The Feral Children [A Zombie Road Tale] Box Set | Books 1-3

by Simpson, David A.

  He’d spent months listening, cowering and crying as it tried to get in day after day. Night after night. Never ending. Never resting. Never giving him a moments peace. He crapped in a box and pissed in a bottle like a homeless vagrant while the thing scratched and clawed, slowly whittling away at the wood. He’d been too traumatized to realize he was surrounded by food and the means to fight back. He was nearly comatose with fear and spent his days wondering how much longer it would take. He was slowly dying, half-starved and helpless until Kodiak saved him. Saved him, he thought with disgust. Deep inside, he knew it was true. He would have gone crazy or died if they hadn’t come along. He didn’t know how many more months he could have held on. They claimed he’d only been in there for a few weeks but what did they know. It felt like months. He hadn’t opened the boxes of surplus MRE’s or tried to make a weapon from the hockey sticks and baseball bats on the shelves. Didn’t even know what MRE’s were until he saw the kids open a carton that had been in the store. He’d survived off junk food, sardines and a case of Vienna sausages sitting beside the desk.

  He was weak then, but not now. Not anymore. His body was strong. The doughy baby fat was gone and replaced by hard, steroid enhanced muscles. He felt no shame or remorse for anything he’d done, only hatred and anger for the boy who’d cast him out and made him look pathetic in front of the tribe.

  When he was awake, he was strong and fearless. His only time of weakness and vulnerability was when he tried to sleep. The scratching sounds plagued his nightmares. There was a recurring dream where he opened the door of the storeroom and a zombified Kodiak lurched in and attacked. He stood there helpless as his enemy tore chunks of flesh from his arms and face and the other kids laughed and clapped. He watched himself die and reanimate, then lurch upright and follow Kodiak as they searched for more victims to infect. He hated the dream. He’d wet the bed on more than one occasion when the nightmare woke him screaming.

  Some of the boys healed faster than the others and he adopted the carrot and stick approach with them. Do as I say, get some time with the girls, a glass of liquor or a few pills to take off the edge. Failure to comply, spend all day at the gates stabbing the ever-present undead.

  Bong, the worst addict of all had served as a lesson to the rest when Gordon caught him lighting up with some weed from a private stash when he was supposed to be patrolling the fences. Gordon had berated him, handed him a machete and kicked him out of the gates.

  “You can return when you get me the head from one of the undead. A blonde this time. Good looking, not some kid or crippled old man.” He’d told him.

  A half an hour later, Bong was screaming to be let in. He clutched a severed head in one hand while a lurching horde keened and shuffled after him. Their rotted fingers reached for the terrified teen. He’d lost the machete and fear filled his eyes as he waited for Gordon to sort through the ring of keys to find the right one. He let him in with seconds to spare, hungry, gnashing teeth only a few feet behind. You could never tell what Gordon would do, he could have just as easily deemed the head not good enough and watched as they tore the boy apart. After that, Bong was no longer a problem. He followed orders and if he had a stash hidden somewhere else, he kept it hidden and didn’t smoke when he had work to do.

  Gordon had carefully lashed the head to one of the spikes at the top of the fence, heavy leather gloves on his hands to prevent even the tiniest risk of a bite. The blonde took her place right next to the brunette and the redhead he’d collected. He was amassing quite the collection of zombie heads. Half a dozen that were wearing ball caps. A few more that wore eyeglasses and ties around the stumps of their necks. They were segregated in his own demented system. The ones wearing ball caps represented the commoner. Their heads adorned both sides of the fence nearest the gates. They were the blue-collar hick type people like Kodiak that he hated.

  Those in designer eye glasses and ties represented the upper crust of society. His kind of people. They were situated closer to the center of the long fence. If they could look behind them, he felt they’d have enjoyed the views of the garden and swimming pool with its tiki bar and overpriced patio furniture. Not even in death would he subject the upper class to the humiliation of being forced to spend eternity next to a truck driver or some brewery mechanic, so he tried to position them closer to their appropriate stations. He’d had to use a staple gun to keep the glasses and ties in place since the noses were rotting off and the silk ties wanted to slough off with the rotted flesh, but he didn’t mind. From the beginning he’d had a weird fetish for the dead. He could do whatever he wanted to them. They couldn’t tell his secrets or reveal his nature. Even the smell didn’t seem to bother him, although whoever was tasked with helping him usually ended up puking their guts out after the grisly job was complete. The voice in his head laughed at the weak stomached boys, while the rational portion of his mind wondered why he was the only one seemingly immune to the smell of decay.

  Lately, he’d started collecting heads from zombie women. It unsettled his crew and he preferred them that way. He was careful when he attached them to the fences, he didn’t want to damage the brain. He wanted them animated and hungry. They gnashed their teeth at anyone who came near.

  Sometimes, when the scratching noises kept him up and the voice nagged at him for not expanding his territory or destroying the feral kids, he’d come out and visit the glasses wearing heads, they were his executive committee. The lawyers and powerful players that got things done. He didn’t always agree with their advice, but he appreciated their input. They gave him their full attention as he told them his thoughts and plans. He shared his ideas for bringing in more survivors to do the work. His stay at the zoo was the last time he would ever touch a shovel or pitchfork again. He told them what he knew about the Anubis people and asked their advice on how to negotiate the best deal. He’d gone through the paperwork in his dad’s old office and had discovered he owned a few food distribution warehouses. They advised him to keep that knowledge to himself to use it as a trump card, maybe in a deal with the Society. He laughed at their highbrow jokes and enjoyed the company of other elites like himself. They were the movers and shakers of the old world and he welcomed their wisdom. They snarled and gnashed the stumps of their broken teeth at him. He listened intently and nodded along as they told their secrets of success. The strong walked on the weak and they always had, the end of the world was no reason to change things.

  4

  Donny

  Donny stretched and yawned a silent yawn. He smiled at the memory of the hunt the night before. He and Yewan, his black panther, had brought down a whitetail deer just before sunrise.

  The meat would feed the members of his tribe, the bones and organs would go to the bears and wolves. The hide would be tanned and made into something useful. Nothing from the deer would be wasted. He and Yewan had shared the still hot heart minutes after the kill. It no longer made him nauseous to eat it raw. He felt by consuming the organ, some of the creature’s speed, its greatest attribute flowed into him.

  He rose and threw open the upper doors of the barn to let in the afternoon sunshine. He closed his eyes and soaked it up. He didn’t miss the winter at all. It had been severe and seemed like it would never let go of its grip on Iowa. He could handle the cold when he had to. He’d survived a Minnesota winter before he wound up here. Sleeping in utility tunnels near the underground steam pipes helped, but the warmth of the pipes also drew the rats and roaches. Nothing was worse than waking up after a rat ran across your face. One of his foster parents had kept white rats as pets. They told him rats had tongues like a cats, it was rough and covered with little barbs. They said that when a rat got thirsty at night it would lick sleeping children’s eyes for the moisture, it liked the taste of tears. They were so soft and gentle when they drank the child wouldn’t wake up. Their tongues would lick a hole, they would suck out the insides and the eyes would collapse.

  “Now you be a good boy and do what we say or we�
�ll let them loose in your room tonight.” They’d said. “You don’t want to wake up blind, do you?”

  He’d hated and feared rats ever since.

  This life was so much better. He was at peace. He was happy for the first time in his life. The others used to sit around the fire talking about the things they missed and he’d listened as they talked about ice cream and Netflix. PlayStations and movie theatres. Fresh pizza and cotton candy. He’d never had any of that unless it came from a dumpster or he snuck in when the ushers weren’t paying attention.

  Donny felt a deep sympathy for the rest of his tribe. They’d lost everything. Their families, friends and possessions. For him every day felt like Christmas and his birthday rolled into one. He’d never had any of the nice things they missed so he wasn’t bothered by their absence. He’d never had much of anything, just the worn-out hand me down clothes on his back and a Hello Kitty backpack with a busted strap to hold his few possessions. Anything he wanted; he could have now. He just had to go get it. The thing was though, he didn’t want much. He felt like he was the richest kid in the apocalypse. He finally had a family, friends and the most loyal four-legged companion that ever lived. He had armor and weapons. Warm clothes that fit. Shoes without holes. No pervert was trying to take advantage of his silence and his body. No one ridiculed his mixed ethnicity or his muteness. His social status didn’t matter. The tribe accepted him for who he was, loved him and depended on him. He couldn’t ask for more than that. He smiled to himself at the thought of his brothers and sisters and felt truly blessed to be part of the tribe.

  He watched the big cat stir to life. They’d had to hunt hard for the deer. Even though they were plentiful, the animals had become wary of the Savage Ones that tended to stay close to the zoo for the easy meals that came shuffling down the road. They’d covered a lot of miles before Yewan picked up a scent.

  Murray had given him an iPad with hunting information on it as a Christmas present. He opened the device and picked up reading the article where he had left off. It was about the moon phases and how it affected the animals feeding patterns. The solunar table showed that their prime feeding times would be midday for the next few days. He’d never considered that before, they just always took to the woods when it got dark and hoped for the best. Sometimes, they were lucky, other times they weren’t. He needed to hunt smarter, not harder because Murray said they needed another year before the penned herds would be big enough to start culling for meat. According to the data on the iPad, smarter would have them going out late morning to get into position. He wondered where Swan was. She and her wolves hunted differently than him and usually wandered farther. Sometimes she would be gone for days and when she came in, she rushed to get her share of the chores finished so she could head back out. She’d become more sullen and brooding and he knew she was hunting Gordon. He hoped she didn’t find him, things had settled down and they hadn’t had any trouble for months. He doubted if they’d ever hear from him again but if she found out where they were, she’d start a war. She still mourned over Lucy and placed the blame squarely on him.

  He finished the advanced hunting strategies book and gauged the time by the sun. They still had a couple of hours to burn before they should head out and he needed to take his turn swinging the ax. They cut wood every day, they weren’t going to be caught short again. Winters were long and cold in Iowa.

  His mind was made up. He’d start hunting the moon phases after they were done with the majority of the garden harvest. Attune himself with Mother Earth as Swan would say. The idea of hunting in the middle of the day based on the wax and wane of the moon seemed odd, but what did he know? He was a homeless street kid who got lucky. He was adaptable and would do what it took to feed his tribe.

  5

  Harvest

  The next few weeks passed by in a blur. The garden produced food faster than they could collect it. The cellar was nearly full and every meal had an assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables that covered the table.

  Before the outbreak, most of them would have moaned and groaned if their parents had told them to eat their veggies. Now, they scarfed them down and wanted more. The long winter of eating canned food, crackers and venison jerky had given them a desire for anything fresh.

  Tobias and Analise canned nonstop and were always reminding the hunters to look for propane bottles and Mason jars while they were out. They had nearly exhausted their supply of jars and lids. Their blackberry jelly was now perfect and the smell of the baking bread filled the house every Sunday morning. Kodiak had built a cooling box in the cellar that kept the yeasted dough, milk and butter fresh.

  Tobias was a tyrant in the kitchen and was proud of his growing culinary skills. Everything had to be just perfect. The triplets were fed up with him and his bossiness and mutiny was being discussed among the three. They conspired and debated tying him to a chair and rubbing the sweet cooked down juice from the berries in his hair and letting the bears take turns licking him until his face was raw. Analise was about tired of him too. He was like that angry chef from the TV their mom used to watch.

  Haul firewood. Pump the water. Get out of my way. Get over here. Get over there. It was nonstop. The three were tired and wanted to play, but every time they thought they’d done everything the older boy asked, he piled on more work.

  Landon ran around the kitchen with a section of panty hose stretched over his head. They were supposed to be cutting off the legs and filling them with potatoes and onions to hang in the cellar. Clara and Caleb laughed as he barked orders with his impersonation of Tobias. Analise shushed them when Tobias came back inside with a bucket of blackberries.

  Tobias glared at them. Landon pulled the panty hose off his head and glared back at Tobias. Analise put her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh but the triplets couldn’t hold it and fell to the floor in convulsions of uncontrolled giggling. Tobias grew red in the face. He wanted to know what was so funny. No one could answer, they just pointed behind him.

  Popsicle had nosed his way through the door and had his big face buried in the bucket of blackberries. His long tongue scooped them into his mouth and fished them from the corners. The fur of his face was blue from the juices. Tobias shrieked and Popsicle ran. He chased the polar bear across the yard until they were both out of sight.

  He returned a few minutes later. Muttered under his breath and dared any of them to say anything.

  “I guess he didn’t want the cheese.” Landon said. Tobias’ latest effort at cheese sat next to the now empty bucket. His cheese was getting better but even Otis still wouldn’t eat it.

  Tobias growled at them and grabbed up his wooden spoon. He waved it menacingly and ordered them to go get more wood for the stove. He snatched up his apron from the back of a chair and slipped it over his head.

  He swore when he saw the modifications.

  Someone had taken a marker and changed Kiss The Cook to Kill The Cook. He glared at his sister and the small kids as they tried to look surprised and maintain innocent faces.

  He and Analise had gone through a phase where they wanted to be celebrity chefs and had spent a few months watching cooking shows and trying all kinds of recipes. They never really got very good but they knew much more about cooking than the others whose culinary skills extended only as far as the microwave. He enjoyed working in the kitchen before the outbreak but now he took great pride in preparing the meals. He took the responsibility seriously. It was his job to make sure they all ate properly, they couldn’t live on mac and cheese. To get them all together so he wouldn’t have to keep meals warm for a dawdler, he made it a rule; no one eats until everyone is seated at the table.

  Tobias gave up on making jelly for the time being. It would take another trip to the blackberry patch since Popsicle had eaten or ruined all of the berries. He turned his attention to dinner and ran the triplets out of the kitchen.

  When he and Analise set out his creations, he poised over the table. He watched his tribe, rolling pin
in hand, ready to swat anyone who couldn’t wait to dig in. He waited for the praise. They wouldn’t give it. It’s okay and meh’s were his reward. Getting under his skin was a constant source of entertainment for the tribe and they dogged him whenever they got the chance. He let them have their fun. He could tell by how the plates were cleaned that they enjoyed it.

  They had become lean and muscular. None of them carried extra body fat. The softness of hours sitting in a classroom or in front of the TV were gone. They stayed busy from sunup to sundown, sometimes longer. Surviving was hard work and they didn’t want to feel the hunger in their bellies next winter. They didn’t want to stay cold for months because they had to use the wood sparingly. They wanted full stomachs and roaring fires and they worked to make it happen. They had to venture further and further to find wood. Everything close to the house was long gone. Even the little kids took their turn at the wood pile. They weren’t strong enough to swing the axe yet but they could haul the chopped wood and split kindling with the hatchet and add it to the stack at the back of the house. It ran the whole length and wrapped around one corner. It was already head high in some places and Murray said it would act as insulation against the winter winds. And it was close. They wouldn’t have to trudge back and forth through the snow to get it. It was right outside the door. An hour of chopping, dragging or stacking was on the chore chart for everyone and the pile of wood was already nearly as much as they’d had when the temperatures dropped below freezing last winter. They would be ready this year. They would spend the snow bound months lounging and relaxing, not fighting the elements and freezing in the cold.

  Darkness had fallen, work was finished for the day and Kodiak was content as he added a spoon of mashed potatoes to his dinner plate. He felt good about everything they were accomplishing but he’d been brooding about their perfect little corner of the world. Nothing good ever lasted. Life always seemed to have a sucker punch waiting. Two steps forward and one step back. How long could their run of perfect luck continue? How long until someone got zombie bit or broke an arm or had an accident with the ax? What if one of them got really sick? He tried to push the dark thoughts away, he just wanted to eat his meal and enjoy the banter of the tribe. Inside the house was the only time they ever got loud and silly. They didn’t yell or make unnecessary noises outside but in the stately old home, they let their guard down. While Caleb told another dumb knock knock joke he let his thoughts drift from one of the tribe getting hurt to Gordon to the undead at the gates to the Savage Ones and back to Gordon.