Avenging Angel: Z is for Zombie Book 7 Read online

  Avenging Angel

  Z is for Zombie: Book 7

  catt dahman

  Chapter 1

  Bad Memories

  The street resembled a war zone with colors faded to dull grey, rubble in disorderly piles, metal twisted into abstract art, and glass thrown about and covered with dust. Broken asphalt was thrown like an unruly child who finished with toys. Shops stood wide open, the doors kicked in long before, dirt and trash covered the floors, and shelves emptied of all merchandise. Some buildings burned and fell into themselves, the timbers fragile with age and destruction. Molten plastics formed brittle pools of faded, dirty colors.

  Items that once were used for specific purposes in one world were now used for different purposes in the new one.

  Plastic funnels might be used for medical reasons and a tube of mascara for message writing. Cell phones, jewelry, and electronics were worthless while food, water, and ammo were at a premium, proving beyond a doubt that the radical gun-toters were right and capitalism was a failure.

  Cars and trucks, once a source of need, pride, and status, stood at curbs, rusted, their tires and interiors stripped for other purposes; someone wrote wash me in the dust of flaking paint as a joke. Cars were no longer used and certainly not washed as they were in the past; no Saturday nights began with a wash and detail job. Car seat fabric might be used as a bed or toilet tissue, the stuffing for a fire starter, and the seat belts used for holding items in a wheel barrel.

  In balance to those remains, were human and animal bones, most torn apart and pushed into doorways and alleys where they fell and rotted into the pavement. Weeds grew through rib cages. Some showed marks of a bullet or blunt object that shattered skulls, some gnawed gashes deep into the marrow, and some were torn apart and lay in piles. Others were burned or were yellowed and marked with tiny bits of dried skin,

  Victims fell, were killed after being infected, burned, or eaten alive as they struggled, screaming. If anyone were around, he would have used the attack on another to run, died trying to help, or watched helplessly. Who could say if it were worse to be the one eaten alive, screaming for relief, or the one who watched a loved one or friend suffer that fate?

  At least the dead didn’t relive the horror in nightmares.

  Only the ones who lay beside the guns they had used to take their own lives died on their own terms. Rains washed away bloodstains, but the water ran red into the drains. Rotten remains and feces bred disease and insects. The microscopic life had terms as well.

  A pack of wild dogs, once pets, slept there a while, picked at burnt food, but people came along and slaughtered them in fear, left the fur and bones to decay. A pet shop was unburned, but no humans crossed the threshold since the remains in the cages were pitiful and reeked with an eye-watering stench.

  Rats darted inside at times to feed as they bred in the rubble of the city streets, left nests and droppings as they took control of what was once a human-owned area.

  Outside the city past the broken highway and rusted vehicles, neighborhoods, with once well-kept lush green lawns, sprinkler systems, pools, hot tubs, trampolines, swing sets, and nice houses, were also similar to war zones: with garbage, rubble, and long, dried brown grass in abundance. While some of these homes burned or fell into a pile of bricks and wood, many stood in disrepair, stripped, and left empty.

  Long before, looters took everything useful: bedding, first aid, hygiene products, food, utensils, clothing, furniture, and everything that could be repurposed. Only personal items remained such as photos, electronics, and memories, and sometimes lawns full of bones.

  At one end of the city was what once was considered a safe zone: a building stood for any who needed a safe place to stay a few days.

  Inside, bedding was folded and stacked neatly as were some sweat pants and tee shirts in various sizes, lanterns, basic medical supplies, a little food, and water.

  Directions were written carefully on a wall in English and Spanish for anyone who came in and found the place of safety as he flew by the outlying areas on the way south. People were welcomed to clean up, eat, drink, and rest but were not welcomed to come any farther until contacted and checked for signs of infection or for nefarious purposes.

  It was an unsafe approach, but it was heartless not to at least offer some basics for those in extreme need although soon it would be discontinued as lawlessness spread among those outside the city. Along well-traveled roads, far less would be found. Looted neighborhoods and small towns’ citizens often met visitors with armed adversaries and roaming, hungry zombies, their eyes blank except for when they caught sight of prey.

  The zombies themselves were strange things. If a piece of skin were torn away, it would rot and attract flies, but the bodies themselves, even if ripped open, wouldn’t rot. The same prions, which kept the brains mushy but oxygenated enough for the zombies to retain primal needs, kept the creatures moving, always wanting to eat and were driven to spread the infection. If anything, the zombies over time eroded. A passing rat or bird might nip at them, but the flesh wasn’t tasty. Falling rubble sometimes abraded the creatures or broke a limb that might be torn away.

  As clothing and shoes wore away or fell off, zombies left skin behind on bricks and on the rough pavement, and the elements wore away at them. Those infected by a bite wore down the fastest as the prions struggled to keep the brains functioning, despite a nonworking body.

  They were dead zeds, and many fell into heaps, finally to be destroyed by insects. Red zeds were those who contracted the Red virus, or Diamond Flux, and came out of comas, angry and intent on biting, eating, and spreading the plague. If a doctor checked them, he would find a working body and primal brain function. Most of those shambling about were Reds.

  The rest of the city was blocked off by derelict vehicles and carefully positioned rubble that didn’t provide a true barrier for people on foot who could climb over, but it did slow down the zombies, kept them from coming into the city, and stopped them from to where survivors lived. If a horde came again that way, it would give the others time to prepare unless the horde came as a force of thousands, which was always half expected.

  At Hopetown, a heavy fence circled the compound, which once was built to house a cult leader and his loyal followers, but now it was the safe haven for those who rebuilt after Z day. An apartment building was protected as well with walls and a fence so that the population could grow and remain at about two thousand people as some came, and others went on to new places.

  Color was at Hopetown. People worked and laughed again. Life moved forward.

  A barn and pens for the cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, and chickens, were in the main area, well as ponds for fish, and huge fields that produced corn, tomatoes, beans, onions, potatoes, and beets, lettuce, cabbage, and spinach, and everything else imaginable. Fruit trees could be seen for miles: citrus, peaches, wild plum, apples, and pears, as well as vines of berries and grapes.

  Before the world ended, it would have seemed strange to be so excited over the colors, scents, and tastes of fresh fruits and vegetables except for a bunch of green-thumbed persons and chefs, but after the world went to hell, after all the fresh food rotted away, and after people lived on canned food, the sight of a tart, ripe green apple might be a fight-to-the-death item.

  At all times in the daylight hours, the crops and animals were carefully tended, improvements were made to the buildings and sewage systems, children were taught, cooking was done, wagons were designed, and training was practiced. It was all about security, more supplies, sanitation, food, education, and crafting-needed items. Those who sat in offices barking orders were at a disadvantage, those who knew about crafts
and mechanics, and those who would work hard and could teach skills were invaluable.

  There was no welfare, but instead, people worked hard and thereby could depend on having plenty of food, clean water, good medical care, and safety at all times. Public drunkenness, public drug use, petty crime, and a lack of working were simply punishable by the guilty person being removed from the compound; rapists, murderers, and pedophiles were hanged without ceremony.

  Strangely without courts, each could tell his side without lawyers, show evidence or give testimony, and have justice served immediately; crime was the lowest of all time within the compound. There was little fear of crime from within, yet there was rampant crime outside the fences.

  In the first years, the founding members of Hopetown worked hard to fortify the compound, and while attacked several times by massive hordes of zombies, they remained safe and able to expand as they gathered everything they could find.

  Year three after Z day, the members of the compound had a routine and were settled. The neighborhoods close to them and parts of the city were both stripped of useable items and cleared of walking dead. They planned to continue searching for useable items until they had everything they could use, and then they planned to block the city from both zombies and raiders who might try to get in.

  Usually any meetings were basically about going over plans and events, but this time, the conversation turned to a new topic of interest.

  “I know it’s insane,” Alex said again for the tenth time, “I can’t explain it, but it makes sense to me. It’s like a closure.” They sat in a small group, discussing possibilities.

  “I think it’s cool; I saw that movie.”

  “It isn’t a movie; it’s us,” Mark grumbled at Hannah, making her laugh. As stern as he often looked, he could never keep the twinkle from his eyes. “We have children and friends here. Families. Do you really want to do something?”

  “Stupid?” Len offered. He had done plenty of things, which in retrospect seemed foolish, especially since the Red took over the world, but he felt uneasy at purposely looking for trouble.

  “I know how crazy it is,” Alex said, “but we’ve mentioned it a million times and wondered. On one hand, yes, we’ve seen and been through worse, but I still wonder about it. What was it like? It’s like one of the last stones to turn over.”

  “Under stones, you sometimes find bugs,” Len said as he rolled his eyes, “why do we want to see if bad things happened there? They happened everywhere.”

  “They were at the mall, despite knowing a terrible illness was sweeping the world. Why? Because they were reaching for normalcy in shopping for sneakers and an Orange Julius,” Hannah said dramatically, making her adoptive mother, Beth, cover a smirk. “Then, it was too late. From everywhere, they came…zombies moaned and shambled towards the mall; they came, quickly surrounded it, leaving the people inside to be trapped like rats. The rest...we can only surmise.”

  “Now, we see why you are always in the plays the kids perform,” Len said as he poked her in the ribs, getting a giggle. She was bright enough to always make him consider her points, and she knew it.

  “I think that’s right, though. Don’t we all wonder what happened there? Were there people caught inside? Did people run there and hide and get trapped?” Alex added, “and better yet, think of all that might still be there….’cause no one is nutty enough to loot a mall in a zombie invasion.” He knew he had made a point as Len and George exchanged glances.

  “Or maybe it burned.”

  “Maybe it did.”

  “I’m in,” Julia said, despite Matt’s dirty look at her. He was training to be head of security one day after Len, and he was very tense about anything security related.

  Once he had been ready to take chances, but now he was always overly careful. She was one who enjoyed adventures of any kind and survived many that were dangerous. “I’ve always wondered about the mall, and besides, we really have stripped everything else…think of…Victoria’s Secret waiting for us,” she responded as she winked at Matt.

  “That’s cheating, Jules,” Matt sighed. He knew he was outvoted right then.

  “Okay, think of all those bomb diggity sneakers waiting for you, just in your size,” she replied.

  “Bomb diggity? I’d say that’s ghetto, but then the whole world is ghetto,” Teeg sighed, “and I vote yes even though the black guy always dies.”

  “The black guy lives in the movie, Teeg,” Hannah told him.

  “In the movie…riiight. Excuse me if I don’t feel safe based on a movie made a million years ago when no one believed zombies ever could be real.”

  “They knew it was real; the government is always doing bad experiments to find new biological weapons, and those movies were commentaries about that but also a social and political commentary.”

  Teeg gave Hannah a dirty look and said, “It was so about no one believing the black dude.”

  “They believed him when they saw them.”

  “Sure they did, Teeg…well…not the ones who were eaten. And the black guy lives in the remakes, too.”

  “I feel sure I’ll be fine then. Ohhh, let’s separate; I’ll be right back, and don’t mind me; I can run in high-heeled shoes,” he teased.

  “Gotta have big boobies, too,” Hannah told him, “in low cut tops and short shorts with the high heels.”

  George nodded. “That was certainly persuasive, thank you, Hannah and Teeg. I have a great mental image of Teeg wearing high heels and wearing short shorts. I guess it’s just a matter of who goes and when I get the feeling you all want to go.”

  He knew this was in some ways a diversion from other things they had discussed. It was a little easier to talk about movies and a mall than to worry about why some of the infected zombies eroded and fell apart in the weather; the original Reds were alive and well, just pissed off, hungry, and ready to bite.

  The first time anyone reported seeing zombies having a type of horrible, primal sex, some gagged. While they knew the creatures still had primal instincts such as the need to feed and drink left, zombies have a lasting need to breed never crossed their minds

  “Are we going to talk about the pregnant zom?” Mark asked quietly.

  “Yuk. Do we have to talk about it?” Hannah asked.

  “No. I still think she was knocked up before she got Red, and it’s still in her,” Len said. He personally finished off a woman who was infected through an attack. A squirming, tiny fetus was wiggling in her belly, which made Rae and him sick since the fetus was also infected and hungry. It was the worst thing he had ever seen.

  “Steve says they are alive…the Reds anyway, so why can’t they reproduce?” Julia asked.

  “Because that’s too horrible to imagine,” Alex said, “and why would they? They have no reason to reproduce since biting reproduces them.”

  “They wouldn’t survive anyway. What would they eat? They can’t walk or hunt, and they couldn’t nurse, right?”

  Misty gave Mark a dirty look and said, “I’m gonna heave. Stop.”

  “So how do we decide who goes?” Alex grinned, changing the topic again.

  As much as George hated to talk about that, it was better than talking about zombies breeding and making guesses. Maybe Len shouldn’t have shot and killed Dr. Henry Diamond, the man who designed the virus; he might have had the answers. But then, again, the man lied more than he told the truth.

  Because gasoline was either ruined or nonexistent, most people traveled by foot, but because they also had horses, some could ride or use a wagon drawn by a pair of mules to transport goods. However, the slow mode of transport left them open to attacks by raiders and zombies. There wasn’t much room in their saddlebags to carry their own supplies much less to bring anything else back. The guarding party would need to be large for this trip, something that made Len, Matt, and George nervous.

  Hannah wasn’t happy that she and her brother were left out of the search team since she fully supported the idea, b
ut mainly she worried that both her parents were going without her to protect them. Who would be as good as she was at taking care of parents? She only felt better as some of the rest also whined about being left out. Mark and Matt were in charge now that the rest were going out, and Hannah did know she could get by with a lot more than if her parents were around.

  “Don’t get into trouble,” Beth warned.

  “Mommmmmm,” said Hannah as she tried to look shocked.

  Jet shrugged. “I’ll watch her; you can depend on me.”

  Beth groaned, “And I am supposed to feel better now, Jet?”

  “I don’t feel a bit better hearing that,” Kim growled, “that means no hare-brained schemes or talking the little ones into mischief or tying anyone up, no ripping off the kitchen….”

  “Or skinny dipping,” Beth continued, trying to recall all the trouble her kids had been in. “No short sheeting beds, and George, don’t give them ideas!”

  George grumbled good-naturedly, “I just tell them stories about the mischief when I was a kid…good harmless fun….” He hugged Hannah close. As much trouble as the girl could be, she was brave and strong, and few could imagine how hard it was for her growing up and going through puberty during an apocalypse.

  Jet, at twenty, was also at a difficult age, between childhood and manhood. Some, like Matt, had no choice three years ago. He was thrown into leadership during various missions that Julia dragged him on. “I’ll behave, Beth and Kim,” he said as he winked at both the teens.

  Beth, Kimball, Teeg, and Carl rode ahead of the group as scouts. At one time, Teeg had been scared of the horses and learned to ride only because he was needed, but now he rode almost as well as Kim and Beth. Beth watched him with a little smile on her face.

  “Whatcha looking at me for, Beth? I have pudding on my face? Scrambled eggs?”

  “No, I was just seeing how at ease you are in a saddle.”

  “Awe, you’re proud of me, huh?” He gained an infinite respect for the magnificent animals and took pride in knowing how to ride properly as opposed to falling off as he did in the beginning.