Divided We Rot (One Nation Under Zombies Book 3)

by Raymond Lee

  Sky ran, pushing herself to keep up with Richards’s long-legged strides as they took the path back to the SUV. She didn’t look back until she was in the passenger seat with the door slammed shut behind her. She turned toward the zombies as Richards rounded the SUV, dropped the branch, and slid into his seat.

  STOP, she thought as the zombies continued toward them, two runners in the lead. Go away.

  The two runners slowed to a walk but continued forward, the slower ones shambling right along behind them.

  STOP, Sky commanded silently as her stomach continued to twist with hunger.

  “Hey, are you all right?”

  She looked over at Richards and saw him frowning as he looked down at where she’d unconsciously gripped her stomach. “I’m fine.”

  He raised his gaze up to the zombies still moving in their direction. “I’ve never seen runners just slow down to a walk like that, especially when they were on the trail of fresh meat. It’s like they just lost our scent or something.”

  Sky didn’t say anything, puzzled herself why the runners hadn’t completely stopped or listened to her when she told them to go away. She wondered if it was because she’d spoken in her mind instead of out loud, but they had to have heard her or they wouldn’t have slowed down, or was it because they sensed it was her?

  “Something really weird is going on,” Richards said as he started the SUV and pulled away from the curb. The runners started running after them again so he floored the gas and took a left, leading back to the interstate, losing them in the process. “First, none of the zombies on the interstate tried to crowd around us while we were driving which they tend to do when they’re in groups like that, then that zombie walking away from us in the park. I keep thinking about that. I drove around the park looking for them before I parked. There weren’t any there.”

  “We didn’t even see the bathroom until we started along that path,” Sky reminded him. “It was hidden by the playground equipment and the trees. He could have been too.”

  “Yeah, but he had to be near that bathroom,” Richards countered. “I banged on the doorframe with that branch and I called out to see if anything was in there. When I came out he was walking away from the bathroom, like he’d been near it, maybe even right behind it. Why would he be walking away from us? I don’t know if those things can smell us but I do know they can hear us.”

  “Maybe that guy was deaf before he got turned,” Sky suggested, not wanting to reveal her secret. She wasn’t entirely sure why she felt the infected people’s hunger and pain or why they seemed to listen to her… and sometimes didn’t. All she knew was that since she’d made it through the virus the zombies didn’t seem to find her very appetizing.

  “Maybe,” he said, shaking his head as he pulled back onto the interstate. “This place is giving me the willies. I’m glad we’re getting away from it.”

  “Where are we going anyway?”

  “Nebraska.”

  “If you’re trying to get to that base in Lincoln I don’t think it’s there,” Sky told him. “I saw an air force base that looked like it had been bombed. The people I was with said they think the Russians might have bombed all the military sites.”

  Richards grinned. “Do you notice anything about my clothes?”

  “Army uniform pants,” she said, “and an army green T-shirt under your coat.”

  “My clothes aren’t just for show,” he told her. “Your sister told you I was in the army, right?”

  Sky nodded. “But you’re alone now like most everybody else.”

  The humor that had been sparkling in his eyes a moment ago fled and his jaw ticked. “Yeah, I am. I lost my whole unit before the worst of winter. However, before that happened, I was regularly in contact with base. The people you were with were correct that Russia blew up a lot of military bases. They’d sent spies over before they unleashed the virus, had them infiltrate us and wait for the virus to be released and really take over before setting off synchronized bombs at known military bases and a lot of the camps that were set up to help survivors. Hell, some of the bases went down because some of the people in them were infected. Some went down because some of our own people had turned and were working with Russia. They weren’t able to attack every single military site though so although the largest bases and the ones hosting camps for survivors were hit, there are still safe places in operation.”

  “So the base in Lincoln was destroyed too?”

  He nodded. “However, there’s another site nearby that should still be standing. We’re headed to it. You told me your sister wouldn’t have gone to the camp in Fort Huachuca so she probably headed to the one in Lincoln. Hopefully she’ll find the one close to it. There should be units dispersed to find people headed that way and take them to safety. That’s what my unit was doing before we were overrun.”

  “Did you save a lot of people?”

  “We saved some, but the camp we took a lot of them to was destroyed.” He stared off into the distance as they continued driving down the interstate. “A lot of the last group we rescued died with my unit, some died later. The cold was as much of a danger to us as the zombies were. People’s feet turned black. Some froze to death overnight. We were all struggling to survive the hunger and the cold temperatures. Sometimes we kind of wished we’d been eaten by the zombies. It would have been faster.”

  “But you survived.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know why. Just too stubborn to die, I guess, or maybe it was a fear of your sister following me into whatever place I ended up and screaming at me for not finding her.” He let out a soft laugh. “I kind of thought of her as my guardian angel. Then I found you, so maybe she’s your guardian angel and I’m just the tool she used to save you.”

  Sky folded her arms and stared out the window, the image of Raven running away from her playing through her mind. She could still see it like it had just happened, still see the sunlight reflecting off Raven’s blue hair, still feel her heart thumping in her chest as the panic in her rose, knowing she’d been left behind with the monsters all around her. She rubbed her hand over that spot, trying to ease the pain she felt in her chest every time she remembered that day.

  “You know, I survived a hell of a lot and so have you. There’s a good chance Raven’s alive too. Don’t lose hope.”

  Sky continued staring out the window, not sure how to tell him she kind of hoped she never found out what had happened to Raven.

  Cruz placed the back of his hand along Raven’s brow, feeling the heat there. His hand came back moist with her sweat and he realized that if not for getting her wound cleaner the sponge bath would have been a waste. He grabbed a hand towel off the night stand and dabbed at the beads of sweat coating her exposed skin, gently so he didn’t wake her. She’d been thrashing her head back and forth, mumbling for at least an hour. She’d finally quieted down and other than muttering a few barely audible words seemed to be resting well. The fever was still going strong and he didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Fever was the body’s way of fighting infection so he tried to think positively, but without a thermometer he didn’t know if it was dangerously high or not. The Tylenol he’d given her earlier wasn’t cutting through it. He remembered the drugs in the packs they’d left behind after Raven had fallen out of the truck bed and gotten bit, and thought again about how those packs could still be there. Not only would he have his much needed medication, but they’d packed antibiotics. He didn’t know much about medicine but Hal and Carlos had been adamant that they have a lot of antibiotics with them so they had to be worth trying.

  “Sky,” Raven mumbled. “Run, Sky.”

  Cruz placed his hand along her brow as she started rolling her head back and forth again, fighting off a nightmare. He brushed her wet hair back from her face and rubbed her forehead. “Shhh, Raven. You’re safe. Sky is safe.”

  He stood there rubbing her brow with soothing strokes until she quieted down, his mind made up. He had to see if the truck
was still there with their supplies. He knew that meant possibly running into reanimated versions of his friends if they’d fallen during the zombie attack, but he’d do whatever was necessary to help Raven, even kill the monsters wearing his friends’ faces. It beat watching her die, which he’d end up doing if she couldn’t fight through the virus or if he ran out of his own medication and whatever he carried inside of him took him over all the way. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, it was becoming clearer that he harbored a monster intent on using his own mind and body to destroy himself and all he held dear.

  Once Raven seemed to settle down again he poured a glass of well water from the pitcher and set it on the nightstand within reaching distance from her. He dried her skin with the hand towel and hung it over the foot of the bed to dry and raised the sheet she kept tossing off of herself to her shoulders in case she got chilled again while he was gone. He considered starting a soup to warm while he was gone but feared burning the cabin down if something happened to prevent him from getting back to her quickly … or ever. If he left her he had to leave her safe and secure. Deciding against the soup, he grabbed the last sleeve of stale crackers from the kitchen and placed them next to the glass of water on the nightstand so she would have something to eat if she woke up hungry.

  He felt her brow again, the heat there quieting any nagging second thoughts he had about whether or not leaving her was a good idea. “I’ll be back,” he promised before kissing her forehead and heading out to the living room. He already had his knife and his gun on him, even if he didn’t want to waste any bullets unless absolutely necessary. He considered the katana he’d hidden in the entry closet but decided against it even though it was a better weapon than his blade. It was Raven’s weapon and she needed it if he didn’t make it back to her. No longer fearing she’d use it to take her own life he took it out of the closet and walked back into the bedroom. He propped it against the nightstand, took a long last look at the woman fighting for her life, turned, and left before he gave in to the desire to stay near her.

  He pulled back the curtain to check out the living room window for zombies before stepping outside the cabin and locking the door behind him. He started toward the interstate before he remembered the key in his pocket. His group had learned that uninfected people could be just as dangerous as the infected ones and he realized he could run into some along the interstate. If he ran into bad ones and things went south he didn’t want them finding a key on him and deciding to case the area for the shelter he’d left behind so he removed it and hid it under the same rock he’d found it under when he’d found the cabin.

  Blade in hand, gun at the small of his back, he headed toward the interstate walking quickly but not so fast that he thrashed through the woods. He didn’t want to leave Raven all alone for long in case she got worse or someone stumbled upon her, but he knew better than to make a lot of noise. He’d scavenged the day before after getting Raven settled in and came across a runner. He felt fairly confident he could handle the shambling ones, even in the woods with no shelter other than trees, as long as he didn’t get surrounded by a group like they had on the interstate, but the runners were totally different. One runner was as bad as a group of shamblers and he didn’t even know if the running was the only new change in them.

  They’d spent the worst of winter in a panic room belonging to Elijah and Carlos’s deceased cousin, and they’d only been out of it less than a day before Raven had gotten bit and they’d split off from the group. During that time they’d noticed some of the infected were running, but they hadn’t been out among them long enough to discover any other new characteristics they’d developed over the winter.

  As Cruz walked through the woods following the trampled path he’d created the day before while running with Raven in his arms, he continuously scanned the area around him, staying on high alert. He’d been in great shape before the outbreak and had spent a lot of time in the panic room doing pushups and sit-ups to keep his body in good condition, but the thought of a zombie running up on him had a steady trickle of sweat rolling down his spine. He almost wished he hadn’t taken a double dose of medication, remembering the runner he’d come across the day before. The thing inside him had enjoyed watching it as he hid behind a tree, waiting for it to stumble into his trap then sinking his blade into its decayed flesh over and over again, drawing power and sweet release from its second, ultimate death.

  “I’m fucking sick,” Cruz muttered to himself as he pressed on and reminded himself why he had to take the double dose of meds, why he needed to find a pharmacy the second Raven was healthy enough for travel. Recalling why he needed the medication so urgently and worrying what would happen to Raven if he never returned from his trek to try and find something in the truck made the walk back to the interstate seem to take far longer than it had taken for him to run from the road and find the cabin but he finally saw a road through the trees and recognized it as the road connected to the off ramp. If the truck was still where it had wrecked on the interstate it would be just past that off ramp.

  Cruz came out from behind the cover of trees to see a lone man trudging down the off ramp. He was missing a shoe on the foot he dragged behind him, his skin was covered in filth and so were his clothes, but it wasn’t the filthiness of the clothing that alarmed Cruz, it was the choice of attire. Basketball shorts and a T-shirt. No coat. This man had been infected before the weather turned cold and judging by his current location it was a safe bet he had frozen over the winter which meant the chances of being a runner were high if their theory about freezing and thawing creating the runners held water.

  “Of course,” Cruz muttered. “I can’t get this freaking close to where the truck was last at and not expect trouble. The universe isn’t nearly that helpful.” He looked around on the ground for something he could use. He had his gun but didn’t want the noise of the gunshot to attract everything in the area, and he had his blade but didn’t want to have to get so close to the infected man if he didn’t have to, especially if it was a fast one. He saw a fallen branch and picked it up. It was long enough to allow him to hit the zombie without getting right in its chomping face and thick enough to deliver a decent amount of damage without snapping in half or being too heavy to wield well enough in a fight.

  He looked back over at the zombie in time to see his milky gaze lock onto him. He placed the man in his late twenties to early thirties with dark curly hair that had probably been short before he’d been infected but being dead itself had continued to grow and now hung over his forehead, stopping just short of his eyes. His ethnicity was harder to pinpoint with his skin covered in blood and grime, but from what he could see of the skin it was a golden color so he could be Latino or deeply tan, possibly even a lighter-skinned black man. The virus was an equal opportunity killer, not caring who it ruined. They stood there staring at each other until something inside the zombie kicked in and it lurched forward with an awful sounding growl.

  “And it’s a fucking runner,” Cruz grumbled as he braced himself, raising the branch in a batter’s stance. If the man continued to run straight at him he could use his own momentum against him. He’d played baseball in Little League and in high school so he was confident in his swing. As long as the zombie didn’t veer off route and he connected directly with its skull he could put it out of commission pretty quick and with minimum noise to attract anything else that might be lurking in the area.

  The runner in question had an awkward gait caused by the foot it had been dragging behind itself while walking. It was able to run, but not well, and stumbled about ten feet away from where Cruz stood waiting to knock its head off.

  “Fast, but still stupid,” Cruz said as the infected man’s body folded like a lawn chair on its way to the ground. He quickly covered the distance, unsheathed his blade as he dropped down to one knee and sank the knife into the rotting man’s ear as it started to reach for him. Its milky white eyes rolled in their sockets as the last fragment of life pow
ering the hideous thing’s decaying body blinked out and its face plopped down onto the bed of leaves and brush beneath it. Cruz twisted his knife, making sure he destroyed the thing’s brain before he slid the blade out of the cavity he’d created. He scanned the area while he crouched next to the body, paying careful attention to what he could see of the interstate from his position. After several minutes of not seeing or hearing anything he returned his attention to the infected man, turning him onto his back.

  He’d never taken the time to really study one before, usually on the run when confronted by them. Up close to the infected man now he could tell he had been either a really tan white guy or possibly Latino. Maybe a mixture like himself. The infected man smelled horrible, like he’d been rolling around in trash and shit. Judging by the sludge caked onto his legs, the shit part made sense.

  “Nasty bastards,” Cruz whispered as he continued to study the man, using a stick to poke around at his clothes. He found the bite that infected him on his arm under a few layers of blood and who knew what else gunking up the wound. So he hadn’t been a carrier before. Cruz thought back to all the women he’d slept with from the moment he’d landed his first TV guest spot up until the night before the virus was unleashed. It was a miracle he hadn’t been infected himself. Not that he wasn’t already infected with something possibly much worse.

  Cut, the darkness inside him whispered. Cut! Cut! Cut!

  He dropped the stick he’d been poking around on the body with and tightened his hand around the handle of his blade. He closed his eyes against the pull of the voice inside him, hating the way it made him feel but reveling in it at the same time.

  Cut him. Look inside.

  He brought the knife down in the man’s throat and yanked it toward himself, opening a deep gash in the thing’s chest. It had already smelled like trash and shit before he’d opened it. The smell that came out of its insides knocked Cruz back on his haunches.