Dead Outside (Book 1) Read online

  Dead Outside

  By: Nick Oliver

  Copyright © 2014 Nick Oliver

  Terms and Conditions:

  The purchaser of this book is subject to the condition that he/she shall in no way resell it, nor any part of it, nor make copies of it to distribute freely.

  All Persons Fictitious Disclaimer:

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.

  To Jonathon and Samantha, my two best friends.

  I'll try not to bother you as much about the next one.

  Dead Outside

  Chapter One: Journey

  Chapter Two: Innocence

  Chapter Three: Ohio

  Chapter Four: Decisions

  Chapter Five: Escape

  Chapter Six: Warehouse

  Chapter Seven: Bad Day

  Chapter Eight: Obstacles

  Chapter Nine: Last Leg

  Chapter Ten: Home

  Chapter Eleven: Nick and Roxie

  Chapter Twelve: Sarah

  Chapter Thirteen: Reunions

  Chapter Fourteen: Memories

  Chapter Fifteen: Game Plan

  Chapter Sixteen: School

  Chapter Seventeen: Day in the Life

  Chapter Eighteen: Food Mission

  Chapter Nineteen: Party

  Chapter Twenty: Conflict

  Chapter Twenty-One: Supermarket

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Storm

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Company

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Payback

  Chapter Twenty-Five: What Next

  Chapter One: Journey

  5:30 AM, June 29

  I awoke suddenly, nearly falling off the couch I was sleeping on. My face was covered in sweat, and I was trying to catch my breath. I sat up and let my bare feet touch the cold hardwood. The floor vibrated slightly beneath my feet every couple of seconds, in perfect rhythm with a loud knocking.

  I looked at the door in front of me. It shook on its hinges with every vibration I felt, and every knock I heard. If I hadn’t leaned the refrigerator against it they would have made it inside by now. I wiped the sweat off my face with both my hands and checked my watch. It was 5:30. The sun would be coming up in half an hour. I let my body fell back down, then rolled onto the floor and did my morning push ups.

  “Fifty.” I said out loud as I finished the last one and collapsed to the floor. I reached over to my backpack and pulled a Protein bar out of the front pocket. I bit off a little more then half of it and began to chew.

  They tasted like cardboard, but at least it was consistent taste. I swallowed and stuck the rest in my mouth. While I chewed I dug out my hygiene bag and went over to the bathroom sink. After I finished picking the crumbs out of my teeth with a toothpick I pulled out my toothbrush and toothpaste. I took my time and brushed all the surfaces and spit into the sink, and then I pulled the handle. Of course the water didn’t work. But it didn’t hurt to try.

  Without any more dentist visits in the foreseeable future, there’s no one to fill a cavity, I took a swig of mouthwash and began to swish it around in my mouth for about a minute, before gargling and spitting it out. I glanced into the broken fragments of the mirror left on the wall to make sure I hadn’t missed any plaque. In the corner of my eye I noticed a little light coming through the boarded bathroom window.

  I walked out of the bathroom, pulled my backpack onto my back and clipped the straps together, put on my lucky hat, and then I slung my shotgun over my shoulder and made sure my bat was still in its makeshift sheath. I looked at the front door I had run through last night.

  It was still shaking on its hinges. I walked down the hallway leading away from the front door. I had checked all the bedroom doors last night before I fell asleep and they had been previously nailed shut.

  One door looked to be weaker than the others, so I kicked it. It was nailed to keep things from getting in, not out. It came loose relatively easily. The moment the door swung open I had my bat held up ready to swing at anything.

  The room was trashed, debris covered the floor, and it looked like it had been left in a rush. There was water damage, leaves and sticks in the room. I opened the closet slowly. It was the same as the rest of the room, trashed. The bedroom windows were broken, there was glass on the floor in front of them, and they had been broken in a while ago, explaining the state of the room.

  They must not have had enough boards for all the bedroom windows, so they just nailed the doors shut. I tried not to think about where the owners of this house were now. In all honesty they were probably outside right now trying to get back in. I pulled out my mirror on a stick, it looked like an oversized dental tool, but it was for car mechanics or something. I held it outside the window to see the ground and surrounding area without poking my head out.

  There was nothing I could see anywhere right outside the window, but I stuck my head out just to make sure I hadn’t missed anything before I jumped out.

  I dropped to the ground and braced the fall with my right hand.

  The sun was to my left as I hopped a small chain link fence dividing the properties.

  I must have walked through about a dozen backyards, there was the usual, swing sets, sandboxes, a few pools, and of course the occasional rotting corpse. After about a half hour I figured I had ditched the ones outside the house I’d just left. It was only a matter of zigzagging and not leaving a linear path for them to follow.

  Unfortunately, I still had a problem. I could hear more moaning in the street to my left. They must have heard me walking. To my right was a large concrete wall, probably blocking the neighborhood from a highway or a forest or something. In front of me there was a wooden fence, but when I looked over it there were five Infected roaming around in the backyard. They limped and shuffled aimlessly, almost as if they were bored or lost.

  I took a few steps back to think about what to do. The moans were getting louder the longer I stayed put. The one's following me wouldn't be too far behind.. I looked back to my left to see if any were close and saw one glaring right at me. His eyes were trained on me intently, carving a hole in my soul as he shuffled in my direction.

  His blue tracksuit was torn above his left knee, showing the mottled grey skin of what was left of his leg. Part of the calf was missing, bits of flesh dangled from what had to have been the bite that infected him. The wound gave him a limp, but despite the injury he showed no pain, only hunger. The blood dripping from his stained teeth also meant he'd bit somebody else recently.

  Not wanting to waste what little ammo I had, I looked around the backyard I was in for something, anything I could use to maybe climb up the concrete wall next to me. I saw a lawn mower, a trampoline, a grill, and a picnic table. I looked to my left again and saw over a dozen of them now, men and women, each with wrinkled clothes and stains of red and brown in various places all coming at me at a slow but steady pace from the street. A chill went down my spine, and a horrible fear ran through my mind. The one in the tracksuit was only about five feet from me now. I didn’t have my bat in my hand so I kicked the man in the stomach, knocking him off his feet and having an almost domino effect on those behind him.

  I sprinted over to the table. It was about twenty feet from the concrete wall. I squatted down and lifted with my legs. It was heavy as hell but with a grunt I got one side up and I pulled it toward the wall. Each step took tremendous effort, The Infected gaining on me every step I took. I couldn't even guess at the table's weight, but it was made of solid wood, not flimsy plastic. Once I got there I lifted it up to chest level then pushed with all my might, flipping the table up against the wall.

  I c
limbed up on top of the picnic table. I felt a tug on my leg as I reached the top of the concrete wall. One of them had grabbed my boot. I shook my leg and he lost his grip, but not before his boney hands left four parallel scratches on either side of the leather. There were ten of them there now, reaching up for me. I checked the other side of the wall, there were a bunch of cars, but no Infected in sight, so I dropped down.

  I ran as fast as I could away from the fenced in yard for about a half hour. By the time I stopped to catch my breath I was nearing the end of that particular suburb. I took a quick survey of my surroundings and saw a large storm cloud approaching from the north-west.

  I kept moving along the wall until I reached an intersecting road. It had plenty of crashed cars. A few had hit trees, but mostly they were crashed into each other. I saw a motorcycle, but it was so badly charred that I couldn't even tell what color the paint used to be. In the distance I saw a semi truck. It was half off the road, and the cab was severely damaged. Of course there were always a couple dozen bodies littering streets, but as long as they weren’t trying to eat me I ignored them.

  I followed the road until about 9:00, when I saw a supermarket. I ducked behind a car and pulled out my binoculars. I looked all around me, and counted two dozen Infected. Only a few even had clothes on, most were only wearing underwear or were completely nude. Their pale grey skin seemed to almost wrinkle on them, and their genitals were enough to make me almost gag up my breakfast, but I fought back the urge. I hadn’t been spotted yet, but they had heard me because they began to moan and move slightly faster. They couldn’t pinpoint where I was, so they just wandered aimlessly. I took my time and moved quickly but quietly to cover behind another parked car.

  Unfortunately I didn’t take a good look at the area I was running to, and didn’t notice one of them was crawling out from under the car until it grabbed my leg.

  It pulled my foot out from under me, knocking me over. I braced the fall with my left arm, scraping my palm in the process. The left half of her face was burned, leaving charred flesh from her neck to her hairline, where some of her hairs were melted together. Her eyelid was missing making her left eye, looked bloodshot in brown instead of red, and made it look nearly twice as large as the right, both were eyeing me with ravenous desire. I then noticed there were two bloody stumps where its legs should have been. It brought its jaws up to my foot and clamped down. I could feel the pressure of its bite on my toes, but luckily it couldn’t bite through the thick leather of my boots.

  I kicked its head with my other foot as hard as I could. Its teeth left marks on my boot where they slid and snapped off. Now that it was free I pulled up my shotgun and blew its head apart.

  I stood up and brushed the blood and grime from my pants. Then I realized sound of the gunshot must have attracted the attention of the others in the parking lot.

  Where as they were wandering with no sense of where they were, staring blankly and listening intently before, now they were all staring at me. Their milky blue eyes were wide, and their mouths were now snarling and chomping.

  “Son of a bitch.” I cursed at myself, and then took off for the door of the supermarket.

  There was one Infected between me and the door. He was a mess, his jeans were torn into awkward shorts from various bite and scratch marks. His shirtless upper body was a sickly grey with dried blood dripping from his jaws.

  I hit him in the forehead with the butt of my shotgun, knocking him backward off his feet. I paused long enough for his head to hit the pavement with a dull thud, and then smashed it in with the butt of my gun emitting a satisfying crunch. I didn’t waste time after that. The others weren’t far behind me.

  I pulled the handle. The door lock had been broken a long time ago, along with the glass that made up a majority of the door. As I pulled it shut a piercing screech echoed through my ears.

  I glanced behind me and saw the other Infected were only about ten feet behind me, and were moving along and a brisk walking speed. They always managed to move a little faster when they saw food.

  “Fuck.” I whispered. I looked left and right for anything to block the door. I saw a row of carts to my right. I ran behind them and leaned into them pushing the whole row in front of the door, keeping them from getting in. The closest one reached the door as I blocked it. He reached as best he could over the carts, but what was left of the door didn't give them enough room to climb.

  Being inside stores wasn’t fun. I could hear moans echoing throughout the store, they were definitely in here, and must have heard the shot I made earlier. They just didn’t know where to go.

  It was too big to do a full sweep by myself, so I just had to work fast. kept my bat in one hand ready to go. Something could jump out from around a corner at any moment. The floor was covered with cans, boxes and just plain garbage all over the place. Most of the shelves had been swept clean, looters took care of that I guess, but one thing they never were was thorough, looting was frantic and sloppy, and they always left something, at least, that's what I hoped. My first stop was the register aisles. I found plenty of batteries, enough to charge my flashlight, radio, and music player. I emptied the packs into my backpack and left the packaging on the floor, no sense in wasting space.

  I reached the grocery section next. The sour smell of rotting vegetables, fruits, dairy and meats wafted out. It was worse because it was all over the floor, not just in the now dead cooling units. As I passed dairy I heard a moaning around a corner. My grip on my bat tightened as I turned the corner.

  He couldn't have been more than five feet tall. His back was rubbed raw to a bloodied mess from a fallen shelf he'd been trying to crawl out from under of. Once he saw me he began to squirm in my direction, shaking the fallen shelf. I didn’t want to take any chances of him getting loose while I was in the store, so I smashed his head in. It made a sound not unlike a watermelon. The next aisle was canned foods, it was a horrible mess, and I didn’t even attempt to go in. The entire floor was a discolored green mess, the rotten remnants of spilled soups and sauces and broken cans strewn about.

  Finally I reached the dried foods. I grabbed what I could find, graham crackers, granola bars, and toaster pastries. My bag was almost full when I realized I had forgotten to check for medicine or other medical supplies. I worked my way back to the pharmacy to grab the essentials.

  I got there and saw one of them was trapped in the pharmacy room, clawing relentlessly at the thick glass between it and me. part of her scalp was torn off, her skull now exposed, and nearly the same color her now blood stained lab coat must have been. I grabbed some bandages and ibuprofen. I could have gotten more, but the moans in the store were getting rowdier, I was overstaying my welcome.

  I could hear the Infected at the front door trying to get passed the carts all the way at the back of the store, so I looked down the middle aisle and realized they were pushing the carts ever so slightly.

  “I better get out of here.” I said to myself and headed for the rear of the store.

  The only set of doors at the back of the store was some swinging double doors that lead behind the meat counter. There were all kinds of rotten smells radiating from there, but it was better then fighting my way back through the front doors. I took out my bandana and wrapped it around my face, I couldn't risk dehydrating myself by vomiting now.

  I was about to push the doors open when they swung my direction. A large figure took clumsy steps toward me. His white coat and apron were splattered with blood, guts, and some things that were now so discolored I had no idea what they used to be. He had to be pushing seven feet tall, and an easy 250 pounds. There was a meat cleaver stuck in its shoulder, and the wound was leaking this thick black ooze. His breathing sounded more like a grunting bear than anything human.

  “This store sucks,” I complained, and raised my shotgun to take him out.

  Before I could raise it high enough, the beast let out a roaring growl and charged at me. I tucked to the left as fast as I could,
dodging its clumsy grasp. It turned its head rather unnaturally with a snarl and turned to follow me. I fired my shotgun at its right knee, blowing its leg in half, but it was already close enough to me to take me down with it, causing me to drop my shotgun.

  His heavy body landed on my feet, and he began crawling up my body, jaws snapping. My shotgun was about two feet too far away for me to grab, not that I could have reached for it anyway. The hulking monstrosity was clawing its way up my body trying to get a chunk of flesh. I held its head just high enough away from my body to keep that from happening. I couldn’t reach for my pistol that was holstered to my leg either, it seemed like any weapon I had would take me too long to get a hold of.

  I punched him in the face, which didn’t even seem to faze him, but it did bring my attention to the meat cleaver still stuck in its shoulder. I grabbed the handle and pulled it from his shoulder.

  I swung it down as hard as I could on the top of its head. The blade split the skull and dug in about halfway down the forehead. Its body went limp after a moment and I pushed its body to the side and sat up.

  “Butcher killed by his own cleaver,” I let out a sigh as I stood up. “That’s fucked up.”

  I went through the swinging doors hoping to find an exit I could use. There were five other bodies, or at least, what used to be bodies, now barely piles of bone, on the floor of the meat section. The guy I just took out wasn’t exactly going hungry.

  I found a backdoor and as I reached for the handle, something red caught my attention. I turned and saw it, my favorite soda. There was one six pack left on the shelf. “Dr. Soda.” I thought out loud. I snatched it, and it just barely fit in my backpack.

  I reached for the handle of the door. Outside there were only two Infected. They wore blue coveralls, names sewn on the right chest. One had a screwdriver sticking out of his heart. They were both right outside, and they must have heard the racket inside. I took care of them with two swings of my bat to their respective heads. I looked out to my left and saw a parked delivery truck.