Zommunist Invasion Box Set | Books 1-3

by Picott, Camille

  “Take that, assholes,” Anton said. “We’re not going down without a fight.”

  “Damn straight,” Leo said. “Now come on. Let’s get out of here.

  44

  Antenna

  “Time’s up.” Dal yanked the plug out of the back of the transmitter. “Did I miss anything?” he asked Lena.

  “Not a thing.” She beamed at him and lowered the antenna to the ground.

  Dal lashed the transmitter to the backpack. Even though it was heavy, he didn’t want to leave it behind. There was no telling if they might need it again in the future.

  “Leo is giving them hell.” Lena looked in the direction of the high school. A series of explosions echoed through the town. “Nonna might be able to hear it all the way back at the cabin.”

  They hurried back to the hatch that led down into the superstore. Thinking about all the nezhit inside made Dal’s throat dry. How the hell were they going to escape?

  Dal swung his machine gun around. “You open the hatch. I’ll shoot anything that tries to come through.”

  Lena nodded, positioning herself to one side of the opening. “Ready?”

  Dal aimed, finger resting on the trigger. He sighted down the barrel, ready to shoot the first zombie that came into sight. “Ready.”

  She yanked it open.

  Nothing happened.

  A wrinkle appeared on Lena’s brow. She peered through the hatch. “Um, Dal? I think they’re all gone.”

  He wasn’t sure he hadn’t heard her right. “They’re all gone?” he repeated dumbly.

  Lena opened the hatch all the way, letting it thud softly against the gravel rooftop. Nothing but silence echoed up from the superstore.

  They crouched over the opening, peering inside. The boxes that had been neatly stacked on the mezzanine were in disarray. Many of them had torn open, spilling televisions and other equipment onto the floor.

  But there wasn’t a nezhit in sight.

  “Leo drew them away,” Lena said.

  It was the only explanation that made any sense. “That’s impressive.”

  Lena flashed him a grin. “My brother is an impressive guy.”

  Dal went first into the hatch. Without the boxes, it was a fifteen foot drop to the ground. Good thing he was tall. He dangled by his hands, angling his body so he’d miss the broken remains of a big screen TV when he landed.

  Debris crunched under his Converse when he hit the floor. Lena came through after him, dangling from the top. Dal caught her around the waist as she dropped. He ignored how good she felt in his arms, reminding himself he wasn’t good enough for her.

  They crept through the ruin of the mezzanine, picking their way through televisions, VCRs, speakers, and smashed boxes. The store remained eerily quiet, the silence was punctuated by the battle taking place over at the high school.

  “Do you think they’re okay?” Lena asked.

  “Yes.” Dal wouldn’t let himself believe anything less. “Leo knows how to kick ass.”

  They were nearly to the stairs when Lena stopped. “Look at this.” Using her foot, she pushed a dented piece of black plastic aside. Beneath it was a wide, flat box about six feet long.

  “Is that a TV antenna?” she asked.

  Dal knelt down to read the box. “Yeah. It’s not as big as the one we just used, but it is an antenna.”

  “You know, there might be other messages people need to hear in the future.” Lena studied the antenna box. “You still have the transmitter. If we take the antenna, we’ll be able to broadcast.”

  “It will be risky,” Dal said. “If we aren’t careful, the Russians will be able to track us.”

  “So we’ll be careful. Come on, help me.” Lena pried at the box with her hands.

  Dal helped her tear it open and pull out the antenna. Out of the box, it didn’t weight more than fifteen or twenty pounds. Lena was so lean that she was able to fit between the rods. The antenna balanced easily on either side of her.

  “I should be able to balance it on the bike like this,” Lena said. “We should take it.”

  She was right. It was good to have the antenna. Who knew what other important information they might come across? They needed to do whatever they could to help win this war.

  “We should take it,” Dal agreed. He gathered up the cables that came out of the box, dropping them into his backpack.

  They crept down the stairs and through the ruined superstore. Oddly enough, their bikes were still just outside the entryway. The street beyond was quiet. There was no sign of zombies or Russians anywhere.

  Dal helped Lena arrange the antenna across her bike. With her being able to slip between the middle rods, it was fairly well balanced.

  “If we have to make a run for it, drop it,” Dal said. “It’s not worth dying over.”

  “Agreed.”

  A huge boom went up from the high school. Dal and Lena turned reflexively toward the sound. It wasn’t anything like the explosions they’d heard up until this point. Something big had just gone off.

  “Think they’re okay?” Lena whispered.

  Dal squeezed her hand. “Yes. Come on, let’s get the hell out of here.” He wasn’t about to waste the opportunity Leo and the others were giving them to escape.

  Side by side, he and Lena rode out of town.

  45

  Not Special

  It was almost dawn when the Cecchino farm came into view. Dal was so tired he could hardly see straight. Had it really only been forty-eight hours since the first Russians attacked? It felt like forty-eight years. He was used to functioning on little sleep, but this went beyond anything he’d ever experienced before.

  He focused on his bunk bed back at the cabin, and what it would feel like to lay down. He might sleep for three days if Nonna allowed it.

  The sky was a dark gray, the stars on the eastern horizon beginning to fade. The bike tires crunched on the gravel road that led to the Cecchino farmhouse.

  Dal struggled to keep his eyes open. It was too dark to see clearly. It was cold, too. His breath fogged the air. The apple trees were wet with dew.

  He jerked as a long, low growl rolled through the darkness.

  “Zombies,” Lena whispered. She still had the antenna balanced across her bike.

  They both stopped and looked toward the Cecchino barn. The sound had come from that direction.

  “Don’t they know it’s time for bed?” Dal let his bike drop softly to the ground.

  “I don’t think they sleep.” Lena shouldered her rifle, jaw set. She left the antenna on the ground next to her bike.

  “Come on, let’s get this over with,” Dal said. “It doesn’t sound like there’s more than one or two of them.” The sooner they got rid of the zombies, the sooner they could get back to the cabin.

  “I hope we don’t know them,” Lena muttered. “I didn’t like shooting Mrs. Caster.”

  Mrs. Caster had been the second grade teacher at the elementary school. She’d come after them when they fled Bastopol.

  Dal locked away that memory. It was too much to deal with on top of everything else.

  The Cecchino farm looked untouched. Jennifer’s white car still sat in the driveway. Everything else was quiet and undisturbed.

  They went around the far side of the barn in the direction of the growling. As they rounded the corner, Dal felt his breath leave his lungs. He was abruptly wide awake.

  There were only two zombies in front of them. Separating them from the infected was a chain-link fence, the boundary between the Cecchino and Granger farms.

  At the sight of Dal and Lena, the zombies let loose that strange barking sound. They attacked the fence with gusto, throwing their full body weight at the metal. The fence rattled under the attack, but held.

  It wasn’t the two crazed zombies and their dirty clothing that disturbed Dal. What froze his insides was the fact that his parents didn’t look much different than they had before the virus took them.

  Get out, Dalla
s! Get out and don’t ever come back!

  His mother’s face was twisted into a snarl of rage as she threw herself over and over at the fence. She looked just like she had the day she kicked Dal out of the house when he was fourteen.

  There was blood all over her shoulder. It soaked the front of her shirt. His father had once thrown her into the family curio cabinet. She hit so hard the glass broke. She looked then just as she looked now—ravaged and covered in blood.

  Even then, she had defended her husband. Dal tried to come between her and his dad—tried to kick his dad in the shin, even though he was only ten years old and his dad was twice his size and ten times scarier.

  Leave him alone, Dallas, you hear me?

  “You want me to take care of them for you?” Lena’s voice cut through Dal’s stupor. She checked the remaining bullets in her magazine. “I have three shots left.”

  Dal drew in a ragged breath. “No. I’ll do it.” Why had he just said that? He could hardly bear to look at his parents, let alone fire a gun at them. He needed to get away. He needed not to look at his parents.

  But he couldn’t help it. They kept growling, kept throwing themselves at the fence in dogged determination. The infection spread all across their bodies from the inside out.

  Lena reached across the distance and squeezed Dal’s hand. He squeezed back. Never before had he been so grateful for her presence. She understood him.

  His dad’s mouth was covered with blood. No doubt from biting his mother.

  It was the first time Dal had ever seen him with a bloody mouth. Dal had always been the one with a bloody lip, or his mom.

  Dal flashed back to that moment in Rossi when he’d made eye contact with his father as he drove by. He thought that had been the lowest point of his life, even worse than all that had come before. In some ways, to be completely disregarded was worse than being a personal punching bag. The fence that separated him from his father was more defense than he’d ever had as a kid.

  He tried to think back to the non-shitty days with his parents. There had been some of those. Like the time he’d gotten an A on a math test and his mom took him to the store to buy him a Snicker’s. Or the time his dad bought him his very first package of condoms “just in case.” Dal had been only thirteen.

  There were a few days like that. Dal kept those memories in a box in his mind, taking them out to sort through them on occasion. Looking at them hurt more than the bad memories. They were a tease, a taste of something he could never truly have.

  Dal dropped back behind the barn, out of sight of his parents. His legs were wobbly with fatigue. He sank to the ground, letting his head thunk back against the wood. He closed his eyes, letting the persistent growls of his parents wash over him.

  Lena sat down next to him. Without saying a word, she laced her fingers with his.

  “I’m like him, you know,” Dal said without opening his eyes.

  “What?”

  “I’m like my dad.” She had to know that already. She’d seen him loose control. She’d seen the beast that lurked under the surface, but saying it aloud felt like a confession.

  Lena didn’t respond, only applied more pressure to the hand she held.

  “Do you know the last thing your dad said to me?” He forced himself to open his eyes and look at her.

  Lena shook her head, gaze steady on him. “No.”

  “He told me to take care of his little girl.” Dal drew in a shaky breath and forced himself to release her hand. “You shouldn’t be with someone like me, Lena.”

  She didn’t immediately respond. Dal closed his eyes again, struggling to accept a reality where Lena wasn’t his.

  She stirred beside him. A soft sound filled the space between them. Dal opened his eyes to find her sawing with a pocket knife at the multi-colored bracelets that adorned her wrist. They were woven from embroidery thread. Lena spent many night weaving bracelets on the living room floor in front the television with the family.

  The many colored threads fell away. Lena held her bare wrist out for him to see.

  Dal’s chest seized. Marching up and down Lena’s slender wrist were parallel white scars. They were thin and white and unmistakeable.

  Sorrow filled him. He cradled her arm and pressed a kiss to the scars.

  “You’re not the only one with darkness inside you, Dal.”

  He pressed her wrist against his forehead, wishing he could absorb all her pain. “Why?” he asked.

  “I was so lost when Mom died. Everything just … hurt.”

  He gathered her close and held her. She rested her cheek against him.

  “You should have told me.”

  “You couldn’t help me. No one could. I had to figure things out on my own. That’s why I started listening to the Russian language tapes. They helped me find Mom. I know that sounds weird, but sometimes when I had my headphones on, I swear I could feel Mom sitting beside me.” Her chest rattled with a shaky inhale. “Going to the anti-nuke rallies and protests … that was just a nice distraction, you know? It gave me something to focus on that was bigger than myself. I mean, what was the loss of one person in comparison to an entire country being nuked?” Her laugh was bitter. “Who would have thought they’d come up with a virus that turned us all into zombies?”

  “How long has it been?” he asked.

  “I haven’t cut myself in almost two years. Things got better when I found the tapes. Life had a purpose when I joined the rallies and the marches.”

  Dal held her tight, never wanting to let her go. How had he missed this? How had any of them missed it? They’d all been sad, sure, but there was no excuse for missing Lena’s pain.

  “We all have parts of ourselves we’re not proud of, Dal. You’re not special that way.”

  “But you saw me. I beat that zombie girl to a pulp in the Goodwill even after she was dead.”

  “Better than beating her like that when she was alive.”

  “But I would have. You saw me, Lena. I was out of control in Bastopol and Rossi.” It had been the same when he punched that goat as a kid. “I’m like my dad.”

  “You’re nothing like your dad.” She leaned back to look at him, a dent marring her brow. “You don’t hurt the ones you love. You protect us. That’s the exact opposite of your dad.”

  He wasn’t sure how, but somehow, Lena had just flipped all his self perceptions upside down. It was confusing.

  “You make me out to be better than I am.”

  “You know what Dad said to me before he died?”

  “What?”

  “He said, ‘Take care of Dallas, Lena. He needs you.’ Dad wouldn’t have said that if he thought you were a monster.”

  Dal absorbed her words. Had Mr. Cecchino really said that?

  “I think that was Dad’s way of giving us his blessing. He had to know how we felt about each other.”

  “What if I hurt you someday?” he whispered. “What if I lose my temper and turn into my dad?”

  Lena snorted. “You’d never hurt me, Dallas Granger. But you might beat the shit out anyone who does. Even if it is just a goat.” She snuggled up against him. “I kind of like that.”

  God, he loved this girl. If he lived long enough, he was going to marry her. He knew that as surely as he knew his shoe size.

  She kissed him. It was a long, soft kiss mixed with the salt of tears. Dal wasn’t sure if the tears belonged to him, to Lena, or to them both.

  He grieved for the remembered pain she wore in her scars. He grieved for the loss of Mr. Cecchino. He even grieved for his own parents, whom he’d never had a chance to love.

  “There were times when I wanted to kill my dad.” How ironic he was now being given the chance to do just that. “Even when I was little. I’d get so mad I’d go outside and throw rocks or kick trees. I’d plot ways to fight back. But he was always bigger and stronger than me.”

  “It’s time to let him go, Dal. It’s time to let both of them go.”

  Dal kissed her
one last time before getting to his feet. Resolute, he grabbed his Soviet-issued machine gun and strode around the corner of the barn. Lena was by his side.

  His parents went nuts at the sight of them, redoubling their efforts to break through the fence. He walked straight toward them, no hesitation in his steps.

  Younger versions of himself walked beside him. The eight-year-old with the black eye. The eleven-year-old with the dislocated shoulder. The fourteen-year-old with the cracked ribs.

  They fanned out around Dal like an army. They wanted revenge. They wanted retribution.

  All Dal wanted was peace. Peace for himself, peace for estranged parents, and peace for the fucked-up little kid who still lived inside him.

  He went right up to the fence and pointed his gun at his father’s face. The feral rictus of his mouth was the same one that had raged over him as a kid. Some people were monsters before the Russians got here.

  Dal pulled the trigger. The shot echoed through the night. It rippled through time, back through the younger versions of himself. It sent a shockwave through his body.

  His dad dropped to the ground, dead.

  Unlike the night when Dal first dared to throw a return punch, his mother only blinked. She barely spared a glance for the dead man beside her before once again attacking the fence. She was as singleminded in her devotion as she had always been.

  Dal shifted the barrel of the gun and fired a second time.

  His mother fell across the body of his father.

  For the first time in his life, Dal’s parents were quiet and at peace with one another.

  46

  Not Forgotten

  The day after their mission into Bastopol, Leo found himself on a ladder at the back of the cabin. Behind him were the breathtaking views south of Pole Mountain.

  It was early evening. The fog crept in, steeping the land below them with fluffy white. It was almost easy to imagine the world wasn’t a horror show beneath those clouds.