Zombie Dawn II: A Zombie Apocalypse Sequel

by Crowley, J. A.

  You could see the realization sweep over his face. His eyes opened wide. His mouth twisted and opened. He howled like a gutshot wolf. I couldn’t tell if he was happy, sad, mad, or just crazy. But finally he shut it, and told me what I was going to do, if I wanted to save Mom from torture and rape by humans and zombies alike.

  My mission was to lead an attack on the Farm, and to kill Dad. I told him I’d think about it, if he left Mom alone. They knocked me out again. Fucking Marvel. Number one on my personal list now. My last memory was her screams. I’ll kill this fucker before I ever kill my Dad, that’s for sure. What will I do if I have to kill Dad to save Mom? Haven’t figured that one out yet.

  If anyone gets this, try to get word by shortwave up to the Farm in Vermont. I wouldn’t go there, though, if I were you. They probably aren’t accepting many visitors these days. Have to stop now.

  Chapter 5: Santos and Jack

  Santos knew in his heart that the apocalypse was the best thing that ever happened to him. Until then, no one understood him. No one loved him. He was an outcast, a nobody, a zitty freak. A loser. What they called a “punk.” Both his father and his step father had abused him, physically, emotionally, and sexually. A few “uncles.” A couple of “friends” of his mother. They sort of abused him, because he welcomed any adult contact. He was open to it, even as he knew it was wrong. In fact, he liked the wrong. But not being different. Dead inside. Outcast.

  His mother was powerless to help. Right out of the psycho cook book. Like Santos, she craved any affection. She would tolerate anything, even the beatings and abuse, even the rape of her son, to receive any positive attention.

  Santos had killed the worthless bitch months before, before the Change, but had kept collecting her disability checks. She was buried deep in the local landfill. His first kill. Strangled with her own bra. No one cared. None of the neighbors even noticed. They certainly didn’t care either way.

  The only way to keep the perverts away from Santos and his little sister was to kill the whore and keep the boyfriends away.

  Only Mariana cared for him. Santos was able to keep the adults away from her, and she knew he was her protector and would never hurt her.

  Santos had always hated Jack. The look on his face. The sound of his voice. Big shot. Looking down at poor, poor Santos. Hated having his precious daughter in Santos’ house. Knew something was going wrong there. Stupid Jack did not know that Santos knew how he felt.

  That slow ache became a pulsating ravenous hate when Big Shot Jack came to “rescue” Santos and Mariana. Jack knew immediately that Santos had sacrificed his sister. Knew that Santos was a coward, a fraud, a failure. Maybe knew more, somehow, about the truth of Santos’ relationship with Mariana. Santos tried to shoot Jack but hit Jack’s friend instead. Too bad. Jack finally threw Santos to the mob, thinking that was the end of Santos.

  Little did Big Shot Jack know that Santos had survived, under Mariana’s protection. She controlled the zombies, and he controlled her. Santos was no longer a punk, a loser. He was King. King of the Zombies. He could have whatever he wanted. And now, Santos wanted only to enslave Jack and his family.

  Chapter 6: Jack’s Journey—A New Friend

  Following the army seemed pretty easy. They left a constant string of dead and wounded behind, at least one or two every mile. I ended them all with my Ka-Bar fighting knife. It should have come with instructions: “Insert through eye socket, twist, remove. Boot on the head. Pull out. Wipe the blade.” Like another day at the office. It’s hard work, and it’s gross, but you don’t want them behind you. No fucking way.

  They didn’t set up any rear guard or listening posts, which was odd. I wished that I’d brought a force, or at least a few shooters, to attack them. But I had rushed out on my own, and it was too late to go back. I was all alone. Always making mistakes, always trying to make up for them.

  The army moved pretty quickly, but I was able to keep right up. They were still trying to move their military equipment, much of it damaged in the Battle. Hold the shamblers together. Keep them from eating the humans. In fact, Keeping up was laughably easy.

  Until the fourth day. I guess karma figured it wasn’t bad enough that the world had ended and half of my family had been kidnapped by a psycho sex freak and his pack of zombies. Now I had a nightmarish toothache as well. Way back there, an upper molar. We actually had a dentist, sort of, back at the Farm, but there was no time to go back. All the regular shit does not stop just because there’s an apocalypse going on. Quite the contrary.

  This was a hot, throbbing, electrical zapping mofo of a toothache. I decided I had to yank it myself. I can’t even hack the dentist, never mind pulling my own teeth. Busted into a small drugstore and started poking around. Got some amoxicillin, although I had to figure out what it looked like and pick it out of a mess on the floor, and some painkillers hidden in a secret compartment in the pharmacist’s desk. A few oxies matted into a carpet. A couple of Viagra, which I decided to save for my reunion with Kate. You get pretty good at foraging after awhile. People are pretty predictable. Looters are stupid and lazy, probably why they end up looting.

  Then I headed a couple doors down to what looked like a country store. It had been ransacked, but seemed clear, so I started checking the tool section for some type of pliers to pull the fucking thing. I had no idea how that was going to work. I was a total wimp even with laughing gas and pain shots back in the old days.

  There was a tool section but the only tools left were paintbrushes and stuff like that. Not much need to paint anymore, other than signs and graffiti.

  That’s when I found Micah. I kept hearing skittering sounds, which I figured was mice. There were a lot more of them now. I’d seen rats eating dead people and even downed zombies, but I assumed the population explosion with the mice was simply due to the absence of people.

  After a bit, I realized the noise sounded like something larger. I am done fucking around with any danger, so I got down behind the wood stove and called out: “Come out right now or I’ll shoot.” I really should have shot, since I could tell about where it was coming from, but I was afraid it would be a kid or something. Last thing I need on my conscience is a dead survivor kid.

  Now I heard more shuffling, followed by sobbing sounds. I’d never heard a zombie cry, and the only crying looters or bad guys I’d seen were ones that I’d personally made cry, so I relaxed a bit. “Come on out, I won’t hurt you. Don’t be afraid.” I figured it was a kid. I was wrong.

  After a bit, Micah shuffled out. He’s one of those tall, skinny guys with a huge Adam ’s apple. Kind of like Barney Fife. Probably fifty years old, six three but kind of hunched, maybe a hundred and thirty pounds. A real string bean. Wearing a mechanic’s pullover, some type of leather flying helmet, and a huge pair of mirrored sunglasses.

  Kind of funny, really, but between the toothache and the apocalypse my sense of humor was a bit sketchy. His idea of a weapon was a huge monkey wrench, which he held out at me with shaking hands.

  “Down on the floor. Do it now! Now!”

  He dropped so hard and so fast that he broke his nose on the floor. This beak had been busted before. Many times, apparently. But now he’s really crying, with the blood, the snot and the tears running down his face. He pissed himself, too, maybe. I started to feel bad, then remembered that this is the type of shit that gets people killed. That takes some of the empathy and all of the humor out pretty quickly. Kept the 9 right on center mass the whole time. Trying to concentrate between lightning zings of pain from the tooth.

  After a bit, I told him to get up and sit in the corner. He got himself under control, and pulled a rickety old stool into the corner. I asked him to tell me his story.

  “Muh name’s Micah. Uh live with muh daddy over at the “Use It Up Shop.” Very proud of this. This guy’s gotta be fifty or sixty, how old is the old man?

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Well, we fix stuff no one wants. Old cars, bikes, tool
s, appliances, stuff like that. They give it to us, or we trade for it, then we fix it and sell it or trade it. Me and muh daddy can fix anything. I do the bikes.

  The shop is under and our rooms are up top. Muh dad’s name is Micah, too, and his dad’s name was Micah. I had a mom, for awhile, but she left when I was a kid. She thought I was an idjit. So did dad, sort of. We have chickens, though.

  Anyway, all of this started to happen. Dad went crazy or something. He killed an’ ate Otis, the old guy who hangs around. I hid inside a old truck. He tried to eat me, too but he couldn’t get at me. Another customer came in, and daddy ate him too, I guess. I ran out and came here for the food. I’ve lived under the back storeroom ever since. Kept the place locked up. Hid. You’re the first person I talked to in a long, long time.”

  “How far is the shop?”

  “A mile or so.”

  “Any tools over there?”

  “You bet. I locked it up tight before I left. Daddy’s still in there, though. And Otis and the other guy. All just moaning and walking around. But all our tools are still there.”

  “Will you bring me there?”

  Micah regarded me carefully, almost skeptically. He seemed to make a decision.

  “Sure, mister, just don’t hurt me.”

  “Call me Jack. Can I call you Michah? I won’t hurt you.”

  I held my open hands up to Micah, sort of a universal symbol of non-aggression. Of course, Micah was unarmed and my nine was in my lap, but he saw it for what it was, with a look of profound relief.

  “OK, Jack, I will bring you there. But please don’t hurt me.”

  “Don’t worry, Micah. I’ll protect you.”

  This followed by a grateful look with his big brown eyes.

  “Well thanks, Jack. By the way, what’s wrong with your face? It’s all swollen and blue.”

  I hadn’t realized how bad this tooth ache was looking on the outside. Michah had taken my mind off it for a moment. Now the throbbing returned like a motherfucker.

  “It’s a toothache, Micah. Ever had one?”

  “Sure, I had ‘em when I was a kid. My daddy took care of it with some pliers.” This followed with a proud display of a mouthful of missing teeth.

  “You know how to do it?”

  “Yeah, once I had to do one for Daddy. But he got real mad, cause I didn’t pull hard enough.”

  “Do you think you can do this for me, Michah?”

  “I’ll do muh best, Jack. We have the pulling tools at the shop.”

  Chapter 7: Mike’s Journal—Mike and Ian

  This is my fourth entry. I wonder if anyone is seeing these. Is it worth it? Who knows and who cares? I really can’t see any hope, and I’m just waiting for a chance to kill Mariana. If I get her, sissy-boy will be easy. Although they’ll get me if I do. I don’t give a shit about that, except that I’ll make sure I don’t turn into one of them.

  But they take my rifle away anytime I’m anywhere near her. I have attendants, one human and one brain, who constantly watch me. That fucking ginger Marvel is the human. I would hate him even in the old days. Those watery eyes, pale skin, the underbite. He stinks and has horrible breath. I plan to feed him his own kidneys some day. The brain would be a total hottie if she was human, but she is a reeking monster with red eyes and worse breath than Marvel. I think of her as Brittany, just because I hate that fucking name. But even she’s not as bad as Marvel, that inbred shitstain. She’s too smart to eat me but I can tell she wants to.

  I don’t have any other weapons, just the Lapua .338 sniper gun that Uncle Jim gave me. I’m getting even better with it. Santos uses me to pick off the leaders of the bands of humans that he captures. Also, to identify any shooters in the groups, and to train them. For the attack on the Farm—and my Dad.

  Santos puts me with a guy, Ian, to improve my sniping skills. This guy Ian is a real prick. Big faggy English accent, and claims to be a former SAS man.

  “We are the best bleedin’ fighters in the whole world, bar none.”

  Some of the guys would want to take him on. One guy was a former US Army Ranger. Very tough guy, I thought. But Ian tuned him up without mercy. First of all, he was huge. But he also cheated. Eye gouge, ball grab, knee kick, all kinds of cheap shit. All in about one second. The guy hadn’t even felt one before Ian slammed him with another. He ended with his evil, filthy knife against the Ranger’s throat. I was surprised that he didn’t finish it.

  “That’s how it’s done, guv’nor.” He knew his fake Cockney accept would piss us off even more.

  Anyway, he’d scored a few bottles of rum that day from an RV and decided to share with us as he regaled us with stories of his SAS exploits.

  “Did you know that the Brits were there when you Yanks got Saddam?”

  “How about when your Seals got Osama? We were there, too, and that was our mission. Your Seals are nice lads, but nothing compared to us SAS lads.”

  “SAS killed Hitler in WWII, don’t you know. It was in late 1944 in the Alps. Not in Berlin, like you wankers imagine.”

  “SAS are the first special forces in the world. We train harder, we are smarter, and we fight for the best country in the world.”

  After a bit, the strong rum got to my head. Enough of the bullshit.

  “First of all, you sound like a sissy with that accent. Second, our Seals could kick your ass. They are better trained and better equipped and better supported than you’ll ever be. Third, none of that matters any more, you douche bag. You now fight for a crazy zombie psycho. He’s way better looking than your Queen, though. In fact, I would not fuck your Queen with Santos’ cock. What a pig!”

  That did it, and my night ended with me puking in the ditch after Ian kicked me in the solar plexus with his super duper English SAS killer boots. I was lucky he took it easy on me.

  After a while, though, I got to know Ian a bit. He was British Special Forces, SAS, stationed in Canada at the time of the outbreak on a training exercise. He had no news of his home, which ate at him constantly. He was always looking through old newspapers and magazines, hoping to discover that England had survived, or rebounded, or whatever. He never found any, but he got just as pissed off every single time. Then the beatings would begin. Whoever was closest, and believe me, we did our best to be away by then. But everyone had a turn.

  Ian was a nasty bit of work. He was missing the lobe of his right ear, which had been shot off in Iraq by Syrian sniper employed by Al Qaeda. He was very proud of the fact that his own shot had been a hit and kill. No more Syrian sniper. Ian had been captured and tortured by Afghani tribesmen in Kandahar, and he had the scars—and the missing toes—to prove it. His SAS brothers had rescued him, killed everyone in that village, and threw a few Taliban corpses in there to mess up the investigation.

  Ian had a classic dueling scar, too, running up his jaw to his eye, but that was just from a plate that his “Mum” had thrown at his “Da.” Apparently they had some interesting times back in the day. I never knew his last name, or exactly where in England he came from, but he was the toughest bastard I ever met.

  Ian used a Brit AWM .338 Lapua sniper rifle. When he saw mine, he snorted derisively. The Brits, naturally, thought their weapons and their soldiers were the best. The best way to taunt old Ian was to point out that the U.S. was 2 and 0 against them, and had saved their ass in WWI and WWII. And that whatever military we had in say, California, could quite easily kick ass on the entire Brit military. Naturally, I have no idea if that’s true, but I said it just to piss him off.

  He knew I was Santos’ designated ace, and he didn’t like it. Ian was easily six three, two twenty, an experienced Special Forces fighter. He would frequently kick the shit out of me. I was pretty much helpless. Bigger, stronger, faster, meaner, and better means an ass whipping every single time. I was down a couple of teeth, and my nose never stopped bleeding, because I just could not refrain from taunting him whenever I had a chance.

  One notable time happened after Ian had mentio
ned having sex with a whore in Ireland. I told him that I had assumed he was gay because of his supergay British accent. I knew he would beat me, but I didn’t give a shit. Neither of us cared if someone was gay, either, but Ian had to take me out for mouthing off.

  My entire battle plan was to try to kick him in the balls, but he caught my boot and made me dance around on one leg until my face was close enough to his fist. That was it. Knockout.

  I was able to last a bit longer each time, though. One time, I even nailed him in the balls. Knowing that was my plan, he’d found a cup and was wearing it. I expected him to go down, but as I stood there preparing to taunt him, he kicked me in the balls instead. I had also worn a cup, which surprised him, so I got a kick in on his knee before he knocked me out. But I think I got a bit of respect from him that day. He even gave me a nickname—“Fuckface.” He never used anyone’s name, so even that was a breakthrough. I enjoyed watching him limp for a day or so.

  Luckily, after Ian knifed another sniper in a fight over ammunition, Santos made clear that there would be no more violence against me. I might not be the best in a fistfight, but I could still shoot.

  Chapter 8: Kate’s Diary—The Inner Core

  Not sure why he delayed going after Jack so long, but it’s been about a month since I was captured. I can’t really tell, since I’m often locked in rooms with no light. This is not something that ever happened to me before the Change. I always had complete freedom, access to light, plenty of food, transportation, everything. It’s impossible not to take it for granted. I sure did. In any event, not having light throws off your internal clock. You can’t sleep and you get totally disoriented.

  I’m lucky that Santos is gay (but can you ever really tell?), because he definitely has a kinky sadistic vibe going on. Mariana is lucky, too. I least I hoped so at first, anyway. That is not a typical brother sister deal going on there. Even with him gay (or gayish) and her a zombie they sort of have something going on. Too much touching. Too many meaningful glances. Way beyond a healthy sibling relationship. Even worse because the expression on her face never changes. She is absolutely blank.