After Zombie Series (Book 2): Before

by Gregory, Samantha

  “Where do we go now?” Jack asked.

  I took another bite of my burger, which I had grabbed on the way out.

  “Danny,” she snapped. She hit my arm knocking the burger to the ground.

  “Hey!”

  I tried to think of somewhere we could go.

  “It’s Saturday, right?”

  She nodded.

  “The school? It will be empty. I doubt there will be much security.”

  We headed out to the street.

  “Just try and act like you belong,” Danny said, as we walked away from the road block.

  “Sounds like you have experience evading the cops,” she said.

  “I’ve dabbled.” The problem was most people gave themselves away by acting suspicious.

  We headed down the street, away from the blockade and the cops. The school was a couple of streets over. It was a small brick building that housed all the grades according to the sign. In a town this small, there probably weren’t that many children around.

  We found a window open to one of the classrooms. Climbing inside, the room was decorated in bright paper flowers, probably from some recent school project.

  My school was never this cheery. Of course, mine had a metal detector and mandatory locker searches every day so I doubted paper flowers were on the menu.

  We moved out into the hall, away from the windows. The place was eerily quiet. You get used to a school being full of people. Seeing one empty like this was disconcerting. I learned that from a word-a-day calendar at the shelter. Didn’t know I would actually get the chance to use it.

  “We should be okay here for a while,” I said.

  I headed to the cafeteria. Half a burger wasn’t going to cut it, I needed more food. Jack followed behind me.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, but I could tell she was lying. We had both been through a lot in the last few days.

  I raided the cupboards in the kitchen and found some instant mac and cheese and ingredients to make dessert.

  “Sit back and relax and I will whip us something up,” I said.

  Jack hopped onto the counter, “You can cook?”

  “Yes, I can. It’s not like there was anyone around to do it for me.”

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “Don’t be. It was my grandmother who taught me actually. The woman was a genius in the kitchen.”

  I found it calming to actually be doing something instead of waiting around to be captured. I mixed up the mac and cheese and dished some out for the two of us. While Jack ate, I made brownies. I could never get them to taste quite like Gran’s but they were good enough.

  Once we were stuffed, we took a look around and found a small office with a cot and a couch. I assumed it was the nurse’s office.

  “Why don’t we get some sleep?” I suggested.

  Jack didn’t argue. I let her take the cot and I took the couch after I locked the door. I collapsed onto the couch. Jack appeared to already be asleep. I thought it would take me forever to get to sleep, but sleep dragged me down.

  *

  Sheriff Spender

  “Doris! How about some coffee?” I called to my receptionist. She didn’t reply.

  Sighing, I heaved myself out of my chair, straightened my uniform and headed out to the small kitchen area out front.

  I almost ran into Doris as I left the room, “Sheriff, there’s a man here to see you.”

  “Show him in and get me some coffee,” I said.

  She nodded and I returned to my desk. A man came in dressed in a suit. He was in his thirties with greased back hair.

  “Sheriff Spender, my name is Mr. Arden. I need to speak to you about a serious matter.”

  “Of course, take a seat.”

  He settled himself in the chair and folded his hands in his lap, “I work at the lab outside of town. I’m afraid that someone broke in last night and stole some classified documents. We believe they have come back here. We have set up a road block on the edge of town and I’m afraid we can’t let anyone leave until the documents are returned.”

  “Wait a minute; you’ve already set a road block up? Without consulting me first?” I said.

  “Time was of the essence. I’m sure you understand.”

  I didn’t like this little rat coming in here and taking over. This was my town. I knew those people out there were trouble. They kept to themselves, never really came into town, but I knew that they were doing more than research out there.

  I offered a benign smile, “I’m afraid I can’t warrant any searches. There would be uproar. I will take over from here. You are welcome to accompany me to identify the documents if we find any.”

  He smiled back, but it wasn’t genuine, “Of course. We always co-operate with local law enforcement.”

  Doris came in with my coffee, “I’ll get one later. I’m stepping out for a while. If there’s an emergency, call me on the radio.”

  Strapping on my gun belt, I followed Mr. Arden outside. He did indeed have a roadblock set up and what looked like military personnel guarding it. Their uniforms were plain black though, I saw no insignia or anything to identify where they were from. Very suspicious.

  “Do you know who stole your documents?” I asked.

  “Yes, two thieves and activists. Jacqueline Reese and Daniel Spratt. They are cyber terrorists. It is vital we get back what they took.”

  He seemed pretty worried about some documents. What were they working on that terrorists would want? I didn’t trust Arden as far as I could throw him. It would be interesting to see what this Reese and Spratt had to say when they were arrested. Something told me it would be quite a tale.

  *

  Lela

  As I walked along Main Street, I couldn’t help but stare at the men blocking the road, wondering why they were there. I could see the Sheriff with them. I was tempted to go over and ask him what was going on, but I doubted he would tell me anything.

  Knowing this town though, everyone would know what was going on by suppertime.

  Trinity was one of the safest places on Earth. I lived here my whole life and there had never been anything terrible happen.

  Except Joe Taylor and that horrible accident he had with that forklift a few years ago. But that was just an accident. I really hoped there wasn’t a dangerous criminal on the loose. I really wanted to make my date with Danny.

  It sounded dumb, but he was sweet and funny and not like other boys around here. Everyone around here, I had grown up with. They were all like family and there was no one I would want to date.

  I returned to the house I shared with my grandmother, two blocks from the diner. You could walk from one end of the town to the other in about twenty minutes. As a child I loved how small it was. It always made me feel safe, like we had our own little patch of paradise out here. The older I got though, the more I wanted to get away from Trinity and see the rest of the world. I didn’t want to leave permanently, but I did want to travel. I guess that was why I was drawn to Danny; I wanted to know all about where he was from, the places he had seen. I was saving money from my job so that I could take a trip, until then I would have to live vicariously through other people.

  Gran was in her favorite armchair, sipping on her jasmine tea and reading her library books. The library was tiny, but they always got in a few new books every couple of months and Gran was usually at the front of the queue. She favoured soppy romances.

  “Hi Gran, I’m back.”

  She hung over the side of the armchair to look at me. She narrowed her eyes and said, “Stood you up did he?”

  “No, Gran, I’m meeting him later.”

  “If you say so, dear,” she replied, returning to her book.

  Ever since I told her about Danny, she had been trying to put me off seeing him again. She didn’t trust outsiders and she especially didn’t trust teenage boys who were trying to date her granddaughter.

  I spied one of her books on the coffee table
and was surprised to see a set of handcuffs on the front cover. Had she branched out into murder mysteries now?

  Picking it up, I read the back cover. Heat flushed my cheeks, “Gran! This is one of those smutty novels!”

  She was sipping her jasmine tea, her brown eyes watching me from over the top of the cup, “Oh, is it?” she said innocently.

  “Gran!” I said, she knew exactly what it was.

  She chuckled, “Don’t be such an old maid. It’s just a bit of fun.”

  Rolling my eyes, I dropped the book back onto the coffee table.

  “Have you been outside?” I asked.

  “No, why?”

  “They’ve closed off Main Street. I think there might be a criminal on the loose.”

  Gran immediately leapt up from her chair and rushed to the window, despite the fact that it was impossible to see the roadblock from here.

  “What kind of criminal?” she asked.

  I shrugged, “I don’t know. It’s only a guess. Why else would the close off the road?”

  “Oh you never know what the government is up to. Could be some kind of secret experiment.”

  “I told you to stop watching those X-Files reruns.”

  She shushed me as she craned her neck, hoping to see something. I loved my Gran, but the woman was a nut sometimes. I think she had been in this town too long. I knew the feeling.

  *

  David

  As we approached the blockade, I expected to be waved through immediately considering what we were carrying in the back, but the idiot guarding the road stopped us instead.

  I glanced at Foster, the other agent who had been assigned to ride with me to transport the bodies.

  “What the hell?” I said.

  The guard stepped up to the driver’s side, “I need to take a look in the back,” he said. He was skinny and barely fit into the uniform.

  “No, you don’t. You know who we are?” I snapped.

  “Yes sir, but we were told to check every vehicle, in case the suspects are hiding inside,” he replied.

  “Well they’re hardly hiding in the back of this one.”

  “I still have to check, sir,” he said. Damn rookies had no idea. I was beginning to lose my temper.

  “Relax, Dave,” Foster said, unbuckling his seatbelt, “I’ll deal with it.”

  He got out of the truck. The guard walked with him to the back of the truck. I hoped Foster wasn’t stupid enough to show him what we had inside. Even if we did work for the same company, I doubted that a rookie could handle what was in there.

  There was a thump from the back of the truck. I checked the side mirror, but Foster and the guard were standing at the side of the road. They weren’t touching the truck.

  Foster hopped back inside, “I straightened him out, let’s go.”

  I drove around the blockade and out into the desert. We only drove fifty feet before something banged loudly inside the truck again.

  “What the hell was that?” Foster said.

  I slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road.

  “I’m going to take a look,” I said. I pulled out my gun, a Beretta 9mm, and walked to the back of the truck. I pulled open the door, gun at the ready.

  The bodies were all lying as they were before, piled up on top of each other, each covered in a plastic sheet.

  Maybe there was something rolling around in the back. I climbed up into the truck and took a look around. I found a toolbox lying on its side. It must have been sliding around in here. I closed it and secured it.

  As I turned to leave the truck, I found someone behind me.

  “Foster?”

  Even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t Foster. He was too short for a start. I heard a growl before being tackled. I got off one good shot, but it didn’t do anything to deter it.

  I screamed in pain, as it ripped my arm open with its teeth.

  “Foster!” I yelled.

  He didn’t make it in time.

  *

  Bryan

  This is it. This is the day I finally do it.

  I psyched myself up for what I was about to do. Deal with my demons once and for all.

  I had been tortured all through school by Dwight and his buddies. Picked on for being shorter than the other kids, skinner, too pale, too whatever. The truth was, Dwight didn’t need an excuse to pick on me, he was just a grade-A asshole and I’d had enough. He was going down.

  Yesterday had been the final straw. I was finally done with school and I thought done with them. I got a job in the general store and I was actually feeling good about myself for once.

  Then Sherrie had come into the store. Sherrie was beautiful. Truly beautiful, she could easily be on the cover of one of those fashion magazines, but she was also a really nice girl too. You didn’t get that much. Most pretty girls were stuck up cows. Sherrie was different.

  We were in school together and I had been in love with her for as long as I could remember.

  As I was stacking cans in the middle of the store, she passed me and I caught a whiff of her perfume, the one she always wore. Patchouli, I think it was.

  She stopped a few feet away at the meat counter. As Anthony, the butcher, took her order, I stared at her. I loved the way her long black hair fell in perfect little ringlets around her shoulders.

  I didn’t hear Dwight and the others come into the store. I was too mesmerized by her.

  I suddenly felt overwhelmed by the need to talk to her. My heart sped up as I tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Hi, Sherrie,” I said. That was all I said, as I was grabbed from behind and dragged away from her.

  “Hey Twiglet,” Dwight said, that was his nickname for me. Not very original.

  He and his friends, Luke and John, brought me to the chest freezer in the corner.

  “Let me go, Dwight,” I said, as Sherrie looked on.

  “Let me go, Dwight,” he mimicked, in a high girly voice.

  He opened the chest freezer and grabbed a bag of frozen peas, “I always thought you were a bit of a hot head. I think you need to cool off.”

  His red pug face broke into a grin as he shoved the frozen peas into my pants. I yelped as the cold penetrated my underwear.

  One of the other goons held my arms down so I couldn’t remove them.

  “Stop it!” I screeched, managing to sound like his impression of me now. Frozen sweetcorn followed the peas. He kept going until there was no room left.

  “That’s enough, Dwight,” Anthony warned, but even he wasn’t fool enough to go up against them.

  They lifted me up and dumped me ass first into the freezer. They left the store laughing wildly.

  Humiliated and stuck, I watched as Sherrie silently left the store, a look of pity on her face. By the time Anthony managed to pull me out, I had already decided on revenge. Dwight had to pay.

  Which was why I found myself heading towards his house on the edge of town with a .38 in my pocket. It belonged to my dad. He kept it in his desk drawer for protection. I don’t know what against, considering nothing ever happened out here.

  I already knew I wasn’t going to actually use the gun on Dwight. I just wanted to scare him with it. I wanted him to feel some of the humiliation and fear I felt over the years. I wanted to hear him beg and plead for his miserable life.

  It was Saturday; he would probably still be at home this early. I went over different scenarios in my head of how it would play out. The most appealing one was where Dwight ended up on his knees in the front yard for everyone to see, crying and wetting himself with fear.

  Then Sherrie would arrive and be so impressed that we would start making out then and there. That image got pretty graphic fast. I could think about that later.

  I sped up, arms pumping. Rage coursed through me as I arrived at his house. This is it!

  Stomping up the steps onto the porch, the screen door swung open and I skidded to a halt.

  “Oh, hi Mrs. Stickler. Is Dwight home?” I asked, tryi
ng to sound as innocent as possible, while inside I felt ready to explode.

  “He’s out in the back yard,” she said. She had a purse over her shoulder; she was leaving. Good, I didn’t need an audience. Or at least not one who would stop me. Most of the people in town were sick of Dwight’s antics and I’m sure most of them would want to see his get his comeuppance.

  I thanked her and headed around the back. Dwight was making a half-hearted attempt to mow the lawn. He was hindered by the fact that he was too busy drinking a beer to actually start the mower. He wore a sleeveless shirt and ripped jeans. I could imagine him in ten years time as a loser alcoholic living in a trailer somewhere.

  He glanced up, “Twiglet, come for another beating have you?”

  I took a deep breath, ready to unleash fourteen years of pent up aggression on his ass, but I was stopped by the man who had appeared in the garden behind Dwight. He had wandered through a gap in the hedge.

  His head was hanging to one side as he walked, bent at a strange angle. He was wearing a military uniform, black with no markings on it. If you didn’t count what looked like dried blood.

  My mouth was frozen open in horror.

  “Yo, douche bag, why are you in my yard?” Dwight said.

  I raised my hand to point at the man, forgetting it was the one holding the gun.

  Dwight took a step back, “Hey, man. You’re not thinking of doing anything stupid are you?”

  “L-look,” I stuttered.

  “No way, I’m not falling for that. Put the gun down man,” he said.

  Why did he have to be so incredibly stupid? The soldier reached for Dwight. He must have seen him from the corner of his eye, because he leapt away.

  “Who the hell are you?” he asked.

  I backed away; there was something really wrong with the soldier. Most people found it difficult walking around with a broken neck, which was what I was sure it was. The guy was dead and he was still walking around.

  Dwight made a run for the house and managed to trip over the lawnmower. He smacked his chin off the ground. The movement sent the soldier into a frenzy and he reached down and grabbed Dwight’s pant leg and began dragging him along. The more Dwight thrashed around, the more agitated the soldier seemed to become.