One Nation Under Zombies (Book 2): FrostBITTEN Read online

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  First Publishing; Crystal-Rain Love : July 2017

  FrostBITTEN

  One Nation Under Zombies

  Book Two

  Raymond Lee

  Dedication & Acknowledgements

  This one goes out to all the wonderful readers who read Mail Horror Bride and left wonderful reviews or sent me messages of support while I was working 80-hour weeks and struggling to find time to write. Thank you so much for hanging in there and for coming back for round two of this zombie madness!

  I

  Wally’s Club

  Raven sat Indian style in the center of the bed. Even in the dark, her features mere shadow, she took Cruz’s breath away. From where he sat on the floor, hidden behind a candle display, he watched her openly. She was hurting and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Not that he didn’t want to. He’d do anything to take her pain away. He owed her that much for allowing him to feel real emotion, something he’d thought he’d never do again.

  Would you really do anything for her? Is she even worth it?

  He glanced over at the monster next to him. He knew it wasn’t real, but he heard it all the same. “Shut up,” he whispered.

  We helped you. We told you where to find your mother. She didn’t do that. Now she wants to shut us up.

  Cruz squeezed his eyes closed, wishing the noise to stop. Maybe Raven and Damian were right. If he took the pills, the monsters would go away.

  Go away? Never. You may silence us for a while but we will never go away. The pills will run out and we’ll come back. We’ll come back angrier. We’ll never go away. You know why too, even if you don’t want to admit it.

  “Shut up.”

  You know why, Cruz. You know why we’re always here. We’re a part of you. Pills can’t make us go away. You can’t make yourself go away. You will never get rid of us. You will never be normal. You will never be what she wants.

  Cruz ripped open the boxes Damian had found for him in the pharmacy as the monster only he could see and hear howled with laughter.

  We’ll come back. We’ll come back angrier. There will be more of us. We own you!

  Cruz swallowed the pills dry as the monster continued taunting him.

  She will never want you. You already lost her. Silence us and you have nothing. No one wants you. You are nothing, nothing like us. We are the same. We are you.

  He picked up the gun he’d set on the floor beside him and fingered the trigger, tempted to shut the voices up for good. He remembered the last time he’d planned on taking the easy way out and smiled. She’d saved him.

  “Go back to hell,” he whispered to the monstrous figment of his imagination. “She cares. She saved me.”

  “I’m sorry, Sky,” Raven said, unaware she had an audience.

  “I’ll save her too,” Cruz whispered, turning to see the monster had vanished. He looked down at the boxes of pills and sighed as he shoved them into the pocket of his cargos. Soon his mind would be cloudy again, which he hated, but at least the voices would be gone.

  He returned his attention to Raven, watching her turn her katana over in her hands. He wondered what thoughts filled her mind. He knew they weren’t good ones. She’d lost her sister when the outbreak happened, then she’d lost Jeremy, the young girl she’d rescued and cared for. That one was on him.

  A shuffling sound caught his attention and he peered past Raven to where a dark shape approached. Raven looked up. “Sky?”

  Sky? Cruz sat up straighter, gripping the gun. He pointed it at the dark form, tracking its movements as it slowly approached Raven.

  The dark form looked up, eyes so white they shone in the dark.

  Raven gasped. “I’m so sorry, Sky. I’m sorry I let them do that to you.”

  Cruz now recognized the girl as the one who’d been with Pimjai’s sister and her group. She growled as she stepped closer, arms reaching out.

  Cruz’s heart plummeted as Raven set her katana aside and opened her arms to the girl-turned-zombie. “I’m sorry.”

  The zombie lunged for Raven, but having tracked her movements with his gun, Cruz was in perfect position to take her out, which he did with one shot before running over to the bed.

  Raven stared down at herself, seeing the blood splatter on her and the bed, and started screaming. Cruz quickly pulled her into his embrace and rubbed her back soothingly. “Shhh, Raven. It’s all right. You’re safe.”

  The others approached quickly, drawn by the gunshot and Raven’s scream.

  “What happened?” Damian asked, flanked by Carlos and Elijah.

  “Aw, dammit,” Hal said, seeing the body on the floor beside the bed. “Angela?”

  “I don’t know when or how it happened,” Cruz explained, having succeeded in quieting Raven’s screams. He knew Hal was the girl’s caregiver and judging by the evident anguish in the man’s eyes as he crouched over the body, he truly did care about the girl. “She went after Raven. I had to do it.”

  Hal nodded. “I understand. I never even knew she was infected.” He frowned as he pulled back her sleeve, revealing a bandaged wound. “She was bitten.”

  “When?” Damian asked.

  “It must have been when we were making our way to the building.” Hal looked up at Janjai, the woman who’d been with him.

  Cruz looked at her too. She was a petite, Asian beauty, much like her sister, Pimjai. He knew Pimjai, who currently huddled with her sister, but he didn’t know much about Janjai, other than both of them were pretending they couldn’t speak English. And Janjai didn’t seem too upset by Angela’s death. She almost looked relieved.

  “I told you these cockroaches were going to be trouble.” Kurt stepped out from an aisle of lamps and walked over to the group. The redheaded, tattooed man had been a thorn in their sides since they’d found the sanctuary of the huge store. “All of them could be infected.”

  “Nobody else is infected,” Damian snapped. He’d been dealt the worst of Kurt’s hateful attitude so far. Being black and gay didn’t put him high on Kurt’s approval list.

  “Really? Did you even know she was?”

  Damian didn’t have a response to that but he didn’t look like he would be backing down. He’d already fought Kurt earlier that night, and the redhead had the beginnings of some severe bruising to show for it.

  “She was just a kid,” Hal said. “She knew we’d put her down if we knew she was infected so she kept it hidden and bandaged herself up. She probably thought she would survive the infection.”

  “How did she get bitten without anyone else knowing about it?” Carlos asked, a protective arm around his son. The teenaged boy, Elijah, looked at the floor. His skin had gone green
the moment he’d seen Angela’s dead body, blood pooling around her, courtesy of the headshot Cruz had delivered.

  “We used smoke bombs to camouflage us as we made our way to the building,” Hal explained. “The zombies had an even harder time seeing us with their already-limited vision, but they could still hear us. The smoke kept us hidden from each other at times as well. She must have gotten bit when we couldn’t see her.”

  “And she didn’t scream? That was one tough little girl,” Carlos said.

  “She was.” Hal closed her eyes. “I need to bury her.”

  “Outside?” Carlos asked. “You can’t go back out there.”

  “I have no choice. She deserves a proper burial.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Damian offered. “Maybe Raven and Carlos can come with us.”

  Raven erupted into sobs and Carlos’s eyes widened in terror. “You want me to go outside? The place is crawling with zombies.”

  “One man can’t go out there alone to bury someone,” Damian explained. “With two people standing guard and two people digging, we can get it done quickly.”

  “Whoever goes outside, stays outside,” Kurt said. “None of you should have been allowed inside to begin with. This was our place until you came barging in, bringing that disease with you.”

  “You have to let them bury their dead,” Carlos argued. “We can’t keep dead people in here with us.”

  “All I see is a dead zombie. Take it to the roof and toss it off. Problem solved.”

  Hal quickly rose to his feet, but Raven lunged forward, tackling Kurt before he could reach him. The man never saw the punch coming and despite her small frame, the rage-filled hit Raven delivered sent the man sprawling.

  “She was a little girl!” Raven screamed, standing now. “Have you no compassion? She deserved to live more than you did, you selfish bastard.”

  Cruz grabbed Raven and pulled her away from the man howling on the floor. He barely kept from laughing as Kurt held his nose with blood seeping through his fingers. It would serve the jerk right if she broke it.

  “Can you ladies get Raven cleaned up?” he asked Pimjai, making cleaning gestures with his hands as he passed Raven over to them.

  The women nodded their heads quickly and walked away with Raven between them, each holding one of her arms.

  “Raven’s not going outside,” he said, turning back toward the men. “She’s too emotional after losing Jeremy. When Angela attacked her, she just sat there. Hell, she set her katana aside and opened her arms, just inviting the girl to kill her.”

  “For real?” Damian asked.

  “For real. If I hadn’t seen the whole thing, she’d be dead right now and who knows who else would be.”

  “Lucky for her you were nearby when it happened,” Carlos said.

  “Yeah, real lucky,” Damian agreed, but his eyes showed his suspicion.

  Cruz and Damian didn’t have any real problems with each other, but the other man had been wary of him since he’d started talking to zombies that no one else could see or hear.

  “Nobody would need to be lucky if you assholes didn’t break in,” Kurt said, picking himself up from the floor. He pinched the bridge of his nose and held his head back to stop the blood flow. “We need to check all of you for bites, which we should have done to begin with.”

  “He does have a point there,” Carlos conceded. “We should have checked you all when you came in.”

  “Maybe if we weren’t busy trying not to get shot,” Damian said, allowing his irritation to show. “The girl got bit and she turned. If any of us had been bitten we would have turned too.”

  “At the very least, we’d be sick,” Hal added. “Angela cleaned up and went right to bed. I didn’t think to question it.”

  “Nobody was thinking,” Cruz said. “We’ve been fighting with each other since we got here.”

  “Which was just tonight. She turned quick, but you’re all bigger,” Kurt said as he slowly removed his hand from his nose. “Any of you could be infected and not showing it yet. We check you or you get the hell out.”

  “I have to agree with him,” Carlos said.

  “Seriously?” Damian asked. “You’re taking sides with this jackass?”

  “I’m doing what’s right for my son. I’ve already lost my wife. I will not lose him. What would have happened if Cruz hadn’t shot the little girl when he did? She would have attacked Raven, then went on to the next person. She may have killed Raven or she may have just turned her. Then we would have had two zombies in here with us while some of us were sleeping, completely vulnerable.”

  “He’s right,” Cruz conceded, earning a dark look from Damian. “They were all safe and secure in here, then we just landed on the roof and invited ourselves in. Hal’s group busted their way in somehow. We’ve all been exposed. We’re a threat to them. Their fear and suspicion is warranted.”

  “True.” Hal nodded. “We do the body checks.”

  “Carlos, you check the men,” Kurt ordered before turning a lascivious smile to Cruz. “I’ll check the women.”

  “The hell you will,” Cruz growled. “We didn’t agree to this so you could get your filthy eyeful of the women.”

  “Still not willing to share, I see.” The redhead tsked. “That’s going to be problematic.”

  “Leave the women alone,” Carlos said. “We’ve had this discussion, Kurt.”

  “Well, who the hell else is going to check them? You? How is that any better than me?”

  “They can check each other,” Hal suggested.

  “Oh right,” Kurt said. “That’s real good. Those two Chinese bitches are obviously friends or family. You really think they’re going to admit if one or the other has been bit? Can they even speak enough English to say it?”

  “I’ll check them,” Damian said.

  “Oh, that’s right. We do have another woman.” Kurt’s lip curled.

  Damian stepped forward, but Hal blocked him.

  “It’s settled,” the taller black man said. “Damian checks the women. We can check each other. I still need to bury Angela and we need to get this cleaned up.”

  “I can go with you to bury her if Cruz comes along,” Elijah spoke up.

  “You’re not stepping one foot outside,” Carlos said firmly. “If you want to help, you help me clean this mess. They can bury their own.”

  “Like we buried Mom?”

  Carlos’s eyes blazed with anger. “We had no choice.”

  “We have a choice now. We can help them.”

  “I will not lose you too. Your mother didn’t die so that you could follow suit!”

  “It’s all right,” Cruz said, diffusing the situation before things escalated. “We’ll figure this out ourselves. Our people, our problem.”

  “Exactly,” Kurt muttered. “Let’s get the body check out the way so I can get this blood off my face. Lucky for Bluebird, I like my women to put up a little fight.”

  “Touch her and you’ll get more than a fight,” Cruz promised.

  Kurt chuckled. “Strip down, boys. Let’s see who has zombie hickies.”

  “Why did you choose blue?” Pimjai asked, rinsing blood spray out of Raven’s hair.

  Raven didn’t answer. Why she chose to dye her hair blue didn’t matter. How her parents chose her name didn’t matter. None of the questions the well-intentioned women asked mattered. Hardly anything mattered anymore.

  “I am sorry you lost your friend,” Janjai said, “But you should not feel any guilt for Angela.”

  “Janjai,” Pimjai scolded. “Do not speak ill of the dead. She was a child.”

  “She was a monster.”

  “She didn’t choose to be one,” Raven said, lifting her head from the sink.

  “She did,” Janjai replied. “She was a monster before she was bitten. She liked to kill people. Not just zombies. People.”

  Pimjai quickly towel-dried Raven’s hair. “She’s dead now. Let her rest in peace.”

  A knock
sounded at the bathroom door. “Everyone decent in there?”

  “We are,” Pimjai answered.

  Damian stepped inside. “Oh, so you speak English again?”

  Pimjai blushed. “I can explain.”

  “I think I already understand,” Damian said, leaning against the wall, arms crossed. “If the enemy doesn’t know you speak his language, he speaks more freely around you? Something like that?”

  Pimjai nodded.

  “Glad you’re on our side. And this other lovely lady is your friend? Family?”

  “My sister, Janjai.” She gestured toward her sister. “My twin.”

  “And you found each other in all this chaos?” Damian smiled. “Good. Gives me hope that there’s still some good in this effed up world.”

  The sisters smiled at each other, squeezing each other’s hands.

  “Now, don’t get mad at me, but there was kind of a vote taken. No one knew Angela was bitten so the others think we should have been checked for wounds when we arrived. The men decided I should be the one to check you all over.”

  The sisters both backed up a step, eyes wary.

  “You can trust him,” Raven spoke up. “It’s better he check us over than one of those men, especially Kurt.”

  “And you know he wanted to be the one to do it,” Damian added. “Ladies, trust me when I say I have no desire to see you naked. Not that you’re not beautiful. You’re just not my type. I’m more into Morris Chestnut, ya know what I’m saying?”

  The women looked at each other and slowly nodded.

  “Now that that’s settled, I see Raven’s in new clothes. Did you see any wounds on her?”

  “No,” Pimjai answered. “None at all.”

  “Good, so she’s checked. I’ll just turn my back and let her check you two out. If the men ask, I checked you. Everybody understand?”

  “Yes.” Pimjai smiled. “Thank you, Damian.”

  “No problem.”

  “That was nice of you,” Raven said after the twins left.

  “I could tell they weren’t comfortable with me checking them,” Damian explained. “The men thought if you checked each other, you wouldn’t be able to admit if one of you were bit. I know you could. You’re strong, Raven. Too damn strong to just set your weapon aside and let a zombie kill you. What’s going on in your head?”