Horror Within : 8 Book Boxed Set

by Mark Tufo

“The guy who drives around the parking lot at nine-fifteen at night to make sure the makeup girls and stock boys get to their car safely.”

  “You’re killing me. What did you do for a living?”

  “I was a makeup girl in a mall.”

  “Not funny.”

  Darlene slapped the deck. “I wish I were joking.”

  Seventeen

  Darlene, John and a dozen others moved quickly down A1A, clearing a path through the zombies coming from the south. Bridgette Charland, fourteen and preferring to be called Bri, carried John’s extra arrows slung over her shoulders. It was obvious to everyone that she had a massive crush on him.

  Six hours ago a broken CB radio transmission had announced from one of the southern safe spots near Daytona Beach that a flood of refugees were coming east and north from Orlando. The city, twice the size of St. Augustine, had collapsed under its own weight and with so many zombie attacks.

  “There’s a spiked pit to the left,” someone called out. They were entering Flagler Beach and the junction of Route 100. At some point this had been a central point for survivors. Now it was desolate. Traps and ditches had been built to either side of the road and the beach littered with fencing, makeshift walls and abandoned cars.

  While the group took a quick break and no undead were in the immediate vicinity, Darlene accompanied three men inside a restaurant called the Golden Lion, its wind-faded sign a regal lion. The bar area was covered in sand, as the glass partitions had been destroyed. The kitchen yielded nothing worth taking, the food stores emptied.

  Darlene went slowly up the stairs to the top deck of the place. She imagined how beautiful this would have been in times past, with the drinks and good food, company, the wind blowing in your hair and the smell of the surf and sand. She stared at the beach, covered in debris, and imagined sunbathers, children frolicking in the waves, lifeguards in their chairs, some Jimmy Buffet music playing from a small radio.

  “John says we’re ready to head out.” Bri stood at the head of the stairs. She looked so young, too young to be out here in danger. Darlene supposed there was nothing but danger, no matter where you were. She wanted to say something soothing to the girl. She couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be condescending to the teen.

  They went back out into the street and got back into formation. Darlene took the sweep to the far right with her machete while John was to the left, arrow notched. So far the zombies had been light, with months of fortifying the few bridges that remained to the peninsula. Farther south, near Ormond Beach and Daytona Beach it would be a different story unless an unknown group of survivors had staked a claim there.

  “Just up ahead is where our reach stops. There’s a state park around a bend and we were able to pull a group of RV’s into the road and build a wall. The beach in that spot has also been fenced in, and the park has a natural rock wall that we added to. After that it could get messy,” Eric White said. He was an older man that used to be in construction and had built quite a bit of the traps and walls in this area. His long, white ponytail dripped down his back, sweat running off onto his shirtless chest. He carried a hand crossbow that he was quite proud of, having found it in a junk pile and fashioned it back to working condition. Darlene thought someone had once said that Eric had been a consultant on one of those antique restoration reality television shows. She could see that. Eric took the time to explain in great detail everything he was doing and to what purpose.

  It was slow moving with having to rely on close-quarters fighting for the most part. You couldn’t shoot a gun out here in the open, where it would carry for miles and draw in hundreds of the undead. Darlene was glad that John had finally stopped insisting that she use a bow and arrow, especially since the last time four days ago when she shot so wide that she’d almost hit an onlooker. She gripped her trusted machete and scanned the buildings and lots for enemies.

  A zombie lumbered from Martin’s restaurant, crashing through the mangled front door. Someone put an arrow between its eyes. Darlene didn’t give it a second glance. She had ceased to even wonder whether or not they were male or female, young or old.

  In the movies the zombies wore ironic uniforms like bloody nurses, hacked up lawyers and mutilated military men still wearing their helmets. Out here it was too hard to discern what profession they had been when alive. Their clothing was dirty, ripped and drab, covered in gore and dark stains.

  Eric ran past her with a large meat cleaver in hand to cut off the zombie’s head. Darlene just kept moving, trying her best to smell the salty air instead of the rot and decay. Her heels crunched through a bloodstained path and she looked away and made pretend it was the crunch of seashells underfoot.

  A flock of seabirds cruised by on an updraft and they all stopped and watched as the creatures flew out of sight.

  “I’d love to know where they’re hiding,” John said and everyone laughed.

  The mood shifted as soon as they got around the bend and the RV’s came into view. The wall stood twelve feet high in places, wood haphazardly nailed to the sides of the RVs to hook them together, cement and debris poured into the cracks between them.

  Cars had been wedged in the gaps as well, with glass and rotting upholstery strewn across the street. Darlene looked away when she realized that body parts were also present.

  “What’s that noise?” someone asked as they got closer.

  “They’re on the other side.” Eric ran ahead, scaling the steps of an RV and getting onto the roof in a single move. “Fuck,” he managed.

  Darlene and John got onto the top of another RV, helping others up. Whoever had put this together had done it smartly: the roofs had been reinforced with plywood and strips of steel and beams for support. Several rusting lawn chairs were bolted to the tops, a wind-ravaged plastic cooler on each roof.

  The undead stood, thirty deep in places, trying to push forward. They could see more heading from the dunes on both sides and straight down A1A.

  “Time to clear a path,” John said and let loose with a volley of arrows.

  Darlene could only stand off to the side and marvel at the proficiency of the bowmen in their group. She imagined that this is what the Middle Ages must have been like, with archers facing down the hordes of Mongols and Saxons. Something like that. She was never too clear on her ancient history, and supposed it didn’t really matter now.

  “This isn’t working,” John finally admitted. While there were two score undead lying motionless, another five score had wandered up and were waiting their turn. Bri was already digging into the second quiver of arrows and there were a handful of undead still up, arrow shafts jutting from shoulders, necks and chests.

  “I’m going down,” Darlene said and drew her machete again.

  “I don’t think so.” John stared at Darlene.

  “Please, daddy, please?” she said sarcastically before slipping down onto the small hood of the RV and dropping between three zombies. She quickly dispatched them and kicked away, giving her some room to move.

  “Good idea,” Eric said and drew his meat cleaver.

  John, shaking his head, went back to firing arrows, working as close to Darlene as he could without accidentally hitting her again.

  Eric and Darlene went back to back, the bodies piling up at their feet. Soon a gap was cleared, allowing the bowmen to shoot down the road as the zombies approached.

  “Let’s move onto the other side,” John said. The group climbed down. “Darlene,” John called.

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t do that again.”

  “Do what?” Darlene asked. She didn’t bother to stop and talk to him, working her way forward as she spied another foe.

  John ran and caught up with her. He put a hand on her shoulder. “That was stupid to jump down and you know it.”

  “You even said yourself that it wasn’t working. I thought I’d either take the fight to them or wait until they rotted and hit the ground.”

  “Don’t do th
at again,” he repeated.

  “Are you going to send me to my room now?”

  Eric stepped in between them. “Can you two wait until we get back to do this? We have some company ahead.”

  “Fine,” John and Darlene both said.

  “You two need to get a room,” Eric said with a laugh.

  Eighteen

  The road ahead was desolate, the pounding waves to their left and hulking, silent condominiums to their right. The nearest condo, its windows destroyed and doors flung open, looked ready to crash into the dirty swimming pool. A mangled corpse on a lounge recliner still took in the sun.

  Darlene wondered how much longer she could go on like this. Running from the dead, going meal to meal and wondering if it would be her last, meeting the living and watching them die around her and then try to kill her. Was it all worth it anymore? Her stomach growled in answer. Even though she’d been eating better since joining this group, her weight was still down and her strength not what it once was. She felt like she was running out of time.

  A zombie stumbled out from the dunes and was quickly dispatched with minimal effort from Eric.

  Will I ever get back home? Is home still Maine, or is home wherever I stop? Is Maine still there at this point? Darlene felt a headache coming on and decided to live in the moment, as if that were possible. Shutting out the bad thoughts and the hopeful thoughts was sometimes just as hard as living this nightmare day to day.

  John edged up to Darlene as they paced. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” Darlene smiled at him.

  She knew she’d confused him and he stopped walking. “Huh?” he finally managed.

  Darlene looked away from him. “You have to know that I care about you.”

  “I care about you, too.”

  She looked at him and dropped her smile. “You know that I care about you.”

  It was his turn to smile. “And I care about you.”

  “Are you this stupid?”

  He stepped closer to her. “Right now, with everything going on… let’s just get through today.”

  “How do we know there’s going to be a tomorrow, John?”

  He shrugged. “I guess we don’t. But we have to try.” John looked away at the ocean. “If I give up hope that my family is out there, somewhere, alive, what do I have?”

  “You have this moment, you have people around you, surrounding you, that care for you now.”

  “You want to return to Maine. What if you found out Maine had fallen completely and there was nothing left there for you?”

  “I’d either drop or I’d keep going. You can’t base every action and every move on a what-if. You still need to get by. What if you found out she was gone, do you think she’d be happy to know that you then gave up? I think she’d want you to be happy and survive.”

  “I don’t want to stop searching for her.”

  “Who said to?”

  “It’s just…”

  “Getting involved with me, with anyone, doesn’t mean you love her less or forgot about her. It just means you’re living in the moment.” Darlene leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

  “I really care about you.” John grabbed and hugged her, burying his face in her shoulder.

  Darlene held him tightly as he sobbed. When Eric turned to investigate she waved him off and he nodded, moving away with the group.

  John gently pushed away and wiped a tear from his eye. “Not very manly, I know.”

  “If you were a real cop I would have thought less of you. I’ve seen plenty of mall cops cry.”

  John laughed. “That’s what I love about you.”

  They both stared awkwardly at one another before finally kissing.

  Darlene closed her eyes and probed his mouth with her tongue, feeling his body respond and press against her. His hands gripped the small of her back. She wanted to enjoy this moment forever.

  “Incoming,” someone yelled.

  John pushed her away and smiled. “You’re a pretty good kisser for a makeup girl.”

  “I bet you say that to all the mall workers.”

  They jogged ahead and joined the group.

  Eric had his binoculars out, studying the approaching group. “Damn, there must be hundreds of them.” He smiled and handed the binoculars to John. “We might have found a couple thousand survivors.”

  A few people clapped and Bri hugged John.

  “Okay, let’s go meet our new friends. I’m sure they’re tired, hungry and being followed by a horde of undead. We need to keep them moving, make sure no one has fallen behind, and half of us take up a rear position to keep the slower ones from getting lost.”

  “I’ll take the rear guard,” Darlene said. She’d walked many miles in this spot before. She felt elated just now, like she was accomplishing something positive in this negative world. “As cliché as that sounds,” she whispered.

  John got an arrow ready. “Watch for the undead coming from either side. With this many living moving and making noise, there’s bound to be quite a few others coming to investigate.”

  “We just need to get them back into Flagler and we’ll be safer there. A group from St. Augustine is coming up behind us and we’ll hand the refugees off to them.” Eric smiled. ‘This is going to be a great day for mankind.”

  The small group came into sight of the mass within fifteen minutes, people stretching across the two lanes and over the dunes.

  Bri began to wave and run ahead. Everyone smiled and laughed, the warm sun shining down on this wonderful scene.

  Bri stopped in her tracks and turned back, only feet from the refugees. She looked at Darlene with panic in her eyes. “They’re dead.”

  Indeed, hundreds and hundreds of recently deceased were shambling towards them.

  Sons of The New Patriots

  Doug Conrad tried his best to smile despite the six rifles pointing at his head and genitalia. “We seek sanctuary. We are starving. We have women with us who need help.”

  He noticed at least two rifles suddenly dip and point away from him. Doug loved horny dudes thinking with their genitalia. All it took was the mention of some pussy and they forgot about ass-fucking zombies and malnutrition and disease. You couldn’t trump the lure of pussy.

  He rubbed his face to look weary, but it was actually to keep them from seeing his smile. He knew that the gate to the shipyard would be opening any moment. They’d be cautious and take his weapons – but not his blade, they’d never find the blade – and escort him to their leader. They’d trade news of the outside world, trade a few weapons, foodstuffs, supplies, then the shipyard boys will get all friendly and see what it would involve to get a pussy or two for the evening. If it turned ugly or these shipyard boys were desperate and/or starving they’d simply try to kill them and take the supplies, food and women.

  Doug knew that wasn’t going to happen. Even now he had ten of his trusted men scaling fences and hiding on buildings, flanking the boys with the guns pointing at his balls. At a simple hand gesture they’d fire and kill anyone in the compound. Doug didn’t want that. He didn’t want the shooting. Not because he hated violence or bloodshed. He was simply tired of those fucking zombies that had been following them all the way from Orlando.

  Central Florida had been a bust. As soon as they got there the damn internal strife of such a large, unorganized city had reared its head. Factions opposed to taking in new refugees clashed with the old-school save-everyone group.

  The road from Connecticut had been long and deadly. Doug remembered all of his loyal men he’d lost over the months, especially in the beginning. He didn’t believe in God but he believed that the human race had pissed someone or something off pretty fucking bad, and payback was such a bitch these days.

  He’d learned early enough that despite the world being fucked, ‘normal’ people didn’t trust bikers or militia. He’d ordered his loyalists to hide or remove their Sons of The New Patriots insignias and shirts to try to blend in with the locals and gai
n access. It was a waste of bullets and manpower to storm into a town and kill everyone just to find three bottles of swamp water and a half-eaten candy bar. Diplomacy had gotten them farther south than the noise of gunfire. Doug figured that close to a million undead were moving in his general direction from the northeast, and he wanted to keep moving away from them.

  Without tipping his hand he glanced and saw that Rusty Byers was in position with his AK-47 to the left, in perfect range to kill everyone in the yard if it came down to that. He hoped it didn’t, because any stray bullet could puncture a gas tank or punch a hole through one of the boats. They needed every boat they could get and as quickly as possible. He glanced back at the dozens of people milling about up the road, waiting for him to save them. Like a fucking messiah. Doug would sacrifice every last one of these losers to save himself and his loyalists. They were meat to him, trading pieces to get his way. Even the women were expendable, although he’d made a mental note of about ten that would be fun to fuck once they got onto the open water and had a brief respite.

  Already, hundreds of the refugees had turned to the north and to ‘freedom’ in St. Augustine. He knew they’d never make it and he was surprised that they’d all managed to get this far. The old and the weak had been overrun as soon as they hit I-4 in Orlando, and that was the distraction that they needed to get away for the time being. But the undead didn’t rest and they were still coming and picking up stragglers every mile with all of the damn noise thousands of people make.

  A boat or two would get them north without having to fight a horde of zombies, and if there were women to fuck and food to eat, so much the better.

  He wanted to yell out for them to hurry the fuck up, but decided not to. Instead he walked slowly in a circle and kicked at some pebbles on the road. He began counting backwards from one hundred. By the time he hit one, if they didn’t open the gate, he would crack his knuckles and that would spark the bloodbath.

  The people behind him thought he was a sound and honorable person. They thought he had been a simple school teacher in New Britain, Connecticut. They thought he had a loving wife and small child he was trying to find. They were sheep, stupid and easily lead by a stupid heart-wrenching story.