The Infected Box Set, Vol. 1 [Books 1-3]

by Zuko, Joseph

  “I’m not a doctor. I don’t know how this works. I saw a two-minute video on the news. That’s it. She seems fine,” I let out the clutch and take off with a lurch. All four tires screech. The lot is empty by the time we get to the street.

  “Where are we going?” asks Sara.

  “Vancouver. That’s where my family is.”

  “Vancouver? You wanna cross the bridge? With all this shit going on? That’s insane,” she has snapped out of her haze.

  “I have to get to my family. They’re in Vancouver. So I’m gonna get across that bridge,” I shift into the next gear.

  “Maybe you should drop me off,” she is restless back there. I pull to the next street. There is a pack of bloodthirsty infected heading for us.

  “You want out now?” I ask her. She looks at the angry horde of death.

  “No. I’ll stay,” she says contrite.

  There are a few people packing their cars to bug out on this little street. I roll down my window.

  “There’s a shit ton of them heading this way! You better get moving!” I yell out to the families and then roll my window back up.

  “Will that happen to me?” Colleen asks in a low voice. I glance over at her and I shrug my shoulders. Tears pour down her cheeks.

  “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die! I don’...”

  “Knock it off! If you act crazy I’ll drop your ass off right here!” my voice breaks and I punch the dash. It doesn’t help anyone if I freak out now. I have got to calm down. “I’m sorry. We have to keep it together for a little...” I look over at Colleen. She is zoned in on her forearm. Her veins have gone black.

  Chapter 8

  Colleen squeezes her infected arm at the elbow.

  “NO, NO, NO!”

  “Do something!” she pleads.

  “She’s turning!” Devon panics.

  “Pull over!” yells Sara. Colleen coughs up a mouthful of blood. Damn this infection! She spews blood onto her jacket and all over the dash. I slam on the brakes and pull over. She convulses. I get out of the Bronco and I pop the seat forward to let out Devon and Sara. I sprint around to the passenger’s side and open the door.

  “Colleen?!” I call her. She doesn’t respond. I slide my arms under her knees and the back of her neck and I pull her out. I lay her on the grass and take a few steps back. I watch as her eyes go blood red and the skin around her mouth pulls tight. Her whole body shakes violently and blood drains out of her nose and ears. Her eyes turn black.

  “We should go,” Sara says.

  “Should, we finish her?” asks Devon. Nothing about this feels right. I don’t know this woman but she seemed like a good person.

  “Damn it!” I pull the knife I have on my hip and kneel next to her body. I place my hand on her forehead like you would to test a sick child’s temperature. I take the blade and stick it into her jaw and up into her brain. Her body stops shaking and it is over. What am I doing? This is a fucking nightmare. This is a lesson. If you are bitten you have to go. There is no stopping this infection. I should have listened to Devon. No way in hell I will make that mistake again.

  “Should we say something?” wonders Devon. I pull the blade from her body and stand back up.

  “Go ahead,” I mutter. I put the knife back on my hip.

  “I don’t know, man.”

  Two guys sprint across the street for the Bronco. Like a dummy I left the keys in the ignition. Both guys are good sized and in their thirties. One of them has bleach blonde hair. I move fast to get back to the driver’s side. The blonde one is already halfway into the Bronco when I get to him.

  “Get out!” I reach for his belt.

  “Fuck you!” he yells over his shoulder at me. I grab his belt and pull him out. As he falls out he throws a punch at me. It almost connects, but I slide my head to the side. It only grazes me. I take a step back so I have a second to think. Devon joins me. I hope he is ready for this. Most fights are over in a minute and all of them end up on the ground. If I end up on my back these two will stomp me to death. The two guys charge. The blonde one throws a few haymakers. I block and duck. The other guy comes at Devon. They punch wildly at each other. Blondie switches from haymakers to uppercuts. He keeps advancing and I take a few steps back. I am pressed against the Bronco and I have nowhere left to go. He lands a hard right on my chin and it rings my bell. I hate being hit. I get hit in class sometimes. It is always on accident, but it hurts so badly. The human face is not designed to take a beating. It is soft and breaks easily. Devon is on the ground getting punched in the head. He is finding out exactly what I am talking about. The poor guy is in big trouble. Damn it. If I can’t take Blondie out fast, Devon is going to get killed. Sara moves quickly and stabs the back of Devon’s attacker. The guy cries out in pain. She got him right in the shoulder blade. The knife stays stuck in his back. His arms fight to reach back and pull it out.

  Blondie throws a straight jab at me. I do a move that I practiced in class over and over again. As his left hand comes straight for my face I push his punch slightly to slide past my face and at the exact same time I throw a straight punch. I aim for his neck. It delivers the most damage to an opponent with the least amount of risk to my hand. It connects. Blondie can’t breathe. He grabs his throat. I make sure there is no more fight in him with a hard rising kick to the groin. He falls to his knees. That is the second time I kicked a man’s dick today. I guess it is my signature move.

  The other guy gets up off Devon. He charges at me, hits me full force and I am slammed up against the Bronco. My head hits the back quarter window. It dazes me. He throws punches at my face. He lands one in my ear and a hook that gets my nose. The cartilage breaks on impact. Pain radiates. Oh baby, does the pain radiate. My sunglasses crack and fall to the ground. Blood drains down into my throat and I start coughing. I try to keep my hands up as he throws punches at me, but I am hurting.

  Suddenly he stops attacking me and he screams out in pain again. When he turns around the knife is in a different spot. Sara pulled it out and stabbed him again. This is my chance. I muster everything I have left in me and kick hard into the back of his leg. This sends him to his knees. I quickly reach out and throw my arms around his head. I choke him out by pinching off his carotid artery with my forearm. If you get a good deep choke, you can make someone blackout in a few seconds. I feel his body go limp. My nose kills with every heavy breath I take.

  What the hell were these assholes thinking? Trying to steal someone’s ride. Then he breaks my nose. I am no Brad Pitt, but I liked my nose and now I am going to look like an old boxer. He fully passes out. I let his body go and it falls forward and lands face down on his blonde friend. I look up at Sara. My eyelids flutter and I can’t focus. She pulls the knife out of his body and puts it back into its sheath.

  “Thank you,” my eyes will not focus and my voice sounds funny with my busted nose full of blood.

  “I owed you one,” she steps over to help Devon up. I hope that this doesn’t become the new form of currency. Violent acts exchanged for more violent acts; you saved me from being raped. Okay. I owe you two stabs in someone’s back.

  “Help me with him,” we grab Devon by the arms and pull him to his feet. He is going to have a black eye and his lip is busted.

  “Fuck, that hurt dude. Sorry,” he says.

  “That’s okay,” I rinse the blood out of my mouth and then take a big drink of water.

  “Lets get the hell out of here,” Sara helps him back around to the passenger’s side of the car. I get back into the Bronco and lock the door behind me. I look in the rearview mirror and check out my nose. There is a bulge on the bridge. I have seen in movies where tough guys reset the nose easy-peasy. The last thing I want to do is touch it. Devon lies down on the bench. Sara sits up front next to me. She grimaces when she sees my nose.

  “It looks broken.”

  “It’s very broken.”

  “You want me to set it?”

  “No,” I say inst
antly.

  “Are you going to?”

  “No,” I say as fast as before.

  “It will take two seconds and then we can get going.”

  “Have you ever done it before?”

  “No, I’ve seen it in the movies.”

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” she moves closer to my face with her hands out.

  “It can’t be that hard. Don’t be a pussy.”

  Who is this girl? She has her hands close to my nose.

  “Please don’t!” I plead with her.

  “Hey! Hold still! You don’t want me to fuck this up, do you?” I wince when she touches my nose.

  “Please stop! It’s fine! I’ll be OKAAAAY!” Crunch! This crazy chick reset my nose. Damn it hurts! I look in the mirror and the bulge is gone. My nose is swollen and hurts like hell. Who is this girl? She resets broken noses and will stab a man to save a stranger. “I can’t believe you did that!”

  “I told you it was easy. Can we go now?”

  “Yeah,” I look back at Devon. He stares at Sara. It is puppy love. My first impression of this girl is that she chews up and spits out boys like Devon. I hit the gas. I snake my way down some back roads. They seem to be a little quieter. No more stops, I promise myself. I can’t take anymore car crashes or punches to the face.

  The next intersection we pull up to has an old folks home on the corner.

  “Oh no.”

  “What?” asks Devon.

  “It’s an old folks home.”

  “So?”

  “Look,” he sits up to see. The street if full of old infected bodies. They see us and shuffle our way. If I go through them I will wreck this Bronco. Someone must have passed early this morning and the rest of the poor old people could not do anything to stop them. Oh crap, I remember there is an old folks home not even three blocks from where I live. I am not an ageist, but when people get old and can’t take care of themselves it can get gross. Add torn flesh, missing limbs, open night gowns, popped colostomy bags and it gets absolutely disgusting. It would be nice if I could go five minutes without all of my senses being completely bombarded with horrifying, nightmarish gore.

  Behind us a diesel engine is moving fast. It is a snow plow. Where the hell did this guy get a snow plow? He tears across the intersection. The big plow is covered in human remains. It absolutely decimates these old bodies. It hits six at a time and doesn’t slow down. I look over at Sara and she gives me a half smile. It is so over the top, even though it is incredibly wrong and disturbing, you want to laugh. Only so you don’t go completely insane. The plow takes out all of the infected on the street. I hit the gas and follow him. The Bronco slides around on the concrete as I get up to speed. The ground is slick with body fluids. The plow weaves all over the street purposely hitting the infected.

  “This guy’s like, bat shit insane!” exclaims Devon.

  The plow hits a parked car and tears off every metal panel and the door like it was newspaper. We zip down two blocks before I know it. I wish I could follow this guy all the way home. I would be there in ten minutes.

  The road comes to an end and the plow slams on its brakes and makes a hard right. It takes down a fire hydrant on the corner. Water explodes into the air and splashes down on us. It covers my windshield with so much water we go blind for a few seconds until I find the controls for the wipers. The next road we pull onto is littered with cars. The people drive like maniacs trying to get home, or leave home, who knows. I thought this guy would slow down now that he is on a main road, but he is going even faster. He weaves in and out of traffic still pulverizing the random infected that try to cross the street. “He’s going to kill someone,” I shift into the last gear. I stay with the plow. It is the best lead blocker ever, but I am pushing seventy. The speed limit is only thirty five. My butthole eats the seat every time I pass a car or enter an intersection. There is a major intersection up ahead and it is full of cars. He tears the back and front bumper off them. It makes for a nice opening that we dart through.

  The next intersection opens up to a four lane with a median and it has more cars to navigate through. I don’t understand why he is driving this way. If he took it slow he would still get where he is going. Why drive like a maniac? The stress of getting into another car crash is not worth following this madman. We have gone thirteen blocks and it only took us a minute to get here. So that is cool, but Goddamn, slow down you weirdo. He blows apart a few infected bodies. Some of the guts and blood spray up and over the top of the plow and land on our ride. I fire the wipers back up to clear the window.

  The plow races through the next intersection and is t-boned by a fast moving fire truck. The unstoppable force has met its match. The fire truck pushes it into another car and the plow tips over on its side. I jam on the brakes. The whole intersection is full of busted vehicles and now I don’t have a lead blocker. I search for a clear path that will keep me going in the right direction, but there is none.

  Seconds after the plow comes to a full stop on its side the passenger door pops open and a woman climbs out. I push away the urge to make a joke about women drivers. The joke pops in and out of my head quickly but I keep it to myself. The woman gets stable and surveys the area. She has something big strapped to her back. She watches as packs of freshly turned infected roam the streets killing everyone they meet. She pulls the object from her back. It is an assault rifle. The woman opens fire. She spays bullets in every direction. Unfortunately the Bronco is not bulletproof. Rounds rip through the cabin and engine compartment. She misses our bodies, thank God, but our windshield is gone and I know she has really screwed up our engine. I have played paintball, emphasis on the word played, and I have also been shot with a BB gun. My brother and I thought it would be fun to shoot at each other. We were kids and it was a very stupid idea. Luckily no one was hurt and we were caught by my father immediately.

  I have never been shot at by a real gun. It is absolutely terrifying and today it has happened twice. The fear I feel is a very difficult thing to describe. It is an almost unimaginable thing that a little chunk of lead can put a stop to this whole trip. It happens so fast that I don’t have much time to dwell on it. She is not trying to shoot us. We are just down range from her real targets. Even with all her wild shots she does manage to cut down a good-sized group of infected. It opens up a little space for us to make our escape. I crank the steering wheel and make a hard left. With the pedal to the metal we leave the crazy woman to her almost certain demise.

  I weave down a few blocks and put some distance between the gun-toting lady and us. We have entered into a more industrial area. There are more businesses here than homes. The traffic is much lighter and no one is on the streets. There is an abandoned parking lot ahead of us. I pull into it and yank the emergency brake. We skid to a stop.

  “Are you guys okay?” I pivot in my seat to look back at Devon. He rubs his sore face and gives me a thumbs up. He can’t even squeak out a “dude” for me. There is a clear as day bullet hole in the seat next to him. Only inches away. Sara has a tight grip on the dash. Her hair has fallen her face. She breathes in her nose and out her mouth. “Are you okay?” I ask again. She raises her hand and holds up her index finger. She still needs a minute. I examine the windshield and there are five holes in it. Another three in the hood. I take a sip of water as I look around the abandoned parking lot. The building is an old strip club. The sign reads “Fuzzy Holes.” That’s a funny name for a club. On the sign below the name is reads “We fired the ugly one. Come on in!” I like a strip club with a sense of humor. The crack half a smile thinking about if there was an ugly woman working there how long did she shake her nasty udders and dirty mud flaps before she got the axe. Did the guys lay down singles and ask her for change. My half smile quickly goes away and I crank around the rearview mirror. I take a look behind us. The building directly behind us is a gym. The front is smashed open. Busted glass litters the street. I don’t think that much of it until I see the beasts tha
t busted open the door. These two look like Schwartzenegger wannabes. Two hundred and fifty pounds each of pure infected muscle rumbles across the street. They are on a collision course with the backend of the Bronco. Fantastic.

  Chapter 9

  They move really fast for being such big guys. It only takes the two muscle head monsters a few seconds to sprint across the street and into the parking lot. They smash into us like a couple of rhinos. They hit the Bronco so hard that we slide a foot even with the emergency brake on. Their twenty four inch pythons blast through the back window. Devon ducks down. He squeezes his body all the way down to the floorboard. The monsters keep pushing us and the tires grind across the asphalt. The only thing keeping them out of the car is their massive chests and their inability to take turns. Both monsters fight to climb into the same small opening. Meat heads. No way in hell I am stepping out of this car to face them. They would snap me in half and eat me like a protein bar. One of them has his hand on Devon’s backpack. He lifts and pulls at him like he weighs nothing.

  “Jim?!” Devon holds onto the back of Sara’s seat. I drop the emergency brake and put the old V8 into reverse and punch the gas. I back out of the parking lot, across the street and slam into the brick wall of the gym. Their heads are crushed between the wall and the back of the car. These two monsters explode and blood sprays us like a fire hose. The whole inside of the cab feels like it is coated in blood. The tires spin and the engine revs because my foot is still pressed all the way to the floor. I finally let off the gas. I put her back into first and pull away from the wall. They drop out of the back window and fall to the ground. The inside of the windshield is splattered with gunk. I wipe it with my gloved hand so I can see out. I have got to keep us moving. I can’t stop. It is horrible every time I do. Devon has a full gallon of blood on him. He runs his hand through his hair to try and squeeze out the excess chunky marinara sauce. Next to him on the seat is a severed jaw. He slides as far away from it as he can.