One Nation Under Zombies (Book 2): FrostBITTEN

by Raymond Lee

  “You should. What do you want anyway?”

  Ouch. “I have to want something to talk to you? I can’t just want to know more about you, or check in with you to make sure you’re all right?”

  “I don’t need anyone to check on me.”

  “Yes you do. You’re withdrawn. I think we’re pretty safe here but we still need to stick together to maintain that safety.”

  “Fine.” She removed her ear buds and turned off the CD player. “If we’re going to talk, let’s be productive. We need a back-up plan.”

  “For what?”

  “For when we need to leave this place. All of you are acting like we found the perfect shelter, but we didn’t. What if someone gets seriously sick or hurt? We have a pharmacy, but we don’t know what drugs to administer. God forbid somebody breaks a bone. We need to get to that base, or did you forget all about that?”

  She was right. They’d left California together in search of a base in Nebraska. It had been set up for survivors shortly after the outbreak and promised safety. It was military so they’d have medical personnel there. “How do we know it’s still there?”

  “It’s a military base. If we can maintain a store, the military can maintain their base. We need to be around people who know what they’re doing.”

  “We’ve done pretty well so far.”

  “We got lucky.” She turned cold eyes to him. “Not everyone with us did.”

  Guilt sucker-punched him in the gut. “I’m sorry about Jeremy.”

  “I know. You’ve told me a million times.”

  “Well, I mean it. I never meant for anyone to die. I didn’t think anyone would be hurt by what I did.”

  “You didn’t think at all,” she snapped. “I know you want me to just smile and say everything is fine. I can forgive you for that stunt you pulled, I know you weren’t in your right mind, but I can’t just forget it. If we hadn’t made that stop for you to get your revenge she’d still be alive.”

  Cruz looked away. There really wasn’t anything he could say when every word she spoke was true.

  “Shit. See, this is exactly why I don’t want to talk. I can’t blame you for what happened. It wasn’t any more your fault than it was mine. She ran off and I stayed behind, thinking Damian could catch her. I should have went with him. The bigger danger at that moment was to her, not you.”

  “No, you were right. It was totally my fault. I’m the one who set the helicopter down in that street. In that moment I had no thought to anyone else’s safety. I was so focused on finding my mother and the noise in my head was just so loud.” He could feel the blood rushing to his face, turning his cheeks a shade of red.

  “How are you doing now?”

  “Taking my pills like a good little nutcase,” he snapped, then winced. “Sorry.”

  “I don’t think you’re crazy, Cruz.”

  He looked at her, eyebrow raised.

  “Yes, you’re mentally ill, but you’re not some raging psychopath. That stuff you did back at your mother’s house was pretty out there, I’ll give you that, but you’re fine on medication. Besides, I remember what you said about her locking you in the closet, thinking you were your dead brother. She didn’t sound like the greatest mom.”

  “Giving birth to us was pretty much the full extent of her mother skills.”

  “I figured.” She turned toward him. “How did your brother die?”

  “She killed him.”

  Raven stared at him, eyes wide in surprise, her mouth agape.

  “She used to give us all kinds of crap to make us sleep until eventually she gave him too much of the wrong thing. Of course she said it was an accident, that he’d gotten into the medicine cabinet, but she killed him. My dad left for good after that.”

  “He didn’t take you with him?”

  “No. He wasn’t much better than her. He was a mean drunk, and couldn’t hold a job for longer than a few months, if that.”

  “Is he still alive? As far as you know?”

  “No. He messed with the wrong guy’s woman and died in a bar fight.” Cruz sat up straighter. “Look, this isn’t stuff I really talk about, and I don’t want anyone’s pity. I know my childhood was shit but I survived. I left and I became a new person. Tomas Cruz died in that house a long time ago. I held on to a lot of anger which is why I went back there that day, to make sure she was good and truly dead, but it’s over now and that chapter of my life doesn’t need to be relived.”

  Raven held his hand.

  “Don’t pity me, Raven. That’s not the look I want to see in your eyes when you look at me.” He wanted her to love him, damn it. Not for his looks or his fame. She was the first person to not give a crap about all that since he’d become an actor and he wanted her approval.

  “I don’t pity you, but I also don’t believe you’re fine. Some memories are so horrible you can’t forget. The cruel acts people do to you leave scars that never go away.”

  “What scars do you have?”

  She pulled her hand away and closed the magazine before her. “We’ve gotten sidetracked. We were talking about a back-up plan. We need to take inventory of supplies.”

  “We have a whole grocery store full of food at our disposal and more weapons than we’ll need.”

  “That food won’t last forever, a lot of it has already went bad, and you’re right about the weapons. We need to decide which weapons are the most efficient for travel. I have no problem staying here through the winter, but we need to leave as soon as it warms up again. We will run out of food. We may run out before the winter ends if we don’t take inventory of what we actually have and ration it out among us.”

  He nodded. “All right. It’s not like we have anything else to do except watch DVDs and read. I’m pretty sure we’ll have gotten through every DVD and book in here by spring.”

  “That’s another thing. We’re wasting electricity watching movies. We need to keep those generators going so we don’t freeze.”

  “Fine by me. I’m a little tired of the Cruz Thomas movie marathons Elijah keeps having.”

  Raven smiled a little. “I am too.”

  “Smart-ass.”

  She grinned, but quickly grew serious. “We need to make escape packs.”

  “Escape packs? What are you talking about?”

  “We need to have supplies packed and available in case we need to leave suddenly.”

  “Raven, we landed on the roof in order to get in here, and we’ve boarded up the door Hal and his people used to get in. The only entrance not boarded up is through the garden center and those gates are solid. Zombies aren’t going to get in here and I doubt anyone is out there traveling now that it’s started snowing.”

  “You really think you’re safe?” She stood. “Come with me.”

  He stood and followed her as she moved toward the front of the store. Along the way, he observed what the others were doing. Damian and Elijah sat on a sofa they’d pulled into the electronics area, watching The Green Mile and eating microwave popcorn, just hanging out as if there weren’t dead people filling the parking lot around them. He saw Hal and Carlos as they passed the book section. Carlos had been spending a lot of time with Hal, who’d been spending a lot of time with God. The man rarely didn’t have a bible in his hand, and seemed to enjoy when others prayed with him. Carlos prayed with him a lot. He’d even seen the man cry once. He’d seen Raven pray with him a few times, and he’d been invited, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do so. Praying with others felt too much like church, and church wasn’t a good memory for him.

  Once they passed the book section, they entered the arts and crafts area. He spotted Janjai sitting before an easel, painting a rather impressive vase of multi-colored flowers. She felt his gaze and looked at him, blushing. He smiled at her and nodded, letting her know he was impressed by her work. This made her blush deeper before turning back to the canvas.

  Their path didn’t allow them a view of the baby section so he didn’t see Kurt, a
nd the man had quit making noise a few days after they’d tied him up, realizing all he’d get for his efforts was a sore throat and more frustration. They’d eventually been able to remove the duct tape from his mouth, making Carlos feel better about the way they were treating him. Cruz had taken pleasure in hearing his facial hairs rip out as they removed the sticky tape.

  He didn’t see Pimjai but this didn’t alarm him. It was a big store and she could be anywhere. He was sure she’d scream if she were in trouble, not that there was any trouble now that Kurt had been taken care of.

  “Have you ever really checked things out up here?” Raven asked as they neared the front of the store.

  “Hal and I checked everything out after we got settled in, to make sure we were secure.”

  She gave him a look that suggested they hadn’t checked well enough before she crossed over to one of the shelving units that had been pressed up against the front windows. She raised a finger to her lips, signaling for him to be quiet as she gripped one end of the shelving unit and slowly pulled it away from the windows. She gestured for him to follow her as she squeezed behind it.

  He squeezed in to the narrow space as she watched him. Once he was settled behind her, she grabbed a loose end of craft paper that had been taped up to the window and pulled it back.

  A group of dead animated bodies pressed against the window, clawing at the glass as their cacophony of moans filtered through.

  “Shit.”

  “Yup.” She lowered the paper, letting it settle in its place, and gently pushed him to let him know they were done there.

  They quietly put the shelving unit back in place. “They weren’t doing that when we saw this place. They were just aimlessly walking around the parking lot.”

  “They know we’re in here.”

  “You really think so? I know they know when we’re out in the gardening area but we’ve been careful to stay away from the front of the store, and we don’t go out to the gardening area unless necessary, which hasn’t been for a while. It’s probably worse back there.”

  “Maybe. All that weight pressing against the glass can’t be good. It could crack.”

  He nodded, picturing in his head how bad that outcome would be as they started walking back to a safer area of the store. “I’ll get Hal and Carlos to help me block it. We can use refrigerators and anything else we can find that’s heavier than those shelving units. I think I saw some pretty sturdy oak entertainment centers.”

  “That’s a good start, but we need to be prepared for if and when they get in. That’s why I suggested the escape packs. We need to grab some backpacks and fill them with supplies. Food, ammo, weapons, matches, flashlights, first aid … your medicine.”

  He stopped walking and looked down at her.

  “We need to put at least a box of your meds in every pack. If everything goes ape-shit, we need to make sure you have your pills. We can’t let you get sick again.”

  “Get sick,” he repeated.

  “Look, I’m not going to sugarcoat things for you. You were a danger to us. I meant what I said about not thinking you’re some psycho, but I have to be honest. When you don’t take your medicine, you put us all in danger. You’re paranoid and always itching for a fight. We can’t have you like that.”

  He ran his tongue over his teeth as he willed himself to not get angry.

  “Cruz, I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. I’m on your side.”

  “You’re my buddy, right?” He tried to smile, but even though he couldn’t see it he knew it came out ugly and mean, because that was what he felt.

  “We’re friends, yes.”

  “You’ll never see me as more, because of what I did.”

  “I’ll never see you as more because we’re in a store surrounded by dead people who want to eat us, and when we leave here we’ll be traveling among them,” she growled. “I already told you this. This isn’t some stupid show where people tackle really cool looking monsters and they throw in relationships and love scenes for ratings. This is real life and those type of relationships are stupid. I don’t want anyone else to die.”

  “I would never let you die.”

  “No, you wouldn’t, just like I would never let my sister die but she did anyway.” She started walking, her footfalls heavy, but then turned with her hands on her hips. “Honest answer, Cruz. If the zombies break in and we’re surrounded, what would your first priority be?”

  “Saving you.”

  She shook her head, mouth twisted in disappointment. “I won’t be the reason why someone else dies. Your first priority should be doing whatever it takes to keep all of us safe. That includes you.”

  “Raven.”

  “Just stop. Please. I care about you, Cruz. You guys are my family now and I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you, but I’m not going to have some sort of romantic relationship with you. I don’t want to care about any of you at all but I’ve already made that mistake. I’m not making any more.”

  She turned and walked away, leaving him standing alone, rejected. A hideous laugh bubbled up from inside him, deep within where his darkness dwelled. A laugh that he could shut up with pharmaceuticals. “Shut up,” he muttered as he retrieved his pills from his pocket. He glared at them with contempt before dry swallowing two.

  “The woman will save you,” a deep voice whispered as Hal seemed to float above the Wally’s Club aisles, observing the people inside its walls.

  He’d had these dreams before, and they always contained important messages so he paid attention, his physical body buzzing with excitement as his dream self hovered over the baby section.

  Kurt chewed at his restraints, his fang-like teeth ripping away at the knot in the rope he’d been secured to the column with. His eyes glowed crimson as red and orange fire swirled under his skin. Hoarse voices whispered to him, giving him instructions how to escape and what to do to the others once he broke free.

  One aisle over, Pimjai ran her fingers over a pair of baby booties as she rubbed a hand over her swollen belly. She winced as if in pain and looked at her hand, now covered in blood.

  Hal’s dream body violently plunged forward as aisles whizzed past him so quickly they became nothing more than blurs of color. He jerked to a stop as he flew through the manager’s office door to find Elijah digging furiously. The floor broken, he dug past to the earth beneath, flinging heaps of dark soil aside as he tried desperately to reach the body buried there. Hal saw a woman’s hand reaching from the half-dug grave. Gray in color and necrosis enveloping the index finger, he knew what had happened to the woman and he knew who she was.

  Hal lurched backward, as if being pulled by an invisible cord, not stopping until he reached the pharmacy. Carlos sat on the floor, hidden behind the shelves, a knife in one hand and a rosary in the other. Tears poured down his face as he weighed the two objects in his hands. Behind him, the same woman Elijah was trying to resurrect stood with her hands on his shoulders. A trail of tears spilled from her milky white eyes before her once pretty face contorted into a mask of horror and she bent down to eat her husband.

  Cruz stepped out from behind a shelf and shot her in the head, putting her down after she’d gotten her teeth into Carlos. The tortured actor walked out of the pharmacy and Hal’s dream self followed him, noting the monsters trailing in his wake. Figures made of black smoke and smelling of sulfur stayed close to his heels, desperately reaching out in attempt to cling to him. He popped pills in his mouth, and with each pill swallowed, the figures grew more transparent.

  He followed the man until a trio of girls caught his attention. They stood in the middle of the aisle, two of them holding an arm of a teddy bear between them. He watched in horror, his throat clogged, as they slowly deteriorated before his eyes. Their skin grayed and started rotting away as the color in their eyes bled into milky white.

  Janjai appeared behind them, a cross in her hand. Her hands shook, but with determination in her light brown eyes, she plunged the sharpened end
of the cross into Angela’s head before placing her hands on the other girls’ heads and crying. She suddenly stilled, turning behind her as her dead husband, Hank, approached with a belt. Her back started bleeding in lines before she screamed and ran away, a snarling Hank giving chase.

  Hal started to follow, but the sound of scuffling and cries of pain drew his attention farther in the aisles. He tracked the sound, finding Kurt and Damian rolling on the floor, blades in hand. Kurt snarled racial epithets as he threw punches. Damian, a scrapper, dodged most and delivered plenty of his own until Kurt withdrew a gun from thin air and shot Damian in the chest.

  Having killed Damian, Kurt ran down the aisles, manic desire in his eyes. He didn’t stop until he found Raven, sitting with the remaining girls who’d turned zombie. She brushed one’s hair as the other lay with her head resting in her lap. Tears rolled down Raven’s face but her mouth curved up in a smile.

  Behind her, Cruz growled.

  Kurt stood still, chest heaving and foam dripping from his thin lips, before pulling the gun back out. Cruz did the same. They simultaneously pulled their triggers.

  Time slowed as Raven shifted into a large black bird and rose into the air, catching both bullets through her body. She exploded in a cascade of feathers before reforming as an even larger bird. She flew to the rafters then dived at Kurt full speed. She plucked his eyes out and tore through his chest with a massive talon, crushing his heart before returning to her normal self.

  Hal still heard her screaming as he opened his eyes.

  Janjai gasped as she found Carlos’s bloody, beaten body sprawled across the store floor. From the puddles of blood on the floor and splashes along the items on the nearby shelves it was evident he’d put up a good fight.

  She kneeled down and closed his eyes before taking the machete out of his hand. She didn’t know who’d done this, or when. She didn’t even know how she’d gotten to that part of the store, but she did know her sister needed her.

  She crept down the aisles, heart hammering away, a deafening drumbeat in her ears, as she stayed alert for danger. She had no idea where Pimjai was in the huge store, and worse, she didn’t know who had killed Carlos or where that person was at.