The Zombie Virus (Book 2): The Children of the Damned

by Hetzer, Paul

  Steven and the two young women cautiously approached the open doors of the Target store. The glass windows had been shattered and articles from the store lay strewn through the opening like the path in the aftermath of a cyclone. The broken glass crackled loudly underfoot as they carefully stepped through the doors into the dim interior.

  “I don’t like this,” Dontela whispered.

  Steven shushed her and took another step deeper into the large building.

  It looked like a hurricane had hit the interior of the store with devastating winds. Shelves were overturned and merchandise littered the floor in all directions.

  “Is it one of their sleeping sites?” Kera asked, fear constricting her throat so that her voice came out in a squeak. She remembered all too well several months back when they had entered the sporting goods store where they had sought to liberate some much needed supplies, only to find it a sanctuary for the Loonies who were present in terrifying numbers and sleeping everywhere within its dark interior. They had barely escaped from that place with their lives.

  Steven didn’t answer, just motioned them on deeper into the store. The only light was that which seeped in from the row of windows along the front. The far back end of the store was hidden in a cloak of darkness.

  The smell was awful, an overwhelming aroma of human defecation and stale urine. Dontela reached down to grab a pack of men’s boxers off the floor and ripped it open with her teeth. She took out a pair of paisley boxers and held it over her mouth and nose. They stepped over and through the strewn merchandise, past leaning and fallen shelves into the deepening darkness of the forbidding, cavernous store.

  Steven stumbled over something in the shadows of the floor and banged into a rack which tipped over with a loud, echoing clatter. All three of them froze in their tracks, straining their ears for the slightest sound. The cold, dark interior remained as quiet as a tomb.

  After a few seconds of petrified anticipation, they relaxed a little.

  “I think we’re alone,” Steven whispered and flicked on a flashlight that he had removed from a pocket, bathing their immediate area in a circle of white light. He traced a path with the beam around the store, seeing the destruction wrought by the Loonies, although not any of the insane creatures themselves.

  “Okay, let’s spread out and get what we came for as quick as we can. Something about this place I don’t like and I don’t want our butts hanging out in here any longer than necessary.” He scrutinized the mess around their feet. “It’s not going to be easy finding anything in this mess either.”

  The girls’ flashlight beams joined his as they walked away from each other into the plundered store.

  Angela slipped away from the two adults and skipped with stockinged feet into the kitchen. She grabbed the peanut butter jar off a shelf, along with the spoon she had been using earlier. She absently walked past the wooden door that led out to the garage without seeing the face peering in through the large glass pane as she sought the jar of preserves that was on the table in the breakfast nook. There was a box of crackers sitting there as well, and she paused while she thought about taking them. Then she decided that the peanut butter and preserves together by themselves would just about be perfect. If this place would have had some chocolate milk her stomach would have experienced pure kid bliss. She stuck the jar of preserves under her arm and headed back to the warmth of the living room. She walked past the garage door then froze in her tracks. Something had caught her attention, like a horrible, ghostly apparition flitting in her peripheral vision. The window in the door that looked out into the garage was over her left shoulder, however, she was too frightened to turn her head and look.

  She thought she had seen a face of a monster when she had walked past. She felt her heartbeat hammering in her chest and she sucked in a deep lungful of breath and without volition, turned her head toward the door.

  The preserves jar slipped from under her arm and shattered loudly on the cold tile beneath her feet and a shrill scream escaped her lips. A large black face gazed back at her on the other side of the window, strings of saliva dripping from its thick, liver-colored lips and smearing on the window when it pressed its face closer.

  It opened its mouth and hissed at her, showing a maw full of dirty, yellowed teeth.

  She screamed again and finally her feet received the commands from her brain propelled her from the room. She collided with Katy, who was rushing into the kitchen in response to her screams, hitting with such force the little girl was knocked hard to the floor, unconscious. Katherine stumbled over the little girl, lost her balance, and also fell hard, sliding to a stop against the door. Melody came running up behind her and stood in the threshold to the kitchen, the AR rifle in her hand. She stared at the comatose little girl and fallen woman who was picking herself off of the floor. Her mind was trying to ascertain what had caused the scene before her when the window in the door to the garage imploded in a shower of glass and something large and dark launched through it.

  The alpha male watched the movement of the little girl through the glass. It had an overwhelming desire to reach through the window and grab the repulsive creature and rend it limb from limb. It felt its rage ramping up every time the creature moved. It pressed its face to the glass, biting at the obstructing pane while the rage burned like a nova within its brain. Behind it the others of its pack were growing restless and babbling incessantly, sensing the agitation building in their leader. They had not yet seen the girl so close on the other side of the door or he would not have been able to stop them from a mad rush to get to her.

  The small creature stopped right on the other side of the barrier and then swiveled its head and gawked at him, then let out an ear-piercing noise that caused it to flinch from the pain in its supersensitive ears. The rage exploded in its head, overshadowing the primitive thoughts that had been guiding its actions. When the creature turned and ran, the alpha shoved hard against the door trying to get to the creature, its predator instinct coupled with the insane rage overwhelming it. More of the creatures appeared and its rage became blinding. Springing upwards on strong legs charged with its adrenaline fueled power, it launched itself through the window at the abhorrent creatures. In a shattering blast of glass it sprung into the room with an inhuman growl and landed on all fours overtop of the unconscious girl. Behind it, the others in its pack fought to get through the opening, hissing and biting at each other in their madness.

  It saw the small creature beneath it and bent its head down, sniffing at her, then abruptly grabbed hold of her neck with a filthy hand and shook the creature as one would a rag doll. It remained unmoving in his grip. It let her fall back to the floor and picked up one of its small arms and let it drop limply back to the creature’s side. The creature didn’t move and he soon lost interest in it. His rage turned on the larger creature standing in the doorway.

  He glared at her and growled menacingly deep in his throat. An ear-splitting noise and a blinding flash erupted from something in the creature’s hands, causing him to flinch and duck lower to the ground. He heard a grunt and one of his females fell lifeless beside him, flooding his senses with the smell of her sweet-smelling blood. With a snarl, he launched himself off of the floor with spring-loaded legs and slammed into the repugnant creature like a two-hundred pound cannonball.

  Katherine was slowly regaining her senses and picking herself off the floor when the glass in the door above her blew outward in a spray of glittering shards. She heard a loud thump and glimpsed a dark shape on the kitchen floor beside her. The cotton-candy smell of the M80s mixed with the thick animal stink of their unwashed bodies wafted over her while their growls and hisses filled her ears. An incapacitating fear overwhelmed her mind transforming her legs to jelly beneath her and she collapsed to the floor in a whimpering ball. Something came through the window and landed heavily on her legs. She peered through half-lidded eyes at a filthy female M80 covered in some sort of blanket crouched overtop of her with long, dark, m
atted hair hanging in clumps around its splotchy, emaciated face. The woman launched off of her and Katy heard the blast from a gun and then saw the woman tumble to the floor with the left side of her face blown away. She sensed more of the things climbing through the broken window above her and felt another’s weight fall on her. Through the slits of her eyes she saw the dark shape in the room propel itself into Melody like a springing panther. In her all-encompassing terror she squeezed her eyes tightly closed and buried her face into the floor when she sensed more and more creatures coming through the window.

  Melody felt herself shaking with fright when another nightmarish creature pulled itself through the broken window and landed like a cat on top of the prone Katy. The thing, a female, glared up at her though a mass of dark hair then bared her teeth and hissed. Melody raised her rifle and pulled the trigger just as the woman leapt at her. A gash opened up in the creature’s cheek and teeth, blood, and bone fragments exploded out the back of its neck in an expanding red cloud. It fell dead to the floor next to the other monster. The other monster! She gasped when she peered into the black man’s glowing eyes and saw the hateful rage burning in them. Her fear-paralyzed mind reacted sluggishly and the thing hurled itself at her with incredible power. Her finger spasmodically pulled the rifle’s trigger and the barrel dropped in what felt like slow motion toward the monster, the rounds tearing past its airborne body, slamming harmlessly into the wall behind it.

  It hit her like a rocket, knocking the breath from her body, smashing her backwards into the hallway. Melody fell heavily onto her back and the rifle flew away from her grip with a loud clatter. She felt the crushing weight of the large crazy man on her body and suddenly its face was inches in front of hers, its bloodshot eyes glowering into hers while globs of pink-tinged saliva flew from its snapping jaws. The hot, rank stench of its breath filled her nose when it hissed insanely at her. She opened her mouth to scream but her vocal cords were paralyzed with fear and she could only manage a choking croak, and she felt a warm wetness in her crotch.

  The thing wrapped its hands around her head in a vice-like grip, one of its thumbs sinking into her eye. She heard the ‘pop’ of her eye being crushed inward before she suffered the pain. The paralysis left her as the white-hot agony coursed through her head and a ragged pain-filled scream escaped her mouth. With all her strength, she swung her arms up and beat her fist against the foul-smelling hulk that pinned her to the floor. She managed to get a hand around the crazy man’s throat and tried to squeeze, however it was like trying to crush a steel pipe. She felt the creature’s other thumb sliding into the eye-socket of her remaining eye and wailed in utter terror when it blocked out her vision and then the thing savagely thrust its thumb downward, collapsing the eye and sending another lightning blast of pain through her skull. The thumbs relentlessly pressed down and through her optic nerves. Melody’s body was now convulsing in spasms of pain, nearly throwing the creature off of her. With a hate-filled snarl the large man lifted up her head and slammed it down powerfully onto the wooden floor and its thumbs sank deep into the woman’s brains, squirting blood and fluid over its strong, dark hands.

  The woman’s legs kicked spasmodically beneath it as the life left her body. The alpha lifted the woman’s head and slammed it into the ground repeatedly until it literally came apart in his iron grasp. When her movements had stopped, it stood, throwing aside the handfuls of flesh covered skull it held in its fists and looked behind it. The rest of his pack was now in the home. The lesser male and a female were lifting up the larger of the two prone creatures by the hair and sniffing at her. They finally lost interest and let her drop lifelessly back to the floor. The alpha bent down and sniffed at the cold steel object that had made the ear-splitting noise. He picked it up and looked at it tentatively, then let it fall from his grasp and he lumbered deeper into the house. His pack followed, walking over the downed woman and disappeared from the kitchen.

  Katherine cautiously opened her eyes from where she lay in a heap on the floor. She had unwittingly played possum, her muscles frozen by the utter terror that consumed her mind. She had passed out briefly when one of the M80s grabbed her by the hair, although now her senses were returning to her and she was trembling with fear. Three feet away from her Angela was stirring as consciousness returned slowly to her. The little girl’s brown eyes were open and looking at her. Katy put a finger to her lips and motioned the girl to be quiet before she could alert the creatures. They could hear the things deeper in the house as they tore it apart in some mindless rage driven quest.

  She looked past the little girl and saw what remained of Melody in the hallway and stifled a sob when she saw the woman’s ruined face. She quietly mouthed ‘I’m sorry’ to the dead woman. Angela turned her head and let out a startled gasp when she saw the dead M80 lying in a pool of blood next to her. Katy shushed the little girl again and sat up, keeping her eyes on the hallway for any movement. She spotted Melody’s gun lying just out of reach of her lifeless fingers. She thought back to earlier in the morning when Steven had been showing the woman how to operate the rifle, but Katy had deliberately ignored the lesson.

  I can figure it out, she told herself as she eyed the weapon, her fear of it overwhelmed by the fear of the creatures now trashing the house. On hands and knees she crawled past Angela, who sat up questioningly. She tried not to look at the savaged head of her dead friend as she crept by, her hands slipping through the thick congealing blood. She couldn’t help but steal a glance at her though. Katy felt the bile rise in her throat at the sight and hurriedly scurried past the corpse. She picked up the rifle. It felt cold and heavy in her hands. She sat with her back against the wall and peered at all the levers and switches. She shook her head in bewilderment and hoped silently that if she simply pulled the trigger it would fire. Angela crawled up next to her and buried her face in Katy’s lap, her body wracked with sobs.

  Please let it shoot, Katy prayed when the sounds of the M80s drew closer to the kitchen. She hefted the rifle to her shoulder and waited.

  Kera was near the front of the store stuffing batteries into her pack when she thought she heard the sound of a far off gunshot. She threw the pack on her back, picked up her shotgun, and raced to the open doors at the front of the store, shielding her eyes from the bright daylight. Nothing moved on the snow covered landscape or back in the direction of the houses. She stood there a few moments and was about to dismiss it as being her imagination at work when she heard two muffled, yet discernable gunshots in the distance.

  Oh shit! she thought and raced back into the store, yelling for her companions.

  The three raced out the Target’s front entrance and through the slush-filled parking lot, sprinting for the distant line of rooftops that marked the neighborhood where their appropriated house was located. As they crossed a rock lined drainage trench at the edge of the parking lot, Kera slipped on the snow and ice-covered boulders and fell with a cry of pain in a twisted heap between two of the gray rocks. Dontela was right behind her and quickly helped her to her feet while Steven caught up with them.

  “It’s my knee,” Kera grimaced as Dontela sat her on the embankment and she clasped the knee to her chest.

  “Can you walk?” Steven asked her. They helped her to her feet again and she tentatively put weight on the injured leg, letting out a gasp when pain shot through the knee. She shook her head.

  Tears of pain welled in Kera’s eyes as the two helped her up the snow-covered embankment to the curb where she sat down gracelessly in the slushy snow. She pulled up her pant leg and they could all see the swelling in the knee.

  “Shit!” she cursed, then glanced up at her companions. “I’m sorry! That was stupid and clumsy of me!”

  “It was an accident, it could have happened to any of us,” Steven consoled her.

  ‘You guys go on. I’ll catch up to you,” she told them, massaging the joint.

  Steven shook his head. “We’re not leaving you, Kera.”

  �
�Something is wrong at the house. You gotta go, there’s no time to waste!”

  “Come on,” Dontela said, lifting Kera to her feet. “I’ll help you. Steve, you run ahead and see what’s going on.”

  Steven hesitated for a moment then bent down and kissed Kera on the lips. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded her head and tried to smile through the pain that was apparent in her face. Steven gently touched her cheek then raced off toward the distant houses. She watched him retreat through a small copse of trees as she tried to flex her painful, swelling knee. She had to be more careful, she admonished herself. In this new world, small accidents could lead to terrible consequences. Plus, it wasn’t solely her she had to worry about anymore. She placed a hand on her belly, as if she could feel the life growing there.

  Steven had no idea what to expect at the house. Kera hadn’t even been sure if that was where the shots had come from. She knew that in all probability the chance of it not being someone in their group doing the shooting in their immediate area was slim.

  He approached the house obliquely and ducked into the carport, instantly spying the open door that led to the garage and felt a knot of trepidation tighten in his stomach. His pace picked up and he flew through the open door into the dark garage. The framed glass was broken out of the door that led into the kitchen and before he could take another step a series of gunshots reverberated from within the interior of the house.

  Katherine had the rifle cradled in her arms. Angela lay sniffling with her head in the older girl’s lap when the muscular M80 appeared at the end of the hall. It didn’t notice the two girls at first, as its attention was focused in the room it was rampaging through, but then its head swiveled and its dark, red-tinged eyes zeroed in on the two and a menacing growl formed deep in the back of its throat. With incredible speed it propelled itself down the hall in large bounds. Katy immediately and repeatedly pulled the rifle’s trigger and shots ripped down the hallway past the swiftly closing monster. Finally she saw a round tear through the thick covering of cloth it wore as clothing, near its right knee, and the leg buckled just as it prepared for a final bounding leap. It stumbled sideways and impacted the wall heavily. She kept pulling the trigger as it landed next to her, its snapping jaws barely a foot away. One of her rounds found its mark and the crazy’s right eye burst inward, the bullet exploding out the back of its head, spraying a red, gory mess across the white painted wall. She continued pulling the trigger even after the last round had been fired. She heard a shrill screaming in her head and realized it was her own screams mixed in with those of the little girls, who was shrieking hysterically next to her.