Zommunist Invasion Box Set | Books 1-3

by Picott, Camille

  “Mutant,” Cassie hissed. “There’s a mutant!”

  “I see it. Keep pedaling.” Leo spun his bike around and slammed on his brakes.

  Cassie put her head down and followed orders. Even though her heart clenched as she flew past Leo, she didn’t want to mess up his plan. To her surprise, Jennifer stayed with her. So did Bruce.

  “Faster, Cas,” Jennifer huffed between short breaths.

  Shots cracked. The mutant kept coming. Spill and Griggs had stopped beside Leo, all three of them shooting.

  It was hard to see. The mutant moved freakishly fast. The guys never let up. The mutant was fifty yards away when she finally howled and crashed to the ground. Leo fired one more shot. The thing went completely still.

  Cassie didn’t let up on the pedals. Her heart pounded in her chest, and not just because she was pedaling hard. She had thought Hillsberg had been scary. At least it had been daylight when they attacked there. Riding through the dark, forested town of Westville was creepy as hell.

  33

  Adventure Depot

  Leo realized how isolated they’d been from the true horrors unfolding around them in West County. In a little over a week, their world had become a slaughterhouse.

  He jumped back onto his bike and pedaled after Cassie, Bruce, and Jennifer. Up ahead in the gloom, he saw the wooden sign for the Adventure Depot. It was at least twenty years old. The paint was faded, peeling, and barely legible. If Leo hadn’t known what to look for, he would have ridden right by it.

  They dropped their bikes as they pulled to a stop in front of the old shop. It was nothing more than an over-sized shed. The canoes and kayaks sat in several large stacks off to one side, wedged between old-growth redwood trees.

  “Everyone, grab a kayak,” Leo said. They were lighter than canoes and would be the quickest way to paddle down the river.

  The Adventure Depot backed up to the waters of the Russian River. Depending on where you were, the river was anywhere from twenty to fifty feet wide. This late in the summer, the water was low enough that a few small, rocky islands cropped up.

  It was a short walk through the trees down to the river bank. Leo had thought the smell along the highway was bad. Nothing prepared him for the carnage along the water.

  It shouldn’t have surprised him, he supposed. All creatures needed to drink. Why should the nezhit be any different? On top of that, the tourist economy was robust along the river. Lots of people came to camp or spend the day swimming.

  There had been hundreds of zombies here at one point. As Leo picked his way among the bodies, he tried to imagine what it must have been like during the initial invasion. This town had clearly been overrun. Cassie would have been among the dead if the Nielson house hadn’t been tucked back in the woods.

  “Keep your eyes out for mutants,” he said. They’d be idiots to think they were alone out here. Statistically, with so many dead zombies, there had to be a number of mutants around. And they hadn’t exactly been quiet when they killed the one on the road.

  They reached the water without incident. Leo waded in first in his jeans and farmer’s work boots. The water was chilly, but not unpleasant.

  A dead body floated by. Leo pushed it away with his paddle, keeping it away from his people.

  “Leo!” Jennifer’s sharp hiss drew his attention.

  She pointed downstream to where two deformed figures made their way out of the trees.

  Shit. Mutants. They stalked toward the water, eyes fixed on Leo’s group.

  “Everyone, get into your kayak,” Leo whispered. “Stay together. Griggs, Spill, help me shoot them as we paddle by.”

  He waited until everyone else was paddling downriver before climbing into his kayak. Leo pushed with his paddle, quickly catching up with the others.

  There wasn’t much of a current this time of year, but the paddles quickly pulled them abreast of the mutants. Leo had his .22 in hand. The two creatures were nearly to the water’s edge, but for some reason, they didn’t attack.

  “Do we shoot?” Spill asked, frowning as he took in the mutants’ hesitation.

  “Only if they attack,” Leo said. Gunfire would just draw more attention. They’d made enough noise back on the road. It was better to get away quietly if they could.

  A growl rippled out from a mutant. Eyes glowed in the growing darkness. Leo felt the two creatures homing in on them. He raised his .22, ready to fire. Griggs and Spill are both poised, ready to fire.

  But the mutants didn’t enter the water. They broke into a lope, running alongside the river and keeping abreast of Leo’s team.

  “Should I shoot them?” Griggs asked.

  “Wait.” Leo watched the mutants. They stayed a solid five feet away from the water. Why was that?

  The riverfront abruptly ended in a tall cliff that climbed nearly two hundred feet into the air. The top was studded with redwood trees. The river cut around the cliff. As soon as they rounded the bend, the mutants disappeared from sight. Leo heard them growling in frustration, but they didn’t follow.

  “Did you see that?” Jennifer said. “They stopped. They didn’t try to swim after us.”

  “They wouldn’t even get into the water,” Cassie said.

  “Maybe they’re afraid of it.” Griggs lowered his weapon.

  Leo filed away this piece of intel for later examination. He didn’t know what it meant, but it could be important. It could also be an isolated incident. The next mutants they came across might not hesitate to charge into the water after them.

  The current continued to suck them along. They made good time, their paddles softly cutting water. The moon and stars came out, bathing the water in cold white light. Leo’s eyes quickly adjusted. He watched the river, alert for portages. He did his best to steer around any he saw. A few times their boats scraped against the rocky bottom, but they never stalled.

  Cabins dotted the riverside, many of them with their own private docks. There were bodies in the water, along with floating pieces of garbage often found on the river. More bodies were on the docks. The air was ripe with the smell of rot.

  He kept his ears peeled for any sound of Russians and mutants. A few times, they heard cars on the road that followed the river. He could only assume it was Russian troops driving around, though he couldn’t fathom what they were doing out here at night. They’d effectively wiped out Westville and probably all the other small communities along the river.

  They’d been paddling for nearly two hours when Cassie spoke up. “Leo, did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “I heard it,” Spill whispered. “It sounded like a mutant.”

  Several long, low growls reached Leo’s ears. A shiver crawled down his spine.

  “Where are they?” He lifted his .22 in one hand, gripping his paddle in the other. “Anyone see them?”

  The growls sounded again. This time, there were more of them.

  Leo swung his head back and forth, peering into the darkness. Where were they? Could they be up in the trees? Could they—

  “Look out!” Bruce cried.

  A tire sailed out of the darkness, coming straight for Leo.

  34

  Bridge

  Leo had just enough time to throw himself out of the kayak before the tire landed. It clipped him in the leg, delivering a jolt of pain that radiated up his thigh. Water rushed into his nose and mouth.

  He burst back to the surface of the river, legs kicking. Luckily, it was late summer, when the river was at its lowest. His boots connected with the gravely bottom just as more debris sailed out of the dark.

  “Heads up!” Spill cried.

  Rocks. A picnic basket. An empty tool box. A hammer.

  Leo came to grips with their situation between a mouthful of water and a crowbar hitting the water a mere foot from him. Apparently, Cassie’s rock-throwing mutant hadn’t been an anomaly. There were mutants attacking them. But from where?

  There was too much chaos to get his bearing
s. His group was in disarray, everyone shouting and trying to dodge the attack. Paddles and kayaks drifted downriver without them. They were making enough noise to wake Russians all the way back in Bastopol. Where the hell was Cassie?

  “South shore,” Leo barked. “Everyone get to the south shore!”

  He spotted Cassie’s silhouette off to his left. She yelped as a discarded ice chest flew in her direction.

  Leo tackled her, pushing her sideways and submerging her in the water. The ice chest made a loud thunk in the water as it landed.

  He latched onto Cassie’s shirt and pulled her to the surface. She coughed and sputtered. Her hands twisted into the front of his shirt as she clung to him.

  “They’re on the Monte Rio Bridge,” she gasped.

  She was right. Leo hadn’t realized they’d come so far downstream. He could just make out the old truss bridge that spanned the river. It was something of a historical landmark in the tiny river town of Monte Rio.

  On the bridge were no less than three mutants. Another tire sailed through the air. Leo shielded Cassie with his body and hustled her to the shore.

  “Where the hell are they getting all their ammunition?” he growled as the tire hit the water. Had they raided a junkyard?

  He raised his hunting rifle as Spill, Bruce, Jennifer, and Griggs hustled onto the shore. “Either of you guys a good shot in the dark?” he asked the soldiers.

  “I am.” Spill stopped beside him and raised a machine gun, taking aim at the bridge.

  “The rest of you, get to the trees and stay out of sight,” Leo ordered. He threw all his focus into the mutants on the bridge. Now that he didn’t have a face full of water, he could see there were several wrecked cars on Monte Rio Bridge. That’s where the mutants were getting their ammunition.

  A baby car seat flew off the bridge, coming straight for Leo and Spill. It was followed closely by a suitcase.

  “Dammit!” Leo dodged sideways. The suitcase hit the ground and split open, spilling clothes all along the riverfront. He couldn’t stand still long enough to get in a shot.

  He crouched low and raced to the trunk of a large tree that lay on the shore. It wasn’t uncommon for fallen trees to wash up during the winter. The locals usually left them wherever they landed.

  He dropped down behind the tree, breathing hard. Spill skidded to his knees beside him. Both men rested the barrels of their weapons on the tree, taking aim at the mutants.

  More items flew at them through the night, but they had some protection now. Leo held steady and took aim at the figures on the bridge.

  He was a good shot, but a head shot at a hundred yards in the dark was going to be a tall order.

  Beside him, Spill began to fire. Bullets sparked off the trusses of the bridge. The mutants howled as he hit one of them in the shoulder.

  Leo’s first shot pinged off a car. He swore and readjusted. The slight wind along the river had thrown off his shot. He fired again. This one landed, but it wasn’t a head shot. All he did was piss the thing off.

  He and Spill kept firing. Leo finally hit one of the monsters, dropping him to the ground. The others howled in fury.

  Leo had thought the situation couldn’t get any worse. He was wrong. As soon as he killed the first mutant, the other two scattered. They loped off the south side of the bridge, their deformed bodies disappearing from sight.

  “Shit,” he breathed. He knew without a doubt the mutants were coming for them. This may have been their plan all along—to drive them out of the water.

  “River,” he barked, looking for his companions at the tree line. “The mutants are coming!”

  Cassie, Jennifer, Bruce, and Griggs barreled out of the darkness, running hard for the water. As they did, Leo saw another two mutants scuttle north across the bridge. They were gone before he could even raise his rifle. Shit. Were those the same two they’d been firing at, or were those new ones? It was impossible to know.

  “Hurry up!” He splashed into the water. The kayaks and paddles had drifted downstream. They were going to have to swim. With any luck, they could catch up with their kayaks.

  Cassie and the others piled into the water. Laden with water-logged jeans, guns, and backpacks of supplies, none of them were buoyant. Still, they threw themselves into the deepest part of the current in the middle of the river and began to dog paddle. Long strands of algae slithered up from the river bottom, feathering along their bodies.

  Leo brought up the rear. He alternated between scanning the shoreline and keeping one eye on the water. His knee connected painfully with a rock in the water. He swallowed back a curse.

  They reached Monte Rio Bridge. Leo stopped just before swimming underneath it, standing up out of the water. The sodden backpack was an unwieldy counterweight. Leo raised his rifle, keeping watch to make sure no other mutants showed up to attack his companions. As soon as the five of them were safely on the other side and swimming away, he hurried after them.

  A howl went up to his left. Leo jerked instinctively in that direction, but all he could see was a solid line of dark trees.

  Several more howls went up from his right. Fucking shit. There were mutants on both sides of the river.

  “We are fucked,” Spill murmured beside him.

  Leo gritted his teeth. He refused to go down. They could survive this. They just had to get past the mutants and farther downriver. They just had to—

  Several rocks sailed out of the darkness. Leo’s heart froze as Cassie screamed. The rock collided with her shoulder, sending her sideways through the water.

  Jennifer reached her first and pulled her up. Leo took aim at the shoreline, looking for the attacking mutant.

  More rocks flew out of the tree line, all of them coming from the north side of the river. He couldn’t see a fucking thing. The trees were too thick and grew right up to the side of the water.

  The onslaught intensified. Griggs let up a string of curses as he was hit in the chest.

  Leo had to get them out of here. They couldn’t out-swim the mutants. Not unless he wanted to risk one of them getting hit in the head.

  “South shore,” he barked. There were mutants on that side as well, but for the moment, it was the lesser of two evils. “Hurry—shit!” He swore as a rock the size of his head careened straight for him.

  He dove sideways and swam as fast as he could. More rocks rained down all around them.

  The south side of the river didn’t have a shoreline. The currents had cut a small bluff into the base of the tree line.

  Cassie and Jennifer were just ahead of him, the two girls scrambling on the bluff. They grabbed exposed tree roots, pulling themselves up the embankment.

  The howls behind them went up in pitch. The sound grated along his bones. He knew for a fact this was their pissed-off sound.

  Even worse, their howls were met by more howls—this time from the south side of the river where they were. From the sound of things, there were a lot more than two of them. It sounded like there was a whole pack of them on both sides of the water.

  Leo boosted himself over the bluff and crawled into the concealment of the trees. His breath sawed in and out of his lungs as the mutants continued to howl.

  They had to move. Find someplace to hide.

  “Stay together,” Leo whispered. “Follow the river south. Look for a place to hide. Shoot anything that moves.”

  They fell into a tight line. Griggs led the way. Leo brought up the rear. They threaded their way through the trees.

  Leo’s wet clothes and sodden backpack felt like they weighed an extra fifty pounds. Even worse, the wind picked up along the river. It was getting cold. If they ever found a safe place to hide, they needed to get dry.

  The woods went eerily quiet. Was that a good sign, or were they royally fucked? Leo strained his ears, listening for signs of pursuit.

  The trees fell away, opening up to a large rocky beach. Discarded canoes lay near the trees. There was none of the usual river flotsam on this beach;
no garbage or forgotten pieces of clothing. There were no bodies, either. It looked oddly pristine.

  “Anyone else think it’s weird there are no bodies here?” Cassie whispered. “There were bodies on the other beaches we saw.”

  Her question made his skin crawl. “Maybe it’s a private beach.” Leo’s words fell flat. All his instincts told him something was off. He just didn’t know what was off.

  “Stay in the tree line,” he said. No way was he going to risk them going out in the open. “Stay alert. Something’s not right.”

  No one argued with this. Griggs once again led the way, picking his way through the ferns and redwoods. Leo noticed they’d entered an old growth section of the woods. The trees were goliaths, some of them as much as six feet in diameter.

  He wracked his brain, trying to figure out where they were. There weren’t a lot of old growth redwoods in his area. One nearby state park that boasted an old-growth grove, but it was miles away from the Russian River. He’d never heard of one on the south side of the river. Maybe they were on someone’s private property. Maybe—

  “Look out!” Cassie screamed.

  Burning pain lanced up his left side. Gunfire rang in his ears.

  35

  Bohemian Grove

  Something rustled in the trees behind them. Cassie spun around in time to see a Russian soldier lunge out of the darkness and slash at Leo with a knife.

  “Look out!” she screamed.

  A second Soviet popped up and aimed his machine gun—right at Jennifer.

  Cassie didn’t have time to think. She crashed into her sister. Her ears reverberated with the gunfire.

  Cassie and Jennifer hit the ground, landing on top of a large tree root. The bark bit through her sodden clothing and scraped along her ribcage.

  More gunfire lit the night. Cassie instinctively covered her ears and screamed.

  It was over in less than thirty seconds.

  Two Russians lay dead. Griggs had been shot in the shoulder. And Leo—