The Reawakening (The Living Dead Trilogy, Book 1) (38 page)

With the set of keys in hand, Devin and I grabbed our bags and moved stealthily out the back door. I took one of the M16s and a pistol, and left the other for Dar and Thorn so that they could protect themselves from the oncoming plague. Before I departed, I removed Rick’s snarling head, unwrapped the towel around his mouth, and left it for them over the fireplace as a gift. I would have loved to see their faces when they came upon it come morning.

The sun was just coming up as we went outside. I opened the garage door quietly, and we all piled into the truck. I turned the ignition and drove it out the door, running over the dead and dying sprawled in the alley. I prayed to God for mercy as I did. Once we reached the street, I noticed that there were hardly any other cars on the road. The masses marched forward, sick, tired, and destitute. They stared up at us with fear in their eyes, begging for alms: children, women, the elderly, the sick and crippled. The air felt dense and oppressive, and I wondered if that cloud of radiation had already descended upon us. Soon, many of these people would be dead—only to be reawakened. A few would survive, and the meek would inherit the earth.

Devin stood in the truck bed, armed and dangerous, and used the butt of the rifle to keep the desperate stragglers at bay. I turned off Mass Avenue and onto the Massachusetts Turnpike. Though filled with wrecked cars, the three-lane highway appeared barren and desolate as I accelerated the truck westward, watching in the rearview mirror as the burning, ruined city receded from view.

The journals! I suddenly realized that I’d left my three handwritten journals back at the house. The loss of that work devastated me. I’d been writing in them earlier in the day and had forgotten to return them to my backpack. The only journal I’d taken with me was Rick’s, which I had not yet sat down to read. It was too late to turn back and retrieve them; they were lost to me forever. That part of my life could never be reconstructed in the same way.

Angry, I cursed the creator who had made us. Maybe God was not a benevolent God after all. Maybe He had sent these terrible creatures down to earth as a punishment for our wicked ways. Only a chosen few would survive. Possibly like the rapture, which I had always found ridiculous, maybe only a few would enter the kingdom of heaven. That meant the rest of us would burn in hell.

I saw the Hancock and Prudential buildings recede from view, the top half of their columns engulfed in flames.

Very shortly, the dead would prevail. I felt sorry for my daughter and her unborn child. I felt sorry that Thorn was not the father. The child’s father, I realized to my horror, was the man in the parking lot who had raped her. Fitting that he had turned into one of those dead fuckers. I didn’t have the heart to tell Thorn that his child was no savior and that her pregnancy was not a virgin birth. Before long, the entire world would be teeming with these festering monsters—Styx, her newborn child was at risk. I looked around at my fellow travelers inside the cabin, wondering which of us would be redeemed and which of us would suffer eternal wrath.

Emily started to sob hysterically as I sped westward on the turnpike. Kate did all she could to try to calm her, but it appeared futile. Emily seemed to be suffering some kind of nervous breakdown.

“What’s wrong, Emily?” Kate asked. “What’s wrong, hon?”

“Those dead things are coming for us again,” she screamed. “They’re coming back to eat us!”

And then for some strange reason, my attention shifted to Emily, who was still crying.
She
was the one! The revelation struck me like a lightning bolt. She’d been the only person I knew who’d contracted the virus and had lived to tell about it. The message of the chosen ones now resonated in my head and seemed to make complete sense. Maybe Emily was the one who would help us build a new society based on morality and righteousness. I stared at her with newfound respect as we sped ahead. I placed my hand on her flushed cheek, letting it dampen with her salty tears. She immediately stopped crying and looked at me, smiling, all knowing, joyful. I smiled back at her, steering the car along the deserted turnpike and further out of the city. Emily was the chosen one who would lead us forth. Kate glanced over at me and nodded appreciatively at my calming touch.

The notion of Emily’s newly discovered status suddenly set me free, and for the first time in a long time, I felt optimistic about our chances on this earth and finding my family. I stepped on the gas and sped west, a newfound optimism filling my soul.

The End

Excerpt from The Living Dead Trilogy Book II:
Darpocalypse

by
Joseph Souza

Chapter 1

T
HREE HELICOPTERS FLEW IN FORMATION OVER
the Cedar Junction nuclear plant, each carrying eleven members of the Delta Force. Colonel Gritz gazed down upon the nuclear facility, making a mental map of the entire complex. Two rivers intersected at the rear of the plant, creating a man-made reservoir that provided the cooling waters for the nuclear reactors.

Jumping had always made Gritz nervous, even though he’d done it hundreds of times and in the heat of the most fierce battles. He waited a few seconds, gave the signal with his arm, and then jumped. As soon as he fell out of the chopper, the rest of his men followed in rapid succession. He gazed down at the ground as his chute opened, immediately halting his momentum. He recalled the vague instructions General Wallace had given him on that plane.
Take control of the plant!
Never before had he been given such an important mission with so few details.

Twenty-four hours ago, he and his men had been fighting in the hills of Afghanistan when he’d been ordered back to the States. They hustled him and his men on a plane and quickly got them out of the country. No sooner did they become air-bound than General Wallace pulled up next to him and began giving him the details of his mission. What initially came to Gritz’s mind was that another terrorist plot had been discovered. He’d been briefed inside the plane and given their assignment, which seemed simple: secure the Cedar Junction nuclear facility at all costs.

As he descended toward earth, he noticed that there were less than two dozen cars in the parking lot. Where had everyone gone? It seemed that there were far less workers than he would have expected for an important facility like this. But then again, he knew little about nuclear power or its inner workings. He gazed around at the complex, estimating that he was roughly five hundred yards from touching ground. He looked around again and noticed that the entire facility was surrounded by a ten-foot chain-link fence. But the front gate was open wide. He wondered why security hadn’t properly secured it.

Unless the terrorists already had infiltrated the plant!

Gritz glanced over his shoulder and noticed that his men were about to land in perfect formation. As soon as their boots hit the ground, they were supposed to pair up and take their assigned positions along the fence. Once safely on the ground, he needed to assess the situation quickly and then communicate the next phase of the plan to his men. The only problem was that he hadn’t fully fleshed out that next phase. Although his superiors had kept mum on the threat facing them, Gritz had assumed that the facility was under some sort of bio-terrorist threat.

He was nearly one hundred yards from the ground when he saw a figure emerge from the trees. It didn’t seem to be moving in any hurry. Gritz lifted his M4A1 assault rifle and pointed it down towards the clump where the terrorist had hidden. At roughly one hundred feet, he noticed a large group of people swarming out of the trees and standing below him, their arms raised. What the hell were they doing? The closer he got to the ground, the more depraved they appeared to him. They seemed diseased, possibly suffering from the debilitating effects of radiation poisoning. He wondered if the terrorists had broken through and destroyed the reactor? He’d never considered the possibility that he might be entering a hot facility and that his own life was in jeopardy. The people below him cried out loudly, and he could hear their desperate moans. Paralyzed with indecision, he wondered what to do as he prepared to land in their awaiting arms.

Screw it!

He removed the rifle from his back and pointed it at them, shouting at the top of his lungs to move. When they failed to take heed of his warning, he fired off a round to scare them away. Still, the warning shot did nothing to deter them. He aimed directly at the mob, warning them in no uncertain terms to move or else he would shoot. When they failed to act, he fired his weapon. Their heads exploded in a fine mist of blood and brain matter, and they fell dead to the ground. As soon as his feet hit the dirt, he performed a perfect running landing, quickly cutting loose the chute with his knife before turning toward the facility.

But what he saw confounded him. A few of the people who had been shot stood up and began to stagger in his direction. What the hell was that all about? He warned them to stop, but once again, they seemed oblivious to the rifle in his hands. He warned them one last time, but they ignored his directions and continued to move toward him. Startled, he fired a quick burst into their chests, enough firepower to stop an elephant. They staggered and twisted as the rounds riddled their bodies, but just as soon as it was over, they got back up again and continued to walk towards him. He fired another burst and watched as their heads exploded in a shower of blood. This time they didn’t get up.

A hundred yards away, he saw a member of his team landing in an open space located just outside the gates. He could tell from the soldier’s approach that it was Crozier. Another group of the diseased rushed over and gathered below Crozier, waiting for the soldier to land. Gritz sprinted towards him, shouting at the top of his lungs for him to shoot the diseased people dead. For a second, he wondered if he’d misread the demands of the mob? Maybe all they wanted was food or assistance. Gritz envisioned himself facing a court martial for having killed innocent civilians. But right now, he didn’t care.

He shouted for Crozier to take out his rifle and fire at them, but the soldier couldn’t hear him; the diseased were screaming so loud that it blocked all noise out. Gritz realized that if he fired a burst now, he risked hitting his fellow soldier. Crozier landed and disappeared into the diseased crowd. Sprinting as fast as his legs would carry him, Gritz prayed that the people crowding around him were merely begging for help. Off in the distance, he could see the remainder of his platoon gliding gently to earth. In a matter of minutes, his men would have the entire facility surrounded.

Despite the sixty-pound pack attached to his back, Gritz arrived at the spot where Crozier had landed. About a dozen of the radiated people huddled around him, shielding the soldier from view. But what were they doing to him? The thought even crossed his mind that they were thanking Crozier for coming to their rescue. Upon reaching him, however, he was horrified by what he saw. They were squatting over his body and taking bites out of his flesh, making loud grunting noises like hyenas fighting for the choicest morsels.

But Crozier was still alive and fighting for life. He flailed his arms and legs madly, trying to keep the monsters at bay. But it didn’t stop them from sinking their teeth into his flesh and ripping away chunks of skin. Gritz lifted his rifle and fired off a couple of rounds, decapitating the sick bastards. Certain he’d killed all of them, he ran over to the young soldier and squatted down next to him. The sight of the young man nearly made Gritz vomit. The kid’s stomach had been ripped apart, and his entrails gushed out. Two of his ribs were exposed, and his face was covered with bite marks and scratches. His left eye was missing, and the top part of his head had been torn off as if scalped. Gritz could see the outer layer of Crozier’s brain.

“Over and out, T,” Crozier uttered. “Go help the others, T. You ain’t doing me any good now.”

“Close your eyes, kid, and it’ll be over soon.”

“Don’t feel no pain anyway. Say a prayer for me, T.”

“I will, kid.”

Crozier closed his eyes, took a quick gasp of breath, and then succumbed to his massive injuries. Gritz had experienced much death and dying in his twenty-odd years in Special Forces, but this one had left him unprepared for the raw emotions he now felt. He stared down at the dead soldier, saying a quick prayer despite the fact that he was not a religious man. Never before had he seen injuries quite like the ones this kid had suffered. He glanced over and examined the headless savages who had done this to him. They looked sickly and ravished, as if they’d contracted some kind of disease. Their skin looked gray and unwholesome. He wondered if radiation poison could cause people to go insane and make them want to consume human flesh? Or maybe it was a biological weapon that had affected their brains. Was that the reason he had been called here in the first place?

He ran around the perimeter of the fence, searching for the others in his unit. Where had they gone? Near another grove of trees he discovered some discarded parachutes along the ground. At least some of his men had made it down safely. Suddenly, he heard a noise high above. He looked up and noticed Crooker hanging from one of the trees, struggling to cut one of the lines that had snagged on a branch. Suspended in the air, he couldn’t quite cut himself loose.

“Hold on,” Gritz shouted up. “I’ll climb up there and cut you down.”

“If you cut the top line, T, I can swing down and grab the branch just below me.”