Fractured- Part 1 Read online

  Affliction Z: Fractured (Part 1)

  Book 4 in the Affliction Z Series

  L.T. Ryan

  Liquid Mind Media

  Affliction Z: Fractured (Part 1)

  Copyright © 2018 by L.T. Ryan and Liquid Mind Media, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book. This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. For information contact:

  Feedback on this book can be sent to:

  [email protected]

  Or on the web:

  http://LTRyan.com

  http://www.afflictionz.com

  http://www.facebook.com/AfflictionZSeries

  Contents

  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

  Also by L.T. Ryan

  About the Author

  One

  Thousands of shards of tiny icicles pelted the remaining leaves and snow-covered ground. The freezing rain added a slick coat to the six inches of powder present from the morning’s snowfall. The setting sun’s rays failed to penetrate the heavy cloud cover. As night fell, temperatures would plummet and traveling would become even trickier for Sean Ryder. It was hard enough to traverse icy terrain with two good legs, let alone one.

  He’d repaired or replaced his makeshift prosthetic almost daily since leaving the cabin in North Carolina. It had snapped on him a few times, once when a group of afflicted were in pursuit. Marley instinctively knew Sean was in trouble and led them away, carrying on with his barking and quick movements through the woods. It was a full day later when the dog returned to Sean’s side.

  They were now four weeks into a two-week journey. The weather had turned in the past ten days and temperatures had fallen, reaching the twenties overnight. It happened much sooner than Sean had anticipated. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen snow in early November in Virginia. He was prepared to make the journey south in such weather, after he reached the bunker, found his prosthetic, and resupplied himself.

  Keep pounding.

  He’d heard the mantra a decade earlier from a Panther’s football player. It repeated constantly in his mind. There were times it was the only thought in his head. Of course, at other times he thought of all he had lost. And in the worst of times, he recalled his final moments with Kathy, and he feared what had become of Emma. His daughter was in good hands with Turk. If she was still with him. That was another reason he had to reach the bunker. He had to contact Turk and the others in the network.

  The last time he’d seen his property it wasn’t in good shape. The bunker had been breached and damaged. He held out hope that it wasn’t so severe he couldn’t at least repair the comms equipment enough to make contact.

  Sean faced west, leaned back against a tree and closed his eyes. He imagined the sun, big and bright as it crested a far-off mountaintop. The warmth coated his face, chest, arms and legs. He breathed in deep. The icy air cut at his lungs and the mental facade crumbled. The weather was bound to turn again. After all, he was in Virginia. Next week it’d probably be in the eighties.

  “Just hang in there,” he muttered to himself.

  Marley looked up at him, head cocked slightly to the side. Sean removed his glove and reached down to pet the dog. He worked his fingers through Marley’s thick fur, past the damp layer and into the warmth.

  “You’re a lucky bastard, you know that?”

  The dog seemed to smile up at him as he panted, perhaps waiting for Sean to flip him a hunk of the jerky he’d found in one of the houses they’d scavenged along the way.

  Lucky bastard indeed.

  He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a quarter-full sixteen ounce bottle of water. He drank it in two swallows. Before putting the bottle away, he bent over and packed it with snow.

  The atmosphere changed in that moment. It felt dense and the air grew still. Marley’s ears perked. He whimpered softly. The constant plinking of ice pelting the ground faded into the dreaded sound of shuffling.

  Sean straightened, leaned back against the tree and armed himself. In his left hand he held a Glock 19 loaded with seven rounds. It was his last resort since gunshots would draw more of the dead to his position. In his right hand he held a machete with a twenty-inch blade. The tip and sharp side were stained dark red with the decrepit blood of the afflicted.

  The first wails cut through the muted sounds of their steps. They sensed he was near. The woods made it difficult to tell which direction they were coming from. Were they on a collision course, or would they pass by? Sean watched Marley. The dog honed in on the location of the dead. Through the falling sleet and snow Sean made out their shapes. They were no further than a hundred feet out and passing by. He counted twelve but knew there were more based on the noise level.

  He gripped the machete tight, ready to attack. Playing the role of the passive survivor was against his nature. He used to parachute into hostile areas from thirty thousand feet armed only with a pistol. Killing these damn things wouldn’t be an issue, especially since none he had seen so far had the ability to move quickly like some of the afflicted he had encountered years ago in the Nigerian facility.

  The tail end of the group passed through the woods thirty feet from his position. Marley crouched low in the snow, ears back, ready to pounce should one get too close. Sean remained ready for the stragglers.

  The shrill wails continued from further ahead in the herd. One of the last called back. How far ranging was this method of…communication? Christ, would they one day all be drawn together in the middle of the country? Wouldn’t that be one hell of a rager. Let the Mississippi swallow them up.

  A few of the dead appeared to get snagged along the way. Shielding his eyes from the snow, Sean noticed they had encountered a fallen tree in their path and were unable to get past. The world would be a better place with at least a few less of the afflicted wandering it. Sean started moving slowly through the snow. His makeshift prosthetic cut a line in the accumulation. He was easily trackable, but there was little he could do about it.

  He approached the afflicted from behind, circling wide to make sure he hadn’t missed any others. He took refuge behind an old oak that must’ve seen the forest’s death and rebirth a couple hundred times. Three afflicted stood in front of the fallen tree. One had impaled itself through the gut on a broken branch. The brainless bastard had continued all the way to the trunk.

  Sean shoved the pistol in an oversized coat pocket and made his approach. The putrid smell hit him at ten feet out. It hadn’t been that long since he’d last encountered it, but the odor always hit hard. He fought back against the choking cough building up in his throat. The machete sliced through the air, back over his shoulder, then down, splitting a younger man’s head in half.

  He pulled the blade back, pivoted on his good leg, planted his prosthetic firmly into the ground, then lunged forward, swiping the weapon from the side and hitting the second afflicted in the forehead before it had a chance to react. She stood there for a moment, eyes dulling as the last embers of life faded. Her body collapsed to the ground in a thick pool of dark blood.

  The
final afflicted looked back at Sean while continuing to push forward against the tree trunk, unsure how to free itself. Sean took a moment to catch his breath. Turned out to be a moment too long.

  The afflicted began wailing, sending out a long, high-pitched shriek that sent a flock of crows rising from the skeletal remains of a cedar. The sky above turned dark with their numbers. The swoosh of their wings overpowered the sound of falling snow and ice. The calls rang out, at first the birds, and then the afflicted. Their yells to each other echoed through the woods.

  “Shit!” Sean lunged forward and swung the blade hard, hitting the dead man at mid-ear and lopping off the top of his head. It collapsed forward, bent in half at the waist.

  Barking arose from behind him.

  Sean swung around. “Marley!”

  The dog ran toward him, alert, his head swinging left to right and back. He refused to settle down.

  “Let’s go, boy.” Sean began moving north, perpendicular to the direction of the horde. If anything, a few might return from the group. More concerning were the smaller bands in the woods who might now be drawn to the death cry of the last afflicted.

  The forest surrounding them hummed with activity. The afflicted called out from all directions. Signaling to one another? Trying to locate each other? Sean had encountered similar activity over the past four weeks. Was the need to group up a side effect, or one of the last remaining shreds of humanity in the afflicted mind?

  They moved slowly through the woods. Sean kept his head on a swivel, always looking for signs of the dead. Through the wails he heard a different sound. More human. He glanced down and saw that Marley noticed too. The dog stood with his head cocked, staring off to their left. Sean leaned over, placed his hand on the back of the dog’s neck and scratched there.

  “What is it, boy?”

  Marley opened and closed his mouth a couple times, each time letting out an almost nonexistent whimper.

  Then Sean heard the sound again. There was no doubt it was from a living human.

  “Help!”

  He zeroed in on the direction Marley’s nose pointed. He proceeded tree to tree, constantly looking over his shoulder for signs of being trailed. It wasn’t only the afflicted he feared now. Where there were humans, there was an ever-increasing chance of being taken prisoner, made a slave, or used as bait for the dead. It was close to the point where Sean almost preferred the afflicted. At least they were predictable in their behavior.

  It was the living you had to exercise the most caution around.

  The cry for help grew closer. Sounded more desperate. Marley moved a few feet ahead.

  “Stay with me, buddy.” Sean pulled the pistol from his coat. He racked the slide and chambered a round. He cared little of what lay in his path, and kept the barrel pointed directly in front of him.

  He heard the groans before he saw anything. The guttural sounds indicated death was imminent for someone. Based on the cracking of bones, it had already come for at least one person.

  Sean made a fist and held it out. Marley stopped and crouched toward the ground. Sean looked back, nodded, and hoped that the dog would stay put for a few minutes.

  “Please,” a woman said. “Please don’t hurt my baby.”

  There were groans and grunting in response to her plea.

  Sean inched around a tree. He spotted two of the dead feeding on a man. One tore into the flesh of his upper leg, while the other was face down in the gut. The man somehow clung to life. His eyes darted wildly. His mouth was twisted open, but nothing other than a hollow sound emerged. His gaze settled on Sean for a moment and he managed to lift his arm and extend a single finger. Sean eased his head around the tree.

  Fifteen feet away another man struggled with a third afflicted. Blood coated his arm but it was impossible to tell if he’d been bitten. There were more dead scattered on the ground. The trio had managed to take several out before being overwhelmed. In the distance, another small group of dead approached.

  On the ground a woman clutched at her lower leg. She looked around frantically. Tears streamed down her face. Sean recalled her mentioning her baby. Where was the child? Had a fourth member of their party taken it? Or a group of people they had encountered? Surely an afflicted would simply kill the little human and eat it where it fell.

  Sean took a deep breath and then emerged from behind the tree. He moved quickly toward the struggling man and drove his blade into the back of the afflicted’s head. It slid in and out as though it were made of butter. The being collapsed on top of the guy. Sean turned his attention toward the woman on the ground.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “Th-th-those two over there. Save my husband, please.”

  Sean looked over his shoulder. The lights had gone out for the man now. He knew the two afflicted would pose no danger for several minutes, but he couldn’t make the woman watch as her husband was devoured. He made his way over and dispatched two of the dead. A quick glance back with a shake of his head told the woman that her spouse had not survived. As she buried her face in her hands, he severed the man’s head to ensure that he would not come back to life.

  “Your baby,” Sean said, walking back toward the woman. “Where is it?”

  The man on the ground had worked his way out from under the weight of his attacker. He crawled over to the woman, put one arm around her shoulders, and the other over her abdomen. Sean noticed it then. She was pregnant.

  Very pregnant.

  “Jesus,” he said, wiping sweat from his face and glancing back at the remains of her husband. “What happened to you guys?”

  The man struggled to get to his feet. His legs were wobbly. He looked around the area. He reached down for the woman and helped her up. “They’re getting close. Help me with her and I’ll tell you along the way.”

  Sean hesitated for a moment. He was armed. They weren’t. At least that he could tell. On the one hand, he had an advantage. On the other, he had something they might want.

  “Please, man,” the guy said. “She’s in shock. I can’t carry her on my own right now.”

  Sean noticed the wound to the guy’s shoulder. “That’s going to be bad.”

  He lowered his gaze to the ground. “I know, and I’ll deal with it soon enough. I gotta get them to safety.”

  “Where’s that?” He studied the man for a moment.

  The guy held his hand out. “Help us.”

  Sean slid the machete into its sheath and shifted the pistol to his right hand. He threaded his left arm around the woman and they began to move away from the scene.

  “Why are you out here?” Sean said. “And where are you headed?”

  “There’s a group not too far from here,” he said. “I came upon them while scavenging. They welcomed us to join, so I went back to the house we were holed up in and convinced my brother it was best. This place, it has a doctor, food, walls, weapons. They’re surviving in this crazy world.”

  Sean couldn’t help but think of the places like that he’d encountered so far. Things were never as they seemed. Every fiber of his being told him to stop right there. So he did.

  “What are you doing?” the guy said, glancing over nervously. “They’re getting closer to us.”

  “I’m not—”

  The woman screamed. Her knees went weak and the men nearly dropped her.

  “What is it?” the guy asked her, frantically searching her body for a wound.

  She pulled her arm free and grabbed her stomach. “The baby’s coming.”

  Two

  “It’s time.” Turk sat below deck with his group, prepared to break the news. “We’ve collected everything we could. We have enough gas to get us into the Bahamas. And we’ve picked up enough extra people that we have good numbers now.”

  Faces filled with anticipation stared back at him. His wife Elana and daughter Layla, holding hands. Emma Ryder, Addison Bowen, and the two girls who’d journey with them, Jennie and young Paige. Paige and Layla had become f
riends over the past several weeks. And Sarah, who enjoyed watching the young girls. Finally, there was Rhea. The woman could handle herself in any situation, and Turk was glad to have her around.

  And there were newcomers who had joined them only recently. A family of seasoned fighters. The father had been a Marine. His wife and two teenage sons were well trained. Definitely an asset to the group. Turk would be lying if the large canisters of gasoline in their possession hadn’t swung him in favor of bringing them along.

  And then there was the lone man he’d found drifting in a lifeboat shortly after they found the ship. Turned out the guy had been a police officer.

  These were the kind of people he needed fighting by his side to keep his family safe.

  Turk continued. “We’re going to leave tonight.” He scanned the faces staring back at him. Emma had tears in her eyes. Turk offered a comforting smile, but doubted it did any good. Part of the reason he’d kept them anchored for so long was the hope that Emma’s father would radio in. Sean Ryder had survived that Nigerian hellhole. Helped Turk get out of it, too. Then Sean lived through a government coverup. Sons of bitches made the guy think he was crazy. He deserved to reach the promised land.

  But it was time, and Turk knew it.

  “The trip won’t take but a few days. Once we reach the island, we’ll have everything we need to survive. It’s self-sustainable for the most part. There might be occasional scouting trips, mostly to look for wandering survivors, but the majority of you won’t ever have to worry about that. We’re going to rebuild and make the most of our lives.” He rose and stood in front of the stairs, bracing himself against the steady swaying of the boat. “Hell, I don’t know about you all, but I’m kinda happy not to have the internet to distract me anymore.”