by Joseph Zuko
Amanda let go of Lindsey’s chin. “I’ve got to clean myself up. I don’t want someone to shoot me the second I leave.” She searched the office, found a backpack in the corner and dug through the opened zipper. “Here we go.” Amanda took an alcohol wipe and a fresh shirt from the bag. She opened the packet, unfolded the square, and ran it around her face. A mirror hung on the wall between two bookshelves. She used it to make sure she got every drop of blood from her skin.
“I’ve got to say. I love this one black eye look. It really makes the color pop in the good one.” Amanda yanked off her sweatshirt. Black lines ran from the bite on her arm. “These I could do without.” She held up her arm and inspected it thoroughly. “No tank tops for me anymore, right?” Her skin was pale as milk.
“That sucks. I just went tanning two days ago and now look at me. I’m a ghost.” She pulled her head through the clean shirt and worked her arms into the sleeves. “I guess I’m gothic now.”
“Thanks for letting me borrow this.” Amanda turned from the mirror and headed for the exit.
Michael was about to fully shift into an infected as she reached for the doorknob.
“Don’t worry about him. He’ll leave you alone.” Amanda’s tone was so upbeat. It was as if she was on a carefree vacation. “You guys come out when you’re ready, okay?”
She opened the door and peeked through the gap. “I heard a bunch of kids playing in the other room. I bet they’ll be yummy.” Amanda stepped through the door and closed it behind her.
Lindsey’s heart beat like a heavy metal drummer doing a solo in her chest. She couldn’t move. It was like someone cut open her stomach and was playing with her innards. She wanted to scream, but no sound came from her mouth. Parts of her were ice cold. Others burned as if she was lying on a bed of red hot coals. Every muscle in her body flexed. Deep in the pit of her stomach was a growing desire. Something uncontrollable. Like a tiny voice. Only it didn’t speak. It was more like intuition. Something ingrained. Becoming a part of her. Wait, it was taking over.
Michael rose from the floor at the edge of her vision. Black lines spread from the bitemark on his cheek and crisscrossed his face. His teeth snapped shut.
The terror building inside Lindsey dissipated as her heartbeat crescendoed and immediately dropped off. Her muscles relaxed. A calming peace swept through her system. It was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. Self-preservation, her care for others, all gone. Replaced with a need to eat.
Screams erupted from across the hall. Panic exploded as Amanda unleashed her disease on the little ones.
The noise excited infected-Michael. He clawed at the door and banged his fist against the solid wood.
Lindsey sat forward. It took a second to get her legs to respond. It was as if her limbs were brand new and this was her first time standing. She used the desk to get to her feet.
Infected-Michael didn’t notice. Or if he did, he didn’t seem to care that she was in the room.
Lindsey moved toward the mirror. She inspected her one black orb, then checked the damage to her shoulder. Muscle and ligaments were exposed. Three or four mouth sized bites were ripped from her skin. Zero pain. She moved her limb. It had almost full motion. Straight into the air was a problem, but other than that, it moved fine. Her fingers poked at the deltoid. Nothing. Not a single sensation. Her only feeling was the empty hole in her stomach. It begged for her to feed.
A waft of blood filled her sinuses.
Better than fresh baked bread, thought Lindsey as she grinned at her reflection.
Cane tossed the plate of food to the floor and ran toward the choir of ear-piercing children. He and everyone else in the great hall entered the hallway and sprinted to the door the noise was escaping from. He twisted the knob, but it was locked from the inside. People were thrashing around the room. Cries for help and voices begging for mercy were just barely audible above the sounds of terror.
Cane reared back with his axe and swung at the door. He buried the head deep into the solid door and cranked on the handle to get it free. The man he met a little bit ago, Scott, ran to his side.
“What’s going on in there?” howled Scott.
“I don’t know!” said Cane as he ripped the axe from the door and swung it again. The blade landed beside the first strike and punched a hole through the oak. Cane yanked the axe from the door and peeked inside the room.
Cane whipped his head away from the opening and gasped, “We have to run!”
“What?” asked Scott as he pushed Cane aside and looked for himself.
Little bodies lay on the floor. Twitching with blood seeping from bitemarks. A woman moved systematically from one person to the next. She would take a bite, toss them away, grab another and repeated the process.
The door to the doctor’s office opened. Michael sprinted at them. His black eyes glinting from the lights above. He grabbed the closest person and took a bite.
Chaos filled the hallway.
Most people were unarmed. Some had blunt objects and blades like bats, hammers, machetes, and hatchets. A few of Brother Paul’s group had pistols or a rifle.
The hallway was stuffed full of scrambling humans shouting.
“Run!”
“Get out of here!”
“Shoot!”
Infected Michael launched himself at another person and ripped out their neck with one chomp. Someone hit him with a hammer. Another swung a bat into his skull. Neither landed a kill shot.
Gunfire exploded. Bullets punctured Infected Michael and his victim.
Blood spritzed the walls.
A bullet ripped off Michael’s ear and another pulverized his right hand, but he kept coming. He ferociously attacked people and chewed at their necks and limbs.
The door to the children’s room opened and a flood of tiny biters raced toward their prey. The parents of the children emerged after them. Most of them had double black eyes. A few had only one.
Some of the infected were put down right away with a shot to the skull or crushing blow from a hammer.
The new hybrids dodged the gunshots and lunged at the shooters.
A man swung his machete at a creature. He missed its skull and hit its collar. The blade got stuck and the monster pounced onto him with the machete jutting from its torso.
If a weapon was dropped, one of the hybrids would pick it up and use it on the fleeing humans. Not to kill. They injured them, so they could take an easier bite.
A hatchet came swinging at a hybrid’s skull. Fast as a rattlesnake the new beast reached out and slapped at the side of the blade. It lost a finger but changed the hatchet’s trajectory enough to save itself from the blow. It seized the horrified human and tore into the woman’s face, peeling off her nose and leaving a gaping hole.
Doctor Bryant stepped from her office. The bloodbath before her was glorious. The smell of iron in the air like sweet perfume. A woman had her back to Lindsey. She held a rifle and fired round after round into the growing horde of hybrid beasts.
The exposed section of the woman’s neck called to Lindsey and she couldn’t control herself.
Next thing Lindsey knew she tackled the woman to the ground and drove her teeth into the woman’s mouthwatering skin.
The flavor.
Oh God, the flavor.
And the sound of the woman’s scream was music to Lindsey’s ears. She needed more. This church was like a gigantic bag of Lay’s Potato Chips. One wasn’t near enough.
Lindsey picked up the rifle and opened fire. She aimed at the legs of the running humans. She sprayed bullets down the hall and maimed ten people. The monsters dove for the wiggling agony filled humans.
Amanda stepped from the room, her clothes drenched in crimson.
She spotted Lindsey and asked, “How was it?”
“Amazing,” said Lindsey as she dropped the rifle, took two steps, and grabbed an injured man by his shot leg. He weakly fought against her and howled as her fingers dug around the wound. She lick
ed the blood off her red fingers. She pulled back his jeans and exposed his calf. Lindsey took a large chunk of meat from the back of his leg.
The hunk of gore slid down her esophagus. It was on its way to the ravenous pit that would never be full. Lindsey was sure she could eat a thousand bites and still want more.
She jumped to the next body and took a nibble of his arm.
Each one had its own unique flavor. The different blood types or the leanness of the meat. Hell, even a different skin tones gave it a new texture. The world was her buffet and she needed to move fast before the others had eaten everyone.
Cane pushed his way through the crowd. He landed a few precise strikes with his axe and destroyed the brains of three infected kids, but it wasn’t enough. People raced through the great hall and toward the exit.
The folks outside were racing in to see what the noise was about. The mayhem was so disorienting, that some of them opened fire into the crowd. Killing their own people by accident.
Scott kept close to Cane. His only weapon, the laptop, in his hands.
It wasn’t long before the people that were just bitten changed. The zombie mix was three quarters regular infected to one quarter hybrid.
The remaining humans were now outnumbered.
As Cane ran for the exit, he witnessed these new monsters ducking the swing of a weapon. Some of the hybrids would take the hit to their body or limb and use that time to draw their victim in for the kill. The thing he couldn’t believe was the hybrids using guns. They fired into the mass of stampeding dead and undead, not caring one bit if they hit their own kind.
And why would they?
The zombies didn’t care or even seem to notice they had been hit. Unless it was a headshot. Then they noticed.
Cane raced from the building. Bullets flew all around him and pinged off the heavy doors an inch from his head.
He grabbed Scott and forced him to make a hard right. Divots punctured the door where Scott had just stood.
It was a mad dash for the vehicles. Anyone still alive with a key in their pocket made a beeline for their ride.
“Stay with me, Hoss!” Cane yelled to Scott. His lean physique allowed him to cruise across the lot like a wide receiver streaking down the sideline for a touchdown.
“We need to stop them...” wheezed Scott as he fell behind in the footrace. “…and save the others!”
Cane angled himself toward a new pickup truck with the words.
Cane the Landscaping Pro stenciled on the side.
“You saw what I saw, right? Those things were using guns.” Cane dug the key fob from his pocket, unlocked his truck and started it with the remote.
“How the hell is that possible?”
“None of it makes sense, boy. Get in the damn truck!” Cane yanked open his door and tossed the axe to the floorboard. Scott jumped into the rig.
Cane put the truck into reverse and stomped the gas.
At the entry to the church, hybrids stepped from the building and fired into the escaping humans. The other infected ran headlong into the shots of the fleeing people.
It was a massacre.
Bullets punched the side of Cane’s truck. He dropped below the dash and drove blind.
Vehicles zoomed across the lot for the exits.
Cane poked his head from below the console and centered his tailgate on the chain-link fence. He pushed his foot to the floor and blasted through the gate. He mashed the brakes and spun the truck around, put the truck into drive and burned rubber down the highway.
Scott panted. “We have to find Brother Paul.”
“You know where he went?” asked Cane as he watched the madness in his rearview mirror.
“Yeah,” tears carved lines down the side of Scott’s face. He couldn’t take his eyes off the side mirror. Those were his people getting torn to shreds in that church.
Scott asked, “What the fuck happened in there?” This was the first time he had said the f-word in nearly five years and it seemed like the right time to use it.
“Amanda.”
“Who?”
“She was sent out to look for supplies and when she came back she said something different had bit her. I can’t make heads or tails out of how they changed or why. All I know is they were smart, could use weapons, and were twice as deadly.”
Cane’s knuckles blanched as he gripped the wheel.
Chapter 20
Ryder pushed himself off the counter and wiped the sick from his chin. His hands and feet were coming online, and full mobility had returned. A pool of blood encircled what was left of Amber’s head. Trails of red made their way through the grout lines in the tile. Ryder couldn’t believe what he had done. The woman was attractive, competent, and strong-willed, but the anger inside him was too severe. He was no longer in control. A classic line from an old cartoon played in his head: ‘Destroy all humans.’
Ryder squatted and unfastened Amber’s belt. “I kinda feel weird about what I did, but I was so damn pissed off. You ever have a burning rage building inside you? When an outburst is the only damn answer?” He got the knife and gun off her hip. “You probably didn’t. I’m guessing you were a nice person. Treated people with respect and said yes ma’am, no ma’am. Hell, you saved me, and you didn’t have to do that.”
He dug through her pockets. Took the knife she used to free him and found extra ammo for the gun.
“You got any cigarettes? I’m dying for a smoke.” He searched her jeans. “Nope, damn.” Ryder clicked the harnesses at her chest plate and the one at her waist. He rolled her body to its side and worked her arms from the straps.
“What did she pack?” Ryder unzipped the top and dumped out the contents of the backpack. Wool clothing and waterproof gear. An extra quiver of bolts for the crossbow. Toiletries and undergarments. Packets of dried food. Water purification tablets, med kit and an epinephrine pen.
“Lookie what we have here. I could use a little pick me up.” Ryder read the directions on the side of the box. Two sentences in and he was bored. He made up his own, more interesting warnings. “May cause you to have a rock-hard boner and seek revenge on a redheaded cunt that left you for dead twice, and hit you in the balls, twice. Damn this shit’s boring. I’d rather stick the pen in my eye than read another line.” He tore open the box, took off the cap, jammed the needle into his thigh and dropped the plunger.
He yanked the used pen from his leg and tossed it aside. Ryder undid his belt and removed the hatchet holster and replaced it with the gun and knife. He stuffed the food and medical supplies back into the bag. The straps had to be adjusted for his bulky chest as he slid on the pack.
He spotted the bow next to the fridge. “Come to Daddy.” He wiggled his fingers at the high-tech compound crossbow. It had a mounted scope. Its shape was sleek, modern, and had a kickass jet-black finish. A three-bolt quiver was mounted to the front. It had a bolt loaded and ready to fire. He inspected the weapon. Ryder found the safety and worked out the mechanics of the machine. The bow also came equipped with a shoulder strap.
“This baby is sweet. Talk about silent and deadly.” Ryder was hit with a sudden urge to run into an active volcano, fight a bear or fuck a shark. Perhaps both. The adrenaline from the pen had kicked in and it was just the high he needed.
“I’m gonna have to find another one of those and a bottle of Viagra after I get Red stuffed into a cage.”
He slung the bow to his back and extracted the hunting knife.
Ryder charged out the front door like a rhino in-heat that was also hooked on crack.
He wanted blood.
No, he needed blood.
Beth kept her rifle tucked to her shoulder and moved through the intersection like a sentry. Cooper and Troy were busy securing the chain from the bus to the back of the Hummer. A quarter mile down the road a zombie stumbled onto the asphalt. She hoped it was her husband. Beth would have given anything to see him once more before she hit the road. As the scope focused, a heavyset woman with to
rn skin across her neck and chest came into view. Beth didn’t recognize the thing shuffling toward her. It made what she had to do next a little easier.
She placed the cross on the thing’s nose and squeezed the trigger. A split second later the back of the zombie’s head exploded and the creature fell onto the side of the road with a splat.
“Nice shot,” said Brother Paul as he stepped beside her.
She lowered the rifle. “My husband did a hell of a job sighting this girl in.” Beth did her best to keep her emotions in check.
No reason to weep like a baby in front of these strangers. She told herself.
Either she wasn’t doing a decent job of hiding her feelings or the man across from her was incredibly adept, but without missing a beat Paul said, “I am sorry for your loss.”
Beth narrowed her gaze and took a deep breath. “We’ve all got something to grieve about.”
“True,” said Paul. He pivoted and scanned the northbound highway for any pesky zombies. The woman was right. Paul had lost all but a few of his closest friends. It was the main reason he turned the other cheek for Jim and his people. He studied the family inside the van. The look of joy on the parent’s face was worth the trip alone. Paul couldn’t stomach anymore losses and the idea of hurting another family sent an ice cold razorblade down his spine.
When he was standing in that farmhouse, listening to their story, Paul was filled with the presence of the Lord in his heart. Divine inspiration pointed him toward a path. He had accomplished his main goal of protecting his congregation. Now God was telling him to do the same for Jim.
If Paul’s people really did everything Jim and his wife claimed, then he owed them more than a bus. He was driven to ensure their survival. He made a list of everything he wanted to do for Jim and his family.
We help find their friend.
Get them somewhere secure.
Make sure they have supplies.
