Blood Type Infected (Book 3): Death Becomes Us Read online

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  Also available from Matthew Marchon

  After Failure

  Blood Type : Infected (Book One) – No Future For Man

  Blood Type : Infected (Book Two) – Fallen To The Flame

  Stone Stairway – Against The Tide (Book One)

  A Wish Upon A Christmas Village

  The Acadia You Haven’t Seen (an off-trail hiking guide)

  The White Mountains You Haven’t Seen (an off-trail hiking guide)

  The White Mountains You Haven’t Seen: Waterfall Edition (an off-trail hiking guide)

  In The Desperation Of Darkness (poetry anthology)

  FREE Spirit Trapped (poetry anthology)

  www.matthewmarchon.weebly.com

  Copyright © 2019 by Matthew Marchon

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Designed by Matthew Marchon

  The text of this book was set in Georgia

  First edition July 2019

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 1

  “They’re coming. Back up!”

  “I’m trying.” Marty throws the bus in reverse.

  Nothing happens.

  The gears groan and grind but we don’t move an inch. “We’re stuck. These bastards must be tangled up under the tires. I can’t move.”

  A line of deceased soldiers files out of the buses, breaking into a sprint when they spot fresh meat. They were sent here to save us.

  Muffled gunshots erupt in quick bursts. Rapid fire. It’s a machine gun.

  Someone’s alive in there. It’s coming from one of the buses.

  Someone’s still alive. Fighting.

  Plumes of smoke rise from the engine of the nearest armored transport vehicle, its front end crumpled against a bus laying on its side. It’s recent. This must have just happened. The rest of the convoy might still be heading to Shasta Lake. All we need to do is get around the pileup. There’s still hope. We can still make it. As long as we can clear the bodies clogging our gears.

  I waste no time grabbing one of the swords Caylee sharpened. We needed to clear that undercarriage thirty seconds ago.

  “What are you doing?” Felecia’s holding a katana, ready to follow me before I even have a chance to respond.

  “There’s too many bodies under us, we can’t move.”

  A chorus of bullets cuts through the rainy night, their blast amplified by the dense fog, as if reflecting off every raindrop they pass. The absence of the windshield has created a waterfall streaming into the bus, pooling on the steps like we’re trying to install a hot tub on this thing. We’re not that luxurious. Forget a jacuzzi, we could really use a front window.

  “One of them is still shooting.” Felecia’s eyes lock on me as she tightens her bloodstained ponytail.

  “He’s alive. We need to save him.”

  Buckley rocks back and forth, trying desperately to speak. He’s still wincing in pain from the bullet Neil put through his deranged father’s hand before tying him up. The gag around his mouth keeps his words just the way I like them, inaudible.

  “Noah,” Blake calls from the back. “We don’t have time. We’re not saving anyone. We gotta get the fuck outta here, like, now!”

  “No, he’s right.” Caylee jumps to my defense without glancing in Blake’s direction. “If it’s a soldier, they’ll have answers.”

  “Yeah, easy for you to say, you don’t need to go out there. You can’t even walk.”

  “Then I’ll hop,” she growls, jumping from the seat, grabbing a sword of her own. “And I won’t cry like a bitch the whole time.” A little below the belt but certainly true.

  Felecia helps prop her up and they hobble to the front to join me.

  “Caylee, no.” I don’t know why I think a stern shake of my head will stop her, or stop Felecia from acting like her crutch.

  “I’m not letting you two do it alone. Just get me down the steps, I’ll hobble from there. Noah!” She positions her sword and points behind me, her eyes damn near bugging out of her beautiful face.

  A loud bang convinces me to turn around before I’m done arguing with my sort of ex-girlfriend about whether or not my sort of new girlfriend is going to help her hopscotch her way around a zombie battlefield. It’s not a gunshot. It almost sounds like something hit the front of–

  The bus. Shit, one of them is on the hood of the bus. Marty lets out a panicked man scream, leaping from his faux leather throne. The zombie disguised in army fatigues bear-crawls across the hood so fast his knees don’t touch. He slips and slides on the wet surface with a steady stream of bloody saliva swinging from his lower lip. That’s a six foot vertical leap, how the hell did he get up here?

  Before I have a chance to react, he pounces through the missing windshield. His bloody body, dotted with bullet wounds, crashes into the driver’s seat. He’s moving so fast he bounces and slams into the steering wheel. A quick blast of the horn lets the others know we’ve arrived.

  Their undead faces all turn in unison. They drop the mangled limbs they were chewing on and race towards us, some of them not even bothering to swallow. Human flesh flings from their diseased mouths as they approach this new source of food they have yet to deplete.

  A second one leaps against the grille and pulls himself up like this is some kind of basic training exercise. A free climber conquering the little rock wall on a playscape. At this rate, they’ll swarm the bus in a matter of seconds. I swear, the other walking corpses didn’t do this, they banged on the sides of the giant yellow snack machine but none of them actually parkoured their way aboard.

  My blade meets the neck of the intruder currently taking up residence in Marty’s seat. One swing does it. God, I freakin’ love this thing. I contemplate kissing my sword as his head rolls into the imprint left from Marty’s clenched butt cheeks, blood gushing from the open wound. The decapitated corpse reaches out his hands before suddenly going still. The hole where its neck should be continues to pour a steady stream of blood over the dashboard.

  The reanimated soldier with a promising future in the zombie basketball league crawls toward us on all fours, a slab of human flesh stuck between his front teeth. Felecia leans through the open windshield and swings her sword like she’s chopping firewood. Her katana splits his
skull right down the center. She yanks it back with a girly grunt, her frustration turning it into a dissatisfied growl.

  He continues to crawl into the bus. He doesn’t care that everything once inside his head is beginning to leak out, like slicing open a rotten watermelon. It’s not enough to stop him.

  His shaky movements lose momentum as he pulls himself forward in one last ditch effort to reach us. His face is slowly prying apart, cut clear in half. The horrifying snarl he emits only exacerbates the problem. The two prongs of his tongue flap separately, a snake sensing its surroundings. Blood and brain matter fill his mouth, bubbling over, secreting from the laceration that divides his face.

  As if her blade were a bat, Felecia swings again, the katana Caylee sharpened slicing through his throat with little resistance. The two halves of his face flip into the air, separated completely during the beheading. One half bounces off his headless corpse. The other lands by my feet, hitting the floor with a wet slap, flat side down. His evil eye stares up at me, lifeless, hopeless, oozing a yellowed pus that tells us the reign of mankind is over.

  He was sent here to save us. The only reason this poor guy is here is to extract civilians from the danger zone. He doesn’t want to be here any more than we do. I’m sure it wasn’t his decision, it was his job. And now he’s dead because of it. Because idiots like us refused to die. How much easier would this be on everybody if we stopped fighting? If we just let nature take its course?

  Another camo clad corpse bounces off the bus in front of us, propelling himself onto the hood. He starts slithering his way closer, literally slithering, his arms are missing. Both of them, chewed off at the shoulder. His exposed humerus bones wiggle back and forth as if his arms are still attached, trying to crawl or push himself to a standing position. But there’s nothing there. He just flops around like a fish out of water, slowly squirming his way closer.

  A waitress slams herself off the door, large portions of her chest and neck completely gnawed off. Blood gushes between the bare bones in her ribcage with every heartbeat. I swear I can see it pounding through the muscle tissue her skin should be covering.

  We can’t stay here. With holes on both ends of the bus, they’ll overtake it in no time. We need to get on that delivery truck with Tyrone and Neil. Not that there’s any way in hell we’re all fitting. I think it’s time to thin the herd. Dad, Buckley and their remaining accomplice have to go. They can die slow painful deaths for all I care. And they can take Darius with them, fucking traitor. I hope he’s too injured to fight off their hungry mouths. O’Connor, Hansen and the quiet girl, you can go too. Your presence isn’t needed. Time to stand on your own.

  Felecia slashes the throat of our next uninvited guest. Before his head finishes rolling off the edge, she’s crawling through the broken window.

  “I’ll hold the hungry hippos back,” she yells over the rain pounding off our only ticket out of here. God I love her. “See if you can unclog the bottom of the bus.”

  “Noah,” Marty grunts, his good arm on the lever to open the door. “If they’re too tangled up under there, we’ll have to abandon ship. Don’t waste too much time on it. Besides, I think that’s what we want right there.” He points at the only armored bus still on all fours.

  “This thing’s done for,” Doug yells over another sporadic round of ammunition, a fearful shake of his head. “We barely got it started back there. We need that one.” He points to the same bus Marty’s hoping for. “Come on, they can’t do it alone.” Doug gets to his feet and grabs a sword, handing one to Shane without bothering to wait for a response.

  “Scott,” I shout, preparing to step foot into the world I want no part of, “you and Blake guard that back door. Paul, forget my dad, grab a weapon and help Felecia. Whoever isn’t fighting these fuckers, sharpen swords, we’re gonna need them. Caylee,” I hold her by both shoulders, knowing she’s going to fight whether I ask her to or not, “guard this door. We’ve gotta keep it open just in case we need to jump back on.”

  She nods, a determination in her eyes that should be enough to scare any intruders back to whatever hole they crawled out of.

  “Don’t worry, us cripples got this,” Marty growls, grabbing a morningstar. “I’ll stand outside, you stay on the steps sweetheart,” he says, nodding at Caylee.

  And with that, he pulls the lever.

  The doors fold open with a hiss, allowing the savage waitress entry into our not so safe haven. The small pond that collected on the bottom step washes over her veiny feet, slowing her ascent ever so slightly. Her aging chest collides with the sole of my shoe, sending her sailing backwards. I can hear the gruesome sound of bones snapping in her frail body as she hits the pavement. Or who knows, that could be what it sounds like every morning when she rolls out of bed and grabs her pack of menthol lights. She’s already scrambling to her feet, losing her other high heel in the process. I fly down the steps just as Tyrone springs into view, his sword meeting the back of her neck with little resistance. Her headless body lunges for me anyway, losing momentum mid jump, crashing in a crumpled heap at the foot of the stairs.

  “Those are the buses, aren’t they? What the fuck do we do now?”

  “First things first, we gotta get outta here.” I squat down to check the undercarriage. I can barely see them in the darkness, but the light reflects off their bloodthirsty eyes. Bodies that should be still and lifeless reach for me with desperation in their every movement. “They’re tangled in the gears. We’ve gotta try to get that first armored bus.”

  “It’s running. That’s a good sign. We keeping the delivery truck?”

  “We might need it,” I shoot over my shoulder, heading towards the bulletproof box on wheels, dismembering an incoming soldier. “We’ll drive both of them to Shasta Lake, just in case this was only part of the convoy. I can’t see them only sending three vehicles. Shane, Doug, try to save whoever’s shooting on that tipped over bus. They’ll know if there’s still a rescue crew heading to the lake. Come on,” I say, motioning for Tyrone to follow me. “Let’s see if we can clear these bastards out.”

  Another serviceman emerges from the nearly windowless bunker, half his face missing, the rest of it dangling from the skeletal frame beneath exposed muscle tissue. What’s he holding? With the headlights aimed right at him, the reflection makes it hard to tell. It looks like, no, it couldn’t–

  Bang!

  CHAPTER 2

  It is. It’s a gun.

  A shot goes off the second he touches the ground, hitting his own foot. This son of a bitch is holding a gun. He must have died with it in his hand and for whatever reason, he never let go.

  He spots us and begins running, shooting again in all his excitement. The bullet ricochets off the tipped over bus, proving that it is indeed bulletproof. Not really sure how much good that does us if we are able to acquire it. Then again, if we’re going to encounter more trigger happy zombies, we might just need it to deflect their firepower.

  I hold the handle tightly with both hands and prepare to swing as he runs straight at me, gun still clutched in his vise grip. I go for his neck the second he’s within range…

  But miss. I missed. How? He’s six feet tall with shoulders so broad you could project movies onto his back.

  He ducked! They never duck.

  He slams into my abdomen and we both go crashing to the puddle covered street. This asshole just tackled me. He dodged my sword and rammed his body into mine like he’s sacking a quarterback.

  His shoulder connecting with my twisted torso knocks the wind out of me before we even hit the tar. I dropped my sword, I know it. My hand is still clenched but it slipped out. I can tell I’m just making a fist with nothing in it.

  He bounces off of me but doesn’t go far. He’s got a handful of my shirt, I can feel the fabric yanking against my neck. I’m sure he’d use both if he could, but he can’t. His other hand is still wrapped around the handle of his gun. He’s going to shoot me. Out of all the ways to die, I’m g
oing to get gunned down by a damn zombie.

  He refuses to let go, getting dragged along with me as I struggle to my feet.

  Nope, failure. He’s too heavy. With one tug, I’m yanked to my knees, helpless under his strength. What the hell did this guy do in his spare time, wrestle alligators?

  All I can do is hold his head back with both hands as he chomps away, inching closer to my face. Where’s Tyrone? Why isn’t Tyrone helping me? This guy’s teeth are so close I can see his cavities.

  A large chunk of his cheek is peeled down, shredded by human incisors, slapping off his bloodstained chin. Bone peeks through the bite marks in his torn muscle tissue. They tried to eat his freakin’ face off. Someone took a bite out of his nose. The tip of it is missing, completely gone. And now he’s going to do the same to me.

  Tyrone’s not coming, I can see him, he’s got his hands full. And there’s another one barreling down on me. How does every situation we find ourselves in put me right back here? Helpless and at their mercy. No one to come to my rescue because there’s no one left. We’re it. We don’t meet other humans out here, they’ve all turned. Why are we even fighting this hopeless battle? Even if we scratch and claw our way out of this particular mess, all we’re doing is running towards more of the same.

  “Noah, hold on!” Felecia. I don’t know if it’s really her voice or if I just hear its sweet sound echoing in my head. That’s why I’m still fighting this hopeless battle. That’s why.

  My sword, it has to be around here somewhere. It couldn’t have gone far.

  I can’t hold him off anymore. His violent thrashing is too much. My injured wrist just doesn’t have the strength. Every contorting jolt stings with an unbearable pain that makes the hairs on my body stand on end. This isn’t working.

  I slam my hand down, letting go of his face. I couldn’t hold on any longer. Where the hell is it? It’s got to be around here somewhere.

  My hand lands on something. It’s not my sword, that much I know. It’s a… hand. I can feel its fingers. It must be one of the body parts these douche noodles were nibbling on as if they were chicken wings.