Forest Park: A Zombie Novel

by Jamie Marks

  Earlier on, just after the sun had risen into the sky, Steve had heard noises; they came from the back of the grocery store, from the alley. Maybe that was why he couldn’t sleep. Cook was sleeping and dreaming. His mouth opened and closed, as if he was talking to someone; warning someone possibly? His feet fidgeted, and hands jolted like he was receiving electric shocks. Cook was lucky to be alive. Shit, we all are, he considered.

  Steve shut his eyes once more; he wanted to sleep so bad…

  I’ll wait until Cook wakes up…

  He checked his watch and noticed that fragments of time were drifting away, five minutes here and ten minutes there. Micro sleep; he couldn’t help it, he was so tired, too sleepy.

  He adjusted his leg a little; he was beginning to sense a cramp coming on, but he didn’t want to disturb Kathy. She seemed so at peace.

  We’ll go to the firehouse and see if we can find some help, or raise some. If not, we’ll have to move on; open spaces are what we need. Perhaps the walking will help me lose a few pounds; it may be walking to nowhere, but at least it’s walking away from them.

  A noise, it was outside, but probably nothing. We need to find some guns, something easy to use, and something Kathy could shoot with. Cook was right; we need more than my old bat-

  He woke up again and checked his watch, and found that another five minutes had gone. Shit!

  Steve rubbed his eyes. They were sore and no doubt, bloodshot. Christ, I must look terrible, he thought as he saw a man kneeling on the floor, no more than five feet in front of him.

  Steve reached for his bat.

  “It’s okay,” the man said with a whisper, “I’m just like you.”

  Steve said nothing.

  Cook rolled over and tried to focus his eyes, which were heavy with sleep.

  Both Steve and the man looked toward him.

  “I’m Captain Louis Tyler, and I don’t mean you any harm, friend.”

  Steve released the breath he was holding.

  “And I think your friend over there can vouch for me,” the man said as he looked toward Cook.

  “Man, am I happy to see you,” Cook said.

  He sounded relieved.

  Tyler smiled. “The same here. Do you guys have anything to eat?” he said as he glanced at the fully stocked shelves of the small grocery store.

  “As long as you don’t intend to eat us, we have plenty food,” Steve answered.

  Tyler laughed so loud he woke Kathy, who then almost hit the ceiling.

  At the beginning of the viral outbreak, the authorities asked people to stay in their home. At first it was a suggestion (that flu was really catching, so they found) but as things rapidly changed, it went beyond a mere suggestion, it became a demand, stay at home, don’t help friends or neighbors --- beware! If Steve and Kathy had not been so busy organizing their new home, if they had paid a little more attention to their new neighbors, if they had found the time to watch the news, or read an online newspaper, Ghoul Tuesday may not have been such a shock for them.

  When the authorities suggested that people stay at home, the initial thing most people did was jump in their car and race down to the nearest or largest supermarket or home depots. People drove, caught trains, jumped in taxis, or even rode the bus in their millions to large malls, and local shopping centres.

  While the authorities asked people to stay at home, and avoid going to work, minimum wage teenagers and career, dead baby boomers tried to keep the shelves stocked with a dwindling supply, or greeted their customers at wide-open doors, handed them change and packed their groceries, the vital supplies, they needed to avoid sickness, and to stay in indoors.

  Business was good, and the staff was still working hard for the weekend.

  Of course, some people had the sniffles; in fact, most people did, but they told the other panic buyers waiting in their line, “It was just a cold. It had nuttin’ to do with dis flu virus, no way.” And they all believed each other as you do when you have no real choice, when you’re scared of what that sniffle could really mean. People believed each other even when the liar next to them was holding a box of Tamiflu.

  Just like themselves.

  Tamiflu was a viral drug that possibly could have affected the virus, maybe if there was enough of it, it could have stopped it dead in its tracks.

  Maybe it did, some people thought, but not in a good way. That is what Tyler heard before Fort Gillem collapsed. The Tamiflu was what had retarded the virus; nothing was ever proven, and viruses are very tricky things.

  The existing stocks of Tamiflu available to the public sold out very quickly, and the emergency stocks of the drug, supplied to health-care workers in the front lines to keep them on their toes, proved ineffective when they were among the first attacked, killed and then reanimated by the Dead. Whatever remained was either left in boxes in warehouses or on the back of trucks, abandoned on the gridlocked highways.

  It wasn’t only Tamiflu that was left on the side of the road. Truckers (if they made it into work) who also transported fuel abandoned their rigs. Road-trains loaded with baby food, fresh farm harvested vegetables and fruit, alcohol and cigarettes sat motionless.

  The economy was in tatters on the national level.

  Globally, it was in a free-fall meltdown.

  The modern global economy, which became the life raft for Third World Despots and new unstable democracies to cling to, crashed. After decades of large American, British and European companies moving offshore to earn shareholders millions in dividends, paid out in Dollars, Pounds and Euros by exploiting cheap labour, now revealed a startling consequence.

  Countries such as Mexico, India and the Philippines along with a myriad of other poorer nations overflowed with new capital investments before the outbreak.

  New factories, or the relocated old factories of Detroit and Flint, Michigan, now recently reconstructed near some of the larger slums, provided the poorest of the world’s poor with busy hands and paychecks of up to ten dollars a day. As the Multi-National Corporations turned every drop of sweat into shareholder dividends, telemarketers based in India were happy to labour for three hundred a month, and commute three hours a day from overcrowded shantytowns, all for less than what someone would receive on welfare in the West.

  However, the main consequence of companies moving off shore wasn’t only the loss of jobs back home. It was that modern first world countries found that they could not continue to survive without importing goods they used to manufacture themselves.

  The far-reaching effect of interconnectedness, which was modern-day manufacturing, was felt fast and hard. Items as diverse as microchips and pharmaceuticals made far away across the globe disappeared into the night. The savings and profit from the mega pharmaceutical factories in China and India now meant nothing.

  * * *

  After cutting the plastic binds on a piece of jagged fencing, Tyler at first tried the rear door of the grocery store, but he found it locked and probably barricaded from the inside. Instead of trying to force open the door, which he would need himself, he decided to climb the down pipe to the roof.

  He wasn’t sure, but he had a pretty good idea that those things couldn’t climb.

  There, from the rooftop, he saw the bright glow of a thousand fires, which lit Atlanta and the surrounding area, including Forest Park.

  The whole horizon was ablaze in the dawn as smoke trailed up into the sky.

  He checked his pockets and protective vest.

  He found a pen and a small flashlight.

  His backpack was lost, that held everything else, including his water bladder and food.

  Nor did he have a weapon.

  What now?

  The roof had two levels; he was on the lower one, so he climbed to the next level. The view was no different, if anything it was now worse.

  He saw a trap door and checked it out. It wasn’t locked.

  A NEW GROUP AND A FRESH START

  Spirits were high.

  Ka
thy was happy, in fact, she was brimming with joy.

  However, much of this newfound enthusiasm evaporated as they all listened to Tyler’s story.

  Cook shook his head. “I knew something was going to happen, I could just tell. We even had words, I can’t remember exactly what we said. What it was all about... My mind’s a bit fuzzy, but she had it in for you from the start. That was obvious. Although I’m surprised that you didn’t realize how much time both her and Anderson were spending together back at Gillem. Not that it matters, nobody would have expected what happened. Personally, I think she’s not all there, not any more. Maybe it was the situation. Perhaps it was the head trauma. I just don’t know?”

  Tyler nodded. “She’s another obstacle now, one we don’t need. When I saw her shoot the boy, I was so outraged, she shouldn’t have had a gun. I don’t know, maybe Anderson gave it to her? I admit when I first saw the boy, I thought he was one of them too.”

  Tyler sighed.

  “But he wasn’t. I just wish I’d realized that sooner. However, what happened after, with her reaction to what took place, she’ll pay for it. I’m afraid she’ll only make our situation worse if she finds us. The woman is fucking crazy, and I mean that, every word of it. I think she’s had some form of mental breakdown or something, just as you said.”

  Cook nodded.

  “If she’d had a mental breakdown, we can’t just abandon her,” Kathy said.

  “There’s no guarantee, she’s even alive,” Cook said.

  “But if she is?” Kathy answered.

  “Then we deal with it,” Tyler said.

  SUSAN AND CHARLIE

  Susan and Charlie sat quietly in the storeroom of a bridal store with the door shut.

  They had no food, no water and the window to the bridal store they were hiding in was smashed, but worst of all for Susan, was that Charlie was beginning to get on her nerves.

  He relentlessly grumbled about being in pain; he was thirsty and hungry.

  “Just go to fucking sleep,” she said.

  “I can’t; it hurts too much.”

  Susan couldn’t handle much more of it, the complaining and the whimpering. If the sun wasn’t in the sky, I’d leave him. I should have left him back there; he’s a liability, a waste of my energy.

  The sun was well and truly up, and it was far too dangerous to move outside.

  “I need something to drink, some water.”

  “Toughen up,” Susan said as she played with her Colt, spinning it on her index finger like Gary Cooper.

  “I need something to drink.”

  “You need to shut the fuck-up! That’s what you need to do.”

  Susan could hear glass crackling from the smashed shop window --- no voices, only crackling glass. It’s them. It’s those things, it won’t be anything else.

  “Is that someone outside?” Charlie asked.

  “No.”

  “Maybe we should look?”

  “If you open that door before dark, keep walking,” Susan said.

  “We should have chosen a different shop to hide in.”

  Susan didn’t answer him.

  “There was a grocer across the road, we should have gone there. Then we could eat. I’m so hungry. This was a bad idea,” he added, “there’s nothing in this shop, we should have chosen another.”

  “Then you should have said something earlier instead of fucking crying about it now! I’m not responsible for you being a pussy, a weak little man who’s too scared to say what he wants. Of course if you want to go, fuck off and leave!” Susan pointed to the door.

  “You’re lucky I brought you with me this far. You owe me your life, and now you complain.”

  “I’m not complaining, I was just saying.”

  Susan continued to stroke the gun she held in her hand.

  “I have enough problems without you.”

  Charlie tried to smile. “Things will be all right,” he said.

  Susan almost laughed. “Really, I’m miles from home, dirty and surrounded by freaks. Oh, and locked in a storage room of a bridal store with a fat, whiny, oaf that only thinks of his stomach. All the while, another prick outside somewhere is responsible for placing me in this situation, running about looking for someone to tell his story to. Trying to make me! I! Look like a murderer.”

  Susan stood up and began to pace the small room.

  “I can’t contact Paul; I tried, it rang, but... I can only imagine that the military has taken over the network. I can’t even get a signal now. I should have called earlier. I should have taken a chance. I should have shot Tyler when I had the chance,” she said, pacing.

  “It’s his fault. Every time I turn around, I see him. He won’t get away with this.”

  Charlie tried to calm her down. “I’d say he’s dead.”

  She shook her head. “No. That’s just not how my luck is traveling, not since I met him.”

  She rubbed her temples; she had a massive headache that wouldn’t quit.

  “He did help us that morning in the Humvee,” Charlie said.

  Susan didn’t yell, but she wanted to.

  Instead, she got down on her knee and looked Charlie in his eyes.

  “I don’t care about that. You don’t get it, do you, fat boy. This is it. Our lives are now over, everything we had or were ever going to be is now gone. You think the world is going to bounce back from this? For the rest of our lives, depending on how long that will be, we’ll be running from storage room to storage room, hiding in the day and moving by night. This thing will infect everyone in the end. The rules have changed and everything is up for grabs. If I’m not the best in my chosen career, then I’ll be matchless in the one thrust upon me. I’ll be the greatest survivor there ever was, a survivor and a hunter. I’m going to kill him; you can either help me,” she said as she shoved her gun in Charlie’s face. “Or you can FUCK OFF! Who knows with all these miles we’re going to walk and the shutdown of KFC you might even become fuckable.”

  Knock!

  Susan and Charlie continued to look at each other.

  Knock!

  Knock!

  Knock!

  Susan placed a finger over her lips. “Shhh.”

  Knock!

  Knock!

  Knock!

  Charlie sat upright. “It might be help.”

  She whispered, “Stay quiet.”

  “I think we should knock back.”

  She shook her head.

  “It might be someone seeing if there’s anyone alive in here,” Charlie said.

  It might be? he thought. And if it is someone, someone who could help us, then I’d be a hero.

  Those things don’t knock; people knock. Live people knock. Dead people...Dead people just seem to wander, he considered.

  I’ll get Susan out of this mess, and she’d remember that, she surely would!

  Charlie knocked.

  Susan’s face turned as pale as a ghost.

  “It will be okay,” Charlie said as they both heard the sound of rapidly breaking glass. “People knock. Dead things don’t knock.”

  Charlie stood up and walked toward the storeroom door as Susan backed into the far corner, gripping her gun, stunned at what he had done.

  “Don’t! Don’t knock again,” she said.

  “It’s fine. It’s help; I know it.” Then he opened the door. Once Charlie had stepped outside of the storeroom, he then saw, and suddenly understood, that he had made a gigantic mistake. He had never made an error as large as this in his entire life.

  He froze.

  He couldn’t run back and slam the door --- he couldn’t even move --- but what else could he do?

  I could fight?

  A man with a bloodied white shirt lunged toward Charlie. The expression on the Dead things face seemed madder than anything Charlie had seen before, far angrier than Susan had at any time been with him. Its lip arched, revealing chipped and missing teeth.

  In the background, other creatures begin to move towa
rd the bridal store; it was as if they sensed something was happening, something exciting, maybe a chance to consume something intense and alive, and something, which quivered to the touch and would saturate them in warm blood.

  Charlie turned to Susan. “You better shut the door or help me,” he said as he attempted to step backward, but was still unable to move.

  Susan raised the Colt and fired.

  And then she ran once more.

  Charlie leaned to his side and tumbled over like a redwood.

  He tried to raise his arm to protect himself, but couldn’t.

  He’d been shot.

  The Dead thing lurched at him as he lay upon the ground, Charlie attempted to roll out of the way. He tried to scramble, move; he tried everything he could.

  Two more ghouls entered the bridal store and stumbled toward Charlie. As Susan rushed past him, and then them, she dodged the two new ghouls with ease.

  Charlie began to scream as the Dead things moaned with a mournful delight as fresh blood and flesh lubricated their dry throats.

  Turning, Susan watched as three creatures gnashed into Charlie’s ample frame as she raised the Colt in Charlie’s direction.

  She saw him twitch, and heard him scream.

  Susan then saw his terrified eyes.

  More creatures came; they stumbled past Susan. They felt the urge to attack her, but an easier meal was on offer.

  The more Charlie screamed the greater a feeding frenzy it became.

  There was nothing she could do for him now, save shooting him.

  I could save him from the pain, she thought as another creature bypassed her and walked toward Charlie.

  She didn’t fire.

  My first choice had been the right one --- she had meant to shoot Charlie.

  The correctness of her decision, after witnessing the others who rushed Charlie, was obvious. They attacked like sharks do when they sense a wounded fish floundering in the water.

  As with sharks, when the feeding frenzy began, the victim --- poor Charlie- - gets torn apart. While the other fish, swim away and disappear to safety.