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

by Morris, SJ

  I was getting something to eat when the hatch door opened quickly, and Jack ran in gathering supplies, tossing them in his pack quickly, and telling me to do the same.

  Starting to panic as I watched him rushing about, I asked, “What’s going on? Why are we leaving?”

  “It’s Brigantine’s men. They’re getting close, and I want to be out of here before they get any closer. We need to get a head start to the next safe house. Let’s go!” he demanded coldly.

  “You said no one has any idea this place exists, so why are we not just hunkering down here for the next few days until they wander off looking for us somewhere else? This place is hidden pretty well, so I doubt they’ll find us.” Jack’s bright blue eyes turned dark with anger and he yelled at me louder, “They might not know where it is, Abby, but they have thermal imaging, and they’re searching every square inch of the forest. They may or may not find us, but I’m not willing to risk it. There’s only one way in here, which happens to be the same way out. Now pack!”

  I didn’t like this new side of Jack in the least, but he was right. If they have thermal imaging cameras, they were going to find the ATV and eventually the hatch. I shoveled the canned peaches into my mouth quickly and began packing as many medical supplies and as much food as possible. Everything else I could find on the road if needed.

  We were up and out in less than ten minutes. Surprisingly, given my severe injuries, I was feeling pretty good the last few days. I seemed to be healing faster than I expected, which made me think about the Antivirus 1015 coursing through my veins. Was healing quicker than normal a side effect of being infected? It seemed like it couldn’t be since the dead didn’t heal at all, but it was still a possibility. If I ever made it back to Troy, I’d have to bring it up to him and see what he thought.

  Jack pushed the ATV through the woods until we came to a single lane paved road. He leapt on and I followed suit. We were off again on the dreaded ATV. We encountered more of the infected this time, but we managed to doge them without incident.

  We had to stop and refuel a few times, so I’m not sure how long we were traveling, but after a long while I started to recognize my surroundings. We went over small creeks and bridges that looked familiar, and there was a hiker’s rest area we passed through that I had visited a long time ago with my family. We were getting close to the cabin. I started getting excited to see my family again. I didn’t want to ask Jack if he was taking me to the cabin because I was stubborn, and I still didn’t want to risk an at length conversation about anything with him.

  The sun was high in the sky, so I guessed it to be about noon. I wished I had a watch. Before the apocalypse, I had worn one as jewelry. I never really worried about making sure it told the time accurately. We had our phones for time, right? Now, I actually wanted a watch to tell me the time. The hot blazing sun reminded me I hadn’t had a drink of water since we left the bunker. I tapped Jack on the shoulder mouthing for him to stop.

  Apparently, we needed to refuel again soon anyway, so I wasn’t too much of a bother. Unfortunately, refueling made more noise than I would have liked. Already, more infected were roaming about as we got closer to the cabin, but the clanking noise from the gas can brought them from their aimless, slow wandering to a quicker, more determined route directly for us. There were too many to drive through, so Jack turned us around, but we were trapped by thick trees the ATV couldn’t drive through. Twenty infected were behind us, and probably around thirty-five were now in front of us. We were going to have to fight our way through.

  Jack stopped the ATV, jumped off, and leveled his rifle at the closest infected. He was mechanical in his aim, shoot, aim, shoot repetition. He had decent accuracy; I had to give him that. The trouble was that he could only shoot one gun at a time, so I grabbed the machete off of his belt and walked towards the oncoming threats.

  The infected looked past me and directly at Jack who was still firing. I walked up to the closest and hacked the machete down and sideways at its knees. The crunch of bone as the blade sliced through tendon and muscle made my skin crawl, but the infected fell to the dirt as it attempted to take another step towards Jack. I hacked my way through the legs, arms and brains of the remaining infected within a few minutes.

  I wiped my blade on a thick cotton robe that one of the infected had been wearing. At one time, I think the robe was actually white, but now it was a blackish brown color from blood and constant exposure to the elements. I was surprised at how well the robe was holding up after all this time; it must have been made of fairly expensive materials. I thought to look for some form of identification on the man just for my own curiosities, but Jack popping off more silenced shots brought me out of my thoughts. Jack was following behind me shooting some of the infected that I had only made sure could no longer walk. By the time we were done, and the path was cleared, I was happy I’d grabbed an extra set of clothes before we left the bunker.

  I was covered in black blood and smelled as if I had just rolled around in putrid, festering human waste. I almost didn’t want to change just to make riding the ATV pressed against Jack that much more uncomfortable for him, but I had to. I could barely stand the smell myself, and I wanted to keep the peaches I ate earlier today exactly where they were.

  Soon enough, we were at Lovers Pass, and Jack pulled over. I jumped off to look at my previous handiwork. The mess of finally dead and some still-moving infected strewn down the cliff side and splattered all over the rocks below was profoundly disturbing. The smell was even fouler now than when they were moving. I wanted to be away from this place as quickly as possible.

  “Abby, I’m not going with you. You know your way back to the cabin from here, and with you being zombie proof, I know you’ll make it back safely. Here’s a pistol with a silencer just in case. The magazine’s full, but that’s all I’ve for the gun, so only use it if you absolutely have to. Take the machete too. You were pretty handy with it earlier. I’ll make sure to keep an eye on the cabin from afar, and if there’s any threat of Brigantine or her men, I’ll get word to you,” he said as he started the ATV back up again.

  I didn’t want to have this conversation, but it seemed like it was quite possibly now or never. “What am I supposed to tell our children, Jack? You’re their father even if you are a lying son of a bitch. What am I supposed to tell them?” I said holding back tears. I didn’t want to cry over this man anymore.

  “I don’t know Abby. Tell them you were hurt, and you found a house to hold up in until you could travel again. Tell them whatever you want since you don’t want to hear my side of the story.”

  “Jack, you can’t seriously think you’re the victim in all of this? You were put in my life. You made me fall in love with you. We started a family, and then you disappeared! How do you expect me to be anything but furious with you?”

  “That’s what she told you, Abby! She neglected to tell you that she’d kill Chris, Tom, and Dan as well as the other two men in my unit, Leroy, and Gary if I didn’t agree to her bullshit scam with you. Even after I agreed, she still killed Leroy and Gary with this stupid virus. The only reason Chris, Tom, and Dan were spared was because they were moved to a different unit while she was putting the Georgia plan together. If they hadn’t been moved, I’m sure they’d be dead by now too.”

  “How could you not tell me anything about what was going on then? You could have told me in secret, and I would have played along until we found a way to get away from her!”

  “You think I didn’t want to? Brigantine had everything wiretapped: the house, the cars, your job, my job, and every phone we could possibly touch. She listened to everything. She even made sure the labor and delivery rooms when you were giving birth were monitored. The doctors and nurses you saw every step of the way were in her employ, for fucks sake! You don’t seem to understand how deep this goes. She knew everything we did as we did it. There was no way for me to tell you anything, so I played along. But I did fall in love with you, and you fell in lov
e with me. That was real,” Jack said as his face changed from bright red in anger back to his normal color. He slumped in the seat and turned off the ATV.

  “I have no words, Jack. I don’t know what to say to that. I can’t imagine how it must have been for you,” I replied walking towards him.

  “I wanted to tell you so many times Abby. I even had plans drawn out in code at the firehouse to run away with you and the kids. I think one of her spies found the plans, and since they had no idea what they meant, they decided to pull me back in. Then I was told I was going back to them full time and that they’d be faking my death. That’s also when they told me it was either fake my death or watch you and the kids die for real. I had no choice, Abby. I... I... ugh. I wanted so much more for you and the kids. I wanted us to have a life where we weren’t being watched at every turn, but I couldn’t make that happen. I failed you.” He said, bowing his head as he cried for the second time in two weeks.

  I still didn’t know if he was putting on a good show or if his tears were him truly feeling regret for everything that had happened. I still couldn’t trust him, even though I wanted to. I grabbed his hand softly and looked into his eyes, “I forgive you, Jack. You were put into an impossible situation, and I’m sure you did everything you could to keep the kids and me safe. I’ll make sure the kids don’t know you’re alive yet. Not until we have a better handle on whatever’s coming next.”

  He leaned in to kiss me, but I walked away without another word. When I heard him start up the ATV and drive on, I breathed out a sigh of relief. I heard his side of things, and now I had to put everything together in my mind to figure out what I believed and what I didn’t.

  Chapter 9

  I walked in silence back to the cabin. I listened to the forest and the animals running around like it was any other autumn day. The days were getting shorter and colder it seemed. Funny enough, I realized I didn’t even know what month we were in anymore. I laughed at myself quietly and decided that it was at least September.

  As I walked quietly, I started to smell the telltale odor of death and decay…the infected. There was most certainly a large group of them somewhere nearby, but I couldn’t hear or see them yet. I continued to walk, and the smell grew stronger, which worried me immensely since I was getting close to the cabin. That fear became a pit in my stomach, and my walk turned into a quick jog.

  The pain in my chest wasn’t very noticeable anymore, which reminded me that as soon as I got back to the cabin, I needed to have a long talk with Troy about a number of things. Then it hit me, Troy. If Jack was being monitored 24/7, which prevented him from telling me anything about what was going on, how did he set anything up with Troy? If Dr. Brigantine knew he was working with Troy on the virus and creating a backup plan with the cabin, she’d know exactly where the cabin was. Unless Jack somehow kept it from her, which he explicitly told me was impossible. I trusted Jack less and less the more I thought about it, and I was now going to have more questions for Troy when I got back, which, by the strength of the smell, getting back home was going to be much more difficult than I expected.

  My expectations became a reality as the top of the perimeter fence came into view, and I saw it rocking slowly. As I got closer, I could see hundreds of infected congregating at the main gate. At the deepest points, there were at least fifteen infected bodies stacked alongside one another. There were three or more on top of each other clawing their way up from the base of the fence as well. I guess I didn’t drive all of the infected over Lovers Pass like I thought I did.

  The gates were still closed, but I didn’t know how long they were going to hold with that many infected pushing on them. They’d already started dragging the infected that were up against the fence to the ground where those behind them stepped on and over one another to get higher and higher. The fence was eight feet high, but it was only a matter of time before they unknowingly created a mound of bodies large enough to climb over. I was not going to wait to see that happen.

  Out of nowhere, I remembered that in almost every zombie movie the undead were attracted to fire. I don’t know why they were, but trying fire was worth a shot since they didn’t give a shit about chasing me unless I was on an ATV or in a vehicle. A vehicle would at least have them following the sound of the engine. Because I had no idea where any vehicles were at the moment, fire was going to be my plan.

  I grabbed some of the gauze from my pack and wrapped it around the end of a large branch I pulled from the forest floor. I soaked the gauze in rubbing alcohol and lit it. I turned to the growing mass of infected and started screaming and waving the fire over my head hoping to get their attention, and, boy, did it work. The infected closest to me turned first, and once they saw the fire, they were like moths drawn to the flame. However, they were much more terrifying and much faster than defenseless little moths. I realized I hadn’t thought my fire plan through, since they were now running at me in a collective moaning mass of death, like an unstoppable tidal wave, and I had no idea of where to go. I turned and ran back the way I came. Lovers Pass worked for the most part last time, so I was about to find out if it was going to work again.

  Pumping my legs as fast as they would carry me, I hoped to get a reasonable distance from the herd now following me. Once I felt I was far enough away, I turned to see how many were behind me. I proved the zombie fire theory to be correct. All of them were following me and gaining fast. I was happy to see they’d all emptied away from the perimeter fence, but I didn’t know how long I could keep running at this pace.

  I was healing quicker than expected, but I was not yet one hundred percent, and my body began reminding me of my injuries. I slowed to a jog, but the infected did not. The situation was not looking good for me. Even if they didn’t want to eat me, they wanted the fire and were going to swarm me to get it. I didn’t want to find out what would happen to me if I got infected blood all over me even with the antivirus flowing through my veins. Also, if they swarmed me, antivirus or not, I’d undoubtedly be crushed under the sheer weight of their rotting bodies.

  Just as I was about to slow my jog to a brisk power walk due to pain and exhaustion, I heard engines roaring behind me. Engines the infected noticed too, and they moaned louder. I saw about ten ATVs with a number of my friends screaming and yelling at the infected to follow them. Chris pulled up, stopped in front of me, and yelled for me to get on. He didn’t have to ask me twice. I jumped on and hugged his back tightly as he took off again with the rest of the group leading the infected away from the gates.

  The number of people and the loud sounds of the ATVs had the infected so riled up their moans turned into shrieks like I had never heard before. The sounds they made were chilling and sent goose bumps up and down my spine. Unfortunately, with the number of ATVs, the infected also spread out more making it difficult to keep them in one tight group that we could hopefully get to go over the cliff that was coming up quickly.

  I yelled to Chris that we were going to need some sort of diversion to get the infected to go over the cliff instead of just following the ATVs, but he didn’t have an answer. I yelled that I would throw the fire over the edge, and hopefully, they would go over after it, but we had to get the other ATVs out of sight and hearing range of the infected. If not, they were just going to follow them instead.

  Chris picked up the radio and instructed everyone to drive away as fast as possible and disappear from sight, so the herd could no longer see them. Everyone seemed to follow as they were told but that also made the infected fan out more. I liked this plan less and less as the cliff got closer.

  Chris skidded to a stop in front of the damaged guardrail now covered in dried black blood and chunks of rotten, putrid flesh. At the last minute, I decided not to throw the fire over the edge because it was no longer going to be visible once I tossed it over. I jumped off of the ATV and began using the fire to light the dry bushes and grasses that lined the guardrail. I figured if the infected wanted to get to the fire they were going
to just push at each other like with the fence. Maybe this maneuver would cause them to shove each other over the already damaged railing and down the cliff. I just hoped the fire would be big enough to attract the hundreds now amassing behind us instead of them branching off to follow the ATV we were using to get away. After setting all of the small bushes I could find ablaze, I quickly dropped my makeshift torch into a large bush and jumped back onto the ATV and we pulled away rapidly.

  We were off at lightning speed, and only a few of the infected followed us, which was less than I anticipated. So I was considering our plan so far a win. I turned and pulled the .22 with its silencer from my waistband. I wanted to be prepared should any stragglers catch up or corner us. I watched as a large number of the infected finally reached the fire. All at once, they were pushed from behind and tumbled over the cliff. Most of the infected were now burning.

  As I was about to breathe a sigh of relief since we were almost out of sight from the few infected that were following us, I heard the radio key up.

  “Chris, we’ve got trouble at the front gates, and we need you now!” shouted Dan’s voice over the radio.

  “I’m on my way!” Chris yelled into the radio as he pushed the throttle as fast as it would go.

  When the gates came into view, what we saw was like a scene from a horror movie. A group of infected were tearing into someone as they screamed. I couldn’t tell who it was, but as we rolled to a stop, I saw Lance and his friend Chester running towards the mound of writhing infected during their feeding frenzy. Lance and Chester both stopped only feet away from them and began picking the infected off one by one with headshots as tears streamed down their faces.