Zombie Zero
Page 14
Allen lost himself in being a zombie. He pushed all thoughts of Maya and Elayna from his mind, and filled it with hunger. He didn’t let Maya into his head, but he felt her hovering at the edges of his consciousness; he knew she still lived, and still moved in the feet of the monsters that covered the world. He knew it was her hunger that he fed; but his mind was not hers any more, or his. His mind was only hunger.
In the same day that the hunger began to loosen its grip, Allen found himself somehow in front of a dark television at the appointed hour. His feet had walked here, his mind must have known the time; he was nonetheless surprised when he heard the voice issue from the device.
“We’re at the Port of Long Beach this morning,” the voice said. “If you haven’t been tuning in, please listen now: we have a cure. There is no point of no return, for any of us. Stop killing your loved ones and come find us. We will issue the cure every morning, as we have for the past several days. We have plenty for everyone. We welcome everyone. So long as you do not approach with violence, we will not attack you. We are here to help. I repeat-”
The street was empty when the voice was suddenly silenced. Allen was running, dashing down streets and leaping abandoned cars in his frenzied flight. Somehow he felt like this was his last hope, his final chance at redemption before he became nothing but hunger. He didn’t think of Maya, or Elayna, or the guilt that he had borne. He just ran.
Chapter 25
Harv was glad they lived in the desert. They had lost grid power first, and any news of hope; but it was easy to spot them coming from nearly a mile off. He had never been much for hunting, but Harv knew how to handle a rifle. In the last few weeks he had become a crack shot, and all of the members of the community came running to fetch him when one approached. The ramblers were easy, and he encouraged others to practice on them; the howlers were a different story. He took them down again and again, sometimes reloading two or three times before they finally stopped getting up. Harv knew enough to shoot them in the eyes; the cable feed had gone out before the community could learn of the cure. They banded together, living in the homes with solar or generators, coming to him to save them all time and again. Back at the cradle of mankind…
Maya looked more beautiful than ever. She floated inches above the sand, in a wide flat expanse of barren desert, cocooned in electronic connections. Her nude body was relaxed as she levitated in the cloud, her delicate fingers tracing colored lightning connections. Her mind peered into the mind of every rambler, every howler, and every human on the planet. She nodded her head, slowly, although there was no one to see. Closing her dark eyes, she brought her hands together before her quickly. The clap shook the ground, thunder split the air, and an invisible shockwave rippled away from her in every direction.
The pulse washed over every city, every home, every body that remained. Every television, radio, communication device and web surfer died. All of the lights went out, every dam and dike burst; and many darkened cities were soon flooded as well. Every internet portal closed forever, every last bit of electronically stored information gone in a heartbeat. The world’s hard drives were all wiped clean, and every electronic cloud evaporated. Backup generators didn’t even try to fire; and now, they never would. The part of the world that was dark was suddenly very dark, and a new silence settled over the planet that hadn’t been heard for generations.
Vessels at sea stopped moving, their inside cabins plunged suddenly into inky blackness. Air filtration systems stopped working in the submarines, along with everything else; and ships drifted on the surface of the ocean while the submerged slowly suffocated. The pulse was felt by everyone; even those not surrounded by electrical devices sensed a shift. The wave swept the world, crossing over itself to meet again at Maya. For a moment she floated there, caught up in a network of electricity and information and ecstasy; then she burst into a billion pieces of shifting sand, and blew away in the next gust of silent wind.
The howlers of the world began to turn on each other, and the mindless ramblers, as one. Their new hunger was as powerful as the old had been, though it did not take its place. Human flesh was still a welcome treat, albeit a rare one. Hunting packs became feeding frenzies, and lone predators drifted off to devise new tactics. Ramblers were easy pickings, and soon few of them scuffled down the deserted lanes of every city. It was all rats and roaches and flies, streaming through the streets like traffic, burrowing through walls and foundations and heaps of burnt corpses.
Epilogue
Nick loved boats. He had always felt more at home on the water than on land, and had dreamed of being in the navy since he was a little boy. When the ship he had been assigned to became a vessel filled with zombies, he had managed to hide until he could escape. Nick had dove into that ocean he loved so much, swam to the smaller vessel as it was attacked, and waited in the water until they were gone. When the pulse hit, he was alone in the yacht and headed for shore. Now he was drifting, and hadn’t seen land since the tide had sent him back out to sea. He had gorged on the food in the fridge, before it could go bad; now he rationed what little he had left, and tried not to think about his odds of being rescued in a world with no engines or radar. In the closest sprawling city…
Allen made it to the dock moments after the other howlers. They were attacking the distribution booths, the humans and ramblers and howlers that had shown up for treatment, and each other. The people had tried to escape; but their guns weren’t enough, and their boat wouldn’t start. In minutes the vessel was a drifting swarm of zombies.
He tore into them, pulling howlers off people and pushing ramblers into the water. Allen realized that he just looked like another feeder in the frenzied free for all; nevertheless, he fought off the howlers until the smell of fresh flesh no longer filled the air. They turned on each other then, and him. Allen swam after the drifting vessel to climb aboard and stuff as many bottles of pills into a sack as he could. He lowered a small lifeboat into the water, fighting off howlers and pushing aside ramblers, then leapt into it when it hit the surface.
Rowing with all of his might, Allen watched the city fade over the horizon as the sunlight dwindled in the sky. After he had rowed for awhile, he set aside the oars and opened the bag. Removing a bottle from the collection, he opened it and took a single pill. Allen closed the bottle, tied the bag, and began rowing once more.
Afterword
Dear reader,
I hope you enjoyed my first zombie book, and my first horror novel. There is a lot more of this world to be found at my secret newsletter, between now and the next book. It’s free and easy to subscribe, and you become a member of the ‘Secret Society of Deeper Meaning’ on top of all the free supporting content. This year, there’s a lot of zombie stuff…it is the ‘Year of the Zombie’, after all. Next year…well, we talk about that in the newsletters.
If you really loved the book, and want to help out more than you already have by reading it, there’s an easy way to do just that. Reader reviews are an important part of bringing like minds together. Reviews help authors find readers, and help readers choose authors. If you’d like to post a review, there’s a short tutorial on my website to help out with writing a review. You already did help, though, just by reading. I appreciate you taking the time, and letting my zombies into your brain for awhile. I hope they didn’t eat anything.
Thanks for reading!
All the best,
J.K. Norry
Twitter: @JayNorry
‘Secret Society of Deeper Meaning’
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Trigger Warning
Acknowledgements
Foreward
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Afterword
Also from the author
Publishers Note