This Dying World (Book 2): Abandon All Hope Read online

  “Thanks again!” Eric beamed. “You really are too kind.”

  “Not the coffee,” Anna said, her tone suddenly becoming deadly serious. “Remember what we said about those things out there.”

  “The black-eyed monsters?” Eric said with a hint of sarcasm.

  “Yes,” Matt said with a chill in his tone. “They’re real dude. They’re scary as shit too.”

  “I don’t know man,” Eric shook his head. “From Florida to here, we’ve never seen one of those things that could see in the dark or command zeds with a shout.”

  “You can believe whatever you want,” Chris said, walking the two to the door. “We told you what we know, and you can take it for what it’s worth. You’ll find out the truth for yourselves soon enough.”

  “We don’t mean to be insulting” Linda said, balling up her fist and delivering a sharp jab to Eric’s arm.

  “Not at all,” Eric said, glaring at Linda and rubbing his now tender arm. “It’s just hard to believe something like that without seeing it, you know?”

  “I get it,” Chris replied as the two stepped into the stairwell. “It took me awhile to accept it, and I saw it firsthand. The thing is, you may not believe in them yet.” Chris leveled his eyes straight with Eric’s, his face growing cold and serious.

  “But they definitely believe in you.”

  Chapter 30

  Lexi exhaled, wisps of white steam escaping through the layers of scarf. She sat on the sill, half her body hanging out the window as her eyes scanned over the lifeless world. She rested her back against the window rails, her hiking boot propped against the other side. Her rifle lay across her lap, the well-oiled black barrel pointed out toward the field beyond.

  She leaned her head back and watched as Joe exited the bus, a box full of food and ammunition cradled in his arms. He made his way over to the ugliest truck she had ever seen and set his bundle inside the cabin. He then walked around the vehicle, kicking tires and looking under the frame.

  Voices carried in from the stairwell, two of which she recognized as the people who’d just stood by and watched as Dan was carried off by two strangers. The door closed, and the two walked down the stairs and out into the snow.

  She hadn’t spoken to either of them since they arrived. They came in Chris’ truck to tell everyone that Dan had been kidnapped, but they did nothing to stop it. They hid like cowards and they let him get taken.

  “And now we’re giving them our supplies,” Lexi whispered incredulously.

  Joe walked over to the two and shook each of their hands in turn. They smiled and laughed as they talked, acting very much like long lost friends. As Joe walked with the man in the stupid cowboy hat, his eyes met hers. He stared at her for a few seconds before continuing his conversation.

  She’d had enough. In a huff, she left the window and made her way through the cold and empty apartment toward the kitchen to check on the kids. She had no interest in watching the camaraderie shared between the adults in her group and that couple. As she neared the kitchen, she lightened her steps and tried to keep quiet as she peered into the darkened room.

  Mattresses from the bedrooms in the opposite apartment had been dragged into the kitchen-turned-bedroom to take advantage of the heat given off by the stove. It was nowhere near ideal sleeping quarters, but it was warm and quiet, giving those who stood watch at night a place to sleep during the day.

  The girls huddled together under several thick blankets. Faith clutched her Barbie, a light snore escaping her lips as she slept soundly. Jane had curled up next to Faith, her head nearly lost in the nest of pillows she had built around herself.

  Katie’s eyes were closed, but her body twitched and jumped as if in the throes of a terrible nightmare. She hugged her pillow tight, as if her unconscious mind was afraid it would flee if she released it from her grasp.

  Lexi thought of waking her, if only to relieve her from her nightmare. But she dismissed the idea. Anna and Rosa had spent hours getting her to a place where she could find sleep. If Lexi woke her, and somehow managed to calm her enough to sleep again, she had no doubt Katie would return to her nightmare.

  Lexi felt her chest tighten as she watched the little girl jump and whimper. She wished she could do something to take her fears away, but nothing short of Dan coming home would give Katie’s mind peace.

  Lexi turned away from the slumbering children and tiptoed back to her window, allowing the tears to flow down her cheek and disappear in the fabric of her scarf. Taking a deep breath she sat back in her window in time to see the bright red taillights of the pink monstrosity disappear in the distance.

  She felt eyes on her, and looked down to see Joe still standing in the street below staring back at her. She shook her head and hefted her rifle up, checking again to be sure a round sat firmly in the pipe, as Chris called it.

  “They came to help,” Joe said, the silence of the wintery night allowing his low voice to carry up to her unimpeded.

  “They didn’t help Dan,” she replied without looking at him. “They didn’t stop the people that took him.”

  “Lexi,” Joe pleaded. “They were afraid and tired, they had no way to know if those people had others watching from somewhere else. They didn’t know if they would’ve been killed trying to save a stranger!”

  “Dan would have,” she snapped. “He would have stopped them!”

  “Maybe,” Joe replied calmly. “Or maybe he would have gotten himself killed.”

  “They were cowards,” she said.

  “They came here to tell us what happened,” Joe started, his frustration becoming evident. “They came here not knowing if we would rob them, or kill them, or worse. They didn’t have to do that, there’s no cowardice in that.”

  “If you say so,” Lexi said, setting her rifle across her lap.

  “I do say so,” he replied. “We’re going to find him.”

  “What if he’s dead?” she asked. “What if they killed him?”

  “Then lil’ miss,” Joe’s face grew dark and menacing. “I’ll kill the son of a bitch who did it, and anyone else involved.”

  “Not without me,” she said, looking down at Joe.

  “I won’t stop you,” he said before walking back inside. She heard him climb the stairs, relieved when he chose to return to the adjoining apartment and not continue their conversation face to face.

  She breathed deeply, savoring the cold fresh air that was devoid of the stench of rotten death that always seemed to carry on the breeze. She wasn’t sure what it was about the falling snow, but it always seemed to scrub the air clean of the worst smells, no matter where they came from.

  She leaned her head back, closed her eyes and allowed her mind to drift. She wasn’t worried about the dead sneaking up on her while she day dreamed. The area was oddly devoid of undead. It would have normally been very unsettling, but once Dan had disappeared, all focus had turned to his return. The lack of zombies, or survivors in town had been chalked up to one of the many mysteries of the new world they found themselves in.

  Images of her farm and family danced through her mind as Lexi thought back to the previous summer. She smiled as she remembered her old life before the monsters came. She could smell the wildflowers growing all over their land and hear the chickens scratch at the ground while the rooster crowed. She laughed when she thought of how all the city people still believed that roosters only crow in the morning.

  Her mouth watered as her mind turned to her mother’s apple pie. Every fall she would trek over to Mr. Downing’s orchard to pick the freshest apples for her Thanksgiving apple pie. Of course there would always be the required pumpkin, sweet potato, and butterscotch pies, but none of them were as good as her mom’s Thanksgiving apple pie.

  Her family from all over would start arriving in their driveway early in the morning. The house would fill with the savory aroma of fresh turkey and ham straight from the hogs raised by Mr. and Mrs. Miller. Platters of mashed potatoes and steamed carrots an
d corn from their own gardens would soon find their way to the table. Aunt Alice would make her cornbread stuffing and gravy from her own secret recipe.

  Dinner would be early, usually around two o’clock in the afternoon. They would sit around the table, telling stories and eating more than their fill before breaking off into groups. The men would file into the living room to catch whatever football game was on while the women would head out into the yard to watch the kids play. They would sit on folding chairs, sipping on hot apple cider her mom would make with apples that did not make it into the pie.

  That was about the time that her uncle would come and find her for their annual shooting competition. They would head out into the field, choose a random target, and blast away until their ammunition ran dry. Her uncle had spent most of his life as an officer of the Illinois State Police. He’d spend hours teaching her how to shoot while entertaining her with stories of his time on the force.

  When the bullets stopped flying, her mom would call everyone back into the house for dessert. She’d warm the apple pie in the oven, slicing it while it still steamed. Lexi would take her slice along with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream out to the swing in her front porch, and watch the sun dip below the horizon as she savored the warm rich apples wrapped in the golden flaky crust.

  Her family would say their goodbyes and head off into the night with full stomachs and a new set of happy memories to last them until the following year.

  She felt the tears flowing across her cheeks as the memories faded away, a hint of death wafting in the air turned her thoughts to the church the day her parents died. She remembered her dad’s face as he pushed her through the window just before hearing their terrible screams.

  They’d spent hours hiding as they tried to find a way around the evil man that had killed not only her parents, but most people in town. She clung to Jane as they hid in the dead bushes, waiting for either Jim to come and kill them, or to freeze to death. She stroked her sister’s hair, calming her and making promises that things would be okay, all the while believing that neither of them would survive the day.

  She was close to passing out when the church doors burst open, her dead friends and neighbors pouring out into the street. She looked on in terror as her mom and dad stepped out into the bright sunlight. Jane cried, struggling against Lexi’s grasp with intense desire to reunite with her parents. Lexi clung to her sister, terrified she would lose her grip in her weakened and frozen state.

  But then she heard tires screech to a stop. Tires squealed again, and a tan car shot past them. That car was their last hope. Her frozen legs ached and her feet felt as if nails were buried in her shoes as she started to run. She felt death on her heels as she summoned every ounce of strength she had left to keep her moving. With her sobbing sister bundled in her arms, she prayed to anyone who’d listen for the car to stop.

  Those prayers were answered.

  Whether it was simply fate or the Almighty Himself chose to step in she would never know. Just as the car looked like it would speed off, it skidded to an abrupt stop. A man stepped out, killing the monsters chasing her while screaming for her to run. The man, Dan, had saved their lives.

  Dan and Abby took her and her sister in without question, and his whole family welcomed them with open arms. She’d found safety and comfort, and felt the warm embrace of family once more.

  But she couldn’t save Abby.

  She’d tried. She saw the monster coming while Dan fought with the ambulance door. She screamed for Dan to turn around. She fired her rifle like her uncle taught her. She watched Dan’s face when the monster bit down on Abby’s throat. The pain, the fear...the loss. The same face she knew she had made when she listened to her parents scream.

  Despite his grief, he still cared for her and Jane like his own. She knew he would die before he let anything happen to them.

  But Dan was gone.

  A deep loneliness opened inside her as the fear that she had lost her family again crept into her mind. The solitude of the room weighed down on her shoulders as she started to cry.

  “Lexi?” Katie’s voice startled Lexi from her thoughts. “Why are you crying?”

  Lexi tried to wipe the stinging tears from her eyes, but they would not stop flowing. Through the blur she saw Katie, her short hair matted to one side. The pink and green footie pajamas she wore poked out from the heavy blanket she cocooned herself in.

  The teen stood from the window, rushing over to Katie and scooping the youngster in her arms and hugging her tight. “I’m crying because I’m really really sad.”

  “Is Daddy home?”

  “No,” Lexi cried. “Not yet.”

  “I had a bad dream,” Katie started, her own eyes starting to mist over. “I saw Daddy get hurt by the bad people. They bit him and he was yelling really loud.”

  “That must have been really scary,” Lexi said, trying to be strong for the little girl in her arms.

  “I miss my daddy,” Katie said as fat tears rolled down her red cheeks. “I want him to come home!”

  “I miss him too,” Lexi cried.

  “Will you stay with me?” Katie whispered.

  “Of course I will,” Lexi answered through her sobs. “I’m not going anywhere, and I’ll always be here for you.”

  “Like a big sister?”

  “Exactly like a big sister,” Lexi cried, hugging Katie tight.

  Lexi carried Katie to a corner of the room and sat, rocking the girl in her lap. Katie wrapped her arms around Lexi’s neck, her body shaking as she wept. Lexi no longer tried to control her own sorrow. She let days of hurt flow out in a torrent of tears.

  Lexi wrapped the blanket around the two of them, still holding Katie tight in her arms. Her tears flowed like rivers, even after Katie’s had silenced. Lexi looked down at the little girl’s face to find her eyes closed, her thumb in her mouth as she slept. Lexi continued to rock, more for herself than Katie.

  Eventually her own tears slowed, and silence returned to the room, broken only by Katie’s rhythmic breaths. She listened for sound in the other apartment, but heard nothing. She waited for Chris to come in and take over watch.

  The sudden pops of gunfire in the distance shattered the deathly silence.

  Chapter 31

  “Wake up asshole!”

  The sudden sharp crack of metal on metal rang out like a baseball bat on a crash cymbal. At first I wasn’t sure if I was still dreaming in drug induced unconsciousness.

  “I said wake your ass up!”

  Each word the man uttered was punctuated by that same crash, each one hitting my eardrum like thunder. The headache throbbed, beating like a jackhammer deep inside my skull.

  “Open your goddamn eyes dickhead!” an unknown man’s voice thundered at me.

  I opened my eyes a crack as brilliant light suddenly flooded my vision. I rolled my head away from the source when the neck pain immediately returned, sending torrents of agony across my spine and into my shoulders.

  “Hey!” the asshole shouted at me. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

  I reached up to rub the stiffness from my neck as I turned my head back toward the sound of my tormentor. As my eyes focused through the sunlight, I found myself looking at a man standing outside the bars of a cell I was currently occupying.

  He stood no taller than me…if I’d been able to stand at the time. He was lean and looked very much like a person who’d spent his life working manual labor. His greasy blonde hair hung in ratty strands below his ears and wore a bushy beard and a thick mustache.

  He was caked in bloody filth from his plain gray t-shirt down to his light blue jeans. A bright red crowbar sat firmly in his hand, resting against the steel bars of the cell door. I had no doubt the crowbar had been the source of my wake up call.

  “Great,” I rasped in frustration. “Dan gets captured by assholes, part two.”

  “Funny guy,” he said, his voice angry and gruff. “The man says you eat, so you eat.”


  “Not hungry,” I said, my throat burning with thirst.

  “Don’t care,” he mocked, dropping the crowbar to the concrete floor. The heavy clang was like a gong in my head. The reverberating echo felt as if it liquefied whatever brain matter I had left.

  “That hurt, funny guy?”

  “I’ve had worse hangovers,” I said sarcastically.

  “See this?” he said, producing a handgun from a holster I couldn’t see. It took a couple seconds before I realized what he was showing me.

  “That’s mine,” I snapped when I saw the letters scratched into the slide.

  “Not anymore,” he smiled, sliding my weapon back into his holster. “I’m coming in with your food. If you even sit up before I’m out, I’ll shoot you with your own gun.”

  “I said I’m not hungry,” I said turning my head away from him, the bones in my neck cracking as stiffening pain rocketed through my body.

  “And I said I don’t care,” he snapped. “But the man says you eat, so either you eat or I force it down your throat.”

  “Now, now,” a familiar voice came from down the hall. “No need to be rude to our guest.”

  I turned back toward the outside of my cell as the sound of footsteps neared. They were not the clomps of heavy boots that Mr. Crowbar wore, but the light taps of dress shoes on painted concrete. The silhouette of a man emerged from the hall. I remembered him from the first night I woke up. It was the voice that sent waves of fear through me and carried on into my dreams. But now, in the daylight, I could finally put a face to his voice.

  A middle aged man looked back at me through the bars, his happy brown eyes only partially hidden behind a pair of wire framed glasses. His salt and pepper hair had receded somewhat, but just enough to notice if one was to look hard enough. He smiled, exposing impossibly white teeth behind a perfectly trimmed beard that had just begun to streak with gray.

  Even his clothes seemed out of place for the time. The tweed suit and brown tie looked perfectly pressed, his white dress shirt didn’t have so much as a sweat stain anywhere on it. For a man who called himself a professor, he sure did like to dress the part.