Savannah's Only Zombie (Book 1): A New Death

by Josh Vasquez

  “I guess we’ll have to be a little quieter,” she whispered. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  Jeremy shook his head. His thoughts immediately went to Ashley. He really regretted never working up the courage to ask her out. It was too late for that now.

  “There was a girl at work. Never asked her out though. She was the first person I saw attacked,” he answered.

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “No, it’s alright. We weren’t even really friends. I just never worked up the nerve to ask her out.”

  “So, have you ever had a girlfriend?”

  “Yeah. One. Total bitch though. Cheated on me. Repeatedly. We broke up and got back together throughout most of high school. Beginning of senior year though, there was this nasty rumor going around about her blowing one of the baseball players in the dugout. It was the final straw, so I broke up with her for good.”

  “Oh, wow.”

  “Yeah, turns out the rumor wasn’t all the way true.”

  “Oops. What did you do then?”

  “Nothing. Turns out, she was blowing the entire baseball team.”

  “Wow,” Tori said. “That’s almost impressive.”

  They both laughed.

  “Alright Dr. Drew, stop grilling me on my love life. What about you? Boyfriend?”

  Tori laughed again.

  “I had a few, but once they realized how independent I was, it didn’t take long for them to hit the road. I was actually waiting for a blind date when everything went to shit.”

  She looked over to Lexx.

  ‘You like him don’t you?”

  “What? No!” she said, slightly raising her voice.

  “Tori likes Lexx, Tori likes Lexx,” Jeremy began to chant quietly in sing-song.

  “What are you six? Shut up!”

  “You love him,” he said in the most annoying voice he could make.

  “Shut up. I will shoot you.”

  She started to mock-reach for her gun sitting on the office desk, when a crash came from out in front of the building. They both looked at each other as the ruckus grew louder. There were moans. And a lot of yelling and swearing.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Tori kicked Lexx, as she grabbed the shotgun off the desk and ran towards the front.

  “Get up!” she yelled.

  “Huh? What?” the man said in a half-awake stupor.

  But she was already gone. Jeremy was right behind her, rifle in hand. They did not wait for Lexx and Ben to wake up. The commotion out front was getting louder. Profanity-laced yelling filled the air. When they reached the boarded-up front door, Tori pressed her ear up against it.

  “There’s someone out there. Someone alive,” she said.

  She looked back at Jeremy to see what they should do. Lexx and Ben came into the room.

  “What the hell is going on?” Lexx stammered, holding his side.

  “Ssh! Someone’s outside. Sounds like they’re in trouble,” Tori said.

  “So? What do you want to do about it?” Lexx asked back.

  Again, she looked to Jeremy. He ran his hand through his hair, his mind racing on what to do. They very easily could just not do anything. That would be safe. But it would also be extremely shady. Jeremy couldn’t picture himself just leaving someone to die. His mind went to the Padre. The Padre could have left Jeremy on the side of the road to fend for himself, but he took him in. Not only that, but he died so Jeremy could escape. He risked his life twice for someone he didn’t know.

  I’ll be damned if I won’t do the same, he thought.

  “Lexx, you and Ben come with me. Tori, you wait by this door and when you hear the signal, open it, and get them inside,” Jeremy commanded.

  “What signal?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, something loud!” he yelled, as he and the other men ran for the back door.

  ***

  Once they got outside, Jeremy looked over their improvised wall of pallets against the fence and was surprised by what he saw. In the midst of a growing swarm of the dead, was one man.

  One.

  Now granted, the man was huge. Probably six and half feet easy, the man’s large frame towered over most of the dead. He sported a full beard and was wearing a light blue, button-down work shirt. Jeremy couldn’t make out what the name tag said. The weapon he was using looked to be one of those emergency fire axes from the glass cases that say, ‘Break in Case of Emergency.’

  I guess this could be considered an emergency, Jeremy thought.

  The man swung it with deadly accuracy. Zombies fell like timber left and right. Limbs and appendages were flying. One zombie got close only to receive the butt end of the handle before the axe head came crashing down on its skull. Grey matter flew out from the opening. The man yanked the axe from the zombie’s brain and swung wide, catching two others who seemed to be just too close for comfort.

  “Damn. I don’t think this guy even needs our help,” Lexx said. “He looks like a fuckin’ lumberjack out there.”

  Ben let out a chuckle as the three men watched on as the “Lumberjack” laid waste to the dead around him. They just kept coming and he just kept chopping them down. One down. Another. And another. The bodies were starting to fill the street. But their numbers weren’t slowing down. They seemed to be coming from the direction of the housing projects. Jeremy could see a large group of them making their way over to the scene. Perhaps twenty or so.

  I don’t care who you are, Jeremy thought. There’s no way to defend yourself against twenty of them at once.

  “Ben, how are you with a rifle?” he said out loud.

  “I’m a card carrying member of the NRA, so pretty good. Once deer season opens, me and my dad are out there every weekend. Got plenty of meat in the freezer to back it up.”

  “Good,” Jeremy said. “Take the rifle and go find yourself a place where you can see the street over the fence. Lexx come with me.”

  Jeremy handed the rifle to Ben and motioned for Lexx to follow him. Earlier that day, he noticed that a few of the barrels still had something in them. He wasn’t sure what the liquid was, but the sides of the barrels said they were flammable. They put them off to the side of the yard, out of the way of any danger.

  “My plan is,” he said turning to Lexx. “Take one of those barrels with stuff in it and get it up over the fence. We’ll roll it out over the street away from the guy. Once it gets far enough away and maybe draws some of the z’s towards it, Ben will take the shot and we’ll find out exactly how flammable that stuff is.”

  Lexx nodded with a large grin and began rolling the barrel to the fence. Jeremy relayed the plan to Ben real quick, who was perched up on a few barrels and hidden behind a pallet. He nodded and took aim towards the street. Jeremy jumped up next to him.

  “Hey guy!” he yelled. “Run for the front door!”

  The Lumberjack heard him and looked at the front door before bringing his axe down on the neck of a dead woman, separating head from shoulder. He pulled his axe free and began to make his way towards the front door. Jeremy nodded to Lexx and both men lifted the barrel up over their heads and over the fence. It fell with a bang, catching the attention of a few zombies. As it began to roll away from the fence, more noticed, and began to follow it.

  Like moths to a flame, Jeremy thought.

  It hit the curb on the other side of the four-lane road. Most of the dead had lost interest in the Lumberjack and were now banging on the barrel. The group from the projects was just finally making their way to the street and also began to swarm the barrel.

  “You got a shot?” Jeremy shouted to Ben.

  He nodded and took a breath. As his finger tightened around the trigger, he felt a bead of sweat run down the side of his face and before it hit the ground, he heard the click of the trigger mechanism.

  Boom.

  The shockwave of the explosion sent zombie body parts flying and the men ducking for cover. Pieces of rotting, burning flesh rained down from the sky. Jeremy glanced
up to see if the Lumberjack was able to get inside. He saw the door swing open and the man make it inside. Tori had apparently gotten the signal.

  ***

  “Thanks,” the man said as Lexx handed him a Coke from the fridge.

  He sat in one of the office chairs, resting from the frenzy outside.

  Even sitting down the man seemed massive, Jeremy thought.

  His shirt was drenched in blood. Some was old, some fresh. He looked to be in his early forties. It was hard to tell with the thickness of his beard.

  “What were you doing out there?” Tori asked, finally breaking the tense silence.

  He looked at her.

  “Not dying.”

  Tori seemed to realize her question struck a nerve with the man, so she bit her lip, and folded her arms in front of her.

  “I think what she meant,” Jeremy said, looking at Tori. “How did you end up out there? Where did you come from and why are you traveling the streets at night?”

  The man looked at Jeremy. He looked exhausted. Dark circles had formed around the man’s eyes. His beard was peppered with grey.

  “Look, I haven’t slept in two days,” the man sighed. “I’ll tell you what brought me here, but then I got to get some sleep.”

  “That seems fair to me,” Jeremy said.

  The man rested his face in his hands and drew in a deep breath. He rubbed his face and then proceeded to tell his story.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  “I work at the port. Loading and unloading the shipping containers. I was nearing the end of a twelve-hour shift, fixing to start a double, when a huge tanker came in from Asia somewhere. Not sure where exactly, all those funky letters look the same to me. I overheard someone say China, but I knew for a fact we didn’t get anything from the Chinese here.

  I was returning from my mandated break, heading back to the lift I worked. The ship was just getting in. It seemed to be cruising pretty fast for the river. The tugs were guiding it in, but it almost seemed like it was picking up speed. Must have been my imagination, cause the thing came to dock with no problems. I was already exhausted before everything went to hell.

  Not even sure how it happened. Customs was making a huge deal about the ship and its containers. From where I was seated in the lift, I could see custom’s officers arguing with the ship’s crew over a few containers. It looked like the custom’s guys wanted in, but the crew was refusing. Well, that’s just not gonna fly. You ship something into the States from another country, you better be ready for us to take a peek.

  It all happened so quick. The container door swung open and those dead freaks started pouring out. The fast ones mostly. You know which ones I mean?”

  The Lumberjack looked to the group. They all nodded.

  “Yeah, we call them runners,” Jeremy said.

  “Runners?” said the Lumberjack. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. We called ‘em pinkies, cause of their pink skin compared to the greys. You got a name for the greys?”

  Jeremy shook his head.

  “Not really, just zombies or z’s for short.”

  “Zombies? Huh, I never thought of that. I guess they are kinda like zombies. Anyways it was a fuckin’ bloodbath. Not a lot of guns and shit around the ports, for obvious reasons. Customs had some, but those tools didn’t last long. After most of the pinkies ran out, what was left of the greys came tumbling out of the containers. I say what was left of them, because it looked like the pinks beat the shit out of them. Anger problems those pinks.

  Like I was saying, things went real bad, real quick. Dock workers get this kinda image going for them where they’re just these hard-ass, dumb brutes. And to be fair, some of the guys are exactly that. But man, I can’t tell you how many grown men I saw just break down and start crying. Grown ass men. They just gave up the will to live. This one kid, who looked young, maybe twenty five, just fell into the fetal position, and started sucking his thumb. From where I was sitting, I could see everything. I almost thought about just staying up there where nothing could reach me.

  But then I saw the picture of my wife and little girl that I kept in the cab of the lift. I couldn’t imagine these things getting to them. They went to my in-laws for the weekend, but what if this wasn’t the only place this was happening? I remember fumbling for my phone. I kept getting a busy signal. Everyone must have been trying to call the people they loved by that point. I put the phone back in my pocket and proceeded to climb down from my lift.

  When I got ground level, people were running all over the place. The pinks were chasing everyone. The ones that weren’t completely ripped to shit came back quickly as more pinks. Well, most of them came back as pinks. There were a few of the more battered ones that went straight into grey mode.”

  “Grey mode?” Tori asked.

  “Yeah, the pink ones eventually tire out and turn into the slower greys. You haven’t seen that?”

  “No. But then again, we haven’t really stuck around to find out,” she said.

  “Well, I didn’t really have much of a choice,” the Lumberjack continued. “I met up with my buddy Burton and we were able to find a small maintenance shed to hide out in. A few other people I’d never met joined us. That’s where I found this axe.”

  He holds up the axe before setting it back down onto his lap. He pauses for a moment, looking off in thought. He snaps out of the daze and looks back to the group. His eyes finally rest on Jeremy.

  “They just kept coming. Waves and waves of ‘em. We fought them off deep into that first night. It was unsettling at first. Killing them. But when we realized that it was kill or be killed, that primal instinct of survival kicked in. I remember the switch in myself.

  There was a woman in our group who strayed out too far and was picked off by the pinks. I watched on as they relentlessly ripped her to pieces. They showed no remorse or concern. They only wanted to feed. And not even eat for necessity. They’d attack one person and move on to the next before they were even finished. They were never satisfied. Always wanting the next kill. That’s when I switched to survival mode.

  When their numbers began to finally dwindle, I tried again to reach my wife. No answer. I started to devise a plan on how to get to them. Her parents just lived across town. If I could just get out of the ports, I could get there and get them out of Savannah. As I was thinking about all this, my phone rang. It was my wife.

  At first, all I could hear was static. Then her voice finally broke through. I could tell she was worried, her voice was tense. She began to ramble on and on about the news and everything that was going on. I kept trying to ask her if she and Emma were ok, but she just continued to babble on and on. I heard a loud banging in the background. Before I could even ask her what is was, she was telling me to hold on and that someone was at the door. I began yelling into the phone not to open it. Burton kept trying to quiet me down as my screaming was attracting more dead.

  All I could hear was the screams of my wife over the phone. I could do nothing. The phone fell from my hand as I began to hear the screams of Emma. Mommy! Mommy! No! No!”

  He stopped again. Tears poured from his face. His expression went blank as he began to wipe the tears from his eyes.

  “I don’t remember what happened in between then and now.”

  Tori looked over to Jeremy as the Lumberjack said this. Her face was one of concern. Jeremy noticed and turned his attention back to the broken man.

  “What do you mean, you do”'t remember?" Jeremy asked.

  The Lumberjack looked at him, his eyes bloodshot.

  “I mean I don’t remember. My mind has just blacked it out. Look, I told you what I remember. Can I go to sleep now?” He answered, his voice stern.

  “Yeah man,” Jeremy said. “Lexx, can you show him one of the offices where he can sleep?”

  Lexx nodded and motioned for the Lumberjack to follow him down the hallway.

  “Hey man, what’s your name?” Ben asked.

  “Andrew. But my friends all
call me LJ.”

  “LJ?”

  “Yeah, they all say I look like a lumberjack, so they call me LJ for short.”

  Lexx’s mouth dropped open.

  “All right LJ, get some rest,” Jeremy said.

  ***

  Once Lexx returned, the four of them gathered together in the storefront part of the building, away from the offices. They stood in silence for a moment before Jeremy finally spoke up.

  “So, what do you guys think?”

  “Well, the guy’s a fighter for one. He’s been out there since the beginning and he’s still alive? That’s amazing. And from what it sounds like, most of the time he’s been alone,” Ben said.

  “That is what it sounded like,” Tori pitched in. “What did you guys think about his story? Did everything seem ok to you?”

  “What do you mean?” Lexx asked.

  “Well, for starters, how about the fact that he doesn’t even remember how he got here? If his story is correct, he clocked out somewhere last night. He doesn’t remember what happened at all today? His memory just blocked out a whole entire day?”

  “She does have a point,” Jeremy adds. “I know that sometimes your brain will block out traumatic experiences. No doubt hearing your wife and daughter scream like that would be extremely traumatic, but I saw my mother get ripped apart and eaten and I have full memory of it. In fact, I can’t forget it.”

  Jeremy tried to push the thought away. He looked at the others. Out of the three of them, Tori looked the most concerned.

  “Tori, what do you think?” Jeremy asked.

  “I think,” she started. “I think we should let him stay. For now. We could use an extra guy, especially one with an axe. Safety in numbers, right? I don’t know. We should probably keep an eye on him though. He seems, um, unstable.”