Just Another Day in the Zombie Apocalypse (Episode 8)

by Mortimer, L. C.

  Just Another Day

  In the Zombie Apocalypse

  Episode 8

  L.C. Mortimer

  Copyright: L.C. Mortimer

  Published: 2018

  Publisher: Amazon Kindle

  The right of L. C. Mortimer to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  The saga continues…

  Just Another Day in the Zombie Apocalypse is an episodic serial and should be read in order. Each episode ends in a cliffhanger and leads directly into the next story.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  About the Author

  Lost in the Apocalypse

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 1

  Maybe it was a way out of this hellhole.

  That was what Alice thought when Torrance peeked out of the trapdoor in the kitchen floor. Maybe it was a way out and everything was going to be fine. They could all be fine. They could survive this. They could escape.

  “There are supplies down here,” Torrance said, lifting herself out of the trapdoor. She moved slowly, but with a certain gracefulness Alice had never noticed before.

  “Leg doing okay?” Mark asked pointedly.

  “I’m fine,” Torrance brushed him off. “Look.”

  Alice and Mark peeked into the open door. Sure enough, there were boxes down there. They looked old, but two of them were open. Alice saw some random tools in the boxes: shovels and spades. Things they could use, especially once springtime rolled around.

  If they made it that long.

  Before they could comment on the find, though, Torrance seemed to notice Kyle’s predicament. He was still bleeding from the wound he’d sustained during their little adventure.

  “You’re bleeding. Fuck!”

  “It’s nothing,” Kyle said, obviously trying to reassure her. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine,” Torrance shook her head. “Nothing about this is fine. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  “I’ll get the stuff,” Mark said gruffly.

  “I’m fine, Mark.”

  “It’s okay. Let him do it,” Alice said gently as Mark took off. “Besides, the more you rest, the sooner your leg is going to heal.” She didn’t like pointing out that Torrance was still hurt and had a weakness. It was embarrassing. She didn’t want Torrance to think she was trying to boss her around or control the situation, but she also wanted her friend to rest.

  “Yeah, okay,” Torrance said, not fighting her this time. “So what happened out there? Did you find the watcher’s nest?”

  They had gone into the woods in search of a creepy zombie they referred to as a watcher. Mark had noticed it…well, watching. The plan had been simple. They were going to track it and find out where it lived. Torrance thought it might be hunting people. She thought maybe it had a supply of humans living in its home.

  Alice thought there was an easier explanation.

  It was a smart zombie.

  That made sense. Not all zombies could be equally brainless. Could they? There were smart humans and dumb humans, so it only made sense that getting infected with the virus would still lead to a mixture of smart and dumb Infected. Just because some random humans caught a deadly virus didn’t mean the playing field was leveled.

  Going into the woods had been exciting. Alice was certain they were going to find something. Anything. Maybe they’d find a clue or perhaps they’d find proof that the watcher was living with others. She wasn’t sure.

  What she hadn’t expected was a trap.

  “We didn’t find it,” Kyle said. “He had laid out a trap for us.”

  “What do you mean?” Torrance said slowly. She looked to Alice. “A trap?”

  “Yeah,” she nodded, swallowing hard. Torrance had called going into the woods a suicide mission. She’d been against it from the start, but Alice, Mark, and Kyle hadn’t listened. They weren’t from Raven. They didn’t know. Torrance, though, she was a local. She knew this place inside and out and she also knew when something felt wrong.

  They should have trusted her.

  She was the newest member of their group, though, and trust was a concept that no longer came easily. They could live with Torrance. They could eat with her. They could spend time with her. Trust, though? Alice sucked at trusting her. It was a terrible feeling because Torrance had done literally nothing to prove she was untrustworthy.

  “There were broken branches and footprints in the dirt,” Alice admitted. “We thought we were getting close to finding its lair or whatever.”

  “It had dug a hole instead.”

  “There was some sort of trap.”

  “Do you think the watcher built the trap?” Torrance asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “It could have been other humans,” Torrance pointed out.

  “It was fairly complex,” Kyle admitted. “There’s a chance other humans could have created it as a way to catch and kill zombies.”

  “And we were just too dumb to see it until it was too late,” Alice admitted.

  “Okay, so that’s how Kyle got hurt?”

  “I dove out of the way when the trapdoors opened,” he told Torrance. “I landed weird, fucked up my leg on a stick, and hobbled most of the way home.”

  “So it was a complete disaster,” Torrance sighed, shaking her head.

  “Not a complete disaster,” Mark countered, returning with supplies. “All right, pants off, big boy,” he said to Kyle, who immediately started tugging off his jeans. They had lost any semblance of modesty long ago. It was freeing, to a certain extent. They didn’t have to worry about social norms because society was dead. They could behave however they wanted to without feeling weird or uncomfortable about it.

  “How do you figure?” Torrance asked Mark. “You guys got hurt. You didn’t discover anything new.”

  “Someone stole our canoe while we were in the woods,” Mark said. He started washing Kyle’s wound, paying careful attention to get all of the dirt out.

  “What?” Torrance went still.

  “We don’t know who,” Alice said carefully. “I mean, maybe it just drifted off.”

  “Don’t be dumb,” Torrance said. “And don’t try to soften the blow. I’m not trying to be mean, but we’re long past pleasantries.”

  “She’s right,” Mark said. “There are other survivors nearby. So whether we’re dealing with smart zombies who dig traps or smart humans who dig traps, we’re going to have to be careful.”

  “I mean…should we leave?” Kyle asked, voicing what Alice had been thinking. “Should we go somewhere else?”

  “It’s too close to winter,” Torrance said. “It’s already getting colder. Do you really want to be wandering around, looking for shelter in the cold?”

  “I don’t,” Mark said. “We haven’t had any Infected wandering around the lodge in awhile. The perimeters we’ve set up seem to be okay for now. No strangers have knocked on our door. Doesn’t mean they aren’t going to, but at some point, we’re going to have
to talk to other humans, you guys. They aren’t all going to be bad.”

  “Some of them will be, though,” Alice pointed out.

  “We’ll just have to make sure we’re ready for that,” Torrance said. “Maybe it’s time for us to start talking about what we’re going to do when people show up needing food or supplies.”

  “You mean, are we willing to trade and take people in?” Kyle asked.

  “Exactly. Like it or not, at some point, someone is going to want to be a charity case. We don’t really have the supplies to help people out. Not right now. And I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not really interested in being stabbed in the back.”

  “If we let people in, they could easily betray us,” Mark agreed. “They could stay for a day or two, figure out how we run things, and then leave. Then they could return with a group of their buddies. It’s safer to trust no one.”

  “Agreed,” Alice said, even though it made her sick. Before the zombies came, she’d prided herself on being a good person. She had been a kind person. At least, she thought she had been. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

  The world was trickier now.

  A moral compass?

  That didn’t really exist anymore.

  “So it’s settled,” Torrance said with a sigh. “That was easy.”

  “Done,” Mark finished patting a bandage onto Kyle’s leg and sat back to examine his handiwork.

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Yeah,” Mark said. He got up and left with the first aid supplies.

  “Hey,” Torrance placed her hand on Alice’s arm. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

  “No, it is,” Alice said. “But it’s still the right thing to do. Trusting people isn’t a luxury we can afford anymore,” she said. “I realize that.”

  “It’s still hard.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s funny, you know,” Torrance said. “The way things used to be. I used to teach my son that it was important to take care of other people. I told him that no matter what happened, you should always help the people around you.”

  “All of our mothers taught us that,” Kyle spoke up. “It means you were a good mom, Torrance.”

  Alice tried not to cringe at the use of the past tense “were.”

  Torrance’s son might be gone, but she would never stop being a mother.

  Alice didn’t even have kids and she knew that. When you had a baby, a child, that changed you. Something inside of your heart changed and you could never go back to the way you were before.

  “Well, my advice today would be a little different.”

  “Yeah?” Alice asked, standing up. “What would you say now?” She reached down for Torrance’s hand and hauled her to her feet. The girls stood face-to-face and Torrance’s face was unreadable when she answered.

  “Today I’d say watch your back. Today I’d tell my kid that no matter what happens, you have to look out for the people you already know and love in your family. You can’t help everyone. You can’t save everyone. Your first responsibility is to your family and not the rest of the world.”

  “Agreed,” Alice said simply. “Agreed.”

  Chapter 2

  Mark stood in the bedroom for a long time.

  He’d put the supplies away, but instead of returning to the kitchen, he came here to be alone for a little while. He needed it. A break. He needed a break. Well, what he actually needed was a fucking blunt and a bottle of whiskey. What he had was a few minutes to himself in the room he was sharing with Alice.

  It wasn’t enough.

  He could feel the space closing in on him.

  “It will never get easier,” he said out loud. Maybe that was the problem. There had been times in his life when he felt like things were too difficult to bear, but there had always been hope. There had always been a belief – however faint – that one day, things would be different.

  That he would be different.

  Today had been eye-opening for Mark in many ways. He should have known that they were walking into a trap. Torrance had basically called it. She couldn’t have known there was going to be an actual trap, but Torrance knew this place better than he’d given her credit for.

  Maybe she knew the people around here set traps. Maybe she suspected the watcher was even more intelligent than Mark had given him credit for. Either way, he had fucked up, and it had almost cost them everything.

  If something had happened to Alice, Mark wasn’t sure if he could keep on going.

  It would be tempting to walk out into the forest with his gun and a single bullet. That was all he would need. One single, well-placed bullet, and this could all end.

  Maybe he should do it, anyway.

  He couldn’t, though. Not as long as he had her to live for. Alice really had become his everything. For a long time, she had just been the pretty girl who lived down the hall. Now she was more. Now she was his heart.

  And he had almost destroyed her.

  Kyle, too.

  He had led them into a trap, but the worst part was that Mark knew he’d do it all over again. If he could go back in time and make a choice as to whether or not to go into the woods, he would still go into the woods because he needed to know what was out there.

  Hiding in the lodge was fucking hell.

  Mark wasn’t a hider.

  He didn’t want to squirrel away and wait for winter to pass. He wanted to be doing something, anything, to pass the time. He needed to feel like he was making a difference and right now, he didn’t feel like he was.

  “Hey,” there was a gentle knock on the door. Then Alice came into the room, walked up behind him, and wrapped her arms around him from behind. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “Liar,” she shot back.

  “Fine,” he whispered.

  “You’re upset about today.” It wasn’t a question. She knew him well enough that it was obvious. Hell, they probably all knew him well enough that it was obvious.

  “A little.”

  “A lot.”

  “I fucked up.”

  She shrugged against him. She didn’t deny what he said, and that was something he liked about her. He respected Alice because she didn’t bullshit him. Women in the past had. Everyone seemed to always have a pretty lie to tell the handsome man if he would only crawl into their beds and into their lives.

  If only he would promise them the things they wanted.

  “You didn’t know, Mark. None of us did. You need to stop your pity-party, though.”

  “I’m not having a pity-party.”

  “Bullshit,” she said, seeing through his lies.

  “Fine, I’m pissed,” he said, turning around. “Is that what you want to hear, Alice? I messed up. I almost lost Kyle today and I almost lost you.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “But I almost did.”

  “But you didn’t,” she repeated again, softer this time. Alice was his saving grace in so many ways. The nightmares that had plagued him for ages had all but subsided. She understood him in a way no one else seemed to. He could relax around her. He could let his guard down. He could fucking calm down and not feel so tense he might explode.

  “It was too close,” he said.

  “We were fine, Mark. We shouldn’t have gone. You’re right. And we all know that now. We’ll be more careful in the future.”

  “Alice, I don’t want to lose you.”

  He hadn’t made Alice any promises. He couldn’t. Their world was too unpredictable to promise to love her forever. He did, though. He loved her. It was an emotion he didn’t feel often and one he wasn’t entirely comfortable with, but that was it.

  He loved her.

  “I don’t want to lose you, either, Mark.”

  He wrapped her in his arms and held her for awhile. She was right. They needed to be more careful in the future. They needed to plan better. Going off after the watcher had been careless. Reckless. He had just been so unnerved by
the creature. Mark didn’t like the idea of sitting idly by and just waiting for it to make a move, but maybe that’s exactly what he needed to do.

  Maybe he needed to wait.

  Maybe they all did.

  They had all the time in the world when it came to their futures. The zombies weren’t going anywhere. Unless the other survivors made a move and started bothering them at the lodge, they could theoretically live in peace with one another. Maybe they might even like having neighbors, although Mark doubted that.

  But they did need to come up with a plan.

  They needed more food.

  They needed more supplies.

  They needed water.

  They needed so many things, but right now, he just needed her.

  “Come on,” Alice said, pulling out of his arms. She smiled up at him. “Let’s go get some food, okay? Everything will feel better once we’ve eaten.”

  His stomach growled in response and she laughed, leading him by the arm out of the bedroom and back to the kitchen. Torrance and Kyle were still there. They were sitting at the table eating beans and joking around.

  It felt normal.

  For just a minute, it felt normal.

  That’s what it could feel like all the time, Mark thought. If they could just figure out a way to focus on the future and on making the right choices, they could find some semblance of normalcy they could all live with.

  Maybe they could even start to look forward to living each day instead of just surviving.

  “Stop thinking,” Alice whispered to him. “There’s plenty of time to worry. Right now, let’s just eat, Mark.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Let’s eat.”

  Chapter3

  Two weeks after the disaster with the zombie pit, Kyle felt better. Torrance had healed, too, and the two of them decided to get out of the lodge before they burned the damn place to the ground from sheer boredom.

  It was their first outing, and Alice and Mark had been hovering like well-meaning parents as Kyle and Torrance packed their backpacks.

  “Don’t forget water. Is that enough water?”