The Zombie Chronicles - Book 6 - Revelation (Apocalypse Infection Unleashed Series) (5 page)

George stopped and started shooting to give the women a fighting chance.

Claire bolted toward them, and I shook my head, wondering what she was doing.

I darted after her and quickly caught up. “Go back!” I ordered. “I’ll help them!”

“
They’ll never make it without both of us,” she said and began firing. She nailed the closest zombie to her, and blood and brains splattered. Claire gave it a hard kick as it twitched on the ground.

Val and Lucas aimed and started firing too.

Shot after shot rang out in rapid succession, and I fired until I ran out of ammo. A waitress with half a face and her blonde hair still up in a tight bun walked directly toward me, snapping her cursed jaws. My hands shook as I reached for some slugs. I quickly loaded bullets into the firing chamber, cocked the weapon, aimed, and fired, and the waitress went down without a fight. A horn beeped behind me, and I jumped. I glanced over my shoulder and was glad to see Nick waving me over.

“
Get them in quick!” he shouted.

I slid the back door open and began helping the women into the U-Haul. “Careful now, ladies…but hurry!”

“
I can’t find Angela!” George said.

“
Your daughter is fine,” I said. “She got in a car about five minutes ago.”

“
That’s all of ‘em!” Lucas shouted. “Let’s go!”

Just as I slide the door shut, a zombie grabbed the back of my shirt. I spun around and kicked the thing back with all my strength, then pointed my gun and blew its head off from point-blank range. More were coming, dozens of them, and another one lunged for me. A shot echoed in the air, the zombie dropped, and I turned to meet Lucas’s gaze.

“
You owe me one,” he said. “Now move it!” He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the truck.

I jumped in, and a zombie reached its rotting hands inside. I slammed the door shut, and its arm fell off as Nick peeled out. The zombie’s body flew, back but its arm was still stuck with me. My stomach clenched at its rotting smell and the maggots crawling in and out of the torn flesh. As we drove, I opened the door and kicked the arm out, then stomped on the remaining maggots that had fallen off. Again Nick pushed it to eighty, and I held my breath and prepared for the worst.

I clung to the dashboard and braced for impact as Claire hung tightly to me. We careened through the wooden fence with a loud
crash.
Wood splintered, and boards flew. My head crashed back with a jolt. Thuds echoed in the air as we ran over every zombie that dared to stand in our way; it was impossible not to hit them because there was a whole sea of undead in front of us. Another severed arm got caught in the windshield, and black goop smeared across the front window.

Seconds later, the truck came to a slow stop. My breath hitched in my throat, and I dared a look around. We were in a huge parking lot, next to some kind of factory.

“
Great. A zombie hangout,” Lucas whispered, “and this isn’t my kind of party.”

Chapter 5

“
Which way? We’ve gotta get out of this undead hell,” Val said.

“
That one’s coming close!” Claire said, reaching for her gun.

“
I got it,” I said, peering through the open window. I lined up my shot through the scope and fired. The corpse fell to the ground, limp and lifeless.

Nick started glancing around for the best way to go, the way with the least amount of zombies so we could shoot our way through. Screeching tires caught my attention. A few cars had followed us out, figuring that was better than being trapped in the gated community.

A zombie with a bloody, mangled scalp came too close for comfort. I took a well-placed shot with my rifle. Blood sprayed as it jerked back a step, then collapsed, staining a handicap parking space marker with crimson-black ooze. I took aim again and squeezed the trigger as another one walked past its dead buddy, unfazed by its demise; it dropped next to its dead friend. I squeezed my trigger and shot another and then another. Gunshots cut the air, and I knew the other survivors were fighting just as hard as we were. I blew the heads off of at least three more, then reloaded, but no matter how many I took down, more came to take their place. It seemed to be a never-ending, pointless battle, and the stench of rotting flesh made me want to gag.

“
Roll up the window!” Val said. “There are too many of them.”

I sucked in a trembling breath at the realization that she was right, especially when a zombie in a dirty, tattered wedding dress pulled the severed arm off our window and began to devour it like she’d found a drumstick from KFC. It had to be the sickest thing I’d ever seen. “Move it, Nick!” I yelled.

“
North is our best shot,” Lucas said calmly. “If we can get past them, we’ll make it to the main road.”

I jumped when rotting hands with black fingernails began to claw at the passenger window, leaving long streaks of fresh blood behind them. I stared straight into milky, white eyes and a face that looked like something straight out of a nightmare. It sucked its bloody fingers, and I almost puked right there in the cab of the truck.

Just as Nick threw the truck into gear, a red SUV screeched to a stop next to us. A woman in a hat and ponytail popped out of the sunroof, pointing her rifle directly at us. She motioned Nick to roll down the window. The driver was an older man and didn’t look threatening in the very least; I was more worried about the gun-toting chick.

Nick and Lucas whipped out their guns just in case, since it seemed things might turn very hostile and dangerous in a hurry. The zombies were one thing, but lunatic humans in a panic was another.

The woman didn’t even flinch and just motioned again for Nick to roll his window down.

“
Seriously?” Nick said. “With zombies two inches away? Is she crazy?”

“
Just open it a crack and see what she wants,” Val urged. “She looks a little trigger happy.”

“
She looks like freaking Minnie Pearl on drugs,” Lucas said. “I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to talk to her.”

“
Right,” Nick retorted. “I’m in no mood to have a conversation with somebody who’s pointing a gun at me.”

Zombies began pounding on the U-Haul truck, and I had to agree with Lucas and Nick; it wasn’t exactly the right time to have a discussion. I didn’t know what the woman wanted, but I really didn’t care. We had to get a move-on before more zombies surrounded us. The last thing we needed was to be trapped by an undead mob.

The woman fired three shots, taking down the zombies by Nick’s window.

“
Lower your weapons!” Lucas said. “She’s on our side.”

Nick rolled down his window.

The woman’s lips pressed into a grim line. “Samson Road is our ticket out of here,” she yelled. “If we work together, we can do it. Are you in or out?”

He shot her a nod.

“
Good. Follow us,” the woman shouted.

Nick pointed to the north. “There are less of them that way, north.”

She nodded. “Gotcha.” She then turned and recruited a line of cars behind us to join the caravan.

With all of us working as a team, I was sure we could mow through the onslaught. The SUV took off in front of us as shots sliced through the air. Zombies continued shuffling toward us, and I thrust my barrel out the window, aimed, and fired into the nearest ones. I would have killed to have a sunroof like the lady gunslinger in front of us, but U-Haul’s didn’t exactly come with luxury options. Val leaned next to me and started firing away, and in no time, we’d all fired off a round. We really only put a tiny dent in the slimy crowd, but it was enough to barrel through the approaching predators. I sucked in a deep breath, realizing that had we left five minutes later, we would’ve had absolutely no chance. We sped down the road, and I clung to the seat, still in shock.

Claire glanced up at me, then the others. “You came back for me,” she said. “You guys saved my life…again.”

Nick focused on the road to keep up with the line of cars now in front of us. “We were leaving the city when we came across the herd.” He shot her a sideways glance. “They were coming straight for the gated community. I couldn’t let all those people die. I couldn’t let you…” He trailed off, unable to say the words.

She glanced over at him. “Maybe we aren’t destined to break up.”

“
I don’t believe in destiny,” he said. “I think we make our own fate, and I couldn’t leave you to that one. I care far too much about you, Claire.”

Before Claire could answer, Lucas cut in. “Hey, in case you lovebirds haven’t noticed, we could break off from these people and go our separate way. Yeah, they helped us through a rough patch, but we don’t need them anymore. We might have better luck if we leave this wagon train.”

“
But they know the area,” I responded. “I say we stick with them for now.”

“
Dean’s right,” Nick said. “Now is not the time to get lost. One wrong turn, and we’ll be screwed.”

“
I don’t know, guys,” Val said. “Maybe Lucas is right—for once,” she teased. “We’ve run into so many idiots and selfish lunatics. If we focus on ourselves, maybe we’ll live to see another day.”

Lucas huffed. “I can’t believe you’re even talking that way. You don’t even have it in you.”

She arched a brow. “What?”

“
You might talk a big game, Val, but there isn’t a selfish bone in that hot little body of yours. You know you aren’t capable of focusing only on yourself,” he said. “So let me come up with the self-serving ideas, would ya? It’s sort of my forte.”

She shot him a glare. “Let me rephrase it then. We shouldn’t hook up with anybody, but I can’t just stand by and watch somebody die if we can do something to prevent it.”

“
How very admirable,” Lucas said, “but it could get you killed.”

“
Last time I checked, I’m still breathing,” she snapped.

“
Yeah, you’re tough, but you’ve got a soft heart under all that GI Jane nonsense…and so do your brothers.”

“
What can I say?” she said. “It’s in our DNA.”

“
Maybe, but one of these days, your heart’s gonna get you killed,” he said.

Val swallowed hard. “Lucas, you’re a coldhearted, low-down, selfish pig sometimes, and I’m sick and tired of your—”

“
Enough, you two!” Nick scolded. “I’ve already got a pounding headache, and you’re making it worse.”

Nobody said another word for a long while, and we traveled down the road in complete silence, like little kids in trouble on a road trip.

I gently touched Claire’s hand. “You were so brave to help those women, Claire. You shot zombie after zombie. You were just…fierce. Jackie would have been proud of you.”

“
I’m just angry, Dean, and I’m ready to kill every one of those things I see.”

Clearly, something inside of Claire had snapped. I could see it. She was furious, her spirit darkened by Jackie’s death and everything she’d been through. She was changing. I could see it in her eyes when she bolted toward those zombies without flinching. That wasn’t Claire. I recognized the look because I’d seen it in Nick’s eyes when he’d lost Darla. As I looked at her, I realized that maybe my brother and she now had something more in common than just chemistry: Both of them had revenge lurking in their hearts.

The truck jerked to a stop as Nick slammed on the brakes. The car in front of us suddenly stopped as a line of beeping cars raced toward us in the opposite lane. The rifle-toting woman in the hat popped up through her sunroof again and began screaming for the cars to stop so she could warn them that they were heading straight toward the zombies, going to the same place we were running from.

Chapter 6

“
Dean!” Nick called.

I raised a brow. “Yeah?”

“
Did you see how scared they were as they sped by us?” he asked.

Lucas nodded. “They’re running from something.”

Three cars stopped.