pants fastened. The closet smelled of piss, sweat, tears and fear. There was an even louder thud at the front door, more monsters were trying to bust it down.

  “They want to grab you, but Mama won’t let them, okay? I promise to keep you girls safe. Nobody is going to bite you, so don’t even worry about it. I need you to be quiet. Very quiet.” Karen looked her children right in their sweet little brown eyes and she nodded at them. It was difficult to tell how much they understood. This was not the kind of game she normally played with them. Karen snapped the magazine back into the butt of the gun.

  There was a CRACK at the bedroom window. The glass pane was about to give. The last thing Karen wanted to do was step out of the closet, but she couldn’t stay in here and let the infected smash down the doors. The instinct to save her children was taking over. She didn’t have a plan. How could she plan for this?

  Couldn’t someone else fight the stupid old bastards?

  She reached out and took hold of both children’s hands and gave them a little squeeze, “I have to go tell the bad people to get the heck out of here. You stay put and don’t make a peep,” she said as she gave them a wink. Karen stood up and racked the slide on her gun.

  “Mama, please don’t go,” Valerie attempted to whisper and would not let go of Karen’s hand.

  “I have to, baby. Please let go.” Karen pulled her hand away from her oldest and stepped out of the closet.

  “Mama?!” Valerie and Robin reached out for her through the hanging clothes. Karen stole one last glance before closing the door. The flimsy cardboard door clicked shut. The children did just as they were told and stayed quiet.

  Karen yanked one of the knives from the sheetrock next to the bedroom doorway. Another heavy hand hit the window and it gave off a loud CRACK. Karen felt like she was standing at the precipice of a deep abyss, staring down into the mouth of hell with her toes curling over the crumbling edge.

  Should she jump and end it?

  Was it even remotely possible to survive this?

  The front door popped with a familiar CRACK! Another set of hands crashed into the back sliding glass door. All three entries were about to be breached. In the next minute the infected would march into the apartment. Even with perfect aim she could only take down twenty of them.

  Maybe she could clear a path to the car, but how would she carry the girls out of here? And if she made it to the car and got on the road, then what?

  Where would she go without Jim?

  Her body ached from the adrenaline charges. Dead fingers tapped at the window. The sound sparked a memory in Karen’s mind. When she was eighteen years old Jim would tap at her bedroom window. She would sneak out of her parent’s house and the two of them would make out for hours in the back of Jim’s old convertible Volkswagen Rabbit. The quick trip down memory lane gave her the start of a smile.

  She raised the gun shoulder level and aimed it at the window.

  Come get some motherfucker.

  She squeezed on the trigger and the hammer started to pull back. A hurricane of thoughts were slamming around in her head. It was enough to make her want to pass out. The final thought she landed on was by far the most horrifying concept she had ever seriously contemplated.

  Does she make sure that she saves the last three shots for her and the girls?

  Vomit formed at the back of her throat after conceiving the horror.

  Watch a monster strip your child’s flesh
or pull the trigger?

  Why were they the only options to choose from?

  Outside in the parking lot she heard the sound of a car horn, tires screeching and an engine revving. The noise had caught the attention of the infected at the window and it turned away from the glass to investigate. Karen did not allow herself to relax. She kept the gun pointed at the window as she stepped forward. The vehicle got closer to her side of the complex.

  Could it be Jim?

  Maybe he crossed the bridge with no problem and he was finally here!

  The thought that it was Jim was all consuming. She heaped hope upon hope that it was Jim and she would not have to fight this nightmare alone.

  BOOM!

  She ducked from the fright. Someone had fired a shotgun from the car and it was followed by the sound of bones crunching under the weight of the car.

  Maybe Jim found a gun?

  The horn blasted again. Two more shots were fired back to back.

  Karen stayed low to the ground as she crept to the window. The vehicle outside came to a halt and the engine was cut. Another shot rang out and a moment later a body hit the ground. Karen heard footsteps race across the asphalt. They were heading for her front door.

  It must be Jim!

  Another two shots were fired right outside the door and the infected bodies fell to their second and final death. There was a hard knock at the door and a man’s voice shouted, “Karen!”

  Her heart jumped with joy. She recognized the voice it was not Jim but it was her brother, Troy. She got up from her squat position, ran to the door, popped off the chain and turned the lock. When she finally opened the door her face was flooded with tears.

  Troy rushed through the door and locked it behind himself. He threw his arms around his sister and let her cry. His baseball cap was still turned backwards on his head, but the gray fabric now had dark red spots flicked across the part that covered his forehead. He pushed his sunglasses. They perched on top of his cap.

  It was his signature look.

  He had a little extra musk to him from the sweat he was pouring.

  “It’s okay. I got you.” Troy noticed knives sticking out of the sheetrock, holes through the front door and blood drops on the carpet.