Zombie Infestation Read online

  Zombie Infestation

  LJ Bushman

  Zombie Infestation © copyright 2018

  First copyright 2013 LJ Bushman Mayhem in Mexico: Zombie Infestation

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Zombie Infestation

  Serena fights the super zombies out to take over the world

  Getting kidnapped by the FBI is pretty low on my list of things I want to do. It's right up there with meeting terrorist groups and writing their side of the story. Why a successful novelist like me? Turns out I’m a scapegoat for someone with some serious health issues—they've contracted the zombie virus.

  I'm a zombie killer, killing them as quickly as I can. But I'm only one woman. You'd think being an Immune was great, but no. Ever since the government purposely tried to infect me with the zombie virus, they watch me closely to see if I turn. Not happening.

  The FBI wants me to accomplish something big two thousand miles from home. When I arrive in El Paso, Texas after my strenuous drive from Washington, my contact agent, Joseph Connelly, isn't available. Being tortured by a zombie for two days is an excuse I can accept after saving his ass. These aren't your Hollywood zombies; not right away. They never get sick, their IQ triples, and their sex appeal? Off the charts. Until they die and resurrect as true horror flick zombies, with brains. Trouble is, some of them have developed a taste for meat—human meat—before they die.

  Problem with governments screwing around with our DNA is things never go as planned. When terrorists kidnap my kids, all bets are off, and Agent Connelly agrees. If we don’t save my kids and steal the antivirus without getting killed, the whole world is going to have a really bad day.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my muse. Without you, this would never have been rereleased. My writing career would be over before it had time to shine.

  Thank you to John who helped this shine even more.

  Thank you to Anne Mhairi who helped make this happen for me for making a cover and just being my friend.

  Thanks to the original crew at Just Ink Press for all their work into the original.

  Chapter 1

  Being an Immune had its advantages, but sometimes an Infected stuck it to me. Like last night. I’d been too slow, hesitated to make the kill. Now I’d pay for it; if only for a short time. The first kid stomping down the stairs warned me to hurry. I covered the nasty gash on the wrist I’d been tending with half a plan to redo the bandages later. I didn’t need my kids asking questions.

  Kyle sauntered in—I’d figured it was him abusing the stairs—tapping his fingers against his thigh to a tune only he could hear. He snagged a glass of orange juice and a piece of toast I had ready for him on the counter and alternately chugged his drink and took massive bites of the bread he’d folded in half.

  “Good morning, Kyle. Here’s your lunch.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” he said with a full mouth as he rushed toward the front door.

  “You’re not going to give your mom a kiss? What’s your rush?”

  “Mom,” he said with an eye roll. “I’m too old.”

  “You’re never too old to give your mom a kiss.” I laughed inwardly as he threw a quick peck on my cheek before flying out the door, banging the outer screen shut. He’d come home after cross-country in the same manner. He never did anything quietly.

  I puttered around the kitchen and started the list of mundane tasks I had to do today. With my secret life becoming more intense of late, I’d taken to listing the everyday chores. Today’s list: grocery shopping, pick up Seth for his AAU basketball practice, and fitting in some writing time at the local book and coffee shop.

  I’d almost finished my coffee with today’s list ready to go when my younger son came loping into the kitchen, face crestfallen as if someone had eaten all his Halloween candy. He always moped around after being woke up. The tell-tale sign being his blanket still hung over his arm, like he planned to lie down and sleep wherever he landed.

  “Good morning, Seth.” I smiled at him.

  “Morning,” he mumbled begrudgingly. “What’s for breakfast?”

  Since his father left with nary a backward glance, breakfast became a ritual I maintained for him, even though he was ten and old enough to get his own. A plate of waffles with syrup waited for him on the counter. He trudged over, grabbed his plate and a glass of milk, then came back to sit at the table.

  He dug into his breakfast, eyes half-opened, his hands slow. The blanket trailed to the ground, forgotten. When nearly finished, his eyes brightened as he became more coherent. “Today’s basketball practice!” His moping vanished, as if it had never been there in the first place.

  As I grinned at him, I replied, “Don’t forget to ride the bus home, or you’ll miss practice. You’re riding with Jimmy today. I’ll pick you up after basketball, though.”

  He nodded vigorously and became antsy. “Maybe I’ll make all my free throws today. Last time I missed two, but they hit the rim before falling out.”

  Smiling at his eagerness, I made the noncommittal noises moms everywhere had perfected when their children waxed poetic on their latest fads. Before basketball, it was “Halo Reach”. Or one of those video games. I couldn’t keep them straight. At least with basketball, I had a clue what he talked about.

  He finished his breakfast, downed the last of his milk in one big gulp, and snagged his backpack. “Three minutes ‘til the bus comes. I’m leaving now. ‘Kay, Mom?” He gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Thank God he hadn’t started that nonsense about being too old yet.

  When he left, I slipped my shoes on and headed out in my minivan. I looked longingly at the Harley sitting next to it—my other persona. But today was Mom day.

  On the way to the Safeway about fifteen minutes from my house, I mentally went over my grocery list. Seth had begged me to buy microwave popcorn. Personally, I didn’t like the excess salt in them, but it was better than some of his choices.

  As I grabbed a cart on my way in, I saw a car remarkable in that it was so unremarkable. It was a nice car and sparkling clean, devoid of the bling people in our area put on their vehicles.

  The rims were mid-line. The car didn’t have any painting detail. No cutesy air freshener hanging from the window. No “My Kid’s an Honor Student” bumper sticker. My senses tingled. None of those things were warning signs by themselves, but my intuition said something wasn’t right. On the other hand, it was probably none of my business.

  Moving into the store, I forgot about the car and pulled the stuff on my list off the shelves, lamenting at the recent price hikes—a result of gas being sky high.

  In the produce aisle, I felt someone staring at me. There. The man in a blue suit. Strange things always happened the produce aisle. Why? I think it had something to do with being able to see so far over the food surrounding you. People acted as if they were invisible because they’d picked up a tomato. As my senses tingled, I decided I didn’t need salad for dinner. That wou
ld make dinner hit the table quicker before I needed to get ready for my night of killing the Infected—otherwise known as zombies. I headed to check out.

  The man in the blue suit didn’t follow me. Must have been my nerves. When living a dangerous second life, it paid to be overly cautious. A small sigh of relief escaped as I left the store and rapidly pushed my cart to the van. I’d started loading the groceries when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.

  Frowning, I held the cantaloupe in my hands as if weighing it. A tall man in a black suit came my way. I was pretty sure the guy in the store wore blue. Didn’t he? How many suits and ties went shopping in the late morning anyway? Were they working together? The guy in the black suit walked up to me and grabbed my arm. Holding back my initial instinct to beat the crap out of him—starting with a melon to his head—I glared at him instead. Screaming was out; it might bring innocent bystanders into harm’s way.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demanded

  His eyebrows went up, surprised at the question. “You’re coming with us. Now.”

  Us? What us? Then it hit me—good thing it wasn’t my melon for how dense I’d been for a moment—the blue-suited man. Yanking my arm out of his grip, I pivoted and came face-to-face with Blue Suit. He had a syringe. I wasn’t too worried about what was in there. It took more than a little Valium to knock me out. I crushed the melon over the top of Blue Suit’s head. He lunged at me with the syringe and I punched him in the eye and sideswiped his legs from under him. I still didn’t want to be stuck with whatever he had in the needle.

  Black Suit grabbed me from behind, his arm circling my waist. I threw my head back into his face, then turned and punched him in the nose. There was a satisfying crunch a moment before I felt the prick of a needle. I turned to tell him it was no good hitting me with common knock out drugs, but my vision blurred. The last I remembered from the parking lot was Black Suit’s ugly mug and the bruise spreading under his eye.

  When I woke, my head spun. I ignored it in favor of accepting the pack of cigarettes they gave me when I asked, and stalled for time. The room was larger than most interrogation rooms—don’t ask me how I know—but still narrow. The concrete walls made it feel claustrophobic. The tattered desk looked straight out of a noir story, complete with a single light overhead. With a quick brush of my hands across my derriere, I moved off the floor where they’d dumped me to the chair they’d indicated off on one side of the desk. What the hell was going on?

  My hair stuck to the side of my face, the drying sweat made me itch. I wanted to scratch the top layer of my skin off. Already pissed off because I had no idea what time it was and didn’t know what had happened with Kyle and Seth, I tried to contain my rage. But the questions went round and round, not helping the spinning in my head. Was it after school yet? Was Seth waiting around for a mom who wasn’t going to show up? Pissed and uncomfortable weren’t good bedfellows. Not that these assholes cared.

  Whatever they’d done to me—presumably a ride in the trunk of their car—I’d been sweating like a runner in a marathon and now I needed a shower. Not to mention hungry as hell. Maybe they’d be kind and throw in a nice, rare steak with the shower when I got out of this shithole and back to my kids. If I made it out. It didn’t seem like a situation where they planned on killing me, but none of what happened felt right. I was afraid to ask the time. Afraid they’d figure out why I wanted to know and use my kids as leverage.

  At least the kidnappers let me have the smokes. It helped keep my anger at bay, although I couldn’t fathom why they’d kidnap me, then let me light up.

  The two of them stood on the other side of the table. Black Suit gazed down at me, his distaste palpable. I wore what I called my ‘day clothes’, and surely it wasn’t helping them come to terms with me. They had to wonder, how the hell does a writer fight like I did? It was only fair; I had trouble coming to terms with the fact they’d knocked me out cold. Believe me, it wasn’t easy. I looked down at my clothes to remember what I’d put on. Oh yeah. Acid-wash jeans, old t-shirt and Nikes made up my public persona. My mom face. But I didn’t think a mother of two was the person they currently searched for.

  No. They likely wanted the woman in the file they held. I leaned back on the old wooden chair and put my feet up on the matching desk. Unease slithered through my gut as I wondered if the brown stain was coffee or blood.

  Blue Suit, the slightly shorter and dourer of the partners, held my file. I recognized it from the unique symbol on the label and speculated how much of it had been sanitized—a remnant from my stint in the military hospital after a freak biological substance leaked in my neighborhood. I’d seen the file many times, both the “public” and “private” ones, back when I was still married, and before I found out my husband cheated on me. I put an abrupt stop to that train. It left the station a long time ago.

  I stubbed out my cigarette in the small old-fashioned glass ashtray on the desk. They obviously didn’t have an updated dossier on me or they never would’ve left me with such a handy weapon, much less matches. Wonder whose mistake that was.

  My hand hovered over the ashtray in a seemingly idle gesture.

  Blue Suit read from the file, “Name, Serena L. Rouge, formally Hartson at the time of hospitalization. Age, thirty. Occupation, writer.”

  I resisted the urge to blow the hair out of my eyes or make any other movement they might misconstrue as nervousness and listened to his voice drone out the basics. My smile grew wider at his incredulous tone. I’d bet money he wondered to how some peon of a writer gave him a black eye and broke his partner’s nose.

  Black Suit, the one with the broken nose and truly atrocious attitude, glared at me with puffy eyes. He spoke like he had a bad cold; due in part to my resistance in the parking lot. But really, was it my fault they didn’t do their homework before kidnapping me?

  “Hey, this is serious,” Blue Suit said, noting my smile.

  My smile widened at his cranky tone. Needling assholes never got old. “Since you haven’t bothered to explain why you’ve kidnapped a citizen with no outstanding warrants or other reason to be arrested, I’m not sure why you think I should take you seriously.”

  My anger was barely suppressed. I thought again of my boys at school. Or home. Or lost for all I knew. I could control the urge to hurt these fuckheads again, but I really didn’t want to. Only my extreme need to keep my secret life, well, secret from yahoos like these guys, kept me sitting in a pseudo-relaxed position. As long as it seemed they didn’t have the latest information, I didn’t want to give them a reason to go digging.

  “If you’re so innocent, then why’d you fight us?”

  I stared. Was he completely stupid? Where did the government—I assumed since they had a military file, they were affiliated somehow—find these guys? No wonder the zombies were winning. “Duh? Every woman is told to fight to prevent being kidnapped. You were abducting me—in public no less—for fuck’s sake. What’d you expect?”

  I lit another cigarette I didn’t want so I had a weapon ready. Also, I’d noticed Black Suit didn’t like the smoke. Definite plus in my book.

  They couldn’t possibly want my writer persona, yet they seemed unaware I possessed other skills. Skills my anger continued to push me to put to use. What did they want? Anyway I looked at it, it smarted being kidnapped by these bumbling idiots. But they’d managed to knock me out cold. I needed to know what the hell they used in the syringe. It was hard to bring me down—ever since the accident.

  “We missed you at home and it couldn’t wait.”

  What the fuck ever. “Why am I here?” I sucked in the cigarette smoke, then let it out in perfect rings. I’d worked hard to perfect the skill. It amazed me how uncaring I appeared while doing it—I’d practiced in front of a mirror. I took note of the door and how far away it was, listening to his answer.

  “You’re here as follow-up to your biological hazard accident a few years ago. We’re checking in on everybody,�
� Black Suit said, managing to sound condescending despite his nasal impairment.

  I sat my chair down hard on all for legs and stood. “Wrong answer, boys. I’m not stupid. If this were truly about the accident, we’d be sitting in a hospital or military lab. Not an interrogation room.” They looked shocked. “Yes, I know what kind of facility I’m in.

  “They’ve already done about a hundred follow-ups with me. No, this is something else. My only questions are: where am I and why am I here? What have I done? Make that three questions.” I pulled in a long drag and blew it out at Black Suit, which pissed him off more, I noted with vicious pleasure. “Well?”

  Blue Suit waved his partner down when he took an angry step toward me. I nearly smiled. He had a cantaloupe seed stuck in his hair. He’d cleaned up, but somehow missed it. “We need your help. We suspect others have become infected with the same virus from your accident. Since you’ve been exposed already and shown remarkable resistance to it, we’ve decided to enlist your aid.”

  Shit. This created a problem. Now what? At night, I secretly hunted down zombies, or as I called them when not feeling prosaic, the Infected. I didn’t mean those with the AIDS virus Blue Suit alluded to who were more fortunate than their counterparts. Until the final stages of the worst cases, the Infected appeared like everyone else. I was immune to it, but no one could prove it—except me. I resisted the urge to check if my gun remained in the ankle holster. My security blanket. I never left home without it and a knife.

  “A remarkable resistance?” It was hard to believe they were standing there, having kidnapped me, and tried to play games with me. “The government fucks up and tries to blame the gay community, causing a wave of violence and bigotry unmatched since slavery; I’m exposed to AIDS through some freak accident—again caused by the government. I lose my husband. Nearly lost custody of my kids, and that’s all you can say? I show remarkable resistance? Jesus fucking Christ, you guys are some major assholes.” I leaned forward, letting some of my righteous anger show to hide a spurt of fear. What if they discovered my double life as a zombie killer?