The ZWD Trilogy (Book 1): Zombie World Dominance [The Destruction Begins]

by L. D. King

  Gumercindo turned and went downstairs to the kitchen. Esperana was there already, making breakfast for all of them.

  Gumercindo was the oldest of nine children: six boys and three girls. They lived on a small plot of land, growing vegetables. They sold their produce to restaurants in town. It was hard work. His father was out in their fields at first light, and Gumercindo his brothers joined him each day after they had their breakfast. They toiled all day, bent over their crops, pulling weeds, building frames for the tomatoes, guiding the water down each row to water their crops, and picking the bad fruit off of the plants.

  When it was time to harvest, they would fill the orders that his mother and the three daughters had taken the day before. All the day’s orders had to be picked, cleaned, packaged, and delivered before 10:00 AM so the restaurants could be ready for their lunch rush.

  After Gumercindo’s father died, his mother sold the farm and moved them into the city. With the funds from the sale of their farm, she acquired a booth where the cruise ships docked. She sold “Made in Mexico” keepsakes to the tourists on the cruise ships.

  When his mother died, Gumercindo took over the booth. His sisters married, and the other brothers developed other interests, leaving Gumercindo alone to run the booth.

  It was during this time that he met Esperana. Her family also had a booth at the pier. Between ships, they had time to visit with each other. Their meeting at the pier quickly turned into a romance, and they were married shortly after that.

  As Gumercindo grew into a man, all his hard work in the fields transformed him into a strong, rugged man who loved his family. He did not trust many people. Everything he had, he had earned by the sweat of his brow.

  Except for his four years in the Mexican military, he had lived, worked and raised his family in Mazatlán. Gumercindo was a big man by Mexican standards; he stood over 2.3 Mexican vara tall (In American terms, that is 6 feet 4 inches tall). He weighed in at 103 kilograms. His hands were weathered by working all his life off of the land. They were large hands that could crush a man’s head between them but were also able to hold a newborn lovingly.

  It took Gumercindo a long time to learn to control his temper. As a young man he was quick to anger. He had been jailed a number of times for hurting another man for disrespecting him or his. He only learned how to control his temper after he married the love of his life, Esperana. She was the one who showed him that a loving hand was better than an angry one. They had now had 22 years of married happiness.

  Esperana was born and lived in Mazatlán all her life. Her parents had a small produce farm that was across the valley from the farm that Gumercindo’s family lived on. The two did not meet until the cruise ships started to visit Mazatlán. They were among the first families that were given space to set up a booth. She worked all day with her brothers in the fields to bring their produce to town to sell to the restaurants. After she met Gumercindo, she spent so much of her time watching him work in his family’s booth that she missed many sales.

  She was the only girl born to her parents. She had three brothers who hated to work in the fields. Her brothers had found a way to get rich without working so hard. They took the produce that they grew on their farm and trucked it to cities outside of Mazatlán. They made a lot of money, but it was expensive to keep their trucks on the road. One day, returning from Durango, 241 kilometers from Mazatlán, they were driving down a steep road in the mountains when their brakes failed. Their truck ran off the road, and all three brothers were killed. This devastated Esparana’s parents. They sold their farm, moved into Mazatlán, and put all of their efforts into their booth.

  It was not long after that before their grief took a toll on them. They both passed away less than two years after their sons died. Esperana’s uncle came to town to take over their booth, but he was not able to understand the complexities of the tourist trade, and in less than six months, he lost the booth to his creditors.

  During the time that her brothers had been delivering produce to other cities, Esperana’s romance with Gumercindo had grown. They were married two months before her uncle lost her family’s booth. Gumercindo’s parents were growing older. He was the only one of the family that wanted to keep the booth running. His parents made a wedding gift of the booth to Gumercindo and his new bride. With their hard work they turned their booth into a way to make enough money to live all year without having to have a side job.

  As everyone sat around the table eating breakfast, Gumercindo asked his wife, “Esperana, did you hear the screams early this morning?”

  “No, my husband, I didn’t. What direction were they coming from? Did it sound like they were nearby? Do you know why they were screaming?”

  “No, I don’t know why. It brought back memories of the war, the sounds of men dying on a battlefield.

  The children sat listening to their parents. Esperana looked at them and realized that they all looked a little frightened. She asked them, “Children, you look as if you had bad dreams. What is troubling you so early in the day?”

  “Mama, I heard people screaming all night as well,” said Annalicia. “They would start, and stop again. Every time, it sounded like they were in a different place. It scared me! I couldn’t go back to sleep. Do you know what was happening?”

  “The sun is up, and I think they have stopped for now,” said Esperana. “Everything will be fine. If you’re finished with your breakfast, please put your dishes in the sink. All three of you need to wash up. Hurry, because you know that a ship will be coming soon. Remember, we have to pick up the Castillos. Their truck is still broken down.”

  “Yes, Mama,” said Annalicia. It had been hard on Rosamelia Castillo since her husband Amadore had died last winter at the age of 31, far too young. Only two months had passed from the time he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer until he was gone. Rosamelia believed that his condition had been caused by the dirty jobs he did on board the ships. They had him doing the work that the crew did not want to do themselves.

  Rosamelia always said, “The ship companies have always encouraged their captains to leave the dirty work for us to do when they get here. They say ‘Mexicans will do anything for a few dollars.’” Now Esperana remembered this and shook her head sadly, thinking of Amadore. They had been picking Rosamelia up for four months now since the Castillo’s old pickup had broken down.

  “All right, everyone,” said Gumercindo, “Finish up and get ready to go. We need to load up our supplies. The ship will be here soon.” He knew that if they were not there on time, the crowd of tourists would have moved on down the pier past their booth. And they still needed to pick up the Castillos. It was a good thing that they just lived around the corner.

  “Yes,” said Esperana, “We always make it to the pier early enough to see the ship come in. Today I am a little concerned about what you all heard early this morning.”

  “Maurico, my son,” said Gumercindo. “Have you all loaded everything we will need for today?”

  “Yes, Father, everything is ready,” Mauricio answered, ticking off the items on his fingers. “The sombreros, the belts, the wallets, the shirts and toys for the children. They are all in the pickup.”

  Now Lucinda spoke up. “Father, why do we tell the tourists that everything we sell is made in Mexico when it is not? The boxes that they come in say that they were made in China.”

  “The souvenirs cost much less when they are made in China, but we sell them for the same price. This means we make a bigger profit. That is why, when we get to the pier, we must empty the boxes and hide them quickly, so the tourists will not see them. All right, everyone, let’s go. Be sure to keep an eye out for anything that doesn’t look right.”

  With that, the Ortegas left their home. They drove over to the Castillo’s house to hook up the trailer. Rosamelia Castillo, now a 28-year old widow, was already outside tying down the last of her supplies. The three Castillo daughters were there as well: Rosalinda, 12; Reva, n
ine; and Rosari, eight.

  The Ortegas and the Castillos had booths side by side. Esperana was the “people person” of her family. After they were given the booth as a wedding gift from Gumercindo’s parents, it was not long until the two families had become close friends. Rosalinda worked their booth for every ship that come in.

  Rosalinda grew up in the city. She met her husband as he helped his father go around to the various businesses to repair broken equipment. They would come to her parent’s shop to work on some of their old, worn-out equipment that was past its prime.

  Amadore was a small man, only 1.93 Mexican vara (about 5 feet 4 inches) tall. This was where Amadore learned how to work with his hands. Amadore’s father made him crawl behind the machinery to work on it. With his small size, they didn’t have to move the machines to work on them. After a summer of dating, Rosalinda married Amadore; following their wedding, he used some of the money he had saved while working for his father to buy a booth on the dock as a place where his wife could work.

  With his skill of being able to quickly determine what was wrong with a piece of equipment, Amadore was able to get a job working on a cruise ship that was in port, working on a refrigeration unit. He repaired it in far less time than the ship’s maintenance chief had expected. The ship’s maintenance chief paid him half of what it would have cost in a larger port, yet Amadore considered what he had received a huge sum. From then on, Amadore was requested regularly by many cruise ships that had work to be done. No job was too small for him, or too large.

  Amadore was happy that he found a way to work with his hands. As a man, he could not work with the tourists. “Too demanding,” he would say. “It is not a man’s job to sell to the American sheep,” he would say. He found work as a dockside worker, servicing the ships when they docked. The work was hard, dirty and dangerous, but it paid very well, and in cash.

  His size enabled him to get into places on a ship where a full-sized man could not. This made him a lot of money. It was also his downfall. All these ships were made in other countries that had more relaxed rules and laws governing what a ship builder could and could not use in the construction of their ships. Some of these materials were carcinogenic. It was the repeated exposure to these various carcinogens that brought about a deadly and aggressive form of lung cancer. He died because of his work on the ships, but before he died, he graced his wife with three wonderful girls.

  They were bringing out last of the food they had prepared for their booth, which mostly sold food: tacos, burritos and churros. They had cooked early in the morning. All they would have to do was reheat it when they got to the pier. They would need to stop and buy a few blocks of ice to make into raspados, or shaved ice sno-cones, made with flavored syrup and with candies on top. Gumercindo stepped out of his pickup to talk to Rosamelia.

  “Good morning,” he said. “Everything ready to go?”

  “Yes, all we have to do is hook up the trailer,” Rosamelia answered. “How is your family?”

  “We are all well. Did you hear the screams early this morning before the sun rose? They were horrible. They seemed to stop at about the time the sun came up.”

  “Yes, two of my girls mentioned the screams. I heard them as well. We haven’t heard any more since the sun came up. So far everything seems okay, so we are going to the pier to set up. Are you ready to go?”

  “Yes, we are ready,” said Gumercindo. “It was hard to listen to the screams, not knowing where they were coming from or if we could help.”

  “Are you sure that everything’s all right?” said Rosamelia. “We are all a little scared. We closed our windows so we would not have to listen to the screams. They would start then stop, and start again, all night long, and even after we got up to start cooking. It sounded like they were some distance away, so we kept working.

  “Gumercindo, I told a friend of mine that I would ask if you could give them a ride to the docks today. Is that all right? If not, I can call and tell them they will need to find another ride.”

  “No, it’s fine. Who are we picking up? How much do they have to take to the pier?”

  “I think you know them,” said Rosamelia. “They are Miguel Huerta, his wife Yvonne and their daughter Rena. They only live one block over, so it is not too far out of the way. They keep most of their goods locked, so this should only be a one-time thing. Their booth is at the end of the row, quite a way from ours.”

  “Sure, we know them,” said Gumercindo. “Let’s get going, then, because we also need to pick up your ice before we go to the pier. I want everyone to keep watch to see if there is anything that doesn’t look right.”

  Both families lived in the Santa Teresa section of Mazatlan, east of the downtown area. Gumercindo drove around the block to pick up the Huertas. As they got close to their house, Gumercindo was the first to notice that something did not look right. He told the others, “Everyone stay in the truck. I will go to the door and get them. Esperana, will you move into the driver’s seat? Keep the engine running in case we need to get out of here quickly, please.”

  Gumercindo walked up to the front door, but it was standing wide open. He shouted for the Huertas to come out, but there was no answer.

  He stepped into the house and immediately saw Miguel’s wife lying dead on the floor in the front room. Their daughter was dead as well, lying in the hallway. Their bodies had been ripped to shreds. There was blood everywhere. Gumercindo quickly turned and ran back to the truck, shouting, “Esperana! Move over! We need to get out of here now! Something terrible has happened!”

  He leapt into the truck, slammed it into gear, and screeched out of the driveway.

  “What’s wrong? Why are you driving so fast? What is it? Talk to me!” Esperana shouted.

  “Yvonne and the girl are lying dead in there! Their bodies have been torn to pieces! There was blood everywhere. I didn’t see Miguel, but everything in the house was torn up. This has to be something to do with the screams we heard last night!”

  Gumercindo was driving as fast as he could. His hands were shaking and he had broken out in a hard sweat. Esperana had her hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him down. They stopped to pick up ice, but the plant was closed. There was no note explaining why or when they would be back.

  Now all Gumercindo wanted was get to the gate at the military base at Playa Sur. The military controlled all access to the pier. At the far end of the pier where the cruise ships docked, the tourists either had to take a long walk into the city or take one of the cabs that lined up outside the gate. The walk to the gate took them right past all the families’ booths. That took them right past all of the families’ booths. When they approached the guard gate, Gumercindo noticed that there were only two guards on duty. Normally there were five or six, especially when a cruise ship was expected.

  One of the two guards was a man Gumercindo knew, so he let them all pass without stopping them.

  It was nearly time for the ship to arrive, yet many of the booths were still closed. Normally any time a cruise ship was due in, the booth operators would be there, ready for the tourists’ arrival. Today many of the booths were still locked up tight. with no one around.

  The pier was on a large peninsula that extended into the Pacific Ocean from the mainland. The Ortegas and Castillos had booths next to each other, two of a long line of booths. The first few booths, including theirs, were shaded from the morning sun by an abandoned warehouse, which gave them cool shade to sit in during the morning.

  As the two families finished setting up their booths, they could see the cruise ship entering the harbor. It was being guided in to the dock with the help of the harbor’s tugboats. Once the ship was properly docked, it would take an hour or so before the tourists would start coming down to the pier.

  At the rear of the ship, the crew was unloading garbage. The ship also took on water, fuel, and any other supplies for which they had contracted.

  As the tourists began to disembark, the children tended the two b
ooths. Children were a better draw for the tourists.

  By now there were 600 to 800 tourists roaming the pier. Gumercindo and Esperana stood back, trying to stay out of sight, watching to see if the children needed help with anything. Rosamelia joined them.

  As the three of them sat watching, Esperana leaned over and spoke softly into her husband’s ear. “Gumercindo, I have something very important to tell you.”

  “Oh, really? Yes, please tell me, my love. Have you been keeping a secret from me? You have been acting a little strange for the last several days.”

  “Gumercindo, you know we have been talking about whether we wanted another child, and how we couldn’t make up our minds if we did or not…? Well, I want to tell you that our choice has been made for us. I am with child, and in about seven and a half months, we will have another Ortega to welcome into our home. What do you think about this, my husband?”

  “Esperana! This is wonderful news. You have made me very proud. Should you be out here in the sun, working like this?”

  “My husband, I’m pregnant, but I don’t need any special treatment. I’m sure you remember that every time before when we were expecting a child, I was here, working in our booth? From the oldest, Maurico, to the youngest, Annalicia, I was always by your side working here, even when I was as big as a house, I was here.” She smiled.

  “You know I will do anything and everything that you need to make you more comfortable,” said Gumercindo. “Even the children will do anything to help you. Esperana, have you told Rosamelia yet?”

  “I am going to tell her now, but I wanted to tell you first. You are my husband, and I owe it to you to tell you first. You, with our children, are my life. Now I will tell my friend.”

  Esperana turned to face Rosamelia. She leaned in to her shoulder and whispered into her ear as well.