Midnight Outbreak (7 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Five Years Later—East Texas

It was the dead of night, and Mari was drenched in sweat. She faced her opponent, concentrating on the right move she would have to execute to take them down. Her eyes squinted against the glare of the floodlights that illuminated the field she was in. She took a deep breath, said a quick prayer, and ran full-force.

Lexi was ready for her. In a crouch, she sprang up, agile like a mountain lion, and sailed over Mari. Mari knew it was coming, and immediately turned around. Without missing a beat, she charged at her again, slid on her feet, and made connection with Lexi’s feet before she could jump again.

Mari grinned wide as Lexi tripped over her and landed in the soft grass.

“Yes!” She hooted, and then covered her mouth. She sometimes forgot about the dead heads—mostly she forgot the possibility of them lurking along the fence. Lexi beamed at her.

“You did it! I’m so proud of you!” She stood up, knocking the grass from her pants. “I knew you could do it!” She wrapped Mari in a hug. The girl was almost her height now.

It had been five long years at Uncle John’s compound. Mari and Lexi’s relationship grew sweet, caring; almost like a mother and daughter. They had grown incredibly close, spending time together when Lexi was up at night, or right before daybreak. Mari talked to her about everything: Her mother and how much she missed her, wanting to go to a regular school, and her longing for a normal life. Lexi was her sounding board.

“I’m getting faster every day,” Mari reasoned, and she was. She may have only been ten, but she was strong, fast, and nimble.

Five years had seen the zombie situation grow. The south had completely shut down half a year after they arrived at the compound. Then the zombies moved North and West. No other country had been affected, but that’s because flights had been immediately grounded.

The compound ended up being a life saver. Uncle John treated the vampires with respect and thankfulness for their help at night. Another vampire had joined them a couple years after their arrangement, a woman named Luna who had lost her whole family of vampires to starvation. Vampires were starving because of the lack of humans, and didn’t have the stamina to head to other continents anymore.

Luna and Brendan had become an item. It happened slowly, and no one expected it. Luna reminded Josh of Claire, so it made sense to him after the fact.

Miguel completed more research into the exact cause and effect of how Samuel had died and caused the dead to rise. He had discovered that the blood mutated with the vampire’s venom, and that caused the dead heads, but he was still on the lookout for the cure, if there was one.

Lexi missed Samuel so much. Being without him hadn’t gotten easier, and this is why she took such a liking to Mari. She reminded her of her father. Very strong and independent, and a very good thinker. She always wanted to talk, and their conversations would last for hours.

The group had seen their fair share of the dead heads in five years. Everyone, even Mari, had come in contact with them, fighting them off whenever they got close. The zombies had travelled away from the big cities years after they became deserted, looking for humans, looking for food. The years had not been kind to them, and their bodies deteriorated, making them even more ghastly to be around.

The advantage the humans had was that they could smell them coming. Being outside for half a decade made them stink to high heaven. They were disgusting, a mix of manure, bile, and rot. Many of them were just bones with a thin layer of mottled skin attached. They were the stuff that nightmares were made from, and more horrifying than any scary movie that had ever been made. 

Altogether there were fourteen members of the compound. Nathan was Brendan’s cousin, John’s other nephew. Nobody had seen or heard from Brendan’s folks or Nathan’s. Uncle John had told all his family that if shit went south, to head to the compound, but only Brendan and Nathan had made it. Nathan was half-Mexican and half-black, his hair dark black and his skin a dark brown. He was a few years younger than Brendan.

Peter was Uncle John’s old friend from their army days. He wasn’t round like Uncle John, but instead like a skinny limb. He had short, messy gray hair and a long beard.

Joan was older, a friend of Uncle John’s late wife and an old family friend. Her hair had long ago turned gray, and she refused to cut it. Every day she fastened it in a long braid that went down her back. Her face was lined with wrinkles, some new, some old.

Sarai had been a stranger, a nurse from Dallas that was trying to make it to Shreveport where her family was. She’d brought an arsenal of medical equipment with her, which had come in handy. Sarai was pretty, almost thirty, but still looked like a teen. She kept her brown hair short. At first, her pale skin was perpetual shade of red in the summertime, but over the last few years, it darkened. Her eyes were always kind, a watery blue.

Everyone had all transformed into great fighters, and everyone contributed in some way. Brendan taught them how to hunt the land. Josh continued to train with Will, who eventually started training with the vampires. Will’s hatred for them dimmed, but he never fully trusted them, not even after all that time.

They had a system. Lukas and Miguel fed off Brendan. Sarai had offered herself to Lexi and Luna. Sienna fed off Uncle John. It took a while, but the other people in the compound warmed up to the vampires. Sometimes they offered the main feeders a reprieve and let the vampires feed off them.

Things worked really well at Uncle John’s. He was meticulous about schedules. Everyone had, and kept up with, their responsibilities. Uncle John taught them all to be aware and accountable. If one of them slipped up, it would have consequences for everyone. He ruled with a firm, but still kind, hand. After all, pre-plague he was just a regular redneck that was obsessed with doomsday prepping. This had turned out to be his advantage.

Every day they all woke up to one thought:
Would this be the day
? The day everything would end. Nobody was ever safe in this world. As long as there were dead heads, there would always be the danger of dying.

Chapter Fourteen

“Ready to go, ugly?”

“Yup; let’s head out,” Josh replied.

It was time for their monthly run. They did this not because they were out of supplies, but because it was nice to get out every once in a while. It was a reprieve from the consistency of the compound and added a little excitement to their lives.

Will had trained Josh religiously over the last five years. Both men were strong, limber, and all-around ass-kickers. They trained the others, as well.

Today they were travelling north up into Arkansas for the day. The one thing they did need was gas, and so all empty gas cans were loaded in the back of the pickup truck. They had spent nights worrying about losing their vehicles, either due to old age, or lack of gas. One thing they agreed on was that if they lost the vehicles, they would all be screwed.

Mari gave them both hugs as they got ready to load into the cab. “Bye Uncles!” she called cheerfully.

They rode along in silence, listening to a CD of some good rock and roll. Driving down the highways proved a little more difficult than it used to be. Lots of run-down cars, abandoned in the middle of the road or on the side. Will improvised, off-roading it, using the truck to move the cars out of the way. Sometimes they got out to dig through the cars, but most of the time they came up with nothing. Whatever was good for the taking usually had been taken long before Josh and Will came upon it.

They reached Arkansas around noon. They had planned on making it towards the southeastern side: El Dorado. There were a few stores around there they were hoping to get lucky with; maybe they could find more tools and gas, and more clothes for Mari and everyone else.

This life was a lonely one. Josh had always been comfortable around people. He was a natural-born leader before. And he still was one—just a leader to fewer people. 

Josh let go of his resentment towards Will about Myra. Those days were long past. Josh moved on; he had to, because his life before the dead heads took over was long gone. He tried not to think of her as much as he used to. Because once you started thinking of ghosts, they took over. He went through a period of time where she haunted his dreams every night for months. But he realized that maybe it was for the best. He wasn’t sure if she would’ve made it in this type of world. She was too caring, wanting to help people too much. She wasn’t cut out to be ruthless and do the stuff that Josh had done.

They pulled up to a pharmaceutical store. They didn’t rely on chemical medicines anymore. Instead, they were always on the lookout for natural herbs, something Luna had taught them about. It turned out she had been a nurse in the 1960s, and her knowledge was quite valuable.

They parked in the back and wordlessly got out of the truck. They had a strategy for these runs. Walk around the perimeter; pull the truck as close as possible to the back door. Get in, get out.

There was a lone dead head right when they walked in. Without a sound, Will took his katana and chopped his head off. Josh and Will stepped over the rotting body, black ooze running out of the neck wound. Will took his rag out of his back pocket and wiped the blade. The katana had killed hundreds of zombies during the years. It was Will’s baby.

They were in and out of the pharmacy store within twenty minutes. Their packs held dozens of bottles of natural remedies like zinc and Echinacea, and they’d even scored some bottles of hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol. It was the little things that made them happy.

The next store was about ten minutes away. This one had a hoard of zombies.

Will glanced over at him. “Pass or no?”

“Nah, let’s go. I have some aggression to get out.”

This part of himself worried him at first. How much fun he had killing the zombies; how he took pleasure from whacking their heads off or stabbing through their rubbery, rotting flesh with his knife. They used to pass on congested areas like this. But not anymore. Josh was tired of letting them run everything in his life. He took pleasure in ridding the world of however many he could take out.

They pulled toward the back and the zombies immediately followed them. Will turned the truck and hit the zombies coming after them. He made sure not to hit them straight on. They got stuck that way, their mangled bodies ruined the undercarriage and exhaust at times. Instead he hit them at an angle ramming his bumper into their torsos, sometimes ripping them completely from their legs.

“Alright here we go!” Will whooped. He, like Josh, liked this part, too. Since he couldn’t kill vampires anymore, he put all his effort and enjoyment in killing the dead heads.

He came to a jerking stop and both men jumped out. Will made sure to lock the doors. He had made the mistake of leaving it open once, and he swore to never again.

The men took deep breaths and began their killing. They were skilled with the katana and knives, very rarely using the shotguns or pistols. Josh held his breath as he dodged a zombie with one eye missing, caked-on black blood covering most of his face. He snarled with a half-toothless mouth.

“You’re an ugly bitch,” Josh whispered, slicing up and through the neck. The zombie dropped on the ground. He took down three more and heard pounding on the back door.

“What is that? Dead heads?” Will called out as he swung his katana straight across a woman zombie’s head. It hit the ground with a thud.

“I don’t know,” Josh answered. He stepped over and put his ear to the door.

“Help us! Please help us!”

“Nah, not dead heads. Survivors,” he shouted to Will. It had been a long time since they’d come across any survivors. Will’s eyebrows arched high. He trotted over to Josh, who was struggling to open the jammed door. He called out to them. “Back up. We’re gonna break the door down.”

A muffled “
Okay”
sounded back, and Will took a few steps back. He took a step back toward the door, raised his other leg, and gave a mighty kick. The door gave a rusty squeak and popped open. Darkness surrounded them as they stepped inside and Josh took out his penlight.

“We’re right here,” a female voice sounded to the right of them. Josh shined the light and hit a group of two. A tall, lean girl with a messy bun immediately blocked the light. An older woman stood beside her, her body streaked with dirt and grime.

“Hello there. Anyone else with you?”

“Used to be. But it’s just us two and West. He’s in the bathroom sleeping.”

“Ah, well I’m Will. This is Josh.” He offered a hand to the first girl.

“I’m Van. Well, Vanessa, but call me Van.”

“I’m Makayla. West is my son. Where are you guys from?”

“East Texas. We’re on a run. How long have y’all been here?”

“A few days. Those zombies had us surrounded; they attacked us inside here, but we killed them. Then the door became blocked or jammed. So we were stuck.”

They blocked the door from any outside threats and the women led them into the front room. The hallways smelled like sewage, but as they made their way into the main floor, light flooded from the tiny slits in the boarded up windows and the smell dissipated.

“Weapons?”

“We have a few. A couple guns and knives. We’re wanderers. We’ve come from northern Illinois. Haven’t found any kind of survivor camp or anything. We figured coming down south, getting close to the ocean would be our best bet,” Makayla said. She was skinny, her bones protruding from her tiny body.

“Any good stuff here?”

“Actually yeah, lots of supplies. We wouldn’t be able to carry everything, but we loaded up on what we needed.”

“Okay, well y’all can come back with us. We have room. It’s a compound. We’ve been there for five years. It’s run by an uncle of our friend. We’re not gonna stay here long. We’ll get our supplies and get out.”

Van and Makayla looked at one another. They were both tired; the weariness on their face was evident.

“It’s okay to come with? I mean, the other people won’t mind? We’ll do our part and pitch in. We’re good hunters; we survive off game we find. West is a hard worker. He’s eight, but he pitches in like he’s supposed to.”

Josh was about to say something smart ass, but bit his tongue. ‘Cause whether they were good hunters or not, it didn’t look like they had been surviving all that well. Both girls were too skinny.

“Yeah, it’s fine. Y’all get your stuff. Wake the boy up. Show us where the good supplies are, so we can hit the road.”

The girls scrambled. Makayla went to wake her son, and Van gathered their things. She tentatively grabbed Will’s elbow and led him down an aisle to show him various things. Josh followed behind, grabbing things and putting them in another bag he brought. They were slim pickings, but getting anything was a blessing, he supposed.

West was as skinny as the girls. Josh’s heart immediately went out to him. His long hair was past his ears, almost to his shoulders. His clothes were dirty just like his face.

Josh and Will led the way outside, carrying their supplies and loading them into the truck. They still had more to get. They had to find gas. They told the girls their dilemma and they told them of a run-down area a few miles north that they had passed. Lots of abandoned cars.

So that’s where they headed, and they struck gold as they siphoned plenty of gas out of the cars that were scattered across the road. The girls worked alongside the men, very gracious and thankful for their saving. After they filled all the gas cans, they turned the truck around and headed back to Texas.

West sat in the back of the truck, head touching the pane of window staring out at the fields. Van had squeezed up front between him and Will and had struck up a conversation with Will. Makayla had fallen asleep, her stomach making small painful groans that he could hear from upfront.

Life had a funny way of changing, especially after the plague.