The Plague (Book 0): Day Zero

by Ryan Cecere

  Another clip played after the EAS. A news reporter spoke, “…What could this outbreak be? Some form of a government conspiracy? An act of terrorism? A virus?” After speaking, the dead burst through the doors, tearing the chubby news reporter and cameraman to shreds.

  The next clip that aired showed Reverend Devon speaking at the chapel to a group of scared men, women and children all barricaded in. “This could be one of two things: the wrath of God… Or there is finally no more room in hell, and the Devil himself now walks among us in this darkest hour.” Just like the previous clip, the non-infected were overpowered by the dead.

  Emily grabbed onto Jared’s shoulder, preventing him from opening the bedroom door.

  “Jared! You cannot go out there. It’s not safe.”

  “We can’t stay trapped in here either, Emily.”

  “We have to stay inside until this thing blows over.”

  “Emily, have you seen the same clips replaying over and over again on the TV like I have? This is it. It’ll never blow over.” Emily didn’t say a word. “One minute.”

  “No.”

  “One minute is all I need.” Jared pinched open the blinds. The streets were empty. “There’s nothing out there. I’ll be right back. I promise.”

  “Jared…”

  “We’ve been stuck here for the last two hours. Stay here.” Jared grabbed his coat and headed outside.

  To his left, a pair of cars were compressed together, almost as if they were hit by a runaway train. The rest of his view was normal, untouched. Except for the fact that there was nobody, alive or dead, roaming the streets.

  Jared made his way around the driveway. As he approached the corner of the house, a hand reached over and grabbed him. Jared swung around, gasping. He took a deep breath, calming down. It was Emily. “What are you doing outside?”

  “I’m not staying inside alone.”

  “I told you to stay put.”

  “Forget it. I’m sticking by your side. Where is everyone?”

  “Good question.”

  Emily covered her mouth in fear once they turned the corner. A corpse lay in a pool of blood mid-way down the driveway. She clung to Jared like a magnet. “Is he dead?” Emily stuttered.

  “Stay close.”

  Jared and Emily took precarious steps towards the corpse. As they neared closer, the smell was horrendous. Both had to cover their noses.

  Jared knelt down by the corpse.

  “What are you doing?” Emily asked, nervously.

  “Making sure the guy’s dead.” Jared squinted. “Something isn’t right.” His eyes widened, “Emily, we need to get out of here.”

  The corpse moaned and grunted. It turned its head to them, teeth showing, ready to bite. The corpse lunged at Emily, taking her down and twisting her ankle in the process. “Ah!” Emily screamed. She held its face back. Desperately it attempted to gnaw a good chunk of her skin off.

  “Get off her!” Jared yelled. He latched himself onto the corpse and flung it off Emily. It thudded against the ground.

  He grabbed her by the hands, helping her to her feet. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, just a sprain, I think,” she said, feeling the sting of a knife poking the inside of her ankle.

  The corpse crawled to its feet. “We need to go, now,” Jared hurried.

  With her arm wrapped around him, Jared led Emily back up the driveway, only to be stopped by another zombie in their way. “Shit…”

  The two zombies backed Emily and Jared against the fence.

  No matter what, Emily, I will always be there for you. Those words rapidly ran through his mind—and hers—as the zombies closed in on them.

  Chapter 6

  “Eli Dalton”

  Tuesday, October 14, 2014 Lake George, NY

  6:05 p.m.

  The rusty pickup truck—filled with dust and mud, obviously not cleaned (or thought of being cleaned) in months—rolled into the driveway of a white, two-floor home that was two miles—in either direction—from its neighbor. If not further.

  He wiped his face with the red bandana he kept on the dashboard.

  It had been a long and painfully stressful day at work at the Saratoga & North Creek Railway where he did maintenance work. Eli got into words with his supervisor. The two have butted heads since his first day. Eli was a short-tempered individual and from the start his co-workers knew he wouldn’t last until the end of the year. They were right, and could’ve placed a bet on it.

  This time it got serious. Fists were thrown—resulting in him getting the boot. But that wasn’t the last of it. Eli went to extreme measures and smashed the windows and dented the body of his boss’ new car. Don’t ever fuck with me slim-bags!

  Eli cursed under his breath as he grabbed his toolbox from the trunk and snatched his green flannel from the passenger seat. He angrily slammed the driver-side door shut before heading up the porch. There was only one cigarette left in his pack, adding more on to the already crappy day. Son-of-a-bitch. Eli shook his head, grabbed his lighter and lit the cigarette.

  After several long drags, he felt himself unwinding. He smirked to himself. There was only one more thing he needed.

  A beer.

  Eli dropped himself in a chair and grabbed a beer from the cooler that had been waiting for him all day.

  The sun was setting; his porch lights turning on. He took another drag of the cigarette, then, chugged half the beer in one go. “Ah,” he exhaled, slouching back. Eli rested his eyes; only for them to be abruptly opened by the piercing sound of sirens off in the distance.

  Must be Gabe, he thought. Crazy fuck always running from the cops.

  Eli looked over to his right, he couldn’t tell what he was seeing as the sunlight was glaring right into his face. A dark figure limped its way up to his house from across the road. “Who goes there?” Eli called out, putting his hand on his forehead to get a better visual. The figure got closer and he could see it better now: blood covered the hill-billy’s torn up overalls.

  “What the…,” he muttered. “Hey, get the fuck outta here, man!” Eli demanded. “I don’t want trouble coming up to my doorstep.” The hill-billy replied with a stretched out “Uhh”…

  Eli grabbed his keys from the small, round table and picked up the claw hammer from his toolbox. “What the fuck did I just say?” Eli walked down the steps. “Are you gonna listen to me or am I gonna have to beat some sense into your dumb-ass?”

  As he got closer to the hill-billy, he noticed something off. Eli halted. The guy’s skin was discolored, his eyes bloodshot.

  “Christ…,” Eli muttered. The hill-billy hissed and darted for Eli. Eli backed away, running back up the steps stumbling. He fumbled around with his keys, trying to find the one that unlocked his front door. The keys slipped from his sweaty fingers.

  Without any time to pick them up, the hill-billy lunged at Eli, pinning him to the door. “Ah!” The hammer dropped. Eli struggled with the undead man. “Let me go,” he screamed.

  The hill-billy got a hold of Eli’s long hair and yanked his head towards its teeth. Eli remembered how it was limping its way to him, and he shoved his boot with so much force into the injured knee that he heard a pop. The hill-billy hissed again. Eli pressed his hand against its face and shoved it hard enough to where it tumbled and rolled down the steps, smacking against the concrete pathway.

  Using its fingernails to dig into the grass and dirt it pulled itself. Crawling.

  Eli grabbed the hammer and walked cautiously down the steps. He raised the hammer as high as his long arms could go, with the intent to bash this thing’s head in. Just as he was about to swing, he noticed two more figures coming down the road. Then a few more, and a few more after that. All of them moved faster than this previous one. From down both sides of the road, to the open fields across the property, to even behind, he was surrounded.

  “What in the world…”

  Eli bolted the front door behind him. Its hinges screamed in agony—soundin
g like they could pop off at any second, as the gang of the undead whacked the palms of their hands against the splinter-filled wood.

  He opened the closet located in the hallway between the dining room and living room. He pulled the string down, flooding light to a room that was mostly forgotten over the years.

  He parted his jackets and more of his flannels out of his path, revealing a rack of rifles, and a drawer containing ammunition. The closet wasn’t the only place in Eli’s house that had a stash of weapons lying around.

  Eli grabbed the double-barreled shotgun and the box of buckshots. He poured the shells onto the dining room table, scattering them about, some dropping to the floor. Then, he loaded it.

  Last time Eli used any of his guns was back a few years when him and his old man would spend an entire weekend—just the two of them, hunting for game all day, from sunrise to sunset. Hours went by. Neither of them said a word. Always remember to make sure it’s fully dead before you bring it home, Eli, his old man would say. Eli was uncertain to why that quote by his old man played in his head for a situation it had nothing to do with. Nonetheless, he would make sure these creatures would surely be dead once he got done with them.

  But, that was before his old man’s accident… After, the guns sat in the closet collecting dust.

  He grabbed his telephone and pressed 9-1-1 with determination, to only be greeted by a busy signal.

  “Fuck!” he spat.

  Realization settled in. Could this be the end of the world? How many people were alive? He had to find out.

  Eli booked it into the living room and turned on the television. Every channel he flicked to lit up with the Emergency Alert System. All the headlines read the same thing: A national outbreak spreading like wildfire, all starting on the East Coast. Within an hour other cities and towns were overrun. Some channels were kind enough to show live-action footage of the chaos. Zombies terrorized the living. People were being ripped to shreds on live T.V.

  Nobody could stop it.

  Eli gulped, and slowly sat on his couch. His eyes didn’t leave the screen. They couldn’t look elsewhere, no matter how hard he tried to stop watching.

  To his side, glass shattered into pieces, scattering along the carpet. The noise sent Eli up on his feet. A few zombies tried to climb through his window at the same time, getting themselves stuck.

  He aimed, waiting for them to make eye contact.

  Then he pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 7

  “Kenneth Patterson”

  Tuesday, October 14, 2014

  2 Miles Outside of Kingston, NY

  8:42 p.m.

  Simply put… their friend Kenneth was a rager when it came to any sort of video games. He screamed, he cursed, sometimes—a majority of the time, actually—he tossed his controller at the television whenever he was killed or lost a game. Controller fragments from about eight different controllers lay on the dusty, stained carpet that was home to scattered potato chip crumbs in Kenneth’s bedroom.

  Matt and Kyle were sitting on the floor, ready to pack it in and call it a night the moment Kenneth restarted another race, blaming his controller for not working. Until he won, then laughed and calmed down.

  Matt picked up an empty can of sardines that still had leftover liquid swishing around inside next to him, grossed out. “Umm, Ken, when are you gonna clean your room?”

  “Whenever my fuckin’ cock suckin’ mother decides to clean this shit up.”

  Kyle and Matt exchanged glances. Kyle replied, “Meat, you’re thirty-two. Don’t you think it’s your responsibility?”

  Kenneth gnawed into the bone of a chicken leg, making sure all the meat and flavor was gone. “Fuck off, shrimp. Why y’all call me Meat for?”

  “Because you’re a fat-ass and all you do is eat,” Matt said seriously. “We’re surprised you haven’t turned into a cannibal yet.”

  “Don’t test me, Matthew. I’ll be sure to eat the meat from your bones first.” “That was kind of suspect, Ken.”

  Kenneth looks up. The last space on the floor wasn’t occupied. “Where the fuck is that skinny ass at?”

  Matt nudged Kyle’s arm signaling for him to speak up. Kyle hesitated at first, then thought of a way out, “Helping your mommy with something… I think.”

  Kenneth banged hard on the wall behind his bed, which separated his mother’s bedroom from his own. “Ma! Where the fuck is Skinny at? Ma!”

  All three of them could hear faint, yet heavy huffing and rattling going on in the other room. “I haven’t… seen him… Kenneth…,” his mom finally spoke.

  Matt and Kyle gulped as Kenneth maneuvered his look to them. Anger consumed him, his nostrils flared, and steam shot out of his ears. His hands closed into fists, he leaned in, demanding that they tell him the God’s honest truth before saying one more word. He pointed at his mom’s room. “Is that skinny fucker fuckin’ my moms’? If neither of you tell the truth, I will bash your fuckin’ brains in with my console. Do you fuckin’ hear me you twat stained maggots!”

  Both of them nodded, shaking in fear. Kenneth grabbed his baseball bat and stomped into the hallway. He bashed his meaty hands against the splinter filled door that had endured its fair share of wear and tear over the years. “Skinny, are you fuckin’ my momma again!” Kenneth spat. “Get your scrawny-ass out here right now.”

  Skinny held his cowboy hat in place, “Yee-haw, Kenny! Your mom rides cock like a fucking cowgirl, man!”

  Skinny and Kenneth’s mom tuned out the banging and cursing that reported into the room. He noticed a soaked bandage wrapped around her thick right thigh. “What happened to you, darling?” Skinny asked.

  “Ah, just some homeless guy got a little too frisky with me earlier,” she said, chewing a wad of gum. “Okay,” she said, getting bored, “it’s my turn, sugar plum.” Kenneth’s mom pushed Skinny onto his back. She whispered to him. “Prepare for a real ride, cowboy.”

  Outside, Kyle and Matt tried to restrain Kenneth, but were unsuccessful. His strength easily overpowered theirs.

  A bright light flashed outside followed by a loud crack and then rain. Within seconds, dirt turned to mud.

  Kenneth was fed up. He shoved Kyle and Matt out of his way, cranked his elbow back, then punched a hole above the knob.

  His mom and Skinny stopped and turned. Kenneth’s hand was reaching in, searching for the lock. “Shit, dude!” Skinny shouted. “Your son is insane, woman.” She didn’t reply, her body wasn’t moving. “You okay?” By now Skinny was sweating, his heart pounded against his chest, Kenneth was getting closer to the lock.

  Suddenly, her body fell on top of him, crushing him with her weight. Oof! Skinny tried to wake her up and get her off him. The door broke off its hinge from an impact. All Skinny could see was Kenneth’s frame come into his view.

  There was a pause. Kenneth looked at his mom. “What the fuck did you do to her, Skinny?”

  “Uhh, nothing, man, honestly. She just dropped on me. I swear, I had nothing to do with this.”

  Kyle and Matt entered behind Kenneth. They were just as shocked as everyone else at the lifeless body.

  “Momma?” Kenneth put his hand on her.

  Every jumped back as the body sprang to life. Her skin was gray, her eyes pale white. She hissed.

  “FUCK!” Everyone yelled.

  “Dude, your mom’s a fucking zombie?” Skinny shook. “What the fuck, man! This shit isn’t right.”

  Kenneth’s mom took an enormous chunk out of Skinny’s boney neck. He screamed in agony.

  Crimson painted the walls, sheets and carpet.

  His zombie mom darted her attention to them.

  “Talk to her, Meat,” Kyle said.

  Matt slapped Kyle in the back of the head. “You can’t talk to a zombie, dumb-shit.”

  “Do something, Meat, I’m scared!”

  “Shut up already, Kyle.”

  His zombie mom launched at them, Kenneth held her back. “Goddammit, momma, get off me, cunt.�
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  Her craving for human flesh grew. She started to overpower him. Kenneth pushed her off, stumbling back and landing ass first on the floor.

  She took three steps, then face planted. A knife stuck in the back of her skull.

  Kenneth, Matt and Kyle looked over. With the last bit of strength in him, Skinny managed to grab the knife from the plate of day old steak on the nightstand and plunge it into the zombie’s brain. He collapsed. Matt and Kyle ran to his side as Kenneth exited the room.

  Matt took hold of Skinny’s hand; Kyle did his best to stop the bleeding with Skinny’s t-shirt that he found next to the bed. “Stay with us, bro.” Matt said. “We’re going to get you help.”

  They could see the life fading from his eyes. His movements got slower. Skinny couldn’t speak, he was gurgling his own blood.

  Kenneth returned moments later with his gaming console in his hands. He stood over Skinny; his emotions couldn’t be read. A switch went off inside him, he felt dark, empty.

  “Kenneth?” Kyle tried to get his attention.

  “Dude?” Matt asked.

  Kenneth raised the console up high, and repeatedly smashed it against Skinny’s face. Blood splashed onto his face. Matt and Kyle failed numerous times to get a grip on Kenneth.

  His arms finally got tired enough to make him stop. Matt and Kyle were stunned. Kenneth left the console in Skinny’s distorted face.

  He made his way over to his dead mother, and cried. “Mommy…”

  Chapter 8