Z Island Series (Book 1): Escape From Z Island

by Osborne, Terrence Jr.

  Sally and other workers surround Tina while others watch the news in shock. Tina continues to cry in Sally’s arms as she rubs her back and cries along with her.

  Meanwhile, Sam and Jess just got through killing an infected.

  “That’s the first one today,” Jess says.

  “Let’s hope that’s the only one,” Sam replies.

  An infected moaned behind them, but when Sam turns around, he gasped with shock and started backing up. It was a little boy screeching at them and Sam started crying to himself. Jess was shocked also, but she didn’t even look. She turned around and ran beside Sam in fear. Sam gripped his stick and walked up to the child. Its leg was broken, so it was walking instead of running. Sam knocked it down and hovered the stick above it. While hesitating, Sam closed his eyes and forced the stick down. The sound of the boy’s skull repeated in his mind as he pulled the stick out and looked away quickly.

  “He was too young! He didn’t deserve this!”

  “Who does?” Jess responds.

  “No one, but he had his whole life ahead of him. Now he won’t get a chance to have his first graduation, his first love, nothing. Now he’s just…dead.”

  “Come on. We have to keep going.”

  “Ok.”

  While walking through the tall trees, the surface starts to rumble and scares them. Jess then glimpses at something in the sky.

  “What is that?” Jess starts walking away from Sam, “Come here.”

  While walking, they both start to get closer, they noticed how large it was, and it appeared to be on the island.

  “Is that a mountain?” Sam asked.

  They finally get away from the tall trees and get a good visual on it, but it wasn’t a mountain.

  “A goddamn volcano?” Jess says.

  “Like we don’t have enough to worry about already!” Sam grunts.

  The volcano soon starts to make a low rumbling noise that shook the surface that scared Sam and Jess into backing away from it.

  “Is that thing about to erupt?” Jess asked.

  Sam looks at the volcano and starts to back up, “I think so. We have to go get the group and get as far away from this thing as we can,” Sam suggests.

  The ground begins to rumble harder and this irritates the infected, causing them to scream across the island.

  “Oh no,” Sam grabs Jess’s hand and they began to head back to the group.

  Minutes ago, Sarah is taking a watch with David. Sarah looks back at Melissa, but she was not awake.

  “She’s still not up,” she says.

  “She’ll be up in a minute,” David told her.

  “I hope so. She’s kind of making it hard for us. I mean, I care about her, but she is making it hard for us. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

  “You’ll be fine. She will be too.”

  “How can you be sure of that?”

  “I’m only sure because we have each other’s back. As long as we keep each other safe, there is no doubt we’ll survive.”

  The ground begins to rumble the first time and it causes some of their sticks to fall out of the ground. David quickly begins to pick up the sticks and Sarah helps him, but the rumbling wakes Melissa up and she screams.

  Sarah hears her and runs to shut her up, “Listen, you have to shut up before you get us killed,” she whispers to her.

  Melissa nods her head and sits beside the tree while watching David and Sarah fix the sticks. While picking up the sticks, David looks at Sarah and asks her, “What was that?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever it was, it’s not good.” Sarah replied.

  Suddenly, Melissa hears infected approaching and she gets up and runs to David and Sarah.

  “They’re here you guys!” she panics.

  David and Sarah stopped what they were doing and picked their sticks up.

  “Grab your stick Melissa, we’re going to fight them,” David says to her.

  “What, no! We run!”

  “I’m tired of running,” he says.

  As the sound of the infected draws closer, David and Sarah braces for their arrival, but Melissa slowly backs up away from them. The infected runs in from of them, but there were too many of them.

  “That’s too many!” David screams.

  “Run!” Melissa yells from a distance.

  When Sarah and David turn around, Melissa is already ahead of them running uphill. Sam and Jess appeared after Melissa, but they ran downhill.

  “Sarah!” Sam yelled.

  “Wait! Wrong way!” Sarah yelled.

  Sam looked and seen Melissa, but he ignored her and kept running.

  The infected runs to Sarah and David, but the sticks in front of them was the reason for their saving because the infected start penetrating through the sticks. Their intestines stars wrapping around the sharp ends and blood starts splattering everywhere. Sarah and David take it as an advantage and impales them in the head one by one. The infected snarls at them, but Sarah noticed how they were evolving. They were covered in many bumps, some larger than others, and their hair was disappearing. Their eyes had gotten much scarier, bringing a deeper burnt yellow color and they growled much deeper. The sight horrified Sarah.

  “Let’s go. They can’t do anything now,” she suggested.

  “Alright.”

  Sarah and David run to the other side and walks carefully between the sticks. Melissa is still there watching them, but she points to an infected that went around the sticks and headed towards them. David braces for it, but a stick flies past him and punctures the infected through its head. David turns around and Sam runs up to him and smiles.

  “You’re alive!” Sam exclaims.

  Sarah smiles and signals Melissa to come down.

  “We have to go now! It’s not safe!” Sam yells.

  “What’s wrong?” Sarah asks.

  “A volcano is about to erupt,” Jess tells them.

  “Volcano?” David questions.

  The ground rumbles, but they here a sound that sounded like an explosion.

  “Oh no,” Sam mumbled.

  “Did it just-” Jess asked.

  “We have to go, now!”

  The volcano erupts and sends its lava pouring down its side and onto the ground. The lava was flowing faster than they thought. It was extremely dangerous now. Sam and the group start running, but they seemed to be running towards the volcano, not away from it.

  Jess stops them from running, “Shit! We ran in a circle!” she shouts.

  Lava flows towards the group, forcing them to run the other way, but when they turn around, an infected appeared in front of them. Sam pushes it out of the way and Jess kills it and continues running. Other infected runs behind them, but they were caught in the lava. They started burning and died within seconds. Sam ran ahead of them, but he falls down a steep hill, but Jess stops the rest of them from falling.

  “Sam!” Sarah yells.

  Sarah tries to go help him, but Jess kept pulling her back.

  “We have to go around. He’ll live!” Jess said.

  Jess convinces Sarah to run around, but they moved quickly before they fell into the lava. Sam continues to roll down the hill, but his fall stops when he rolls against a tree and hurts his side. Sam gets up, but he tries to ignore the pain. He looks around in search of his weapon, but he spots it further away from him. When Sam picks up his weapon, an infected attacked him from behind. Sam grabs the infected by the jaw and punches it to the ground. He then steps on its throat and sends his weapon in its brain and struggles to get his weapon out of its head.

  “Come on,” he struggles.

  Lava comes flowing down the hill, coming closer to Sam. Sam gets scared, snatches the weapon out of its head, but another infected push it to the ground. This makes him drop his weapon. Sam struggles to get his weapon and reaches for it, but the lava got closer and closer to him. As the lava got closer, Sam’s skin starts to get hotter and soon it started to burn. Sam screams from the pain o
f his skin burning, so he grabs the infected and tosses it in the lava. Lava spits everywhere and a drop of it lands on Sam’s arm. Sam screams and grabs dirt from the ground and rubs the lava off him. However, it left a mark on his arm that continued to burn. The infected was not dead, however. Its skin peeled off its body as it crawled through the lava to Sam, but Sam kicks the infected back into the lava and watches as the lava devoured the infected. He picks up his weapon and continues running to find the rest of the group.

  “Jess! Sarah! David!” Sam screams.

  Sam’s scream attracts more infected, but he runs behind a tree and watches the infected run past him. Sam sighs quietly and looks around for the group, but all he sees are trees falling and infected dying by the lava. Someone hits Sam over the head and he drops his weapon again. The person picks up the weapon and Sam looks up at the person. It was Mike. He was bitten on the arm, but he stared at Sam with pure hatred.

  “Mike?” Sam surprisingly asked.

  “So, you would rather let me die, huh? Well, fuck that!”

  “Look, Mike,” Sam stood up, “A volcano erupted and it’s coming towards us now,” Sam pointed to the lava, but Mike was not reasoning with him.

  “That bitch knocked me over the head. Now, look at me. I’m bitten and it’s all her fault. So, I’ll make her suffer…by killing you!”

  Mike grabs the weapon frowning and swings at Sam, cutting his side and sending Sam backing away from Mike. Sam screams with pain, which allows Jess to figure out where he is. Sam is backing up from Mike, but Sam steps into a small hole and falls. Mike tries to stab him while he is on the ground, but Sam moves out of the way and grabs the weapon where Mike’s hand was.

  “I should have killed you!” Sam says.

  “Now you will die for your mistake.”

  Mike pushes the weapon closer to Sam’s chest, but an infected crawled behind Mike and bit him on his shoulder. Mike yells in pain, but he continued to focus on Sam. Sam knees Mike in his groin and lets the infected take care of him. Mike screams as other infected surrounds him and eats him alive, pulling his intestines out of his body, but it did not take long before the lava had consumed them all. Sam snatches the weapon back and looks down on Mike. Mike’s face became unnoticeable and he screamed in pain as he slowly looked at Sam before he gave his last breath. Sam holds his wound while he continues to run until he noticed Melissa uphill at the edge.

  “Hey!” Sam waves, but she didn’t see him. Sam waves his other hand weakly and yells again.

  “Jess!” he yells.

  Melissa looks down and sees Sam waving. Sam keeps moving to avoid the lava, but the lava began slowing down.

  “Hey, Sam’s down there!” Melissa alerts to the others.

  Sarah and David look at Sam and starts getting happy that he is alive, but Melissa sacredly looks around for infected. Sarah wanted to argue with Melissa for leaving them but now was not the time.

  “Oh God! He’s hurt!” Jess says.

  Jess looks at the lava and sees that it began to slow down.

  “Ok, good. The lava slowed down. We can get to him now.”

  “It didn’t slow down that much. We still have to hurry.” Sarah replied.

  Jess looks for a way to get down and finds a large strong vine that dangled down the cliff. Jess grabs the vine and climbs down.

  “Come on. We can get down quicker through here,” she tells them.

  Jess jumps down and rushes to Sam. Jess dropped her stick and puts his arm around her neck to help him move quickly. Sarah climbs down after Jess while Melissa rushes Sarah in her mind. Two infected runs behind Melissa and this makes Melissa freak out.

  “Hurry!” Melissa yells.

  Sarah tells her to calm down and reaches for her hand, but the infected got to her first and pushed Melissa down the cliff. This nearly caused Sarah to fall too, but Sarah manages to grab the vine in time. Melissa falls directly on her head and snaps her neck on impact. She spits out a lot of blood from her mouth as her eyes stayed open and gazed up at the sky with no life in them. Sarah screams and jumps down the vine. Sarah doesn’t know what to do. She just stares at the body. Sarah begins to think about what David mentioned earlier, but Sarah knew it would come to this eventually. She was not fit for this type of world. A world with survival. A world with the dead. Jess and Sam walked to Melissa but doesn’t bother checking if she was dead due to the pool of blood that poured from her mouth. Sarah stands over the body crying but wishes she could have done more. The other two infected were not dead, but their legs were broken. The bones stuck out of their leg, but they were dead to even know nor react to it. They reached out to the group, but Sarah kills both of them.

  “I know she wasn’t the strongest of us all, but she was worth saving. She’s been through too much to deserve this,” Sarah cries.

  “I know, but she’s in a better place now. She just didn’t go there the proper way,” Jess responds.

  Jess sits Sam down and looks at his wound, unconcerned for Melissa, “Jesus! What happened?”

  “I ran into Mike. He was Melissa’s husband, but he beat her and treated all of us like shit. Sarah and Melissa left him, but he found me.”

  “So, he did this to you?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jess pulls up his shirt and looks at the wound. It was not fatal, but it bled a lot. “Well, it’s not too deep. You’ll be fine.”

  Sarah sees Sam and takes off her shirt, but she has another undershirt under it.

  “Here.” She hands her shirt to Jess and she puts the shirt on his wound to keep it from bleeding.

  Sam grunts as she laid the shirt on his wound and he stood up, holding the shirt,

  “We have to keep going. The lava slowed down, so we’re good now,” he said.

  “Are you sure? You’re hurt.” Jess asked.

  “I’ll be fine. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “Yes, but it could get infected.”

  “So, we better get moving.”

  The group begins to leave and Sarah glances at Melissa’s body one last time before heading back with them, but she suddenly stops and calls Sam.

  “Wait!” she says. Sam and the others turn around and look at her.

  “What’s wrong?” Sam asked.

  “Has anybody else noticed David’s gone?”

  Sam then looks around, “Shit! Where is he?”

  Back in New York, Tina is in her bedroom pacing back and forth figuring out what to do.

  She flops down on her bed and starts crying, “Please God. Make sure my boy’s okay! Please!”

  Her doorbell rings and she proceeds downstairs. When she walked up to the door, she looked out and noticed that it was her neighbor Beth. She opens the door and Beth immediately hugs her.

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  Tina hugs her back and starts crying. Beth lifts her off her shoulder and closes the door.

  “I came over as soon as I heard. That’s horrible.”

  “I’m trying to cope with it, but it’s hard. I lost my husband and my son like that!” she screams, “I can’t lose Sam too. I just can’t.”

  “I know what you’re going through. I know what it’s like to lose someone you care about, but you can’t just sit here and cry about it,” Beth rolls up her sleeve and showed Tina her marks that stretched across her wrists, “It won’t get you anywhere.”

  Tina gasped at the marks on Beth's arm and she began to speak, but Beth pulls her sleeve down and backed up.

  Tina walks into the living room and sits on the couch. Beth follows her and sits next to her while turning on the television. As soon as they turned on the television, a breaking news report interrupted their channel.

  “Breaking news!” the female reporter said, “There have been several reports of an unknown virus that has spread across New York. Police officials have stated that they don’t know what did it, but they are sure there is someone responsible. We now go live to-”

  In the news station, someone starts yelling
and the female reporter starts screaming. Tina and Beth are starting to worry as they watched and listened to what was happening. The female reporter jumps up, but she suddenly was shot in the head and blood spatters all over the screen behind her. Tina and Beth screamed when they saw the woman die. A man walks in front of the camera and smiles,

  “Well. Sorry for the interruption, but we have some exciting news for you. You all will face your fears today, for we have come to save you all from this treacherous world. Right now, all over the world, there are many groups with this container,” the man pointed the container at the camera and rotated it until the letter ‘Z’ appeared.

  “And you would not believe what’s in this container! You know what ‘Z’ means? It means ‘Zombie’! Project ‘Zombie’ will now go viral!”

  The signal goes out and Tina and Beth sit there in shock, but Beth turns off the television.

  “What the hell was that?” Beth screamed.

  “We’re being attacked!”

  “By what? Terrorists?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Tina gets up and runs to her room. Beth stares at Tina running upstairs and follows her. Tina goes into her room and into her closet, pulling out a pistol and turns around, but Beth is standing in front of her in shock.

  “What are you doing?” Beth asked her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why do you have a gun?”

  “I don’t know if you noticed, but there are people threatening us and I’m protecting myself,” Tina explained.

  “We don’t know if it will come to this.”

  “But it will, whether we like it or not.”

  Tina bypasses her, walks downstairs, and grabs her keys off the counter in the kitchen.

  “I’m getting out of this city. Are you coming with me or not?” Tina asked.

  “Yes, but I have to check on my husband. He just got back from work. He was probably out there when it happened.”

  Beth runs outside to her house to go check on her husband and Tina walks to the car, but when she looks up in the air, an airplane was crashing down. The plane flew over Tina and she gasped while she watched the plane crash near them a couple of blocks away. The explosion roared throughout the whole neighborhood with red smoke coming out of it instead of the normal colored smoke and screams echoed in the distance. Tina yells at Beth to hurry up, but she didn’t see Beth.