Kindle Edition
Amazon
Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: Createspace
ISBN-10: 9781499759280
Type: Fiction
Pages: 376
Copyright: June 1, 2014
ISBN-13: 1499759282
Price: $14.99 (eBook)
Thriller that captivates you and transports you into another realm of existence. Prepare for a ride of epic proportions.
Justin finds himself on top of the Willis Tower with his companion Jessica. They look into the streets below and watch as a massive bloodied horde twists and turns between buildings, devouring everything in its path. With tired eyes and a heavy heart, Justin places himself against a wall and drifts into nightmares that refuse to elude him. His home materializes and casts him back into the night his hands removed the life from his family's bodies. Neighbors and loved ones turned psychotic and attacked each other, murdering without cause and setting fire to every milestone our society had achieved. When his world darkened and forced him away from the grave he once called home; Justin survives in the wild primeval streets of Denver. His thirst for blood deepening day by day. That is, until a group of hitch-hikers help him discover that a virus has driven everyone mad and gives him cause to head for his Medical Lab in Chicago, IL. His demented journey proves merciless and teaches Justin of a darker side hidden below the surface of not only himself but everyone he encounters. With no law or structure he finds that stalkers are the least of his worries and stumbles upon a secret that turns the survivors towards war. With humans eating one another, war looming worldwide, and a syndicate that wants his head; Justin fights back with fire and aims to find the truth behind the infection.
Excerpt
BANG! BANG! ….BANG! Mary’s eyes widened as they trained in on the door way, they were so large I thought she was in danger of losing them.
“Who-o’s out there?” my father whispered towards the doorway in the tiniest voice. The family sat awake and attentive, all of us faced the door. Father cleared his throat with his eyes mesmorized on the doorway.
“WHO IS IT?” Boomed his voice the second time he called. The Bangs halted after fathers voice made our presence known. All of us listened for a moment and each wondered what happened to the pounding. My ears strained intently, they listened for some sign of what laid beyond. Then a small scratching sound was produced at the base of the door. Sctch…Sctch…Scth…Scth…BANG! BANG! A flurry of door breaking bashes alternated between scratching impacted on the heavy wooden obstruction.
“up…” my father gulped, “Up…Stairs, UP STAIRS NOW!” Father didn’t waste an instant as he stood up from his chair and moved around the table to stand between the family and the door. I stood up and gestured to Mary and Mother to do the same. They both followed in unison then moved ahead of me towards the staircase. Father remained between us and the door as if he were a shield. A new flurry of harsh blows struck the door just as mother’s front foot hit the staircase.
Father, in his rush to get us up stairs, gave mother a hard shove as she passed him. She almost tripped but regained her balance and continued on. I followed right behind Mary while father blocked off the bottom step.
“Call the police and lock the bedroom door.” Father blurted while he clumsily wrapped his hand around a wooden bat next to the stair case. Sweat poured from his body, trickled down the top of his large hand and coated the bat as he tightened his grip. Mother and Mary had both gone to the master bedroom. When I reached the top step I looked down to my father at the bottom. Father’s eyes caught mine just as he settled the wooden bat on his shoulder.
“Please go in and watch them for me, I’m sure that it’ll all be ok. Once the police get here we’ll settle this!” Father tried to act brave as he spoke but I knew he felt the same way I did. Whatever was beyond the door was dangerous and he shouldn’t have had to fight it alone. I stood there for a moment non-responsive; my father grew impatient and waved me on with his free hand. “GO! PLEASE!” The urgency in his voice caused me to turn away and head towards the bedroom. My feet caught the same soft squish that traced my step and disappeared into the carpet earlier that night.
Mother caught me and tried to say something as I finished locking the bedroom door. Her voice had trailed off while she disappeared into a closet. The lights in the bedroom were all on and showing brightly. Like father, I knew I’d need a weapon. My eyes scanned the brightly lit room for possibilities but found nothing of interest. The room’s sand colored walls emitted a royal golden glow, a color that caused warmth to flow through me. It brought comfort and relaxed my mind to the situation. Mary sat on my parent’s bed while she tried not to cry. She always tried to act tough but was still scared like a child. Her eyes bulged and darted in every direction as if she were seeing things that weren’t there.
BANG! BANG! The sound of banging snapped my attention away from Mary and reminded me of the situation. That’s when I remembered the window! The window in the master bedroom looked down over the front door and the family room window. I would be able to see who was banging on the door once I looked outside.
“I think that we should take a look outside!” The words had barley left my mouth when Mary thrust herself from the bed and rushed for the window first. A loud scream caught me off guard as she jumped back from the sill.
“NO! NO! no, no ,no ,no, no…” The only words Mary could manage; she spoke like a crazy person with each step that carried her backwards. I began to walk towards the window, my body passed Mary along the way, whose eyes were glazed and horrified by something beyond the glass pane. She turned and ran for the bathroom connected to the bedroom. I stood frozen in place for a moment and tried to imagine what it was that she saw, what could have gotten Mary so shaken?
Each wall vibrated as the bangs grew harsher from downstairs. A picture of my father with the bat flashed before my eyes and forced me to move for the window. My hand reached out for the curtain that draped in front, with nervous fingers wrapped around the cloth, I prepared my mind for what was beyond.
Fire! That was the first thing that attracted my attention; its orange glow illuminated the night sky. Blazing brightly next door, was the neighbor’s house, its vibrant flames lashed out at those who passed by. People ran in every direction. Some ran down the street, others dodged into hiding spots, and the rest tried to get into their vehicles. I didn’t quite understand it but everyone was being chased by people who looked deranged and aggressive. My eyes turned to the horizon and noticed a multitude of fires that glared beyond my neighborhood. They seemed to go on as far as the eye could see.
I turned my gaze back down to the house next door as a man ran outside. He tripped over his foot in the drive way which sent his body crashing to the earth. Another man emerged from the same burning house. He looked like an animal as he slowly walked towards the fallen victim. The creeper quickened his pace as he closed in then lashed out and jumped on top. From where I was, both men had their backs to me and blocked my vision from what was happening. The man on top lashed out with his hands a few times then buried his face in the victim’s neck. Blood spat out and coated the drive way under their bodies.
Suddenly the shriek of a woman from across the street reeled in my attention; she was on the other side of a fence. I looked towards the neighbor’s home for the scream just as a dark figure backed through the front gate and crossed into the yard. Kate Shepherd! She used to help my sister and I sell lemonade when we were kids. Her husband coached the local little league team and was known for his charitable contributions to public schools. Both of them were model citizens with an extremely friendly demeanor.
Kate shook off the darkness, the orange glow from the burning house next door illuminated Kate’s back and revealed that she had her arms up, as if warding something off. Kate yelled into the void beyond the gate, at first I couldn’t see at what but then Mr. Shepherd crept out of the blackness.
His ear was ripped off and left a hole, bubbling with blood in the side of his neck and a bite dug deeply into his throat. Mr. Shepherd’s head cocked to the right side slightly and bobbed with every step. He pushed towards his wife at a quick pace until his body stood directly in front of her. He stopped and straightened up a bit, his head threatened to fall off and his eyes travelled wildly.
Another man, one I didn’t recognize, prowled around a bush in the Shepherd’s front yard. The bush stood tall behind Mrs. Shepherd, it looked as if she were trapped and had no idea the other man was there. He crouched low and waited behind the bush while her legs continued to back her body in his direction. I wanted to call to her and let her know but the thought of my family and what those things might do, stopped my hand from opening the window.
Mrs. Shepherd had both of her arms up as she attempted to push Mr. Shepherd away. His feet kept moving until he was right on top of her. His large hand reached up and grabbed one of his wife’s flailing arms. She tried to back away while her wrist remained locked in his palm, he held on to her effortlessly. She wrapped her free hand over his arm, grabbed her restrained one, and tried to pull away from his grip. She pulled aggressively but he held her in place effortlessly. His second hand came around and locked the tips of her fingers into place while they flailed about.
She cried and begged for him to stop while her deranged husband used his hands to reel her fingers in towards his teeth. She tried to pull away from his iron lock but the more she resisted the faster he pulled. She did everything she could to free herself bit his hand, punched him in the face, and used her feet to kick him repeatedly. Her fingers never stopped getting closer to his mouth though, nothing she did could stop what was about to happen to her. Her hand reached his blood stained teeth, she tried to pull away even harder while her screams grew louder with every inch.
He finally pushed the tips through the front of his wide open jaws and bit down. A disgusting crack emerged from her bones at the same moment blood gushed out from between his teeth. Mrs. Shepherd dropped to her knees, her fingers still inside of the husband’s mouth. His head wriggled back and forth as it worked the skin away from her hand. She stared up into the sky and screamed bloody murder until her head dropped and sobbed uncontrollably. Her hand was a bloody mess with its protective coat skinned off. Her head rose and eyes watched as the veins attaching her skin to the muscle, broke and sputtered more blood to the grass below. Mr. Shepherd then bit down again into the very tips of her fingers and released a loud crunching noise.
Kate had stopped screaming, she just cried and stared up at the man she once knew, “I love you baby!” She waited for her crazed husband to pop out of his mental state but he just stared back blindly and crunched the tips of her fingers between his teeth. “Baby, I love you! Don’t you know who I am anymore? God Wake UP!” She cried hysterically as desperation grew. Mr. Shepherd stopped chewing for a moment and began to sniff in her direction lightly, almost as if he could tell who she was, she tried to stop crying but couldn’t.
“Do you recognize me? I knew you would remember.” She smiled weakly through her sobs and tried to pull her devastated hand back again. After a couple of weak attempts she gave up, he just continued to chew, then jerked her hand back and ripped in for another bite. The man that had been waiting behind the bush moved around the side of it and lined up behind Mrs. Shepherd. He ran full speed towards her hunched over body and tackled her with all of his weight. Her wrist still locked into place between the husband’s hands, drug her husband down with them.
Kate had been kneeling on the grass in the front yard right next to the drive way. The man that tackled her slammed her face into the concrete. She spit out blood and what looked like a few teeth. The man clung to her hair with his hands and threw her face into the ground a couple more times. She sobbed for a moment while she lay there, that is, until the man on top buried his teeth into the back of her neck. A small stream of her essence puddled up underneath her neck then drained down the drive way into the street.
Mr. Shepherd sat up while the other man dined on his wife’s corpse; he sniffed the air again and snarled his upper lip. With a lightning fast speed, he opened his mouth wide then burrowed right into her stomach. Mrs. Shepherd sucked in a huge breath right when his teeth connected then let it out slowly and drifted away from life. Mr. Shepherd ripped a hunk of skin from her body then sat back up with his eyes rolling around in his head.
It looked as if he were blind. I had never seen his eyes look so pale or blue before that, normally they were brown. His veins had a black tint to them and could be seen from underneath his skin. His neck blew a large blood bubble as he dug his face back into her stomach again.
“Holy Shit!” The words burst from my mouth and caught my mother’s attention, who, had been in her closet digging for something the entire time I had watched. “What is it? Is everything ok?” The rustling stopped and hurried footsteps carried her back into the bedroom. She crossed behind me and moved to the bed with a large black box laid between her arms. “What’s going on out there? You’re white as a ghost honey.” My mother stared at me with worry in her eyes. She knew that whatever was going on had to be extremely bad. She looked down at the long, slender, black box in her hands.
“We wanted to wait until your birthday.” She kept her eyes on the box as she spoke to keep me from seeing the fear in them. “Something is wrong Justin, I can feel it and I need you to be prepared so… I’ll give this to you now. Use your best judgment if you need to use it that’s really all I can say,” I moved towards my mother and stood in front of her. She looked up from the box with tears welled up in her eyes. The tears burst and flowed over the edges of her eyelids as our eyes connected. She smiled weakly then pushed the box into my hands.
I wrapped my left hand around the bottom of the box and balanced it in the center, my right hand pushed up on the lid of the box to reveal what was inside. A sword, the kind that Japanese samurai’s used, rested on top of a red silk cloth. The sword had a black sheath and encased the blade. I hurriedly rushed to an open spot on the bed; my left hand wrapped around the sheath of the sword and removed it from the box.
The sword was heavy but felt comfortable. My eager right hand pulled the sword from its home to reveal a silver blade that reflected the room back to me. My eyes remained on the reflection in the blade. “Do you really think that I’ll need this?” disbelief coated my voice when I asked. I couldn’t believe what she was telling me, my eyebrow raised as I turned to look at her.
“You tell me!” She said without returning my glance. “Your sister and I need you right now, I’m scared and I want your father up here.” My gaze looked back to the sword one more time. The lights in the bedroom began to flicker sporadically; they flashed on and off a few times then died. The gold glow of the room plunged into a deep abyss as the world disappeared around us. A scream erupted from the bathroom where Mary was, mother let off a shudder, I watched her outline glide towards the bathroom and disappear through the door way.
Shattering glass reached my ears from the main floor and reminded me of the scene just outside, I had forgotten to see who had been banging on the door. My body turned and ran back towards the window. One hand threw back the curtain as soon as I got to it. I looked down to the family room window first where the figure of a man, at least six feet tall, jutted through. I continued to watch and wondered what the man looked like and if my father would be ok. The sound of grunting pursued my thoughts while I listened to them struggle. Feet scuffed the floor, followed by the loud crack of wood. The scuffles stopped for a moment then resumed their struggle.
While the two pairs of feet continued on in their war, I noticed two more people I had never seen. They emerged from around the corner of our house; both approached the family room window at a full out run. As soon as they got to it they fought one another. The first thrust his body up to the window sill. Just as he was about to cross through into the house, the second grabbed him by his shirt tail and pulled him out of the frame. The first man fell hard onto his back, without waiting his attacker slammed into the man’s face a few times with its fists.
The man on the ground kicked the one on top into a bush along the side of the house. The attacker tripped backwards over the bush and landed on his back. Just as the man on the ground got to his feet a loud crack thundered up from downstairs, my head turned towards the family room door. An image of my father with the massive shadow down stairs flashed before my eyes. I looked back to the window below; the first deranged man had found his feet and was climbing through with his attacker close behind.
“GET OUT OF MY HOME!” My father yelled loudly from downstairs just as two new pairs of feet began to scuffle around. I turned around towards the door of my parent’s bedroom and headed for it to help my father. The scuffling intensified to stomping. I had just reached the door and placed my hand on the knob when I froze into place.
My body felt paralyzed as I stood and looked at the door knob below my hand. Every muscle stopped responding, I let the fear of what was happening creep into every part of my body. The feet moved through the downstairs of the house while my father’s grunting ensued. My feet felt the ground vibrate as something was slammed against the wall down below, followed by the loud crack of a bat that made contact with a hard object.
“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU,” father screamed followed by a slammed door. My feet stayed locked into place while my mind tried to force them to move. No sound or movement could be heard from downstairs after the slam. I trained in on the door knob below my hand and finally forced my fingers to turn it. The door opened quietly and disappeared into the void beyond its frame. My feet felt like concrete and tried to remain in place but I won and took the first steps into the main house.
The atmosphere felt dark and hollow unlike anything I had ever felt before in my home. The cold draft of fear rose up through every part of my body while I made my way to the bottom of the staircase. My nose picked up on a slight metallic smell that I had never come across before, except for in medical school. I had watched the surgery of a man who needed a heart transplant, when the blood from his aorta spurt, just before it was clamped, I could smell a hint of metal in the air. Cold sweat poured down my face in large beads while my mind raced through the reasons for the smell of blood.
My foot connected with the bottom step and I looked around the dark family room for a moment. Both eyes wandered left to the broken family room window, a decimated table laid underneath. The room was completely destroyed. Chairs were flipped over and shelves crushed with their contents strewn about. A couple of lamps had been shattered, most likely by the bat. Our family pictures were littered all over the floor, I looked at all of our smiling faces as I made my way through the scene. They stared back up at me, mocking me. They told me that things would never be the same again.
|
