by Tim Moon
Dawn of the Apocalypse
The Necrose Series Starter Collection
Copyright © 2016 Tim Moon
www.timdmoon.com
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. All of the names, characters, places, brands, organizations and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Become A Survivor
Receive Dead Escape, a Necrose Series short story, for FREE. Join the author’s mailing list for your free download as well as new release updates, giveaways, and other subscriber-only exclusives.
Hello! First, thank you for reading Dawn of the Apocalypse!
By combining Dead Apocalypse and Dead Frozen into one easy-to-read file, you can sit down and read both parallel series back-to-back, without having to interrupt the experience by buying them separately and switching between books.
Just in case there is any confusion, these are two different stories, but both are set in the same fictional world. A world infected by the Necrose-7A virus. Both start at the beginning of the apocalypse, hence the title, but in vastly different locations.
Dead Apocalypse is set in Kona, Hawaii, the location where I first came up with the story idea as I sat on the beach after work. While Dead Frozen is set in Anchorage, Alaska, where I lived and worked for over a year.
You see, when I worked for the government, I was part of a team of security officers that traveled the country. Without that job, I might not have traveled to Alaska or Hawaii. Both places hold a special place in my heart. Traveling for work was a unique and rewarding experience that took me to all corners of the United States and truly changed my life.
However, after five years, I realized that working there did not align with my long-term goals. I craved more travel and adventure. So, I quit my job and left to teach English in Suwon, South Korea. While I was in Korea, I found myself with a lot of free time and decided to tackle the idea I had come up with on the beach. And it has all grown from there.
Now, I live and work teaching English in China while I continue to write books. My hope is that you will enjoy the locations, my take on the zombie genre, and for a brief moment feel what the characters are feeling.
Never forget to go after your dreams. And as always…
Aim For The Head,
Tim Moon
Prologue
October 7, 2015
Undisclosed Location
1600 Hours
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: [SECURE] Operation Rainfall
COMMENCE OPERATION RAINFALL Phase I on 7 October 2015 at 2000. Commence Phase II on 8 October 2015 at 0600.
October 8, 2015
Shanghai, China
0605 Hours
A DRONING ROAR, like that of a small jet, cut through the usual background noise of cars, street vendors, and conversation. It piqued Darius Johnson’s attention as he walked along the crowded sidewalk.
The roar grew until a shadow passed over him, and people all around stopped and pointed. Darius shielded his eyes from the morning sun and saw what he thought might be a miniature, gray stealth fighter streaked by overhead.
It flew down several blocks, rose above the buildings in a steep ascent, and veered off to the right, trailing an obscene amount of mist.
The sky dimmed slightly as the mist spread like fog throughout the neighborhood. Looking to his left and right, Darius saw that even the side streets were hazy. He buried his nose and mouth in his elbow and continued walking.
Still new to China, he had no idea what they might be spraying in the city or if this was a regular occurrence. Regardless, he couldn’t imagine it was healthy to breathe.
Darius walked quickly until he reached his usual shortcut to the factory. Thankfully, the air here was slightly less foggy. Maybe he could just hurry and the next street would have clear air again.
Halfway down the alley, trash flowed out of a dumpster and cascaded into the walkway up ahead. Amid the garbage, Darius thought he saw two feet poking out at odd angles.
Weird stuff was a given, but this was on a whole other level of weird, even for China.
China’s oddities usually drew him in. Walking through street markets, Darius constantly did wide-eyed double takes at strange food, like starfish or tarantulas roasted on a stick, and shops filled with desiccated animal parts. It was just one of the things he loved about living in Shanghai. However, this was no market, and those feet were making him uneasy.
As he walked closer, Darius was enveloped in a powerful odor, as if he’d passed through an invisible barrier. Experience had taught him that this kind of stench would cling stubbornly to his clothing. The city was full of noxious smells, hence the tiny bottle of generic Febreeze in his briefcase. Even after nine months, Darius still found his nose under assault by new and seemingly more pungent odors. But something about this was different, unsettling.
His senses heightened, and his neck hair tingled. As he walked closer, he realized that the feet came with a body attached.
Darius had seen stab wounds and bullet holes plenty of times while growing up in Chicago, but this guy looked like he came from the set of an alien horror movie.
“Goddamn.” Darius jumped back a step and slipped on some trash. His briefcase clattered to the pavement as he nearly fell over in his attempt to get away.
Lying amid the trash bags, the man’s abdomen was torn open, and his innards were spilled on the ground. Blood slowly dripped from the ragged wound into a still-wet puddle beside his body. The body was contorted, and the awkward angle of his legs made it look like he’d been pushing himself backwards.
As horrifying as the body was, it was the man’s face that held Darius mesmerized. The man’s eyes were open wide, terrified and frozen, joining his mouth in an agonizing scream. Tears stained his pale cheeks. His face was dappled with crimson droplets, and a thick ribbon of blood trailed out of the corner of his mouth.
For the last four months, Darius had walked down this alley twice a week on his way to and from the factories where he did quality control for his wrist watch business. Sometimes he encountered stray chickens. Other times, he’d seen a stray dog scrounging for food or an old lady collecting cardboard to sell. But never before had he seen a body.
Darius was not even sure what to do. He wondered briefly if he should keep walking and pretend he’d never noticed the body. If confronted about it, he could always claim he was playing with his phone and didn’t notice the guy.
He wasn’t comfortable around police in the U.S., much less Chinese police officers, and wasn’t sure how they’d respond to a foreigner reporting such a violent crime. Darius sure as hell didn’t want this pinned on him. He couldn’t imagine what a Chinese prison would be like and did not want to find out.
A scream echoed through the alley, snapping Darius from his thoughts. He looked both ways, unsure of where it had come from, thinking that someone must have seen him standing near the body and assumed he was the killer, but no one was around.
Another scream, this one anguished and filled with fear, bounced off the concrete walls of the buildings towering overhead. This time, Darius could tell it had come from his right. That was the directio
n he’d been going when he’d been distracted by this horribly mutilated body.
Though it didn’t make sense to walk toward a scream, Darius glanced at the body again, and decided it was better to walk away from this, no matter what he was going into.
He took a small measure of comfort from knowing the man in front of him was already dead. Darius could not save him. Still, it felt wrong to leave him like that.
Suddenly, a horn blared, tires squealed, and a thundering crunch of metal on metal assaulted his ears.
Darius picked up his briefcase and jogged the rest of the way down the alley to see what had happened.
This is a shit day.
Darius emerged from the shadows of the alley and into the sun, it took him a moment to process what lay before him.
“What the hell?” Darius said, as the image sank in.
He felt like he was living a nightmare. Darius forced himself to try to wake up, until he realized that he was actually awake.
This was real.
Another body was on the sidewalk – a woman this time. She was torn open like a present on Christmas morning. Her right leg twitched uncontrollably. Most of her insides had been scooped out and were splayed on the sidewalk next to her. Drops of blood dotted the sidewalk in the direction of the street.
Darius’ gaze followed the stains, his eyes coming to a man walking drunkenly toward the street. His forearms glistened with bright red blood that dripped from the tips of his fingers as he walked, leaving the dotted trail behind him.
Darius knew instinctively that this guy had killed the man in the alley and the woman on the sidewalk.
Movement beyond the drunk man caught Darius’ attention and he saw what had caused the crashing sound.
In the street, beyond the small plaza where the woman lay, a man was sandwiched between a small green car and what appeared to be an abandoned car in the middle of the street. Several other cars were also in the street blocking the lane – a couple of them with open doors.
Tendrils of black smoke curled out from underneath the crumpled hood of the green car, which must have come speeding around the corner too fast to stop at the unexpected barrier. It was bad timing for the man who was now pinned between them.
He shouted in Mandarin. His voice was pained, and he sobbed between ragged breaths. His eyes rolled in fear, and blood sprayed out of his mouth and trailed down his chin with each word. He clawed at the cars, trying to pull himself free.
Darius could not understand the words, but he could interpret the urgency that laced the man’s voice. He cringed in empathy but couldn’t help being amazed that the guy was still alive, let alone conscious.
“This is so messed up,” Darius said to himself. His palms were damp with sweat, and his head felt light.
No one had emerged from the car, and Darius wondered if they were injured. He quickly glanced around and became very aware of how quiet everything was. Too quiet. Other than the injured man yelling and the shuffling steps of the drunk guy, there were no sounds and no bystanders.
Where is everyone? he wondered, feeling very alone.
Shaking away the thought, Darius realized that it didn’t matter. He had to help. He couldn’t stand by and let this inebriated, crazy guy disembowel anyone else.
Darius raised his briefcase like a shield and charged. He slammed into the drunk, who fell down with a feral growl. Darius stumbled from the impact as his momentum carried him past the fallen man. He tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and scraped his knee on the ground as he fell. He stood and dusted himself off, glaring at the scuff mark on his new pants.
The sound of a car door opening caught his attention. Darius looked up and saw a woman emerge from the passenger side of the small green car. She glanced at Darius but quickly focused her attention on the struggling man her car had crushed and began talking to him. From her tone of voice and hand gestures, Darius assumed she was trying to calm him down.
“Call the police! Call for help!” Darius said, not knowing if they understood English.
The injured man slumped and covered his face with his hands, sobbing. The woman turned and yelled something into the car. A fairly tall man in an expensive looking suit stepped out of the driver’s side. He spoke into his phone with a commanding voice as he walked to the rear of the car and began rummaging through the contents of the trunk.
Distracted by the people getting out, Darius finally turned to see where the crazy guy was. Rather than spotting the guy he’d knocked over, he was stunned to see the man he’d seen next to the dumpster walking toward him.
“Oh, God. No fuckin’ way!”
Dumpster guy stumbled toward Darius with outstretched arms, as if reaching out for help that Darius knew he could not give him. The hole in the man’s abdomen gaped, viscera dangling from the wound like carpet tassels.
Without warning, Darius heaved and vomited on the sidewalk, a good deal of it splashing back onto his black leather shoes.
Spitting to clear his mouth, Darius backed away as the once-dead guy continued to approach. There was no way he should be walking. The man’s previously frightened eyes were now as dark as the night sky, holding anger and something Darius could not quite peg. The man’s lips curled back in a snarl, and his teeth gnashed the air. A disturbing growl rumbled from his throat.
Behind him, Darius heard screaming and yelling.
Hell no, he thought, This bullshit needs to end.
He glanced in the direction of the commotion, afraid to take his eyes off of Dumpster for long. The drunken man had made his way toward the guy trapped between the cars, and was almost upon him.
Darius swung his briefcase at Dumpster, knocking him back, before he turned and ran across the small plaza to the street where the drunk was biting into the shoulder of the poor guy trapped between the cars, like bait.
The guy wailed pathetically as he tried hopelessly to fend off the attack. The woman swatted and yelled at the assailant for all the good that did.
Darius ran up and swung at Drunk with his briefcase. The blow landed with a sickening crunch, bending the attacker’s head at an impossible angle toward his shoulder.
Darius immediately felt horrible. He wasn’t usually a violent person, yet here he was beating people up.
A strong pull on his collar dragged Darius from his thoughts and threw him off balance. His briefcase clattered to the pavement as he fell to his back and smacked his head on the ground. Pain exploded in his skull, causing flecks of light to burst in his vision like fireworks and streaks of lightening to arc down his spine.
It took Darius a moment to realize that it was Dumpster who had pulled him down. He now had Darius pinned to the ground with his bodyweight and was trying to bite him.
“Get off me, muthafucka,” Darius said, trying to hold him back.
It was almost as if hunger burned in every cell of the man’s broken body. Darius realized it was hunger that he had seen in the man’s eyes before - anger and hunger.
Darius swung one fist upwards, striking the man in the cheek. The awkward position he was in meant the blow had little power behind it, but he wasn’t about to give up the fight. Darius swung again, landing a blow to the eye. It did little to slow the assault.
Darius’ arms were starting to tire from holding the writhing man off him. To make matters worse, just when he thought he might be getting somewhere with Dumpster, something tugged at his leg.
“No,” he screamed. “Get off! Get off. No.”
Despite the sickening kink in his neck, the man Darius had hit with his briefcase had decided to take advantage of the situation and was also trying to bite him.
Fucking karma.
Although his pants were sturdy enough to prevent the man’s teeth from ripping into his skin, the pressure of teeth on his calf still hurt like hell.
Things were beyond serious. Darius could feel the strength draining from his arms. His head throbbed painfully with every heartbeat, and with the way Drunk was gnawing on his calf, Dari
us knew the material would rip before he would be able to get away.
Darius battled with his attackers while thoughts of things he still needed to do and people he loved ran through his mind: his girlfriend, stretched out, beautiful and naked in his bed; his plans for a surprise trip home next month for Momma’s birthday; the recent changes to his new product line.
He had plans. He had dreams. He had to fight.
Angry tears burned his eyes. He kicked his legs, hoping to land a lucky blow or at least dodge another bite.
Over his pleas for help and the growling of his attackers, Darius heard the clicking of dress shoes running on pavement. The hands that had been digging into his calf released his leg.
Thank you, Darius thought. Followed quickly by, About damn time.
The tall man in the suit had come over from the car to help. He dragged Drunk off of Darius, freeing his leg. It was obvious that the man was angry and scared. He yelled and kicked Drunk, the blood-covered crazy who had started this whole thing.
Darius struggled to keep the beast of a man still on top of him from sinking his teeth into his throat or biting his hands as he watched the man.
Fueled by the same adrenaline that was keeping Darius alive, The Suit kept kicking Drunk in the face and in the chest. With one of his kicks, the tip of The Suit’s pointy leather shoes punched through the man’s skull, caving in his nasal cavity. Then he stomped on Drunk’s neck.
Just like that, the attacker stopped moving.
Shocked by his own actions, the man paused. He blinked and slowly looked over at Darius, still struggling with the other attacker.
With a loud grunt, The Suit hauled Dumpster off of Darius’ chest and shoved him to the pavement.
Now freed of both his attackers, Darius rolled over and slowly stood up, gasping for breath. The Suit was yelling down at Dumpster as he kicked him, trying to avoid the grasping hands that came after every blow.
After one particularly slow kick, Dumpster managed to latch onto his leg. Dumpster’s grimy hands managed to shove The Suit’s pant leg up, exposing bare skin and he wasted no time sinking his teeth in for a solid bite. Blood welled up around his lips, shining like fresh lip gloss, as he tore off a bite of skin.