Cry Zombie Cry (I Zombie Book 5) (24 page)

“
Did I miss something?” Morgan asked. I explained.

Jamal entered the room. As soon as he heard the song from Zombie Radio, he began dancing and singing.

“
I know, it’s crazy, right? A black man getting his groove on to one of the whitest men in entertainment? But just listen to this song. This is exactly what we need more of.” Jamal sang along with Mr. Collins for another verse. “Optimism.”

Both Morgan and I covered our mouths to keep Jamal from the shame of our laughs.

“
What? Am I wrong?”

I suppressed another bout of laughter. Morgan wasn’t so nice. After a drawn-out laughing frenzy, she straightened up and turned back to Jamal.

“
I’m sorry, Jamal. It’s just that, well, you’re wrong. The last thing we need to do is bury our heads in the sand, start singing praises, puking meaningless words from our mouths. What we need is truth, period. Even if said truth takes us far away from joy.”

Before Morgan could dive deeper into the rabbit hole of doom, Rizzo and Echo crashed our party. Their faces mirrored an all-too-obvious fear.

“
We might have a problem,” Rizzo said.

“
Outside,” Echo added.

The girls led us to the entryway of the church and pointed through the cracked and dirty windows. A small crowd of pale and frail survivors were gathered. Leading the charge was a tall man in a torn and tattered suit, his skin pulled tight over his bones. Every member of the group had been ravaged by atrophy and decay—so much so, it was nearly impossible to tell if they were terminal patients of some vicious disease or the first-ever collection of thinking zombies. It wasn’t until the tall man stepped up to the church door and knocked that I realized they were, in fact, not the undead.

We passed glances between ourselves, the intent of the look clear—do we, or do we not, allow the survivors into our sanctuary.

“
Oh my God.” Echo stepped in between Morgan and me. “These people are obviously alive and need our help. We can’t turn our backs on them.”

“
You’re right,” I agreed. I felt momentarily sick, like I wanted to punch myself in the gut until I vomited up the malignant tumor of thought that had made me hesitate to save a fellow soul. Instead, I opened the door and stepped out onto the concrete and marble stairs.

Nerves struck me dumb until the tall man nodded at me.

“
My name is Franklin Emonz. We are what’s left of this town. I don’t suppose you could spare a bite to eat and a safe spot to sleep?” Franklin’s words ended with a violent, ragged cough. When he spoke, the man’s voice cracked and stuttered. In the center of his sunken eyes was absolute defeat. The longer I stared, the more pieces broke off from my heart. I couldn’t muster up a reply, so instead I stepped aside and gestured toward the door. I nodded and every dry, brittle smile in the crowd lit up as if I’d just handed them the keys to a magical kingdom. As they slowly walked by, I counted seven—young, old, and everything in between. The added toll the extra mouths would take on our food stores was manageable. My mind’s calculator went to work and roughed an estimate of twenty days worth of sustenance (not including cat food). Since the grocery store had plenty of stock left, this wasn’t an issue to be pressed.

Something tugged at the back of my mind. In response, I tugged at Jamal’s sleeve and nodded him to follow me. I led him through the chapel and into what had to have been the minister’s office.

“
What is it, Bethany?”

My eyes darted back and forth, scrambling to figure out how best to express my concern. I finally decided on the direct approach.

“
Why didn’t they break into the grocery? They were minutes away from a full-blown food supply, yet they clearly decided to starve themselves. Why is that, Jamal?”

“
I don’t know. Maybe they had some form of PTSD, or maybe they were afraid to come out of hiding until they heard us rummaging around. Why don’t we ask them instead of postulating theories based on zero data?”

I had nothing to reply.

“
Bethany, what’s going on? Why are you so paranoid?”

Again, nothing. All I could do was stare at the floor as tears welled up.

“
Jamal, I don’t know what’s happening to me. I took one look at them and my first thought was to bash their damned skulls in. No matter where I look now, all I see is death—even in life. We are so close to getting Jacob back that I don’t want to risk anything. If it means I have to—”

Jamal pulled me into an embrace that promised and meant everything.

“
It’s going to be okay, Bethany. We’ll get Jacob back, but we don’t have to harden ourselves to do it. The second you start turning your back on your humanity, they win. You’re better than that and I refuse to allow you to succumb to this dark path.”

He pulled away and cupped my chin in his soft hand.

“
Look at me, Bethany.”

I did without hesitation. Diving into the warmth of his soul was the very thing I needed.

“
These people need us and we will not refuse them a break from the dread and hatred out there. In the end, they may not be of any help to our cause, but turning them away will do more harm to our hearts than allowing them to remain will do to our stash of supplies.”

I leaned in and gave Jamal a light kiss on the lips. “Thank you.”

“
That’s what I’m here for, takin’ care of my girl. Now, let’s get back out there and get the scoop on their story.”

*

“
We all lived here before they put up the wall,” Franklin said, through gulps of soup and bites of bread.

“
Who put up the wall?” I was certain I knew the answer before I even asked.

“
Them,” one of the younger girls replied. Her words were fueled with venom.

“
The Zero Day Collective,” one of the older girls added.

Franklin set down his spoon and picked up the explanation. “We were told this was going to be one of them reality TV shows and we’d all be rich and famous. So they pitched the wall, brought in a film crew, and released the monsters. At first it wasn’t so bad; there were only a few of them. Things got ugly real quick. It wasn’t until the suits had to bug out all of a sudden that we realized we’d been scammed. There was to be no movie, no money, and no stardom. Instead, we wound up stuffed in the basement of our home until it all blew over. When we come out, everyone was dead. We scraped and survived for a while; but then Missy grew sick and started acting crazy. At first it was just a few noises here and there. One day, the girl trapped her sister in a corner and made to slam her head against the wall. I stopped her just before she had the girl out cold. It took us a while, but we realized she’d been somehow infected. We locked her in her room, figuring we’d come up with a solution. That never happened. With each passing day, the sound coming from behind her door grew more and more monstrous. Her mother started swearing Missy was of the devil and that something had to be done. Well, between the noise and my wife’s weeping and wailing, I couldn’t take it any longer. One night, I sneaked into Missy’s room with a shovel and brought that damn piece of metal and wood to her head and put her out of her misery. Ever since then, we’ve been laying low, hoping someone would come along and rescue us. We had no other choice.”

“
And here
you
are.” The youngest chimed in.

“
That’s right…here we are.”

The look of hope registered on their faces for the first time.

“
So…you’re going to get us out of here, right? We tried climbing the wall, but every time we did, the sound of the monsters drove us back down. There was no way we could defend ourselves against those beasts…we were all too weak and had no weapons to speak of. Our phones stopped working during the filming, so there was no calling for help.”

Every eye was locked on me. I turned to Jamal to witness him pale nearly to white. I was officially on my own with this one.

“
Yeah, about that…”

I gave them the Cliff’s Notes version of the apocalypse, the gist of the almighty calamity we collectively faced. As I spoke, their mouths went slack and their gaze succumbed to gravity. More than anything, I was shocked that someone remained on the planet that had no idea what was going on. Sure, I assumed somewhere in the bush of Australia, there would be a tribe or two that had no idea the end of days was upon us, but here? In America? We were all way too informed for that.

“
What do we do?”

The innocent question popped out of the mouth of the youngest. Thankfully, Morgan bailed me out.

“
We survive.” Morgan stood up and addressed a captive audience. “My name is Morgan Barnhart. I am one of the founding members of the Zombie Response Team.”

Josh jumped to attention and responded. “To protect and sever.”

Morgan smiled. “That would be Joshua Garcia, who helped form the ZRT. We’ve spent years training people to survive, even before the apocalypse hit.”

“
Apocalypse?” Franklin stood, his voice shaking.

It wasn’t sinking in. I wasn’t sure if it was shell shock.

I stepped back in. “The Zero Day Collective released a virus that turned eighty percent of the world into zombies. Those that remained have struggled and fought to fend off the undead as best as they could. My goal is to find a cure and stop this plague from finishing off mankind.”

I finally had their undivided attention.

“
You step outside the surrounding wall and you risk your lives. Either the Moaners and Screamers will get you, or the Zero Day Collective will have you locked away in one of their experimentation wards. In here, you’re safe…for now.”

All went silent. Not the kind of silence you hear from a room full of living, breathing humans, but the kind of silence you only hear as a response to complete and utter fear. The sicklies each had the same expression on their face—confusion and loss.

“
Why did this all happen?” the eldest of the women asked.

Morgan, Josh, Echo, Rizzo, and Jamal all looked my way. I got the hint.

“
John Burgess,” I started.

A man interrupted. “That was the man what promised us fame and fortune.”

I picked up the man’s thread of thought.

“
He lied. Burgess’s only concern was moving his own agenda along. His goal was to reclaim some neo-Nazi ideal and reinvent mankind in his own image. John Burgess, however, is now dead. The Zero Day Collective has a new leader with the same twisted ideology.”

I stood up and took in the faces of the newbies. “That’s all you need to know at this point. We’re all here for one thing…to survive. You are welcome to stay with us, but we ask that you do your part to help. None of you are in any condition to be fighting, so you’ll remain within the wall and help establish a base camp. Can we trust you to handle that?”

One by one, Franklin looked to his group. When he finally returned his gaze to me, he nodded.

“
You can count on us.”

chapter 24 |
the haunting

“
Sir.” The lead comm officer spoke with a snapped up salute. “I have Ground Zero on the sat phone.”

Faddig reached his hand out, on which the boxy, black device was placed.

“
This is Commander Faddig. What is your SITREP?”

The voice came through the handset interrupted by static.

“
…fusion generator…on line…command.”

Faddig pulled the phone from his head and checked the quality of the satellite connection. The connection on his end was strong.

“
Please repeat. What is your SITREP?”

“
We have the fus…ator on line. We…wait your…and.”

He was able to piece the response together.

We have the fusion generator online. We await your command.

“
Perfect. You will be hearing from me shortly. Faddig out.”

The commander silenced the call and turned to the comm officer.

“
Have them on speed dial.”

Another salute. “Yes, sir.”

Faddig disappeared from the comm station and returned to his office. He eased himself into the leather desk chair, closed his eyes, and took in the moment.