CHAPTER 2 — THE ZOMBIE KING’S SECRET

Being a conscious corpse is, without a doubt, the most boring operational state in human history.

For three days, I lay on the third-floor landing of the Grandview Residential Complex like a forgotten piece of cheap IKEA furniture. I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even scratch my left ear, which had a very persistent, highly annoying itch caused by a stray speck of drywall dust.

Zombies shuffled past me constantly. A female infected in a torn pink cardigan stepped on my ankle no fewer than twelve times. By day two, I had named her Brenda and developed a deep, abiding hatred for her lack of spatial awareness.

Watch the ankles, Brenda! I screamed in the silent, hyperactive prison of my own skull. Some of us are trying to decompose in peace!

Around hour seventy-two, the icy numbness in my spinal cord finally thawed just enough for a jolt of electrical energy to crackle through my central nervous system.

System notification: Rigor mortis override initialized. Motor functions restored at 12% capacity.

My left leg twitched violently, kicking Brenda straight in the shin. She let out a confused, wet gargle and kept shuffling forward.

I sat up with a horrible, wet squelch. My joints popped like bubble wrap as I stood on shaky, uncooperative legs. I caught a reflection of myself in the shattered glass of a fire door. Pale skin, dark purple veins bulging against my neck, and eyes glowing with a faint, eerie crimson hue.

"Great," I croaked. My vocal cords sounded like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together in a garbage disposal. "I look like a goth teenager’s P*******t board."

Instead of attacking me, the three zombies on the landing gave me a polite nod of indifference. To them, I smelled like rotting garbage, heavy disappointment, and zero calories. I was officially part of the club.

"Well," I mumbled, testing my awkward, jerky steps as I wobbled out of the building into the ruined city streets. "At least I don't have to pay rent anymore."

The city of New Hope was a glorious, flaming disaster. Smoldering sports cars were stacked like cordwood against light poles. Stray dogs chased panicked pigeons. Thousands of infected wandered through the avenues in a massive, aimless, grey tide, groaning in unison like a stadium full of disappointed sports fans.

Because I was a fresh zombie, I had complete immunity in the dead zone. I literally walked right past a horde of fifty infected who were aggressively trying to pry open a stalled vending machine.

"Keep trying, boys," I rasped, giving them a thumbs-up as I shuffled past. "The Funyuns are worth it."

I kept moving, drawn toward the downtown commercial district by a strange, throbbing vibration in the back of my skull. It felt like a low-frequency subwoofer blasting through a bathtub full of jello.

Ten minutes later, I rounded the corner of 5th Avenue and froze.

Standing on top of a crushed city bus in the middle of the central intersection was the biggest, nastiest, most ridiculous creature I had ever seen.

It was eight feet tall, packed with dense, obsidian-colored muscle, and wore the shredded remains of a high-end designer Italian suit. Huge, bone-like spikes protruded from its shoulders, and its eyes burned with a bright, terrifying golden light.

The Zombie King.

He wasn't mindless like Brenda. He was barking orders in a deep, guttural language that sounded like a blender grinding up gravel, using precise hand gestures to direct the flow of thousands of infected around the block.

"Left flank, move up," he seemed to be signaling with a crisp wave of his clawed arm. "You guys in the back, stop chewing on the mailbox and double-time it!"

Okay, that's impressive, I thought, ducking behind a burnt-out food truck to watch. The guy has better organizational management skills than my old boss at the firm.

The Zombie King held up a massive hand, closed his fist, and suddenly, his arm transformed—the flesh morphing and solidifying into a massive, jagged bone blade. Then, with a casual flick of his wrist, a deep, gaping wound on his chest closed up in under two seconds, smooth skin replacing torn flesh.

Regeneration. Morphing. Telepathic command. I took mental notes rapidly. Note to self: get whatever health plan this guy is on.

Just as the Zombie King was admiring his own bone-blade, a glowing blue portal snapped open in the middle of the street.

Five humans in glowing, high-tech tactical armor stepped out. The leader—a towering man wielding a massive hammer that crackled with blue lightning—pointed his weapon straight at the giant monster.

"Target identified!" the hammer guy roared, his voice amplified by his suit. "Eliminate the alpha bio-hazard!"

What followed was twenty minutes of pure, unadulterated, Michael Bay-level chaos.

The hammer guy slammed his weapon into the asphalt, sending a massive shockwave of lightning that vaporized fifty zombies instantly. A woman beside him threw her hands forward, causing gravity to warp and fold, crushing three city blocks worth of cars into tiny, compacted cubes.

"Hey! My tax dollars paid for those roads!" I yelled, though nobody heard me over the sound of exploding skyscrapers.

The Zombie King didn't go down easy. He roared, leaping thirty feet into the air and driving his bone blade straight through a helicopter that was hovering overhead. The chopper exploded in a glorious fireball, crashing directly into a Starbucks across the street.

"Not the coffee shop!" I gasped, clutching my non-beating heart in genuine agony. "Anything but the coffee shop!"

The battle tore through the district like a localized hurricane. Buildings collapsed, concrete shattered into powder, and energy blasts painted the night sky in blinding shades of neon purple and lightning blue.

Eventually, the high-tech team wore the monster down. The gravity-warping woman pinned the Zombie King's limbs to the pavement with intense localized force, while the hammer guy leaped from the third story of a parking garage, bringing his lightning weapon down squarely on the monster's skull.

KABOOM!

A blinding flash of white light scorched my retinas. When the smoke cleared, the Zombie King was a pile of smoldering ash.

"Area cleared," the hammer guy grunted into his radio, wiping black soot from his helmet visor. "Collect the core and pull back before the secondary horde arrives."

They grabbed a glowing, grapefruit-sized golden orb from the ashes and disappeared back into their portal, leaving the ruined intersection in dead silence.

Curiosity getting the better of my lifeless brain, I dragged my clumsy limbs out from behind the food truck and shuffled over to the scorch mark where the Zombie King had died.

Tucked neatly under a chunk of shattered concrete—completely missed by the high-tech squad—was a cracked leather briefcase that the Zombie King had apparently been holding right before the fight started.

I leaned down, snapped the lock with my zombie strength, and pulled out a thick, blood-stained research binder.

On the cover, in bold, red, block letters, were the words: PROJECT EVO-GENE: PHASE 4 ATTAINMENT.

My zombie eyes scanned the technical jargon at light speed:

Patient Zero (Subject ALPHA) successfully integrated the experimental Evo-Gene serum 10 minutes prior to viral exposure... The serum forces the human DNA to adapt to and dominate the viral strain... Grants absolute cellular control, rapid evolution, and form manipulation... Lab Location: Underground Sector 7, Apex Bio-Tech Facility, 14th Street...

"He wasn't just a lucky zombie," I whispered, my brain putting the pieces together with terrifying clarity. "He was an experiment. He took the serum before the virus hit!"

If someone took the Evo-Gene before getting infected, they wouldn't turn into a mindless, shambling flesh-eater like Brenda. They would retain their mind, control their evolution, and master the system.

"Sector 7... Apex Bio-Tech..." I muttered, memorizing the security codes written on the margin of the page. "Fourteen block north..."

Before I could plan my trip to the lab, a shadow fell over me.

I looked up.

One of the stray awakened fighters from the strike team a guy holding two glowing plasma daggers was standing on the debris behind me. He looked at my purple-veined face, my glowing red eyes, and the binder in my hand.

"Still one left," the guy sighed, raising his glowing dagger. "Sorry, uglies. Orders are orders."

"Wait! I'm actually a very nice person once you get to know me!" I yelled.

SWISH.

The plasma blade cut through the air with a bright blue flash.

Pain didn't exist, but the world immediately went sideways as my head detached from my neck, spinning through the air three times before hitting the asphalt.

My vision began to fade into a dark, swirling vortex. The last thing I saw was my own headless zombie body collapsing backward into a puddle of spilled mocha latte.

Seriously?! I raged in the dying sparks of my brain. I just figured out the secret to the entire apocalypse, and I get decapitated by a guy in tight spandex?!

The dark vortex pulled me deeper, spinning me down through time, space, and reality. The sound of exploding buildings faded, replaced by a soft, rhythmic, high-pitched chiming sound.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

My eyes snapped open.

I wasn't in a ruined intersection. I wasn't floating above my decapitated neck.

I was sitting in the driver's seat of my red Hyundai Elantra. The air conditioner was blasting cool, minty air onto my face. The radio was playing a pop song I hated.

I looked down at my hands. Smooth skin. Pink fingernails. No purple veins. No grey decay.

I grabbed my phone from the dashboard. The illuminated screen read:

OCTOBER 12 — 9:00 AM.

I stared at the timestamp in absolute, paralyzed shock.

"Three hours..." I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird a real, beating, perfectly human heart. "Three hours before the sky turns purple."

I didn't waste a single second screaming, crying, or calling my cheating ex-boyfriend.

I put my foot on the gas, slammed the car into drive, and tore out of the parking lot toward 14th Street.