HVZA (Book 1): Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse

by Zimmermann, Linda

  I wasn’t sure how to break all the news to Phil, but as he undoubtedly assumed his entire family was dead, I would just carry the boy right in to him so we could start with the good news. Even though the child was not responsive, the sight of his son might be the best medicine for both of them. We had brought along some of the boy’s clothes, so, after wiping off the bulk of the grime, I changed him into something clean, and let’s say, less fragrant, than what he had been wearing the last few weeks. No sense having the stench and filth reminding Phil of the horrible place where he had just come from.

  When we got back to the house, I hadn’t figured on the dog disrupting my plans. As dogs usually do, he bolted through the door and ran straight to Phil’s room. The dog launched himself on top of Phil and started licking his face with unrestrained joy. It warmed my heart to actually hear Phil laughing as I came down the hall carrying his son. And I thought my heart would break when I saw the look on Phil’s face when he set eyes on his beloved little boy.

  Phil had no words, just tears, as the miracle he had been praying for had been realized, at least in part. I could have stayed and cried along with him, but I didn’t want to intrude on such a personal moment. And to be honest, it was just too damned upsetting, because mixed in with the joy of seeing his son, was the devastating realization that the rest of his family was indeed dead.

  While I spent the next few days taking care of Phil and his son, some of Cam’s men joined the “garrison” of Fort Ace on a raid of the local hospital. I’m sorry I missed it, as it was apparently quite a battle to clear the place of zombies. The flamethrowers, chainsaws, and homemade grenades certainly gave the humans an edge in firepower over zombie teeth, but the sheer number of zombie teeth in the estimated 250 walking corpses they confronted made it an extremely dangerous—and in fact, deadly—operation. Two men were killed and several badly bitten. Fortunately, Eradazole staved off any zombie infections, and I was happy to hear that Greg was able to tend to the bites and get everyone who had been wounded on antibiotics to stave off the more common infections.

  The day after the hospital was declared a “Safe Zone,” I left Cam to watch over the big and little Phils while I did some shopping. My shopping list was quite extensive—everything from surgical tools, diagnostic equipment, and sterilizers, to bandages, sutures, syringes, and every drug I could get my hands on. What I couldn’t stuff in the Humvee was loaded into pickup trucks and would be kept at Cam’s compound until I could bring the big army truck to get it all.

  Of course, I left more than enough of everything for the Fort Ace people. And I actually spent the entire next day helping to transport their most serious cases and get them on proper courses of treatment, wherever possible. One woman had been scheduled for a kidney transplant right before the shit hit the fan, and a man needed a quadruple bypass. There wasn’t much I could do for them except try to make them as comfortable as possible.

  I actually loved that time I put in at the hospital on those days. Even if it was just for a few hours, it gave me a sense of normalcy again. It reminded me of who I was and who I wanted to be—the diagnostician and healer, not the machine gun-toting mass murderer of zombies. If I was going to survive this apocalypse for any length of time, I needed to be a doctor as often as possible to maintain my humanity and sanity. I decided right then and there that I would set up some sort of survivor clinic somewhere, and do whatever I could to help the human race stay in the race. And maybe just once in a while I would squeeze off a few rounds of the .50 cal just for fun.

  Even though Phil was nothing like the witty, confident, brilliant man he used to be, Phil’s son and the dog were the best medicine for him, and he was up and around sooner than I thought. There’s nothing to make someone forget his own troubles like having a loved one need your help. But even though Phil patiently and compassionately fed, bathed, and attended to his son’s every need, the boy was still unresponsive and his muscles were rigid. I was able to ease that rigidity with some of the benzodiazepines I got from the hospital, but drugs were not the long term solution for the traumatized boy. And I certainly didn’t think that bringing the boy back to the farmhouse was the answer, either.

  We didn’t need the boy to speak to get a fairly complete picture of the horror that had taken place there. When the zombies had attacked the farmhouse, Phil Jr. must have run and hidden under the porch. He had to have heard the screams of his mother, sister, and grandparents as they were being slaughtered. Even worse, he was most likely under the porch the entire time that the zombies were slowly consuming his grandma and grandpa directly above him. And, the fact that we found him with cookies and bottles of water meant that after the zombies had left, he had to have gone into the kitchen, right by the mutilated corpse of his mother, to get that food and water.

  I tried to explain to Phil as gently as possible that the scene of carnage we found at the farmhouse made it an unhealthy psychological and emotional environment for both him and his son, and that under no circumstances should they return there. I offered to have them come live with me, and Cam and the people at Fort Ace also invited them to stay. But Phil was adamant. The farmhouse was his wife’s family home for generations, and his son’s birthright, and he wouldn’t let anything keep them from being a happy family there again!

  “Wow! Talk about denial!” Cam said when I told him of Phil’s plans to return to the farmhouse as soon as possible. “But who are we to tell a man what’s best for him and his son? I know you think you can tell him, but everyone has to make their own decisions.”

  I don’t know who was right. All I knew was that as a result of the zombie apocalypse, Phil was now a ruined man. And Phil, Jr. was a ruined child.

  Scavengers: Without question, one of the most important weapons in my medical arsenal was Eradazole, and I was running very low. If I was going to try to set up some sort of clinic, I would need as much Eradazole as possible to dispense to every patient. I could have tried going to West Point and begging for another case of the drug (and maybe a few more pounds of poisoned cow brains), but even an entire case would not last long.

  I certainly had not forgotten when the soldier had told me that a tractor trailer full of Eradazole had been lost somewhere near Livingston Manor, so I told Cam about it. He knew his crew was itching for another adventure, so he sent out some scouts.

  It wasn’t long before the men discovered the Tilson, Brotger, and Company truck. It was obviously involved in an accident with a bread delivery truck and both vehicles had flipped over and rolled into the woods. The drivers had been killed or severely wounded—and subsequently eaten by the undead—and every loaf of bread had been taken from the delivery truck by the living. Fortunately, even though the T, B & Company truck had been broken into, its precious cargo was intact. Obviously, the scavengers had no clue what Eradazole was. (And had anyone swallowed a few to see if it would give them a buzz, the only thing they would have gotten was a nasty case of the runs.)

  It was a rainy and chilly morning when I eased the big army truck out of my driveway. I felt naked without the armor and machine gun on my Humvee, but I overcompensated with myriad personal defense weapons covering my body and filling the passenger seat. What I lacked in caliber I certainly made up in quantity.

  I would meet Cam and his men at the T, B & Co. truck as they would be getting a head start unloading the Eradazole, and also filling their own trucks with as many cases as they could carry to store at the compound. Being a worrier by nature, Cam made me call him every 15 minutes to let him know I was okay and where I was, “in case we have to rescue you,” he said.

  Everything was going fine, both with my trip and their unloading, until I made a call just before I reached Liberty. Cam didn’t answer his phone, but I thought maybe he had his hands full or was taking a piss (which believe me, would also have made his hands full). I gave it another five minutes and called again. Still no answer. My heart beat faster and I pushed the accelerator to the floor.

  One thin
g Cam had drilled into my head was that you only came barging into a situation when you understood the nature of that situation. When you didn’t have a clue as to what lay ahead, you used stealth—not one of my strong points. But since I didn’t know whether this was simply a problem with the phones, zombies, or a confrontation with other human scavengers, I would heed his advice and try stealth.

  When I was about a quarter of a mile from the coordinates they had given me, I crossed over to the southbound side of Route 17 and pulled the truck into the woods as far as possible. In addition to all the pistols strapped to my body, I shouldered a shotgun, the M16, and a rifle with a precision long-range scope and military-grade sound suppressor (another gift from Cam). I wanted to be prepared for anything.

  When my boots hit the ground I broke into a run, trying to keep just inside the tree line to remain hidden. My senses were on full alert, and I told myself that if there was a large pack of zombies ahead, I would hightail it back to the truck and then come barging in with at least some vehicular protection. I prayed this was all paranoia on my part, and we would all be laughing about this in a few minutes. Unfortunately, the sudden gunshot just a hundred yards ahead dashed those hopes.

  I didn’t break stride, but I did move a little deeper into the woods. As I got closer, I heard shouting, and could see the overturned trucks and several men. There was a rocky rise overlooking the trucks, so I crept up to the highest point to assess the situation. I had to actually clamp a hand over my mouth to stop from crying out at what I saw.

  Through the rifle scope I saw Cam’s men in a line on their knees with their hands behind their heads. There was at least one man face down on the pavement in a pool of blood. God, please don’t let that be Cam! About ten dirty, scummy looking men and women held Cam’s men at gunpoint, and one woman off to the side was kicking a man to the ground while laughing with delight at the pain she was inflicting.

  I had witnessed many people die in the hospital, but I never killed a human being before. I had made it my life’s work to help others. I had been taught that it was a sin to take a life. But after surveying the scene, I didn’t hesitate to think: If I’m going to sin, I had better make every shot count.

  My parents had loved old movies, and we spent many a Saturday night with a big bowl of popcorn and the likes of Cary Grant, Bette Davis, and my dad’s personal favorite, Gary Cooper. I must have seen Cooper in Sergeant York a dozen times, and I remembered how he would always shoot the last man in the line so the soldiers in front didn’t know they were under attack. I was no Tennessee marksmen and these weren’t the trenches of WWI, but it was a sound strategy, and one I would employ immediately.

  The crosshairs of the scope centered on the back of the bleach-blond, greasy-haired kicker’s head. I held my breath and applied a slow, even pressure to the trigger. The gun only made a soft, metallic, popping sound, but the kicker now lay sprawled across the pavement, twitching for a second or two as blood poured from her gaping head wound. Actually, there was far more wound than head left.

  The man who had been being kicked—I now recognized him as the plumber, Josh—looked around in surprise, but didn’t question his good luck. He grabbed the dead woman’s guns and scrambled behind one of the trucks. I quickly scanned the area and no one seemed to notice what had happened. My next targets were two men standing guard in the road, each about 100 feet from the others, one to the east, and one to the west. The eastern most man was an easy shot, but because of the trees I couldn’t get a clear shot on the other’s head or heart. I would have to take a shot at his abdomen and hope he didn’t cry out. Fortunately, the bullet in his stomach made him double over. A second quick shot to the top of his skull guaranteed his silence.

  That was the easy part. There were still seven left, and they were all too close to Cam’s men. If the scavenger’s saw one of their own go down, they would probably open fire on the defenseless men. There were two shooters (me and Josh) against seven, and I needed to even the odds. But how?

  There wasn’t a moment to lose, as the scavengers might notice their fallen comrades at any second, so I did the only thing I could do—scream at the top of my lungs.

  “Help! Help! Zombies! Oh god, somebody help me! Ahhhhhhhh!”

  There was considerable alarm amongst both the scavengers and Cam’s men, who tried to stand up, but were bludgeoned down with rifle butts. I kept screaming bloody murder, though, and finally, four of the scavengers ran into the woods towards me. And they were running in straight line, front to back. Perfect!

  The woman in the back of the line couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, but I couldn’t discriminate because of age. Unfortunately, as I was now aiming at a moving target, I was a little off and shot her in the throat. She fell to her knees on the cold, muddy ground, desperately trying to stem the spurting arterial blood, but she was quickly face down and still. The third guy was actually wearing a Dallas Cowboys t-shirt.

  Are you fucking kidding me? I said to myself. Could I be this lucky a second time?

  My crosshairs settled nicely into the center of the blue star on his chest, which suddenly started overflowing with red.

  The second guy (or was it a woman?) was one fat, ugly, son of a bitch. I’m doing the human race a favor by pulling the plug on this contaminated gene pool, I thought, as pieces of the back of his/her skull now scattered around him/her.

  The sound of his/her heavy mass hitting the ground attracted the lead runner, and he looked back. Realizing it wasn’t zombies, he darted behind a tree and started shouting, “Ambush, ambush!” Gunfire erupted back by the trucks, and my focus shifted from him to the three other scavengers. The scene was chaotic as Cam’s men were on their feet fighting, and I couldn’t tell who was who. And as I couldn’t get a clear shot at the man behind the tree, I just had to wait to see what panned out.

  I watched nervously through the scope at the tangle of men by the trucks. Thankfully, they quickly untangled and I saw Cam holding a bloody knife standing over a body.

  He’s alive!

  I couldn’t be sure how they killed the other two scavengers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been by their bare hands. That only left one scavenger.

  “Hey, Shithead,” I yelled. “All your friends are dead. Unless you care to join them, throw down your weapons, now!”

  A moment or two passed and a small revolver was tossed onto the ground.

  “Do you think I’m stupid? I saw you carrying a rifle!”

  Another few moments passed, then the rifle was tossed. Followed by another revolver, two knives, and a can of pepper spray.

  “That’s better,” I said. “Now come out slowly with your hands up.”

  When the man emerged from behind the tree, I saw that he was just a teenager, maybe fourteen or fifteen. I eased my finger off the trigger and shouted to Cam. He and five others jogged back into the woods, right past the line of the three dead scavengers. I came down from my sniper perch to greet him.

  “Holy shit, Trues!” he said giving me a big hug. “I mean, holy shit!”

  What the moment lacked in vocabulary was more than compensated for in emotion as I hugged him back hard. I was about to say how much I still loved him, and how afraid I was that I had lost him, when another shot rang out. I spun around raising my rifle, but Cam reached out and knocked the end of my weapon toward the ground.

  “It’s okay, Trues. It’s over now,” he said, keeping his hand on my rifle.

  It took me a second to realize what had happened. One of Cam’s men was holding a pistol and standing over the body of my prisoner, who had just been executed in cold blood with a bullet between his eyes.

  “What the fuck did you do, you son of a bitch! He was unarmed! He was just a kid!” I shouted in outrage and disbelief.

  I guess I looked like I was about to launch myself at the man with the pistol, because Cam wrapped his arms around me to restrain me. I started to struggle to break free.

  “Trues, that kid was the o
ne who shot and killed Erich, just for fun,” Cam said, as I stopped struggling and just let my body go limp.

  This is what has become of humanity. This is what has become of me! I kill people. Kids kill people. Zombies kill everyone. Is it even worth trying to stay alive anymore?

  Chapter 13

  Phase 13: Smokin: My favorite Christmas show—in fact, one of my favorite shows period—is without question Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. While most kids identified with Rudolph’s struggles to be socially accepted, I always felt more of an affinity with Hermey, as he wanted to become a dentist as much as I wanted to be a doctor. And who didn’t love Yukon Cornelius, who saved Rudolph and Hermey from the Abominable Snow Monster of the North (a.k.a. the Bumble) by creating a raft of sorts by chopping off a piece of ice on the water to float away to safety. Yukon knew his enemy, as he said, “Observe the Bumble's one weakness...The Bumble sinks!”

  Well, from experience, I knew of one weakness in the Abominable Zombies—they sank, too. So when it came to weighing all the factors as to where I should have my clinic, I wanted it to have the protection of water. And from all my years of boating on the Hudson, I knew the perfect spot--Bannerman’s Island. Anyone who owned a boat knew about this island with its dramatic, castle-like ruins. And for those who didn’t have a boat, it was close enough to the shore of Beacon that we could have a quick ferry service back and forth. For people who could make it to the Cornwall or Newburgh docks, we could also arrange some sort of shuttle service.

  The weather was getting cold, and we already had a few days with snow showers, so time was of the essence. Once roads became covered in snow and the river froze, travel would be impossible. Another major concern would be security. I was afraid that desperate survivors would kill to get more than their fair share of medical supplies and Eradazole. As badass as Cam’s men were, I didn’t think they would be enough, so I also contacted PayRay.