RecruitZ (Afterworld Series) Read online

  Copyright © 2013 Karice Bolton

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any printed or electronic form without permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and events either are the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Contact the Author

  To contact the author, please visit her online at http://www.karicebolton.com or via

  Twitter/Facebook @KariceBolton.

  If you’d like to be included on her mailing list to find out about

  new releases, click here or go to Karice Bolton’s website

  BOOKS BY KARICE BOLTON

  THE WITCH AVENUE SERIES

  LONELY SOULS

  ALTERED SOULS

  RELEASED SOULS

  SHATTERED SOULS

  THE WATCHERS TRILOGY

  AWAKENING

  LEGIONS

  CATACLYSM

  TAKEN NOVELLA (A Watchers Prequel)

  THE CAMP

  BEYOND LOVE SERIES

  BEYOND CONTROL

  BEYOND DOUBT

  BEYOND REASON - Coming Soon

  AFTERWORLD SERIES

  RecruitZ

  AlibiZ-Coming Soon

  Dedication

  To my husband and mother. Thank you for all of your support and encouragement as I talked endlessly about the Afterworld.

  Love you both so much!

  And to my dad who’s up above enjoying the show.

  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 Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Excerpt Lonely Souls (Witch Avenue Series #1)

  Excerpt Awakening (Watchers Trilogy #1)

  Excerpt The Camp

  Excerpt Beyond Control (Beyond Love Series #1)

  About the Author

  Revenge fueled me and anger drove me. That combination was all I had left to remind me that I was still human—that I was still alive. What I’d become wasn’t what I was born to be, but it was what the world needed.

  I sat in the passenger seat horrified, but I didn’t dare drag my gaze away. The world had been told zombies no longer threatened human existence. Yet I was staring at an onslaught of them taking slow, deliberate steps toward our vehicle. We had barely pulled into our driveway when the horde descended out of nowhere.

  I managed to slide my fingers along the door to the electric lock. I didn’t know why I thought that would save us. The undead had never let a lock deter them before. I looked around our house and it looked untouched. These creatures were only in our yard, coming for us at a most vulnerable time.

  Gavin attempted to take the car out of auto-drive, pressing the buttons frantically and commanding it with voice controls. The car only responded with words. We didn’t control it. The car controlled us.

  “Pedestrians within minimum safe distance,” the car said, acknowledging Gavin’s attempts to drive us out of danger.

  No shit! We want to run the pedestrians over.

  Tiny beads of sweat began forming at my hairline as I watched Gavin repeatedly engage and disengage various controls. Nothing would let us override the car’s safety features.

  Gavin’s foot pressed on the accelerator trying to override the computer system, but the car still refused to budge. His foot slid off the pedal, and he quickly replaced it.

  Damn these self-driving cars!

  The engine red-lined with each attempt from Gavin’s override, but the brain of the car overruled Gavin’s actions with every rev of the motor. Gavin kept shaking his head as his finger slid up and down the dashboard. He glanced at me, his green eyes connecting with mine. I didn’t want to believe what I saw behind them so I turned to look out the window.

  I gripped the console as I watched the twitches and spasms of the zombies’ movements closing in on us. They were everywhere…the grass, the sidewalk, the driveway. There was no mistaking the rotting, grey flesh that exposed the muscle and bone of the undead. They were something I’d run from countless times, but this time we had nowhere to run. The undead had us trapped. They would rip us to shreds in an instant.

  “I think some of ‘em are new,” I said, turning my attention back to Gavin.

  There were some clean-looking zombies staggering toward us, their flesh mostly intact. That made no sense. The outbreak had been contained for months. There should be no freshly infected roaming around. Everyone had been vaccinated. The only stragglers evading capture had been around awhile, so their bodies were beat up badly by the time they were caught. Not these.

  “Let’s hope not,” he murmured, not bothering to look out the window to confirm nor deny my suspicions.

  “We can’t run. They’d totally get us before we got away,” I said, hoping he’d correct me, tell me that we had a chance.

  He didn’t.

  He slammed his fist into the steering wheel and looked over at me. When the outbreak happened, we never looked back. We were always on the move, running from the disease that took our families and friends. That was the key to survival. Never stay in one place. Always stay on the move. Now we had nowhere to move. I glanced over at Gavin and saw the fear in his eyes. Even with everything we’d encountered, his eyes had never held this amount of terror.

  “Babe, whatever happens…”

  “Knock it off,” I said.

  “We have nothing to fight them with, and a horde this size needs a distraction.”

  “Don’t you dare,” I hissed, shaking my head. The fear was pulsing through me at an unstoppable rate. “We didn’t live through the outbreak to die now.”

  I gritted my teeth, grabbed the civilian anti-zombie kit from under my seat, unzipped it, and looked for anything inside that might help. We were instructed to drop these kits off at government collection stations. I was grateful we never got around to it.

  Gavin held down the ignition and reverse buttons at the same time in a vain attempt to override the safety sensors.

  “Damn it,” he muttered.

  “Try rebooting the car. Turn it off and take the key out. Give it a few seconds and slip the key back in. Maybe if you pop it in reverse before the car can sense the zombies, it’ll let us reverse,” I directed.

  He nodded, biting his lip, and turned off the engine allowing the moans of the horde outside to be heard. I took a deep breath and looked out my window that was now completely blocked by tattered shirts and non-oozing wounds pressed against the glass. It would only be a matter of time before they began to break through the glass. The moans turned into a chorus of humming.

  “One-Mississippi-two…” Gavin’s words wrapped around me.

  I prayed silently to the same God I’d prayed to many nights before. He listened then and I hoped he’d listen now.

  I grabbed two knives that were in the kit and flipped the blades open, locking th
em in place. The anodized orange handles were larger than the actual blades. Not comforting. I handed one to Gavin.

  “There’s still a Louisville Slugger on the floor behind us,” Gavin said. His brown hair was cut short. That was one of the first things he did after we were vaccinated. A haircut and a shave to celebrate our survival. He still looked young but not as young as we both did before the outbreak.

  I slid toward the center console, crawling as far from the passenger window as I could get. Gavin’s breathing was heavy, and I felt the heat rolling off him as he continued to struggle with what we were facing.

  I dug around in the bottom of the bag for the zombie deterrent. My hand clasped around the ADD, also known as the Audible Distraction Device, and I dropped the kit to the floor.

  The car rocked back and forth as the number of beasts grew on both sides, creating a trance-like rhythm that was terrifying.

  “Grab the bat,” Gavin instructed, his voice low.

  I slid my hand to his knee, squeezing it hard before I reached behind us and grabbed the wooden weapon.

  The challenges we faced living off the land paled in comparison to what we faced confined in this car.

  Gavin turned the engine on and sunk it into reverse, only to be stalled right where we were.

  “Pedestrians in minimum safe distance,” the car warned again.

  “Shut up!” I shouted at the car’s inhuman voice.

  An oily residue smeared against the glass all around us from their bodies touching and gliding along the surfaces. They were crawling on the hood, metal pops sounded with every dent created. Their bodies slowly snaked up the windshield as they climbed toward the roof. Their mouths opening, jaws clicking as they tasted our scent. That was all we had separating us from zombies—glass. It would be only a matter of time before they mangled the metal above us and shattered the glass around us.

  “If I get out of the car, I can distract them and you can run. I need you to run,” he said slowly, his eyes locking on mine.

  “No way. I’m not—”

  The glass shattered, interrupting my objection. The shards of glass crumbled down the door and into Gavin’s lap. Several mismatched arms shoved their hands through the nonexistent barrier, reaching for Gavin as I let out a scream and lunged with the knife in hand.

  “Don’t watch what happens, babe. Promise me you’ll look away,” his voice pleading, as he struggled against the fleshy fingers that twisted and pulled at his shirt.

  I reached across Gavin and began breaking off fingers and slicing hands and anything I could connect with that was attempting to gouge at Gavin. Pieces of flesh tumbled into the car.

  We’d been vaccinated.

  We’d be okay.

  The stench of the decaying flesh filled our small car with every crack of a bone and tear of the skin. Gavin and I were shoving the arms, bodies, and heads back the other direction, but they kept pushing through the small driver’s window. Gavin grabbed the bat, shoving and poking the zombies through the window. The space was so small it was hard for him to hit with any force.

  It wouldn’t be long before they broke the other windows. The first thump on the roof made me jump and then the second. The metal was crunching with every step above, and I looked up to see the roof dipping in places.

  The moans grew louder as more arms pushed through the opening, scraping and digging at our flesh. Fingers with calloused skin grazed my face, poking at my eyes and scraping my cheeks, but they would fall from my face almost instantly in search of Gavin. Why Gavin?

  Gavin propelled the bat into the crowd with such velocity that he managed to run it through the stomach of one of the beasts, spreading the group out momentarily. The zombie collapsed, but the swarm returned, descending on us again.

  I jabbed the knife directly into the neck of the most insistent intruder and pulled it out, severing the head from the neck. The head toppled into the car as the body slumped outside against the door. There was a brief hesitation as they stepped back, and I grabbed the ADD, removing the pin and flipping the lever. I threw the ADD out the window, but it bounced against an undead girl in the back of the crowd. It dropped to the ground with a thud. My heart sank with the realization the zombies wouldn’t be running anywhere.

  Broop-Broop-Broop

  Maybe I was wrong.

  Once the ADD sounded, the zombies peeled away from our car and turned toward the device, but there wasn’t enough distance to open the door or escape through the window. They’d get us in a heartbeat. The deafening sound made it hard to think. I watched as each zombie turned back toward the car and shoved their arms back at us. A set of hands latched onto Gavin’s neck, and I slashed clear through the zombie’s wrists—bone and all—, stopping only because the blade encountered the softness of Gavin’s throat.

  “They’re not going to stop until they get what they want,” he whispered, punching back at the beasts.

  The windshield began cracking from the weight of the bodies. The ADD siren stopped blaring, and I was almost completely positioned in Gavin’s lap, stabbing at anything and everything in the opening. Hands had broken through all of the windows. The passenger side window had arms flailing as bodies attempted to squeeze into the narrow opening.

  “I don’t know what to do.” My yell could only be heard as a whisper of desperation above the noise of the horde.

  “Becca, there’s some research in my folders from the campus…” his voice trailed off. His eyes began to cloud over, and I dropped my gaze. Dodging rotten, fleshy fingers and elbows, my hands ran protectively over his chest as I fought the undead. There was nowhere for us to hide.

  “Don’t start saying goodbyes,” I commanded, noticing blood on my fingertips, lots of blood. Where was this blood coming from? There was no pain beyond the scratches on my arms. I felt no pain. Elbowing the beasts, I looked at Gavin. His eyes on mine—locked on mine—as his lips curled up slightly.

  “What are the odds?” he whispered weakly.

  A cry wanted to escape my lips as I watched Gavin blink slowly. His breathing became shallower with each passing second. I searched feverishly, gliding my hands along his chest and stomach. My fingers fell into his wound.

  The zombies had torn through his shirt, through his abdomen. Blood was pooled on the seat, blood was everywhere, and I watched the hands of the undead still stirring and grabbing pieces of him. I swallowed my horror. A gasp wanted to escape my lips, but I was stronger than that. We were stronger than that.

  I continued slapping the hands away but none were after me. They only wanted Gavin.

  “I’ve loved you since your sixteenth birthday,” he murmured, closing his eyes.

  “No!” I screamed, grabbing him, attempting to move him from the window.

  But it was too late. Several arms had wrapped around Gavin’s neck and chest, hauling him through the window. I grabbed his body but he told me to let go. I couldn’t let go. I wouldn’t let go.

  My hands slid from his waist…to his thighs…to his knees…to his ankles. I was holding on so tightly, but it wasn’t enough. Only his feet were left inside the car, and I held on with a strength I didn’t recognize as my own. As they pulled the last of him out the window, I followed right through the opening, collapsing on the concrete driveway. None of them attempted to attack me beyond the accidental push or scrape. They weren’t after me.

  I watched in horror as the love of my life was torn to pieces and thrown about. Why didn’t they take me too? Why were they leaving me alone? My screams did nothing. I wasn’t sure I was even screaming. The zombies huddled together, and I forced my eyes away from what was left of my husband.

  “Please, kill me too,” I whimpered.

  Two unmarked, black vans came barreling down the street, stopping right at our driveway. The back doors flung open and the killers vanished inside. That wasn’t possible. I couldn’t trust my own eyes.

  I was hallucinating.

  The last of the undead stepped inside the vans, and the doo
rs closed before the van peeled off.

  “Is there anyone out here? Can’t anyone help us? Please? Can’t someone help us?” I sobbed, crawling toward what was left of Gavin.

  I heard the screams of the neighbors as they ran toward us, stopping just short of our driveway. Their mouths dropped open, speechless. There was nothing anyone could do. The sobs and cries for help continued, and I didn’t know if they were coming from me or from everyone else. I was numb. I heard apologies about not coming out when they heard the ADD, but it wasn’t their fault. The ADDs were the equivalent of fireworks nowadays. Everything was in slow motion or people were moving slowly. I slumped over Gavin, holding the remains of his torso, listening to the ambulance siren make its way down our street. I wrapped my arms around him tightly for the last time.

  That’s what I remember from that day—and that I never told him I loved him.

  I unclipped the black leather holster from my jeans, unloaded the pistol and placed it in the locking drawer. Thankfully, peasant tops were in fashion now, and they hid the bulge beautifully when I was out and about. I grabbed the notebook that had the address of the bar I planned on visiting tonight and shoved it in a drawer. The place was a dive bar in the far end of town that might reveal what I was hoping to find, but I wouldn’t know until I checked it out. From all accounts online, it was a hotbed of underground activity and exactly how I might gain access into the unsavory side of society. All I wanted was answers but for some reason those were very hard to come by.

  I briefly let my mind wander to happier times. Looking around our basement, I thought back to how thrilled Gavin was when I told him I was totally fine with turning the space into a media room. He’d also managed to build a safe room inside.

  We’d only been married a matter of months, and it was an incredible time. I’d never let go of those memories.