Zombie Extinction Event (Book 3): War Read online

  ZOMBIE EXTINCTION EVENT

  BOOK THREE

  WAR

  BY

  C.S ANDERSON

  Alucard Press 2017

  This book is dedicated to our fans, every last one of you who bought a book either online or at one of the many cons we have done. We are humbled by your interest in what we do and we love nothing better than talking about the books with all of you. We appreciate deeply each and every individual one of you. We love that we now run into familiar faces at show and that you are excited that we have new books out. Some of you have crossed the line and become extended family.

  Have to single out one friend who has done us the singular honor of dying in book after bloody book, often in hideous and demented ways. Sheri Anne Turnley, you are not a well woman and you now, as we have joked, qualify for frequent dyer miles.

  Another shout out to Rita Ohara, the woman we call our super fan, for your unfailing support and interest in what we do. As promised your husband dies as you requested ‘screaming like a little girl’ in this book. It was the least we could do, sorry dude….

  One last shout out to the Fifty Shades of Slay Alumni Group, you are all damn rock stars and I hope to meet you all one day.

  This is the last installment in this series, I really hope you all enjoy it.

  C.S Anderson

  Chapter One

  I stand and watch The Narwhal building burn.

  Flames pour out of the windows now, and with a shrieking groan the roof gives way and collapses inward. Smoke is billowing out and fills the morning sky.

  “We need to go.” Matt tells me simply as he comes up on my left. He has his pump action twelve gauge held at port arms and his eyes are scanning the area for any threats.

  The heat from the flames takes away the early morning chill a little, but I am still shivering, as I watch the only home I have known since things went to shit a few years back, burn down.

  Viv, our new medic, pointed out that burying the infected might just be polluting the water table with the pathogen, so we cremate our dead now. We lost twenty five people last night and they are all still in that building. They are part of the smoke rising up now.

  The building was compromised by the Jumpers, we needed a more secure location with higher floors that hopefully they can’t reach, so we scouted a new building. All surviving Narwhals and all our supplies have now been relocated to it.

  We are still here, the fight to survive still goes on.

  Standing there watching the smoke rise, feeling the heat of the funeral pyre for those we lost, on my face, I make myself a vow.

  Survival isn’t enough anymore. Too much, too many have been lost.

  No, this isn’t a fight for survival anymore. We will use the new weapons that we have developed and change our tactics through the deadly lessons we have had to learn.

  This isn’t about survival anymore.

  This is war…

  Joyce is amongst the dead in the burning building I am now walking away from. A guard spared me the task of putting a bullet in her brain before she turned and he wept like a baby as he did so.

  I am all out of tears now.

  In their place is a dull ache and a new rage that I am just barely able to keep a handle on. People sense it and they don’t waste time mouthing trite platitudes about my loss.

  They are smart enough to leave me the hell alone.

  I am far from the only one to lose people last night. Alot of the people walking towards our new home move like robots and have blank faces and empty eyes as they deal with the shock.

  Katrin lost her girlfriend Cassandra and since it happened she has been utterly silent.

  In the same way that an inactive volcano is silent, all the way up to the inevitable eruption.

  For now she walks quietly just behind me, cradling her sniper rifle in her arms and giving the world a thousand yard stare as she walks through it. Cassandra was turned and then bit Joyce, eventually we will have to talk our way through that, but neither of us are really up to it just now.

  Marvin is to my left, all rigged up with speakers ready to blast walls of noise, should we need to stun a few zombies. We are all carrying air horns to add to the din, should we need to. Don’t want to waste batteries, so for now the boom boxes are turned off, but that can be changed with a push of a button. He is a very big man, usually standing head and shoulders above the rest of us, but he walks now with those shoulders slumped and the loss of his boyfriend stamped all over his broad face.

  Tears that he probably doesn’t even know that he is shedding, roll down his face as we move this fucked up show down the damn road.

  A Singer comes lurching around the corner and without breaking stride Katrin shoulders her weapon, blows its nasty head off and goes back to cradling the rifle.

  Thousand yard stare or not, she is paying attention.

  We reach our new home without further incident, we trudge carefully up the fortified and booby trapped first five flights of stairs. We are inhabiting floors six through thirteen and all of the windows on each floor are boarded up except for the last two, which we left open for the snipers to use.

  I dismiss the team and they go find their new quarters and I go find mine.

  The cold shower I take fails to wash the smell of the funeral pyre from my skin.

  There probably isn’t enough water to accomplish that little task.

  Chapter Two

  It is amazing how fast big changes become the new normal. After just a few days, it seems like we have always called this building home. Like always, the lynch pin of our survival, everybody knowing their job and doing it as best they can, is firmly in place. Routines are quickly reestablished and life goes on.

  We have elected some new council members to replace the ones we have lost in the Jumper attack and I am on my way to meet with them now.

  They won’t much like what I plan on telling them.

  I don’t much care.

  They will want to discuss settling into our new home and how to keep supplies coming in to keep us a functioning community.

  I will be discussing how to take the fight to the undead freaks and end all of this once and for all, one way or the other.

  My position isn’t negotiable.

  A runner interrupts my thoughts and tells me that I am needed on the roof immediately. Things being what they have been, I take her at her word and double time it up to the roof.

  Once I hit the roof top, I hear the by now familiar sound of an ultra lite aircraft coming in.

  Jesus, of all the damned things I am not in the mood for, a visit from Whiskey Dave isn’t anywhere on the damn list.

  “Something is wrong.” Katrin tells me flatly as she works the action on her rifle and chambers a round.

  She is right, the ultra lite is jerking left to right and up and down, Whiskey Dave flies the thing like a pro in a straight line from A to B and this thing is coming in fast, hard and crooked.

  Shit, if his old ass is infected and paying us a visit, we need to blow him out of the sky.

  “Give me scopes on that thing people! Whoever is in that bird doesn’t take a step out after they fucking land, until I say so.” I bark out as I draw my pistol and walk towards the improvised landing area our work crew has already roughed out.

  Everybody does their job for the common good of everyone else.

  We have broadcast out all that has happened and the whereabouts of our new digs, so it is no surprise that whoever the pilot is, knew where to find us.

  The ultra lite comes in too fast, it bounces hard twice before slowing to a stop. The pilot shuts the engine down and gets out of the cockpit very slowly with both h
ands above his head.

  It’s not Whiskey Dave.

  Instead it is a muscular older guy with a bald head and a heavy white beard in camo overhauls. There is a pistol on each hip and a big knife in a sheath on his belt.

  “Who the fuck are you?” I demand, the gun in my hand is leveled at his skull and he needs to be really careful right now.

  “Easy son, name is Russ Olsen, retired Colonel Russ Olsen US Army. I come in peace and all that crap.” He croaks out at me in a voice that sounds like he gargles with Drano and gravel every morning.

  “That bird belongs to Whiskey Dave.” I tell him flatly still pointing a very big revolver at his shiny head.

  “I know. I punched the prick in the jaw and stole his plane cause I heard that you want to take the fight to the freaks and hell boy, I want in. I come bearing gifts too boy, if you want to take a look at them.” He flashes me a crooked grin as he points to the boxes bungie corded to the little ultra lite.

  “Katrin, have somebody escort our guest to an isolation room and keep him there. Quarantine his gifts until I have had a chance to look at them.” I lower my gun knowing that nobody else on the rooftop has.

  “Boy, I don’t think you get it, we need to talk.” He tells me taking a step towards me.

  Yeah bad idea that.

  Two shots ring out and the bullets kick up dust an inch or so from his feet, to his credit he has the sense to take a big ass step backwards towards the plane with his hands way the hell up.

  “Ok, so we talk later.” He says neutrally with a small shrug.

  “We got him boss, go do what you need to do.” A long haired scruffy guy name Fletcher moves past me and slaps cuffs on our guest after relieving him of all of his weapons.

  “No need to rough him up, just bring him to isolation and leave him there until I have a chance to talk to him. Have the doc check him out after she is done in the meeting I am already late for, by the way.” I call over my shoulder because I have places to be and things to do.

  On the way down the stairs, I run into our radio man and tell him to contact Whiskey Dave and verify the man’s story.

  Then I continue on my way to the council meeting, they have been waiting for me, but all things considered, I really am having a hard time giving a good God damn.

  Not feeling the stirring call of diplomacy just now.

  They are waiting for me in a large storage room we have repurposed as a meeting room, which means we have scrounged up enough folding chairs for everyone to sit in a rough circle around a table.

  Two women and four men are filling those chairs. Half or so of them are new to their roles, but most of the people currently glaring at me have glared at me before.

  “Sorry I am late, we had an unexpected visitor show up on the rooftop.” I tell them curtly as I take a seat.

  Viv, our medic gives me a quick tired smile, she is on this council by my insistence. She is the closest thing to a doctor we have now, since our last one got chewed up.

  I look at them one by one.

  Matt Blank, sits across from me and gives me a tired nod. He is my head of security now and next in line for what passes for a throne around here, if something unfortunate happens to me.

  John Martin is still with us, thank God. Guy used to run a chain of hardware stores and now he helps run this place. Calm and all but unflappable he keeps the trains running on time. He too looks tired, hell, I suppose we all do.

  Dottie died in the Jumper assault on our old building, now her assistant, a dark-haired woman named Bev, sits in her place. I don’t know her very well, but so far she seems capable enough. She doesn’t make eye contact with me as I settle into my chair, instead she studies a yellow legal pad that sits on the table in front of her.

  Henry Butler sits next to her, looking nervous and uncomfortable, pretty much his default setting. I put him on the council because he is damn smart and is a survivor at heart. He was instrumental in figuring out that we could use loud noise as a weapon against the zombies, hell that alone gets him a seat at the table as far as I am concerned.

  “We need to dig in and make this place secure you idiot! What is this I am hearing that you want to declare war on the zombies? Suicidal madness!” A shrill voice interrupts my thoughts.

  Which brings us to the final addition to the council, Father Mike died in the Jumper attack and a member of his flock, named Brian, was somehow selected to take his place as spiritual leader.

  Father Mike was a crazy pain in the ass, but he was a crazy pain in the ass I knew how to work around. Towards the end, he even became an ally of sorts.

  Brian is a tall thin bespectacled, middle-aged, balding Korean guy, with a voice like a dentist’s drill and so far the biggest success I have had in building a relationship with him, has been not tossing him out of a window.

  Sometimes my own patience and emotional maturity astounds me.

  Chapter Three

  “Shut up Brian. Let the man talk.” John tells him calmly, more calmly at any rate than I was planning on telling the idiot.

  “We have new weapons and strategy, now is the time to wipe out as many of the damn things as we can. Before we get more mutant surprises, like the Jumpers. If we can kill enough of the fucks, we can clear a zombie free zone and stop living like refugees and start living like people again.” I tell the room as I take a seat at the head of the table.

  I point at Matt and give him a nod. He stands up and clears his throat, dude is fearless in a fire fight, but hates speaking in front of groups.

  “Jake is right, we need to take the fight to the freaks. No matter how secure we make this place, we still need to go into the world for supplies and it is just a matter of time until they pick off us security types, one by one and until there is no one left to go on runs. Holing up is nothing but a slow death sentence, we need to make war on the fuckers until we have wiped them out. Like the man said, every day we wait gives them time to mutate into new threats.” He tells the room gruffly looking down at his feet.

  The room falls silent, as everyone wraps their brains around it, staying walled up is a slow death by attrition and bringing the fight to the zombies is risking everything on the chance that we can win. Everyone is doing their own version of gamblers math, as they weigh the risks and rewards.

  Winston, our tech guy and chief radio operater, comes in quietly and lays a piece of paper in front of me. His face is grim, which tells me that whatever is written on it isn’t going to make me a happy camper.

  I give it a quick read and then put the paper back down again. The council is looking at me with questions on their faces that they wont like the answers to very much.

  “Whiskey Dave is dead, his camp has fallen to the zombies. Everyone who was in it, is dead, turned or hell, both I suppose. There are scattered reports of a new mutation, one that we haven’t seen yet. Those reports say that they set fire to whatever they touch. People are calling them Burners.” I tell them flatly as I stand back up.

  “Where the hell do you think you are going? This meeting isn’t over yet!” Brian hisses at me.

  I carry a lot of rage with me, more now, since losing Joyce. Most of the time my anger is a beast I keep on a short leash. Most of the time, I have a firm steady hand on that leash.

  Yeah, this isn’t one of those times.

  He sees me coming, but can’t get out of his chair in time to get away from me, I grab him by his shirt and haul his ass to his feet and give him a good hard shake to get his complete and undivided attention.

  “I am going to talk to what may be the only survivor of Whiskey Dave’s camp so I can figure out what the fuck happened, you whiny little shit. This meeting is over. Matt will fill everyone in on what you all need to do to fall in line with our new agenda. Go do your jobs people, it is simple as that.”

  I drop the little fuck hard and he rolls under the table, for some reason this strikes me as hilarious and I leave the room laughing like a damn lunatic.

  Probably not all t
hat confidence inspiring for the people left in the room.

  Oh well, if I get myself killed in fighting the zombies, they can pick a new leader, until then, they are pretty much stuck with me.

  Viv and Henry fall in behind me as I head up the stairs towards our set of isolation rooms.

  “Might not need you to check this guy over Doc, if he doesn’t give me the answers I want, he might just take a long slow dive off of the roof.” I tell her through clenched teeth.

  “My job is to see if he is healthy now, what happens after that is none of my business.” She tells me with a tired shrug.

  Henry doesn’t say anything, he just follows a step or two behind us.

  He is an odd duck, never really been able to get a grip on what makes him tick. I listen to him because he is smart and has great ideas, but I know next to nothing about him. Been told he spent some time as a prisoner to a gang of sadistic fucking bikers, but he has never said a word about it to me. He keeps to himself mostly, less now maybe that I have involved him in the business of running this place and preparing for war.

  They follow me up a couple of flights of stairs to where we have set up isolation rooms to keep new recruits separate, from the main population until they have been checked out. Two guards I know, only in passing, are stationed outside the only one in use right now.

  “He keeps asking to talk to you.” The one on the left tells me as we come walking up.

  “Well it is his lucky fucking day then, because I want to talk to him to.” I tell her grimly as I gesture for him to open the door.

  My gun is in my hand as I step into the room and the old guys eyes go a little wide as he sees it. He is sitting on a beat up, not particularly clean looking cot, that is sitting flush with the far wall.

  His eyes get even wider as I put the barrel snugly against his sweaty forehead and pull the damn hammer back. Behind me I hear Viv suck in her breath, but she is smart enough to hang back and not interfere.