Free The Infected (Book 2): Karen's First Day by Joseph Zuko

Stabbing the walls just so she had a knife
at the ready.
    “What are you doing? Do you hate the wall?” Valerie
looked up from the game.
    “No baby. Mama is just trying to be prepared.” She forced
the last knife into position. Outside Karen’s apartment some tires screeched
across the parking lot. Karen stepped to the window. She peeked without
disturbing the blinds and giving away that she was home. The neighbors’ van
ripped into the parking lot. It was Cliff and Tina.

Chapter 7
     
    Blood coated the front of Cliff and Tina’s van. Chunks of
human remains were wedged into the grill. The infected man that was banging at
Karen’s back window stood in the center of their parking space. Cliff spotted
the infected as it bolted for their moving vehicle. When he got closer to it
Cliff popped open his door, swerved the van and the open door knocked the shit
out of it. He jammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop, then put the van into
reverse and backed over the dead body just to make sure the job was done.
    Cliff did a sloppy job backing his van into his parking
spot.  The back wheels hit the curb hard. Cliff and Tina looked around.
They made sure the coast was clear.
    Inside the van Tina gave Cliff a nod, “Let’s go!” she
clutched the bloodstained butcher knife and was ready to strike. Cliff hit the
button to power the sliding side door and helped the oldest child, Eve, out
first. Tina took her by the hand and pulled her toward the stairs that led up
to their place. Cliff scooped the two younger girls out of the van but took
care to angle his cleaver’s blade away from their soft skin.
    He tapped the button on his keys and the van’s door powered
shut. He stomped up the flight of stairs two at a time. The noise boomed throughout
the complex. If there were any more of those monsters close by, Cliff just rang
the dinner bell.  
    Tina got the door to their place open and the five of
them scooted safely into their home. Cliff set down the two girls and they ran
off to play with their sister as if it were any other day. Cliff felt a little
lightheaded. It was only one flight of stairs but he did not normally do them
two at a time with a girl in each arm. He only had to climb the stairs about
twenty more times to unload the van.
    He was super stoked about that.
    “Be my lookout from the bedroom window,” Cliff asked his
wife as he gave his back a stretch.
    “I’m coming with you,” Tina said in a way that told Cliff
not to argue the point.
    “Eve, watch out the window for any of the sick people.
Only call down to us if you see them. Do you understand?” Cliff waited for her
head to nod before he headed back out the front door. On the trip down the
stairs they did a better job of keeping quiet. Cliff took the lead as they crept
to the main floor. The window opened above them.
    “I don’t see anything,” Eve whispered down to her
parents. From this window she could survey the entire complex.
    Cliff hit the button to open the back hatch and put the
keys in his pocket. The giant pile of food waited to be lugged up the fifteen
steps behind them. The boxes of beer were on the top of the pile so they took
them first and dropped them off in the front hallway.
    Up and down the stairs they went. Nothing was bagged at
the store. On the second trip they brought a set of tote bags to help load out
more. Sweat dripped from their every pore.
    During one of the drop-offs, Eve’s panicked voice called
them from their bedroom, “Mama, Daddy someone’s taking the food!”
    “Motherfuckers!” Tina darted out and down the steps.
    Cliff was on her heels.
    “Get away from our van!” Cliff threw his dad voice at the
twenty-year-old guys standing at the back of their van. One of them had a neck
tattoo just below his ear. He had a big bag of rice tossed up onto his
shoulder. The other had long black hair and an armful of steaks.
    “Holy shit!” screamed Tattoo Neck.
    A couple of steaks hit the ground as Long Hair