Death Plague Omnibus [Four Zombie Novels] (58 page)

“Oh, no you don’t!” I grabbed the handle and pulled, only for the metal to come off in my hand. Panic now eclipsed my uncertainty, only made worse when I found that unlike the rest of this room, the door was very solid. I slammed my fist against the surface over and over, not giving a fuck that my hand was losing the battle. “Get me out of here!”

“I don’t think there are enough words in the dictionary to explain my disappointment in your action, Colin. You’ve really upset my feelings.”

The shock of hearing another human voice in here almost stopped my heart, especially one so familiar. I spun around, trying to locate the origin; this didn’t make any sense. I knew I was alone in here, my enhanced senses had already confirmed that. “Dominic, is that you?”

“Colin, have you any idea of the trouble you could potentially cause? After all the time and effort I invested in humanising you.”

I took a deep breath and tried to get my galloping emotions back under my control. This was just too much. There must be a hidden speaker somewhere in here, it was the only explanation. “Where’s my sister—and come to think of it, where are you?” I walked over to the two stall, and looked inside. Hay covered the floor in one of them, while the other one contained a single bucket. My nose told me exactly what that was used for. It didn’t take me that long to figure out that this is where those bastards had imprisoned Danielle.

“Can you even hear me, or is this pleasant discourse all going to be one way?”

“All I can do really, is apologise. It’s my fault. I should have listened. Thing is, I’m just too soft. Just because I changed, I obviously believed that I could help you discover your human side. Still, it’s not all bad news. Thanks to your timely distraction, we did manage to get Danielle out of her confines.”

I crouched down and swept my hand through the hay, grinding my teeth in annoyance as some of the stuff stuck to the sticky red mess on the back of my hand. My efforts showed me that Danielle had been busy during her imprisonment. Judging from the dried blood and the deep score marks in the concrete, she’d literally tried to dig herself out of here using only her nails. I so wanted to burst into tears at the sight of those marks, imagining her anger, frustration, and terror of being trapped in here, yet for all the obvious distress that those score lines portrayed, all that emerged was fury. Those fuckers had used me, and that included my sister. “This is it then? You’re going to leave me in here to rot?”

“Of course not, Colin. As soon as our guest and your sister have finished doing the dirty deed together, he’s going to come in there and eat you. It’ll be quick and painless. Please don’t hate us for this. I’m really sorry, but I just can’t trust you. Thing is, I really had no idea that she’d tied up most of your abilities. That’s one thing she didn’t confess to me. When I first saw you, I really did believe that the tin’s description matched the contents. Look, if it’s any consolation, before the shackles came off, you did good out there. Really you did, and I’m proud of you, Colin. Thanks to your efforts, we can now move ahead and get back to normal.”

So that was it? I really had come to the end of my existence. Somehow I thought that I’d feel more than a little pissed off at ending up as a potential meal for my sister’s new boyfriend. After what I’d been through since coming here, though, I think that I’d already used up my quota of extreme emotions.

“You are wrong about me, Dominic!” I shouted. “I have changed. Even after Danielle’s chains fell off and all that shit turbocharged through my head, I still saved the three tainted humans.” I licked my lips, and looked up at the corners of the wall, in search of that speaker, just waiting for it to crackle into life again.

There was a small part of that old me still clinging on, and it was this smidgen of Colin who kept reassuring me that the Keeper just wouldn’t do anything as crude as feeding me to some mutated zombie. I mean, it was just too ridiculous for words, not after the trouble he went to in keeping me alive.

As the seconds stretched into minutes with no sign of reply, even that comforting voice gave up the ghost and abandoned me.

Now that my fate was well and truly sealed, I found to my surprise that all of those suppressed energies brought about from the unshackling had already left me. My old self quickly filled that vacuum. Bringing back a calmness that I thought had gone the same way as that comforting voice.

I turned and sat down, resting my back against the door, and gave my temporary accommodation a tired gaze. There were scratch marks all across the top of the wall. My sister had never given up trying to get out of here. How she had even managed to reach that high was beyond me; I saw no way to get up there, aside from climbing.

She had been that determined to get out of here, and whether a greater purpose called her or her hormones were driving her insane would be the one question that I’d never get to answer. It did make me question exactly how she had been able to get out of here in the first place. After all, it’s clear that she hadn’t achieved it alone.

Danielle never gave up. I shut my eyes and allowed that calmness to seep deeper inside me, whilst visualising the corridor directly behind this very thick door. Those three tainted humans had expanded their sphere of influence way past their physical bodies, and more importantly, through walls, windows, and doors. Although it had only created a cloud of confusion for anyone psychically attuned, it still proved that you didn’t need to have a clear view to affect anyone. Not that I needed any more evidence, the monster had already proven that.

My hope was to connect to Linda. If anyone could help me out here, it had to be her. After all, the bitch wouldn’t be breathing if it hadn’t been for me saving her neck. She owed me.

The image of the corridor materialised. It shocked me just how easy it had been to ‘see’ what was behind this locked door. What surprised me even more was that it wasn’t empty. A figure stood directly in front of the door on the other side just a couple of inches from where I sat.

The third shock hit me when I established the identity. It wasn’t one of the tainted humans. It was another hunter, the first hunter that I’d first encountered back in that filthy room.

Hello there, Jacob, fancy meeting you here.

The hunter silently screamed. I guessed that his terror of me, specifically of what I’d done to his companion, hadn’t left him.

Open this door.

The Hunter didn’t even hesitate. Like an obedient dog, he pushed down on the fist-sized latch to the left of the door and keyed a four-digit code into the keypad under the latch. I didn’t even bother questioning how he knew the code or if this had been how my sister had got out, it didn’t really matter. I stood up, brushed myself down, and hid the grin as the light from the corridor burst into the dark room.

The hunter stood there, looking as though he’d just filled his trousers. Thing is, I don’t think it was because of finding me in here. Something else had already had the pleasure of scaring this creature stupid. It didn’t take a genius to work out what.

“We don’t have much time,” he gasped. “I think…” The hunter paled and stretched out his hand. “Past history and all that?”

I looked at his token of friendship whilst sensing the lurking presence of another very powerful mind just beyond the boundary of my range. That thing, the true monster, my supposed executioner, was on its way. “Fine by me,” I said, taking his hand. “I hope to fuck you know how to get out of here.”

The Hunter nodded. “You mean a route out that doesn’t end up with the pair of us becoming food? Yeah, I know a way.” He pulled me out of there and shook my hand. “There’s only me and you left. It’s got the rest of them.”

He turned and raced down the corridor until he reached the door to the room where I had awakened.

“You’ve got to be joking,” I muttered, watching him look both ways before disappearing inside the room. I ran after him, skidding to a halt at the open door. The corpse were gone, but apart from that, the place looked the same, including the fact that the family were still inside.

The hunter held the adult’s wrists while the remaining son looked on. “I don’t believe this!” He nodded at a small vial resting on the bed. “Do you know what that is?”

I nodded. I knew exactly what it was. The man had pushed a syringe of the stuff into the side of the enforcer’s neck right before I fed on him. Jacob had already worked out the significance of its properties and wanted to do the same to these three before leaving vile town.

“We only have to eat one of them; Hell, we could just break open one of their skulls and share the brain meat between us. What do you say? It’ll only take us a couple of minutes at best.” Jacob looked past the open door. “I believe we do have time.”

I walked past the blubbing teenager and picked up the vial. “Why don’t we take this with us instead? Surely it’ll be safer to take a human on the outskirts instead. That way we’ll have enough time to dine at our leisure.”

“What? You mean you’re willing to let these worms off the hook after everything they’ve put you through?”

I stared into his black eyes, then looked at the remaining fluid in this tiny glass vial. “If I was to be totally honest here, Jacob, I think that’s the whole point. I’d rather not take any more human lives.”

I placed the vial back where I found it and walked up to Jacob until we were almost nose-to-nose. “Let them go,” I said quietly. When it became obvious that he was going to do no such thing, I raised my arm, intending to throttle the life out of the Hunter, his role in rescuing me forgotten as my rage increased.

My arm stopped in my flight, its movement halted by the presence of another hand.

“It’s okay, Colin, you don’t need to finish it. You’ve already shown us your true self.”

I turned around and found myself face to face with Danielle.

“Oh God!” I gasped, unable to stop myself from throwing my arms around her. “I thought I was never going to see you again.”

“Yeah, well, it was a close run thing. Jacob was so close to leaving his allocated spot.”

The other hunter grinned at me. “I had no doubts; you wouldn’t have been able to get this far without picking up a few tricks.”

She kissed the tip of my nose and turned to towards the door. Another figure was now inside the room. He looked up and flashed me a warm smile.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am to see that you came through.” The Keeper shook my hand. “I won’t deny it, though, I did have my doubts that you would pass the test.” He gently pulled Danielle out of my embrace. “You had better go to him. I can’t keep him away for much longer.”

Her pained expression almost broke my heart.

“Don’t worry, Colin,” she whispered, kissing me again. “I assure you, this is for the best.” Danielle turned and ran out of the room.

“Fuck me, so I really was a pawn in some stupid chess game?”

“More like a bishop, I think,” replied Dominic. “The analogy isn’t that far from the truth though.” He took hold of both my hands. “Only this is no chess game, this is the future of all of our species, the humans, tainted, and the hunters.” He paused. “I’m not going to predict Mother Nature’s future intentions regarding what could eventually appear in your sister’s womb. For that, we’ll see what happens. Right now though, what we need to do is to take back our world.” He looked at the others in the room, his gaze staying on Linda. “Two decades ago the dead rose up and our parents failed to stop them from almost making us extinct. We’re going to accomplish what they couldn’t. We’re going to destroy every single fucking zombie on this planet.”

The end of book one.

 
Kingdoms of the Dead

Book One – Chemical Rot

By Ian Woodhead

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. 

Copyright February 2014 by Ian Woodhead 

Edited by Monique Happy

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, scanning or otherwise, without prior permission of the author. 

Please visit me here:
https://www.facebook.com/Ian.Woodhead.Author

Prologue

He slid the tip of his forefinger down the monitor, cutting his younger brother’s frozen face in half. Ishmael-el-Siddique had never been given the opportunity to say goodbye, as all communication from the planet had ceased ten days ago. He gazed through the thick glass window down at the surface hundreds of miles below. The citystates were dying, their lights extinguishing one by one. His citystate burned, as did its neighbors. How long would it be before all of the planet’s lights went out? Ishmael-el-Siddique flicked the play switch and listened to his brother thanking him for the photograph, and how excited and privileged he must feel about being the first man from the North Arabia Citystate to reach space. He turned off the recording before his foolish brother recited his stupid verse about how the citystates from space were like a million fireflies, frozen in time.