Dove: A Zombie Tale (Byron: A Zombie Tale Book 2) (24 page)

“He turned!” John’s voice cracked as he yelled. “We need your help!”

I shucked both women without breaking stride and whipped my swords from their scabbards. In one deft movement, I helicoptered, swinging both blades through Sammy’s neck and severing his head from his body. But the decapitated torso fought on, shooting geysers of clotted, black blood into the sky to rain down on Jake.

~ ~ ~

“Get this goddamn thing off me!” Jake screamed, his voice two octaves higher than normal, betraying the fear coursing through him. “Why the hell is it still fighting?”

“They’re changing,” Byron called back as he wrapped his arms around Sammy’s body and pulled it away. “The colonies within them are all fighting for control, even within a single Goner.”

“You know, he’s the one who coined that name?” I pointed at Sammy’s head laying on the ground with its teeth snapping at the air. “This morning when I first met him at the Church.” Something caught in my throat. “I never knew he had been infected.” Hands grabbed my shoulders and pulled me away from the scene as Byron lopped limbs off and and threw them in different directions.

He grabbed Sammy’s head and held it up. The milked-over eyes searched the room. Its teeth clicked as the jaw closed. “Take a good look, people. This is the new face of the zombie apocalypse.”

A many voiced roar filled the air, commingled with the sound of collapsing buildings.

“We need to go,” I shouted, stabbing my arm toward the monster crashing in our direction. I leaped over and grabbed Jake by the arm, dragging him to his feet. “Were you bit?” I stared hard in his eyes.

“I—I don’t think so. No. No bites.” He did a cursory scan of his arms and legs.

“How are we going to get away from that thing?” Aunt E’s voice broke my concentration.

“We run!” Byron shouted as he waved everyone on, leaping for a tall coursed-stone wall surrounding the nearby campus. He landed on the wide top cap and reached his hand down. “Come on! Let’s go.”

John, Jake, and Roger scrabbled over the wall under their own power. Byron and I helped Aunt E and Jake over. Grabbing my hand, he yanked me hard and the ground disappeared from beneath my feet. He jumped down and landed mid-stride, letting me down next to him.

We broke into a hard run across the campus, reaching the other side as the wall behind us collapsed and the creature slammed into one of the tall buildings. Byron veered off from the rest of us. “This way!”

“Where are we going?” I yelled.

He didn’t respond, but in moments I understood as we reached a parking lot behind some kind of maintenance building.

“Climb in,” he yelled, gesturing to a beat-up pickup truck as he bulled through a door and inside the building. He emerged several moments later, slid across the hood, and ducked into the driver’s seat, slipping a key into the ignition. The eight cylinder motor roared to life.

“Hold on!” he called out as the truck shot forward, tires spinning like some crazy NASCAR racer. Slamming through a metal gate, he whipped us left and accelerated hard.

“This is your town. Where do I go?”

“Stay west on Girard, it’ll take you over the Schuylkill,” Jake shouted from his place in the bed.

The motor screamed as the truck shot forward. I spun to look back. We gained ground faster than the creature could catch us.

As we cleared the far side of the bridge, Byron pointed out his window. “Isn’t that the zoo?”

“Yes it is. Do you need to feed again?”

He pursed his lips and stared hard out the windshield, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. “I’ll be fine.” His voice didn’t sound so convincing. I know he had burned a lot of energy in carrying me.

“We could stop.”

He turned his face toward me and jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “Not until we have put that thing so far behind us it either gives up, or can’t catch us.”

I couldn’t see the creature anymore, but understood where he was coming from. If we stopped, it would be able to catch us easier. And we couldn’t afford a mistake like that.

We reached the end of Girard Avenue, and turned right onto Route 30. Byron floored the truck on the open road. Nothing blocked our way as far as I could see. We stumbled into the suburbs, passed by commercial and industrial parks, and eventually paralleled a set of railroad tracks. We passed a sign for the Pennsylvania Turnpike and turned off at the next exit.

The motor screamed as we flew down the road, putting Philadelphia behind us. Putting the hurt, and pain, and loss behind us. Putting the place I called home behind us. John and Jake sat huddled in the pickup bed, staring back at the road stretching farther and farther from Philly.

They spoke to each other, but I couldn’t make out what they said. Evan and Roger both stayed silent.

“We need gas and whatever provisions we can find,” Byron announced outside of Harrisburg. “I’m pulling off at the truck stop up ahead.”

I shifted in my seat. We really hadn’t said much up in the cab since we left Philadelphia. My throat hurt, and my muscles ached from sitting in the seat too long.

Yellow, red, orange, and blue signs greeted us as we pulled past the rest stop and into the fueling kiosks. Cars sat abandoned at the pumps and in the middle of the parking lot.

“You think anyone survived out here?” I hacked up a ball of phlegm as I spoke.

Byron turned the motor off and slid out of the driver’s seat. “Doesn’t look too promising so far.”

Aunt E and I slid out the passenger side as people were hopping from the bed. “We’ll sit in the bed for the next stretch,” I offered.

Jake smiled. “That would be great. I don’t think my butt could take too much more of the potholes. That’s one sure thing about Pennsylvania roads. They are horrible.”

“We’re not taking that truck,” Byron called over to us. I turned my head toward his voice. He stood alongside a massive white vehicle covered with windows and brown, black, and tan stripes.

“That thing has got to be horrible on gas!” I protested.

“You speak the truth,” Byron responded. “But at least everyone would have a place to sleep and sit. We could load it with provisions and work on it whenever we can to make it a little tougher.”

Jake opened the side door. “They’re nobody inside, but it sure smells like hell in here.”

“Probably some rotten food,” John added as he turned away, shielding his nose and eyes.

“We stop at every rest stop we find. And if we don’t find one, then we take to the side roads. Either way, this thing makes much more sense than snagging crappy truck after crappy truck. At least here, we have a chance for some comfort.” Byron opened the driver’s door and popped his head inside. “They’re right about the smell.” The motor growled as it turned over on the first crank. He gave a devilish grin. “But its also got a full tank of gas.”

Could this be a chance at humanity? At salvation? Could this motor coach be a chance at survival?

“I’m in,” Roger called as he hopped up the steps into the vehicle.

“Me too,” Evan added, following him in.

“Let’s get this thing cleaned out,” Aunt E said as she walked past me.

“What do you say, Dove? Are you in?” Byron’s eyes bored into me. And I could tell that he knew. He knew my answer. Knew what I was thinking—that I could picture myself sharing the queen-sized bed with him. I felt my cheeks burn with embarrassment.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” He winked and gave me a devilish grin.

Roger and Evan came out with black plastic bags full of trash, tossing them to the side and heading back in.

Aunt E lay her hand on Jake’s shoulder. “Let’s go find some cleaning supplies and some food.” I handed her my sword and they walked over to the truck stop.

“Do you think this will work?” I asked Byron.

“For a time,” he replied, examining the vehicle.

“And what then?”

“And then we do what we’ve done so far. We find another way to survive.”

The motor home pulled out of the truck stop about an hour later, its next destination—Ohio. The sun sank low in the sky, threatening to hide its glow behind the horizon. The steering wheel felt heavy in my hands as I switched on the headlights. I’d always wanted to have my own RV to give me more freedom in searching out abandoned history—I guessed this would be as close as I’d get. My stomach growled as I set the cruise control, a bag of chips in my lap and a can of soda in my hand.

about the author

Author Scott Wieczorek
digs holes for his day job. No, really. He is an archaeologist working in the Middle Atlantic US and has excavated historical, industrial, and Native American sites dating back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. He's not afraid to get his hands dirty, slog through mud, or get a wicked case of corn rash. After all, the whole world is an archaeologist's sand box. He's written and contributed to innumerable archaeological reports, and has helped to correct historical misnomers. In spite of all that, his true passion rests in writing fiction.

Mr. Wieczorek has been writing since an early age and loves to share a good story. Every re-telling hones his craft and refines the overall tale. He published his first Young Adult novel, Byron: A Zombie Tale in 2012 as a serialized story and part of his free fiction blog. Given its success online, he re-released it in ebook and print formats. Since that time, he has released books through Lycaon Press and Three Worlds Press. His works include:

Byron: A Zombie Tale

Witness Through Time

Awakening: Elder Chronicles, Vol. 1

Boon's Arrival

Upcoming works include another sequel to Byron, a sequel to Awakening, a sequel to Boon's Arrival, a stand-alone horror novel, and many more. There is no shortage to what Mr. Wieczorek has planned.