The Zombie Plagues Series

Early morning darkness held the road that fronted the cave. The moonlight, sparse, reflected off the rapids of the Black river. A shadow moved by one of the pickup trucks. Another moved by the Suburban. The sound of sand gritting beneath the sole of a shoe came clearly in the shadowy darkness. The door of the pickup squealed loudly as it was carefully opened. The shadow paused, looking towards the Suburban. The shadow there appeared to be fighting with the door to no avail. The shadow next to the pickup gestured quickly with both hands and the shadow next to the Suburban gave up on the door, crossed to the pickup and quickly climbed inside. Once they were both inside, silence returned to the small patch of asphalt that fronted the cave. A few seconds later the pickup roared to life. The headlights snapped on, the wheels turned hard left and the driver launched the truck down what was left of the shattered roadway. Voices were raised in alarm from inside the cave and within just a few moments everyone inside was outside. Lydia, gun in hand, unloaded a full clip at the fleeing pickup truck. Both Tom and Mike snapped off a single shot, more in startled response to Lydia’s’ shots than with any real hope of hitting the retreating pickup truck. “Jesus,” Lydia said breathlessly. “They stole our truck!” She turned and looked at Mike with wide, frightened eyes. “They stole our Goddamn truck,” She repeated. “How could they steal our truck?” Tom headed for the suburban and pulled the keys from his pocket, preparing to unlock the door. “Tom,” Mike called. “Where are you going, Man?” “That’s our Goddamn truck. I’m going to get it.” His eyes were wild, the truck keys in one hand, a pistol in the other, no shirt, sock-less shoes, laces trailing. “It’s an old truck, Man,” Mike said. “It’s my old truck,” Tom said defensively. “And if I catch that fucker...” “Fuckers,” Lydia said. “Huh?” Tom asked. “Fuckers, as in I saw two heads. Two of them. Not one,” Lydia said. Her voice held a breathless, excited quality to it that Mike didn’t like. She was dressed in jeans and a thin T-shirt. She shivered slightly, whether from the cold or the excitement, Mike couldn’t tell. “Either way. One, two, how would we catch them? And then what? Are we going to shoot somebody for stealing an old truck? Is that what things have come to?” Mike asked. “Look, don’t get moral on me,” Tom said. He leveled his eyes at Mike. “I do things my way. You take from me, you pay for it.” Mike just stared back at him. “You’re soft,” Tom said. But his fists, still clenched, dropped from the truck door and he walked away from the Suburban and back into the cave.

They were pinned down in the remains of a pole barn in a field just a few miles outside of Watertown off route 11 south. The rains had been so hard and so frequent that the fields and roads were completely flooded. They had been forced to stop after twice driving into water far too deep for the trucks. The field they were in was higher ground that most of the others. They shared one wall and the partial metal roof of the collapsed pole barn with a few wild cows they eyed them suspiciously. Their corner was reasonably dry, but several days of rain and boredom had blighted their spirits and they worked hard to keep off each other’s nerves. “I learned to sew as a girl” Pearl said now. She held Haley's hand and guided the needle as she repaired the hem of her jacket. She had caught it on the ragged edge of one wall as she had run over into another part of the pole barn that had no ceiling. In her haste to get out of the rain she had caught the edge of the jacket and ripped out the seam. The seam also formed the bottom of the pocket on that side. Without it she had found herself slipping items into that pocket that then fell to the ground or the concrete floor of the pole barn or down between the seats in the truck. She focused and tried to keep her line straight. It wasn't so hard once you got the needle threaded. “Just like that good girl” Pearl encouraged. Haley smiled. “So” she raised her eyes from the seam “Where were you back there?” The smile that had been on Pearl's face fled. “I was held... Held by mad men...” She seemed to consider a moment. “A mad man perhaps. The rest were not quite so rabid.” She rubbed at her eyes and then raised them from the floor where they had sunk of their own volition. “One of his men let me go... I suspect of course that he let me go to make a way for himself to escape...” She shook her head. “He was not a virtuous man. No he let me go and if I made it he knew that his chances would be likewise as good or better. Why he could even say he was out looking for me if he got caught could he not? Right.” She looked back down and then out at the falling rain. “Sorry” Haley said. “I didn't mean to make you relive it. It doesn't matter.” She looked back down at the hem nearly half done and took up another stitch. “It's all right. It's not so bad. The bad part is this” she raised her hand to indicate the world. “Who knew all of this was... Gone... Who knew?” “I suspect your mad man must have” Haley said quietly.

Donita and the boy The fires burned bright, freshly banked for the night. She could not say what it was in fire that frightened her, but it did. It touched something deep inside, something that she could sense had not always been there. Like at one time she had embraced fire the same way the breathers did. Now it only frightened her. Behind her, the boy whined, high pitched and frightened. The fire did the same thing to him. She turned and allowed a growl to slip from her cracked and peeling lips, and the boy quieted down immediately. She looked back toward the fires. She should have gone already. She should have taken the boy and moved on. The breathers could mean death to both of them. The dog kept coming around. And now there was another dog. She could smell her. But the breathers didn't usually hang around that long. Others had come and gone just as quickly. These should have been gone when the moon rose into the night sky, packed up and gone while she and the boy had been in twilight. But they were still there. Their terrible fires burning and sending their stink into the air, creating heat. Heat was an enemy of all things cold, she told herself. And she was a thing cold. She stood, her legs flexing easily, something they did not do just a short time ago. Behind her, the boy stood also, soundlessly, and although she did not see him - hear him - she felt him. She knew he had stood, knew he was waiting for her to move, knew that he believed the entire world revolved around her. All this with no words, touches, conscious thoughts. She looked off through the trees to the opposite side of the road, across from where the breathers were camped. Her new eyes saw more than her old eyes had ever seen, though not precisely as she had seen with those other eyes. This sight was not suited to daylight. It could see - would see - in daylight, but not well. The lesser light of the moon was the light she needed. She could see for more than a quarter mile clearly. But it was not just about the seeing. Smell, the feel of the air upon her skin, things that could not work the way they used to work, now worked with her eyes. She saw the scent on the wind. She perceived the movement of air across her skin with her eyes. She saw it. Her eyes were her windows to the world. She saw the rabbits far across the field, past the other road, and rabbits were fine, but it was not the rabbits that had attracted her. It was the boy, not much older than the one behind her, that had caught her attention. He carried rocks in a pouch, held a weapon in his hand as he stalked the rabbits. He was alone. It was a thing that she knew. He was not a part of the breathers that were camped not far away. He was a loner, and he had managed to avoid the ones like her that must have scented him, followed him. She scented the air and drank in the information. Alone... Hungry... Mistrustful. He stumbled, and the rabbits spooked. Before he could react, the rabbits were across the balding grass patches near the trees on the opposite side of the road and into the tall grass. She could feel them running through the grass. Tiny hearts beating fast, knocking against their rib cages. She tracked the boy at the same time. He had lunged for the tall grass and then had fallen back. His head came up, scenting the air the way breathers did, and she knew he had caught her scent, the same way any hunted animal did, even when they did not yet know they were hunted. It had been the reason he had stumbled and frightened the rabbits. She said nothing, simply flexed her leg and leapt into the tall grass, the boy behind her. She was not there to see him stumble, but she knew it just the same. When Donita came upon them, the boy had his hands tightly around the other boy's throat, riding his chest as he bucked and thrashed.

The stench was overpowering as he stepped partly inside. The fire was out, and there was little light to see by. Even so he could see the remains of two bodies that lay close by the entrance way. He stood looking down at the bodies, but there was no way to know who they had been. He might have gone on staring, lost in thought, but the nearest one lifted her upper body from the floor with her arms. Gina, Bear saw. Her eyes were not the same, but there was something in the face that was still her own. Her eyes were red. Her legs were gone, ripped from the hip sockets, yet she struggled to lift her entire body, her stomach convulsing, muscles contracting. Bear lowered one gun and shot her between the eyes. Jelled brain splattered to the floor behind her and sagged back down to the floor. The sound of the gunshot woke up something or someone in the farther reaches of the factory. The odd whining sounds the dead produced leapt out at him and the sound of feet dragging against the concrete. Bear let the curtain of canvas fall back in place. A second later he was back at the truck where he had left Cammy. She reached over and unlocked the door, Bear ripped the door open, glancing at the ignition as he did. No keys. He shut the door and ran for the other truck. The keys dangled from the ignition through the glass. He turned and raced around the edge of the first truck and yanked the door open. A second later he had pulled Cammy out when she had seemed to be hesitating, looking toward the factory. “But... Bear, Maddy...., Bear,” she said as he propelled her toward the other truck. He pushed her into the other truck. “Cammy... Nothing is alive in there... Nothing. Cammy, stay put,” Bear told her. There was no movement of the canvas cover. He had been watching it, expecting it to move and the dead to come pouring out into the sunlight. He had seen some who seemed to be unaffected by sunlight: After they had been around for a while they adapted, changed, moved themselves away from that limitation. These had not come running. It didn't mean that they couldn't. He was taking nothing for granted. He walked back to the first truck. A few seconds under the dashboard and he had ripped away the ignition wires. He twisted two of the wires together, and then touched the other wire to the hot wire, the starter spun, caught and then the motor began to turn over. A second later it coughed to life. He dropped it into drive and then backed it around until it lined up with the factory doors about eighty feet away. He had kept his eyes on the factory entrance. Sounds caused the dead to become even more active. He watched for a few seconds longer. The canvas moved and a rotting face slipped from inside, hissing as the sun touched it, quickly allowing the draped canvas to fall closed once more. Bear walked down along the pickup bed to the gas cap door. He opened the door, spun the cap from the tank, and the fumes rushed up to meet him. He had no idea how much was in the tank, but they filled them at every chance, so it should be close to full. He let the cap fall from his hand as he drew his pocket knife, snapped it open, and then leaned back inside the cab. A second late he was slicing through the seat cover, cutting long foam backed pieces from it. He took four of the longest pieces, wound them together and then walked back to the tank. He pushed some wound up rag down into the tank, A second later he bent and drove his knife into the gas tank where it rested below the body panel for the pickup box. He reached into his pocket, liberated his lighter: Spun the wheel and lit it, then dropped the shift lever into drive. In one quick movement he lit the tail of the cloth and then dropped it into the gas that was spreading across the blacktop. The truck lurched as he quickly stepped back, and then crept slowly across the cracked pavement at idle, dragging a trail of fire as it went...

Books One through five were published, book six was not published for the series and the epilogue was also withheld. It would have come at a much later date in the series. Bear and Beth. Billy and Pearl. Donita, Mike and Candace, and all the other characters are here. The saga begins and continues until the face off against the dead and those that raise them in one final battle. They have only suspicions to guide them and nothing else. The order of books is slightly different in this edition, following the publication record instead of the newly published in order of the history versions. Yet the entire story is here. Book One: Candace and Mike Meet and struggle to survive during and just after the apocalypse. Book Two: The small group heads out in search of the Nation and a place to live without fear. Book Three: The resupply trip that introduces Bear's group and Mike's group. Book Four: The Story of Bear and Donita. Book Five: The story of Billy and Beth Book Six: The end of the line. The survivors face the dead one last time... Over 450,00 words in total, six complete books and bonus material. Take a look at a free preview right now.