by Shawn Weaver
CHICAGO
UNDEAD 2
: Deep Freeze
By
Shawn Weaver
Copyright 2016 Shawn Weaver
Edited by Magnolia Belle
All rights reserved. No part of this novel may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are the products of the author’s imagination or are used factiously.
For further information onChicago Undead 2: Deep Freeze and other upcoming works. Please go to www.shawnweaverauthor.wordpress.com
Novels by Shawn Weaver
Fantasy
Tides of War Series
Sense of Honor Dragon’s Chest The Dark Caravan
Rose Marie Honored Son
Children
Brooklyn and the Magic Ring Nathaniel and the Tangled Web
Horror
Little Valley Wolves in Springfield Welcome to Plainfield
Mississippi DEAD (short story) In the Ground (short story)
Chicago Undead: On the eleventh floor
Chicago Undead 2: Deep Freeze (short story)
With Donnie Light
Ripper’s Row Ripper’s Revenge Ripper’s Wrath
Collected Works
Tides of War Volume 1 Two Tales of Horror
The Ripper Trilogy (With Donnie Light)
CHAPTER ONE
Just when I thought nothing could go wrong, fate kicked me in the ass. The perfect job, perfect family, perfect child, none of it mattered now. Everything I once knew meant nothing.
Within the first week of the reckoning, or end of the world, or whatever the hell you wanted to call it, ninety percent of Chicago’s population was wiped out. That’s 2,475,000 dead, leaving 275,000 alive. For how long, who knows? Every day the number of living went down. That was until winter hit, like a battering ram.
What happened to the world outside of the city limits, no one knew. I certainly had no idea. I did know the dead roamed the streets searching for the living to feed on. Those who were attacked, and luckily had their brains bashed in, didn’t rise up. Anyone unlucky enough to be ripped to shreds, and not lose their heads, came back with a vengeance, wreaking the same violence on the living that the dead had on them.
As the weeks went by the number of the dead seemed to ebb and flow depending on where you were in the city. I figured that at least half the people bitten came back. The rest, well, they were worm food.
Luckily, those already dead before the infestation didn’t try to crawl out of their graves. I could have sworn that I had seen a few walking out of Lake Michigan, covered in seaweed and looking like plump raisins.
It all started on a Friday class trip to the Museum of Science and Industry. My junior year at Lake View high had been uneventful so far. No boyfriend, no coordination to make it on any of the school’s sports team, not that I would ever want to try. I couldn’t even carry a tune, so the choir was out as well. I was thinking of trying out for the school’s production of Pippin. Though, deep inside, I figured I would end up on the set decorating committee paining walls for weeks on end.
My parents weren’t strict. They worked hard. My dad was a foreman at a tool and dye shop, while my mom was a nurse at St. Joseph’s hospital. My two brothers, Dylan and Sammy, were both younger than I was. But all that doesn’t matter anymore, they’re all dead. Well I think they are. It’s hard to tell seeing that I never made it home after the field trip. That’s when I saw the dead coming out of the Lake Michigan. I never put two and two together until now. I should have. Like most people in the world, I was inside my own shell, too worried about my own problems to see what was really happening around me.
Around 2:30, we all filed into the L – train to head back to school. With the noise of the wheels rumbling along the tracks, all of my classmates talking, and the crappy music playing through John Wilkinson’s ear buds, none of us were aware of a dirty old man turning on everyone within arm’s reach in the first car.
Chaos ensued as the doors between cars opened and two women covered in blood ran screaming down the aisle. All motion in the car froze. My mind instantly thought of a terrorist attack, and then dropped to a robbery gone wrong when the old man staggered in.
The doors slid shut, striking the old man, holding him for a moment. That’s when I saw blood caked around his mouth, making his scruffy bead look like a dark wet rug.
As the old man struggled to get through the door, the train pulled into the platform at 35th and Archer. The doors opened. People spilled out, terrified, stumbling into other commuters trying to get in.
Frightened, I ran down the stairs to the street, losing most of my classmates as they scattered in every direction. Stopping at the curb, I could see confusion on everyone’s face. Even those driving by looked worried as if this was not the only place strange things were happening.
Wanting to call my mom to come and get me, I reached into my back pocket for my phone and came up empty. Somewhere from the train to the corner, I had dropped it. Figuring that I could retrace my steps, I turned around to see that another old man had taken place of the first, this one bald and wrinkled. Snarling, he swung his cane at a lady as she covered her head with her purse. Missing the blow, she dashed down the stairs. The old man followed on stiff joints. He missed the first step and tumbled forward. Striking every other step, he landed hard on the sidewalk, leaving an imprint of blood where his skull had cracked open.
No one came to help him and I don’t blame them. I could have sworn that he had broken a dozen bones at least, an arm, a leg, his neck. But he got up on a leg bent at an impossible angle. Staggering as if he was drunk, he screamed at the cars that hurried by. Drivers stared at him as if he were a lunatic. Staggering in a circle, the old man looked around hoping for a snack. No one dared to be within an arm’s reach.
Across the street, a young woman pushing a stroller stopped to see the commotion. Like a beacon, the old man’s bloodshot eyes locked on her.
He staggered forward, stumbling to step down the curb. I thought he might fall. Somehow, he resisted gravity. He didn’t make it more than a few steps when a car came barreling through. Connecting with the old man’s knees, the car’s bumper shattered them, propelling him over the hood in a bone cracking, ‘Wumph’. In less than a second, the old man was back on the pavement.
Hitting the brakes, the driver swerved over the curb, hitting a parking meter. A spider web appeared across the windshield as the driver’s forehead hit it.
A scream brought my attention back to the woman with the stroller, now trying to escape the grasp of one of the injured women from the train. With a handful of dark brown hair, the crazed woman pulled the young mother away from the curb. Twisting to the side, the she loses a handful as she stumbles to the sidewalk. Relentless in her attack, the crazed woman swiped with a clawed hand, snagging the purse over the mother’s shoulder.
Jerked back, the mother lost her grip of the stroller. Unable to resist the slight incline the stroller rolled towards the street. A car passed me, heading in the opposite direction, and everything seemed to slow down in that moment. Not wanting to see what would happen next, I turned away and ran. I heard the squeal of brakes as the driver saw the stroller a moment too late. I didn’t have to hear the contact to know the results.
Four doors down the street, a man barreled out of a brick building, arms full with two paper bags of groceries. I couldn’t stop in
time so we crashed. The bags tore; groceries spilled. He threw curses at me as his oranges rolled across the sidewalk. I wanted to apologize, but I was in too much shock from the horror movie I had just witnessed.
The old man had risen up from the street and was now pounding on the car window that had stopped to help. Four more people had joined in the fray near the accident with the stroller. Fists were flying, people screaming. I did not hear a baby. Though, I knew that with the violence around it, if it were alive, it wouldn’t be for long.
I could have been a mile from home, or a hundred. It didn’t matter. I never made it home that night to find out if my family, or friends, were alive.
The first night, I found myself hold up in a car lot with a tall fence topped by a coil of barbed wire stretching the entire perimeter to discourage thieves. Feeling a slight sense of security, I locked myself in the small cubicle used by the lot attendant and hid on the floor.
I didn’t sleep much. Hiding in my little box, I could hear the world go to hell around me. The small booth had windows on all four sides letting in the glare of the streetlights. Whenever I did dare to peer out, I heard more than I saw. Screams echoed through the night sky. Explosions rocked streets, their fires consuming everything and everyone within reach.
I’m not sure how far I went that first week. I was lost in the city. It had changed to a war zone. Smoke billowed everywhere as fires continued to burn. Fire departments tried their best to put out the flames, but there were just too many. People trying to get out of the city created chaos. Others decided that this was the perfect time to start stealing everything in sight. Like that would do them any good when the undead came knocking on their door looking for more than a toaster.
A few night later, I ended up in a dumpster outside of some Italian place. Spoiled food and unspeakable trash surrounded me. Being inside the steel box was better than being out in the open. Tired and hungry, I knew that I could have stayed in the restaurant. It seemed peaceful enough. All the tables were upright and covered in checkered cloths. I knew that there was food in the kitchen. But the dead were tricky, silently hiding in the corners, lurking in the most unpredictable spots. Then again, the living were just as bad, taking what they wanted and not sharing no matter how hungry you looked.
The last time I saw a dog was weeks after all of this had begun. The weather had taken a turn for the worse. It rained, not heavy, but enough to make the putrid smells of the city diminish. The temps dropped, showing the seasons changing.
The dog was running down the alley where I had set up camp inside a dumpster with an overlapping lid cut in two sections. The smell inside the metal bin was better than the rest of the city. And with the lid closed for a while, I kept dry.
I heard his bark echoing down the alley, bouncing off the walls. Lifting the lid just enough to look out, I saw a mutt with matted wiry hair the color of mud. He was no bigger than a shoebox. Clearly, he had been living on the streets longer than I had.
His little tail whipped back and forth, as he barked at something just out of my view. Backing up a little, his bark turned into a whimper and he skittered down the alley, stopping a few feet from the dumpster.
I tried to hush him as loud as I dared. A surprised look crossed his rain-soaked face and he looked over his shoulder at me. When I lifted the lid, he bared his teeth in warning. Instantly his attitude changed and his tail began to beat excitedly. He barked twice and stopped as I put a finger to my lips, hushing him.
A moan ripped over the falling rain. The mutt turned and frantically began barking, tail dropping low. I smelled it before I saw it. Its putrid stink cut through the clean smell of the rain.
I crouched down in the dumpster. With the lid barely covering me, I looked through the small space. I should have just dropped down in the dumpster and hoped that the zombie passed by.
A woman dressed in blue jeans and a long sleeved flannel shirt stood in the street at the end of the alley. Rain pounded down on her, matting her long hair to her shoulders and making her clothes cling to her body like wet paper.
The mutt barked again, then ran around the dumpster, seeking shelter between it and the wall.
The woman staggered forward, her bare feet barely lifting out of the growing puddles.
Dropping down, I pushed myself into the dumpster’s far corner and watched the lid as the seconds slowly ticked by. The dumpster shifted when the woman bumped against the wet metal. I stifled a scream by clamping my hand across my mouth. The mutt started to bark as its hideaway was discovered.
I could hear him with only a thin sheet of metal separating us. His growls became sharper, warning the woman to stay away.
I heard the woman drop to the ground and then the dog’s sharp yelp.
Hearing his painful yelps, I stood and flung the lid up. The hard plastic slammed against the wall. The woman stopped at the sound. A surprised look would have come over her face if she still had most of it. All I saw was hamburger with two blood shot eyes dripping white goo into the ragged cracks of skin that remained near her ears.
I threw a rotted black bag of garbage down on her. The bag split on contact, spilling fetid eggshells, pasta, and moldy stuff that looked like her face.
Stunned she dropped the mutt. He landed hard and twisted his back leg with a painful whine. He tried to run away, but trotted a few steps and collapsed against the wall. Going down on his stomach, he forced himself behind a crushed box.
The woman pushed the garbage away, her eyes cutting right through me. Grabbing the edge of the dumpster, she lunged for me. Throwing up my hands, I fell back, jostling the heavy lid. Both sections came down forcing me back into the rubbish.
The heavy lid connected with her head and shoulder, smashing her across the cold metal. I heard the crack of bone as her neck snapped. That did not stop her. Trapped under the lid, she still clawed at me, trying to grab whatever she could.
Pushing the piles of crap behind me, I slid to the far side of the dumpster, flip up the lid, and crawled over the side, falling into a puddle.
The hungry woman tried to slide in my direction. Before she could free herself, I grabbed my portion of the lid and slammed it down. With a resounding clang, the lid made contact with the metal rim. I heard the snap of bone as the woman’s neck broke further. A cry ripped out of her mangled mouth, not one of pain, but of aggravation that she could not reach me.
“You like that?” I slammed my fists down on the lid.
Repeatedly I pound on the lid. Making the hard plastic bounce, driving the metal rim deeper into her neck. Finally getting her hands on the edge of the dumpster, she tried to pull herself free. Her shoulder popped out from under the lid. Avoiding her hands, I lifted my half one final time and slammed it with all of my might.
I heard a gurgling pop. Somehow, she twisted around and grabbed the lid. How she contorted her body hurt my bones just thinking about it. I didn’t give her the chance to lift the lid. Instead, I pressed down with all of my weight.
As her flesh separated, the worn muscles of her neck tore like paper and her head fell into the dumpster. Jaws still snapping, her clouded eyes searched for me.
Her body stood for a moment, held by the viscera still trapped under the lid. Finally, her knees buckled and her body slid down the side of the dumpster. Leaving a streak of dark blood, she collapsed to the pavement. I heard her head still moving inside the dumpster.
I don’t know what made me do it. But I lifted the lid and peered inside. Her eyes tracked me as she snapped at the air, not knowing that her body wasn’t there to grab me. Closing the lid, I stepped around her body, looking for the mutt.
I snap my fingers, “Here doggy, doggy.”
He stuck his small head from under the crushed box. Though his eyes were filled with pain, his tail began to whip back and forth.
“There you are.”
I pulled the box away. He didn’t get up and I see why. His rear leg tucked tightly against his body. I talked to him calmly as I try to pic
k him up. He snapped, barely missing my thumb. I placed my hand on the back of his head. Ever so carefully, I picked him up. Supporting his tiny body in the crook of my arm, I held him to my chest.
“You’ll be okay.” I scratched him behind the ears.
Lost for a moment in the mutt’s wiry hair, I start to walk towards the street. Stepping out onto the sidewalk, I turn left hoping to find an unoccupied building to stay in until morning. Instead, I ran into a shambling mound covered in ragged layers of clothing. The companion of the dead woman had arrived. His large bulk took up the entire sidewalk. Rolls of fat hung through his rags. And as he took as step towards me, he shook like jelly.
Lifting his head, no face remained beneath his nose. His jaw was gone, showing a large open gullet.
Crud encrusted fingers reached for me. I tried to back step, but he was too close. His fingers raked my shirt, catching hold of the mutt. Like a ravenous beast, he ripped the dog out of my hands. The loose folds of neck skin sucked wetly as he tried to shove the dog into the flabby opening.
Wiggling, the mutt snapped at the dead man’s fingers. With a yelp, the mutt touched the gaping maw and twisted itself free, falling to the sidewalk.
Consumed with the need to feed, the shambling mound never noticed that the mutt had disappeared, and continued to shove his fingers into his gullet.
Seeing me, the dead man roared, showering me with putrid bits of blood and bile. Taking a staggering step, his grimy hands swiped over my head as I ducked. Flabby arms bounced off my shoulders. I could feel heat pouring off his body; so much that I was surprised he was not steaming from the rain.
Moving to his left, I ran around him. He followed, lumbering with each slogging step. Not looking back, I fled down the sidewalk, the mutt now forgotten. My fear that he was too injured to survive without my help had to be pushed down into the pit of my stomach. Two million people had already died in this city, and there wasn’t anything I could do but run.
