LEFT ALIVE (Zombie series Box Set): Books 1-6 of the Post-apocalyptic zombie action and adventure series

by Laszlo,Jeremy

  I hope that there was someone out there who liberated him from being haunted by my mother. Everyone deserves happiness and I don’t think that my father was a happy man. I think that he was a dedicated and loving man. I think he was the kind of man who wanted to get to heaven and tell my mother with an honest heart that he stayed true, that he stayed loyal. I think that’s a silly notion and I think that anyone would want their lover to find love once more. People in love become acclimatized to it and when they’re deprived of it, they wither and suffer. My father had Lexi and me, but we weren’t enough. We couldn’t fulfill his needs and desires. We were just a single facet of love, but my father believed it was enough. He believed that we were all he needed. I think my mother would have wanted him to find love again. I think she would have wanted him to find happiness in someone who could give him what she could no longer.

  Whoever Lindsay was, I’m glad that my father had her. She’s the only thing that makes me feel like my father wasn’t alone for the majority of this journey. Maybe she was with him the entire time. I try to imagine my father keeping this Lindsay a secret from Lexi and me, while we shuffled off to college and left him in the hollow ruins of his old life. He’d been a father for so long, I often wondered how he was going to fill his time when we vanished from the daily routine. Maybe they’d been lovers for a long time, maybe best friends. I wonder if she was sitting in the car, waiting for him when he told me on the phone long ago that he was heading to the cabin. I wonder if she stayed out there with him in the long, scary nights where no one knew what to expect. She might have been his anchor to reality, listening to him as he toyed with the prospect of heading south. I wonder what she said when he told her that he had to come to Lexi and me.

  No matter who she was to him, I feel bad for her because this was the end of the line. I look at the ruins of the city before me. Whoever Lindsay was to my father, this was where she died and I can’t help but feel like I have my answer. I know what happened to Atlanta. I look at the smoldering ashes of a city that incurred the wrath of Charles Duwain. I feel sorry for him. I look at the incinerated remains of Atlanta and can’t help but feel like my father’s tale is one of woe and tragedy, and I can only see his fingerprints on the world that he’s passed through. I imagine that this is his message to the world. This is the capacity of hate and suffering that my father is capable of when his heart is broken. I look at the city and I feel sorry for him. I feel an aching in my heart for his loss. My soul constricts and twists with sadness for him and I feel the tears welling in my eyes when I look at the tomb he’s left for Lindsay. My father was a great man capable of great love.

  The world is less for want of him.

  “Let’s go,” I tell Noah, gathering my emotions and stuffing them deep down inside of me.

  “Want me to drive?” he asks without facing me.

  “No,” I tell him, opening the driver’s door and stepping inside of the truck.

  Getting behind the wheel again, I hand the map over my shoulder to Greg, who takes it without a word to me. I turn the key in the ignition and listen to the truck roaring to life beneath me. The rumbling and the vibrating of the truck fills me with confidence. We’re actually moving. We’re heading in the right direction. I put the truck in drive and climb the overpass.

  Getting a clear view of what’s waiting for us, I feel my heart racing and my lungs seizing up at the sight of the welcoming party for us down in the crammed interstate. If we’re going to catch up with the 75, this is our route. This is the path we’re going to have to take and the entire way is blocked by a sea of those skulking, lurking creatures in numbers that I would never have imagined. Staring at the city, only able to see the backs of their heads, the legion of creatures seem captivated by the sight, possessed by the ruin of the burning city. They remind me of lost souls, waiting for hell. It would almost seem like a mercy letting them die in the fires, burning with the buildings that had once been their homes. Yet they endure and here they are, unleashed upon the world. Where will they go now? Where will they wander to find their next meal? Images of the small town we abandoned linger in my mind.

  “Think there are any survivors with any sort of sanity?” Lexi asks weakly, scared of the answer. I think we’re all scared of the answer, because we all know that out there, there are religious fanatics waiting for us. I’m afraid that they might be the only slightly sane, non-cannibalistic humans out there in the world. I hate the thought of that. There has to be others out there, people who aren’t bowing down to the altar of crazy, or feeding on human flesh.

  “I’m tired,” Lexi says after a while. “Noah, will you hold him?”

  “Sure thing.” Noah turns around as I pick an alternate route, choosing the shoulder to get away from the herd of lumbering monsters meandering down the road. It’s going to be best if we avoid the city altogether. It’s not like there’s any chance of us finding anything we might be able to salvage that wouldn’t put at risk what we’ve already got. Pulling off the road, I abandon the mass of freaks and horrors who are turning their heads, noticing that there’s something moving in the distance and are drawn to the sound of the truck.

  As Lexi nestles in for a nap, I glance over to see Noah looking down at his son. I love the look in his eyes, even though I’m pretty sure that he’s the biggest jerk that I’ve ever met and I want to punch him in the face. But he is the father of my nephew and I’m glad that he seems to be in love with him. I would be mortified if he was disgusted or disinterested in my beautiful little nephew. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I look at the expression on Greg’s face and feel a small glimmer of hope in the depths of my heart. He’s not disgusted or annoyed by the baby’s presence either. Maybe there is a possibility that we’ll be able to have a child of our own one day. The look in his eyes tells me that he wouldn’t be too offended by the suggestion. After all, I’m probably the only person in the world who will take him now. I’m his only shot. I smile to myself. I’m glad we’re all here together as one. I’m glad that we haven’t split up and that we have each other. It would have been so much harder to do this alone.

  I drive wherever I want to go. The shoulder, the median, the world is my playground. I don’t abide by the laws of men or gods anymore and I think of the world as just a giant jungle gym between points A and B. I drive into other lanes, off the road, or anywhere I might find as an acceptable route. I swerve to avoid the multitude of stalled or abandoned cars on the road. Every lane seems to be occupied at one point or another, like people drove their cars until the gas ran out and then got out and walked. The survivors just pushed aside the cars that were in their way, or rammed them into the barricades.

  Glancing out the window and over to the smoldering ruins of Atlanta, I wonder where exactly Lindsay met what was likely a sudden and unfortunate demise. I wish my father had kept a journal. It would have been morbidly fascinating to read the final days of his life, the vast span of his whole journey. I look at this city and wonder if I’m looking at the diary of his life written out in a cryptic language, just waiting for me to decipher it. I let out a sigh and feel a heavy heart. It’s hard to think about him without feeling the gloom settling in over me.

  Behind me, I hear Lexi softly snoring, trying to regain her strength from giving birth. She’s so tough. I’m worried that she’s going to get an infection, just like Greg might. More or less, I don’t want to be stuck going to Dayton without them and only having pissy Noah to keep me company. Without Lexi, there’s no survival for my nephew. He’d starve to death in just a day or two. Most likely, I’d end up murdering Noah along the way and making my way alone. I look at Noah, holding his son, staring at his precious little face as he sleeps.

  Turning back toward the road, I casually glance down at the fuel gauge and see that we’re under empty. I gently press the brake, bringing the truck to a halt and putting it in park. “What’s going on?” Greg asks me quietly, not wanting to wake up Lexi.

  “We need to fill up,” I tell hi
m, looking over at Noah.

  “Okay,” Noah says with a heavy sigh. “Greg, watch my son for me.”

  “No, I’ll get out and do it,” Greg says as if Noah is offering for him to hold a live grenade.

  “No, you won’t,” I hiss at him. “Noah and I are faster. Until we fix your leg, there’s nothing you can do but sit there and look pretty.”

  “We need to get something to hold him, like a car seat or something,” Greg mumbles as Noah hands the newborn to Greg who is sitting right behind me. I watch Greg holding the newborn and feel my heart swelling to three times its normal size. I want that. I want to have a child with him. The look in his eyes is so magical that I feel like everything around me is melting away in a single, quick flash of warm heat.

  “Ready for this?” Noah asks me.

  “Let’s do this,” I say with a deep breath.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Closing the door, I look behind us at the rows and rows of stalled, snowed-in cars that are completely bogged down with ash and dust. To the right of me, there’s a trailer park in view of the interstate, completely blackened and destroyed by a fire that ravaged the entire facility. Overpasses are the safest places to stop, giving a better view and only two directions we have to look for danger.

  Smoke and ash is everywhere. I wonder how many people were hiding out in this city. There had to be people who were keeping silent, biding their time, hoping that help would come, but now they’re all gone, scattered into the wind. Everything is gone now and I feel like we’re trespassing on sacred burial grounds. I watch Noah retrieving the gas container while I take in the sight of the dead city. Atlanta is officially a necropolis.

  I look at the cars, wondering what’s underneath all of the dust and ash. There might be supplies in the cars, locked away and waiting for someone to find them. I’m surprised at how quickly the scavenger mentality has taken hold of me. I suppose that it’s a sense of morbid curiosity that grips me, making me want to glimpse into the lives of others. Noah tries to get the gas can, but it’s not coming out easy, so he climbs into the bed of the truck, wading through the stuff that we haphazardly loaded in the truck’s bed.

  “We have too much shit,” Noah complains as he tries to wrench the gas tank free.

  I’m not listening to him. I don’t want to listen to him complaining right now. What draws my attention is that the windows are practically tinted in the Dodge, thanks to being stuck, stagnant and stalled for the months. I look at the silhouettes of Greg and Lexi. They’re sitting closer together and I can hear their hushed voices muffled through the exterior of the truck while Noah is preoccupied with the gas container. I wonder what they’re talking about. Probably how sick they are of Noah’s shit. Or maybe they secretly agree with him and think I’m wrong about continuing on this trip.

  I try to brush it off, maybe it has something to do with my nephew. Everything has been odd, though. Even the way we all look at each other now. Even when Greg and Lexi look at each other. It’s like they’re silently communicating, like siblings usually do, like Lexi and I do when we look at each other. I hate the feeling. I hate thinking that there are secrets between us, but I can’t help but feel like something is going on. Is this how a leader feels right before a mutiny?

  The feeling reminds me of this morning when I was upstairs and asleep in that little girl’s room, why didn’t they come and get me? Why didn’t Greg come to sit with me and leave the others alone? Why not let the new parents have some time with their child and come spend time with the girl that has spent the last three years madly in love with him? Maybe I’m being immature or overly sensitive, but I feel like there is more going on here than I am privy to. Maybe they’re all just worried about Lexi. It would make sense. We’re all practically family now. Some blood just runs deeper.

  While Noah continues to cuss out the gas container, my eyes wander from the dusty windows to the road in front of us. At the apex of the overpass, I can see where we’re headed, but more importantly, I can see what we’re headed straight for. The first one I see doesn’t bother me too much, but I begin to notice that the air lingering around the north is hazy, like a cloud has descended upon the interstate. I look at it and I feel a sinking sensation in my stomach, like there’s something wrong and I’m just too dense to pick up on it. I look at the cloud, and my eyes dart to the single creature lurking on the road. His shoulders are back, fingers twisted into gnarled claws and his head is jutted forward. With each step, jets of dust shoot up around the ankles and the legs of the wandering killer.

  He’s not alone.

  He’s not even close to being alone. Out of the haze, I see the other silhouettes manifesting in the plumes of dust, like phantoms and wraiths in a foggy cemetery. I look at the gray wall behind the emerging horrors and realize that there are more of them there than I could possibly count, to kick up that kind of a dust cloud. As the ash continues to drift out of the sky, I watch them, all of them poised and ready to kill. The closer they get, the more I begin to feel like we’re absolutely trapped. I look behind us and see all the cars shoved together on the street, crammed against the concrete barriers. It’s going to be a tight drive to try and reverse all the way back down the overpass. But, that’s not what worries me the most. I see more trails of dust that way as well, lazy trails that coil up into the air, slithering toward the heavens. That sinking feeling in my stomach is getting stronger and stronger.

  Inside the truck, I can hear the intense, muffled conversation of Greg and Lexi. I have no clue what they’re talking about, but I know something that will get their attention. I look to the back of the truck where Noah is standing tall, frozen with terror as he looks directly at the rising cloud of impending horrors. I feel like we’ve officially taken our first steps into a nightmare.

  “That’s a lot of fucking zombies,” Noah breathes with a hint of worry in his voice as he stares at the multitude that is now emerging from the veil of gray and white. “We need to go now,” Noah says as he takes a careful step back in the bed of the truck, looking at the approaching creatures. “Like, right now.”

  “I hear you,” I say, rushing to help him get the container out of the bed of the truck.

  Twisting open the gas cap, I watch the approaching horrors, listening to the breeze carrying the snarling and the shrieking that climbs up higher and higher, until it reaches my ears and makes the panic come climbing up inside of me until my soul is consumed with the terror. I take a step backwards and listen as Noah drops the gas container, his eyes still watching the monsters as they draw closer and closer. One of them lets out this deep, howling roar that makes me think of some sort of demon making its presence known after escaping from hell. I look at all of them, climbing over the tops of cars, some of them looking a lot more muscular or meaty than the gaunt nightmares that we faced in the small town or in Jacksonville.

  I reach down and grab the gas container that Noah dropped, and quickly lift it up and start filling the gas tank. Noah reaches for his holster at his side and pulls out his revolver, pointing it at the monsters that are making the climb up the overpass. One of them, a great hulking brute, is leading the charge. Whatever clothes he’d been wearing before all of this are left as long shreds and tattered wisps that hang from him. A hood is pulled up over his head as he walks, the frayed remains of his pants swinging as with each step. I look back to the gas container, trying to keep my hands steady as I pour, hoping that Noah has enough bullets in his pistol to drop a few of those creatures to buy me some more time. He’s become a great marksman, his years of playing videogames finally counting for something.

  At my feet, the large puddle of gasoline spilled when Noah dropped the can sends tendrils of fumes wafting up into my face, making my eyes water. I hate the smell of gas. I finish off the gas container, wondering how many gallons Noah had spilled when he dropped it. I toss the gas can away and grab another three-gallon container out of the back of the truck, hoping to fill it up as much as we can before those things
get to us.

  A hand is pounding on the window, trying to get our attention, no doubt it’s Greg trying to warn us that there are a lot of flesh-eating demons heading in our direction. Noah ignores him and keeps his eye drawn down the sight to the creatures that are clambering over the cars, slamming into them and roaring, letting us know that they’re getting closer and closer and that they mean to rip us apart. Where’s the cops? Where is anyone who might take care of these things? Where is the military? Did everyone fall victim to these things? I stick the nozzle into the gas tank and start filling it up as quickly as possible. They’re coming closer and closer and a lot of these things look like they could bolt at full speed with the drop of a hat. The ash keeps falling and Noah’s head is coated in gray, along with his shoulders and the arm that’s extended with his pistol trained on the closest horror.

  The bang that emits from his pistol sends up a thousand shrieks and roars from the mob of creatures as one of the monsters on the roof of a truck crumples forward, taking the shot in his abdomen. The horde turns on the creature and starts ripping him apart, not bothering to wait until he’s dead to shred him to pieces. I finish with the second gas tank and drop it, tightening the cap on the gas can and shutting the guard. Noah fires off another round and I can hear my nephew screaming inside of the cab of the truck, before he fires a third bullet into the crowd that is not slowing, despite the three tasty victims they savagely feed upon.

  Rushing to the driver’s door I pull it open, not wasting another second looking at the approaching nightmares that are going to want to rip the flesh from my bones with their putrid teeth. Inside the truck, my nephew is screaming at the top of his tiny lungs. Greg is looking at him with a distraught expression on his face while Lexi feebly tries to comfort and quiet him. I look at Greg who has switched spots with her, now sitting behind Noah and looking from my nephew to the front window.