Zombie Apocalypse Series Books 1-3 (Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set)

by Jeff DeGordick

  The interior was pitch-black and she couldn't see a thing. Any light that would have scattered through the windows was shut out by the boards nailed to them.

  The whole crowd of the undead crashed into the door outside and sent an ear-splitting shockwave through the empty school. There was nothing to stop them from crawling through and it was too dangerous to wander into the darkness, leaving the two of them nowhere to hide.

  Sarah ripped off her backpack and fished inside for the mini flashlight she pilfered from the house. Her fingers found the curve of the small tube and she pulled it out and turned it on.

  A zombie appeared through the opening in the door. It looked up at her as she shone the flashlight at it, every sickening detail of its gruesome face revealed in the light. Its mouth stretched down and its discolored tongue waggled in anticipation. Its decomposed fingers were pressed down on the floor like talons as it pulled itself in. Its torso slid over the bottom of the door, raking its belly over small shards of glass standing up and peeling its skin off.

  Sarah swept the light around the entrance and saw a ransacked vending machine standing next to the door. She took a wide stance in front of it, the zombie's head following her as she moved, and she pulled on it with all her might. It moved so slowly that she didn't think she was doing anything at all, but it shifted onto two legs and tilted. When it teetered on the brink of standing or falling, she gave it a shove and the heavy mass of metal tipped over.

  The zombie stared up as the vending machine loomed over it. All the horrific cracking and squishing sounds of the zombie's body being torn apart and flattened were hidden behind the incredible bang of metal crashing against the floor. It blocked the opening and the zombies outside banged on the door uselessly.

  Sarah turned the flashlight onto David who was sitting with his back against the wall, his eyes still blank. He hadn't reacted to anything since they got into the school and she feared that his mind slipped past that unreturnable brink, that he had simply experienced too many horrors, and his brain had shut down to protect itself. But at least, for the moment, they were safe.

  "WHO'S IN MY SCHOOL?!" a man's voice yelled from the darkness. It was shrill and crazy.

  Rapid footsteps echoed through the building.

  Sarah held the gun out and swung the flashlight around the entrance. A set of stairs leading down to a basement sat next to them, and there was a long hallway ahead with classrooms and other hallways branching from it.

  The footsteps stopped and the man's voice filled the halls again. "OUTSIDERS! INVADERS!" The footsteps bounced off the walls again and sounded like they were getting closer. "I'LL KILL YOU! ALL OF YOU!" There was a pause after the frenzied cries fell silent and then rapid footsteps echoed again, this time fading off in the distance until they were too far to hear.

  A prickling tension rolled across her skin. Her heart beat quickly and the arm holding the flashlight shook, causing the light to dance around the hallway. She tended to David and tried to rouse him from his shock.

  "We have to go," she whispered.

  She tried to hoist him up to his feet, but he was no help at all, just sinking back down onto his butt. Instead, she pulled him over her shoulder and carried him, using the wrist of the arm hooked under his butt to twist the flashlight and light the path ahead, and the other arm to aim the gun. Both of her arms trembled as the fatigue of everything and the bad tumble down the hill they had caught up to her.

  She crept into the hallway ahead and darted her eyes to every corner. David started to move a little, but he wasn't back to full consciousness. The man hiding in the darkness still hadn't made another sound. As she moved the light around the hallway, she spotted something written on the painted cinder block walls. At first she thought they were pictures painted by children, but then she realized that they were garbled letters spelling out gibberish. They were painted in blood all over the walls. Mixed in with the gibberish was the occasional legible phrase. With each one she read, her blood ran colder.

  KILL THE INVADERS

  SPILL THEIR BLOOD

  CRUSH THEIR BONES

  EAT THEIR SOULS

  Sarah's whole world was spinning. She felt like she was on the verge of going mad. Her legs wobbled with each step journeying farther into the darkness. The zombies outside had given up trying to get in and the school was deathly silent. She pointed the gun at every approaching corner, ready for someone to leap out at them, but the gun was heavy and her arm shook badly.

  The light she held pierced the mute dark in front of them, but the hallway was too long and the light scattered and dissipated halfway down, leaving a creeping blackness beyond. A classroom up ahead on their left was the closest thing to them, and it would be a good place to hide, with only one entrance that she had to guard. Each footstep quietly rolled down the hallway and announced her movement. She drew in a long breath and held it.

  Twang!

  Something snapped in the darkness and she realized that she had walked into something. Before she could understand what it was, there was a quick whooshing sound and then she felt a blinding-hot pain in her calf as something struck her. She dropped the flashlight and the gun and screamed out in pain.

  She had set off a booby-trap, and as her body tried to sink to the floor, she could feel something inside her leg, ripping her muscles apart. She wobbled and fell onto her butt, her knees bent in front of her. David rolled off her shoulder and hit the ground, groaning. She screamed again, the pain unlike anything she'd ever experienced before.

  And behind the blinding agony, somewhere in the darkness, there came the insane laughter of a deranged lunatic.

  12

  …And into the Fire

  Pins and needles rippled through her body. They settled into her eyeballs like tiny daggers pressing against them. It blurred her vision and made her head itch and turn into a rash of fire ant bites, coursing back down her neck and running along the skin on her legs down to the very tips of her toes. It was pain like she couldn't believe and it had her leg like a bear in a trap.

  The flashlight had dropped out of her grasp and rolled along the floor, its beam of light pointing toward a wall. David was sitting just inside the edge of the beam. He appeared to have woken at least partially from his shocked slumber and was moving around restlessly. She didn't know if he was physically hurt and she couldn't reach him to see if he was okay; she couldn't even reach the flashlight. When she tried, the blinding pain in her leg increased tenfold. She tried to see what had ensnared her, but her leg rested in the darkness.

  "David," she whispered feebly. She leaned forward as far as she could, trying to reach him, and the pain in her leg became excruciating. She patted her hand along her leg and felt a thin length of metal stuck to it.

  David roused, crawling around on his hands and knees. He sat down and looked at her. His eyes were glassy and he was pale. "Mom?" he croaked.

  "David," she said again. "You have to help me. You have to reach that flashlight for me."

  He considered it for a moment, still struggling with grasping what was happening, then he sank forward onto his elbows with a groan and slid along the floor. He picked up the flashlight and crawled toward her strained voice.

  "Right here. I'm right here, honey."

  She reached out for him and grabbed him around the neck, pulling him into her. She took the flashlight from him and cast it on her leg.

  A set of metal spikes welded to the end of a rod had impaled her. The rod extended to a contraption attached to the wall, and there was a fishing line draped loosely across the floor. When she unknowingly tripped over the fishing line, which must have been stretched across her path, the trap must have swung out and stabbed her like it was spring-loaded.

  Blood seeped out of her wound and pooled under her leg. The sight of it and the panic of not knowing what to do made her start to hyperventilate.

  She made a knee-jerk movement and tried to pull her leg off of the trap, but it only caused more pain and damage
due to the angle. Her heart raced and she thought she might pass out.

  "Honey," she sputtered, "I need you to help mommy." She pointed at her leg and his head slowly followed. "I need you to help me get out of this."

  He was slow to react to everything, like he was half-asleep or stuck in a hazy dream that he didn't have full control over, but he tried his best.

  "I need you to hold onto that bar while I pull my leg off, okay?" she said with a shaky voice. Tears ran down her face and her breathing was very quick and shallow, wincing every other second at the sudden knives of pain shooting into her calf.

  He nodded and wrapped his small hands around the rod. A frown came over his face, like he was slowly starting to understand the gruesome sight in front of him.

  She wedged the mini flashlight between her teeth and pointed it at her wound. She leaned forward and grabbed her injured leg with both hands and carefully pulled it away from the direction of the spikes.

  Agony rippled through her leg and she wanted to scream, but she let out a whimper instead, like a beaten dog. Her teeth clamped down hard on the flashlight. She fought through the bitter pain and eventually she could feel her leg sliding along the metal. It felt like someone was slowly running a red-hot sword through her. Her chest heaved up and down as her teeth started to dent the metal of the flashlight. The light shook back and forth, but David held on, doing his part. She used all her strength to pull on her leg until it came free with a sudden jerk. David let go of the trap and it swung the rest of its arc and buried itself into the wall.

  More blood spurted out of Sarah's wound and she held onto her leg, rolling around the floor, howling.

  Far away, the lunatic howled joyfully in response.

  The flashlight fell out of her mouth onto the floor and David crawled over and picked it up. Blood seeped out of her in a steady stream as she pressed her hands to the wound, trying to hold it in.

  "We have to go, Mom!" he said, his vibrancy returning. He grabbed fistfuls of her blouse and shook her.

  She started to calm, the fire in her leg waning slightly. She slid herself along the tile floor until her back hit the wall. Keeping her injured leg fully extended in front of her, she placed her other foot on the floor and tried to lift herself up. He helped her, and with a tremendous groan, she stood up. He grabbed the gun from the floor and gave it to her. She stood bent over at the hips, pressing a hand on her wound, but the blood kept flowing.

  "Come on," she said in a weak, raspy voice. "Come with me."

  He went to her and she pulled him to her side with a bloody hand, using him to help prop herself up. She hobbled along the hallway as he lit the way, her leg dripping a trail of blood over the floor.

  They went for the classroom on the left. He shone the flashlight around and her eyes darted around looking for other booby-traps.

  "In there," she said, pulling him toward the closed door of the classroom. They paused in front of it and she gently put her hand on the doorknob.

  The school was silent all around them; the lunatic was quiet. It was like he was waiting for them, watching them move around his twisted labyrinth from the darkness.

  She turned the handle and slowly opened the door as it gave a whine in the quiet hallway. They waited for something to happen, but nothing did. When she was satisfied, she started to hobble into the room.

  Another whooshing sound rushed through the air and something sliced through the light. It buzzed by her head and missed it by just a few inches, burying itself into the doorframe.

  They both fell backward into the hallway at the sudden surprise. They didn't even know what happened, but their hearts gave a terrible leap. David pointed the light at the doorway and they saw that the long blade of a paper cutter had swung and almost taken Sarah's head off.

  Mad cackling came from the bowels of the school, followed by more footsteps running around.

  She started to cry, terrified of the brutality that lay within this place. She screamed and backed away along the floor. David helped her up to her feet again and she stumbled along the hallway, afraid to walk or step anywhere. She became disoriented and lost in the darkness. Before she could decide what to do, the footsteps returned, very rapidly, and they came right up to her.

  A blinding pain hit her right in the gut. She doubled over and collapsed on the floor, gasping for breath.

  The footsteps ran off again into the distance. "INVADERS! PLUNDERERS!"

  The man shrieked hysterically in the darkness and broke into laughter again. A series of loud clangs rang through the hallway, like he was banging something on the wall.

  Just as she began to catch her breath, he ran back for her. David sat on the floor next to her, terrified, and jerked the light around. A figure came out of the dark and passed the beam of light, falling back into darkness on the other side.

  Something thin and heavy, like a lead pipe, struck her right in the shoulder blade, sending a ripple of pain through her bones. She screamed again and sunk to the ground face-first. More footsteps all around them, followed by a heavy club right on her injured leg. She screamed and began to sob, her chest heaving again. She was battered and beaten from everywhere and she just wanted the pain to stop.

  The lunatic disappeared again and David jumped over his mom, using his body to protect her. She pulled him off and rolled onto her back, to the protest of the aching in her entire body. She held the Glock out at a strange, cocked angle, her elbow bent like a chicken wing, aiming it down the hall.

  The footsteps ran back and forth in the distance and she couldn't tell if they were getting closer or farther. Her rage and fright swelled in her and she pulled the trigger repeatedly.

  Gunshots echoed deafeningly as muzzle flashes lit the corridor in quick bursts. The bullets disappeared into the dark and she stopped firing when her anger subsided. Silence blanketed the hallway and she waited.

  "YOU CAN'T KILL ME!" the lunatic shrieked. "I AM ETERNAL!"

  Sarah lowered the gun and sobbed. She started to back away from him, sliding herself along the floor. David crawled after her, twisting around and trying to keep the light on the hallway. She managed to hobble back up onto her good leg and went along the hallway toward the entrance of the school.

  She didn't know what to do. Somehow the man could move around in the dark without running into anything or setting off any traps. She couldn't shoot what she couldn't see, and she didn't know where to run; there was no way she could move the vending machine away from the door to escape, and even if she could, there was just a different form of death waiting for them outside. The logical part of her brain had shut down and instinct took over. She didn't think about it; she just knew she had to get away from him.

  Footsteps clapped along the floor behind them, but this time they were slow and measured.

  Sarah kept frantically glancing over her shoulder as they went, David still holding the light toward the maniac.

  The steps went to the classroom that they had tried to enter and stopped, but they were too far away now for the flashlight to shine on the doorway.

  "I'M GONNA CUT YOU INTO TINY PIECES!" the man cried.

  A violent wrenching sound filled the hall and Sarah knew that he had ripped the large blade that almost decapitated her out of the door. Pattering feet came for her.

  Her eyes went wide. "Run!" she yelled to David.

  David swung the flashlight around in front of them and they ran to the entrance as fast as they could. The pain in her leg was incredible as her weight came down on it, but she knew she couldn't stop. She could feel the blade cut through the air behind her head, the lunatic giggling. She glanced over her shoulder and caught a faint glimpse of the murderous figure swinging the blade in the castoff of the light.

  They reached the entrance and headed for the staircase leading down to the basement. She held David's hand as they approached the first step, and then something unexpected caught her off guard: instead of a blade slicing through her back, she heard the lunatic yell "Boo!" ri
ght in her ear. She didn't hear him get that close to her, and the fright of it caused her to lose her balance. Her foot slipped on a step and she pulled David with her as she fell down the stairs. Their bodies tumbled down the rigid steps like ragdolls and they hit the cement floor of the basement hard. Their limbs went numb and they both dropped the flashlight and the gun. The flashlight flickered and rolled across the cold floor, bumping into a wall and coming to rest, and the gun slid into the darkness and disappeared.

  The man howled laughter at the top of the stairs.

  Stars spun around Sarah's head, and she couldn't remember if she hit her head on the floor or not. Everything was a blur, even though all she could see were shades of black. She opened her mouth and called David's name, and it felt like her jaw was made of chewing gum. He didn't answer, and she crawled to the flashlight. The frigid floor was unforgiving on her bones as they pressed against it, dull and incredible pain spreading everywhere through her body with every touch. Her injured leg felt like it was starting to go numb, but adrenaline still pumped through her body and made her move forward.

  The man shuffled at the top of the steps and waited, just watching her.

  She grabbed the flashlight and looked around the floor for David, but he was gone.

  The walls, floor and ceiling were all gray cement, and it seemed like the basement had only been for janitorial staff, with just drab corridors leading to maintenance rooms. The corridor she was in was drafty and cool. Her skin tightened and chills rattled her.

  The man started to descend the stairs one at a time, nice and easy. He was quiet as he moved, closing in on her.