HVZA (Book 1): Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse

by Zimmermann, Linda

  The point of this story isn’t to just freak you out, it’s to illustrate what was the effect of the four-week quarantine in the Hudson Valley. If, at the start of quarantine, one member of the household was infected, the entire family was then infected after a few weeks of being cooped up together. Apartment buildings full of infected tenants all switched at once. Some people thought that there was safety in numbers and had gathered in office buildings and stores at the start of quarantine, and had securely padlocked and nailed shut all the doors and windows to protect themselves from the outside world. And if just one of their group switched, they were trapped inside with the hungry zombie, and rarely got out alive or uninfected.

  By the end of the fourth week, whole families of zombies began pouring out into the streets. From apartment buildings throughout the valley, ten or fifteen floors of zombie tenants staggered down stairways and onto the sidewalks looking to feed. What might have been treatable with all the new drugs if just one member of a family was infected, or one family in an apartment complex, was now like trying to hold back an avalanche with a snow shovel.

  In short, the quarantine sped up the both the rate of infection and the frequency of switching to a level that was beyond control. In essence, the Great Quarantine that the ZAP commercials assured us would protect humanity, had in fact, assured the zombie apocalypse.

  There are Many Ways to Get Screwed: Everybody was used to the government screwing us with taxes. Then there were the small businesses who got screwed with countless regulations, wounded veterans screwed out of benefits, the poor and disabled of this country who continued to suffer while billions of dollars flowed overseas to governments who hated our guts—I could write a book just about that.

  But the biggest screw job of all, the pièce de résistance of the government making us bend over and take it in the ass, occurred in the final days of the fourth week of quarantine. While ZAP ads hailed the quarantine as a great success and insisted that on Thursday, October 11, citizens of the Hudson Valley could emerge from their homes into a safe and secure world, zombies now roamed unmolested in the streets in large packs, as Quarantine Enforcement Teams had secretly been pulled out to protect government buildings and installations in other parts of the country.

  The army doctors and support personnel working at ParGenTech had become close with our staff—you know, the whole bonding in times of crisis stuff—and they were quite open and forthcoming with their inside information. That information was simple and direct—the Hudson Valley was a “lost cause” and all non-military people would be on their own. All army medical staff would be airlifted to other research facilities, while support personnel were to report to West Point, which was apparently one of the safest places in the country.

  “We have a zero tolerance policy for zombies in the army,” Sgt. Pelton told me, almost in the form of an actual joke.

  Unfortunately, all of the devoted ParGenTech staff who had been working around the clock for a cure were screwed. We would not be airlifted anywhere, and we would not be allowed into West Point. It was made clear to us that we could try to continue our research, but no more food and supplies would be brought in, and our armed guards would be gone.

  Phil spent days fighting with government officials in Washington to keep us operational and protected, and just when it looked like he might succeed, he got a phone call from his wife. The connection was intermittent and full of static, but her desperate cries for help were unmistakable even with only hearing every third or fourth word. Then the line went dead.

  In less than ten minutes he was packed and in his car. I pleaded with Phil to let me go with him, but he insisted it was too dangerous. I tried to give him one of my guns, but he had already liberated a few from the army. I would have begged him not to go, explaining how we needed him here, and how the chances of saving his family were remote if they were under attack, but I didn’t waste my breath. All I could do was give him a hug and tell him to contact me when he reached his family, or if he ever needed help.

  Then he was gone, and I didn’t know if I would ever see him again.

  I was upset and angry beyond words. Angry that our government was abandoning us as a lost cause, and angry that we were so close to finding a successful treatment for the severely infected. With Phil gone and the army leaving, it was clear that it was pointless for the ParGenTech staff to remain, but that didn’t mean I was giving up.

  If I couldn’t remain at ParGenTech, I would take as much of ParGenTech with me as I could. During the several days of chaos of the army’s gradual withdrawal, Sergeant Pelton helped me “borrow” one of their trucks that was going to be left behind anyway, or so he said. Then he and a few of my co-workers helped box up and load as much lab equipment and supplies as we could stuff into that truck, along with cases of medical supplies that had been left behind in the makeshift hospital, and crates full of emergency rations. I wasn’t sure what I would do with it all, but when facing a survival situation, it’s always better to horde now and ask questions later.

  Although there was plenty of commotion at first, the evacuation of ParGenTech appeared to be going relatively smoothly, until the morning I was preparing to leave, when I heard gunfire outside. I didn’t know if it was the living looking for food and weapons, or the dead looking for food, but I wasn’t about to wait in my lab to find out. Grabbing my guns I rushed for the stairwell and took the stairs two and three at a time to the ground floor.

  When I reached the lobby, I could see through the glass wall that three soldiers were trying to hold back 30 or 40 lean and hungry-looking zombies of all ages and sexes. I knew that the army had some test subjects on site—such as Betty and Barney—but what I didn’t know was that they were keeping dozens of them packed into one of the big trailers. During the confusion of the evacuation someone must have entered or unlocked the wrong trailer, and now the soldiers were surrounded.

  I grabbed the microphone at the reception desk that was linked to the PA system and called for help, but there was no response. I had been concentrating so intensely on saving my work and packing supplies that I didn’t realize everyone else had left. No cavalry was going to charge over the horizon to save our asses.

  Yes, in retrospect I could have locked the doors and stayed inside until all the zombies wandered off, but at that moment the thought never entered my mind for even an instant. With the 9mm Glock in my left hand and the .44 Magnum in my right, I glanced down at my skull tattoo, took a deep breath, and ran right into the fray.

  There were five zombies between me and the soldiers, who had taken cover between some parked cars. Their rate of fire had slowed to the point where I knew they were very low on ammunition. They had obviously been caught by surprise and only had their side arms and perhaps and extra clip or two with them. I slowed down to a steady and measured pace to assure accuracy, and approached the zombie closest to me. He was in a business suit that had obviously cost big bucks, and his shoes probably cost more than my car.

  Must have been a defense lawyer I concluded as I got within fifteen feet before I put a head shot into the side of his $350 haircut.

  At the sound of the shot—I can’t recall which gun I used—the soldiers peered over the hood of one of the cars to see who was backing them up.

  “Becks, get back inside!” one of the soldiers yelled. I recognized the gravelly voice, it was Sgt. Pelton.

  He never called me Becks before, I thought, as I shot the second zombie to my right. She was a bleach-blond wearing way too much makeup that had smeared all over her face after she turned zombie. Definitely not someone I would have associated with in life.

  I think Sgt. Pelton was still yelling at me as I took out the third zombie. This one I admit I hesitated with for a split second. I think he was the kind Pakistani man who ran the convenience store on the corner, where I had gotten many a cup of coffee over of the years. His features had been distorted from weight loss (Weren’t they feeding these zombies?) and some facial decay, but I w
as pretty sure it was him.

  This will be my first kill of someone I know, I thought as I used the Magnum at a distance of only ten feet to make sure I wouldn’t need a second shot.

  Seeing that I was clearing a path for them, the three soldiers used their only two remaining rounds to take out the other two zombies between them and the building. Then they sprinted towards me and when they were within a few yards and I was certain they were safe, I turned and ran toward the building, as well. Once inside, we locked the doors and pushed some furniture in front of them, as the two dozen or so remaining zombies all turned toward their escaped meals. Within minutes they were all pressing their hideous faces against the glass wall trying to get to us, but it was clear the thick glass would hold.

  “What the fuck were you thinking, ma’am, if you don’t mind my asking,” Sgt. Pelton shouted, as if a new recruit had just broken a golden rule.

  “I was thinking I was saving your ass,” I shouted back. “But thanks for asking.”

  “We had the situation under control,” he stubbornly insisted.

  “I see, two bullets for 30 zombies,” I countered. “That must be some sort of army math.”

  The other two soldiers started to laugh until their sergeant shot them a look.

  “Don’t you two have some zombies to kill?”

  “Yes sir!” they replied in unison.

  He then told them to grab some rifles and go up to the roof to “eliminate the remaining combatants.”

  “Look, I really appreciate what you did,” he said with all sincerity once his men had gone, “but I never want you to put yourself at risk like that again.”

  This was genuine, heartfelt emotion the Granite Sergeant was expressing! It took a massive zombie attack to pry open that stony exterior, but finally there was crack in his armor. I was about to reciprocate with something equally sentimental, when he got a strange look on his face and suddenly lunged at me.

  I didn’t know if he was going to tackle me or try to kiss me. His arms reached up as if he was going for my throat, but an instant before he reached me, a strong, cold pair of hands grabbed my shoulders from behind. A zombie must have gotten into the building!

  Sgt. Pelton flung himself between me and the tall, male zombie, then landed a hard right hook into the attacker’s face. The zombie’s head whipped over to the side and he went backward a step or two, but then grabbed Pelton, snapping at him with filthy, blood-crusted teeth. They both fell onto a glass table—covered in ParGenTech brochures—which shattered beneath them, but they were quickly back on their feet, locked in a violent struggle. I couldn’t get a clear head shot with them so close together, so I dropped down and put a round right into the zombie’s right kneecap. He didn’t flinch or cry out, but his leg did buckle beneath him.

  He supported himself with his other leg and never loosened his grasp of Pelton, and never stopped trying to bite him. I sidestepped around the struggling men and blew away the zombie’s left kneecap. He tried to hang onto the sergeant, until a sharp blow to the throat finally knocked him to the floor. The zombie appeared disoriented for a moment, but then rolled over and used his hands to pull himself forward, his teeth continuing to snap at us.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I shouted, as I fired both the Glock and the Magnum into his skull. “Die, you motherfucking son of a bitch!”

  I don’t know how many times I fired before Sgt. Pelton grabbed my wrists.

  “It’s over, Becks,” he said, a moment before he wavered, then dropped to his knees.

  “What is it? Did he bite you?” I said, dropping my weapons and feeling his face and neck for wounds.

  “Here,” he whispered as his hand reached behind him.

  When I looked at his back, I saw a large, triangular piece of the glass table sticking out from the left side of his rib cage, with blood flowing freely down his camo jacket. I couldn’t tell how deep the glass had penetrated, but I was afraid it might have punctured a lung, or worse, his heart. I gently helped him move away from the pool of infected zombie blood that was inching toward him, then ran for the PA microphone.

  The soldiers didn’t respond, and a moment later the sounds of gunshots from above and the sight of zombie brains exploding onto the front glass wall of the lobby told me they were already on the roof.

  “Don’t you fucking die on me,” I said to Pelton as I gave him the Glock in case other zombies had made it inside. “That’s an order!”

  Fortunately, the elevator was still working, but precious seconds ticked by as I tried to find the stairwell from the top floor to the roof. The soldiers were just finishing off the last zombie when I reached them. I told them their sergeant was badly injured and would explain on the way back down to the lobby. Pelton was barely conscious by the time we returned, and the soldiers used one of the white, Italian leather couches in the lobby as a stretcher as we rushed him to the warehouse hospital, or what was left of it.

  We managed to scrounge up some surgical instruments and a few units of plasma. I would have preferred whole blood or packed cells, but plasma was better than nothing. I was grateful to find that the soldiers had both received some basic emergency medical training and were very helpful getting Pelton prepped and sedated. I had dealt with all kinds of wounds before, but always under an experienced physician’s supervision, never on my own. If there was a torn coronary artery or a deep penetration into the lung, I didn’t know what I would do.

  I tried to work as quickly as possible, knowing that every second could count if he was bleeding internally. Thank god, that wasn’t the case. A long spike of glass had penetrated, but it had gone laterally just under the ribs, instead of angling downwards. A slightly different trajectory, and Pelton would have bled out in minutes.

  Once I removed all the fragments of glass and got him stitched up, I checked the rest of his body for other wounds, especially bite marks. I didn’t see anything at first and was about to breathe a sigh of relief, when I noticed his right hand—his knuckles, to be exact. My heart skipped a beat.

  I had seen enough results of bar fights in the ER, and I knew when a person’s hand had gotten torn up by hitting someone in the teeth. Usually, if left untreated that could lead to a nasty bacterial infection. However, when those teeth belonged to a zombie, that could lead to a fatal parasitic infection.

  I hadn’t packed all the QK drugs onto the truck, so I could administer some preventative doses into his spinal fluid and bloodstream. But I didn’t dare do so until he was conscious, just in case he had an allergic reaction. I explained all this to the two soldiers who looked oddly at me, then looked at one another, whispering something back and forth.

  “Is there a problem?” I asked, at a complete loss.

  “Uh, ma’am, that might not be necessary,” one of them finally said.

  “Of course it’s necessary!” I replied. “The sergeant was most likely infected when he cut his hand on the zombie’s teeth. He has to be treated.”

  “Yes, of course he has to be treated,” the other soldier said, avoiding eye contact. “It’s just all that IV stuff and spinal injections aren’t necessary.”

  I was about to try to explain the entire treatment procedure to them again, when he pulled an orange prescription bottle out of a zippered pocket and handed it to me. I spun the bottle around to read the label.

  Eradazole, 250mg. Take one tablet within 24 hours of suspected infection.

  Tilson, Brotger, and Company, Rochester, NY

  I had heard about a lot of drugs, but this was a new one on me. However, I certainly recognized the company name, as they had been working on the “morning after” drug to fight the infection. We had been told that so far they had no success.

  “What the hell is this?” I asked, as my anger quickly rose to a boiling point.

  “If you get bitten or get zombie blood on you, you’re supposed to take one of these pills and you’ll be okay. But you need to do it right away. They call it the Zombie Morning After Pill,�
� one of the soldiers said, with his eyes fixed on the floor.

  “How long have you had these,” I demanded.

  “A few weeks now,” the other replied, seemingly more afraid of me now, than he had ever been of his sergeant.

  It wasn’t hard for me to convince them to tell me everything they knew.

  Apparently, the drug had been issued first to all military personnel and some crucial government employees. Supposedly, about ten days ago a big shipment in a tractor trailer was bringing Eradazole to the Hudson Valley for law enforcement, first responders, doctors and nurses, power and water company personnel, etc., but something happened to the truck on Route 17 near Livingston Manor. There might have been an accident, an attack, or both, they weren’t sure, but the shipment never made it. Then all hell broke loose and the military started withdrawing.

  “And I guess everyone kind of forgot about the truck,” the soldier concluded, still staring at the floor.

  Screwed yet again by the government! God forbid they help the thousands of people getting infected every day. God forbid they let everyone know that there’s some hope. How many lives could have been saved in just this last week if the shipment had gotten through, and the Eradazole had been given out with the rations?

  I was seething with anger, but I knew it wasn’t fair to take it out on these two soldiers. I thanked them for their help, and asked them to immediately take Sergeant Pelton up to West Point with them so he could get proper medical attention.

  “Sorry, ma’am, but we aren’t going to West Point,” one of the soldiers replied. “All hell has broken loose in Manhattan, and we’ve been ordered down to the George Washington Bridge to prevent anyone from crossing until they can rig the charges.”