Fortunes & Failures - 03 (44 page)

Her frustration mounted, but she kept at it.  Through the tears and the pain she felt it budge.  Then it popped free.  Normally it took two men to pull open each gate manually.  Not this time.  It literally flew open, slamming into Kirsten and sending her tumbling backwards.

The pain was white hot and instant.  Sheer force of will kept her from losing consciousness.  The horde had stumbled forward.  Many of those in front fell, and a huge, tangled knot of the horrible creatures piled up in the entrance.  That was the only thing that saved Kirsten for the moment.

She made it to her feet as a dozen or so of the creatures began to stagger her way.  Kirsten clutched at her sides as she made for the house, bringing a tsunami of undead in her wake.  They followed, arms outstretched, mouths open; wailing, moaning, and crying out for her flesh.

Once she reached the halfway point on the stairs, the first one made it through the doorway.  Kirsten noticed that this one was a girl…almost the same age.  Like her, this one was missing the lower half of one arm.  It was also missing one eye and had ugly and jagged punctures in its body.  Its head tilted up to Kirsten and it made a strange mewling noise before it started towards the stairs.

The monster-people really struggled here.  But in droves they came in pursuit of the young girl just out of their reach.  Kirsten saw many wander into the house, but it didn’t matter.  It looked like a hundred of them were slowly making it up.  It was like a ship slowly filling with water.

Then, they were on the landing, the one-armed, one-eyed girl leading the way.  Kirsten could still hear the snores of The Big Man, but they were being swallowed by the cries of the monster-people.

She led them into the bedroom, only pausing briefly, she spat on the still-sleeping form in her parents’ bed; then, she opened the door to the balcony. The yard was a roiling sea of dead faces, heads bobbing as they all came through the gate in front.  There were too many for the house to hold and they were overflowing around it now.

So many.

They came into the bedroom.  The monster-girl paused, glancing first at Kirsten, then at the snoring mound that was The Big Man.  It seemed to come to the conclusion that more was better and headed for the bed.  Some followed, others locked onto Kirsten.  She stepped out onto the balcony and made her way to the rail.

A noise behind her made her pause.  At first it was muffled.  Then…it became a scream. The scream held equal parts fear and pain.  Down below, the sea of faces looked up.  Kirsten slowly made it over the rail, fighting off the pain.  But the screams from inside seemed to help, almost acting like an anesthetic.  Closing her eyes and holding her arms out, Kirsten pushed away and reveled in the few seconds where the wind rushed to her face.

I’m free!



It was so close.  Jenifer-zombie strained and reached.  Hand opening and closing.  Only, it kept disappearing for a moment and she had to search for it. 
She had no concept that her vision was impaired, no recollection of having her head squeezed so hard that her eye had popped out.
Just as she was unaware of the holed in her torso, the broken ribs.  All that Jenifer-zombie was aware of was the presence of heat…so close.

The gates gave way and the surge from behind sent many of the others tumbling to the ground.  Jenifer-zombie stayed on her feet.  But it was gone.  It already forgot what was gone as it took a few steps forward.  Then, it was there…the heat.

Jenifer-zombie followed.  So did so many others who could see it…as well as the hundreds that couldn’t, yet pushed forward without knowing why.  The heat moved away, but never out of sight until it disappeared through a doorway.  Jenifer-zombie was operating on the last “message” that came from the tiny gob of jelly that remained unaffected by death.  Until something new came, it would continue on that task whether it knew why or not.

Jenifer-zombie stepped through the doorway.  The Heat was just out of reach.  She reached the stairs, but the feet struggled to lift high enough to climb them.  A shove from behind pushed Jenifer-zombie down.  She rose and had somehow ended up on the first step.  The feet repeated the process, albeit unsteadily and began to climb.  Others followed.

Jenifer-zombie had no concept of time or frustration and continued slowly up the stairs.  The desire to feed on that Heat was the only signal she understood.  Sometimes that desire would force itself from her in the form of sound as her mouth moved and the tongue slopped around.

Jenifer-zombie reached the landing and almost fell as she continued to try to climb stairs.  Then her legs adjusted to being on a flat surface again.  It was so close now.  Her one good hand reached, opening and closing.  She had no idea that the same message to the other arm was having no effect.

Into the room through the next door she walked.  The Heat still visible.  Then a sound distracted Jenifer-zombie.  Her head turned and the original source of Heat vanished.

The Heat appeared in her vision in the same direction as the sound.  The body turned, slowly and awkwardly, and Jenifer-zombie advanced on the Heat with several others directly behind her.  The middle of the source rose and fell with the sound, but it was the sound now drawing her as much as the sight.

Leaning down, Jenifer-zombie’s mouth opened wide and closed on the twitching lip.  Clamping down, she bit, tearing away flesh.  Gulping it down, but not moving far, the Heat made a new sound.  This time, Jenifer-zombie’s teeth found the nose as others began grasping, ripping, and tearing.  The sound continued.  Some of the others pulled away with large pieces …arms. 

Her head turned as the middle of the Heat burst open like a flower.  Her eyes fell on a large pulsing piece.  Reaching in, she had to struggle to tear it free with just one hand.  Another of her kind reached for the pulsing nugget of Heat, but she swatted with her half arm, the jagged bone tearing a bloodless gash across its throat.  Biting into the ball of Heat, the warmth flooded her mouth.  In seconds, there was nothing left.  Several of her brethren struggled and tugged at the larger pieces between them.  Jenifer-zombie stopped chewing as the piece grew cold.



Lucy threw open cupboard after cupboard, tossing its contents to the floor.  Like all the others, this one was empty of food. She’d gone through all three rooms and discovered nothing.  And not only had she
not
found food, but she hadn’t found anything that might be the secret code to open the big door at the end of the hallway.

Lucy slid down the wall and began to cry.  It was all such a jumble.  She couldn’t exactly pin down the images in her head.  She knew that, at some point, she’d been certain that Dr. Reggie was one of those things. Only…

Only he wasn’t.

She’d attacked him with the table leg that she’d broken off during her tweak.  He was still on the floor of what had been their room.  His body had started to smell.  So bad, in fact, that Lucy had gotten sick twice searching the room for food.

Fear had settled in long ago, displacing the paranoia brought on by the days of meth-induced sleeplessness.  Lucy alternated between crying, and ranting.  Neither helped with the hunger.  Twice, she’d gone into the bathroom and found a razor.  Twice, she’d held it to her wrist. Twice, she’d dropped the razor onto the counter beside the sink.

As she sat there, Lucy tried not to think about the fact that she would die of starvation.  Thirst wasn’t a problem, the sinks and showers still worked.  Then the lights flickered. 

Lucy had no idea that each of the research bunkers—ten spread out on a hub with a central power source—had system requirements.  If the routine system checks were not performed on the central power router, that particular node would shut down to conserve power for the others.

According to the mainframe, node five exceeded its required maintenance check at hour 5187.  Shutdown was initiated.  At hour 5235, power was shut down to node five.  All filters and dampers sealed.

Lucy Grimes would not starve.  She would suffocate.



The rain was cold, but at least there was no wind.  Juan stood atop the small hill and looked at the faces staring back.  Including himself, there were now fifteen members of their little community.

“Well?” JoJo asked.  “You gonna do this thing or not?”

Juan snapped out of his reverie.  “Yeah, didn’t mean to hold you up from your busy day,” he quipped.  He drove the post-hole digger into the ground.  After a couple of minutes, he was holding the post in place while Mackenzie shoveled in the concrete.  Once the lines were tied off to secure it in place, Juan stepped back.

“Tomorrow we will run the last strands of barbed wire,” Thad announced.  “But today, we can celebrate phase one of our defensive measures as being complete.”

There was a smattering of applause.  The children all looked bored, but the adults were smiling.  Moving up under Juan’s arm, Mackenzie snuggled in close. 
They had their home
, Juan thought, enjoying the feeling of her body pressed against his.  Sure, there was still a lot left to do.  In a few days, whenever this spell of lousy weather blew over, he would be going across the river with Thad, Keith, and Morris Bently—one of the new arrivals—to start picking up supplies.  It would be the first time he’d left the island since his arrival.

“While everybody is here,” Mackenzie spoke up, “I want to remind everybody that the Celebration Dinner is at Juan’s and my house tonight.”

Juan liked the sound of that.  With the growing population, everybody began spreading out and taking up residence in the empty houses.  If their numbers grew, they might have to consider having multiple families under one roof.  But for now, it was just the two of them.  And to Juan, that was tight like a tigah.



Chad pulled his machete free from the skill of the zombie still wearing the remnants of its Yosemite Village Gift Shop uniform. He looked over his shoulder at similar scenes of a battle winding down all around.  Then, he glanced over at the bus.

Once again, several people had opted to sit this one out.  This was a trend that he knew would grow old fast.  If this group was going to survive, everybody would have to do their part.  He wasn’t foolish enough to believe that this would be the last time they would deal with zombies.  It didn’t matter how far away they’d gotten from so-called civilization.

“I think this place is gonna work out,” Brett said, coming up beside Chad, wiping off the length of his shining blade.

“Scott said that the restaurant had shelves of canned food,” Chad replied.

“I think we found ourselves a place to call home.”

“Just in the nick of time, too.” Brett tilted his head back, looking skyward.

“Well,” Chad clapped him on the shoulder, “let’s go get everybody unloaded and show ‘em their new home.”

A single snowflake floated down, lighting upon Chad’s nose.  As he brushed it away, more frozen motes of white began to flutter to the ground.

The book that started it all!

Introducing our new cover of the first book in the series

Dead: The Ugly Beginning