Val: Prequel to The Zombie Chronicles

by Peebles, Chrissy

  Driving anywhere was difficult, complicated by abandoned vehicles that littered the highway and major routes, making traveling absolutely tedious and slow going. Any traffic jam or roadblock was potentially hazardous, as it could be the perfect opportunity for a zombie ambush. We constantly came across pileups that blocked our path, cars twisted in strange directions, some of them wrapped around trees, guardrails, and power poles or jutting out into the road. No matter what route we picked, we ran into roadblocks. I imagined it might be better to travel by motorcycle, weaving through the gaps between the cars, and for just a second, I giggled at the thought of myself behind Kyle, on a Harley.

  “Look out, Val!” Sammy said, pointing ahead.

  Four or five cars were blocking the road, and several people were standing outside the vehicles arguing, some of them yelling from inside the cars.

  “We’re not getting through that,” Sammy said. “Let’s take a break to stretch, and then we can turn around.”

  “Turn around? No way. It’ll waste too much time to backtrack,” I said, shaking my head.

  “I’ll look for a shortcut,” Kyle said, grabbing the map.

  “C’mon, Jenny,” Sammy said.

  “Is it safe?”

  “I’ve got my gun.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Let me check for any hungry, starving, undead commuters.” I grabbed the binoculars and glanced around in the roadside vegetation. I didn’t see anything stirring, other than the arguing drivers and passengers up ahead, and that was a huge relief. “Seems okay,” I said. “Go on.”

  I walked past the arguing people and mangled metal.

  A man with a demented smile was dragging a heavy sledgehammer along the ground. He looked up at me, as if he was possessed by the devil himself. “Hello,” he said.

  I let the binoculars dangle around my neck and reactively reached for the gun in my holster. I wasn’t sure how stable the man was, because he looked as if he’d recently escaped from an insane asylum. His hair was bushy and wild, but instead of the straightjacket he seemed to require, he was wearing only a red t-shirt with a Metallica logo on it, and some black, dirty shorts. “Hi,” I said nervously, keeping my hand on my weapon.

  “I’ve gotta…fight the undead,” he said.

  When I looked at his arms, I gasped; they were covered in bite marks. He wasn’t a zombie yet and was still in transition, but I knew he was dangerous. When the zombie virus first hit, all of the infected turned immediately, but it had mutated, and it could now take up to a week for a victim to change. It was a slow kind of torture, slowly losing their minds and plummeting into madness, and I wouldn’t have wished it on anyone.

  “I can smell the dead, ya know,” he sputtered, sniffing the air like a dog.

  “Really?” I inquired.

  “Yup, and they’re comin’. They’re hungry, ready to devour their dinner.”

  “How far are they?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t go that way if I was you,” he said, then grinned sadistically, drooling.

  “Uh…thanks,” I said.

  When a woman approached me, I warned her about the bitten man. She was nice, and we chatted for a minute. “This whole thing is crazy, isn’t it?” she said. “How are you folks getting by?”

  “I’m just trying not to lose my mind out here…well, the little that’s left of it.”

  She chuckled, then left to go warn the others. “You’ll be in my prayers, honey,” she said over her shoulder, “and please keep us in yours. Matter fact, pray for the whole doggone world while you’re at it!”

  “You got it!” I yelled back to her.

  “Hear that?” a balding man next to me asked.

  I cocked a brow and listened intently to something that sounded like a swarm of approaching locusts. “Yeah. What is it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Peering ahead, I held up my binoculars. Everything looked clear, but then I saw a herd of animals bolting toward me.

  “What’s all that racket?” a blonde asked.

  “Deer,” I said, my eyebrows raised as I stared into the binoculars. “Large, white-tailed deer.”

  She craned her neck. “I’ve never seen deer run so fast.”

  I met her eyes briefly, then returned my focus to the frightened animals. “Obviously, something spooked them,” I whispered. My imaginings of what it meant twisted my stomach into knots. “That’s it,” I said. “We’re turning around and getting outta here, and I suggest you folks do the same.”

  “You’re right,” the blonde woman said, her blue eyes wide as saucers. “I want no part of whatever’s got Bambi on a rampage.”

  Chapter 28

  The man next to the woman laughed. “They’re just deer.”

  “No,” I answered, “she’s right. Animals aren’t stupid. Whatever they’re running from, we probably need to run from it too.”

  Just as the frantic deer got to the crash site, they steered left in one amazingly smooth, choreographed maneuver and jumped over a log, darting into the woods.

  I was about to turn around and inform Kyle and the others, but through the binoculars, I caught sight of some shuffling figures in the distance. My breath caught in my throat, and my mind began to race. They seemed to multiply right before my eyes. There were hundreds of them, if not thousands, a herd that outnumbered the deer many times over. The hobbling herd was like something an epic battle scene in a horror film, and as I stared at them, my mouth fell open.

  Just then, the crazy, bitten man began walking toward them, as if he could singlehandedly destroy them all with his sledgehammer. Amazingly enough, the zombies on the front lines limped right past him, as if they already recognized him as their own. The bitten man went straight to work and started pounding one after the other, but the zombies still didn’t attack him.

  I dropped my binoculars, wiped my brow, and I took a few steps back. “Zombies!” I shouted. “Run!”

  “She’s right!” a woman shouted.

  I bolted down the road to our car, and came to a quick halt, almost stumbling flat on my face. I knew Kyle had seen the threat, because he was in a panic looking for Jenny and Sammy. I yelled for them, and they came running from my left. “Get in!” I shouted.

  I looked around to make sure the others were able to escape, since some of their cars had been smashed and destroyed. One good Samaritan was ushering the stranded people into his SUV, and as soon as they were all in, he pulled off, his tires squealed; it was a relief to know that everyone was going to get out of there alive.

  Kyle honked the horn. “C’mon, Val!” he screamed.

  I hurried inside.

  With a squeal, we sped off, in hot pursuit of the SUV.

  “Did you see the size of that herd?” Sammy said.

  Jenny was terrified, to the point of hyperventilating. I spoke gentle encouragement and held her hand, until her breathing started to relax. I stroked her curly hair and sang the lullabies my mother used to sing to me as a child. “It’s gonna be all right, sweetie,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure it was true.

  “Yeah, we’re okay, Jenny,” Kyle said.

  Sammy turned to meet my gaze. “What happened to our little seven-hour road trip? This is taking more like seven years.”

  “You knew it wasn’t gonna be a picnic to travel through zombie-infested territory.”

  “I know,” she said. “I was just hoping we’d be on your little island paradise already.”

  “You and me both,” I said. “But I can’t promise it’s paradise. It’s in Ohio, not the tropics.”

  “Darn,” she said. “So no frozen drinks with little umbrellas?” she asked with a grin.

  I just laughed and shook my head. “Beggars can’t be choosy,” I said.

  Kyle pressed on the gas. I could tell he was still a little freaked. That image of hundreds of zombies stumbling toward me was seared into all of our minds, and the fleeing deer had only made it all that more horrific.

  Jenny closed her eyes and fell
asleep on the leather couch. I wasn’t sure if she was tired or just mentally exhausted, like the rest of us.

  “Did you see that crazy man carrying a sledgehammer?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Kyle said. “He’d been bitten several times. I don’t know how he was even still coherent.”

  “We should’ve put him out of his misery,” Sammy said. “If he’s fighting zombies, he sure doesn’t wanna become one.”

  “It all happened so fast,” I said. “Anyway, the zombies just walked around him.”

  “Because he was bitten, I guess,” Kyle said.

  “I’ve never seen them act like that before.”

  “So getting bitten is like an Immunity Idol on Survivor? Cool,” Sammy said. “At least the things won’t bother you for your last week of life.”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” I said. “It could’ve been anything. Maybe he had bad B.O.” I turned to Kyle. “Did you find a good route?” I asked.

  We came to a stop sign and all the cars at the pileup went different directions. We turned left and none of them followed us.

  Kyle gripped the steering wheel. “We’re gonna have to go out of our way to get back on track.”

  “That sucks,” Sammy said. “I hate being out here. I’m not even an adult yet, and I’m ready to settle down somewhere.”

  “It’s hard to find safe places,” Kyle said. “It’s dangerous everywhere.”

  I nodded. “My grandma said the island is safe. The zombies can’t swim. They just bloat up and deteriorate once they hit the water.”

  “But they live in the water until they just fall apart like rotted meat?” Sammy asked. “Is that why you were so worried about me going into that pool for a bath?”

  “Yeah. As long as they’re still living, they will make a conscious effort to attack.”

  “I can’t wait to get there,” she said, munching on a strawberry Pop-Tart she’d snatched from Kyle’s stockpile of junk food. “It’ll be so nice to go to sleep knowing no one’s gonna nibble on my ear…well, I mean, no one cute and alive.”

  I rolled my eyes, then looked back over to Kyle. “No offense to you, Captain, but I think we’re lost,” I said.

  Kyle looked around and stopped in the middle of the street. “Hmm. Let me see that map again.”

  Sammy peered at us from the back seat. “Look, I get that you two great navigators have to check your maps every five minutes, but maybe we should find somewhere else to discuss directions.”

  “What’s wrong with here?” I asked, looking out the window.

  She pointed to the cemetery. “I’m getting some, uh…Night of the Living Dead vibes.”

  I looked through the black iron gates and stared at the gravestones for a minute. In the darkness, I noticed the dark shadows of figures lumbering toward the gates. About a dozen of them waved their hands through the fence and moaned.

  “Isn’t science fiction supposed to be…well, uh, fiction?” Sammy asked.

  “I think this is more…horror—or at least fantasy,” Kyle argued, checking to make sure all the doors were locked.

  “Look, I don’t know what kind of sick things you’re into, but this certainly isn’t my fantasy,” Sammy said. “Now, can we just get back on the road please?”

  My lips pressed into a grim line. “You’re right. These things should have just stayed in the movies, novels, and comic books.”

  “Tell me about it,” Kyle said.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “We’re like sardines in a can sitting here.”

  When a bony hand banged on the window, nearly giving all of us a heart attack, Kyle threw the EarthRoamer in gear, and we took off with a jerk. Jenny was still sleeping, and I was thankful for that. I wasn’t sure how much she could handle in one day.

  I grabbed a bottled water and poured in a presweetened Kool-Aid packet. I shook the bottle and took a sip of my red drink.

  “Hey, I want some,” Sammy said.

  “Help yourself,” I said. I looked at Kyle. “Do you want one?”

  “Sure.”

  No matter where we went, though, the violence was unavoidable. As we turned down the next street, gunshots rang out. A group of four or five hooded thugs came out of nowhere and began pummeling the EarthRoamer with baseball bats. The look in our attackers’ eyes was colder than any expression we’d seen on the zombies’ faces. They circled us like a pack of wolves.

  When I saw more of the baseball bat-wielding gang members running toward us, I gasped. “Turn around!” I shouted.

  “I’m trying,” he said, putting the truck in reverse.

  A man jumped on the hood and pointed a gun at us. Sammy screamed, and shivers ran down my spine.

  “They’re trying to carjack us!” Kyle said.

  “Don’t stop!” I shouted. “Just turn around and hit the gas. The lunatic will fly right off.”

  People began swarming us, and bullets dinged off the side of the EarthRoamer. We all ducked as Kyle frantically turned the big thing around. He slammed down on the gas pedal, then the brakes, and the man flew off. Kyle kept his composure and drove as fast as he could, and I hoped no idiots were tailing us. To avoid being chased, he weaved in and out of various streets, until he was sure we’d lost them.

  “What was that?” Sammy asked.

  “It’s anarchy,” I said, “what happens when the only law is kill or be killed. They wanted our truck.”

  “Did you see the look in their eyes?” Sammy asked.

  I let out a heavy sigh. “I knew I shoulda ordered that UZI off eBay when I had the chance.”

  “I woulda gone with the FN-2000 Assault Rifle myself,” Sammy said.

  “I’d prefer the DSR-Precision DSR 50 Sniper Rifle,” Kyle suddenly cut in.

  We all chuckled, fantasizing about weapons that we wished we could get our zombie-fighting hands on.

  “It’s getting late,” Kyle said. “We better find a place to bunk down for the night. It’s crazy out here, and driving around in the dark will only get us more lost…and maybe even killed.”

  “Where are we gonna go?” Sammy asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but don’t worry. We’ll figure something out.”

  “Yeah, you always do,” Sammy said, with a smile and a yawn.

  Chapter 29

  Thirty minutes later, we still hadn’t found a safe place to park. Even though we were in a new city, far away from those thugs, there didn’t seem to be anywhere to stop.

  “This thing is like a hotel room on wheels,” Sammy said. “We can just park anywhere to spend the night.”

  “We can’t stay in here. We might get boxed in by zombies,” I said.

  “They won’t even know we’re in here,” she said.

  “And what if we get surrounded by a horde? Plus, it’s dark, and we’re lost.” Peering into the darkness, I saw a building with a fire escape and pointed it out. “How about there?” I asked.

  Kyle pulled up next to it. “I don’t know, Val,” he said. “The building might be dangerous.”

  “We don’t even have to go inside,” I said.

  “Huh?” Sammy asked. “I’m not usually opposed to sleeping under the stars, Val, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea right now.”

  “We’ve got plenty of blankets. We just take the fire escape up to the rooftop and sleep there, then come down in the morning.”

  “What good will that do? What if we get trapped up there?” Sammy asked, looking at me doubtfully.

  “Zombies won’t know we’re up there, and even if they do, they can’t climb. But what I like about it is that we can hop to the next building, and the building after that to escape. If we’re surrounded, there’s a way out.”

  Kyle liked the idea, so we went to the top to check it out. There weren’t any zombies, and the door to the building was locked, so nothing would burst through for a midnight snack.

  “Looks like a pretty good hideout to me,” I said, looking at Kyle. “Still, if you and Jenny wanna spend the night
in the EarthRoamer, I understand. I know it’s a lot more comfortable.”

  “No, you were right. We could be ambushed from a million different directions down there.”

  “That’s what scares me, but I tend to be a little paranoid.”

  “One can never be too paranoid when it comes to zombies,” he said.

  “If we were on a stretch of flat land, I’d feel way more comfortable inside the EarthRoamer, but it seems a little dangerous in this alley.”

  He nodded. “I agree.”

  “The land gets flatter in Ohio,” I said.

  “If we have to stay out here another night, which I hope isn’t the case, we’ll find some flat, wide-open terrain and stay the night in the truck.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said.

  We made beds on the roof and carried up enough supplies for the night.

  Sammy stared down and scrunched her face.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I just hope we don’t turn out like our partially digested neighbors below,” she said, pointing down at the street.

  “Yes, there’s zombies in the area, but they’re everywhere. We’re safe up here.”

  “As long as a herd doesn’t surround us.”

  “They won’t. Well, I mean…I guess they could, but it’s highly unlikely.”

  “I know it’s safer here than driving through the dark, not knowing where the heck we are, and I want to get to the island safely. If staying the night here is what we’ve gotta do, I’m okay with it. I have no desire to be gnawed on like saltwater taffy.”