Beyond Dead | Book 2 | The Day The Whole World Went Away Read online

  BEYOND DEAD

  The Day The Whole World Went Away

  Copyright © 2017 Christopher Frost

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

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  ALSO BY CHRISTOPHER FROST

  NOVELLAS

  SCORNED

  LAST EXIT

  COLLECTIONS

  SURFACE

  NOVELS

  THE OATH

  THE LOST ONES

  SERIAL NOVELS

  BEYOND DEAD: THE COUGH

  BEYOND DEAD: THE DAY THE WHOLE WORLD WENT AWAY

  COMING SOON

  BOOK THREE: ON THE ROAD

  for Mike, a real hero

  Chapter 1

  Bob drew the sheet up over Maddie’s head and tucked it in. When she had passed he wasn’t exactly sure, but it had been quiet and he could only guess that it had been peaceful. The bottles of discarded pills were neatly stacked on the nightstand next to a bed that was not hers, in a room that had been a stranger to her, and a world that she no longer knew. Bob had known very little about Maddie, had hardly ever spoken to the woman besides exchanged pleasantries when passing in the building. If there were any loved ones, he was not aware. It wouldn’t matter anymore. That was part of it, he suspected. It was very easy to believe there was no one left in the world besides the two of them, trapped here in a prison that was no longer their home.

  On the nightstand, written in neat handwriting, was a note left for him. It was simple. She didn’t apologize and Bob didn’t feel cheated out of that. There simply was nothing left to apologize for. In the past days he had the same thoughts, but he pushed them away. Looking at how peaceful Maddie was on that bed, he couldn’t help but wonder if he should just lie down next to her and take the next ride out. He would have no note to leave for anyone. It was better that way. Even though he didn’t blame Maddie for taking the exit, he selfishly wished he were not left alone in this decaying world. Bob plucked the note from under a medicine bottle and for reasons unknown, he opened his wallet and stuffed it inside between Lincoln and Jackson. The note simply read:

  Thank you for your kindness,

  M

  Bob pulled the door to apartment 4B closed behind him, never to be opened again. There was no place to bury Maddie. Her body would sit in the bedroom of the apartment and begin to decay. She was dead and staying that way. He thought for a time that she might rise up again and come for him. She didn’t. What that meant he did not know. Why were some dead rising and others were just dead? If there was an answer, it wasn’t here.

  From the rooftop, Bob looked out over the dark city. He thought that it would never be as quiet as those first few nights when the sky was empty and only the small fires burned around the city with hushed sirens and distant screams. Now that the screams had all been cried out and the fires burned away, the city was truly dead. And belonged to the dead. Down below they continued to move around.

  Zombies.

  He thought he would have laughed if he heard the word spoken aloud. Deep down he knew the truth was that he would cry. Bob had tried to say the word. To call down to the dead and tell them this world could only be a dream. Zombies were for stories and movies and not for the real world. Yet there they were.

  Fucking zombies.

  Judgment day had come and the dead had risen. Bob sat back in his lawn chair with a bottle of whiskey – he had finished the vodka and another bottle he’d pilfered – and took a long pull. He had sworn to himself that Hell would have to freeze over before he would ever start drinking again. He was a mean drunk. Angry. Violent. Though neither of those traits had ever come together to touch his departed wife or his daughter. Still his words had been just as venomous and his knuckles split on more than one hole in the wall or door. He had hated the person he had become, more so than his wife did, though he had never admitted it to her. So when he was given the ultimatum to give up the bottle or give up his family, he had taken door two and never looked back. It had not been easy by any means and there had been days he had been angrier than he had ever been with the drink, but in time he learned and grew and forged a new life with his family.

  Hell had come. It hadn’t frozen over, but neither was it burning like the surface of Mercury. It was here in his small city in the small state of New Hampshire.

  Now, more than anything, Bob just wanted to forget those years of sobriety. He wanted the anger, the violence to return. Because the alternative scared him to a place beyond death. Bob didn’t want to feel scared anymore, or alone, or think about what lay outside the quarantine zone and the fate of his Ginny. That was his new world.

  “Cheers to you, Maddie,” he said and raised his glass to the starry sky, “and damn you to Hell…”

  Zombies, he thought because he couldn’t say it. His eyes were wet and his bottom lip trembled, but his heart was filling with that old friend he lost so many years ago. Bob was angry. He took another pull from the bottle and wiped his wet eyes with the palms of his hands. He stood up. Walked to the edge of the roof and stepped up to the ledge. He wobbled but regained his balance, looking down upon the horde of zombies stumbling around on the city streets. The streets he used to walk every weekday to work, groceries on Saturday, and Sunday to church.

  “This is my city,” he muttered to himself and took the last long gulp of whiskey. Bob drew back like he was pitching for the Red Sox in game seven of the ALCS against the Yankees and with everything he had, let loose the bottle. It soared end over end and struck a zombie in the side of the face knocking it to the ground. “MY CITY!”

  Chapter 2

  Bob had done a good job of blockading the apartment building. So well he wasn’t even sure how he was going to get down the four flights of stairs to the basement. He figured, at best, he would only have to get to the second floor, pop out a window screen and dangle his ass out, hoping to God that when he let go he didn’t break his damn hip. If he was going to go out – any thought of taking Maddie’s train to the afterlife had disappeared with his anger – he wanted to go down in flames, beating as many of those bastards into the ground before they did him in.

  He pushed, pried, and climbed his way through the stairwell, cutting and scratching himself in too many places to count. Bob had done one hell of a job fortifying the apartment. After maneuvering the maze he had created, Bob finally made his way to the second floor. It looked like he was going to jump out a window after all. The first floor’s doorway was blocked with so much furniture that he would never be able to move it all to get out.

  With a heavy sigh Bob walked into apartment 2A. He knew that side of the building let out onto the small patch of lawn the apartment called its own. There was a swing-set with three swings and a community barbeque grill on a long chain to the railing of the front steps. It would be an easy drop. He was only fifty-eight so the threat of busting his hip wasn’t all that real. Nonetheless, all he could think about was how a busted hip had done his mother in at sixty-two and left her glued to a walker for the rest of her days.

  He stood in the doorway of Hector Martinez’s room and felt the warm sting of tears return. Hector had
only been twelve years old. A good boy with a shit mother who spent more of her time getting paid for sex while living off the state. She loved her meth more than her boy. Given the circumstances of his life, Hector was one hell of a young man. He spent the majority of his time drawing comic books or outside on his rollerblades playing street hockey. Now, somewhere lost in the city of the dead, Hector Martinez, who Bob knew was going to get free of the hand he had been dealt and be something more than the example set by his mother, was out there roaming the streets as a zombie.

  Hector was just one tragic story out of thousands that were now dead and still walking this earth.

  Bob went inside the empty bedroom – Hector’s furniture was haphazardly tossed down the first staircase – over to the closet and pushed the clothes aside and grabbed one of the hockey sticks. It felt light in his hands and he wished for a baseball bat. Live with what you got, he thought and swung the hockey stick through the air.

  The apartments didn’t have balconies, another bad hand. Bob went to the window in Hector’s room and kicked the air conditioner. It didn’t budge but he felt a good sting go up his leg. When he tried budging it with his hands, trying to pry it from the window all he came away with was a small cut on the palm of his right hand. So his foot began to do the work. He ignored the pain and continued to kick that damn air conditioner until it finally dropped from the window.

  As he looked out into the darkness of the night, and saw the shadows of the dead moving out there, his bravado began to fade. He thought of looking through the Martinez apartment for some more liquor but imagined all he would find was some meth. These might have been the end of days but meth, fuck no. He wasn’t about to touch that shit. So taking one hell of a deep breath, Bob crawled through the window, dropped the hockey stick down, and lowered himself as far as he could before he let go and fell.

  Chapter 3

  The Kawasaki’s engine revved as it shifted through the gears and tore up the earth, weaving down the stretch of open trail along the power lines. Dirt kicked up under the rear tire and the front did its best to guide the bike over the nearly impossible dark terrain. Earlier the bike had easily been cruising down the trails at a steady pace, on a full tank of gas. The dirt bike hit an unexpected hill and launched into the air, coming down on unsteady tires as the bike shook and weaved almost out of control.

  “We can’t,” Forrest said while dropping the kickstand and silencing the engine, “I can’t see shit!”

  Rebel, a nickname to her friends because of her obsession with Billy Idol, slid off the back of the bike rubbing her sore ass. She pulled her arms out of the loops of her backpack that was filled with cans of food and bottled water. Rebel tugged at her black tee shirt with the portrait of Billy Idol and his bad ass Elvis-style raised lip.

  “We can’t stay here, Forrest,” she told him.

  “Don’t you think that I fucking know that, Rebel?”

  “HEY!”

  “I’m sorry,” he said and curled his arms around her waist and buried his nose into her platinum hair while his lips pressed against her neck, “I didn’t mean to yell. I’m just – ”

  Scared.

  The word that lingered between them.

  “I know.”

  Rebel walked the power line trail under the twinkling sky. Think, think, think, she told herself. They had a plan. Head north. Get around the quarantine zone. The dirt bike was the perfect vehicle. Even if the government had blocks on the power lines – they couldn’t be the only people that thought to use this escape – the dirt bike allowed them to go off trail and into the woods, someplace not even their Humvee could follow. By no means was it a perfect plan, but if they could reach her family’s lake house on one of Winnipesaukee’s many islands, they might just have a chance to outlast this.

  “We spend the night,” Rebel finally conceded.

  “You just said we couldn’t stay here.”

  “I know. But where else are we going to go?”

  “The woods. Back roads run all along the lines and we can find a house to make camp in for the night.”

  “What if we get trapped? You said it was too dark to ride the bike so we can’t take it through the woods, so that puts us on foot. If we get lost, or trapped, we can’t make it back to the bike. If we stay here and something happens we can go, even in the dark. You drove for a long time unable to see a thing. You can do it if you need to, baby,” Rebel kissed him with her blood red lips, “we’ll be okay.”

  “Alright.”

  “Wanna mess around?” she smiled playfully.

  “It’s the end of the world, Rebel.”

  “Exactly.”

  Chapter 4

  The hobo lay among the dead. Like a lion with his pride, the zombies surrounded him like a protective shield. On either side of him were the ghastly remains of two women. Their bones almost picked completely clean of any flesh. Still tidbits clung to white bone in splattered red chunks. The skulls had been severed by the zombies when they fought each other for the brain inside. The hobo had placed the skull back near the women’s vertebrae to make them look complete. He was content here with his family and the freshly eaten bodies of the two women. His belly was full like it never had been before and he was no longer an outsider.

  Out there in the world were more people. He could feel it. They would be as hungry as he was, as his family was. He would have to ration the food. If he were to take them all, if the family were to be selfish, then there would be no food left for any of them.

  That wouldn’t do.

  “In the morning we’ll head out,” he told the zombies. They made no reaction to his words, but to him they spoke in a unanimous agreement. Tomorrow they would move out. Where and what direction he wasn’t sure yet. There was still plenty of time for him to decide. His dreams would provide an answer or the horde of zombies would point him in the proper direction. Most of the time he led, but the hobo was also good at following – for a time that was – he couldn’t let them think he was not the one in charge.

  Pulling the scepter closer to him and hugging it to his body, he closed his eyes and snuggled against the remains of one of the dead bodies.

  “Mother used to sing me a song,” he told the dead body.

  Of course, my dear. The words he heard in his head were as real as if the skull had opened its mouth to form the words itself.

  Hush little baby don’t say a word – The song began to play in the hobo’s mind as he rocked himself on the cold March pavement.

  Chapter 5

  Baby Bowen’s crying echoed through the silent streets of Boston. Kat was running for both their lives, no longer aware of how hard Bowen was crying, nor the thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, of her heart beating in her ear drums. Her legs burned, her lungs gasped, and every fiber of her body was telling her to call it quits. To stop. Give in. No place left to go. The zombies were everywhere. Stumbling along every street, emerging from dark places inside abandoned city buildings, falling out of alleyways like drunks. Their teeth gnashed at her and baby Bowen, their dead fingers clawing at her as she ran past or ducked between the cars or simply ran over a car to avoid them killing her and the baby. She knew her body was on a clock that was counting down. Sooner than later she would have no more energy or she would make the wrong choice that would put her in the path of the dead and that would be it.

  Pop.

  Pop, pop.

  Pop.

  Pop, pop, pop.

  Ahead of her, up School Street she saw flashes in the dark. Tiny bursts of light popping like the world’s smallest fireworks. Her eyes locked on the only light that she had seen since the sun had set on Boston and ran.

  Pop.

  Pop, pop, pop.

  Pop.

  Kat was transfixed on the flecks of light. It reminded her of when she was small, growing up to the north, spending late evenings in the Smith’s Farm field and losing her virginity to Alex Marren while fireflies twinkled like catchable stars. Kat never regretted her
first time like some girls. It wasn’t over too quick and it didn’t hurt that bad. When it was over, Alex held her in his arms with a blanket from his Jeep draped over their naked bodies, and kissed her forehead and told her he loved her for the first time. He had never once said those words before they had made love – and it had been love even if the rest of the school wanted to call it fucking or hooking up – her first time was what she imagined every girl’s first time should be like. She had fallen in love with Alex that moment and found out later that he had loved her since they first met in freshman English.

  Alex was a warm memory. The fireflies that were dancing stars she could reach out and clasp in her hand, reminded her of safety. How it felt to watch them soar around her while safely wrapped in Alex Marren’s arms.

  Pop, pop, pop.

  The darkness spoke behind the twinkling light, “Move!”

  Kat ran.

  A shadow.

  Another.

  Two more.

  Four shadows etched the darkness and Kat ran to them while the starburst exploded in front of them.

  “Come on!” one of the shadows yelled as it moved toward her and Kat felt a hand grab her by the shoulder and push her between the other three shadows that closed in front of her like a stronghold gate.

  “Put ‘em down!”

  Kat fell to the ground, clutching baby Bowen to her breast, and rolled across the carpeted floor. The shadows closed in around the door. That pop, pop, popping sound still came from the group of shadows. With a thunderous crash the doors closed and a heavy chain was linked through them to keep them secure. Kat watched as the shadows continued to barricade the door and one shadow came to her and transformed from darkness to that of a man dressed in black with a large gun held in his hands.