And Hell Followed: A Horror Novel Read online

  And Hell Followed

  A Horror Novel

  Tatiana Xavi

  Copyright © 2017 Tatiana Xavi

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  *****

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  For more information about this author, please visit her blog

  Cover

  Photographer: Subbotina

  Source: DepositPhotos

  Cover Copyright © 2017

  Dedication

  To MJ and Quasar for keeping guard

  at the door after we spooked ourselves

  watching Dawn of the Dead

  and

  Aunt Sherry for believing in me

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter One

  I was about to be eaten by a zombie with a mustache.

  Attempting to find the humor in the situation and failing, I lunged to my left to move past the zombie and toward the door. He was fast though, having died of the infection without any major injuries to his body.

  When Mustache blocked me from running to the gym door leading deeper into the school, I decided to run for the outside door. Turning away from him, I shoved off my back foot as my eyes focused on the door, nearly willing myself to be there already. Instead of reaching my destination, I was immediately falling. My chin slammed hard against the ground, and my breath burst from my lungs when I landed with him on my back.

  Even stunned, I quickly regained my bearings. Mustache held my face down against the floor, biting at my head with only my wool cap preventing him from tearing into my skull. Fortunately, he was too excited to think to pull it off.

  Refusing to die like this, I couldn’t let my father return to the school and find me torn apart. Daddy did all he could to train me this last year, to prepare me to survive in this new ugly world. Leaving for a few hours to scout for supplies, he deserved more than to find whatever would remain of me once Mustache stuffed himself.

  I also refused to get turned into a zombie, left to walk the school halls with Mustache, looking for food in the form of my friends. Fighting harder, I searched for extra strength in my tired half-starved body.

  Mustache was stronger and larger, but I somehow maneuvered under his weight. Twisting until I was facing him, I wasn’t sure what the plan was, but I figured I might be able to reach my knife. While I considered grabbing for my gun, I was scared to make noises and draw more zombies to the school. I might already be doomed, yet the group could still survive.

  Imagining Daddy finding my corpse in pieces, feasted on leisurely by Mustache, I knew he would want me to do whatever necessary to survive, and I reached for the gun holster on my hip. Mustache tore at my clothes, his jaws clicking as he bit at my thick winter shirt. Holding me down, he kept searching for a clear way to my flesh. No matter how hard I struggled, the gun remained out of reach along with my blade.

  Reaching for the weapons, I got one hand stuck under his leg. Now I was left with a single free hand to ward off his jaws fighting to get to my face - the only part of my otherwise covered body vulnerable to his teeth.

  Wedging my knee in between his body and mine, I pushed him back as I continued to reach a weapon. The glimmer of hope turned to dread as he bit down hard on my shirt before tilting his head backward and tearing my sleeve.

  The urge to scream was so strong, but Daddy trained me to stay quiet. No matter my fear, I kept to my training while still stretching my trapped hand toward the blade. My other arm was braced in front of me to keep my face safe, but now the sleeve was torn, and my forearm was vulnerable.

  Readjusting my small body under his heavy one, I fought to remain quiet, even biting down on my tongue to stifle the urge to cry out. All while we struggled, I willed my partially trapped arm to move one centimeter then another to reach a weapon.

  It wasn’t too late. I could still survive. Daddy would return to find me laughing off my close call. No, I refused to believe this day was my day to die. I should have woken up knowing the end was coming. I should have felt it in my gut as I walked through the gym and passed a doorway I had checked dozens of times.

  Mustache bit down on my exposed arm. Then he dropped against me, his body weight forcing the air from my lungs. With him heavy on me, one arm trapped, the other wedged in his hungry mouth, I somehow screamed. It was as if I hoped to scream loud enough for Daddy to hear me miles away. I wanted him to know my last thoughts were of how much I loved him and how sorry I was I didn’t check the doorway before just strolling past it like I wasn’t going to die at any moment.

  Screaming, I still struggled, needing to avoid more damage to my body. Bitten and infected, I would die no matter what happened next, but I didn’t want to die as food.

  Mustache tore flesh from my body, and I screamed louder, seeing his mouth full of me. How could this have happened? How could I have been foolish enough not to know I would die today?

  Mustache held me pinned under him, chewing at the chunk of me in his mouth. His drool and my blood splashed down on my face, and I closed my mouth, finally ending my scream for Daddy. I closed my eyes too as blood and spit and who knows what else dripped from his mouth and off his mustache. I didn’t want to see anymore. Yet I struggled under him, still hoping for a miracle that kept me from dying while a mechanic turned zombie took his time eating me.

  The zombie jerked above of me, and I waited to feel his teeth tear into my flesh again. Instead, Mustache dropped on top of me, and I felt like I might suffocate under him. Then he toppled off me, and I could breathe again. Opening my eyes, I discovered the boy of my dreams standing over me with a bloody knife in his hand.

  “Sami,” Leo whispered as if thinking we might put the cork back on the quiet bottle I’d already shattered.

  “I’m sorry,” I told him, knowing while I hadn’t been loud enough for Daddy to hear I was plenty loud enough for hundreds of zombies to take notice.

  Dark hair falling over his brown eyes, Leo slid his blade into the holster on his thigh and reached down for me. For one moment, I thought he might snap my neck, putting me out of my misery. Instead, he picked me up in his strong arms and hurried from the gym.

  The world spun until we arrived in a classroom our families had been bunking in. Once I had screamed, the women would have taken everyone to the safe room and barricaded themselves in. Leo should have been in the room, but he chose to save me. Always loving him, I wasn’t surprised by how today he became my hero.

  I felt oddly embarrassed for him to see me in such a state. No matter my shame, next to my father, Leo was the only person I could imagine being with as the end came.

  As Leo sat in the corner of the classroom, he wrapped a shirt around my wound to stop the bleeding. Soon he pulled a blanket over us as he comforted me in his arms.

  “It’ll be okay,” he said, and I nodded.

  We weren’t naïve. We’d seen many people
die the last year. Mostly strangers but sometimes friends. Often if someone was bitten, they would leave the group and take care of it themselves. I wasn’t brave enough to die alone, though.

  Cradled in Leo’s arms, I was scared to die and not only because I would be dead. A man named Grant, who joined our group months ago before disappearing into the night a few weeks later, told us a story about the soul eater.

  Grant said the soul eater was the one who released the virus so he could claim the souls of the infected. No one got into Heaven anymore, Grant had said casually. Hell had been full for quite a while, and the soul eater claimed the damned souls with nowhere to go. Unsatisfied with those souls, he now wanted all of us, so he spread the virus.

  Grant was probably crazy, but I didn’t want someone eating my soul. When I was little, and Grandma died, Daddy told me to imagine her happy forever in Heaven. When my mom wouldn’t leave the enclave where she was a nurse, I knew she probably didn’t survive. News reports claimed the number of infected that attacked the Chicago enclave was in the millions. No one got out alive, the newsman said with a definitive nod, ending any hope for those with family or friends inside.

  Even missing Mom, I liked the idea of her safe in Heaven with Grandma, maybe gardening and drinking tea. While I didn’t enjoy gardening or tea, I figured my part of Heaven would be filled with things I did like. Now because of Grant’s story, I worried I didn’t get to go to Heaven at all.

  Later I awoke to the sounds of crying and thought it was me. Glancing up, I found Leo struggling to remain quiet.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said, lying for him like he’d lied for me.

  Shaking his head, Leo caressed my face. “No, it won’t. I’m so sorry, Sami.”

  “You saved me.”

  Leo shook his head again, his gaze on the window where something was moving around. There were many things just outside the window. My screams alerted the whole neighborhood to the existence of humans at the school. Now zombies hurried this direction looking for food.

  “You should go to the safe room,” I whispered.

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “I’m already going to die, but you can still get away.”

  “If we’re quiet, they won’t come inside.”

  “Your mom is probably crazy worried about you.”

  Leo’s dark eyes met my blue ones, and he smiled tightly. “It’s too late. They’ve barricaded the room and removing enough to let us inside would make too much noise.”

  “Then hide somewhere else. You have time.”

  “Just rest.”

  Lifting my head off his chest, I quickly realized this was a huge mistake. The pain was so intense I almost cried out, yet I’d made enough noise for one day.

  Resting my head back on his chest, I thought of how silly I had been around Leo. Since I was thirteen, I had the biggest crush on him. Not just him, but plenty of boys. Boys from school, boys I saw at the mall, boys on TV, just boys everywhere were of great interest to me. I loved to look but got dumb and giggly whenever they talked to me.

  Leo was special though, and I’d convinced myself we would get married one day. Even when he had girlfriends and went off to college, I was so sure he was mine. I was so certain we belonged together that I never got jealous of those pretty older girls. They were just borrowing Leo until I was old enough to sweep him off his feet.

  Now I realized how dumb I had been. The fawning was normal when I was a normal girl in suburbia. Even this last year, I fawned over him, still sure he was mine. I thought our love would be so beautiful that it would brighten the ugly world we now lived in.

  Leo wasn’t going to be mine, though. Even if I hadn’t let a mustached zombie sneak up on me, I never would have swept Leo off his feet.

  Death might be everywhere, but I still held onto my fantasies. My mom was in Heaven with Grandma. My best friend Kayla was up there too, cheerleading and finally giving her valedictorian speech. She was able to finish being a kid and enjoy her latest cute boyfriend. Kayla, Mom, Grandma, and everyone else was happy in Heaven. Even in this new world, I could have a happy life with Leo. The zombies would die off and go away, and the world would rebuild. Everything would get better.

  Realizing how my dreams were stupid, I wondered if I would have become harder and more focused without them. If I were tougher, maybe when the zombie charged at me, I would have killed him instead of the other way around.

  Watching Leo, I felt foolish. I wanted to tell him I was sorry for being dumb because now he was locked out of the safe room. Now he had to wait with me until I died and tried to kill him. Leo shouldn’t have been in this position, but I’d wanted to remain hopeful, childlike even.

  I still called my father “Daddy.” People always teased me about this, but I hadn’t wanted to let go of the youthful love and respect I felt for him. As the infection spread through my body, I found myself wishing I had stopped being a kid these last few months, so maybe I would get a real chance to grow up.

  “You made a really pretty cheerleader,” Leo whispered as the sun set and the noises outside increased.

  “Thank you,” was all I could think to say.

  Leo kissed my forehead. “I was hoping you’d attend my college and we could date without our dads watching.”

  Frowning, I glanced up at him. “Really?”

  “I knew you had a crush on me and I thought when you were old enough, we could be together for real. I should have said something, but I kept thinking we had time to talk about those things when you were older. Then the world went to hell, and I just didn’t know how to say anything.”

  Watching him, I forced my head up and kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry I didn’t see the zombie.”

  “Lots of people have died, Sami. They didn’t want to die, but sometimes things just happen, and you can’t avoid them.”

  Nodding, I kept my head up and stared at him because I wanted to remember how beauty still existed in the world.

  “When it happens, I don’t want you to stay here. When I go, I mean. You need to leave me right away. Don’t take the chance.”

  “You might be okay. The crazy man said some people don’t turn into zombies. He said some of them come back and are fine. Others just don’t come back. I can’t leave you without knowing. If you woke up here alone, you’d be scared and vulnerable.”

  Even though I wanted Leo to survive, I could see in his eyes how he wouldn’t leave me until my fate was certain. He was so smart and brave. He not only kept himself alive the last year but his family and even strangers too. While most of those strangers ended up dying later, he had given them another chance.

  Resting my head on Leo again, I waited in the dark for the virus to destroy me. It might take a few hours or a few days. Nothing was ever made clear to the public about what the virus did and why.

  When the chaos first struck, the government looked like they might hold back the tide of death. People had seen enough zombie movies that they listened to the government’s orders. They turned over their sick family members, even though they understood how the infected would be destroyed.

  The tide shifted in death’s favor when scientists announced theories about reversing the symptoms of an infected person. Grandma tried to eat you today, but with a cure, she could be fixed.

  Victims’ rights groups went to court to fight the government’s right to execute the infected. The courts weren’t sure what to do because the infected weren’t really dead, were they? If they were alive, even on some very basic level, did they have rights? If they were quarantined, wouldn’t this be better than destroying sick citizens?

  The day society began to fall apart was when the vice president came down with the virus. The fact he caught it meant nothing. While scientists said everyone had the virus in them, they couldn’t figure out why some people got sick, and others didn’t.

  People didn’t care about the science. They just wanted to know what to do when their mom or child or neighbor or coworker got s
ick. They wanted to know if it was safe to go to work or send their kids to school. They wanted the answers to stay the same day in and out.

  When people heard the vice president wouldn’t be sentenced to death like an average citizen, even heard he was held in a fancy hospital where he tried to eat the staff, people lost faith in the government’s rules.

  The government still tried, though. They released new information every day, not caring if it contradicted the information from the day before.

  Some bites could be treated. No, they couldn’t. Two days of infection then death. No, it could take less time or more. Evacuations were mandatory. No, they were voluntary. They were mandatory for this block, but not for this one. This location was safe, and everyone should go there. No, the location was destroyed. Now this new location was safe.

  Everyone eventually just did whatever they wanted. Some people hid in their homes, and some of those people were still hiding successfully today. Some hid in their homes and were killed soon afterward. Many left the cities, only to return when enclaves were created. There were no right answers.

  The enclaves were initially called safe zones, but they weren’t safe. Just safer than most people could achieve on their own. My group avoided them, though. Not only because the enclave governments could be picky about the kind of people they allowed inside, but once you entered, you weren’t allowed back out.

  Daddy was so sure the open road was safer. He had been right until today. No, he had just been right. People usually died because of stupidity or recklessness or a moment of daydreaming. If someone always stayed alert like Daddy did, they could survive out on the road.

  I’d fallen asleep when the sounds of rapid gunfire woke me. Leo tightened his embrace, his lips on my forehead as his gaze remained locked on the windows.

  “It’s fireworks,” he whispered. “Our dads are heading back and drawing the zombies away from the school.”

  When a frenzy broke out in the distance, we heard the zombies screaming and moaning. We also heard a human screaming, but it was only Leo’s dad. Paul liked to draw zombies with his loud voice. His wife, Sherry, said he had finally found a use for his forever outdoor voice.