Battlefield Z The Collected Adventures Volume 3 (Battlefield Z Collected Adventures) Read online

  BATTLEFIELD Z

  OUTCAST ZOMBIE

  Book 7

  By

  Chris Lowry

  Get your Free Copy of FLYOVER ZOMBIE here

  Lightning pace, sparse style, fans of Elmore Leonard love the first book in the new series based on the Battlefield Z world.

  They built a wall to contain the zombies in the middle of America. But when a powerful man’s daughter gets lost in the beyond, he sends a crack unit of soldiers to rescue her and they find more than they bargained for.

  Now the survivors form a ragtag fleet to fight their way across a vast wasteland where zombies aren’t the worst thing to survive.

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  BATTLEFIELD Z

  OUTCAST ZOMBIE

  I thought a lot about Odin the Far Walker. The Norse God was known for a lot of things, trading an eye for wisdom, for being cunning and a warrior of legend.

  The reality of what I was had me seriously contemplating some of my choices of late. Like how I ended up on a three-lane country Highway jogging at the head of a herd of zombies.

  It was not my first choice.

  Or second.

  Or third.

  I'd much rather be smacking my lips over a cold craft beer listening to my kids laugh about my very unique style of dancing. Much like my killer pop & lock moves, the Z behind me stank.

  I was down wind and the stench of a couple hundred rotting walking dead followed me like a cloud. It was so bad I was beyond gagging. I would have taken off through the woods and lost them, but both sides of the road was bordered by a nine-foot fence.

  It must have been a national forest back when the world was real. Now the signs were gone and the fence designed to keep people out was doing a damn good job of pinning me in.

  The Z weren't any closer.

  But they could go forever and I was almost done.

  My stomach growled reminding me it had been almost two days since I last ate.

  I needed food, rest and I wanted a beer. More than one.

  And a weapon.

  Something. Anything that could stop or slow down the horde stalking me.

  The road stretched out in front of me and it was tough to tell if the heat was making the asphalt wavy or it was my eyeballs.

  At first, I thought it was a mirage. Then when it didn't move, I decided it was real and shifted up into a slow jog. I'm not sure who left their car in the middle of nowhere or why.

  It was parked on the narrow shoulder in the passenger door was open.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The seats stank of despair.

  I was used to it.

  It seemed like every car or truck we ran across had been the scene of something horrific.

  But it was empty and I appreciated it.

  I could tolerate some stink, if just to gain a little peace.

  Plus, I was tired.

  Exhausted.

  I was weary of fighting, weary of finding myself cast into corners to do someone else's bidding. My mind needed a rest, a break.

  I climbed into the sedan, shut the door and eased the passenger seat back as far as it would recline.

  Then I took a deep breath.

  It hitched in my throat and I felt a sob well up. I couldn't fight it.

  The emotion was too much, too overwhelming.

  I'd been shot.

  I'd been blown up.

  Beaten until I couldn't see, couldn't breathe.

  I'd lost my kids and found them again.

  Rescued damsels in distress.

  Starved for food and fueled on rage.

  Now someone held my kids for ransom.

  After knocking me silly. After cutting me loose. It wasn't the first time I'd been sent packing with nothing more than my smile and what passed for charm in this God forgotten countryside.

  I sat in the car and dropped all my defenses.

  Except one.

  I checked the door locks through tears, just to be sure.

  And I cried.

  The zombie herd reached the sedan and pressed around it. Rotting fingers clawed at the glass, mouths chewed on the edges, but there were too many of them trying to get in, and the car was locked up tight.

  Which made the stink even worse.

  I let the tears flow and felt sorry for myself.

  Then I felt bad about the self-pity and it got contrite.

  How did I have the right to feel bad when my youngest was still lost in the wasteland. Alone and scared.

  Or dead.

  Sob.

  My older two were prisoners in a compound with a megalomaniac. Scared. Feeling helpless.

  Sob.

  Or dead.

  There was no guarantee she let them live past me leaving the gate.

  Nothing to suggest she would let them go even if I did what she asked.

  And my group was gone too, missing in some mystery, like a ship in the Bermuda Triangle or colonists at Roanoke.

  Then I couldn't cry anymore.

  The noise of the Z outside of the window, the fingernails on chalkboard sound of their claws on the metal of the car scraping in my ears, creating cringeworthy moments.

  And I slept.

  I don't remember falling asleep, so maybe it was more akin to passing out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Once you get used to the noise, the scratching and moaning, the literal sound of nails on metal, the heightened fear that one of the windows might bust, then the gentle rocking of the car as zombies press against the outside can lull you to sleep.

  The silence woke me up.

  I'm not sure when they left, and there was no rhyme to why. A butterfly flittered past and distracted one, pulling it away and the rest followed.

  Or maybe it was me sleeping, not moving, the stillness of the inside of the car making them bored.

  It could have even been my snoring, loud enough to drive them away, though that hadn't been much of a problem since the Z diet helped me drop thirty pounds.

  Whatever drew them away, they left me to sleep away the night and wake up as the sun crested the horizon, spilling down the straight roadway in a blazing display of orange light.

  I was able to figure the direction from that.

  I wasn't sure if it was the right direction, but when Mags set me on her ransom quest, she pointed this way in a vague general sense.

  I still needed a map, which pissed me off, because we got into this whole mess in the first place looking for a map of refugee centers.

  I missed my smartphone GPS.

  I looked around through the windows to double check the coast was clear of the dead, and got out.

  The hint of their stench lingered.

  It would take a good slow rain, one that lasted for days to wash it all away. There were too many dead bodies walking around for the breeze to move it. When the wind shifted direction, it just picked up the smell of rotting flesh, and unwashed clothes from that way and sent it in the air.

  Like being downwind of a pig farm.

  The grass on either side of the road was trampled flat by thousands of feet passing by with the zombie group.

  That didn't stop me from doing a quick scan to find a weapon, but no luck.

  I was still unarmed in territory I didn't know, lost somewhere in Kentucky or Tennessee searching for a town I had never heard of before.

  But the Dali Llama told me one day I'd have total consciousness, so I've got that going for me.

  That's the problem with the zombie apocalypse. No television
to keep the brain distracted so it dives into old movie quotes and references them as answers when you're talking to yourself.

  Ah well, an Irishman talks to God so he can converse with his equals.

  I needed to get moving.

  A night in the car surrounded by zombies must have built up the CO2 in the space and I had some narcosis going on.

  I started walking, and it felt good.

  I was too hungry to run, but I walked faster and it spilled over into a jog.

  Since the j in jogging is silent, I yogged for about an hour when the fog in my brain started to clear, or if not clear at least recede enough to notice the fence was gone and there was a well-worn trail to the side of the road.

  Next to a trail was a gray-haired woman copping a squat.

  She smiled, waved and lifted her rifle to point at me, all the while not breaking stream.

  I thought that was pretty impressive.

  Enough that I kept my distance while she finished and turned slightly away so she could stand and lift.

  I'd seen a lot of female runners drop trou trailside and shoot a jet stream, so I wasn't immune to the sight. I'd never had one pull a weapon on me though.

  "Morning," she called in a cheery tone.

  I turned around and she still had the rifle aimed at me.

  "Morning."

  "Out for a run?"

  She had green eyes that twinkled under iron gray hair, with hints of black undertones, pretty still in her advanced years. I pegged her at least a decade older than me which would put her short of sixty, but not by much.

  She had on layers, so she was Z experienced, or just smart enough to survive.

  "It's a beautiful day for a run,” I glanced up at the sky.

  "Anything chasing you?"

  She didn't look down the road to see what, if anything was behind me. Her eyes were locked on mine.

  I would have been flattered, but she was making sure I wasn't a threat.

  Or trying to decide what kind of threat I was.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  What they say about best laid plans was true.

  “If you move, I’ll blow your head off.”

  I froze on the side of the road in the middle of the woods and did exactly what she asked.

  “What else have you got?”

  Was she robbing me? Poor little old me in the middle of an empty sunlit road?

  I showed her both of my hands.

  “Nothing up my sleeves.”

  “No food?”

  “Nothing else.”

  A tiny figure stepped forward of the forest. It was wrapped head to toe in a poncho, long pants, long sleeves and a baklava.

  “What kind of idiot goes out in this world without a gun?”

  I shifted my eyes a little to see better, lifted up two thumbs and pointed them at my chest.

  “This guy.”

  She looked away then, up and down the road to see if I was lying about being alone, lying about being chased.

  “I’ve got back up,” she told me.

  That made the hair on my neck stand up.

  She let out a low whistle. Something huffed in the bush next to me. All I could think was bear and that scene at the end of LEGENDS OF THE FALL when the bear comes out of the woods and attacks Brad Pitt.

  Sure, he fights back with a knife, but an eight-inch Bowie against nine feet of razor talons and four-inch canines made me think about what Popes do in the woods.

  And emulate them.

  But it was a dog.

  Not even a big dog either, a border collie mutt with one blue eye, one green eye and a spot on the fur on its back, darker fur on a dingy white coat.

  It sniffed at me and huffed again.

  "Do I offend?" I gave a sniff back.

  The dog wagged its tail and the woman noticed.

  "She likes you."

  "I'm easy to like."

  "Are you?"

  She said it like she didn't expect an answer, so I didn't give one.

  "Dogs can tell you a lot about a person," the woman continued. "Whether you can trust them or not. They're like lie detector tests. Something about the way you smell."

  "I almost made him sneeze, so it might give you a false reading."

  "Her. It's a she."

  "She got a name?"

  She paused for a second, like it was a state secret and she was gauging my worth to earn sharing it. Guess I passed.

  "Kinji."

  "I like it," I told the woman. "Hi Kinji."

  The tail thumped against the ground and Kinji took a couple of steps out of the underbrush and closer to me.

  I held out a hand and kneeled so we were closer to eye level.

  The barrel of the woman's gun followed me down and stayed there. If she decided to shoot, I wouldn't have far to fall.

  "Hey pup," I cooed.

  The dog lowered her nose and took a tentative step forward, sniffing. Measuring me, I guess.

  "She's been through some things," the woman said from by the tree.

  "Haven't we all."

  Kinji reached my hand, gave it a good nose inspection then offered a gentle lick with her wet tongue.

  I stroked the fur back from her face, slow and steady movements.

  She decided she liked that enough to let me pet her back, and I added some scratches for good measure.

  Just like that, in the way dogs do, we were old friends.

  Not quite to the belly rub level yet, but I got to run my hand along her coat and spine, scratching and massaging her while her tail turned her body into a vibrating mass of canine muscle.

  Kinji offered up a doggy smile, tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth.

  With beauty like that, I couldn't help but smile back.

  "Like I said," the woman stepped out from the trees and onto the path. "She likes you."

  "She's a good pup."

  "If she trusts you, guess the least I can do is be courteous. You eat?"

  It was the Sothern’s universal signal of hospitality. Did you eat?

  I think it stretched back to caveman times, because it was mentioned often enough in recorded history. A weary traveler happens upon a farm or homestead and the rule of hospitality was to offer food and respite.

  They were experts at it in the South, before the zombie apocalypse killed a lot of nice people and left a lot of assholes scratching for survival.

  I wasn't sure I would place my trust in a dog to make that kind of decision for me.

  But then again, my stomach growled.

  "I could eat."

  She nodded her head and gave a sharp whistle.

  Kinji was done with being petted and trotted up the trail. She paused a dozen yards away and looked back over her shoulder.

  The woman nodded for me to pass her.

  "Walk in front," she told me.

  Guess the doggie trust only got you so far.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “What's your story,” she said.

  We stopped to rest. She put her back against a tree and watched, rifle aimed at me. Her grip was strong, the barrel didn't waver.

  “Just passing through.”

  “I bet, she snorted. Lot of that going on. How did you miss the scrum?”

  “Is that what you call the Z's?”

  “Z? Zombies?”

  “That’s what I call them.”

  “Yeah, I heard them,” she snorted. “Herd. Get it?”

  I gave a small laugh of appreciation and she seemed to like it. The rifle barrel dropped by two inches, still enough to swing up and take out a chunk of me, but I felt like it was progress.

  “I’ve seen four or five big ones like that,” she continued. “Don’t know where they’re going.”

  “Where does that road lead?”

  She gave a quick glance over her shoulder.

  “It leads to a town. A couple of small towns actually.”

  I wondered if it was the town I was searching for.

  “Get moving,” she t
old me and pushed off the bark.

  I did what she said.

  After all, she was armed and I was not. But I thought about that road and where it might go.

  And I thought a lot about the zombies that were between me and wherever it might lead.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The sound of our footsteps crunched through the leaves on the game trail that didn’t look well used.

  I could feel her watching the back of my head, just like I watched the dog who trotted several yards in front of us.

  A good early warning system for anything that might be in the woods.

  "Before all of this we had a Muslim problem," she said.

  I didn't correct her. It wasn't a Muslim problem so much as an extreme fundamentalist problem, and it existed in every religion.

  But I knew what she meant.

  "Now, no one gives a shit what you believe."

  It wasn’t easy to glance over my shoulder to watch her while we walked, head on a swivel to check my steps too.

  Lucky for me, the trail was just packed dirt and overgrown bushes that drifted across the path.

  "I ran into a cult or two who cared very much what we believed."

  She waved it off.

  "Nuts," she said. "Takes one to know them."

  She tapped the side of her head with a finger and snickered.

  A clearing opened up in front of us, a meadow in the forest where nothing grew except grass.

  It was easy to see how people in the past must have come across these spots in the trees and their mind instantly drifted to the supernatural.

  The trees formed a natural barrier in a wide oblong circle, but none grew in the opening.

  Maybe a long time ago, it had been a homestead or some native American ritual site and the clearing carved out of nature stood a test of time.

  Maybe it was the soil, something acidic in the dirt that made it unreceptive to tress.

  No matter what it was though, this woman had made it home.

  A fence was nailed to the trees running the perimeter of the camp. A simple shed cabin made of cast off’s and patched with wooden parts stood in the center.