Apocalyptic Beginnings Box Set

by M. D. Massey

  “Shut up,” she groaned back at him from the bedroom.

  “Seriously, Amy. You need to see this.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Tucker,” she grumbled.

  He walked into the bedroom, his coffee cup still in hand but his morning wood now completely wilted. It was really a shame too, since Amy was still right there, naked as the day she was born and half asleep, one of his favorite combinations. He sipped his coffee as he considered the best way to put what he needed to tell her.

  “You know those rumors about the living dead?” he asked her.

  “Enough, Tucker. We discussed that: it’s just a false flag designed to scare the sheeple into scrambling for flu vaccinations,” she said, finally opening her eyes and looking at him with intensely bloodshot eyes.

  “I thought that. Until now.”

  “You know I hate your bullshit early in the morning. I’m tired and my head is killing me. Just go away.”

  “Suit yourself. Just don’t blame me when they eat your brains.”

  Something hit the side of his trailer and he heard a faint groan from the outside.

  “What the hell?” Amy said, finally pulling her beautiful body out of bed.

  “Told ya,” he said triumphantly. Although he wasn’t sure how self-satisfied he could really be when it came to a zombie knocking over his trash can.

  Amy scrambled over to stare out the bedroom window. The gray man was a neighbor Tucker recognized from around the corner in the trailer park. Stan Pulaski, a sixty-five-year-old retired truck driver who’d moved into the park after a nasty divorce robbed him of everything he’d owned.

  As Stan told it, his ex-wife had decided to leave him as soon as Stan had retired and was around the house full time. Crying shame, Tucker had thought. That’s why he’d stayed single. No one to miss and no one to dis.

  “Is that Stan?” Amy croaked, finally catching on.

  “Not anymore.”

  Tucker handed Amy his coffee cup and knelt by the gun case he used as a night stand. He pulled out his rifle and checked the magazine. Finding it fully loaded, he grabbed a cigarette and lit it as he walked back into the main room of his mobile home. He found the bottle they’d almost finished from the night before and emptied the contents down his throat. As he looked through the rifle’s scope, Amy coughed violently from the bedroom.

  “You can keep the coffee,” he told her.

  He glanced at her. She sat on the bed, her face blank.

  “Thanks,” she muttered, coughing again. She’d been fine last night. Tucker hoped she hadn’t given him that nasty sounding cold.

  The thumping and groaning slid down the length of the trailer to the front door, and the thin metal shuddered under the weight of repeated bashing. Tucker sighed, taking another long swig of whiskey.

  “Hold on,” he shouted. “I’m coming.”

  He flicked off the safety of his rifle and kicked the front door open, throwing the zombie backward onto its undead ass. Tucker sucked in a drag of his cigarette through his teeth and aimed his rifle. One bullet between the eyes put an end to Stan’s days as a member of the nouveau-undead. Tucker chuckled to himself as he closed the door behind him and turned back to Amy.

  “You’re missing all the fun, sweetheart,” he said.

  But when he looked through the bedroom door, she was no longer there. Bloody prints smeared across the ratty white bed sheet. Hmm, must be that time of the month.

  “Amy?” he said, walking into the bedroom. “You okay?”

  She wasn’t in there, but he heard moaning from the bathroom. Must be a bad one, he thought. He put down his rifle and pulled on his discarded boxers. As he reached for his jeans, he felt a gust of air at his back before he felt the shove.

  The impact pushed him forward, and he and his attacker slammed into the grimy floor. Teeth snapped at the back of his head but he rolled over fast enough to knock her off. Jumping to his feet, he nearly stumbled on the jeans that hung around his knees. Amy scrambled to her hands and knees, snapping at him like a rabid dog.

  Her perfect tits bounced as she lunged at him again. What a waste, he thought as he grabbed for his gun. Zombie Amy made a run for him, chomping her teeth and growling. He tripped on his pants and fell on his ass, the rifle landing just out of reach. She pounced on his prone form and snapped at his face, saliva dripping from her slack jaw.

  “Come on, Amy. I don’t want to have to kill you, girl.”

  He rolled over on top of the creature and held her down by the shoulders. She struggled under his grip, kicking upward with her legs and biting at him like an angry alligator. She was stronger dead than alive, and he had to use most of his strength to hold her down. He was going to have to put her out of her misery.

  It was in that moment that Tucker realized how much he really liked Amy. Better late than never, he decided. Maybe his heart wasn’t as cold and dead as he’d thought. Unfortunately, Amy’s was. She growled and snarled, trying to get a bite of him, her eyes pure white and vacant.

  “Not how I wanted to spend our last morning together. Sorry sweetheart, but you’re going to have die. Again.”

  He grabbed either side of her head, careful to avoid her snapping mouth, pulled her up, and slammed her down into cold, hard floor. He smashed her head over and over until the back of her skull burst and blood spilled out onto the peeling linoleum. She finally went still and Tucker let go. He stood, blood splattered over his chest.

  “Fucking shit, Amy. How did you get so sick so fast?”

  He sat on the bed and lit another cigarette, as Amy’s blood flowed closer and closer to his bare feet. His hand shook as he pulled the cigarette from his lips.

  “Guess I’m on my own.”

  He put out his cigarette in the ashtray and stood, finally pulling his pants all the way up. Screams sounded from outside and his trailer began to shake.

  “Time to get out of Dodge,” he said, retrieving the rest of his guns from the safe.

  He strapped a gun holster to his shoulders, inserted his pistols, and threw everything else into a moldy old Marines duffle bag from his time in the Gulf. He added a few items of clothing, a forgotten water filter from the last time he’d been camping, a carton of cigarettes, three bottles of whiskey, and the four cans of Spam from the cabinets. Only the essentials.

  The small crowd of undead gathered outside was growing by the second and he considered how he’d get to his Bronco. It was parked in the driveway at the end of his trailer. The undead bashed at his broken door, groaning.

  Heads and fists bashed against the rickety single pane windows, cracks appearing on the surface as undead blood smeared together with the dust of the Nevada desert. His neighbors and sometimes-drinking-buddies gathered around his trailer, hungry for his brains.

  Beyond the throng of hungry zombies, the still-living tried to outrun the dead. Groups of zombies hunted in packs, pulling down the living like wild dogs. They feasted on their flesh, tearing skin and sinew from bone. Mary Parks, a disabled ex-schoolteacher, feasted on the intestines of Tilly May Stevens, the park’s resident busybody. A moment later, Tilly rose and joined the crowd of the fresh baked undead.

  Tucker caught his breath as he sat to slide on his boots and a vintage Black Sabbath t-shirt. His windows were about ready to burst from the pressure of bodies. He hurried to the breakfast nook at the front end of his trailer and jumped on the table to push open the skylight.

  Clamoring to the roof with his duffle bag over his shoulder, he nearly lost his footing as his trailer started to rock back and forth from the zombies pushing from either side. He made a running leap. Landing on top of his 1994 black Ford Bronco, the impact made a cringe-worthy crunch. He’d kept this fucker in mint condition since he’d bought it used after his last tour.

  He sighed at the dent and pulled his pistol from the holster, dispersing the zombies closest to the driver’s side door. With his other hand, he pulled his key from the front pocket of his jeans and shoved it in the lock. He twisted it
and jumped inside. Dropping the duffle bag on the passenger seat, he turned the key in the ignition.

  At the sound of his engine, the zombies looked up from their effort to crack open his trailer like a rusty can and rushed the truck. He slammed the Bronco into reverse and peeled out of the driveway. Turning ninety degrees at about twenty miles an hour, he drove over several of his neighbors. Tucker didn’t stop to contemplate the crunch of their bodies under his tires as he shifted into drive and motored toward the front gates of the trailer park.

  As he passed the clubhouse, he saw the manager’s three-year-old daughter Sally. She stood on the dusty brown front yard of the office, holding a bloodied white teddy bear against her chest. He slowed, his lost sense of duty coming back for a fraction of a second. The girl’s face snapped up and her white vacant eyes focused on him. She lunged forward, jumping at his door. He slammed his foot on the gas. Last time he’d underestimate these undead fuckers. Not looking back, he charged out of the trailer park.

  2

  “No, fuck you!” Jada Williams yelled into the phone at her deadbeat ex. “We had an agreement. You know I have to work this weekend.”

  “Don’t you think you should spend more time focused on your kid than on your work? What kind of mother are you, Jade?”

  “A hell of a lot of a better parent than you,” she screamed, her temper reaching a boiling point. “And don’t call me Jade. You lost the right to call me that when you screwed the babysitter.”

  She hit the off button on her smartphone and threw it onto the floor of her yellow Jeep Wrangler. Well, only sixty more payments, and it would be hers.

  She growled at herself for losing control again. Her ex always had this effect on her. He projected his own weaknesses onto her. When she lost her temper, she looked like the crazy asshole. Jada swore it was the last time she’d ever lose control and sink to his level. Little did she know just how right she would be.

  She turned on the radio, hoping the sound of music would help calm her frazzled nerves. How dare Rick accuse her of being a bad mother? She’d done everything she could to provide a good life for herself and Niah after he’d left them for the twenty-one-year-old babysitter. A kid they’d known since she was in high school!

  Jada cringed at the thought. What choice did she have but to put all of her effort into her career? Someone had to pay the bills. She was lucky that she’d already made a name for herself as a freelance computer engineer while Niah was still young. The field was growing more crowded by the day.

  She fumbled with the radio as she slowed and stopped at a red light. The late afternoon sun blazed as the crush of traffic blocked up the streets. The light turned green, but the traffic barely crawled ahead. Someone blared their horn, the sound like nails on a chalkboard.

  Jada shuddered, electric shocks of irritation running up and down her spine and into her oversensitive brain. Like honking was going to make the traffic move any faster. When were people ever logical about anything?

  She kept fiddling with the radio, looking for something rousing to listen to, as she finally pulled out of the intersection and up the street. The screeching noise that blared from the speakers jolted her and she almost rear ended the stalled Mazda in front of her.

  “This is an announcement from the emergency broadcast system.”

  She listened in shock as the robotic voice told the story of the viral spread. On Saturday, the last time she’d watched the news, it had only been a few cases back East. Nothing to worry about, they’d said.

  The death toll was rising at an astronomical rate. Thousands were dead. And not just dead, they were rising again to walk the streets. Her heart thumped hard in her chest, panic growing as the traffic barely crawled up the crammed street. Niah.

  Why hadn’t she been paying attention? She’d been so focused on her latest project, she’d barely turned on the news or communicated with anyone for the last week. Cursing herself, she pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes closed. There wasn’t time for self-admonishment. She had to get her daughter and get them both to safety. Right now, Niah was at her father’s house, where she spent every Wednesday for three hours after school.

  Jada let out a long, ragged sigh and tried to focus on the task at hand: getting from Palo Alto to her soon-to-be ex-husband’s condo in Fremont. She was headed for the Dumbarton Bridge, the quickest route across the Bay, but she could already tell it was a mistake as she pulled onto the expressway.

  Cars were backed up, bumper to bumper for miles. She resisted the urge to lay on her horn, considering her options. She was in gridlock and, knowing how traffic could get on a normal day, it could be hours. Cars moved at a steady pace on the other side of the meridian headed west. She gritted her teeth, locked down in traffic like a snail on rails.

  The pace of traffic inched forward, agonizingly slow as she listened to the panic-inducing stories on the radio. Most of New York had already been overtaken by the undead. The military had been deployed to search and rescue for survivors. How could this have happened so quickly? Damn her one-track mind. All she cared about was taking care of her daughter, and now look what she’d done.

  Her mind ran a million miles a minute, vividly imagining all the worst-case scenarios. After thirty minutes in traffic, at a glacial pace, the cars began to thin and move slowly forward. When she finally came to the exit of the bridge, she vowed to make more intelligent decisions from here on out.

  The streets of Fremont were slightly less packed and she pulled into the parking lot of her ex’s building, fifteen minutes after finally clearing the Bay. Jada jumped out of the car and jogged to the front door of the building that used to be her home. She pressed the intercom, waiting for Rick to answer. Like a preschooler who had to pee, she jumped from one foot the other, anxiety coursing through her blood. After several long moments of laying on the buzzer with no reply, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

  She still had a keycard from when she’d lived there — a time in her life when she still believed in happily ever after. Jada slid the card over the sensor, and the door gave a satisfying buzz as the sensor turned green. She flung the door open and charged up the stairs, not even waiting for the elevator to come to the ground floor.

  When she made it to the third floor, she ran down the hall and pounded on Rick’s door. No one answered. She’d forgotten her phone on the floor of the Jeep and couldn’t call. Not wanting to waste a second by going back downstairs, she knocked again, this time more aggressively. Had he left? She leaned against the door and pressed her ear to the wood. There was noise inside.

  “God damn it, Rick. Open the door!” she shouted, pounding on the wood.

  She waited half a breath, trying to keep her cool. She’d sworn off fighting with him an hour ago and vowed to keep her promise to herself. But just because she refused to fight didn’t mean she was willing to stand in the hall like a tool in the middle of a pandemic. She pulled out her keys and shoved the apartment key in the lock.

  The scene inside almost made her lose the last meal she’d eaten. When had that been? She didn’t even care. In that moment, she thought she may never eat again. Rick was crouched over Tiffany, the babysitter, munching on her innards with orgasmic abandon. The sounds of his gluttonous eating filled the room. He took no notice of his once “one true love” as he gorged himself on his girlfriend. Breathing hard, Jada sidestepped into the kitchen. She pulled open the knife drawer and found it empty.

  “Why doesn’t he ever put things in the right place?” she grumbled to herself.

  Frantically, she searched for something she could use as a weapon. Sliding open the utensil drawer, the worst place for knives with a little kid in the house, she found the twelve-inch chef’s knife her late father had given her right before he’d died. Why hadn’t she taken this with her in the divorce? Oh yeah, she hadn’t been thinking a lot about cooking supplies the night she’d found Rick fucking the babysitter in their bed with their daughter in the next room. />
  She grabbed the knife, but it dislodged a pair of tongs and the noise of metal slapping on metal caught Rick’s attention. He turned his head to look at her, pivoting at an angle that should have only been possible for owls. His body slowly rose and twisted around to align with his head and face her. She froze in place. Rick sniffed the air like a bloodhound with the scent of prey. She gripped the knife, terrified that she’d find her sweet eight-year-old girl in the same condition as Tiffany.

  “Where is she?” she bellowed, pointing the knife at Rick.

  His dead white eyes stared at her a split second before he lunged, crawling like a crazed beast over the couch to get to her. Guttural grunts filled her ears as he moved with alarming speed across the apartment. He stopped at the counter and slowly sidestepped around it and into the kitchen. Jada froze, the fight, flight, or freeze impulse holding her in place.

  “Please. Rick,” she said, more to herself than to the monster in front of her.

  He cocked his head to the side and charged. She had less than a second to think as she thrust her knife forward, sinking it into his gut. She thought she’d killed him, but he just kept coming, forcing her back against the far wall of the kitchen.

  His teeth chattered as he tried desperately to bite her with his blood-soaked mouth. Jada was strong and healthy — she’d taken up kickboxing after she’d left Rick. When hitting the punching bag, she imagined his face — but she’d never thought it would come to this.

  He was unbelievably strong, but Jada was a mother, desperate to find her child. In a rage-induced fit of adrenaline, she forced him off her with a defensive move she’d learned in kickboxing.

  Rick stumbled backward, the knife caught in his gut. Brown clotted blood flowed from the wound and spilled onto the floor. He slipped on the blood and fell on his back. Jada jumped forward, yanking at the knife, but it was slippery with blood and stuck in bone, and wouldn’t come out. Rick growled and bit at her.