“Cliff!” Jack yells. Beth opens her eyes and screams. Cliff, not seeing the zombie but knowing he can’t save them both, shoves Beth as hard as he can, launching her back to Jack. He turns to face the zombie who is already on him. They wrestle. Jack tries to target the zombie with his Glock but can’t get a good shot. The zombie leans on Cliff, bending his knee sideways. Cliff shrieks. He finally gets leverage and pins the zombie to the wall. Jack races up and puts his second to last shell in the zombie’s eye. It drops.
“You now have three minutes to evacuate”,the computer voice drones. Cliff strains to stand and bends over to catch his breath after that. Jack glances down to see blood running down Cliff’s sleeve from the inside. “Cliff?” Jack asks, already knowing the answer before the question will escape his lips. Cliff looks down at his arm. He raises his sleeve. Bite marks. Beth looks at the wound and tears roll up in her eyes.
“Fuck,” Cliff exhales.
“Let’s go. We can treat you when the CDC gets here,” Jack replies. Cliff looks at Jack and then at Beth. He smiles.
“You saw the data Jack. I can already feel the change. We don’t have time. And I certainly can’t run on this knee,” Cliff surrenders.
“Daddy, please,” Beth pleads. Cliff smiles at Beth and touches her cheek.
“It’ll be alright. I’m going to be with your mother,” Cliff whispers.
“Daddy, no,” Beth sobs.
“Come on Cliff, we have to try. We’ll help you. If we hurry…” Jack negotiates.
“You now have two minutes to evacuate.” The computer rudely interrupts.
“You know what to do,” Cliff tells Jack. Jack’s eyes swell with tears.
“I can’t,” Jack replies with a breaking voice.
Cliff stares at Jack for a long minute. “It’s been the pleasure of my life to work with you Jack. You’re like a son to me. I see so much of myself in you. You can fix all of this. The two of you. It’s up to you now. But be careful who you trust. Not everything is as it seems,” Cliff says. The sound of movement comes from around the corner. Beth holds Cliff. Cliff kisses her head. “Don’t let me suffer Jack. I beg you. You can do this. You have to do this.”
Cliff bends over in pain. He drops to his knees. Jack draws his weapon. Beth sobs. “Take care of my baby girl, Jack,” Cliff implores. Jack nods yes through tears. Cliff’s breathing shallows. He raises his chin to improve his air way. Jack points the gun at Cliff’s forehead. Cliff’s eyes gloss over. Zombie Cliff leans forward toward Jack. Jack fires the gun. Cliff drops. Jack screams. Beth holds him.
Movement to their left interrupts the moment. Jack grabs the keys and chirps the car. Fifty yards to the right. Jack and Beth take off toward the sound. A zombie attacks. Jack shrieks in rage and clothes lines the zombie to the deck. They reach the vehicle. Two more zombies approach from behind the car. Beth dodges the zombie and kicks it in the back as she gets in the car. On the driver’s side, Jack pounds the zombie’s head into the window, smashing both.
“You now have one minute to evacuate”, the computer warns. Jack starts the car and slams it in reverse. He looks behind him to find another zombie. He hits the gas and rams the zombie, launching it ten feet into a pillar. An arm comes off and it gets disemboweled. Two more zombies pound the hood. Jack shifts into drive and hits the gas. The zombies collapse and are run over by the car, crushing them. Blood and organs squirt in all directions. More zombies line the drive path. “You now have thirty seconds to evacuate.” The computer delivers a final warning.
Jack weaves through more zombies. Zombies fly to the left and right. A security chain door blocks the exit. “Gun it,” Beth commands. Jack floors the gas pedal. They hit the security door doing forty miles per hour and the door explodes open in a loud bang as the hinges break. Somehow the SUV made it through the barrier. Jack sighs heavily and looks at Beth. Beth looks at Jack in bewilderment.
They race down the hill to the street. Jack keeps the pedal floored as they screech into the left hand turn at the bottom of the hill. Back in the institute, the computer counts down. Five. Zombies wander the halls, seeking new sources of blood and tissue to feed on. Four. Zombies creep through the now open parking garage. Three. Zombies feed on corpses. Two. Zombie Cliff lays motionless. One. Zombie Rachel lies prostrate with the bullet hole between her eyes a somber reminder of her horrors.
The building explodes. Gigantic fireballs blast their way through the corridors, hallways, labs and parking garage. The intense heat vaporizes every zombie it touches. Each undead person is set free from their endless torment by the all consuming fire. When the fireball recedes, numerous fires remain. But there are no zombies. The tragic loss of life is enormous, and it’s not lost on Jack. Nor is the responsibility that now falls on his shoulders. This may have been the end of this battle, but it’s only the beginning of the war against the ZnMBe.
CHAPTER 24
Jack stops the car and looks back. Beth turns to survey the damage. The institute looks like a war zone. A random zombie is on fire and drops to the ground. Jack and Beth look at each other. Jack drives on.
They approach the road block Dr. Norris set up earlier. Several black SUVs and police cars block the path ahead. Jack stops the car. Several police officers point their weapons at Jack and Beth’s SUV. “Raise your hands and step out of the car slowly,” commands an officer. Jack and Beth raise their hands and slowly open the doors. They pour themselves out of the front seat with hands raised.
“Who are you?” the officer asks.
“Jackson Hart and Beth Barrister,” Jack offers. Dr. Norris approaches them.
“It’s alright officer. They’re cleared,” he instructs. The officers lower their weapons. Jack and Beth lower their hands and walk to Dr. Norris. “My name is Dr. Norris. Cliff emailed me a few hours ago about a possible outbreak. Where is he?” Dr. Norris summarizes. Jack looks somberly at Beth, not wanting to make her relive the tragedy.
“Cliff and Rachel didn’t make it. Nobody did but us,” Jack reflects. Dr. Norris looks suspiciously at Jack. He tries to figure out if Logan could have made it out without their knowledge, or worse if these two were capable of something sinister. The truth eludes him.
“Nobody?” Dr. Norris asks again. Jack shakes his head no. “What of the compound?” Dr. Norris inquires.
“Contained using self-destruct,” Jack declares. Dr. Norris studies Jack for a moment and nods his acceptable response.
“We were very close to reversing the effects of the compound. I have the research, we just need time,” Jack advises. This gets Dr. Norris’ attention.
“You have the files?” he asks.
“Yes,” Jack replies.
“Good. Let’s get it back to the CDC. Is it in your bag?” Dr. Norris follows up. Something about the way Dr. Norris asks the question leaves a bad taste in Jack’s mouth. He suddenly remembers the warning Cliff gave him about not everything being as it seems and a chill runs down Jack’s spine.
“Nobody knows as much as I do about this compound,” Jack declares, sending a subtle message of his trust issues.
“Good. You can consult. We have the best minds in the world waiting to get started on this,” Dr. Norris advises. By the best minds, he’s of course talking scientists at the Department of Defense. Jack begins to realize what is really going on here. But what can he do about it? Dr. Norris holds out his hand. Jack slowly opens his bag. He retrieves a flash drive and stares at it for a moment. He must think fast if he is to stay a step ahead of this. He hands it to Dr. Norris. “Excellent. Let’s get you two debriefed. Go with these gentlemen,” Dr. Norris instructs.
Two agents in black suits escort Jack and Beth to a waiting van. They open the door and Jack and Beth enter and sit. One of the agents closes the door. “What?” Beth asks Jack, seeing the obvious concern in his face.
“Something is wrong,” Jack whispers. Beth looks wide eyed at him as if to ask what. “Your dad warned me about this. That not everything is as it seems,” Jack contin
ues.
“And you just gave them the flash drive?” Beth exclaims. Jack looks around and reaches into his front pocket. He shows the flash drive with the Hicks logo to Beth.
“Nope. I gave them my research into the compound. But it won’t take them long to figure that out. But I have a plan,” Jack explains. Beth looks around nervously.
Dr. Norris enters a van. He pulls a laptop out of a bag and plugs the flash drive into it. A file directory for ZnMBe loads. He opens a chat window on his laptop and types. “Logan failed. But I have the files. Cliff and Rachel Barrister dead. We have Beth Barrister and intern Jack Hart. All indications new biological weapon with definitive military applications successfully tested positive. Institute containment successful. No other witnesses. Bringing Jack and Beth in for debriefing. Report to SECDEF will follow up when scope identified. Will feed a cover story to the press and CDC. Be back at HQ in the AM. Uploading files. Norris out.” He launches a Defense Department application and copies the files. He smiles.
A driver enters the van where Jack and Beth sit. He wears a black suit and aviator sunglasses. Noise coming from his ear piece gets his attention. He glances back at Jack and Beth, starts the van and drives.
A mile away from the institute, in a field, lies a large sewage drain pipe. Normally it’s quiet as critters and insects come and go. The occasional drainage from rains the previous night release here. But today, a different kind of waste approaches the mouth. Several zombie rats scurry out of the opening. A zombie homeless man peeks into the sunlight. His glossed over eyes stare straight ahead. A residential neighborhood peeks over the top of the next hill. The rats scurry in every direction. The zombie homeless man heads toward the sights and sounds of the residential neighborhood, where he used to live.
The End
Read on for a free sample of Destiny Nowhere: A Zombie Novel
Chapter 1: Now
The Zombie Apocalypse started two months ago, and it started exactly where you’d expect it to--on television. Or, more to the point, on Facebook.
It went viral on the internet only slightly faster than it did in real life, and lucky for me, it happened on a Friday night so being a socially phobic shut-in saved my life.
While everyone is blabbing about undead bullshit on their social media feed, I’m lubed up and kneeling in front of my computer, whacking off to Sativa Rose and Lorena Sanchez having steamy, raunchy sex with some guy who looks like he stepped out of Duck Dynasty.
Before mankind ended, the AC Nielson Company reported that the “average” American watched 5.2 hours of television per day. That’s 36.4 hours per week, one and a half days straight, staring at the idiot box! So if they lived to the ripe age of 80, that means 16 years of their life were spent living vicariously through celebrities, being told what to buy and who to be. A nation of consumer cyborgs whose brains were equal parts Kardashian-ized, Monsanto addled, and pharmaceutically stunted in a 24/7 online shopping, social media, virtual reality orgy porgy. America runs on High Fructose Corn Whiz and McMeat, and humans were retarded by Candy Crush long before the zombie plague actually devoured their brains.
But none of that really matters now: TV doesn’t exist anymore; neither do the mentally handicapped, the government, or the status quo. And when civilization died, I was 38, chronically single, and jacking off to Lewd Contact #29, so who am I to really talk shit about everyone else? I’ll tell you who--I’m the smug asshole who’s alive to record history.
Four things they don’t tell you about zombies in the movies:
1) They shit themselves when they change, so you can smell them a mile away.
2) They aren’t actually dead; they’re just diseased, brain-dead cannibals, and you can kill a zombie all the same ways you can kill a regular person (burning, stabbing, Columbian Neck Tie, dropping in a pit of crocodiles, etc.), and not just by killing the brain.
3) They eat almost anything, including vegetables and rotting garbage, they just prefer the taste of flesh. And they maliciously hate humans on sight. Like, if you see a zombie eating a deer, and you think it’s probably stuffed and won’t bother coming after you, you’re wrong: even if it’s not hungry, it still wants to bite you, almost like it’s jealous that you’re still a person.
4) Humanity probably won’t survive this.
If we get our shit together enough to destroy all the zombies, then maybe we can rebuild a newer and better civilization that isn’t brought to you by Nabisco. Most likely, you’ll find this notebook stashed with a bunch of mildewed porno mags in some discarded, blood-soaked backpack in the northeastern United States. Its owner will hopefully be nowhere in sight, having shambled off to look for warm fleshy people like yourself to chomp on.
The Lazarus Virus, as the media so generically dubbed it before they were all devoured, supposedly began with a terrorist attack on New York City.
There’s a lot of debate in the aftermath as to whether or not a bunch of goat-herding Islamic Fundamentalists actually had the capabilities to create such a virus. 15% of survivors believe that the US military created this biological weapon, and polls are split pretty evenly between those who believe it was released by the government as a form of population control, and those who believe it was released by some rogue faction.
Just joking--survivors are so rare that we don’t really take polls of anything anymore, and those stats are just based on my conversations with the stragglers left alive. Do you remember all those ridiculous statistics that quantified every facet of our daily existence before everyone got eaten? 34% of Americans believe Candidate X didn’t grope Woman Z, while 56% of consumers preferred Coke to Pepsi, and 14% of American males have received a blowjob while driving a car (present company excluded).
Those statistics hummed constantly in the background of our lives like a soundtrack, and nobody ever noticed it happening. Did you know that 67% of statistics were made up on the spot?
OMG, WTF, LOL. Speaking of retardation, after ten thousand years of civilization, our very ability to communicate had diminished to ‘textspeak.’ Like I said--we were zombies before there were zombies. How does anyone even explain something like Facebook to people born after the plague?
What’s worse is how that idiotic silliness fills me with nostalgia now. Humans had reached an elevation of such playful, carefree wonder that they spent days on end reporting and categorizing what was popular, what was normal, what was new. Survival was our basic assumption, and death was so unexpected and shocking that it was reported on constantly. My mother would call me in a panic from 3,000 miles away to tell me whenever someone was murdered in my city.
WTF Mom, you morbid weirdo! WTF means What The Fuck, for those of you born after the plague, or in Nebraska. I wonder how any kids today are even going to learn to read while they’re busy trying to escape from seven billion undead. Maybe this will be the last book ever written?
I want you to know how good you have it now that civilization is dead. We were so bored as a species before this shit went down that people sat alone in their rooms, staring at a screen all day long and sharing pictures of our goddamn breakfast, our cats, and the cutesy lipstick keychain someone bought at the mall. Before the plague, we spent every single day of our lives trapped in a job somewhere, doing things we hated, so that they would give us money to buy this useless junk you see littering the wasteland. That was pretty much our entire lives.
Those days are long dead and, unlike your grandma, probably won’t rise again. And I’m secretly glad of that, because I was dead then, shambling through my life, just like all the others. And now, whoever you are reading these words, you are truly alive, aren’t you, awake in every moment, aware how precious and fragile your life is? Nature found a way to kibosh humanity’s appetite for destruction. We’re like mice in the forest, seeing and listening intently in fear of the death that lurks around every corner.
To the survivors I say, don’t despair--you will never again have to stand there with your unimaginative, glassy-eyed neig
hbor who is overly jazzed to discuss the weather with you. You’re done being that captive audience, trapped by your own social graces at the water cooler while some noxious co-worker drones on about their opinions of Dancing with the Stars or gay marriage. And nobody will ever ring your doorbell, rousting you from a relaxing afternoon nap, to ask if you’ve ever heard of Jesus. Maybe the best perk of all--jobs don’t exist anymore!
Am I the only one who’s glad that civilization is dead?
Destiny Nowhere is available from Amazon HERE!
The Zombie Effect Page 12