Love & the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1, Zombie Apocalypse Trilogy) (8 page)

Adam
lit the dirty rags protruding from the bottles.  Tears streamed down Selena’s cheeks – she didn’t look ready to fight a mass of zombies.  Nicky carried Vivienne.  Her eyes were closed and she was sweating despite the air conditioning. 

Cage handed Rachel a Molotov cocktail.
  “Stay beside me when we get outside.”

“Watch yourself in the
back of the truck,” Rachel said.  “They’ll grab at you from all sides.  You can’t get scratched.”

“I’ll be careful.”

Rachel tapped her finger against Cage’s chest.  “You better.”  Cage kissed her forehead right before they lined up.

Adam’s hand hover
ed over the door.  “Are you ready?”  Everyone nodded and Adam opened the door.

Chapter Ten

The heat from the Molotov cocktail’s dirty rag threatened to burn Rachel’s hand.  It was an ingenious idea, but she felt like it was about to explode in her face at any moment. 

S
he had a knot in her stomach.  Well, multiple knots, but the newest edition was because Cage was riding in the back of the truck.  An unprotected truck bed surrounded by a swarm of zombies was the last place anyone wanted to be.  Especially since they learned that scratches could turn you into a zombie, too. 

Nicky held Vivienne close t
o his chest. Her skin had a sickly pallor to it and she trembled like she was cold.  Rachel positioned herself near Nicky so she could cover him. It was courageous that he had volunteered to carry Vivienne, but once they were outside he would be completely exposed and weaponless. 

Cage kissed her on the forehead, but before Rachel could react,
Adam opened the door.  Mobs of zombies crowded the entrance.  Hands, arms, blue eyes and snarling mouths melted together to create a wall of cannibalistic death. Zombies tried to push inside, but Adam swung the burning towel at them.  They reacted, not how a human would react to flames, but how an animal would – primal.  The fire didn’t scare them, but they instinctively backed away.

One woman’s
hair caught on fire.  Flames flickered up her hair and over her head.  She didn’t flail around in pain; she simply burned to a crisp and fell to the ground.

Adam
shot a zombie between the eyes.  He shoved the zombie’s body into the crowd to make room for their escape.  Cage and Adam fired their guns round after round to create space.

Cage and Rachel pulled up the rear
with Selena and Adam in the front.  Nicky was tucked in between them.  Rachel was conscious of Cage beside her and Nicky in front of her.  It was distracting – the zombies’ growling was the most abysmal sound she’d ever heard.  Crazed hunger. 

Selena lau
nched a Molotov cocktail.  The bottle smashed twenty feet away in a brilliant explosion.  Light from the blast seared Rachel’s corneas. 

“Hu
rry!”  Adam launched his liquor bottle.  The stench of high-proof alcohol filled the air.  The explosion ignited three zombies near the truck.  “Chuck the bottles before they explode!”   

“Throw it,
Rachel!”  Cage fired his gun. 

Rachel still held the
bottle of vodka.  The dishrag burned toward the lip of the bottle. She hurled it.  The bottle rotated twice before it shattered against the bumper of a parked car.  A moment passed.  Was it a dud?  Did she throw it wrong? 

The car exploded in
a plume of blinding flames.  Heat blew over her skin as the blast obliterated the zombies near the parked car.

“Now
that was an explosion,” Nicky said. 

Adam
unlocked the truck. He flung the door open and shoved Selena inside.  “Hurry!  Get in!” 

Cage
bashed the mop stick across the face of a zombie with glasses.  Why wasn’t he shooting his gun?  A female zombie lunged at Rachel.  Yellowed fingers clawed the air inches from her face.  Rachel swung the baseball bat.

Another
zombie reached for Nicky, but Rachel kicked it to the ground.  The zombie’s head smacked against the concrete. 

Nicky whirled around with Vivienne in his arms.  “Did I just see you karate kick that zombie?”

“It technically wasn’t a karate kick,” Rachel said.  “Only a regular kick.”

Nicky grinned.  “That was the most awesome thing I’ve seen all night!”

“Get in the truck!”  Adam screamed.

Rachel
unlatched the gate to the truck bed, but pressure from behind snapped her neck back and dragged her to the cement.  She smelled the zombie before she saw it - the putrid odor of blood and decay.  The zombie, who looked like a housewife, had Rachel by the hair.  Rachel kicked the woman’s femur, snapping it like a twig.  The housewife stumbled to the ground, but the broken leg didn’t discourage her.  She continued to crawl forward on her hands and knees. 

Rachel staggered to her feet.

Nicky heaved Vivienne into the truck bed and kicked the housewife zombie in the face. “I’m a fan of the kicking,” Nicky said to Rachel conversationally.  “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before.”  He hopped into the truck and dragged Vivienne behind him. 

Adam fired
another shot.  “Rachel, get up front!”

Ra
chel ran to the passenger side.  “Cage!  Let’s go!”

Cage swung his mop stick like a tomahawk.  He
hopped into the truck bed and closed the gate. Rachel pushed a zombie down and slid into the cab, slamming the door shut behind her.

“Hold on back ther
e!”  Adam shifted and smashed his foot down on the gas.  The truck flew in reverse, smacking dozens of bodies to the ground.  The truck lurched up - like they had run over an enormous speed bump. 

Rachel was sure the truck would
tip over.  She gripped the seat.  Arms clawed into the truck bed from all sides.  Nicky and Vivienne pressed against the back window.  Cage crouched low and swung the mop stick at anything that came near them. 

The truck
slammed down on all four wheels and Adam gunned it.  They sped through the red light, leaving the horde of zombies in the Wooden Barrel’s fiery parking lot. 

~     ~     ~

Every muscle in Cage’s body ached.  He was in good shape, but in the last few hours he’d used muscles he never knew he had.  Who knew killing zombies was such hard work?  He tried to slow his pulse.  Too much adrenaline pumped through his system and it felt like his heart was going to explode.  

The truck sailed
down Van Slyke Road.  He welcomed the whipping wind in his face, anything to relieve the suffocating heat.  Night had fallen hours ago, but it still felt like mid-day. 

“Nice shooting kid,” Nicky said.

Cage retrieved the extra bullets from his pocket.  “Yeah, not too bad, until I ran out of ammunition like an idiot.  I should’ve counted the rounds before I went guns blazing into a mob of zombies.  Good thing I had my mop stick.”

“I guess th
ose are things you learn once the world goes to shit.”

“How’s she doing?”

Nicky shrugged.  Vivienne’s eyes were closed.  Sweat dripped down her forehead.  Her lips were parted and she was sucking in little gasps of air.  “She’s probably getting ready to bite my face off.”

“I can hear you,
jerk,” Vivienne said, but she smiled.  “I have to die before I turn.”

“Don’t die,” Nicky said.  “I foresaw a future between us.  Your hotness and my hotness would be a force to be reckoned with.”

Vivienne laughed, but it turned into a deep wet cough.  She rolled on her side and closed her eyes. 

“Speaking of hotness,” Nicky said to Cage.  “Your girlfriend is oozing it.”

“Rachel’s not my girlfriend.”

“So you’re saying I have a chance?”

Cage’s muscles tensed.  “I didn’t say that.”

“B
ecause if you’re not sampling the goods, one of us should be.”

“How old are you?”  Cage asked in disgust.

“Twenty-one.”

“You’re too old for her,” Cage said icily. 

Nicky laughed.  “Dude, I’m yanking your chain.  I know she’s yours.  And, for the record, I’m not too old for her.  It’s the end of the world.  All of those stupid borderline rules are history.  Besides, what is she?  Seventeen?  Eighteen?”

“I don’t know,” he
said quietly. 

Cage
didn’t know anything about Rachel.  Only that she had a little sister and they lived with a foster family.  He wanted to know more about her – like what that jerk foster father did to Rachel that made her angry enough to smash his head to pieces. 

He
had never witnessed such unbridled rage. His hands curled into fists just thinking about it.  He wasn’t going to let anyone hurt Rachel again.  Nicky was right about one thing.  It was the end of the world and Cage had a feeling that they hadn’t seen the worst yet. 

Chapter Eleven

Adam
exhaled.  Thankfully, this street wasn’t crowded with zombies or abandoned cars.  It was pure luck that they made it out of the Wooden Barrel alive.  Hopefully, they could stock up on supplies and weapons at the fire station.  The others were depending on him and rightly so.  Adam would get them all safely through this nightmare if it was the last thing he did. 

I
t might well be. 

Selena
poked her head out the back window. “Vivienne’s eyes are closed.”

“Come her
e.” Adam pulled her under his arm.  Selena slid beside him and her nearness comforted him.  The tension in his muscles slowly uncoiled.  He breathed in deeply – she smelled like vanilla with a hint of blood.  He focused on the vanilla.  “Don’t worry, Vivienne will be all right.  We’ll get her some help.”

Selena didn’t respond. 
She covered her face and silently cried.  He pulled her as close as he could while driving and tried to soothe her. 

Rachel
angled her body toward the window to give them privacy.  She reminded Adam of an abused dog.  Her eyes constantly flickered, waiting to see what would jump out at her and where the quickest exit would be. 

She
had beaten the crap out of her zombie foster father.  Adam knew what happened when you cornered an abused dog – it attacked.  That’s exactly what she did.  The prick probably hurt her.  What had Selena said about the man? 
He was a
very bad guy
? Anger flared inside of him when he imagined Selena working around trash like that. 

Adam
nuzzled his face in Selena’s hair.  The lights of Flint faded as they drove into the suburbs.  The streets were eerily quiet. Rachel stared out the window.  Despite her breakdown after killing her foster father, Adam knew she was tough. He also recognized that she didn’t trust any of them, except for Cage. 

Rachel
said something, but it was lost in the buzz of the open windows.

“What?”
Adam asked.

D
ark blue eyes fell to Selena.  “She’s sleeping,” Rachel whispered.  “And I said, where are you going?”

“To the fire station
.”

“I know, but I mean – after.  W
here are you going?  What’s your plan?  I have to go to Ann Arbor.  Cage has to go home.  There’s no telling where Nicky wants to go, but what about you?  Where will you and Selena go?”

Rachel di
dn’t mentioned Vivienne.  They both knew Vivienne wouldn’t last through the night.  “I don’t know,” Adam said.  “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

He felt
Rachel deflate.  “Oh.”

“My mother and best friend
– ah, they – we were attacked earlier,” Adam said.  “We were barbecuing when a group of them rushed my house.  I didn’t know what I was facing and I didn’t react accordingly.  I thought they were just punks and then….” Adam exhaled.  “Tony and I barely escaped.  I had plans to meet Selena at the Wooden Barrel.  She was all I could think about, so Tony and I went there.”

“I’m sorry for your loss
.”

Adam nodded.  “Thank you
.”

“What about her?”

“Selena?”

“Yeah,” Rachel said.

“Selena and Vivienne will stay with me.  You’re going to Ann Arbor?”

“My litt
le sister is there at a stupid science camp,” Rachel sighed.  “Once I rescue her, I don’t know where we’ll go.  Is this happening everywhere?  Or only in Michigan?  You’d think we’d see the National Guard or the Army or something, but there’s nothing.”

“Maybe they’re mobilizing
.  If this is happening all over, I doubt that Flint, Michigan is at the top of the list of rescue operations,” he said bitterly.

“Probably
not.”

“I’ll go with you
.”  Adam heard himself saying.  He felt protective of Rachel for some reason.  He had an unexplainable big-brotherly urge to help her. 

“What?”

“To Ann Arbor.  I have a cousin in Detroit.  I’ll help you get out of Flint and down that way.”

Rachel’s
face glistened in the dark.  He wasn’t sure if it was tears or the play of the light.  “Thank you, Adam.”

“You’re welcome.  We’re here.”

The Flint Township First Unit Fire Department was a spectacular building, made to replicate the old brick firehouses of New York City.  It was three stories of beautiful rust colored brick and red trimming.

Adam pulled into the
paved driveway with a sinking feeling in his gut.  The station looked abandoned, when it should have been bustling with activity.  The building was lit up like a lighthouse, but despite the illumination, he didn’t see any movement inside or any of his fellow firefighters.  It wasn’t a good sign.

“Selena.”  Adam
gently nudged her.  “We’re here.”

Selena bolted into an upright
position.  “Vivienne!”

“She’s in th
e back with Nicky.”

They climbed out
of the truck and Adam unlatched the back gate.  Cage helped Nicky lift Vivienne into Adam’s arms.  She didn’t look good; she was shivering violently.  Her skin was pale and she didn’t open her eyes when they hoisted her out of the truck.

“There’s two down the street
, but they haven’t seen us yet.” Cage pointed to the corner.  Two zombies stood in the middle of the empty intersection.  The streetlight blinked above them.  One of them stopped to stare at the light, transfixed by the colors.   

“The burbs
have to be better than the city.” Nicky hopped down from the truck.  “There are less people because it’s so boring out here.”

“This way,” Adam said
, ignoring Nicky.  “Stay behind me, we’ll go in through the side entrance.”  He had Vivienne in his arms and Selena’s hand awkwardly hooked around his bicep. 

Vivienne
looked on death’s doorstep and only a short time had passed since she fainted at the bar.  Her eyes were closed and dark shadows were smudged beneath them.  Her body was limp and the short raspy breathing was the only indication that she was still alive. 

Selena retrieve
d Adam’s access key from his wallet.  She swiped the plastic card and the door unlocked.  Inside, much to his relief, there wasn’t a bloodbath.  In fact, there were no signs of a struggle at all.  The room was empty, like everyone had left for the night and forgotten to turn off the lights. 

The
others followed him inside and the door automatically locked behind them.  He placed Vivienne on the couch. “Let’s get that glass door boarded up and shut off all of the lights except the ones in this room.  We don’t want to attract attention to ourselves,” Adam ordered.  “Rachel, can you grab the first aid kit in that green metal cabinet?” 

Adam
found a stack of clean towels from the laundry room.  Selena knelt on the floor beside Vivienne and held her sister’s hand.  Adam lifted Vivienne’s shirt to see the extent of the damage.  He had to bite down on his tongue to stop himself from cursing out loud. 

The
red scratch marks from an hour ago had turned yellow and puss-filled.  It resembled something out of a B-horror movie – grotesquely unreal.  The skin around the wound was bruised.  Bluish-purplish spider veins trickled out from the scratches.  Vivienne’s entire stomach looked infected. 

Selena cleaned Vivienne’s
wounds with a damp towel.  Adam removed a syringe from the first aid kit and gave Vivienne a shot of morphine and an antibiotic.  That was all he could do for her.  Adam kissed Selena’s forehead. “I’ll give you some time with her.” 

Selena nodded. 
Tears streamed down her pretty face. 

Rachel
watched them from a stool.  Adam held up the first aid-kit.  “Let’s take care of your arm.”

“Do you have
antibiotics for Rachel, too?”  Cage appeared out of nowhere. 

“
Sure do.” Adam rummaged through the glass vials.   

Rachel
winced as Cage unraveled the bloody bandage from her arm.  The gash was swollen and showing signs of early infection.  Nothing, of course, compared to Vivienne’s zombie wound, but still dangerous.  Adam cleaned Rachel’s forearm with peroxide.  Tiny bubbles fizzed around the bite mark.  The bleeding had stopped, but the wound looked incredibly painful.

“What are those lines?”  Cage
pointed to Rachel’s arm.

“The
very early stages of an infection from bacteria,” Adam said. 

Rachel
didn’t react, but Cage looked sharply at him.  “Will she be okay?”

Adam filled a syringe
with clear liquid.  “A few doses of antibiotics over the next twenty-four hours should clear it up.”  He tapped the syringe to make sure there weren’t any bubbles. He aimed the needle above the bite and watched as the antibiotics flushed into her system. 

Nicky peered over them.  “That’s gross.”

Rachel frowned.

“Nee
dles freak me out.” Nicky looked at Rachel.  “What?  Do you think because I did a little time for breaking and entering a few years ago that I do drugs?”

Rachel’s eyebrow lifted.  “
I haven’t said a word.  But you’re telling me that you’ve never done drugs before?”

“I didn’t say that.  Just not the hard stuff.  Only the soft stuff every now and then.”

“Only recreational drugs, right?”  Rachel smiled.

“
Don’t knock it.  I dare you to admit that you’d turn down a joint-”

Adam cleared his throat.  “Don’t corrupt the kids.”

Nicky tapped his chest.  “Me?”

Cage
pointed to Rachel’s arm.  “Does she need anything else?”

“That’s it
for now,” Adam said.  “We’ll give her a second dose of antibiotics tomorrow.  Make sure to keep it clean and bandaged.”

“Thank you,” Rachel said.

“Don’t thank me, thank the emergency first aid course the fire department made me take last summer.” Adam rubbed his head.  He had a monster headache. 

“W
hat’s the plan now?”  Cage asked.

“T
here’s food in the kitchen and showers upstairs.  I say we eat, get clean and rest up.  We can head to your place in the morning,” Adam said. 

Rachel
head snapped up.

“Tomorrow?” Cage asked.

“We can’t move Vivienne, not in the state she’s in now.  Unfortunately, there aren’t any extra vehicles here or I’d give you one,” Adam said.  “I thought there’d be more people at the station.  I didn’t plan on the place being abandoned.”

“I understand,” Cage said. 

“You said there were showers?”  Rachel looked down at herself.  Splatters of blood covered her arms and tank top.   

“The men’s locker room is u
pstairs at the end of the hallway,” Adam said.  “The showers are in the back.”

“I could kiss you,” Rachel said, surprisingly.  She patted Adam on the arm. 

Cage’s eyes followed Rachel as she hopped off the stool and headed upstairs.  Adam nudged Cage in the shoulder.  “Man, you’ve got it bad for her.”

“Told you,” Nicky said. 

Cage’s cheeks flushed.

“Come on, Quarterback.
” Adam put his hand on Cage’s shoulder.  “Let’s see if we can find a news station.”

They went
to the seating area and Adam pointed to the desk near the entrance.  “Cage, maybe you can find something on that laptop -”

A chill ran up Adam’s
spine as the bloodcurdling scream filled the fire station.

Rachel.