Still Alive 2: Red Versus Green

By A.C. Thorne

Ceres had never met anyone like Liam before. It wasn’t his looks or anything physical that made him different, but was something that was impossible to see and even harder to describe. It was the way that he made her feel.

As if a world filled with the reanimated dead wasn’t enough, a new, even more insidious threat has now reared its ugly head. They tore her away from him and made her fight for her life. Cornered and hopelessly outnumbered she was about to succumb when an unexpected ally intervened to save her life.

Ceres has now joined the resistance, literally under ground – a covert alliance known as CATO – between humans and an alien race known as the Gray. But after decades of mistrust and misinformation the alliance is on the brink of collapse. As her world becomes stranger and uncomfortably complex she focuses on a live overhead satellite image of Liam – her beacon of hope, harmony and sanity in an inhuman and insane world.

Time is running out for the survival of the human race and the odds are stacked heavily against the unstable alliance known as CATO. Can Ceres find a way to make a difference before it’s too late?

STILL ALIVE is a genre-crossing thrill ride which takes the reader from narrowly surviving a zombie outbreak to learning that the plague is just the pre-cursor to something even larger and much more sinister.

Just when solo running and gunning seems like the epitome of surviving a running-zombie infested world STILL ALIVE leads us to the cusp of hard science fiction, reinventing the zombie ‘virus’ while at the same time upgrading it to seeming plausibility.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Permuted
• Release date: Aug 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781618683441

Book preview

PART ONE

LIAM

CHAPTER ONE

Liam sits motionless in the dim emergency lighting of the broadcast booth. His long fingers move to switch the microphone off. Blonde hair shifts across his brow as he leans back into the reclining office chair, his boyish good looks balanced by the stern expression of hard experience on his face.

She’s been gone too long, he thinks while her image pops up inside his mind. The girl with the bright red hair and the silver lock; the girl with the big blue eyes and pouty watermelon lips.

Ceres. The girl he had just met a few days ago, but who has somehow affected him deeply in that short amount of time. The girl with the indomitable spirit and flashy square handguns who had stolen his heart so quickly. She was an adroit survivor who was unlike anyone he had ever met before.

She was the only survivor he had met in over six months, since this had all begun. As attractive as her image was in his mind’s eye, the most amazing thing about her wasn’t her appearance. She had an energy about her—a presence—that was hard to describe.

Thinking of her makes Liam smile until the reality of the situation reasserts itself. She has been gone too long. The thought brings him quickly to his feet while grabbing his light machine gun off of the desk.

The bulky weapon in his arms stirs the memory of the first time he let Ceres hold it.

"Why’s it called a light machine gun? she said, while lifting the large rifle out of the car’s trunk. Seriously, how much does this thing weigh?"

It’s only eighteen pounds, minus ammo weight, of course. Liam remembers explaining that real machine guns, like the ones used in wars, are much heavier and are usually mounted on turrets, and that it’s a misnomer to call an assault rifle a machine gun.

Liam loved explaining things to Ceres and had begun to realize that she wasn’t as dumb as she was pretending. She seemed to enjoy receiving his explanations as much as he enjoyed giving them. There was some form of linguistic synergy at play between them that Liam had never experienced before with anyone else.

He can’t help but smile while making his way out the door and through the dimly lit corridor, then through the mechanical room and out the back door of the building.

The bright radiance of the afternoon sun shining between the buildings blinds Liam at first, until his eyes can adjust to the light. Skyscrapers loom all around him, blotting out the surroundings. Cars are strewn about the streets, parked haphazardly, having been hastily abandoned by their owners.

An eerie quiet falls on the abandoned city while Liam sweeps the area with his hefty rifle. The Humvee is still there and he sweeps around to find it all clear. There are no signs of life. No survivors, no zombies, no Ceres.

Where did she go? he thinks. She didn’t take the car, so she can’t have gone far.

Ceres! he shouts.

No response.

CERES! he shouts louder. THIS ISN’T FUNNY!

His voice echoes through the city and then returns to him, low and haunting.

hiss hiss funny, hiss hiss funny…

It doesn’t make sense. Why would she leave? And why on foot? He turns the problem over again and again in his mind. Things were going so well.

Liam had actually felt happy for the first time in a long while. Now he is simply perplexed at the absence of his new friend, companion, and love interest. He had hoped, no, there was no doubt, he knew that they were becoming a couple. That’s why this makes absolutely no sense to him now. Ceres wouldn’t just leave. She wouldn’t just ditch him like this. There has to be some other explanation.

But what?

The silence of the city streets offers him no help whatsoever. At a loss for understanding, he clambers up into the driver’s seat of the Humvee to sit, turning the problem over and over in his mind in silent meditation.

Time passes as the shadows grow longer with the falling sun. Liam knows he’s going to have to make a choice before the sun goes down, and it’s a choice that he really doesn’t want to make—to leave and find shelter for the night without knowing what happened to Ceres.

Just then, there’s a sound. Liam springs out onto the road to listen. It’s a vehicle…coming from the other side of town. Maybe it’s her! He listens for a while as it makes its way through the city, getting louder and nearer. Maybe she found another car or went to recover her Porsche?

No explanations made any sense, but Liam is hopeful nonetheless. Just then, the car rounds the corner a few blocks away, from the direction of the sun, coming straight for him.

Standing in the middle of the street, Liam can tell that it’s a late model muscle car, dark or black in color. As it closes to within one block, he can almost make out the driver, whose arm is out the window, pointing to a position above Liam’s head. After glancing up at an empty sky, he looks back toward the rapidly approaching car.

Now the driver is waving his hand, as if telling Liam to move over. He feels a presence and moves automatically, diving and tumbling to his left and out of the way.

Looking back, Liam can see vertical lines of distortion, like light bending around the edges of something. As it continues to bend and move, he makes out the form of a transparent tentacle coming down from the sky. With a glance upward, he spots the source of the tentacle, or at least the outline of a large, cloaked cigar shaped object, easily twice the size of a bus.

The roar of a combustion engine dominates the atmosphere as the black muscle car plows directly into the tentacle. The front grill of the car crushes inward, forming a V in the hood on impact. It pushes back the invisible object, but the car rapidly slows.

Liam watches in disbelief as the front end of the car appears to wrap itself around the tentacle, like crashing into an invisible telephone pole, and comes to a complete stop after forcing it back a mere twenty feet. Rising up on his feet, he takes a few steps towards the wrecked car, not sure that he can trust his own eyes as to what exactly is happening in front of him.

The driver emerges from the car and starts running back towards Liam. He’s a muscular man in dark clothing with dark hair and rough features.

GO! he shouts in panic. We have to go!

Liam takes his cue and motions toward the Humvee. They both jump into their seats and quickly peel away from the phantom menace.

"What the hell was that thing?" Liam shouts to the stranger in his passenger seat.

Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t know, says the stranger in a deep tone. That’s why I came to warn you.

Know what? Liam asks. What was that…invisible thing?

Aliens, he says matter-of-factly.

Liam gets a sinking feeling in his stomach as the implication of that single word sets in. He also realizes that a perfect stranger just saved his life from untold danger.

That was an alien? Liam says, stunned. What would it have done to me?

It was one of their ships. They would have taken you away.

Away to where?

All we know is that no one ever comes back.

Is it following us? Liam speeds around the last corner, heading out of the city.

They don’t seem to attack us when we’re in cars, so you can relax a bit, says the stranger.

Thanks for saving me back there.

Just then it hits Liam like a ton of bricks. Ceres; she was taken. It’s the only explanation. He feels like someone punched him in the stomach and he hunches over in response.

The hardened stranger notices and asks, Are you all right?

I was with someone. I think they got her. Do you know where they take people?

Up.

The words send another emotional kick into Liam’s guts as the image of Ceres being dragged away by shadowy creatures flashes in his mind. His stomach twists into knots while driving the beige Humvee, speeding out of town and away from the late afternoon sun.

CHAPTER TWO

I’m sorry, says the passenger. My friends call me Rez. He holds out his hand.

Liam. He shakes Rez’s hand. The gesture makes him feel a little better, but not enough. Why do your friends call you Rez?

My last name’s Rezner, he says with a half-grin. I didn’t like it at first, but I guess it grew on me.

Liam is glad to have the company and an explanation for Ceres’ disappearance, even if it isn’t good news. It’s better to know than to live with uncertainty, floundering for an explanation. At least that’s what he tells himself.

You said ‘we’ earlier. You were with other survivors?

Yeah. Two others. Rez says.

Why’d you leave them?

To save your sorry ass, Rez says. We got your radio broadcast, but they didn’t want to chance it, so I came alone. Things have been pretty tense for us the past few weeks, because of uh… He points straight up with his index finger.

Thanks for saving me. Sorry about your car.

There’re plenty more like it out there, Rez says while shrugging, and practically no demand for ’em.

Rez seems like he’ll make a good friend, but he’s not the kind of guy you’d ever want to cross. He has a quiet intensity about him that means business.

Stop! Rez half-shouts. Liam brings the vehicle to a halt as Rez jumps out the passenger side to survey the sky above and behind them. We’re not being followed.

How can you tell? Liam asks through the open passenger door.

After you’ve been stalked for as long as we have, Rez says, still looking up, you learn to sense these things. They’re still monitoring us, but from high altitude. He turns to face Liam. They’re just toying with us, studying us. They could take us out if they really wanted to. It’s like an African safari to them and we’re just the poor, dumb animals.

Liam doesn’t like the feeling he gets from Rez’s words. He was feeling more confident about living in a world filled with zombies since meeting Ceres, like he was the one on safari and the fiends were the poor, dumb animals. Now suddenly there’s a new menace kicking him off the top of the food chain, and it’s not a comfortable feeling.

He steps out on the road and stands next to Rez. What’s our next move?

The golden late-afternoon sun hangs just over the skyline of the nearby city, morphing through its slow, inexorable transformation from yellow to orange.

We only have an hour before sunset, says Rez, motioning toward the city. Did you sleep there last night?

No.

That’s good.

Why?

We have a rule, Rez says. We never stay in the same place two nights in a row. Liam doesn’t have long to ponder those words before Rez continues, I need to get some things out of my car. It should be clear by now. Let’s go.

As they pull up to the damaged car, Rez jumps out and casually scans the sky above. Yep, they never stay close to the ground for very long.

He walks toward the wreck. Soon he emerges from the car with a duffle bag, an assault rifle, and two SMGs in custom holsters. Liam notices that the rifle has an extra magazine taped upside down to the loaded one for a quick, no-hassle flip-reload.

Nice AK, Liam says, noticing that Rez’s SMGs have the same double-mags as his rifle. Are those 74s?

For close encounters. Rez half-smiles and nods. We’d better get inside.

I know a place, says Liam, and with that they load back into the Humvee and drive a few blocks away to a ten-story hotel. The room’s on top, but it’s fresh and clear.

Carry that for you? Liam motions toward the assault rifle.

Sure. We probably don’t need to go so heavy in this place. Rez hands the weapon to Liam.

The two go in through a revolving door and proceed up the stairs. This stairwell is dark, but their flashlight attachments work well at illuminating the area. After the fifth flight of stairs, Liam is glad that he left his much heavier LMG in the car. Rez’s assault rifle is easily ten pounds lighter.

Winded and breathing heavily, they finally make their way into the penthouse suite, which is spacious and nicely decorated with modern art deco furnishings. Liam notices that about half of the walls are glass, which makes him feel vulnerable, unlike the last time he was here with Ceres.

Nice, Rez says, but too much glass. They probably wouldn’t do anything, but I don’t want to find out. After agreeing to look for another ‘fresh and clear’ room, they decide to split the difference and are soon on the 5th floor stairwell, just outside the hallway door.

Liam opens the door and Rez slides through with his 74 ready to fire. The hallway is long, dark, and quiet.

A loud, wild scream drifts from the distance and pounding footfalls come toward them.

Liam aims his rifle to light up the rapidly approaching ghoul. At forty feet, he can tell that it’s a woman running toward them, and he aims for her head. At twenty feet, he can see her smooth pale skin, button nose, and full greenish lips. Ceres! She looks like Ceres! At ten feet, he hesitates, begins to squeeze, then BAM! Rez takes her down with a round through the forehead.

Can’t be, Liam thinks.

As the body falls before him, Liam sees another runner just behind her and shoots through his eye. All clear.

He quickly bends down to examine the brunette on the floor in front of him. Wrong hair color.

You all right? asks Rez in a concerned voice.

She looked like…

Liam should feel relieved that this wasn’t Ceres, but he’s not. He’s haunted by her image now as he realizes that he was the one who sent her outside to check the radio signal. If he hadn’t sent her, then it might have been him that was taken instead of her. Whatever has befallen her, it’s his fault.

I want you to tell me everything that you know about them, says Liam sternly.

Yeah, says Rez. No problem, bro, but let’s get a room first.

I’ll take point.

Liam restlessly stands by the first door in the hallway. Rez backs up for a running start then crashes through the hotel room entrance, loses his balance, and falls to the floor.

Liam enters the broken doorway, closely following Rez through, and he can’t believe his eyes. The room is filled with half-naked men standing all around. A dozen screams erupt as they turn toward Liam with wild, bright green eyes.

He quickly raises his rifle to puts bullets between the eyes of the three closest targets when one emerges from the bathroom to his right. The zombie lunges into Liam, who manages to hold him off with only his rifle separating them. The wild-haired fiend cranes his neck toward Liam, snapping his teeth just inches away from his face.

As the others close in, the moment seems hopeless, until Rez rises up, puts his SMG between the zombie’s eyes, and squeezes off a round all in one motion.

Liam’s AR is free, so he quickly aims and pierces the skull of another bright green eyed encroacher as the remaining eight pile in, charging toward the door.

BAM, BAM BAM BAM BABAM BABAM. Liam takes them all down with clean single shots to the head.

As the last one falls to the floor, Rez laughs nervously. Nice work. I thought we’d had it for a second there. You’re good with that thing. Are you ex-military?

Marines, Liam says. Was in just long enough to get my marksmanship. I like you’re rifle.

It’s yours, bro. Long as you keep savin’ my life with it.

They both notice that one of the bodies on the floor is female. Rez rolls her over to reveal pasties covering her nipples. On the dresser is a white cake in the shape of a female breast. On closer inspection, Liam can see that the left breast was eaten, but the right is fully intact.

Bachelor party? Rez says. Of all the rooms, we had to barge in on a bachelor party!

Back out in the hallway, the two approach the door across the hall.

Wait, says Liam. We don’t need to do it this way. We don’t need to clear every room. All we need to do is find an empty one.

He stands back, aims his rifle, and shoots a bullet through the door just below the peephole. A moment later, he looks through the new peephole he just made. Across the room, a male zombie in a business suit looks directly at him.

Next, Liam says.

The two continue, using this method until they find two unoccupied adjoining rooms. The sun is setting as they enter the rooms and close the curtains.

Those damned things have ruined stargazing for me, says Rez, while rustling through his duffle bag. Tuna? He offers Liam a hand.

Please. Liam grabs the can. Soon they’re eating tuna and drinking beer by electric lantern light in their new hotel room.

So whaddya want to know? asks Rez between bites.

Everything. Liam intensely focuses on his new comrade.

Rez starts by telling him that he was part of a large group of survivors. About a month ago, almost fifty strong had gathered in the woods, at a cabin in the Appalachians. Things were going pretty well until one of them disappeared without a trace. For several days, we kept expecting her to show up infected, but she never did.

CHAPTER THREE

Rez readjusts himself in his arm chair, his rugged face lit up by the halogen flood lamp. The two sit drinking by the small round table in the corner of the hotel room. He seems much more youthful to Liam now than his first impression had led him to believe. Liam wonders how old he is, but knows better than to ask something like that. If he had to guess, he’d put him in his late twenties. Regardless of his age, Liam senses that his new companion is both mentally and physically as solid as they come.

So a few days later I was out searching with Carl, Rez continues. "A few miles away, we found a vacant cabin. This cabin was equipped with a generator and a shortwave radio. I was able to get them working and we just listened at first, scanning the spectrum for over an hour, but no one was broadcasting. When we realized that our generator was almost out of fuel we decided to stop listening and start sending. After about twenty minutes of broadcasting, we lost power. Carl went outside to search for more fuel, while I searched inside for anything that might be of use. His screams stopped me. I thought that a pack of zombies had attacked, but why were there no gun shots? Then cries of ‘help Rez help!’ made me run outside with my rifle. The screams were coming from above me, and when I looked… I couldn’t understand what I was witnessing at first. Carl was twenty feet up in the air. Parts of him seemed invisible. As he moved upward, he went silent. I could make out a large, transparent oval-shaped object above him that was carrying him away. That was a month ago, but it feels like just yesterday.

When I got back to camp and told the others what had happened, they didn’t believe me. Some even thought I killed Carl and invented the story to cover my own ass, Rez’s voice darkens. "I don’t get people sometimes. I mean, why would I make up such a ridiculous story that I barely believe myself, even after seeing it with my own eyes? And why would I kill Carl when he was the most likeable guy in our group? I swear it seems like people have somehow been programmed to mistrust each other for no good reason."

There was a doctor among us who had an idea of how this all began. Rez grows even more somber now. "Old Doc Wallace. Somehow he knew. He didn’t share his knowledge with anyone in our group until the incident with Carl. That’s when he decided to tell me everything. On the day of the outbreak, he had received a phone call from a former colleague of his, someone named Hamilton, who had witnessed something inexplicable. He was driving home from work and saw a distortion in the sky. Focusing on the distortion, he was able to make out an oval-shaped object that hovered down and seemed to attach itself to a freeway overpass. The object sprayed a green mist, which drifted down across his lane as he drove right through it."

Rez finishes his beer then opens another bottle with ‘XX’ on the label. I’ve always like bottled beer better than canned. You? He takes a chug.

Definitely, Liam says, trying not to seem impatient, but wanting Rez to get back to his story.

Old Doc liked his beer in a bottle too. He was on his fifth bottle before he told me all the things I’m about to tell you. So Hamilton made it home and started feeling ill. He knew that something was wrong. He called Doc Wallace from his computer—a video conference. Old Doc got to watch his friend Hamilton turn in real time, across the internet, from the safety of his own home.

Damn, Liam says, before taking another drink.

Yeah, right? Doc called 911, but it was… perma-busy, you know? Between the strange news reports, what Hamilton had told him over the phone, and what he had seen him change into, it didn’t take Doc long to put two and two together. He deduced that we were dealing with a virus and that the incubation period from the initial airborne infection was around one hour. The time from death to reanimation was around—

Twenty seconds.

Yeah. We know that one, don’t we? Rez opens his third bottle of beer and hands Liam his second. "What he found out later was that the contagion being transferred from host to host was not airborne, but blood-borne. At first he thought that the virus had mutated from its original form, but he soon realized that he was dealing with something much more complex than a simple virus. He was talking about advanced microbial genetic engineering with a separately engineered airborne host. Possibly a microscopic flying insect, to be used as an initial delivery system.

So Doc barricaded his house and survived there for months, until his large supply of canned and dried foods began to run out. He would have starved to death if he weren’t rescued by yours truly. It was easy to tell that there was a survivor in his house by the sheer number of infected trying to claw their way in. I was able to lure them away by car and then circle back around to pick him up. By the time I pulled up to his house, he was already standing in the driveway with a suitcase and two large duffle bags. Old Doc never missed a beat. A brief glimmer of a smile crossed Rez’s lips.

"We soon stumbled across a couple other survivors scavenging for supplies in a nearby town. That’s how we joined the larger group and ended up at that cabin in the woods with forty-nine survivors and over a dozen RVs forming a protective circle. Doc and I had both been alone for six months, so we were naturally very happy to join such a large group. Hell, just knowing that many people had actually survived seemed like happiness in itself, ya know?"

Yeah, definitely. Liam says, amazed at the prospect. You probably didn’t know how to act around them.

Rez laughs. So right, brother. It’s just that… I guess we thought that there was safety in numbers. His jovial expression turns into a scowl. "We thought wrong.

Doc told me that the ‘sprayers’—which is what he named the cloaked ships described to him by Hamilton—were much smaller than the large ship that had taken Carl. That ship was larger than a full-sized bus, easily over a hundred feet in length. Inspired by Doc, I started calling the bigger ships ‘snatchers.’ The sprayers are only about the size of a car. Rez took a long drink and then looked down into his lap as he spoke, "So Doc and I integrated into the camp, having to relearn some of the basic social conventions that we had lost during our months of solitary survival confinement. I think it was harder on Doc than it was on me. He was more uh… confined than I was. You know how it is. Even when you’re safely out of reach, them clawing at the barriers still claws at your mind somehow."

Liam nods solemnly and says, It’s the relentless pursuit. They’re out there, in the millions, and you can’t really ever forget it, because you know that they will never stop pursuing you and never stop clawing to get at you. Their clawing is like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad, unless you can handle it.

They sit for a moment of shared meditation, reflecting on the words they have just spoken, somehow each knowing that the other is having the same thought. As if synchronous thinking were the norm.

To those who can handle it, Rez says, lifting his bottle to Liam.

The bottles clink together in salute and are quickly bottomed-up. The sentiment turns Liam’s thoughts back to Ceres and her uncertain fate. Her image sparkles in his mind like that of a shining star with bright red hair. He needs Rez to finish his story. He needs to know what Rez knows, and Rez obliges without delay.

"Most of the people had their own cliques that were hard to break in to, and then there were the hardcore survivalists who had never bothered to relearn their social conventions, assuming that they ever had any. Aside from those groups, I was able to make quite a few new friends, Carl being among them. He became my wingman of sorts, but he would tell you that I was his wingman. Carl was a good ol’ boy in every way. We were barely there a week when he was snatched up right before my eyes.

"Two days after that happened, I had just set off alone into the woods when I heard screams coming from our encampment. I hurried back to the edge of the tree line and I heard Doc screaming ‘SPRAYER!’ That word sent a chill down my spine and I knew exactly what was happening. A sprayer had set down just upwind of our camp and was spraying the green mist. Looking at my camp mates, I could tell it was too late for them. The entire group was infected that quickly. Doc came out into the opening between two of the RVs and spotted me. ‘STAY AWAY,’ he shouted. ‘IT’S AIRBORNE! RUN!’

I realized at that moment that I was downwind of the camp, so I turned and ran for my life. Soon I changed direction to cut sideways across the breeze and get as far away from that downwind as possible. I found two members of our group who were hunting in the woods, Darryl and Jesse, and told them what had happened. By the time we had circled around to the upwind side of the camp, they had all turned. Out of forty-eight souls, we were the last three survivors. That was three weeks ago. Darryl, Jesse and I have been together ever since. Always on the move, always looking over our shoulders, never sleeping in the same place twice.

After Rez finished speaking, the air seemed to fill with the gravity of the situation. The weight of this new understanding settled upon Liam’s body and mind. Just a few hours ago he was hopeful, happy even, in the company of Ceres. Now she had been snatched away and his whole world had become a much worse nightmare than he had previously thought possible. A real ‘no win’ scenario. Liam realized that, at any moment, a sprayer could crash through the window of the hotel room, begin spraying that green mist, and it would be over for the both of them. But worse than the fear of this new mysterious, yet obviously superior, enemy was not knowing what had befallen Ceres.

"Did Doc have any theories on who they are and what they do with people they take?" Liam can guess the answer and doesn’t want to hear it.

Doc was a scientist, Rez says in a low voice. "He said that they were extraterrestrials who had probably outgrown their home planet and were looking to populate a new one. He said that, in a few centuries, we might have ended up doing the same thing to another species on some other world. You see, a full interstellar military invasion would not work. Transporting an army, along with all of the supporting equipment, several light years is much too expensive. It doesn’t matter if your technology is many centuries ahead of your enemy.

"It’s much smarter and more cost-effective to send a few scientific scout ships first. They can secretly observe the indigenous population while developing a biological weapon to wipe them out. With very little cost, you could develop a virus and devise an efficient way to spread it, using the enemy’s own freeway system against them, thereby wiping out 99.9% of the unwanted population. Doc was convinced that this plague is just a precursor to full-scale invasion/colonization of Earth by an alien race. I can’t argue with his logic."

Rez takes a long swig of beer,