Outbreak: The Zombie Chronicles

by Mark Clodi;Mike Keleman

  When it was over and his appetite was sated, the girl was hiding under the bed, the mother unconscious and Fred was finishing up the first kid. Jimbo looked at the boy in his arms, undamaged except for a ripped out throat. He knew, instinctively, that he could gain more energy from consuming the flesh of his foe, but he also knew that if he stopped eating now the body would reanimated under his direct control. Sure Nancy and maybe even Fred would have some ability to boss around Jimbo's creations, but ultimately he thought they would serve him first.

  Jimbo waited until the kid started to revive, then pushed the savage zombie beast towards his former mother. The kid started in on her feet and Fred, done with the first one, started in on the other end. Disgusting. Jimbo was feeling much, much stronger. 'It is in the blood.', he thought, 'Whatever makes us come back is in the blood, it gives us life now.' He made sure the mother was eaten, and damaged enough to not revive, same with the older kid. Then he turned towards the bed. The girl had to be younger, six, maybe seven. Not too strong, probably less upkeep, but hey, Jimbo could not make everyone into zombies.

  Once the mother was finished, Jimbo grabbed the boy, who was still half wild and together they flipped the bed over and grabbed his paralyzed sister. Fred tried to butt in on this treat, but Jimbo backhanded him. Then Fred concentrated and Jimbo could feel the 'pull' urging him to get the fuck out of Fred's way. Jimbo squared his shoulders and spoke to Fred, "Not. Yet. We will get you up and running, but give this one to the kid and I so I can get stronger, like you mister 'kid and half a mom eater', and so the kid can at least get as strong as you are. As a team we are better off having the same amount of power than having one super strong member. I won't be a Nancy on you and won't have you pulling that shit on me either. I rescued you man, so back off this time."

  With apparent reluctance Jimbo felt the pressure compelling him diminish and he turned for his half of the little girl, the boy had drained most of her blood from her throat and Jimbo ended up sitting down to a larger meal than he had anticipated, eating quite a few of the girls internal organs, he had not wanted to really, just felt doing so would give him the most 'bang' for his eating experience. By the time he was through the boy was sobbing. 'Fuck', thought Jimbo, 'Now I gotta counsel the little brat through this shit?'

  "Hey, cut it out." Jimbo concentrated and tried to get the kid to stop crying mentally, it worked. The boy's mind was almost like a path inside of his head and if Jimbo concentrated he could see where the rows of faint light went, which must be the kid's thoughts, and slowly he could divert them. He was lost in thought over this and become so involved with the process of sorting through the kid's mind that he lost track of time. By the time he came back to reality he had made the kid forget that his first victims were his former family members, and set it up so that when they left the house, he would think they had eaten the creepy neighbor man and his bully son that the boy had feared for years instead. The boy was almost happy by the time Jimbo left his mind. Fred watched everything from the edge of the room while he gnawed on one of the mother's legs. He looked much better and Jimbo focused his attention on Fred's mind briefly. There was resistance there, but he could get through enough to see that Fred was doing some serious thinking about trying to control Jimbo or trying to work with him. Jimbo tried to subtly nudge Fred into the 'work with Jimbo' and 'Jimbo is my savior' mode of thinking. He thought he was successful but it was so much harder than he imagined it would be.

  As a brief afterthought he tried to turn his minds eye inward to examine his own brain. There it was, exposed for the world to see. 'Fuck', he thought, 'what to do about this? I can't be running around all open to everyone.' He thought about it for a minute then came up with an analogy, clear cloudless day was what he was seeing in his own head, what he needed was a cloudy downpour or better a heavy fog, so others could not see his thoughts at all. Going with the weather theme he concentrated and slowly saw his mind fog up until he was looking at a storm cloud, with internal eye instead of a clear sunny day. The cloud surrounded his head, obscuring all his 'running lights' from view. Better still he was pretty sure if anyone tried to play 'Moses' and part the water vapor protecting his mind, he would know about it. Would it hold against Nancy? He did not know, he suspected it would hold against Fred though. One thing for certain his manipulations had left him hungry again, unusually so, he wanted more food.

  "Well Fred, what have you decided? Are we a team or are you going to try and be my master? We are once removed, one of the zombies you created, a real bitch by the name of Nancy, wanted you dead, I saved you and brought you up to strength. You can probably figure out why, I didn't like following Nancy's orders. I am pretty sure she can find us if she concentrates hard enough and I would like to have you there to protect me from her when she shows up, waddya say?"

  Jimbo knew his manipulations had worked before Fred even answered, almost without thinking he could see how Fred was thinking. He had done it.

  "I think I would rather work with you than have to watch my back all the time. Besides I remember Nancy, she was a fake bitch in real life, a hollow core, a true salesma-woman. I never liked her, but she did her job. What did you do to your head and the boy's and to me?" asked Fred.

  "Well, Bobby, he was getting all sobbed up about eating his mom and all, I can't stand whiny crybabies, so I have fixed him to think this ain't his mom, right Bobby?"

  "What?" came Bobby's reply, "This is Mr Thompson's house. His kid had an xbox three sixty and they would never let us play it. Thompson was mean, he yelled at me and I am glad he is dead." Bobby's eyes were glazed and unfocused.

  "See?" asked Jimbo.

  "And me?"

  "Well you were trying to make a decision and snapping to judgments, I just, kinda told you to weigh your options. Nothing else. I honestly can't do anything to you, that took all my efforts and left me starving, I think it is because you are like, my creator's creator or something." replied Jimbo.

  "Ah. I see. What about you. One minute I though I could almost see or hear your thoughts now I can't see anything. How did you do that?" asked Fred.

  "Well, er, I kinda thought, you know, if maybe Nancy showed up, I would try and make it harder for her to get inside my head. I think I can teach you how to do it too." In his mind Jimbo was thinking furiously, then a thought came to him. Backdoors. Like in all those computer hacker movies, maybe he could set up a backdoor in Fred's defenses to give him a chance if Fred and his relationship went south.

  "Right now though, I am hungry. What I did takes a lot of energy, and I will teach you how as soon as we get more meat, you guys game?"

  "Yes, I could use it, I think Bobby is okay." Fred drawled.

  "I ain't hungry no more. But I will stay with you, okay?" said Bobby

  "Bobby my boy I would not have it any other way." As the three left the house Jimbo was thinking of rainbows.

  Chapter 32

  Standing in the kitchen staring at her hand Nancy and Veronica were interrupted by Trish and Julie coming down the stairs together. The girls stopped, realizing that something major had happened, then Julie ventured, "What is with the smoke and smell?"

  "Well Julie, I am so glad you asked" replied Nancy, "I was curious to see just how well we could mend and ran a little test with the oven. This." She held up her hand, "is my hand, five minutes ago my smallest finger was a blackened, blistered claw, now, it is fully functional, without even scar tissue to impede it's movement. What do you think of that?"

  "Um, it is good, right. Good?"

  "Yeah Julie it is good. I feel immortal, I think with enough humans in me, us, we will be immortal. Are you girls hungry? I could use a bite, but would rather wait for a few hours if you can handle it." Somehow Nancy knew they were mostly full and would not resent waiting either. This was something she needed to sit down and explore with them too. How secure was her hold over them and how, exactly did it work? Time would tell, right now they needed to get through the next few days, find a few more people to
eat, maybe make a couple more girls to go along with them. Replace Jimbo? Hm worth thinking about he did have more mass and muscle then the rest of them. Oh and track down that lucky fucker Fred too. She would find him, it was inevitable.

  Chapter 33

  Max thought 'Hey this ain't too bad.' for a gut shot man walking down the stairs of the apartment building he was doing okay. Then came the shooting, a bullet winged off the metal support pole near Max's head and sent him ducking to his hands and knees before he quite knew what he was doing. The pain from that maneuver was terrible, he dropped the revolver and saw it clatter down two flights of stairs past Tom, who turned and said, "Did they hit you! Did they hit you?"

  "No, no, keep going, just...painful." Max replied. He pulled himself up to the rail level and slid his legs down the stairs first, it was slow, but the agony was more bearable if he kept his body in more or less a straight line, bending made everything so much worse. 'And that was bending forward.' thought Max, 'Stretching up would open the wound more and...' just thinking about it made him nauseous.

  Tom had ducked down below the railing too, this left them both partially exposed on the stairs that faced the parking lot, but kept them almost hundred percent obscured at all other parts of the descent. Unfortunately a hundred percent obscured did not mean a hundred percent safe, the thin painted wood of the railing did nothing to stop the bullets from flying through, just made them more inaccurate.

  "Speed Tom, you gotta go faster, I gotta go faster or they are gonna put someone at the base of the stairs where we want to drop off. Plus they see us every time we turn towards the parking lot."

  Tom just looked at Max and Max knew the slow pace was on account of his wound. Still Tom went faster and got a stairway ahead of Max. This separated the gun fire into two locations and while Max thought he was in the middle of a gunfight, the reality was that very few bullets were coming their way, just enough to make them keep their heads down and slow their progress. Max did remember to grab the revolver on his way past it, he tucked it into his pocket, figuring even if he could fire it, his hands were shaking so badly and that he probably would not hit anything anyway.

  They arrived at near base of the stairs with no more than an extra hole in the front of Tom's jeans where a bullet had narrowly missed his shin. They finally made it down as far as they could safely go, onto some concrete steps facing the back of the apartment complex. The one final flight of stairs led to the ground, however it was facing the parking lot where all of the bullets had been coming from. Between the flight of stairs they were on and the next there was a landing where Tom intended them to go over the railing and out the 'back' way, which bordered on a creek with one of Denver's many bike paths running along it.

  Tom pointed to the railing, "We gotta go over that railing, it is about a five foot drop, the kids hang and drop from it all the time, but the landing is going to be on a hill covered with gravel, probably not good footing. Stay to the right side, it will be harder for anyone to see you if you are there. Ready?"

  Max nodded 'yes' and Tom pointed to indicate he should go first. As Max slowly went down the stairs feet first he heard Tom scrambling around behind him, and then heard the explosive sound of the shotgun going off. Knowing that was his cue, he moved as quickly as he could to get over the railing, opting for the 'head first' method, instead of the much slower 'climb over, hang and drop' method. His next thought was 'Five feet? More like fifteen!' He hit the ground and blacked out after rolling onto his back.

  Tom meanwhile fired several shots into the parking lot at moving men, he did not think he hit anyone, but they kept their head's down, which is all he wanted. He reloaded the shotgun, fired one more round and then slung the gun over his should by the strap and hopped over the fence, he did hang and drop and had to modify his trajectory when he saw Max laying on the ground below him, unmoving. He landed on the slope and rolled to one side, into the foundation of the building, then stopped on his butt, sliding to a stop on the loose gravel next to Max.

  He nudged Max, who moaned and said, "C'mon Max we area almost there buddy, get moving!"

  Max groaned again, "Five feet! That ain't five feet Tom!"

  Tom shrugged, "Well I didn't expect you to go head first off the damn thing! Can you get up? Oh shit you're bleeding again. Better get your band aid together first." He leaned over Max and pulled the towel back around his stomach cinching it closed as Max had done before. The bleeding was not stopped, merely staunched for the moment. He was just helping Max to his feet when a voice above them shouted down, "Hold it right there boys or we will shoot!" Max and Tom stopped and slowly half turned around to look up at a man holding a rifle on them, the tentatively raised their hands and the man said, "That's right, keep em where I can see em..."

  His next words were cut off by the sound of a pistol from behind Max and Tom, the man yelled as he was shot in the arm or shoulder, spinning around and falling behind the barricade. Turning back towards the creek Max saw the patrol car on the bike path behind them. Tom wasted no time helping Max down the hill and climbing in after him into the back of the car. Steve, now driving the car, took off down the bike path while Stewart turned to Max and Tom.

  "How'd it go?" she asked, as if nothing unusual had happened.

  Tom spat out, "I got Max fucking shot! For clothing!" turning to Max he said, "I am sorry Max! I am so sorry!" While saying so he pulled up Max's shirt to reveal the bloody towel wrapped around his stomach.

  Max winced and said, "Yeah, Tom. I am sorry too man." Then thinking about it he said, "You didn't know, the same thing could happen when we get to Steve's sisters or my place, you didn't know man, you couldn't have known."

  Stewart was looking at the towel then reached into the glove box and came up with a medical kit, she proceeded to pull out a pair of latex gloves (there was an entire box of them) and told Steve, "Steve, pull over and let me swap with Tom. Tom, you reload the gun and keep your eyes peeled for trouble."

  After a quick stop they were on their way again. Stewart said to Steve, "You know where the state clinic is on a hundred and thirty fourth? No? Well turn right here, then take the second left after this next light and then the first right after that, it is on the left. We'll see if docs are in. Let me take a look Max."

  Max looked at Stewart and said, "I, I can't, you do it."

  "Wuss. Move your hands. No, not there, move them out of the way."

  Stewart peeled back the towels, knowing from her training that this is generally the wrong thing to do, you are supposed to let the band aid work by allowing the blood to pool and seal the hole. However she had to know, if it was as bad as it looked she would not place good odds on Max surviving and from what she had heard his death would not be a pleasant one either. She pulled the last of the towel back, starting the blood flowing again and said, "Tom, hand me that bag there in front of your feet, it has gauze in it. Thanks." She proceeded to clean up the blood so she could see the wound more clearly, there was a lot of blood. She sighed in relief at what she saw, just as they were driving slowly by the clinic.

  Tom said, "Stewart! Stewart! Zombies everywhere!"

  Sure enough the clinic was surrounded by a mob of thirty or so zombies, none of them looked like what Stewart would classify as 'beta' or 'alpha' zombies, those that were faster and more aware of their environment, just common 'zetas'. Zeta for classic zombie, that always brought a smile to her face. Back to the clinic situation, Steve sped the car up as he went by and several members of the mob made lumbering runs after the moving car.

  "Steve, slow down a bit, draw more of them away!" commanded Stewart.

  Steve slowed, but only three of the zombies continued the pursuit. Shrugging Stewart said, "Go to the end of the block and we'll shoot these three, then circle around and try to get more of them; circle, draw them away, shoot em. Got it?"

  Shooting the zombies was like shooting fish in a barrel. The three dropped easily and Steve circled the block and tried to draw more away, the rest of
the mob was less inclined to follow this time around and several even ducked for cover among the nearby cars. This was going to be harder than Stewart thought.

  "Isn't there somewhere else?" asked Steve.

  "Nowhere close." replied Stewart bitterly, "Besides we know someone is still in there, otherwise why the mob?"

  "So what do I do? Ram some of them? Shoot into them as we drive by?"

  "No we gotta come up with something more clever than that. Pull up at the corner of the block and lets stop and think for a minute."

  Steve pulled the car to a halt at the corner and all of them looked back at the clinic, then to each other, casting guarded glances at Max when they thought he was not looking.

  "Here is the thing, we have to get Max in as quick as we can, the 'golden' hour rule still applies even in this prolonged emergency. Max, you are not going to die, it looks to me like the bullet just skimmed across the front of your abdomen and is not inside of you, but we still need to get you stitched up and probably on anti-biotics or something, the doctor or nurse will know what to do. I think we could probably rush the zombies in the parking lot, I think they are smart enough to duck down for cover, but I didn't see any 'alpha' zombies no real bad guys, right?"

  "So, let me get this straight, you are thinking that we should bum-rush thirty zombies to get to the front door?" asked Steve.

  "I dunno Stewart there are a lot of zombies around the building..." Tom said tentatively.

  "No! No bum rushing Steve, c'mon! I mean we pull up twenty feet away and blast a bunch of them, Tom and I will sit on this side and just fire out the windows, we will drive them off and then make a break for the doors."

  "We don't even know the doors are unlocked, I don't think they are, otherwise there wouldn't be anyone inside, right? So how do we let them know we need in?" asked Steve.