Chronicles of the Infected (Book 3): Finding Home Read online

  Finding Home

  Rick Wood

  Contents

  About the Author

  Also by Rick Wood

  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

  About the Author

  Finding Home

  Rick Wood is a British writer born in Cheltenham.

  His love for writing came at an early age, as did his battle with mental health. After defeating his demons, he grew up and became a stand-up comedian, then a drama and English teacher, before giving it all up to become a full-time author.

  He now lives in Loughborough, where he divides his time between watching horror, reading horror, and writing horror.

  Also by Rick Wood

  The Edward King Series:

  Book One – I Have the Sight

  Book Two – Descendant of Hell

  Book Three – An Exorcist Possessed

  Book Four – Blood of Hope

  Book Five – The World Ends Tonight

  The Sensitives:

  Book One – The Sensitives

  Book Two – My Exorcism Killed Me

  Book Three – Close to Death

  Book Four – Demon’s Daughter

  Book Five – Questions for the Devil

  Book Six - Repent

  Chronicles of the Infected

  Book One – Finding Her

  Book Two – Finding Hope

  Book Three – Finding Home

  Cia Rose:

  Book One – After the Devil Has Won

  Book Two – After the End Has Begun

  Book Three – After the Living Have Lost

  Standalones:

  When Liberty Dies

  I Do Not Belong

  Death of the Honeymoon

  Shutter House

  The Rick Wood Horror and Thriller Omnibus

  Sean Mallon:

  Book One – The Art of Murder

  Book Two – Redemption of the Hopeless

  © Copyright Rick Wood 2019

  Cover design by rickwoodswritersroom.com

  With thanks to my Street Team.

  No part of this book may be reproduced without express permission from the author.

  AFTER

  Chapter One

  Gus had tried making a roast dinner himself once. It had not gone well.

  He’d bought most of the vegetables already sliced and frozen, and they tasted like tinned food you would only eat in the apocalypse. The potatoes were still hard, the peas were a strange consistency between mushy and not mushy, and the smash he’d mixed out the packet was still water and powder.

  Yet when Janet did it, it looked like a professional chef had come in and taken over his house, filling it with a mixture of delectable aromas. The steamed parsnips were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, the balls of stuffing had the right amount of fluff and the right amount of sage and the right amount of everything, and the carrots were steamed to perfection. The table was finished off with pigs in blankets, mashed potato with a hint of cheese, and Yorkshire puddings that tasted like they had only been mixed and heated minutes ago.

  And then the final part, the piece de la resistance –chicken with the skin browned, just as he liked it, with steam rising and gravy sauce sizzling. Saliva filled Gus’s mouth like a manic storm.

  Janet placed the chicken before him.

  “Would you carve, my dear?” she asked, leaning against him, pressing her hip against his cheek and damn how did she look so hot in that apron?

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” Gus replied, unable to help himself grinning. “You cooked this wonderful meal. Surely you should cut the chicken?”

  He did feel guilty. It didn’t really matter, he knew – but it seemed wrong that, just because he was the husband, that he was one who was seen to do the most important part; when it was nothing compared to the effort his wife had gone to.

  But she just bent over, kissed him delicately on the cheek, and whispered in his ear:

  “I wouldn’t dream of taking the pleasure away from you.”

  His body tingled. A wave of arousal swept over him and he couldn’t help but watch her buttocks as they sauntered back to the kitchen.

  “Come on, Daddy,” came Lacey’s delightful voice from beside him. “You always carve the chicken.”

  She beamed up at him, proud and doting, the vision of a perfect child. He couldn’t be prouder of his daughter.

  “Yeah, Gus,” said Sadie in the next seat along. “It’s your job.”

  He marvelled at the sight of Sadie.

  For starters, he marvelled at how she was able to form such coherent sentences. Normally she was barely able to put a few words together, mostly speaking in syllables and grunts – yet, here she was, speaking perfectly.

  What’s more, she was dressed very differently. Her hair was no longer scraggly and stringy; the mosses and tufts had gone, and she was wearing a neat, flowery dress rather than the dirty rags she refused to change.

  “I agree,” said Donny. “You have to carve, Gus. It’s tradition.”

  Donny.

  Donny?

  What was he doing here?

  Thinking nothing of it, and not wanting to ruin the moment, he lifted the carving knife and started from the rear of the chicken, cutting it into slices.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Desert.

  “What?” Gus responded, unsure.

  “You look… I don’t know. Perturbed.”

  “I just…” He looked to Donny again. “Wasn’t expecting you all to be here.”

  “Why wouldn’t we be here?” Whizzo asked. “You invited us, didn’t you?”

  Did he?

  He couldn’t remember.


  Did he invite all of them?

  It seemed a strange thing to do.

  But he didn’t want to argue and did not want to seem rude. Nothing to sully the moment. After all, Janet had cooked enough for everyone. It was only going to go to waste otherwise, wasn’t it?

  “I’m sorry Prospero couldn’t be here,” Donny said to Desert.

  Desert smiled sweetly – although Gus could see there was something else behind that smile. It appeared endearing, but only Gus seemed to pick up on how it was almost… sadistic.

  “Why are you sorry?” Desert asked.

  “I almost feel like it was my fault,” Donny responded.

  “Your fault?” Her voice was rising. “Of course it’s your fault! You ki–”

  “We’ll have none of that,” Janet said, taking her seat at the table and raising her glass of wine. “A toast. What shall we toast to?”

  Murmurs of suggestions floated around the table, ending when Lacey turned to her father.

  “What do you want to toast to, Daddy?”

  They all turned and looked to him, awaiting his verdict.

  What were they going to toast to?

  What could they toast to?

  “Friends,” Gus decided, raising his glass. “Old and new, and reunited.”

  Just as they all raised their glasses and began the first syllable of “friends,” the front door opened and closed, and a man walked in. He closed his umbrella, put it in the corner, and rubbed his drenched hair.

  Gus looked to this man peculiarly.

  He knew him.

  He knew the man very well.

  But who was he?

  “I’m ever so sorry I was late,” the man said, his voice carrying a lot of wealth and a lot of education.

  “It’s okay,” said Janet, standing up and putting an arm around him.

  This made Gus livid. He wasn’t sure why, he had never been the jealous type; yet his wife’s arm around this man’s back somehow made his fingers grip his napkin, unknowingly scrunching it up and tearing it into tufts.

  “That’s okay, Eugene,” said Lacey, standing and rushing over to the man, putting her arms around him also. “We’re just glad you could come. Did you bring your daughter as well?”

  “Of course,” Eugene replied, revealing a girl standing beside him. “I bought my Laney too.”

  Gus knew this girl.

  He’d rescued this girl.

  From London.

  Rescued.

  Driven out just as London was bombed.

  But he also knew something else as well.

  He knew that this was not Eugene’s daughter.

  She never had been.

  “What’s that?” Eugene asked with a pleasant smile.

  “You’re lying,” Gus said, this time loud enough to be heard, but still with a falter.

  “I’m what?” Eugene said, poised between being offended and laughing at a joke.

  “That is not your daughter. She never was. You are full of shit.”

  “Gus, please!” Janet exclaimed.

  “Yeah, come on, Gus,” Donny said. “Don’t make a scene.”

  “And you…” Gus said, glaring at Donny, not noticing his own arms beginning to shake. “You… You are working with him! You used to be my friend but you tried to kill me!”

  “Gus–” Desert tried.

  “And you killed Prospero!”

  “Daddy!” Laney cried, covering her ears. “You’re upsetting me!”

  It was at this point Gus realised he was standing. He couldn’t remember rising from his chair, but he somehow had. Everything felt so wrong.

  His wife. She was dead.

  His daughter. She was…

  “What’s happening?” Gus cried out.

  “Gus, are you feeling okay?” Janet asked, advancing toward him.

  “Who are you?” Gus growled, and Janet backed away – moving further toward Eugene, which only incensed him further.

  “What is going on? I don’t under–”

  Eugene took out a large, curved blade, and his face changed so suddenly Gus barely saw the flicker between Eugene’s smile and Eugene’s cocky grimace.

  “No!” Gus cried.

  Eugene sliced the blade through the throat of his wife.

  “No!” Gus cried again, and tried to move, but his feet were stuck, he couldn’t, wasn’t able, immobile, frantically so, stood in position like nails were digging through his feet and screwing him into the floor.

  Eugene sliced open Laney’s chest and Gus could swear he saw the last few beats of her heart hesitantly throbbing.

  “Please, stop…” Gus whimpered, still trying to move but to no avail.

  Eugene stepped toward Whizzo and sliced his throat.

  “Honestly, Gus,” Donny said. “Stop it, you’re making a scene.”

  “Leave them alone!”

  Desert was next. She didn’t even struggle.

  Donny stood.

  He had a blade too.

  “What?” Gus said.

  And, just as Donny struck Gus with the blade, Gus awoke, sweating and screaming.

  Chapter Two

  Gus was suddenly cold.

  His face could fill a bucket with the sweat amassing on his forehead. His heart was bursting against his ribs, his breath was wheezing, and his hands were clammy.

  But any heat he was feeling whilst asleep abruptly left as he adjusted to the cold, early morning air.

  He looked around at what seemed to be a wooden cabin, and he remembered stopping here for the night. At an abandoned wooden shack in the middle of a field. To rest. To recuperate.

  Maybe this used to be a farm. A year or so ago, the fields would have been full of crops instead of dead weeds. Full of cows and pigs instead of burnt out carcasses. Happy ramblers walking across the country rather than fading infected, desperate for something to quell their starving appetite.

  Now what?

  There was a hazy amber glow outside the window. The window was painted in smudges and moss was engrained in its corners, but he could still just about make out the light.

  Desert sat at the window, staring out of it, gun in hand. It was her turn to take watch; not that she could see much out of the filthy glass – but he had a feeling that, although she was staring outside, she probably had no conscious awareness of what she was looking at. She looked to be lost, her mind elsewhere, a vague alertness about her. She cradled the gun like a cat sat on her knee, and he half-expected her to start stroking it.

  He looked down.

  Sadie.

  Asleep. Her hand on his right knee.

  Just below her head was his artificial leg. A spring Whizzo had created for him that meant he could not only walk again, but propel himself forward into a run.

  Clever kid, that Whizzo.

  Speaking of which…

  He looked around. Whizzo was in the far corner, tinkering with some kind of appliance. Gus couldn’t tell what it was, but he rarely could – Whizzo was good with gadgets and all that stuff, and Gus didn’t even attempt to interfere.

  If Gus was the muscle of the situation, Whizzo was quite clearly the brains.

  He put his hand on Sadie’s cheek and gently ran it down her hair. She shifted, a cheeky smile and a happy flicker of her sleeping eyes. She was like a pet. Somewhere inside of her was the zombie gene – but it was somewhere deep and buried. Gus trusted Sadie more than anyone. She was unable to communicate or function as a person could, speaking in few syllables – but he knew she understood.

  Plus, she was the best fighter they had, and she was the only one of them who could survive the blood of the infected. To a regular person, just a speck of blood between their lips and they would be trying to eat their friend’s flesh within minutes.

  But not Sadie.

  Sadie was special.

  Then there was Desert. Still preoccupied with her thoughts. She’d barely said a word to Gus since their confrontation with Donny a few weeks ago.

 
Donny, who was once the biggest irritation in Gus’s life – but ended up, along with Sadie, saving him from his own depression. After the death of his family the only thing he’d looked forward to was the sweet relief of suicide, but Donny and Sadie had shown him nothing but unconditional caring. Something he had not expected.

  But something had been done to Donny by the prime minster, Eugene Squire, the head of his army, General Boris Hayes, and their team of scientists. Something that had involved warping Donny’s mind and turning him into a cross between the infected and a human – but not in the way that Sadie was.

  Donny had become so much worse.

  Donny had become what the zombie gene was intended for in the first place. A ruthless killer, stronger and quicker than the average person.

  Gus had only just managed to escape death by Donny’s hand himself.

  But Prospero, Desert’s friend, had not been so lucky. And, in that way, Gus could understand her frustration. Could understand her anger.