LEFT ALIVE (Zombie series Box Set): Books 1-6 of the Post-apocalyptic zombie action and adventure series

by Laszlo,Jeremy

  I slam into the truck on my left and force it off the road just as we’re coming onto the bridge. It veers, screeching its brakes as it slams into the concrete safety wall and I crash into the back of a Volkswagen Beetle as everything in the cab leaps forward. I don’t know if it did the trick, but the truck to my right is the one with the machine gun and opens fire on me. Everything is banging and rattling as the truck is peppered with bullets in a violent attack that makes my ears ring. I’m afraid that one of the bullets is going to rip through the side of my five ton as I push a coupe out of my way and into the path of my attackers. Their truck falls back, taking position behind me, and I’m veering and swerving to avoid the cars now, trying to thrown them off for a moment longer. We’re almost across the bridge, but they’re still behind me and I have no clue where the others are.

  On the other side of the bridge, the road divides with a median of concrete and water barrels to stop anyone who doesn’t see it or loses control. The right lane is clogged with an overturned truck and a bus that has smashed into the wreckage. The left hand lane is free for the most part. There are half a dozen scattered cars, abandoned and left for dead. I slow down and listen as the truck comes around my right again. I veer left, and the truck accelerates next to me. I can see the gunner in my passenger window, grinning like a fool with the other fanatics as he waves goodbye to me like a jackass. I wave back to him and crank the wheel to the right, smacking into the side of his truck and forcing it into the water barrels and the concrete wedge.

  We’re going fifty miles an hour as I slam into the back of an old half ton Chevy, watching as they reel into the barrier. I’m jarred forward, hitting my head on the steering wheel, watching as bodies go flying past me, smacking into the concrete barrier, other parked cars, and skidding across the street. They leave a trail of blood and skin in their wake. One of the bodies slams into the side of a van head first. His entire body crumples against the vehicle, blood and gore scattering as he is stuck there on the indented side of the van. Another is screaming in the street, twitching and trying to pull himself up. His face has been ripped off by the road, along with most of his skin and muscle on his arms and chest. How he’s still conscious is beyond me, but he won’t be much longer. He won’t even be alive much longer. I myself am bleeding from the gash in the bridge of my nose and my ribs feel like they have shattered into a spider web of agonizing fractures. Leaning back in my seat, I cough and try to get it together. There might be survivors.

  I should put the truck in reverse and get the hell out of here, but I don’t want them hanging on to my maps. I don’t want them to have that sort of knowledge. I want to be the only one who knows about Jason’s house until I can find someone trustworthy of joining me in my little crusade of trying to save the planet. I reach over to the glove box and open it, looking at the medical kit and the flare gun. I grab the flare gun and put it in the seat next to the severed arm. There’s an extra cartridge in there, I scoop it up and stuff it in my pocket. Grabbing the gun, I push open the door and step down into the street. Looking around, I see that the first truck is nowhere to be seen. I must have forced it into the river. Good, fuck them.

  From the wreckage of the second truck, I can hear movement. There’s someone still alive. He’s in the bed of the truck. The hood and the grill are smashed in and the passenger is stretched out across the hood, eyes wide open, blood running out of his shredded face. He’s been dead for a few seconds. The driver is still alive too, the airbag saving him, but he’s not without his cuts and broken limbs. No immediate threat. That other survivor in the back of the truck is pretty banged up, but he’s in the best condition. I decide to start with him.

  I pull down the tailgate and grab onto his ankle, dragging him out from the back and throwing him onto the street. His head hits the pavement pretty hard and I’m worried for a second that I knocked him unconscious, but he coils his fingers and I can see blood pooling under his head. “Shit! God damn it!” the man shouts angrily at me.

  “Turn around,” I growl.

  The man slowly does as I say, looking up at me with a broken nose and an enormous cut on his forehead. He looks at me and sees the barrel of the flare gun and laughs. “What is that, a toy?” the man chuckles against the pain of his situation. “Man, you’re a little too far gone, ain’t you?”

  “Do you know what a flare gun does to a human body?” I ask him. The man squints against the sun and blinks a few time, looking at the gun and realizing that it is, in fact, a flare gun. His eyes widen and his comical demeanor vanishes. “How did you find me?” I ask him.

  “Your bitch,” the man answers coldly. We both know the truth here. We both know that he’s not getting away from this situation alive and he has no motivation to play civilized with me. That’s alright. He can be a hard ass and a loyalist to his cause all the way up to his bitter, bloody end. I’m fine with that. I just want answers. “We found the maps in her pack. When you set those things on us, you made a real mess of everything. Shit got weird, but we knew exactly where you were headed. We knew exactly where you would be.”

  “You weren’t tracking me?” I put my foot on his chest. His hands clamp down on my ankle and he squeezes, trying to twist my foot off of him, but I just keep applying pressure. His ribs are going to start cracking soon and it’s going to get very hard to breathe. “Were…you…tracking…me?” I say real slowly so he can make out every word I say. I don’t want him overly confused.

  “No!” The man shrieks before I apply full pressure. He lets go of my ankle and his face twists with agony and pain. That’s my mark. I lift my foot from his chest and kick at his face with my foot, grinding my heel into his already damaged face. He screams at first, but with the second kick, he goes silent and I lean down to finish the job. After seven jabs to the chest, my bladed stump drips with his blood, and I figure that he’s not going to recover.

  Now it’s time to speak with the driver. I know that he’s heard everything that transpired with his friend. He’s going to be hostile or maybe he’ll play along nicely, hoping that I don’t end up killing him like I just killed his friend. The man in the driver seat throws open the door before I can get to it and before I know what’s happening, he dives from the door, shooting at me with a pistol. I duck, trying to avoid the shots, and I don’t feel like he’s hit me. The man’s shoulder slams into the street and he squeezes off two more shots until the revolver starts clicking and I’m standing there, still very much alive.

  The man’s left arm is broken and he’s favoring it as he stands up. I think it’s really broken, as in he can’t even move the thing. I look at him and I hold out my flare gun. “You’re all that’s left,” I tell him.

  “All things are as God wills it,” the man says, as blood runs down his face into his pale brown beard. His eyes are peaceful, understanding. “You killed my wife, stranger. You killed my daughter and my two boys. They were eaten alive by those abominations.”

  “God’s creations,” I correct him. I can’t help it. “You killed my friend.”

  “Your wife?” the man asks calmly.

  “No,” I shake my head.

  “Then she was your whore?” The man spits blood at my feet. I’m very tempted to squeeze the trigger and watch this man burn alive. “What do you want with me, unbeliever?” the man asks me finally, after a moment of tense silence.

  “Where are the maps?” I ask him.

  “They are in there,” the man answers.

  “Are there any more of you?” I ask him.

  “No,” he shakes his head. “Atlanta has burned and the brothers and sisters who survived your murderous rampage have fled or given over into debauchery and madness. They no longer hear the words of the Prophet or of God. We were the last of the Faithful. We swore an oath to God to kill you as an offering for forgiveness of our sins. Your head was to be our salvation.”

  “Not looking so good right now,” I shrug at him.

  “I have no doubt that you will die,” the ma
n says confidently. “Those who live by the sword shall surely die by the sword. You are a man of the sword, unbeliever.”

  “So are you,” I point out the hypocrisy to him.

  “Yes,” is all he says. “The only difference is that my wife and children will be waiting for me in Paradi—”

  I squeeze the trigger and hear the loud pop followed by the short hiss of the flare as white smoke fills the air, flickering with the bright, luminous red light of the flare before the man starts screaming. I let the fires burn and ravage him, the glowing flare igniting the man’s clothing and covering him in fire as the blazing core of the flare eats away at his chest. He screams for longer than I would have expected before the burning hole in his chest is too much for him. I let his body burn, watching it as it lies there, consumed with fire.

  I find Lindsay’s pack in the back seat of the truck cab, where food and water have been stored for their journey. I reach out for the pack and realize that something really hurts in my side, remembering my sore ribs. Perhaps they’re broken again after all. I look down and that’s when I see the growing patch of blood on my side. I look at the bullet wound and shake my head. The bastard shot me. He got me. Slinging the pack over my shoulder, I curse myself for entering Gainesville. Of course this was going to happen if I enter a town or a city. I’m not supposed to deviate from the course. I know that I had to stop here, but something inside of me, something superstitious, claws at me, taunting me as I walk around the truck looking at the burning man and hoping that he finds hell. I hope that he finds his family there and all of his other friends and I hope that Lindsay is there. I hope that she continues lighting that bastard on fire for the rest of eternity.

  “It’s done,” I tell her. “They’re all dead.”

  Whatever memory of her that has been haunting me doesn’t respond. I thought it was over when I left Atlanta. Sure, they always could have tracked me, but I had put so much distance between me and that wretched, horrible city without a sign of them. I honestly hadn’t expected them to be waiting here for me. Walking toward the truck, I open the passenger door and toss Lindsay’s pack to the floorboards. Grabbing the severed arm, I throw it out onto the road. I hope that there are Zombies nearby. I hope they heard all of this and are drawn to the noise. I hope they come here, find these dead assholes, and I hope they eat them. Serves them right.

  Reloading the flare gun, I put it in the glove box and pull out the medical kit. There isn’t much in here. There’s gauze, rubbing alcohol, some blood-clotting packets, a wrap, some pain relief pills, and a spool of thread and needles. There’s nothing here that’s going to help me at the moment. Pulling up my shirt, I look at the bullet hole as blood pours out of the wound. I tear open one of the powder packets and pour it over the bullet hole, feeling the sting and the burn as I clamp my stump down on the hole just two inches from my belly button. I don’t know. I’m probably not going to survive this. God, I’m so nonchalant about it. I shouldn’t be.

  “Hey, you wanted to be numb,” I tell myself as I slap myself across the face to keep me alert and awake. Closing the door, I take off my shirt and stuff it over my bullet hole, wincing against the pain as I walk around the truck and climb into the driver’s seat. Putting the truck in reverse, I head for the nearest place that will offer me some sort of help. Luckily, the pain isn’t too much right now. The adrenaline and the panic is still coursing through my veins. I might have a few more minutes until I start feeling the pain, so I decide to use them wisely. I have to find somewhere to set up a makeshift infirmary. I have to put myself back together.

  These bastards are not going to win, not now, not this close to the girls. Not after everything they made me suffer and do. I did not kill an entire city of those fuckers just to have them off me at the last second. No. This is not how my life ends.

  Chapter Twelve

  “What the hell?” I shout at the dash as I watch the temperature gauge slowly start to climb. I’m not going to make it. I slam my palm against the steering wheel and shout again, letting out a long guttural roar that causes my gaping wound to hurt even more. I am only two hours away from where they marked on the map to find them. It’s south of some place called Marineland and I already have the route traced out. I could make it there. I could make it there in two fucking measly hours. I can just find some place to stop and patch myself up and then I can get back in the cab and drive, but I’m not going to make it if the five ton’s temperature gauge is climbing like this. If it keeps it up, I’m only going to make it another ten, maybe twenty minutes, before it’s dead, over-heated, in the middle of the road. There’s no more time to waste. The bastards shot up the truck and they shot me. I have to stop. I’m not going to make it today.

  The only place that I can find that doesn’t look like a blown up, shot to hell, piece of crap is ironically enough, a trailer park in the middle of nowhere. There are a dozen enormous, dead trees hanging over the park and the only thing nearby is a burnt down gas station and a grocery store that has received the same treatment. There’s nothing around here that’s making me feel like I’m in danger. I pull the truck off the road and head for the trailer homes, parking at the entrance of the little cluster of trailers. There’s maybe twenty of the trailers behind the high wooden fence, part of which has collapsed over and fallen in. I keep the truck running for a moment longer, waiting for any signs that there are people living in the trailer park still. I keep very still, slowly twisting the key and letting the engine die. Again, I’m surrounded, engulfed, in silence, waiting for another sign of life. Nothing. I’m completely alone here, or at least it seems that way.

  I stumble out of the cab, my stump clamped down onto my side as I make my way to the nearest of the trailers. Walking up the wooden steps, I try the door and find it open. So grateful that this isn’t going to be too difficult, I look around the room see that the place has been pretty well looted. That’s fine, I don’t need much. Looking around the trailer, I throw open the cabinets until I find the toolbox. Throwing it open, I find a pair of needle nose pliers and some box cutters, and I have the last thing that I need. Clearing off their table, I set it down next to a pair of fairly clean looking drinking glasses that I found. The pain is starting to come at me with a vengeance and I grip my side in agony. I need to hurry. I’m running out of time. I push open the door to the bedroom and I stop for a moment, staring at what I wasn’t expecting to find.

  There’s a dead man in the bed. His desiccated remains are leaning up against the wall, a bible in his lap and his head hanging limp, his chin buried in his chest. There is dried, rusty blood all over the bible, as well as the wall and ceiling behind him. The gun that he used to kill himself is on the floor near the bed. Slowly, I reach down and pick up the gun, checking the cylinder for bullets. The bastard used his last. I hope it was worth it. I toss the gun onto his lap, watching it land on the dried, crusty pages of his bible before leaving the room.

  Rushing back out to the truck, I grab my pack and I grab Lindsay’s pack before scooping up one of the gallon jugs of water and rushing back toward the house. Throwing back the door as awkwardly as a one handed guy with a bunch of gear can, I hurry to the table and I toss the pack down in the seats before setting the water on the table. I wash the two cups out as thoroughly as I can, spilling water everywhere without a care or worry in my mind. Then I focus on the pliers, making sure they’re as clean as I can possibly make them before turning my attention to all my other supplies.

  I’ve been carrying this crap around with me for ages and finally it’s coming into use for me. I pull the container of lighter fluid out of the bottom of my pack and fill up one of the glasses. Setting my lighter down next to it. I grab everything that Lindsay and I still have from the tattoo parlor. The clear plastic wrap, the gauze, and the bandages. I’m going to need them soon.

  Already shirtless, I feel my back, making sure that the bullet didn’t come out the other side, that it is in fact deep inside of me. God, I hope this works. I l
ook at the table and feel my heart pounding a thousand miles an hour. This is stupid. This is so stupid. God, where is Lindsay when I need her? This was always the stuff she was good at. I’m sure she’d seen some sort of Civil War documentary about taking bullets out of people. I, on the other hand, have absolutely no clue what it is that I’m doing. Taking the rubbing alcohol out of Lindsay’s bag, I grab down another cup from an open cabinet and wash it thoroughly before dumping the contents into the cup with a cartoon duck on it, wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a big text bubble saying “Aloha!” I look at it with a small sense of mysticism, thinking that he might just be telling me what no other person can. Maybe this is aloha for me.

  No. It’s time to do this. I take a deep breath and I grab the pliers and the box cutter and stuff them in the tall glass of rubbing alcohol. Oh God, I hope this works. I look up at the ceiling of the trailer, hoping that there might be some heavenly, divine ray that will rid me of this bullet. There’s nothing. I reach down for the bottle of painkillers and toss two in my mouth and swallow them dry before going to the kitchen again and grabbing a spoon. Almost forgot that one. I would have been sorry if I forgot that one. Washing the spoon, I come to terms with the fact that I’m killing time, trying to avoid what needs to be done. I look back at the hole in my stomach which has stopped bleeding only by the grace of soaking powder, and I take one last deep breath.

  “Let’s do this,” I say to myself, and grab the pliers.

  Sitting down on the couch, I look at the pliers slowly approaching the hole in my stomach and I talk myself down. “Alright, this is going to be simple,” I tell myself. “There’s already a hole in me. I’m going to just take the pliers, go into the hole, find the bullet, and rip it out. Nothing to it. The pliers are smaller than the hole. It’s not even going to hurt that much, thanks to the pills. I’m going to be okay. I can do this. I can do this.” I take a deep breath. “I can do this.”