Year of the Dead

by Jack J. Lee

  I tried to empty my brain of any thoughts. I looked at the place where I thought the vampire had been standing when it threw the two manhole covers at us. There, I saw its eyes. Like most night-time predators, it had reflective eyes. It was close, less than 50 feet away. I didn’t have to worry about windage. I aimed. When my rifle went off, it was a surprise; it always is for me when I’m shooting well. I knew I had nailed it. I shouted, “I think I got it.”

  I waited a few minutes before I crawled out. I went over to where Sam had dropped his VSG. The limelight was still on. I pointed it at the vampire’s body and we could all see it was down. I lay the limelight down on the ground so it was pointed at the vampire’s body and then I emptied my clip into the vampire’s head.

  Chapter 37: Jim Wright, December 20th to 25th, Year 1

  The next morning we cleaned out Frank’s truck as much as we could. It took a couple of hours to bury our dead. Sam Ortega, Terry Pratt, and Matt Little had died in the initial vampire attack. Larry Snead died a few hours later. Gus Paul had a broken arm. Frank just had a few bruises. Since we had cleared out the highway on our way up here, it only took a few hours to get back home. We told Mark we needed a better design for our armored truck doors.

  I expected to be upset by what happened last night. To my surprise, I was fine. It’s sad to say, but you can get used to anything, including being terrified and losing friends. All of us who had survived the outbreak had lost so many people and had been terrified so often we all had become numb.

  By the time we got back, the entire BYU Sixth Stake had moved into the Downington Ave ward, which was less than a mile north of ours. Before they moved in, a well had been dug, so they had running water, and a re-wired working generator had been set up. My house was right between two occupied wards. Hey, my property value had gone up.

  Life is short and what happened in Ogden had shown me that I could die at any time. There was no place where I could be completely safe. I was going to enjoy my life and that meant I was going to get some privacy back. The slight increase in safety I would have by staying in the dormitory was not worth my lack of privacy.

  As soon as I got back, I tried to hire someone to make my house vampire-proof. Every contractor I contacted laughed at me. They were all committed to other jobs for months. I was bitching about this to Hiram when he laughed and said I was an idiot. Apparently, all the SaLTs had a deal that whenever one of us needed help on a house, the rest of us all chipped in on one of our days off and pitched in. On one of our patrols, we cut every metal dumpster into pieces with an oxyacetylene torch I’d borrowed from Sara Beiger. We used the metal from the dumpsters to entirely encase the parts of my house that were not made of brick or cinderblock. It wasn’t pretty but it was effective. We went to the Salt Lake City Zoo and salvaged a bunch of metal fencing that had been used to keep the animals in their cages and enclosures. None of the caged animals had survived the zombies. I bolted these metal fences on the outside of my windows. I put cross-bars on the fences so that zombies and vampires couldn’t reach in and break my glass window panes.

  Frank moved back in with me. I asked Hiram if he wanted to move in with me also; he accepted. It was awesome to be able to sleep in a private bedroom. The only downside to moving to my own place was Cheryl could only visit during the daytime. It was winter and the days were short. I didn’t want to deal with what could happen if she spent the night. It was a pain in the ass to walk her back to her dormitory before it got dark enough to be dangerous. She was working and I was working, so we only got to spend time together on the weekends.

  On Christmas Eve, everyone went to church. Bishop Maple held a sacrament service for everyone who was LDS; because of Cheryl, I went to church too. One of our recent arrivals was a Methodist minister; everyone who wasn’t LDS went to his service. I guess people tend to cling to religion and guns when things are in the toilet. On Christmas Day, most of us hung out with tight friends and family. The SaLTs were now my family. With me, Frank, and Hiram all in one house, all the guys who were single hung out with us. Cheryl spent most of the morning with her father, sister, and brother-in-law, and then came over. A bunch of her single girlfriends came over with her, which made the guys happy. Mark and Helen visited for awhile. They came and left together. I hope they hooked up. Mark deserved it. Helen Hansen was a firecracker. If Mark pulled any of his usual shit, Helen would kick his ass. I so wanted to see Mark’s ass kicked.

  Before Mark left he told me he and Hiram had decided that I was good officer material and promoted me to Lieutenant. What a day: I started out the day having a roommate that outranked me, and ended up the day outranking him.

  Shortly after Mark left, I walked Cheryl home. She talked the entire time. I didn’t hear a word she said. I was just nodding in the right places. I realized then that I was happy. I can’t remember the last time I was this happy. If there’s one thing I learned from the end of the world, it’s that you can’t predict what’s going to happen next. The hell with worrying about tomorrow, I was walking with a woman I loved. She might break my heart tomorrow but she hadn’t today. I was going to go back to my house after I dropped Cheryl off to drink beers with my new family. This was the best Christmas I’ve ever had.

  Chapter 38: Mark Jones, December 25th, Year 1

  As I walked out of Jim’s party with Helen, I turned to her, smiled, and said, “Helen, I’m sorry if this disappoints you but there are really good reasons why we shouldn’t sleep together.”

  I had said this totally out of the blue without any warning. She replied, “You self-satisfied, narcissistic, conniving, evil, bastard.” She was sputtering she was so offended and angry.

  Calmly, with an air of slight puzzlement, I said “Helen, what gave you the impression I didn’t know these things about myself?”

  She paused in mid-phrase until what I had said registered, and then she couldn’t help it: she started laughing. I laughed along with her. After she stopped laughing, she turned to me and said, “Ok, you evil bastard, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “Helen, you’re an amazing woman—intelligent, beautiful, and strong. There just aren’t many men who have the wattage to be able to stand next to you as an equal. The only two guys around who could possibly be a partner to you, someone who wouldn’t always stand in your shadow, are me and Hiram. This is pretty obvious to me and it’s got to be obvious to you, too. I’m just saying that there are a lot of reasons you’re better off with Hiram than me.”

  Helen shook her head with a grin. “And those reasons would be?”

  “My gut impression is that you want a serious relationship and to you, seriousness means monogamy. It’s not in me to be monogamous long-term. I might be able to do it for a year or so, but not longer. You might as well know what you’re getting if you ever sleep with me.”

  We had gotten to her room. Helen turned to me and said to me, seriously, “Mark, you realize that it will be a cold day in hell before we ever sleep together. I’m not even attracted to you.”

  I smiled back at her so widely my eyes crinkled. “That’s great. I am extremely attracted to you but if you’re not attracted to me then it will be easy for us to not sleep together. Good night, Helen. Great talk.”

  As I walked away, I chuckled. I really was an evil bastard. Helen is an alpha female. Alpha females are always attracted to alpha males and the two biggest alpha males Helen knew right now were me and Hiram. I was trying to be celibate right now. I didn’t need the distraction of Helen giving me signals. I’m not a strong man that way. If an attractive woman wants me, I have great difficulty not giving myself to her. I told Helen the truth. I’m not a monogamous man. This would be a problem for her. There would be hell to pay if I slept with her and she figured I had lied to her. By rejecting her in a complimentary way even before anything started, I was preventing a future problem. Who knows, if I did eventually sleep with her, she couldn’t say I had ever lied to her.

  Why am I trying to be celibate? The best
answer is that I had discovered I like being worshipped. I’m a narcissist. I love being an object of adulation. Before the zombie outbreak, I had a great life. I had as much money, women, and free time as I could ever desire, but I had always also been bored and constantly looking for new distractions.

  I had become a leader to save my own ass; I had known I couldn’t survive on my own. Since I started leading, I discovered how much fun it was. I’m a thinker and a planner so I had to decide what kind of leader I wanted to be. Most normal men would have been happy in a leadership position to just take care of their own people. I’m not normal. What the hell: if I was going to be a leader, why not become the father of a reborn United States of America?

  I’m a student of history and although there is no shortage of leaders, there have been very few great leaders. There is a huge difference between leaders like Robert Mugabe and Nelson Mandela. Both men are Africans who can legitimately be called the father of their respective nations—Zimbabwe for Mugabe and South Africa for Mandela. The difference between the two is Mugabe has ended up almost destroying his country and Mandela has, by his example, given South Africa a chance to last forever. Both of these men fought in their youth to free their countries from white colonial rule and succeeded. Both were elected presidents of their countries, but Mugabe never stepped down, and when he lost the support of his people, he used his secret police and army to keep his power. In the end, by trying to keep control of a country that no longer loved him, he destroyed it economically. He was worse for his country than continued colonial rule.

  Mandela, on the other hand, stepped down from presidency at the end of his term and became a role model for all other South African presidents after him. In his lifetime he has become the patron saint of South Africa and everyone in the world and his country loves and respects him. Pretty much anything people think Nelson Mandela wants, they give to him freely. The only way Robert Mugabe could prevent servers and cooks from spitting in his food was to have armed guards watching at all times. I like the idea of being adored forever.

  In the history of nations, the only two fathers of their countries that I know stepped down before they outstayed their welcome are George Washington and Nelson Mandela. There’s an endless list of bozos such as Robert Mugabe, Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, and Joseph Stalin, who outstayed their welcome. So what separates out the guys like George Washington and Nelson Mandela from everyone else? Most people will say these guys were different because they were saints. This explanation doesn’t work for me because I plan to be like them and I’m no saint. The explanation that does work for me is that they are smart and everyone else is stupid. I can work with being smarter than everyone else.

  George Washington and Nelson Mandela were both smart enough to realize love and respect are much more powerful than fear and disgust. All leaders to a certain degree must be narcissists or they wouldn’t want to be leaders. Most narcissists are stupid; I’m not.

  An opportunity to be a father of a nation doesn’t come up very often. It took a zombie and vampire apocalypse to give me mine. As a true narcissist, I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass by. So what’s the short cut to being loved and respected? Well, the answer is simple: it’s being worthy of love and respect. I’m realist enough to know any attempt to cheat your way to love and respect takes twice as much effort and ultimately still doesn’t work.

  I’d rather be the guy who leads the right way and then, when its time, steps down and is loved and respected forever, than to be the idiot who stays too long and is hated in his own lifetime by the people who used to worship him.

  One of my strengths is to see life as it really is, without illusions. I don’t know why people like to have their leaders be celibate or monogamous, but that’s the way it is. I don’t have it in me to be monogamous but I can be celibate for a while. For the next year I figure I can hold myself to a higher standard until my followers have a chance to form a firm impression of me. After a year of proving myself, as long as I don’t do pathetic or stupid things like sleeping with underage children or other men’s wives, I could probably go back to my old ways without pissing off the public. I have my flaws but I’m not pathetic or stupid. It’s hard being me but I’d rather be no one else.

  I never would have figured an apocalypse would be a blast. Whatever the future holds, damn I’m having fun.

  *******

  Sample of Book II in the Sustainable Earth Series: Death by Revelation

  Prologue 1: Hiram Rockwell, May 2nd, Year 1

  Ever since we had been thrown into our cage, the head guard, Leo Buckson had been bragging how he was abusing two recently captured sisters aged 13 and 15. Four days ago, Leo had a permanent change in his lifestyle. He was probably still in bed writhing in pain.

  The guards had been dragging one of my men off to be killed and made the mistake of not paying enough attention to me. I had placed myself behind Leo. I put my hand between his legs and ruined him forever.

  Within seconds I was swarmed by the other guards. I remember being hit on the head with a billy club before I lost consciousness. I woke up a few hours later with my arms chained behind me, and bruises all over my body. I couldn’t see out of my right eye and my nuts were swollen. I had obviously been kicked multiple times in my crotch in revenge. For the past four days the last of my remaining men had been hand feeding me.

  We were now down to just me and Max Sutter. When we had been captured twenty-one days ago, there had been ten of us. Every few days one of us had been killed. Even before the zombie outbreak the FLDS or Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints had been complete fucks, practicing incest and polygamy with underage girls. They had constantly been giving us real Mormons a bad name. Since the outbreak they had been out of control, killing or enslaving other survivors.

  Both Max and I knew one of us would die today. Every few days the FLDS fed one of us to a vampire for their amusement. According to them God had placed vampires on Earth to kill sinners. I figured I would be taken today. After what I had done to Buckson, they were never going to unchain me and they were too lazy to bother hand feeding me.

  A little after 2 in the morning I was pulled out of cage and brought into a gymnasium. The center of the gym had been turned into a fighting pit. A 30 foot diameter area was surrounded by steel fencing that went all the way up to the ceiling. There was a hole cut into the top. The gym was lit with kerosene lamps which were too dim to bother a vampire. A couple hundred of the FLDS had gathered on the bleachers to watch me die.

  The guards pushed me into the fighting pit, my hands still chained behind me. One of them unchained me through the fence. At first I couldn’t lift my arms but I kept moving them. After about five minutes of stretching I was able to regain normal motion of my shoulders.

  I was weak. I hadn’t had a good meal for twenty-two days. My body was a mass of bruises. I had a constant headache and my balance was still off from being knocked unconscious. My face was so swollen, I couldn’t see out of my right eye. I wasn’t at my best, but I was going to do my damnedest to take out the vampire that was coming for me.

  I had a chance. Director Jones killed a vamp by ripping out its throat, and according to the FLDS, their prophet had killed one too, so it was possible for an unarmed man to take out a vampire.

  The Director had been able to take out his vampire because of his speed. I’ve sparred with him. He’s almost as fast as a vampire. I know my strengths and weaknesses. I’m strong and coordinated but I’m not particularly quick. The technique the Director used wouldn’t work for me. I started jogging slowly around the pit. I needed to warm up. The only advantage I had against a vampire was my height and weight. Before I was captured I weighed 260 pounds, even with all the weight I had lost in the past three weeks, I probably weighed over 240 and I’m still 6 foot 4 inches tall. All the vampires I’d had seen in the past weighed less and were shorter than me.

  I knew the vampire had arrived by the change in the tone of sound from the crowd. I look
ed up and saw the vamp diving toward me with its claws outstretched. I reached up and grabbed its left wrist with my left hand and slammed the vampire to the ground. I didn’t need to be quick to perform this maneuver. The vampire couldn’t fly. It was just falling with style. Its trajectory had been set since it launched from the roof. Being slammed into the ground didn’t faze the vampire; it bounced up like a rubber ball toward me.

  You can fake speed with anticipation. I knew it was going to do this. I still had a hold of its left wrist. The instant it jumped into the air, I could move its body with minimal effort. I used my grip on its wrist to guide its body as it came at me from the floor. We ended up chest to chest, its left arm trapped between our bodies, my right arm behind its back pulling it toward me in a bear hug. My forehead was at the perfect height to smash into its nose. Its head rocked back from my head butt and as it flexed forward in response to my blow, mouth open to bite my face off, I slammed my left hand into its mouth. I could see the surprise in its eyes as it reflexively bit completely through my hand.

  Vampires feed only on blood. They do not eat solids. It opened its mouth to spit out my fingers. As it did, I shoved the rest of my hand and half my forearm down its throat. It tried to bite through my arm. It got to my bones but it couldn’t bite through them. The mass of my forearm inside its mouth made it impossible for it to completely bite down. The vampire was much stronger than me but I had all the leverage. Its left arm was trapped between us, its feet were off the ground so it had no traction. I was too close to it for it to kick me. Only its right arm was free but because of how close we were, it didn’t have the leverage to claw through my skull, spine, or rib cage. It was able to rip my back muscles into ruin, but it wasn’t able to kill me, or make me drop it.