Payback: A Strandville Zombie Series Short

by Frisch, Belinda

  J.D. barked relentlessly. He needed to go to the bathroom and Mitch hoped for a quick drop-off. When Jim approached, he knew he wasn’t going to get it.

  Mitch rolled down the driver’s side window. “Where’s Dr. Nixon?” He closed his hand gently around J.D.’s muzzle so he could hear what Jim was saying.

  “He’s not coming.” Jim passed two yellow envelopes through the half-open glass, one for him and one for Max.

  Miguel opened the rear doors and grabbed Carlene’s ankles, dragging her across the van’s metal floor. He turned her so that he could get his arms under her and transferred her to the gurney. She moaned, and after situating her restraints, Miguel hit her with another dose of sedative. He banged on the side of the van and waved for Mitch to come help him.

  “Now what?” Mitch pocketed the envelopes and stepped out.

  Miguel babbled something in Spanish and pointed toward the lobby.

  Jim shook his head. “Nixon wants you to take her downstairs. There was a problem earlier and this guy’s too shaken to go down there. I had hoped you were bringing back-up.”

  “I don’t want Max here. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  “Then you’re on your own.”

  Mitch slipped the collar over J.D.’s head and tightened it one notch. He lifted him out of the box and handed him to Jim.

  “Fine,” he said. “But I need your elevator key and you’re walking my dog.”

  * * * * *

  Mitch had covered Carlene’s body with a white sheet he’d taken from Miguel and tried to avoid eye contact with staff and visitors as he waited for the elevator that was the only way down to the Nixon Center basement.

  The seconds from the lobby to the basement felt like minutes; the minutes walking down the hall where the test subjects were held, like hours. The air was thick with the stench of decomposition, which burned his nose and made his eyes water.

  A year before, five patients with an inexplicable illness were air lifted to the center from a remote area of Haiti. Three of them were family--a father, mother, and their son. Two were male researchers sent to investigate the young boy who died and spontaneously resurrected in front of half of his village. Nixon intended to cure them, but when he couldn’t, his experiment changed. Rumors circulated, but Mitch knew better than to ask for details. He kidnapped the women, took the envelopes, and whatever happened next, at least it didn’t happen to him.

  * * * * *

  Max pulled up his sweatshirt hood and walked down the first floor hallway, careful to avoid being seen by the Nixon Center security cameras as he made his way to the locked security office and knocked.

  “Mitch, open up.” His instinct was to pound the door flat, to kick it in and drag Mitch into the hallway, but he knew better than to draw that kind of attention. He knocked again. “Mitch, you piece of shit,” he said through his clenched teeth, “I know you’re in there.”

  “Can I help you?” A young guard, a good foot shorter than Max and at least a hundred pounds lighter, appeared behind him holding a Taser. His nametag said “Brian Foster” and he wore Nixon Center blues and a pair of black-rimmed glasses.

  “I need to see Mitch.”

  Foster shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”

  Max checked to see that no one was watching and flashed Foster his holstered pistol. “I’m not leaving without talking to him.”

  Brian went for his radio and Max grabbed his wrist. He spun him around easily and shoved him into the door hard enough to twist the glasses on his face.

  “Open it.”

  “I don’t…”

  “Before you tell me you don’t have keys, realize I know more about this place than you think.”

  “Is that so, Mr. Reid?” Dr. Howard Nixon appeared wearing surgical scrubs and a white lab coat that barely masked the blood stains.

  “I need to see Mitch.” Max held his ground, tightening his grip on Foster and pulling his gun.

  “I wouldn’t do anything rash if I were you.” Nixon pointed at the mirror in the corner and the smoked camera lens to the side of it. “If you’ll do me the courtesy of letting Brian go,” Nixon said, “maybe we can help each other.”

  Max did as Nixon asked and in the hour that followed, accepted permanent employment and his next off-site assignment.

  * * * * *

  It was almost midnight and Max was running on a dangerous combination of adrenaline, paranoia, and anger, having looked over his shoulder for his bookie or his men every minute since leaving his apartment.

  He turned off his headlights and pulled into the woods using an old access road overgrown with saplings and ferns. Thin branches scraped along the sides of his truck and the shrill sound pierced the late night silence. He parked out of sight of the ramshackle cabin a few hundred feet on the other side of the tree line and looked for a clear footpath.

  An old pick-up truck idled in the driveway and the smell of exhaust choked him as he made his way through the trees. He covered his mouth to stifle the cough and took calculated steps, careful to avoid being heard.

  A young, pimple-faced boy in a gas station attendant’s uniform slammed the front door and took a drag off the cigarette pinched between his thin lips. He climbed into the truck’s driver’s seat and tore out onto the highway with the hurriedness of someone who was late. Sparks trailed as his dangling exhaust connected with the pavement.

  Max took the syringe out of his pocket.

  Nixon insisted there be no signs of struggle and was upset to know how things had gone with Carlene, the girl he and Mitch kidnapped earlier that morning. His obvious disappointment with Mitch made it that much easier to negotiate terms for himself. Max had yet to make the connection between the infected men and the kidnapped woman, but whatever research Nixon performed in the sterile, basement labs was not something anyone would want for their sister, wife, or girlfriend.

  Max made his way to the side of the house, keeping to the shadows despite the fact that the cabin sat in the middle of acres of woods and grass. He crouched beneath a half-open window and watched Amy Porter tie back her stringy hair and dab some kind of cream on her spotty complexion. She brushed her teeth and adjusted the button-down nightshirt riding up the back of her underwear before heading down the hall to what he assumed was a back bedroom.

  J.D. barked in his kennel, making it a little easier for Max to work without being detected. He pried the screen from the window. The blue latex gloves made it hard to maneuver the pins and the whole thing crashed at his feet. He held his breath for the seconds that followed and when Amy didn’t appear, pulled himself up through the ground-level opening. The wooden frame bit into his shoulders as he twisted to pass through.

  The uneven floors creaked under Max’s steps, his approach masked by relentless barking, and as he closed in on the bedroom, he replayed every conversation he’d ever had with Mitch about Amy. Part of him believed that Mitch thought he was protecting her, belittling how much she meant to him. Part of him knew it was embarrassment. Max had known Mitch since he was six-years-old and some things didn’t need to be said between friends. Against his will, Max imagined Mitch with Jess, in his house and in his bed and able to face him afterward like nothing had happened. But something had. Something more betraying and terrible and cruel than even his mind could conjure.

  He entered the bedroom and found Amy, eyes closed, listening to music through a pair of ear bud headphones. She was lying on her side, arm stretched overhead. The way Jess slept after her pregnant stomach became too big for her to lie on her back. He held the uncapped syringe between his teeth and pounced on her, pinning her down and stuffing a wadded up t-shirt into her mouth to silence her screams. He tore off her panties, wanting to take from her what Mitch had taken from Jess. She fought back and spit the gag out twice before he buried it so deep in her mouth that she struggled for breath. He reached to unzip his pants and something told him to stop, a memory of the deal he’d made earlier that day. Whatever Nixon had pla
nned for Amy would be worse than rape, or death and Mitch would know every last detail of her suffering. Max plunged the needle into Amy’s bare thigh and her body wilted. He collected her in his arms and imagined Mitch’s reaction to finding her, restrained to a hospital bed in the Nixon Center basement. He slipped the paternity test into the breast pocket of Amy’s nightshirt where Mitch would see it and slung her over his shoulder.

  Nixon said he needed a female of child-bearing age.

  Amy fit the criteria.

  It hardly seemed payback, but it was a start.

  “Cure, A Strandville Zombie Novel, #1”

  Follow Reid's descent into madness, watch the experiment unfold, and find out Mitch and Amy's fates in "Cure: A Strandville Zombie Novel, #1”, available on Amazon, B&N, KOBO, Smashwords, and in paperback.

  **Runner-up in the General Fiction category of the 2012 Halloween Book Festival

  **BOOK ONE of the Strandville Zombie Series

  Medicine meets horror in this thrilling escape tale about the evil men do in the name of progress.

  Welcome to the Nixon Healing and Research Center, playground for the maniacal Dr. Howard Nixon whose medical research has him dabbling in the undead and has the women of Strandville disappearing.

  Desperate to find a cure for the lethal virus which turns its victims into zombies, Nixon kidnaps Miranda Penton, a security recruit with a past that won't let her go. He doesn't count on anyone coming looking for her, least of all her ex-husband, Scott.

  A warning call brings Scott to Strandville where he bands together with a team of locals determined to bring their own loved ones home. Together, they infiltrate Nixon's staff, hatching a plan that releases not only the surviving women, but the virus on those left in the hospital.

  Nixon locks down the center to contain the spread, turning patients, visitors, and staff into a dangerous horde that is almost impossible to escape. Miranda and the others fight for their lives. The town of Strandville is ground zero for the zombie apocalypse and Miranda must get free because the fate of humanity lies with her unborn child.

  “Afterbirth, A Strandville Zombie Novel, #2”

  “Afterbirth, A Strandville Zombie Novel #2” is available on Amazon, B&N, KOBO, Smashwords, and in paperback.

  The survivors of the Nixon Center escape struggle in a post-apocalyptic world where the walking dead aren't the biggest threats.

  Working from a remote, mountain cabin, Dr. Howard Nixon is determined to salvage what is left of his experiment.

  Allison escapes him, clinging to life and with no idea what's happened in the world.

  Zach is looking for her, but time is running out.

  Reid lives holed up in the Nixon Center and waits for his revenge.

  Tension is high as both Miranda and Carlene's pregnancies come to term. Miranda, faced with the possibility that her delivery might cause her to become infected, is forced to seek help from the only other person who knows what has happened: Dr. Michael Waters, the physician who sent her to Dr. Nixon in the first place.

  All roads lead back to Strandville where grudges resurface and old decisions must be answered for. Scott, Miranda, and Michael return to the center to face-off against their pasts and each other as Michael's secret agenda comes to light.

  About the Author:

  After fifteen years of working in healthcare, Belinda Frisch's stories can't help being medicine influenced. A writer of dark tales in the horror, mystery, and thriller genres, she is a storyteller at heart, and has been writing since her teens.

  Her fiction has appeared in Shroud Magazine, Dabblestone Horror, and Tales of Zombie War. She is an honorable mention winner in the Writer's Digest 76th Annual Writing Competition.

  Her novel, CURE, is the runner-up in the General Fiction category of the 2012 Halloween Book Festival and was optioned for film. She is the author of CRISIS HOSPITAL, CURE, AFTERBIRTH, and FATAL REACTION. She resides in upstate New York with her husband, sons, and a small menagerie of beloved animals.

  Visit her blog: BelindaF@blogspot.com