The Horror Squad (Book 1.5)

  The Horror Squad 1.5

  Kris Weeks

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events

  portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  The Horror Squad. Copyright © 2016 by TJ Weeks. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, email authortjweeks@gmail.com

  Weeks, Kris

  The Horror Squad/TJ Weeks. - 1st ed.

  Title ID: 6509577

  ISBN-13: 978-1537168418 First Edition: August 2016

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to take the time to thank Karen Dziegiel for all of her hard work going through each of my books. My wife for all her editing and support. Chelley Jordan and Bobbi Payton for so awesomely helping with running my pages. I’d like to thank all of my military buddies for staying by my side with their support.

  Most of all, I’d like to thank all of my fans for pushing my work out there. If it wasn’t for you none of my books would have been put on the best sellers list on Amazon and I wouldn’t be up for as many awards as I get put in for.

  www.facebook.com/tjweeksofficial www.twitter.com/tjweeks6 www.tjweeks.com

  CHAPTER ONE

  ERIC SAT back on one of the

  few chairs he had accumulated over the last few days of setting up the home away from the undead. He scanned the few acre area that he and his crew had set up. Mostly the crew; Eric was pretty good at sitting on his ass and supervising the group. He thought he had done his share of killing the stumbling assholes to clear out the only land that they had come across that actually had some strong fencing around it, and decided that his crew needed to take care of things, he decided he was just there to supervise.

  It wasn’t a privacy fence by any means, that surrounded it, but a strong steel pipe fencing that surrounded the entire, at least five acres of land. They had located rolls of old chicken wire that he had instructed be put on the outside of the four rows of pipe that made the fence, in double layers. The wire came up three feet higher than the pipe, at least providing somewhat of a barrier from them just coming into their camp. They had made their way East and were stuck in a small Texas town called Malakoff.

  “What now boss?” Andrew asked.

  “Go make sure that gate is sec ure enough for no one to get in unless we allow them. We will need to have someone stand guard, so that will be you until we assign shifts.” Eric instructed.

  Andrew went on about his way without a question of when he would be relieved of the ‘gate guard’ duty.

  “Eric, we need food to make.” Rue entered the small barn.

  Eric got up from his chair and began to scan the shelves that he had arranged the few cans of food on and began pulling some food off and handing to Ruthann.

  “This should be enough to make spaghetti for everyone, there won’t be any meat, but noodles and sauce will have to do until I can gather a few of the others and go out.” He told her.

  “Thank you, this will be perfect.” She shouted making her way out of the barn.

  Eric was proud of what he had created in just a couple of days. He had the acreage secured, had a gate watchman for now, had provided food for the group and ran everything as smooth as silk; minus killing the hordes of zombies that wandered around outside their perimeter.

  Eric jumped from his chair when he heard a scream for help outside. He ran to the barn door and peered out at Andrew struggling to push the gate closed. Dirty hands were making their way into the side of the piece of flimsy tin reaching for what they could grab. Nate, Atora, Alex, Willy, and Ashley were running from all different directions of the land. .

  “It’s a horde of them!” Nate hollered.

  You could see the tops of their heads over the gate, Nate swung the hoe he had been working with into one that he could fully see.

  “Got you, you son of a bitch!” He shouted.

  Eric began to help Andrew hold the gate closed in hopes to avoid letting them in. Alex and Willy were barely tall enough to begin stabbing over the gate and hitting them in the head with a sling blade and shovel. Atora and Ashley made their way to the opening of the gate and began taking out the ones with their hands already coming through, stabbing them with knives they had brought from the half torn down house that they were instructed to fix up.

  “Why in the hell is the gate even open?” Eric asked.

  “I was trying to secure it better as you told me to. It needs a new lock and some more stability.” Andrew stated turning his back to it and digging his heels into the dirt to push harder.

  “Well, that ap parently needs to be done a different way dumb ass.” Eric shouted.

  Atora and Ashley were able to take out enough of them that the gate could finally be closed and latched. The thin piece of corrugated sheet metal still bowed in as more piled up behind it and hit it with loud echoing bangs. The gate was two sheets stabilized with two criss cross steel pipes like the fence was made out of. Once it was latched, Eric ran to grab a chair from the barn and stood on it,

  grabbing the sling blade from Willy, he started slinging it over the top. Their heads split in two easily with every swing. The zombies began jumping at Eric and flailing their arms at him with every jump. One tall man jumped high enough to knock him off of the chair making him fall on his ass hard in the dirt. Willy grabbed the tool, jumping onto the chair and taking over the killing. He swung over and over and took out numerous of the chomping pricks before Eric pulled himself back up to the top of the gate, he steadied himself with one foot placed on the same chair as Willy and began hacking them in the head with the shovel he had taken from Alex.

  The rest of the group began

  stabilizing the gate with some extra pipe that had been left from the fence. The five set one end of a pipe on the ground and dug it into the dirt and the other end against the gate to hold it steady from bowing in. They did that with three other pipes. The zombies began to wander over to the doubled up chicken wire they had put up on the outside of the pipe fencing, poking their filthy fingers through it. They were trying their hardest to get to the rest of the crew, but just kept running into the rusty steel and bouncing off of it and coming back to try again. Atora drew her knife back and stuck threw the chicken wire at one and stabbed it in the head cutting part of the chicken wire at the same time. A hand came through immediately and grabbed the braids that hung from her head and pulled. Her face pinned up against the chicken wire, the pieces she had accidentally cut were digging into her face. She screamed as the zombie began putting his mouth up to the fence trying to get at her. The smell of his breath was unbearable and Atora began gagging as the tears fell. Ashley ran to her recently newly made friend and sliced her braids from her head that the man was holding. Atora flung backwards and Nate caught her before she hit the ground and balanced her back to her feet.

  More hands came through the hole in the fencing they had rigged. “Where in the hell did all these assholes come from?” Nate asked.

  “Out of nowhere, there were none out here when I looked out of the fence, once I unlocked it and began trying to see how we could make it a bit stronger they started piling up!” Andrew answered over the noisy growls.

  The horde was finally dwindling down and the group was able to rest for a moment with hopes that they would wander off somewhere else. Alex had disappeared at some point and ran back up with zip ties and began placing them around the hole in the fence and zip tying off the cut wires. Eric jumped down from

  holding himself on top of the gate and Willy made his way down off of the chair.

  “I’m sorry Eric.” Andrew stated immediately.

  “It’ s the apocalypse, this
is

  probably going to happen a lot, but we are going to need to strengthen our surroundings which means we have to take a run outside. Men you will need to get ready, we will leave out

  tomorrow morning.” He told them with little breath.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE GROUP had come together

  by accident and were just getting to know each other as they worked together.

  Eric had taken leadership of the group and dedicated jobs to each of them. Others had wandered in and Eric had allowed them entry onto the land they had found that was already surrounded by the steel pipe fencing.

  Nate, Alex, Alex’s son Tyler, Ashley and her daughter Karlin, were the ones that had come in the day after the rest had arrived.

  Eric, Rue and Andrew were from the same town and arrived in a van together along with three children.

  The others were driving down the old country highway the next day in Alex’s SUV when they saw the top of the barn and invited themselves inside the property, they met Eric and he invited them to stay.

  There was an old house already on the property which had been attacked by zombies and left empty when the zombies had taken whatever was inside for their tasting. They only had to kill a few of them to clear acreage.

  A barn stood behind the house and was fairly secure with locks on the one window, a small loft in the top of the barn and some animal stalls with all of the animals gone except for one goat. Atora, Rue, Willy, Eric, Andrew and the kids had stayed in the barn the first night they arrived since it seemed safer than the house at the time.

  After everyone else had arrived, they began to work on the house, hoping they could fix it enough to stay in. It gave them three more people to help and two more children.

  The next morning Eric woke from the loft of the barn. The sun rose just a bit over the horizon. Most of the women were already awake with breakfast made for the ones leaving out, the five kids that were part of their group and themselves. Eric could hear the women’s conversation as he dressed for the run.

  “How old are the kids Rue?” Ashley asked.

  “Rowena is a year, Barker is seven and Linda is nine. So many have lost their kids, It is so sad, I was lucky to save mine.” Ruthanne stated.

  “I was lucky to save Karlin, she is what has kept me going all of this time. Her birthday is tomorrow, I wish I could get her something.” Ashley stated back.

  “I heard Alex lost his wife and three other kids and was only able to save his son Tyler. Smart kid right there. I think he said he is fifteen.” Atora whispered. “I have talked to him a bit.

  “Eric told me that he plans on having the kids work on learning how to kill.” Rue told them.

  “I am not sure that I want my thirteen year old daughter learning that.” Ashley stated.

  “This day in age, they are going to have to learn at some point. I would rather have them know how to protect themselves than be eaten.” Eric stated crawling down the handmade ladder from the loft. “Rue, any food for the guys and I, we are leaving out

  shortly?” He questioned.

  Rue, rose from her seat and

  gathered plates for the five men that would be leaving out.

  “So WHAT is your name?” Atora laughed.

  “Ruthanne Evelyn, Rue for short.” She smiled.

  “Just curiou s, I have heard you called a both names now. I am Atora Clayton. Eric, what is your last name?” She questioned.

  “Eric Baily. Why?” He returned with a question.

  “Just curious, we don’t really know a lot about each other.” Atora replied to his rudeness.

  “Dempsey.” Ashley broke the tension. “I think Andrew is Liebling, and I think it is Willy Garza, Alex Laybourne, and Nate Coll if I remember right.”

  “Always good to know who you are rooming with and about their lives.” Atora stated.

  “What the hell does it make a difference now, we aren’t those people anymore.” Eric blurted after taking a bite of toast.

  Atora glared at Eric. “You are one negative asshole, you know that? I was just trying to make things a tad bit normal.” She spat at him.

  “Normalcy is not what we have here. What don’t you see?” Eric told her after swallowing his mouthful.

  Atora rose from the table to walk away from the confrontation. She turned before exiting the barn, she looked at the group sitting at the small table and waited for Eric to look up and calmly flipped him the bird and walked out.

  “What’s her problem?” Eric asked.

  “Maybe beca use you were so rude.” Rue stated before standing and going to check on the children in one of the small stables she had set up for them to hang out in.

  Eric just shook his head. “This whole situation is serious, I’m not here to make friends, I am here to stay alive.”

  “LET’S ROCK AND ROLL!!” Nate ran into the barn from outside.

  Everyone sitting at the table stared at him and began to laugh, except for Eric.

  “You know bro, I am not sure what you are so excited about, but it is probably not going to be a fun day by any means.” Eric told him.

  “Sure it is, we will make it fun!” Nate blurted.

  “Last person that tried to make shit fun, got left. She had joined us at our last place and she tried playing games and making things fun. I left her stupid ass. Eve Sanders had a problem with authority.” Eric explained.

  “Well, aren’t you a Debbie

  downer.” Nate walked out of the barn. Eric shook his head. “Y’all are gonna learn to listen.”

  Ashley and Nate glanced at each other in awe of Eric’s attitude.

  He rose from the small table and walked outside.

  “Everyone load up; get the gas can and take two bottles of water each. Our list of things needed is food and building materials. We may be gone for a couple of days, so everyone make sure and grab some breakfast. RUE! We need a little bit of food to take with us, but make sure y’all have enough to feed y’all and the kids. Where is Atora?” Eric asked.

  Rue and Ashley had walked out and were listening to the plans. “She went to the house after your bullshit.” Ashley stated.

  Eric glared at her. “Watch yourself woman. Everyone get moving.” Eric made his way to see Atora.

  The guys went on about their way of gathering what was needed and Rue and Ashley went back in the barn to begin cleaning up.

  “Atora!” Eric hollered.

  There was no answer. Eric

  wandered around inside the house looking at the progress that had been made to begin rebuilding. He entered one of the three bedrooms that needed the most work and Atora was

  sweeping up the mess on the floor and swept over his foot without paying him any mind.

  “Atora, I called for you.” Eric stated harshly to her.

  “Yeah, I heard you.” She shot back at him letting him know that she didn’t care.

  “I need to make sure you have what you need to take care of things here while we are gone.” He told her.

  “I got this, just leave any weapons in the barn.” Atora instructed.

  Eric stood there trying to decipher if he was going to put her in her place or just leave it alone until he got back.

  He walked out and piled the weapons on the table in the barn. Andrew had pulled the van up to the gate and waited for the other four to meet him there. Andrew jumped out of the van as Nate slammed his hand up against the side of it to try and scare him.

  “What did you do that for

  asshole!?” Andrew hollered at him. Nate laughed hysterically. “Cause shit like that is funny.”

  Alex and Willy walked up laughing at Andrew getting so upset. “He was just messing around bud, calm down.” Willy said as he leaned up against the fence.

  “Not funny when I almost got killed yesterday.” Andrew said to all of them.

  “Oh suck it up Drew, we gotta have fun.” Nate stated.

  “Alright guys, load up, let’s get going. We need to find some gas
and gas cans if we can and then food and then load up some materials. The van should suffice for that a little better than the two cars we have.” Eric explained as he loaded up in the passenger seat.

  Alex took a deep breath and removed the pipes that were holding the gate secured, he unlatched the gate and snuck a peek outside of the gate before fully opening it; two of the flesh eaters stood a little ways off. Alex looked back at Eric and saw him waving for him to open the gate. Alex pulled the tin back and let Andrew pull out. He pulled it closed and made his way to the open door, he sat down next to Nate and in front of Willy.

  “There are two right down the way here.” Alex informed the group. “It will be fine, just drive.” Eric instructed Andrew.

  Andrew drove and tried to dodge the two that were staggering along the middle of the road.

  “Why would you not just hit them? They will eat you, do you

  comprehend that at all?” Eric spat out to Andrew.

  Andrew pulled back into the right lane and drove on with just a nod to Eric. More of them were scattered sporadically throughout the road and Andrew would hit ones that were in his lane and dodge any that he was able to.

  The sun was bright in the sky as they pulled into the only gas station in the town a few miles away. Andrew stopped at the front of the store and waited for instruction from Eric, while the others exited quickly taking in their surroundings. The three walked back to back to back to the front door of the glass door that read pull. Alex reached out to pull the door and pulled Nate and Willy inside with him. The three still took caution once inside. They scanned the store and looked for anything or anyone out of the ordinary. A small man was behind the counter wearing name tag that read Brent with the same design on it that was on the front of the store. He leaned over the counter and reached for them and growled. They all stood waiting for the other to take him out when Nate walked over and slid his knife into the top of the young man’s skull.

  “There, done.” Nate stated before walking to the back of the store.

  Andrew and Eric entered shortly after and both began grabbing

  handfuls of things from the shelves and putting things in their pockets. The group was overwhelmed that the store was still fully stocked. Willy grabbed the stack of paper sacks that were on the counter.