Chronicles of the Infected Trilogy Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Wood, Rick

  Donny rushed to the front seat.

  Another few bombs pounded the streets of London and the car jumped a foot into the air from the tremors that sunk along the ground.

  The flickers of flames and the grasping hands of the smoke reached out for them.

  Donny did the quickest three-point turn he had ever done and turned the car around. He slammed his foot upon the accelerator.

  Another few bombs sent the earth shuddering, and the car almost capsized. Donny twisted the steering wheel in an attempt to keep it straight, and just about managed.

  In the windscreen mirror, he saw London go up in flames. The tremble of the earth continued onto the motorway. And, although it grew fainter the further away they got, he could still see the fire rising into the air for miles.

  Once they were far enough away, Donny looked over his shoulder at Sadie, who had managed to wrap both his jacket and another blanket she’d found somewhere in the car around Gus’s leg, and it looked like less blood was seeping out.

  Gus’s eyes flickered open momentarily.

  “What…” he muttered.

  “Relax, Gus, relax,” Donny urged him.

  Gus looked to Donny. His weak eyes showed a vague recognition.

  He held out his hand, and very faintly said one final word.

  “Friend…”

  Then his head dropped, and he passed out.

  Plus Fourteen Days

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  The faint pulsating beeps of hospital equipment stirred Gus from his sub-conscious. His eyelids fluttered. His vision faded from a hazy blur to sharply defined lines as he dazedly twisted his neck from side to side.

  Light beamed between the blinds of the window. As he looked down, he took in the sight of a faded hospital gown. His eyes trickled down his body until they reached his leg.

  He’d already been fitted with a prosthetic foot.

  He leant his head back, closed his eyes and exhaled. He should have expected it, really.

  “It was quite the effort, Mr Harvey,” came a well-spoken yet aggravated voice.

  Gus twisted his head to the side, casting his eyes upon the disgruntled face of the prime minister. Eugene sat with his arms folded, a face coated in loathing.

  “How’s… your daughter?” Gus managed, finding his voice croaky from lack of use.

  “My daughter? She died six months ago.”

  “Have I been out that long?”

  “No, you have been out for two weeks. That girl you saved was not my daughter, you imbecile.”

  Gus grew confused. Before he had time to answer, Eugene had left, with those words left to linger.

  If she hadn’t been his daughter – then who on earth had he rescued?

  The days went by, and Gus heard little more. The doctors came to pass him small portions of indigestible food three times a day, but they said little to him.

  He asked them questions every time.

  “Where’s Donny?”

  “Is Sadie all right?”

  “Where’s the girl?”

  After a few weeks, he gave up asking.

  He wondered about Donny. Why he hadn’t come to see him.

  He could remember little about what had happened after he’d killed the cannibal family, but he could remember glimpses. One definite glimpse that remained in his thoughts was Donny’s face, looking down at him.

  “Relax,” Donny was telling him.

  And Sadie. She was alive. She’d spoken to him.

  Where was she?

  He tried to get up and leave his bed, tried to walk upon his prosthetic, but the first twitch of his arm sent an alarm ringing and doctors flooded the room. He didn’t hear the words they shouted, but once the commotion had ended, he had been restrained to the bed. His arms and thighs were fixed into position with straps. From then on, he was fed through intravenous drips.

  One morning, Gus awoke to a chilling cold. His breath appeared before him, like the cool smoke of a cigarette, and he felt his skin prickle with goose pimples.

  “Hey! Hey, I’m cold in here!”

  He didn’t know why he bothered, no one listened.

  His head turned over and looked at the single window in the room, which was covered in frost – both on the inside and out.

  As he turned his head back, a recognisable figure appeared in the doorway.

  “You…”

  Eugene stood still. His arms were folded, his face bemused.

  Gus frowned at him.

  “So you keeping me prisoner here now?” Gus asked.

  Eugene didn’t reply. He slowly shook his head, licked his lips, then nodded at someone outside the room. On his command, three soldiers entered the room. One of them stuck a needle in Gus’s thigh, and he felt his limbs go limp.

  “What is this?”

  The answer presented itself without the need for verbal confirmation. It was a paralysis agent, to stop him from thrashing against them. He felt his muscles fall limp and knew that struggling would be futile.

  The soldiers unstrapped Gus and placed him on a wheelchair. They wheeled him down the corridor, following Eugene, who walked at some pace. Then ended up in a lift.

  Gus glared at Eugene for the entire descent. Eugene did not return his look. Instead, Eugene kept an unmistakable visage of loathing, like something had perturbed him greatly and he was infuriated about it.

  Gus finally realised why he was there. Eugene needed to know something he knew. And, if Gus was there, Eugene had no other line of enquiry to follow.

  They reached the bottom floor, which was poorly lit and smelt of damp. They took him to a room with a one-way mirror. Behind it was darkness. The soldiers halted his wheelchair against the wall in the small room lit only by a flickering bulb.

  Eugene leant against the wall and waited. Bided his time before nodding to the soldiers.

  The soldiers vacated, and it was only Eugene and Gus left in the room.

  Eugene allowed silence to prevail. He appeared in no rush to speak, but the disdain wiped across his face remained clear and unbreakable.

  “Who’s the girl?” Eugene finally mused, slowly and calmly. If Gus hadn’t figured out the circumstances of the interrogation, he would have said that Eugene’s tone was casual – but Gus knew that he was the one in control. If he had information to impart, then he was being kept alive for that reason, and to be forthcoming would be foolish, no matter what they did to him.

  “What girl?”

  Eugene gave a bitter snigger, each jolt of laughter conveying sarcasm and irritation.

  “Who. Is. The. Girl,” Eugene repeated.

  “You’ll have to be a little more specific. I’ve known a lot of girls in my time.”

  “I’m going to ask you one more time, and I promise you, if you do not give me an answer, you will live to regret it.”

  “Will I?” Gus retorted, his lip curling into a smirk.

  “The girl you found, and you returned with. Says her name is Sadie, amongst little else. Covered in bite marks, yet she lives, not as one of the infected, but as one of us. Who is she?”

  “Sadie? Sadie…” Gus stuck his bottom lip out. “No, doesn’t ring any bells.”

  Eugene shook his head.

  “Okay then,” he muttered, “you want to play it that way.”

  Eugene beat his hand against the one-way mirror twice, and the scene on the other side of it instantly lit up.

  The room was full of men in white coats, with clipboards, in various discussions, surrounding something. As they parted to reveal what that something was, Gus’s mouth fell open and his world fell apart.

  Sadie. Stood horizontally off the ground, restrained to a board. Fastened by her waist, wrists, and ankles. Unclothed, wearing nothing but a dozen bite marks.

  She couldn’t move. She wriggled and fought against it, but it did nothing. She was trapped, but she didn’t seem to be able to understand any more about why she was there than an ant would understand why a child was trying to stomp on it.


  She squealed and screeched, wailed and moaned, roared as hard as she could, but she was not able to communicate her distress, nor could she understand its reasoning.

  “Let her go.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Let her go!”

  With Gus’s further reluctance to answer, Eugene beat his hand against the window twice more.

  A man in a white coat pressed a button, and Sadie’s wails filled the room. She shook with the seizure of a high voltage of electricity soaring through her body.

  “Perhaps you could let us know when you are more forthcoming,” Eugene spoke. He left the room and the soldiers returned, taking him away.

  Gus watched Sadie disappear as he was wheeled out of the room, but the echoes of her pain could be heard all the way down the corridor.

  Within minutes he had been returned to his room and restrained once more to his bed.

  He was left alone.

  With nothing but his thoughts.

  All alone.

  The hours ticked by. As did the days.

  The doctors left him. There was no food. No help. He was left to completely to his solitude. With nothing.

  But Sadie’s face remained. The torturous look on her face.

  On the face of the girl who had taught him to love again.

  The whole time, two thoughts punched through his mind. Two questions, stirring around the forefront of his mind, bubbling with the heat of boiled anger.

  How he was going to rescue her.

  And how he was going to beat the life out of Eugene Squire until there was nothing left but the remains of an undead corpse.

  Book Two: Finding Hope

  Before

  Chapter One

  Nagging, moaning, and whining. That was all this woman ever did. Even if one thing off her never-ending list of demands was completed, there would be no praise, no acknowledgement, no let-up; just a continuation of demands that seemed to have no foreseeable end.

  Eugene was sick of it. Sick of everything. Sick of her, and her incessant chattering and moaning. Sick of waiting for his plan to come to fruition. Sick of knowing everything was going to change and he was going to rule the country and there was nothing he could do but wait.

  This woman used to be a goddess. Seriously, at the beginning she was a slender, petite beauty who’d rub Eugene’s shoulders and encourage him to pursue his ambitions. She had been soft, whilst retaining the prowess of a powerful, strong woman.

  Now look at her, he thought.

  Her hair had curled upwards in a way that displayed the puffiness of her overgrown cheeks. Her walk was no longer a sexy strut but a struggling waddle that took up most of the pavement. Even her ankle fat had fat. He’d watch her at night, getting undressed, remembering the way he once used to marvel at the sumptuous curves of her bare body. Now, the sight of her stretched, saggy skin bulging over the elastic waistband of her underwear made him gag. And her repulsive personality… oh boy; her personality had deteriorated even quicker than her body. Her demeanour had a similar stench to her uncared-for pits. She was abrasive, demanding, and rude.

  “And after that, you need to phone the water company and get that bill changed, it’s ridiculous,” she continued, Eugene only focussing on the moustache hair that wobbled with each smack of her chubby lips. Her excess saliva kept coming out in bubbles, and he was terrified that one of those bubbles was going to land on his face.

  “Are you even listening to me?” she demanded.

  “No,” Eugene replied honestly. “No, Sheila, I’m not. I don’t ever listen to you. Not really.”

  “Well, how is that going to help our marriage? I thought Doctor Holeson told you that we have to listen and attend to each other’s needs” – this went on, and on, and on, but he tuned it out and thought about other things; just as Eugene had spent numerous years learning to.

  That was when he got the text.

  He pulled his phone halfway out of his pocket and took a peek. He wasn’t sure why he was being discreet about checking his phone; surely, she’d realise he wasn’t listening. But, alas, once he’d read the message, he lifted his head to find that she was still going, yattering on about responsibilities and dependence and this and that and whatever and yadda yadda yadda.

  It’s done.

  It was just a simple, two-word message from General Boris Hayes, but it changed everything.

  The world was never going to be the same again.

  He stood. Put his suit jacket on. Looked around for his keys.

  “Where on earth do you think you’re going?” she demanded, highly offended that he had the impudence to dare interrupt her rant. “We are still talking! We have not finished! You said we’d work on this!”

  Eugene didn’t even glance at her as he left the dining table where she sat and meandered toward the kitchen. She followed him.

  “Honestly, what is wrong with you? I have done everything you need, and you won’t even listen to me. Does it even matter to you what I’m saying? Well? Does it?”

  Yadda yadda yadda.

  He took the disgustingly beige apron from the back of the door and placed it carefully over his neck. He tied it in place.

  “What are you doing?” she persisted. “Are you cooking?”

  “No,” he replied. “I am not cooking.”

  “Then what the hell is the apron for?”

  He took a large knife out of the kitchen drawer.

  “I don’t want to get blood on my suit.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a nice suit.”

  She didn’t move. He thought she’d at least run, but she didn’t. She stared at the knife, then his eyes, to the knife, to his eyes.

  “Eugene, what are you doing?” she asked, her stubborn rant ending and weakness overtaking her.

  “What am I doing?” Eugene repeated, stepping toward her.

  “Don’t you love me?”

  He laughed. He couldn’t help it. It was a ridiculous question, and it deserved a raucous guffaw. He lifted his head back and sprayed the laughs out of his wide-open mouth. He wanted to savour this, to enjoy it, but he knew he had things to do. Best get to it.

  “Eugene, I–”

  She never finished her sentence.

  He swung the knife straight through her cheek. It stuck there like it was stuck in thick mud and he struggled to pull it back out. Instead, he watched her, astonished. He hadn’t known what to expect. Of course, he knew what he intended when he lunged the knife toward her; he intended to stab her. But, having never used a knife for such use, he wasn’t sure how it was going to go. Since it was an ordinary kitchen knife, he wasn’t even sure if it would do the trick – but boy, did it. The knife was visible in her open mouth, its shiny silver lodged between her teeth.

  She screamed, although it was a muffled scream – she had a knife through her gob, after all.

  With a large yank, Eugene withdrew the knife. It took more force to get it out than it took to put it in, which surprised him, but he wasn’t sure why.

  She tried say his name again, but it only made him laugh. Why was she being so silly? Her cheek had a gaping hole and her tongue was surrounded by blood. It was dripping down her chin, for God’s sake! How did she expect to be able to talk?

  He shook his head. Silly bitch.

  He swung the knife again, and this time it landed in her neck. He hadn’t particularly aimed it, he just hoped he’d swing it with such a circumference and such force that it would go in, and it did.

  She fell to her knees.

  She grabbed at the knife, trying to remove it.

  Eugene couldn’t be bothered to use the strength required to remove the knife, so he searched the kitchen drawers for another. Luckily, there was another, and with a blade just as sharp, too, if not more so. What a day this was!

  He mounted her, placing his knees by her hips.

  Her eyes peered up at him, so wide, so scared. Like a deer caught in the headlights, as the tired cliché goes.
Such a cliché may be old, but there is a reason it’s used so much – because it is so accurate. That is exactly what she looked like. A terrified, dumbstruck, fucking stupid deer in the headlights.

  He stabbed her in the breast. Laughed as her yelp was muffled by blood. He stabbed her in the gut. In the heart. In the crotch. Everywhere he could – he just wanted to see what happened with each thrust. This was the first time he’d ever killed anyone, and as with all first times, there were, of course, learning points. He would have to do it better the next time, so he figured he may as well practise a few different places while he could, and see how well the knife landed.

  That’s when he heard a rustle.

  He instinctively turned his head and locked onto a pair of familiar eyes peeping through the doorway.

  He smiled.

  His second kill had arrived.

  Chapter Two

  Lucy Sanders brushed her long, blond hair out of her face, smoothed down her suit, straightened her blouse, repositioned her skirt. She was about to deliver the most devastating and life-changing news she would probably ever have to deliver – now was not a time to appear tardy or unprofessional.

  As the doorman opened the door, she entered the foyer and marvelled at the vast emptiness of the open room. What a huge difference there was in the way politicians lived. Yes, she worked for the government – but even so, her wage was pathetic compared to those in charge. The ceiling was high, the walls clean, and the floor a perfect marble – it was the kind of floor that made trainers squeak and heels echo. Everyone around her was either wearing a suit or dressed in perfect ‘country club’ gear; polo shirts, trousers ironed by their assistant, and hair swept and groomed without a strand out of place.

  Most of them would be dead soon.

  None of them seemed at all aware of what was happening. Then again, she wouldn’t have been aware unless she had been given this message to deliver; though she was certain she’d still have noticed the heavy army presence around London. The announcement was going to be on the news in – she checked her watch – three minutes.