A Bloody Road to Nowhere and Tales from the Apocalypse

By Joanna Prototype

After being evacuated to a militarized refugee camp, Ury finds comfort in the company of a friendly solider, but when the military begins to lose control, things spiral out of hand quickly and Ury is forced to fight her way to safety. What she quickly learns, however, is that in this new world, nowhere is safe and not all the monsters are corpses.
Forced into slavery and brought to her lowest point, Ury must decide how far she is willing to go to survive. Her life may have become a bloody road to nowhere, but she will be the one behind the wheel.
Stick around for Tales from the Apocalypse. A collection of brief tales of terror and gore from within the zombie apocalypse including Totaled, Run Mr. Johnson Run for Your Life, Wretched Spawn, There Is No Coming Back, and Only Fools Die in Love

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joanna Prototype
• Release date: Jun 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311765116

Joanna Prototype

A writer of horror/fantasy fiction, a mother, a strange enthusiast, and an aspiring individual. Read the debut novella A Bloody Road to Nowhere and Tales from the Apocalypse and the newly published Tales from the Apocalypse Volume 2.

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A Bloody Road to Nowhere and Tales from the Apocalypse

JOANNA PROTOTYPE

Copyright © 2013 Joanna Prototype

All rights reserved.

ISBN:9781311765116

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my family, who always supported and encouraged my creativity, even when it worried them.

CONTENTS

Introduction i

1 The Beginning Of The End

2 Friends In Odd Places

3 Well That Escalated Quickly

4 Gotta Be Some Kind Of Way Out Of Here

5 Gotta Do What You Gotta Do

6 It’s All Fine And Dandy Until The Zombies Show Up

7 A Bit Of Hope

8 A Life Worth Living

9 Strangers

10 Nightmare

11 Very Bad Things

12 Nothing Left To Lose

13 What’s Left

TALES FROM THE APOCALYPSE

Totaled

Run Mr. Johnson, Run For Your Life

Wretched Spawn

There Is No Coming Back

Only Fools Die In Love

Introduction

I was sure this was the end of humanity. It seemed like the world consumed itself so quickly and easily. What would turn back this kind of catastrophe? How would we rebuild the world after almost everyone died? Well, half were actually dead. The other half, well they were, I don’t know what they were. They were dead, in the sense that all but one organ, the brain, had stopped functioning and began to rot away. But they walked and moaned and attacked like rabid animals at any chance. Seeking to devour and consume all living creatures in their paths. Insanity overwhelming, humanity gone.

Anyway, the point is, the world as we knew it was over. No phones, no internet, no TV, no links to the rest of the world, no casual comfortable life. Not anymore. It was all over. And humanity itself seemed like it was damn close to being over too. But I’m still here. Still here and still human.

Approximately one year ago, the first report arrived on the Chicago evening news. The initial reports and photographs were authentic and factual, unlike any that followed. The original news bulletin was as follows, A crazed, seemingly rabid man, Asian in appearance, attacked a group of high school students in an open alleyway on the south side earlier this afternoon. Police arrived on the scene after being called by a local business owner who heard the screams from inside his restaurant. The local man told police he witnessed the crazed man grab a young girl and bite her arm. As soon as officers entered the scene the crazed man ran violently toward the squad cars and was shot three times in the torso before being brought down by a fourth shot to the head. The injured girl was airlifted to Chicago General Hospital and remains in critical condition. Two other students sustained minor bites and scratches and are currently being treated for an unidentified infection supposedly contracted from the wounds. Further reports concerning this matter will be broadcast as they arrive.

That was the last broadcast about that incident. By the next morning the hospital was overrun and the news channels were too busy chasing the story to other countries to say anything about what was going on back home.

One week after that first news report, the city was in complete crisis. The military declared Marshall Law, the streets weren’t safe anymore. They asked people to stay in their homes until a military escort came to take them somewhere safe. They only made it through half the city before the plague caught up with them and they had to abandon the evacuation and began the cleansing.

The last few radio reports were of the plague rampaging in New York, and there were rumors of the overseas situation growing equally chaotic.

Only three months after the initial Chicago news report, the entire world was in anarchy. The government failed their attempt to subdue the threat, having no knowledge of their enemy’s weakness. They sent soldiers running through streets shooting down the sick, and watched as they were overwhelmed and consumed by the bullet ridden bodies of the dead. Most soldiers lost faith in their government and abandoned it.

Within six months, most land animals were gone, being the easiest prey for the sick. Miles of farmland were drying up and dying. The plague ruled the world and the sick roamed it. Those that were still living were completely barbaric, insane, or isolated. Electricity was entirely gone. No water ran from an unnatural source. Food, water, and shelter were a challenge to find and even more to keep safe. It was a new world, the end world.

1 The Beginning of the end

It’s been almost a year since I experienced any semblance of a normal life. Almost a year since I could go to sleep whenever I was tired, wake up to an alarm for school, or order a big hot meal from a restaurant. That life’s gone, and it’s never coming back. But for the sake of familiarity, I’ll tell you about it.

My name is Ury Steadly. Ury is short for Ursula, which I hate. I’m twenty-two years old and I was a student studying ballet in Chicago. I was an introverted overachiever, practicing gymnastics and free running in my spare time. I didn’t ever have much of a family, so I worked my ass off and got a full scholarship out of high school so I could get out on my own. I used to live in a dorm with other dancers but found the crowded living situation an annoyance. So I started waiting tables and got a small one room apartment near my school. I had a few friends but only really saw them at school, and boyfriends always seemed like more trouble than they were worth. And so that was me, the active outcast. Now on with the real story.

One morning, in late summer, I was watching my favorite of the three channels I had on my television. The evening news report told of an attack on some students. I didn’t think much of it at the time. No one did. About a week later reports of a mysterious infection were coming in from all over the world, and hospitals were being overrun by sick and quickly turning rabid patients. Soon military escorts were being sent from house to house telling people they had to pack up and come with them. It was a cloudy Sunday morning when I got a knock on my apartment door. It was a solider in a dress uniform. He told me I had one hour to pack one suitcase and one backpack of essentials and someone would be back to collect me. Then he went to the next apartment and repeated the message to its tenants. And so on. I closed my door and sat down for a moment. I tried to think of anyone I’d want to call. No one came to mind. I took a deep breath and set to work finding my suitcase and deciding what was essential.

By that time there were no television channels broadcasting anymore, but there was a radio station running updates. They said that the chaos was being caused by the overwhelming number of both infected citizens and violent attacks, which authorities believed to be related. They said the infection seemed to be spread by bodily fluids and appeared to cause violent, rabid like behavior in infected persons.

I heard a gunshot outside my window. Then a woman screamed. I looked out and saw a young man lying in a pool of blood on the sidewalk outside the building across the street. People all around were backing away and looking around. I looked away after a moment and shuddered.

After about fifteen minutes or so, the broadcast changed the subject to talk of the camps we were being sent to. We were going to a compound in the country a few hours from the city. They said there would be everything we’d need there and we would be safe while the military contained and controlled the outbreak. It sounded unconvincing to someone who reads as much as I do. The most unsettling news was that which didn’t come. There were no reports I heard that said when this crisis was estimated to be over.

My escort arrived an hour later just as promised. They knocked hard and fast and pushed their way in before I opened the door completely. Two soldiers walked in first and took my bags without saying anything, then left again. I went to stop them and ask where they were taking my stuff but I was stopped by my escort. He was young and good looking, with dark hair and light eyes that seemed kind. He approached me calmly and asked if I was ready. I asked him where they were taking my bags and he told me there was a bus outside and my things were being loaded in for me. Then he introduced himself as Private First Class Patrick O’Tool.

Well, I’m Ury, Ury Steadly, it’s nice to meet you.

He smiled and laughed a bit, and I asked what he was laughing at.

You’re the first person all day that’s seemed to not be angry about all this, he admitted.

I laughed too and told him, I’m not easily shaken.

Then I laughed again, mostly to myself.

Good way to be these days, he said and gestured for me to follow him. We went and joined the rest of the tenants outside my building. Everyone was arguing with someone else and it seemed like all the children were crying at once. People were being shuffled into large buses and their bags were being thrown into the storage areas underneath the vehicles. Patrick led me to one of the buses and I was ushered on and seated next to a middle aged woman with two young girls. The girls looked no older than ten. They loaded the buses as full as they could before we finally left.

It was hot and uncomfortable. I heard the younger of the two girls ask her mother when they could go home. Her mother just hugged her and said, Not right now baby. It was a long ride to the camp and everyone on the bus was very upset and confused. There was a small toilet room in the back, and halfway there it apparently stopped working. However, we were not permitted to stop, which only angered people further. After what seemed like forever, we stopped.

They opened the van doors and shuffled everyone into two lines. A ways ahead from where we were was the entrance to the camp. There were fences all around the area but they looked mildly secure. After waiting a long time in line I approached the entrance. A guard stopped me and waved over the female guard that was standing by. She asked me to spread my legs and patted me down. Then they let me pass. I was quickly guided along into another line of people being lead further in. The camp had an enormous amount of small tents lined up in many rows in the very middle of the grounds. Behind the mass of tents, about fifty yards off, was a large brick building.

Soldiers led us down an aisle of small green tents and stopped us. Then they went down the line and told people which tents to go into. I was told to go into one of the last tents in the row. It was very small and yet there were four other people already inside. There was a middle aged woman, an older man with a young boy, and another older man who looked scruffy and dirty. A little while after leaving us there, they came around with water and sleeping bags and told us to ask the guard if we needed to use the bathroom. That was the last we saw the soldiers that night, except once when the scruffy man left the tent and was quickly returned by a guard. We all sat staring at each other for a while until the boy yawned and his guardian