by Urban, Tony
Life of the Dead
The Complete Series
Tony Urban
Copyright © 2019 by Tony Urban & Packanack Publishing
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the United States of America
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Created with Vellum
“For my mother, who shared with me her loves of reading and horror movies and never stopped believing.”
The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.
- Cicero
Contents
Hell on Earth
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Road of the Damned
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
The Ark
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Part II
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Part III
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Part IV
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Part V
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
I Kill the Dead
Prologue
1. Early July
2. July 6
3. July 11
4. July 23
5. July 28
6. July 29
7. July 30
8. July 31
9. August 15
10. August 19
11. August 24
12. August 25
13. September 2
14. November 29
15. December 3
16. December 13
17. December 30
18. July, 3 Years Later
Epilogue
Red Runs the River
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Author’s Note
About the Author
Hell on Earth
Life of the Dead Book 1
I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld, I will smash the doorposts, and leave the doors flat down, and will let the dead go up to eat the living! And the dead will outnumber the living!
— The Epic of Gilgamesh - 2100 BC
Chapter 1
The setting sun provided just enough of an orange glow for Wim to see the streets were clear of zombies. Well, ones up and walking anyway. The bodies of over four dozen men and women littered the small grid of streets which made up his hometown. He’d killed them all.
After the first few, much of the shock wore off and it was little different than plowing the fields or harvesting the crops. Just another job, albeit a bloody one.
It was time to return to the farm. He could finish this messy work tomorrow or the day after that. He had a feeling time didn’t matter much anymore. Still, the day had been long and hot, and he’d worked up quite a thirst. All he had at the farm was prune juice, spoiled milk, and whatever water still remained in the holding tank.
Wim felt it best to gather a few supplies before heading home, and Bender's store was the only choice in town. He knew Old Man Bender wouldn’t mind if he raided his little market. He knew Old Man Bender wouldn’t mind because he’d put a bullet through his liver-spotted bald head three hours ago. Or was it four? The events of the day had blended together in a bloody, traumatic blur that he didn't care to recollect upon.
When Wim opened the door to the quaint country store — the kind that only still existed in little villages such as this — the first thing he smelled was the rotten meat. Best to avoid the deli and meat counter, he thought.
He grabbed a wobbly shopping card and filled it with cookies and chips and other junk food that would survive a thousand years without perishing. He then took a few jugs of water and added two cases of soda. Not the diet kind, either.
His cart was on the verge of overflowing and he was ready to turn back toward the exit when thoughts about ice cream overwhelmed him. His brain informed him that if this really was the end of the world and the power was out everywhere, that would also mean the end of ice cream. That was a damned shame as far as he was concerned.
Wim knew the store had a big walk-in freezer in the back. Even though the power had been down for days, the notion that a few tubs of half-frozen ice cream might remain inside — his for the taking and eating — proved too tempting to resist.
Wim strolled to the rear of the store, where he ended up walking by the deli and meat counter after all. He did his best to ignore the flies and maggots, which covered the lunch meats, steaks, pork chops, and other food that would have made his mouth water just days earlier, but he couldn't block out the awful odor.
He found the freezer door closed. That was a good thing, he assumed, because it might have kept most of the cold inside. And preserved the ice cream, of course. He grabbed the silver handle of the freezer, gave it a hard jerk to the right, then pulled. The suction gave way with an audible pop as the door opened. A wave of cool-ish air washed over him and his stomach rumbled with hunger. Gosh, he hoped there was chocolate.
He stepped into the freezer, careful to prop the door open with his cart. Four rows of shelving units were stocked full with boxes and goods. On the other side of the room, a few sides of beef hung from a row of meat hooks which dangled from the ceiling.
It seemed, to Wim, an extraordinary amount of merchandise for a small shop in a blink and you’d miss it town and it would make locating the ice cream more complicated than he’d expected. He considered turning back, but the chill in the air and growling in his belly proved irresistible.
Wim checked the first row and came up empty. Row two was a repeat but in the third he struck gold. Case after case of ice cream. The good stuff, too, not the generic Tastee! kind he always bought because it was half the price. He pulled down a case of chocolate, and when the box came free, it revealed a zombie on the other side of the shelf.
Wim instantly recognized her as Old Man Bender’s wife, a woman he never knew by name, even though he’d seen her at least once a month since he was old enough to stand on his own. Her skin had taken on a blue, almost translucent color and a thin veneer of ice cloaked her eyeballs. Despite her frozen eyes, she saw Wim, and when she did, her arm shot through the opening in the shelf where the box had been. Her cold, hard hand caught Wim’s chin and her fingers scratched and dug into his flesh.
He pushed against the shelf, felt it teeter, then shoved again. It toppled over, raining boxes and cans and buckets down onto the dead woman. She struggled to free herself and Wim spun away from her. The ice cream was forgotten. All he wanted was to get out.
When he turned, he saw Old Man Bender’s two adult sons, their wives, and their three combined children standing between him and the freezer door. All were zombies and all shared the matriarch’s cold, blue pallor. They appeared otherwise uninjured except for the oldest man, Doug Bender, who had several bite wounds of various sizes all over his face and arms. Wim could even see his tobacco-stained teeth through a ragged hole in his cheek.
To Wim, it seemed clear what must have happened. The family got sick, then sicker, then started dying. With the town in chaos and no one to help, Old Man Bender must have locked them away in the deep freeze. Only they came back, just like everyone else. Poor Doug must have been the last one alive and his reward was being the first to feed his newly undead kin. Wim’s ponderings about the Bender’s demise came to a quick halt when the clan staggered toward him.
Wim backed away and tripped over a fallen box. He landed hard, cracking his elbow on the floor, and felt a flash of pain pulse through his arm. He pushed away the hurt and reached for the pistol holstered at his side, all the while trying to remember how many rounds he’d fired from it and how many he had left. His most optimistic guess was that four bullets remained in the magazine. He found that a disappointingly small number, especially with eight zombies in the freezer with him.
Doug, with his collection of gaping bite wounds, was the closest to him. Wim fired at an upward angle and the bullet zipped through the man’s top lip and exploded out the back of his head, painting the ceiling with brains, bone, and coagulated black blood.
Doug collapsed and Wim aimed the gun at one of the children. The girl was maybe six years old and had her red tresses pulled back in pigtails. She snarled at Wim, baring her bloody teeth and revealing a gap in the front where she’d lost a baby tooth. Wim looked into her dull, milky eyes and shot her in the forehead.
As he prepared to execute one of the Bender wives, cold hands grabbed him from behind, catching handfuls of his hair and jerking him backward. He fell on top of the old matriarch and could feel and smell her chilly, rotten breath on the nape of his neck. Her jaws clicked together, and the sound got closer and closer with every attempted bite. Wim pointed the gun over his shoulder, hoped for the best, and pulled the trigger.
In the initial roar of the gunshot, he thought he might have gone deaf, but soon enough, sound came back into the world in the form of an incessant ringing bell. He felt cold wetness slithering down his neck and when he reached back he came away with a handful of ripped flesh, pieces of shattered teeth, and clumps of gray hair. Wim dropped the gore and rolled off the now motionless body beneath him.
He got to his feet just in time for another of the children to grab onto his leg. The boy was no more than four or five years old, and Wim kicked out, trying to shake him off. The undead toddler held on like he was going for eight seconds on a bucking bronco. Rather than break loose, the boy darted his head like a snake, striking at Wim's leg. At his crotch. That was too close for comfort, and Wim pressed the barrel of the pistol against the boy's head. When he squeezed the trigger, the gun responded with nothing but a hollow click.