by Kate L. Mary
The Loudest Silence
Book One in the Oklahoma Wastelands Series
Kate L. Mary
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Bonus Content
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Acknowledgments
Also by Kate L. Mary
About the Author
Published by Twisted Press, LLC, an independently owned company.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to person, living or dead, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Kate L. Mary
Print ISBN-13: 978-1721164080
Print ISBN-10: 1721164081
Cover Art by Kate L. Mary
Edited by Lori Whitwam
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is dedicated to the city of Altus, Oklahoma and the people living there.
“City with a future to share”
Hopefully, that future doesn’t involve the zombie apocalypse.
Prologue
The thud of footsteps drew my attention from Matt’s raspy breathing. Someone was in the hallway. My body felt like a rock as I waited for whoever it was to appear. Heavy and cold. It was the shock of everything. I knew it, but I still blinked like I thought I might be imagining things, but I was painfully aware that everything I’d experienced over the last few days was real.
Kellan stopped in the doorway, and his brown eyes moved over me before focusing on Matt. When they did, sadness flashed in them that felt chillingly out of place. The teenage boy in front of me wasn’t usually a cold person. He smiled and laughed, and poked fun at me enough to make most people think we were related even though I was nothing more than his best friend’s pesky younger sister. But those were the normal emotions of a teenage boy, while the despair currently in his eyes wasn’t. It ran too deep. It was a pain that had no right existing in the eyes of someone so young.
Kellan was still staring at Matt when he moved further into the room. “How is he?”
“It won’t be long,” I said through tears. “Mom died yesterday. Dad the day before.”
My words were little more than a choked whisper. Sadness had wrapped its fingers around my throat, making it hard to make a sound. I’d not only had to watch my parents die, but I’d had to take care of them all on my own, too. Matt had tried to help, but within hours of Mom getting sick, he’d come down with symptoms himself. After that, the responsibility had been completely on my twelve-year-old shoulders.
The chair I was sitting in was pulled up to the side of the bed so I was close to my brother in case he needed me, and when Kellan stopped, he was right at my side. I had to tilt my head back so I could see his face, but his focus was on Matt. As I watched, Kellan blinked a couple times, and I found my gaze drawn to the moisture on his lashes. Was he crying? He couldn’t be. Kellan was fifteen and strong. He didn’t cry.
“My parents are dead, too,” he said, his gaze staying on Matt’s face. “I think everyone is.”
I swallowed and whispered, “Why do you think that?”
Kellan tore his gaze from Matt so he could look at me, and I saw his eyes weren’t just wet. They were rimmed with red. “It’s so quiet outside. No cars. No planes. No sounds of any kind. It’s like the whole world vanished.”
“I haven’t been outside.” It was all I could think to say as my gaze moved from Kellan to Matt.
His eyes were open and focused on me.
“Matt.” I half stood as I reached for him, taking his sticky hand in mine.
His grip was weak, his fingers oddly bony considering just a few weeks ago he’d been the tough fifteen-year-old who’d spent his days playing every sport imaginable.
“Hey, butthead.” He gave me a weak smile, but his eyes showed how much pain he was in. “Can you get me a drink?”
“Yes.” I didn’t want to let him go, but I had to when I realized the glass on his nightstand was now empty. “I’ll be right back,” I said as I got to my feet.
Once I was out of the way, Kellan took my place in the chair. When my brother’s friend reached out to take Matt’s hand, it did something to me that nothing else had. These two teenage boys shouldn’t be holding hands. They were too tough for that. Yet they were, and neither one seemed even a little ashamed.
“You’re okay?” Matt coughed when the words scratched their way out of him.
“I’m okay,” Kellan murmured.
In the hall, I headed for the bathroom so I could refill the glass, not looking at the closed bedroom door at the end of the hall. If I didn’t look at it, I wouldn’t have to think about my parents’ bodies. Wouldn’t have to think about how my brother would soon be joining them.
In the bathroom, I paused before turning on the faucet, taking a moment to lean against the counter. My legs and hands shook, and my heart pounded twice as hard. I felt on the verge of dying. I wasn’t strong enough. I couldn’t do this by myself. Couldn’t be alone.
In the other room, I could just hear the soft voices of my brother and his best friend talking.
“You have to watch out for her,” I heard my brother say between raspy breaths that made my heart hurt. He was in so much pain.
“You know I will. Just like I always have.” Kellan’s voice was louder, but as shaky as my legs.
“Like we did at the lake that time,” Matt said. “Remember?”
“Yeah.” Kellan let out a little laugh that sounded sad. “Those older boys kicked down her sandcastle so we chased them off.”
“Scared them so bad they wouldn’t leave their mom’s side the rest of the day,” Matt replied.
“No one is allowed to pick on Regan except us,” Kellan said.
They laughed. Kellan’s laughter was mixed with tears while Matt’s cut off only a second later by a cough that seemed to go on and on.
“It’s okay,” Kellan said. “It’s okay. Regan, water!”
“I’m coming,” I called, my words sounding more like sobs.
I filled the glass in my hand, my eyes too full of tears to really see what I was doing. By the time I’d made it back into the room, Matt had stopped coughing, and his eyes were closed. It looked like every breath hurt.
When Kellan looked my way, his eyes were full of fear. This was it, and we both knew it. This was the end.
Kellan moved from the chair, and I took a seat at my brother’s side. “I have your water.”
Matt’s eyes opened, but he didn’t reach for it. “I love you, Regan.”
“No.” My body shook when I started crying again, an
d water sloshed from the glass in my hand. “Don’t do that. Don’t say that.”
Kellan eased the glass from my hand so he could put it on the table. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “We’re going to be okay.”
“I’m not. I don’t want to be alone.”
When I shook my head, my brown hair fell over my forehead and I had to shove it away. It was greasy and stringy. When was the last time I washed it? I couldn’t remember.
Matt reached for me, and I took his hand. “You won’t be alone. Kellan is here.”
With my hand still in my brother’s, I turned to his best friend.
“You aren’t alone, Regan.” Kellan’s eyes were on me, big and brown and as sad as I felt. “I’m with you. I’ll watch over you. I promise.”
Before I could say a word, Matt started coughing again. This time it was followed by a gasp that made it sound like he couldn’t fill his lungs.
Kellan and I moved at the same time. He helped Matt sit while I patted his back. My brother coughed, his gasps getting worse as his face turned red. His eyes were huge and full of pain and terror. It felt like a knife slashed at my heart. Tears filled my eyes as I beat on his back, over and over, but it didn’t help. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe.
“No, Matt,” I gasped between tears. “No, no, no.”
It was all I could say. I wasn’t ready to tell him goodbye. I wasn’t ready for the last member of my family to die.
It was over in a minute. Matt’s gasps for air stopped. His eyes were still wide, his mouth open as he tried to take in a breath, but he couldn’t. He jerked, and his face got redder. His lips turned blue. Then I blinked and he was gone.
Kellan lowered him to the bed while I flopped back in my chair. Tears fell down my cheeks, and I wanted to run out of the room, out of the house, but I couldn’t. All I could do was cry.
Kellan pulled me to my feet and wrapped his arms around me. “It’s okay.”
It was the first time my brother’s best friend had ever hugged me, but it didn’t feel weird. Not after everything that had happened. Just like me, he was crying.
“What do we do now?” I said against Kellan’s chest.
“I don’t know.” He held me tighter. “I just know that I’m here. I’m going to take care of you, Regan. I promise. You aren’t alone.”
Clinging to him and his words, I closed my eyes. I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t alone. Kellan was going to be here for me no matter what.
It was the only thing that could have comforted me at that moment.
1
Nine years later
Kellan sped down the road, leaving a trail of dirt in our wake that reminded me of the dust storm that had swept through last summer. From the passenger seat I watched the barren landscape fly by, brown and almost blinding in its brightness. The road, now nearly buried by the sandy Oklahoma terrain, was cracked and peppered with holes from age and neglect, and I tightened my grip on the door when the tires thumped over a particularly deep fissure. My elbow poked out of the open window, slowly getting scorched by the sun’s rays while sweat beaded on my upper lip. When I licked my lips, the salty taste of sweat was accompanied by an earthy grit I had long ago gotten used to. The drought had been going strong for five years now, but even before the earth had turned to dust beneath our feet, the violent winds had made it impossible not to get covered in sand when you went outside. Especially when you were speeding down the road the way we were right now.
“Look,” Kellan called, raising his voice to be heard over the roar of the wind rushing through the car.
He kept his hands on the steering wheel as he nodded toward something in front of us. I leaned forward, squinting so I could see through the dusty goggles I wore. Thanks to the sun shining down on the landscape, it took a few seconds to make out what he was pointing at, and even then I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to see. It was a truck, pulled off to the side of the road with its doors wide open. Nothing new, really. Abandoned vehicles were common. It wasn’t like there were mechanics around every corner.
Kellan eased his foot off the gas, and the car slowed. He didn’t stop completely, though. His eyes, barely visible behind his goggles, were focused on the truck. “It wasn’t there last time I came out.”
“So?” I didn’t have to yell to be heard since he was driving slower than before.
Kellan’s mouth turned down in one corner and he shook his head. “Look at it, Regan.”
I rolled my eyes behind my own goggles before ripping them off. Kellan still hadn’t stopped the car, but he was driving slowly enough that I was able to get a good look at the truck as we rolled past it. Blood, reddish brown against the off white paint, was smeared across the open driver’s side door.
My hand went to the gun strapped to my hip. “Zombies?”
I was already scanning the landscape, not bothering to put my goggles back on. There was no sign of the dead, but that didn’t mean a thing. They could have attacked this poor asshole then wandered off, drawn away by another sound, maybe.
“Look at it, Regan.”
Kellan had that tone. The one that ruffled my feathers. The one that made him sound patronizing, like he was my father or even an older brother. He was neither, which was what pissed me off.
My back stiffened and I shot him a glare, but he just nodded to the truck again. It was behind us now, so I had to twist in my seat and stick my head out the window, but when I did, I saw what he meant. Items littered the ground around the truck like everything had been pulled out and thrown around. As if someone had searched the interior for something useful. Even worse, there was blood on some of the items.
Marauders.
I turned back around, settling into my seat as I pulled my goggles back on. “Go.” I waved to the road in front of us. “Hit the gas, and let’s get the hell out of here in case they’re still around.”
“They’re not,” Kellan said. “The tire tracks have been covered by the dirt. Whoever did this is long gone.”
He accelerated anyway, and we shot forward.
In seconds, the car was once again filled with wind and dust, cutting off the retort trying to force its way out of me. Not that I was planning on arguing with him. Kellan knew what he was talking about for one, and for two, I could trust him with my life. Even if he did irritate the hell out of me fifty percent of the time.
It wasn’t long before buildings came into view, most of them now little more than crumbling shells of what they had been nine years ago, and Kellan once again slowed. The trail of dirt following our car eased but didn’t fade completely. In the distance, I spied three other trails, brown against the cloudless blue sky, telling me there were at least three other vehicles out on the road today. Hopefully, it was only other people heading to the settlement to trade and not whoever had raided that truck.
We passed the old college, the parking lot now overgrown with waist-high weeds that had somehow managed to flourish despite the drought, and then the Wal-Mart. Or what was left of it, anyway. A group had lived in it until a few years ago when a twister tore through the state, leveling half the town and ripping the roof off the store. Now it was crumbling, like most of the other buildings. Without people to maintain them, they couldn’t withstand the severe Oklahoma weather, and the state was reclaiming the city one crumbling structure at a time. High winds and golf ball size hail damaged roofs and broke windows, heavy ice in the winter collapsed already weakened roofs and walls. Tornados flattened buildings, while uncontrolled wildfires took out whole neighborhoods. The little bit left of the town I’d called home nine years ago was not only unrecognizable, but rotting as well. Before too long the only part of Altus, Oklahoma left would be the small downtown square that had been walled in and turned into a settlement.
Kellan pulled his goggles off and tossed them onto the dashboard. He ran his hand through his dark hair, shaking the dust from it before running his palm down his face. He was trying to wipe the dirt away, but all he succeeded in doi
ng was streaking it across his skin. His eyes never stopped moving as he drove, passing more ramshackle buildings and shells of businesses long gone, not relaxing even when the wall came into view.
The person in the watchtower waved, signaling to the people on the ground to open the gate for us, and Kellan slowed the car. The dead lined the sidewalks, taken out by the guards and stacked three high, their bodies left to putrefy under the hot sun in hopes it would keep large hordes away. It was the most repulsive security measure I’d ever seen, but it seemed to be working. In nine years of living with the zombies, the settlement hadn’t been threatened by a big horde since they’d started doing it. I still wasn’t convinced it was worth it, though.
The buzz from hundreds of flies filled the air as we waited for the gate to open. The pests circled the bodies, landing to feast on rotting flesh before taking off again, and my nose wrinkled at the cloying stench of death. It was familiar after all these years, but no less repulsive. I doubted I would ever get used to the smell. Or maybe I just hoped I wouldn’t.
Kellan accelerated as soon as the gate opened, maneuvering the car through the tight space before expertly turning the wheel so he could pull over just inside. Cars were allowed in—leaving them outside the walls was like an invitation to have your belongings stolen—but there was no room to drive around. The little bit of fenced-in town was pretty packed at this point.