Children of the Apocalypse: Mega Boxed Set

by Baileigh Higgins

  “Got what?” Nadia cried with a frightened shriek.

  “Our job.”

  “Well? Spit it out!”

  “We already started by sending the Jenkins family to St. Francis. They needed a safe place to stay, and what safer place is there that we know of?” Lisa said.

  “You’re right,” Cat said, slamming a hand onto Lisa’s shoulder. “It’s perfect. We can save lives that way. Women, children…humanity itself.”

  “So? What do you think, Nads?” Lisa asked.

  “Mm. I suppose it could work. It would help people, and Martin could use the manpower. But…” She wagged a finger at each of them. “We have to be careful about this. We can’t send just anybody over there. We have to make sure they’re good people first. We can’t risk sending bad guys in there.”

  “You’re right,” Lisa admitted. “How about we work out a system? A set of rules we work according to every time we find survivors?”

  “Like a vetting system?” Nadia said. “That can work.”

  “So we’ve got a goal? A purpose?” Lisa asked with a grin.

  Nadia nodded. “I guess so.”

  “Yes! I knew the name zomketeers would come in handy,” Cat cried, jumping up and down in her seat. “One for all, and all for―”

  “I am not calling myself a zomketeer, Cat. Forget it,” Nadia said with a groan of exasperation.

  Lisa laughed, listening to the two bicker as she pulled up to their temporary home, the hotel. Suddenly, the world looked a little bit brighter.

  Chapter 9 - Nadia

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Nadia cracked open her eyes and reached a reluctant hand over to the alarm clock she’d set up the night before. The digital display flashed with each screech it emitted, the bright light an affront to her very being. “Oh, man. Who’s bright idea was it to get up so early again?”

  “It was yours,” Lisa groaned from the adjacent bed. “Now switch it off!”

  Cat stirred before sitting up, her hair mussed by sleep and her face puffy. “What the hell? What time is it?”

  “It’s five in the morning,” Nadia said, pushing herself upright after switching the alarm off. “Time to get up.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Cat said, falling back onto her pillow.

  Lisa said nothing, burrowing her head beneath her duvet instead.

  Nadia swung her legs over the side of the bed and yawned. “Come on, girls. You all agreed to this. Discipline, remember?”

  “No,” Cat groaned. “It sounded a lot better last night.”

  “Forget it,” Lisa added.

  “That’s because we each had a bottle of wine last night to celebrate our new venture,” Nadia said, walking to the bathroom. “It’s just a hangover. Now get up. We’ve got work to do.”

  Leaving her friends to drag themselves out of bed, Nadia splashed her face with cold water and brushed her teeth to get rid of the awful taste in her mouth. A few painkillers promised to get rid of the pounding in her head. “That’s better.”

  She pulled on her clothes and armed herself to the teeth before jogging downstairs to the kitchen. Ten minutes later, a pot of coffee was boiling on the stove, and an array of cereal boxes stood waiting to be picked for breakfast alongside a carton each of orange juice and long-life milk. The boxed milk was treated with preservatives and could last for years when unopened. A bonus during the apocalypse.

  “Come on, you lot. Breakfast’s ready,” Nadia cried before settling down with a bowl of bran flakes and raisins sprinkled liberally with sugar.

  A few minutes later, Cat and Lisa joined her with glum expressions on their faces. They picked at their cereal and soon the only sound to be heard was them crunching away. Nadia finished hers first and served coffee to the group.

  That perked them up, and Cat offered Nadia a weak smile. “What’s on the agenda, today?”

  “First, we go on patrol and clear the area of zombies. Then we can start training,” Nadia answered.

  “Yay, I can’t wait,” Lisa said, picking at her cereal.

  “Come, come. No dawdling,” Nadia said.

  With a lot more moaning and groaning, Cat and Lisa followed her out into the crisp morning air. She set a brisk pace, leading them along the same routes she used to trace with Steward and Manny. Looking back on those days now, she marveled that she’d never noticed the boys competing for her attention. The way they’d jostled each other to get close to her. I was so stupid. How couldn’t I see it?

  It also brought back memories of the risks they’d taken, dangers she’d pushed them into, and how she’d egged them on to do stupid things. All out of a secret desire to get revenge on the undead for everything they’d taken from her. Caleb, Logan, her ability to love a man and have a relationship. Children.

  The mere thought was enough to get her blood up, and she felt the familiar stirring of rage within her breast until she remembered Manny and the horrible way he’d died. All because of me. I can’t let this anger get the best of me. I just can’t.

  Gritting her teeth, she tamped down the rage until it was reduced to smoldering embers instead of the burning bonfire it usually was. She plastered on a broad smile and looked at Cat and Lisa. “See? This isn’t so bad.”

  “Define bad,” Lisa said, but her answering smile belied her grumpy words.

  “No, I guess not. At least, I’m getting some exercise for a change,” Cat said.

  “Hold that thought,” Nadia answered with a grin. “By the end of the day, you’ll probably have changed your mind.”

  “We’ll see,” Cat said. “I’m due for a bit of action.”

  “Oh, you’ll see a bit of that, but not much. Zombies are scarce around here. “I’ve never seen more than two or three at a time.”

  Nadia was proven wrong, though, when they turned the next corner leading to an alley behind a butcher shop and a hardware shop. There they found four of the undead stumbling after a skinny little dog running for dear life toward them.

  “Whoa, watch out,” Nadia cried as the dog ducked between her legs before disappearing into the distance, becoming nothing more than a faint blur of black and brown.

  She pulled out her t-bars and readied herself for a fight while Cat and Nadia did the same, each brandishing their weapon of choice for the day. For Cat, it was a hatchet, the blade keen and sharp. For Lisa, it was a long screwdriver.

  The zombies perked up when they spotted the girls and sped up their efforts, eager for the taste of human flesh. As stupid as they were, they knew the difference between animal and human meat, vastly preferring the latter.

  Nadia studied them for a second, noting that they were old corpses and therefore, easy prey. With swift strides, she closed the distance between her and the nearest one, a male of indeterminate age, recognizable mostly by the remnants of khaki shirt and shorts he wore. She stabbed him in the forehead, expecting her sharp, slim blade to pierce the fragile bone with ease.

  That didn’t happen.

  Instead, the bone held firm, and the point of her t-bar slid across the skull, cutting a groove in the scalp. The skin gaped open, black blood pouring out like sludge through which the white bone glistened.

  “What the hell?” Shock made her pause, and the zombie growled as he reached for her wrist and grabbed it. With teeth bared, he bit down on her arm, sinking his teeth into her leather jacket. Nadia screamed in pain as his jaws clamped shut on her arm, and she lashed out with her foot, catching him a solid blow in the knee.

  Bone and cartilage crunched as the joint broke, and she managed to yank her arm free from his mouth. With a determined thrust, she slammed the point of the t-bar into his eye and through his brain, killing him for good. The zombie slumped, sliding off the blade to collapse on the ground, and Nadia let out a yell of triumph.

  Cat was finishing off her second infected, making short work of their heads with her bloody hatchet, while Lisa was wrestling with the last one. She’d tried the sam
e thing Nadia had with her screwdriver, and had met with the same results.

  Now, the zombie had her in a death grip, its teeth snapping open and shut mere millimeters from her face. Nadia launched herself at the undead woman and grabbed the back of her shirt. The frail material tore beneath her fingers, but at the same time, she thrust her t-bar into the infected’s ear. It stiffened and fell to the ground with a snarl, leaving the three girls wide-eyed and gasping with shock.

  Nadia looked from the two t-bars she carried to the others. “Anyone care to weigh in on what the hell just happened?”

  Lisa frowned. “I don’t know. That was…intense.”

  “What?” Cat asked, looking around. “Is something wrong?”

  “Did you see that?” Nadia asked of Lisa.

  “Yes. It’s as if their skulls have grown thicker,” Lisa replied.

  “What are you two talking about?” Cat asked, listening while Nadia explained. “Well, if that’s the case, we need to catch one and study it.”

  “What?” Nadia asked. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Perfectly serious,” Cat said. “If the undead really are changing as Dr. Lange said, then we need to know how so we can adjust our killing methods. I don’t know about you, guys, but I have no desire to become zombie food.”

  “She has a point,” Lisa said. “Let’s finish the patrol, and come back this afternoon with rope and whatever else we might need to capture and study one.”

  “Fine, fine,” Nadia replied, “If you say so, but we’d better be careful.”

  “By the way, is your arm okay?” Cat asked.

  Nadia flexed her hand and winced. “It’s sore, but I’ll live.”

  “Lucky you’re wearing leather,” Cat said. “By the way, did anyone see where the dog went?”

  Nadia shook her head. “He’s long gone, sorry. No point looking for him now.”

  “All right,” a crestfallen Cat said, and Nadia knew how she felt. They were all animal lovers, and at times it was hard to see the effect the apocalypse had on them. The cruelty and suffering.

  “Come on. Let’s go,” Nadia said and led the way, covering the rest of the route with swift efficiency. They returned to the hotel without further incident and commenced the rest of their training as discussed the night before.

  For an hour, they stripped and cleaned their guns and sharpened their knives. While they did so, they discussed the merits of each weapon against both humans and zombies alike.

  “If their skulls really are getting thicker then stabbing weapons are out. Hitting the temple or eye just right is difficult. Too small a target,” Nadia said.

  “We’ll need stuff that packs a punch,” Lisa agreed.

  “How about a visit to the hardware shop?” Cat asked.

  “Good idea,” Nadia said. “Bring bags.”

  “But only after we finish our chores,” Lisa said. “We still need to live and eat too.”

  After an hour spent tidying the hotel, washing clothes and dishes, and tending the rooftop garden, they set off on a raid, each carrying an empty bag for supplies. They made a quick trip to a nearby grocery shop for food and toiletries before making a second trip to the hardware shop. When they returned, they had a veritable arsenal of stuff to experiment with.

  “Well, this should be interesting,” Nadia mused as she eyed the array of hammers, axes, hatchets, cricket bats, nails, screws, screwdrivers, rope, duct tape, chains, and canvas.

  “We need more guns too,” Lisa said. “This is all good and well against zombies, but if we get swarmed, guns are our best bet, as well as against enemies of the human variety.”

  “I know,” Nadia said. “We should start checking safes in houses, look for guns shops, that sort of thing.”

  “Wouldn’t Kevin have had a stash?” Cat asked. “He struck me as the type.”

  Nadia turned to look at her. “You know, you might have a point.”

  “He’d have told us if he did,” Lisa protested.

  “Would he?” Cat asked. “He was pretty out of it these past two days after Manny died.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. We can look later tonight, I guess,” Lisa said.

  “Now,” Nadia said, picking up a roll of duct tape and rope, “We’re going zombie hunting.”

  “This is a bad idea,” Cat said.

  “Maybe, but we need to know what we’re up against,” Nadia said. “Coming?”

  “Fine,” Cat said, giving in. “Let’s go.”

  They set out on the afternoon patrol with far more gusto than that morning, and at first, it proved quiet. So quiet, that Nadia feared they wouldn’t find what they were looking for. Only when they drew near the end, did they come upon two zombies feeding on the sidewalk.

  Nadia’s lip curled with anger and disgust when she recognized the black and brown fur of the stray dog from that morning. So they got him after all. Poor thing.

  Familiar rage bubbled up inside her, and she charged the duo with a yell, slamming her new hammer onto the nearest one’s skull with so much force it popped like a balloon. Pieces of bone and brain flew in all directions, but she hardly noticed, so intent was she on killing the second one too.

  “Nadia, no! We need it alive,” someone behind her cried.

  For a brief second, Nadia considered ignoring the cry, but reason prevailed. Instead, she bent down and broke first one of the zombie’s knees, then the other. With the zom crippled unable to do more than crawl, they managed to tape its mouth shut and tie it to a lamp pole.

  “Now what?” Cat asked, her eyes filled with tears of pity for the unfortunate dog, now just a lump of hair and innards on the sidewalk.

  “Now, we get our answers,” a grim Nadia answered after removing a cleaver, saw, and a steak knife from her backpack.

  Cat paled and backed away. “I’ll keep watch. You two go ahead.”

  “This was your idea, remember?” Nadia said.

  “I know, but it sounded a lot easier in theory. I don’t think I can do this,” Cat said.

  Nadia eyed the zombie, allowing the anger to return. It would enable her to do what needed to be done. “Fine. I’ll do it. You wait back there. Ready, Lisa?”

  Lisa nodded. “As much as I’ll ever be.”

  Nadia raised the knife and cut into the zombie’s forehead, circling right around while ignoring its swiveling eyes. Then she picked up the edge and peeled back the scalp like the skin from an orange. The white bone glistened in the sun, covered by a sheen of black mucous. She tapped it with her blade, eliciting a dull sound. “Now for the really nasty part. Finding out how thick that bone is.”

  “Go ahead,” Lisa said.

  For the better part of an hour, Nadia hacked into the zombie’s skull with various tools, testing the thickness all around before moving on to its body. With a saw, she dissected its limbs and studied the tendons, before moving on to the skin and muscle. With a fine paring knife, she cut into the flesh, ignoring the squelching sounds and blood spatter. When she opened the abdomen, fetid air ballooned out followed by the rush of innards as they fell through the hole and onto the ground. Behind her, Cat lost her lunch, and even Lisa looked nauseous, but Nadia ignored them both and shoved her hands into the cavity.

  A keen student of biology, she knew more than most average people did about human physiology and was able to pick up on a few things. What she found was interesting. The zombie’s bones were definitely stronger, if not thicker. As Dr. Lange had theorized, the infected had reached a point beyond decay, and the evolving virus had taken steps to safeguard its precious host. The skin and muscle were drying out, becoming leathery, almost mummified, while the organs were shriveled and useless, the blood like thick sludge.

  Though still slow and clumsy, the undead were undoubtedly tougher, and their heads were no longer so vulnerable to piercing weapons. Except for guns, of course. No bone could withstand a bullet.

  Their senses had changed too. While the eyeballs were dry and milky, blind, in fact, the zombie seemed to
sniff the air whenever they were near. Nadia tested this by blindfolding it and waving her hand in front of its face. It unerringly followed her hand around with its nose, confirming her suspicions. Finally, she was finished and packed up her stuff after squeezing a bottle of water over her bloody hands and arms.

  “I’m done. Let’s head back, guys.”

  “What about him?” Cat said, pointing at the zombie that now looked like a raw slab of meat. Her pale face spoke volumes, and Nadia knew she’d thrown up several times throughout the procedure.

  “I’ll take care of him,” Lisa said, stabbing the unfortunate infected through the eye, before cutting him loose to crumple to the ground.

  “We can dispose of the bodies tomorrow. For now, let’s just get home,” Nadia said.

  “Amen to that,” Cat cried, hurrying away.

  They walked back to the hotel, and after a hot bath and supper, set about looking for Kevin’s possible stash of weapons. They found it in a locked room and had to force the door open. A cabinet against the wall housed a couple of rifles and shotgun as well as a few handguns. Boxes of ammo rounded off the selection. It was a good find, not as much as Nadia had hoped but enough for a start.

  Afterward, they retired to their beds, and during the next few days, they settled into a simple routine. Patrolling in the morning, weapons making and training, hand to hand combat, strength exercises, gun practice, followed by a late afternoon patrol. Mixed in between were their regular chores and raids. Most days they were too busy to even think let alone dwell on their circumstances.

  Nights were spent discussing possible scenarios and scenes, working out a system that would ensure their safety, and arguing about ways to escape should the worst happen. Plan after plan did the rounds, each crazier than the last. It brought the three closer together too, as they learned each other’s way of thought, a bonus side effect.

  For Nadia, this was a good time. From the morning when she rolled out of bed to the night when she collapsed into it, she had little time to mourn her losses or even think about the past. The only problem was the nightmares. That and the rage. It was the one thing that never went away, simmering in her breast day after day.