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

by L. D. King

  They had not found enough to help their group go much further without finding more food or water, however. Maana was walking in the middle of the search party when he spoke.

  “Ahmed, we have been out here for two hours. Can we stop for a minute to listen to this? I don’t know if the heat is making me crazy, or what, but I could swear I hear goats. Do you hear them? They sound like they are over that way.”

  “Maana, I don’t hear anything, but you’re younger than I am, so your ears are probably better than mine. We can go look for them if you like. Since you hear them, you lead the way. We’ll follow you.”

  Maana started walking towards the sound of the bleating goats. The closer they got, the louder it became. As they crested a small hill, they could see in the distance a three-meter high adobe wall. The five members of the search team quickly walked to a wall that enclosed the rear of a two-story house. When they climbed the short wall, they got their first look at the goats behind it. They hung on the wall, watching the goats, but they were also looking for whoever was tending them.

  Ahmed took a small rock and threw it against the wall of the adobe house, trying to rouse anyone inside. No one emerged. The house looked abandoned. As they were looking at the goats in the yard, Maana spoke.

  “Ahmed, I was right. I did hear goats. The rock that you threw did not bring anyone outside. The house must be empty. We need these goats. They will make a difference for us. There must be 20 or more down there. Oh, they look so good. I would love to have all of them.”

  “Maana, I see them. Let’s wait here for a short while to see if anyone is caring for them. Husayn, take Tetsuo with you. Go around to the front of the house to see what is there. See if you can get in.”

  “All right, Ahmed. Give us five minutes to get around to the front door. We will whistle once when we are there.”

  Husayn and Tetsuo worked their way around to the front of the house. The same style wall continued around the front of the house, forming a courtyard. The only difference was that this wall had a gate, which was standing open.

  Instead of whistling, they walked through the open gate into the courtyard. From there, they saw that the door of the house standing open. Looking into the house, they couldn’t see anyone or anything. To them, the house looked empty. Slowly they walked through the open door. As they stepped into the house, they still could not see anyone or anything inside. They went through every room on the first floor. The door to the rear courtyard was closed, and Husayn opened it. He stepped out into the rear courtyard, smiling at the rest of the search team waiting by the wall. Standing in the sun, Husayn shouted to them.

  “Ahmed, come around to the front. The ground floor is empty. Then we can look upstairs. Look over there — it’s an artesian spring, watering the goats. They look healthy to me.”

  “Thank you, Husayn. Will you please take Tetsuo with you and search the top floor, including the roof, please. If the house is empty, Tetsuo, I want you to stay on the roof to stand watch.”

  The two of them quickly cleared the second floor of the house. It was as empty as the lower one. Tetsuo went to the roof to stand watch. Everyone else was inside the house. They all smiled as they looked at what they had found.

  Maana, needing a break, walked into the front courtyard to rest a moment. In the shadows, she leaned against the wall. As she sat, she began looking around the courtyard. She was wondering what had happened to the people who lived there. Then she saw something that made her call out.

  “Ahmed, come out here! Look at this.”

  Ahmed came outside quickly, not knowing why Maana was calling him. Husayn followed him to the courtyard.

  “Maana, what do you have?”

  “Look at the dried blood there in the corner. Where are the bodies? What could have happened to them? I have never seen this much blood without bodies being present. Where did they go?”

  “Maana, this is not the first time we have seen dried pools of blood. We never had the time to pay attention to them before. I don’t know where the bodies have gone. Looking at the tracks in the sand, I don’t see any drag marks showing that the bodies have been taken away, nor are there any animal tracks next to the blood.”

  “Ahmed, do animals eat the people that the zombies kill?”

  “I don’t know, but if an animal were involved, they would have eaten them here or they might have dragged them off to eat them elsewhere. I don’t see any sign of that. The only tracks are the footprints of the people coming from the house. You can see the zombie tracks coming into the courtyard and then back out. There are no other tracks than that. The only thing that I can think of is that people walked out from the house and were killed by the zombies beyond the courtyard, then the zombies walked away. I don’t understand this. It does not make any sense to me.”

  After talking about the tracks in the courtyard, everyone went back into the house. Ahmed wanted to look through the house to see if they had overlooked anything. They filled their water canisters and searched the house again.

  As they were looking Tetsuo said, “This place is much better than what we have now. Should we move? There are goats here, and an artesian spring for water. If we tried to herd the goats back to the other building, it would be noisy, and once we get there, we don’t have any place to keep them. I think we should consider moving everyone to this house. We can step up our watch to include a day watch.”

  “That’s a good idea, Tetsuo. This place will work better for us. The place we have is smaller than this. Here we will not have to look for water. Before we bring everyone back, I want someone to cover the blood with dirt. This is something that we do not need to see every day.

  “I will go back to bring the others here. Tetsuo, I will leave you, Badr and Maana here to get things ready. I will take Husayn with me to bring the others back here. We should return within three or four hours. I want one person on watch on the roof at all times now.”

  Ahmed started out toward the other building, and Husayn followed him. Tetsuo sent Maana up to stand watch. He had Badr help him to cover the blood in the courtyard.

  Back at their safe house, Kamal was on watch when he saw part of the foraging team coming back. He could only see Ahmed and Husayn. Kamal called down to the people by the gate, “I can see them coming. Unlock the door. There are only two of them! Ahmed and Husayn. No one else is with them. Something bad has happened.”

  Kamal called down to Ahmed, “Ahmed, where are the others? Are they dead?”

  “Kamal, get everyone here. Do it now. I have something important to tell everyone.”

  Kamal came running down from his perch on the second story roof, shouting as he ran. “Everyone, come quickly. Something bad has happened. Ahmed wants to talk to us. Come quickly.”

  As everyone was filing into the dining room, Ahmed walked in, followed by Husayn. He waited for them to all to calm down before he spoke. “Husayn came with me to tell you, while we were out, we found a better place to stay. We are moving to this house now. As soon as everything is packed up, we will lead you there. We have goats, food, there is even an artesian spring for water. It is a two-story home; it has three-meter walls around the entire home. The rest of our team is there waiting for us. They remain there, making sure that no one else comes along to claim it. Pack up everything now. I want to leave before it gets too late.”

  It took fifteen minutes to pack up all of their supplies. Ahmed was leading them back. As they walked, Ahmed thought that it would be good to stay there for a week or two. They could slow down a bit.

  They could get some rest, get some decent food into them. They could take their time to think about what their next step should be. They would have time to think about what their eventual destination should be, but they didn’t have to do it today. They walked for about ninety minutes to get to the new house. Maana was on the roof when it came into view.

  She called down to let everyone in the house know they were coming and told them to unbolt the gate. Tetsuo, Badr a
nd Maana were waiting for them in the courtyard. Ahmed led the rest of his group into the courtyard. They closed the gate behind them and bolted it.

  “Tetsuo, my friend, I am so glad to see you. Have you found anything new that we did not find before?”

  “Ahmed, we found a hidden storage under the floor. There was grain, seeds, and a lot of dry food there. We’ve pulled it all out of the storage; we were waiting for you to return before we inventoried all of it. We have a meal ready for everyone, if you are ready to eat. Other than that, we haven’t seen anyone or anything else from the rooftop watch.”

  “That is great news, my friend. On our walk over here I have thought on this. What do you think of staying here for a week or two to rest? In time, we can revisit our current plan. We can talk more as we eat our meal.”

  As they sat down, it was beginning to get dark outside. After dinner, they went upstairs to set up the sleeping area; women in one room, men in another.

  The cooking area was cleaned up, and the sleeping areas were ready for them. After everyone had settled down, he announced, “I am assuming that with all of the smiles I see, everyone enjoyed the meal. It has been such a long while since our last hot food.” He smiled. “I have several ideas that I would like to share with you all.

  “Some of us talked about this briefly over dinner; I would like to talk about them at length now. As I have said before, I am not your leader; we do not have a leader. We are led by majority vote. The first thing that I would like to say is that this house is a nice place to stay. It is not only secure, but it has a warm feel to it. There is water; it has food; and right now it is ours. I would like to stay here for at least a week, perhaps longer.”

  He looked around at the group. “Eight months ago, when we left the station in Riyadh, we believed that by going to Europe, we would find the answer to the origin of the zombies. We thought the Europeans would have figured out how to stop the zombies by the time we got there. Right now I don’t think that the Europeans know any more than anyone else. From what we have seen, I honestly believe that this zombie outbreak is unstoppable.

  “It is my opinion, from what we have seen on the various city monitors, while they were still working, that the zombies have a single task: to kill everyone on the planet.”

  There was a soft cry from one of the ladies.

  “At that time, there was no sign that they would stop until they killed the last person alive. Now we know that they seem to have a routine; they come out late in the afternoon to hunt humans. We also know that they fear fire. These two facts are basically all we know about them. We have not yet found a reliable way to kill them. They do not die if they are shot; nothing.”

  “Speaking of what we have seen as we traveled on our journey… there have been many odd things. Most of them have been easily explained. Others we have been able to attribute to the zombie outbreak. However, there is one thing that I am having an issue with. I don’t know what it is about, nor why it is there. I actually began seeing it long before the zombie crap started. In fact, I have seen it for several years now. ‘Tagging’ originally started in America. It has made its way to Saudi Arabia. Most of the ‘tags’ I cannot read, due to the style in which they are written. Others, though, I can, not that I understand them. There has been one, however, that is most puzzling. It is written in bold, printed letters.”

  He paused for a moment, looking puzzled. “The way this ‘tag’ is written is clear, and it is obvious that the writer wants anyone who sees it to be able to read it. It says ‘Survive with The Guardians.’ Now, what does that mean? I don’t know. I don’t know if the ‘survive’ part means now. Are we to understand that The Guardians will save us from the zombies? If they are going to save us, then they need to get to work. I thought of it today because we have been on the run for too long. We’re tired. This place has allowed us to get some much needed sleep.

  “The other thing that brought it to mind was a different tag that I saw today that said ‘Bango Skank Welcomes The Crimson King.’ This is even more mysterious than the other. Who the hell is this Bango character? And what does he have to do with anything?”

  They looked at each other. Several of them shook their heads.

  Gawdat frowned. “Kind of seems familiar, somehow.”

  “Well,” said Ahmed. “It doesn’t matter. At any rate, I believe we should consider staying here until the zombie outbreak has come to whatever end it reaches. To date, we have never had a place so secure as this, nor one so lush with food or water as this house. I would like everyone to consider this.”

  He went on, “In the morning, after breakfast, we can talk more about this if you want to. At that time, we will make a decision on making this our permanent home. If we are not going to stay here long-term, then I would like to stay for at least two weeks to rest.”

  “Ahmed, this is a lot you have given us to think about,” said Gawdat. “Right now I can say I am tired of walking, searching for food, and hiding from the zombies. I do agree that I don’t believe Europe has the answer any more than we do. This house was a very good find for us, and I welcome the idea of staying here until something forces us to move or this zombie thing is over. The one thing I wish we had is a radio to receive any news that is out there. If we had a two-way radio, we might even be able to talk to other survivors around the world as well. There should be a couple of them in this town. This is the something that I think should be a priority. If we do find one, there should be a hand-cranked power source with it.”

  “Gawdat, I agree. I don’t need to sleep on this. I am ready to voice my opinion. I agree, and I vote to stay.”

  “I vote with you to stay,” said Gafar.

  “I vote with you as well,” said Tetsuo.

  Husayn stood, saying, “I also vote to stay here!”

  “Roya and myself both vote to stay,” said Abla.

  “It looks like everyone wants to stay,” said Allahohnim. “Ahmed, are you okay with this? We don’t need to talk to each other or wait until breakfast.”

  “I want to thank all of you. As I look at everyone, I see this is a unanimous decision. If I am wrong, please let me know. If this is where we stay from this time forward, we will make this our home until we are forced out,” Gawdat said.

  “I agree with Gawdat. We are news broadcasters! We should know about radios, with or without transmitters. We not only should be in contact with the rest of the world, but we must be. A hand-cranked radio must be at the top of our list of things to search for. We might have to go out to nearby towns to find one. Now, with that having been said, we need to get our night watches setup. We cannot stop doing what we have been doing just because we have a home. We will need to keep to our schedule. We need to get some sleep. I do have one more quick request. I think we should have a day watch as well as the night watch. If this is to be our permanent home, we need to be aware of what is going on around it at all times.”

  The vote to stay was finished, but the discussion was not over. Small groups broke off so they could talk about their new place. The general consensus was that everyone was happy with this house as a semi-permanent place to stay. With the seeds that they found, they could plant a small garden. They could use the goats for milk or meat. With luck, they would try to find chickens for eggs and meat to supplement their diet.

  Night watch ended at sunrise. Everyone had breakfast together. Day watch began after breakfast was over. Following breakfast, they sent out a search team to look for a ham radio. This team was led by Gafar, with Sabah, Hsen, Allahohnim and Roya accompanying him.

  “All right, we need to go across town to the other side. We have not searched that side of town yet. The only thing that we do not need is water. Anything else that we find is great, but the radio is the primary item that we are looking for. Once we find one, we stop searching and return home. If we find a radio that works, we’ll be done for the day. It will be the most important thing that we have ever found.”

  “That works for me,
Gafar. We should have time to search for three to five hours.”

  They walked to the other side of the town. It was a long hike. As they neared the other side of town, they were starting to pass a train switching depot below the small ridge that they were on. As they approached the terminal, they could see through the large doors inside. What they saw was something that would scare anyone out of their skin.

  Allahohnim was leading them down the ridge, and was the first to see it. He waved everyone to come close to him. He held a finger in front of his lips to let them know to be quiet. In a whispered voice, he said, “Stay right here. Do not make a noise. Do not move. I looked into the terminal. If you look closely you can you see into the darkness. Do you see them?”

  “If that is what I think it is, we may be in for a lot of trouble. That is a huge group of zombies. It would not surprise me if there are 300 or more zombies in there. We know that they do not come out until late afternoon to start hunting, but I never thought that we would find where they hide until they came out to hunt. I think we might have just discovered it. I want to stay here for a minute to take a good look at the terminal. Then we need to back away from this place as quickly as we can. There are several hours until they come out. I don’t want to be here when they do.”

  “Okay, Gafar. What can I do to help you?” said Allahohnim.

  “All I want to do is look at the building to see if there are more of them or what the building has to offer that we can use against them. On the way back, we can search for the radio we need.”

  After looking at the terminal for five or ten minutes, they backed out of the area. As they headed back home, they searched as many buildings as they could. Luck was with them; they found an old ham radio with a hand-cranked power source. They took a minute to power it up to see if it worked. Much to their surprise, it did. They quickly packed it up and headed back.

  On the way back, they didn’t talk very much. When they reached the house, they were ushered in by the day watch. Kamal was the first to say anything.