Slow Burn Box Set: The Complete Post Apocalyptic Series (Books 1-9) Read online

  A chill. A fever was coming. Not good.

  I used half the box of Band-Aids to pull the edges of my torn skin together. Blood oozed through. I found what appeared to be a clean washrag under the sink and used an Ace bandage to wrap it over my forearm.

  I stood up straight to leave the bathroom and dizziness hit me so hard that I lost my balance and fell against the wall.

  Christ.

  Blood loss. It had to be the blood loss.

  I pulled my phone from my pocket and tried 911 again. Still busy.

  Suspecting then that the phone had been damaged in the scuffle with Dan, I made my way to the landline phone that sat on the nightstand by the bed.

  I picked it up and dialed 911. Busy.

  Dammit.

  Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.

  The dizziness returned and I fell into a sitting position on the bed.

  The television’s remote control beckoned me from the nightstand. I grabbed it, leaned back on the headboard, and turned the television on. A few minutes of satisfying my addiction to mindless blabber would pass the time while I waited for the phones to free up. The news was on.

  Eh.

  Changing the channel suddenly seemed like an onerous chore, so I dropped the remote and let the TV’s colorful opiate wash over me.

  A worried newscaster was talking over a video of some shopping center in France. He described the scene as a riot, but the video showed something much more violent.

  People were running and screaming. Police were trying to restore order, but intermingled in the crowd were what appeared to be normal people, dressed in their Sunday afternoon casual clothes, going completely nuts.

  “What the hell?”

  The pounding in my head worsened. The chills carried with them a case of shivers. A high-grade fever was on the way. The four aspirin were proving insufficient. I reached for the telephone again to call 911, felt the room suddenly spin, and saw the hideous design on the carpet race up to smash me in the face.

  Chapter 2

  I woke up disoriented. My head throbbed. My throat was so dry I couldn’t swallow. My swollen arm hurt like hell. Numbness tingled my left hand.

  Cheap motel carpet scum clung to my skin as I peeled my face away from the rug. I got up on my hands and knees. Standing and walking was out of the question, so I crawled to the bathroom sink where I pulled myself up.

  Having accomplished that, I bent over at the waist and lay flat on the blue swirl faux marble counter top. I turned on the faucet. Beautiful, cool water flowed into my cupped hands and I sucked in what seemed like a gallon before I slipped back down to the floor.

  Morning light spread shadows across the bathroom and onto the far wall above the garden tub. For a while, I watched a square of sunlight slowly inch down the wall as the sun went about its normal rounds.

  As my dizziness waned, I pulled myself up to the sink again and gulped more water. My throat felt as if it had been sanded raw then left in the unforgiving sun to dry.

  I dropped to the floor again and closed my eyes for a moment that lasted long enough for the sun’s rays to slide its square of light onto the floor.

  When I opened my eyes again, my thoughts had cleared somewhat and I was able to hold a thought about something other than how completely shitty I felt. I pulled myself up to stand on wobbly legs.

  To my surprise, I remained upright.

  I drank again from the bathroom sink and looked down at the crusty brown washrag and bandage on my left forearm. I flexed my hand a few times. The damage wasn’t enough to hinder movement, but infection was sure to set in if I didn’t get to a doctor and get some antibiotics.

  That’s when it occurred to me that it was late morning. The sunlight spilling in through the east-facing window made that clear. I realized that I had slept through the entire night on the carpet in the bedroom. I recalled the scene in the living room—Mom, Dan, and the guy with the smashed skull. I needed to call the police about that. They’d be none too thrilled with the elapsed time between the deaths and the phone call to summon them.

  I thought back to Sunday’s breakfast tequila, and wondered how drunk I was when I’d gotten to Mom and Dan’s place. I wondered whether I’d been so drunk that I blacked out and delivered them some karma in a state of repressed psycho-rage.

  Crap. I shook my head.

  Maybe it was all just a nightmare.

  Using the dresser, then the walls, then the doorjambs for support, I slowly made my way into the hall and out to the living room.

  A pungent stench did its best to seep in through my pores as I forced my reluctant feet forward. The closer I got, the surer I was that my nightmare was real.

  Step. Step. Step.

  Christ.

  A swarm of industriously prolific flies had come into the house through the open back door. They buzzed over the feast of Mom’s stinky remains while a generation of young maggots vacationed on the corpse of the guy in the chair.

  Dan’s punctured body would be in the kitchen where I’d left it. I didn’t need a confirmation venture in there.

  I needed to call the police, and in spite of the gore on the floor and the stench in the air, I needed to get something to eat.

  I weighed the two priorities and the fear of the police’s authority sent me back into the master bedroom to the phone.

  My cell phone lay on the floor near where I’d gone comatose the night before.

  The landline on the nightstand, being so much closer to my hand, was my first choice. I lifted it to my ear.

  Dial tone.

  That was good.

  I dialed 911.

  Busy.

  “Damn it.” I slammed it down. “What the hell is going on?”

  I sat down on the bed and dropped my head into my hands.

  Well, no cops for the moment.

  Food, then.

  I managed my way back up the hall, passed the living room, and stopped at the entryway to the kitchen. The buzz of flies echoed off the tile and hard surfaces. A congealed puddle of Dan’s blood covered half the floor and spread all the way under the fridge.

  I was stuck. To get to the fridge, I’d have to wade through the nastiness of Dan’s spilled fluids.

  “Jesus, it just keeps getting worse.”

  Tracking Dan’s sticky blood all over the house didn’t sit well with me, so I found the cabinet with the kitchen towels, grabbed a stack, and laid them out in front of me like stepping stones in the blood.

  What seemed like a good plan prior to the first step, turned to shit when a towel slipped in the slime. My feet went out from under me and I fell. My head hit the tile and exploded in a flash of pain and bright lights. I sent a string of curse words echoing through the house.

  As disgusting as it was, I lay on the floor for several long minutes while the pain, in what seemed like every part of me, took its time to dissipate.

  At least nothing seemed to be broken. Feeling the disgusting brownish red goo all over my back, I rolled over onto my hands and knees and slowly stood.

  Bracing myself on the counters, I got to the fridge and pulled it open. For the second time in as many days, God’s good fortune shone on me. An unopened thirty-two ounce sports drink sat on the shelf.

  I reached in, wrestled with the cap for a moment, put it up to my mouth, and poured it into my throat until I had to stop and breathe.

  Setting the bottle down on the island in the middle of the kitchen, I looked at the smooth granite inviting my hands to linger on its cold surface. I leaned over, pressed my face on the stone, and reveled in the coolness.

  As the minutes passed, the sugar from the sports drink seeped into my bloodstream and the glucose hit me like a rush of cocaine. The contrast from bad to good was so drastic it brought tears to my eyes.

  With waning dizziness, I straightened up. I gulped down more of the sports drink and gingerly walked out of the kitchen.

  I stopped for a brief pause in front of a large mirror in the foyer.

 
; “Jeez.” I looked like crap, covered with blood, hair awry, an enormous makeshift bandage on my arm, and my skin so pale that I wondered how much blood I’d lost.

  I went into the laundry room, stripped off my clothes, and threw them along with my gory tennis shoes into the washer. Naked, and still covered in the most disgusting goo, I walked to the guest bath and got into the shower to scrub myself clean and peel the crusty bandage off of my arm under the warm water.

  After the shower, I sat naked on the bed and finished the sports drink as the sound of the washing machine in the next room vibrated. The wound on my arm oozed pus and blood. I’d need to rewrap it with whatever first aid supplies were left.

  I picked up the remote and turned on the television. My thumb went on autopilot surf mode as I thought about what to do. The police, the hospital, or both?

  News flickered to life on the screen.

  Click. News.

  Click. News.

  Click. Still nothing but news.

  “News sucks.”

  I settled for one of the national cable news channels and turned up the volume.

  The story was the same as Sunday, more rioting in France, but Germany, Italy, and England were added to the list. A panel of experts, or rather, speculators, argued about a virulent flu of some sort. International travel had been suspended by most countries. Airline stocks were tanking and the rest of the market was following their prices south. Video footage showed overwhelmed hospitals and bodies lying in the streets. An announcement from the White House was expected in a few hours.

  The washer buzzed, so I went into the laundry room, put my things into the dryer, and started it up.

  Back in the guest room, I turned down the volume on the television and tried 911 again.

  This time, it rang.

  Chapter 3

  Meeting a naked psycho-creep in a house full of dead people was sure to leave a negative impression on the soon-to-be arriving police, so I retrieved my damp clothes from the dryer and dressed.

  Suddenly worried about disturbing the crime scene, I chose to sit in a tiny clean spot in the wide foyer, taking care to keep my hands in my lap.

  It wasn’t long before the doorbell chimed twice, followed by a series of rapid beats on the door.

  “It’s the police. Open up,” a voice commanded from outside.

  “All right. Just a sec.” I stood as quickly as I could, considering my blood loss.

  Again, pounding on the door. “It’s the police. Open up.”

  “All right,” I croaked, then muttered, “impatient bastards.”

  More beating on the door. “Sir, you need to open up.”

  I pulled the door open a dozen inches.

  Two policemen fixed me in the predatory stare of their big, black, bug-eyed glasses before glancing down to the blood-covered white marble floor. One officer’s hand landed on the butt of his gun. The second officer grasped the handle of his weapon.

  Very loudly, one of them commanded me to step slowly back from the door.

  The other officer ordered me to show my hands.

  “What?” was all I got out before the cop closest to me rushed forward, shouldered the door, and knocked me onto my back.

  Before I could react, a cop was on me. My arm was wrenched around behind my me and I was leveraged onto my belly. A heavy knee landed on my neck, smashing my face into the floor. A handcuff caught one wrist. My other wrist was yanked back and cuffed to the first.

  It all happened faster than I could come up with a snarky comment. “Hey. Hey. I’m the one who called you.”

  They pretended like I hadn’t spoken.

  “Don’t move.” one of the officers commanded, as he took his weight off of me.

  I found myself staring at his shiny black shoe, situated just inches from my face.

  Footsteps sounded as the other officer went further into the house.

  “Oh, my God.” There was revulsion in the other officer’s voice.

  “What?” the cop standing over me asked.

  Nothing for a moment.

  “Oh, my God,” said the second officer again.

  “What?” the first officer demanded. Then, to me he barked, “Don’t move.”

  I watched his feet step back slowly toward the living room. “Everything all right, Bill?”

  Nothing.

  “Bill?”

  Just footsteps, shuffling backward.

  Then Bill’s voice again, deflated this time. “Oh, my God.”

  The second officer’s voice came next. “That’s sick.”

  Then the footsteps got louder again.

  The first officer’s voice yelled, “No.”

  “You sick pig.” the second guy yelled, as I saw his shiny black shoe coming at my face.

  Chapter 4

  My right eye was swollen into a bluish lump. My lips were chapped. My throat was dry. My formerly clean shirt had a fresh coat of dried blood, some of it mine, all down the front. I was handcuffed to a metal table in a police interrogation room, alone and staring at the camera in the upper corner.

  With no windows and no clocks, I didn’t know what time it was. I only knew I’d been in there for many, many long hours.

  While I waited for my unscrupulous interrogator to return, I amused myself by tapping out a rhythm on the table, and alternately extending a middle finger from each hand at the camera above.

  I leaned over and lay my face flat on the table, drawing minor comfort from the temperature of the steel. I closed my eyes, knowing that as soon as I dozed off, my interrogator would return to deprive me of sleep.

  I heard the door open, but didn’t respond.

  A phonebook slammed down on the table next to my head. I was too exhausted to react.

  I heard a voice tell someone else, “This one’s still out. I don’t know what sent all the crackheads on a killing spree this week, but we’ve got to get that shit off the street.”

  “Yeah,” another voice agreed. “I’ve got mine next door. Let me know if you come up with anything.”

  A moment later, the chair across the table from me scooted out and a heavy man sat down.

  He followed with a few exaggerated sighs. He loudly sipped from his coffee. He clinked the hard paper cup on the table next to my head.

  Silence passed as he decided what to do next. A sharp exhalation and a hard slap on the back of my head announced his decision.

  “Hey crackhead. Wake up.”

  I didn’t react to the slap. Pain was becoming surprisingly easy to ignore.

  I lolled my head in another direction and opened my eyes to look at my angry tormentor.

  “What were you on?”

  “What?” I feigned ignorance. I guess I was too hardheaded to cooperate.

  He slapped me again.

  “I thought police didn’t do this sort of thing anymore,” I said.

  That earned me another slap.

  The detective leaned back in his chair, drew a deep breath, and stared at me.

  “Look, Ezekiel…Ezekiel, that’s your name, right?”

  I picked my head up off the table. I straightened up in the chair, out of arm’s reach for the moment. “Yeah, but my friends call me Zed. Zed Zane.”

  “Look, Zed, maybe you got started off on the wrong foot here.”

  I looked down at the worn phone book on the desk and gave voice to my frustrations. “What? Is it your turn now to beat me with a phone book? Do you guys work in shifts or what? What time is it? Why can’t I get a lawyer? Why do you guys keep telling me the camera doesn’t work? Don’t you have one of those, ah…those, ah…who are those guys they have on TV? Oh, yeah, detectives. Why don’t you get one of them to look at the crime scene and confirm what I’ve been telling you all night? It has been all night hasn’t it?”

  The detective ignored my outburst for several long breaths. “Are you done?”

  In response, I chose a conversational technique that hadn’t failed me since junior high: I ignored him.


  The big man leaned his furry forearms on the table. “You gotta understand, Zed. You come in here in wet clothes that you just washed all the evidence out of. You assault the arresting officers.” He shook his head.

  “Bullshit.” I’d heard that accusation a thousand times at that point.

  “You talk about killing your stepdad…You did kill him right? I mean you admitted that much, right? It’s right here in the file.”

  Not any less irritated, I said, “I told you, it was self-defense. He was attacking me.” I drew a deep breath. “And where the hell do people even get phone books anymore?”

  The officer crossed his big fuzzy arms and said nothing for a moment.

  I did the same.

  “Are you through?”

  “Through with what?” I asked

  “Acting like an ass?” he said.

  “What? Are you kidding me? Really? I go to my mom’s house yesterday morning. I find my stepdad going all cannibal on her in the living room. He attacks me and I stab him with a knife to defend myself. I call the cops and then Dudley Do-Right and his partner show up, don’t even ask me a question, and decide instead to beat the shit out of me and drop me here. Does that about sum it up?”

  No response.

  I went on. “Now after who knows how long I’ve been in here, with you guys taking turns yelling at me, calling me a liar, oh, and beating me in the head with the phone book, you wanna say I’m acting like an ass? Well forgive me for being so goddamned rude.”

  “Hi, I’m Zed Zane. I’m so pleased to meet you. Would you like a cup of tea?”

  He didn’t react. He just stared at me.

  So, we played the staring game for a good five minutes before I won and he asked, “Are you through now?”

  “Whatever,” I responded.

  “Let’s start again. I’m Detective Tom Wolsely.” He extended a hand across the table to shake mine.

  I looked at his hand but made no move to respond. Of course, I did have two hands cuffed to the table.

  “Don’t be an ass, Zed. It’s polite to shake a hand when it’s offered.”

  “Maybe you guys should have thought about that whenever the hell it was that you locked me in here. How long have I been in here, anyway?”