Zombies' End: Aftermath

by Feren, Todd C.

  Zombies’ End:

  Aftermath

  BY

  Todd C. Feren

  Copyright © 2020 Todd Feren

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2020 by Todd C. Feren. Published in 2020. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental. Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited. Cover art by Jason Murphy. Find more information on his work at JasonMurphy.net

  The Editing of this book was done by Francesca Leon.

  visit:

  ToddFeren.com for more information about the author and upcoming works.

  All rights reserved.

  For Wally, Seymour, and Rex

  The Zombie Monologues @2008 by Todd C. Feren

  The stories in this book were Originally written in 2008 and performed in the stage production of “The Zombie Monologues” in 2009, and 2011.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Copyright

  "The Nanjing Flu"

  Carl Logan

  Jessie

  Peter Francis

  Amy

  Amanda Waymore

  Cyrus Willis

  Luke (Just Luke)

  Jack Rubin

  Bryan Thomas

  Closing thoughts

  "The Nanjing Flu"

  It started as something called the “Nanjing flu.”

  If you’re like me, you might have never heard of Nanjing. Even if you had heard of the Chinese city, you probably didn’t know a lot about it. The sad part about that fact is twofold— Nanjing is a huge city that is one of the world’s oldest. With a population of nine million, it rivals New York city for sheer hustle and bustle, only it takes up less than half of the total land mass of the big apple.

  The second part is that, historically speaking, we don’t give two shits about a country going through a crisis unless we have a personal knowledge and connection with it.

  Let’s be honest, we send thoughts and prayers when other countries face horrific challenges, but in the end, Americans are just glad that we’re safe where we are.

  When reports of the Nanjing flu were first reported, a lot of people rolled their eyes.

  “Another SARS?”

  “Another bird flu?”

  “Another swine flu?”

  “Another crazy ‘Chinese Virus?’”

  We’d started getting used to the news of random illnesses coming from that part of the world. But, if we had cared, if we had opened our eyes, a lot of this might have been prevented.

  Even the staunchest humanitarian would’ve recommended bombing Nanjing into glass if they could have seen how bad this would get.

  I think if the leaders of our government are ever found, and if they are even alive, they should be publicly executed for deceiving the American population for as long as they did.

  Even after we stopped calling it a “flu,” and started calling US citizens “zombies,” the government failed a lot of us.

  The outbreak was the single most devastating event that humanity has ever suffered. It lasted a total of four-hundred and ninety one days, and in that time, over ninety percent of the planet was directly affected by the outbreak. It’s been estimated that over two and a half billion died worldwide. Final numbers may never be revealed.

  It seems as though the rebuilding governments of the world are still as secretive and tightlipped as ever.

  As the planet slowly began rebuilding, I decided to travel around the country to see the carnage the virus left in its wake. I needed to see firsthand if the people who survived were as damaged as me.

  Virtually everyone who survived, survived because they had to do something horrible. They had to see something unimaginable and — more than likely— had to do something that will haunt them forever.

  I did.

  The entire country looks about how you’d imagine the end of the world looking— defeated. However, Florida got the worst of it. It wasn’t simply the nature of how the undead got into Florida that made their situation so dire. The federal government closed the borders to the state in an attempt to save the rest of the country, leaving the entire population of the state to fend for themselves.

  That’s not to say that Uncle Sam didn’t try to save Florida at first. But when the arrival in Naples happened the way it did, the government got out and made sure nobody else was able to leave.

  It was the equivalent of being the first out of a burning building and then sealing off the doors to make sure the fire couldn’t follow you up the street.

  Now imagine that building has over twenty million people still inside.

  While traveling through the state, I found myself in downtown Orlando. A reporter at the local paper had organized an unusual service at a portion of downtown that was acting as a mass memorial for all those who died during the outbreak.

  The entire street was blanketed with flowers, framed photographs, and letters written to those who would never be able to read them.

  In the middle of all of this was a microphone and a small speaker. A handwritten note on the microphone simply said, “Let it out.”

  It seemed like the microphone and speaker were just lost in the sea of grieving survivors and flowers. Then, a small man shuffled up to the microphone and began telling his story.

  A few people stopped to listen, I was one of them.

  As he told his story, although horrific, people began to gather.

  They weren’t alone.

  Other people began to line up and wait for their turn to tell their own horrors. The simple act of talking out loud seemed to be a cathartic release for the person speaking. For those listening, it was a reminder that others had experienced something similar to them. They felt less alone in their suffering.

  I pulled out a small recorder and sat for hours listening to them. The following text is a word for word account of their stories.

  While some are incredibly graphic, I’ve chosen to transcribe them exactly as they were told. We all lived through horrors, and the only way to get beyond them is to remember what happened, and to remember that we are all in this together.

  Carl Logan

  Carl Logan was the first one to approach the microphone. He was thin, but most of that appeared to be from his time under quarantine. He was freshly shaven, and his clothes looked like the kind that people were given at one of the many shelters that were everywhere inside the city. There was a simplicity to him that everyone could instantly relate to. From the moment he began to speak, he was immediately likable. It was his words that brought more people over to our section of the street, but it was his story that convinced people they needed to tell their tale.

  I’m not good in front of people... My name is Carl Logan.

  I was an Information technology manager for TDX. I’ve been there for eleven years.

  I was there for eleven years. It probably doesn’t even exist anymore. Sometimes I wonder if my desk is still there sitting in an empty office— the knickknacks my wife got me for my birthday still cluttering up the top of my computer.

  When I first heard about the flu, I was at work and heard some guys joking about it. I laughed too, but I didn’t understand what they were talking about. I was trying to be one of the guys. I never had a lot of friends. My wife and my dog were all I really needed... All I really had...

  They kept calling it the “Nanjing Flu.” When you hear that, the name makes you feel safe. It’s isolated to the city of Nanjing in China. The name itself says that.

  Nanjing flu found only in Nanjing. It makes sense. That's why the guys in my office were laughing. It wasn’t call
ed American Flu...We were safe.

  To be honest, I never knew there was a city called Nanjing. Like most Americans I guess... But when they reported the first case outside of China, the name didn’t seem as funny.

  It could travel.

  It was probably about six months from when I first heard about it, to when the news really reported on it. And you know when that was? When the flu made it to India. That’s when everyone saw how fast it could spread. How much damage it was doing. But we still didn’t see any pictures, or video. Nobody questioned why we hadn’t seen anything...Now we know.

  If they had released footage of what the flu really was, there would have been panic in the streets. One morning, I woke up and saw on the news about the Flu outbreak in Birmingham. Then how quickly it spread to London. That was the first video I saw.

  There were rumors of what was happening, we all heard them, but nobody believed any of it. It was all wild hearsay, and so fantastical it couldn’t have been real.

  People eating each other? Bullets don’t stop them?

  It wasn’t real— it couldn’t be real.

  Nobody believed it. But then that video. That damn video.

  The woman— the infected woman in Bristol with the baby.

  When they showed the video on the news, they stopped the footage right before— well, you know when they stopped it. Back then, they couldn’t show anything like that on television.

  Simpler times, ya know?

  My wife, Julie, watched the whole thing online.

  I couldn’t.

  But Julie was like that. She was fearless. She didn’t want to see that video. She had to see it. She left the room immediately when the news cut off the footage and went to the computer in our bedroom.

  She asked me if I was going to come watch the full video, and I said ‘no.’ She knew I wouldn’t.

  I couldn’t.

  After three minutes in the other room she came out with tears in her eyes. She hugged me and broke down.

  I’d never seen her like that. She was always so strong. So much stronger than me.

  I didn’t deserve her. I didn’t deserve a woman half as amazing as Julie.

  She was beautiful— much more attractive than me.

  You know those couples that you see walking down the street, and you say, “What’s SHE doing with HIM?”

  I was HIM.

  I don’t know what she saw in me. Maybe security. I was safe, she had a rough childhood. Maybe she felt like I was a guy who couldn’t hurt her like she’d been hurt before.

  Or, maybe I was the wounded bird that she took in—

  It didn’t matter to me why she was there, because she loved me. That’s all that mattered.

  Coming home to her smile was all I ever needed in the world.

  Watching her sobbing on the floor after watching that video— It made me realize something was seriously wrong.

  To see this incredibly strong woman collapse on the floor in tears after watching a three minute video told me that I could never watch what she just had.

  When the flu made it to Mexico, we knew it was only a matter of time before it was in the states.

  Then they started washing up on the beaches in Florida. That’s when everything changed.

  I remember hearing the news anchor so callously say, “Florida is being quarantined!” He said it like it was just another piece of news.

  No compassion.

  But I guess that’s kinda the reporters job. If he was panic screaming and throwing stuff across the room while reporting it, it may have caused people to freak out more.

  But, maybe that’s what they needed—

  Almost overnight, the government built a wall across the border of Florida and they were shooting at anyone trying to get out.

  My home state.

  The government was shooting at citizens.

  Why didn’t our government do anything when it was in other countries? Why didn’t they do something when it was another country’s people being killed?

  I guess that’s our nature, right? We don’t want to help anybody but ourselves. But at that point, it was too late. We were trapped.

  Why are we such a selfish species? When things started looking dark, what did people do?

  They hoarded toilet paper and water.

  People took more than they needed because they didn’t want to end up being the person who needed anything. So, they took more than they could use, and kept valuable supplies away from people who may have needed it.

  Oh, the politicians put on a great show when they locked us in.

  “We will be dropping supplies and weapons so that those who are not infected can survive.”

  Supplies? Food rations and bandages. The governor went on TV and told everyone to stay inside. “Hunker down.”

  It made perfect sense. If you stayed inside, the infected couldn’t get in. They weren’t coordinated. They couldn’t open doors or windows. If everyone would just stay inside, this thing would pass.

  “Flatten the curve,” they said.

  I told Julie that we would ride this out from home. We had plenty of food and water. I always had cans of food and bottles of water since we always have hurricanes that come through.

  We really had everything we needed. The news anchor was saying that the whole thing should be over within a month—maybe a little longer.

  The president kept saying it would go away before we knew it, and he was eager to reopen the economy.

  My dog, Wally, had enough food for 2 months, and our canned food supply was just a little more. But to be safe, I rationed our food so that we could go on for longer if we needed to.

  The only problem I could foresee was that I’m diabetic. My need for insulin was the only unknown I had.

  I have two months supply pretty much at all times. If this was going to be over in a month, I would be fine, but what if it wasn’t?

  The power went out towards the end of month two.

  Nobody knew why.

  One afternoon, I opened up the upstairs window to let some fresh air in, and the smell that came in was horrible. There were obviously fires around town, and the air itself smelled rotten.

  Out on the streets we couldn’t really see anything that looked different than normal. As far as we could tell, there was no “Flu epidemic.” My insulin supply was just starting to run low, and

  it was impossible to keep the temperature of the house down.

  A hot house in Florida with no A/C didn’t make keeping the insulin I did have below room temperature easy.

  Wally became the ultimate watch dog. He never left my side unless I told him to go be with Julie.

  He knew I wasn’t feeling well, even before I could really tell I was in any trouble at all. He kept licking the back of my hand, and at night he would stand over me while I slept. I got used to waking up and having him there.

  Like a guard.

  Sometimes he would bark at the window, and when we would look, we couldn’t see anything at all.

  I was starting to feel tired all the time. At first, I thought it was the stress of the situation.

  Julie was great.

  Poor Wally trained himself to poop in the upstairs bathtub. Then Julie would pick it up and flush it down the toilet—That was when we still had working water.

  Then the day that I feared finally came— I had no more insulin.

  I tried to comfort Julie. I kept telling her I would be fine.

  “This will all be over soon,” I’d tell her.

  I hated lying to her like that—

  She had the crazy idea to run to the pharmacy up the street. It was about half a mile away, and we hadn’t seen anything that could tell us there was any danger in our area at all.

  We live inland, maybe they never made it this far in.

  No matter how many different ways I said “no”, or how many different things I came up with that could go wrong, there was no stopping her.

  She was stubborn.

&nb
sp; Brave—

  Braver than me.

  One morning she left really early while I was still sleeping. I had been sleeping a lot— I was just always so tired.

  When I woke up, there was an Insulin case in front of me. It was insulated to protect it from the heat.

  She left without me knowing and she made it back!

  I was angry that she went after we agreed she wouldn’t leave the house, but I was thankful for the insulin.

  I took the insulin that I needed and called out for her—She didn’t answer.

  I could hear the dog upstairs crying. I was still pretty weak, but I pulled myself upstairs to see Wally scratching at the bathroom door.

  We always tried to keep it open so he could use the tub for his business.

  I went to open the door and it was locked.

  Then I heard Julie's voice from the other side. She was crying.

  “You can’t come in, Carl,” she said. “I was bitten.”

  —My heart stopped.

  “What?”

  I pulled on the door— hard. I squeezed the knob so tight, I thought it would rip off in my hand. I yanked and pushed on the door, cursing that I wasn’t strong enough to rip it from it’s hinges.

  “Open the damn door, Julie!” I demanded, using the “I’m the man” voice that she hated so much.

  “Julie!” I yelled again, this time cracks in my voice betrayed my false anger and threatened to show the true terror that was exploding in my heart.

  She was quiet for a long time before finally responding.

  “I was bitten. I love you Carl.”

  I screamed again, “Open the door!”

  She took a long time before she said anything again. Then, in the single saddest voice I’ve ever heard from her she said, “I’m sorry, Carl.”

  I kicked the door out of frustration and and dread.

  “Julie! Open the door! Open the door! We can clean the wound! You’ll be fine.”

  It was a lie. I knew I was lying, but I would have said anything to convince her to just open the door.