by Jack Wallen
Another wave of serpents made their way to the upper half of my body. This time they worked in conjunction with one another and squeezed tightly around my torso until I couldn’t breathe. Somehow, a collection of snakes managed to pull Jacob from my arms. I was helpless to do anything as I watched the snakes slither off into the raving crowd with my baby. My mouth opened to cry out, but one of the snakes made its way in between my teeth and down my throat. The ability to breathe was completely revoked from my system.
Stars danced in front of my now-tunneling vision.
As I started losing consciousness, the sound of Jacob crying echoed through the mysterious building. The dancers seemed to writhe and pump to the rising and falling sound of my baby boy’s cries.
“Jacob!” I tried to scream. I felt the snake slither its way further down my throat. When the tip of the tail disappeared between my lips, I panicked. I was encased in a skin of serpent with one of the beasts writhing within my gut. I felt synapses in my mind snapping and misfiring. My muscles locked up. Death was drawing ever nearer.
Just before the Grim Reaper had its way with me, I jerked awake…. to darkness and silence. The cold breath hanging in front of my face was illuminated by the full moon that shined down through the windshield of the car. A quick look to the back of the Audi confirmed Jacob was fine. No snakes had taken up residence inside the car.
There was something about the nightmare that begged to warn me. From deep within the core of my conscience, I could feel the metaphor of that snake winding its way around the entrails stuffed within my abdomen. It had to be the ZDC. But what was warning me? Was there something now twisted around the double helix of my DNA, encoded to send me some sort of Bat Signal when the ZDC was near?
It was three in the morning. Soon we’d be heading off – the last leg of this long journey. Hopefully, at the end of the road, a new life awaited us all. But for now, sleep beckoned me from the beyond.
Chapter 17
November 23, 2016 9:23 AM
Seattle, Washington Underground City
Morgan Barnhart was almost always up before everyone else. It had become routine – wake at six AM, stretch, yoga, breakfast, gather intel. All of this, of course, was precluded by an enormous cup of coffee. Although the massive dose of caffeine seemed counter-productive to the yoga, there was no way her eyes would remain open throughout the day without the hit from the dark bean. And being in Seattle, why not take advantage of some seriously good coffee?
Or so she would have, had the apocalypse not leveled humanity.
“The Great Equalizer, that Mengele Virus.” Morgan whispered to everyone and no one. Of course, no one else was awake to her micro-cosmic waxing of the philosophical. Or so she thought.
“You’re right. Fucking virus pretty much leveled the playing field.” Jamal awoke as soon as he smelled the coffee brewing. “Sorry. My nose can smell a pot brewing in the next state. It’s hell in the morning – like living in a roastery. Mind if I have a cup with you?”
Morgan smiled and nodded her approval. There was something about Jamal she liked, trusted.
“So, Jamal, what’s the real plan with your underground city? Is this going to be your own personal playground or what?”
The young man stared off in the distance, unsure how to answer the question.
“Honestly, I’m just holding the fort down for when Bethany arrives. What we do will be her call.”
Morgan stood quickly, almost knocking her mug onto the floor. She caught the heavy ceramic cup before gravity got its heartless fingers on the handle.
“Are you fucking kidding me? We’re just waiting around? Isn’t that a bit, I don’t know, insane?”
Jamal laughed. The sound carried with it an undertone of tragic irony.
“You obviously haven’t the slightest clue who Bethany is, do you?”
The young woman stood, staring at Jamal. The sideways tilt of her head and the purse of her lips answered the question well before a single word was uttered.
“Of course I know who Bethany is. The entire God damned world knows who Bethany is.”
Jamal’s laugh echoed into silence.
“You might know of her, but you don’t truly know Bethany Nitshimi until you’ve actually experienced her. She is the single most brilliant mind you will ever know. Any plan I could piece together would only pale in comparison to her ideas. So why bother trying when I know the perfect plan is only a days car trip away?”
Jamal had received the latest text from Bethany letting him know they were driving, straight-shot, from Spokane to Seattle. They would arrive before nightfall and whatever great plan Bethany had would be set in motion.
“There is something we can do though. Where’s your nearest full-scale team?”
Morgan walked over to the Battle Table. Covering the entirety of the table was a tactical map of the United States.
“Portland, Oregon. Why?”
Jamal joined Morgan at the map. “I want you to bring them here. I have a bad feeling the Zero Day Collective is going to throw the kitchen sink at us to get to Bethany and her baby. I want to be prepared. Will you call them to us?”
Morgan and Jamal stared at one another for a long moment. There was no flirting going on, just pure strategy and work. Finally Morgan broke the silence.
“Yes. I can have them here before Bethany arrives.”
Jamal gave Morgan a pat on the forearm.
“Great. Make it so.”
With his best Picard maneuver tossed off for fun, Jamal grabbed his mug and made to suck down the bitter coffee. As soon as the hot liquid touched his lips, Morgan could tell Jamal normally drank his coffee with sugar and cream. Unfortunately, the apocalypse stole those luxuries away from mankind. Post-Mengela Virus, coffee was to be had au natural.
“I’ll send word now. They’ll be here in a few hours.”
Jamal smiled at Morgan. “Thank you. And as soon as Bethany arrives we’ll all meet and sort out the plan of attack. I can tell you this for certain – our single most important job is to protect Bethany’s baby.”
Again, Morgan made with the tilty-puzzle face.
“You don’t know about the baby do you?”
Morgan shook her head.
“You haven’t read the book have you?”
Once again, Morgan shook her head.
Jamal gestured Morgan over to a computer terminal. “Sit down and read. You may as well consider these the first and second testaments of the new world order. The book, I Zombie I, was written by Jacob Plummer. The blog is Bethany’s. Between the two of them, you’ll understand the full story. The single most important bit of information you will take out of that is Jacob impregnated Bethany after he was infected. The resulting baby has become the target of The Zero Day Collective. For some reason, they will stop at nothing to get that baby back into their labs. Once Bethany arrives, it will be our duty to make sure that never happens. If we fail that, we fail the human race. Should the ZDC get their hands on Baby Jacob, their Great Cleansing will succeed and we’ll all be nothing more than worm food for the undead.”
Jamal’s words settled uncomfortably under Morgan’s skin. She knew of the Zero Day Collective. She even knew they had some diabolical plan that included the end of the majority of the lives on the planet. What the endgame of that plan was, she had no idea. But ‘Great Cleansing’ was quite clear in its intent.
With a newer, more powerful motivation under her wings, Morgan turned to read the book and the blog of Jacob Plummer and Bethany Nitshimi.
Her eyes would be forever opened to a deeper, darker truth.
Before Morgan set about to plow into the words displayed before her, she pulled out a smart phone and sent a message to the commander of the Portland, Oregon division of the Zombie Response Team. The message was simple:
Pull out of Portland. Head to Seattle immediately.
Once the message was off and received, Morgan knew the troupes would arrive, packing powerful heat and an even more po
werful attitude.
Just as Morgan turned to Jamal to inform him the message was sent, a klaxon ripped through the air.
“What the hell is that?”
Jamal ran to a computer terminal, sat, and started typing command. “I set up a perimeter alarm with software that would monitor movement. If the camera caught human sized objects it would begin monitoring. If the movement had the typical characteristics of a zombie, the alarm would sound. I plan on integrating it with a fully automatic weapons system, so that if zombies are detected, they will be shot remotely. It’s a brilliant piece of soft…”
“So we have zombies is what you’re saying?”
Morgan’s face offered an odd smirk, as if there were a level of thrill building at the thought of zombies marching toward the gate of the castle.
Jamal continued on at the computer, scanning through the different camera views, until he came upon the site of the action.
“Shit. There’s hundreds of them. Fuck! What are we – ”
Morgan pulled a radio from her belt. “I got this. Josh, this is Morgan. We have a large-scale breech at…”
Jamal picked up Morgans cue. “Near the intersection of Columbia and First.”
Morgan relayed the information to Josh and followed up with the order to take out the undead threat.
*
The intersection of Columbia and First was close. The first response team was assembled and directly underneath the location of the zombie army within minutes. Each team member was armed with weapons of silent destruction. The goal was to not bring any unnecessary attention to the location – especially attention of the undead kind. So swords, bats, pikes, and bows were the order of the day.
“Ready to wipe clean the streets of the undead?”
“Ready!” The soldiers barked.
“I count to three, this door opens, you unleash bitter Hell upon these sons a bitches!”
A nervous energy spread through the Zombie Response Team members. They gripped their bats, knocked their arrows, some whispered prayers to one God or another.
“One.”
The energy rose.
“Two.”
Swift, shallow breathing overtook the men.
“Three.”
Josh flung the door open, the hall was bathed in the near-blinding, white light of the sun. Through the brilliant rays of sunlight, the wavering, shadowy forms of the undead could be seen. The Josh-led Zombie Response Team spilled out of the Underground City and immediately spread out. The team was outnumbered by at least ten to one, odds the men were used to. But the ZRT were trained assassins of the undead, odds meant nothing.
Without order or thought, the men with the bows scrambled to higher ground, taking perch on roofs and fire escapes. Arrows flew through the air, embedding themselves into the rotted flesh of the undead.
Josh ran from the door, metal pike in hand, heading full steam towards a solo moaner. The point of his pike struck home and impaled the moaner in the neck. The tip of the pike pierced the moaners spine and the beast dropped to its knees. With a swift kick, the moaner slid backwards off the metal pole. Sticky, brown blood slopped and splashed. The leader of the ZRT team took no time to celebrate his kill and set off to strike another blow for human kind.
It was impossible to tell how many of the undead had been sent to their final grave, but the street was still thick with melee.
“Buckshot! Watch out!”
A call from one of the bowman echoed off the walls of the nearby buildings. Buckshot was one of the senior members of the ZRT. In typical fashion, Buckshot was taking on two moaners at once, and was unaware of a third party wanting to join in on the dance. Buckshot cracked his bat down hard upon one of the first two zombies, sending its brain matter flying in all directions. The gore splattered Buckshot’s face shield, obstructing his view. The second zombie’s arms flailed out in the air-space between itself and Buckshot. The bat swung hard and connected with the zombie’s right elbow. The sound of the bone crushing would have sent chills down through the spine of even the hardest of asses. Fortunately, everyone else was far too busy crushing skulls and piercing brains to notice.
The now, one-armed zombie lunged forward, taking Buckshot by surprise. The weight of the undead bastard forced the fighter backwards, into the powerful arms of the zombie sneaking up from behind. The monster’s rot-filled mouth opened up and clamped down on Buckshot’s neck.
As the zombie enjoyed his meal, every bowman in the area took aim and fired. Five arrows hit their mark – the top of the zombies head. Buckshot was the last meal the moaner would have.
There was no time to mourn the loss of their comrade in Armageddon. The bowman turned their attention back to the battlefield and let loose their scorns and arrows.
The battle raged on, with little more than the sounds of moans and the slicing and dicing of undead meat to punctuate the scene. When finally the last of the zombies were taken down, the tally of men was taken. The Zombie Response Team had lost three good men.
Josh collected the weapons and armor from the downed men. It was a task he hated, but with the scarcity of tools nothing could go to waste.
When the remaining men stepped back through the door, they each whispered the names of their fallen friends – a ritual that came about after a particularly bloody battle in San Antonio. They called it the Undead Alamo.
Chapter 18
November 23, 2016 12:17 PM
Zero Day Collective, Zombie Collection Unit
Unknown Location
Subject 001 flew the drop-ship deftly around the landscape of the city. The heat signature on the radar drew an undeniable picture – there was massive movement of an undead nature. When the zombie pilot flipped on the external shotgun mic, the chorus of moans and screams bounced off of the metal walls of the ship.
“We have confirmation.” Subject 001’s ghost-like voice filled the soldiers in on the SITREP. “Setting down near the mass of undead civilians.”
The over-sized drop ship came to a gentle rest on a four-lane thoroughfare that cut straight through the heart of the city. The sound of the landing deck motor roared to life. As soon as fresh air and light entered the cargo bay, the captive men and women within began screaming for help.
It was the SOP for a collection: Secure numerous living humans within a cargo ship, open the gates to the cargo ship near a crowd of zombies, and let the living draw the dead into the trap. The plan never failed.
The sounds of the humans wafted out of the ship and caught on the tail wind to be swiftly carried to the ears of the beasts. Once the sound of the living found its way into the ear canals of the dead, the zombies instantly turned their attention toward the drop ship. But that wasn’t enough. The Zero Day Collective had to be sure to consume every available undead resource in the area. That is why Subject 001 was sent on the mission.
With the drop ship secured, Subject 001 unlatched his harness and made his way out of the cock pit and to the main exit. When the door hissed open, the undead pilot lowered the ramp to the ground.
Subject 001 glided down the ramp like the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father; effortless, as if he were floating just above the metal below his feet. When he hit the pavement below, Subject 001 pointed his feet in the direction of the zombie horde. Within the recesses of his mind lay a programming few knew of. When the sound of the moaning crowd crossed the threshold of his ears, the programming kicked in and Subject 001 knew exactly what he had to do. He had a strange role to play in this circus of the damned. The Moment Subject 001 was within ear shot of the undead mass, he opened his mouth and released a sound so bizarre, no one would ever be able to explain. The noise was half music, half horror. A string quartet, tuned to the key of Hell, with undertones so atonal any semblance of melody would only serve to threaten the listeners sanity.
The sound spewing from Subject 001’s mouth caught the attention of every zombie in the area. They turned and began to march toward the nightmare waltz.
Back inside
the staging area, the soldiers all watched a live video feed of Subject 001 in action. No one within could explain what they witnessed. But when they saw the horde coming their way, denial took a back seat to duty.
“Here they come.” One of the foot soldiers spoke nervously.
The junior soldier in the group revealed his fear when he reached up to re-adjust his helmet with a shaking hand.
“Pull it together soldier. It’s about to get massively fucked up in here. When those moaners reach this ship, you’re going to witness, firsthand, how picnics happen in Hell.”
The rest of the soldiers laughed at the expense of the young man.
“Why you so scared, bitch? There’s a wall of three inch thick steel between us and them. There’s no way they can get to us.”
There was no reply, just the frightened look of a child who’d just seen his first horror movie and was about to have his bedroom light turned off.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen this shit before? Come on! It’s the fucking apocalypse. Zombies are as common as crabs in a whore house. You can’t be afraid of a slow-ass, piece of shit moaner.”
Tears streaked down the young man’s cheeks.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me! Seriously? What the fuck are they doing shipping out newbies on a collection? You have to have a stomach for this shit. The sounds alone will keep you from eating for weeks. God damn it!”
The team leader unleashed his fury on the wall behind him. The beat down he gave the steel served as little more than a percussive underscore to the crescendo of moans in the cargo bay of the ship.
“Listen carefully kid. You’re about to get one hell of a show. If this doesn’t put hair on your chest, nothing will.”
The screams of the living shook the walls of the ship. As the sounds of the moaners reached a peak, the human voices seemed to fold inside out. Heads bounced off the steel walls, bones were cracked, flesh was ripped and chewed. When the young solider looked through the tiny window that overlooked the cargo bay, he sucked in a gasp of terror. The bay was filled, asses to elbows, with zombies.