“We sent Bethany, Dave and his wife there, thinking there might be a problem. I’m sure they’re tending to him. We saw the flames from the camp,” Craig said.
Julie was to herself now, and asked to sit up. Ben crawled into her lap, barely fitting around her baby bump. Luke hugged them both, and Tara closed her eyes in relief. She was anxious to see Lee and prayed he’d be alright as well. I’ve got to get back to him.
“Thank you Tara, Jake,” Julie said. They sat for a moment, watching the barn burn until Ben suddenly blurted, “Hey, the baby kicked me.” Julie and Luke laughed, and the others joined in.
Life goes on, as Clyde used to say.
Jake and Tara climbed in the nearest van and headed back to Lee, leaving the others to transport Julie and Ben and tend to the fire.
Epilogue
Tara and Mary walked along the road at the edge of town, past the heap of ash, blackened timber, and brick that used to be Old Town Winery. Mary still had a slight limp, but for the most part, had recovered nicely from the copperhead bite. Lee was walking now too, but still dealing with the after effects of a concussion. More than once Tara had thought how badly the poor guy had been beaten up in the past six months—Ebola, broken leg and surgery, concussion—thank God he was okay.
Julie and Ben were fine, her pregnancy still viable and healthy. The antibiotic tea and ointment was being used on all the others with Morgellons Syndrome now too. Group hunts for wild honey had been initiated, and Chester and Norma were teaching beekeeping to them all. They would never be without the means to make their own natural antibiotics now. Not all the tainted wine had been recovered, but most had.
The women stared into the ruins, Tara remembering how Craig had retrieved the bones of Brenner and Morgan from the ash. But they’d found more than just two skeletons. Two other small skulls told of horrific experiments or God knew what else Brenner must have done there.
The men took on the awful task of disinterring the graveyard in the woods, and Tara and friends had attended the service at the town cemetery, reburying the unknown people found there. Fittingly, Brenner and Morgan’s charred bones were buried in their place, in the former graveyard in the forest. It suited everyone—no one wanted the evil men resting among their loved ones.
“I’ll never understand, I guess,” Tara said wistfully.
“No one will. I think you’d have to live it to understand that kind of deviance. There were things done to them, and by them, that I’m sure we will never know.”
Mary walked over to the fence along the other side of the road as Tara stood staring at the ruins, brows knitted.
“Hey, the black raspberries are ripe!” Mary called.
Tara shook off the darkness threatening to overtake her. “Just in time for the fourth of July picnic!” Tara said, rousing herself from her gloomy thoughts.
She turned her back on the pile of ash and the bad memories it brought.
Yes indeed, life goes on. And where there’s life, there’s hope.
~
Tara’s Diary
July 1, 2016
I can honestly say we are true survivors. We’ve survived more in this past year than in all the years that came before. I’ve learned the human spirit is hard to kill—it survives to the bitter end. Kill the body maybe, but you can never kill the spirit. That’s where hope resides.
No one knows where Meyers went. To be honest, I owe him. The fact that he didn’t kill Lee when he could have, that speaks volumes—there’s something still human left in him I guess. Not so with Brenner and Morgan. I think even Meyers may have finally recognized that much. Anyway, as long as he goes his way and we go ours, I can be good with that. It’s all good, as the kids say.
I thought about making another shortcake for the fourth of July picnic this weekend. But then we found black raspberries! So, I’m going to surprise Lee with a raspberry cobbler. My mouth’s watering just thinking about it—and hey, maybe some ghetto-fudge? Sure, why not, go for the sugar overload.
Life is good.
The End
Read on for a free sample of Zombie Inc,
About the author
Debra Robinson is a professional musician and author. Her first two books, A Haunted Life and The Dead are Watching are both nonfiction paranormal. Debra also writes paranormal suspense. Her Shadows and Light series, Sarah’s Shadows and Sarah’s Sight, are best described as The Stand meets the afterlife. The Haunting of Black Tower Mansion is a dark horror novel soon to be released. Red Death is about surviving an apocalyptic worldwide pandemic, with book two, Red Death Survivors, continuing the story. Debra is currently finishing a regional book on hauntings for History Press.
www.DebraRobinson.net
Prologue
“Look at it! Look! At! IT!”
Carl looked to where the angry homeowner–clad only in an open bathrobe and loose boxers–pointed. Not that Carl needed the direction. The problem was plenty obvious.
Two legs waved sluggishly from a sewer grate in the curb.
“Yessir, I see it,” Carl said, and propped his hands on his hips. He hadn’t brought the trainee with him from the car. Not yet. He wanted to get a good rapport with the homeowner and an audience or any show of bureaucracy about to swing into action would only infuriate the man further. “Did the collar not pop him at all or don’t you know?” Carl smiled a puzzled half-smile. An ‘I’m just doing my job here, buddy’ smile.
“I don’t know,” the homeowner said on an outrushing sigh as his shoulders relaxed. “I came out this morning to get the paper and saw him kicking around in there.”
Carl and the homeowner turned their gazes back to the legs. A low moan issued from the grate, echoing and lost. It still had its head. That much was obvious. They couldn’t groan like that without their heads.
“Well, you were lucky. I can tell you that,” Carl said. He scratched his ribs and nodded thoughtfully. He made some notes on the clipboard. This was a nice neighborhood, at least one in every five or six houses still standing. This guy was either government or he worked at one of the power companies.
“Don’t I know it! Sucker coulda come right after me if it hadn’t tumbled into the sewer there. I was hardly awake!” This time, the homeowner’s squawk was excited, a ‘can you believe it? I can’t believe it!’ exclamation.
“Huh. You were lucky for sure. No question about it,” Carl said. Big house, landscaped nice. Plenty of money here. Good grid system, expensive. The houses on either side and across the street were burned to the ground. Anything unoccupied after the plague had been demolished to control infestation and looting.
Three more zombies stood in the front yard, spaced out like checker pieces. They moaned and swayed, their attention fixed on the two men. One quarter of the yard was conspicuously empty.
“Well, let me get this written up and taken care of for you,” Carl said. “How’s the rest of the system been? You’ve had it–what? Six months or so? Any problems?” He liked to ask this to remind customers that there were, in fact, very few occurrences of this nature.
The homeowner shrugged. “Nope, no problems. Wife hates it, but…” He shrugged again. His belly, a pugnacious basketball, rose and fell. “The ladies are a little soft sometimes. You know. They don’t understand security as well. That’s why I made sure we got all menzies.” A small, unconscious moue of disgust crossed the guy’s face, and Carl understood it. He and the homeowner were probably about the same age, early fifties. Same generation, at least. Some of the terms nowadays: menzies, womzies, kidzies…there was something decidedly wrong with a term almost of endearment associated with those shuffling monstrosities. “She didn’t even want us to have guns in the house much less these here yard zombies.”
Carl nodded in sympathy, but of course, his thoughts went to Annie, his wife. He’d lost her twenty-six years ago now, in the first wave. She’d been so young. They’d all been so young.
Carl shook off the thought and put his hand out. “I’ll be in tou
ch, but take my card. My scan code is right there. Call if they haven’t set you back up in a few hours.”
“Well, thank you. Thanks. I’ll do that.” The homeowner pulled his bathrobe together and bent to retrieve the paper. He went up the driveway, whistling. The remaining zombies–one on one side and two on the other–tracked his progress with their hungry, empty eyes.
Newspaper, Carl thought. Guy must have the big bucks. Probably a government worker, then. Four yard zombies just in the front? Most likely eight out back. Totally unnecessary, but that’s overzealous sales for you. Maybe Candy. She’d be just this guy’s type. He probably hadn’t been able to get his nose from the woman’s cleavage long enough to say no. Course, he wasn’t one of the millionaires, the really high-ups. Those people all had Ze Sheds. Much more attractive than having corpses standing around your yard twenty-four seven. At least with Ze Shed, you could put the damn things away once in a while.
Not that anyone was having garden parties.
Not anymore.
Carl grinned and went to retrieve the trainee and the clipboard. Hopefully, the kid had brains enough to do some of the prelim paperwork. Most likely not, though.
Trainees weren’t known for their overabundance of brains.
ONE
Ze Popper!®
Zombie, Inc., introduces the newest in home security with Ze Popper!® line of defensive containment. Keep your home safe with your own personal army of the dead! Robbers will move along when they see you’re protected by ZI mobile corpses.
A discreet system of lasers is installed around your property to create fixed and/or flexible boundaries. They are custom-matched to your yard size, lifestyle, and budget. You can set the system up in zones, or simply surround the perimeter (if you are using in conjunction with Ze Shed® system).
Your zombie(s) come completely trained. A tone accompanied by a charge alert your zombie(s) to the presence of the laser boundary–factory conditioning keeps them in!* Zones can be cleared for homeowner access with the in-home control pad or Ze Panic!® mobile remote.
You’ll sleep in comfort when you have the Zombie, Inc., Ze Popper!® system securing your worldly goods!
*A permanent collar of small charges instantly decapitates any collared zombie that wanders over the laser line, rendering the zombie harmless** to you and your family. Simply contact your Zombie, Inc., representative via their customer care scan code and the team of Zombie, Inc., Recovery Specialists will take over.
**A beheaded zombie could potentially pose a threat if you come in close contact with its mouth. Keep children and pets away from a decapitated zombie, and DO NOT attempt containment yourself. The ZI team of Recovery Specialists is here for YOU!
All warranties implied or written become void if system is not installed by Zombie, Inc., licensed and certified contractors. For a list of ZI Ze Popper!® and Ze Shed® installation specialists, please use the scan code in this brochure under “CONTRACTORS”. For general questions or to set up a free, in-home, no obligation consultation, simply use the scan code under “TELL ME MORE!”
_ _ _
The SUV was a Mazda Zecon with black-tinted windows and a complete black wrap with the Zombie, Inc., logo on each side in white, an Assessment Team scan code on each door panel, and a photo-realistic, life-sized horde of zombies plastered across the entire back. Classy, Carl thought and popped the passenger door open. The trainee sat in the driver’s seat, wide eyed and shaking. She had a small Ze Cross!® gas canister crossbow and bolt trained unsteadily on Carl’s head.
Carl raised his eyebrows. “Don’t get out much, Dillalia?”
She lowered the bow and breathed out a long, shaky whistle of air. She smiled, but even the smile was tentative. Carl had come to believe that people of Dillalia’s generation were hardened, insensitive. Not this one, though. She was smallish, not more than five four. Thin but strong looking and neatly turned out in the ZI Assessment Team uniform of white button-down Oxford, and tan khakis. It was an old-fashioned outfit, a throwback to the ’20s and before, when service-people in many fields wore such things. Of course, Carl remembered when men (mostly) had worn them in earnest. It hadn’t been a uniform back then, it had just been business casual.
“It’s ze-cedure, though,” Dillalia said. Her tone was questioning. She was looking for confirmation, instruction. “It’s right in the handbook to be on the defensive when you’re in the wild.”
Carl snorted and slid heavily into the passenger seat. “The wild, huh? That what you kids are calling it these days, Dill?” He shook his head. “That meant something entirely different when I was your age.”
“Right, I know. Jungles and stuff.”
Carl snorted again. “Well, kind of. Not really, though.” He shot her a look. “And please don’t call it ‘ze-cedure’ again. Just call it ‘procedure’–call it what it is. Believe me, all the ‘ze’ this and ‘ze’ that is not going to catch on if it hasn’t yet.”
“But the handbook–”
“The handbook is ninety-nine percent crap once you’re in the field,” Carl said. “File it away for the information regarding health care and whatever, but I’ll tell you one thing right now that will help us get along–don’t contradict me with handbook bullshit. Okay?”
Dill nodded, her face untroubled but intent, and Carl wondered what his reputation at ZI had become. Of course, everyone in Field Assessment was considered a little bit of a loose cannon. Assessment was the front line, the ones who left the safety of the ZI compound to do the dirty work. Assessment decided next steps, further measures and compensation. It took a lot of training, a lot of practice. There had been two trainees before Dill that hadn’t made it. One dead, one quit, and they both went against Carl’s record. It wasn’t bad over the course of a career to lose one or two, even four or five depending on how long you were training and the adversity of your territory, but to lose two in a row had been bad luck.
There was every possibility that Dill, herself, was Assessment, too–Employee Assessment–the most hated and feared group in ZI.
“Scan for the Wranglers,” Carl said. Time to get down to business. “We’ve got a menzie stuck head first in a sewer grate.”
“Collared or…?”
“Yep, pretty sure. Not popped from what I can tell. One Wrangler truck is enough.”
Dill flipped down the visor and touched the corner of her eye. A laser bloomed from the small scanner tucked next to her eyelid, and she trained it on the code under WRAN. A blip came from the vicinity of her ear, and she touched her earlobe lightly with two fingertips. “This is FA 12382, and we are requesting one Wrangler truck. Location broadcast.”
“Okay, Field Assessment, Wrangler truck on the way.” The automated voice was good, very close to human, but there was always a hitch when it switched. “Is this containment?”
Dill glanced at Carl and without looking up from his clipboard, shook his head. “It’s already contained itself,” he said, muttering distractedly. “There’s nothing to panic over.”
“No,” Dill answered the voice and removed her finger from her earlobe, ending the call. “What’s next? Do we go wait out near the one in the gutter?”
“Christ, no,” Carl said. “We wait until the Wranglers–” Carl shuddered, “–get here.”
“Are they really that bad?”
Carl raised his eyebrows at her. “You haven’t seen the Wranglers yet? No? Well, they’re just, you know, different. Not as bad as the Cleaners, but you wouldn’t want to hang out with Wranglers on a regular basis.”
“I’ve heard that about them.”
“Okay, so, procedure, see here? This form? This is the first one filled out. Always. On site and in front of a homeowner if it’s regarding a defect or perceived defect in a system.”
“Assess first, though, right?”
“Yeah, well, shit, of course. You have to assess to be able to fill the damn thing out.”
Dill nodded again, unperturbed, her eyes on the clipboard. Carl
swallowed his impatience. It was his own fault. He wasn’t explaining things right, and also, she hadn’t been with him. How would she know?
Okay, so he was a little rattled. There seemed to be more riding on her success because it impacted his.
“Listen, Dill, I could tell from the guy’s tone when he called that it would be a bad idea to give him an audience. You’ll learn that. Next time, you’ll come with me, okay?”
Dill nodded again. Carl couldn’t get a good read on her. She was self-contained enough to be Employee Assessment but seemed too young. She’d been scared to be in the SUV by herself, but that could be an indicator of anything. The only ones who weren’t skittish outside company walls were Wranglers, Cleaners, and of course, zombies.
Gave you an idea where the Wrangler and Cleaners’ heads were at.
“Once you have everything down on the clipboard,” Carl continued, “then you input it into the tablet.”
“Why not just put it into the tablet in the first place?”
Carl sighed, but it was a reasonable question for a young person. Most of them had probably never used pens, pencils, or paper. “It’s part of the service, part of the…what the hell is it called the, uh, the–? The mystique! Just like the khakis and the Oxfords. We’re going for old-fashioned. We’re going for reassurance.”
“I wouldn’t be reassured by a clipboard,” Dill said.
“No, I guess you wouldn’t,” Carl said, “but you’re not in your fifties. You don’t own a house or–” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Do you own a house?”
She looked at him as if he was crazy. Her first real expression if you disregarded the fear earlier.
“No, see?” Carl continued. “That’s what I mean. Our territory is almost entirely houses, homeowners, richies who can afford the big systems. See what I mean? They want to see a goddamned clipboard and some chop-chop. It makes them feel good. More secure.”
Red Death (Book 2): Survivors Page 18