Beyond Rainbows: A Zombie Novel

  L.C. Mortimer

  Published by L.C. Mortimer, 2021.

  Copyright: L.C. Mortimer

  Copyright 2021

  Publisher: Amazon Kindle

  The right of L. C. Mortimer to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  Also by L.C. Mortimer

  Enchanted Academy

  The Wolf

  The Fairy

  The Hook

  Enchanted Academy Box Set: The Complete Collection Books 1-4

  The Beauty

  Which Village

  A Hex A Day

  Standalone

  Swords of Darkness

  Just Another Day in the Zombie Apocalypse: Episode 1

  The Lost Fallen

  Outbreak: A Zombie Novel

  Shifter Falls Academy: Year Two

  Beyond Rainbows: A Zombie Novel

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also By L.C. Mortimer

  Beyond Rainbows: A Zombie Novel

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  Books

  Author

  Hybrid Academy: Year One

  Sign up for L.C. Mortimer's Mailing List

  Further Reading: Outbreak: A Zombie Novel

  Also By L.C. Mortimer

  For K.T.

  The end of the world came and went, and with it, our hope died.

  Tiffany Erickson is nobody special.

  She's just an ordinary person trying to live an ordinary life, but that's nearly impossible when you live in a world ravaged by the undead. She roams through the free realms, hiding and living in the shadows of the impossible cities, until one day, everything changes.

  A lost child.

  An unimaginable note.

  A plea for help.

  Tiffany has a choice to make, but no matter what she chooses, she's about to discover that she can no longer stay hidden in the shadows as the world rots away.

  She has to fight, but it could cost her everything.

  1

  MY MOM ALWAYS TOLD me that if the end of the world ever came, it would be too late.

  She was right.

  By the time people realized what was happening, it was too late to take action. Pulling your kids out of school after they’d already been infected just spread the virus faster. Running to a nearby farm after everyone had already been bit did nothing. Scurrying to a hospital once you realized your fever was just a little too high was futile.

  And so, the world ended.

  Twelve years, three months, and eight days after the first reports of a “zombie-like” virus, I was still alive, but barely. I had a backpack, I had a shelter, and I had a knife that had saved me more times than I cared to count. I wasn’t a fan of guns, mostly because they were hard to acquire and difficult to keep loaded. Besides all of that, they were loud.

  I survived with the knife.

  It was good enough for me.

  I spent most of my time just trying to find a purpose. When your life is normal, you think that finding a purpose means something like choosing the right career path or picking the right college. I was 25 going on 50, and I had finally realized that some things were more important than how you made money. Sometimes life needed to be about joy.

  So, I’d gotten a couple of books.

  To be clear, I’d pilfered them from an abandoned bookstore just outside of Kansas City. As a general rule, I stayed outside of the cities. There was nothing left in them now that I needed to be a part of. I’d also managed to get myself a couple of pencils and a sketchpad, and I spent a lot of time drawing.

  A lot.

  “What are you working on today?” Gregory the Orthodontist looked over at me. He peered at the sketchpad and pushed his wire glasses up the bridge of his nose just a little.

  “It’s a drawing of a library,” I told him.

  “You’re getting better,” Gregory commented.

  “Thanks. What about you?”

  “Am I getting better at drawing?” Gregory laughed and shook his head, and then he turned back to his book.

  Gregory always said he wasn’t much of an artist, but before the world ended, he’d been a hell of an orthodontist. That was what Gregory missed most about the normal world, he told me. He liked fixing smiles and helping people feel good about themselves.

  Now he felt like his talent was wasted. I didn’t feel that way, and neither did Kendra, but Gregory did. His entire life before the infection had involved helping people in a very hands-on way. Now he mostly read books and tried not to die.

  I kept trying to find ways to make him feel better, but it was hard. Gregory was only 45 now. He felt like that was ancient. Kendra laughed at both of us when we said things like that.

  She was 52.

  Together, the three of us made up a weird little group, but we kept each other safe, and we looked after each other all of the time. Gregory was the planner, and Kendra was the mother of the group, and I was the one responsible for finding us food.

  It was a big job, but I was happy to do it. Collecting food and keeping our group safe was a hell of a job, and it kept me too busy to spend much time thinking about my mom. It kept me from thinking about how much I’d lost.

  Losing my family was the worst part about the apocalypse.

  Just when you think you’re doing okay, something happens to let you know that you’re not. For me, it was always the mundane things that brought back sad memories. Cooking dinner had been more fun when my mother was there to laugh and help me through it. Washing dishes didn’t seem so bad when I had my little dog by my side.

  This thing, though, this chaos in the universe...it seemed about a million times harder now that I was on my own. I had Gregory and Kendra, and they were wonderful, but sometimes, when I was brave enough to admit it to myself, I needed something else. I needed a purpose.

  THE SOUND OF CRYING woke us all up at once. The treehouse that I lived in with my companions was elevated: carefully planned to keep us out of harm’s way. It was about 15 feet off the ground, which seemed pretty high when you thought about being a human who might fall and break their arm, but not so high when you thought about zombies trying to jump up and get you.

  I sat up.

  “What was that?” Gregory flicked on the electric lantern. It cast a little glow throughout the tiny treehouse. Our three sleeping bags were carefully arranged in different corners so that we each had some personal space. The lantern was in the center.

  “It was a child,” Kendra said. I saw the look on her face when she said it. Kendra was a childless mother. That’s what she always called herself. She’d had two kids once upon a time, but they had both died when the infection started. Now she looked pained, struggling to accept that there was a child outside of the treehouse.

  “It could be a trap,” I whispered.

  “Some things are worth being tricked over,” Gregory said quickly. He sat up and grabbed his shoes, yanking them on in the dim light. “And a kid is one of them.”

  “He’s right,” Kendra said, and she, too, grabbed her shoes. She pulled them on and reached for her gun. Unlike me, she was comfortable using any weapon necessary to keep us safe.

  I gripped my knife.

  Would I have to use it?

  The cry came again. This time it sounded closer, and it sounded desperate. Someone really was out there, and it definitely sounded like a little kid. What was happening to the child? Were they in danger?

  There were zombies outside.

  The kid was definitely in danger.

  Finally, I steeled myself and I followed the example set by my friends. I slipped into my shoes, pulled my hair back quickly into a ponytail, got my knife, and flipped off the lantern. Gregory opened the trapdoor of the treehouse and started climbing down the ladder. Kendra followed. Then it was my turn. I took a deep breath, and then I descended the ladder of the treehouse and stepped off it into the darkness.

  The cold air hit me, taking my breath away. It was chilly in autumn, even now. The world had changed, and it wasn’t as snowy or frigid as it had been long ago, but the cold air still rushed into my lungs, hurting me.

  I coughed.

  The sound seemed to echo in the night, and I cringed. Were there zombies out here? Were there creatures that might want to attack me? I hoped that there weren’t, but I wasn’t sure.

  Gregory and Kendra were already standing at the ready. Their eyes roamed, looking for the source of the cry. I looked, too, but I didn’t have to wait long.

  It came again: a cry.

  This time, I realized it wasn’t a baby making the noise. I listened again, but then I was certain. This was no infant.

  “It’s a cat,” I whispered.

  “A cat?” Kendra looked at me in disbelief. A mother should know what a baby’s cry sounds like. I knew that was what Kendra

was thinking. I wasn’t a mother, so how could I know?

  That might be true, but I was something else.

  I was a child of the apocalypse, and I knew perfectly well that this wasn’t a baby crying.

  It was a kitten.

  “I swear to dragons, it’s a fucking cat,” I said. “Look low to the ground.”

  Together, the three of us started looking. Our treehouse was at the edge of a small forest. There were three more rows of trees between our treehouse and the edge of the woods. Behind our treehouse, the forest stretched on for miles.

  We’d chosen this location because the open field allowed us to see any enemies or zombies that might be approaching, which meant it was a very safe place. We could retreat back into the forest if we needed to, while if something happened to come from the forest, we could run out into the open field.

  The three of us felt like this covered our bases pretty well.

  Now, however, I found myself frustrated by the trees. I knew there was a cat around here. I knew it. At the base of our treehouse, there were a few twigs and some short grass. Gregory and I kept most of the area cleaned up nicely. We wanted to stay safe and cozy. We didn’t need to be tripping or falling the first time a creature happened to attack.

  Gregory and Kendra spread out a little bit. We didn’t have any flashlights on us right now. We just relied on the stars and the full moon pouring its light down upon us to see. It was strangely easy to see in the darkness, even with the cover of trees.

  “Hello?” Gregory called out in the darkness.

  “Is anyone there? Do you need help?” Kendra followed up.

  The two of them started walking toward the field, but I paused, waiting by the treehouse. I counted to ten the way my mother used to. You could accomplish a lot when you were patient, calm, and counting. At least, that was what she’d always told me.

  Even now, long after she’d died, I kept those words close to my heart, and I practiced what she’d told me.

  “Ten, nine, eight...”

  I breathed in and out with each number, patiently waiting to decide what to do next.

  Sometimes in the zombie apocalypse, you had to act quickly. Sometimes you had to be fast. I had a feeling that this wasn’t one of those moments, though. Right now, what I needed, more than anything else, was to be calm.

  What I needed was to find the cat that had meowed.

  We couldn’t leave it.

  It was going to attract zombies with meowing like that.

  Even in a world of dead things and undead things, I didn’t like the idea of a cat being lonely. I wasn’t exactly a huge pet person – not since my dog had passed away, anyhow – but nobody should be on their own out here. Not in the forest.

  In the darkness, anything could happen. Something could grab you or snatch you up or haul you off. Nobody would ever know what had happened to you. People could guess, sure, but they’d never know for sure. Where the hell was the cat?

  “If you’re here, show yourself,” Gregory commanded.

  I rolled my eyes.

  I liked the guy a lot, but sometimes, Gregory acted his age. I mean, “show yourself”? Who talked like that?

  Oh yeah.

  Orthodontists, apparently.

  I crouched down, looking around. When the sound came again, we all fell silent. Gregory and Kendra were in the field, but I’d stayed close to the base of the tree, and I realized the sound was coming from deeper in the forest.

  Only, not much deeper.

  Three long strides and I reached a pine tree. It stood out as different from the mighty oaks that filled the forest. We always joked about this tree because it literally looked like someone had left their Christmas tree out one year and it had sprouted roots.

  It just seemed out of place.

  Christmas once upon a time had been a holiday that everyone loved and where you could gather with your friends. This little pine tree was a reminder that things hadn’t always been so bleak. Kendra and Gregory both hated the tree and talked about chopping it down, but I’d always rather liked it. Then again, I’d only been a kid when the infection hit, so Christmas had never lost its magic for me.

  Now, without making a sound, I crouched down and peered under the tree. I reached for the branches of the tree and pushed them aside ever so carefully. Then I blinked, staring into the space beneath the tree.

  Two little eyes blinked back at me.

  “Why, hello,” I whispered.

  “Hello,” a tiny voice said back.

  2

  IT WASN’T A CAT.

  Kendra wasn’t right about a whole lot, but she’d been right about that, apparently. Good for her. She’d never let me live this one down.

  Nope.

  There wasn’t a cat beneath the tree. Instead, there was only a child who had a death grip on a stuffed animal. The kid was dirty, obviously, and as far as I could tell, the only thing with them was the plushie. In my defense, it was a cat plushie, and when the kid squeezed it tightly, it made a weird little meowing sound.

  “Have you been bitten?” I asked, whispering to the kid.

  “No.”

  “Have you got a name?”

  “Riley.”

  “Okay, Riley,” I gestured to the little girl. “Come on out.”

  She hesitated, and I thought suddenly that Riley must have been on her own for quite a long time. This could be a feral kid for all I knew. She was guarded and leery, but that was to be expected. You couldn’t really trust a lot of people in the apocalypse. That wasn’t exactly a “thing.”

  There were worse things than zombies in the world. Everyone knew that. Just because the apocalypse had happened didn’t mean that the rest of humanity had suddenly become safe. There were still bad people out there. Fortunately, it kind of seemed like there were fewer of them, but that didn’t excuse the fact that they existed.

  I looked at Riley, and she shook her head.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “No?”

  “I don’t want to come out.”

  Okay, so this presented a problem. I needed to get her out from under the tree, and I needed to get her cleaned up and fed. We might not have room for a fourth person in our shelter, but we couldn’t leave a little kid on her own.

  “It’s not really safe out here,” I said, stating the obvious.

  Once more, Riley shook her head. She scooted back a little bit, hiding beneath the tree. I was looking at her, but she was still acting like I couldn’t see her. She was acting like she was somehow invisible to me.

  “Please go,” Riley whispered.

  “I can’t do that, kiddo.” I didn’t want to tell her she was going to get murdered if she wasn’t careful. The zombies wouldn’t care if she was a little kid. They wouldn’t care if she was scared or hungry or in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  I’d learned to stay away from the zombies at an early age. Getting close to them was only hurtful, painful. In the early days of the apocalypse, a lot of people had made the mistake of trying to keep their loved ones who had changed into the undead as pets.

  That hadn’t worked out.

  In fact, it was one of the early contributors to the fact that the virus became so widespread so quickly. Nobody wanted to admit when someone they cared about had died and come back. Lots of people tried to keep Grandma locked up in the garage until a cure could be found, but no cure had ever been found.

  “Hello?” Gregory called out again.

  “Do you need help?” Kendra asked.

  Their voices were quiet, but they carried in the silence of the night. They were being too loud. We were going to attract the undead if we weren’t careful, so I looked over my shoulder toward where they were searching.

  “I’ve found the crier,” I called out quietly to Kendra and Gregory. Instantly, they stopped calling into the darkness. They both rushed over to see Riley and the little plush cat hiding beneath the pine tree.

  “So, I was right,” Kendra said. I could tell that was important to her. She had lost a lot and she needed to be right, at least about this.

  “The sound was from the plush,” I told her. “It’s a cat stuffed animal.” I don’t know why anyone would give their kid a plushie that made noise, but it didn’t really matter, did it?

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10