A Pound of Flesh: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Read online

  A Pound of Flesh:

  Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

  By

  Shawn Chesser

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  ***

  A Pound of Flesh:

  Surviving the Zombie

  Apocalypse

  Copyright 2012

  Shawn Chesser

  Smashwords Edition

  Smashwords 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 Smashwords.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.

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  ***

  Acknowledgements

  For Mo, Raven, and Caden, you three mean the world to me...love you. And thanks for putting up with me clacking away at all hours... and then letting me sleep in a little. I owe everything to my parents for bringing me up the right way. Mom, thanks for reading… although it is not your genre. Dad, aka Mountain Man Dan, thanks for your ear and influence. Cliff Kane, RIP. Daymon, thanks for introducing me to Grand Targhee and Jackson Hole! Thanks to all of the men and women in the military, past and present, especially those of you in harm’s way. 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! Thanks to Craig Jeffrey for help with military kit and loadouts! Thanks to Mark Lyon and his wife Santana Lyon for their help with bowsers and aviation refueling! 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, 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.

  My idea for the cover was interpreted and designed by Craig Overbey to perfection. Thank you sir! Contact Craig

  Special thanks to Craig DiLouie, Gary Mountjoy, John O’Brien, and Mark Tufo. One way or another all of you have helped me and provided me with invaluable advice.

  Once again, extra special thanks to Monique Happy for taking “A Pound of Flesh” and giving it some special attention and TLC while polishing its rough edges. I am glad to have met you Mo! Working with you has been a seamless experience and nothing but a pleasure. You are the best! If I have accidently left anyone out... I am truly sorry.

  *****

  Edited by Monique Happy Editorial Services

  [email protected]

  Prologue

  Outbreak - Day 10

  Jackson Hole, Wyoming

  The trilling Iridium satellite phone nearly failed to rouse Robert Christian from a black, two Ambien aided sleep. With his head still banging from the night’s festivities, he reached blindly, probing the nightstand for the annoyance. Upon recognizing the glowing green numbers on the readout for what they meant, a spike of adrenaline surged through his body. He stabbed the talk button on the third ring, anxious for an update. “Yes,” he said.

  “Your man made it inside,” the male voice said.

  “Did you make contact?”

  After a slight pause the disembodied voice answered, “Affirmative.”

  “And!” the President of New America pressed.

  “The man you sent did not follow your orders. He did not wait for her.”

  The billionaire king maker and self-appointed New America President Robert Christian wasn’t used to dealing directly with people. Usually his head of security Ian Bishop mined the information first then presented only the useful nuggets. Christian’s time was valuable, he always demanded bullet points—information presented promptly and succinctly. He could feel the first spikes of white hot rage forming behind his eyes. Pull it together Robert, he silently told himself. He knew if he lost it now the woman lying next to him would be the first victim of his legendary temper, and there was no telling what the unbridled rage would make him do. As President he had found had many perks, but the major downfall was that no one was brave enough to intervene when he went on a rampage.

  His anger subsiding, Christian reluctantly resumed the conversation. “Please tell me exactly what Francis did.”

  “At the agreed upon dead drop I left your man a timeline detailing every one of the President’s visits. I also sketched a map showing where her Osprey lands at the airbase. When and where she typically went when she was here, as well as how many secret service agents she traveled with, and what kind of weaponry they were openly carrying...”

  “I didn’t ask you for a rundown of your day!” Christian bellowed. The blonde next to him rolled over and mumbled something unintelligible. “I want to know exactly what happened last night. Start from the beginning.”

  “Instead of watching and waiting for her return, your man went off on a tangent.”

  “A tangent?” Christian screamed, spittle flying. Then suddenly he went silent as he realized exactly what had happened. Oh no, he thought to himself. Pug had shown up instead of Francis.

  “I guess tangent is a little bit of an understatement. Your guy is a one man wrecking crew... killed six or seven people and started a couple of fires. The President cannot be touched now... no way. I did my part. I swear it wasn’t me who dropped the ball, Mr. Christian.”

  “I want details. Not blather.”

  “Two doctors were brought here from the CDC in Atlanta...”

  The veins snaking across Robert Christian’s temple began to pulse. “I know where the fucking CDC is. Stop waffling and get to the point.”

  “The doctors apparently had engineered a drug to counter the effects of the virus.”

  Robert Christian’s heart fluttered. “Can you confirm that?”

  “Not with firm, eyes-on intelligence. The point is moot though... your man killed the doctors. I’ve overheard base personnel; your man did a good job destroying their lab. Took them an hour just to put out the fire.”

  A wide, Grinchlike smile blossomed on Robert Christian’s face as he caressed the woman under the sheets with his free hand. “What happened to Pug?”

  “You mean Francis?” the man said, sounding confused.

  Silence.

  “No, I misspoke,” Christian lied. “Somehow... Pug showed up instead of Francis.”

  “At any rate,” the voice on the other end stated, “they rolled someone up.”

  “So he’s in custody,” Robert Christian said, thinking out loud. He pondered this for a moment before adding, “The question is... will he talk? And the answer... if I know Pug like I think I do. Mums the word.”

  “I hope so, because they have him locked up in an area which is off limits to civilians.”

  “Valerie Clay has to make an appearance at the base,” Christian said, hopeful sounding words spilling forth. “She has got to come and see the damage first hand with her own eyes.”

  “There is no chance of the President coming here now. I presume she’s inside of Cheyenne Mountain just in case the wind shifts...”

  “Wait a moment,” Christian said slowly. “What do you mean, in case the wind shifts?”

  The blonde rolled over onto her back causing the sheer silk sheet to cascade from her bod
y, leaving her pert breasts fully exposed. She was seemingly too out of it to care.

  Christian took advantage as he listened to the man explain himself.

  “A klaxon sounded last night... long... like a warning, and then a few minutes later I heard a very loud explosion... rumbled my bones like thunder. I even felt the ground move... like an earthquake. Rumor that’s flying around is they set off a couple of nukes to kill a huge herd of those creatures.”

  Christian tightened his grip on the blonde’s breast, waking her abruptly from her drugged stupor. His mind spun as he disseminated the information. If Valerie Clay would be so cavalier as to use nuclear weapons so close to home, he reasoned, what would stop her from using them against him?

  “What do you want me to do now?” the voice asked.

  “Carry on with your task.” Then, unsure how to channel his conflicted emotions, he killed the connection, rolled over and turned his full attention to the blonde.

  Chapter 1

  Outbreak - Day 10

  Schriever Air Force Base

  Colorado Springs, Colorado

  The seconds seemingly turned to hours as everything around her slowed. The last few feet seemed like a marathon, but to survive she had to keep running. With a burst of newfound energy, Brook wrenched the screen door open, her free hand propelling Raven ahead of her and into the room. Acrid gunpowder clung to their clothes; the smell of death was close behind. Mother and daughter reached the shadows as the zombie stopped and abruptly aboutfaced. The young woman wavered on unsteady bare feet, rheumy eyes searching for prey. She had obviously endured a horrible death at the hands and teeth of the infected. Scraps of blood-soaked clothing hung from her gaunt form, while the fistful of flesh absent between her jawbone and clavicle told of the viciousness of her attackers. Like silken stockings fluttering on a clothesline, thin ribbons of alabaster dermis dangled where her carotid used to reside.

  Brook ejected the magazine from the carbine, confirmed it held thirty rounds, then deliberately replaced it in the well where it seated with a soft snick. Next, she pulled the M4’s charging handle. The military rifle was now hot—its safety off.

  “Why didn’t the bombs work?” Raven whimpered. “Daddy said he would keep us safe.”

  “Shhh... you have to be quiet,” Brook whispered, backpedaling deeper into the shadowy room and pulling Raven along with her. Go away. Go away. Go away, Brook chanted in her head, hoping somehow the creature would telepathically get the message and move along.

  As if in response to the absurd notion, a rasp, like wind weaving through dry corn stalks, emanated from the creature’s azure lips.

  Brook risked another quick look, peering around the bunk with one eye. The monster was one of the first turns as the soldiers had taken to calling the living dead that were more than a week old. Mottled ashen skin, distended gas-filled abdomen, and maggot infestation—all telltale signs of the age of the walking corpse. The only good thing about the first turns, Brook reminded herself, was that they usually didn’t moan the same as the newly reanimated. The newer turns moaned incessantly at the first sight of the living, their eerie call inviting other dead, thus creating a daisy chain of followers in pursuit of the warm meat.

  Although Brook was a nurse and not a medical examiner, she did have her own theory. She guessed the differing sounds had something to do with the first turns’ vocal cords having dried up over time, and her one hope was that this walker at the door didn’t already have a following. That hope was quashed as the shambling throng of dead collided with the first turn, forcing her through the flimsy screen door; the surge of carrion followed, pouring into the barracks in search of their quarry.

  “Run Raven. Run and don’t you dare look back!” Brook cried as the first rounds erupted from her M4 carbine. She had already sprayed a quick full auto burst at the leering white faces before Cade’s words filtered into her head. “Controlled single shots. You must make every round count.” His voice calmed her. Brook switched the rifle’s selector from full auto to single shot. Then, using the remaining ten rounds much more effectively, she dropped eight of the walkers just inside the entrance.

  Just as the bolt on the smoking Colt locked open, more of the horde surged through the splintered doorway. Without looking, Brook hit the release on the right side of the rifle’s lower receiver, sending the spent magazine tumbling to the ground. Then, in one fluid motion, she jammed a fully loaded mag home and pulled the charging handle, racking a round into the chamber. “Die fuckers!” she cried, pouring lead into the approaching zombies. A crazy grin appeared on her face and she couldn’t help but laugh inwardly at her choice of words. The walking corpses had already died once. She couldn’t use “Die again fuckers”—it didn’t have the same ring to it.

  Slipping and sliding on a crimson lake of bodily fluids and spilled entrails, the crush of putrid bodies closed in on all sides as Brook used up the last of her ammo. “You can’t have her!” she screamed, swinging the useless rifle at the encroaching knot of tooth and nail.

  Before the gnarled hands could rip Raven from her grasp, Brook’s upper body exploded from beneath the sheets. Her chest heaved and her ripped abdomen glistened slick with sweat. Still running on the very impulses that had been jumping synapses milliseconds earlier, her right hand frantically searched the bed, not for her husband Cade, but for the M4 rifle that she had wielded in her nightmare.

  Gradually coming to her senses, Brook inhaled fully, held the air in her lungs for a tick, and then gently exhaled—willing her heart rate to slow. Then she pulled the strands of sweat-dampened hair behind her ears and listened to the rhythm of Raven’s breathing.

  Brook knew without a doubt that this latest nightmare was a direct manifestation of her subconscious fears—the very fears that she kept stuffing, the ones she was neither fully ready, nor willing to deal with.

  She shuddered. This macabre masterpiece had been the most vivid and horrifying to date. Though she wasn’t overly superstitious or into psychic phenomenon, she couldn’t help but think these recurring “creature features” in her brain were somehow premonitions of things to come.

  At that moment as she lay in the dark trying to analyze the nightmare which was becoming more distant with each elapsed second, the realization that her brother was dead, his murder not conjured up by some cruel part of her subconscious, rippled through her like a 9.0 earthquake. Then the reality that she was now essentially an orphan clawed for her attention. It had been only ten days since she had shotgunned her mother and father in the house that she had been raised in, and now, further compounding that loss, her brother Carl had just been murdered in cold blood by an unhinged lunatic whose motives still remained a mystery. Getting her mind around this, let alone telling Raven everything that had transpired, was going to be a monumental task.

  Brook felt another cramp forming. The pain attacked in short bursts, radiating from within like menstrual cramping, only markedly more intense. In response she rubbed the tender area above her pubic bone, trying to stave it off. Being a nurse, she knew the human body had its own way of taking care of a defective pregnancy, and her body was doing just that.

  Shuffling slightly hunched over, the tiny porcelain tiles chilling the bottoms of her bare feet, she made her way to the toilet. The nondescript room smelled of chlorine bleach and the rank wild flower smell of piss-coated urinal cake. The bathroom, which had been designed when men predominantly made up the Air Force ranks, had a long row of stand-up urinals and only half a dozen toilets. The lack of doors on the sit downs made her feel more than a little exposed. It wouldn’t have been an issue if she was only going to the bathroom. That she was losing her baby made her long for a half-inch thick piece of wood for privacy. Sitting alone, feet hovering above the real and imagined microbes that made the floor their home, she fought the overwhelming urge to bawl out loud.

  A bout of diarrhea, she had told herself convincingly. Maybe you’re hungry, another voice chided. All the while, You are losing y
our baby, is what the recurring spasms in her abdomen were screaming. The hope that she had been privately clinging to for half a day disintegrated when she looked in the toilet water between her legs. Gossamer strands of bloody discharge confirmed her worst fears—she had just lost her baby. That Cade was gone again made the loss even harder to accept.

  Still sitting on the commode, Brook hailed her daughter in the other room. “Raven... wake up. We’ve got to leave in a few minutes. Annie is going to need your help today with Junior and the twins.”

  “Ok... Ok. I’m up,” Raven grumbled from the other room.

  The sound of her daughter’s dainty feet hitting the floor spread a half smile across Brook’s face. Be grateful, she told herself, fighting to stand erect and pull on her pants. On a scale of one to ten the pain was about a six. This Brook could handle. She put her game face on, retrieved the M4, and greeted her sleepyhead. “Sweetie... did you get enough shuteye? Did you have any nightmares?”

  “Yes Mom... no Mom,” Raven answered, the irritation from being prematurely roused now absent from her voice. Then, rubbing her eyes, she asked, “Where’s Dad?”

  “Out saving the world I presume,” Brook said dramatically. Instantly she wished she could take it back. Cade was Raven’s Super Man, King Arthur and Robin Hood all rolled into one. She adored her dad and remarkably her world still revolved around him—he still had the “dad mystique” that usually disappears around the time a girl turns thirteen. One more year Mr. Grayson, Brook thought to herself.

  “I’ve got to pee like a racehorse,” Raven declared, making a beeline for the toilets.

  “Where in the heck did you hear that young lady?” Brook asked, suppressing a smile.

  “Duh... Dad, of course.”