Zombpocalypse (Book 1): Contingency

by Mariah Lynde

  “Well, I haven’t,” I shot back, scrunching my nose a little as I rode out my prima donna moment.

  “Ugh, fine. I’ll be back. I’m gonna go smoke a bowl. Shit’s too real.” Just as quickly as he had made his presence known, Alec was gone. A rustle of sound indicated that he’d set his headset aside to go handle business on his end.

  “Anyway, I told you I had a couple of dates−”

  “No, a date−”

  “No, dates…as in more than one, as in I met two separate people for coffee to get to know them, and see if maybe we wanted to try again sometime. Is this really important?” Robbie asked.

  “Consider it payback for yelling.” Grinning a little, I propped back in my chair, stretching out my legs again to get comfy. “Okay, so…you went out to meet people for your dates…How does this figure in to seeing a zombie?”

  “I’m getting there.” Robbie gave a sigh of frustration and that made me grin.

  “So, I met this guy, Mark, and he seemed decent enough, but we didn’t really click. We said our goodbyes, and he went to do whatever else he had planned. I stayed behind at the coffee shop to wait for Shara.” I could tell that Robbie seemed to be a little uncomfortable as he continued. “So, while I’m sitting there, roasting cause the place is packed, I looked out the window to see some people moving across the parking lot. One of them was a G.I., all in uniform, but he looked like he had just left a bar or something. Every time he moved, he flailed his arms and stumbled, so I thought he might have been drunk.”

  “Oooooookay. So, a grunt from the base goes out and gets drunk, this is new how?” I offered.

  “I’m getting there! Stop interrupting!” Robbie huffed before he continued. “Anyway, so I’m watching this guy stumble around the parking lot when a cop rolls up and gets out of his car to help the guy. Least, I think he was going to help him, then all of the sudden, the G.I. turns around and just bites the cop square on the face. I mean, I’ve never seen anything like it. This soldier just bit down and ripped off that cop’s nose and didn’t even stop. He lunged in like that dude’s face was a filet mignon or something.”

  Okay, I’d been wrong. This had the markings of disaster written all over it. Hearing Robbie’s recollection of the tale did little to make me feel better.

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  “Shit is right. By then I had gotten up and was watching the whole thing from the window. You know me, I don’t get involved in stuff, but I had my phone out to call 911 when I saw the cop pull his gun.” Robbie’s voice went quiet. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn we were seven years old and hiding out under our beds to escape the boogie man. While it was a rare thing to witness, the fear in my best friend’s voice was a very real thing. Right then, I knew we were all in trouble. “He shot him, Angel. I watched him unload a full clip into that soldier’s chest and the guy never stopped. He just kept coming.”

  Chills went down my spine at the almost haunted quality of those words. It could no longer be denied: Zombies were among us.

  “What happened next, hun? I mean, what stopped the whole thing? I know you. Seeing what you did, your ass would have stayed somewhere safe until it was over.” Robbie, for all intents and purposes, had always seen the world from a grounded, logical point of view. If a situation happened to be dangerous, you could bet your ass he would be the one person to do the most rational thing to ensure he survived.

  “Honestly, almost as soon as it began, it ended. One of those big military convoy trucks came in off the highway and circled the parking lot. They grabbed the soldier and the cop and took off.” As he finished, there was a small sound, a hiss of air that came as if all the tension had left him. When he spoke again, I could hear the tremor in his voice and had to wonder just how well he was handling all of this. As concerned as I might be, there would be no discussion about that particular subject while we had other people in the call. Any thought I had about asking about it faded when Robbie continued, “When they left, I lit out of there like a bat out of hell. I didn’t wanna stick around in case it got any worse.”

  “Good call,” I murmured, only to hear the sentiment repeated and agreed with by the whole of our little online powwow.

  I think it dawned on all of us in that moment that the world we knew was coming to an end. No matter if things settled in our favor or not, recent events pointed towards the fact that what was happening would reshape civilization and the people that remained.

  “You know,” Jay began. He seemed a little more active in this conversation than I could remember him being in months within the group. “…we could just be over-reacting to all of this. It could seriously just be some kind of virus or something. As long as we are careful, we should be fine.”

  I considered letting his statement ride. In the grand scheme of things, I could have said nothing and left us all with a false sense of hope. In the end, it would have been far more destructive than anything that zombies could do. Facing and accepting what our reality would become was the only way to really survive intact.

  “I don’t think so, Jay.” Hearing him draw in a breath as if he were about to protest, I rushed on. Any other time, I may have been inclined to wait and hear just what it was he had to say, but after the day I had just experienced, I couldn’t. “Even if it is just a virus, I watched this chick lay into someone and rip them apart…with her teeth. I’m telling you, there is no reasoning with whoever is infected.”

  “Well, did you even try?” he asked. It was a valid point. Still, I needed to make him and everybody else in the Skype call understand that what was happening went far beyond the realm of normal. If we weren’t prepared, we would pay the price.

  “Jay, she’s a woman that spends her days in an office of a Fortune 500 company. You know, by definition these are people who turn their noses up at touching others. Most think they are a higher class of human and are pretty quick to self-correct when they do something that can be perceived as a social no-no.” I closed my eyes, lifting one hand to pinch the bridge of my nose as I strained out the next part on a sigh, “No one could get her to back off of biting and tearing into that guy. They tried…even going so far as to physically attempt to pull her off of the man. Nothing worked. All of that just led to her getting a chance to injure another victim, giving us two casualties instead of one.”

  “So, you’re saying it makes her a zombie instead? Do you have any clue how insane that sounds?” Alec protested. His words were slurring here and there. Each syllable offering a small change in rhythm that made it impossible to determine whether he had finished his recreational bowl or was still smoking it.

  “I realize what it sounds like, but there is something we all need to consider. If we’re wrong, this Skype session is pointless and we’ll all have a good laugh in about a week. However…” I exhaled, slowly moving to lean forward and peer at the screen as if they could see me. “…if we’re right about this, then the decisions we make in the next twenty-four hours might help us in the long run. Better to err on the side of caution and be prepared for the worst. Look at it this way: we prepare for the worst and we’re wrong, then all we’ve lost is a couple of weeks going to the grocery store.”

  “True enough,” Jay said with a small sigh.

  “She’s right. If we have a game plan in place, then there is little chance we’ll be taken by surprise if things go bad,” Dave chimed in, but the one sound that caught my attention was an incessant clicking of keys.

  I wondered if the source of that sound would make itself known. Fortunately, the wait was not as long as I thought it would be.

  “Angel is right. In this case, it is better to plan for the long-term, worst case scenario. That gives us about twenty-four hours to make preparations before everything we are talking about here goes public. Best case scenario is that we have anywhere from three days to a week before all of this becomes common knowledge and panic sets in.” To hear Brandon speaking so rationally was kind of disheartening. While younger tha
n most of us, he had moments of extreme logical genius. Math was also one of his favorite things – whether it happened to be complex equations or probabilities, they were something he lived for.

  “It’s up to you guys. Do we continue this call and make plans, or hope for the best?” Robbie asked softly.

  I held my breath as I waited to hear an answer. For several moments, I worried that they would dismiss this as a threat and I worried for us all. Truth be told, this group consisted of the only people I trusted outside of my immediate family. I didn’t know it then, but the decisions we made that night would end up shaping not just my road of survival, but our very future.

  Chapter Eleven – Countdown to Apocalypse

  The breath I had been holding released in a rush as I heard the murmurs of assent from every other person in the call. I will admit to a certain sense of relief in knowing that they were taking this whole situation seriously, but that left us with a whole new set of problems. As many things as there were to take into consideration, the first and most important of them just happened to be where we should get started.

  “So, where do we start?” Robbie asked and proved in that moment we were once again on the same wave length.

  “Well, best place is to start discussing the most likely scenarios if this is actually what you think it is. At least, that’s what Mack and I think,” Ray offered up.

  “Yeah, I think Ray is right. If anything, we need to eliminate what we think we know, and consider how things will work in reality.” Moving back to rest my head on the back of the chair once again, I closed my eyes. While I wanted to just go to sleep, what we were facing took precedence.

  “So basically, we eliminate every book, comic, movie, and T.V. show that is in existence and start with what we know. This does not sound like a good idea.” Frowning as I heard the snark in Jay’s tone, I had to admit he had a point.

  “Not everything. Head shots seem to work, to a degree. What I didn’t tell you guys had to do with after. When I hit the chick with the fire extinguisher, she went down and didn’t move. I honestly thought I had done her in, but now I’m not so sure.” Frowning a little, I focused on replaying the scene from the lobby in my head. Every detail of what had been done while they had been packaging the body playing out once more.

  “Wait, you said there is more?” At this point, Robbie sounded as tired as I felt.

  “Yes.” Grimacing a little, I opened my eyes to stare blearily at the screen. “Like I said, I thought she was done after I clocked her, but when they were there to collect the body, I saw something I still can’t quite explain. They had a pair of people working over the body in full biohazard gear. Well, except for the gas masks. They were wearing those paper surgical masks that obscure the face.”

  Lifting my hands and scrubbing at my face, I couldn’t shake the feeling like insects were crawling all over my skin. To tell you the truth, it just creeped me out all the more. Between having to relive my afternoon, forced to face a possibility of real life zombies, and the ire of my best friend on holding information back – I could barely function.

  “While they were supposedly rolling the body to put it in the bag for the coroner’s office, I watched one of them shove some kind of tool against the base of skull. While it might seem like nothing, when they did that, I saw the body jerk and twitch before they finally rolled it into the bag.” I sighed.

  “I don’t understand. What does that mean, sweetie?” Robbie asked in an unsteady voice.

  “It means that she might not have taken out this chick by just clocking her with the extinguisher,” Alec interjected with a small laugh. “Basically, it means the zombie thing…chick…wasn’t dead until they actually pierced the brain stem.”

  “How do you know that?” Brandon asked in disbelief.

  “Horror movie work, my man. I mean, my stuff may be low budget, but we do our research.” Alec chuckled, and I have to admit I found myself more than a little amused. His declaration had been full of haughty pride, despite the fact he was stoned off his gourd.

  “He’s right,” Jay chimed in.

  “They’re both right.” I smiled at the sudden surge of life in the call. I suppose it could have been worse, considering the fact this all began over a debate about zombies possibly overrunning the population in a hypothetical situation. “However, I want to point out that not everything in the books and all is wrong. It seems like head shots, even if they aren’t lethal, slow or lock them down.”

  “Okay, so we have that to go on. So now what?” Robbie sighed in frustration.

  “Now…we start measuring the possibilities of what we will face,” Brandon announced cheerfully, which had me cursing enough that he answered me even as he continued. “I can’t help it. Zombies, man. If you’re right and this is a possible zombie outbreak, then it will be people like us who weigh and measure everything that last longer than others.”

  “He has a point.” Dave spoke up, the sudden activation of his mic giving us the pleasure of hearing the wet slurp of whatever food he was eating while listening to the conversation.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know.” This time I found myself annoyed at the derailment and I leaned forward resting my elbows on the desk once more. “Alright, so let’s say it is a zombie apocalypse. The first scenario we all jump to is…what?”

  “World destruction.”

  “Rapid spread.”

  “Mass Hysteria.”

  One by one, everyone gave some sort of response and it dawned on me that I had not been the only person overly obsessed by the idea of some sort of apocalypse. Not one answer dealt with the stench of rotting corpses or undead waves of terror. Instead, they all seemed to center on the general events that would take place during some kind of major catastrophe. In my own mind, I considered this to be a bonus, as it meant they were thinking of a wealth of possibilities instead of just one. I held on to the hope that such logical thinking would prove that we were more than capable of remaining calm and acting rationally.

  “Okay, so we are all pretty much jumping onto the worst case scenario first. The likelihood that any event would become full blown Armageddon in a day is slim.” Robbie paused for a moment, as if he were considering what he’d just said. “Right?”

  “Yeah,” Brandon cut in. There was another sweep of clicks indicating typing as he spoke once more. “I mean, while most representations of any kind of catastrophic event seem to happen almost instantaneously, reality will be a much different monster. Something that happens even on a national scale will not happen anywhere near as quickly as what we’ve seen or read in media.”

  “How do you mean?” Alec asked.

  “Well,” Brandon began, “In the event of any type of emergency, there are protocols. Thanks to our own government and others across the world, we have measures in place for about every possible thing they could think of. Health scares, riots, general civil war…While each country may have different policies, the world as a whole has some sort of contingency plan for every little thing. You can rest assured, no matter what happens, somewhere…somehow, there is an answer. That alone is going to work in our favor.”

  “Which means what?” Mack snapped. It surprised me to hear his voice and know he’d been sitting in on this call. Normally, he had a pretty low tolerance for anything considered social, including Skype with people he played games with.

  His words had their intended effect as I heard the chorus of others murmur in agreement.

  “I think I understand what Brandon is saying.” Feeling the need to quell some of the hostility, I knew keeping things as calm as possible would only help matters. “Basically, he’s saying we’ve been blinded by the shiny Hollywood light…Right?”

  “More or less, darlin’.” Brandon replied even as I shook my head in response to the little pet name. “Angel has it right. Think about it: all the movies or shows we watch about global decimation or outbreaks had everything happening and rapidly deteriorating within days. Major cities and bases have falle
n in the first forty-eight hours, and mass anarchy ensues. That is not how things will likely happen. Civilization took thousands of years to evolve and build, so realistically speaking, the only thing that could eradicate all of us in rapid order would be the emergence of some alien species with technology light-years ahead of our own. One thing everyone forgets about is every decision changes the course and flow of events. They have an impact. Whatever this is, we’re likely looking at a slow-burn type scenario.”

  There was a decisiveness in Brandon’s tone that left me equally shocked and impressed. For a brief moment, I considered asking him if he was James Bond or Jason Bourne but I let it go in favor of focusing on the problem at hand.

  “A slow-burn scenario? What the hell does that mean, kid?” Dave grumped into his mic. Thankfully, this time it was sans the slurping sound.

  “I’m with the Canadian,” Alec’s agreement rang out, making me roll my eyes and huff.

  “Alright, alright. Basically, it means that this is not going to be a rapid descent into hell. It will be slow and painful.” The call went silent, Brandon’s words leaving not even a whisper to be spoken while the weight of those words settled over each and every one of us.

  “Go on,” Leaning back in my chair and closing my eyes again, I knew we needed a plan. It was more than likely I wouldn’t be getting much in the line of sleep for the next few days, so I’d take my rest where I could get it. Even if that meant I could only close my eyes while the rest of me worked on planning out the route of survival.

  “Okay, on the chance this is zombie, it is not a problem that will be gone overnight. Like any outbreak, the virulence of the strain will determine what we’re looking for in how it spreads. Like most diseases in history, there is going to be some time where it peters out or slows down, but the initial outbreak is going to set a chain of events in motion. This is not going to be every one or no one, but a process of elimination based on who does what, and the decisions they make. Taking into consideration the plans that have been made by the government and world agencies, there is a lot to consider.