To Survive

  To Survive

  Written By: Mike Staton

  Cover Design By: Ellie Krysl

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

  To Survive. Copyright © 2017 by Mike Staton. All rights reserved.

  Acknowledgements

  A gigantic thank you goes out to Ellie Krysl for the amazing cover design. If you like her work, see more of it at www.elliekrysl.com.

  Thank you to my beta and proofreaders Nicole, and Rick. You were instrumental in refining this piece of work.

  Thank you to all the wonderful folk out at the Lincoln Zombie Walk. You helped me promote the first book and, in some ways, this one wouldn’t exist without y’all.

  Thank you to Professor Brown of the University of Kearney for inviting me out to your class. It was the first time I actually felt like an author and not just another writer. And thank you for the handful of contacts that interaction provided me with.

  Meimei, thank you for reading the drivel that was the alpha-copy of this book. Your continued desire to read new chapters kept me writing even when it got hard.

  Thank you to Chris for giving this book a final perusal and pointing out the small flaws.

  And a quick thanks to Trish for helping with the blurb of the book.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 1

  Kat stalked through the remnants of her home. She wove through the buildings on the outskirts of Prosperity Wells, following the throaty gurgle of a diesel engine. She’d seen the Humvee roll into town on her scouting run.

  She moved past the barbershop. She ignored that the red and white pole had been painted further reddish brown. Her combat boots stepped lightly over a fallen person as she crept down the street and edged around the corner. She held her breath, listening to the growl of the engine. This was the closest she’d been to those responsible for the destruction of her home and it twisted her guts into an incomprehensible tangle.

  She’d been among the lucky ones: a member of the Watchmen and out on patrol when the attack happened. A patrol she’d volunteered for and in the end, that volunteering had saved her life.

  She reached down and gently stroked the eyes of Valerie closed. Kat didn’t keep her gaze on the body of the young woman for longer than she needed to. She couldn’t afford to break down for her lost friends, the family she’d come to know and trust, now. Not when vengeance could be wrought.

  She flicked her tongue over her lips, carefully hidden behind a Plexiglas-modified paintball mask. She sprinted up the street, hopped over another fallen friend, and ducked through the bakery. She exited the shop on the far side as she neared the center of Prosperity wells.

  She stopped and listened. The deep, rumbling growl of the vehicle’s engine abruptly ceased. She silently cursed herself.

  Kat didn’t know just where the damned vehicle had stopped. She could guess, it had been making its way into the heart of the town, straight for campus, and likely had gotten there.

  She’d not seen any zombies on her trek into town, but that didn’t mean that there weren’t any at all. If anything, it meant they were more interested in whoever was making all the noise.

  That noise had just ceased.

  She let out a soft string of expletives. Without knowing exactly where, and the sound had echoed among the stone buildings of the booming downtown region, she’d have to guess direction and be far more careful in her movements.

  Why they would come back here baffled her. They’d gotten away clean. They’d murdered an entire town and disappeared into the night. Kat resisted the temptation to slam her fist into the wall as she slipped out of the alcove leading to Prosperity Wells First National Bank.

  She wasn’t nearly as focused as she needed to be. She’d been distracted since losing home. They all had. And she’d been the calmest and most collected of them all. Or at least she’d presented that front to them.

  She licked her lips again, glanced at the slate grey sky overhead and moved down the street. She held her breath as she moved and paused to listen at the next building corner. She peeked around it, carefully.

  The street beyond looked just as desolated and abandoned as the rest of Prosperity Wells. Dead littered the street, shop fronts bore boarded up windows, the concrete Jersey Barricades that served for their makeshift wall remained intact and in place. The street was abandoned otherwise. They’d moved the cars well away from the campus center when the dead rose and it became obvious they’d need to fend for themselves.

  She shot down the street in a half crouch. The silence bothered her. It was late autumn sure, but the lack of bird songs or bug sounds gave the impression that nothing remained. It made it easy to hear the living, however.

  Kat hit the wall as the sound of the Humvee’s door slamming closed echoed from nearby. She slung her rifle over her shoulder and secured her pistol. She waited for half a heartbeat before she turned to the wall and hoisted herself up and over. She pulled herself over the thrice stacked barricades and flopped over with less grace than she was proud of, but at least she landed on her feet.

  She held her breath and readied her rifle, listening carefully for the tiniest of sounds to reach her. The peal of thunder and waiting storm overhead answered her readiness. Prosperity Wells maintained its deathly silence. She swiveled her gaze back and forth along the avenue she found herself on before near silently sprinting down the street. She maintained her half crouch as she covered the ground and neared the heart of the small town.

  She hopped over another small barricade, dodged around fallen zombies, and rounded a corner to put herself on a straight away for the heart of the college campus. The place that had been home when home was gone.

  Despite the autumn chill, beads of sweat broke through her forehead. She coursed around a corner, skidded to a halt, and backpedaled to cover.

  The Humvee sat in the middle of the street, just around the corner. In her brief glimpse around that corner, she hadn’t seen anyone in it, but she had found herself slightly distracted by thoughts of ambushing those bastards who’d stolen the adopted family that was more family to her than those who shared her blood.

  She dropped to her belly and inched forward until she could peek around the corner.

  The Humvee stood abandoned and silent. She flicked her tongue over her lips and inched back. It’d been stopped just before it would get stuck in between the two dormitories. The chain-link fence stretching between the two building laid on the ground. Kat stared for longer than she was proud of. She slid back from the edge and rose to her feet.

  Kat cradled her rifle in one hand and gingerly pulled a small ring of keys from her pocket. It took her only a moment to open the dormitory door, a heavy and reinforced hunk of steel, and slip inside. She flicked on a red-cellophane covered flashlight and positively sprinted across the empty dormitory. The groun
d floor had long been emptied out to give clear lines of fire for defenders.

  Her feet carried her swiftly to the stairwell and upward. She paused every third step to wait and listen to the silence. While she doubted it, a ghoul or some living enemy could be waiting for her in the dark confines of the building. She broke onto the second floor as a man’s voice, muffled and indistinct, drifted through the wall.

  “Hello? Hello! Anyone there? Where is everyone!”

  Kat’s step faltered at the exit from the stairwell. She recognized the voice. They hadn’t seen the team sent for an extended excursion into the new world for over a month. Some, not her, had succumbed to the belief that the entire group had fallen to the wilds.

  The world had, after all, become a far more dangerous place since society fell and the dead walked.

  Kat could barely believe her ears and slammed the push-bar of the door to leave the stairwell, heedless of the noise she created. She sprinted down three doors, she knew this dorm well, and rounded the corner through the door into her old room.

  It’d been converted into a firing position since the reformation of campus. The walls held an array of rifle marksmanship awards and commendations, some relics of her old life, and a picture of her standing next to an aging colonel.

  She ignored them and slid earplugs into her ears as she dropped into position at the window. She flipped her rifle into her firing position at the windowsill and sighted down its length.

  The man, solitary and armed to the teeth, stood motionless halfway across the yard of the student union. He wore a set of dirty blue-jeans, dark leather jacket, and a black motorcycle helmet. A pistol hung from his right hip with some sort of combat shotgun looped in a makeshift holster on his back. A sledgehammer dropped from his hands and thudded into the grass. His gaze remained locked on the swinging corpses of the council.

  He fell to his knees, the motorcycle helmet lapsing forward in grief as the sky split overhead and the rain that’d been threatening off for the better part of the day fell in heavy, thick drops.

  “Percival?” Kat muttered to herself. His build matched that of the man before her, and he favored a motorcycle helmet over other types of head protection. “Get up…”

  Motion across her field of vision drew her attention. A zombie in a white sun dress shambled from around the demolished and burning Student Union. She lifted both arms and uttered a moan, the loud feeding moan meant to draw in more zombies. It sent a shiver through Kat’s innards. The walking dead still bothered her, even after all of her encounters with them over the past months.

  The moan was answered, almost immediately, by another zombie somewhere nearby. Kat flicked her tongue over her lips.

  Percival hadn’t responded.

  She adjusted her angle in the window and found her shot blocked by the man on his knees before her. “Get up and move, damn it.”

  The feeding moan echoed through the building. Percival’s head finally lifted as the rain began in earnest.

  Kat muttered a few more obscenities, then shouted: “Get the fuck up!”

  And the bastard did. Percival must have heard her shout through the building storm and rose to his feet. But instead of drawing weapon and disposing of the ghoul before him, he took several steps forward into her waiting and hungry embrace.

  Kat forced herself to be calm, sighted down the end of her rifle as more ghouls appeared from between four buildings around the Student Union. She steadied her weapon, let out a long, slow, calming breath, and depressed the trigger as the zombie embracing Percival nuzzled into his shoulder.

  It was a dangerous shot. Especially in the rain. Especially with her low caliber rifle. It didn’t take much to blow a .22 off course.

  But her training and a touch of luck paid off as the round snapped through the braincase of the zombie and sent both ghoul and man tumbling to the ground. Kat sighted the next nearest zombie and squeezed her trigger. Two shots later and she’d put it down. Feeding moans echoed through Prosperity Wells, almost drowned out by the downpour. Kat cursed, put down one more zombie before slinging her rifle and abandoning her spot in the window.

  Percival hadn’t moved since the first shot. Why did he let the zombie bite him? Where were the others? What had happened?

  Kat forced questions out of her mind. She had a new task. Her feet barely touched the stairs as she descended to the ground level. She fumbled with her keys to pull the spring-loaded deadbolt back on the door leading to the quad.

  Half a moment to catch her breath and drop the keys back into her pocket was all she allowed herself before she shouldered the door open. She whipped her pistol, a heavy .45 caliber automatic, from its holster. It thudded dully in her hands as she sprinted across the grass and through the rain.

  She wished she were good enough that every bullet down range put down a ghoul, but in reality it was closer to every third or fourth found its true mark. Blood bloomed in chests, or meaty chunks of flesh exploded away from necks, and for every expended bullet she was half a step closer to Percival.

  The slide on her pistol locked back as she reached him. She hit the magazine release automatically and changed her magazines with a fluid grace and calm that belied her pounding heart. She hit her slide release and dropped to her knees, in the same movement she slammed her pistol back into its holster.

  She roughly wrenched the dead ghoul from the man and shoved her aside. In the next moment, she whipped the motorcycle helmet’s visor up.

  “Oh, shit. It is you.”

  Percival’s eyes didn’t open as she disturbed him. She’d hoped he would bounce back to consciousness. But having confirmation that this man was who she’d expected was enough. For now.

  Kat looked up, swiftly assessed her situation. Four more zombies on the yard. No runners. She had time.

  She pulled Percival’s jacket away and let out an exasperated groan. The bitch zombie had bitten right through it and into his shoulder. Kat uttered a string of eccentric obscenities she’d learned from a marine and capped it with: “Get off your ass, Polz. You ain’t dead yet.”

  She shifted back and looked around once more. The zombies closed the distance. Half the yard remained and two more zombies made their way from elsewhere on campus. It wouldn’t take much longer before an entire horde had gathered here.

  Kat wasn’t a big woman. She could hold her own against someone much bigger than herself, but that was mostly using their momentum against them. She couldn’t carry Percival.

  She grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled with all her might. She stepped backward and hauled him to a sitting position.

  “Wake up, damn it. You’re too big for me to carry on my own.” Kat frantically whipped her head around. She pulled her pistol from its holster and held Percival with one hand as she put down the nearest two zombies.

  She kept a mental tally of her remaining rounds. She didn’t have the ammunition to go all out on the ghouls in the yard, much less the ones who might arrive in the next few minutes.

  She shook the rain from her head and slammed her pistol back into her holster. She brought her gloved hand across the side of the helmet.

  “Come out of it. Come back to me.” She slapped the helmet again, then slid her hand under Percival’s chin and undid the clasp. Half a moment later she’d whipped the helmet off and slapped the man directly.

  Percival’s eyes fluttered open. “Sarah?”

  “Wrong chick, but thank God you’re with me. Get up…” Kat’s voice broke into a pleading whine.

  His eyes focused on her and lapsed closed once more.

  Kat whipped her hand against his cheek once more. “No you don’t. Get up. I can’t carry you and defend us.”

  “You couldn’t carry me by yourself,” Percival muttered low enough she nearly lost it to the rain and her ear plugs. His eyes opened once more and focused on her face.

  His gaze went long a moment later and in a blur of movement he pulled his pistol and jammed it toward her face. Its explosion of fi
re thudded solidly in her chest and rang in her protected ears. The hot brass bounced off the hard plastic of her mask.

  Kat spun off him half a moment later, just in time to see a zombie topple to the grass.

  Percival muttered something that was lost to the rain and ring of her ears.

  “That’s nice. Can you walk?”

  “Shoulder feels like it’s on fire…” Percival touched his shoulder and brought them away red. His head thumped solidly to the grass, eyes closed once more.

  Kat scanned the lawn. Half a dozen zombies had replaced the one Percival’d just put down. “We don’t have time. Get up. Leaving you isn’t an option.”

  Percival didn’t object. He slid his pistol back into its holster with some difficulty and took her forearm in a solid grasp when she offered it.

  “Good… this isn’t going to be easy.” Kat hauled him to his feet with a touch of difficulty. The man carried more than just his physical mass with him. She helped steady him before turning away to check the zombies.

  “Just shamblers for now.” She pulled her pistol and put down the closest.

  “Never stays that way.” Percival’s voice sounded distant, clouded.

  “Can you walk on your own?” Kat spun back toward him, bent and scooped the motorcycle helmet from beside him. She pressed it into his chest. “You’ll want this.”

  Percival stared at the helmet for longer than Kat was honestly comfortable with before he pulled it onto his soaked head. “I can walk.”

  His unspoken words told her he didn’t want to.

  “Good. Keep up with me.” Kat smoothly swapped her pistol for her rifle and lined up two shots that put down an overweight zombie and Miss Herpadatz. The latter came after a moment of hesitation. It never got easier to put down someone you knew. “Dorm’ll hold them for a while.”

  She moved swiftly, with purpose and trusted that Percival was behind her.

  Chapter 2