Z.E.D.S. Series (Book 1): Z.E.D.S. Rising

by Botts, Bradley

  “Attention everyone, this has been a day none of us will forget. We have overcome the first day of what’s going to be a difficult time for everyone. This virus or plague that has overcome our city and our country has allowed the dead to rise from the ground. It is nothing more than a virus that controls a host. We have shown this virus that mankind can survive it because we are here now fighting for what’s rightfully ours. We are in control of our lives; this plague is not. All of you are safe here. Me and my teams have prepared for this situation for many years and trust me when I say we will protect you. So please, each of you grab some food, something to drink and rest. Tomorrow is a different day and we will have much to do. This day has been rough but now it’s night and I need each of you to rest your heads. Thank you for surviving. The future needs you as much as we do.”

  I gazed across the room and noticed Piper sitting at the table messing with a knob on an old radio.

  “Aurora, can you please make sure Kiere gets something to eat as well as yourself?”

  “Of course. Come one Kiere. Let’s find something to munch on.”

  Aurora and Kiere stepped towards the kitchen and I walked over to Piper.

  “Hey Piper, is there any new developments on anything?”

  As she was messing with the radio she said, “I picked up a radio station that kept cutting in and out, but all I heard was a man praying. Then another station came in for two minutes before it turned to complete static and the only thing the woman said was mass suicides in Louisville, Kentucky. I haven’t been able to tune into anything for almost thirty minutes.”

  “May God be with them all. Have you eaten yet?”

  Piper wiped her eyes appearing exhausted.

  While yawing she tells me, “No, but I’m okay.”

  I grab her hand to interrupt her turning of the knob.

  “Listen, you need to eat and you need some rest. Don’t worry about the radio right now. Go find Zora and you two get something to eat and get some rest. I’ll need her in a couple of hours to take a surveillance shift on the roof with Logan but I need her rested first.”

  Piper stands up from her chair and walks over to Zora, kisses her, grabs her hand and leads her to the kitchen. I felt a tug on my shirt and saw Kiere drinking a juice and looking up at me with Aurora standing next to her.

  With her big beautiful puppy dog eyes Kiere stares at me and asked, “Will you lay down with me Atlas? I’m scared to go to bed by myself.”

  “I wish I could sweetheart but I need to get things done around here. Maybe Aurora will lay next to you and grab a book from our library upstairs and read it to you. Would you like that?”

  Kiere smiled a big smile and Aurora grabbed her by the hand while smiling at me.

  “Thank you Aurora.”

  They walked to the staircase and I heard them talking back forth about what kind of books they both like. Two special girls have appeared in my life today and even though the end of the world has started I felt like the luckiest guy in the world to have them with me.

  I glanced around one more time and saw people were making themselves comfortable falling asleep as others were still sitting up falling asleep. Others were still working around and they all told me they couldn’t get the images out of their heads so they couldn’t close their eyes. I took a deep breath, wiped the exhaustion from my eyes and headed towards the supply closet. I see my dad checking on Laura and Jackson at the far end of the room making sure they were comfortable. I quietly obtain his attention and motion for him to follow me.

  “Dad, can you grab that pen and paper off of the table and come with me?”

  My dad followed behind me and we began inventorying everything in our supply room. Our medical supplies consisted of things such as gauze, antibiotics, pain killers, inhalers, band aids, stints, stitching kits, blood clotting powder, oxygen tanks, A.E.D machines, scalpels, retractors, super glue, ice packs, antacids and my dad was writing down each of them with me as well as how many there were. He counted our food supply, ammo and weapons, fuel storage, water containers, mechanical tools and anything else that was stored in our building. I asked him to count everything he could and when he became tired to just get some rest. I went to the back lawn of the safe house and saw two sticks tied together in a shape of a cross. I walked over to Sarah’s grave starring at the mountain of dirt that covered her.

  “Sarah, I’m sorry I failed you. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you. I didn’t keep my promise. You died protecting people and you were supposed to be the one being protected. You sacrificed yourself so these people could live. You were a true Z.E.D.S. member and we will always remember you. Good bye Sarah.”

  A tear raced down my cheek and I heard footsteps behind me. I looked around and saw Aurora stepping my way.

  “Atlas, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I was just saying good bye to an old friend.”

  “Who was your friend,” she asked laying her head on my shoulder while interlocking her arms and hand with my arm and hand.”

  “Her name was Sarah. She was my neighbor for more than fourteen years. She was like a sister to me.”

  “I’m sorry, Atlas. Do you need me to keep you company?”

  I wiped another tear from my eye and said, “No, it’s ok. You go get some sleep. I’ll be fine.”

  Aurora kissed me on the cheek and walked inside. I kissed my fingers and placed them onto the cross and said good bye once more. I headed to our meeting room to take a break before it was time for my shift on over watch. I crossed over everyone lying in the floor and made my way to the conference room. I sat down in one chair and rested my feet into another. I stared at the Z.E.D.S. group picture hanging on the wall in front of me and I felt my eyes getting heavier and I drifted into a deep sleep.

  The wind was blowing warm air onto my face as the window was down in my car traveling down main-street. Mark, Brock, Logan and Shaun were riding with me listening to Linkin Park’s In The End. We had a couple of beers with us and the music was blasting out of the speakers. Every one of us was laughing uncontrollably while singing the song trying to act like rock stars. The sun was shining down on my left arm while hanging out the window. I thought to myself, I wish every moment could stay like this one. I reached down to skip to the next song and noticed the passenger seat in which Mark was sitting became empty. He disappeared into thin air. I glanced in the rearview mirror to notice Brock, Logan and Shaun were gone too. A dark mass covered the blue sky and a terrified feeling overwhelmed me. Chills were sent up my spine and I felt lost and alone. Then I felt a hand grip my shoulder. I looked behind me and Brock, Shaun and Logan were reanimated with blood dripping from their mouths and pale grey eyes. I looked to my right and saw Mark had also become what they had become. Mark then let out a loud roar and lunged at my neck with his mouth open biting down onto my flesh. Brock, Logan and Shaun also started feasting on my flesh and I let go of the steering wheel trying to fight them off while screaming for my life.

  I felt a gentle shake on my arm which pulled me from my worst nightmare. I quickly looked to see who it was and Chase had come to inform me that it was my shift for surveillance. The time was 12:00am which back in those days we referred to it as midnight. It had also started a new day in the old world but now it has become just a faint number in a former existence. I stepped out of the room to join Brock at the wall while we armed ourselves with 22 caliber rifles and night vision scopes. We carefully crossed over everyone in the dark rooms and made our way to the rooftop where we stationed ourselves side by side facing in opposite directions. The night air felt like a sleeping bag to where it’s hot and humid but don’t want to move because you found a comfortable spot. Brock and I lay on the roof surveying across the land looking for anything suspicious. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary but of course the entire world wasn’t ordinary anymore and your time as well as the time I’m describing to you could mean anything out of the ordinary could be children playing with no worry as well as people bar
becuing with their neighbors and not scouring for food. So out of the ordinary at this time meant no drifters, biters, zombies, dead, cannibals and reanimated corpses walking around.

  I saw Brock take his eye out of the scope and he turned his head towards me.

  “Hey Atlas, did you honestly believe that this would happen? Can you believe the zombie apocalypse is actually happening? I honestly thought if it was going to happen we had at least more time. Selest and I were actually going get married and start a family, but now we can’t because this world has become more dangerous than it was before. This world is no place for a baby. I am scared that we won’t ever have the chance to start a family.”

  I observed Brock wipe a tear from his eye.

  “Brock, I know this sucks brother. I was looking forward to you guys having a kid also so I could be the fun crazy cousin that behaves more like an uncle, but just remember we can rebuild. We will survive this and the world will be what it was once more we just don’t know when. I know we aren’t the only ones alive out here. There is still a chance for mankind to overcome all of this and start over. It’s just going to take time. You and Selest will be able to have kids and a future. Every one of us will be around to welcome your kids into the world. There is still a very good glimpse of hope that we can make it through this. We are about the strongest people on this earth and we will live on past this horrific ordeal.”

  A smile appeared on Brock’s face. According to recent events we know nothing stays the same. He realized that.

  I laid my gun down, looked at Brock and asked, “What do you think we be doing right now if this hadn’t happened?”

  Brock smirked and replied, “I’m pretty sure we would either be playing Xbox or Selest and I would be lying down in our bed doing something that isn’t permitted until you’re married.”

  I laughed to loud and had to cover my mouth to not spread noise throughout the area.

  After I quit laughing I said, “I know I would probably be playing Modern Warfare 2 and pigging out on Doritos and Dr. Pepper. If Surge still existed I would probably be drinking it instead. Man that drink was so good. Even though my kill/death ratio was always around ten and twenty-six I still loved playing that game. There was one time though I honestly went twenty-nine and three. It may have happened only one time but it happened and it was marvelous.”

  Brock chuckled a little and said, “Yeah, I’m going to miss that game. At least with that game when you die you was able to come back. Well you can in this world apparently, but at least in the game you didn’t rise to be a flesh eating maniac looking for a human buffet.”

  I looked around the perimeter on the roof and a piece of information appeared in my mind.

  “Brock, do you know what today is?”

  Brock shrugged his shoulders and then a surprised look came across his face.

  “Oh no, it’s Shaun’s birthday.”

  I looked at Brock and said, “This will be one hell of a birthday for him.”

  Both of us looked into the sky and quietly said, “Happy birthday Shaun.”

  Brock and I kept watch until our shift was over. It was around 4am on August 28th 2011. I still had to come up with a strategy for us to come up with more supplies because we know all of what we have wouldn’t last through the winter. I knew I had to send teams to different towns and scout for anything useful. I thought about just going by myself, but I knew that wouldn’t be a wise thing to do. So I sat down in the meeting room and developed a plan for our supply hunt. I didn’t want to send Brock out because he was just reunited with Selest, but he was also one of the best Z.E.D.S. members we have. All in all we needed more than what we had considering we had maybe twenty people in the safe house not including the Z.E.D.S. members. The odds were against us but we were going to make it through anything the world has planned for us.

  More Than One Enemy

  Shaun, Brock, Mark, Zora, Logan and I were headed to my hometown to see if there was anything to gather and salvage. I know going inside a super center was going to be a very bold move, but that’s where we could possibly get what we needed. We always told ourselves that this would be the place we would go if zombies ever walked amongst us. They sold guns, knives, food, had a pharmacy and carried everything you would need to survive if the place hadn’t already been looted. We approached the parking lot of the towns Wal-Mart Super Center and it had become surrounded and overtaken by the cannibals. There wasn’t any way for us to just park and stroll straight in to the store. We had to devise a plan to infiltrate without being noticed. We parked across the main road at the abandoned carwash and began deciding what was needed to be done.

  “Zora, I need you to go to that hill top and try to find a pathway through the hoard.”

  Zora grabbed the binoculars and ran to the top of the grassy hill across from the store. The rest of us stood guard and waited for Zora to confirm an opening. Even if she found a way the doors are probably locked and then we would have to find a way to gain access through the roof because that would be the safest way.

  “We have to grab whatever we can when we get in there. I don’t want anyone running around that store by themselves.”

  Zora ran back to us and explained the route we had to take in order get inside undetected.

  “We have to go around this hill and sneak up to the loading dock. There are trucks parked there still attached to the building. We can climb up the trucks, journey up on the trailers and gain access to the roof. As I can tell that is the safest and fastest way to get in.”

  I looked at Zora and said, “Good work. You lead the way and we will follow.”

  We grabbed our weapons and empty duffle bags. We proceeded to the hill as we crossed the street side by side. My gun was gripped tight by both of my hands and I was ready to get inside there and get out. Our boots touched the other side of the road. The grass cracked underneath our steps and a piece of the once peaceful town caught my eye. A sign held by a section of a white picket fence that said “WELCOME TO TOMPKINSVILLE”. That from what I can tell that sign wasn’t so welcoming anymore with zombie heads spiked to the top corners. Our legs were moving swiftly and our steps were quiet. We cautiously passed the hill and stood on the other side to observe the trucks we attempted on climbing. We didn’t sprint to the trucks right away because there would have been too much attention drawn to us. Zora and Mark crossed the lot first without drawing attention to them. They helped one another climb the truck and then proceed onto the roof. Shaun and Brock were the second ones to run to the trucks. They reached the access point with no problem. I kept watch as they climbed onto the roof. Logan and I began sprinting across the lot. Our boots were hitting the pavement a little louder than they should have been. One of the zombies heard us running and charged at us from the front doors of the building. Their feet dragged across the pavement leaving trails of mud and blood behind them. Another zombie caught a glimpse of us and began sprinting with its torn flannel shirt waving in the wind behind it. My eyes locked to its eyes and I froze. The zombie had a familiar face behind the grey skin and black marks indented in its structure. I remember that shirt. My uncle wore that shirt at least three days out of the week because he loved that shirt. I met his wife wearing that shirt and he refused to ever get rid of it no matter how many holes appeared on to it.

  I whispered to myself, “Uncle Roger.”

  A loud roar exited his mouth as he got closer and I could not convince myself to raise my gun to him. Logan saw my hesitance and shot a single bullet towards him. I saw the bullet enter one side of his head and exit the other side with blood trailing behind it. When he fell he didn’t fall straight down. He slid to my feet and I starred at his trajectory until he stopped short a couple of inches to me. I kneeled down and reached into his back pocket where I found his wallet. I gripped the wallet in my hand and it was soaked with mud dripping from the corners. I wanted to know if the picture he had always kept in it of him and his wife was still salvageable. It was protected and encas
ed by a plastic sleeve premade inside the wallet. His smile will always exist in this picture and I will choose not to remember him as he is now but as he was.

  “Atlas, let’s go!”

  I looked over at Logan and he was fighting off the other zombies that had seen us. I ran to him and began fighting alongside clearing our way to the truck. Logan sprinted to the hood of the truck and gave me his hand helping me climb on to it. Before my feet were planted securely on the truck I was gripped at the ankle and pulled down with my gun staying attached to Logan’s hand. My back hit the pavement and a zombie jumped on top of me. With one hand holding it by the throat I used my other hand to grip my Winchester knife I had received from Brian that day he left the box for us. The knife entered its head and blood splashed on my face. Logan pushed the body off of me and began shooting other zombies that were coming towards us as he helped me to my feet. We both climbed the truck at the same time and ran onto the trailer. We lunged over the rest of the wall and landed on the roof. Trying to catch our breath we stayed with our backs to the ground. Mark and Zora reached their hands down to us and lifted us up to our feet.

  Zora seemed angry and yelled towards me, “What in the Hell was that Atlas? You put yourself and Logan at risk. Where was your head?”

  Brock and Shaun walked over to us and Shaun said, “It’s not his fault. That was our uncle Roger down there. We didn’t know if he made it or not and I guess now we know.”