Zombified (Book 1): The Head Hunter Read online

  That was when her father began to yell, a frenzied look of terror in his eyes she had never seen until that moment in time. And had never seen again.

  “Get to the car!” he shouted.

  Without hesitation, they did as he asked and her mother ushered her into the vehicle, both of them sliding into the back seat of their SUV. Her mother’s dark brown eyes were wide with fear and tears streamed down her face. Jenny took her hand in her own and couldn’t get her to calm down as she rattled off prayers in Spanish.

  “Mom, please, calm down. Dad is going to be fine. We’re going to be fine.” Jenny remembered thinking that she should be a wreck, she should be the one being comforted, but she had always been strong. Her father had always said that and knew that her strength would carry her far in life. That she could beat anything.

  Before she had a moment to process what had happened, the meteorite crashed into the very back of the car, and she knew she should have been dead. It should have killed her, but it hadn’t. But it had taken her mother from her, and she assumed her father as well. She screamed as the flames engulfed the car. At least she remembered doing so, her mother attempting to open the door just behind her to push her out. She moved past Jenny, squeezing past her as the flames took over, the heat unbearable and sweat trickling out of every pore on her body. Her mother kicked the door, and it flew open. She grabbed Jenny by the arm and pushed her out as the flames caught on her mother’s hair and clothes.

  “Get out of here!” were the last words she heard her mother utter.

  So final, they were, and Jenny would remember them forever as she obeyed her mother’s dying wish, knowing there was no way to save her now. And as she looked for her father, noticing he had disappeared, the red fog that had already reached so far on the other side of the destroyed vehicle began to spread toward her like a living thing. It snaked toward her as if it could sense the life she still had in her. She screamed as it moved quickly toward her.

  She awoke with a start. Sweat soaked her bed clothes and her sheets, drenching her hair and leaving goose bumps on her flesh the instant the cold air around her made contact. Tears stung her eyes, and she couldn’t help but wonder when the nightmares would end. She pressed her palm to the center of her chest as her heart hammered just underneath, and attempted to calm herself. Deep breaths pushed out of her lungs and filtered in just as quickly, and she felt like she could hyperventilate.

  Jenny threw the blankets off, threw her legs over the side of the bed, and planted her feet on the floor, the coolness of it bringing a strange calm over her body. It let her know that what she had dreamt was still in the past and nowhere near where she was now, but she wondered why the dreams of the past had come back to haunt her tonight. She had a feeling it was because of the looming threat of whatever it was that had caused the other Stations to go dark. What she was certain was coming for Station Four next, and coming fast.

  Nervous energy ran through her body and caused her muscles to twitch underneath her skin in an attempt to expel it. A walk or a run even would be the cure for the creepy crawly feeling running rampant through her bones, much like restless leg syndrome with no such cause at all. It was the adrenaline of the nightmare, reliving the deaths of her parents in an event long past. It was too much for her, especially after all that had happened since she joined the ranks of Station Four and turned into a soldier instead of a scientist as she had been promised. It was disappointing, but necessary, and was the first step after a threat was perceived. Even those who had originally worked in the greenhouses as botanists had been drafted. Granted, they still spent most of their time in the greenhouses developing all natural, but effective, defenses. That was if those would do any good.

  “Get a grip, Jenny,” she chided herself. “Stop being such a pessimist.”

  But that seemed to be the way of a person who suffered from her afflictions. That much was clear when she noticed others with her mentality, which was mostly everyone. Even seven years later.

  Pushing her hair back away from her face, she stood and walked to the opposite side of the room where her clothes were kept in a small dresser, only giving her enough uniforms, undergarments, and pajamas for a week. Nothing unnecessary would be kept here. No extras and you were only given what you needed. Nothing more. She removed a black shirt from the top middle drawer, followed by a pair of black cargo pants from the one right below it, and then the appropriate undergarments from the top drawer, including a pair of long socks. She turned and reached down beside the dresser to pick up her combat boots, bringing them to the bed with her to change. Once her bed clothes were replaced with her uniform, she stuffed her feet into her boots and laced them up quickly. She moved to the dresser where her hairbrush lay along with a few hair elastics that G.O.D. provided to all female residents of the Station because of the heat. Also, because it was mandatory to have long hair pulled up when in military dress.

  The light was still off in her room, but moonlight filtered in through the window. This helped her see just enough to be able to pull her hair up into a quick braid without effort. She had gotten used to ponytails and braids over the last seven years, especially after residing in the Dead Zone for the better part of a year. Between the sweat and the oils on her skin from hardly being able to bathe while she ran for her life, it was always a benefit to have it pulled back so the oil wouldn’t sting her eyes.

  She sighed and stared at her reflection in the mirror for all of a few seconds, brown eyes staring back at her slightly sun-kissed skin and dry lips. Grabbing a small tube of Chap Stick from beside her hairbrush, she applied a small amount to her chapped lips and turned away from her judgmental reflection. It was a miracle that the stuff still existed after the apocalypse. G.O.D. saw that it was a necessity and kept it around, adding different things to it and tweaking the formula to be more beneficial to those who worked outdoors.

  The thought about the seemingly meaningless Chap Stick brought her to a decision about where she would go for a walk. She needed the fresh air to clear her head, so the town just below the Station would have to do. She and Misty had gone to the bar only a couple of times with Mark and Joshua since Misty had shown it to her, the dark lager the owner brewed himself being the only legal cure for what ailed them. Moonshine was still highly illegal, even in the world ‘After Apocalypse,’ which didn’t make sense to Jenny, but she followed the law regardless. Now, she was curious about so much of the small town that she had meant to take a self-guided tour of it for weeks but had put it off because of the danger involved. Even though she was certain the threat looming over Station Four was a close one, she needed the walk just enough to finally indulge in it, despite the risk of what could be lurking in the shadows between buildings. And the town was just close enough for the distance not to matter. If something happened, she could easily make it back to the Station without incident. Or so she hoped.

  She slipped through the door while sliding the lanyard that held her identification badge onto her neck so that no one would mistake her for someone coming in from the Dead Zone. Or a part of the problem from the other Stations coming to meet them. Before Jenny realized it, she was outside of the Station walls and walking past the orchard toward the town just below it, her legs carrying her a lot faster than she had originally thought they would. Adrenaline burned through her veins as she moved through the cool night air, the humidity within it causing a sticky film to erupt over her flesh where the goose bumps no longer lived. Her breathing came ragged as she moved through the still night, nothing but her and the crickets echoing through the otherwise quiet darkness. She could see a few lamps still lit in the town before her and, as she crossed over into it, realized she had barely noticed them the first time she had been there.

  Jenny stopped just below a flickering street lamp and looked up at it, seeing the stars in the black sky just beyond it, and began to think about the infinity just beyond them. How much they had been on their way to learning about the universe they lived in before th
e meteorite strike, and the fact that something like the Sycs could come from the nether beyond it all baffled her sometimes. How something could change your life in an instant, and you never knew it existed until it came barreling down toward you to bring death and destruction with it. She sighed and looked away from the infinite sky, turning her gaze down the small and crumbling road that led to the very center of the small town.

  She made the decision to follow it to the center of town before she had even realized it, the minuscule light of the few flickering lamps lighting her way. The amber light came from homemade candles placed within them, small holes placed so that the flame wouldn’t run out of oxygen to burn overnight. The firelight was hard to perceive from afar, meaning the monsters coming from the Dead Zone wouldn’t spot them. This left the town in relative safety.

  As Jenny stepped over loose asphalt and potholes, she spotted some of the same amber light coming from upstairs windows where some who lived in the town were still awake. Then her mind moved back to the threat of whatever else was coming for them. Whatever it was had targeted the other Stations and it would only be a matter of time before it came for them and this town, obliterating everything—if that was the goal. And she knew it was. Complete destruction and control was always the goal of invading forces as far as her experience over the last seven years had taught her.

  The courtyard in the center of town was within her sights now, the grass still green and the flowers still blooming because the townspeople kept them alive despite the devastating heat and nearly desert-like conditions outside of designated gardens, orchards, and the like. She approached a rosebush at the edge of the courtyard and reached out toward the lone rose that had bloomed on it; the soft petals felt like silk against her now work-worn fingers. It was beautiful, but she wasn’t able to tell what color it was. The darkness surrounding her had stolen all color, leaving not even a wink of it to give her a hint whether this rose was red or pink or even lavender. It was like so many other things in life since her parents had died—void of color and struggling to simply survive.

  Jenny turned and looked back toward the Station, which she could see in the distance past the dim lighting of the town, towering over the buildings surrounding her. And it was just as dark and bleak as her mood and everything else, reminding her that there was only death here now and nothing would change that.

  ***

  Near the Kentucky Dam

  July 2027

  Near Station 4 – The Dead Zone Border

  Jenkins stood a good distance out from Station Four so he couldn’t be seen by the G.O.D. officials or the Station’s guards, watching as they moved over the top of the wall as well as around it. Guns were gripped firmly in their hands and strapped to their hips in preparation for what would undoubtedly come for them. His plan had worked seamlessly, taking the rest of the Stations. He had hoped she would be housed within the first three but, once his forces worked their way inside, he knew she had finally made her way to Station Four.

  Planning the strategy for his search was easy enough; finding the volunteers to do it was another matter altogether. Once the younger Revs heard the Head Hunter was the true and ultimate target they quaked in their boots and backed away, which meant they were the first that Jenkins drafted involuntarily for the task, knowing that fear would keep them in check. And they had found plenty of human donors for the ill. Those humans would turn and become ill if bitten directly by one of those infected by the virus, but that was one reason they had taken plenty of them to house in a farm of sorts. They would remove the blood from them and give them a drug to enhance their red blood cell production to keep their people fed, but the dealings with the Head Hunter were all about revenge. No one needed to know that information but him.

  The humans scurried along the wall, reminding him in a way of cockroaches. Stubborn, always evolving to survive, and nearly impossible to rid the world of them all. Once you took out a hive, there was another that would surface. It had always been that way and always would be, but these thoughts had never crossed his mind until after he was turned into this monster against his will. Now all he could do was live with what he had been turned into and make those who were responsible suffer.

  He lifted the hood on his jacket to cover his bald head, the cool night air gliding over his smooth skin, but he wasn’t affected by the cold. Not anymore. His vision had only gotten better since the change, and he could see everything perfectly in the dark as if the sun was out, but the sunlight hurt him. It acted much like a UV ray allergy, leaving blisters on his skin even after only a few seconds’ exposure. Any longer than that and he would suffer severe burns and die if not taken inside and away from its rays. That was a lesson he learned the hard way. And the bloodlust was almost insatiable. Jenkins had stopped himself from feeding over the last few days, so his fangs throbbed inside of his mouth much like a toothache when he was human, but a pain that was dull and kept time with his heartbeat. Since his transition it beat a little bit slower than it had before and it had been unsettling at first, but he had adjusted quickly like everyone else did.

  There were a few Crankers moving through the landscape, but Jenkins wasn’t worried about them. They hadn’t been a threat to him since his transition, thanks to Caesar Meldano and the ‘Faith’ serum. It had made him stronger and faster and his new-found strength overshadowed the facts that he could no longer walk out into the sun and could only be sustained by human blood. His not existing to the Crankers and Shadows was all right by him. He turned his face up to the moon and smiled broadly, taking pleasure in being shrouded by night.

  Five other Revs came to stand behind him in a perfect V-formation, each of them dressed completely in black with hoods up to cover their bald heads so as not to reflect the moonlight and give them away. Jenkins looked back at them for all of a second, turning back to stare at the not too distant Station, and he knew they could be upon those on the ground in a matter of seconds. They could then use their extraordinary climbing ability to scale the wall and make it inside to find their target.

  “Let’s go, boys,” Jenkins said as he began to take the steps that would take him toward the soldiers on the ground surrounding Station Four.

  Within seconds the group was upon them, and Jenkins was reaching out for the closest human being, passing a few Crankers on the way. Jenkins snapped the neck of the first human he reached and threw his body toward the Crankers, who descended on it with a feral cry of hunger as they dug their fingers in and ripped open the dead man’s abdomen. Another man screamed as one of his Jenkins’s Rev soldiers broke his arm, and a few shots rang out as the bone snapped.

  “Sound the alarm,” another yelled.

  Jenkins spotted him quickly as he cowered against the wall with the radio pressed against his lips as he continued to yell into it. He stalked to the man and the man’s large brown eyes widened in fear, but he continued to scream into the radio’s receiver attached to his bulletproof vest. Jenkins ripped the radio from his hand and latched onto his throat, feeding on the hot and metallic blood that flowed from his severed jugular. When he pulled away, he let out an animal howl and removed a sword that had been strapped to his back as he let the body fall to the ground, strangled sounds emitting from his mangled throat. He raised his sword above his head and brought it down on the dying soldier’s neck, severing the spinal cord. This would keep him from changing into a Rev, another that they would have to attempt to feed. Plus, this soldier becoming one of them wouldn’t be beneficial to them. No, it had to be one of theirs from the inside of the wall. One that meant something.

  “Move up,” Jenkins ordered as the rest of his team took out the remaining soldiers on the ground. He had no problem leaving the deceased to the Crankers and Shadows below.

  He slipped his sword back into the sheath on his back and scaled the wall, his men following close behind. The high-pitched siren sounded above them, echoing through the air to alert not only those inside of the Station itself but the town down below
that they had been breached and to take action. He wasn’t certain of their plan when it came to an invasion, but he did know that whatever it was it hadn’t worked for the other Stations and wouldn’t this time around either.

  Jenkins and his men slit the throats of the soldiers on top of the wall and in charge of the watch from there, pushing their lifeless bodies to the ground below to join the others. And he felt no remorse.

  ***

  Misty shot up from a very peaceful sleep, the first one in months, to the emergency alarm ringing loudly in her ears as red lights flashed inside of her room as well as in the hallway. She swung her feet over the side of the bed and threw the blankets off in one swift motion, moving to the door. Her first instinct was to run, but as a part of Stations Four’s teams, she knew that that wasn’t the proper protocol. What you needed to do was grab your badge, your gun, slip on some protective footwear, and then calmly make your way outside. When people panicked was when someone typically ended up dead, and this was certainly not the time to panic despite the shrill screams of the alarm.

  Remembering this, Misty moved to her bed where she kept a pair of G.O.D. issued protective flats with thicker soles, slipping into the shoes and removing the gun and holster from the bedside table. She clipped it around her waist as she moved to the dresser, picked up her identification badge, and slipped it over her head. Her feet carried her back to the door. She cracked it open slightly and peeked out, seeing confused people moving through the hallway at first and up toward the front of the building toward the exit to the courtyard. Then the screams started and, as she looked out, she saw why instantly. A man moved through the mass of people, but he wasn’t a man at all. She knew exactly what he and the five others that moved with him were in the bright light of the hallway.