[HGB] Humanity Gone Bad: The Dead Chronicles

by Watkins, Charles

  Noah continued driving until almost dusk of that same day and then we pulled into the medium sized town of Chadron and by that time we were once again forced to stop and refuel the lab truck as well as the other two vehicles behind us; Noah pulled up beside of a medium sized station that had a pizza parlor beside of it that of course was long since out of commission and we all got out with our weapons in hand—I went inside of the station to check on the condition of the pump switch and found that it had been turned off, so I flipped it back on and returned to the others; as I was leaving I also noticed that there was a generator in the back that was running which meant that someone had been there.

  “Was the switch turned off inside?” Jennifer asked as she and Sheila came to my side.

  “Yep—it should work now…there was also a running generator so that must mean that there are survivors around here somewhere.” I answered glancing at them briefly before my gaze went to Noah as he stuck the nozzle of the fuel dispenser into the tank of the lab truck.

  That was when the front door of the pizza parlor opened and to our shock and surprise a young woman with shoulder length light brown wavy hair stepped out and looked us over as she held a large M60 machine gun in her arms—she made a motioning gesture to someone else inside of the building behind her and soon after another two young women stepped out; one of them was a thin and kind of petite blonde with hair past the middle of her back—she was holding a weapon that I hadn’t seen before—it was a MP40 Submachine Gun. The third woman was a slightly taller and chunkier girl with pitch black hair that was slightly past her shoulders—she carried a weapon that she had no doubt picked off a military convoy, it was a M240 Bravo. The three of them stepped a few paces toward us and then a larger figure appeared out of the doorway behind them—this figure was a man and he was rather big and as we noticed the weapon he was carrying I noticed that Beau and Hugo exchanged shocked expressions as the strangers came up before us.

  “That’s quite a piece of hardware you’re toting around there.” Beau stated as he focused his gaze on the big guy.

  “Yeah…who are you guys?” The big guy answered as his eyes darted around our faces with mistrust.

  “My name is Chaz Watkins, these are my women Jennifer and Sheila and our kids—then there’s our friends and family; we’ve been on the road for a long time surviving against the undead hordes.” I answered motioning to everyone.

  “You look familiar…that’s right…I remember now.” The young woman with the wavy brown hair who had appeared first stated as she focused her attention on Beau, Hugo, Amy and Desiree.

  “Yeah—you’re that dropout.” Amy stated with a scornful expression.

  “Dropout…?”

  “I see that your opinion of me hasn’t changed in the ten years that has passed.” The young woman with the wavy brown hair stated smugly.

  “Excuse me for just one damned second—who the hell are these people and how do you know them?” Billy asked in an irritated tone as he and Kayla stepped up beside of the Covenant One members.

  “This is Simone Ashton—she was a promising recruit that Atkins found and brought into our ranks not long before the operation to infiltrate the Oklahoma City hospital ten years ago…but she ran off with some excuse saying that we weren’t good enough for her talents and that we were too slack; I believe that’s the phrase she used at the time.” Amy answered folding her arms across her chest as she stared ahead at the young woman with the same scornful look.

  “I had my reasons for leaving your little group…I just didn’t think that charging headlong into the sublevels of that hellhole was worth it.” The young woman with the wavy brown hair answered with a distant look.

  “Well—I think that shit that happened ten fucking years ago is pretty irrelevant, wouldn’t you agree?” I cut in stepping forward in a loud enough tone that made everyone else immediately go silent.

  “I like the way this guy thinks…so you all are survivors on the road?” The young woman with the wavy brown hair asked glancing at me.

  “Yes—as I already said we are survivors, we’ve been on the road now for many days since leaving an airfield hangar near Winterset, Iowa where we had attempted to spread the antitoxin sample base to a horde of dead-heads…an operation that was a complete waste of time.” I answered with a dark look.

  “Antitoxin sample…?”

  “Don’t tell me that you guys managed to get your hands on that thing?” The young woman with the wavy brown hair asked turning to the Covenant One members with a surprised look.

  “No—we didn’t get it…Chaz and his group are the ones who infiltrated that place and survived its horrors to acquire that sample.” Hugo answered as he glanced first at the strangers and then around at the surrounding area.

  “This is all good and everything but we really shouldn’t be just standing around chatting like this.” Noah stated as he finished pumping the fuel into the lab truck.

  “That’s right—you guys are welcome to step into the building behind us for a bit; it may look flimsy but believe it or not it has held up a lot better than concrete bunkers.” The big guy stated as he shifted his grip on the big weapon he was still holding.

  “Where did you get that damned thing?” Richard asked eying the weapon.

  “This baby is a Gau-19/A…it’s a .50 caliber Gatlin Gun—I picked it off of one of my fallen comrades about a year back and I’ve been enforcing the gospel onto those dead sons of bitches ever since.” The big guy answered with a grin as he rose the barrels of the weapon up into the air where he kissed them.

  “Sh’it…” Richard answered with a look of disbelief as everyone turned to me.

  “Very well—we can step into the pizza parlor for a few minutes but then we need to get moving; it’s not wise to stay in one spot for very long.” I answered as I led my group into the doorway of the pizza parlor following the strangers.

  Once everyone was inside, the big guy pushed a heavy piece of concrete highway divider across blocking it and then everyone turned back to us.

  “My name is Simone Ashton as your Covenant One friend mentioned—these are my friends; first off is Tina Wilson.” The young woman with the wavy brown hair stated motioning to the thin, petite blonde.

  “Hey…” The blonde girl stated nodding at us.

  “Next off is Rain Spencer…” Simone stated as she motioned to the girl with the pitch black hair.

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance.” She answered with a British Accent before nodding at us.

  “Last is me…my name is Colin Peterson—I’m the only survivor of the 149th Bravo Squadron of the US Army that was sent into Denver, Colorado to try and restore order; that was ten years ago.” The big guy stated with an amused look.

  I introduced each member of my group and then I told in detail about what we had been trying to do as well as what had happened in the past several months—the trip to New York City, the vaccine and the earthquake that had destroyed the city; I then told them of the wasted effort that we had made at the airfield hangar in Winterset to try and reverse the plague by dousing the undead hordes with a crop duster. They all listened with curiosity and then we directed them back to the lab truck where it felt more secure than just being in a building that looked too much like it would crumble under the slightest wind—after much more discussion about where we were going as well as Amy inoculating the new members of the group they decided that they would tag along with us to the west coast. We wasted little more time in Chadron as the sounds of the undead were getting closer and closer and we pulled out of there—I was driving the lab truck with most of the others inside of it with me as Cedric and his family followed in the semi wrecker, while Melvin and Kira followed behind them in their old pickup truck; the new members of the group led by Simone had their own vehicle which turned out to be an armored car—one which had been used to transport thousands of dollars acros
s country at one time.

  It didn’t take long for night to fall around us as I continued driving west and before long another storm blew in and the rain started pummeling the windshield of the lab truck making it challenging for me to see—I turned on the wipers to high and continued through the storm until sometime after midnight when I passed the sign welcoming travelers to Wyoming; this was the first time that I had ever been to this state and if circumstances had been different I would have liked to have stopped and explored the local surroundings—I had to jar my mind back to where I was fast because it was at that moment when I plowed headlong into a mass of dead-heads that were out in the road in front of us.

  I sped forward running them over and I glanced in the rear view mirror at the others as we could all feel the slight bumps as the tires of our lab truck smashed the corpses beneath us—finally after several more seconds of plowing through the undead we came out clear on the other side and the roadway ahead was free of them; that was when the CB radio on the dashboard near where Jennifer sat nursing Xavier came to life with Melvin’s voice.

  “Damn—those things were all over the fucking truck!” He shouted in a winded tone.

  “Are you guys okay back there?” Noah asked as he came forward and picked up the radio.

  “Yeah…just a little shook up—those damned things came out of nowhere.” Melvin answered after a few seconds had passed.

  “We should be getting close to the small town of Lusk…by the looks of this map we’ll be joining with interstate 25 here soon.” Sheila stated as she pointed at the road atlas holding it out for me to see.

  “The incline on these highways is going to be getting steeper soon—I hope that the lab truck can handle to climb.” I answered in a worried tone.

  “Yeah, hopefully we don’t break down due to the engines overheating—I know that Cedric and the others will also have to face that issue.” Sheila stated in deep thought.

  “This storm is getting bad—I hope that we don’t run into anymore tornadoes.” I stated as I stared ahead at the road in front of me.

  “I hope not either.” Jennifer added as she glanced over at me as she rocked Xavier to sleep.

  As I continued driving west I started to see the dark outline of the Rocky Mountains and I knew that my worries about whether or not the lab truck and our other vehicles would make the climb would soon be answered; I noticed a smashed highway sign that was more than half knocked over pointing the way straight ahead toward the town of Lusk, Wyoming—the rain outside of the truck was dying down and now it was being replaced by gusty winds that we could all hear howling outside of the windows.

  “I’m gonna look for a fuel station as soon as we get into the main part of Lusk, we’re starting to run a little low—I hope that we didn’t somehow tear a hole in the fuel line.” I stated as I glanced into the rear view mirror at Noah and the others.

  “You mean that we’re already almost out of fuel?” Noah asked in a concerned tone.

  “Yes—like I just said, I hope that we didn’t tear a hole in the fuel line back somewhere along the way.” I answered grimly.

  “We’ll take a look at it when we find a place to stop.” Hugo answered in a reassuring tone.

  “I wonder what condition this town is going to be in…” Billy stated as he wrapped his left arm around Kayla tightly.

  “Who knows…now that those damned mutations and other dead-heads have spread so far there is really no way of knowing what we might possibly be stumbling into.” Noah answered as he glanced out his window.

  I listened to the others talk for several more minutes and then I spotted a large and moderately damaged station on the side of the road ahead of us that looked to have sustained heavy damage in places—I searched around the area as I pulled the lab truck up beside of one of the only untouched diesel pumps that there were; almost all of the rest of them were damaged by wrecked vehicles and pieces of debris—everyone got out of the lab truck and other vehicles with their weapons in hand and we examined the area.

  “Shit…this place looks like it was a war zone when the shit hit the fan ten years ago.” Colin stated as he stepped out of the armored car totting his big gun.

  “We’ll be damn lucky if there’s enough fuel in these pumps for the lab truck—let alone the other two vehicles.” Noah stated as he grabbed the nozzle from the nearby diesel pump and stuck it into the tank of the lab truck.

  “There’s a leak in the fuel line underneath the lab truck—it’s going to take some time to patch up.” Hugo reported after he had knelt down looking underneath the lab truck looking at it with a flashlight.

  “How’re we gonna fix that?” Morgana asked with an aggravated look.

  “We’ll have to let all the fuel that’s in there drain out and then patch up the hole with a welding torch.” Cedric answered as he got down on his knees looking toward the sound of the pouring fuel.

  Luckily the rest of the fuel that had been in the tank of the lab truck drained out quickly and Melvin and Billy grabbed a nearby hose that was attached to a faucet next to the side of the ruined station and used it to wash the large puddle of fuel out from underneath the lab truck—once that was taken care of Cedric got the same pressure tank and welding torch that he and the others had used to fix up Melvin and Kira’ truck with and crawled underneath the lab truck where he started working; luckily it didn’t take him but a couple of minutes to make the repairs and then once the steel and metal had cooled enough Noah started refueling the lab truck with the only working pump nozzle.

  The wind was blowing really hard and it was making it difficult to fully hear what the others were saying back and forth to each other as I stood huddled with Jennifer and Sheila as they held our kids close—that was when Richard and Morgana turned and looked off to the south at some sort of noise; I noticed this and cautiously walked around to see what the sound was and that was when something in the air about 5,000 feet from us caught my attention—it was hovering about twenty feet off of the ground and by the motion of the rotors I could tell that it was a helicopter.

  “Holy shit—get down!” I shouted as I quickly turned grabbing Jennifer and Sheila as well as Remy, Mace and Ember and hustling them behind the lab truck as whoever was inside of the helicopter opened fire with what was no doubt a powerful .50 caliber weapon.

  Sparks flew through the air as the bullets hit and tore into the side of our lab truck as well as the wrecker semi rig that the McBride family had been driving, the windows in the wrecker shattered and the whole front of the rig caught fire as the fuel tank was hit by the hail of ammo.

  “What the fuck is wrong with them—we’re survivors down here!” Rain shouted as she and the two other new women hit the pavement as the gunfire continued to tear through our convoy.

  “We’ve got to get the hell away from the rig—it’ll blow to shit any minute!” Cedric shouted as he hustled Sally, Yvonne, Ashley and Jacob together frantically.

  That was when the mysterious helicopter launched rockets that soared down and hit the side of the semi wrecker causing a massive explosion that consumed Melvin and Kira’ truck as well, Kira barely managed to jump from the spot she had been standing in time but Melvin was not so lucky—he was blown to pieces by the force of the explosion that consumed the truck they had been driving; we all hit the pavement covering ourselves as best as we could as the fire spread around us and burned uncontrollably. I fought the pain and the heat of the searing fire and got to my feet looking over at where Cedric and his family were and I saw that they were all dead and burning—the powerful explosion had caught them before they had been able to flee; Billy Kennedy was also lying lifeless on the pavement and when I reached down to check him I found that he was dead also—a piece of metal had pierced through his chest and severed his heart.

  “Fuck…they’ll pay for this!” I shouted angrily as I dashed inside of the lab truck and grabbed an RPG launc
her from the weapons cache.

  I could hear Colin’s big gun as he no doubt stepped out into the open to return fire on the enemy helicopter that had just decimated not only our vehicles but our group as well—I ran outside and up to Jennifer and Sheila who were doing their best to calm our kids and keep them safe as it looked like the enemy helicopter was now turning their fire toward Colin who didn’t seem to have an ounce of fear in him; he stood in the street with the big Gau-19/A Gatlin Gun pointed at the helicopter and we could all see the fire coming out of the end of the barrels as empty shell casing flew everywhere.

  “Look out Colin!” Simone screamed as she aimed her M60 machine gun at something that was racing toward Colin’s rear flank from the north.

  With a sudden impact of force a jumper zombie hit his back and knocked him forward causing him to lose his grip on his weapon—the jumper tore into the back of his left shoulder with its teeth causing blood to spray into the air as he cried out in pain; he grabbed the jumper zombie by its arm and with savage and brute force he swung it violently at a nearby power pole—the force of its body hitting the solid wood of the object broke its spine and causing it to fall to the street twitching.

  “Motherfucker!” Colin shouted as he pulled out a .357 magnum from his side pouch and fired putting a round in its head killing it.

  That was when a whole mass of zombies and other mutations slammed into his back knocking him over as they tore into his body with hungry jaws—the helicopter once again opened fire—this time on the horde of dead-heads and other mutations and as we watched with disbelief the whole mass of them including Colin were destroyed when the enemy chopper sent down a rocket that destroyed the entire area.