Mail Horror Bride (One Nation Under Zombies Book 1) (6 page)

The kitchen was empty but the smell of blood and who knew what else assaulted him. He brought the back of his wrist to his mouth and fought down the urge to vomit. He’d smelled blood before, and lots of it, but never after it’d had time to congeal. He knew he didn’t just smell blood. He was smelling death. Something, or someone, was rotting in the house.

He crept forward, carefully closing the door behind him. It made the slightest clicking sound as it shut and the small sound made him wince.

Dirty dishes rested in the sink, a glass of milk sat on the counter. Judging by the smell, he placed it to be a day or more old. Small bugs flew around the rim of the glass. It didn’t smell half as bad as what wafted up from the basement.

He started to walk toward the scratched up basement door to investigate but a cry unlike anything he’d ever heard sounded from down the hall. He cocked his head to the side and listened. It came again, a mix between the wail of a baby and the growl of an animal. Then he heard the soft shushing sounds of another female voice.

Angela. He looked at the family photo on the fridge, held there by a Florida magnet, a souvenir from a family vacation, he assumed. Paul, his first wife, and Angela around the age of four waved to the camera as they stood next to Mickey Mouse. Another picture was a more current image. Paul, Angela and a woman he assumed to be the mail-order bride. She was tall with dark hair and a lot of makeup. Angela’s light brown hair was much longer in this picture and she wore a T-shirt with some grumpy looking cat on the front.

Hal’s gut churned as he followed the sound, hoping he didn’t find a hideous scene at the end of it. He hadn’t seen Angela since she was about five years old, but he’d promised Paul at her birth that if anything ever happened to him, he’d take care of the girl.

The growling wail grew louder as he traveled the hall and he discerned which door it came from. The second from last.

“Angela?” he called as he gripped the knob. “Angela, it’s Hallelujah Brown. I’m an old friend of your dad’s and your godfather. Are you in here?”

“Yes,” came a small trembling voice.

“I’m coming in, honey.”

He turned the knob and pushed. The first thing he saw was Angela, sitting in the corner of the room in a black T-shirt, jean cutoffs and black hiking boots. She sat huddled in the corner with her knees pulled up to her chin, hands clasped in front. Her eyes darted from him to the other side of the room, tears making them glisten.

Hal stepped inside and turned to see the rest of the room that had been hidden by the door. He cried out in alarm and sheer disgust as his gaze settled on the crib and the tiny cloudy-eyed monster growling inside it. “What is that?”

“My little sister,” Angela answered. “I think she’s hungry.”

“Lord help us,” Hal whispered, walking toward the crib.

The baby, no more than a year old, stood and gripped the bars, moaning and growling. A face that should have been sweet looked anything but. It snarled at him viciously as drool dripped from the corners of its mouth. Its skin had a slight greenish tint and he knew the few teeth he could see protruding from its gums as its lips pulled back to make monstrous sounds were deadly weapons. This thing was not a child, not in any human sense, but he realized that Paul and Angela would have trouble seeing that. Now he knew what Paul had been referring to when he’d asked Hal over the phone to do what he could not.

“Where’s your father?”

Angela sobbed. “He tied himself up in the basement with Elena after he killed her. He had to. She was going to kill us all. He told me you would be coming for me and to wait here.”

“Did he turn?”

Angela shook her head. “I heard the gunshot. He made sure you were coming first, then he killed himself down there so I wouldn’t see.”

“He killed himself.”

“He stopped himself from becoming a monster. I wouldn’t have been able to kill him, even if he tried to eat me.”

Hal looked at the baby monster again, his stomach rolling. “Have you touched her?”

“Daddy said not to, no matter what. She can hold bottles on her own so I tossed one in the crib but she hasn’t picked it up. She won’t stop crying. She sounds hungry.”

“Oh, she’s hungry all right.” Hal ran his finger over his gun’s trigger, remembering the zombies who’d attacked him at the gas station. They were all hungry.

“You’re going to kill her, aren’t you?”

“Yes and no.” He looked at Angela. “Your little sister already died. That thing is not her. Call it a zombie if you like. Call it a demon. Either word fits. There’s nothing that can be done to save your sister. She is in God’s arms already. That monster in her body needs to be destroyed.”

“I can’t watch.”

“I wouldn’t allow you to. It’s bad enough you have this memory of her. Just remember it isn’t her. Remember her the way she was.”

Angela nodded and stood. “Please make it quick.”

“I will. She won’t suffer.” He met Angela’s eyes, eyes that had seen far more than any twelve-year old should have seen. “I promise.”

“My dad said you were a good man. I trust him so I trust you.”

She left the room, shutting the door behind her.

Hal looked back at the baby. It continued snarling at him, drool spilling down its cheeks. “I’m sorry, Paul. You just find your peace, brother. I’ll take care of your girls.”

He walked over to the crib, placed the gun against the baby’s tiny forehead and pulled the trigger, putting it out of its misery like the rabid animal it was. 

The streets were silent. Deadly silent. Raven watched them anyway. She’d been thinking of changing locations for a while now, but every time she felt it safe to venture out she would see a group of the dead bastards roaming down there. If she had a bomb she’d take out the whole state of California, self included, just to pay those monsters back for what they’d taken from her. Sometimes she thought about just taking herself out of the picture but she didn’t have the guts.

Oh, she had the guts to kill herself, to end the constant memories of what had happened, to wipe away the image of Sky’s little body mangled and ripped to shreds. She didn’t have the guts to face her little sister though if they met somewhere in the afterlife. She’d told her to run, and Sky had listened. Had
trusted
her.

She’d sent the little girl straight into their claws. She’d made it as far as the street and that was when a group of them got her.

Somehow she had survived, and she hated herself for it every day. That hadn’t been the plan. She was supposed to be the one to die, to keep the zombies busy until Sky got away. Losing her parents had been hard, yes, but nothing like this. She wasn’t to blame for her parents’ deaths. Sky’s death? That was all on her.

She scooped up the rest of the canned fruit she’d found in the cabinet and tossed the can, listening to the loud clang it made as it hit the sidewalk below. Nothing stirred. Maybe the zombies had moved on to terrorize another area.

After fighting her way through the zombies at the hotel she’d ran a few blocks and found this building. The bottom was a music store, specializing in rare vinyl. It would have been a place she’d have loved to visit while sightseeing with Sky. Now it was just a place to hide. She’d been using the abandoned apartment on the second floor as her shelter for the past two weeks. The owner of the store had vacated pretty quickly, judging by the look of things, but some food had been left behind, mostly perishables. Those were gone now. She was down to fruit in a can and some ramen noodles. Not that she had any water to cook them in. She’d found toiletries to clean up with and a Metallica T-shirt to replace the bloody one she’d had on. She was stuck with her blood-stained jeans and combat boots.

She was going to have to go out there again. Maybe stay out there until she found other survivors. Surely she wasn’t the last person alive in Hollywood. Maybe they were all just hiding like her although she never saw any sign of anyone and she spent every day sitting on that window sill, watching.

“I need to go out there.” Still she sat. Her spirit just wasn’t in it. She wondered if starvation was painful, and how long it would take. If it wasn’t so bad, maybe she could do it. Just sit there and watch that street until the Lord took her. If He even wanted her after what she’d allowed to happen to Sky.

A loud clattering noise caught her attention and she turned her head toward the alley across the street. A young girl emerged from between two buildings, crying hysterically and making far too much noise.

Raven opened her mouth to warn the girl not to be so loud when another noise wafted up to where she sat. She’d recognize that growlish moan anywhere. She craned her neck and saw them down the street, three zombies shuffling along.

“Be quiet!” she yelled down to the girl. “They’re coming. They’ll hear you!”

The girl, thin and blonde, in skinny jeans, flats, and a pink Hollister T-shirt, fell to her knees, wailing.  Right there in the same street the zombies were walking.

“Shit.” Raven looked down at the scene. The girl was clearly beside herself with grief and not focusing on her surroundings. She hadn’t even paid Raven any mind when she tried to warn her. The zombies were steadily walking that direction, drawn by the sound. The girl was in trouble and there was no one else around to help but her.

“I couldn’t even save Sky,” Raven mumbled to herself, chewing on her lip as she watched the zombies. They picked up the speed as much as they could. It wasn’t very fast but there were three of them and the girl didn’t seem to have the sense to run away, which she should have already started doing.

Another moan sounded and she turned to see two more at the other end of the street.

“Son of a bitch!” Raven grabbed the butcher knife she’d found in the apartment and ran down the stairs, through the door, and onto the street. 

The zombies were closer now, but she was faster. She hurried across the street and grabbed the little girl who she guessed to be around twelve under the arm. “Come on.”

The girl surprised her by flinging her hand away. “Leave me to die! I deserve it. I killed her. I killed her!’

The little girl screamed the words, helping the zombies pinpoint their location that much more.

“Dammit, shut up! Whatever you did I’m sure you had to. Unless you want those things to kill us both, move your ass!”

This stunned the girl into silence but it only lasted a moment before her bottom lip trembled and she was crying again. “You don’t understand. I’m a horrible person. I don’t deserve—”

“Do you want me to die because instead of moving, you chose to park your ass here in the street and cry?”

The girl looked at her, sniffed. “What?”

“I’m not leaving you here to die. Now get up and run or we are both going to die.”

The girl sniffed harder and stood. Her eyes widened as she saw the zombies approaching behind them. “Oh!”

Raven turned her head and saw the zombies ambling toward them from less than eight feet away, arms stretched before them, mouths open, ready to tear into flesh. She grabbed the girl’s arm again and forced her to run away from them, toward the other two zombies approaching from the other direction.

“There are more of them!”

“I see them but they’re slow and we’re not.”

They continued to run, staying on the left side of the road to avoid the zombies approaching from the right. The whole time, Raven scanned the street, searching for something.

“Where are we running?”

“Look for somewhere there might be food or weapons,” Raven answered. A butcher knife was alright but she hated how close she had to get to a zombie to use it. “There!”

She pointed toward the pawn shop and veered right to cross over to it.

“A pawn shop?” The girl managed to say while gasping for breath.

“Weapons,” Raven explained as they stopped before the door. She turned full circle, scanning. “We outran the zombies. Now we just need to get inside before they catch up.” 

She tried the door, not surprised to find it locked.

“Now what?” the girl whined.

“Relax. I got this.” Raven retrieved the bobby pins above her right ear and set to work on the locks. She had all three unlocked before the zombies came into view.

“How’d you do that?”

“I may have spent some time in juvie.” Raven replaced the bobby pins in her hair and opened the door, shoving the kid inside before the zombies reached them. She locked the door behind them and let out a sigh of relief.  “We should be fine now, for a little while. Why were you alone out there? Where are your parents?”

The girl started wailing again.

Raven groaned before grabbing the girl by her shoulders and walking her toward the back of the store. Glass cases surrounded them, everything from jewelry to baseball cards showcased inside. She found what looked like a sitting room in the back and sat the girl down on a black leather couch. She hoped it was far enough from the front of the building that the zombies wouldn’t hear the girl’s crying.