Undead Series (Book 1): Blight of the Dead

by Breckenridge, Erin E.

  Also by Erin E. Breckenridge

  Life, Death and the Things Between

  Life, Death and the Things Between Part 2

  Blight of the Dead

  by Erin E. Breckenridge

   2017 Erin E. Breckenridge

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art by … Stewart Parkhurst

  Illustrations by Mary Breverly

  http://aworldingraphite.wix.com/art

  Dedication

  Dedicated to Henry Greene who is my brother in every way but blood. To my husband, Danny Breckenridge, who loves all things macabre. Of course, to my father Sebe Morgan, whose love of horror rivals my own, and to my mother Sally, where all founts flow creative.

  Prologue

  Chapter One Raven Wakes to Unpleasantness

  Chapter Two Raven and Henry Seek Safety

  Chapter Three The Ray of Hope

  Chapter Four The Mom and Pop

  Chapter Five The Eavesdropper

  Chapter Six Exodus

  Chapter Seven Barbara Jean and Louise

  Chapter Eight Trouble Finds Liz

  Chapter Nine Merging of the Groups

  Erin’s Bio

  Blight Part 2 … Coming Soon

  The year is 2010 in a dimension similar to our own, though things have progressed a little differently. There are many worlds that run parallel to the one in which we live, some so strange that the human mind would not survive and others analogous enough that nothing would seem amiss. The world in which we are about to plunge has many things the same. Earth, and it is still called that, developed a little differently. California is full of mountain ranges, so crowded that the peaks lead right up to the coast, stopping only a few miles from the sea. The town of Hallows Point where our prose begins was one of many cities that sprung up after the famous gold rush, which in this world occurred in the early 1700’s. Our story takes place along the range of Rocky Sierra Mountains in California and Oregon. It was once beautiful and sought-after countryside and many folks made their home there, but no longer. All states are stricken with a plague of the dead and there will be no escape.

  We delve, oh reader, into this world to see what transpires there. A virus runs unchecked through the people killing quickly, but the fallen do not stay down. The bodies of the victims rise with a hunger for the flesh of the living.

  Prologue

  The sun set over the sleepy town of Hallows Point, nestled in the California coast between tall mountains and crashing waves. Sporting a maximum of three hundred occupants, depending on the time of year, Hallows Point was in full tourist swing. October was the busiest time of year. Hallows Point had been the scene of a massacre in the mid 1800’s; an event of infamy and terror that took place on all hallows eve. They called it The Day of Blood and Madness.

  A drifter came into town one night, riding the edge of a destructive storm. He was tall and lean with dark brown hair and an old-fashioned looking gun belt. He strode through the quiet town, at that time it had less than a third of the population, and headed for the local tavern. His cowboy boots were loud on the wooden floors, puffs of dust rose from the ground in his wake. The bar was full. Many of the townsfolk had chosen to seek shelter there, hiding from the rain and wind. They sat chatting uneasily, peering through the windows at the slackening rain outside. A table with three young men glanced at the stranger and away, dismissing him.

  “Can I help you, sir?” the barkeep inquired, surprised to see anyone walking around after such a storm. He held a dirty glass in one hand and a rag in the other. Polishing the glass, the bartender raised his brows in question. His face was heavily jowled and he wore a much-stained apron over a round belly.

  The drifter sneered, saying nothing at all. He strode to a table and sat, putting his boots up and crossing his legs.

  The barkeep, put off by the stranger’s rudeness, peered at the man suspiciously. “Why are you here?” he asked, frowning.

  The drifter just smirked and settled more comfortably into his chair.

  The patrons were all looking his way now, expressions ranging the gamut from amusement to outright fright.

  Pounding his fist on the table rhythmically, the drifter began to sing in a loud and rather tuneless voice.

  The barkeep stepped back, confused and wary. The young men at the table rose from their chairs and surrounded the stranger. Three men of strong bearing and hardened features, they cracked their knuckles and glowered.

  “I think you should stop all that noise,” the largest man said. He worked for the smithy, standing tall and heavily muscled. His eyebrows were singed and his skin was bronzed from the forge.

  The rest of the townsfolk, sensing trouble brewing, gathered in a group at the back of the tavern, thirty strong, palpably hesitant to approach the singing stranger.

  Continuing to bellow loudly, the drifter sneered and pulled out his Colt Peacemakers, pointing them, one at the group of young men and the other at the crowd. Men and women screamed and cowered, trying to crawl behind tables and hide beneath chairs. Their voices were raised in a cacophonous din of terror.

  The three men tried to stop him, diving on the table and reaching for his pistols.

  They were simply too slow. The drifter fired rapidly, reloading with insane sped; hands a blur of motion. The smithy’s apprentice took three bullets to the stomach. They tore through his flesh, ripping through skin and viscera. He screamed and reached for his abdomen, face pale and rigid. Blood bloomed like roses through his clothing in a spreading stain. He slid to his knees and the drifter laughed madly, stepping atop the table and kicking the man in the face. The force of the blow broke his nose, squirting ichor in all directions.

  The other men went to their fallen comrade, trying vainly to staunch the bleeding. The drifter glanced at them and fired twice. One bullet apiece took them in the head, one brown haired and one blond, but now both dead. They fell to the floor.

  He hadn’t stopped firing into the gathered crowd, turning a group of normal God-fearing people, into a mass of blood and meat. Their screams were quieting as they died, slumping against walls and chairs, falling on top of each other.

  The blood from so many bodies spread across the floor, seeping through the wood and leeching into the ground.

  Cackling, the stranger waded into the bloody mass of humanity and laid his guns carefully down on a table. He removed his clothes, grinning in the most lunatic fashion. Lying naked amongst the bodies, the drifter rolled back and forth, tittering. He scooped up handfuls of ichor and splashed it on his face and over his chest, reveling in the feel of the cooling blood.

  But there was one person he had overlooked. The bartender, during the melee, had crawled across the floor and taken shelter behind the bar. He stood up then and pumped a shell into his double barrel shotgun, metal polished to a dark sheen, and fired upon the man. He hit him square in the face, shattering the delicate Maxilla and Mandible, and bursting his eyes in their sockets. The drifter did not die right away. He crawled off of the pile of bodies and stood momentarily on the floor. Blood and vitreous humor cascaded down his ruined face. A gurgling sound came from where his mouth should be. He raised his hands to cup his shattered face; stumbled forward a few steps then fell with a crash.

  The bartender was the only one left alive. The only one left to tell the tale of blood and madness.

  So was the gory history of Hallows Point and in modern days the town took advantage of its past. Every
October the town was flooded with tourists, buying crafts and knickknacks of the darkest sort; dolls made to look like bloody corpses, candies in the shape of tombstones and bullets, and necklaces and rings that sported dancing skeletons and jack-o-lanterns. They paid a pretty penny to buy overpriced drinks in the bar, which stood on the original sight of the massacre. Burbling pumpkin juice laced with enough vodka to lay down a horse, beer dyed blood red and Washington Apples with sugar candied skulls floating inside, were among the most popular.

  The bloody history served the residents of Hallow’s Point quite well, bringing in enough revenue to sustain them throughout the year.

  Chapter One

  Raven Wakes to Unpleasantness

  Raven

  Raven was woken from a sound sleep by someone banging at her door.

  “What the fuck?” she murmured, rubbing her hands across her face. Looking at the clock she saw it was a little after four in the morning. Grumbling, she got out of bed. Her room was dark but she could make out the line of her dresser and mirror. Her window was closed and curtained to keep out the chill of the October evening. The red cotton curtains fluttered as she moved by them.

  Raven lurched barefoot to her door, wearing black silk pajama bottoms and a maroon tank top. Blinking, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, pale blue like her mother’s. She had straight black hair that hung long and shining down her back and alabaster skin that was covered in brightly colored tattoos. Flowers were her favorite and Raven had all types, roses, tropical blooms, pansies, snap dragons and many more. Her arms had black tribal tattoo’s that she’d designed herself. The dark lines contrasted nicely with the bright blossoms.

  The knocking sounded again and her dog barked, a deep and fierce sound.

  “Hush, Rocky,” she spoke, patting his muscular head.

  Rocky was a fawn colored American Staffordshire Terrier — a type of Pit Bull Terrier — with white feet and light brindle markings down his back. His eyes were the color of dark copper and his face was soulful.

  Raven stumbled down her hallway yawning, navigating her way around the small pile of clutter that had escaped the closet. It held her mother’s clothes that she could never quite bring herself to give away. Her mother, Ann, had passed away last winter of a particularly virulent type of pancreatic cancer. Ann had left Raven this home and a fair amount of money. It had been enough at first that Raven hadn’t felt the need to find a job. She sat at home with her animals and grieved her mother’s passing for a few months then pulled herself together and found part time employment at the local nursery. At least she got great ideas for tattoos there.

  The knocking grew louder and more frantic the closer she got to the door, rattling the wood in its frame.

  Adrenaline spiked and woke her up a little more. Raven grabbed an axe from the wall. Her last boyfriend, who had gone the way of many of them, running after another younger piece of ass, had made her a wall mounted metal rack that held her novelty weapons, two sharp axes, an old-fashioned pick, and a knife the length of her forearm.

  Rocky growled and walked by her side. She felt the solid weight of him against her leg.

  She chose the shorter ax and took a moment to feel the weight of it in her hand. Reaching the door, Raven looked through her peephole and gasped.

  Her younger brother, Henry, was standing outside, looking desperate and frightened.

  “Raven,” he whispered. “Open the damn door.” He looked furtively over his shoulder.

  Raven couldn’t see past her brother’s face but clearly there was something or someone out of her view that was freakin’ him out. She opened the door, axe held loosely in her hand.

  “Thank God!” Henry exclaimed. “Move, move, let me in!”

  She stepped aside and he ran in, slamming the door behind him, but not before she’d gotten a good glimpse of her front lawn.

  Her cat, Moon Pie a black and white tuxedo, lay outside on the ground. A woman was leaning over her on hands and knees, stuffing handfuls of entrails into her mouth. She wore a terrycloth robe that was torn along the bottom and dirty with blood and some other dark stain. Wearing fluffy bunny slippers, the woman snarled around a mouthful of intestine. Two people shambled toward her, hands outstretched and stiff. They looked like children, but something was wrong. The kids wore pajama pants and long-sleeved tops and shuffled barefoot across the pavement. Their feet and ankles were covered in mud.

  “Moon Pie!” she yelled, reaching for the door.

  Her brother stopped her, wrapping his arms around her waist.

  “No, Raven,” he said, voice shaking. “You can’t go out there. She’s gone.”

  Raven gasped, holding back a mass of emotion. Moon Pie was dead and who was that eating her? “I think that was Mrs. Robinson from next door,” she whispered, pulling away and holding her brother at arm’s length. “She always wears that nasty stained robe,” she gasped. Raven had a vivid image of her last encounter with Mrs. Robinson. She’d been scolded for letting her mail pile up. It attracts thieves, the old woman had said. She was wearing that same dirty white robe and stupid blue slippers. Half of her hair had been in curlers. She shook her head to dispel the image.

  Henry looks okay, Raven thought, pushing her grief aside. There was nothing she could do for her cat now. Her brother however was right here in front of her. Henry had hit a rough patch last year, drinking too much and gambling. He’d lived with their father for a while, working on small airplanes in the hanger.

  Henry nodded. “I thought it was her, batty old woman.” He moved away from Raven, rubbing his hands against the sleeves of his coat.

  Roughly six years younger than her thirty-five rotations around this earth, Henry always looked like a kid to her. His straight brown hair was cut short and military style and the shape of his face was so much like their father, David. Raven hadn’t spoken to her father in more than two years. When he found out about her mother’s illness, he divorced her without a by your leave and moved to Atlas City, California’s largest metropolis. Raven couldn’t forgive that.

  He walked down the hallway and Rocky followed at his heel, sniffing Henry’s pants and hands. Petting the dog lightly on the head, Henry peered at the paintings on the wall. Raven had hung those after her mother died, finding them buried beneath layers of old blankets in the bedroom closet. She knew Ann had been a painter in her youth but had never seen any of her work.

  “Are these Mom’s?” Henry asked, touching the canvas gently. It depicted a green landscape, rolling hills and dark rain clouds.

  “Yeah,” Raven answered, standing just behind him.

  They were silent a moment letting memories swirl around them like the tide. The only sound was Rocky panting and the quiet tick of the grandfather clock in the living room.

  “What the fuck is going on outside?” Raven asked, able to stand the silence no longer. The image of Mrs. Robinson with her face buried in the bloody abdomen of her cat haunted her. Images that you’d rather unsee had a way of imprinting crystal clear in your mind. This was one of those.

  Henry took a deep breath. “I think they’re zombies,” he said, turning to look at Raven.

  Rocky sighed and lay on the ground, putting his head on his paws and blinked sleepily.

  “What?” Raven asked. Gooseflesh marched across her arms and shoulders. She knew full well what zombies were and they gave her the damn creeps. Henry had always been into horror flicks but she’d never been able to watch them. They scared the shit out of her.

  “Yup, zombies,” Henry spoke, holding her gaze.

  Raven was petrified, mouth dry and legs wobbly. She turned gesturing for her brother to follow and sat heavily at the kitchen table.

  The kitchen was a large open room with a yellow and white tiled floor and vibrant daisy covered curtains. In the daytime this room was bright and airy, capturing morning sunlight. Right now it was dark, lit only by a cat shaped nightlight plugged into the counter.

  Henry, followed closely by Rocky, flipped on
the overhead light and sat opposite her at the table.

  Raven was left blinking in the sudden brightness. Squinting, she regarded her brother. In the light she could see bags beneath his eyes but he still looked better than he had in a long time. Maybe he’s cleaned up a bit, she thought, hoping it was true. She understood drinking and had done a fair amount of it in the past, but at thirty-five her partying days were behind her. Raven had lost interest in the daylong hangovers and endless cups of Alka-Seltzer.

  “What do you think happened?” she asked, focusing on the strangeness at hand. Her fear had subsided though she knew it would return. If what Henry said was true — with what she’d seen it had to be — they were in deep shit. Rocky put his head on her thigh and she stroked him, glad that he at least was all right. Moon Pie hadn’t wanted to come in last night and Raven had left her to herself. She regretted that now, oh how she did, but it couldn’t be changed.

  “Well,” Henry began, running his hands through his hair roughly. “Do you have any coffee? I think we’ll be up for a while and I could use some.”

  “Second shelf,” Raven said, pointing to the cupboard over the sink. “Never mind, I’ll get it you talk.” She rose from her chair, displacing Rocky gently.

  “Okay,” Henry responded. “So, last night I went to bed early.”

  That’s a good sign, Raven thought, pouring water into the percolator and dumping coffee in the basket.

  “And I was woken up by someone screaming. So, naturally, I got up and looked outside. I couldn’t believe what I fucking saw.

  “My friend Sarah came over last night but she couldn’t stay. Having gotten an emergency call from work — Sara’s a nurse at U C Point — she had to go. There had been a lot of staff out sick in the last few days and she wasn’t very surprised.” Henry stopped talking and scratched his chin pensively. “I bet that’s connected.”