Chronicles of the Infected Trilogy Box Set [Books 1-3] Read online

  Chronicles of the Infected

  The Complete Trilogy

  Rick Wood

  Contents

  Book One: Finding Her

  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

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Book Two: Finding Hope

  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

  18. Transcript from webcam journal by Janine Stanton, first entry

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  26. Transcript from webcam journal by Janine Stanton, second entry

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  31. Transcript from webcam journal by Janine Stanton, third entry

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  36. Transcript from webcam journal by Janine Stanton, fourth entry

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  42. Transcript from webcam journal by Janine Stanton, fifth entry

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Book Three: Finding Home

  AFTER

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  BEFORE

  Chapter 4

  AFTER

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  BEFORE

  Chapter 11

  AFTER

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  BEFORE

  Chapter 17

  AFTER

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  BEFORE

  Chapter 22

  AFTER

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  48 HOURS

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  36 HOURS

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  28 HOURS

  Chapter 33

  22 HOURS

  Chapter 34

  BEFORE

  Chapter 35

  21 HOURS

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  19 HOURS

  Chapter 38

  2 HOURS

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  1 HOUR

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  BEFORE

  Chapter 56

  AFTER THE END

  Chapter 57

  ALSO BY RICK WOOD

  Also by Rick Wood

  Book One: Finding Her

  Chapter One

  The bottom half of his right leg may as well have been ripped off and discarded into a nearby bin. It was a stubborn limb that needn’t be there, yet it clung to his knee without purpose or meaning, like a recurring memory that would not fade.

  It was an annoyance. It was a burden. But most of all, it was a severe irritation when he was in a hurry. Quite frequently, Gus considered wielding a machete and just chopping the damn thing off.

  The leg’s ineptness had been an unwelcome present from the Taliban that saw him discharged from the army without so much as a thank you. A bullet from a Kalashnikov assault rifle was lodged deep within the dead tissue of his right calf muscle, and it was a bullet that no doctor had been brave enough to remove. The pain was ongoing, but had grown tolerable; in the way that one could get used to a constant itching that won’t go away. The only times he ever really noticed it was either when it hindered his speed, or when pus chose to seep out; which often happened at the most inconvenient of times.

  Wasn’t exactly a great conversation starter at a dinner party, was it?

  “Oh, Gus, just so you know, your leg is leaking again.”

  Pathetic.

  As he snarled at the dead weight slowing him down, he rushed through the high street toward his motorbike.

  Something was happening.

  He had no idea what exactly it was, but he knew it wasn’t good. His older brother had always been into zombie movies, and Gus had always mocked him, telling him he was watching an unrealistic pile of trash and would be better off watching something that actually made sense.

  How little he knew.

  He had witnessed enough atrocities within the last hour to fill a whole tour of Afghanistan.

  It had started small.

  An elderly lady had fallen as she stepped off the bus. As she lay there, her body had convulsed like a dead fish thrashing for life. A crowd then proceeded to gather. One person had announced he was a doctor, and leant in to take her pulse.

  Her eyes opened. A sudden jolt. A twisted expression, like she was full of energetic anger, like there was a savage mania rising within her. Cloudy drool trickled acros
s her chin.

  She stared at his open throat stretching out before her. Her jaw ripped open, and her sparse remaining teeth clamped into the tasty neck of the doctor.

  The gathered crowd immediately dispersed. What had been enquiries of concern rapidly turned into shrieks of terror. Grimaces of sympathy and wishes to help warped into faces of innocents ensuring their own survival.

  The doctor had sprung to his feet within seconds. The professional, caring visage was replaced with a yellow-eyed, carnivorous monster. It was inhuman – that was the only way Gus could describe the creature that rose; inhuman.

  It sprinted, snarling as it ran.

  And boy, could it run.

  Gus had never seen a person run so fast. The doctor overtook innocent bystanders fleeing upon bicycles with the ease of a morning stroll. He’d bitten a nearby bike-enthusiast, who had gotten up and bitten a nearby child kicking a ball against the wall, who had gotten up and bitten a policeman trying to intervene.

  So many were attacked and ripped apart, yet each and every one of them stood back up. Never mind how much they had been ravaged; never mind what fell out of their open torsos or hung off their mutilated faces – they stood up, and looked to feed.

  Those people who had been murdered, brutalised, destroyed, ripped apart – they climbed to their feet and bestowed their fate upon others. Running, bloody drool soaking their chins, ignoring their missing intestines, not caring about their arm that flew away in the aerodynamic resistance of their speed.

  All they seemed to want was to feed – and feed they did.

  Gus had considered helping. With his military experience, he could have calmed the situation, maybe even prevented chaos. But in the time he had taken to consider this, chaos had already ensued.

  How had this happened? Just a moment before Gus was buying milk; now the street had turned into an orgy of violence. It spread so fast he hadn’t been able to make sense of it. He lived in a small town on the outskirts of London, with a post office where everyone knew the clerk’s name, with a Bargain Booze that recognised the underage teenagers who always tried to buy alcohol, to the local pub whose barman greeted Gus by name – all of it had turned into a decoration of barbarity. Blood splashed across the post office windows, a loose head smashed against the shutters of Bargain Booze, and a horde of infected had filled the pub and devoured everyone within it.

  The town centre had turned from a budding working-class community and a peaceful town of cohabitation to a free-for-all open buffet littered with pieces of residents who had known each other by face or name. No one running by foot could react quickly enough – and even that minority who did make a hasty getaway were eventually caught and butchered. A happy toddler nibbling on a lolly screeched as it bit into the throat of its father and bathed in its blood. A young girl passionately kissing her teenage lover abruptly found that kiss turning into a bite, and the skin of her boyfriend’s face was stuck in her sharp teeth. Even a baby suckling on its mother’s breast growled as its eyes turned and it sank its underdeveloped teeth into its loving parent, forcing her to yelp with tears as her child ripped her mammary gland clean off.

  Gus had only one thought on his mind.

  My family.

  Ignoring the searing pain of the bullet stuck inside his leg, he revved his motorbike into action and twisted through the streets, avoiding as much death and mayhem as he could. It was as if the entire civilisation had turned to madness. Cars beeped manically as they drove into each other, barely able to outrun the racing, rampaging creatures. Gus weaved in and out of wayward vehicles with as much precision and haste as his Marauder would allow him.

  Still, their faces circled his thoughts. Those he loved.

  My wife. My daughter.

  Probably barricaded in their family home.

  Once he reached the bypass, the numbers of these monsters grew sparse and he was able to avoid hitting any.

  One group of infected attempted to run after him. They almost kept pace they were so fast, but he lurched his motorbike forward and managed to lose them.With his spare hand, he dialled Janet’s number.

  “Janet? Janet?”

  “Gus! Please! Help us!”

  His body tensed. Terror consumed him, hairs on his arm stuck on end, his brow furiously perspiring.

  His wife. His childhood sweetheart.

  His four-year-old daughter.

  Janet.

  Laney.

  “Janet, are you okay?”

  “Have you seen the news? They are saying London has gone to madness. The army quarantined us. They are telling anyone still alive to leave the city we don’t have long!”

  Shit.

  He knew the military’s ruthless mindset well enough to know that they meant it. If London was the main hive of this mess, he knew they would simply shut the gates. And, to anyone who was left inside… well, may the Lord take pity upon their souls.

  “I’m on my way to you, Janet, is Laney there?”

  “Yes, she’s here.”

  “Hide. Take her and hide somewhere in the house, whatever it takes, just–”

  “Gus!”

  Janet’s high-pitched scream pounded harshly against his eardrums, but despite the harsh ache against his ear, Gus did not move the phone away.

  “Janet? Janet?!”

  She did not respond.

  Her screams continued to echo, growing distant.

  “Janet!”

  The call ended.

  No…

  He would not let them down. He couldn’t. They were all he had.

  He would die before he let any harm come to them.

  He picked up his speed. He twisted the handles, forcing the bike to accelerate, swinging around the corners at such dangerous speed he surprised himself that he managed to keep balance.

  His calf stung, but he ignored it. He didn’t have the luxury of acknowledging pain.

  He passed his local neighbourhood, ignoring the loving family next door getting set upon by a group of undead youths.

  He brought his bike to a sudden stop, allowing it to collapse as he jumped off and ran across his porch.

  A lump grew in his throat. There were already so many infected visible through the smashed windows of his living room. Groaning. Searching. Clawing at one another to find the family hid within. They had descended upon his family home like flies upon shit.

  He reached under a garden gnome and took out a knife. Janet had told him he was ridiculous for being so paranoid, that no one from the Taliban was going to come hunting for him, and that he needed help.

  For the first time, he was glad she was wrong.

  The hallway was crowded with undead. He used his muscle weight to launch himself forward, forcing them aside like a bowling ball into stubborn pins. He snarled and screamed and wretched and growled as he dug his knife into one throat, into the skull of another, into the cheek of another.

  He tried to tread his way through, but there were so many, and they were piling on top of him.

  He swiped his knife back and forth, back and forth, repeatedly back and forth. He took out whoever he could, slicing throats, dislodging guts, and smearing the blood of their skulls over the loving family pictures he’d hung upon the wall.

  As he twisted his knife into another neck, he sent the heavy fist of his free hand into another face and climbed the stairs.

  “Janet!”

  All he could hear were snarls.

  Then he stopped. Stood still. Motionless.

  He saw her.

  Janet’s empty face as she stumbled out of the bedroom.

  Except, they were no longer Janet’s eyes.

  Her face was pale like theirs. Her cheek was missing, revealing a torn skull bone beneath the gap in her flesh. She limped forward, a mocking imitation of his awkward strut. Her pupils were yellow and her eyes were red.