Zombie Fly

By Ray Cecire

Katherine Siles is a bright young chemistry major at a local college. At 19, the tall brunette with almond colored eyes is smart, tough, and possess just the right amount of silly when she wants to be. She also doesn't fit into any of the traditional cliques like the goths, nerds, jocks or overdressed princesses. Katherine is an independent woman, her own woman. Her chemistry final requires her to extend the short life of the common house fly through the use of chemistry.

Enter Charles Cruz, her ex-boyfriend. When Katharine refuses to consider reconciliation, Charles sabotages her experiment by killing off her tiny winged subjects with a toxic virus, stolen from the school's lab. Unfortunately, it backfires. The virus only strengthens one of her test subjects who soon crashes through the glass window to freedom. It leaves with a taste for human flesh and blood. The more it eats, the larger it grows. The campus proves to be a perfect feeding ground for its veracious appetite and Katherine is next on its menu. That is, until a nerdy entomology student name Richard Youlin offers to help her end the flesh-eating monsters reign of terror.

Could true love with a bug boy be brewing in the background?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543984026

Book preview

Copyright 2019 All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN 978-1-54398-401-9 (print)

ISBN 978-1-54398-402-6 (eBook)

With all my love to Kathie,

my guiding light,

and Tyler my shining star.

***

To Ed Cound.

Thank you for decades of friendship, all the creative ideas you contributed to this story along the way , and the inspiration you gave me to write the book .

Contents

Prologue

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

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Epilogue

Prologue

Kentfield, California—a small, quiet, rustic little town with a country feel to it, yet surrounded by expensive homes. The area is located north of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge as part of Marin County. It is early morning. The sun has yet to make an appearance, so the dense morning fog has created a blanket of lingering low-hanging moisture over Kentfield’s streets.

Thomas Lee, an older Asian man with a thin build dressed in a mechanic’s light blue onesie, walks briskly to his job. He is the daytime janitor at the Kentfield College, located on a street appropriately named College Way.

He looks down and notices his hands are starting to shake uncontrollably. His legs feel weak underneath him, as he struggles to walk. Finally, his entire body is shaking, forcing him to drop his gray metal lunchbox out of his hand. Seconds later, the shaking settles, but now Thomas is walking in circles and mumbling incomprehensibly. The shaking returns, first the top half of his body, and then the bottom. The shakes are forceful, violent. He is barely able to stand.

A police car moves in slowly. The officer inside spots the man’s erratic behavior and attempts to pull him over.

Excuse me, sir? the cop calls out.

The janitor turns and walks aimlessly toward the car’s headlights. He appears comatose, lifeless, zombie-like.

The car stops and the cop steps out. Sir, sir, can you come over here, please? he asks, concerned for the man’s safety.

The janitor ignores the officer’s request, turns, and walks in the other direction.

The frustrated cop follows. This time he uses a more forceful tone in his voice, Sir! I need you to stop right now and come talk to me.

A split second later, a larger-than-normal fly starts to circle the janitor. The fly is the size of a baseball, highly unusual for this region of Northern California. It continues buzzing around the janitor’s head, then zips over and begins to circle the cop.

What the heck? the cop says, as he swings at the oversized insect in an attempt to shoo it away.

Finally, it buzzes past the two men, and settles on a nearby telephone phone. It is perched high above, watching, waiting for something.

The janitor continues to walk in circles, mumbling to himself, and then moves again toward the officer. His eyes are drawn, his skin void of color.

The cop pulls a taser gun from his holster and points it at the man. Stop, or I’m gonna’ tase you.

The janitor freezes in his tracks as the frenzied convulsions start up again. They are so forceful this time around, they knock the janitor to the ground. His body starts to bounce up and down, wildly out of control, violently smacking against the concrete. Suddenly, the convulsing stops. His body is laid out flat in the middle of the street. His breathing is labored. Within seconds, even that stops. He’s gone.

The cop cautiously makes his way over, his taser still trained on the man. The officer radios for assistance. He yells into a walkie-talkie mounted on his shoulder. Dispatch, this is Officer Dowling. I’m in front of a house number 2155 W. Riverton. Cross street Maple. I have an Asian male, approximately 45 to 50 years old. Seems to have had a seizure, no longer breathing. I need an RA unit right away.

The police dispatcher responds, 10-4, RA unit number 14 on its way.

The cop leans in to check for a pulse.

In a flash, the janitor grabs the cop’s arms. His grip is tight and his strength overwhelms the cop, forcing him to drop the taser. The cop’s eyes widen at the sight of the suspect’s face. In that moment, a handful of tiny flies with bulbus little bodies begin to seep out from behind the janitor’s eyes, then his ears, and finally his mouth. The cop is desperately trying to free himself with his other hand. He is pulling and tugging, but it’s no use. The janitor maintains an almost superhuman grip on the officer’s arm.

A second later, the janitor’s eyes turn from brown to gray. He is becoming something else, something unrecognizable. His skin is slowly tearing open, his eyes are getting more bloodshot by the second. He did die, though. The officer witnessed it and heard his dying breath, yet the man is still moving and his strength is even greater than when he was…alive?

Just then, the old janitor lunges at the cop, biting down on the officer’s arm. A loud CRUNCH and then a TARE sound can be heard. The cop launches back, away from this menace, screaming in pain like he’s never felt before. Ahhhhhh!!!

Blood covers the mouth of the zombie-like janitor as he chews away at a chuck of the cop’s arm.

The cop struggles to holsters his taser and draw his service weapon. He pushes it deep into the man’s chest. And then…Pow! Pow! Pow! Three shots, fired directly into the man’s ribcage without hesitation. The Zombie-fied janitor falls back.

A moment later, another explosion. Boom! The janitor’s head blows wide open and releases a swarm of small flies from his near headless body. The cop crawls backwards in an effort to get away. He is covered in pieces of the man’s flesh and skull. Hundreds of flies continue to free themselves from what’s left of the poor old man’s head. How long must he have been holding them in? The newly hatched flies head skyward, and then circle above the bloody scene below. The larger fly leaves its perch on the pole and joins the younger airborne insects. They circle the death zone. It appears the larger fly is the mother and has come to collect her swarm of newborns. From below, the officer watches as the newly formed swarm fly off.

Chapter 1

ONE MONTH EARLIER.

The recently updated campus of Kentfield College, combines the red brickwork of the old campus with the floor-to-ceiling glass architecture more common