Sawkill [Omnibus]

by Matt Fitzgerald

  Sawkill

  Omnibus

  Author’s Note

  Prior to this publication I had four different offerings from the “Sawkill universe.” Sawkill: A Zombie Novel is the main dish so to speak, and the three short stories were the side dishes. I ended up incorporating one of these stories (“First Flight Out”) into the main novel, the other two run parallel to the main novel, but can stand alone just fine.

  I have at lease two other “Sawkill Stories” in progress, and I’m getting ready to start on Sawkill 2. Instead of keeping all of my stories separate I’ve decided to consolidate them into this omnibus. Additionally I’ve decided to offer the first novel and all the current and future short stories to you at the same cost as just the standalone novel.

  Lastly, due the success of the first book and the short stories I was able to hire an actual editor. As a result some of the silly mistakes I made as a first time author (socks, not sox) have been corrected, and the eBook has been formatted properly.

  I hope you enjoy my stories, as I have had a blast writing them.

  Thank You,

  Matt Fitzgerald

  Sawkill:

  A Zombie Novel

  By: Matt Fitzgerald

  For Emily.

  This undead chest of wonders.

  Chapter 1 – New Jersey

  Jessie Brewster woke at six in the morning when his alarm went off. He was on the fifteenth floor of the Hilton Executive Meeting Center in East Brunswick New Jersey. He spent a week out of each month there for his job. On a normal day it would take him a little under five hours to get home to his family in Golden, Massachusetts. On this morning - now that the world had ended - it would take him two days.

  Jessie had hit snooze once, and would be late if he hit it again. He flipped off the covers and turned on the light before silencing his alarm for the second time. He slid the iPhone’s unlock bar and was shocked to see he had fourteen missed calls. He made a habit of shutting off all sounds on his phone except his alarm when he slept. He tapped the phone icon and saw his wife Mauri had dialed them all, then tapped it to bring up the first voicemail as he picked the sleep from the corners of his eyes.

  “Hey hun, I’m on the way to dropping off the kids. Call me if you get this before seven. Love you.”

  He tapped the screen for the second voicemail.

  “Jess, please call me something is going on. Please.”

  Next message… Mauri was hysterical with panic.

  “Oh my God Jessie! Call me! Oh God. Jess…”

  He didn’t wait for the end, just tapped the “call Mauri” button and waited. He was thinking of a million scenarios, each one more awful than the one before, as the phone rang four, five, six times. Mauri’s voicemail came on. Jessie hung up and called back, got six more rings and voicemail again. He quickly texted Mauri, then called a third time and got six more rings and voicemail. Fourth call -five rings and a click.

  “Jessie.” Mauri said in a whispering voice.

  “Christ Mauri, what the hell is going on?”

  “I have to be quiet. We are OK for now. Don’t call back. I will call you back when it is safe.” She said.

  “Safe? What are you talking about?”

  “Turn on the TV.” She said and hung up the phone.

  Jessie did as Mauri asked. He wanted badly to call her back, but she said not to, and he trusted her. He clicked off the phone, plugged it back into its charger and picked up the remote from the night stand.

  He didn’t have to change the channel, it was all that was on, but he did out of habit. He was a CNN guy, never Fox News.

  Anderson Cooper was live on a rooftop in Edison, New Jersey, just one town over from Jessie’s hotel.

  “Some are calling it rabies, others a biological weapon and more than a few people have said the word ‘zombie.’ It’s only been nine hours since the initial disturbance in Greenwich Village, but as you can see the situation is declining rapidly. There are thousands of reports of mass panic and hysteria sweeping New York City, and its outlying boroughs. As the sun came up this morning cities as far away as Boston, Philadelphia and Edison, New Jersey have reported outbreaks. We are live in Edison today the 22nd of September and can confirm there is chaos all around us. We are on the roof in an undisclosed location and have witnessed exactly what others have been reporting. What you are about to see is graphic, bloody and very disturbing.”

  Jessie watched the shaky footage of a twenty something covered in blood and gore chase down and tackle a teenage boy. The bloody figure bit and ate part of the teen’s shoulder and neck. The boy struggled and fought, but the biting and tearing flesh caused blood to flow freely from his wounds. He stopped moving within minutes. Once he was still the attacker got up and moved away from the corpse like a hyena retreating from a wildebeest’s picked carcass. The cameraman tracked the attacker as he spotted another pedestrian coming out of a storefront. He was about to capture that chase and attack on film but something caught his eye. It was the first victim, he was moving. First there were twitches, then a clumsy scramble to his feet and then a dead run. The camera followed his progress until he caught up with the original attacker and joined him in biting and eating the third man. Total time from victim to attacker: one hundred seconds.

  Jessie turned off the television, put the remote on the bed, and walked over to the window. His room was facing New York City. You could not see it from that far away, but you knew it was there all the same. He flung open the heavy light blocking hotel drapes and looked over East Brunswick and Edison a bit further out. There were fires burning in several places, gridlocked traffic on Route one below and people running everywhere. He couldn’t hear any of this. Being so close to several high traffic roads and airports Hilton had done a great job with soundproofing the building.

  Jessie looked out the window for another thirty seconds and turned to face his hotel room. He stood perfectly still hands at his side and eyes closed. He stayed that way for a very long time. His eyes opened and he started walking towards the bathroom. He pissed and splashed his face and head with water from the sink. He looked in the mirror and said: “Alright.”

  He stripped naked and went back out into the bedroom. He dressed in clean clothes from his suitcase, his thickest white sox, clean jeans, underwear and his Varitek t-shirt. He picked his size thirteen Doc Martins over his sneakers and would grab his blue fleece pullover on his way out of the room. He took the bottle of Advil from his suitcase and left the rest. He emptied his work backpack by opening each compartment and dumping them on the bed. Once it was completely empty he surveyed the contents. He chose the iPhone, his laptop chargers, two pens and a stack of his business cards. He added the Advil, zipped the whole deal up and walked out of his hotel room and into the new world.

  The stairs were the better option as he didn’t want to get stuck in the elevator if the building lost power and he knew the stairwell ended up in a discreet corner of the lobby. The elevators would put him smack between the reception desk and the entrance to the hotel’s convenience store. Jessie needed to shop before he left the hotel, but he wanted to read the room first.

  He opened the door onto the lobby four inches and took a peek. It was as he expected - chaos. There were a thousand people in the large marble lobby. Some guests were demanding the valet get them their car, others were demanding shuttles to one of the area airports. The majority of the people were from the cars out on Route one. They had come into the Hilton looking for shelter from the hell that was outside. Jessie could see there was a good number of them that had blood stains, either theirs, or someone else’s. He knew this was going to go bad fast, and he had to move. The path to the little store was mostly clear and the store itself had an emergency exit, so
he wouldn’t have to return to the lobby. Jessie ran for the door. The man standing there was the same one he saw behind the counter when he bought his Cherry Coke the day before. As Jessie approached, the big Mexican raised his arms and put his palms out in a “hold on” gesture. Jessie kept walking towards him. When he was within three steps the Mexican said: “Hold on bro, no one allowed in.”

  Jessie took the last three steps and dropped to one knee in front of the big man. He brought up his right fist as hard as he could and caught the clerk square in the nuts. The big man didn’t go down, but he was incapacitated all the same. Jessie got up and shoulder blocked him backwards into the store. Once in the store Jessie punted the man’s already aching nuts. The big Mexican went down like an oak. Jessie turned, kicked the stopper out of the way, closed and locked the door. In the madness of the lobby no one saw a thing. As he filled his mental list of supplies, he talked to the semi-conscious man on the floor.

  “I’m really sorry, bro. If I had a choice I’d do it another way but I’m short on time. I hope you make it out of this ok. I wouldn’t unlock that door if I were you. You have enough candy and water for weeks.”

  He stuffed the last item into his bag, mashed buttons on the cash register until it opened, scooped the cash and left out the emergency exit. An alarm sounded when he opened the door, but no one seemed to notice that either.

  As he walked to his vehicle he took stock of what he had just looted. All the AAA batteries they had, five bottles of water, all the Snickers bars, and the cash from the drawer. Jessie had been hoping for one more item, the type that is usually hidden under the counter and full of bullets, but there wasn’t one there.

  He stopped and looked around the indoor parking structure before pressing the unlock button on his key fob. He quickly got into the back seat of his Ford Flex and shut the door. He reached into the back cargo area and retrieved the winter hat and thick winter gloves that had been there since last winter. He also took the heavy duty plastic windshield scraper. It was three feet long with a brush on one end and a scraper on the other. It would only be good for one blow, but it would have to do until a replacement was acquired. He stuffed the gloves and hat in the backpack and climbed into the front seat and turned the key in the ignition. He didn’t start the car, just activated the power supply. The “service engine soon light” was on and the car charger was powered. He plugged in his iPhone, slid the unlock and tapped the maps icon. He entered an address and started manipulating the screen with his thumb and middle finger. He studied the roads clicked off the iPhone and fired up the engine. Once the sound filled the structure several people came running from in between cars. They were yelling for help, begging for a ride, even offering cash. Jessie kept his eyes forward and started his five level descent. He didn’t try to hit people but they hit his truck. None went under the tires, they mostly bounced off. One guy got a good hold on the roof rack and stayed on until Jessie crashed through the toll booth. The impact sent the man sprawling to the ground, as Jessie looked in the rear view he was already getting to his feet. Jessie avoided the massive traffic jam at the parking garage’s entrance by smashing through the barricade of orange construction barrels that separated the employee entrance from the guest parking. Once in the employee lot he used the service road to get out.

  US Route 527 was straight ahead but led to a gridlocked Route1. Jessie headed the wrong way down a one-way road, jumped the curb, and drove across a grass field through a dry bed that was sometimes a small stream. He crashed through a six-foot wooden stockade fence and was in the backyard of a duplex. He maneuvered the truck around a patio set and smashed through the front fence between the duplex and the one next door. He found himself on a quiet neighborhood road. He headed north towards a larger road, and that one was clear as well. He took a left and sped toward the shopping plaza he knew was three or four crossroads away. As he blew the stop sign at the first intersection, something caught his eye to the right. He slammed on the breaks and backed up. It was a cruiser parked in a driveway, lights flashing. Jessie shut off the car, got out, slipped on his backpack and started walking. The cop was standing at the rear of the car talking into his shoulder radio as Jessie approached.

  “Yes sir, your sister she is fine. She is getting her things now. I’ll have her to the station in 30.” He said.

  “Alright, is Wendy with her?” The voice at the other end of the radio crackled.

  “No sir, Wendy is in Washington DC with her grandparents.” The officer said.

  “Nice job Murphy, check in half way back.”

  The officer was using his right hand to operate the radio on his left shoulder. His fire arm was on his right hip. Jessie was approaching from his right hand side. The officer didn’t see him until it was too late. Jessie interlocked his fingers into one giant fist and swung for the guy’s head. The officer had enough time to get his right hand down to the butt of his gun, but had no chance to draw the weapon. Jessie hit him flush in the ear. The officer staggered and bent so his head was at waist height. Jessie raised his right foot and gave him the Hulk Hogan big boot with his size thirteen Doc Martin. The officer dropped. At six foot four the cop easily had three inches on Jessie, but surprise beats size almost every time. Jessie yanked the cuffs off his belt and clamped them on the officer’s hands. He slipped the keys into the officer’s breast pocket. He pulled the limp cop parallel to the passenger side of the car and started mining the body. He took four pairs of plastic hand cuffs, mace, the collapsible night stick, three extra ammunition clips and the item this had all been about. The department issued nine millimeter Glock. Jessie had no idea what type of gun he was stealing. He just knew it fired bullets. He stuffed everything into his backpack and headed around the open driver’s door. He leaned in and took a slow look around the cockpit. He had never seen the inside of a police car and was surprised there was a shotgun bolted to the underside of the dash. He took the thick ring of keys out of the ignition and searched for the one that would unlock the shotgun. He found it on the third try. The shotgun was heavy. He pulled the trunk release and ran to the back of the car. He found a box of shells for the shotgun, and one for the pistol. He tossed both into his backpack and closed the trunk.

  He looked up and saw a woman standing on the porch with a duffle bag in her hand, mouth gaping.

  “Don’t worry, he will be fine.” Jessie said and tossed the car keys toward the porch. “The hand cuff keys are in his right breast pocket. You can take them off once I’m gone. Tell him I’m sorry, I didn’t have a choice.”

  Jessie turned and ran back to his SUV. He thought about taking the cruiser, but decided that would have been a bad call. The SUV had a full tank of gas, the cruiser half. The SUV also had a higher ground clearance, and he was familiar with it. The last thing he needed was the cruiser to lock up with some sort of security feature.

  He climbed into the Flex and drove straight, even though he no longer needed to go to the shopping plaza. The quickest way north was US Route 95. If Route 1 was any indication this would not be an option. Jessie wanted secondary roads, or even train tracks, heading in a northwest direction out of New Jersey and into Pennsylvania. If the news report was accurate and there were already cases of whatever you want to call this in Boston as well as the New York/New Jersey area, Jessie knew that Connecticut would be fucked. Their road system is so backwards they are fucked on a normal day. He wanted to get as far north and west as Scranton and then assess his options. He could roughly follow the path of Route 84 east and then Route 87 north until he felt it was safe to turn east and make the end run for home. If he had to go as far north as the Massachusetts Turnpike he would, from there he has the option of Routes 20, 9 or 2 if he really needed it.

  The first hour was slow going, lots of residential streets, some secondary roads were alright, but he found himself traversing parking lots and baseball fields more and more. He could see people running, packing cars, and several instances of people being attacked. He was one of many veh
icles traveling in this general direction, so he wasn’t a lone target for hitchhikers and would be carjackers. He had a few runners, but no hangers on. He was en route to the Easton Turnpike just south of Meadow Road when he had to ditch the Flex. He knew it was inevitable, but he didn’t think it would happen this quickly

  Somerset Airport was a very small, family-owned airfield about a half mile north of Jessie’s location. It was all private charter stuff and a flight school. There wasn’t an aircraft on site that could hold more than six people, but in the panic that didn’t matter. There was a runway and signs with pictures of airplanes on them. People from all over swarmed and clogged all the surrounding roads beyond that point of no return.

  Before leaving the Flex Jessie thought it out. He opened his backpack removed the MacBook and its charger and left them on the passenger seat. He opened the boxes of shells and dumped them loose into an unused middle compartment and tossed the empty boxes into the back seat. He put the mace and cuffs in the front right pocket of his pullover, the collapsible night stick in his left. He left the pistol in the bag. He made sure all the compartments were zipped and got out of the Ford for the last time. He tightened the straps and connected the waist strap to prevent excess movement. He figured the bag must weigh thirty pounds. He left the snow scraper and took the shot gun. It had a strap that Jessie had to adjust before it would fit over his shoulder. Jessie left the road heading through back yards and fields until he approached a horse stable and acres of open fields. He walked until he came upon a small stream and followed it. As he walked he approached the airport on his right. He could see people all over the runway running and screaming and trying to get into the aircrafts that were parked in the fields. There were shots fired, then more and then there was an explosion. There were more screams now. Some were pain and horror, then anger. Jessie was now right up against the chain link fence that surrounded the airfield’s property line. There were people staggering out from behind one of the hangers. They were all on fire. They would walk five or six steps and fall down and then try to get back up again. Jessie was frozen at the fence horrified. What he heard next woke him up and got him moving in a hurry. From somewhere to the left of the people on fire a woman shrieked and screamed: “That son of a bitch bit me.”