Monsters After the Burn

Prologue

ADRIAN- SEVERAL MONTHS AFTER INFECTION.

Ishouldn’t be standing here.

But the sounds coming out of that room had my dick hard and rage filling my system.

“Fuck yes, Beck,” Taryn moaned.

She spoke so quietly that I might not have heard her if my senses hadn’t been enhanced.

“God, Taryn. You feel so good wrapped around my dick.” The soon-to-be-dead motherfucker ground out.

I didn’t know how much longer I could stand this.

A door opened next to Taryn’s room, and Lucas stumbled out, stopping when he saw me. “What the hell are you doing?”

I just stared at him, assuming it was obvious.

He glanced at Taryn’s door just as another moan came from her room. “Ooh, I get it.” He smirked. “I didn’t know you were a voyeur.”

“Fuck you,” I growled. “She’s mine.”

The prick smiled. “Doesn’t sound like it.”

“Take it all, Fox,” Beck moaned.

We both fixed our eyes on the door, hearing Taryn’s breathy pants and catching the brief pause that marked a happy ending for all involved.

Lucas cleared his throat. “Well, it sounds like they're finished now. I’m going back to bed.”

He stomped away, probably hoping I didn’t notice the erection he was sporting as he left.

With my eyes squeezed shut, I let out a long, calming breath. There's no chance I was going to fall asleep now after listening to that performance.

TARYN

The first thing I heard was Adrian pounding on my bedroom door.

“Taryn!”

Beck lifted his head. “Is the aggravating asshole listening to you sleep now?”

I hardly had time to pull the sheet up before Adrian knocked on the door again. “Get dressed. Now.”

His tone shut down all the smart remarks I was about to throw out.

Beck was already moving. “Quick, Fox. Something’s wrong.”

Another sound came from downstairs.

Metal.

A violent clang followed by something heavy hitting the floor. Then I heard Max barking. Not his usual warning bark, but more feral.

Beck yanked on his jeans as I grabbed the first clothes I could reach, then my go-bag.

We heard shots.

One.

Two.

Three.

“Fuck.” Beck grabbed his gun. “Stay behind me.”

“Right.” Like that was going to happen. I grabbed my bat, propped beside the bed.

We hit the hallway together. Adrian stood near the stairs, pistol raised.

“What’s going on?” I clenched my bat tighter.

His face was in battle mode. “The back gate’s open.”

My stomach dropped. “That’s impossible.” Ben checked the gate every night, trusting no one else to do it.

Then I heard a scream from downstairs, and it didn’t sound human.

We hurried down the stairs, and an immediate stench—blood and decay—overwhelmed us. The intensity, amplified by my heightened senses, nearly made me gag.

The kitchen door stood wide open, and that alone was enough to scare the shit out of me. Ben was fastidious about locking the doors.

An infected stumbled through it, and Ben, coming up from behind us, shot it in the forehead. Its skull burst across the cabinets, black blood splashing everywhere.

“Back!” he shouted.

More shapes moved beyond the doorway. Too many to count.

“How the hell did they get inside the fence?” Beck yelled.

Ben didn’t bother answering as he fired again.

An infected woman dropped outside, then another body immediately climbed over her.

“We’ve got to get the others!” I yelled over the noise.

Adrian stabbed an infected in the temple. “Lucas is on it.”

We cleared the doorway and raced outside just in time to see a man running across the yard from the direction of the gate.

“Is that Stain?” I asked, confused, not understanding just what in the hell I was witnessing.

Beck went rigid.

Stain looked toward us, guilt written all over his face, and that’s when I saw Nash and several men coming through the open gate.

My brain took one second too long to understand, but Beck didn’t have the same problem.

“You no-good motherfuckers,” he gritted out between clenched teeth.

Nash smiled. “Should’ve been loyal to the club.”

Beck raised his gun. “There is no club, dumbass.”

Nash moved fast—but not fast enough.

The shot cracked, and blood exploded across the side of Nash’s face. He spun and hit the ground beside the fence.

Beck started toward him, but Ben grabbed the back of his shirt. “Leave him.”

“But he—”

“Move, boy!”

Another wave of infected hit the yard.

Stain backed toward the house, his face gone completely gray at the sight.

“Beck, help me!” he screamed.

“Fuck you!” Beck laughed, but there was nothing funny in it. “You opened the fucking gate!”

“Nash said he’d bring us back into the club. He said we’d scare Calder out and he’d help protect everyone. I just wanted back—”

An infected hit Stain from behind, and he screamed.

They went down together, as Stain drove a knife into its eye and shoved it away, but another caught his leg. Then another piled on top of him.

“Beck!”

Beck took a step toward him as Stain looked up and their eyes met.

Stain’s face held deep regret and the realization that he was a dead man walking, literally. “I fucked up.”

An infected sank its teeth into his shoulder, and Stain screamed.

Beck raised his gun. “I’m sorry, brother. If you’d stuck by me, things wouldn’t have gone down like this.”

The dead covered him, biting hunks of flesh from all over his body.

Beck fired once, and Stain’s body went still beneath them.

For half a second, Beck didn’t move, then Ben shoved him toward me. “Grieve later. We’ve got to get everyone out.”

A shot from the direction of the driveway shattered the front window. Glass and wood went everywhere.

How many men had Nash brought?

I saw two guys in biker vests grab the bastard and drag him off. I really hoped he died from the wound Beck had inflicted, but I didn’t think I was that lucky.

“We can go through the basement door.” Ben took off in that direction.

Adrian grabbed my arm, but I jerked it free. “I can run without your help!”

“Then fucking do it!” he growled.

We reached the hallway as Lila came barreling from the other side with Ethan, Lane, and the twins behind her.

“Where’s Lucas?” Adrian asked, frantically firing behind him at the infected pouring into the house.

“Here,” Lucas came from the back room, carrying several more rifles.

“What’s happening?” Lila screamed, terrified.

“Gate’s compromised,” Ben said shortly.

Something slammed into the living room wall, just as Max came tearing down the hallway, blood covering his muzzle.

“Max!” I pointed to my side.

Ben shoved open the rear utility door, but infected were already inside.

“Shit!” He fired.

Beck took another one out as Adrian shot an infected man in the face.

I swung my bat and hit a sixteen-year-old boy in the head, whom I thought I recognized from my calculus class. Then I swung again and struck a middle-aged man on the head. I drew the pistol from my waist and began firing.

We moved as a unit because Ben had been training us in military tactics, but there were too many to kill. Everywhere I looked, more came through the trees and into the yard. Over the fence that was supposed to keep us safe.

Ben glanced at the tree line and then back at us. I sensed he had made a decision, and I had a feeling I wouldn’t like it.

“No. No to whatever you’re thinking.” I protested before he even opened his mouth.

Over the last few weeks, our relationship had changed slightly. Nothing drastic, just the most minuscule gentling in Ben’s attitude toward me.

And I didn’t want to lose that… or him.

His eyes snapped to mine. None of the aforementioned gentleness remained in them. “Taryn.”

“No.”

“Take the others and go.”

“I won’t!”

“Do it! I won’t tell you again.” He shot another infected from a distance.

“I’m not leaving you!”

The softness I’d seen before returned to his face. “I’m not asking," he said, pushing another magazine into his rifle. “Adrian, get her out of here.”

“No,” I said again.

Adrian caught my arm.

“Don’t.” I tried to shrug him off.

Lucas grabbed my other side. The dead were almost on us.

Ben stepped backward toward the opening between the house and the fence, creating space and drawing them toward himself and away from us.

My stomach dropped. “Dad, please!”

His eyes met mine. “Run.”

Then he fired, causing the infected to turn toward the sound — just as he intended.

“No!” I fought hard to get away from Adrian and Lucas, but I wasn’t a match for two enhanced men.

Ben fired once more, the sharp crack echoing from farther away now. Over and over, without pause.

The dead closed in around him.

“DAD!”

He disappeared for a second, then I saw him. Blood across his face and his rifle raised. “GO!”

An infected hit him from the side.

I turned as I heard Beck yell a warning.

“Watch out!” He fired off a shot at a man rounding the corner of the house. “That’s one of Nash’s men.”

Some of the infected chasing Ben moved toward us.

“I’ll knock you out if I have to, Taryn. We have to go.” Adrian pulled me firmly behind him and took off.

I looked back and saw Ben surrounded by the infected. Three bodies slammed into him, and he drew a knife, slashing and stabbing as bodies piled at his feet. Then I saw him fall to his knees.

I somehow jerked loose, but Beck caught me around the waist before I took two steps.

“LET ME GO!” I kicked as hard as I could to no avail.

“Taryn! Stop!” Beck growled.

Adrian shoved Lila and the others toward the trees as Ethan and Lane picked up the twins.

“We’ve got to MOVE!” Lucas yelled back at us.

I twisted in Beck’s arms. The pile where Ben had fallen was still moving, but I couldn’t see him.

Was that his arm?

Something inside me broke. “Daddy!”

Beck carried me into the woods even as I screamed. Behind us, gunfire erupted… and then there was silence.

I knew my father was dead.