Tag Archives: horror

Post Apocalyptic Truck Shopping

February 16, 2014 Victor Tookes 14 Comments

I miss the old days of writing a serial. That’s what started my writing career, and I’d like to get back to that. To that end, I offer up “Hell on Rails.” An all new zombie-ish series. It’s a whole new universe, all new rules.

Table of Contents Chapter 2 >>

“Nyko,” shouted Jonas. The excitement was palpable in his voice. “We got it! Come check it out!”

Nyko limped across the barren landscape, the remains of a junkyard in Fort Mojave, Arizona. To his left, a lone corpse stood up from behind a rusted out Buick Skylark and stumbled towards him. It had been a girl in its previous existence, but now it was just a corpse. Her clothes were torn to shreds; the junkyard was full of sharp pieces of metal. Her once white, spaghetti strap tank top was torn half off, one strap trying in vain to hold the tattered garment over her breasts.

Normally Nyko would take a second to admire a mostly topless woman, but the pustules on her body leaking greenish goo that covered all of the walking dead reduced her to an object of revulsion, however pretty she must have been in her previous life. Without missing a step, Nyko drew a wicked looking sawed off shotgun out of a thigh holster, held it out at arms-length and fired. Nine ball-bearing sized pellets erupted from the gun at supersonic speed, completely eliminating the corpse’s face and sending a spray of greenish zombified brain fluid across the hood of the Buick.

“I’m sure that’ll buff out,” Nyko said, holstering his weapon before calling to his friend. “Jonas, What ya got?” Nyko wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve and continued towards his friend.

“It’s a Chevy. Says Union Pacific Rail” on the side,” came the reply from behind a stack of crushed cars.

“How bad is it,” he called, making his way towards his friend.

“Body’s good. One tire is flat, the others look okay. Windshield’s in good shape and the doors open and close,” Jonas called as Nyko rounded the stack.

Jonas reached up on his tip-toes to grab the door handle, slammed the door on the pickup, and looked at Nyko. “Now we just have to figure out if she runs,” he said, drawing his gun and pointing it at Nyko. In one quick motion, Jonas fired, killing the zombie a few steps behind his friend and holstered his gun.

“Thanks, I just have one more shot in the over under,” Nyko said patting his thigh. “Pop the hood.”

Jonas was just over three feet tall, and constantly grease covered. Before the outbreak he’d worn glasses, but they’d long-since broken. He’d worked the lenses into a pair of copper-clad goggles, which now sat on top of his head, lost in a mass of tightly curled black hair. He wore the same gray coveralls every day, something he’d recovered from the local juvenile detention center, with a leather tool belt cinched at the waist. His boots were mismatched, the left was a cowboy boot with a two inch heel on the back, and the right was a red converse high top. Jonas’ left leg was shorter than his right, and without someone to make him special shoes; he’d figured it out on his own.

On several occasions, he’d shot a man for calling him a little person.

Jonas reached up to open the door and climbed inside the truck in order to reach the hood latch just as Nyko got to the front of the vehicle. He flipped the hood safety with his finger and raised the hood. “Looks fine. Everything’s here, no corrosion on the battery. Fuel’s gonna be shot though. Get the air filter open, I’ll bring my truck around to jump-start it.”

Jonas climbed up into the engine bay and began disconnecting the air filter to give Nyko access to the fuel injectors. When he was finished, he scoured the inside the truck, finally locating the keys in the ash-tray. Junk yards usually left the keys in the vehicle somewhere if they ran. He took that as a good sign. He sat in the driver’s seat, moved it all the way forward, and strained to reach the gas pedal. If he held his leg out straight, he could just barely reach it.

He was back under the hood, checking the oil and dripping with sweat under the noon-time sun when Nyko’s tan Chevy Avalanche rolled up. The whole crew had been searching for weeks for a Chevy truck with a rail suspension. All Chevrolet pickups from 2006 on were designed as “flex fuel” vehicles. That was the lynch-pin to the whole operation.

Nyko ran the Hell on Wheels Saloon, the only fully functioning casino, bar, and brothel left in New Vegas. He made all his own beer and liquor in the back, and had a special still for making ethanol. No one had any idea where he got the sugar, it was one of his most closely guarded secrets, but every week Nyko had a fresh five hundred gallons of fuel-grade liquor. Everyone knew that’s why the Governor of New Vegas left Hell on Wheels alone, Nyko gave him fuel.

This project was the future though, and this truck was the key to it. “Still look good?” Nyko asked. Jonas was his chief mechanic. He could fix anything.

“Yeah, I think it will. Oil doesn’t look too bad, no gas smell in it. Corporate trucks usually had good maintenance. That’ll work out in our favor, it’s getting harder and harder to come by motor oil, and this monster,” Jonas said, patting the eight cylinder engine’s head cover, “Needs six quarts.”

Nyko handed Jonas a small can that said “Pampered Chef” on the side. Jonas pumped the lid, creating air pressure inside, while Nyko connected jumper cables from his own battery.

“Three years of sitting here. Hope it’s not seized. Let me know when you’re ready.”

Jonas held the can down into the air filter bay and pressed the button, spraying aerosol fuel into the air intake. “Hit it!”

Nyko turned the key. The engine rolled over twice before roaring to life. “Ha! We got it!” he shouted over the engine noise.

“She’s missing on cylinder six,” said Jonas. “I’ll need to tear it down, probably needs a ring job.”

“Will it make it to the shop?”

“Yeah, I think so. Don’t get too far behind me though.” Jonas disconnected the jumper cables and tossed them to the ground while the truck idled. Nyko busied himself adding a second can of fuel to the truck. Ten gallons, even with reduced mileage for ethanol should be enough to get the truck back to the shop. “Oh shit!” exclaimed Jonas. “The fucking AC works!” Air conditioning was a thing of the past. There just wasn’t enough power to run it. Inside the casinos at night it was over a hundred degrees. Many inhabitants purposely smashed the windows of their rooms out, just to try and get some air movement.

The heat was one of the reasons Nyko lived above Hell on Wheels. He had real windows that opened. He ran his generators for three hours every night, half the patrons only came there to sit in the cool air. Anyone could sit in the saloon, as long as they could pay the door fee.

The front of the saloon was a store. People brought whatever they could find or whatever they could spare and traded them for currency that could be spent in the bar, at his gambling tables, on his girls, or for other things in the store. Nyko printed his own money and set his own prices. A jar of pickles was worth ten bucks, which would get you in the door with a cool beer. Five gallons of diesel would get someone a night with one of the girls, and ten gallons would earn the trader a cool shower afterward.

Nyko was the richest man in New Vegas, and for good reason. It was called Sin City before the apocalypse, and people hadn’t changed.

Once they were both satisfied the truck would make it back to New Vegas, Nyko followed Jonas back. Jonas was a terrible driver, in part because he couldn’t see over the steering wheel, and in part because he hadn’t ever been taught.

The drive back to New Vegas was harrowing in a couple of places, but Jonas managed to keep the truck off the guard rails and out of the ditch all the way back. Just before the steel gates of New Vegas, Jonas turned off and headed out across East Flamingo, now mostly covered in sand. The desert was reclaiming what remained of the city. A short way down the sandy street and the two men were at the shop.

The wall around New Vegas was impressive. Built in the first year after the apocalypse, it started off as the demolished remains of several of the big casinos. Anyone approaching the city could see the sign for the MGM Grand, upside down against a huge pile of scrap off to the side of the road. The scrap pile was the first line of defense. When the outbreak first happened, the day the White House declared martial law across the United States, the day of the last television broadcasts, Las Vegas acted extraordinarily quickly. They conscripted every man, woman, and child over age eight to work on the wall. The city demolished four casinos along the strip and the citizens dragged the scrap to form a circle around the city.

The day the scrap wall was finished was a day of celebration; people caroused in the streets, drinking and laughing, confident in their safety from the pus covered hordes trying to pick their way through the scrap heap. The very next day, work resumed, only now the residents of New Vegas were building a permanent wall. Anyone who came into contact with the infected ran a significant risk of infection themselves. If any of the pus that filled the blisters on the walking corpses got in their mouth, eyes, nose or an open wound would almost guaranteed infection, and a bite was a sure thing. Whatever the infection was, it most preferred the mouth of the host, that’s where it replicated the fastest.

Forty feet tall, made of steel reinforced concrete poured eighteen inches thick, the safety wall went all the way around the strip. City engineers designed a steel gate system at either end of Las Vegas Boulevard, the first just north of the iconic ‘Welcome to Las Vegas’ sign, the second just south of East Flamingo.

If a person didn’t work, they didn’t eat. Every living soul was given a room in one of the remaining casinos. Every night and every morning, people were checked for signs of infection. Anyone who turned in an infected person got a week’s vacation in a Bellagio penthouse for their whole family or themselves and three friends.

Hell on Wheels was a mile outside of the wall, down Flamingo in an old warehouse, chosen specifically because of the railroad tracks that ran directly behind it. In the old days, goods for the casinos came in on the train. The train was unloaded into this warehouse, where it was then re-loaded onto trucks to be delivered to the hotels. After the end of the world, Nyko owned all of it, including the train he’d found still on the tracks in the back. Thirty-five pallets of liquor, among other hotel foods came with the location.

Nyko and his crew worked on the train all day, until the saloon opened at six. Just before the doors opened, his whole crew changed clothes and worked the saloon. The warehouse was a gigantic half-million square foot “L” shaped facility. The railroad ran along the long side. They’d built a wall separating the short side from the warehouse, and finished the first half of the short side into living quarters for his crew, and the girls who worked in the saloon, twenty six people in all. The rest of the short side was the saloon.

He hated being cooped up, the idea of living inside the walls was ludicrous to him; Nyko was a man of the open road. The governor of New Vegas, Jim Ratton hated that Nyko was outside, but couldn’t do anything about it. One day, Nyko would be the first man to run the rails. He’d be free to cross the wasteland as he chose. Hell, maybe one day he’d find a nice little train station in the middle of nowhere and take up residence. But for now, he had too many people depending on him.

Jonas pulled the truck up over the curb and around behind the warehouse. Nyko hit the button on a remote inside his truck and watched the garage door roll up. He’d have to remember to charge the warehouse batteries tonight. The patrons would complain about warm beer, but fuck them; he had a train to build.

The warehouse was buzzing with activity. Brian and Andy were in the corner welding on a dune buggy they’d been building out of scrap car parts.

Derrick and Terrell were sitting at a table on the side, over by the door to the saloon. The parts of four different guns were laid out in front of them in orderly rows. The two men were scrubbing parts with tooth brushes.

At the back, near the rear door, the final two men were operating reloading equipment, pressing bullets into used shell casings.

Brian looked up from his welding. “You hear that?”

Nyko looked over at him. “Hear what?”

“I’d swear I heard someone…” Brian was cut off.

Everyone heard it this time. Outside, still a few hundred feet away. Someone yelled, “Buzzing a likes he for making a last day! Poop!”

“Stations!” Nyko yelled. The men in the warehouse all scattered. Andy climbed a long ladder to the roof. Jonas bolted to a door on the far side of the warehouse.

Terrell tossed Nyko a long, black rifle and a radio with two feet on the front as the pair of them ran out the side door. Derrick hit the door between the two roll ups, clipping his own radio to his shirt pocket.

“A tablespooonful of pizza, femur to eat!” The marauder appeared. He was wearing an old torn speedo, that once upon a time had been red, one sock, and a tattered “Hard Rock Las Vegas” tee shirt. His skin was horribly sunburned, everywhere except where his matted hair hung down around his shoulders.

As if his gibbrish was a call to charge, three dozen more, all in similar shape ran out from behind the neighboring building, straight for Nyko.

The big man jumped up on top of a trash dumpster, and then to a platform he’d added to the outside of the building specifically for this purpose.

His radio chirped. “All clear front,” Derrick checked in.

“In position,” Jonas said, closing the roof hatch and walking towards the edge of the gravel warehouse roof, holding a bag full of radio control car controllers. His goggles were down over his eyes as he peered into the setting sun.

“Wait for them to hit the line,” Nyko said, unfolding the bipod on his rifle. He laid down behind the rifle and flicked the covers off the scope. “How long has it been since the last attack?”

“Fourteen days,” said Brian from the rear corner of the warehouse, right at the edge of the railroad tracks.

“You’d think they’d learn to duck.”

As Nyko spoke, the first marauder ran over the words written in chalk-dust on the ground, ignoring their warning. He collided at full-speed with a thin piano wire stretched between the telephone poles at either end of the dry, rock-strewn field between Nyko’s warehouse and the abandoned one next door.

As the marauder’s legs flew forward, the wire bit into his neck, opening a huge cut across his windpipe. Seconds later, thirty marauders hit the same wire, all suffering the same fate.

“Fourteen,” said Brian into the radio. It never occurred to him that that was the same number he’d said a couple minutes before.

“Sixty one,” said Jonas.

“Seventy-two,” guessed Derrick. Andy and Terrell both followed suit.

Nyko spoke into his radio. “Today’s number was seventy-seven. Jonas and Derrick, you two were closest. Cold beer on me. The rest of you, clean this mess up.”

He was halfway down from his platform when he heard gunfire from the front.

Derrick called, “They’re hitting the front! Trucks!” Then more gunfire. Nyko recognized the sound of Derrick’s favorite assault rifle firing quickly.

Table of Contents Chapter 2 >>

I hope you enjoy this story!

-Kirk

If you’re a new reader and would like to read some of my other work, here is my Amazon Author Page. You can also find most of my work on NOOK, at Smashwords, and other retailers.

What Zombies Fear #2

What Zombies Fear #3

What Zombies Fear #4

What Zombies Fear #5

The Fogerian War Book 1

Short Story by my co-author Laura Bretz

Apocalypse, Fiction, Novel, Super hero

5.04 Water

July 10, 2012 Victor Tookes 22 Comments

“Let’s head out of here, James. Shut the door,” said Victor. “It would be a waste of ammunition to shoot them all.” Victor was fighting the urge to open fire. He knew they didn’t have much in the way of ammunition, but these things, these particular zombies were an affront to him. It felt like a personal insult, and it worked. He was angry.

James paused for a second after closing the door, and then asked, “What do you think that note meant?”

“It’s kind of a long story. It’s a crazy cult,” Victor said, waving his hand dismissively.

“Mate, the note had ya name on it,” said James, stepping forward towards Victor. “How do you explain that?”

Victor took a deep breath, obviously annoyed at the insinuation. “Alright, here’s the Cliff’s Notes version. A while ago, my son was kidnapped. He escaped his original kidnappers on his own, but another group of survivors found him. Max has some…unique talents. For one, he can make the zombies follow his orders. He can also kill all the E’Clei in them. Somewhere along the way, that second set of kidnappers decided Max was Christ reborn, and it started a whole cult. When we rescued Max, apparently I became the devil.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Jame’s hands went up and he shook his head. “You’re saying Max can kill zombies? By lookin’ at ’em? What the fuck are we doing then? If the boy can kill them all, why the blue fuck are we going house to house?”

“Do not raise your voice to me,” said Victor. He was an inch shorter than the Australian, but he brought himself to his full height and looked James straight in the eye. “Because I won’t send a four year old boy into a house full of zombies,” Victor said firmly. “I won’t endanger a child, any child. Our job, our only purpose is to provide them with love, safety, security, and knowledge.”

James looked furious. He turned on his heel and strode out of the house, followed quickly by Victor. Out on the lawn, James turned to face Victor again. “You know, Sean said you were a fuckin’ drongo, but I had no idea you were risking everyone’s life for nothing.”

Tookes already felt himself standing on edge; this man he just met was getting close to pushing him over that edge. “Nothing? It’s not nothing. It’s my son. There’s no way of knowing what using these abilities does to us,” he said, gesturing with his hands. “There’s no way of knowing what the super zombies are capable of.” Vic paused and lowered his voice. “He’s four years old, James. If he were sixteen, it would be a little different.”

“It’s no different. We have to use every weapon at our disposal,” James said.

“My son is not a weapon. He’s a little boy.” Victor was overcome with anger. He was angry at the insinuation that he was holding something back, and he was angry that these kidnappers of his child were spreading their lies this far across the country. Without warning, he shot his fist upward into James’s jaw. “He’s MY son. I will be the one to decide,” Victor yelled, throwing a left across the stunned Aussie’s face. Victor followed with a third punch, straight with his right arm into James’ nose. The bigger man went down on his back, blood running down his face.

James lept up off the ground. Victor watched a punch to the abdomen form, the only option James considered. Victor stepped back and to the side, dodging the punch, and snapped a low front-kick, knocking the wind out of his opponent.
James aura solidified around him, and he stepped towards Victor. He was wary this time, considering his options as he said “You’re fuckin’ crazy.” He settled on a feint with his left hand, and a strong kick towards Victor’s thigh. Tookes completely ignored the punch, knowing it was just intended to distract. Instead, he raised his foot and kicked James other leg out from under him.

“Stay down, James,” said Victor.

James jumped up again and lunged at Tookes, wrapping him in a bear hug. Tookes expanded his aura outward, enveloping James, and then parted the bubble, pushing the man off of him, leaving James stuck inside the shield Victor had learned from Lightfoot’s men.

“You can’t win this, James. I’m stronger than you.”

John and Sean were standing a couple feet behind Victor. Sean spoke first, “Easy James. This is over.”

“He fuckin’ sucker punched me,” said James, his voice muted by the shield around him. The sharp glare he was carrying never left as he wiped a hand across his nose.

“Tookes, You have him in one of those shields we were in?”

“Yea, John.”

“What’s this all about,” asked Sean.

Victor repeated the story of Max’s kidnapping, and of the note inside the door to the house, and then added James’ insistence that he put Max in harm’s way, just to make this easier.

“James, no one’s gonna put their kids at risk here. Without the kids, what do we have?” asked John. “Tookes, please let him out.

Victor paused for a second and then released the shield holding James in place.

“There’s a note on the door, John. From a Maxist,” said Victor. “They said they intentionally infected themselves thinking Max would save them, instead of leaving to go find food and water.”

“Fuckin’ lazy Americans. Waiting on someone to save them, rather than saving themselves,” said Sean.

Victor cocked an eyebrow at Sean and said, “Really?”

“You’re nothing like normal, Mate. I reckon’ that’s why John hasn’t shot you yet,” he replied. Sean quickly changed the subject before Vic could respond. “ Can Max do that? Can he turn someone back?”

“When he was kidnapped, he took over a zombie. Before Steve died–”

“Who the hell is that?” Sean interrupted.

“The zombie Max took over,” he replied, losing patience. “Anyway, Max wanted me to build him a house because, he said, “zombies are people too.” If he could have turned him back, he would have.”

James spoke up then, “Maybe he didn’t think of it,” the man looked to his Australian friend and said, “I think we should ask him.”

Victor shook his head and said, “No. In fact, none of the children should know about this. I think we should knock the house down and burn it.” The sudden appearance of the Maxists created an odd resurgence of emotion and Tookes didn’t like it. The one thing he’d been sure of was his ability to keep Max safe, but this cult had shaken that belief. Even the suggestion of putting his son, his little boy, all he had left in the world, into the middle of his mess had been enough to coax him to violence. He wouldn’t even entertain the idea of including Max in this so he decided right then that he would ignore any further suggestion about involving his son.

“Flaming zombies? Do you think it’s a good idea to have flaming zombies walking around? They’d catch everything on fire,” said John.

“They’re all contained in the basement. The stairs have been removed. If we’re careful, we can collapse the house in on itself,” said Victor.

“We’d need a fire truck full of water,” said John.

“You’re going to need that anyway if you’re going to make a life here, John. We need to get ya well working. Jo and Renee went to have a go at that. Let’s go see what they found,” said Sean.

Renee showed them the well and the pumps. As they figured, the wooden water cistern was empty, the townspeople had drained it before turning themselves into zombies.

They talked about what they’d need, and how to start the plan. Ultimately, it was decided that Vic and Sean would go get generators and fuel.

About twenty minutes later, the two men entered Yuma in Sean’s truck. The drive to Yuma was largely through barren desert, nothing but sand dunes as far as they could see on either side of the highway. It wasn’t until they got to the outskirts of town that the first bushes and shrubs started to appear. The houses along the road were all southwestern in style, ranging from small adobo ranch houses to large spanish influenced two stories. Every house, no matter how small had a swimming pool, and there wasn’t a blade of grass anywhere within two hundred miles. Yards were landscaped with stone, the occasional Yucca tree or Saguaro cactus. Yuma wasn’t a ghost town, but it wasn’t a booming city either. The cars on the side of the road were average sedans, this had been a town full of working people.

Victor remembered from history classes in school that Yuma was a railroad town. From the coast of California, it was the last stop before the full desert, and from the east it was the first stop after a long, hot trip through the arid plains of Arizona and west Texas. There were train tracks everywhere, and huge metal warehouses dotted the landscape.

Victor led them to the a Sears store. The front doors were ripped from their hinges, shattered and bent in the parking lot. The two men decided to check it out anyway. Inside, the place was completely wrecked. Most of the hand tools were gone, although Sean did manage to put a couple tool bags together. All the battery operated tools were gone, and there were no generators. In the back of the store, there were three badly decomposed men in sears uniforms laying dead on the floor, black dried blood surrounding them. The two men returned to the truck with the few things of value they found and pulled out of the lot.

“Where to next?”

“I have no idea, I’ve never been here before, I saw the Sears sign while we were heading to the airport,” said Victor. “I guess we should try to find a phone book. Keep an eye out for a pay phone.”

“You reckon’ the hospital would have a gennie? In Townsville, the hospital always had a couple of trailer mounted units in case the power went out.”

“Usually here in US they’re built as part of the hospital, on huge concrete pads. We can take a look though,” said Victor.

“What about schools?”

“Same thing.”

Sean drove along in silence for a few minutes. “I can’t imagine being able to go this far in a city in Oz and not see one of them walkers. Where’d they all go?”

Victor had been wondering the same thing. There were some stragglers at the airport when they left, and this was a pretty sizable city.

“Maybe they went to the airport? That plane was loud. That may have drawn them all out to the edge of town.

“Hey, over there. What ya think about a vet’s office?”

“That might work, at worst we might be able to pick up some medications and other supplies.”

Inside the vet’s office, they found the first of the three generators they needed, plus they were able to find a huge haul of medications and other first aid supplies. Sean grabbed several drawers full of surgical tools, and all the saline bags in the office. In just under an hour, they had the truck loaded and were back on the road.

“I think we’re going to have to go house to house,” said Victor as Sean pulled the truck out onto the main road through Yuma. “Somewhere in this town a group of people survived, or is surviving. I’m worried that they’ve hit all the stores in town. That’s going to cause a little trouble for you guys, if you’re staying that close to town.”

Sean turned left off the main road, down a residential street, to start the house-to-house search. As he pulled the truck into the driveway of the first house, the two men looked at each other.

Victor spoke first, “Have you ever seen that?” he asked pointing to stacks of corpses. Sean backed the truck up a little bit, and turned the wheel. As he did, the headlights lit up six piles of bodies, each perfectly stacked.

Victor jumped out of the truck and walked over to the first pile, his gun in one hand and hatchet in the other. Each pile had twelve corpses face down along the bottom, then eleven in the next row, then ten, all the way up to just one body on the top, forming a perfect pyramid. The corpses were clearly zombies before they died, bits of rotten flesh were torn off and blackened from time and the elements. Each corpse had a fresh looking bite mark right at the base of the neck.

“What the fuck is this? Why would someone take the time to stack them? And what the fuck bites a zombie?”

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Apocalypse, Book, Fiction, Horror, Horror Fiction, Novel, Post Apocalypse, Super hero, Zombie, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombie Book, Zombie Story

5.03 Departure

June 29, 2012 Victor Tookes 17 Comments

The runway was like the ending scene out of a movie. There were hugs and handshakes all around. Introductions were made, and Victor was finally able to put faces to all the names he’d been hearing for six months.

The last to approach Tookes was Sean, John’s twin brother. He had a huge grin on his face as he walked up, so Victor was surprised when shadows shot out from him. One of them solidified and developed into a right cross aimed at Vic’s jaw. Reflexively, Victor ducked his head, taking the punch right where his hairline met his forehead.

Sean jumped back shaking his hand, “Ahhh, ya fuckin hard-headed Drongo! I think ya broke my hand!”

“I knew you Aussies were a rowdy bunch,” said Victor. “But that was out of line. What the hell did I do to deserve that?”

“All that screaming you do! My head is still vibrating from that last one out at the army base,” he said, gesturing with his hands. “I’ve had to listen to you blasting my inner ear drums out for the last six months. You need to learn to control ya volume, mate.”

Tookes laughed. “To steal a phrase from your brother, I have a teaspoonful of concrete in my pocket. Swallow that with a cup of water – it’ll harden you right up,” Victor said with a grin. He stuck out his hand. Sean looked at him thoughtfully and then smiled again, gratefully accepting the handshake.

“John, lets put you and your whole family in one van, and we’ll all pile up in the other,” Tookes said to his friend. “We’re going to need to find a third vehicle and fuel up. We should get moving; the plane made a lot of noise and I’d like to be out of here before things get ugly again.”

The group crowded into any available spot in the vehicles, and the two overloaded vans took off towards the city of Yuma to find new transportation. Just inside the city limits, they pulled into a Chevrolet dealership. There were a handful of wandering zombies, which were easily dispatched.

John picked a white Silverado four-door pickup. James picked the same truck in tan. Victor and Marshall both picked Eco-Boost enabled suburbans. They were the newest model that could turn off up to four of the eight cylinders and, according to the stickers on the windows, got up to thirty miles per gallon on the highway. Behind the shop, they found the dealerships gas pumps and filled all four vehicles, plus the gas cans they had in the vans. Marshall transferred all the food and gear into the various new vehicles. Victor looked up to see John coming towards him. John’s face was troubled.

“Tookes, can I chat at ya for a minute, mate?”

“Sure John,” said Victor, knowing what was coming. It seemed like he had just had this same conversation with Kris not too long ago. Was everyone going to leave? He extended his hand and said, “Walk with me.”

The two men walked a short way away. As they walked, John absently rolled a cigarette, clearly uncomfortable with the entire situation. Victor didn’t want this to be harder on his friend than it had to be, so he spoke first.

“I assume from your choice of gas guzzling trucks, you’re not making the trip all the way back to the train.”

“Yeah, mate. Jo’s adamant. She says you’re gonna get me killed.” John paused for a moment, took a deep breath and said, “And, she’s right.” As he spoke, Vic fought back the flinch that was forming on his face. “I have my family to look out for now. Plus, you’ve won, mate,” John said. He was speaking with his hands now. “Laura’s dead. We haven’t seen fuck-all for zombies in the last eight hundred miles. It’s over, Tookes. It’s time to start living.” The Aussie paused and looked closely at his American friend. His voice dramatically softened as he continued, “You always said you were working to create a safe place for Max and we’ve done that. Good people died along the way, but we made this place safe. I met you on the side of the road, and followed you through the depths of hell.” He paused again before turning to fully face Tookes. “Go home Victor, it’s safe.”

“She’s not dead, John. This isn’t over, all it takes is one zombie and all this shit starts back up again,” said Victor sadly. “But I won’t stand in the way of your family. Blood comes first. Besides, Leo’s dead and I’m crazy. Your family needs you now.”

“You know if you ever need anything, just speak. I’ll have Nori taxi me wherever you are,” John said, putting his hand on Vic’s shoulder.

“John, I think of you like a brother. We’ll help you clear out a spot,” Tookes stated. “Do you have any idea where you want to go?”

“We passed a neighborhood right off the highway about thirty miles east of here. I checked it out when we drove by and it looks like a good spot,” he said. “It has a huge cliff on two sides, and the highway barricade on the third. All we’d have to do is close off the road leading in and it’ll be tighter than a platypus’ clacker.”

“What are you gonna do about water?”

“We’ll get it worked out. We’re Bushies,” he replied with a smile.

“Alright, man,” Victor nodded, “We’ll help you clear it out.”

John looked relieved, and Victor looked haggard. His team was falling apart, and there was nothing he could do about it. Leo left, and was now dead. Kris left and had a new life with Alicia in Tennessee. John was leaving. Thoughts and memories of the times they’d all spent together welled up and were quickly stuffed in the box – the box where he stored all his emotions to be dealt with later. And although he desperately tried to ignore it, “later” seemed to be creeping up on him much faster than he had anticipated.

It was a short trip to the little village John was talking about. Victor was filled with a sense of dread about the place, but chalked it up to John and his family leaving. They paired off to clear the houses. Each of the Americans had a lot more experience with this particular task, so each team had one American and one Australian. Victor paired with James, Marshall with Nori, and John with Sean.

Renee and Reggie led the rest of the crew and the children to find the local water source. The town was really just a flat spot at the bottom of a huge sandstone cliff. Thirty two houses, a general store, and a gas station made up the village. The highway ran along the south side. It was raised about ten feet high, with an impossibly steep hill and a guard rail at the top. On the north and west side, there was a sheer cliff that rose hundreds of feet in the air. The area was only accessible from the east from a small, two lane road. The narrowest part of the road was just over one hundred feet from the road to the cliff. Against the short western cliff face was the town’s water tower, just atop a wellhead.

“Jo, let’s head into the store there and see if we can find some supplies, and something for the kids to do,” said Renee.

“Are you sure? They haven’t cleared it yet,” said Jo.

“It’ll be fine, I have a few tricks of my own,” said Renee with a wink. “Would you mind watching Max, Maya, and Holly for a few minutes?” Jo nodded. Renee made herself invisible before continuing, “Zombies can’t see me either. I can scout the store, but it’s likely empty or we would have heard something by now. The kids aren’t being exactly quiet.”

“Okay, but if you hear me scream, come quickly,” Jo said.

“I wouldn’t go if I thought there was any danger,” she said. Renee began to climb the stairs and called over her shoulder. “I’ll be right back. I’m just going to look.”

She opened the door to the hardware store, and saw a very good sign. The shelves weren’t bare, and there was no sign that the place had been looted. It only struck her as odd for a single moment before she remembered how small the town really was. There was a high probability that the entire town either turned or had fled before raiding the stores. The parasites had spread so fast that most people didn’t have time to react or even realize what was happening being it was too late. Renee searched the store quickly; there wasn’t anything living or undead inside. Renee grabbed a couple of large styrofoam airplanes from the small section of toys and took them outside.

Renee reappeared infront of Jo and said, “Nothing in there. But I brought some toys.”

All of the children heard that magic word and ran over to them. Renee laughed as the planes were taken out of her hands and began soaring through the air. Jo was standing there watching the children play with a smile on her face. Max was talking to John’s older son and the girls were running around looking carefree and happy. The children were their hope for a future and so far, that hope was still going strong.

“We can find a generator to run the pump for a little while, but eventually you’re going to need to put a windmill up on top of that cliff to run your well pump,” said Renee.

“John knows all that. He can fix it up.” Jo paused and looked around. She had a sad smile on her face as she added, “This is going to be a good place for us. It has to be.”

“I wish you’d come back east with us,” said Renee. “It’s much easier living out there.”

“For you, maybe,” Jo replied. “This is what we know, and this is what we love. We came all the way here and I want the kids to be in familiar territory.” She crossed her arms over her chest now and looked down. “Our whole life was there. Everything we loved and all of that is gone now. We need something that’s at least…somewhat familiar. Besides,” she looked over to Renee with a small smile and said, “John says out at Victor’s place he feels like he’s going to drown with all the humidity.”

The two women looked up at the sudden sound of three shots that exploded in quick succession. Down the street, Marshall and James were standing near three dead zombies. Marshall yelled something they couldn’t hear, and John waved his hand out of the second story window of a house.

Victor and James worked well together. After the second house, James had the routine down pat and Victor let him take the lead on the third. James stood in front of the door and knocked hard. The two men stood silently and listened for any sign of movement. Victor backed up a step to try and catch a glimpse of anything inside the porch window, but everything seemed clear. Victor nodded to him, and James opened the door. The two men instantly knew something was wrong. The second James opened the door, the stench hit both men like a brick to the face.

“There’s gotta be a bunch inside,” said Victor, suppressing a gag. He had pulled his shirt up over his nose. “I’ve never smelled anything that strong. Keep your wits about you.”

“I know that smell,” said James. “I smelt it in a petrol station. Musta had forty zeds in it.”

The two men waded into the house, warily checking every corner, doorway, closet, and kitchen. When they finally opened the door to the basement, they found what must have been the entire population of the town milling about. Taped to the door was a note:

The situation is dire
We have no food. We lost water when the power went out.
It has been six days without water and we are dying.
We are desperate. The only way we can preserve our bodies and return to Your service is to infect ourselves.
When Max arrives, He will save us, smiting the evil from our bodies and returning us to glory
We will spend the rest of our lives spreading the word of Max.
I have sealed these people in this basement with one of the minions of the Evil Father Victor Tookes, so that they may be preserved until The Savior arrives, and moved on to spread the Gospel.

In the service of Max, Nathaniel Rotelle.

“Oh shit,” said Victor, frozen in his tracks.

Apocalypse, Book, Fiction, Horror, Novel, Post Apocalypse, Zombie, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombie Book, Zombie Story

5.01 Gander Acres

June 20, 2012 Kris 2 Comments

Kris never let go of Alicia’s hand as they disappeared from the desert. They traveled through space and time in an instant and once Kris opened her eyes, she found that they had safely reached the front yard of the main house on Gander Acres. All of the air in her lungs rushed out of Kris in a loud WHOOSH.

“We made it,” she laughed, shaking her head.

“I told you we would,” Alicia said with a smile. She brought Kris’s hand up to her lips and placed a kiss on her soft skin. The two women locked eyes for only a moment before Alicia gestured up to the house. “Let’s go check on Markus.”

They trotted up the hill and pushed in the front door. Kris was immediately put at ease with the familiar, safe feeling of the house. The smell of boiled potatoes, green beans and ham filled her nose and Kris realized that it had been a long time since she had anything real to eat. Even though she had been here only yesterday, her stomach had been in anxious knots and she hadn’t eaten anything the whole day. A wave of comfort came over Kris and while she didn’t dare to hope for a change, she couldn’t help but believe that maybe, just maybe, this place would become her new “normal.” A new life was possible here if she was willing to give it a shot. The faith that Kris had in Alicia made her truly believe that really living was possible. As Kris thought about all of the potential for her life, a huge smile spread across her face. It was time to breathe.

The two women rounded the corner into the kitchen. Liam was sitting at the kitchen table, pouring over a map of the farm and the surrounding area.

“Hey Liam,” Alicia said.

The curly-haired redhead jumped in surprise as he looked up. “Holy hell, you’re back!” As he stood, he almost knocked the table and the chair to the floor. He launched himself across the room and warmly embraced Alicia. As he pulled back from the embrace, he looked at her carefully. “We were worried you wouldn’t come back.”

Alicia laughed. “Why wouldn’t I come back?”

Liam shrugged. “You know the folks here. Paranoia is their way of life.”

“How’s Markus?” Kris asked.

“Conscious most of the day now. I don’t know what happened, but he managed to outgrow and break his bed overnight,” he replied as the small group walked up the stairs and then down the hall to Markus’s room. They stopped just outside the door as Liam continued. “And he’s eating everything in the house and then some. He looks like he’s healed, but he’s still really weak.”

“I can hear you, you know!” A voice called from inside the room.

Alicia smiled broadly and opened the door. Markus was already laughing and she leapt onto the bed, hugging her brother close to her. “Good Lord, Markus. You’re huge!” The siblings shared a laugh as Alicia poked Markus’s now bulging muscles. The brother and sister rapidly spoke to each other, explaining what had happened the night Markus was bit and where Alicia had been for the past day and a half.

Liam tapped Kris on the shoulder and gestured for her to follow him back to the kitchen. The two of them made their way downstairs and sat down at the wooden table. Riley was in the kitchen now, large spoon in hand, stirring the pot of potatoes. The ginger pushed the map he was looking at towards Kris. He didn’t have a very happy look on his face.

Before he should speak, the tea kettle on the stove began whistling ostentatiously. Liam stood up, grabbed the kettle, a smaller stoneware tea kettle, and three cups. He placed the cups in front of them and sat back down. It would take a few minutes for the tea to fully steep. The silence between them seemed to stretch on forever.

“I wish I had good news, Kris,” Liam finally said. He reached towards the teapot and poured all three of them a cup of earl grey tea.

Kris held the mug tightly in her hands, breathing in the sweet smell of the dark tea. She shook her head and softly replied, “Shit. I was afraid you’d say that. I had a feeling that things had been too easy.”

“We always have someone watching every square inch of this farm. And if they’re not watching the farm, someone is watching the everything else.”

Kris nodded, taking a short sip of the tea.

“There’s a whole group of zombies on their way here as we speak. And we’re so unprepared. There’s no way we have enough ammo to take them all out.” He pointed to the map on the table. “From what we can see, they’re coming from where we were almost totally burnt out from the fires.” Liam saw the look of confusion on Kris’s face and then clarified. “North east.”

“Right,” she paused again, deep in thought. “So what do we do?”

A smirk moved across Liam’s face and he glanced over to Riley. The older man was smiling broadly. “It was Riley’s idea. It’s a little risky, but I think it’ll work.”

____________________

It was Neil’s shift to watch the main road. Given that the farm was so massive, they had developed a system to always have someone watching almost every square inch of the farm. He was perched up in a hand-built treestand, slowly smoking the last of his tobacco. Neil had hand-rolled his cigarettes with his own home grown tobacco since he was 16, just as his father before him had done. To his left, Neil had his hunting gun loaded and ready. It had been around a week since he had to fire a single shot, but he was no fool to think that “the end” was over.

He had spent the majority of his time outside, working on a farm of his own. It had been in the family for five generations. All of that was lost the day that the military came through, thinking that bombing the area was the fastest way to destroy the undead. All of his hard work and everything that he had ever called “his” was burned to the ground. The plan to burn the zombies had dramatically backfired; instead of destroying the zombies, they had only destroyed farmland and forest. It had taken a week for the fires to burn themselves out. Once the ash had cleared, there were at least a 100 people that had nowhere else to go.

Alicia and Markus had saved them. Neil had no doubt about that. Markus had showed up in a huge truck and offered them all a chance to survive on Gander Acres. Everyone had agreed. The siblings were well known in the town and highly respected. Now, they were more than respected. They were revered.

The horde was covering ground slowly but steadily, pushing towards the farm. Neil shouted encouragement over to Joey, who was digging pits with the backhoe. They had a large amount of diesel, but it was still a precious commodity. “You’re doing great, Joey! Keep it up, don’t burn that ‘hoe up, replacement parts are going to get real rare!”

Neil looked through his binoculars, counting the zombies. He knew there was no way he could count them all, but he knew every parcel of land on this farm. If he knew how many could fit in an area the size of the farmhouse yard, he’d know roughly how many there were. After some quick figuring in his head, he called out to Martin “Looks like about 225 of em. They’re coming slow and steady, we got about half an hour. Run fetch the kubota and that spool of wire. I’ll ride the ford. We’ll run out a trot-line and wrangle ‘em into Joey’s pits. If we get lucky, we won’t have to fire a shot tonight!”

Neil squinted into the sun, the finely lined crows feet stood out at his temples, the product of years of working out in the bright summer sunlight. His favorite old John Deere cap sat atop his head, the bill worn threadbare from years of being stuck in his back pocket when he went inside. No real man wore his hat inside. He worried about the two boys he loved almost as his own sons. The three men had been working the land together since they were small children. They were good men to have around though. Solid, sturdy framed boys, rugged from an outdoorsman’s life. Both could grow anything, and Martin was the best hunter and tracker Neil had ever known. Neither boy had been much for school, all either of them wanted was to be outside working. Both had quit high school as soon as the local constable would allow, and hadn’t gone much before that.

The sound of the new kubota running up the hill woke Neil from his memories. Martin had the front bucket low to the ground and full of a scoop of dirt to offset the weight of the barbed wire on the back spooler. “Pull up next to the ford,” Neil yelled over the sound of the diesel engine. “I’ll attach the wire to the PTO, and we can run off about 100 yards, then run it back. When we have six or eight wires running between the tractors, I’ll use the tractor’s PTO to spin them all together into a barbed cable.”

Martin looked over at Neil, “Ya reckon’ this is gonna work?”

“Of course it’ll work, Martin. Just like runnin’ a net through the lake. Some few stragglers might make it through, but they shouldn’t be too hard to mop up. We need to thin the herd, taking them out one at a time is too long.”

“What if it’s some of them fast ones?” yelled Joey.

“Then we’ll deal with them, like we have before. No way of knowin’ so we might as well follow the plan until we have to abandon it. You boys know there ain’t no sense in bein’ worried about somethin’ we can’t control.”

“Yes sir,” they both said at the same time.

Joey dumped one more scoop of dirt, then backed the tractor over the rise. A few seconds later he came trotting over to Martin on the big Kubota tractor and got straight to work. The three of them were so practiced at working together, none of them really needed instruction. Joey attached the barbed wire to the back of the Ford. Martin took off, looped it around a tree, then back to the Ford. Joey cut the wire, attached the looped end and a fresh wire to the PTO on the tractor, and Martin was off again. In no time, eight lengths of barbed wire stretched between the tractor and the tree. Neil cut the wire against the tree with his hatchet, and attached those ends to the Kubota.

The Ford’s PTO was powerful, designed to spin huge cultivator blades through hard dirt. The wire was no match for the engine, it spun into an inch-thick cable with deadly, flesh ripping barbs sticking out at every angle. The three men shut down the tractors and waited, wondering if the sun would set before the zombies got to them. It was always worse fighting them in the dark. Neil reached into his back pocket and pulled out a smooshed sandwich.

“Might as well grab a bite, boys. Gonna be a fair piece before we get somethin else to eat,” he said as he bit into his sandwich.

The three of them ate a small supper standing between the tractors and waited. When they were done eating and had all taken a long pull from the water jug, they mounted their tractors and started them up.

“Martin, you take the inside arc, I’ll swing out and come through the middle. It’s going to take a couple of trips. The three men pushed their tractors into their high gear and started off towards the horde, ready to lasso them and drag them into the pits.

Just over the grassy hillside at the edge of the field, two zombies lay on their stomachs watching below.

‘They’re smart, this group,’ said one.

‘We are stronger,’ said the other.

Apocalypse, Book, Fiction, Horror, Novel, Post Apocalypse, Zombie, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombie Book, Zombie Story

4.06 Alicia

March 19, 2012 Victor Tookes 3 Comments

This entire book, as posted on this site, is a rough draft. It’s the cost of reading as I write, instead of waiting until it’s available on Kindle.

She wasn’t out of this yet.

Kris was furiously pacing the floor, deep in thought. It was obvious that she had spent too much time dwelling on what she could not do verses what she could. The knowledge that there was much more to her than she had ever imagined was invigorating. She felt revived with a new sense of purpose. As she paced from one side of the dark room to the other, a deep driving need to survive filled her mind. She was consumed by it.

They had underestimated her the first time, but they wouldn’t make that mistake twice. Kris knew that she needed to be well beyond their reach by the time they got back.

Two hours passed. Thin, deep red streams of light stretched across the industrial carpet and Kris could feel the temperature dropping. She needed to get out of here and the only thing standing in her way was that damn door, but she wasn’t strong enough to break it down. There had to be another way.

“Miss Kris?” It was Max again. “Are you still there?”

She forgot he had been listening. “I’m here, Max. I’m sorry you had to hear that. I don’t know how, but I have to get out of here.”

“Daddy says all the things have a reasonable frequency. Find the tone and use your shield to amplify it.” There was a pause and Kris wondered what a “reasonable frequency” before Max corrected himself and said, “Resonating.”

Kris smiled slightly at the word correction. Victor must have been listening in to their conversation. He was such a good father to Max. It was strange that children were not something that Kris ever felt drawn to. When Leslie, one of the girls she worked with, brought her four month old son into the restaurant, Kris felt the urge to run the other way. All of the other servers were so excited over the baby but Kris found herself purposely avoiding the entire situation. She had awkwardly waved at Leslie from the opposite side of the bar and then hid in the kitchen. Just the idea of holding the baby made her skin crawl and that’s when Kris decided that some women just weren’t meant to have children. Maybe she was one of those women. From her experience, children were usually loud, obnoxious and rude. But little Max was different. He was sweet, adorable and very intelligent. As much as she hated to admit it, she really liked him.

“I’ll try that, but what if I can’t make the right sound?”

“Then we’ll try something else, but you can do this Kris,” The voice was Victor’s now. “When you get out, find out where you are and tell Max. I’m going to go get Leo and we’re coming to find you.”

We’re coming to find you. His voice echoed inside her mind and their connection was abruptly silenced and Kris was alone again. Conversations were also so damn short with these people. The world had complained about what technology had done to the ability to converse, but no one even considered what an apocalypse would do. Kris wanted nothing more than to have a moment of normalcy and have a real conversation with someone that didn’t involve how they were going to survive. Or about some insane crusade to save the world. Or maybe where she didn’t have to worry about what was coming to kill her next.
The frequency of resonance is linked to the time it takes for a vibration of sound to spread throughout a building, reverberate and then how long it takes for the “echoes” to return to the oscillation, The voice told her in its usual clipped fashion. By finding the correct frequency, any structure can be destroyed. Kris took over the conversation and told herself, Find the right frequency, and I can bring the house down.

Kris stopped pacing and stood in the center of the room. Her feet were placed shoulder width apart and she stood tall, exhaling slowly. She let all of air out of her lungs and focused on expanding her ribcage as she inhaled. Air filled her lungs again and she picked the lowest note she could sing. Kris created a small dome just in front of her lips and sang into the bubble. With a flick of her hand, she pushed the bubble across the room and morphed it around the door. The metal door vibrated gently and began to produce a beautiful cord inside its frame. Kris listened for the highest note in the cord and shifted her voice to fit the sound. She was singing a few octaves under the highest tone and pinched the dome into a tall cylinder to bend the pitch. As the dome pinched together, the note was pushed to screaming heights.

The note permeated the door and filled its core. Kris could feel it rattling around in the frame, and the door shook violently before it slowly began to crumble. Before her eyes, the steel door turned into nothing but dust and the the aluminum door handle clunked to the floor. The sound was abruptly snuffed out as the door disappeared.

“Holy shit, that actually worked!” she shouted and threw her arms into the air and shouted with joy and made a mental note to thank Vic later for that bit of genius. She ran towards the open door frame and into the hall. Kris pushed the dome out from her body and had it expand over the floor of the Sheraton hotel. The entire layout of the floor filled Kris’s mind and she could once again confirm that she was alone. Part of the dome brushed against the elevator shaft 400 feet in front of her and a distinct “8” bore into her mind. Eight floor.

The industrial carpet was golden yellow, tan and black in a typical modern block formation. The pattern was over-sized and terribly standard-looking. As she ran, she had to be careful where her feet landed. There was wooden debris, glass and discarded pieces of furniture that littered the floor. In her bare feet, every step was a risk. Even though she healed very quickly, Kris didn’t want anything potentially slowing her down. At the end of the hall, she found the emergency exit and threw herself against it. Kris drew the shield back around herself like a warm blanket as the door flew inward and rattled roughly against the interior concrete wall. As she stepped inside the door, she glanced around the staircase. It was silent. Kris knocked on the metal handrail and as the sound reverberated through the open stairwell, she expanded the sphere that protected her to fill the entire area. Aside from a half dozen rotting corpses in tattered clothing and a broken-up love seat, the emergency exit was empty. Kris trotted down the cold cement stairs. Her bare feet made soft padding noises as she crossed each step.

It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be coming up it. Henry Allen’s Law of Civilization, the Voice told her. Oh, thanks for that. Always so God damn cheerful, Kris snapped in response.

She only had to side step once to avoid a shattered portion of the stairs before she pushed open the emergency exit door that lead into the hotel lobby. It must have been beautiful before the world collapsed. The tan, deeply veined marble floor still gleamed brightly in the late evening light. Whoever had polished it last did a remarkable job and would have deserved a raise for his work. The lobby was enormous with a squat, arched ceiling and four large, multi-coloured glass chandeliers. One of the four chandeliers had crashed to the marble floor and shattered into thousands of rainbow shards. All that was left attached to the ceiling were a set of wires with a few left over strands of glass. Gathered into small groups around the expansive room were black, leather bound love seats paired with two wing-back chairs and a circular, glass coffee table. The furniture groupings were anchored together on what used to be brightly colored, hand woven rugs. In the passing months, they had grown dark, dingy and some had been stained with blood. There were more corpses in the lobby than anywhere else Kris had encountered and the stench was overwhelming. She felt bile rise up in her throat and she swallowed hard to avoid throwing up.

There were dark patches of dried blood spread across the marble floor. There were streaks of it that led from the revolving door and straight to the main desk. Kristina Thompson, checking in. And have the bellboy pick up my bags, please. Just to the side of the streak there were awkwardly placed, bloody footprints that seemed to stagger off behind the desk.

She was suddenly standing just outside of the Humvee that picked her up the night the world changed. With horror, she watched a set of zombie teeth tear into a bicep of the man that wore black swimming trunks. The teeth sunk into his muscle and out of reflex, the man’s elbow snapped upwards. Another set of teeth tore into the base of his neck. Both zombies pulled their heads backward and strings of muscle, skin and gore fell from their gnashing teeth. Blood exploded from the wounds and bubbled down his shirt. Another zombie had the man’s left hand in its mouth and was chewing slowly. Kris heard his bones snapping and popping and the zombie bit down again and pulled with its teeth. The flesh and muscle was pulled from his hand in one solid motion and all that was left was the skeletal remains.

The man screamed.

With a shout, Kris tore herself from her past and pushed the memory back down where it belonged. Breathing deeply, she focused on what was real and stomped her feet against the cold marble. She was cold, hungry and in need of somewhere safe to spend the night. And the first order of business was to find some God damn shoes.

As she pushed through the revolving doors, she spread the dome out and stretched it across ¾ of the block. As she walked, Kris had the entire layout of the block etched perfectly in her mind. From what she could see, the area looked like a scene out of some over-done, Hollywood disaster movie. Only in this world, the credits would never roll and the dead never stayed dead. Lifeless bodies and destroyed, burnt out cars lined the silent streets. The air, just like the city, was still. Kris pushed the sphere out farther and it fully covered the block and aside from a small flock of seagulls, there was not another living thing in the area.

“Jesus Christ,” she sighed and wrapped her arms around herself as she walked down the small staircase that lead to the sidewalk. The first ten corpses she passed were either men, or women with much smaller feet than her. She tried very hard to ignore that she was about to steal shoes from a dead body.

Stealing shoes off a dead man. Oh, we’re going to hell. Weekend at Bernies 2, The Voice said.

That was one of the shittiest movies I’ve ever seen, Kris retorted with a snort.

But Jeff wanted to watch it. So you did.

Kris brushed the last comment aside as she jogged down the street, keeping her eyes open for shoes that looked like they would fit. Eventually, she found a pair of lime green and yellow Puma running shoes. As she crouched down to remove the shoes, she turned her head to the side. The skin and bones had dried out and as Kris pulled the shoes off, the bones made a sick snapping sound and she flinched in disgust. Standing up, she tied the laces together and tucked the shoes under her armpit. She could handle shoes from a dead body, but socks were something else entirely. Half a block down, she found a CVS with all of the glass windows broken in. She did a quick search and managed to find a bag of men’s socks, an XXL black hooded sweatshirt with the word “MOBILE” across the front, a bottle of water and two Lara bars. In desperation, she also grabbed a mop. After placing it on an angle against the floor and wall, she stepped on it and snapped it to a sharp point. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was better than nothing.

She tore one of the wrappers off of the Lara bar and bit into it. It still tasted like cardboard, but it was the best tasting cardboard she had ever eaten. With a sigh, she sat down on the curb of the street and ripped open the plastic bag of socks and took out four pairs. With a cringe, she realized that the only thing separating her feet from the feet of the shoes’ previous inhabitant was a thin piece of cotton. And then she realized that doubling up on socks was not an option because the shoes weren’t large enough. Her face was tightly scrunched as she pulled the socks onto her feet and then the sneakers. “Oh, this is all types of fucked up,” she muttered and as she stood, she twisted off the cap of the water and drank it greedily.

She pushed the extra socks and the second Lara bar into the front pocket of the sweatshirt and pulled the deep hood up over her head. The sun was getting perilously low and she still had no safe place to go. After another deep sigh, she stuffed her hands in her pockets and began to walk down the block. The only thing she was grateful for in this entire trip was that their little stunt in Atlanta had apparently drawn all of the zombies in the surrounding area into Georgia and out of Alabama.

Fucking Tookes. God damn crusade… She thought, shaking her head. And yet at the same time, she found herself missing his drive and his passion. If not him, who? She thought. Followed immediately by, I must be losing my mind.

The last thing she expected to hear were running engines shuttering to a stop three blocks away. And as if hearing those engines wasn’t enough, she heard nin distinct heartbeats pumping warm blood to live bodies.

Her ears picked up a clear, distinctly feminine voice. “Jackson, spread your men around the trucks. Keep your eyes peeled for walkers. Tommy, move your teams into positions around the pumps. We have thirty-thousand gallons to pump, move your asses!”

“You got it, Alicia,” one said.

“We’ll get it done,” said another.

“We’ll get you back to that beautiful baby tonight, Tommy. You have my word.”

Kris ran towards them and as she did, she carried the sphere with her and began to project it forward.

Book, Fiction, Horror, Zombie

4.01 Alone

February 25, 2012 Victor Tookes 11 Comments

Victor Tookes trudged up the beach feeling very alone. It had been a long time since he’d been out on his own, with no backup anywhere. “She’s just mad, she probably went off somewhere to think and to prove a point,” he thought as he struggled through the deep, loose sand. Just in case she came back he dug out a large deep arrow in the sand, piling sticks and trash in the trench to indicate his direction of travel. The rain made the surface of the sand seem much more firm than it was. Months of wind and rain and lack of maintenance had left the resort beach in its natural state, covered in seaweed and debris from the ocean. Trash was piled up at the high water line. Since there was no one working at the resort to remove the dead sea life that washed ashore it smelled of rotting fish. Not that it really mattered what it looked or smelled like. There wasn’t anyone left alive who would enjoy a lazy day laying out at the beach. Victor thought to himself, “There weren’t any lazy days for those of us who are left, either.” Today was not the kind of day anyone would be on the beach anyway. The cold rain was picking up; now it was a steady downpour. The wind was bringing cold air in, the temperature felt like it had dropped ten degrees while he was standing there. At this rate it would turn to snow by nightfall.

Victor was pretty sure he could see a few human corpses along the beach too, but it was hard to tell from a distance, between the bloat and discoloration caused by months at sea and the subsequent rot from laying in the sun. It wasn’t unlikely that six months after a sentient parasite that turned humans into zombies invaded the planet a few corpses would wash ashore. Seeing corpses laying around was the least of Victor’s worries, it was the ones that stood up and walked that he had to be concerned about. Victor was one of the lucky ones. A genetic marker passed from parent to child for thousands of years made Victor immune to the parasite. It gave him abilities far beyond what he’d had as a normal human before he’d been infected, but he was still human. He still felt pain, although physical pain was something he was much more adept at dealing with. He seldom allowed himself time to reflect on the emotional toll this had taken on him, out of fear of completely breaking down. A mental breakdown was something he didn’t have time for. There was so much to do and no one else to do it.

Every single human he’d encountered outside of his own group of survivors were barely able to keep themselves alive. It was only due to luck and timing that he and Max made it to the relative safety of his mother’s house before the worst of the apocalypse. Victor, his brother, and his friends John and Leo and a few survivors had spent the first two months fortifying their property. While the rest of the world was dying, they were building a safe place. Victor’s son Max had the ability to shield the house from the eyes of the zombie lieutenants. Max’s abilities were the reason the zombie leadership wanted to get their hands on him.

When a normal immune person was bitten by a zombie, their body fought off the E’Clai. The chemistry of their brain was altered by the invading creatures, causing the parasite to die. Whatever pathways in the brain the ‘bugs’ connected stayed connected, even after the parasites were dead. Those pathways, those parts of the brain that were disconnected in normal humans were what allowed Victor to see people’s auras, to see what action a person was going to take before it happened, and to talk to his friends over vast distances. They’re what gave his brother Marshall super human strength. They’re what gave Leo the ability to teleport herself and others over vast distances, and they’re what gave John his uncanny abilities with weapons. They’d learned the hard way that use of those abilities drew zombies to them like moths to a flame. Victor thought it was probably an innate response to draw the slow, stupid zombies towards the more powerful lieutenants.

They’d recently found out that Victor’s half-sister Renee was also immune, which meant the immunity was handed down through his mother. Renee was still learning to control her abilities. So far she had the ability to make herself invisible, even to Victor, and she was fast. She could outrun most cars, and while Leo was faster than Renee, Leo had had much more experience and exposure to zombies. Victor wasn’t sure what caused the gradual enhancement of abilities he and his friends had experienced. He’d spent weeks trying to puzzle out if use made one stronger, or if it was continued exposure to the parasites. Each person seemed to have gifts in specific areas, although he wasn’t sure how each ability was assigned. They’d each met others with their exact abilities. Everyone, regardless of specific ability seemed to gain enhanced healing to some degree or another. Victor and Leo both healed very quickly. Victor’s nearly severed arm healed in minutes.

Kris was the only person he’d met so far that appeared to have unique abilities. Her ability to control and manipulate sound waves was not something he’d encountered in anyone else, nor did Victor believe that was all she was capable of. Just the previous day she created a huge dome covering dozens of acres of land and contained a massive explosion within, amplifying the heat and pressure waves as it bounced off the inside of the dome. Victor had barely been able to hold the heat and pressure off of himself and his friends trapped inside the inferno. All of the skin had been burned off of Victor’s back as he laid on top of his friends trying to protect them. His fleece vest had melted into his skin, and hours ago had to be forcefully ripped from his back. New skin covered his back now, but it was still very raw. The cold wind-driven rain and sand felt like tiny needles driving into his flesh as he reached the road at the top of the beach.

“Prioritize,” he thought to himself. “You gotta get it together.” He’d promised Max he would come home that night. That gave him roughly half the day to look for Kris before he started the trip up to Fort McPherson, where his brother was due to meet them in a few hours. Victor had always worked well under pressure, both in his real life job and in this horror of a world he occupied now. The first concern is always security these days, he needed to find a truck and get moving. “Alright Tookes. Your priorities are security, timing, water, and food. Find a truck, get moving. That’s step one. Step two, follow the coast west looking for Kris. Step three, get back to the train.” He always felt better when he had a plan.

Standing at the edge of the road, movement caught his eye. He immediately switched his eyes to what he called his “aura view”, but saw no sign of life. The rain streamed down his face, chilling him to the bone. “Fucking zombies,” he said out loud. Zombies didn’t have auras. If he looked very closely he could sometimes see something he could only describe as an anti-aura. It was like a hole where some spark should be. He expanded his own aura around himself and solidified it as he drew his gun from its holster and pulled his hatchet from its loop on the right side of his belt. “Come on out,” he said loudly. “Either way I’m going to kill you, so you might as well take it like a man,” he boasted, mostly to help his own self confidence. Trash talking was his version of a Maori Haka, a war dance John had told him about that preceded rugby matches used to hype up the players and get the adrenaline flowing.

A little girl, about seven years old stepped out from between two cars. “Please don’t hurt me,” she said, slowly walking towards him with her hands out. “I’m so hungry, I haven’t eaten in days.” She was absolutely beautiful. Her face was smeared with dirt, the rain water was running down her face washed clean streaks through the grime. her long blonde hair was grungy and stringy. She had huge bright blue eyes, the kind that most children lose when they’re three or four years old. She was wearing a long wet, dirty night-shirt that came to her ankles and clung to her as she walked. Her feet were bare as she splashed through a puddle.

She walked towards Victor very slowly. Victor was sure this trick had worked for her with a lot of survivors. He pulled the trigger on his Sig Saur p226, firing a huge .40 caliber bullet into her tiny skull. “Humans have auras, and a human would have been shivering in this cold.” he said as he passed the tiny corpse bleeding out on the pavement.

“I hope you can find some peace now,” Victor said sadly. Then he added “The peace you stole from us,” as he stepped over the corpse. The instant his foot hit the pavement on the other side of the dead zombie-girl, three more zombies stepped out from behind the cars.

“What the hell did you do that for?” The first one said.

The two zombies standing in front of him were both middle aged men. One was wearing a very new suit; Victor could still see the creases in the shirt from being folded up in the package. His hair was salt and pepper, closely cropped and well styled. The other was wearing khaki pants and a red checked button up shirt, also still creased from sitting on the shelf in the store, and had longer hair parted on the side. Victor wondered what they’d been like when they were alive. Suit-zombie might have been anything. The clothes had obviously been picked out by the parasites in his brain. Picked for a reason, to make him look as human as possible. What they didn’t know, or were unable to comprehend was that no one wore a suit to an apocalypse party.

“She was a zombie, just like you are,” said Victor feeling rage rise in him. Thoughts of Candi’s dead body in the front seat of his truck danced before his eyes. Her blood on the dashboard and seat was bright red in his memory. His anger felt justified and the idea of dismembering these zombies slowly seemed very satisfying. He squeezed the trigger again. Another corpse hit the ground. “Oh,” Said Victor with mock sadness in his voice. “Only two zombies left, that’s hardly a fair fight for you.” Victor smiled and paused for a second. “Here, I’ll put my gun away,” he said putting his sidearm in its army-green plastic thigh holster.

Suit zombie moved first, running towards Victor’s right side. The second came from the other side just behind. Victor watched the suit decide to try and grab for his arms so the other could bite him. Victor knew they would die the second they touched his aura. Killing zombies with his aura seemed to use up his energy or wear him out somehow. This was just two; not enough to weaken his aura, but he didn’t want this fight to end that quickly. He let his aura dissipate and decided to take these two on without using any abilities. He brought his empty hand in front of him, turned slightly to the right and readied his hatchet.

Suit zombie grabbed Victor’s free forearm. Victor brought the hatchet down in a strong over hand chop, slicing the flesh just above the elbow. The force of the blow shattered the unfortunate zombie’s upper arm bone, completely severing the arm. The hand continued to clutch Victor’s wrist, as blood pumped out of the zombie it had been attached to. The second zombie was coming from his offhand side. Victor moved gracefully to the side and swept his offhand arm upward, smashing suit-zombies severed arm into number two’s jaw. As he moved, his soaking wet hair covered his face. He slung his head to the side whipping his wet hair out of his face, revealing the fury in his eyes.

There was an animal pleasure in beating these two corpses to death. Victor had so much emotion bottled up inside. These creatures had caused so much pain and he had so much hatred and animosity towards them. He expressed all that emotion now through violence. And it felt good. “What are you going to do to me?” he said, smashing one-armed suit zombie in the face with his fist. “You’ve taken my wife, you’ve taken the life I had built for myself, threatened everything I love, and left me with nothing, save my mission to rid the world of every one of you.”

The two attackers had backed off now, waiting for some opportunity to attack. Some opening in the enraged man’s defenses. Victor presented none as he circled with them. He was battle hardened, and had a lot of experience fighting zombies much tougher than these. Tookes drove forward, lunging at the checkered shirt. They grappled, wrapping their arms around each other. Max’s father brought his knee up into the groin of his opponent. He pummeled the zombies face like a heavyweight boxer. Punch after punch landed home. The zombie was stunned by the blows, and Victor took full advantage. Every blow opened the flesh on its face. Both eyes were cutThe suit used that to try and bite the back of Tooke’s neck. Of course, the human fighter knew that was coming, zombies were nothing if not predictable. Present them a target, they always take it. He dropped down and rolled backwards, launching his opponent with his legs into the suit zombie. The two corpses crashed in mid-air, knocking them both to the ground.

Victor feigned exhaustion as he got to his feet, letting his arm and hatchet drop slightly. He pretended to breathe heavily to lure the two of them in, and the plan worked perfectly. Victor swung the hatchet sideways at head level. The blade buried itself in suit-zombie’s skull. “And then there was one!” said Victor as he wrenched the hatchet free.

“You’re one fuckin’ crazy dude,” said the remaining zombie as he turned and ran. Victor slid his bloody hatchet into its ring and drew his gun. He slowly lined up the sights on the barrel and squeezed off one round. The last zombie was fast. In those few seconds he’d managed to make it over a hundred yards. John would have made the shot easily, but Victor watched the zombie twist, then stumble and hit the ground. His aim was true but the bullet was low, hitting the lieutenant in the spine just below the shoulder. Victor closed the distance and fired one more shot. Blood and brains exploded outward creating red and gray rainbow around the remnants of his skull.

He searched all three zombies, but found no keys. He was in the middle of a city, finding a vehicle was going to be hard. He knew he wouldn’t last long out in this weather, especially once the sun was gone. He walked west down the middle of an empty street, through an empty city. Other than the steady drumming of the rain on the asphalt, the only other noise was the occasional zombie pounding on a store or upstairs apartment window. He tried not to think about how it felt to kill those zombies, he needed to get himself back in check.

Apocalypse, Book, Fiction, Novel, Post Apocalypse, Zombie, Zombie Apocalypse

2.01 Cleanup

August 26, 2011 Victor Tookes 4 Comments

For the next two chapters, the links above are out of order. You have to click forward to chapter 3, and then back to Chapter 2. Sorry for the trouble.

Prologue

The zombies came in the spring of 2011. In one day a wave of stumbling, rotting, fetid corpses spread over the earth, ending life as we knew it. Some of them were smart, some of them could pass for human, and some of them were super human.

I’ve seen zombies that could fly, teleport over short distances, run with incredible speed, zombies that could lift thousands of pounds, and even zombies that could read the intentions of humans. They didn’t all have the same powers, there seemed to be a hierarchy among them. The more powerful the zombie, the higher it was in their pecking order.

My name is Victor Tookes. I’ve spent the last 12 years of interrogating every smart zombie we can catch, trying to piece together what happened on that day. Here’s what I know: the infection started on a small research ship outside of Baltimore, Maryland. An asteroid landed in the ocean, and the US government had sent a group of deep sea reclamation experts to retrieve it. That asteroid had contained trillions of microscopic parasites; my son Max calls them “bugs”. Those parasites work in groups to take over the brain of the host, which kills off all remnants of the original occupant of that body, and gives the parasite full control the body.

I also know that this is not the first time these parasites have tried to take over the human race. About 30,000 years ago, they came for the first time. A few of us humans developed immunity to them, and we were eventually able to wipe out the infection. Those ancient humans were genetically mutated by the parasites, but were unable to be taken over or controlled. My family is descended from those original humans, and we carry that immunity. Leo and John also carry the gene that makes them able to defeat parasites that invade them. If those few of us who are immune survive the infection process, which invariably involves being bitten by a zombie, those of us with immunity sometimes gain special abilities. I believe, although I don’t know this for sure, that the parasites reconnect pathways in our brains to areas that our species doesn’t normally have access to. I also believe that the stronger the infection or the more parasites an immune person receives, the more of those pathways are reconnected before our bodies kill off the bugs. I don’t know if the corpses of the parasites themselves act as the pathways, or if they just ‘turn those areas on’ before they die, but I hope it’s the latter. I don’t particularly like the thought of parasitic corpses living in my brain. What I don’t know is why they want my son Max so badly, but I will find out.

All of my ‘team’ have some special abilities. John never misses. Whether its thrown, shot, fired, catapulted, lobbed or any other manner of projectile weapon, I’ve never seen him miss. One time I watched him kill a zombie with a rock from 200 feet away, and he routinely takes the wings off flies with stones. I guess it’s more of a challenge than just killing them. Maybe he’s trying to invent a whole new race of flightless flies.

My brother Marshall is astoundingly strong, and never gets tired. I’ve seen him pick up a car and throw it at a zombie like it was a baseball. When we’re fighting zombies, he favors 20 lb sledge hammers, and almost always has a pair of them with him, strapped in an X on his back. Woe unto the zed that comes into Marshall’s circle of death, for their un-death shall be ended quickly and violently. Despite his huge size, standing at almost seven feet tall, Marshall might be the nicest guy left on the planet. Unless you cross him; 40 pounds of hardened steel on the end of a pair of hickory shafts will give you an extreme headache.

Leo, is fast. She can move faster than the human eye can follow, and even claims, although I’ve never seen it, to be able to outrun a bullet. Everything about her is fast; she heals extreme wounds in hours, and minor ones in seconds. She is the deadliest hand to hand fighter I’ve ever seen. She moves like flowing water, gracefully ending the miserable existence of anything that dares to stand in her way.

My name is Victor Tookes. I suppose I’m the leader of this community of around 350 people, probably because I can read people. I see colorful auras surrounding them. Those colors give me clues about the mood or intentions of the person. I can see those colors from very far off, farther than my normal vision would allow, sometimes as much as 100 miles. I’m the only one I know who can definitively tell a living person from a smart zombie, because zombies don’t have auras. I can also see the effects of my decisions, and the decisions of others. If I’m thinking of two possibilities, I can literally watch the outcome of those decisions. I can follow decision trees infinitely or at least several years into the future, but every time I look at the next step, the number of possibilities is exponentially more complex. Missing one small piece of information can lead to disastrous results, so in actuality I’m seldom able to go more than two or three decisions forward with any reliability.

And then there is my son Max. Max was three and a half years old at the time of the outbreak. Or invasion, however you choose to look at it. He has abilities that none of us can fully comprehend, and he’s never been able to explain them. He can sense zombies from vast distances. He can hide our presence from them. He can kill zombies with a thought. That ability is the conundrum of my life. You would think it would be easy to parade a huge group of zombies in front of him and ask him to kill them. It would be easy to ask him where they are and how many of them there are. But as a father, my goal is to protect him, to shelter him, and to provide a safe place for him to be an innocent child. I would die myself before asking him to kill a horde of zombies. It is true that he is the one that ended the battle on our doorstep, but as far as he was concerned, he was just saving me.

No one else knows it was Max that killed all those zombies. Without being able to see auras the way I can, they couldn’t see that wave of Max’s energy killed every parasite it encountered, they just know that the zombies that were eating me flew off of me, and every other zombie within 2 miles fell down, never to move again. I have managed to convince them that since I was busy being eaten alive at the time, and have no idea how or what I did.

Shortly after we arrived at my family’s farm near Culpeper Virginia, a massive horde of zombies attacked us. All told, we killed 12,653 zombies that day. We kept count to honor them, the people that they were before. We kept count to remember who we are, and what we’re doing this for. We used pickups and tractors to dig a massive pit in the middle of the field where we’d killed the largest part of them. We piled the bodies in that pit, and used the last of our diesel to light it. It takes a lot of fuel and a lot of time to burn human bodies. We used 4 full trees over 6 days to fully cremate the dead. Many of the survivors in our camp knew these people. It was a very hard time.

The days immediately after that fight were both a celebration of our victory over the horde, and a period of mourning for the dead, for the friends and family members who were taken from us, perverted to serve as mindless rotting instruments of death.

Chapter 1
Unwelcome Visitor

The morning after the fight, we received a visit from Colonel Joshua Frye. He showed up that morning in force, rolling with six military Humvees, two of which had very intimidating .50 caliber cannons mounted in an armored gunner’s turret on the roof. He had 12 soldiers with him, and they were armed for conflict. Four of them were flanking Frye, lined up in an arc behind him, the four were in the driver’s seat of their Humvees, and the last two standing up in the gunner’s turrets of those two desert sand colored trucks.

The gate guard radioed up to the house to let us know something was coming down the road. There was never any traffic on the road these days, so we all got up from the breakfast table and headed down to the end of the driveway. By the time I got down to the front gates with John and Marshall, Frye was standing at the gate with his men behind him. It did not feel like a friendly visit. Leo had beaten us down there by several minutes.

“Colonel Frye, you look, surprised to see us.” I said, noting the flashes of yellow in his aura.

“Not at all, I’m surprised at the mess though. What are you hiding in there? How did you kill that many zombies?” His tone reminded me of law enforcement. It carried an expectation of answer. These days, the law was what you could defend. This was my land, and these were my people. His tone was the final straw in a long series of short straws.

I opened the gate down at the end of the half-mile driveway and stepped out in front of Frye. He was a head taller than me, easily six and a half feet tall. I had considered all of my options on where to punch him. Walking through the gate, shadows shot out of me, each one landing a blow. The gut punch ended with me breaking a bone in my hand, hitting body armor with a bare fist is never a good idea. The shot to the nose was the least damaging to me, and was the option I chose. It ended with him shouldering the rifle hanging from his chest rig. The shadow fist that punched him in the nose solidified, shortly before my flesh and bone fist connected with his nose.

I felt a satisfying crunch as my middle knuckle broke the cartilage in the bridge of his nose. Frye staggered back a couple of steps and drew his weapon, blood running down his face and dripping off his chin. I knew he was going to draw down on me. Immediately after hitting him I stepped inside his range and put my favorite pistol, my Sig Saur .40 caliber, to his head. John and Marshall both shouldered weapons. John had an H&K short barreled fully automatic carbine pointed at the farthest man in a gun turret, and Marshall sighted down the barrel of a 12 gauge shotgun at the other. Those two men operating huge chain guns were clearly the largest threat. At my first move towards Frye, his men shouldered their weapons, standard combat issue M-16’s.

“Colonel Frye,” I said, ice running through my voice. “You have not been honest with me. You have tried to play me from the minute you found out there were survivors here. You have acted magnanimous. You acted like you wanted to help, but you with held vital intelligence until it suited your own purpose. I will not allow you to continue to be a threat to me or my family.”

“Victor, I did not…” He started. The red slashes in his aura already indicating that he was going to lie to me.

“Frye. I don’t know what you’re about to say, but it’s a lie. I strongly advise you against testing me. You will lose that test, I promise you that.”

“Mr. Tookes, We did…”

“Josh.” I said as I pulled the hammer back on my pistol. It was an unnecessary step in a double action pistol, but significant in its message. “Josh, this is your last chance. If John sees my finger even quiver on this trigger, all of your men will die and we will gain several nice rifles, some functional body armor and 6 well outfitted Humvees. There really is no drawback to this for me.”

Frye stood up straight. “This conversation is over.” He said flatly as he started walking back to his truck.

“That’s the first honest thing you’ve ever said to me, Frye. To all you men,” I said gesturing to the men in the trucks. “You are following a man who has lied to me, who has endangered my family and the lives of everyone living here. You are not welcome on my property as long as you follow him.” I added a pause, letting the idea of not following him sink in.

“If you continue to work towards the Colonel’s interests, you are not welcome to within 1 mile of my property line. I claim the full area within 6 miles of where we stand. If I catch you within 7 miles of this house neither I nor my men will not hesitate.”

Frye was the only one who spoke. “Tookes, you do not have domain, or the right to claim that much land.”

“Frye, you keep operating under the assumption that the United States Government still exists, or that you have some authority because you’re wearing a uniform. I can claim that land because I can defend that land. I can claim it because that’s the amount of land required to feed the number of people in my care, and I can claim it because there’s nothing you and your 12 soldiers can do about it.”

With that, Frye got in his truck and they all drove off, bouncing and hopping over the piles of rotten zombie corpses lying in the road. Each time a tire crossed a new zombie; they burst open like over-full bags of meat, exploding gore and bits of rotten flesh all over the trucks. The popping sound was enough to turn my stomach, and the smell of fetid corpse was overwhelming. We needed to get this mess cleaned up quickly.

“Holy shit Tookes!” said John. “You really pissed him off this time. What was all that cock swinging about?”

“Every word he’s ever said to me was a lie or a manipulation. I’m not afraid of him, but I’m tired of playing the game by his rules. I thought I’d try my hand at changing the game.”

“We need to have a staff meeting,” I said, “We’re low on supplies. We need ammunition, fuel, and food, and I have some ideas.”

This entire book, as posted on this site, is a rough draft. It’s the cost of reading as I write, instead of waiting until it’s available on Kindle.

Prologue

Chapter 1 Unwelcome Visitor

One man's struggle to keep his son safe from zombies.

Chapter 1
Unwelcome Visitor