The Zombie Chronicles - Book 6 - Revelation (Apocalypse Infection Unleashed Series) Page 2

  As I turned to head back to the truck, though, three zombies approached, each in a different stage of decomposition. I aimed at the closest one, the one with a twisted, mangled face. I squeezed off the first shot, and the bullet cut through the air, striking it straight in the head, just as I intended; it crashed to the ground, a heap of rotting flesh. I held my breath, focused, aimed, and let off another shot. More chunks of rotting flesh and gore sprayed everywhere. Finally, I let off my third and final shot. More decayed body parts splattered into the air like fleshy shrapnel, and the zombie slumped into the grass. Then, while shouts and moans echoed in the air like some Halloween choir concert, I ran to the back of the truck, threw open the doors, and grabbed as many guns as I could haul back to the battlefield at once. “Hey!” I yelled to a man with short white hair.

  “Yeah?” he said, spinning around.

  I threw him a gun.

  He threw down his tire iron, caught the gun, and nodded his thanks. As if he was some kind of expert military marksman, he immediately started firing, straight into the undead crowd that was howling for our blood. Nick had loaded all the guns, so they were ready to be fired in an emergency, which we definitely had on our hands.

  One by one, I passed weapons to the human soldiers, and that gave us a definite advantage over our rotting and hungry opponents. Gunshots rang out all around me, and the zombies fell like flies.

  Suddenly, a loud, shrill cry caught my attention, and I spun around in the direction it had come from. I fired at a zombie that was clamping down on a man’s leg with its powerful jaws.

  “Ah! I’m infected!” the man shouted.

  I ran over to tell him. “It’s okay,” I started. “We have a serum that can—”

  Bang! Before I could get the words out, he had held the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

  “No!” I screamed, but it was too late.

  Everything was a blur as I let out shot after shot, taking down anything in my path. One particular zombie seemed to have a real taste for me, as it walked straight into the path of my barrel. I fired, and a shower of black gore exploded on the tree behind it and began oozing down the bark like thick maple syrup. More undead ghouls lumbered my way, but I carefully, calmly took aim and fired, dropping four of the monsters to the ground.

  I scanned the area around me and saw a man in desperate need of help. Zombies had isolated him, and he was out of ammo and had no other choice but to try to beat them off with the butt of his gun. Just as a zombie lurched for his arm, I fired. It stopped dead in its tracks and fell over sideways. The man I’d helped darted off as more zombies came for me.

  As I fired shots into the ghoulish group, I tripped over a partially devoured body. My heart sank, and my stomach churned when I looked down at the poor, gutted man, the one with short white hair, whom I’d given the first gun to. Suddenly, as if some alarm clock had stirred him from a deep sleep, he opened his white eyes and growled. His cold, dead fingers grasped my ankle, and he bit into my boot. I shot him in the head at close range, then finished off the others.

  Val patted me on the back. “We got most of ‘em, and the kids are okay.” She smiled as her eyes lit up. “We saved them, Dean! Good thinking, grabbing those guns.”

  Dead zombies littered the area. A few cars inhabited by survivors took off without even stopping to ask if we were okay or to thank us for risking our lives to save theirs. I didn’t see the kids, so I assumed they were in some of those cars. A few of the men and women who’d been fighting alongside us came over to thank us, and Nick let them keep the guns and even gave them a little bit of ammunition.

  “Let’s go!” Nick finally said, once everything had calmed down and we had a clear path to drive our truck out.

  Just as Val and I were heading to the U-Haul, a red pickup swerved around the mangle of twisted cars, heading back to the gated community we’d just come from. The truck stopped, and the driver rolled down the window. The men and women sitting in the back of the truck started shouting and flailing their arms, demanding that the driver keep going. That was when I realized something was terribly wrong. When I rushed over, the driver had a stern warning for me.

  “Get in your vehicle! Get back on the road!” he said.

  I leaned in. “What’s going on?”

  Fear flashed across his face. “More of those things, that’s what! A whole horde is coming, and there’s no way you can fight them off, guns or not.”

  Chapter 3

  I swallowed hard as the man in the truck told us about the army of zombies heading our way.

  “There are hundreds of ‘em!” another man’s voice echoed from the cab. “We gotta get outta here! Drive, would ya? Step on it, man!”

  The woman in the passenger seat leaned toward me, her eyes wide. “I’ve never seen so many!”

  “You folks best just turn around and go back the way you came,” the driver advised.

  “We don’t have time for this!” somebody shouted from the back of the truck. “C’mon!”

  “Let’s go!” a woman frantically screamed.

  “Well, don’t say we didn’t warn ya,” the driver said, “but we gotta go now.” With that, he pressed on the gas, and the pickup sped off.

  My jaw dropped.

  “Can you believe those people?” one of the men said, wiping red goop off his face. “I think they were exaggerating.”

  “Did you see how scared they all looked?” I asked.

  “What’s another crowd of zombies? Heck, I’ll take them on blindfolded,” another man said.

  Nick met his gaze. “Like you did with this group? If memory serves me correctly, we had to help you and give you weapons.”

  Lucas and Val approached with a map and laid it out on the hood of the car.

  “Maybe we oughtta try a different route,” Val said, pointing.

  “Right. Let’s head this way,” Lucas offered, touching one of the alternate routes.

  Nick stared at the map. “Hmm. It’ll take us a bit out of the way, but it might help us avoid another fight.”

  “I say it’s the safest way,” Val said.

  As they quickly discussed what route would work best, I gazed ahead through the pileup of cars. Dozens of blurred shapes emerged. They were a good distance off, but their limp and crooked gait gave them away. My heart raced when I realized the people in the truck weren’t just feeding us a bunch of BS. I’d seen fear on people’s faces, and they were clearly terrified for good reason. “Nick!” I shouted. “Something’s coming, that horde the driver warned us about.”

  Nick shot the men a look. “That’s our cue, people! Let’s get outta here.”

  The other men and women men scrambled to their respective vehicles in a panic, and we all piled in the U-Haul.

  Nick threw it in reverse and turned around. In seconds, he was flooring it, and we sped back the way we’d come. When we came to a stop sign, Nick gripped the steering wheel, as if he was pondering which direction to go.

  “Go!” Lucas said.

  Nick froze and shook his head.

  “What’s going on?” Lucas asked. “You have a better idea?”

  “That little fenced-in community we just left. We’ve gotta warn them. That herd will be there in less than twenty minutes.”

  “Is this about Claire?” Lucas asked.

  “I promised her she’d be safe!” he retorted.

  “Nick’s right. We have to warn them,” Val said. “Those things will tear right through those fences and gates like nothing.”

  “Their blockades are all right for keeping out stragglers and small groups,” Nick said, staring ahead, “but that’s a huge throng of zombies. Those people will have no chance. They’ll be ripped to shreds before they know what even hit them.”

  “They deserve to be warned,” Val said. “My conscience won’t let me just look the other way, not when I know we have the power to save them. If we hurry, we’ll still have time to get the heck outta Dodge.”

  Like my brother and
sister, I couldn’t just let a community of people die without sounding the alarm to give them a fighting chance. They had taken good care of us while we were there, and they had every right to know that trouble was coming their way. Moreover, I couldn’t imagine Claire facing a horrible fate, being devoured by those zombies, especially after we had promised her that she’d have safety and sanctuary there. That was, after all, why she wanted to stay behind. “Val’s right. We can warn them and get out of there. We’ve got wheels, and all the zombies have are dead, rotting feet and legs.”

  “Fine,” Lucas agreed. “I guess we can’t just stand by and watch those nasties make a buffet out of that town. Let’s go.”

  With a jerk, Nick turned right and sped off.

  My heart was beating so fast I could hardly breathe. I knew we get there quicker than the zombie onslaught, but it was still all nerve-racking. Nick slammed the accelerator to the floor, and the engine of the moving truck groaned in protest as he hit eighty miles an hour. The scenery blurred past us, and I fought to stay calm. We couldn’t stay in the community long; we just had to warn the gatekeepers, who would sound an alarm, and then we’d find Claire and haul our butts out of there.

  “We’re here!” Nick said, screeching to a stop at the towering barbed-wire gates.

  “Nick?” a guard said. “What’s going on? I thought you were leaving town.”

  “We were, but we had to come back to warn you. You’re about to have a whole lotta company—the smelly, dead kind.”

  “What? A whole horde?”

  “Yup. I saw them myself,” Nick said, “and they’ll be here any minute. You need to warn everyone now!”

  The guard swallowed hard, then looked over at the others. “You heard the man! Don’t just stand there. Go check it out and bring me back a full report. I need to verify their claim,” he ordered.

  The men grabbed their weapons and scrambled to a nearby Jeep.

  “You really shouldn’t waste time,” I chimed in. “We’re telling you the truth, and you need to warn everyone that—”

  “Before we incite a panic, we need concrete proof,” the man said, shaking his head.

  “What’s wrong with you, mister? Those zombies will be here by the time they get back,” Val shrieked. “You need to warn people now.”

  “She’s right, buddy. You don’t have much time,” Lucas shouted, “and every second counts.”

  “Sound the alarm,” Nick demanded. “The people can choose to stay or go, but let it be their choice.”

  “You gotta give ‘em a fighting chance!” I said. “That’s why we came back here.”

  He looked at me, and I could tell by the expression on his face that he finally believed us and was scared to death. He sucked in a deep breath as a droplet of sweat rolled down his face.

  “Please,” I begged. “You can’t just let everyone die.”

  “But I don’t have orders to—”

  “Screw orders and protocol!” Val said. “You’re wasting precious seconds that might very well be the difference between life and death for everyone inside your precious gates. Sound that alarm and sound it now!”

  “I’m comin’ in to get Claire,” Nick said, “and nobody’s going to stop me!”

  “All right. This is a judgment call,” the guard said. “I don’t know if they’ll believe you, but they deserve to hear about this…new development, just in case.” He hit a button, and a loud siren echoed in the air.

  “Open the gate,” Nick said. “I’ve gotta get Claire outta of here.”

  The guard nodded, offering no further argument, and opened the gate.

  Nick shifted gears and hit the gas, and the tires screeched, emanating a burnt-rubber smell from the asphalt.

  When we reached the second street, George, the man we’d stayed with, yelled for us to stop. When Nick filled him in, his jaw dropped.

  “Where’s Claire?” Nick asked.

  “She’s at the new house we set up for her.”

  “Where?”

  “Second street to the left, 3540 Oak. It’s the only green house to the right.”

  “Got it.”

  “I’ve gotta get my friends and family out of here,” George said. “I’ll send out a patrol to warn everybody.”

  “Hurry!” Nick said.

  People began flooding past us as Nick yelled out the window that a zombie herd was fast approaching.

  “Maybe we’ll luck out,” I said. “Maybe the herd will go a different way.”

  Nick turned down the street. “They could veer off, but I doubt that.” He pulled into the driveway of the only green house on the street. “Let’s go!”

  Following Nick, I jumped out and pounded on the door.

  No answer.

  “Claire!” I shouted. “It’s Dean!”

  We began pounding on the windows of the house, screaming Claire’s name. Nick turned the doorknob, but it was locked. “Where the heck is she?”

  Val and Lucas went around to the back, but they saw no sign of her either.

  “Maybe she’s not here yet. Maybe she’s still back at the old house, where we stayed the night before,” I suggested.

  “We won’t know for sure unless we check it out.” Nick then used his strong shoulder to ram against the door, easily breaking the lock.

  As Nick and I walked inside, we spotted Claire walking down the stairs, wrapped in a towel, with her hair dripping wet. “Uh…hey, guys. Wh-what’s going on?” she asked, her eyes wide.

  “Get dressed!” Nick yelled.

  “We ran into a huge herd of zombies, and they’re coming this way,” I quickly explained.

  She gasped, and her hand darted to her mouth, almost causing her to drop her towel.

  Nick held her at arms’ length. “The fences won’t do you any good. There are far too many of them, and they’ll be here any minute. We gotta go now.”

  “Give me one minute!” she said. She then ran upstairs and into a bedroom and shut the door behind her.

  “Hurry, Claire!” Nick said.

  “She’s here?” Lucas called from downstairs.

  “Yeah,” I answered.

  “Good. Val and I will go warn the others that it’s not gonna be such a beautiful day in the neighborhood,” he said.

  “I’ll holler for you when we’re ready,” Nick said.

  A minute later, Claire came out in jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and brown hiking boots. She threw a backpack over her shoulder. She didn’t give us the third degree, complain, fight, or even ask a million questions. She just listened, and I knew she believed every word we said. She slipped her gun in a holster that was fastened securely around her waist. “Let’s go.”

  Nick gripped her hand and pulled her down the stairs.

  As I jumped into the truck, I saw Claire shoot one last look back at the house before she took the passenger seat. Her dream of safety, of an almost-normal life, had lasted less than one hour, barely long enough for her to take a shower.

  Lucas and Val banged on doors, warning anybody who answered. I was happy to see that people were heeding our warnings, grabbing bags and suitcases and throwing them in their vehicles.

  Nick whistled. “Val! Lucas! Let’s move it!”

  They rushed to the U-Haul and jumped in the back seat. Nick gripped the steering wheel, and we took off down the street. My nerves were on edge as I pondered whether or not we could get out of there before the hungry herd arrived. I could feel my hands shaking, but I tried to act brave.

  “Thanks for coming back for me,” Claire said.

  Nick squeezed her hand. “I promised you I’d only leave you somewhere safe. This place is far from that now.”

  “Well, Mayberry will be all fine and dandy after the herd passes through,” Lucas said. “I’m sure everyone can come back. I’m sure hordes won’t come along that often, so Opie and Barney Fife will eventually be just fine.”

  When we reached the gate, there was a line of cars there, and we couldn’t get through. A shiver slid dow
n my spine; I couldn’t stand waiting there like sitting ducks.

  A car behind us honked.

  “We can only go as fast as the car in front of us, buddy!” I yelled back to the impatient driver.

  “It’s George,” Nick said.

  George climbed out of his car and approached us. “I’m glad you found Claire.” He leaned in. “Some people are refusing to budge. They won’t evacuate, and I don’t got the time to stick around and talk sense into their thick heads.”

  “Did you tell ‘em we actually saw the herd?” Lucas said.

  “Yeah. My scouts saw ‘em too, but some folks are just stubborn. Either they don’t believe zombies are coming, or they’re convinced the gates can hold off an army.”

  “Fools,” Nick said sadly, shaking his head. “Is there any other way out of the city? We gotta get out of this traffic jam.”

  “We ran out of metal fencing a while back, so there’s a patch on the south side of the city that has towering wooden walls,” George said. “In a matter of life and death, I guess it’d be okay to burst through it, but I don’t wanna breach the wall unless it’s an absolute emergency.” George then shot his gaze over toward Claire. “You can come back once we deem the area safe, hon’. This is just a temporary measure. We can fight off a few undead, and we have, but we can’t take on an entire arm. We just don’t have the resources.”

  Claire looked at him. “All right. Once it’s safe, I’ll be back.”

  “Good. Your house will be ready and waiting.”

  “Thank you for everything you’ve done,” Claire said.

  “Not a problem.”

  Panic and screams drifted through the air, and my heart raced as I peered out the window. The towering fence with coiled razor wire was shaking as dozens of gnarly fingers gripped it; some of the creatures had already broken through. Soldiers shot at the zombies that were breaking the barrier through the open gate, but there were just too many.