Z Island Series (Book 2): War After Z Island Read online

  “Better. Still hurts though.”

  Sam placed his hands on her cheek and smiled at her. She knew he cared for her and would do anything for her survival. Trace and Faith came behind Sam and pulled out a bag that had sodas, water, and snacks.

  “It isn’t much, but it’ll do.”

  “We'll be fine. Have you seen the rest of the group anywhere?”

  “No. As far as we know, we’re all that’s left.”

  Sam grunted, “I thought we were at least safe there. You know, besides those who left.”

  “We all did.”

  “What’s next?” Faith asked.

  “Now we find somewhere else. Do you guys know where your families are? I never did ask.”

  No one replied. They stood quiet and Sam didn’t ask further. He got the big hint due to the silence.

  “My family was in downtown. I think you can guess from there.” Trace mentioned.

  Sam looked at him with shock, but before he could say sorry, Trace walked away and entered the van. Faith looked at Sam and walked away also. Mostly everyone lost someone at the time. All they had now was each other. Sam and David got into the van and squeezed in with everyone else. Trace turned the vehicle on and looked at Sam through the mirror.

  “Where to?”

  “Wherever’s safe.” Sam said with a low tone.

  Trace started driving off towards downtown. It was the quickest way to get out of the city. Coming up to the city, everyone looked with fear as they saw the aftermath of the bomb being dropped down. Ashes covered the roads and streets while some sprayed themselves on the buildings. Vehicles demolished, most buildings destroyed, emptiness. A couple of zombies were spotted walking around while some were still running.

  “I can’t believe this.” Sam murmured.

  “Everyone here is…gone.” Trace replied.

  The whole site of downtown frightened everyone. Trace looked to see if his family was there, but nothing was noticeable anymore. He kept driving and looked straight ahead. Whatever was left, he didn’t want to see. Soon, the ashes disappeared and the sky was bright. They had gotten out of downtown, but that moment changed everyone and gave them a different perspective on things. Who was comfortable with the new world? To them, it was just the beginning of the end.

  II

  FIVE YEARS LATER

  Nature has taken the earth back again. Plants settled into every building and road it could find and everything decayed. Parts of the world were unnoticeable while other parts were settlements for recent survivors. Buildings destroyed, stores emptied, houses trashed. The world was almost no longer survivable.

  In the no longer beautiful city of Philadelphia, there was a hospital within the middle of the city. The building covered itself in vine and thick leaves, but it still stood tall unlike any other building. Inside was chaotic. Blood was everywhere and bodies piled up in little corners along the halls. Sounds of zombies and humans vibrated the walls and screamed throughout the whole building. David came running from around the corner with Sam while they were shooting the zombies coming around the corner after them.

  “Sam, what are we going to do!”

  “Keep shooting!”

  Ahead of them is Dexter, an older, but much more athletic, Latino male with short, black hair and an even beard. He had opened the double doors and rushed Sam and David to quickly get in.

  “Hurry up!” He shouted.

  Sam and David ran ahead of Dexter and slammed the door. The zombies were at a distance, but there was no way to keep the door closed. David looked around for a way to escape the zombies and finds a door to the staircase, but when he opens it, chairs and other accessories had blocked the exit.

  “There is no way through there.”

  “But we have to go this way. It’s the only way. We need to go up.” Dexter said.

  Sam scoffs and pulls out his radio and channels Faith.

  “Hey, where are you right now?”

  “We’re a little busy!” Faith yelled.

  She put the radio away as zombies surrounded them on the staircase. Faith, Trace, and Eddy, a young, sensitive white male, looked around at the number of zombies that were coming towards them. Faith and Trace starts to kill the zombies in front of them while Eddy handled the back. One zombie charged at Faith, but she pushed it down through the middle of the stairs.

  “Ok. The stairs are clear. Let’s go!” Faith yelled.

  Trace dragged Eddy from fighting the zombies and forced him to keep running. Eddy looked down and gasped with horror when he saw a zombie coming near them, but it wasn’t walking nor running. It was crawling up fast and its body was skinnier and longer than the others. Its back did not have a huge lump in it like the others, but its head was bigger and its teeth were sharper.

  “What the hell is that?” Eddy screamed.

  Trace looked down and noticed the zombie, “Oh my…Eddy, run!”

  Eddy started running up the stairs as fast as he could, but the zombie was getting closer. Trace and Faith had already made it to the roof, but they waited for Eddy before closing the door. Trace looked at Eddy and shot at the zombie while telling him to hurry. Eddy tried to run faster, but he couldn’t outrun the zombie. The zombie ran behind him and clawed at his legs, but missed numerous times. Eddy finally makes it to the top, but Trace couldn’t close the door in time. The zombie burst through the door and tackled Trace to the ground. The zombie tried to claw him open, but he kept hitting it, throwing its concentration off while Eddy shot the zombie until it died. It falls on top of Trace and he grunts as he tries to lift it off him. Eddy pushed it off him and they all stared at it.

  “What the hell is that?” Eddy asked.

  “I don’t know.” Trace replied.

  Faith walked away, ignoring the zombie, and pulled out the radio, “Sam. How are you doing over there?”

  Sam put a chair between the door handles and grabbed his radio, “We’re okay. Just need to bypass the chairs and stuff blocking the stairs. We’ll be there in a minute.”

  Okay, but hurry. Zombies are on the staircase too.

  “Well, can you hold them off for us until then?”

  We can try. Just…hurry.

  Sam clipped the radio to his side and continued moving. Dexter started moving the chairs, but there were too many things in the way.

  “The only way, the quick way, is to climb over.” Dexter suggested.

  “What?” David asked.

  The zombies started banging at the door and Sam grunted, “It’s the only way. No time to argue.”

  Sam began climbing over the chairs, taking each step very carefully and slowly. Dexter followed behind then David. The zombies were getting closer to breaking in, but Sam and the others were already halfway through. Sam finally made it to the other side and looked above them to make sure no zombies were ahead. Dexter leaped over the last chair and sighed with relief, but David heard the zombies break through and lost balance. His left foot slipped down one of the openings in the pile of chairs and he struggled to get his foot out. Sam shockingly yelled for him as he reached out his hand to David. Dexter pulled out his gun and aimed it at the door, waiting for the zombies to come around, but there was too many of them. He tried shooting as much as he could, but they kept coming. Sam pulled out his knife and handed it to David.

  “Stab those sons of bitches!”

  David snatched the knife and began stabbing the zombies in the head while extending his other arm out to Sam. Sam and Dexter got ahold of him and started pulling as the zombies grabbed him. Just before the zombies bit him, they fell over the chairs and pushed an opening for David to get free. They pulled him out of the pile and they fell on the stairs. David started breathing heavily while watching the zombies stumble on the pile of chairs ahead of them.

  “That was close.” David sighed.

  “Too close. Come on, we need to keep going.” Sam said.

  Trace shot one zombie in the head and kicked it down the stairs against the others that re
mained. They seemed to have killed nearly all of them, but some managed to keep coming.

  “How many are left?” Faith screamed.

  Sam and David appeared behind them and started stabbing the zombies while Dexter shot the one near Faith. It scared her at first, but fear quickly turned to content when she saw Sam and the others alive.

  “It’s about time you made it.”

  “I’ve been busy. I see you have been too.” Sam joked as he walked over the zombies and hugged her. He sighed with depression as he looked at the group.

  “It was a set up. It had to be.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The package wasn’t here. And why would it be somewhere that’s filled with zombies.”

  “He lied to us?”

  “He fucking lied to us.” Sam said angrily.

  “That son of a…” Faith grunts and walks away with her hands on her hips while everyone stared in shock.

  “Well, good thing we’re all alive. Especially you guys. You’re the Island Five!” Eddy laughs, “Well, except Jess.”

  “Just…don’t say her name right now.” Faith whispered to Eddy.

  “Ugh, enough with that name already.” Dexter says.

  “I can’t. Your story was amazing! Scary, but amazing! Literally the first survivors of this horrible virus. You guys are untouchable.”

  “Yeah, don’t bother on that ‘untouchable’ part.” Sam sighs.

  “Okay. We’re still not done. We have to get off this building quick.”

  Sam walked to the edge of the building where a zip line was set up that lead to another building. Sam grabbed the backpack next to it and pulled out some metal arcs that will be used to get to the other side.

  “Here. Take these. We need to go. Now.”

  Sam took no time and zip lined across to the other side. Faith and everyone else stared, but Dexter shrugged and zip lined after Sam.

  “Well, you only live once.” Faith said as she went next.

  Before David went, zombies were approaching behind them, but these zombies were running.

  “Shit! It’s Runners!” Eddy yelled.

  Trace pulled his gun out and shot it near Eddy’s ear. He jumped and fell to the ground while holding his ear. He tried hard to concentrate, but the ringing clouded his judgement and he saw David and Trace arguing about what happened as they killed the zombies. Trace suddenly pulls him up and focused his sight towards him.

  “Are you alright!” Trace yelled.

  The ringing finally faded away, “Yeah. Let’s kill the rest of them!”

  David quickly zip lined across as Trace and Eddy killed most of them.

  “Go! I’ll be right behind you!” Eddy yelled.

  Trace nodded his head, but when Eddy turned around, Trace grabbed him and threw him towards the edge, in which he was forced to get the metal arc and zip line through.

  “What are you doing!?” Eddy yelled behind him.

  Trace shot a couple more zombies and ran for the line, but when he got on, one of the zombies jumped after him and landed on his back. Sam and the others watched as the zombie ripped the flesh from his neck and devoured it. Sam and Faith watched with shock as Dexter looked down.

  “Trace!” Faith screamed with sorrow as she fell to the ground and watched Trace finally let go and fall to his death. Eddy lands on the building, but doesn’t move. That was supposed to be him falling, not Trace. The things they do to protect each other…goes beyond them. Eddy didn’t realize it until now. He looked at Faith and watched the tears pour down her face and noticed how everyone felt during that moment. Five years of survival. Gone. The Island Five was now the Island Four. Who’s next?

  Sam and his group were in a vehicle, a rusty truck, and they drove up to a large community. The gates were huge and sharp sticks surrounded the wall with people, one person on each end, standing over keeping watch. Sam stopped the truck in front of the gate and they opened it up for him to drive in. Upon entering, there were many houses around and people wandered about with smiles and laughter. The houses were dirty, but the people tried to keep them clean with water. The homes were like a normal neighborhood, but there was no electricity. Only water, but they all managed. For a second, they thought the world was normal, but each day, they were reminded otherwise. Sam pulled up in front of the largest house, a townhouse with graffiti everywhere, and got out angrily. Jess and the others tried to follow up behind him, but he moved too fast. He burst inside of the house and stormed upstairs.

  “What are you doing!?” one of the men inside yelled.

  “Shut up!” Sam yelled.

  He approached the door and knocked hard. A woman, a stable brunette in her early 40s and green eyes, opened the door and looked at Sam surprised, “Sam!”

  “Not now Maria.” Sam passed her up and walked up to her husband Eric, an older, but more built, 50-year-old with little to no hair and brown eyes.

  “You lied to me!” Sam yelled.

  Eric looked at him with confusion, “Sam, I didn’t lie.”

  “Bullshit! Why were there no supplies then? You set us up!”

  “Maria, can you give us a moment?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” Maria nodded as she walked out and closed the door.

  Eric stepped up to Sam with a blank face.

  “You will not come into my room and charger me up because you and your group were too slow to get something I asked for! You think I set you up? Prove it. Either way, I say whether you stay here, so be very careful how you speak to me.”

  Sam got closer to him, “You don’t scare me. Don’t put on that ‘tough guy’ act around me. It doesn’t work. I’ll put you down right now if I must and make it seem like an accident. When you sent us, you knew there were zombies in that building. There’s nothing you don’t know. I’m just here to tell you: be careful the next time you want us dead. Or next time, it’ll be you.”

  Sam walked away and opened the door while Eric watched him with anger. Before walking out, Sam stopped and looked at Eric.

  “Don’t also forget…it was me and my group who saved you and your wife and set this place up to make it safer.”

  Sam slammed the door and Eric hit his bed and grunted loudly. Sam walked out of the house and approached Faith and the group, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Well?” Faith asked.

  “He set us up.”

  “No way. Let’s go kill that son of a-”

  “It won’t help.” Sam said to Dexter, “It’s his word against ours. People support him more than us right now.”

  Sam looked at the group when he said that and their eyes showed sorrow. Faith scoffs and walks away, but no one stops her. Sam shook his head and exhales, “Well, we’re home. Try to get some sleep.”

  Everyone walks away, but Sam runs up to Faith and gives her a hug. Faith digs her face into Sam’s chest and cries while he continued to hug her.

  “I’m so sorry. I know what he meant to you…to all of us.” Sam whispered.

  Faith backed away and wipes her face, “I’m going to go…lay down for a while.”

  “Okay.” Sam says.

  “You should check on Jess.”

  “I will.”

  “Hey. I was going to go outside the gates and get some wood. For the fire, tonight. You coming?” David asked.

  “No. I’m good. Be careful.”

  “Always.”

  Faith and David walked away and he is soon greeted by one of the community survivors. She laughs and runs up to Sam, “Hi Sam!”

  “Hey Christine. How are you?”

  “Doing pretty good.”

  She smiles, but she hides it when she looks at his face. He wasn’t as excited to see her like he usually is.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We…lost Trace.”

  Christine gasps and covers her mouth in shock, “I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Have you seen Jess?”

  “Uh…no. I haven’t. How are you guys do
ing by the way?”

  “We’re fine.”

  “I just figured since-”

  “I said we’re fine!”

  Sam immediately walks away and searches for Jess while Christine watches him. While walking, the two children Faith saved five years ago, walked up to Sam. They were much older. The girl’s black hair had grown beautifully down her back and the boy was a little too mature looking for his age. The girl, Lisa, was 15 years old and the boy, John, was 17.