Mail Horror Bride (One Nation Under Zombies Book 1)

by Lee, Raymond

  “We’ve never had a nationwide electric outage.”

  “How do you know it’s nationwide?” Otis challenged him. “Might just be us. Might not even be related. We haven’t seen a single one of them zombies.”

  Hank sat back in his chair, mulling this over. “Could be right. We’ll stay for a while but if I start seeing a bunch of them wandering around, we’re out of here and headed to Nebraska.”

  “Good plan.” Otis scratched one of his stubble-covered chins. “If it comes down to us leaving, bringing her along could be dangerous, ya think?”

  Hank’s fork dropped to his plate as he sat forward to glare at Otis. “You saying I should leave my wife behind?”

  “No, I’m just saying she’d make survival harder.” Otis seemed to shrink in his chair which was an amazing feat considering his girth. “I mean, you tell her to run and she’s not gonna know what you’re saying.”

  “She knows simple words like that. She’s my wife. She goes where I go.”

  The men talked well into the night, unaware that Janjai understood almost every single word. She simply kept her head lowered, gaze averted, and they suspected nothing. Her supposed meek manner was why Hank had chosen a wife from Thailand. He believed in the stereotype that Thai women were docile, obedient women who lived to serve their husbands and she played his ignorance to her advantage. She’d intended to be a good wife but she hadn’t known the true character of the man she married. All it took was one beating and her loyalty broke. The plan was simple. Her sister had also married an American man, and unlike her, her sister had gotten lucky. Her husband never hurt her and allowed her freedom. All Janjai had to do was wait out the two years until she received her green card and then she was free to leave. Her sister and brother-in-law would take her in until she found work and could support herself.

  Listening to the men talk, she’d picked up on a few things. Communication was gone. Phones, internet, television … Nothing worked. Military and law enforcement were busy containing the outbreak. People were pretty much on their own. She doubted the government would care if a Thai woman ran off from her husband before the green card came. This was her chance. All she had to do was wait for Hank and Otis to fall asleep and she was free.

  She knew Pimjai and her husband’s address, having received it in a letter from her mother. She knew better than to have Pimjai send her a letter from her American address. If Hank knew her sister was in America he would be even more controlling. He already disallowed her to have any money of her own and planned on keeping her as dependent on him as he possibly could. Unaware that she could speak English, he thought escape for her was impossible. Where would she go in a country where she had no friends and could not communicate with anyone?

  But she did speak the language and she did have someone to help her. With a little help from the GPS in Hank’s truck, if it worked, she’d find her way. Besides, she missed her sister and with all the talk of people eating people, she worried about her.

  Hank finally fell asleep around two in the morning, snoring loudly next to her in the bed. Janjai quietly rose and slipped on her houseshoes. She’d worn a T-shirt and lounge pants to bed, not daring to change clothes before escaping. The pajama set would have to do. It might be a strange outfit to arrive on her sister’s doorstep in but it beat a nightgown.

  She tiptoed around the foot of the bed and out the bedroom door, standing still in the hall to listen for sounds. Otis was staying with them, the two men having decided this house was safer than Otis’s trailer, and if she ran into him it could blow everything.

  Hearing nothing, she crept down the hall. She found Otis on the living room couch, asleep.

  Unsure how deeply the man slept, Janjai cautiously tiptoed across the kitchen and snagged the keys to Hank’s truck from the peg next to the door, careful not to allow them to jangle. She’d never driven in America but she’d been with Hank plenty of times when he had. It couldn’t be that hard.

  She twisted the lock and reached for the knob on the back door, freezing as a howl rent the air. Coyotes. She was used to the sound, given they lived in a heavily wooded area, but the coyotes usually howled from up in the mountains. This one sounded close. She didn’t know enough about them to know if they attacked people so she grabbed a knife from the knife block, just in case she needed it. She doubted she’d be able to harm an animal but holding the weapon in her hand made her feel a little bit safer.

  Now somewhat armed, she again reached for the doorknob and turned it slowly, fearful of making any noise. If either man woke up and saw her leaving the house, she was in deep trouble.

  The door opened as an animal nearby yelped. The coyote? Janjai peered through the screen door and saw nothing in the darkness blanketing the yard. More sounds came, growls and whimpering, and she reconsidered her escape. But she couldn’t see anything and animals were killed out there all the time. If not by hunters, then by each other. Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she unlocked the screen door and opened it.

  “Where in the hell do you think you’re going?”

  Janjai’s blood turned to ice as Hank’s voice came from behind her. She gripped the doorframe and thought of her options. She had the keys in her hand. All she had to do was make it to the truck. But if he caught her, he’d beat her, probably worse than he’d ever beat her before.

  She could turn around, but the result would be the same. With the truck keys in her hand, she couldn’t pretend that she’d been doing anything other than escaping. With the knowledge she would be beaten whether she ran or not, Janjai found the courage to flee, to at least attempt to get away from her tormentor. She had a chance if she ran and it seemed better than just turning around and surrendering.

  She quickly found that houseshoes weren’t suitable for running. She tripped as the fuzzy slippers seemed to fly off her feet, but quickly righted herself. The truck was so close, sitting there in the driveway like the Statue of Liberty, promising freedom, if only she could reach it and unlock the door before Hank could get his hands on her.

  Rocks and sticks cut into the soles of her feet but she pressed on, knowing the pain was worth it if it meant saving her life. She heard Hank huffing and puffing behind her between threats, thankful the man thirty years her senior was out of shape.

  “Get in that truck and I’ll kill you!” he screamed at her and she could imagine his face flooded with red color. “I own you, dammit! The only life for you here without me is as a whore. Is that what you want?”

  She knew all too well that many mail-order brides found themselves as prostitutes after escaping abusive husbands, or worse, being pimped out by the very men they’d thought would give them a better life here, but Janjai was not those women. She spoke the language and she had family. She would make it.

  She nearly cried with joy as she reached the truck. She pulled on the door handle just in case but found she would not be lucky enough to find it already unlocked. She had to use the key. The keys shook in her trembling hands as she looked for the right one.

  She found the long key that would unlock the door and start the truck but a gurgling, growling sound caught her attention.

  She looked up to see a man come around the front of the truck. His eyes were so white they reflected the moonlight as he shuffled around the truck and reached toward her, making that awful sound. Something wet along the bottom of his face glistened and as he neared her she realized in growing horror that it was blood. This was one of the infected people Hank and Otis had been talking about. This was a zombie and there was no way she’d get in the truck before he reached her.

  “Jan, look out!”

  She jumped backward and turned to run in the opposite direction, only then realizing four more were coming up the driveway. She had no choice but to run back toward the house, toward Hank.

  Before she could do that, two powerful hands gripped her shoulders and pulled. She used her hand to push away from the zombie, squealing in disgust as her palm connected with blo
od covering its chest.

  A shot rang out and the zombie jerked back, but did not let go. It growled, opening its mouth wide before another bullet ripped through its head, removing the top half.

  Janjai screamed as blood splashed over her, and ran for the house, dropping the keys and knife in the process. The zombies coming up the driveway had almost reached her and more of them invaded the yard, coming from the woods behind the house. Now she knew what had gotten the coyote.

  “Get in the house and lock the door,” Hank yelled at her, now aiming a rifle Otis had brought out to him at the zombies behind her. The immediate threat had changed his plans. She knew the beating would still happen, but at the moment, she feared the zombies more.

  She reached the back door and ducked inside the kitchen, closing the door behind her. She thought about locking it as Otis and Hank stood outside shooting at the zombies, leaving them out there to die, but she couldn’t do it. For one, now that she’d seen the zombies she knew what she was up against. She had a better chance of survival with the men, and for two, if Hank retreated to the house and found the door locked he would only kick it down and hurt her worse than he already intended. So she kept the door unlocked as she stood there watching Hank and Otis shoot at the white-eyed men and women closing in on them.

  Otis ran out of bullets first and reached into the bib pocket of his overalls for more, but he couldn’t get the gun loaded before two zombies were on him. Janjai cringed as she saw the monsters open their mouths wide, intent on eating him. She’d never liked Otis, especially disliking the way he’d stare at her body when Hank wasn’t looking, but this was not a death she wished on anyone and she regretted her earlier thought about leaving them out there. Living with a beast of a man had affected her, she realized, in a shameful way.

  Otis swung the rifle, bashing one of the zombies in the head, effectively knocking it away, but he turned his body with the swing, putting himself in a more vulnerable position. The other zombie took advantage and Janjai cried out as she saw its mouth close down on Otis’s neck.

  Hank checked on his friend, saw what was happening, and shot the zombie in the head, but it was too late. Otis tumbled to the ground, holding his neck. In the moonlight, Janjai saw blood pour through his fingers.

  Hank reloaded and shot down as many more zombies as he could, not seeming to make a dent as more and more of them kept trickling in from the woods. He shot his last bullet and ran for the house, slamming the door behind him and quickly sliding the lock home.

  Without words, he opened the door to the basement, grabbed Janjai roughly by her arm and shoved her down the stairs. She almost fell, but grabbed the rail just in time. Understanding what he wanted, she went to the room on her own and sat on the cot, pulling her knees up. She sat there, rocking, as the horrible images of what had just happened played through her mind.

  He joined her there shortly after, carrying a loaded backpack and his rifle. As the sound of the kitchen window breaking reached them, he did something he’d never done before. He closed the door while standing in the room with her, locking both of them in.

  He turned around and she saw his pajamas were covered in sweat and blood spray. His face was so red it looked like it would explode, like a water balloon filled with blood.

  “They can’t get us in here, but we can still get out. I have the key. At least, I’ll get out. As for you, my wife …” He bent down and opened the backpack, extracting his leather belt.

  Janjai’s heart stopped as she looked at the belt. To most people, it was an accessory. To her, it was a deadly weapon. The welts on her back tingled as she recalled her last session with it.

  “You might not understand my words, but just like a bitch, you’ll understand this,” he said, comparing her to a dog. “I’m your master. You don’t run off and you don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Otis got bit because of you. I had to leave him out there to be eaten on. If he’s lucky, he’ll die instead of becoming one of them. Now you’ll pay for that, and if you live through this, you’ll know better than to run again.”

  As he wrenched her off the cot, Janjai took a deep breath and pictured herself in Colorado with Pimjai, happy and free. The scorching hot fire that came with each slap of the leather across her skin threatened to steal her daydream away but she held on tight to the image as Hank unleashed his rage. Soon, her body’s protective defenses took over and she couldn’t even feel the lashes, only the sting the first twenty had left behind.

  He finally stopped, allowing her body to fall to the concrete floor where she lay in her own blood, closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep, thinking how wonderful it would be if she didn’t wake back up.

  Hal peeked through the crack in the boards they’d nailed over the windows, checking the street. All clear, or so it seemed. The TV and internet might not work, but Paul was a survivalist, like Hal. He had a radio for situations like this, and every now and then, Hal was able to make contact with someone. He knew what was going on out there. It was hell and damnation. The end of days.

  The military was doing the best it could to control the situation but killing people who were already dead wasn’t the easiest task. By the time they’d figured out the zombies’ brains had to be destroyed, many of them had been killed or worse. Turned into them.

  Russia had been injecting poor, unsuspecting women with the virus for five years. Thousands of those women entered America every year and immediately spread the disease to their husbands. If they had children, those children were born with the disease in their system. If either the Russian woman or the man she married committed adultery, more people were infected and the virus spread through all of those people and anyone they slept with. Then there were the Russian-American marriages that ended in divorce, leaving the women and now infected men to find new spouses. Whoever they slept with along the way got the disease. And of course, the scariest part of all, was the obvious. How many of those people, ignorant to this disease which according to reports, wouldn’t have been picked up on any tests, had donated blood during those five years?

  It would be impossible to calculate how many people had been infected, and according to the information Hal had found on news sites before the internet ceased to exist, some of the infected were still walking around clueless.

  Death triggered the disease. The original virus injected directly into the women worked like a bomb. When it was detonated, they died on impact, immediately reanimating as modern day real life zombies. The people they had infected, either through blood donations or sexual contact, would continue to carry the disease until they died. Some had developed a fever and died shortly after their hosts had turned, but not all. For some reason, some still carried the disease. The military had rounded up infected children who showed no signs but would turn after they died. The only other way, the only other way that was known, for someone to turn into a zombie was to be bitten. Their saliva was deadly venom which put the bitten in a flu-like state which they eventually died from, triggering the activation of the virus.

  It was chaos.

  And he was stuck in the middle of it, in charge of the safety of a twelve-year old girl.

  Hal saw movement. There in the bushes alongside the house across the street, were three of the monsters. He had time to go downstairs, open the front door, and pick them off one by one, but he knew from experience that if any more were lurking out there, the gunshots would draw them. Three of them weren’t that big of a deal, but get a group and you were in trouble. He’d heard the term herd being used to describe the way they grouped together over the radio and he thought it sounded about right. They probably communicated with each other like animals too, their moaning, growling sounds some sort of language. He shivered at the thought of those things being organized.

  No, he couldn’t pick them off. He couldn’t bring them right to their door.

  Hal gripped his gun and quickly made his way out of Paul’s office and down the hall to the living room where Angela reclined on the
couch reading a book.

  “Three of them, across the street,” he said as he peered through the peephole in the front door.

  Angela grabbed her gun off the coffee table and watched them through the front window, watching from a sliver of space between boards as Hal had done in the office.

  “You sure they can’t see us?”

  “They might be able to up close, shapes at least, but not from there. If we’re quiet they probably won’t even know there are people inside.”

  “And if they’re smarter than you think?”

  “We have guns.” He looked down at the Beretta in her small hand. “You’re sure you can handle that?”

  “Dad trained me every weekend. Handguns, rifles, if it has bullets I can shoot it. I’m probably a better shot than you.”

  “Well, let’s put off knowing that as long as we can. Shooting them is a last resort. We don’t want to draw any more.”

  Hal returned his gaze to the street, moving over to the window when the zombies shuffled out of the peephole’s range. He was glad Paul had trained his daughter to shoot, to protect herself, but the thought of her having to made him nervous. If she had reason to use the gun, he wasn’t doing a good job of protecting her. His mission had always been to protect the world from evil, but that was when evil lived inside living, breathing men and women. Those monsters were plentiful, yes, but not like these. They didn’t strike together, all at once.

  “Do you think they can smell?” Angela whispered as the zombies drew closer, crossing the street.

  “I don’t know. I hope not. The less ability they have to locate us, the safer we are.”

  “Why do they scare you? They’re just animals shuffling around looking for food. You’ve taken out faster, smarter people.”

  Hal swallowed hard, gulping past the ball that had just formed in his throat, before turning his attention to the young, innocent looking girl.