“Felicity Jane,” I said. It all seemed like a dream that I had been involved with a celebrity I’d met along the way. Then again, flesh eating zombies had taken over the world, so everything seemed kinda like a dream.
“Don’t be shy,” Moto said. “She’s a great girl.”
“Is she still here?”
“She is. They tried to send her away to a clean zone when she refused to enlist, but she said she wasn’t leaving until she saw you. Apparently you made quite an impression on her.”
“What am I supposed to tell her?”
“Tell her the truth. Tell her you are not allowed to talk about it and all that matters is that you are here now, alive and well. She’ll understand.”
“Are they going to make her leave?”
“Under normal circumstances they would for sure,” he said. “As I said, this is an active military base. Strictly speaking there are no civilians here, aside from doctors and research assistants. I think we both know she’s no ordinary girl.”
“So you’re saying that they are looking the other way and letting her stay because she was a celebrity?”
“I’m not saying that,” he said, gesturing to the cameras again to remind me we were being watched.
“Then what are you saying?”
I could feel myself bristling at the suggestion that they were giving her special treatment because of who she was. I didn’t like the thought of people treating her like a trained monkey that was there to amuse them. She was a real person, and she deserved to be treated with dignity and respect. I could feel the blood pounding in my ears as my desire to protect her at all costs began to override my logic and reason. I didn’t even know what I was getting upset about.
“I’m saying that the higher-ups have decided for the time being that she is good for the troops’ morale,” he said. “You should be grateful. If she was just some girl you’d met on the road she’d be in the desert right now, probably working on a farm.”
“When can I see her?”
“Just as soon as we’ve put you through the enlistment process and sworn you in. In addition to your enrollment application, there is some extra paperwork they are going to want you to sign as well, mostly going over what we’ve talked about here and how you can’t repeat any of it without their permission.”
“What are we waiting for?” I began looking for the exit to the padded white room. I wanted to see Felicity as fast as I could. Moto stopped me and gave me a bear hug that lifted me clear off my feet. I could feel a pinch in my side where the wound was, but I didn’t complain.
“Glad to have you back, little brother.”
“Glad to be back in one piece.”
He gave me another big hug that nearly crushed the wind out of me, but I didn’t fight him. For the first time in a very long time, I felt like everything was finally going to be okay again.
Chapter Twenty Six
“So they’ve had a cure all this time and they don’t want anyone else to know about it?”
Felicity couldn’t stop rubbing my freshly shaved head. It felt good at first, but after about ten minutes it was starting to get on my nerves. She hadn’t stopped touching me since she caught sight of me crossing the base with Moto, on the way to get a batch of immunization shots. She’d been talking to a group of spellbound soldiers and stopped mid-sentence, jumping up and racing to throw herself into my arms. I had to practically pry her off the front of me, and when I did she showered me with kisses. Not that I minded, to be honest. I just didn’t expect her affection to last this long. I’d never saved a girl’s life before by trying to sacrifice myself. I didn’t know how long the effect lasted.
“Keep your voice down,” I whispered, looking around to make sure we weren’t being watched more than usual. “They warned me that I’m not allowed to tell anyone, even you.”
“But I was there,” she protested. “How did they expect to hide that from me?”
“I’m just letting you know what they said. They made me sign a stack of paperwork saying I wouldn’t talk about it. You’d have thought that there were camera units waiting outside to interview me or something. It was weird. Then the general congratulated me personally and gave me a medal of valor.”
I absentmindedly ran my fingers over the small medal pinned to the chest of my clean new uniform.
“What are they going to do? Arrest you?” She turned and wrapped her arms around me, putting her head on my shoulder.
“They could,” I said, nodding at some passing marines who couldn’t take their eyes off Felicity. “Technically speaking, they own me now. They can do whatever they want to me if I break the rules.”
“Moto would never allow it.” She shook her head.
We were sitting out near the mechanical generators, staring at the electric fence in the distance. Felicity had offered to give me a tour of the base after I got my shots and Moto had thought it was a good idea. He’d dashed off in a hurry, then caught up with us a few minutes later and gave me back my katana.
“Now that you are a soldier you can have this back,” he said. “We’ll get you a gun later as well but for now just make sure you don’t lose this again.”
The blade was shiny and clean. I could tell by its pristine condition that he’d spent time sharpening and oiling it while I was locked down in the loony bin. I turned the blade over in my hands.
After that, we’d gone to see Benji in the canteen. He’d practically jumped over the counter to greet us, giving me a big hug then standing back and saluting me when his superior officer chastised him.
“Look what I found,” he said in an excited, breathless voice as he held up a new comic book. “It’s the Justice League.”
“Glad to see nothing’s changed,” I teased him.
He didn’t try to ask me about the incident with Simon the Apache at the mall, and I was glad not to have to lie to him. Felicity on the other hand kept bringing it up until I cracked. One look in her sea foam eyes and I knew there was nothing I could keep from her. For the first time in my life I was in love.
“Moto doesn’t have as much power as you think,” I said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that he’s not going to be able to keep them from shipping you off to Vegas when the general gets tired of you distracting his men with all your charms.”
“I’m not distracting them,” she protested.
“Really?” I pointed off in the distance where a bunch of soldiers that had been sitting and watching us quickly turned and pretended to be working again. “Are you sure about that?”
“I can help out around here too, you know,” she pouted. “If that’s how it’s going to be then I will enlist like you did. Is that what you want?”
“No. Honestly I don’t. There is no guarantee that they’d let you stay here at this base even if you did join up. You’d be completely at their mercy. In all likelihood, they’d send you off to the clean zone to supervise civilians and we’d be right back where we started.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” she purred, leaning over and planting a kiss on my cheek that I could feel through my whole body. In the distance I heard one of the men whistle.
“There is another way,” I said sheepishly, the words turning to sand in my mouth.
“What is it?”
“We could get married,” I offered, unable to look at her. “If you were my wife then they would have to let you stay with me here. They wouldn’t be able to separate us.”
I turned and faced her. She looked like she was fighting back tears.
Cat’s out of the bag, I thought. No going back now.
“Listen,” I said, “I know we are both young but the world has changed. People used to get married at our age back when life was shorter, younger even. I can’t imagine losing you again. I don’t want to be separated. It’s the only way.”
My heart beat hard in my chest. I hadn’t felt this afraid taking on a zombie horde. It felt like an eternity without wor
ds. I wished I had died for real as I waited for her response. For a moment I thought the embarrassment of her impending rejection might just do the trick and finish me off.
“Are you serious?”
I looked her dead in the eyes. I couldn’t read her reaction. Her gaze was intense and unblinking as it met mine.
“Yes,” I said. “I am. I don’t know what it is about you, but you’ve been under my skin from the minute you threatened to kill me with a shotgun. What can I say? I love you, Felicity Jane. Will you marry me?”
I didn’t have to wait long for her reply this time. She threw her arms around my neck again and began crying on me. She squeezed me tight and then pulled back and kissed my neck over and over.
“So is that a yes?”
“Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!”
I felt a wave of relief wash over me. Felicity pulled back and I kissed her hard on the mouth. It was amazing. I couldn’t wait to be able to tell Moto. The base had a working chapel. We’d have the ceremony there with a small group of my brother’s friends, the general perhaps, and Benji, of course. Felicity could get a job on the base and we’d see each other at night after I was done with my training and rounds. Things weren’t so bad after all. Everything was finally going to be okay.
I leaned in and kissed her again, feeling that amazing sensation of time standing still as our lips touched for a thrilling few seconds. Loud air sirens wailed and pulled us from our perfect moment. They echoed off every side of the base. Standing up, we could see what looked like a huge dust cloud in the distance heading straight our way. After a moment it became clear that there were thousands of people out in the distance moving toward the base at a slow, steady pace.
“Is that what I think it is?” There was a note of wonder and awe in her voice as she spoke.
“Yep,” I said matter-of-factly. “It’s a massive zombie horde. The biggest I’ve ever seen.”
“What do we do now?”
“Now,” I said, reaching out and taking her hand in mine so that our fingers laced together, “we fight.” I held my blade in my free hand and watched in awe as the first wave of the dead crashed through the electric fence and began slowly pressing forward in our direction.
-The End-
Zombie Attack: Curse of the Living
by Devan Sagliani
Laughing Crow Media copyright © 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Cover art by Christian Bentulan
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.
Chapter One
The last thing I remember was Felicity gripping my hand tight as a wild horde, the size of several thousand mobs put together, came charging through the electric fence at Port Hueneme – charging straight toward us! The sparse seconds before this, when Felicity had agreed to marry me, had been the happiest moments of my life. Now we were about to be overrun by the living dead. Overrun and eaten alive.
Happiness is a fleeting thing in this new world, I reminded myself. You've got to enjoy every second of it; you never know how long it will last.
The air raid sirens wailed piercingly over our heads as brave soldiers charged forward; weapons in hand, ready to take on the enemy. The sound of automatic gunfire reached our ears in the form of tiny pops, like the rattle of a snare drum, as the wind pushed it in our direction, bringing with it the rank smell of decomposing flesh. I could hear the high-pitched screams of a soldier, over all the rest of the yelling, as he fell victim to one of the gruesome monsters heading our way. The muscles in my stomach tightened as I recalled the fear and dread that filled my mind immediately after being bitten by a zombie.
That was only a week ago, I thought. It felt more like a lifetime away. I'd been sure I wasn't ever going to be coming back. I certainly didn't think I'd get to see my brother, Moto, again, or Felicity's beautiful face and mesmerizing eyes. I had slipped into a psychedelic nightmare that left me feeling like I was floating out of my body in an endlessly surreal landscape – and I had no way of knowing it was the effect of an antidote they'd given me.
If there is an antidote to a Zombie bite, then there is an end to this terrible world, I thought. There is a way to fix things. All it will take is time, and the efforts of soldiers willing to fight to restore things to the way they used to be.
It was a distant dream and one I might not live to see at that point, given the wave of rotting corpses coming to rip my new fiancé and me to shreds.
A fleet of Jeeps rushed past us at high speed, straight to the center of the conflict. I could make out several high-ranking officers in the back of each vehicle as they sped head first into chaos. They turned at the very last minute, and began barking orders at the soldiers from a distance of over a hundred feet away. I started to make my move forward again, but Felicity squeezed my hand tightly to hold me back.
“What?”
“Just wait a minute,” she pleaded.
I could feel a ball of energy building up inside my chest, like a wild animal waiting to claw its way out. Every fiber of my being wanted to charge into the battle, swinging my sword and taking down as many of the undead as I could. It was only her gentle touch that held me at bay.
“Something is happening,” Felicity said. “Look!”
She raised her free hand and pointed toward the conflict. She was right. The Jeeps were now heading back in our direction. The soldiers were turning and running at us. Felicity gulped. I was frozen in place as they advanced on us.
What is going on? Why are we giving up so easily?
I felt the ripple of the ground first, as the dust and rocks at our feet began to shimmer. A millisecond later the air seemed to punch through me, knocking us both off our feet. Felicity landed on top of my chest. My head bounced hard off the ground, as the back of my skull slammed against the earth. There was an earsplitting explosion that caused the world to lurch, leaving me completely disoriented. The flash of light reached us last, a giant fireball blooming skyward toward the heavens, followed by a wall of sound like low thunder undulating across the military base.
The air grew hot as bits of earth and rotting flesh rained down on us. A resounding ring stung my ears. I gagged on the nauseating mist of death hanging in the air, gasping desperately for a breath of fresh air. Felicity leaned over me, screaming at the top of her lungs, but it sounded like she was whispering. My head throbbed as I moved, a tight pain pulling at my temples. I turned in the direction of the battle, but everything in the distance was fuzzy. The more I tried to bring it into focus, the sharper the pain grew in my head. Felicity turned my face to hers once more. There were two of her for some reason. I couldn't hold the image clearly. She was smiling, but silent tears rolled down her face and onto mine as she kissed me over and over again. I reached up to wipe her tears from my face, but at the same time I felt something wet running down my lips and drooling out of my nose. I held my hand up to see the bright red blood. There was so much of it. Cold panic shot through me. I tried to stand up too quickly and the world bent around me, savagely twisting like a melting painting by Salvador Dali. It took everything in me not to fall back down again. The pain in my head was excruciating and completely overwhelming. Each step felt like a sledgehammer ringing out a loud blow on white-hot sheet metal in my mind. My heart fluttered in my chest like a trapped sparrow as my breath left me. I was falling head first, slipping away into unconsciousness, and I couldn't stop it. The world began to grow dark, and once more I was pulled under into the heavy weight of oblivion as I felt my limbs connect with the ground. I plummeted deeper into the darkness until there was nothing left at all.
Chapter Two
I woke with a start from my sleep. Felicity twitched,
but didn't get up. She was used to my night terrors. They no longer freaked her out. I wasn't the only person, post apocalypse, who had trouble with bad dreams. Far from it. Some nights, the crying and screaming coming from different parts of camp were like the cackle calls of crows in a graveyard at dawn. You learned to adapt to new circumstances quickly, or you simply didn't survive. What once seemed unimaginable was now fairly commonplace. The bottom line was, you either got with the program or you got eaten. There was no other way.
A little part of your mind stayed alert, even when you were sleeping – just in case. Eventually you figured out the difference between the cries of a disturbed dream versus the shrill shriek of real danger. It took Felicity less than three months to sleep through nearly everything the camp threw at us, including me.
I turned and watched her sleep. She looked so happy, so beautiful, so at peace in her dream world.
If only that were the truth in our new lives, I thought with a smirk.
Things hadn't really gone according to plan since finding Moto in Hueneme. I remembered how scared I was to ask Felicity to marry me, how absolutely terrified I'd been that she'd laugh in my face. I hadn't been that afraid of the undead. Then after she’d agreed, after we'd kissed and time had stopped, something far more impossible had happened – the largest zombie horde I'd ever seen had breached the walls of the military base. I hadn't been thinking clearly at the time. Maybe it was her kiss, filling me up, making me feel invincible. Who knows? I'd jumped up ready to rush into action, but she'd held me back.
Turns out my new boss, General Conrad, was much more prepared after what had happened at Vandenberg. Just inside the walls, no less than a hundred feet onto the base, he'd had men dig deep trenches and load them with explosives rigged to go off by remote control. By the time the first wave of zoms had knocked down the electric fences, his finger was already on the trigger. Standard protocol for an invasion meant sending in troops to fight, but the General could see what we couldn't see from the ground – the horde spanned an enormous distance and was made up of thousands of the hungry dead. The General got on the radio and called back the troops, knowing he had only moments to secure the base or be overrun. There was no time for a warning. It was act fast or let us all die. He flipped the switch the second the soldiers had cleared the minimal safety distance, knocking most of them off their feet, including me. A terrible rain of decaying, infected body parts hung in the air like a cloud before falling back to earth and covering us all. In the chaos we were momentarily blinded and left helpless, but his plan had worked. What we couldn't see was the huge trench the explosions had ripped open that now swallowed up the rest of the flood of the unholy spawn as they tried to advance.
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