Reavers (Z-Risen Series Book 4)

by Timothy W. Long

  Book 4: Reavers

  timothy w. long

  Copyright 2015. Timothy W. Long

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover art by Eloise J. Knapp

  http://www.ekcoverdesign.com

  Edited by Melodie Laudner

  This book is dedicated to Amanda

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead, or historical events, is purely fucking coincidental.

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  Also by Timothy W. Long

  Beyond the Barriers (Permuted Press)

  Among the Living (Permuted Press)

  Among the Dead (Permuted Press)

  At the Behest of the Dead

  The Zombie Wilson Diaries

  The Apocalypse and Satan’s Glory Hole

  Z-Risen: Outbreak

  Z-Risen: Outcasts

  Z-Risen: Poisoned Earth

  Coming Soon:

  THE FRONT – A WWII Zombie Serial by

  Timothy W. Long, David Moody, and Craig DiLouie

  In the event this log is found with my corpse, I’m Machinist Mate First Class Jackson Creed and it’s been over a month since we arrived back in San Diego following the event. With me is Marine Sergeant Joel “Cruze” Kelly.

  We were both stationed on the USS McClusky, an Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate out of San Diego. Our ship was overrun by the dead and we barely escaped with our lives. Now we live in the middle of Undead Central.

  32 – Reflections

  21:15 hours approximate

  Location: Safety at last

  The ceiling loomed overhead, leaving us in near darkness; every time I looked up into the void, I half-expected a shuffler to pounce. Might have been some kind of PTSD, always fearful of things that weren’t there. After the last eight or nine weeks, I expected horror at every turn. I expected a horde of Zs to stumble on our location and devour us right the fuck out of sleep.

  But things had changed, and we were in the safest location we'd found since Joel Kelly and I had landed in San Diego.

  There was light, because wind-up emergency flashlights hung from the shelves. My new friends had given me a simple job. They’d asked me to make the rounds along the second and third rows and recharge the little suckers before I hit the rack for the night. Fair enough. I’d been a guest at their house. It was the least I could do.

  I got it: everyone did their part. It might be “free” to stay here, so to speak, but everyone had to have a job. They said they’d find something for Christy to do, but for now she helped me.

  At three-foot intervals, the little lights hung from hooks. It was a simple matter of taking each one down, spinning the little wind-up generator for a minute, and then hanging it up again. It was better than crawling around in the bilge on a US Navy vessel.

  The command center had a bunch of emergency radios that worked on the same principle. They were true apocalypse-ready devices that worked on a charge, and they even had USB ports, so you could charge just about anything short of a laptop. Of course, they lacked an actual radio station instead offering nothing more than static.

  Laptops and tablets were hooked up to generators when we could spare the juice, but for the most part, they stayed off. There was a whole packet of beat-up cell phones from various bodies or stores. I grabbed a few and tried them for tunes. I was on the fifth one before I found some soothing music. Christy found something with Taylor Swift and was delighted.

  I finished hanging another light and realized I’d reached the end of the aisle.

  Christy shot me a smile in the waning light. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail and poked through the back of a ball cap. The hat sported a NYPD logo, and had previously been worn by my friend Joel “Cruze” Kelly. More a best friend with an attitude. He’d been a Marine and was good at watching over our shoulders, tracking Zs with his assault rifle, and shooting anything that looked at us in the wrong tone of voice.

  “You doing okay?” I asked Christy.

  “Yeah. It’s weird to feel safe. Like this is a home,” she said.

  “It does. I hate to be a spoilsport, but remember where we live. Things can change in a minute, so we have to always be vigilant,” I said.

  “I know. I heard enough of Joel’s training. But I can pretend that we’re safe for now. It helps me sleep.”

  I gave Christy an awkward half-hug and she threw her arms around me.

  “Jeez, Christy, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “I had the same thought about you, Jackson.” She smiled.

  I missed my friends. Joel Kelly had taught me an awful lot about surviving this nightmare world. He was a very capable fighter, and I’d tried to soak up every lesson he lobbed my way. Whenever it got hairy, the first thing I used to do was panic. Then Joel would shoot me a stony look and say something like “Get your shit together, squid.”

  Anna Sails had been a mystery from the first moment I met her. She was cute but deadly. Short, blonde and entirely capable of whipping out a handgun and shooting Zs in the face without batting an eye. It turned out she was some kind of soldier for Bright Star. A lieutenant commander of all things.

  Later, we’d had a night together, which went against military rules. I was just an enlisted puke. Had we been caught a few months ago, they’d probably have tossed me out of the service and kicked her down a few ranks. To me, it had been worth it--and still would be, if the world were a better place right now.

  I tried not to think about our other friend Roz. We’d slept at her pad in the early days after Joel and I had crash landed into San Diego. She’d had to kill her father, because he’d turned into a Z. She and Joel had become close, but then she’d been attacked by a shuffler and nearly killed.

  He’d done something to her, and when a bunch of guys from Bright Star had saved us, they’d taken one look at her and whisked her away in a large truck. The vehicle had been armed with a full complement of medical professionals, and they hadn’t wasted any time getting fluids in her via IVs. They’d also started taking blood the moment she was situated. As far as I could tell, she was completely unconscious when they’d performed her work. Or maybe they’d knocked her out with some kind of drug or chemical agent.

  I feared to consider what was happening to her. Her face had been savaged, and she’d lain in a near-coma state for hours after we'd escaped the battle in our nice new house in the burbs. Of course it wasn’t that great. No power and no running water. Not to mention the assholes who’d tried to crash our party and take our supplies.

  We’d become separated when a fight had erupted between the so-called Reavers and Bright Star. Personally, I didn’t think anyone had been all that smart in the fight. With humanity dwindling, we should have been working together. But bullets had been exchanged and bodies had fallen. Now a cloud of nuclear fallout rained down on parts of Los Angeles, and I’d been told it was all thanks to the mercenary army that Anna had worked for.

  I hadn’t seen Joel in a week, and I still felt the loss in my gut. He wasn’t dead, as far as I knew; he and Anna Sails had departed while we fought a wave of zombies and Reavers. The zombies had been the real threat. Now that I’d spent some time with the Reavers, I understood what in the hell was going on. This statement comes with a few caveats.

  One: These guys seem to mean well. They are all about fighting the zombie hordes, freeing cities, and keeping people safe. We’re inside a giant fortress now. Something that took them months to build, reinforce, and set protocols
upon.

  Two: These guys may not be all they seemed to be. They claim to be the good guys, while Bright Star--a mercenary group who appear to be setting up shop as the new enforcers of the US of A--seem more interested in nuking the fuck out of cities.

  Three: I don’t really have a choice. They rescued us, and I am very thankful that they came along when they did.

  How we got here was quite a story in itself.

  ###

  20:00 hours approximate

  Location: The Deadlands of CA

  The night after the battle between Bright Star and the Reavers was spent with us all huddled together in the cold, fucking miserable. I talked about that in the first entry. Why did I skip ahead? Because this is my damn journal. Maybe I’m losing my mind. I’ll try to keep the rest of this in order.

  This was the night before we met Diane. Shit, did it again.

  The day before, we’d set up in a home that had been partially gutted inside and out.

  We found another house with a bashed-in door, and I managed to move the door across the porch, maneuver it into the home, and press it against the entryway as another form of protection.

  Christy and I spent half an hour removing drawers from a dresser, putting the dresser in front of the door, and then replacing all the weight. It wasn’t very good protection. It was just as half-assed as we had energy for.

  Frosty found a spot on the living room floor to stretch out, and watched us with her big brown eyes.

  The back door had simply been kicked in by someone who came before us, so I closed it and rigged the old latch with a screw I dug out of a kitchen drawer. It didn’t quite fit, but I also turned up a large screwdriver and had a go at the obstinate pieces of metal for ten minutes before it was firmly seated.

  Whoever had been here ahead of us had taken almost all of the blankets in the damn house.

  The floors had been pissed on, and more than one wall was splattered with blood. The kitchen’s cabinets had been picked over more than once, and offered little more than a few spices, broken wine glasses, and a bottle of soy sauce that was hidden in a floor cabinet toward the back.

  It had a few drops left in it, so Christy and I spent a few minutes dabbing some on our fingers in an attempt to feel like we were eating actual food.

  The carpet on the stairs had been mostly ripped off. Couldn’t figure that one out, except maybe some dumbass liked the color. A recently-used fireplace lay in the center of the room. Parts of burned furniture were stacked on the sides. We had no kindling or paper to speak of, though.

  The downstairs bathroom had been well used. I should have taken the door being stuck shut as a sign. After my gag reflex recovered, I asked Christy not to go in there, due to the threat of bacteria. Instead we found a corner upstairs, and used it when we had to go, thus making even more of the house a biohazard.

  The rest of the house was done up in shades of post-apocalyptic, with a side order of one dead body in the main bedroom. He’d been shot in the head, but he didn’t look like a zombie. I stepped over his body and slid the comforter off the bed. As my foot crossed over his chest, I half-expected his eyes to pop open, horror movie style, and for him to try to take a bite out of my boot.

  We used the remains of a chair to jam the lock on the front door, but it wouldn’t hold up to more than a light pounding. It wasn’t that great, but it was better than nothing. Plus, all of that racket would make a great alarm.

  Christy and I went out at night and raided nearby locations for supplies, but came up with a big fat goose egg. We had to be extra quiet and creep around, hoping to avoid contact with the Zs. Now that Joel, Anna, and Roz were gone along with most of our supplies and weapons, we were really in a bad spot. I had my wrench, but that’s where my luck ran out.

  People moved to Southern California because it has a temperate climate that stays close to the seventies for the most part. This year was different, and as winter approached it was also growing colder than usual. Not to mention grayer. I’d almost gotten used to waking up to clouds.

  I didn’t have a theory on this, because I’m not smart enough to interpret climate change or the effect of having millions of powered homes, buildings, cars, and other heat-producing things suddenly going dead.

  We huddled together under four thin sheets, using the cleanest to buffer the rest. We’d had to strip those from beds, and who knew what had happened on them before we showed up? We could have stayed in a bedroom, but Christy and I felt safer in the large living room so we could keep an eye on the door.

  We were close to being out of ammo, but Christy still slept with her snub-nosed .38 revolver under her pillow. I kept my wrench close at hand, and my nearly-empty Springfield next to my own pillow.

  Sometime during the night, Frosty decided that she wanted to cozy up with us, and found a place next to Christy. With the dog so close, I slept, knowing that she would wake us if anything tried to get in. I was too tired to bother keeping watch. After the last few days, I hurt everywhere, and couldn’t keep my eyes open if I tried.

  We rose before dawn and moved out of the complex.

  “Are we going to go find Joel and Anna?”

  “I wish we could, but that was a nuke that went off north of here. I’m worried about fallout,” I told Christy.

  “Are we coming back to this place tonight?”

  “Maybe. We might find somewhere better."

  “Zombies and fallout? That's a gnarly combination. Do you think they’ll mutate into even weirder things, like the Toxic Avenger?”

  “How do you even know about that movie?”

  “I love that flic. It’s one of my favorites,” Christy said.

  I chuckled.

  “It is. I like the classics,” she assured me.

  “Classics, huh?"

  “Yeah. I like bad horror movies. At least I used to,” she said. “Then all of this happened, and now we’re surrounded by real horror.”

  “That’s real deep, Christy.”

  “Shut up, ya big dummy,” Christy smiled.

  I had to give her points for maintaining a cheery attitude after the day we’d had. First we’d been woken by Zs assaulting the nice new house we’d taken over. A place with a great vantage point, and the threat that had been in the neighborhood--raiders interested in our stuff--had been dealt with.

  There was nothing diplomatic about that fight. It had been about a group of half-assed civilians thinking they each had a pair. Joel Kelly and Anna Sails had put an end to that bullshit. I'd shot a few times, but mostly missed. If not for them, we’d have been overrun.

  Then the shufflers had hit the roof, and the shit had hit the fan. Fleeing in our beat up RV, we’d been pushed into a corner and ended up stuck in a dead vehicle, completely surrounded by Zs, and more shufflers beating at our roof and doors.

  Lucky for us, an offshoot of the group that Anna had claimed to serve had come along and saved us. The next few hours had been something like elation. They'd promised us food, a warm place to sleep, water, and maybe a shower. But all of that had been lost.

  A battle had ensued and Christy, Frosty the wonder dog, and I had become separated from our friends. When we’d finally fought our way out of a dilapidated building overrun with the dead, it was to find that we’d been left behind. Joel and Anna had escaped with the remainder of Bright Star.

  ###

  10:30 hours approximate

  Location: The Deadlands of CA

  I thought I’d come up with a plan if I stared at the television long enough. It didn’t work, but there was some weird satisfaction in pretending like things were normal. Like Alex Trebek was going to come on at any moment and challenge me to answer questions about shit that didn’t matter anymore. At this point, I’d even take Will Ferrell’s imitation of the Jeopardy host.

  Then my thoughts turned dark. What would happen to the world in the next few years? We’d all die, and our history would be lost and forgotten. Books would mold and turn to ash, or lumps of someth
ing that used to be paper. Computers wouldn’t fire up again, and all of that knowledge would be just a bunch of forgotten ones and zeroes.

  Being in the zombie fucking apocalypse can get a guy down. Anyway, I sat staring at the dead boob tube and considered our options.

  We could sit around and feel sorry for ourselves, or we could go out there and find some trouble--and by trouble, I didn’t mean the kind that invited Zs.

  I chose the second option, because I didn’t want to think about sitting around waiting for Zs to sniff us out. Besides, we didn’t have a damn thing to eat, and we had no way to filter water from the hot water heater.

  Christy and I took a chance on it anyway, because we were both so thirsty that the alternative was to just think about the water, and that was worse.

  I let about half a gallon flow out of the release valve, and then we put glasses under the flow.

  We stared at each other for a few seconds, like we were daring the other to take a sip.

  The water was clean, if a little bit yellow. Probably just rust, and that wouldn’t kill us. The days hadn’t been too warm, but I worried about bacteria growing in the heater.

  “Think it’s safe?”

  “The way I see it,” I said, “before the power went out, this water was probably kept at a cozy hundred and twenty degrees, give or take. Then it cooled. If some tiny creepy crawlies are in there, we’ll know soon enough.”

  “What kind of creepy crawlies?”

  “The kind that will make us spend most of the day on the crapper. We might puke our guts up. The next problem will be that after we’ve lost all of that water, we’ll be dehydrated, and it will seem pretty attractive to drink more of that bad water.”

  “Can we heat it up?”

  “Don’t see why not. We just need to start a fire and put some in a pan, boil it, and then wait for it to cool.”