Tainted Souls Read online

  Tainted Souls

  Book 3

  by

  T.J. Christian

  Other Books by T.J. Christian

  The Tainted Chronicles:

  Tainted – Book 1

  Tainted Mind – Book 2

  Tainted Souls – Book 3

  Tainted Heart – Book 4 (Coming Soon)

  The Blue Rose Saga – A Science Fiction Serial

  Blue Rose

  Blue Rose of Andromeda (Coming Soon)

  Casual Encounters

  An erotic collection of short stories and poetry

  A Thousand Words – Poetry

  Novels

  Accidental Assassins (Coming Soon)

  Copyright © 2019 by T.J. Christian

  All rights reserved.

  Original cover image copyright © T.J. Christian. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from T.J. Christian, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events, or occurrences, are used fictitiously and are purely coincidental. The characters and storylines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Thank you for downloading this eBook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

  WARNING: This story contains adult language, situations, and sexually explicit content: it is intended for readers over the age of eighteen.

  Part I

  The Travelers

  1

  Muscles flex and contract as she streaks south on Commerce Street. Ponytail whipping from side to side, she can't help but look behind her at the advancing hoard of the dead. She shouldn't be looking back. She should know better—she’s lived here long enough. The problem isn’t outrunning the dead—accidents happen when you look back. Its human nature: Karen needs to look back at the danger pursuing her, even if just to satisfy her own mind she’ll survive.

  Commerce Street stretches from the south end of town to the north and after eleven years of zero maintenance, the signs of nature taking back what belongs to it is clear. Rains come, moistening the ground, causing the concrete to shift as the ground below weakens. Grass, weeds, and trees grow, creating more cracks. And where they grow, the concrete weakens more, causing chunks to break and crumble. Running full out along the street is dangerous. Tripping gives the Tainted time to close the gap. Stepping on an unseen chunk of concrete causes ankle sprains and is just as deadly as falling—now the Tainted only have to catch her. But worst of all, stepping in a crack can not only twist the ankle, but can break the bones. Breaking a leg is how you double-down the odds of death—the leg breaks, you fall, and the Tainted eat you because you can’t gt away. If Tainted aren’t present, your chances of survival increases, but not by much. Not that she’s seen, anyway. These thoughts worry Karen.

  She's glad that she has never been alone. Before Chris, her grandfather had taught her everything he knew concerning surviving in this world. Now, with Chris, she feels she has it all. He brought with him something her grandfather could never give her—companionship and love. Oh, her grandfather loved her—the way a grandfather should love his granddaughter. What she had with Chris was different. When they came together, it reminded her of the world as it once was—or, as it was told to her—flowery and accommodating to every want and need. When they made love, the universe revolved around them.

  "Get it together," Karen says aloud, berating herself for allowing her mind to wander. Short of breath, she risks another look behind her. This time, it’s worth the risk—running too fast, she’s leaving the hoard behind—that's the last thing she wanted to do.

  * * *

  “Not so fast, not so fast,” Chris grumbles, watching Karen from a third-floor window. A few minutes before, he’d wanted to leave his post and go search for her because she was overdue. But then she appeared at the top of Commerce and headed his way, the sight of her brought a sigh of relief.

  Watching her was another story. Her strides were graceful and even. From this distance and height, it appeared as if she were floating along the ground instead of running. Her ponytail swing side to side in rhythm to her body. Arms pumping, breasts bouncing, feet slapping—everything about her lit the fires of desire within him.

  A sudden rush of panic replaces the desire. “Don’t look back,” he tells the window. She continues on, oblivious to the fact that she had stepped mere inches from a gaping crack in the street.

  More movement catches his eye. At the top of the hill, following Karen, appear over twenty Tainted. Those leading the pack, walk as if they are normal. Even from this distance they appeared human—as if their deaths were recent. And they very well could have.

  The Tainted at the rear of the herd were a different story. Most kept up with the main group, but three or four struggled. Their limbs had little to no muscle mass remaining—just strings of blackened flesh stretching from one bone to the next.

  Chris still didn’t know how they could move in such a tattered state.

  His father might know.

  His father. George Cartwright—the scientist that possibly caused the downfall of the world. After his father died, Chris discovered that the Tainted bodies his father used to protect Homestead, were the Tainted bodies of his family. An uncle, cousins, an aunt—his mom and sister—each of them impaled on sharpened poles and stuck into the ground in a makeshift fence. Their smell disguising that of Chris and his father so they could live in relative peace.

  After leaving Homestead, Chris tried to forget his father, but as often as not, some external source would bring his dad back to the forefront of Chris’s thoughts. It might be a random thought or phrase or dream—try as he might, he couldn’t rid himself of his father’s memory.

  Once the floods came and washed Homestead away, Chris took to the road—first to Collin’s Crossing and then to Martinville where he met Quincy and Karen. Now, Quincy is dead, and it’s just himself, Karen, a worn map given to him by Cowboy and Poker Jack, and the always-present memory of his father. He so wanted to rid himself of these thoughts—the ones that always lead back to his father. What did he do? What did he know? Was he really the source of this disease that raises the dead?

  Chris couldn’t change the past so why was all this so important to him? He didn’t know and as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t shake the need to know—to find out whatever he could regarding his father. But that meant leaving—leaving the comfort and relative security of a town that’s secluded from outsiders and cleansed of most of the Tainted. A town that’s as close to safe as can be.

  Leaving means pulling Karen away from all she knows—all she’s ever known.

  Tracking her progress, she’s almost to the corner entrance and the stairs that lead to the third floor.

  They’d spotted the herd of Tainted yesterday, traveling straight toward Martinville. This was the third such group they’d spotted in the past few weeks. Chris believed they were migrating from larger cities to the south. Of those groups, the other two had skirted by Martinville as if it wasn’t there—they just kept ambling on in a straight line. They’d continue that way until they spotted (or smelled, he wasn’t sure which) a living creature—something they could use to quench that blood-thirst within them.

  This herd, while not the largest they’d seen, was heading straight for Martinville. The last thing they needed was a bunch of Tainted bodies lumbering around town.

  Left unchecked, they’d wonder into a yar
d or building, trapping them here. Whatever was driving them north would fade, and they’d end up staying here until either he or Karen dispatched them.

  They couldn’t risk that—and, if they stay in Martinville, they don’t want to spend the rest of their lives hiding and sneaking about any more than necessary.

  If they stay, he thinks. He hasn’t even broached the subject with her yet. Those are thoughts for later though as Karen passes out of sight and enters the building below him.

  The herd. As predicted, follows Karen’s scent down the street and veers onto the hotel’s crumbling driveway.

  So many questions. She’s no longer in sight to them, yet they follow the path she took. It has to be something to do with smell—maybe her living scent still lingers in the air and that’s what they follow? If true, then that’s vital information. That means, running and hiding might not even be effective. If they can smell the remnants of the living and follow that trail, then it would lead them straight to their hiding spot.

  He can hear Karen’s footsteps banging up the stairs. Pushing away from the window, he sprints across the room and stands at the door, waiting for her to pass.

  * * *

  Well, there went part one of the plan, thought Karen, knowing there’s still one more section of the plan to cross. Something can happen at any point. Take this part, the one she’d just stepped into—part two—where her only chore was to climb three flights of stairs and determine there are still Tainted following. She’s on the stairs now and already beginning to tire. She slows to a walk. No use running up the stairs when the creatures behind you will only stumble over themselves up all three flights.

  Reaching the third-floor landing, she bends over and sucks in a deep breath of air. Expecting something fresh, she instead intakes ten years of neglected dust. Gasping and coughing, she moves through the doorway and into the long hallway that stretches from one end of the building to the other—both ending in emergency stairwells. This is the last room on this floor at this end of the building—the 3-9-9 is still readable even though one number must have recently fallen off. The image is still there, unblemished by a decades collection of dust. She looks down...sure enough, the missing number lies on the floor next to the doorjamb.

  She only gets two knock on the door before it’s wrenched open from the inside. Smiling, Chris says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t order room service.”

  She pokes him in the stomach. “I’ll give you...” A loud noise from the stairwell cuts her off.

  “I think one fell over the railing.”

  She remains silent, deciding to fill the few moments they have left by kissing him.

  “K-Karen,” Chris stammers.

  “I know,” another kiss, “...I know.” She backs away and glances toward the sounds of dead bodies fighting to be first to the top of the stairs. She leans over the railing and looks down. The closest one is just passing the second floor door. Since it’s sealed, the dead woman (Woman? She wonders. It’s beginning to get harder to tell the difference anymore, but it has more female characteristics than male) bypasses the door and continues up the stairs.

  “She looks new,” she says, looking back at Chris while she points below.

  “Yeah, I saw them from up here...looks like a couple of them.”

  Karen leans over, she can’t see the other one.

  “I don’t see it.”

  “He’s probably the one that fell.”

  “Probably.”

  The lead Tainted reaches the landing between floors, and Karen decides it’s time to take up a position at the other end of the building.

  He leans forward and kisses her. She backs toward the other end of the building. “I’ll take care of the stragglers.” He grabs the machete leaning against the wall and holds it up before her to emphasize his meaning.

  “Okay,” she says, and the last of the light narrows to nothingness as Chris closes the door. Except for four rooms at the other end of the building, every door in on the third floor is closed. There are small windows built into the exterior walls of the stairwell, but they don’t produce enough light to illuminate the hallway.

  They’ve talked about this part of the plan, however, even though they’d discussed it, they never took the time to practice it. She realizes now that, they must practice an emergency plan. All they did was take a quick walk-through—just to make sure they closed every door along the third floor. But they started on this end of the building and finished at the opposite where they’d left four room doors open. Light flooded the rooms and the hallway, giving a false impression of still being able to see.

  Stepping with care, she puts her right hand to the wall and walks through the darkness, away from the Tainted. During their pass-through to check doors, she remembered there being an overturned service cart, a few vases, and luggage too. She didn’t want to trip over them.

  Every step she took she regretted agreeing to this on such little preparation. She felt like she was the one taking the brunt of the risk. It upsets her now, but it will pass. She knew she had to be the carrot, leading the Tainted as Chris still was not at full capacity. Taking pellets from a shotgun puts a limit on mobility—even weeks after it happened.

  A moment of grief floods through her, remembering that day. That was the same day Harvey had killed her grandfather. Murdered—he’d been murdered. Harvey, the man that shot both her grandfather and Chris, was dead. She’d seen to that personally by putting a rock climbers ax into his skull. On instinct, her hand lowers to her side, double checking that the ax was there. Noises echo form behind, pushing her forward with increased enthusiasm. Ahead of her, the dark hallway brightens as she inches closer to the apex of the hallway. A few more steps and a sigh of relief overcomes her as the open doorways at the other end of the building come into view.

  Something crashes behind her. One of the Tainted falling, perhaps? She looks back, knowing all she’ll see is darkness.

  But she does. A shadow moves back there—dark on dark, there’s definite shape to it. It hisses. An arm reaches for her, the fingers and hands grasp, mere inches away.

  Karen shouts in surprise and spins away. How? How did they catch up to her so fast? She must have been moving slower than she thought in the darkness. Now that she can see better, she picks up the pace and moves toward the lighted doorways and beyond to the safety of the stairwell.

  2

  They were a couple in love before the dead fell on them.

  They bit her twice—one caught her on the back her arm and the other took a chuck of meat out of the opposite shoulder. He lost a sizable chuck of flesh from his leg. They’d escaped before becoming a meal, but the damage was done.

  When the fever came, it burned through their bodies like flames in a wildfire, consuming their minds and driving them to the brink of madness. Then, like a switch being thrown, the fire died—the tainting of their bodies was complete and now, their only care was the hunger—the need to fill the emptiness deep in their primal minds.

  Movement catches their attention. It’s a herd of like-minded creatures—each with a singular focus to fill that same hunger within. The herd assimilated them. As a group, they trudged north. Bodies fresh and less damaged than other members of the herd, the couple soon took the lead. Their singular focus was ahead. When something caught their eyes, they turned toward it. When they smelled something living, they altered direction to follow the trail. Sometimes they caught it and feasted—other times, the trail petered out. But they continued forward, always walking, always searching.

  Then they see it—a living, breathing, walking meal. It beckons, then walks away, but always staying within sight. Just when they think they might reach it and feed, it scurries away. The herd groans, hisses, and moans—the scent of the living driving the hunger within to higher levels.

  The couple presses on, following the living food until it disappears into a building. They blindly follow on, tracking the path by the living’s scent that permeates the air. The female lead
s them to the door, but the male stops outside the building. The scent still urges him on, but something he sees above is only slightly more powerful than the smell. High up, there’s another one. It watches the herd as they enter the building, following the scent.

  When the food above disappears, the scent of the other one dissipates. With no external stimuli, he stands there, waiting, a statue only willing to move to feed.

  Then there’s a scream. It comes from the other end of the building. Mindless, only knowing that deep dark hunger, the scream drives him to move.

  3

  Chris leans with his ear against the door, listening to the hallway beyond. Karen moved toward the other end of the building and just as planned, the Tainted followed. Through the door, he could hear them moaning, groaning, and tripping over one another in their blind pursuit.

  After a few minutes of silence, his hand is on the door, ready to pull it open, when he hears a muffled shout from far away. It sounded like Karen. His heart pounds, drumming inside his chest and reverberating up his neck. This plan wasn’t full-proof—there were plenty of risks involved and Chris couldn’t help but feel guilty that Karen was taking most of those risks. One misstep, and the Tainted would be on her before she knew it. It may not seem they move quickly, but they have a way about them that reeks of misdirection.

  Chris has learned, you can’t get comfortable around the Tainted. Minutes pass—Karen should be at the other stairwell by now. Once there, she’s to make as much noise as possible to attract the Tainted toward her end of the hall and away from his. That way, Chris can slip out of the room, into this stairwell, and lock the door at this end. If any Tainted lag behind, they’ll be the stragglers—the ones that cannot move. He’ll take care of them with a quick swipe of his blade as he moves to the stairs and down to the second floor.