Zombie Chronicles (Book 1): Twice Dead Read online

  Twice

  Dead

  Zombie Chronicles I

  Also by

  TJ Forester

  Next in the Series

  Coming soon

  Fatal Memories

  Zombie Chronicles II

  DELETERIUM

  the Awakening

  Zombie Chronicles III

  Deleterium

  The Chosen

  Zombie Chronicles IV

  Twice

  Dead

  Zombie Chronicles I

  Written by

  TJ Forester

  Copyright 2015 by Banister Books

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system without the express written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied In critical articles and reviews. This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogues in the novel are fictitious. Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  “'Tis the maddest trick a man can ever play in his whole life, to let his breath sneak out of his body without any more ado, and without so much as a rap o'er the pate, or a kick of the guts.” Miguel De Cervantes

  ~

  Trego, Montana, Unincorporated Area

  Doctor Sherena Lawson crouched low behind an alien looking piece of medical equipment, made even more menacing by the cold darkness of the laboratory. Back against the wall, she held herself in position by pushing her hands hard against her thighs. She willed herself not to move. Sweating profusely from the panic that enveloped her, she tried to breathe silently, but her heart throbbed loudly in her chest, carelessly betraying her uninvited presence.

  “Come out doc,” the discorporate man demanded. “You might, just as well, give up; you know we will find you.”

  As he moved his flashlight back and forth, she dug her nails into her pant legs so deeply that if not for the protection of her denim jeans and purple, silk, long-underwear, she would have drawn blood. She closed her green eyes tightly for a minute and clinched her teeth involuntarily. Strands of long, wavy, dark Auburn hair stuck tightly to the sides of her sweat drenched face and neck.

  She opened her eyes and pressed her lips together subconsciously. She scanned the darkness quickly, looking for a way out, but there was none. Finally, brows furrowed, she let out a conceding breath. It was over.

  “Don’t shoot—” she stated “—I’m going to stand up now.”

  She took his lack of response as acceptance and rose slowly to her feet. Trying hard to hide her trembling, she slid sideways against the wall and quietly dropped a syringe into the wastepaper basket.

  “Are you going to kill me?”

  It was a stupid question, but she needed to hear the answer. It was one of Doctor Soranto’s goons, Abel Ashyr. She didn’t need to see him to recognize his voice and picture his face, in spite of the flashlight beam blinding her. His square forehead and clean-shaven, tight jaw line would have made him good looking if it weren’t for the fact that he was trying to kill her.

  No doubt, he was wearing those same gray coveralls with the blood-red Triogenix logo, which she had now come to hate. Her thoughts flickered involuntarily back to the excitement she had felt her first day there. Any slight ray of hope she may have been clinging to that morning had now been totally doused by the incubus of death and horror surrounding her.

  A sudden hissing noise, followed quickly by the resurrection of the lights and equipment, signaled that the electricity had been restored. Her eyes had already adjusted to the glare of his flashlight, but the flood of new light caught him off guard. While he struggled to focus, she shoved a large, piece of equipment at him. The inertia knocked him over, and a gargantuan monitor toppled onto him.

  She leapfrogged over the sprawling tangle of man and machine. He fired his gun at her wildly, but his aim was not true. The bullet ricocheted off the doorframe, just as she catapulted through its opening.

  “She’s getting away—” he cursed loudly and screamed into his radio “—get her!”

  Sherena streaked down the corridor as fast as her lean body would carry her. She heard noises at her back, which only propelled her forward. Finding the long staircase, she literally jumped onto the railing and slid downward. When she reached the end, the uncontrolled speed of her descent sent her spinning crazily into the air. She crashed, back first, hard onto the floor.

  At that instant, she glanced up and saw John Kroger, Abel’s partner, aiming his gun at her—followed quickly by Abel.

  She ignored the pain and rolled over, lunging to her feet as a second bullet hit the floor near her, splintering shards of ceramic shrapnel. It sprayed in all directions and one of the pieces hit her hand. She barely registered the pain as she coerced herself out the main door and into the wintry night.

  Her hand was bleeding, and she hadn’t had time to grab her coat even though the temperature was well below freezing. The air was a slap to her senses and silence rang in her ears. The frigid air froze in her nose and made her eyes water. She slipped on the ice; even her ultra-suede snow boots couldn’t maintain the grip. She spun on the slick surface and then slid, face, and nose first, into a small rock wall.

  The two men took the time to put on their heavy winter coats, and headed out the door after her. They looked around the white-carpeted ground but didn’t see her. However, the moon was full, and the reflection of light off the new snow made it easy to find her footprints. A spattering of blood spots, crimson red, against the bluish white, created a macabre trail for the two men to follow.

  She hadn’t taken the route through the obscurity of the trees and behind the storage building, even though it would be harder to find her—she needed the quickest passage to people who might be able to help her.

  Broadly speaking, she wasn’t a superstitious person but given the things that she had just learned, she desperately wanted to avoid that location. The temperature was subzero and so from the moment she had escaped that horrible building, her sweat had begun turning to ice. Her hand, still bleeding from the flying debris, and her face, which had been lacerated and bruised by the rock wall couldn’t compare with the blinding pain searing through her right shoulder and rib cage.

  A broken shoulder and maybe a rib, she assessed.

  If that weren’t enough, she had blood pouring from her broken nose. She was leaving a trail that anyone could see and follow. Besides, she wasn’t certain that she could make it back to the clinic before she succumbed to hypothermia. She needed a doctor immediately—too bad I’m the doctor on call tonight—she groaned.

  She could scream, but it would be pointless, there was no one within earshot who wasn’t trying to kill her.

  Oddly, she heard the gun shot before she felt it penetrate her left leg just above the knee. She tried to keep going, but she was fighting a losing battle and she knew it. She reached for one of the headstones, old and partly broken, and then she twisted around while trying to hang onto it. She fell to the ground and collapsed. Staring up into the night sky, the sensation of cold began to leave her body; the pain exchanged for numbness.

  She looked up at the great old tree that she had once thought so romantic, with the full moon shining through its leafless branches, and then the blackness overtook her. She lay there, nearly lifeless. Her pursuers picked up her tortured body, carried her out carefully across the mostly frozen lake, and laid her down on the ice. John Kroger knelt beside her.

  “Are you sure we should do it this way?”

  “Yeah�
�” able nodded grimly “—it’ll take a while to find her.”

  He lifted the pickaxe he had been carrying. He knew just where the water deepened, and the ice would be thinner. He dropped the axe repeatedly onto the frozen lake until he broke a large enough hole to fit her body through it, into the water.

  Sherena had been unconscious, but not quite dead, when she felt the shock of an even colder sensation, yet she didn’t move. Her body was now too numb to feel pain. She was helpless to fight or scream. Abel pushed her head down into the water and forced it under the edge of the hole so that it would hold her down.

  He splashed a little water over the place where her face was so that the ice became transparent. She opened her eyes, looked at him staring down at her through the clear, cold, glass. She jerked only once while the water choked her lungs, and lifelessly, she stared up at the moon.

  Chapter 2

  "The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes."

  Thomas Hardy

  ~

  Las Vegas, Nevada, Several Months Earlier

  Sherena Lawson stood staring out a large window at the McCarran International Airport, Gate D, waiting for her flight. Lost in thoughts of her recent divorce, unseen airplanes came and went while the past played across the stage of her mind. It had been a mistake, that was a certainty, but even now, the memory of it plagued her inexorably torturing her soul waking and sleeping.

  She had been born and raised in California but had followed him, her now ex-husband Richard Tavern, to Las Vegas. There she had finished her residency in emergency medicine at Desert-Springs hospital, having earned her MD and PhD in molecular biology. It was there, during her last year of med-school that they met.

  He had been charming and full of life, six-foot-one with sandy brown hair and stormy eyes—as handsome as any girl could have wished. They had been study partners, and he had swept her off her feet with practiced ease. It was too bad that she hadn’t realized that those stormy eyes were a symptom of his anger issues and that being ‘swept’ wasn’t always a good thing.

  He was gentle and benignant until they married. It wasn’t the wedding she had dreamt of as a child, but like most of her other childhood dreams it had died along with her parents; cancer, both of them during her senior year as an undergrad. That wasn’t the only reason she found herself at the airport now, but a crucial one.

  She felt she was running, but she wasn’t quite sure whether it was toward something or away from it. Sherena dove into her work so she could keep her mind occupied; it wasn’t a hard task to accomplish as an emergency department doctor.

  Now she was heading for a new job doing what she had worked so hard for—cancer research—at Triogenix Laboratories in Montana. She hoped it would prove less hectic, yet be engaging enough to bury herself in it.

  She would be doing some hours in their emergency clinic. However, her new employers assured her that the population was so small that even the busiest nights would leave her yawning. She had never been there, all interviews had been via video conference, but she didn’t care where it was, as long as it wasn’t the desert.

  Of course, there would be snow. She shivered at the thought, she wasn’t sure she would like the cold. However, Sherena wasn’t one to waste too much time living in the past and Las Vegas was most definitely the past. The sound of slot machines noisily battered her ears in the background, but she didn’t notice. It was the kind of thing people got used to living there; everywhere there is a spot, there is a slot.

  Unnoticed, a man watched her from across the busy waiting area, just as the McDonnell-Douglas MD 87 plane she would be boarding touched down on the tarmac. She had always enjoyed watching planes. Even after having taken multiple physics classes, she found it hard to imagine how something so heavy could stay up in the sky. A flight attendant’s announcement of the plane’s arrival marked the beginning of her new life.

  Sherena let out a long breath. The man who had been watching her ran into her, spilling the contents of his Starbuck’s cup in the process. Startled out of her reverie, it took a second for her neurons to catch up with current events.

  “I’m sorry,” he lied as he knelt to pick up the bag he had knocked from her hands.

  She took it from him, knitted her eyebrows, and then cocked her head in vexed suspicion. She doubted that the cup, which now soaked the airport carpet, had actually held coffee, in spite of the strong aroma of Italian roast.

  Her irritation faded instantly when he looked at her with a lopsided smile. He mopped up the mess with a napkin. His eyes were an intensely penetrating blue, against the dark of his complexion and the well-defined bone structure of his face.

  She had that annoyingly pleasant sensation one too-rarely has upon encountering a magnetic stranger. She inwardly kicked herself, and then cringed ever so slightly. She hoped that it didn’t show. Her eyes followed the contour of his body carefully as he slowly stood.

  Now looking at her directly, he had to tilt his head downward the several inch variance of their heights. She guessed he was about six-foot-two, and she desperately hoped he hadn’t noticed the change in her breathing; sometimes she hated hormones.

  He cleared his throat and repeated the apology.

  She pulled herself together and managed a somewhat casual, “No problem.”

  Then she glanced to the left quickly and looked back at him. Having regained her composure, she squared her jaw and tilted her head but said nothing. Her stance held the clear accusation that his accident had not been an accident.

  He said nothing at first but looked a little sheepish. Then he raised one eyebrow almost imperceptibly before flashing her that slight smile again. She had the urge to hit him when she felt that irritating flutter.

  What am I, in high school? She berated herself for her biological reaction.

  “I’m sorry,” he answered her unasked question, and then he admitted, “I just wanted to meet you.” He shook his head blithely and motioned with his eyes at the vacant space around them. “I guess that was kind of obvious but—” he hesitated then curled that one side of his mouth “—I ran out of lines.”

  For some reason she wasn’t sure if she believed him, but then dismissed it. There was no reason not to; guys were always hitting on her. Besides, she thought, what did it matter, she would never see him again.

  “Okay,” she conceded. She didn’t expect honesty, and it threw her off her game. She reached out her hand, “I’m Sherena Lawson.”

  Now his smile broadened, “I’m Logan Mann.”

  She was glued to his eyes for a second then the intercom spat out, “Flight 1091 to Kalispell now boarding.”

  “That’s my flight,” she said, glad for the excuse to escape.

  “Really?—” he smiled “—Mine too.”

  She swallowed hard, Oh great, I don’t need this, she thought mournfully.

  The last thing she wanted was to be attracted to a guy. Her life was far too complicated, and she was trying to get away from everything—oh well, it’s a short flight. I guess a little flirting won’t hurt me.

  The seats were not assigned, and when he followed her onto the plane, he sat down beside her. She had the window seat. At first, he was quiet, and she pulled out a book to read, intent on ignoring the attraction she didn’t want to feel.

  Undeterred by her disinterest, he asked, “So, where are you headed?”

  She looked at him sideways and considered before she answered, “I’m going to a small town that I’m sure you have never heard of.”

  “Really,” he said, apparently wishing to take her up on her challenge.

  She glared at him, not wanting the intrusion his tone clearly suggested. “Where are you going?” she turned the tables.

  He raised an eyebrow at her irritated response and then answered, “Trego. It’s not actually a town—” he paused “—more of an area, but there is a research facility there.”

  She looked a
t him searchingly. “Not Triogenix?” she asked, dreading the answer.

  This would complicate her life. Not waiting for him to speak, she turned her head to look out the window.

  Undaunted, he continued, “Actually, yes.”

  Chapter 3

  “Is there anything in life so disenchanting as attainment?"

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  ~

  As it turned out, Logan was a pathologist who had been working at Triogenix for the past year. Though she tried to dislike him, she wasn’t doing it very well. When they arrived at the facility, he had given her a tour. He had gotten a call and had to leave abruptly before he had shown her where he worked. Now her mind wouldn’t leave it alone—not thoughts of him anyway.

  Oh, please!

  The secretary’s phone in the clinic’s emergency room jangled, though she had no support staff now. It was 4:00 AM and the clinic was impossibly quiet. She found that the hours were dragging by, and she prayed for anything, even a nosebleed, to pass the time.

  The ER was small, servicing only Triogenix personal and a handful of independent vendors. In spite of that fact, it was impressively equipped. Sherena had seen large city hospitals with less equipment. The company she had chosen to work for was incredibly successful despite its remote location.

  “ER, Dr. Lawson speaking,” she answered into the phone. A hysterical woman’s voice on the other end of the line brought her to attention. “I’m sorry, but you will have to slow down a little for me to hear you,” Sherena spoke in a soothing tone.

  The woman on the other end of the line slowed her speech only slightly, and Sherena strained to understand.

  “Can you get him here?” she asked.

  “No!” the woman screamed.

  “All right, listen, he is going to be okay. I need you to tell me where you are so I can send someone.”