Life of the Dead Box Set [Books 1-5] Read online

  Bugger me.

  She sprinted at him, crossing the kitchen in an instant. Solomon threw the empty jug and it bounced off her head harmlessly. She dove at him, growling as she did, and hit him in the chest. He stumbled back, tripping over a chair and crashing to the floor.

  His head smacked off the tile and everything went black for a moment. When his vision returned, he saw a galaxy of stars, but amid the constellations was Wendy’s snarling, crazed face.

  She was on all fours, crouching on top of him like a wild dog. When he saw the bloody saliva frothing from her lips, he realized she was not a pissed off housewife.

  The bird’s gone rabid.

  Almost on cue, she tried to bite him. Her mouth was on a collision course with his nose, but he swung his right fist upward and nailed her square in the throat. He felt something crunch as his hand connected with her flesh and drove deep into her neck.

  The Wendy-thing coughed — shrill, whiny whistling noises that puffed out small mists of blood. Solomon rolled onto his side and sent her toppling off of him. He punched her again, this time smashing her nose flat and knocking her onto her back

  Solomon jumped up and ran out of the kitchen, dashing through the dining room and into the foyer where an antique buffet stood against the wall. He heard Wendy’s footsteps thundering behind him as he fumbled with the drawer, yanking it sideways and jamming it. Open up, you bastard!

  She was close enough he could hear her choking, wheezing coughs. He guessed he had five seconds at the most and jerked the drawer with all his strength. Wood cracked and splintered as the drawer gave way and revealed the object he’d been looking for: a generic black pistol. One thing Solomon loved about America was how damned easy it was to buy guns.

  He snatched the pistol and spun on his heels. Wendy was almost on top of him. He raised the gun and fired off a round. It slammed into the center of her chest, just above where the deep gash of her ample cleavage began. A black dot appeared and his wife, or whatever she'd become, stumbled backward a step.

  But she didn’t go down.

  The gunshot only seemed to enrage her more. She snapped her jaws and moved toward him again.

  She’s a fucking zombie!

  He aimed the gun at her again and shot a second round. That one punched a hole high on her forehead at her hairline. The bullet tore a channel through the top of her skull, sending bone and hair and blood flying. Wendy crumpled to the ground, the top of her head cleaved in two. Motionless at last.

  Solomon took a step toward her and straddled her lifeless body as he stared down on her. He felt energized, almost high. Then he aimed the pistol and fired another bullet through her face.

  “Not so pretty anymore, are ya, love?”

  Wendy didn’t answer.

  He could hear a siren in the far distance, but that didn’t alarm him. If his wife had indeed turned into a zombie, the police had much bigger issues to worry about than his dead whore of a wife. So did he.

  Solomon returned to the broken buffet, grabbed a handful of bullets and reloaded the pistol. He deposited the remaining ammunition into his pocket. He didn’t bother to take in his reflection in the mirror on the wall. If he had, the fact that he was covered in blood wouldn’t have stopped him from going outside. There was work to be done, and he was more than willing to get his hands dirty.

  Chapter 20

  Aben's lips stuck to his teeth, his tongue to the roof of his mouth. It was like he'd dined on a seven course meal of cotton. A few hours earlier he checked the toilet. Old pubic hair and calcified piss decorated the rim. The bowl was stained brown, and the water carried a strong aroma of iron mixed with stale puke. He decided he’d rather be thirsty.

  The beginnings of sunlight brightened the room and Aben could see the clock on the wall showed ten minutes after six when he heard the door to the building bang open, then close. He assumed it was the relief officer, but when the source of the pounding footsteps appeared in the office, he saw it was Dolan.

  The officer's eyes were feverish and bloodshot, but also appeared hyper alert. He wore gray sweatpants and a white thermal shirt which had ridden up over his bulbous, vein-streaked belly. A beer drinker’s gut, Aben thought. It was hard to tell for sure in the dim light of dawn, but Aben thought he saw specks of red against the white cotton material. Dolan also held his pistol.

  “Is Ken here yet?”

  “Who?” Aben asked.

  “Ken Irwin. The other officer.”

  Aben waved his hand as if displaying the empty room. “No one here but me. And you, now.”

  Dolan flopped into the chair behind the desk and grabbed the phone. He listened, tapped the receiver then tossed down the handset. He stood and paced back and forth, still clutching the gun. Aben could see there were in fact red specks on Dolan’s shirt and as he tried to discern whether or not they were blood, Dolan stopped pacing and looked straight at him.

  “I just killed my wife.” His voice was flat and matter of fact, like he was describing taking out the garbage. Aben thought he must have heard wrong.

  “You what?”

  “She was sick. Like everyone else.”

  As if on cue, Dolan sneezed. Aben could see the small droplets of spittle propel through the air. The sun back lit them and it looked like a storm of millions of dust particles raining down.

  “When I got home last night, she was sick, but okay. We ate leftovers and went to bed. Then I woke up because she was having some kind of fit, shaking all over and foaming at the mouth and her skin was hot as a hot water bottle. And then she just died.”

  “I thought you said you killed her.”

  Dolan paced again. His voice became more anxious as he continued on. “She died. I tried to call for an ambulance but the phone was dead, so I went next door to the neighbor's for help, but no one came to the door.”

  Dolan looked out the office’s only window and gazed onto the empty street. “I went back home and sat down on the bed beside her and I held her hand because I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Aben looked again to the red on Dolan’s shirt and he knew the story wasn’t over. Soon enough, the telling of it recommenced.

  “I was still holding her hand when...” He paused, opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.

  Aben had seen the haunted, self-loathing look on Dolan’s face before. After an exceptionally dirty battle or a raid in which women or children were killed. He even wore it himself a time or two.

  “Then she came back.”

  “She woke up?”

  “No. She wasn’t asleep. She was dead. She was dead and then she came back. She turned over in bed and looked at me and… and she grabbed my arm and tried to bite me. I screamed, ‘Helen! What are you doing?’ but it was like she didn’t hear me at all. She just kept trying to bite me.”

  Aben saw the horrified sincerity in Dolan’s eyes and it almost convinced him to believe the insane story the cop was telling.

  “I pushed her off me and she fell off the bed, but right away she got back up and came after me again. I kept screaming, ‘Stop! Stop! Stop!’ but she didn’t stop.”

  “I had my service pistol on the nightstand.” He held up the gun and talked to it instead of Aben. “I told her to stop one more time, but she wouldn’t. So, I shot her. I shot her right in the chest. But that didn’t stop her, either. So, I shot her again. And again. And she just kept coming after me. So I shot her in the head.”

  He looked back to Aben. “And then she died again.”

  Dolan raised the gun and for a split second, Aben thought the cop would shoot him, too. Instead, Dolan pressed the silver barrel into the soft, pale flesh under his jaw.

  “No! Don’t!” Aben shouted, but it was too late.

  Dolan squeezed the trigger and the top part of his head blew off like a party popper on New Year’s Eve. Only instead of expelling miniature confetti, this one unleashed blood and brains and bone. The wet mess hit the low ceiling with an audible thwack. Most fell back to t
he floor, but a few bits remained behind, clinging to the white tile like gory graffiti.

  Dolan crumpled to his knees, then fell backwards in a lifeless heap. From his viewpoint on the toilet, Aben could see the gaping hole in the top of his skull. Pints of blood gushed from the wound and from Dolan's mouth and it formed abstract patterns over the concrete floor.

  Aben had seen men die before. He'd seen the aftermath, too. So the gruesomeness of the situation wasn’t shocking. What bothered him far more than the gore, was what Dolan said before he cashed in his chips.

  Did his wife come back from the dead, then try to attack him? To eat him? The idea was so insane that Aben half believed it. He looked again to the clock on the wall and counted down the minutes until the relief officer was due to arrive.

  Chapter 21

  After running for several miles, Bolivar’s lungs were on fire and he struggled to keep up with his younger and fitter colleagues. Sawyer was far ahead, shooting every zombie that got too close. The most recent was a city police officer who still wore his navy blue service cap even though his nose had been bitten clean off his face. Sawyer put a bullet in his forehead.

  Peduto noticed Jorge falling behind. “Come on. Almost there.”

  They had picked up two new arrivals as they weaved around and between buildings. The first was a man who looked about fifty and wore a faded Lenny Dykstra Phillies' jersey decorated with twenty-five years’ worth of beer, nacho, and relish stains. The second was a boy who appeared to be no more than thirteen, yet kept a hand cannon tucked into the waistband of his baggy jeans. In the rush, no one had bothered to get their names.

  The five of them were now only a few blocks from the Wells Fargo Center, the former home of the Flyers and 76ers. The military commandeered the arena at the beginning of the outbreak and turned it into their headquarters and residence for more than fifteen thousand personnel.

  Everything was clear as they ran down tree-lined Broad Street, but when they came to the intersection of Zinkoff Boulevard, they ran into more than twenty zombies, which feasted on six dead soldiers. When the zombies saw the quintet, half broke off and gave chase.

  Fresh fear gave Bolivar a second wind and he caught up to the others. As the arena came into view, he saw hundreds of military vehicles filling the acres of parking lot. As far as Bolivar could see, all were empty. They sprinted across the concrete until they reached the entrance at the front of the Center.

  The boy was at the head of the pack, ten yards ahead of Sawyer who was shockingly fast for a man of his size. The kid bounced off the smoked glass doors when they didn’t open.

  “What the fuck, man? They’re locked!” the kid yelled. He looked back to the others and to the zombies behind them. “You said we’d be safe here!”

  Sawyer closed the gap. Peduto wasn't far behind and Bolivar was on his heels. He could see chains and a padlock holding the doors shut. What none of them saw, until it was too late, was the kid draw the cannon from his waistband. He pressed the muzzle against the lock.

  “Don’t!” Sawyer screamed. He was only a few feet away now, but that was still too far to intervene.

  The kid was either pulling the trigger already or didn’t care to listen. The gun thundered and the padlock blew into pieces, which clattered to the cement walkway. After pulling away the now loose chains, the kid yanked open the double doors.

  “Mother of God.” The words came out of Sawyer’s mouth at an abnormally low volume. Maybe he didn’t even realize he’d said them aloud. All of his attention was focused on the area behind the now open doors.

  The kid turned back to Sawyer and didn’t see what was coming. He picked the wrong time to listen.

  “What?” he asked, and with his attention diverted, he was clueless to the sea of zombies ebbing toward him until they grabbed him and dragged him into the building.

  The zombies packed the arena in standing room only fashion. It was impossible to see anything but the living dead inside.

  Several of them clawed at the kid’s head while others pulled at his arms, legs, and torso. Some bit and ate and swallowed as others fought for their piece of the pie. The kid screamed and when he opened his mouth zombie fingers filled the cavity. They tugged and strained until the flesh and tendons gave way.

  His right cheek went first, tearing like papier-mâché all the way to his ear. Next, his entire lower jaw ripped free from his skull. The zombie that secured that prize was an Army nurse, her uniform ripped and bloody. She raised the jawbone to her mouth and chewed off the boy's skin like she was eating a rack of ribs.

  Somehow the kid kept screaming. With nothing to hold it in place, his tongue swung back and forth like a pendulum on a clock. At least, it did until a zombie soldier leaned in and bit it clean off.

  Sawyer leveled his M4 carbine and put the kid out of his misery. “Back! Go back!” Sawyer ordered.

  The zombies poured out of the arena as fast as they could funnel through the open doors. Dozens turned into scores which became hundreds and then thousands all in less than a minute.

  Chapter 22

  Traffic crept along at fifteen miles an hour as they approached the tunnel. Emory steered into the passing lane, but it did little good. He glanced over at Christopher, who slumped to the side, his sweaty forehead making a hazy oil slick against the passenger side window.

  Within minutes at hitting the road, Emory realized that Christopher, the boy so concerned about his aunt, was in fact very sick himself. His breaths came slow and shallow and it sounded as if his lungs were full of mucous. He couldn’t last more than a few minutes in between coughing spells and his skin felt like hot embers. Emory guessed his temp to be well over a hundred and climbing.

  Overhead an LED traffic alert sign flashed “Backups expected at the tunnel. Drive Carefully,” and as they passed underneath it, a bright yellow motorcycle zipped between both lanes and came within inches of clipping cars on each side. That only slowed traffic down even more.

  It took another five minutes to go the last mile, but once they reached the tunnel, traffic opened up and speeds quadrupled.

  Emory had driven the Mercedes a hundred yards into the tunnel when Christopher broke out in uncontrollable coughs. The boy gasped for air, choking. He searched for the seatbelt release, desperate.

  “Can’t… breathe…” He unbuckled the belt and leaned into the dash, holding his chest as thick, tight coughs racked his body.

  “Hold on, Christopher. We’re getting there.”

  The boy's coughing ceased, but Emory’s relief was short lived as Christopher fell back into the seat in convulsions. Bloody foam oozed from his mouth and his head snapped back and forth so violently Emory thought the boy would give himself whiplash.

  He looked away from Christopher just in time to see the yellow motorcycle discarded in the road in front of him. It was too late to hit the brakes and the Mercedes hit the bike at almost seventy miles an hour.

  The car careened sideways and the front left wheel caught the narrow raised walkway at the edge of the tunnel. It climbed the concrete, the driver’s side now two feet off the road and then it rolled.

  Emory had felt nothing so forceful in his entire life. He thought every joint in his body was tearing apart. The roar of the crash deafened his ears. The airbag burst in his face, knocking away his glasses and blinding him in a cloud of white powder.

  The Mercedes crashed down onto its roof and slid twenty yards, sparks arcing as the metal scraped the pavement. The windows imploded and sent safety glass raining through the interior.

  In a confused blur, Emory saw Christopher fly out the open cavity where the windshield had been. The boy disappeared as the car skidded away.

  The momentum slowed and Emory thought the crash might be over, but squealing brakes screamed behind him. He couldn’t turn to look and that was just as well because all he'd have seen was the huge blue bus barreling down on him.

  The bus slammed into the Mercedes’ back end and sent the car spinning like a
top. Emory closed his eyes and waited to die.

  But he didn’t. The car stopped moving and, this time, nothing else hit it. He looked around and saw smoke, which had taken on the puke green color of the fluorescent lights that illuminated the abyss of the two-mile-long tunnel.

  Between the crash and being suspended upside down from the seatbelt, Emory struggled to get his bearings. He heard people screaming in the near distance and remembered Christopher.

  Emory fumbled with the belt release, found the button and braced himself with his other hand as he unlocked the belt. He half fell, half eased himself onto the roof of the car and then crawled on his belly out the void left behind in the windshield.

  Emory felt like his head was underwater and found it hard to think. He extended his arms which seemed to work as expected, then climbed onto his knees, then to his feet.

  He ached. Every inch of his body felt battered and bruised, but nothing serious was broken. When he’d bought the Mercedes, at his dearly departed Grant's insistence, the cost seemed downright obscene. Now, he realized its tank-like build had saved his life.

  Pieces of broken vehicles littered the roadway. The acrid smoke burned his nose and made his eyes water, clouding his vision as he tiptoed around the wreckage and searched for Christopher.

  Emory spotted the biker’s bright yellow jacket first. He stumbled along the road toward Emory, but the closer he got, the odder he appeared. Emory saw the legs, the torso, and the arms, but nothing above the shoulders. It looked like a beheaded Frankenstein lurching at him.

  As it got closer, Emory moved to the side and then saw the biker did have a head, one that still wore a helmet. The head bent backward so far that it hung down between his shoulder blades.

  “Oh, God in Heaven,” Emory said as he took in that impossible sight.