The Zombie Chronicles - Book 6 - Revelation (Apocalypse Infection Unleashed Series) (19 page)

Sparkles barked at the door as Nick and Claire came in.

Claire picked the dog up, relishing the tongue-bath she got.

Instantly, Lucas whined to Nick, “Can you believe they gave the girls M-4s? How do we get our hands on some real weapons?”

“
M-4s jam easily,” I said. “My rifle, on the other hand, won’t, and I won’t be wasting half as much ammo as Claire. I’m good with what I’ve got,” I said, pretending I wasn’t jealous.

Claire smiled at me, then turned her gaze to Val. My sister was as excited as a little girl on Christmas morning, eager to go play with her new toy. Claire was equally happy to have her own assault rifle. They’d let her borrow them a time or two during missions, but she’d never had one of her own, and I was happy for her.

Nick came over and snagged some of my tuna.

“
What have you been up to all day?” I asked.

“
Claire and I took down a houseful of zombies. There were a lot of people hiding there, all infected, so we had to take ‘em all down. We secured the house and looted supplies for Max. A zombie got the slip on me. If it wasn’t for Claire, I’d be toast. She shot the thing seconds before it lurched for my carotid.”

“
Just another day at the office,” Claire said playfully.

“
Not true,” Nick argued. “She gave it everything she had, blasting zombie guts all over the place. When she saw that one lunging at me, she shot it into next week. You guys shoulda seen her!” Nick said.

In spite of the legless zombies and zombified grizzly, my story seemed to pale in comparison to Claire’s, because she had saved my brother’s life. It suddenly dawned on me that all was not fair in love and war, because if I had risked my life like that, Nick would have chewed me a new one—or at least subjected me to an hour-long lecture. I wasn’t about to let him get away with it that easily. “Nick, why didn’t you wait for a team?” I asked. “You know it isn’t safe to tackle a houseful of zombies by yourself.”

“
Listen, it all worked out beautifully.”

“
But you almost got bitten,” Val retorted. “You said so yourself.”

“
You’re getting too cocky,” Lucas advised. “You’d better tone it down, Mr. Gung-Ho. Your luck won’t last forever.”

Val glanced at Nick. “You and Claire are both hurt and broken inside. You wanna kill every zombie you see because you blame them for everything that’s happened. Is that it? Is it some kind of revenge thing?”

Nick shot her a look and shrugged. “Maybe. So what?”

“
You’re taking unnecessary risks,” she said. “Fight if you have to but don’t go looking for trouble. How many times have you said that to Dean and me?”

“
I was upset, and Nick and I started talking about all of our heartbreak,” Claire said. “Nick asked me if giving the zombies a little payback would help ease my pain, and I told him it would. Max was going to send us out with a team, but we beat ‘em to the punch.”

“
Claire, this isn’t like you,” Lucas said, “and it’s irrational on both your parts.”

“
This coming from the guy who wanted to chainsaw a head off a bear,” I said under my breath, trying to muster up a laugh in a tense moment.

Ignoring my remark, Claire said, “We were both emotional. It just…happened.”

“
It just happened?” I said. “What kind of answer is that? You went on some revenge-crazed shoot-‘em-up rampage and almost got my brother killed, and it just happened?”

Claire’s cheeks began to redden with rage. “I don’t get it. For the longest time, you all whined about me not fighting. Now, I go in there and kick butt, and you’re putting me down for that. What do you want from me? No. You know what? Screw all of you! I’m a better fighter now, but I guess my best isn’t good enough for you.” When she stormed off, Nick chased after her, but she turned around and snapped at him, “No, Nick. Leave me alone. I just wanna go to bed.”

Like a scolded puppy with his tail between his legs, he moped all the way back to the living room and collapsed on the brown chair. “Great. Now you’ve all officially pissed off my girlfriend,” he complained.

Lucas threw his hands in the air in touchdown formation. “Gooooalllll!” he yelled like a World Cup announcer. “And he finally admits it!” he said with a laugh.

“
I’m sorry, but she isn’t playing with a full deck,” Val said. “She’s not thinking straight. The Claire we know never woulda taken that kind of foolish risk, not for Nick or anybody else. Remember when we met her? She was hiding in that glass house like some spoiled princess while we were out there fighting zombies.”

Nick leaned forward. “She’s grown every day since we met her, little by little, and now she’s a killing machine. I think it was in her all along. She just had to tap into it.”

“
Gosh, Nick,” Val said. “It’s like you’re proud of what’s she’s becoming.”

I looked at my brother, then back at Val. “That’s because she’s turning into
him
.”

“
Well, she’s got better knockers,” Lucas said, smiling.

Val wrinkled her brow at Lucas’s joke, then blew a breath. “I wish I could figure you out, Nick.”

“
You can’t. He’s too twisted,” I said.

Nick smiled. “Well, at least I’m a special kind of twisted.”

“
No argument there,” I said.

“
You shoulda seen the fire in her eyes when she took those fiends down though,” Nick said. “It was…epic.”

It was clear to all of us that Nick and Claire were broken people, getting colder every day, plagued by painful memories of lost loved ones and a need for revenge. I wasn’t sure they were good for each other or even for us. They took too many chances, likely because they didn’t care if they lived or died, and those were not the kind of people I wanted watching my back, but I didn’t have the nerve to tell my brother that.

Lucas spun toward Nick. “Enough about little Miss Terminator. You shoulda seen your brother today. He saved my neck when he took down that freaked-out bear with one shot.”

Nick gave me a fist-bump. “Yeah, the boys in the lobby were talking about that. Congrats, bro,” he said. “Also, Max mentioned your theories about the basement in the lab. He wants to work out a plan before he goes busting down any doors.”

“
What is he?
Chicken
?” Lucas joked, then stuffed his mouth with chips.

Val rolled her eyes. “Gosh, Lucas. Do you ever quit?”

He shook his head and grinned, allowing crumbs to fall out of the corners of his mouth unchecked.

“
So Max doesn’t believe me?” I asked my brother.

“
Gosh. That’s just…
fowl
,” Lucas joked, earning him a slap across the back of the head from Val.

“
He just needs to think things out.”

“
There are never very many people there,” I said. “If we had a team, we could easily go take a look.”

“
Well, we don’t have a team until Max gives us one. He’s worried about disturbing the peace with the scientists. At the moment, everything hinges on your word.”

“
So this is about politics?”

“
Max wants to deal with the animal threat first, and we need the scientists on our side for that. He did promise to keep an eye on the lab though.”

I was livid. The man didn’t believe me, and I wasn’t even sure if Nick did. “Well, at least Lucas believes me,” I said.

Lucas glanced at Nick. “It’s worth checkin’ out, man. Clearly, something’s going on in that basement.”

“
Dean saw chickens,” Nick said. “Maybe it’s just storage for livestock or eggs. There are a lot of mouths to feed around here.”

I shot my brother a look, hurt that he wouldn’t take my side. “Chickens don’t moan,” I said. “They cluck and squawk.”

“
Nick,” Val chimed in, “you know as well as I do that they could be up to experimental testing.”

“
But why would they hide it from us?” he asked.

“
Because they’re using
our
serum,” she retorted. “If there’s even the slightest chance of that, we have to do something. That stuff creates hybrids, and we’ll have to kill any they’ve created.”

Nick thought for a moment, scratching his chin. “You’re right,” he finally said. “We should definitely check it out. Gimme a couple days to get Max onboard though. If they are hiding hybrids down there, we’re gonna need an armed team. Those things think and talk, so we’ll have to play it cool.”

“
There are herds surrounding the city,” Val said. “We need to act now and put them out of commission.”

“
I gotta go with Nick on this one, Val,” Lucas said. “We can’t go in that lab without backup, because we don’t know what’s down there. I mean, I can take out Colonel Sanders, but if there’s a whole barnyard of zombies down there, that’s a different story. Let’s keep working on Max. We’ll plan to attack in two days, one way or another.”

As Lucas and Nick nodded in agreement, Claire came out of the bedroom. “Hey, Nick,” she said quietly, “wanna go practice on some targets with my new gun?”

“
Now?”

“
Why not?”

“
All right,” Nick said. “Let me just talk to Dean for a minute, and then we’ll go.”

We talked for another hour, but it didn’t change anything. Val seemed to believe me, and even though Lucas wanted to check it out, he kept making jokes as if he didn’t believe me, and Nick was all about having good back up. Finally, I gave up and went into my room and shut the door.

Chapter 20

Morning came much earlier than I expected it to. Val and Lucas went for an early walk, and Nick and Claire were still sleeping. I got a good work out in. I did jumping jacks to get warmed up, then moved onto push ups, air squats, and then pull ups. I had almost worked out every muscle in my body with that little exercise session. I felt great and ready to take on the world. Exercise was still a necessity. I had to be ready for anything. At a moment’s notice I might need to scale a towering barb wired fence, jump over a trash can, climb a fire escape, or leap between building tops in a single bound.

As I munched on chips and a bottled water, a healthy breakfast if there ever was one, I sat on the recliner with my feet propped up, thinking things over. I knew later today I’d have something healthier to snack on. Claire and Val were picking some pumpkins, broccoli, tomatoes, yellow peppers, spinach, squashes, strawberries and cabbage planted in a huge greenhouse one block over. I knew I needed to stay healthy if I planned on taking down zombies. And living off of processed foods wasn’t going to give me the nutrition I needed to stay healthy and fit.

A few minutes later, the bedroom door creaked, and Nick stepped out, shirtless running a hand through his messy hair. “I didn’t get much sleep,” he said.

“
How come?” I asked.

“
Chickens,” he said, grinning slyly.

My eyes widened. “Nick, what did you do?”

“
I thought about going over and busting down the door to see for myself, but I knew that’d just piss ‘em off, and talk about mad Max! I had to look without them knowing I was looking.”

I stared at him hard, furious that he’d left me out once again. Had I knew he was going to the lab, I would’ve never went to bed. “What did you come up with?”

“
Claire, Val, and I went to the edge of the city to shoot some targets, the moving kind. We couldn’t sleep after all that adrenaline, and the girls wanted to show off their new guns…”

“
And you decided to have them take aim at the zombies lining the border. I know that part already. Get to the good stuff.”

“
Well, it was great practice for Claire. She’s doing great. Anyway, after that, Val went to bed, but Claire and I still weren’t tired, so we drove to the lab.”