Twilight of the Dead - Free Zombie Novel

Twilight of the Dead - A Free Zombie Serial Novel by Travis Adkins

2007-10-31T09:32:00.044-05:00

Five years after the dead rose a small band of survivors has taken refuge in the fortified town of Eastpointe. When a newcomer arrives claiming to know the location of the antidote to the zombie plague, it sends the town into an uproar. To retrieve this cure, a group of survivors must venture outside the relative safety of the compound's walls and into a world ruled and dominated by the flesh-eating undead.

Start reading at the beginning, or pick up where you left off with the links below.

Chapter One

2007-06-09T08:41:00.002-05:00

Awake

It was the doorbell—and not the nightmare—that woke her.

She had slept long past it, though not without considerable effort. Her comforter was in a ball against the wall and her sheet was wrapped around her in such a way that seemed nigh impossible at first glance.

Raising her head, she inspected the clock on the nightstand.

Nine forty-five.

Time to wake up anyway.

The doorbell rang again, the noisy ding-dong sound of it one of the few remnants of the world before.

She rose up and began unraveling her bedsheet, unwinding it from around her body and pushing it aside. She swung her legs over and put her feet down. She extended her arms and arched her back, feeling it crack in several places, then reached down to the floor to retrieve her jeans. She found them in the same rumpled state she had left them the night before. She straightened them, slithered both her legs inside, then stood to pull them up to her waist. After a zip and a fasten she was stumbling tiredly from the bedroom and into the living room.

Sunlight was bursting through the gaps in the curtains, its golden rays capturing millions of undesirable dust molecules floating in the air. They stirred and undulated from her path as she broke through them, disrupting the calm that had settled over the house since the night before and welcoming in the new day in their own grandiose, miniscule style.

All the artificial lights in the house were switched off—save for the nightlight in the hallway—just as she had left them.

The carpet was soft on her feet and maybe even a little damp. (She wanted a dehumidifier, but the town committees considered them an unnecessary use of electricity.) There was a well-worn path from the bedroom to the couch and a very noticeable lesser-worn path from the bedroom to the front door. She followed this path and by the time she reached her destination her stumbling feet had found their coordination and her morning grogginess had dissipated enough that her brain would be useful.

She could catch glimpses of movement through the modernistic diagonal windows in the door, but not enough to determine whom exactly was out there. So she gathered her best morning voice and asked, “Who is it?”

And the muffled, masculine reply answered, “Leon.”

She yawned ferociously, swiped her hair and tucked it behind an ear, then went about the process of opening the door. First she pulled away the metal bar and set it aside, then she released deadbolts one, two, and three, and finally she turned the handle and pulled open the heavy wooden monster.

Sunlight hit her straight on in its typical unforgiving manner, mercilessly wounding her morning eyes. She had not grown accustomed to this despite the many times it had already happened, nor had she even considered this annoyance when she decided on a house facing east.

Yet sure enough, when her pupils shrank enough to filter away all this new light, standing there on her porch, she saw, was Leon Wolfe. Wearing jeans, a plain blue shirt, and sporting his styled hair, he appeared to have been awake for at least two hours already and had something to show for it. In his hands he held a styrofoam container, which he was extending to her in offerance, all the while grinning his obnoxious grin.

She glanced at the container through the screen door, then back at him. “And this is...?”

“Breakfast.”

“Breakfast?”

“I took a chance,” he explained in his typical, arrogant, know-it-all demeanor, his head cocked slightly to one side. “I didn’t see you in the cafeteria. Haven’t seen you anywhere, actually. Not for a week.”

She thought about it for a moment, then opened the screen door and snatched the styrofoam container from his hands. After opening it for a quick inspection she saw that he wasn’t lying—that it wasn’t another trick—and that there was actually breakfast inside. Grilled bread (better than toast,) scrambled eggs, a slice of ham, a sealed cup of what looked to be orange juice, and one of those pesky little plastic forks. She closed the container and looked at him oddly.

“Why are you bringing me this?” she asked.

“Because I know how you are,” he replied. “You don’t stock your refrigerator and you don’t leave your house until you’re two minutes away from starving to death.”

She groaned.

She knew that accepting this would give him a small amount of satisfaction—and that was something she’d rather avoid—but then again, having breakfast delivered would spare her a trip out of the house. This way she could just stay inside most of the day, at least until dinnertime.

She stepped away without a word, leaving him standing there holding open the screen door. She then found a spot on the couch between two piles of unfolded laundry and placed the styrofoam container on the coffee table in front of her. A bit hesitant, she peeled open the orange juice and took a sip. It tasted like orange juice and not something else, which was a good start. She licked her lips. For concentrate, it wasn’t bad at all.

“Is this an invitation to come in?”

She glanced back over to the door, took a deep breath and shrugged her shoulders, and mumbled, “You’re still here? Whatever then.”

He stepped inside and let the screen door swing closed. Though he didn’t know it, he was the first person she had allowed to enter.

“Juice taste all right?” he asked.

She shrugged.

“A Florida chick like you has probably tasted better, but, oh well.”

She nodded sourly.

“Well, good morning, Leon,” he said with sarcastic dryness. “Nice of you to think of me and bring me breakfast. I thought the world had forgotten I lived here.”

She didn’t bother looking at him. She was almost tempted to roll her eyes, but even that would require too much effort. “Good morning, Leon,” she repeated. “Nice of you to think of me and bring me breakfast. I thought the world had forgotten I lived here.” She paused for a moment, then added, “And I like it that way.”

He smiled. She would have preferred him to have gotten angry and stormed out, thereby leaving her the hell alone.

“Can I sit?” he asked, motioning to the cushion next to her.

She put down her orange juice and shrugged her shoulders.

There was a pile of unfolded laundry where he wanted to sit, but true to Leon fashion, instead of pushing it aside he made an event out of it.

“Ah, what do we have here?” he teased, his hand probing closer. “Female underthings?” At this point he appeared ready to take something and—more than likely—tease her. “Hey, I recognize this one...”

She turned quickly and snapped “Stay out of my stuff” as she knocked his hand away. She then used her forearm to swoop all the clothes off the cushion and create an even messier heap on the floor. After mumbling, “Show some respect and stop being a goddamn brat,” she turned forward again, hoping maybe he would leave her alone to eat. Her stomach was growling, after all.

Leon remained standing, scratching his head.

Books, some open and some closed, some disregarded without care, were scattered across the floor. Videotapes minus their dustjackets were stacked in three piles next to the television against the far wall and compact discs without their jewel cases were stacked haphazardly in a cylindrical pile on the stereo. A layer of dust had begun to settle over most everything. Now added to all this was the clothing she had just strewn about to help stir some of it up.

“Your housekeeping’s worse than mine,” he commented.

“My maid’s on vacation,” she countered. “Is there some reason for you being here?”

“I brought you breakfast.”

“Yes, I told you thank you.”

He slowly eased himself down on the cushion next to her where the clothes used to be. He didn’t get close to her, but he didn’t sit far away either.

She tried her best to ignore him as she cut up the breakfast ham, being careful not to cut into the styrofoam in the process. She took a bite. The ham wasn’t too bad, but it was kind of salty, which was to be expected.

After a moment Leon clicked his tongue, attempting to garner her full attention, and said, “We need to talk, Courtney.”

It was inevitable. She exhaled deeply and dropped the plastic fork into the scrambled eggs. She turned her head then, not enough to look at him completely, but just enough to see him in the corner of her eyes. She asked, “Are you just going to keep babbling on? What’s the use of bringing me breakfast if you’re not going to let me eat it while its warm?”

“I just want to talk,” he replied. “The way you are, it won’t take long.”

She let her gaze fall to the carpet.

He began, “I’ve been doing some thinking.”

She couldn’t resist: “Congratulations. I know that must’ve been hard.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he exclaimed, putting his hands in the air. “This is going completely wrong. I didn’t come here to argue with you.”

“You’re being irritating.”

“I’m not trying to be irritating. I’m trying to be... I don’t know. I thought I could be playful with you now. Maybe I’m trying to make you smile.”

“It’s not working.”

“I can tell.”

Then there came a noise from outside—someone shouting, “Toss me the shuttlecock!” Then someone answering, “Shuttlecock?” and another person replying, “The shuttlecock!”

Peering across the room and through the screen door, she eyed some of her neighbors starting a game of badminton across the street. Cindy was over there and it looked like Mike and Delmas were there too. They’d need a fourth player and she knew that that was where Leon would rather be, instead of in her messy house having the one-week-after chat. The people across the street were his friends—not hers—and they never got tired of shouting ‘shuttlecock!’

Idiots—like him.

However, Leon didn’t seem distracted by the new noise. He hadn’t even turned his head. He restated, “We need to talk.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because.”

“Then just say what you’re going to say.”

“I don’t know what to say. I was hoping you could do half the talking. You know—like two people do when they’re having a conversation.”

With a deep, frustrated sigh, she tilted her head back and looked at the ceiling. She saw a couple of dusty cobwebs up there and quickly put her head down again. The house really was a mess.

“Fine,” she snapped. “Then I’ll just say it and we can get this over with: It was a mistake.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say.”

“Then why’d you bother?”

He grinned his annoying grin. “Because that’s the typical scapegoat answer.”

She gritted her teeth and groaned, simply not in the mood for a morning-after talk—a week-after talk—with Leon Wolfe. She said, “You slept with a girl. That’s not a new experience for you, is it? Not you, the local gigolo, the local slut. Do you go back and talk with all your conquests? Try to string them along in case you want to go back for seconds someday?”

He chuckled softly, then stood and walked to the door. Instead of leaving like she would have wanted, however, he leaned against the nearby wall and put his hands in his jeans pockets. “I thought your attitude toward me might’ve changed,” he said. “I couldn’t figure out why you showed up at my door because I knew you hated me—And you still hate me.”

“Yes,” she replied.

“But I don’t hate you.” He paused a moment, and mumbled, “Gigolo... I wish.” He chuckled again.

She leaned back on the couch and threw her feet onto the coffee table, being careful not to spill the styrofoam container. Even though it was a gift from Leon Wolfe—of all people—it meant she wouldn’t have to go over to the cafeteria at least until later today.

He said, “Tell me why you don’t like me and then I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Well, gee,” she began, turning to glare at him. “I can’t seem to forget that one time when you served me a glass of vinegar and told me it was ice water—”

“Wait,” he interjected. “That was almost five years ago. I was a kid. Jesus, we were only like, what—seventeen?”

“You were an asshole then and you’re an asshole now.”

“I did get in trouble for that, you know. Made to stay on food service duty for month. You know how much it sucks to be a lunch lady for an entire month?”

“Well, I was sick for almost that long.”

“Because of a little vinegar? I kind of doubt that.”

She turned away to stare at the opposite wall. There might be emotions growing behind her eyes and that was the absolute last thing she wanted him to see.

“It was a joke,” he explained. “A prank. Granted, yes, a bad one. But I didn’t single you out. I was hoping to get one of those cranky Odd Fellows running this place. It was just plain random that it was you who got that glass of vinegar.” He paused for a moment, staring off at nothing, then softly added, “So why else do you hate me? Is there any other reason?”

She didn’t say anything.

After waiting for an answer and not receiving one, he looked around the room again, gathering his thoughts, and said, “You came to me, remember? Completely out of the blue. So did you get what you wanted? Did you get it out of your system?”

“What do you care?” she mumbled.

“Because I see the way you live,” he replied, motioning with his outstretched arms to the wholeness of the room’s interior. “Jesus Christ, Courtney, this is depressing.”

She turned to look at him then, despite the pressure building in her eyes, and said as fiercely as she could, “Leave.”

“Tell me why you hate me first.”

She looked away again, a sensation running through her veins causing the muscles in her arms to tighten and her fingers to begin closing into fists.

A moment passed.

“Are you going to tell me?” he asked again.

She mumbled, “I could have fit in here if you hadn’t ruined it.”

“What?”

A spark lit in her gut. She stood and stomped over to him and when she got close enough she pressed her forefinger hard into his chest. She gritted, “You jerk. You don’t get it. What you did did single me out. You and all your other jerk friends—the way you laughed at me and teased me from then on. Things were hard enough without all that.”

Looking shocked—and a bit scared by her sudden aggression—he stuttered, “Nobody made fun of you.”

“The hell you say,” she retorted. “Do you realize how hard it was to make friends? Impossible. That’s how hard.”

“But you didn’t even try. You just went around with your sassy attitude pretending you didn’t need anybody. You can act as high and mighty as you want, doll, but I see through you.”

And with that, she hit him. Not a girly, feminine slap on the cheek, but a full-fledged, closed-fisted slug on the chin; the perfect spot—she knew—if you wanted to knock someone the hell out. Besides, it just felt right. It seemed that his chin and her knuckles were just destined to be together.

Reeling, clutching his jaw with one hand and holding the wall with the other, struggling not to see the inevitable stars, he mumbled, “Ouch. Jesus, you hit hard for a skinny girl.”

She knew that now was the opportune time. This was when she could tell him that the morning after their little encounter she had immediately sent the clothes she had worn to his house to the laundromat, then took a two-hour shower simply to get rid of the last scent of him. She could tell him how it irked her to no end that his Maine accent occasionally caused him to pronounce R’s as ah’s. She could tell him how his narcissistic, nothing’s-wrong-in-the-world attitude had no business being around her. Furthermore, she wanted to mention just how thoroughly the very sight—the very thought of him—disgusted her.

Instead of saying these things, however, she pulled back her fist. Talking simply required too much energy.

Seeing another punch in his future, he grabbed her wrist and forced it down to her side. “Wait. Just wait.” He used his free hand to adjust his jaw once more. “Okay, maybe I deserved that.”

She cocked her head to the side as if to say, ‘Well... DUH.’

“I don’t know anything about you,” he said. “I just know everyone has some kind of story about how they got to Eastpointe, and stories about people they know that didn’t get to Eastpointe. I just—”

“Leave,” she again gritted.

“Wait, I’m going to try to explain this to you,” he said. He slowly let go of her wrist, certainly wondering if he would regret it, then softly continued, “I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t blessed with an overabundance of brains, so I’m a little slow catching on to things. But I’m starting to figure you out.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah—You were in love with him.”

She took a step back. “What? Who?”

“Gordon Levi.”

She didn’t reply just yet, but instead stared at him angrily.

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

“That’s entirely none of your business.”

“Aha!” he said, his eyes widening with enthusiasm. “You just inadvertently answered my question.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, letting her eyes drift away. After a moment she asked, “So, what kind of name are you going to call me first?”

“I’m not going to call you a name,” he replied. “Why would I do that?”

“Then what are you going to point out that I don’t already know? That he was twice my age? Or just something as simple as him being black? Or that I was just seventeen and I didn’t know what I was doing?”

“I’m not saying anything.”

“Then why are you bothering me with this?”

“I’m just trying to figure you out, that’s all.” He lifted his hand close to her face and seemed ready to make some kind of tender motion she knew she wouldn’t be comfortable with—especially from him.

She shied away.

He lowered his arm. “If you loved him, then I’m sorry he didn’t make it.”

“Just go, Leon.”

Instead of obliging her, he stayed right where he was and explained, “Before everything went nuts, I was in high school, like you. I played baseball and I guess, well, that pretty much sums up and defines my life til that point. I didn’t really get over that whole locker room mentality, all right? So, what I did to you, that vinegar thing, it was to impress other people, the new people I met here. It was wrong of me and it was immature and it was stupid. I admit it and I’m sorry. But I’ve grown up since then. We all have.”

“Will you leave now?”

“Just one more thing.” He smiled then, that cocky smile, but whether he was forcing it or not she couldn’t tell. “This might just be a psychological issue, but I have a thing for bad girls.”

“Well,” she groaned, “I don’t have a thing for pretty guys.”

He laughed. “You think I’m pretty?”

She quickly caught her slip of the tongue and compensated for it by pointing to the door and stating, “Out.”

Then came a mistake, when she caught his gaze and allowed herself to hold it. Their blue eyes meeting and staying met made her very uncomfortable.

“You’re a gorgeous chick,” he said. “Always have been. And when you’re not yelling at me or hitting me, I think I actually like you.”

This statement caught her much by surprise and it might even have flattered her had his New England voice not ruined it.

She stated, “Did I mention I hate your accent?”

Another smile. “Oh, come on. I’ve had five years to blend my style with everyone else’s. The accent’s going away, so it’s not all that bad.”

She sneered. “Yes it is. Leave.”

His smile faded. He pushed open the screen door and held it there while he paused in thought. With his back still turned, and in a tone that sounded both sarcastic and apologetic, he softly stated, “I didn’t realize I was the sole cause of you being unhappy. I’m sorry.”

Then he left, heading down the concrete walkway and across the street, probably to join in the game of badminton.

Courtney closed the main door, putting the outside out of sight again.

And that was that.

She returned to the couch, but instead of digging back into her breakfast she put her hands through her hair and rested her palms against her temple.

She got even angrier. She didn’t get to tell him about her repetitious nightmares and how she still had them even with someone in bed beside her, so her one night of weakness hadn’t helped matters at all.

He probably wouldn’t have understood anyway.

Intermission: Radio Transcript

2007-06-01T08:33:00.002-05:00

Transcript from

The Morning Show with

Face-For-Radio Rick (Richard Snyder)

and Easy-Going Earl Boy (Earl Boyland)

WKTT-FM 104.7

RICK: Good morning. They’re telling the FCC to warn us to avoid using the Z-word. But what else do we have to talk about? It’s everywhere now. They may have been able to contain it at one time. Quarantine it somewhere. And maybe they tried.

EARL: Well I’ll tell you this and it isn’t a threat, its...

RICK: Thank God. We got a call. Good morning caller. Thanks for sparing us another Easy-Going tirade.

EARL: [expletive] you Face-For-Radio Rick.

RICK: Where are you calling from?

CALLER: Hello?

RICK: Yes caller we hear you. Where are you calling from?

CALLER: Hey. Good morning Rick. Good morning Earl. Long time listener first time caller.

EARL: We always welcome our virgin callers. Don’t worry. We’ll be gentle.

RICK: Yes Easy-Going Earl we never get tired of hearing your catch phrase.

CALLER: Thanks guys. You’re downtown right?

RICK: Smack dab thereabouts.

CALLER: Hate to be where you are. Hear its chaos.

EARL: Getting there.

RICK: How are things in your area?

CALLER: Well I’m looking out the window right now and I see dead people. Pardon the cliché.

EARL: From east coast to west coast. They’re all over the place. Like a [expletive] Michael Jackson video. Except we’re not dancing and neither are they.

RICK: Seriously, who remembers the eighties?

CALLER: They say it takes massive head trauma to bring one down.

RICK: Whoa. Stop right there. We cannot condone killing anyone.

EARL: We’re not condoning anything.

RICK: Nor can we give instructions on how to do it.

CALLER: But those freaks are killing people. Have you seen what they do?

RICK: Don’t say it. You’ll just gross us out.

EARL: This is such [expletive].

CALLER: [expletive] right, its [expletive].

RICK: I just wish someone would tell us what exactly is causing this problem.

CALLER: They’re eating people. That’s the problem.

EARL: What a way to go.

RICK: We’re not supposed to talk about that remember?

EARL: We’re not even supposed to say the Z-word.

CALLER: Can I?

RICK: Yes. Technically you’re allowed. But we’re not.

CALLER: Zombie. Ghoul. Flesh-eating dead person. And here’s one for you: Somnambulist. Did I say that right?

EARL: I believe you did sir.

RICK: Well done.

CALLER: So what are we supposed to do? Just step around them on our way to work? Say don’t eat my family while I’m out trying to earn a living?

EARL: We supposed to just drive by and wave?

RICK: I guess so. Until they stop treating them like they’re still alive. This isn’t a problem that’s just going to go away.

2007-01-01T18:25:00.001-06:00

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2007-01-01T18:15:00.001-06:00

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2007-01-01T13:23:00.000-06:00

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2006-10-31T12:39:00.000-06:00

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Prologue

2006-05-30T11:02:00.003-05:00

The Corridor

Perception determines reality.

Growing up, she may not have believed this proverb or even understood it, but as she peered down the dark corridor yet again, no other adage rang more true. This is what she was seeing and so that made it very real. In actuality she was pulling her bedsheets closer in clinched fists and mimicking every sensation and emotion of the fake life.

But what was fake and what was real?

It didn’t matter. She was in the long, dark hallway again and she had to deal with it. Concrete walls were erected on both sides, keeping her in, the cold and callous bricks rough on her fingertips. Miles—it seemed—of nothingness stretched out in front of her and behind her and she was lost somewhere in the middle, the blackness overwhelming and the sensation of hopelessness already seeping in.

And then began the pounding, thumping, thunderous sound that originated somewhere far ahead of her, reverberating through the hallway and in her eardrums, disrupting any thoughts she could be having and shaking the very floor she stood on.

This much was always the same: the concrete corridor, the dark, the noise. And up to a certain point, the events that followed were also the same.

Probing with outstretched arms she made her way forward, one foot after the other. Though she had learned through the years to be silent in every movement she made, somehow she wasn’t able to suppress the sound of her loud and exaggerated footfalls no matter how softly she stepped.

Frustration.

Her steps always remained out of sync with the pounding noise ahead of her and the result sounded a lot like some kind of music fit only for neanderthals, like the beating of tribal war drums urging her forward.

Fear.

A light began to appear at the end of the corridor, rectangular in shape with a hollow belly. When she got close enough to realize the light was the outline of a door and that beyond that door the sun was shining through the cracks, she stopped. Someone—or several someones—were on the other side, banging on the door, wanting to get in.

Uncertainty.

She called out, “Who’s there?”

Her voice carried through the corridor without reverberation or echo.

And then there was silence. The thundering ceased and all she could hear was her own stuttering breaths—cold intakes of oxygen drawn softly from her concrete sarcophagus.

Then it came—a reply to her question—an even more ferocious beating against the door, so hard and violent that the light started to distort and wobble, likely pushing the durability of the frame to its absolute limits.

Then began the part of her dream that made even less sense than the rest of it. With no more thought or hesitation, she walked to the door. Her eyes, open wide, saw nothing but the light. Her ears, listening intently, heard nothing but the pounding, beckoning sound that pulled her near. Even her footfalls—which had been so noisy before—were now lost amidst the din.

The door itself was a heavy-duty metal bastard. Three locks adorned the space above the handle and each one begged to be unlatched.

She turned the one on top first. With a modest click it let her know it was undone and useless. The banging slowed and the silent intervals became steady and somewhat rhythmic. She turned the next lock. It too made a modest click. The banging intensified once more, remaining rhythmic, cheering her efforts. So with a satisfied exhale she turned the final lock.

The banging was constant now; no silent intervals.

boomboomboomboomboom

She reached down and placed her hand on the doorknob, feeling it to be much warmer and inviting than the coldness of the corridor and its concrete walls. The sun was out there, she knew. There was light out there to extinguish this dismal darkness. There was warmth—and, perhaps—hope.

She turned the handle and let the door swing open.

Sunlight shot into her eyes like daggers, brightening her face and blinding her momentarily. It was a good sensation, even if only temporary.

But then came the hands—thousands of cold dead hands attached to cold dead arms attached to cold decaying bodies, clothing ripped and shredded and polished with a layer of blood, dirt, and muck. Eyelids rotted off, fully exposed eyeballs looked at her with a glassy, soulless stare. Thousands of faces with blue skin and formaldehyde-filled veins, tendons and muscles pulling away to show cold, white bones. A thousand dead bodies wanting to partake of hers.

And this is where the dream sometimes varied.

In some instances—most instances—the dead hands would latch onto her and pull her out of the dark corridor and into the sunny area occupied by this mob of hungry corpses—and there they would rip at her shirt and claw at her jeans and, while she screamed in terror, they would open their mouths and feast on her flesh, taking off chunks of her skin with each grisly bite, some of the greedier ones pulling her arms off at the sockets with a violent tug and taking them elsewhere to chew on separately. Her intestines came next, pulled from her open belly like sausages and dragged into the crowd like a bloody rope. And after several seconds of intense agony, with her eyes open wide she finally transpired, staring up at the very mob that had taken the sun from her, casting their shadows down across what remained of her body.

Yes, that is how the dream ended in most instances, and—despite its gruesomeness—it was actually the ending she preferred.

But what she got this time was the finale she dreaded most, the one where all the dead arms lowered to their dead sides and instead of pulling her out they invited her in.

—To join their ranks.

She brought her own arm up to her face to study it under the sunlight. It was blue and cold. Frantically, she pressed her palms to her cheeks and felt that they, too, were cold. She looked down at herself to see her clothes ripped to shreds, maggoty decaying skin showing through. Finally she stopped everything and stood completely still, hoping and praying to feel something in her chest. Her heart should have been beating at a frantic, adrenaline-pumping pace, but instead it was utterly dormant. She felt nothing.

She was one of them.

And so she stepped out of the corridor to join her new comrades, basking in the glory of just another day, all cognizant thought swept from her mind. Only one motive was driving her now:

Hunger.

2006-04-19T17:14:00.000-05:00

After Twilight: Walking with the Dead is available for purchase now from many stores including:

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Amazon Canada
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Barnes & Noble
Many Others

Eastpointe Map

2006-04-13T17:06:00.006-05:00

Click to zoom

Twilight

2006-04-13T16:43:00.001-05:00

Leon staggered across the makeshift bridge to the rooftop Courtney was on and then collapsed, sitting weakly with his back against the wall. His arms hung lazily at his sides and he let go of his gun. He started coughing.

Groaning and gritting her teeth, Courtney grabbed the sides of the heavy metal grating and lifted it enough to drop it down into the alley. It whistled as it fell, then came down hard on the skulls of several zombies, crushing them upon impact. Now it didn’t matter how many ghouls came up the fire escape—they still wouldn’t be able to cross the chasm and get to their meal on the other side.

Courtney went to Leon and knelt in front of him. She said, “They’re all over the humvees. They’re everywhere. But we might be able to cross the next rooftop and find a way down somewhere else.”

He lifted his weary head, eyelids halfway closed, forced a cough to stay in his chest by swallowing it back down, and muttered, “You can, but I’m just going to stay here. Sorry.”

She reached into her belt and pulled out the syringe Dane had given her. She displayed it to Leon and said, “You’re going to be okay. This is the Cure.”

He forced his eyelids open and replied, “Says who? Says Dane?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I think he was telling the truth.”

“And what if he wasn’t? What if it causes me more pain?”

“Leon—”

“—No,” he interrupted. “I’m dying, Courtney. I don’t want any more complications. I just want to go easy.”

Courtney dropped the syringe and put her palms on his cheeks, forcing him to focus on her eyes. She sternly told him, “Leon, yes, you are dying. And you will die unless we take a chance that Dane was telling the truth.”

Leon weakly shook his head side-to-side.

“Leon, please,” Courtney begged, “Let me do this. Let me at least try to help you.”

Leon, seeing wetness forming across her eyelids, asked, “Why?”

She swallowed hard. She knew there were a lot of reasons why she didn’t want him to die and she knew she didn’t have time to discuss them all. For starters, it would take both of them working together to even have a chance of escaping this dead city. If one died the other would probably end up like the leather-clad corpse on the next rooftop who had swallowed his own shotgun. Besides that, she wanted to tell Leon that maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all and that she thought he died once already and she didn’t like it. On top of that, there weren’t many decent guys left in the world to pick from. She didn’t want him to simply fade away.

So she stated, “I don’t want you to die.”

He sighed and turned his head. He mumbled, “It might be too late anyway.”

“But it might not,” she quickly replied.

“And suppose it is the Cure,” he pointed out, “Are you sure you want to use the last of it on me?”

She gently turned his head so he was looking at her again and very sincerely replied, “Yes. Every drop of it.”

He stared into her eyes and she stared back.

After a moment he whispered, “Okay, we’ll give it a try.”

With a breath of relief, Courtney pulled the cap off the needle and—after seeing how long and thick it truly was—commented, “I think it has to be injected straight into your heart.”

“What?!”

“Your heart,” she repeated. “You know, like an adrenaline shot?”

“You’re using a lot of guesswork here.”

“But it makes sense. By injecting it directly into your heart it would spread the dormant infection through your bloodstream a lot faster. Don’t you remember Dane’s lecture?”

Leon weakly shrugged his shoulders and mumbled, “Dane was full of shit about a lot of things.”

Courtney motioned for him to lean forward, then she unzipped his wetsuit in the back and pulled it off his shoulders, minding the bandaged bite wound, and tugged it off his arms.

His torso was no longer just pale—it was turning blue.

Courtney ran her finger over his chest, using it to feel for the area where his heart was beating. When she found it she memorized it before pulling her hand away.

She hoped it wasn’t too late.

She sniffled and wiped her eyes, clearing her vision. Her breath was beginning to flutter. She forced herself to stay strong just a little longer.

She took aim with the needle and reeled it back. She knew she would need a lot of force and momentum to pierce his breastplate.

She whispered, “Are you ready?”

He nodded.

With one powerful stroke she drove the needle into his chest and pushed the plunger. Leon’s head fell back and his mouth opened and he screamed long and loud—so loud he drowned out the moans and groans of the dead city.

His body startled convulsing.

She pulled out the needle and tossed it, then wrapped her arms around him to hold him still. His body shook for several more seconds, then gradually the shaking subsided.

She let go and studied his face, almost expecting him to be dead, but he was still very much alive. Actually, nothing seemed to change at all.

She asked, “Do you feel any different?”

He paused as he evaluated his condition, and replied, “I can’t tell.”

Courtney sat down beside him and leaned against the wall as zombies on the adjacent rooftop started moaning and hollering even louder, angry that they could no longer see their would-be meal. She situated herself close to Leon and let her head rest on his shoulder. She brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, locking her fingers.

They had a nice view of the setting sun from here.

After a moment Leon said, “If I’m still alive in the morning we’ll see about getting out of here.”

“And we’ll know the Cure works,” Courtney added. “We can go back to the ship and search for more. Later, of course.”

“Oh, hell with that,” Leon tiredly replied. “Somebody else can do it.”

“Good idea.”

He turned his head to face her and added, “But if it doesn’t work you’re going to have to shoot me. You know that, right?”

Courtney sniffled and nodded slightly. She whispered, “I know.”

Together they watched the sun go down. Aside from the riotous noise of all the moaning and groaning and shuffling feet of the thousands of undead surrounding them, it was a perfect twilight.

And she didn’t take it for granted.

END

One Second Later

2006-04-13T16:41:00.000-05:00

Had she been a lip-reader, she might have realized what Dane was trying to say were the foulest obscenities a man can throw at a woman. It proved that—just like zombies—Dane’s head would continue to function when severed as long as the brain was undamaged. However, since he no longer had access to his vocal cords, he couldn’t give sounds to the curses his mouth was forming.

It didn’t matter though. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Next to his head was his severed arm, chainmail sliced cleanly in two. Though the arm didn’t move, it still held the pipe bomb in a tight grip between its fingers. Courtney kneeled down and pulled the bomb loose, then pinched the fuse between her thumb and forefinger of her gloved hand. To her dismay, the sparks continued to burn down the fuse from the inside out.

Panicking, she flung the bomb off the roof where it fell six stories down to Main Street. It bounced off some random zombie’s head, leaving a large dent in its cranium, and landed on the pavement amidst hundreds of shuffling feet.

Covering her ears, Courtney peered over the edge to watch the result.

It was magnificent really. There was a thunderous boom and a fiery explosion that sent every zombie in a thirty-foot radius sailing through the air in little bits and pieces and dominoing many others, showering them with blood. When the dust settled and the smoke cleared, there was a large crater in the middle of the road.

Courtney uncovered her ears.

She picked up her wakizashi and sheathed it, then picked up her Socom where it had been lost during the struggle with Dane. She reached into the back of her belt for another clip and loaded it into the gun. Finally, she situated the red dot on Dane’s forehead and pulled the trigger. His existence ended rather awkwardly in mid-swear with his tongue dangling out of his mouth.

Courtney dashed back across the rooftops.

Leon was on the other side of the bridge across the alley, putting bullets into the heads of all the zombies who had followed them up the ladder. There were at least thirty walking around on the rooftop now, with many more already terminated and lying face down.

Courtney began highlighting their heads with the red dot and pulling the trigger. When her clip was exhausted, she dropped it and loaded the final one. With five more shots and Leon’s help, they cleared all but one of the zombies. Deciding to save her last few bullets, Courtney gave the final zombie—some horrendously ugly dead guy with wire-frame glasses—a hard front kick to the ribcage, sending it head over heels off the roof and down to the alley below.

However, it landed on something a lot softer than concrete.

Peering down there, Courtney could see that every zombie in Wakefield was gathering around the building, shoulder-to-shoulder as they clawed at the bricks. She could not even see the actual street beneath their bodies. Hundreds more undead were in line coming up the fire escape and negotiating the ladder. They had also engulfed the two humvees parked below. Everywhere she looked, wrinkled blue faces were staring back at her.

In her hurried plan to eliminate Dane, this was something she had forgotten to factor in. Since there wasn’t a pack leader herding the zombies anymore, the entire undead army was coming after the food stranded on the rooftop above.

The odds were not in her favor.

Intermission: Training Manual Excerpt

2006-04-13T16:38:00.000-05:00

Confronting the Messiah

2006-04-13T16:33:00.000-05:00

The wind rippling calmly through her hair, Courtney carefully balanced her feet on the grating that spanned across the alley between the two buildings. It was wobbly and made all kinds of noises under her weight, but she knew it had to be what Dane used to get to where he was. If the bridge supported his weight, then she knew it could support hers.

Several zombies had flocked to the area below. Some were ascending the fire escape she and Leon had used to access the rooftop, but she knew it would take them a long time to reach the summit. When they did, they would then have to negotiate the ladder extending from the top floor to the rooftop. Zombies weren’t known for their outstanding coordination, but they were known for their persistence. They would be able to climb the ladder, but it would take even more time than climbing up the stairs on the fire escape.

She wasn’t too worried about them, even as their moans and groans echoed up the alley and haunted her ears.

She finished crossing the bridge and hopped down on the adjacent rooftop. She took her rifle off her shoulder and slid the bolt lever back then forward again to load a bullet into the firing chamber. She hurried across the rooftop, heading to where Dane was hiding. Luckily there were no more alleys to cross. Every building between her and her target was flush.

As she stepped over to the next rooftop, she found a fully clothed human skeleton in a sitting position against the wall. Its biker-style leather attire suggested it was male. A large hole erupted out of the top of its head. A rusty discolored shotgun was positioned vertically across the chest, the barrel situated below the jaw and the butt planted between the corpse’s legs. A bony index finger was still stuck in the trigger guard.

Unlike the corpse she had seen dangling from the noose over Main Street on her first trip through Wakefield, this body had no suicide note. The person probably figured it was a waste of time to write a letter. After all, the city was populated only by the undead and they weren’t known to be heavy readers.

This corpse, however, was a likely candidate to have been the one to place the metal grating over the alleyway. She wondered if the person ever considered that someone else would be using the makeshift bridge all these years later.

She passed the corpse and continued across the rooftop.

There were only three buildings separating her and her target now; a distance of about fifty yards.

She figured this was close enough.

She lifted her rifle and took aim.

Dane’s silhouette had changed somewhat. Now instead of the shadow of the remote control in his hands, there was a shadow of a revolver—probably the same one he had had pressed to her head on the cruiseliner.

She squinted her left eye and peered through the scope with her right eye. She took a few moments to judge where his head might be on the other side of the greenhouse, then situated the crosshairs in that area.

She steadied her shoulder and pulled the trigger.

These .22 Hornets didn’t give off much noise when fired and since they were for distance shooting, silencers weren’t necessary. The unmuffled sound of the gun was quite satisfying for Courtney, especially when the fired bullet burst through the panes of the greenhouse and sent shards of glass crashing to the rooftop in a fantastic display of lights and colors.

Dane’s silhouette was moving sporadically, showing panic. She could see some of the area on the other side of the greenhouse through the broken glass, but none of Dane’s body was visible. She waited for a moment, hoping he might come out of hiding, but he didn’t.

She cocked the rifle and took aim again, situating the crosshairs in the area where Dane’s head might be.

She pulled the trigger.

Another satisfying firing sound came from the rifle and an even more satisfying crashing sound of glass breaking followed. The entire frame of the greenhouse was beginning to crumble now, losing stability due to the missing panes that used to help support it. As more and more of the structure fell, more of the area beyond was becoming visible. Soon she saw a most promising sight:

Blood.

It was sprayed against the glass on the far side the greenhouse. She knew now that she had hit her mark—hopefully fatally.

She saw the revolver fall and clatter to the rooftop, then Dane emerged from behind the greenhouse, blood spilling from the shoulder where his familiar satchel bag dangled. He appeared to be heading to the stairway shack on the other side.

Courtney quickly fired her rifle again, missing. She cocked it and took aim once more, trying to keep up with the moving target.

Her next shot sent a bullet into Dane’s arm, spilling more blood across the rooftop. However, he appeared unfazed and hardly lost his stride. When he reached the door to the stairway, Courtney cocked the rifle and put a bullet into the door.

This was enough to finally deter Dane. Instead of opening the door and running inside, he dashed around the shack and hid on the other side.

All of her rifle ammunition depleted, Courtney laid it down and pulled the Socom from its holster. She knew she had expended most of the magazine shooting zombies on the street, so she dropped it and loaded a new one.

She held the handgun at ready as she hurried across the rooftops to get closer to Dane. She cast occasional glances at the revolver he had dropped, making sure he didn’t try to retrieve it.

As she got near she heard him yell, “You shot me!”

“Well, duh, asshole!” she replied. “Does it hurt?!”

“Of course not!” he called back. “It’s just annoying! You should have stayed locked up on the ship! Now I’m going to catch you and I’m going to eat you!”

Courtney didn’t return a taunt. She slowed down as she stepped over the short wall separating the rooftops and then sidestepped around the shack Dane hid behind, staying far away so he couldn’t get a jump on her. She kept the red dot from the laser sight at the approximate height of his head, waiting for him to appear so he could eat a bullet.

“I bet you’ll be soft and tender!” Dane shouted from the other side of the shack, laughing maniacally. “You’ll taste good with ketchup!”

From the direction of his voice, she realized he was circling around the shack the opposite way, keeping the obstruction between them. She fired three shots into the rotting wood in one-foot intervals, hoping maybe they would go all the way through and hit him.

None appeared to. Dane was still laughing like the whole thing was a joke. If he had been shot again he certainly didn’t care.

Courtney continued sidestepping, then dashed back the way she came, hoping to cut him off. However, Dane predicted her movement and stayed away.

Frustrated, Courtney shouted, “C’mon, Dane! I’m tired of playing ring around the rosey! Come out and I’ll make it quick!”

“But I can keep this up forever!” he retorted. “I’m immortal, stupid girl.”

“I’m twenty-two, dumbass!”

“And you could have been twenty-two forever if you’d have used the syringe I left for you! Now you’re going to be naked on a platter with an apple shoved in your mouth!” Then, in singsong, he added, “I’m-gonna-eat-you-uuuuup!”

Having enough of this game, Courtney sprayed the shack with bullets from her Socom, keeping them all at head level and sending splints of wood flying through the air.

Dane simply laughed during the entire onslaught. When it was over, she could see one of his eyes peeking at her through one of the many holes the bullets left in their wake. She dropped the magazine from her gun and quickly locked in a new one. If she had to bring down the whole shack to get to him, then so be it.

However, just as soon as she locked the new magazine into the butt of her gun, Dane seized the opportunity and dashed from around the shack and lunged at her. She hurriedly lifted her gun and fired two rounds, one hitting him in the shoulder and the other missing entirely.

She didn’t get a chance to fire again.

He was already on her, latching on to the barrel of the gun with both hands and aiming it away from his body. She tried forcing the silencer towards his head, but he was too strong.

They went to the ground, both struggling for control of the gun. Courtney instinctively went to her back and used her legs to form a Jiu-Jitsu guard, preventing him from gaining leverage by keeping her feet planted on the insides of his hips. While he wasn’t able to move up on her, he was able to slip a finger into the trigger guard of the Socom and force her own finger to squeeze off the remaining rounds in the magazine.

Every bullet flew into the air unanswered until there were no more bullets left and the gun made only a clicking sound when the trigger was pulled. Both Courtney and Dane gave up on the gun and allowed it to fall to the rooftop.

He tried punching her, but his fists swung like uncoordinated sledgehammers and he was grunting before each one to add extra impact. He may as well have been sending a telegraph to announce their arrival.

She ducked her head left and right and dodged them all. The closest one got was barely nicking her ear.

He then reached forward with both hands, spreading his fingers, making it obvious he was going to attempt to choke her.

She elevated her legs and rolled onto her shoulders to prevent him from grabbing hold. She then shifted her hips, putting her body perpendicular under his, and swung one leg around to try trapping his right arm so she could lock it between her legs and break it with a thrust of her pelvis, but he was too strong and he easily pulled his arm free.

She seriously doubted he knew Jiu-Jitsu—much less the maneuvers she was attempting—but despite his sissy temperament the pansy was actually pretty tough.

None of her tricks were working.

As she struggled beneath his weight, she could hear another .22 Hornet being fired in the distance. It meant that Leon had caught up to the pack leader and was putting bullets into its brain.

There were three shots, then silence.

Leon had done it.

“You know what that was?” Courtney gritted, staring up at Dane and catching her breath. “That was the sound of your army being put down. How’s it feel to be a loser?”

Dane snarled and reached out to try to choke her again.

Courtney trapped his arms against her chest and grabbed his sweater with both hands, feeling the chainmail underneath, then pulled him forward as she kicked his knees out from under him, causing him to lose his balance. She swept him off and quickly stood up.

She drew her wakizashi.

Dane scurried away on his hands and knees to the remains of the greenhouse about twenty feet away. He picked up a long shard of glass and then stood up and pointed it at her in a threatening manner.

His crude weapon didn’t stack up too well when compared to her sword. Courtney could tell Dane understood this. She could see the fear growing in his eyes.

“You know it’s not just me you’d be killing,” Dane uttered, almost stuttering. “You’d be killing evolution itself.”

“What happened to the world wasn’t evolution, you psycho,” Courtney replied.

“It is evolution!” Dane shouted, throwing his arms in the air and waving the shard of glass like a baton. “You know how I know? Because zombies attack and feed only on warm flesh! They don’t kill each other! Before the dead began to rise, all we humans did was make war and rape and pillage and plunder like a bunch of goddamn pirates! Zombies are beyond that! They’re above humans! Can’t you see it?!”

Courtney raised the wakizashi and started to step forward.

“Wait! Just wait!” Dane shouted. He removed the satchel bag from his shoulder and displayed it to her. It was covered with blood from the many times he had been shot. He said, “Don’t kill me. I’m going to get something out of this bag. It’s not a gun or anything. Just let me show you.”

Before Courtney could reply, he slowly opened the bag and reached into it. When he pulled his hand out—slowly—he had another syringe gripped in his fingers. This one had pinkish liquid swishing around inside and the capped needle was almost six inches long.

It wasn’t another tranquilizer and it wasn’t the green gunk he left with her on the bridge of the cruiseliner. It was something else entirely.

He whispered, “Do you know what this is?”

She answered, “Should I care?”

Dane rolled his eyes and said, “Use your head.”

“What?”

“Your head! It’s that useless lump three feet above your ass!”

Having quite enough of this standoff, Courtney readied her wakizashi and stepped forward again. However, she stopped in her tracks when Dane casually tossed the syringe at her feet.

It laid there on the rooftop, shining under the setting sun. She gazed down at it , then back up at Dane.

He informed her, “That’s the Cure—The one and only. I saw your boyfriend in the humvee when you drove into town. He’s infected, isn’t he?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Courtney solemnly replied. “But yes, thanks to you, he’s infected.”

“Then take that syringe and leave me alone. Stop interfering with evolution and the natural order of things. Take him and find an island somewhere and spend the rest of your lives making wild, passionate love. Just leave me alone.”

Courtney could admit that Dane’s somewhat romantic French-Canadian mannerisms almost made him sound convincing. He probably would have made a very good spokesman for some expensive brand of cologne.

Then again, she knew there was no such thing as a Cure.

“I’m not stupid, Dane,” she said. “Why would a freak like you carry a cure around when you just want to kill every last living human?”

“The reasons should be obvious,” Dane replied. “I locked you up and left you a serum so you could be immortal like me, but I knew there was a chance you wouldn’t use it. If I found another attractive lady after the attack on Eastpointe, I could save her if she had been bitten and bring her back to you. If you used the serum, we could dine together. If you didn’t, the other lady surely would and we would dine on you.”

Courtney gulped and gazed down at the syringe once more. No matter how creepy his explanation was, it made sense in its own diabolical little way.

She knelt down to pick up the syringe, keeping her wakizashi pointed toward Dane.

As she did this, Dane tucked the shard of glass under his arm and pulled a very familiar lighter out of his pocket. He then took something else from the satchel bag—a cylindrical aluminum pipe about five inches wide and a foot and a half long. It was capped at both ends.

Courtney stood up once more, syringe in hand.

Dane was smiling as he put the lighter to the end of the pipe where a fuse was sticking out. He held this position, threatening to ignite it as he calmly explained, “I never lied about finding a Cure. I never lied about using a pipe bomb to destroy Eastpointe’s walls either. It would be a shame to use it here and now, but I will if I have to. I’ll blow us both to smithereens. Leave.”

Courtney tucked the syringe into her belt where extra rifle ammunition used to be stored. It fit nice and snug. She then gripped the hilt of the wakizashi with both hands, getting a firm hold.

She reeled back the blade and stepped forward.

“You don’t have time to fight me!” Dane shouted, hurriedly lighting the fuse. “This’ll go boom in thirty seconds!”

Courtney replied, “Thirty seconds? I only need one.”

Heights

2006-04-13T16:30:00.000-05:00

Vastly outnumbered yet having the advantage of greater mobility and higher ground, Courtney and Leon surveyed the town of Wakefield from the rooftop. There were a string of zombies stretching back as far as their eyes could see—thousands—and all of them were scampering to join the herd. On the other side of the building, stray zombies could be seen emerging from the flooded areas of town. Thankfully none had scaled the fire escapes to join them on the roof.

Now they just needed to find Dane.

Courtney took the rifle off her shoulder and pointed it into the distance, using the scope to view the rooftops far away. Most of the buildings in downtown Wakefield were the same height. None of them seemed to rise above six stories tall, so there was only about a ten-foot difference in some places. Most had a shack or a trap door with a staircase or a ladder that would lead down inside. She knew if she didn’t take care of Dane fast enough he might retreat into one of the buildings and hide, in which case she would probably never find him again.

She figured he would be near the vanguard of his army, but the rooftops in that direction were bare. She then turned her rifle in the direction she and Leon had traveled, towards Point Judith Neck.

That was when she discovered Dane.

He was hiding behind a small greenhouse erected on top of a building five rooftops away. Though she couldn’t see him directly due to the translucent panes of glass, his shadow betrayed him. The sun was beginning to fall from the west, so its light was concentrated to the east—right through the glass panes of the greenhouse, casting a long silhouette of his figure across the rooftop. It had to be him—the shadow of the antenna on the remote control he was holding gave it away.

She knew she would need to be much closer to fire an effective shot. Dane’s position was simply too far away and she couldn’t judge where exactly his head would be on the other side of the greenhouse.

An old piece of rusty iron grating was situated between her rooftop and the next, forming a makeshift bridge over the alley. It was only three feet wide and it was hard to tell how long it had been there. It didn’t look very secure, but that must have been what Dane used to cross over.

She lowered her rifle and turned back to Leon. “I know where he’s at,” she said. “He knows we’re here. He’s hiding from us.”

“No, he’s probably setting a trap,” Leon replied. He covered his mouth to suppress a cough, his face tensing up from the pressure in his lungs. He painfully continued, “If he’s smart enough to organize an undead-pride parade, then he’s smart enough to bait us into something.”

“Won’t happen,” she told him. She pointed to the rooftops in the other direction, past the vanguard of the mob, and said, “I’ll take Dane. You get the pack leader. Get in front of them where you can get a clear shot through the eyes of its helmet. Don’t go back down to the street. Stay up high.”

“You think I’m an action hero or something?” Leon scoffed, motioning with his arm to the gaping chasm three buildings away. “There’s an alley to jump over.”

“You can do it, stud. Just get the pack leader. It’ll be the only one that doesn’t look so damned aimless. You’ll recognize it.”

Unable to hold back any longer, Leon turned away from her, leaned over and put his hands on his knees, then began a coughing fit so hard and fierce that it startled even her. It sounded wet, like he was on the verge of vomiting.

Courtney put her hand on his shoulder and tried to comfort him. She whispered, “We’re almost done. The pack leader is probably the only zombie Dane equipped with a receiver to collect the signals he’s transmitting. If we stop the pack leader and Dane at the same time, it’ll be over.”

Leon continued coughing, eventually spewing droplets of gross yellow saliva. After taking a few moments to get his lungs under control again, he mumbled, “I’m trying, doll. I really am. I just don’t feel too good right now.”

She stepped in front of him and lifted his head so she could see his face. Though his physical appearance hadn’t worsened since the beach, she knew the infection inside his body was multiplying and consuming his organs. He was obviously trying to hide this pain from her, but his legs were noticeably trembling.

Through pale, chapped lips he uttered, “I bet you don’t think I’m such a pretty guy anymore, do you?”

She forced a slight grin as she replied, “You’re still a pretty guy.”

“So you finally admit it?” he asked. “You sleep with me, but you have to wait until I’m dying before you pay me a compliment?”

“You’re not dying.”

“Save it for the tourists,” he replied, bringing himself fully upright again. “Let’s get this over with.”

She took a step back and nodded her head with finality.

“Be careful with Dane,” Leon said.

“I will,” she replied. “You be careful too. We’ll meet back here when we’re finished.”

He nodded, though they both knew that meeting again might not be possible.

Leon took the rifle off his shoulder and held it at ready as he walked to the other side of the rooftop. He threw a leg over the short wall and put his foot on the adjoining building, then continued in the direction the zombies were headed on the street below.

Return to the Dead City

2006-04-13T16:28:00.000-05:00

Dane’s trail was easy enough to follow.

Despite being the very same road the Black Berets had traveled originally, everywhere she looked zombies were being pulled out of hibernation and drawn to the pack like a magnet. She simply went in the same direction the walking corpses were going.

There were all kinds—men and women and children zombies, plainly-dressed zombies, formally-dressed zombies, policemen zombies, postal worker zombies, even a zombie in full football gear, minus only the helmet. However, no matter what gender, race, occupation, or age they were before becoming infected and reanimating, they were all pretty much the same now.

—Wrinkled, with blue skin.

Some of them had wounds that would be fatal to a living human. One had an exposed ribcage, another was missing both its arms, and another had a large gash running from its ear all the way down to its waist. These injuries might have been received when they were still alive and could have been what killed them, or the injuries might have been sustained after reanimating, which meant they didn’t feel the pain at all. Either way, it certainly wasn’t slowing them down today.

And Courtney didn’t bother slowing down either. Any dead person getting in her way was promptly rammed with the bull bars. This humvee was very familiar to her, after all, so handling it felt much more natural than any of the others she had driven.

The further she went the more tightly packed the zombies became. Eventually she had to forsake ramming them in favor of simply going around. It was quicker than climbing a pile of disfigured corpses.

The trail eventually led back to Wakefield. The sun was only shining through the narrow alleyways now, highlighting the heads and shoulders of the zombie citizens and proving that the day was coming to an end. This was what she had feared; that Dane would take his army down Main Street and amass hundreds of more recruits. None of the zombies here were lying down anymore. All of them were on their feet, staggering after the more nimble armored zombies Dane had previously outfitted. Courtney could see the vanguard about fifty yards up the road, but the ordinary zombies following them were packed shoulder-to-shoulder on Main Street. It would be impossible to ram her way up to the leader.

Leon pointed and said, “I don’t believe it. Look at that.”

Courtney’s eyes followed where his finger was pointing until she saw what he was indicating. She couldn’t believe it either—parked off to the right of the street in downtown Wakefield, out of the way of the undead parade, was the second humvee—the same one Dane had stolen.

Leon screwed a silencer onto his handgun and started rolling down his window. He said, “Get alongside it. Let’s get this over with.”

Courtney steered their humvee past the masses of walking corpses and slowly pulled up next to the other humvee. Leon had his Socom aimed out the window. She could see the red targeting laser pinpointing a dot at the approximate area where someone’s head would be if they were sitting normally on the driver’s seat in the other vehicle. However, once she got fully in line with the second humvee, they both could see very clearly that no one occupied it.

“What the hell?” Leon said. “Where could he have gone?”

By now they had drawn unwanted attention from a few dozen zombies in the procession, and these zombies were currently straying from the herd to come pound on the windows on the left side of their vehicle, trying to get at the humans inside.

Courtney gave them a glance, then again focused her attention on the second humvee and the missing messiah. Besides, she knew from experience that the windows of her humvee were shatterproof. The worst those zombies could do was hold the vehicle under siege.

“Would Dane be walking?” Leon asked.

Courtney looked over the hood of their humvee and beyond the heads of the mob of dead people migrating down Main Street. She knew zombies didn’t look upon Dane as a viable source of food, so she figured maybe he had decided to play George Washington and lead them into battle himself. However, she could still see the armored zombies at the vanguard and Dane wasn’t with them.

She realized he would probably want to be someplace where he had full view of the procession. He would need to guide the pack leader with his remote control and make sure it didn’t lead the herd into any crashed semis or flooded areas caused by the dam break at the Indian Run Reservoir.

Peering through the windows of both humvees, Courtney caught sight of a fire escape in the alleyway next to the building beside them. The stairs went back and forth up several flights, then a ladder at the summit went the rest of the way to the rooftop.

That must have been where Dane went.

Courtney pointed and said, “There.”

Leon looked and saw the winding fire escape for himself. He followed it up with his eyes, gulping when he reached the very top. He uttered, “More heights.”

She asked, “Are you ready for this?”

“Now or never.”

He handed her a Socom modified with the laser sight and silencer she was accustomed to. She slipped it in the holster on her right leg, then attached the scabbard containing the wakizashi to the V-shaped strap on her left leg. She slid three extra loaded magazines for the handgun into the slots in the back of her belt. Finally she grabbed another rifle and slung it over her shoulder. All she lacked was a visor and a beret and a glove to replace the one missing from her left hand and she would once again be perfectly outfitted as a Black Beret was meant to be.

Ready to go, she glanced out her window and saw the hundreds of hungry corpses waiting for her on the other side. Some of them were trampling the others so they could press their faces to the glass and stare at her. They hadn’t yet ventured to the area between the two humvees on Leon’s side of the vehicle.

She said, “I think we’ll go out through your door.”

He solemnly replied, “Good idea.”

Leon readied his weapons, then lifted the handle and threw the door open. Courtney followed him out and they immediately dashed around the second humvee and into the alleyway. The mob of zombies that had strayed from the herd staggered after them, but the ones in front were put down with a single shot each from Courtney’s silenced handgun, the red dot on their foreheads replaced with a gaping bullet hole. As they fell it caused the ones behind them to trip and stumble, effectively slowing them down.

A lone meter-maid zombie was blocking the fire escape. Rather than waste a bullet, Leon tossed the ghoul over his hip. Once it landed on its back, he planted his metal heel in the creature’s skull, then scraped off the gooey residue on the stairs. Courtney figured it must have been like therapy for Leon for everything he had already been through.

They ran up the noisy metal fire escape, leaving the streets behind.

Like so many dead cities, gaspless moans and the stench of decay were everywhere in Wakefield. It certainly wasn’t the most pleasant place to fight for humanity’s right to live. Nevertheless, Courtney knew that in the event of an apocalypse any field of Megiddo would have to do.

Intermission: Training Manual Excerpt

2006-04-13T16:21:00.000-05:00

Chapter Seven

2006-04-13T16:14:00.000-05:00

Life and Death

They returned to the beach.

Luckily there were still no zombies roaming around. All of them in the vicinity probably followed Dane’s storm troopers into the woods.

Courtney and Leon opened the rear hatch of the remaining humvee to obtain the supplies stashed there. It had been her humvee—the very same one she had used to go from Georgia to Rhode Island. However, this fact wasn’t what was foremost on her mind at the moment.

As she tended to the wound on Leon’s shoulder, she explained all the things that had happened to her after the ambush in the casino. Leon took several minutes to contemplate what she told him, then commented, “So this psycho put metal choppers on the zombies’ teeth?”

She replied, “Among other things.”

Leon shook his head and rolled his eyes.

Courtney finished cleaning and bandaging the bite wound on his shoulder, then grabbed a roll of duct tape from the back of the humvee and began patching the tear on his wetsuit.

She was sniffling the entire time.

It was growing late in the day now. She guessed it to be about five o’clock or so. The sun was still high in the sky and the sea gulls were still swarming around the cruiseliner nearby. It was actually quite a beautiful setting, it was just too bad that circumstances didn’t allow Courtney to enjoy it.

After applying the last patch of duct tape, she patted Leon on the back and said, “All done.” She then grabbed a canteen from the cooler in the back of the humvee and took another swig of cold water. It was somewhat refreshing.

Leon peered over his shoulder as best he could to inspect the first aid work Courtney had performed. His face was pale and his lips were turning white.

After a moment he whispered, “I appreciate you playing Betsy Ross, but—”

“—Betsy Ross created the flag,” Courtney interrupted. “You’re probably thinking of Clara Barton. She founded the American Red Cross.”

“Whatever,” Leon said. “All I’m saying is that we both know it’s a waste of time. We’ve been through this routine before.”

Courtney snapped, “Just shut up, okay?”

She handed him the canteen and let him take a drink while she crossed her arms and stared off at the ocean. She had forgotten the smells and sounds of the beach. It reminded her of Florida. She wished she wouldn’t have taken it all for granted when the world was normal.

After Leon capped the canteen and returned it to the back of the humvee, he motioned to her left hand and asked, “Want me to help you with that?”

Courtney gazed down at her pinky finger. It was looking even more grotesque now. Puss was seeping from the blister and the skin around it was black and peeling. However, since finding out Leon was still alive, this was the first time she noticed how much her hand trembled on its own.

She asked, “What do we have?”

He paused a moment to think, and replied, “There’s Neosporin in the first aid kit. Should be cold wraps too.”

She nodded and said, “All right.”

Leon leaned inside the humvee and retrieved the first aid kit she had used to clean his bite wound. He fished out the Neosporin and the cold wraps.

He said, “Okay doll, give me the finger. And I don’t mean that in a vulgar way.”

She forced a smile, then turned her head away long enough to sniffle and wipe her eyes just in case emotions were getting the best of her. Then she turned to face Leon again and extended her scorched pinky finger.

He squeezed some Neosporin out of the tube and onto his index finger, then dabbed the cream lightly on Courtney’s pinky. When he had it covered he tore off a piece of cold wrap and put it over her finger, making certain the adhesive was sticking only to the healthy skin near her bottom knuckle and not on anything tender. Finished, he returned the unused supplies to the first aid kit and put the box back in the humvee.

She inspected the bandage on her finger, realizing the skin would be scarred forever. After a moment she softly stated, “This sucks. My finger’s gonna be deformed for the rest of my life.”

“Maybe, but it’s just your finger,” Leon replied, taking her hand and examining it. “The rest of you will still be beautiful.”

She grunted and pulled her hand away. She stammered, “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t flirt with me. Not now.”

“Not now? Why?”

She turned away and faced the ocean again. She mumbled, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything.”

Leon exhaled deeply and leaned against the fender of the humvee.

Courtney watched the sea gulls for a while as they went about their routine, all of them oblivious to the happenings in the human world. Her body trembled as she thought about Eastpointe and the army of zombies marching there to attack it. If Dane used a pipe bomb to blow up the wall as he mentioned—and if he did so where patrols where few and far between—then it was quite possible everyone in Eastpointe would be devoured before they even figured out what the explosion was.

The worst part was that she knew she could never make it to Eastpointe in time to warn them. Dane would be taking his army via the most direct route, so even if she somehow got past them or went around them and beat them to their destination, she knew precious moments would be wasted trying to explain to the Superintendent and the Committees about the danger headed their way. It would be hard to convince them she was serious, that this wasn’t a joke, and that Dr. Aaron Dane had really assembled his own undead army and was currently leading them to conquer the last bastion of living humans.

Courtney gritted her teeth and smacked her palm against the side of the humvee. Too many thoughts were going through her mind to allow her to stop and focus on any of them.

She remembered Dane mentioning a pack leader and that zombies worked in a pack mentality when there wasn’t any food nearby. She knew the handbox Dane used somehow sent signals to the zombies, but what if it only sent signals to one zombie? That sounded right. Dane would only need to send signals to the pack leader and the rest would follow. Not only that, but other zombies the army met would also fall in line and follow the pack. Courtney realized that could add up to at least a thousand if Dane led his army through Wakefield.

There may be even more. If zombies just lying around somewhere somehow sensed that a large herd was moving, they may get up and follow even if it was from miles away. She wasn’t totally sure how far away a zombie’s senses could work, but she knew she had to factor it into her reasoning.

She turned to face Leon again.

He had his head down and his arms crossed. He didn’t look very healthy at all. She knew it would only be a couple of hours before he got too sick to move. He would be coughing and vomiting and then several hours after that he would be comatose. He would then die and reanimate.

However, a Black Beret never got that far. Usually they swallowed their barbiturates long before now. Leon was setting some kind of record.

She said, “Everyone at Eastpointe is going to die unless we stop Dane before he gets there.”

Leon lifted his head and gazed at her. He replied, “We?”

She nodded, pulling her hair back and tucking it behind her ears. She explained, “Yeah. If we can take out the lead zombie and then take out Dane before he creates a new leader, the zombies will just stop marching and lay down. They won’t migrate unless they’re being led. We don’t have to fight them all. We just have to kill Dane and the pack leader. We can do it.”

Leon shook his head side-to-side and weakly stated, “I’m sorry, doll. But this beach is really nice. I think I’m just going to lay down and take my pills.”

“No,” she said. “I need you. I can’t do this alone.”

Leon sighed and looked away, appearing to stare at the reflection of the sun on the calm ocean waves. He kicked at the sand at his feet. “I think I understand why Black Berets take their pills so quick after being infected,” he said. “It’s because they know the inevitability of death. They want to die before that fact really hits home. That’s what I want too. I don’t want to sit here and cry. I don’t want to be depressed about it. I want to keep my pride and die quietly. If you were me, you’d understand.”

Courtney stepped in front of him and looked into his eyes. She softly said, “Leon, I need you. We have to do this together or everyone’s gonna die.”

“What do you care?!” he snapped. “Since when do you give a damn about anybody at Eastpointe?!”

“Of course I care,” she stuttered. “What, do you think I’m totally heartless or something?”

“You live in your own world anyway,” he continued, glaring. “Why don’t you just find a nice little island someplace where you can be alone for real? Swim to Martha’s Vineyard or Block Island for Christ’s sake. Clear out a house and spend the rest of your life dreaming about James Spader. What the hell do you want from me?!”

Without hesitation or anger, Courtney replied, “Your help.”

“But what can I do? I already feel this gross stuff building up in my lungs and I’m gonna start hacking and coughing like an eighty year-old smoker. I’m not going to be much help. Just let me die.”

Courtney crossed her arms and told him, “I’m not exactly stopping you. What you mean is that you need me to put a bullet in your head after your heart stops.”

Leon nodded.

“Well, fine,” Courtney said. “Help me kill Dane and I’ll make sure you don’t reanimate after you swallow your pills. Fair?”

Leon sighed and shrugged his shoulders. A throbbing red vein was visible beneath the pale skin on his forehead. The color in his blue eyes was fading a little. His hair was falling messily across his ears and one of his eyes and altogether he looked very weary.

He said, “Fine. Let’s kill that psycho.”

Courtney looked away and sniffled, then replied, “Glad you’re with me.”

Leon started digging through the supplies in the back of the humvee. He said, “No more visors or berets, doll. We’ve got another sword and a couple rifles here, but not much ammo. There are a couple Socoms, but they’re not assembled. I’ll have to attach the laser sights and load up some magazines. I’m pretty sure they’re in a box back here somewhere.” He paused a moment as he reached deep to retrieve something buried under the cooler, then added, “And here’s another belt for you.”

She took the belt and fastened it around her hips, taking the time to secure the lower holster strap around her right leg. She took another wakizashi and scabbard but held on to it for now instead of fastening it to her belt right away.

She said, “Let’s get moving.”

Leon grabbed a couple of handguns and laser sights, along with a couple of rifles and scopes and a box of ammunition for both. He walked around the humvee and climbed onto the passenger seat. He immediately started attaching the laser sights to the handguns and loading bullets into magazines.

Courtney walked around to the driver’s-side door, but stopped halfway. She leaned with her back against the humvee, then lowered her head and closed her eyes.

It was hard not to be overwhelmed.

She sniffled and wiped her eyes—just in case there was any emotional residue—then opened the driver’s-side door and climbed onto the seat.

She held her breath as she turned the ignition, thinking that Dane might have taken the time to somehow booby-trap it or something. Despite her fears, the engine started without a hitch. She shifted into gear, let out the clutch, and the humvee sped forward down the sandy beach.

As the tires met the gravel on the road leading through the forest, Leon looked up from the magazines he was loading and commented, “Do you ever miss fiddling with the radio?”

She turned her head long enough to glance at him, then faced the road again. She asked, “What do you mean?”

“It’s just that every time I ride shotgun I’m still in the habit of wanting to cycle through the radio stations. Kind of stupid, huh?”

She shook her head and stated, “No, it’s not stupid.”

Intermission: Rock Forge Army Research Laboratory Memo

2006-04-13T16:04:00.000-05:00

Motionless

2006-04-13T15:55:00.000-05:00

Starting small, at first she concentrated solely on trying to wiggle the index finger on her right hand. She focused all her attention there, both body and mind, refusing to cry another tear.

It took at least an hour but finally that finger started moving, twitching at first, then curling from every knuckle much to her satisfaction. She moved her other fingers after that, enjoying the sensation of being able to ball up a fist, even if it was weak at first. She worked her wrists next, then her elbows, then her shoulders.

None of it was easy.

As soon as she could she cradled the burnt finger in her other hand and pinched the area below the scorched skin. It looked messy—a gigantic blister bigger than her fingernail was pushing up through the peeling, blackened tissue. She was taking deep breaths now and exhaling hard and fast, attempting to make the pain go away.

The hurt was still there, however, lingering even as she concentrated on moving her legs. She bent her ankles first, then her knees.

She fell forward on the sun-warmed tile floor of the bridge. She planted her forearms and brought her legs underneath her chest, then pushed herself into a crawling position. She struggled to the nearby chair, then reached up and put her hands on the cushion, immediately smacking away the syringe Dane had left for her. It clattered to the floor and slid to the base of a nearby control panel.

She lifted herself into the chair and sat down.

From there she lunged at one of the big windows lining the walls.

Holding fast, she peered through the glass and viewed the main deck of The Atlantic Princess from up high. A lot had changed since she had last seen it.

Now there were dozens and dozens of armored zombies moving rather rapidly across the bow, and—like a tide of lemmings—they each in turn fell over the railing and onto the golden sands below. From there the long line of them disappeared into the woods beyond the beach, with plenty more still following.

There had to be at least a hundred.

The passing of time had shifted the shadow of the cruiseliner off of the humvees her team had left parked on the beach. Squinting her eyes, she saw Dr. Dane standing next to those humvees, controlling the same handbox she had seen him utilizing during the ambush in the casino. She knew that somehow the antenna sent simplistic commands to the helmeted zombies, perhaps telling them which direction to go. He had revealed that much in their conversation earlier.

She also noticed how the zombies simply walked right past him without a second glance. Either he really was technically dead or his delusions were real enough to fool even the mindless automatons surrounding him.

He had mentioned physiological psychology and sensory stimulation and something about electrical impulses. She had no clue what he was talking about, but regardless of the jargon he had used or the absurdity of the idea, Dane had had plenty of time to himself aboard the ship to pursue and perfect this insane vision.

And now he really was leading an army.

Courtney watched for several minutes as the last zombie fell over the railing and joined the rest of the storm troopers marching across the beach. They were walking with long, fast strides—moving quicker than any zombie she had ever seen before.

Once the last of them disappeared into the woods, she saw Dane push down the antenna on the handbox and climb inside one of the Black Beret humvees. She then saw exhaust come out the tailpipe and the vehicle pull forward.

The sight of this was enough to ignite the rage brewing in her gut.

Mustering her strength, she picked up the nearby chair and flung it against the window as hard as she was able. However, instead of glass breaking there was just a weak-sounding boink as the chair bounced off and hit the floor. The window hardly wobbled. Snarling, Courtney picked up the chair again and held it by the legs. She beat it against the glass over and over, resulting in nothing more than her own fatigue.

She dropped the chair and smacked her palms against the window.

“Dane!” she screamed. “I’m gonna kill you!”

But the humvee disappeared into the woods. Dane was gone.

She collapsed, her back sliding down the wall until she was sitting on the floor once again. She gasped in breath after breath, her entire body trembling. Her face—which had only recently been dried of the tears she cried—was now soaked with sweat. Her hair was sticking to her cheeks and forehead.

She brushed it away.

Struggling for air, she put her fingers down the collar of the wetsuit to pull it from her throat. As she did this she became even more aware of the pain in her scorched finger. She pinched the knuckle again, trying to make the pain stop.

It wouldn’t.

She screamed long and loud, “GODDAMNIT!!!”

As soon as the last syllable left her mouth, she fell forward and started gagging, dry heaves collapsing her stomach and sending ripples of tension up her chest and neck. She wanted to throw up as long as it would make the pain stop, but nothing came out. It was just one dry heave after another.

She lifted her head and saw the cooler against the wall beneath the girly posters. Dane said he had chopped up her teammates and put pieces of them inside for her to eat after she used the syringe.

This was the trigger.

She puked. It spilled to the floor in a gross splash, relieving her of some of the pressure in her gut.

Breathing hard and unsteady, she brought herself to her feet and picked up the glove Dane had taken off her hand before burning her. She used it to wipe her lips, then tossed it away again.

She then staggered to the big metal door—the only door on the bridge—and tried to turn the handle. She could get it to go halfway, but something on the other side was preventing it from completely turning. She tried yanking on the handle in the hopes that somehow the door would open both ways and Dane had been too stupid to know, but gave up when she realized it was to no avail. She then took a couple steps back and gave the door a hard front kick, but it didn’t budge at all.

It didn’t even react.

She clinched her fists and let loose a cry of pure despair, then turned around and put her back against the door. She slid down and returned to a sitting position with her knees against her chest.

Her eyes were turning red as wetness formed once again across her lower eyelids. Tears came, rolling freely and indiscriminately down her cheeks. Her face fell into her palms soon after. She seized several strands of her hair and tugged them violently between her tense fingers.

She didn’t want to take her hands away from her face and she didn’t want to open her eyes again. She knew that if she did she would see the syringe on the floor where she had flung it earlier. Some kind of green gunk was swirling inside the casing. She knew there was no way in hell she would ever use that syringe. She knew there was no way she would ever give herself to Dane, even if it was the only way to stay alive.

And the others were all dead—Leon and Chris and Delmas and Mike and Vaughn.

Slaughtered.

Eastpointe was doomed too. Her new friend Alexis was going to be Dane’s dinner and Courtney was powerless to stop it. The same went for Superintendent Wright and all the Committees and the rest of the five hundred or so people living within the walls. All they had wanted was a Cure, but instead all they got was deception.

So, with her decision made and her eyes closed, her right hand found its way down her leg and maneuvered into her boot. Her fingers wrapped around something inside, then brought it out.

She opened her eyes, but focused only on the new object. It was a little white container about an inch wide.

She popped it open.

Inside were dozens of little white pills. She had seen them used by others. She knew that once she swallowed them she would be dead within moments.

Sniffling, she wiped her eyes with her forearm and dropped the pills out of the container and onto her open palm. She opened her mouth and prepared to place the pills on her tongue.

That was when there came a light knocking on the other side of the door she was resting against. A voice asked, “Courtney? Is that you? Are you in there?”

The pills fell from her hand as she stood up and faced the door. She didn’t believe it at first, but the voice on the other side had been instantly recognizable.

She uttered, “Leon?”

“Yeah,” the muffled voice replied. “Are you okay?”

She sniffled long and hard and wiped her eyes again. She said, “No, I’m pretty far from okay. Get me out of here.”

“Hold on.”

She heard something get pulled away from the other side of the door, then saw the handle turn freely. A moment later the door swung open.

Standing there was Leon Wolfe. His beret and visor were gone, as was his handgun and rifle. Blood was leaking from the scabbard where his wakizashi was held. His hair was clumping together and his face was paler than usual.

She asked, “How did you find me?”

“I used deductive reasoning,” he replied, attempting to show one of his cocky smiles. “You know, like Sherlock Holmes and Jessica Fletcher. Maybe even Matlock.”

She showed him a confused expression.

“You were making enough noise to wake the dead,” he said with a sigh. “Pun intended.”

Despite his arrogance and his annoying accent, her only reaction was to embrace him. She wrapped her arms around his torso and put her face against his neck. She had thought the worst when she saw him fall over the balcony in the casino and assumed Dane had dismembered him like he did the others.

Leon seemed to hesitate for a moment before returning the hug, but he winced and pulled away before he got his arms completely around her. He took a step back and all of a sudden his cheery attitude was gone.

She asked, “Leon, what’s wrong?”

“I’ve had a really bad day,” he replied.

He turned around, showing her his back.

Courtney could see that his suit was ripped below his left shoulder and there was blood running from a gash there. At first she thought it was just a puncture wound from the bayonets the armored zombies were wielding or maybe an injury he received when he fell off the balcony. However, neither scenario was the case. She could see, very clearly now, that there were two rows of indentations surrounding the bleeding hole in his shoulder.

Teeth marks.

Intermission: Rock Forge Army Research Laboratory Memo

2006-04-13T15:41:00.000-05:00

The Bridge

2006-04-13T15:39:00.000-05:00

Her eyes opened in a brightly lit room. She was in one of the corners, curled up with her knees against her chest. There were control panels everywhere, but none of the buttons were lit up. Big windows all around the room let in endless amounts of sunlight. Though she could see only the sky from where she was sitting, a sea gull perched on a post outside reminded her where she was.

The cruiseliner. The bridge maybe?

The setting outside didn’t look too different than when she was actually out there, so she guessed three hours had passed at most since she first got on deck of The Atlantic Princess.

She tried to stand, but still felt too dizzy and drowsy and her muscles weren’t cooperating.

There were a dozen or so girly posters hastily taped to the far wall near the door. Every girl on every poster had their eyes X’d over in red paint and—where applicable—their breasts were circled. She remembered the paintings in the art gallery on the Promenade and the caryatids in the atrium and realized that that is what Dane must have done with all his free time while alone on the ship.

She hurriedly inspected herself. She was somewhat relieved to see she was still in the trylar wetsuit, so if Dane had decided to accost her again while she was sleeping, then he had only done so outside her uniform.

But he said he wasn’t interested in the living.

Freak.

She tried to stand once more, even pressing her back against the wall and pushing with her legs, but still wasn’t able to muster the energy. She sunk back down in the corner.

Then she heard the French-Canadian prick say, “Don’t bother. The tranquilizer is going to be in your system at least another hour. So sit tight.”

She heard footsteps and saw Dane emerge from behind one of the control panels. He casually pulled up a nearby chair and sat down in front of her. He was smiling.

She tried to muster her energy again; maybe just enough to jump on him and get in a few punches to his face. However, all her body wanted to do was relax. She could roll her eyes and she could breathe and she knew she could talk if she needed to, but everything from the neck down was rebelling.

It left too many possibilities—unlimited tortures he could inflict on her while she was utterly defenseless. In her fear and uncertainty, she was sort of wishing he had gone ahead and shot her when he had the revolver pressed to her head outside the VIP room. She should have died with everyone else, yet here she was on the bridge, doped up on the floor while Dr. Aaron Dane loomed at her from his chair.

Gathering her anger, she snarled, “You killed them all. You slapped armor on a bunch of zombies and you led us here to get slaughtered.”

He nodded and replied, “You noticed that, did you?”

Tears started to form on her lower eyelids. She wanted to wipe them away, but even her arms were refusing to move. She stuttered, “Why? Why would you do that?”

Dane didn’t answer right away. He took a moment to watch her weep, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter. He flicked it a couple times, letting a flame ignite, then letting it go, then flicking it again—all the while staring her in the eyes and smiling.

He casually commented, “I had to quit smoking. All the cigarettes went stale a long time ago, but there are still plenty of working lighters. It’s kind of sad they don’t really serve a purpose anymore.”

“You’re a psycho,” she countered.

And he replied, “You’re so observant.”

She gritted her teeth and tried moving again. She envisioned knocking him off the chair and choking him, watching his face turn blue and his eyeballs bulge from their sockets.

He had killed Leon.

He had killed everybody.

“I know you think I’m crazy,” Dane said. “I know you think I lost my marbles from being stuck on a ship with only dead people to keep me company.”

“Something like that,” she snapped.

“Well, I’m sane,” he said. “Before the apocalypse, I was just starting to get my life in order. I was on speaking terms with my wife again and we were talking about me moving back to Canada. Our boy was going to be taken out of foster care and live with us. Things were looking up.”

Courtney took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then let her groggy head fall to the side so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

Regardless, he continued, “Then the bodies of the recently dead started rising from autopsy tables and funeral viewings and scaring the bejesus out of everyone. Eating them too. They increased their numbers with a simple transference of blood and saliva. One becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes eight, yada-yada-yada. Worse than that though—not even like the goddamn Fibonacci sequence or anything else that makes sense. Plagues can never be solved with math.” He paused his rambling a moment as he toyed with his lighter, shaking it to listen to the fuel swishing around inside. Once he was satisfied, he went on, “I never got to say goodbye to Lilly or Bobby. No, the last thing I remember before the American Army came and ripped me out of my apartment wasn’t a picture of Lilly or Bobby, but rather the garbage cans overflowing outside. The sanitation crews went on strike because of unsafe working conditions. Who’d have thought that the first thing to go after an apocalypse would be cleanliness? That’s what’s insane. But me? I’m still all there in the head.” He put a forefinger on his temple and added, “No insanity here.”

Courtney scoffed.

Without another word, Dane got off the chair and kneeled down in front of her. He gently resituated her head so she was facing him.

She raised her upper lip in a sneer. She’d have spit on him too if she were able, but manipulating her facial muscles was the most she was capable of at the moment.

He looked down and took her limp left arm in his hands. Before she could wonder what this was about, he unfastened the velcro on her glove and pulled it off her hand. When he was finished he nonchalantly tossed the glove over his shoulder.

She asked, “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m going to show you something,” he replied.

Softly, as though he were caressing a newborn, he took one of her limp hands and curled up all her fingers one by one, leaving only her pinky outstretched. He held the digit firmly in this position while he brought the lighter up next to it.

Her eyes grew wide. She knew his intention and tried to pull her hand away, but under the effects of the sedative she wasn’t even able to defend herself.

Dane then ignited the lighter and let the flame lick her finger, seemingly relishing the torment as her head fell back and she let out a silent scream.

Long forgotten memories returned to her in a flood. She could remember a time when she was a naïve little girl and stuck her finger in the cigarette lighter in her father’s car just to see what would happen. It had only been for a second, but the blister lasted for a week. She remembered crying because the pain wouldn’t stop.

What was happening now hurt a lot worse. The tranquilizer had not numbed her tactile senses, so her nerve endings were able to detect every millimeter of skin on her finger burning and bubbling and sent signals of pain shooting up through her forcibly relaxed arm and straight to her brain where these signals could be recognized and exacted.

After almost five whole seconds he finally pulled the flame away. Courtney wanted to cradle her hand and maybe pinch her finger to prevent some of the pain signals from reaching her brain, but once he let go all she could do was stare down at her hand and see the black, peeling, blistering skin above the last knuckle on her pinky. Her whole arm was twitching involuntarily. Her face was wet with tears and she felt like throwing up.

Dane simply smiled and told her, “Pain is something you still feel.”

He then outstretched his own pinky finger and put the lighter to it, letting the flame lick at the skin freely. He was smiling the whole time and didn’t wince at all, even as the flesh began to bubble and peel away. When he was finished he displayed his mutilated finger to Courtney, stench and all.

She gagged and let her head fall to the side once more.

“I don’t feel pain,” Dane explained. “The nerve endings in my body no longer function. I feel nothing. My cells have ceased all stages of mitosis. By rights, I should be decaying, but my skin and muscles have stabilized. My heart beats but my blood runs cold. I breathe but I don’t require oxygen. I am technically dead.”

Courtney turned her head to face him again and mumbled, “Are you trying to say you’re a zombie?”

Dane nodded.

“You’re not a zombie,” she sneered. “You’re just a loony tunes masochistic misogynist.”

“Those are some big words for a little girl,” Dane countered. “But I already explained to you that I’m the sanest person you’ll ever meet. Why, you ask? Because I accept what’s happened to the world.”

Gritting her teeth to ward off the pain in her finger, she asked, “What are you talking about?”

He stood long enough to return to his chair and sit down again. He shoved the lighter back into his pocket. Then—making Courtney gag once more—he put his burnt finger in his mouth and started nibbling on it. But it wasn’t like he was simply chewing his fingernail—he was chewing the seared flesh.

She told him, “You’re sick.”

“No,” he replied. “I’m hungry.”

He rolled up the sleeve on his sweater and lifted the chainmail underneath, displaying the bite wound on his forearm that he had used to impress the Superintendent and the Procurement Committee at Eastpointe. He then lifted his arm and put his open mouth over the bite wound to show her that the teeth marks were at the perfect angle and perfectly matched his own.

She realized now that the wound was self-inflicted.

“God, you are a freak,” she said.

He rolled his sleeve back down and replied, “God? No, I’m an atheist. I’m a man of science. You call the dead rising an apocalypse? An apocalypse is something out of the Bible. What happened to the world wasn’t an apocalypse. It was an occurrence in nature.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Evolution,” Dane replied. “It was the theory for the longest time that evolution occurred so slowly that it wasn’t noticeable in a single lifetime. But then the theory was advanced that evolution occurred in leaps and bounds. Many believed the next phase of our evolution would be to grow wings so we could fly through the air. Others believed that the next phase would be to grow gills so we could breathe underwater. Both ideas are incorrect. The next natural phase of evolution would be—obviously—to beat death. To be immortal.”

“You’re not immortal,” Courtney told him. “You’re just loony.”

“Au Contraire,” Dane replied. “I am proof of the success of evolution.”

“No, you’re just a crazy bastard and I hope you rot in hell.”

Dane chuckled. “Of course you wouldn’t understand,” he said. “Just look at how quickly you abandoned your own species once they evolved beyond you. You call them zombies. You don’t refer to them by name or even by male or female. They’re all just zombies to you. They’re immortal and you’re jealous.”

Courtney scoffed. She knew there would be no reasoning with this psycho, so she decided to stay quiet and concentrate on anything but the pain in her finger. It was making her nauseated and combined with the dizziness she was already feeling from the sedative, the idea of throwing up didn’t seem so farfetched anymore.

Despite her detachment from the conversation, Dane continued, “Evolution made a slight mistake in that it didn’t allow zombies a large mental capacity to solve problems nor the means to procreate. But being stuck here on this boat—searching for a cure—I was forced to use myself as a guinea pig most of the time. My evolution didn’t occur naturally. You wouldn’t believe all the things I had to inject into my own skin.”

Courtney couldn’t resist commenting, “Heroin junkie?”

“No,” Dane said. “The serum of the reanimated dead. It was all part of finding some mythical Cure. Instead it had the opposite effect. It made me one of them—Except I maintained my mental faculties.”

“That’s what you think.”

“But it changed my diet,” Dane continued, unfazed by her interruption. “You have no idea what its like to feel true hunger—hunger that can’t be tamed with the food from outdated military rations. No, a very specific sustenance is required to satisfy me.”

Courtney’s eyes grew wide. She gulped and softly asked, “Is that what I’m for?”

Dane formed another smile and replied, “Do you think I’d bother explaining all this to you if all I wanted to do was eat you?”

He stood and proceeded to one of the nearby control panels where he picked up the satchel bag she had seen him carrying earlier. He opened it and pulled out a syringe. He placed the syringe on the chair he had been sitting on before and hung the bag over his shoulder.

He stood in front of Courtney and gazed down at her.

He said, “Since my cells have stabilized and my body doesn’t radiate heat, the zombies consider me one of their number. In case you haven’t noticed, they don’t attack me. I walk with the dead.”

She let her head fall back so she could look up at him. She asked, “So what? Does that make you their leader or something?”

“No,” he replied. “I’m their messiah. And I’m going to deliver them into the new world.”

“What new world?”

“A world where the old products of evolution are washed away—a world where your kind is gone. I’m taking my army to Eastpointe and I’m going to destroy the last remnants of you.”

Courtney scoffed. She wanted to laugh, but her immobility wouldn’t let her. Instead she asked, “And you plan to accomplish this how?”

“Using equal parts physiological psychology and equal parts sensory stimulation using modern technology. The reanimated dead are a lot more complicated than you think. When there’s no food around, they operate with a pack mentality. And as you noticed earlier, I’ve equipped some of my shipmates with blades and armor. I only need to send electrical impulses to the pack leader and the rest will follow. I’m going to march my army to Eastpointe and pick up thousands of stragglers along the way, all willing to join the pack. Once I’m there—and since your city leaders were kind enough to give me a tour—I’m going to direct my army straight to the power plant. And from there, straight to the central housing.”

“You’ll never get past the wall.”

“The wall is nothing a pipe bomb won’t eliminate.”

Courtney struggled once again to move. Now more than ever she wanted to push her thumbs through his eyeballs.

Dane motioned to the needle he had placed on the chair and said, “That syringe will allow you to evolve like I have. It contains the serum of the reanimated dead. And then you and I together can procreate and give evolution the boost it so desperately requires.”

Courtney scoffed, “You and me? Don’t hold your breath.”

He chuckled. “You keep forgetting that I don’t require oxygen.”

“Whatever.”

“I’m going to leave you here while my army marches to Eastpointe. I advise you use the syringe before I get back. You’ll either be my Eve or you’ll be my dinner. It’s up to you.”

“Go to hell,” she snarled.

He chuckled again, then motioned to the small cooler against the far wall below the girly posters. He told her, “You’ll be hungry after you use the syringe, so I took the liberty of chopping up your teammates. You’ll find a leg or two in the cooler over there.”

She wanted to scream. She wanted to shout and yell and curse him into the ground, but her lungs didn’t give her ample energy to do so. All she could do was tell him in a loud voice, “I’m gonna kill you.”

He smiled and replied, “Good luck with that. I’m immortal.”

He then turned away and exited the bridge. Once the door was closed behind him, she could hear something metallic being propped up against it on the other side. She heard his footsteps go down the hallway, then she heard nothing.

She looked out the window and traded glances with the sea gull perched there. She stayed this way for some time, trying to fight away the tears and the pain still burning on her blackened finger.

Chapter Six

2006-04-13T12:04:00.000-05:00

Fallen

Dane told her: “Lose the visor. I want to see your face.”

Ignoring him for now, Courtney put her palms on the floor and pushed herself up into a sitting position.

The minilights on the fallen Socoms illuminated the grisly scene in Fortunes Casino. The bodies of her teammates were scattered around her, bloody and broken and partially devoured. However, the armored zombies that assaulted them were all standing in place now, wavering and looking drunk. Dr. Dane stood with them, holding a button on the handbox as he aimed the revolver at her.

Finally she uttered, “What’s going on here?”

“Don’t ask questions and don’t get up,” he replied. “Just lose the visor. I won’t tell you again.”

Trembling and taking in stuttering breaths of air, Courtney removed her beret and slid the visor off her head. Her hair spilled out to her shoulders.

“Now the sword,” Dane instructed. “Unsheathe it and toss it.”

Courtney complied, pulling her last weapon from its scabbard and sliding it away. She stared back up at Dane.

“Don’t give me trouble,” he said. He motioned to the zombies at his sides and added, “Or I let my friends have at you.”

He pushed down the antenna on the handbox and hooked it over the waistline of his jeans. He stepped forward, keeping the gun trained on her, and put a foot on both sides of her legs. He loomed there for a moment before kneeling down on top of her and placing the barrel of the revolver on her forehead. It was righteously cold against her sweating skin.

He leaned in close and put his nose in her hair.

She remained still, staring at his finger as it hugged the trigger on the revolver.

After a moment he leaned to her ear and whispered, “Your hair smells like apple blossoms.” He pulled away and smiled a very creepy smile. “You’re just a small thing, aren’t you? What are you, about five-five?” He paused to study her, and added, “Nice body though.”

All at once he used his free hand to grab her left breast, then squeezed and twisted on top of her wetsuit until he forced her to cry out. He held on for quite a while, clenching more than fondling, seemingly enjoying watching her face scrunch up in pain, then slowly started to release his grip. When he finally finished he mumbled, “Hmph—Not even a handful. But I like the way you scream.”

She wanted to tell the loony psycho to get the hell off of her, but the gun being shoved in her face reminded her to stay quiet.

“I’ve decided,” he said. “I’m keeping you.”

He took off the satchel bag and placed it at his side, then opened it and rummaged through the contents, eventually pulling out a syringe. He eyed it over his nose and tested it by depressing the plunger a smidgen and squirting out some of the liquid inside. He whispered, “These suits you murderers wear can’t stop a needle, can they?”

Despite the threat of the gun, she quickly squirmed to her side and tried to slither out from beneath him, but she suddenly felt the needle jab into her posterior.

Dane wrestled her to her back once more. He cupped his hand over her mouth and whispered, “It’s just a sedative. You relax now.”

She glared back at him, frightened yet angry. However, as the moments passed she began to feel lazier and lazier and almost wanted to close her eyes.

His hand slid down her stomach and began fumbling with the buckle on her belt.

Through her drowsiness she mumbled, “Please don’t.”

Dane returned his gaze to hers and smiled. He said, “Don’t worry. I’m not interested in the living.”

He finished unfastening her belt and let it fall off. He then gathered her limp body in his arms and put her over his shoulder, then stood and carried her out of the casino.

Her eyelids fell shut shortly thereafter.

Rush

2006-04-13T11:59:00.000-05:00

There wasn’t just one. It was a mob of at least ten or twelve and something wasn’t right about them. However, nobody was given enough time just yet to figure out what made them so different from all the others.

Events were simply happening too fast.

Dr. Dane was engulfed by the mob and was now gone from sight. The Black Berets heard nothing out of him—no screams for help, no cries of pain, nothing. Even though there hadn’t been enough time to save him, they should have seen him struggling on his own and at least trying to put up a fight.

But there was nothing.

He was simply gone.

The Black Berets lifted their Socoms and aimed high, the spotlights below the barrels highlighting the ghastly faces of the enemy. Muffled gunshots then zipped through the air, but instead of hearing the satisfying sound of the bullets hitting skulls, they heard the clanking sound of bullets hitting metal.

The zombies continued advancing, spilling out of the VIP room and stepping in unnaturally fast strides and rapidly closing the distance between them and their prey. Bullets from the .45’s were not even slowing them down.

In that instant Courtney began to realize that no zombie should be able to move as fast as these were, nor should any zombie be so invulnerable. She fired four more rounds at the head of one of the approaching ghouls and each shot was equally ineffective.

Then she noticed that the zombies’ outstretched arms seemed to reach about a foot longer than they should. Something fastened at the end of their hands was reflecting the glare of the minilights, shimmering to a sharpened point.

Before her mind could interpret what exactly it was that gave them such an extensive reach, her eyes were discerning something else out of the ordinary. Instead of seeing rotting teeth in the snarling mouths of these creatures, she saw a silver glimmer running across the surface of the enamel. There was obviously something laced over their choppers—something sharp.

Her magazine spent, Courtney dropped it out of her gun and quickly locked and loaded a new one in its place. All around her the rest of the Black Berets were doing the same. One of them—Delmas by the sound of the voice—shouted, “What the hell?!”

Courtney aimed high once more.

The zombies, getting closer now, compelled her to continue stepping back until the railing on the balcony behind her stopped her from moving any further away. The other members of the team were fanning out as the advancing creatures forced them to break formation. More shots were fired, but each bullet was still met with metal instead of skull.

It was then—with a zombie less than ten feet away—that she finally realized why her shots were ineffective. What at first glimpse she thought was hair or a hat or something else normal that a person on a cruiseliner might have been wearing when they died and reanimated, turned out to be some kind of helmet shaped over their scalp and forehead, around their eyes and past their jaw. The metal was thick enough to stop bullets.

Without understanding why these zombies were so equipped or even who equipped them, she shouted, “Go for the eyes!”

A bullet fired from Leon’s gun finally felled one of the creatures with a shot through the eye socket and into the brain. It dropped backwards and hit the thinly carpeted floor of the casino with a resounding clunk. Courtney therefore knew that somehow the metal armor wasn’t just limited to their heads—it was all over their bodies.

But only one zombie was felled. There were at least a dozen more.

Bad things started happening then. Shouts and screams echoed through the darkness. She lost sight of the other members of the team as she tried to focus on directing her shots into the eyes of the zombie approaching her. With most of her magazine already wasted simply trying to find their weakness to begin with, she ran out of ammunition before she could train the decisive bullet. She dropped the clip and reached into her belt for another one.

It was too late.

The zombie was already on her.

Up close, she could see that the extensions on its hands were actually bayonets welded into place on steel wristbands. Though the creature had no cognizance to efficiently wield them, this still meant that its fumbling arms were weapons of their own. It wasn’t just the teeth she had to worry about now.

She ducked under the blades as the zombie lunged forward and forced her backwards against the railing. She then fell to the floor, landing hard and awkwardly on the rifle strapped across her back. The zombie fell on top of her, showing its metal-laced teeth as it snarled and drooled all over her visor. From her back, she quickly maneuvered out of the strap so she was free of the hindrance of the rifle, then she rolled onto her shoulders and elevated her lower body in order to plant her knees on the insides of the creature’s elbows.

It was a Jiu-Jitsu technique Gordon had thought relevant to teach her. It was meant to prevent flailing claws, but in this case it worked to prevent the bayonets from reaching her. She knew the zombie didn’t realize it was equipped with blades, so she was able to prevent the uncoordinated creature from slicing into her. There was some kind of thick plating on its chest, legs, and arms and as a whole it was the heaviest zombie she had ever wrestled.

Keeping her knees planted against its arms to hold them still, she reached into the back of her belt and took another magazine. She loaded it into the .45 Socom, then put the point of the silencer against the zombie’s exposed right eye.

She pulled the trigger.

The gun discharged with hardly a sound and the bullet ricocheted several times inside the zombie’s skull armor, most definitely destroying enough of its brain to terminate it.

The zombie then collapsed, its dead helmeted face pressed against the other side of her visor and its motionless mass pinning her against the balcony railing. She tried sweeping the zombie off, but it was too heavy and since there was no space between them to gain leverage, it wouldn’t even budge. With her legs spread beneath the creature in a Jiu-Jitsu guard, this compromising position would have been embarrassing if it wasn’t so grotesque.

Another armored zombie was quickly approaching.

Still pinned and feeling suffocated, she lifted her Socom and fired off five shots at the approaching zombie. The first four shots bounced off the zombie’s helmet, but the fifth bullet went into the creature’s eye and through its brain. The zombie fell, motionless in its exoskeleton.

The glow of the minilights from the handguns was sporadic now and not many of them were still elevated. Even with silencers, Courtney knew she should still be able to hear muffled gunshots, but instead all she could hear was the grinding sound of metallic teeth chomping together. She realized that the trylar suits probably couldn’t withstand a bite from the metal teeth in this mob of modified zombies and somewhere in the darkness other members of her team were learning for sure if this was true.

A voice, sounding like Vaughn, yelled, “Who’s still with me?!”

“I’m here!” she shouted. “Get this frankenstein off of me!”

She heard Leon answer, “Hold on!”

Courtney forced her head away from the monster on top of her and peered into the darkness of the casino. Fallen Socoms with their attached minilights were casting beams across the floor. Everywhere she looked black and turquoise uniforms were covered in liquid crimson. Most of the people in those uniforms had already fallen and were now being assaulted by at least three pairs of greedy undead hands.

There were only two still standing.

She saw Leon, bleeding from the shoulder, attempt to decapitate a zombie. However, the blade of the wakizashi simply met with more metal at the base of the creature’s skull. The zombie, still moving forward, forced Leon backwards so quickly that the railing on the balcony snapped under their combined weight and sent them both tumbling onto the slot machines below.

There was a loud thud and then there was only silence.

She saw Vaughn—the last one standing—with his wakizashi reeled back and ready to strike as he waited for an approaching zombie. His beret and visor were gone, probably discarded sometime during the melee. His rifle wasn’t on his back and his handgun was also missing, all ammunition probably already expended. Courtney lifted her own Socom and fired the remaining rounds at the zombie’s head in an attempt to take it out before it could reach Vaughn.

Her aim was too unsteady in her prone position. None of the shots hit where she wanted them to. She reached for her rifle, but it had been pushed too far away during the scuffle with her own assailant.

Vaughn waited for the zombie and then thrust the wakizashi straight ahead in a technique she first saw performed by Gordon Levi. The point of the blade penetrated the creature’s eye socket and entered its brain. However, as Vaughn wasn’t accustomed to fighting a zombie with an extended reach, the zombie’s outstretched arms allowed one of the bayonets affixed at the end to reach his neck.

Vaughn let go of the sword, which stayed put in the ghoul’s eye, then covered his throat with both hands. Blood spewed from between his fingers as he collapsed to his knees. He sat like this for a few seconds, staring into the darkness, until two more modified zombies fell on him.

Courtney knew that if even cold and calculated Vaughn Winters had been bested, then it was highly likely all the others were gone as well.

Delmas, Mike, Chris, and Leon—gone.

All around her more armored zombies were lurching forward, the splints along their knees giving them greater support and mobility. She struggled to reach the last clip remaining in her belt, but since she was on her back with almost two hundred pounds of weight on her, this attempt proved futile.

She didn’t want to get eaten.

So with no hesitation she lifted her right leg and reached for the little white container in her boot. However, the bulky body of the zombie on top of her prevented her from obtaining it.

The other zombies continued advancing.

But then they stopped.

The terminated zombie resting on her was slowly rolled off. With her view now unobstructed, she looked up to see Dr. Aaron Dane standing over her. He had a satchel bag over his shoulder. In his left hand he held a small handbox with an antenna jutting from the top. In his right hand was a revolver, magnum style.

He pointed the revolver at her and stated, “Do what I say and you’ll keep your skin.”

Intermission: Training Manual Excerpt

2006-04-13T11:56:00.000-05:00

Twilight of the Dead - Free Zombie Novel

Twilight of the Dead - A Free Zombie Serial Novel by Travis Adkins

Chapter One

Intermission: Radio Transcript

Table of Contents

Purchase Twilight of the Dead by Travis Adkins

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Prologue

Eastpointe Map

Twilight

One Second Later

Intermission: Training Manual Excerpt

Confronting the Messiah

Heights

Return to the Dead City

Intermission: Training Manual Excerpt

Chapter Seven

Intermission: Rock Forge Army Research Laboratory Memo

Motionless

Intermission: Rock Forge Army Research Laboratory Memo

The Bridge

Chapter Six

Rush

Intermission: Training Manual Excerpt