The Zombie Chronicles - Book 4 - Poisonous Serum (Apocalypse Infection Unleashed Series) (11 page)

Lucas and Nick loved fighting zombies. That was the common bond they shared, but they were still quite different. Nick was brooding, cold, and tortured by what he’d been through, or at least he always seemed that way. He tried to pretend that nothing got to him, but I knew better. Lucas, on the other hand, was outgoing, crazy, and always cracking jokes. No matter what, he always seemed to have a smile plastered on his face.

“
We’ll be back,” Lucas said, collecting more trash and placing it in a white bag.

“
I’m heading back to the kitchen. You guys need anything?”

“
No thanks, Val,” I said. “You’ve done more than enough.”

She smiled and walked out the door.

We all talked for a few hours before everyone said goodnight. We planned on leaving in the morning, so it would be the last good night’s sleep we were going to get for a while. Fortunately, there was no tossing and turning for me—no zombie nightmares to keep me up—and I was asleep in minutes.

Chapter 8

I ran into Kate in the lounge. She was a tall, thin woman with long, blonde hair tied up in a ponytail. She was dressed in a black pant suit I’m sure she pilfered from one of the closets. I had to admit the knee-high, black, leather boots were kind of sexy. I guessed Kate to be about nineteen or twenty.

She smiled at me. “I can’t believe you’re up this early.”

“
I have guard duty on the roof at seven a.m.”

“
You have a few minutes?” she asked. “I want to show you something I found in the office.”

“
You’re snooping around?” I asked.

“
Maybe.”

“
What did you find?”

“
A diary.”

“
And that’s your big find?”

She chuckled. “Not just any diary. It’s the diary of the granddaughter who lived here. I know what happened to the family.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Okay, I’m intrigued. What happened to them?”

She walked me to the office and opened a small book. “Look at this.”

I started to read the passage but it was long and drawn out. “Can you give me the quick version?”

“
Bottom line, the group left to go get survivors and plan to come back in a week.”

“
We’ll be long gone by then.”

“
The thing is, twenty-one year old Carla and a group of her friends decided to stay. They had enough supplies to last until the group came back. They weren’t supposed to leave the nursing home.”

“
So where are they?”

“
Haven’t a clue. But she said her friend was having a baby the night before we arrived. Carla was leaving to help her friend since she was a nurse. I’m sure her friends went as back up. It says they planned on coming back for dinner at the nursing home.”

“
Maybe they stayed with her friend.”

“
Maybe something went horribly wrong,” Asia said, entering the office.

“
Hi Asia,” I said. She wore a cut-off T-shirt slightly exposing her flat, firm stomach with a pair of tight jeans. Asia was hot. It wasn’t like I was looking, but I couldn’t help but notice. She shot me her gleaming white smile. “Hey.”

Kate pointed at one of the passages. “The lady having the baby was staying at the business they owned. It was a restaurant called, Ed’s. It’s only a block from here too. It wouldn’t hurt to go check it out, I mean, because it’s so close.”

I shook my head. “You want to take an unnecessary chance into Zombie Land over an entry in a diary?”

Her blue eyes blazed. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“
Let me talk to Nick, Lucas, and Val.”

“
No time for that,” Asia said.

I cocked a brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Asia grinned. “We have a dozen guys leaving in five minutes. Are you coming?”

“
I’ll have to talk to Nick.”

“
No time,” Kate said. “We’re leaving now. You see, Nick’s not my boss. So I don’t have to play by his rules. I play by my own.”

I met her gaze straight on. “I don’t believe a dozen guys offered to help you on a whim.”

She slipped into a long leather coat. “Smart boy.”

“
So what did you tell them?”

“
I told them there’s an arsenal of weapons being stored in the kitchen area.”

“
You tricked them into helping you?” I asked.

“
Those people could need our help. I couldn’t help my sister when she was murdered in Kingsville, but I can sure try to help people now.”

“
So you’re trying to make a mends?”

“
Something like that.”

“
Are there really weapons?” I asked.

Asia started to load a gun in her hands. “According to the diary, there really is. Would you like to see the passage?”

I stared into her eyes and she didn’t even flinch. “That won’t be necessary. I believe you.”

Kate handed me a picture of a Spanish girl with the most beautiful smile and curly black hair. “Does that make it a little more personal?” Kate asked. “That girl needs our help.”

I handed her the picture back. “You don’t know that for sure. She didn’t make it back to the nursing home, but maybe she stayed with her friend or maybe she got spooked by all of our cars outside.”

Asia let out a long breath. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

“
Do you need big brother’s permission to go around the block?” Kate asked.

“
No,” I said, defiantly.

Kate blew out a long breath. “You know we desperately need these weapons. Lots of people in our group don’t even have guns to defend themselves, and I’m running out of bullets.”

Asia met my gaze. “So you see, it’s a hero mission, but it’s a gun mission too. Why not kill two birds with one stone?”

“
I get it,” I said. “Let’s go.”

***

As I sloshed through the knee deep water, the rain poured and splattered on my face. I had to admit I felt pretty safe walking down the street with a dozen armed guards surrounding me. We shot a few stray zombies that decided they were brave enough to take us on. My rifle was slung over my shoulder and I carried my handgun in my holster so I felt pretty confident I could handle anything that came my way.

It wouldn’t hurt to go check out a place that was only a block away. And we desperately needed the weapons…that is, if there were really weapons and this wasn’t some wild goose chase.

When we rounded a corner, we saw a brown brick building with the sign,
Ed’s Fast Food
. I couldn’t see anything through the black, spray painted windows. The front door had obviously been smashed and that’s how the zombies were getting in. I crept closer and peered inside. Rain dripped down my face and I blinked so I could focus. Battery operated lanterns hung inside and I could see the zombies shuffling around in the restaurant. My frown deepened. And it was in that moment that I feared the worst, the group had been overrun by zombies. I sprinted back to the others as the wind howled.

“
It’s definitely overrun,” I said. “There’s no way anybody could still be alive.”

“
They were killed,” one of the guys said. “That’s why they didn’t come back to the nursing home.”

I nodded grimly, fearing the exact same thing.

“
Well, now you have your answers,” a man said. “Let’s get back.”

“
Are you kidding?” a guy said. “Let’s find those weapons Carla talked about in the diary. I mean, they’re not going to do those zombies any good. Let’s go retrieve them!”

Asia patted my back. “I’m in. What do you think?”

“
We’ve got fifteen armed people against a bunch of stupid zombies roaming around in a confined space. We can easily take them down.”

“
I like it,” Kate said, pushing strand of wet hair out of her eyes. “Let’s get someone to volunteer as bait, and when they come out, we’ll fire away.”

Rain soaked Asia’s hair and poured down her face. “We need those weapons. But even more, we need the ammo.”

Asia was right. I knew how low we were on bullets. If we needed to do battle for any reason, we were in trouble. We definitely needed supplies.

Squinting, I aimed my rifle at the door as one of the men walked up to the entrance and started shouting. It worked like a charm. As the zombies poured out, we all fired away. Glass shattered with a boom and zombies dropped one by one as a hail of shots rang all around me.

I sprinted across the parking lot firing at zombies as I approached the restaurant. Nothing stirred and it was eerily quiet as raindrops splattered on my face. Zombies littered the ground. I climbed over the sea of dead monsters when one of the cursed things suddenly grabbed my boot and wrapped its cold, bony fingers around my ankle. I carefully aimed at its head and fired. As the shot pierced its skull, it immediately let go.

“
Some of them are still alive,” I said.

Kate shot me a look. “Not when I’m done.”

“
Go on in,” Asia said. “We got this.”

I nodded, then peered in the huge, glass window. A few stragglers roamed in the back but I knew we could easily handle that. My boots crunched over glass as I walked in. Slinging my rifle over my shoulder, I switched to my handgun. Aiming, I took a deep breath, and then let it out. I fired at anything moving and neutralized five targets in a matter of seconds. I shifted my aim and fired again, more bullets slamming into three more zombies shuffling by the industrial-sized sink.

“
The boy has good aim,” a tall man shouted.

“
He’s Nick’s brother,” another chimed in.

I planted my feet a shoulder width apart as three more zombies came at me. Exhaling slowly, I struck hard. I fired one at a time in rapid succession, nailing each undead freak straight in the forehead. They crashed into a trembling heap of rotting flesh. I was sure they’d killed the people who were running this restaurant, and nothing angered me more.

I glanced around at Ed’s personal armory in the kitchen. Stacked everywhere, were a wide variety of rifles, shotguns, and ammunition. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear I was in a gun shop. Ed must’ve been collecting weapons from everywhere. Pounding echoed in the air and broke my concentration. The knocking sound was coming from the freezer.

“
Who wants the last stragglers?” a man asked.

Suddenly, I could hear people screaming and that’s when I realized there were air holes drilled into the top of the freezer.

I aimed, my finger resting on the trigger. “Open the door. Let’s see who it is.”

He opened the freezer door and my jaw dropped as a woman came running out, followed by a group of people with a crying baby.

My group of men aimed their weapons at the people we found in the freezer.

“
Who are you?” one demanded to know.

“
Don’t shoot!” the woman cried, holding her arms up. “We mean you no harm.”

I immediately put down my gun. It was the woman from the picture…Carla.”

“
Carla?” I said.

“
Put down your weapons,” a guy said. “It’s the owner’s granddaughter of the nursing home. We found her. She’s alive.”

Carla gazed up at me shocked. “How do you people know my name or even who I am?”

“
We found your diary at the nursing home,” I said. “What happened here?”

“
I came to visit, to help my friend have her baby. And the place got overrun with zombies. We ran in the freezer to hide and got locked in by accident. There was no way out. We were running out of air!”