by Gillian Zane
Contents
Dedication
A PARAJUNKEE PUBLISHING eBOOK
Run - Book 1
Quote
ONE | Rick the IT Guy
TWO | Strong, Independent Women Need Not Apply
THREE | Preppers Ain’t So Crazy After All
FOUR | Orgasms in the Apocalypse
FIVE | Reality Sucks Ass
SIX | Amazing is as Amazing Does
SEVEN | Aim for the Head
EIGHT | Cheerful Yellow Walls
NINE | Shock and Oh Baby
TEN | Domestic Goddess
ELEVEN | Ex-Wives and Humvees
TWELVE | Uma, Reese and Zombie Roadkill
THIRTEEN | Hope and a Tugboat
FOURTEEN | Fortune Doesn’t Favor the Bold
FIFTEEN | Swampland and Wind-Turbines
SIXTEEN | Open Doors
SEVENTEEN | Everything Good Comes…
EIGHTEEN | Asshole
To my darling husband, one day you
will read my books. Be warned.
A PARAJUNKEE PUBLISHING eBOOK
RUN. Copyright © 2015 by Gillian Zane. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Cover Design by Rachel Rivera
Editing by Raw Books Editing Services
gillianzane.blogspot.com
[email protected]
::: created in the USA :::
ONE | Rick the IT Guy
The zombie apocalypse was really fucking with my head. One minute I was at my job, sucking up to my new boss – don’t judge, I didn’t want to be on the next list of layoffs– then in the next moment I’m running for my life with Rick the IT guy in full zombie brain-eater mode after my ass.
Lucky for me, I chose to wear my flats instead of those new Gucci studded platform monstrosities I bought on impulse last weekend because my new boss is a ridiculously short, insecure douche-bag. He can’t look up to a girl, so I make sure that I wear flats so he stares at my tits. We both win. My shoe choice literally saved my life. If boss man wasn’t a little Napoleon, I would be pushing up daisies, or looking for my own brains to snack on.
Who would have thought this was the way the shit would hit the metaphorical fan? ZombieBob205 from the prepper forum that I frequented must be laughing his ass off at this moment. We all thought he was a lunatic. Who believes zombies will one day descend on the world and end it? We, being the “normal” preppers were all focused on polar shifts and EMP blasts. Now I feel like the dipshit for going with EMP. I wish I would have paid more attention to ZombieBob205. I know he posted a list of the best weapons for a zombie attack but I just couldn’t remember it.
“An ax!” I screamed as I ran into the stairwell and slammed the door behind me. There was an ax in that emergency box in this stairwell, somewhere. Rick slammed into the other side of the door but it was one of those fireproof doors, it would hopefully hold. I turned around, ignoring the pounding and moaning coming from the other side. I had to find that red box of awesome. I looked around frantically, but there was nothing here. I knew it was somewhere, I had passed it every day when I was on my “Get Fit Take the Stairs” movement. I rushed down another flight of stairs and there it was!
“Alexis, you’re a genius” I praised myself for positive reinforcement and hurried over to it, slamming the conveniently provided stick into the glass and pulling out the ax, brandishing it in triumph. I had never held something so wonderful.
The next thing on the agenda was getting to my car. My car had everything in it. The parking garage had to be empty, right? It was a Saturday and there were only a few die-hard workers in the building, escaping should be a breeze.
“Why, of all things, a fucking zombie apocalypse?” I whispered as I made my way down the next flight of stairs. My brain kept flashing back to Rick and his desperate attempt to eat my face. He had come in late, claiming he was in a road rage conflict and the guy in the other car had gone crazy and bit him. I thought it was hilarious at the time. But I wasn’t laughing when Rick suddenly went gray and tried to bite me while I was diligently updating a spreadsheet.
Rick was always an inappropriate loser, but he didn’t deserve his new undead status. But, maybe he was the lucky one - because there was no telling what I was about to face. Global financial collapses, EMP blasts, super volcano explosions…those were child’s play compared to your neighbors trying to eat your face.
I couldn’t dwell on negativity. I had to make it out of this. I had to get to my car. Survival mode. I glanced at the exit door. I was on the 10th floor, my car was parked on the second, I would have to go through the second floor lobby to get to the parking garage exit and then I didn’t know what I would find when I got into the garage. My building was located in downtown New Orleans and in the height of summer there weren’t that many people out and about, but there would still be a good bit of tourists and some die-hard business people like me.
Zombies. Shit. I could do this.
The hard part would be getting from downtown to the outlying suburb of Metairie where my house was located. I had to get home. In my house there was food, weapons and my dog Charlie.
I needed to pick up the pace. I made it down those stairs in record time and was breathing heavily by the time I got to the door marked 2nd floor. I took a few deep breaths, preparing myself for whatever was about to happen. There might be someone out there, that someone just might be dead. That person I might happen to know, and if they were dead I was going to have to stick this ax in their head. Headshots. I knew that one from horror movies. Fuck ZombieBob205, I got this. Who needed his stupid posts about optimal zombie attire? Not me. Shit, I sure hope these dickwads follow conventional zombie tropes.
“Okay, one, two…” I pushed the door open, holding the ax in a death grip. There were no moaning hordes waiting for me, in fact it was dead quiet. I crept to the glass balcony and peered down to the first-floor lobby. There was no one. The security guard that sat at the big round desk in the center, day after day, wasn’t even in her customary spot. I couldn’t get a good look at the front doors, but the quiet was telling in itself.
A loud clatter from behind me destroyed any semblance of peace, and I swung around in a panic to face whomever or whatever made that sound. I didn’t see anyone, but from what I could tell the noise came from the office located in the central area of the floor. It was what everyone called “the fish tank” because the office was all glass and the poor employees had to work with the entire building walking past them to get to the parking garage. Creeping closer, I noticed there was a woman in there and she was alive.
“Thank God,” I breathed and pushed open the door to her office. She was trying to make a phone call and in her frustration had knocked over some files, the source of the clatter. I recognized her from brief conversations in the lunch line and a few building block parties. I couldn’t remember her name though.
“I can’t get anyone. Have you seen the news? This is insane.” She looked up at me desperately and motioned to the television. “I can’t believe my boss made me come in. I knew this virus was spreading. I should have told him to go fuck himself.”
On the television a local news anchor was on the balcony that surrounded the news station in the French Quarter, not too far from where my building was located. I didn’t recognize her, but it was a local channel that I watched regularly. She was out of breath,
eyes wide and the camera kept jerking from the anchor to mass amounts of people running and screaming in the streets of the Quarter.
“As you can see from what is going on in the streets below me, the iKPV disease that has plagued New York City and Miami has now come to New Orleans. The disease has been called the zombie plague by the media, and from what I’m witnessing they could not have named it better. Oh my God, are you seeing this…get in on this…” She must have been talking to the cameraman because the picture zoomed in on two people wrestling on the ground in the streets below. The one on top was the same gray color that Rick was. The person on the bottom looked like a cook because I could see his white and black checkered pants, they were currently flailing as the man tried to defend himself against the attack.
When the camera zoomed even closer it was obvious there was no helping the cook since he was being eaten alive by the guy on top of him. There was blood everywhere and the man was screaming. He was in so much pain, I’ve never heard anything like the sounds he was making.
“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.” I had forgotten the girl behind me who was apparently about to have a panic attack. Her sudden surge for the garbage can had her pushing past me, alerting me to her presence. I wish I could distract myself with my own vomiting, but it was a no-go and I was stuck watching more of the terrible footage as the cameraman still remained focused on the cook being eat alive. The man had finally gone still, blood pooling around him on the cobblestone streets, the zombie on top of him ripping at the flesh of his stomach, like a big cat feasting on the intestines of an antelope.
“The reports about small outbreaks and hardly any fatalities from the government are obviously wrong because this is not a small outbreak and that man down there was just eaten. EATEN!” The camera pulled back and focused on the reporter. The reporter’s face was flushed and she looked like she might have hurled herself as her mouth had a few chunks of something vile around it and her hair was a mess.
“We at WYUI are urging our viewing audience to seek shelter and…” The broadcast cut out and was replaced with a blue screen and some ridiculous high-pitched sound.
“We should probably go to a safe place. I don’t think it’s safe here, the French Quarter is only a few minutes from this building.” I told the girl next to me.
“Yeah, home. I should go home, you’re Alexis right? From the 14th floor?” She asked, switching topics.
“Yeah, that’s me. Home. Good idea. You want to go to the garage together?” I suggested. “Grab your purse, and do you have something you can use as a weapon? A stick, or maybe a big knife?”
“Pepper spray.” She shook her head and shrugged.
“I don’t think that is going to be very effective. C’mon, let’s get out of here.” I went to the door and she followed me.
We double-timed it to the entrance of the parking garage. My car was right there, so close. We could do this.
Pushing the door open slowly resulted in a loud screech that had me gritting my teeth. I heard the sound of feet almost immediately. The pace wasn’t fast and my heart sank at what I knew was coming. There was a shadow to the right of me and it was heading in our direction. Only one, but at the speed it was going, it would intercept us before we got to our cars.
“Oh my God!” My new friend gasped as it became obvious that it was the security guard and she didn’t look good at all. Her shirt was torn open and it looked like her intestines were hanging from her protruding belly. She was covered in blood, and half of her face was a mess of swollen flesh and hanging meat. She was coming directly at us in a weird shuffle step that was faster than I would have expected.
“Where is your car?” I hissed at the girl.
“Over there.” She said pointing to where she was parked on the opposite side of the garage.
“Go, run.”
“I can’t just leave you.”
“Yes, you can. I have an ax. Go home. Survive.” She made no more arguments. She took off and the zombie made to follow but I whistled and called, “Come on, you nasty bitch!” And her horrendous, bleeding eyes focused back on me. I took a step forward and took one swing at her, the ax coming down hard on her neck. She was short so it worked well for me. The girl’s head came clean off of her body. I had no idea I had the upper body strength to do that.
I should have ran then, but I couldn’t stop staring at the decapitated head. The thing was still alive! Its mouth was working, its teeth were chomping, and its eyes were rolling around, looking for me. “Ermagawd, that is messed up,” I hissed. I took the ax and planted it directly into the zombie’s brain.
The zombie didn’t move after that.
“Hell yeah, something went right.”
Headshots. Go for the brain. I heard the peel of tires as my friend sped out of the garage. I decided that was a very good idea and booked it to my car. Time to get the fuck out of here.
TWO | Strong, Independent Women Need Not Apply
My building was located on Poydras Avenue in downtown New Orleans, near the Warehouse District. I managed to speed out of the garage and make it Uptown and not interact with anyone living or dead. That all changed the moment I turned down Tchoupitoulas Street. There was just no other way out of the area. It was either turn around and head back into the outskirts of the French Quarter or through Uptown, via Tchoupitoulas or St. Charles Avenue, both congested and highly trafficked areas. Why couldn’t I work in the ‘burbs by my house?
People were driving like lunatics; they were driving on the wrong side of the road to avoid hitting people that were wandering in the middle of the road. I assumed those people were more zombies since they were walking like they were drunk and had little concern for passing cars. Zombies or people in shock. Who knows? I wasn’t going to stop and ask them if they were dead. There were also groups of people in packs walking in a shuffling gait that were obviously of the zombie persuasion. These groups were prowling along the sidewalks, speeding up when they saw movement. I watched as one of those packs spotted a man as he got out of his car to run into a corner grocery store. The pack sped up their pace and I prayed the man made it inside in time. What was he thinking? As I watched, he made it in, but the pack surrounded the door, banging on it like irate rioters.
How would he get out now?
Not my problem.
Traffic in front of me had slowed to a crawl and I watched in horror as one car didn’t stop at the cross street and slammed into another, spinning it into a third car. Chaos erupted. A man got out of his car and went to the car that had run the stop sign to offer assistance. Being a Good Samaritan didn’t work well in this new zombie world. The moment he opened her door to try and help her get out, she jumped at him and sank her teeth into his neck. I had never seen as much blood in my life as I was seeing today.
There was blood everywhere. It was spurting from the man like in a bad B-movie flick. My stomach heaved. The world was crumbling and there was nothing I could do about it except to watch in horror.
If people weren’t freaking out before, they were now in full on riot mode. The zombie pack moved away from the front of the store and started weaving in-between the cars. Some drivers began hitting them with their cars, but they just got back up, broken legs hobbling them but not stopping them. The sight of them getting back up and dragging their broken limbs behind them further exacerbated the fight or flight mentality that was gripping the crowded street. A few terror-stricken people ran from their cars, only to be jumped upon by the dead. The lady in the car next to me was panicking, she was screaming her ever-loving head off. She slammed on her gas and ran into the car in front of her, trying to move the traffic forward by sheer force of will, and car. She was in a little sedan and it only aided in fucking up the car in front of her and causing her car to stall.
Fucking idiot.
Her actions started a chain reaction of stupidity and the final result − no one was going anywhere. I was screwed. This traffic wasn’t moving. Other cars were trying to force their way thr
ough but it was just making a big mess. People were running through the streets, trying to break into the businesses and homes in the area. One car rode up on the sidewalk until he slammed into a post, ending that little genius attempt at escape. Another path blocked.
I had to find a way out and it didn’t look like I would be driving my way home. I thought maybe I could pull into one of the warehouses that ran along the river, or I could run the levee all the way home, I just wasn’t too hip on making that trek on foot. I wanted metal around me, you couldn’t bite through metal.