“Ready,” David answered, his face grim as the two dozen zombies closed in on us.
“Robbie, snap out of it. Arm yourself. This is what you trained for. Remember?” I shouted at the boy.
He turned his frightened gaze on me but failed to move. With a muttered curse, I flung myself at the nearest advancing corpse, realizing that Robbie’s fate was in my hands.
I slashed sideways with the machete, neatly decapitating the zombie. His head landed to the side where it lay, teeth gnashing at the air. With a swift thrust. I pushed the point of my weapon through the eye of the next infected. It collapsed next to its friend, while David took down another.
Like a whirlwind, I hacked and slashed, avoiding the skull when I could. Due to their evolution, the zombie’s bones were no longer quite so brittle, and their heads not an ideal target for a blade.
Instead, I aimed for the neck, removing the head entirely or spearing the brain through the eye socket or from beneath the chin. When all else failed, I’d hack off the legs at the knee, rendering them unable to walk. It wasn’t ideal but would do in a pinch.
Like always, I lost myself in the thrill of battle. My blood sang through my veins even as undead blood splattered across my skin and clothes, coating me in a fine mist of black spots. The thrill of the kill carried me onward, my muscles moving of their own accord.
As usual, the smell was unpleasant but not nearly as bad as in the old days when the zombies were still fresh and rotting. Now it was much like I imagined a mummy would smell like. Old death.
Arrows whizzed past my head, taking down a few more of the rotters. They were shot by those on the ledge, fired with unerring accuracy. They, like me, knew we had to kill all of them. Not one could be left alive to signal our location to the horde. Just one was all it took. One clawing zombie scrabbling at the cliff face, and they’d swarm the area, making it impossible to live there.
Suddenly, I heard Robbie scream and whirled toward him. An infected had him in its grasp, preparing to bite. I launched into the air and brought my machete down on its head with all my might. It worked, the blade crunching deep into the bone with all my weight behind it. The zombie fell without a sound.
My chest heaved as I fought for breath, but the silence told me all I needed to know. We’d done it. The zombies were dead. With a grunt. I cleaned my blade on the grass before shoving it back in its sheath. The fight was over.
Figures descended from the ladder. The corpses were dragged away from the site and disposed of down a deep ravine to the side. When no signs of death remained, we climbed up the ladder with Robbie going ahead of me. His body shook with fear, each rung an effort for him as I egged him on. “Come on, Robbie. Move your ass. We don’t have all day.”
Yet, inside, I felt a twinge of sympathy for the boy. He wasn’t cut out for this, that much was obvious. He flashed me a terrified look and once more, I felt that twinge within my gut. He reminded so much of….I pushed the thought aside. The memory hurt too much. I couldn’t bear it.
We finally reached the top, and I turned to David, gracing him with a curt nod. “Thanks for the help down there.”
He shrugged. “Of course. It’s my job.”
Stacy ushered Robbie into the bunker followed by David. I lingered on the ledge, casting a longing look at the clear blue sky. Wisely, she waited, granting me a few extra moments in the fresh air.
With a sigh, I turned away and ducked into the opening, shivering as the dank gloom of the mountain enfolded me. I hated the bunker, hated the darkness, the stink of disease, the whispers of discontent…the loneliness.
But, I had no choice. It was either that or life as an undead corpse. I could return to the walled city of St. Francis, of course. They’d welcome me back, I was sure of it. I could never face them, though. The shame of running back with my tail between my legs would kill me.
Nor could I go to any of the other walled cities. It cost a great deal to get in, and I had nothing to offer but my fighting skills. No, I deserved to live here in squalor, deserved it after failing my family…failing her. Get used to it, Luce. You’re going to die here, and that’s that.
Chapter 3 - The Bunker
I made my way through the bunker’s labyrinthine passages to my cramped quarters. It was nothing more than a shallow hole cut into the rock and closed off with a torn curtain.
Inside, it sported nothing grander than a thin mattress and blanket, a spare quiver of arrows, a jug of water, and a wooden chest with my meager personal belongings in it. Still, it was mine, and I sank onto the bed with a grateful sigh.
With a damp cloth, I wiped the blood and gunk from my skin before cleaning my clothes and gear. When I was finished, I prepared to lie down, but a low greeting stopped me in my tracks.
“Hello, Ma’am?”
It was Robbie.
“Yes?” I asked with a frown.
“I just wanted to thank you for saving my life, ma’am,” he whispered.
I sighed. “Whatever, Robbie. I just hope you learned your lesson and don’t go out there again.”
“But…I have to,” he said.
“You have to? What for? You’re not suited for it, Robbie. Today should’ve taught you that much.” He cringed beneath my onslaught, once more awakening a twinge of sympathy within me. I squashed it like a bug and shot to my feet. “Tell me why you have to go out there.”
“Because of my dad. Because he died out there for me, for us.”
“Your dad?” My thoughts winged back over the years, and I recollected vaguely the stories I’d heard of Robbie’s father.
A brave man and a fighter, he’d sacrificed himself to lead a horde of infected away when they discovered the bunker. True to their nature, the zombies had swarmed the entrance, and once there, they refused to leave. Inside, the people quailed in fear.
After a few days, the water ran out. That’s when the fighting began…and the dying. Finally, after two horrifying weeks spent starving and bickering, Robbie’s father and a few others led the charge on the entrance. They fought their way through and led the zombies away, saving those still left inside the bunker. Not one of them ever came back.
It was a bad time for the community, one talked about only in hushed whispers, and I was glad I only got there after the event, a blushing bride on the arm of her new husband. I was so stupid. I should have stayed in St. Francis, made Thomas stay too, but he was so eager for me to meet his mother, he refused to listen and talked me into coming here, to this hellhole. All for nothing. By the time we got here, his mother was dead, and I was pregnant, unable to make the trip back.
I shoved the memories aside. It all happened long ago. A lifetime ago. I needed to move on and stay strong. “I know what your father did, and he was a good man, but that doesn’t mean he’d want you to die out there, Robbie. Trust me.”
“He was a fighter,” Robbie said, his mouth set into a stubborn line. “I have to honor his memory.”
I stared at him, rubbing a tired hand across my eyes. “Suit yourself, kid, but when the zombies tear you to pieces, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Yeah? What do you know about me?” I asked, shoving him in the chest with one pointed finger.
He stumbled back, eyes wide, and hesitated a few seconds before asking, “You’d let me die?”
“In a heartbeat,” I said.
“So today…”
“Today was a favor to your aunt. Nothing more. Don’t expect the same tomorrow. You’re nothing but a liability out there.”
Hurt welled up in his eyes. “You don’t have to be so mean all the time, you know?”
My hands clenched into fists. “Mean? You think I’m mean? What do you know about life? About anything? You’re just a spoiled little brat living in a fantasy world of his own.”
He shook his head. “I―”
“Save your breath. You’ll need it tomorrow if you plan on going out there again. Now be a good little boy, and run
back to your mommy.”
Like a flower left too long in the sun, Robbie wilted beneath my gaze before he turned tail and ran. I watched him go with mixed feelings. Despite my best efforts to guard my heart, he’d begun to grow on me.
Determined to forget Robbie, I flopped down on the bed and tried to sleep, but with my mind in turmoil, it was an impossible task. Finally, I got up and wandered the halls, drifting from one place to the next.
The familiar sights and sounds of our community closed in around me. The smell of wet rock, sweat, urine, and musk filled my nostrils. Curtains fluttered in doorways like mine, tiny nooks that were home to other singles and couples. Families were granted more space. They shared the larger areas, their houses cordoned off with wooden framework and material. It lacked privacy. We all lacked it in such close quarters but had little choice but to endure. Faces flashed by, somber and indifferent. We all felt the same down here.
In truth, the bunker was little more than a system of caves that had been enlarged and fitted with a few amenities. The walls and floors had been smoothed, small rooms were carved out of the sides, a solar system and lights were installed, and a network of tiny channels led rainwater through a filter and into large storage tanks.
There were two exits, the one in the mountain face which led to the crops and another on the opposite side which opened onto a sheer cliff. This dropped down to a river which carved its way through the narrow canyon like a snake, frothing and churning. Not the ideal way to leave the bunker, but it provided a second source of water.
I reached the biggest room of all, situated in the center of everything. A fire pit glowed in the middle, and a pot of soup simmered next to it, a watery broth of meat scrap, bones, and vegetables. Loaves of flatbread rounded off the meager meal that would serve our community throughout the long day until supper time.
This was the only room where a fire was permitted, for in the ceiling high above our heads, a small hole rimmed in charcoal allowed the smoke to escape. It posed no threat from the infected for it was just a gap in the rock in the sheer mountain face.
I shivered and made my way to the fire, eager for a bit of its warmth. It was always cold inside the mountain, cold and dank. With a small cup, I scooped out some of the broth and sipped it while looking at the people coming and going around me. Because of the infected attack earlier, my work day had been cut short, but others still had their chores to perform.
I spotted Robbie in the distance, helping a girl to tend to the chickens and rabbits in their coops. The rabbits provided meat, at least, and there was much talk of catching a few wild pigs too. That thought caused me to wrinkle my nose. While a slice of bacon had my mouth watering, I did not relish the idea of the added stink.
Robbie threw me a few sidelong glances as he worked but otherwise ignored me. Once more I felt a twinge of guilt but was sidetracked when David appeared next to me.
“Hey, Luce,” he said. “Good fight.”
“Yeah,” I answered with a noncommittal shrug while dredging up what I knew about him. It wasn’t much. Middle-aged, fairly handsome, a great fighter, and also quite the ladies man if the rumors were to be believed.
He threw me a long look, taking me in from head to toe. “Feel like hanging out later?”
My eyebrows raised. “Hang out? With you?”
“If you want,” he answered, striving to look casual. “We can talk and stuff.”
I snorted. “No offense, David, but your reputation precedes you. Quite the charmer, aren’t you?”
“So? You might enjoy my company, you know?” he said with a crooked smile before waving a hand over himself. “Come on. You could do worse.”
I laughed and put my now empty cup down. “I’ll think about it, David. See you later.”
As I walked back to my room, I reflected on his words. I could do worse, I supposed. I hadn’t been with anyone since Thomas. I can’t believe it’s been three years. Three years since I lost him…and her.
Fresh grief welled up inside me, and I found myself falling to my mattress with a sob of remembered hurt. Images flashed before my eyes. Thomas falling ill, wasting away before my very eyes as I battled to save him with the little medicine we possessed. He wasn’t the only one. Half the bunker went down with the disease. Dysentery.
Thomas breathed his last somewhere during the night, leaving me alone with my daughter in a place I hated. A place I’d only moved to at his insistence, and for what? A dead mother I never even got to meet.
I vowed then to leave this place, to take my daughter and go back to my real home. St. Francis. It was not to be. By morning the disease had found its way to my child as well, and I spent the next three days watching her die.
I curled up on the mattress, hugging my arms to my chest as tears leaked from my eyes. Twice now, I’d lost everything that mattered most to me. First, when the zombies took my parents at the age of five and once more when dysentery stole my husband and child. Now I had nothing and no one.
“I’m sorry, Thomas. I couldn’t save you or my little Sarah. I failed you, and for that, I deserve to die here.”
But what about Robbie? My heart skipped a beat as I remembered his soft brown eyes. Eyes that reminded me of Sarah’s. He was so young and innocent, lost in this horrid place while trying to live up to a long-dead father.
He didn’t deserve my hatred…or my bitterness. It wasn’t his fault he was born to this hole in the earth, forever doomed not to know the gift of freedom. My last thought before I drifted off was that I needed to make things right with him. I couldn’t save my family, but I can still save him.
Chapter 4 - The Escape
A scream ripped through the blanket of sleep that encompassed me. My eyes opened to total darkness, and I jerked upright on my thin mattress. How long had I slept?
More screams followed the first. They were wild and primitive, the hunting cry of a savage beast from the depths of hell itself. Zombies!
Immediately, I scrambled to my feet and pulled open the curtain. A thin stream of yellow light from the hall illuminated my room, and I scooped up my bow and arrows, slinging them onto my back. I’d fallen asleep fully dressed. Small mercy.
Shouts filled the hallway as more screams, these shrill and terrified, filled the night. I gripped my machete and darted out with only one thought in my mind: Kill.
The bunker was in chaos. People ran from one end to the next, some terrified and looking for safety while others were like me: Prepared to fight.
Figures darted past me in the gloom, their faces unknown. Suddenly, an arm gripped my elbow, and I whirled, prepared to strike with the machete. I froze mid-swing. It was Stacy.
“Luce! Please, find Robbie for me,” Stacy cried. “Please!”
“What’s going on? What happened?” I asked, my head swiveling as I took in our surrounds.
“It’s David. He got bitten and hid it from us. I killed him, but it’s too late.” Stacy’s eyes were wide, and terror filled her pale face.
“What do you mean, too late?” I cried.
“They’re everywhere. Fresh infected.”
Horror spurted through my veins. I knew what that meant. Old zombies were bad enough. New ones were a thousand times worse. “How many?”
She shook her head. “Too many to fight, Luce. This is the end of the road for us.”
As if to emphasize her words, a snarling face appeared at the end of the corridor. The infected, a young woman with dirty blonde hair, sprinted towards us. Stacy dropped my arm and flung herself at the zombie woman. They grappled while I looked for an opening to strike. I never found one.
The next moment, the infected latched onto Stacy’s shoulder and bit deep into the flesh. Blood spurted. Fresh and sweet. White bone shone through the mangled meat.
Stacy looked at me with despair, still struggling to keep the zombie woman at bay. “Find Robbie! Save him! Please!”
For a few seconds, I hesitated, but she was a goner, and we both knew it. My feet moved of their
own accord, and I ran toward where I knew Robbie lived with his mother. I now had a purpose, one that filled me with determination. Save Robbie.
A knot of fighting people blocked my way, and I ducked through a side tunnel. It was quieter there, and I made better time, my footsteps echoing around me. Only once did a zombie jump out at me. A quick slash to the neck took it down, and I picked up the pace. I burst into the family room seconds later, searching for Robbie’s house.
“Robbie!” I shouted, searching through the faces of the people milling about in a panic. Bodies lay scattered on the ground. A few stirred as the virus took control of their corpses, joints cracking as they rose to their feet.
I stabbed a man through the eye as he turned toward me, face contorted. With a hacking slash, I decapitated another. “Robbie, where are you?”
“Over here!” he cried, filling me with momentary surprise.
I spotted him huddled underneath a table, scooting backward as an infected swiped at him with clawed hands. With a yell, I sprang into action and smashed a nearby chair onto the zombie’s head.
As I hit the infected man again, and again, he turned toward me. A lucky blow with the edge of the stool staved in his temple, and he collapsed to the floor. I kicked the body aside and reached out a hand to Robbie. “Come with me.”
He gripped my fingers, and together we ran. The next few minutes were a blur of fighting, ducking, and hiding as we made our way toward the only escape route I knew of with certainty. The only one that wouldn’t be blocked or locked. The river.
We reached the stairs cutting up into the mountainside, and I sprinted up them two at a time, dragging a sobbing Robbie behind me. I tested the handle on the exit, relieved to find it open and kicked the door wide. There, I halted, finding myself on a narrow ledge jutting out over the river far below.
It was still dark, and the moon shone full and fat above us. A chill breeze tugged at my clothes, and I thanked our lucky stars it was summer and not the middle of the cold season. As such, we stood a chance.
Children of the Apocalypse: Mega Boxed Set Page 152