ZOMBIE'S DOOM? Chronicles of Jack Doom

by Will Lemen

  Rage began to overtake me as I watched a group of ten zombies approach, intending on having my dead family and me for brunch.

  Feelings of hopelessness along with the anger swept over me. I knew it was too late to help my family now, but I could take out my wrath on the small advancing zombie troop, and that's exactly what I did.

  Without a moment of hesitation, I tossed my rifle onto the hard concrete road and pulled my tomahawk from my tactical vest.

  I waded into the slobbering mass of ravenous cannibalistic undead with a vengeance.

  Hacking wildly at them, I made my way to the back of the mob, hewing off their limbs and cleaving their heads as I went. Then I turned around and marched back through the ones that had been spared in my first assault, and decimated the remaining zombies one by one, as they approached me.

  As I killed the zombies, visions of Gin and the boys flooded my mind, and a bizarre and gruesome phenomenon began to play out.

  As I zealously attacked a female zombie, I saw Gin's eyes staring back at me through the murderous rage on the face of the undead woman.

  At that moment in time something inside me snapped.

  I grabbed the female zombie (which in my mind had chosen to impersonate my now dead wife), by the back of her long dark and matted hair, and plucked out her left eyeball with the pointed end of my weapon.

  As the gelatinous bulb quivered on the end of my tomahawk, dripping blood from the ripped out veins that dangled below it, I showed the extracted left eye to her still attached right one seconds before cramming it back into the eye socket from which it had came.

  By driving the eyeball and the spiked end of my bloody tomahawk back into the socket and deep into her brain, I finally put her out of everybody's misery.

  Billy was next in my mind's eye, as a zombie wearing the same type army shirt as my dead son stumbled toward me.

  With all of the power that my adrenalin-filled muscles could muster, I swung the blade of my razor sharp tomahawk down vertically so hard into the middle of the young zombie's forehead, that it violently split the younger looking monster's face and skull open. Flinging each side of its head several inches apart and exposed his throbbing greenish maggot infested brain without destroying it.

  After splitting its skull, the downward thrust of my weapon was hard enough to sink the hawk deep into the bone of the upper portion of the zombie's rib cage.

  With my edged weapon stuck in the undead cannibal's chest, and with its brain still active, this Billy look-a-like proceeded to claw at me in an attempt to grab my arms and pull me to his malfunctioning disjointed mouth.

  My tomahawk had barely scraped the zombie's brain so its hunger for human flesh was still its only priority.

  Even though its face was in two distinct pieces and it was unable to bite me, it was obvious that the zombie didn't see it that way.

  With my life still in grave danger because of the other, yet to be fed zombies approaching me with the intention to feast. I pulled my Glock 19 from its holster and shoved it into the facial gap my tomahawk had made, and fired six or seven shots with the muzzle of the gun touching the frontal lobes of the zombie's pulsating brain.

  The first two shots sounded muffled, however the blasts from the gun and the bullets that preceded them quickly opened a hole the size of a baseball in the back of the monsters head, and it fell to the ground as I continued to pull the trigger and pump lead into its throbbing gray matter.

  As for the zombie that my mind's eye saw as Jacob, my youngest son?

  Well, what I did to it is too nauseating, too disgusting, and too abhorrent to share with one who has such a delicate stomach as yours.

  Therefore, for the sake of your mental stability and well-being, I will do you a favor and forgo the lurid tale of that particular zombie's ultimate demise, and go on with the story.

  After I regained my sanity, or what was left of it, I harvested the remaining zombies as brutally as time would allow, and then returned to the truck that housed my dead family.

  Never in my life had I felt as sad as I felt that day while burying my wife and sons.

  I slept in the clean Hummer that night, and stayed in that place probably longer than was prudent, watching over the graves of my family. I was determined to make sure that no rogue zombies would claw at the freshly dug graves, and end up digging them up in the middle of the night to quench their bloodthirsty desire to have a midnight snack.

  Early the next morning with a host of zombies on the horizon and heading in my direction, I pulled the "Death Hummer" over the graves of my family, took Jacob's 9mm folding carbine and machete out of the doomed truck, dowsed it with gasoline, and set it on fire as a finally safeguard against any of the undead attempting to rob the graves of my beloved family.

  As I broke the mesmerizing trance of the burning vehicle in front of me, I turned the key and started my vehicle, put it in gear, and I began my quest to find the Sarge.

  Then as fate would have it, a couple hundred yards down the road, and to their chagrin, I encountered the first of many zombies that would be added to my ongoing total of felony hit and runs.

  Back to Contents

  MEANWHILE BACK ABOARD THE MOTHER SHIP

  "Lieutenant Jol!"

  "Yes Captain Xarr?"

  "It has been brought to my attention that test subject group 32452013 has been attacked by some of the pre-extinction bipedal carnivorous creatures that you released onto the planet to save test subject group 32452013 from the overwhelming numbers of the control group that had them surrounded," the captain stated, raising his voice with every word spoken.

  ******

  Lieutenant Jol had not been informed by his underling of this new development in the current events concerning the test subject group 32452013.

  The underling that was responsible for relaying such news to his superior.

  The underling that was scheming to be promoted and replace Lieutenant Jol at his station as second in command.

  The underling that would resort to do this by any means that he deemed necessary to accomplish his nefarious goals.

  That underling was.

  ******

  "My subordinate officer, 2nd Under Prime Lieutenant Zeem has informed me of no such event Captain Xarr!" Lieutenant Jol passionately insisted.

  "Informed or not, test subject group 32452013 has been attacked by one of your pre-extinction bipedal carnivorous creatures.

  I can only surmise that you failed to have the genetic differentiation microchip properly adjusted to insure the success of this particular part of our mission," Captain Xarr barked loudly at Lieutenant Jol.

  "No Captain Xarr, I made all of the proper checks and followed proper protocol to the letter to insure the success of that portion of this mission."

  "So am I to understand that you adhered to all of the checks and balances, followed all of the proper protocol to the letter Lieutenant Jol," the Captain barked again.

  "Yes Captain Xarr!" the lieutenant responded.

  "Yet you still managed somehow to not be informed of the heinous attack on test subject group 32452013? The heinous attack on test subject group 32452013 that I have been told decimated their ranks and left only the progenitor of test subject group 32452013 alive to carry on with our experiment and to help complete our mission successfully."

  "Sir, 2nd Under Prime Lieutenant Zeem has been derelict in his duty by not bringing this issue to my attention!" Lieutenant Jol whined, as he glared at his underling.

  "Captain Xarr, if I may interject?" 2nd Under Prime Lieutenant Zeem interrupted.

  "What is it Lieutenant Zeem?" Captain Xarr asked, glaring at both of his subordinate officers.

  "It is true that only the progenitor of test subject group 32452013 is still alive; however that is only because of the swift action taken by me during the attack of the pre-extinction bipedal carnivorous creatures," the subordinate Lieutenant boasted.

  "What swift action would that be?" asked the Captain, the look o
n his face telegraphing an insistence on a swift and concise answer.

  "Well Captain Xarr, while I was diligently observing the movements of many of the test subject groups down on the planet, and monitoring the activities of the beasts that had been released to different regions of the planet from all of the other Annunaki ships assigned to your fleet.

  I noticed a small drove of the pre-extinction bipedal carnivorous creatures that Lieutenant Jol had inserted the proper microchips into and supposedly correctly calibrated them for this particular mission.

  They were seemingly driving themselves on their own initiative toward the test subject group in question, while ignoring many of the control subject groups within their immediate scope, which I found to be very odd behavior, considering that the animals were allegedly programmed to only attack groups of control subjects.

  Being aware of the possible interaction that might take place between the two groups if they were to meet, and the actions that would need to be taken under such circumstances to curtail any calamity as a result of both groups colliding. I ascertained that any decision to rectify the matter was well above my personal pay grade.

  So with all of the factors in mind, I made a concerted effort to appraise Lieutenant Jol of the situation unfolding on the planet's surface," the gloating 2nd Under Prime Lieutenant answered.

  "And what exactly was Lieutenant Jol's response?" the Captain inquired.

  "Captain Xarr, after repeated attempts to contact Lieutenant Jol, and numerous inquiries as to his whereabouts on the ship, I received no response at all from Lieutenant Jol.

  Later however, the scuttlebutt around the ship was that he was busy cavorting with the gynandromorph that calls itself, I mean herself Patty," 2nd Under Prime Lieutenant Zeem answered, smirking at Lieutenant Jol.

  "That is a complete falsification Captain Xarr, nobody tried to contact me. It is true that I was on deck sixty-nine with the gynandromorphs, but I was not cavorting with them, I was administering their medicine to them. And the one that calls herself, I mean itself Patty was giving me a hard time, and at the same time to use one of the planet's more popular vernaculars, creeping me out.

  I mean have you seen that gynandromorph? Yikes!" Lieutenant Jol said adamantly in his defense, as he denied Lieutenant Zeem's statement while trying to be as convincing as he possibly could.

  "That is what they all say when they get caught Captain Xarr, deny, deny, deny," Lieutenant Zeem responded, still gloating.

  "Indeed they do Lieutenant Zeem, indeed they do," Captain Xarr agreed.

  "Well Captain Xarr, as I was unable to retrieve any guidance from my immediate superior and as time was at a premium. I had no other choice but to take it upon myself to try to salvage what was left of this portion of our mission, and save the remnants of the test subject group 32452013 if there was still time enough to make that goal possible. That is if there was any remnants of the test subject group left to save, after having to waste so much time endeavoring to hunt down Lieutenant Jol." Lieutenant Zeem explained to his Captain.

  "I have noticed a flair for the dramatic in your story of Lieutenant Jol's incompetence," Captain Xarr noted.

  "Yes Captain Xarr," Lieutenant Zeem admitted.

  "Just make sure that your flair does not border on fabrication Lieutenant, or one of the indoctrinating persecution chambers will have your name above the door, minus your rank.

  Is that clear Lieutenant Zeem?" Captain Xarr asked, with a smile.

  "Yes sir, Captain Xarr, perfectly clear."

  As Lieutenant Zeem answered his superior, he thought.

  "If the real truth were known, I would be spending the rest of my miserable existence on a maximum security, hard labor penal colony planet, somewhere in the Qualone Nebula sector, and that is after a very long stent as a guest of the Annunaki Confederation, in a private indoctrinating persecution chamber, just as Captain Xarr had alluded to."

  ******

  The real truth, as 2nd Under Prime Lieutenant Zeem aptly put it, was a fact that he had conveniently left out of his discourse. Which was that he had taken it upon himself as part of his plan of ascension, to secretly readjust the genetic differentiation microchips in a small gaggle of the bipedal predators that could be traced back to Lieutenant Jol, using a remote control mechanism onboard the ship, sometime after Lieutenant Jol had them released onto the planet?

  This nefariously devised readjustment, ultimately caused the attack on as they are referred to by the alien beings, as the test subject group 32452013.

  The planned attack was meant to discredit his superior Lieutenant Jol and cause him to be replaced as second in command of the starship, by the one and only 2nd Under Prime Lieutenant Zeem.

  Unfortunately for Jack, his family was thereby inadvertently and uncaring sacrificed as collateral damage in the process.

  ******

  "But Captain, he's lying, can't you tell by looking at his face?" Lieutenant Jol implored, as he noticeably dropped the authoritarian military protocol, and the linguistic dialect peculiar to the specific region within the Anunnaki Confederation and surrounding quadrants.

  Captain Xarr ignored the blatant lapse in Anunnaki military protocol for the second time, and the lack of regionalism in the speech patterns within the insubordinate plea from Lieutenant Jol.

  In his mind, the Lieutenant's appeal was a pathetic sign of weakness, a trait that he had never tolerated in any of his officers, and he wasn't about to start now.

  "Go on Lieutenant Zeem, what did you do after you decided to take matters into your own hands?" the Captain asked, still glaring at Lieutenant Jol.

  "Captain Xarr, by the time I had made repeated attempts to receive orders from Lieutenant Jol on the matter at hand and received no satisfactory results, the pre-extinction bipedal carnivorous creatures were almost upon test subject group 32452013, and the group had not yet seen the animals approaching.

  In the time it took me to acquire the proper coordinates, and to descend a survival team equipped with the appropriate paraphernalia to successfully complete the task of saving test subject group 32452013, all but one of the members were already dead.

  The remaining member, the progenitor of the group, was placing himself in grave jeopardy in what would have surely been a futile attempt to seek revenge upon his group's attackers that would have certainly resulted in his death also.

  The descended survival team quickly put the lone survivor into a syncope trance and exterminated all of the pre-extinction bipedal carnivorous creatures that had annihilated the other members of his group.

  Then as per directive P2134, the survival team transformed the scene of the incident to depict a contrived falsehood that was derived from the facts that the survivor would remember from before the syncope trance was initiated, and would recall after his consciousness was reinstituted." Lieutenant Zeem recounted in detail.

  "Has the progenitor of the now demised test subject group 32452013 any recollection of the events that took place?" Captain Xarr asked, his unrelenting harsh stare remained fixed on Lieutenant Jol.

  "Captain Xarr, the progenitor's only recollection is that of the fact that the pre-extinction bipedal carnivorous creatures attacked without warning and with malice aforethought, most likely due to the miscalculated settings in the microchip implants, and that their premeditated massacre left his family traveling along another plane of existence somewhere in the cosmos," the 2nd Lieutenant answered.

  "So Lieutenant Zeem, am I to surmise that during the time that you claim to have tried to contact Lieutenant Jol, a claim in which he tenaciously denies I might add. And while you were addressing the problem that arose due to the malfunctioning implanted microchips, that Lieutenant Jol was cavorting with the gynandromorph named Patty on deck 69?" Captain Xarr demanded an answer, as he slammed his fist down on the arm of his command seat.

  "Not exactly Captain Xarr, the genetic differentiation microchips that were implanted in the earther's prehistoric beasts were not malfunctioning
, they were mis-programmed. Although maybe a more precise analogy is that they were dis-programmed.

  Dis-programmed by a staff officer that was more receptive to the needs of a nymphomaniacal gynandromorph named Patty, than to the needs of our mission," Lieutenant Zeem clarified, as he once more smirked at Lieutenant Jol with a look on his face of one whom could be smelling one of his own farts.

  The Captain nonchalantly leaned back in his command chair and looked at both of the lieutenants for a moment, and with a smug look on his face, he then asked.

  "Lieutenant Jol, do you remember when the test subject group 32452013 was facing the overwhelming numbers of control subjects, and I told you that I didn't come half way across this galaxy, leave my female companion and our off springs, spend the last three kronal sections setting up this experiment on this ugly green and blue rock, just to see test subject group 32452013 eliminated prematurely?"

  "Yes Captain Xarr, I do remember that statement," Lieutenant Jol answered, thinking that the temperature control setting on the bridge of the mother ship had been raised to an uncomfortable level, as beads of perspiration formed on his brow. "However Captain, technically test subject group 32452013 has not been prematurely eliminated, the progenitor of test subject group 32452013 is still alive, you said so yourself."

  To address an Annunaki superior officer by only their rank was a grievous breach in the standard military edict, however, again Captain Xarr seemingly chose to ignore the blatant lapse in Anunnaki military protocol.

  "Lieutenant Jol I think I was wrong about you," Captain Xarr said as he smiled in an irritatingly smug and conceited way.

  "Yes Captain Xarr," Lieutenant Jol answered once more, feeling a sense of relief knowing that he had violated a stringent rule of the Annunaki military and apparently gotten away with it.

  "Do you also remember when I told you that under my tutelage you just might make it to the rank of Sub-prime Lieutenant one of these days?