A Broken World (Book 3): Fractured Memories

by Lauck, Andrew

  A Broken World:

  Fractured Memories

  Andrew Lauck

  A Broken World: Fractured Memories

  Copyright 2020 by Andrew Lauck

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Cataloging in Publication data block.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020903328

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by José M. Bethencourt.

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  First printing 2020.

  Published by Andrew Lauck

  Austin, TX

  lauckitdown@gmail.com

  To my wife,

  Without whom I would be lost

  Acknowledgements

  After doing this twice, you’d think writing acknowledgements would be easier, but they only get harder. This is because, as I continue to expand research and meet new people, the list of people I will inevitably forget to add grows. This particular time is even more difficult, though, because of what this book, and trilogy, means to me, but I’ll do my best.

  As I get older, I realize that family and friends are all we have in this life, so much so that it became a central theme in this book. Because of that, for their never-ending support, I want to thank my entire family (Including my extended one), Charlotte, Rob, Laura, and everyone that doesn’t judge my lack of social media skills.

  Once again, I want to single out my dad for taking the time to edit and read a draft full of errors (Some of which I’ll never live down). Without your encouragement, knowledge, and advice, this book would never have been the same and neither would I.

  This is the first book I’ve written as a married man, and I owe the biggest thanks to my wife, Carly. For claiming me in public (Despite my stupid thinking faces), listening to my rants at home, and, despite my incredible sense of humor, never failing to love and support me. To the strongest, most caring, generous, frustrating, challenging, loving wife that a lucky guy like me will never deserve, I love you.

  I am nothing if not consistent, so the last thanks goes to you, dear reader. I mentioned earlier that these acknowledgements were particularly difficult, and it’s because writing them means that this story is over. A story that began as a fun challenge that turned into a trilogy, the words in these pages have been very personal to me for many reasons, and I have you to thank for allowing me to reach this point. I am humbled and grateful for your continued support and for following me on this journey. In all honesty, I thought Shattered Paradise was it, but there were unresolved storylines that I felt deserved an ending. While the ride is over for these characters that I’ve grown to love, as I hope many of you have, too, I make this promise: Whether it’s happy or sad, I truly believe this was the ending that was always meant to be.

  Prologue

  I stared intently at my reflection, the dark eyes of a monster looking back, before a drop of blood hit the water and the monster rippled away. Removing a clean napkin from my pocket, I dabbed it on the cut and folded my razor, finished shaving.

  “The look on your face worries me, since the last time I saw it we were about to get into some heavy shit. What’s on your mind?” Jessica asked from behind me.

  “I can’t help but think of everyone we’ve lost and wonder what they would think if they could see us now. Have we let them down?”

  “They would understand.” Jessica knelt next to me and placed her hands atop mine. “Despite everything you seem to put on yourself, you’ve never given up on humanity, Eric.” I nodded solemnly and looked back at the water, our faces now replacing the monster in the dark swirl of red below. “Now,” she stood, “are you ready to go?” She held out her hand and I took it, rising to my feet.

  “I was born ready,” I replied in my best Connery accent, which wasn’t that great. She rolled her eyes.

  “You’re so annoying, you know that?”

  “Yeah, but it’s part of my charm.” We started walking back to the horses, but she stopped me.

  “Eric, be serious, are we ready for this?” I smiled.

  “We’ll be fine.”

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  We’ve been on the road for weeks since leaving San Antonio, our mission to clear out threats from cities and rescue any survivors we found. It was almost relaxing to hunt zombies and survive on our own timetable for a change. The trunk was loaded with food, water, basic medical supplies, and enough ammunition to assault a dozen courthouses. They also threw in two extra canisters of gasoline, which we tried to keep full by siphoning vehicles as we went. I guess Harper believed in our ability to stay alive, which was a nice vote of confidence.

  Since leaving the city, Jessica and I had kept to backroads and small towns, sticking with our old methods of survival that had gotten us this far. What had followed was the elimination of several pockets of infected, along with the recent encounter with a group of ferals that we quickly introduced to the pointy end of a .223 round.

  I honestly wasn’t keeping track of our location on the map, just trusting my gut as a guide instead. It meant getting lost more than a few times, but my mother had always said, “I never get lost, I just find a new adventure.” I can tell you, though, that we were north of where we started.

  “That’s the third one this mile,” Jessica interrupted my writing, pulling the SUV off to the side of the road. She was referring to the string of bodies that we had begun to see miles back, becoming more frequent as we drove. They were mostly animal remains, which meant we could be tracking survivors, so it was well worth investigating, but I wasn’t about to assume a lack of hostility.

  “How far from the road?”

  “This one is about a hundred feet out, by the tree line.” I nodded, looking out the passenger window. We were nearing a city, the tops of distant buildings jutting up in the distance between the frosted branches of the trees.

  “Whatever we’re tracking is probably out there somewhere.” I cocked my head in the direction of the city.

  “Agreed,” Jessica said, reaching into the backseat and bringing up her suppressed M16 with a night-vision hybrid scope that Colonel Harper had gifted us with in San Antonio. I had received a suppressed M4, figuring I’d be doing more wet work up close since Mills was a better shot, though I’d never admit that out loud.

  She pulled the SUV off the road before parking closer to the trees, where we spent the next ten minutes concealing the vehicle with nearby brush. Satisfied that a random passerby wouldn’t immediately spot the metal box of supplies, we set out on foot. We had learned early on in our journey of self-healing to leave the vehicle behind, because the engine noise gave away our position faster. In some cases, the SUV also made it harder to escape an ambush, unable to travel down small alleys or through buildings. Obviously, it was humans springing the traps, which also let us know that some people still hadn’t joined Team Survivors.

  We made sure to bring enough supplies to be gone for a few days, as there was never any telling what we’d encounter or how long we’d be gone, especially in a city. On the plus side, I was over my fear of going back into a city, so that was something.

  Armed with our rifles and handguns, we left the SUV and approached
the nearby corpse, light snow crunching under our boots. At least this time I was dressed for the weather, because I sure as hell didn’t miss freezing. Coats, jeans, boots, we even had bandannas covering the lower half of our faces from the weather.

  The snow quickly faded to red as we stood over the body, a large pool of blood surrounding something straight out of the Saw franchise. This corpse was human, the rib cage torn open and the insides clawed out based on scratch-marks on the bones.

  “I hope you skipped breakfast.” I muttered, and Mills slugged me in the arm.

  “There’s no smell yet, and the blood hasn’t completely dried. This one is fresh.” My eyes drifted from the body, following the trail of red that led deeper into the trees.

  “The poor bastard must have tried to run, eventually crawling away until whatever it was finished the job.”

  “Are we ruling out human yet?” I knew what she wanted my answer to be, but, unfortunately, we had seen too much to lie to ourselves. Cannibals were still, technically, human, unfortunately.

  “I wish we could.” I knelt and stabbed my knife through the man’s skull, ensuring he wouldn’t rise again if it was, in fact, the work of a zombie. Wiping my blade off and sheathing it, I stood and took a deep breath. “Let’s move.”

  Chapter 2

  We made our way through the trees, keeping our eyes open for any unwanted company. While I had overcome my fear of cities, though, I was scarred with paranoia from my last encounter in a forest. Still, Mills made a great partner, easing my nerves with her presence.

  “Would it help if I made a joke about all this wood making me feel like I was on the set of the next Magic Mike film?” she asked under her breath, nudging my arm. I smirked and looked at her.

  “I was honestly beginning to wonder if you had ever seen a movie.”

  “I’ll have you know, I had a pretty nice collection,” she replied dryly.

  “Thanks,” I quickly added, not dwelling on the moment, but knowing my lack of focus was a problem. I needed to keep my head in the game, because I had learned early on that we were playing for keeps. I also wanted to move on to avoid thinking about the past.

  “Now that I know you’re here, do you see anything?” I shook my head, having not seen any trace of activity on the ground since the blood trail ended. “Me neither…Think we’re looking in the wrong place?”

  Clearing the trees enough to see beyond, I stopped in place as my foot touched pavement and frowned.

  “Something tells me we’re exactly where we need to be.”

  “What do you…” she trailed off as she turned around. “Oh.” Across the access road that ran through the woods, the first line of buildings in the city stood as a testament of fear. Whether it was blood or a strangely-similar shade of paint, the word “RUN” was scrawled on the back wall of the building in front of us. For all I knew, it was our frozen friend back by the car that had written the latest message, which stood out from the plethora of graffiti and writing.

  Stepping closer, I noticed an even more chilling message, though. While the single word stood out, someone with access to a marker had written a longer warning.

  “Don’t go out at night. Stay out of the subway.” Those ten words made the hair rise on the back of my neck, reminding me of the last warning I saw that told me to stay off the road. Part of me wanted to heed this one, but the other part of me wanted to investigate the subway. Unfortunately, with the sun sinking low on the horizon and darkness looming, the writing on the wall became more ominous.

  “Should we find a place to hole up for the night, just in case, or keep moving and see what happens?” It was situations like these that really made me glad that Jessica was out here with me. Rather than crack jokes and imply that I was scared, she knew that I was just being careful. Machismo got you killed out here, as did pride. Caution had kept me alive this long, and I planned to stay that way if I could help it.

  “I vote on the former. We don’t know what we’re up against and we’ll have plenty of time to resume our search tomorrow.”

  “Copy that.” I shifted the sling of my rifle and moved up, crossing the access road quickly before stopping against the wall of graffiti. I checked the corner and, seeing no activity in the street beyond, motioned for Jessica to move up. She ran up the space between the buildings, making a quick circle with her M16 as she stepped into the open, and waited until her back hit the opposite wall to wave me forward.

  Running across to join her, we now had a full view of the street, which seemed deserted. The abandoned storefronts were destroyed, though whether from violence or raiding parties I couldn’t tell. I knew we’d have time to actually look around tomorrow, so I ignored my instinct to search for supplies and opted to look for a place to hold up for the night instead.

  Since this was a larger city, though not nearly as big as Austin or Chicago, it wasn’t long before we rounded a corner and located a hotel, the life blood of survivors. I suppose we could have just as easily found a vacant house in a residential area, but some habits are hard to break. It happened to be a Marriott, but, if you’re going to live each day like it’s your last, you might as well live in style. Besides, hotels made finding us a guessing game by any threat looking.

  “Does the lavish life work for you?” I nudged Jessica and she nodded slowly.

  “I wonder if their hot water works,” she wondered aloud, clearly reserving hope to avoid disappointment.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” I answered anyway, despite her rhetorical thought, feeling the sun fade from my back. If the warning held weight, we needed to get in that hotel fast. I just hoped it wasn’t the fire to our frying pan.

  Chapter 3

  “The lobby is clear,” Jessica called out softly. Nodding in agreement, I motioned toward the sign for the office. Rolling over the front desk and landing in a firing stance, Mills laughed at my theatrics. “Easy there, killer.”

  Aside from the discoloration of smoke on the exterior, I would have believed the building was still operational had there been signs of life within. Opening the front doors, though, it had become clear there wouldn’t be, as the stench of death and blood washed over us. This prompted the tightening of our bandannas, joined by a wave of nausea.

  I checked the door of the office and gave it a push, shifting my hand quickly back to the under barrel of my M4. Nothing jumped out as I took a step forward, but something about this hotel felt…wrong. The lights didn’t work, so I flipped on the night-vision of my scope and located the locker of key cards on the wall. The cards had preloaded magnetic strips for the doors, requiring no electricity to work, but it meant they had to be kept safe.

  The locker hung open with a dented side, as if someone before us had pried it open. Whoever it was could be long gone by now, but the other option gave cause for concern. Letting Jessica know we might not be as alone as we thought, I made a mental note of which room cards were missing before grabbing a few. While that took away potential housing for future survivors, I wasn’t banking on liking the first room we tried.

  “Let’s go.” I jogged out of the office, using the last lights of dusk pouring into the lobby to navigate a path to the stairs. Jessica stayed close and, together, we headed to the second floor. I didn’t bother grabbing a card to the first floor out of habit, giving us time to react in case anything assaulted the hotel.

  Opening the door to the second floor, I used the scope to check the hallway. Directly in front of us was a linear hall, branching off at the end, but it was empty. While this seemed to bode well for us, I couldn’t help but question our luck. Walking across to the first room number in my hand, I slid the card in and cranked the handle, my heart pounding.

  I cracked the door open just enough to hear inside, listening for anything that even hinted at an occupant. No breathing, no footsteps, nothing. Keeping the barrel of my M4 flush with the door, I swung it open and Mills and I cleared the room using our night vision. The bathroom, the bedroom, the closet, even
underneath the bed, was all empty.

  “I’ll be damned,” I muttered, surprised. Maybe my luck had changed since starting a new journal.

  “I’m gonna try the water,” Jessica called from the bathroom. Seconds later, I heard the bath start and a quiet scream echoed from the room. I pivoted around the queen bed and came around the corner of the door ready to fire. Instead, I found Jessica with a giant grin on her face, the light of a candle playing over her features.

  “I’m guessing it works?” I lowered my rifle, adrenaline still coursing through my veins. She’s lucky I liked her.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll take a quick bath before it’s lights out.” She rubbed her hands together in a way I could only describe as childlike glee. It was ridiculous and adorable, but I shrugged.

  “I’ll lock the door behind me and sweep some more rooms, see if I can’t find something useful.” I pulled the door shut behind me and waited for her to lock it before heading into the hallway, the sound of running water disappearing to leave me in silent darkness.

  Once again cloaked in shadow, I walked down the hall to the next number in my hand. With no signs of life on the other side, I repeated the process of cracking the door, clearing the room, and finding nothing. I know that I should have been elated, or even relieved, to be alone, but I had been through too much shit to not be paranoid. Still, I stayed the course and checked for supplies.

  The small refrigerator had two bottles of water that I swiped, checking that both were new before putting them in my pack. There was nothing of use in the medicine cabinet, or anywhere else for that matter, so I left the room and moved on to the last of my keys. Walking down the hall, though, I passed a door that reeked of something awful.