After the Colcoa stripped earth of all of her natural resources and left, the planet’s average temperature soared as the population dwindled down to the thousands. The few humans that survived the invasion are forced to live underground to escape the oppressive heat. Joe, his daughter Willa, and son Ezekiel are among the few brave enough to venture outside to gather food and supplies in the arid, rocky landscape. Their job is to bring enough food, water, and materials for their town to survive the summer in the cool caves of Red River Falls.
The world outside isn’t safe. Genetically altered animals, experimented on by the Colcoa, roam the surface. When a pack of experimental grizzly bears attack the family, Willa’s life is altered forever. What she learns on her journey will change the world.
Together with her new friend Xander, Willa will explore their world and uncover clues that lead her through a doorway into the unknown.
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A mostly gray-haired man and a boy walked across a barren boulder-field. The boy’s long brown hair streamed to the side as the two of them skipped from rock to rock. They moved quickly and silently, their soft-soled greenish leather boots made no noise, and neither shifted a single pebble as they moved. The wind blew from the west, whipping their thin dust-infused shirts in the hot, dry air.
The man’s face was leathery from years in the sun. His eyes seemed permanently squinted behind the scratched aviator-style sunglasses held to his temples with a leather cord, the stems long-since broken. Despite decades of scraping a living off the land, the man had an easy look on his face, one that proclaimed more happiness than grief in this harsh world.
Thirty years before, the field had been lush, green Minnesota pasture. It had probably been littered with ponds and creeks. Or maybe this was an old lake bed; there was no real way to tell anymore. Anything that would have been an indicator had long since been scoured away. Today it was just part of a large rocky barren. It was already over a hundred degrees, and the sun was not up yet. In another hour or two, they would have to find shelter for the day.
“When I was a boy, this time of year would have been much cooler, and some years there would have still been snow on the ground,” said the man to the boy.
The pair reached the first of the scraggly old trees. “Do you see these trees, Ez? Do you see how the oval-shaped leaves crawl up the branches, lining up two by two? This is a walnut tree. Do you remember eating walnuts last fall?”
“Yea, Pop. I remember,” said Ez, clearly bored with the conversation. His father was certain the boy would much rather be talking about one of the two girls his age in their town. That was not a conversation he was looking forward to having, although he knew he was going to have to have it soon. At least these days there isn’t much need to talk about STD’s and using condoms, he thought.
“Good! This fall, after the summer heat, we need to come back here. This grove will keep us in nuts for most of the next summer while we’re underground. What do we say about nuts, Ez?”
“Where there are nuts, there are squirrels, Dad.” Ez sighed as he spoke, having had this exact same conversation with his father dozens of times.
“Right. Let’s hurry; we need to dig in soon.”
The two of them had been hunting and gathering food all night, and they were tired. The boy’s father had learned years before that hunting during the day was too dangerous. Even in what passed for winter in Minnesota these days, the UV radiation and heat from the sun was far too powerful to be exposed for more than a couple of hours, but that wasn’t the biggest danger. The experimental animals were out during the day.
In this part of the country, they mostly encountered experimental grizzly bears. They were slightly smaller than normal grizzly bears and had a greenish tint to their fur. By the time their prey realized the clever animals hunted in packs and communicated with each other, it was too late. Experimental grizzlies were the apex predators on the planes; that position was no longer occupied by humans.
Joe and his son walked through what passed for a forest in this time, although it was barely more than a handful of trees and some pathetic scrubby vines.
Most of the trees left standing were mature years ago when the ships first came. Many species of trees were dying off, their seeds finding only rock and hardened clay in which to make purchase. Joe’s hope was that one day the trees would rot and leave a strip of fertile dirt where they’d fallen. He collected and stored seeds on these gathering trips, just in case.
Joe had dozens of burrows ranging out from their town, places to stay when he was outside the walls gathering food, each of the burrows stuffed to the gills with supplies and each of them a secret storehouse of seeds, buried in the cool earth, far from the sun.
“When can I go by myself like Willa?” asked Ez, snapping Joe out of his thoughts.
“When you’re sixteen. Until then, you’re stuck with me, pal,” said Joe, tousling the boy’s hair. “Besides, I’d miss you too much!”
Joe broke into a trot, hopping from rock to rock, trying to leave as little scent as possible behind. The father and son moved along silently for the last mile, listening for some sign of game and looking for any wild edibles they may have missed on the way out. They found none and returned to their burrow with the day’s gatherings.
Willa was already there, sitting on the lip of the burrow beside a much larger pile of dirt than they’d left the day before; she’d been busy digging the burrow out to make room for the day’s gathering. Willa was very tall, nearly a foot taller than her father, and very lean. Everyone was lean these days from a life of hard labor. She had long sandy brown hair that she kept tied up on top of her head.
Willa had grown up spending the winters outside their town with her dad. They were foragers, tasked with finding food to feed the entire town. It was, without a doubt, the least desirable job in their society. There were kids in their underground village that had never seen the sun. They were born after the Colcoa came and never felt the need to get out and roam. Those people felt like it was a small price to pay for never having to face the experimental animals or the hard, burning planet above.
Willa thought those people were crazy. After being in the dark underground town for the three hottest months of the year, it was all she could do to avoid running up to the surface to spend two minutes outside in the scorching heat. Surely the sunburn would be worth it. Down in the cool cavern they called home, a reminder of the sun and how good it felt for the hour or two she got to see it every day during the fall, winter, and spring.
“Get anything good?” Ezekiel asked his sister.
“Naw. Just these fish,” she said, grinning while she held up two trout. Each was as long as Ezekiel’s arm and still flopping on the end of the stringer.
“Fish? Where did you find fish? Where did you find enough water for fish that big?” exclaimed Joe, a look of amazement on his rugged face. He sat down on the hard earth and dangled his legs into the burrow, feeling the cool air inside.
“There’s a creek running out of the rocks about twenty miles south of us. You two just went the wrong way! There’s dirt there, Dad. Real dirt. With plants growing in it. I didn’t bring any, but Dad, there were flowers! They smelled so good! Once I got there, I didn’t ever want to leave.” Willa’s excitement was contagious. Ezekiel was grinning from ear to ear, watching his sister practically bouncing while she told of it.
“I also found these berries,” she said, pulling a pouch out of her backpack. “There were tons of them!” She opened the pouch to show off the beautiful red berries, grabbing one to toss it in her mouth.
“Willa, NO!” Joe was staring at the berries in her hand. “Those are poisonous. They are brindleberries. You would be dead within minutes of eating one of those.”
Willa looked sheepish as she dumped the contents of the pouch out on the ground. “No wonder the bushes were so loaded. I should have known. How could a bush right next to a water source have any berries left this late in the season unless they were poisonous? Sorry, Dad.”
“You covered forty miles today?” asked Joe. “What if something had attacked you? How would I ever have found you? I’d never be able to live with myself if I lost you. You know not to go more than five miles from camp.” It was hard for Joe to scold his daughter; he thought she was better able to take care of them than he was, but rules were rules. Out here in this place, not following the rules was what got people killed. It was exactly what got her mother killed.
Willa looked slightly abashed, and her cheeks and chest turned bright red. “Dad, I found moving water. And food. We could spend the next summer there.”
“Can we, Dad? Please? Please don’t make us go back to Red River Falls this winter. I can’t stand another year of being cooped up with nothing to do,” said Ezekiel.
Joe gathered his kids into a big group hug and said, “Let’s not get crazy. The water will probably dry up once the real heat sets in. Do you remember how hot Mrs. Aberfinch’s rooms get? And she’s, what, thirty feet below the surface? Willa, it gets over a hundred and thirty during the summer. The only surface water we’ll find during summer is up on top of the world.” Joe shared their hopes, but he wanted to hedge them, just in case. “Any plants growing there will almost undoubtedly be poisonous or else something would have eaten them. We’ll head out there as soon as it’s cool enough tomorrow and check it out. There may be some things we can take back to Red River Falls with us,” Joe said. “Willa, hand me the fish. I’ll show you how to clean them. I haven’t had trout since I was a kid; this is going to be good.”
Willa handed him the two trout, and Joe stood up. “Come on. We can’t clean these near where we sleep, and we’ll have to eat fast. The grizzlies will smell the fish from very far off.”
The three humans bounced nimbly from rock to rock, keeping up a fast pace for about a mile from their burrow. Willa started digging with her stone knife, and Ezekiel gouged into the rock hard clay with a sharp piece of flint. When they’d dug down about a foot, Joe lopped the heads off the fish, pulling a string of guts and organs from the body cavity.
“See how I cut that? Cut from this fin to here and then around the head. That lets all the guts stay intact. By cleaning them that way, we don’t spoil the fish with waste. Now in the old days, I would have used a really sharp knife to filet these, but since I don’t have a filet knife, I’m just going to scale them.” As he spoke, he scraped from tail to head with his flint knife, sending shiny fish scales into the hole at his feet.
When he was done, he handed the first fish to Willa. ”Be careful, there are sharp bones in there. The backbone runs the length of the fish, so pull the meat off with your teeth,” he said.
The next fish went to Ez, who devoured the raw fish in several huge bites. “So good!” he exclaimed between stuffing his mouth and chewing each bite at least two times.
Willa saved a half of her fish for her dad and handed it to him when he was done filling in the hole. “You take the rest. I’m full,” she said. “You were right. It was very delicious.”
Joe took a bite of the fish, savoring the taste of the meat. Fresh meat was one of the reasons he chose this profession. Even though the townspeople looked down on him and his family as outsiders, he got to spend most of the year with his children, teaching them everything he knew about plants and animals. It was dangerous, but he was good at it. His children were learning the things that would keep them alive when he wasn’t around to protect them anymore.
Suddenly, all three of them froze in place. Something changed in the air around them. Seconds later, the sound of a twig snapping somewhere behind Joe dropped them all flat on their bellies. They lay on the rocks, each facing one another, trying to present the smallest possible target for the bears. Without turning around, Joe said, “Stay very still. We have to figure out their plan. Willa, how many do you see?”
“Three, close together behind you,” she replied.
“Ez, can you see any? There are never just three. They’re going to be all around us.”
“I think I see one,” whispered Ezekiel. Fear was apparent on his face.
“Stay calm. Remember to breathe. I think the three behind me are going to charge and drive us into the group behind Willa. We can’t fall for their plan. Willa, take Ez and run straight back to the burrow. Block the entrance and hunker down for the day. I’m going to lead them off.”
“Dad! No! I can outrun a Griz. You take Ez back,” said Willa, and Joe knew she was right.
“Willa, I need you to keep you both safe. If I’m not back by night fall, come look for me. I’ll be at the river you spoke of.”
“Dad…” Willa protested.
“Do as I say, Wil. I don’t have time to argue. When I have their attention, you and Ez go straight to the burrow.”
Joe leapt up from his prone position and yelled, charging the three green-tinted bears. All three stood up on their hind legs, fully two feet taller than the human. The middle bear growled, and the two on either side dropped down and charged at Joe, and two more broke from either side. He’s the pack leader, thought Joe.
Joe stopped running and started singing as loud as he could.
“Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run, see how they run,
They all ran after the farmer’s wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a thing in your life,
As three blind mice?”
The bears all stopped charging, looking at him. The lead bear tilted his head, as if it was questioning the sanity of this human.
The pack leader growled softly, and all five bears started advancing. Joe sang the song again, as loudly as he could, charging the bears himself, hoping to break up their plan. He ran straight for the pack leader, arms outstretched. He had a rock in one fist and his flint knife in the other.
The bear reared up as it closed with its opponent, but Joe was faster than the bear expected, bringing his jagged flint-knife down the bear’s face, opening a bright red cut from its ear, through its eye, to the underside of its greenish-brown muzzle. The bear dropped to all fours and let out a loud, low rumbling roar.
Joe wasted no time. He vaulted over the grizzly’s back and ran for all he was worth, away from the safety of their hole, dragging the danger away from his children. He ran north with energy he hadn’t felt in years, out into the barren rocky plain.
Willa applied a poultice of crushed cabalage root and honey to the cut. The cabalage root was to draw out any poison that might be in the wound, and she added honey because it killed germs, and germs caused infection.
There wasn’t anything to do but wait. She tried to get comfortable beside him and plan her next move. Her dad would be back as soon as it was safe for him to move, she had no doubt. If Ezekiel was better, she would wait for him, but if he worsened over the day, she would leave him a message and take off with him.
It was about eighty miles west to Red River Falls. She’d have to stop at least once for the day. That’s not the closest town, she thought to herself. Duluth is closer. It’s probably only forty miles from here.
Her father would kill her if she took him to Duluth. She could just hear his voice. “Duluth is full of snakes and grizzlies. They just look like people. They’ll kill you for your boots.”
Ezekiel stirred, groaning. She re-wet the compress on his head and laid it back on his forehead. “Shhh, Ez. Everything’s going to be okay. I got you.” He seemed to calm back down after a few seconds. His fever seemed about the same, which was a bad sign. About an hour later, she washed the honey off, added more, and flipped the cabalage root pad over. She tossed the part that had been in contact with the wound and re-tied the bandage. The cut was less angry looking but was showing some grey flesh along the edge. Come on, Dad. I need you, she thought.
It was hot in the burrow that day. Normally, they sealed off the door and hung a blanket over the entrance, but today Willa needed some light, so she left the door to the burrow cracked just a hair. The heat in the entry way was intense, so she kept Ez back against the far wall, where some coolness remained in the earth.
She tried to sleep. She knew she had a long run ahead of her. If she was going to get Ezekiel to Duluth, she could make it in one long night. If she went to Red River Falls, she would take two. If her father was here, he’d never let her go to Duluth, but if he was there, he’d slow her down. Even if she had to carry Ezekiel the whole way by herself, it would take half of a third night. Her father just didn’t have the stamina he used to, although he wouldn’t admit it. Willa knew she was in the best shape of her life. Her feet were a little sore, but her legs were still strong. She guessed she’d run fifty miles that day.
All day long, Willa argued with herself over her course of action. Late in the afternoon, she peeled Ezekiel’s eyes back. They looked yellow. His fever broke soon after. Willa checked the wound; there were red streaks running in every direction from the cut. Blood poisoning, she thought. That answers that. I’m going without Dad.
It was about an hour until she could go; she made the decision to go to Red River Falls. Her dad could catch her at the first burrow and see if there was anything he could do. She only had enough cabalage root for one more change here, but she knew her dad left some at every burrow.
The sun was still streaming in the crack in the door when she started packing her backpack. She refilled her water skin and then added some fresh bandages and a few pieces of dried meat. She put it on backwards, so the pack was on her chest, and slung Ezekiel over her back, tying his arms and legs together so he’d stay. She threw her sheet over her head, draping it over Ezekiel, and climbed up the stairs.
The heat hit her when she shoved the door open; it was still over a hundred degrees. She affixed her smoked glass goggles and made sure all of Ez’s skin was covered. She climbed out, slid the door back in place, and picked up a stick and wrote “Ezekiel hurt. Headed to”. She paused for just a second before scratching “Duluth.” Underneath that, she drew a circle with a bowed line through the middle and an arrow pointing in the direction she would be travelling. It was a sigil she and her father had worked out long before. It was quick, easily recognizable, and informative.
South was the worst direction to run at night, and she’d never actually been to Duluth, but while the sun was up, she knew she could just keep it on her right shoulder. Once the sun was down, she’d have to work harder to ensure she was headed south.
She ran rather than think about her decision. It was made, and that was that. She maintained a punishing pace. Willa bounded from rock to rock, each step causing Ezekiel to bounce mercilessly on her back. After a few miles, she hit the gravel south of the boulder field, and she was able to lengthen her stride and set into an easy lope.
She estimated four miles an hour across the boulders and then six miles in the hour she ran across the gravel before stopping for the first time under a scrubby pine tree. She ate some venison jerky, drank some water, and tried to get some water into Ezekiel. She sat for ten minutes, stretching her legs. Just before she took off, she scratched another bow and arrow sigil pointing south. Under it she wrote “8:30pm.” She was making good time.
When Willa and Joe used to run together, he always pointed out how fast she was. She had huge feet with toes that were almost as long as her fingers. Joe said that’s why she was so fast on the rocky terrain; her toes could grip the rocks.
Ezekiel called her Bigfoot, but for Willa, it was just the way she was made. It was nice to be able to pick things up with her feet around their burrow, and her toes helped with tree climbing.
She suspected her father was at least two hours behind her, and now that she was in the flats and her legs warmed up, she’d start expanding that lead.
She’d been travelling by herself for a long time. It was almost second nature to keep track of the miles as they ticked by. She knew her paces. Her father had worked with her for years to drive the importance of knowing where she was into her brain. “When the Colcoa came, I couldn’t even drive home without my GPS,” he’d said so many times. “Now we don’t even have a paper map.You have to keep the map in your head. Getting lost out here will get you killed.”
She kept up the twelve miles per hour for another three hours, before she started seeing signs of an old city. The Colcoa hadn’t had much interest in concrete, but they did want all of the metal pipes that humans laid under most roads. They had a machine that drove along ripping up the road to get the iron water and sewer pipes up and to get the steel bars out of the concrete. Her father called those piles of concrete ‘tailings,’ the parts left behind after a mine had extracted everything useful out of the soil. The whole world was tailings.
As Willa climbed over the pile of concrete, Ezekiel stirred and moaned in her ear. She set him down and checked the wound. The red streaks were getting worse. His face was clammy, and his eyes rolled back in his head. She sat on the ground next to him, breathing hard, and tried to get some water into him. He coughed the water up but managed to get the second gulp down his throat, then took two long pulls herself. She was down to about two cups left and found herself fantasizing about the cool, crisp water in the river she’d found.
The first thing she’d done when she found it was jump in and suck down as much of the water she could hold. Then, just before she left, she drank at least two more skins’ worth. That was the first time she’d ever been underwater, because it was the first time she’d ever seen enough water in one place to cover her.
There were tracks all along the road bed, most of them heading east. Not knowing where Duluth was, she decided that most of the people would be walking towards the city this time of year and followed the tracks.
She ran along, her legs screaming at her to stop, but she ignored their protestation; she was so close to saving Ez. A cramp developed in her calf from where she’d altered her stride to keep Ezekiel from bouncing so much on her back. There wasn’t much she could do, so she ignored it as well and tried to adjust her step back to a more normal motion, shifting more of the work to her abused thigh muscles. More and more tracks added to the set she was following, confirming to Willa that she was heading in the right direction.
She passed a tree, then another. Ahead, the lane she was following entered what could only be described as a forest. Willa studied the trees to keep her mind off the pain in her body, pushing herself well past what she thought was her breaking point.
The trees were lined up like soldiers, row after row, well tended and apparently disease free. There wasn’t any scrub or brush under them or around the trunks; instead, the ground was covered in dead leaves, spread evenly throughout. Whoever was in charge of this land was doing their best to make it fertile, returning nutrients to the soil.
She saw oaks and maples mostly, with some walnuts and pecans. She had to be getting close to town. These trees were new, planted after the Colcoa wiped out the population of this area, less than ten years old.
Duluth must be rich to have this much dirt, she thought as she ran. Just a few steps later, she felt a sting in her thigh and looked down to see a feathery dart sticking in her leg. She had just enough time to swat it out before she collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
I’m happy to announce the second “Victor Tookes Adventure” story is out. VTA #2 is a short story slightly longer than The Farmer’s Daughter, about 40 pages long.
The story follows Victor and Max during the years skipped in Declaration of War. It isn’t required reading before you read What Zombies Fear 6 this October, but it does shed some light on Victor and Max’s maturing relationship, Victor’s particular brand of crazy, and introduces you a little more to the older Max, who is fourteen in this story. I loved writing it, and I hope you enjoy reading it.
Here is the first chapter, if you’d like a sample. For the sake of full disclosure, this is about 15% of the story. The rest is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble for 99 cents.
When Victor Tookes went to work that beautiful spring day, he never expected to see a man eaten alive in the street in front of his office. After convincing himself that they really were zombies, he makes a trip from his house in Pennsylvania to his family home in Virginia, battling zombies all the way. His three and a half year old son was bitten on the leg, but doesn’t turn into a zombie. Instead, he turns into something more than human.
Victor quickly discovers that everything he knew about zombies was wrong. Not all of them were mindless, uncoordinated, rotting ghouls; some of them were bigger, faster, stronger or smarter than when they were human.
A small percentage of humans are genetically immune to the parasite. Instead of turning these humans into mindless shamblers, they gain enhanced abilities. These new abilities will be pushed to their limits in their quest to carve out a safe haven to call home.
How will he keep his son safe when the world crumbles around him?
What Zombies Fear is available for all electronic devices. Here are the first Six chapters to help you decide that you’re interested in reading the full story.
A post-apocalyptic train, rogue military units, family tension, dissention in the ranks, a world full of zombies and a four year old boy.
Victor Tookes already has his hands full as he heals from the injuries of Atlanta. Now, with no ammunition and half the country to cross, He’s faced with a choice. Stop for ammunition, or continue on, hoping they don’t run into any more trouble. It’s an obvious choice for Vic. The heroes need to find a large ammunition storage facility.
This fourth installment picks up exactly where The Gathering left off. John’s wife and children are flying in from Australia aboard a hijacked military aircraft. Victor and his post-apocalyptic crew continue their trek across the zombie-filled country to meet John’s family.
It takes all the heroes can muster to overcome the depths of human depravity and make it in time to clear the runway for the plane. Do the heroes have what it takes? Will they break under the strain?
After heavy losses and major setbacks, the team splits up. Spread across the country, everyone is making a new life and rebuilding.
Kris and Alicia build a life for themselves in Gander Acres. John, Jo and the Australians fortify a town in the familiar climate of the Arizona desert in Yuma. Marshall and Renee take over Legion, and secure Atlanta.
Everyone thinks the war is over. Except Victor and the E’Clei. Victor never forgets the atrocities committed and never loses sight of the zombies goals. His friends think he’s crazy, but he continues to fortify Sharonton.
For years, life is pretty good, John has several more children. Marshall builds LEGION into a thriving community, with the help of Renee and her daughters. Gander Acres thrives, growing into a small town filled with love and relative peace.
Then the zombie hordes launch a coordinated attack against all of the major human settlements across the globe.
Only a stroke of luck saves Victor, as the E’Clei renew their offensive and declare all-out war against the humans. Will Victor and Max be able to save the few remaining humans from this massive offensive?
Declaration of War by Kirk Allmond and Laura Bretz
It’s finally live! You can find Book 5 “Declaration of War” of the What Zombies Fear series on Amazon. Still waiting on Barnes and Noble and other retailers.
This is a really exciting time, a new novel published, and the start of the new series “Will of the Dead” launched a couple of days ago.
We’ve started work on the sixth and final book in What Zombies Fear, called The Incarnation, it’ll likely be published this summer. I have a little bit more to write in the 2nd episode of Will of the Dead, and then focus returns to WZF 6. Stay tuned!
I’m feeling pretty good about making it as a writer today. If I work hard enough, if I want it bad enough, it can happen, right?
“Hey, Kris. John’s in trouble. Any chance you and Alicia could head out to his hou…”
Victor’s thought was cut off in the middle by a horrific scream, loud enough to knock him to the ground, clutching his head. It wasn’t a scream of physical pain. The energy behind it rattled in Victor’s head. He put his hands on the ground, and stayed there, on all fours for several seconds before he spotted Max in much the same position. Behind Max, hundreds of miles to the north, Victor saw Kris’s aura, as if she were standing directly in front of him. Her aura was spun out of threads of red, whirling and spinning around her, bright enough to illuminate the darkness to Victor’s eyes, like a red sun sitting on the ground up north in Tennessee.
After the Colcoa stripped earth of all of her natural resources and left, the planet’s average temperature soared as the population dwindled down to the thousands. The few humans that survived the invasion are forced to live underground to escape the oppressive heat. Joe, his daughter Willa, and son Ezekiel are among the few brave enough to venture outside to gather food and supplies in the arid, rocky landscape. Their job is to bring enough food, water, and materials for their town to survive the summer in the cool caves of Red River Falls.
What Zombies Fear 