The Uncivil War Series Box Set

by B. T. Wright

  “Go!” she shouted as she extended the pistol in front of her.

  Jake spun the axe once in his hand and bolted down the front porch. From the two encounters at the ballpark, the only thing Jake knew for certain killed these things was making sure their brain could no longer communicate with the heart. That’s why when he brought the axe back the only place to swing for was the neck. And with one powerful blow, Jake severed the fat man’s head from his body like cutting through a wet piece of firewood.

  Tyler was able to shake his leg free of the headless infected and stood back up on the car. He raised his gun to shoot, but Jake stopped him.

  “Not the shotgun!”

  “What? But more of them are coming!”

  Jake front-kicked an infected woman in a flower print dress, creating some space to swing his axe. He hesitated for a moment. This was someone’s mother, maybe someone’s girlfriend or sister. How could this be happening? He couldn’t kill her. What if they find a way to reverse—

  The infected woman cocked her head to the side, blinked, and stared at Jake for a moment. Her coal-black eyes felt like they were reaching inside of him. Pulling something from him. It was the oddest feeling he’d ever had. Was there more to these things?

  The woman jumped toward him, faster than she should have been able to. Fortunately, Jake already had his axe in position to swing, and he jumped back as he whipped his arms forward, lopping the creature’s head clean off its shoulders. Then he turned 360 degrees and slid his blade through the throat of an infected man in a suit who was behind the infected woman in the dress.

  “Go now, Tyler! Get in the house!”

  Tyler slid off the roof of the car and bolted for the house. Gunshots ripped through the air from the porch. Jess was firing into the crowd of infected, trying to give Jake time to get back to the house.

  “Stop shooting!” Jake heard a man’s voice shout behind him.

  When he looked back toward the house, he watched a man dive at Jess and knock her off her feet.

  “Help!” Just before Jake turned to help Jess, a young female voice shouted from the street.

  Jake swung his axe once more, this time through the neck of a young man still wearing a bathrobe. He looked back and a man was holding Jess in his arms. She was fighting against his grip.

  “Help me! Please!” He heard the young girl again.

  He finally caught sight of her in the crowd of infected out on the street. She was backing herself into the wooded area across from the houses. Several infected were moving in on her, fast. Jake pulled his Beretta from the small of his back and fired six shots into the air. The noise froze the infected on the street, as well as the man who had a hold of Jess. Jake stared at him for a moment, but when the man’s glare moved beyond Jake to the street it focused him, and he turned to help the young girl.

  “Jake, no!” Jess shouted from the house.

  He had no time to look again; he raised his pistol and began firing at the oncoming infected. There were at least twenty of them now. The girl was screaming, which drew half of the infected to her. Jake shot two in the forehead who were running toward him. A sea of black-eyed monsters. Two shots rang out from behind him, dropping two more infected. Jake glanced back; the strange man had moved forward with him to help.

  Jake fired twice more, two more infected dropped, and as he made it to the end of the driveway, he tucked his empty Beretta in his pants and began to swing away. The man behind him kept firing as they made a path to the girl, who was now pinned against a tree. She had dodged the infected as long as she could. The dying light was just enough to let Jake chop through three more infected, the last one being a man in a construction vest who was reaching for the girl. A bullet ripped through a crazed woman who had just grabbed the girl, and Jake scooped the girl up with his left arm. The fear in her eyes drove the reality of the situation even further home.

  “Hold on tight!”

  He didn’t have to tell her twice. Jake made his way back to the house. The salt-and-pepper-haired man, who had only a moment ago tackled Jess, was now helping to clear a path for Jake and the girl. With only one free hand, Jake swung the axe, chopping off a reaching arm. The girl screamed. He swung once more, taking off the head of the body he’d just removed the arm from. The infected were closing in around the porch. He wasn’t going to make it if he couldn’t fight freely.

  “Can you run?” Jake shouted to the girl he was holding.

  She pulled her head back far enough to look at him, then to the porch that was only thirty feet away but was quickly becoming overrun.

  “I promise I’ll keep them off you, but I need you to be brave and make a run for it. Okay?”

  The fear seemed to deepen in her eyes. But she let go of her grip, dropped down out of his arm, and sprinted for the house.

  The infected closed in.

  They were in trouble.

  7

  “Go!” Jake shouted as he ran alongside the girl, trying his best to protect her.

  The stranger who was helping threw his empty pistol to the ground, grabbed the shotgun that was strapped around his shoulder, and began blowing the heads off the oncoming infected. The girl ran up the porch toward the front door and Jess pulled her inside. Jake felt something smack so hard into his right side that it knocked him off his feet. The axe tumbled across the front yard about six feet away. He would have moved for it, but the infected man who’d run into him was clawing at his face. Jake used his Brazilian jujitsu training and shrimped out away from him, but the thing kept coming. He wrapped his legs around the thing’s waist and grabbed its wrists, holding it in place. With no limbs to come at Jake, it began snapping its jaws, its mouth only inches from him. Its black eyes glazed over like a great white hungry for prey.

  Jake heard two more gunshots behind him, dug his feet into the hips of the monster, and pushed off as hard as he could, sending the thing flying backward. It quickly regained its balance and jumped back toward him, but just before it made it to Jake he heard a shotgun blast right behind him, and the infected man’s head disappeared into a pink mist. Jake scrambled to his knees, picked up his axe, and when he looked up to see the man who’d just saved him, he only had a split second to hurl the axe forward, the blade connecting with the head of another infected that was running for the man’s back. The man looked behind him, then back to Jake, then back to the thing as he watched it fall to the ground. He gave Jake a nod before removing the axe from the infected’s head, and both he and Jake hurried inside the house. Savage moans and ghastly shouts from the infected became the soundtrack outside.

  Jess slammed the door behind them and immediately shoved the man who had just saved Jake’s life.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?! You could have gotten me killed!”

  Jake grabbed Jess.

  “Control your woman, son. Or I will,” the man said.

  Jake didn’t hesitate. He turned, grabbed the man by the throat, and pinned him against the foyer wall. A flame of rage moved through him as if the man had never helped him outside at all.

  “If you ever”—Jake was right in his face—“ever talk to her like that again, I’ll throw you out there with those things, and then once they turn you, I’ll chop your fucking head off. You hear me?” Jake shook the man against the wall.

  “Please stop fighting. Please,” the girl said, cowering in the corner.

  “Jake,” Tyler said, putting a hand on Jake’s shoulder. Then to the man pinned against the wall, he said, “Dude, I suggest you do what he says.”

  Jake let go and the man immediately held his throat. He was as thick as Jake, hair buzzed, and looked like a silver-streaked G.I. Joe.

  The man replied, “I save your life, and this is how you repay me?”

  Jake stepped forward, and Jess jumped in between them. “Stop it, all right? We have enough to worry about.” She turned to the man, who was now standing upright, his chest jutted like a peacock. “You can leave now if you want. But I
suggest we all stay together. The enemy is outside, not in here.”

  Jake wasn’t surprised by Jess’s resolve, but his respect grew deeper by the second. He knew better than anyone that a person’s true character emerged during tough times. Jess was everything he thought she was and more.

  The man took a step back and gave a sweeping look at everyone. “You can’t be shooting like that. It just draws their attention. War isn’t about who’s a better fighter. It’s about who’s a smarter fighter.”

  Jake began to cool. “At least there’s one thing we agree on.”

  The man scoffed. “What the hell do you know about war?”

  Jake didn’t respond. He had nothing to prove to this stranger. He walked over to the girl. “Are you okay?”

  She couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. Her blonde hair was stark against her tan face, and her deep blue eyes were wet with tears.

  “I––I think so.”

  Jess came over. “Where are your parents, sweetheart?”

  The tears finally spilled over her bottom lids and flooded down her face. Jess took her in her arms and held her.

  “You guys go secure the house. If we’re staying here tonight, I want to keep her safe.”

  Jess looked over the girl’s shoulder and mouthed “give us a minute” to Jake. Jake turned back to the man who’d saved his ass.

  Jake reached out his hand. “Jake Maddox. Delta Forces.”

  The man’s demeanor changed entirely at hearing Jake’s military background.

  The man gave Jake’s hand a firm shake. “Tom Jackson. US Marines.”

  Jake dropped Tom’s hand. “I meant what I said. Fellow military man or not, you talk to her like that again, I’ll kill you.”

  The man held Jake’s glare for a moment. Then he softened. “Won’t happen again, I was just angry. Calling all those infected over with noise was a mistake.”

  “We understand that now. What else do you know?”

  “This house isn’t safe. They’ll come through the windows. How come all of you aren’t infected?”

  Jake looked around. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  “Don’t know. Was hoping to find someone who did.”

  Jake motioned toward the pack on Tom’s back. “What’s in the sack?”

  “Food, water . . . medicine.”

  “That’s why you’re not infected. You’re on Beritrix, aren’t you?”

  Tom was taken aback. “How the hell did you know that?”

  “It’s the same reason we haven’t caught it yet.”

  “I’ll be damned. The problem I’ve had my entire life saved me?”

  “Looks that way.” Jake turned to Jess, who was still consoling the girl, and asked the girl the same question. “Are you on Beritrix too?”

  The girl let go of Jess, dried her eyes, and shook her head. “I’m not on any medicine.”

  Tyler instinctively took a step back.

  Tom said, “Maybe she should go back outside.”

  Jake shot him a look.

  The girl began to cry again. “No, please don’t send me back out there!”

  Jess hugged her as she gave Tom a death stare. “You aren’t going anywhere, sweetheart.”

  “Tom might be right, Jess.” Tyler sounded worried. “What if she . . . turns?”

  The girl’s face was wet with tears. “No! Please! I feel fine. Please don’t make me leave!”

  Jake wasn’t sure what to say. Tom and Tyler had every right to be worried, but he couldn’t send the poor girl to her death. “It’s okay, you’re not going anywhere. What’s your name?”

  “Amy.”

  “How’d you get here, Amy?”

  “I live just three doors down. My parents had me trapped in my room. I noticed them acting weird and then . . .” She started to cry again and couldn’t finish.

  Jess said, “It’s okay, Amy. You’re all right now. How long were you trapped?”

  “Since this morning.”

  “That must have been scary. So your parents are like those things out there?”

  Amy nodded, then pointed at Tyler. “I crawled out the window when I saw him standing on the car. I know it was dumb, but my own parents were trying to kill me.”

  “It wasn’t dumb,” Jake said.

  “Thank you for saving me.”

  Amy broke Jessica’s hug, ran over, and wrapped her arms around Jake. Jake wasn’t used to affection from a teenager, so he didn’t really know how to react. He looked up and Jess motioned for him to hug her. He gave a one-armed squeeze and patted her on the back. Jess stepped in.

  “Let’s get you some water, sweetheart. You must be thirsty. I’ll put this medicine in the refrigerator.”

  Jake looked at Tyler. “You managed to get the Beritrix?”

  Tyler looked proud. “Well yeah, tucked it all in my pockets when I saw them coming. That’s why I got trapped on the roof.”

  “Good, so you aren’t a total liability.”

  Tyler raised his middle finger.

  Jess rolled her eyes and led Amy away to the kitchen.

  “So how do we know she won’t turn and infect us all?” Tom asked.

  “We can’t know for sure,” Jake said. “But in Syria the men exposed to the infected became sick in a matter of minutes. So there must be something we don’t know about her that is keeping her from becoming infected. She was in the house with her infected parents all day. If she were going to become infected, I think she would have already. Maybe something other than taking Beritrix can keep people from getting sick.”

  “Well, I sure as hell ain’t a doctor, so I’ll be keeping my eye on her,” Tom said.

  Jake thought of Emily in Washington. “We need to get her to someone who can run some tests. Maybe something about her can help us find a cure.”

  Tom slid the pack off his back. “You said you were in Syria around this? What else do you know?”

  “No more than you unfortunately. Except that our military is supposedly gone, and we are on our own. I have a contact in Washington who is with the president. They’re working on it, but it doesn’t look good. Maybe Amy, if she doesn’t get infected, can help shed some light on a cure. Or at least on a vaccine. That is, if there are any survivors by the time we get there.”

  “That’s a big if,” Tyler said. “What are we going to do now?”

  “This whole damn situation is a big if,” Jake said. “Our only strategy now is to survive the night. Then we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

  Right on cue, something shattered in the kitchen, and then they heard Amy scream.

  8

  Jake ran down the hall and into the kitchen with his axe at the ready. He fully expected to see one of those things climbing through the window, clawing at Jess and Amy. For the first time all day, he was pleasantly surprised when all he found was a glass jar broken on the floor.

  Jake sighed. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  Jess looked up from where she was cleaning up the mess on the floor. “Sorry, my hands are still a little shaky.”

  Jake nodded.

  His relief was short-lived.

  Crash!

  A window shattered in another room of the house. Amy screamed once again, and Jake darted toward the hallway.

  “We’ve got company!” Tom shouted from the living room.

  Jake rounded the corner in time to watch Tom drive a Bowie knife through the throat of the infected who’d gotten stuck in the windowpane. He ran to the window beside it, pulled back the shade, and nearly fell backward in shock when he took in the sea of infected that was now gathered outside the house. In the glow of the porch light, he was able to count dozens of heads. They were being drawn like moths to a flame.

  “The lights,” Jake whispered unconsciously.

  “What?” Tyler said.

  Louder this time, he said. “The lights, they’re drawn to the lights. Shut them off, all of them!”

  Jake pulled the shade cl
osed. Tyler hit the porch light and the living room light. They were plunged in darkness.

  “What do you mean they, Jake?” Tyler whispered. “How many of them are there?”

  Jake stopped Tyler in his tracks, and in what little light glowed from the kitchen, he gave Tyler a look that frightened him. “Too many to count.”

  If Jake could have seen the color in Tyler’s face, he would have been able to watch it drain completely.

  Jake’s military instincts kicked in, and he took command of the situation. He had to see if the infected were encroaching on the back of the house like they were the front. If so, Jake and his friends were in serious trouble.

  “Tyler, you take Tom to the basement and gear up. Tom, grab everything we need for a fight. A long one. I’ll be down in a second. Go!”

  Another window crashed to the floor in the living room. Jake ran down the hall and into the kitchen, past Jess and Amy to the French doors that led out to the back deck.

  “Jake, what’s going on? Is everything all right?”

  Jake couldn’t answer. His words were stolen by the blank face staring at him in the back-door window. The soulless black eyes of another infected man stared back at him. Multiple infected were gathering behind them. They were trapped.

  “Jake!”

  Jake turned and ran for the cupboard on the opposite wall. He grabbed the insulated cooler bag, turned, and handed it to Jess.

  “We’re trapped. The lights are attracting them.” He flipped the switch on the wall and the room went dark. He pulled out his phone and used the screen as a soft flashlight. “I need you to do everything I say, and do it right now. No improvising.”

  Jess didn’t question him; she took the cooler by the shoulder strap and grabbed Amy by the hand.

  Jake continued, “Get the Beritrix out of the fridge then put it in the cooler filled with ice. Keep all the lights off and don’t make a sound. Head upstairs and get up in the attic. Don’t make any stops in between. Pull the door up behind you. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

  Jake walked over to the doorway. “And Jess . . . hurry.”