9.0 - Sanctum

Slow Burn

Sanctum

Book 9

A novel

by

Bobby Adair

http://www.bobbyadair.com
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Text copyright © 2016, Bobby L. Adair

Cover Design and Graphics

Alex Saskalidis, a.k.a.  187designz

Editing, Research, & Proofreading

Kat Kramer Adair

John Cummings

eBook and Print Formatting

Kat Kramer Adair

Book 1 – Zero Day

Zed Zane wakes up hung over one Sunday morning and begins to fortify himself with tequila before going to his mother’s house for lunch—and to beg for rent.  There, he finds his mother and a neighbor dead, and his stepfather in full-throttle, crazed cannibal mode.  Zed, fighting for his life, kills his stepfather in a scuffle, during which he sustains a nasty bite wound. 

He tries calling 911, but the line is perpetually busy.  That’s strange, but no stranger than the way that Zed is beginning to feel.  He spends the next two days unconscious with a raging fever, and awakens as what soon becomes known as a “Slow Burn,” a carrier of a virus that destroys higher brain function and turns people into vicious, flesh-eating monsters.

Together with Murphy, a fellow Slow Burn who escapes with Zed in the aftermath of a prison riot following his erroneous arrest for the murder of his parents and their neighbor, we follow Zed on his quest for shelter, resources, and a plan for living in the strange new world in which he finds himself. 

Although Zed himself has not “turned” completely, as have most of the other infected, the ambiguous, not-immune-but-not-dangerous category in which he finds himself will from this point forward direct his every thought and step if he is to survive.

Book 2 – Infected

Infected
finds Zed, Murphy, and their traveling companion, Jerome on the move again following what proves to be a brief respite in a university dormitory, in the company of some extremely, albeit justifiably, paranoid ROTC students and three coeds, one of whom befriends Zed.  In the process of stealing a Humvee, Jerome is shot by soldiers, and Zed and Murphy head on alone to find Murphy’s family.

With Murphy’s mother dead and his sister missing, their next stop is a house rumored to feature an underground survivalist bunker, where another surprise awaits.

Book 3 – Destroyer

Destroyer
finds Zed saying goodbye to one friend and pressing forward with two new ones to whom we are introduced in Book 2 – Infected.  Mandi, whom Zed and Murphy rescued from the bunker, is immune to the virus.  Russell, whose home the others plundered in search of food and other supplies, is also a Slow Burn, but lower-functioning, childlike and docile. 

After seeing the carnage at the dormitory, a raging, vengeful Zed wants only to kill Mark, his nemesis and the former leader of the ROTC squad.  Since Mark has disappeared, Zed unleashes his fury on untold numbers of infected in his path as he makes his way back to the hospital, in an attempt to rescue Steph, a nurse whom he befriended while seeking help for the feverish Murphy shortly after the prison riot.  But the brave medical staff, holed up on the tenth floor of the hospital, and running out of provisions, has decided to take matters in hand by exposing themselves to the virus, and shooting those who “turn.”  Zed is determined not to face another loss, but once again, time is running out…

Book 4 – Dead Fire

Dead Fire
picks up following an infected attack on Sarah Mansfield’s fortified house, during which 3 people seek shelter with Zed Zane and his fellow survivors.  In the confusion, however, Murphy is gunned down, and an unthinking, emotional Zed strikes out to enact revenge.  Unfortunately, the shooting and commotion have only attracted more Whites.  A diversion plan emerges to rid the horde of the Smart One trying to figure a way through the gates, and lead the other infected away from the compound.  Momentarily safe, the survivors turn to the matter of where to bury the dead.  Zed, being now the only one available who would not attract the attentions of the infected, accompanies Freitag on this morbid mission.  In short order, Zed is once more embittered and hardened against trust, when he finds himself stranded.  After a series of developments that prove the Whites to be more formidable foes than he ever dreamed, he finds his way back to Sarah’s house to find the compound overrun with infected and his friends mysteriously vanished without a trace, leaving Zed to rely once more solely on his wits to survive…

Book 5 – Torrent

Following his none-too-soon reunion with his friends at the safe house, Zed is hoping things can finally fall into a stable routine, but in post-virus Austin, things are far from stable.  On a mission to raid the ammunition bunkers at Camp Mabry, Zed and Murphy spot a group of the newer, naked infected, who are exhibiting some sophisticated and disturbing new behaviors, such as scouting and hunting—for them. 

After a narrow escape, the two pass the home of Mr. Mays on the return trip, stirring Zed’s predictable rescuer impulse.  Finding Mr. Mays dead, Zed brings fellow chain gang escapee Nico along to join the group, whose numbers have grown again, thanks to their merger with the girls on the riverboat, where the group has moved, as seems to be the safest hiding place… Or is it? 

Book 6 – Bleed

Zed and Murphy are trying to find their surviving friends to finally get out of Austin and head west to safety, away from the zombie hordes.  But trouble, their perpetual companion, dogs them at every turn as they discover that infected humans aren’t the only source of mortal danger. 

After finding Murphy’s sister out at the lake, and a standoff with a group of survivors on Monk’s Island, Zed and Murphy separate from the group, finding refuge in Austin.

Book 7 – City of Stin

In th
e
aftermath of the battle for Monk’s Island, Murphy has been nursing Zed back to health in a remote house at the west end of the lake.  But every day they see helicopters cross the sky, heading south and then back north again. 

Zed wonders if the helicopters are proof that not all civilization has collapsed.  He convinces Murphy to seek out the place where the helicopters are landing so they can find the answer to that question.  As they acquire new transportation from an abandoned shop—an
electric 1968 Mustang
—they’re able to outrun the infected and discover others who are just like them.  What they find
at the end of their journey is both more dangerous and hopeful than either would ever have guessed. 

Book 8 – Grind

It’s time for revenge. Zed’s animosity toward Mark has been simmering through the deaths of too many of his friends. Zed realizes he can no longer pretend he’s able to take the high road and rise above his hate. He sets out to track the horde of naked Whites in order to find Mark and kill him. 

Of course, none of Zed’s schemes work out as planned. 

Yes, kiddies, it’s that time again!  The Zed and Murphy Show is here!

Has it really been almost six months?  I feel like the time just zipped by.  I can’t count how many of you were asking for Slow Burn 9 on a daily basis, but it was definitely a sign you guys were hungry for more.  I would sit at my desk, open up a browser, close one eye as if hiding from the reality of my Facebook messages might actually mean that there were no requests.  But no!  Each and every day. 

It was time.

Aren’t you guys tired of zombies yet?  ;-)   Yeah, me neither.

And as much as I love Slow Burn, I was craving a new project.  Don’t get me wrong…I absolutely love writing about the adventures of Zed & Murphy.  And The Last Survivors turned out to be a really great series for me with the second to last book due out in a few weeks and the last book maybe three months away.  I’m still not sure what to do with Dusty’s Diary, so for those of you patiently waiting, I actually don’t have an answer on that one.  Then Kat and I worked on the final book in the Ebola K series, publishing it from a Royal Caribbean cruise ship the night before we tied the knot in Grand Cayman with some stingrays and family and friends (thank goodness for onboard Wi-Fi…even if it is really slow).

But love is a beautiful thing, right?  Even if it comes with a risk of norovirus.  Hmmmm.  A new book idea right there.

And like I said in the Foreword of Slow Burn 8, I can still sit in my office and live vicariously through Zed.  And the emotional rollercoaster of the post-apocalyptic world.  Which also means like you, I wonder about characters lost along the way, feeling almost guilty for the killing of so many.  Zed’s not a bad guy.  He’s a survivor in the truest sense of the word. 

So Slow Burn 9 took a little longer than I expected.  It was a story with a lot of reflection.  Although there is plenty of machete hacking of the infected, it was a chance for Zed to explore what really made him tick.  And kill some zombies.

While all that was going on, Kat and were taking our usual little road trips, you know, driving to the middle of nowhere to take photos of post-apocalyptic buildings and such.  I’ve posted a lot of the pics on my website and on my Facebook page.  As usually happens on these road trips, we spent time talking about the stories I was working on and the stories I was thinking about writing.  It’s a surprisingly creative time.  Maybe there’s something to be said for being stuck in car with no cell phone signal and no Wi-Fi, it forces your imagination to keep you occupied. 

One of the ideas that grew out of these trips turned into my latest series, Black Rust.  I’m working into the story what you’ve told me you like most about Slow Burn, but I’m doing it in a grungy, dystopian, fucked-up world.  Like Zed, the main character in Black Rust is no saint.  He’s the flawed kind of character I like to write. I’ll include a link at the back of this book to a page on my website with a preview, and I’ll create a post about the new book on my Facebook page, if you have any feedback, positive or negative, or if you feel like the story could use another giraffe, or if the flying monkey thing didn’t work, please let me know there. 

And of course, I need to ask, when you finish, please take a moment to bounce out to the retailer where you purchased your shiny new ebook and leave some stars and/or a few quick words about what you liked or didn’t like about Slow Burn: Sanctum.

Thanks for downloading this copy.  I hope you enjoy it.

— Bobby Adair, March 19, 2016

“I’m tellin’ you man, they just disappeared.” Murphy lowered his binoculars and waved a hand toward the horizon.  “See?”

“Poof.” I pantomimed a little explosion between my hands.  “Like David Copperfield disappeared?”

Murphy handed me the binoculars.  “Don’t be a dick.  Look for yourself.”

From our vantage on the roof of the Bell County Expo Center, I looked west over brown winter fields dotted with bare trees and resilient green cedars.  A four-lane highway strewn with abandoned cars and trucks ran directly west through a grid of lifeless neighborhoods and business districts.  Only a smattering of naked Whites moved among them.  I followed the line of the highway between Stillhouse Hollow and Lake Belton, past Harker Heights and Killeen, and spotted where the battle between the naked horde and the Survivor Army had mostly taken place.

What had been an expansive tract of largely undeveloped land in the suburban sprawl had been transformed from a grassy boredom between the suburbs into a killing field carpeted in white-skinned corpses—bruised, bloodied, broken.  Hundreds of cannibal Whites gorged themselves on the carrion.  Dogs, coyotes, and swarms of blackbirds feasted.  Invisible because of the distance, countless rats were devouring what the others left behind.  Feral pigs had come for a share and would eat even the bones. 

Only there weren’t enough pigs to eat them all.  The bones of the Whites—twenty, thirty thousand or more—would be cleansed by maggots and fire ants and would dry out through the winter.  They’d bleach white in next year’s hot summer.  Then they’d lay in the soil for a millennium or two when an archeologist, or maybe a housing developer might dig them up. 

What would those people think happened here? Would they be horrified at the scale of the slaughter? Would they be indifferent? Would everyone in that future know that in the soil beneath their feet, a few thousand years down, lay the remains of seven billion homo sapiens, over a trillion bones?

A trillion bones?

So many dead.

Countless miles of crumbled asphalt.  Billions of collapsed houses.  Cars turned to rust.  Plates.  Forks.  Plastic molded to every conceivable shape, but to every inconceivable purpose from the perspective of our eventual descendants.

Would those people know the virus was our downfall? Or would our propensity to violence run deep in their blood, too?

Would they find the remains of a tank’s composite armor, resisting nature’s deteriorating grind? Would they deduce the circumstances of its demise—the building burned to the ground around it, the black stain among the white corpses?

Would they find the mummified bodies of men trapped in their vehicles by the crush of a thousand Whites trying to get them from the outside? Did those men in their armored tombs suffocate? Would our descendants find the overturned Humvees? Would they find some crashed into houses or mashed around a concrete pillar under a highway bridge?

How many hundreds of thousands of lead bullets would our descendants discover among the shattered bones?

Would the people digging through the dust a few thousand years from now simply think we hated one another so much that we couldn’t help but destroy all we’d built for the pleasure of indulging a genocidal mania?

All that death put too many dark thoughts in my head.  I said, “I don’t know.”

“Then take my word for it,” Murphy told me, “because I do know.”

“You’re confident.”

“If you were me, you’d be confident too.”

"Oh, right, Mighty Murphy.” I panned across miles and miles of brown grass and dull-colored homes of the dead.  "I don't know.  Maybe they're just spread out in the suburbs.  Maybe they're taking naps or moving into the houses.  Hell, maybe they all took up residence in that big Walmart down the highway."

Murphy looked west.  “They won’t all fit in there.”

“Yeah, I know.”  I lowered the binoculars and passed them back to Murphy.  “What are you thinking?”

“Don’t ask like that.”

I looked at Murphy.  “Like what?”

“Like somebody pissed in your Cheerios.”

I turned away from Murphy and leaned on the wall.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re in one of those moods again.”

"I'm not in a mood.”  It was a response born of habit.  In fact, I didn't know if I was in a mood or not.  I didn't feel like I was anything at the moment.  I was in some weird, post-climax void.

“We need to get out of this damn building.”  Murphy put on one of his big smiles.  “Being cooped up here isn’t doing you any good.”

I shook my head.  It wasn't that.  We'd been trapped in places plenty of times.

“You need to get chased by a hungry cue ball.  That would wake your ass back up.”

I shrugged.  Maybe he was right.  Something was off.  Over the days we'd been hiding in the Expo Center, my mood had been slowly sliding, and it didn't make any sense.  Fucking Mark was dead.  King Monkey Fucker got what he deserved.  I torched his skin and split his skull with my machete.  The Survivor Army was all but destroyed, and the naked horde was falling apart, peeling off in bands and heading in all directions.  Null Spot the Destroyer and the Mighty Murphy had made the world a better place.

I looked again at the subdivisions fading across the grasslands and hills into sprawling grids of roads lined with convenience stores and chain restaurants where nothing with a human soul lived anymore. 

What was truly better about the world?

Had Null Spot the Fucker Upper done anything to be proud of?

Murphy said, “You’re breathing that funny way you do when you’re stewing about something.”

“What?”

“You know what I’m talking about.  Like a little white troll, snorting and huffing.”

I shook my head.  “Whatever.”

“You can’t hide in your troll hole forever?” Murphy grinned.  He loved his sense of humor.  “Spill it.”

I leaned on my elbows, fidgeted with my fingers, and watched the tiny stick figures of Whites among the nearby houses and tiny specks of grayish-white moving in the distance.  I didn’t feel like I needed to say anything until I’d sorted out what was bothering me.

“I told you,” said Murphy.

Told me?
I looked at him.  “Told me what?”

“Revenge ain’t all that.”

A Murphy Smalls motivational speech.  I grimaced and grabbed the binoculars back from Murphy.  Maybe if I looked long enough at the Whites loitering around Killeen, it would be as obvious to me as it was to Murphy that most of them were gone.

He said, “Killing Mark didn’t fix anything, did it?”

I ignored the question.

Murphy nudged me.  “Answer me, man.”

Ignoring Murphy never worked.  I said, "Yes, it did.”  Of course it did.  It didn't undo any of the evil that had been done.  The killing didn't bring Steph, or Mandi, or Amber back to life.  At least, a measure of justice had been served.  I just didn't have any idea of what justice was outside of a lofty aspiration from a dead world crumbling to waste.  Was justice now anything but revenge? Yes! It
had
to be something more.  "At least, he won't kill anybody else."

Murphy turned serious.  "That's one of the things I told myself about those thugs behind the convenience store that time we talked about."

“It was true wasn’t it?” I argued.  “It wasn’t just something you told yourself.  It was true.  Those punks would have gone on to hurt other people.”

“True.”  Murphy leaned on the wall.  “But you know as well as I do, when you chased these naked dipshits halfway across the state you weren’t on a mission to do anything like that.  You were bent on killing.  All that saving-somebody-somewhere-in-the-future stuff is just bullshit icing on your revenge cake.”

“My revenge cake?” I laughed.  “Is that like a metaphor or something?”

“Yes.”  Murphy straightened up and proudly looked to the horizon.  “Zed Zane’s revenge cupcake.  Hell, you got about a dozen of them, right, when you torched those Whites with the lighter fluid and ran them through that drainage tunnel?”

I nodded and smiled.  Whatever demon lived in my soul, he'd loved it.  The bit of justice had been gruesome and brutal.  Nothing about killing those Smart Ones that day felt immoral.  Nothing in the act felt wrong.  It felt satisfying and victorious, but none of the gruesome good lasted.  It morphed into an emptiness in my heart that made no sense to me.  "I don't think it's that."

“What?” asked Murphy.  “You lost me.”

"It's not the revenge thing.  The killing needed to be done.  It's that simple.  It's in the past now.  A prerequisite for my future."

“Uh oh,” said Murphy.  “I know overthinking when I hear it.”

“I just need something to do.  I need a purpose.”

“You need to get laid.”

“Are you offering?”

Murphy leaned an elbow on the waist-high wall around the edge of the roof and looked at me.  “You’re deflecting.  You never want to give me a straight answer to anything.”

“That’s not true.”

Murphy laughed.  “You just did it.”

I shook my head and thought more about it as I futilely tried to focus on counting Whites out on the streets I could see.  “I miss Steph.”  I had no idea why that came to the surface.  It found its own way out.

Murphy let that lie for a bit before he stood up straight and announced, “Here’s what I’m thinking.  Tonight, we head out, search the convenience stores in the area and find some batteries for the night vision goggles.  There aren’t that many Whites in the neighborhoods nearby so we shouldn’t run into any trouble.”

“You mean no more than usual?” I asked.

“Yeah, of course.  Then with the goggles, we’ve got the nighttime advantage again.  We head over to the base, get what we need, and get out of Dodge.”

“Get what we need?” I asked.

"You've got a knife, a machete, and some janitor guy’s coveralls with shoes that don't fit.  I'm low on ammo, and I'd like to load up with grenades and maybe some other good stuff.  If you're still thinking we need to head to College Station—hell, even if you're not—one of those Humvees down there would come in handy loaded up with food, if we can find any, and things that go boom."

I turned away from the wall and started walking across the Expo Center's big flat roof.  Why stay and sulk? I needed to be moving.  "Sounds like a plan to me."