by Javan Bonds
ZOMBIE
LAKE
STILL ALIVE: BOOK ONE
Javan Bonds
Zombie Lake – Still Alive:Book One Published by If I Only Had A Monkey Publishing
© 2017 Javan Bonds
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:
[email protected]
Cover by Covers By Christian.
www.coversbychristian.com
Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblances to persons, living or dead; business establishments; events; or locales are entirely coincidental.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Mama, always my alpha reader. I could dedicate every book I write to her.
Thanks to Daddy, literally my publisher. He invented the name “peevies” and also christened the Viva Ancora.
Thanks to The Diction Mistress, Sheila Shedd, my insanely hot editor. She is the reason Still Alive is anywhere near legible.
Thanks to my finial proof reader Donna Shields.
Thanks to Bobby Adair, Shawn Chesser, Mark Tufo, and all my other idols and fellow authors. Y’all are the inspiration for my writing.
Boyd Craven, I owe you special thanks not only for writing the forward but also the assistance you gave. Thanks for many hours of enjoyment I had reading Flirting with Death and all your other books.
Thanks to my beta readers and proofreaders: Glen Mardis, Dr. Larry Johnston, Taft Reeves, Mandy Owens, and Kao Kikuyama. This book would not be what it is without their ideas and opinions.
Thanks to Sarah Vogle, the former Cook on the Nina and the Pinta. Her real-life experience on the caravels, the ships the Cora is modeled after, helped in creating the Still Alive universe.
Thanks to Bradley Maze, my friend and the inspiration for “The Old Friend”.
Thanks to Dr. George Philip, my actual cardiologist and 100% of the physical inspiration for “The Medicine Man”.
Thanks to all my friends and family. If you see any similarities between you and some of the characters, well, there probably are.
Thanks to Nuance, creators of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I would not have been able to write a single word without this wonderful technology.
Thanks to my favorite Facebook group, I Came Here for an Argument.
Lastly thanks to the real city of Guntersville AL for being the perfect inspiration for the Still Alive series.
Javan Bonds
Forward
I first connected with Javan online. He'd listened to one of my audio books and had reached out through Face book. We connected and quickly developed an easygoing friendship online. I was touched and honored when he asked me to read and write a forward for his latest novel. I hope I don't muck this up for him...because Javan is an extraordinary man. Despite losing his eyesight in 2010 and now losing his hearing from a form of Muscular Dystrophy, he keeps writing; day after day, he never gives up. I really admire the guy, and his work.
His first novel was Free State of Dodge, a post apocalyptic prepper story…something in my wheelhouse. So I was surprised that he was writing something else that I knew I had to read—this book you're holding right now. It's a Zombie Apocalypse with some pretty cool twists; playing pirate is the way his antagonist, hardcore Southern Boy, Mo, survived the initial outbreak of the apocalypse. Now, he and his motley crew need to take themselves off the dinner menu, find other survivors and family members if still alive, and build themselves an island. Now, in Javan’s world, there’s no hard and fast rules—like some of the movies out there (except the big one... don't get bit, because if you're bit, you become one of the particularly nasty undead “Peevies” and your hunger for human flesh will never be sated). That, and no more Tim Horton's....which would be a serious tragedy and you're here to read about a Zombie Apocalypse.
With that, I'm hoping you'll love Still Alive Book One: Zombie Lake, the first in a proposed series that'll leave you rocking and rolling in laughter, and cringing at the near misses as Javan tortures his bizarre mix of characters.
-Boyd Craven III, International Best Selling Author of The World Burns Series
”If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading or do things worth the writing.”
Benjamin Franklin
Introduction
My name is Mo Collins and this is the beginning of a journal detailing my experiences after the End of the World. I know what you are thinking so don’t even fucking say it. Yeah, I share the same name as that chick on MAD TV, every third person I have met since the late nineties has told me that. But I easily pre-date her rise to fame, so my parents didn’t name me after her. Apparently they just hated me at birth—they named me Elmo. Yeah, go ahead and snicker, I’m used to it.
Anyway, I am twenty-nine as of this writing, and I work for Davey Jones Locker, Inc. Well, I guess it’s not work...since I don’t get paid any more. DJ’s is a company that used to build and sail replica pirate ships around waterways up and down the Mississippi and connecting rivers. I am a member of the crew of the Viva Ancora, a wooden caravel modeled after the Columbus-style ships of the 1400s. Caravels were engineered with flat bottoms, shallow drafts, so that they could navigate inland rivers. So we used to sail from the Great Lakes, through various rivers, into the Gulf of Mexico, snake around Florida and all the way up the East Coast, then turn around and repeat the same journey endlessly. But it takes about three years to make one complete round-trip, and since I have only been a part of the crew for a year, I’ve yet to see the ocean—at least from the boat.
As a side note, “Viva Ancora" is Italian for "Still Alive" or, technically, "Alive Still." If anyone ever told me that the ship had been named to memorialize a similar vessel that had been captured as a pirate ship, I had not been paying attention. The reason for her name was never really clear to me, but looking at the current world situation I would say it’s certainly fitting. Our crew, which was between seven and nine people depending on the part of the route we were on, lovingly called her the Cora.
We used to stop at ports, giving tours to bratty elementary school kids and their fat teachers. I got to field stupid questions from every little kid: "Do you have a wooden leg?" "Do you live on the boat?" "Have you ever had scurvy?" "Do you have a parrot or a monkey?" And every other smartass comment they could think of. Yeah, kids. Since the dead started walking, I have been living on the boat. I obviously don’t have scurvy, yet, and if I had a parrot or a monkey, well, I would have had a decent breakfast this morning.
The Cora was advertised as "the most historically accurate sailing ship of its class." If you were to simply view it from dock, you would agree because you would not be able to see that the ship features electricity, a gas powered motor, full galley, and even had Wi-Fi! I’m pretty sure Columbus didn’t have toilet paper and running water, and I was thinking the same thing you are—just crap over the rail, right? That was until the captain, in one of his infamously detailed lectures about medieval sailing ships, told me that it was illegal to defecate into national waterways. Of course, since I no longer have to worry about being arrested by the Coast Guard, one of my favorite pastimes is "defecating" into a bucket and throwing it over the side.
I graduated from Douglas High School where I was a mediocre student with slightly higher than mediocre grades. I’ve got mediocre looks, I wasn’t Mr. Future Underwear Model Quarterback like my little brother, Easy, but I am not so ugly you have to tie a pork chop
around my neck to get the dog to play with me. I drove mediocre cars—a red Pontiac Grand Am, for one. Dropped out of community college and failed my attempt to join the military due to a mediocre heart problem that I didn’t even know I had. I was just wandering through my life with mediocre jobs...you get the picture. I was basically a bastion of underachievement, a "jack of no trades", which was just fine with me. The terrifying alternative was that I would finally land a decent job, find a tolerable wife, and settle into life in Marshall County like everyone else I graduated with did. Then one day I accidentally saw an online advertisement for my current (previous?) employer, Davey Jones Locker, Inc. They were looking for someone to "pirate" up and down the waterways in North America. I applied using my parents’ address and, unbelievably, got hired.
My brother, Easy, is not completely bad, and I don’t technically hate him, even though it might seem like it sometimes. He is three years my junior, and when we were growing up, he was my best friend—even though once I moved out I only ever saw him at family reunions and some holidays. It just so happens that for the first time since I joined the crew we are docked at Guntersville Lake, on the Tennessee River, about fifteen miles from where I grew up. My parents guilted me into promising to call them any time we anchored on the Tennessee so we could have "family time." I would have called, just like I was supposed to, but it slipped my mind. I’d decided to stay onboard and I couldn’t get cell service from the river. In hindsight I guess that was probably for the best. Staying on the ship is most likely what saved my life. If I had been able to let them know I was in town, we would have been out at the steakhouse or sitting at home on the couch when the shit hit the fan, and I’d be dead, too.
I do enjoy my independence, but they are still my Momma and Daddy, and I should have seen them once we docked. Since you’re reading this journal you’re most likely a local, so you know that everyone from Alabama refers to their parents as Momma and Daddy. This is not something only small children do. My daddy calls his father "Daddy". And I choose to believe that they have survived. My mother is pretty good at growing a garden, and my father is a casual survivalist with a few rifles and shotguns, so I guess they could have grown a little food and protected their own space. Plus, they live out in the boonies, away from the riot zones, so they could still be alive. Anyway, unless we find someone to operate the TVA dam—which is not likely—I am probably going to end up dying right here in the backwater I tried to get away from my whole life. The damn dams have us trapped in a large, man-made lake. We could travel north up the Tennessee River but we would just come to another dam wedged between the Guntersville and the Nickajack, dammit.
Well y’all know I’m from Alabama, and while I do have a heavy southern accent (our "can’t" rhymes with our "ain’t") I’m not some stupid redneck. I’ve met actual stupid rednecks, and those are people you never want to be compared with. Another stereotype I need to dismiss: not all Southerners are racist, in fact, not many are—and I’m certainly not. Also, you will notice that I enjoy peppering this journal with four letter words. Momma hates to hear it and refuses to acknowledge that I use this kind of language. Of course, there’s a good chance she’ll probably never read this.
I guess you could say I’m lucky that I’m poor and a tightwad, because it was the real reason I stayed onboard with our American Indian cook, Crow, while the rest of the crew went out to celebrate our dear Captain Barr’s fifteenth anniversary on the Cora. That was a few days ago—the same day the zombie virus reached this far north. Either the crew actually gave a shit about that evil little man, or they simply wanted some Japanese food; either way, it just so happened that the dead sauntered into town while the crew was eating raw fish at Ichiban. Our beloved shipmates have yet to return. My guess is they are naked, blue, and crapping in the woods. Crow dislikes everyone with a penis, so she stayed galley-bound. I was not willing to spend my money so that I could fellowship with those sumbitches. So lucky us, we were not on land when Guntersville was washed pale blue and covered in shit. We survived and can now share one another’s company. Oh joy.
Crow is about my age, and claims to be Kiowa Apache. You can tell she is an Indian because of her straight black hair and her somewhat darker skin, but also because she can predict within the hour, wherever we are, and whatever time of day or night, if it is going to rain. Sounds Indian to me. I don’t know what I was expecting, but her voice does not indicate her Plains ancestry, at least, not according to every movie I have ever seen and the few real-life examples I can recall. She just sounds like your typical "Jenny from the block." Although, to be fair, I’ve never had much of a conversation with her. Now, I have no problem living with a chick who doesn’t talk constantly, but it is a bit creepy to be around a female that speaks even less than most guys...except to offer these fucking cryptic one-liners of hers. Fortunately, she is not disgustingly ugly, either. I’d rank her at a six point five, or maybe a seven out of ten on the hotness scale. Of course, the longer we’re alone on board the more I think I wouldn’t mind hooking up with her. But I don’t think we could ever actually connect like that; she’s just not my type. And besides, I think she bats for her own team.
She is a rarity: one of those lesbians that are actually attractive to men. I’m not sure of her real name, is but everyone simply calls her "Crow." I never got it. She’s not particularly birdlike, though she can be as irritating as a loud scavenger bird when we haven’t had much to eat. I assume it’s just some tribal nickname. It’s too bad about her obvious sexual preference. I know that in every TV show/movie/book there is a statistically over proportionate number of homosexual characters, when really something like only three percent of the American population is openly gay. Hell, if you go by the entertainment industry, then seventy-five percent of the population is wearing an earring in their right ear! I suppose it’s just my typical bad luck that my only crewmate is a girl that eats pie.
Since the plague hit Guntersville, the two of us have had a few clipped conversations about getting injured or even bitten. While she agreed to crush my "white boy head like an over-ripe watermelon" if I got an obvious bite, I understand that she knows some type of Indian shaman mumbo-jumbo and can set a broken bone with spit and mud or some shit, so that’s a plus. It’s too bad I didn’t go to nursing school like my perfect brother. Skill with medicine might have come in handy about now.
We haven’t had many face-to-face encounters with the peevies yet, and there’s enough food on board to last for months—if you add the fish we catch. We live on a boat, so naturally, every member of the crew had a fishing rod and there’s not much else to do, anyway. I’ve been busy scavenging so I don’t have to exist solely on Crow’s fish. We are actually pretty happy about being on the boat. As we have seen countless times in the past several days, peevies can’t swim. And, Crow and I each handle three rods simultaneously. If you are a child, or just childish like I am, you probably laughed at the mention of handling rods.
But enough with the lame introduction. I just figured you should know something about the person who wrote this journal. If I make it long enough, these pages will serve to detail the trials of a survivor near Ground Zero—Mobile, Alabama—of the terrorist-manufactured virus that was unleashed on the American continent. I am going to store this book in a locker under my bed in the Captain’s quarters on the ship. It will be as you guessed it...if you are reading this then I am probably dead. Hopefully, not undead.
Mo Journal Entry 1
So, just over a week ago, the ship arrived in Marshall County, docking at the empty pier beside the "big bridge" on the northeast end of Guntersville Island. This description has always pissed me off, by the way. Guntersville is not an island. Downtown is a man-made peninsula attached by a concrete bridge on the north side by US Highway 431. Then there’s a causeway (basically a land bridge) to the east, south, and west, and a huge-ass section of land on the southwest corner. The city is surrounded by water on three sides, making it, yeah, a peninsula. People f
rom Guntersville have always spoken as if they were superior to everyone else from Marshall County because they have an "island." Suck it, Marshall. Close, but no cigar.
For days following the outbreak, every news network had doctors, scientists, military tacticians, and other pseudo-experts analyzing and debating the "sick," "infected," and "plague victims (or "peevies" for short). They talked about an inevitable cure, but no one’s come up with anything yet. I am so glad I never have to watch TV again! These guys refused to just call peevies what they are: dead, soulless, zombies! They are not just sick people that are too ill to reason with, and they are not treatable. They are dead. And whatever it is about them that keeps them walking around anyway is hell bent on making everyone else dead, too.
During one of the last television broadcasts, a reporter stated that the term "zombie" was insensitive, something only a "hick" would call one of the infected and that it was ignorant to refer to any of the “plague victims” as anything but what they were: diseased. You know what? Fuck you, Piers Morgan! I’m not going to keep reminding myself that they are helplessly compelled to hurt others by some sickness. I’m going to think of them as mindless, ravenous, undead husks because on top of everything else, I don’t need to feel guilty about murdering innocent people to survive. You’ll never have to worry about having to fight for your survival anyway, you stupid British bastard. You couldn’t imagine the horror of using self-defense with deadly force! And more than one talking head has theorized that this could possibly just be the next step in human evolution and that we should not even try to stop it. Now, that is the most ridiculous thing that has ever been said, but I swear to God, they actually said it. I’m no scientist, but I can sure as hell tell you that these "infected" zombies are not on a higher evolutionary plane than we are. We bathe, cook our food, and we don’t make a habit of shitting ourselves. Oh, and we don’t eat human flesh, either.