I Zombie I [Omnibus Edition]

by Jack Wallen

  The shiny can teased me from within the plastic sack. When I saw that, I did cry. That’s right, I broke down at the sight of soda. It had been so long since the bubbly delight crossed my taste buds. Hope had left the building of my heart at the thought of ever tasting one of my only vices again. But when Echo pulled out a gleaming can of Diet Mountain Dew, I nearly peed my pants with joy.

  Once a geek, always a geek.

  “B, the place has showers. The water’s not hot, but it’s running.” Gabe’s eyes nearly rolled into the back of his head.

  That was all I needed to hear. It had been long enough since my last shower, I was stewing in my own funk. The cold water wouldn’t ease my achy, tight muscles, but I could luxuriate in a bit of cleanliness for a moment.

  “Echo, would you do me a huge favor and change Jacob for me? I’ll feed him when I get back from the shower.”

  I thought world-war teen was going to break out, but Echo just smiled and agreed. She had developed quite a bond with my baby. That was a blessing I wouldn’t ever have counted on, but it certainly helped me do the things I needed to keep us safe. There were brief moments of horrible guilt that I was not spending enough time with Jacob – but this was the apocalypse and the rules of society were flushed down the toilet. So the care and feeding of baby Jacob would be shared, guilt free, with my sister in arms, Echo.

  Who still had no last name.

  Curious. Everyone had a story, and a last name. Note. To. Self.

  Before I settled into the drivers’ seat for yet another evening of cramping, cold sleep, I held my baby in my arms and gently rocked him. His big eyes stared up at me – they were his daddy’s eyes, so soft, so caring, so strong. Every time I thought of baby Jacob, my heart was torn to bits with guilt. This baby was brought into such a broken world. No one should have been born under these circumstances. How could this baby have a future, when the very word itself had become a foreign concept to the human race. Future? Did we even deserve such a luxury? After our Grande Mal fuck up, does the human race deserve a second chance?

  My mind’s answer to the question was very different than that of my heart. But because of the baby boy in my arms, I had to pull the answer from my emotional core, otherwise what’s the point of Jacob continuing on?

  Jacob coo’d and pointed up at me with the tiniest finger. I kissed his forehead and sucked in the fresh smell of baby.

  Baby huffing.

  “I love you my dearest baby boy.”

  For some reason, the haunting melody to the Leonard Cohen song Everybody Knows popped into my head. I sang the ironic twists and turns to my baby as I slowly rocked his tiny body in my arms. His smile never once faded as he drifted off to sleep. Back into his bassinet he went, without so much as a peep.

  Getting a baby to go to sleep is better than any drug. It will calm you, soothe you, and put you into a place of peace you thought you never owned.

  *

  Nightmares had become just another part of the landscape of the new world order. If you weren’t having nightmares, you probably weren’t alive.

  This time around, within my nightmare, we arrived in Seattle and drove the car directly up to the entrance of the underground city. Seattle’s streets were completely bereft of life and/or death. As the car came to a stop, the doors slowly and silently opened. I stepped a foot out into a low-lying fog so thick my leg disappeared up to my knee. Jacob was handed to me by unknown arms. The baby slept soundly. Seattle’s streets were a void of silence.

  In front of me was a set of gilded double doors that stood over sixteen feet high. The handle on the doors was carved from human bone. As I reached out to open the door, it effortlessly swung open on silent hinges. Beyond the door was darkness and a warm, inviting sensation, impossible to resist. My feet carried me forward without my brain fully understanding what was happening.

  As soon as the doors shut behind me, a massive, wild, completely silent party broke out in front of me. Strobe lights flashed a blitzkrieg display of blinding light. The floor was filled with countless lunatic, undead dancers. In the dancers wildly flailing hands, were flickering green glow sticks.

  Undead rave.

  Something pulled me forward. I stepped down onto the dance floor, only to find it covered entirely in snakes. There was no way to step in any direction without crushing one of the slithering reptiles under foot. Before I realized it, snakes were overtaking me, slithering up my legs. The shiny creatures had the lower half of my body completely encased. I couldn’t move.

  Another wave of serpents made their way to the upper half of my body. This time they worked in conjunction with one another and squeezed tightly around my torso until I couldn’t breathe. Somehow, a collection of snakes managed to pull Jacob from my arms. I was helpless to do anything as I watched the snakes slither off into the raving crowd with my baby. My mouth opened to cry out, but one of the snakes made its way in between my teeth and down my throat. The ability to breathe was completely revoked from my system.

  Stars danced in front of my now-tunneling vision.

  As I started losing consciousness, the sound of Jacob crying echoed through the mysterious building. The dancers seemed to writhe and pump to the rising and falling sound of my baby boy’s cries.

  “Jacob!” I tried to scream. I felt the snake slither its way further down my throat. When the tip of the tail disappeared between my lips, I panicked. I was encased in a skin of serpent with one of the beasts writhing within my gut. I felt synapses in my mind snapping and misfiring. My muscles locked up. Death was drawing ever nearer.

  Just before the Grim Reaper had its way with me, I jerked awake…. to darkness and silence. The cold breath hanging in front of my face was illuminated by the full moon that shined down through the windshield of the car. A quick look to the back of the Audi confirmed Jacob was fine. No snakes had taken up residence inside the car.

  There was something about the nightmare that begged to warn me. From deep within the core of my conscience, I could feel the metaphor of that snake winding its way around the entrails stuffed within my abdomen. It had to be the ZDC. But what was warning me? Was there something now twisted around the double helix of my DNA, encoded to send me some sort of Bat Signal when the ZDC was near?

  It was three in the morning. Soon we’d be heading off – the last leg of this long journey. Hopefully, at the end of the road, a new life awaited us all. But for now, sleep beckoned me from the beyond.

  Chapter 17

  November 23, 2016 9:23 AM

  Seattle, Washington Underground City

  Morgan Barnhart was almost always up before everyone else. It had become routine – wake at six AM, stretch, yoga, breakfast, gather intel. All of this, of course, was precluded by an enormous cup of coffee. Although the massive dose of caffeine seemed counter-productive to the yoga, there was no way her eyes would remain open throughout the day without the hit from the dark bean. And being in Seattle, why not take advantage of some seriously good coffee?

  Or so she would have, had the apocalypse not leveled humanity.

  “The Great Equalizer, that Mengele Virus.” Morgan whispered to everyone and no one. Of course, no one else was awake to her micro-cosmic waxing of the philosophical. Or so she thought.

  “You’re right. Fucking virus pretty much leveled the playing field.” Jamal awoke as soon as he smelled the coffee brewing. “Sorry. My nose can smell a pot brewing in the next state. It’s hell in the morning – like living in a roastery. Mind if I have a cup with you?”

  Morgan smiled and nodded her approval. There was something about Jamal she liked, trusted.

  “So, Jamal, what’s the real plan with your underground city? Is this going to be your own personal playground or what?”

  The young man stared off in the distance, unsure how to answer the question.

  “Honestly, I’m just holding the fort down for when Bethany arrives. What we do will be her call.”

  Morgan stood quickly, almost knocking her mug onto
the floor. She caught the heavy ceramic cup before gravity got its heartless fingers on the handle.

  “Are you fucking kidding me? We’re just waiting around? Isn’t that a bit, I don’t know, insane?”

  Jamal laughed. The sound carried with it an undertone of tragic irony.

  “You obviously haven’t the slightest clue who Bethany is, do you?”

  The young woman stood, staring at Jamal. The sideways tilt of her head and the purse of her lips answered the question well before a single word was uttered.

  “Of course I know who Bethany is. The entire God damned world knows who Bethany is.”

  Jamal’s laugh echoed into silence.

  “You might know of her, but you don’t truly know Bethany Nitshimi until you’ve actually experienced her. She is the single most brilliant mind you will ever know. Any plan I could piece together would only pale in comparison to her ideas. So why bother trying when I know the perfect plan is only a days car trip away?”

  Jamal had received the latest text from Bethany letting him know they were driving, straight-shot, from Spokane to Seattle. They would arrive before nightfall and whatever great plan Bethany had would be set in motion.

  “There is something we can do though. Where’s your nearest full-scale team?”

  Morgan walked over to the Battle Table. Covering the entirety of the table was a tactical map of the United States.

  “Portland, Oregon. Why?”

  Jamal joined Morgan at the map. “I want you to bring them here. I have a bad feeling the Zero Day Collective is going to throw the kitchen sink at us to get to Bethany and her baby. I want to be prepared. Will you call them to us?”

  Morgan and Jamal stared at one another for a long moment. There was no flirting going on, just pure strategy and work. Finally Morgan broke the silence.

  “Yes. I can have them here before Bethany arrives.”

  Jamal gave Morgan a pat on the forearm.

  “Great. Make it so.”

  With his best Picard maneuver tossed off for fun, Jamal grabbed his mug and made to suck down the bitter coffee. As soon as the hot liquid touched his lips, Morgan could tell Jamal normally drank his coffee with sugar and cream. Unfortunately, the apocalypse stole those luxuries away from mankind. Post-Mengela Virus, coffee was to be had au natural.

  “I’ll send word now. They’ll be here in a few hours.”

  Jamal smiled at Morgan. “Thank you. And as soon as Bethany arrives we’ll all meet and sort out the plan of attack. I can tell you this for certain – our single most important job is to protect Bethany’s baby.”

  Again, Morgan made with the tilty-puzzle face.

  “You don’t know about the baby do you?”

  Morgan shook her head.

  “You haven’t read the book have you?”

  Once again, Morgan shook her head.

  Jamal gestured Morgan over to a computer terminal. “Sit down and read. You may as well consider these the first and second testaments of the new world order. The book, I Zombie I, was written by Jacob Plummer. The blog is Bethany’s. Between the two of them, you’ll understand the full story. The single most important bit of information you will take out of that is Jacob impregnated Bethany after he was infected. The resulting baby has become the target of The Zero Day Collective. For some reason, they will stop at nothing to get that baby back into their labs. Once Bethany arrives, it will be our duty to make sure that never happens. If we fail that, we fail the human race. Should the ZDC get their hands on Baby Jacob, their Great Cleansing will succeed and we’ll all be nothing more than worm food for the undead.”

  Jamal’s words settled uncomfortably under Morgan’s skin. She knew of the Zero Day Collective. She even knew they had some diabolical plan that included the end of the majority of the lives on the planet. What the endgame of that plan was, she had no idea. But ‘Great Cleansing’ was quite clear in its intent.

  With a newer, more powerful motivation under her wings, Morgan turned to read the book and the blog of Jacob Plummer and Bethany Nitshimi.

  Her eyes would be forever opened to a deeper, darker truth.

  Before Morgan set about to plow into the words displayed before her, she pulled out a smart phone and sent a message to the commander of the Portland, Oregon division of the Zombie Response Team. The message was simple:

  Pull out of Portland. Head to Seattle immediately.

  Once the message was off and received, Morgan knew the troupes would arrive, packing powerful heat and an even more powerful attitude.

  Just as Morgan turned to Jamal to inform him the message was sent, a klaxon ripped through the air.

  “What the hell is that?”

  Jamal ran to a computer terminal, sat, and started typing command. “I set up a perimeter alarm with software that would monitor movement. If the camera caught human sized objects it would begin monitoring. If the movement had the typical characteristics of a zombie, the alarm would sound. I plan on integrating it with a fully automatic weapons system, so that if zombies are detected, they will be shot remotely. It’s a brilliant piece of soft…”

  “So we have zombies is what you’re saying?”

  Morgan’s face offered an odd smirk, as if there were a level of thrill building at the thought of zombies marching toward the gate of the castle.

  Jamal continued on at the computer, scanning through the different camera views, until he came upon the site of the action.

  “Shit. There’s hundreds of them. Fuck! What are we – ”

  Morgan pulled a radio from her belt. “I got this. Josh, this is Morgan. We have a large-scale breech at…”

  Jamal picked up Morgans cue. “Near the intersection of Columbia and First.”

  Morgan relayed the information to Josh and followed up with the order to take out the undead threat.

  *

  The intersection of Columbia and First was close. The first response team was assembled and directly underneath the location of the zombie army within minutes. Each team member was armed with weapons of silent destruction. The goal was to not bring any unnecessary attention to the location – especially attention of the undead kind. So swords, bats, pikes, and bows were the order of the day.

  “Ready to wipe clean the streets of the undead?”

  “Ready!” The soldiers barked.

  “I count to three, this door opens, you unleash bitter Hell upon these sons a bitches!”

  A nervous energy spread through the Zombie Response Team members. They gripped their bats, knocked their arrows, some whispered prayers to one God or another.

  “One.”

  The energy rose.

  “Two.”

  Swift, shallow breathing overtook the men.

  “Three.”

  Josh flung the door open, the hall was bathed in the near-blinding, white light of the sun. Through the brilliant rays of sunlight, the wavering, shadowy forms of the undead could be seen. The Josh-led Zombie Response Team spilled out of the Underground City and immediately spread out. The team was outnumbered by at least ten to one, odds the men were used to. But the ZRT were trained assassins of the undead, odds meant nothing.

  Without order or thought, the men with the bows scrambled to higher ground, taking perch on roofs and fire escapes. Arrows flew through the air, embedding themselves into the rotted flesh of the undead.

  Josh ran from the door, metal pike in hand, heading full steam towards a solo moaner. The point of his pike struck home and impaled the moaner in the neck. The tip of the pike pierced the moaners spine and the beast dropped to its knees. With a swift kick, the moaner slid backwards off the metal pole. Sticky, brown blood slopped and splashed. The leader of the ZRT team took no time to celebrate his kill and set off to strike another blow for human kind.

  It was impossible to tell how many of the undead had been sent to their final grave, but the street was still thick with melee.

  “Buckshot! Watch out!”

  A call from one of the bowman echoed off the wall
s of the nearby buildings. Buckshot was one of the senior members of the ZRT. In typical fashion, Buckshot was taking on two moaners at once, and was unaware of a third party wanting to join in on the dance. Buckshot cracked his bat down hard upon one of the first two zombies, sending its brain matter flying in all directions. The gore splattered Buckshot’s face shield, obstructing his view. The second zombie’s arms flailed out in the air-space between itself and Buckshot. The bat swung hard and connected with the zombie’s right elbow. The sound of the bone crushing would have sent chills down through the spine of even the hardest of asses. Fortunately, everyone else was far too busy crushing skulls and piercing brains to notice.

  The now, one-armed zombie lunged forward, taking Buckshot by surprise. The weight of the undead bastard forced the fighter backwards, into the powerful arms of the zombie sneaking up from behind. The monster’s rot-filled mouth opened up and clamped down on Buckshot’s neck.

  As the zombie enjoyed his meal, every bowman in the area took aim and fired. Five arrows hit their mark – the top of the zombies head. Buckshot was the last meal the moaner would have.

  There was no time to mourn the loss of their comrade in Armageddon. The bowman turned their attention back to the battlefield and let loose their scorns and arrows.

  The battle raged on, with little more than the sounds of moans and the slicing and dicing of undead meat to punctuate the scene. When finally the last of the zombies were taken down, the tally of men was taken. The Zombie Response Team had lost three good men.

  Josh collected the weapons and armor from the downed men. It was a task he hated, but with the scarcity of tools nothing could go to waste.

  When the remaining men stepped back through the door, they each whispered the names of their fallen friends – a ritual that came about after a particularly bloody battle in San Antonio. They called it the Undead Alamo.

  Chapter 18

  November 23, 2016 12:17 PM

  Zero Day Collective, Zombie Collection Unit