[HGB] Humanity Gone Bad: The Dead Chronicles

by Watkins, Charles

  “Chaz, we can’t stay here—eventually those things will find a way to get in!” Angie stated in a voice full of fear and worry.

  “Alright, I’m worried about my family anyway, so I say we head east to Georgia and then after I see how my family is—then we’ll head to Chattanooga to check on your family.” I stated turning to Angie.

  “Okay, that’s fine with me…I hope that everyone is okay.” Angie answered as she briefly hugged me.

  I Unlocked the door on the barrier fence that we had built and lead the way into the garage and we all got into the truck and I drove through the garage door and spun out landing in the ditch that was in the back yard.

  “Shit!”

  “I can’t believe I done that!” I shouted as I pounded my fists against the steering wheel.

  The zombies were coming for us now in a steady pace, Jennifer was in the back shooting constantly—zombie after zombie fell dead but they just kept coming; that was when a zombie that had come up from behind Jennifer grabbed her and pulled her out of the back of the truck and bit her in the back of her neck, others joined in and we could hear her screaming. I got out and ran around to the side of the truck where the zombies were eating her alive, I was horrified to see Jacob—or what had formally been Jacob eating his own daughter’s flesh, Christina cried in horror when she caught sight of her sister’s mangled body and then her “dad” getting up and stumbling at me; she took out her .9mm and fired three rounds into Jacob’s skull killing him while I blew apart the rest of the zombies with rapid fire from my AR-15. Christina was crying hard, but she got into the truck and behind the wheel and put it into drive and she was stepping on the gas as Noah and I pushed, soon we were out of the ditch, and I took over driving again. After several minutes of evasive driving and smashing through several hordes of undead we were now on the freeway heading east, not much was different; the interstate was littered with wrecked cars and bodies were everywhere—it was like that for miles and miles through most of the way. By the next morning I was tired from driving all night and we had just gotten into Arkansas, I stopped at a grocery store and Angie took my place behind the wheel driving; I woke up several hours later to find that we were near Little Rock now, we stopped at another store to get supplies.

  The bodies were everywhere and the smell of decay was really bad there; I led the way into the store with my AR-15 ready, the floor inside was littered with so many bodies that you could hardly walk. I went behind the counter and started searching for anything that we could use, Angie stayed near me while Noah and Christina were gathering food and stuff; I picked the lock on the cash register and started grabbing bills.

  “Chaz, what are you doing?” Angie asked with a curious expression on her face.

  “We might need this money…for guns and shit you know?” I answered as I briefly looked up at her.

  “To hell with that—if I find a gun that I want, I’m just gonna take the fucking thing.” Noah answered as he folded his arms.

  “Well, you have a point; still, it wouldn’t hurt to get some of this money while we can.” I said stuffing somewhere around $487 into my pocket.

  That was when a series of noises from the rear of the store got our attention as suddenly several zombies stumbled out of the shadows and started coming our way, Noah opened fire killing a few but there were more and they weren’t slowing down in their advancing; we fell back and ran for the truck, that’s when we noticed that it had rolled off of the sidewalk where we had parked it and smashed into a fire hydrant. I got into the driver’s seat and went to start it, that’s when I saw that the fuel gauge pointed to empty.

  “Shit!”

  “Come on, we have to get the hell out of here!” I shouted as I led the others away from the truck as the undead poured out of the door to the store we had just left.

  We all made a run for it down the street towards the freeway with a pack of zombies on our asses and after running and tripping for at least ten minutes, everyone was out of breath and we had to stop; the zombies were far behind and we were safe for now, we started walking down the freeway towards Little Rock.

  “Man, we’re never gonna make it on foot like this, we need another car!” Noah shouted as he collapsed on one knee on the pavement.

  I was so tired from running that I wasn’t hardly listening, it didn’t hit me until I looked ahead and seen that there a little bit down the stretch was a red corvette that had run off of the road, it was in the ditch.

  “We have a ride!” I shouted running once more toward it.

  The others followed and we soon after arrived at the car, it was half buried in the mud but with a little effort, we could get it going again—there was a woman who looked dead in the front seat; her head was down on the steering wheel. There were also two small children in the back seat that looked dead as well—as I examined the rest of the car I found that the whole left side of the front windshield was smashed out as if there had been another passenger who had been thrown through upon the impact of the crash.

  “Damn man, we should take these kids out and give them a proper burial.” Noah said opening the door.

  He had no more spoken when they both jumped on him screaming that same homicidal scream—they were zombies and they were doing their best to bite him; Christina grabbed a crow bar that was lying on the ground nearby to the wreckage of another wrecked car and smashed it into one of their heads only slowing it down, I aimed my AR-15 and put a round in both of their heads and then I helped Noah to his feet.

  “That’s a shame…knowing the bitter irony of this situation; even small children have been affected by this shit.” I stated in deep thought as I stared down at the two corpses of the kids.

  “Yeah…we should at least bury them or something—this is just wrong.” Noah answered as he shook slightly with fear.

  “We’re going to—it’s the least we can do.” I answered as I started searching through the trunk of the corvette after we had unlocked it by picking the lock.

  I soon after found a small shovel that looked rusted and well used in the trunk and stashed what little belongings and supplies we had inside before closing it tight; Noah went to check the woman in the front seat, she was long dead—examination of both her as well as the two children revealed bite marks on their bodies that were human which meant that they had been bitten and turned before probably wrecking the car into the ditch. The thoughts of what had happened to these people left my mind as Noah opened the driver’s side door and we went to drag her body out when suddenly she came to life and tried to fight her way up, we threw her to the pavement and raced for our guns; Angie pulled her magnum from her hip and fired a single shot that hit the female zombie in the center of the forehead—the power of the bullet caused her head to explode in a cloud of blood and gore as the body fell to the road and oozed.

  “Shit!”

  “I could have sworn that she was dead!” Noah stated as he stared at the headless corpse with disbelief.

  “I know…just goes to show that we’re going to have to be a lot more careful from now on.” I answered as I glanced around the area for more signs of trouble.

  We took the kids’ bodies out a little ways into the nearby field and dug a shallow hole where we buried them, it wasn’t much but we felt that it was only right to do it; we all went back to the car and we got behind it,

  Christina got behind the wheel and we all pushed and after a few tries the corvette was out of the ditch, I got behind the wheel, Angie was beside of me and Noah and Christina were in the back seat.

  “I don’t like the fact that the windshield is smashed open like this…makes me feel uneasy.” Angie stated as she worked to remove the small pieces of glass from her seat.

  “I don’t either baby but we have little choice…maybe we can find something to cover it up when we get to a town or something.” I answered as I touched and squeezed her thigh reassurin
gly.

  I put my foot to the pedal and we were out of there, headed for Little Rock and after about thirty minutes we arrived and seen firsthand the state of the city; the streets were littered with bodies and cars were burning—what looked like soldiers that had been assigned to keep the city in order and protect the people were all dead; their corpses littered the streets as well as the corpses of citizens. We were all running low on ammunition and I knew that I needed to find something to patch up the hole in the windshield so I started looking for a gun store or a pawn shop that might carry ammo caches; I didn’t have to look long before I found what appeared to be a medium sized army surplus store, I parked the car close by to the door of the place to where we could easily get inside of it and flee if we had to and then I led the way in, Angie followed me and Noah and Christina were last. The store was loaded with all kinds of weapons—some of them looked like useless props but we found an abundance of others, .38 Specials, Hunting rifles, Sub Machine Guns, and even an old flame thrower that looked like it was from WWI as well as others, I got a bag from the counter and started dumping AR-15 ammo clips into it, Angie was getting bullets for her magnum and Noah and Christina were towards the back of the store getting weapons.

  “How many should we try to take?” Noah shouted from where he and Christina were.

  “Get as many as we can carry—what we’re not using at the moment can be stashed in the trunk.” I answered as I picked up a large combat knife from behind the counter.

  I had no more turned to check another shelf when my foot bumped against a corpse on the floor that had been hidden before—upon examination I seen that it was the body of a soldier, a member of the National Guard who had been called into the city to try and restore order; I checked the corpse well to make sure that it wasn’t a zombie waiting to try and attack. It wasn’t as the soldier looked to have taken rounds to the head—probably either from friendly fire or from roving vigilantes; strapped around his back was an M16 assault rifle and it looked like the soldier had barely even used it, he also had an adequate supply of ammo in his bag. I reached down and collected the assault rifle and the ammo and set it aside long enough to sling my AR-15 over my shoulder—the M16 was more powerful anyway and I knew that I would need all the firepower that I could get.

  That was when the front windows shattered and several zombies stumbled in, I took Angie’s hand and we swiftly went to the back of the store where Noah and Christina were waiting to ambush the zombies—I hid behind a cardboard standup of some cowboy guy with a Winchester Rifle and waited; as soon as the zombies got close I stood up and opened fire with my newly acquired M16, Angie with her magnum, Noah with his shotgun and Christina with her .9mm pistol. All of the zombies took at least 30 rounds in the chest before finally getting hit in the head, knowing that there would most likely be more—we ran out of the surplus store and piled the extra weapons and ammo caches into the trunk; I spotted a thin but sturdy piece of sheet metal lying on the pavement nearby that looked like it would cover the hole in the windshield so I grabbed it and dashed back inside of the store briefly to the counter where the register was—I found a thick roll of duct tape and ran back out to the car where the others were waiting. Placing the piece of sheet metal over the hole in the windshield I applied the tape both on the outside and on the inside and soon it looked like it would hold; I got into the corvette and got us out of there. I sped on out of Little Rock and finally made it back onto the freeway only to find it blocked up with wrecked, burning cars—a large variety of zombies could be seen walking around slowly on the road, somewhere eating people that had gotten trapped in their cars; others were just standing still moving their heads back and forth—many of them of course took chase after us when they spotted our car and I had to step on the gas quickly in order to get away from them. That was when we were all alerted as a loud noise from behind came up the ramp to the freeway, it was an out of control bulldozer and its driver had obviously died and turned making it no longer capable of controlling the vehicle; it couldn’t even get out of the driver’s cab—it swerved from side to side plowing into cars knocking some off of the road.

  “I have an idea…I’m gonna use that bulldozer to clear the road!” I stated as I propped my M16 up on the hood of our car and took careful aim at the zombie inside of the cab of the bulldozer.

  I fired twice hitting it in the upper torso and then in the head splattering the inside of the cab with bright red blood and chunks of what resembled brains and I told the others to wait in the car and to be careful as I climbed up onto the bulldozer as it passed and I climbed into the cab and pushed the zombie’s body out the other side; I took out my hanky and wiped the window where I could see. I got the bulldozer going straight again as I plowed into burning cars and other vehicles knocking them off of the road, I went about a mile down the freeway doing that until there weren’t any more wrecked obstacles in the road, then I jumped from the bulldozer just as it smashed into a parked fuel truck and exploded. I ran back to where the others were waiting, killing a few zombies that got in my way on the way back.

  “Are you alright baby?” Angie asked me hugging me tight.

  “Yeah, I’m okay.” I answered kissing her.

  “Dude, that was a big explosion, we seen it all the way from here!” Noah exclaimed with a shocked expression.

  “Yeah, I know—the damned bulldozer plowed into a parked fuel truck just seconds after I jumped out; at least we can continue on our way now.” I answered as I got back into the driver’s side of our corvette starting it up again.

  We sped on down the highway away from Little Rock and before long it was dark and starting to rain like hell, thunder boomed causing things inside of the car to vibrate.

  “90 miles to Memphis.” Noah read off a sign we passed.

  “Soon, we will be in Georgia…I hope that everyone at home is okay.” I stated in deep thought as I focused on the road ahead.

  “So do I.” Angie answered as she reached over and took hold of my right hand.

  I drove on through the night and around Dawn the next morning we were approaching Memphis, we passed burning buildings and vehicles as we were going into the city limits and before long we seen the chaotic city that had once been filled with life but was now filled with death, I drove on down the streets of Memphis looking for the exit to get back on the freeway going southeast because in order to get to Chattanooga, we had to go through the northern part of Mississippi and then Alabama. We were just about on the freeway again when a whole horde of zombies surrounded and attacked our car, the rear windshield shattered and zombie’s arms tried to grab Noah and Christina, Noah fired back constantly as I drove through the mass of the undead running some completely over; I swerved back and forth slamming the sides of our car into the sides of other wrecked vehicles along the sides of the road knocking a majority of them off the back of the car.

  “Die you shitheads!” Noah yelled as he pointed his shotgun out the open window at the last zombie that was still hanging onto the car blowing its head completely off.

  I continued driving as a cold rain started to pour down onto everything around us.

  …Meanwhile…

  The Carroll Family was sitting at home in Ogden, Utah in their living room watching TV. Doug, got up to go into the kitchen to get something to eat when suddenly, a zombie smashed right through the glass screen door that went to the outside where the cars were parked. It started coming for him, he gave it some harsh language and kicked it down the stairs where it slammed into the wall stunning it momentary; Doug swiftly grabbed a baseball bat out of the corner and struck the creature across the upper chest with it knocking it down the next flight of stairs where it landed at the bottom in the basement. He ran down past the zombie—which was still face-first on the floor and struggled to get his gun cabinet open, he had to strike the zombie with the bat again because it had gotten back up and was coming for him again; he smashed the windo
w glass and took out his .20 gauge shotgun putting a couple of shells into it and aimed up at the advancing zombie. He fired blowing it back against the far wall, blood was smeared all over the white wallpaper, but the zombie was getting up again.

  “What the fuck is this?” Doug said to himself as he fired once again this time hitting it in the head.

  The zombie’s body flew back again and landed in the hallway making a big pool of blood on the green carpet. He ran upstairs and told his wife Roxanna and everyone else. Jason, Doug’s son and his girlfriend Rachel Morrison were there as well as Kevin Jackson who was Jason’s friend; Kaylee, Doug’s middle daughter was on the computer when suddenly the power went off.

  “Fuck!”

  “What the fuck happened?” She yelled.

  Leanna Carroll was sitting on the sofa making out with her boyfriend John Harrison.

  “What the fuck!” Kaylee shouted.

  “Shut up Kaylee—we don’t have time for your shit!” Doug snapped glancing briefly at his rebellious middle daughter with annoyance.

  “What was it?” Roxanna asked in a curious tone as she sat her large glass of iced tea onto the nearby end table.

  “It looked dead…like a zombie or something…” Doug answered as he walked part of the way back into the kitchen.

  “But how could that possibly be possible?” Roxanna asked as she got up and followed after him.

  “Look, I don’t know but it had to of been a damn zombie and there will most likely be more of them—I’m going to give everyone a gun, be careful with it and we’re all going to barricade the stairs up and stay downstairs until some help comes.” Doug stated as he led the way toward the busted glass screen door where the creature had come in.

  Everyone reluctantly followed him downstairs and Doug gave them guns, Jason had two .22 pistols, Rachel had a .20 gauge shotgun, Roxanna had a western custom rifle and Kaylee took a .45 magnum special; everyone gathered lumber from the storage room near the downstairs living room and got to boarding up the windows. Mark Cross, Jason’s cousin came by and said that the zombies were all over Ogden as well as Payson and the other nearby towns.