by M. D. Massey
I sprang forward and gently took the gun from my mother, then I held her tight. “Mama, why didn’t you let me take care of him? I promised him I would.”
“I know, son. But there’s no way I was going to let you live the rest of your life with that on your conscience. He was my constant companion for thirty-five years, and I was his. It was my responsibility to see to his last wishes, not yours. Now it’s my burden to bear.”
I rocked slowly back and forth as I held her close. Soon, she pushed me away, gently, and looked up at me with resignation in her eyes. “I’d like to take your father home now, Aidan.”
I nodded. Crank spoke from somewhere near the door. “Aidan, Mrs. Sullivan—me and the boys will help you take care of his body. You won’t need to do a thing.”
My mother turned and patted him on the arm. “Thank you, Darnell.” Apparently, my mom had already been playing mother to these guys. Such a charmer, she was. I bet no one else called Crank by his real name, except maybe his own mother.
We stood by as Crank, Possum, and a few of his guys carefully wrapped the body up and prepared it for transporting back to the ranch. Then, I went back to the house where I had holed up, retrieved the truck, and we loaded Dad up and headed back to the ranch.
We got back to the ranch without incident. I knew what to look for and what to avoid now, and I was able to steer us clear of much of the trouble I’d run into on my way to Austin days before. I felt guilty about not stopping to check in on Rayden, Elena, and Bibi, but I wanted to get back to the ranch and get my mom settled in as soon as possible. I told myself I’d check on them just as soon as I got Dad buried and Mom was okay.
It was nice and sunny when we got back, and I wasted no time in getting Dad buried on the land he loved so much. We buried him out behind the cabin; Mom said he had always liked the trees back there. I said a prayer over his grave, and Mom read some Scripture. Afterward, we stood there in silence for a good long time, and then Mom grabbed my hand and led me back inside the house.
I offered to make her something to eat, but she declined. “No, I’m tired, son. I think I’m going to go lay down for a while.”
“Alright, Mom. I’ll come in and check on you before I go to bed.” I kissed her on the forehead, and she returned the favor with a peck on my cheek.
“Your father was very proud of you Aidan—you were his pride and joy. Never forget that.”
“I won’t, Mama. Now, go get some rest.” She smiled and retired to the bedroom, and as I watched her go my heart sank at what she had had to do for my dad. I took some small satisfaction in the fact that he would be at peace now, but not much.
Later that evening I went in to check on her, but she had fallen fast asleep so I let her rest. I drifted off that night to the sound of cicadas and static from the weather radio. My last thoughts before falling asleep were not of revenge necessarily, but concern about all the people out there who were left, the people who couldn’t defend themselves against these new threats.
I slept fitfully that night, my dreams filled with nightmares of my dad coming to drain the blood from my mother. In my dreams, I could only look on, frozen in terror and grief as I watched my mother perish at my father’s hands. Her eyes stared at me imploringly as he drank, but no sound arose from her lips, save small infrequent gurgles as I watched her drowning in her own blood, time and time again.
Epilogue
My mother died that night in her sleep; I suppose that the strain of having to take my father’s life had just been too much for her. I buried her out back next to my dad, and wasted little time afterward preparing for what I knew I had to do. I drove all day to get back to Crank and his people in Jonestown. There’d been another attack the night before in my absence, and Possum had been killed defending a mother and her kids.
Crank and I tracked down the thing that had killed Dad and Possum, which ironically led us only a few houses down from the house where I’d holed up. We set the house on fire, and when the thing came screaming out of an upstairs window I put two rounds in its head, and Crank blew off its leg with a sawed off 12 gauge. I walked up on it as it rolled around on the ground—a charred, smoldering, bloody heap—and placed several more rounds in its skull until it stopped moving.
I carved a Roman numeral two on its chest and tied it up with barbed wire near their road block, spit Vlad the Impaler style on a pole that once held a speed limit sign. When he saw what I’d done, Crank whistled in shock and horror at my work.
I responded without taking my eyes from the vamp. “Don’t worry, I’m not going crazy—least not any more so than I already am. This is just a warning, in case any more of those things come around your place. Hopefully it’ll make ’em think twice about settling in these parts.”
He nodded once and walked off. I guess psy ops just wasn’t his thing.
The next day I headed back to Fredericksburg and found Bibi, Elena, and Rayden still at the same little cottage I’d left them at days before. Bibi filled me in on what had happened at the high school, and as it turned out folks hadn’t taken too kindly to Captain Hillis selling them out. A few of his men stayed loyal, but the rest turned on him and summarily executed him and all the soldiers and cops who were in on it.
Only a few of the cops had known what was going on. Currently they were in the process of setting up a provisional government and making sure that nothing like that could happen again. Bibi said she was fine right where she was, but I wasn’t so sure. I helped her and the kids get settled into a more defensible home, one with more space as well, and spent several days running back and forth from the local hardware store with supplies to make it zombie-proof.
It still wouldn’t keep out one of those nosferatu-looking things, but at least they’d be safe if some shamblers got through the fence. Rayden, true to form, had scavenged a supply of weapons and ammo from local homes and stores, and I spent a considerable amount of time showing him how to maintain and operate every single one. We also spent time on marksmanship, and by the time I left them I was certain he was prepared to defend Bibi and Elena. He would turn out to be a good man, someday. Heck, he was already most of the way there.
I eventually tracked down Dan, Sarah, and their kids at her parents’ place near Rock Springs. They were doing fine, and Buttercup eventually had a litter of half-Catahoula, half-Bulldog pups. They offered me pick of the litter, but I declined. I was too busy with work to raise a pup, but I told them I might come back for one when they got a little older.
These days I spend most of my time helping folks, doing what I do best. Not everybody is cut out to handle these creatures, so I spend my time searching for settlements and communities that have sprouted up out here, and taking care of the creatures they can’t take care of themselves. It doesn’t pay much, and mostly people pay me in barter if at all, but I don’t do it for that.
Nope. I do it for the chance to scratch one more number on the chest of one of those things, and to string up one more corpse to warn these hell-swine that we Texans don’t take shit lying down. So far, I’m up to a dozen since the one I killed in Jonestown. Thirteen total; maybe there’s some symbolism there, if you believe in that crap.
Folks call me Scratch. And if you’re one of Them and we cross paths, chances are good I’m going to send you back where you came from and mount your carcass up as a trophy and warning both...
Listen, you might think you’re superior to us, and that we’re just cattle who only exist for your sick amusement. But honestly, I don’t care what you think. There’s only one thing you need to know about me, and it’s this—
Because of me, your days on this earth are numbered. You can count on it.
About the Author
M.D. Massey has been a soldier, an emergency room technician, a fitness trainer, a truck driver, a martial arts instructor, a cook, a consultant, a web designer, and a security professional. He also spent six weeks in law school before deciding that, if he was going to lie for a living, he’d do it hones
tly as a fiction writer. M.D. lives in Austin, Texas with his family and a huge American Bulldog who keeps him company while he writes the sort of books he likes to read.
Find out more and get your FREE book at:
http://MDMassey.com
Mutation Z Books 1 & 2
By Marilyn Peake
Book 1
The Ebola Zombies
By
Marilyn Peake
http://www.marilynpeake.com
Mutation Z: The Ebola Zombies
© Copyright, 2014, Marilyn Peake
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Book Cover Art by Mike Tabor: http://miketabor.deviantart.com/ . He can be contacted at [email protected] for book cover artwork.
The Ebola Zombies
My name is Emma Johnson. I’m a prisoner in Liberia, inside West Africa.
I came here as a volunteer nurse, young, naïve and idealistic, back when Ebola had just started spreading across the borders of countries inside Africa—from Guinea into Sierra Leone and Liberia, and then into Nigeria. At twenty-four years of age, I felt invincible. (I’m now only twenty-five years old; but I feel ancient, close to death.) I had graduated nursing school the previous year. I didn’t have a job yet and had moved back in with my parents. Truth be told, I had only been an average student, but the economy was tough and I was resourceful. I knew I just had to challenge myself. Having grown up in the United States, blond, blue-eyed, privileged, I was sick and tired of my perpetual state of ennui. I had grown bored with putting on makeup, filling out job applications, reading romance novels and playing video games, and yearned for something better. I decided to volunteer in Africa and make a difference in the world. I had also hoped to meet a doctor. Nothing prepared me for what I would find on the African continent.
Now I just want to get information out. There’s more here than an Ebola crisis. That CDC serum that cured a couple of American volunteers? That’s only one type of serum being tested. Other serums are raising victims from what looks like near-death, but is actually death, and many of those side-effect victims are roaming around West Africa as zombies. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have put us on lockdown and are keeping things quiet. Serums continue to arrive from several different countries.
This is my story, from the beginning…
March 2014
A group of us, volunteers through a program that had been recruiting medical personnel in the United States to help with the Ebola crisis in Africa, landed at the Roberts International Airport in Liberia. I had been nothing but jitters and panic the entire trip. Thank God for the availability of liquor on airplanes. I drank a fair amount of it that flight. Had I not fallen asleep after knocking back a few strong drinks, I’m sure I would have stumbled off the plane into the airport, another American behaving badly.
My mind was clear enough upon landing to realize that Africa was not what I had expected. The airport was decent. Somehow, I had expected to land on a dirt strip, but we landed on a normal runway. Liberia isn’t as modernized as some of the other places in Africa that I’ve heard about, places like Lagos, Nigeria; but the airport was OK.
In the terminal, we shuffled through the Immigration Department with our Passport Cards and hastily filled-in Landing Cards. I was so nervous, it took all my self-control to keep my hands from shaking. I had convinced myself that if my hands shook or I showed any other sign of nervousness, the security officers would suspect me of being a terrorist, clamp my wrists in handcuffs and haul me off to some remote prison where no one would ever hear from me again. Of course that was ridiculous. The worst that happened to me in the Immigration Department was being asked direct questions by a surly, overweight female officer with hair on her upper lip: Where was I intending to go inside Liberia? What was the purpose of my trip? When I explained that I was a volunteer coming to help with the Ebola crisis, the officer’s own hands shook. After that, she seemed happy to get rid of me. In the baggage claim area, we were greeted by drivers holding signs with the name of our organization on them. The drivers smiled courteously, but seemed anxious to get us out of the airport. After our suitcases arrived, they whisked us away to waiting vans, four vans in total. And so began our journey into the African continent.
The effects of my drinking hadn’t worn off completely. I nodded off in the van, despite my determination to stay awake and take in the sights and sounds of Liberia as we drove through it. I awoke intermittently to such different scenery and road conditions, my mind had difficulty patching it all together as one country. At times, our van jostled over dirt roads. Later, we passed through a small city: paved roads with congested traffic, honking cars and spinning bikes, crowds of people walking around outside, a gas station, a bank; but low, mismatched buildings, a few painted bright turquoise, most plain white or tan, reminding me of beach houses back home in the states.
When we got stuck in traffic and only inched ahead like snails on molten tar, I fell asleep for what felt like hours. I jolted awake when the driver lurched to a stop and yanked on the parking brake. Once again, I found myself in a new environment.
The driver, a short African man with a clipped moustache and even more tightly clipped speech, announced: “We are here: Liberia Treatment and Research Camp. Grab your belongings. Line up over there.” Waving a clipboard in the direction of a dirt strip in front of three enormous trees with leafy branches twisting and turning to form a canopy, he added, “Don’t wander off by yourselves. Wait for your guide.” Up in the trees, monkeys screamed and shook the branches. After we unloaded our suitcases, our driver sped off, clouds of dust obscuring his exit.
The other volunteers and I surveyed our new home and then each other. Off in the distance, long, squat turquoise buildings appeared littered throughout the forest, thrown there like Lego blocks from the hand of a careless God. Other buildings—some turquoise, others white, orange, yellow—were lined up along a dirt road that curled like a snake past their front doors.
Behind us, a gray cement wall with thick iron gates provided security. Our driver stopped in front of the gates and waited until security personnel let him through to the outside world. The gates opened and closed, like the eyelids of a sleepy metallic jungle beast.
We heard a couple of people shouting somewhere on the camp grounds. More unnerving was the sound of deep, rumbling moaning and a few screams more piercing than those of the monkeys.
Few of us had dressed appropriately. I wore khakis and a black T-shirt, also thick socks and sneakers. I thought I would die in the sweltering heat. Also, I had curled my long, blond hair before leaving the U. S. Frizzy tendrils had become plastered to my forehead and trapped heat against the back of my neck.
A young Asian-American woman standing next to me laughed and introduced herself. She had come even less prepared for the climate. Tan suit, silk flowered shirt, stockings and low heels. Even a pearl necklace and matching earrings. She extended her hand. “Hey. I’m Zoe Kinoshita. I can’t believe this weather. Ugh! I’m going to faint if we don’t get air conditioning and a place to change into shorts in the next few seconds.”
A black guy pacing nearby, wearing shorts, a white T-shirt and hiking boots, leaned over and added, “I don’t believe there’s air conditioning. We’re in Liberia. In the middle of an Ebola epidemic.” He paused. “I’m Sebastian Stone, Ph.D., Infectious Diseases and Microbiology.” He shook our hands.
At that moment, we saw a man in a white coat walking down the path that ribboned past the
brightly colored buildings. As he approached, golden sunlight spilled upon him through an opening in the canopy. He was gorgeous: swarthy, muscular, golden sparkles dancing through his thick, dark hair. I silently prayed he was a doctor.
When he reached us, he smiled. Which completely lit up my world. He said, “Hello. I’m Dr. Gustavo Tovar. You may call me Gus, except in front of patients. Then I’m Dr. Tovar. I’m one of the doctors in charge of training volunteers, as well as treating patients. I and the other supervising doctors will be taking you on a tour of our camp and showing you to your quarters. Tonight, we’re hosting a mandatory Meet and Greet for you guys. And trust me, you all want to be there. You don’t want to be working out here in the African wilderness with patients who are suffering from one of humanity’s most terrifying infectious diseases without having friends and forming close bonds with your colleagues.” He then offered a half-smile, which I found adorable, but less than reassuring in regard to our safety. Thinking back on it now, that half-smile was full of foreshadowing and a little bit creepy.
We trundled down into camp, a motley group following our pied piper, Dr. Gustavo Tovar. After sticking her heels several times in the dirt path, Zoe finally kicked off her shoes and carried them, her feet covered only in nylons. I winced as I saw her foot land on a juicy bug and crush it.
As we entered the area with buildings, Dr. Tovar noticed Zoe’s exposed feet. He instructed her to put her shoes back on. “Bodily fluids have spilled in this area: blood, vomit, etc. You do not want to put yourself at risk.”
