This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead/undead, or actual events is purely coincidental. No Canadians were harmed in the making of this book.
Copyright 2018 Patrick Nelson
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Prologue
Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, CO – 0 A.Z.
Thad Boucher rotated the dial on his father’s gun safe, just like he’d practiced in his mind hundreds of times. Inside he found the tools to accomplish his mission: An AR-15 rifle with thirty round clips and a chrome-plated 9mm handgun.
Since moving to Colorado Springs from Winnipeg, Thad had been harassed, teased, pestered, and bullied. He’d appealed to his father, an officer in the Canadian military, who had laughed and called him a girl. “Fight back!” was all the advice the large man had given. Thad wished he had stayed back in Winnipeg with mom. She’d tried to keep him back, negotiating with her husband. His dad had shaken his head, saying, “A change of scenery will be good for him. You can’t coddle him forever. He’s fourteen! It’s time to shake things up in his life. Shake free the man he’s gonna be.”
Thad had been shaken, alright. Shaken, hit, slapped, kicked, and spat on. The other kids on Peterson weren’t particularly kind to Canadians, let alone a chubby, pale, nervous one like Thad. If they won’t be kind, Thad thought, then they will be afraid. They will pay for their cruelty with their lives.
Thad loaded the AR just like his father had shown him on their numerous camping trips, each one more humiliating than the last. His father tried to teach him to fish, hunt, and otherwise harass small animals. Thad hated it. He preferred his Japanese comics, and snuck away whenever he could to escape in them.
“Get outta those books!” His father would bark. “They’ll turn you into a nerd!” The irony was that it was too late. The Sergeant’s son already was a nerd.
That was simply another insult Thad absorbed every day. “Nerd” was rather tame, frankly, compared to what the boys called him. Even the girls disrespected him. Even Emma, whom Thad secretly liked, regularly called him “Poochie” – a reference to the flabby belly he futilely attempted to hide by constantly pulling his shirt out.
Having a gun safe on base was illegal. Thad’s dad did what he wanted, though. He gave his son the combo in case he needed to “defend the house.” Screw the house, screw his dad, screw this stupid town, Thad thought as hot tears welled up in his eyes. He never wanted to move here. He hated it here. He hated it everywhere. “This world can’t hate enough,” he said bitterly. He was sick of it. He would embrace death to the fullest to make the world notice what it’d done to him.
He put on a shirt with his favorite Japanese character on it. His father was always saying the name wrong. He did it intentionally.
Thad made his way to the school, hiding the AR in a hockey team duffel bag. It was lunchtime. All the kids would be in the cafeteria. He would do it there. There was only one door in, besides the emergency exit. He would attach his bike lock to the emergency exit from the outside, and would attach another to the entrance once he was in. There would only be one way out of the room. Death.
Mr. Driscoll, the gym teacher, was walking out as Thad entered. Thad nodded at him without making eye contact, and hustled nervously by. The teacher thought Thad was acting a little strange but didn’t make much of it. The boy was kind of a wuss and got picked on a lot.
Thad made the last turn of the hallway toward the cafeteria. The school was oddly quiet. Usually there was a bustle of activity. Kids shouting, flirting, or otherwise pissing away their lives in this hellhole.
He opened the cafeteria door and slipped in without looking around him. He had to get the bike lock on the door handles as quickly as possible. His hands were shaking and he had trouble. The duffel was heavy, and it kept falling off his shoulder.
The bike lock clicked. Success. He dropped the duffel to the floor, something he should have done as soon as he got through the door. He would remember for next time. Next time, heh, he chuckled to himself. There was no next time, Thad. He pulled the gun from the duffel, expecting the screams to begin. He already had extra clips attached under his parka. There was plenty to kill everyone. The pistol was for himself.
Now he looked up to survey the battlefield. He wanted to look his victims in the eye, see their fear as they understood what was about to happen. This was the moment he’d fantasized about.
Instead, he puked up his breakfast carbs at the sight.
The kids were eating each other.
Blood pooled on the linoleum floor. Tissue and body parts were strewn across the floor and tables from the feeding frenzy. One of the kids on the other side of the room looked up at Thad. His eyes were cloudy, his mouth covered in blood.
“Whh…whaat?!” was all Thad could get out. The bloodthirsty kid lurched towards Thad. Thad raised the AR and repeatedly pulled the trigger, emptying the clip. Every shot in the 30 round clip missed. He was shaking too hard. The attacker was 30 feet from him. Thad detached the clip to reload but fumbled with the extra clip and dropped it. He turned to escape, but he’d locked the door. What was the code again? It was his address. Which address? Back in Winnipeg?! Here on base?! He turned the dials to put in the code. It blissfully unlocked. He ripped the lock off the door handles just as the cannibal behind him got within reach. He threw the door open and stumbled into the hallway.
Facing him were dozens more of his fellow students. They looked dazed, pale, sick. “Leave me alone!” He screamed. They ignored him, moving in. Thad drew the pistol. It wouldn’t do him much good.
◆◆◆
Sergeant Boucher heard the blast doors shut from his desk deep within the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station – a shelter designed to withstand a nuclear blast. He worked the Watch Floor as an Operations Specialist.
His stomach sank as he tried to focus on the odd reports he was reading for the tenth time. Rampant cannibalism, inexplicable violence, reanimation… He could only think of one thing, though. His son. He’d fought with Thad that morning. It had something to do with eating breakfast sausage. Thad only wanted cereal. Cereal was just carbs and making Thad fat, the Sergeant had argued. Thad had run from the room to hide the tears welling in his eyes. Sergeant Boucher supposed that wasn’t so much a fight as a squashing. On the last time he would probably ever see his son alive, he’d squashed his heart.
He was interrupted by his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Taylor. “Boucher, which critical US sites are still reporting?”
“None, sir. All are silent,” he replied.
“How many tier two continuity sites?”
“None again, sir.”
“Damn it, Boucher, try harder.”
The commanding officer paused, sensing Boucher’s dread. “Have you heard anything from Canada?” he asked, quieter.
“No.”
“I was hoping they were doing better than us.”
“No,” Boucher choked on it.
“Your boy is down on Peterson, right?”
“He is.”
“Mine too…Hopefully Fort Carson pushes back the attack.”
“Hopefully,” Boucher replied.
“Let me know if you hear anything.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sergeant Boucher’s commanding officer walked away to check with one of the many other desks on the operations floor.
Boucher stared at his computer, fighting the urge to pick up the machine and throw it. His son was out there. He needed help, but Boucher was stuck in this tomb. He would live, his son and
wife wouldn’t.
His computer emitted an innocuous “ping,” indicating he had an email message. It was an automated email from a military address. He rubbed his eyes before reading it:
**SPECIAL ACCESS PROGRAM CLASSIFIED**
SHIPPING SOURCE: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HEALTH BETHESDA, MD
DESTINATION: CHEYENNE MTN AIR FORCE STATION
CONTENTS: A9 ANTIDOTE QUANTITY 3
CARRIER METHOD: TRAM
NOTE: THIS IS FINAL SHIPMENT. TRAM TUNNEL 86’D AFTER SHIPMENT. IF YOU ARE RECEIVING THIS AUTO MESSAGE WE ARE OVERRUN. GOOD LUCK AND GODSPEED.
Boucher read the message again, not entirely capturing the meaning. The tram was the underground train system that connected critical sites. It was built during the Cold War, and could transport anything that could fit in a box the size of a large dresser. “86’d” meant they’d run their tram tunnel’s auto-destruct system to prevent it from being compromised. Whatever it was, this A9 antidote was waiting in the receiving room.
Boucher went to go investigate this mysterious package.
Chapter 1 – July 101 A.Z.
THE PEOPLE WILL FOLLOW THE MAN WHO SHOWS THE MOST AGGRESSION. IT IS HOW ANIMALS BEHAVE, WHY WOULD WE BE ANY DIFFERENT?
Cable from Canadian Forces Base Winnipeg to Cheyenne Mountain - 5 A.Z.
John awoke in a dark, cool hut. A breeze had blown aside the curtains made of leaves. His head hurt and despite the breeze, he felt hot. Hot didn’t describe it. Feverish was more like it. He’d had a fever twice before in his life. He remembered lying in his mother’s arms as she cooled his head with a wet cloth. The memory was sweet, but the pleasantness was cut short. Sharp, angry pain ripped through his stomach, wiping out any other thought. There was nothing else to think about, nothing else worth considering. Hunger. It was all that mattered. He jumped up from the bed he didn’t remember getting into and swatted the curtains aside to escape from the small hut. It made him feel trapped, and there was no food in it.
He looked around outside in the nighttime landscape, but it was too dark. Clouds were overhead and there were no stars. “Food,” he muttered to himself, as if that would somehow produce it. He took a step forward and noticed that he couldn’t feel the ground. His feet were numb. John stared at them. “I need food,” he repeated dumbly.
All John found was water, though. Or, more accurately, all he stumbled upon. Careening wretchedly through the forest, he lurched and fell into a small pond. Terror overwhelmed him. He knew how to swim, but now the water seemed like a threat he’d never properly understood. It was dangerous, frightening, and evil. He thrashed around in the water, shouting curses at it. Finally he made his way to the bank, crawled out of the pond and onto the grass, dripping, coughing up what he’d inhaled.
When the coughing stopped he stood up. The breeze hit him again, but even wet, it did not cool him down. His body shivered with the hot fever.
He froze at the sound of a growl behind him. Zombie. He turned slowly, just barely able to see the dark figure approaching. It was twenty paces away. His normal reaction would have been to feel fear, to fight or flee, to look for a weapon…instead, he just stood and stared at the approaching figure. Watching it, John felt that there’d never been a reason to be afraid. His previous dislike of the undead had been a delusion, it seemed. The clouds parted, revealing the light of the moon. John could see the zombie’s eyes. They looked aggressive, angry – as if such emotions could be attributed to the undead!
The zombie started groaning and champing its mouth, tantalized by John’s proximity and stillness. The sound woke John from his daydream.
“You want to eat me.” John said to it, as though the zombie could understand. The thought infuriated John. This zombie thought it was superior.
It was within arm’s reach. John suddenly grabbed it by the shoulders and shouted into its face, forcing it to the ground. It thrashed and tried to bite John’s wrists but then stopped. It calmed and looked up at John. It let out a quiet murmur. Submission. John nodded.
“Yes. You are not the boss.” John stepped back and the zombie struggled to its feet. It was a somewhat fresh turn, maybe a few decades old, and fairly intact. It had a large cut in its arm, looked like from a machete. The zombie stared at John, not attacking, not moving.
“Yes,” John repeated. “I am the boss.”
The zombie reached out, hissing, to grab him. John shoved it back and shouted again, the fever rising in his head. The zombie hesitated and then lowered its arms to its side. The zombie was now John’s.
John headed back to the hut to look for his friends, the other Martyrs. There were no signs of humans. Only the walking cadaver next to him. Wherever John went, it followed. He still wasn’t sure if it was because it wanted to eat him, so he put his arm up to its mouth. It looked at the flesh, but pulled away. John wondered who this man had been. He’d probably been bit thirty years ago, by the looks of him. He still had decades of being a zombie ahead of him – not that he was self-aware. Zombies were all instinct, habits, and base human needs. Like hunger.
Another wave of hunger hit him. He frantically searched the hut again, but there was nothing. He felt so weak.
John decided he would have to go out in search of food. It might help with the fever.
“Come on,” John said to the zombie, but then chuckled bitterly at himself for talking to it. “Not like you can understand, but it might be your lot to have to listen to me. No one else to talk to around here.” The walker just stared blankly into the distance. The sound of feet in the brush broke the silent night air. Another zombie. John listened as it came closer.
John turned toward the sound and said, “Hey!” to get its attention. The walker’s pace increased. Hissing, it headed directly for them. It stumbled right up to John, grabbing him and lunging in to bite – then it abruptly stopped. It seemed unsure of itself. It looked at the other zombie, as if for a clue as to what to do with this human. John nodded his head at the walker and it startled at the motion, as though it was afraid of him. Good, John thought. He put his hands on its shoulders and forced it down to the ground. When it stood up, it was his. John now had two zombies.
The hunger came back, this time stronger. Much stronger. He fell to his knees, crying out and clutching his stomach. He needed food, now. There was no stopping this hunger. It had to be sated at any cost, any risk. He rose and began walking as though in a trance. His one goal was to find something to eat, something to fill the void. What he didn’t know was that no food could satisfy this hunger. This hunger was forever, and his search would never end.
Despite the hunger, he tried to put together some coherent thought, something to focus himself. This would fail, and he’d come to, realizing he’d been walking for an indeterminate amount of time. Eventually, somehow, he ended up back where he started, at the hut.
For the millionth time he asked himself, “What was I doing?”
Clarity returned for an indeterminate amount of time. Tenochtitlan afflicted his mind. He remembered the screaming crowds watching him fight in the arena. Rage twisting his memory, he saw the drunken spectators cheering and celebrating as John and his friends battled for their lives in the skyscraper. He tried to suppress the anger, but his fists did not unclench, his heart would not stop pounding. It was an embedded biological reality in him now, the virus in action. He may have been able to mentally master it under different circumstances, but all the resentment, disappointment, and bitterness he’d been secretly harboring about life weakened him. He surrendered, letting the rage wash over him, accepting it, agreeing with it, endorsing it. Believing it. What was the virus? What was John’s own rage? Was there a difference anymore?
It was in this mental state that John’s coherent thought took shape.
He headed to Tenochtitlan. Toward her opulence, her comfort, her cruelty. He headed there so he could destroy her and everyone with her. There were no innocents in the vile city; all were a part of the diseased culture, consuming humanity and beauty. T
hey would pay for their crimes.
This was his plan. Make them pay.
Over the next days of this march to his target John acquired almost thirty more zombies. Like the others that had joined him, stray walkers would take an interest in this live flesh walking so unconcernedly through the open countryside and come to investigate. Their hunger would grow at the sight of multiple other zombies surrounding this human. Like a feeding frenzy. They paid little mind to the fact none were attacking. Then, in the dark recesses of their primal minds, they would understand this human was somehow different, and was the leader of this pack. They would fall in line with him, and accept John as their leader. They didn’t know what the punishment was for disobeying, as disobeying seemed out of the question. The powerful man must be followed.
John didn’t question their following him, either. It was how nature would have it. Occasionally a zombie he encountered would put up more resistance, but all he had to do was act all the more aggressive toward it. This would get it in line. John was the boss.
Despite being the boss, he had no clue how far he was from the capitol. It could have been five miles or a hundred miles. The time between his “execution” by the Academy Queen and his turning up in the small hut was a mystery. He vaguely remembered Hog rescuing him from that pit and the other Martyrs being there. He also remembered meeting up with another man, whom John couldn’t place.
His musings were interrupted by the appearance of an angry female zombie ahead. It was still hot – recently turned and more dangerous and violent than older zombies. This was the first hot one John had seen since being bitten during his execution. It saw John and began moving quickly toward him. It didn’t have the same caution most other walkers had toward him. No matter. John would deal with it, just like all the others.
John held out his hands to push it to the ground, but it grabbed one and sank her teeth into him. He screamed and pulled his hand back before crushing its head in with the stick he was carrying. It took multiple blows to finish the job, and he pummeled on its skull until it shattered. He stood up from the gruesome task and looked around him. His zombies stared at him blankly.
100 A.Z. (Book 3): The Mountain Page 1