Affliction Z: Abandoned Hope (Post Apocalyptic Thriller)
Read Affliction Z: Abandoned Hope (Post Apocalyptic Thriller) Online
Authors: L.T. Ryan
Tags: #Science Fiction
Affliction Z: Abandoned Hope
(Book Two)
L.T. Ryan
http://www.facebook.com/AfflictionZSeries
@Affliction_Z
PUBLISHED BY:
L.T. Ryan
Copyright © 2013
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any
format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the
copyright owner and publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and
events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.
Affliction
Z: Patient Zero (Book 1) on Amazon
Affliction Z Series
Affliction Z: Books 3 – 5 in development
The Sickness of Ron Winters: A free short story for newsletter subscribers
Special thanks to Aly, Carol,
Marianne, Melanie & Melissa
Addison Bowen clutched her pillow and pulled it tight across
her face, hoping to drown out the noise. On the one hand, having a stoner
roommate who tended bar and didn’t get home until five in the morning was
great. Carla slept all day long and left right after waking. The two women
rarely saw each other. But on mornings like this, when the woman got home
especially late, smoked too much and found herself amped, Addison wanted to
strangle Carla.
“Twenty to life, twenty to life, twenty to life,” Addison
muttered to herself. The mantra worked every time. She had to use it too often,
though.
It’d been dark when she woke up to the sounds of Carla
“owning mobs” twenty minutes ago. The woman couldn’t keep quiet when she fought
virtual opponents. Now, a slice of light penetrated through the long open
sliver where her drapes met, casting a long thin finger across her bed. She sat
up, grabbed her cell and checked the time. Six forty in the morning. She didn’t
have to be in class until eleven. Perhaps she’d leave the television on a death
metal station and turn the volume up to max on her way out.
She rolled over, reached down and grabbed a pair of shorts
off the floor. A victorious yell erupted from the other room. Make that two
yells, Addison realized. The other voice was deeper, that of a man. Who,
though? With Carla, it could have been any number of guys, and most likely one
Addison had never met. And one she didn’t care to let see her in a white tank
top. So, in addition to the shorts, when she stood, she grabbed a thin flannel
button-up and slipped it on, buttoning the middle three buttons.
Easier than putting on a bra, she figured.
The apartment she shared with Carla had two master suites.
Addison thought the label was a bit over the top, but she did have her own
bathroom, and that had been the deciding factor to move in despite the feeling
in her gut that told her not to when Carla mentioned Addison would be the fifth
roommate the woman had in eighteen months.
She stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind
her. It did little to muffle the sounds of virtual carnage coming from the
living room. She flushed the toilet and turned on the faucet to drown out the
noise. Finally, she thought, a little peace and quiet.
Only it wasn’t.
She freed her hair from a ponytail and ran a brush through
it. The first quarter-inch of her roots were dark again. She tugged on the
vanity. The mirrored door swung open. She found the box of wine-red hair dye.
It was empty. She made a mental note to pick up some more on her way from class
to work. She’d go right by the drug store anyway.
Steam coated the bottom of the mirror. She cut the hot
water. For two minutes, she stood motionless, killing time while staring at her
reflection. The longer she could wait in there, the better the chance the two
stoners would be asleep when she went into her room. Addison didn’t want to
wait, though. The longer she stood still, the angrier she became.
She pulled her hair back and wrapped a rubber band around it.
She stormed out of the bathroom, through her bedroom and into the hallway. The
noise must have risen a hundred decibels. A few steps later she stood in the
opening where Carla and her
friend
could see her if they looked over.
The carpet under her feet felt worn and beaten in the spot. Addison cleared her
throat.
Neither of them looked over at her. They were engrossed in
the game they were playing. On the coffee table in front of them, stood a
three-foot purple glass bong. Wispy smoke drifted from the top and rose like a
serpent into the air. The heavy odor of marijuana pervaded. Addison wondered
how long it would be until she developed a contact buzz. Considering she did
not partake, it might happen sooner rather than later.
She glanced toward the flat screen television. What she saw
on the screen looked like something out of an episode of
Sailor Moon
.
Only, the two female characters controlled by the two potheads on the couch
held chainsaws, which they used to mow down hordes of the undead. Addison
looked back at the heavy-lidded pair on the couch and cleared her throat again.
The sound did not interrupt them. They continued playing,
each expressing their own facial tics and emotions with every successful
slaying of a zombie or vampire or whatever they were supposed to be.
Zombies dragged their feet, Addison reminded herself.
She cleared her throat again. When the gesture went
unnoticed, she spoke up. “Hey, assholes.”
The guy looked over, smiled and jutted his chin in her
direction. A few seconds later, Carla let out a loud sigh, did something to her
controller that paused the game, and then looked over. Addison’s stare was met
with an eye roll.
“What do you want, Addy?” Carla said.
Addison hated being called Addy. Her mother named her
Addison, and that was what everyone should call her. “I’ve told you not to call
me Addy. And what the hell do you two think you’re doing in here?” She gestured
toward the bong and the television.
“It’s called unwinding,” Carla said. “Something you need to
learn how to do so you’ll be less bitchy all the time.”
Addison stretched her finger out and then snatched them
back, clutching them tight. A few of her knuckles popped when she did this. The
guy on the couch let out some kind of snort or laugh and nodded his approval.
This time Addison rolled her eyes.
“It’s not even seven in the morning,” she said. “Some of us
have to be up for stuff that actually takes place during the morning. If you
need to unwind, fine, but you can do so without waking up the entire complex.”
Carla set her controller down between her and the guy,
leaned forward and grabbed the bong and lighter. She brought the open end of
the pipe to her mouth, and then flicked the lighter, holding it close to the
stem where a few buds had been placed. As she drew in a deep breath, the flame
arched over and lit up the tiny bundle of marijuana, causing it to burn bright
red. The water in the bong bubbled, and cool smoke slithered up the chamber and
into Carla’s mouth.
How the woman held that much smoke in her lungs baffled Addison.
As Carla sat there looking like a frat boy about to barf,
she passed the bong over to her male companion, who repeated the process.
“You guys are fucking idiots,” Addison said.
Carla coughed, forcing the smoke from her lungs. She exhaled
as hard as she could, blowing recycled smoke in Addison’s direction. “You want
some of this?” she said in a voice two octaves deeper than normal.
Addison stood there, shaking her head. For a moment, she
thought about lunging forward and attacking the woman. As high as Carla was,
Addison figured she could reel off four or five punches before her roommate
managed to react. The guy was so baked he’d do nothing, most likely. She could
probably even land a few shots on him. He wouldn’t even notice. She smiled as
the scenario played out in her mind. She didn’t attack, though.
Instead, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes and counted
backward from twenty. Then, she said, “What I’d like is for you two to keep it
down for a couple hours so I can get a little more sleep. Can you do that?”
Carla’s face darkened. Addison found herself grateful that
the guy held onto the glass bong. Otherwise, her roommate might try to use it
as a weapon. After a few more minutes, Carla broke off the stare and looked at
the frozen image on the television screen. Finally, she spoke.
“Okay, we’ll keep it down.”
Addison smiled, then backed up a foot, and then sidestepped
down the hall until she was out of view. She didn’t trust either of them enough
to turn her back on the couple. After she closed the door to her room, she
flipped the lock up and tested it herself. Satisfied her crazy roommate
couldn’t get in without a bit of effort, something Carla was wont to do,
Addison collapsed on her bed and closed her eyes.
It was too late, though. The anger combined with four hours
of sleep turned out to be enough to keep her awake. For thirty minutes she kept
her eyelids clenched shut, trying to will herself into unconsciousness.
Finally, she gave up, grabbed her phone, navigated to a reading app and resumed
the novel she’d started reading the day before,
King’s of Cool
.
Best opening line ever, she thought.
After two hours, she estimated herself to be two-thirds of
the way through the book and decided to get out of bed. Sleep would have been
nice, but at least it had been quiet. She felt relaxed. Unsure whether the guy
was still out there, she plucked the thin flannel off the back of her computer
chair and put it on. The soundtrack from the video game met her as she opened
her door. She crept down the hall. Carla and the guy were asleep on the couch.
Their heads rested at opposite ends on the arms of the couch, and their feet
mingled in the middle. They’d left the game on the menu screen, where it looped
the same guitar riff every thirty seconds.
Addison moved past them and went into the kitchen. She
reached up and grabbed a plastic single-serve coffee container and a mug. She
rooted through the fridge while she waited for the coffee maker to warm up. The
refrigerator was divided in two halves, hers and Carla’s. On Carla’s side the
milk was expired, the egg carton was empty and the fruit was moldy. It made
everything smell like garbage. Addison knew this and had taken a big gulp of
air in advance. Running out of stamina, she reached in and grabbed an apple
then closed the door.
A few moments later, she sat at the table with a fresh mug
of coffee and her breakfast. Though the caffeine would further wake her up, the
warm steam that wrapped around her chin and cheeks caused her to long for more
sleep. The only way to counteract that was to drink. So she did. And as she
sipped on her coffee and ate her apple, she used her phone to check her email
and then Facebook.
An alarming trend caused her stomach to turn. Several news
feeds she glanced at mentioned an event occurring in Africa. She opened up the
web browser on her phone and went to the first news site she could think of.
Though the pictures were small, they intensified the feeling in her gut.
She got up, walked around the couch and stopped in front of
the coffee table. She started moving magazines, empty food containers, plastic
bags and the purple bong. She found the universal remote and tuned the
television to the cable box. The local station broadcast a national news feed.
On the television were images that might have been cut from the game Carla and
her friend had been playing.
Minus the chainsaws.
The footage was shaky at best. It looked like someone using
a cell phone had shot it. A little banner on the top said Tangier, Morocco.
People, or what looked like people, shuffled along a dirty street. One of them
fell and the others kept going, trampling over the person. None of them stopped
to help. She saw a group of them split off and descend upon another person
standing off to the side. He didn’t look like the others. In fact, he looked
rather normal. At least, he did until they tore him apart limb from limb. Two
from the group remained behind to feast on his body.
Addison sat down on the coffee table. Her left butt cheek
grew cold and wet. She had no idea what the liquid under her was, and she
didn’t care. The image on the TV shrunk to about a quarter of its original size
and a reporter behind a desk appeared.
“Again, these images are being broadcast
live
from
Tangier, Morocco. We apologize in advance for the graphic and disturbing nature
of what was just shown. Information is starting to come out, but reports are
conflicting. Stay tuned to this channel for updates as we receive them.”
Addison grabbed the remote and hit the pause button. “Carla,
wake up.”
Carla moaned and rolled over.
“Carla,” Addison said again.
Carla kicked her legs like a stubborn child, hitting the guy
in the groin. He tried to yell, but a hollow sound came out of his twisted
mouth.
“Carla!” Addison screamed.
“What?” Carla screamed back.
“Open your damn eyes and look.” As soon as the woman cracked
her eyes open and directed her gaze toward the television, Addison rewound the
feed and hit play. She didn’t look at the footage, instead focusing on Carla’s
reaction. Tears streamed down the woman’s face as she watched what Addison knew
was the man being torn to pieces, and then eaten.
“What the frig is going on?” Carla asked.
Addison shook her head and rose. “I don’t know, but it
doesn’t look good.”