Blood Red

By Jason Bovberg

Rachel is 19. She doesn’t know how to handle her new stepmother, let alone the end of the world. But after finding her stepmother dead, Rachel is suddenly racing against time—and terrifying, unnatural forces—to survive a gruesome apocalyptic event. Outside her door, the college town of Fort Collins, Colorado, is filled with corpses, and something unfathomable is happening to those bodies. And it’s only just begun. As Rachel struggles to comprehend her horrible new reality, she’ll need to find answers to questions she never thought she’d ask—all while desperately searching for her lost father, on whom she pins all her hopes for coming out of this phenomenon alive and intact. But nothing will be as it seems.

Tom Piccirilli says “Blood Red gets seriously under your skin. It’s a whole new kind of horror novel.” Grant Jerkins says it’s “unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It starts as a slow-burn freak-out and culminates in a series of horror-show set pieces that will forever be etched in my mind.” Alden Bell calls Blood Red “an epic addition to the genre. Ranging from the gritty to the surreal, the story delivers a nonstop, real-time experience of the End Times—replete with visceral terror, buckets of gore, and, ultimately, a redemptive humanity.” Robert Devereaux says the book is “guaranteed to creep you out!”

The beginning of an epic trilogy telling the real-time tale of an apocalyptic event, Blood Red is a nonstop thrill ride from the author of The Naked Dame and the publisher of Skull Full of Spurs and Santa Steps Out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Permuted
• Release date: Apr 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781618682543

Jason Bovberg

Jason Bovberg is the author of THE NAKED DAME and the apocalyptic-horror novel BLOOD RED (Permuted Press). He is formerly the editor/publisher of Dark Highway Press, which published Robert Devereaux's SANTA STEPS OUT and the weird-western anthology SKULL FULL OF SPURS. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Book preview

Praise for BLOOD RED

"An epic addition to the genre, Blood Red brings apocalyptic literature home to the suburbs. Ranging from the gritty to the surreal, the story delivers a nonstop, real-time experience of the End Times—replete with visceral terror, buckets of gore, and, ultimately, a redemptive humanity. As touching as it is anguishing, Bovberg’s novel gives us a new and deeply compelling perspective on the collapse of the modern world."

—Alden Bell, author of The Reapers Are the Angels and Exit Kingdom

"Blood Red occupies a post-apocalyptic landscape that both excites and terrifies. This book gets seriously under your skin. Jason Bovberg proves he’s got the goods with a whole new kind of horror novel."

—Tom Piccirilli, author of The Last Whisper in the Dark and The Last Kind Words

"With Blood Red, Jason Bovberg pulls off something you don’t even see attempted very often, much less accomplished. He infuses a post-apocalyptic tale with a sustained sense of genuine mystery; of having no idea what’s happening to the world and the people around you, or why. Even when you think it may be solved … no, it isn't. The endgame, and the surreal nightmare, has only just begun."—Brian Hodge, author of Whom the Gods Would Destroy and Dark Advent

"Highest praise for Jason Bovberg. Blood Red is a harrowing tale assuredly set forth. The pacing is relentless and inexorable, the details vivid and chilling, as Rachel and her fellow survivors balance staying alive with a race to figure out how to counter the horrors advancing upon them. Guaranteed to creep you out!"

—Robert Devereaux, author of Deadweight and Santa Steps Out

You've been to the end of the world before, but never quite like this. Jason Bovberg has managed the difficult trick of making the zombie apocalypse scary and unpredictable again, combining fresh ideas with well-realized characters and a fast-moving, suspenseful plot to create a memorable horror novel.

—Richard Lee Byers, author of Blind God’s Bluff and The Reaver

"Take a little bit of The Stand, add a dash of The Passage, throw in some Dawn of the Dead, and top it off with John Carpenter’s The Thing—then throw all that out the window, because Jason Bovberg’s Blood Red is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. Every time I thought I knew where the story was heading, Bovberg proved me dead wrong. Well written with an exquisite pace and populated with believable characters, Blood Red is deliciously creepy and completely riveting. It starts as a slow-burn freak-out and culminates in a series of horror-show set pieces that will forever be etched in my mind (three words: the pregnant thing). This book made my skin crawl."

—Grant Jerkins, author of A Very Simple Crime and The Ninth Step

"Do you like stories about body snatchers? Strange atmospheric phenomena? Reanimated bodies shambling, zombie-like, in search of prey? Heck yeah! Who doesn’t, especially when those tales are set in a quiet Colorado town? Newcomer Jason Bovberg dishes up just such a classic in Blood Red and, even better, he closes the tale in true Frederic Brown style by showing you that in fact, things are MUCH CREEPIER THAN YOU IMAGINED."—Mark Minasi, bestselling author and tech journalist

"With Blood Red, Jason Bovberg serves up a fresh, grisly take on apocalyptic horror fiction, complete with a plucky young heroine, strangely glowing orbs of goo, and enough gloppy gore and steaming viscera to please the most blood-thirsty of readers. I was eagerly turning the pages to reach the 'Where the hell did that come from?' conclusion!"—Jeff James, author of Totally Unauthorized X-COM Terror From the Deep: The Ultimate Guide to Alien Destruction

"Blood Red will freak you out with its gripping narrative and terrifying action. Jason Bovberg has come up with a blood-curdling tale of the reanimated dead, a fascinating apocalyptic story told from the perspective of a smart and fierce heroine. The way the bodies move around still gives me the creeps!"—Ted Hill, author of Sudden Independents

A PERMUTED PRESS book

Published at Smashwords

ISBN (trade paperback): 978-1-61868-2-536

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-2-543

Blood Red copyright © 2013

by Jason Bovberg

All Rights Reserved.

Cover art by Roy Migabon

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

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

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

To my dad

John Bovberg

My inspiration

My hero

I wish I could have saved him

Chapter 1

"Rachel!"

Rachel lurches up from sleep, disoriented. She’s immediately assaulted by a sharp pain above her left eye. She frowns with distaste, then yawns. Her mouth is dry and funky, and her sinuses feel pummeled. Her stomach is undergoing a prolonged lurch. She can’t even remember how or when she found her way to her bed. These are all vestiges of last night, although most of it is merely a blank spot in her memory.

Dad? she mutters, half-conscious. Did her dad call to her?

She finally opens her eyes into a squint. The early morning throbs through the curtains, along with some kind of distant keening. A siren? No, that’s not it. Dust particles shift in a dim, reddish beam, caught in a hot breeze that bloats the dark curtain. There’s a deep sound like retreating thunder coming from far away, fading into the distance—or maybe it’s just the soundtrack of her headache.

She knows she ought to apologize to her dad. Last night before jumping into Tony’s new Subaru, she’d said some things. Yelled some things, really. She tries to tamp down all that nonsense. She’s tired of feeling this way all the time. The inevitability of guilt. She’s not the one who—oh, forget it.

"What, Dad?" she tries again, pushing a little exasperation into her voice.

What time is it? she wonders. She twists toward the clock, bleary-eyed.

6:17 a.m.

Oh good lord, she whispers.

Then she holds her breath, listening. Besides the sounds from outside—the faraway whine and what seems to be the angry wailing of a cat a few doors down—there’s nothing. She reaches up and digs the sleep from her eyes. Her heart is beating rapidly now, waking her fully. Her mind feels clouded by the remnants of some kind of twitchy nightmare.

Rachel sits up, her bare feet touching warm wooden floorboards.

She stands carefully, a little off-balance, and assesses the situation. Her clothes are in disarray across her floor, all of them inside out, hastily tossed. There’s a vague odor of smoke in the room, no doubt from the clothes. Somehow she managed to pull on her nightgown last night, but she doesn’t remember doing it. Her panties are still nested within her wadded-up jeans, and she finally finds her bra flung over a middle-school spelling bee trophy that her dad insisted she keep displayed on her dresser, even now, into her late teens. She shakes her head mildly at the sight.

Her mouth tastes foul. She doesn’t have any memory of brushing her teeth following her late night in Old Town. She doesn’t even recall Tony driving her home. She does remember the overriding intention to stay out later than her dad or Susanna might wait up for her.

She moves out of the room, into the hallway.

Something isn’t right.

The rest of the house lies in humid shadow, awaiting the day. She pads into the middle of the main room and looks about. The room is filled with shadowed corners still, seemingly full of silent riddles. What appears to be something crouched becomes, upon examination, a folded magazine. What at first seems the glint of a rolling eye becomes the lazy, reflected glint of silverware under the indistinct glow coming from the curtained front window. The stuff of night terrors, fading with the light of dawn.

God, her head hurts. She gently shakes herself away from these weird perceptions, not letting them bother her. She tells herself not to let another alcohol-hazed nightmare follow her into the day.

Then there’s a sound from the hallway, more than someone shifting in sleep. Some kind of crunching sound. Rachel frowns, staring over her shoulder down the dark hallway.

She turns and starts toward the bedroom her dad shares with Susanna. At the threshold, Rachel peeks through the half-open doorway and sees her stepmother asleep—sees her slack face, sees sunlight from the bedroom windows pinlighting her cheek with a faint, glowing redness. She also sees with a little shock that Susanna is naked under the sheets, her body barely concealed. With some envy, she notices the heft of the large left breast and the tanned expanse of thigh. Rachel has always reluctantly admitted that Susanna is a beautiful, well-rounded woman, but Jesus, what a fucking bitch.

Sorry, Dad.

Rachel turns away, slightly embarrassed about the unintended bedroom peek. Not that Susanna ever missed an opportunity to flaunt her body.

Anyway, her dad isn’t there. He must be at work, or out for a walk.

Rachel tries to shake herself further from her hangover. She steps through the hallway carefully, not wanting to wake Susanna, and when she reaches the kitchen she bounces a bit, enjoying the icy tingle of the kitchen’s tile floor, beginning to feel herself energized. She goes to the refrigerator, avoids looking at the door shelves, which hold a portion of Susanna’s unending supply of red wines. Instead, Rachel roots around in the crisper drawer at the bottom of the fridge.

She brings a cold apple to the front room, plants herself in Susanna’s favorite rocking chair, and takes a bite, leaning her head back and trying to lose herself in the lazy movement of the chair. In the quiet of the big room, she breathes deeply around her mouthful of fruit, then closes her eyes, chewing.

A peal of thunder shakes the house, jarring her.

What the— she says out loud, then lets loose a nervous laugh. Okay.

She remembers the dying thunder from earlier and understands why everything seems weird. Morning thunderstorms in Colorado are rare, but not totally surprising. Anything’s possible with Colorado weather, her dad always says. Rachel’s mom used to say that, too.

She continues to chew her apple, letting herself go contemplative.

Rachel’s mother loved Colorado weather, the unpredictability of it all. It was one of the things that drew her to the mountainous state from the dreary, smoggy sameness of California a decade ago. She used to like to sit in this room, too, before this chair was in the house, before anyone else was awake, and look out onto the new day through the big picture window, watching new snow blanketing the world or early summer heat making her roses recoil in their beds. Rachel’s mom appreciated solitude, loved simply relaxing here in silence before anyone else in the house stirred. Or even while everyone else was still at work or school. Rachel remembers occasionally wandering into the room from the garage to find her mom dozing in the purple light of sunset angling in from the foothills.

Those fond memories too often merge with the more recent recollections of her resting in the traumatic aftermath of a chemotherapy session.

Rachel understands the appreciation of solitude. She gets it. She’s an only child. She too likes when everything lies unruffled and calm like this, as if nothing in the world has yet awakened. She likes to watch the day come alive gradually around her, even likes the way her dad’s light snores—absent this morning—give a peaceful echo to the long, drowsy shadows.

She doesn’t have opportunities to do that like she used to. This morning is an oddity, but she’ll take what she can get.

She finishes her apple slowly.

Finally, she opens her eyes, lets loose a tiny sigh. She glances back again toward the bedroom.

Rachel’s mom has been dead for five years, and Rachel still can’t believe how comprehensively things have changed. She sometimes feels that she missed out on the few wonderful years that, under normal circumstances, would surely have bridged her childhood and early adulthood. Those two years during which all her friends seemed to grow and thrive? Rachel saw that time flit by in a period of restlessness and quiet sorrow.

Damn it, why did every quiet moment in this house conjure thoughts like these?

Too often, and with no small amount of survivor guilt, Rachel recalls the days and weeks that followed her mother’s death, and the way she and her dad tried to cope with the gargantuan empty space in the house. The black hole in their lives. She still misses her mom terribly, but Rachel is proud of the way the two of them faced the loss together and came out stronger and closer than they were before.

Then her dad introduced her to Susanna, this energetic young woman he worked with. The first time Rachel met her was at his office on the south end of town, at a Christmas party, and she noticed with a tinge of jealous foreboding the playful look that passed between her father and this woman, who couldn’t have been more than ten years Rachel’s senior. That goddamn party took place almost two and a half years ago now. And her father hasn’t been the same since.

Maybe Tony’s right, she thinks. Maybe I just miss my dad.

Ugh, Rachel says to the empty room.

At that moment, there’s another rumble of thunder, much farther away. Rachel listens to its soft growl, glad the morning storm is already moving away.

She’s still glancing in the direction of her stepmother, back there in the dark master bedroom, and there’s a weight of resigned melancholy in the glance. She’s all too conscious of the emotion, so she closes her eyes, pushes it away, and tries to enjoy the last of her solitude.

But something isn’t right.

Rachel’s initial sense upon waking, that something bitter, something wrong, has touched this morning—it hasn’t left her, despite her attempts to deny it. She leans forward and sets the apple core on the coffee table. She stands in the center of the front room—her hangover headache returning with a slight but persistent throb—and studies her surroundings again.

What’s wrong with this picture?

She has the feeling that whatever is bothering her is right in front of her. And yet everything seems in its place; nothing seems to be missing. She stands there in her flimsy nightgown, unmoving, waiting for something to occur to her. Yes, Dad is gone, but he probably just left early for some weekend work. That’s nothing new. No, this is something else.

She begins walking back toward her dad’s bedroom, which still lies in relative darkness.

Susanna ...

She arrives at the threshold and peeks around the door at her. Susanna is lying on her back now, her head turned away from Rachel. The sheets are tangled hopelessly around her naked legs, leaving her upper body completely exposed. There doesn’t seem to be any movement at all in the room.

That’s when Rachel sees the glow arcing off Susanna’s cheek.

She mistook the illumination earlier for sunlight. But it’s not that; it can’t be, right? It’s storming outside. Rachel frowns, staring at the tiny, crimson illumination. Where is it coming from? What is its source? Head still, her gaze darts around Susanna’s body in a jerkily widening ellipse.

Nothing. There’s no light anywhere in this room, except on the side of her stepmother’s face.

Uh, she says out loud, then raps softly on the doorjamb. Hello? She gets no response, so she knocks harder. Nothing.

Feeling her heartbeat in her throat, Rachel approaches Susanna. She leans over, suddenly weak in the legs, and anchors herself with one hand upon the cool sheets. She peers closely at Susanna’s face.

Susanna? she whispers, frowning.

The muted light is emanating from low on her cheekbone, above her closed mouth. Red-tinted—like a black light—the luminescence seems to burn through her, as if originating deep inside her, back behind and above her innermost molars. It radiates from somewhere underneath Susanna’s surface, like the light from a flashlight behind the flesh of a palm.

Rachel pulls back and sees the way the light spreads itself in an almost imperceptible glow. The ceiling is a soft shade of crimson in the dark room.

She discovers that she’s trembling. She shifts position, and her elbow gives. She collapses next to Susanna, jostling the bed, and a groan escapes her stepmother’s lips. The red illumination on her cheek stays precisely in place, but now Rachel can see it softly escaping her nostrils and slightly parted mouth.

Susanna! she calls loudly, almost directly into her stepmother’s ear.

No response.

What the hell?

Tentatively, she brings her hand up. She reaches over to Susanna’s face until her fingers are barely illuminated by the strange glow. She can feel vague heat. Startled, Rachel darts her hand back protectively against her own chest, where she can feel the strong, rapid thump of her heart.

She takes a deep breath and reaches over again, this time placing her palm directly against Susanna’s cheek.

The same odd heat.

Suddenly her vision begins to blur, and she takes her hand back. When focus doesn’t return, she whimpers faintly, shaking her head. No, no, no, she cries inwardly, blinking savagely and rubbing her eyes. Only slowly do her surroundings regain their clarity.

And only then does Rachel discover what the light has done to her hand.

She recoils from the first unclouded glimpse of the pale skin, looks away from it as she pushes off the bed and backs awkwardly out of the bedroom. Her hip makes jarring contact with the back of the living-room sofa, and she stops moving, staring back into the dark master bedroom at Susanna’s unmoving shape, at the red illumination emanating from her cheek.

She pulls her glare back and lets her chin fall to her chest. Then, reluctantly, she pulls her hand out in front of her. Her palm is pale and dry, looking weathered, sun-bleached. When she makes a light fist and her fingers move across the palm, white flakes drift off it, falling silently to the carpet. She brings up her other hand and clamps it to her mouth to stifle her scream.

With effort, she staggers back toward Susanna. She practically screams her name, her voice warbling. She touches Susanna’s naked shoulder, shakes it. Her body moves loosely back and forth in unconsciousness.

Susanna, wake up!

Nothing.

This is absurd! I mean, what the fuck is happening?

Boldly, she moves close to her stepmother’s side, gathers a fistful of cloth, and presses it lightly to the luminescence. The glow is blotted out, and a strange emotion bubbles up in Rachel, releases itself like a cough, and immediately quiets when she chokes it down. She presses the cloth more forcefully against Susanna’s cheek.

Rachel feels as if she’s not even inhabiting her own body; she’s not in control of her actions. She pushes the cloth still harder, angling the wad of sheets over Susanna’s mouth and nose, pressing, pressing.

Go away! she screams inwardly.

Susanna coughs and opens her eyes. Turned up in their sockets, the eyes show only white. Rachel recoils, scrambling away across the bed. Susanna’s mouth opens and a fine mist of blood sprays out like a sneeze, dotting her own face and the sheets beyond her head. The red glow seems to strobe almost imperceptibly, and Susanna’s open mouth emits a long, hollow sound.

"Uuuuuuuhhh ... ."

Rachel, her breath caught somewhere deep in her throat, reacts impulsively. She leans forward and presses the cloth with still more determination against her stepmother’s face, not knowing what to do or how to stop this thing. She brings up her damaged hand to press still more forcefully, feeling that she might never be able to stop whatever is happening, no matter how hard she presses.

Abruptly, her hands feel enveloped in wet heat.

Rachel screams, yanking away the sheets, and Susanna’s mouth clacks shut. The red luminescence is completely gone. Her stepmother’s body scissors across the bed, shuddering, and Rachel rears back, looking away from Susanna’s bluntly revealed genitals. She can’t help but turn back to watch Susanna’s entire body convulse. She drops the clutch of sheets from her hand and reaches for her stepmother’s arms.

"Susanna! Stop it! Stop it!"

Susanna goes abruptly still and rigid, her legs half off the bed, her arms thrown above her head. She’s on her stomach, her face straight down into the sheets.

Rachel stumbles away from Susanna and the bed, numb. She takes in the scene. She can hear blood rushing in her head, loud like a terrible flood. She can also hear that weird, insistent keening noise coming from outside.

Susanna’s body is still, too still, in a way that doesn’t suggest sleep. Her skin seems flat, dull. There is no glisten, no movement. She’s not breathing.

No, no, no, no, Rachel finds herself mouthing.

What—what just happened?

Her mouth feels dry, and her own skin has gone cold. Her breath is shallow, racing in and out of her mouth.

She has to force herself to return to Susanna once again. She scrambles back onto the bed, pulling her stepmother up and away from the mattress, straining with all her might. She finally positions Susanna so that she’s face up, then places two fingers beneath Susanna’s jaw, feeling for a pulse. There is none.

"Oh my God!"

She leans over to place her ear over her stepmother’s bloody mouth. No breath. The skin feels cold.

Rachel quickly digs her fingers into Susanna’s open mouth, feeling for obstruction, then attempts mouth-to-mouth resuscitation repeatedly. She feels a little inept at it, considering she’s learned it only from movies and television, but she thinks she’s doing it right. She can see Susanna’s naked breasts rising, can see that air is getting into her, but it’s not working. It’s not working! She won’t let herself cry. She can’t stop her hands from trembling, but she won’t give in to tears.

Okay, she thinks. Need help.

She slams her way through the door, toward the kitchen phone—an old-fashioned corded phone that her dad has always insisted on keeping. She fumbles with it at the wall and jabs at the buttons—9-1-1—with crazily shaking fingers, but she can’t make her fingers work. Her fingers are still slightly numb from whatever the light did to her palm. She shakes out her hand and tries again. She fails, and curses at the phone. She can’t make it work! She switches hands, awkwardly fingers in the numbers, and finally gets it right. When the phone starts ringing, she lets herself fall against the wall to the floor, making herself as small as possible. She’s weeping softly.

The number goes to a recording. Sorry, all our operators are busy with other calls, please stand by.

"What!?"

She stares at the receiver in her hand, then around at the quiet kitchen. Her dad! Maybe he’s at work. He has to be there. She pushes herself back to her feet and dials his office number from memory.

Please…

The phone begins ringing.

Daddy, please answer, she warbles meekly into the phone, although now it’s doing nothing but emitting a hollow clicking sound in her ear. There is no dial tone, no ring, nothing. Her hands are shaking so badly that she can hardly hold on to the now-slippery receiver. It falls from her hands against her thigh, and she yanks it up again by its cord. Please, please.

She tries dialing 911 again. Nothing. Not even a dial tone.

She lets the phone fall to the floor.

She becomes aware of the sounds from outside again. Now she definitely hears a siren, or several of them. And there are other noises too, perhaps screams, but she doesn’t want to hear them.

She presses her palms to her ears and closes her eyes.

"What’s going on?!" she screeches, blocking out everything she can so that only her voice thunders inside her muffled head. She lets the words dissolve into a prolonged exhalation of sound.

She tries to escape to