by catt dahman
What Lies Beneath
Z is for Zombie: Book Six
catt dahman
Note from the author:
If the reader did not read in order, then, I must warn that although the books can somewhat stand-alone, the plot, continuing without interruption or too many questions, cannot be guaranteed. It is best to read them in order, and this one is definitely not a stand-alone novel. The reader has to decide what to do on his own terms. Terms?
The reader doesn’t know what I mean, but he would if he had read the books in order. I was being a Hannah. (You also don’t get that, but the others, who have read the other books, get it).
An argument for reading the first five books before Book Six maybe in the first books, the reader wondered why Hannah was the way she was; Book Six gives her back-story and the answer to events hinted at and how they happened.
Alex, Doc, and Bob appeared in book one; they came from a Rescue Station; the reader will find their story and how they alone escaped the slaughter there.
The National Guard Armory also was a mystery, and the reader can find what happened to those who took refuge there and why and how that situation went wrong.
An explanation for Gabe, who guards Zane and never speaks, is also revealed.
What went on with the group (Henry, Randy, and Nikki) hiding in the school before they were saved? That is answered, as well.
Sadly, the Reconstruction Army, or RA, is explored further so their evil sides are more detailed, and the mystery behind bad guy, Frank, is explained.
Some characters were only in the first few books because they were lost in the beginnings of Red.
Other characters are introduced in this book six: who either connect to the former five novels and explain them or give a hint about who will become vital in book seven. While some issues will be explained and mysteries solved, new ideas always are included that won’t be clear until later books.
This is the story of how characters interacted and dealt with the fate of the world before the reader got to know them in the first books. At times, it wasn’t a very nice place and time for them. In fact, this book could be called a prequel.
1
What It Was
Dee put another load of laundry in to wash, adding bleach and extra soap, despite what the directions said; she was not about to use the sheets and clothing like this even after she had rinsed them in the bathtub.
Her husband and one child were in the bed, sick, bleeding at the nose and vomiting blood and anything else they ate or drank, but usually making it to the toilet before stomach cramps caused diarrhea. Usually. Mostly. That was part of this illness; sometimes, neither made it from the bed, where Dee made both of them stay to cut down on the washing. It was hit or miss.
Sheets, quilts, pajamas, pillowcases, towels, washcloths, and bathroom rugs and mattress covers went through the washer and dryer several times a day, and Dee barely stayed caught up. She was afraid the bleach and soap would run out before they did. The smell was terrible, but she kept her family clean.
“Dad whoopsed again,” Janine told Dee. “Edge of the bed. I scrubbed it with a cloth, wasn’t much but blood, Mama.”
“Thanks, Sweetie.” Dee rubbed her temples as a headache loomed. “How is Deon?”
“Very hot. Baby is running a fever now, Mama.”
“You see to Daddy and Deon, and I’ll get Baby.” Dee found her little one burning up with fever and with a full diaper.
After cleaning her, Dee took the little one into the master bedroom and made a soft bed in a giant laundry basket where they could change towels easily. Dee gave Baby a bottle with ice cubes and watered down sports drink to keep her hydrated. All three were sick and had impossibly high fevers. They tried fluids, but they ran out as blood or other types of liquid, and there was no way to keep the family hydrated.
“The kids need to go to the hospital,” Billy said for the millionth time, his fever making him dizzy as he held back the water he had just managed to sip. He was terrified.
“The hospitals are closed, Hon. People are really sick,” she said for the same number of times he had asked. “And no, one camp was set up as a Rescue Station, but they had a skeleton crew and started turning people away day before yesterday.”
“They have to have more set up, not one or two, Dee.”
“They don’t have staff or security; everyone is sick.”
“Everyone can’t be sick,” he said as he coughed and vomited again with a look of apology to her. He was a strong man, but this virus was stronger, able to bring the toughest man to his knees with the dehydration and fever.
Dee didn’t explain that they were all sick, just as he was. She didn’t explain her sadness at knowing that he, their son, and the baby would go into comas soon and arise as furious, drooling shells of themselves who would bite and eat other people if allowed. Also, she didn’t explain that they would have milky, filmed eyes; that they would neither remember nor love her and Janine; that they would want to kill and eat their own family. It was impossible to talk about.
More horrified by the minute as the information came in, Dee watched the news reports from the CDC and from other countries. When the CDC representative called this a “world-altering event” and a “plague of unimaginable destruction and loss of lives,” the news sent chills up her spine. The man who spoke on television looked tired with shadows under his eyes, but more than that, he looked starkly terrified.
In one report, the station cut way, cutting the live feed of a reporter and cameraman in London, when a group of stumbling, shambling people attacked the reporter. The cameraman had lost the angle showing the reporter, but then he began screaming and running with the camera and fell. The viewers could see some blood and hear his wails before the feed was turned off. The scene had been chilling.
She didn’t say that she would do what the people on television said to do: lock her family and loved ones away. She did not say that if they came after her little girl, she would bash their heads open to protect her last child even if it made her sick or that she hoped she could if the time came to that. Could she? She thought about the situation and cried, but she didn’t say she would. When they turned, she and Janine would run away after locking the door.
How could anything be so cruel as to ruin good people with this humiliating virus and then turn them into crazed monsters? Was it not enough to watch the illness and then to lose her family? Why did she also have to bash them in the heads to make them stay away from her and her remaining child?
She thought about praying, but it looked as if God and people had turned their backs on one another.
Dee didn’t know at that moment, as she tended to her husband that in a matter of days, Janine would open the bedroom door when she heard baby Micki crying pitifully and that before Dee could get to the bedroom door, her husband and Deon would bite Janine so hard that the child’s arm would rip away at the shoulder and tear at the elbow, spraying blood everywhere. The man, child, and baby would be so covered in their own filth and blood that they would reek.
Having been bitten, Micki would awaken later with rotting flesh where pieces had been ripped away, making her smell even worse and look so pitiful that it would be almost too much even to take in. The tiny baby would be a bitten, crazed monster, as well.
Janine would go to the floor, screaming in pain, making Dee trip over her daughter as she wailed.
Dee would have seen the news reports, but she would barely be able to muster enough will to hold a candlestick up and poke at her husband; he would ignore it, knocking it away as he clawed at her to bite. She wouldn’t be able to hurt the baby or her son anyway. She would
n’t be able to handle what her family became.
Janine’s being bitten meant that the little girl was infected with no cure and that it would be minutes before she bled out and became one of the monsters.
Dee wouldn’t push Deon away when he clamped onto her hand. It would hurt like hell, and she would scream in anguish, but she would just dodge and slam the door to crawl away to sit against the closed door and wait.
With her last child turned, Dee wouldn’t want to live. Right before she turned, she would open the door again so they could all be together in their inhuman state.
As she watched her family right now, she didn’t know her future: that she would choose to be bitten and change outside the bedroom door rather than to go on without them or harm them once her daughter was infected.
Right now, all she knew was to clean the patients and try to get them to drink sports drink, and when they went silent, she and her daughter would close the door and fight if Zs tried to hurt them. She would tell Janine not to go into the room where the rest of the family now was in comas and later when they turned into hungry things. She didn’t know that the sad cries of baby Micki would be the catalyst for their entering the room again.
Only a mother could understand.
2
Adam
Adam bolted awake. Intense fear made him sweat, drenching his dark hair and soaking him to the skin. Someone was calling his name, and light from his bedside lamp hurt his eyes. For a second, he thought maybe he was sick and running a fever, but he felt fine except for his eyes and being sleepy.
"What's going on?" Adrenaline was still pumping, and Adam was still shaking from the nightmare that had felt too real. It was at least the fifteenth time he had dreamt the same thing, yet it was getting worse as the details were emerging. Of course, the nightmare was because he and his grandmother had watched the news and combed the Internet over and over the last few days as reports came in from all over the world.
There was a mutant influenza, reporters said at first. People were told to expect massive contagion as the virus caused nosebleeds, headache, dizziness, diarrhea, and vomiting, high fever, and weakness.
Then, they heard that European hospitals were full and over running with patients, so new patients were being turned away: to suffer at home with only family members to care for them. Just like in Japan and South Africa.
The virus caused such dehydration and brain fevers that the victims went into comas. That information unto itself was horrifying as the virus swept the globe in a matter of a day or two.
Adam had initially laughed when he heard the latest reports told on the level of a joke, such as the time the old guy talked about Martians on the radio, and people actually thought the Earth was being invaded. The reports were that coma victims were awakening in rages and were not only biting people to pass on the infection in their saliva, but also were eating people like zombies did in the movies.
Maybe some of the sick people were some type of drug addicts and had gone crazy. Sure. Adam accepted that, but the governments of Paris, London, and Tokyo all claimed it was happening; then, all of South America, Australia, and Africa’s governments reported the same, and within hours those governments had not only grounded all flights, closed hospitals, and deployed military, but also had said they were finished. How could entire continents in hours declare themselves over run and finished?
The United States government shut down all of the hospitals and told everyone to stay home and defend himself and family because its own military members were either in a coma or out of a coma and biting people, spreading the infection; those infected were attacking others.
On the Internet, people called it Red because the victims ended up covered in blood from their own bodies, and the news media called it Red or Diamond Flux, after some scientist who had something to do with the virus.
Whatever a Lyssa virus was. Whatever a prion was. Whatever this had to do with sick cows. Piggybacking and hijacking made no sense either in relation to an infection.
Adam had scanned the Internet and checked his e-mail to find out more. One of his friends, a girl from Wisconsin, was the person he talked to the most.
From
[email protected] details
To
Adam [email protected]
R u okay? I am so far. Dad is going nuts and bought a bunch of food and junk like water. Like apocalypse dude. I thought I heard gunshots but dunno. What is it like there? I think the media is like hyping it all up cuz there is no way all that is going on in places like Paris and London where they r civil and have medical stuff. And military. Like that could happen here w/ the way we have Nat. Guard ready to go when we have disasters. This is bull. They’re just over doing it all and scaring peeps.
From
[email protected] details
To
Adam [email protected]
I know. Me 2. Did you see the one from like England or whatever where the man was covered in all the blood/that was so nasty? Can they even show that on tv? Mom sez it is just the fever and dad sez govt. conspiracy stuff, yanno how that is. Blah blah blah. I’ll try but net been acting up. I saw that 2. Red Zed…lmao. If I get it I can b Redhead for sure. I donet think it could be real. Maybe it’s real but not like they say and it won’t come here anyway.
From
[email protected] details
To
Adam [email protected]
WTH? They say flights r grounded and sick people shouldn’t come to the hospital??? Can they close a hospital? They have to open centres. Right? And why don’t we have vaccines all over? If they know what it is and who did it, then we shud have vaccines and maybe a cure? I don’t see how we don’t have something cuz we knew. We KNEW, right? I wuz scared of us getting Red can u imagine bleeding and being that sick? No way Yuk. Nothing here. If my mom and dad went into a coma I wouldn’t no what to do, but I wouldn’t do anything to them bad. That is crazy. And I don’t care what I felt like cuz I wud not bite or eat people. That is stupid, and the media is scaring us.
From
[email protected] details
To
Adam [email protected]
Sry. Dad was on a while trying to yap to buddy in some place in England. He said they R all closed down and streets empty, but he heard screams. He went out today and when he was back, he looked sick, and they talked awhile in whispers like I don’t know what’s going on. He looked scared. Mom cried to,o so I’m scared to. Sry about ur bad dreams. I had some too about a kid with a deformed head and one eye. It scared the shit outa me. Take care. I hope u r safe in Texas. I don’t no what to think now. What u think?
From
[email protected] details
To
Adam [email protected]
I am scared, Adam. I know I heard shots, and Dad didn’t argue this time. He started putting shit over the windows. Do u think they R really zombies? That’s kinda dumb, but I dunno now cuz those on tv look insane and mad. I saw a report from California like LA or whatever, and the woman was screaming, and U cud hear all the gunshots, and she said the man didn’t stop until his head was shot of.. Do U think they eat them? I don’t. Maybe. Ok…will try. Ur joke about going to the mall wasn’t funny now cuz those peeps didn’t make it, did they? I never liked those movies anyway, and now I know why. It scares me.
From
[email protected] details
To
Adam [email protected]
OMG. Dad crazy. He was pale and said his head hurt and was feeling bad ok, and I got worried about him cuz of all this, and he got mad about everything and yelled at us. He never yells. I freakd out and was scared, and it got worse. He started hitting and fighting Mom, and he never done that. I jumped into stop him, and we all had a fight. Mom told me to lock myself in. my room. It was loud. Now, it’s quiet, and I donno what to do. My head hurts from all crying and stuff. Wtf, I think he bit me when we were struggling, my god it looks like on tv h
ave infection Gonna take asprin.
From
[email protected] details
To
Adam [email protected]
Adam? Talk to me… plaes. Arm hutrs and im scraed,
From
[email protected] details
To
Adam [email protected]
Don’t know: ’;thoiut it wqas a scrartchj but sellopjn. Swoll;’em. Wish we cpiould have met u woudlm I hjsii
From
[email protected] details
To
Adam [email protected]
Ekk,[=gf gh1ert5tge335remebz,km ne no. ilm gh sikl
On one Face Book page:
What do you call a Red who can’t get out of bed?
A Bed Zed. A Red bed zed.
What do you call a red with sneakers?
Keds Red
What is my Dad now?
Ted Zed (I’m headed out wish me luck)
What you call a Red who comes back and eats someone?
Fed Zed (good luck, dude)
Who is the leader of Zeds? Ha ha ha ha ha Head Zed
Groupies of the Reds: Led zeds
Lmaoooo. A zed who likes to fool with kids is a ped-o zed
Zed nurse; med zed
What do you call a married zed?
Wed zed lmbo
It was sick in a way to make jokes, but that was how some people kept from going crazy. That thread on Face Book went to 2,731 comments: all jokes, a few people blasting them for making jokes, and some suicide notices. If nothing else outlines how bad things were, that did. The other side to Adam was Amanda’s pitiful emails, showing how she had turned.
