ENDURING ARMAGEDDON
A Novel Of The Apocalypse
Brian Parker
Works available by Brian Parker
GNASH, Book One of the Washington, Dead City Series
Enduring Armageddon
Zombie in the Basement
Zombie in the Basement: The Coloring Book!
Self-Publishing the Hard Way
A PERMUTED PRESS BOOK
Published at Smashwords
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-585-8
ENDURING ARMAGEDDON
© 2015 by Brian Parker
All Rights Reserved
Cover art by Martin Kintanar
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.
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DESTRUCTION
The world is so full of simpletons and madmen, that one need not seek them in madhouse.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It will never be remembered how or why the misunderstanding between two sovereign nations escalated, as they so often do, into a larger global conflict. Their ancestors had fought for centuries over the same piece of ground and in the modern era they’d continued on as their fathers and forefathers before them. Conventional weapon strikes and counter-strikes between the two countries eventually grew into a nuclear exchange and in the ensuing chaos an errant grid coordinate was entered into a ballistic computer. The result was that a third nation was dragged into the quarrel and they retaliated in kind. Due to non-aggression treaties and retaliation pacts between partnered states almost every nation that had offensive capabilities was pulled into the madness one by one. The complete destruction of human society, as we know it, was accomplished in little more than twenty-four hours.
The impacts of the missiles and the vaporization of flora and fauna caught in the explosions threw millions of tons of dust and debris into the air. The wind currents carried giant clouds of ash and radioactive particles over the areas of the earth that weren’t even involved in the war. Within days, most of the planet was enveloped in a darkness that the sun couldn’t penetrate and the temperatures plummeted rapidly.
Then it began to rain and poison fell from the sky over the surface of the earth.
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
About the Author
ONE
We made our way towards the open community of Virden, Illinois. People still maintained the state’s name for posterity’s sake, but no one really cared about states or boundaries anymore. Becca and I had tried to hold out after the nuclear war devastated most of the major cities and military bases, but it just became too dangerous near the city. We left our apartment in the suburbs of Chicago when the radiation freaks and scavengers became too numerous to ignore. We fled with the few supplies that we could cram into our backpacks and abandoned every other possession that we’d worked our whole pathetic lives for.
We weren’t alone. There were hundreds, possibly thousands, just like us. We were part of a constant stream of people leaving the ruined city for the promise of a future in the wilds of the countryside. Funny that the suburbs of Chicago, USA could be considered a wild land, I thought as I trudged along. But it was true. I’d grown up in the city, spent my youth playing along Lakeshore Drive and doing stupid shit in the park of the same name. Now the city was a wasteland and everyone who had the capability to leave was getting the fuck out of Dodge.
We stayed in our apartment in Chicago suburb of Plainfield for almost three weeks after the Chinese or Russians—hell, maybe even the French, I don’t know—bombed the shit out of us. If we’d lived any closer to my work downtown, then both of us would probably be dead, burnt up in a nuclear firestorm. We survived on the water that we’d saved in the bathtub and eaten whatever we could trade for down at Salaam’s Corner Market before everything went to total shit. Once the freaks and scavengers began to show up, we knew it was time to leave.
The freaks are easier to deal with than the scavengers. Nobody really knows what the creatures are. Some people call them zombies—they certainly act like a zombie from a movie—some call them freaks and others call them victims. I don’t know how I feel about the ethical part of the discussion, but I know that they’re dangerous as hell and should be avoided or destroyed if you can’t avoid them. They are people whose bodies are so ravaged by radiation and disease that their minds have been literally fried and they are crazy as fuck. They attack whatever they see. People, animals, each other, it doesn’t matter. If it moves, they try to destroy it. Fortunately there’s not too many of them and their bodies still follow basic human anatomy. They have to eat and they can still be killed just like normal humans, but they can withstand terrible injuries and it doesn’t appear to bother them at all. Every encounter with them, even if they don’t kill you, is potentially deadly because of the radiation and the various diseases they carry. The illnesses they carry would have been nothing more than a minor inconvenience before the blast, but if you contract something these days, it’s likely to kill you.
The scavengers though, they are another breed entirely. Don’t get me wrong, they are completely human, but they do whatever the hell they want and don’t care about anyone else but themselves. They rape, torture, and murder just because they can. There is no negotiating with them, it is kill or be killed. No one knows if they always existed in our society and the laws kept them in check or if the apocalypse flipped a switch in their brains. Whatever the reason, they’re messed up and they love to inflict pain on everyone else. It’s like all the supervillains in every movie were combined into one devious son of a bitch. Then multiply that one person into thousands, maybe millions, and you have America’s scavenger population.
The final straw that sent us over the edge and forced us to move from Plainfield was when Ali was butchered. Ali owned Salaam’s Corner Market and, even without power or working vehicles, he was somehow able to keep his shelves moderately stocked with foodstuffs during the first few weeks of the crisis. Without him, I’m sure that Becca and I would have starved, but now he was dead, like everyone else we knew in the city.
I went down to the market that morning to get our weekly supply of canned food and some naan bread that Ali baked in his shop. When I opened the door I was almost overwhelmed by the metallic smell of blood and the unpleasant odor of voided bowels. I didn’t know what to do other than to call out for Ali to see if he was alright, but of course he didn’t answer. Something else did.
I heard and even sensed the thing before I saw it and stepped back through the doors just in time. The market’s security bar-reinforced glass doors opened inward, so the creature actually shut them for me when it slammed into them. It literally threw its body against the glass over and over in an effort to reach me. I know now that some of them are still smart enough to pull a door open, but this one didn’t seem to have enough cognitive ability left to do anything but walk. It was the first time that I’d seen a freak up close. Sure, I’d seen them pass by in the alleyway from the safety of my fourth floor
apartment, but nothing prepared me for what came running towards me from the depths of that darkened shop.
The creature that tried to reach me from behind the doors used to be a woman. Most of her hair was gone, either fallen out from malnutrition or ripped out somehow, and her disgusting, deflated breasts sagged almost to her navel. Her skin was covered in lesions that leaked pus and her face was covered in blood and shit, my guess was that she’d been eating poor Ali’s intestines when I interrupted her. I stood there staring at her. I mean, I was absolutely transfixed by what I saw. Even though we’d been dealing with the windblown ashes, food shortage and loss of all basic utilities, we’d been pretty much spared the worst of the holocaust for the past few weeks that far southwest of Chicago. The big blasts had happened to the north and wiped out everything up there, but we’d been sheltered by distance. This was the first time that the realization of our hopeless situation hit me and I began to think it was time to leave before more of these things made their way out of the ruined city.
Before long, a couple of the neighborhood’s other residents came along, either for their normal grocery run or attracted by the sounds of the freak banging into the market’s safety glass. I saw several people that I recognized from the apartment building, but I didn’t actually know any of them. Prior to the blast, our lives had revolved around the daily commute into the city and the time that we had at home was spent with our loved ones, not the neighbors.
The more people that gathered, the more intense and frantic the creature seemed to become. She saw an opportunity to kill and to eat. I made small talk with a couple of people while we watched in revulsion as the freak repeatedly threw itself into the glass that wouldn’t break. I felt bad as I watched her, she could have been a wife, a mother, hell anything, but here she was. Now she was just a murderous cannibal who would stop at nothing to kill every one of us on the sidewalk. I guess she ended up cutting herself on the metal bars somehow because the view into the shop slowly began to cloud with smeared blood on the glass.
Several minutes after people began arriving, she’d cut herself badly enough that her blood began to freely run under the doors. Eventually, her attack on the doors became less pronounced and it seemed like she had to gather her strength each time before the next shove against the doors that refused to budge. Finally, thankfully, the creature’s assault ended entirely with her body pressed against the cage as her lifeblood seeped out into the street. My first encounter with a freak ended with it killing itself while it tried to reach me. I still remember the single-minded determination that those things have to kill the non-infected and I will have nightmares about it for the rest of my life.
* * *
“Hey, spacecase!” Rebecca said as she rode her bike closer to mine and slapped me on the shoulder.
“Huh? Oh sorry, I was just thinking about what happened to Ali back in Plainfield. What did you say?”
“I said that it looks like what those people said about Virden being an open community may be true. See that sign right there?” she said as she pointed to a hand painted wooden sign placed strategically along the road so anyone paying attention would be able to see it.
The sign stated, “VIRDEN, ILLINOIS DECLARED AN OPEN COMMUNITY. SAFE FOR ALL TRAVELERS. THREE MILES STRAIGHT AHEAD, TAKE DIVERNON EXIT OFF 55 SOUTH, FOLLOW SIGNS. ~ MACOUPIN COUNTY MILITIA.”
We’d run into two types of communities so far: Open and closed. Well, actually, there were two other types also. The abandoned and destroyed, but we really tried to avoid those. Closed communities were places where the people who lived there before the nuclear detonations basically sealed themselves up behind walls of some type and didn’t allow any outsiders to come in, even if they were only passing through. Open communities were still secure, but they allowed people without homes to come inside their walls as long as they could be contributing members of the community. No place wanted derelicts and vagrants living with them. We’d heard stories about how communities dealt with bums who tried to move in and mooch off the population. Let’s just say, it wasn’t pretty and they made sure that other potential bums in the area knew that they weren’t allowed.
“What’s the Macoupin County Militia?” Rebecca asked.
“No idea,” I replied. “It must be some type of local police organization that runs things around here. They want us to think that Virden is safe for travelers.”
Truth be told, I was actually embarrassed that I’d let myself get lost in those memories from a couple weeks ago. That was stupid. We hadn’t run into any trouble on our southward journey so far, but from what others along the way had told us, we’d been pretty lucky because everywhere was dangerous these days. I wasn’t brought up in some type of misogynistic, macho family, but I feel like it’s my duty to be Rebecca’s protector and that I’m the one who’s supposed to keep us together and out of trouble.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rebecca asked me as we continued our slow bicycle journey south along the highway.
“Okay, what I meant to say was that they want people to think they’re still a nice town. What if it’s some kind of set-up? You know, lure us in and then harvest our organs or something.”
“Chuck, you have definitely seen too many movies. I’ve listened to you so far, but I want to sleep in a bed, okay? We’ve been on the road for over two weeks and sleeping in sleeping bags out in the cold. I want to go someplace nice with nice people. And I have to believe those kinds of places still exist, otherwise, what the hell are we even wasting our time living for?”
Shit, she had a point. “Fine. We’ll go to Virden, but we need to keep an eye out for anything strange, okay? And we can’t stay long, the weather is already colder since the dust and ash has blocked most of the sunlight, we need to keep going south.”
“Alright, just a day or two. Please, Chuck. Let’s go and meet some nice people, maybe we’ll meet some other travelers who will want to travel with us. There’s safety in numbers.” She’d added that last part because she knew I was worried about what I would do if we were attacked out here on our own. I wasn’t sure what good I would be, but I knew I’d do whatever I could to protect us.
“Alright, alright. You fight dirty! You know I think we need a couple of traveling companions, and you’re right. We might find a couple of decent people in an open community,” I conceded. She practically squealed with delight and lifted her mask away to kiss me quickly on the cheek.
I was reminded of how beautiful my Rebecca is. I hardly ever saw her without the mask anymore. The air was full of all sorts of shit floating around and the little paper masks that we’d picked up made it a lot easier to breathe. She was so covered up from head to toe that it was almost impossible to tell that she was a woman from over a hundred yards away. She had her mop of wavy red hair pulled back in a tight bun and a pale green rain slicker hood up over the top of that. It hadn’t rained in a few days, but it only took one surprise acid rain storm our first night out of the city to encourage us to keep covered at all times.
I truly believed that we were in for a massive extinction event in the next few months and everything we could do to prepare ourselves ahead of time was important. I’d seen a couple of documentaries about nuclear winter and it’s not a pretty scenario. The bulk of the population not directly affected by the explosions would survive the first few months after a nuclear war with what they have in their houses and could get from a grocery store that wasn’t too far away. Unless they killed each other off.
After a while, all the particles in the air from all the vaporized stuff at the blast sites would eventually make it impossible for the sun to warm the earth and we’ll be plunged into a nuclear winter. Shit, I wanted to get as close to the equator as possible and living all the way up in Chicago wasn’t a good starting point. Then again, if Ali hadn’t been murdered, Rebecca probably would have wanted to continue living in our apartment and we’d really be screwed when the winter hit. As far as I was concerned, every foot farther south we tra
veled before the freezing temperatures really set in was a foot closer to survival.
* * *
Rebecca and I turned off Highway 55 and followed the signs like we’d been directed. The road wound through an abandoned town and a few miles later we came to the walls of Virden. They’d been busy in the last month. As far as I could tell from my vantage point, the entire town was surrounded by a six-foot ramshackle wall made from cinder blocks, sheets of corrugated tin roofing panels, cattle pen fencing and overturned vehicles. Guards peeked over the top of the wall at us every so often and I had the distinct feeling that there was a rifle scope aimed right at my head.
I slowly dismounted from the bike and slid the handle of my baseball bat into my belt then raised my hands above my head. “Becca, I think it’s best if we show them that we don’t mean any harm,” I said to my wife. She nodded her head and followed my lead by lifting her arms as well. After no response from the guards we deliberately pushed the bikes towards the wall for the last hundred feet.
“That’s far enough,” a voice said from behind the wall. “State your business.”
“We came to Virden because it’s supposed to be an open community,” I shouted so I could be heard by the people on the wall. “We don’t want any trouble, just passing through and we saw the signs on the highway. If you aren’t an open community, then we’ll just keep going on our way towards the south.”
“No, the signs are right,” the voice replied. “We’re an open community, for the right people. Do you have any other travelers with you? Maybe you have children hidden in the woods a little ways back or something?”
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