The Dead Infested: Second Bane

By Edward Russell

The undead have risen and taken over the world. Humanity is fractured and the remaining factions do not trust one another. Some will do whatever it takes to possess what they covet or do not have. A well armed military unit and a ruthless band of nomad bikers converge on an aquaculture compound with desires of owning it and the food it produces. Ward Wilson struggles to start humanity over within the compound while trying to defend it from those who would take it. Then there is the stranger who comes along and is wanted by all three groups because he just might be the key to saving humanity. All the while the undead are a constant threat always looking for a way in and fresh meat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edward Russell
• Release date: Feb 3, 2011

Edward Russell

Middle aged writer who can't quite decide if he wants to write, work full time, or go back to college so he does all three.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Sergeant Matt Kult closed his eyes. In his mind he counted to ten in an effort to calm himself. He took a slow deep breath, in through the nose and out from the mouth. He needed to be relaxed; it was easier if he was relaxed.

This building was not clear. Sergeant Kult, also known as ‘the Incredible Kult’ to his Army buddies, knew it; he could practically feel it. As his breathing calmed he slowly opened his eyes letting them acclimate again to the darkness. Kult did not believe in anything supernatural but he did believe one could feel if they opened themselves to it. He had always been able to do it, ever since he was a kid. Just relax; open your mind and you could almost feel the people around you.

At least Kult often could. It was more difficult now with all the gear he was wearing but he could still pull it off. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, slow and easy, clear your mind. Kult told himself. Relax and feel the area around you. Although he would never admit it Kult used that mantra anytime he needed to find something he couldn’t see.

It worked for him; ever since he was a little kid playing games of tag at night or hide and seek. Back then in the neighborhood no one had wanted to play against him. At least not until they started getting a little older and then the girls seemed to really like the idea. Kult realized early on that he was attractive to the opposite sex. In his younger days he was not all that attracted to girls. It was not that he was attracted to other men, just that he found girls to be annoying. Most of them never shut up and often Kult preferred to be left alone with his thoughts.

Such an attitude just served to make him more attractive to women though. Some of his friends thought he had things too easy. Born with good looks and a natural athleticism, many things came to him readily. He had been a little larger than most of the boys and he liked to be active. As he aged the size gap had widened between him and his peers. And he really liked to exert himself; he liked to fight. It was not a mean streak that ran inside him or a need to dominate. He just felt alive when in the midst of a struggle. His teachers and family had tried to steer him towards football and for a year or two that worked. Then he found wrestling. Kult loved to wrestle. Just him and some other guy who was the same size more or less in a test of strength and will. Wrestling provided him with a full ride scholarship through college but left something to be desired as a career path. Professional wrestling did not appeal to him. The Army did though.

In his early days he enjoyed challenging his drill sergeants to work him until he dropped, which they were only too happy to do. As he moved up in rank he had a squad of his own to challenge. It satisfied his need for struggle.

The zombie apocalypse served him well also. Now everyday was a constant struggle just to survive against an enemy that had no fear and never quit. This was why he always volunteered to enter buildings and clear them out. He could have deserted like so many others had but Kult did not see the point. As far as he knew the entire world was now infested with the living dead so there was no escaping it.

At least with Colonel Hastings there was a plan, a mission, and a chance to fight back. Hastings had it together, he was squared away. The Colonel was keeping the struggle alive. He was even trying to take the fight to the zips, which is what everyone in the unit had taken to calling the zombies. For some reason using the term zombie just didn’t work. Maybe it was because zombies were not supposed to be real and by calling them zips instead it gave everyone a handhold. Something to use in the hope of clinging to sanity. Whatever the reason the term had been adopted by the unit and anyone who joined them.

The nature of the mission even appealed to Kult. Hastings was not just trying to take the zips head on. He was searching for their weakness. The Colonel was convinced that there would be something, a flaw that could be exploited and Kult believed it as well. What Kult did not know was why Hastings thought this area of the country held the secret, why it was so key. Kult did not worry about that part though; he just went and did as he was told. Right now he was supposed to secure this building so that was what he was doing. That was why he had his eyes closed now, so he could feel the hallway he was in.

He could see it in his mind now. No doors on the right but two on the left, both closed, with one final door at the end of the hall. There was, however, an area off to the right and his first impression was that it was a branch. It wasn’t though; it was just a small open space. With something in it. It was one of them, a zip. It was not moving which happened sometimes. A few of them did not just shamble around seeking people to eat. Every now and then the unit came across a zip that just stood in place. Kult eased quietly towards the first shut door and listened. Hearing nothing he opened the door quickly but silently scanning the room with his rifle up and ready to fire. The room was dark but the flashlight affixed to his weapon illuminated it enough to show that it was devoid of people and zips. Kult backed out and glanced down the hallway, checking on the zip he knew to be there. Part of him wanted to go destroy it right now but he knew the biggest danger when dealing with the undead was getting surrounded and overwhelmed. If the one down the hall moved towards him he should have time to get a round off. He eased towards the next door. Still watching down the hallway he placed his head against the door. He was wearing the standard issue Kevlar helmet so his ear could not reach the door but sometimes if there was something going on in a room he could still hear noise. Nothing. As quietly as he could Kult opened the door and scanned the room. He saw no bodies but this room was full of dividers. He hated office cubicles; there were so many places a zip could be hiding. He should have a team to clear that room just to be safe. Glancing at the zip that was still standing motionless, he blew a steady breath on the microphone under his mouth to activate it.

Kult here, have a prairie dog town, hallway bravo second door on left. Send a team." He waited for a response.

The modern radios used by the military made unit communication almost thoughtless. The earpiece receiver snapped right into the helmet and the transmitter was just a thin tube that branched off of the ear piece and curved around the chin to just below the lips. Earlier models had been voice activated which worked but tended to miss the first couple of syllables spoken. Being able to turn the mic on with a soft breath kept the channel clear, unless there was a mouth breather in the unit, until something needed to be communicated. It would also activate with normal speech for when things got out of hand and people panicked.

10-4 point, Alpha team coming in behind you came the reply. Kult had forgotten that he was considered ‘point’ at the moment. That was not a big deal though, there were not enough people left in the unit to worry about proper radio protocol. Now that the team was coming in behind him it was time to take out the non-moving zip. Kult walked down the hallway and stopped just to the left side of the thing. He raised his weapon but paused before sending the contents of its brain pan against the back wall. Something was making him hesitate. He thought perhaps it might be a good idea to keep things as quiet as possible until they had to start firing.

One thing about gun shots, they summoned the zips like a dinner bell. Kult moved his weapon over to his left hand, still pointing at the undead thing’s head and pulled his hammer from his web belt. The hammer he was using now was originally designed for auto body work but Kult found it well suited for crushing zombie skulls. The back side was shaped like a rail road spike and with little effort would penetrate a skull without getting stuck. It made for a silent kill when needed.

Still something was bothering him, setting off an alarm inside his head. It was a very faint alarm, almost as if not to arouse the zip, but still it was there. Kult paused and looked closely at the zombie. In life it had been a woman probably in her late forties or early fifties, a little over weight with dusty gray hair. She looked so peaceful now breathing shallowly. Kults eyes widened with horror as he realized what he had missed.

Earlier his sense let him feel the extra presence in the hallway but his eyes had failed to warn him that this one was breathing. Regular zombies did not breathe, berserkers did! Berserkers did many things the regular zips did not. They were fast and agile and all the while enraged. They were like coke heads on steroids. They were not as interested in eating people as they were in just general destruction. Whatever it was that made the zips the way they were had the opposite effect on berserkers. They were hell unleashed, wrecking balls that changed course just so they could destroy something else. A rampaging berserker could make a battle hardened vet piss his pants and Kult had walked right up on one.

With his fear morphing into anger Kult raised the body hammer, intending to slam the pointed end into the berserker’s skull. As he raised his arm up the tip of the hammer’s head lightly brushed against the forearm of the zombie. He was able to utter a single word but because he did not blow on the microphone first all that was transmitted was ‘ZERKER’. She opened her eyes and they locked on his.

For what seemed like minutes but was actually only a single second they stared at each other. For his part Kult was disgusted with this woman turned abomination. He loathed these things. They were no longer human and deserved neither compassion nor mercy. They only deserved to die, permanently. In her eyes all Kult could read was rage, thoughtless unchecked rage. He wanted to bring the hammer down on her head but she reacted just a fraction of a second sooner. Her arms shot forward and drove him into the wall behind. The force of the impact was enough that even with the body armor the air was driven from his lungs. Kult saw bright flashes before his eyes and his right arm started to drop. The zombie stepped forward, grabbing him by his web gear. He tried to bring the hammer around but she was able to bite down on his hand. Instantly two of his fingers were gone, bitten off and swallowed. The pain was intense and he would have screamed if he had the breath to make a sound. The agony shooting up his arm cleared his head though and he was able to move his left arm so that the muzzle of his rifle was right against the zombie. He pulled and held the trigger releasing a three round burst into the zombie’s midsection. The impact of the rounds paused the monster and gave Kult time to release and then pull the trigger again. The second burst drove her backwards but she did not release her grip on him. With an inhuman scream she slammed him into the door to his left, causing it to explode into splinters and revealing a stairwell going down. The shock of being slammed through a door caused Kult to drop his weapon, but that was the least of his worries. Even though his ears were ringing from the trauma of being manhandled, he could still hear the muffled sound of automatic M16 fire. The squad had arrived and opened fire on the berserker zombie. There would be no concern for his safety at this point. Had he just been surrounded by a few shambling zombies the team would have tried to be more precise. With a berserker the standard procedure was to unload as many rounds as possible because they moved much faster and were much more aggressive. If you hesitated, aimed for a head shot and were off by just a fraction you were dead. The berserker woman hurled Kult down the stairwell and turned to face her attackers.

He felt as if he were falling in slow motion. He could see the stairs moving up and away from him and cursed his luck that the stairwell was wide enough to have a space for him to fall through. His attitude quickly changed when his left arm struck a hand rail and broke with a snap. This momentary resistance to his path to the bottom was enough to cause his body to rotate so that he was able to see where he was falling. One more flight, perhaps twenty feet. And there, waiting with almost open arms were more zombies. That was the bad news. The good news, with a dark cloud lining, was that they broke his fall. Kult crashed into them and he heard the breaking of bones again. This time though they were not his own. Again the wind was knocked out of him but it was not as bad this time. His body was slipping into shock and he passed out.

What Kult did not see was the half dozen zombies start to make their way up the three flights of stairs. They ignored him as an inanimate object moving towards the activity upstairs. Even the one he had landed on pulled itself slowly up the stairs with its arms, its legs no longer functioning. Kult was not quite dead but he did not have long left in this life.

Colonel Hastings looked up when he heard ‘ZERKER’ come across the radio. He quickly walked over to the corpsman working the gear. Without being asked the man quickly and calmly gave all the known details to the Colonel.

He was in the command vehicle which was an armored and tricked out recreational vehicle. From the outside it looked like a mobile home with a camouflage paint scheme. Originally it had been designed to be used for intelligence gathering, eavesdropping on cell phone and other communications. During normal times the military was expressly forbidden from collecting such information but since the rising it became a very useful tool. Hastings had been able to detect and locate pockets of activity, which included computer networks that were still functioning. He also had the good fortune to have come across a couple of young computer hackers who were only too grateful to ply their trade in exchange for some security and normalcy. With their help he had been able to discover some very interesting information. It was just a hint though, a tease. To find out more he had to secure this area and recover the systems contained therein.

Hastings believed this place; this obscure research facility might hold the secret to the zombie uprising. Whatever had caused it, be it infection or radiation or an ill advised chemical compound, the details were here. Knowing something of what made these bastard things might give them an edge to defeating them. All across the country this plague had taken its toll, wiping out more people than the Black Death had. Only in this case they came back. The government and CDC had been slow to react, thinking in the first few critical hours that the reports coming in were a hoax.

Then as the military was called in and marital law declared the information superhighway provided the sickness, the plague with the window it needed to spread throughout the country. Misinformation and panic along with mistrust of the government spread faster than any wildfire ever had. The twenty-four hour news channels tried to relay the news and information they had but in the beginning no one knew anything.

The result was anarchy and generally law abiding citizens took arms and barricaded themselves in their homes or tried to evacuate. People began to shoot first and not bother with questions later. Society broke down within hours. That was past history though and right now he had to lead his men.

He knew that Kult had been on point in the second building. Kult was just supposed to secure the entry and wait for back up. Hastings had wanted to avoid exactly this, having his forces divided. Kult must have gotten impatient and was most likely dead now because of it. The first building had been nearly empty but it was important that every room, every closet was searched before they moved on to the next building.

Who’s the lead? he asked

Tinsdale sir, lines are open replied the corpsman as he turned up an external speaker. Hastings could hear the fire fight going on. Within a few seconds the roar abruptly stopped. Over the radio he could hear Tinsdale’s voice.

Cease fire, target is down, cease fire…Manning confirm the kill silence, followed by another short burst of gunfire.

Target is a confirmed kill.

Freels, you and Mundell keep this entrance secured, Cobbs go with Manning and secure the end of the hall Tinsdale commanded.

Hastings liked her. She had no previous military experience but was a natural leader. She also knew how to handle a weapon, and better than most.

What do you see Sergeant? Hastings asked.

Positive on the berserker Sir, no sign of Sergeant Kult but I have an idea which direction he might be. Tinsdale answered. Hastings started to speak when he was cut off.

Shamblers LT, coming up the stairwell believe it or not. Hastings was not sure who had said that, it was hard to distinguish voices over the radio. ‘Shamblers’ he thought. It was crazy enough that zombies had become a reality; the fact that there were different types was just absurd. It was important to classify