Z-Risen (Book 1): Outbreak (7 page)

Going outside meant navigating off the deck. There’s no other way in unless someone has a tool that can bust the front door off. We picked this place because it had one main entrance. We filled the entryway with crap like a sofa and then piled a few bodies on top. It made for a gruesome entry.

Next chapter I’ll write about Fortress, promise. That way, if my corpse is found, readers will understand what a pain in the ass this place was to secure and appreciate all the effort we went through.

You’re welcome.

The only dead that stopped by were ignored. If they got persistent Joel and I would drop cinder blocks on their heads. The blocks were attached to ropes so we could pull them back up. We had a pool going on weekly kills and I was up by three. The best part was trying to get their attention just before the block struck. They’d look up with that blank face, those white eyes, and then SPLAT!

Joel went out and stared into the dark for so long I thought he’d fallen asleep standing up. I waited and went over my gun again and again.

Joel had taught me to treat it like a girl with a rocking body. You want to know every inch of her because you can’t dream about her later unless you’ve been hands-on for hours.

“There’s no one out here.”

“Yeah. Now. There was a few minutes ago.”

“You been hitting the gan
ja?” Joel asked.

“Not today. I swear
, man, I heard something.”

“They’re gone now. Get some sleep. We need to leave in a couple of hours.”

“Yeah. I’ll do my best.”

When Joel left I dragged my mattress next to the sliding glass door and left it cracked open so the breeze rolled over me
, but also so I could hear anyone approaching. The thin bit of breeze helped, but I was a long way from anything resembling sleep. I tossed and turned as I strained to hear anything besides the occasional moan of one of the Z’s wandering around in the dark.

Finally I closed my eyes and drifted off
, dreaming that I was back on the McClusky and the crew had been replaced by a team of bikini models all named Helen. Every one of them.

Joel’s hand on my shoulder tore me out of sleep.

“Ugh,” I muttered.

“Mission time
,” he said and moved away.

I was tempted to just go back to sleep. Fuck exploration, it was the middle of the goddamn night.
 I sat up and rubbed what felt like sand out of my eyes.

While I suited up in my engineer overalls
, Joel stood to the side of the deck entrance and scanned the area. He was already dressed in his combat gear. He checked his pockets one more time, pulling magazines out to do a visual inspection by the light of the moon. Satisfied, he stuffed them back into pouches at his chest and side, then secured them by pressing flaps in. Early on, we’d learned the hard way that the crackle of a Velcro pocket could bring a pack in seconds.

Joel dragged the ladder out and lowered it to the ground
, moving it around until he was satisfied it had a good hold on the ground. He slung his AR-15 over his shoulder and then went down the ladder while I trained the .45 around the area. When he was on the ground, he covered for me.

We hid the ladder under a pile of brush and dragged a pair of rotting corpses on top to keep prying eyes on other things.

Our destination was the naval base. Joel had wanted to return for the past week, but the Z’s in the area had been too heavy. After some scouting earlier today we determined that it might be safe to slip in, find some warehouse he knew about, commandeer a car, and get the fuck back to dodge, all before the night was over. We really needed to load up on ammo and maybe another weapon or two. If we got stuck with our current weapon pool, I doubted we’d be able to shoot our way out of a wet paper bag before we ran out of rounds.

Fucking zombies. I hate them.

Joel scouted ahead while I brought up the rear. I grumbled but a look from the Marine reminded me that it was time to get serious. One misstep out in this world and we’d be dead meat.

I did find that with night came something amazing.
Cold air. It rolled off the water and reminded me of what it was like before we ended up stuck in Fortress. Going out like this was familiar. We’d already done it half a dozen times and we were still alive. The other thing that I found was the smell of decay. It was everywhere. Trash and bodies rotting in the sun made for a disgusting reek that clung to everything.

The idea was to remain
quiet. As quiet as a sleeping baby. Any loud noises and you were likely to call in a pack of the dead. Not that they actually traveled together, because they had no thoughts in their heads. They reacted to some bizarre need to find live flesh. I liked my flesh right where it was – on my bones.

Joel stopped alongside a house and then faded against the wall. He moved around the corner with me right behind. Joel held up a hand and I stopped in my tracks. He did something with his NVG’s and then motioned
for me to advance.

I
crept around the corner and stopped as well.

Joel
signaled for me to creep forward, then stopped me when I was a few feet away. He turned and put his fingers to his lips. Joel slipped the NVG’s off his head and handed them to me. I slid my handgun into the holster, took the glasses and slipped them over my head. He had his eyes closed but pointed at the garage. Curious about what the hell he wanted to show me, I moved toward it in the half crouch I’d seen him pull off many times. He made it look easy but I was a lot bigger. Shit was not easy.

The world
jumped to life in hues and shades of green. The house was a single story rambler with the remains of a broken fence scattered all over the lawn. The front door hung off its hinges and a corpse lay on the small concrete patio. Even in the pale light of the moon, I could tell that his form had been torn to shreds. A rifle lay next to him. Other bodies littered the patio. It appeared the guy had done his best to fend for his home, but in the end, the Z’s got him.

The garage door was stuck half
-open but that wasn't what made me freeze in my tracks. It was the sounds.

If I didn't know any better I’d have guessed there was some kind of feast underway in the garage. Maybe a barbecue in San Diego. Just another night for some civilian
(or more likely, military) family.

What I saw was anything but.

I lowered myself to a crouch and moved my head around the corner of the house. The walls were stacked with boxes and some old furniture had been pushed into corners. A bike hung from the ceiling. That’s where “normal” ended.

In the center of the room sat four figures. They were dressed in rags and slicked with something wet
; even with the NVG’s, I knew it was blood. One gazed up at the wall from its meal. I stifled a gasp when I realized the Z had been chewing on his own fingers. One of the four was an overweight woman missing most of her clothes. She sat and gibbered to herself while also chewing on the ends of her fingers. I don’t mean nibbled, either. She had literally devoured them. A couple of teens rounded out the family from hell.

It was so absurd that all I wanted to do was go in and shoot each one in the
damn head.

I ducked back around the corner and shrugged my shoulders at Joel. He leaned in close.

“That shit is fucked up,” he whispered.

I dragged my finger across my neck and shrugged
again. Joel shook his head.

He motioned toward my head so I took the NVG’s off and handed them over. As Joel
grasped them, I heard someone approach from the other side of the house. I dropped to a crouch while Joel fumbled with the glasses.

A figure entered the yard from the west side and was doing nothing to mask
his sounds. With the glasses off it took a few seconds to adjust to the natural light of the moon. I drew the Colt M45A1 as quietly as possible, lifted it with two hands, and aimed.

The person went to the corpse in the middle of the yard and picked up the rifle. They looked it over then felt around
in the corpse’s pockets and came up with shells. The sound of them being loaded into the shotgun was like firecrackers popping in the still of night.

Joel crouched next to the side of the house and aimed the assault rifle. Shit! Shit! Shit! If we got into a firefight with someone
, the Z’s would be here in a heartbeat.

I moved to his side and looked around the corner. The person lifted the gun and came toward us. Before we could react
, the person walked into the garage and the shotgun sounded like a cannon blast. The gun was pumped and boomed again. Feet scrambled on concrete and the form backed out in a hurry. There were three of them on the person, who got off one more shot.

“Fuckers! You killed my family!”
she screamed. Yeah – she.

She backed up a few more steps and racked another shell into the gun
. She fired but ended up clipping one of the Z’s arms. Part of the arm disappeared, leaving shreds of clothing and flesh.

They advanced on her.

She backed up, pumping the shot gun over and over again, but she must have been empty. When she cleared the garage with the three Z’s nearly on her, I broke from cover. I slid my handgun back into its holster and hefted my wrench. The last Z stumbled out of the garage and I was horrified to see it was one of the kids. She staggered and moaned but didn't have a lot of momentum. Then I saw why. She was dragging one of her feet at an angle that was impossible for a normal person. It was definitely broken, a gruesome fracture with the bone sticking out, but little Miss Sunshine didn't care.

I moved behind her in a couple of steps and brought the wrench around in an arc that ended with her head. She dropped like a rock and I was rewarded with a pile of brain matter on the end of wrench head.

Then I hit something on the ground, a rock or broken piece of crap from the house, and stumbled. My ankle twisted under me and I almost went down.

One of the Z’s turned on me and it was all I could do to fend him off. The guy was almost as big as me and dressed in khaki shorts with the remains of a black t-shirt clinging to his body. I took his attack and tried to turn him away by using his own
momentum to toss him aside, but my foot screamed in agony and I ended up in a heap.

Fucker was fresh dead. He wasn't like the slower corpses that had been hanging out for a few days. This guy was quick and his teeth gnashed in toward my shoulder like a viper. I got the wrench in the way and smacked him aside. I managed to get an elbow in and hit him hard enough to roll the fucker off me. Jesus Christ! He smelled horrible
– and I've worked around sailors for most of my life, so that should tell you something.

I
swung the wrench again, but I panicked and it crashed into his chest. Any normal man would have been crushed. It barely fazed this dead fuck.

The girl must have figured out how to get her shot gun functioning because it boomed again. I swore, hoping she didn't mistake me for one of the dead. I rolled to my side
and almost got my hands on the ground to pick myself up. Then I felt a claw on my shirt as the guy pulled me back down. I rolled and got a boot up. I lifted it high in the air and hit the Z again, but just in the chest, and all that did was knock him flat.

Where the hell was Joel?

“Get out of the fucking way!” Joel kept his voice low.

“About time!” I tried to echo his tone but panic rode my voice and I may have
sounded like a scared six-year-old girl.

The Z grabbed my leg but I kicked free and rolled again. Joel’s boots came into view and then the AR-15 fired
. The Z was blown onto his back. One more shot to the head and the guy didn't move again.

I got to my feet and limped after Joel, ankle aching with every step.

“Are they dead?” The girl with the shotgun approached. She didn't even look us in the face; she just studied the corpses on the ground.

“Yeah
, all dead - need to clear this area before more arrive.” Joel said.

“I’ll stay here and hold them back. Thanks for the assist.” She said. Her voice had a slight Latino accent.

“Come with us,” I said impulsively. Or was it impulsive? Were we just supposed to leave another survivor behind while we made an escape?

Joel grabbed my shirt sleeve and tugged.

“We can’t leave her.”

“If she wants to stay
, let her,” he said near my ear, but she was probably able to hear him.

“We can’t leave someone behind like that.”

“Since when did you grow a fucking sense of morality? We ain't got the supplies for another survivor.”

“Just go
,” the girl said. “That’s my dad on the lawn. The eaters in the garage killed everyone. There’s nothing left.”

“Oh
, for fucks sake.” Joel said and stared at both of us.

The sound of something shuffling down the street sent a chill down my neck. I looked for shapes.