BITTEN Omnibus Edition (Books 1-3): The Resurrection Virus Saga

by Tristan Vick

  Natalie’s head had slammed into the thick glass of the observation window so violently that the force of the impact had killed her. A cantaloupe-sized red blotch stained the tinted glass, demarcating where her skull had impacted and split open, leaving traces of gooey gray matter. A smear of blood trailed from the blotch down to where the nurse sat slouched against the wall; she looked, Hemingway thought, as if she was caught in an infinite daydream.

  Just then a Marine appeared in the doorway and startled Hemingway so badly she screamed out of fright.

  “Sorry to startle you, Doctor Hemingway, ma’am, but I’ve been given strict instructions to get you to the chopper ASAP,” the Marine said. “Do you think you can walk?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Doctor Hemingway replied, pushing herself to her feet. Reaching under Rachael’s arm, she nodded her head and signaled the Marine to come over and assist her. “Help me get this woman up first; she just saved my life.”

  7

  Rogue Bogey

  En Route to Bradley Air Force Base, Newcastle City

  Above the darkened city, the military green Black Hawk MEDEVAC helicopter cut across the night sky like a large mechanical dragonfly. Rachael Ramirez awoke to the loud rumble of the motor and the chopping sound of its blades as it made its way through the night sky. She was strapped into a seat, and her hands were bound with medical gauze. Looking over, she saw Dr. Hemingway sitting beside her.

  “Welcome back among the living,” said Hemingway. “How do you feel?”

  “I really wish you’d stop asking me that.”

  “Well you did just throw yourself in front of a grenade and get blown up.”

  Rachael paused and tried to focus on where she felt pain, but oddly she didn’t feel much of anything. “I feel…I don’t feel anything, actually. I felt the pain of the blast when it happened, but now…it’s strange...I feel perfectly fine.”

  “That’s excellent,” Hemingway said, smiling at Rachael with the kind of hauntingly infatuated look a lovesick stalker might have. “We are currently headed to Bradley Air Force Base, located on the other side of Newcastle City. Believe me, it’s the safest place for any of us to be right now.”

  Suddenly Rachael remembered Alyssa. “Wait, what about Alyssa? The young girl I was with, what happened to her?”

  Doctor Hemingway looked at Rachael with a grave expression. “I’m sorry, but my orders were clear. If the base became overrun, I was to get you out of there at any cost.”

  Rachael squinted her eyes at Hemingway and gestured back toward the tail of the helicopter. “So you just left Alyssa there to die? It that it, Doctor?”

  “Right now, the cure is more important than the life of a single girl who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hell, getting you to safety and figuring out how to make an actual vaccine from your DNA is our top priority from here on out; nothing else matters.”

  Without warning the pilot shouted out, “Incoming!”

  The helicopter arced up and then took a sharp dive. Hemingway was thrown up and hit her head on the metal ceiling. Once the helo righted itself, Hemingway smashed back to the floor, unconscious.

  Rachael looked out the window into the darkness of night and squinted hard. In the dim, moonlit sky, she could make out a barely perceptible smoke trail winding its way toward them. “What is it?” she asked aloud. As it came closer her eyes widened with realization. “It’s a rocket!” she screamed. But it was already too late.

  With a loud boom! the RPG hit the tail of the helicopter and took it clean off in a fiery explosion. Without the rear rotor, the mammoth machine began to spin and twist out of control. The Black Hawk plummeted down toward a grassy park near the city center. Not the most ideal place to crash land, Rachael thought, bracing herself.

  Dark trails of smoke spiraled down after the plummeting helicopter. Smashing into the ground, the aircraft exploded in a gigantic ball of flame, lighting up the field like the Fourth of July.

  8

  Revelations

  Helo Crash Site, Newcastle City

  Several dark figures approached the burning wreckage of the helicopter. They carried small firearms and sported flannel shirts, baseball caps, and blue jeans. As they approached the burning rubble, one of them held up a hand.

  “What is it, Hank?”

  “I thought I…uh…heard sumpthin’.”

  “You sure it ain’t just your imagination?”

  “Nah, man. I’m tellin’ you. I heard sumpthin’ rustling ‘round in the wreckage.”

  The men paused and strained their necks, trying to listen to the thin air. Suddenly there was a clang and a panel of the helicopter fell to the ground with a crash. The five men jumped in fright, but managed to aim their weapons squarely at the area where the noise had come from. After a moment of stillness, they settled back down.

  “See, wasn’t nothin’.”

  “It’s ‘wasn’t anything’, Hank,” one of the men corrected.

  “That’s what I said,” Hank said defensively. “Whatever. You know what I meant.”

  Just then a whole sheet of metal clamored to the ground from the ruined craft, and a well-roasted body stood up in the flames. It was burnt beyond all recognition. Stumbling forward, it staggered a few steps and fell onto its hands and knees, crawling the rest of its way out of the burning wreckage. It eventually collapsed at the feet of Hank and his men, who stood around looking dumbfounded.

  Hank gave the order with a hand signal and his men instantly surrounded the charred body and took aim.

  “Let’s put this poor sonuvabitch out of his misery,” Hank hollered.

  But before anyone could fire off a single shot, the charcoal figure raised its hand and a woman’s voice pleaded for them to stop. “Please, don’t shoot! Don’t shoot me.”

  The men all looked at each other in dismay, mouths hanging wide open with shock. Looking back at the roasted figure, they watched it collapse to the ground and then roll onto its back. What they saw next was even more astonishing.

  The dark charcoal shell flaked off and crumbled away to reveal the porcelain white skin of a naked woman laying sprawled out before them. If Hank didn’t know any better, he’d say she had the same pale white skin as the undead had, but without any signs of the damage or rot. Even her nipples were a subdued pink and, by his reckoning, quite pretty as well.

  She was the spitting image of an angel fallen from Heaven, Hank thought. “Praise the Lord!” he exclaimed. “It’s a sign!”

  “What do you want us to do with her, boss?” asked one of his men.

  “Put her in the back of one of the trucks,” Hank said, motioning to the small caravan behind them. “We’ll take her to see the Reverend. He’ll know what to do.”

  The men did as they were told, wrapped a blanket around the woman, and placed her in the rear bed of one of the pickup trucks. Hank climbed into his red Ford F-150, stuck his arm out the open window, and waved forward, signaling for everyone to roll out. “Let's get a move on, people!”

  With a rumble of engines, the trucks hit the road and left the debris of the smoldering wreckage lying in the field behind them. Silhouetted by the light emanating from the flames of the burning debris, dark hominid bodies gradually gathered around the crash site.

  The red glow of the convoy’s taillights faded into the darkness and the surroundings grew quiet. A small pack of undead wondered up the street in the direction the glowing taillights had vanished. They ignored the crackling flames of the crashed helicopter. It wasn’t worth bothering about, since it had no signs of life; no signs of food.

  Without warning, more shrapnel fell to the ground with a clangor. A second badly burned body dragged itself out of the wreckage. Rolling onto her back, Patricia Hemingway took in the largest breath of air she’d ever inhaled in her life and looked up at the stars.

  Half her face had been singed off, but the other half looked perfectly fine. Her plan had succeeded. The allogeneic transplant she had undergone had
given her a new life. A life of immortality.

  Patricia looked down at her legs. Although they looked like the withered and blackened stems of a radish root, they were already beginning to mend and heal on their own. The Resurrection Virus was rebuilding her musculature in real time. Amazing, she thought.

  What was even more amazing, she mused, was the fact that the Resurrection Virus could be transplanted from a donor into a host. It wasn’t the ideal cure since, technically speaking, you had to willingly become infected in order to be cured. But at least it would give humanity a fighting chance.

  9

  Out Numbered

  Joey’s Meat Market, Near Buffalo, New York

  Stopping in the doorway of the freezer, Jared Barnes turned around and looked down at Alyssa resting peacefully in the corner. He only prayed that this gambit would work out in their favor so that he wouldn’t be forced to do what he’d have to do if this whole thing took a turn for the worse.

  “I sure hope this buys us enough time,” he muttered under his breath. Slowly, Sargent Barnes closed the large steel door of the meat locker and sealed her in.

  As he turned to leave, Staff Sargent Ulysses Noble approached him and asked, “What about the kid?” Thumbing over his shoulder back toward where they’d left Alyssa, he added, “I’m still iffy about the logistics of this. Are you sure this plan will work?”

  “At this juncture,” said Jared, “this plan is all we have. I have to hold out hope that she’ll make it.”

  After leaving Joey’s Meat Market, Jared Barnes and Ulysses drove for what seemed like hours. Without warning, their Humvee spat and sputtered and slowly came to a halt in the middle of the street.

  “Dammit!” Barnes cursed, slamming his palms down on the steering wheel. Flicking the dials and gauges with his finger, he sighed and said, “Out of gas.”

  It had been just over an hour since they’d left Alyssa back in the meat freezer at Joey’s butcher shop and they had covered about fifty odd miles of solid road before the vehicle died. There was no turning back. If they wanted to get help, their best bet was to push on till they arrived at the Ravenna Army Ammunitions Plant outside of Pittsburgh. There’d be enough ordinance there to get them through several apocalypses if need be.

  Popping open the door, Ulysses stepped out and went around to the back of the vehicle and took out their packs. He also grabbed as much ammunition as they could carry. “I guess we’ll just have to hoof it from here on out.”

  Jared picked up his pack and slung it over his shoulder. He scanned the trees that lined either side of the country road where they were forced to abandon their ride. “Is it just me, or is it awfully quiet around here?”

  “Quiet is good,” Ulysses informed him. “Quiet means nobody to bug us or bite us.” With that he slapped his partner on the ass and then headed up the road.

  “That makes sense,” Jared said to himself. Trailing after Ulysses, he trotted briefly to catch up, glancing back one last time at the dead Humvee they’d left on the side of the road.

  As they walked along, Jared recounted recent events. It had only been a matter of hours since they had barely escaped the implosion of the underground research facility known as Sector 22. It had only been twenty-eight days since the failure of the quarantine zone at Newcastle City. In that brief time, a lot of wild shit had gone down and a lot of good people had been lost. And now, with the entire world being consumed by the Resurrection Virus, all they could do was…push on.

  Sticking to their original plan to head southwest to Ravenna, Jared and Ulysses hiked along the roadside in search for vehicles to syphon gas from, but as their luck would have it, there wasn’t a vehicle to be seen for miles in any direction. Apparently, the people of Buffalo had properly evacuated the city as ordered after the Newcastle quarantine failed. They didn’t want to become the casualties of the same bloody mistakes. But where they all went was anyone’s guess.

  If they were smart, they would head to Wyoming or Montana, where there was land as far as the eye could see, an abundance of fresh water rivers, and populations so minuscule you could build yourself a quaint cabin in the woods and weather out the rest of the zombie apocalypse in relative peace.

  “God-mother-fucking-dammit!” Ulysses shouted.

  “What is it now?” Jared asked.

  Ulysses pointed at a nearby grove of trees just as a swarm of zombies came flooding out. Branches wavered until they snapped, as more and more of the creatures came pouring from the grove of evergreens.

  “Watch your two O’clock,” Ulysses warned Jared. “There’s at least a dozen of them.” Pulling out his Colt M45, he shot one of the shambling monsters that had drawn too near right in the face.

  Jared turned around and looked across the highway. More monsters were coming from the trees on the other side of the road as well. The racket of gunfire had drawn them like flies to the sweet succulent scent of flypaper. “Shit, there’s more over here,” he said, drawing his sidearm as well.

  Blasting away at zombies left and right, Barnes and Noble put down as many as they could. But no matter how many they took out more appeared to take their place.

  After burning through three complete magazines, Ulysses dumped out the empty cartridge, slapped in a fourth, and blasted off five consecutive shots—each one taking out its intended target with precision aim. As he checked his ammunition pouch for the next magazine, he frowned. He only had one clip left. “I hate to break it to you pal, but we’re running low on ammo here. We’d better come up with a plan real fast-like before we get Gary Oldmanned.”

  “Gary Oldmanned?” Jared asked above the moans of zombies and the blasts of their weapons.

  “Yeah,” Ulysses shouted back. “You know, the actor: Gary Oldman. The dude dies in practically every mother fuckin’ movie he’s in.”

  “In that case…let’s get the fuck out of here!” Jared shouted above the unremitting bursts of gunfire.

  BLAM! “Good plan,” Ulysses confirmed. BLAM! BLAM!

  “I really wish the Humvee hadn’t run out of gas back there,” Ulysses grumbled to himself out loud.

  Click! Click! Click!

  “I’m out,” Ulysses shouted. Without hesitating, he holstered his gun and quickly drew out his tactical blade. A heavy-set, ginger bearded zombie in a red plaid shirt and giant, torn-to-shreds Levis, with the appearance of a truck driver who’d been mauled by a bear, approached aloud charged towards him—he readied himself for hand-to-hand combat.

  “I’m down to my last few shots,” Jared yelled out as he ejected his spent clip and fetched his last one.

  Without hesitation, he thumbed out two bullets and placed them in the upper left breast pocket of his uniform, a fallback measure he prayed to God he wouldn’t have to use. As more undead shambled and lumbered toward them, teeth clacking menacingly, Jared slapped in his last magazine and took aim.

  “Thanks for the update,” Ulysses grunted, as he slammed his blade straight through the face of the bearded trucker zombie and pulled it out again. The beastly ginger collapsed to the ground with a brutal sounding thud.

  Barnes and Noble slowly inched their way together until they were standing back to back. Before they knew it, the horde had completely surrounded them.

  “One last Oorah?” Ulysses asked.

  “On three,” Jared said.

  “One…” Ulysses began.

  “Two…” Jared said as the zombie horde closed in on them from all sides.

  “OORAH!” they shouted together.

  Jared unloaded all five remaining rounds of his Colt in the faces of the closest Biters then holstered the gun and drew his blade, just in time to meet the snapping jowls of the first wave of fresh recruits.

  10

  The Back of Beyond

  Outside Buffalo, New York

  Careening through the trees like a ‘roided-up golf cart gone completely off course, a Marine issued Humvee. shot out into the clearing. Its large tires hit the pavement and squealed furiously
as the truck fishtailed violently back and forth and then corrected itself.

  Sgt. Jared Barnes and SSgt. Ulysses Noble paused long enough to glance over at the unexpected surprise.

  “Is that one of ours?” Jared asked, wiping sweat from his brow as he squinted at the oncoming vehicle.

  Suddenly a Marine popped up through the cupola hatch with his M4 carbine and laid down cover fire. Zombies toppled to the ground left and right, adding to the pile that Jared and Ulysses had already built up.

  The Hummer’s engine revved, then it made a beeline straight for the stranded Marines, plowing through a throng of undead that were either too slow to get out of the way or too brain-dead to care, then, after leaving a trial of writhing roadkill, came to a screeching halt next to them.

  “Semper Fi, Mac,” Ulysses shouted up at his fellow Marine.

  The gunner shout back “Semper Fi!” then waved for them to get in the Humvee ASAP.

  Suddenly, the rear passenger door opened and a second Marine, with the rank and insignia of Captain, stepped out and began providing additional cover fire, taking care of the lumbering beasts flanking their rear. “Get your asses moving, Marines!” he shouted.

  “Yes, Sir!” they replied in unison, relieved to get the hell out of this mine field of living dead.

  As they climbed into the back, Jared noticed a couple of unbelievably beautiful eyes looking at him from the rear-view mirror. “Holy shit!” he gasped. “It can’t be.”

  Dr. Patricia Hemingway turned around and grinned ear to ear. “Hi there, boys.”

  “Doc?” Ulysses said, unable to believe his eyes either. Leaning forward in his seat to get a better view, he asked, “Is that really you?”

  “In the flesh, gentlemen.”

  “But we thought you bit the big one,” Jared said. “Last we heard you died in that helicopter crash.”