Zed Days USA (Book 1) Read online

  Zed Days USA - Book One

  By Thorn Tate

  Kindle Edition 2019

  Copyright © 2019 by Thorn Tate

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in relevant and critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination. Whilst based loosely in a real life locale all specific locations such as houses, shops, or businesses are described fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, places or events is entirely coincidental.

  Other Titles

  Zed Days Series

  Zed Days Book One

  Zed Days Book Two

  Zed Days Book Three

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One – Interview with a Zombie

  Chapter Two – Dive shop

  Chapter Three – A Walk on the Beach

  Chapter Four – Aunt Elle

  Chapter Five – Fuck Yea

  Chapter Six - Shopping

  Chapter Seven - Survivors

  Chapter Eight – Luxury Yacht

  Chapter Nine – Rescue Plans

  Chapter Ten – My Hero

  Chapter Eleven – Angle of Death

  Chapter Twelve – The Survivors

  Chapter Thirteen – Key West

  Chapter Fourteen – For display purposes only

  Chapter Fifteen – Ashley’s

  Chapter Sixteen - Liars

  Chapter Seventeen – Rights

  Chapter Eighteen – Decisions

  Chapter Nineteen – Tactics

  Chapter Twenty – The Air Base

  Chapter Twenty One – Airbase part two

  Chapter Twenty Two – Barbeque on the Beach

  Chapter Twenty Three – Guns and Ammo

  Chapter Twenty Four - Freaks

  Chapter Twenty Five – So close…..and yet so far

  Chapter Twenty Six – The Girls

  Chapter Twenty Seven – Fire Wall

  Chapter Twenty Eight - Home Sweet Home

  Chapter Twenty Nine – Return Journey

  Chapter Thirty – Rescue Mission

  Chapter Thirty One - Preparations

  Chapter Thirty Two - Ashley

  Chapter Thirty Three - Moving Day

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  They say there are more guns than people in America. That must mean that there are way more bullets than people in America, that’s going to help….

  My name’s Mary-Jane and I’m a survivor. I survived my shitty childhood, my shitty addict parents, and the shitty food they fed me, when they remembered. I survived the shitty school I went to and my shitty adolescence, where things went from bad to worse. Now I’ve survived a Zombie apocalypse, at least I think that’s what it is. If it’s not, if it all suddenly gets better, I could be in some serious trouble. I don’t know much about mass murderers, but I think I’m at the top of the list by now.

  I always wanted to write a book. I was studying English and creative writing at evening classes so I could try, but that’s all gone. I always figured I’d write fiction, probably crime, but as the world has turned to shit and there aren’t exactly any readers left, I figured someone should document what’s happened. So I’ll write down what’s happening for as long as I can, for as long as I can stay alive. I won’t spare any detail, because who knows what might be useful. For all I know I could be long dead and this is a time capsule kind of thing. Perhaps it’s unnecessary, but before I tell you how it happened I’m going to tell you a bit more about me. I’ve never written it down and perhaps it will help. An apocalypse is enough to deal with, without the rest of the crap in my head.

  I wouldn’t claim to be smart, not by any means, but physically, within reason, when I put my mind to it, I can do anything. I suppose I should thank my mother for my body, but it’s been me whose looked after it, even since I was young, not her.

  You would think being pretty, with naturally blonde hair, and tits and ass that make men drive off the road would have been a blessing, but you’d be wrong. I’ve had to use my body to survive, to get what I wanted. I hope that’s not an excuse, it’s not like I had many options. I started to draw attention from the boy’s, and men, when I was thirteen. By fourteen I was starting to draw the attention of my father.

  It was nice at first, the attention, even though deep down I knew it wouldn’t end well. He took me out and taught me to shoot. He liked to shoot, when he wasn’t high, and I liked it too. As long as I wore short shorts and a tight crop top, and posed when he took photos, he let me do whatever I wanted. He even brought some weights and fitness gear and put them in the back shed for me. Of course there were more photos, and I knew he was making money from them, but I didn’t really care.

  I decided to make the most of it, but I still don’t know if that was a good idea or not. I’m not going down the road of blaming myself, no matter how tempting it might be, I’m stronger than that. It’s like that scene in Good Will Hunting; ‘it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault’. I figured one day I’d need it, so when he suggested a bikini for the photo’s I said yes, as long I could have some mixed martial arts lessons. I played along. I told him the extra flexibility and moves would help with the pictures. There were more photos, and then some videos. My mum did nothing, even though I’m sure she knew what was coming as well as I did.

  I suppose I should be glad I made it to eighteen before he assaulted me. I always wondered if he deliberately waited until I wasn’t a minor anymore; less trouble for him if I went to the cops. I was working out with the punch bag one evening and he was high, as usual. He told me that now I was eighteen I needed to earn my keep; it wasn’t long after my birthday. He told me to take my top off so he could take some photographs. I told him no. He was a big man, a back street mechanic, so he was strong too.

  I suppose I should be glad he didn’t think to bring a gun with him. He smiled and said he was only joking, he said he’d hold the bag for me. He came towards me keeping himself between me and the door out of the shed. He didn’t take his eyes off me, and the look…it’s hard to describe, but I knew what he wanted. I moved around the bag to let him hold it, hoping I could dart out when he did. He managed to grab my arm when I tried to run and before I knew it I was on the floor underneath him, my head ringing from where it hit the thankfully forgiving dirt floor. His unwashed greasy arm was across my neck and his disgusting belly squashed the air out of me. He stank of stale sweat and smoke. Then his mouth was on me and he ripped my top and sports bra open. I was used to controlling my fear, but not my anger, but I did. I went limp and waited for an opportunity.

  He let my arm go so he could undo himself and I slapped him as hard as I could on the ear. He yelped and when he lifted up a little to give him some room to punch me, I spat in his face. In the moment his surprise brought me, and using the little bit of room he’d given me, I slapped him again, as hard as I could, just underneath and behind his ear. He collapsed like a poleaxed cow. I had just about managed to wriggle out from underneath him when he started to come around. I wanted to kick him and not stop, smash his ugly big head in with a dumbbell, but then the cops would be after me, not him. I ran and I didn’t look back. I kept a bag of clothes in the cupboard under the stairs, knowing one day I might have to leave in a hurry. I ran in to the house and grabbed it, hearing his voice roar from the shed behind me. Mum was passed out on the couch and didn’t even stir.

  It was a twelve mile walk to my aunt’s who lived on the beach, but I had all evening. I had to take the long route in case he came after me in the
truck and brought a gun. I knew he’d probably guess where I’d go; aunt Elle was about the only member of the family I liked. I was glad he wasn’t there when I arrived. I had no idea what I would have done if he had been. Elle didn’t hesitate to take me in, but she called the cops even though I asked her not to. I didn’t want it messy, I just never wanted to see either of them ever again. I told the cops I didn’t want to press charges.

  It wasn’t hard for the cops to find the website and all of the images me he’d posted of me, and there were plenty from when I was under sixteen. They couldn’t charge him as I was never naked, but with aunt Elle’s help I got a restraining order and it must have been more hassle than it was worth for him to break it. He always was a lazy bastard.

  It wasn’t easy at aunt Elle’s, she had a chest problem and couldn’t work. She barely made ends meet without me there. I got a job sweeping up and helping out at a nearby gas station on the beach. I think they only hired me to look at me, and because I drew in the locals to do the same. The money was crap and although they were decent enough not to suggest it outright, I wore short shorts and a crop top and they never suggest otherwise. After a while, when they got to know me, it was even ok. They’d bet me I couldn’t make a customer drop something or miss with the fuel hose. Sometimes I’d managed it and we’d all have a laugh.

  Then Elle’s chest got worse and she needed more oxygen, but we could barely afford it. I was nineteen by then and I knew I could get more money if I wanted to. The owner of the local strip club would stop for gas and never failed to proposition me. When Elle got ill I took him up on his offer. After over a year of turning him down, to the extent it was becoming a running joke between us, he spat his coffee out when I said yes. He wasn’t a bad guy, for a strip club owner, and he said I could pick and choose what I wanted to do. I started pole dancing in a skimpy bikini and it didn’t take long before I got good at it. The money was good, compared to the gas station money, but I knew the girls that went topless and paraded next to the runway for tips did better.

  Within a few months the owner, Frank, told me he’d had multiple requests from regulars that I take the next step and go topless. He offered me a decent raise, and tips, and it was nice for Elle and I to eat better and even go out occasionally, so I said yes. The tiny bit of fabric covering by nipples seemed insignificant by then anyway, but I knew it was something I could never take back. It was hard at first, especially getting close to the drooling drunks who wanted to shove sweaty bills in my thong, but the money was good and it wasn’t long before I was the star attraction.

  Chapter One – Interview with a Zombie

  I was at the club for two years before the apocalypse happened. I made enough to give up the gas station job, care for Elle, and go to college during the day. It was about 8.30 in the morning when it happened. I had started interviewing new girls with Frank and I had college that day so it was earlier than usual. It was only us in the club and the new girl was showing us her stuff on the pole. I was in a bikini, stars and stripes if you must know, so I could show the girl some moves if I needed to, and see if she could do them. I can’t even remember the girls name, which I feel bad about.

  The girl was doing ok. I was always paranoid someone better than me would come along and knock me from the top spot, and although she was good, she wasn’t that good. Her tits were a little small for most of our clienteles liking, and her abs were a little flabby. I turned to Frank to smile and raise my eyebrows in approval, but he was bolt upright in his chair, a white knuckle grip on the arms, sweating like a pig. He looked really pale. I thought he was having a heart attack. Then he started hyperventilating, moaning like a trapped animal, and scratching viciously at his head.

  Then the girl dropped from the pole, having been upside down with her legs spread at the time. She didn’t cry out in pain, even though she landed right on her back from a few feet up. Then she started screaming and writhing around, also scratching at her head. I turned to look at Frank again, my heart racing by that stage. Frank’s eye’s had gone a strange pale colour and he started moaning and reaching for me with a feral look on his face. I shoved my chair backwards but he grabbed my arm before I could get up and went to bite it. I yanked it away just before he closed his teeth around it. He leant forwards to grab me again and from the corner of my eye I could see the girl had the same eye’s and was awkwardly getting to her feet and staring at me with the same look.

  I got to my feet, batting away Franks reaching arms, and backed up towards the reception desk. Frank got to his feet and walked rather unsteadily towards me, still reaching towards me and moaning. The girl came towards me as well but fell headlong from the stage smashing her shoulder and head off the table she landed on. Watching her fall made me feel sick, and I stared in horror and disbelief as she started to get up, as if nothing had happened, blood pouring from a deep cut on her head, still moaning. The arm she had fallen on was limp by her side but she kept coming towards me, reaching with her good arm.

  Frank was almost on me by then and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I had to defend myself. I front kicked him in the chest and he staggered backwards and fell over a table, but immediately started to get up again. I only had a few seconds before the girl would be on me and it didn’t look like anything I could do would stop them coming. Frank kept a full loaded AR15 under the reception desk, as lots of club owners did from what Frank had told me, so I grabbed it and backed up towards the exit.

  I turned to open the door to the club and blinked against the bright sunlight; the club was always dark and dingy, even during the day. Windows weren’t exactly welcome in a strip joint. It was early Spring and Florida’s tourist beeches aren’t exactly busy out of season at 8.30 in the morning. I suppose I was lucky from that standpoint.

  The sight that greeted me outside wasn’t much better than what had been inside. There were a few cars on the road that ran parallel to the beach and they had all stopped. There had been one fender bender and a couple of cars had rolled into trees or other parked cars. The closest one in front of me, a beat up old dodge pickup I recognised, had a man in it. The moment he saw me he started scrabbling at the window. He didn’t seem to know how to open the door. I could see his eye’s and the expression on his face was the same as Franks and the girls.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only sight that greeted me. About fifty feet away, outside the small beach store a few doors down from the club, there were two people knelt over a man’s body lying on the ground. There is no other way of putting it; they were eating the body. I was thankful I couldn’t see his face and a cold sweat ran over me and my stomach started to turned to twist, making me want to throw up. I looked around and there were about five other people in sight. Two of them, a couple by the look of it, saw me and headed straight for me. When they moved the other three seemed to notice, turned, and headed towards me as well.

  Then the two, what I’ll be calling Zombies from now on, eating the man on the floor started to get up. They headed towards me and I could hear banging against the door to the club. The situation was getting dangerous. They didn’t seem to be very fast, but there were seven of them and if they were like Frank and the girl, they weren’t easily hurt. I could look after myself, but not against seven Zombies invulnerable to pain.

  In the few seconds I had before the closest ones could threaten me I scanned the horizon. There were cars stopped on the road all up and down the strip; it wasn’t right. The people I could see in the distance were all standing still, hunched over. I thought I saw one group on the floor and guessed they were probably…feeding.

  Gun laws in Florida are more permissive than some states. You can stand your ground against an aggressor, and fire if you think your life is in danger. With at least one dead body and seven Zombies coming towards me I figured I was covered. I raised the AR15, aimed, and shot one of the two that had been feeding, as they were the closest. Thinking about the girl in the club whose injuries hadn’t seeme
d to bother her I the least I aimed for the head. Although I was a bit rusty, the gun was well maintained and the person, or Zombie, wasn’t very far away. He dropped immediately and lay still. The woman who had been next to him started to move more quickly towards me, her eye’s locked on to me like a target, so I dropped her too.

  In the few seconds I had before a couple of the others would be getting close, I noticed that the gunfire had attracted the attention of everyone, every Zombie I could see. They all started to walk towards me, one or two more quickly than the others. Then the man in the pickup must have hit the door handle because the door opened and he toppled out onto the road.

  On the other side of the wide road was another strip of small shops, a short road leading to the beach, and on the other side of the road leading to the beach, there was a dive shop. Keeping my hand on the trigger, but dropping it to my hip, strap over my shoulder, I walked past the man who had fallen from his pickup and was trying to get up. I’m describing this all in relatively unemotional terms, and to some degree that’s how it was. Of course I was scares shitless, but as you’ve heard, my childhood wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. I got used to pushing down my emotions and carrying on when I had to protect myself to survive.

  I’ve blanked out a lot of my childhood memories, they are of no use to me, but I remember one time when I was young and it was only my mother and I in the house. She’d been on a bender and hadn’t given me lunch. It started to get dark and I started to get hungry, so I left the comparative safety of my room to investigate the kitchen. My mother was passed out on the floor, bleeding from her head. I assumed she’d hit it on the way down but she was breathing, and there was no way I was waking her. She always woke up ready to slap the nearest person she could blame for her headache. The situation was a mess but I was hungry, so I just got on with what I needed to do, measured and unemotional. I made myself some boiled eggs and toast, stepping over her to move around the kitchen, then took the eggs back to my room. I was in a similar state when it all kicked off. I did what I needed to to get through it.