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

by Zuko, Joseph

  “Put it into gear!” He yelled over his shoulder at his mom.

  She rocked over in her seat and leaned across the cab. Morgan grabbed the stick and forced it into first. The transmission ground metal on metal but she was able to work it into position. The instant it popped into gear, the truck lurched forward.

  Cliff reached for the wheel. As he pivoted in his seat, he forced the accelerator down. The creatures pulled at the door and ripped the handle out of Cliff’s grip.

  The door swung wide open. Cliff cranked the wheel and aimed for the back of a police cruiser. The infected kept pace with the truck and were not looking ahead to where they were running. Their bodies slammed into the back of the cruiser and the Dodge’s door clipped the rear bumper. The force of the hit rocketed the door shut and Cliff pulled away from his and Morgan’s demise. He let out a triumphant yell as he got the truck back up to sixty.

  “Goddamn it, Clifford! That was too close!”

  “Don’t tell Tina. She’d kill me.”

  It was a twenty minute round trip for Cliff, but it felt so much longer. His daughter, Eve was waiting and watching for him by the bedroom window. She recognized the sound of the pickup as it raced for his parking spot.

  “Daddy’s back!” She announced to her Mama.

  Tina had been trying to calm herself after her excursion with Karen to save the little girl. Organizing and cleaning the kitchen normally did the trick to clear her mind. She finished placing a box of rice up on a shelf, picked up her knife, headed straight to the front door and down the stairs to meet her husband.

  Tina was already crossing the lot to join him when he opened the door to the Dodge. It was even harder to open after the crash into the back of the cruiser.

  She noticed all the blood covering his jacket and pants, “Holy shit, are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” he opened his arms and gave her a big hug.

  “What happened?” Tina planted a kiss on him.

  “I need a shower. You don’t want to kiss me just yet,” Cliff tried to pull away but there was no stopping her. After a few more smooches she let go of him and waved at Cliff’s mother.

  “I’m so glad to see you Morgan.” She let go of her husband and walked over to the passenger side of the truck and opened the door.

  “I’m guessing I have you to thank for sending my son to save my saggy old ass.” The two women hugged.

  She worked to get Morgan ready for her chair. Tina grabbed the bag off the floorboard. Cliff pulled the wheelchair from the truck bed and popped it open. They lifted Morgan out of the truck and placed her down on her seat. Tina moved behind the chair and pushed towards the steps. The bloody guns lying in the back of the truck caught her attention.

  “Where the hell did you get those?” Tina pointed at the weapons.

  Cliff had never been good at lying, especially to his wife.

  “I found them in the street on the way back. I thought we could use them,” his voice wavered at the end of the sentence.

  “In the street? Why are they covered in blood?” Tina asked suspiciously.

  “Some cops didn’t make it.”

  “And you just walked by and picked up the guns?”

  “Yeah…?”

  “Is that a question?”

  Morgan came to her son’s rescue, “Hey, get me inside before I turn into one of those biters.”

  Tina and Cliff moved fast for the steps. They each took a side of the wheelchair and hoisted her up.

  “I want to use the junk in the bed of my truck to build up a wall to keep those things off our front door,” Cliff grunted out.

  “You want to spend more time out here?” Tina grunted back.

  “It will take me an hour tops to get something up.”

  “What if we need to get down and what about our other neighbors across from us?”

  “We have the rope ladder. We can climb down off the balcony and the neighbors are out of town this week. They probably won’t make it back here anytime soon. If they make it back at all.”

  The two of them got Morgan to the top of the steps and set her down.

  “What if we need to get out of here fast?” Tina eyed down at Morgan.

  “Don’t worry about me honey. I’m not going to be going out to score some dick,” Morgan laughed hard at that one. They pushed through the doorway and she spied the cases of beer at the front door, “Grab me one of those beers, sweetheart.”

  “You haven’t had a drink in three years,” Cliff sighed as he wheeled her past the brews.

  “Didn’t you go through hell to get me here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you going to drink one?”

  “Yeah,” Cliff parked her in the living room.

  “Well, my best friend Sal had his goddamn nose eaten off today. So give me a fucking break and a beer,” Morgan just noticed her grandbabies standing in the hallway, “Oops,” she covered her mouth. The kids had heard her talk like that their whole lives. They didn’t even blink.

  “Come here, girls,” she sat up and put out her arms. The three little ones ran to her and they shared a hug. “Have you girls been causing your folks trouble?”

  “Lots,” Tina entered the room with a beer in her hand. She popped it open and handed it to Morgan. “It’s warm.”

  Morgan’s eyes got big and excited like a kid on Christmas morning. She reached out for her first adult beverage in three years.

  “That don’t matter. Let me at that sweet hooch.”

  Tina handed it over and Morgan sucked most of the beer in one pull.

  “Oh….! That was good.”

  Cliff headed for the kitchen. He had spent years watching his mother drink. He didn’t need to hang around to watch her fall off the wagon again, regardless of the circumstances. Cliff turned on the water faucet at the sink. It was cold at first and felt good against his warm skin. As the water turned hot he washed his hands and face with soap. He scrubbed up like a surgeon, like he wanted to scrub off the first layer of skin on his hands. He felt hungry, tired and pissed.

  Tina joined him in the kitchen as Morgan played and asked the little ones silly questions only a grandmother could ask.

  “Relax, Doc. Those won’t grow back,” Tina tested the water with Cliff.

  He whispered, “Why did you give her that beer?”

  “If things get worse out there, how long do you think we can keep her alive in this apartment? Without a real doctor and meds?”

  “I don’t know,” he said as he continued to wash his hands without looking at her.

  “I don’t know either. We should try and make her as comfortable as possible.”

  “Don’t let her get drunk. Please.”

  “I won’t. I promise.” Tina rubbed Cliff’s shoulders. “How was it out there?”

  He slowed down the scrubbing on his hands, “A nightmare.”

  She pressed her cheek to his back, “What are we going to do?”

  Cliff grabbed a towel from the counter and dried his face and hands, “I have no fucking idea.”

  Tina picked up another armload of food off the floor to load into the kitchen as Cliff pulled out his tool belt from the closet next to the front door

  “I have plenty of materials down there to get a little wall up in less than an hour,” he wrapped it around his waist, clicked the belt and cinched it tight, “Keep an eye out for me.” Cliff told his oldest, Eve.

  “Yes, Daddy,” she said as she gave him a silly army salute.

  Cliff unzipped Morgan’s bag and pulled out the box of ammo. He surprised Tina with the revolver in his back pocket.

  “Where did you get that?” Tina’s mouth dropped. She had never been a fan of having guns in the house

  “It’s Morgan’s.” He emptied the spent rounds and replaced them with new ones.

  “What? Why would she have a gun?”

  “You’d have to ask her,” he said as he placed it back in his pocket. He checked the peephole and darted out the front door.


  The first thing Cliff grabbed from the back of the truck was the pistols, shotgun and officer’s belt. He carried them back up the steps and dropped them off on the counter next to the sink.

  “Wow!” Tina shook her head.

  Cliff grabbed an old kitchen towel, wet it and rubbed the blood off of one of the Glocks. He found the magazine release button and popped it out.

  Empty. Shit.

  He checked all of them and the shotgun. Empty, every one of them. He ran the police belt under the water tap to get off the nasty gunk. On it he found a set of handcuffs and the matching key, a small flashlight and a pouch full of rubber gloves. On the other side of the belt were a retractable baton, taser, pepper spray, radio and one full magazine for the Glock.

  Thank God.

  He picked the cleanest of the guns and slid the new magazine into the bottom of it. After watching thousands of TV shows and movies Cliff felt pretty good about how to operate the pistol. He noticed there was no safety so he did not rack the slide.

  He got the belt clean, dried and put it on in addition to his tool belt. It was very heavy and clunky but it made him feel safer.

  “Let me show you this.” Cliff held up the revolver to Tina. He showed her what to push to get the cylinder to pop out. “You can pull back the hammer first and it makes it easier to squeeze the trigger.”

  He handed over the gun. She got used to the weight and popped the cylinder out a few times. Then she pulled a round out to see how to reload it.

  “Okay, I got it. Now go get your wall up.” Tina patted Cliff on the butt.

  It was time for him to do the job that he was good at. Building something fast and cheap was his specialty. His daughter watched and kept an eagle eye from the bedroom window.

  Cliff threw on a pair of heavy work gloves as he jogged to the back of the truck. He grabbed four long lengths of lumber and up the stairs he went. He carried load after load up the steps. There was no doubt that he would get a good night’s sleep after all this cardio. Like Cliff promised, he had a strong, well-braced wall up in less than an hour of cutting, drilling and hammering.

  Chapter 12

  Karen had finally washed all of the sticky blood out of her hair. She also had to change out of Jim’s blood soaked button up shirt. For the last twenty minutes Karen had been trying to keep Robin asleep, but with the racket it was almost impossible.

  There was still no call from Jim or her mother. She had spent most of the time double and triple checking that she had everything ready to roll the minute Jim showed up. She kept her phone in her hand in case anyone called. Karen wanted to call Jim, but she was so afraid he would be sneaking past a group of the infected humans at that exact moment, Jim would be torn apart and she would have to listen to him die. Karen turned down her phone after she thought about it happening to Jim. The phone vibrated in her hand telling her that it was in silent mode.

  Robin’s head bobbed and she had conked all the way back out. Karen laid the little one back on the bed next to her big sister. Valerie had been hardcore gaming for a long while now. Karen’s “mom instinct” was telling her to get the kid off the computer, but what else could she do and be that quiet?

  A thought occurred to Karen, they would not be taking the laptop with them. What good would a chunk of plastic be against one of those infected people? Another thought crossed Karen’s mind. Her daughter might not get to play on the computer or watch SpongeBob for a very long time. Karen was surprisingly okay with the idea of no more TV. It would be good for the girls not to watch so many shows. Then Karen’s heart flooded with grief. If the government couldn’t get this whole mess under control there wouldn’t be any Facebook.

  Shit balls!

  Like any addiction, the idea of losing Facebook drove Karen nuts, but it also felt freeing. No more status updates or making sure she wrote, “Happy Birthday!!!” on someone’s wall that she barely knew. The uncertainty of the whole situation gave her a stomach ache.

  Would it blow over in a few days and get back to normal, or would this be how it is for the rest of her life?

  Tears formed in her eyes from the thought. A lifetime of running and fear was a nightmare scenario for her and the children. A horrible noise outside ripped her from the dark thoughts and melancholy. It was not Cliff. No one had come down the steps. It sounded like a scream, but the sound was distorted.

  Karen stepped to the window and her breath was taken away. The noise was coming from David, her older, deaf neighbor from next door. He was on foot and racing across the lot with a group of four infected hot on his tail. He was covered in sweat and blood. The distorted noise was the sound of him calling for help. As he chugged away for his front door it was very clear he was out of breath and needed to stop. The infected were younger and dressed in dark blue EMT outfits.

  “HELP! HELP ME!” David cried out.

  Tina and Cliff watched from their bedroom window. The new barrier he had built made it impossible to get down there in time to help David out.

  David struggled to get across the last section of the lot. The infected closed in on him and were now in arms reach. As he stepped up onto the sidewalk the tip of his shoe caught the edge and down he went. The monsters were on him. They bit down and ripped out a chunk of flesh across his back and neck. David let out a mangled scream, but he didn’t give up. He got his feet back under himself and stood up with a powerful yell. He tossed the creatures off his back and they tumbled to the ground behind him. The four infected beasts wrestled to escape each other’s arms and legs.

  David’s face had become pale and he ran with a limp for the corridor that led to his front door. Karen lost sight of him as he passed the stairway that led up to Cliff and Tina’s place. She could hear the sounds of his keys jingling as he pulled them from his pocket. Karen dashed out of the bedroom and ran to her front door. She pressed her nose to the cold metal surface and looked out the peephole.

  David used the stairway as a crutch and pulled himself along. Karen was able to see down the entryway, past him and to the group of relentless infected. They had gotten back to their feet, resumed their hunt and immediately chased after him.

  Karen broke out into an instant sweat as she helplessly watched David fight to get his key into the doorknob. He had been bitten and would turn. There was no saving him. She couldn’t risk opening the door. There was no fighting the four of them.

  All she could do was watch.

  He got his key into the knob and popped open his front door. The four infected caught him in the doorway. He tried to push them back, but his wounds had weakened him. Karen banged at her door. She couldn’t stop herself.

  “Leave him alone!” she yelled. She tried to get their attention.

  Nothing would stop them from feeding. They bit and ripped into him. He fell to the floor of his apartment and rolled to his stomach. He tried to crawl away. They used their nails and teeth to pull the flesh from his back. Clumps of meat were peeled away and crammed into their hungry mouths.

  The sound of absolute pain echoed throughout the apartment. Up the flight of stairs, Cliff and Tina clutched their children and tried to cover their ears to block out the horrible sounds. Karen kicked and palm struck at the door, her mouth was unable to form words. She screamed nonsense as tears fell from her eyes.

  David kept fighting to get away. He pulled himself deeper into his apartment and tried to kick at one of the infected.

  “SOMEONE-HELP-ME!” his words were crushed together as he cried for salvation. Blood sprayed the walls as he fought to get off of his belly. The infected chewed, scratched and scraped at his midsection. As if it pleased them to torture the man longer.

  His body finally gave out and he lay flat on his back, letting the monsters feed on his insides. He was still alive and begging for mercy. It took a very long time for his screams and cries to fall silent.

  It felt like an eternity for Karen. She could not stop herself from watching every second of the attack. The infected monsters
dug and pulled at the body for so long that they split him in two. At that point Karen could not take anymore. She turned her back to the door and slid down to her butt, folded her arms across the top of her knees, dropped her head onto her forearms and wept.

  She could hear them continuing to strip the meat off the dead body and viciously eat every scrap they took. It was a sight Karen knew would haunt her for the rest of her life. She sat on the floor crying until her legs felt numb.

  The bedroom door opened and Valerie stepped out.

  “Is it safe?” the little girl asked.

  “Yes,” Karen said as she wiped away the tears on her face.

  “Why are you sad Mama? Is it because of the man or is it because Daddy isn’t here?”

  “It’s everything.” Karen ran her hands through her hair and pulled it out of her face, “Go play your game. Mommy needs another minute.”

  Even though she wanted to ask another question, Valerie listened to her Mama and climbed back onto the bed and continued to play her game.

  Karen’s phone began to vibrate in her pocket. Her fingers struggled to pull the phone out of her fitted jeans.

  It was Jim.

  She swiped the phone to answer the call.

  “Jim, thank God! Are you okay? Where are you?” her words stammered out of her mouth.

  “Karen, I’m fine. I’m on the 205 bridge. Are you and the girls safe?”

  Karen could hear the hesitation in Jim’s voice. He was keeping something from her. It meant that it was bad out there and he was afraid to tell her just how bad it was. She chose her words carefully. It would not help the situation to make Jim even more worried.

  “Yes. We’re okay.” She pushed her thumb into her other ear to block out the sound of the infected feeding on the other side of the door.

  “Baby, I’m coming home. You kiss those girls for me and tell them that Daddy’s on his way.”

  Her whole body shook as she forced out the next words, “I will. Jim, please hurry home. People are going…nuts.” She covered the phone so he couldn’t hear her sobs.