Catharsis (Books 1-4): Outbreak Z

by EM Roberts

  He was trusting that the other men wouldn’t join the fight. This was a challenge between Hector and Joe for the woman and for leadership of the group. There were followers, and there were leaders. The men with Joe were followers, and Hector had just challenged to be a leader. He had no doubt the men would pledge their loyalty to him when he beat Joe. In fact, he was looking forward to the violence. He hadn’t been in a fist fight in a long time.

  He was so looking forward to it that he let Joe throw the first punch. It split his lip open and felt like it loosened a tooth or two, but damn, it felt good. He liked the pain and reveled in it. He smiled through his bloody lip and sent a fist not to the man’s face but to his kidney. It was the kidneys and the ribs he was aiming for. Joe doubled over in pain from Hector’s blow. Using this to his advantage, Hector waded in and rained blows down onto the man until Joe lay gasping for breath at his feet.

  “No….more….man…please,” Joe begged, holding a hand up to Hector.

  Hector hadn’t really imagined it would be that easy. He’d been looking forward to a fight. What a joke. Joe acted bad and talked bad, but he was like the rest of the blowhards. All talk and no action.

  “You can lead the group…” the man huffed from his position on the ground. Apparently Joe knew when he’d been beaten.

  “Yes, I can lead the group, but see, you have to die. It goes like this. I can’t keep you with the group because you’ll resent me and want to kill me. I can’t exile you from the group because you’ll still want to kill me,” Hector told the man right before he planted a bullet in Joe’s head.

  After this task was completed, Hector looked at the remaining four men, an eyebrow raised in question. There was complete silence for a moment while the mean looked at each other uneasily.

  “Man, you’re cool. We ain’t got no beef with ya,” one of the men who’d been introduced as Red stated. He’d seen Hector in action and wanted no part of him.

  “Listen up mother fuckers. The woman is mine. Don’t even think of touching her. I don’t share. Where we’re going, there are women. Just hold your peckers in your pants a few days longer, and I promise you’ll be happy.”

  Hector laid out the plan for the men. They would travel together to the facility, and from there, they would trade Ella for the codes. Hector didn’t know what the place contained, but he elaborated using his imagination and made it sound like heaven to the men who listened in rapt attention. Incentive was a good tool. Tomorrow, they would arm themselves for a battle, and tonight..well…tonight he would enjoy what Ella had to offer.

  Chapter 5: Ode to a Strong, Black Woman

  Amos

  Amos waded into the group of creatures. Four heads hit the pavement in unison as he swung his sickle. He was angry. He didn’t get mad a whole lot, but sometimes when sad or bad things happen, he could feel the anger boil up and spill over. The pretty, funny, black lady had died this morning, and it made him sad. He hadn’t known her long, but she’d been nice to him, giving him extra portions of food at dinner and making up silly songs to make him laugh. It made him sad that she’d lived so long and then had become one of them.

  He couldn’t imagine becoming one of them. He hoped when it was his time to go to heaven that he would just die from some sickness. Maybe when it was his turn, he would just go to sleep and never wake up. Yeah, that was the way to go. Amos wasn’t really afraid of death because he knew he would go to heaven, meet God, and see his Mammaw again. He just didn’t want one of his friends to have to kill him if he turned into one of those things.

  He was also mad because Ella was missing. They hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her, and he was worried. He knew she wasn’t a real angel, but she was still an angel to him. She’d taken him from the only home he’d ever known and had actually treated him like a real person. He knew there were people out there who weren’t like Ella, Roe, and the rest of the group, and he knew they were the ones he had to watch out for. They were the kind of people his Mammaw had warned him about.

  He’d awakened this morning, walked outside, and ran into Izzy whose eyes were red and swollen. When he’d asked what was wrong, she’d explained that Roe had turned into one of those creatures, and Parker had been the one to take her life. Amos was glad that it was Parker who’d had to do it and not him. He just didn’t know if he could ever kill one of his new friends, even if they did turn.

  “It’s clear over here,” Amos yelled, after killing two more the creatures.

  After taking care of Roe and giving her a funeral, the group had soberly packed up their belongings and continued the trip. There was nothing else to do but continue their journey. They’d stopped at this gas station to refuel their cars when out of nowhere about twenty creatures had come running. Amos wasn’t afraid; in fact, it had made him happy because it had given him a chance to avenge Roe. Every time he killed a creature, he felt a little better about her death.

  Izzy

  She watched in awe as Amos dispatched four of the zombies in a single blow of his sickle. His arms were the size of fence posts, and his strength and mass continued to amaze her. The funny thing was that Amos was usually harmless and acted very sweet in nature. She supposed he was like everyone else—sick of the death and dying. Sometimes, the futility of killing the creatures made Izzy want to do something violent.

  Izzy certainly was sick of it. She’d lost her parents, Theo, Carlos, Roe, and maybe even Ella. She wasn’t sure on that score. She’d built Ella up into some kind of female super hero who was able to overcome any kind of odds. That really wasn’t the case, though. Izzy knew that a bullet or a bite could stop anybody, even the fearless Ella. She just hoped her friend was okay in the clutches of that bastard Adams. If Izzy were given the chance, she would kill him. She vowed it. Parker liked to call Izzy a bloodthirsty little creature, and she guessed she was—to those who deserved it.

  She didn’t want to think about Roe’s death, but it was all she could think about. It was so ironic and unfair that Roe had survived so much, including being bitten by a creature early on in the outbreaks and having her throat cut, to die in a strange house in the middle of nowhere. It just went to prove that none of them were really immune to the virus or to death. The virus had been out there for almost a year now, and who knew if it had mutated or what?

  She thought back to her time on the farm. Even though the world had been going to shit all around them, the people living on the Tennessee farm had been happy and content in some ways. She remembered all the times Roe had dyed her hair for her and painted her nails. Even though these acts may have seemed frivolous with such a catastrophic event going all around them, they were Roe’s way of coping and making things seem normal. The farm had almost seemed normal.

  Izzy honestly didn’t know if things would ever be normal again. Maybe they would find the facility, live there, and have a happily ever after, but she doubted it. There were no fucking happily ever afters anymore. This truly did seem like the end of the world.

  Jax

  Jax siphoned the gas out of the tank, looking around as he did so. The whole group was somber and rightly so since they’d lost the one person who went out of her way to make everyone laugh. Roe was such a character, and he’d come to look on her as a friend and mentor in just the short time he’d known her. She’d had the ability to make anyone laugh—anyone.

  He recalled what she’d said when she found out about his sexual orientation:

  “So, you like cock? Hmm, well I do too, so we’ve got a lot in common. Great, now I’ve got competition in the form of a hot, young rock star. Good job, Karma,” Roe had laughingly told him. She’d been one of the first people he’d truly felt comfortable around in a long time, and now, in the blink of an eye, she was gone.

  He hoped there was a heaven and that she was in it. He smiled—Roe was the type of person who would boss even God around if he didn’t watch out. Roe—as an angel—that was a riot.

  “What’s so funny?” Parker Wallace asked, coming up to s
tand beside Jax.

  “Roe—I was just imagining she’s in Heaven right now and giving God flak about this whole situation—you know giving him a piece of her mind,” Jax explained as he pulled the hose from the tank.

  Parker looked at him and suddenly laughed.

  “Or, she’s probably asking him what in the hell kind of garb she’s wearing because you know Roe wouldn’t be content to be wearing a plain white angel’s robes,” Parker replied, smiling at the thought.

  “Roe’s probably asking him what the hell he was thinking letting this happen,” Izzy chimed in. The three of them stood there with dumb smiles on their face remembering Roe and all of her outrageous and fun quirks. Suddenly, Jax felt a little better. He knew, without a doubt, that Roe would definitely not want them to forget her, but she wouldn’t want them to mope either. She would want them to do what they’d just been doing.

  Jem

  For once, Jem felt kind of out of place. She and Amos had only met Roe a few short days ago, yet she felt the woman’s absence immensely. Roe was the person who got everyone to do what needed to be done. She was bossy and rude, but it was a good bossy and rude. She never talked down to people and meant it in a bad way. Jem felt out of place because she didn’t know what to do or say about Roe’s death. There were no funny Roe anecdotes she could tell.

  As a psychologist, she knew she needed to just be a sounding board for Roe’s friends and support them in their time of grief, but knowing this didn’t make it any easier since she also didn’t know the others very well. She’d had a few conversations with Izzy, Parker, and Jax, and she knew, like Ella, she could come to like them. They seemed like good people.

  She’d wandered around this last year, looking for people with whom she could connect. Some people she’d met were dangerous and selfish, only looking out for themselves. Mostly, she’d stayed away from people because she knew firsthand how dangerous people could become in the face of adversity. It wasn’t until she met Ella and Amos that she’d realized how much she’d missed people. The catch 22 of that was losing people. And—people were always lost.

  Parker

  Parker hopped in Roe’s Jeep and headed out. He looked down at the odometer and smiled. Like Roe, the vehicle had been around. It had 298,342 miles on it, and it was still going. He wished he could say the same for its previous owner. He’d had to do the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life this morning. He’d had to walk into that room and put a bullet in a brave, wonderful woman’s head. A woman who’d been his friend.

  It’d been hard to do because he’d honestly thought they were so close to finding a way to survive. Roe had been a fighter—among the best of them, and just like that, in one moment, she’d been defeated. What did that say for the rest of them? Would they end up like Roe—infected and dying in a strange location, far from home? He’d always tried to be positive throughout this ordeal, but today had really depressed him.

  He remembered reading an article a few years back about a Holocaust survivor. The man had survived concentration camps only to be killed in a school shooting. Roe reminded him of this story. Roe had been born in a time when racism and prejudice was still very rampant. She’d spent her whole life dealing with racism. She’d been bitten by her zombie boyfriend—and yes, by God, he too, like Roe would now call them what they were, and she’d survived the bite. She’d confessed to Parker that she’d spent weeks worrying if the bite would turn her.

  In addition to that, Roe had been the victim of an attempted murder back on Ella and Theo’s farm in Tennessee. A religious, zealot had tried to punish her for her promiscuous ways by cutting her throat. She’d survived that as well. All three of these events in her life were met with jokes and a positive attitude. Roe had never let anybody or anything get her down. He was sure she had her moments, but her motto had always been about being positive. He would stay true to that. It was his way of honoring her memory.

  From the diary of Roe Lewis

  “My Last Day’

  Well, what can I say? I’m pretty much fucked—and not in a good way. This is more than likely my last day on earth, and it sucks. I have a fucking horrible headache, and I could eat a fucking moose, right now. That’s how I know I’ve been infected. The last time, I didn’t feel this way. So, I’m going to die, and once again-- it sucks. Did I mention that it sucks?

  I haven’t always been the best person in my life. There are so many things that I regret. I regret impulsive decisions that have affected the people I love in a negative way. I wish I could have a do over, and maybe I can if that whole reincarnation thing exists! Who knows, right?

  I wish I could be there for little Carly as she grows up and Ella when she finally does find that true love that makes her want to give everything up. I had that once, and I foolishly lost it with my own ignorance. If I could go back in time, I would grab it and hold on for life. But, we can’t go back; we can only learn from our mistakes.

  What will I miss when I’m gone? I’ll miss drinking a cool gin and tonic and feeling it slide down my throat. I’ll miss walking into a fine department store and smelling the leather from the new shoes and coats. I’ll miss have a strong, sexy man between my thighs. There are many more things and people I’ll miss, but those who know me will realize these are the top ones!

  I can’t concentrate so…..

  R.L

  Xoxoxox

  Chapter 6: Total Blackout

  The trunk was cramped and smelled of sex and body odor, and all of that was emanating from her own body. Ella was at the lowest point of her life, and she’d almost given up on the one thing that she’d thought she would always have—hope. She’d been raped, beaten, and treated like an animal, and she just didn’t know how a person came back from all of that. Right now, she simply wanted to die.

  There were times in her life when she’d suffered from depression and had suicidal thoughts, but those were nothing compared to the way she was feeling at this point. Last night, after Hector’s induction as leader, he’d taken Ella, with her hands and feet bound, into a small RV one of the men had given him, and he’d used her body. She could still fill his hands and mouth on her, and it made her want to vomit. The pain and humiliation from that event was far worse than the cut on her face or the broken arm.

  After he’d spent himself inside of her, he’d brought her back out to the trunk of the car and had left her there overnight and into the morning. She’d had no recourse except to use the bathroom on herself, and this made her feel even more degraded. She had no control over anything, and she wished Hector had killed her. She didn’t want to be a pawn in anyone’s unhappiness. Plus, she didn’t know if she could ever get past this point in her life. How did rape victims do it? How did they survive?

  For the next few hours, she tried to think of anything other than what was really lurking in the dark recesses of her mind. She thought of Roe and the time they’d spent six hours in Knoxville shopping for just the right pair of shoes. Ella had always been one of those women who wore sensible, plain flats when dressing up. And, then the wild and wonderful Roe had entered her life. Taking one look at Ella’s closet had prompted Roe to take Ella on a shopping trip to Knoxville.

  Ella had been amazed. For one, she’d never realized how much shoes could cost. She’d always shopped the clearance bins or the sale racks. Truth be told, she’d never spent more than fifty dollars on a pair of shoes. Even her cowboy boots had been bought at the local thrift store. Roe couldn’t believe it. By the time they’d left Knoxville, Ella had been the proud owner of two pairs of heels by a famous designer—one black and the other red. She’d also been the proud owner of an outstanding credit card balance for these items.

  Ella smiled tremulously in the trunk even as a tear escaped one of her eyes and made its way down into her mouth. Good things—she only wanted to think about good things. Like her dad and the way he’d made Parker help slaughter that hog on his birthday! She hadn’t been there, but she wished she could have been able to see
Parker’s face when her dad had asked him to scrape the hair off of that hog’s back. She knew her father hadn’t done this chore out of malice. Her father hadn’t even known it was Parker’s birthday. Parker, though, had taken it in stride, and her father had even told Ella how proud he was of Parker for working at it so hard.

  Parker-she would think of him. Over this last year, she’d had sex with two men, and really, both times hadn’t been for the right reasons. She hadn’t loved Dean, and Sully, well, looking back on that, it’d been a moment of insanity. Where did Parker fit into the equation? She didn’t know, but she couldn’t stop thinking about how much she missed his goofy laugh or his way of just quietly listening to everyone around him. Looking back, she remembered talking smack about him when he was President. She really hadn’t liked him then, but now she didn’t even think of him as that person anymore.

  She thought maybe she’d fallen in love with home over the last few months and not even realized it. It was a comfortable kind of feeling, and just thinking of seeing him again made her heart ache with longing. It had sort of crept up on her, but now she wasn’t so sure. What kind of man would want a woman with a disfigured face and a broken, used body? She wasn’t feeling sorry for herself; she was just being real. Parker had always made comments about her beauty. Was that all that had really attracted him? She didn’t think so, but human nature was odd in that way.

  For the next couple of days, Ella was subjected to the same routine. The men would drive, stop for food, and Hector would use her for sex at night. Last night, he’d finally admitted she looked and smelled disgusting. He’d taken her to a stream and dunked her in it, using dishwashing liquid to wash her off. By this point, she hadn’t minded his rough treatment of her. She’d wanted the bath that damned bad. He still hadn’t released her from her restraints because he’d told her he knew she would try to escape. Ella guessed he’d learned this from her killing of Adams.