Hell on Earth (Zombie Apocalypse Series Book 7)

by Jeff DeGordick

  They were flattened bullets, and they looked like the same armor-piercing rounds that Glass's men were equipped with.

  She was confused and touched her fingers to her back, feeling all around, but not feeling any wounds or scars.

  A little bit of clarity cut through the confusion and Sarah remembered feeling like her head was floating while she told Wayne to finish the Eden Project. She patted her arm on the uniform she was dressed in to retrieve the boxes of galanin, only to find that she was undressed under her covers.

  Her head became fuzzy and her thoughts drifted into the normal absurdity found in a dream. As she fell back into sleep, a final thought rested on her mind: the Eden Project was complete. The Eden Project worked.

  A family in Saskatchewan huddled down in their cellar, blowing out the candles and joining hands at the table. They heard the screams and slaughter going on outside, and they hid in their damp and musty hole in the ground, praying that the dead didn't find them.

  They were luckier than most; husband, wife, and three out of four of their parents in their group. They had stayed alive all this time because they were smart in their preparation, and tried not to take too many risks, and as they all sat quietly in the darkness, praying, they knew the Lord would see them through this like He had before.

  The door to the cellar pulled against its lock, and the five of them jumped. They began to quiver in fear as the cellar door was wrenched more and more, the screws starting to pop out of the wood. Then the boards were ripped apart and the mangled door was pulled wide open, a narrow beam of light shining down into the darkness.

  They began to scream (mostly the women) and they all hurried away from the door and tried to back into the corner as two zombies rushed down the steps.

  The young husband was the main protector of the group and he picked up the shotgun next to them. The zombies were hard to see in the dark, their silhouettes bobbing past the light in the distance, but the man aimed and fired off a shot.

  Brilliant sparks of gold flashed out of the muzzle and lit up the approaching zombies for a split second. The buckshot dug into their skin but didn't do much more.

  The man took a step back, not able to believe what he was seeing. He tilted the shotgun up and squeezed the trigger again. The next shot caught the zombie in its upper chest and face, and aside from some bloody scratches on its throat, it seemed to be completely undeterred.

  The man only managed to get off one more shot, and this one took his own life as he turned the shotgun on himself. His lifeless body hit the cold floor and bled out, leaving his terrified family in the corner to fend for themselves while the dead approached.

  A squat man with a wide-brimmed straw hat sat in his rocking chair on the front porch of his dusty house in a small town on the outskirts of Mexico City. He stared out at the expanse of desert in front of him and wiped the sweat from his brow. The wind chime jangled in the breeze, and he pulled the cup up to his mouth and took a sip of water to quench his thirst.

  There was a strange sound coming through the open door of his house behind him, and he twisted in his chair. He couldn't tell what it was; it almost sounded like someone was gargling liquid in their mouth. There were also some strange and hurried footsteps creaking across the floorboards.

  The man stood up and stared through the doorframe into the dark interior.

  Light filtered through the half-open blinds on the windows, creating just enough light for him to see a shadow moving through the house.

  "Maria?" the man asked.

  He watched as the small figure floated through the shadows and came to the door.

  When the bright sunlight from outside hit her, he backed up. His eyes went wide in terror and he grabbed the fire axe that was next to his rocking chair. He clutched it in his trembling hands as he backed away on the dusty property, staring through tears at his daughter.

  Her skin was dry and cracked, and gray as slate. She wore her prettiest dress with a floral pattern and a pink ribbon adorning the collar. Blood stained the front of it, having poured down from the wound on her neck. Her eyes were blank and she approached her father slowly at first, staring up at his sobbing face.

  "Maria..." the man moaned in agony. He clutched the axe tighter in his fists as he backed away from the horrible yet sweet creature. He hoisted the weapon into the air as if to strike her, and then he faltered in the next moment, unable to believe he would even think of doing such a thing to his own daughter. He was caught in a vortex of emotional torment, and when she started running toward him, he froze on the spot, crying and screaming and dropping the axe by his feet.

  When she was done, her pretty flower dress was completely covered in red and her father joined her at her side as they journeyed off into the desert.

  Cooper sat on a chair in the corner of his hotel room in Roanoke, shivering from his anemia. He held the plate on his lap, poking at the last bits of flesh he had cooked up with a shaky hand.

  His body was completely emaciated, having completely run out of canned food a long time ago, and also not having seen any hapless travelers passing by for months. He was lucky if he weighed eighty pounds now, and as he shoveled the last bits of his own flesh in his mouth and chewed them with his rotting teeth, he swallowed the bitter meat and leaned his head back against the wall.

  He looked down at his half-naked body and apprehensively tried to decide what to eat next. He had already taken off his left arm to the elbow, and now he eyed his thigh, wondering if he could sever it without bleeding to death.

  Suddenly someone pounded on his door.

  He glanced over at it, his heart beating quickly at his stroke of luck that more travelers had found their way to his doorstep. He got up and hurried to the door, peering through the peephole.

  But it was no traveler; it was a group of zombies, and soon they all began pounding on the door.

  He backed away from it, knowing that it would be secure with all of the extra locks and bars he'd fastened to it. But the pounding became incredible, and he backed away to the entrance leading to the adjoining room as he peeked around the corner, watching the door in fear.

  The door slammed against its restraints, but they seemed to hold out. Then it really pressed against its restraints more than they could handle, and they began to pop off the frame, one by one. The door suddenly flew open, and one of the zombies held a crowbar in his hands.

  Cooper's tiny heart sank as he ran into the second room and tried to hide in the walk-in closet. The group of zombies came in after him and the first one clubbed him in the head with the crowbar, knocking him to the floor and making his head bleed. The rest of the undead surrounded him and he screamed as they pulled his tiny and weak body apart, piece by piece.

  He somehow retained consciousness long enough to see his legs torn apart and his lower half separated from his torso as the undead ate his flesh.

  His final thought before he died was that he found it all somehow ironic.

  Jack Glass let his hands off of David's shoulders as David leaned against the railing on the balcony, his arms very shaky and weak.

  "That's enough, boy," Glass said with a smile.

  It was finally completed: his masterstroke.

  Now the world had been razed and left in a heap of ashes, just like he had been. So many years of careful planning had finally led to this moment, and he thought he would celebrate tonight, intending to call for a harem of women to be sent to his sleeping quarters.

  He turned and led David back into his office after finishing their final session together. They had done five of them in total, and David was visibly fatigued at the end of it all.

  Ron waited in the office and Glass congratulated him on a job well done. Ron feigned enthusiasm, congratulating him back. Glass dismissed them and Ron took David with him back down to the lab. He knelt down and injected David with something to keep his strength up. The way Glass was using him really took its toll; after so many sessions, he would have less and less strength unt
il his heart simply gave out.

  He thought about Sarah and worried that he hadn't heard from her lately. He hoped that she was able to complete the Eden Project, and that she could do it in time to save her son. David didn't look healthy lately, even for a zombie. And now that Glass's ultimate goal was complete, Ron feared that he would have little use for the boy, and he wondered if it was too late.

  His unshakeable faith in their secret mission faltered for the first time.

  16

  A BUMP IN THE NIGHT

  Light came in from the bedroom window and filtered through the thin white curtains, highlighting all of the dust particles floating in the stuffy room. Sarah roused from her sleep, one week to the day since Wayne first laid her there. She rolled over onto her side and stretched her arms, feeling her body cry out in joy at the feeling of her muscles and bones getting limber. A smile came across her face and she felt good for the first time in a really long time. She opened her eyes and looked at the room around her, and her mind which had been hazy in the last week as she drifted in and out of heavy and constant sleep was suddenly sharp.

  All the memories of the past week slowly came back to her. She vividly remembered infiltrating the training facility with Wayne, getting separated from him, and securing the galanin. She remembered the killer showing up and chasing her. She remembered getting injured and pulling Wayne through the chaos of the yard as Glass's soldiers murdered each other and the killer savaged them and turned them all into zombies. She remembered getting gunned down in the back and Wayne struggling to carry her away.

  Sarah froze suddenly, knowing that she must have still been injured. But she carefully twisted her torso and didn't feel any pain whatsoever from her back. The memory of her finding flattened bullets under her popped into her head, but it was such a weird memory that she knew it couldn't possibly be true. She felt underneath her body and discovered that there were no bullets there at all, just like she thought.

  But then that must have meant they were still inside of her. However, when she brushed her fingers across her back, searching everywhere, she found no wounds and no scars, just like her memory told her. She pulled the covers off of her and inspected the rest of her body, but it was flawless aside from her missing arm.

  A new memory entered her mind, and this one was the haziest of all: Wayne was sitting on the bed with her and he injected her arm with something. That was the start of it, and after that she slowly began to feel better.

  Then that was it; Wayne finished it. He finished the Eden Project. A strange feeling sprung up in her, and she didn't know whether to feel happy or sad or something else at the fact that she or any of the scientists hadn't been there to see its completion. But if Wayne finished it and injected her with a sample, saving her life, then that meant it worked.

  Wayne showed up in the doorway and she suddenly felt such a rush of warm emotion toward him, knowing what he did for her.

  "Are you awake?" he asked.

  "I am," she said with a yawn.

  A smile beamed across his face. "It's so good to hear your voice again." Tears streamed down his cheeks and he approached the bed. "I... thought I'd lost you."

  "I thought you did, too," she said. "Did you really do it? Did you finish the project?"

  "Yes. I thought it was the only way to save you from dying."

  She smiled. "You mean you did it just for me?"

  Wayne nodded.

  She wrapped her arm around him and pulled him close, planting her lips on his. Their kiss felt so amazing and so right, and they both had waited too long to share another one.

  "How are you feeling?" he asked.

  Sarah stretched again, paying attention to all her muscles. "I feel fantastic. I haven't felt like this in years, actually."

  "So it really did work..."

  "It must have," she said. "I'll have to send a message for Sandra to give to Ron, letting him know that it's finally done!" She thought for a moment. "By the way, how long was I out for?"

  "About a week."

  Her eyes widened. "A week?" She immediately began to stir from her restful position and sat up. "I have to go now; we can't wait any longer!"

  Wayne caught Sarah's arm as she tried to hurry by him. "Sarah..."

  She stopped. "What?" She looked genuinely bewildered at why he wouldn't share her urgency.

  "You've practically been in a coma for a week, and you haven't eaten anything at all," he said.

  "I don't have time to eat anything," she said, hurrying to get dressed.

  "Hey, I went through a lot of trouble to get that cure for you; I'm not going to let you just rush out the door and put yourself in harm's way again. Please do me a favor and just have something to eat first."

  Sarah relented. "Okay, you've got me. But only something small."

  "You don't want to eat too much at once, anyway," he said.

  So she got dressed and went to the kitchen, opening a can of cooked ham. She wolfed it down, suddenly finding herself starving, and even though her stomach still rumbled, more would have to wait."

  "I'll be right back," she said when she was standing at the door and ready to leave.

  "You better be," he said, wrapping his arms around her waist.

  He leaned in and kissed her.

  "And one more thing before I go," she said.

  "Hmm?"

  "Thank you for saving my life."

  "It was my pleasure. I guess that means we're even."

  "I never said that. A woman will never give that kind of power over her to a man. You still owe me one."

  Wayne smirked. "Just come back in one piece."

  Sarah traveled to Glass's mansion compound as the sun started to set. She had a surreal feeling to be back up and walking around again, even though she had only been out for a week; to her it felt like the landscape was entirely different for some reason. It was an odd feeling that she couldn't place, and she fearfully searched the stretching shadows as she traveled.

  She passed through new streets and neighborhoods, not coming up to the mansion from this way before. But she knew the general direction and knew she would find it when she got closer. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling inside of her at that moment. It was akin to true and genuine terror, but it was hidden under the surface; subdued.

  The orange-red sun cast everything in a grim light, and it reminded her of the dream she had so long ago where she dreamt of standing in a street filled with ash people. A giant shadowed figure chased her and she ran from it, bumping into the people and causing them to fall apart in a cloud of dust. Then there was fire, washing that same orange-red hue over everything. She later realized that it was a portentous dream, telling her of her future encounter with the stalking and relentless killer.

  And now here she was again, running from the same crazed maniac and always feeling like someone was watching her... following her. She glanced around herself carefully, and she saw no such person. But the feeling clung to her like boiling caramel on skin.

  She continued on, eventually reaching an old car dealership. Rusted cars that used to be the latest fashions nine years ago filled the lot like a graveyard. It was across the street from Sarah and she only gave it a passing glance as she started to walk by, but then she heard shouting.

  She stopped and took cover behind a mailbox across the street, peeking over the top of it and seeing what the commotion was about.

  There were some figures moving inside the dealership windows, but it was hard to make out the details as the sun reflected off the glass, painting it with an orange cream sky.

  Gunfire erupted from the dealership and a large sheet of glass in one of the windowed walls shattered. The body of a young man was hurled through the pane with a zombie clinging to it. The man landed on the pavement on his back and squirmed around as the vicious corpse pulled his face off with one yank. He screamed more horribly than Sarah had ever heard anyone scream before, until it sputtered out into a tepid gurgle.

  Two of the m
an's friends rushed out of the dealership and fled through the sea of cars.

  "We can't just leave him!" one of them cried. He turned and fired at the zombie, but just like Sarah had seen happen with the killer, the bullets didn't appear to do much damage at all.

  Another zombie sprinted out of the dealership and chased them away as the first one chewed on its poor victim's neck.

  "What do we do?!" one of the friends yelled.

  "Over there!"

  He pointed at a large SUV that seemed more like it would belong to the military than a civilian. Though it was rusted out just like all the other cars around it, it was displayed on a round pedestal on the corner of the lot, like it was the crown jewel of the dealership. There was a faded and peeling sign next to it advertising its features, one of which was its extremely durable frame and bulletproof glass. This feature apparently appealed to the two fleeing young men as they opened the driver-side door and crawled in. They slammed the door shut, and Sarah watched their vague silhouettes cowering behind the tinted glass.

  The zombie that was chewing on their friend got up and ran to the SUV with the other one who was already there. They tried to pull open the doors, but the two men inside must have locked them. They pounded on the glass with their fists, trying to break it, but the advertisement was true and even the superhumanly strong zombies couldn't scratch it.

  But then the two zombies both got on one side of the SUV, bending down and grabbing it by the undercarriage. They tried to lift it off the ground, and they managed to hoist the frame up a little bit, but they didn't quite have the strength.

  Then the two frightened men's friend stood up, his skin already starting to take on an ashy hue and his face missing, revealing blood and bone. He sprinted over to the SUV and joined the other two zombies, bending down and picking up the vehicle alongside them.

  Three of them did the trick and they lifted it off the ground and managed to shove it past the point of no return. The men inside screamed as the vehicle tipped off the platform and rolled in the air before crashing down onto the pavement below on its roof. The impact bent the frame and all the glass in the vehicle shattered at once.