Jayda moved in to help Richard pack. She placed in two sets of clothes, two jackets. Survival mode she knew well. Jayda looked out the bedroom window and scanned the street. It looked deserted. A quick stroll to the bathroom window on the other side of the house showed only a few of them lingered. Maybe even the dead gave up.
Downstairs, they packed all they hoped would fit in the car, and placed it by the door to the garage. Richard had a dry sink in front of it. She knew he didn’t trust the garage door to hold if a horde of them came knocking. So they packed and stacked, figuring they’d pack the car right before they left.
Sherri, who had her nose pressed to a piece of wood over a window, looking out a small hole in the board, gasped. Jayda moved close to her.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Gun?” Sherri choked out.
Jayda nudged her away and looked out the hole herself. She saw two shadowy figures stepping away from a car that hadn’t been there before. They both had large guns, military grade, aimed and ready to fire, as they walked.
She squinted in the dusk to make them out, but they had on hoodies with the hoods pulled up. The air would start to chill, but she figured it more for protection. The noise from the car must have alerted the zombies because they seemed to appear from all angles from around the houses.
She watched as the muzzles of the guns flashed. Silencers. She held her breath as those things fell, one by one. She prayed this was Chase. In the meantime, she ignored Richard asking her what was going on. With her hand up to silence him, she watched the progress of the two men with bated breath.
Moments ticked along like hours as each one of the creatures fell around the men. One was a sure shot while the other seemed a newbie. They made their way steadily toward her house. She’d demanded that Sherri duck down. As they approached, guns aimed at the house, she did the same. Richard followed suit.
Seconds later a knock came at the door. Repetitious, as only a living human being could manage, she stood.
“Don’t answer it!” Richard warned, grabbing her arm to stop her.
“Jayda,” a voice came through the door.
“It’s Chase,” she said smugly, a triumphant smile of joy and relief settling over her as she pulled herself from her husband’s grasp.
Pulling open the door, she stepped aside to let the two men in. Chase held the door open as he motioned. Jayda saw another man emerge from the car and run to the house. Once they were all three safely inside, Chase turned to her. His eyes held wonder, love, and fatigue.
She leapt into his arms without thinking. Relief showed in her muscles she hadn’t even realized were tight. Her mind went back in time with his strong and familiar arms around her. The gun at his side gave her the first rays of hope.
“You made it,” she exclaimed as she pulled back in an awkward move from his tight grasp.
“I did,” he sighed.
Chapter Fifteen
Chase tried to keep his mind on the task, despite working with Richard. The man gave him only short, gruff answers. He got that. From the moment he’d gotten there, he could feel the daggers that Richard had shot at him with each look. He understood that too. Who was he to barge in here and take over in his ex-wife’s house?
She had a husband now. He did what he had to do because he just had to where she was concern. Right or wrong, here he was. He obviously had more to fear than just the walking dead outside. Didn’t seem so safe in here either. Not that he couldn’t take Richard, but on a mental-emotional level, he stood on shaky ground.
Creating a list of what they’d need to bring with them, the essentials only, had become a pissing contest. Despite the short, angry disagreements and sarcastic agreements, Jayda had left the room. Eventually, Dax and Lucas had followed them, mentioning something lame about checking on the women. Regardless, they still couldn’t fit the six of them in one car with it all, no matter what the list consisted of.
“We need food and water, we need stuff from our lab, we need weapons, and we need…shit! We need medical supplies. What do you guys have?” Chase asked.
“Just the basic home medical kit. It would be enough to get through maybe one wound,” Richard said. “We could scavenge through the neighborhood, the houses that are abandoned. We assume all of them, but who really knows. We boarded up and stayed put.”
“We have a neighbor that is an EMT,” Jayda said as she walked back in the room. “I can show you the house. I know she keeps a good stash of stuff at her house, more than she should probably legally have. I’ve teased her about it and borrowed from it. She may not have taken it all if they fled. If they haven’t, maybe they’d let us take it to come with us.”
“I’ll go with Chase,” Richard spat at her.
“Thanks, but I go alone. It’s an easier in and out I learned from the house we got our weapons from,” Chase said and turned to go find Dax and Lucas.
He filled them in on where he was going, and Dax offered him the small pistol with a silencer to hide in his jeans. That way he could move fast and silent even if attacked.
“They have an alarm system if they’re not home,” Jayda added, standing in the doorway.
“I can help with that,” Lucas added.
“I go alone,” Chase said again.
As ice rose in his veins, he listened to Lucas’ instructions on how to disable an alarm. He just prayed that they hadn’t taken the time to turn it on if they’d fled.
As Chase looked out the small windows high on the door that weren’t boarded up, Jayda came up close behind him.
“I’m worried about you,” she whispered.
“Why,” he snapped in the quietest voice he could manage. “You just assume I can’t handle it, that I’ll freak out and screw up? That’s exactly why I’m going alone.”
“No, I didn’t think that at all,” she sighed. “I’d worry about anyone going out there, no matter how trained they were is all.”
“Sorry,” was all he got out.
She nodded.
The sun coming out, he stripped off his hoodie and tucked the gun in the waist of his jeans. He gave her a weak smile and walked out the door.
Chapter Sixteen
Ignoring the clatter of the zombies outside the window, Chase checked the places in the house that Jayda said could have medical supplies. He grabbed a bag he found left behind, emptied it, and started to fill it with the supplies he found.
At least they’d have bandages and antiseptic. He’d even found a kit with enough stuff to stich up a good gash. He found one bottle of antibiotics that had fallen behind a stack of gauze. In the actual medicine cabinet, he found an expired prescription for painkillers. He took them anyway. They weren’t that old.
He heard the glass of the downstairs window shatter. The moans and groans increased in volume. Gun out, he flew back to the living room. He didn’t want them getting scattered around the house. He wanted them contained to slaughter.
He rounded the corner to find several of them falling over each other as they failed to step over the wall under the large picture window. The window had broken from their combined weight, and they’d fallen through. Sadly, they rebounded fast. Gun aimed, he took a shot at the one closest to him that’d already stood up.
The bullet hit the neck of a zombie in a torn and soiled business suit. The dead body jerked, then moved forward. He fired two more shots before the executive type fell inches from him. A child stumbled over him, but sniffed the air and jumped back up. Dressed in filthy tomboy attire, his hand shook as he aimed. He missed her head too. Relief and fear mingled in his brain, made his heart race.
A woman bumped into the little girl. They wobbled, but moved toward him. Her stockings ripped, her doctor’s coat smudged with dirt and blood, they came at him like a deranged family. All he saw was a mass of moving bodies and hands grasping at air. With his bag, he jumped behind a large recliner.
He took several more shots, but they hit their bodies again. The people he hit stopped a sec
ond, but they moved forward right after. Rusty, queasy, he shook his head to remember the families coming at him were no longer human. Swallowing hard despite his dry throat, he white-knuckled the pistol. A couple of shots later, the girl fell.
Closing his eyes tight a second, he pulled back into himself. They’re not people anymore. This is important. Don’t let Jayda down again! One clip left.
Opening his eyes, he fired off several shots. He landed about half head shots. Not enough of them had fallen though. The fallen got in the way of the other live dead, but only enough to buy him another second for a deep breath. He attempted to steady his trembling hand.
Closest to him, a zombie in jogging shorts raised back up. The sickening display of dead flesh and torn t-shirt looked ridiculous. He took aim. Head shot landed, he quickly moved to the next one in line. Only their frontline had gotten too close for comfort and sadly outweighed him.
You have the gun, he reminded himself.
Then, the head a foot from him exploded. Instinct made him duck behind the chair a second. Peering back out, zombies fell until he could see the guns behind them. The room silent, the dead in a pile on the floor, Dax, Jayda, and Richard stood.
“Thanks. I got overwhelmed,” Chase said as he stood.
He climbed over the bodies, ignoring the slide on flesh and the crunch of bone under his heels. Jayda reached up and took the bag he had clutched in his hand.
“No one should ever go out alone,” Jayda stated. “That was too close a call.”
He looked at Richard to get a glare, followed by the glimpse of a triumphant smile before the man turned. Chase’s stomach pitched then clenched. Dax and Richard moved back toward the back door, as Jayda held back, waiting for him to catch up.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. Turning, a zombie from the floor jumped up and dove for Jayda. She still looked at him, so she hadn’t seen it.
“We missed one,” he yelled.
The zombie, a large man, took Jayda down with him. The medical bag hit and then slid across the floor. Chase saw her struggle to get her footing as he saw the mouth of the hideous thing open.
Chapter Seventeen
“Close your eyes and mouth!” Chase shouted at Jayda. “Stay still.”
As he aimed his gun, he saw Richard coming back into the house with his gun raised. A deep breath in, he held it and fired at point blank range into the zombie’s head. It fell with its mouth still open. Pushing the weight off Jayda, he scooped her up.
As he stood, Richard stood, his gun shaking, aimed at Chase. Without time to think, he rushed Jayda into the bathroom. He set her in the tub and turned on the shower.
“Keep your eyes and mouth closed until I get the blood off. Do you think he scratched you?” Chase asked as the water warmed and he rubbed the blood off her clothes.
“She’s my wife,” Richard hissed as he entered the bathroom. “I’ve taken care of her before and I’ll do it again.”
He moved Chase out of the way with his body as he pushed in to Jayda.
“Sorry, I had to get the blood off. Make sure she’s not scratched,” Chase grumbled back as he backed out of the bathroom.
“Why’s that important?” Dax asked.
“I assume that like meningitis as we used to know it, it can be transmitted through saliva and blood,” Chase stated, his eyes still focused on what was going on in the bathroom.
Minutes later, Richard stood to kick the door shut.
“Let’s grab the medical supplies. As soon as they come out, we can make our way back to their place,” Dax advised.
Chase nodded. It took everything in him to step away from that door. He’d abandoned her before, even if for what he thought at the time a good reason. She’d paid the price. Now, another man was there to care for her. He couldn’t even redeem himself. What he could do though was to get her to safety.
Keep focused on that, he reminded himself. You’ll never get her back. She belongs to another man now.
Once Richard and a wet Jayda emerged from the bathroom, the four of them walked back to their house. Each step dangerous, the guns proved invaluable to their survival. The ammo just had to last them the trip. He’d wasted enough bullets himself.
Once the preliminaries of what went down were over with Lucas and Sherri, Richard turned to Chase. He looked him over from head to toe. He couldn’t read the man’s face, but he wouldn’t back down. He tensed, ready for anything, a physical or verbal attack. Something was coming. He could feel the tension and the hatred vibrating off the man. He couldn’t blame him.
“Tell me all the reasons you are going to meet this military man. Surely he isn’t just saving us out of the goodness of his heart,” Richard challenged.
“No, he’s not. Lucas and I think we may have found a cure for this strain of meningitis,” Chase retaliated. “They didn’t want to wait for us to pick you guys up, but I insisted.”
“I had nothing to do with it,” Lucas beamed at Chase.
At least one person here still likes me, Chase thought. Thank heavens for the boy.
“So, how’d you luck into this cure,” Richard asked.
Chase saw Jayda, eyes wide, shake her head. But then she looked his way. Her eyes held compassion and what he used to think was love for him. How she still thought him worthy of even a glance, he’d never know.
“Lucas and I had been doing some research with stem cells and cancer. We weren’t having a lot of success except the odd findings of one mouse. After the zombies attacked our lab, I managed to save one and tie her up. I started running a few tests to see what was going on,” Chase explained.
“I was only getting frustrated with our research,” Lucas added. “I was spouting off, and Chase doing his usual encouraging, when something clicked for Chase. He started to put the failed stem cell research and use it to cure the meningitis strain.”
Chase gave a half-grin to Lucas. He turned back to Jayda. She smiled. Richard grimaced.
“So, it’s still a vague idea in my head. I’m still putting it all together, but I called a friend in the military, Special Forces, biomedical. He said their research wasn’t going well, and he wanted me to bring my idea to them. I bargained for you guys too after I talked to Jayda,” Chase continued.
“So you have shit, really,” Richard spat.
“Richard,” Jayda growled. “Stop it. I know that if Chase has an idea, he stops at nothing to help. He could have taken his work straight to a safe haven, but he fought to come here and save us. So shut up! Start being grateful, damn it!”
Chase’s phone rang, which saved his facial muscles the pain of restraining his smile as Jayda defended him. He dug for the device.
“Hello?” Chase answered.
“Where are you?” Daniel demanded.
“I’m with Jayda and a few others. We are packing up to leave now,” Chase answered back as he noticed all eyes in the room on him.
“You have one day now to get here,” Daniel spouted. “I can’t wait past that. I’ve bought you all the time I can. They want to work with you, but the world gets more dangerous every day. I swear you can catch this disease by touching a railing. So don’t touch anything, just get your ass here!”
“I understand. We’ll get there,” Chase answered to a crackle and then silence on the other end.
“Lost him,” Chase offered the staring group. “We’re running out of time. We have one day to meet him in a field outside of Camp Parks in Dublin.”
“We can do it,” Lucas encouraged with a smile.
“We need a vehicle big enough for all of us and all the stuff. And with enough gas to get us five hours. Hopefully less if traffic is good,” Chase said and then let out a strange laugh.
Chapter Eighteen
Jayda sat down on the couch a second to catch her breath. Nerves were getting the best of her as she let herself think for the first time on the baby she carried inside of her. Her brush with death, as the heavy zombie had moved on top of her, had allowed her to
think of nothing else.
Even with Richard being a jerk since her ex had arrived, and who could really blame the guy, all she wanted was to get to whatever safe haven that Chase had secured for them. She stayed out of the way as they formed a plan to grab a church van a friend of Richard’s had. Dax and Chase had gone on the mission to bring it back to the house.
She sighed, hoping against all hope that it would be there. She wanted no ill to have come to the family; she just wanted the van. She just wanted this baby. As she sat, Sherri came in and sat down beside her. She felt her friend’s shaking hand grab hers. As they sat there in silence comforting one another, Jayda watched Richard go upstairs to change out of his bloody clothes and Lucas walk toward the kitchen with his phone.
What she couldn’t see was Richard go into the bathroom upstairs and pull up his shirt. She had no idea that he’d found his stomach scratched. Jayda would remain clueless that her husband had wrestled down another zombie once Chase had taken her to the bathroom and that before he could get a shot off, the zombie would scratch him.
In her own thoughts about bringing this long wished for baby into this world, she also would fail to notice Lucas near tears in the kitchen. He wouldn’t tell her that while they were gone, he’d been sent a message on his phone from his brother. Not knowing the story anyway, she couldn’t understand what it had done to Lucas to hear his brother tell him that he feared for his life.
Her world now centered on her baby and their survival. The rest of the world, going to hell in a handbasket, were on their own.
Beyond Death: Apocalypse
The sequel to Beyond Death: Origins will be available on Amazon in October 2014. Be sure to signup for the newsletter to get advance notice of new releases.
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From Silas Cooper
Thank you so much for downloading and reading this book. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Stay tuned for other books coming up!
Beyond Death: Origins, Book 1 Page 7