Zombies! Episode 2.5: Homecomings

By Ivan Turner

For Daniel and Deanna Johnson, it's the end of the line. Whether by accident or by design it's time for their alter egos, Lance Naughton and Denise Luco to come out of hiding and face the consequences of their actions. Meanwhile, deep under the City of New York, Dillon Waters reflects on the choices both behind and in front of him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ivan Turner
• Release date: Feb 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465730381

Ivan Turner

A child of the movies, I was always consumed by fantastic stories told by others and translated into adventures to be retold by me through the action figure medium. As I grew older, I put the action figures away and moved into the realm of role playing. Though I never outgrew role playing, I certainly don't have the time for it anymore. Since I was eleven years old, I've been pouring almost every ounce of creative energy I have into writing.I graduated college in 1993 with a degree in computer science. I tried my hand at programming for a couple of years and found it pretty unsatisfying. I later became a partner at a comic book store, where I spent several years. Though it wasn't a financial success, the experience I gained from running the store and the people that I met (many of whom I'm still in touch with today) was priceless. After leaving the store, I settled into a career of teaching. I still teach at a public high school in New York. Ironically, I've picked up computer programming again, which is what I mostly teach.I've been writing the whole time.I released my first book electronically in 2010. Forty Leap was a turning point for me in both style and story building. The Book of Revelations, which was written earlier but released later, was sort of a midway point between the writer I was and the writer I've become. I experimented with a very odd style and a story that employed diverse characters and controversial situations.In September 2010, I released the first installment of Zombies! Zombies! has been a tremendous success for me that came very close to being made into a television series. Since Zombies!, I have written a five part miniseries called Castes and have been working on developing tabletops games, the first of which, ApocalypZe, was published in early 2014.Now, 6 years later, a 3rd Zombies! series is due to be released in September of 2016.

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Zombies! Episode 2.5: Homecomings

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 by Ivan Turner

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The people and events in this book are fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental.

***

What has come before…

Running from the law, Lance Naughton and Denise Luco assumed new identities and settled in Canada. There they tried to forge out new lives. They found a house and jobs and made friends with the neighbors, having dinner and playing Scrabble. It was a storybook life, but, for both Naughton and Luco, the storybook was boring and unfulfilling. Hamstrung by the fear of being discovered, Naughton began conducting a clandestine investigation into the Zombie Rights Association, the organization he believed responsible for a zombie catastrophe that spanned parts of New York City and New Jersey. With the help of his friend Trip Fevreaux, he not only found out information about the Zombie Rights Association, but also discovered some startling information about his own status as a fugitive. Meanwhile, just as frustrated, Luco had grown less careful with her identity and considered going back to New York to face the consequences of her actions.

Living in the subway, Dillon Waters, a ten year old boy, was convinced that he had stabilized his own existence. But simultaneous events have shifted his thinking. Despite his own lack of interest in the people living in the city above him, he got himself involved in helping a man stop a robbery. The man was wounded and Dillon helped him back to his lair. Along the way, he discovered that the intelligent zombie who had invaded his apartment building on the day of the Red Blizzard and tried to kill him was also lurking in the subway system. The combination of these events has left him confused about what he could and should do going forward.

***

Lance Naughton watched as his laptop powered down and then closed the lid. For long moments, he sat staring at the company logo stenciled on the top and wondered what he should do. It suddenly occurred to him that his life had become complicated. Throughout all of the time he had spent on the police force with all of those men under his command, he had never wondered what to do. Decisions, some with tremendous impact, came to him in an instant. Yet now he was without guidance and without answers. Denise was no help. He wouldn’t even broach the subject with her. What he had just learned, however, he would share with her. She would come home from work in about an hour with a fresh tale of woe. She hated her job and she hated playing the part of Deanna Johnson. She would complain bitterly as she always did.

And he would listen.

As he always did.

Then, when she was done, he would tell her his news…

…and ruin her day.

Standing up from the table in the dining room, he went first toward the kitchen and then changed his mind. Instead of eating something which would do further damage to his suddenly expanding middle, he about faced and headed for the front door. He wasn’t going anywhere special. He just wanted a breath of air. The Canadian nights were cold in August. At least, they were colder than the New York nights. He didn’t take a jacket because he didn’t plan on being out very long.

Leaning up against the support beam to his porch, Lance looked up into the sky and wondered what was happening back home. Suddenly, he drifted away. His thoughts were filled with images of his work in New York, of the women he had known, and the places he had seen. It was such a complete and pleasant trip that he was visibly startled when there came a loud crash from across the street. Looking up, he could see a broken window in the front of the Poletski household. The Poletskis were former friends of the Johnsons. Denise had struck up a relationship with Marilyn Poletski but Lance had never liked her husband Hugo. Their relationship had ended abruptly one night a couple of weeks before when Hugo had made a pass at Denise. Lance had conjectured that Hugo was probably abusing his wife. As he saw the stocky man pass in front of the battered window, baseball bat in hand, his suspicions were confirmed. Despite his training, Lance had had the good sense to leave well enough alone. If he got involved in some sort of domestic dispute, he’d have to talk to the police. That would his and Denise’s identities in danger. But since Trip had told him that there were no warrants out for their arrest, he’d been wondering how closely he needed to protect those identities. Maybe this was a sign. Maybe it was an opportunity, rather than a trap. Maybe it cast a bright white light on what had only moments ago appeared to be a complicated existence.

Gearing up for the confrontation, Lance stepped off of his porch and started across the street.

***

Denise left work in a terrible mood as always. The work at Rite-X was becoming less and less tolerable. Metzger had grown ever more bitter and he was taking it out on her. Most of the time, she let it go, let it feed her misery. This evening, though, he had insulted her one time too many. She was not a medical doctor and really didn’t know more about pharmaceuticals than he did. He was, after all, a trained pharmacist. But the opportunity for her to flaunt her medical knowledge presented itself and she took it, leaving him open mouthed and silent for once. Juliana, long recovered from her illness of a few weeks back, had laughed herself silly. As she drove home, Denise wondered just how long it would be before she would have to give up this job. It didn’t matter really. As the days went by, she was being more and more careless with her identity. Subconsciously, or maybe not so subconsciously, she was sabotaging herself, and Lance in the process. It was selfish of her. She had been ready to walk out on him, go back to New York on her own, but she had changed her mind. She had seen a flash of Lance Naughton through the Daniel Johnson façade and wanted to stay. But that feeling of loyalty was hardly sustainable. Deep inside, she felt guilty because she knew that Lance would never jeopardize their stability that way.

As she pulled up to the house, already concocting the bitter story as she would tell it, she saw the flashing lights of police cars and an ambulance. There