This is the End 2: The Post-Apocalyptic Box Set (9 Book Collection)

by J. Thorn

  Gun fire and macabre screams of death echoed in the distance. We rounded another corner, guns raised, arms straight and still nothing. My fear spiked the further from the door we got. And even though the window had a giant hole in it, anyone crashing through it would be slowed down by the sharp shards of glass and generally make a lot of noise. But I didn’t like not having a visual on every single Feeder.

  On the third corner, Hendrix went first as usual, and although I was right behind him I couldn’t have stopped the blow if I wanted to. A baseball flew out of the air, connecting with his shoulder and outstretched arms. Hendrix’s entire body collided with the side of the barn and his gun flew out of his hand, banking off the wall and falling somewhere in the obscurity of the mud soaked ground.

  She- I could now identify her as a version of a woman- went at him again, throwing a swing into his side. A grunt of pain spilled out of his mouth and he dropped to one knee.

  Damn it.

  She was like the demon version of a female body builder- or China, the female wrestler, not the country. Would people still understand that WWF reference? Probably not. The whole wrestling niche probably died right along with fast food and pay at the pump gas stations.

  I didn’t hesitate, I couldn’t- it would have been the difference between life and death for him. Her arms were raised above her head as if she would put all her strength into a blow to his head. I shot at her wrist first, missing my exact target, but still hitting her in the elbow. Bits and pieces of flesh and bone flew back with the connection of my bullet to her skin and she dropped her useless arm to her side. Undaunted by the loss of limb, she swung her left arm out at me. I shot again, this time hitting her in the shoulder. Her body jerked back with the impact and her hungry gaze met mine. Saliva and something else I didn’t even want to identify dripped from her open mouth and the pure, undiluted scent of rotting flesh filled the air. One half of her face was peeled back from the decay of her disease and her hair had mostly fallen out, leaving only stringy strands of knotted clumps. She was still wearing earrings- which disturbed me more than anything. The little gold balls were proof of her former, once normal life. And what was left of her tight fitting jeans and torn blouse suggested a woman not exactly destined for a life of physical violence. She let out one more of her ear-shattering screeches and her hunger became like this tangible force I felt pushing against us.

  I looked into those dead, greedy eyes and erased every ounce of sympathy for her past life brewing inside me. Correcting my aim at the same time she opened her mouth wider and lunged for Hendrix’s face I let loose two bullets, landing them right between her eyes. The impact from my enormous handgun flung her body back, out of the natural trajectory of her body. She landed in an awkward heap on the ground- both arms mostly destroyed by my shots and legs bent at odd angles underneath. Her eyes were still unseeing, but no longer thirsting for flesh.

  “What the hell?” I demanded down at her lifeless body. “You crazy bitch!” I screamed- out of my mind with adrenaline and fear.

  Hendrix stood up slowly, rubbing his arm. He had recovered his gun and stood staring down at the now dead-undead with me.

  “That f-ing hurt,” he grunted. “She obviously played for the major league.”

  A cynical laugh bubbled out of me, “Obviously. Poor Hendrix, beat up by a girl.”

  Instead of replying, he wrapped his arm around my head and pulled me tightly against his chest. We stood there for a minute, breathing each other in. He made it. I made it.

  “See why you stay behind me? It’s not just for your sake. I might need you as much as you need me,” He whispered, creating chills all over my body.

  I nodded against his chest and allowed myself three more seconds in his arms. Then I pulled my gun up to check the chamber.

  “I’ve got three more then the sawed off. You?” I stepped away from Hendrix and his distracting proclamations and turned my attention to the hill.

  “Two clips and then my M-16.”

  “You should start with that one,” I suggested, knowing how much damage the rifle could do.

  “It’s too dark for that,” Hendrix shrugged, picking up his hand guns and turning the final corner. We’d effectively gone around the house. “These kills have to be up close and personal.”

  “If I get Zombie-goo in my hair again, I will not be happy.”

  Hendrix gave me a devilish smile over his shoulder and said, “But I promise to help you wash it out again. Maybe then you’ll return the favor?”

  Even in the middle of all this carnage, butterflies assaulted my stomach at his words. “You want me to wash your hair?”

  “Or whatever part of me is dirty,” he growled in a low rumble.

  Oh, my goodness.

  I cleared my throat. Tried to think of how to respond. Cleared my throat again. And then finally said, “You are hopeless.”

  “I don’t believe in hopeless. I don’t believe this world is hopeless, that humanity is hopeless and I certainly don’t believe you and me are hopeless. We’re just…. taking our time right now. And later, we’ll take our time too, but in an entirely different way.”

  His words melted over my skin, hot and sensual. He was brave and domineering and most of the time a pain in my ass. But there were moments between us that were pure sex and raw attraction. Now was one of those moments.

  “I’m going to go kill something now,” I declared, completely chickening out. He was the one battle I wasn’t ready to fight just yet.

  And really, there wasn’t any more time left for words. Two Feeders had broken through the line of fire between Vaughan, Haley and Nelson and the barn. One was trying to break down the door and the other pounding on the weak wood.

  They looked up as we approached and their blood lust infused brains told them to attack us instead of the lifeless barn. They turned, moaning and groaning, their mouths opened and eyes wide and dilated with craving. In the dark I couldn’t see whether their irises were red or faint pink, but by the quickness of their steps I had to assume they were well on their way to the late degeneration of Zombie-hood.

  Hendrix took the first kill, right between the eyes. I lifted my gun, warned myself that I could not miss and pulled the trigger. My bullet hit the Feeder right in the nose- bull’s-eye- shattering his face on impact. I was far enough back that I didn’t feel any splattering debris and for that I was very, very grateful.

  Sounds of glass breaking and gunfire had us leaving our kills on the ground where they lay and rounding the corner of the barn again. Three Feeders were trying to crawl through the broken window. One had high centered himself on the thick shards of glass, and the other two were using his body as leverage to hoist themselves over.

  One of the boys was on the inside, shooting the home-invaders before they could get inside. Whichever boy was doing the shooting got the Feeder on the top of the pile and he slid down the other bodies until he was lifeless and unmoving on the ground. I went for the next one. He had been pulled back with the momentum of the first guy and so his head was now in plain view. I hit the back of his neck with my first shot and while he was not the same after that, he was still able to flail around and bite things. I took my last bullet, aimed it at the back of his head and this time did not miss.

  Two down, one to go.

  While I pulled my sawed-off from my pack, Hendrix yelled, “Get back.” He didn’t wait for a response though and took the barrel of his gun straight to the temple of the Zombie still stuck in the middle of the window, flailing around like a seal. The Feeder had just started to turn his head towards Hendrix’s wrist when the shot resounded through the night and the Feeder fell limp and dead against the window ledge. Page’s startled scream accented each kill with a shrill sound of terror.

  Hendrix pulled his hand back, wiping the infected blood against his pants leg. “Do you still have that alcohol and those disinfectant wipes?” he asked casually.

  “Yep,” I whispered. My heart was pounding violently in my ch
est. “Do you want them now?”

  “No, I plan to get a little bloodier first.” He promised. He stuck his head in the broken

  window over the Zombie’s unmoving body and ordered, “Stay where you are. You’re doing a great job. Do you need more ammo?”

  King called back, his voice shaking just the tiniest, “We’re good for now.”

  “Let’s go,” I ordered Hendrix.

  I could see Haley surrounded in the distance. She was faster than the Feeders and killing as quickly as she could, but Vaughan and Nelson were both definitely occupied and unable to offer her help.

  Hendrix took off running and I pushed myself to keep up. The ground was obnoxiously coated with mud, and with each step my tennis shoes sunk further into the earth, covered in thick gooeyness. But I pushed through, anxious to get to my friend.

  About ten feet out from Haley, Hendrix stopped and started picking off Feeders. I rounded Hendrix and aimed in the other direction.

  “No,” Hendrix demanded. “That thing is too unpredictable. Stand by me and don’t use it until you have no doubt you won’t miss.”

  Annoyed, I huffed, “That’s my best friend, the only family I have left. I have no doubt I won’t miss.”

  Hendrix didn’t reply, just kept firing. And I obeyed because he was right. This gun was far from accurate and the spray was insane. I didn’t want Haley to get caught in my fire, or anyone else.

  And it seemed she didn’t need me with Hendrix’s precise aim picking off Feeder after Feeder. Haley finally got some breathing room and her shots became more accurate as she panicked less.

  I hated watching this happen though. I hated feeling the frustration of uselessness. At least when I was an active part of fighting my brain could focus on singular things- like each kill, each move as I made it. Standing next to Hendrix while the battle raged on around me, allowed me to wander through all the what-ifs and focus on all my friends as each one fought off incredible peril.

  The sound of flesh being ripped away from bone by teeth had me spinning in circles desperate to figure out where it was coming from. My stomach lurched at the fear it could be any one of our group, that someone had fallen victim to this vileness.

  I stumbled away from Hendrix, determined to save whoever it was from a fate worse than death. And I would save them. Whether they had been bitten or not, I would avenge them and then refuse to let the disease take hold of their body. We were in this together, nobody was getting out of our group, whether they were infected or not.

  To my extreme relief, I found that it was just another Zombie eating one of their own dead.

  Ick.

  Heady relief washed through me and I even closed my eyes in reprieve. I picked up my shot gun, cocked it with a swift pull of my hand and then slid my finger over the trigger. The release of the bullet boomed through the night. The back lash of the butt hit me right in the shoulder, wobbling me off balance, but I hit my target. The Feeder had been unaware of me as he hovered over his meal and so he hadn’t even noticed as I lined up my shot. He lay dead now, right beside his already lifeless victim, with the entire exposed side of his head gone.

  I gave Hendrix credit. This gun was a wild card- only to be used in emergencies. And now my shoulder was going to be bruised.

  Page’s horrified scream piercing the night around us constituted as one of those terrifying moments in my life when my heart literally stopped beating. I glanced around but everyone else was busy with Feeders of their own. And while they stayed focused on their kills, I knew the three brothers were dying to investigate. Haley too, was still fighting for her life. It was up to me and my unpredictable gun to protect the younger ones.

  I raced back to the barn. I wasn’t so far away that it took me a long time, but I was far enough that I couldn’t make out what was happening. Gun fire was sounding from inside the building and Page’s screams could be heard above it all.

  I sprinted as best as I could through the sludge. I had seven shells to illicit as much damage as I could and a hunting knife strapped to the outside of my pack. Finally I could make out a group of bodies, ripping away one of the walls to the barn. My stomach lurched at the thought of structure collapsing on top of Page and the boys.

  As soon as I was in range I shouted, “King, Harrison, get down!” I didn’t want my spray to accidentally catch one of them. And then I had to trust that they heard and listened.

  I pumped a shell into the chamber and then pulled the trigger. The shot was deafening in the night, even above the screams and moaning. The kickback hit me in the shoulder again, but this time I was prepared for it.

  I didn’t wait to see what kind of damage I caused; I just pulled back and shot again. And again and again. Always aiming at the cluster of Feeders standing between me and those I loved. Seven times I released shells; seven times I caught the kickback with my shoulder.

  My pockets were now empty of any and all ammo and my guns were useless. I threw the shotgun on the ground and reached for my knife in one fluid movement. Tearing it out of its holster I brandished it in front of me and dove for the still clambering Zombies.

  It wasn’t that my aim was off, but the spray of the shotgun wasn’t exactly accurate. The pile of undead bodies were maimed and broken- bloody body parts flung about everywhere- but if I didn’t get them in the brain then they still lived, still hungered for more flesh.

  A knife was effective only if I could get it into the brain. I wasn’t exactly in a strong enough position to stab through thick, hard skull. While I’d developed muscles I didn’t even know existed during the last two years, I was still pathetically on the girl side. The eye socket was the best possible scenario here, but their faces were positioned away from me.

  This was not going to be pretty- or clean.

  I sucked in a deep breath of air and held my breath. Reaching for the closest body, I grabbed hold of the ankle over mud soaked jeans and pulled.

  I didn’t try to overthink this whole process much. Mainly because what I was about to do and what I had been doing was disgusting and horrifying.

  However I did have certain expectations. Like when I pulled on this ankle, the Feeder would come with it, flip over and I would jab him in the eye with my huge knife.

  What I did not expect was for his leg to literally rip apart from my aggressive tug. Somewhere between his ankle and knee, his entire leg came apart. Black, sticky blood spread from the point of disconnect through his jeans, soaking the ground underneath him. He shrieked and groaned and flipped over with renewed interest in me. The wound, while disgusting, wasn’t even a little bit debilitating, other than he couldn’t stand anymore.

  I was so shocked by the surprise amputation that I tripped, falling back on my ass, and sinking down into the thick mud beneath me. I waved the hunting knife in front of me, but Feeders weren’t scared or nervous about weapons. They barely even registered them, save for the stone cold biotch that tried to play home run derby with Hendrix’s body- but she was a phenomenon I would ponder later. Much. Later.

  The Feeder, using his hands as spring boards, lunged for me. I scampered back, using my elbows to pull my body out of his reach. His mouth was chomping like a crazed maniac and his hands lashing out in clawing motions meant to grab hold of me.

  I kicked forward, punting him in the forehead. His head snapped back on his neck with a sick crunching sound. I took the initiative while he was distracted and pushed up from the clinging earth. Just as he whipped his head back around my knife connected with his face and I threw my body into the plunge. Sick sounds of knife slicing through flesh and bone and brain matter could be heard over everything else and I mentally filed them away in the stuff nightmares were made of.

  The Zombie beneath my knife went rigid and lifeless with death. I rolled him over so I could leverage my knife out of his face, but it wouldn’t budge. It was firmly stuck inside his skull.

  Swallowing back a gag, I lifted my eyes and realized the remaining Feeders from my shotgun attack had
turned their attention to me. Three of them were crawling through the slaughter in my direction, making bloody pathways of deathly intent, scraping their bodies against the muddy ground. Their low keening scattered goose bumps all over my skin.

  I pulled harder on the knife, ready to end this. I yanked as hard as I could, desperate to free it. Then I pushed against the dead body with one foot, hoping to leverage my pull. My planted foot slipped on the spreading blood from my latest victim and down I went again, this time landing in a mixture of blood and gritty, wet earth. My head snapped back with my impact, connecting with the gory ground and jostling my brain.

  Twice in one freaking day my hair was tangled in Zombie goo. This was so not Ok!

  The knife was still in my neighbor’s eye socket and my ankle was suddenly grasped in the iron grip of the closest feeder. I kicked at his face, frantic to free myself. He held on tight, never feeling pain, never feeling the necessity to let go. I was his next meal and he would eat me or die trying.

  A high scream of panic ripped from my throat and I flailed and thrashed in an effort to stay away from his slobbering mouth.

  I would not get bitten. I would not become one of these…. things.

  The other two Feeders were just inches away from my other appendages and closing in. Holy hell!

  The Zombie with his disgusting fingers wrapped around my ankle cocked his head back, ready to clamp his ravenous mouth down on my body. There was a blood thirsty glint in his red eyes and saliva ran in streams of craving down his chin.

  I closed my eyes, letting out a desperate whimper and arched my body away from him as best as I could.

  Before I realized what I was doing, I braced myself for the impact, knowing he had me, knowing I was about to become a buffet of flesh for these monsters.

  My entire body tensed in preparation and then….. and then the door to the barn was ripped open and gun fire echoed through the night.

  My eyes snapped open just in time to see the Feeder at my feet take a bullet to the back of the head and then lose his life at the hands of fifteen year old King. The bullet exited the dead Zombies head and landed in a puff of mud right between my knees. I winced, and let out a hiss of breath.