Humanity's Death [Books 1-3]

by Black, D. S.

  On the other end of the stadium, Colonel Mullinax fired from a safe position; his sniper rifle set up on a steady tripod. He'd sent five hundred men to intercept Rainmaker and Pinky's attack. Both sides found themselves fighting from behind and under bleachers, old ATM kiosks and food courts. Johnny set up a team of men with rocket launchers; they were firing at will, causing death and a chaotic dispersing within the ranks of charging Militia soldiers. Pinky led a team of twenty men as they charged onto the bleachers, taking up positions near a VIP box; they strafed the field with bullets killing dozens of men, but the Militia was powerful and without fear; they charged like suicidal Japanese soldiers in World War II. Soon the fifty who charged the south gate dwindled to forty, then thirty, and still more Militia soldiers came, screaming madly as they charged against Pinky and Rainmaker's bullets.

  By nightfall both the south and north ends of the battle were looking more and more like the Militia would soon overcome and destroy the invading army. Tired and nearly out of ammunition, hope began to fail in their hearts.

  Candy thought about Jody and accepted her fate; her ghostly girls stood beside her and whispered: chaos is coming.

  Duras thought about Mary Jane, and cried tears of failure as he fought with all his remaining strength; Pinky thought about the men that were dying beside him and felt a level of regret and grief he'd never felt before; he'd brought them to a hopeless cause. Rainmaker watched as men he loved and cared for were ripped to shreds by hot bullets; he screamed a native and heroic blaze of pain as he fired at a coming storm of crazed eyes and zipping bullets; they were now in the shredder, and he knew all hope was lost.

  Without some miracle, without some unexpected twist to this suicide mission, they'd all meet their deaths tonight.

  Mullinax 5

  1

  Colonel Mullinax smiled as he gunned down the dwindling attackers. He laughed as he shot them. The Militia had lost a lot of men, but they'd win this battle.

  These fools thought they could invade the stadium and win? No one could stop the Militia! No one could stop Order.

  No one!

  2

  Wrong again!

  Kid Chaos 5

  1

  Larry didn’t watch much TV, but he remembered watching one episode of AMC’s The Walking Dead. It was an episode where the nigger samurai had used mouthless zombies to camouflage her presence. He also vaguely remembered another episode where other characters rubbed zombie guts over themselves, and that also worked; at least on TV. Larry had no idea if that would work in real life, but with the threat of Order on his doorstep; he decided he had no choice but to risk it.

  He walked up the grandiose mahogany staircase that led up to the second floor. He walked down to his parent’s bedroom and stood in front of the door. He tapped on the door with his knuckles. Almost immediately a loud thud knocked on the door followed by the dead moans of his parents.

  He held the bat his father bought him in one hand and opened the door with the other. He stood back, held the bat up like that nigger, Barry Bonds; then swung hard and fast. Their skulls were soft from a year in the muggy bedroom. His mother’s skull cracked open, spilling brain and blood on the wall and carpet. She fell in a heap, never to growl again. His father stumbled over her body, falling flat on his dead face. Larry wasted no time. He crushed his father’s skull with three powerful downward swings.

  Larry took a sharp butcher knife from the kitchen and cut his mother’s corpse open. He reached inside her belly, gagged, fought a powerful urge to hurl, and failed. He dropped a handful of guts and puked on the carpet.

  After his stomach was empty, he blew his nose clean, letting the snot spray against the hallway wall, then went back to work.

  He smothered himself with her stinking ooze. He proceeded to gut the body and cover himself. His vest (filled with explosives) was strapped on under a Militia uniform. He’d gotten the uniform off a dead soldier. For the most part, the camo was still in good shape and still had all the Militia emblems stitched on. On top of the uniform, he’d draped plastic sheeting.

  He cut his father open and covered himself with more innards. The smell was deplorable but necessary. The smell of Chaos.

  He could hear the shooting in the distance. It sounded like a serious battle. Perfect! There would be a large horde moving towards the noise. He meant to join that horde and make his way to the stadium. He knew there was a chance he might get shot once he got close, but he trusted in Chaos to keep him alive.

  He cut off his father’s arms and tied a nylon rope around both dead wrists, then hung it over the back of his neck, letting the arms hang over his chest. With his bloody camouflage on, he walked down the stairs and back to his room.

  He looked at everything. This had been his life for so many years. All the memories of planning and scheming. All the times hearing his drunk idiotic mother screaming over a football game. All the times he heard his father laughing while entertaining legal partners and clients.

  Larry fought back a tear. He could hardly believe the amount of nostalgia he felt, but this was the way it had to be. Chaos was calling, and no one could ignore the calls of Chaos. His room was a tomb, just a memory of the Old World.

  Larry turned around and walked out of his basement lair for the last time. He walked through his living room and looked around. The TV his mother had practically worshiped, the couch, the coffee table. Goodbye to all.

  He walked to the front door, opened it, stepped out, and said hello to the dying day.

  2

  It didn’t take him long to find the massive horde. Their stench alone was like a dead beacon. Their moans were loud and hungry. Their eyes glowed bright as the sun lowered.

  He took a deep breath; this was it. If his plan failed, he would have to detonate the vest to avoid being eaten alive. But, there was no turning back now. He heard the call of Chaos loud in his mind. This was his time to shine.

  Without further hesitation, he put his faith in Chaos, and pushed his way in with the crowd of walkers.

  The zombies barely noticed him. A gangly green faced zombie leaned over and sniffed him, stared for a moment, then lost interest. To his left a child zombie bumped against his leg, sniffed his waist, then also lost interest. Larry suppressed a smile; he was just another dead man marching towards the sounds of the living.

  Which to Larry’s pleasure, was the noise of battle. Something was going down, and something big. Gun fire and explosions. Screams of dying men.

  Within three miles of shuffling down the road, the stadium came into view. Larry was breathing hard but pushed on; this was it. This was his time. From the moment Larry was born, his destiny was set for this monumental moment. Up ahead, he saw the gunfire and explosions. The fire flickered in his eyes. Nightfall covered his approach. The dead walked beside him. Chaos guided his every step.

  As he moved closer to the stadium, bullets strafed the crowd of walkers.

  Zombies were dropping left and right around him. He broke off from the horde and started throwing off the dead body parts, then he ripped the plastic sheeting from over the Militia uniform, and with all one hundred pounds of plastic explosive under his uniform, he made a beeline for the west side of the stadium.

  The gate had been blown open and no one stood guard. He walked in and followed a path leading down a dark concrete walkway. He followed the signs that led him to the north end of the stadium. There he found many soldiers, some injured and dying, others firing at the gate entrance as the dead pushed against the metal. He found his way into the stadium itself, it's large bowl now a battlefield.

  He breathed in the fragrance of death, sweet blood, gun smoke, the smell of Chaos.

  “Soldier! What the hell are you doing? Get in the fight, son!” A man looking up from a mounted sniper rifle screamed at him.

  “Who are you to give me orders?” Larry said.

  The man looked raving mad, his face a crimson red. “Who am I? You forget your hit of Mist, boy? I'm Colonel Badass
Mullinax, and you'll obey me!”

  Larry smiled, then surveyed the field one last time. It was beautiful, bodies everywhere. People screaming, people dying. Just beautiful! Chaos incarnate.

  “God damn it! Quit dicking around, or I'll shoot you myself! We've got to get this mess under control. We've got to maintain ORDER!”

  Larry looked at Colonel Mullinax and smiled the biggest smile of his entire life. He pulled the detonator out of his pocket and puffed his chest high with pride. “Today Order fails. Today Chaos reigns, and it’s very nice to make your acquaintance, Colonel. My name's Kid Chaos. I’ve come to liberate nature from your sickening Order.”

  He held his fist high in the air and let out a bellowing cry. “CHAAAOOOOSSSSS!”

  Little Larry Colbert triggered the detonator.

  The Aftermath

  1

  Across the boulevard, the survivors took cover as the north side of the stadium erupted in a cataclysm of fire and debris. The heat baked against their skin, the ground shook violently; body parts rained down along with chunks of the stadium. The horde closest to the gate were eviscerated or were flung in all directions, but all around more zombies came; marching towards fiery noise, ready to eat the flesh of the survivors. Miles away, more zombies heard the explosion and now saw the rising black plume of smoke.

  The entire area filled with the roaming dead.

  The night was now cast in a red glowing hell. The smell of burnt flesh and hot metal choked the air. The growls of the dead, and the screams of their victims sowed confusion and fear.

  Duras joined with his companions—Vice, Rhino, Ice Man, Chris, and Okona. “We have to get into the stadium! Mary Jane!” Duras screamed.

  Okona took him by the arm. “What hope is there now?” Okona asked. “Surely they are all dead!”

  Despair took the group, and they had little choice; a horde of over a hundred zombies now moved towards them. Another massive horde came at them from another direction. The survivors ran away from the scene, seeking cover, tears running down their faces; they were certain this entire trek was now in vain.

  2

  Candy fired her revolver as she ran, killing zombies left and right. She had no clear idea where she was running, but she was making her way around the burning inferno; working her way to the south gates, hoping to find Pinky. The black smoke from the fire burned her eyes, and she fell hard onto the ground. She dropped her revolver.

  She picked herself up, grabbed the revolver just in time to shoot a wretched looking dead man almost on top of her. She ran, her lungs burned, but she ran with all the speed she could muster. She couldn't see if her girls were still with her or not. She wasn't sure what the hell was going on; she moved on instinct. Her face was smothered in blood and ash. Her red hair was matted down with sweat and blood.

  She reached the south end of the stadium, there she saw a hopeful image. Pinky and Rainmaker were guiding women out of the south end of the stadium. What was left of the men who came from the farm fought hard beside them, protecting the women as they ran for their lives. The dead had discovered their location and were making haste to eat them. Pinky saw her running out of the black shadow of the smoke and screamed for her to join them. They made their way into the dark night like ghosts lost in a black fog of smoke and dark. Keeping as silent as possible, they disappeared into the vast stretches of the South Carolina wilderness.

  3

  Inside the stadium, what remained of the Militia ran to and from in a confused pattern of fear; many were eaten alive by the invading dead army, others were killed in the explosion. By morning less than two hundred Militia soldiers lived. They were scattered, roaming through the dark Palmetto woods; withdrawal from the White Mist took their minds soon enough. Many took their own lives. Some fought and killed each other.

  Tucked safely in his lair, the Mountain King screamed in vast agony; he felt it in his bones. The destruction of his Columbia army shook his mind to the breaking point. So he sat, angry sweat pouring down his face.

  After collecting his thoughts, he stood and walked into a storage room lit by fluorescent lights. In front of him, on a long metal table sat two one hundred fifty kilotons W80-1 nuclear warheads.

  The Mountain King’s Final Solution.

  Book Three

  The Final Solution

  Meet Zarina

  Zarina Seraeva’s face was covered in mud. She stank of shit and piss. She’d been in this hole for nearly a week. Watching, waiting, learning. Her puffy pale white cheeks were sweaty and dark with dirt. Her squinted Tatar, dark black eyes watched like marbles of wisdom as Militia troops came and went from the casino mountain fortress.

  She remembered her father telling her about how he’d sat in a similar hole. He wasn’t watching some rag tag drugged out militia. Her father had been watching the Mujahedeen. He’d been a young soldier then; working his way up the ranks of the Russian military, but he wasn’t just any soldier. He was a proud member of Spetsnaz, working a special intelligence gathering mission for the Russian Military Intelligence Service (a branch he would later hold a high-ranking position in). She remembered his booming and powerful voice, with his thick accent that could only come from the remotest areas of the Ural Mountains.

  “Zarina! Imagine, child! Sitting in a filthy dung hole for over a week. The only food, a few packs of military rations eaten cold.”

  A wide eyed ten-year-old Zarina looked up at her father. “Where did you poop, Papa?” She had giggled after she asked.

  His hearty laughter made her giggle even harder. Then he said, “My dear Zarina! Where do you think? I pooped and pissed in the very hole I slept in.”

  They both laughed hysterically. Her father drunk on vodka, she drunk on her love and admiration for the man.

  He had also been a deadly serious man. A man no one crossed and lived to tell the tale.

  She only saw that man at certain times.

  When they hunted, for instance.

  The Hunt was one of the most important parts of their relationship. “The Hunt, Zarina is spiritual.” He had said, speaking with the proper noun clear in his voice. Each step takes you closer to your prey. Closer to the prize. Out here my sweet little Zarina, we seek bear; but out in the world at large,” he made a grandiose gesture with his massive hand, “your father seeks humans. And I tell you my dear, to seek a human is the greatest of all games. Because the Hunt is especially wonderful when the prey is cunning and able to kill you if you make a mistake.”

  She hunted bears back then.

  Now she hunted humans; now she played the greatest game of all.

  The Hunt.

  My dear friends, the Hunt was on.

  And who would suspect a woman of five feet two inches, one hundred and ten pounds to be much of a threat?

  The Militia knew she existed. Only they didn’t know her by name, appearance, or that she was even a she. They only knew someone, or something had been picking them off one by one. Like a moving shadow in the night, this deadly thing cut them down while they patrolled. Someone might go missing, never to be seen alive again; but they always found him. Guts hanging out and strung from a street pole, or a tree, or nailed to a cross in some sick imitation of Jesus.

  No! Never in a million years would the Mountain King, or his men suspect their foe was Zarina Seraeva, the Huntress from Russia; the slit eyed and big cheek Tatar killer, but she never was a killer before the Fever. At least she never killed humans, only bears, deer, and other animals. And never for fun, she did it for the Hunt.

  Before the Fever, Zarina was an electrical engineer, rejecting a life of military service for one of blue fire and copper wire. She had worked for the Zlatoust Electric Corporation, was an avid traveler, beach and mountain lover. She had drunk wine and beer, ate steaks and sushi. She enjoyed hot sex with foreign men.

  She was a modern woman from a small Russian village who possessed a powerful touch of natural power. She came from a place where Magick was real, and ghosts were accepted a
s a normal part of the local tradition. If there ever was a woman built for survival in the New World, Zarina was that woman; her mind the perfect storm of witchcraft and rationality.

  She was a feminist, but not in a politically active and social conscious sense. She was a feminist due to her nature and her actions; she had worked in a male dominated industry, supported herself when all the women around her were Muslims with husbands. She had wanted marriage, but not for religious reasons; she was a nonbeliever in the so called One True God, or so her dating profile said. She didn’t care for religion one way or the other, nor for limited labels.

  Religion had nothing on the hidden realities of the universe. She knew this better than most, lived it since an early age even while hiding it at times, so not to worry those that didn’t have time for supernatural happenings.

  But, her powers of witchcraft served another purpose.

  She was within the context of any arena of life, a Huntress.

  She hunted her men and fucked them. She hunted her professional career positions and obtained them. She hunted for the best vacation locales and went to them. She sought what she wanted and went after it with unstoppable zeal.

  It’s why she was here in the state of South Carolina, thousands of miles from her home. This was her first time in America. She had wanted to visit a small area, not a busy one. She came to the Upstate wanting to explore the “cute mountains” (so she called them, compared to the Urals, cute was the best word she could think of) and then head down to Charleston and enjoy the beach.