Dead Soil | Book 3 | Dead World, page 1
part #3 of Dead Soil Series
Dead World
Dead Soil #3
Alex Apostol
Copyright © October 2021 Alex Apostol
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 9781234567890
ISBN-10: 1477123456
Cover design by: Art Painter
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309
Printed in the United States of America
To my dad, we will always survive the zombie apocalypse together
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Part One
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
Part Two
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
Part Three
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
Part Four
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
More Books by this Author
About The Author
Part One
“I do not know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge in the other.”
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
I
Christine leaned back against the hard glass. The cool felt good against her pounding head.
“Let’s do a recap of how life has gone for us in this hell-hole, shall we?” she said in a soft, defeated voice. “First, mom and dad died. Well, they turned and then I assume they died. You’re as good as dead when you’re one of them. Then, I was barricaded into my apartment with everyone else, struggling to survive. I learned how to use a bow and how to defend myself. And then everyone died. My Liam is gone, and now it’s just me and Zack and a bunch of strangers.
“We left the comforts of the apartment to journey all the way to Chicago to deliver my dead fiancé’s journal to anyone who could make sense of it, hoping a cure could be pulled from the ink and pages. Along the way, our group settled at some underground bunker run by a farmer. Everyone seemed content to stay and abandon the mission so on I went, just me and Blue.”
Christine sighed, closing her eyes as she tried to release the tension in her shoulders and neck. They felt so stiff she swore she could hear them crackling with every movement. “Then,” she said, punctuated, “Zack came chasing after me, of course. We nearly died a few times. I shot him in the arm with an arrow, by accident,” she added as if someone had questioned it, “and well, you know the rest.”
As if in response, a beating came behind Christine’s head as hands groped and grabbed for her. She gave another sigh and turned. On the other side of the glass was her sister, Gretchen. Her face was sallow, a sickly shade of whitish-gray. Her once brilliant blue eyes were dull and clouded, blood-vessels spidering outward from her irises. She smashed her face against the glass that met with Christine’s back, her mouth masticating from the anticipation of fresh, warm flesh.
“You’re a zombie,” Christine said, matter-of-fact, “And once again, I’m alone.”
“You’re not alone, love,” a familiar voice said just next to her. Christine let her head loll to the side to look into her fiancé’s smiling face. Her lips twitched in response but she wouldn’t allow a smile to fully form. She couldn’t. Not after everything she’d been through. Not to this fake Liam who was only a figment of her imagination.
“Go away,” she said heavily, the weight of the day weighing down on her like a heavy burden.
“Is that how you talk to your one and only?” he said playfully, nudging her with his elbow. She would have sworn everything she had, though that wasn’t much, that she really felt it.
“You’re dead.” That was all there was to it.
“But I live on in your heart forever,” he joked, his green eyes glinting playfully like they used to when he was alive.
She couldn’t help giving a small grin, even if it was just at his memory. Her head fell to look down between her legs, her knees pulled up for her arms to rest on as she sat on the cold concrete floor. “True. You will live on in me always.”
He grinned, inching closer so Christine could feel the warmth of his body against hers. “That’s my girl.” He tossed his arm around her shoulders like he’d done so many countless times while he was alive. Christine allowed herself to give in and lean against him, letting the tension slowly fade away from her sore and tired muscles.
In the shadows someone clear their throat loudly. Christine jumped and straightened herself up, running her hands through her long, disheveled hair. She whisked it back into a ponytail, smoothing it out repeatedly as if it’d been her task all along.
Zack Kran settled in on the floor next to her, letting his head fall back against the glass as Christine had been doing. Somehow the banging of Gretchen’s hands behind him didn’t seem to unnerve him at all. “So, how’s Liam doing?” he asked bluntly.
Christine’s heart leapt but then she steadied her shaking hands. There was no point in hiding it. She’d already told Zack about the Liam inside her head once before. He already knew she used him as a crutch for those pain-filled moments where she didn’t know what to do or how to go on. And worst of all, he knew that this Liam was a devil whispering in her ear, telling her to abandon all she knows and loves just to make sure she survived above all else. She was tired of hiding how crazy she’d become from her grief. It was exhausting always making up excuses for why she was talking to herself.
“Seems good,” was all she said in response.
Zack nodded his head slightly but rhythmically, as if he were processing the information though she gave him nothing. “And what’s he saying now?” Zack would never admit it but talking about the Liam Christine saw made his spine tingle and the hairs on his arms stand on end. He knew with everything inside him that it wasn’t right but he had no idea how to help his friend get through it.
“Just reminding me that I’ll always have him.”
Shivers. Zack physically gave a quick shake, rubbing at his bare arms with both hands. “This basement is drafty. Aren’t you cold down here?” he asked to mask his discomfort.
Christine simply shrugged her shoulders. She noticed that as he pretended to be cold Zack skillfully avoided rubbing his hands over the bandaged wound on his upper bicep. With downturned eyes she looked at the damage she’d caused.
“How are you doing?” she asked with a nod toward the arm.
Zack gave a huff of laughter and waved her off. “What? This? A flesh wound.” His dark eyes gleamed in the flicker of the fluorescent lighting. Once Christine gave a small chuckle he said in all seriousness, “Really, it’s nothing. I’ll be fine. Don’t beat yourself up about it, OK?”
She nodded once, though absently. No matter what was going on, she always seemed to be somewhere else, her mind never fully present to the situation at hand. Even with her sister freshly turned into one of the walking nightmares they fought and killed every day, she couldn’t seem to give it her full attention.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
Christine continued to stare off in the distance. “Sure, pay up,” she said as she held out her hand.
The worry inside Zack for his last and only friend lifted ever so slightly. He grinned and slapped her hand away. Christine’s shoulders rose in fell in silent laughter that teetered on the verge of tears. Her eyes watered as she struggled to contain them. With a deep breath in she steadied herself. “I just want it to end,” she said vaguely.
Zack nodded and scooted an inch closer, silently begging her to let him in to help her.
It didn’t take much coaxing this time to get her to open up. Maybe she really was at her wit’s end. It all came spilling out when her eyes met her sister’s once more. “I just can’t take it anymore. I can’t take this world. I can’t take these monsters always chasing us. I can’t take worrying every second that someone I care for is going to end up like one of them. I can’t keep having Liam urge me to abandon everyone when he’s dead and shouldn’t be talking to me at all!” Her voice grew louder in desperation. “I can’t keep living on the hope that Gretchen will be saved and the world will return to normal when the chances of those things happening is slim to none! I can’t! I can’t do it!”
Zack put his arm around her shoulders and let her lean into him, much like the imaginary Liam had done moments ago. Christine buried her face into his chest and let out all the fear and frustration she’d slowed to build up inside her since they left the apartments to start this journey. They’d arrived at their destina
“You know what I think?” Zack said after letting Christine have a good cry, his black t-shirt soaked through.
Christine sat up, wiped at her face with the back of her hands, and blinked away the remaining wetness. “What’s that?”
He situated himself so he could look Christine right in her brilliant blue eyes. “I think this Liam is nothing more than a manifestation of your doubts and fears. It’s all inside your head. You’re the one putting the words in his mouth because you don’t really believe you can do this.”
Her brows furrowed together in confusion. “Do what?”
“This,” he said, waving his arms around grandly at the dank and dark basement they were sitting in, “cure your sister, save the world, bring everything back to the way it was. Survive.”
She stared, more through him than at him, pondering slowly each word he’d said, each truth he’d spoken. Her tongue ran over the tips of her teeth in thought until it pushed at the side of her cheek. She swallowed and finally looked away, the shame and humility of it all overwhelming her. “Maybe,” was all she could bring herself to say.
“Well, Liam might be there to tell you that you can’t do it, but I’m real and I’m here to tell you that you can. We can do this. Gretchen will come back to us. A cure will be made. The world will heal from this. I promise.” He took her hand in his and gripped it tightly to his chest, begging her silently with his turned-down eyes to believe him. He wanted some reassurance, any at all, that Christine hadn’t completely given up, because he needed her as much as she needed him.
But she said nothing in return and her hand went limp in his.
II
Tensions were high in the bunker. The air was thick with the anticipation of what was to come. Division separated friends and even families as they tried to decide what should happen to Lee Hickey; should he pay for what he did to Rowan and how? No one could seem to come up with the right answer though they’d asked the question a thousand times throughout the night.
Behind a closed door, Rowan was place gently on a flimsy cot. When Carolyn, Mac, and a large man no one really seemed to know with long dirty blonde hair and a massive build took their hands out from beneath his body they were coated in slick hot blood.
“Thanks, Svend,” Mac said as he clapped the large man on the shoulder. “Appreciate it.”
Svend said nothing in return. He simply nodded his head once and walked out of the room, his heavy boots stomping on the dirt floor and leaving crater footprints.
Mac and Carolyn remained behind, standing over Rowan as he took ragged wheezing breaths, each one making him wince in unimaginable pain. His face was swollen beyond recognition, black and blue and cut over every inch. His eyes could no longer open at all so he lay there in nothingness. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. All he could do was hope for relief in one form or another.
“What are we going to do?” Carolyn asked in almost a whisper, her hands wringing together
Mac didn’t say anything at first. He just stared into Rowan’s beaten face in contemplation. Being a farmer, Mac had seen his fair share of blood, bruises, and violence. The animal world was a brutal one at times. But he’d never seen anything like this before. To think that another human’s hands, a human whose calling in life was to help others and not hurt them, could have caused this sort of damage made his stomach churn and roil. He sighed and shook his head. “I just don’t know, sweetheart. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to be up to me alone. Those people out there are calling for justice. They don’t want a murderer living amongst them and I can’t say I blame them.”
“He’s not dead but I get what you’re saying,” Carolyn gave into agreement. What choice did she really have? This was a democracy in the bunker and the people wanted Lee to pay for what he did.
“Not yet he’s not anyway,” Mac interjected assuredly, “but I’ll be surprised if he makes it through the night by the looks of it.”
Carolyn let out a disgruntled huff, fighting back the hurt, the rage, the pity, everything she felt for the two men involved in this awful situation. “How’s Olivia doing?” she asked as if she had only remembered the teen’s role in the events.
“She’s with Imani and a few of the women now. They’re taking care of her best they can, but you know that poor gal just blames herself for it all. She loves that giant for some reason and whatever she was doing here with this fella, well, let’s just say she’s particularly fond of him too. She doesn’t want to see either of them dead.”
In the room next door Lee sat with his head leaned back against the cold, rough-hewn wall, his eyes closed though his mind never giving him a moment’s rest. How could he have lost control like that? What possessed him to attack that guy the way he did? Though he asked himself these questions over and over again, he knew the answer was Olivia. He thought she was being hurt, raped, violated, and that made his entire world turn red. He had nothing left in this world. No family. No friends. Not even a beloved pet. Nothing. All he had was Olivia and the fact that she was from his world before it all fell apart. She brought him a sense of comfort and familiarity. Though he barely knew her, only seeing her once in the emergency room the day before the apocalypse, she felt like family to him, like the daughter he never had and never would have. He wanted to protect her with everything inside him, no matter what, even if it meant his death. He thought he was protecting her. He didn’t know she had been secretly seeing Rowan while everyone else lay asleep in their beds, a man almost twice her age. The thought made his insides boil, a sickness settling into the pit of his empty stomach.
He took in a deep breath and held it, letting the stale air sting his lungs until he couldn’t take it any longer, and then he held it a little more. If he kept perfectly still and quiet he could hear the distant sobs of his Olivia. With his eyes still closed and in perfect silence, he let the tears fall freely down his face.
Olivia sat on the couch in the middle of the living quarters of the round underground bunker. Her brown hair fell in sheets to hide her face as she wiped at her wet cheeks. She was trying not to make a scene, trying to reassure everyone she was fine. It was plain as day she wasn’t. How could she be so stupid? Lee was being held prisoner in one room while Rowan lay dying in the next and it was all her fault. Why hadn’t she told Lee about Rowan? And why had she started seeing Rowan in the first place anyway? He was a decade older than her and so far from her type of guy. She felt bad thinking this way about him while his life hang in the balance, but she couldn’t help it. She knew going into it that she would never love again like she had before, so why had she let herself be fooled that she could? Her mind was going a mile a minute, beating the guilt into her.
Wrapped snugly around her friend’s shoulder, Imani tried to comfort Olivia but she had no idea what to even say. She was only fourteen, and though she’d already seen so much violence in the world she was completely unprepared for the violence one man could do to another. It was always the monsters out there, the dead who roamed the earth endlessly looking for human flesh to devour that caused the pain and tears and regret. She’d never seen another human do this to one of their own. She wanted to tell Olivia everything would be OK, but it felt like a lie. And really, a piece of her wanted Lee gone. She’d never felt comfortable with the way he was always around, watching, not saying anything; Olivia’s silent stalker in the shadows. They would all be better off if he was condemned to leave the safety of the bunker to survive on his own out there, but she could never tell Olivia that. She felt a hand drop onto her shoulder and give it a squeeze. Without looking, she knew it was her dad and she shrugged him off.
