Prequel to Summit The Zombie Hunter Series
Coming to Hellfire Publishing in 2012
Prequel- Zombies for Christmas
First installment- New World Order, Coming soon
Second Installment- The World Must End, Coming soon
Zombies for Christmas
By Keira Kroft
Part 3
Having to be strong for Mia, Raven started singing Christmas carols, prompting Bailey and Summit to join in to keep the little girl as calm as possible. The one thing worse than death itself, is knowing that it’s coming. Raven sucked back her tears and continued to sing as Mia joined in.
We wish you a merry Christmas,
We wish you a merry Christmas,
We wish you a merry Christmas and happy new…
“I think we are angering them,” Bailey shook. “What do we do?”
The snarling was getting a little annoying. Ewwww, they were so disgusting and when you were in a room full of them, it reeked…like spoiled hamburger.
“We hit them.” Summit placed his hands up, slowly closing them into fists.
“I need a Hershey’s.” Raven said slugging as many zombies as she could hit at a time. She just needed a little breathing room, so that her friends could buy enough time to find something to smash their heads in, with.
“You would say that! Not, that you are going to die before you cured cancer, or that I or my child could die. But that you died without having a damn candy bar.” Bailey laughed. “Only you would think of chocolate at this time!”
“Not just any chocolate, only Hershey’s for me I’m afraid.” Raven sighed. “And of course I am thinking about that, there are a couple pounds of it under the tree at home.”
Baily held Mia, close. “There is going to be an opening and when there is you run, you run like hell. You hear me?”
“Yes Mommy.” Mia held on even tighter.
“Are you broads really talkin’ about sweets?” Summit said, while the undead was pawing and snarling at him.
Raven and Bailey glared at each other, “What the hell happened to your accent?”
“Oh, I am from Chicago, I don’t really have an English accent.”
Baily shot Raven a look, but she couldn’t deal with this Summit guys craziness right now. She waved off her friend.
Summit fought his way through the mob of Zombies and found there was a small clearing.
“Okay Mia. Now…run.” Bailey instructed.
The little girl was shaking, clearly frightened. She managed to make it outside, with Summits help.
“You hide under the porch and we will be right out for you,” Summit said.
“Wow so we can hit’ em?” Bailey asked, observing Raven and Summit, fending of the rotting demons.
“Uhhhh-yah.” Raven knew her eyes were getting big, like saucers as they did whenever she was being sarcastic. She could hear her mother calling her fish eyes. That woman loved the insults.
“Bailey maybe you shouldn’t hurt yourself,” Summit said, taking down two creatures at a time. “I can see Raven doing it she is a big girl, but you’re a tiny thing, with a kid.”
“Hey, I am not that big” Raven said socking him in the arm, they were in dangerous situation but she couldn’t help herself.
Baily and Raven laughed. “I learned how to box from a Billy Blanks video. Baily is a black belt.”
“Okay, then, we can use all the help we can get,” Summit said.
Bailey kicked a zombie right between the eyes, a piece of flesh still between her toes. “Oh you like that, don’t you little zombie? You want another?” She jammed her for foot into its head while it squirmed on the ground.
A strange man came running into Bailey’s house with a bat and started smashing all the zombie heads he could find.
“It’s about fuckin’ time, you got here Schmitty,” Summit griped.
“I was stuck in traffic, give me a break,” the stranger laughed. He was shirtless and had the body of a Greek god, bronze and muscular, but he was about fifty, with a salt and pepper handlebar mustache and bushy grey hair.
Ravens heart pounded, they were alive. They were alive! Her insides shouted!
“Baily—get Mia I will catch up with you.” Raven hugged her best friend quickly, she had to go.
“Where are you going?” the stranger asked.
"Please don’t go,” Summit pleaded, a loose brown curl fell in front of one of his crystal blue eyes.
“I have to get my cat. We ran over here so fast I didn’t have a chance to get him.”
“You stay with Schmitty, I trust him. I will get your cat.” He seemed sincere.
“I am capable of getting my own cat,” Raven snapped. “Besides, I don’t know…Schmitty.” Raven glared at him. Now she had not one, but two strange men invading her life. This was too much.
To her surprise Summit hugged her. He was so tender about it. “Sweetie you can’t see them again, even if it was safe.”
Raven’s knees felt weak. Not because of Summit, but because he reminded her that her family was gone. After she somehow managed to keep them from her mind, Raven laid down, filled with anguish, the pain of losing her family, her whole family was too much to bear.
*****
Summit climbed through the broken window of Raven’s house. Her family was eating something. They seemed busy and where enjoying themselves, like pigs at the trough. He tore under their family Christmas tree, looking for that damn giant candy bar. He had the large square package, he opened it to be sure, but it was just a card. A ridiculously sized, wrapped card. He tossed it down. It wasn’t what Summit thought it was, it was a music box. When it hit the floor, it played a rather loud tune, attracting the hungry foe. Damn, I haven’t found what I came for yet.
He slammed his foot down on the tree holder and ripped the tree out. One by one, as almost a choreographed dance, he stuck the tree trunk in the temples of each one of her Raven’s family members and pulled it out again. He kept moving onto the next, until they were all dead for good this time…he hoped.
Summit didn’t really know Raven, but he felt remorse for killing off her kin.
Loud banging came from the back door. “Raven? Raven is that you?” The banging continued…damn, there are more shitheads coming. Summit lolled down, what he came for was right there, no gift wrap, nothing. When he took the tree apart, it must have moved whatever was on top of it. He picked up the 10lb chocolate bar, climbed out the window and went under the porch to pick up the cat.
A funny feeling spread through his heart. At that moment he didn’t care about his own life, only pleasing her.
*****
She could see Summit approaching Bailey’s porch, his face twisted in a frown. He looked, really sad, like something unimaginable happened. What could be more unimaginable than this? “Catman,” Raven shouted, feeling relieved to know that one family member remained. “Thank you, thank you so much,” she said, scooping up her cat from Summits arms.
“Okay you take the cat and I will carry this,” Summit grinned.
Raven thought her heart stopped. “You got that for me?” She almost thought she was going to cry, but happy or not she didn’t have any tears left.
He seemed almost like he turned to stone. “I didn’t get it for you. We need food,” he snapped. “This is the end of the world, not date night at the drive-in.”
“Oh.” Raven had that old familiar feeling of being alone.
Baily and Mia hugged her tightly. “He did get it for you…know that.” Bailey whispered in Ravens ear reminding her that she was never alone. Bailey was her best friend since she moved there from Kentucky over twenty-five years ago. She’d been there for Raven when she lost her loves and the pain of medical school and all those times she cried, because her mother’s words cut her so deep.
Summit held out the oversized candy bar. “Here, you need to eat something because, I need you.”
Raven flowed into Spanish. She thumped the heel of her hand on her head, repeatedly. Then handed Catman to Schmitty and ripped the food from Summits hand. She remained frustrated and angry, while Bailey and the strange men argued. Finally after a few deep breaths, Raven felt her blood pressure come down a bit. “Okay, now what’s the argument about?” Raven sat down on Bailey’s porch, tearing open a corner of the foil wrap and took a piece of candy.
“Summit needs you to go to the hospital with him. He says he needs you for something and Schmitty is going to take me and Mia somewhere safe.”
“Yeah, I am okay with that, I love you Bailey. You are my best friend and I want you and that precious little girl, safe.” Not like her family. She said, popping another piece of chocolate in her mouth.
“I figured you would say that. But it’s too dark outside.” Bailey subconsciously pulled her daughter closer to her, rubbing the little girls long brown hair.
“Oh yeah kid, it’s too hard to fight zombies at night.” Raven said with a mouth full of chocolate.
“I don’t know of anywhere around here to keep you girl’s safe,” Schmitty said. Summit just stood there quiet with his arms folded.
“I got somewhere. It’s not a permanent solution, but we would be okay for a while, maybe even a few months. Do you remember when I was about 11—my Godfather obsession?”
“Oh my god, yes, yes I do,” Bailey started snorting. “You kept making everyone an offer they couldn’t refuse.” Bailey stopped laughing. “Oh man, is it still there, the secret place?” Bailey was doing her best to contain a smile.
“It gets even better, my mom was paranoid.” Raven squealed with delight.
Summit interest seemed peaked, “you mean like a panic room?”
“No more like an underground panic mansion.”
“Well let’s go,” Schmitty smiled.
“There is a downside though.” Raven hung her head, tears rolled from her eyes. “We have to go into my Papi’s study and push a book in the book case in order for it to open.”
“Oh that’s okay,” Summit said. “We will figure out something else, it’s probably dusty and dangerous, with no food or water, anyway.” He rubbed Raven’s shoulder.
“No it’s just the opposite. Trust me it’s so worth going in that house.”
Schmitty looked around as darkness closed in on them. “We really don’t have a choice.”
“Come on, there is electricity, hot water, the whole shebang.”
“Leave it to the rich to be able to survive a zombie apocalypse,” Summit teased.
“Mia come on.” Raven placed her hand put for the tot to come by her. Mia ran right to Ravens side without saying a word. This was the quietest the child had ever been. She must have been scared half to death.
When they reached the front of Raven’s house, she let go of the little girl’s hand. Raven couldn’t do it. “The Great Gatsby, it’s big and green, you can’t miss it, push on it and it will open the bookcase.” Raven stepped back with every word she spoke, shaking her head. She couldn’t see them again, she couldn’t.
“Raven please,” Bailey, begged. “If not for yourself then for Mia’s sake, please.” Bailey’s eyes flooded with tears. Summit picked up Mia and headed in.
“Go Bailey. Be with your daughter.” Raven hugged her, “I love you.”
Bailey tore away, sobbing.
I give up, I can’t do this anymore, they were my family. Raven went back to Bailey’s porch to get her chocolate bar. She needed comfort. Her favorite treat always did the trick. She placed her hand on the giant bar and felt it being pulled away and heard those familiar sounds.
“I can’t believe you rich people,” Summit said from behind her. “There is even a filled litter box, satin pillow and trough of cat food down there, for the darn cat.” He scooped up Raven in his arms, in the nick of time. She was about to be someone else’s candy bar. “Cover your eyes, baby. I got you, you don’t have to see them, I promise you.”
She clung to him and kept her eyes shut, until Summit set her down on the marble floor of the underground dwelling. “Did you stock this place?” Summit laughed.
“No why? Where is everybody?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” he laughed. Baily is giving Mia a bath and Schmitty found the home theatre.
“Cool, did you close the book case tight, Summit?”
“Of course.”
“Are you sure it’s a little tricky.”
“I got it, relax and have a candy bar,” he said, showing her a pantry with what had to be like a thousand Hershey bars. “Either they loved you or were planning to keep you down here,” Summit teased.
“Keep me down here is more like it.” Raven took a candy bar and showed Summit the kitchen. “Help yourself; I know the fridge is full. You want something to eat?” he asked examining the contents of the overstocked fridge. “I am a master scrambled egg maker.”
“I would love some.”
He removed the eggs from the fridge and all the other contents he needed in one smooth, almost choreographed, dance. Raven shoved a piece of chocolate in her mouth and stood next to Summit.
“Thank you. You know you’re like hero right?” Raven examined his cool eyes, wanting to be lost in them and those lips, she needed those lips. “Why do you care so much, Summit? But most of all since I want to kiss you so bad right now, I have to ask, why are you such a pig headed jackass?”
He stopped whipping the eggs, placing both his hands on her shoulders. “Because it was me and I am all over the place, right now with guilt.
“What, was you?”
“I caused the apocalypse; I am responsible for your family’s death.”
Raven pulled away. Pain flashed in Summits eyes, kind of like the pain that was penetrating her heart.
“First thing in the morning, Summit…I want you gone.”
Tomorrow on “Zombies for Christmas”
There will be sex, lots and lots of sex and someone will die...
If you enjoyed this story you may like Keira Kroft’s other works
Glow in the Dark
http://www.decadentpublishing.com/
Bad Moon Rising Over Oz
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/66466
Coming soon, Inamorata
Everyone that comments will get a free download of Bad Moon Rising Over Oz the horror take on the classic tale, Wizard of Oz and one lucky commenter will also win a free EBook of the smok’in hot romantic suspense novel, Glow in the Dark.
Hugs,
Keira Kroft
http://www.keirakroft.com/
www.keirakroft66.blogspot.com
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