Assuming Room Temperature (Keep Your Crowbar Handy Book 3) (2 page)

PROLOGUE

Mel had been enjoying a regular Saturday, which entailed riding around on bikes with her friend Kim, when it all happened.

As it was still early morning, they’d decided they would take the long way to the Vanita, Oklahoma Walmart; the one that took them past the high school’s football field, so they could watch the team practice for the scrimmage next week. They’d sat whispering on the bleachers, watching the players run around the field, ogling preteen heaven as the future All-State champions attempted to knock each other senseless. It was great fun.

They basically ended up in a full blown giggle-fit when Neil, one of the guys from the track team, stopped to say hello. He’d been a lanky, bespectacled boy with a somewhat large nose and a protruding Adam’s apple, who’d had a not-so-secret crush on Kim’s slim friend all year. They’d known each other since Neil’s parents had moved their family to Vanita,
To get away from all the BS in St. Louis,
his father said. For the life of her, Mel couldn’t figure out why. She didn’t think she was much to look at. Her hair was dishwater blonde not
actual
blonde, she had grey eyes, not blue like the cheerleaders she’d seen at all the high school games, and (dammit!) it seemed like she’d never get boobs. At least, not large ones. Which was a big worry for a girl her age. Neil was a long distance runner. That meant he spent a
lot
of time running around the track, the bucolic town’s streets and even the surrounding country roads, so everyone knew him. He was well liked by everyone he knew in school, if not super popular. He liked reading fantasy novels and comic books, just as she did. He was nice and cute (in a dorky sort of way) and it made Mel blush when he’d smile at her, which she’d never actually admit. After he’d asked what they were doing later then trotted off to the screaming of the track coach, Kim immediately wanted the “dish” on whether the slim boy and Mel had ever kissed. That prompted a three block bicycle chase, both of them laughing as Mel swore to “pop Kim a good one” and Kim swearing Mel was “in lu-u-u-u-uv!”.

The girls were still laughing about it until they neared the Eastern State Hospital.

There were weird looking people coming out of the doors. They looked kind of sick Most of them were wearing hospital gowns, some wore scrubs or normal clothes and a couple were wearing state trooper uniforms. What shocked the two girls was that more than a few of them were really bloody and even more looked seriously hurt. Kim had screamed and pointed out one of the men in the growing crowd.

“That’s Mr. Bachman!” She’d yelled.

Mel saw her friend was right, sort of. Mr. Larry Bachman had been their seventh grade biology teacher. He’d been hospitalized after his appendix almost ruptured a week prior, and had been recovering nicely the last Mel heard. Her mother had mentioned some of the parents had sent him a card. It didn’t look as if he was doing to well just then though. He looked absolutely frightening. He was missing the left side of his face and was chewing on someone’s arm. A few moments later the growing mob noticed Mel and Kim. Bloody jaws dropped earthward and a chorus of chilling, wet moans forced their way out of twenty pairs of blood splattered lips.

That was when the girls decided to turn their bikes around.

Their plans for that day forgotten, both made for their homes in a panic. Kim’s was a block closer than Mel’s so the blonde-haired girl yelled over her shoulder that she’d call once she managed to tell her mom what happened. Kim yelled for her to be careful, jumped from her bike before it came to a stop and left it lying in her front yard as she scurried into her own house. That was the last time Mel had seen her friend. She didn’t know what had happened. She hoped Kim had managed to escape, but knew the girl was most likely walking around out there, somewhere. Hungry, alone, and very, very dead.

Neither her mother or her father had been home. The back door of the house was open and there were blood stains on the door-jamb. She’d stood there looking at the crimson stains for a long time, crying. Her parents never would’ve left without her. The huge red puddle on the linoleum floor was already attracting flies too, so it had been there for hours. She knew they were dead, her brother too, most likely.

Her brain kicked in again and the teen decided, regardless of how messed up she was at the moment, she had to do something. It was either that, or what had probably happened to her family would happen to her too. Running down the street yelling for help was out, so she’d gone upstairs to her room and emptied her backpack. History notebook, last weeks algebra homework, her AP government notes, they all hit the carpet. She replaced them with a few pairs of pants, some t-shirts, socks and underwear, then headed back down to the kitchen. She’d taken her dad’s entire supply of power bars, protein mix, and multivitamins from the walk in pantry, along with the dried apricots, apples, and raisins her mother kept on hand. Mel had changed into a pair of jeans, her cross-trainers, one of her mother’s gardening shirts, and then taken her gloves as well; the thick leather ones her mom used when pruning her roses. The teen had raided her father’s small work-shed, taking his heavy-duty Mag-light, stuffed it in her pack, and then gone for the garden tools.

The pick ax was out. It was too awkward and ungainly. Same problem with the regular ax. Carrying that would be exhausting for the slim girl. The garden shears would make a formidable weapon. Their pointed, scissor-like tips would go right through flesh, but might get stuck in bone if she used them for stabbing. Mel decided on the “European” version crowbar her father had purchased on eBay last summer. Being forged of titanium, and not the normal steel, it was pretty light, but still super durable. She could use it to pry open doors, break windows without getting cut, or move heavy objects. It added almost three feet to her reach too, so she should be able to stay out of grabbing range,
if
she were careful. That way, she wouldn’t get turned into a zombie.

Mel knew what the crowd she and Kim had witnessed were. While not a avid fan of horror movies, she’d watched enough of them to know a zombie when she saw one. She
was
a teenager, after all. Someone with greyish skin, yellowing eyes, covered in blood, and chomping on body parts? That pretty much summed up everyone she’d seen coming out of the hospital, and it sure as hell said “Zombies!” to her. The teen didn’t have any illusions. She knew she had to hide. She wasn’t a “super-zombie-killer” from the movies, so she had to find somewhere safe to hole up until help came. She had no intentions of being the “stupid chick” in the slasher flick. The one that runs through the woods screaming (who always manages to trip on something) with the monster right behind her. So, she’d thought about where to go as she filled a couple of sports bottles with water.

The police station wasn’t a good idea. Lots of the town’s residents would be heading there, she was sure. That would only draw the zombies that way too and Mel didn’t feel like getting eaten. The church three blocks down was an equally bad idea. It might be secure for a little while, but frightened people who thought the world was coming to an end (which is very well what it might have been doing) would be running for the confessional. So, once again, lots of people gathering in one place equalled zombie chow. She needed somewhere with thick walls and doors, a limited number of exits, food, water, and anyone watching just then would have witnessed the “light bulb!” look on Mel’s face as the pieces clicked together in her head. The girl moved quickly to check the front yard, making sure not to move the curtains so she wouldn’t attract any unwanted attention, in case there were any zombies close by. She didn’t see anyone on the street and decided she might be able to make the ride, if she were careful.

The young blonde stopped and took a last look around when she put her hand on the doorknob. She wouldn’t be able to come back. Ever. Mel began tearing up again and quickly wiped her eyes. Time enough for that later, if she managed to survive. It wouldn’t do any good to have a breakdown before she reached safety. She
did
grab a family photo off the wall and removed it from the frame before stuffing it into the outside zipper pocked of her backpack though. After taking some deep breaths, Mel left her home by way of the front door.

Once outside, she could hear them. Well, probably not the same crowd from the hospital. Others. People that had been bitten by them and had turned themselves. Mel didn’t know if they were just infected with something or really dead, but she didn’t plan on sticking around to find out. Hopping on her bike once more, the lone girl headed for the west side of Vanita.

CHAPTER ONE

“So what did we come out for again?” Leo asked, checking the magazine on his M-4.

Kat glanced at him in the rear view mirror. “It’s a girl thing. Do you
really
want to know?”

The indigo-haired woman turned their Humvee south, heading for the small Mom and Pop drug store they’d seen coming into town a week prior. The few infected along the stretch of road fell easily beneath the vehicle’s armored crash bumper as she drove northward. Kat was proud of herself for not aiming for the awful things any longer. They’d had a close call a few weeks back when she’d almost flipped the Hummer, after smearing one all over its front end. And then, the windshield.

Leo grimaced. “Ah. No. I think that’s all I need, really.” Leo looked decidedly uncomfortable.

“Just try to enjoy the ride.” Elle said calmly. “If you’re a good boy? You might get a sweetie later.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re
never
gonna let that go, are you?”

“What? That I’m dating a younger guy? Nope.” She replied.

Leo shook his head, causing his dark hair to bob around his sun-tanned face and looked at the scenery passing by. He’d
long
ago accepted Elle’s slightly off-putting sense of humor. They never would’ve lasted as a couple, especially during a zombie apocalypse, if he hadn’t. Besides, it helped that the ex-sargeant was seriously hot.

Elle was tall, blonde, and very pretty in a GI Joe kind of way. She wore her honey-blonde hair just a bit longer than shoulder length now that, thanks to corpses staggering around world-wide, “military regulation length” was a thing of the past. She had one hell of a figure under the fatigues and flack vest, and the fact Elle was really good at shredding things with her .50 cal machine gun as well put her somewhere near the level of
She’s A Total Babe So Grin And Bear It
in Leo’s mind.

“I think it’s hot. Barely legal and all that...” Kat teased.

“I’m nineteen. And you’re not helping,” Leo said.

“Sure I am.” Kat said, with a unrepentant smile. “It’s called comedy relief.”

Leo sighed as Sampson’s deep bass chuckle rumbled from the passenger seat. John Henry Sampson had been aptly named. The Hulk-sized, six foot seven man had been a linebacker for the Indianapolis Colts for just over a year, prior to the Zombie Apocalypse. The day it happened, he’d fought his way out of the city with half a dozen other uninfected people. Now, five months after civilization as we know it came to an end, the muscular black man was the only one left of his original group.

“I’d have to agree with the kid.” Sampson chuckled, shifting his bulk slightly. The big man took up almost the entire front, passenger side of the vehicles cab. “You girls
do
ride him pretty hard about being the youngest.”

“Traitor. We should’ve left you in Fairland.” Kat gave him a narrow look from the corner of her eye and attempted not to grin.

Fairland was a small township set roughly thirty-five miles west of the Cincinnati Gas and Electric Lake their small group had sought out, after their battle with the Purifiers. Said Purifiers had been a bunch of screaming, white-supremacist hate mongers, led by a raving psycho who’d been responsible for the deaths of three of their friends. Foster had managed to lead them to the hidden safe-house on the southern side of the little town afterwards, but it had been a long trip. They’d had to circle far to the west after crossing the Ohio/Kentucky border, to avoid the large concentration of infected that was sure to be in Cincinnati, Fort Mitchell, and Florence. It had taken them the rest of the night and all of the following day to reach the cache and nearly doubled their driving distance. Thanks to abandoned cars, multiple roads blocked by half-destroyed and abandoned barricades, along with the occasional walking corpse, they were all exhausted by the time their party reached the reinforced sanctuary at Sunset Valley Stock Farm. The survivors had sheltered within the farm for almost a week before Sampson came knocking on their door.

* * *

“Holy shit!” Foster exclaimed. “There’s a goddamn
giant
outside.”

The others quickly huddled around the cache’s lone security monitor with him to see. If Kat was the type to be impressed by someone’s height and weight, the fellow out there would’ve been the one to do it. Being a “highly-trained, butt-kicking, ninja-girl” however, she knew physical size meant almost nothing in a fight.

The tall and
extremely
bulky man at the door had obviously been on the road a while. His clothing was battered and splotched. Old bloodstains speckled his Superman t-shirt, which was obviously too small for his massive chest, here and there. He carried not one, but
two
loaded backpacks that looked as if they’d been looted from the hiking section of a sporting goods store. The faded, dangling tags on the packs had kind of been a giveaway. He wore faded jeans that had seen some mileage and a pair of thick-soled, yellowish-toned work boots you could find at any discount Super-center. Pre-outbreak that is. Probably, due to his huge feet, those were all he’d been able to scrounge.

“Where the hell did
he
come from?” Rae asked, staring at the giant’s image on the screen. The sultry, brown-haired woman didn’t seem the least bit afraid, only surprised. Most likely due to the fully automatic, XM-8 rifle she had slung across her back.

“I think he was in one of the feed silos. Must have come in last night in the dark.” George replied, not taking his eyes from the monitor. “Big SOB, ain’t he?”

“Should we, I don’t know, let him in?” Bee asked. George’s niece bent over for a closer look, almost giving herself a wardrobe malfunction and causing the two green, Anime-style ponytails she wore in her hair to bob slightly. She was one of those girls lucky enough to have been seriously graced in the lung department, and tended to forget said fact.

They all frowned at the question. Their group had become
very
leery of any people they ran into, thanks to the Purifiers. As if the hungry, mobile dead roaming around weren’t bad enough. It seemed that if other people
had
survived, many had fallen victim to what shrinks would term as “the sudden, uncontrolled outbreak of justifiable cases involving Necrophobia.” Basically a really brainy way to say people were scared out of their minds at the thought of having their fucking faces eaten off—along with their other much-cherished appendages—by all the damn zombies walking around.

The survivors had watched as the large man politely thumped on the cache’s door again and look right at the camera above it on the wall. Foster zoomed in a bit, causing the newcomer to wave at the sound, then the big man began removing his equipment. The pair of Ka-Bar, ninteen and a quarter inch machetes he wore (one on each hip) which looked like they’d seen a lot of use, were the first things that hit the ground. The man tossed them well out of reach and pointed to them emphatically. Next were the two bulging backpacks, both of which were full to the bursting point of something. He had a trio of canteens tied to a leather strap running over one shoulder, and didn’t seem to notice their weight as he slipped the belt over his head and dropped them on the packs. Then, raising his arms up over his head, the gigantic man did a slow, 360. He pulled up his shirt, showing he had no weapons underneath and turned out all of his pockets as well. Then he waved at the camera again, making sure to keep his hands up, and took a few steps backwards to sit down in the grass nearby.

Bee’s uncle looked over his shoulder at Kat. “Your choice.”

“Why me?” She’d demanded.

George looked at her with sad eyes that didn’t match the iron in his voice. “Because right now...you’re the one
in charge,
Cho
.
”

Kat blinked a few times, trying to absorb that. There hadn’t been much need for a “leader” per-se, since the night her best friend Laurel had been killed by the infected. They’d made decisions as a group, not always agreeing but abiding by the overall consensus. It had been necessary to elect someone. The same night, after being beaten, stabbed, and almost fed to a shed full of zombies, Jake had…

The indigo-haired woman shook herself, reached over her shoulder, and drew he grandfather’s sword from the sheath that rode along her spine. “Let’s see what he has to say.”

Rae, George, and Kat exited through the heavy security door on the opposite side of the cache, making sure Elle secured it from the inside again, and then begun walking towards the front to meet the new arrival. The huge man still sat on the grass when they came around the corner, weapons at the ready.

Rae lugged her beloved XM-8, which she’d machined and put together herself with parts she’d ordered online from Cheaper Than Dirt. The rifle was an impressive piece of work, especially with the addition of the grenade launcher she’d customized specifically for the weapon. George stuck with his favorite M4 rifle. He had ten of them in their party’s stores, all exactly the same. Full, semi-auto, or single-shot capable, increased magazine capacity, four times integrated sight package. Pretty much a firearm enthusiast’s wet dream.

Kat stuck with her single silenced Glock 19 and her grandfather’s katana. She was pretty good by that point with a pistol, but the pretty Asian was death on two very sexy legs with the ancient blade in her hands. She had proven it in the alley behind Foster’s safe-house in Columbus when she and Jake took down over a dozen of the infected, up close and personal. They’d made mincemeat out of them. The writer with his ever-handy crowbar, and Kat with her sword. She bit her lip at the memory as she and her pair of companions approached the seated giant. They came to a halt ten yards away, not actually sighting their weapons on him, but definitely ready to fight if need be. The newcomer for his part, sat motionless in the grass, hands still well away from his body and looking at them hopefully.

“Hi. Are you gonna kill me?” He’d asked. “If you are, can I have a drink first? It was really long walk out here, and I’m completely out of water. Those packs full of canned food got pretty heavy about a mile back and I think my tongue is turning into jerky as I speak.”

That had been the day John Henry Sampson joined their little, rag-tag group of survivors.

* * *

Sampson laughed as Kat moved the Hummer around a wrecked Chevy half-ton. Someone had used it to ram a Mazda Miata months prior. The Miata had lost. “Hey, don’t kill the messenger. And please, don’t drive angry. You have a habit of taking a year or two off my life every other day or so.”

“You get to live, simply because we need to get back to the others soon. Before George or Rae have a conniption fit over us being out of contact for the last two hours.” Kat enjoyed ribbing the big man. It helped that he had a world class sense of humor and gave as good as he got. Besides, it took her mind off the fact their group was isolated, utterly outnumbered, and constantly had to be watchful of their surroundings. Zombies, you know?

It’s a shame he’s gay.
She thought wistfully, tuning left towards the drug store.

That had been a surprise. The big man had managed to keep said fact under wraps during his time with the Colts. If he hadn’t? It most certainly would’ve meant the end of his career. Not due to the management maybe, but because of the other players in the league. Sampson revealed his secret about a week after his arrival, due to the rather blatant advances of Foster’s niece, Beatrix. He’d told them as a group after dinner one night, assuring them all that he had no interest towards anyone and that he understood if they asked him to leave because of it. He wouldn’t be happy to go, but he would do it if that’s what the group decided. Both Kat and Rae had believed George would flip his lid right there. That the crusty, old soldier would have
something
offensive to say about the man’s sexual preference and demand the hulking Sampson take off, possibly at the barrel of a gun. He was an “old-school, hard-drinking, full ahead and damn the torpedoes, man’s man” type of guy, with opinions he had no qualms about sharing and a totally crass sense of humor. When Henry, as he asked everyone to call him, told those gathered however, George had simply shrugged and said the subject wasn’t relevant.

Don’t matter to me,
he’d said mildly, sipping coffee from one of the camping cups they’d procured from a Army Navy Surplus store, and relaxing on his mummy bag.
Ain’t nobody’s business but his. Only thing I ask is, if we get in the shit somehow? That he watches out for us, same as we all do.

Rae had been so shocked by that her mouth dropped open. When the surprised woman commented on how “politically correct” his opinion was, Foster had simply laughed.

What?
You suppose ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ was somethin’ new to the US Military? It’s been a unwritten rule for-fuckin’-ever.
George looked at the others like they were morons.
Besides, you think I gave two shits whether the man next to me liked guys or girls when a bunch a’ assholes was shootin’ at us in my younger days? When he could’a been the one to carry my ass out of a firefight, after I maybe caught a bullet? So long as Sampson helps protect everybody, why the hell should it matter? Never really understood what the big, goddamn deal was myself. Think it’d be even more stupid to care about it now, what with the fuckin’ zombies and all.

That had pretty much been the end of that.

Henry grinned. “I think I’m safe. Who else would’ve known what shade of hair color to grab for you back in Marshal?”

She considered his point. “Okay, I’ll give you that one.”

“There you go. Besides, you need someone to do all the heavy lifting. And for the occasional bit of fashion advice.” Henry was looking out the passenger window at the corpse of a lone creature that lay on the sidewalk. “I
do
kinda put up with all you guys, too. Who else has the patience to do that?”

Kat lost the battle against her budding grin at that point. The enormous man’s sense of humor had quickly endeared him to their group after his appearance that muggy summer morning, and it eased the stress that constantly having to be the funny girl put on her. She had a lot more to be concerned about these days.