Slow Burn (Book 5): Torrent
Cover Design and Layout
Alex Saskalidis, a.k.a. 187designz
Editing & Proofreading
Cathy
Moeschet
Lindsay
Heuertz
Linda
Tooch
Rebecca T. Dickson
eBook
and Print Formatting
Kat Kramer
A special THANK YOU to these readers of the series who were kind enough to volunteer a slog through a typo-infested early draft of the work and give me their thoughts.
Jackie Bauerelen
John W Van
Deusen
Julie
Carrigan
Christy O'Neil
John Cummings
Book 1 – Zero Day
Zed Zane wakes up hung over one Sunday morning and begins to fortify himself with vodka before going to his mother’s house for lunch – and to beg for rent. There, he finds his mother and a neighbor dead, and his stepfather in full-throttle, crazed cannibal mode. Zed, fighting for his life, kills his stepfather in a scuffle, during which he sustains a nasty bite wound.
He tries calling 911, but the line is perpetually busy. That’s strange, but no stranger than the way that Zed is beginning to feel. He spends the next two days unconscious with a raging fever, and awakens as what soon becomes known as a “slow burn,” a carrier of a virus that destroys higher brain function and turns people into vicious, flesh-eating monsters.
Together with Murphy, a fellow slow burn who escapes with Zed in the aftermath of a prison riot following his erroneous arrest for the murder of his parents and their neighbor, we follow Zed on his quest for shelter, resources, and a plan for living in the strange new world in which he finds himself.
Although Zed himself has not “turned” completely, as have most of the other infected, the ambiguous, not-immune-but-not-dangerous category in which he finds himself will from this point forward direct his every thought and step if he is to survive.
Book 2 – Infected
Book 2 – Infected
finds Zed, Murphy, and their traveling companion, Jerome on the move again following what proves to be a brief respite in a university dormitory, in the company of some extremely, albeit justifiably, paranoid ROTC students and three coeds, one of whom befriends Zed. In the process of stealing a Humvee, Jerome is shot by soldiers and Zed and Murphy head on alone to find Murphy’s family.
With Murphy’s mother dead and his sister missing, their next stop is a house rumored to feature an underground survivalist bunker, where another surprise awaits.
Book 3 – Destroyer
Book 3 – Destroyer finds Zed saying goodbye to one friend and pressing forward with two new ones to whom we are introduced in Book 2 – Infected. Mandi, whom Zed and Murphy rescued from the bunker, is immune to the virus. Russell, whose home the others plundered in search of food and other supplies, is also a slow burn, but lower-functioning, childlike and docile.
After seeing the carnage at the dormitory, a raging, vengeful Zed wants only to kill Mark, his nemesis and the former leader of the ROTC squad. Since Mark has disappeared, Zed unleashes his fury on untold numbers of infected in his path as he makes his way back to the hospital, in an attempt to rescue
Steph, a nurse whom he befriended while seeking help for the feverish Murphy shortly after the prison riot. But the brave medical staff, holed up on the tenth floor of the hospital, and running out of provisions, has decided to take matters in hand by exposing themselves to the virus, and shooting those who “turn.” Zed is determined not to face another loss, but once again, time is running out…
Book 4 – Dead Fire
Book 4 – Dead Fire picks up following an infected attack on Sarah Mansfield’s fortified house, during which 3 people seek shelter with Zed Zane and his fellow survivors. In the confusion, however, Murphy is gunned down, and an unthinking, emotional Zed strikes out to enact revenge. Unfortunately, the shooting and commotion have only attracted more Whites. A diversion plan emerges to rid the horde of the Smart One trying to figure a way through the gates, and lead the other infected away from the compound. Momentarily safe, the survivors turn to the matter of where to bury the dead. Zed, being now the only one available who would not attract the attentions of the infected, accompanies
Freitag on this morbid mission. In short order, Zed is once more embittered and hardened against trust, when he finds himself stranded. After a series of developments that prove the Whites to be more formidable foes than he ever dreamed, he finds his way back to Sarah’s house to find the compound overrun with infected and his friends mysteriously vanished without a trace, leaving Zed to rely once more solely on his wits to survive…
In the pontoon boat, Murphy and I had been drifting with the slow current of the river for a few hours. We passed a row of mansions built onto a manmade peninsula just upriver from Sarah Mansfield’s mountaintop compound. That’s when we spotted our first Whites, glimmering in a sheen from a light rain in the morning’s gray light. At least forty of them squatted in a tight huddle in the short brown grass under the backyard oaks of one of the estates. Silent.
As we neared, I saw many had oozing burns flaking with blackened skin. Some had faces scorched so badly that all human features were gone. Skeletons wrapped in immolated flesh, by some vicious miracle, not yet dead.
It was difficult not to see them as the people
they used to be. In that moment, it was harder still. Without the howling or attacking, chasing and killing, they were docile. Suffering with the most human misery on their faces. Tragic eyes pleading for mercy. And, in a curse perhaps worse than any other, the virus left them with the capacity to know their wretchedness and wallow in their tears. Naked on the bank, they looked like refugees waiting for the mercy of sepsis. It was growing in the pus under their scabs, soon to assist death in finishing its work and ending their torment.
No doubt they were burned as a result of my work.
But in my imagination—as that gasoline vapor bomb came together—I thought only of them blowing up, disintegrating in a supersonic rush of hot gases. Even afterward, when it was clear the blast had been a dud, I hoped the resultant blaze would burn them, make them suffer. Just as they were, on the edge of the river. But while wishing the horror of fire-seared flesh on another living creature was relatively easy in the abstract, the reality felt as though something from the blackest depths of my hate had come to swallow what was left of my soul.
I turned away from the dying Whites and sat down on one of the pontoon boat’s long, padded benches. The motor wasn’t running—we were conserving fuel on our downstream journey—but Murphy was at the helm, alert. I looked ahead into the distance for a while, trying to let the gentle splashes of raindrops on the river bring me comfort. But before long, I found myself sitting up straight, watching my hands as they rested on my thighs, willing my fidgety fingers to remain still. I was thinking of my conversation with
Steph earlier that morning.
***
A couple of d
ead grandparents, the former owners of the house to which we escaped, had built a deck at the highest point of their roof, maybe fifty feet up from the sunburned lawns. Accessible by a staircase that ran up through the center of the house, it was a square, fifteen feet on each side, beneath a roof built to protect from the sun rather than the rain. The old couple had probably taken their grandkids up there in the late afternoons to share smiles and watch the sun cast its red glow over water skiers trying to get in their last runs before dark.
But Grandma and Grandpa had turned white with the virus and slaughtered their grandkids in the living room two floors below. Murphy and I put them both down a few weeks before when we’d discovered the mansion and decided to make it a safe house for our band of survivors.
Unable to sleep in the wee hours of the morning, I’d wandered around through the dark house and eventually found my way up to the deck. Steph was up there alone, taking her turn watching for ghostly Whites that might be creeping toward us across the peninsula.
“You’re up early.”
“Yeah,” I said as I climbed the last of the creaky cedar steps to join her.
Without looking at me she said, “You were supposed to get a full night’s sleep. That’s why you weren’t given a watch assignment tonight.”
Was she scolding me? “I think I passed out for a nap on the boat this afternoon. It threw me off my sleep rhythm.”
“It’s still two hours before sunup.”
“And?”
“And maybe you should go down and try to get some sleep.”
“I’m tired of trying. You’re being motherly about this.” I smiled to let her know that I wasn’t completely serious.
Steph
glared at me before turning back to look across the stretch of dried-out lawn between the river and the back of the house. “I’m responsible for keeping all of us alive. And that requires discipline, Zed.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I sat on one of the empty chairs and took in the view. The black river snaked off to the west. The sky flashed dimly with far away lightning, but only scattered clouds rimmed in silver moonlight hung in the sky above.
Steph changed her position to look up the road that led to the bridge at the end of the peninsula.
The smell of rain blown in on the breeze earlier that day was gone. The dry taste of dust and lingering smoke was back. To make conversation with a seemingly impervious
Steph, I asked anyway, “Did it ever rain?”
Steph
shook her head and gently snorted as if to say, “Of course not.”
“Do you mind if I sit up here with you?”
“It seems like you’ve already decided. Is everyone else still asleep?”
“Yep.”
Steph strode over to the railing that gave her the best view of the front of the house, and then without a word, walked over to me and laid her hand across my forehead.
“What?” I reached up to push her hand away, but her stern expression told me I’d better let her
go about her business.
She pulled her hand back. “Last night, when I hugged you, I thought you felt hot.”
“I get that a lot.” I pasted on a grin.
“I’m serious.”
I put a hand to my face, then to my forehead. “What? I feel fine.”
“You have a fever, Zed.”
“I know.” We both knew the virus left me with a permanently elevated temperature.
“Have you had a chance to check your temperature since—?”
“Since?”
“When was the last time you checked it?”
“I’m fine.”
She was in Captain Leonard mode by then. “The last time I saw your temperature was after you got injured at Sarah Mansfield’s house. I’m guessing you haven’t touched a thermometer since?”
I shook my head.
“Do you think you should have?”
I shrugged, getting a little miffed. Sure, she was a nurse by training, but her tone didn’t sit well with me.
“I think you’re hotter than you were.”
“Maybe it’s just that you’re used to the cool air out here tonight.”
“Cool? It’s got to be at least eighty-five.”
“That’s cooler than a hundred.”
“Nobody thinks eighty-five is cool, Zed.”
I shrugged and tried to look for anything interesting out in the darkness to divert her attention.
“I have a thermometer in my bag downstairs. After my shift, we’re checking you.”
Steph looked back across the grass toward the mountain and examined the near-vertical face of the white limestone cliff.
How would anybody be able to see the infected climbing down the jagged, pale-colored rock? “We need some night vision goggles.”
“You can change the subject if you want, but I’m still taking your temperature when we get back downstairs.”
“What’s the point?”
“We need to know.”
“Why do we need to know? We can’t do anything about it, can we?”
“That’s not the point, Zed.”
“Of course it is. If the virus is progressing, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to dread the morning I wake up half brain-dead. I’d rather… I’d rather just stick my head in the sand.”
Steph turned away from the cliff and came over. She looked down at me. Her stern face had softened and, for the moment, she stopped being my boss and was just green-eyed Steph, a girl with guarded emotions and a big heart.
“Please?” I said. “I don’t want to know.”
Steph reached out and laid her hand back on my cheek. Just as I started to think it was something more than another temperature check, she slipped it up to my forehead. “Zed, please understand. I have to do it for the safety—”
“Uh-huh.” I huffed as I pulled
back. Her hand fell off of my face. “For the safety of the others.” I jumped up and stomped over to the railing, anger boiling. I wanted to scream. But I didn’t. I white-knuckled the railing and stared at the cold black water, wishing things were different.
Steph’s
hand came to rest on my shoulder. “Please, Zed. Don’t be like that. You know how much we all care about you. Please don’t be an ass.”
I motioned my head out towards the darkness. “I…” The words got caught in my throat. I didn’t want to be out there on my own again. I’d gone through too much finding my way back last time.
Steph’s other hand found a place on my other shoulder. “Please, Zed. Please, look at me.” She turned me around. “You have to know this isn’t going to be like it was back at the dorms. You know that, right? Nobody here would ever do anything to hurt you. Or… or to push you out.”
I nodded. I knew she was right, but it felt like it was going to happen anyway.
“Let me take your temperature. Please, let me protect our friends. I know you’re not a danger to any of us right now. But I have to do more than just hope it stays that way.” She paused. “How about if I check it and I don’t tell you if it’s gone up?”
Her hands were on my face by then, and though the moment was full of emotion, there was no romance in it. I was dealing with a fear that haunted me every time I glanced at my stark white skin. Perhaps she was, as well. And as much as I feared turning into one of them, I couldn’t help but sympathize with
Steph’s fear—that I’d wake up one morning as a mindless monster and she’d have to put a bullet through my heart.
Without indulging any thoughts about the awkwardness of it, I pulled her into a hug and whispered, “Okay. But I don’t want to know. I never want to know.”
After that, our silence had no room for words. I pulled away from Steph and put myself back in my chair to watch the black river’s lazy current in the reflection of the moonlight.
Cicadas pulsed their rhythm and nocturnal frogs chirped.
I thought only of my burning desire to move, to do anything kinetic. With motion—paddling, running, shooting, even toting heavy bags of costume jewelry—came a solace in which the strain of effort consumed my attention and washed away all of the blackness. To move was to live. To live… Well, living was better than not. Being a brain-dead flesh
eater
was some kind of hell in between.
Anything but that.
I’m not sure how long I sat there absorbed in my fears, but it startled me when
Steph interrupted with a question. “Are you okay?”
I nodded out of habit. I wasn’t.
“What are you doing?”
I gave her a look that silently asked for an explanation. “Thinking.”
She looked down at my hands, which were resting on my thighs. “I mean… What are you doing?”
I followed her gaze and watched my thumbs tap out a sequence across each of my fingertips before repeating the sequence again, and again.
Fuck.
I clenched my fists tightly.
I hadn’t realized I was doing it. “Just fidgeting. I’ve always been fidgety.”
Fidgety
, just like so many of those fucking white monsters.
A tear ran down her cheek.
Neither of us believed the lie.