Dead South Series (Book 1): Dead South

did so in the picture. He’d had every reason to be happy then.
The photo had been taken in Myrtle Beach. Carrie had taken it as a selfie, her outstretched arm visible in the picture. She had her other arm around Jon, who held his wife and also pulled their son Spencer in close. Spencer had grown “too old” for moments like this, but had managed to squeeze a smile out for this photo.
It had been their last vacation as a family, and this was the only picture Jon had as proof that his wife and son had ever even existed.
Keeping his eyes on the photo, Jon tossed back another shot of whiskey. Some dribbled off his lip, and he used his forearm to wipe it away. He’d forgotten that he hadn’t washed up yet, and he used his finger to touch his mouth and then looked at his hand. Blood lined the side of it.
Then he glanced at the photo again, his bloody hand also in his vision.
He put the picture back into the cigar box and slammed it shut. Setting the box on the table, he grabbed the whiskey again. He threw back the rest of the bottle’s contents and then dropped the bottle as his hands shook.
The bottle shattered, glass exploding onto the patio. Jon ignored it. He leaned forward and ran his shaking hands through his hair.
He gripped his hair hard enough to nearly pull it out, and he tried to take deep breaths.
But no matter what he did, he couldn’t get his last image of Carrie and Spencer out of his head.

3
11 Days Before the Outbreak
She ran her hand through his thick, curly black hair and stared at him with her kind brown eyes. Both of them worked to catch their breath, tossing the covers off to cool down.
“I miss morning sex,” Carrie said. “Like when we got to do it whenever we wanted.”
“You say that,” Jon said in his gruff morning voice, “but you know you’re going to fall apart when Spencer moves out one day.”
“That’s why you’ve got to treat me real good when that happens.”
Jon smiled, running his hand across her face. “You know I’ll always treat you like a queen. Now and six years from now when Spencer goes to college.”
Carrie’s eyes left Jon’s face as she flipped onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. “Six years. Where the hell has the time gone?”
Scooting over, Jon ran his hand over his wife’s bare stomach and then wrapped his arm all the way around her. “Time hasn’t done shit to you. You’re more beautiful than you were the day I met you.”
Carrie blushed. “Shut up.”
But it was true. Of course, Jon had always found his wife beautiful, from the moment they’d met at a softball game fifteen years earlier. Jon had been playing third base for a team thrown together by him and a bunch of his buddies. Carrie had come to the game to sit with her friend, whose husband played on the other team. The woman had disliked coming to the games, so she’d begged Carrie to come along to keep her company. Carrie had later admitted to Jon that she was supposed to have been on a date that night, but the guy had canceled on her at the last minute. So, since she had already been dressed, she’d decided to join her friend at the local park to watch a bunch of thirty-something accountants, mechanics, and church friends hit an oversized ball around.
From the third-base bag, Jon couldn’t keep his eyes off the blonde woman in the white V-neck shirt, skinny jeans, and black boots. She looked like she was supposed to be out having some lucky man wine and dine her instead of out at a public park that smelled of corndogs and pretzels—which, of course, was precisely what she was supposed to have been doing. But the man’s mistake of canceling on Carrie ended up turning into the luckiest night in the world for both she and Jon.
She had seen Jon gazing at her, both from third base and from the dugout. He’d even peeked over at her during his at-bats to see if she was watching him. A few times, they’d made eye contact, but mostly she’d stared off to somewhere else. But that didn’t stop Jon from trying.
After the game, Jon stood near the stunning blonde while talking to one of his friends, but when he looked over at her, he caught her smiling at him. He eventually pulled himself away from his friend, introduced himself, and left with her phone number, plans for a dinner date, and the idea that he might have just met the woman he would marry one day.
Laying in the bed next to her now, he ran his hand through her hair. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life, Carrie South.”
She grinned, and they kissed. Jon pressed his body up against her again and she giggled.
“Are you serious? You’re ready for another round?”
He pushed himself against her bare leg. “You’re goddamn right I am. It’s not like—“
“Mom! Dad!”
They could hear their son barreling down the hallway toward their room, and without hesitation, they threw the covers over their naked bodies. The door stormed open and their twelve-year-old son Spencer ran into the room.
He wore a white T-shirt and green pajama pants. In his hand, he held a portable video game system. “Have you guys seen the charger for my Switch?” he asked.
Carrie groaned. “I thought you just plugged it into that dock thing to charge it.”
“You can, but the power cable for that’s also a charger. I wanted to sit in my room and play, and it was almost out of battery. But I don’t know what I did with the charger.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, kid,” Jon said. “Just going to have to look harder.”
Spencer raised his eyebrow. “What are you guys doing in bed so late? And