by A. M. Geever
Damage in an Undead Age
A.M. Geever
ZBZ-1 Press
Copyright © 2020 by A.M. Geever
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
* * *
61C Days Turned to Nights lyrics courtesy of Justin Sane, Copyright © 2002
For Mom & Dad
And I’m not going to tell myself that I will ever find you glowing in those lights again, ’cause I don’t know if I will ever have that chance.
Justin Sane, 61C Days Turned to Nights
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
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Sneak Peek: Reckoning in an Undead Age - unproofed & unedited
1
“I’m living proof you can die of seasickness.”
Miranda rested her sweaty forehead on the icy metal of the yacht railing. The raw wind lashed from the north, needles of cold sinking deeper into her chilled bones. She clenched her teeth to stop them chattering, wiped her mouth with red knuckles, then spat into the choppy waters of Puget Sound. The bitter taste of bile still filled her mouth. Three weeks of feeding the fish. One more and she would be dead for sure.
“Miranda, come see.”
Mario’s voice sounded a thousand miles away. She did not want to come see anything. She wanted to be left alone to die in peace.
Doug’s voice this time. “Miri, you’re going to want to see this.”
She straightened up. Another wave of nausea hit her, but what she saw through the morning fog caused a dizzy head rush of relief. The white spire of Seattle’s Space Needle raced up from the earth to pierce the sky, its flying saucer observation deck hovering just below the iron-gray clouds. In the fog, the Needle’s graceful tripod legs seemed to melt in and out of focus, but the dark band of the observation deck’s windows hovered in place.
The Space Needle.
If she had not been so exhausted, Miranda would have whooped for joy. Instead, she leaned against the rail and gave Mario a wan smile. They were almost to their destination. They could start looking for a marina and meet up with the Jesuits at Seattle University. They might even get word of what was happening at home. A shiver of apprehension raced up Miranda’s spine. They did not know what had happened in San Jose after they had tried to smuggle out the zombie vaccine serum. Doug’s contacts in Santa Cruz had not heard from anyone at Santa Clara University. She wanted to know if Father Walter was all right, hear his lilting Irish brogue. That something might have happened to him sent a shot of fear through her, so deep she almost could not breathe.
Get your shit together, Tucci.
She pushed the worry and speculation aside, shoved it down deep where it could not distract her. She would concentrate on what she could control, on what they were here to do. Since they had lost the zombie vaccine serum they had smuggled out of San Jose, Mario would need to develop another at Seattle University. The Jesuits had a lab ready to go. The madman Jeremiah, with his naturally immune blood, was imprisoned below. He would make a new vaccine possible.
She looked over to Mario and Doug, standing in the yacht’s cockpit. Father Doug Michel’s skinny six-foot-four frame stood ramrod straight, as if the wind, cold, and rain did not affect him. His blue eyes were vivid patches of color against his pale skin and the grayed-out horizon. He kept tossing his head to get his sandy-colored hair out of his eyes and looked as if his restless energy might make him burst. Miranda could tell he was excited to finally get here. Mario only reached Doug’s ear but looked shorter with his shoulders hunched against the wind. His dark, wavy hair reminded Miranda of Medusa’s writhing snakes with the wind whipping through it from every direction. He watched her expectantly, his dark eyes filled with excitement, and a very different kind of shiver flitted down Miranda’s spine.
She limped over and took Mario’s hand as she carefully stepped down into the cockpit, ignoring the lurch and swoop of her stomach. He gathered her in his arms and held her tight against him, pressing his cold cheek against her own. He was beyond stubble but not quite sporting a full-on beard. It had surprised her that it suited him. She looked over his shoulder at Doug, whose beaming smile would match the brilliance of the sun had it not been so cloudy. He reached over and rubbed her auburn peach-fuzzed head like he was shining a lucky penny.
“See, Coppertop? You did live long enough to get here,” he said, his blue eyes twinkling.
Miranda grinned at him over Mario’s shoulder. “Saying ‘I told you so’ is bad form.”
“It probably is,” Doug answered, “but so is making our boat smell like a vomitorium.”
Half an hour later in their cabin, as she watched Mario getting ready to leave, Miranda thought, I just got you back. Mario stopped zipping his jacket and looked up, his brown eyes filled with concern.
“Did I say that out loud?”
“Yeah,” he said, and smiled, just a little.
He sat next to her on the edge of their berth, his warm callused hand slipping comfortably around her cool red ones. She had grown tired of taking off her gloves every time she threw up over the rail but was paying the price. At his touch, she could feel her dread lighten by the tiniest fraction. He looked haunted for a moment, as if the years they had spent apart were waiting to pounce and snatch her away again.
“If your knee was okay, you would be going with Doug to make contact with the Jesuits, not me,” he said. “I know you would rather do anything else than be the one who waits.”
She sighed. “How’s that for karmic payback?”
In the grand scheme of things, the guy who could make a new vaccine was far more valuable than she was. Mario would never be going with Doug to find their allies if she was not still recovering from her sprained knee and hairline-fractured shin bones. She had lost fifteen pounds if an ounce since they started their voyage. Being sick all the time left her weak, which made her feel useless and helpless. To add insult to injury, she had to mind whack-job Jeremiah. Life wasn’t fair sometimes, but she already knew that.
“I promise, Miri. I’m coming back.”
Miranda gave herself a mental shake.
“Of course you will,” she said, but her forced cheerfulness sounded hollow.
She stood up as Mario shrugged into his backpack. He pulled her close, and when his lips brushed hers, the feeling that she would never see him again overwhelmed her. She wanted to hold him
tight and never let go. She wanted to pull him to their bed and make love, knowing it would be the last time, so she could commit to memory every contour of his body, the firm and the soft, the rough and the smooth. She wanted to feel their bodies move together one last time, feel the gratitude that they had found one another again crackle and snap as it ricocheted between them until it could not be contained.
When the kiss ended, she took a step back and smiled at him. “You should go. Doug’s waiting. Don’t get dead.”
When she heard the moans, Miranda knew they were in trouble.
She had known for hours that the day was not going to plan but had made herself ignore it. The sun would be setting in thirty minutes and the moans were the first sign of anything since Mario and Doug left that morning. No calls on the radio. No flares. Not even a fucking smoke signal.
She climbed to the highest point of the yacht’s deck above the cockpit seats, keeping hold on the canopy rail, and raised the binoculars with her free hand. The moans were faint but growing louder. She could not tell how serious the trouble was from their slip at the end of Bell Harbor Marina’s pier. Across the roadway, cookie-cutter low-rise condos blocked her view.
“We hear Our children!”
Jeremiah’s voice, coming from the parlor below deck. He must have heard the zombies moaning.
“Your blasphemous treachery against Us will end, and God the All-Father will judge you as you deserve,” he continued. “But first We will teach you submission and obedience! Perhaps We will keep you for Ourselves if you can learn. You will be an example of Our power and truth...”
Ignore him, she said to herself as he kept ranting. The moaning might not mean anything. The zombies could be chasing a shadow for all she knew. The growing noise did not mean squat. Not yet.
Sure it doesn’t… Just keep on telling yourself that.
She strained to see beyond the condos, standing on tiptoe as if it would help her catch a glimpse of the streets between or see through the tall buildings that climbed the steep hills of Seattle. Improvised bridges—ladders, fire escapes, scraps of metal, rope, or combinations thereof—connected clusters of buildings. People had lived there at some point, but she had not seen any signs of life so far.
Farther up the hill, walls snaked out of sight. Most seemed intact, but one had a section that had collapsed a long time ago if the weeds and saplings growing among the jumble of fallen concrete blocks were any indication. Along the waterfront some buildings were intact while others, like the aquarium, had caught fire at some point. The aquarium wall facing Puget Sound had fallen in. The roof was gone. The steel beams that had supported its weight sagged despite being relieved of their burden. Seattle oozed emptiness and decay. Without people to maintain them, the artifacts of civilization that had seemed so permanent when humanity fell almost eleven years ago had begun to fall apart almost immediately. Miranda’s knee twinged as she set her foot flat again. She looked up the mast. Another fifty feet of elevation might let her see enough to make the difference between—what? She had no idea. But she knew she had to hurry or she would lose the light.
She limped to the other side of the yacht and stepped into the mast-climber harness, securing it around her hips. She shoved her feet into the foot straps, then bent her knees and straightened them.
“Son of a bitch,” she hissed, tears springing to her eyes at the sharp slice of pain that bisected her kneecap and shot down her shin. She winched her way up the static line attached to the mast, opening and closing the top line clutch, the pain worse every time she pushed against her body weight. It still beat how old-time sailors had done it: free-climbing hand over hand with their bare feet shimmying along the ropes.
Midway to the top of the mast the wind picked up, threading its way through the fibers of her clothes. She thought she saw movement beyond the harbor-front condos. The setting sun behind her cast long orange and pink shadows between the buildings. The wind gusted, and the harness twisted right, away from the city.
She fought the swiveling harness as she cursed everything: this boat, the unknown city, staying behind to watch Jeremiah, Mario and Doug being gone so long, and the fucking zombies that had made all of this happen. Finally, two more pushes up the static line and she was sure. A dark shadow of zombies, a tidal wave of putrefaction, staggered toward Puget Sound. They weaved and reeled, stumbled and shuffled, unsteady yet determined like a group of drunk revelers intent upon reaching the dilapidated Ferris wheel at the south end of Waterfront Park.
Then Doug and Mario burst into the open from the shadows below the elevated freeway, hauling ass, the dipping sun illuminating them with a translucent pink glow. Miranda nearly choked as they slowed when they saw what lay ahead. They glanced at one another before they turned northwest on Alaskan Way, toward the marina, and picked up the pace.
They had emerged on the roadway just a few seconds ahead of the great mass of zombies descending on the Ferris wheel at Waterfront Park. Retreat to the south was cut off. On the path to the marina, from every street that tumbled down the hillsides of Seattle, zombies spilled onto the road the two men sprinted along. When they disappeared from view behind the aquarium, Miranda released the top rope clutch and worked her way back down the static line. If she cast off and got the boat moving toward them, maybe she could get close enough to make a difference, to help them make it.
I should never have stayed behind!
She wriggled out of the mast-climber harness and released the docking rope, knowing the sentiment was ridiculous. She just hated how helpless watching them made her feel. Jeremiah’s zombie repellant effect would have let them move safely through the infested city, but Doug had not been willing to risk Jeremiah’s escape. Doug had made the right call. Besides, she would not be able to run for her life the way they were now.
She cast off the mooring ropes keeping the yacht at the dock and hurried back to the cockpit. She looked at the controls, her hands slick with sweat.
You can do this.
Since she always got seasick, Miranda avoided boats, which made her the least experienced piloting watercraft. She pumped the shift lever and made sure the boat was in neutral. She turned the key to the on position.
Nothing happened.
“What the fuck!”
She looked up at the shore. Zombies began to stumble up Piers 62 and 63, one pier down from the marina. With a city’s worth of the undead coming from three sides, Piers 62 and 63 were the closest, most direct route for Mario and Doug to get to the water. She fought against panic as the moans grew louder and more excited.
If you panic, you cannot help them.
She checked again. The motor was in neutral; she had pumped the shift lever. She pumped it again and turned the key.
Nothing.
Then she remembered the kill switch.
She almost laughed out loud with relief when she saw it was in the off position. She turned it on. This time the motor began to power up. By rights she should wait half a minute to let the engine power up all the way. Instead, she applied a little choke, then some gas, and let out the throttle out in five seconds. The sputtering from the motor sounded awful because she had rushed it, but it did not stall. She depressed the button on the shift lever and pushed it forward. The motor’s hum gained strength, and the yacht slid through the water.
When she looked up, she felt the blow to her stomach as if she had taken a punch. At least fifty zombies were on the pier, sniffing the air, trying to locate the men. She turned the wheel away from the dock as Mario and Doug came into view. At least as many zombies were on Alaskan Way, between the two men and the pier.
It was the most helpless moment of her life, being consigned to the role of spectator while Doug and Mario fought for their lives. With that many zombies, the fact that both of them were vaccinated against the ZBZ-1 virus did not matter. If they stopped for anything, if they even slowed down, they would be ripped limb from limb.
Blurs of motion.
Decomposed fig
ures lurching and swaying.
Flashes of metal that glinted in the setting sun.
Doug and Mario were trying to push, duck, and deflect rather than stop and fight. A knot of zombies stopped, churning together like sharks in a feeding frenzy. Was one of them down? She gaped at the pier, struck dumb at the idea that one or both of them might be gone. Then a sudden burst of movement, black blood spurting in all directions, and both men surged into view. They hurtled down the long pier with the zombies swarming close behind.
They’ll follow like lemmings, she thought, impotent anger rising at the relentlessness with which the zombies pursued them. They’re both wearing chain mail, she remembered, her heart sinking even more. She did not think Doug would have a problem with the extra weight. Normally Mario would not either, but he was recovering from a gunshot wound to his arm, and his shoulder on that same side had almost dislocated. That had been almost two months ago, but he was still not back to normal.
She jammed the shift lever forward, and the yacht sped up, eating the distance to the pier. She eased off thirty seconds later, not wanting to get too close to the zombies that would soon be in the water.
Doug and Mario jumped. As they splashed into the water, the first zombie fell off the pier. A torrent of the undead followed, churning the water, but she still had not seen Mario or Doug surface.