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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Molly: Immersion

  Zombie Instinct, book 2

  Copyright © 2018 by J.B. Havens

  All rights reserved. Published by Muddy Boots Press.

  www.MuddyBootsPress.com

  Edited by Aurora Dewater

  Cover art designed by DesignBetiBup

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  Works available from Muddy Boots Press

  Molly: The Beginning by J.B. Havens ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B07B9JFNXY

  Green Sunday by Ryk Brink ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZYTG4HK

  The Easytown Novels by Brian Parker

  The Immorality Clause ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B01HWOH1VC

  Tears of a Clone ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B01NBDUZSH

  West End Droids & East End Dames ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B07436C21L

  High Tech/Low Life: An Easytown Anthology ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B0787D6ZY6

  La Miseria di Bianco by Steve Woods ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B00YQCR2OA

  The Path of Ashes by Brian Parker

  A Path of Ashes ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B00XATPU9E

  Fireside ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B015ONZOU8

  Dark Embers ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B01CPSAI1A

  A Note from the Author

  This book was a challenge to write. Not saying that they aren’t all difficult, but certain parts of this book shredded me emotionally. Molly Everett is becoming an anti-hero and like all hero’s, their creation stories are brutal. I’m not going to put a ‘trigger warning’ on here, but consider this more of a heads up.

  Brian, thanks for letting me use your name for a character. I’ll try not to kill him off, but no promises.

  Sam, Kelle, Jess, and Jules, as always, thank you. You’re my sounding board and cheering squad and I don’t know what I’d do without you.

  Casey, this one’s for you. You love Molly as much, if not more, than I do. Hope you like it and don’t hate me for what happens to her. It’s not my fault!

  To my husband and kids, you guys are the best. Love ya.

  Chapter One

  The smell was overpowering. Thick and viscous, sweet and cloying; it clung to every inch of her skin and hair. Rotting flesh and congealed blood coated her body and those around her. Her following, her horde of dead, her children. It didn’t matter that some were falling apart or missing limbs, she cared for them just the same. The stench was a part of them and therefore a part of her. They were hers and she was theirs. She could feel their minds, the spark that animated them. The virus inside all of them spoke to her. More than a radio signal and less than speech, it had no words and no images. It was just the tugging of a thousand strings pulling each of them to her. She was at the center of an intricate web.

  Kelle stood among her horde, hiding in a barn. The newly risen sun shone through cracks in the old barn’s walls. The daylight burned like fire, even the weak early light of the winter dawn was like a blowtorch to her eyes. A beam touched her bare arm, the grey skin instantly burning and itching from the touch of light.

  “Move!” Shouting wasn’t necessary, but some habits were hard to break. Quicker than speaking, the more she did it the easier it became. With her thoughts, she pictured in her mind what she wanted them to do. She needed a circle, with her in the middle so their bodies would block the light from touching her. The direct sunlight would affect them, but the care of her horde didn’t extend that far. They were tools and while she appreciated their usefulness, they were still just tools that could be replaced.

  That was one advantage of the lab: not an ounce of daylight to worry about. It was just cold steel and the dead—a high tech tomb. After Molly locked her inside, she took the time to explore and had freed the first of her horde from their cages. She’d found Molly’s room also; saw the bodies, what was left of them anyway—smelled the blood.

  She’d been in her cell, the sweet taste of her meal still lingering on her tongue when looking down she saw the skin of her arms beginning to ripple, heralding searing agony racing through her muscles. Screaming in fear and pain, she fell to the floor on her hands and knees. Her back arched and joints popped as her body transformed. Her clothes ripped and fell to the floor, her arms and legs now too big for the small garments. Her shoulders jerked forward, forcing another scream from her throat as the muscles and tendons shredded apart before rebuilding. Her legs collapsed under her and she fell flat on her face. No longer able to scream, she moaned as her body continued to spasm and twitch as it finished changing with pops and snaps. A black wave of exhaustion pulled her under, her eyes shut, and refused to reopen.

  When she awoke, she was back on the table with new clothing.

  “The hell?” she croaked, her throat raw and sore. Lifting a trembling hand, she wiped the back of it across her dry lips.

  “Please try to remain calm. You’ve gone through a transformation and need to rest.”

  Her mind was fuzzy and disorientated. It seemed as if the room spun around her. Sitting up only made it worse, but after a moment she swung her heavy legs over the side of the bed.

  “Let me out of here.” She stared at the camera in the corner, the blinking light seeming to mock her distress. Anger tightened her grip on the edge of the table until her heard the metal groan. Glancing down, she saw near perfect imprints of her hands in the bed. She wondered just how strong she was after the change.

  Standing slowly and letting the dizziness pass, she walked to the door and pressed her hands against the smooth metal surface. Making a fist, she punched the metal lightly and a dent appeared.

  “Get back on the table. Now!” the voice above her commanded.

  “Yeah, about that.” She punched harder, the dent went deeper still. The small window in the top middle of the door broke easily. Cuts appeared in her flesh and then vanished just as quickly. Testing herself, she kept beating on the door harder until the metal screamed and bent inward. She stepped back a few feet and eyed the door. The hinges and latch were the weakest points. Aiming for the edge of the doorframe, she got a running start and used her body as a battering ram. The door bent further outward. She ran at it again, this time creating a gap in the frame that allowed her to see the hallway outside. Two more hits and the door broke off the hinges and hung sideways. Shoving it aside, she climbed over the remains of the door and into the hallway.

  There was a guard there, standing immobile in shock. His rifle hung useless from a strap on his chest. Catching a whiff of him, she smiled and lunged. He reacted too slowly for her incredible speed; his attempts to bring up his weapon were useless. Her arms snaked around his neck and her knees slammed into his chest, causing him to tumble backward. Kelle rode him to the floor, tearing into the man’s throat on the way down. She ripped off his helmet, tossing it aside, and bit so deep into his neck that she gagged on the spurt of blood.

  The flavor was amazing. His flesh tasted better than any meal she’d ever eaten as a human. His screams died quickly and she fed until she couldn’t eat anymore. His body lay in pieces at her feet and she wore a dress of blood and gore.

  The alarms wailed, the red and white flashing lights burning her eyes. Shielding her eyes, she looked at the floor and followed the hallway to the right where the smell of blood was coming from.

  The blood trail she followed had cooled and was slippery under her bare feet. Every step added to the tracks already left by that bitch, Molly. Her mind felt strange, like i
t wasn’t her own. There was an invader. She could feel it swimming through her body, changing things—the same way she’d changed after they’d wheeled a cart full of meat into her room. Her muscles rippled and stretched with every movement. Stepping over the remains of a nurse, Kelle looked through the fist-sized hole in the glass and discovered the twisted body of the doctor. He was the same one who’d spoken to her. Or tried to anyhow. Something was missing from inside her, she felt wrong, as if she was someone else. There was enough left of her own mind that she wanted to find out why. Seeing the ID badge clipped on the doctor’s pocket, she knew it would get her out of here. The hole in the glass was too small to fit through, but that was dealt with easily.

  Smashing it open with her fists only took a few minutes, the cuts she received from the sharp edges healed in seconds, before she even had a chance to feel it. Climbing through the glass, she dropped down next to the doctor’s corpse, landing in a crouch with terrifying feline grace.

  “I’ll take that.” Grabbing the badge and patting his cheek, his cool skin was still soft and pliable under her touch. “You really screwed the pooch this time, didn’t you, Doc?” Kelle chuckled to herself.

  Stretching her arms over her head, she groaned with pleasure at the feel of the strength she now possessed. “I’m really starting to like this new me. Feels so good.” She ran her hands down her body, smearing the blood all over her skin, enjoying the slickness of it along her body. It felt so amazing it was borderline erotic.

  Skipping down the hallway, she found a line of cages full of zombies. They called out, reaching for her. Using the keycard she opened doors as she went, the zombies inside immediately followed her. She could feel them in her head, squirming around and bumping together. Commanding them came naturally, there was no learning curve. She thought it and they did it. Easy as pie.

  A set of wide double doors ahead had a sign that read ‘Authorized Personnel Only’. “Bingo, my friends.” Talking to the dead horde behind her felt as natural as talking to herself. In a way it was the same. They shared a mind, her mind. She could feel that now. Every minute she was near them, the closer they became. “Stay here, my pets. This is for Mommy’s eyes only.”

  Tapping the key card on the scanner near the door, a loud metallic click sounded and she pushed the doors open with a flourish. Florescent lights turned on with the opening of the door. Shielding her eyes with one hand she slapped at the wall with the other until she found the switch, blessed darkness was a cool relief to her burning eyes. The smell was the first thing to greet her, not the sweet, ripe smell that accompanied a beating heart but a nasty rancid odor of chemicals and rotting meat.

  “Well, well, well, Doc. You were a baadd boy.” Gurneys with sheet-draped corpses were in a long neat row. A quick count revealed seven in total. “Let’s see what’s behind door number one!”

  Flipping the sheet off the first table, Kelle found the body of a small boy, twelve or thirteen maybe. His left leg was missing from mid-thigh down, the wound ragged and torn. No doubt the cause of death. The doc had opened the chest cavity and removed all the organs. She didn’t know a lot about anatomy but there should be something in there at least. Leaning closer she gagged at the sharp chemical smell that preserved his little body. His face looked strange, smushed and half formed, like someone pushed on the clay before it was dry. Kelle felt his face, squishing and shifting the skin around as if he was wearing a mask. Tracing her fingers into his hair she felt the incision then. Catching the edge, she pulled forward, the boy’s face folded down and exposed what was left of his skull. The doctor had cut off the top of his skull and the brain was missing.

  “Eww. Come on, dude. What the hell? Waste of perfectly good brains here!”

  Each corpse she looked at was the same. Hollowed out chest and bellies, empty brain buckets. Only three remained. “One, two, three!” she sang, ripping the sheets off them one at a time.

  “Hello, Mother. Hello, Father. Hello, Brother. Here I am…at camp…” Shrugging and giving up on the song, she stared at the empty bodies of her parents and brother. The doc brought them here from the store. Each had a neat bullet wound to the forehead. She knew she should feel something, anger or sadness maybe, but the emotions she did feel felt far away and fuzzy. Like a radio that needed to be tuned, she could sort of hear the song, but it was distorted.

  Leaving the bodies behind, she made her way over to a long bank of computers. In all the confusion, some idiot had left his on. Sitting down, she saw file after file, some with videos and some just reports. One of the videos showed the doctor and a few assistants slowly dissecting a live zombie, their monologue stating their purpose of discovering an alternative to brain trauma for killing them. They were unsuccessful.

  One video file caught her eye. It was labeled, ‘Alphas Transformation’. Clicking on it, she sat back to watch.

  The screen showed the back room of the grocery store, Molly opened the cooler and her undead family burst free and attacked. She relived it in her mind as she watched. She felt the sharpness of their teeth, the searing pain as her mother and brother tore her apart. She saw herself die.

  “This is fucking weird as hell.” Shuddering she moved to close the file, but what she saw on the screen froze her in place. Her family stopped feeding and stood. They put their backs to the door as if they were guarding their now dead victims. “Why did they stop?”

  The doctor had made audio notes on the video file. His voice was loud in the otherwise silent room. Apparently sometimes the dead do speak.

  “The behavior we see here is consistent with the other Alpha subjects we have observed in the field. The attacking zombies seem to sense their queen’s transformation. They stop feeding before the point where the Alphas would be unable to turn. Often they guard the queen until the subject has risen and the transformation is complete. In the field, the attackers often bring food to their queens, no doubt to assist in completing the extreme physical changes we have observed with the two Alphas in our custody. I believe now, without a doubt, these new infected undead operate on a hive mind basis. The queen controls the workers and the workers protect the queen.”

  Men in black combat gear burst onto the screen, three shots rapidly flashed and the undead version of her family fell. Quickly and efficiently they laid out body bags and hauled all five of them out of the store.

  The video ended and Kelle clicked on the newest file, which was a report. Reading quickly she was amazed by what she learned. Words and phrases flashed in her mind as she read. DNA marker… Predisposed to violence… Virus mutation. Something in her DNA made it possible for her to become what she was.

  Snapping back to the present, she laid down on the barn’s dirty wooden floor. Curling up like the child she used to be, she didn’t so much fall asleep as stop being awake. She had no fear of being killed in her sleep, her children would protect her.

  Chapter Two

  The wind blew tiny crystals of snow and ice into my face. If I were still human, I’d never survive out in this mess. Heedless of which direction I traveled, my only goal was getting as far from that damn house as possible. After that business with Ethan, I felt certain that my humanity was gone. It was something I would have to learn to live with. I tried not to think about what I’d done, the guilt of it would destroy me.

  When I fed, Molly Everett disappeared and I turned into a monster. Just one taste and the virus, the evil that made me different, took over.

  The initial surge of power after I’d killed—no, murdered—Ethan faded as quickly as it had arrived. The thought of any more violence sickened me to my core. I couldn’t face Kelle, or anyone, right now. I wanted to disappear, to let the world swallow me whole, and my sins along with me.

  I was an abomination.

  Shaking loose my self-disgust, I pulled my backpack straps tighter and keeping my thumbs hooked in them, I trudged through the snow that was over my knees. I was high-stepping like a Nazi just to get through the drifts. My goal was the trees
ahead. At least in the cover of the forest, the wind would be less direct and the going easier. I did my best to empty my mind, to forget about everything for a moment and just walk. My only focus soon became simply putting one foot in front of the other. Time seemed to slip away and soon the snow subsided as dawn arrived.

  I’d have to find shelter soon, my eyes were already beginning to water and itch, even with the sunglasses I wore.

  The trees ahead thinned and opened out onto a road. I had no clue which one, but even covered in snow it was obviously a two-lane black top. Shading my eyes, I looked in both directions. There wasn’t so much as a deer track marring the perfect white blanket in either direction. I backed up into the trees and continued on, keeping the road to my left shoulder. I was sure I was alone, but I didn’t want to advertise my presence either.

  Maybe fifteen more minutes of walking brought me to the outskirts of a town. The tree line ended and I was forced to leave the shelter of the woods. Deep silence surrounded me. Even with my heightened hearing, I couldn’t detect anything. Not even a bird chirping. I entered the town, following the curve of the road. Tracks crisscrossed the street. I couldn’t tell whether there were from zombies or humans—and I didn’t really care. I needed to find shelter and hide from the sun. And then, I’d be off again as soon as it set.

  Taking a left at an intersection, I avoided the main street which was lined with shops and big homes. I didn’t want to risk running into anyone, alive or dead. I was starting to lag, exhaustion beginning to slow me down. The sun was sapping my strength.

  I walked deeper into the town, looking for a house secluded away from any others. “Come on, dammit. I just want to sleep the day off,” I muttered to myself. My voice sounded strange to my ears among the deep quiet. Walking in the open, surrounded on all sides by snow, was similar to being inside a pillow. Everything was muffled and distant.