Death Plague [Four Zombie Novels]

by Ian Woodhead

  “Of course not, Colin. As soon as our guest and your sister have finished doing the dirty deed together, he’s going to come in there and eat you. It’ll be quick and painless. Please don’t hate us for this. I’m really sorry, but I just can’t trust you. Thing is, I really had no idea that she’d tied up most of your abilities. That’s one thing she didn’t confess to me. When I first saw you, I really did believe that the tin’s description matched the contents. Look, if it’s any consolation, before the shackles came off, you did good out there. Really you did, and I’m proud of you, Colin. Thanks to your efforts, we can now move ahead and get back to normal.”

  So that was it? I really had come to the end of my existence. Somehow I thought that I’d feel more than a little pissed off at ending up as a potential meal for my sister’s new boyfriend. After what I’d been through since coming here, though, I think that I’d already used up my quota of extreme emotions.

  “You are wrong about me, Dominic!” I shouted. “I have changed. Even after Danielle’s chains fell off and all that shit turbocharged through my head, I still saved the three tainted humans.” I licked my lips, and looked up at the corners of the wall, in search of that speaker, just waiting for it to crackle into life again.

  There was a small part of that old me still clinging on, and it was this smidgen of Colin who kept reassuring me that the Keeper just wouldn’t do anything as crude as feeding me to some mutated zombie. I mean, it was just too ridiculous for words, not after the trouble he went to in keeping me alive.

  As the seconds stretched into minutes with no sign of reply, even that comforting voice gave up the ghost and abandoned me.

  Now that my fate was well and truly sealed, I found to my surprise that all of those suppressed energies brought about from the unshackling had already left me. My old self quickly filled that vacuum. Bringing back a calmness that I thought had gone the same way as that comforting voice.

  I turned and sat down, resting my back against the door, and gave my temporary accommodation a tired gaze. There were scratch marks all across the top of the wall. My sister had never given up trying to get out of here. How she had even managed to reach that high was beyond me; I saw no way to get up there, aside from climbing.

  She had been that determined to get out of here, and whether a greater purpose called her or her hormones were driving her insane would be the one question that I’d never get to answer. It did make me question exactly how she had been able to get out of here in the first place. After all, it’s clear that she hadn’t achieved it alone.

  Danielle never gave up. I shut my eyes and allowed that calmness to seep deeper inside me, whilst visualising the corridor directly behind this very thick door. Those three tainted humans had expanded their sphere of influence way past their physical bodies, and more importantly, through walls, windows, and doors. Although it had only created a cloud of confusion for anyone psychically attuned, it still proved that you didn’t need to have a clear view to affect anyone. Not that I needed any more evidence, the monster had already proven that.

  My hope was to connect to Linda. If anyone could help me out here, it had to be her. After all, the bitch wouldn’t be breathing if it hadn’t been for me saving her neck. She owed me.

  The image of the corridor materialised. It shocked me just how easy it had been to ‘see’ what was behind this locked door. What surprised me even more was that it wasn’t empty. A figure stood directly in front of the door on the other side just a couple of inches from where I sat.

  The third shock hit me when I established the identity. It wasn’t one of the tainted humans. It was another hunter, the first hunter that I’d first encountered back in that filthy room.

  Hello there, Jacob, fancy meeting you here.

  The hunter silently screamed. I guessed that his terror of me, specifically of what I’d done to his companion, hadn’t left him.

  Open this door.

  The Hunter didn’t even hesitate. Like an obedient dog, he pushed down on the fist-sized latch to the left of the door and keyed a four-digit code into the keypad under the latch. I didn’t even bother questioning how he knew the code or if this had been how my sister had got out, it didn’t really matter. I stood up, brushed myself down, and hid the grin as the light from the corridor burst into the dark room.

  The hunter stood there, looking as though he’d just filled his trousers. Thing is, I don’t think it was because of finding me in here. Something else had already had the pleasure of scaring this creature stupid. It didn’t take a genius to work out what.

  “We don’t have much time,” he gasped. “I think…” The hunter paled and stretched out his hand. “Past history and all that?”

  I looked at his token of friendship whilst sensing the lurking presence of another very powerful mind just beyond the boundary of my range. That thing, the true monster, my supposed executioner, was on its way. “Fine by me,” I said, taking his hand. “I hope to fuck you know how to get out of here.”

  The Hunter nodded. “You mean a route out that doesn’t end up with the pair of us becoming food? Yeah, I know a way.” He pulled me out of there and shook my hand. “There’s only me and you left. It’s got the rest of them.”

  He turned and raced down the corridor until he reached the door to the room where I had awakened.

  “You’ve got to be joking,” I muttered, watching him look both ways before disappearing inside the room. I ran after him, skidding to a halt at the open door. The corpse were gone, but apart from that, the place looked the same, including the fact that the family were still inside.

  The hunter held the adult’s wrists while the remaining son looked on. “I don’t believe this!” He nodded at a small vial resting on the bed. “Do you know what that is?”

  I nodded. I knew exactly what it was. The man had pushed a syringe of the stuff into the side of the enforcer’s neck right before I fed on him. Jacob had already worked out the significance of its properties and wanted to do the same to these three before leaving vile town.

  “We only have to eat one of them; Hell, we could just break open one of their skulls and share the brain meat between us. What do you say? It’ll only take us a couple of minutes at best.” Jacob looked past the open door. “I believe we do have time.”

  I walked past the blubbing teenager and picked up the vial. “Why don’t we take this with us instead? Surely it’ll be safer to take a human on the outskirts instead. That way we’ll have enough time to dine at our leisure.”

  “What? You mean you’re willing to let these worms off the hook after everything they’ve put you through?”

  I stared into his black eyes, then looked at the remaining fluid in this tiny glass vial. “If I was to be totally honest here, Jacob, I think that’s the whole point. I’d rather not take any more human lives.”

  I placed the vial back where I found it and walked up to Jacob until we were almost nose-to-nose. “Let them go,” I said quietly. When it became obvious that he was going to do no such thing, I raised my arm, intending to throttle the life out of the Hunter, his role in rescuing me forgotten as my rage increased.

  My arm stopped in my flight, its movement halted by the presence of another hand.

  “It’s okay, Colin, you don’t need to finish it. You’ve already shown us your true self.”

  I turned around and found myself face to face with Danielle.

  “Oh God!” I gasped, unable to stop myself from throwing my arms around her. “I thought I was never going to see you again.”

  “Yeah, well, it was a close run thing. Jacob was so close to leaving his allocated spot.”

  The other hunter grinned at me. “I had no doubts; you wouldn’t have been able to get this far without picking up a few tricks.”

  She kissed the tip of my nose and turned to towards the door. Another figure was now inside the room. He looked up and flashed me a warm smile.

  “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see that you came through.” The
Keeper shook my hand. “I won’t deny it, though, I did have my doubts that you would pass the test.” He gently pulled Danielle out of my embrace. “You had better go to him. I can’t keep him away for much longer.”

  Her pained expression almost broke my heart.

  “Don’t worry, Colin,” she whispered, kissing me again. “I assure you, this is for the best.” Danielle turned and ran out of the room.

  “Fuck me, so I really was a pawn in some stupid chess game?”

  “More like a bishop, I think,” replied Dominic. “The analogy isn’t that far from the truth though.” He took hold of both my hands. “Only this is no chess game, this is the future of all of our species, the humans, tainted, and the hunters.” He paused. “I’m not going to predict Mother Nature’s future intentions regarding what could eventually appear in your sister’s womb. For that, we’ll see what happens. Right now though, what we need to do is to take back our world.” He looked at the others in the room, his gaze staying on Linda. “Two decades ago the dead rose up and our parents failed to stop them from almost making us extinct. We’re going to accomplish what they couldn’t. We’re going to destroy every single fucking zombie on this planet.”

  The end of book one.

  Kingdoms of the Dead

  Book One – Chemical Rot

  By Ian Woodhead

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright February 2014 by Ian Woodhead

  Edited by Monique Happy

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.

  Please visit me here: https://www.facebook.com/Ian.Woodhead.Author

  Prologue

  He slid the tip of his forefinger down the monitor, cutting his younger brother’s frozen face in half. Ishmael-el-Siddique had never been given the opportunity to say goodbye, as all communication from the planet had ceased ten days ago. He gazed through the thick glass window down at the surface hundreds of miles below. The citystates were dying, their lights extinguishing one by one. His citystate burned, as did its neighbors. How long would it be before all of the planet’s lights went out? Ishmael-el-Siddique flicked the play switch and listened to his brother thanking him for the photograph, and how excited and privileged he must feel about being the first man from the North Arabia Citystate to reach space. He turned off the recording before his foolish brother recited his stupid verse about how the citystates from space were like a million fireflies, frozen in time.

  Why was he even wasting such time on this sentimental nonsense? An officer in the North Arabian Rocket battalion should not allow the trivialities of family bonds to impede his duty to protect his citystate from her enemies.

  Yet how could he fight an enemy that he did not understand? His weapons platform passed over another continent. His view showed him more citystates, each one in the same situation. Only one rectangular block of white light showed no signs of conflict. Could this be his enemy?

  Ishmael-el-Siddique’s fingers glided over the control switches that gave him access to the fifteen nuclear-tipped Dragonfire missiles already prepped and ready to fire. The codes had been released when the North Arabian Citystate’s primary communications went offline. He could fire at any target at will.

  The urge to lock every one of those missiles on that strange area of light gripped him hard. Just to do something, no matter how pointless. Deep down he knew that this catastrophe wouldn’t be their problem; unlike the other citystates, their forces must be better equipped to deal with this unknown terror. That must be the only reason for their continued survival.

  The weapons platform passed over the surviving citystate and zeroed in on what was left of his home region. He despaired at the sight as he saw that the Persian Empire had ceased to exist. All the zones within their vast fortified boundary now burned.

  He ejected the plastic recording block containing his brother’s last message and pushed in the last block that he’d recorded before the shouts for help turned into inhuman screams. Ishmael-el-Siddique listened once more to his immediate commander spouting out his lies about the dead not staying dead, about the corpses attacking and eating the flesh of the living.

  The North Arabian officer slammed his fist down on the device, cutting off the recording in mid-sentence. He refused to listen to such foolishness. Ishmael-el-Siddique watched as the lights from citystates continued to snuff out, until only one light was left blazing upon the dark surface.

  One single firefly refused to die.

  Chapter One

  His pursuer took great care not to snag his uniform jacket as he squeezed through the gap between the two columns of packing crates. Kenny Nelson dropped to the floor, hoping that he hadn’t been spotted. He crawled over to the remains of a mattress. The cramp spreading down his left leg let him know he wouldn’t be outrunning an armed constable. Cramp … who would have thought the dead would be burdened with such pain?

  He pushed his face against the tattered fabric, focusing on the stinking wet stench filling his nostrils rather than the sour reek of his body odor, the dull pain in his leg, or the rising sound of those heavy bootsteps.

  Even after four long, miserable years, Kenny’s mind and body wouldn’t allow him to forget his impossible resurrection. Of all the millions of souls the plague of death had taken, Kenny believed that only he had risen with his humanity hanging by a thread.

  Right now, his thread had frayed to the point of snapping. If he didn’t get his injection, Kenny’s joints would stiffen and the cold would grip his body, and this time the sickness would not release him. He’d be dead for sure this time. After that, there would be no stopping that urge to bite into sweet human meat.

  The scraping of metal against stone jolted Kenny back into the present. His fevered mind took a moment to orientate. Although the sensation of zoning out lingered, he retained enough sense not to laugh at the approaching figure despite his comical appearance.

  The city’s founders had made these people. The position of civilian constable drew nasty fuckers like this clown like flies to a shitty blanket. They only had one purpose, to track down and ‘deal’ with any worker suspected of denying their body the drug that kept them from turning.

  To any sane person, the prospect of actually wanting to change into some walking bag of rotting meat bent on the single purpose of consuming human flesh should fill their minds with horror.

  Kenny took his eyes off the straggly youth and looked at his decrepit surroundings, Most of the outerzones looked just like this alleyway; greys and browns dominated the built-up landscape. The smell of unwashed bodies, combined with the stench of discarded garbage, stung his nostrils. Their world reeked of regret, debris, and despair. There weren’t many sane people in Kenny’s life. The ones he saw kept their heads down whilst eking out a living the best they could.

  Some of them did allow the process to accelerate. Their lives had no meaning. For them, the change couldn’t come quick enough. If only the constables sought out these lost human souls instead of going after people like him.

  That would never happen; those bastards received a cash bonus for every suspected worker they stopped. Why go after the ones that matter when any harmless vagrant would do just as well? It’s not like they could prove that their victims weren’t infected, considering everyone had that vile muck running through their veins.

  Not only did this fucker have a rusted blade in his hand, the bastard also carried a portable scanner. Kenny found his fingers reaching up to the branded lines on his forehead and forced his hand back down.

  No way could he allow the constable to swipe that hateful machine over his mark of shame. Even if he did give this one the slip, ther
e’d be yet another one of them on his tail. Those bastards enjoyed hunting down the marked ones. It made their life so much easier when the bounties could be tracked down. He’d be dead in an hour.

  He rolled onto his other side and looked down the length of the darkened alley. Would he be able to reach those metal drums without the constable spotting his fleeing form and opening fire?

  Why did he allow such dangerous notions to tempt his exhausted body? Of course he wouldn’t get to the end of the alley without that bastard blowing a hole in his back. If Kenny did reach the other side, somebody in the square would spot him. Even from this distance, he saw the lurid images displayed on one of the city’s streetscreens. There would be somebody hanging around, watching it. There always were one or two glassy-eyed losers staring up at the building-sized screen, broadcasting an endless supply of twisted game shows.

  If that fucker didn’t have the scanner, Kenny, by rights, shouldn’t have been too concerned over the sudden appearance of a lone constable. Like everyone else in the walled capital city, Kenny was supposed to keep his tired body supplied with the essential drug that kept him from changing. Thanks to his current misfortune though, the only way of getting his regular supply was to visit a medi-center, to allow one of the ‘so-called’ nurses to inject him. Kenny rubbed his forehead again. It had been two weeks since he’d last visited one of those hellish places. Kenny got his drug from other means now.

  Kenny ran his tongue along his cracked lips, watching his pursuer stop to scratch his nose. The constable didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to root him out. Maybe he just wanted to … lunging forward, he wrapped his hand around what, at first, looked like a pile of discarded clothing.