by Jolie Du Prè
Benton: A Zombie Novel
Volume One
Jolie du Pré
Copyright © 2014 by Jolie du Pré
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
Published in the United States of America by Precious Monsters Press
PreciousMonsters.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Edited by BZHercules.com
Cover art by Danijel Mahovic
Book layout and design by © 2014 BookDesignTemplates.com
Benton: A Zombie Novel, Volume One -- 1st ed.
Contents
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For Rob, Eve and Aaron.
Are we the lucky ones? That’s a matter of opinion. We are alive, but for how long?
―JENNIFER BENTON
1.
SIX WEEK AGO, I NAILED WOOD PLANKS over the sole window in my bedroom, covering the metal blind that’s been hanging for at least fourteen years. In the past, a section of the blind got bent so badly, it eventually fell off, leaving an opening. But I was working as fast as a cheetah, nailing those planks. I should have covered the hole, but I didn’t. I didn’t even think about it.
I crawl to the window and crouch below it. Then, I slowly rise to the hole.
She can’t see me. But I can see her.
She’s swaying side to side, slowly, like a mental patient in a psych ward, blankly watching my window with those eyes.
They were as green as emeralds, and they were the first things you noticed when she looked at you; not her nose or her mouth, just her eyes.
When I was a kid, when I was upset, all I needed to do was gaze at them, and they soothed me.
As a teenager, I even grew jealous. I wanted her eyes, not mine.
Now, they’re not green. And the white part around the iris isn’t white. No pupils. Just two blue globs.
I can hear her moaning. It’s hard to describe, but when they can’t see you, I guess they sound like running motors. The sound changes, however, when they do see you. It’s a sound you don’t want to hear. Trust me.
She scratches the window and, when she does, a bit of her rotted finger falls to the ground. She’s missing an arm and both ears. Her gardening clothes were always a bit grungy, but now I barely recognize what’s left.
As I rise a little higher, she jerks her head toward me. I fall to my butt and rush to the other side of the room, away from the window, as fast as I can.
As my nerves settle, I tell myself, yet again, to quit looking at my mother.
But I can’t help it.
2.
A ZOMBIE IS A REANIMATED CORPSE that feeds on living flesh. Before this all happened, I’d seen them in TV shows or in the movies. But now I know they’re real.
The day my mother turned into one is a day that will stay with me for as long as I can survive this. It was six weeks ago, the same day I turned my bedroom into my home.
She’s never seen me in my bedroom since she became a zombie. I make sure of that. But my instinct tells me that she knows I’m in here.
Zombies don’t sleep. At least the thing that used to be my mother doesn’t. It’s like they go dormant and then come out of it when something gets their attention.
She’s stood in that spot, swaying from side to side, night and day, for weeks and weeks. If she ever breaks the window, if she and the other zombies ever manage to knock down the wood, you’d better believe I’m history without my rifle.
My name is Jennifer Benton. I’m twenty-three and I’m from Waterbank, Illinois. I’m the only person left in the Benton home.
* * *
It happened on a Saturday. My mother was outside, gardening in our vegetable garden, and I was inside, watching the news with my rifle by my side. I had been obsessed with the news for quite some time since the zombie sightings.
Despite everything we had learned about zombies, my mother still didn’t approve of guns. Whenever she put her hands on her hips and stared at me with those eyes, I knew I would get a lecture. “Put that damn thing away,” she’d yell. It didn’t matter that I had tried to tell her, for at least five months earlier since the start of all this, that we needed to be armed.
I can’t describe the blood curdling scream that came out of my mother’s mouth when she was attacked. At the time, I had never heard anything like it, and it was a sound I hoped I’d never hear again. But the thing is, I have heard it. I’ve heard it many times in these past six weeks.
On the day it happened, after that God awful scream, I ran outside, rifle in hand, and one of them was on her. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I think it was Dan Martin, my neighbor who lived by the park. I’m pretty sure it was him, because the zombie was rail thin and wore a tight black t-shirt and baggy pants. They were dirty and grubby, but I recognized them because Danny thought of himself as a skater boy, and he always wore the same clothing style. I was never into him, but he was a nice-looking guy until he turned into a mess of green blotchy skin with a missing nose.
That’s another vision I’ll never forget. And the smell; I could smell him as soon as I ran out of the house.
In my bedroom, with that window locked and covered, I can smell my musty armpits and this stuffy air. But I’ll take it over dead bodies and rotted skin, any day of the week. I can only imagine what it must smell like outside now that they’re all over the place.
Dan had ripped off my mother’s arm and proceeded to eat it. There was blood squirting on Dan, on my mother, and on the lawn below. I lifted my rifle, aimed for Dan, and shot his head off. It splattered all over my mother and her vegetables. Yeah, it was gross, and I’m still fucked up over it.
I rushed to my mother, but it was too late. It must have been the gunshot, because three more appeared out of nowhere and jumped on top of her. Before I could shoot them, two more were coming for me.
I ran back into the house and locked the front door. Then I ran into my bedroom, locked my bedroom door, pulled my dresser in front of it, and nailed the wood planks over the window.
I was on automatic. I just did what I needed to do. I expected the zombies to break into my house, but they haven’t so far.
3.
MY BEDROOM HAS A BATHROOM, and it has supplies I had gathered over time: water, ammunition, multi-tool knife, food bars, batteries, tampons, medical supplies, matches, flashlight, a radio, and other stuff.
I had stored the wood against my wall and grabbed a hammer from the garage for when I’d need it. My mother had a fit when she saw the wood, so I didn’t nail it to my window until it happened.
“You’re twenty-three years old. When are you going to look for work? What the hell are you doing with your life?” she would
say.
I had graduated with honors from the university. But a degree didn’t matter, because I wound up living at home, with no job. To make matters worse, in her eyes, because I was all into the survivalist thing, she pretty much thought I needed therapy.
I’m an only child, and cancer killed my father five years ago. However, if he were alive, he would have supported me. He would have believed my prediction about the pandemic. When birds attacked people in Europe, and then those same people began attacking other people, he would have known something was up. He wouldn’t have questioned it when the government quarantined certain areas. He would have believed, as I did, that the problem would eventually come to Waterbank. But he distrusted the government as much as I do, so he would have insisted we rely on nobody but ourselves. After all, he’s the one who taught me how to shoot a rifle.
Then, in my neighborhood, it finally happened, and it began with Janet Carlson, followed by the entire Molson family. Government officials showed up, standing around on corners with their big guns. They told us to stay indoors.
Soon we got the 411 on the victims. Janet Carlson got bit. Then every member of the Molson family got bit. In fact, rumor was the Molson family ate one another. Pretty fucked up.
They never told us if Carlson and the Molsons are roaming Waterbank, looking for humans, or if the government shot and killed them.
My mother, however, refused to face reality. She knew there were zombie sightings; she knew what happened to Janet Carlson and the Molsons, but she believed the government would take care of it.
On the day it happened, she said she wanted to sit outside in the sunshine and garden. “I need to get out of this house,” were the last words I ever heard from her.
It wasn’t the first time she refused to stay in, but nothing had happened the couple of times she had gardened before. The government told us where we could and could not go in Waterbank. If we left our homes, we were restricted to guarded paths.
I never saw zombies on those paths. I realize now, subconsciously, I had convinced myself things might be okay, that it was safe to spend time outside as long as the government protected us. And, on the afternoon it happened, it was such a sunny day, and the sky was so clear and blue; things just had to be all right. But they weren’t all right.
After my mother was attacked by zombies, and I locked myself in my room and got the wood up, it all hit me. I curled up into a ball on my closet floor and cried and cried. I left it to use my bathroom, but then I would crawl right back in, balled up, twisting a strand of my long, auburn hair with one hand and grasping my rifle with the other.
A few times, I heard banging on the front door. But the banging was always followed by screaming and growling. Lots of screaming and growling. Even with the closet door closed and my hands over my ears, I could still hear the screaming and the growling.
Sometimes, I’d drift off to sleep, but not for long. Once, I dreamed my mother opened the closet door, and she was standing there, all rotted and smelly, except her eyes were still green.
I stayed curled up in my closet for days. I didn’t eat or drink anything. I was content to just sit there, weak and dehydrated. But something told me to get up, to plan my next move, to survive. I could stay in my room, but my supplies won’t last forever.
I wish I could talk to someone about losing my mother. I wish I could reach my friends and my relatives. But my mother is dead, and I’ve been unable to contact my friends and family. I don’t even know if they’re dead or alive.
What I do know is I’ve been locked in my bedroom for six weeks. But now I've got a full backpack, I’ve got my rifle, and I’m ready to get the hell out of here.
4.
MY CAR IS LOCKED IN THE GARAGE, away from zombies and people. It’s been over six weeks since I drove it, but it has a full tank of gas, and there’s a can of gas in the trunk.
With my backpack thrown over my shoulder and my rifle in hand, I slowly open the door. The first thing that hits me is the smell of zombies and dead bodies. Now it smells way worse than it did when I shot Dan, so bad I feel I’m going to vomit. But what’s so weird about it all is that it’s sunny, just as sunny as when my mother was killed. It wouldn’t seem so weird if it were gray and cloudy. The sunshine fools you into thinking everything will be okay.
My bedroom window is on the west side of the house. Although my mother is there, she can’t see me when I make my escape.
But I hear growling in the distance. So I step back into my house. My heart thumps against my chest. It takes me a few minutes to gather myself. I realize the growls are not near me, at least not near enough for me not to continue with my plan.
I open the door again and step out a bit. I see a zombie on the ground over in my neighbor’s yard. It’s Tim Morgan’s yard. I don’t know if it’s him or not, and I don’t want to know. I rush over to the garage, located in front of me.
My hand is shaking as I stick the key into the side door. I don’t see any other zombies, but I keep thinking one of them will jump out from the side of the garage and get me.
That doesn’t happen as I get the door open and rush inside. Even though I know there’s no zombie in the garage, I still get scared for a second.
I close the side door, open my car door, and rush inside. Then it hits me, what I’m about to do. I’m safe inside my car, but I’m about to open the automatic garage door and hit the street. What if zombies come rushing at my car? What if I can’t leave my garage? I push the thoughts out my mind as I start my car and reach for the garage door opener.
I don’t think anyone can grip a steering wheel harder than I’m gripping mine now. I look behind me, and I don’t see zombies. I rush out the garage and then pull onto the road.
I’m not ready for what I see. The windows of many of the homes are broken, and there’s blood on the street and on the lawns.
That’s just the beginning. Half-eaten dead bodies lie on the ground. Some are face up, but I don’t slow down enough to determine who they are. But I can tell one was a government official. I can tell by the uniform he’s wearing. I can also tell one is Mrs. Chester. She’s sprawled in the middle of the street. I look away because they’ve ripped her to pieces. I can tell it’s her because of the blue striped housedress she often wore over her obese body.
My stomach is a jumbled mess, and my head is spinning. Then I see one, a zombie, slowing dragging itself up the street, coming right for me.
I hit the gas. As I turn the corner, making skid sounds in my hurry, I see three more!
They’re chasing after me, but they can’t outrun the car. Then I hear the human screaming. I don’t recognize him from the neighborhood. He has a look of extreme fear on his face as he heads for my car. “Help me!” he says, frantically waving his arms.
I consider slowing down just enough for him to jump into the car, but it’s too late. Two zombies catch him and drag him down. I keep driving, even faster now.
I reach the ramp for the expressway, and a crowd of zombies stand in the middle of the street, blocking the entrance. My heart stops.
I swerve around the zombies as if they were humans I don’t want to hurt. But one rushes for my car and tries to jump on it. As my car speeds down the ramp, the zombie falls to the ground.
I don’t look back.
* * *
Entering the expressway, I take a few deep breaths to calm my nerves and to focus. The entrance was always guarded by government officials. If you left Waterbank, you couldn’t return, not without proof you weren’t bitten. But now, there are no government officials in sight.
Cars pass mine, going faster than the speed limit. I look over at the drivers as they go by. All have determined looks on their faces, as if they know where they’re going. One driver glances at me, but then turns his attention back to the road. A sign above me warns that there are zombies in the area.
Then, soon after I see the sign, I see a dead zombie on the road. I dodge it, and then I see another one only seconds
later. It’s clear that any zombie who wanders onto the expressway won’t last long. One passing car appears to be splattered with body fluids.
Tears well in my eyes. I’m not a religious person, but now I want to pray. I wonder if I’ll hit a zombie.
Where am I going? What’s going to happen to me out here?
* * *
After driving for about thirty minutes, I have to pee. I’m getting close to where The Center is located, an arena where they used to hold major music concerts before this all happened. When I was locked up in my bedroom, I heard on my radio that The Center opened up to survivors. But I also heard the conditions inside The Center are not ideal.
I’d rather keep moving, and I don’t want to stop, but I need to. I have to.
I pull over to the side of the expressway and stop my car. I grab my rifle and look ahead, to the sides and behind. No zombies.
I open my car door and dash over to a bush to squat. I notice out here the air doesn’t smell as bad as it did back in Waterbank.
Then, right after I’m finished, two young men, seemingly out of nowhere, run over to my car. They’re dressed in uniforms from the same fast food restaurant.
“Hey!” I hurry back, but one pushes me down. My knees hit the ground hard. They jump inside my car, throw my backpack out the front passenger window, and take off.
I grab my backpack and hold it tight against my chest. My knees hurt under my jeans, but they’re not bleeding. I’m grateful I still have my backpack and my rifle. Again, tears well in my eyes. Why did I leave the keys in the ignition?
Then, I hear screaming. I don’t know where it’s from, but all I want to do is run. I know The Center is close, close enough for me to get to it on foot. I have no choice but to get there as soon as possible.