Read Infected Freaks (Book 2): The Echo of Decay Online
Authors: Jason Borrego
Tags: #Zombie Apocalypse
Infected Freaks (Book 2): The Echo of Decay (10 page)
Jeffery jumped to the thing’s back, his short legs wrapping tight around the creature’s rotten waist. Something in the little guy snapped. Jeffery tore out the monster’s neck with a feral growl using only his teeth.
What the hell
? Abraham thought, stunned at the sight.
The freak staggered forward, and when the rope swayed that direction, Abraham hammered its soft skull with the back of the pistol. It was dead. Nonetheless, his heart felt as if it were about to explode. He couldn’t believe what just happened.
“Emme, cut the rope and do it fast.”
If I die, they die
, he told himself, fighting the will to shut down mentally.
She didn’t reply; instead, Emme kept on cutting, despite the full body tremors threatening her speed.
***
Bob shook his dripping hair and snorted a laugh. He stood on the roof of a nearby building holding Sam prisoner. It was the best seats for the horror show he had told the frightened girl. “Look at your friend. He looks like a piece of meat in a lion’s cage.”
Sam refused to answer. Instead, she was plotting a well-paced strike to the nuts.
Bob gripped her drenched hair and forced her to watch. One by one infected tore into the exposed maintenance bay. Between the wild boy and Abraham, her friends were surviving for the moment. “They won’t die so easily.”
Bob squatted to be eye level with her. “Do you realize how much your pretty little ass has cost me? I’ve lost everything. My town is overrun in those foul things. But now we will take the bus and start a new life somewhere else.”
Sam tensed. She realized what he was going to do to her. Men in a broken world had a way of making women pay. Bob was still talking, the faint cadence of his voice a distant echo in her drumming head. She lifted her eyes and looked at his ugly, pitted face. He was grinning at her and licking his foul lips. It was in that moment that Sam squeezed with all her might against his bloody stump. It was her last chance at survival.
***
Abraham pushed the diseased creature down and then swung his hammer at another. He was out of ammo and out of time. “Emme, get out of here.” He was ready to die strung upside down like a piece of meat. Still, he continued to fight.
The wild boy leapt up like a wolf, tearing another infected down and then colliding with a large, bloated child riddled in fungi. Jeffery had become a dangerous weapon.
A hard shiver raced through Abraham’s body as he imagined getting torn apart. His eyes swept across the space as more freaks buzzed in the distance. It wouldn’t be long. Again, that awful gurgling noise brought a certain rage to his face. It seemed to come from beyond this world. It was a choking, strangling sound of something precious caught in the jaws of a monster. It was the big freak. It had to be.
“I got it,” Emme slurred as the engine block smashed into the cement. The force sent cracks running in every direction.
Every joint hurt, and every bone snapped as Abraham fought to his feet. With his trusty hammer, he smashed the closest freak in the forehead and continued to hammer away at the back of its head. Fighting them on his feet was much easier as he made quick work of the remaining monsters. Out of breath, Abraham glanced over his blood-stained shoulder to his tiny granddaughter. “Get inside the vent,” he ordered. He braced himself for the wave of horrors darting his direction.
Emme gave him the finger and picked up the knife fastened to the rod. She was going to fight the nightmares.
All Abraham could muster was a curious smile. Part of him believed he was hallucinating. “Here they come.”
***
“You stupid little bitch,” Bob shrieked. He struck her again, knocking Sam to the soaked ground. Glancing back, Sam believed she saw Hunter Heinz through the hammering rain.
I’m dreaming
, she told herself, blinking away the image.
Then, a powerful blast from the bolt action rifle echoed in her hazy mind, smoke flooding the air. Bob’s yowl was music to her ringing ears. The terrible bully stumbled over the ledge of the roof and fell with an offensive thump. She jeered over the ledge and saw Bob lying on the top of the yellow bus on the street below.
This is real
.
When she turned, she saw Hunter wore a pained expression around his hazel eyes. Sam watched him reload and take aim at the ledge. His skin was swallowed in blood and gore. He must have fought through an army of infected freaks to get to her. There was a bloody glob on his shoulder, and his shoes were stamped in a seedy flesh. Yet, the torrential rain promised to wash it away. There was a long moment of silence. And then bleak action filled with terrible repercussions and emotional anguish took over.
“We have to save them!” Hunter yelled.
***
Looking through the scope, Hunter saw half a dozen plague-ridden freaks running into the maintenance bay. He fired, ejected the casing, and fired again. The things were coming from every direction. For a second, he regretted leaving his grandfather. But his aim was true as a dozen heads exploded in a short span of time. The roof gave him a tactical advantage.
The last two infected ran for Abraham. He took the shot and missed. Reloading, he was forced to watch the thing collide with his grandpa. Abraham and the freak tussled and rolled, punches impacting flesh with dull thuds. The infected clawed on top of his grandfather in a moment of defeat.
Hunter screamed in silence as he slammed the bolt forward in the rifle and shot.
The bullet sailed.
Hunter couldn’t blink.
The bullet dug through the chest of the monster.
In that moment, Abraham reached out for his hammer and smashed the thing in its skull. He climbed up and hit it again and again as blood spurted from his nose. The spatter of brains and bone paint the seconds.
Behind Abraham, Jeffery lunged up and smashed the final creature down. Then, Hunter saw his little sister drive down some sort of crude weapon through the awful thing’s skull.
“What is that?” Sam asked, pointing to a slithering blob of horrid flesh and mold.
“That’s the meatloaf,” he said. Hunter took aim, realizing his rifle was useless. Through the scope he saw the thing stop and turn back the way it came. It was running. He pulled back and saw that all the fear of night had been washed away with the first beams of morning. Hunter gathered his denim coat around his shoulders.
We did it
, he thought and smiled. The tears of joy came unguarded. “The daylight is driving them away,” he said, hugging Sam. Hunter held Sam, wincing in pain in his injured body.
“Let’s get the hell out of this town,” she whispered, looking up at him with gorgeous eyes. The longest night of their lives was over.
***
The past twenty-four hours had been the most thrilling Abraham had remembered. He listened as his grandson fired up the old Blazer. A vulgar, smoky blast erupted out the corroded tailpipe. It screeched several times like the cough of a smoker in denial. When his grandson revved the engine, he couldn’t help but smile.
“We survived another night,” Abraham said.
“Barely,” Hunter remarked, touching his tender forearm.
“Barely is enough,” Abraham was quick to respond. He dropped his pistol into its warped holster and looked up. The beautiful swirl of white and blue in the sky shimmered in the full radiance of morning. “How’s the gas gage look?” he asked, setting down the empty fuel container he stole from the garage.
“Full,” Hunter hollered back.
Abraham looked to Sam and smiled. The poor girl was always on the wrong end of bad. Beyond the fright, he saw a small ray of light for the girl and it was named Hunter. When Hunter brought Sam back, they were holding hands. This gave hope to an old man like Abraham.
Be good to each other.
“This visit was a wasted trip,” Emme said, piling into the back of the vehicle with her wild friend.
Abraham watched Jeffery for any sign of infection, and when the boy didn’t show any, he accepted him as one of the group.
“A wasted trip? I don’t think so,” Abraham said, pointing to the new arsenal. “We got fuel. We got food, guns, and ammo, and now we’re going to get the rest of our family back.”
Plus I took care of something I should have finished all those years ago.
He never found Bob’s body, but he was sure no man could survive a near point-blank shot from a rifle.
He must have turned and ran into the darkness.
“Don’t forget about Emme’s ability to hear the infected freaks a mile away,” Hunter said. His expression suggested he was finally proud of his little sister.
Abraham closed his sore eyes and again saw sweet Emme stabbing that makeshift weapon into the infected freak.
She’s not a little girl anymore.
“I won the right to sit in the front seat,” Emme said. “Remember?”
Hunter must have known what she was talking about. “But I’m driving,” his grandson said, looking him in the eyes.
“Give it to me,” she said, eyeing her brother.
“Go ahead,” Abraham answered, slipping out of the front passenger seat and switching with Emme in the back. He didn’t know what they were talking about. And really he didn’t care. He was going to let this grandson drive and his granddaughter navigate for a little bit. They earned it. He wouldn’t sleep. At least that’s what he told himself. The truth was he would be watching with both eyes open, ready for whatever challenges awaited. Plus, he wanted to be close to Jeffery in case something happened.
Abraham nested in the back next to the odd little boy and smiled. The peculiar little boy saved his life. Jeffery was one of the reasons he survived. “I knew I kept you around for a reason,” he said, exchanging awkward glances with the boy, who began to mutter the same phrase over and over.
“Dr. John.”
Maybe one day I will find out who Dr. John really is.
Goosebumps pricked his flesh and chilled his core. Abraham knew Sam wanted to go to Denver. Nevertheless, she understood the rules. Abraham would travel to the divided city after he rescued his family from the Red Tower.
I always keep my promises.
Besides, Abraham believed his missing son and daughter were somewhere in the Mile High City. He didn’t have proof, but a parent never needed such.
Lost in thought, Abraham stared out the window, accepting Sam as one of his own too. A smile broke upon his face like the first beams of daylight after a night of horrors. The sun had become a ray of hope for everyone in the vehicle. He knew it was the daylight that kept the freaks in the dark spaces.
VOLUME 3: THE RED TOWER PART 1
Summer 2015
If you enjoyed Infected Freaks: Volume Two, please consider giving a review and sharing your experience with a friend.
Abraham’s struggle to find his family has led him to a strange place…
The Red Tower lies in the middle of a military compound in the Rocky Mountains. Abraham knows his loved ones are being held in the secure facility. What he doesn’t know is the intent of the well organized group of men in yellow chemical suits.
Abraham is preparing for war, but hoping for peace. He doesn’t know why the men in yellow took his family, or what they want. However, nothing is going to stop him from joining them.
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MIND CONTROLLING FUNGUS FOUND IN BRAZILIAN RAIN FOREST:
Most fictional zombie infections are a product of a deadly virus. However, in the deep forests of Brazil a real cordyceps fungus has done the impossible. It has brought to life the zombie apocalypse on the insect world. Originally thought to be a single class of fungi, the cordyceps is now divided between four distinct species with the possibility for many more. This is part of the inspiration for my book series INFECTED FREAKS.
“The newly discovered phenomenon is frightening scientists around the globe. This is because of the mind controlling abilities the fungi presents. Scientists have announced the zombie fungus species can infect ants, take over the brain, and then kill the insect in a spot that is desirable to grow more fungi and help spread the spores. Some of these ants could travel miles to find the right spot. This makes the body of the ant a puppet to the fungi.
The parasitic spores attach to the ant, eventually breaking through the exoskeleton using mechanical pressure and enzymes. A bite, a scratch, a tear in the flesh would be enough for the fungi to invade the blood stream with the ultimate goal of the brain.
Next up is the yeast stage. The fungi spreads in the ant’s body and presumably produces compounds that affect the ant’s hemocoel and utilizes the evolutionary trait of an extended phenotype to manipulate the behavioral patterns exhibited by the ant. Zombie ants begin to have irregularly spaced full body convolutions which sends them to the forest floor. The insect climbs up the stem of a plant and uses its mandibles to secure itself to a leaf vein, with abnormal force, leaving dumbbell-shaped marks on it.
Once the mandibles of the ant are secured to the leaf vein, atrophy sets in destroying the sarcomere connections in the muscle fibers, and reduces the mitochondria and sarcoplasmic reticula. The ant is no longer able to control the muscles of the mandible and will remain affixed here. This lockjaw trait is popularly known as the death grip, and is essential in the fungus’s fitness. The fungus then kills the ant, and continues to grow as its hyphae invade more soft tissues and structurally fortify the ant’s exoskeleton. More mycelia then sprout out of the ant, and securely anchor it to the plant substrate while secreting antimicrobials to ward off competition. When the fungus is ready to reproduce, its fruiting bodies grow from the ant’s head and rupture, releasing the spores. This process takes 4 to 10 days.”
The discovery by David Hughes and colleagues is something of wonder and terror. The fungal growth is only thought to harm the insect population. However, with each new species of fungus the risk to humans seems paramount. The fungus is capable of adapting to various environments and victims. Should the fungi ever infect a human brain the results may be similar to the fantasied zombie apocalypse.
The cordyceps fungus is an ever evolving species that scientists are just beginning to understand. With thousands of zombie fungi in tropical forests across the globe yet to be discovered, the chances of a human infection are high according to some of the specialists in the field.
The fungus uses its host to spread the infection. The human body is capable of spreading such a virus in an uncanny manner. Instead of devouring flesh the will of the creature would be to infect other hosts. This is exactly what these zombie ants do to its own colony. Once an ant is infected, the fungus forces the bug to bit other ants and in doing so allows the infection to spread at a frightening rate. The same concept applied to humans is exactly what the zombie apocalypse entails. However, unlike zombies a brainless body would bloom into a forest of fungus and create pockets of spores to infect the next unlucky person to stroll close enough. The human tissue would feed the fungi for a wealth of time allowing the process to devour mankind in a short period.
However, ants are smart and if they sense infected member they will carry them away from the colony hoping to avoid the infection. Of course the fungus infecting humans is speculation at this point. But in my new book series Infected Freaks the outbreak is real and possibly alien.
Learn more about the cordyceps fungus on the Web:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuKjBIBBAL8
http://www.jasonborrego.com/cordyceps-fungus/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA02gyLwh0A&list=PL_qbtwt0bvuUlYqIpEqMyd_jCkK3VzelS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WHaFWgKSsU&list=PL_qbtwt0bvuUlYqIpEqMyd_jCkK3VzelS
http://www.wired.com/2013/09/absurd-creature-of-the-week-zombie-ant-fungus/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/zombie-ant-fungus-parasite/