Chapter One
Village of Apple Creek, Ohio
2075 A.D.
She had to survive. The apocalypse had allbut decimated humanity, yet giving up was not an option. If shecouldn’t continue on for herself then she’d do it for her brother.Victor needed her as absolutely as she needed him. He might be thefamily genius, but she was the family badass.
Ever since childhood she’d looked out forher younger sibling, fighting the bullies who liked to pick onintellectually gifted little boys. Victor had finished high schoolby age ten, college by twelve, and his Ph.D. by sixteen, so she’ddefended him from ignorant tormenters all of his life. Victor waspresently a man of twenty-eight to her twenty-nine, but she knew inher gut that he needed her if he was to endure.
It was that knowledge, that implicitunderstanding, that kept her going these past four years, kept heron the move from Los Angeles to rural Ohio even when she’d wantedto give up and just die already. Shehadto protect herbrother. It’s what she’d always done. It’s what she believed shewas born to do.
Starved, dehydrated, and exhausted, VeronicaBanks slid down against the inside wall of an abandoned Amish barn.She landed on her ass with a slight thud. Out of breath andpanting, she realized she couldn’t allow herself to rest for verylong. Darkness was coming. Infrared goggles worked to a point, butthe eaters possessed better night vision than the goggles did.Besides, she only had to walk for another half hour or so and she’dbe at her sole sibling’s survivalist compound just before dusk.
Everyone who’d known Victor before theplague managed to strip the earth of most human life had thoughthim to be nothing more than a Doomsday-believing, paranoid,reclusive, Artificial Intelligence scientist. Unfortunately, he’dproven those people wrong. Victor had turned out to be one of thefew sane people left in an insane world. Now if she could just getto his compound and to him, perhaps they’d both be all right.
She briefly closed her eyes as her breathingreturned to normal. Victor’s underground fortress would be stockedfull of food, water, medicine, weapons, and safety. The weapons,she knew, were for her. Victor had no clue how to use them. Whilehe understood what “point and shoot” meant on a cerebral level,practically speaking was another matter altogether. For whateverreason, fighting just wasn’t in his DNA. Her brother was a carboncopy of their dearly departed researcher of a mother, just asVeronica was their dead father’s Navy Seal mini-me. She missed herparents. Both had been lost to the plague early on, before humanityunderstood what the novel DR-71 virus was and what it did topeople.
What began as a virulent flu that claimedthe lives of the majority of its victims mutated when confrontedwith medicines meant to combat it. The result was DR-71, orDeceased Reanimation 71. “Deceased Reanimation” needed noclarification and “71” simply stood for the year the virus wasdiscovered. That year felt like generations ago, though only fourhad passed.
Zombies. That’s what the humans ofyesteryear into the science fiction postulations of their era wouldhave called today’s infected. Of course, those same people wouldhave mostly been right. Once the infected died their cellsreanimated, just like in the old books, films, and televisionshows. Their sole motivation once they woke back up was to eatnon-infected human flesh, thereby spreading the mutated DR-71 virusthrough their bites. That’s what the old-timers had gotten right.There was a litany of things they’d gotten wrong though.
For starters, zombies could be killed in thesame ways humans died, starvation included. It wasn’t just a matterof shooting them in the head. A death blow to the heart, lungs, andother vital organs did just as well, though a wound to the brainwasthe most efficient, quick method for disposing of theminstantaneously. It kept them from getting back up and biting morevictims before they bled out and met their final deaths.
The old-timers had also hypothesized thatzombies would feed on their victims’ organs rather than just ontheir flesh. In reality, eaters had no interest in human innards,likely because ingesting their preys’ vital organs would simplykill them, thereby failing to turn them into one of their own kind.Eating and populating remained the only motivations of theundead.
Another thing the old-timers got wrong wasin hypothesizing that the eaters would be stupid. On the contrary,they moved faster than humans, possessed keener senses than theirprey, and were capable of rudimentary thinking. Like a great whiteshark scanning the waters, they thought only of hunting down theirnext meal and promulgating their species. An eater’s thinking wasprimitive, but it was there. How long until their mental processesevolved even more? That thought gave her the shivers. Lately, theywere definitely showing signs that their evolution wasprogressing.
Veronica took in a deep, sustaining breathand slowly exhaled. It was best not to think on their rapidlearning—not now. She had bigger worries at the moment. Namely, herbody needed sustenance. She had to make it to Victor’s compoundbefore nightfall.
Pulling herself up to her full five feet andfive inches, she stifled a groan as she did so. She only had acouple miles left. After all these years, after all the squirmishesand setbacks that had slowed her down, Veronica and Victor Bankswould soon be reunited. That knowledge gave her a much needed burstof adrenaline. She was too close to succumb to death now.
“I’m coming, little brother,” she murmured.She wound her long, amber curls into a makeshift bun atop her head.“Don’t count me out just yet.”
*****
He watched her every movement through the AIscanner he’d claimed from Victor. He observed as she walked, swordin hand, through the hilly terrain of a place called Apple Creek.He watched her weak body drag itself forward, worried for her asshe was set upon by inhuman creatures, and grunted his approvalwhen she made quick work of them despite her enfeebled state.
Other than their shared light hair and greeneyes, she was nothing like her brother. Victor’s person had grownon him to be sure, yet he was not one who could protect himself,much less fight for the survival of another.
The contraption he’d confiscated fromVictor, this thing called an AI scanner, had fascinated him fromthe moment he’d first seen the wonders it could show to him. Thathad been months ago. He’d only permitted his two most trustedwarriors to know of the device and view it with him. Even so, heshouted them out of his chambers whenever the woman came intoview—a fact that humored his men to no end.
She intrigued him, captivated him even. Somemight say he was obsessed with her. They could be right.
All he knew with certainty was he wasrooting for this lass named Veronica. He wanted her alive and well.He wanted her to make it to her brother’s dwelling unscathed.
And then he wanted her to come tohim.
*****
Deep in the forest, ever so close now to herbrother and safety, Veronica hacked away at the overgrown woodswith the machete she carried along with her sword. Sound drew theeaters—a fact the old-timers had actually gotten right—so sherapidly chopped at the forest floor with all the might she couldmuster. The quicker she finished, she reasoned, the faster silencewould return to the woods. She hacked at the overgrown weeds andbrush until her fingers ached, until they were raw and looked readyto bleed. A small smile momentarily found her lips when the trapdoor came into view.
“I found you,” she whispered to theunderground entrance. She searched her camouflage fatigues for thekey to the trap door. “I’m finally here.”
She fished the key out of her pocket andsank it into the lock. It twisted with a little doing, rust havingcorroded it somewhat. It gave way with a slight clicking sound. Shesighed in relief as she opened the door, jumped inside theentryway, and closed it. Relocking it behind her, the action causedthe lights inside the tunnel to flicker on.
Veronica let her typical hypervigilancerelax a little for the first time in four long years. She had gonethrough hell and back, but she’d made it. Food, water, medicine,Victor—all of it was close by now. She was finally at his home,finally here to protect her little brother from the monstrous worldabove.
Her breathing still ragged, she weaklyfollowed the tunnel down the ramp. She prayed her brother hadn’terected too many more barriers between her and the compound proper.At this point she needed food and water as much as she needed airto breathe. At least everything she required to keep surviving wasfinally within reach. She’d experienced a lot of close calls andcountless setbacks in a trek that should have taken no more thansix months on foot. Evading hordes of the dead and ill-intentionedgangs amongst the living had been an everyday occurrence.
