Zommunist Invasion Box Set | Books 1-3

by Picott, Camille

  Stephenson and Amanda followed her, both of them talking at the same time. Cassie tuned them out and hopped up onto the bed. Black knight to f6. White knight to c3.

  Bracing one foot on the headboard of Amanda’s bed, she rammed the broom handle upward. The sheetrock shuddered and sent down a fine spray of white. Thank God the ceiling in here wasn’t the same knotty pine wood they had in the kitchen and living room.

  “Cassie?” Amanda said. “What are you doing?”

  Black bishop to c5. White knight to d5.

  Cassie braced her feet and went to town. She had to look down to keep sheetrock powder from getting into her eyes. She kept slamming the broom handle into the ceiling until she had a decent sized hole.

  “Stephenson, go get one of the ladder-back chairs from the kitchen.” Cassie shifted and began to widen the hole, battering another section of the sheetrock.

  Stephenson blinked at her from behind his glasses before dashing out into the kitchen. Amanda had slumped to the floor and was quietly crying again. The sound of Mrs. Nielson echoed through the house as she beat at the door. Mr. Nielson was silent.

  When Stephenson returned, Cassie took the chair from him. She wedged the back legs against the mattress and rested the top of the ladder back against the wall. It was ridiculously precarious, but it wasn’t like the Neilsons kept ladders inside their tiny house.

  Cassie tested the chair before climbing up. It sank into the mattress under her weight. Amanda watched the operation with red-rimmed eyes. Stephenson chewed his bottom lip, looking torn between wanting to catch Cassie if she fell and wanting to get out of the way.

  Cassie pulled herself into the attic, scrambling onto a support beam as the sheetrock bowed beneath her weight. Once she had a secure seat on the beam, she used the heel of her Vans to smash the sheetrock beside her.

  Within minutes, she had a wide opening with direct access to the support beam. She poked her head down to look at her friends.

  “We can’t stay in this house,” she said. “No one is coming to save us. Sooner or later, one of the doors or windows are going to get smashed open. If we want to live, we have to save ourselves.”

  Amanda’s head thunked back against the wall. Stephenson licked his lips.

  “You guys are going to climb into the attic. There are only two ways out of here: through the vent at the front of the house, or the vent at the back of the house. The front vent is the best choice because we can get onto the porch roof. It won’t be as far down to the ground that way.”

  Cassie secretly only gave them a fifty-percent chance of survival. Chess kids weren’t made for situations like this. Football players or wrestlers, yes, but not chess nerds.

  “What about the infected outside?” Stephenson whispered.

  This was the part of the plan Cassie dreaded the most, though she hadn’t come up with a better plan in the ten minutes it had taken her to break into the attic.

  “I’m going to let them in through the back door.”

  Her friends stared at her as though she’d lost her mind.

  “What?” Amanda said, right as Stephenson said, “Are you nuts?”

  “This is a chess sacrifice,” Cassie said. Putting it in terms of the game would make it easier for them to understand. “We give up a valuable piece for checkmate. Or in this case, we give up the house to get the Gremlin.”

  The Gremlin. That was the Nielsons’ nickname for the family car. It was an old brown Pontiac with peeling paint that looked like Gremlin fur when seen from a distance.

  “Um, you really can’t compare the Gremlin to a king,” Stephenson said. “I’m pretty sure a king outranks the Gremlin.”

  “You do recall that none of us has a driver’s license, right?” Amanda said.

  “But we all took driver’s ed,” Cassie argued. “We know the left foot is the clutch and the right foot is for the break and the accelerator. Other than that, we just have to steer.”

  “If it was that easy, they wouldn’t require us to take a test and get a license,” Stephenson pointed out.

  “Do either of you have any better idea?” Cassie snapped. She forced herself to moderate her tone. In truth, she was just as scared as they were. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. This is the best idea I’ve come up with. Are you guys in, or do you have a better plan?” She would be thrilled if someone had a better plan.

  Amanda swallowed and dried her eyes on her sleeve. “You’re right, Cassie. We can’t stay here. Just give me a minute to say goodbye to my dad.”

  Cassie didn’t think that was such a good idea. Talking through the door would just rile up Mrs. Nielson. But if it was her father, she’d say goodbye no matter the risk.

  While they waited for Amanda to say goodbye, Cassie went through the house in search of anything that might prove useful in their escape. She grabbed a kitchen knife and slid it into her belt. There was a small selection of tools in the kitchen junk drawer: two screwdrivers, a socket wrench, and two regular wrenches. Cassie grabbed them all. They’d make decent weapons if it came to that. Not that she gave herself or her friends good odds at surviving a one-on-one encounter with a zombie.

  Stephenson came into the kitchen with his baseball cap and school backpack.

  “Are you really going to run for your life with your school books?” she asked.

  “Heck yeah,” he said. “What if I need something out of one of them?”

  “How is a calculous book going to help us?”

  “There’s information in here we might be able to use.” Stephenson patted his backpack. “Brains are our best defense.”

  Since Cassie has come to the same conclusion, she didn’t argue the point. “Here, pick your weapons.” She dumped everything she’d collected onto the kitchen table and went to retrieve her backpack.

  She decided to keep her travel chess set, a birthday gift from Stephenson and Amanda. Everything else she left stacked on the table. She wouldn’t cry if she never had to crack open a literature book again.

  “Here are the Gremlin keys,” Stephenson said when she returned to the kitchen.

  “Good. You’re in charge of driving.”

  “Me?” Stephenson gaped at her. “You know I sucked at driving. I think my teacher almost wet himself when I accidentally ran a red light.”

  “I’d bank on a guy who runs red lights when we’re trying to escape infected.”

  “And Russians. Don’t forget Russians.”

  Cassie had nothing else to say to that. The desperation of their situation pressed in on her from all sides.

  Not for the first time, she wondered what had happened to Jennifer. Her older sister was supposed to pick her up the day the Russians attacked. Cassie had spent too much time staring out the window at the driveway, hoping to see Jennifer drive up.

  That was before they’d hung blankets over all the windows. She refused to imagine all the awful things that may have happened to her sister. Since there was no way to know for sure, Cassie decided it was perfectly acceptable to fill in the blanks in a way that made her feel better. Therefore, she had decided Jennifer had been running late to pick her up and was still home when the invasion happened. She was with their parents in their house back in Bastopol, safely hidden from Russians and infected.

  “Cassie?” Amanda entered the kitchen. She had her Converse on and a backpack over one shoulder. “Where are we going to go? When we get away, I mean? Based on what Dal said in his two broadcasts, it’s not safe to go into any of the towns.”

  Cassie had been mulling over this question. Amanda was right. They had to avoid all towns until they had more information.

  “I—I don’t know,” she said at last. “I don’t know where it’s safe.”

  They all looked at one another. Cassie felt like she was failing them. She was always three to five moves ahead. All good chess players were. But in this instance, Cassie couldn’t see the board. She couldn’t plan.

  “It’s okay.” Amanda gave her brave smile. “If we
make it to the car, we can wing it from there.”

  Cassie wanted to laugh, but was too stressed. Amanda was known for winging it in her chess games. She didn’t strategize like Stephenson and Cassie did. Sometimes it paid off for her in fabulous, unexpected ways. Other times, it cost her the game.

  “Okay, you two get into the attic and open the air vent over the front porch. I’ll draw the infected around to the back of the house and let them inside. While they’re preoccupied with trying to get us out of the ceiling, we’ll slip out the front and make our getaway in the Gremlin.”

  Amanda and Stephenson nodded at her solemnly.

  This plan would look much more plausible if they were all jocks. For three chess geeks, it sounded like a suicide mission.

  4

  Sneak Attack

  Leo positioned himself behind a large tree and counted the enemy below. Six Russians with dart guns, plus another twelve with machine guns keeping watch over the prisoners. Eighteen Russians against the four of them.

  Bad odds. The thought skittered through his brain. If this was a football game, he wouldn’t bet on them. All they had was the element of surprise.

  It would have to be enough.

  Leo sighted on the first of his targets, a Soviet with a dart gun. He pulled the trigger without hesitation. His shot rang out, echoing through the trees. As soon as his first target dropped, he sighted on the next communist bastard with a dart gun. The invader fell as Leo fired a second time. Bombs whistled out of the trees as Jennifer and Anton attacked.

  In the breath it took him to shift his sights to the third target, the Russian grabbed a prisoner. Leo recognized the prisoner. It was Alex, a guy he’d gone to school with. The tall, wiry basketball player was a year behind Leo. The Russian had likely grabbed him because he looked skinny and weak.

  He was wrong about the weak part. Basketball was a rough sport. Alex elbowed the Russian in the nose so hard that blood spurted. In the chaos, he swung around decked the man in the temple.

  “Nice,” Leo murmured. As Alex stepped back, Leo fired.

  The Russian wouldn’t be getting up again.

  By this time, Dal had successfully taken out his targets. The line of Soviets with dart guns was down. Anton and Jennifer had taken out two of the jeeps with Nonna’s bombs.

  Pandemonium had broken out among the people. A few of them dashed forward to grab weapons from the downed soldiers. Some Russians fired into the trees, while others tried to maintain control of the prisoners.

  One of the Soviets swung around and took aim at the trees. The bastard had a rocket launcher.

  Before Leo could react, the missile slammed into the hillside above him. Rock and dirt and trees spewed outward.

  Shit! He covered his head with his hands, scrunching down as debris slammed into him.

  Gunfire was a burning rattle in his ears. He peered around his tree just in time to see a perfectly thrown homemade bomb arc out from the trees. It landed at the feet of the asshole with the rocket launcher and exploded.

  Anton. Leo spotted him through the trees. Jennifer crouched by his side, lighting bombs and passing them to him. His little brother unleashed a relentless attack on the vehicles, cutting off all forms of escape.

  The Russians and civilians scattered as bombs rained down. People screamed. Guns fired. Dal burst onto the scene below him, charging like a maniac into the melee.

  Leo tore down the hillside, slipping and sliding in the dirt and loose debris. As he ran, a series of explosions tore through the now-empty trucks. Leo felt a rush of adrenaline a hundred times more powerful than anything he’d ever felt on the football field. He roared in wordless satisfaction as Anton and Jennifer rained down hellfire.

  Leo burst out of the trees and joined Dal in the fight. Alex and over a dozen other prisoners fought with Dal. They’d taken guns and now fired back at the Russians, who’d fallen back to take cover behind a wrecked jeep. There were bodies everywhere, both American and Russian. The rest of the living prisoners had fled, running for their lives in all directions.

  “Over here!” Leo grabbed Alex by the collar and hauled him toward the bombed remains of a truck.

  “Leo?” Alex gaped at him. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Saving your ass.” He shoved Alex behind the cover of the truck, waving for the others to follow.

  “Stay down,” Leo ordered.

  “What are you doing?” Dal asked, peering around the truck to fire at the Russians.

  Another rocket launcher sped toward the hillside where Anton and Jennifer hid. Panic spiked through Leo as plants and debris spewed through the air. He had to get rid of these Soviet fuckers now.

  He pulled two of Nonna’s bombs from his jacket pocket, lit the fuse, and threw. They sailed through the air and detonated behind the jeep where the Russians hid. Leo lobbed another two for good measure, then covered his head as shrapnel rained down.

  Silence descended as the dust settled. Leo panted for breath. Every muscle in his body was tense as he anticipated return fire.

  It never came.

  “Everyone, stay down,” Leo ordered. He cautiously peeked out, peering in the direction of the jeep. Except for some burning debris, nothing moved. The only sound was that of the cicadas whining in a nearby tree.

  “Anton,” he shouted. “Jennifer!”

  “We’re okay!”

  Anton’s answering shout sent the air whooshing out of Leo’s lungs. “Thank God,” he said to himself.

  “Are they all dead?” Anton called.

  “I’m checking. Stay where you are and cover me.”

  “On it,” Anton replied. “I’ve got your back.”

  Leo picked his way through the people crouching behind the truck with him. There was Dal and Alex, his neighbor Mr. Gonzales, plus a handful of others he didn’t recognize. Seeing his fellow Americans clutching Russian guns made his chest swell with pride. They may have been caught with their pants down, but they weren’t going to go quietly into the night.

  He sobered at the sight of a puckered, red wound in the neck of Mr. Gonzales. Already Leo could see a small vein of black ebbing out from the wound. His mouth went dry with anger.

  “Everyone, stay down,” he said. “Don’t move unless I give the all clear.”

  Dal gave him a tight nod. Leo slipped out from around the truck, running to the next closest vehicle. It was the truck they’d followed here.

  There were dead bodies everywhere, many of them American. Blood stained the road, running in rivulets through the gravel.

  A shot cracked across the road. Leo threw himself behind the ruined remains of a second truck.

  “Clear,” Anton said. “I got him.”

  Leo remained crouched behind the rear wheel of the truck, straining his ears for any sign of the Russians. There was nothing to be heard but the whining of the cicadas.

  He knelt, lowering his head to the ground. Looking past his hiding place, he had a clear view of the jeep. The vehicle was torn to shreds from Nonna’s bombs. Glass was everywhere. A door had been ripped free and most of the interior was destroyed. The bodies he saw on the other side were motionless, but that didn’t mean they were dead.

  He crept toward the jeep, the gravel crunching under foot. His scooped up a discarded machine gun and settled it into the crook of his arm.

  He closed the distance around the jeep in a rush.

  The bodies on the other side were one-hundred percent dead. They’d been ripped to shreds by the bombs. Blood and gore was everywhere.

  Not far away were the bodies of two kids, no more than age nine or ten. Their backs were riddled with bullet holes. Leo’s jaw tightened. Dirty Soviet fuckers had no mercy.

  Growling cut through the whine of the cicadas. Leo whipped around just in time to see a group of seven zombies round a corner in the road. They were half a mile away and closing in fast.

  Thank God they were in the middle of farm country and not closer to Bastopol. With the commotion they made
attacking the Soviets, they’d have drawn the entire city of undead upon them. Not to mention Soviet reinforcements.

  Leo raised the Soviet machine gun, grateful for something to distract him from the carnage. Anton began firing from his position on the hillside. Dal joined him.

  The zombies were all down in under thirty seconds. Leo waited. This time, there were no more growls to disrupt the cicadas. But that didn’t mean there weren’t more zombies on the way. They needed to clear out of here.

  “All clear.” His voice was crisp when he spoke. “You can come out.”

  Dal and the others rose from behind the truck. Leo counted them. Seventeen in all. Of the fifty or so who had been taken captive, only seventeen remained. The rest were either dead or had fled. Of those who had had stayed to fight, several had been infected with the nezhit virus.

  As Jennifer and Anton joined them, Leo surveyed the battleground. There was a gold mine of weapons among the bodies. They would be idiots to leave them here.

  “Anton, I need you to stay behind and collect all the weapons,” Leo said. “Make sure the survivors get what they need. Load everything else onto Stealth and get them back to the cabin.”

  “What about us?” A woman stepped forward. An inch-long black vein adorned her forearm where she’d been hit with a dart. Four others clustered with her, Mr. Gonzales among them. These were the people who had been infected.

  There was no way to sugar coat this. These people deserved the truth.

  “Have any of you heard the Sniper broadcast?” Leo asked.

  To his surprise, all of them nodded. Dal’s face brightened with the knowledge his message had been received. It was a small consolation.

  “Then you know what’s happened to you,” Leo said. “You’ve been infected with the nezhit virus. When it reaches your brain, you’ll turn into a zombie. The only thing you’ll want to do is bite as many people as you can, as fast as you can. In a few hours, you’ll all be part of the Russian’s plan to wipe us out and take over American soil.”