Zombie Attack! Army of the Dead (Book 3) Read online

  Praise for Zombie Attack! Army of the Dead

  "Army of the Dead is bursting at the seams with treachery, misdirection, and teenage angst. It will engage readers..."

  --SHANA FESTA, The Bookie Monster

  "Army of the Dead is an incredible story. It's filled with constant character development, multi layered plots, romance, intrigue, even some tongue in cheek humor that gave me a few chuckles along the way...a nonstop thrill ride from start to finish."

  --BLOOD, SWEAT & BOOKS

  "Sagliani makes the conception of a compelling tale appear effortless. His sense of comedic relief interwoven with rising tension, relatable characters and plot development is the stuff of a veteran story teller that resonates among his audience long after the final chapter."

  -- DAVE GAMMON, Horror News

  "A meaty story, worthy of a read."

  --HORROR AFTER DARK

  "A plot that will keep you on your toes at all times! I definitely recommend this series to all zombie fanatics everywhere!"

  --TONI, My Book Addiction

  "I highly recommend this series to anyone who wants to read a great zombie book, and those parents who are looking for a book for their teen to read. Especially those young men who might not be that into reading. I think they’ll really like this series."

  --LORI, Contagious Reads

  "I thoroughly enjoyed Army of the Dead - a sequel that definitely did not disappoint."

  -- JUSTINE WINANS, YA Lit Chick

  Zombie Attack: Army of the Dead

  by Devan Sagliani

  Laughing Crow Media copyright © 2014

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by Christian Bentulan

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Devan Sagliani

  CHAPTER ONE

  “I missed you too, little buddy,” Tank said, his voice like rolling gravel. “I've thought a lot about you since we last met. I've been waiting a long time to catch up.”

  I felt the sword slipping in my fingers as fear spiked through me. I'd seen him die. It wasn't possible. But here he was, standing in front of me, a walking nightmare come to life.

  It can't be, I thought. He was turned into a zombie. I saw it. He couldn't have come back, unless...

  “You two sound like you've got a whole lot of catching up to do,” John said, jumping in to move things along. “Tell you what, let's take this little reunion back up to base camp.”

  John turned to walk back to the Jeep, but no one followed him. The rest of us stayed rooted in place. Tank stared me down with an icy, gloating smile, while I did my best to hold the katana up and block Felicity from him. The ring of ninjas kept their guns trained on our heads, never letting up for a second. John realized he was on his own, and wheeled around with a practiced laugh like a cheesy villain on a bad television cop drama.

  “What seems to be the holdup?”

  “He's not disarming, sir,” the head ninja said without hesitation, never taking his eyes off us.

  “And I don't plan on disarming,” I reminded them, speaking in a loud, clear voice so I wouldn't have to continue repeating myself.

  “If you don't want me to start killing people you care about, you might want to rethink your attitude,” John shouted, his usually honeyed speech slipping as his anger began to undermine his nice guy act. “Now put down the sword and get moving.”

  “No,” I said, not taking my eyes off Tank, who burst into laughter.

  “What's so funny?” John demanded.

  “It's nothing,” Tank guffawed, doing his best to pull himself back together. “It's just he ain't changed a bit. Didn't I tell you? If anything, he's worse than the last time we crossed paths with him. This isn't going to work, John. Why don't you just let me kill him here and now with my bare hands. At least that way one of us will get something out of this, other than a huge hassle.”

  Tank began inching in my direction and I brought my sword back to full attention, seeing the ninjas lean in gun first as I moved.

  “It is going to work!” John roared. “Playtime is over, kiddies. You can drop the act now!”

  I smiled slightly at seeing him come unhinged. I had forgotten how watching him lose control always gave me a sense of satisfaction. It reminded me of what Moto always said. I did seem to have a supernatural ability to get under people's skin when I wanted to. I had also forgotten how dangerous John could be once he was pushed into a situation where his leadership was tested. The mad look in his eyes reminded me, and I began to worry he might try to make an example out of Felicity. Still, I knew that once I was disarmed, any chance we had of ever leaving alive dropped to almost nonexistent.

  “You've got us surrounded on all sides by armed guards,” I said at last.

  “That's right, Xander,” John said, “so now that you've stated the obvious, let's get moving. I have a lot more to show you and it's gonna be dark soon.”

  “So if I tried to do anything, you'd cut us down in a hail of bullets,” I replied, ignoring his instructions again.

  “Yeah, that about covers it,” John grumbled in a condescending tone.

  “We'll come with you,” I offered, “but I'm not putting my weapon down.” I turned and looked John right in the eye, then looked back to Tank's malicious, grinning, deformed face. “Not while he's around.”

  “Come on, John,” Tank groaned. “You gonna let this kid talk like that to you in front of your men? He's the prisoner, and he's making demands.”

  “If you give me your word you won't hurt us, I will come with you,” I cautiously continued. “Despite our differences, I feel like I can trust your word. But I'm not going to give up my only chance to defend myself against the man who tried to set me up and murder me. I'd rather die here and now, than come along and have Tank make up some story about how I was trying to escape so he had to twist my head off like a chicken.”

  “And what am I supposed to do if you decide to get all brave and try to slice and dice your way out of our friendly little campground?”

  “You've got more than enough firepower to turn us both into Swiss cheese if we try anything stupid,” I laughed. “You want me to come along, those are the terms.”

  “Fine,” John said without hesitation. “This whole thing is boring me half to death anyway. I forgot what a pain in the butt you are. I've still got a big reveal yet to come, unless you've found a way to r
uin that too. Now let's get going.”

  “Are you serious?” Tank looked like he was ready to explode in a fit of rage and kill us all.

  “Xander will sit up front with me,” John said, ignoring the outburst. “Tank and Haki, you bookend his lady friend in the backseat. I'm done with this conversation. Do I make myself clear?”

  There was a dark look that crossed his face with the last sentence like none I'd ever seen before, as if John's true face, his true nature, was shining through. It was scarier than anything Tank had ever shown me. I gulped as acid rose up in my stomach.

  “Yes sir,” Tank acquiesced, his face transforming from outrage to stone.

  “Good,” John said, still not relaxing. “Let's move on to phase two then. And Haki, let's see how fast we can get word out to our riders to call off the search. We could use the reinforcements back at base camp, despite how much I hate having to share close quarters with biker scum. I wanna make sure the handoff goes as smooth as possible.”

  “What handoff?”

  “I thought you'd never ask,” John said, flashing me the most wicked, self-satisfied grin I'd ever seen in my life. “Hop on in and I will tell you all about it.”

  I was expecting John to launch into his grand plan, but he wasn't ready to tell it just yet. We rode in silence toward the Great Hall where Bryan Crowe had once ruled over a religious cult of thousands, not even a year prior. The last time we'd been here the main road had buzzed with craftsmen working, women cooking, and children laughing and playing. Their functioning community thrived on interdependence, hard work, and the pride of self-reliance that comes from being labeled martyrs. They'd been religious zealots, brainwashed by a charismatic leader strung out on happy juice and group chanting, but they'd also been content with the lives they'd chosen, for the most part. Instead, now those happier sounds were replaced with a growing chorus of hungry moans from the starving masses of zombies tethered to the trees by unyielding metal chains. The closer we got, the more of them there were. I tried to see if I could recognize any of them from my last trip to the promised land of Ojai, but I couldn't make out any familiar faces.

  I turned and looked behind me to see Felicity wedged between Tank and Haki. I gave her a grim smile and she returned it with a blank stare of disbelief. Things weren't looking all that great. I had to agree with her there.

  This hasn't been the kind of day I'd expected, I thought. So far we've seen zombie clowns, resurrected neo-Nazis, and ninjas. I'm not looking forward to what comes next.

  “You're going to love what I've got to show you,” John merrily told me, making me jerk my head in his direction like he'd just read my thoughts. He was back to his easygoing casual self, the early rage he'd shown us safely tucked away again.

  “I can't wait,” I sarcastically remarked, trying to keep from freaking out. Inside, I kept wondering how far Felicity and I would make it into the woods before they started shooting if we were to jump from the moving vehicle.

  “You say that now,” John laughed, “but you just wait. If you thought Tank was a surprise, your mind’s just gonna explode when you see what's next.”

  “What's with the zombie army, John?” I asked, ignoring his jovial taunt. He looked like I'd sucker punched him for a minute.

  “You noticed that, huh?” John winked at me. “I'll tell you what – that was no easy task getting them all rounded up and placed like that. You have no idea how difficult it was. Plus, we lost three guys in the process of turning them. You gotta really pay attention when you're making zombies. One small distraction and the zom's got your fingers for a tasty snack, just chomping away. Then all that's left to do is wait to turn. God, can you imagine? I guess you can. From what I hear through the grapevine you weren't much different than Tank at one point after we parted ways, except for maybe you didn't get bit all to hell and have your eye eaten out of your skull while you were still alive. He's still pretty pissed off about it too, in case you didn't notice.”

  “How could you do that to all these innocent people?”

  “Innocent?” He cried out indignantly. “You know they kept zombie pits up in the hills where they made human sacrifices during the full moon, right? Besides, most of them were already walking around like zombies anyway, spouting all this religious mumbo jumbo and praising their great leader, a first class con artist with a sweet tooth for underage girls. You ask me, did I do these people a favor putting them out of their misery?”

  “How are they out of their misery? You chained them to the damn trees!”

  “I'm not gonna let you ruin it for me,” he said, shaking his head. “Not this time!”

  We pulled up the dirt drive toward the Great Hall. There were armed men in every direction I looked. They'd cleared a section near the outdoor dining tables and set up a base camp of tents, like a military installation or an open-air prison. John pulled up and parked right in front of the main entrance to the building.

  “Let's try this one more time. Xander, you are my guest,” John began. “I expect you to behave like a guest. If you get hostile with me or my men, if you try to interfere or escape, then I'm going to lose my temper and start cutting pieces off your pretty friend back there and feeding 'em to the royal zoms. Are we clear?”

  “Yes,” I said without hesitation.

  “Good,” John said, looking slightly relieved. “Sorry to be so short with you, but it had to be done. Now, on to your next round of reintroductions.”

  “Who are the royal zoms?” I asked, almost not wanting to know the answer. “Can you tell me that at least?”

  “I'll do you one better,” John grinned. “I'll let you see them in the rotting flesh.”

  I got out of the Jeep and waited for Felicity to make her way out from between her terrifying escorts. She scurried across the flattened seat and into my arms. I held her tight, and she squeezed so hard the air in my lungs rushed out.

  “What are we going to do, Xander?” she whispered in my ear. “They'll kill us both.”

  “I don't know,” I admitted. “For now we've got to go along with whatever this is. What other choice do we have?”

  “You coming or what?”

  John stood holding the front door open.

  “Yeah,” I said, pulling away from Felicity and taking her hand. “We're right behind you.”

  “Ladies first,” John sweet-talked as he showed the way. Tank smiled.

  When we walked in I expected to find something terrible, like a guy with a chainsaw waiting to cut us in half – or a full on torture chamber. What I didn't expect was that so little would have changed. The walls were still painted with depictions from the Bible. There was a man chained onto the throne wearing a plastic crown, like something a child would wear at a birthday party. By his side, chained to the wall, was a small woman with glossy black, matted hair. As we approached, he lifted his head and let loose a hungry roar that filled the room with a rotten stench. His consort lunged out at us, her arms outstretched with her twisted, bloody fingers scratched down to the bone in places. She stopped just short of us, the chain around her waist going taut as she snapped her gray, splintered teeth mere inches from our shocked faces. From behind us, I heard John laughing like someone had just told the funniest joke of all time. My heart beat in my chest so hard it hurt. I could taste my sudden fear, like I'd been sucking on a handful of warm, freshly washed pennies.

  “Careful now,” John cooed. “You don't wanna get on the wrong side of the Lord. You do recognize him, don't you?”

  “It's Bryan Crowe,” Felicity said in a small voice, “and his Alpha wife, Rowena.”

  “We didn't think it was right that he had so many wives,” John interrupted, walking forward and using the muzzle of his handgun to push her snapping head back. “She was the most devoted of all his child brides, the one most willing to sacrifice herself for him. We thought it would be a shame to separate them. After all, we're not animals.”

  Tank roared with laughter as Felicity turned and shot John a dirty
look. I just shook my head. Bryan Crowe had finally gotten what he deserved, so why didn't I feel better about it?

  “My new friends helped us broker a peace deal with the Unity Gang. After that, overrunning the barricades down past Santa Barbara was a piece of cake. Let's just say those Golden Dawn dudes never saw it coming. It was a slaughter! And just like that we rolled into the Promised Land, hallelujah!”

  “Praise the Lord!” Tank said, looking up and shaking his hands high in mock faith.

  “Me and the King here didn't quite see eye to eye,” John said. “No offense, Tank.”

  “None taken, your majesty.”

  “So you turned him and all his people into zombies?” I asked.

  “That is an abbreviated version of events,” John sighed. “But I suppose it's factually correct. I tried bribing him at first. I thought he'd see how hopeless fighting us would be and that the instinct to save his own skin would override his devotion to his cult.”

  “What did you offer him?” Felicity asked.

  “Protection,” John explained. “For him and all his wives. He'd be relocated of course, so he wouldn't have to stick around and watch us go to work, but he'd be given blocks of his own prime real estate up north of Lompoc. It was a pretty sweet deal by anyone's standards, especially considering the alternative.”

  “You tried to bribe him into letting you kill all his followers? You honestly thought that would work?” I couldn't help myself. It just seemed so ludicrous.

  “Pretty much,” John agreed. “I figured a guy as egotistical and power hungry as Bryan would be willing to sell out his own mother to save his own backside. Why wouldn't he sell out a few loyal followers in the process and get set up for the rest of his life by the most powerful warlord on the West Coast? I honestly thought he'd appreciate my direct approach.”