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Apocalypse, Post Apocalypse, Zombie, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombie Book, Zombie Story

3.03 Sean

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“Hi, Daddy.  I’m hungry,” Max said with a smile.

Tookes woke up with a start as a huge grin spread across his face.  “Good morning Max!” He exclaimed.  “I’m happy you’re awake!  How do you feel?”

“I’m fine, my leg hurts, and these bugs are noisy.  They talk and talk.  Steve says sorry he scared you.  He told me you were here all night watching me.”

Victor looked Max over and said, “I wouldn’t leave you when you were sick.  I love you buddy, but what you did was very naughty!  You should never leave the house without telling a grown up.”

“But I had to go.  My bugs were dying, and I needed Steve’s bugs to make mine better.  Jason gave all his to Steve, and then I told Steve to bring them all and give them to me.”  Max held out his hand to his father, who took it in his own.

“You told Steve to bite you?  Why would you do that?”

“Thats the only way to get his bugs into me, Dad.  The bad men that took me from here gave me a shot.  My bugs took the medicine they gave me to make me sleep.  They said that because they did that, it was hurting them, but they needed me to be awake to escape.”

“Max, never do that again without talking to me.”  Victor said, filing that bit of information away.  “If you told me they were sick I would understand.  I would try to help,  but I was so afraid you were sick.  I was very scared.”

“I’m sorry Dad.  Can I have some food?”

“Sure buddy, I’ll go get you a cheese sandwich.  Gramma made cheese last week, I bet she saved some for you.”

“Ok. Thanks, you’re the best Dad ever.  Can you send Mr. John in here while you get my sandwich?”

“Sure thing, Maxmonster.  You’re the best little boy ever.”

Victor walked out of the room and down the stairs towards the kitchen.  In the small dining room John was sitting at the table surrounded by guns and gun parts, meticulously cleaning every speck of carbon and dirt off every part.  He looked up at Victor when he entered the room.  “How’s the boy, mate?”

“He’s awake finally.  Said that he told Steve to bite him because he needed their bugs.  He said that his bugs were dying because of something Frye gave him.  Seemed like something we might be able to use, if it can make the parasites sick.  Anyways, he asked for you while I go make him a sandwich.”

John wiped the film off his hands with towel and stood up.  “I’ll go see to him.  Glad he’s awake and feeling right.”  John walked towards Victor to head upstairs as Victor turned right to go down into the kitchen.

At the top of the stairs, John turned left into Max’s room and said, “Heya Maximillion, how ya feeling bucko?” as he sat  on the end of the bed.  He kicked off his boots and stretched his toes.

“I am hungry Mr. John.  It is important that you talk to your family.   The bugs can feel how sad I am for you. ” Max made a sad face to mimic the feeling.

“Just call me John when no-one else is around mate. Tell ’em I said that they have no idea how sad,” John laid down along the bottom of the bed on his side facing Max

“They can hear you John, and they feel as we do now.  Not like the bad bugs.  The bugs say I have enough strength now to talk to Sean, would you like to talk to Mr. Sean?”

“Mate, there is nothing more I would like to talk to him, except maybe deck him.”

Max sat up and held John’s hand and the heat built up causing John’s palm to sweat.

“Mr. Sean, are you awake?”  Talking through Max was so much more than when Tookes talked to him.  Not only were the words more clear but you could see the thoughts, the path of the connection,  and feel the emotion between minds.  John was amazed that Max could handle the intensity of the connection.

“I am now kiddo, are you ok?  I lost ya there for a while.  Is your father ok?  He is no longer on my grid mate.  Where is that dic… err brother of mine?”

“Sean?” John said out aloud.

“Bloody hell John, don’t yell!  You’re as bad as Victor, talk in your head mate.  How you doing?”

“Yeah good mate.  Holiday got extended, I think I’ve gone over my visa.  Yaself?”

“Ya idiot.  Good, Jo and the kids are here sleeping. We are safe here, well a lot safer now.”  As Sean looked over to John’s family, John could see his wife, his kids, sleeping peacefully through waves of light blue.  Then the vision dissapeared.

“Max, I told you to warn me before looking through my eyes mate. It hurts.”  John felt Max apologise to Sean, but no words were spoken.  John wondered how long Max and Sean had been talking “They probably didn’t know the connection” he thought.

“John, I can hear your thoughts when we’re connected like this mate.  It took us a few months to register it, Max told me one day about two weeks ago that I sounded funny like his friend Mr. John.  John, the locals are trying to claim back Australia with the help of some of us white fella’s, but we have one hell of a super zombie team here at the moment.  Three zombies wiped out forty humans with powers in Western Australia last week.  They didn’t stand a chance mate, I heard everything.

“Sean, settle down. I got a plan now that I can see into ya head.  And stop swearing with Max here.  How is Jo coping?” John imagined his plan as a computer file, and then imagined sending it to Sean like an attachment to an email.

“Righto, that’s a good plan, John.  You learn to quick sometimes, for a drongo!.  Jo is great, she keeps quiet but she is as much as a deviant as you are.  She’s sacrificed my life twice now.  I woulda taken it to heart, except she’d have done the same to you, if it meant saving the kids.    Apparently we are tougher to kill than you bastards in yankland.  That’s why Laura is here at the moment.  We killed off too many to quick, but after your last fight with all those supers, she may be going home sooner then expected.”

“John, I need to eat.” Max said aloud and John nodded in response.

“Sean get my family here, you are all welcome to come.  Tell Frank I said thanks, tell the family I love them. and Sean, it kills me to say this, but I am proud of you little brother.  Thanks mate, I love you.”

“Ditto bro, now let the kid rest and I’ll talk to you in a week.”

John sat up and put a hand on Max’s shoulder “Thanks bucko.”

“It’s okay.  Mr. John, did you like where I showed your wife and kids?”

“I did, very much.”  John sat back and his eyes welled up with the happiness of seeing his family and the good chance that he will see them again in a few weeks, when Victor walked back in.

“Is Mr. John telling sad stories?”

“No Daddy!! I was showing Mr. John a happy beginning!”

Tookes remembered Max eating an entire box of cereal bars after the first time he’d been bitten.  This time he brought Max two fresh mozzarella cheese sandwiches, an apple, a pear, and a glass of milk.  they all watched in amazement as he ate every bite, including the cores of the fruit before draining the glass of milk.

“I’m still hungry, Dad,”  Max said, his belly distended.

“Let’s let that settle a little bit buddy.  Then you can have anything you want in a few minutes.  Your fever is still up, do you need to rest some more?”

“I’m sleepy,” said Max.

“Ya, mate, I’m sleepy too,” said John with a grin.

I kissed Max on the forehead, and pulled his blanket up over him.  “Have a good sleep buddy.  We’ll be here when you wake up.”

John and I walked out of the room, and down to the kitchen where we found the rest of the crew.

“Hey Mom.  He woke up for a little bit, appears to be ok.  He ate two sandwiches, an apple and a pear before downing a huge glass of milk.  Last time he was bitten, he ate everything he could get his hands on for a day or two afterwards.”

“Oh, thank God,” Sharon said.

“Since we’re all here,” Victor continued.  “I’d like to go into Charlottesville with Marshall today and see if we can work out getting a train running.  We can scout around for tools and supplies that are already there, maybe we can find the steel and welding equipment to armor it up.”

“Vic, do you think you can really get to Renee?” Sharon had thought of nothing else since finding out her only daughter and two grand-daughters were alive.

“I’ll get her, and the kids.  I promise,” Vic said, nodding his head slowly.

Marshall and Victor went into the kitchen followed by John and Leo.  “We don’t like the idea of you two going in alone,” said Leo as she closed the door.

“I’d rather have you two with me too,”  Tookes said, “But I can’t leave Max here alone, I need you two here in case Frye or the nutjobs try to get him again.  I’ve got a pretty good idea of how to drive a train, and Marshall is the best welder of all of us.  It makes the most sense for the two of us to go.  Besides, the two of you are best  equipped to fight humans.  Your speed and John’s guns will make quick work of any humans that come our way.  I’m really only good at one on one fights, and Marshall is good at breaking things.  If I left Marshall here he’d probably throw the house at frye.” Tookes said with a big grin.

“What do you want us to do here then?” Asked John.

“Mostly, I want you to stay in the house and guard the boy.  Let the fire teams on patrol handle anything they can.  If anyone gets inside the house, kill them.  If they get to Max’s room, Leo I want you to grab Max and get him as far away as you can go in one hop.”

“Speaking of that.  What did you learn up in the national forest Leo?”

“Well.  By myself, I can go about 15 miles,” she said.  “If I’m carrying a 15 stone adult, It drops to about eight miles.  If I’m carrying two adults, its only about one mile.  I can move a rock the size of a small garden shed about five feet, but then I couldn’t even run for a few minutes.  My power comes back pretty quickly, but it does appear to be finite.  If I use it all in one shot, like when I moved that huge boulder, it took about five minutes before I could move it again.  The last interesting thing I learned, the more different things I take with me, the harder it is.  Carrying four humans is 100 times harder than two humans.  I’m not sure what thats about, but I could move all of us plus Max maybe 100 yards,” she said.

“Can you teleport someone or something and not go with it?”

“I’ve never tried that, but I don’t think so.  I think I have to be there to guide the re-entry.”

“Ok, anything else you learned?”

“I’d been in the same spot for about an hour when a zombie came stumbling out of the woods.  I don’t know haw far he came from, but I moved the big boulder first.  I think he’d been walking that whole hour.  He felt me move it from as much as three or four miles away.”

“Thanks for doing all of that, I know it was dangerous work,” Victor said.

Max slept most of the afternoon.  He woke up for about an hour to eat some more, and then went back to bed for the night.  Marshall and Tookes spent the rest of the afternoon planning the next days visit to the train yard.

Post Apocalypse, Zombie, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombie Book, Zombie Story

3.02 Purpose

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Tookes was in his room, sitting at the desk.  There were two candles burning on either side of a book and he was completely  absorbed in his studies when he heard Baker screaming as he ran full speed up the hill and across the back lawn.  “Mrs. Tookes, Victor, it’s lil Maxie.  He’s been fuckin’ bit.”  His voice cracked and Baker sounded desperate.

Tookes lept out of his chair, turning the antique wooden desk chair over in the process.  On the way to the stairs, he quickly glanced into Max’s empty room and then took the steps three at a time to meet  Baker on the back porch.  Baker was holding the quivering child  in his arms.  Max’s face was red and flushed – beads of sweat coated his forehead and upper lip.  There was an angry looking bite mark on Max’s arm.  There were marks where a pair of incisors had broken the skin.  Two small streams of blood ran down the small boy’s arm, joining together at the elbow.  The blood had stopped, but the bite looked painful.

“He’s real fuckin’ hot, Tookes,” Baker said as Tookes took his son from him.  Max was so hot he was nearly burning his hands.

Oh fuck.  Max, come on Max, you’re strong buddy.  You can beat this, he thought desperately.

The man ran back upstairs, carrying the small boy and gently laid him down on the floor of the bathroom.  He immediately started running the last of the day’s hot water into the tub.  Everyone had learned to shower in the late afternoon, when the water in the five hundred gallon black plastic tank on the roof was as warm as it would get.  Now fully dark, the water in the solar heater would have cooled some.

Tookes knew he  had to get his son cooled down, but if the water was too cold it could throw the small boy  into shock.

“Victor!” Candi yelled at the top of her voice.  “Max is burning up!”  She swiped the temporal thermometer across his forehead again.  “This thing says he’s at 105.”
“Lets try the other kind,” Vic said, digging in the closet for the old under-the-tongue style thermometer.  He shook the thermometer as he’d seen his mother do his whole life and stuck the end under Max’s tongue.  “Hold that there.  It takes like three minutes,” he said.
“He feels like his skin is on fire!”  Candi was nearly hysterical with worry.
“Remember when you’re sister’s son had that fever so high he had convulsions?  She said their doctor told them to put him in a warm bath and alternate Motrin and Tylenol every two hours.  I’ll start the tub.”  

Victor shook himself out of his memory.  He stripped the small boy’s clothes off.  By the time he was done there was two inches of water in the big tub and Sharon was there.  Leo stood just outside the door, leaning against the frame.  She needed to stay out of the way and as much as her heart was in her throat to be next to Victor, she knew that it was not her place.  Being there for him after this took precedence and she would always be there for him no matter what.

“He’s got a huge fever, Mom,” Tookes said to Sharon.  “Last time Max was bitten, I caught it early and got Tylenol into him.  But I don’t think his fever went this high.  What if this bite is worse?  What if this bite is too much for his body to fight off?”

Sharon grabbed her son’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly.  She wasn’t going to leave their side.

Tookes could feel himself approaching panic and took a few breaths before he lifted Max gently over into the water.  His son was still unresponsive and his skin bright red, flush with the heat.  Victor ran his hands across his son’s light hair and asked, “Mom, do you have any liquid Tylenol or Motrin?”

“Maybe down in my bathroom,” she softly replied.  She still held her son’s hand in hers.  “He’s such a good father.  He loves that boy so much,” Sharon thought. “I wonder if there’s anything Victor can’t accomplish.”

The shower curtain blew outwards towards the door and less than two seconds later, Leo was back by the door with a bottle of baby Motrin in her hand.  She tossed it towards him and Tookes caught it with ease.  He read the label.  The dosage for a two year old was half a teaspoon and that was as high as this bottle went.  It was for babies, not children, but it would have to be enough.  I opened his mouth and poured about half a teaspoon in his mouth, closed it and rubbed his throat to make him swallow it.  Vic repeated that process three times so Max drank a total of a teaspoon and a half.

Once the medicine was in him, he sat back and waited.  There wasn’t much else that he could do.  Sharon dug up a thermometer from a first aid kit in the hallway and checked his temperature every fifteen minutes.  Max soaked nearly two hours in the tub.  Shortly after we gave him the second dose of medicine, his fever dropped below 104.  Tookes lifted him out of the tub and cradled his son in his arms.  Leo had gone into Max’s room and grabbed some fresh PJ’s which Vic lovingly put on him.  He carried his son back to his room and put him in his bed covered by a sheet and a quilt.  Tookes fell asleep sitting on the floor beside Max’s bed with my arm under the back of his neck.

Sharon checked on them both throughout the night.  Her son and her grandson, the loves of her life.

Vic checked Max’s temperature the moment the sun rose the next morning.  There was no change.  It had been four hours without fever reducer and his fever was still 104.  Tookes administered more Motrin and watched him for a few minutes.  Again, he ran his hand through his son’s hair and down the side of his face.  Max’s breathing was slow and steady and his chest was rising and falling steadily.  Zombies didn’t breathe.  He put his hand on the tough little boy’s forehead.  He was still hot sweaty.  Hot is better than cold, thought Victor. Zombies don’t produce body heat.

Tookes left him there in bed.  He needed to get someone to sit with him for a few minutes while he grabbed some breakfast.  Stopping by Leo’s room was the obvious choice.  Tookes peered into her room and saw that she was sound asleep.  Checking his watch, he noted that it was only 5:20 in the morning;  still early.  Leo was laying on her right side with one of her hands up by her face.  She is so beautiful, he thought to himself.  He crawled into the bed beside her and kissed her on the forehead.  A small smile spread across Leo’s face as she snuggled up against him.

“Morning, Leo,” he whispered, “I need a favor.  Can you go sit with Max for a few minutes while I go get some food, some coffee and a new book?”

“Sure, Vic,” she said.  Sleep was heavy in her voice.  Vic rolled over on his side, and laid his arm over her. Leo suddenly realized how much she missed his touch.  He kissed her forehead before she got up, pulled on some clothes and walked out of the room towards Max.  Tookes felt his eyes growing heavy, but he resisted the urge to crawl back under the warm covers and go back to sleep.  Before the urge became undeniable, he climbed out of the bed and walked downstairs.

On the kitchen table there was a brown paper bag with my name on it.  Inside the bag was a note from mom that just said;

Vic
You’re a great Dad, you make me proud.
I love you,
Mom

He cringed slightly and thought, I feel like a shitty dad.  I let my not-even-four year old son sneak out of the house and get bitten by a zombie.  A zombie that he told me was his friend and I believed him.  Why did I believe him?  He is a baby.  He’s three years old.

Sharon had left a butter and cheese sandwich and an apple sitting on the table for her son. Victor ate hungrily and then went outside for a quick smoke.  They would need to either start growing tobacco, or he would need to kick the smoking habit.  The cigarette supply wouldn’t last forever.  He walked down the 300 year old brick sidewalk, around the edge of the old summer kitchen building and up towards the parking lot.

He walked past his cherished 4Runner.  The wrecked truck reminded him of the trip down here, almost half a year ago.  He thought about life before all this.  Working every day in an office, thinking he felt fulfilled, being satisfied with his life.  These days people fought and worked and bled for everything they had.  The four of them had nearly died on several occasions defending this place.  Many people had died defending this place, just a few nights ago.  Victor had several of their funerals to attend today.

He thought about his friends back in Pennsylvania and wondered if any of them were still alive.  He hoped that Ben and Melissa were still alive.  Ben was a US Marine, who’d gotten out of the ‘corps after ten years, and worked as a recruiter for the company Tookes worked for.  His wife, Melissa, worked from home, and kept their three kids.  If anyone could survive this, Ben could.  Tookes had made the mistake of going on a hiking trip with Ben once.  They walked twenty-two miles in one day.   Tookes stumbled into camp on the verge of death; Ben went for a run after the hike.  At least he took his pack off first, thought Tookes.

He hoped Angie was alive.  Tookes, Angie and Candi had been best friends for years.  Angie had the cutest little daughter who was born on the same day as Max.  Angie and her daughter Sarah had accompanied the Tookes family to Florida on vacation the year before.  One of Victor’s favorite memories was laying on the beach with Candi and Angie, watching the two children play in the surf.  That had been the trip of a lifetime for both families.  These days those memories were to be cherished, there weren’t going to be any more carefree trips to Florida.

He was tired.  He wondered if super-hero’s ever got tired.  The four of them hadn’t stopped fighting the “forces of evil” for months.  Real people had died; he had gotten himself  shot once and beaten up countless times.  Only his freakish immunity to zombies had kept him alive.  I am ZedMan! he thought.  Bumbling his way through a post apocalyptic world, ZedMan is sworn to kill every zombie on the planet!  Victor thought about his ridiculous promise to kill every zombie in the world.  It sounded absurd.  He considered the futility of that and for the first time, he formed the thought of giving up.  It really was an insane proposition.  Victor Tookes, mild mannered corporate middle manager, on a quest to save the world.  Maybe I should just stay here.  Maybe I should just keep Max alive, build a huge wall around this place and start a new life.  Maybe saving the world isn’t my job, he thought.

There were other humans with super powers out there.  The four of them had run into people with their exact powers not 50 miles from here.  Why was it his responsibility and not one of theirs?
Because they’re dead.  You killed them because they were bad people.  The thought entered Victor’s mind.  It didn’t sound like one of his thoughts.  It sounded more like Max.

He flicked his cigarette into the tall grass as the sun began to peeked up over the horizon.  He then turned back towards the house.  Victor had already been gone about twenty minutes and was feeling himself drawn back to Max’s side.  The sun was moving quickly; it was half-up over the horizon already.   There was some rustling up by the garden and Tookes felt compelled to check it out.  He changed his direction to walk up towards it.

About five feet later, he identified the cause the rustling.  There was a man laying in the tall grass around the garden,  inching towards Tookes on his belly.  The man wore a red flannel shirt and the remnants of a green John Deer baseball cap.  After a  few more steps, Victor was certain it was a zombie.  Reflecting back, Victor realized that he hadn’t seen one this close to the house in a very long time.

He didn’t have anything on him that even remotely resembled a weapon.  “Another stupid mistake, Tookes,” he said to himself and walked towards the ghoul.  It was pulling itself along by the arms.  The sunlight grew brighter with every step he took and every step brought him closer to the pitiful creature.  Eventually, Tookes stopped and watched it struggle across the grass.

Its legs trailed behind it, broken and useless.  One of its arms ended in a stump with a bit of crushed bone sticking out.  The bone was worn to a sharp point.  It flopped the dead arm up over its head and down in front of it, moving the corpse forward about an inch before the arm bone slipped, digging a semi-circle furrow in the grass.

Victor walked past the zombie and towards the old carriage house where all the gardening tools were kept.  The heavy wooden door scraped the concrete of the driveway as he slid it open.  Inside in the dim light, he made his to the back of the shed and hefted a mattock.  The slightly rusty tool had a pick on one end and a flat, slightly curved blade on the other.  He thought about all the times he swung this thing digging out tree stumps.  With the mattock you could get the flat blade under a root and then pry back on the handle, popping them like matchsticks.  It was a back breaking device to use all day long.  It was a heavy, rough duty digging tool.  He walked back out of the carriage house and took a practice swing with the mattock.  Rudimentary, but it would do the trick.

He walked back to the slithering corpse and knelt down a couple of feet in front of it.

“Morning, old timer.  I’m sorry that your life came down to this.  I’m sorry that these fucking creatures came here and did this to you and…I’m sorry that I now am the one that has to end this torment.”  He stood up and heaved the heavy iron blade up over his head and said, “I’m sorry for what’s happened to you,” and he brought the pick end down into the creature’s skull.  As the long pointed iron pick pierced his skull, he felt the zombie’s body go limp.  The creature struggled briefly before finally giving up.  Tookes finally felt it rest.  “Rest in peace,” he said softly.

If not you, who?  Every one of the great accomplishments  in the history of mankind were started by one man.  It’s a job, and someone has to do it.  If everyone asks “why me,” who would do it?  Tookes had always considered himself a “do-er.”  He could hear his father say “Son, there’s two kinds of people in this world, big-picture people and “do-ers.”  The world is full of big-picture people and what it needs are more “do-ers”.”  This was my life now.  This was what I was made to do.

Victor trotted back to the house, feeling a renewed sense of purpose.  He dropped the mattock off by the back door and stepped into the kitchen.   Sharon and two other people were busy preparing breakfast for all of the people of their little settlement.

“Mom,” Victor said, leaning against one of the kitchen counters, “I killed a zombie up by the garden.  I’m anxious to get back to Max but the corpse is still there.  Do you think you can find someone to get rid of it?”

“At the garden?  That’s a little worrisome.  We haven’t seen anything that close to the house in a long time,” she said, glancing at her son before returning her attention to the potatoes she was cutting.

“I know,” he responded,  “It was just a dragger.  It probably took it four months to make it from the old Vaughn riding ring to the garden.  But still…”

“Ok, I’ll have Ron take care of it,” Sharon said. “Give Max a kiss for me.”

On the way up to Max’s room, Tookes grabbed one of the re-filled bottles of water and trotted up the stairs.  As he entered the room, Leo looked in his direction.  She was laying on the bed next to Max.

“Any change?” Tookes asked her.

“None,” she replied softly, “But at least we know he’s not getting worse…”

Tookes sighed as he sat back down on the floor beside Max.  He slid his arm under Max’s neck and kissed him on the forehead.  In minutes, Leo was fast asleep again with Max on the bed.  Victor sat on the floor and went to sleep with his head laid against the mattress.

Post Apocalypse, Zombie, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombie Book, Zombie Story

3.01 Recharge

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Tookes spent most of the day planning.  Max slept until almost noon and once again, woke up ravenously hungry.  That was a good sign and he was recovering well.  It was becoming more and more apparent that Max was a true Tookes just like his daddy; he was small, but Vic was proud at the bravery of his son.  Time slipped by so fast these days and Tookes felt like his little boy was almost growing before his eyes.  He knew he needed to cherish every moment.

Max ate a decent sized lunch then immediately went back upstairs to bed.  Vic watched his son climb the stairs, blowing him as kiss as he went around the last corner.  A few minutes later, Tookes and the crew discussed their options as they sat  around the antique dining room table, eating a lunch of thinly sliced roast venison sandwiches and fresh fried sweet potato chips.

“John, Max needs to recover a little bit before we can even talk to Sean.  Sean needs to get from your house to an airport, but not just any airport.  We need the biggest airport in the lowest population area we can find.  We need to find someone that can fly a plane.  Then we need to fly a plane and coordinate flying around the world with them arriving at the airport.”

John sat back in his chair,  mulling it over.  Marshall took that second to interject between bites of freshly fried sweet potato chips, “Let’s talk about Renee.  Max said that she was stuck south of a big city,” Tookes said.  “The only big city between Atlanta and here is Charlotte, North Carolina.   In the old days, that was a five hour drive.  These days, who the hell knows how long it could take.” Victor shrugged, “If she’s south of the city, we’re going to have to go through or around it and I honestly don’t like the prospect of either.  When I lived in Charlotte fifteen years ago, there were a million people there.”

“How the fuck are we going through a million bloody zombies, mate?” asked John.

“I have an idea about that.  On the north side of Charlotte is a huge stone quarry.  It’s over a half mile deep.  I  think we go pied piper on them, lead them to the quarry and dump them in.”

“Vic, there has got to be supers in a town that size,” said Marshall.

“That’s the first phase.  We draw the supers out first.”

“That has to be easier said than done.  How do we do that?” Marshall asked.

“With a show of strength, bro.  The way they’ve been tracking us, I say we use that against them.  We find our killing zone and have some fun blowing out our powers.  I’m talking about things that make so much noise every super within a hundred miles will come looking.  I’ve been cooking something up I’m dying to try.  I know Leo wants to see how far she can teleport.  Marshall, have you ever figured out exactly how much you can lift?” Tookes said with an almost mischievous smirk.

Marshall was ever the pragmatist and ignored his brother. “My thoughts are that we find a train,” the big man said. “The railroad runs forty-five minutes from here,  starting in Charlottesville down through Virginia and North Carolina to Atlanta.  There, it turns west and runs all the way to southern California.  With stops in the old days, it was an eight hour train ride.  I should be able to push almost anything off of the track.  I figure that if we ride a locomotive with only one car, we should have the power to push anything else off the tracks that I can’t push off myself.  We can outrun any zombies and run over any in the way with very little fear of damage to the vehicle and of course,” he added with a smirk,  “We won’t run into any traffic jams.”

“Victor, darling, what are you going to do with Max?  Last time you left, Frye came for him,” asked Mom.

“I’m bringing him with me.  I’m not making the same mistake twice,” Tookes said plainly and grabbed  a second home-made roll and a bottle of mustard.

The four faces around the table looked at him  in astonishment. “Seriously?”

“He’s not leaving my sight with Frye still out there and with those whack-jobs from Reva.  Actually, that’s an even better reason to take a train.  We can armor up the car and have some kind of a mobile tank.” Victor cut open the roll and then gestured towards his brother with the knife.  “I think Marshall is right.  We can easily stop anything that gets in our way fairly quickly with just one train-car.” Tookes said and  piled thinly sliced roast venison tenderloin on a second roll and slathered it in  spicy brown mustard.

Tookes’ mother looked skeptical and had her arms crossed as she asked, “What if you get swamped  in there?”

“We would have to build the train with that in mind,” said Marshall and paused. “Now that I think about it, we could build it to withstand a significant siege.”

“How sure are you?” asked Leo and Marshall shrugged.

“Sure enough,” he said.

“Well, I’m sure.” Tookes said, trying to convey confidence. “We have a few more items to discuss.  We need to hold funerals for the men that died and come up with some way to honor them.  I’m open to suggestions.”  Vic took another bite of his sandwich, amazed once again that his mother could take almost nothing and make it into a miraculous dinner.  She always had the ability to take what she had on hand  and turn it into something fabulous and delicious, even with something as basic as venison.  Even though it seemed small, this lunch with his family warmed Tookes’ heart.  It was another glimmer at the potential that life could return to some semblance of “normal.”

“We’re going to start a wall, right?” Leo suggested.  “We could name a tower or section of the wall after them.”

“We could build a tall tower in honor of all those who have and will lose their life in this mess,” was Marshall’s suggestion.

“I like the idea of a tower,” Tookes said, taking another bite of his sandwich and wiping mustard from his face.  “Maybe in the center of the east wall, the direction of sunrise, to represent the new life they died to build.”

“That’s awfully poetic, Vic,” Leo said, raising her eyebrow.

“Well, it seems fitting to me.  Let’s all put some thought into this and talk about it in a couple of days.  I’m open to suggestions.” He took another bite of his sandwich and then pushed his plate away, “Now,  item number two on the list is home place security.  With Bookbinder gone and compromised, we need to change up everything.  We need to change our patrol routes.  We need to change our personnel and we need to invent new tactics.  Bookbinder knows how we train, so we need new training.  Basically, we need a new Bookbinder.   He was a good friend to me but he’s a big threat to our security.”

“If Sean was here, he could train ‘em up right,” John murmured.

“I wish he was and he will be soon, John,” Vic said, clapping John on the shoulder. “Until Sean gets here, would you mind setting  up a training schedule?   We need someone competent.”

“Not sure I’m the best choice for that,” John laughed and added, “Alright, mate.”

“What about Ken Leuty?” asked Marshall.  Tookes knew Marshall had the best relationship with the settlers; he spent a lot of time down at the barn when the four of them weren’t out trying to exterminate the planets infestation.  Marshall was a very talented carpenter.  He’d built beds and chairs out of the scrap lumber from a two hundred year old barn we’d torn down several years earlier.  He was an amazing craftsman.  The talent to take ancient barn wood and turn it into exquisite furniture  was a unique and wonderful gift.  Seeing Marshall working with his hands was treat to anyone who watched.  His skill  was a combination of patience and attention to detail.  He would spend hours sculpting and carving a headboard until it was just right.  Almost all of the furniture the settlers used daily was hand made by Marshall.  It was his labor of love and the settlers regarded them as prized possessions.

“Leuty?  He’s pretty young, isn’t he?  Do you think he can handle it?” Tookes asked.

“He handled himself in the whole Frye situation better than Baker did.  Leuty showed initiative and tried to take control of the situation.  He was doing well but the whole crew was out maneuvered.  I don’t think there is a better man to fill in,” Marshall said and then ate half of his third sandwich in one bite.  Leo giggled from the other side of the table as he chowed down.

“Okay, let’s name Leuty as commander of M1.  We should pull the guys from M1 aside and let them know.  Can you take care of that, Marshall?  John and I need to go to the library and I have a special task for Leo.”

“Sure,” Marshall said,  “Oh, can you pick me up a book with woodworking patterns while you’re there?”

“Sure, bro,” Tookes said.  He looked around the table and asked if anyone else had any other questions.  “If we’re done here, we need to get a move on.  I don’t expect a lot of trouble at the library, but I’d like to be back before dark.  Mom, did you have anything else?  Do you need anything?”

“I’m pretty well set up here.  If you happen to find any seeds, could you bring them with you?  We could use seeds from any vegetable or herb.  But we have a lot of time for that kind of thing.”

“Okay, we’ll keep an eye peeled.” Tookes said as we all stood up from the table. “Thanks for this lunch Mom, my sandwich was amazing.  And potato chips? Did you make them by hand?”

“Oh, it was nothing,” she said with a wave of her hand.  “I fried them this morning to keep the sweet potatoes in the house from going bad.”

“You amaze me every day, Mom,” Tookes said and embraced his mom, kissing her on the cheeck.

“Thank you Mrs. Tookes,” said Leo as she  stood.

The group of friends all walked out and Marshall headed off towards the barn to deliver the news of Leuty’s promotion.  Tookes and Leo stayed behind as they spoke.

“Leo, I need to know a couple of things about your power but I need you to do your testing pretty far away from here,” he said.  “About 100 miles from here, you’ll find yourself in the Jefferson National Forest.  It’s almost two million acres of forest.  The zombie population should be pretty low there.  I need to know how big or how much weight you can teleport and how far you can go in each bound when you  by yourself and if you’re carrying something or someone else.”

“You got it.  But I can tell you most of that now,” Leo said, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall.

“I also want you to really use your power.  Part of why I’m sending you so far away is to see if I can feel it.  I’ve never really paid attention to it before but when I think about the times we’ve really used our powers, there’s a tickle in the back of my head.  I want to see if that’s what it is.”

“Okay, I don’t need a lot of arm twisting to be sent off to the middle of the woods for some alone time,” Leo said with a smile.

“Try to be back before dark.  And let me know also if you feel like you’re getting stronger with use. We’re all getting stronger but I’m not sure if it’s our continued exposure, or if it’s use. Lke a muscle.”

“Sure thing, Vic.” She said, leaning forward to kiss him on the lips before running off.  Tookes felt her body flinch awkwardly as their lips touched, but thought nothing of it.

It is remarkable how little Victor sees, Leo thought to herself as she jogged away.  The way he held his lips when they kissed felt foreign and forced.  One of her favorite things about Victor was the way he would kiss her.  When their lips would touch, it was like nothing else mattered in the world other than what was happening in that very moment.  But something was different between them now.   He needed time to himself to think and figure things out with Max.  She understood that.  But everything about him had changed in such a short amount of time and she couldn’t help but wonder if she had done something wrong without realizing it.

—-

John and Tookes loaded up in the jeep and headed towards town.  Tookes needed many different books.   He had a lot of reading to do before they boarded the train.  He needed at least one book on trains and a book on planes, specifically navigation, flight lanes, air speeds and fuel capacities.  He needed world maps and he hoped to check out a bunch of books for Max.  The two of them spent the entire afternoon at the library and brought back more books than they had originally intended.  They made it back to the home just after dark without incident.

John picked up every book he could carry that detailed military tactics.  One book compared the strategies of every general in history and another one detailed modern special forces training.  He picked up a stack of books on hand to hand combat and martial arts.  John’s recent hand to hand combat with Dan at the Crazy’s encampment made him a little insecure and that, in turn, made Tookes a little nervous.  Perhaps I should read all those books too, he thought.

Late that night, after a supper of beef tips and gravy over rice with peas, everyone retired to their rooms.  Leo had stopped in her room briefly to grab a clean tank top for the next morning.  As she came out of her room and around the corner, she made brief eye contact with Vic and she smiled at him.  Tookes looked right past her as if she wasn’t even there.  Her smile fell as he turned into his room and abruptly shut the door.  Leo could feel her heart shatter as she took a step back.  She shook her head as she turned around and walked back into her room feeling confused and frustrated.  With defeat resting heavily in her mind, she shut the door.

Tookes started reading a book called “Study Guide for the Locomotive Engineers Exam.”  A lot of it had to do with traffic control.  Other than trying to figure out how the switches worked and how to make sure he ended up on the right tracks, he didn’t have a lot to worry about with traffic on the rails.  The controls of a locomotive, it turns out, were fairly simple.  However, starting up the huge diesel generators that made the massive amounts of electricity to power the thing was very complex.  There was an exact start-up sequence required.  It reminded him of the old 1960’s Adam West Batman. Turbines to Speed! he thought.
—-
“Max, wake up.  Steve is here;  he’s waiting for you across from the river.”

Max rolled out of his bed and put on his shoes.  He grabbed a jacket from the chair in his room, in case it was cold and padded quietly across the bedroom and down the stairs.  Once he was outside, it wasn’t hard for the small boy to make it across the lawn.  He stopped once for a group of soldiers and then again for the returning patrol.

He hid behind a bush until the returning patrol passed by.

“I can’t believe they put Leuty in charge,” one man said as he walked by.

“They’ve been in the shit deeper than any one of us and they’ve made it out every time. I’d follow any one of The Four through hell and back,” said another.

“I’m not saying they made a mistake.  I’m just saying I don’t understand why Leuty.”

“Maybe Tookes read his mind and saw something.”

“Can he do that?”

“Absolutely.”

Max almost gave himself away giggling.  Daddy can’t read anyone’s mind.  At least not like that, he thought to himself.

When they had passed, Max ran as fast as he could to the barn office, around the back and down the hill to the river.  He waited about 10 minutes for the patrol to go by.  This time, they walked by in silence.  They were so quiet that he almost missed them.  Max had to think very hard about hiding.  He thought about looking like a tree stump with dark, textured bark.  He imagined what it would be like to have his feet turn into roots and to grow deeply into the ground and have plants growing at the base of the stump.

Anyone staring directly at him when he concentrated would have seen the little boy’s eyes light up with a pale blue light and then seen his shape shimmer for a second.  When you blinked to clear your eyes, you would have realized you were only looking at a stump and not a little boy at all.

Baker nearly tripped over the unfamiliar stump. “Who put that fuckin’ stump right in the middle of the fuckin’ path I’ve been fuckin’ walkin for four fuckin’ weeks?” He said passing by.

Max almost giggled as he waited for them to be out of ear shot before calling out to Steve.

“Come bite me.  Come across the river and give me all your e-clays.”

“Thank you, Max.  The time you’ve given us and your kindness towards us showed us that humans don’t have to be exterminated.  We will transfer ourselves to you to strengthen you.  You can always count on us,” Steve said.

“Thank you for being a good friend.  I’ll miss you Steve,” said Max.  He wasn’t sure this was right, but his bugs told him it was the only way.

Steve did as he was ordered.  When he had transferred the last of his E’Clei to Max, the shell that had been Steve fell to the ground, dead forever.  Max screamed when Steve bit him; his bugs had been too sick to fully mask the pain.

“What the fuck was that fuckin’ noise?” asked Baker.  He immediately started running back towards the source of the sound with his team.  When he found Max, he was laying beside Steve’s corpse, unconscious.  Max felt like he was two hundred degrees in Bakers arms as he ran up the hill towards the manor house, screaming for Victor and Mrs. Tookes.

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

2.01 Cleanup

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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.”