Zombie Botnet Bundle: Books 1 - 3: #zombie, Zombie 2.0, Alpha Zombie

by Al K. Line

  So, if the initial botnet didn't infect you, if you weren't eaten by someone that was infected, then a lot of the remaining people were to be found warmongering amongst themselves. Battling, bickering, and generally helping drive the population even lower.

  There were scenes of incredible carnage on the streets of London and other major European cities, and in countries without European style gun control such as the US then the slaughter was even worse. What would have been a fist fight or a fight with makeshift weapons in Europe was an all out bloodbath in parts of the world where people carried guns, or had the right to own one in their homes. Who would go out looking for food and water without one if they had the option?

  And when arguments and fights broke out over that last bottle of water on the shelves...

  The world was in meltdown in just a day, and it just kept on getting worse and worse as every available scrap of food, and every sip of clean water, became more and more precious a commodity. Food began to rot, there were no fresh supplies of meat delivered to the butchers and the supermarkets. Fishermen made their last catch and never returned to sea, planes dropped from the sky. Scenes of death and depravity at large events such as football games and music concerts were too debased and frenzied to describe.

  Tens of thousands of people all checking Twitter, posting clips to YouTube, or checking their devices for messages meant that large gatherings were infected in an instant. The infected then set upon the person next to them enjoying the baseball game or the latest boy band concert.

  After the first day?

  No more singers, no more football players, no more fast bowlers, no more quarterbacks and no more room in the venue; the floors of all such places of mass human congregation now littered with the putrefying remains of the dead.

  Churches fared little better, other places of worship suffering the same fate too.

  Schools? A bloodbath of dead teachers and children of all ages infected then eating their playmates. From four and up many children had a phone that was connected to the Web, so come break-time, or a whisper of a zombie botnet, they were checking Facebook and Twitter for the latest news, and it meant their demise.

  Colleges and Universities were the same, the bus depot and the rail networks too. The now computerized industrial food growing operations ground to a halt. Transport on the roads was now an impossibility, if there had been anyone left to drive the trucks anyway. No shipments of food from abroad, no movement of produce around individual countries, it all meant that in no time at all there was a severe shortage of fresh food of any kind. It was only canned goods and preserved foods that could be had in any meaningful quantity.

  Huge ships carrying thousands of shipping containers floundered about the oceans, the crews all infected and devouring each other, or themselves, in desperation. Eventually they sank or crashed, or floated continually at the whims of the currents, their precious cargoes of food slowly rotting away and polluting the seas.

  Cruise ships became scenes of well dressed depravity, thousands of people confined in small spaces running amok and hunting out the uninfected, all modern ships now offering good WiFi services for their paying customers. It went without saying that if you were on a cruise then you had to update Facebook daily didn't you, what would be the point otherwise?

  Luckily there were so few people left alive that there was actually plenty of food to go around, as long as you didn't want it fresh. The only problem being that you would have to try to get to the food either by dealing with infected in their own homes or hoping that the local supermarket had a strict 'no zombie' policy. So, if you wanted food you were very literally taking your life in your own hands if you went out shopping for groceries.

  Over the years there have been any number of estimates as to how long it would take before supplies of fresh food dried up, usually the number was five or six days. It actually took less than one. With so much relying on air and ocean most countries supplied only a third of their own needs at most. Now with the drivers of trucks, the captains of ships, and the pilots of planes all after your brains the supply chain broke in less than a day.

  No drivers? No food. Grow your own or perish. That or eat tinned pineapple if you want to risk a zombie horde attack just to get your vitamin C.

  If you were alive, but unable to drive, unable to move freely because of age, or were infirm in any way then you were not going to survive longer than the food in your home would currently allow. It meant a lot of slow and lingering deaths for the elderly, and for those in perfect health but unable to confront the horrors that faced them outside their own front doors.

  Rich or poor it mattered little. Each was infected just as easily, and each was eaten with the same relish by any infected person. Money meant nothing. If you wanted something then you simply had to fight for it and come out victorious.

  The real battle for survival was yet to come.

  Things could only get worse.

  ###

  IRC channel nohackersallowed (hackers were not known for their complex humor) was still running. Small numbers of the underground black hat community were still active on it, even though they were risking zombie botnet infection and the loss of their humanity. The numbers were down, right down. The majority of the members having been very inadequate hackers, they had mostly been infected — gone on to devour their mums and dads days ago.

  But a few more resilient characters remained. Those that knew their shit and had very strong firewalls in place, or had shut down their devices the minute the zombie botnet was christened on that very channel. Slowly some had returned, booting up devices in the safest mode possible that still gave them Web access. Adventurous individuals, even though they should have known better, had even returned to Twitter and Facebook — they needed their fix, zombie botnet or no, and their status' were now mostly well out of date. Those that had been were no longer 'in a relationship', not that the majority ever were before the zombie botnet went live.

  Servers worldwide were running on backup power if at all possible, a few still lucky enough to have mains grid power. Luckily many of the largest data centers had their own private electricity supply, just in case they were ever disconnected from the grid. The Internet was a very hard thing to kill. Nobody knew that it was Ven that had created the zombie botnet, but the members knew that it was the botnet that was often discussed on the channel which had morphed into something that had wiped out the majority of the world's population. Some of them had even hired parts of it from Ven over the years for various private jobs, or work for clients. It had been very good to Ven right up until it made everyone forget about Bitcoins, and become concerned with a new currency — brains.

  A lot of the chat concerned where to go from here, what to do, and how to get Twitter working properly again. Nobody had the answer. People who spent their lives working at their screens simply wouldn't admit that the Web was a kill zone — they would rather risk infection than try to get on with what remained of life in the real world.

  It wasn't just this collection of hackers though, those still alive all over the world were going to extreme lengths to check their Facebook wall. It had become a part of daily life, and many simply could not, or would not, accept the interruption to the daily dose of updates from people they didn't really know. Telling them where they were having lunch and posting pictures of cats in baths with witty memes below.

  Most that somehow managed to access their social media accounts were sorely disappointed. If they weren't infected the minute a video posted by the zombie botnet was scrolled past then they were sent into a stupor by the inane content now posted.

  It mostly revolved around zombie selfies by poor people stuck at their screens with an inability to move. Often disabled and wheelchair bound. Or prisoners who were stuck in their cells with the back-up power ensuring that the Web was still available, and the lights were on.

  Those people were gradually starving to death, the botnet having sent them into flesh desiring zombies
but there being no way to find food. Many had turned on themselves in their rabid hunger, their own arms and legs half eaten. Tearing strips off their own hands and devouring hungrily. As they weakened they somehow returned to the source of infection, mindlessly tapping keyboards and taking pictures of themselves, uploading to Instagram if possible, or the kids' new favorite: Snapchat.

  Compared to this the remaining hacker community had it good. Many of them had perished in their quest for a power source once the grid was out, taking ridiculous risks to source generators to do nothing more than get them back Online and see what was going on. Most died, as most of them were fourteen year old kids who didn't even know how to boil an egg, let alone drive a car, deal with zombie attacks at the local hardware store, source fuel, connect a generator to the mains supply and not get killed at some point along the way.

  It's why the zombie botnet was so effective, people are either infected or die trying to do something really really stupid afterward. No wonder our characters have done so well up until now, their actions seem tame and sensible in comparison to what the majority of survivors think is a wise move, once the world is screaming and the hordes are after your brains.

  But even with so many obstacles there were some of the hacking community still Online. Those that lived in remote areas where they had backup power already installed. Some that worked at data centers had managed to either eliminate infected colleagues or lock themselves in rooms where they were slowly starving to death and had nothing to lose. Some of the community had also been survivalists. Ready for armageddon, now holed up in bunkers with enough battery power to last them for weeks at a time — as long as the sun shone on a regular basis. With a handful of eco-minded hackers also Online the community had a lot to talk about, but no idea what to do.

  Survivalist forums were very similar, most members had been infected. Just because you expect the end of days it doesn't mean you are given a get out of jail free card. The majority fell prey to the botnet the same as the rest of the world, but there were always going to be exceptions. Those that had good off-grid systems didn't need mains electricity. Many lived in places that were rural, had their own water supply, with food enough for months. Then they risked it all to go to their favorite forum, to see what people they had never met were saying about the state of the world.

  None of it was good news of course. There were zombies after all. Many killed themselves, unable to face the reality of what they had been waiting for. Countless eventually slowly starved once the food ran out. The majority, however, were simply infected by their obsession with getting back Online.

  Stories with one common denominator were repeated all over the world. No-one could stay away from the lure of the hashtag — the gaping void left when they couldn't while away a few hours looking at dogs on skateboards needed to be filled. People needed their fix of young pop stars shaking their butts. No more videos of men draped in gold, fingering their chains and wearing hats at odd angles, was simply too much to imagine.

  As the days went by the numbers dwindled. A lack of power for most people meant the end of Instagram and Twitter, power to computers was gone — mobile devices gradually ran out of battery life. After just a few days the infection had claimed nearly all the victims it ever would, survivors mostly made up of people that could either handle the withdrawal symptoms or didn't see the point of Twitter, although they were very much in the minority. Surely everyone was on Twitter, or at least Facebook, weren't they?

  What this meant was that the most popular hangout for hackers was the most populated corner of the Web for a while, it being made up of people that had better than average computer knowledge, even if they were mostly young kids that just so happened to know where their dad's backup generator was, and could Google how to connect it to the mains without getting electrocuted.

  It didn't last, they either all starved to death or were hunted down and eaten by the infected eventually. That, or they ran out of power, or just sat there staring at the monitor — there was no-one else left to talk to any more.

  Cassie Goes "Ooh"

  "Ooh," said Cassie, wide-eyed and looking big man Al up and down. [I told you didn't I? It says it right there in the chapter title.]

  "I am Alex," said Al. Wait for it... wait for it... "but you can call me Al." There was a moment's silence as Cassie pondered the introduction.

  "Oh, ha ha, good one," chortled Cassie, smiling and looking quizzically at Mike and Kyle, and the 'special needs' bus.

  Al smiled happily, always pleased when people liked his number one best joke.

  Ven, hugging Tomas tight, smiled at Al, and looked inquiringly at Mike and Kyle, wondering why they had a minibus and not her Subaru.

  "Where's my car?"

  "Someone nicked it so we had to take the special needs bu— the people carrier, minibus, whatever it is. Al had the keys so I drove it back," said Mike. Definitely emphasizing the fact that no other bugger could drive.

  "I have words to say, and I would like the order to be right, please," said Al.

  Everyone waited expectantly, and just as the silence was getting a little uncomfortable, with everyone thinking it would be be a very good idea to get back inside and barricade the doors, Al spoke. "I would like to thank Mike and Kyle for being a friend to me now, and I am happy to meet such lovely ladies. I am also very much liking little children and fat dogs too."

  Kyle snickered, Mike smiled, Bos Bos wagged, Tomas gurgled and Cassie and Ven didn't have a chance to do anything. Al put one giant arm around each of them and hugged them tight. Each of his hands was large enough to wrap right around the throat of an adult male, but he held the two sisters gently but firmly. It felt like being wrapped in love by a friendly bear.

  When released Ven appraised the man, he sure was big, no doubt about that. "Well, you're a big one aren't you," stated Ven.

  "It is," said Al, misunderstanding, some would say intentionally. You can't beat a bit of autistic humor. Al did like a joke.

  Cassie loved him instantly. And Ven took a shine to him too, which was very unusual. Even Bos Bos, normally wary of other males went over for a sniff.

  "Hello tubby," said Al. "Will you have a name?" He stroked Bos Bos' head, the little dog almost going 'splat' under the weight of the giant hand.

  "He," said Ven, "is called Boscoe." Wait for it... wait for it... "but you can call him Bos Bos." It didn't quite work like Al's introduction did, but at least Ven was back to normal: neurotic, obsessed with her own immediate self, and as we have just seen — not usually very funny.

  Everyone just stared. Tumbleweed may as well have been rolling by.

  "Um, let's get inside shall we?" said Mike. "It's not exactly the best place to be standing is it? What with the zombies and all. Those fuckers will—"

  "Mike, that is ten pence you must now be putting in the swearing box," said Al solemnly.

  Ven and Cassie stared, open-mouthed.

  Kyle smirked, he really liked this guy, and Al held out his hand for the money.

  "But, but I don't have ten pence," Mike protested feebly. Feeling about twelve and not liking this new rule one little bit.

  Motherfucker, he thought. Not wanting to owe another ten pence so soon.

  Mike made sure to lock the minibus, then made sure that the Land Rover was locked too. It was obvious now that it was every man for himself if people would leave you stranded without a means of escape.

  They entered the chapel, Bos Bos scampering about, glad to have everyone back together, and pleased to have a new friend too. He had taken the time outside to relieve himself, he now felt like a new dog. The poor Lab had been very out of sorts since the zombie apocalypse had hit, he hadn't been on his regular twice-daily walks, and he didn't know when he was allowed to do his business any more.

  Al was the last to enter, making the sign of the cross as he did so.

  "You religious then," asked Cassie, turning and seeing him make the sign.

  "I have not been able to unde
rstand the God, but I saw on my own TV that you should do the cross when you enter, so I am doing it," said Al knowledgeably.

  "Fair enough."

  After some settling down and discussions about the events of the morning, Mike filling in Ven and Cassie on what happened and the state of the town, they all gathered to pick the best place to try to make for. It was an important decision and one that would hopefully allow then to be safe for some time. Food was going to be a real issue very soon, so it was also hoped that their destination would be well stocked.

  If not then plans would have to be made to go out on excursions to see just what they could salvage. Nobody was looking forward to that, each time they ventured forth the risk of being eaten increased. Those infected by the virus would be getting hungrier and more rabid by the day — there was a lot less to choose from now for your discerning zombie.

  Finally, a decision was made.

  The best they could find was a sixteenth century manor house called Tŷ y Diafol that was not too far away, and seemed to have everything they would need.

  At least they hoped it would.

  ###

  While they were planning their next move Sarlic Acwell lay slowly decomposing in his chair.

  It had now been five days since the botnet, which he had corrupted to teach Ven and the world a lesson, had gone live. After watching the world burn on TV, knowing that his vengeance had been taken on a world he never cared for, Sarlic had cleansed his frail and cancer ridden body of its pain by enjoying his last moments with half a bottle of very good whiskey, numerous pills, and a sickening smile.

  His employers, if they had still been alive, would have been very disappointed with his actions. He was yet to hand over his final research — the reason he had been employed by them all these years. Sarlic had ensured that it could never be accessed until his work was complete.