Rise of the Necrotics (Books 1-4)

by Bates, Bradford

  Rounding the last set of workstations, I came to a stop. Ok, stop might be slightly exaggerating the extent of my need to get the fuck out of there. My feet skidded to a halt, and then I was backpedaling right into Sharon as I came back around the edge of the desk. What in the fuck was going on? People with some kind of rabies or disease that acted like it was one thing, but this was something I wasn’t prepared for.

  “What in the fuck, Max. I almost shot you.” Sharon growled as she burned holes into me with her eyes. “So much for mister let me go first.”

  “You, I…ah…I don’t think anyone’s going to believe this.” The words came stammering out as I fought to regain control of my senses. I could handle this. Shit, I might as well have spent my whole life training for this. No one was more prepared for the zombie apocalypse than me.

  Still, there was always the chance I was blowing this way out of proportion. I had a tendency to do that, it was the burden of an overburdened imagination. Sharon was right, she’d been jumpy, but I was in the run for the hills and hope you can bribe your way into some whack job’s underground bunker. Remember that guy that bought the missile silo and turned it into a house? Something like that sounded really good right about now.

  I took a few more steps back, not sure what to do next. I mean this wasn’t a movie, and despite my desperation to play out the fantasy of zombie apocalypse survivor I knew the likelihood of something like that happening was about zero percent. Still, I couldn’t ignore the sound coming towards us forever. If my video game inspired brain was telling me the truth, then we had to stop all of these things before the infection spread.

  Sharon started to walk around the corner, and I reached out to stop her. “Don’t.”

  “It can’t be that bad, no one’s even back there.” She turned to look back at the corner and froze in her tracks.

  A hand grabbed onto the bottom of the desk tightening around the corner. There was a muffled grunt followed by the wet dragging sound. This time another hand appeared and a few seconds later a face. The skin on one side had been chewed enough so you could see inside of his mouth. One of his ears had been torn in half, and his eyes were the same milky white color as the lady’s.

  Sharon took a step back and muffled a scream. Shit, I’d screamed like a little girl and scrambled back for Sharon to protect me, so she got mega points for handling it better than I had. I wondered if it was being able to see his jaw snapping open and closed from both sides, or what was coming next that had her so spooked. Feeling a little vindicated that Sharon was seeing this too and I wasn’t going insane, I pulled out my phone and started taking video.

  “Get out of the way, the Hilltop needs to see this,” I said motioning for Sharon to move so I could film the rest of the man’s attempt to get around the corner.

  The man pulled himself forward, and for the first time on camera you could see why he wasn’t standing up. I knew my cheesy cell phone video would scream hoax to the web, but I only needed one person at the Hilltop to believe me, and they’d find a way to take care of this, it’s what we did.

  The man pulling himself towards us was the same one I’d seen the woman feasting on in the tent during my first trip to the basement. His ribs were fanned out under him like some kind of grotesque mechanics creeper. The bones slid across the floor leaving marks as he pulled himself forward.

  If the chewed off face and the broken ribs weren’t enough to prove to someone things had strayed into the Tales from the Crypt territory, the skeptics would have a hard time ignoring the rest of the evidence. He pulled himself closer to us, teeth chattering away like some deranged crocodile, his spine sticking out from what remained of his chest cavity like a tail. The man’s legs had been left behind in his pursuit for his next meal. I let the camera catch a good thirty seconds of footage and then handed the phone to Sharon before walking forward and shooting him in the head.

  I took my phone back and sent the footage to our mobile command. “Get a sample from him and the lady for Holly. I’m going to make sure nothing else is moving around upstairs. “Be as quick as you can.”

  I ran back through the lab stopping only once to shoot the guard the woman had been snacking on in the head. There was no way I was taking any risks. Examining these things while they were still moving around was a mistake. While there was no way to be sure a headshot actually put these things down, evidence suggested it was working so far, and I planned on sticking with what worked.

  Reaching the top of the stairs, I marched back toward the door and shot the guard lying there as well. I peeked down the hallways and checked the bedrooms before calling back to base.

  “Base this is Max Meridious, and we’ve got one hell of a problem.”

  “Please hold for transfer to Director Chen.”

  The line beeped before another voice came on. “Max, I don’t have a lot of time. The President’s aide is on the other line, and I’m trying to convince her from mobilizing the National Guard around Phoenix. The last thing we need right now is that kind of panic. We might have to issue a quarantine but now isn’t the time.” Chen spoke quickly sounding frazzled.

  “His aide might be making the right call, sir. Things on site are worse than expected.”

  “No they aren’t, and you’re going to keep it that way. Anything you need, I’ll get it for you. Just get this thing under control before it ruins us.”

  The line went dead, and I just looked at my phone. Mobilizing the National Guard? Just how much did they know about this virus that they weren’t telling us? Right now everything seemed to be contained, but we’d already flown around the city with one of the infected. If this thing transferred via the air, quarantining the city wouldn’t matter.

  My phone started to ring as I walked back toward the kitchen. I looked up from the trail of blood leading to the stairs and almost dropped the phone before I could answer it. There was another blood trail leading toward the back door. It looked like our night was just getting started.

  I accepted the call but kept my eyes on the blood leading out the back door. “Go for Max.”

  “Nandy from operations at your disposal. Director Chen instructed me to help you with whatever you need.”

  First things first. “How many men were assigned to guard the house?”

  “One of the men was pulled back to help with traffic, leaving three on site.”

  “Shit.” I hung up the phone. “Sharon, we’ve got to go.”

  She ran up the stairs, bag of samples bouncing in her hand. “What’s going on?”

  “Leave the samples and call for someone to pick them up, we’ve got bigger problems to deal with.” I pointed toward the trail of blood leading out the back door.

  “Shit,” Sharon bundled the samples together before placing them inside of another plastic bag. She was calling in her instructions as she walked toward the front door and set the samples outside.

  Before she made it back, I pulled out my flashlight and started following the blood. This time the blood wasn’t exactly a trail, it was more like big splashes followed by a few feet of nothing, and then another puddle or spray would stand out. It looked more to me like someone had been injured and was making a run for it. Why hadn’t they called for help? Our teams could have been here in minutes.

  My gun was at the ready when I went out the back door. Normally I counted on my gut to warn me, but I wasn’t sure if it came with zombie detection powers. It sure hadn’t warned me about what I was about to see in the basement. The backyard was clear, but the back gate was open, and the handle was bloody.

  I looked back at the house just in time to see Sharon coming out. She jogged up to my side, and I pointed at the gate. “Looks like we got a runner.” I stepped out in the alley, hoping to find a clue.

  Chapter Nine

  Max Meridious

  The rain hadn’t washed away the blood puddled in the alley, there was just too much of it. Our bleeding guard had fallen here, and the rest of his blood had flowed into the d
irt. I pulled a small GPS tracker out of my pocket and tossed it on the ground by the puddle.

  I activated my comms. Now wasn’t the time to go around without being connected to operations. “I’ve left a marker in the alley behind site alpha. We’ll need someone to sanitize the area.

  “Copy that Max,” A familiar female voice purred on the line. “A team is being dispatched now,” Nandy said confidently before dropping the line.

  “Max,” Sharon called out, drawing my attention to her. She pointed her flashlight across the alley toward a wooden gate.

  Now that I wasn’t focused on the puddle, there was no missing where our fallen guard had gone. Someone had pulled themselves up and walked toward the gate before kicking in or ripping their way through the wood. Sharon and I shared a look, and we both started running. I jumped and grabbed the top of the wall before pulling myself over. When my feet hit the ground, a scream tore into the night from the house in front of us.

  The Desert Eagle felt good in my hand as I sprinted toward the back door. The glass there was shattered, and blood darkened the edges. The scream sounded again, but this time I could hear more than one person crying in the background. Sharon tapped my shoulder and pointed to the left. I took point, trusting that she would be right behind me.

  There was no way I was running in, but a fast walk seemed appropriate. I had my gun up, ready to shoot at the first sign of hostility. A woman screamed again, and I heard a man grunt something in response. By then I’d cleared the corner and could see what was happening.

  Our former, and most assuredly dead, guard was clawing at the door. Blood was smeared against the frame where his hands were pawing relentlessly at the wooden door. The slivers of wood ripping into his unprotected flesh didn’t seem to be much of a deterrent as he ignored us and continued to try and reach the family within. Something was shoved against the door from inside, and that was the only thing keeping our man out and the family trapped inside safe. Thankfully, their bedroom must have had a huge armoire or a dresser. No wonder the man could only grunt a response to whoever was screaming, he was holding a ton of weight to keep the man away from his family.

  “Get away from the door!” I shouted as I skidded to a stop.

  The zombie turned, his head snapping around like a velociraptor scenting prey. His head bobbed in an almost bird-like manner as his eyes fixed on me. Saliva poured from his mouth as his jaws opened and closed. He made some kind of chittering noise and started moving toward me.

  “Anyone in that room needs to get on the floor now!” The last thing I needed was for my bullet to go through this guy and into someone else. Getting his blood inside of you might just be enough to spread the infection. Hell, I didn’t even know if infection was the right term for this. Whatever it was, I didn’t want it and didn’t want to be responsible for giving it to someone else.

  Could I be infected right now? My hand started to shake as I looked at the man in front of me. His throat was a ragged mess of flesh, and you could tell that something had gnawed at it. The poor guy had probably tried to help the woman from the basement, and instead of being the hero, he ended up dying in an alley. Was I going to be the next one to end up like that?

  “Max!” Sharon shouted from behind me.

  Her voice wasn’t enough to stop me from just watching as the man drew closer. His body didn’t move right. It was all jittery, and his legs almost looked like they couldn’t support his full weight. He moved in shaky steps, arms extended to grab me. He picked up speed as he moved down the hallway, and a moan of pure desperation burbled from his lips.

  “Maximus!” Sharon sounded panicked now.

  It was the panic in her voice and the fact she used my full first name that snapped me out of the panic that gripped my heart. Something about that tone dragged me out of the mental hole I’d been stuck in. The man’s fingertips reached past my gun, clutching to find purchase on my shirt. A snarl escaped his mouth, and his teeth stopped chomping as he prepared to engorge himself on my flesh.

  My finger tightened and the trigger snapped back into place as the Desert Eagle belched out a thunderous rumble that would have filled the lightning God Zeus with envy. You would have thought I discharged a shotgun by the way my ears were ringing. That didn’t stop me from seeing the back of the man’s head explode as the bullet from my Desert Eagle tore through his skull. Brains and bits of goo splattered on the wall and door. All I kept wondering was how much worse the mess would have been if he still had all his blood.

  That was one of the things they never really showed you on TV. When people get shot, there’s a shit ton of blood, especially if they were left there for a long time. Just look at the pictures of some of the cartel violence in Mexico. They haven't edited the footage to sugarcoat the violence like they do here in America. The violence is horrible, and the terror it can cause to your average everyday citizen is astronomical.

  I’ve always had a problem with the way the media shields us from violence. After the bombing in Boston, pictures started showing up, and they had blankets photoshopped over injuries, and some of them even took the blood out of the street. To me, that was doing a disservice to the victims. Once people saw how horrible the act of violence truly was, they didn’t have any choice but to be upset.

  You don’t see that same kind of censorship in the rest of the world. People there know shit gets real when a crazy person shows up with a knife or a bomb, and average people spring into action to take the terrorist down. We don’t really get that in America. People here still expect the police to show up and save them, why wouldn’t they? That’s what we were raised to believe.

  And it’s not like the police do a bad job, they do the best they can. There aren’t exactly a lot of them, and their resources are incredibly limited. That’s why we see so many people get away with murder. I guess, if you’re that kind of person, why not roll the dice? You’ve got a fifty percent chance to get away with it. Unless you’re in Chicago, then you’ve got an eighty percent chance.

  Because of cracks like that in the system, the Hilltop Initiative existed. Granted we didn’t go after your average murderers, but we did stop more than a fair share of the above average ones before they could wreak havoc on unsuspecting civilians.

  “Is it safe to get up now?” a man called out from inside the room.

  I moved forward and kicked the boots of the body. It didn’t move. “It’s safe to get up. Anyone injured?”

  “We’re all fine.” Something heavy scraped across the floor as he moved it from in front of the door.

  Sharon started calling for a containment team to meet us here. I had to start talking to the man just to make sure he didn’t hear what Sharon was saying. No one was going to be thrilled about being taken to a containment facility, especially not after their family was just attacked. The last thing I wanted was for this to get out of control. Heroes didn’t tranq civilians to shut them up.

  “Don’t come out yet, we’re going to need a minute.”

  “Fuck that,” the man said gruffly, yanking open the door. He took one step out, looked at the body on the ground, and then turned back to grab a little boy before he could run out of the door.

  “Cool,” the kid yelled as his dad dragged him back into the room.

  “You could have said something,” the mother shouted as her husband handed the boy off to her.

  I wasn’t in the mood for their shit. “My bad, I thought the gunshot and asking you to stay in the room was enough to get the point across.”

  Sharon touched my shoulder. “Max.”

  “Yeah, I get it.” I walked forward waving for the woman to take a step back so I could close the door. “We’ll get this cleaned up and have you out of there as fast as we can.”

  I really hoped none of them had been infected. For all we knew, it didn’t have to be a bite. It could have been anything that spread it. I could be infected right now and not even know it. The situation was spinning out of control. I needed to get home and get
my parents out of this state. They didn’t deserve this. Dad was just starting to wind down his business so he could retire and they could travel. I couldn’t let this happen to them.

  Four men in hazmat suits moved into the hallway, and they ushered us out and started spraying the floor and the walls with something that smelled like bleach. We made it outside, and I took a heavy seat on the curb. No one at Hilltop was going to understand when I bailed on them to get my parents out of the city, but I had to do it. I didn’t want to end my career labeled as a turncoat, but family was more important.

  Running my fingers through my hair didn’t help calm me like it normally did. This whole situation was shit, and I didn’t even know what happened to my partner yet. I felt like everything was spinning out of control and if I tried to grasp any single piece of the puzzle, the whole thing would burn to ash.

  They always made it look so cool on TV. Even when the characters were struggling to stay alive and hadn’t eaten in weeks, they were still badass. Sometimes they broke down, but they never really seemed afraid, not of the zombies at least. This was different, I was terrified, and shooting streets full of hungry zombies seemed a lot more appealing when I could hit the reset button when I died.

  Sharon sat down next to me. “They’re sending a car for us. They wanted to take us back to general quarantine, but I sweet talked them into taking us back to the hospital so I can check on Gordon and you can see what Holly’s come up with.”

  That sounded great, except I wouldn’t be going. “Sharon, I don’t know how to say this, but I can’t go with you. I’ve got to get to my parents’ house and get them out of here.”

  “Didn’t someone tell you?” She looked at me questioningly before continuing. “Your family’s fine. When the situation escalated, Director Chen pulled them out. They're at our base in Flagstaff, I’m sure you’ll be able to contact them from the hospital.”