Apocalypse Cowboy: Futuristic Romance with Zombies
Read Apocalypse Cowboy: Futuristic Romance with Zombies Online
Authors: Eve Langlais
Copyright © 1
st
Edition, August 2010, Eve Langlais
Copyright © 2
nd
Edition February 2015, Eve Langlais
Cover Art by Willsin Rowe © March 2015
Edited by Devin Govaere
Copy Edited by Amanda L. Pederick
Produced in Canada
Published by Eve Langlais
1606 Main Street, PO Box 151
Stittsville, Ontario, Canada, K2S1A3
ISBN: 978 1927 459 69 0
Apocalypse Cowboy
is a work of fiction and the characters, events and dialogue found within the story are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, either living or deceased, is completely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or shared in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to digital copying, file sharing, audio recording, email and printing without permission in writing from the author.
Author’s Note:
Apocalypse Cowboy
was originally published by Cobblestone Press from October 20
th
, 2010, until May 8
th
, 2014. Published anew in April 2015 by Eve Langlais, this book has been expanded from its original version of 26,000 words to 38,500 and features a new cover—plus zombies. Enjoy
~Eve
Humanity ended with a sneeze but rekindled with a kiss.
It figured that the last man on earth would be the one who broke her heart.
The world died practically overnight, leaving behind sparse pockets of survivors, who must learn to live without electricity, internet, cable, or grocery stores.
When it came to survival, it was kill or be killed. And the most important rule of all; don’t let the
zombies
catch you.
When Brody rides off into the sunset, with grandiose dreams, he leaves behind not just his small town but also his first love. But the hopes he had of making it big are shattered when a deadly virus hits, and those who survive return as zombies to hunt the immune. Lonely in this new reality, he finds himself drawn back to his hometown and rediscovers the woman he left behind.
Hannah never thought the expression, “Not if you were the last man on earth” would ever come back to haunt her, but when the world’s population is decimated by a deadly virus, she regrets her words, especially when Brody comes riding back into her life. A very alive Brody who reminds her she’s not just a survivor but also a woman.
Eking out an existence in this new world is hard. Forgiving the blunders of the past sometimes harder.
Against all odds, Brody and Hannah survived the plague and have prevailed against the undead, but will their stubborn nature still tear them apart?
Bang
.
The single shot hit her target and blew its head apart.
See a zombie, kill a zombie. It was a lesson she learned the hard way. She had the scar on her arm as a reminder.
Hesitation could kill, which was why she barely flinched now when she ran into one of the shambling ruins that once called itself human. Compassion was misplaced when it came to these violent creatures. In her mind, she was doing them a favor by killing them, even if it meant dealing with messy splatter. Another lesson learned? Blood washed away with cold water.
Before you wondered what strange magic had invaded the world and saw the dead walking, she should mention that the zombies she killed weren’t the undead of film and television. They were, ironically enough, survivors, poor unlucky souls. If they weren’t blessed enough to die after catching the virus, they changed. And not for the better. They still lived and breathed, but all traces of their humanity vanished—along with their ability to bathe, reason, and realize that humans weren’t on the menu.
Unlike media claims, their bite couldn’t infect. Those meant to catch the virus caught it and either died or turned zombie. Those immune remained immune, even if chomped on or scratched. It didn’t make the experience any more pleasant.
How had the world come to this?
Hannah speculated the end of world had started with a sneeze. Kind of like the butterfly effect people talked about, except this one killed off most of the human population.
With a clarity she wished she could scrub away, she even remembered the moment it began. She’d sat down to dinner with her sister and uncle in the living room—their habit since the death of her parents in a car crash—when the news came on. The announcer, in a grave tone, spoke of a new epidemic that had broken out.
Hannah barely listened to the report. After the previous year’s overrated flu scare, she put little stock in what the media sensationalized for ratings. The WHO—the World Health Organization, always one to hog attention—immediately clamored to any news source that would listen. They claimed the world was about to experience a deadly pandemic, but kind of like the boy who cried wolf, people scoffed, no longer believing the officials after seeing their previous panic about a virus that did not even come close to living up to its expectations.
Only when the nightly news started posting the number of deaths caused by this super flu did Hannah and her family begin to follow the daily reports with morbid fascination.
Those who had initially mocked the WHO fell silent, in many cases permanently. In her little town, which had not yet been touched by the fatal influenza, it was all they could talk about at the diner where she worked full time since dropping out of college to support her sister and uncle.
The H5N1, more commonly known as the avian flu, cut a deadly swathe through the world. No one knew where it had started because it sprang up in several countries at once. Within just a few weeks, several million people worldwide were dead and millions more sick. They’d finally encountered the big one, a virus strain that mutated and proved resistant to all drugs and infected quicker than wildfire. The most frightening part? No one who caught it emerged unscathed. The lucky ones? They died. Those who survived the virus? They were never the same. It didn’t take long for the virus to get a nickname, and for the fear to spread.
It was social media that nicknamed the survivors zombies. Shambling shadows of their former selves, covered in sores, incapable of coherent thought or speech. They hungered for living flesh, any flesh, human, animal. It didn’t matter. If they saw you, they attacked.
And ate.
Forget cooking their food, or using napkins, or putting their victims to sleep. One moment a person could be walking along, and the next, a body lurched from an alley and declared an open buffet on a jugular.
The YouTube videos of these attacks, and the subsequent killing of the zombies, spread like wildfire. The sale of guns, machetes, anything that could kill went through the roof. The supply couldn’t keep up with the demand as people everywhere started to carry weapons. Those infected were culled by the dozens, the hundreds, the thousands, often by family members or friends. Some of the infected chose suicide, fear making them opt for a painless death. It wasn’t enough. The virus still spread.
The deadly flu hit their little town at one point, and everyone steered clear of the Johnson farm—and no one remarked on the gunshots that rang out one night.
A month after the pandemic had begun, they sat riveted watching the president make an emergency address, urging people to quarantine themselves to avoid the spread of the virus and to not panic. Shaken, she’d held on to her sister’s and uncle’s hands—tightly—reality and fear finally making themselves known.
Will we all die?
For one weak moment, she wished Brody was back, his solid arms wrapped around her, hiding her from the horror unfolding throughout the world. Her ex-boyfriend would have defended them with his life and—even if he lied—told her everything would be all right.
But Brody was gone. Never to come back. The jerk. It was up to her to defend herself and her small family.
A few weeks after the start of the pandemic, Hannah stopped going to work; there was no point. Patrons stopped coming, either from self-imposed quarantines or, even more dreadful to contemplate, death. Besides, fear of catching the virus and infecting her family terrified her.
Paranoid, Hannah began taking their temperature daily, watching like a hawk what little family she had left. She also kept her daddy’s shotgun within reach at all times. Whether she could use it or not on actual people was something she didn’t want to contemplate.
Summertime meant they had plenty to eat from their garden, and the chickens they kept provided eggs and meat. As the days and weeks passed, she and her family hid on their small property outside of town, the news their only contact with the outside world. The newscasters kept changing, more and more inexperienced folks being put in front of the camera to relay reports that offered not one shred of hope.
Then, one day, none of the channels had anything to say; all of them displayed the emergency broadcast screen.
What will happen to us?
Hannah hid in the bathroom that day and cried, terrified but determined to be strong for her family, who now needed her more than ever.
But the hiding wore on them all, and their supplies began to dwindle. At the beginning of fall, when the electricity failed, Hannah finally ventured forth. She had to know, silence and need making her crazy.
She drove into town, her hands, white-knuckled, clutching the steering wheel of their old Jeep Cherokee. As she cruised the barren streets, not a soul walked the sidewalks. Not a single curtain twitched. It was as if she traversed a veritable ghost town.
Parking her SUV in the middle of the road, she clutched the steering wheel as she peered around.
Surely my family and I can’t be the only ones alive?
Pretending a courage she didn’t feel, she exited her vehicle, shotgun in one hand. Her plan was to knock on some doors and find other survivors.
She started with the restaurant she worked in. The glass door said closed, but a tug on the handle and it opened. She never stepped inside.
The perfume of death filled the air. Overpowered by its ripe vileness, she fell to her knees, gagging on the foul stench. A pitiful gasp escaped her as her new position allowed her to see the shoe. A familiar shoe still wearing a foot. A decaying foot that undulated.
It was then she realized what the humming was, a humming she’d noted but not comprehended. Death had a sound. It buzzed as thousands of flies feasted on the dead.
She finally could hold it in no longer. She retched uncontrollably on the pavement, harder even than the time Brody convinced her to share that stolen six-pack with him.
But this time was worse. This time he wasn’t there to hold her hair.
Before her body had a chance to stop shuddering, she grabbed her gun and ran to her SUV. Tossing the weapon in, she jumped back into the driver’s seat and drove home like the devil himself chased her, pedal to the metal, thanking the empty roads because, bawling like a baby, she doubted she could have maneuvered around any traffic.
Her sister and uncle took one look at her blotchy face when she walked in and asked no questions.
Winter approached quickly, though, and while they had a wood stove and cords of wood, they needed food. Their summer stash of vegetables had dwindled, even with the canning they’d done.
But I don’t want to go back.
Want didn’t have a place in this world. If they were going to survive, then Hannah needed to pull up her big girl panties, tie a bandanna around her mouth, and forage for supplies.
Suck it up, buttercup.
Wasn’t that what their high school coach used to say when the girls tried to use their period as an excuse to skip gym?
I can do this.
She had to. Her sister and uncle depended on her.
The day of her trip—which took longer to prepare for than the actual drive itself—Hannah skipped breakfast. She put on her rattiest set of clothes and slipped on a washable pair of rubber boots. She’d cut an old sheet into a square, which she folded and tied around her neck to use as a breathing mask. A set of gloves, along with her shotgun, and she was ready to drive into town.
Ready on the outside didn’t mean she didn’t shake like a leaf on the inside. Practically hyperventilating, she parked her SUV in the parking lot of the grocery store then closed her eyes, looking for courage.
The faces of her uncle and her sister, still a teenager with her whole life ahead of her, floated to mind and gave her motivation.
I can’t let them starve because I’m weak.
She prepped herself by smearing Vicks under her nose then yanked the bandanna over the lower half of her face.
The fumes from the Vicks made her eyes water, but blinking back tears, she clambered out of her vehicle to the entrance of the store. The main door hung drunkenly, its clear panes smashed. She stepped gingerly through the shards of glass into the gloomy store. She grabbed a shopping cart and lay her shotgun across the handlebars.
She remembered enough from the newscasts to not assume everyone had died. Just because she’d not seen any folk wandering around didn’t mean they didn’t exist. Zombies could lurk anywhere, and she needed to remind herself that being immune to the flu didn’t automatically make any people she’d meet friendly.
The simple reminder was enough to have her twitching and swerving her head from side to side, searching the shadows even as she began throwing nonperishables into the cart, the items that were left that was. It seemed someone had gotten here first but, luckily, hadn’t cleared the place out.
Because they’d died? Or had they become something else?
Every flicker of light made her jump and startle.
I wish I’d thought to bring a flashlight.
Duh. Aisle number six had those, along with the batteries to power them.
The erratic beams of light, though, didn’t really do much to dispel the gloom. Luckily, there was nothing to see.
Nobody waiting to jump out and yell, “Brains!” Which Brody would have totally done just to see if she’d piss her pants. He was evil that way. How she still missed him.
Loading her pilfered supplies into the SUV, she made several more trips inside, determined to make the most of this trip. Who knew when she’d return, or what the winter and the elements would do to the stock. For an insane moment, as she stacked and crammed food in every available space in the SUV, she wondered if tin cans exploded when their contents froze.
As she imagined cans of peas and corn exploding in a green and yellow mess, she heard something.
Heard something?
Fumbling for her shotgun, she raised it as she whirled. Her heart raced, and she trembled as she scanned the area.
There. Shuffling down the middle of the road, a figure dressed in a tattered bathrobe. Hair long and straggly, jaw unshaven.
Another immune survivor like me and my family? Or the other kind?
Her finger curled around the trigger as she sighted the approaching man. Shoot or wait. Indecision stayed her hand.
As the stranger drew near, his steps slow and listless, Hannah backed toward her SUV. If she couldn’t shoot, then she should take cover.
But the scarecrow of a man shambled past her without even turning to glance her way. He was close enough to see her, yet he didn’t stop, even when recognition struck and she said, “Mr. Connor?” Shotgun lowered by her side, she approached Brody’s father slowly, shocked by his ghastly appearance.
He stopped and turned to face her. Vacant eyes looked at her, then through her. “Have you seen my Marie?” he mumbled. “I need to find her. I can hear her calling.”
He searched for Brody’s mum? “Is she still alive?” asked Hannah. “Have you heard from Brody?”
A horrible wail emerged from Brody’s father. A wail built of despair. He clutched at his hair, pulling it as his eyes rolled madly. Hannah took a step back, but she needn’t have feared. Mr. Connor had no interest in the living. With an unsteady gait, his ragged robe flapping, he went back up the street and turned the corner in the direction of his house.
