A Small World
Page 1
Zombies!
Book 1
“A Small World”
R S Merritt
Text Copyright © 2018 Randall Scott Merritt
All Rights Reserved
This book is dedicated to my beautiful wife and family.
Cover Design By:
Harry Lamb
Table of Contents
Prologue: The Church
Chapter 1: The River
Chapter 2: The Island
Chapter 3: A Long Walk
Chapter 4: Date Night
Chapter 5: The Pantry
Chapter 6: The Launch
Chapter 7: The Ferry
Chapter 8: The Loading Dock
Chapter 9: A Long Way to Go
Chapter 10: Martial Law
Chapter 11: He is Risen
Chapter 12: The Random Mansion
Chapter 13: Scavenging
Chapter 14: Closet Fever
Chapter 15: If at First You Don’t Succeed
Chapter 16: Adapt or Die
Chapter 17: The Devil You Know
Chapter 18: The Definition of Insanity
Chapter 19: Mission Failed
Chapter 20: A Long Way on a Short Road
Chapter 21: A Shallow Grave
Chapter 22: Lessons Learned
Chapter 23: Alternative Route
Chapter 24: Scarecrows
Chapter 25: On Little Cat Feet
Chapter 26: No Greater Love
Chapter 27: Barn Doors
Chapter 28: Killer Legs
Chapter 29: Follow the Rats
Chapter 30: Driving is Better than Walking
Chapter 31: Making Gilligan Proud
Chapter 32: Pain in the Neck
Chapter 33: Twelve Steps
Chapter 34: Peg Toed Pirate
Authors Afterword
Other Series Available from RS Merritt
Prologue: The Church
The service was packed. It was standing room only at the enormous Baptist church in the middle of downtown Oviedo. The congregation was a mix of people who’d been coming here since they were children and others who’d only recently found their way to the church. Light was provided by a motley assortment of battery powered lanterns and glowing cell phone screens. About a dozen of the children had also been given the little battery powered candles the church normally reserved for Christmas service.
It was hot in the church with the power off. The air conditioning had gone out the day before when the generator had finally run out of fuel. It was summer in Florida which meant it was hot. The band was playing acoustically up on the stage while the congregation sang hymns with fanatical devotion. They’d tried maintaining silence for the first couple of days. It hadn’t worked. The Zombies had followed the stream of people who’d heard the church was designated an emergency shelter. The devils had found them. Now the congregation sang fanatically. They were trying to will a miracle into being. Most of them faced the altar but they kept casting terrified glances over their shoulders. All of the doors leading in were vibrating as the demons outside struggled to get in.
There was talk of making a run for it. There was even discussion of fighting off the walking dead that’d surrounded the church like a scene out of a low budget Zombie movie. One of the ones you could pick up on DVD in a cheap sleeve out of a bin at a truck stop for three dollars and some change. Some in the congregation were laughing hysterically as they sang. They were going to die in a cheesy horror flick. It was surreal. They just wanted to wake up out of this nightmare. Most had tears streaming down their faces. Some held pistols in their hands. A few were thinking they’d try and fight their way out regardless. A few just had their weapons out to spare themselves and their children the horror of being eaten alive.
There were policeman and soldiers who’d talked big at first. They all talked big until they went up to the second floor and looked out the windows. Once they saw the glowing red eyes of the insanity that surrounded them, they stopped talking. The walls shook as the demons continued to beat their way in. The word Zombie kept being thrown around. People resisted that word. It seemed like using the word would give it power, so they all spoke in euphemisms. The pastor talked of the end of days and resurrection. He spoke of the glory of heaven and the eternal afterlife awaiting all of those who’d been saved. The church surpassed their annual quota for people getting ‘saved’ in about an hour after the first service started. The most devout atheists in the congregation throwing away their non-belief in desperate hope for miracle.
Most had embraced the inevitable by now. The Zombies would get in. They’d get in just like they’d gotten in through the outer doors a few days before. They’d get in because they were relentless. The Zombies would get in and everyone in the church would die. They knew from radio and tv broadcasts that not all of them who perished would remain inanimate for long. To die was to suffer the possible indignity of rising again a few minutes later. Rising again to join the army of the soulless infected in their unrelenting march against humankind.
The congregation sang louder to drown out the awful noise of the pounding of flesh on the last doors protecting them from being eaten alive. They sang louder to try and get a last-minute reprieve from the horrors they knew would soon be visited on them. They were still singing when the first of the doors gave way. The handful of police in the audience who’d kept a grip on their sanity moved towards the cracking doors. They all knew they didn’t have enough ammunition to actually do any good. These were hard men though. These were men who didn’t have it in them to just stand there and be overrun. These were the type of men and women who’d have stood bravely at Thermopylae.
The crazy brave opened fire on the Zombies who started pushing their way in. The rest of the congregation went into complete pandemonium. There was nowhere for anyone to run to. Within seconds of the first few shots being fired several seniors and at least one toddler had been trampled to the death by the stomping feet of the rampaging mob. The Zombies kept coming. Another door gave on the other side of the worship center and the mob undulated wildly. Looking like waves splashing in a bathtub as the two sides tried to run past one another. The screaming reached a fevered pitch as the Zombies started sinking their teeth into flesh.
The bullets of the brave ran out. The cops making a stand were overrun and devoured even as they tossed down their guns and waded into the enemy with fists and broken chair legs. The Zombies kept coming. They were hollow eyed and gaunt. Their clothes hung around them as they moved. Their faces and the fronts of their bodies were covered in the gore of their recent meals. They screamed in anger at the humanity facing them. They’d bite into one victim and drag them to the ground then immediately jump up and move to the next. Some of the Zombies moved in exaggerated jerking motions while some were operating at the level of a world class Olympian. Their ranks continued to swell as more and more of them forced their way through the doors and fell on the rapidly thinning mass of humanity inside the church.
A river of blood ran down the aisles. The church stunk of gore and waste. Off to the side stood a short frail looking woman with a head covered in grey hair standing protectively by a small group of children. The kids ranged in age from three to fifteen. The fifteen-year-old was holding the three-year-old and trying to keep from losing her mind. She wanted to be brave for her little sisters. She gasped for air and struggled to keep her grip on the three-year-old who wanted to get out of her arms and make a run for it. Only there was nowhere to run.
The woman was telling the kids to stay with her as she eyed the pastor. As soon as the doors had broken the pastor had made a run for the side of the stage. When he disappeared into the curtains the woman grabbed the kids and with an agility not often seen in one her age jumpe
d up on it. Dodging the other people who were trying to figure out a last-minute escape the woman led the children behind the curtains the same direction the pastor had run. She saw the pastor disappear around a corner. She dragged the children behind her as she struggled to keep up with the fleeing man. The pastor was seeking to distance himself as much as possible from his flock.
Rounding the corner, she saw the pastor struggling with a set of keys. He was trying to open a large wooden door. She’d never really noticed the door before. She wasn’t even sure she’d been down this hallway before. She ran to where the pastor was nervously trying to figure out how to operate the lock and grabbed the keys out of his hand. The keys were wet with sweat. Screams and the sounds of people fleeing the Zombies were getting closer. She finally got the door open to reveal a large, dark enclosed hallway. The pastor almost ran her and the kids over in his haste to get inside the door. With no real time to think about it she shoved the kids in and started to follow.
Taking a quick look over her shoulder she saw a tall man running their way. He was holding a horrified looking young girl out in front of him as he ran. He made eye contact with her and set the toddler on the ground. He screamed at the little girl to run to her. Then the man smashed himself backwards against the closest wall. He managed to knock off the Zombie that’d been clinging to him and biting the back of his neck. The man kneeled down and shoved a screwdriver into the Zombies eye. The Zombie stopped reaching for him and lie still. Just like the Zombies on late night horror movies taking out the brain seemed to do the trick. The man then turned and began attacking the Zombies who continued coming down the hall. He waded into them with his big fists swinging as he fought to give them time to get away.
The little girl ran few steps then turned around to try and see what was happening to her daddy. Hesitating, the woman who’d just saved her own grandchildren from being eaten alive gave the pastor a hard look.
“Don’t touch this door or I’ll kill you.” The sweat covered pastor shook his head in the affirmative and the grey-haired woman sprinted back down the hall to grab the toddler. She witnessed the final stand of the girl’s father as the Zombies streaming down the hall finally overwhelmed him. She threw the little girl over her shoulder and ran for all she was worth back towards the large wooden door.
As she got close, she saw the pastor was holding the door like he may close it at any second. She couldn’t believe her eyes as she saw him start trying to slam it shut when he saw the Zombies chasing her. The only reason it didn’t shut was her three-year-old grandbabies arm had been sticking out of the door as she tried to get out to come to her grandma. The tiny little arm kept the lock from engaging. The toddler’s arm was crushed by the weight of the door. The enraged grandmother ripped the door open. She put the little girl she’d just rescued inside. Then she pushed the pastor hard enough to make him fall on his back inside the tiny cramped space. She slammed the door shut and engaged the lock right as the first Zombie ran into the door going full speed.
Chapter 1: The River
Kyler dipped his paddle deep into the chilly water of the Saco river. He took a look around at the peaceful forest surrounding the gently flowing river as he pulled the paddle back against the force of the water. This kept him and the Tenderfoot in the bow of the canoe from colliding with the large rock sticking out of the river directly in front of them. He’d been trying to impress on the young scout that it was the responsibility of the person in the bow to look for obstacles in the river and to help steer around them, but the boy was pretty much useless. He was the kind of kid who really just wanted to be sitting on his couch at home playing a video game with his on-line ‘friends’. Kyler didn’t really get those types. He knew he was a bit abnormal in that he was almost seventeen and still into scouting. He just loved the outdoors and would rather be sitting here in this canoe than pretty much anywhere else.
His dad had loved scouting. He’d had been the scoutmaster for this troop until he’d lost his fight with cancer about three years ago. Kyler wasn’t sure if he stayed in scouting because he liked it or because it helped him feel closer to his dad. His dad had been career military as had the majority of the leadership of the scout troop. This had led the troop to be a little different than your run of the mill troop. Instead of jamborees, they did things like canoeing through swamps and sleeping in jungle hammocks. They’d camped on islands overrun by wild horses in the outer banks and rappelled into caverns to crawl through tunnels covered in luminescent bugs. When they did show up at jamborees, they normally won a bunch of the events. This was because they’d had to start fires in swamps and had actually treated hypothermia on a couple of notable occasions. They actually had quite a bit of practice at first aid since they tended to try things that might not have always been the smartest choice. There were quite a few secrets they’d been sworn not to let their mothers in on.
Since his father’s death Kyler had really applied himself in everything he did. He didn’t really know why he was striving so hard to make a dead man proud. His mom worried about how hard he drove himself. It was hard for her to say too much since he channeled all his drive at healthy pursuits. He was a straight ‘A’ student who started on the varsity football and wrestling teams. He loved to read. He stuck with the scout troop even if the other kids didn’t think it was cool. He worked hard to mentor kids in the troop the same as his dad had done. When they went on hikes it was always Kyler you could always expect to find getting to the campsite last. He’d be the one who had stuck with the slowest kids and helped carry their packs and encouraged them to finish. It was the same thing his dad had always done.
They continued paddling down the river. There wasn’t a lot more to do. They’d been out in the woods for their annual mad river trip. Named that because those were the brands of canoes they normally used. It helped the name stick that the river they always took was named the Saco which was easy enough for them to rebrand the Psycho. There had been a few places on it that were tricky, but it was mostly a relaxing trip. They’d camped and fished and done all of the things they were supposed to do. It had all felt hollow to Kyler this time. He felt like every year the memories he had of his father slipped further away. He’d wandered off more than a few times on this last trip when sadness had overwhelmed him. He knew this was probably his last trip down the river. He wouldn’t be able to bear coming down it another year. Not with another year’s worth of fog moving in on his memories of his dad.
As they meandered back to the middle of the stream, he silently said his goodbyes to his father. He choked back his emotions enough to tell the Tenderfoot up front to keep a lookout for rocks. With the Tenderfoot, a kid from the suburbs named Seth, doing a lame job of watching for rocks Kyler began rummaging around in his pack for some water and a granola bar. By the time he’d found them and had a quick snack he could see the boat launch up ahead. Several of the troop were already pulling their canoes and gear out of the water. By the time they paddled up to the launch most of the troop had pulled their gear out of the river and up the ramp already. It didn’t look like anyone had showed up to pick them up yet though.
Kyler paddled hard enough to ground the canoe in the soft mud at the bottom of the launch. He asked Seth to hop out and pull the bow up on shore. The kid promptly stood up and fell into the water. It was summer, so he’d survive but Kyler found himself wishing he’d had his iPhone out to record the fall. It had seemed to happen in slow motion. Seth had been wind milling his arms so hard it’d looked like he might actually achieve flight and hover himself to shore instead of falling into the clear water beside the canoe. Gravity and reality conspired against his attempt at featherless flight and he ended up toppling head first into the eight inches of water covered mud and rocks.
Still laughing, Kyler hopped out of the canoe into the water and helped the spluttering, soaked kid to his feet. Seeing the panic in Seth’s eyes Kyler took a logical guess at what it may be about.
“Your phone make it?” He
asked.
Seth pulled his iPhone out of his pocket and carefully studied it. It looked like it may have survived the submersion. Seth was pressing all the buttons on it to see if it was working or not.
“It’s good. I had it turned off anyway. Weird though. I’m not getting a signal. I thought we’d be able to get a tower once we got here.”
Kyler shrugged. He had no idea really. It would be convenient if they could get a signal since that would help them find their ride. They should’ve been here by now to pick them up. He looked up at the top of the launch where the scoutmaster and one of the other adults who’d come on the trip were waving their phones around in the air trying to get a signal as well.
Kyler tugged their canoe further out of the water and grabbed his pack to carry up to the top of the launch. He walked up it towards a slightly overweight older man wearing military fatigues who was standing off to the side smoking a cigarette. As he walked towards him the man field stripped the cigarette and shoved the remains in one of his pockets.