World of Zombies

by E. E. Isherwood

  JT’s .357’s began to sing just as something cut the power, throwing everything into total darkness. The flashes of the guns became the only source of illumination. The strobe effect led them both deeper into the dark vault. A fitting effect for the final challenge of their long quest.

  “Switching to FLIR,” he said with absolute calm. Despite the sick researchers shambling around—all with sickly gray skin and glowing red eyes—he didn’t lose his cool. He was proud he’d been able to push the fear away and stay glued to his objective. He imagined it was how proper military men might handle the same situation.

  “Got it,” JT replied.

  The infrared headset worked miracles for him. “Wow. That’s the ticket. I can see ‘em all!”

  They fired at will. He and JT stuck together until the middle of the room. The tables of vats and beakers on the far side required them to split up so they could clear the room properly. He marveled at the amazing fidelity of the scene as he watched a shotgun shell forced from the breech of the weapon along with a puff of gas. The infrared mode didn’t strip out any of the detail.

  “This is awesome,” he screamed into his comms headset.

  He brought down several more zombies in quick order before reaching the back wall. JT came running up from his side of the room, bragging as usual.

  “How many did you get? I killed ten.”

  Liam doubted his friend’s count, but he hadn’t been keeping score just then.

  “What do we do now?”

  JT smiled from under his IR headgear and pointed to an alcove on the back wall. “We’ve made it to the end, my friend. We just have to push that button, and this place will self-destruct.”

  “And all this will be over? This whole adventure? That doesn't seem right … ”

  “Yep. We win.” JT clapped him on the shoulder.

  “This is all too easy,” Liam responded. Easier than the bridge where they’d lost their two friends, no question there.

  “Who cares. Just push it, and we can get out of here.”

  It probably ran on batteries because it had a little blinking red light under it. Just as you might expect of something designed to blow up the place.

  He considered every option but finally relented. The three-inch button sank into the wall with a click.

  The device opened a massive door along the back wall revealing hundreds—maybe thousands—more zombies in the next chamber. All of them moved toward them with the same slow zombie shuffle, shouting the word “brains” while holding their arms in front of them. They greatly desired the fresh meat in their midst. Liam had seen it before, though never with this many.

  He began to reload his shotguns when a female voice broke his concentration.

  “Help me, please!”

  JT shared his concerned look.

  “Under here,” he yelled while pointing both shotguns at the cabinet door beneath the lab table.

  “After you,” JT said dramatically while training his Pythons on the same spot.

  Liam lowered the shotguns, ignoring the groans of the horde drawing close. He unlatched the door to see a young blonde-haired woman coiled up inside. She held out her hand, and the boys helped her to her feet.

  Moans and groans momentarily forgotten, Liam couldn’t help looking her over.

  Blonde. Tight-fitting jeans. Nothing above but a stars-and-stripes bikini top.

  “We’re here to rescue you,” Liam declared with his best attempt at bravado.

  “No, we’re all going to die. There’s too many,” she replied.

  Liam was dumbfounded. “Then why did you get out of your hiding spot?”

  He watched her blue eyes tear up, and he instantly regretted the words. Her eye sockets were messy puddles of smeared eye liner from previous tears.

  “I—I didn’t want to die alone.”

  “Oh, hell,” JT droned from behind him.

  “We’ll do our best,” he said to cheer her up.

  Her smile was weak, but it was there. She had faith.

  We can do this.

  Zombies came in from the entryway, fell from ceiling tiles, and swarmed from the back until they converged on the trio. Each doomed warrior expended a good chunk of ammo before the zombies trapped them for good.

  He had to shout over the noise. “JT, you lied. You said all we had to do was push the button. That’s how we win!”

  The horde pressed up against them. The two boys stood with their weapons forward and their backs against the helpless damsel in distress. Thinking it over, it was pretty near to one of the screenshots he remembered from the game’s download page.

  His friend sounded beaten. “I’ve never made it this far before. I was just making things up.”

  “Well, that figures.”

  Liam could do no more than watch as his avatar was brought down in a zombie chomp-fest. The pain was amplified because JT's character died a full second later. That would be one more point against him in their brother-like rivalry in video games.

  A female computer voice filled his headphones. “Match ended. Hunter team efficiency 37%. Hunter team losses equal 100%. Player ‘Meat Me in Yonkers’ has maintained the rank of Rookie.”

  “Dang it!”

  He yanked off his headphones and tossed them onto a pile of books on his desk next to the PC tower. The computer game after action screen glared at him as if to mock his purported expertise. He’d let two of his friends die early on in the simulation and failed to lead the rest of the team to victory. They’d been in a position to rescue one of the valuable non-player characters, but she died in that room same as them. JT even got more kills than him, in addition to capturing that all-important braggy extra second of life.

  The distant voices of his friends came out of his discarded headphones. His volume remained turned up well beyond what Mom and Dad would find appropriate. Even great-grandma Marty would probably think it was too loud.

  He snickered as he put them back on. The headphone and microphone combination was necessary so he could talk to his three friends. The wintery conditions on the county roads made it impossible for them to meet in person as they all preferred, but playing online while chatting was the next best thing.

  “Guys, World of Zombies is kinda lame. It’s not nearly as cool as World of Undead Soldiers, which you all know also has zombies.”

  Left unsaid was that he’d played the other game for years. He was, in fact, a master at killing all manner of undead. Vampires. Yetis. Even zombies. But a game with only zombies was a different beast entirely, and not one he found very challenging. It took brains to fight those other beasts, as each required a particular kind of weapon or magical talisman to defeat. Zombies just stood there and died with simple bullets. The game designers made no effort to make them interesting or different.

  Jacob laughed. “At least you didn’t die in the middle of the game. I slipped off that bridge like a newb lord.”

  Liam pushed back in his chair and crossed his arms. If his friends wanted to play again he might indulge them once more, but there was no reason to stop playing his preferred game. Sure the video quality was better, and it was the “latest and greatest” from Saratov Systems—his favorite game company—but new wasn’t always better.

  A loud bang rattled the floor beneath his chair. The sound defeated his amplified headphones still blaring the end game credits.

  He rolled his eyes.

  Dad had been shopping again. He’d watched him unload the car earlier that evening after pulling it into the garage and closing the garage door. Dad proudly called himself a gun nut, and he often proved it. Not even icy streets could stop him from buying guns at auction.

  It sounded as if he’d dropped some while taking them to the basement.

  Internally he debated helping. He knew he should. His game was a total loss, and nothing required his butt be in his chair, but he was kind of Dadded-out at that particular moment. It rubbed him the wrong way his father would go to any length to get those stupid gu
ns, but he wouldn’t budge when Liam asked him to drive through those same road conditions to get him to JT’s house for the night.

  While he debated that point, his friends started up the next game. A screen asked if he wanted to join.

  Sorry, Dad. I'm reeeeal busy.

  He clicked the screen. “All right, guys. I’ll give this one more shot. Let’s go find some zombies.”

  In six months the zombies would be looking for him.

  ###

  To learn Liam's fate, click here to buy on Kindle. The book has a 4.5 rating with 257 reviews. Below is the blurb for Since the Sirens for a little background information.

  A pair of teens against the world

  Liam Peters must spend his summer vacation taking care of his lame great-grandmother. For an almost-sixteen-year-old, it's the worst summer he could imagine, but he stays sane by playing online video games with his friends back home. Victoria Hennessy grew up in rural Colorado, but is excited to spend a few months in the city as she prepares for college.

  When the end of the world arrives, both teens head for home, but chance puts them together at the heart of a dying metropolis.

  The zombie apocalypse is the last place anyone should look for love, but Liam sees something in the pretty coed that is both a distraction and a motivator as they struggle to stay alive. Somewhere along the way he realizes he has two women he'd die to save. But Victoria is no damsel in distress, nor is the ever-feisty Grandma Marty.

  The trio is swept up in the action to escape the zombie outbreak, but can two teens and an elderly woman survive criminal encounters, panicked citizens, and a military running out of options?

  And do it as mutating zombies press in from all sides?

  Since the Sirens is the gripping first installment of E. E. Isherwood’s hit post-apocalyptic series Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse. If you like zombie novels with ongoing societal collapse, zombie hordes always bearing down on the heroes, a little conspiracy, and skin-of-teeth escapes, you won’t be able to put down this awesome read!

  Praise for Since the Sirens:

  "Love this series. Can't wait to read more! A truly unique take on end of the world themes."

  "This was the first book where after I finished reading it, I went on Facebook and started following the author and even messaged the author."

  "Echoes of King's "The Stand" vaguely coming through but in no way ripping off any story lines."

  "Not a big fan of zombie books, but the author is such a good storyteller I got sucked right into it."

  "From "Slow Burn" to "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot", this novel sets a mood of action, distinct imagery and likable characters."

  Collectively, all six books combine to over 400 4+ star ratings on Amazon. Here are some reviews from book 6, so you know this isn't a trap!

  "I can't wait until the next book comes out I'm obsessed with this series! This was the best one yet."

  "Loved this series!!!!! If you are a fan of end of the world as we know it scenarios, buy this! Can't wait for more of his books!!!"

  "OMG! You have got to be kidding me! I have to wait for the next book? I might go crazy waiting for the next one!"

  Sample from Sky Dancers

  Most of my books are set in the same universe. Many take place around the time of the zombie apocalypse, but some happen much later. The Sky Dancers book is set decades after the events in my main series, but offers several clues about how the plague was started. Please enjoy a prologue and chapter 1 to the series.

  Prologue

  NEVADA. MANY YEARS AGO.

  “Ma'am, what are you still doing up here? Orders came down. This time it’s for real.”

  Major Valerie Draker had been dreading those inevitable words since the assignment dropped on her desk.

  “It's too thin, Max. This rock has been jumping and skipping like an Irish Riverdance for much too long. The machines below. The dynamite of the dam. All of it has broken this hilltop.”

  She’d read report after report about her bunker—a place she came to know as the Complex—and spent every free moment looking at it from various angles, including the outside. Here, on this exposed rocky hillside, the machines had scraped too close to the surface. It could become a liability with a few more shakes.

  “Ma'am. There's no time. Orders,” he repeated with growing impatience.

  She looked at the younger man. He reminded her of James, her son. It was the high and tight haircut. Her boy was somewhere out in the thick of the global disaster, doing his duty to get people to safety. Same as her. It was too soon to close the main doors. Months too soon.

  She inhaled deeply. It might be her final breath of real outdoor air for a very long time.

  The red rock of the sunny hillside gave way to a long, steep shadow-draped valley below. She imagined it would eventually lead to the Gulf of California if she followed the river that way. Instead of a picturesque tourist magazine photograph, it was now a vector for an attack. Several people had come up the canyon—confirmed by her surveillance cameras—and moved on to parts unknown. Were they scouting for her redoubt's weaknesses? There were rumors of strange groups probing other bunkers.

  She and Max shared a concerned look. “Once I close this door, I can't save another damned soul.”

  “You don't have a choice,” he replied without emotion. “Orders,” he repeated again, as if that word could absolve what they were about to do.

  “But we aren't even a quarter of the way full. Most of my bunks are filled by the workers still building the place. How did we get this so wrong?” She sounded as tired as she felt.

  “The end of the world doesn't come with an instruction manual,” he said with a little more cheer. He was always trying to be positive. Years of close cooperation made him more like family than an assistant.

  She had started to turn around when movement caught her eye below. A lone runner came around a bend, as if dashing for home plate. A moment later, others followed at a brisk pace. She pulled up her binoculars. Max did the same.

  “They're chasing her down.” Max spoke quietly, as if the pursuit might hear him. “The plague is here,” he added with finality. “We’ve got to lock up.”

  Valerie took a few moments to watch the young runaway. She wanted to choke up at the hopelessness. Decorum wouldn’t allow it.

  “My God. She's really flying,” Max said with hushed awe.

  With a twist of the lens, she watched in high detail as the teen girl sprang from rock to rock while she looked ahead and picked her route up the valley. Her long, brown ponytail was a metronome of regularity behind her. She appeared to be dressed in workout clothes, like she'd run straight from the gym.

  The girl saw the two of them standing on the rocks and waved, as if seeking confirmation she’d been seen. Valerie couldn't ignore the hands. They were bloody. Intel warned her of this. Clearly, she was infected. When she swept the glasses to the larger group, the only detail of concern was the abundance of blood. The pursuit wore gory red clothes.

  “That's it, dammit. Button her up and go dark,” she stated firmly as she turned to go back inside the hidden emergency door. It was cold to leave the girl, but she was dead already.

  Max didn’t jump to her suggestion. A contrast to his earlier pronouncements about “orders.” He continued to watch the girl.

  “We can save her,” Max pleaded. It was an uncharacteristic emotion from the younger man. He was typically reserved. Dependable. She'd even call him pliable, though she hated to think of people in such base terms.

  She hesitated.

  One more female won’t make much difference, but one plague victim could kill us all. We can’t take the risk.

  Her duty was to the multi-billion dollar facility behind them.

  “No,” she said firmly. “We can't. She's covered in blood. You can see that, same as me.”

  Max peered hard before he came up with a response. “Those are just her hands. There’s none on the rest of her. Look at her move, ma'am. Sh
e's beau—I mean, she's not infected. I'd bet anything on it.”

  “We can't risk it. Get us locked down,” she said with her Major's voice. Then, almost against her better judgment, she added more gently, “please, Max.”

  That got him moving, as she knew it would. She was keen to get back inside, finish up the inspection of the cracks in the roof, then lock up the vault with the long-term protocols. There was so much waiting to go wrong. So much demand on her attention. She'd more or less stopped listening to Max's protests, and saw nothing extraordinary about how he squatted down and picked something off the ground.

  Max’s voice startled her. “I'd rather take my chances with her than another day with an old windbag like you—”

  “Wha—”

  She was interrupted by intense pressure on the back of her head. A rock slide maybe. Something fell from the hill above. Her mind had but a second to conjure a host of excuses for her sudden pain, though it avoided the most obvious.

  He's so much like James.

  A few loose rocks and the bunker system beneath were no longer her concern.

  Chapter 1

  MANY YEARS LATER.

  I savored the smells of my climb: chalk bags, synthetic rope, and sweat. Maybe not the sweat. Let's call it hard work.

  The well-traveled rocks of the climbing wall had been worn smooth by countless climbers before me; rubber from our soles had filled in many of the tiny imperfections of the stone. Despite the panoramic view of the lush green forest all around me, the recycled air and red rock floor kept me from forgetting the scene was a holographic projection inside the hexagonal-shaped Great Hall. One chamber in my underground home.

  “You can do it, Elle,” someone shouted from far below.

  The climbing wall was real. The eight other members of my class were real. Our teacher was—sadly—real. Only the landscape displayed on the towering walls of the cavern were fake. Somewhere through all that rock above my head was the open sky. Something I'd never viewed with my own eyes.