As I munched on chips and a bottled water, a healthy breakfast if there ever was one, I sat on the recliner with my feet propped up, thinking things over. I knew later today I’d have something healthier to snack on. Claire and Val were picking some pumpkins, broccoli, tomatoes, yellow peppers, spinach, squashes, strawberries and cabbage planted in a huge greenhouse one block over. I knew I needed to stay healthy if I planned on taking down zombies. And living off of processed foods wasn’t going to give me the nutrition I needed to stay healthy and fit.
A few minutes later, the bedroom door creaked, and Nick stepped out, shirtless running a hand through his messy hair. “I didn’t get much sleep,” he said.
“How come?” I asked.
“Chickens,” he said, grinning slyly.
My eyes widened. “Nick, what did you do?”
“I thought about going over and busting down the door to see for myself, but I knew that’d just piss ‘em off, and talk about mad Max! I had to look without them knowing I was looking.”
I stared at him hard, furious that he’d left me out once again. Had I knew he was going to the lab, I would’ve never went to bed. “What did you come up with?”
“Claire, Val, and I went to the edge of the city to shoot some targets, the moving kind. We couldn’t sleep after all that adrenaline, and the girls wanted to show off their new guns…”
“And you decided to have them take aim at the zombies lining the border. I know that part already. Get to the good stuff.”
“Well, it was great practice for Claire. She’s doing great. Anyway, after that, Val went to bed, but Claire and I still weren’t tired, so we drove to the lab.”
My mouth dropped to the ground, and I was seething that he’d gone without me, but I’d come to expect nothing less. “What about back up?” I said. “You kept insisting we needed back up.”
“The more I thought about it, the more I knew I couldn’t wait.”
“And what if you had opened the door in that basement and a hundred zombies came out at you?”
“Then I guess we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Nick!”
“I’d rather take the chance, than you,” he said.
I blew out a breath because arguing with him was senseless. “So anyway?”
“Remember how Claire had gotten the guards’ attention in Kingsville so we could sneak in?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, it was kind of like that. I waited outside while she told that young scientist, Ted, about her undying love for him. He had to let the poor girl down gently, since he’s so in love with his girlfriend. But then she worked her charm and somehow talked the poor, smitten guy into letting her see the room. I swear, that girl could talk an Eskimo into paying for ice water.”
“Do you know how dangerous that was?” I said.
“I didn’t know that she’d try that. She was just supposed to pump him for info, not do an official investigation.”
“So what’d she see?”
“It’s a big room with nothing but caged chickens and plants, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“But I coulda sworn I heard moaning,” I insisted.
“It had to be your imagination, li’l bro,” he said. “It’s understandable, after all we’ve been through, and that basement is über creepy.”
I wasn’t sure what to think, except that I felt like the biggest idiot in the world.
“On the way back, I ran into Max,” he said. “I told him about our findings.”
I glanced down at the floor. “He must think I’m stupid.”
“On the contrary, he has a mission for us. There’s an optical shop in town that’s been overrun by zombies. Witnesses confirm that everyone inside is infected, all turned, and he wants us to take ‘em out.”
“What’s the point?”
“Huh? If they get out of the shop, they’ll be a danger to everyone in the city, Dean. What do you mean, what’s the point?”
“I meant, what’s the point of me going? Can’t you and the almighty Claire take care of it yourselves?”
“Look, I was careless and emotional when we pulled that little stunt yesterday. I’m back to my senses now. So…are you comin’ or what?”
“Just me and you?”
He shook his head. “No way. Claire and a team will join us. Lucas and Val are out on some kind of animal mission with another team.”
“They told me they were going on a walk,” I said.
“Well, they were. They found some infected animals on the south side of the city.”
“Yeah, but they made it sound like it was a leisurely walk.” I huffed. “Never mind.”
“Are you joining me or not?” Nick asked.
“I’m in.”
He smiled. “I knew you’d have my back.”
I loaded my firearms and got ready for the mission. I took my handgun with multiple magazines and my shotgun with plenty of ammo. “Let’s do this!” I said.
* * *
We had two Land Rovers filled with armed men and women, ready to fight. As the truck took off, I leaned back in my seat, mentally preparing for yet another battle. The sun beat down on my face as we sped over countless bumps and potholes, jerking me back and forth. I gazed ahead as we pulled into the parking lot of a huge optical store.
A few off our warriors jumped out and guarded the perimeter. As I walked up to the store, I saw zombies shambling around through the large glass windows. We were told there were absolutely no survivors, given permission to go ballistic on their rotting corpses.
“We could just torch the place,” a man said. “A zombie-cue would save time and ammo.”
“No,” another said. “Max wants the building salvaged, if at all possible. Fire is the last resort.”
“How about grenades?” one asked.
“We’re fresh out. Used ‘em all up on the last mission,” another said.
One of the women called Claire to the front of our group as we approached. “Show us what you’ve got, girl!” she said.
“It would be my honor,” Claire answered. She then held her M-4 assault rifle in position and started firing at anything that moved. The gun spat out a round of loud gunfire as Claire swished it from left to right, shattering the glass with a loud boom. The corpses jerked and fell as bullets sprayed them.
“Woo-hoo!” everyone shouted, whistling and giving each other high-fives as the ammunition ripped through the rotting, greenish flesh and brittle bones.
“That’s one chick I wouldn’t wanna mess with,” a man said.
“Look at her go!” another said.
I smiled, recalling that Claire’s weapon of choice used to be a taser, and I laughed when I pictured her running through the forest with it, whining and screaming; she was a far different girl than she used to be.
When Claire stopped, we all moved forward. Glass crunched underfoot, and I stepped closer and aimed my gun, keeping my finger on the trigger, with my heart thumping like a drum.
A straggler zombie with long white hair, snapping jaws, and dried blood around its mouth walked through the open door.
“Granny looks pretty pissed off. Claire killed her friends,” one of the men joked.
Madness burned behind those glossy white eyes, her sane mind now long gone since the virus had launched its deadly aftermath.
“Not for long!” I raised my rifle and fired a single shot right between her gray eyes, and the wrinkled, old body crumpled and fell.
We approached the building cautiously. I could feel every muscle in my body tighten. A woman opened the creaking door, and I stepped into the large waiting room. The smell of rotting decay hit me and I about puked. Water dripped from the ceiling, onto the receptionist’s counter. I let out a shivering breath as death groans murmured. The optical displays and showcases had been shattered, and glass was strewn everywhere, as if it had rained rock candy. Glasses and sunglasses dotted the floor. I also noticed that the floor had been severely water damaged. I gl
anced down at one zombie that was stuck in a hole where the floor had caved in. It was crying out, hissing, and flailing its arms around until one of the men smashed its head with a tire iron and put the dreaded thing out of its misery and ours.
“Careful!” somebody yelled. “The floor’s unstable.”
I stepped carefully around the wet areas, but it felt like we were walking on a thin layer of cardboard, and the floor wobbled under our weight. My boots crunched over broken sun glasses. Zombies moaned and hissed as they approached with their arms outstretched. I stepped over dead corpses, then fired at the one to the left of me, then to the right. Hissing, another mindless corpse came directly at me. I fired. Black liquid oozed from the hole in its forehead. Growls and screams of the diseased sliced through the air. A face eater bumped into me. I gasped at its blood stained teeth. As it reached for me, I kicked it, then fired straight into its skull. It collapsed. Gunfire rang as we shot anything and everything that got in our way. The goal was to kill whatever was in there, and we planned to do just that.
“We need Claire’s eyes,” I said.
“Claire!” Nick yelled, motioning to the next room. “What do you see in there?”
“It’s loaded with them!” she reported.
When the men came up behind her and flashed their lights around, we could all see that she wasn’t kidding. There were tons of zombies, stumbling around the cubicles and stepping on glasses and boxes of contact lenses.
Swallowing hard, I aimed again. I took a few steps, but then I slipped; the floor seemed to be sinking out from under me. A second later, it totally gave way, like a wet cardboard box. I threw out my hands to catch my balance. From the corner of my eye, I noticed the others approaching, but they were too late. I landed with a thud, facedown, with loosened debris raining down on top of me. I moaned, rolled over, and spat out a mouthful of dirt and plaster. My vision was blurred by millions of spots, and when I blinked them away, I realized we’d all fallen into the basement. I coughed from the swirling dust and looked around.
“Dean, are you okay?” my brother frantically asked.
“Yeah, but I’m buried under something. You?” I asked with a cough.
“I’ve been better,” he muttered.
Someone’s boot kicked me in the face, and I squirmed to break free of the tangle I was in. “Hey! Watch it!” I said.
“Sorry!” came the voice of the boot owner.
“Nick!” Claire yelled. “Dean? Where are you? Are you okay? Is anybody hurt?”
I glanced up, and a shudder shot down my spine. The shop was still filled with zombies, and Claire was still on that floor, with no one to back her up. ”We’re down here, Claire!”
She turned around and gasped. “They’re coming!”
“Shoot them!” a man yelled. “Shoot them all, girl!”
Chapter 21
A blast of gunfire echoed in the air. I held my breath when it stopped, then only exhaled when it started back up again. I called Claire’s name, but she didn’t respond.
“Claire!” a man yelled. “Jump down here with us! Or run out the front door. Save yourself!”
“I’d rather fight!” she shouted.
More gunfire rang out above me, and I shuddered, knowing Claire was up there all alone, surrounded by undead. My heart was racing so fast I couldn’t breathe. I knew we had to get up there to help her, but I was pinned under piles of debris and some kind of wooden beam.
The guy next to me moaned. He wasn’t facing me, but I could see that he’d taken a bad hit to the head, leaving a deep and nasty gash. I wasn’t sure if he was going to make it, but he was struggling to free the lower half of his body.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Can you feel your legs?”
He moaned.
I tapped his arm. “If we push together, we can probably move this beam off of us.”
He swung his face around in my direction, and I about had a heart attack. All of his skin was peeled away, and I was looking at a living, breathing skeleton, a decomposing zombie. It snapped at my face and barely missed. My rifle was slung over my shoulder, but there was no way I could get to it with all that garbage piled on top of me. In the scuffle, I’d lost my pistol. I managed to reach into my pocket and grab a handful of slugs. The groaner didn’t like being trapped under the beam with me, but I knew it would still find a way to make a tasty snack of me if I wasn’t careful; zombies never lost their appetite. When snapping jaws came at me again, I shoved the bullets as far down its disgusting throat as I could, hoping to choke the thing. “Eat that, you freak!” I yelled.
A man screamed through the dim light. When a woman shone her flashlight, I sucked in another lungful of air. Another zombie had bitten his arm, and there was one munching on his neck.
“Zombies!” another guy cried out in horror. “They’re every-freaking-where!”
People screamed, screeched, and moaned, and I knew I had to get out if I didn’t want to end up like them. I pulled and pulled, but my foot wouldn’t budge. Knowing I was stuck, I swallowed hard. With all my strength, I reached through the debris to get my hands on my rifle. I pulled it out and my finger instinctively went to the trigger. I’d already decided that the zombie next to me was going to be the first to go. I aimed at my target. As those cursed white eyes stared back at me, I squeezed out a shot and, at close range, decapitated the deadly, rotting creature. My stomach clenched at the sight. My foot was pinned under a tangle of debris, but as I glanced around, those nightmarish white eyes were everywhere. I had to find a way to free myself so I could fight. “Nick!” I yelled.
A second later, my brother was towering over me, lifting the debris and beam off my aching body. In spite of the pain and shock, I instantly scrambled to my feet and started fighting. A rotter with fizzy white hair and missing lips came at me, along with two more even uglier ones behind it. I aimed and squeezed off three more shots.
More shots sliced through the air as the others fought hard.
Another zombie approached with long red hair and half a jaw. I aimed straight at the wretched being, drew a deep breath, and squeezed the trigger. Two crashed to the ground. The bullet had exited the first zombie’s head and nailed the one behind it; I’d literally killed two creeps with one stone.
One of the women stood up, with blood gushing from her neck. She fell to the ground and took her final breath. Another woman screamed, and a few men darted over.
The casualties upset me to my core. I wanted all of us to make it out alive, to complete our mission without any losses, but that wasn’t always how it worked out. Looking around me at all the death and injuries, the blood and gore and fear, I began to wonder if it was worth it.
Finally, the groans grew quiet, and we all fumbled around trying to get our bearings.
My heart leapt in response to Claire’s familiar voice. I glanced at the gaping hole above us.
Claire peered over the ledge. “Good job, everyone.”
“What’s the status up there?” a woman shouted.
“All clear,” she said. “I took out every single one of them. Is everyone okay?”
“We lost Tom and Judy,” somebody said sadly.
A woman sobbed, and a man held her close.
The zombies had indeed been cleared out. The job was done, the mission accomplished, but sadly, two would be buried because of it. It was a bittersweet victory, but the lives were not lost in vain. We all knew the risks, and we knew the city was safer with the zombies destroyed.
Glancing around, I was able to see as people shone their flashlights around. It was then that I noticed that the stairs were still intact. I stepped over the broken rubble and raced up the stairs, with my brother right behind me. As soon as we reached the top, Nick hugged Claire, then spun her around and kissed her as emotion consumed both of them.
* * *
Back in the apartment, the girls and Lucas went to bed, but Nick and I couldn’t sleep.
I propped my feet up on the coffee table.
&
nbsp; “You know, Mom would kill you for that if we were at home,” Nick said.
I laughed. “Yeah, she was always lecturing me about keeping my feet off the furniture.”
Nick was quiet for a moment, then finally said, “I’m really proud of you, Dean.”
“I’m glad I have your approval.”
“I’m sorry for all the times I’ve left you behind. I shouldn’t have sneaked out like that.”
I sighed. “It’s okay. You thought you were doing what you had to do to protect me. You’re my big brother, and that’s your job.”
“You and Val mean the world to me. You’re my family, and I love you. I only do what I do to keep you safe…and alive.”
“I know.”
“But the more I do it, the more you rebel and go on missions behind my back.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t apologize,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll do it again.”
“And so will you,” I retorted.
“Touché,” he said.
“So…when are we leaving?” I asked. “I mean, to go back to our real home.”
“We’re surrounded by a herd now, so not anytime soon.”
“Val likes it here,” I said. “Also, she might be right about not being accepted on the island. You know full well they might put her up for execution.”
“We’ll find another way.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we can go to one of the other islands.”
“I miss our island,” I said. “I never knew how good I had it.”
“When we get back, you’ll appreciate it twice as much, man.”
“We’ve just gotta get that serum in the right hands,” I said.
“Yeah.” Nick stood. “I’m headin’ to bed. I only got three hours of sleep last night. See ya in the morning, little bro’.”
I glanced up at him. “Isn’t it nice that we can all sleep at the same time instead of in shifts?”
“Yeah. It’s real nice to be able to close our eyes and feel…safe.”
The Zombie Chronicles - Book 6 - Revelation (Apocalypse Infection Unleashed Series) Page 13
