Volume Four of my exciting Zombie Terror Wars Series, Running Towards the Abyss is coming out very soon! To celebrate, I wanted to give you a sneak peak of what’s inside. Running Towards the Abyss will be released next week and I hope you will check it out. If you haven’t read the first three books in the series, I’m enclosing links at the end of the post.
South of Carnesville, Northeast of Atlanta, Tuesday, 1705 hours
Chuck couldn’t scout the neighborhood as thoroughly as he would have liked. The builder’s sign in front of the subdivision advertised ‘Homes for Sale,’ but all the houses that McCain saw appeared to have been occupied before their owners had fled the flesh-eating zombies that swept up the interstate. He had less than a half hour of daylight left and was shivering as the wintery mix of precipitation continued to fall on his wet clothing. He needed to find shelter before hypothermia took hold of him.
He chose a house in the middle of a cul-de-sac near the entrance to the subdivision. The short side street ran directly off of the main road that led into the neighborhood. The doors and windows appeared intact, a big plus. He cautiously circled the gray, two-story frame house, rifle pressed into his shoulder, as he listened for any signs of life.
The doors were locked but he found a lower level window in the rear that wasn’t. Chuck eased it up and listened some more. He sniffed inside and was pleasantly surprised to only smell the musty odor of an abandoned house. McCain was a solid six foot two, two hundred and twenty pounds, and maneuvering through the window wasn’t easy nor safe since he hadn’t cleared the inside of the residence yet.
Thankfully, he was able to get inside without hurting himself or making too much noise. He closed and locked the window behind him and slowly searched the residence. The more he searched, the happier he became. This is really nice, he thought. Unlike the abandoned house that he had shared with Greg and Tonya the night before, this one didn’t appear to have been visited by the virus. There were no blood stains on the floors or walls and it hadn’t been ransacked.
Most of the homes closer to Atlanta had been broken into and looted already. Here, Chuck got the feeling that the residents had packed up and gone on a trip and could return at any time. He knew that probably wasn’t true but he was thankful to have a relatively warm, dry place to rest and wait out the winter storm. The homeowners had even left a few clothes and some canned goods behind. His own food stores were getting low so this find was a pleasant surprise.
Something caught his eye as he cleared the kitchen. A thermometer hung outside the window over the sink, attached to the glass by suction cups. There was just enough light that he could read the red temperature line. Twenty-four degrees. It would not be a good night to sleep outside. Thank God I found this place, McCain mused.
He had no idea if there were any other survivors hiding out in the neighborhood or not. He doubted it but knew it was possible. There were plenty of people who had chosen not to evacuate as the government had ordered. For most of those, however, things had not turned out well. McCain also had no idea if there were any infected lurking in the subdivision. He had seen the group up the road in the convenience store parking lot and couldn’t take a chance on lighting a fire to warm himself or to dry his clothes. It might attract both the living and the dead.
Now it was time to get his wets clothes off. Chuck stripped off his body armor and jacket. He had on several layers of shirts, all of which were soaked to his skin. After getting the wet clothes off, he grabbed a dry t-shirt and a long sleeve thermal top out of his backpack, shivering as he pulled the shirts on, thankful to feel dry again.
He pulled a dry pair of socks out of his bag and set them on the coffee table next to the couch. They would be going on in just a few minutes. After spreading his wet garments over the dining room chairs, he scrounged around in the closets upstairs to see what else he could use while his clothes dried out. He only had one more dry shirt tucked inside his pack and a few more layers of dry garments would be nice.
The man of the house was not as big as Chuck and wore medium size shirts. At this point, however, anything would do. Even a University of Alabama sweatshirt that he found folded on the top shelf of the master bedroom closet. “Roll Tide,” McCain said to himself as he tried to force the sweatshirt on over his shoulders.
A car engine roared as a vehicle sped into the neighborhood and skidded to a stop nearby. Chuck dropped the too-small sweatshirt to the floor, quickly making his way down to the living room and peeking out of the closed curtains. Men’s voices filled the air. He could see them, three houses down from him. A white SUV had pulled into a driveway and several men were struggling with something in the backseat.
Another sound cut through the evening silence. A girl’s voice screaming, “No!”
A shiver went down McCain’s spine and it had nothing to do with the cold. The men laughed and two of them reached into the vehicle for her legs. Suddenly, one of them recoiled backwards, screaming and holding his face.
“She kicked me in the nose! I think the little bitch broke my nose! I’m gonna kill her right now,” he yelled, drawing a knife from his belt and starting back towards the car. A tall muscular man grabbed him and held him back as the other men laughed.
“Not yet, you aren’t,” an authoritative voice boomed. “We’ll all get to have some fun with her and then you can kill her, Larry.”
Two other men grabbed at the girl from the opposite side of the car. She fought back with everything she had, flailing at them with her fists, screaming for them to stop, but a big, balding man drew back and punched her in the face. The sound of his fist impacting her head carried all the way to the end of the cul-de-sac and McCain’s ears.
A sick feeling dropped into Chuck’s stomach as he saw the girl go limp and dragged out of the SUV. The man who had punched her tossed the small body over his shoulder and they all walked towards the front door. Three of the men had long guns, Chuck noticed, one of them the distinct shape of an AK-47.
Without consciously thinking about it, McCain had already thrown on his modular lightweight load-carrying equipment (MOLLE) plate-carrier. Weighing around thirty pounds, the carrier contained heavy front, rear, and side armor plates, pouches for rifle and pistol magazines, an individual first-aid kit, a Glock knife, and a CamelBak hydration system attached to the rear. He slung his rifle over his chest, snapped on his black kevlar helmet, and rushed towards the back door.
Look for Running Towards the Abyss will be released next week! If you haven’t read the other three volumes, just click below. If you enjoy them, please leave me a review on Amazon. That would be a big help! Thanks!
