HVZA (Book 1): Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse

by Zimmermann, Linda

  Another problem was that so many people were getting sick and injured that it was difficult to get any other work done. A woman and a young child died of pneumonia, despite my best efforts to save them. People were always falling on the ice and breaking bones. One of the older men fell and hit his head, and he just never woke up again. I tried to keep everyone healthy, but the effects of long term stress, the weather, food rations, and heavy usage of drugs and alcohol were all taking their toll.

  The biggest problem was probably depression, and I know I was a victim of that, as well. As the weeks dragged by, I became lethargic and despondent, and didn’t feel like working anymore. I neglected several ongoing experiments that were ruined as a result. People stopped eating, or ate too much. Chores and maintenance were being neglected. A boy in his teens committed suicide by slashing his wrists. Our once cohesive fighting unit had degenerated into a sick and depressed conglomerate of apathetic people teetering on the brink.

  I admit, the thought of suicide crossed my mind on more than one occasion. It was truly the winter of my discontent; of all our discontent. We had to just try to hold it together so it wasn’t also the winter of our self-destruction.

  Valley Forge: Okay, so maybe we weren’t as bad off as the American troops at Valley Forge—although I would rather fight the British army than an army of zombies. And while Cam was a born leader, he wasn’t exactly George Washington. But he did come up with a brilliant plan to boost morale—a pizza party!

  Cam kept his plan a secret and early one morning several of the men left the compound on snowmobiles. They returned just ahead of two massive snow plow trucks they had “liberated” from the Saugerties Highway Department. Why hadn’t anyone thought of that sooner!

  They had cleared the roads to the compound from their favorite pizza place in town, which used wood-fired ovens. There was plenty of canned sauce and flour in the restaurant storeroom, but their supplies of cheese were frozen masses of black mold. But Cam had even thought of that, as one of the women in the compound grew up on a dairy farm, and for several days she had been secretly turning the milk of Bessie, Millie, Winnie, and Agnes (the compound’s milk cows) into fresh mozzarella.

  You should have heard the shouts of joy when Cam announced over the PA that we were all heading into town for fresh pizza! People who had been lethargic for weeks (including myself) came running into the central courtyard and were hugging each other and laughing like they had just won a war. Ah, the power of pizza!

  The plan was to go in three shifts, so the compound always had an adequate number of defenders. You could never be too careful, especially since they had just plowed a path right to our doorstep. I was in the first shift, so I guess sleeping with the leader had its advantages. I actually put on a nice blouse and a clean pair of jeans, and I even brushed my hair!

  By the time our shift arrived at the pizzeria, the ovens were hot, generators were humming, music was playing, and as I settled into a booth I felt like life and hope were returning. But that was nothing compared to how I felt when the first aromas of baking cheese, sauce, and crust wafted through the air. And as the storeroom had also yielded cans of anchovies and mushrooms, and jars of hot peppers, the air soon smelled good enough to eat.

  The piping hot pizzas were placed on a long table, and everyone tried to be polite—for the first three seconds. Then it was a good-natured free-for-all and within moments all the pans were empty, but there was plenty more where that came from. I was savoring the last few bites of my third piece, thinking that it was a little slice of heaven, when Cam approached me with an odd expression.

  “What’s the matter, did you get some bad anchovies?” I asked, in too good of a mood to consider that anything was wrong.

  “Can I talk to you a moment, Trues,” he said with a forced smile, tilting his head to the side to indicate that he wanted me to follow him.

  We went into the kitchen where three of the men had their pistols drawn and had very concerned looks on their faces. I instinctively drew both of my pistols before anyone said a word.

  “Hold on Trues, let me explain,” Cam said. “We do have a bit of a situation here, but I would like to handle this quietly and discretely if possible.”

  He explained that one of the men heard someone banging on the door in the back corner—a door which now had some tables and cabinet piled up in front of it—and he thought someone had gotten locked in another storeroom. He opened the door and found that it wasn’t a storeroom; it was the basement stairs and a line of zombies tried to rush in. He managed to kick the lead zombie backward and the whole group had tumbled down the stairs. But they were obviously back on their feet as I could see the door and pile of furniture shaking and rattling as the hungry zombies attempted to crash our pizza party.

  “For Christ’s sake, no one thought to check the basement?” I said, then realized pointing fingers wouldn’t help at the moment. “So, we want to take care of this without ruining everyone’s good time?”

  “Exactly,” Cam said, clearly relieved I didn’t press the matter of failing to check out the entire building—of which he was partly to blame. “This first shift is just about over, so I want to wait until they’re gone before we start shooting. And we can tell them to hold back the second shift for a little while to give us some time.”

  “So how are we going to do this so that we aren’t spraying infected blood and guts all over the kitchen?” I asked, now wondering why he hadn’t handled this after I left, as his men were more than capable.

  “Well, that’s the thing,” he replied sheepishly. “There’s a side window at street level, but that only gives us a clear shot at all of them in the back of the basement.”

  “All of them in the back? Wait, how many are we talking about?”

  “Uh, at least thirty, we think,” he said looking at the other men for confirmation, which allowed him to avoid eye contact with me. “They must have been nesting down there for warmth.”

  Good god! Here we had men, women, and children blissfully eating pizza while a ravenous pack of zombies was lurking in the basement right beneath them!

  “Okay, so what do you want me to do?” I asked, not really anxious to hear the answer.

  “There’s a ventilation duct that runs from the dining room to the furnace along the basement ceiling,” Cam said, still not looking right at me. “We kind of thought that if you crawled in there, you would have clear shots through the vents at the rest of the zombies.”

  “And this is your plan? You want me to crawl right over all these zombies?”

  I can’t say that I was pissed, but I can’t say that I wasn’t. Did I really want to take such a risk so that others could eat pizza? I thought for a moment about the ecstasy I experienced with the very first bite, and all the subsequent bites, and realized I couldn’t deny the others that exquisite pleasure, so I agreed to do it. But I made it clear to Cam that he had just lost all moral authority to ever again tell me that one of my plans was too dangerous.

  As soon as the first shift had gone, Cam broke the basement window and he and the other three men took turns firing into the pack. A couple of times, arms reached out of the window to try to grab them, but that only brought the zombies’ heads into closer range. It wasn’t exactly like shooting ducks in a barrel, but zombies in a basement were a close second.

  They were hoping to coax the remaining zombies that were on the basement stairs to come back into range, but the pile of fresh kills made that almost impossible, even if they had been inclined to give up their efforts to break through into the kitchen. That left the rest up to me.

  We pulled the grating off the vent in the dining room and shined a light into the duct. It was filthy and dusty (I was so glad I had put on my best blouse), but it was big enough for me to crawl through. I shoved a couple of extra revolvers in my pants, as I didn’t want to have to try to reload while in the duct, then I eased myself in, making sure the duct would hold my weight. It was a tight fit, and I kind of wished I
hadn’t eaten that third slice of pizza.

  After I crawled about fifteen feet, I came upon a small vent on the right side of the duct. I managed to punch out the vent and shined the flashlight down. There were several zombies looking at me and their arms reached up and pounded on the bottom of the duct. I felt like I was inside of a kettle drum. I stuck out the muzzle of the gun and I fired a shot. If you think a regular pistol shot is deafening, try firing one inside of a metal tube!

  By the third shot, my ears were ringing as if I had been standing in front of the speakers at a rock concert, but zombies were going down so I kept firing. When all of eight of them in range were dead, I moved down the duct a little further. After punching out the next vent, I saw that I had a clear shot at the zombies on the staircase—well, all but the ones at the very top. I used the “shoot the ones at the end of the line” strategy again, to prevent the live ones from falling down and getting mixed up with the dead ones.

  I yelled back to Cam that I would have to go further down the duct to try to get a shot at the zombies at the top of the stairs by the door, but he suggested they open the door, push them backwards and then shoot them.

  “No need to put yourselves at risk,” I said as I began to inch forward.

  As I look back now, I realize the absurdity of that statement. There I was, crawling through a tube over a basement full of zombies, and I didn’t want Cam and his men to put themselves at risk! I had probably only gone another three feet or so when I heard a strange groaning sound. At first I thought it was more zombies, then to my horror I realized it was the sound of metal bending and breaking. Before I could even yell, the supports from which the duct was hanging gave way in front of me, and I was suddenly rocketing downward head-first like I was on a big playground slide.

  My fingers, still greasy from the pizza, desperately clawed at the sides of the duct to stop me from dropping into the basement. Though I was able to slow down, I couldn’t stop and I slid right out onto the hard concrete floor in front of the furnace, narrowly missing hitting my head. I got to my feet as quickly as possible and put my back against the furnace, and with two pistols raised I squinted into the darkness. I had lost my flashlight in the fall, and although some light was coming through the window it wasn’t nearly enough to light the entire basement.

  I could hear movement around me, but couldn’t tell if there were shelves a few feet in front of me, or a row of zombies. I didn’t want to fire a shot or yell and attract any more attention, but I didn’t want to be overrun, either. Seconds of indecision ticked by and I knew my life depended on my next step. Fortunately, however, I didn’t have to take that step.

  Suddenly, the basement door was yanked open and shots rang out. The zombies on the staircase fell backwards onto the pile below. The lights came on and those “shelves” revealed themselves to be three zombies almost within arms-reach. I dropped two of them, but the third lunged forward and grabbed me. Bracing myself against the furnace, I rammed my foot into her midsection and used all of the strength in my leg to shove her backwards so I didn’t have to fire at point blank range and get sprayed with zombie blood.

  Cam and his men came charging down the stairs and we all waved our pistols around looking for more targets. Thankfully, there were none. But I still had to climb over dozens of bloody zombie bodies to get to the staircase. When I got upstairs I went right outside and took some deep breaths. I was never so happy to see sunlight and breathe fresh air.

  A few minutes later, the happy second shift of diners arrived for their pizza feast. An hour or so later, the impatient third shift came in for their share, and they all said it was well worth the wait. And no one had a clue what was in the basement below them, or what had happened.

  I had taken a terrible risk. But I would like to think that if George Washington could have served pizza to his men at Valley Forge, it was a risk he would have taken, too.

  The Game Changes: Notwithstanding the air duct fiasco, the pizza party worked magic on everyone in the compound. It looked to me like it snapped everybody out of the doldrums. Speaking personally, it rejuvenated me and gave me back something I had lost—hope.

  The improving weather certainly helped, as well. March came in like a lamb and the snows were rapidly melting. Cam started sending out patrols for food, fuel, and information. Reports came back that large packs of zombies appeared to be emerging from their winter nests, but they were exhibiting some odd behavior.

  For starters, some of them seemed to be asleep on their feet, something Voth later described as a “Twilight State.” I speculated that for many of these zombies, they had gone months without eating and had adapted with some sort of hibernating response. Essentially, unless provoked or presented with a food source, they shut down to minimal life support systems. I hoped that those in the twilight state were not too far from starving to death, but only time would tell.

  The other odd behavior involved the zombies’ sight and hearing. Some of them now seemed to avoid bright sunlight and stick to the shadows. They also appeared to shy away from loud noises, like gunshots or car horns. These were crucial observations, and if true, would certainly alter our approach to fighting them. I posted some notes on the international websites and within days had several confirmations that “older zombies” (those who had been infected and switched during the summer) had indeed started showing signs of sensitivity to light and sound.

  Labs in Germany and Canada had run some tests on actual captive zombies and found that at about six months after switching, some “biochemical disturbances” had been noted. With time, the parasites’ ability to control the human nervous system appeared to degrade. Along with the aversion to bright light and loud sounds, they also noted partial or total paralysis in some subjects, uncontrollable spasms, and even fatal constipation due to a complete shutdown of peristalsis.

  That was all good news, but the bad news was very bad. As zombies emerged from their nests they were hungry—very, very hungry. And there were a lot of them; far more than had been previously seen, even at the height of the infection of 2012. Perhaps hunger had driven more out to hunt (and maybe after several months they finally figured out how to use a doorknob!), or possibly, some groups were migrating, looking for more sources of food.

  Whatever the reason, the result was that our hopes that many of the zombies would die off during the winter were not realized. Granted, quite a few had become zombie popsicles if they were unable to find shelter or a group to nest with, but they only added to the problem by becoming convenient food sources for other zombies once they thawed out.

  Voth reported that, as it was becoming increasingly unsafe on land, many people were taking to the water. A couple of barges and big oil tankers had become floating communities. People who had previously used their boats just to search for food and supplies up and down the river, were now living on board. Zombies would not go in water (unless they were pushed, as I had discovered), so anchoring just offshore was just as good as surrounding yourself with walls and fences.

  All these factors made me consider living on Bannerman’s Island for the summer and making the clinic an ongoing endeavor. Of course, I would need more permanent structures, a staff, and 24-7 security, but it was something to consider. There were all kinds of things I needed to consider, including when I would return to my home in Nyack.

  Before I left the compound, however, I owed everyone for keeping me safe and fed all winter—not to mention building me a lab. So I was more than happy to volunteer to go out and collect food, tools, medicine, building supplies, clothing, and anything else they needed. Cam wanted me to take one or two men with me, but I really wanted to get out on my own again. I had been cooped up with all those people for far too long, and I needed some space and time to myself.

  I also wanted to pick up some things not on their list—blindingly bright halogen lights and air horns to add to my zombie arsenal. The game was changing, and I wanted every possible weapon at my disposal.

  Zom
bie Olympics: I remembered my grandfather talking about the practical jokes he and his army buddies would play on one another during World War II. For example, he and three of his closest friends had somehow managed to survive the landing at Omaha Beach at Normandy on D-Day. When they finally had a chance to rest, my grandpa tied all of his friends’ shoelaces together as they slept, then yelled that the Germans were coming. He laughed so hard every time he told the story of how the men jumped up and then all fell flat on their faces, cursing him out.

  “Truesdale, I’m personally handing you over to Hitler when we reach Berlin,” his best buddy yelled, struggling to untie his laces, “if I don’t kill you myself, first.”

  As a little kid, I didn’t have a clue what war was all about, but I assumed it was very entertaining, because Grandpa had so many funny stories about it. As I got older and learned about the horrors of WWII and the staggering casualties at Normandy, I was appalled that my grandfather played such childish pranks when so many men around him were dying. So one day, when I was a know-it-all adolescent, I started to lecture him about his inappropriate sense of humor regarding war.

  “Hold your horses, Short Stuff,” he said, interrupting me. His expression was serious, but he didn’t look angry. “No one needs to tell me about the horrors of war. You obviously think you know what it’s like, but I think you need to hear the real story, so here it is.

  “I’ve watched men die in so many different ways you couldn’t count them. I saw my sergeant get his head blown clean off, and I got a face full of his brains. My best friend died in my arms while I was trying to keep his guts from spilling out. I’ve heard the bravest men crying for their mommas after grenades blew off a limb or two. I saw a Panzer squash a soldier like a bug. When a man is faced with so many inconceivable horrors he can do one of two things. He can give up and die, or he can laugh at death and do whatever it takes to survive.”