by Jack Wallen
We have a caller. You’re talking to Mike on Tiny Radio AM. Let’s hear it.
Hey Mike! I just wanted to say I love your show. I’ve been listening to you since I was a kid. Me and my dad…
Yeah thanks for the sentiment there guy, but we’re dealing with the apocalypse. What we need are reports. If you have nothing to help save lives, then spare us all. Next caller.
Yo Mike! Thanks for taking the call. I just wanted to pose a simple question. It’s been, what, a year since the Mengele Virus hit and we still have power. How is that possible? In the movies they never have power for more than a few days, maybe a week tops. What gives? I’ll hang up and listen to your response.
That’s a good question. Here’s the thing – so much of America’s power comes from coal – that power wouldn’t survive without people working those systems. Solar, wind, and nuclear power could certainly continue on though. My guess is that either we have some real heroes; men and women in the coal industry, working in the background. Either that, or some genius out there somewhere has managed to tap our main grids into a pipeline of renewable energy. A year is a long time, when most industries have collapsed. In the end, I don’t have an answer for that. But I would love to hear from anyone in the know. If you’re in the coal industry, or someone who knows enough about the power grids keeping us in electricity, shed some light on the subject.
I was worried the guy had no idea what he was doing. The power of radio could well be the only means which to bring survivors together, or at least educate everyone into some form of self sufficiency. If I knew his phone number, I’d call the station and help him lead the human race out of Hurricane Zombie.
I continued driving, hoping good ol’ Mike on Tiny Radio AM might get a caller with enough information to clue me into where I needed to go next. I had nothing. Actually, Mike had nothing, outside of a few irrational conspiracies. But it was nice to hear voices. The only companionship I had for the last few days was the cooing and crying of Jacob. As much as I adore and cherish my baby, he’s not much for conversation.
“Fuck!”
A moaner decided to play chicken with the Audi and caught me off guard. I slammed into the monster hard enough to snap its head off its shoulders. The body fell under the car and must have caught up on one of the axles or the exhaust. I could hear the meat dragging over the pavement, like a giant slab of raw bacon. I hit a speed bump fast and hard enough to dislodge the beast. A quick look in the rear-view mirror and I saw the thing roll to a stop on the street behind me.
The RPMs of my heart matched those of the Audi. I was surely going to stroke out any second. But before I could, the sound of a woman shrieking had my attention. I slammed on the brakes. The unfortunate squealing of rubber probably caught the attention of every zombie in the ‘hood.
I rummaged in my pack, grabbed my pike and gun, and jumped out of the car. I wouldn’t budge from the vicinity – not with Jacob strapped into the passenger seat and the sound of a wailing woman echoing in my ears. My pike was extended and locked, my gun loaded and cocked.
Much ass was about to be kicked. God I loved power.
“Help!” The shrill female voice was drawing near. I took a chance and called out.
“Over here!”
Either some helpless woman or a hungry plague of zombies was about to ascend on me. Actually the latter was probably most likely, considering one generally beget the other in this golden age of the Scream Queen.
Just as I expected, a young girl came flying around a corner, followed by – fuck – a screamer. I ran around to the passenger side of the car and flung open the back door.
“Over here! Jump in!”
As the girl picked up speed and aimed her body for the car, I ran back to the driver’s side door, hoisted my pistol, and took aim for the beast. I had no idea if I could pick off a target moving as quickly as a screamer. Now was not the time for second guessing. Now was the time for dumping truck loads of confidence powder all over my bad-ass self and pumping lead into the skull of the fast-approaching monster.
The screamer gained ground on the girl. I sucked in a deep breath, relaxed my shoulders, and slowly squeezed the trigger. The sound detonated in my ear and the bullet left the gun with a velocity far too fast for the human eye. To my surprise the bullet struck home. Unfortunately ‘home’ was very much where the heart was – not the brain. The hit didn’t even so much as phase the beast, who continued to gain ground. The fucker was going to catch the girl and make a snack of her thought meat.
“Run! Run! Run!”
I couldn’t help but toss out the clichéd encouragement.
The screamer lunged and barely missed grabbing the girl by the hair. I leveled my gun for one last shot, held my breath, and pulled the trigger. This time the shot struck gold – or gray, as it were. The screamer dropped like an over-sized, maggot-infested meatloaf. Thankfully, the girl continued running and, when she was close enough, dove straight into the back seat and jerked the door closed.
Without hesitation, I sat my ass in the driver’s seat, closed the door, and sped off.
In the back seat, the girl cried to hyperventilation. I let her continue, not wanting to interrupt the catharsis prematurely.
“You okay? Did that thing bite you? Have you been bitten by any of them?” I Gatling-ed the questions too fast for the overwrought girl to comprehend.
“Fu-uck!” My new passenger screamed through the hiccups. The disjointed word made me want to laugh. “That was aw-some!”
The girl’s last proclamation threw me for a loop. Awesome? Seriously? This girl just shot up near the top of my list of ‘huh?’ I glanced back in my rear-view and immediately considered slamming on the brakes and tossing the girl out of the car.
Emo chick. Of all the people I could have possibly saved, I had to pick up an emo chick. Her hair was nearly every shade of the rainbow – and not in the fun, clown-wig kinda way. Her bangs hung over her eyes, so she constantly had to brush them aside. She had piercings in her nose, her right eyebrow, and her lower lip. I couldn’t get a complete picture of what she was wearing, but I swear I saw an orange and green mesh tutu.
Good god.
I had to make small talk before the never-ending diatribe of whining disenfranchisement spilled out of her sparkly, glossed lips. “What’s your name?”
The girl’s coal-rimmed eyes looked back at me through the mirror. “Echo. What’s yours?”
“Bethany. Bethany Nitshimi.”
“No fucking way! Seriously?”
I didn’t like where this was going.
My new bestie kicked the back seat of the Audi with her pink Chuck Taylors and squealed. “Oh my god! I’m hanging with a freaking super star! You’re all over Twitter and Tumblr. Everyone’s talking about you being the savior, like you are the rebirth of Jesus himself. Holy shit, isn’t that a bitch – all the religions being wrong. The Messiah’s a chick! That rocks.”
This is so not gonna work.
Totes.
Just as if things couldn’t get any worse, Jacob let out a shriek of displeasure.
“Whoa. You have a baby in here? OMG, please tell me that’s Jacob?”
Jacob cried out again. I patted around the passenger seat until I found his pacifier. Before I attempted to blindly pop it in the little guy’s mouth, I gave it a wipe or two on my pants until I realized there was only one way to make sure the rubber nub was clean enough for a baby. I jammed the paci in my mouth and sucked off the dirt.
There are things we do as mother’s we’d never dream of otherwise.
The second the pacifier entered Jacobs’s mouth, his cries went silent.
“Yes, this is Jacob. How do you know his name?”
Echo leaned in over the front passenger seat to get a look at Jacob. “Everyone knows about baby Jacob. He’s like our last, best hope right? This is so Star Wars and he’s our Obi Wan. Am I right?”
I couldn’t do it. This little fan girl I’d picked up wasn’t going to work ou
t. There was already enough to deal with. As if a baby, zombies, the apocalypse, and the Zero Day Collective weren’t enough – now I had super fan girl OMGing over every aspect of my life. I didn’t need this. The world didn’t need this. I pulled the car off to the side of the road and jerked it into park.
“Look Echo – I’m glad you’re safe and I really appreciate the kind words, but I can’t handle the love-fest you’ve got going on here. It’s really messed up out there and I could certainly use some help making it through this nightmare. But if you’re going to be my sidekick, you’ve gotta tone down the worship. I don’t deserve it.”
Echo was aghast. Her mouth dropped open to reveal a not-so-surprising tongue piercing.
“I’m sorry. I was just… fuck, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. It was just, well, of all the people to save me from certain suck, it was you. You! I mean… you’re – ” Echo’s voice faded off as she realized she was about to add another layer to this already too-thick, sticky-sweet sandwich. “Sorry. Look, you’re a hero. Seriously. And every young girl I know aspires to be you. I read Jacob’s book and listened to Zombie Radio every waking moment. I already know what you’ve done and what you’re planning on doing. If there is anything I can do to help you, please… at least give me a chance.”
Echo’s huge, blue eyes unintentionally pouted at me. How could I resist? I could use the help. Hell, if anything, it was nice to have another human being to talk with – even if much of the talking would wind up in abbreviations and acronyms.
When I smiled at the young girl she squealed and, with the speed of Bruce Lee, had her smart phone out.
“What are you doing?”
Echo looked at me as if I’d just spewed pea soup and spoke a dead language.
“I’m posting on Twitter that I’m hanging with the Bethany Nitshimi!”
I matched Echo’s speed, reached into the back seat, and grabbed her phone from her.
“No. You can’t tell anyone. I’m still trying to work out a plan and I can’t have certain people knowing where I was and who I was with. Besides, it’d put you in danger. I’ve already had enough blood spilled on my watch.”
Echo glared at me. I knew I might well have unleashed Teenageddon, but I had to have the element of surprise on my side.
“I’ll give you your phone back, but you have to promise me you won’t tweet, face, or tumble anything about who you’re with or where you’re going.” Another check in the rear-view. Echo was a lip-biter. Great. “Deal?”
The teen reached her hand across the plane between the front and the back seat and spoke the one word I had to hear.
“Deal.”
I handed Echo her mobile back. She didn’t immediately proceed to go social on me. There was hope after all.
“So, what’s the plan? We gonna find the ZDC and kick some corrupt corporate ass?”
There was a lot of hope.
I had to confess to my new sidekick there was no plan other than to drive and wait for one to fall into our laps. Surprisingly, she was cool with that. To her, this was probably just some road trip dream come true. In the meantime, we grilled one another about our pasts. Echo seemed to know more about me than I was comfortable with. I guess that’s what happens when you make your life completely public as I had with Jacob’s book and my own blog. I did, however, get to learn plenty about the young girl in my back seat.
She told me she was eighteen. I didn’t buy it, but I figured I’d leave that doubt go for now. She had been living on the streets for the last couple of years, after escaping a tragic foster situation. As much as I hated to even think her sad fate in any positive light, it was somehow reassuring to know I was traveling with a real survivor, and not some whiny-ass teen who’d come undone the second her BFF showed up with same trashy word plastered across the ass of her sweats.
Echo also confessed to already taking down a few moaners. I was starting to like the little punk-rock waif.
*
November 17, 2016 8:50 PM
Unknown Location
We drove until I started feeling the warm, inviting fingers of sleep caress my eyelids. The car was in need of gas, so I pulled off at a truck stop to fill up. Surprisingly enough, the pumps were still working and there was still gas in the tanks. As the Audi gulped down fuel, I went into the station to explore and, hopefully, stock up on some chow. I didn’t fully trust Echo enough to leave Jacob behind, so he was happily bouncing along in his sling.
Thankfully, the stop was abandoned. The last thing I needed was to come across a gang of curious survivors or, worse, a gang of curious zombies. After casing the joint, I realized this might well be the best place for Echo and I to set up camp for the night. We could hold up in the stop, get a hot shower, lay down some cheap knock-off Indian blankets, and get some sleep. I could also slap an air card into my laptop and drop another broadcast to the masses, if there are still masses out there to listen.
I hadn’t checked my email in a while. Shit. A geek like me not checking email? What has the world come to?
Oh yeah… the end.
Fuck.
Jacob cried out and nearly started break-dancing in his sling.
The world, and all its wonders, could wait until morning. I was exhausted and Jacob was getting cranky. Time for sleep.
Chapter 3
November 18, 2016 10:10 AM
Unknown Location
The second I woke, the über-geek in me took over and demanded I do geeky things. The first of those things was to check email. Truthfully, I’m surprised I’d made it this long without a single check. Such is the apocalypse.
I recently set up a number of email filters to help me sift through the onslaught of mail. Since the original Zombie Radio DJ had me on his show, I started getting quite a large amount of ‘fan’ mail. As much as I wanted to sift through each and every one – there were far more pressing matters at hand. The most important of those matters was to figure out where in the Hell my side kick and I were to go.
The answer to that all-important question arrived in the form of a single email from an old friend – a fellow hacker.
Jamal Tisdale.
Jamal wasn’t just any hacker, he was the one person I knew who could go toe to toe with me in LAN party kernel hacks. We used to host parties to see who could break into a given server’s kernel the fastest. No matter the stakes, the game always wound up with two remaining contestants – me and Jamal. He was good and I fully trusted the man. His email was powerfully encrypted and simple:
Bethany (aka, my old friend ZeroOneZero),
It’s been a long while. It seems the apocalypse has been kind to you, or you’ve been kind to it. Either way, I want to return the favor you’ve given us all. I’ve started forming a small, underground city beneath the streets of Seattle, Washington. Our goal – amass an army to help you take down the Zero Day Collective. But we need a leader. Join us Bethany. Help us help you. Use your old pal Google and locate The Underground Tour of Seattle. You’ll find it. And if I know you as well as I think I do… you’ll join us.
J-Tiz.
Well, that was that. How could I turn down not only an old pal, but an invitation to help create an army whose sole purpose was to sate my personal wet dream of wiping clean a little filth and grime known as The Zero Day Collective? My reply to Jamal was succinct and included a .jpg of our route to Seattle. Thank you Google Maps.
J-Tiz,
On the way.
Z1Z
Jamal was connected in more ways than Kevin Bacon. If I knew my J-Tiz, he’d be playing God for the duration of this road trip. It was like having my own St. Christopher along the way. How he’d pull off keeping us safe, I had no idea. But Jamal could work some serious mojo.
I wasn’t in the least bit surprised that Echo was thrilled at the prospect of a road trip.
“It’ll be dangerous.”
Echo laughed as she munched peanut butter and toast. “I eat danger.”
I
wanted to pat her on the head like a puppy, with a nice ‘Oh I bet you do, you sassy lil’ girl.’ I refrained. The truth was, the girl probably believed her words. In her world she was an indestructible street ninja, who’d likely have fought off starvation, sickness, loss, and who knew what else. The never-ending onslaught of the zombie horde was nothing to an orphaned teen girl.
“So, who’s this J-Tiz dude? Ex boyfriend?” Echo had that ‘look’ in her eyes that girls get when they’re wanting some scoop. I had no scoop – at least not scoop I was willing to share at the moment. But who knew, we had a long ass drive ahead of us.
“I need your help. We have to load the car up with anything and everything that will help us make it across the country.” Non-stop, the drive would take us nearly two days. Thanks to the apocalypse, non-stop no longer existed. We’d face zombies, riots, militia, and who knew what else between Pennsylvania and Washington. Having an infant and teenage girl on board… well, those complications went without saying.
Echo’s eyebrows arched with excitement. “So you mean like guns, knives, grenades, gas masks?”
“I mean like food, water, baby formula, diapers… you know, the boring stuff that’ll keep us alive. Don’t worry though, I’ll take care of arming us.”
And I did. While Echo visited as many of the neighboring houses as needed to fill up a trunk-full of provisions, I did the same looking for weapons of undead destruction. The one thing about suburbi-land – although it seemed incredibly safe, people had secrets and secrets were the one thing worth keeping safe with the help of boomsticks and bangbangs. This fact o’ life was made even more real when that which is being hidden from prying eyes had a hefty price. The secrets of the wealthy were protected with expensive weaponry. So a big ‘thank you’ to white-collar crime!