The Z-Strain Trilogy Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Morris, SJ

  Also, when he said he was going to go out himself, he barely reached for the door handle. If he meant it, he would have been opening the door while saying it. At least, I knew for sure that I still had fear on my side to keep my oldest in check.

  I pulled up slowly to the back of the truck that was facing us and inched slowly around to make a wide arc around the wreck and debris that was on the right side of the road. The engine was smoking but not bad enough to block our line of sight into the truck.

  As the front driver side door came into view, I saw what looked like a middle-aged man in a torn business suit on his knees, covered in dark blood, clawing at the cracked driver side window.

  I knew immediately what was going on and floored it so hard it put everyone back in their seats.

  The truck took off quickly, but there was a loud bang, and the truck’s rear end began to fishtail and pull to the right. I let off the gas but refused to take my eyes off the thing that now saw us and was heading in our direction with one good leg and one that was fairly mangled.

  In a matter of seconds, the scene I was trying to get us away from had all become clear. In my rearview mirror, I saw the tire marks on the road from the truck and pieced it together.

  The driver of the pickup must have swerved in an effort to avoid the undead man walking in the middle of the road and flipped his truck over. The driver was probably lying in the truck unconscious while the zombie that caused the crash tried to get to him. I felt so stupid for succumbing to my gut reaction that said we needed to get the fuck out of there, quick.

  It caused me to not see that the fence posts strewn across the road were not accompanied by chicken wire but barbed wire. The barbed wire got conveniently wrapped up in my rear passenger tire as I tried to speed away, and I’d bet the tire was blown.

  I just hoped that continuing to drive on it for a little before I realized what had happened didn’t mess up the rear end of the truck. I looked up in the mirror again, and the business-suit zombie was continuing to make his way to his new promise of food as the kids started panicking, and the dog began to bark incessantly.

  “Everyone, calm down! Someone grab Lilly and shut her up. I need to think.”

  “Think... think about what? We need to get out and get rid of that thing that’s coming for us, fix the tire, and get the fuck out of here!”

  “You watch your mouth, young man! You may be the oldest man in this car, Lance, but that does not give you the right to talk that way! I know what I have to do...” As my fear and anxiety heightened, the words spilled out of me quickly, “I’m just trying to plan my best attack. I’ve never done this before, and neither have you, so let’s all just shut up and collect ourselves. Getting crazy is not going to help our situation!”

  Allycia began to cry as she clutched Lilly to her chest. The dog didn’t seem to know what to do but lick her face. As long as she wasn’t barking anymore, I was good. I could talk to Allycia when we got out of this mess.

  “All right, Allycia, where did you put the ax?”

  Allycia screamed with tears pouring down her face, “Oh my God. You’re going to leave us and go out there with that thing!”

  “Allycia, you have to get a hold of yourself. We knew it was just a matter of time before something like this happened. I was hoping it would have been way later, but it’s happening now, and we have to deal with it so we can all get out of here. The truck has a flat tire, and in order for me to be able to go out there and fix it, I have to get rid of the infected out there.”

  “Ha, you fix a blown tire! Mom, you’re a buck-ten soaking wet, I’d be surprised if you could lift the spare out from under the truck,” said Lance with a grin. He had a point. He might have only been seventeen, but he was already 5’10 and 190 pounds versus my 5’5 and 115 pounds.

  “All right, well, let me deal with Mr. Gimpy Salesman over there, and I’ll stand watch while you fix the tire. Then, depending on how things go, I’ll go with Lance to check out the pickup truck to see if the driver is okay or not. Tyler, do you have your cell phone on you and charged?”

  “Yes, I do,” he said as he tried to fish it out of his leather pants.

  “I may need you to call 9-1-1 about the accident. Not yet, though. I want to peek at the driver and see if he’s okay first. If he’s infected, then I’m not going to waste the police’s time coming out here and possibly getting infected themselves, but if he’s not infected, I’m not taking this guy with us. Okay?”

  “Got it, Mom. Cell phone out, but not doing anything until you say so.”

  “That’s my boy. Allycia, where’s the ax? Where did you put it?”

  “I knew you may need it... so, it’s right here... under your seat,” Allycia pulled it out as her shoulders shook with each of her sobs. I looked at her with forgiveness in my face, and she just shook her head, mumbling that it was going to be okay to the dog. We were all going to need some significant therapy if this whole thing was over quickly. If it wasn’t, this was the beginning of hardening us all in preparation for a harsh new reality.

  I was hoping for the therapy. I could always make more money to pay a shrink for as long as it took.

  “Lance, do you know where the bow and arrow are?”

  “Yeah, I put them under Tyler’s seat since they wouldn’t fit under mine.”

  “Okay, good. Well, I’m going to go out there and see if I can get this... thing to go away. If not, I’m going to have to get rid of it. I’m sure you all know what I mean by ‘get rid of it.’ Once I dispatch it, one way or another, I’ll wave to you and Lance, you grab the bow and arrow. Get out of the truck and stay just outside your door, helmet on, and scan the tree line on your side. Please, be ready for anything. I’ll take care of the other side. Once we make sure there are no more of them out here, I’ll cover you, and you change the tire as quickly as you possibly can.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Are you sure you want to go out there by yourself, Mom?”

  “Yes, I don’t know if they see one of us if they’ll suddenly surge with energy and bum rush, so I’d rather find out myself than put any of you in danger. That’s the main theme here, none of my kids in any unnecessary danger.”

  “Okay, but if you look like you’re in trouble, I’m going out there to help you. So, if I tell you to drop, then drop so I can shoot it.”

  “Understood, and Lance, please aim for the head… and don’t miss.”

  With that, I shushed everyone and turned around to see what kind of progress our gimpy friend had made.

  My heart leaped into my throat as I realized he was nearly to the truck already.

  “Crap, now I have to drive a little further on this stupid busted tire.”

  Allycia just put her head down so she couldn’t see anything except the dog’s fur. Tyler looked straight at the approaching monster with wide eyes, and Lance looked pissed. He no longer seemed scared.

  Great, that took all of five minutes for him to not be frightened anymore.

  They grow up so fast!

  I put the truck back into gear and let off the gas very slowly. The truck started to inch forward and then stopped, I guessed I was going to have to give it some gas. I barely touched the pedal and we started limping along on our busted tire. I kept going until I was at least fifty feet from our new buddy and put it in park. I grabbed the ax from Lance, put on my helmet, hopped out of the truck and ran around to the front.

  I came around the passenger side because that thing was heading for the driver side like it knew someone would definitely be coming from that door. I sure as shit hope that these things don’t have any human reasoning left that allowed them to predict our movements, or I was screwed.

  My regular workout routine was yoga, not kickboxing or jiu-jitsu, so I didn’t know how physically ready I was to fight one of these things. I doubt downward facing dog was going to help in this situation.

  The ax was surprisingly light, but then again, it was one of the short little guys with the rubber handle. It
was more of a hatchet, I guess.

  It looked heavier than it was, but I sure hoped it was as deadly as it looked. The blade was super sharp. I kept going around the passenger side until I was at the very back of the truck.

  I peered around the edge, and the zombie was about ten feet away from the boat on the other side, so it hadn’t seen me get out. I crouched down and did a little crab walk to the end of the boat trailer. I paused, taking a deep breath to settle my nerves before I stood up and ran for the overturned truck. As soon as I reached it, I turned around to see where the zombie was, and sure enough, it had turned around and was coming after me. Although, now, it was lurching forward with a lot more pep in its step than when it was chasing the truck that just had a possible promise of food.

  I guess it could see me, or whatever senses it still had left, told it that I was close. The undead monster let out a loud, awful moan and reached its filthy, bloodstained arms out towards me.

  I didn’t move.

  I wanted to get that thing as far away from my kids as I could before I took it out. I knew that I’d have to kill it, especially after what I saw on the news. There was no reasoning with these things. There would be no leading it away unless I had time to lead it far from the kids, and I had a good way to disappear from sight so I could lose it and backtrack to my kids. There was just no way I was letting my kids out of my sight.

  As it got closer, I realized that what I thought was a business suit was actually a flight attendant’s uniform. He had the flight wings on his lapel that said Sun Air. So, that’s how he got infected so quickly. He was probably a flight attendant and was on a plane with someone from somewhere who was infected, got scratched or bitten himself, and headed home to share this wonderful new virus with his family and friends. How nice of him.

  I became so mad with this man I had never met before, but then quickly realized it wasn’t his fault.

  The government knew this was out and kept it a secret. This poor guy was just doing his job and had an unfortunate accident with a passenger he probably thought was drunk or just really sick and went home to get better himself.

  Another moan from my flight attendant buddy brought me out of my thoughts, and I found him close enough that I raised the ax like a bat and started to circle around him as he reached out for me again. He was persistent as I tried to find the right opening.

  It was his mangled leg from the crash that was his downfall. I timed his limp so his arms would be down, out of grabbing range, and I swung right for the temple. The ax connected with a gruesome crunch as black, rotten brain matter sprayed all over my helmet’s visor.

  Thank God for these damn helmets, or there would be zombie brain all over my face.

  Yuck!

  The blow was final, and the now lifeless, formally reanimated body of the flight attendant slumped to the ground with a thud and continued to leak black fluid from the gash in its skull. I stepped away from the pooling muck, and then the smell hit me.

  It was the foulest thing ever to assault my senses. It was like dead skunk, hot diarrhea, and medical waste porridge. I began to gag immediately and had to lift the visor to dry heave. I had to back up again since the black liquid just seemed to be pouring out of the infected’s head.

  I thought about it as I gagged and figured it was part of the virus’s design. If it transferred itself from host to host through fluid exchange, it would be easier to transmit if the bodily fluids were so watery that after the termination of the existing host, the virus would be excreted as much as possible. This way, it had a higher probability of being picked up by another host where it could start the vicious cycle all over again.

  If this was true, I wondered how long the virus could survive outside of someone. This disease was proving to be weirder than I thought because it was acting more like a parasite than a virus. This was worth talking over with Troy if I ever heard from him again.

  I looked up from my heaving and saw Lance jump out of the truck with his helmet on, thank God, and come running for me. I instinctively looked around to see if there was some sort of threat I was unaware of and saw nothing. I started walking towards him, taking deeper breaths, as I got further away from the putrid mess that used to be alive. Well, kind of alive.

  “What are you doing out of the truck? I didn’t wave for you to come out yet!” I scolded.

  “Oh my God, that smell is awful! I’m sorry. We saw you lift your visor after you killed him, and you bent over like you were coughing, so we were worried. I didn’t know what happened to you, so I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “I’m fine, it’s just the smell that came out of the body. It was so bad that I almost threw up. I had to get some air. Put your visor down and go back over by the truck. We have to get the tire changed and get out of here right away.”

  “What about the driver of the truck? Do you want to check on him really quick since we’re kind of over here?”

  “Sure, why not? I was just starting to get used to that awful smell anyway.”

  “You better get used to it; you’re covered in it.”

  “Damn it! What the hell are we going to do about this crap all over me? I guess the ax is out of the question to get rid of these things. It creates too much splatter.”

  “Well, we have those disinfectant wipes in the car. You could try and wash most of it off in the creek over there, and then I can clean as much off as possible with the wipes before you get in the car,” Lance offered.

  “Sounds good to me. Let’s check out the driver first. Be ready with that bow and arrow, though, I’m not using this ax again anytime soon unless I absolutely have to.”

  Lance nodded, and we turned toward the crash. It amazed me how quickly I became okay, asking my oldest son to be prepared to take the life of another person. It seemed that dire situations change everything, especially when the safety of your children was at stake.

  Everything was changing a little too fast for my liking, but it’s not like any of us had a choice. This was survival of the fittest in action.

  I stepped around the pool of black blood that had come from the infected. It had finally stopped spreading. I got as close as I could to the driver-side door without stepping in the liquid mess of infection. I leaned in closer to gain a better line of sight through the cracked window where the zombie had left black streaks of blood from using its hands to dig at the spidering glass. I had it all over me anyway, so I was about to use my forearm to clean a spot on the pane to look through when the driver leapt at the window towards me with a smash.

  What used to be a young man was now a full-fledged zombie, and he wanted out of his trap to eat me. He was now banging on the window, trying to get to us, and the window was not going to hold much longer. It already had a huge crack and a small hole in it.

  I backed up and motioned for Lance to get back before it broke through. It was so hard to see around to where Lance was with my helmet on. I had to turn my head all the way around to see him, and he was about fifteen feet from the truck with the arrow notched and ready to go.

  My little boy, my oldest son, was about to kill someone, and I was trying to gather the courage to let him.

  What had this world come to?

  Just as I was about to tell him to go back in the car so I could take care of this one too, the window gave way, and Lance let the arrow loose, straight and true. The arrow found its mark, right at the top of the zombie’s head as he spilled out of the truck and now lay lifeless on the pavement.

  Surprisingly enough, Lance turned around and walked back to the truck like nothing had happened.

  When he reached the truck, he started climbing under the Range Rover to get at the spare tire. I turned around to get another look at our would-be killer and saw the same thing as before, even though this man had only just turned.

  It was the same, thin, black blood that poured out of the head wound around the arrow and spilled onto the ground.

  I took a good look around the area, and there
was nothing and no one around, so I quickly went to the other side of the truck and opened the door to see if the driver may have had a gun or another weapon I could replace my ax with.

  There was nothing except fast food garbage and a notebook with a pen stuck in it. I flipped through the notebook, and there were addresses of people that were getting deliveries of fencing and animal feed.

  I guessed he had finished with the animal feed deliveries because I didn’t see any in the back. I went to a blank page and wrote in big letters, “These men were infected - Aim for the head and don’t let the blood get on you, that’s how it spreads.”

  I ripped the piece of paper out and walked back around to the young driver with the arrow jutting out of his skull. I pierced the paper in place through the nock of the arrow.

  At least, whoever found the crash and these men would have a little advice to follow for their future encounters with the Z-Strain.

  Let’s just hope they understood and listened. It may just help them, or their families survive a little longer.

  I headed back over to Lance, who already had the spare out from underneath the truck and was rolling it around to the passenger side. He already had the tools out, and once he propped the tire up, he got the jack out and started doing whatever it was that he needed to do to change the tire. I had no idea what he was doing, so thank God he did. He stopped and looked up at me with his visor up.

  “Why don’t you go clean off in that stream, Mom? I don’t think I can concentrate with you standing here. You smell worse than a rotten, dead animal in 120-degree heat.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m not leaving your side. I need to make sure nothing comes up and surprises you while you’re paying attention to changing the tire. I think we’ve all had enough surprises for one day,” I responded.

  “So, tell Allycia and Tyler to peek their heads out the windows and keep an eye out for me. If they see anything, they’ll yell, and we will deal with it. I really can’t even breathe with you anywhere near me. Go clean that crap off. Tyler already has the disinfectant wipes out for you,” Lance demanded as he waved his hand over his face to disperse my repulsive aroma.