SUBURBAN JUNGLE: A Post Apocalyptic Zombie Survival Thriller (Chronicles of the Undead: Book 2)

by Jaime Hernandez

  Frank leaned his head against the window and noticed an unusually large number of people walking the streets. Before he could take in any further detail, he heard his name from one of the guys seated behind him.

  “Frank, how’d things go with that blonde from the apartment fire? You know who I mean, Mount Everest?” Steve laughed, making hand motions to describe the woman’s ample chest. “Shit, I would have been all up in that if I’d seen her first.”

  Frank laughed and shook his head. “You know damn well how it went. One look at my fine black ass, and she was begging for more.”

  “I heard Dan hooked up with her roommate,” Shawn, their driver, chimed in.

  “Fuck, you know Dan hooks up with a different chick every fire,” Steve said.

  “Yeah, don’t forget about Romeo back here,” Junior said, elbowing Jake. “That redhead that came into the office was looking for him.”

  “In his defense, she was leaving. She already came,” Shawn ribbed. They all laughed.

  Frank laughed, then tuned out the friendly banter as they turned onto the onramp. He’d had a couple of fun nights with the blonde. Heather, or Amber, or something like that. He didn’t know her name then and definitely couldn’t remember it now.

  Raised voices suddenly interrupted his thoughts. “What the hell is going on over there?” Junior asked loudly as he pointed toward a crowd of people walking around on the highway. They were nearing the accident and saw a few dozen people walking in various directions across the right two lanes. The people took no notice of the fire truck and made no effort to move out of the way.

  Shawn veered the truck to the left across all four lanes and pulled to the front of the pileup. Within seconds, both ambulances stopped behind them. Before they could climb out of the fire truck, a police car slammed into the inner wall of the overhead bridge. Another police car pulled up beside it.

  Screams were coming from nearly every direction. Frank and his crew were headed for a smashed-up car that was engulfed in flames while the paramedics rushed to tend to the wounded. As they focused on getting the hose ready to start on the fire, a few dozen people shuffled toward them from behind the accident.

  “Where are all of these people coming from?” Frank hollered. The people weren’t involved in the car accident, so his confusion grew as he saw that everyone heading their way had horrific bloody injuries. The walking wounded had chunks of flesh missing or torn from their faces, shoulders, arms, hands, and even some abdomens. It looked like a bomb had gone off.

  The paramedics from one ambulance had strapped in a man who was injured in the car accident. Before the driver could close the rear doors, a middle-aged man in a business suit stumbled up to him, grabbed him by the arm, and bit into his neck. Blood spurted wildly from the gruesome wound, and the stunned paramedic dropped to the ground. The man in the suit went down with him and tore more flesh from his face and throat until the first responder went still. The suit stood up and bit into the foot of the injured man strapped to the gurney in the back of the ambulance. The second paramedic, confused and shocked, tried to push the suit away and got his hand bitten in the process.

  The other two paramedics went to check on the police officer in the wrecked car. They found him strapped in his seatbelt with fatal injuries, yet the officer pressed his face up against the window and snapped his jaw at them. Unsure of what to do, and before they could do anything, four people who were dead closed in on them. Three women and one man reached for them and brutally bit into both of them. The screams were gut-wrenching, but they were cut short as the paramedics were bitten on their faces, necks, and hands.

  Shawn yelled for everyone to get back in the fire truck. Jake and Steve quickly jogged toward the truck but were overcome by half a dozen zombies before they could get there. They went down fighting. Their heavy uniforms, gloves, and helmets offered protection, but they didn’t understand what they were dealing with and were overwhelmed by the weight of so many bodies pulling them down. Heavy jaws painfully clenched down on Jake’s arms but couldn’t penetrate the heavy material. By sheer luck, two zombies managed to pull off one of Jake’s gloves and immediately mangled his hand with their teeth. As he fought to push them off, his helmet came loose, and his ear was ripped from his head within seconds. Four of the dead lumbered over Steve, and one managed to bite a bloody chunk out of his neck. Within a minute, Jake and Steve were both clumsily back on their feet, looking for a meal for themselves.

  As the driver, Shawn didn’t wear a helmet or jacket, just his heavy uniform pants, suspenders, and a thin t-shirt. He hadn’t seen Jake and Steve go down, so when he got close to them, he yelled for them to get back to the truck. He saw their dead eyes just before they both locked their hands onto his arms and shoulders. Shawn yelled and kicked and hollered, but together Jake and Steve were too strong for him to fight off. Jake nearly ripped Shawn’s bicep from his arm, leaving stringy sinew and bloody detritus around the stark white bone. Steve bit into Shawn’s shoulder then clamped down on Shawn’s fingers so hard that he severed nearly his entire hand. He held them up to his mouth to eat like chicken wings. Shawn passed out from the pain and blood loss, only to rise again as one of the dead only moments later.

  Frank and Junior had heeded Shawn’s order for everyone to get back to the truck with only seconds to spare. Of the five firefighters, four paramedics, and two police officers on the scene, they were the only two men to make it back to safety.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Junior yelled. From within the safety of the truck, they watched as more and more people fell to the dead. Within minutes, fifty zombies were roaming the area. People got out of their trapped cars to try to run down the hill alongside the highway, but not one made it without suffering at least one bite wound. Most of them went down screaming before coming back as zombies. A handful kept running, unknowingly spreading the infection further as they fled the area.

  “Holy shit,” Frank said and pointed at the rest of the crew. Shawn, Jake, and Steve were scattered within the crowd shuffling around looking for a fresh meal.

  More cars came to screeching stops as they reached the accident and found themselves blocked in. Frank watched as a dozen zombies surrounded a small red compact and pressed against the windows as they sought to reach the stunned woman in the driver’s seat. They pushed against the windows until they formed spider webs of cracks then pushed the glass into the car. The woman screamed and tried to fight them off, but several zombies grabbed hold of her hands and arms and started feasting. Her scream died off as she became one of the dead, and the zombies turned away, looking for another living meal. The dead woman remained in her car without the mental capacity required to open her door, so she reached the remains of her arms and her head out of the broken window, grasping at the air.

  As scorching flames left unchecked roared through one of the cars in the pileup, the fire gradually spread to the other smashed-up cars. The torrid heat found its way to the gas tank of the second car, causing an explosion that sent shrapnel everywhere and shook the firetruck on its axis.

  “Damn it, we’ve gotta get out of here!” Junior said. He climbed into the driver’s seat and tried to start the engine. “It’s not starting.” The stress in his voice was evident.

  “Look,” Frank said. “There’s smoke coming from the engine. We must have taken some damage from that explosion. I don’t think we’re getting out of here unless we go on foot.”

  “There’s nowhere to go on foot. The zombies are everywhere,” Junior said. The truck was quickly becoming surrounded as more and more of the dead made their way toward the accident. The explosion seemed to draw in at least a hundred more.

  “I think they know we’re in here,” Frank said as he watched a lot of the zombies shift their focus to the truck. “We’re sitting up high enough that they shouldn’t be able to reach us.” He wasn’t sure he was right, but he hoped he was. The zombies were slow and uncoordinated. He watched the dead that remained strapped in seatbelts
in their cars, seemingly unable to unbuckle themselves or open their doors.

  “So we just sit here and wait?” Junior asked.

  “I think so. Maybe something else will grab their attention, and they’ll wander off. Whatever this is, it’s happening lightning fast. I don’t think anyone will be coming to help us.”

  “We’ll fucking die of heatstroke sitting in here,” Junior said. “There’s what, a few bottles of water? That might keep us cooled down enough for a couple of hours. Then what are we going to do?”

  “Damn it, I don’t have all the answers. I’m seeing what you’re seeing. All I know is that right now we’re stuck, and we’re not going anywhere,” Frank said with anger creeping into his voice.

  With nothing to do but sit and wait, they watched more of the horrifying carnage all around them. From their vantage point, they could still see a few living people trapped inside their cars. A man on a motorcycle suddenly came within view, weaving and dodging the zombies that reached for him. He made it about a hundred yards past the fire truck before his luck turned, and he hit a zombie head-on. The man flew off his bike, and the second he hit the ground, he was swarmed. The dead ripped his helmet off, gorged on his face, and ripped his nose clean from his face. A young teenaged girl tore his fingers from one hand while an old man in Bermuda shorts ripped into his abdomen. A woman in yoga pants bit into his neck repeatedly, causing blood to spurt wildly. She moved down to his chest and started pulling on his organs. Two of them were on their knees, pulling on ropes of glistening intestines. Another nearly scalped him with one hand while the other pulled his eye from his socket. They did enough damage that the biker didn’t rise again as one of them. Their meal finished, the small group of zombies slowly shuffled back toward the fire truck.

  “Shit, we’re going to need a really big distraction if we’re ever going to get out of here,” Junior said. “Hot as hell or not, I’m not getting out of this truck.” Frank nodded in agreement.

  Over the next few hours, they saw the last of the trapped drivers succumb one by one as the zombies pressed against their car windows with enough force until the glass broke free. Then it was just Frank and Junior. Every last zombie on the highway gathered around the fire truck. The crowd was nearly ten deep all the way around.

  Resigned to being trapped, Frank and Junior settled in and tried to get comfortable in the heat. The zombies couldn’t reach the windows, so they broke two of them to try to get some fresh air circulating. The slight breeze carried smoke and the noxious smell of hundreds of freshly dead bodies.

  “We’re sitting in a truck full of water, and we’re going to end up dying from dehydration and heatstroke,” Frank said with a little laugh.

  “Better that than the zombies. Well, at least zombies would be a fast death,” Junior said with a laugh of his own. “I’m not giving up, though. Someone is bound to come around, or something is going to distract them.”

  “I hope so, but do you think something is going to distract so many of them? Maybe if a semi plowed through here,” Frank said without expecting an answer.

  They had two bottles of water left. They were already dehydrated from sitting in full gear in the heat of the truck, and they had to make the water last.

  “I’m taking my gear off. If we see anything coming, I’ll throw it back on quick,” Junior said.

  “Good idea,” Frank said. They’d been keeping it on in case they had a chance to escape, but they weren’t going to survive the oven inside the truck if they didn’t find a way to cool down.

  As night fell, the dead never lost interest in the fire truck. They listened to the nonstop raspy moans of a couple of hundred zombies surrounding them. The two broken windows gave them some desperately needed fresh air. They split one of the two bottles of water between them and planned to save the last bottle for as long as possible. Both men had been up for more than twenty-four hours at this point, so Frank told Junior to try to get some rest while he kept watch. There was nothing to do but watch and wait, hoping that someone would come their way.

  Throughout the night, in groups of twos and threes, more zombies gradually surrounded the truck. Frank sighed at the hopeless situation. He couldn’t believe that his life was going to end this way.

  Frank had married in his mid-twenties, but the marriage fizzled out fast after he became a firefighter. They had started life together happy, had two toddlers, and had planned to add to their family, but he found that no matter how hard he did or didn’t try, he couldn’t turn down all the women that threw themselves at him. As soon as women saw the uniform, they were all over him. He’d been young and dumb and couldn’t say no to any of them. He made it work for a few years until his wife had wizened up and given him an ultimatum.

  Fifteen years ago, she’d left him after she’d caught him cheating on her one too many times. She’d taken their boys and moved across the country. After she left, he started drinking a little too much. Between her wanting distance, the job, and his drinking, he’d gradually fallen out of touch with them. He thought about her and his two boys and wondered where they were now if they had somehow survived. Even if he could search for them, he’d have no idea where to even begin to look. He resigned himself to the fact that he would never know.

  He liked to think of himself as a changed man, but he never settled down again, and he hooked up with at least one new woman every week. Firefighting and random flings had been his life ever since the divorce. Looking out at the crowd of zombies and knowing he was going to die soon, Frank was full of regret. His biggest mistake had been letting go of his boys. He shed a few silent tears over the things he’d done and the things he’d lost.

  The screech of fingernails along the bottom of his window pulled him from his recollections. An immensely tall zombie had its arms reaching straight up, and its fingers were grazing the window. The eerie sound somehow stood out even with all of the raspy moans and shuffling feet.

  “Well fuck,” Frank muttered, wishing he could do something about it. The noise woke up Junior, who had somehow managed to sleep over the last six hours or so.

  “Damn Frank,” Junior said when he saw the time. “You should have woken me earlier.”

  “Nah, I was good,” Frank replied. “I’ll try to get some sleep now. Wake me if the sun doesn’t.” It was just past 4:00 in the morning. The sun would be up in a couple of hours.

  “You got it boss,” Junior said. As Frank tossed and turned, Junior watched the hundreds of zombies keeping them company. He’d watched so many that none of their appearances surprised him anymore. He was just glad that he wasn’t up close and personal with any of them.

  He checked his cell phone and saw that the internet was working. It seemed crazy to him that he couldn’t make a phone call, but he could go online. It wasn’t long before he regretted checking the news. He watched one terrifying, horrific video after another, quickly learning that most if not all of the country had fallen to the dead if the news reports were right. He put his phone away and resumed watching the dead around the truck.

  Junior Martinez was twenty-five and single. He came from a large family and had more cousins than he could count. His mom had a family dinner every Sunday and, without fail, nagged him about when he was going to settle down and give her grandbabies. His siblings had already given her a half dozen and showed no signs of stopping, but she wouldn’t be happy until she had at least a dozen grandchildren to spoil. He smiled to himself, thinking of her voice and the loud house at Sunday dinners. His family was sprawled out all over the eastern suburbs and beyond. They might as well be a thousand miles away since everything went to shit. As much as he wanted to, he didn’t see how he could try to get to any of them if he ever escaped the firetruck. The thought of his parents possibly being killed brought tears to his eyes. If ever there was a way to get to them, he would, but it just didn’t seem possible. Hell, he couldn’t even get his ass safely out of the damned truck.

  The sun rose brightly, promising another scorchin
g hot day. The inside of the truck had cooled to a barely tolerable temperature during the night, but with the morning sunshine, it was already heating up. Frank awoke to the sun on his face and the sounds of raspy, moaning zombies shuffling and stumbling around the truck. He looked out the window to see that the crowd was about the same size it had been before he’d fallen asleep.

  He was so thirsty that he felt a bit lightheaded and his lips were cracked and dry. He looked over at Junior to see that he appeared no better. “How about we each drink about a quarter of that last bottle of water?”

  “Sounds good to me. We’re never going to make it through today if we don’t get more,” Junior said, knowing they had no way to get more. If it wasn’t so hot, they could make it last longer, but that wasn’t an option. He took the bottle from Frank and relished the few gulps of warm water, wishing desperately that he could drink more.

  They debated busting out the rest of the windows. The tallest of the zombies could only reach the bottoms with their fingertips, so they felt safe letting more air in as long as they didn’t sit right next to the broken windows. The stench from the dead was putrid, but they needed the air so they wouldn’t overheat completely. Throughout the morning, they made small talk and watched the zombies all over the highway. By noon, they were both feeling sick from the heat. They were tired, their mouths were as dry as sandpaper, and dizziness came and went. They decided to finish the last bit of water since it was the only thing they could do to help themselves.