Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 12): Abyss Read online

  Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

  ABYSS

  By

  Shawn Chesser

  KINDLE EDITION

  ***

  Surviving the Zombie

  Apocalypse

  ABYSS

  Copyright 2017

  Shawn Chesser

  Kindle Edition

  Kindle Edition, License

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please go and buy your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real persons, events, or places are purely coincidental; any references to actual places, people, or brands are fictitious. All rights reserved.

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  Shawn Chesser on Twitter

  ShawnChesser.Com

  ***

  Acknowledgements

  For Maureen, Raven, and Caden ... I couldn’t have done this without your support. Thanks to our military, LE and first responders for your service. To the people in the U.K. and elsewhere around the world who have been in touch, thanks for reading! Lieutenant Colonel Michael Offe, thanks for your service as well as your friendship. Larry Eckels, thank you for helping me with some of the military technical stuff. Any missing facts or errors are solely my fault. Beta readers, you rock, and you know who you are. Thanks George Romero for introducing me to zombies. To my friends and fellows at S@N and Monday Steps On Steele, thanks as well. Lastly, thanks to Bill W. and Dr. Bob … you helped make this possible. I am going to sign up for another 24.

  Special thanks to John O’Brien, Mark Tufo, Joe McKinney, Craig DiLouie, Armand Rosamilia, Heath Stallcup, Saul Tanpepper, Eric A. Shelman, and David P. Forsyth. I truly appreciate your continued friendship and always invaluable advice. Thanks to Jason Swarr and Straight 8 Custom Photography for another awesome cover. Once again, extra special thanks to Monique Happy for her work editing “ABYSS.” Mo, as always, you came through like a champ! Working with you over the years has been nothing but a pleasure. I truly appreciate having a confidante I can trust. If I have accidentally left anyone out ... I am truly sorry.

  ***

  Edited by Monique Happy Editorial Services

  www.moniquehappy.com

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Despite measures taken to level the Winnebago on the spongy ground it sat upon, the cold bodies pressing against its thin metal skin caused it to sway and rock on its air suspension. The keening of metal on metal coming from the undulating awning increased as hollow concussions of bodies impacting the rear of the vehicle crashed off the walls of its gloomy interior. As the discordant banging trailed off, there came a scrabbling of nails on glass, and pale hands slapped the oversized rear window.

  Standing in the narrow center aisle, jet-black Gerber in hand, Cade turned his head and met the lifeless stares of the sneering faces mashed against the glass. A quick headcount told him there were at least a dozen undead men, women, and children gathered around the back of the RV. And though the monsters leered with mouths agape and features collapsed and twisted with what could only be described as a mixture of rage and hunger, many among them looked vaguely familiar.

  Slickened with freshly spilt blood, the vinyl flooring underfoot moved with a vigor that threatened to spill him to his knees. Worried that he’d fall and pull the writhing corpse down on top of him, Cade tightened his grip on the smooth skin of its neck and struggled to introduce the Gerber’s honed tip into the thing’s clouded-over right eye.

  Every extra ounce of effort he put into what would be a killing blow was met with a pushback that inexplicably grew concurrent with the increasing tempo of the wallowing charnel house.

  Off his right shoulder a metronomic thumping started. He tore his gaze from the snarling Z and regarded the narrow bi-fold door. It was vibrating with each impact then began to collapse and suck inward. Did one of them wriggle through the tiny bathroom window? Even the monsters assaulting the RV he had wrecked into the Hanna farmhouse hadn’t been able to work the door latch to get to him. Sure, they’d finally succeeded in breaching the door through brute force, which, with his hands full and all, was what Cade really feared at this point. One more he could handle. A small army of them pouring through the side door he could not. As it was, this fresh turn was putting up one hell of a fight.

  Where in the hell is Duncan, he thought, his wildly beating heart a caged animal trying to escape his chest.

  He called out for his good friend.

  Nothing.

  He was all alone.

  So he redoubled his efforts.

  Sweat beads wetting his forehead, he inched the Gerber closer to the wildly roving eye.

  As the RV continued to rock, the snarls outside rose to a crescendo.

  A cupboard door popped open, spilling pots and pans at his feet.

  Like a forge bellows, the small lavatory door flexed outward and then sucked back in on its own accord.

  Adding to the stench of his own fear-laced sweat, the sour reek of the monster’s final meal rose from deep within its shell and wafted over a picket of perfect white teeth, hitting him full on and starting a wave of bile rising in his throat.

  Suddenly, the thing seemed to go limp and Cade watched three inches of razor-honed Gerber disappear in
to its eye socket. There was a harsh rasp as steel grated on orbital bone and then light was assaulting his retinas and he was lashing out with a sweeping right cross.

  Bed frame ringing from the glancing blow, Cade came to and yelped as the wave of pain transited his arm from knuckles to elbow. He tucked his fist against his heaving chest and concluded the haymaker had been intended for the thing from his nightmare.

  “You were having another bad one.”

  Though his eyes were still adjusting to the dim environs, there was no mistaking whom the voice belonged to. Nor was there any way he could mistake the silhouette looming just out of arm’s reach for anyone other than his diminutive twelve-year-old, Raven.

  “Thanks, Bird.” He paused and rubbed his eyes. “But did you have to shake the bed to wake me?”

  Raven gave him the look. Head tilting sideways, she said, “Either that or a splash of cold water. You lashed out and hit the bed. Better the bed than me.”

  “Good thinking, sweetie.” He swung his legs over the bed rails and noticed Max. The brindle-colored Australian shepherd was sitting on his haunches, nearly lost in shadow. Head cocked sideways, the dog’s liquid eyes—one blue, one brown—were fixed intently on him. And though far from the noise a zombie fighting to breach a bi-fold door might make, the hollow thumping of the dog’s leg hitting the plywood floor as it worked to scratch a flea had seemed just that to a man in the throes of one hell of a nightmare.

  “That’s five in a row,” said Raven, nodding an affirmative. “One every night since …”

  “Come here,” he said, arms outstretched.

  “But you’re all sweaty.” She replaced the dagger and Glock 19 where she had taken them from: on top of a small table beside the doorway cut into the Conex container’s metal wall.

  Throwing a shiver against the still, fifty-five-degree air, Cade wrapped the wool surplus blanket tightly around his shoulders and drew his daughter in close. “Good thinking,” he said, gesturing toward the “tools of his trade” sitting barely a yard from his bed. “But next time, instead of shaking my bunk to wake me, why don’t you try calling my name. Or Daddy ...”

  Raven lifted her chin from his chest and stared into his eyes.

  “The movement and squeaking showed up in my nightmare.” He described the terror he had just relived.

  “I shook the bed because you were calling out for Duncan, that’s why.”

  He stroked her hair. The same short movements he’d seen Brook employ.

  “You wouldn’t have heard me—” she began, her lip quivering.

  “But they would have. I get it. We’ve been through a lot lately. There’s no reason to think anyone is judging you. Because they aren’t.”

  As if saying Eff them anyway, Max let out a low growl and laid flat on the floor. He stretched his front legs to full extension, resting his paws on his masters’ bare feet.

  “Maybe you should take the pills Glenda recommended.”

  Cade drew in a deep breath.

  “They’ll help chase the ‘mares away.”

  “And dull my edge,” he said. “I really can’t afford that. Not until the road is snowed in.”

  Changing the subject, Raven said, “You promised some quality time outside the wire. You remember, don’t you?”

  He nodded. Reached for his Danners and loosened the laces.

  “We’re going?”

  “Grab your pack and rifle and go tell the others. I’ll meet you in the foyer in a couple of minutes.”

  Smile broadening, Raven plucked her daypack off the chair. She grabbed her Ruger 10/22 from where it was propped against the wall and turned toward the door.

  “Not the Ruger,” he said. “Take Mom’s Colt. Think you can handle lugging a few extra pounds?”

  Smile growing wider, she nodded. Swapping the longer rifle for the stubby close-quarters battle rifle, she hefted it and said, “Not much of a difference, really.” She ejected the magazine and set it on the table. Only after she had cycled the charging handle back and forth to ensure the weapon wasn’t “hot”—as she had heard her mom and dad call a loaded gun—did she reseat the mag and set the selector to Safe.

  Good girl, thought Cade.

  “See anything different about the magazine?”

  Raven rolled the black rifle on its side and scrutinized the boxy metal magazine protruding from the lower well. Without meeting her dad’s watchful gaze, she glanced at the similar desert-tan M4 hanging on a peg near the door. “This one is shorter,” she replied, patting the side of her weapon. “And it’s not plastic.”

  “Polymer,” he corrected. “And it holds ten rounds, just like the Ruger. But these are a little bigger than the Ruger’s and pack more of a punch.”

  “Mom let me shoot it a few times.”

  “With the suppressor attached?” he asked, gesturing at the short black cylinder affixed to the carbine’s barrel.

  Raven nodded.

  “The smaller capacity mag should offset the extra weight up front a little. Not only does the suppressor save your hearing and quiet the gun a bit, it’ll also reduce muzzle climb some. Suppressor, ammo, and optics, all total you’re carrying a tick less than eight pounds. About the same as the backpack you used to lug to school.”

  Raven set the rifle aside to put on her parka. After drawing the zipper to her neck, she looped the single-point sling over her head.

  “I already shortened it for you. How’s it feel?”

  Raven smiled and hefted the rifle, shouldering it a couple of times before swinging it around to her back.

  “Good to go?” asked Cade, slipping a Motorola two-way radio into his cargo pocket.

  “Good to go,” replied Raven, scooping up her pack.

  Cade rose from his bunk. He shrugged on a coat, donned his pack, and grabbed his rifle.

  Raven stepped into the corridor.

  “Go on ahead,” said Cade. “Wait for me inside the front entry.”

  Raven shrugged, then set off on her own with Max padding close behind.

  After pausing in the doorway long enough to see the two take the left toward the security container, Cade took his dog tags from around his neck. He rooted in a box on a shelf and found Brook’s wedding band. It went on the chain with his dog tags and the chain went back around his neck.

  Chapter 1

  After latching the door to the Grayson quarters, Cade made his way down the corridor, negotiated the turn at the “T,” and spied Tran hunched buzzard-like over the desk in the security pod. The slight Asian man was dressed in a gray sweatshirt and faded blue jeans, and had his boot-clad feet propped up on a faded red milk crate underneath the desk. His head was turned toward the flat panel where color images fed in from the multiple cameras about the compound filled up the half-dozen rectangular partitions. If Tran had heard Cade’s approach, he didn’t let on until his muscular frame was filling up the narrow entryway.

  “Mister Grayson,” he said in his usual sing-song voice.

  “Busted,” said Cade, a grin forming on his face.

  Eyes still fixed on the monitor, Tran went on, “Dressed for a special occasion, I see.”

  Brow rising, Cade’s smile melted and he met the man’s gaze in the monitor’s shiny surface.

  The rolling chair squeaked as Tran spun the seat around.

  “How’s the road look?”

  “I haven’t seen any vehicles,” responded Tran. “But I did count nearly a dozen demons moving in the direction of the roadblock.”

  Exactly what Cade had hoped to hear. “Is she nearby?” he mouthed, his eyes searching the monitor for any sign of the stocky middle-aged woman who called herself Bridgett.

  Tran hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “In her quarters,” he whispered.

  Squinting against the light cast from the hanging sixty-watt bulb, Cade looked past the man and met Raven’s eyes. She was standing on the threshold to the foyer and throwing him a questioning look. Damn, how she resembles her mom. A fresh wave of sorrow buildin
g, he said, “I need to talk with Tran for a minute.”

  Showing her impatience, Raven put her hands on her hips and turned away.

  “The thing you wanted me to rig up is ready,” Tran said under his breath. “It’s not as slick a setup as Foley would have built, but I did my best.” He went quiet for a beat. After looking over his shoulder, he added, “I really hope you’re wrong.”

  “We’ll see,” Cade replied cryptically. “Hope for the best—”

  “Prepare for the worst,” finished Tran, shifting his gaze back to the monitor. “I see Old Man waiting for you topside.”

  Cade looked at his Suunto. Seven forty-five. He said, “I’ve been meaning to thank you for stepping up these last couple of weeks. Especially the last few days, considering the circumstances. Putting the gas additives in the fuel. Decanting water. Hunting and cooking. I’m kind of quiet—”

  “Distant. Cold. Some would say unfriendly,” said Tran. “But I can see past all that. You’re a good man. A good father.”

  Cade hung his head. “Guilty as charged.” He met the older man’s gaze. “Stay frosty, Tran.”

  Back to watching the monitor, Tran reached up and plucked a Thuraya satellite phone from the shelf. “You should probably take this with you.”

  Patting his cargo pocket, Cade said, “No need. I’ve got a radio. Besides, we’re not going to stray too far.”

  “Prepare for the worst?”

  Reluctantly, Cade accepted the phone and stowed it in a pocket. “Turning hard-ass on me, huh?” He patted Tran on the back. “Want me to sign it out, too?”

  “I figure you’re on the up and up,” answered Tran, flashing a smile Cade interpreted as an unspoken touché.

  On the monitor the video feed of the state route went jittery and the camera aperture adjusted to compensate for the unusual glare coming off the road. “Better go,” urged Tran. “It’s starting to hail.”

  Perfect, thought Cade. Opens up a whole new course of study.

  “Dad … let’s get the show on the road,” Raven called, parroting a line Brook would bray at her nearly every morning on a school day.