Plague Nation E-Book

Dana Fredsti

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

The Zombie Swarm... The undead have been defeated in Redwood Grove, but reports of similar outbreaks are coming in. What seemed to be an isolated event is turning into a pandemic. The last thing Ashley Parker wanted when she went to college was to become a zombie hunter. But she is one of a select few who are immune to the virus. Gifted with enhanced speed, strength, and senses, she's recruited by a shadowy organization that's existed for centuries, its sole purpose to combat the zombie threat. Dark secrets begin to emerge, and when an unknown enemy strikes, Ashley and the other wild cards embark on a desperate mission to reach San Francisco. If they fail, the plague will sweep the nation unchecked. And the person she cares for most may die. Or worse.

Leseprobe

Praise for PLAGUE NATION

“If you like your heroines smart and sassy and kick ass capable, Ashley Parker has what you need. And Plague Nation is exactly what the zombie genre needed.”

JOE MCKINNEY, Stoker Award-winning author of FLESH EATERS and INHERITANCE

“Plague Nation is a rollicking zombie thriller packed with action, chills, and biting humor. Brava!”

JONATHAN MABERRY, New York Times bestselling author of PATIENT ZERO, FIRE AND ASH, and DEAD OF NIGHT

Praise for PLAGUE TOWN

“In Plague Town, Dana Fredsti has created something truly unique in the world of horror fiction - a cool, hip zombie apocalypse novel. With crisp writing, a cast of memorable characters, and tons of undead combat action, it’s a zombie lover’s literary dream. When the dead rise, I’ll want the Wild Cards by my side.”

ROGER MA, author of ZOMBIE COMBAT MANUAL

“One of the Top Ten Zombie Releases of 2012.”

BARNESANDNOBLE.COM

“A gruesomely good read that has me panting for the next book in the series. As hard to put down as a swarm of zombies. When’s the next one?”

KAT RICHARDSON, bestselling author of the GREYWALKER novels

“Fredsti’s writing is razor sharp as her heroes fight off the horde while fighting their attraction for each other.”

STACEY GRAHAM, author of THE ZOMBIE DATING GUIDE

“Plague Town is a fast-moving zombie tale that reads like a blast of energy. If you like zombie apocalypse stories, this is a must read!”

LOIS GRESH, New York Times Best-Selling Author of BLOOD AND ICE and ELDRITCH EVOLUTIONS

“Dana Fredsti has created a world as familiar as our own back yard and populated it with recognizable people we care about... and zombies. Plague Town will have you turning pages fast... and checking the locks on all the doors.”

RAY GARTON, author of LIVE GIRLS AND SEX and VIOLENCE IN HOLLYWOOD

“As adorable an end of the world as you’re liable to get... a brisk, witty ultraviolent romantic gurlventure...”

GINA MCQUEEN, author of OPPOSITE SEX and APOCALYPSE AS FOREPLAY

“Chills and thrills for that season when you’re looking for—chills and thrills!”

HEATHER GRAHAM, author of HALLOWED GROUND and the FLYNN BROTHERS TRILOGY

“Not only is the prose good, but it’s seasoned with a dash of steamy romance and an excellent sense of originality and pacing. it survives the zombie apocalypse in style.”

MISPRINTED PAGES

“More action than season two of The Walking Dead.”

HORROR TALK

“Revoltingly gory in just the right way, and I’ll be picking up the sequel when it rolls around.”

HOUSE OF GEEKERY

“Read it—I zombie dare you. Fun, fast, read.”

AFFAIRS MAGAZINE

“A diverting, entertaining zombie siege novel—complete with all the delicious, bone-crunching, blood-gushing awesomeness a zombie lover could ever want.”

BOOK SMUGGLERS

“While Plague Town is a really fun and action-packed ride, one cannot dismiss the darkness at the center of it all. There are sections laced throughout written from the perspective of the innocent people as they are turning into zombies. an emotional core that grounds the novel and keeps it from being just a shallow action/horror romp.” STRANGE AMUSEMENTS

“If you love zombies, strong, sarcastic heroines with heart, and fight scenes that will knock your socks off, you’ll devour Plague Town!”

MY BOOKISH WAYS

“Delightfully gruesome.”

NERDS IN BABELAND

“Described as Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets zombies, which is definitely accurate, although does not do nearly enough service to the book’s skillful delivery of action, humor, gore and romance.”

STARPULSE

“Chock-full of gore and zombie romance... a fresh spin on an otherwise tired genre.”

DAILY GRINDHOUSE

“It’s funny, scary, gory, sexy and goes a mile a minute.”

CULTURE BRATS

“If you like butt-kicking heroines with a fair dose of snark and humor, then you’re going to love Ashley.”

GEEK MOM

BOOKS BY

DANA FREDSTI

THE ASHLEY PARKER NOVELS

Plague Town

Plague Nation

Plague World (forthcoming)

Murder For Hire: The Peruvian Pigeon

PLAGUE NATION

Print edition ISBN: 9780857686367

E-book edition ISBN: 9780857686398

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark St, London SE1 0UP

First edition: April 2013

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Dana Fredsti asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Copyright © 2013 Dana Fredsti

Visit our website: www.titanbooks.com

Did you enjoy this book? We love to hear from our readers.

Please email us at [email protected] or write to us at Reader Feedback at the above address.

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

To my cousin,

Staff Sergeant Nick Fredsti

with the 82nd Airborne, killed in action in Afghanistan while serving his country, and his sister, Sarah Fredsti, one of the bravest people I know.

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

PROLOGUE

“And now for some more bad news. Ready?”

Egg Shen, Big Trouble in Little China

BELLEVILLE, WISCONSIN

Bart shuffled out onto the front porch to collect the morning paper, cursing when he saw that their idiot paperboy had once again managed to pitch it nowhere near the house. Instead it lay in a pile of slush in the middle of the front yard, meaning he would have to get his slippers soaking wet to get the damn thing.

Grumbling, he made his way carefully down the slippery steps, moderately grateful that Belleville was experiencing a relatively mild winter, and it wasn’t actually snowing any more. Early November in Wisconsin wasn’t always so gentle. Even so, the sky was a solid gray layer of clouds.

Bart managed to retrieve the paper without mishap, and turned to go back into his house, but paused as he noticed a pile of newspapers on Lucy Swenson’s front stoop. His first thought was how come the little shit of a paperboy had managed to get his neighbor’s papers right up against the front door.

Then he frowned. Why hadn’t Swenson picked up her paper? Bart counted at least three in their plastic bags, lying in the half-melted snow on the cement porch.

No, this wasn’t like Swenson at all. Hell, Bart could set a timer by her daily routine. Porch light off at 6:30 a.m., step outside at 7, always wearing a scowl that frightened small children... Pick up her paper. Grumble something under her breath—usually about the neighborhood dogs ruining her yard. Go back inside and slam the door. She only reappeared when Belleville’s lone postal carrier delivered her mail, and harangued him about all sorts of crap that had nothing to do with the postal service.

Porch light on at 6 p.m. sharp—even in the summer.

With this last thought, Bart realized his neighbor’s porch light was still on. No, that wasn’t right. Could she have fallen and hurt herself? As much as he disliked Lucy Swenson, the cantankerous old bitch was still his neighbor. And in a place as small as Belleville, people looked after one another.

“Well, shit.”

Bart sighed and pulled his terrycloth robe tightly around him, retying the belt in a secure knot before carefully making his way onto his neighbor’s property, avoiding piles of muddy slush. Even so, the cold wind gusting across the yard penetrated both robe and flannel pajamas, sending an unwelcome chill straight through his bones.

As he approached the porch, Bart’s eyebrows shot up as he peered at the mailbox mounted to one of the porch supports. It was stuffed to overflowing. A chill tickled his spine that had nothing to do with the wind.

Careful to avoid patches of ice on the cement steps, Bart navigated his way to Lucy’s porch and rapped on the front door.

“Miss Swenson?” He’d known his neighbor for years, long enough to call her by her first name, but she’d have a conniption fit if he did it. He knocked again, more vigorously. “Miss Swenson?”

He held his breath, and thought he heard something. Bart pressed his ear to the door. It was a thumping sound, followed by a noise as if something was being dragged across the floor.

“Well, shit.”

He went around the porch until he’d reached the living room window. His view inside was obscured by snowy white eyelet curtains, with hardly any space between the panels. The interior of the house was dark. He thought he saw something moving inside, but it was hard to tell.

“Miss Swenson—you okay in there?”

He heard a low moan. It didn’t sound good.

That decided him. Putting his shoulder to the door and a hand on the doorknob, he pushed and twisted at the same time. The door opened easily, and Bart stumbled, practically falling inside the front hallway. He caught himself, his right knee screaming at the unexpected twist. The pain, however, was quickly overwhelmed by the stench that wafted through the house, like an overflowing port-a-potty in the heat of summer. Slipping, Bart fell to his knees into a puddle of viscous black fluid. He began choking on the thick smell, his gorge rising even though he hadn’t even had his first cup of coffee.

Something was dead in here.

Trying not to panic, he pulled himself to his feet, ignoring the ache in his joints and trying to ignore the foul black goo that now coated the knees of his pajama bottoms and the hem of his robe. Slow, stumbling footsteps sounded in the living room to the right of the front hall.

“That you, Miss Swenson?” he said hopefully, covering his nose and mouth with one hand.

The hair on the back of Bart’s neck rose. Something was really wrong here, and he realized the best thing he could do was leave. Right now. But his conscience wouldn’t let him do so without one last try.

“Miss Swens...?” Bart’s voice broke in the middle as another low, guttural moan sounded. The footsteps drew closer, lurching across the living room.

Bart stumbled backward. His gut screamed at him to get the hell out, go home, call the cops and lock his house up. Just do it now.

He turned toward the front door, feet slipping again in the stinking black goo that covered the hallway floor. His outstretched hand hit the edge of the door, inadvertently sending it slamming shut on his fingers. He stifled a gasp of pain and fell again to his knees.

The footsteps rounded the corner of the living room as Bart clutched at the doorknob, slimy hands giving little grip. Finally it turned in his hand, and he might have made it out if he hadn’t paused to look back.

It was Lucy Swenson, several days dead, but somehow walking even as black fluid and blood oozed out of her mouth, nose, and eyes—dead milky corneas framed by bloody yellowed whites. Her housecoat was filthy, and stuck to her body grotesquely. And she stunk, plain and simple.

“Well, shit.”

CHAPTER ONE

We generally don’t believe anything bad will happen to us. Things like earthquakes, tsunamis, and zombie apocalypses happen to other people. We all firmly believe this... until suddenly that first bastard bites us on the ass.

Then that feeling of security is shot to shit, never to return.

I, for one, resent the hell out of this fact.

* * *

My fellow wild cards and I stood outside Licker Up— yeah, really—a poor man’s BevMo!, and its sister store Partyrama. “One stop shopping for your party needs!” They were situated in a cluster of interconnected shops on Palm Street.

Located at the south end of Redwood Grove, Palm was considered the main drag of the town’s “industrial district.” In other words, stores and offices built in that utilitarian saltine cracker box style that clashed with the “quaint” building code imposed on the rest of the community. There were no residences other than a rundown trailer park at the end of the street, and whatever homes were tucked into the woods outside the actual town limits.

The weather was unusually clear, a brisk wind having swept out the coastal fog that usually shrouded the town. Instead, sunshine filtered through the trees and reflected off the windows. The downside was that without the cloud cover, the crisp November air was butt-ass cold. Gusts of wind managed to insinuate themselves under our clothing and Kevlar, and standing still wasn’t helping the situation. I stomped my feet and blew on my hands, wishing Gabriel—our team leader—would get his butt in gear and tell us what to do.

Captain Gabriel was a member of the Dolofónoitou Zontanóús Nekroús—usually called DZN, for obvious reasons—an ancient organization dedicated to protecting mankind from the undead. The DZN enlisted members from all walks of life, including various armies and other agencies worldwide. Think The X-Files under the auspices of the U.N.

Gabriel was also in charge of this “chickenshit operation,” as Tony liked to call it, so we were waiting on his orders.

We gonna kill some zombies, or what? I rubbed my hands together briskly.

“How come we’re out here in the butt end of nowhere?” Kai grumbled. Guess I wasn’t the only one getting impatient. As usual, he radiated an attitude that said, “I’m cuter than a young Will Smith and I know it.” While I had to admit that he made riot-gear chic look pretty damn good, I always found it a toss-up whether to admire his looks, or dropkick him in his admittedly well-toned ass.

Gabriel gave Kai what my dad used to call the “hairy eyeball.”

“There are still zombies trickling in from the quarantine perimeter,” he said, “probably drawn to the activity in town. The remaining teams are sweeping the outlying areas with the help of incoming military assistance, now that we can risk letting other soldiers inside the quarantine zone.”

“About time,” Tony muttered.

We all shared his resentment—at first, when the quarantine zone was established, the potential for an uncontained outbreak was too high to risk sending in more personnel. Which really sucked for those of us stuck inside to fight the zombies. The Powers-That-Be had only just started sending in reinforcements to help us clear out the remaining ghouls, because some of the soldiers who’d been inside the zone from the beginning had gotten sick, without being bitten. They were the ones who’d received the not-so-thoroughly tested vaccine for Walker’s, the Flu de Jour.

Gabriel may not have had wild card hearing, but he wasn’t deaf. The look he shot Tony was way past irate. He turned away without saying a word and stalked down the block, yanking out his two-way radio.

I watched his cute butt every step of the way. If Kai made swat chic look good, Gabriel rocked it like a runway model.

“What crawled up his ass and died?” Tony said. Four heads turned and looked at me—everyone but Sergeant Gentry, who looked in the opposite direction. He was shooting for the “I am invisible” approach.

“Oh, don’t even try and pin this on me,” I growled. “Gentry, tell them this is not my fault.”

Gentry was a baby-faced Army sergeant who’d been fighting zombies with the DZN’s Zed Tactical Squad— ZTS—even before he’d been bitten and discovered his own immunity. He just shook his head.

“Sorry, Ash, but I’m staying out of this, for the sake of our friendship and my continued health.”

Tony snickered. Not surprising since he had a solid case of hero worship for Gentry. The lieutenant wielded a mean flamethrower, and held his own with Tony and Kai when they started batting around movie quotes like the ROTC’s answer to The Big Bang Theory.

“Wuss,” I muttered. Not that I could really blame him, seeing as Gabriel was his direct superior. Then I turned back to the others.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” I said, “but Gabriel and I, well, we haven’t... er... seen each other since we fought the swarm.”

Tony nodded sagely. His tongue piercing clicked against a tooth. Tall enough to play for any basketball team, he’d gone from an irritating punked-out teenager to a slightly less irritating zombie-killing teenager—and done it in record time. The metal ball in his tongue was only one of the multiple piercings Tony had sported when I’d first met him. But he’d learned the hard way that dangling pieces of metal didn’t mix well with zombies.

“Classic case of Pon Farr,” he said. “Get him back to Vulcan, stat!”

“Damn straight,” Kai said, nodding his head in agreement. “The dude needs to get laid.”

“Is there anyone here but me who thinks this conversation is totally inappropriate?” I looked entreatingly at Mack. “Come on, man, back me up here.” A fifty-something mailman, Mack wore an expression that reminded me of a mournful hound dog. Unfortunately I could tell by the way his blue eyes shone with mischief that I wasn’t gonna get the support I wanted.

“Tony has a point, Ashley,” he said. “It’s your job to make sure our fearless leader has an outlet for his stress.”

That elicited a snort from Lil, an eighteen-year-old Arts major and my roomie during the current quarantine. She giggled, then looked at me guiltily.

I sputtered in outrage.

“So what, I’m some kind of human stress ball now?” I demanded. Even as the words escaped my mouth, I knew they were a bad choice.

“Well, you are his main squeeze,” Mack replied. His straight face lasted all of five seconds until Tony, Kai, and Lil all dissolved into fits of laughter that made me want to smack them. Repeatedly.

Not wanting to add fuel to the fire, I settled for a mega-watt glare, then stomped off down the sidewalk after Gabriel to find out exactly what his problem was.

Gabriel and I had been sniping at each other since we’d met as student and teacher at Big Red, before the zombie shit hit the fan. Well, technically he was a teacher’s assistant, a self-righteous vegan, and I was a happy little caffeine and sugar junkie omnivore. The sexual tension had developed somewhere between my surviving being bitten by zombies, and my transformation into a wild card—a person immune to the zombie virus. That tension had culminated in some hot, sweaty sex that hadn’t as yet been repeated—despite what the rest of the team thought.

I’d hoped all of the sniping was over with, especially after we’d fought together—and almost died—defending the university against a zombie swarm.

I guess I was wrong.

In many ways my ex—okay, dead—boyfriend Matt had been a lot easier to deal with. Matt had been uncomplicated. Give him sex and praise on a regular basis and he’d been a happy camper. A far simpler, and definitely more rewarding relationship than I’d had with my ex-husband.

Gabriel, who I found a lot more compelling, was nowhere as easy to keep satisfied. Hell, I didn’t know if he even wanted me to try.

I just wanted an adult relationship with mutual respect, intellectual compatibility, and lots of hot sex. Hell, at this point I’d settle for a steamy round of cuddling. Not that I was likely to get any of it, now that Gabriel was back in douche mode.

* * *

He was still talking on the radio when I caught up to him, so I leaned against a building next to the alley that separated Licker Up and Partyrama. He was spewing a string of Byzantine military phrases, and I rolled my eyes as I eavesdropped.

See, being a wild card not only meant enhanced physical abilities and a whole world of super-cool weapons. To my dismay, I’d heard more acronyms, code words, and pompous jargon over the last few weeks of rapid-fire training than in my previous twenty-nine years. That’s even if you included the hours I’d been forced to watch the Military Channel with my ex-husband—it was the only way I could spend any “quality” time with him.

Gabriel finally signed off with some variant on “Tango Whiskey Foxtrot.” Frowning, he thrust his radio back in its holster and turned to me.

“Did you need something, Ashley?” he demanded.

Ouch. Not the friendliest tone I could have asked for, all things considered.

“Well,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “I was kind of hoping you’d tell me what exactly is the reason for that very large stick you’ve currently got shoved up your ass.”

Okay, maybe not so carefully.

Gabriel’s brows lowered over a pair of denim-blue eyes as his frown went—to use meteorological parlance— from an F1 to an F2. Before he could snap my head off, however, I kept talking. I’m good at that.

“Because the rest of the gang is talking about it, and they’re all blaming me for not helping you relieve your tension on a regular basis.”

Unfortunately I’m not always so good at filtering what comes out of my mouth. From the look on Gabriel’s face, we just skipped F3 and headed straight to F4, destroying all of the trailer parks in a hundred-mile swath.

“Oh, that’s just great,” he snapped. “What is this, high school? Am I supposed to give a shit about who’s sleeping with whom?”

“That’s not exactly the point,” I said carefully.

Seriously, I really was being careful this time.

“Then what exactly is the point?” He folded his arms and glared down at me.

“The point is that you’re acting like an athlete on the verge of ’roid rage and—” I took a deep breath and put a hand on his arm. “And I’m worried about you.”

“Well, don’t be,” he snapped, jerking his arm away. “I don’t have time for this juvenile shit, okay?”

He might as well have slapped me across the face. I felt my cheeks flame as hurt and anger duked it out with humiliation for dominance. Anger won.

“You know that song ‘I Might Like You Better If We Slept Together’?” I shook my head. “Well, not so much.”

Gabriel glared at me for a split second then turned without another word and stalked back down the sidewalk toward the entrance to the shops. I’d be damned before scurrying after him like some sort of slave girl, so I stayed where I was, fuming silently.

It didn’t last long, though.

The unmistakably nasty stench of the walking dead gave me just enough warning to dodge to one side as a zombie lurched out of the alley and lunged at me. It used be a waitress at the local Spanky’s Coffee Shop, her nametag and the tattered remains of what used to be a retro pink uniform tipping me off. Just like Flo used to wear in Alice. Its face looked like it had been pressed onto a hot grill, with strips of blistered flesh peeling off. I was tonight’s special.

My M4 was still slung across my shoulder and my blades were sheathed, so like an idiot I was caught empty-handed. Luckily there are a bunch of ways to kill a zombie, if you’re creative. I grabbed a trashcan lid and hefted it.

“Just pick up a lid, Sid,” I sang quietly to myself. “Give it a whack, Jack.” I smashed the edge of the lid against the zombie’s head, the metal leaving a dent in its skull. I swatted it a few more times for good measure, finding it very therapeutic after dealing with Captain Jerk.

“Do it again. er. Len.”

Finally Zombie Flo crumpled to the ground.

“Until it drops dead.”

So sue me. I’m not a lyricist. But I am a kick-ass zombie killer.

“Can I take your orwdah?” I intoned in my best Schwarzenegger.

“Talking to yourself?”

“Shit!” I yelped. The unexpected sound of Lil’s voice made me jump almost as much as Zombie Flo had. I recovered quickly, though, and pointed to the zombie. “Nope. Talking to her.”

Lil looked down at the twice-dead corpse and gave a quiet little sigh.

“I knew her,” she said. “Mom and I used to go to Spanky’s for lunch, and—” She stopped, swallowing hard. I immediately enfolded her in a hug.

Lil’s mom had been out of town when the whole zombie plague had hit, but she’d evidently made it back before the quarantine had been imposed around Redwood Grove and the surrounding area. Lil and I had found her car outside their apartment building. Not knowing her mom’s fate weighed heavily, and the cracks in Lil’s already fragile emotional state grew a little bigger with every day. The only time she seemed happy was when she was cuddling with her cats, or killing zombies. I understood the cat thing—they were a connection to her old world. But the homicidal tendencies? Those worried me.

Often I joked that she was like a lethal Care Bear in her combat gear, but it was true. All wide green eyes and cuddly curves, Lil turned into a gleeful slaughter machine when faced with the walking dead. Now, however, she was just an eighteen-year-old who missed her mother.

I missed mine, too, but at least I knew both my parents were alive and well up north in Lake County. Lil didn’t even have the comfort of closure.

“Let’s go take care of business before Gabriel comes looking for us,” I suggested. Giving her one last squeeze, I let go and took a step back.

She nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of one hand. I pretended not to notice.

“Yeah... I heard him yelling.” Lil snuck a quick peek at me. “Are you okay?”

It was my turn to nod.

“Yup,” I said, “just pissed off.” And also worried, but I didn’t want to go into that right now, or even think about it. I’d already been caught by surprise once today because of shit with Gabriel. I didn’t intend to let it happen again. I smacked Lil lightly on the shoulder.

“Let’s go hunting.”

That brought a smile to her face. I tried not to worry.

We joined the rest of the gang in front of Licker Up. Gabriel had returned, but I didn’t bother looking at him.

“We doing two teams on this?” Mack asked. Gabriel nodded.

“Mack, Gentry, Lil, you take the office complex across the street,” he said. “Ash, Tony, Kai, check out the stores on this side of the block.”

“What about you?” Oops... almost forgot we were pissed at each other.

He hadn’t. He just ignored my question and walked away. My face burned just like the good old days, when he was just a self-righteous jerk, giving me grief when I showed up late to class. I made a face at his retreating back and Lil giggled, then tried to turn it into a fake cough when Gabriel turned and shot a dark glance our way.

Immature? Yeah, I totally cop to it. But it was better that than throwing a punch at the back of his head— which was my other impulse.

I turned to the rest of my team, unsheathing my tanto. While my modified katana was shorter than the traditional blade, the even shorter tanto was a better choice for close quarters encounters. Less chance of accidentally slicing one of my fellow wild cards if things got hairy. And the M4? We may have been immune to the zombie virus, but a stray round ricocheting off a hard surface could still kill us.

Tony had what I referred to as “Thor’s Wee Hammer,” a small but lethal sledgehammer that was his weapon of choice, while Kai hefted his favorite crowbar.

“Time to pahty,” Tony said, adding his own Ahnold impersonation to the day.

Kai grinned and the two clanged their respective weapons together. They had bonded early on during training, and were pretty much inseparable. The term “bromance” could have been invented just for them.

Lucky me. I got to be third wheel on today’s date.

CHAPTER TWO

We entered Licker Up through the front door, which was ajar. I took point, hitting the light switch as I stepped in. Even with the bright sunshine outside, the interior of the store was gloomy—not enough windows to let any real light in. Tony and Kai followed close on my heels.

Broken bottles lay scattered on the floor, their contents blending together in a brew that smelled like the afterhours of an especially rowdy frat party, thankfully minus the vomit. Still, it made my eyes water.

“What a waste,” Kai said, kicking a broken bottle of Maker’s Mark.

“Plenty still left, bro.” Tony hefted a still sealed one and tossed it to Kai.

I gave them both a look.

“Later, okay?” Truth to tell, I was tempted to grab one of the many unopened, unbroken bottles of booze myself. And maybe I would, to enjoy it after we were safe back at Patterson Hall. With that thought in my head, I tucked a bottle of a forty-dollar Napa Cabernet into my knapsack. If the owner of the store turned up alive, I’d settle my account later.

Other than the broken bottles, Licker Up looked clear. No gouts of blood, smears of viscera, or random body parts. It was a refreshing change. We went aisle to aisle, wincing at the smell of way-overripe cheese in a cooler that had long since lost its power.

“That is ripe, señor,” muttered Tony.

As soon as he spoke, a creaking noise drew our attention to the back of the store.

Holding a finger up to my lips, I made my way as quietly as possible to a small hallway that had three doors off it, each bearing a little plastic sign labeling them restroom, office, and stockroom. The three of us stood quietly, and listened.

All was quiet.

I cracked open the restroom door, reluctantly taking a deep inhalation. I got a whiff of an ammonia-based cleanser that seared my sinuses, but no Eau de Zombie. Letting the door close, I turned toward the office and gestured to Tony, who smirked and strolled over to the door, opening it with a casual air that made me want to punch him. A familiar urge, that.

While he checked out the office, I went over to the stockroom door and pressed my ear against it. I didn’t hear anything, but for some reason my Spidey senses were tingling.

Not satisfied, I knocked.

“Hello?”

A moan sounded from behind the door. Suddenly something started scratching and pounding on the other side. Stepping back, I looked at Kai, jerking my chin in the direction of the commotion. I backed further away, giving him room, and he kicked the door inward.

The smell of rotting flesh immediately assaulted my nostrils. Doing my best to ignore it, I slipped inside, and found a male zombie in a red Licker Up vest sprawled on the floor, knocked there by the door’s impact. Even in the gloom I could see that pieces were missing from its face, neck and arms, and the remaining flesh was a greenish-gray with black goop oozing from the wounds.

Before it could get to its feet, I stepped in and thrust the tip of my tanto into its left eye socket. It only stopped when it reached the back of the skull. Then, putting my foot against its shoulder, I shoved hard as I pulled the blade out. A lovely sucking sound accompanied my movement.

Yuck.

“He’s been chewed on pretty good,” Kai observed.

I nodded. “Which means he either got bitten and crawled in here to die, or—”

There was a crash, and three zombies stumbled out from behind the shelves stacked high with cases of hard liquor, beer, and wine—two of them in store uniforms, and a young woman in bloodstained jeans and a T-shirt proclaiming “I’m a Princess,” the words outlined in rhinestones.

No, you’re a zombie, I thought, giving her a permanent frontal lobotomy. Does it make me a bad person to admit I kind of enjoyed it? I mean, unless you’re Honey Boo-Boo, who the hell would wear something like that?

While I took care of Princess Z, Kai dispatched the other two zombies with several skull-shattering blows to their craniums, using his crowbar with a casual aplomb that spoke of a lot of repetition. Suddenly a wave of self-consciousness swept over me. It brought my own callousness close to home.

“Doesn’t it worry you that we’re getting used to this?” I asked, wiping my blade on the leg of my pants.

Kai shrugged.

“I’d rather get used to it,” he said, “than need a therapy session every time we have to put one of these things down. And maybe if one of these people’d known what to do, they’d still be alive, you know?”

He had a point, but it still bothered me that killing had become so routine. I looked at the floor and shook my head. There was no easy answer to any of this. Maybe normal emotional responses had to be tossed out the window when the dead walked the earth... But it still sucked.

Kai and I checked out the rest of the stockroom, finding puddles of blood and bits of flesh, but no more bodies, ambulatory or otherwise. Tony was waiting for us in the hallway, flipping through an old Licker Up newsletter. Irritated, I smacked it out of his hands.

“Hey!” he protested.

“Did it ever occur to you we might’ve needed your help in there?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t hear any screams.”

This time I clipped him on the back of his head.

“By the time you hear them, it might be too late.”

BELLEVILLE, WISCONSIN

Bart’s corpse twitched. At first just a finger or two—all that were left on his mangled hands—before a ripple shuddered through his body as though it had been hit by an invisible electric current.

What was left of his neighbor chewed on a piece of his intestines, causing them to unspool from Bart’s gutted abdomen as he staggered to his feet.

A gust of wind blew the front door open and the sound of children’s voices and laughter drifted inside, catching his attention. The two zombies made their way outside into the chill November morning, Bart’s intestine linking them together like rotting mountain climbers.

Laughter turned to screams in no time at all.

CHAPTER THREE

The rear exit led to the end of the alley, with Partyrama’s back entrance right across the way. The alley was clear, and the door unlocked. But I tried not to get optimistic.

Partyrama was a typical tchotchke store, with merchandise divided into sections for holidays, themed parties, and weddings. The first thing we saw was the “Hold Your Own Luau!” aisle, with plastic leis, tiki torches, brightly colored dishware, and tropical themed cutouts. Next to that was a “Princess Party” aisle, sporting everything you needed for precious royalty between the ages of three and thirteen. “Pirate Cove” themed stuff was right next to it.

Kai stooped over and picked something off the floor.

“Eye-patch, anyone?”

Our footsteps crunched on scattered plastic beads from a fallen display. An end cap of frothy net tutus lay toppled to one side.

“Nothing will remain but the bare earth soaked in putrefying flesh!” Tony picked up one of the tutus, then shook his fist skyward.

“Hell of the Living Dead,” Kai said, sounding bored. “Try again.”

I rolled my eyes. The boys were playing “name that zombie movie” again. We’d watched a slew of them, ostensibly as part of our training. Hell of the Living Dead had featured a mercenary doing a soft shoe routine with a green tutu slung over his neck, just before getting ripped to pieces by third-world zombies.

Tony frowned, and thought about it for a moment.

“‘He took a poo and it stank,’” he offered.

“Dead Set,” Kai responded, without missing a beat. “Pippa.” He shook his head again. “Next you’ll be all ‘ein, zwie, die’ and expect me to be stumped.”

“Can you two please focus on the job at hand?” I snapped. “Like, checking to make sure there aren’t any zombies wandering around?”

Kai delivered a snappy salute in my direction.

“You got it, Ash.” Spinning on his heels, he wandered off down the St. Patrick’s Day aisle, crowbar dangling loosely from one hand.

“Jeez frickin’ Louise,” I muttered to myself.

“Don’t worry, Ash.” Tony patted me condescendingly on the shoulder. “He’ll be fine. You just need to chillax, y’know?”

I smacked his hand.

“No, I don’t know. And you can tell me to chill, or you can tell me to relax. Do not friggin’ tell me to ‘chillax’!”

Tony pouted. “Hey, we totally kicked ass against the swarm at Big Red. So how can a few stragglers be a problem?”

“Weren’t you listening? Professor Fraser said this shit could be going nationwide. Maybe even global.” He was really starting to piss me off.

Tony shrugged. “We’ll deal with that if and when it happens.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“Let me paraphrase one of your favorite movies, Tony, with words you can hopefully understand. Don’t get cocky.”

As I stalked off down the Pirate Cove aisle, I heard him mutter, “Yeah, whatevs.”

I swear, I was gonna kill him, if a zombie didn’t take care of his cocky ass first. He and Kai could drive a saint to homicide, and I was far from sainthood. Gabriel must hate me, I decided. Why else would he stick me alone with both of them at the same time?

Suddenly Kai’s voice broke through the stillness.

“Ash! X-Box! Check this shit out!”

Instantly the urgency in his words had me running down the aisles, pulling my tanto out of its sheath, Tony close on my heels. We found him in “Miscellaneous Party Fun,” hunkered down by a display of—

“Silly String?” I stared at him in disbelief.

“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Tony slapped a hand against his forehead. “Now if we only had a wheelbarrow and a holocaust cloak...”

Kai grinned. “You killed my father, prepare to die.”

I restrained the urge to shove a can of the stuff down each of their throats. Taking a deep breath, I turned to Kai.

“What, may I ask, is so awesome about Silly String?”

“Navy ordinance disposal teams used it in Iraq to find trip wires,” he replied. “Spray some of this shit, it catches on one of the invisible wires, and there you go.”

“Great,” I said. “But zombies don’t set trip wires.”

“It’s also highly flammable.” Kai tucked a couple of cans into his knapsack and held one can aloft dramatically. “Light a match near this shit and you’ve got zombie barbecue.”

“Seriously?”

He nodded.

“Yup. Couple of kids at a party found out the hard way.” He looked at the can, examining the ingredients. “I’m surprised it’s still even for sale.”

Something crashed to the floor in the back of the store. All three of us straightened up, staring back into the shadowed depths of the Wedding section, where something moved clumsily towards us. We heard the plaintive moan about the same time as the graveyard stench hit us.

“I got this.” Kai darted behind the counter and snatched up a cigarette lighter. Before I could smack it out of his hand, he pressed the button on the Silly String and clicked the trigger on the lighter, sending a jet of flaming string toward the corpse that was lurching in our direction. Its tattered clothing quickly went up in flames.

Just great.

“Oh, shit,” Kai said. Zombie flambé still staggered in our general direction, rebounding off the shelves and igniting a bunch of Pretty Princess tiaras.

Shoving Kai out of my way, I moved forward and thrust the business end of my tanto into one of its eyes. It crumpled to the ground and I proceeded to stomp out the flames on both zombie and the tiara display before they spread any further. The smell of scorched plastic mingled with the stink of burnt, rotting flesh.

I glared at Kai.

“No more Silly String.”

“You got it.” He tossed the can and lighter aside.

“What the hell is going on?”

The three of us turned as Gabriel strode down the aisle toward us, his expression reflecting the pissed-off tone of his voice.

Swell.

“Kai was demonstrating the efficacy of Silly String against the enemy... sir.” I kept my voice as neutral as I could, but I guess the sarcasm of the “sir” snuck through my limited acting ability, because the look Gabriel shot us could have started another fire.

“I can’t believe you three.” He shook his head in disgust. “Can’t you take things seriously, even for a few minutes?”

Tony and Kai exchanged sheepish looks. I, on the other hand, walked straight up to him until we were toe-to-toe, and glared up at him.

“In case you haven’t noticed, sir—” I didn’t even try this time “—we have a dead zombie here, which would intimate that Team A takes our mission very seriously. The fact that Lando chose to utilize an unorthodox weapon would show that he’s capable of thinking outside the box, if the occasion necessitates it.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kai and Tony look at me with new appreciation as I piled on the bullshit. Gabriel, on the other hand, did not look impressed.

“The occasion didn’t necessitate it. This was just sloppy work.”

Since I actually agreed with him, I kept my mouth shut. But that didn’t stop me from chanting “douche” over and over in my head.

“Is that clear?” He glared at the three of us.

The Wonder Twins nodded. It hurt my neck and my pride to do so, but I did the same.

“Good,” he said. “We’re done for the day. Debrief in Room 217 in an hour. Don’t forget to mark the doors.” Turning on his heel, Gabriel strode out of the store without a backward glance.

This time I didn’t even appreciate the sight of his retreating butt; I just wanted to plant my foot on it and push hard. Really hard.

I couldn’t believe that three days ago he and I had engaged in hot monkey sex, and then fought the zombie swarm. Together. At some point between our victory and now, something had gone wrong. Or, more specifically, something had definitely gone fubar with Gabriel. Maybe it was his meds, maybe something else, but whatever it was I didn’t know whether to be worried or pissed off. So I went for both.

“Sorry, Ash.” Kai put a hand on my shoulder. He sounded sincere, so I resisted my first impulse to shrug it off.

“Yeah, okay.” I turned and faced him. “Just... no more shit like the Silly String, okay?”

Kai and Tony both nodded, expressions too solemn for comfort. But at least they were trying.

SAN FRANCISCO FINANCIAL DISTRICT

Mika studied her reflection in the window that separated the pharmacy from the rest of the drug store. She nodded slightly, approving of the shine of her long glossy black hair and the contrast between her olive-toned skin and lush red lips, courtesy of Cover Girl’s “Desire” lipstick.

Then she looked past her reflection out into the store, and sighed.

“What’s wrong?” Emmet, one of her fellow pharmacists at the Sacramento Street Walgreens, took a swig of his fourth Coke of the morning. He averaged two per hour, and it showed in the comfortably expansive stomach that lurked under his white coat.

“Check out the line,” she said.