Resurrection of the Fallen (Book 1): Surviving New York (7 page)

With a quick look around, I rose to my feet swiftly, happy that we had managed this far without alerting the snoozing crowds. But that feeling was shattered quickly. To my dismay, our other target had wondered over near one of the huddled groups while we were busy slaughtering the female. Getting him would be way too risky now. I turned to Reagan and gestured to her to help me move the female to where we had sat in the alleyway. She rolled her eyes at my reluctance to put my life in jeopardy, but picked up the zombie’s feet as I grabbed her underarms.

We gracelessly hauled the body back to the alley, setting her down behind the large dumpster. This was the part I always dreaded. The stench of these walking corpses was bad enough while they were somewhat living. When killed, their bodies decayed faster, sending out nauseating fumes of gasses and odors that made even the toughest stomach want to hurl. The worst part is we were about to cover ourselves in her blood and other liquids. It was an almost fool-proof way to just walk on by zombies without being detected. Its only downfalls were washing away in the rain and those zombies that fed on others as a last resort.

Reagan shoved the tip of her knife into the top portion of the corpse’s lower abdomen, jerking her wrist to get the blade to slide down the length of its pelvis. We couldn’t force the knife upwards as the rib cage had fused together from the virus to protect the internal organs, specifically the heart. Putrid gasses rushed out with the stench of hundreds of rotting eggs. I gagged as the vapors filled my nostrils and lungs, covering my mouth and nose to prevent anything worse from happening. Food was scarce enough without losing breakfast over a corpse even if it was just a pack of crackers. There was no telling what I would have to eat next, or even when, so I needed to control my bodily functions as much as possible.

“I’ll never get used to this,” I gagged again as Reagan stuck both of her hands in the stomach cavity under the ribs and pulled it open as far as she could.

“Yeah, well, you gotta do what you gotta do,” she absently replied. Her thoughts had drifted away to something more bearable than what she was doing at the moment. I learned a while back that she did this anytime there was something she didn’t want to remember going on. She never would tell me what it was that she thought about in times like these, but it worked well. “You first, sunshine.”

I gulped hard, fighting down the lump that had grown in my throat. Shaking my head to try to empty it of this moment like Reagan had, I slipped off my top long sleeve shirt, exposing the spaghetti strap underneath, and plunged it into the stomach cavity we had just opened. I winced as blood and guts touched my hand, oozing out over my shirt to soak into the porous fibers. I kept thinking of Samantha being able to play outside again so that I could keep my food from spewing out all over the place.

“Ok. You’ve had it in there long enough. It’s my turn,” Reagan whispered. She knew I was fighting my bodily functions right now and didn’t want to jolt me back to reality too hard by talking too loudly. I pulled my shirt free gladly and wrung it out to get rid of the excess blood and body matter. The brown, clotted mess was slow to drip off and only made it harder for me to resist vomiting as I watched it.

I cringed as Reagan soaked her shirt in the body, too. The vacuum, slurping sound it made as the shirt was pushed down into it had my stomach turning flips. She looked up at my pained expression, rolled her eyes, and took my shirt from my hands. With a few swift motions, she cleaned the excess blood and tissue from it. “You’re such a wimp. I can’t believe you have problems doing something so simple,” she said with harshness to her voice. I instantly felt like a scolded child. Why couldn’t I be more like her? Why couldn’t I be tough?

“Because you were raised by your family, protected from the rest of the world,” Reagan stated as she wrung out her own shirt.

“Do what?” I asked. Her statement broke me from my trance. Why would she say something like that? Could she read my mind? No, there’s no way. But, then again, I used to think zombies could never exist. Look at the world we’re in now.

“It looked like you were thinking ‘why can’t I be just like Reagan’ so I answered you. Was I wrong?” Her puzzled look, complete with her head cocked to the side, caused my heart to skip despite the blood on her hands. She was so perfect with her hair falling over her right shoulder, resting on her bosom. Her skin that was hidden by her clothes on a daily basis was a porcelain color now that she had bared it to me. Her spaghetti strap was just as form fitting as the rest of her outfit.

“No, you’re right. That’s what I was thinking. You didn’t have a family?” I asked, prying my eyes away from her to pull my shirt over my head, cringing as the cold blood touched my skin and the stench wafted to my nostrils. My food crept its way up my throat, threatening to show its existence.

“I’m not going to talk about it. That’s something I like to share only with myself.” She snatched her shirt over her head, quickly sheathed her knife, and stood up roughly. It was as though someone had stuck a stick up her ass.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you. Here, let me clean up your face as an apology.” I pulled a handkerchief from my back pocket and reached out to her, but she snatched it away from me, scratching me in the process. Thankfully, it didn’t bring blood or break the skin enough for the zombie fluid to get into my system. We weren’t sure if that would be enough to turn someone, but none of us wanted to take a chance.

“I don’t need your apologies or your pity.” She proceeded to wipe the blood off of her face, rushing to get to the library. I could tell that she wanted to get back home to get away from me at this point. I felt horrible knowing she hated me right now. She flung the handkerchief back at me and turned abruptly to head to the library. I hurried to follow her silently, wiping my face as I went.

The next few minutes were the most stressful of my entire life. My heart raced faster than a NASCAR driving down the track. No matter how many times I had to do this, the act was always the same: my heart would beat erratically as I prayed and wished that my scent wouldn’t be stronger than the blood’s, they wouldn’t be able to tell that my movements weren’t zombie-esque, and I wouldn’t get lightheaded from the stench coming from my clothes. I was always so certain that my heart would give me away and seal my doom, but it never happened. As I shut the heavy library door behind me, I was able to calm my heart down just a bit. The next obstacle was checking out this place for any undead that could be lurking in the shadows.

Reagan signaled for me to check the left half of the library as she checked the right half. Sweeping through the bookshelves, tables, and cabinets, we came across as trained for this type of thing. If surviving this apocalypse didn’t make us professionals, I’m not sure what would. Hell, we should qualify for any job once this was all over, in my opinion. The only thing missing was Brantley. We were at our strongest with the three of us working together. Reagan and I had never worked alone before and, if truth be told, I was nervous it wouldn’t work the same way.

The library was oddly quiet, even for post-apocalypse. Dust lay heavily on all the shelves and tables, undisturbed in God knows how long. Not a fingerprint rested upon the silent books, not a footstep had walked across the decorative rugs that lay on the floors. Not even the zombies had been in here in years, maybe never. Astonishment washed over me as I caressed the spines of the nearest books. This was probably the only place in the whole city that was left untouched and it gave the library a magical, almost eerie feeling to it. This would be the best place for us to be. This library was probably a one in a million place, one of only a handful that lay untouched.

Footsteps sounded off to my right, somewhere behind the rows and rows of bookshelves surrounding me on all sides. I backed myself up against one of them to protect at least one of my blind spots. I slowly and quietly unsheathed my knife from my hip and clutched it to my chest while my heart started racing again. I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer in case the big man upstairs was listening.

“Morgan? Where are you?” Reagan whispered as the footsteps got closer. I dropped my hand that held the knife and breathed a sigh of relief. Her head popped around the corner of the bookcase that I was leaning up against. Her face was contorted by worry and what could have been fear.

“Yeah,” I gasped, struggling to catch my breath. Fear had just about caused me to pass out from holding it.

She came to stand beside me, taking the knife from my hand and sheathing it for me. “Find anything?” she asked, placing her hand in mine. Her hands were soft even being without lotion for years. It was warm and pleasurable to have her contact. I wanted to do so many things with this, but held off. I didn’t need to do anything with it.

“No.”

“You feeling alright?” Her expression turned to pure worry and concern instantly. I didn’t know she would ever be worried about me, especially after I had hurt her out in the alleyway. I felt special, and happy.

“Yeah. You took me by surprise, is all. I was in my own world.” I cleared my throat to rid myself of the lump that had formed there. I felt like I would cry from the near-heart attack and her affection for me. I didn’t want to, but damn the feelings she was giving me…

“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to. It’s all clear on my side.”

“Here, too.”

“So what all do we need? You said maps, but maps of what?”

“Anything we can carry. I really think we should map out a route to the countryside to find whoever powers the blue light in the night sky. If that doesn’t turn out good, we need to keep going. We need to make sure we don’t get lost somewhere.”

“You think what we’ll find won’t be good?” She looked me hard in the face, looking for any indication that I might be hiding something.

“I don’t want to hope that it’s a good sign. We just need to be prepared or my dad won’t go for it. That is, if he even agrees to do it in the first place.” I walked off in search of the reference section to find any and every map they had here. I hoped that someone hadn’t beaten me to it years ago when the outbreak first happened. That would’ve been like signing our death certificate. Those maps were our only hope. We would surely die in this city if we didn’t have it.

To my immense relief, the maps were still there. There were ones specific to different regions of New York, maps of the entire state, maps of adjacent states, and a couple road atlases of the entire country. Reagan looked at me, smiling with a twinkle in her eyes, as I grabbed everything I could carry. My heart soared at this discovery. This place had everything we needed, except for food. We could do so much with the resources here.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her pulling off her blood-soaked shirt, followed by her spaghetti strap. I looked up at her only for her to grab my face in her hands and lock lips with me. I gasped with surprise before pulling away to pull my shirts off as well. This is what I’d been dreaming of and wanting for the past year even though I refused to give in. This was happening now. And I wasn’t about to let it pass me by.

The hunger in her eyes was more than apparent to me as I dove in for more kissing. Her lips were supple and inviting to me as I fought to get the rest of her clothes off of her. I had never done this before with another woman, but four years was far too long to wait. Nothing was going to stop me this time from consuming myself with passion for her, not even my own reservations about this. The ache needed to be dulled no matter what the cost. I could deal with the emotional repercussions later.

We screwed repeatedly until we were too tired to keep our eyes open any longer. We passed out into a sweet, satisfied sleep that was consumed with the replays of our sexual acts.

Chapter 10

M
organ laid there sleeping so peacefully; the first time in a long time that she has been able to. An hour of stress relief was just enough to wipe the worry from her face as she dreamt of a place far better than this. She snored ever so slightly and I smiled to myself. She was the cutest at times like these. I couldn’t help but want her more. I was ready to take her with me everywhere, fully giving myself over to her.

Many emotions were playing out in my mind at the moment, but boredom was the one that won. I stood up slowly, attempting not to wake her up, and redressed myself. I went about searching the entire library again, just for the fun of it and to pass time. I couldn’t think of anything else to do with myself. I wasn’t going to wake her up just yet. She needed to sleep while she could. Once we left, she would go back to her other self. It was a shame to think about it that way, but that was the reality that we lived in now.

I viewed the dusty shelves with disgust. I hated this part of the apocalypse. Everything was nasty and it irritated my OCD to no end. The worse part was that there weren’t any cleaners worth a damn any longer. I wouldn’t trust the ones I could find with my life. The ammonia and bleach were probably more toxic now or quite the opposite. They could have lost all of their cleaning power sitting for so long. I couldn’t do anything about it and I was forever cranky because of it.

I picked up on disorderly shelves like a magnet. It was easy to spot the ones that had books missing; some of them more than others. The corners of my mouth twitched in the pure disgust I felt for the messy way that the librarians had left this place. They must’ve been far too lazy to pack the books together until the ones that were missing had been returned. It was no wonder why people didn’t want to come into libraries any longer.

I shook my head and kept looking. I had no idea what I was searching for. The most I would find here would be books and reference materials that we hadn’t already swiped for our own purposes. All the same, I felt compelled to get up and look around for anything that might catch my eye. After all, it was much more time consuming than staring at the ceiling while Morgan slept peacefully. Maybe I could find an interesting book to read while I waited.

I circled around a few of the tables closest to where she lay snoozing, piddling through the magazines that had been left in a hurry to escape the attacks. You could tell the type of people and the interests foremost in their minds by the pile of magazines they had left where they once sat at. A pile of bridal magazines for one chair, a pile of teen’s pop magazines for another, and some NRA magazines in front of the chair that had been thrown backward to the ground behind them. No doubt he was the protector of the other two seated around him. I found myself thinking for just a moment if he had helped them to survive or if they had fallen like the majority of the population that tempted fate that day. Then I laughed out loud. I couldn’t give two shits about any of them. I was actually amused at the thought of their fate. Wish I would’ve been there to see it all happen.

I craned my neck to look over at the single table sitting farthest from the center of the library where I now stood. There were piles of books and magazines lying in front of one of the chairs there. A single chair, once occupied by someone doing some serious digging into the contents that this library offered to its patrons, picked away at my curiosity until I couldn’t contain it any longer. The pile was large enough to grab anyone’s interest.

I cautiously walked over to the table, unsure of what I might find among the piles of books and magazines. I was hoping for something kinky that I could play with in my mind the next few days, but, honestly, I was hoping for it to be something of the ordinary. I just couldn’t see someone pulling out weird books to look at while a family sat not far from them. That is, unless that kind of thing gave them satisfaction to some degree that I wouldn’t even feel; and I was a sick little bitch.

The books were stacked neatly together the same exact way that I would stack my school books together when I was in high school. The way that each stack was organized by size of the object put me in the mind of someone with the same syndrome that I had. Dealing with this world for the past four years, I wouldn’t wish that shit on anyone whatsoever. OCD is hard enough to deal with in a normal world, but absolutely unbearable in this one. That poor, narcissistic bastard needed to have died right out of the gate. If not, they probably killed themselves after dealing with this mess for a while.

The top two objects were related in subject to one another. The book, titled
Evil in All Its Glory
, was a well-known book among our generation. It was listed as nonfiction and depicted instances where the author had evidence that evil walked among us all, waiting for those naïve people to fall victim to their deceitful ways. I knew that to be true. Hell, I was evil in my own ways. Luring innocent, young boys into alleyways just to slit their throats was something that I had perfected over the years. I thoroughly enjoyed watching them cough up blood as they tried to breathe. Watching them pass away slowly with me as their last vision was Heaven in my world. I have never been caught, either. A plus for me, but bad police work in this entire state.

The magazine itself was one of those wacky, off-the-wall magazines where people would send in their photos they had taken of weird phenomenon happening all over the world. The front cover, torn at the edges, depicted a devilish imp with the headline, “The Devil Walks among Us.” I smirked to myself and snatched it up. I carelessly ripped the magazine in half, and then again, before throwing it onto the floor underneath the table.

Whoever this person was that had been here, they were a fool to read bullshit like that. The Devil?! HA! What kind of fool would believe in that nonsense? The only thing that was here before the zombies was people like me. The Devil couldn’t be bothered to do any work himself when he had a whole army doing his bidding, sending him souls every hour. I shook my head and continued on in my search of the building.

I didn’t find much more of interest other than a few vending machines full of snacks and soda pop. The pop was something that I knew wouldn’t be viable after four years of changing temperatures in a box that did little to protect them from the conditions that created a playground for nasty bacteria. If someone would drink that, they wouldn’t have to worry about the zombie virus getting its grubs on them. They’d die of stomach irritation before the virus could get to them.

I gave up on my search and meandered back to where Morgan was still sleeping away. Her face had taken on a different expression to it. It was no longer the peaceful face that I loved to see, but one that was riddled by worry. I knew that sleep wouldn’t hold her much longer and that she would join me in the land of the living against my wishes. Our trip back to the hotel that we called home would commence not long after and I would have to give her up to her family once more. I regretted that fact, but knew that it would all work out in my favor some day. I just had to be patient.