Zombie Island (Zombie Apocalypse #1) Read online

In the morning, I dress for the day in my special town outfit. It consists of a black, long sleeved thermal shirt, which I carefully tuck into blue jeans and black combat boots. Next, I pull on a turtleneck shirt and top it off with a sweater. After that, I pull on some white golfer’s gloves that I lifted from a sports shop.

  Then, I tie back my long, midnight brown hair into a ponytail, and pull on a headband to keep my bangs out of my eyes. The final touch is a pair of black sunglasses to protect my eyes from any blood spatter from the zombies I might have to kill.

  I lift my nearly empty backpack over my shoulders. It’s filled only with a bottle of water, and a small bag of nuts and dried fruit, in case I can’t make it back to my apartment. After checking my bag again, I grab my baseball bat, and close the apartment door behind me.

  Making my way down the hall, through the ruined apartment there, I find my way down the fire escape. When my feet hit the ground, I crouch down low behind a green dumpster, and scan the closest street for any roaming zombies. When the coast is clear, I emerge from behind the dumpster, and start off at a careful jog through the abandoned streets.

  Everywhere I look, I notice the telltale signs of death. Body parts litter the road like discarded garbage, blood smears the walls, sidewalks, windows, and buildings. Dead bodies, dead zombies, are decomposing everywhere I look.

  All of these things aren’t what makes me pause though. What scares me the most are the small fires that have been recently set in the last few hours or so. Since there hasn’t been much on the roads in the last four months other than zombies, a recently lit fire is a sign to worry.

  It’s a sign of the Zombie Warriors. The Zombie Warriors spend their days in organized squadrons. They’re armed with tactical weapons, and they move quickly through the city, killing zombies everywhere they go.

  That might have been a good thing, if they didn’t kill other survivors as well. My first experience with the Zombie Warriors had been about three weeks ago; I’d spotted them moving in a line through the street I was hiding on, killing zombies. I’d been about to approach them when another survivor beat me to it. She fell to her knees, begging them to help her, and they’d ignored her pleas.

  They had plans other than salvation for her. I’d never forget her screams as they played with her and, when finally a shot rang out, I was almost glad for her. To be alive after what they’d done to her would have been terrible, and I couldn’t imagine living with that kind of terror.

  Upon seeing the fires, I duck immediately into an empty doorway, looking up and down the street for any sign of Warriors. It would be particularly bad if they spotted me; we were well aware of each other’s existence, and we’d fought on more than one occasion.

  A week ago I’d been raiding the remains of a supermarket for food, and one of their members had approached me. He was alone, and he saw that I was alone, too. Apparently, he thought that would make me the perfect target and, as he’d been undoing his belt and pants, I’d bludgeoned his head with my baseball bat.

  His partners found his body later, and the chase was on. They followed me throughout the town for a little over an hour, all the while trying to get a clear shot of me. I finally managed to lose them in a destroyed park, and ever since then I’d been focused on staying as hidden from them as possible.

  Movement catches my attention, and I notice a young many lying facedown on the ground. Fresh blood pours from a bullet hole in his neck. Judging by the amount of blood, he hasn’t been here long.

  As I stare, the fingers on his left hand move so slowly that I for a minute I’m sure I must have imagined it. Maybe he’d been bitten, and they’d executed him improperly. If that was the case, he was about to reanimate as a zombie, and I would be a sitting duck.

  But what if he’s not infected?

  Could I help him? If I did, and he survived, I could gain a valuable ally and fighter. One extra person could mean the difference between life and death if it came down to a fight.

  His chest rises and falls slightly, and that makes up my mind. I take a hesitant step into the streets, deciding to help, when I realize something that stops me.

  A bullet to the throat is almost always fatal, isn’t it?

  What if it was all just a trap? What if he wasn’t really dying, but was just being made to look that way? Were the Zombie Warriors trying to set me up to make a costly mistake? Were they out there right now, waiting for me to step within range of their guns?

  I shrink back against the empty doorway, pondering my choices.

  I can let him die, and have that on my conscious. I could go out there and try to help him, only to watch him most likely die, or I can move from my safe spot and get ambushed and killed.

  What did I do?

  He twitches one more time, and I make my decision again. I move quickly from the empty doorway to his side and, bending down, roll him onto his back. His entire chest is stained red, but something doesn’t look right.

  It all happens so fast that if I blinked, I would have missed it.

  He pulls a knife from his boot and slashes at my throat, forcing me to jump back. A bullet whizzes by my head, barely missing it, before burying itself in the brick wall of the building I’d been ducked in just seconds ago.

  I turn on my heels and run as fast as I can down the street, ducking under cars and whatever other obstacles I can find. Its a few minutes before I hear the heavy, pounding footsteps of running men behind me.

  I quicken my pace, ignoring the beginning of a painful stitch in my side. Now is definitely not the time to get a cramp!

  I jump over a bench and turn into an alleyway, searching for anything that might save my life. There, nestled in the very back, is a fire escape ladder that’s been left down. I jump for it and begin to climb, dropping my bat in the process.

  I begin to run up the steps, trying not to fall to the ground below. I can hear their heavy boots clunking on the metal stairs somewhere below me, and I can’t tell how many of them there are. My best guess would be at least four and, without my bat, I’m defenseless against them.

  I can hear them just below me; they’re gaining. If I don’t find a way to lose them now, I’ll end up leading them back to my apartment building. Then I’d lose everything that I’d worked so hard to build: my vegetable garden, my rain buckets, and my water filtration system.

  An open window catches my attention, and I dive through it, slamming it shut behind me. I take precious seconds I don’t have to lock it, and struggle through the empty apartment, praying that I don’t run into any zombies, seeing as I’m weaponless at the moment.

  I find my way to the hall and turn to the left, searching for a way back to the street. As I lurch down the hall, a hand reaches out and grabs me, spinning me into the wall across from the open apartment door.

  The man with the fake blood running down his chest grins at me and swings at me with the knife in his hand. I duck under his wild swing and bring the point of my knee up into his groin, causing him to double over in pain.

  I wrench the knife from his grasp, and slam the hilt of the blade into his temple, sending him to the ground in a slump. For a second, I stare at his still body, unable to move. A crashing in the apartment brings me back to my senses, and I turn and sprint down the hallway, not paying attention to where I’m going.

  When I find a set of stairs, I run for them, taking them two at a time. When I reach the roof, I pause to take a breath. My side is in pain, my heart is pounding violently in my chest, and my lungs burn from the strain of running so hard.

  My legs begin to tremble, and I use my break to look around. Suddenly, I realize that I’ve stupidly trapped myself on the rooftop with nowhere to go but back to the Zombie Warriors. I look around again, noticing the buildings on either side.

  I can always jump…

  I stop, finding myself in the center of the roof, with nothing to do but face my attackers and hope that I can at least take some of them with me. All I know is that I’m not going down withou
t a fight. If I can take just one of them with me, I’ll consider that a victory.

  The door to the roof opens, and six men step onto the roof, all holding a weapon of some kind. They’re all different ages, and all dressed in different shabby outfits. If someone had told me that they were a dangerous post-apocalyptic army unit, I would have laughed.

  One is wearing blood-stained khakis, another is wearing cutoff jeans. The one in the very back catches my attention most. He’s wearing faded jeans, boots, and a black sleeveless shirt. A barbed wire tattoo circles his right bicep, and there’s another on his left, but I can’t tell what it is from here. They definitely don’t look like killers. But, as they look me over, handling their weapons, I realize that looks can definitely be deceiving.