Z.E.D.S. Series (Book 2): Z.E.D.S. Wayward Son

by Botts, Bradley

  I looked over towards the fence. A hoard of zombies was making their way towards us.

  “Kiere is waiting for you on the bus,” Aurora said as she tried pulling me from the ground.

  I turned my gaze to the bus and saw Kiere looking at me from the window crying. I didn’t want to leave Tyler. I couldn’t leave Tyler. That’s not my way, but I knew I had to. Tyler was a great friend of mine, and he deserved a proper burial, but this was the one time I could not give that to someone. I rose with the help of Aurora as she squeezed my hand tighter.

  “It’s okay Atlas. I promise everything is going to be okay,” Aurora whispered while placing her other hand on my face.

  Riley closed the door behind us after we entered the bus. I turned to look out the scuffed glass and watched our home burn. The flames found a new height when it came to be engulfing the safe house. Zombies surrounded the bright orange and red light like moths. It was a mesmerizing sight but not a beautiful memory.

  Chapter 2

  The barn still had the black Z painted across the right wall. The wood was weathered and cracked, but it was still holding strong. The night hid our arrival across the roads. Riley drove to the sliding doors as Sloan and Seth stepped out to open them. Emmitt and Chase searched around the perimeter as the bus entered the barn. The engine echoed inside the dark room until Riley turned the key. Kiere held my hand as we exited the bus while Mara and Shaun escorted the rest inside. I handed Kiere to Aurora as I stepped towards the old lantern hanging from a nail on a support beam. The small flame presented the hay covered floor and the infinite spider webs that now decorated our new home. Seasoned bull and deer skulls rested on the walls from previous hunting seasons. A mountain of tires in the center of the barn camouflaged the hatch door hidden inside the floor. Pushing them over allowed my dad and Justin to open the hatch and examine the steps with flashlights directing their weapons in front of them. Dust explored the air as the air burst through the opening. One by one each person walked down the stairs into the dark lower level. After everyone was inside the hatch, I searched around the first room and found the generator that powered the grid. It was encased by an absorbent steel case that blocked the noise from exerting outside the hatch drawing attention where it wasn’t wanted.

  Dust vibrated off the sides of the generator as I pushed the button and the bunker lit up showcasing once forgotten memories. The old war pictures from Brian’s tour in Vietnam displayed a time of Brian’s greatness. The comic books we read in the common room rested on the coffee table when we took a break from being preppers reminded me of the simpler times. The picture taken a week before Brian’s death that portrayed all of us together at the shooting range was hanging on the panel far wall. The dust encasing the glass scattered into the air as I blew on it. We were all wearing a superhero shirt that represented our favorite heroes made me smile. Justin wore Deadpool, Mark wore Batman as did Brock. Shaun had on a Flash shirt, and Brian and I wore Superman shirts.

  As I placed the portrait back on the wall, I saw everyone scattered around the bunker trying to find a place to rest. Aurora was walking around bandaging scratches and cuts on people; my dad was distributing water, Sloan, Seth, and Emmitt were climbing back up the steps to keep everything below the surface secure. Kiere was sitting with a group of people praying with them in the corner. Chase and Ophelia were locating everyone seeing who made it out and who perished. Our numbers were much smaller than before. Certain people I noticed weren’t with us such as Justin’s parents, Mark’s family, and Jason. They were lost to us forever and yet it didn’t slow any of them down. I noticed Mara sitting with a young boy named Josh. We had found him and his older brother wondering down a back road during one of our ventures for supplies. His older brother Greg wasn’t with him.

  “Hey Josh, how are you holding up,” I asked.

  “I don’t know where Greg is. I looked for him on the bus and around the room, but he isn’t here,” Josh replied.

  Tears began streaming down his face. I kneeled down and wrapped him in my arms. “It’s ok. I know you’re scared. I’m sorry Greg didn’t make it, but I promise you that you’re not alone. Anytime you need me, I’m here for you. Anything you need, you just come to me.” Josh nodded his head into my shoulder. “Mara is going to stay with you for a while. Don’t try to hit on her though, she’s vicious.”

  Josh chuckled a bit as he wiped his eyes.

  Noticing everyone and the way they were torn apart awoke something in me. Something dark that had been hidden for a long time. I’d stowed away certain things during my time in Afghanistan that I didn’t want to ever remember. Other moments such as the destruction of my childhood home and when Logan died in the middle of the road caused this monster to drive me home only to live to find answers. Unfortunately, this moment in time brought back the darkness. I was overcome by a certain emotion I feared would appear once again, but I was strong enough to keep it at bay. Not anymore. I wanted revenge. I wanted justice. I wanted death. I wanted war.

  With the coming days I grew distant from the rest of our group. I secretly planned my next move. I snuck out between shift changes after Aurora and Kiere would fall asleep. At times I would catch Vincent and Mara secretly talking in the kitchen. Getting past them wasn’t difficult. They seemed more focused to one another than the subtle creaking noises of my footsteps each night. When night watches would change, I snuck out of the new safe house. During the first night, I worked on Brian’s old 1976 Shadow bike he had stashed away under an old carpet inside the barn. He told me he never took the keys out of it because if he ever needed a quick getaway he was prepared. It needed some rerouting of the fuel line and battery cables, but she roared like a proud queen of the world. After carefully pushing it a mile down the road I would drive her the other 22 miles back to our first home. There I found Tyler. In all the chaos that had fallen that night, I hadn’t thought to show him mercy before I went to the bus. His throat may have been slit but his brain was fully intact, and he was hungry. Tyler was chewing on a piece of charred flesh attached to a severed arm near the foundation. The rest of the place was surrounded by drifters that were also enjoying their feasts, others roamed around aimlessly.

  I approached Tyler as he noticed me standing in the grass pointing my flashlight to his glowing red eyes. Flesh was hanging from his teeth and dry blood kept his head attached to his neck. He stared towards me with his head cocked to the side and a lost expression. I hoped there was something in his mind telling him that I was his friend. I prayed there was some type of life within him.

  “Tyler. Are you in there,” I asked while staring at him.

  He screamed a bone chilling screech and charged towards me. His light was burned out and all he knew to do now was eat. His scream echoed across the field and the others began to charge at me as well. I don’t know what it was with this disease about having a hankering for fresh skin, but they tried harder to eat me than they did the burnt pieces outlined like a smorgasbord for their picking.

  “Dammit Tyler. I’m sorry,” I said staring at him in his lost eyes.

  My one shot set him down. His body went limp and he rested for the last time. There were too many to take on by myself, so I left. I did the most important thing I could do there which was to make sure Tyler was truly at peace. Even though his body still lay on the ground, instead of beneath it, he wasn’t a drifter anymore. He was just dead.

  The next night I tried to leave again, but this time my dad was standing at the bike. He had woken in the middle of the night to Jackson screaming in terror from a nightmare and saw me going up the stairs and outside the hatch. I explained to him what I had to do even if he didn’t understand. I remember the exact words he said. It was all a father could say to his son once he seemed to have reached the point of no return.

  “Atlas, there is a time for vengeance, revenge and justice. I know in every story ever written, made into a movie or even spoke of when it comes to someone seeking vengeance, they say to dig two graves
. You dig one for your enemy and one for yourself. Sometimes the world needs vengeance. I want vengeance just as much as you do but sneaking off in the middle of the night to find an answer in the dark will not help you achieve anything. You are coming close to knocking on the devil’s door and that’s a home I never want to see you be welcomed in, at least not without backup. You walk down that valley of death you need someone to pull you back. I will be the one pulling.”

  My dad couldn’t understand why I felt the need to do this alone.

  “This is my team that was put into a battle that I couldn’t protect them from. I want to make sure it would never happen to them again. I want to keep them safe. I want to keep you, my brothers, Aurora and Kiere safe. It is my responsibility and mine alone.”

  “Listen to me. I am your father. Your wars are my wars. It is my job to keep you safe as well as your brothers. And it is your brothers’ responsibility to keep you and yours safe as well. You are not doing this alone anymore. If you don’t want the rest to follow you right now, then I can’t change that. But you, me and your brothers are going together.”

  Dad conversed and convinced my brothers Emmitt, Sloan, and Seth to join him and me back to the original Watch Tower. As I drove the Shadow, my dad drove the Lincoln they had obtained during the day on a perimeter check from a farmhouse a few feet away. We arrived and saw drifters surrounding the place, but it wasn’t as overwhelming as the night before. One by one my dad and brothers assassinated any cannibal within safe distance as I searched through anything and everything that was salvageable. Although it was a feeding frenzy out here, I found a severed arm that wasn’t completely devoured. It was cloaked in fried blood with fingers clinched against the palm. As I pried the fingers from its roasted home, a rolled-up piece of paper sealed with a dry blood stain was protected from the fire. I used my knife to cut through the seal and it unraveled in my hand. What was written was something I didn’t expect to find. I thought it was possibly an old love letter that this person cherished. Unfortunately, the contents of the letter brought answers to us as it did more questions.

  To my loyalist, my child, my follower,

  You proved your allegiance to the cause with the brand on your skin. Our crest will be noticed when someone looks upon your face. As my follower you have the chance to take this world back to its original state. Your courage and ambition will be forever rewarded in this life and the next. My father, your father, kept you here for me to show you the true and purest way of redemption. These people that call themselves the Zeds have corrupted the lives and the purest form of innocence belonging to this world for the last time. They destroyed our only chance mankind had to survive when they found out about one of our homes in a town far away from here. They murdered our friends and let loose more of the virus that we had contained. We avenged the ones we lost that day after our invasion of their medical center. The home of the created virus that has stricken each of you with fear and despair. But now is our time, our time to rise. Destroy their home and leave nothing standing. Go with God my child and let’s end this war.

  Your devoted leader,

  Warren Cross

  The message to this person sent a cringe to the pit of my stomach. The medical center this Warren Cross was referring to had to be the hospital in Louisville where Mark had stayed behind to help Amelia. We hadn’t ventured there in months and now it could be gone. Mark, Amelia and all those people could have been killed and we had no way of knowing. I looked up from the letter and saw my father and brothers digging through the rubble salvaging what little they had found. They had no idea what was about to come, but I knew that from this letter our worst battles were just beginning.

  We headed back home, and I didn’t mention the note before we left. Even though my distance kept me from everyone else I knew they needed to know about the letter. Once I told them about my ventures sneaking out of the bunker it would be a judgmental meeting towards me. I went against a rule we had established about never traveling alone, but they would just have to forget about that and listen to what I had to say. My anger grew with every repetition my mind had over the letter. We were being targeted by a group that we knew nothing about. We were being blamed for an event that had bought us more time in this world but was being introduced as a terrorist attack against humanity. Who was this Warren Cross and why was he advocating the destruction of my family? The Z.E.D.S. was created to help mankind, to help them survive and overcome the apocalypse, but instead we had been knighted as the destruction of life. We needed to find this Warren Cross and his followers and erase them from this world. How we were going to do that was going to be a challenge and from what I could tell we were going to need some help.

  Chapter 3

  The following morning, I called a meeting of the captains. We crowded above the hatch door to discuss the letter I had found. Piper, Aurora, and Ophelia joined us as well.

  “I kept you guys in the dark for the past nights. I had been sneaking out back to our original home in search for answers,” I said as I gripped the letter.

  Brock and Shaun’s face grew angry. They knew my lone travels weren’t allowed amongst us.

  “What were you thinking Atlas? What if you had gotten yourself killed? What would happen if you didn’t come back,” Shaun yelled towards me with distain.

  “I know it was wrong to do so,” I replied with clinched fists. “I’m sorry for going against our promise, but my emotion clouded my better judgment. I was angry. I’m still angry. There is still something in me that is trying to claw its way out and go out there in search for them bastards that killed our friends.”

  Brock, Justin, and Shaun stepped towards me and I could see the anger absorbing them.

  “You don’t think we don’t,” Shaun yelled as he stepped closer. “Atlas, there is a smart way to do things. You of all people should know that. We have done many things blindly because we just wanted to find answers. Zora paid the price for that a year ago, and Piper is still paying for it now. She lost the love of her life, and now you are on the verge of losing everything too because of your ego and persistence for revenge.”

  “You could get all of us killed because of your ignorance. You are not risking Selest’s life or anyone else’s for that matter!” Brock’s fist clinched to his side. He wanted to hit me for my stupidity, and I honestly would have let him. What I was doing was ignorant.

  It was irresponsible. I knew they would have understood why I wanted to go back and they would have went with me, but once you experience the darkness that engulfs you, it’s really hard to ask for help when you know you could get things done yourself. Aurora walked to me and stood at my side. I know what she was doing. If anyone got angry and lost control to the point where they felt the need to exert their anger on my face, she would intervene. Aurora is a strong woman who would stand in the way of anything trying to hurt me, but I knew I deserved whatever the team wanted to throw at me. I looked over at Piper and saw her head bowing to the floor.

  “Piper, I could never begin to earn your forgiveness with what happened to Zora. She was my friend, she was your family, and my apology will never match what you feel inside,” I said as my heart sank into my chest. Piper looked up at me and even after a year of apologizing and trying to earn her forgiveness, she still couldn’t look me directly in the eye. “Listen to me. You can take your hatred out on me after I tell you this. Hit me, curse me, or even kick me out of here if you feel that’s what’s right, but I found something. I found a letter addressed to one of our attackers. It accuses us of being the creators of the virus. It says we are the reason for everything wrong in this world.” The letter crinkled open. “A man named Warren Cross is targeting us. He sent them to our home and tried to have us killed. I don’t know how he found us, and I don’t know why they believe we are the cause of this, but there is a war coming. We are facing a greater danger than the roaming zombies outside. We don’t know how big his army truly is.”

  Each captain stared at me wit
h a distant look on their face.

  “There was more bad news I had found with this letter,” I said before pausing. “Mark and Amelia….”

  Before I could finish the bad news there was a knock on the main door. We each pulled our weapons and aimed towards the door. Aurora stepped with me as I approached. Brock and Shaun stood at each side of the door. The door veered to the left and my heart obtained a fast beat. There before us stood a wonderful surprise. Mark stood with Amelia holding her hand.

  “Hey Atlas, we made it,” Mark whispered.

  I grabbed both with my arms and held them close. They wrapped their arms around me and let out a sigh of relief. Everyone ran up to them and wrapped their arms around them.

  “Thank God you guys are okay. What happened,” Shaun asked as he led them to sit on bales of hay.

  “It seemed like a normal day. Amelia and I were doing rounds throughout the hospital until we heard the screams. People were running frantically through the halls. We were trying to figure out what was going on until we saw these people chasing everyone. They were slashing, shooting, and beating people. We don’t know where they came from. We didn’t know why they were there. We still don’t,” Mark explained. “They had these red crosses painted on their faces, and they were just hacking away at everyone. We couldn’t save anyone. There were too many of them and Amelia and I were barely able to get out how we did. They were setting everything on fire as they passed room to room. We escaped out of the top floor window and climbed down the wall.”

  “We don’t know why they did it,” Amelia added. “They weren’t raiding the medical closets or anything. They just came in to commit murder. We fled taken a couple of them out as we passed them, but then the entire building was on fire.”

  Mark placed his head into his hands. “I failed them Atlas,” Mark replied as he wiped the tears from his eyes. “I was supposed to protect them, and I failed.”