Existing Dead

by Lyle Perez-Tinics

  Praise for

  Existing Dead

  “Lyle Perez-Tinics takes you on a ride into hell where anything that can go wrong does. Existing Dead is a true horror novel that goes for the jugular and even death is not an escape!”

  - Edward J. Russell, author of The Dead Infested

  “For Zombie and post-apocalyptic fans, Lyle Perez-Tinics delivers a fast moving road trip of carnage and endurance with well created characters that you will soon find yourself caring for.

  Aiming to flee from Nevada, which is abundant with the walking dead, Kyle Reynolds’s motive is to reach his longtime girlfriend in California, but as his journey slowly advances, his trip is marred and hindered with challenging and devastating situations. However, he does pick up a young companion and encounters fellow survivors along the way. Kyle and his companion have to fight for survival and to find clues to end the cause that is infecting the population. With graphic and emotional scenes, you will feel empathy for the protagonist and his companion as their mental welfare is tested to the breaking point as events unfold. With many twists and turns, this is not your typical Zombie set-up, though zombies are rampant, this is a thrilling yet sensitive take on surviving an apocalyptic world.”

  - Charlotte Emma Gledson, author of The Lonely Tree and other Twisted Tales of Torment and chief editor for Black Hound.

  “Provocative, innovative, and mind numbingly horrific encompass the novel Existing Dead by Lyle Perez-Tinics. Unlike any zombie story you’ve ever read, you’ll find yourself immersed in a new vision of terror.”

  - Nate D. Burleigh, author of Sustenance

  www.ExistingDead.com

  KINDLE EDITION

  The characters depicted in this story are completely fictitious, and any similarities to actual events, locations or people, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, in whole or in part, without written permission from the author, except for brief quotations in reviews.

  Copyright © 2012 by Lyle Perez-Tinics

  All rights reserved.

  Interior book design by – www.TheMadFormatter.com

  Cover Design by: © Eloise J. Knapp

  Special Thanks!

  I want to thank everyone who has helped me on this wild journey. First, I want to thank my good friend Eloise J. Knapp for being supportive and creating the awesome cover. I want to thank Charlotte Emma Gledson for giving my story a read through and catching any mistakes I missed. I also want to thank Kelly Dunn for giving my story another round of editing. A special thanks to Dallas Green, I listened to the Little Hell album about a million times while writing. And a very special thanks to my family who might never read this book. They already think I’m crazy.

  For Dallas Green & City and Colour

  Thanks for your Little Hell, now here’s mine.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Prologue

  At the moment of birth, life begins to die. But when the rules of life change and death is replaced by an existing hell, the world as we know it ends.

  It didn’t take the world long to crumble. When the first reports of the dead walking came in, that was it. People began to panic and within an hour of the news broadcast, suicides and murder rates peaked. Some of the population couldn’t handle the thought of their lives suddenly changing. The smart folks listened to the National Guard and gathered supplies to wait it out, while the unintelligent thought they could meet the threat head-on. Many small mobs armed themselves with whatever blunt objects they could find. As the dead quickly overran the living, the would-be heroes soon discovered that destroying a human’s brain, through the skull, is not as easy as it sounds. Those with firearms lasted a bit longer, but not all of them were marksmen. Once ammunition became a problem, they were massacred. Many reanimated while their intestines were being ripped out of their bellies, and others were eaten whole before they had a chance to reopen their eyes. The dead never stopped looking for victims, they continued on the food’s path until they reached it. That is the reason why the dead outnumbered the living ten to one.

  Kyle Reynolds was in the smarter group.

  Kyle, a thirty-five year old welder from Nevada, formerly from sunny Southern California, was nothing more than that. He had married a woman who was not the one meant for him, and they had a son together. The boy’s name was Eddie and they loved him. Kyle and his wife, Mary, were constantly fighting. If it wasn’t one reason, it was another. When the dead began attacking the living, things didn’t change between them. Instead of fighting about sex and money, they fought about supplies and safety.

  The three of them took refuge in the basement of their Nevada home. They were only down there for a few days, but that was long enough for Kyle’s hatred toward Mary to intensify. He was only there to protect his son and nothing more. To help give him some extra time, he would have been more than happy to throw Mary into a horde of hungry monsters. But the chances of the dead finding a way in were low. The basement doors were reinforced with steel beams that Kyle had welded shut. The only way out was through a small tunnel that led up to the front yard. His thinking was that if anything began banging on the doors, there would be another way out. Supplies of water, canned food, and entertainment were stacked to the roof.

  Eddie’s safety was not the only thing he was worried about. There was something else on his mind, something that made his heart ache. In a secret compartment in his wallet, he carried an old, creased photo of a woman. From time to time, he would take the picture out and stare at it. He had never been able to let Jasmine go and always wondered what life would have been like if he had married her. Jasmine was Kyle’s real love, and he wished that things in his life could have been different. Gazing at the picture, something inside his heart told him that he had to go and find her. He had to make sure that she was okay, and if she wasn’t, then he would make her safe, like he’d done with Eddie and Mary. There was only one thing holding Kyle back.

  As Kyle sat on a chair in the corner looking at the old picture of Jasmine, he felt eyes on him. He glanced up and staring at him was the worried gaze of Eddie. Kyle smiled devilishly in hopes of getting a reaction from his son. The little boy was only eight-years-old; he didn’t fully understand what was going on and why he couldn’t go outside to play with Gary, the next-door neighbor’s kid. It hurt Kyle to think what was really going on in his son’s mind. Was he hurt? Confused? Sad? Depressed? Did he find Kyle’s devilish grin funny? But there was no reaction; Eddie continued to stare at him with those eyes that always tore Kyle into pieces. He looked down at the picture of
Jasmine again, her bright blue eyes seemed to smile back at him, calling him, begging him for help. A thought of him running his hand through her soft blond hair ran through his mind. The fantasy quickly turned to horror as that same memory was replaced with an image of a dead hand ripping her hair out and biting into her face. It was then that Kyle realized he would have to make the toughest decision of his life.

  Chapter One

  “So what? You’re just gonna leave us?” Mary demanded an answer with her hands on her hips. Her hazel eyes stared at him like a vulture stalking its prey. Her long black hair fell down toward her face. The shine of her hair made her eyes glow.

  “I’ll only be gone for a few days. I’ll be back; there’s just something that I have to do,” Kyle replied as he stuffed more things into Eddie’s robot themed knapsack.

  “Are you going to take my backpack, Daddy?” Eddie asked from behind them, Kyle turned just in time to see Eddie’s eyes water.

  “I am, Sport, is that okay? I can look for something else if you want me to. I thought you would be okay with me taking this. Y’know, so I can have something of yours to keep near me,” Kyle said as he reached into his pocket. “I’ll tell you what, let me hold on to your backpack and I’ll let you hold on to my lucky four leaf-clover keychain.”

  “Really?” Eddie asked with delight. Even though it was just a fake four-leaf clover encased in plastic, he loved it.

  “Yeah, really.” Kyle took the keychain off the metal ring and placed it in Eddie’s cupped hand. The boy closed his hand and put the four-leaf clover in his pocket. Kyle stared back at the small table where he continued packing a few bags of chips and some bottles of water.

  “So what are you gonna go do?” Mary asked.

  “Nothing that concerns you,” Kyle snapped. He wasn’t in the mood to be asked a million questions. There was nothing that he could say that would get Mary off his back.

  “Well, if it’s something that’s going to make you leave your son, then, yes, it does.”

  “I’m glad you said it like that because if it was just you and me in here, I would have left your ass a long time ago. I probably wouldn’t even have let you in here. I would have left you outside so they, the disgusting freaks outside, could get you,” Kyle said, not really realizing the impact that those comments would make on Eddie.

  And as if on cue, Eddie spoke up, “You’re not going to protect Mommy from the bad people anymore?”

  “I didn’t mean that, Eddie.”

  “Well, what did you mean, Kyle?” Mary responded. Her eyes turned red with anger. The vein that always appeared on her forehead when she was mad began to make an entrance.

  Kyle felt trapped. He was being cornered by his wife and son. “Why don’t you go put on your headphones and play your video game, okay, Sport?” Kyle said.

  “Sure, Dad,” Eddie replied and walked to his chair. The handheld video console and headphones were on a countertop next to the chair. He grabbed the earphones and put them on.

  As soon as he saw Eddie playing his game happily, Kyle continued, “You know what I meant, Mary. Face it, I don’t love you, and I know for a fact that you don’t love me. The only reason we’re together is because of Eddie.” He stuffed a change of clothes into the backpack. “If he wasn’t here, we would have gone our separate ways a long time ago.”

  “So is that what you want now? To go our separate ways? Jesus fucking Christ, Kyle. We’re in the middle of the fucking apocalypse and you’re letting our issues get in the way.”

  “Well, maybe I have to. The world looks like it’s ending so this is my only chance.”

  “You’re only chance to do what? What is it that’s so important that you would leave your son and me behind?”

  “We already went over this, Mary. I wanted to leave you a long time ago, but Eddie always made me stay. I never got the chance to tell you, but I filed for divorce a day before the dead started coming back to life.” Mary was about to interrupt, but Kyle kept going. “I was going to tell you the next day, but I had to start worrying about protecting Eddie. I did what I said I was going to do. He’s safe down here. No one is getting in. Those metal doors are welded shut and the only way out is through the vent I dug. Both of you will be safe here. I’ll only be gone a few days, maybe a little more.” He paused for a moment.

  “You filed for divorce?” was all she said, cold and stern.

  “I just told you I did,” he replied.

  “Where’s the paperwork? I wanna make this easier for you to leave.”

  Kyle turned and walked to a small work desk. He opened a drawer and took out a manila folder. He walked back to Mary. “Here,” he said and tossed the folder onto the table.

  “I’m going to tell you this right now, Kyle,” she said searching for a pen. “If I sign these papers, I’m never going to let you see Eddie again when the world goes back to normal. He doesn’t need a father who’s going to leave him behind for no reason.”

  “If you try to keep him from me, then I’ll take you to court and we’ll let a judge decide who gets him. But keep in mind, Mary, I’m not the one with a drug history, I’m not the one with a criminal background, I’m not the one without a job, and I’m not the one threatening you with Eddie!” Kyle stuffed the last of his supplies into the backpack. “I should have never left Jasmine when I found out that you were pregnant,” Kyle added, instantly regretting mentioning Jasmine in the conversation.

  “Jasmine? Who the hell is Jasmine?” Mary’s eyes half closed.

  “She’s no one, just a girl from my past.”

  “Who the fuck is she?” Mary screamed. Kyle could see the crazed expression on her face. Her eyes continued to glow with anger and disgust, along with that, her complexion began to redden.

  “Jasmine is the girl I left because of you!” Kyle screamed. “We were perfectly happy together until you told me you were pregnant.”

  “So you were fucking someone after we broke up?”

  “You were the one who broke up with me!” Kyle raised his voice louder. He noticed that Eddie looked up from his game. They both stared at their child as he looked back down at his distraction. “You were the one who said you didn’t love me anymore and that I was better off with someone else. After hearing that for years, I finally started realizing that you were right. I was better off with someone else. And when I was, you couldn’t handle that. You kept blowing up my cell phone when me and Jasmine were on dates. You kept leaving me messages of you blubbering, saying you wanted me back. I fell for that so many times, but not anymore! I was finally happy with Jasmine and you fucked that up when you told me you were pregnant!”

  Mary started crying. “Fuck you,” she said slowly and softly. “Is that who you’re running off to be with? Jasmine? She’s the one who’s making you turn your back on me and Eddie?”

  “No, Mary. You’re the one who made me turn my back on you. The only reason I came back to you was for Eddie. I thought I could love you again, but I quickly realized that I couldn’t. You’re not the one I want to be with. I have to go see if Jasmine is safe. You and Eddie can stay here till this blows over. I’ll more than likely be back before then. If I can, I’ll bring Jasmine with me so we can all wait this out. You can take me to court for Eddie when everything goes back to normal, but I’m more stable than you. You won’t be able to keep him from me.”

  Neither one of them truly believed that the world would be able to recover from something like this. It was more of a comforting thought of hope, something to keep them going, a light at the end of their dark tunnel. But neither of them wanted to take the chance that if things did go back to normal, they’d each know what they wanted. They didn’t want to be together anymore, and signing divorce papers was a start.

  Mary opened the manila folder. She quickly found where she needed to sign and gave it a quick signature. Kyle’s was already there. Mary closed the folder and threw it to Kyle. He clumsily caught the envelope and stuffed it in the backpack. Kyle knew that just be
cause the papers were signed, it didn’t mean much. Getting divorced was never this easy.

  “Now we’re divorced, go do whatever the fuck you want to. But listen to what I’m going to tell you. If you leave, you’ll never see me and Eddie again,” Mary said.

  “Whatever. That’s the difference between you and me. If this was reversed I’d never keep Eddie away from you.”

  “Well I guess that makes you a better person than me, huh?” Mary said matter-of-factly.

  Kyle turned and walked to his gun rack. There were only three guns, but he had an abundance of ammo for each one. First, he grabbed his Glock 24 and a box of cartridges. He loaded all the magazines he had for it, five in total, and put them in the side pockets of the robot backpack. He grabbed the holster for the handgun and put it around his waist, then holstered the firearm. Next he grabbed the .357 Magnum Revolver. He grabbed a box of rounds and began loading the cylinder. He put the .357 on the countertop next to the backpack. He turned to the gun rack and grabbed the Winchester 1300 Tactical shotgun by the pistol grip. The gun was fully equipped with a stock and pistol grip for shooting preferences. Kyle grabbed the box of ammo next to it and loaded eight shells into the shotgun. He tossed the rest of the shells in the backpack. By now the pack was filled to the top with supplies. He had problems zipping it up, but, when he finally got the rucksack to zip, he loosened one of the straps and flung it over his shoulder. It felt awkward on his back, but he had no other options.