Rage: Z Is For Zombie Book 5

by catt dahman

  People left like this were often hooked up to machine, ventilated, and left in terrible pain with only parts of a face. Failed suicides were something police saw, and emergency workers grimaced over since the person was far worse off than before.

  He moaned deep in his throat, and Mark shot him in the head, putting him out of the pain. No way existed that could fix him with their limited medical supplies, and he hadn’t wanted to live before, much less, now.

  George gave a curt nod as he was a proponent for people deciding their own lives and death, but he hated to know the man suffered.

  Mark leaned over and gagged a little.

  The baby was sick, went into a short coma, and then returned with the prions in control. It was starving for human flesh, and the prions only lived to replicate.

  The mother bared a breast to nurse the child when he awoke, but he was no longer human. He had only gums but mauled at her nipple, finally able to pull some of it off and infect her. She let him swallow her blood, holding him, but then she turned, too.

  Juan pointed to her bloody hand. Her nails were caked with red, and Juan looked back at the woman’s bared breast. “I think she scratched herself; it wanted to feed.” He was repulsed but somehow fascinated by the act. She loved the baby enough for this?

  Kim nodded. He thought the same thing.

  When she turned, the man shot them both and then himself. The horror and sorrow the man suffered watching this must have been immense. Mark turned to the rest. “We decided to wait and let them do as they wanted. None of the infected would have moved past this door.”

  “It wasn’t an easy choice,” George admitted. “Some would have forcibly taken the baby away; I don’t know what’s right or wrong, but we let them decide, and that’s what we have to do. We can’t force people to live….” He patted Mark’s back.

  “It was hard.”

  “It always is. But who am I or you to say someone must live? Who are we to decide? Sometimes, we have to make a hard choice and decide who dies because he is infected or dangerous such as those RA people. We can sometimes decide death, but we don’t have the right to make people live.” George sighed. “It’s all about respect for people to have choices when they aren’t evil, the bad ones? They don’t get a choice.”

  “I don’t know if I could do it, George.” Mark looked unsure.

  “I didn’t ask for this, Mark. If you recall, all of you made me be the governor. I agreed, and all along, I didn’t like some choices that I was given. I didn’t want it. I’m an old, grumpy man, but as long as you want me in this place, I’ll follow my conscience and do what I think is right.”

  “Amen,” Juan said.

  “Me, too,” Len agreed, “we do the best we can. I hope these folks have peace.”

  Doc looked around the corner. “What a mess. Get this cleaned up, you hear? I have patients, and gun shots make them nervous,” he grumbled, putting his feelings aside. There was no time to mourn.

  9

  Mission

  Matt, Jet, Alex, and Pak were in one vehicle while Carl and John were in the monster truck, and Juan and Teeg were in the other. Beth hated letting them go; she hugged her adopted son until he blushed; then, shr kissed Juan and told them to be safe. She gave Teeg and Carl hard high-fives; this was her team that she loved.

  “Jules was mad at not being able to come with us,” Matt said, secretly enjoying her jealousy as they drove out. “She gave me a mad kiss.”

  “Least you got a kiss,” Pak grumbled. Jet made smacking noise at him until they were elbowing one another in a play fight that made Matt wonder: who were the real children?

  One day Matt would be head of security, and Jet and Alex would advise him, so they needed this practice for the future, dreading when they would have that full responsibility. Matt felt he had so much to learn from people such as Juan, Teeg, and Carl, always brave and loyal. They were smart; no, they were clever.

  He parked on the side of the highway after Carl bumped cars aside, and they followed the big truck along the sides, envious of his ease of movement.

  In some cars, whole families pushed their faces against the car windows, moaning, slobbering ropey strings of saliva. They were trying to reach the live people, having waited for months.

  Mostly, they just sat in the cars, but as soon as they saw or heard people, they began trying to get free, some of them gnashing and ripping at the others in a frenzy. It was worse than seeing starving caged animals, in a way.

  In some places, some dead bodies rotted, but mostly there were just bones; they littered the road and the cars, where they died of natural causes or were killed in the battle for the highway. Some used guns to put the infected down, but if they made it, no one knew.

  Against one car, several ripped a person to shreds, leaving blood and gore behind and just a head that showed dirty teeth in a mimic of a growl. On the top of many vehicles were signs there had been a battle. People were on the street, trying to get out of the city while an equal amount tried to get into the city where they thought there might be help.

  The CDC asked everyone to remain inside and not to look for help as no one was mobilized.

  Any roadblocks were quickly ignored, but it was doubtful anyone was well enough even to make roadblocks, but was it best to block the entry or exit into a city? No one knew. After all of this time, there was not a good answer.

  Sections of a Learjet were on the highway where it crashed into the pavement, months before when there was no one to put out flames, clear the rubble, or lend aid.

  The tail section, split into two parts, didn’t separate entirely but burned hot and furiously, catching brush on fire and melting pavement. From behind the wings to the tail were bent metal, charred ruins, and soot in the middle of several cars, which also burned when the airliner went down.

  Zombies from that area shambled around, still where they were when the infection swept the globe. They hissed around burned vocal chords, waving hands, burned-away fingers clawing in the air, and blackened skin hanging in tatters. Some melted; some had charred faces and arms that flaked away, eroding their bodies as they walked.

  The men shot them with rifles, using their scopes before the Zs could start the moaning that would call a horde to them. The zombies didn’t react as much to the gunshots as the team always feared.

  The Zs didn’t equate the gunfire with food, but several larger groups took notice of the activity and wandered closer. They were no longer capable of making connections, but once one began the moaning call, all would converge in the thousands, knowing the meant food was sighted.

  “When they crashed, the plane may have been on fire, landing on the cars. The Zs came out of the flames, and that’s what we have here,” Jet said as he looked at the mess carefully. “But look there, those were shot; see their heads? Maybe someone did that long ago or later, no way to tell.”

  “You’re as bad as Len about figuring things out,” Matt commented, but he was impressed and meant it as a compliment.

  “I bet they thought they were okay in the air, then this happened,” Jet went on.

  “Ain’t no place okay anymore,” Carl said.

  The section before the wings was strange looking. The part where the captain sat was mostly intact, but the rest looked as if it were scalped with the top metal skimmed off above the windows.

  Jet mumbled that he had no idea what caused that. “Unless it rolled. Looks scalped, huh?”

  Pak climbed to a better point and then climbed back down. He saw two bodies, and while they were still strapped in their seats, they died of their wounds. Both rotted away in the elements, a reminder that no one came along and buried the dead anymore. He saw more corpses shambling around, becoming more curious.

  Matt decided that since a few more were beginning to nose around, it was time to get back into the vehicles and drive closer to the window that had the SOS sign hanging from it.

  The monster truck, with Carl driving, headed over the side, up an embankmen
t, over a road, between two trucks, and into the parking lot of a small apartment building, tall, trendy, and very expensive a year before. Now, glass was missing, trash was all around, and it sat alone.

  Matt fired his gun twice in the air in case anyone missed the shots fired next to the airplane. A face peeked out next to the SOS and motioned with his hand to wait for him.

  “So someone is here,” Juan marveled. He had a bad feeling still in his gut, a feeling that Len always called hinky. He should have told Len the feeling he had, and Len would have vetoed the mercy mission outright.

  The man opened a window on the second floor. “Friend or foe?” he asked, suspiciously. “We have guns and won’t hesitate to put a hole in all of you if you give us any trouble.”

  “We’re here for your SOS,” Matt called back, suppressing a laugh. friend or foe? What movie did the man get that from? Didn’t he see the weaponry the team was carrying? It was enough to take out a small army, not that Matt felt cocky; he was anything but that, yet he thought the man needed a better one-liner as a greeting.

  “You’re here to rescue us? Thank, God, finally. We waited so long….”

  Matt knew that since they were all dressed in camo and boots and worked as a team, even if they didn’t have standard military vehicles, they looked like what had been the US military.

  They might be taken as a rescue effort, might look as if they were here to make everything okay again, and might say there was a place where the world was normal again. Didn’t this man know the US military also caught Red and was wiped out?

  All survivors wanted hope.

  “We’ll help you anyway we can,” Matt said. “Do you need assistance?”

  “We have needed it for a year,” the man said.

  “No shit. So have we all,” Juan complained.

  They were told to go to the lobby where a tiny doorway was usable, once furniture was moved away. They felt unnerved, going into the lobby with unknown people, but they all went in. Eight of them stood, facing the man who had peeked outside at them.

  “I’m Sean. Are you really for us? Are we saved?”

  “We are here to help if you need us; we can try to help. We are part of the US Militia, a rag tag group left over from the US military under the leadership of Colonel Len Bernhart. We are located at the compound formerly known as Popetown, now called Hopetown, with a governor, plenty of food and supplies.

  We can offer hard work, medical help from two certified physicians, families, and constant, strict security,” Matt recited all he could think of.

  “We saw your SOS,” Juan reminded the man.

  “We’ve been here a year. We’ve scrounged all the food around here and have dealt with the Zeds. We have people who are tired and sick, and we can’t make it alone, anymore.”

  Sean glared at them as if they betrayed him. He must have been pinning a lot of hope on them as soon as he saw them. “We need to be rescued.”

  They introduced themselves. “Sick? Bitten?” Carl asked.

  “No, just normal things. We’re dirty and living like rats; this is it: either we find something better, or we give up,” Sean said. “Come on, you can see what I mean. I thought you were here to take us to safety.” He holstered his gun and didn’t seem worried about his visitors.

  “There is no safety, per se, Sean. We are what there is left; we didn’t win this one; we lost.”

  Up four flights, they stopped, and Sean led them to a section where the people had knocked down a few walls and made a commons area for the people. They had water and canned, boxed, and packaged food and other supplies that seemed meager, at best. How they survived the winter, albeit mild, was a big question.

  “We were on that plane,” Sean said conversationally.

  “You were? I didn’t think any were flying,” Carl said.

  “They weren’t. A bunch of us were in Oklahoma City.” He saw that didn’t explain much. “We had families who got Red; we were chased by family; then, the zeds were after us. We tried to find water and food and survive the small problems: diabetes and heart problems, and broken bones. A bunch of us ended up right by the airport. It was all about running all the time; sometimes we only made it because someone was running slower than one of us.”

  “In a zombie apocalypse, I only have to run faster than you,” quoted Carl. “People used to say that before it was true.”

  Sean just shrugged. “We ran a lot.”

  “How many?”

  “Oh, back then? A lot, maybe forty or fifty. The ones I was with changed day-to-day as some were added, and some didn’t make it. We gathered in the terminal, but the zeds attacked several times; we didn’t have enough guns, food, or anything else. Some went with a military unit underground; we didn’t.”

  “That happened to a lot of people, not having the basics,” John added.

  “ A few times people came to join us, and sometimes they were infected. So then, we lost more when that happened, but no one wanted to be tough and turn people away or put down the sick ones. No one had the heart to do it.

  I did, but who cared what I wanted; you know what I mean? We met up with a pilot, and he was like me. We didn’t want to be bitten and turned while we waited to starve. The pilot is there; that’s Pete.”

  Sean sat on a box and motioned for them to sit if they wanted. He told them the Reds were everywhere as were the new zeds, chasing people and attacking, and one night they were over-run, losing many of the women and children.

  Pete saw enough and went running out to the runway, telling them if they wanted to survive, it was time to run like rabbits and stop worrying about everyone else.

  He fired up the Learjet, and they got in, amazed that the pilot was able to get them off of the ground and into the air. Once up, it was the first time they dared any hope.

  Then, reality came home, again.

  Two were bitten and had to be put down after they were in the air, the men smashing heads in with whatever they had, fighting back. They stacked a total of three in the tail section.

  When they tried to land, the Texarkana airport was in shambles, and they didn’t see a good landing strip. Then, they realized the Learjet was on fire. It was all too fast, and no one was properly prepared.

  Pete put the Learjet down on the highway on top of cars, but it was a testament to his skill that anyone survived his crash landing. Metal twisted, and the Learjet burned, but a few ran out of the plane, rolling to put out the burning clothing and skin.

  Some, who were engulfed in flames, screamed, as they burned with the plane, unable to be reached by the rest who burned their own hands trying to get to them. Some in the front section were killed immediately, but others got out, helping those trapped, even as a few flames licked at them.

  “Some of us got out; some didn’t,” Sean said. “Then, we had a greeting party to deal with. It wasn’t enough we got out because we were right back in the frying pan with ‘em.

  We came here and licked our wounds and found food and water. We’ve been like rats, hiding in here, staying quiet, hoping the rest of the world was getting back on track and would rescue us.”

  Matt considered how they had gone different routes. These people hid and mostly stopped moving forward as they waited for help; his own group scratched and fought forward to rebuild, expecting no help whatsoever.

  “We’ve been busy. We met the man who was probably responsible for the infection; let’s say he’s no longer alive,” Juan said.

  “Do we know why he did this? What was the reason? Was there a purpose? Why did they bomb us? Who’s in charge?”

  Matt nodded, knowing that he would have the same questions. “We got a lot of lies, but it looks as if he were creating a perfect species: pretty much half- human and half-zombie.”

  “That’s fairly sick. Why’d he want that?”

  “Because he was the first. He wanted company?” John rolled his eyes.

  “As I said, he’s no longer able to play mad scientist.

  Red
got way out of hand, and it went around the world; we all fell. The bombs were dropped in an effort to contain the infected, to stop the growing numbers of Zs in the cities and…well…it makes no sense to try to reason why anyone did this. It was FUBAR from the start,” Matt explained.

  “As for who is in charge, it depends on whom you ask. I can assure you the leaders are no longer a skinhead group of cannibals and sadists or a group of hybrids; we have the numbers and the training, and we try to be in charge and rebuild a life.”

  “Those things are in charge,” Sean scoffed.

  “Some of us don’t like that idea,” Matt said.

  “Okay,” Sean said, “here’s my woman, Emily.” He introduced a painfully thin woman with a belly large with pregnancy. She was tiny, dirty, and starving.

  Juan immediately pulled some food from his pack to share with her. Eyes large, she mindlessly ate the food, curving her body against the wall as if someone might take it away from her.

  “Joan and Terry,” Sean said. In places, Joan’s scalp was bare, melted from the fire, but long matted strands of blonde hair were in other spots.

  One side of her face was burned so badly that her cheek and the side of her mouth were sunken in and drawn up. Parts of her hands were burned; several fingers were gone, just stubs, and burns ran up both arms.

  Terry was also burned, his hands not much more than claws. It was hard to imagine the pain they endured with no medical help.

  Joan knew what they were thinking. “Sean did what he could. He had to debride the tissue, which in our cases was done with an Exacto utility knife, some soap and water, and maybe steel wool. That is what our skin felt like anyway at times when he scrubbed us.

  Then, it was a matter of keeping the wound clean and hydrated, taking whatever pain medication we could find, hoping just to die, but then, well, here we are.”

  The rest shivered in compassion.

  Sean shrugged, “Oh, I took a few first aid classes and guessed at the rest. They were good patients. And I didn’t use steel wool.”