Zombie Redemption
#4 in the Tale of Tom Zombie Series
By H. D. Timmons
Copyright © 2015 H. D. Timmons
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
Prologue
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Prologue
Air Force Captain, Jef Barber, skirted the chaotic scene at the quay on his growling Russian made M-72 sidecar motorcycle, a well-kept relic of World War II, still useful and agile over the Icelandic terrain. Jef surveyed the area a few times and was about to go back to the base, his curiosity satisfied, when he noticed something – someone – moving on the dock.
The figure was on its belly attempting to crawl onto the dock, the lower half of its body dangling over the edge, feet still on the dock ladder. Jef’s M-16 rifle was slung across his back. He pulled it around in one smooth motion and looked through its scope. He saw a face that bore the all too familiar results of a government delusional enough to think it could play god. Just another creeper. The entire island was filthy with them. In the span of five days, Iceland’s population of over 320,000 reduced to a meager fraction left living, the rest living dead or dead dead.
Jef shifted the nub of a cigar clenched between his teeth, the ends of his handlebar mustache twitching as he did, and scoped the scene again. The crawling dead-head was trying to raise itself, looking more like it was trying to do a push up with zero upper body strength. Jef peeled away from the scope to take in the entire panoramic view with his naked eyes. Finally, he lined up the scope once more, bit down on his cigar, and fired.
Part 1
Tom roused wearily to the sound of The Girl from Ipanema playing from an old record player in the corner of the room.
“Well, aren’t you a lucky pup,” Jef said to the stray he’d brought in. “I was kind of getting used to being the last of the Mohicans around here, but it’s good to have someone to talk to. You can talk, can’t you?”
Tom rubbed the back of his sore head and propped himself onto his elbow from his reclined position on a vinyl sofa, while Jef filled in the blanks. “You might have a concussion ‘cause you were pretty dazed from that ship fiasco. Better a knock to the head than few slugs from a 5.56mm to ventilate it.
“Seeing that other creeper thirty yards from you, and closing the gap fast, told me that if he’s comin’ after you, then you ain’t no creeper. I mean, you sure as hell look like one, but you’re not a real creeper. Kinda lucky how that worked out, huh?”
Tom cleared his throat and uttered weakly, “Yeah. Thanks.”
“You’re at Keflavik Naval Air Station. I’m Captain Jef Barber,” Jef offered without a handshake. “But I guess all that name, rank, and serial number bullshit is out the window now. Maybe I’m just plain ol’ Jef Barber again. And you are?”
Tom swiveled to right himself on the sofa and rubbed his aching head. His hands rubbed down the length his face, fingertips tracing the contours of his grotesque features. As his hands pulled away, his nostrils sucked in a deep breath to refresh his lungs.
“Tom Dexter. But I guess I’m just plain ol’ Tom the zombie man now.”
“Tom Zombie. It fits... because of your jacked up face and all… Yeah… I get it. Well, it’s not as jacked up as the rest of the world, let me tell ya. A lot’s happened while you were at sea.”
Jef presented Tom with a nutshell version of what had transpired in the past week with regard to the inordinate world-wide rise in zombie population, and the drastic decrease in the living, which he basically termed a survival of the fittest cluster-fuck.
Tom was speechless, and at first Jef couldn’t tell if it was because he was in shock, not surprised, or just still dazed and tired. Tom tried to stay alert, but his eyelids grew visibly heavy.
“No. No. Can’t go to sleep. Not yet.” Jef slapped Tom’s knee. “Didn’t you hear me say you might have a concussion? I need to make sure you’re coherent before you go noddin’ off. I’ve got a dry a second louie uniform for ya. Now you outrank me,” Jef chuckled. “Not that any of that matters anymore.”
Jef flared his nostrils to sniff the air. “But first, I think we need to get you into a hot shower. Then, I’ll get you some chow, and give you the nickel tour.”
Part 2
To say that things had gone awry in the world would be a gross understatement. That would be the equivalent to saying it was a bit nippy out during the ice age.
The surreal Chicago landscape left every passenger silent with their own thoughts aboard the transit bus. Thoughts that were all the same. Gotta get out. Gotta get out. What about so-and-so? Where’s so-and-so? Can’t worry about them now. Oh, my God. I gotta get out of the city. Gotta get out fast!
Angry murmurs erupted from the crowd, and swear words were hurled at the driver with each stop he’d made. They didn’t want him to stop. Just barrel through town and get the hell outta Dodge. But the driver, Daryl Templeton, felt the need to carry as many people as he could, transforming from public servant to self-designated hero without a second thought.
“Okay. You two are the last ones. We can’t hold any more,” the driver exclaimed as the last two passengers squeezed aboard, followed by shouts of relief and adulation from the crowd. Chicago’s newly developed bus lanes had allowed for a more unobstructed path through the city; and in this case, out of it.
The two new evacuees guided themselves, squeezing into available standing positions near the center of the bus. Jemma Straight tugged at the hood of her hoodie that obscured her face, and assessed the other travelers. Holly Dexter stayed close by her side, gripping tightly to the bus’s overhead hand grip. The two newcomers received a nod of approval from an elderly Asian woman wearing a surgical mask similar to their own. Masks had become common anti-viral gear for the naive city dwellers who wouldn’t bet their lives on the virus — any virus — not being as airborne as the flu.
Looting a drug store for supplies was easy for Holly and Jemma. The tricky part was getting people to help them get out of town when Jemma looked like the rancid creatures they were all running from. Heavily applied makeup to cover facial blemishes, and a surgical mask to conceal her eroding lips did the trick nicely. She also donned sunglasses for good measure.
The driver sideswiped several haphazardly abandoned cars, jolting the passengers from time to time. Out of the windows the city flickered by like a movie, each section of glass an individual frame of film.
Abandoned businesses, desolate sidewalks, and from time to time a flash of movement revealed the scattered remnants of people advancing their way out of Chicago. They were the ones clinging to the shadows of alleys and darkened doorways. Out in the open, mindless predators appeared. It was like watching a National Geographic video in which predators and prey are easily distinguished — rooting for the prey to be swift and cunning enough to survive, but knowing the odds were against them.
The monsters ambled across streets, indifferent to the cars that were fleeing the city. They didn’t even flinch at the forty-thousand pound transit bus bearing down on them. Slam, thump, splat. Another one bites the dust. Windshield splatters cleared by wiper blades. Rinse and repeat.
“This is the route that will take us near my mother’s neighborhood. She has a car.” Holly leaned closer to Jemma to whisper the next few reassuring words. “She’s waiting for me so we can head to my mom’s cousin’s place. We’ll be safe there.”
One eavesdropper politely interjected behind them. “Excuse me. I couldn
’t help overhearing, but this bus isn’t following its normal route. It’s a straight shot out of town once we hit the highway.”
Jemma turned at the sound of the familiar baritone. “Mark?” She turned side to side, her suitcase knocking several nearby knees, until she located his face. “Mark!”
“Do I know you?” Mark asked, trying to peer through the masked woman’s dark sunglasses.
“It’s Jemma.”
“Jemma!” Mark’s eyes widened and he proceeded to nudge his way between several passengers to stand with her. He gave Jemma a hug out of sheer joy of seeing a familiar face, albeit obscured. “So, what with the get up?” he asked, and then began to answer his own question. “Oh, to cover up…”
“Yes. To cover up so I don’t contract the virus.” Jemma spoke up quickly.
“Right. Better safe than… sorry.” Mark caught on to mind his Ps and Qs among the other passengers, and not reveal Jemma’s secret.
Jemma noticed Mark making eye contact with the other masked woman sidling up to them. “Oh, Mark, this is Holly. Tom’s daughter.”
“Tom?” Mark thought a second. “Oh, Tom! Well, Holly, I’m so glad to see that my theory was correct, and that you really are alive, too.”
“Theory?” Holly’s eyes darted to Jemma.
“It’s a long story,” Jemma dismissed, not wanting to go in to details with a bus full of eavesdropping passengers. “Tom’s still out there somewhere, but he wanted me to let Holly know he was still alive.”
“Good to meet you… Mark, is it?” Holly said.
“Well, your dad’s a tough one, that’s for sure.” Mark began to praise her father. “And that zombie-proof trick of his is freakin’ awesome.”
Holly looked quizzically at Mark for the second time since meeting him, but Jemma interrupted her questioning thoughts.
“So, Mark said that this bus isn’t taking its normal route. How far to your mother’s place?” Jemma asked, wielding her skill at changing subjects. Holly craned her neck to peer out of the window to get her bearings enough to answer.
An emerald green Saab in the next lane swerved to avoid hitting two creatures that were devouring a human carcass in the street. The Saab veered into the bus lane causing Daryl to counter maneuver. The front right tire jumped the curb, and the bus clipped a light pole. The heavy vehicle rocked from the impact, and then jerked sharply to steer the bus back into its lane.
The passengers lurched uncontrollably, colliding and falling into one another. Jemma’s hand was jarred loose from the overhead hand grip, and she collapsed on top of her suitcase. Scraping against bodies on her way down, her sunglasses were knocked from her face. As she struggled to her feet, the elderly woman, who had previously nodded so approvingly at Jemma for wearing a protective mask, now raised a shaking finger in Jemma’s direction. “Virus!” The woman shrieked. “She’s got the virus!”
Holly steadied herself against a pole and looked at Jemma, whose surgical mask had slipped to her chin in the commotion, revealing the partially eroded lips no makeup could conceal. Despite the throng being so dense, some of the crowd tried to back away from the infected passenger. A few others lashed out at Jemma with venomous words, shoves, kicks, and fists to her torso. Mark and Holly positioned themselves as a protective shield, absorbing some of the blows.
With surprisingly quick reflexes, the masked woman reached out and ripped the mask from Holly’s face half hoping to find her as infected as her friend, but relieved that Holly appeared to be symptom free.
The driver observed the ruckus in his rear-view mirror, and word grape-vined to him that one of his passengers had the zombie virus. Daryl Templeton had no intention of letting twelve years of service to his beloved city, culminating in risking his life to save a bus load of passengers in the midst of a full-blown zombie apocalypse, all be undone by an infected infiltrator.
All forty-thousand pounds of transit bus screeched and hissed to an abrupt stop. “Get that thing off my bus!” Daryl barked over the PA system, then pressed the button that opened the mid-section door. The mass of passengers shoved in Jemma’s direction, the closest hands reached out to do the physical chore that the collective all desired. Closer and closer to the opened door; some fists still seizing the opportunity to take pot shots at Jemma’s back.
Holly observed as a hand arched over shoulders in the crowd, trying to level a Ruger at the back of Jemma’s head. Movement against the force of the crowd was impossible. The path of least resistance was to go low and aim for the legs. Holly launched herself to the floor and cut through the forest of limbs, toppling five people including the gunman. Bodies fell forward like dominoes, popping Jemma out onto the sidewalk. The gun was knocked loose, and skipped like a stone down the doorway steps, landing at the curb.
Satisfied by the scene in his rear-view, Daryl put his bus in gear. As it hissed and lurched from its idle state, Holly and Mark managed to exit with Jemma’s suitcase before the doors closed.
Jemma lay battered and bruised on the sidewalk. Her companions administered first aid with the drug store loot from Holly’s stolen backpack, that they didn’t think they’d be using so soon. The one new item Holly added to the contents was the Ruger she picked up from the gutter. She hoped they wouldn’t need that anytime soon either.
Part 3
While they ate their food, Jef leaned in to unabashedly scrutinize Tom’s face; the fetid flesh, exposed teeth on one side, and open lesions. “So. What’s your story, zombie man? And why the hell were you on that ship, anyway?”
“I assume you know Major Fleming?” Tom began.
“Pompous, looks like a prick with oak leaves on his shoulders? Oh, I know him alright.”
“Well, it all started at Fort Sheridan…”
When Tom had finished telling the tale of how he ended up in Iceland, Jef didn’t know whether to be in awe of Tom for his bravery, or his stupidity.
“You followed the trail all the way to here hoping to… what? Stop Major Fleming? Well, too late for that. The genie’s out of the bottle.”
“I guess I was naive to ever think I could really change anything.”
“Wow. All that, and you’ve got the flesh eating virus to boot,” Jef reflected. “Sucks being you.”
“Sucks being anyone right now.”
“I couldn’t tell. Did you like the lamb hot dogs?” Jef asked, escorting Tom from the mess hall.
“Can’t complain.” Truth be told, Tom wouldn’t complain if Jef had served him World War II K-rations. He needed to regain his strength.
“Not standard base chow, but quite a treat around here, I’ll tell ya.” Jef lit up an after dinner stogie, and savored the first few igniting drags. The curled ends of his mustache flexed like tiny scissor grips with each puff. “I pilfered the lamb dogs from a local place we all used to go to. Funny how it tastes so much better when you know there’s a limited supply. Kinda like this cigar,” he said, waving the fat roll of tobacco leaves in the air ceremoniously.
Walking the path between the buildings back to the commanding officer’s quarters, which Jef had re-appropriated as his own, he observed Tom noting the late hour on his watch, which belied the sun still hovering above the horizon.
“It takes some getting used to,” Jef said, and waved a hand across the sky with a wide flourish. “Welcome to the land of the midnight sun.”
The ache and grogginess in Tom’s head had subsided, but he still strained to conjure a vague recollection of where exactly Iceland would be on a map. Just below the Arctic Circle? He nodded in acknowledgment while Jef proceeded as if he were a docent for the Icelandic tourism board.
“During this Arctic summer, sunrise comes at about 0300 hours and the so-called sunset is at midnight, but it’s still pretty much daylight twenty-four seven. Won’t even get dark enough for stars to come out. Have to wait until August to see them again.”
Tom was only half listening to Jef when he spotted the planes on the air field, and gravitated towards a sleek F-15
model. From what he’d seen in the movies, an F-15 fighter jet streaked across the sky like an arrow.
Jef appreciated Tom’s fascination, but grew concerned when Tom appeared to be veering away from the jet he was admiring. Jef looked past Tom to the Quonset hut near the hangar, wondering if the chain and lock on its doors had piqued Tom’s interest. Concern turned to fear, and Jef quickened his pace, but slowed when he realized that Tom was only maneuvering to walk wide around the plane’s wingspan before moving in for a closer look. For now, the contents of the Quonset hut was safe, and that was a relief to Jef.
“Nice, isn’t she?” Jef said as he approached.
“Never seen one up close,” Tom replied from the shadow of the F-15.
“The basic weight of this fighter is only forty-five thousand pounds,” Jef offered. Tom hadn’t known Jef for very long, but it was obvious that Jef had a penchant for elucidation. “Each engine generates upwards of twenty-five thousand pounds of thrust, so she moves pretty damn fast.”
“Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Tom channeled his inner Top Gun, knowing that this baby could get him back to the states — to his daughter — much faster than any commercial airliner.
A shrill cry spun Tom on his heels. Like an animal caught in a trap, the visceral zombie scream was unmistakable. Jef walked in the direction of the sound without concern. Curious and quiet, Tom followed. The perimeter fence was secure, topped with razor wire, and no gaps to be seen.
The shrieking grew louder as they rounded the motor pool. Behind it they found a gnarled and tattered body flailing against the outside of the perimeter fence, the smell of searing flesh was pungent, and it looked like the zombie was holding Fourth of July sparklers.
“He must have smelled our fresh meat walking around out here and wanted a snack,” Jef announced. “Like my bug zapper?” He pointed to the fence, his finger tracing its length to point to some crates and wires fifty yards away. “It’s not a perfect system, but with jeep batteries and ignition coils from the motor pool you can rig a pretty effective electric fence. A little trick I learned growing up in farm country. Of course, this one packs more of a punch.” Jef raised his hands in a gripping motion, stretched open his mouth, rolled his eyes back in his head, and shook his body abruptly.
The Tale of Tom Zombie (Book 4): Zombie Redemption Page 1