The Chasing Series Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Hamrick, R M

  “I lead a small group that questions the current system of government. Lysent should not control who wakes up, or keep us from our loved ones. We want to change that.”

  “And how will you change that? Lysent is everything.”

  “Lysent works to limit resources and the population. We have a plan to cure many, all at once. It will topple the current economics on which the corporation gains their power.”

  Audra did not hear past “cure.”

  “You have antidotes?”

  “We have a scientist who worked with the antidote. She is confident she can synthesize her own batch. We just need help to set up everything. We need someone to clear out this old laboratory…”

  Audra’s excitement faded. They did not have a cure. They had someone who talked. Vesna could tell she was losing her recruit. She once again changed tactics.

  “You were young when it happened, but think about where you went when you got sick.”

  “The doctor?”

  “Where was the doctor?”

  “In the white corporation building.”

  “Lysent owned so many things. Medicine, technology, transportation, communication. They were tasked to fight the disease. The world was decimated and yet, they came out on top. How?”

  Vesna's voice held an insinuation.

  “You don’t think they fought as hard as they could have?”

  “More than that,” Vesna answered with grimness. “They developed it.”

  Audra had met many conspiracy enthusiasts, but Vesna appeared to be in a category all her own.

  “Lysent started the infection? Why?”

  “To diminish the population and rebuild the world? I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t mean for it to go this far, but now they control everything. They’re even reversing their work as they see fit. How else do you think they had the antidote?”

  “Because they researched. You just said you had a scientist who was part of the research.”

  “No. There was no research. My scientist found out that there was just a stockpile of antidotes, a formula, and workers brewing up new doses.”

  Vesna’s eyes were fervent that her potential recruit listen and understand.

  Even if all this was true, Audra was not sure she cared. She had no positive feelings toward Lysent, but was this a fight she wanted?

  “Sorry, lady. I’m not interested.”

  She pulled her pack onto her back to go to market. Vesna made noises of disagreement.

  “Please, Audra.”

  “I’m not going to tell anyone about your pretty little plan. Just leave me out of it.”

  Vesna gathered her courage as Audra turned to leave.

  “You’re never going to awaken your sister through indentured tagging, especially if you drink away half your findings.”

  Audra ignored her and kept walking. She needed supplies.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The family of four created their new home. It was a large tarp on sticks, a cleared area for a fire, a line to hang clothes, and a few logs to sit on, but it was more than they’d had in months. The parents argued over their decision to leave Atlanta, but with each passerby coming from there, it became evident they had left just in time. The city had become a stronghold of zombies. The family's chance of survival increased hidden in the woods, even if their camping experience was limited to a couple of poorly executed family vacations.

  Dad, Audra, and Belinda headed for the lake to fish. Belinda complained that she was tired of fish. Why couldn’t their dad catch a land animal or a bird? Audra kept her mouth shut and followed the almost familiar path to the water.

  Halfway there, they heard rustling up ahead and a burst of noise as birds took off from a bush. Belinda screamed, turned tail, and ran back to camp to her mother. Audra and her father did not stop her. They could catch more fish without her.

  The pond was big but maybe not large enough to be called a lake. Audra didn’t know the size requirements for labeling bodies of water. They baited their hooks, both secretly wishing that Belinda had not run off with the third. The duo could have manned three. They sat in silent but comfortable camaraderie.

  Audra and her father understood each other. Audra watched her father take care of his wife and his children. She modeled her care for Belinda on his - giving opportunities for growth while keeping her safe. Her dad was teaching them how to use different weapons. Her mom loved the machete for its big swing and power. Audra loved her dagger for she was quick and could anticipate the moves of her attacker. Their dad gave Belinda many weapons to try, but her constitution did not seem affected by any equipment provided.

  Breaking the silence, as if they had both been discussing Belinda’s difficulties without words, her dad surprised her.

  “Audra-sweets, if something happens to your mom and me, which is likely given our situation… you need to know something.”

  Her father paused, trying to find the right words. He stared out into the pond as if the view was more thought-provoking than it was.

  “Belinda… she will not make it in this world. And that will not be your fault. OK?”

  Audra disagreed with her father’s assessment of his older daughter, but she did not argue outright. Belinda was fearful, but Audra had been too when it all began. Belinda would come around. She just needed more time. Her family needed to support her, not give up. Belinda may not be the best fit for this new world, but that did not mean she did not deserve to be in it. The pair would make it through, together. She wished Belinda had ventured back to the pond, to prove their dad wrong, if only in this instance.

  Audra knew she could help Belinda, but she nodded with obedience and respect. Then, she wished for more fish.

  * * *

  Dwyn caught up with her heated pace as she entered the market. Audra did not acknowledge his accompaniment as she purchased chicken jerky and oat bars for emergencies and en route convenience. She would get most of her food from the woods, where it was free.

  Her interaction with Vesna reminded her why she did not want to dwell in the villages. The tenants had only been awake for an hour, but she had already grown tired of them. She detested their grumblings and protests when they did nothing to change it. Everyone had opinions but stayed safe within the confines of the fences. At least Dwyn had ventured out to find her. With her new food items tucked into the side pockets of her pack within easy reach, she ran out of the town with Dwyn at her heels.

  That Dwyn had an ulterior motive did not surprise Audra. Everyone had one, including her. She’d taken in Dwyn to pull off a few two-person jobs, get tags she would not get otherwise, and though she would not admit it, have company once in a while. Since Belinda, she realized everyone had personal agendas. And now she knew Dwyn’s.

  “Hey, I’m sorry that I wasn’t honest with you. My name is Dwyn. I was sent to find someone to help clear out a laboratory that no one uses anymore. We want to synthesize the antidote there and cure everyone we can. I don’t understand why you’re upset. Do you want to keep working for Lysent?”

  Audra’s face flushed. She did not want to keep working for Lysent. They were awful, but there was no way around it.

  “No,” she spat out, “but what can any of us do?”

  “Well, I can’t do much,” he admitted, “but, maybe you can.”

  She hated the village’s inhabitants for their compliance, but only because she saw the same in herself. Lysent was taking advantage of everyone, including the taggers. The system was tilted against her, but it was her only concrete choice now. No one else awakened people, just the corporation. What else was she going to do besides swallow the hypocrisy of it all for her sister and hope to catch a break that would set her ahead of Lysent’s rotten curve?

  Audra came to a halt. Dwyn was slow to react and circled back around. She didn’t know why she needed him to understand. Maybe she felt guilty.

  “This is my best option right now. You’re not recruiting me.”

  Dwyn was not r
eady to give up.

  “OK, what if we hire you? Give you a payout after you clear out the laboratory? You don’t have to believe in us to accept our money.”

  Audra’s eyes squinted. If she got ahead on Belinda’s rent, she could make leeway into the awakening fee.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said. “Are you still interested in tagging?”

  “Why?”

  “I want to travel I-16 toward the Savannah port, but tagging is a two-person deal there. Do you want to come, or are you, uh, done with whatever it is you’re doing with me?”

  Dwyn smiled, “Well, I’ve never been to Savannah.”

  Audra started her run again. Dwyn pulled up alongside her, instead of chasing. Audra was excited to pick through the many cars sitting on I-16. There would be easy tags along the evacuation route. Maybe they had families who’d survived.

  There was one thing that kept bothering her.

  “Are you actually bad at tagging and running or was that a ruse?”

  “Wait, I’m not that bad, am I?”

  Audra scoffed and kicked up her heels a little higher.

  * * *

  Today was the day. Audra packed their supplies in happy silence as Belinda, on this rare occasion, cooked breakfast over a fire she had crafted herself. It caught just enough to warm yesterday’s leftovers with water poured over, but Audra was happy for the break. Audra was always the one gathering the wood, building the fires, and cooking the meals. Belinda stopped muttering to herself and looked up from her fussing to smile at Audra. Audra smiled back.

  Yesterday while collecting firewood, Audra had discovered a zombie couple and their campground. There was no perpetrator in sight. One must have gotten bit and was too scared to tell the other. Or perhaps, they went down together. Whatever it was, the sisters didn’t know or care. What they did care about was their available supplies, particularly their tent. A real tent! Not a patched tarp propped up by sticks, but a real, modern tent.

  Neither dared to say it was their last night under the tarp as they finished the rabbit and frog stew. More substantial than berries and leaves, it would stick to their bones for the day. Ready to tackle the Zombie Couple, the two threw on their packs. Belinda did not even complain about its weight compared to its contents as they walked the few hundred yards to the Zombie Couple’s camp.

  Audra and Belinda eyed the scene. It was much like their own situation, but these two people had lost. Their fire had long died. A metal pot and other supplies were strewn about the ground. The camouflage green tent appeared in perfect condition except for a hole in the back that mice were using to transport things in and out. Mice meant more supplies hidden inside.

  Had they both been capable, the sisters might have just waltzed into camp and killed the couple. However, Audra knew Belinda had a knack for freezing when life required her to stay in control of her body, and she could not handle the Zombie Couple by herself. The couple remained close together even in death. Audra could not kill one without being attacked by the other. She was much smaller than either of them and if she was bitten, who would care for Belinda? Audra decided Belinda would lure the pair into a slow moving single file. Audra would come from behind, kill the last in line, then kill the first before it had time to catch Belinda.

  Near the perimeter of the camp, Belinda didn’t dare shout to excite them. She just kicked about leaf debris to catch their attention. The man, in his flannel shirt and mussed thick-rimmed glasses, was closest. His heavy new work boots changed direction and headed for Belinda. The woman with tied back blond hair full of leaves saw her husband change direction in her peripheral vision. She turned and followed him. Belinda walked to keep her distance. Audra could hear Belinda whimpering. Poor Belinda. It was one thing to be scared of these things; it was another to be constantly asked to be bait.

  Audra tip-toed through the camp to approach the blond woman from behind. The woman’s linen shirt and leggings were moth-eaten and inappropriate for the weather. Audra took her dagger and plunged it into the back of the woman’s skull. She crumpled onto the dry leaves, signaling her husband. He turned to his love and saw Audra still standing over her, her breath held. Before anything could be decided, another fall in the woods interrupted them. This one was unintended. Belinda cried out about her ankle as Zombie Husband flipped his head around. Audra exhaled relief before realizing Belinda was still rolling around on the ground, making no effort to escape.

  Zombie Husband had closed almost all the distance between injured Belinda and himself before Audra arrived. He was too tall for Audra to reach from the ground. She jumped on his back, but they were too close to Belinda. Belinda froze in fright as the duo fell on top of her.

  Audra had wrapped her legs around the zom on the way down and now was pinned between the two bodies. She used both hands to grab as much of his head and hair as she could and ripped it away from Belinda. She felt vertebra resist and then crack as she dislocated Zombie Husband’s head. His back wrenched underneath her. The zombie made large bites into the air, barely missing Audra’s fingers, his head internally decapitated and at a ninety-degree angle from his body. Belinda fainted.

  Audra’s dagger was lost in the leaves during the scuffle. She held his head with one hand and found her second dagger with the other. She let it cut through his forehead and his motions ended. A dead blond lay in a heap behind them. An unconscious blond lay underneath the flannel-clad zom. Audra, still piggy-backed, collapsed with exhaustion, burying her face in the camper’s neck.

  The Zombie Husband’s putrid scent renewed her energy. Audra pulled her head up and inhaled the fresh air deeply. She leaned to one side and pulled the opposite leg out from underneath the heavy body. Freeing her second leg, she momentarily left the corpse on top of Belinda, who still had not revived on her own. Audra rested her head on her forearms, which were perched on her bent knees. That was much harder than she’d intended. And it would make every next encounter that much worse for Belinda.

  Audra turned toward her sister. She braced her feet and rolled Zombie Husband off of Belinda, putting a foot on his face to yank out her dagger. She cleaned it on his pants and checked his pockets before pulling off his flannel shirt. The shirt was large enough for either of the girls to wear as an outer layer as the weather got cooler. Audra rolled it up and put it in her pack. The corpse remained in his undershirt with his farmer’s tan showing. Audra pulled Belinda to a sitting position and let her rest against a tree. She could try to revive her now, but her breathing was steady and it would be easier to go through the supplies without her.

  The tent looked glorious.

  As she did the final sorting and replacing of items, Belinda stirred. Audra came over and crouched by her. She stroked her face and brushed the hair from it. Belinda did not open her eyes, but gave a content smile and murmured sweet sounds like a child waking up from a happy dream. Audra sat hip to hip with her, leaning against both Belinda and the tree.

  “Good morning Beebs,” Audra whispered.

  Belinda made a bubbly noise.

  “We got a tent, Beebs,” she said as she crossed her legs in front and twiddled her thumbs, waiting for her sister to wake.

  * * *

  It took two days of running to get to the city of Macon. From there, you could take I-16 to Savannah or go west to Atlanta. Some runners considered tagging on the outskirts of Atlanta, but the risks and costs were high. Finding a handful of requested bodies in a metropolitan area swarming with infected was not a good business or life plan, but Savannah was doable. Savannah was a port city, but still small. If they could get close enough, they could reach lots of supplies. And if not, there were plenty to tag whose last known location was “evacuating Savannah.”

  Audra knew most taggers had not been out this far. They stayed closer to town to minimize travel days, but finds were getting sparser and the search was becoming the largest expense in the tagging business.

  I-16 had two lanes east and two lanes west. Westbound cars filled
every lane and the median. People had remained in the unmoving traffic for days before they abandoned their cars looking for better opportunities. The cars had been long stripped of supplies, spare blankets, food, water, flashlights. All of that was gone. Audra and her family had been out here doing the looting once upon a time. But many of the cars did contain zombies. Were they people who had been bitten with the sense to isolate themselves? Or were they simply in denial that the traffic would clear and they would be on their way? Either way, a sprinkling of the cars had cooped up zombies without the fine motor skills to operate a door handle.

  Easy pickings.

  They approached a red sedan with an elderly lady lying on the back seat. Dwyn thought she was dead and started to the next car. Audra knew she just needed stimulation. Audra gave the car door a bump with the side of her hip. The little sedan jostled and the woman in her high-waisted khakis and knit sweater sprang up from the waist. Her eyes popped open and her face contorted as she realized food was about. She clawed at the window and Audra wondered why she had bothered. Grandma had already been abandoned once.

  She was the first zombie in two days though. They had not seen a single one in the woods en route. Audra found it odd, but perhaps all the zoms in the area had followed people toward bigger cities or perhaps there was a corral. Lysent had hired “shepherds” to direct unwanted herds into contained areas to keep them from the towns.

  With a tool from her pack, she popped the lock on the front passenger door like her mother had taught her. She nodded to Dwyn, who reached in and scraped Grandma’s outstretched hand. DNA captured.

  Name: Diana Lessing

  Gender: Female

  DOB: 2/2/1999

  Status: No Inquiries

  “Sorry, Grandma. Guess they should have just left you at the old folks’ home.”

  Audra reached to place a yellow tag on Diana’s ear. A pearl earring fell to the ground. Diana turned to bite in protest and Audra gave her a gentle punch, causing her dentures to fall. Audra had trouble placing the tag over her giggles. She locked the door behind her and hoped Grandma would calm down and return to her resting spot. At least her family would know her location if they ever inquired - in the red sedan where they had left her.