by Garth Ono
STONE COLD VENGEANCE
A Kate Brokenshire Zombie Slayer Adventure, Book 2
By
Garth Ono
* * * * *
Copyright 2016 by Garth Ono
Cover by Jessica Allain
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and locations within either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All characters in this story are 18 years old or older.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
The End
About the author
Stone Cold Vengeance
A Kate Brokenshire Zombie Slayer Adventure Story #2
By Garth Ono
A joyful scream pulled Kate's eyes to the riverbank. Teri was swinging out over the water on the rope. She watched her friend let go and plunge into the Mississippi River.
Her brown eyes narrowed as they scanned the water beyond her friend. Looking for undead swimmers. Zombies didn't breath, so couldn't drown. And the crazy rotters could swim.
It wasn't so long ago that zombies swam across the river and attacked Kate and her friends at that very spot. That was a constant threat all along the Mississippi, especially in Illinois where the river wasn't as wide and treacherous.
"Nice splash," Kate said. Turning away from the river, she was able to relax and wrung water out of her waist-length brown hair. She wore an old red bikini top and rather skimpily cutoff jeans. The river water tended to stain and discolor her bathing suits, so the new stuff was reserved for sunbathing. They didn't call the Mississippi River "Big Muddy" for nothing. "You want to get in line for another turn?"
Some of her friends were lined up for a chance to swing out on that rope. Kate didn't know why anyone would go to the community pool when Johnny's place had that sweet rope. The diving board just wasn't the same.
"Heck yes. Just let me finish spraying myself down," Morgan said. The blonde beauty was applying mosquito spray. "The skeeters are starting to eat me alive."
It was late afternoon. The sun was starting to drop behind the western horizon. Everyone would soon abandon the water to sit around a bonfire. Kate paused to take in the scene, already missing those balmy summer days with her friends. In a few weeks most of them would leave for college.
Johnny was heading out to Ole Miss early. He had a football scholarship, and practice started even before the school year. Since it was his parents' house, anyone who remained behind would have to find another swimming hole. Kate wondered how hard it would be to find a suitable tree for a rope swing.
The next person to swing out was Kate's friend Daphne. It was good to see her best friend having fun. She was one of many people in Tennyson recently bitten by a vampire. Daphne had spoken to Kate many times since about that ordeal. Her friend was only the vampire's minion a short time, but he really messed with her head. Even weeks later, she longed for his cold touch.
And she had… Urges.
Kate's eyes rose a little to look across the river. It looked dark and foreboding over there. The cursed lands. The Zombie Lands. She sometimes still had a hard time wrapping her mind around the idea of any place on earth truly being cursed. America had the single largest cursed area in the world. It stretched from the Gulf of Mexico in Texas to the Canadian Northwest Territory, and from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains.
A land inhabited by zombies. Anyone who died over there, or whose corpse was taken there, was reanimated as an undead monster. They became a zombie. And if a zombie crossed the river, it was Kate's job to kill him.
"Hi, partner," Johnny said as he approached them. He was tall and massive, wearing nothing but a pair of cutoffs. "How's my little English rose doing?"
"I'm lovely, thanks for asking," Kate said, a big smile spreading across her face.
She and Johnny tired to make it work. They went out a few times. Maybe they had too much real friendship to be lovers. Maybe it was knowing he would leave shortly, and probably wouldn't come back after college. Still, he made her happy.
"Yes, Miss Brokenshire, you are lovely," he said. "Braggart."
Johnny winked and patted her butt as he walked past.
"What? Oh," she replied, and laughed.
Everyone teased Kate about her accent. In America she was the exotic English girl. In England she was that Yank. Her father swore her accent and speech was "mid-Atlantic." She wasn't quite English and not quite American.
"You do say 'lovely' quite a lot," Morgan said.
"Oh wow. Okay," she said. "Excuse me for being English. Besides, Americans say lovely, too."
"You know you were born in America, right? Memphis, Tennessee," Morgan replied. "I'm not sure, but that might make you a hillbilly."
"I don't even know how to reply to that," Kate said, and they giggled. "Hillbillies are Irish."
Her eyes went over to the fire pit. Johnny was heading toward it to light the fire. Soon they'd all gather around. Her eyes rose up to movement on the river. It was a pretty large houseboat sitting in the middle of the river just north of their location. It was odd. Why just sit out there like that? They actually had to put some effort to maintain station and not drift with the current.
"Looking for wild things?" Morgan asked.
"Always," she said under her breath. That boat made her uneasy, it wasn't there last time she looked, and she was pretty sure it approached from the opposite shore. "All kinds of vile wild things come out of the Zombie Lands nowadays."
Kate moved over to her truck. It was a twenty year old Land Rover Defender. The dark green four-wheel drive was given to Kate by her uncle when he returned to England. It was officially a graduation present, but she knew it was to support her zombie slaying business. The truck was, of course, her pride and joy.
The Defender was parked next to the woods. She went around back to double check everything was in order. The Schrade kukri machete was sharpened and oiled in its sheath. She had a sawed off shotgun and Browning 9mm pistol locked in a gun locker. The tools of her trade.
Her friends began filing up from the shore to the food table. Time to eat hamburgers, hotdogs, and barbeque chicken. Johnny provided the meat, and everyone brought a dish. Well, all of the girls brought food. Kate's specialty was brownies. Everyone loved them.
She sat between Daphne and Morgan, on a huge log by the fire pit. They laughed and joked, while Kate kept her eye on the houseboat. She couldn't help recalling news reports of bad men who crossed the river to snatch young women enjoying a day on the river.
Kate didn't have long to wait. A bright light flashed three times from the eastern shore just north of her location.
There was a public boat launch in the area, maybe two hundred yards north and on the other side of thick woods. The houseboat headed for shore, and didn't have on its running lights.
Very quietly excusing herself, Kate hurried to the back of her Defender. She quickly put on a shoulder holster, strapped the machete across her back, and then hung a bandolier of shotgun shells over her other shoulder. Then she holstered the 9mm and picked up the sawed off, double-barrel shotgun.
"Let's go take a look, Lupara," she whispered. Lupara was the name her late grandfather gave the Italian made shotgun. Neither the machete nor pistol had earned a name. "The sheriff might want to know what's going down over there."
She wasn't a cop, but Kate still didn't like illegal activities going on in her little town. The young zombie slayer had the sheriff on speed dial, so if anything illegal was going down she'd give him a call. Kate stealthily melted into the woods without anyone at the party noticing.
The dark forest was becoming all too familiar to Kate since she took up zombie slaying less than a year earlier. She almost sensed the low branches and briar patches in the dark, ducking and moving to avoid them. It didn't take long to reach the boat ramp. As expected, there were men waiting.
"A U-haul truck?" she muttered. "What could they possibly be smuggling across the river?"
The truck convinced her it was a smuggling operation. Whether the men on shore were there to pick up or deliver remained to be seen. Kate itched to call the sheriff, but didn't have enough proof yet. Once the houseboat landed, she'd learn exactly what was being moved across the river illegally and could call in the cavalry.
I wonder if the state pays rewards for tips like this? she wondered. A girl's got to make a living.
The big truck was backed down the ramp to the water's edge. She watched the houseboat come up and five men leap off to speak with them. A suitcase was handed over, and one of the boatmen opened it. Even from her location Kate could see it was full of money. So she sent a text message to Sheriff Coleman, smugglers at hanks landing.
A moment later the men still on the boat opened a door. Ragged looking men and women began shuffling out. The undead were all bound with rope around their wrists. They wanted to attack their captors, but didn't have use of their arms. A few fell off the boat and splashed around in the water to the smugglers' amusement.
"Rotters," she whispered, eyes huge. "Who smuggles zombies?"
The men used cattle prods to herd the zombies into the cargo truck. Kate watched in fascination. Who knew you could do that? She always thought it took a vampire to control a zombie.
"This is surreal," she said. Kate took pictures with her phone. Evidence. She zoomed in on them. "Hold still, boys. Give Mummy a nice clear picture."
"Buggers!" Kate cried when her phone rang.
Her ring tone, I Love Rock and Roll by Joan Jett echoed through the night. The screen showed it was Sheriff Coleman calling her. She didn't have time to answer. The smugglers cried out, and chaos ensued. Before she knew it, Kate was taking fire from pistols and automatic weapons.
"Halt! Police!" Kate shouted, hoping that would make them pause long enough for her to escape.
Instead, they cut zombies loose and sent them straight at her. Kate froze. "Uh-oh."
Chapter 2
Ten zombies raced into the woods all around her. The smugglers stopped firing, and she realized her mistake of continuing to fire too late. Rotters were attracted by motion and noise, and she was making the most noise.
And of course the 9mm locked back. Empty.
"Bloody hell!"
Kate ejected the magazine, slammed in another, and holstered. Bullets didn't kill zombies. She had to behead them.
Pulling her kukri machete, Kate looked all around and found the closest one.
"Come to Mummy you stinking rotter."
There were two more right behind him. As well, she heard four more crashing through the woods behind her. Kate wasn't sure where the other three went.
She lifted the keen-edged blade high as the first zombie closed on her. He was a twenty-something in khakis and a blood-stained button down shirt before he died. His throat was torn out, so she guessed he was killed by a zombie, but he was otherwise intact.
The rotter reached for her throat as he closed. Kate swung the machete with all her might and took off both hands mid-forearm. That didn't faze him. She ducked under his truncated arms, spun as she swung the machete horizontally, and decapitated the zombie. As she finished her spin, Kate dropped to one knee and brought the blade around to chop off another's leg above the knee.
He fell on top of her, but she twisted and rolled, and was free before the undead monster could get a grip on her. The third zombie of that group loomed over her as Kate rolled to one knee. She tried to rise to her feet, so she could hit him with the full power of the machete, but the rotter grabbed her around the throat and squeezed.
The other four were almost to them. She glanced at them over his shoulder, dropped the machete, and then forced her thumbs under his pinky fingers around her throat. Kate pried his hands off quickly, snapping fingers the zombie didn't care about. Or even feel. A kick to the side of his knee, and she had two down with broken or missing legs.
Kate pulled her pistol, extended her arm, and fired four quick shots. She hit each of the approaching zombies in the face, knocking every one of them down. That gave her time to retrieve her machete.
"Die, you bloody rotters," she growled, bringing her machete down on the neck of the first zombie to stand back up. His head rolled away, so she turned to the next one. She was already on her feet and wearing a blood-stained sun dress. "Think you're being cute, don't you?"
She glanced over at the smugglers. They were struggling to get the rest of the zombies herded into the U-haul truck. She smiled. They probably thought she was taken care of, maybe even seconds from gruesome death.
"Hey! Zombie, zombie, zombie!" Kate screamed.
She turned and ran straight at the smugglers. The three remaining zombies she shot in the face were fast on her heels. Then three more zombies came out of the woods to her left, attracted by her call and movement. The smugglers froze, eyes huge.
"I think you boys lost these," she said.
Kate jumped into the open passenger door of the U-haul, slid across the bench seat, and was on the other side in a flash. Taking the machete into her left hand, she pulled her pistol and started shooting. The smugglers scattered, and more zombies broke loose. Their arms were tied back, but they were still running amok as only zombies could.
"Oh my, I seem to have totally cocked up your little operation," she said with a wag of her brows. "I'm so naughty."
She barked a laugh. All of her American friends loved the way she said, "Naughty." The rotters and smugglers probably didn't appreciate her at all. Running around the front of the truck, Kate fired two shots into the radiator.
"You won't be taking any rotters with you today."
Coming around the truck, she ran straight into a running smuggler. He bowled her over, and then they rolled away from each other. Kate noticed he was carrying the suitcase of money and had dropped it upon impact. She snatched it up.
"Go to hell, you bloody zombie smuggler!" she cried, and hit him in the face with the full weight of the suitcase. Another smuggler came racing up to her. Kate used the suitcase to smash him in the chin.
She heard the first siren off in the distance. "Here come the police!"
"What the fuck are you doing?" a man shouted.
"Cutting them loose to kill that bitch," was the answer.
"No, you wouldn't…" Kate whispered, turning toward the back of the truck. She spotted three smugglers cutting the ropes off zombies. Freeing them. "Are you out of your minds?"
The freed zombies all came after Kate. She glanced at the woods to the south. Her friends were just a couple hundred yards to the south. Kate turned north and ran into the night forest, suitcase in hand. It caught on something, so she dropped it.
Hearing a pair of zombies crashing through the woods after her, approaching fast, Kate took a deep breath and held it. She listened until they were upon her, and then stepped out in front of the first one. Kate swung Lupara with all her might and struck the rotter in the face with the handgrip. He went down. She dropped to a knee on his chest, pressed the double-barrels to his throat, and pulled the trigger.
Boom!
That killed him. The zombie's throat and spine were blown away. No spine meant dead zombie. She immediately surged up and around the oak, coming up behind the second zombie. This time she pressed the barrel against the back of his neck and pulled the trigger.
Boom!
Another dead zombie.
Lupara broke open. Kate snapped it all the way open to eject the spent rounds. She quickly loaded with two more shells and snapped it back closed. Ready for two more zombies.
Three more were upon her in a flash. Kate shot the middle and right zombies in the chest, released her weapon to hang on its strap, and blocked the remaining zombie's hands aside. She spun around him, even as she pulled the machete again.
"Hai!" she cried, bringing the blade around as the zombie turned to face her. His head went flying. "Another $50 for me!"
It was relatively easy to claim the other two zombie's heads as they struggled to rise. There were more stomping through the night-shrouded woods around her. They couldn't see or hear any better than her. A zombie's advantages were total fixation and an inability to ever give up.
Gunfire back at the ramp echoed through the air as sirens arrived. She didn't know if the cops were her friends at the local sheriff's office, or State Police. Either way, she had to help the outgunned cops.
Kate moved with as much stealth as she could, trying to lose the zombies. They'd search for her in those woods until their simple minds forgot that they were actually looking for someone. So not that long.