Z-Risen (Book 1): Outbreak (12 page)

My gratitude was short lived.

My skin crawled and my belly clenched when the door gave way. I pulled away and just avoided being crushed under it and about a hundred stinking dead people that wanted to eat me.

Do you know the dread? Can you imagine what their reek is like? It’s hell, pure hell and those teeth... Most still have teeth
, but others have snapped and cracked chompers that are the nastiest things you have ever seen outside of a pit of bloated corpses rotting in the sun.

I made it two steps, thought I felt breath on the back of my neck,
then spun and shot a shuffler in mid-leap. She had both hands up, her mouth a furious grin of madness. I swear she was gibbering. A couple of fingers had been chewed to the knuckle and that was probably what saved me, because her nasty hand wasn’t able to keep a grip on my arm.

My first shot missed. I took a few steps back as every fiber of my body screamed that I needed to run. I fired one more time and
, this time, did some damage. The bullet ripped through her body laterally but didn’t stop the damned woman.

I reached the chairs and crawled up the first level while the garage filled. I had
only seconds and one mistake would be the end of me. I’d be pulled into the mass so fast that there wouldn’t be time to blow my brains out.

I shot a Z in the chest because I didn’t have time to get a good bead. The bullet punched into flesh and knocked it aside.

Up to the second set of chairs and then I could almost reach the roof.

The chair rocked under my feet but I dare
d not look down. If I did, I was sure one of them would have me.

I leapt up and the chair wobbled to the side.

Fingertips. That’s all I managed to hold on with.

Joel grabbed an arm and pulled. Craig grabbed my other arm
, and if not for them, I would have gone back down into the mass.

Another shuffler smashed into the chairs and I was left dangling like a side of beef.

“Fucking get me out of here!” I yelled in an unintended falsetto.

“
We’re trying, you fucking ox,” Joel said as he strained.

Joel’s face was full of worry
, visible even behind his thick shades. He gasped for breath and threw his body into it. I rose into the air a few precious inches and managed to get a grip on the edge of the hole.

I pulled my legs up close to my body as something else grabbed at my boots. A hand got a hold of my pant leg and I was stretched between my rescuers and my would
-be consumers.

I’m pretty sure I screamed like a little girl.

Roz leaned over and grabbed a wrist. Together, the three of them pulled me up. I kicked down and dislodged the hand on my pant leg. Another kick caught the shuffler in the head.

It gibbered as it fell away. The
bitch’s head was covered in wisps of hair and her eyes were sunken in like the orbs of a skeleton. Blood coated her body, but most of it was by her mouth. She struck the mob below and used them as a trampoline.

I was so sickened
that I sat down with my feet dangling inside the garage, took aim, and shot her in the head. Her mouth moved and something like words came out, but they didn’t mean anything. She stopped making noises when my round split her skull. Take that, you sick fuck.

“Thank you, Joel. Thank you for saving us.” I reached out to offer a manly shake-
thing that turned into a half-hearted hug until he pushed my hands away.

“You’d do the same for me
,” Joel said. “You might wish you were still down there.”

“Why in the hell would I wish that?” I asked but trailed off when I saw the new horizon.

I rose on shaking legs, my body exhausted as adrenaline faded away. The sun was an unholy blaze that illuminated a fresh nightmare. All around the house there were the dead. Nothing but the dead. On and on the horde stretched, and more were on the way.

We were trapped in the middle of
Undeadville with no escape.

“What do we do now?”

Joel shrugged and picked up his AR-15 and popped the magazine. He gave it a quick shake and slid it back home with a click.

“I guess we wait and hope they go away.”

Below, the front door to the house gave in with a crash. Great; that was the second fortress we’d lost in two days.

Craig and Roz sat to the side to watch the Z’s gather. Roz sat down and
touched her fingers to her forehead, then down to her chest, and then side to side while muttering something about el Diablo.

“How’d you even get up here?”

Joel pointed at his entrenching tool and then looked at the house. They’d come out through the roof, jumped the couple of feet that separated the buildings and then gotten us out.

Christy popped out of the hole in the house a few seconds later and slung a couple of backpacks onto the roof. She took a deep breath and pulled herself up. Craig made the three-foot leap onto the home and helped her cross.

They both joined us and collapsed in a heap.

“I got what I could but they broke into the house.”

“All that food and water,” Roz said and shook her head.

“At least we’re still alive.” I tried to sound cheerful but it was cut off by the moans of the dead. A shuffler threw itself at the side of the garage and fell into the crowd below.

“Yeah. This is terrific.” Joel said.

Joel had managed to make it out of the house with his assault rifle. He sat with it cradled in his arms.

The ocean of the dead stretched around us until they covered the ground in every direction.

This is Machinist Mate First Class Jackson Creed and I am still alive. For now…

Reinforcements

04:35 hours approximate

Locatio
n: Undead Central, San Diego CA

Supplies:

Food: zip

Weapons: almost zip

The roof. The roof. The roof is surrounded by the fucking dead. We just need a fire to make the mother
....you get the idea.

I’m not much for long speeches. After a while all of the words sort of run into each other and become a drone. Joel Kelly also wasn’t a fan of long speeches and beat me to it with this perfect summary: “We are so fucked.”

You’d think a Marine would have a little more dignity or some words of wisdom. If John Wayne was playing the part of a Marine at Anzio and the enemy surrounded our little group of survivors, I’m sure he’d have some powerful words for the troops. Big words about glory and how it’s a fighter’s duty to destroy the bad guys.

Our troops just lowered their heads and hid. It wasn’t hard. Since full dark we’d tried to sleep. The effort was there
, but I had sand paper in my eyes from listening to the moans all night.

The house was full of dead. The garage was packed with the dead. The area around us as far as the eye could see was surrounded by the dead. So many dead it was like an ocean. They were out there in their rotted masses really stinking up the place. They groaned, moaned, and snarled. Christy lay on her side and tried to muffle them out with her hands. Craig stared back at them defiantly. That’s what a kid’s bravado is good for
, right there. I had no such illusions.

“How did this mess
happen?” Roz asked. She was covered in sweat and blood – not her own blood, but that of her dad and the Z’s that had chased us into the garage. I’d shot a shuffler in mid-leap and blood had splattered liberally. It was probably the single best shot I’d made in my week in the city and no one even saw it. I should get a fucking medal for that blast. I settled for being alive.

“At least we're alive.” I said. I got a whole pat on the hand for that.

“Why don’t we sneak back into the house? Close the door. Lock it. Then we kill all the zombies. We’ll be safe then,” Christy whispered.

Girl didn’t realize that we couldn’t just take our chances like that. One bite was all it took.

“Will that work?” Craig asked and flipped one of the shufflers the bird.

“Not a chance.” I broke the bad news. “We’d probably all die trying.”

The shuffler hissed at Craig. He sniffed the air, looked at his slower moving brethren, and then put his hand in his mouth and bit off a finger.

The Z’s left him alone while he chewed on his own digit.

Craig lay back down, so I did the same. Maybe if we stayed out of sight long enough the Z’s would lose interest and wander away.

“Why do they do that?” Craig asked quietly.

“Why do they do what?”

“Act like they’re afraid of the crawly dudes.”

“The slow ones?” I asked.

“Yeah. They even act like they understand the weird ones.”

“We call them shufflers.”

“Shuffler? Like they deal cards?”

“No. On account of that shuffle step they use when they walk. It’s like a stuttering motion they can’t control. We thought they were running around on broken bones or maybe weren’t fully turned or some shit.”

“Watch your language around the kids
,” Roz warned.

“Language?” I blinked.

“Doesn’t bother me, dude,” Craig said.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Seventeen.”

“Probably has worse language than me.”

“Dad was in the Navy,” Craig said and looked away.

“I’m in the Navy too. It’s cool. What did your Dad do?”

“Something with weapons systems.”

“Good for him. I bet he had air conditioning.” I thought of spending hours and hours in the hundred-degree engine room.

“Shh.” Roz shot me a look.

I sighed and patted Craig’s hand.

“Sorry, man. I hope your Dad’s okay.”

“Me too
,” he said.

I sighed and slipped my logbook out of the backpack that Christy had retrieved from the house
, then dug around until I found a beat up pen.

Joel had pulled his NYFD hat over his eyes and snored gently. He was so quiet I couldn’t even hear him over the moans of the dead below. How did he sleep in this living hell?

“What’s that?” Craig asked me.

“The only thing keeping me sane
,” I said and set pen to paper to write about how we had escaped the base.

###

15:10 hours approximate

Location: Remains of San Diego Naval Base, San Diego CA

Weapons:

2 fully automatic assault rifles

Enough magazines to make them count

1 Colt 1911 .45

22 Rounds
of .45 ammo

1 Heckler and Koch MP5-N sub machine gun

1 large knife

1 vey large wrench

I’ve heard a lot of situations described as clusterfucks. I’ve used the term a number of times myself. Generally the word had a lot of meanings, but this was the best example I’d come across yet.

We’d been back on the base for a few hours and all we’d managed to do was run, hide, and shoot a bunch of people that were acting crazed. I know now it was the damn virus that caused the zombie apocalypse but I didn’t know it then. If I’d had any clue
, I might have done the smart thing and jumped back into the ocean, then would’ve swam until my legs gave out. With any luck, a killer whale would choke on my sorry white ass.

We’d just run from a barricade that covered multiple streets. There were dead all over the fucking place and it seemed like every one of them had a bead on us. Joel Kelly moved out on point while Reynolds brought up the rear. I stayed in the middle and tried not to trip on anything. Joel used fancy hand signals
; after a while, I thought I’d caught on and knew when to stop, when to crouch, when to crawl, and when to haul ass like I was running from a fire.

We came
to another cross street that used to lead to a few fast food restaurants. Bodies on the ground. So many bodies. We crouched at the corner of a building and a street missing a signpost. The whole thing had been run over and was tangled in a heap of twisted metal that used to be car. Now that car was a burned out husk filled with bodies. Must have been a family of six. They were all dead, but still smoking. I gagged at the smell.

Joel grabbed the front of my jump suit and dragged me away.

We rounded a corner and ran smack into a band of them. They turned white eyes on us and commenced with snarling and moaning like a bunch of wild animals. Reynolds shot the nearest one in the chest and then his rifle jammed. Joel tapped him on the shoulder, so he fell back while Joel provided covering fire.

Reynolds worked his gun and then came up shooting. He moved backwards as Kelly also fell back
, and then we were on the run again.

We dove into what used to be a fast food restaurant. The place was deserted and trash had been hauled out and scattered all over the floor. A bag of sesame
seed buns was split open but covered in blood. I was so hungry I considered rooting around until I found one that hadn’t been splattered.

“Think they have food here?”

“Fuck if I know. Sweep the kitchen.” Joel nodded at Reynolds.

Joel went low but peeked out a window. The othe
rs had been broken out so he avoided those. I stayed next to him while Reynolds moved into the other room. He came back a few seconds later and shook his head.

Joel moved toward him but Reynolds shook his head once again.

“Shit,” Joel said and followed Reynolds.

“What?” I asked.

“You don’t want to know.”

“You really don’t
,” Reynolds said and moved ahead.

“I want to go on record as saying I hate this.”

“Yeah, yeah. Quit whining and man up so we can get away from this hellhole.”

“Think the cities any better?” I asked.

“Can it be worse?”

He had a point.

We moved out of the building and slid past a small store next door. The entire front had been shot to hell. There was a pile of bodies out front and most didn’t twitch. Joel scouted and then held out his hand before crossing in front of it.

“Friendlies!”
he said in a low voice. He looked back at us once and then dashed across the field of fire of whoever might be manning a gun inside.

No one shot at him
, so we stayed low and followed.

We sprinted to the end of the street and then paused next to a burned out bus. It was white
, but flames had turned the outside into shades of black. Soot stuck to my back when I slammed against it. Something fell out of a smashed window and grabbed my neck.

I dropped and let out a little scream of horror. Joel looked from me to the hand and smirked. I followed his eyes and got a look at my assailant. It was a hand
, all right, but it was covered in blackened flesh.

“Fuck this
,” I muttered.

Then the hand twitched.

I could have just leapt right out of my skin but managed to hang onto my sanity by a thread. Fingers moved, grasping at nothing, then they went still again.

We pressed on and found ourselves near an administrative building. Shapes moved behind dark windows.

The place looked familiar and I thought it might have been some kind of processing center for those shipping out to new commands.

“Be ready
,” Reynolds said.

“Who’s in there?”

“Not sure,” he said. “But they probably aren’t friendly.”

We crouched behind a car and
went over our weapons. Joel popped his magazine and checked it while Reynolds did the same. Joel laid out an extra mag and then came up in a crouch.

“If they rush us
, shoot the first few, then we move. They aren’t the fastest things, so we should be able to make it across the street.”

“You guys move. I’ll cover
,” Reynolds said.

Luckily
, we didn’t have to turn the street into a bloodbath.

A pair of guys in green moved out of the building. They had guns like Joel and looked like they knew how to use them. Reynolds looked over the side of the car and then grinned. He whistled once and then put a hand in the air.

The guys snapped to and aimed guns at us. From my vantage point, looking through the remains of a blown out window, I feared they were going to start shooting and ask questions later.

Reynolds held his gun in the air and then rose slowly. Joel did the same.

“Good to see someone’s alive,” one of the guys said.

We moved on the soldier
s’ position. Other guys in green filed out of the building. Joel Kelly and Reynolds nodded at them and they nodded back. They went into this weird dance where they looked each other’s gear up and down, then exchanged this and that. I saw at least two magazines swapped out for other magazines. Rounds were checked and counted out. Someone handed Kelly a pack that looked like food. He tossed it to me then took one for himself.

“You guys with the eight?”
one of the other soldiers asked.

“We just got here
,” Reynolds said.

We’d moved back into the building the guys had just vacated and crouched in the remains of an overturned trashcan. There were quite a few blood splatters but no bodies
, for a change. Not even any parts of bodies.

“What?” One of the guys looked them over. He had steel grey eyes and
looked like what an action hero should look like.

“We just got here
, Gunny. We were on the McClusky before it rammed into the base.”

“I saw that. Damn shame.”

“What’s going on here?” Joel asked.

“It’d take days to tell you. Something’s been hitting cit
ies and bases. The first we heard about it was up north around the Portland area. I guess some Black Water types brought back something besides crotch rot from the desert. At least, that’s the rumor.”

Joel stared at the man like he was looking at a ghost.

“What was it?” Reynolds asked.

“Don’t know.
  Rumors about some new weapon we were experimenting with.”

“Bullshit
,” Joel stated. “I was over there and those guys don’t have the tech.”

“True
, and don’t that make you wonder who does have the tech?”

“But what are we even talking about? This shit. All this fucking shit. It’s like a horror movie.” Joel gestured around.

“Yeah, it’s some shit. We’re getting off the base. Chain of command is stuck in limbo. Stay, fight, run, fight. We’re tired of taking orders from fifteen people so we’re getting gone. You guys want in?” Gunny looked us over. “Who’s he?”

They meant me. Did I really stick out that much?

“I’m Petty Officer First Class Creed. Jackson Creed.”

Reynolds and Kelly followed my lead and gave introductions.

“A squid? Shit.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean. I’d trade all my valuable knowledge of making a ship go fast for some combat training right about fucking now
,” I said, and there was a lot of truth behind those words.

“Well
, you’re big and you carry a big stick. Sometimes that’s all it takes.” Gunny nodded at the wrench in my hand. “How many rounds you got?”

“I don’t know. A pocketful and one extra clip.”

“Lesson number one, squid. It’s called a magazine. A clip is what a girl puts in her hair. You a girl?”

Jesus Christ. I’d been recruited into the Marines and this was boot.

“Right. Magazine. Sure, Gunny.”

“I’m just giving you shit.” He shot me a half grin. “Cooper. Hook this guy up with some ammunition.”

Cooper was older and even bigger than me. He wore enough gear to slow down a camel. Cooper reached into a one of the many pouches that adorned his vest and pulled out a magazine. He looked at my gun and then shrugged and handed it over.

I popped the mag and found the one he’d handed over was a match.

“Here’s the drill, gents.” Gunny looked between the three of us. “We are getting the fuck out of dodge. Coronado Base is now a death trap, so we’re going to leave it behind and take our chances closer to the city. If that doesn’t work, then we’ll make up the next part, but I will come up with a plan. Got it?”

The guys all
Hoo’d and wouldn’t you know it? They didn’t do a full hoo-ah.

“The plan sounds like shit.” Gunny’s eyebrows went up at my words
. “But it’s a hell of a lot better than what we’ve been doing, which is kind of a circle jerk.”

“Right. You’re welcome to come up with your own brilliant tactical plan
,” Gunny said.

The others chuckled. Me and my mouth. If we got of
f the base, these guys would probably play “string up the squid” and leave me for the dead. That’s if they didn’t feed me to a horde first.

“I got nothing
,” I said.

“Great
. So, if the General is leaving us in his hands, I suggest we move. Cooper and Walowitz, check the street. Lets get this show on the road.”

The two men moved out and advanced up the street. They ran to an overturned car and crouched beside it. One motioned
and another team of two went. They ran to an overturned pickup truck and dropped beside it. Two others from Gunny’s group took off toward them. When all four were in place, the first two dashed toward a street corner and stuck to the side of the building while the second pair kept watch.

Movement ahead. I snapped the handgun up at the same time as the soldiers by the overturned car. Sounds to the
west. Reynolds slipped out and took up position on the corner of the building, then peeked. He slipped his head back, took a couple of deep breaths and peeked again.

Reynolds ran to our position.

“Fuck load of them coming our way.”

“Now ain’t that a bitch. ‘Bout how many?” Gunny squinted into the distance.

“Can’t say. Hundred. Maybe more.”

Gunny motioned and the others followed. All told
, the men plus us made eight. Eight souls that wanted to get the hell out of this area. Seven men better trained than I’d ever been. My on-the-job training had consisted of pointing a gun and shooting. It was easy, the easiest thing in the world. You just had to ignore the fact that there were people on the other end of the barrel.

Cooper split off and went with Reynolds. They rounded the corner of the building and
layed down fire. Gunny motioned and we moved toward the fallen car. The two that had been there moved to the end of the street and took up position.

Our
routine became one of sending out scouts, shooting whatever dead came our way, and then trying to find an alternate path.

Hundreds had been drawn to the gunfire
, but we were also within sight of the base perimeter. The city proper lay out there and it was freakishly quiet.

Eerie.

Dead.

No one trotted over sidewalks. No cars zipped along streets. The
navy base was a hub of activity on a slow day. If a ship were returning from a tour, the base would be packed. Now, it was a different story. No one waited at the gate. No one was checking ID’s and no one, besides us, seemed to be alive.

“I hate this,” I muttered.

“You and me both, brother.” Gunny clapped me on the back.

Then they hit us.

It was like everyone I’d just pictured in my mind on a normal day had decided to say hi. They shambled. They crawled. They dragged broken limbs. They pulled themselves along the ground with guts and appendages hanging by scraps of skin. There were so many I couldn’t see an end to the mass.