What Zombies Fear (Book 2): The Maxists

by Allmond, Kirk

  “Awwww,” replied Max in his head. “But I want yogurt. I haven’t had yogurt in 100 days!”

  “We know Max. But things are different now. Things are harder for your kind. You have to work harder, be smarter. My kind is bad guys. We didn’t know it was possible to be friends, like we are with you. You’re the only one we can be friends with Max. Your body is different, different even than your Daddy. We think it was a combination of your Daddy and your Mommy put together that made you special.”

  Max walked up to the door and unlocked it. He twisted the handle and shoved the door open letting the cold air into the barely warm cabin. He shivered in the morning chill; he was wearing only thin PJ’s.

  “Max, there is a zombie out in the woods. Call to him. Tell him to obey you. You’re going to need his help. He’s a soldier, but they have their uses, including carrying you, if he’s not too rotten.”

  Max cast his mind forward, looking for the zombie. It was walking forward, stopped by a limb across its chest, one arm stuck over the limb, his bare feet were worn down to the bone. The pathetic creature continued walking until Max tapped into its mind.

  “Come to me.” Max ordered it.

  “We come. Eat.”

  “No! No eating!” thought Max. He looked deep into the things mind, searching around until he found it. “Eat. Follow Directions.” They weren’t words, they were just primal instructions. Max imagined a pencil eraser in the creature’s mind, erasing the directive to eat.

  “Max, you can’t do that. Only our boss can do that.”

  “I’m the boss of him now.” replied Max, speaking out loud.

  He looked once again in the things mind. There was no ‘eat’. Only the instruction to follow directions remained. Then Max had an idea of his own. He turned the imaginary pencil around and drew a picture after follow directions. It was a circle, with two dots for eyes, a line for a nose and a smiling mouth. “That’s me, I’m Max. You can only follow directions from me,” he thought to the creature.

  “Lift your arms.” The creature raised both arms over its head.

  “Turn around and walk.” It took a few steps forward.

  “Walk around the tree. Don’t walk into stuff. If you do, turn around and walk around it.”

  “We come to Max.”

  The creature stumbled its way through the woods towards Max.

  “What’s your name?”

  “We don’t have names,” Max heard from his own symbiotes.

  “Your name is Steve,” Max implanted in the thing’s head.

  “Steves come to Max.”

  “Not Steves,” thought Max. “Just Steve.”

  “Steve come to Max.” Steve replied.

  When Steve arrived, he was a mess. He’d been walking into that branch for months. There was no flesh on his side or inside his arm. The flesh on his feet was worn off, leaving bloody ragged bits of flesh hanging off his feet. His shirt hung off in tatters.

  “Can you fix him?” Max asked.

  “No Max. We are still sick. He is too damaged. He is still useful. His smell will throw off the dogs that are looking for us.” The symbiotes said.

  “When you’re better, then you can fix him,” said Max.

  “Max, he is not a human like you. He is a tool, like a hammer. You use a hammer for a job and then you put it away until you need it again.”

  “He walks. He talks. He should be fixed,” argued Max. “He’s not dead.”

  Steve followed Max as he took off, moving quickly through the underbrush. Max was a child and had all the energy of a kid, all that energy that we, as adults, wished we had a tenth of. Steve was a little slower, Max had to stop several times throughout the morning to wait for Steve.

  After several hours of walking, Max said “I’m still hungry. I want a cheese sandwich.”

  “There is a path ahead. Turn down the path; it will lead to a house. Inside the house you’ll be safe for a little while. We need to rest. It’s going to be two or three days until we’re not sick anymore. Tell Steve to watch for badguys from the woods.”

  “How is my daddy going to find me? I miss my dad.” Max’s lip quivered as he thought the last part, tears welling up in his eyes.

  “We’ll help you find him, Max. You are sad. Why are you sad? We don’t understand sad.”

  “I miss my Daddy. I need him.”

  “We’ll find him soon Max. But you have to get inside this house. There aren’t any soldiers inside. Tell Steve to tell you if there is anything coming.”

  “Steve, please stay out here and tell me if anyone is coming. My bugs will make you better when they’re not sick anymore.”

  “Steve stay,” it replied.

  The house was a large two story. It looked like one of those weekend retreat places that politicians from DC built way out here in the woods. It had all the comforts of big city life, backup generators, a commercial style kitchen, a swimming pool and hot tub, six huge bedrooms and gigantic old furniture. Inside the kitchen, the gigantic stainless steel appliances loomed over Max’s head. He padded across the Venetian marble floor, looking for anything to eat. The cabinets were beautiful hand crafted Brazilian cherry wood, stained in a dark reddish brown. Max opened the tall cabinets and saw a bunch of canned food.

  “What can I have to eat?”

  “It’s all food, Max. Any of it in the cans will still be good.”

  “I don’t like any of it.”

  “Max, pick something. You like green beans. Look for a picture of food you like. You have to eat.”

  Max searched through the cabinet and finally found a huge can of green beans. He pulled that out and put it up on the counter with a heave. He went over to the table, grabbed one of the hand carved chairs and dragged it over to the island.

  “Daddy keeps the can opener right beside the sink. I’ll look there,” Max said, standing on his tiptoes he could just barely peer into the drawer. He reached in and shifted some of the kitchen tools; a large chef’s knife, mixing spoons and a whisk before finding a hand crank can opener.

  “You put this on the can. But I don’t know how,” thought Max.

  “It looks like you put this little part on the edge and then you squeeze these two long handles and then turn this crank.”

  Max applied the can opener and turned the knob.

  “We think it is upside down.”

  He turned the can over. “No, the opener is upside down, not the can.”

  Max turned the can back over and reversed the can opener, clipping it on the lid. He turned the crank and the can turned.

  “It’s working!” he cried happily “Now I need a bowl. And a spoon!”

  Max opened several more drawers, until he found a spoon and then found a bowl. He only spilled a little getting the green beans out of the can, before sitting down on the floor and eating them ravenously. When they were gone, he padded around the kitchen looking for a napkin.

  “Max, it’s time for sleeping, can you take a nap? We need you to sleep.”

  The little boy walked through the rest of the house. The downstairs had a living room with a gigantic brown leather sectional couch and a huge dining room. There was an office in the front of the house, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the overgrown front lawn. The other side of the front entrance was a big den, with a huge TV mounted to the wall.

  “Steve, are you okay? I am going to go to sleep. Please tell me if anything comes.”

  “Steve wait. Steve tell you when something comes.”

  Max climbed the formal stairway. When he reached the top of the curving stair, he walked down the hall looking into each bedroom. The first one he came too looked like a girl’s room, but the next one made him pause for a second before he turned into a child’s bedroom. It had a small red plastic race car bed, perfectly made up with sheets from the movie Cars. He climbed in the toddler sized bed and went to sleep the second his tiny blonde head hit the pillow.

  In that same instant, his symbiotes went into hibernation,
attempting to find a way to rid themselves of the poison that was killing them as fast as they could reproduce.

  Max dreamed of his mother, holding him, singing to him. He dreamed that they were back at the park by his old house, playing on the swings. Candi was pushing him on the swing. “I love you Max,” she said after one big push.

  “I love you to mommy. I miss you a lot,” he said, starting to cry.

  “Don’t cry baby. I’m always with you. I’m always watching over you, always.”

  “I miss Daddy, too.”

  “He’s coming for you Max. He had to fight a bunch of bad guys, but that’s done and he’s Ok. He’s far away and it’s going to take him one or two more sleeps to find you, but he will. He is coming Max. Can you be strong until he finds you?”

  “How will he know where I am?” asked Max, still swinging.

  “He’s your Daddy, Max. Nothing in this world could keep him from you. He loves you more than anything. He would rip a mountain apart with his bare hands to find you.”

  “He’s very tired right now Max. I need to go back to Daddy. I can’t talk to him like I talk to you, but I can continue trying to keep him safe, as I’ve done since we left our house. I’m very tired from last night.”

  “Don’t go Mommy, I love you! Don’t leave me alone.”

  “I’m never far away Max. I’m always inside your heart!” Candi said as she faded away.

  Steve stood outside in the drizzle, watching. He didn’t notice the rain. He didn’t notice that his body temperature was 53 degrees; he didn’t notice the small bits of flesh that tore off his feet every time he moved. He stood in the rain, watchful, never tiring, never giving up and never closing his cloudy eyes. He stood there unmoving for seven hours before something tickled his senses.

  “Max, two soldiers and one lieutenant are near,” said Steve.

  “Max, we are not well enough to control that lieutenant. We need to hide.”

  Max slid down in the bed, pulling the bright red covers up over his head, he kept his mind quiet and small.

  Chapter 15

  Homeward Bound

  I looked over at John sitting up. "Max, can you hear me?" I thought.

  "We have to move," I said. "The last thing I remember is feeling Max call for help. It was different than when he normally talks to me. I don't think it was his voice, I think someone else was telling me Max needs help, I can't really describe it.”

  "Max can talk to you like you talk to us?" asked John.

  "Yea, we can talk that way, over long distances. But he's not answering me right now and I can't seem to talk to any of you either. I'm not sure what’s going on, but I can't use any of my abilities. I think maybe I overdid it last night. Killing them by touch seemed to literally use up my power.”

  "What?" Cried Leo.

  "I'm fine, I'm sure they'll come back, I think I'm just mentally exhausted.” I said, as reassuringly as possible. I wasn't sure myself, but I tried to sound upbeat and positive about it.

  "How far can you teleport Leo?" I asked.

  "Only about two kilometers, but I'm really exhausted. I stayed up all night watching over you lot. I'm not sure if I could even make it one right now.”

  "How far could you make it carrying one of us?"

  "Carrying all of you? I could maybe go a hundred meters. I'm not sure I could do it at all.”

  "Okay then, sounds like we're walking.” I said getting up off the ground. "John, how is your ammo?"

  "I'm almost empty. I have eighteen shots in one Glock and six in my revolver,” he replied.

  "I'm sure that Bookbinder's team has gone home by now,” I said. “They would have arrived just after we bugged out, I hope they're Ok. I'm sure when we didn't come back they've already headed back to the house.”

  "I'm sure they are fine, you turned all the zombies to dust just before Leo brought you here," said Marshall.

  "I did? How?" I replied.

  "I don’t know, she said she found you collapsed on the ground, she appeared as the last zombie was blowing away in the wind.”

  "That seems like a skill I'd like to have," I replied with a grin.

  "Let’s move out.” I said, standing up, stretching a bit. "Marshall and I will go first; Leo and John follow and watch out behind us. No using powers, not even a little bit. We are normal humans.”

  I looked around, we were in the middle of a field, but I could see houses in the distance. I hoped we might find a car in that neighborhood, so we headed that way.

  We walked two by two, about twenty feet apart, for about a mile before we made it to the first house. It was a large two story, the kind we'd called McMansions prior to the end of the world. Those huge 6000 square foot houses with five bedrooms purchased by thirty something’s with too many dollars and not enough sense.

  We peered in the garage windows, but couldn't see anything in the dark interior of the garage.

  "Think its worth going in?" I asked the group.

  "Can't hurt, maybe there's some food in there, I'm starving.”

  I realized I hadn't eaten in almost sixteen hours and I was starving.

  "Marshall, take the front door.”

  Marshall smashed the knob on the door with the butt of his shotgun and kicked it open. I stood on the left side, hatchet at the ready; he stepped to the right and reversed his shotgun. We waited.

  We heard nothing, so we stepped inside the gloomy house, into the marble floored entry way. We slowly advanced into the kitchen, while John and Leo verified that the dining room was clear. We met up again in the great room in the back of the house.

  "Holy shit," I said looking out the sliding glass door. The back yard grass was overgrown, but you can tell that it had been perfectly kept. There was a huge three level deck in the back with a hot tub, swimming pool and lounge area. On one side there was a marble counter top, with cabinets underneath, a full kitchen sink and grill mounted in the marble. It was my dream deck. The swimming pool was covered, but it had a slate patio all around it, the yard was beautiful. Even just a couple of hours with a mower would return it to its original grandeur.

  There was a bump from the upstairs, instantly drawing us out of our revelry, I looked down and saw my gun in my hand. We moved forward, pushing through the house towards the stairs at the front. Slowly we climbed the stairs, creeping upwards, guns in front of us, slicing the corners like we were soldiers. At the top of the stairs, we looked down a long hallway. There were seven doors, four down the right side and three on the left.

  We each positioned ourselves in front of a door and on John's signal we each kicked opened the door in front of us. Leo giggled as the skinniest cat I’ve ever seen ran between her legs. The giggling stopped quickly when the smell hit us. Judging by the volume of ammonia rushing out of the room that cat had been stuck in there the entire five months since the outbreak began.

  We cleared the rest of the house and found nothing else of note including an empty garage.

  The next house on the street was a little smaller but furnished entirely with the most ostentatious Victorian era furniture. It was blue velvet and looked as if it might actually have been from the Victorian era. Inside the kitchen, we found a woman who looked like she also might have been from the Victorian era. She'd been in a wheelchair and being a zombie didn't fix being a paralyzed. The ancient zombie woman had worn her chin off flopping it against the floor. She'd managed to drag herself almost five feet from her chair with her chin.

  Marshall put the thing out of its misery with a size thirteen boot to the back of its skull. Upstairs we found her caretaker and the source of the old woman's infection. He was well chewed on, one arm hung limply at the ghoul’s side and one of its legs was missing from the knee down. Draggers weren't that hard to dispatch. Another size 13 to his head and the threat was eliminated.

  In the kitchen we found some canned of food and at least two hundred cans of cat food. We all had a can of whatever vegetable we wanted and then went back for seconds. In the wa
y back of the pantry we found two cans of spam and a single can of Vienna Sausages. As we ate we all remembered how much we hated canned food and how lucky we were to have all that we do.

  The garage had a old bicycle in it. There were stacks of cardboard labeled boxes containing decorations for every holiday. An old chest freezer sat across from an ancient looking workbench. Above the workbench sat every manner of antique hand tool.

  I raised the garage door and we moved on to the third house. It was the exact same model as the first house, a horseshoe shaped driveway led us to the front door.