Love & the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1, Zombie Apocalypse Trilogy) (5 page)

“Me, too.”

Cage
sped down Atherton Road and under the I-475 overpass.  This stretch of road was residential.  A few houses had the lights turned on, but he didn’t see anyone.  “Do you think this is happening everywhere?” Cage asked.  “Where are the police?  The military?  Everything seems so -”

“Dead?”

He slowed to a stop at the light on Fenton Road.  The bright lights of the Rite Aid Pharmacy were like a beacon in the darkness.  A car alarm sounded down the street.  Cage leaned forward to see what was going on, but something tapped on his driver’s side window. 

Rachel
tensed. 

Cage slowly turned
his head, expecting to see a zombie’s icy blue eyes. 

It wasn’t.  Three men
stood outside of his window.  One of the men held an impressive semi-automatic handgun.  The barrel of the gun tapped politely against the glass. 

“You’ve got to be kidding
,” Cage said under his breath. 

The man with the gun
wore a dingy tank top splattered with dirt and blood.  “Get out of the car.”

“Gun it,” Rachel whispered.

“What?”

“Bad choice of words,” she said.  “Go, we can get away.”

“Are you crazy?”  Cage’s tone was harsher than he intended, but she didn’t flinch.  “They have guns.”

“And you have an Escalade.”

“Get out of the car now!”  The man lifted the barrel of the gun and shot in the air.  The sound of the gunfire was deafening.  “Or I’m going to blow your brains out.”

Cage raised
his hands.  “Don’t shoot.  We’re getting out now.”  He hit the button and unlocked the doors.  Rachel unleashed a string of profanities that would’ve impressed a sailor.

The guy
yanked the door open.  “Out rich boy.”  He seized Cage by the arm and flung him to the concrete.

Rachel ran around the SUV.  “Cage!”

“Easy, Mami.”  The guy’s eyes slowly roamed over Rachel from head to toe. 

Rachel’s jaw tightened.  S
he gripped the handle of the bat.  Her stance widened and, incredibly, Cage realized what she was about to do.  He reached for her.  “Rachel, don’t.”

Sh
e made a face, but she loosened her grip on the bat.  The three men slid into his SUV, laughing. 

“You c
an’t leave us out here,” Cage said.  “There are zombies -”

“
That’s why we’re taking your ride, rich boy,” the man said.  “Be lucky we aren’t taking your girl, too.”  He slammed the Escalade’s door and raced through the red light. 

The stench of burned rubber filled the air. 
When the smoke cleared, Cage could see across the street to the Rite Aid Pharmacy.  Light filled the parking lot, illuminating the pack of zombies headed straight for them.

Chapter Six

Rachel stepped back.  

The group of zombies crowded the Rite Aid parking lot.  No, not a group – the word was too small to describe what she was seeing – it was a
horde
of zombies.  The creatures had zeroed in on Rachel and Cage when the idiots fired the gun and sped off.  She couldn’t believe they’d just been carjacked.  As if dealing with the zombie apocalypse wasn’t enough for one night.

She
was annoyed at Cage.  He should’ve sped away instead of giving up the Escalade.  Now they were carless on the streets of Flint, at least a mile away from the Wooden Barrel, with zombies after them.

Cage’s
hazel eyes were filled with disbelief.  He still wasn’t convinced – or maybe now he was – that these things, were actually zombies.  The look of absolute shock was clear as day on his handsome face.  Rachel’s annoyance turned to guilt.  It wasn’t his fault they’d been carjacked or that zombies were eating people.  And it certainly wasn’t Cage’s fault that Morgan was at camp and not with Rachel. Nope, that was one hundred percent her fault. 

She exhaled and tried to regain her composure.
Cage’s brown hair melted into the darkness around him.  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he mumbled.

S
narls spewed from across the street.  The zombies were every size, shape and race. It was hard to tell how many of them they were facing. Twenty?  Thirty? The first row of zombies, three women and two men, disappeared from the parking lot’s circle of light and entered the darkness.  Rachel didn’t know what was worse – seeing the zombies in all of their horrifying glory or not being able to see what lurked in the night. 

Cage swallowed
.  “Run!”

They
raced down Fenton Road with the zombies on their heels.  The pounding of feet on the cement was unsettling.  Rachel tensed with each stride, waiting for a hand to reach out and grab her.

Fenton Road was empty
.  It looked like a ghost town.  Where was everybody?  How had things gotten this bad, this quickly?  How was she ever going to get to Morgan?  She had to be okay.  She had adults protecting her.  Maybe the outbreak was only happening in Flint and it hadn’t reached Ann Arbor yet. 

“We have to get off the road,” Cage said. 
“It’s too wide open.  They’ll follow us the entire way.”

He raced
alongside her, matching her stride for stride, though she suspected he could’ve easily flown by her if he wanted to.  She already had a stitch in her side from running. They veered off the road and up the curb past the Subway Restaurant.  Cage headed toward the door.

“No!  I have to get to the Wooden
Barrel,” Rachel said.  “We need Gene’s truck.”

“Fine, let’s take a shortcut
through this neighborhood.”  He led her over the parking lot and down a quiet street.  Street lamps lit the road, but inky shadows edged over the houses and lawns.  “Maybe we can lose them if we cut through someone’s yard,” Cage said. 

The
zombies rounded the corner near the Subway Restaurant. The neon yellow and green sign lit up their ghastly faces. 

Rachel followed Cage over
the broken sidewalk.  Weeds pushed through the concrete and she had to keep looking down so she wouldn’t fall on the uneven pavement.  Cage moved fluidly over the grass and down a driveway.  She couldn’t believe she was running from zombies with Cage Vance.  She didn’t know which part was more shocking.  The zombies or Cage.

Cage
didn’t recognize her, but why would he?   She’d only attended his school for three months during her freshman year, before Morgan and Rachel were placed into another foster family.  New families always meant another school district.  She’d been to more schools in her life than she could remember, but when she briefly attended Flint Prep, she was introduced to the phenomenon that was Cage Vance.

Cage received write-ups in the
newspapers for football on a regular basis.  He was gorgeous – dark hair with hazel eyes – and tall with hard lean muscles in his chest and arms.  He was popular, not only in school, but across Flint.  More like a small town celebrity.  And, of course, he was rich.  Who names their kid Cage?  Rich people do. 

All of thos
e superior qualities meant he had absolutely no idea who Rachel was.  Even though, she reminded herself, Cage had spoken to her that one time during the incident at -

“-
hop over?” 

Rachel blinked. 
They had reached a backyard. “Huh?”

“I said, do
you think you can hop over?”

An
eight-foot tall privacy fence loomed over her like a giant.  “Um, hopping is probably not the right word.”

Footsteps pounded over
the driveway.  Four zombies raced across the asphalt and into the backyard.  Gunfire rumbled in the distance.  Other people were fighting, too.  The sound gave her an ounce of hope.  They weren’t the only ones fighting for their lives.

“How about I
throw you over?”  Cage laced his palms together.

Rachel stepped into his hand
s and he effortlessly lifted her.  She gripped the top of the fence and pulled herself up, so she straddled the top of the structure.  She outstretched her arm.  “Give me your hand.  I’ll pull you up.”

Cage smiled.  “I appreciate the
effort, but I weigh twice as much as you.  Hold on tight.”  He stepped back in the direction of the oncoming zombies.

“Cage, what are you doing?”

He crouched down like a track star and sprinted to the fence, jumping midair and grabbing the top of the wood.  The privacy fence shook with his weight.  Rachel had to hold on with both hands to keep from tumbling over – which proved difficult because she somehow still held on to the baseball bat. 

Cage pulled
himself up, his foot dangling inches from a zombie’s reach.  He straddled the fence behind Rachel.  “That was close.”

The deep pitch of a dog
’s barking almost drowned out the zombies’ growling.  A massive pit bull was on the opposite side of the fence.  Rachel sighed.  “Super.” 

The
zombies banged against the wood.  The pounding of arms and bodies shook the fence.  It reminded Rachel of the time she’d ridden a mechanical bull at the county fair.  The swift motion had thrown her to the padded ground within seconds.  Rachel squeezed her legs together to keep from falling. 

“D
eath by being eaten alive by a dog,” Rachel said, “or death by being eaten alive by a pack of zombies?  I think I’d prefer the mutt.  What about you?”

Cage scooted behind her.  “Neither.  Look ahead.”

Red and blue lights flashed behind the trees.  Police cars were parked on the street a few houses down.  The sirens were off – maybe to keep from attracting more of those things – but the lights of at least three or four cars pulsated in the darkness.

“We’re going t
o inch over to the other side.” Cage’s hand rested on her back.  He pointed in front of her with his other hand.  “See that overgrown lawn over there? That’s the goal.”

T
he fences behind the homes formed a perfect quadrant.  To Rachel’s right were the zombies and to the left was the pit bull.  They were aiming for the quadrant in front and to the left.  The overgrown lawn was thirty feet away.

The dog’s in
cessant barking was driving Rachel insane.  The noise drew more zombies to the fence, too.  The pack had increased from four to six.  They banged relentlessly against the fence; moaning and growling at them.  Rachel had to keep her feet tucked high, because one particular zombie – a man wearing a Piston’s basketball jersey – was much taller than the others.  His fingertips grazed dangerously close to her right foot.  

Rachel
felt Cage behind her.  She was slowing him down. She was thin, but not in shape.  She’d taken a few self-defense classes, but the only time she ever ran was when Gene chased her – which, granted, was often, but not enough to be considered regular aerobic activity.  Cage was a top-notch athlete and he would’ve already made it to the Wooden Barrel by now if it weren’t for her.

She inched forward. 

The pit bull – taking lessons from the zombies on the other side – started taking runs at the fence, too.  The dog’s muscled body smashed the pine boards with the viciousness of
Cujo
ramming that tiny yellow Ford Pinto. 

The fence swayed.

“It’s all right, we’re almost there.  We’re going to make it,” Cage said calmly.

“Are you always this optimistic?” 
She scooted forward.  The abandoned backyard was fifteen feet away.  “I think I’m getting splinters in my thighs.”

It happened
too quickly.  Too fast for her to do anything about it. 

One minute the zombie with the basketball
jersey pounded his fists against the fence, the next minute he shoved his entire body against the wood.  The fence swayed dangerously to the side.  Rachel tried to hold on, but she couldn’t.  She lost her grip and tumbled to the ground below.  

Chapter Seven

Rachel dropped the baseball bat during her plunge so she could attempt to break her fall with her hands and not her face.  Cage screamed her name while she nose-dived to the ground, but his voice sounded far away.  She fell long enough to flip in the air and she landed squarely on her back. 

T
he pit bull charged. 

Its bared teeth glistened in the faint light.  A
hundred pounds of pure doggy muscle slammed against her like a freight train. The dog was on her chest.  She had to protect her face and throat.  Searing pain ignited in her left forearm as the dog’s razor sharp teeth clamped down on her arm.   

Rachel tried to
push off the dog, but the pit bull clung to her arm like a leech.  Warm sticky blood slid down her elbow.  The dog’s claws dug into her legs. Hot dog breath blew in her face.  She tried to pull her arm away, but the dog wouldn’t release its grip.  Thankfully, she couldn’t see her skin being ripped to shreds in the darkness.

Rachel groped
the grass with her free hand.  Where was the baseball bat?  The zombies growled from the other side of the fence.  The smell of her blood propelled them into a bloodthirsty frenzy. 

S
he was going to be taken out by a dog during the zombie apocalypse.  How lame. She threw wild punches, but the dog didn’t flinch.  The canine moved with her, its jaws clamped to her forearm ripping the skin from her body.  She wedged her foot onto the dog’s chest and pushed.

Something moved in the shadows
. 

Rachel
vaguely wondered if a zombie had come to finish her off, but the dog yelped and released its grip.

“Rachel!”  Cage’s voice floated over the darkness.  “Are you okay?”

She cradled her injured arm against her chest.  Slick goo replaced the skin on her forearm.

“How bad is your arm
?”

Rachel tried to get to her feet. 
“It’ll be okay.” 

The dog growled. 
Cage raised the aluminum bat.  “We need to get out of this yard – sooner rather than later.  Do you want me to carry you?”

Was he kidding?  “I can walk.”

Rachel let Cage pull her to her feet.  The ground tilted as bright yellow spots flashed in front of her eyes.  The coppery stench of blood drifted to her nose.

“Are you
sure?” Cage sounded skeptical. 

“
I can walk,” she said weakly.  Rachel took a step and toppled over face-first onto the grass. 

~     ~     ~

Cage caught Rachel before she fell.  He wrapped his arms around her waist and she leaned heavily against him.  “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Said the girl who almost face-planted two seconds ago.”

They
backpedalled toward the house with Cage supporting most of her weight. The jagged mop stick was tucked in his waistband, but he felt more confident with Rachel’s baseball bat.  He didn’t want to hit the pit bull - the dog was only protecting its territory.  But for an awful second, Cage thought he was going to bear witness to the dog mauling Rachel to death.

He didn’t know how bad
ly she was hurt.  It was too dark in the backyard, so he couldn’t see her arm.  Cage suspected she wouldn’t admit the extent of her injuries.  She was on her feet, which was a good sign, but she hadn’t said much.  He could smell the blood from her wound and, if he could smell the blood, the zombies could, too.  Cage had visions of fishermen tossing chum into shark-infested waters.  They had to get the wound cleaned and wrapped, or they’d have every zombie in Flint following them. 

Rachel tugged
his shirt.  “There’s a gate.  Hold off the dog, I’ll unlatch it.”

“Be careful.  There might be more of
those things on the other side,” Cage said.  The back fence was still standing despite the zombies pounding on the wood. 

“It’s clear,” she whispered.
The hinges groaned when Rachel opened the gate.

Cage
backed up.  The dog anticipated their escape and sprang.  Cage sprinted and slammed the gate shut behind him.  The pit bull threw its body against the wood, sending shock waves through Cage’s shoulder.  He held the gate shut until the lock slipped into place. 

Rachel
leaned against the fence.   She looked pale under the orange streetlamps.  How much blood had she lost?   

“Let me see your arm.”

She raised her arm as if it weighed a thousand pounds.  A three-inch gash split lengthwise down her forearm.  The bleeding was steady enough to worry about, especially because she probably wouldn’t be getting any immediate medical attention.  Cage ripped the hem off his t-shirt. 

She
protested, but he ignored her.  He wrapped the stretchy material around the wound and she grimaced.  “Sorry,” Cage said.  “It has to be tight enough to stop the bleeding.”

Rachel
gently bit her lip.  “No, it’s fine.  Thanks.  And thanks for saving me from
Cujo.
  I was almost Puppy Chow.”

Cage held her bandaged arm
in his hands.  She was so small.  When the pit bull took her down, he’d thought he was too late.  He didn’t think twice about hopping off the fence to rescue her.  He would’ve hopped off on the zombie side, too, if she’d fallen there. 

She whispered something, but
he couldn’t concentrate.  Her hair fell from the bun on top of her head.  It hung in messy blonde strands around her face.

Rachel blinked
.

“What?” Cage asked.

“I said, cops.”  She pointed at the flashing sirens about ten houses down. 

“That’s great
,” Cage said.  “They’ll have a first aid kit for your arm.  Are you sure you can walk?”

Rachel
peered at the wound.  “I can walk.  Excellent doctoring skills, Cage Vance.”

“
I’m not going to point out that you’re still calling me by my first and last name.”

“Habits are hard to break.”
  She walked over the lawn and down the street, limping slightly. 

Habits?  How many times had she said his name be
fore?  The idea of Rachel saying his name thrilled him, which was surprising because he’d only known her for a few hours.  He trotted into the street after her, resisting the urge to pick her up and carry her.  He didn’t like seeing her limp, but he was pretty sure she would hit him if he tried to pick her up.

The pulsating red and blue sirens
illuminated the street in an unworldly glow.  Cage didn’t see anyone, but there was – at least earlier – a police presence in the neighborhood.  Had the cops answered an early emergency call?  If so, where were all of the officers now?

The immediate silence on the street was unsettling.  Where was everybody? 
No zombies.  No humans.  No cops.  Gunshots crackled in the distance and sirens wailed, but nothing remotely close by.  Mini-battles were being waged all over the city.  Would more police show up?  Would military reinforcements arrive?

Rachel and Cage
closed in on three police cars.  Two of them were the older model Ford Crown Victoria’s; the third was the newer Dodge Charger.  All three cars had their lights flashing, but the sirens were off.  One of the patrol car’s doors was opened.  Surely, that wasn’t protocol.  The interior light lit the dashboard and radio, but the car was empty. 

“Do you see anyone?”
  Cage whispered.  The scene didn’t feel right. 

Rachel
walked around the car parked near the curb.  She knelt down and disappeared behind the hood.  He ran to catch up with her. 

She
was leaning over the body of a police officer.  He was a middle aged black man with thick dark hair.  It was so hot out that his body was already bloated and smelling of rot. 

“Be careful, he might turn.
”

“No,” Rachel
pointed.  “He has a gunshot wound to the head.  I don’t think he’ll come back.”

“Do
you think he did it himself?”

“I don’t know.  I wouldn’t blame him if he did.”  Rachel groped the officer’s belt.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m getting
us better weapons.”  She pulled out the sleek Smith and Wesson M&P .45.  Cage knew the Flint Police Officers’ standard issue gun because his friend’s dad was a cop and guns were all he ever talked about.  Rachel also grabbed the extra clip and Taser from the dead officer. 

“Do you know how to use a gun?”

“No,” Rachel said.  “But the end of the world seems like a good time to learn.” 

Cage couldn’t argu
e with that logic. 

She re
ached into the officer’s pocket and tossed a cell phone to Cage.  “Didn’t you need one of these?” 

The tiny blue phone was like a spring of water in the desert – exactly what he needed and what he thought he’d never get.  Relie
f flooded over him.  He dialed his house, but then he stopped.  “Wait.  Don’t you want to call your sister first?”

Rachel’s face paled
in the flashing blue light. “I don’t have the number to Morgan’s dorm room.” She abruptly stood up and walked away. 

Cage dialed his house.  Dread pooled in the pit of his stomach as he counted the rings.  Six.  Ten. 
Thirteen rings.  No answer. 

H
is palms were sweaty.  He clicked off the call and shoved the phone in his pocket.  He couldn’t think about it or he’d lose his mind.  He couldn’t think about how defenseless and old his parents were.

“Cage?”  Rac
hel propped her injured arm on top of the police car.  She was about to slide inside, but she saw his face.  A slow hiss escaped her lips.  “Maybe the phones aren’t working.  Or they’re hiding somewhere and can’t get to the phone.”

He
ran his hand over his face.  “You’re right.”  He exhaled.  “Rachel?”

“Hmm?”  She stared
down the empty street.  Lost in her own thoughts and problems. 

“When we get that
truck -”

“
- I’ll drive you home.” 

“Thanks,” he said.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Rachel said quietly.  “We still have to get the truck.”

The flicker of police lights
gave the illusion that shadows moved in the darkness.  Still, he didn’t see anything dead or alive.

“Did you f
ind another gun?”  He asked.

Rachel searched the glove compartment. 
“No, only more ammunition.  You don’t happen to know how to hot wire a car, do you?”

“That would be a no.”

She frowned.  “Me neither.  If only they taught useful skills in school.  That cop doesn’t have the car keys on him.  Maybe his partner was the driver – wherever he is.”

“What about the radio?”

“Only static.  No one is picking up at dispatch.  We should get moving.  If we cut through those houses over there, we should come upon the Wooden Barrel from the baseball field in the back.” 

“I
t’s too quiet.  I don’t like it.”

She
held up the gun by its handle.  “Do you want this?  I have the bat and all you have is that mop stick.”

“Don’t knock the stick.” 

Rachel’s eyes flashed.  She rotated her wrist and the gun’s handle swung into her palm with the barrel aimed over his shoulder.  “Cage, get out of the way.”

Instead, he whirled around.  A shadow,
only a few feet away, ran directly at him.  The blue and red police lights flashed, but it was hard to see a face.  Cage thought he saw dark shaggy hair. 

Rachel grabbed
Cage’s shirt and dragged him back, sliding herself in front of him.  She held the handgun in both hands and aimed the barrel at the oncoming figure.

“Don’t shoot!” 
A man’s voice cracked. 

Rachel’s arms relaxed, but she didn’t lower the gun.  “Stop where you are.”

“Don’t shoot!  I’m not a dead guy or whatever those things are – zombies.”

“
I know.  Zombies don’t talk,” Rachel said.  “But I’ll shoot you if you don’t stop running toward us.”

The man slowed
; out of breath from running.  He was in his early twenties – tall and wiry.  Black shaggy hair fell over his dark eyes.  He put his hands in the air in a show of surrender.  His eyes skipped over Rachel and landed on Cage. “Dude, tell her to calm down.” 

“Ah,
ah, ah.” Rachel lowered the gun to the man’s shoes.  “It’ll be hard to run away from zombies with only one foot.”

The man made a face.  “Are you serious?”

“As serious as a heart attack.”  

“Rachel,” Cage said.  “I think he’s okay.”

“He’s a criminal,” Rachel said.

“How d
o you know that?  Do you know him?”  Cage regretted the words the moment they left his mouth.