[HGB] Humanity Gone Bad: The Dead Chronicles

by Watkins, Charles

  Angie followed and put Remy into a sling so she could carry her on her back and she put Mace into a second one and strapped it to my back; I went into the closet and found my M16 along with Angie’s magnum. I slapped a clip into my gun and gave Angie some ammo, suddenly, the bedroom window shattered and a zombie crawled inside and stood up, I opened fire hitting it multiple times in the upper chest, neck and head but it didn’t seem to fall—it just kept coming and I kept shooting and backing up with Angie behind me. She aimed her magnum at the zombie’s head and fired blowing it’s head off, it then fell to the floor and was dead; all of the others were now aware of the new zombie threat and we were all on route to where James and Alex had parked the seaplane down the road a little ways. They were staying in it together, we arrived there and I knocked wildly on the door and after a few minutes, James answered the door all covered in sweat.

  “What?” He asked with an annoyed look on his face.

  I could see Alex behind him; she was doing her best to hide her breasts from our view.

  “Get your damn pants back on—there are zombies everywhere!”

  “We have to get out of here!” I shouted in an annoyed tone as the others all gathered around me at the foot of the steps to the plane.

  We all climbed inside and Alex and James went to their room and got dressed, it smelled like sex in the cockpit; we were all standing waiting for James to get back so he could fire up the engine and get us all out of there when suddenly dozens of hands struck the windows and the zombies outside started pounding on the sides of the plane.

  “Shit—hurry up and get us out of here!” Noah yelled as he pointed the barrel of his shotgun out one of the half-open windows and fired a shot that capped one of the zombies.

  James came back and got into the cockpit and started the engines—luckily we had just enough space in the area to turn around and then pick up enough speed to take off; after a few minutes we were out of there and flying over the ocean.

  “You fueled this thing up recently like I asked you to didn’t you?” I asked turning to James.

  “Yes—we should have enough fuel to get back to the mainland.” James answered not taking his eyes from the controls.

  “What the hell are we gonna do now?” Christina asked with fear in her voice.

  “We have to find out where these things came from, the one we killed in our bedroom was much stronger than the others in the past…something is happening…we need to travel to where all this shit first happened and try to find out what is going on.” I answered in deep thought.

  “You mean the hospital in Oklahoma City?” Christina asked turning to face me.

  “Yes, there’s got to be some kind of clue to these zombies’ origin there…there’s got to be a secret…” I answered glancing up at her briefly.

  “I agree…something or someone has to be behind it all…although I doubt it was a person…it could be something supernatural.” My dad stated as he and my mom sat together nearby.

  “Yeah, like maybe hell is already full so all of the dead people are staying here instead of going elsewhere…” Jason stated with a wide eyed grin.

  “That’s a little too farfetched…” Angie said in a disagreeing tone.

  “It could still happen!” Jason countered as he turned to glare at Angie.

  “Kindly watch your tone there boy…Now there are different myths and crap around the world about this topic—such as voodoo and such that state that when there is no more room left in Hell that the dead will walk the earth.” I answered as I briefly glared at Jason before I turned and glanced out the window at the clouds.

  “It might make for popular songs and material for movies but I personally think that it’s a load of bullshit.” Noah answered with a chuckle.

  “I’d have to agree—my guess is that this was all caused by a virus of some sort but there has to be something that caused the zombie outbreak in the first place…maybe a chemical spill in the morgue or something…” I stated in deep thought.

  “I haven’t ever heard of any chemical that could make a dead man walk…I don’t think that’s it.” Doug answered with a look that suggested that he renounced the whole concept.

  “Well—what do you suggest happened then genius?” I asked as I turned to him with a scowl.

  “Yeah, fill us all in since you know so fucking much about everything.” Noah added as he stood against the nearby seat with his arms folded.

  Doug seemed to clam up after Noah’s statement and he sat down with Roxanna and looked to be sulking.

  “Things like this happen out of the blue…when people aren’t expecting anything…someone could’ve manipulated this whole scenario from the start.” Leanna stated as her and John Harrison cuddled.

  “Then how the hell do you explain all of the dead bodies all across America?”

  “Surely they didn’t just die of the flu or something like that.” Subotai stated in a tone that suggested he thought she was a blithering idiot.

  “From what I noticed it looked like a lot of people were either infected and killed in massive firefights with roving vigilantes and others could have possibly been killed out of spite; like Subotai said though, there were just too many bodies strewn across the country for it to have been all zombies. Listen guys—that’s why we are going back, to figure out where these zombies came from and why, there’s no since in arguing about it now, we won’t be there until early tomorrow sometime.” I finished as I glanced around at everyone.

  “Chaz is right, let’s just relax for now and plan what we need to do, which is stay alive.” Noah answered as he sat down next to Christina as she held their son Jude.

  The rest of the day was spent cleaning guns and getting our ammo supplies ready, the next morning we were flying over San Diego California and to our shock, it was still standing—there wasn’t any sign of a nuclear assault at all.

  “This is really weird…I thought the Russians or whoever was going to nuke all of the big cities…” I stated with a troubled look as I gazed out the window at the terrain below.

  “That could’ve been a plot manipulated by someone too, because as we can all see—none of that down there was destroyed in a nuclear blast, true some of it is burning but by the look of it everything down there is still intact!” Noah stated pointing.

  “Where should I land this thing?” James asked over the intercom.

  I walked through the isle and into the cockpit where I met his questioning glance.

  “Um…set us down in any airport you can see, it doesn’t matter.” I answered as I turned and left the cockpit.

  We flew for a few more minutes then, we landed in some airport near the freeway going east; I got out with my gun ready as Angie followed, then Noah, Christina and everyone else. The minute I stepped out a horrific scream from a nearby zombie sounded as I was spotted, a horde of about 45 zombies started coming our way in a sprint—I opened fire with my M16, Angie with her magnum, Noah with his shotgun, some of the others with small arms fire like .9mm pistols and others with big guns like what I had. Some of the zombies fell dead taking hits in the head but most of them were still coming—and they were getting closer and closer; that’s when I saw a parked luggage car that many of them were scrambling either over or past—I aimed and fired at the gas tank and it exploded blowing many of the zombies to pieces. There were a few of them that had either been maimed by the powerful explosion or been sent flying that were starting to either crawl toward us or get to their feet; the others gunned them down before they could advance any further and I led the way away from the landing area and we went through the terminal, there were a few zombies in there but not as many as there were outside.

  We managed to kill them and block the front doors to the terminal before fleeing to the parking lot where there were many vehicles to choose from parked in parking spots; After examining them Noah proclaimed that no
ne of them had their keys.

  “So we’ll hot-wire the fucking things!” I said as I used the butt of my M16 to smash out the driver’s side window of a big Dodge Ram truck causing the alarm inside of the cab to blare.

  “Oh shit!” Noah shouted as he pointed his shotgun off to the left and fired blowing the head completely off of a female zombie that had jumped up onto the hood of the car next to us.

  I reached inside and found the alarm—I ripped at the wires and after a few seconds I tore it completely out of the cab of the truck which immediately silenced the noise.

  “Whatever you do hurry it up, those zombies are getting closer!” My dad advised as he glanced around nervously.

  I went to work hot-wiring the big Dodge truck and Noah was busy with an old ’74 Buick that was nearby, after a few minutes I managed to get the truck started and Angie climbed into the passenger seat with Remy and Mace while some of the others got into the back; Noah, Christina, Jude, James, Alex, My dad & mom and Subotai were in the truck bed and the rest of our group scrunched into the car once Noah got it started and we sped out of there just as the zombies broke through the barricade we had made coming out of the front door to the terminal. Several of them took case after us and the members of the group that were in the back of our truck opened fire gunning them down as Noah gunned the engine of the car he was driving behind us and ran them over. We got onto the freeway and traveled east passing through California and Nevada in only eight hours and by that time it was around 6:40 PM and everyone was hungry including the infants, so I stopped at a gas station called Maverick and checked the pumps—they were dead, so I had to go inside and check around for a switch before I was finally able to fuel up the truck; the other group did the same with the car. Noah and Christina went into the station and found some food but most of it was rotten and it stunk to high hell, they did however manage to find some good stuff though; what they found that was still good was a few bags of potato chips that were still fresh because of being sealed and some boxes of beef jerky. They also found a few other things—which consisted heavily of canned goods that they stashed in boxes that we had brought with us from the plane, we got what little more we needed and split and as we traveled down the freeway we noticed more and more wrecked vehicles and decaying bodies, some right in the middle of the road for us to squash—which we did with a certain urgency knowing that if we didn’t they might rise up and attack the vehicles.

  The air was foul—it was really bad so I rolled up all of the windows and turned on the air conditioner but it just brought in the stench forcing me to turn it off again as I once again cracked my window to get some air; vultures were everywhere and we started seeing animals that were on the prowl, dogs and wolves and such—they looked like the undead and would even chase the cars and the guys in the back would have to try to kill them off. By the time it was dark a bad thunderstorm came up and rain was pounding down, we came to a small town in northern New Mexico called Gallop; we stopped at a motel and broke open a door to one of the rooms—inside there were several zombies and dead bodies as well but we managed to kill the zombies by decapitating their heads and then we drug the dead corpses outside and barricaded the door and windows. Most of everyone would end up having to sleep on the floor that night because there were only two beds that would fit a max of two or three people each. Noah turned on the TV, most of the channels were dead but then he found the CNN channel and there were actually people on giving a report.

  “I don’t fucking believe this, where is the CNN headquarters anyway?” Noah asked turning to face me.

  “Well, there’s a CNN building in Atlanta but I don’t know if that’s the main one or not…” I answered as I stared at the screen myself with disbelief.

  I turned the volume up and we all listened to the reporter talk.

  “It has been five years and many months since these foul things first showed up, and we have been confined to this building for all that time now; we have managed to survive on our food storage we had stored in the storage of this building. Our equipment has been out of commission for quite a while but just today we got it working again, if there is anyone else out there surviving we urge that you don’t try to go outside, we heard a rumor that the Russians or some other faction was going to launch nukes at all of the major cities of this country but that seemed to be a lie; the zombie creatures are getting worse and more and more widespread, there have been reports of them as far north as Alaska and as far south as Panama City…there are even reports of them starting to show up in parts of Europe as well as in Australia; I guess it’s safe to say at this point that whatever kind of virus caused this has now gone global. Some of the only areas so far not to be overrun by these creatures are places deep in the northern Appellation Mountain range and in parts of Maine; we will continue to bring you news reports when we can if we survive—stay tuned and for now farewell.” The reporter said and was gone as the signal shorted out and there was nothing left on the screen but snow.

  Noah slowly reached over after several seconds had passed and turned the TV off.

  “So those things are getting to places all over the world now…” I said in deep thought.

  “That’s weird that Maine doesn’t have any yet…it’s been five years now since the outbreak started.” Christina stated with a look of deep thought.

  “It sure is…well, someone needs to stand guard in case any more zombies come around and we’ll leave as soon as it gets light in the morning.” I stated as I sat my M16 down against the wall and sat down on the bed closest to the front door.

  So we all settled down, Noah and Subotai agreed to take turns standing guard and soon, I was asleep next to Angie, Remy and Mace. We were all awaken by gunfire the next morning as Noah and Subotai both were trying to fight off a mass of zombies that were piling up against our front door. Noah and several of the others busted the nearby window with their guns and started shooting at the zombies outside, I joined them with my M16, and Christina stuck her head out the other window and unloaded a clip with her .9mm—several zombies fell to the ground dead, but some of them managed to break the door down forcing us to kick at them and bash them back with our weapons. I jumped up and kicked one of the zombies in the front in the face and it stumbled backwards and then I stuck the end of my barrel into the zombie’s empty eye socket and I opened fire mowing the back of its head all to hell; my bullets tore through more zombies behind that one. Angie aimed her magnum and decapitated several zombies’ heads while Jason began firing away at the zombies until his gun jammed.

  “Shit!”

  “My gun jammed!” He yelled as he fell back away from the spot he had been standing in.

  “Look at that one!” Rachel yelled pointing at a zombie that was dressed in camouflage clothes—it had a hunting rifle slung around its’ back.

  Jason dashed out the door and in between zombies’ legs and he spun around behind the hunter zombie and grabbed his weapon from his back and he fired blowing the back of the zombies’ head off—Jason then searched its body for ammo while I covered him. Soon, all of them were dead and the ground was covered with blood and brains as well as severed limbs that had been blown off by the gunfire.

  “We should get going now before more of those dead-heads show up.” I stated as I led the way toward the vehicles in a light jog.

  We made it to our vehicles and started them up leaving the motel behind us before I led the way up the onramp and back on the freeway going east; as we got closer to the Texas State line we started noticing a thick cloud of black smoke off in the distance.

  “I wonder what the hell is causing all that smoke.” Angie stated with a worried look as she took off her sunglasses to gaze in the direction of the smoke.

  After about 45 minutes we crossed over the state line and we stopped at a gas station to get some food, I checked the gas pumps and they were off so I went inside and flipped the switch turning them on—I
went back out and filled the tank of the truck up while the others were gathering food and supplies from inside; I put the cap on the tank and walked around to the other side right smack into a zombie that had appeared without me knowing it, I kicked it off and went for my gun grabbing it just in time and fired putting twelve rounds in its upper torso and head which killed it. The others heard the gunfire and came running, Angie hugged me and asked what happened, I told her and she hugged me again. The others were able to find some food and things that would probably last us a while—maybe until we got to Oklahoma City; Subotai found two vehicles that had CB radios in them and he carefully removed them and installed them into the two of our vehicles to where we could communicate back and forth, Doug fueled up the car and then we left and got back on the freeway.

  “There’s something else that we really haven’t discussed…” I stated over the CB as I took the lead in our truck.

  “What’s going on?” Noah asked on the other end.

  “These gas stops…they’re not going to continue to be as plentiful and we might have to start siphoning out gas from whatever vehicles that we can find.” I answered with a concerned look.

  “I agree with that—we’ll just have to be prepared wherever we stop.” Doug answered on the other end.

  It took the rest of the day and on into the night to reach the source of the smoke—it was Amarillo Texas or what was left of it—the whole entire city had burnt to the ground and it was still burning.

  There were zombies everywhere—some walking around afire, we bypassed the city and stayed on the freeway; I drove for two more hours then Angie took over for me while I fed Remy and Mace with a couple bottles of breast milk that she had prepared then got some sleep. I woke up the next morning to the hot sun in my eyes, as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes I asked Angie where we were and learned that we were now in Oklahoma and it wouldn’t be too much longer until we arrived in the capital; I took over driving again and we were able to make it into Oklahoma City by noon that day.