by catt dahman
George’s Terms
Z is for Zombie: Book 1
catt dahman
Copyright.
© 2013, catt dahman
[email protected]
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book, including the cover and photos, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher. All rights reserved.
The characters, places, and events depicted are fictional and not to represent anyone living or dead. This is a work of fiction.
For Nic and Clay (you’re my Alpha team)
In memory of George: You put me on this road and I thank you. RIP
Thanks to my copy editor
1
George
It stood to reason that after getting the good news that his three best friends were alive, were immune to the Red, and for safety moving to his home, he would run into some bad news. That was how the odds worked and why he wasn’t a gambler. Anything good was expected to be balanced by a few bad things; take life with ups and downs.
“Don’t say no…it’s the end of the world,” he hummed Skeeter Davis’s song as he finished up in the kitchen, again missing having a woman around to do the more feminine jobs, but his wife had died a long time back. He wasn’t even sure those were the correct words to the song, so he hummed through most of it. It sure as shit beat most of the music they played nowadays. At seventy, he was just too old for these big changes in the world.
Nothing about this had been positive; there had been one more bit of bad news after another since the virus, nicknamed Red, had swept the globe like some cruel hand of a death-god, wiping out towns, families, and maybe parts of the world with people suffering. Their life’s fluids poured from every orifice, leaving them to suffer in fear and misery. Death was never pretty, but thankfully, most people never had to see the ugly parts and this Red virus had left no dignity.
George had quickly decided that even if his friends were ill, he’d nurse them as best he could and then make bigger decisions as events unfolded. No one was going to tell him to abandon his humanity and turn a cold cheek to people he cared for. He had done a lot of thinking.
His friends had come to his house because he had supplies that he kept as if he were an end-of-the-world survivalist. None of them had wives that were alive, and any children that they had, were not living in town. It had given him company, a peace of mind and comfort to have his three best friends with him. His home was in a cookie-cutter neighborhood with a neatly trimmed yard, rose bushes, and trees, all kept to HOA standards. The house had far more room than he and his wife had needed, but had been great for entertaining friends and family.
“Where you off to, George?”
Stepping onto his porch, head cocked sideways, he glanced at one of his oldest friends, Thurman, a still-strong, black man that he had hunted with the better part of his young and middle years, until he developed a distaste for the so-called sport. “I heard something. Did anyone else hear a scream?”
Benny crowded onto the porch with his border collie, Dallas. “You say you heard something?”
Dallas growled.
“Yes,” Thurman and George responded, as they had a million times over when Benny had repeated things.
He straightened, “You want I should get the guns?”
“Not yet,” George warned him. Since the news reports had begun, Benny had wanted to go into a fight with guns blazing. You can take the boy out of the Blue…
The high-pitched wail let loose again, sounding full of sorrow, fear, and raw anger. “That sounds like a kid,” Thurman mumbled, taking a few steps down the porch.
“Yeah.” Benny agreed.
From the backyard across the street, they heard screaming and saw people running frantically as they came into view from the side yard. A woman carried a little girl and set her down behind her as she faced towards whoever was chasing her.
“You don’t think?” Benny asked.
“Maybe. You know what the news has been saying,”George told him.
Benny made a ‘plltt’ sound. “Those newscasters are crazy and panicking like everyone else, the hospitals are turning sick people away at gun point, this country is going to hell in a hand basket. Healthcare has gone to hell.”
“When they’re full, they’re full,” George said, “and don’t go on about FEMA trailers again, or I’m liable to scream. There isn’t enough medical staff to go around. We have way too many sick this time, and it isn’t in one place.”
“Not enough medical,” Benny ‘plltted’ again.
“Now, Benny, they say that about half of the population is coming down with the Red; that’s a lot of people,” Thurman said. Maybe it was more than fifty percent of the population getting ill, maybe a quarter, but it was a lot.
George had spoken to his children and grandchildren, and they were sick. In a different world, and if he were another person, he could retain hope that they’d recover and he’d see them again. The hard reality was that Red was taking casualties, and if you got lucky, then okay, and if you didn’t, well; it sucked, but it was the hand you were dealt. Stores were closing; hospitals were turning away people, the military was vanishing from the streets, and police and firemen were leaving their post. More and more businesses and services closed, the ill were too bad off to work, and just crawled into their beds where they stayed, only to get up again to struggle to the bathroom. Even truck drivers and rail service workers were unable to get food and supplies to the stores.
“Well, I believe it’s bad and that many are catching it, sure, but I just don’t think we’re gonna get the rioting that Europe and other places have. We know better than to act that way.”
“Los Angeles knows better? Detroit does?” George scoffed.
“Give me a hungry group of mamas with kids to feed, and I’ll show you a riot beginning right fast,” Thurman added.
Benny shook his head, “Well, I don’t see how’s we’re going to start biting each other even if that thing is like rabies.”
“They said it’s like mad cow.”
“Yeah, and you don’t see cows biting each other,” Benny pointed out. “That makes the brain stupid. Maybe rabies, but then I didn’t see anyone foaming at the mouth.”
They still watched the woman and child.
The woman shouted at whoever was coming after her to stay away. An older couple, a man in pajamas, and a teen boy, wearing his boxer shorts, covered in blood, stalked into his view. The older woman was covered with dark brown stains below the waist and down her legs. The older man was in jeans and a shirt. The woman, still in front of the little girl, picked up an ornamental rock and lobbed it, hitting the man solidly in the head.
“Ouch,” Thurman said.
The man rocked back a bit from the hit but continued forward.
“You gotta be kidding; that was a Nolan Ryan pitch.” Benny slapped the porch railing. “That gal can throw.”
“They may not be foaming, but they look mad to me,” George stated. “They did on television, too. Looked and acted like mad dogs.”
“Hey, what’s going on over there?” Thurman was in the yard now, watching, with his big voice like thunder in the quiet of the neighborhood.
All faces, long, turned to him. The little girl, in a light blue dress and hair platted in a long braid down her back, glanced at the m
en and pulled at the woman’s arm, telling her to come on.
George felt familiar adrenaline wash over him; he was way too old for this, his joints aching on a good day; he was long-retired from the force, and he just wanted to be left alone with his friends to see how the new world would change. But he didn’t hesitate. He stepped out to meet the woman and girl.
She would be pretty, if not for the exhaustion on her worn face. She had dark smudges beneath her eyes, blonde hair, and big blue eyes full of worry and fear, and a tall, trim figure. The little girl had to be her daughter, about five, cute face that had been contorted with terror.
“ My daddy is trying to bite us,” she wailed.
“Bite you?” Benny glared, “Why that’s unacceptable.”
“Master of understatements.” George chuckled a little.
“So are Mr. and Mrs. Perez, and they were so nice.” The girl wailed harder. That couple had just moved in.
“Get up on the porch.” George motioned to them. “What are your names?”
“Gina. This is Katie.” The woman did as he asked, watching behind her.
“Why is Daddy playing like this? It isn’t funny.” Katie said, stomping her little foot in anger. She knew her father wasn’t playing, but accepting that this was real was more than she could handle right then.
“Now, Gina…you and your Katie stay back there, and if they get past us, you get into the house and lock the door. Tink is in there, and he’ll take care of you. I’m George, and those two are Thurman and Benny.”
George was a bit flummoxed with having to introduce himself, but neighbors didn’t get to know each other as in times past. They had lived there for months, maybe a full year and the Perez couple…all Perez had done was to give a nod here and there, a wave, but people didn’t know their neighbors now. And this to George, was the real downfall of the country.
The four bloodied people were crossing the street, shambling closer.
“What the hell?” Thurman took a step back while brushing his nose with one hand. “Is that them stinking?”
“Good Lord, they smell terrible.”
Their eyes were full of fury.
George moved over to where he and Tink had removed a small, dead, tree the day before, unfortunately putting away the tools, but leaving a few good-sized limbs. He wished for an axe and chainsaw, but wish in one hand and spit in the other, and see which one fills the fastest. He took one branch, handing Thurman a second one and said, “Benny, you may wanna take the ladies in now.”
“You want to get off this property now.” Thurman warned the approaching man who didn’t seem to take notice. Up close, the smell was eye watering. The man’s pajama top was red with dried blood, his legs inside the pants appeared to be caked with diarrhea, and his feet were filthy. He drooled and gurgled at them.
The older man was in worse shape: deep scratches along both arms, a huge chunk that looked bitten from his neck, and most of his lower jaw torn off in blackish, bloody tatters. He looked as if he should be dead from those wounds.
Standing by the older man, the woman in pajamas and barefoot, was covered in blood and thick, partially dried greenish feces; her mouth and face were awash in fresher blood.
The teen boy moaned, extending an arm with shattered bone jutting from the wrist; his knees looked like raw hamburger that leaked yellow, thick pus.
“Jeff, stop it,” Gina demanded of the man. He didn’t look at her, but moaned, eyes roaming vacantly and slightly clouded.
“Mommy, make him stop playing.” Katie sobbed.
“Get gone.” Thurman gestured with the limb, moving closer.
Jeff, the husband, lunged at Thurman, whose reflexes were just a little slowed by age. Mr. Perez had angled behind, snarling angrily and reaching for Thurman, and as the man sidestepped that threat, Mrs. Perez tripped him. He went down on his backside, painfully and with a grunt.
“Hey.” George jabbed his branch at Jeff’s midsection. Then, he stabbed at him harder.
The man hissed and moaned, and spit flew as he tried to get around the branch poking at him, to reach George.
Thurman tossed the old woman back but was struggling with the man, who snapped at his throat like a wild animal.
In a flash of black and white, Dallas bolted at the man, growling and snarling, knocking him to his back and biting at his arms.
“He’s trying to bite my dog,” Benny was yelling, moving on aching joints from debilitating arthritis. “Get away from my dog.”
George was so distracted by Benny and Thurman’s struggles that the teen boy almost got him. Going to his instinct and training, George didn’t think, but pulled the limb back and let it swing against the boy’s arm, almost enjoying the sound of crunching bones. He wished for his Glock in a spiteful moment.
Thurman got a good swing, and then before he could slam a second one, the branch was yanked away by Mr. Perez, as he and his wife fought over their spoils.
Benny piled in, yanking back on Mrs. Perez’s arms and body, punching wildly but solidly as she struggled to pin him with her weight and get to his arms or throat.
Dallas snapped and bit, maybe the only reason Thurman was unharmed so far.
Jeff was back up and taking grabs for them and the other men, but also had re-focused on Gina and Katie.
Gina screamed.
George swung again at the boy coming after him, this time making contact with the head. “Go down,” he yelled, swinging.
“Hey, you bitch.” Neal ‘Tink’ Tinkersley slammed out of the house and strode over the porch, leveling and pulling the trigger to his Remington 700 at Mr. Perez. The back of the man’s head flew off in a mess of blood and brain pulp.
As the teen boy shot up to his feet again, threatening George, Tink shot twice, taking out his throat, almost decapitating him, and taking off the side of his head in a crimson spray.
George went over and slammed his tree branch at Mrs. Perez’s head.
“What’re they doing trying to bite people?” Tink grumbled.
“And trying to bite Dallas,” Benny added angrily.
As they wondered what to do next, Thurman, George, and Benny numbly stared at the woman on the ground as George popped her periodically in the head to keep her down.
Dallas barked at the man, Jeff, who was making his way closer to the porch, somewhat distracted by the dog.
Glancing behind to be sure the woman and girl were still in the house, Tink scowled.
Benny retrieved the dropped limb and whacked Jeff across the back; he didn’t even moan but turned angrily, reaching for Benny. Benny kept solidly swatting at the man’s arms; breaking bones and tearing skin, but the man didn’t stop coming after Benny, just as Mrs. Perez, who was still on the ground, never stopped trying to get up. Her jaws, arms, and head were dented, broken, oozing, shredded, and her face was a messy, red pudding of flesh.
George, sickened by the violence, was also angry.
“Are y’all about done playing with the zombies?” Thurman questioned, brushing off his pants.
“Thurman…what are you callin’ ‘em zombies for? They’re sick people.”
“Yeah, they always said those hopped-up drug freaks were sick, too, and they sure tried to kill us same as Viet Cong. Nuts tried to bite Bennie’s dog and me.”
“And they stink.”
Winded, Benny paused in hitting Jeff; the smelly man lunged at Benny like lightning, causing Benny to stumble and go down on his backside.
All four realized that they had luck, training, each other, and a gun on their side, plus Dallas, and if not for even one of these, they might not have survived. It was sobering. But they were old men who had no business fighting hand-to-hand like this unless they wanted to break their bones or have heart attacks.
Tink shot the man once in the head. “Okay, now we are way too old to be knocked on the ground…broken hips are no playing matter, and with the hospital not taking sick people…”
“Maybe they take broken hips.” Thurman
, cursing quietly, helped his friend to his feet again. “George?”
“They may not take broken hips.”
“No…what do you think about these things?”
“They don’t feel pain…it’s like they said on the news in Europe, Zombies.” Benny nodded to himself. He had just said minutes ago that he didn’t believe the news, but seeing it now, made him a believer.
“They’re callin’ ‘em zeds, though.” George stepped back, motioning to Tink to finish up, which the man was happy to do. Benny was tired of smelling the stinky people and shooting. “They wouldn’t stop coming,” George said it for himself, for his friends, but mostly for Tink who had just shot four people.
Patting the big man on the shoulders, he looked at his normally well-manicured lawn in disgust. “Let’s catch our breath, calm down, and meet our visitors, and then we can get this cleaned up.” Thurman and Bennie went inside the house.
Tink surveyed the area. “No movement.”
“I still bet some people were peeking out at the gunfire.”
“If they are able to. I think most got sick, ’cept for those of us soaked in Agent Orange.”
“And we’re too old to do much, except we sure as hell fought a good battle here. Good job, Tink.”
“You, too, Brother.” They had been best friends and then partners on the police force for almost sixty years. Benny and Thurman had been partners, and all four were close buddies, each having served sometime in the Vietnam Conflict, their Agent Orange discussions and theories were deep.
Inside, the little girl, Katie, was hugged up on the sofa with Dallas, who shared a doggie laugh: he wasn’t being shooed off the furniture and could nap happily with the child.
George gave him a mock dirty look.
Bennie brought in hot tea, one of the few men who could pour tea into a cup, and still be masculine. He added honey for Katie and urged her to sip, nodding at her mother. Both were in shock.
“Can you tell us what happened? If you feel like it?”
George had thought to send the girl and dog to the other room, but Katie screwed up her face miserably and sighed, “It was terrible. Which one are you?”
