Zommunist Invasion Box Set | Books 1-3

by Picott, Camille

  “Stay with me,” he murmured to Cassie.

  She nodded and scooted closer to him. Thank God she didn’t argue with him the way Jennifer did. He wasn’t sure he could deal with two women like Jennifer.

  The neighborhood they entered was muted and dark. A pack of nezhit prowled the far end of the street. Somewhere farther off, a rooster crowed, a herald to the coming dawn.

  The rooster ignited growls from the zombie pack. And not just the group visible to Leo and his team. Growls and barks went up from all over the neighborhood.

  Leo tensed. They needed to get out of sight. He led them a little deeper into the subdivision and picked a house at random.

  He sent Jim, Jennifer, and Anton to scout the back of the house. He, Tate, Bruce, and Cassie scouted the front.

  They looked in all the windows. Leo even went so far as to tap his knuckles against the kitchen window. If there were zombies inside, that would set them off. The house remained dark and silent, but growls came from nearby.

  His shoulder blades prickled. He hustled everyone into the backyard just as a pack of nezhit stalked into view. Leo glimpsed a mutant among them before he closed the backyard gate. He was careful to stop it before the latch snapped into place, not wanting the sound to draw any attention.

  Leo took his group into the backyard and met up with the others. “There are more zombies on the street. A mutant is with them. The front of the house looks clear. How about the back?”

  “All clear,” Jim said. “No one is home.”

  Leo pulled out his pocket knife and pried open a window. The metal groaned under the pressure but soon gave way. He went in first, stepping lightly onto the kitchen linoleum.

  The house smelled like death. He went into hyper alert, holding up a hand when Bruce tried to follow him.

  “There’s dead in there,” Jennifer whispered. To his annoyance, she shouldered past Bruce and climbed in beside him. “Come on, we have to find them.”

  Leo grabbed her arm to hold her back. “They could still be alive. We can’t just—”

  Jennifer shook him off and marched away. He had no choice but to follow her.

  “Seriously Leo, when are you going to stop trying to protect everyone?” Jennifer whispered. “There’s going to come a time when you’re going to have to trust us.”

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you guys, it’s—”

  “Of course it’s about trust.” To his horror, she tapped softly on the hall closet door. “You don’t trust any of us to get shit done without your supervision or protection.”

  Anger flared in his gut. He did his best to stuff it down. Losing his temper wasn’t going to help anyone right now. Couldn’t she see that he was trying to keep everyone alive and safe?

  Gritting his teeth, he peered around the corner as the rest of the group made their way into the house. His eyes immediately found Cassie. She bumped her forehead on the window as she climbed in. He should not be noticing how good she looked in those jeans. He gestured to Anton, waving them all over to where he and Jennifer stood.

  When there was no response from inside the closet, Jennifer opened the door. She made a gagging sound and immediately closed it—but not before Leo saw the bloody, decomposing corpse inside.

  “Well, we found the source of the smell,” Jennifer said. “Poor thing.”

  “The dead body is in there?” Anton gestured to the closet door. The rest of the group had reached them by that time.

  “Dog.” Jennifer’s voice was clipped. “Half eaten.”

  “Eaten by what?” Bruce asked.

  “Zombies,” Jim replied. “They bite humans to spread the virus, but they eat animals. Dal and Lena told me all about it. They saw a bunch of half-eaten livestock at the junior college.”

  “I don’t know why you’re all worrying about a dead dog,” Tate said. “We need to be worrying about what killed the dog.”

  Silence fell. Everyone stared at the uncommunicative closet door.

  “We split up again,” Leo said. “My group checks upstairs. Anton’s group takes the downstairs.”

  The smell of rot and decay dissipated as they went upstairs. Cassie’s eyes were wide with fear as she sandwiched herself between him and Tate. The first bedroom—a little boy’s bedroom, from the look of it—had a huge bloodstain near the dresser.

  The upstairs was deserted. The former residents appeared to have fled in a hurry. There were clothes all over the hallway. Contents in the master bedroom had been strewn across the floor.

  Cassie padded to a window that overlooked the street. “No sign of Russians, but the zombies are still out there.” She leaned forward, peering through the slats in the blinds. “I don’t see the mutant anymore.”

  “Let me see.” Tate shouldered up beside her and peered through the blinds.

  Leo joined them at the window. He unconsciously patted the small sachet bombs in his front pockets. Stuffed into his sock was the zippo lighter. Feeling them was a small compensation for his lack of a rifle.

  The sky was a pale yellow. The streets were still in shadow. Leo immediately picked out the zombies below. Cassie was right. The mutant wasn’t anywhere in sight.

  But there was another one further up the street. Her deformed body moved with an uneven gait. Despite that, she covered the distance down the street with eerie agility.

  Maybe the mutants would take out a few Russians while they were out and about. The Soviets might have their nezhit vaccine, but that didn’t make them immune to flying rocks. Maybe they’d even—

  A shout went up from downstairs, followed by an explosion of glass.

  Leo moved without thought. He tore out of the bedroom and raced down the stairs two at a time.

  “Help!” Jennifer yelled. “Mutant!”

  Her scream was punctuated by a bellow from Anton. “Somebody fucking help!”

  Leo hit the bottom of the stairs with such force that he skidded across the carpet and smashed into the wall. “Anton!”

  In the kitchen was his worst nightmare. There was blood and glass everywhere. Jim was on the floor, the mutant zombie on top of him.

  The mutant had massive shoulders, one side larger than the other. His shirt had torn open from the deformed muscle mass. Infected veins scissored over the skin of his body in a web of black lines. Blood completely filled his eyes, making him look like a demon.

  Jennifer had a barstool over her head. She brought it smashing down across the back of the mutant. Wood splintered from the force.

  Anton was on the other side. He attacked with his knife, striking at the mutant’s ribcage.

  The mutant didn’t even notice the blows. All his attention was on Jim. His jaw snapped as he snarled.

  “Help!” Jim shouted. “Help!” His palms were pressed into the mutant’s chest. He struggled to hold the monster at bay.

  These fuckers are too tough, Leo thought wildly. He snatched a cleaver out of the chef’s block on the kitchen counter.

  Right as he was about to strike, Jim and the mutant rolled several times across the floor. They smashed into Leo, sending him flying into the kitchen cabinets. The cleaver clattered to the ground.

  Leo rolled onto his knees and scrambled for the knife. Jim let out a bloodcurdling scream that turned Leo’s blood to ice. He spun around in time to see the mutant seize Jim’s head with both hands. He slammed it back onto the floor. There was a dull crack audible over Jim’s cry.

  “No!” Leo leaped, cleaver swinging.

  The zombie shifted, flinging out one arm to backhand Leo. The force sent Leo back a few steps, but it wasn’t so hard that he lost his balance.

  He had a split second where he saw the wound in the side of Jim’s head. Part of his skull was caved in. The mutant zombie took one long, slow lick of the blood, like he was savoring a delicacy. At the same time, his hands dug into Jim’s hair around the wound. There was another soft crack as the mutant pulled up a part of Jim’s skull, revealing brain matter. His friend lay unresponsive on the
floor.

  Leo shifted, once again poised to spring in Jim’s direction. Before he could move, the back door flew open.

  Soviets poured in, guns blazing. Jennifer grabbed Anton and tackled him to the ground behind the counter. Leo, on the other side of the room, dove for cover behind an algae-encrusted fish tank.

  As he watched, two Soviets shot several bullets into the back of the mutant’s head. The monster dropped like a sack of rocks. Jim lay limp on the floor beneath the mutant, blood spilling out of his head.

  Leo’s mind struggled to accept the situation. He couldn’t tell if Jim was dead or alive. If he was alive, it wouldn’t be for much longer, not with a head injury like that. Jim, whom he had known for his entire life. How had everything gone so wrong so fast?

  One of the Soviets advanced on Leo, pointing the barrel of a machine gun in his face. It made Leo’s blood boil. Mingled with the grief he felt when looking at Jim, it was almost more than he could bear.

  He forced himself to stay calm. This was the plan, after all. To get themselves captured. Except the plan hadn’t included one of his oldest friends getting killed.

  One of the Russians kicked at Jim’s body and said something. A ripple of laughter ran through the invaders.

  “You fuckers!” Anton tried to scramble to his feet, but Jennifer clawed him back. “That’s our friend—!”

  The Russian delivered a vicious blow with the butt of his gun to the side of Anton’s face. Jennifer latched onto Anton’s arm, keeping him from falling to the floor. She shot Leo a determined look as she half dragged him out the door.

  Cassie, Tate, and Bruce were herded into the kitchen at gunpoint. Tate had gone completely white. Even from across the room, Leo could see his hands shaking. He couldn’t peel his eyes from the unmoving, bleeding form of his older brother.

  “Jim!” Tate tried to run to his brother, but Bruce held onto him. He might be a few years younger, but he was still a tight end. He was big enough to overpower the struggling Tate.

  Leo felt his stomach convulse with emotion. This was all his fault.

  Tate let out a wordless burble of grief as Bruce hauled him out of the kitchen. Tucked in behind them was Cassie. Terrified tears streaked her cheeks. There was a smear of blood across her temple, as though she’d been hit. The three were closely followed by a Russian soldier. Leo was the last one out the door, also prodded at gunpoint.

  As soon as he was outside, his fear and grief shifted into rage. The afterimage of Jim’s dead body was burned into his brain.

  Jim would be alive if not for the invaders and their fucking nezhit virus. So would his dad and countless other people. These fuckers were going to pay for what they’d done. They were going to pay for killing Jim and everyone else.

  18

  Five Moves

  There were other Soviets in the street, all of them rounding up scared people. Cassie counted fifteen people, which included her friends.

  There should have been sixteen.

  Her eyes sought out Tate. He was pale with shock and grief, but only a blind man would miss the smoldering fury in his eyes.

  They were herded down the street past the body of the second mutant Cassie had seen from the open window. She had been taken down with headshots, along with all the zombies that had been with her. The Soviets hustled them around a corner to where an open truck bed waited for them. Inside were three people, all of them huddled near the back.

  The Russians shouted at them, gesturing to the truck. The order was clear. Jennifer was the first one into the truck, using her gymnastics skills to vault into the back.

  Cassie wasn’t above taking Leo’s outstretched hand when it was her turn to get inside. In fact, she was so shaky and sweaty with fear that it felt good to grab onto him. His hand was warm and solid, unlike the rest of the world around them.

  Once in the truck bed, she huddled down next to him. In light of the situation, it felt like the safest place in the world.

  She rubbed her elbow against the homemade bomb nestled in her front jeans pocket. The small munitions were stashed all over her body. They were a small comfort.

  A few Russians maintained a watch around the truck, making sure the prisoners didn’t try and make a run for it. Unless a nezhit or mutant made a nuisance of itself, the Soviets generally ignored them. They shot any that came too close to the vehicles.

  Only when the back was packed with scared people did the Russians load up. Three went into the cab of the truck. The rest followed in two convertibles, one red and one black. They kept the tops down and the weapons pointed at the prisoners.

  Try as she might, Cassie could not deny the facts:

  a) Jim Craig was dead. Jim Craig, the former-high-school-football-jock-turned-dairy-farmer was dead. His skull had been cracked open like an egg.

  b) The mutant zombie had not been content to bite and move on. Nope. Right before the Soviets charged in, Cassie had seen the monster licking at the blood around Jim’s wound.

  This was a new development. None of the regular zombies—how screwy was it that she now had two categories of zombies in her head, regular and mutant?—had ever gone for the head before. The thirty seconds Cassie had been in the kitchen had been enough for her to conclude the mutant had been intent on feasting on the brain of Jim Craig.

  c) She might be a chess player, but she had no business in a war. Jim Craig was dead because of her harebrained scheme. The Gordon Gambit? What the hell had she been thinking? Stephenson was right. She was a nerdy chess player, not a combat strategist. She’d let Leo’s compliments mess with her head.

  She felt warm pressure on her hand from Leo. He squeezed her knuckles. She knew he was trying to comfort her, but when she looked at him she saw vengeance in his eyes. He wanted retribution for Jim’s death. They all did.

  They were driven toward the center of town. Signs of the invasion were everywhere. Dead bodies. Burned houses. Abandoned cars. Broken windows. Even wandering zombies. The Russians mostly let them be, though they did shoot any that got in the way of the trucks.

  Fear was like a living thing inside of her. It made her back sweat, her throat tight, and her breath short. Watching Tate was the only thing that kept Cassie from screaming. Seeing the wild grief in his eyes was enough to anchor her. If Tate could hold himself together, so could she.

  She started a chess game in her head, playing as fast as she could. Chess would keep her sane. Chess would keep her grounded. Black pawn to c6. White pawn to g4.

  Three to five moves ahead. The really good chess players always had the next three to five moves plotted out in their head. Why should this situation be any different?

  She once again saw Jim’s smashed head. His death could be traced directly back to her plan.

  She abruptly realized that wasn’t true. This mission had been risky from the start. America was at war. People died in war. A chess game was never won without losing some pieces. She’d been stupid not to realize that sooner. Her plan had made the best of a bad situation, but that didn’t change the fact they were at war.

  Get your head in the game, Cassie Miola, she told herself. Your friends need you.

  She shifted the chess game in her mind, imposing the board on the current situation. They were being driven east, which meant they were going to the central plaza. The high school, the only other logical place to collect a large group of people, was north.

  She saw the Hillsberg plaza as the chessboard. Five moves. First, when they got there, they had to spread out. It was the best way to maximize the destruction and give all the prisoners a chance to escape. Teams of two would be best.

  Cassie licked dry lips. The most important thing—aside from freeing those who had been captured—was destroying the Russian’s supply of the nezhit virus. Since they were bringing everyone to a central location, that likely meant the darts would be in one place. That was their second move.

  Their third move was weapons. The Cecchinos already had a generous collection of firearms weapon
s, but if Leo was serious about going to war against the Russians, they needed more.

  “I’m glad you creamed me in chess every time we played,” Leo murmured beside her. “It means that I know the look you get when you’re planning something. Talk to me.”

  Cassie flicked a quick look around the truck. Anton was sandwiched in front of Leo. Jennifer was sandwiched on Cassie’s other side. Tate and Bruce were also clustered close. She and Leo could talk, so long as they kept it quiet.

  “We split up in teams of two,” she whispered. “First, we set off bombs around the plaza, cause as much confusion as possible, and arm ourselves. Second, we locate the zombie virus supply and destroy it. Third, we get as many weapons as possible to take back to the cabin. Fourth …” Her mind went inward. “We get a vehicle and get the hell out of town. We ditch it as soon as we can and get back to the bikes so we can’t be followed. Fifth, we get back to the cabin.”

  Five moves. It was a decent set up.

  Now, if only it all went off as easily as she had spelled it out. She wasn’t dumb enough to think it would. Even a lame chess player could throw a wrench into a brilliant plan with a stupid move.

  “Teams of two.” Leo gave her a nod. “We start with that. We split up and start blowing shit up.”

  “Amen to that,” Tate muttered.

  19

  Forks

  Jennifer poked Cassie in the knee to get her attention. “You’re with me. Stay close. Got it?”

  Leo opened his mouth in protest, but Jennifer silenced him with a glare. “She’s my sister. We stay together.”

  “Fine,” Leo clipped. “Just—be careful.”

  The Hillsberg plaza came into view. Cassie had spent a few lazy Saturdays here with Amanda and Stephenson. The best bakery in the county was here, along with a candy shop. The vast lawn area with trees was a great place to hang out. The three of them would sit on the grass, play chess, and gorge themselves on sugar.