by Evans, Mike
Zombies on The Block 8
Better Off Dead
By Mike Evans
To all my fans and supporters, I would not have the energy to go at this pace without you.
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© 2021 Mike Evans, All Rights Reserved
Edited by Elizabeth Robbins Editing Services
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Stand-alone and Series by Mike Evans
The Orphans Series
Gabriel Series
The Uninvited Series
Demons Beware Series
Zombies and Chainsaws
Zombies on The Block
Deal with The Devil
Buried: Broken oaths
Voices in My Head
The Operator
Chapter 1
Colby did not drive slow typically, but today would be an excellent day for him to qualify for NASCAR. He did his best to watch the truck's temperature gauge, hoping the giant diesel would not overheat on him because today was not the day to be stranded. He’d been trying to call Anna for at least the last 20 minutes. He had gone out of his way to go as fast as he could and as far away as possible from towns as he could. Towns, he was noticing, meant a greater chance of death, and death obviously was not the ideal choice in the situation at hand.
Colby was trying not to completely freak out, but any question of how much you love someone when there is an emergency at hand is immediately put to rest. Colby knew he had never loved anyone or anything as much as he did his wife.
Colby was trying not to talk to himself because he knew he probably sounded like a crazy son of a bitch, but he kept muttering, “Do you know how many times you told me to have my phone on? How many times am I supposed to check in? How many times you say make sure you get home safe if you go out to the bar with Nick? So many, so many, so many things requested of me. So, you would think when a goddamn zombie apocalypse hits and you shouldn't check in, oh sweet fucking Jesus are we going to have a talk about cellular phones. I mean, first thing top of the pole zombies coming after me, I check and make sure you're okay. Call me crazy but it seems like a good idea to me.”
“Okay, stop talking to yourself, dumb fuck. What is it accomplishing? Absolutely nothing is the answer.” When Colby got to the outskirts of Ankeny, the rapid fires seemed to be everywhere. Although he didn't pass any, there was no shortage of raw black smoke polluting the air. He could only shake his head in disgust to think a beautiful city such as this was going up in a damn fireball and it had only been going for a few hours. Something he thought was going to be so much worse in a day, let alone a week. If there's anything, or more importantly, anyone not purple still roaming around.
Colby at least knew where she was by the ping on her iPhone, he just hoped that he would get there in time and not find a bloodied disgusting ready to kill wife waiting to feed on anything in her path. He was trying not to picture her bright blonde hair with her purple skin dressed in workout gear covered in blood and guts. God knows what else could be hanging from her chin or her stomach or whatever way she might have met her maker. He hoped to God that she had not been one of the ones who was infected and had just changed. He knew there'd be no saving her from that.
When Colby pulled into the parking lot of her workout gym, he took it nice and slow looking around. He wasn't sure if it was relief he should feel when he saw her Toyota Four Runner sitting in her normal spot under the light pole. She'd either get there before the sun was up, or a lot of times, if they were doing some sort of competition, it'd be after the sun went down before she headed out.
He noticed one of the women that she frequently trained with, Ashley, was racing across the parking lot. He could rack this up to the least he'd ever been excited to see the woman as she was going full bore straight towards him and had eyes locked on his truck or more importantly the creamy tan treat inside of it. Colby was starting to think maybe stopping at home and picking up a rifle or shotgun wouldn't have been the stupidest idea. However, if anything was happening at home, he wouldn't have had the heart to just up and go. It’d break his heart to leave those in need in trouble, but at the same time, he needed to take care of his wife, given she needed help. She wasn't a baby. She wasn't useless and could do plenty of things on her own with zero help from him. But until he saw her, that thought was what consumed him. He’d made a vow that she was number one, and he wasn’t veering from it.
Ashley jumped up onto the hood of his truck and began smashing her face into the windshield. Colby stopped hard, sending her flying backwards. The tires locked up and the burnt rubber left a horrible smell in the air. Ashley’s arms looked like she was trying to take flight as she flew off the hood, skidding to a stop, leaving a trail of blood stains and skin smeared into the hard concrete below. Had she still had feelings, this pain probably would have been enough to kill her...or make her want to be dead if she survived it.
Colby didn't waste any time. He was over being kind to these goddamn things. The only issue he had was making sure that whatever he was trying would actually work. He was still learning as he went and wasn't enjoying a goddamn bit of any of this education.
Colby knew she wasn’t going to stay down for long. She also wasn’t going to be an easy target and he didn’t want to push his luck until it ran out. Before Ashley was able to try and get up, Colby took the multi-ton vehicle up over her sternum, or where he thought it was, until he could see she was firmly stuck in place. He leaned out the window, checking to make sure she wasn't going to move anywhere. This was pretty much guaranteed at this point, given the fact that the truck weighed more than anything this woman would be able to lift. Colby peered around the parking lot, thankful from where he was at that he could not find Anna. If she was outside and not moving, more than likely, she had turned into a meal. This would not be ideal, of course.
Colby wanted to race inside the building. He almost did, but then common sense came knocking on the door. He realized, duh dipshit, you probably need a weapon. Again, he wished deep down that he had a few hundred guns with a few million rounds with him, preferably fully automatic. It did make him question if the neighbor down the block, Sean, who worked at the army base, would potentially have the opportunity to try and snag some machine guns or something amazing that would kill these damn things.
Colby was running through the tools in his truck. If it wasn’t for Ashley, who was gnawing at her arm, he would have found a tool to use as a weapon. He realized he was a bit thrown off knowing that she quite literally was chewing her fucking arm off. Colby was pissed with himself that he’d missed her mid-section and had to settle for just running over her arm.
He didn’t know how long he had, but it was going to have to be good enough. When he heard screams coming from the building, he quickly picked out a wrench large enough to guarantee any normal person hit by it would have to relearn how to tie their own shoes again when they came out of their coma. Colby double-checked his tool belt and made sure that he had at least a handful worth of screwdrivers and needle nose pliers. He wasn't quite confident that he would be able to puncture their skulls with them, however it would be a very good deterrent. If he only had one option, he at least would be able to take out their ey
es. Blind would be good when being chased by those that don't get tired.
Colby walked in slowly, looking around the gym. He realized he was holding the wrench so hard that his hand was starting to go numb. He had to tell himself to loosen up a little bit or when the time came to use it he wasn't going to have anything left to give it. He walked in slowly, seeing that something had definitely gone down in here. The victims obviously being his first sign. He wanted to call her phone, but again if something was chasing her inside of this building, the last thing that he was going to want to do was draw any attention in her direction. The ding of the door chime made him cringe.
Colby heard a symphony of pounding coming from the locker room door and walked over to the set realizing it wasn’t just one door it was both. He didn't know if this pounding was human or yet another purple zombie freak, and he sure as shit wouldn't be taking any chances to find out. He whispered, “Anna, is that you?”
Both doors answered but only one made understandable noises. The women’s locker room screamed, purely frustrated. She said, “No, God damn it, it isn't Anna. That bitch locked me in here. Fucking open the door and let me out, God damn it!”
“Uh wait, why did she lock you in there? That doesn't quite seem like my wife. You didn't seem to have any reason why she would do that to you, do you?”
“Would you just let me out so I can explain everything?”
“So, if there's something to explain then it's quite probable you might need to stay in there. Let me find my wife and then we can talk about when you get to come out of time out.”
“I'm going to kick your ass if you don't open the goddamn door, Colby.”
“Sure, and how are you going to do that? I mean, I'm sure it's totally plausible, but you're behind a big steel door. It's locked, I bet, or it was. But I would say with the rope job my wife did on this door that if you could get out, you probably would have already done so, and yeah I know that's about it.”
“I swear to God when I get out, I'm going to make sure I hurt you somehow. The two of you.”
“Okay then, best of luck to you in this lovely zombie apocalypse. Who needs friends when you have all these purple freaks running around and wanting to tear your fucking faces off? I mean why would you want backup? Oh, and it doesn’t sound like your roommate over here wants to be friends. It appears that once you get out of there that’s going to free what is inside of here.”
No answer came this time. It would seem she was over with talking to any of the Gerbers. Colby walked slowly and cautiously through the rest of the gym. There wasn’t much to check, given the fact both locker rooms were in use. The rest of the gym seemed to be a flat open spot, nothing surprising to him. When he went around further, he noticed that there was a ladder leading up to the roof. Colby took it a step at a time hoping that there wasn't anything horrible waiting on top of the roof for any unsuspecting meal or victim to make their way up. When Colby got up to the top of the roof, he almost lost his balance and fell down the open tall ladder to possibly break his neck.
Chapter 2
Rock Island, IL
Nick Lambert
Nick was walking through the engine shop, headed to his plane. Vanwall had been traveling heavy. Farming was hot right now, and you couldn’t work a field with something other than the color green, meaning John Deere tractors were the brand to have. Nick oversaw transportation for the company. Going to multiple states in just one day was not something that was out of the normal or uncommon. He loved it. Ever since he’d been on a helicopter in the army, he had loved the feeling of knowing he was up in the air. A lot of his friends had told him he was a thrill junkie. But he’d always told them he wasn’t a thrill junkie, he was a thrill professional because he got paid to do what he loved, and it only made it that much better. Nick knew a lot of guys who looked like they were going down the path to the executioner five times a week. That wasn’t how he’d wanted to live his life, and because of this, woke up ready to kick ass and take names every single day.
Nick wasn’t like a lot of pilots he knew. He’d been a helicopter mechanic in the army. Nick learned when he got out of the army that doing what you loved was truly serious when it came to never having to work a day in your life. He’d gotten married before getting discharged from the army and had every intention and the support of his wife Tricia to become a full-fledged pilot. Unfortunately for Nick, there was one very drastic difference between the military and the private sector when it came to aviation. On day one of training to be a mechanic for the army, he was around 10 to 20 million-dollar pieces of machinery.
The kind of thing that was cutting edge technology. Something he learned about companies, especially when it came to flying, was pretty cut and dry. They did not trust anyone with their equipment that did not have hundreds of hours of experience in a plane seat. Even then, until you were certified for the actual plane itself, they still didn't trust you all that much. Which means, instead of starting off with a cushy, well-paying, great hours kind of a job, Nick got to push, pull, and claw his way up out of numerous piles of shit before he finally was able to fly full-time, be able to have respectable hours, and have the opportunity to be home more times than not, which made his wife very happy.
Nick walked through the engine shop, knowing he was not going to be lucky enough to miss out on the hard time those still turning wrenches liked to give those that used to turn wrenches. Lucky for Nick, between being in the army, and prior to that being a taekwondo instructor, he was more than able to take a beating. Verbally and physically. In the end, he never would care because he always had a smile on his face when he got off the ground.
Harry was watching Nick as he walked up, smiling ear to ear, and gave Nick a hard time when he poured a cup of the shop's Folgers coffee. Harry said, “Lambert, are you really getting some of our low-grade coffee? I figured a flyboy like yourself might wait until you are up in the air to get your morning cup. I mean, are you able to drink such a lesser coffee? It's not going to mess up you having your espresso later is it?”
Nick drank the coffee happily. He had been forced to make it by using socks as a filter when they were in the shit and deployed across seas at one time, and it was ridiculously hard to find something that had tasted as poorly as that. Nick slammed back the coffee happily saying, “Oh don't you worry about it, Harry. There's definitely going to be some espresso in my future once we hit 5,000 ft. and I can toss it on autopilot for a little bit.”
Not ready for the punchline, Harry said, “Well then why the hell are you drinking this god-awful crap for?”
“Harry, my boy, the pilot never shits in the plane. I do something like that and they're never going to look at me the same again.”
“So, what does that have to do with our crappy coffee?”
“Well, anytime I know that I ate too much Mexican food on the boss’s dime the night before, I like to drink a few cups. It really gets the stomach rumbling. I hope you don’t mind if I go and destroy your toilet before I do preflight check. Do you guys have everything gassed up and ready for me?”
“Yeah, we got it taken care of yesterday. See, we like to sit around here all day too in the morning and get our drinks on.”
“Irish coffee?”
“No, just our shitty coffee.”
“Shame, I still have a while until I need to get the plane set up.”
“What is it you actually need to do?”
“Turn it on, check the systems, probably overkill if you guys already took care of it. At least I think that is okay since you guys seem like you know what you’re doing.”
Harry, who hadn’t really had hair in probably a few decades said, “We think that we like you enough to make sure that your bosses get where they need to, safely. I guess we can’t say the same about you, but that’s no big deal. We are scared of our bosses or their wives, to be clear. Those ladies are something.”
Nick was looking at a few of the guys in the back. They didn’t look too hot, and Nic
k sat down on the opposite end of the table. He said, “You guys aren’t looking so good, and rule number two of being a pilot is don’t get your clients sick, and don’t let them know that you are sick. Getting in someone’s head isn’t the most pleasurable experience to entertain. If people think that you aren’t going to get them somewhere safely then it tends to not be great for your job status. But getting someone sick can be just as bad for you as well.”
The guys in the back were sweating profusely. Nick thought if he’d have seen that then he would have more than likely not sat down. He wasn’t uppity, but he was definitely not stupid, and having two kids that were walking petri dishes going to public school, he felt like he took enough chances. The last thing he wanted to do was go and get the rest of his family sick, only to have another trip to go on and leave his wife sick with the boys. He’d had that happen before and it wasn’t something which he was planning on having happen again if he could avoid it.
One of the two men stood to say something and sat right back down, hard. He’d already looked like shit, but in an engine shop, you came to work when you were sick. Planes still needed to come and go, and if there weren’t enough guys on the shift, you put your fellow workers at risk of getting injured, or worse in some cases. Travis got up to his feet walking over and patting Joe on the shoulder, “Why don’t ya just stay there, buddy. This is the only flight we really need to work on today that matters, and we already got shit setup. You and Phil can just take a break for a minute. There’s nothing too important that you guys need to do.”