The Dead Years Series Box Set Read online

  He knew he didn’t have enough ammo for all that were coming for him. Mason quickened his pace and was now almost sprinting. He looked back and saw that Tom had the same idea and was also making a break for his car, although he had gained the attention of many more of those things than Mason had.

  Just feet from his car, Mason hit the button on his alarm key unlocking the doors. He didn’t want to look back as he heard the footsteps getting closer. He knew he only had one shot at this and reached out, opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat all in one motion. Those things must have been close because they were on the car only seconds after Mason turned the key, starting the engine.

  Looking for an easy exit, Mason noticed Tom had dropped his keys only feet from his car and was bent over trying to pick them off the ground when three of them converged on him.

  Tom stood from a kneeling position, sending two of the creatures reeling backward and to the ground. The last one Tom pulled off his back and threw it to the ground. Tom stood over the one nearest him and stomped on its face. The two that Tom had sent flying backward were getting to their feet, and due to all the commotion, Mason counted no less than seven additional creatures headed in Tom’s direction.

  Mason put the car in gear, pushed the pedal to the floor and pointed the car in the direction of the crowd gathering near Tom. Tom looked up in disbelief as Mason bore down on the crowd. There were so many of them now it was hard to even tell Tom from the rest of the crowd. Mason hit one of them, almost tearing its body in half and when he applied the brakes he took out another two or three as the car slid sideways to a stop directly in front of Tom.

  Trying to get his bearings after the collision with the crowd, Mason noticed his friend being pulled to the ground by a few of those things that still remained upright. Tom went down hard, hitting the back of his head on the asphalt in the process.

  His instinct was to put the car back in drive and get the hell out of there, although he knew he couldn’t leave Tom to die here surrounded by these things. Mason slowly lowered the passenger window and he stuck his head out. He couldn’t believe what he saw. Tom was lying on the ground just feet from the car, encircled by those things, passed out.

  With nothing to lose and time running out, Mason shouted to him, “TOM!” and once again, “TOM, WAKE UP DAMN IT!”

  Tom’s faced twitched and his body shook, finally trying to open his eyes.

  Mason was relieved to see that Tom was beginning to wake, although upon looking around his joy instantly turned to fear as many of those things also started to rise. He knew his friend wouldn’t make it into the car on his own.

  Mason had to get out and rescue him.

  13

  As the creature focused his gaze on the two of them, April leaned into Justin and whispered in his ear.

  “Run,” she said softly as not to alert any more of those things as to their whereabouts. This time Justin didn’t hesitate, and he made a beeline for the double doors that led into the gym. As they approached the midway point, he looked back to see his mother only a step behind. Justin was impressed by the fact that his mother was able to stay that close as he was in a full-out sprint.

  This happy moment was soon overshadowed when he realized that the thing was not more than ten steps behind them. Justin was also dismayed when he turned to look back a second time and saw that they had picked up three additional enemies who were practically fighting each other to get to them first.

  As they approached the door, Justin threw it open and stood aside to give his mother room to get by. When April reached the threshold, one of those things caught them and now had her by the upper arm. The trailing three all ran straight into the first creature, in turn pushing April through the door as the three of them scrambled to grab onto anything they could.

  Justin pulled his mother from one end as two of those things fought each other for the rights to devour April. Not quite able to coordinate pulling her toward them and sinking their teeth into her at the same time, Justin was somewhat able to get the upper hand.

  April was fighting just as hard to shake them free, and at the same time screaming at the top of her lungs. She thought about the promise she made herself about not letting the fear in and pulled even harder.

  The creature closest to her pulled her closer and brought its head down, its mouth opening as April struggled again. This time it landed a bite; luckily for her, it only connected with her sleeve and tore it right off.

  “Mom, let them have your shirt.”

  As April wiggled free of her sweatshirt, Justin pulled at just the right time, sending the last two creatures staggering backward. Justin pulled again and April shot forward with only one arm left to get free of.

  Justin’s grip started to fail from this seemingly endless battle of deranged tug-of-war.

  “I won’t let go,” he told his mother.

  “You better not!”

  Justin saw that his mother had cleared the entrance to the gym and as the thing came in for another bite, he pulled her one last time with everything he had left and kicked the door at the same time with his left foot. The door caught the thing on the side of the head, and it released its grip on her. Justin and April both fell backwards into the empty gym as the creature moved to stand.

  Justin rushed back over to the door, not quite knowing what to expect. He pushed the door from the inside and this time he heard bones cracking. He had become incensed with these things for what he and his mother were being put through.

  Again, he slammed the door, and again. He continued to open and close the door until its head was smashed in two and the top part of the skull fell at Justin’s feet.

  The other two were still trying to climb over the corpse which blocked the doorway in a bloody heap when Justin slammed the door one last time catching one of the creature’s hands in the door and obliterating it.

  Justin turned to his mother, reached out his hand to help her stand and said, “Let’s go.”

  April stood, and wiped a few drops of blood off Justin’s face. “Are you OK?”

  “I am now… we have to get out of here Mom; do you think they are all locked inside?”

  “I guess we are going to find out,” April said as they started toward the exit.

  As the approached the doors leading to the outside, they could hear scratching and pounding at the door.

  They looked at one another and Justin was the first to speak. “That’s not good,” he said.

  “No, it’s not… is there any other way out of this gym?”

  “Only back through the school. Wait a second,” Justin said as he jogged over to the door next to the athletic director’s office.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Hold on mom. Give me a minute; I have a plan.”

  Justin disappeared into the room and April heard lots of clanking and clattering just as he emerged carrying three items, a baseball bat, glove, and hockey stick.

  “There’s no time for this Justin, we need a plan to get home.”

  “Mom, this IS our plan.”

  14

  Reacting without a plan in mind, Mason flung the driver’s door open, stepped out and was instantly being clawed at from below by the creatures that had taken the brunt of the hit from the car. He stepped back and away from them, looking around for something to use to keep them off of him.

  Mason had thoughts of being clawed and bitten to death by these things surrounding him and Tom. He thought of how it would feel to have his skin ripped from his body while watching it happen and wondered how long it would take to finally lose consciousness and slip to the other side. That isn’t going to happen, he thought, as another one of them grabbed at his leg, trying to bring him down, not unlike a cheetah trying to pull down a gazelle for its next meal.

  Looking in through the back window of his car, he spotted what would be his way out of this parking lot of hell. As the creatures fought to get to their feet, Mason kicked free from yet another one and pul
led open the back door of the car.

  With one motion, Mason reached into the backseat, withdrew a ten-pound kettlebell and swung it backward, making contact with another one of them attacking from behind. Striking it right in the middle of the face, the impact was so violent that it lifted the thing off its feet and sent it flying more than five feet until it came to rest flat on its back. The noise of metal to bone sent a shiver up Mason’s spine. It sounded like a hammer hitting a hardboiled egg. He felt the recoil of bones being smashed to pieces as tiny fragments of blood and flesh sprayed against his arms and back.

  Mason turned to face the horde. Realizing the majority of them had taken the easy route and rounded the car after Tom, he took two steps and slid over the hood of the car and began to take swing after swing at the now diminishing crowd surrounding his friend.

  Most of the other hungry monsters hadn’t even looked back to notice Mason taking them apart one by one. As they grew closer to their prey, so did their single-minded focus.

  Mason suddenly realized these things seemed to go down for good if he smashed their heads severely enough. That was the only sign of hope he needed. Instead of battering them in the chest, arms, or shoulders, Mason began to focus his aim on their heads. He also picked up the force with which he swung his newfound weapon.

  He was nearly within arm’s reach of his friend when the shouting for help turned to screams of agony. They had gotten ahold of Tom and there was nothing he could do at this point. He cursed at them, although they didn’t even look up.

  He was too late.

  From where Mason stood, he could see them tearing the skin from his abdomen and upper thigh. Tom continued to fight as they tore at him. He punched and kicked them, although he had no chance as these things appeared unfazed by any of the blows he landed.

  They shoved their faces down, pulling back scraps of flesh, and began devouring Tom. There were only two left, although the damage was apparent. They dug into his belly and shoved the bloody mess into their mouths. The heartbreaking screams began to taper off until they were fully muted, as in their last act of violence they began tearing and biting at his face and neck.

  His eyes remained open, although Tom was now gone.

  Mason struggle to understand how it happened so quickly and why he didn’t react fast enough to beat these things off of his friend.

  As the two began to struggle over what remained of Tom’s body, Mason raised the kettlebell and swung it down on top of one of them with so much force that it instantly went limp. Its skull was split into two jagged pieces and a thick river of blood ran past Mason’s shoe as hundreds of bone fragments littered the area.

  Pieces also ricocheted off the one still hunched over Tom’s lifeless body. It looked over to see what it was just as Mason swung from the side. This one fell back and to the side as its head became dislodged from its body.

  Mason thought it was odd that, from the shoulders down, this thing appeared to be a slightly disheveled businessman dressed to impress. The only indicator that something wasn’t quite right here was that its head lay fifteen feet behind it.

  With the brain stem still attached and the obvious trauma that grotesquely marked its face, it looked more like a science experiment gone wrong than something that was once human.

  Mason knelt at the passenger door of his car, weeping for what seemed an eternity. Bruised and bloody, he knew what he had just witnessed would change him forever. He had just seen his good friend being murdered by whatever these things were. He wasn’t going to let this happen to anyone else he cared about. He couldn’t.

  Coming out of the fog that trapped him in sorrow for the last few minutes, Mason realized he needed to snap out of it and get to April and Justin before this evil fell upon them. Looking out over the lot, he saw a new group of those things headed his way.

  Brushing the fleshy fragments from his clothes, Mason moved back to the other side of the car, tossed the kettlebell in the back seat and shut the door.

  Sliding into the driver’s seat, he put the car in drive and paused for a moment. He needed a clear route back to the house if he was going to make it in time, and knew that all of the main streets would probably be a nightmare to get through.

  As he departed the lot, Mason maneuvered around the discarded shards of flesh and the growing crowds at the north end of the lot. Looking in the rearview mirror, he noticed the horde turned in his direction in the hopes of yet another meal.

  Pulling out onto the street, Mason mentally went through his route back to the house and intended to run down anything that got in his way.

  15

  The line of cars leading into his neighborhood, reminiscent of rush hour traffic he used to fight daily, became eerily still from the time he last peered through the front window of his home. The horde that came through in the last few minutes left their mark on those who choose to remain in their vehicles and wait it out. Half-eaten torsos hung from car windows as others who tried to make a last-minute run for the open field to the south were run down and paid the ultimate price for their decision. The small handheld axe he decided to bring for protection now seemed obnoxiously irrelevant.

  William quickly examined the area as he weaved his way through the congested mess, pausing where the last few cars had been pushed up onto the sidewalk by an entity much larger. It appeared that something had come through the area like a giant snowplow and pushed all non-essential vehicles out of its way as it left the area. The mauled tire tread from the overturned blue pick-up shifted under his feet as he broke out into the open and began to run along the recently cleared street.

  What appeared to be a fresh kill and its attacker lay between him and the entrance to his in-law’s apartment building. Simply sidestepping it wasn’t in his nature and although the world changed, he had yet to. William backed ten paces into the street and quickly covered the distance with only a few steps, jumping onto the retaining wall and avoiding the Feeder who had turned its attention to him.

  His guess was that the long hallways of the apartment building had either been overrun by the last wave of infected or they hadn’t yet arrived. With the interior lighting in this area of the building inoperable, he was leaning toward the former. The only space he was concerned with today lay at the end of the deadly quiet hallway. With the tension rising in his chest, William moved through the dark hallway, running his right hand along the wall and counting the doors until his weight pushed in the entrance to his destination, the last of the day’s light pouring into the hallway.

  The front room only fifteen feet ahead, William knew the legs lying sprawled on the thick shag carpet belonged to his wife’s father. The monster hunched over him didn’t bother to look up or even acknowledge his presence as he lunged forward with every ounce of bodyweight he owned, driving the axe deep into the back of its skull. The Feeder fell forward as William also crashed to the ground. Struggling to his feet, the stench that blanketed the apartment told him all he needed to know about his father-in-law’s condition.

  Buried too deep, his weapon was irretrievable and of no further use. He searched the rest of the apartment for what he assumed would be another devastating loss, although she was nowhere to be found. How on earth did his mother-in-law escape this? Where’d she go? And how was he going to explain this to his wife?

  Sliding down along the blood-splattered wall between the kitchen and the living room, he slumped to the floor and ran through what needed to happen next. He had responsibilities and not only to his wife. She needed him to get back home in one piece and with what he’d seen in the last few minutes this wasn’t going to happen by accident.

  Assuming he was hallucinating due to what was officially the darkest day this planet had ever seen; he rose to his feet ahead of his father-in-law who’d begun to re-animate. His father-in-law’s milky white eyes fluttered open as he sat forward and appeared to growl at Williams’s mere existence.

  William backed up to the open door and watched as this man he’d gone
golfing with not twenty-four hours earlier, pushed away from the mess of rotting flesh and blood-soaked flooring to a standing position. Fragmented swatches of rose-colored skin hung from his neck and midsection, swaying with each step he took. Tiny rivers of blood ran along his pant legs, racing to the floor as he moved more quickly toward William.

  Backing into the hall with his father-in-law only steps behind, he had no other choice but to run. This thing he had become was no longer the man William knew and he didn’t think he had the nerve to do what was needed to stop him.

  Now in a footrace to the end of the hall and the upcoming stairwell, William glanced backward to see his pursuer not five paces behind. “How was this possible?” This man, twenty-five years his senior, had trouble simply walking across the courtyard three days ago.

  Making his way down the final flight of stairs and onto the paved walk that led to the parking lot, William spotted a vehicle slowly making its way toward him. Neither looking like it was slowing or in a rush to exit the area, the driver must have been looking for something else as it turned the final corner coming toward the end of the yard. William lowered his head and sprinted directly for the car with his father-in-law chewing at his heels.

  16

  Looking at him sideways, April wasn’t quite sure what the sporting equipment had to do with them getting out of this gym alive, although she thought the bat would be a good start.

  “Are you going to let me in on this plan of yours or do I have to guess?”

  “Mom, take this hockey stick and glove.”

  “OK?”

  “I am going to use the bat to take as many of those things out as possible and I want you to use the stick to keep them away. If they get too close, push them back with the stick. If possible knock them down; they don’t seem to get back up too fast.”