Dying To Live & Fighting To Live-Book One and Book Two (Zombie Overload Series)

Book One In The
Zombie Overload Series

C.M. Wright

Copyright ©
2012 C.M. Wright

All Rights Reserved

Cover copyright ©
2012 by Trisha Wilko

Cover Model Trisha
Wilko

This is a work of
fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead,
businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental. The authors
have taken great liberties with locales including the creation of
fictional towns. Some large city and their names, street, highway,
and interstate names are true and as close to accurate, as possible.
Any mistakes are entirely the fault of the author.

Reproduction in
whole or part of this publication without express written consent is
strictly prohibited. The author greatly appreciates you for taking
the time to read their work. Please consider leaving a review
wherever you bought the book, or telling your friends or blog readers
about the Zombie Overload Series, to help spread the word. Thank you
for the support.

Send an email
directly to the author at [email protected]

Dedicated
to my wonderful husband and my two awesome sons.

Thanks for the
encouragement....and “helpful” criticism!

If
we weren't watching the local 5 o'clock news, we never would have
known the "virus", that was reported just last night as
'contained' and 'no reason for alarm', was this serious or so very
deadly, until it was too late. No one ever said the infected were
going around
eating
people!
Maybe I'm wrong, but that might be some important information. Just
sayin'!

We watch the images on the
screen. An elderly man tearing into the flesh of an athletic younger
man. A younger woman in a college sweatshirt covered in the blood of
a well-known college professor. Part of his stomach in her hands and
mouth. And the kids! We watch as one little blond-haired girl, maybe
five years old, chomps down on the meaty thigh of a police officer.
We see two boys, both had to be under ten, chasing a small group of
adults in the background.

The local female reporter's voice
comes on and the camera swings toward her. Her normally perfect hair
and makeup are a mess and her usually smooth voice is uncontrolled
and shaky. You can see the mic in her hand jerking around as her
entire body shakes with fear.

Behind her, the scenes of death
continue. The reporter tells us that the 'infected' are no longer
contained and the entire city,
at
least
, is in danger.
She informs whoever is watching that the cemeteries have been emptied
of all corpses. She tells us that no one is taking responsibility for
the removal of the corpses. (Obviously, she has never watched the
George Romero movies which would explain to her exactly what happened
to those corpses!)

Right before our eyes, a man in a
business suit stumbles up behind her. The camera jerks as the
cameraman screams a warning at her. But it's too late. The man's hand
wraps around her slender throat, pulls her back against him, and
opens his mouth. She fights, but he's much stronger. He brings his
wide mouth down and tears off her entire right cheek. The camera
slams to the ground, and before the station can end the broadcast, we
see her body fall to the ground. Her dead eyes stare into the lens of
the camera one last time.

My husband, Will, and I sit in
our recliners, speechless. I feel a chill sweep through my entire
body. Numbness. Disbelief. I look over at my husband hoping I'm
having a crazy hallucination...or something. But I see his body
rigid, his hands clenched into tight fists, and probably the same
expression I have on my own face, and I know we see the same thing.
Crap.

Then finally, our minds start
working again. Questions first. What is this? Is it really what we
think it is? We watch movies, TV shows, read all the books. What do
we do??? Then, action.

I fly into our older son's room
were he's playing on his game console, all lounged back on his bed,
headset on, SINGING to his friends online. (He's weird. But he's
ours.) He finally realizes I'm in his room yelling at him. He yanks
off his headset, face turning red knowing I heard him singing, and I
can tell I'm in for a chewing for not knocking first, though how he
would have heard me if I had, I have no idea.

I see I am about to get the
teenage attitude thrown at me but stop it with, "Get your butt
in the living room, NOW!" Nothing will scare a kid more than to
think they are in big trouble. I know he is probably freaking out not
knowing what it is he did but I have more important things to worry
about.

Going into the dining room where
our youngest is on the computer playing his game, also with headset
on, I order him into the living room, as well. I order them to sit on
the sofa and stay there. Will runs up the few stairs that leads down
to the laundry room and the shed, his arms loaded with boards, a
hammer, and a coffee can full of nails. I run into the kitchen and
grab my hammer from the junk drawer, grab a board that he has thrown
on the floor, and proceed to board up the window next to the one he
is working on in the living room.

Finishing those two, we stop and
stare at the huge bay window in the dining room. That could be a
problem. Some of the panes are already cracked (thanks to high winds
and our patio umbrella) and we never had the money to replace them.
It's double-paned so we weren't worried about it. Not that
double-paned windows really matter now. Not like you really care
about all this rambling about our double-paned windows either, but,
forgive me while I have a freaking out moment, k?

"What are we going to do
with that?" I ask Will.

"Well, board it, I guess.
And then maybe push your desk against it. That damn thing is heavy.
I'm hoping they can't climb. We have the fence out back that may hold
them off for a while. But even that won't hold a lot of them if they
decide they want in."

"Alright. Can you handle
that? I have an idea I’m going to work on." Of course, I
can't tell him what that idea is or he will stop me. I tell our boys,
again, to stay on the sofa, I run down the stairs. Then I run back up
the stairs and grab my keys (always forget those damn things!) and
run back down the stairs. I open the door to the shed. It's actually
our main front door. In the shed is our door that leads outside. It's
all glass but can be switched to a screen when the weather is right.
Great zombie deterrent. NOT!

I stand to the side of the glass
door and look for any movement outside. It's just starting to get
dark and that brings a jolt with the realization that I used to love
the dark but, now, shit could get bad! Not seeing any movement but
the tree limbs and leaves, I slowly open the door. I listen. Nothing
close but same tree limbs and leaves. An occasional car in the
distance. Maybe some far-off sirens. But nothing close.

Opening the door all the way, I
force myself to take that first step. Another. Then another. FLASH!

My heart stops. My breathing
stops. Damn near piss myself. STUPID SENSOR LIGHT! I almost run back
inside but force myself to make a run to my van only about ten feet
from where I am currently cowering in fear...over a stupid light!

This is where I should tell you a
few things about myself, considering one of those things is my
ability to find something scary in just about everything, such as the
stupid light. My name is Canada. Yep. You read that right. My mom had
wanted to name me something similar to that but this is what the
hospital or whoever typed up my Birth Certificate decided to name me.
Mom decided it wasn't worth the trouble to have it changed
so....Canada. I'm 36 years old and homeschool my boys. Fun times.
(That's said with only a small amount of sarcasm.) I am bipolar to
the extreme when not medicated (this whole zombie thing may screw up
the medication issue. God, protect my family from me.) I swear like a
trucker and am a Sunday School teacher. (Yeah. Not real sure what
they were thinking putting me in that position, either!) I don't have
a lot of close friends, (by my own choice, I'll have you know!) but
the ones I do have are very special to me and I keep for life.

I married my wonderful Will five
years ago. We decided there is only one way out of our marriage, and
I haven't killed him yet. I'm pleasantly plump, which translates to,
my ass is FAT! Now, not falling-over-my-own-blubber fat, just have
some extra insulation. I have green eyes and my hair color is
whatever it says on the box. I think it's 'Honey Roasted Chestnuts',
or some shit like that, at the moment. I have a mom and a dad (duh!)
and a dad. One baby sister, three baby brothers, and three
sister-in-laws (funny how that worked out, huh?) My sister has a guy,
but not real sure what the relationship title is at this point;
boyfriend, fiance, husband, roommate, prisoner. Anyway. So I think
that's enough about me for now. I told you it was just a few things.
Hehehe! (Back to what's happening now)

I reach the van, grab the handle,
and pull. Nothing happens! Then I realize I forgot to unlock the
doors. Pushing the button on the key fob, the doors unlock. I throw
myself inside and slam the door, locking it again. I look around and
still see nothing that shouldn't be there. I put the van in reverse
and back up until I have enough room to make a wide turn and then I
position the van at an angle in front of the door to the house. After
a few adjustments, I get the vehicle so the front of the van is
against the laundry room's outer wall and the back is touching the
corner of the shed. No room for anything to get through. Now, if we
have to leave, we can safely exit the glass door, open the doors on
the van, and get inside. In theory, anyway.

Our van has sliding doors on both
sides. And way too many windows. They are strong but how strong are
these zombies? I'd rather not find out the hard way, thank you very
much! As I sit here thinking about how to protect the exposed side of
the vehicle, my eyes never stop watching for any movement that isn’t
normal. We live in a rural area outside the city of Stephan, Illinois
and have few neighbors, so we don’t get a lot of people just
walking by. So anyone who
is
out walking around, probably
isn't someone I want to meet.

"I got it!" I startle a
bit at the volume of my own words bursting out. I recover quickly,
not knowing how much time we have. I grab my keys, shut and lock the
doors, then run to Will's old Dodge Dakota truck. He doesn’t
lock his doors and, for once, I'm thankful for that. I jump in, find
his key on my keyring, and fire it up. Of course, THAT causes the
hubby to come running out, almost face-planting into the side of the
van. His truck is his baby. I tease him he loves that truck more than
me. He denies. He lies.

I see him gesturing wildly and
his mouth moving a mile-a-minute but I'm good at ignoring him when I
have to. Same with my boys. Hey, I'm the only female in a house of
males. Don't judge me!

I pull the truck up against the
outside of the van, taking out both our mirrors. I see Will cringe as
he hears the shriek of metal and the loud pops as the pieces are torn
from the vehicles. Sorry, Honey, but this isn’t the time for
holding on to material objects. He's really going to shit bricks when
I inform him the truck stays and we all leave in the van. I smile.

I jump out of the truck, lock,
and shut his doors. Yes, I remembered my keys. Whoa! Wait. Back up.
How the hell am I supposed to get back IN the house? Crap! Crap!
Crap! Ok, so maybe I didn’t think this through all the way. I'm
damn sure not going to go all the way around our acre back yard to
get to the fence's gate clear on the back part of the fence. Not no
way. Not no how. Oh, wait, I got it! I can jump in the bed of his
truck, open the side door of the van and climb through. Simple. Well,
it would be if I were at all athletic and able to just hop on up
there but, nope, have to run to the back, climb up on the back
bumper, over the tailgate, can't get the damn van door open! Oh,
yeah.
Unlock it first, Dummy!
Then I step right on out of the
truck and onto the nice cushioned seat of the van.......and come face
to face with a very pissed off hubby.