United States of Zombie (The Z-Day Trilogy Book 5)

by Mark Cusco Ailes

  Ralph wasn’t going to follow the teacher’s instructions no matter what she told them to do. He was the type of boy who lived life on his own terms, ignoring the orders from adults, including his own parents. He didn’t care about anybody, and he preferred it that way. He watched as the class stood up and joined Mrs. Smith near the door. He was surprised she had the guts to try to move from the classroom to the cafeteria, especially since she knew where the zombie in the hallway was at the moment. He found it amusing that she was putting everybody in harm’s way. In a way, he admired her reckless behavior. It was what he would have done. He wasn’t worried about leaving the classroom. He knew if they ran into trouble he could push one of his classmates toward the zombie and run for the cafeteria. In his mind he was the one who needed to survive. He looked at his classmates lined up behind the teacher as she slowly unlocked the door. He looked at them imagining which one he would push first ̶ which one annoyed him the most. He decided it had to be a girl ̶ he despised them. None of them in the class would pay him any attention. It was just as well. None of them were into the things he was into. They were all too squeamish for the blood and guts lifestyle he enjoyed. He hated that they all watched romantic comedies while he enjoyed good old-fashioned horror movies. They chose love over death. If he had it his way, he would push all of them into the waiting arms of the zombies. He heard the teacher ask him if he was going to join them as she opened the door. He watched as she peeked into the hallway to see if the coast was clear. He could see from his seat a mangled body on the floor resting in a large pool of blood. He stared at the girls in line to see what reaction they would have to it. It was as he expected. They were either covering their eyes or trying to keep from passing out. He let a smile slide across his uncaring face. They were all about to get a taste of the world he lived in and dreamed about every day. He got out of his seat to join them as the teacher took her first step outside of the classroom. He watched as she carefully made her way around the carnage and down the hall. He followed behind his classmates, ready to push the nearest person next to him if something was to suddenly happen. He looked around as he left the classroom. There wasn’t any sign of the zombie. Something else must be attracting its attention. It was too bad. He was actually looking forward to pushing one of the girls toward it. He could vividly visualize it in his mind. The blood showering from her ravaged body as the creature dug its nails into her flesh. As he imagined it, he crashed hard into one of the girls who was in line in front of him. He knew something must have happened in front of them. He strained to see what had happened, but he was too far back in line.

  “What happened?” he asked the girl standing in front of him.

  “I don’t know,” she responded annoyed. “Just shut up and leave me alone.”

  Hearing those words from her angered him. How dare she talk to me like that? It was at that moment he knew who he was going to push first if he had the chance. He suddenly heard whispering coming down the line like they were playing a form of Chinese whispers. He waited impatiently until the whispering reached him. But what he heard confused him. It’s not a debate. There is ham and salami. He looked at the girl in front of him wondering what the hell she was talking about.

  Mrs. Smith stood silently after relaying the message they had to wait because there was a zombie in front of them. It stood directly outside of the main office with blood dripping from its face. A small pool of blood had formed around its feet as it stared directly in front of it. She didn’t know what it was staring at, but she was relieved to know it hadn’t realized they were standing around the corner watching it. They weren’t more than five feet from the cafeteria, but with the zombie standing nearby, it seemed like miles. She held her breath and closed her eyes. She didn’t know what to do but pray. She prayed for God to move the zombie out of the way so she could get her class to the cafeteria. She opened her eyes and looked at the zombie again. It was still standing looking straight ahead as if it were in a trance. She thought about retracing her steps and leading her class back to the classroom, but she didn’t want to risk it. Besides, they were so close to the cafeteria, she didn’t want to leave. She was about to send another message down the line when for some reason the zombie turned around and made its way back inside the office. She knew God had answered her prayer and sent the zombie away. Without wasting a minute, she led her class around the corner toward the open door leading inside the cafeteria. She wanted to run toward it, but she couldn’t take the chance they would make too much noise. The last thing she wanted was for the zombie to hear them. It didn’t take them long to reach the cafeteria, and she stood silently outside it as her students began to file inside. Half of her students had safely made it inside when the zombie came back into the hallway from the office and stood staring directly in front of it. She stood there with her heart racing in her chest as Ralph came into view. She was going to get all her students to safety before the zombie knew they were down the hall from it. She turned to watch as Ralph came near. There were only a few more students in front of him. The sound of a cell phone ringing broke the silence. It caught the attention of the zombie that turned to look in their direction. It saw them in the hallway and opened its mouth and growled and then took a step toward them. Mrs. Smith felt her legs become heavy and buckle. She wanted to turn to scowl at Ralph for disobeying her, but her eyes were transfixed on the zombie shambling toward them. She tried to tell Ralph to hurry, but the words caught in her throat. Damn you, Ralph, she thought. He had put them all in danger ̶ in danger of being feasted upon by a zombie. Her thoughts were interrupted by Ralph screaming something, and then the sound of a girl screaming. Ralph’s phone had also caught the attention of another zombie who was nearby. She turned to look as Ralph pushed one of his classmates toward the zombie. As Ralph ran toward her, she watched as the zombie took the girl to the ground and bit through her jugular. Blood sprayed from her wound like a geyser, silencing her cries for help.

  “It’s better her than me,” she heard Ralph say as he made his way past her. She wanted to scream, but she was both too scared and too angry. She turned and ran inside the cafeteria, slamming the door shut behind her and locking it. She glared at Ralph who didn’t appear to be sorry for what he had just done. She wanted to grab him by his shirt and toss him back into the hallway with the zombies, but she knew she couldn’t do it. Instead, she covered her eyes with her hands and let the tears flow. Behind her the two zombies pounded on the door agitatedly. She blamed herself for what had happened. If she hadn’t left the safety of her classroom, one of her students wouldn’t have been killed. As she stood frozen in place, she heard Ralph saying something about how he was going to go get something to eat because he was hungry. She couldn’t believe how unaffected he was by his actions. She couldn’t believe how somebody could be so heartless. She watched through teary eyes as he disappeared into the back area. Somebody like him shouldn’t be allowed to live while others died. She thought about marching to the back and stabbing him to death with a butcher knife but then dismissed the idea. She was a Christian, and she knew God wouldn’t approve of what she was thinking. She knew God would deal with him at the end of time. Ralph would have to stand in judgement for the crime he had just committed. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hands and stared at the rest of the class. They were all busy looking at their cell phones as the zombies continued to pound on the door. For now, they would be safe unless Ralph decided he wanted to have another of her students killed. They had food and water to last for a while, but it would eventually run out. She looked around. She knew there was only one other door in the back leading outside. I hope the door is closed and locked. She quickly made her way to the back to check and make sure the door was secured, and she wanted to make sure Ralph wasn’t up to any mischief. For all she knew he could be back there eating all the food. She entered the back area and looked around. She didn’t see any sign of Ralph. On a metal table in front of her was an open bag of potato chips with chips spille
d around it. She then heard struggling noises coming from the stock area where the back door was located. She snatched a large knife from the counter near the dishwasher and made her way toward the noises. She entered the stock area and dropped the knife. As she entered, she saw Ralph being forced through the back door by two female zombies. One of them had snapped his jaw open while the other one had forcibly removed his tongue. She watched painfully as he was forced back outside and thrown to the ground. Trying to shake the image from her head, she ran to the back door and slammed it shut and locked it. Secretly she was relieved to see Ralph was dead, but she quickly dismissed it. Whether God was answering her prayer or not, He wouldn’t approve of her reaction. She ignored the fact the stock room was covered in fresh blood and made her way back to the rest of her students. Ralph had brought it on himself and there wasn’t anything she or anybody else could do about it. Now she had to concentrate on the rest of her students. She had to make sure they remained safe. Her head pounded. Too much was being thrown at her at once. She watched as the rest of her students concentrated on their cell phones until suddenly the cafeteria went dark. The last of the power near the city went down, followed by the cell service. They were now cut off from the rest of the world.

  Chapter Six

  The highway was choked with heavy traffic as scared and concerned motorists tried to leave the St. Louis area in hopes of finding another state that hadn’t been invaded by hordes of zombies. Simon Shaffer pounded the steering wheel with his fists and looked at his wife who was staring at him in disbelief. She wasn’t used to him losing his temper. Only on occasion did he ever lose control of his emotions. She knew he was concerned about getting them to safety.

  “I’m going to have to do something unethical,” he said, looking away from her.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “We’re in a police car. I’m going to turn on my siren to try to clear the way for us. It’s something I never believed I would be doing, but seeing how this is a dire situation, I’m going to make an exception.” He reached over and switched on the siren. A loud wailing sound broke through the commotion on the highway, but nobody responded in front of them. There wasn’t anywhere anybody could move to. The entire highway was a wall of slow-moving traffic. Even the shoulder was filled with slow-moving vehicles. He reached over and switched off the siren. It was no use ̶ nobody was going to be able to make room for him to drive through. “Well, that didn’t work.”

  Cassandra watched as the traffic came to a complete stop, and people left their vehicles to get a glimpse of what had happened. From the police car she couldn’t see anything but people gawking straight in front of them. “What do you think is happening?”

  “I don’t know. Something has everybody’s attention.”

  “Do you think you should check it out? What happens if somebody needs your assistance.”

  He gave it some thought. He wasn’t really a police officer anymore. The last thing he did before going home was to turn in his badge and to technically steal his police car. He wanted to tell his wife all the details, but he didn’t want to worry her. “There isn’t anything I can do. It’s not like an ambulance can make it here if there is somebody who is hurt.” He looked in the rearview mirror and saw a large black cloud headed toward them and cars flipping into the air. “What the hell?”

  “What is it?” asked his wife, sensing something was wrong by the tone in his voice.

  He looked toward the backseat. “Lizzie, I need you to get down in your seat right now!” He grabbed his wife’s hand. “Get down now!”

  “What’s going…”

  “Get down now!”

  Simon felt their car rise off of the ground and roll several times in midair before crashing into the side of an orange moving truck. He felt the car crash back to the ground. He heard screaming from outside his broken windshield. He heard people shouting about zombies on fire heading in their direction. Pain shot through his body like lightning, but he ignored it the best he could. He was worried about his family and had to make sure they were all right. He looked over at the passenger’s seat, but his wife wasn’t sitting there. He managed to turn and look in the back seat, but his daughter was also missing. He frantically searched around the car hoping to find either of them, but he was the only person still in the car. He heard more screaming about the zombies getting closer as people tried to help the wounded. He tried to move but he was stuck. The more he tried to move the more pain he felt. He looked down at his chest and saw a large metal pipe sticking out of his chest. The stabbing pain from it crippled him. He turned to look out the side window right as a small dog ran by totally engulfed in flames. He closed his eyes hoping it was all a nightmare, and he was still making his way out of the city with his family. He opened them and turned to look toward his wife, but she was still gone. He didn’t know where she or his daughter had vanished to. He figured they both must have been thrown from the car when it rolled in midair. He tried to raise himself, but the pipe kept him secure in place. He felt himself fading in and out ̶ he knew he was about to die. He wished he knew where his family was so he could talk to them one last time and see their smiling faces and hold them before he left. Once again he heard the warnings about the zombies, but this time they were close to where he was impaled by the metal pipe. He tried to move once again, but it ended with the same result. He prayed his family would suddenly appear and assure him everything would be all right and help was coming. He knew he was dying and help wasn’t coming. What was coming was something he didn’t want to face. He didn’t want his life to end that way ̶ he didn’t want to be eaten by a sinister creature like a zombie. He tried to cry out to his family to come find him, but his cries were drowned by the screams outside of his wrecked car. People were frantically rushing by, not paying any attention to him as he sat there unable to move. As they hurried by, he saw the first glimpse of the zombies slowly shambling toward him, most of them ablaze. It was worse than he thought. He was going to be eaten alive by fiery zombies. He couldn’t imagine dying a worse death. He closed his eyes. If this was how he was going to die, he didn’t want to have to watch it unfold. He heard something climb through the broken passenger window, and he slowly opened his eyes and turned to look. His eyes widened in terror. It was his daughter Lizzie, but she wasn’t his daughter any longer. She had joined the legion of the dead. She sat in the seat next to him, staring at him with milky-white eyes and blood dripping from her mangled lips. He couldn’t look away. She stared hungrily at him. He couldn’t tell if she remembered him or if in her death his memory had been erased from her mind. He wanted to reach out and take her in his arms but he was afraid. He was afraid of the creature she had become. She moved closer to him, growling in hunger.

  “Lizzie, it’s your daddy. Don’t you remember who I am.” He watched as she scooted even closer. He knew she didn’t remember him. “Lizzie, I love you.” It was his last words.

  Chapter Seven

  General Conlan Cochran felt defeated. It was a feeling he wasn’t accustomed to. He had been strong his entire career, fought through a few wars, and won many service awards. He had quickly made it through the ranks until he finally had become a general and now was commanding a dwindling group of soldiers who had fought bravely against a seemingly unstoppable enemy. The zombie epidemic was spreading across America with no hope of stopping it. The problem was there were too many of them. The more they brought down, the more appeared from out of nowhere. The enemy was strong, too strong for the military he was leading. They were rapidly losing ground to the zombies. They had now reached St. Louis and were infecting the city. He was at a loss for what he should do next ̶ nothing was working. He was held up inside a fancy restaurant with a dozen or so of his men trying to regroup and come up with some sort of plan ̶ any plan that could give them an advantage. He knew it was probably hopeless. He heard the stories how several of his fellow officers were killed in both Indiana and Illinois before the bomb was dropped over Ind
iana. It was supposed to stop the infected dead in their tracks, but somehow, they survived and kept spreading their virus across the nation. There were rumors that some of the zombies had already reached as far east as New York and as far west as Nevada. If they were already that far, then he knew soon America would fall and be known as the United States of Zombie. If that were the case, then everything they were trying to accomplish would be for nothing. He looked at his soldiers. He could see fear in each of their faces. None of them had ever faced an enemy such as the zombies. He didn’t blame them, because he was scared too, but he had to be the strong one. He was the one who had to try to find a way to defeat the enemy. In the back of his mind he wanted to quit, but then the service medals he had been awarded over the years wouldn’t be worth what they represented. He made his way over to his soldiers. If they had any hope left, he knew it wasn’t too late to try once again to stop the advancement of the zombies, but if they didn’t, he knew it would be a challenge to get them to continue the mission. He stood in front of them trying to read them.

  “I know it looks hopeless out there. I know you think we’ve been defeated. It’s all just a state of mind. We’re still alive and that means something. It means that we’re stronger than they are. We haven’t given up which makes us stronger. We’re American strong. We just need to get back out there and prove it. We need to prove it to ourselves and to our country.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” said Sergeant Sean Hardwick. “You didn’t have to witness one of your men being devoured by one of those things. I’ve never seen anything like it before. How do you stop an enemy like that?”