Read Run (Nola Zombies Book 1) Online
Authors: Gillian Zane
TWO | Strong, Independent Women Need Not Apply
THREE | Preppers Ain’t So Crazy After All
FOUR | Orgasms in the Apocalypse
SIX | Amazing is as Amazing Does
TWELVE | Uma, Reese and Zombie Roadkill
FOURTEEN | Fortune Doesn’t Favor the Bold
FIFTEEN | Swampland and Wind-Turbines
SEVENTEEN | Everything Good Comes…
To my darling husband, one day you
will read my books. Be warned.
A PARAJUNKEE PUBLISHING eBOOK
RUN. Copyright © 2015 by Gillian Zane. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Cover Design by Rachel Rivera
Editing by Raw Books Editing Services
gillianzane.blogspot.com
::: created in the USA :::
ONE | Rick the IT Guy
The zombie apocalypse was really fucking with my head.
One minute I was at my job, sucking up to my new boss – don’t judge, I didn’t want to be on the next list of layoffs– then in the next moment I’m running for my life with Rick the IT guy in full zombie brain-eater mode after my ass.
Lucky for me, I chose to wear my flats instead of those new Gucci studded platform monstrosities I bought on impulse last weekend because my new boss is a ridiculously short, insecure douche-bag.
He can’t look up to a girl, so I make sure that I wear flats so he stares at my tits.
We both win.
My shoe choice literally saved my life. If boss man wasn’t a little Napoleon, I would be pushing up daisies, or looking for my own brains to snack on.
Who would have thought this was the way the shit would hit the metaphorical fan?
ZombieBob205 from the prepper forum that I frequented must be laughing his ass off at this moment.
We all thought he was a lunatic.
Who believes zombies will one day descend on the world and end it? We, being the “normal” preppers were all focused on polar shifts and EMP blasts.
Now I feel like the dipshit for going with EMP.
I wish I would have paid more attention to ZombieBob205.
I know he posted a list of the best weapons for a zombie attack but I just couldn’t remember it.
“An ax!” I screamed as I ran into the stairwell and slammed the door behind me.
There was an ax in that emergency box in this stairwell, somewhere.
Rick slammed into the other side of the door but it was one of those fireproof doors, it would hopefully hold.
I turned around, ignoring the pounding and moaning coming from the other side.
I had to find that red box of awesome.
I looked around frantically, but there was nothing here.
I knew it was somewhere, I had passed it every day when I was on my “Get Fit Take the Stairs” movement.
I rushed down another flight of stairs and there it was!
“Alexis, you’re a genius” I praised myself for positive reinforcement and hurried over to it, slamming the conveniently provided stick into the glass and pulling out the ax, brandishing it in triumph.
I had never held something so wonderful.
The next thing on the agenda was getting to my car.
My car had everything in it.
The parking garage had to be empty, right? It was a Saturday and there were only a few die-hard workers in the building, escaping should be a breeze.
“Why, of all things, a fucking zombie apocalypse?” I whispered as I made my way down the next flight of stairs.
My brain kept flashing back to Rick and his desperate attempt to eat my face.
He had come in late, claiming he was in a road rage conflict and the guy in the other car had gone crazy and bit him.
I thought it was hilarious at the time.
But I wasn’t laughing when Rick suddenly went gray and tried to bite me while I was diligently updating a spreadsheet.
Rick was always an inappropriate loser, but he didn’t deserve his new undead status.
But, maybe he was the lucky one - because there was no telling what I was about to face.
Global financial collapses, EMP blasts, super volcano explosions…those were child’s play compared to your neighbors trying to eat your face.
I couldn’t dwell on negativity.
I had to make it out of this.
I had to get to my car.
Survival mode.
I glanced at the exit door. I was on the 10th floor, my car was parked on the second, I would have to go through the second floor lobby to get to the parking garage exit and then I didn’t know what I would find when I got into the garage.
My building was located in downtown New Orleans and in the height of summer there weren’t that many people out and about, but there would still be a good bit of tourists and some die-hard business people like me.
Zombies.
Shit.
I could do this.
The hard part would be getting from downtown to the outlying suburb of Metairie where my house was located.
I had to get home.
In my house there was food, weapons and my dog Charlie.
I needed to pick up the pace.
I made it down those stairs in record time and was breathing heavily by the time I got to the door marked 2nd floor.
I took a few deep breaths, preparing myself for whatever was about to happen.
There might be someone out there, that someone just might be dead.
That person I might happen to know, and if they were dead I was going to have to stick this ax in their head.
Headshots
.
I knew that one from horror movies.
Fuck ZombieBob205, I got this.
Who needed his stupid posts about optimal zombie attire? Not me.
Shit, I sure hope these dickwads follow conventional zombie tropes.
“Okay, one, two…” I pushed the door open, holding the ax in a death grip.
There were no moaning hordes waiting for me, in fact it was dead quiet.
I crept to the glass balcony and peered down to the first-floor lobby.
There was no one.
The security guard that sat at the big round desk in the center, day after day, wasn’t even in her customary spot.
I couldn’t get a good look at the front doors, but the quiet was telling in itself.
A loud clatter from behind me destroyed any semblance of peace, and I swung around in a panic to face whomever or whatever made that sound.
I didn’t see anyone, but from what I could tell the noise came from the office located in the central area of the floor.
It was what everyone called “the fish tank” because the office was all glass and the poor employees had
to work with the entire building walking past them to get to the parking garage.
Creeping closer, I noticed there was a woman in there and she was alive.
“Thank God,” I breathed and pushed open the door to her office.
She was trying to make a phone call and in her frustration had knocked over some files, the source of the clatter.
I recognized her from brief conversations in the lunch line and a few building block parties.
I couldn’t remember her name though.
“I can’t get anyone.
Have you seen the news? This is insane.” She looked up at me desperately and motioned to the television.
“I can’t believe my boss made me come in.
I knew this virus was spreading.
I should have told him to go fuck himself.”
On the television a local news anchor was on the balcony that surrounded the news station in the French Quarter, not too far from where my building was located.
I didn’t recognize her, but it was a local channel that I watched regularly.
She was out of breath, eyes wide and the camera kept jerking from the anchor to mass amounts of people running and screaming in the streets of the Quarter.
“As you can see from what is going on in the streets below me, the iKPV disease that has plagued New York City and Miami has now come to New Orleans.
The disease has been called the zombie plague by the media, and from what I’m witnessing they could not have named it better.
Oh my God, are you seeing this…get in on this…” She must have been talking to the cameraman because the picture zoomed in on two people wrestling on the ground in the streets below.
The one on top was the same gray color that Rick was.
The person on the bottom looked like a cook because I could see his white and black checkered pants, they were currently flailing as the man tried to defend himself against the attack.
When the camera zoomed even closer it was obvious there was no helping the cook since he was being eaten alive by the guy on top of him.
There was blood everywhere and the man was screaming.
He was in so much pain, I’ve never heard anything like the sounds he was making.
“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.” I had forgotten the girl behind me who was apparently about to have a panic attack.
Her sudden surge for the garbage can had her pushing past me, alerting me to her presence.
I wish I could distract myself with my own vomiting, but it was a no-go and I was stuck watching more of the terrible footage as the cameraman still remained focused on the cook being eat alive. The man had finally gone still, blood pooling around him on the cobblestone streets, the zombie on top of him ripping at the flesh of his stomach, like a big cat feasting on the intestines of an antelope.