Amid the Clouds (Brave New World Book 1)

Chapter 1

If someone had told me the hot British actor playing Bond would be attending the corporate party, I wouldn't have hesitated that much before going. On the other hand, if someone had told me that same Adonis would turn into a flesh-eating monster by the end of the party... I would have hesitated not about going but about staying on the same continent.

I had watched enough zombie shows to know that nowhere could be far enough when the virus started spreading. 'When', and not 'if', because viruses always found a way to spread - trust me, I was a scientist. An employee of the same company whose office party turned into a zombie outbreak five months ago.

Then why was I now standing in the gory lobby of my former workplace? Back at my own free will to ground zero of human civilization's fall? Good question.

Sure, I knew how to handle a few monsters, in case any still lingered in this tomb. Sure, the underground labs with the potentially zombiefying stuff were sealed. Still, I'd known the corridors of the once fancy office building would be covered in the blood and guts of people I knew – who had time for cleaning when monsters ruled the world?

And yet, here I was, carrying out a supply mission to this ghost-filled edifice, of all places.

As it turned out, I didn't even need the view at decomposing half-eaten bodies from the daylight-illuminated entrance to start reliving the horrors of that early spring afternoon. It was as if they had happened yesterday, and not some 150 days ago.

I could see my 32-year-old self arriving for the party in a black knee-long dress and comfortable mid-high heels. My shoulder-length chestnut hair, lifted in a clumsy ponytail an online tutorial had claimed to be super easy to make. I had been concerned that the bodycon dress was making me look paler than usual and my wide hips, even wider.

I could also see myself entering the elevator with just as much concern – to this post-apocalyptic day I still had fear of these metal boxes suspended in thin air. Back then the stairs hadn't been an option: the cocktail reception for employees and guests had been as high as on the twentieth – and top – floor.

The next memory that hit me was that of a barefooted me running through the lobby. Dress torn, legs and arms bloody. Concerned not about ample curves and elevator rides but about the unsuspecting population of the city. The tens of thousands of people mere three miles away from the newly established zombie central.

As one of the scientists on the project that might have transformed living creatures into flesh-eating corpses, I had thought it my duty to contain the threat within the building. I had managed to seal the labs, but my direct boss had chosen to save his own skin rather than lock down the building's exits with the press of a few buttons. As I'd discovered later, the weasel had headed straight to the roof and the semi-autonomous helicopter parked there.

I had reached the lobby from the underground levels only to find the main exit wide open, zombies pouring out into the parking lot. Along with survivors from the party, too terrified to realize they were running towards their own death.

With the zombies unleashed, I had finally started worrying about my own survival. Somehow, armed with nothing but a mop, I had eventually made it to the roof. Then into the helicopter – right after passing by the permanently dead corpse of my boss – and off the building.

Well, there had been that trippy episode where I had hallucinated a conversation with the zombie version of Agent 007 during my flight to salvation, but–

"Sue, are you okay?" Carson whispered to my right, his meaty hand on my shoulder returning me to the here and now.

I brushed his hand off, knowing it wasn't there for comfort. Carson was always looking for an excuse to touch me, the horny guy. Even the end of human civilization couldn't make most men think with their upper instead of lower head, unfortunately.