Event Horizon: Z Is For Zombie Book 2 Read online

  Event Horizon

  Z is for Zombie: Book 2

  catt dahman

  1

  The Real World

  Nature had not yet begun to reclaim her land; human trash still littered the land: rubble, papers, shriveled plastic, and the undead. It would be years before any of that disappeared, if ever.

  Nature seeks to keep order, whether killing off humans in catastrophic events, breeding new diseases, or meteors taking out all the dinosaurs at one time.Sometimes, all that works too slowly, and humans have too long to destroy the planet, and at times like that, it may be that Nature sighs and takes advanced steps to eliminate the threats.

  Maybe it was a point in massive evolution that man should cease to be and a new, leftover species, who wouldn’t strip resources, pollute, and ruin, should be the ruler of the world. Maybe it was a big FUBAR accident.

  Reasons only matter when we can learn from them and make changes; after the event that changed the planet, the reasons didn’t matter because there were too few to learn why or to fix the issues.

  There was a new master of the world, and it wasn’t man.

  Technically, only some were undead and still moving, and that was a fine line anyway and heavily debated, but it could be said that there were many shambling around without a purpose other than to bite, reproduce the virus responsible for the state of the world, and cannibalize other people.

  It could be said that there were many infected, enraged people who resembled corpses in their bloody, wounded, and partially devoured bodies, and they were called zombies, or zeds.

  Most had learned quickly to call them monsters. Some called them evil or at least called the virus evil: what else but pure evil would make a mother chase her own child and bite and tear at it with no pity? What but evil, would send scores to prey upon other humans, walking on broken bones and shredded flesh?

  More than one survivor had frozen in place to become a victim of the infection as he stared in horror at a family member stalking him. In those moments, it was hard to run away and almost impossible to strike back, or to bash in the skull of a loved one to put him down for good. The virus had a built-in defense that was not as evil as it was brilliantly designed or evolved.

  Survivors of the initial outbreak and subsequent bombing of the United States were fast becoming soldiers and warriors, or if not, they risked being a victim.

  Twelve survivors, dressed for battle and with eyes betraying that they had already seen many fights with zeds in the last few weeks, stood in the trash-covered streets, amid the moaning of the creatures and mourned the world. All twelve, on a mission, got their first look at the remains of what had been a clean, pleasant city.

  The human rubbish of papers, plastic, cans, rubble and steel, plus broken bricks from buildings, deserted cars, tree branches, and broken bodies littered the city streets. Some places looked mostly untouched, but for a lonely, deserted section that looked seemingly unkempt with places burned to the foundation or blood-splattered or partially crumbled. All had an oily sheen of nastiness and unhealthiness.

  The survivors had come from what looked to be a hole in the ground, but it was much more.

  A metal doorway to the outside, made it almost impossible to believe that scores of people were hidden in the basement area of the hospital with a generator, food, medical supplies, a doctor, armed guards, clean clothing, and comfort. Hopefully, no one would bother the survivors hidden there, but if they were bothered, the ones there would give them a fight. In this new world order, one protected oneself, friends, and supplies, to the very death.

  “Tell me again why we’re out here instead of in there where it’s safe?” Julia muttered as she took in the hellish terrain with rubble tossed everywhere, a ‘gift’ from the bombs that were meant to destroy the zombies in largely populated zones, but which, it only made life more difficult for those trying to avoid being infected by the monsters.

  She nervously looked around, ready for the slightest movement or a moan that would indicate zeds.

  “Because we were bored and needed the adventure?” Len chuckled.

  “Putso.”

  “Every time you curse at me in Mexican, I think the words are sweet talk, Jules,” Len said back with a grin.

  A month ago, he was retired military; then, the world, nature, or maybe God Himself, had decided to remove the scourge of mankind with a super virus that unleashed angry, rage-filled cannibals who existed simply to reproduce the infection and destroy any survivors.

  Now, he was mostly rage. The idiots, who had the idea to bomb major cities in order to stop the virus, had only made everything worse as the virus mutated and became stronger. Pure panic had led to stupid actions.

  “Zed, three o’clock,” Kimball said as his Charlie team took cover, hiding behind a dirty car.

  Another team, Delta, as they called themselves, ducked behind a dumpster while Len’s team, Alpha, took point, firing at the zed.It was a middle-aged man in tattered jeans and shirt, who evidently had been attacked and infected, since he was missing the lower part of one arm and part of his face, his skin in shreds, and his clothing blood-soaked.

  The zed waved the mutilated arm angrily, not noticing the pain he should be experiencing. His bare feet bled and oozed as he walked on the pavement over bits of sharp concrete and shards of glass, the bones of his toes showing through the skin as it was scraped off. His shattered teeth snapped as slimy drool ran down his chin, and his mouth showed where his lips had been chewed away. The smell alone was staggering. His rotten head exploded; grey matter flew all over a wall he stood too close to.

  Although they had died a month ago, a pair of brothers who owned a gun and survivalist store, had out-fitted them with donated weapons, clothing, packs, and every other conceivable item needed for the survivors.

  That was one of the reasons the teams had survived this long; the other was that they had been fortunate enough to have been in the hospital’s huge cafeteria and lobby on a floor below ground, when the bomb struck.

  The collapse of the building during the bombing had taken many lives, but it also had made a sort of den for the ones left. The supplies and the safety of being below ground had given them advantages that most, in the chaos, could only dream of.

  Len pointed out of the hotel from which they had rescued two groups. Tunneling in from their safe zone, the rescue teams had gone into the hotel to loot for supplies but had found survivors and zeds. Five of those with them now had been from the two rescued groups. Bitter battles had been fought in the hotel; they had gained more supplies and helped many in need, but the fight had been grueling, costing lives in turn.

  Len had divided and trained his group in teams, teaching them to shoot guns and to use melee weapons to destroy the zeds’ brains and put them down for good.

  He would have bet that the teams would have faltered, been nervous to use guns, and fight, but they had surprised him when they accepted training. Some even enjoying the violent skirmishes, and some finding a sort of peace in the structure and control he had taught and shown them.

  The teams had learned to clear rooms and to react in stressful situations with calm, clear minds. In those missions to find survivors, they had gathered the remains of the military, nicknaming themselves ‘US Militia.’

  They were the good guys. And they had faced off against bad guys who wanted drugs, guns, and women for their own use; unfortunately, the raiders had killed several survivors.

  While the good guys had eliminated most of the threat, several bad guys were still around.They were the cause of the good guys coming out from safety and looking for the cruel murderers who found fun in rape, excitement in torture, and foo
d in other humans. Roasted. Len was determined to see that the ones who had murdered others would die by his own hand.

  He sometimes saw himself as pure vengeance, and that was why he was almost always angry and bitter. That was fine. Hatred fueled him just fine.

  “Delta, stand guard; Charlie, let’s go.” The radios had worked well in the hospital before, but now seemed full of static.

  Len moved them into a small grocery store, its windows shattered and front displays scattered. Starving and thirsty people had looted for their needs; no one blamed them. Around the checkout counters, only trash remained as looters had taken anything edible or useful. Dried blood stained the floor, looking like maroon lumps in wide pools; footprints led through the pools and had dried, telling a story.

  “Nothing moving,” Kim said as he looked down the aisles, walking forward with his gun up and ready.

  Beth trailed him, picking up a small box of salt and a lighter, which she stuck in her pocket. Supplies would grow scarce, and everything needed to be grabbed when it was found.

  Jeff, the teen with them who had bravely led his own group of survivors to safety in the hotel, hunched over, looking down low and pulling a few usable items from under the shelves, where they had rolled or been shoved while people fought over the rest.

  Splattered blood marked every aisle. Ignoring it, Jeff held up a can of mandarin oranges and licked his lips, getting smiles in return. Thoughts of fresh fruits and vegetables taunted them.

  Neal “Tink” Tinkersly and George, the oldest on the teams and retired police officers, proved to be excellent shots with common sense and levelheaded thinking.Both had felt, in the last few years, useless as they aged, but their gun skills, frequently tapped wisdom, and out-of-the-box ideas, had made both feel valuable again.

  Tink looked at George with questioning eyes as they spied a rotting body lying in the potato chip aisle. George used his foot to turn the man over; flies buzzed out in a dense cloud, and a stench almost over-powered them. “Gutted and throat sliced.”

  “Maybe they were fighting over the hot fries,” Tink suggested.

  “Or guacamole chips, I always liked those,” George said. Even after his years on the police force, something like this would have once been shocking, but in the last month, George had seen much worse.

  George had watched a young mother take her own life with pills so she wouldn’t turn into a zed after being bitten. He had shot her in the head when she died, had fought the zombies furiously, had dug crushed people from rubble, watched good people murdered by raiders, and learned that each person has a right to go out on his or her own terms. Rules were changed in his mind since death was now the new after-life.

  The murder of this zed over snack foods, was petty and dishonorable. It was frightening to see what people did to one another, despite the tragedy that they had all suffered. Maybe the zed had been the bad guy, though.

  Shelves had been almost emptied, what little they found now, gratefully went into pockets. Bottles had exploded, and the floor, marked with bloody footprints and skids, looked as if there had been fights over the supplies.

  To their delight, the aisle for vitamins was largely untouched, so they were able to get plenty of bottles which they dropped into their packs. Gauze and tape were gone, but small boxes of bandages remained to be grabbed.

  They found other items that people had not thought to gather: shoelaces, duct tape, needles and thread, wet wipes, food, water, creams, powders, and shampoo from the baby section aisle. Baseball bats, wooden and aluminum waited on the toy aisle.

  In the back of the store, the smell of rotting meat and fish was staggering, made slightly worse by a headless corpse. Each person felt the loss of the cheese and milk, fresh fruits, and vegetables, all rotting now.Dreams of fresh produce were almost orgasmic. They did score some onions that had only begun to sprout.

  Kim and Len looked around the back of the grocery store. “Where’s his head?” They looked at the body that was fat and nude, unsure of the gender, so far along was the decomposition. The body was purple, bloated, oozing outwards as the fats dissolved.

  Beth suddenly heaved, vomiting all over a side display already splattered with pasta sauce: its odor, plus basil, garlic, and peppers all coming from the broken jars, made her gag over and over. Tears streamed, as she was unable to stop vomiting.

  She pointed to one of the meat bins. Earl looked where she pointed, paused, and then backpedaled, barely making it to the side before he promptly vomited, too.

  Len was aware that everyone had a breaking point, but his team members rarely were ill. Most had developed stomachs of steel since they had seen so much horror and smelled the worst scents imaginable; they were pretty tough.

  Len curiously looked into the bin to see a horror, a head, black with rot, and a neck, raggedly cut, but what made him almost puke was that its jaw moved and an eye twitched in a wink as he watched the head. That was obscene.

  He spared a bullet for the head, its face as green as the others’ faces now.

  “It looked at me and winked,” Beth whispered, shuddering violently. Earl shared a bottle of mouthwash he had found. She swished her mouth clean and spat. Beth wondered how bad the nightmares would be from the head winking at her.

  “Listen.” Kim held his hand up to stop. A faint skittering, sliding, whispering, was coming from the back stockroom. The others nodded that they had heard and understood. On three, Kim and Len swung through the doors, guns ready, as Beth, Earl, and Julia, covered them. Rats flew in all directions, but the survivors didn’t relax.

  “Red zed,” Beth whispered. While all zeds were rank smelling, the Red Zeds, those who had originally caught the virus, Red, a hemorrhagic lyssa virus, which caused them to bleed out, smelled the worst.They suffered from vomiting and diarrhea, a smell that could never be cleansed from their bodies.

  Every other country had fallen before the US, but even with notice, nothing could have been done with so many infected; there weren’t enough medical personnel, hospitals, or medicine.Instead of the patients being taken to hospitals for help or to rescue stations for treatment, they were ordered to stay home, and all had hoped they would have a caregiver. Sadly, as entire families were infected or because some were left alone, many were left without help or hope.

  On make shift pallets, surrounded by empty water bottles, boxes and food cans, lay a Red who had a smashed and opened, leaking skull. More bodies littered the room, covered with bites, and partially devoured, all with broken heads, where someone had dispatched them, not letting them walk around like monsters.

  Despite the fear and horror they all felt, there was always pity for those who had fought to survive and failed, without a voice to tell their story.

  Moaning echoed in the room, making the survivors leap to the sides, while searching for the zed.

  Earl fired into a corner and called that it was clear. “Looks like he cut his wrists open after he put them down; maybe they were family, but he didn’t stay down. Poor bastard.”

  “Bitten?” Kim asked. “That’s another one that would have been dead but still got back up.” He hated the lack of logic that he knew was true.

  “Maybe he was bitten or something; then, he changed.”

  Len finally went over and looked, placing his hand on the man’s neck, under the chin. “He’s cold.”

  “Maybe they get cold.”

  “They have fevers when they have Red, so they wouldn’t be cold.”

  Kim said, “Look, we know…even though we’re pretending to make up things, Red turn to Zeds, bitten turn to zeds, and once infected, if their heads aren’t bashed in or shot off, they will become zeds, dead or alive.”

  “Dead people walking, that’s insane,” Beth said, “and like the head that winked, that’s so disgusting.”

  “If they’re bitten, they do keep moving and winking,” Len said. A month ago, he would have laughed over this conversation and said this was impossible and insane. Seeing it for himself, he h
ad learned to believe in the impossible. Now, there seemed to be fewer rules to distinguish the sick from the dead or deadish.

  They stacked and sorted food and water to take with them. Looters had not bothered to come into the back or had been too scared of the zeds, so there were cans of vegetables, fruit, and meat; packages of pasta dinners and cheese; and crackers, chocolate, bottles of water, soda, and sports drinks.

  “Delta, this is Alpha Actual. Over.”

  “Alpha, we read you. Over.”

  “Please come here through the back of the store. Over.”

  “Copy that. Delta out.” Conner got his team moving.

  While watching, Len made each one take a few minutes to drink a sports drink to re-hydrate.

  Kim grimaced, chasing the sports drink with a can of soda for his caffeine and sugar fix. Unlike the rest, he still wore Wranglers, his roper boots, and his cowboy hat, because he was most comfortable that way. Catching Beth’s smile, he took off his hat to run his hand through his reddish hair; then, with a grin, he tipped his hat to her.

  If the end of the world had a bright side, it was that Kim had met Beth and had won her heart. Sometimes, he figured the trade was fair; gladly, he’d give up the world again to have her.

  Len yanked the door upwards, and Earl had to shoot a zed that was moaning and salivating in ropey threads as it saw them. Len and Rae went one way, and Kim and George went another, looking for a vehicle that would serve them.

  Immediately, Kim got lucky finding a Ford Explorer; the owner was spilled out beside it with his head bashed in; his keys had dropped a few feet away. Kim and George climbed in and started it at once. “At least survivors are fighting back, but this one doesn’t look infected.”

  “Maybe the killers panicked, thinking he was infected, or maybe they were thieves who stole from him, hard to know.”

  “Well, I hope he rests in peace, and I am thankful for the SUV.”

  “Gotta love a Ford,” George said fondly. Kim drove back to the stockroom bay where the others waited. It still felt strange to step over the dead or to leave them lying on the ground, unburied, but so many rules had changed.