Death Plague Omnibus [Four Zombie Novels] (46 page)

The two who'd previously tried to kill me stepped forward.

"Please, tell me you're going to fight us?"

I laughed and nodded. “Yeah why not?” I lunged at the lead hunter, a man almost as tall as me. His blue eyes bulged when my heavy frame crashed into his. I kept one eyes on the other two while I punched the hunter hard in the throat. Even if I was as weak as they assumed, even after eating poisoned food, my action would have taken his by surprise.

The large blond man's body slammed into the weed filled road and lay still. The remaining two hadn't caught on just yet. That soon changed when I brought up two fingers coated with the hunter's thick blood. It annoyed the hell out of me that I couldn't lick them. I crouched beside the body and rolled it, showing them the wound.

Skin and muscle proved no match for my two fingers. This poor bastard hadn't even had time to cotton on to the fact that I'd just ended his sad life. I dug my fingers into the ragged hole, hooked, and pulled, and the skin stretched and snapped. It brought me such pleasure to mutilate the corpse, even it if wasn't that much of a challenge. It felt like ripping through soaking cardboard box.

Your poisoned flesh has no effect on me now.

Complete bullshit, but they didn't know that.

I'm only passing through. Leave me be, I'll be gone in a few hours. Go now and live. Stay and join your pal.

I could feel the deep hunger grinding inside both of their guts, and them watching me peel back the hunter's flesh like a fucking orange were making them even worse. I almost felt for them. I'd been in their position many times in the past. The ache might have clouded their judgement, but even they knew they wouldn't stand a chance against me. "Why are you still here?" The addition of my deep voice pulled the pair of them out of their trance. The two remaining now looked very scared.

The poor mites. I almost felt sorry for them, almost. The other hunter, the little shit who'd outlived his companions, took a couple of steps back, his large brown eyes, swapping from the body of his companion to me. I tried to glean what I could from his terrified mind,

His name was Jacob Marley. I guessed his parents were either a fan of classic literature or just had a strange sense of humour. It made me chuckle to find that before this nightmare fell on us all, this guy used lived very much like I did. He was even the same age as me. The only difference was that Jacob Marley wasn’t a very nice person. From what images I could rip from his past, he’d been a right little bastard, smashing windows to shoplifting. Something tells me that if the Turning hadn’t consumed us, This nasty piece of work would now be inside, probably with a rap sheet as long as his arm.

He'd already turned and hurried to join his companion. The fury still ruled their emotions, but neither of them had any sudden urge to retaliate. The distance between us enlarged. It didn't matter though, that gap soon vanished when I lunged forward. My fingers were around the neck of Jacob’s companion before he even had time to react.

"It only takes one to deliver a message," I purred, digging my thick digits deeper. This one, although gasping for breath, at least had some warning. It made the fight so much more enjoyable. He surprised me by collapsing his legs. I found myself falling over him and slapping my back against the floor, knocking the wind out of me.

In the corner of my eye, I saw Jacob turning and stumble away.

My captor snarled like a rabid beast and attempted to stamp on my head. I rolled to the side, then grabbed his leg and bit into the back of his ankle, tearing out the tendons. The hunter howled. I hadn't finished with the fucker just yet. I dragged myself up his body and raked my fingernails down his back, shredding both fabric and skin, the latter hanging over his arse like a grass skirt.

His beating heart sped up, as did his thoughts. This clown wasn't going to give up so easily. He'd already blocked out most of the pain signals, leaving him free to fight. I snarled, feeling like he'd just deprived me of my revenge. His fingers curled, and the fucker swung fast, those fingers only missing my exposed throat due to me falling back at the last second.

My forehead slammed into his nose. The cunt wasn't expecting that move. The impact blew apart his flesh. He staggered back, giving me enough room to finish. I lunged at the hunter, my open mouth settling over the side of his neck, and I bit down hard. It was just a matter of keeping my hands flat on his chest and pulling my head back in order to finish the job. The hunter's flesh already in my mouth stayed where it was while he flew back. He slammed both his hands against the hole. He soon moved those when I lifted my foot and stamped on his guts. I found that I couldn't stop. Again and again my foot came down, even when only two layers of skin separated the sole of the boot from the floor, I still continued slamming down until my foot did find stone.

Panting, I took one last look at the hunter. Judging from the red mess bulging through his crotch, his displaced insides and travelled downwards. I stood still, alone. The other hunter, Jacob, was long gone. I listened to the bats flying from one building to the next. The frequencies suggested that I wasn't as alone as it appeared. Behind filthy curtains and holes in walls, dozens of people had witnessed my actions, and they were scared, not from what I'd just done, but fear of recrimination. Over a dozen families were now making hasty plans to move to another area of this town before the other enforcers arrived.

I silently wished the pure breeds the best of luck, and ran back to the brick hut, trying to work out why I'd let the other hunter go. After all, that clown was bound to bring his pals back here, and it wouldn't take them long to find what was left of the enforcer, meaning they be on our tails before we'd know it. Sometimes I really did curse my values.

Then again, those values would go straight out of the window if it meant putting my sister in danger. I'd stop at nothing to get Danielle back, and if that meant my newly adopted family would end up dead, then so be it.

Chapter Six

Memory Lanes

The family raced through a vast collection of abandoned houses, narrow alleys, between stone walls, and even through an abandoned hospital. The landscape changed from one second to the next, but two things didn't alter. None of the four ever paused to take a breath, and I never sensed another mind. Their stamina challenged even me. They were now a few paces in front, picking their way through a two storey high pile of tarnished shopping trolleys. By the time I reached this behemoth of latticed metal only the backs of the two children were visible.

My pace slowed even further. The route through this maze hadn't been created for a creature of my build. I took this as a good sign; it meant that no other hunter used this route. Which also made me wonder why no other mind was close by. After all, from what I'd already learned, the population now existed as an oppressed people. Did that not mean they'd need somewhere to go that was safe? I was missing a very important part of this enigma, only I had no clue of what it could be, unless I was over-thinking again. Hell, as far as I knew, this whole town could be riddled with forgotten places like this. I had no idea just how large this place really was, nor did I know how many people lived here. I pushed all those questions away. Like any of that bullshit really mattered; as soon as I got back Danielle, we were getting out of this place.

It took a few delicate manoeuvres as well as bending back some of the cages, but I did get through. Both boys were fourteen years old. Their age struck me as ironic; it also reminded me how different my growing up was to what they experienced. Those thoughts made me very uncomfortable. As I previously explained, I don't enjoy looking back to the times before the dead rose. Come to think of it, I also avoid looking back to the years that I spent roaming through this devastated world with Danielle at my side.

I curled my fingers around one of the trolleys and found my eyes closing, the quiet conversations between the husband and Linda faded away, leaving me blind and deaf. My nose quivered, something very familiar triggered another memory. I couldn't stop myself from falling back into my past. Eighteen years wound back in under eighteen seconds.

Is all of this jumping from one timeframe to another starting to piss you off? Yeah well, it's tough. I wasn't doing this on purpose you know. You'll just have to get used to it. Pay attention, though, as the temporal leaps do matter. Believe me, they do fucking matter more than you can imagine.

"Come on, lazy bones. Get your arse out of that pit."

The not so gentle boot against the side of my sleeping head encouraged me to make the appropriate waking up noises. I wasn't ready to open my eyes, though, not just yet. I so needed to cling onto the last threads of some erotic dream involving me and three naked girls. My dreams were the closest I had gotten to another naked female in the past two years. Oh, sure, I felt the frustration daily. Imagine being a hormonal sixteen year old boy, sure that this county's living population now measured in their thousands.

Imagine knowing that out of those surviving pockets of survivors the chances of stumbling across a potential mate was about zero. Hell, I didn't have that much success with the girls when there were millions of them.

None of my erotic dreams had starred my sister yet. I didn't think it would be long before that happened, though; I'd been getting a lot of very strange ideas recently, and most of them were not very pleasant.

"Colin, for crying out loud, will you get a move on?"

I reluctantly opened my eyes, squinting at the high summer sun doing its utmost to blind me. The sound of her unzipping my sleeping bag gave me even more encouragement to comply. "Okay, for God's sake! Can't a guy get dressed in peace?" I gave her my most severe glare, seeing that my annoyed expression made no dent whatsoever. Danielle giggled, stood up, and wandered over to the edge of the building.

We'd been sleeping on rooftops for the best part of three weeks now. Even though there had been no sign of any dead in this small town, we weren't going to start taking any chances. It wasn't worth the risk, not with my ‘condition'

After two years, the dead things still hadn't stopped making a beeline for my body, and in those two years neither of us had found a satisfactory explanation as to why. Not only for the zombies' preference to me, but how in hell I'd managed to survive that bite. I had kept those mind reading experiences to myself, not that it made much difference, though, it's not like they'd stayed.

I zipped up my pants and pulled my terminally randy, confused body out of the bag and walked over to my sister, doing everything in my power to stop my eyes from roving up and down her shapely thighs. "What's wrong?"

She turned around, her face completely drained of blood. For the first time in two years I felt someone's stray thought, just a feather touch but the feeling was unmistakable.

"Oh, no, please not this!" She grabbed the tops of my arms, her fingers digging into my skin. Danielle leaned closer. "We are so fucked."

I tried to reached out and grab that thought, needing to see where it came from. Her terrified eyes locked with mine. Something major was happening, yet I didn't care about any of that. All that concerned me was finding where that thought came from, believing that if I found the source, a dam would burst.

"Look!" she thrust me towards the edge.

An explosion of sound coming from below us destroyed any hope I had of unlocking whatever wanted to break free.

The massed moans launched from hundreds of dead mouths assaulted my ears. The dead things had somehow found us. Three floors below, the enemy encircled our building, the ground only visible at the other side of the street. More were shambling towards our building, coming in from all directions. Judging from the amount, these bastards must have been coming for a good few hours.

How had they managed to stay silent for such a long time? I turned away, catching my sister's horrified expression. Her mouth opened, and she spoke, but the incredible noise coming from them drowned out every syllable.

We were trapped. Unless we suddenly grew a pair of wings, I saw no way of getting out of here. Danielle pulled me aback from the edge.

What are we going to do?" she cried.

Like I knew the answer to that one. Hell, for the past two years, I'd just been content to allow her to take the lead in our adventure. What not? She hadn't gone wrong yet. That fact evident with both of us still living.

Her little frightened girl posture melted away, leaving a skeleton of pure hate. I had to take a step back. Seeing the very rare pissed off Danielle look was far more frightening than being surrounded by hundreds of flesh crazed zombies.

You don't believe me? It's tough, you weren't there, and even if you were, I doubt you would have experienced the same emotions as I did. Although, since we took off, away from the major population zones, most days had consisted of the same boring routine. You know, same shit, different day, although there had been a few occasions when a dark part of Danielle poked its frightening face out of its shell.

Take the daily search for food as a good example. Raiding shops for tinned food kept us going, but there's only so much peas, sliced peaches, and hot dogs a man can take. My body craved fresh food as well. Danielle was our hunter gatherer. It astounded me how she could find a field of cabbages or the apple tree hidden in an overgrown garden. As for meat, after the living humans disappeared nature did what it does, and the suppressed native wildlife went bananas! Saying this, it's not like the streets were paved with millions of bunnies and badgers, those buggers were still a bastard to catch.

So, what's this got to do with that skeleton of hate? Danielle found us fresh meat alright, she took the easy option though. Now, I want you to imagine a pretty twenty year old woman beating a cow to death with a cricket bat, then cutting out a large chunk of its thigh.

That's my darling sister, and that image of pure malice is what I was looking at.

"This is all of your fault, you little shit," she snarled, advancing towards me, her fists clenched tight. "I should have cut you loose back at the house."

Danielle stopped and spun around. I saw her pick something off the roof, and my heart began to beat just a little bit faster. I knew exactly what she had grabbed. The orchestra of moans had receded, but from where we stood I saw many more of the things heading towards us. Something deep inside me, a dormant part of my new changed genetic makeup, began to wake.

"We're both going to die!" She turned around, lifting her favourite gutting knife. "Jesus, how could I have been so fucking soft?" Danielle started to shake. "These things have been following us for months, Colin!" she screamed.

Her fingers tightened around that handle, and I knew exactly what she intended to do. That weapon was about to end me; she'd come to the end of her wits and killing her little brother was the only option she had left to save herself.

Thing is, I didn't condone her actions. She was right, why should we both die? Even so, I couldn't allow my death to be on her conscience for the rest of her life. Her violent emotions might be ruling her thoughts and movements right now, but that wouldn't last.

My lips curled up, exposing my teeth. I smiled and began to walk backwards. Just for that moment, her expression changed from malice to euphoria. The shift only lasted for a brief moment, but it gave me pause for thought, wondering if her posture was just one big act. I had no idea where that thought came from. It vanished as quickly as Danielle's expression swap. My steps brought me closer and closer to the edge of the building. Like the happy smile plastered across my face, the action was involuntary. I couldn't stop even if I wanted to. This confused sixteen year old was about to take his first flying lesson.

The moans from those dead fuckers intensified as my feet reached the concrete lip. I turned around, watching hundreds of slack-jawed heads tilt back. My heart now raced faster than ever, yet the feelings that coursed through me weren't fear. It was anticipation and hate, as well as exhilaration. I climbed onto the lip spread my arms, and let myself go.

The metres between us shrunk to nothing as I fell. I roared, bringing my arms forward, both hands clenched into fists. My hard body crashed into three of them. The impact was like a rock smashing onto three eggs. My fists pulverised their rotten flesh, almost shearing one on them in half. The stench of foul rot slammed into my nostrils, but instead of it repelling me, the stink only inflamed these burgeoning senses that had slept for all those months.

Dozens of jaws clacked shut. Each one belonging to a corpse that was eagerly climbing through the pulped mess left from my fall. I dodged and ducked, both my fists slamming into those jaws and shattering bones, forcing the broken and splintered bone up into their dead brains. Yet, with every zombie that fell, another two scrambled over their inert companions. Each and every one so needed to bite into my soft meat, to dispatch me and turn my body into flesh confetti.

Their deep-seated craving to get to me drove them forward. Hundreds of cold, single thoughts wrapped in black viscous matter assaulted my mind as I dealt out swift judgement. Two years of suppressed instinct drove me forward,  my human thought processes hiding, shaking behind the hybrid hunter.

I moved away from the building, never slowing, my hands dealing death to the throng, leaving a trail of broken bodies behind me, their insides crushed into the concrete from shoes, feet, and boots from the others; the dead had no concerns over the fallen, they only sought my demise.

The machine never paused or slowed, neither did the onrush of the rotting bags of death. With each vanquished foe, I found the space between myself and the building increase by inches, putting more space between these things and my sister.

Ever since I dropped into this teeming mass of vile horror, the assault hadn't let up for a single moment. If anything, their attacks had intensified; at least, they had until now.

An old man lunged for me, his fingers managing to get a grip on my wrist. I yelled out when I felt his teeth scrape across my hand. This bastard was a lot faster than any of the others. I growled and slammed my hand deep in his mouth, my fingers seeking out the man's soft flesh behind his palate. "Die and stay dead, you freak!" I pushed up, my fingers easily breaking through the old man's skin. The rupture released a torrent of freezing jellied gore, flowing out of his mouth and down my wrist. I felt another set of fingers clawing at my back. I spun around, my fingers still inside the old man's skull, to discover a teenage girl about to take a bite out of the back of my ankle. I smashed the old man's head into hers, pulled my dripped hand out of the inside of his skull, twined my fingers in her long blonde hair, and lifted the girl's head before slamming it down against the side of the kerb. The harsh sound of her skull cracking open against the ground pulled me out of my killing frenzy. I stood up, blinking rapidly, aware that the moans from the massed bodies had stopped allowing me to hear, not just the noise of the black gunk slopping out of the girl's skull, but my own laborious breathing.

The attack had stopped. A path had opened in front of me, widening as they shuffled back. I hadn't expected this to happen. Were they scared of me? I wiped their wetness off both of my hands, watching in awe as the things began to disperse.

"They'll come back, Colin."