by J. L. Bourne
Praise for J.L. Bourne’s page-turning novels of the zombie apocalypse
DAY BY DAY ARMAGEDDON
“There is zombie fiction and then there is crawl-out-of-the-grave-and-drag-you-to-hell zombie fiction. Day by Day Armageddon is hands-down the best zombie book I have ever read. Dawn of the Dead meets 28 Days Later doesn’t even come close to describing how fantastic this thriller is. It is so real, so terrifying, and so well written that I slept with not one but two loaded Glocks under my pillow for weeks afterward. J.L. Bourne is the new king of hardcore zombie action!”
—Brad Thor, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“A dramatic spin on the zombie story. It has depth, a heart, and compelling characters.”
—Jonathan Maberry, Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Patient Zero
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This novel is dedicated to my mother and father, who have left this earth for other planes.
For those that still have theirs, put down this book, pick up your phone, and tell them how much you love them, right now.
I’ll wait.
Author’s Note
If you made it this far, you have likely spent some time in my post-apocalyptic world through the pages of the first three Day by Day Armageddon novels. Foremost, I’d like to thank you—my dedicated readers—for punching yet another ticket on the train with nonstop service through the bleak landscapes of undead Armageddon. From the days of the black cover to now, you’ve been there for me, and for that, I remain humbled.
Although the series is best enjoyed chronologically, if you are just beginning the Day by Day Armageddon saga, allow me to bring you up to speed.
The three-minute version:
The first volume of the Day by Day Armageddon series took us deep into the mind of a military officer and survivor as he made a New Year’s resolution to start keeping a journal. The man kept that promise, chronicling daily the fall of humanity. We see him transition from the life that you and I live to the prospect of fighting for his very survival against the overwhelming hordes of the undead. We see him bleed, we see him make mistakes, we witness him evolve.
While enduring numerous trials and travails in the first novel, the protagonist and his neighbor John escape the government-sanctioned nuclear annihilation of San Antonio, Texas. They make their way to temporary safety on board a boat dock on the gulf shores of Texas, and soon after receive a weak radio transmission. A family of survivors—a man named William, his wife, Janet, and their young daughter, Laura, all that remain of their former community—take shelter in their attic while untold numbers of the undead search for them below. After a miraculous rescue, the family joins forces with our protagonist to stay alive. As they scout the outlying areas for supplies, they encounter a woman named Tara, trapped and near death in an abandoned car surrounded by the undead. After her rescue, Tara begins to bond with our protagonist, forming a relationship that eventually leads to them falling in love.
The survivors eventually find themselves sheltering inside an abandoned strategic missile facility known by the long-deceased former occupants as Hotel 23. But their union may not be enough in this new world, an unforgiving post-apocalyptic place in which a simple infected cut, not to mention the millions of undead, can easily kill them.
The situation brought out the worst in some . . .
Without warning, a band of brigands, seeing targets of opportunity, mercilessly began an assault on Hotel 23, intending to murder the survivors for the shelter and take the supplies inside. Narrowly pushed back, the survivors were able to hold Hotel 23 for the time being.
In the second installment, Day by Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile, our protagonist, Kil, connects with the remnants of military ground forces in Texas. As the last military officer on the mainland known to be alive, he soon finds himself in command. He establishes communications with the acting Chief of Naval Operations on board a working nuclear aircraft carrier on station in the Gulf of Mexico.
Kil also discovers a handwritten letter telling of a family—the Davises—hiding out at an outlying airport within prop aircraft range of Hotel 23. The rescue mission results in the extraction of the Davis family—a young boy named Danny and his very capable civilian pilot grandmother, Dean.
After being allotted a functioning scout helicopter from the carrier battle group, our protagonist and his men begin searching for resources in the areas north of Hotel 23. Halfway through Beyond Exile, Kil suffers a catastrophic helicopter crash hundreds of miles north of the facility. Severely injured, he is the lone survivor.
Running dangerously low on provisions, he manages to trek south. He soon encounters Remote Six, a shadowy group with unknown motives, hell-bent on getting him back to Hotel 23. Later, he stumbles upon an Afghani sniper named Saien. Little is known about Saien’s background, and his demeanor only adds to the mystery. At the start, neither fully trusts one another, but Saien and our protagonist work together and eventually return to Hotel 23 under the watchful eyes of Remote Six.
Remote Six orders our protagonist to launch the remaining nuclear warhead on the aircraft carrier. The order is ignored and a high-tech retaliation against Hotel 23 ensues. A sonic javelin weapon known as Project Hurricane is dropped by Remote Six, attracting legions of undead creatures to the region.
The sonic weapon is eventually destroyed, but it’s too late.
A mile-high dust cloud, generated by the approaching undead mega-horde, signals the need for an emergency evacuation. A harrowing battle ensues to the Gulf of Mexico, where the aircraft carrier USS George Washington waits to take on any and all survivors.
Shortly after our protagonist’s arrival on board the carrier, orders from the highest level are issued—a directive to rendezvous with the fast attack submarine USS Virginia, standing by in western Panamanian waters.
In the third novel, Shattered Hourglass, Kil is dispatched to China with Task Force Hourglass to investigate the source of the undead anomaly. Task Force Phoenix, headed by a special operator called Doc, is dispatched to Hotel 23 to secure its remaining nuclear payload. Some of the secrets of Remote Six are revealed shortly before its annihilation at the decision of Task Force Phoenix.
The USS George Washington is disabled by the undead just before running aground in the Florida Keys. Meanwhile, Hourglass makes an incredible discovery in China, something that could put humanity back on the scoreboard against the overwhelming numbers of the undead. Upon Kil’s emotional reunion with his pregnant wife, Tara, he’s told that Task Force Phoenix has gone dark.
Humanity begins to rebuild itself around the two fully functional nuclear reactors housed inside the beached aircraft carrier, but complacency and creature comfort was something in which Kil had little interest. Explorers never stop.
So, then, loyal readers, welcome back.
Put on your gas masks and radiation suits, charge your Geiger counters, load your carbines, and turn the page.
Be ready, for the undead are near.
Landfall
Day 1
The radiation suit pressed against my perspiring skin and my breath was loud through the gas mask. I was two hundred miles from any living human, deep inside the New Orleans exclusion zone. No one knew at the time it happened, but after the government nuked New Orleans, the Waterford Nuclear Generating Station melted down, further contaminating the area. Although my Geiger read above acceptable radiation limits, it wasn’t by much, and I was being a bit cautious. My
sailboat, the Solitude, was anchored out a hundred meters from shore, and about a mile from where I stood.
In front of me was something very interesting. Very unexpected. Pre-undead technology hidden away in some bunker that’d never see the light of day if the dead didn’t start walking. A large balloon secured with a thin cable marked the spot like a dropped pin on a smartphone app; I’ll come back to that.
• • •
I’d stumbled upon a radio distress ping one week ago while out fishing with John. We were a day’s sail from our stronghold in the Keys. I didn’t say anything to him, as I didn’t want him to know I’d been scanning the old Remote Six frequencies. Just in case. People tend to get nervous if they think murderous psychopaths are still around to lob sound decoys like undead dinner bells or nuclear weapons at them. Remote Six tried to kill me a while back, but a group of men sacrificed their lives for a chance to save the Keys and our way of life.
I still chose not to share any of this with John even as Solitude made best wind back home. Not for any particular reason, if only that John’s advice was generally infallible and I was afraid to hear his take on it. I’d already made up my mind and didn’t want common sense to get in the way. After off-loading our haul of fish, crabs, and other scavenged items, I sailed the short distance to the marina. Jan, Tara, and our baby, Bug, were waiting for me and John on the pier as we motored in and tied up. Although Jan had lost half of what she lived for when Will died, she was slowly recovering. She and John were getting along nicely. I mean, it’d been months. Everyone wanted her to be happy. It seemed like Jan thought we’d judge her for moving on when the opposite was true.
It should be noted that it’s been a while since I’ve written anything . . . well, besides a few measurements scratched in chalk on the hull of Solitude. As much as I’d protested, my journals were all confiscated after the Hourglass incident; they were sent off somewhere north on the mainland to be scanned and studied along with almost everything else we’d found over there.
I honestly thought I’d want to settle down after Hourglass; I envisioned that on board Solitude would be the place where Tara and I would live our lives and raise our family. While aboard, we were our own island. We made our own freshwater and generated our own wind and solar power. The undead still ruled the land beyond in all directions, but Solitude was under my command. Those miserable creatures washed ashore from time to time, wreaking havoc on our growing shantytown, attracted by the lights and noises that nuclear power provided. Island life wasn’t safer than mainland living, mind you, just a bit less stressful. The aged and the sick still died and reanimated, and they still attempted to rip you apart.
Despite the terrors of living on solid land, Tara, urged by the birth of our baby, insisted that we move ashore. After long deliberation, I relented. She was right: Family life aboard a sailboat was cozy, to say the least. About a month ago, we picked out a vacant home on the beach near John and Jan, well inside the patrolled perimeter. Like everyone else, I was extremely concerned with security. I changed out the door on the baby’s room from the hollow residential type to a steel door. Her crib was a modified metal dog kennel, so if the undead happened to breach her room, they’d still have to deal with a heavy cage to get to her.
This was the new normal. We were going extinct, and it was up to the last of us to at least slow it down.
After spending a week ashore, I convinced Tara that we needed more supplies for the approaching hurricane season. After all, as a new father, I was concerned that we might not have enough to see us through the next few months. I needed to get out there and bring home our livelihood.
At least, that was the main reason I told myself I was leaving.
The owner of the boat in the slip across the way didn’t say a word when he saw me toting my carbine, radiation suit, and gas mask aboard Solitude. I had enough canned food for a couple of weeks and the boat’s water desalinator was working just fine. The boat had half a tank of propane in reserve, but I could get all of that I ever wanted on the mainland. Millions of suburban backyards full of barbecue grill propane tanks, ripe for the picking. Signals from the mainland have gone dark with only intermittent HAM chatter. Whatever facility used to talk to us stopped, and no one knew what that really meant.
I didn’t get much sleep sailing single-handed northwest into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. I had to do most of the piloting and all of the navigation myself. Only during the longer legs of the journey through deep water could I risk falling asleep. Even then, only in short intervals with the radar proximity alarm set. Engineers back at the Keys were working on a new navigation system using the old loran standard, but it was still a ways away from being operational for sail navigation and flying. Most of the GPS satellites were off-line, some having burned back into the atmosphere from lack of ground station intervention. The Garmin chart plotter eerily indicated a GPS signal strength of zero.
The closer I came to landfall, the stronger the distress signal became. Using rudimentary methods, I scanned the horizon with the whip antenna on my handheld radio. Adjusting gain and monitoring the signal meter and sound, I began refining my course and direction to pinpoint its location. I’d draw signal lines of bearing on the marine charts stored aboard Solitude. These lines would form intersections and give me a basic triangulation. Drawing RF lines of bearing on a chart worked best the faster you were moving, and I wouldn’t be moving this fast ashore. Might as well take advantage of it.
After circling an area of interest encompassing about ten city blocks, I folded the chart and stuffed it into my pack. When land appeared through the haze at my bow, the Geiger alerted me that it was nearing time to don the familiar yellow suit and mask.
It didn’t take long after anchoring out and paddling to shore before I had my first encounter with the undead.
I’d tied my kayak to the docks and tossed my pack and carbine onto the sun-bleached boards. I always kept a reserve of water, ammo, and food in the watertight compartment on my dinghy. It wouldn’t be the first time I had to run for the water with a dry, steaming carbine hanging off my back after fighting off an army of those miserable things. Reluctantly, I climbed the dock support pole and planted my two rubber exposure suit boots on the boards, careful to avoid the rusty nail heads that jutted from them.
My mask had just a bit of condensation, nothing too severe. I could hear my breath as it sucked deadly, irradiated air from the outside through the filter. I shouldered my pack and slung my suppressed carbine across my chest. I was on my second suppressor, a SiCo Saker. My original can wore the hell out on me at about the same time as my carbine gas tube melted during a mainland excursion like this. I had to trade some serious loot for the Saker, as a quality can is a goddamned necessity out here in the badlands. Worth its weight in uranium.
I slowly made my way up the docks toward land, feeling the eyes upon me. I saw movement on the right through my mask, but dismissed it as a piece of unsecured sail flapping through its ripped blue cover. I passed by without giving a thought until feeling the vibration through the thick rubber outsoles of my suit. The heavy footsteps on the dock. I didn’t risk a glance before sprinting away, attempting to open enough distance to defend myself. My suit crinkled and scratched against my body as I ran. Nearly to shore, I tripped on a coil of rotting line and then a cleat, certain that the thing was nearly on me.
I swung my carbine around and turned to face my pursuer.
The dock was empty.
I’d nearly shot at a ghost, a sliver of my mind caught in the dimension just ahead or behind this one.
Breathing heavily, I picked myself up from the dock and set foot on the mainland for the first time since I scouted southern Florida on a quest for NICU equipment. People (including myself) were still having babies in the Keys, but not nearly enough. Wearing out my silencer was worth it after watching those newborns breathe via very hard-to-come-by mechanical ventilators brought in despite the dangers of the mainland hordes.
&nbs
p; After hitting the shoreline, I stayed low and pulled out my radio for another DF reading. I was looking for the distress ping north by northwest.
A couple hundred meters inland was a two-story bistro overlooking the bay, with a roof access ladder on the side.
A vantage point.
The undead usually walk right off the roofs, so I knew it should be semi-secure up there. I pulled my magazine and visually checked. Black polymer–tipped 300 Blackout subsonics. Giving the can a twist and accompanying it with a series of clicks, I made sure the device was secure on the end of my weapon before scanning my route to the dumpster and the ladder next to it.
The undead were in the streets, but not mobile. They simply stood there, slightly hunched over, movement barely perceptible. They swayed slightly, as if dancing to a tune playing via some undead synapse in a primordial region of their rotting brains.
The good thing about a new radiation suit: I wouldn’t die from breathing radioactive particles or skin exposure.
The bad: Until you broke it in, it was like wearing a giant empty potato chip bag.
I moved slowly to the dumpster in a crouched position. My suit crinkled the entire time, causing one of the nearby creatures—shirtless, with a gold chain—to spasm and crane its head sideways at me. It raised an arm, gesturing in my direction. Before it could muster a groan, I leveled my suppressed carbine, placed the red dot at the top of its dome, and squeezed.
Pop.
The thing fell, kicking up radioactive dust as it hit the ground in a tragic pose.
Subsonic 300 Blackout was the shit for undead wet work inside of a couple hundred meters. Outside of that? Run.
Miraculously, my 120-decibel shot only jolted two more of them from sleep. I dropped them to the deck and noticed that the distant creatures, a block in all directions, stayed in stasis, or whatever you choose to call what they were doing.