“Guess we might run into a few undead after all. If he’s infected, then the others most likely are, too.” Chalice pulled the arrow from the zombie’s head and handed it to her brother. “How many hands?”
“Six.” Bill shook his head. “Let’s get inside the fence line and clear the place out.”
“If there’re zombies,” Chalice asked. “Then why are there cows still in the pasture? Wouldn’t they have eaten them?”
Colton shrugged. “There must be at least one living person around. Let’s hope they don’t shoot without waiting to see who we were.”
The group continued down the hill until they stopped in front of a gate. Chalice watched as Bill exited the truck again and opened the gate before driving through. When the bus pulled through, Grandma jumped out and closed the gate.
No one called to them from the two-story house or stepped onto the porch with a gun. No one ran from the barn or the other building that looked like an old-fashioned bunkhouse. Except for a feral cat dashing across their path, and the animals grazing in the pasture, the place looked deserted.
“Let’s check out the house.” Colton cut the ignition to the Hummer. “Mychal and Eddy, stay with the truck and cover us. Give one honk if you see anything, living or dead.” He climbed out, Chalice following.
Bill joined them and the three of them approached the house. “I don’t know whether to call out or wait and see whether we surprise someone.”
“What if they don’t like surprises?” Chalice pulled her sword.
“It’s strange no one’s around. Maybe they all did turn and wandered off the property.” Bill shook his head. “Except that the property is surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. Unless there’s a gate open or the fence is cut, there’s no way to just wander in or out. For Roger to be on the other side, he must have been bit on the outside of the fence. He seemed to be missing a chunk out of his side.”
Chalice didn’t like it. Someone had to be caring for the animals. Chickens clucked from a coop. They wouldn’t have survived without being fed.
One honk from the Hummer alerted them. Chalice turned toward the barn. A woman, bucket in hand, stared at them from the open door. “Bill?”
“Lana!” Bill sprinted toward the woman as the bucket fell to the ground, spilling milk. “Come on, guys,” he called over his shoulder.
Once Chalice and the others joined him, Bill introduced the middle-aged woman as his sister-in-law, Lana. Tears welled in her eyes when she saw the children climbing from the back of the transport.
“I’ve been alone for so long.” She glanced into Bill’s face.
“Are you the only one left?” He asked.
“Yes. I have been for months, running this place the best I can. I can’t tell you how glad I am to see all of you. I didn’t relish spending a long winter alone.”
“What about the non-breathers?” Chalice asked. “Do you see very many? We killed one on the outside of the fence today.”
She hung her head. “That would have been Roger is my guess. He was the last of the hands. Occasionally, I’ll get one of the neighbors wandering through, but it’s quiet for the most part.” Her eyes widened. “Look at me running off at the mouth. Y’all must be exhausted. Some of you can sleep in the main house and others in the bunkhouse. We’ve plenty of room.”
Chalice smiled at Colton and slipped her hand in his. The long road had ended. They had a place to call home.
The End
REINFECTION
Book 4 in the Zombie Awakening Series
By Cynthia Hickey
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To all my readers who can’t get enough of zombies.
1
Shots sounded in the distance. It was hard to determine where they came from. Sounds carried for miles on the mountain.
Chalice stood on the porch of Lana Colman’s farm house and shaded her eyes with her hand. They’d been there for six months. Today was Chalice’s eighteenth birthday. She snorted. She felt more like thirty. When no more gunshots were heard, she relaxed. Far off hunters, most likely. They hadn’t seen the non-breathers in weeks.
From behind her came the sounds of children playing. They’d become a regular commune. While there were eleven adults, there were just as many children ranging from newborn to her brother Mychal’s sixteen.
Winter had come and gone. The air smelled of spring. And yet, the non-breathers still wandered the woods, showing their bloody faces every once in awhile. Maybe not as many as before, but somehow they were finding enough live food to fuel their bodies
Colton had finally kept one of the freaks long enough to see they actually did die from lack of food, but it took much longer than a regular human to die. All the living had to do was stay alive long enough and they’d win the battle.
Movement at the edge of the tree line had Chalice reaching for the rifle that had now become as much a part of her as her arms. She squinted through the scope, making out the forms of her brother Mychal and his friend, Eddy. Behind them, they dragged a deer. Fresh meat tonight.
She stepped off the porch and headed to open the gate. Thanks to the efforts of the men, a sturdy six-foot-high wood fence surrounded the property. They lined the fence with whatever they could to keep the children from sticking their hands through. Home had become a fortress with no one leaving the property unless heavily armed. With a large garden, livestock, and two wells, they had little need for much else. But they were getting low on clothes and medicine.
Maybe she could talk Colton into taking a trip. Otherwise, she’d go stir crazy and shoot one of the pigs just for a little action. “That’s a fine doe, boys. See anything else?”
“This will make a great dinner.” He glanced over his shoulder. “There’re a couple of those things shuffling around, but we managed to avoid them.” Mychal held up his bow. “Hunting with this doesn’t attract a lot of attention, but something has them riled.”
“You saw more than one?” She closed the gate after them. Hunting kept the boys’ skills sharpened. Not that they’ve had to fight the undead lately. She should be grateful, but seeing the same thing day after day tended to drive a person crazy.
“Three traveling together. They were headed to where the sound of the gunshots came from.” Mychal patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry. Nothing is getting in here.”
Colton exited the barn. “Happy Birthday.” He kissed Chalice, brightening her day, and then helped drag the deer to tree. They strung it up by its hind feet in preparation for skinning.
Bored or not, Chalice didn’t like seeing intestines spilling from any creature, even the undead. She’d seen way more in the last year than anyone should have to. When she was little, she’d thought her eighteenth birthday would be a special day. Not a day like any other one of the year where she kept an eye out for intruders, living or not. She went back to her vantage point on the porch.
“Not what you figured it would be is it?” Mom sat in one of the rockers. “I always envisioned giving you a car or something.”
“Being alive and uninfected is a good enough present.” Chalice propped one hip on the railing. “I’m just waiting for it to end so life can be normal again.”
“This is normal, at least for this generation. Maybe your children or grandchildren can rebuild, but we won’t see it.” Mom stood. “Bill said he’ll take a watch if you’re tired.”
“No, I’ve nothing else to do at the moment.” Chalice stared over the green fields. Even the cows were now behind fences. The non-breathers would eat anything warm and the group had been losing too many livestock. They all lived in a fortress. A cage.
“What’s wrong?” Colton came on the porch and slipped his arms around her waist. “You look sad.”
“I need to make a run before I go crazy.”
He sighed. “The children do need clothes. There probably isn’t much out there in the way of food stuffs anymore, or medicine for that matter, but we might get lucky. How about we go in the morning?” He nuzz
led her neck. “Just you and me. We shouldn’t run into too many of those things. Not anymore.”
“I’d really like that.”
“It’s a date. Maybe I’ll find you a present.” He grinned and jumped over the porch railing to head back the deer butchering.
Chalice smiled at the thought of him “finding” her a present. There was no such thing as money anymore. A bit of bartering once in a while, but very few survivors found their way where her group lived. Once in a while someone would take one of the horses to the nearest neighbor, five miles away, and trade for something.
She went in the house in search of paper and something to write with. She found an empty envelope and a pencil stub. If they were going on a run, she’d need a list. She followed the sounds of voices to the kitchen where the adult women peeled potatoes. “Colton and I are heading on a run tomorrow. What do we need?”
“What do we not need?” Grandma asked. “The little ones all need shoes, socks, underwear. The baby needs diapers. We need antibiotics and pain meds. I think one of the children is developing asthma so see if you can find some inhalers. Oh, and the girls need, uh, well, you know. Girl things. We’re only scratching the tip of the iceberg here. You’ll have to use your best judgment. A few gift type things wouldn’t hurt either with birthdays and holidays. A toy or two to brighten things up.”
Chalice nodded. She doubted they’d find half the things Grandma wanted, but survivors were few and there might be an out of the way store that hadn’t been looted yet.
*
“We didn’t want to say anything around Chalice,” Mychal said. “but those things acted as if they had a destination in mind. They weren’t just wandering like normal.”
Colton dumped the deer’s entrails into a bucket. They’d cut them up for the dogs. He tossed a small piece to Buster and Lady. The Mastiff and the German Shepherd were nature’s best warning system. “You said they were headed toward the gun shots.”
“They were.” He shrugged. “It was just a feeling mostly. Maybe because we hadn’t seen any in a while. I was hoping they were dying off.”
Colton was, too. He had the same restlessness as Chalice. Although he had a family for the first time in as long as he could remember, it would be nice to be able to leave the property without the fear of death stalking him. “We’ll increase our watch. Add another person until those things are scarce again.”
Mychal’s words made his stomach tense. He slit behind the deer’s legs to start the skinning process. George was a marvel at fashioning useful items from animal hide.
Would the undead hit through every animal in the forest until there was no food left for the living? Something was keeping the zombies alive. His hand stilled. As long as there were survivors to be fed on, the undead would keep walking. The smelly corpses would wander for eternity. This was Colton’s life now.
He stared around the farm. A traditional red barn housed animals. A chicken coop had been erected in the building’s shade. The farm house burst at the seams with people to the extent that Bill had moved into the chicken transport truck for privacy. He wasn’t the only one. Amos Lincoln had shacked up with the former school nurse, Kendra Watts in the empty school bus. Colton didn’t blame them. He had trouble sleeping some nights when the children were plagued with nightmares.
He turned in a slow circle eyeing the expanse of fence. The screen door slammed as George made his way across the lawn. “I’ve been watching you for a while. Something troubling you, son?”
“Just a feeling. I want to put spikes through the fence.”
“That fence goes down three feet. We already cut down acres of trees to build it. You don’t think it’s strong enough?”
Colton shrugged. “Like I said, something doesn’t feel right.”
“Your instincts haven’t been wrong yet. I’ll get the guys started on it right away. We’ve got electric fencing, too, but I doubt its strong enough to keep any of those things out, and it would take a lot of generator power.”
“We’ll stick to spikes. I want them low enough and sharp enough to go through a charging bull.”
“All right. That’s a fine doe those boys killed. We’ll be eating good for the next few nights.” George stood on a stump tall enough to allow him to see over the fence. “Everything’s clear. We’ll start cutting the spikes and drilling holes. Once we start that, someone else can start putting the spikes through. We’ll have to do it all from this side. If there’s something to your feeling, we don’t want anyone on the other side of the fence.”
“Chalice and I are making a run tomorrow. We’ll take Mychal and Eddy with us. The rest of you should be able to handle things here.” He couldn’t leave the house unguarded, but he definitely didn’t want to leave Chalice without enough protection either.
Dusk was falling by the time he had the deer skinned and the meat ready for the smokehouse. He left the bones for the dogs to gnaw on. With so many mouths to feed, the poor things got the scraps. Their ribs showed through their coats. He sighed. Unlike humans, the animals never complained.
“Colton!” Chalice pointed to the west where the gate stood. “Trouble’s coming.”
He grabbed his rifle from where he’d propped it against the skinning post and raced to the viewing hole cut in the wall. Twenty people sprinted for the gate. Only the two in front were not covered in blood. He hated being right all the time. “Get the others and have them bring their guns. Hanna! Get the children inside now.”
He shoved his gun barrel through the opening.
2
Chalice joined Colton at the fence. Soon, the other adults, minus Grandma and Natalie, also aimed weapons through holes big enough to see through.
A woman and man, followed by more than ten non-breathers sprinted for the gate. “Let us in.” The woman paused long enough to fire off a shot which took one zombie between the eyes before running to catch up to her partner.
“Are those zombies?” Mychal glanced with wide eyes in Chalice’s direction. “They’re faster than any I’ve ever seen.”
“Me either.” Chalice aimed, taking down another.
Colton slid the bolt on the gate, opening it only wide enough for the man and woman to enter. Gunshots split the air, taking down more of the strange undead.
Chalice hated the barrage of bullets. It would attract every non-living human in the vicinity. By the time the visitors squeezed through the gate opening only three undead remained to bang against the fence.
“What the hell are those?” Colton latched the gate at whirled to face the visitors.
The woman bent over and tried to catch her breath. “First time we’ve seen them, but they’re fresh. Not like the decaying shufflers we normally run across. I’m Rachel Moore.” She thrust out her hand. “This is Eric King. You’re the first group of survivors we’ve run across in a long time.”
“Colton Morgan, Chalice Hart,” Colton introduced the group. “We’ve been holed up here since fall.”
“What’s happening out there?” Chalice stepped forward. “Zombies don’t run.”
Rachel took a deep breath. “The virus seems to be mutating and re-infecting survivors.”
“How do you know this?”
She sighed. “I’m a scientist. If we could trouble you for a drink of water and a place to sit, I’ve quite the story to tell you. I only pray you don’t send us on our way moments after hearing it.”
“We can sit on the porch.” Chalice waved them ahead while Mychal and Eddy rammed knives through the fence holes, taking care of the last of the mutated zombies. If that’s what they really were.
While someone fetched Rachel and Eric drinks, the group settled in rockers and perched on the railing. Rachel’s hands trembled, and she reached for Eric. “I’m a scientist. Before the meteors hit, I worked on a team of specialists who designed a virus for germ warfare. We practiced on death row inmates. We created the first zombie, for lack of a better word.”
Bile rose in Chalice’s throat. She c
lutched her rifle tighter. They were looking at someone directly responsible for the hell they now lived in.
“When the meteors hit, the cage the zombie was kept in was damaged. The zombie was set free before anyone could stop what was happening. He bit several of the workers before a group of us were able to flee the facility. Unarmed, we were no match for the super-human strength of the monster we had created.” Rachel accepted a glass of water from Grandma.
“We knew there was something wrong with the virus. The dead were not supposed to rise again. They were supposed to become ill and die. They were supposed to stay dead. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t perfect the virus.”
“You said it’s mutated?” George rubbed the stump where Colton had cut off his hand after he’d been bit.
Rachel shrugged. “That’s my best guess. People are getting sick. They’re getting the flu and dying, then waking as an improved version of the undead. They’re faster and stronger.” She glanced at Eric. “Not everyone turns, though. Eric got sick shortly after I met him and recovered fine.”
Chalice’s finger itched to pull the trigger on someone directly responsible for the outbreak. Mom laid a calming hand on her shoulder. Chalice placed her hand over her mother’s scarred one and squeezed. So many people died because a group of scientists tried to play God.
“Is this a side effect of the virus you created?” Colton asked.
“Most likely.” Rachel straightened her shoulders. “We’d like to stay here, if you’ll have us. It’s hell out there. But, we understand if you send us away.”
“Is there a cure?” There had to be. Chalice met Colton’s gaze. Every virus had a cure, didn’t it?
“We didn’t get that far.” Rachel’s face fell, and she put her hands over her face. “I’m so sorry.”
“How do we know you didn’t bring this new improved virus to our door?” Mom crossed her arms. “We have children here. If this world is to have any future, they need to be protected.”
The Zombie Awakening (Complete 6 Volume Series, plus prologue) Page 22