Rise of the Undead Box Set | Books 1-3 | Apocalypse Z

in the middle of the park. “Don’t do this!”
Flames licked at the wood heaped into a pile, burning brightly, and a bed of coals gleamed at the bottom. A charred corpse lay curled up in the middle, the arms and legs pulled into a fetal position during its final moments.
Dylan watched the entire time with growing horror, unable to believe that ordinary people were capable of such barbarism. Her stomach churned when she realized they were capable of it, and that they fully intended to burn the young girl alive.
Without thinking about it, she undid her seatbelt and reached for the door handle until Maddie stopped her. “Where are you going?”
Dylan stared at her for a second. “I’m going to help that girl.”
“You can’t. She’s infected,” Maddie said.
“Maybe, but she’s not a zombie yet. She can still think and feel. She’s still a person,” Dylan protested.
“You can’t help her,” Maddie insisted. “She’s already dead, and those people won’t let you interfere.”
“I don’t care. I have to try,” Dylan said, watching as the girl was dragged toward the fire kicking and screaming. “I’ve got a gun.”
“Yeah? So do half of them,” Maddie said. “You won’t get far.”
“My mom’s right. They’ll burn us too. Let’s get out of here,” Kyle said, wringing his hands together.
Dylan shook her head, fighting against the truth of Maddie’s words. She couldn’t let the girl die like that. She had to try and save her. “I can’t leave. She’s all alone.”
“Dylan, please. You can’t help her. She’s dead already, but we’re not. My son…we have to protect my son,” Maddie cried, gripping Dylan’s forearm with steely fingers.
Dylan looked at Maddie’s fingers, wrapped around the very place where her own infection began. Hidden. A secret. These people…they’d burn me too if they found out. They’d kill me without blinking an eye. Just like that girl. We’re alone, the two of us. Alone in this world.
“Please, Dylan. Think of my son,” Maddie repeated.
Dylan blinked, and reality shifted. Maddie was right in a sense. She couldn’t help that girl. Not without sacrificing herself and possibly Maddie and Kyle too. She was outnumbered and outgunned. Her voice felt raw when she uttered the words, “Alright, Maddie. We’re going.”
Maddie sagged with relief. “Thank, God.”
Heads were beginning to turn their way, and Dylan realized they were out of time. No one would welcome them, especially not her. She’d be added to the pile of corpses on that pyre, her flesh charring to ashes as she screamed out her final breaths.
“Let’s go,” she said.
As she turned the car back toward the main street, the scene being played out in the park reached its final act. The girl was tossed onto the fire without ceremony, a broken doll that was of no use to anyone anymore. She twisted and turned as death licked at her flesh, her hair a fiery torch against the gray skies. A brisk wind whipped the flames into a frenzy and carried her screams to the furthest corners of its reach.
Kyle sobbed, his hands pressed to his eyes to deny the sights before him. His mother watched with a stony expression, and Dylan swallowed as vomit stung the back of her throat. It took everything she had not to pull over and scream out her anger and helplessness at the world. Guilt burned her with its hot touch, much like the flames that had consumed the girl. “I can’t believe I left her to die like that. That I did nothing.”
“You had no choice,” Maddie said with cold finality. “It was her or us.”
“I know, but…”
“But nothing. She was infected anyway,” Maddie said, causing Dylan to look at her with narrowed eyes. Before she could say anything further, Kyle leaned forward and grabbed his mom’s shoulder. “How could they do that, Mom?”
Dylan knew what he was asking. He was pleading for answers that would help him make sense of a terrifying new reality. The knowledge that people could, and often would, do terrible things in the name of their beliefs. She doubted he would get any real answers from Maddie, though, and she was soon proved right.
Maddie turned toward her son shrugged, her face a smooth canvas. “I don’t know, sweetie. I guess they were protecting themselves.”
“Protecting themselves from what?” he asked. “They could’ve just locked up all the infected people until they turned before they killed them.”
“Calm down, sweetie. Forget about those people. It’s over.”
“How can you say that?”
“It’s not as if they were human beings anymore. They were dead already, and they got what they deserved,” Maddie said.
“That girl…she didn’t deserve to die like that.”
“Remember your father, Kyle. He would’ve killed us in a heartbeat. The infection changed him and took him away from us. He wasn’t your dad anymore, and you know it. Just like that girl wasn’t her anymore.”
“But he was dead when he tried to hurt us. Mom. A zombie. Before that, he was still Dad,” Kyle said.
“No, he wasn’t. He was infected just like everybody else. A vicious monster,” Maddie said, showing genuine anger for the first time. “Your real father was gone the minute he got bitten, taken over by whatever this disease is.”
Kyle stared at his mom with an open mouth before curling into a little ball on the seat. He stared into the distance while holding onto his knees, and Dylan felt awful for the poor kid. Silence fell as Millersville shrank into the distance until soft snores indicated that he’d finally fallen asleep.
Dylan cleared her throat. “Do you really believe that? What you said earlier?”
“Believe what?” Maddie asked.
“That the infected are dead already. That they should be killed like that girl,” Dylan said.
Maddie fixed Dylan with cold blue eyes. “Of course, I do. They’re nothing but a danger to the rest of us.”
“Even if they’re still alive? They only change once they die,” Dylan said in the mildest tone of voice she could manage.
“It doesn’t matter. Once infected with the virus, they’re not them anymore,” Maddie replied.
“They can still feel pain,