Zombie Trap: Zombies 2.0, #3

By J.P. Westfind

A fresh twist on the zombie genre, no-one saw coming. Zombies 2.0

 

The new story bringing together your favourite characters in the world of Zombies 2.0. Mustang infection has swept the globe. It makes you smarter, faster, cures chronic illnesses, and even helps you lose weight. You've just got to make sure you take your medicine, because the consequences can be murder. Evolution or apocalypse, with the fate of the country at stake.

 

Zombies, Militia, National Guard, a Senator on the run, and a group of desperate scavengers: all desperate, all deadly. Senator Richie Steele and Jackie Two-Feathers return in Zombie Trap. Newtown is the wrong town to visit if you want to survive. A trap for the desperate, a bait that bites.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Boyes and Crang
• Release date: Dec 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9780645003215

J.P. Westfind

J.P. Westfind never wanted to be a zombie writer. After an early novel failed for its lack of pace, he decided to hone his skills and began a single-minded study of action. All roads led to the genre with alternative worlds, the most thrills, and wildest characters. He fell in love with it. He hopes you’ll enjoy the world of Zombies 2.0 as much as he enjoyed writing it!

Book preview

1

.38 Special

Senator Richie Steele crouched on the back deck, squinting at what looked like tooth marks scored into shinbone. He gagged as a thin line of acidic vomit burnt its way up his throat.

The shinbone jutted out of the bloody remains of an Army boot in a puddle of blood, stewed by the summer heat. It was humid, but a band of dark clouds had moved in to block out the Montana sun. The rain that was threatening couldn’t come soon enough.

He clutched his M16 like a teddy bear. The stench of death—human, worm, and zombie—coated the air. He moved closer, holding his breath and pinching his nose. Sweat ran into his eyes and down through his beard that covered a scar earned on his last tour of Afghanistan.

A bell chimed, breaking the silence. Worry lines wrinkled his forehead as he reached for the cell phone in his back pocket to flick it to silent mode. A selfie of a little girl flexing her muscles next to a Labrador flashed up on his cell. The corners of his mouth lifted in an attempt at a smile but failed.

Steele’s ears strained, searching for any noise other than the thin shrill ringing of tinnitus. He flicked his head around, scanning to see if anyone else had heard. The driveway leading to Harry’s three-bedroom farmhouse was empty. He could just see where the dirt met the asphalt, next to a sign sitting beside a wheat field.

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2 MILES TO NEWTOWN, MONTANA

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His eyes flickered around in desperation. They’ll come for me soon—soldiers, police, mustangs. They can’t know I’m here. No, someone always comes. Should have just lit out for Mexico. Damn, stupid … Don’t be paranoid. Where the hell is Harry?

Steele rubbed the stubble on his face and spat out a little vomit as he eyeballed the bloody boot again. He lifted his head to contemplate the house. A busted French door tilted in the wind on one hinge. Shuffling blood-smeared tracks led away toward the fields on the outskirts of the farmhouse.

Harry, you in there? he whisper-yelled. His hands felt for the brass knuckles in his pocket, capable of breaking a face and probably legal somewhere. If you’re still alive, give me a yell. I brought a six-pack. Most of a six-pack anyway, after that close shave in Hillsboro ... Harry will understand. Steele’s voice rose, but still not too loud. Come on, Harry. Not you too … I trained you too well to be eaten by wormers. Where the hell are you? Where’s this resistance you promised me?

His gaze dropped back to the deck. Thin irregular patterns were traced in the congealed blood. The marks all seemed to go in one direction, no longer than a foot, but occasionally they’d veer. He shivered, cold in the heat as it all clicked.

Tongue tracks! Steele recoiled. The worm larvae that spread infection lived in their saliva, turning people zombie. Dear God! They must have lapped up the blood like kittens with a saucer of milk.

A faint whimper came from behind him. Steele jumped, swinging his M16 around, finger on the trigger. A Labrador crouched in the far corner of a man-sized dog pen, hidden, head peeking out of its kennel. He’d almost riddled the thing with bullets. His fists unclenched.

What kind of asshole leaves a beautiful thing like you to starve to death in freakin’ zombie land? whispered Steele. No way Harry would have left you penned up with zombies and wormers around. Where’s Harry, girl?

At least the lab wasn’t barking. The dog would have gone crazy at the scent of zombies or wormers, for that matter. Had Harry been warned?

He scanned the road in both directions one more time. He’d only lasted this last few months by taking precautions.

The wire of the pen was covered in filth and blood, and a human finger lay on the concrete floor. It had the grey look of a dead thing, starved of blood. It had to be a zombie finger. Wormers would have had the sense not to get too close to a dog. The dog had a lucky escape—zombies weren’t good at opening things once the worm took over. The padlock on the pen defeated them. Didn’t stop them trying though—they’d do anything for meat.

Steele pulled a metal case out of his pocket and took a lock pick and tension tool out. Sweat rolled down his back in the humidity as he spent valuable minutes inexpertly jiggling lock-pick tools until the padlock clicked open. He unbolted the tall gate to the pen and turned on a tap that filled the dog’s water bowl.

Labradors were a docile breed, but something about wormers and zombies got dogs riled up, even this one. Dogs didn’t carry the worm either—another reason Steele liked them. This one was still jumpy, not moving from her kennel in the corner. Her ear was in tatters. He guessed zombies had bitten it through the mesh of the cage at the same time as the lab took one of their fingers.

He held out his hand and hoped that she only bit zombie fingers. The lab peeked her head out of the kennel, sniffing at Steele’s hand and dirty suit, scenting sweat and the pheromones of anxiety. Steele kept his hand out, waiting, half turning in the direction of the house. She moved closer but wouldn’t come fully out of her kennel. Steele scratched under her chin, reaching in to rub her back. The tag on her collar read Iris, and a phone number was listed underneath.

A creak came from behind Steele. He spun, scanning the wrecked back of the house, searching for any noise. He held himself still for two minutes before standing and kicking the zombie finger out of the pen. Probably nothing.

The lab started whining as Steele walked back toward the house.

I’m not going anywhere, girl. I’ll find you something to eat. You stay here and let me know if there are any wormers or zombies around. Sound okay, Iris? Deal?

Iris stared up accusingly as Steele closed the gate to her pen.

Safer in there, Iris. Trust me.

Steele patted the spare M16 magazine in his pocket and headed into the house through the broken French door. He scanned inside, following a trail of shattered glass and blood. Shell casings littered the floor. Must have been some battle.

Smashed furniture lay around, splattered with glass from broken windows. Only zombies made a mess like this. There was no humanity in them, unless you counted rage. Mustangs, in the earlier stage of the infection, were more considerate and wouldn’t have made all this mess. Mustangs had control and precision, way more than regular folk. The trade-off was housing a worm in their large intestine that required care, or things would go very wrong. Zombie wrong.

A certificate on the wall celebrated Henry Green, president of the Newtown, Montana chapter of the NRA. Next to it hung a picture of a US Army Psychological Operations Unit, with a group of young men in the Iraqi desert. Steele cracked a smile upon seeing a younger version of Harry Green with sergeant’s stripes on his shoulder and himself in his lieutenant’s uniform. The younger version of Steele had a more open face, even in a war zone, happier than now. He didn’t yet have the scar on his cheek. The bomb in the bunker that killed Byrne and Konrad hadn’t gone off yet.

Beneath the picture was a framed citation from the 4th Psychological Operations Airborne for meritorious conduct in the performance of duty. That wasn’t the half of it, was it, Harry?

---

On the 18th day of September 2011, Sgt. Henry Green and his unit, under the command of Lt. Richard Steele, were pinned down by a hundred strong detachments of Al Qaeda. In the face of overwhelming numbers of enemy troops, Sgt. Green was ordered to retreat and leave an unconscious Lt. Steele behind. Making a battlefield assessment that retreat was no longer possible, Sgt. Green provided covering fire for his unit and casualties, sustaining serious injuries. His conspicuous bravery in those actions allowed reinforcements time to arrive and neutralize the Al Qaeda troops.

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Taking on a gun-nut like Harry in his own home would be a losing proposition for any enemy with the semblance of an instinct for self-preservation, something zombies didn’t have.

Dead zombies were scattered about, and mangled worms lay dead where they had burst out of their hosts in desperation. In death, the worms curled up on themselves, trying to turn inside out. They were big, two to five feet long, and bloated. Their worm faces were frozen in anger, with grotesque mini rams’ horns jutting out of their heads. Some worms had been shot; some had just died of exposure.

Why didn’t you run, Harry? Or did you? Is it someone else’s body? Harry always was lucky.

A knocking started coming from deeper in the house, accompanied by moaning, getting more insistent.

Steele scanned the area from left to right, daring some zombie to come out so he could blow it to hell. He moved down the hall and kicked in the door of the first bedroom but found it empty; the second bedroom and the kitchen were the same. The bathroom came next. He flicked the shower curtain back quickly and almost put a line of rounds through the wall. He turned to the bathroom cabinet and whipped it open so the mirror tilted away. There was nothing he wanted to see in a mirror.

He jumped as a door slammed in the hallway. He followed the trail of blood to the closed door of the third and last bedroom. The door was moving back and forth like someone was playing with it—or something. Something without a brain, something that knew to bite. He pulled a tennis ball out of his other pocket and threw it against the wall near the door. Steele heard movement and clutched his M16 as the door pulled opened, then slammed again.