Event Horizon: Z Is For Zombie Book 2

by catt dahman

  “What was that?”

  Kim felt like cheering but only whispered, “That was Rae driving like a bat out of hell. Looked like Jake in the back and Big Bill for sure. They got Len.”

  “Len?” Mark asked, hopeful again.

  “Yep, he got out.” Kim sat down, relieved. He was glad his friend had made it. “We need to do something.”

  “How many you reckon are here?”

  “Five-six-seven hundred,” Kim said. “I don’t hear any shots now.”

  He pointed, “Go to that white car. Stay down and quiet.”

  Mark did, sliding into the cover of the car. Andie followed, then Kim. Another ten feet was between them and the mass of the zeds. They needed to go the other way to get to the compound, but there was no real cover from being seen and too many of the shambling dead, so they ran the opposite way, ducking and weaving in silence.

  Several times, they had to beat a zed or two in the head as they ran, trying to shut up the moaning fast. “I bet others did this, too,” Andie said, “I bet the rest got out.”

  “I don’t know who was left,” Earl said. “Len was telling everyone to get out.”

  “And he almost didn’t make it,” Kim said.

  “What do we do? Get to Popetown?”

  “Yes, we can handle it even without ammo.” Mark said. “Let’s go.”

  The four still went in the opposite direction, waiting to cut across, head the right way, and get to safety and their friends. They had no idea what they would face.

  20

  Len, Rae, Big Bill, and Jake

  Jake slapped the truck’s cab. “Pull over.”

  “Let’s wait for the rest; we still have some coming, right?”

  “I hope so, Rae,” Len said, watching the dark road behind them. “Thanks, guys, you saved my ass back there.”

  “It’s because Rae drives like a mad woman,” Big Bill said.

  Jake leaned over towards the ditch to vomit.

  “We can wait a few and then head on, see who comes along,” Len said.

  Jake wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Rev is a good guy, and Pan is pretty cool.”

  “Yeh, who would have guessed I would meet a baseball legend at the end of the world?” Len laughed.

  “You tell them I said to keep up the good fight.”

  “Why don’t you tell them?” Rae asked.

  “I don’t guess I’ll be going along when you all head to the compound, but you can tell them for me.” Jake said.

  “Not going?” Big Bill was puzzled, “You bugging out?”

  Jake looked at the sky. “I’m bugging out in the most terminal of ways.” He sat down and showed off his leg and neck that were both chewed to the bone. “They don’t hurt. But I feel horrible, nauseous, and feverish.”

  “Damn, Jake.”

  “What would ya say, Len? Nothing to say but goodbye.”

  “I want to thank you for saving me and to tell you I hate this.”

  “Thanks accepted then, and I hate it, too. But we know there’s nothing that we can do but show a little grace, I guess.” Jake leaned over to vomit again.

  When he was through, weak and miserable, he shrugged off his pack and threw it to Len. “I won’t shake your hands because I’m already feeling kind of strange, flashes of anger that I shouldn’t feel.”

  “Do you need me to help?”

  “I’d appreciate it. I feel a bit too chicken to handle it myself, and I hate to be a bother and to put you through it.”

  “I hate to have to do it,” Len admitted.

  “Come on.” Jake staggered off the road. “Just here. I feel pretty…mabble.”

  Len was aware his friend was going fast as the last word, which made no sense, turned into a grumble of sounds.

  “I worst a day oh se,” Jake muttered, unable to string together a thought.

  “Be at peace, Brother.” Len turned Jake away, and before Jake could do more than stumble, Len put two shots in his head, stepped away, and walked back to Big Bill and Rae.

  “Few more minutes?” Big Bill asked.

  “A few.” Len agreed, and then shielded his face as the horizon behind them lit up like the sun.

  21

  Beth

  “Relax Beth, Len and Kim and the rest will be along, soon,” George told her, praying he was correct. Had the terms for his friends changed? He worried, too.

  “Why isn’t Mark here?” Misty added.

  They were behind the gate, helplessly watching the road, safe but scared.

  “They’ll be here. Len was behind me,” Julia said but didn’t add that she hadn’t seen Kim or Mark.

  “I’m going back,” Beth hardly had the words out before Julia had tackled her to the ground. “Let me go, Jules.”

  “We wait,” Julia said.

  Beth stopped fighting. “We can wait forever, but he’s not coming.” Her eyes went blank, hard and cold.

  22

  Bryan and Hagan

  “Did you see Kim, Earl, Andie, or Mark? They were almost crawling among the cars,” Bryan said.

  “Cool, I’m glad. That Andromeda is one hot woman.”

  “Yeh, she is. I used to have a thing for Beth.”

  “Did you? The way you and she always fought…”

  “I like a spirited woman.”

  “Beth is feisty.” Hagan laughed. “Did you see Big Bill snag Len?”

  Bryan leaned back on the truck seat, “I did. I thought he was gonna fall, but they got him in the truck. Rae can drive, huh?”

  “She was peeling rubber for yards.”

  “We lost a few.”

  “Yep, Caught us unaware.”

  “Naw, I screwed up and let those people in and wasn’t watching well enough. We took too long to get moved.”

  “Well, it all ended okay with all getting out and to the compound where they’ll be safe, I mean most getting out.”

  “Most did.”

  Bryan thought about when the hospital had come crashing down on top of them and when he had been in a hallway with Beth and Kim.He remembered every word:

  “I’m okay,” Bryan chirped.

  “I was talking to her.”

  “I’m all right. Thanks,” she whispered, “only he could be cheerful at a time like this.”

  "We still have light,” Bryan said, amused.

  "I'm guessing it's the backup generator that kicked on; we’re lucky it wasn't crushed," Kim said. "This would be worse in the dark."

  "Listen," Beth said.

  "People are crying."

  "No," Beth protested, "not that. Listen. It sounds as if somebody's calling for help from outside the metal doors."

  But Bryan hadn’t let anyone open those metal doors, knowing that burned, hideous things waited there for them.

  He had told them that they had to stay in the hospital until it was safe to go outside, and they demanded to know how long they would be trapped inside.

  "Possibly years. Maybe months. It's been all speculation until now, and we have a virus out there that we don't understand, though we know it causes people to want to hurt and eat us."

  He lit a second cigarette right behind the first one. "Leaving here is not only unwise, but anyone out there would die of radiation while being chased down by the crazy cannibals. It's worse than what you're imagining."

  He had kissed Beth once before she had gotten with Kim, but she had been angry about the kiss and thrown him out of her room.

  Hagan remembered how, when the hospital fell in, he had been trapped in the rubble, but gotten out, despite impossible odds. When he got out, everyone asked him about being burned and then talked about a bomb; he was puzzled.

  "You saw it?" Hagan felt that someone had knocked the breath out of him.

  "Yes, me and Kim and the military douche, Bryan, saw it." Beth said.

  Hagan chuckled, “When I got out of the rubble after everything fell in, Beth told me about it being bombs; Bryan, she called you a military douche.”

  Brya
n slapped the seat laughing. “A military douche? Oh that’s so Beth-like to say that. That’s a good one.”

  “I wouldn’t have shared it, but yanno…”

  “Yeh, I know.” Bryan winced as another zed landed a particularly hard blow against the truck window. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt coming back to get us.”

  “Me either. Hey, look what I have.” Hagan raised a sleeve to show Bryan a small bite mark on his elbow, the skin mottled purple and yellow, the wound leaking infection already.

  “Hurt much?”

  “Yeh. Kind of.”

  “Look at this.” Bryan leaned forward as his shirt made a slurping sound as it pulled away from the vinyl seat. Hagan could see where the shirt was torn and a bite glistened on his friend’s shoulder blade. There was a lot of blood.

  “So here we are.”

  “And there they are.” Bryan looked at the hundreds of walking dead that surrounded them in the truck. “The future doesn’t look too bright, huh?”

  “Sucks, to be honest.”

  “Then again, if you really wanted, we could brighten things up a whole lot.”

  “Yeh?”

  “I had two and used just one, if you recall.” Bryan dug something out of his backpack. Three inches in diameter, the olive drab-colored ball fit in Bryan’s hand.

  “Nice toy.” Hagan nodded. “So. Looks like we have ourselves a plan.”

  “I want you to know it’s been an honor to work with you, Hagan.”

  “Right back at you, an honor and a privilege. You a praying man?”

  “Not really. But if you’d like to pray for us both, I’d be most appreciative.”

  “Our Father in Heaven…”

  Bryan slid the window open in the back of the truck. In his left hand, he used his thumb to flip off the wire safety clip and then slipped his finger through the pin ring. He quickly pulled the pin with his right hand. He dropped the grenade behind them into the bed of the truck.

  The spoon clinked as it detached.

  “Your will be done,” Hagan said as he leaned back and wondered how big the blast would be from the ten five-gallon containers of gasoline that sat in the truck’s back end.

  Bryan, not being religious, still joined in.

  “…but deliver…”

  They didn’t finish the prayer as the grenade exploded and then the gas cans, as the night split open in a fireball a hundred feet in diameter, burning and ripping zombies. For two hundred feet around the truck, globs of flesh and shamblers fell into the flames; at least five hundred were put down.

  The fire would burn for days, leaving ash to blow away on the breeze.

  23

  With a Bang

  “Holy Mother of God,” Len breathed.

  Rae and Big Bill stood with him, watching the ball of fire fill the night sky. “What does that mean?” Rae asked.

  “I’m not sure. I don’t think it was all good, but I think we won,” Len said, but he didn’t feel vindicated; he felt cold as a shadow of doubt filled him.

  -Fort Worth 2012

  Copyright.

  catt dahman

  © 2013, catt dahman

  cattdahman@aol.com

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book, including the cover and photos, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher. All rights reserved.

  The characters, places, and events depicted are fictional and do not represent anyone living or dead. This is a work of fiction.

  Dedicated to the memory of my friend, George.

  To my readers: I couldn’t do it without you guys: SparkyMarky1973, you are the best, toughest reviewer ever! Thanks to Big Wave Dave and Ziggy of the Dead.

  Thank you to my copy editor.

  Limmerfer.