Z Island Series (Book 1): Escape From Z Island

by Osborne, Terrence Jr.

  “Beth!” Tina screams, but Beth did not show.

  Beth screams and Tina runs into her house and pulls out her gun.

  “Beth!” she screams, “Beth! I think the virus is the red-”

  Beth screams, but the sound was coming from the kitchen. Tina looks over the counter and saw Beth holding her husband while he spits suds out of his mouth.

  “Beth! Get away from him.” She tries to grab Beth, but she pushes her away.

  Tina watches Beth’s husband and points the gun at him.

  “Beth, move!” she cocks the gun and points it at Dillan, Beth’s husband.

  Beth jumps up and moves the gun away from him.

  “No! Stop! He’s hurting!” she screams at Tina.

  Tina continuously tells her to move as they wrestle with the gun, but Dillan stops moving and he does not make a sound. Beth turns around and starts crying.

  “Dillan!” Beth picks his head up, “Please come back! Please!”

  Tina grabs Beth and drags her away from Dillan.

  “Beth! He’s gone!” Tina looks into Beth’s eyes and tells her.

  Beth cries and looks at Dillan. They both had lost their husband and their son, but this does not give Tina hope that Sam just might be alive. While Beth is crying, Dillan begins to groan deeply, but Beth doesn’t rush to his aid. Tina gets up and points her gun at him. Dillan’s eyes open and he jumps up growling. Beth screams and he charges after Beth, but Tina shoots Dillan in the chest. He still lunges at Beth and tries to bite her. Tina continuously shoots him in the back, but it wasn’t working. Finally, she shoots him in the head and blood went everywhere and parts of his brain landed on Beth’s face. Beth screams and throws him off her, wiping the blood and brain parts off her face. Tina puts her gun away and helps Beth up.

  “Are you okay?” Tina asked her.

  Beth continues crying, but she wiped her face, “Yeah. What the hell happened to him?”

  Tina looks at the body and realizes that something big was about to happen, “He’s infected with the virus.”

  At the island, the group is out searching for David, but he was not around. Sam looks puzzled and nervous because he finally felt like David was becoming a friend, if not anything. Jess spots a safe spot under a tree and sits Sam under it.

  “Ok, we rest here for a little while and then we continue finding David,” Jess suggests.

  “Yeah, that’s fine,” Sam responded.

  “How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine. It stopped hurting. Now I just have to wait till it heals.”

  A woman walks up behind them and Jess turns around and points her stick towards her. She was a young, black female with dark black hair and chestnut brown eyes.

  “I don’t want any harm!” the woman yells.

  “Who are you?” Jess asked her while walking up to her slowly.

  “My name is Faith. I’m looking for other survivors.”

  “Are you bitten?”

  “No. You can search me if you like.” Faith suggested.

  Jess puts her stick away, “Don’t need to. You wouldn’t let me search you if you were bitten. Were you with others?”

  Faith looks down, “They’re all dead.”

  “Well, you can come with us if you want.”

  Faith smiles and walks with Jess while she introduced her to everyone.

  David runs behind a tree, breathing very heavily, but trying not to be so loud. He hears one of them stop right behind the tree and walks around growling, but David comes from around the tree.

  “Come on, bitch!” he yells.

  The infected stares right at him and runs, but he trips the infected and watches it fall. He then stabs it in the head and snatches the stick out. When David looks up, a young boy is standing right in front of him. David gets startled and jabs the stick at the boy.

  “Whoa! I’m not infected man!” the boy yells.

  “I’m sorry,” David puts his stick down, “I’m looking for my group. Have you seen them? It’s about four of them. One guy, three girls.”

  “No, but I’m looking for someone too.”

  “Damn. So, who are you?”

  “My name is Dylan. I’m just trying to find my friends.”

  David eyes widen with excitement, “Sam and Sarah?”

  “Wait! You know them?” Dylan asked.

  “Yeah. I separated from them about an hour ago. They think you’re dead.”

  Dylan smiles with excitement and starts laughing. David walks up to him and shakes his hand, “I’m David.”

  Later at night, David and Dylan managed to get the both of them in a tall tree and they are both sitting against the tree trunk on a branch.

  “What are you, Tarzan?” Dylan laughs.

  “Hey, you learn a couple of things.” David laughed.

  “So, how are they? Sam and Sarah, I mean.”

  “They’re good. Concerned for you mostly. Sarah gave up hope, but Sam managed to keep her hopes up. Now they can.”

  “I’ve been looking for them the whole time since I got on this island. Sometimes I think that the butterfly effect is real, you know. Had I not met you, I would have never known they were alive. Or find them for that matter.”

  “Well, we’ll find them, but I’m getting sick of straying from the group.”

  “Well, why did you?”

  “Infected came after me. There was more than one, but I don’t know what happened. I just ran.”

  “Well, you running saved their lives. Yours too.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “Question.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are we sleeping up here?”

  “Afraid of heights?”

  Dylan laughs, “Please, I have more to be afraid of now.”

  David laughs as they continue their conversation.

  Tina pushed a shovel in the dirt. They had buried Dillan’s body in Beth’s backyard and Beth stared at the burial from inside the house. Tina then heard explosions from nearby and she rushed into the house and slammed the patio door closed and locked it. Beth’s backyard gave a view of downtown, but there appeared to be red smoke filling in the clouds and the streets.

  “We have to go before it spreads. Then we’ll never be able to get out of this damn city!”

  Tina grabs her keys and proceeds to the door. Beth follows her and Tina opened the door, but when she went outside, helicopters were flying around and there were fires everywhere. People in the neighborhood were getting in their cars and driving away, but others just ran away, leaving their cars and everything the owned behind. The city had become chaotic and Tina wanted to get out of the city as soon as possible. Tina rushes to her car and gets inside along with Beth. Tina cranks up the car and begins to back up, but a man jumps behind them and hits the trunk.

  “Help me!” the man yelled.

  He ran to Tina’s window and hit the glass yelling for her to help him. Instantly, infected tackles the man to the ground and starts ripping off the flesh from his cheek. Tina screams and backs up, but more infected start hitting the back of her car, forcing her to stop. The infected start hitting the windows around the car and Beth screams loudly while Tina tries to back up.

  “Oh my God! They’re everywhere!”

  When Tina looked outside, she sees more infected approaching, but a truck drives onto the street and bullets flew out the windows of the truck, killing all the infected around. One infected punches through Tina’s window and grabs her, but a man who appeared to be one of the civilians shot the infected in the head. He opens the door and discovers that Tina had been shot in the shoulder. Beth screams at the sight, but the soldier shut her up.

  “Get out of the car ma’am!” the man yelled.

  He picks Tina up and heads for the truck, but the truck explodes with people inside and the infected that surrounded it. The man looks around, but Beth gets his attention,

  “Hey! Come on!” She runs to Tina’s house and he followed her, but more infected followed
behind him also.

  Beth opens the door, grabs the gun from Tina’s pants, and shoots the infected. The man puts Tina down on the couch and runs to help Beth kill them. One by one, the infected began to fall, but the man realized there were too many and closed the door.

  “Go upstairs! Now!”

  The man closes the curtains around the house and grabs Tina while Beth runs upstairs to Tina’s room. Beth signaled the soldier to go into Tina’s room and closed the door as soon as he got in.

  “Get me a medkit!” He yelled.

  Beth runs up to the bathroom and goes into the cabinet to get the med kit. She hurries back and gives the man the med kit and he looked at her back for an exit wound. Luckily, she had one.

  “Good. The bullet’s gone,” the man said.

  “Will she be okay?” Beth asked.

  “She’ll be fine. She just fainted on impact, that’s all.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Exactly what it looks like. That plane crash that happened, there were survivors, but they were not ‘them’.”

  Beth looks puzzled when she heard him say that.

  “So, what are they since they’re not themselves?”

  “We’re calling them zombies now.”

  “What?”

  Beth gets up and turns on the television. As she switched through the channels, she watched as there were zombies running around and killing people on live television and others trying to get out of the city, but the streets and highways filled with cars. Another channel showed many other cities attacked by the same virus, but over there it was worse. There were explosions everywhere and people were breaking into stores and doing other things. There were also cops shown shooting at a group of men. They seemed to be dressed like the military, but when Beth listened to the broadcast, the men appeared to be the terrorists. They dressed up like them to remain incognito.

  “There is a war going on right now! I don’t think we can-”

  The news reporter looked up and the camera zoomed in on two jets flying above the downtown area. Suddenly, three objects were heading toward the ground. When the objects disappeared behind the buildings, a large cloud of fire and smoke occurred and it killed everyone in the downtown area. Beth looked out of the window and watched the explosion cover up all downtown. The virus and the terrorists were winning and this scared Beth. The man continued to work on Tina, but he stopped for a moment and looked at the buildings collapse.

  “What is this world coming to?” the man asked himself.

  CHAPTER SIX

  RISK

  A snake slithers down a tree with its long, patterned skin. Once it got to the ground, David sneaks up behind the snake and stabs its head with his stick.

  Dylan watches from behind him and gags, “There is no way I’m eating that.”

  Later, Dylan bites into the snake and gags again, “Oh, this is disgusting.”

  David laughs, “Hey. That’s all I found. It’s either that or starve to death.”

  “You know what, on second thought, it’s not that bad.”

  David bites into the snake and smiles at Dylan, but Dylan looks away with disgust and bites into the snake.

  “So how did you end up on the island?” David asked.

  “I was on the ship last time I saw them. I flew out of the ship and swam ashore this island. I’ve been on my own since. A day later, I encountered the infected. Then I met you.” Dylan explains.

  “Damn. So, you’ve barely been fighting the infected?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Lucky you. I’ve been fighting these damn things the first day I got here.”

  They hear a noise behind them and David picks up his stick. Dylan also picked up a stick he had found earlier, but the end was not sharp. Dylan looks towards the noise and keeps still without making any noise. David begins to walk towards the sound, but Dylan tries to stop him,

  “David, what the hell are you doing?” he asked.

  David walks up to the sound and looks behind the bush where the sound was coming from and chuckles.

  “What is it?” Dylan nervously asked.

  David pulls out a rabbit, “It’s a rabbit.”

  Dylan unfreezes from his position and exhales with relief. He did not want to encounter anymore infected because he knew he doesn’t have nearly enough experience as David. David lets the rabbit free and watches it hop away calmly, but he soon regrets it when an infected run after it and grabs the rabbit. David tells Dylan to get down and be quiet. David did not pursue the infected because he feared that he might attract more attention than needed. The infected was tearing the rabbit’s flesh off and chewing it loudly, but the infected looked more evolved than the last time. Its bumps on its back had gotten larger and its body had gotten taller and skinnier. It looked even more fearful now. Dylan lays on the ground and covers his mouth from nervously breathing hard. David watches the infected to make sure it would not come towards them. The infected throws the rabbit down and runs away. David, however, told Dylan to remain on the ground to make sure that the infected had gotten further away from them. Once it was clear, David stands up and gives Dylan the ‘okay’. Dylan stand up slowly and peeks around,

  “Shit. That was close.” Dylan sighs.

  “Yeah, too close. Let’s go before we run into anymore infected.”

  “Slow down Sam!” Jess yells.

  Sam struggles to run because of his injury, but he does not let that stop him from finding David. Sam gets tired and stops by a tree to relax, but he throws his stick down with frustration. Jess walks in front of him,

  “Listen. We will find him, but you have to slow down. You’re not in decent shape for this. You will open your wound again. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah,” he replies.

  Faith hears someone approaching and she alerts the group,

  “Um, guys. Something’s coming.”

  When the group looked, a woman approaches with brunette hair and hazel eyes, but she was covered in too much blood to notice. Jess grips her stick harder because there was something about the woman that she didn’t trust. She was dressed differently than everyone else that Sam had seen on the ship. Then it hit him, she was wearing the same clothes as the men that worked for ‘Project Z’. Sam jumps up, but the woman suddenly points a gun at all of them.

  “What are you doing?” Jess said while holding both of her hands up.

  “Put all of your weapons down now!”

  “You work with those men on the ship. The ones that released the virus!” Sam yelled at her.

  “Then you know we don’t fuck around. Now drop your weapons!”

  Sam looked at everyone, walked up to the woman, and dropped his weapon in front of him. The rest of the group followed behind him and the woman smiled as she observed their weapons,

  “Nice job! No really, I am impressed. Most people we’ve seen didn’t do that,” the woman complimented.

  “We?” Sam asked.

  The woman turns around and whistles. When she whistles, three men approached her. One man was average height and chubby while the other two were twins that were tall and masculine with deep brown hair and brown eyes, but one was taller than the other.

  “Well,” the taller twin said with an accent, “You guys were prepared well!”

  “Who are you?” Sam asked.

  “Ah! A curious one, are you?” he chuckled, “Well, we are the reason this all started first of all, but first…”

  He grabbed the woman’s gun out of her hand and shot her. The other two men are shocked at his action but do not call him out on it. This man was ruthless and everyone knew it then. Sarah screams and backs away, but the man pointed the gun at her, making her stop and stare right into his eyes.

  “And where are you going?” he asked her.

  Sarah walks back up with the rest of the group and looks at the dead woman with blood leaking out of the hole in her head. The man laughs,

  “You should see your faces!” he laughed.
>
  He looks around at all of them and laughs at their shocking faces, but when he looks at Jess, he stops laughing. Her face was as fearless as can be and she intimidated the man, but he chose to be fearless towards her,

  “You are not scared, girl?” he walks up to her, but she does not move.

  Sam starts to move closer to Jess, but the chubby man kicks him to the ground.

  “Stay down,” he said.

  Sarah and Faith did nothing to protect themselves and Sam looks up at the man and gives him the stare that lets the man know that this isn’t over between the two. The man starts rubbing up Jess’s arm and chuckles,

  “I love a woman with no fear,” he whispers in her ear.

  Jess’s face changes from fearless to being petrified when he rubs her. She then starts to shiver and looks away from the man as he sniffed her neck and chuckles. He moves away from her and points his gun at her,

  “You’re not my type!” he says, “Do you know how lucky you guys are? You have fought many infected. I know. I’ve seen it, but what you don’t know is that we are the ones that turned them.”