When the Future Ended (The Zombie Terror War Series Book 1)

by David Spell

  The run-down community looked quiet but they both had their rifles up and ready, moving cautiously. The road leading into the park had mobile homes on both sides of the street, most of them single-wides. The trailers were all older and hadn’t been cared for, even before the zombie apocalypse.

  A car was in one driveway and a pickup truck in another. McCain checked them to see if the keys were in the ignition, but they weren’t that lucky. Other than those two, there were no other vehicles to be seen. Nothing was moving and there were no signs of life.

  The main road that they were on circled the trailer park. Three side streets ran to the left off of the main drag, cutting the complex into thirds. They peered down the first street as they passed by it, not seeing anything of interest. McCain stopped suddenly, however, when they got to the second intersection. Elizabeth was walking backwards, scanning the area behind them, and bumped into her husband.

  “Oh, sorry!” she whispered. “What is it?”

  Chuck motioned for her to look. About halfway down the street, a gray SUV sat with all four doors standing open. Other than the vehicle, the street was empty. They both strained their ears, not hearing anything. The smell of death was in the air, though, the scent of decomposing flesh all around them. There are more Zs here, McCain thought, it’s just a question of where are they hiding?

  “What do you think?” Beth asked softly.

  “I think we need to go check to see if the keys are in it. If they are, that’s our ride out of here.”

  Noise behind them caused the couple to spin around. Zombies were pouring out of the woods where they had just been, over two hundred yards away. Sensing that they were finally closing in on their prey, the group began snarling, with many of them snapping their teeth open and closed.

  “Don’t they know that they’re dead?” McCain quipped. “Come on, let’s check this car.”

  They rushed down the street to the SUV, a Chevrolet Blazer. As they got close, they could see the dark splotches of dried blood all around the vehicle. Chuck swung out wide, pointing his rifle into the open SUV.

  “The remains of a body in the backseat,” he said, continuing forward to check the front.

  It was empty and he leaned in to check the ignition. Nothing. He checked the floor mat and around the driver’s seat but there were no keys to be found. Elizabeth was scanning the area but glanced into the Blazer, quickly wishing that she hadn’t. The badly mangled body of what had probably been a child lay on the rear seat, a bloody leg hanging out of the open door.

  A loud growl to their rear let them know that they had company. A young, professional, black male zombie in an expensive suit turned onto their street off the main drive, sprinting towards them just fifty yards away.

  Beth heard more growls from the other end of the street, as well. Chuck’s rifle barked and the infected businessman’s head snapped back, dark blood spurting from the wound between his eyes as he fell to the pavement. Elizabeth turned quickly to cover their flank. Two obese women, one white, one black, both clearly infected, were shuffling towards them from the opposite end of the short street.

  “Let’s cut between those trailers,” the CDC agent ordered, pointing towards two brown mobile homes across the street before breaking into a sprint.

  As they got to the next street over, the sounds of growling and snarling were coming from all around them now, echoing around the circular neighborhood, accompanying the stench of death that became stronger with every step the couple took. They could both hear and smell them, but other than those two fat Zs and the one that Chuck had shot, the streets right around them were still empty. As they approached the last section of the main roadway that wrapped around the complex, they finally saw where all the residents of the trailer park had been hiding. They were having a feeding frenzy in the front yard of a double-wide trailer just down on their left.

  The remains of several bodies were scattered over the small front yard and street in front of the residence. There wasn’t much left and many of the bones had been picked clean. A mixed group of at least thirty white, black, and Latino zombies turned towards their new victims and began growling in unison, shuffling in their direction. Two doors to the right of where Beth and Chuck stood, another pack of twenty were on their knees in front of a rundown single wide, ripping apart what had probably been a large dog.

  The snarls of the pursuing group were getting closer and Beth suddenly saw eight Zs come stumbling out of a trailer across the street. They all tumbled down the three wooden steps that led to the front door, landing in a pile in the front yard. In seconds, however, the infected were climbing to their feet.

  “They’re everywhere!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

  McCain grabbed her arm as she started to raise her rifle and pulled her onto the small wooden front porch of the trailer next to them. Zombies were now less than thirty feet away. Now we’re surrounded, he realized.

  “Up! We’re gonna get up on the roof,” he ordered.

  Elizabeth had no idea what he was talking about. How were they going to climb to the top of the single-wide mobile home?

  He bent over and cupped his hands in front of her. “Hurry! Gimme your foot and I’ll hoist you up.”

  The zombies were almost to them. Beth did what she was told and found herself being propelled upward, over the side of the trailer, landing on the flat roof. She quickly turned to check on her husband. Once he saw that she was up, he swung his leg up onto the top of the wooden rail that encircled the porch. From that vantage point, he was tall enough to reach over the small ledge to the top of the single-wide.

  As Chuck tried to pull himself up, however, the black nylon sling on his rifle caught on the side of the trailer. The infected were just a few feet away from the man she loved. Elizabeth scrambled to her feet and started firing at the closest ones. In her panic she rushed her shots and missed four times before hitting any of them.

  McCain suddenly gasped as a balding middle-aged Z with a large beer gut managed to sink it’s teeth into his left calf. Beth saw the thing holding him with both hands, biting his leg, and Chuck struggling to shake it off. She leaned down and with trembling hands fired into Beer Gut’s head, terrified that she would hit her husband.

  The bullet ripped open the back of the zombie’s skull and McCain was able to pull his aching leg free and swing it over the side of the trailer. Elizabeth tried to help pull him up, her lack of upper body strength making it difficult. He finally wiggled his rifle loose and pulled himself onto the roof where he lay panting. Disappointed Zs snarled just below them, their arms extended towards the top of the trailer.

  Wide-eyed with fear, Beth knelt next to Chuck, tears pouring down her face, clasping his hand. The single-wide was quickly surrounded by at least a hundred infected, their growls making it difficult to hear each other.

  The young woman pressed her mouth against the big man’s ear. “Did you get bit?” Terror made her voice quiver. Her husband had been infected and would turn into a zombie. He startled her with a kiss.

  “I don’t think so,” he answered, pulling himself to a sitting position and removing a small plastic bottle from a pouch on his vest.

  He squirted some liquid from the container onto his pants where the zombie’s teeth had just been. McCain had explained to her previously that the bottle contained a solution, created by a team of CDC scientists, which killed the virus on contact. It wouldn’t help you if you’d been bitten, but it was perfect for someone who’d had contact with infected bodily fluids and had gotten them on their clothes or skin.

  Chuck pulled up his kevlar-lined cargo pants and then his thermal underwear. He was wearing thick, calf-length socks under his combat boots. He pulled the sock down to reveal a large purple bruise in the shape of a bite mark, but the skin wasn’t broken. The kevlar pants had saved his life once again.

  Elizabeth fell into his arms sobbing. “I thought I was going to lose you.”

  The stress of the day and their current predicament, co
upled with Chuck’s close call, unleashed a torrent of tears. McCain held her, letting her cry it out, the sounds of the infected getting louder as the crowd around the trailer grew. They were safe for the moment, the Zs unable to climb onto the roof, but their situation was dire.

  As her sobs finally subsided, Beth took several deep breaths to get her emotions under control. She looked around at the zombies in various states of decay and decomposition gathered below them and shuddered. The smell and sounds of death surrounded them.

  After a few minutes, Beth yelled into Chuck’s ear, “What are we going to do now?”

  “I need a nap,” the CDC officer answered, lying back down the roof of the mobile home.

  “We’re just a few feet away from getting ripped apart and eaten and you want to take a nap?” she snapped, angrily.

  McCain laughed. “I’m just kidding, but all that running did wear me out. Why don’t you come lay down here with me and I’ll tell you what I’m thinking?”

  Centers for Disease Control Compound, East of Atlanta, Saturday, 1315 hours

  Jimmy opened the door to the pop-up trailer that he and Grace were sharing. He was carrying a styrofoam plate of food for the young woman. Grace had barely left the camper since they had arrived on Thursday. Of course, she needed to catch up on her rest, and she was also still recovering from her gunshot wounds.

  There was more to it, however. Jones was no shrink but it was clear that Cunningham was dealing with depression and probably PTSD after all that she had been through. The problem was, he had no idea how to help her. He really cared about her, though, and was willing to give her the time and space she needed to work through it.

  One of his goals was to get Grace to go to the dining hall with him. So far, she had only gone once when they had arrived on Thursday. After that, she had stayed inside and asked Jimmy to bring her back some food. Jones would keep asking but wouldn’t put any pressure on her. He knew that it would be good for her to meet some of the CDC people. Most of them had lost family and friends and Grace needed to know that she wasn’t the only one who was hurting.

  Jones put the food down on the small table and sat down on the edge of the double bed. Cunningham was on her side, facing away from him, a blanket pulled up around her shoulders. He touched her shoulder but got no response.

  The bed was small and Jimmy was thrilled to be sharing it with Grace. There was no doubt in his mind that he was in love and he thought that, maybe, she felt the same way. The loss of her family, however, was a devastating blow that she was struggling to overcome.

  They hadn’t been intimate yet but they had kissed several times. The campus police officer had apologized and asked him to be patient with her. The CDC officer was a patient man. His concern, however, was that her depression only seemed to be getting deeper.

  “I sure wish you would talk to me,” he whispered.

  After a moment, she rolled over onto her back. Her face was streaked with tears. He felt a stab of pain and helplessness as he realized that she had been crying again. He lay down next to her and held her tightly.

  “I’m sorry, Grace. I wish I knew what to say. It breaks my heart to see you like this.”

  She took a deep breath. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. You’ve been so good to me. I just feel like I’ve got this black cloud hanging over my head that I can’t shake and that it’s never gonna leave. I’ve always been a positive person until all this happened. Now, for the first time in my life, I’ve actually had suicidal thoughts.”

  “No, Gracie, please don’t say that. I can’t imagine how bad you’re hurting. When my mother died, I struggled with all kinds of emotions, but I eventually came out the other side. Is there anything I can do to help you? I…I’m in love with you and I’ll do anything to help you get better.”

  Oh, crap, Jones thought. I just told her I loved her. There’s no going back now, but it’s true. I really do love her.

  Grace didn’t say anything and Jimmy thought he might have overplayed his hand.

  “I love you, too,” she finally said, softly. “And don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt myself. My daddy was a pastor and I know that suicide is never the answer. Plus, you risked your life to save me. We’ve already been through a lot together, haven’t we?”

  Jimmy chuckled. “We sure have. That was the journey of a lifetime. And I don’t know if I’ve told you this or not, but you are one tough warrior. I’d fight next to you any day of the week. Of course, right now, I’m enjoying sleeping next to you.”

  Cunningham laughed. “That’s sweet. I don’t think I’ve ever thought of myself as a warrior before.”

  They lay there, holding each other for several minutes. “What do you think happened to Chuck?” Grace finally asked.

  “I don’t know. We know how tough it is out there. I only had to get to Athens. He was going all the way to North Carolina, but now you got my curiosity up. Have you got a thing for Chuck? I saw the look on your face when Eddie told us he hadn’t been heard from.”

  She looked into his eyes, giving him a sad smile. “No, I just told you that I love you. I don’t even know Chuck. We only talked a little bit that day in Athens but I watched him holding that woman, Rebecca, right? I saw him holding her after she’d been shot, but then I saw him later in the day fighting for everything he was worth to save some innocent people he didn’t even know. I guess I admire that and I wanted to talk to him about how he overcame his grief and kept functioning.”

  “I don’t think he ever overcame it,” Jimmy answered. “If anything, he just compartmentalized it and kept going. We ran so many missions after Rebecca was killed, and Chuck had gotten promoted to run the entire Atlanta CDC enforcement operation.

  “We all knew that he was dying inside, but he also was a serious badass who just kept operating at a high level. After his promotion, he could’ve stayed in the office but that’s not how Chuck works. He always led from the front. In my heart of hearts, I figure he’s fine and we’ll eventually see him driving up and taking charge again.”

  South of Hendersonville, North Carolina, Saturday, 1425 hours

  Elizabeth had grown numb to the sounds of the infected surrounding them. There had to be over two hundred zombies shoving against the sides of the mobile home. The stench was overpowering and she had pulled her scarf up to cover her nose and mouth. She had asked Chuck why he hadn’t tried to get inside a trailer rather than climbing on top. He had shrugged and said that they would’ve been trapped if they had done that and the Zs would eventually been able to force their way in.

  “But we’re trapped up here on top now,” she said, trying to stay calm, the realization that they were going to die in that mobile home park taking center stage in her mind.

  They wouldn’t be able to reconnect with Melanie. She and Chuck would never get the chance to grow old together. They wouldn’t have the opportunity to have a baby. The young woman tried to suppress her tears, knowing that it wouldn’t help anything, wiping her wet eyes on her sleeve.

  Since they had stopped running, Beth found herself shivering, her sweat now causing her body temperature to drop. The outside temps were probably in the high forties or low fifties but would plummet once the sun went down. Both of them had wet feet from their run through the creek earlier. One of the first things Chuck had made her do on the roof was take off her wet socks, replacing them with one of the two dry pairs in her pack. Of course, McCain’s pack and his extra socks had been left behind and he was starting to shiver, as well.

  The big man sat next to her calmly studying the satellite maps of the area. When Karen Foster had requested the couple visit her parents, Chuck had asked her to check the technical college’s library for maps of the entire area between Hartwell, Georgia, and Hendersonville, North Carolina. The federal police officer leaned towards Elizabeth, holding the maps where she could see them.

  “Okay, this is where we are,” pointing out the mobile home park. “The woods over there only go for about a qu
arter of a mile. Then we’ll come to that neighborhood,” he said, his finger resting on a large residential area. “If we’ve gotten some distance between us and these nasties we’ll look for a house to bed down in. If we’re still in contact, we keep running.”

  He pointed to another area on the map. “The forest behind that subdivision ends after a few hundred yards and then we’ll come out near this big church. There’s a lot of homes around it so we should be able to find a safe place to rest for the night.”

  Beth looked at her husband like he was crazy. “But how do we get away from here?” she asked, pointing at the zombies below them. “We’re surrounded!”

  Chuck grinned at her. “Yeah, that part of the plan is a little shaky.”

  He reached into his cargo pocket and withdrew a cylindrical object. “This is a flash bang grenade. It’s really loud. When we’re ready to go, I’ll toss it as far as I can behind us. Hopefully, they’ll be drawn to the explosion and we can slip away.”

  Chuck touched her arm and looked into her eyes. “Look, we’ve got to try and get away from here. There’s no way we can survive the elements up here over night. I’ll throw the grenade. We’ll wait a couple of minutes for the Zs to get moving that way. I’ll climb down and then help you down and we go back into Plan B mode.”

  Elizabeth finally nodded. She trusted Chuck with her life but was still terrified at being pursued by such a large group of zombies. What if the Zs didn’t rush towards the explosion? What if she or Chuck fell down while they were being pursued?

  He was right, though. They had to try. They would freeze to death if they couldn’t find shelter. McCain checked her rifle, as well as his own equipment. He told her that the goal was to not shoot any more than they had to.

  After a few minutes, Chuck leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips. “I love you so much,” he said, and then stood, pulling his pretty wife to her feet.