The Inhuman Chronicles (Book 1): Inhuman

by Feren, Todd C.

  “We have guns in here!” The terrified voice said.

  “That’s because I gave them to you,” I responded. When the door opened, I saw Sara standing there looking just as lovely when she’s afraid for her life as she is when she’s almost getting me killed. Her eyes rolled down to the furball in my hands.

  “How did he…?” she started.

  “I had assumed he got out when you made your escape,” I said, handing off the dog to her.

  “No escaping,” she said. “Do you really think I would leave these people to die just to save my own skin?”

  There was a long pause.

  “I swear, I’m not leaving. There’s no place to go. Believe me. I’ve been trying to think of a way.”

  “When this is over you can go wherever you want,” I said.

  “You mean ‘we’ can go wherever we want.”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you really think you can do this?” she asked in all seriousness.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I kind of planned on playing it by ear. I’m going to do everything in my power to keep myself alive.”

  An explosion from the front of the zoo rocked the ground beneath us, and I could feel the tremor hit me as the sound passed through.

  “I have to go,” I said turning to leave. Rex squirmed out of Sara’s arms and bounded towards me. I stopped and picked him up and took him back to the door. “I don’t know how you got out the first time, but you have to stay here, okay?” I found myself speaking to the dog in a tone I’ve never used in my life. It was almost… honest.

  Once I got to the door, I bent over to set him down. “I promise I will do my best to come back and get you, but I can’t have you running around out there. It’s too dangerous.” He jumped up and put his paws on my chest. “Stay here, you little fucker.”

  Sara reached down and held him as I closed the door and ran towards the sound of the explosion. Within thirty seconds, I had done two things I never would have thought possible: Have a sincere moment with an animal, and run towards an explosion. Both of those things go against everything I have ever held dear. If I survived this battle, I would have to try and figure out why my brain was malfunctioning and letting these slip ups occur.

  When I entered the front of the zoo, I saw Jack laying down behind one of the wheels of the truck we used to block the entrance. He was looking down the barrel of a rifle that looked too big for me to carry.

  “What was that explosion?!” I asked.

  Jack’s response was a finger pointing up to the fifteen foot wall that surrounded the zoo. There, I saw Terry sprinting back and forth with his bag of grenades. He reached into the bag, popped a pin with his thumb, and tossed another grenade about fifteen yards into the tree line just off the road that leads to the gates. About five seconds later, an explosion was heard, followed by the sound of a man screaming. Terry laughed and ran along the wall like Spiderman gone mad.

  “What’s going on out there?”

  “A lot of movement,” Jack said. “Every once in a while, I’ll see a lion or tiger through the trees. There were a lot of gunshots going on in the confusion, but it looks like some of the men are trying to…” He paused in mid sentence, and then pulled the trigger. The rifle bucked mildly in his massive arms. Then without missing a beat, he continued. “Some of the men are trying to get in here. They think it’s safer than out there with the lions.”

  Terry began cackling from his stretch of the wall, and then we heard a barrage of gunfire. When I turned to look, Terry was dancing like some old cartoon character who pissed off Yosemite Sam. While he was dancing, he pulled another grenade from his bag and tossed it down into some unseen brush. A faint “Fuck!” was heard just seconds before an explosion followed by Terry’s laughter.

  “He’s definitely giving them something to think about,” Jack said, rocking his head back towards Terry before firing off another shot into the darkness. Jack’s expression changed several times in the next few seconds. He started off neutral, then went to quizzical, followed by a quick switch from realization to fear. He rolled out from behind the wheel of the truck and screamed.

  “MOVE!”

  Mere seconds later, there was a loud crash from some other big truck smashing into the transport truck we were using to barricade the entrance. At that same moment, a bevy of gunshots could be heard from the back side of the zoo. Axel was making his move now. They were attacking from both sides, and hopefully our guys at the back would be able to put up some sort of resistance. The truck that smashed into ours caused our barricade to roll back about fifteen feet, giving ample room for the redneck brigade to come marching through.

  “Shit!” I said, suddenly wishing I had run away with Rex when I had the chance. Jack grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me up to my feet. He leaned around the corner and fired several shots into the oncoming men. I took a breath, dropped to one knee, and leaned around the corner myself.

  I think I was expecting to see hundreds of men storming the gates, but what I saw was about ten. I aimed and fired five times at the rushing rednecks, striking one of them in the stomach and dropping him to the ground. Jack fired a few more shots and dropped two more.

  We might actually do this. I thought.

  I didn’t see Axel, so that must mean he was on the other side. I fell back into cover as the charging forces opened fire on us, and I took that time to take another breath. When I leaned back out and got ready to fire, Terry leapt from the wall and landed in front of me in a crouched position. He held a grenade in each hand and popped the pins with his thumbs. He rolled both grenades like bowling balls before diving out of view laughing.

  I remember seeing the look of pure terror on the faces of the invading men before I dove back to safety behind the wall. The two explosions were so close together that it sounded like one much larger blast. I peeked around the corner and saw limbs and limbless men scattered through the streets. There was still gunfire going on in the woods, but the shots were few and far between. There could only be a handful of survivors out there, and the shots were sounding further and further away.

  They must be trying to get the fuck out of here! I thought, still astonished that it was so easy. The gunshots in the rear of the zoo were sounding closer, and they were coming at a more rapid pace.

  “Terry, Make sure no one gets in!” I shouted, running down the main path through the zoo towards the back. Jack pulled away from the wall and started running after me. I turned to him to ask if he had a plan, and I saw his entire right side covered with blood. I stopped in my tracks.

  “Jack!” I screamed.

  “I’m fine, keep going!”

  I lowered my shoulders and jumped in front of him trying my best to stop him. After dragging me ten yards, he stopped.

  “Jack, you’re hurt.”

  “Just a couple of gunshots,” he said, panting heavily. “I can deal with it.”

  “Fuck that!” I told him. “You need to sit down.”

  “We don’t have time!”

  “You are losing a lot of blood. If you keep running around like that, you won’t last long.”

  I could see him wobble slightly from dizziness.

  “Jack, how about we put you in the hotdog stand next to the lion exhibit. If any of these fuckers get in, you can keep them away from Sara and the others.”

  I could tell he didn’t want to do this, but his brain was struggling to find a way to be as useful as possible. He knew how bad the damage was. I just threw in that protecting Sara bit to give him a solid reason to stay back. He nodded his head. His face was painted with a thousand shades of frustration. Then he grabbed the radio off of my belt and pushed it into my chest.

  “If there is ANYTHING…” he started.

  “I’ll call you,” I said, taking, the radio and reattaching it to my belt.

  I helped him to the hot dog stand, and he gingerly climbed under the counter to the other side. He pulled out his rifle and swapped out magazines befor
e setting his permanent position on guard. Sweat was pouring off of him.

  “Get out of here,” he said, thrusting his chin out towards the direction of the gunshots.

  “Take it easy, Jack.” I gave him a false smile and turned to leave. I didn’t like the sensation in my stomach as I walked away from him. I actually kind of liked the guy, and his condition was bleak to say the least. He had lost more blood than what seemed humanly possible.

  As I ran towards the back of the park, the sound of gunfire got louder. It sounded like one hell of a gun fight. Maybe our rag tag team is doing alright. I thought. Then, I got to the line of barricades we had made out of cotton candy machines, golf carts, and a couple of Jeeps, and I was utterly confused by what I saw.

  All of our troops were standing out in the open holing their guns by their sides. The firefight I was hearing was on the outside of the walls.

  “What’s going on?” I asked as I joined the group.

  “They’ve been shooting like mad for a few minutes!” Joey said, pushing his Coke bottle glasses up his sweaty chubby nose. Why he was still wearing his security guard hat was beyond me, but I found his appearance enjoyable.

  “You think they are fighting off the lions?” Jimmy asked.

  “They would have to be,” I said. “Unless they turned on each other.” Then I walked over to our barricade of two Jeeps that we had smashed into the opening and peered over the hood to see what I could see outside. There was a thick fog that was rolling in, and visibility was low. Muzzle flashes looked like tiny pops of yellow in the mist. I had expected to hear bullets striking the walls, Jeep, or ground around me, but amazingly the shots weren’t headed in my direction. I could hear multiple screams. Some sounded like injuries, some sounded like false bravery, and then one scream pushed the others aside and demanded dominance of the audible word. That one scream told me why none of the bullets were headed my way. That scream was the battle cry of the zombies.

  Chapter 45

  Axel’s men formed a line and backed towards the barricade of Jeeps we had assembled to slow them down. They fired shot after shot into the fog. I couldn’t directly see any zombies at first. I just heard the horrific shrieks of the newer breed accompanied by dark smudges in the fog or the faint swirl in empty mist. As the men got closer, I saw several of the troops on our side line up to take an easy shot at the invading troops.

  “Don’t fire!” I bellowed. “They aren’t fighting us, yet!”

  Joey pushed his glasses up his sweaty nose. “But we can get them now,” he whined.

  I decided I needed to take an assertive alpha male approach to ensure there would be no more dissenters in my ranks. I grabbed him by his sweaty collar and pushed the chubby bunny back into one of the Jeeps as hard as I could. Luckily, he tripped while we were moving backwards, and his tubby weight created a momentum that made it look like I pushed him with super human strength.

  “Do you hear those screams?” I hissed in his face. “Have you had to deal with the fast zombies yet?”

  His eyes tripled in size, and his body convulsed in fear.

  “F-f-f-fast zombies?” he stammered.

  “Not just fast!” I said, never turning my intensity down. “Smart. They can think, and adjust, and they want…to…eat…you.” Joey nearly fainted at my words. I turned back to watch the scene unfold in front of us, and things were not looking very good. The line of men had grown, and they continued to fire into the fog. Plus, I was still disappointed that I didn’t get to see anyone get eaten by a cheetah.

  My brain raced to find a fallback plan. We couldn’t stay here. The Jeeps were designed to slow the invaders down so that we might be able to manage them, there was no way they would stop Axel’s men and the speeder zombies.

  Hey, I like that… Speeders.

  Then, like something from a horror movie, a wall of slow shambling zombies emerged, marching forward with no fear or hesitation into a hail of gunfire. There had to be fifty of them. I was about to tell everyone to run when I felt a small tug on my pant leg. When I turned around, all the blood flowed from my face and left a sick feeling in my stomach.

  “What the FUCK are you doing here?!” I said to Rex who sat next to my foot holding a mouthful of my jeans in his maw. His tail began to wag wildly when he saw my recognition of his presence.

  “Rex!” I shouted again. “What are you doing here?!”

  Not that he would have or could have answered, but any opportunity for him to explain himself was cut short when one of the more skittish men in our group fired a shot off prematurely and took down one of Axel’s men. I picked up Rex and dove behind the wall for a more secure location as bullets peppered and pinged the Jeeps as the invaders fired at the new threat behind them.

  “GODDAMNIT!” I shouted. Once the barrage of bullets ended, I crawled along the ground and peeked out of an opening under one of the jeeps. The line of men was now more of a circle, and they were frantically looking for any threat to fire on. Then, I saw movement from the corner of my eye. Two speeders were flanking the circle and looking for an opportunity to munch. Joey did his best impression of an army crawl as the roly-poly man came scrambling up to my location. I pointed off to the creepers in the sidelines.

  “I’ll create a distraction among the men. When the speeder comes in, shoot it.”

  “Speeder?” he asked, completely unaware of the term I had just invented only moments ago.

  “Fast zombies,” I whispered harshly. He mouthed a big ‘ohhh’ before taking a better position for firing. I took aim at the circle of men and fired, striking one of the men in the shin. I could only imagine the pain of his shin bone exploding as he collapsed to the ground screaming. Just as expected, Axel’s men panicked and began firing towards us without actually seeing where the shot came from. Also, as expected, the two speeders came running in from the wings and leapt on two of the unsuspecting men, tearing away chunks of meat in a fevered frenzy. The group scattered and began firing at the two new threats taking them out quickly before turning back to the wall of zombies. I looked into the tree line to see several more speeders weighing their options. They won’t make the same mistake that their brethren just made. They are trying to figure out another way of getting to the tasty meat without getting shot.

  Then, I saw the last thing I ever expected to see. Terry came running past the zombies from the other side of the zoo. I don’t know what happened to his clothes, or why he decided to take a naked run, but there he was. He wasn’t completely naked, he had his satchel of grenades slung over his shoulder, but aside from that, he was wearing only a madman’s smile. As he passed by the speeders, they began to chase after him.

  “FIRE AT THE MEN!” I shouted at my group, trying to give Terry as much cover fire as we could. All of the men on our side stood up and fired their guns into the confused circle of men. The men returned fire, but they had the distinct disadvantage of having no cover to hide behind, so they took an amazing amount of damage.

  I turned to look at Terry as the rest of the men engaged the enemy, and he had that same crazy look on his face as he popped the pins on two grenades and threw them in front of him.

  Let me clarify this… He threw the grenades in front of him in the same direction he was running.

  When the grenades hit the ground, Terry turned on the afterburners and nearly doubled his speed. His foot landed inches from one of his grenades as he continued to sprint away from the feisty feasters that followed him. Three seconds later, Terry did a swan dive through the air that would have made an Olympic gymnast proud. The two grenades exploded directly under the three pursuing speeders and literally blew them apart. Terry came up from his roll and turned to see the carnage behind him. He shrugged his shoulders and then turned towards the still approaching wall of zombies. He reached into his bag, and then I could see his shoulders slump. He was out of grenades.

  “I’m out!” he shouted sadly.

  A blur moved from the shadows and streaked towards the retreating Te
rry. It was another speeder, and it was closing fast. I raised my glock nineteen to try and take a shot, but the slide was locked open, telling me I was out of ammo. I looked up, and as I was about to shout a warning to Terry, my ear erupted from an explosive sound right next to me. That sound was accompanied by the speeder’s head exploding and his body slumping to the ground. I turned to see who was about to be on the receiving end of a beating for deafening me.