Survival Ties (The Outbreak Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  “What are you talking about?” Carter snapped at Sam as he continued to hold on to Marie like he could bring her back.

  “You know Vick and Jenny Nathan down the street in the brown house? Their boy Josh had his lungs replaced a month ago just like Marie’s heart.” Sam told us, leaning against the counter rubbing his eyes. “He started acting weird and yesterday went after Jenny in the kitchen, bit Vick in the process. When he got to Jenny he walked right into the knife she was holding from making dinner, didn’t even noticed it. Vick pulled him away before he could do anything to poor Jenny and he died.”

  “Wait. What?” Sawyer asked from behind me. She had dated Josh for two years before he got sick and broke it off.

  “Police were there and everything. They took the body to the morgue and so far I haven’t heard anything else.” Sam told us. “Vick seemed okay, had a good piece taken from his shoulder though. They bandaged him up there and let him stay at home.”

  “Josh had a transplant like Marie?” Sawyer asked. She seemed pretty lost in her thoughts. She was not processing much. After everything with Marie and then finding out the boy she still loved was killed.

  “Yeah from that Clydework place, signed up to be a human trial.” Sam answered.

  I heard Sawyer fumble her phone out of her pocket. Before she dialed anything, I watched Marie’s open brown eyes bleed into red.

  “What’s happening to her eyes?” I asked.

  “What?” Carter asked.

  “Her eyes.” I said again.

  Carter looked down and studied her eyes as I heard Sawyer telling the 911 operator what had happened.

  “It could just be some reaction from the medication she was on.” Carter answered.

  Sawyer was repeating herself to the operator.

  Marie’s hand twitched sending a flutter of hope through me. She blinked but she didn’t draw in a breath.

  A low growling drew Sam’s attention to her. Carter was leaning towards her when she rolled into a crouched position causing him to jump back.

  Her red glare was glued to Sam and her teeth were bared.

  Carter froze.

  “Marie? Sweetie helps on the way. I think you should lie down until the paramedics get here.” Carter said to her. His hands were shaking as he raised them towards her. Her head snapped to him for a minute and she hissed.

  “What the—” Carter said.

  “Carter, step back slowly.” Sam interrupted.

  The sound of his voice snapped Marie’s attention back to him.

  Marie tilted her head from side to side as she growled at Sam.

  “Marie, please calm down.” Carter tried again to reason with her.

  “Carter, no.” Sam snapped before he could move towards her.

  Marie whipped her head back and forth between Sam and Carter until her gaze stopped on Sam.

  She lunged at him.

  The second shot from the revolver echoed in the kitchen as they fell to the tiles.

  He rolled her off him showing the hole in her forehead that wasn’t bleeding.

  Sawyer screamed and dropped her phone.

  I could only stare at Marie in shock.

  I barely registered the operator in the background from Sawyer’s phone, faintly telling us help was on the way.

  Like they would be able to help with what had just happened.

  Chapter Two

  I was staring out the window as the garbage truck made its weekly rounds again. I turned when I heard something shatter in the kitchen.

  “You okay?” I asked when I found Carter staring into the sink.

  “Yeah, just lost grip on my damn cup.” He answered and I could see the black mug sitting in pieces, some still held a few drops of coffee.

  “I’ll clean it up when we get back.” I told him as I squeezed his arm.

  “I’ll do it don’t worry.” He said, “We have to go.”

  We were heading to Marie’s favorite park where Carter had decided to have a celebration of life for her. We couldn’t have a real funeral yet. Clydework had sent people over to gather Marie’s body to run tests on and see if they could figure out what had happened.

  So far the only comments they had given us was that she must have mixed medications that caused her reaction.

  No charges were pressed on Sam. The police never even handcuffed him since it was self-defense. He probably saved our lives.

  The Nathans’ came to the celebration. Vick still had a bandage on his shoulder; you could see the corner of it peeking out of the neck of his shirt. He didn’t look well, his olive skin had no real color to it and he seemed to be leaning on Jenny as he coughed violently. Jenny looked as if she hadn’t slept for days. Her blue eyes were swollen from crying. She looked like she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, and it was crushing her.

  I threw the white rose petals I was holding into the air to mix with the others floating on the breeze to symbolize Marie leaving us.

  Then Vick started coughing again.

  His fit sent him to all fours, blood and saliva spraying onto the ground.

  Jenny was trying to help him up when he turned on her.

  He ripped a bite out of the curve of her neck before anyone could get to them.

  Sam appeared from out of nowhere and pulled Vick off Jenny while people panicked.

  Vick went after a few different people, biting anyone who grabbed him. Jenny was crying holding whatever piece of cloth Sam had given her to the bite. She stared after her husband as he disappeared down the street. Sam helped us load her into Carter’s Tahoe and jumped in.

  “We should take her with us to your house.” Sam told Carter. Nothing seemed to faze Sam; he processed what was happening around him and reacted.

  “You’re probably right.” Carter agreed as he jumped in and started the Tahoe.

  “Jenny, we are taking you back to the Forde’s home in case Vick goes back to your house.” Sam told Jenny, even though she looked like she wasn’t hearing anything.

  Carter sat with the SUV running as he stared out the windshield. There were a few people helping bandage wounds on others but more were trying to get back to their own vehicles.

  One man started pounding on Carter’s window.

  He looked like he had been out for a run and still had his headphones in.

  Carter put the SUV in drive and slowly moved away from the man.

  I watched out of the back window as he ran to a pickup truck and jumped into the bed. The driver took off so fast the runner stumbled and flipped back onto the pavement. Before he could move a red car backed over him, the driver didn’t even stop to see what they had ran over. No one said anything as we drove away from the park.

  I kept thinking we never finished Marie’s celebration.

  Jenny was quiet the whole drive to the house. I found myself wondering what was going to happen with her husband since he was still out there.

  I noticed Carter was sweating even with the A/C on. He was trying to do too much and I was sure he was making himself sick.

  I tried not to look out the windows. Nothing made sense. The image of the runner falling was seared into my brain and kept replaying.

  “Everything is going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.” Carter kept saying. I wasn’t sure if he was talking to any of us or himself.

  Jenny’s soft whimpers drew my attention back to her.

  Her dark skin was chalky and pale making the blood dripping from the bite look obscene.

  There was more chaos outside the hospital as we ended up in a standstill. Traffic was barely moving. People were screaming and running. No one was looking where they were going.

  My heart pounded as I watched a woman in a torn yellow sundress slapping her hands on the driver window of a black Mustang.

  Another woman climbed onto the mustang and lunged at the yellow sundress woman.

  Tha-thump. Tha-thump.

  The door to the Mustang opened. A man in Aviator shades pulled th
e woman in the sundress into his car.

  Tha-thump. Tha-thump.

  The other woman clawed her way on to the back of the car as it drove away.

  We rolled closer to the hospital entrance, there was a nurse on the ground, not moving, a man pinning her. As we drew closer he looked up, we were close enough to see his eyes glowing red, and he was taking huge bites from the nurse’s body. Half her face was down to bone, even the eyeball gone. I couldn’t tell where her red hair ended or where the bloody mess started. Her remaining eye was open and blinking, glowing red as she started to shove out from under the man. He no longer had interest in her as he let her go.

  I saw Jenny look out the window. She stared at the man and started to cry and crawl over me clawing for the door handle.

  “What are you doing?” Carter snapped from the front, seeing the movement in the rearview mirror.

  “That’s Josh. He’s not dead.” She screamed.

  Josh watched the car with a blank stare until one of the panicked people ran in front of him. Josh launched himself at the man catching his leg as he fell and biting into the man’s calf. The man kicked Josh in the shoulder with his free leg. He was up and running before Josh recovered.

  Sawyer grabbed Jenny and shoved her back into her seat.

  “It’s not him.” She snapped when Jenny tried for the door again.

  I wondered what it cost Sawyer to say that as Jenny stopped fighting her and stared out the window at what had been her son.

  Sawyer had tears running down her face freely by the time we pulled up to the house. I climbed out of the Tahoe as Carter started to cough.

  Sawyer and Sam helped Jenny into the house. I went to open the driver door to help Carter. As I grabbed the handle he looked up at me through the glass.

  His lips were pulled back from his teeth in a snarl and his eyes were glazed over.

  I was already backing away when he started clawing at the window and throwing his body against the door.

  I turned and ran the few yards to the house, slamming the door as I heard glass breaking behind me. I locked the dead bolt and waited to hear him pounding on the door.

  But the noise never came.

  Sawyer came around the corner and saw me.

  “What’s going on? Where’s Carter?” she asked me.

  “In the car. I think he may be out now.” I told her as I fought to catch my breath.

  She followed me to the window and looked out.

  Carter was dragging himself out from the shattered window of the driver’s door. He didn’t even glance at the blood coming from where the glass was cutting into his flesh.

  “What’s going on?” Sawyer repeated, stepping away from the window and bumping right into Sam.

  “I don’t know.” I told her as I looked at Sam for answers.

  He squeezed Sawyer’s shoulder and shook his head.

  Jenny was asleep on the couch when Sam slipped into the back yard. He started bringing in lumber Carter had got to build the deck Marie had wanted.

  “I think we should board up the windows.” He told us.

  “Do you think that will keep them out?” I asked.

  “It’ll be better than just glass.” He answered.

  “Carter was planning to put up shelves. I can show you where he had all of it.” I said.

  “Lead the way.” Sam said.

  “Do you need help?” Sawyer asked him.

  “Sure. You can come and help us get everything in here.” He told her. I realized he was giving her a task to keep her focused and busy.

  I led Sam and Sawyer to the garage where Carter had piles of pine wood he had been in the process of staining to the color he wanted.

  Sam grabbed a whole pile and went back to the front entrance. Sawyer and I split the next one. It took a few trips before all the wood was in the house. Off to the side there were two five gallon buckets of long nails. But we only found two hammers

  “Will this be enough?” I asked when we had everything together.

  “We’ll work through what we have and if we run out we’ll tear apart wood furniture to use.”

  Sam had Sawyer hold up the planks of wood as he nailed them into the wall on one side and I did the other.

  It felt like every time a hammer hit one of the nails the sound echoed through the house.

  My ears were ringing with the banging by the time we got to the last window.

  With the windows boarded up and everything quiet again, Sam gathered Sawyer and me into the dining room.

  He looked pretty serious as he sat down and waited for us to take seats.

  “Ashlyn, can you find me some paper and a pen please.” Sam asked me after a moment.

  I went to the kitchen and grabbed the notepad and pen from by the phone.

  “Well from what we’ve seen, it appears we have at least two stages of whatever is happening.” Sam told us as he tapped the pen on the table.

  He labeled the columns ‘stage one’ and ‘stage two’.

  “Stage one: we’ve got people going crazy and attacking others.” He said as he wrote.

  Both Sawyer and I watched him.

  “Stage two: we’ve got people with their eyes turning red, should be dead, and still attacking others.” He continued, “It seems like everyone infected hit that stage one part. Except for that nurse outside the hospital.”

  “How does that help with anything?” I asked.

  “I’m just using a common survival technique, we use our observations of the situation we are in and to the best of our abilities figure out what’s going on around us and how to survive.” Sam answered.

  “So what do stages mean?” Sawyer asked.

  “First we need to figure out what everyone has in common.” Sam responded, “Ashlyn, what did Marie and Josh have in common?”

  “They both got transplants from Clydework about a month ago.” I answered, wondering why he was asking me something he already knew.

  “Okay, Sawyer what do Vick and Carter have in common?” he continued.

  “They were both bit about eight days ago.” She answered, “But you already know that.”

  “Yes I do. We know Josh died, like Marie did, but I was here and we saw her die again. Where was Josh?” he asked.

  “He was at the hospital, in the morgue and he must have come back like Marie did.” I answered.

  “Yeah they must have pulled him out for the autopsy only to find a…zombie.” Sawyer responded struggling on the word ‘zombie’.

  “It appears so. We saw Josh eating that nurse and she came back with red eyes like Josh and Marie had. It would seem that stage one can be skipped if the victim dies with no damage being done to their brain.” Sam said, pointing out the facts. I had never realized before just how smart he really was.

  “So what does all this mean?” Sawyer asked as she fidgeted in her seat.

  “It means we have two dangers out there to face. We have our stage one crazed people and our stage two red eye people.” Sam responded “And we know we could have days before anyone bit turns crazed.”

  “Are you saying I have only days before I go crazy like Josh and Vick did?” Jenny interrupted as she walked into the dining room. Sam looked at us and I realized he was thinking about the fact that Jenny had been bitten.

  “We don’t know what will happen yet, Jenny.” Sam told her.

  Sawyer and I walked Jenny to Carter and Marie’s room. It took a while to get her to calm down and rest again.

  She cried even when she finally fell back to sleep and mumbled about losing her family.

  “Ashlyn where are your parents?” Sam asked me as we returned to the dining room.

  “They went to some conference in California.” I answered.

  My heart pounded as I thought about my parents.

  I had forgotten they weren’t here.

  Now all I could think was if I would ever see them again, if they were facing the same things we were here, if they were even alive right now.

>   “We should try to reach them.” Sam said. “Give me their number, I’ll try and reach them while I try to reach my nephew.”

  “Okay.” I agreed. My hand shook as I wrote their cell numbers down.

  “What about Sawyer’s parents?” He asked as he took the paper.

  Sawyer started to cry.

  “They’re camping and river rafting. Supposed to be gone for three weeks.” I answered.

  Sam left the room to make calls. I sat for a few minutes just taking deep breaths.

  Sawyer mumbled something I didn’t catch and walked away.

  I had to find my cell and try to call my parents.

  I was walking past the front door when I heard a soft knock. I looked out of the door scope. I could see the familiar black hair from a neighborhood boy who was three years younger than Sawyer and me. I cracked the door open.

  “Axel?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Can I come in please? There’s things out here.” He sounded like he had run all the way here. I let him in and as soon as the door closed he was hugging me and crying.

  “Where are your parents?” I asked him, suspecting the worse.

  “They’re dead. Carter attacked dad, I shot him. His eyes turned red and he went after dad again and killed him. He came after me but mom threw herself at him and told me to run. I didn’t know where else to go.” Axel sobbed into my shoulder, confirming my suspicions.

  “Oh Axel, I’m so sorry.” I told him as I hugged him back and let him cry.

  “What’s happening?” Axel asked as he pulled away and wiped away the evidence of tears.

  “We don’t know yet, but you’re safe here.” I told him.

  At the sound of footsteps, I turned to find Sam coming our way.

  “Were you bit?” Sam asked. He must have heard what had happened to Axel’s parents.

  “No I wasn’t.” Axel answered, sounding more like his normal fourteen-year-old self.

  “Good. Ashlyn I couldn’t get hold of your parents. I did get ahold of my nephew and we are going to round up everyone we can in the neighborhood and head to him.” Sam responded.

  “Why are we heading to your nephew?” I asked, not really wanting to face the craziness of what was going on beyond the front door.