Resurrection of the Fallen (Book 1): Surviving New York (6 page)

With the slam of the door and the bounce of the shocks as I hopped back into the bed, we were spinning tires and turning around. The zombies grasped at all they could find: the wheel, the bed rail, the still open tailgate, and the corners of the bumper. “Grab all you can!” I called out to Reagan as I pulled a female zombie into the bed with me and ended her miserable life quickly. Reagan followed suit and we quickly racked up bodies to take home.

We pulled off down the side streets with the pedal to the floor. We needed to get as far from the mass of zombies as we could so they didn’t catch us at the hotel. Looking down at our catch, I was ashamed. We always brought back more than this. It was getting too tough for us to protect ourselves now. We needed to move or something. This place was getting harder to upkeep. We would die here in the next year before salvation even came for us. I shook my head to clear it of all thought. That was a fight for another day. Now wasn’t the time.

“Is this enough?” Reagan broke through my thoughts. She gestured to the eight or so bodies lying at our feet. I shrugged and turned my attention to the buildings as we passed. Something wasn’t right. Where were all the zombies that usually inhabited the area? Nothing walked by the windows, nothing was on the streets save a few bodies. We needed more bodies, but not if there weren’t any zombies around. I scratched my head and glanced at her. She was watching me, puzzled, as I took in a deep, shaky breath. She nodded and I knew she understood what I had been thinking. She knew what I knew, noticed what I did. She had realized that their behavior had become more and more erratic. The only thing we could do for now, though, was set these babies up and see if they would hold for a few more days at least. We could sort out our situation by then. For now, we needed to tend to my dislocated shoulder and Brantley’s broken wrist.

Chapter 7

I
was roused from my sleep by someone yelling. As I lay there thinking I was still dreaming, there came the sound of a car turning over followed by the loud popping and humming from the muffler. I was baffled. It was still dark outside. Why would anyone be out yelling and driving right now? Had the past four years been a really bad dream, or was this?

I sat up slowly as the engine came roaring closer, rubbing my eyes to try to focus. The first thing I saw looking out over that balcony was the silhouette of a smoke cloud against the blue night sky. The second thing I saw was the black Grand Marquis rolling on thirty-five inch tires with guys hanging out of the windows. They all had baseball bats, swinging them at every zombie that came within reach of the car. They were yelling something in Spanish over the thumping of the bass in their car. It was a stereotypical movie scene featuring a bunch of Hispanic gang members. Only this wasn’t a movie and the danger was real.

I ducked down out of their sight as much as I possibly could up on the balcony. One thing we no longer did was inform others of our whereabouts. In all retrospect, if they were paying attention, the wall of corpses around this hotel would give us away. Most of those we’ve ran into in the past have been plunderers, murderers, and thieves who have always survived under pressure. We’ve lost a couple safe houses to zombie hordes for fighting to keep what was rightfully ours. Even Samantha was almost killed during the worst fight we’ve had so we changed our habits. We learned from our mistakes quickly and I wasn’t about to let this group of roughians know I was up here.

They turned down the side road closest to our hotel and went away toward the north of here. I sighed a deep, grateful sigh once I could no longer hear the sound of their engine roaring on its journey. I laid there listening to make sure they weren’t going to circle back around. I watched intently as a horde of undead gathered at the mouth of the side street the car had disappeared down and attempted in vain to catch up in hopes that they would be able to eat again. My stomach turned flips as the last few stragglers walked by and headed for the side road. They were missing chunks of flesh from different parts of their bodies. Some were dragging their guts along the ground behind them. Their entire midsection was missing, save for their internal organs. One pulled his own liver out right in front of our hotel and commenced to eat it. I stifled a gag to keep from drawing their attention back this way. I needed them to leave the area. Tomorrow I planned on making a trip to the library that was a few blocks away from us. I needed a map, or several, to use to get my family out of here.

I knew my dad would be against it, but we couldn’t stay here much longer. The supplies were depleting rapidly and majority of the food in the buildings nearby had already been pillaged by our group and passersby. We had maybe a week of food left today and would need to expand our search area. Doing so was a great risk to us all. Safety would be too far away. My dad was signing our death certificates if he didn’t change his mind on migrating soon.

We could venture out further for what we needed, but how long was that really going to be effective? No, we needed to leave and leave now. Our future, and the future of mankind, depended on us making this decision. That gang provided the perfect chance for me to do so. Every zombie within miles would hear their voices and their car. They would be drawn to leave the area and go as far as they needed to. This was my one and only shot to get the right supplies.

The silent glide of the balcony door was given away by the swish of the curtain following in its path. I turned quickly, hand reaching for the knife in my pocket, to see Reagan with her back turned to me as she pulled the door closed behind her. I let out the breath that I hadn’t realized I was holding, my arm falling to my side empty of my weapon. She turned to face me, smiling, and came to stand beside me at the balcony.

“Didn’t mean to startle you. I just needed some fresh air. Couldn’t sleep,” she whispered. She took a long, deep breath, craning her neck and tilting her head back to face the stars, forcing her bosom out and up. I found myself bombarded with the same urges from earlier and realized I was watching her breasts as she exhaled and relaxed. Her long sleeve shirt and vest rested so snuggly against her body that one would think they were tailor-made specifically for her. My eyes took a few seconds to trace down her body, taking in the tightness of her stomach and the plumpness of her ass. She turned her whole body to face me, her nipples sticking out slightly from the chill night air. A heat radiated from deep inside my body and an ache crept over me that I had done well to stave off thus far. I longed to touch her, to caress her and take her just to satisfy this craving for human contact with her. I just couldn’t allow that.

The corners of her succulent lips perked up in a half smile as she reached over to touch my forehead with the back of her hand. My hunger for her surged through my body and left me tingling as I fought the urge to give in. “You’re not talking. Are you sick?” she asked. I could see the hunger I felt reflected back to me in her eyes. She wanted it and it radiated from her. I was certain all I had to do was take it. I shook my head to wake myself up. That’s not the type of person I was. I wasn’t fixing to change that, apocalypse or no apocalypse. Human contact wasn’t worth it.

“I just woke up. I’m a little dazed,” I replied, turning away from her and back to the roadway that the Grand Marquis had disappeared down. “Did you hear that car go by?” I asked, hoping to take my mind off of the woman standing inches from me. A little change of subject was warranted.

“Yeah. Who was in it?” she asked, inching closer to me as she rested her arm lightly on the banister and touched her shoulder to mine.

“Looked like a Hispanic gang. You see that black smoke?” I pointed to the black shadow against the blue sky. ”They set something on fire over there.” I turned to face her and continued. “They lured the zombies away. I’m going to the library at sun up to get some maps. We need to get out of this place. Find greener pastures, you know?”

She smiled, her eyes traveling down to my lips. I knew she was going to try to have a taste. Would I stop her if she did? I wasn’t so sure I would in that moment. “I’m going with you,” she stated. The tone she used was all too familiar to me. She wasn’t going to be told no. She wouldn’t be a pushover for me like she was for my dad.

“Whatever. Just don’t slow me down. I’ll kill you if need be,” I warned, pointing my finger at her for emphasis. She playfully punched my arm before going back inside. I was a fool for allowing her to come. I knew where it would lead to. I had no doubt in my mind that she wanted me as much as I wanted her. The worst part about it was the fact that I suspected I wouldn’t fight it. I took one more look out at the shadow of the smoke against the blue light before lying back down and drifting off into a peaceful sleep. Dreams of my trip with Reagan tomorrow danced in my head as I slumbered. The sweet dream brought a smile to my face.

Chapter 8

A
s the click of the sliding glass door resounded as the latch hit home, I smiled to myself. Thoughts flooded every recess of my mind about having sex with Morgan tomorrow. Her succulent, plump body entwined with mine in a passion unlike any we’ve had in four years flooded my senses. I could smell the sweat dripping off of her skin and feel the softness of her somewhat dirty skin. Despite the fact that we haven’t had a real shower in years, my urge to have her was unhindered. I’d take her any way I could right now. Beggars really couldn’t be choosers when you lived in a world of the undead.

I stood there for a moment with my hand lightly rested upon the curtain covering the balcony door and listened to her tossing and turning in her makeshift bed. I couldn’t help but wish that we were the only ones here. Her body needed to be next to mine at all times. It was Lucifer’s influence that brought us together four years ago and his influence that kept us together. We were meant to be and nothing should have to stand in the way of that. It wasn’t right to spit in the devil’s face when he provided gifts.

I glanced over my shoulder into the living room where her father and sister lay sleeping on blowup mattresses and Brantley slept on the loveseat by the kitchen. It would be so easy to slit their throats one by one right now and watch them die. They would no longer be able to separate Morgan and me from our destiny if they were dead. But I needed them. They were going to be the force to push her closer to me, to stop her from fighting her attraction to me. I could see how she looked at me when she thought no one was looking. She had the hunger in her eyes after being without real human contact for four years. I knew Brantley disgusted her beyond the scope of sexual attraction and her family was too close to her to create an attraction. I’d caught her looking me up and down when we were alone. I knew she wanted it. She knew with certainty how I felt.

My disdain for them was always apparent on my face. I didn’t care to hide it. In fact, I wanted them to know I wanted them gone. I wanted them to see the hate in my eyes when I looked at them and to hear the venom in my voice when I talked. They couldn’t expect any better when they had treated me so poorly and done everything possible to keep me from my prize.

I was anxiously waiting for the right time for my plan to unfold, but I couldn’t throw her into the middle of it until she had a taste of the attraction we have for one another. I couldn’t kill them or turn them against one another until she was in my clutches and I knew for sure that she’d go with me when something happened to her family. She needed to fall right along with me like a good little bitch when the time was right. I just had to wait for the time that she was the most vulnerable to my advances. Tomorrow would be a turning point in our acquaintanceship without her having the ability to turn her back on me. I would have her and I would have her forever. There was no doubt in my mind that she would do so. No one had ever resisted my advances.

I slipped back to my makeshift bed on the other couch and nestled in for the rest of the night. I would be up before the dawn broke over the horizon to spirit away my woman so that her father, Seth, wouldn’t stop us. He was the eternal thorn in my side and took pleasure in putting a halt on any plan that I devised. I relished the thought of plunging my daggers into his back and neck, forever silencing his harrowing ass. I slipped into sweet sleep with a vengeful smile on my face and the thought of Seth dying at my hands. Nothing would be more desirable for me than to put him out of his misery myself. Then I’d hang him up somewhere with a hand-made sign that said, ‘She’s mine.’ No one would dare to come between us again.

Chapter 9

T
he sun kissing my cheeks to warm me up from the cold chill of the night woke me up that next morning. I stretched to relax my joints and muscles from the fetal position that I had slept in; my bones creaked and popped like a house settling into its foundation. I rolled to my back and placed my hands beside my head, planting my feet as I did so. I picked myself up onto my extremities like a crab and arched my stomach up toward the sun in a reverse table pose. This was my usual morning routine. Some yoga made you limber enough to face a day in the apocalyptic world that we now called home. I needed it the most when I went on missions.

I slowly released my form back to the start position to roll over onto my stomach. With legs flat, I picked my torso up with my arms and craned my neck to the sky in an upward dog. The sun was warm and glowed orange against my closed eyelids. I welcomed the new day graciously and fervently. I felt an energy growing inside of me that I hadn’t felt in the longest time. Today was a day for new beginnings. Today was
the
day I would lead my group to a whole new life. I could just
feel
that it was my lucky day.

“Well, now, sunshine! How much for a yoga class from my favorite instructor?” Reagan’s voice called from the balcony door. I relaxed into a sitting position and turned to see my beautiful partner in crime for the day. Wisps of hair fell in her face, untamed since the outbreak. Hair gel was a banned item now, along with deodorants and exceptionally smelly shampoos. They only gave us away to our pursuers if we smelled heavenly.

“I don’t teach,” I replied sharply, getting up and brushing myself off. This was going to be a long, difficult day. She was already starting.

“That’s too bad.” She pushed herself off of the wall and came to stand at the banister. “Any movement down below?”

“No. I haven’t heard anything. I just hope they followed that car all the way back to where it came from.”

“Well, we won’t find out until we go down there. Let’s not waste anymore daylight by standing here.” She slapped her hands down onto the banister and pushed herself off of it, shooting through the balcony door before I could say anything. I shook my head in disbelief at her new-found energy before hurrying to catch up to her. I was excited, too, but not to her extent.

My dad and sister were still unconscious when I came through the living room. Reagan was by the door waving for me to hurry my ass up. I rolled my eyes at her continued impatience as I tiptoed around the beds that rested upon the floor. Waking my dad meant that there wouldn’t be a trip to the library, which meant no concrete way to persuade him that we needed to leave here. We’d be stuck here for God knows how much longer and eventually starve. That wasn’t appealing to me in the slightest.

I glanced down at my dad as I passed by his bed. Even in his sleep, he was restless and it showed. His face still wore a frown just like the one he donned while awake. His breathing was shallow; a defense mechanism developed since the outbreak to prevent any wandering zombies from hearing us when we’re at our most vulnerable state. He stayed fully dressed even in bed. He made sure that on any given day he’d be ready to pick up his children and run for the next neighborhood should things get too hot here. Samantha slept in the bed beside of him, mimicking him in his sleep patterns. The only differences between the two of them were the dolls she slept with every night and the fact that her face was peaceful. She didn’t share the worries of our father. She had given up on fighting a long time ago and welcomed whatever may come for her in her sleep.

I made it to the front door without waking anyone. I held my breath as Reagan slowly unlocked the deadbolt and door knob, careful not to make much noise in the process. She pulled it open with a hand on each side of the door to keep from letting it open too fast. It creaked and groaned as it made its way, causing us to sweat from nervousness. I kept glancing back at my dad to make sure he stayed asleep. With my luck, he would wake up and be ready to fuss. They all remained asleep, much to our delight.

We tiptoed out the door and repeated the process to close it without alerting the others. I stood at the door for a brief moment, listening for anyone moving on the other side. I heard nothing at all and I couldn’t help but to breathe a sigh of relief. We had passed the first hurtle. I turned my attention to the hallway leading to the stairs to the lobby. The solar lights we had strung up along the walls when we first moved here were dimming out, almost completely dead. We went through the motions of pulling them out of their homes and stuffing them in our bags to take outside. They needed to be charged up every day so that we could see at night should we have to leave. With that done, Reagan slipped her arm around mine and pulled me with her as fast as she could.

“So, how are we planning on talking your dad into this? Are we going to use force? Because I
love
doing that,” she said happily as we descended the stairwell.

I gave her an incredulous look before replying, “You’re crazy if you think I’m going to force my dad’s hand in this decision.”

She shrugged, lifting my arm slightly, and said, “Just a suggestion. We’ve tried talking to him many times before.”

“Yes, but this time we have people, gang members, coming to our side of the city.”

“You think that’s enough to convince him? You think that will make him want to leave?”

“I do.” I paused as we reached the lobby floor. I turned to her, dead serious in what I was about to say. “There are four of us. There were four of them last night. How many do you think there are wherever they’re staying? We’re safer to leave.”

She was thoughtful for a moment, lost in the train of thought I had presented to her. “You’ve got a point. That should be enough to convince him. Let’s hope so. I don’t want those guys finding me here. I won’t hesitate to leave you and your family behind.”

“Fair enough. Right now, we need to worry about zombies waiting around the next corner, though.” I knew she was lying. She’d never leave us alone.

“Yeah, you’re right again.” She paused. “You like that, don’t you? Being right all the time.” She peeked behind the curtains that stood stock still on either side of the front entrance, hiding us from the terror that waited outside. “It’s clear. Let’s go while we can.”

We snuck out the front door the same way we had snuck out of our townhouse. Even knowing they had followed that car last night, we still had to be cautious for our group’s sake. There could still be some hanging out in the surrounding buildings, waiting for someone unsuspecting to walk in. We didn’t have to be that careful, but it was better to be quiet than to alert any undead nearby that we were leaving the safety of our home.

We skirted around trash that rested on the sidewalks and in the road, blown from surrounding dumpsters through the years. The library was just a few blocks way, but on foot it would take too long to reach it if we had to run for it. Reagan’s motorcycle would be too loud and the car I had stolen two years ago when ours was burnt down wasn’t fast enough for what we needed to do. It was a little electric car, not much good with power. The solar panels on top only helped if it could capture the sun’s rays to charge the system. Most days it was beyond difficult to do so. The sun would hide behind the clouds more than we liked so, to conserve what little solar power we could get, we wouldn’t go much over thirty-five miles per hour. In a moment’s notice, we would surely die should the car be surrounded or a massive group came after us. We were left with no other choice but to walk it and pray that all would be fine.

The streets were eerily quiet as we walked, but the tall, enclosed buildings made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. It felt as though every corner that we rounded and every dumpster we hid behind when we heard anything was plagued by prying eyes. It gave the impression that every window would be holding a zombie or cooped-up human, but every time I looked, there was nothing. The windows only held curtains or blinds, drawn shut long ago to hide its secrets within.

We jumped at every sound that reached our ears, even if it wasn’t a sound we had learned to associate with the undead. Years of living in the shadows, afraid to even go to the bathroom, left us broken without a tiny shred of the normalcy we used to possess. The Russians had deprived us of everything, including our sleep. Even after this was all said and done, we couldn’t recover what was now lost to us. Our peace of mind would never return and we would never get a good night’s sleep again. They had crippled humanity until the current generations died. Our only hope was that our children wouldn’t have to grow up learning what we did these past four years.

We rounded our last corner finally and had the library in our sights. Before proceeding, we stopped dead in our tracks to observe what was going on. The zombies hadn’t traveled too far, or the car hadn’t one. It wasn’t wrecked anywhere we could see, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t nearby. Up and down the street in front of the library, swarms of zombies gathered together. Groups were huddled together every few feet while a few walked around aimlessly. They were waiting for something to happen, it seemed.

Had we not known any better, we would have thought that the zombies were sleeping. They stood there in their groups with their heads bowed together and their arms hanging limply at their sides. They made no noises and that alone was the only giveaway that they were awake. They were merely resting and waiting for an unsuspecting person to come by for lunch. One tiny noise or one whiff of your scent and you were doomed. Dead before you could get three feet from where you stood. They would close you into a circle of death and you would never get out alive.

Reagan appeared unimpressed and confident. I wasn’t surprised, though. She had that look on her face multiple times over the last few years. The only thing that concerned me was the fact that nothing ended well when she wore that expression. She always had a habit of getting us into trouble or bringing death down upon us when she got like this. I sent up a quick, silent prayer that this would be one of those instances where she wasn’t bad luck for me.

“Now, wait! Before you go getting any crazy ideas, we can’t fight off all these zombies by ourselves. Hell, I don’t think the four of us would be able to,” I whispered by her ear, concerned for our well-being. Her eyes closed as a contented smile flashed across her face.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got this covered. We only need to kill two of them, maybe even just one, and the others won’t even know we’re here,” she replied, digging out her knives.

“And how do you plan on attracting only two of them?”

She looked at me with an evil expression on her face. My heart sank to my feet. I dreaded the answer to that instantly. I knew it wasn’t a good one. “We need to swing around to those two over there and slay them where they walk,” she replied. She pointed to two zombies that were walking around farthest away from the majority. “Then drag them back here to dissect.”

“And if we get sniffed out, our future is hopeless. We can’t get the others to safety if we’re dead.”

“Do you want our safety now or their survival later? Your choice.” She folded her arms across her breast, tap-tap-tapping her foot with impatience. She was cute when she did that. The way she was leaning more on one foot than the other, causing her hips to lean at an angle, made it harder to look at. She was perfection in every sense of the word.

I smiled slightly, hoping she couldn’t tell by my face what I was thinking. “We came all this way, Reagan. We might as well go through with it.” I waved her ahead of me, following close behind to protect her flank.

My heart raced as we crept up as silently as we could behind the two lonely zombies. The wind was in our favor for the time being. Their expressions never changed as we crept closer and closer, a big relief to me. As long as they didn’t react to anything, it meant they didn’t hear or smell us. Our safety was reliant on that fact not changing. Should it change, we would have the entire street of undead jumping on us in a heart beat and my dad would never know what happened to us. They would find our bodies later, if even at all.

The one closest to us, a woman in a flowing pink dress, walked continuously in circles as she tried to decide what to do with herself until her next meal came around. Her eyes were dead, even for a zombie. The milky tint we were so used to seeing was actually a purplish-blue for her. I wondered if perhaps she had been blind when she had been bitten. Made sense with the way she was stumbling around in circles. I felt pity for her. She would’ve never seen this coming. She had been easy food for her attacker.

We felt the change of wind direction, holding our breaths as we waited to see if she would react. Her nose wrinkled when we were three feet from her and she grunted with anticipation. She turned in our direction with a wicked, yellow smile. Her face was clearly decomposing. The skin wasn’t torn off, but it looked like it had melted away from the muscle and bone. By her clothing, I thought she might have been closer to my age than the fifty-something her now wrinkled face gave her the appearance of. Her arms reached out to us and she took a few unsteady steps our way. With a few quick wrist motions, Reagan and I both unleashed knives on this undead woman. With an almost unrealistic precision, both of us aimed at her head, striking exactly where we had meant to.

She went down, her legs crumpling out from under her as her brain ceased all signals to her body. I rushed to catch her and prevent her from alerting others when her body hit the ground with a loud thump. I grunted and strained under her dead weight as I laid her down gently upon the asphalt. Her stench was beyond the capabilities of a normal stomach, but having dealt with it for many years I had built up a defense against the smell. If you could even describe the way that the zombies stunk, it would be a mixture of sewage, skunk spray, fresh cow shit, a dead animal, and the vomit of someone who had drank too much alcohol. I doubted, though, that the mixture would even smell that strongly. I pulled our knives from her head, wiped them off on her pretty dress, and handed Reagan hers back.