A BROKEN WORLD
Shattered Paradise
Andrew Lauck
To my father
Copyright 2017 by Andrew Lauck
www.severedpress.com
Acknowledgements
I will always dread this part of the writing process, the part where I will inevitably forget to thank someone. Still, much like the characters I write, I will persevere and attempt to write acknowledgements worthy of this book. I’ll try to keep this short, but I am a writer, so…who am I kidding?
First and foremost, thank you to Severed Press. While some will view this as obligatory sucking up, I wouldn’t be writing any of this if it weren’t for you. With so many incredible authors out there, some of whom I’ve had the immense luck of knowing personally, it means the world that a publisher would take a chance on my questionable sanity. Also, once again, a special shout out to Gary, who has the patience of a cat with owners who love to put outfits on it.
I’d like to amend my failure in the first book to thank my sixth grade English teacher, Sharon Baxley, because without your encouragement I might not have continued to write, although I apologize for paying more attention to my “novel” than your lessons sometimes. I made the mistake of going back and reading it a few years ago. Those thirteen hand-written pages were terrible, and I can’t believe you let me read it to the class, but I’m eternally grateful that you did.
My family and friends have been invaluable through this process, providing constant support and encouragement and having no idea how much it means, not to mention the PR. My mother, Brenda, my brother, John, and his wife, Derin, Charlotte, Rob, Crutches, and anyone that’s liked my Facebook updates at three in the morning. You are my people.
I purposely left my dad, John, separate, because he deserves a huge thank you all to himself. To expand on the dedication, you have taught me everything I know and set the bar for being a man, a husband, and, someday, a father. From my love of Tom Clancy novels to being a springboard for my ideas, while I never say it in person for fear of being too emotional, I wouldn’t be who I am today without you. Also, for those who don’t know, my father helped with the final edits for this book and the first one, so you have him to thank for the lack of alien spaceships.
Over the course of writing this book, I met, proposed to, and married the woman, and muse, of my dreams, Carly. I know it can’t be easy to be married to a writer, with my awful sleep habits, crazy rantings that you have no context for, and my sarcasm, but thank you for putting up with me. You are everything I could have asked for and more, and I love you. The trade-off for all those flaws, of course, was that I nailed my vows, so hopefully that balances things.
Lastly, thank you, person reading this far into acknowledgements despite the fact that they might never pertain to you. I would have always written a sequel, because this is my passion, but you are the reason for the success of the first novel and any to come. I promised myself that I would never write for fame or fortune, because the true value of this for me is reading reviews (even the negative ones), meeting people, and engaging in conversation with this community. The response to A Broken World was overwhelming and humbling, so thank you from the bottom of my heart. Also, I make the same promise for this book as I did with its predecessor, but if that was one hell of a ride, this is the whole damn theme park.
Prologue
The world around me blurred, a nightmarish vision straight out of Hell that raged with death and blood. My muscles burned and ached as I pressed my legs faster, drowning out all sounds except my feet hitting the pavement as I urged my body on. Violent screams and cries of terror tried to force their way in but I remained focused, determined. Directly in front of me, tearing at the walls and windows to get at what was inside, were creatures straight out of the movies.
Only two of the massive horde turned to face me, their zombie faces expressionless as they opened their mouths in an insatiable hunger. Ignoring the fact that I had known them as people, I told myself that they were already dead as I drew my Sig and fired on the run. Three of the five rounds hit their mark and sent the two zombies to the ground, the sounds of gunfire attracting the unwanted attentions of a few others.
I reached the house and shoved a zombie to the side before crashing through the window, sending shattered glass inside as I landed in a roll. I came up Sig first, quickly scanning the interior of the living room to find myself alone.
“Samantha?” I called, yelling above the crowd of zombies moaning outside. Since they already knew I was inside, there was no reason for stealth. “Samantha!” I stood and walked past the kitchen, glancing around the corner into the hallway before exposing myself.
As I did so, a door at the end of the hallway cracked open and I shoved my body against the wall in case it wasn’t my ex-wife. Or in case it was, depending on her mood.
“Eric?” A soft voice broke the tension and I instantly recognized it as Samantha’s. I let the Sig fall to my hip and leaned out from the wall to lay eyes on her, giving me a brief sensation of relief. She opened the door completely and I embraced her before looking into the bedroom. Two small eyes full of fear peeked over the dresser, dropping back down upon making eye contact. I grinned and hurried into the room to pick up Phillip, holding him in my arms as tears threatened to fill my eyes.
“Are we safe, Eric?” Samantha asked from behind me, staring down the hall.
“Not yet, but we will be. I promise.” I set Phillip down and told them to follow me as I led them down the hallway back toward the kitchen. Phillip’s toy truck rolled into the hall and I put my right arm out, making sure Samantha and Phillip were behind me as I crept forward.
A zombie rounded the corner and, seeing me, opened its mouth to moan before I put a bullet through its skull, spraying blood onto the curtains above the sink behind it. I remembered how long Samantha had taken to pick those out, and her glare proved she had the same thought.
“We need to move.” I jogged around the corner into the kitchen, pointing Samantha toward the garage as I swept my Sig over the living room beyond. Three zombies had already found their way inside and more were soon to follow, but I knew I would need a hell of a lot more ammunition if we were going to survive this long-term. I spun around and left the kitchen, closing the door behind me and locating Samantha’s PT Cruiser.
I tossed my bag in the backseat and climbed into the front, Samantha sitting next to me with Phillip on her lap. She already had the car running, so I put it in drive and prepared myself. We looked at each other and I tried to muster a reassuring look before hitting the garage door opener. As soon as the door cleared, I gunned the engine and the Cruiser roared out of the garage as much as a PT Cruiser could.
No less than three zombies slammed against the hood of the car, but they were either sucked under and ground against the undercarriage or parted to the side. Either way, blood splattered the windshield before I veered out onto the street and hauled ass toward the highway. I didn’t know how much time we had, but it was only a matter of time before the military got involved with a quarantine procedure and I didn’t want to be around when the bombs started dropping.
I maneuvered the Cruiser through the streets, weaving between abandoned vehicles and gruesome accidents. As we slowly passed through an intersection, one of the crashed cars caught my eye. Smoke funneled up from the crumpled hood, winding around the driver’s torso that was laid out through the windshield. I tried not to look at her face, but it seemed familiar somehow.
There was no time to pause, though, as I glanced past her and saw a solid wave of silhouettes in the distance getting closer each passing second. Once the Cruiser screeched against
the metal of the last car and we made it through the intersection, I stepped on the gas and resumed our speedy getaway.
As we neared the first on-ramp, I realized the highway was a no-go. Cars and trucks were stuck in traffic, many people slamming on their horns while exhaust fumes swirled through the air. Movement a few cars back caught my attention and I watched in horror as several zombies were slowly making their way up the rows, treating the traffic as one long line at an all-you-can-eat buffet. I tried to honk my horn and get someone’s attention, but they were all too focused on the cars in front of them to notice the danger creeping up behind.
One of the zombies found a driver with his window rolled down and threw itself into the car, catching the driver off-guard and eliciting a scream of sheer terror that I could hear even over the multitude of running vehicles as it bit into his flesh. I can only imagine what happened after that, with him struggling to fight off the zombie as it tore into him, but I saw him push against the passenger window even as another zombie climbed into the vehicle.
Realizing Samantha was also watching, I resumed driving and tried to put as much distance between us and the metal buffet as possible. I crossed the intersection at the end of the access road and followed the curve, accepting that I would have to stay on the access roads to make any driving progress.
As the Cruiser became surrounded by city buildings again, I lost the lines of sight around corners that I liked most about driving down rural roads. Five blocks down, we hit an intersection that was empty and I hoped the outbreak hadn’t reached this far yet. Just as I had that thought, a pick-up truck came barreling into the intersection from our right.
I swerved to avoid the crash, pushing the gas pedal to the floor in an effort to dodge, but the truck still rammed into our back bumper. The collision spun the Cruiser, the momentum sending us onto the sidewalk even as I tried to maintain control of the car. We went over the curb and the car flipped onto its side, sending us rolling. My face slammed into the steering wheel and the air bag deployed just in time, but I tasted copper just before I saw a telephone pole fill my vision.
It felt like a jackhammer was pounding against my brain when I came to, my vision blurred as I struggled to move my head. I managed to pull the Ka-bar from its sheath on my hip and cut into the air bag, pushing it down so I could get out of the driver’s seat. That’s when I could see through the windshield and realized the car was inverted, my side of the Cruiser mangled around a telephone pole.
“Samantha?” I mumbled, my throat feeling like steel wool rubbing together. I tried to turn and felt a sharp pain in my side. Looking down, or up as it were, at my body, I realized a broken half of the windshield wiper was sticking out of my gut, blood covering the length. As if that weren’t bad enough, what looked to be part of the gear shift was embedded in my thigh, making any ideas to walk or run highly debatable.
“Phillip?” I could feel the blood rushing to my head and my vision swam, but I glanced around the car. The passenger seat was empty and shattered glass was scattered all along the roof of the car. As my eyes followed the glass, I noticed a small figure laying perfectly still over the back seat. Phillip wasn’t so much as breathing, and I knew instantly that my son would never wake again. Tears welled in my eyes and stung the numerous cuts on my face, but the pain in my heart overwhelmed any physical pain I could endure.
“Eric…” I heard Samantha’s voice, cracked and weak, nearby. I looked over the passenger door and found her. Her right leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, broken, and blood streaked down her face from a large cut across her forehead, but she would survive if I could get her out of there. “Where’s Phillip?”
My eyes fell I shook my head. Something in her eyes died and Samantha let out a pained, “No.”
“I’m sorry, Samantha.” I would have said more, but I noticed something beyond her that brought my focus back to the situation at hand. The zombies we had eluded had caught up, now only a hundred yards out. “Samantha, listen to me, I need you to try to move.”
“What’s wrong? Eric, what do you—?” She rotated so that she could see behind her and she shuddered. “Oh my God.”
“Samantha, look at me. Honey, it’s going to be okay. I just need you to see if you can move while I come up with a plan.”
I tried to pry the seatbelt loose, but it was jammed from the crash. Time was becoming a factor, because with every second that passed by the zombies were closing in. I slid the Ka-bar between my hip and the seatbelt, bracing my other hand against the roof of the car. Gritting my teeth, I slashed the belt and my head immediately slammed against the ground. The impact almost caused me to black out again, but I struggled to maintain a poor excuse for consciousness. Shattered glass stabbed into my skin, but that was nothing compared to the feeling of landing on a windshield wiper that had already taken up residence in my gut.
Taking a deep breath and forcing myself to let it out slowly, I rolled onto my side and looked over at Samantha. She had pulled herself up to a sort of sitting position, but her leg was preventing her from going anywhere. Whether you’re trained to resist pain or you’re a civilian, a broken leg is a broken leg and it hurts like hell. Unfortunately, if zombies are ten yards from you, there’s not a lot of time to rest.
“Samantha, honey, even if you have to crawl, I need you to try and get inside the building behind you.”
“I can’t move, Eric. My leg…” She dragged herself forward and I noticed how bad her leg was, the knee completely bent around so that if she pulled her body, her foot would catch and the bone of her shin would protrude further.
“Damn…” I muttered, my brain scrambling to find a solution. I reached up and tried to pull myself across the glass, but the angle of my torso caused the wiper to shift in my gut and the sudden pain elicited a yell.
“Eric!” I heard Samantha scream to my right and turned to see several hands grabbing at her, trying to find purchase in her skin. I threw my body to the side, shooting my hand out as I did to find hers. I extended my fingers, feeling her flailing hand brush mine.
Just as I felt her palm in mine, something was crawling into the driver’s side with me and clawing at my leg. I looked down to see a zombie pulling its way up my body, trying to get at my flesh through the jeans. I let go of Samantha just long enough to lean down and ram my Ka-bar into its skull, the motion twisting the wiper even further and bringing stars into my vision. With her cries filling the air, I reached out to try and drag myself closer to Samantha.
The dead zombie in the car, though, had drawn attention to my presence and three zombies were clutching at me through the broken windshield while a fourth had crawled in through the backseat. I ignored them and focused on reaching Samantha, convincing myself that I could somehow save her if I could just find her hand.
“Samantha!” I yelled, feeling the zombies tugging on my legs. I could feel them pulling me, inching me further away from Samantha. “No!” I reached down and started punching at the nearest zombie, my fist connecting but doing nothing to impede it. I heard Samantha scream as a zombie bit into her, a cry of pain and panic that sent chills down my spine. “Son of a bitch!”
I struggled to fight the zombies off while lifting myself back toward Samantha, but my strength was fading fast as blood rushed out. I looked down to see a zombie closing in, readying to bite into my calf. With one last scream from my wife playing like a soundtrack from Hell, its teeth sank into my skin.
That’s when I woke up.
Chapter 51
Unknown date or location
“Wake up, Eric.”
I jerked into consciousness, my heart pounding like a jackhammer as my hands shot up defensively. Once my brain realized that I was in no immediate danger, I lowered my arms and tried to discern my situation. I sat on a hard surface in a pitch-black room.
I focused on listening, trying to make out anything that might help me. I could’ve sworn I’d heard a voice when I came to, but I might have dreamed that. Based on the echoes
of my breathing, I was in a larger room but I couldn’t make anything out to narrow that down. I held my breath. Hearing nothing but the howling winds outside, I tried to recall how I had gotten here. Wherever here was.
The last thing I remembered was waking up in a dazed state, pained stars filling my vision as the room spun. Mills had her hands on my chest and looked elated to see me. Kat stood next to her, with Matthew’s arms folded around her as comfort. They all had worried creases across their foreheads. Piecing it together, I vaguely recalled the medic wheeling my gurney out of the compound at Cedar Lake while our small group formed a circle of defense around me against the oncoming horde of zombies.
I remember being in and out of consciousness when the doc stitched me up, but I blacked out at some point because most of the memories after that were just nightmares that felt…vivid. The most recent memory from reality I had was Mills leaning over me, saying something. I tried to focus on her lips, clear up some of the haze that still had my vision swimming.
“Come find us.”
Not the most helpful thing to say, like an actual location or something, but I guess it was a start if you were in a hurry. A spark of concern shot off in my mind, wondering what might have happened to force such a hasty exit. Were they being chased by zombies, or something worse? Of course, the next question was where the hell everyone had gone? Did they get separated? Were they even still alive?
No, I shut down my stream of thought right there. I refused to even consider that as an option, because if I lost them…I had to compartmentalize my thoughts, sealing off any negative thinking. The first step to finding any answers would be getting out of this room.
I could feel the cold in the air with every breath, my lips cracked and dry. I felt around with my hands, trying to determine how much space I had to move before I would fall off the edge of whatever I was laying on. It seemed like a bench or table of some kind, but I’d have to wait until daytime to really explore my surroundings. At the current moment, it was pitch black and I couldn’t make out my hand directly in front of my face.
A Broken World (Book 2): Shattered Paradise Page 1