by Sam Lang
Severed
In the Beginning
by
Darren Sant and Sam Lang
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Published by Trestle Press
Copyright 2011 Darrent Sant & Sam Lang
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Prologue
A starving Sparrowhawk coasted into the city. She rode the thermals conserving precious energy. Her keen eyes spotted the shambling forms on the pavements. She spotted the black clouds of acrid smoke from the many fires around the city. A slight twitch of a wing was all it took her to avoid the pockets of superheated air.
She swooped low at the promise of a meal from the green space of Peterson Park. Her eyes caught the movement of a legless human sliding along the ground. She banked away from this new type human that smelled only of death.
Further into the park she spied a small scurrying form and swooped down to claim her prize; with the ruthlessness of a true predator, she ripped the mouse to shreds and swallowed the hot tasty flesh in a few quick gulps. With a flap of her powerful wings she was once again airborne with blood still adorning her hooked beak.
As she flew in search of new prey she spotted a lone human form on top of a building looking down.
The end of the world came not with a bang or a whimper but with the use of diet pills.
EZ-Thin pills passed all clinical trials. They were hailed as they new wonder pill to tackle the western world’s growing obesity problem. Millions of people took them. The media called them a wonder drug and women everywhere started to lose weight. They continued to lose weight as the powerful appetite suppressant motivated them to eat less. The drug was not supposed to be addictive but people found themselves unable to stop taking them. There was one other terrible side effect. No one knew what went wrong. Unknown contaminants were blamed on the first batches. Some said it was an act of terrorism. People who had been taking the pills for a few weeks started to get a craving for human flesh.
At first all but the weakest were able to resist. But as time went by the craving got stronger and stronger. Their unholy desires got the better of them and the media started to publish the horror stories. Husbands waking up to find their wives chewing on their legs. Others were less fortunate in their partner’s choice of things to chew on. Those bitten soon found themselves with an insatiable desire only for human flesh. And so the decline of the human race started.
Several years on…
London
A sea of smoke hung above the ruined streets. A lone pigeon sat regally on a high ledge and surveyed the devastation that was now London. The stillness of the day was occasionally punctuated by the sounds of screaming and the muffled sound of distant gunfire. The pigeon did not even start at these sounds; they were everyday sounds and unexceptional. Flames licked up at the sides of Big Ben from dozens of burning vehicles. The great clock tower had long since stopped and was accurate twice a day. There was no one around to care in the desolated city. The pigeon preened himself briefly and took flight to hunt for food.
Paris
Notre Dame Cathedral lay in ruins. Eric scrambled through the wreckage of the once magnificent building looking for scraps of food or useful tools. His clothes were ragged and his ribs showed through rips in them. At only twelve years old he had seen more of life than any one young boy should. His piercing blue eyes were hard, cynical and determined. A loud crash from nearby made him look anxiously over his shoulder. A door from a nearby building had crashed to the ground and several shambling forms lurched from the doorway into the bright daylight. Some limped along on broken legs dragging their ruined limbs slowly along. One or two were missing an arm and tilted as they walked, as if they lacked the brainpower to compensate for the missing limb. Broken guttural groans issued from their mouths and it sounded eerie and at odds with the bright sunny day. Eric climbed up the pile of rubble as fast as his wasted muscles would allow. He skinned his hands on sharp stone and the blood dripped from them. He barely noticed as he climbed for his life. The ruined creatures slowly, but surely followed.
Somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea
The Spirit of Adventure’s engine coughed, spluttered and her mighty engines finally stopped running. On every deck, the last remaining humans fought pitched battles with zombie attackers.
Arthur smashed a fire extinguisher over a creature’s head and it fell writhing to the floor. He slammed it repeatedly down into the beast’s skull before it could rise. Eventually, the thrashing limbs stilled their twitching. Arthur felt a sharp pain as another creature sunk its teeth deep into his neck from behind and they both fell to the floor. Arthur never got up again and soon he would join the ranks of the undead. Gradually over the ship, all signs of resistance slowly faded as the vessel came to a complete stop in the pitch black night.
Egypt
Adofo stood at the very apex of the great pyramid of Giza. Empty shell cases littered the steps around him like hundreds of dead metal insects. His AK47 was blisteringly hot and it lay cooling beside him. The sun had begun its downward climb and he was grateful at least for the drop in temperature. The night was still except for the groaning of the hundreds of zombies that were expending the precious energy to get to the top of the pyramid. The object of their efforts and their next meal, Adofo, took a final puff on his cigarette. He watched the sun go down and surveyed the scene around him. Dozens of dead zombies littered the steps nearby. A swift bullet to the brain stopped them as surely as if they were a human attacker and not the diseased undead that they were. He threw the butt of his cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his boot heel. He slammed his last magazine into the AK. He patiently waited for the next zombies to come within range as the last of the sinking sun’s rays glinted off his Ray Bans.
New York
Around a vast sea of smoking rubble, the upper levels of the Chrysler building stood, amazingly, largely intact. A compound had been created around the building and machine gun nests at each corner kept out would-be looters and zombies.
Randy Bueller, the CEO of Health-Pharm, the manufacturers and distributors of the EZ-Thin pills, puffed on a cigar as he looked down sadly upon the ruins of what was once New York. His charcoal grey suit looked crisp and well pressed. His greying hair was combed neatly. He was in excellent physical shape as his personal trainer worked him hard, even through this mess.
He gave a single brief sigh.
The opulence of his office and his living quarters on the next floor were rare in this new zombie plagued world. He pressed a buzzer and a tall blond woman brought in a glass of wine and small pot of caviar. She wore a simple toga and her long slender legs were eyed hungrily by Bueller.
“Thank you my dear,” he gushed as his eyes devoured her full breasts. The woman smiled but the smile did not reach her eyes. It was a high price to pay but the safety of the Chrysler compound was not free.
Near Lake Cherokee, Orlando, USA
Judy lay panting with the exertion, her chest rising and falling rapidly as her green eyes darted from the door to the window. She had shaken them she was sure and the zombies weren’t exactly hot stuff when it came to deductive reasoning. So the twists and turns she had taken to get to this little apartment should have shaken the accursed evil crea
tures.
She walked up to the window and admired the view. The small apartment building sat on a hill overlooking the beauty of Lake Cherokee. Although small, this place might have fetched a pretty price before the zombie apocalypse. Amazingly, the place was in pretty good shape. Looters had left a lot of stuff still in place. Orlando had been hit hard and maybe folk had gotten out before they had time to strip the place bare.
She looked around the room and spotted a small dusty picture of a little boy on the wall in the corner. She wiped it with a sleeve and wondered sadly where he was now.
Suddenly, with a dull little thud, something dropped from behind the picture. Judy jumped in shock. The very real danger of a zombie attack had honed her startle response to a sharp edge. Bending, she picked up a small booklet. It appeared to be in good condition. A journal of some kind. Looking once more apprehensively at the door, she wandered to the hallway and climbed the stairs. After a quick once over, she found the rest of the place unoccupied. Sitting in an intact armchair upstairs overlooking the lake, she opened the book and started to read…
Not exactly sure of the date, but I guess around January 1, 2017
I remember the end of the world like I remember a bad dream from a few nights ago. I know how it made me feel, but the details are fuzzy. I couldn’t tell you now how it even happened. Something about some pills or terrorists. Don’t blame me for not remembering though, that was five years ago and I was still a kid. I’m nineteen now, with a family to take care of. My name’s Zac, if that even matters.
Hell, it’s been six months since anybody around here has even seen a zombie.
We don’t worry so much about them anymore. They run out of energy pretty fast and there aren’t many mobs like there used to be. No one ever really got things back under control. The zombie apocalypse sort of ran its course like a common cold. A highly contagious, violent common cold.
The thing I miss most is electricity. Don’t get me wrong, I miss my parents and my friends. I had a better relationship with my Xbox, though. I remember Mom and Dad fought a lot. I’m pretty sure they signed divorce papers right before everything changed.
I wasn’t popular. I had a few friends and they were good friends. I don’t think any of them survived. We were excited about starting high school. Now, I can’t even get a GED.
That’s all gone now. No more all-night Halo sessions or midnight Friday the 13th marathons. No more microwaved corndogs, no hot showers, no night lights. I can’t believe I used to sleep with a night light. That was before there were real monsters hiding in the dark.
On the positive side, no more drunken arguments or sleepovers at Aunt Liz’s when Dad really got bad. Some say I don’t have any feelings, that I’m as emotionless as the ever consuming dead. I say I lost my parents long before the rest of the world went away. I say my attitude, my lack of emotions, kept me alive.
That changed though, like everything changed.
Now, I’m the responsible one. I have a family. I don’t drink (not that there’s anything to drink except water). We don’t fight. We’re happy to be alive, although the world doesn’t seem too happy to have us.
January 9th-ish
Oh, I met a girl. That’s who I mean when I say “we”. I’m going to try to write in this journal at least once a week. We’ll see how that goes. Today, I’m going to write about Liz. That’s her name, same as my aunt. We’ve been together almost three years now. I’m glad I found her, saved her. I didn’t want to be alone, like Matthew.
Matthew lives two doors down. I think he used to be a famous author, but I never heard of him. All the same, I tell my kids to stay away from him. A lot of people, survivors, went crazy, too much shock. You don’t know about some people these days. I think we’re in good company otherwise. With the exception of Matthew, everybody else here seems normal enough.
January 20th
My kids.
Before this happened, I barely started imagining what it would be like to see a girl’s bra. Now, through no fault of my own, I have two girls. Gladys and Holly. After I found Liz hiding in a bank vault, we came across the girls in their elementary school cafeteria, eating melted fruit cups. I am still amazed how two eight-year-olds proved more resilient than a school full of teachers. Holly still doesn’t talk though. Gladys says she used to get in trouble for talking too much.
February 8th
Before we ran out of gas, I used to hot rod around Orlando. I would find a set of keys or an open car. I taught myself how to drive. And I never slowed down for deadestrians. Get it?
Somehow, I got it in my head that I needed money to go with my fancy cars. I didn’t have anything to spend it on, but I wanted to hold a handful of hundred dollar bills at least once.
That’s when I found Liz. She decided a bank vault would be safe and closed herself in a big one. She was unconscious when I opened the heavy door. She could not tell me how many days she had been in there, but she had basically used up all the oxygen. That didn’t matter to me once she wrapped her arms around my neck and cried on my shoulder. I had never hugged a girl before (that I wasn’t related to). I fell in love instantly. It didn’t hurt that she was beautiful. Her silky black hair accented her dark Latin features. She’s three years older than me, but I’m her saviour, her hero.
February 22nd
I still don’t like the idea of being close to other humans. Too many variables. But now there’s about thirty of us living in a Disney World hotel across the lake from the Magic Kingdom. The city seemed too dangerous, too many dark places for the eaters to hide. We picked up other survivors on the way out of Orlando, like Gladys and Holly. Those girls took to me the same way Liz did.
There is one other family, both parents and a son. Jacob is their natural offspring and they didn’t want any more responsibility. Liz promised me she would help with the girls, so we took them. Jacob is almost six years older than the girls and there are no other kids, so we keep Gladys and Holly close to us. We have enough to worry about without a traumatized boy in puberty.
March 13th
Living in sight of a theme park isn’t as great as it sounds without electricity. We’ve taken the girls over a couple times, but the novelty wore off pretty quickly. No rides meant not much fun.
The good thing about our current home is how secluded it is. I think they evacuated places like this in the beginning. It’s surprising how few zombies or humans we see. I always imagined something innate would drive the monsters here automatically. I guess the primal urges override everything else. They go after food right in front of them, but they are not much for searching and hunting. They must not have subconscious or even vague memories. They don’t linger in familiar places. No emotional attachment. They’re less than animals now.
April 3rd
I’ve had to make some tough decisions to get us where we are. It’s probably best that I can stay so detached. The others look to me as some kind of leader, even though there are older men, some with military experience. I’m not brave by a long shot, but I think the whole “end of the world” thing made cowards out of a lot of people. No one wants responsibility and they easily defer to anyone that shows the slightest motivation. So, I have had to make the hard choices, like when we left the old lady in Winter Garden.
She had been bit. There was no other choice, but no one wanted to make it. I knew she would turn. She knew she would turn. We left her clinging to her husband’s headstone in the same cemetery that held her parents’ long decayed remains. She forgave me, in private. The others never knew, so they can blame me if it helps them sleep better.
Liz forgave me. That’s all that matters to me.
I woke up this morning from a dream about that old lady. She tried to warn me about something coming, but I saw only sunshine outside.
May 17th
Lately, Liz has been asking me to make a baby with her. I tell her we already have a family. She wants a “real” family. She thinks it’s over. It’s only been five years si
nce it started and less than a year since we saw a zombie.
I know it’s not over.
It took maybe only a year to bring the world to a halt. The zombies have had so much more time to multiply and spread. They are out there somewhere.
Something outside is not my real fear.
My real fears are here.
What if something happens to the baby? I hate to say it, but stillborn would be like being born as a zombie. Worse, what if Liz dies delivering the baby and she becomes one of them?
My life would end.
My real fears are about the future.
I love my girls, but sorry Gladys, sorry Holly. I love Liz more. My life would be over if anything happened to her. I’ve killed too many of those monsters and lost too many more to them. I will not be responsible for creating one.
Liz doesn’t see it like that. She thinks we live in the Garden of Eden. She already has a name picked out, but I’m not going to write it down. I’m superstitious, I guess. In five years, I haven’t seen a pregnant woman or a baby. Gladys and Holly are the youngest kids I know and Gladys is about to turn eleven.
I know the world will end if someone doesn’t have a baby, though. Besides, it’s hard to resist the practice.
May 20th
I’ve thought about it a little more and know the world will not end. Humans may end, but not the world. Nature keeps going. The Earth keeps spinning. I’ve noticed that the trees seem to be getting bigger. Greener, if that’s possible.
After the big deal I made to Liz about keeping the girls away from Matthew, I went to talk to him. He thinks all the decaying bodies roaming the planet are putting off huge amounts of carbon dioxide. He says that is super-feeding the plants.
