by M. D. Massey
Extinction: Undead Apocalypse
THEM Post-Apocalyptic Series Book Five
M.D. Massey
Modern Digital Publishing
Copyright © 2017 by M.D. Massey
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.
Contents
Note To Readers
GUNS
RATS
GNAWED
SOLDIERS
GREY
MOCKED
BEGIN
BEDS
CITIZENS
FEUDS
JEALOUSIES
FATAL
SORROWS
HOUR
WIVES
STAND
DREAMING
TIME
OFFICE
DIVIDEND
CLIMAX
HOME
Note To Readers
This story is focused on Scratch Sullivan. I thought it was only proper to make this novel about his trials and travails exclusively since this is more or less his final send-off.
So, if you’re expecting to spend a lot of time with the supporting characters from the previous novels, you may be disappointed. Certainly, Gabby, Bobby, the Doc, and yes, even Colin are very much present throughout most of the book. However, they are relegated to supporting roles, more so than in any previous volume in this series.
I wanted this to be Scratch’s story, and so it is. I hope you enjoy it.
~M.D. Massey
DREAMERS
Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land,
Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.
I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.
~Siegfried Sassoon
GUNS
We were pinned down in a row house that we’d picked at random from a sea of row houses, in some nameless town roughly a third of the way between Austin and the Facility. We’d chosen to bed down here because the house was mostly intact, nondescript, and close to a safe house that I’d been looking for the day before.
We’d spent an hour looking for that safe house. I could have sworn it was in this neighborhood—right on this street, in fact. But apparently, my memory was just one item on a long list of things that weren’t working right since our run-in with the Corridor Pack and Piotr, the genocidal vampire from hell. I’d taken a hell of a blow during my very brief fight with him, and even days after the concussion, my brain still wasn’t functioning at optimal capacity. My thoughts were fuzzy, and according to Bobby and Gabby, I’d just zone out at odd times—sort of like I was having a petit mal seizure.
I figured that the serum was still in a pissing contest with the deader venom inside my body, and that must’ve been slowing down my body’s ability to heal. Normally, someone who was juiced on the Doc’s super-serum would have bounced back from a head injury in a day or two. But me? My body had been fighting off the effects of a deader bite since I’d first gone under the Doc’s needle. And despite the best that millions of dollars of Uncle Sam’s research money and years of experimentation could come up with, the Doc still couldn’t create a way to reverse the effects of getting bitten by a shambler.
Sure, the Doc’s serum could make you move faster, jump higher, and hear and smell better than a normal human being. But it couldn’t make you immune to deader bites. The way the Doc explained it, you’d have to be a full-on ’thrope to be immune; a little gene therapy and borrowing a few of their finer traits just wasn’t good enough. The Doc swore that she thought the serum would eventually fight off the deader vyrus running through my body. I wondered how many other poor Army schmucks had died testing that hypothesis over the years. Not to mention how many of those poor souls had died under the effects of the Doc’s needle.
Didn’t matter, anyway. Kara was a vampire now, and chances were good that she was never coming back to me—vamps and hunters didn’t mix. And what good would it do to have my health, knowing that she was out there suffering? I hated myself for letting her down, just as much as I hated all the self-loathing I’d been doing. I’d gotten so low that I was hating the part of me that hated myself. Shit, how screwed up was that?
A bullet pinged off a cast-iron skillet next to me and brought me out of my thoughts. I looked up and saw Gabby returning fire from behind an overturned refrigerator, and Bobby was in my face yelling something I couldn’t understand. But I heard the sounds of gunfire, both from Gabby’s Glock and outside the windows. Broken glass flew, drywall dust floated in the air, and over it all there was a dull roar inside my head, like the sound of a tsunami making landfall, just before it destroyed everything in its path. Bobby’s voice sounded like it was coming from a million miles away. I tuned out the roar and focused on his voice.
“Scratch! Scratch, buddy, come back to me—I need you with us or we’re all going to die here, and that’s not on my five-year plan. Well, maybe I won’t die per se—but you and Gabby sure will.”
I stared at him like a calf at a new gate. Gabby was swapping out mags, and she had a piece of window casing sticking out of her left hand. The wood splinter was white where it had been painted to contrast the light tan paint on the walls, and yellow where the pine had splintered away from the window. She was covered in drywall dust and sweat, and drops of blood swelled around her wound and caught the light from outside as it flooded in through the broken window next to her. As I gazed absently at the wound on her hand, she spared me a look that was two parts incredulity and one part disgust.
Apparently, I’d been lost inside the wasteland of my mind for a while. The last thing I remembered was gunshots shattering the glass in the kitchen window. Prior to that, this place had been more or less intact.
Shit.
I glanced back to Bobby and looked him in the eye for a split second, then brushed the broken glass and drywall dust off me.
“Stop yelling,” I said quietly. I looked around and grabbed an AK-47 that I’d liberated from a punter a few days before, pulling back and releasing the charging handle. Once I was sure the safety was off, I stood up. Bullets were still flying all around me, but I really didn’t care all that much. I calmly sauntered out the side door of the house, shouldering the rifle as I walked at a leisurely pace around the front of the building.
As I rounded the corner, I dropped two punters with precise, almost casual shots to the head and torso. Pop. Pop-pop. One fell instantly to a head shot. The other slumped slowly over the hood of the car he was using for cover, then slid down the side, leaving a large bloody smear on the dull white paint of the hood.
It took a moment for the other three punters to recognize me as a threat, and that was the only reason I didn’t get shot. Well, that and luck. They eventually turned their guns on me, but by the time they’d reacted I was already rolling over the attackers, just like the tidal wave roaring in my head.
A round grazed my shoulder and another whizzed past my face, so close I swear I could feel the heat as it zipped by. I hit a pu
nter in the neck with a single, carefully-aimed shot, and blood spurted from the wound onto his buddy next to him. Or at least, I assumed they were buddies, since they were accomplices in an attempt on our lives. Maybe they hated each other; it didn’t matter. I put two rounds in the other guy’s chest while he was still wiping blood out of his eyes.
I shot the last one in the back as he was running away from me.
I stopped in the middle of the street, slowly swiveling my head for more threats. There were none. So, I dropped my rifle and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of my shirt pocket. Nasty habit—one that I’d taken up again since Austin had happened.
I pulled the filter off a cigarette and lit up as I wondered absently whether the Doc’s serum could halt the growth of lung cancer. A few moments later, Bobby came running out of the house screaming at me, his face a mask of contempt and disbelief.
The young ’thrope lifted me effortlessly by my lapels, his werewolf strength on full display as he handled me like a man would a child. My back slammed up against a broken-down Chevy and the driver’s window shattered with the violence of the impact. Bobby’s curled up fists and elbows pressed into my ribcage, and he growled in my face. I checked my cigarette to make sure the cherry hadn’t fallen off, and took another drag.
Bobby frowned, sighed, and let me go. I rolled my shoulders out and checked them for injuries; I’d have bruises for sure, and wake up stiff and sore tomorrow. Otherwise, no broken bones. Guess he was just trying to see how I’d react.
He stepped back and rubbed a hand across his face. “Scratch, what the hell was that?”
I looked away, rolling the cigarette between my fingers. Funny how those cancer sticks could be so comforting and calming. And addicting. It had taken me forever to shake the habit when I’d come back from Afghanistan; if I got hooked now, I’d be screwed. Pre-war cigarettes were damned hard to come by, and folks who grew tobacco sold it at a premium. I’d lucked out by finding a half-carton in one of the houses we’d flopped in that first night out of Austin. Chances were good I wouldn’t be so lucky in days to come.
I addressed Bobby’s question, staring off into space. “You said you thought we were going to die. From the way Gabby was shooting, I figured it was likely. So, I stopped that from happening.”
He ran his fingers through his sandy, sunkissed hair. “I get that, Scratch—and don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased as punch that you decided to chip in and help. But that stunt you just pulled almost got you killed.”
“I’m still standing. So are you and Gabby.” I waved my cigarette at the dead bodies around us. “They aren’t. Problem solved.”
Bobby sighed again through his nostrils. “You know, I expected you to be all broken up over what happened in Austin with Kara. Heck, I even expected you to fall apart a little. But what I didn’t expect was for you to full-on puss out with all this nihilist bullshit.”
He glared at me from under his eyebrows, sea-blue eyes lit up by the sunlight reflected on the chrome trim of the Chevy. “You’re a grown man, and you’ve lived this shit just as long as we have. You know things like this aren’t just a possibility—they’re a probability, a fact of life for the world we live in. Yet you have the nerve to act like this sort of thing shouldn’t happen to you or the people you care about.”
I spat a fleck of tobacco to the side and shrugged. “It was your fault those punters found us in the first place. If you hadn’t gotten greedy and stolen an entire roasted boar from them, this never would have happened.”
He threw his hands up in the air and rolled his eyes. “Oh, that’s great—just brilliant. Shift the blame to me because I was trying to look out for us.” He poked me in the chest and narrowed his eyes. “If you didn’t have your head up your ass, I might have been able to split off and do some actual hunting. But no, I don’t have time for that, because I have to be looking out for both you and Gabby. So, I had to make do. Sue me.”
I stifled a yawn. “You could have done it in wolf form. No way they’d track a ’thrope to get back their meal. That would’ve kept them off our backs and filled our bellies. But I guess I’m the only one who thinks about stuff like that.” At this point, I was just pouring salt on an open wound, but I’d had enough of his attitude. I liked Bobby a lot, but this self-righteous crap had its limits.
He placed his hands on his hips and looked up at the sky for a moment. Then his gaze locked on mine. “You know what pisses me off the most about you running around in this idiotic self-hating fugue state? The fact that she has to suffer for it.”
He pointed off at the house, where I could see Gabby puttering around the place, gathering our gear—and trying to act like she most definitely wasn’t listening in on our conversation. Bobby squatted and picked up my rifle, then stood and shoved it into my chest.
“Just consider that you’re not the only one who’s hurting right now. Gabby’s been through a lot over the past several weeks, and most of it is because she got caught up in your wake.”
I grabbed the rifle with one hand and took a last, long drag off the cigarette with the other. Bobby leaned forward until our faces were within kissing distance. He hissed his last words with so much venom I could almost feel the syllables stripping the skin from my face.
“Get your shit together before you get her killed, or worse. Because if anything ever happens to her and I think you’re responsible for it, it won’t matter whether I see you as my alpha or not… I’ll make sure you pay for it.”
I let him stalk off without giving a response, mostly because he was right about me being an asshole. I was letting my emotions affect everyone else around me. And since it was just him and Gabby at the moment, they’d been taking the full brunt of my self-pity and picking up the slack during my mental and emotional absence.
Damn it. I’d never fathered a child, but I was doing the absentee father thing like a pro. I needed to lock this shit down before I really did get us killed. I mulled it over as Gabby walked out of the house.
She strolled over and dropped my ruck at my feet. “We gotta go—deaders heard the gunfight. More’ll be here soon.” She pointed up and down the street at two small crowds of groaning shamblers that were moving toward our position.
I stared at the ground for a moment, trying hard to show some concern on my face before I made eye contact with her. She was looking at me with her head cocked at a slight angle, and her eyes were serious, but not unkind. It would be clear to anyone who looked into those baby browns that this kid was wise and mature well beyond her years. I thought about how hard it must be to be a tween on the outside, sixteen on the inside, and have a soul that was closing in on fifty.
I took a deep breath and let it out. “Sorry I’m letting you down, kid.”
She shrugged. “It’s allowed. You’re only human, you know.”
I chuckled. “Not anymore. And it remains to be seen whether I’ll keep what little humanity I have left.” I pulled up my sleeve, where the deader virus appeared to be making a resurgence. Black veins and lines spread from the scar to my elbow and down into my hand. “You never know, I might just wake up a biter one day.”
She cocked a fist and tapped me on the jaw with it. “You’re too ugly and stupid to be a deader, pendejo. I know you’re hurting, but you need to suck it up so we can get back to the Facility alive. You can take all the time you need to mourn once we get there.”
I nodded. “Gabby, I don’t think I’ve ever told you, but I’m proud of you. Did you know that?”
“I know,” she replied. “It’s why I keep sticking around. Well, that and my father issues—or, at least, that’s what Bobby keeps saying.”
I harrumphed at that. “Don’t sweat it, kid. We all have them and have to deal with them at some point.”
She smirked. “I’m supposed to watch some Oprah reruns with him when we get back. He says it’ll help me get in touch with my inner goddess or something. Sounds like cagada to me, but what do I know?” The moans were getting louder, and I could
hear the shuffling footsteps of the dead to either side of us. Gabby cracked her neck and nudged me with an elbow. “Time to go, viejo, unless you want to be on the menu.”
I shouldered my pack and pointed with my chin in a southernly direction. “Lead the way.”
Bobby caught up to us a few blocks down the road, and we walked in silence for much of the day. I regretted not taking the time to strip the punters for ammo and gear, but that was just one more example of how my self-pity was hurting the group. I thought about it as the day wore on and we stewed in our own reticence. That was just as well, since we ran across more punters later in the day.
We were skirting San Marcos when they burst across the road not a hundred yards in front of us, running like a pack of scalded dogs. We found concealment on the side of the road and took up defensive positions to see what was chasing them. They were definitely punters and not carvaneers, no doubt about it. No one but punters dressed like Road Warrior rejects out here in the Badlands, plus I picked up a stench coming off them from a hundred yards away. There were cannibals among them; the smell was unmistakable. It was in their clothes, and they were sweating it out of their pores. We were lucky the last group we’d come across hadn’t been eating long pig, but real pig instead. Otherwise, we might have gone hungry.
Suddenly the thought of Bobby stealing an entire pig right off the spit made me chuckle, and that earned me a weird look from Gabby. She duckwalked over to me and whispered just loud enough for the three of us to hear.