by Lisa Acerbo
Apocalipstick
Hell in a Handbag
Lisa Acerbo
Also by Lisa Acerbo
Hell in a Handbag series
Apocalipstick
COMING SOON:
Blush of Death
Liquid Foundation
Blurb
Life is bad after the apocalypse . . . the undead just made it worse.
“My dreams pre-pandemic included a high school graduation party before attending college and marrying an attractive future lawyer. Instead, I'm praying for a long, sharp knife and a big gun to survive the undead.” —Jenna
Jenna Martin lives in a world gone insane after a mysterious pandemic kills much of the population. Being alive after an apocalypse is bad, but it is made worse when the multitudes killed by the disease return ravenous for human flesh. Jenna, in serious trouble and pursued by undead, heads to the safest place available, a cemetery.
Ready to give up, she finds the strength to persevere for one more night and meets a group of survivors willing to take her in. The group caravans to Virginia, where they plan to inhabit an isolated inn called High Point, but the undead are always close behind. Packs of zombies, known as Streakers, attack, leaving Jenna and the other survivors battling for their lives and racing toward safety.
Once safely isolated at the inn, the group rebuilds society and Jenna begins a relationship with Caleb. Although he withstood the virus, he has not come out unscathed. He and some others now labeled the New Rave have changed into what many would call zombie kin—vampires.
Jenna's falls hard and fast for Caleb, which causes more problems than she ever expected in the fledgling society. But there are worse things than vampires and zombies searching for her, and they arrive at the inn's door ready for destruction.
To my daughter, Dominique.
Thanks to everyone on the DLG Publishing Partners team who helped me so much. Special thanks to Michelle, the ever patient editor and the amazing cover designer, Wren Taylor.
APOCALIPSTICK
HELL IN A HANDBAG
COPYRIGHT©2021
Lisa Acerbo
Cover Design by Wren Taylor
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
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Published in the United States of America by:
DLG Publishing Partners
PO Box 17674
San Antonio, TX 78217
www.DLGPublishingPartners.com
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Sneak Peek of Book 2
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
About the Author
Prologue
The world was upside down and this boneyard a sanctuary—a flimsy metal barrier protection. Evil roamed the streets.
When the world had been normal, a cemetery was a place to avoid, Jenna thought as she scaled the fence, Now it’s my haven thanks to this locked gate. I’ll take the small pleasure these days, she reminded herself.
The oversized, mud-encrusted camouflage jacket she wore—fouled by stains of death—caught in the spokes and she teetered for a moment on top.
Her body seesawed before the crash, ground reverberating upon her hard landing.
A groan exited chapped lips. She bent and traced her already swelling ankle with dirt-stained fingers. Rolling it back and forth, the sad realization formed that survival had become a little more complicated.
With the first step, a sharp inhale stung her lungs before she huffed out the breath and limped into the hushed graveyard.
Pain be damned.
The overgrown, bleached-by-the-sun grass crunched under each footfall. She’d never been so thankful the residents here died well before the coming of the pandemic.
Fallen headstones separated her from the crypt. A blinding sun against the horizon made it swim in her vision. Her ratty backpack itched aching shoulders and caused drops of sweat to roll down her back. She tugged the backpack close feeling for the container nestled within. That box was her motivation to lurch forward.
She studied the graves stretching before her in every direction.
“By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes . . .” Shakespeare unit in English class. A remnant of a life full of family, friends, and school long ago.
Gone. All gone. But they would come. Always did.
Three days searching for a safer place. Little sleep and less food. Sanctuaries few and far between.
The angels adorning the dead called to her.
Would she join their ranks, or would her fate be that of so many unfortunates?
Her scarred hand embraced the rough stone. Fingers roamed over the carved name.
“James Smith.”
Was he really dead? Why not join him? Lie down, Give up. End it. Time to die. Words bounced like cannon balls and demanded reaction.
A scream formed, but Jenna swallowed it, jerking lank and greasy hair off her neck. The mocha brown tresses had once been a source of joy and pride. Now they were one more problem without a band to keep them out of her eyes. Finding an elastic, locating anything useful these days had become damn near impossible.
Don’t despair. A promise to her mom when she was a teen. That was three years ago but seemed like a lifetime.
Wanting to live, Jenna hobbled onward.
A mass exodus of birds flying overhead and a flurry of leaves behind her, had her picking up the pace. Heavy heart ramming against her ribs, fear made instinct erupt and Jenna ran. And she didn’t stop until stomach cramping, bile filled her throat.
Able to finally see past the mausoleum she’d first spotted, a small shack nestled behind it. Although a mishmash of stone and wood, it was enough, and she wouldn’t have to bed with the dead as she would in the tomb. Jenna approached, tugging on the door, but it remained locked and sturdy even though the metal roof was pocked and rusted.
Skulking towards the side of the building, her hand shimmied across the wooden casing of a window. She reached to push it open only to have shards of broken glass decorate her coat sleeve. With
the thrust of an elbow, Jenna knocked out the remaining glass.
She cleared the remaining slivers with her backpack before launching it through the empty frame and into the murky interior. Biceps screaming, she hauled herself up, belly pressing tight against the wood before she flopped inside like a dying fish.
Once nestled on the floor, tempted to rest, she focused on finding anything useful. It was the practical thing to do to keep the fear at bay.
A rusted wrench, hoe, and shovel sat propped in a corner along with discarded can of beans and a forlorn granola bar wrapper. The tools would make good weapons but were too bulky to haul all together. A salvage job. The wrench would work. The handle of the shovel could be dislodged from the base.
In addition to the tools, Jenna found a few matches near the charred remains of a fire littering the back wall. She hunkered down, shovel in hand, and began to ply the handle apart from the base. There was no telling how soon evil would arrive. Once her task was complete, she curled herself into a corner and fell asleep.
When she woke her vision filled with red. There was no time to scream.
1
8 months later . . .
Jenna propped herself against the ledge of the roof and huffed a breath. She’d completed her daily regime of jumping jacks, push-ups, squats, as well as some hand-to-hand practice.
A girl could never let her guard down.
She studied the landscape from the red brick, two-story building that had been home for the last two weeks. A large field and playground dominated the side, grass overgrown, a battered swing set in pieces on the ground. One main street in front of the building led into Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a former manufacturing community. Across the lane, empty homes with cracked windows, peeling paint, and boarded doors. The elevated roof of the two-story building on which she stood provided a clear view of the area and the small city would hopefully provide supplies and resources desperately needed.
She yawned with boredom and scanned the street. Her eyes narrowed and her hand rose to shield them from the early morning glare of sun.
Like the trickling of a slow, muddy sewer on the side of a ditch, movement caught her eye.
“Streakers!” The scream scorched her throat.
The undead limped from the shadows. Bodies shuffled in and out of the heavy air, numbers hidden by the haze of heat. A corpse turned the corner of a nearby building, stepping into sight. Arm missing, the monster lurched forward. Mottled with decay, the dead woman wore a rash of pale gray skin. A few clumps of rot sprouted like mushrooms along its scalp.
The Streakers were broken and twisted, catatonic, but staggering along the road. One had all his limbs attached, but its face seeped off the skull like pus. An eye dangled by its nose.
“Streakers.” Jenna’s scream clanked and pinged around the roof like a pinball machine.
Ford, an agile middle-aged man who somehow managed to maintain a small paunch belly despite the end of the world, ran over and put a hand on her back, scooting close. “They found us?”
The teen twins, Eric and Billy, skidded to a halt at the ledge next to Jenna, leaning over to observe.
“They’re an ugly lot,” said Billy. He turned to his twin, playfully punching his rail-thin brother on the shoulder.
“You’re an ugly lot, and the two of you need to take this more seriously.” Jenna smiled at the tall, tow-headed boy to take the sting out of her remark.
Eric shifted position to protect his arm from further brotherly abuse and turned his blue eyes on Ford. “Can we fight today?”
The older man tilted his bald head and squinted. “They just came into sight. We don’t have a strategy yet, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. We might pick up and go.”
Billy pushed long, unruly bangs out of his eyes. “Sucks that.” He peered at Jenna. “Put in a good word for us.”
“Maybe. No promises. What do I get if I do? I’m not nice for nothing.”
Billy and Eric exchanged glances.
Jenna chuckled, pushing away their awkwardness and surveyed the sidewalks and roadways, watching the zombie parade for a minute before pointing a gun at a desiccated corpse that had separated itself from the herd like a lost cow. The blast pounded. One of the monsters exploded, remnants flying into the air.
It was a callous joke by the survivors, calling the undead Streakers after the people who used to get naked and run through public spaces for protest or prank, especially because these creatures hobbled, shambled, and trod. The world no longer made sense, so why should their name.
“It’s been nice to have the quiet. Guess that’s over.” Ford frowned into the horizon. “I was beginning to hope they wouldn’t find us but here they are.”
“Never hope.” Jenna didn’t take her eyes off the Streakers in the street.
Ford raised a hand to the sky like an actor on stage. “The sweet morning silence and quiet bird songs rang like symphonies. And yet you call the mumbling evil masses to us by shooting one.”
“You are a poet, Ford. You should write that down.” Jenna’s green eyes turned hard. “Don’t lecture me on using the gun. If they are this close, they’ve detected us already. I helped establish how many are around by taking one out and drawing them here. No lectures from you, old man.”
The twins pushed away from the building ledge in unison, and one of them muttered from behind her. “The undead always find us. It doesn’t matter what we do to keep them away or how quiet we try to be.”
She couldn’t tell who said it, they sounded so similar.
Jenna cocked her shotgun, aimed, but didn’t fire. “We try our best but what will be will be.”
More Streakers stumbled into sight, hugging the building, clawing at the windows and exterior walls. They’d find a way in, always did even if it took weeks.
She hoisted the gun resting on the roof ledge. “I’m going to get a plan in motion.” Nodding at Ford and the twins, Jenna departed, heading downstairs.
Streakers threw humans into panicked action. Caleb’s response would be different.
As if reading her mind, he met her in a dark pocket of the corridor.
“You don’t need to warn anyone. The New Racers heard you shout from the roof and filled in the humans.”
Jenna, as always when she saw him, squinted to ensure he was real.
A member of the New Race, he was an anomaly caused by the pandemic—strong in a time when humanity scurried like dirty vermin on a dying planet. And beautiful. He was so damn lovely. While the New Race were intoxicating, Jenna had serious concerns about their disposition, having stepped closer to the Streakers in nature if not in appearance.
With midnight black, shoulder length hair and unblemished, pale skin, Caleb radiated a movie-star persona, but those eyes.
Who has red eyes? What else has changed with the New Race? They can’t read minds, can they? You’ve lived with them for four month so no. You’d know by now. Shouldn’t be contemplating this just in case. Think about anything else. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
She began to list the weapons needed to fight the undead. “I’ll get ready.” Jenna hurried away.
Exchanging the shotgun for a semi-automatic pistol from a stash of weapons, she checked to ensure it was ready and full of ammo.
Caleb inched close. “Good?”
A shiver itched her back. “Yes.” The grumbled word escaped her lips, then she turned. “As good as a girl can get with Streakers beating down her door asking for a dinner date.”
“You might want a bigger gun.” The smile made him no less intimidating or more human.
“Not if we’re inside. This one is accurate in small spaces.”
He watched her, unblinking. His eyes spiraled into liquid pools of blood.
Creepy. Hate when that happens. Is he full of a dark hunger like the other humans say? How can there be an understanding between the races? Stop thinking about this.
He signaled them forward with a wave of his hand. Without the aid of lights, the darkened corri
dors of the former school were labyrinths.
She rounded the corner, and the crunch of glass bloomed loud underfoot.
“Keep it down,” he joked.
It didn’t matter if the Streakers heard them downstairs. The monsters would make their way inside no matter what, but her pride was injured.
Who was he to chastise her even jokingly? She shook her escalating emotions away. Fighting the undead did that. She needed to focus before the battle. Can’t blame him for the differences. I’m sure the freaking New Racers lost their social skills along with their humanity. They can’t be all bad, right?
Memories of the day in the graveyard when Caleb found her surfaced.
After long, fear-filled hours waiting for Streakers to attack, sleep had inched in and formed a cocoon around her.
Dead to the world, the fire burned to embers. In the smoky darkness, those intense, red eyes had been her awakening. A demon, she believed, had risen to claim her soul. When other voices encircled her, she’d brandished the knife nestled in the coat pocket.
Ford had knelt next to her, a gentle hand on her arm. He told her he was part of a group of sixteen people trying to find a place to settle. Water and food were offered. She’d joined them and they’d become her family, coexisting with the New Race, although at times tenuously. The pandemic that run amuck, bound humans and the New Race together for a chance at survival.
