by Bryan James
LZR-1143: REDEMPTION
A Zombie Novel
By: Bryan James
First Edition, Published by Bryan James.
Copyright 2013, Bryan James.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real persons, events or places is purely coincidental; any references to actual places, people or brands are fictitious. All rights reserved.
Acknowledgements
To my wife and son: For your patience and love for a zombified author with a day job and a night-time addiction to writing.
To Evan: Your warning is well taken. Consider it off the table.
To my friends and fans: Thanks for keeping me motivated and moving. Without you, this installment may have taken many more years, and countless more angry Facebook messages directed at my sloth-like pace. Thanks for keeping me away from an electronic fate worse than undeath.
PROLOGUE
Five years.
Five years of darkness.
Of fighting.
Of death, and misery and defeat. But also of life and hope and small victories.
Five years, scrapping for the future of mankind.
It was ambitious to hope that it could all come together in the end. That we could make a future that was as bright as the past. But then again, the past held the plague. The future held only change and uncertainty, as well as the shadow of possibility and hope.
The earth has been changing for billions of years. Every day, it turns again. Every day, it changes a little bit more. Continents drift and sink, fractions of millimeters per year. Oceans rise and fall. Deserts expand, and mountains rise and fall.
Without a doubt, she looks different now than she did billions of years ago, when she was painfully birthed in the dark vacuum of space, amongst the unfeeling stars and ice-crusted shards of planets and meteors.
But the earth is still here.
And so are we.
She looks different, to be sure.
But then again, so do we.
Evolution and change are constant—a small paradigm of the universe, I suppose. And adaptation must stay constant as well. Those that fail to adapt, fail to survive.
So here we were.
Darkness, our home. Uncertainty, our future. Strength and technology, our advantage. We have made our home in the remnants of a civilization—and a species—long since past.
Five years.
It seems a long time, but God help me, it’s not.
I remember the men and women that made it possible for us to be here, in this new world. I remember the Enterprise, and Dover Air Force Base, and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and the haunted Capitol; the headlong rush through the rural areas of the country, the fight to pass through Washington, D.C., and the battle on the steps of the Pentagon. I remember the feeling of hopelessness and fear, and I remember the need to push through. To be the hope of the nation. Of humanity.
I remember laughing at the fact that it was me. A washed up movie star fresh from the insane asylum. I remember laughing until I cried.
But somehow, here I sit.
Amongst the crushed hopes of a people now gone, between the new aspirations of a people reborn—I live to fight another day.
This is a story of survival at a price. It is a story of hope reimagined.
But in the end, it is a story of redemption.
ONE
If there is such a thing as hell, this was the picture from the brochure.
They teemed and pressed. They writhed and pushed, struggling to get closer. The very ground seemed to move in a sickly, undulating pattern. All traces of the earth had disappeared beneath the horde below, blanketed long ago by shuffling feet and decaying flesh.
I stared down at them, transfixed by a sight I had watched many times before from the same vantage point. Floating in on the gentle wind, their moaning and chaos were unwelcome intrusions into an otherwise beautiful morning. Just beyond the huddled mass, the river flowed and sparkled in the sunlight, blissfully ignorant of the changes that had been wrought on the face of the planet. Or perhaps not ignorant, but pleased that humankind had finally completed its inexorable creep toward oblivion, having finally, inevitably, reached its goal.
I felt like I could smell them, and perhaps I could. It wasn’t impossible, to be sure.
After all, more than a million dead bodies can throw off quite a stench.
Shivering, I pushed away from the edge of the roof, taking a moment to look beyond the slowly moving river and take in the city that was once a center of power. The distant obelisk stared back, shining with an almost preternatural beauty in the chilly fall sunrise. The white stone gleamed with early morning hints of red-tinged daylight, and two thin tendrils of oily smoke, curling up from somewhere deep in the city, did nothing to mar its simple beauty.
It was a beauty of loneliness.
The beauty of a civilization that had died.
The neck of my heavy sweatshirt clung slightly to a thin band of sweat as I shrugged under the hood and took one more glance at the throng of corpses struggling for the chance to push themselves against the unforgiving and impenetrable exterior walls of the Pentagon. Thousands of them stared back at me, noticing the movement that I had made no effort to conceal. I chuckled at their efforts.
They had no chance of pushing through the blast doors and reinforced steel; no hope of beating down the seven inch thick windows.
But they didn’t know that.
Stupid zombies.
I plugged the headphones back into my ears, and continued my hundredth lap around the five-sided monster that had housed thousands of Department of Defense workers, and which now housed the remnants of the government of the United States of America.
Well, at least we had finally done away with big government.
Yay, progress.
Around again, one more time.
More of them stared at me as they caught the movement against the slowly lightening sky.
Around again, one more time.
The thick sunglasses slipped down my nose as I mindlessly accelerated around the edge of the building, gravel crunching under my feet, breath still coming evenly and unforced.
I began to squint, even under the dark glasses. My skin felt warm.
I ran faster.
Around again, one more time, as I remembered the events of the previous weeks. Weeks that I wished had been spent moving forward, moving west. Weeks that had instead been spent waiting for the stars to align and the resources to arrive.
Weeks that felt like years.
“We need a heavy lift, and we don’t have any right now,” the general explained, as if for the thousandth time. It was really only the tenth.
“I’ve told you, this is our operation and our number one priority. I recruited you for this, remember? You don’t think we want you on the road as fast as possible? You think I’m holding out on you? I have some secret squirrel shit waiting in the wings? This is it, and we’re doing our best!” His voice was heavy with frustration and tinged with anger, and I exhaled loudly in exasperation.
I knew he was right. I knew that the only person I was fighting was myself.
“Listen, you will obviously be the first to know when we can move,” he said again. “For now, stand down and take some time. Get some exercise, enjoy the food and the electricity. It might be the only place in the country that boasts these luxuries right now.”
Around again, one more time, as the sun rose higher, beams of light shooting across the river and searing through my sunglasses like a razor.
&nb
sp; “Why can’t we find another way?” she asked, her dark hair framing her face as she sat cross legged on the bed, tank top failing to cover her beautiful rounded and muscular shoulders. Her eyes were alive with the same frustration that I felt so keenly.
“It’s a long way, and fuel and landing strips are hard to come by. At this point, they don’t even have a plane available. National isn’t secure, Andrews was overrun weeks ago, and BWI has been a flaming pit of rubble since the jets started dropping out of the sky. We don’t have a ride, and you know just as well as I do that we can’t hitchhike our happy asses across the country right now.”
The tennis ball I had been squeezing squealed as my grip split the thick rubber, and I mindlessly tossed it to Romeo, who eagerly snatched it from the air.
“So what then, we wait?” her question seemed resigned.
“We wait,” I said, closing my eyes and leaning back in the chair.
Around again, one more time.
This time, at the end of my lap, I found the stairwell entrance and pulled the thick metal door open. Then, pausing, I moved to the edge of the roof one more time, feeling the early morning sun burn my exposed cheeks and hands. Staring down at the closest bastards clustered against the wall of the building, I waited until they looked up, eyes full of hunger and vapid, mindless eagerness.
Then, I took a mental picture.
I watched them, shades of people that had come before. Ghosts of lives that had been. I needed this reference. I needed this picture. It had to be real before we left again.
I pulled the door shut and walked slowly down the narrow stairwell to the first floor and into a brightly lit hallway, shedding the hood and sunglasses as I turned into a stream of uniformed officers, and moved past them toward the closest mess hall. Looks followed me, and I could feel their eyes as I passed, perfectly controlled expressions and imperfectly controlled feelings.
Weeks waiting, and mingling, our reputations and our deeds known full well. Our roles in the various events that had transpired were transmitted and broadcast, through the rumor mill as much as through official channels, and still we were pariahs.
Thought different because of our past, known to be different because of our attributes.
Though the government had begun to use the vaccine to immunize active duty forces, mostly on the Eastern front, the side effects were not as apparent in the newbies. In its current form, the side effects—the strength, the enhanced senses, and the light aversion and cardiac issues just took too long to kick in, making us unique.
We were here, now. They could watch me run for hours and break only a drop of sweat. They could watch Kate pummel a punching bag and rip the sand from the inside.
We were freaks.
We were sideshows.
We were different.
Even among the throngs of the living dead, amidst the horror of the end of civilization, we were goddamned novelties.
We were ready to leave.
I flattened myself against the cement wall as a trolley full of canned food moved through the hallway, turning into the crowds again until I found the office that had been retrofitted into living quarters. The building was far too crowded, and we added more soldiers every day. Civilians were being relocated when they were found, to small camps in the mountains and several reinforced buildings like this one in suburban areas.
But there weren’t that many survivors to worry about.
The East Coast of the United States had been the most densely populated area in the country when this thing hit, and when every sick person became one of the enemy, and thousands of them lived on top of one another… the math was self-explanatory, even to me.
Several young officers passed me as I reached for the handle, staring at me briefly and whispering softly.
“Kiss my ass,” I said under my breath, smiling widely. Unable to hear me, they continued on, one of them returning the smile. I nodded as if conveying a pleasantry.
All the offices and living quarters were on the inner side of the hallway, for obvious reasons. The doors to all the exterior rooms had been locked, welded shut, and barricaded with iron bars. In the unlikely event of an external breach of a window in one of these rooms—so unlikely as to be laughable, but still a contingency—the barricades would provide at least a moment of delay within which to organize a response.
But it wasn’t going to happen. Nothing short of an earthquake or a Tomahawk cruise missile could breach the reinforced Plexiglas and steel windows that had been installed after September 11th. Nothing made of flesh and teeth and fingernails stood a chance, no matter how hungry they were.
I pushed down on the latch of the room I shared with Kate, and heard panting before I heard her voice. Suddenly, a pair of paws was on my hip, and I smiled as Ky and Romeo greeted me in their own special way.
“You been soaking up some rays, or what? You should take Romeo next time.”
He wagged so forcefully that his entire rear vibrated, and I shook my head in mock seriousness.
“You know he can’t keep up with me,” I intoned. “He always pusses out after seventy laps or so.”
She smirked and took a ball from her pocket. He smelled the heavy rubber scent and pointed at the ball with his wet nose as she cocked her arm and launched it down the hall, nearly nailing a stodgy looking staff sergeant with an arm full of file folders. She waved an apology as the blur of red streaked past the confused man.
“You ain’t nothin’. He could smoke you if he tried. He’s just letting you feel better about your lack of a tan.” She jerked her head to the side, toward the room. “The missus home? I wanted to get some breakfast.”
We entered the small room, and she barreled forward. The lights were on, and a faint glow pulsed from the computer in the corner. Kate smiled as she turned around, having heard us in the hallway. The jingle of a collar announced the return of our fair Romeo, who promptly piled onto the bed, drool cascading down the side of the wet tennis ball as he chomped merrily on the defeated toy.
“Don’t tease Mike about his tan,” she said, taking Ky’s quick hug and smiling fondly at me as I leaned against the doorframe. “These Hollywood types are sensitive about their looks, don’t ya know?”
I gave her a fake smile and pulled the sweatshirt over my head, tossing it on top of an offended Romeo, who backed out of the sudden attack like he had been accosted by a bear, falling from the bed with a loud crash, eventually extricating himself and staring at the dark cotton as if expecting it to rise again, seeking blood and vengeance. Ky guffawed at the dog as I grabbed a fresh shirt and pulled it on.
“Yeah, I’m sensitive to little punks and their sidekick mutts that ambush me in the hallway,” I threw out, falling into the only other chair in the room and closing my eyes.
“You’re just bitter ‘cause you’re too old to see shit.”
“Language,” I muttered.
“You probably didn’t even know his nose was there until he sniffed you,” she said, gesturing to Romeo, whose vacant look met my barely opened eyes.
“That’s what she said,” I blurted reflexively.
“Gross,” said Kate, making a face, as Ky looked at her in confusion.
“What? What’s gross? What does that mean? Who’s she?” Ky was confused and offended, all at once.
I guffawed loudly, opening my mouth to explain it.
“Never mind,” said Kate, suppressing a smile.
I lifted my head, noticing that she wasn’t as grim as she had been when I left for my run.
“What the hell are you so happy about, anyway?” I asked Kate, seeing her smile widen as if she was expecting my question.
“Because,” she said slowly. “I just got a call from General Thomas. We’re going on a trip.”
TWO
It was a long walk to the General’s office, and my mind was racing.
They had found an airplane and a crew and, more importantly, a runway. That was all that mattered. A strip of blasted concrete long eno
ugh to lift off in an airplane that had enough fuel to reach the secure airfield in Seattle. That was it. That was all we needed.
Beside me, Ky whistled as she absently tossed Romeo the ball, heedless of the serious people in tactical gear she was passing. Kate walked slightly ahead, her voice soft and concerned, voicing the questions I had let lie.
“I wonder which airfield it is. It couldn’t be National, we would have heard about it. Andrews has no possibility of being secure—it’s just chain link and barbed wire. There are corpses all over the field, we saw the pictures. And BWI is a steaming mess. Wreckage everywhere.”
She trailed off, lost in thought.
I just wanted a ride. At this point, I didn’t care who it was with. I’d ride naked on a pissed off porcupine with jock itch and a sore tooth if it got me to Seattle.
We reached the General’s deceptively unassuming office and Kate grabbed Ky’s arm as she tried to enter first. The teenager’s face was passive and cloyingly surprised, as if unaware of why she had been stopped.
“You know what we discussed,” Kate said, and I nodded as sternly as I could without cracking a smile. Ky’s eyes remained large and innocent.
“What? I just want to listen,” she argued, but Kate was on to the scheme.
“Yeah, I’ve heard it before. You’re not going with us, and you know it. Take a walk and we’ll meet you for lunch.”
Ky’s mild manner evaporated instantly, and her voice took on an edge.
“And I told you, I’m old enough. You’re not my parents, and you can’t tell me what to do. These assholes don’t care about me, and you’re going to leave me here to rot? Surrounded by millions of these pus-filled gas bags?” Kate’s grip was solid, and Ky gave up, shaking off Kate’s hold and backing out into the hallway.
“Fine, I’ll skip the meeting,” she said, voice dripping with acid as she started down the hall.
“But you can’t keep me from coming. I’ll find a way.” Her last sentence drifted back as she turned the corner and out of sight, the stubby tail of her constant companion disappearing with her.