Survivors Series (Book 1): Heroes Aren't Born Read online

  Heroes Aren’t Born

  Book One of the Survivor Series

  By Cody Voeller

  Copyright © 2018 Cody Voeller

  All rights reserved.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  PREFACE

  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

  Dedication

  There have been many who have influenced me both in writing this novel and in life. There isn’t enough space on this page or enough words ever written to express my gratitude but I will do my best. To my friends, Aleah Steinzeig, Kate Mitchell, and Andrea Jones, thank you for supporting me, pushing me to write more and more to satisfy your craving for a story, for forcing me to write two and three chapters a day. To my family, especially my father, who taught me that I am capable of damn near anything. To my beautiful wife who put up with the long hours of editing, incessant questions and hundreds of revisions, thank you for standing by me through it all. Finally, to the online communities who first read my words in their infancy, you acted as my compass, my north star, you set me on a path that I never expected to be on. Thank you, all.

  PREFACE

  As I sit here writing this I never thought that there would be time to tell my story, or that I would even be alive to write it all down. I don’t know if there’s anyone out there left to read what I am about to write, nor do I know if anyone will actually care about my particular story, but here I go.

  My name is James Ryan and so far, I’ve stayed alive.

  When this all began I was going to school in a small town, nearing the halfway point of my third year, volunteering as a firefighter with aspirations of becoming a teacher. I was used to the small town life, having been born and raised in one, and so the campus with its tiny classrooms and the surrounding town felt all too familiar.

  Thinking back it all seems so meaningless, the exams, the homework, parties, girls, and friends. What seemed so important back then seems inconsequential now. The only thing that matters now is staying alive, keeping those I care about alive.

  I haven’t told you exactly what happened because, for some reason, I feel that if I write it down it’ll be real. It will be absolute. I know it’s real, I’ve lived it. But if I put it in words, put pen to paper, then it can never be taken back.

  Ok, here goes nothing. Just when I thought I had it all figured it out, things fell apart. I mean things weren’t perfect, I was single, tired of school, racking up student loans, and to top it all off, midterms were on their way, but I’m ranting. People started getting sick. I mean really sick, like fever, seizures, violent behavior, and then death. The only problem was that they didn’t stay dead, they got back up. They got back up off the ground, off of morgue tables, off of fucking gurneys, and began walking around.

  Somewhere out there someone opened Pandora’s Box, and just like in the myth, hope was nowhere to be found. I know I haven't said what you’re thinking, that single word that gives a name to what plagues the world. I don’t want to, you know, making it real and all, but ok. Zombies. The Undead. Walkers, Zeds, Z’s, whatever you want to call them. They were real.

  So how have I survived so long? How is my story different? I owe it all to the zombie craze of my generation. I’ve read all those books, played the games, watched the movies, but I was still unprepared for what was to come. I knew what to look for, knew how to react, I just didn’t think it could ever happen. The dead refused to stay dead and they were after the living.

  CHAPTER 1

  It was the end of my week and all I wanted to do was to stumble into class, stumble out, and start my weekend. Fate, as it turned out, was not to be so kind.

  When I arrived at my last class there was a note on the door. According to the note my professor was out sick and we would not be having class. It explained that we were to continue on with our reading which we would discuss on Monday. I was only too happy to head home, get a jump on the weekend, and take a break.

  When I got back home I sat down at my desk and started browsing the Internet. Not very exciting, I know, but my roommates were still in class. I started visiting all the regular sites. I checked my email. There a couple of messages that I would look at later. Next, I checked Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. After that, I ran through a couple of news sites. They all had something to say, it was all over the internet. News of a lethal virus that was spreading like wildfire was featured on the main page of every website, even The Onion had a serious front page story. I had thought that it must be a joke, something like this only happened in movies.

  Zombies were real and they were attacking the living. There was a lot of speculation regarding what caused the dead to rise, how long it took, and if there was a cure. What we knew for certain was that, after being infected, the mortality rate was one hundred percent. There were no cases of immunity or people getting better. At least, none were reported. Once you were bitten, the best thing was to bite a bullet.

  I sat in front of my laptop and stared at the news pages telling me about the newest plague hitting the market and decided then that I had a few options. This could turn out to be like bird or swine flu. I could ignore it because it was nothing more than another virus that would cause a panic but ultimately goes away. I could act right away, pack up all my shit and get the hell out of dodge. Or, I could wait, watch the news, and just get ready to leave.

  I closed the lid of my laptop, deciding to wait. I figured it was nothing to worry about right away. I had never been more wrong in my entire life.

  Once my roommates had all gotten out of class we decided that it was time to unwind and throw a little party. By the time that decision was made the reports of sickness and death were already out of my mind. We invited a bunch of people over for a good time. We had food, music, drinks, and of course, as required by every college party, beer pong. The music was loud and so were we, if things had been a little quieter that night we might have heard the screams and maybe even the sound of pounding feet. All in all, it was a good night, the last we would have for quite some time.

  The next morning I woke up in my own bed still fully clothed, reeking of beer and sweat. I squinted at my watch to see that it was already past noon, well past the time to shake off the mild hangover and start my day. I needed a shower before I did anything else, and I knew that people would begin to wake up and head home without much prompting. After my shower, I grabbed my iPod and sunglasses and left the house, carefully stepping over the snoring form that blocked the front door to go for a short run. I left my house with my headphones in and my music playing loud. If it had been a few decibels lower I probably would have heard the distant cacophony of sirens. My first clue should have been that I didn’t see anyone else in the Campus Athletic Center as I ran past. I headed back to my house for another shower and some breakfast, hoping that all the people who had spent the night were up and out the door because I didn’t want to feed them. On my way there I saw a woman sprinting past me. She was running like Satan himself was on her heels. My second clue should h
ave been that she wasn’t wearing workout clothes, but I was tired, sore, hungover, and hungry, so I didn’t notice.

  After a shower, my roommates, Matt and Jason, were up and sluggishly moving around. It was clear that they had had a good night.

  “You guys hungry?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Jason said groggily, his hair sticking up at odd angles.

  “Do we even have any food left?” I asked Matt.

  “Only a few eggs.”

  “That’s not even close to being enough,” I said, “I guess we should get food.”

  “For sure,” Jason agreed, his previous grogginess disappearing at the thought of a greasy breakfast.

  We got into my car and headed off to a local diner to take advantage of their all day breakfast menu. As we were driving down the road, there were dozens of students standing directly in our way.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked, “Is this some kind of protest?” We got closer and saw that most of them were covered in blood. “What the fuck?” My heart was beating faster in my chest. We stopped and got out of the car. I headed towards the nearest person, a girl much smaller than me. She was facing away from me and paid no attention to my approach. “Excuse me?” I asked, placing my hand on her shoulder. She turned her head to me and I saw that part of her face was ripped away with the tattered remains hanging from the wound. “Holy shit!”

  A mental reprimand followed my accidental outburst. The first thing I thought was that I shouldn’t have said that, it went against how I had been trained. The first thing you want to do is keep the injured person calm, not freak them out by saying ‘Holy shit’. The second thing I wondered was where all the blood came from. It was spilled all down her front and the weird thing was that the wound on her face wasn’t bleeding. It was so dark that the skin and blood were almost black. I was so focused on the wound that I didn’t notice her hand as it reached up and grabbed my wrist, squeezing it like a vice. This chick is strong, I thought, too strong.

  I had said she was smaller than me, but her grip was actually beginning to hurt. Once she was locked on she started to lean in and opened her mouth like she was going to take a big bite of me. Turns out, she had been. I took a small step back and grabbed my hand and jerked it up and out of her grip. The thumb is the weakest part of the hand and if you find someone grabbing you and you don’t like it, just use your hand to apply pressure against the thumb, your hand will come away easily. I took another step back as she began shuffling towards me. Her movements were jerky and slow, but the weirdest part was that she was biting the air like a dog. Her teeth made a creepy clicking noise that seemed to ring in my ears.

  “Hey guys,” I said, my heart pounding in my chest. “I think we need to get back to the house.”

  “Good idea,” said Matt, his hands visibly shaking from the encounter, Jason stood silent and pale, nodding his head in agreement.

  We got back in my car and I did a quick U-turn in the middle of the road. I shook my head as a million thoughts raced through it. “It can’t be,” I muttered.

  “What? What can’t it be?” asked Jason.

  “My sick professor, yesterday’s news, and now this. What else could it be?” I said, putting the pieces together.

  “What is it?” asked Jason, forcefully now.

  “You guys are going to think I’m insane but…”

  “Just fucking say it,” said Matt.

  “Zombies.”

  Jason laughed. He thought of himself as the ‘logical one’ and couldn’t believe something as unreal as zombies could actually happen even when one nearly bit me.

  Matt, on the other hand, was similar to me. He liked to watch and read most things about zombies and took the situation a little more seriously, or as seriously as any sane person could, anyways. I told them that we had to leave.

  “Dude, don’t you think you’re overreacting?” asked Jason.

  “Look, Jason, the news says the disease is spreading, that people are dying and now just look at what we saw. How do you explain that? We saw a girl with her face ripped the fuck off and you think I’m overreacting?” I replied.

  “Ok, so let’s say that the dead really aren't staying dead. Where do you suggest we go?” he asked.

  “We need to get away from here to somewhere we can control. We need to get to my dad’s house,” I answered.

  “Wait, what?” asked Matt, “Why your house?”

  “Two reasons. One, it’s in the middle of nowhere. More importantly, I have guns there.”

  “And why would we need guns?” asked Jason.

  “Because there are going to a lot more of them pretty soon,” I said gravely. Every book and movie I had ever read or watched proved that containment never worked and that what we were seeing was only just the beginning.

  Matt agreed that getting away from the school was a good idea and that my house would be best, but Jason just looked at us like we were both crazy. We made it back to the house and I had formed a limited plan, starting with getting my stuff and my friends somewhere safe. As I started to look around my room for anything useful I called my younger sister to warn her. I received no answer. That’s ok, I reasoned, she rarely ever answers her phone. I typed out a quick text message to her before calling my dad. When I couldn’t get ahold of him either, I refused to think the worst. He was on his way to our house over in Eastern Oregon and I was sure he was just out of range, maybe crossing over the mountain. My little brother, who was with my dad, was the same. No luck with my older sister and her family. My mind wanted to drift to the worst possible case but I fought it down. My dad was a tough bastard, they’d be ok.

  “Ok, Jason, call your parents and see what they think. I’m going to get stuff together to go,” I told him. “Matt, you need to call all our friends. You can have them come to the house ASAP. We’ll see if they want to come with us. We know for sure that everyone who was here last night should still be fine unless anything happened in the last hour or so. Make sure you tell them to bring food and water and a weapon.

  “A weapon?” he asked.

  “Just to be safe.”

  Matt nodded and asked, “What about the people who didn’t come to the party?”

  “Call them too, but start with the people that were there. We want to get them to safety as soon as we can,” I said. I thought about everything that needed to be done, we needed to get our friends, collect food and water and get to safety. “I’ll be back,” I called out to the two of them as I ducked into my room and grabbed a small cardboard box from a dresser drawer.

  “Where are you going?” asked Matt.

  “I need my gun”

  “You have a gun here?” asked Jason.

  “Not here, it’s locked up with campus safety.”

  Matt looked like I was crazy, “You’re going back out there?”

  “Yeah I’m not leaving here without it.”

  “You don’t need a gun,” argued Jason.

  “Did you see that girl?” I turned on him. “Did you see her face, her eyes? I’m getting my gun and getting the hell out of here.”

  “James,” Matt said stopping me, “be careful out there.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said looking at Jason, “There’s nothing bad happening out there, right,” I finished sarcastically. He rolled his eyes and walked away.

  I opened the door and glanced outside, making sure the area was clear before slipping out onto the street. We lived in a house owned by the college and so we had to follow their rules. I was allowed to have my weapon on campus but it had to be kept locked up in the campus safety building, which was all the way across campus. Great, I thought, this is going to be fun.

  I kept my head on a swivel as I started up a small grassy hill that was used as a feature to block sight of the campus from the street. As I reached the top I saw people in the distinct sprinting in every direction, seemingly without purpose. I ducked behind a dumpster at the back of the University Center and after looking through the frosted glass
decided it would be a place to avoid. There were dozens of bodies running, shuffling and writhing on the ground. I sprinted along the side of the building and found myself at the front of the library. The doors were closed but a few lights inside were still on. I saw no one in the lobby so I went inside, having to pry the sliding glass doors apart with the tips of my fingers. The doors didn’t close automatically but I didn’t have time to try and force them closed. I made my way through the empty lobby, my footsteps loud on the tile floor. I watched the shadows between aisles, expecting something to come charging at me from the darkness. Nothing came and I made my way to the back door, again having to pry them apart.

  I continued to make my way across campus, hugging buildings and hiding when I heard someone or something getting too close. I had to avert my eyes when I neared my old dorm, all of the blinds were drawn but I could see the results of a struggle in several rooms. Blinds were bent and stained, glass cracked and a body rested against one of the panes. I shook my head and kept going.

  I made it to the campus safety office, a small home at the edge of the campus, and tried the handle only to find it locked. Makes sense, I thought, why would they leave it unlocked? I knocked on the door, hoping that maybe they were barricaded inside and could let me in. No one answered but I heard movement from inside. I knocked again but received no answer. I braced myself, placed my right foot below the doorknob and applied pressure. Most doors don’t require a lot of force to open, I would be more likely to put my foot all the way through the door than open it if I used all my strength and kicked it in, like in the movies. The door popped open before slamming into something on the other side. I heard whatever it was crash into something and hit the ground. I glanced around the edge of the door and saw a uniformed safety officer face down on the ground, the printer used for making student I.D. cards resting on his back, cables wrapped around his head. “Shit” I muttered and slipped into the small building, closing the door behind me. “Are you ok sir?” I asked but not moving to help him up. That decision probably saved my life. As he slowly turned over I could see blood cover one-half of his face, staining his white shirt. “Fuck,” I said looking around for something to use as a weapon. Real smart, Ryan, I thought as I grasped a putter that sat in the corner of the room, leaving the house without a weapon, real fucking smart.