Warpath: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse
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Authors: Shawn Chesser
Warpath:
Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse
By
Shawn Chesser
KINDLE EDITION
***
Warpath:
Surviving the Zombie
Apocalypse
Copyright 2014
Shawn Chesser
Kindle Edition
Kindle Edition,
License
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like
to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for
each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was
not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase
your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a
work of fiction. Any similarities to real persons, events, or places are purely
coincidental; any references to actual places, people, or brands are
fictitious. All rights reserved.
Shawn Chesser on Facebook
Shawn Chesser Facebook Author Page
***
Acknowledgements
For Mo, Raven, and Caden, you three mean the world to me ...
love you. And thanks, Maureen Chesser, for all of the support you’ve given me through
this incredible journey called life. Love you. Thanks to all LE and first
responders for your service. To the people in the U.K. who have been in touch,
thanks for reading! Lieutenant Colonel Michael Offe, thanks for your service as
well as your friendship. Larry Eckels, thank you for helping me with some of
the military technical stuff in Warpath. Any missing facts or errors are solely
my fault. Beta readers, you rock, and you know who you are. Thanks George
Romero for introducing me to zombies. Steve H., thanks for listening. All of my
friends and fellows at S@N and Monday Old St. David’s, thanks as well. Lastly,
thanks to Bill W. and Dr. Bob … you helped make this possible. I am going to
sign up for another 24.
Special thanks to John O’Brien, Mark Tufo, Joe McKinney, and
Craig DiLouie. I truly appreciate your continued friendship and always
invaluable advice. Thanks to Jason Swarr and
Straight 8
Custom Photography
for the awesome cover. Thanks to George Stickler
at
Extreme
Supertruck
for providing the F-650 image on the cover. Beta readers
... you all rock!! Once again, extra special thanks to Monique Happy for her
work editing “Warpath.” Mo, as always, you came through like a champ! Working
with you has been a seamless experience and nothing but a pleasure. If I have
accidentally left anyone out ... I am truly sorry.
***
Edited by Monique
Happy Editorial Services
http://www.indiebookauthors.com
Table of Contents
Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse
Edited by Monique Happy Editorial Services
Chapter 1
Outbreak - Day 18
Eden Compound, Utah
Like a makeshift guillotine, the shovel’s blade cut a silent
flat arc through the cool morning air before burying inches deep into the
rasping creature’s temple. As the rotted corpse crumpled to earth, Duncan
squared his shoulders, squinted against the driving rain, and poked the
V-shaped cutting edge into the next rotter’s sternum. Having gained a precious
yard of separation from the handful of attackers, he backpedaled blindly
uphill—in the direction of the white Toyota Land Cruiser which, at the moment,
was keeping his two-way radio, the short barreled combat shotgun, and a
half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels dry.
Hell of a lot of good they’re doing ya in there, old man,
he thought glumly, his equilibrium failing him. In the next instant his legs
buckled, and suddenly the gloomy overcast sky was all that he saw.
“Fuck happened?” he muttered, shaking his head vigorously
and spraying droplets of water in all directions. But the action had no effect
on his vision, which, from the combination of alcohol, sleep deprivation, and
the fine mist clinging to his aviator glasses, remained clouded and fuzzy
around the edges.
Now, flat on his back, two things registered at once. To his
right, wrapped in a rain-drenched sheet, was his brother Logan’s corpse that
he’d just tripped over. He walked his gaze along the contours of the young
man’s lifeless shell. Regarded the facial profile which had slackened in death,
but was still unmistakably Oops—handlebar mustache and all. He noted the
crimson blossoms of blood that had dried to black but had reconstituted and now
ran in all directions, turning the once-white death shroud into some kind of
macabre tie dye.
A half beat later he recognized that the pickle he’d gotten
himself into, both figuratively and literally—the former because he’d gone
ahead and left the heavy artillery in the truck, the latter because he was more
than half in the bag—was about to get
exponentially
worse.
He flicked his gaze sixty yards downhill at the spot where
he’d removed the triple-strand barbed wire from the fence paralleling SR-39 so
that he could drive the Cruiser through. There, three disheveled first turns
were heading his way, fighting against gravity, their feet slipping on the
slick grass. Then his heart skipped a beat as he looked past the struggling
trio and noticed another dozen flesh eaters leaving the blacktop. Slow and
clumsy, they negotiated the shallow ditch and, jostling shoulder to shoulder,
exploited the newly created breach.
The new arrivals to the party were deadly for sure, but it
was the half dozen to his fore— spread out in a phalanx line, jaws working in
eager anticipation of fresh meat—that were the clear and present danger.
Knowing that he was turtled on his back with Logan and Gus lying in state
nearby, one hissing monster looming over him, and another in the half-dug grave
less than two feet away, sent a cold wave of dread coursing through Duncan’s
body.
First things first
, he told himself.
Only a second and a half elapsed between him tripping over
Logan’s corpse and his fingers finding the knurled grip of the .45 riding high
in the paddle holster on his hip. Another half-second ticked by and he had
depressed the palm safety, thumbed back the hammer, and his index finger
hovered near the trigger guard. By the time the weapon was clear of leather and
tracking swiftly right, he had already found the trigger and drawn off a few
pounds of pull, the hammer poised and ready to fall.
Flooded with adrenaline and running mainly on muscle memory,
he didn’t recall caressing the trigger, but the two reports crashing the still
morning air confirmed it and set his ears to ringing. The noise, like tearing
paper, bounced off the Toyota’s metal skin and toured the nearby trees before
the shock wave rolled back over top his prostrate body. It was awakening and
cathartic at once, a substance he could almost feel.
One down, too many to go
.
As he watched the flesh eater he’d just blessed with a
second death roll towards the Toyota, spilling brains and viscous blood from
its cratered face, the female first turn he’d just poked between the breasts
with the shovel point was crawling out of the freshly dug grave where it had
fallen.
Over the pattering rain, the grating rasp of its clawlike
hands grappling for purchase, combined with the wet rattle escaping its working
maw, sent an icy jolt through his body. Shivering profusely from a combination
of fear-induced adrenaline, his already lowered core temperature, and the
desire for another belt of Jack Black, he dug his left boot heel in and pushed
uphill. Feeling a tug slow his progress as splintered nails tore into the blue
denim just below his right knee, and with a new wave of shivers wracking his
body and the stink of death and decay thick in his throat, he spread his legs,
a kind of half-assed mud angel, aimed between his boot tips, and pumped a round
between the zombie’s beady eyes.
Two down, too many to go.
He kicked free from the dead thing’s grasp, rolled over onto
his stomach, and clawed his way towards the SUV; his ultimate goal: getting
inside and radioing for help. And then shortly thereafter, making bubbles in
the whiskey.
But those things weren’t happening without a fight because a
pair of rotters had inexplicably looped around the passenger’s side of the
Toyota, flanked him, and were now doggedly lurching his way.
“Where’d y'all learn that trick?” he muttered, bracketing
the one nearest him in his sights. As he drew back on the trigger, a sudden
flash of reddish-orange, like a .50 caliber round fired at night, minus the
sparkle and pop, entered his side vision. Momentarily convinced he was seeing
ill-timed tracers—a flood of chemicals to the brain brought on by the stress of
a dozen dead things wanting to eat him, or perhaps a byproduct of the Jack
Daniels in his system—he held his fire, blinked his eyes, and kept them closed
for half a beat. Upon reopening them the thought that he’d had too much of the
latter won out because now only one rotter stood between him and the SUV.
With the throaty rasps of the dead advancing on his six, he
wasted no more precious time processing what had just happened. Instead, he
fixed his gaze on the flesh eater at his twelve o’clock, rose from the ground,
and with the .45 extended at arm’s length, took a tentative step towards the
SUV.
Chapter 2
Outskirts of Mack, Colorado
Two hundred miles southeast of the Eden Compound,
former-Delta operator Cade Grayson was awakened by a sustained ten-second
fusillade of automatic rifle fire. Not quite fast and furious enough to be
classified as a
Mad Minute
—a short but sustained volley of automatic
rifle fire helpful in breaking contact during an enemy ambush—but still long
enough in duration to garner his full attention.