Viral Dawn

By Jade Lazlow

What if your world changed in seconds, destroying everything you thought you knew and thrusting you into a world where your very survival depends on every move you make, every decision, and every step you take? Every. Move. Matters.

An explosion at the army depot unleashes a deadly cloud carrying a genetically engineered virus that turns people into flesh-eating zombies. High school senior, Casey Williams has taken refuge at the school with friends and the few community and staff members who managed to survive the blast and ensuing viral outbreak. They're safe. For now. But supplies are running short, and tempers are running shorter as Casey realizes the time is coming they will need to get out. She is determined to lead her friends to safety only to discover that she's led them into even greater danger. Determined to save her friends, she fights the living and the undead in her quest to survive. Book One in The Viral Series.

Previously published under the pen name Skyler Rankin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cedarhill Media
• Release date: Sep 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301201211

Book preview

VIRAL DAWN

By Jade Lazlow

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Cedarhill Media

Viral Dawn Copyright 2019 by Jade Lazlow

This Smashwords edition is copyrighted by Jade Lazlow and may not be used by anyone for any purpose other than their own personal enjoyment. If you did not purchase this copy, please go to Smashwords.com to do so.

Dedication & Acknowledgements

With love and appreciation, to my family. Thanks for your patience and support for my writing. I couldn’t accomplish anything, without you doing what you do every day to help.

Special thanks to Tamra Crow at https://www.facebook.com/crowediting/ for her diligent work and helpful insights.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Bonus Sample of Viral Storm

About the Author

Prologue

"Things are never so bad that they can’t get worse." - Terence Williams, Gunnery Sgt., USMC

The massive rolling cloud barreled forward, engulfing buildings and cars as it came. What the hell was it? Fear gripped my stomach and squeezed.

Derek. I must get to Derek. The realization struck me, and my throat constricted in panic. I broke into a run toward the junior high. Tires squealed, as a police car cut me off in my attempt to dart across the road. A cop jumped out and rushed toward me. Grabbing me around the waist, he stopped me short. The force of my body slamming against his forearm knocked me breathless. I doubled over in pain, choking and gasping for breath. His hand was a vise around my arm as he pulled me upright and turned me back toward the high school.

Wait. What are you doing? I screamed. I’ve got to go get my brother. Let me go.

To break free, I fought against him, but he pulled me up the steps. Why didn’t he understand? Derek, my brother, is by himself at the junior high. He rushed me toward the building, and my voice screeched over the chaos in the streets. He wasn’t listening to me. Please. He’ll be scared and won’t know what to do. I have to get to him. Pain seared through me as the concrete steps stabbed my and calves. With brute strength, he pulled me up the steps. My limbs slamming the pavement, as he dragged me to the front doors of the school.

Please? Is my brother going to die out there?

He paused for the briefest moment. I don’t know, kid. But if you don’t get inside now, you will.

Chapter 1

Things are never so bad that they can’t get worse. Remember that, my dad was fond of saying. I hated how he always seemed to be right about the most unnerving realities. Like you get what you pay for. Or if it seems too good to be true, chances are, it is. I mean, he’s dead now, and he’s still right. The part about things getting worse was the most unnerving. Things could get worse, and they had.

A hard jab between my shoulder blades had just awakened me from the best night’s sleep I’d had in months. That meant only that I had, in fact, slept an hour at the most. I often grappled with my covers and was up and down all night. No matter what position I landed in, comfort was short-lived.

The hospice worker explained depression affects more than one’s thoughts. It left me exhausted most of the time, and uninterested in most things. I navigated my days; drifting through a dense fog. Days lagged, as if they contained more hours than they should. Last night I’d just fallen into bed, still wearing yesterday’s clothes.

Another punch. This time it was harder. I think it hurt, or it should have. The ever-present, bone-deep pain I’d felt over the last six months outmatched it. It was a side effect of watching my father waste away, suffused by a rare and aggressive form of lymphoma. Body aches were normal with depression, the therapist du jour had said. It would get better with time. I should exercise more, he suggested.

A sniff, and intense mouth-breathing from behind me confirmed that my tormentor was still there, waiting for my reaction. Craving it. My foster brother, Derek, had just turned sixteen but had the mental functioning of a seven-year-old. That’s what his first social worker told my parents two years ago when the demon spawn came to live with us. He delighted in tormenting me, but Mom lived in denial about Derek, Dad, and everything else.

Don’t think about the problem and just focus on the good part. Stop complaining and be thankful for what you have, Mom would say. She seemed to think by just being grateful we might somehow keep bad things from happening in life. That maybe we’d will them out of existence.

At this point, I was pretty sure the universe dished out whatever it wanted to. And that it didn’t care whether I appreciated it or not.

I felt another jab and realized Derek was probably armed with his crossbow. Yeah. And no, I’m not making that up. For some inexplicable reason, Mom bought it for him last year for his birthday. He had become obsessed with survival and military paraphernalia while spending time with my dad. My mother took this as a sign the kid needed a weapon of his own. Obviously, she wouldn’t serve as a role model for a sitcom of the perfect family.

At least Mom had the sense to secure the arrows in Dad’s shed—after Derek shot out the neighbor’s picture window. They let him keep the bow. He cried when they took it. Not long after that, he started sneaking up on me. Trying to catch me off guard, plotting to punch me in the back with the metal cocking stirrup at the end of the bow. Derek was determined to use it as a weapon, one way or another.

My massive biology textbook rested within reach on the nightstand. I considered for a moment that I could quickly grab it and fling it at the little jerk. I’d have a good chance of hitting him, too. He wasn’t a fast runner. It would solve my problem for a minute or two.

Another blow, but this time followed by more pokes and an exasperated sigh. Derek, if nothing else, was persistent. ‘Perseveration,’ the second clinical social worker called it. Because of the kid’s limited cognitive skills, she told us. He’d do the same things over and over until he learned that it wouldn’t get the results he wanted. She added that if I ignored the hitting long enough, Derek would stop hitting me and leave me alone.

What if he never learns? I’d asked. The social worker hadn’t answered. She just gave a weak smile as she changed the subject.

Derek’s psychiatrist only increased his Adderall and mumbled something about displacement. That doctor seemed to think my foster brother hit me because he had all this repressed anger. He was ticked off at his biological parents. And that he beat me because he now felt safe to do so. Since he wasn’t being abused now, Derek felt free to displace his anger onto someone else. Me.

See, dear, it’s kind of a compliment, my mom had added. It was the most absurd level of excuse-making I’d ever heard from her. He trusts you.

He hits you, the third social worker had explained, because his communication skills are poor. He gets frustrated when he can’t make you understand his needs.

Always the parrot, my mom would echo the counselor’s words. If I just listened more carefully and tried to understand, Derek would stop this behavior.

The fourth therapist said understanding the boy’s reasons for hitting me wasn’t necessary. It wasn’t possible to know what he was thinking. Ignoring the behavior, he’d suggested, and withdrawing any response that might reinforce it would cause it to eventually fade away. ‘Extinction,’ he’d called it.

‘Ineffective,’ I found it.

I kept telling Mom the ignoring didn’t work. She just claimed, it would take more time. Conveniently landing the responsibility for managing Derek’s behavior back into my court. Displacement. Maybe they thought because I was older than this kid, I should be able to control the situation. I could have pounded him if I wanted to, but who hits children who are younger than they are?

Pretending not to hear or see Derek, I waited for him to give up and find something else to do. Sounds of drawers opening and closing signaled he was rummaging through my desk. Books hit the floor, and glass in a picture frame rattled as it struck the vanity’s surface. It took every bit of resolve I could manage just to keep from turning around and pounding him. I reminded myself the key to extinction was in giving no reaction.

Wake up, Casey, he said, his voice slightly slurred from a cleft palate. He went through surgery, they’d said, but it left his speech permanently impaired.

My foster brother came from a therapeutic care program that specialized in finding homes for kids with behavioral and psychiatric problems. We weren’t given a lot of details, like who his parents were, or exactly where he lived. His caseworker only said he’d been removed from his rural home because of extreme neglect and abuse. The social worker didn’t say much about what happened to him, only that the parents seemed convinced they were helping him. They had this sick (my word, not hers) idea that by making him fend for himself, they were teaching him how to survive on his own. They’d done it at least since he was a toddler. The therapist was careful not to say anything remotely judgmental about Derek’s birth family, so she didn’t use the term, psycho farm. She didn’t have to. The kid’s behavior said it for her.

Music blared as my tormentor flipped through the channels on my television. It’s time to get up, Casey. He repeated the sentence in a sing-song voice.

I kept ignoring him.

Derek hadn’t been physically injured in his home, but his family would leave him out of the house for days, apparently. We had to watch him all the time when he was outside, to keep him from eating weeds and bugs. The entourage of social workers and therapists, who came in a boxed set with my new foster brother, had differing opinions on why he did what he did. Eating bugs, or entomophagy, one LCSW said, wasn’t considered a disorder. It was a common practice in some cultures, he informed us. My eyes begged me to let them roll on that one, but I instead opted for a convincing, appreciative nod.

Another counselor said my foster brother may have developed some of his behaviors because of the neglect he experienced. She also felt that at least some of his developmental problems were related to years of malnutrition and inadequate schooling. That much seemed reasonable. I remembered the day he came to us. He was so frail and small compared to other boys his age. His skin had draped over his shoulders, like a wet t-shirt hanging to dry on the back of a knobby chair. He would cower from as little as a glance in his direction. It made me wonder what really went on back at that hellhole homestead where they’d found him.

With so little information to go on regarding his background, I imagined he was rescued from some oddball cult. Maybe a doomsday prepper compound in an isolated part of the state. With all Derek’s issues, it just seemed like there had to be more to his story than we were told. Maybe his parents were crazed psychopaths. That seemed like a real possibility, because of the way he looked. Like he was always on the alert and waiting for something serious to go down. ‘Hyper-vigilance,’ his social worker called it.

Like a soldier on patrol, my dad had said.

Back in Afghanistan, Dad was involved in an ambush attack when a truck he was riding in ran over a landmine. He lost his left hand and most of his hearing. On the base, dad went through several surgeries and rehab and was discharged a year before the boy came to live with us. During that time, as he recovered, an agency for disabled veterans hired Dad, and he traveled around, working with other vets.

Stability is what Derek needed, the social worker said, and that’s why they’d placed him with us, here in Ft. Wayne. She believed a strong relationship with my father would benefit the boy because of his disciplined military background. I wasn’t sure what that meant but the kid latched onto my dad and loved spending time with him. They worked in his shed with gunsmithing. They went on wild-man weekends, fishing, hunting, and practicing survival skills. It was good for my dad, Mom had said. Derek could help him with things he could no longer do for himself. It would also help Dad by encouraging him to stay active, the social worker agreed. All that was great, I imagined. I just wasn’t sure where it left me. They didn’t invite me. Sure, my dad had taught me some things in the past, like how to shoot and basic self-defense, but that all changed when Derek arrived on the scene. The therapist approved, and my mother said she needed the stipend she got for taking a foster child in. The payment was higher for kids with behavior problems and, Mom said we needed the money because Dad’s disability pay wasn’t much.

More pokes. This time, Derek kept at it. My shoulder. My side. My left buttock.

Dad taught the boy how to use the bow and other weapons, and they spent just about every weekend together until last year, when everything changed. That’s when we learned that while dad survived the blast that took his hand, his war wasn’t over.

It started with the itching, and red patches on his skin. He thought he’d gotten into some poison ivy while hunting. Derek had been right beside him but didn’t have any skin problems, so we weren’t sure what it could be. It kept spreading and getting worse, despite first aid and a trip to the doctor. Within a few weeks, it covered his lower back and legs. It was annoying for him at first, but he blew it off and laughed about it being ringworm or some odd contact dermatitis. But things are never so bad that they can’t get worse.

There’s no cure for T-cell lymphoma, and the aggressive syndrome my dad was diagnosed with took him down fast. In less than six months, he went from being a strong man working to rebuild his life, to the ghost of the warrior he used to be. It invaded his blood and bone marrow, with mind-bending speed, ravaging his body with unstoppable fury.

After Dad became sick, Derek’s behavior got worse. He was so hyper that I thought I would lose my mind dealing with him. I guessed that losing the time outdoors with my dad made him worse. Fortunately, my mom had the sense to lock up the weapons and had sold some of them. But the kid moped around and cried until she agreed to let him keep the crossbow out, without the arrows, thank goodness.

It’s been less than a year since Dad’s diagnosis, and this afternoon, we’ll lay Gunnery Sergeant Terence Williams to rest.

Another poke. I laid here, ignoring the little demon’s incessant offensive. Would he ever tire of this infuriating new game?

You’re dead again, Casey, Derek informed me, speaking louder than before.

Using every ounce of restraint that I could summon, I continued ignoring him.

I said you’re dead again. —

A sudden hard swat came down on my hip as the bane of my existence hit me with the broad side of the bow. A sickening pain shot through my hip and lower back.

I snapped.

Damn it, Derek. You little jerk! I snarled at him. Without thinking, I’d grabbed the textbook and hurled it directly at his head. He ducked, and the book hit the wall, leaving a gash in the blue paint and exposing a glaring white patch of drywall. The kid went scurrying toward the doorway.

You’d better run because when I catch you, I will strangle you, I screamed at him. Lunging off the bed, I barreled out of my room behind him. Mom! My voice cracked with anger as I called out and ran down the hall toward her bedroom. Derek’s hitting me again. I banged my fist on the door and flung it open, not caring whether she was awake, sleeping, or even decent. I mean it this time. You’ve got to stop him from hitting me.

Her bed was empty.

I glanced into the master bath. There was no sign of her.

Another poke to my back. Mom’s gone, the demon’s voice mocked from behind me. She can’t stop me. She’s not here.

What the heck? Where was she?

The kitchen showed no signs of recent activity. Mom’s purse wasn’t resting in its usual spot, and the keys to her Civic weren’t on the hook by the door. A roughly-torn piece of canary-yellow legal pad paper beckoned from the dining table. Mom’s unruly script took over the page without regard for lines, punctuation, or basic grammar.

Got called in—working late,’ I read. ‘Janine coming 9:00 am/be ready—meet you @ Fallon’s.

Sometimes anger burns. It claws its way up from your stomach and through your throat where it broils, singeing your flesh like fire. What was she thinking? Working? Today?

Suddenly, thudding, sock-clad feet padded into the kitchen and stopped somewhere behind me. Damn. I had to get Derek ready for my dad’s funeral by myself.

He jabbed me again.

I was supposed to be the older, responsible one. The role model. I played along with that expectation most of the time, but the spawn of Satan was pushing me to the raw edge of my last nerve. I pretended to ignore him and waited, bracing for another poke.

Unable to resist, he came at me and jammed the stirrup into my lower back. I swiveled and swatted at the bow, knocking it from his grasp. It slid across the linoleum as I charged at him, using my full weight to throw him to the floor. I pinned his arms above his head and wedged his body against the wall. Derek, I swear to god if you don’t stop this, I will make you regret it for the rest of your life.

He looked at me and giggled, a trickle of drool spilled down the side of his cheek. His green eyes looked at me expectantly from beneath his reddish-blonde bangs. No, you won’t, he gurgled through the spittle. You love me.

Yes, I was expected to be the mature one. The level-headed pseudo-adult in charge. I guessed that expectation had ratcheted up a notch or two, now that dad was gone. Even when my parents were here, they seldom fulfilled the role of the responsible guardians we both needed. As I pushed down on Derek’s shoulders, my pent-up frustration threatened to take over. I could feel my own need for revenge welling inside me.

My better judgment told me to back off, but I--.

My hand shot up to his chin, and I clutched it until my knuckles turned white. I don’t love you, Derek. I stared hard at his scrunched-up grin and the freckles that spotted his cheeks. I wish you’d never come here. You’re not a member of this family. You’re just a kid that nobody wanted, and the only reason you’re here is that my parents felt sorry for you. I could tell by the look on his face, none of this was sinking in, so I went for the kill-strike. My dad loved me. He only put up with you because he had to. Even as I said it, I knew this wasn’t true, but that didn’t matter. I just wanted to see the evil one in worse pain than he or my parents caused me.

But he just laid there. His eyes looked a little confused for a second. Then his mouth spread into a grin so wide I could see the gaps in his teeth where molars would have been in a healthier kid his age. More drool and a laugh. He seemed to think we were still playing the game.

Poke Casey. Make her mad.

His eyes widened with impish glee and gave no hint he understood that hurting me was wrong, or that my anger with him was anything but entertaining.

Things are never so bad that they can’t get worse.

I love you, Casey, he gurgled.

Be thankful for what you have.

Ice-cold shame doused the anger burning in my throat. It settled deep in my gut and constricted my lungs. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.

What am I doing?

I wasn’t a bully or a monster, and yet, here I was, blaming this kid for behavior he couldn’t control and that no one taught him not to do. I blamed him for his past and for my parents’ mistakes—for his parents’ mistakes. None of it was his fault. He hadn’t asked for it, and I was wrong.

Climbing off him, I stood up, extending an arm to help him. Derek grabbed my hand with his chubby fingers and pulled himself to his feet, his breath coming in great, heaving gasps.

Come on, Derek, I said. We need to get you ready for dad’s funeral.

Dad? The kid’s eyes widened. Dad? He smiled and started looking around us. He appeared to be thinking Dad might walk into the room any minute.

I wasn’t sure I had the strength for this. The boy hadn’t grasped the idea of death or what it meant, and I had no words or magic tricks to make that right. I could only let it be what it was.

If you go take a shower, I offered, I’ll fix your breakfast. Chocolate chip pancakes.

His head bobbed up and down with excitement at the promise of his favorite morning treat, and he trotted down the hallway toward the bathroom, hopefully, to follow my instructions.

Before making breakfast, I went to his room and retrieved clean clothes for him to wear. He didn’t have a suit, but there were some dark pants. They’d serve the purpose. I found one of the cheap sweaters Mom bought him. It had a fake collar, making it appear to be a layered set. Despite the whole faux layered-look, it seemed more appropriate than anything else he owned. It wasn’t a formal outfit, but it was less informal than anything else he had. I pulled some briefs and a pair of dark socks from his dresser and laid the ensemble on his bed. His loafers were scuffed with mud, so I withdrew a dirty t-shirt from his clothes hamper and used it to wipe the vinyl uppers. I couldn’t get all the dirt out of the crevices between the rubber soles and the pleather, but it would have to do for now. I dropped the shoes beside the bed and went to the kitchen to make the agreed-upon reward for his compliance.

I nibbled on peanut butter and crackers as I ransacked the pantry in search of pancake mix. I found it hidden in the back of the cabinet, where foods requiring more than the most minimal preparation efforts languished, forgotten until I had time to make them. The box was light. I shook it and could hear there wasn’t enough mix in the box for Derek’s breakfast. Spying the grocery list that I’d left on the refrigerator, I grabbed an old pen to add the mix to the other items on it. The pen was dry, and I couldn’t get the ink to flow, so I chucked it into the trash can. I rummaged through our junk drawer but could not find a pen or pencil. My hand landed on a broken crayon, a relic from my childhood. Hard and brittle from its years in solitary confinement along with other rarely-used but vital things. Twist ties, old keys, orphaned phone chargers, and spare change. A harsh sigh escaped my lips as I peeled back the label. Darkened with age, it was rock hard and difficult to write with. I managed to scratch out ‘PC mix’ on the list. I returned the singular means of household written communication back to the drawer. And I turned my attention to foraging for enough ingredients to produce the promised pancakes.

Scavenging the kitchen, I found a small amount of flour languishing in a canister and an egg, which I added to the mix with some water to make enough batter for Derek’s breakfast. I retrieved the half-empty bag of chocolate chips I kept hidden behind the cookbooks that served more like props, than actual inspiration for family meals. Adding the morsels, I stirred the batter and then poured it into circles in a skillet on the stove. It was a meager meal, but I managed to make two small cakes because he liked them stacked. Once they were done, I flipped them onto a plate and slathered their golden, chocolate-spotted crust with margarine and syrup. Not the healthiest meal, but hey, whatever worked. I placed the plate on the table and poured Derek a glass of milk before retreating to my room to get dressed.

There wasn’t time for me to take a shower, and I didn’t care. Depression made you that way. You got comfortable in your frumpiness. It seemed reasonable to me that since my foster brother wasn’t wearing a suit, I could get away with wearing some slacks and a top, as well. There wasn’t a lot to choose from, and I didn’t own anything black that didn’t look like grunge wear. Studs and alternative band tees wouldn’t go over well at Fallon’s Funeral Home, either. I found what might be an acceptable dark pair of blue pants and a charcoal sweater. Dressing quickly, I brushed my hair and smoothed it over my scalp, pulling it into a ponytail to disguise the fact I hadn’t washed it. If I brushed it into a strategic looking style, I may be able to pull off a convincing, I meant to do that appearance. A simple pair of silver-toned earrings and a matching necklace completed my outfit. I wasn’t a jewelry wearer, and again, my selection was limited. It worked, though. It would have to at this point.

I heard the water shut off in the bathroom, and seconds later, the door opened.

Derek, I called across the hall. Your clothes are on your bed. Get dressed. When you’re done, I’ll give you your breakfast. The sound of his shuffling feet wandered into his room. Of course, if he thought about it, he could have ignored my directions and gone straight to the kitchen for his breakfast, but that was one good thing I had to my advantage in taking care of him. Thinking through those kinds of things wasn’t his modus operandi. When he wasn’t harassing me, he could be counted on to follow instructions to a fault. I say ‘to a fault’ because it meant you had to speak with complete clarity with him and give him almost every step needed to complete a task. Otherwise, he didn’t make those mental leaps to fill in the gaps in instruction that other kids did.

He’d dressed in a hurry and plodded to the kitchen where he plopped down at the table, devouring his pancakes in about a quarter of the time it took me to make them. As he ate, I moved about the house gathering anything I thought we might need and stuffing it into my backpack. Tissues, energy bars, Derek’s inhaler, a battery pack for my phone, and some Xanax. Okay, just kidding on the Xanax, but I had to admit that mentally checking out of this thing was an appealing thought. He was just finishing his breakfast when I heard a car pull into the driveway beside our house. Backpack zippers closed, I slung the bag over my shoulder.

If I had to guess, I’d say either my mom or her sister, Janine; Janine was adopted. Unlike mom, my aunt was a precision machine. Without fail, dependable and on time. At 9:00 am sharp, her keys rattled in the deadbolt. Her flaming-red mane pushed through the door jamb before the rest of her. She was, as always, dressed to the nines in a black dress and trench coat, sheer black hose, and tasteful yet stylish heels. There wasn’t the slightest hint of lint or pet fur to be found on her. She wore an emerald-green pendant and earrings that I guessed cost more than mom’s Civic.

Hi ‘Uhneen, Derek said. He tilted his face upward and smiled. A smudge of chocolate dotted his cheek.

Janine’s eyelid gave a slight twitch, and the right side of her mouth shifted into an uneasy half-smile at the boy’s mispronunciation of her name. Derek, she spoke in a cordial, but somehow impersonal tone a supervisor might use with an employee. I see you’re having breakfast.

I suppose that was as close to a greeting as she could manage. Janine typically made meaningless observations, instead of expressing her displeasure in something. She glided to my side in one swift movement, and her model-perfect hands floated up and cupped my face. Honey, she said with a sigh, "are you