Odoru: Rebellion

By J.S. Frankel

Carl Silverman, Grover Plover, and Genevieve Gray return, this time making a new life for themselves in Baltimore, Maryland. They continue their zombie-killing lifestyle, while Carl tries to go back to school and attempts to lead a normal life.

But things aren’t well on the personal side. Amanda ends her relationship with Carl, and he starts dating Miranda, a vamp from the other side of the segregated city. Vamps are not considered full-fledged citizens, and fears over them are stoked by an ignorant human populace.

Worse, a new drug is killing humans and vamps, and Amanda dies in an ambush. Carl grieves, and he vows to find her killer. His quest leads him to battle people on both sides of the city. It also leads him to question which world he belongs in.

Justice, though, must be served, and he does his best to serve it, even at the cost of his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: Jul 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781487438111

Book preview

Making the world safe for another turn of the sun is harder the second time around when vampires and zombies are involved.

Carl Silverman, Grover Plover, and Genevieve Gray return, this time making a new life for themselves in Baltimore, Maryland. They continue their zombie-killing lifestyle, while Carl tries to go back to school and attempts to lead a normal life.

But things aren’t well on the personal side. Amanda ends her relationship with Carl, and he starts dating Miranda, a vamp from the other side of the segregated city. Vamps are not considered full-fledged citizens, and fears over them are stoked by an ignorant human populace.

Worse, a new drug is killing humans and vamps, and Amanda dies in an ambush. Carl grieves, and he vows to find her killer. His quest leads him to battle people on both sides of the city. It also leads him to question which world he belongs in.

Justice, though, must be served, and he does his best to serve it, even at the possible cost of his life.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Odoru: Rebellion

Copyright © 2023 J.S. Frankel

ISBN: 978-1-4874-3811-1

Cover art by Martine Jardin

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by eXtasy Books Inc or

Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc

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Smashwords Edition

Odoru: Rebellion

Odoru, Book Two

By

J.S. Frankel

Dedication

To my wife, Akiko, and to our children, Kai and Ray, thank you for making every day an adventure.

To all the great supporters I’ve had over the years. Eva Pasco, Gigi Sedlmayer, Joanne Van Leerdam, Sara Linnertz, Harlowe Rose, Toni Kief, Richard Correa, Mark Carnelly, Teresa, Eick, and too many more to mention.

Finally, to my late sister, Nancy Dana Frankel, this one’s for you, sis.

Chapter One: Say Goodbye, Part One

Rose Chapel Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland. October tenth, 2028. Noon.

It was always hard to say goodbye, but even more so to someone I’d used to care deeply for and someone I still cared about in my own way. I’d thought that I was inured to death. I’d seen so much of it in the past year, it wouldn’t affect me. I thought that way, convincing myself that I was right.

Deep down, though, I knew that I was wrong.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, intoned the minister. We commend the body of Amanda Worthington to that of the earth while her soul soars to heaven.

The minister, an aged and withered man, spoke with the certainty of his faith. I had no such faith. When you were gone, you were gone, and the girl I’d once loved was now in her coffin, lying peacefully in repose, and would forever more be one with the planet on which we lived. The minister then asked, Does anyone wish to say anything before we conclude the service?

Only three people attended. Grover Plover, a veteran of the wars against the undead, his girlfriend, Genevieve Gray, and me, Carl Silverman, the former boyfriend of the deceased.

I lifted my right arm to wipe the tears from my eyes. It still hurt, courtesy of the explosion that had killed my ex, along with another member of our group—Teal. He’d taken the brunt of the blast, but a shard of metal from the tossed grenade had pierced Amanda’s throat, and there was nothing anyone could do to help her. She’d died instantly.

Amanda, I whispered. I’m sorry. Goodbye.

I didn’t want to cry, and at the age of eighteen, I thought I was too old. Not so, and the tears coursed freely down my cheeks as her coffin was slowly lowered into the ground. I felt like a piece of me was being interred with her as well, a ripping of my soul in two, a wound that would never heal. As I grieved, the minister said a few more nice words about Amanda, and with that, the service was over.

A chilly wind blew across the cemetery, scattering the fallen leaves and sending small swirls of dirt in mini vortexes hither and yon. The sky was gray and cloudless, like a lead blanket of despair. From the low temperature and because I’d been raised on the east coast, I knew how harsh wintertime could be. It would come early this year.

Plover patted my shoulder. A stocky, muscular man in his mid-thirties, in a change from his usual attire of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, he wore a black suit and tie, and he sported a stubbly brown beard that matched the brown stubble on his head. With an iron grip, he steered me in the direction of his van that would take us home.

His girlfriend, Genevieve—everyone called her Gen—who stood on the short side of five-four, dark-skinned, with plain features and long, black hair—also wore a matching dark jacket and pair of slacks, and she whispered that things would be okay, while fighting back her own tears, Time is a healer, Carl.

No, it isn’t. Don’t pretend that it is, I replied, feeling miserable. I couldn’t see much. Tears still obscured my vision, but as we passed through the main gates of the cemetery, I caught sight of Miranda, the girl I’d been dating for the past three months.

I’d told my guardians about her, but they’d never met her, and now... perhaps now wasn’t the best time.

She nodded at me, her face twisted with pain, but she didn’t approach us. I knew her, knew how she thought and what she was. She’d also lost someone in the blast—Teal, her brother.

Miranda was a vampire, one of those changed and resurrected by a virus that had sprung up in the wake of the zombie virus that had threatened to engulf the world roughly a year ago.

Vampires—our neighbors and sometime allies against the zombies, called themselves vamps and were proud of that appellation—and humans didn’t usually mix, but in our case, we were the exception.

The exception—not the rule—and we had a special place in the world that we now lived in.

Gen cast her gaze in Miranda’s direction and asked, Carl, that girl who’s staring at us—that’s Miranda?

Yes.

Do you want to speak to her? You told me that you two are together, and—

Later, I said. Later...

Two days earlier. Seven PM. Our suburb of Baltimore.

Ready to go zomboffing? Amanda asked in a bright voice, a marked change from her recent sullenness.

As ready as I’ll ever be, I replied while pulling on my black bodysuit and kicking myself mentally for uttering such a stale cliché.

Then let’s go.

Amanda wore the same outfit. It was light as well as tight, offered maximum freedom of movement, and was cold resistant, as well as aerated, which made it perfect winter or summer wear. We meeting Miranda and Teal tonight? I asked.

Yeah. She grabbed her weapons, her Olympic-level bow, her custom-made arrows, three hunting knives, and night goggles—sunglasses, actually, that had the same function as night goggles—and a pistol from the mini-armory we kept in our hallway.

I had the same pistol—a Desert Eagle—and I carried my trusty ax as well as a hatchet plus three knives. We also had smartphones with our contact numbers—Plover and Gen, in addition to the other members of our zombie-killing group, the police, and the paramedics, just in case. Suitably equipped, we stepped outside and walked over to the park where we’d meet our vamp contacts.

Some people didn’t like the idea of others walking around carrying weapons, such as we did. They could complain all they liked, but they weren’t the ones who were killing zombies. We were, and against the flesh-eating undead, we needed any edge that we could get.

And in any case, it wasn’t like we were using our weapons to terrorize the citizenry or rob banks. We used what we had to stop the zombies from taking over. That was our job—zomboffing the enemy—and in our case, the enemy was the walking dead.

Zomboffing was a term coined by a late friend of ours, Norm Barnett. It combined the words offing and zombie, hence—zomboffing. Slaughtering zombies wasn’t my idea of a full-time job. It wasn’t like I’d grown up wanting to be a zombie killer...

*

Most kids dreamed of becoming world-class athletes, doctors, or comedians, but killing the undead? That was in the movies, but Mother Nature had unexpectedly tossed us a curveball. A year ago, Amanda and I had been sophomore students at a high school in the city of Routeville, near Joliet. It was a nice, safe, and sterile existence.

All that changed when Odoru hit the world. Odoru came from the Japanese verb which meant to dance. The virus had first been discovered there. Whatever someone called it, it caused massive genetic shifts in ninety percent of the population. Victims exhibited signs of the flu about ten days before they changed, sneezing, coughing, red eyes—the works.

But around the tenth day, they changed. A shuffle dance indicated the virus was about to hit its final phase. In those afflicted, their hair fell out, their skin went gray, and their teeth elongated into fangs.

In short, within twenty seconds, in an obscene miracle of genetic shifting, they became the nightmare that had formerly been the domain of Hollywood and little children everywhere.

And those undead hungered for flesh, human or animal. There was no vaccine, no cure. The remaining ten percent of the population was immune, me and Amanda among them. Zombies used to be thought of as imaginary monsters.

Odoru proved otherwise.

The first wave of zombies was a tough, hard-fought war. They proved to be hard to kill. Additionally, while most of them were almost mindless, they had leaders, and the leaders were just about as intelligent as humans were.

Mutations ruled the day. As epidemiologists liked to say, viruses either mutated or died, and the zombies were no exception. Over time, they’d become somewhat more intelligent, and their leaders had faded away. That was a plus in our favor, as they didn’t attack in disciplined waves as they used to.

On the downside, they’d developed a hard outer shell that was difficult to penetrate. Shooting them in the torso didn’t work that well, but they had a weak spot at the back of their necks—an indentation. Using a hatchet to hack their heads off worked, but using a knife worked better.

Basic plans consisted of throwing them off-balance by first shooting them or cutting their legs out from under them, and then ramming a knife into their weak spot. That destroyed their brain stems instantly. No brain stems, no brains, and no unlife. Sayonara, zombies.

As for the vamps, another virus had sprung up about a year after Odoru had appeared. Experts called it the T-virus, short for Thirst. Those infected died quickly, within three days, but around forty-eight hours later, they rose—as vampires.

Unlike the fictional undead—and they weren’t dead, merely resurrected—they couldn’t shape-shift or fly. They had no powers save that they were strong and saw perfectly at night. During the day, they were no better than normies—us. Pale skin and elongated canines marked them, and when they drank, they sucked out a person’s liquid—blood, bodily fluids—everything.

Naturally, we saw each other as enemies, and the Blood Wars began. I never thought of it as a blood war, but the press had to have something to write about. After battling the new dead-undead for about two months, we’d reached a truce and now cooperated, mainly because of the zombie threat...

*

Hey, Amanda said, breaking into my trip down memory lane and bringing me back to the here and now. Your girlfriend is late. So’s her brother.

I checked my watch. It was seven-ten. Call that unusual, as Miranda was always early. About five-five, three inches shorter than me, Miranda had long black hair and a pale, pretty, oval face, blue eyes, and the ubiquitous fangs. Her brother, Teal, was two years older, a solid six-footer, with the same blue eyes as his sister. He was a surly sort, but paradoxically, he could always be counted on to joke at the most intense of times.

Is your girlfriend really what you want?

Amanda’s question hit home. We’re dating, I said, checking the area for zombies. They had a nasty habit of sneaking up on people in bunches. And, as I recall, you called it off between us, not me.

My ex took off her sunglass-slash-night-goggles to stare at me through cool green eyes. Blonde, my height, with a sylphlike figure, Amanda had been my dream girl back in school, and we’d stayed together during the past year.

What she saw in me, I never knew. I had dark hair, brown eyes, a lean, muscular body, and very average looks.

Amanda, though, had liked me for who I was, and we’d been totally and utterly inseparable—until she came to my room one June day—June twenty-ninth, to be precise—and she said that we should split up. My heart immediately sank. Why? I’d asked, confused and angry at the suddenness of it all.

It was the most obvious question, and I should’ve seen the signs. Over the past few weeks, there’d been a gradual decline of physical contact, not meeting my gaze... I had the feeling that she’d been stepping out on me but hadn’t wanted to find out the truth.

In fact, she’d been going out a lot during the day. We’d re-enrolled in an online high school class and studied together, but when we finished, she always said that she had an appointment. She and Gen would go out. Girl talk, Amanda told me.

That was her standard line. I wondered just where she went, and now, the impossible had happened, and I wanted to know why.

Amanda’s answer was simple. We shouldn’t rush into things. If we date others, and if we find that we still want each other, then, yeah, you and me. But now... Her face was clouded with doubt. Now, I don’t think we should make a commitment.

Rather, she didn’t want to make a commitment. When I heard her talk about dating others, I took it to mean she’d found someone else. After all, among the zombie-killers, there was no shortage of dudes to go out with.

Jonas Edwards was tall and rangy and a champion archer. Brian Murakami, one of the better humans at zomboffing—his specialty was his skill with a knife—was short, stocky, and good-looking. There were other dudes who were taller or better looking or more skilled... or something.

When the older crowd had a party, they made it a point of inviting us, but Amanda was the one they had their eyes on. She didn’t drink, but she liked dancing, and there was no shortage of dudes who wanted to tango with her—in more ways than one.

I didn’t care for parties, mainly because there were always drugs around at those bashes. I wasn’t interested, and neither was Amanda, but she liked to have a good time and talk to people, and Jonas always made time to talk to her.

He was twenty-one, handsome in a dark, swarthy, unshaven kind of way, and he always seemed high. Spinning eyes and an unsteady gait showed me that he had to be on something, but he could hold a conversation with anyone, and, to his credit, he never made a move on Amanda.

He’s not good news, I said to her after we’d left one of his bashes. It sounded sort of preachy, and Amanda shrugged.

He’s not after me, so I’m not worried, she responded. You’re going to have to trust me.

Oh, there it was, the trust issue. I do, just that... well, I don’t like his attitude.

You don’t have to.

And there it was. We never talked about it again, but a feeling, a small, petty, somewhat spiteful feeling lingered, one that told me she wasn’t interested in me anymore. I was hurt, but all I said was, I hope you find someone you like.

That was it. We still said hello to each other in the morning, still went zombie hunting at night, and I still trusted her to have my back when things got real, but our relationship had changed, changed in the sense that it was over.

About a week after our breakup on July seventh, Amanda caught a cold, and we were slated to go on patrol with Miranda and Teal. I can stay home, I said and took out my smartphone. I’ll call Miranda or Teal and tell them it’s off—

Go on, she said between a sneezing-coughing bout that doubled her over and made her reach for the tissues. I’ll make it. Go and get some.

You sure?

She nodded and sneezed into a wad of tissues she’d grabbed. Yeah, go.

I put my phone away. Thanks.

When I went to the park, Miranda showed up promptly at seven, our customary meet-up time. But she showed up alone, swinging her ax in a carefree but controlled manner. Hey, she said, offering a toothy smile.

Hey, yourself, I answered, checking the landscape for the undead. Nothing. Uh, your brother not coming?

She shook her head. He’s got another commitment. What about your girlfriend?

She’s sick... and we broke up.

Miranda’s eyes widened. Oh, I didn’t know. Sorry.

Don’t be. I’ll live. I had to play the part, act manly, and act like I didn’t care... but I did.

For that, I got a chuckle. You’ll live. I’ll unlive.

I didn’t get it. Meaning?

Miranda scanned the area, as did I, but no movement and no sound indicated we were alone. Finally, she swung around to face me. Meaning that I died once, and the virus resurrected me as... me. Our body temperatures run colder than yours, roughly ninety degrees. We don’t eat. We drink.

Drinking like vamps did was a mindbender to process. You drink. What, people... animals, so it’s protein, I guess—

We take synthetic hemoglobin, she cut in. We call it Hemadrol. It comes in an injector pen sort of like an epi-pen for allergies. It cuts the thirst down. Our metabolisms burn faster than yours do, but the Hemadrol slows things. I’ve never chowed down on a human, and I don’t intend to. I inject myself once a day, and that takes care of the thirst. I can go without the injection for a week, if necessary, but I don’t like it. Anyway, you don’t have to worry.

That was a comfort. As to the job...Uh, since we’re two people short, do you still want to patrol?

Miranda shrugged. Yeah, why not? You can handle yourself.

She was referring to a mission about three months back, just before we’d begun dating. We’d gone out to a badass area in Baltimore, and we’d cleaned out a nest of over sixty zombies in less than twenty minutes. Miranda was fast with an ax, faster with her knives.

One zombie, though, had refused to die—again—and jumped her, pinning her