Enclave: A Novel of the Zombie Apocalypse

by Robert Morganbesser

  That was enough for Shaff. Not even attempting to aim his pistol, he pulled it and fired wildly. The man carrying the arm took a round in the upper shoulder, the heavy bullet shattering bone and knocking him down. A second shot missed as the man was on his rear, struggling to get back to his feet. A third shot hit the other man square in the chest, knocking him back against the juke box which lit up and blared to life (Kim didn’t charge for it) blasting out a Sinatra tune. The final three rounds hit the oven, ricocheting off in a shower of sparks. In the light of the jukebox, Shaff saw more body parts and heard a moan. He then did the wise thing and ran for his car. Clambering into the vehicle, he started it as four blood-covered things, Shaff could not tell if they were men or women, stumbled out of the diner. With a screech of tires, Shaff backed out and headed toward the town proper. Grabbing for his radio, he started shouting into it, “Sheila! Get me Parson, get him now!”

  Sheila Forbes, the night radio operator (and a woman who Shaff was sweet on), replied testily, “He isn’t here. Went home an hour ago. What’s wrong, Craig?”

  Shaff was shaking as he tried to drive and talk. “God, I’m at Kim’s Diner. It’s a slaughterhouse in there! Everyone’s fucking dead!”

  Sheila sat up straight. “Dead? What do you mean dead? Is this some kind of prank?”

  Shaff was hitting a curve when he saw several figures crossing the road. Trying to slow and turn, he did neither. Instead, the Dodge went into a spin that ended when the driver’s side smashed into a telephone pole, the car wrapping around it. Shaff was dead before the car burst into flames. Ignoring the illumination of the burning car, the zombies staggered across the road where a small, one family house stood. Anders was far enough from any large towns that no one locked their doors. Moments after the zombies entered the small home, screams tore through the night.

  By dawn, no one in Anders, Pennsylvania was alive. Some, not entirely devoured, would swell the ranks of the living dead.

  Like a disease, the dead spread out from the Keystone facility in various directions. On a map, their onward movement towards food would look like the spokes of a wheel. Relentlessly the dead moved into human society where some victims were devoured, others were converted. Small towns were overwhelmed, the citizens dying in disbelief, devoured by the hungry dead. Finally, as communications with some smaller towns began to fail, local government began to take notice.

  17 August 2031

  Carlston, Pennsylvania

  Captain Frank Boemer of the Pennsylvania State Troopers earned his bars honestly by rising through the ranks. He was a good officer, one of the few who were willing to listen to what others called “outlandish tales”. Boemer himself knew that something odd was going on. People were showing up at hospitals and clinics with strange wounds. What made them odd were the bites came from human teeth. If Boemer didn’t know better, he would swear there was an outbreak of rabies. Now, along with twenty other troopers, he was at the Pennsylvania-Ohio border investigating ‘strange phone calls.’

  Boemer sat on the right side of his Explorer, overhead lights flashing. It was early morning after a overnight shower. The town of Carlston, a hamlet really, the population barely 350 souls, lay ahead. In the driver’s seat, hands clutching the steering wheel sat Corporal Arlene Jennings. A big woman, Arlene was in her seventh year as a Trooper after serving in the US Marines. She quickly established that she was a no-nonsense kind of Trooper and earned her fellows respect. In the backseat each clutching an M4 Carbine, sat Troopers Nolan and Cragg. Both served on the force for years. Former Navy SEALs, they had joined the force at the same time. Taciturn men, neither spoke unnecessarily.

  Boemer put a hand on Jennings arm and squeezed. “Stop here, Arlene.”

  The Explorer slowed to a stop, a hundred meters outside of the town proper. The four trucks in the small convoy stopped as well; but the engines left running. Jennings squinted at the small town. A gas station on the left side of the road had two cars sitting at the pumps. The doors on one were open as if abandoned in a rush. The doors on the other were closed, the windows smeared with some unknown substance. One of the hoses from the pump was loose, lying on the tarmac. On the right side of the street was the local police department. No lights were burning and it appeared there was no movement within the building. In addition, the lot was empty of any police cruisers.

  Frowning, Boemer lifted the handset on the radio. “Carlston PD, this is Captain Boemer of the State Police, over.”

  Nothing.

  “Carlston PD, this is Captain Boemer of the State Police, over.”

  Suddenly the radio crackled to life. “State Police? Thank God! Oh Thank GOD!” The voice on the other end was in a total panic. “Are they still out there? Are they?”

  Boemer and Jennings exchanged looks of disbelief. “Is who still out there? Who am I talking to?”

  “This is Myron Newsome, I’m a volunteer EMT. Two nights ago, a gang of… crazy people came into town. They attacked any one in sight. They didn’t respond to any communication, they just came in and…”

  “Are you in the Police station, Mr. Newsome?”

  “Yes, yes. I’m the only one here. I think I may be the only…”

  Jennings pointed. “I don’t think so, Captain. Look.”

  Appearing from around the gas station was a lone figure. Dressed in a grey coverall, staggering like a drunk, the tall black man stopped a moment and then jerkily continued walking. In one hand he held a human arm, the shoulder end of it shredded and bloody.

  In the back seat, Cragg leaned forward. “What the fuck?”

  Boemer switched frequencies. “Listen up. Something messed up is happening here. Let’s move in on the PD.”

  With a lurch, the Explorers moved forward, stopping outside the PD building. Boemer switched frequencies and said, “All drivers remain in the vehicles, engines running. I want everyone else out, eyes open, safeties off.”

  The wandering man, holding his arm stood in the middle of the street. Boemer lifted a shotgun and climbed out of the vehicle. At the sound of the door opening, the man opened his mouth in a growl. Cragg, coming around the Explorer, lifted his weapon. Nolan backed him up while other troopers spread out, forming a skirmish line. Two troopers went up the stairs to the PD entrance and banged on the door. The man who cracked the door peered out, his face split in a huge smile. As he flung the door open all the way, the man in the street dropped the bloody arm and started forward. From inside the station the man screamed, “That’s one of them!”

  That was enough for Cragg. Shouldering his rifle he fired off a three round burst. The bullets smashed into the black man, knocking him, still growling to the ground. He lay there, moaning and thrashing.

  Then, despite severely torn flesh and injured beyond any human’s ability to do so, the battered man rose to his feet.

  Boemer nearly dropped his shotgun. “What the hell is going on here?”

  From the doorway of the PD, the EMT shouted, “Don’t let it bite you! If it does you’re dead men!”

  Nolan and two other troopers brought their rifles to their shoulders and fired. The black man stood there, pummeled by rounds, his left arm spinning off, but he did not die. Boemer raised his shotgun and fired. The top of the snarling man’s head disintegrated and he fell to the street, feet twitching for a moment before they finally went still.

  The noise attracted others. Coming out of some of the small homes and from the far end of the small town, were the hungry dead. Boemer made a quick decision. “Get back in the cars!” “You,” Boemer pointed to the man in the entrance to the Carlston PD building. “If you’re coming, get moving!”

  The EMT did not need to be told twice. He barreled past the two troopers and jumped in the backseat of Boemers’ car. Within moments, all the troopers were in and the vehicles were pulling U-Turns, barreling out of the dead town of Carlston. As they drove off, Boemer was on his radio, declaring an emergency for the entire state.

  The rise of the recently dea
d, now reactivated by the virus Benton’s mistress released, ceased to be an America-only problem as reanimated corpses began appearing around the world.

  2 September 2031

  Berlin, Germany

  Polizei Hauptman Hans Greist peered over the barrel of his MP5. His unit of the GSG-9, Germany’s elite anti-terrorism unit was mobilized when several citizens, some hysterical, others bearing strange wounds, were evacuated to a local hospital. Not long after their arrival, communications with the hospital were lost. The last phone call came from a panicked nurse who could only jabber, “They’re killing everyone!” before the phone call was cut off. Repeated attempts to raise anyone on the phone were unsuccessful. Now a full unit of GSG-9; supported by fifteen regular police officers were outside the hospital’s entrance. Nothing was moving within. Greist was about to order a recon team in when a figure came staggering through the main doors. Instantly, it was illuminated by spotlights. Clad in blood-spattered scrubs, the figure stood there, one hand up, clawing at the light. It might have raised the other hand, but the left arm was gone from the shoulder. Griest’s eyes opened wide and he muttered, “What the hell?” Next to him, a policeman doubled over, retching as his dinner erupted out onto the street. Greist looked over his shoulder and pointed. “You and you, go subdue that… person.”

  The two regular police, clad only in bulletproof vests, holstered their pistols and ran forward. As they closed in on the horribly wounded man, he lurched forward, trying to grab the nearest of the police. As they struggled with him, two more figures staggered out of the hospital entrance. Before any of the police could shout a warning, they grabbed the shorter of the two officers and began biting him. One latched its teeth into the man’s face, tearing away his cheek, the other bit through his shirt, attack foiled by the vest he wore. The man screamed in fear and pain, trying to pull away. The second officer shoved the one-armed man, knocking him to the ground. Drawing his pistol, he fired wildly, hitting one of his partner’s attackers, knocking the woman back - he could now see it was a woman, one eye gone, and half the flesh on her face hanging in tatters. She fell on her rear, snarled, and started to get to her feet again. With a shout of terror, the second officer turned and ran back toward the police lines.

  The officer being assaulted pulled free from the remaining attacker and turned to run. As he did, the man grabbed him and pulled him back, biting him on the neck. A spray of arterial blood shot out, hitting the attacker straight in the face. Then the woman, on her knees grabbed the officer around the legs, biting him on his thigh. With a scream, he went down, the one-armed man now joining in the attack.

  For the thirty seconds it took for this to unfold, all the police, from Greist on down, froze. Shaking his head in disbelief the Hauptman Greist shouted, “Stop those lunatics!” Armored GSG men ran forward, pulling the attackers off the injured officer, throwing them facedown and riot cuffing them. One of the officers, dealing with the one-armed attacker, smashed him in the back of his skull with a pistol. The one-armed man stiffened and lay there, a bloodless gash opening in its skull. The other two, arms securely cuffed behind their backs, lay on their faces, twitching and snarling. With the lunatics secured, the officers turned their attention to their wounded comrade who lay still in the street, blood pooling beneath his body.

  Without warning, four more people, three of them blood-covered women, the lone man covered in nothing but blood and wounds, lumbered out of the hospital. The three GSG men stared as they approached. The man had the ‘Y’ incision of an autopsy on his chest; the women, bodies showing various wounds, were dressed in civilian clothes. All had the same insane look on their faces. Jonas Braun, a GSG sniper had seen enough. Raising his rifle, he fired, hitting the autopsy man directly in the chest. The man went down, legs kicking, and then rose to his feet. Griest’s eyes opened in horror. What the hell was happening here? The other three GSG men brought up their submachine guns and fired into the approaching maniacs. Their bodies danced from the impact of the 9mm bullets. Knocked down, their limbs thrashed as they struggled to rise. To the three officer’s left, moaning horribly, the dead officer rose to his feet.

  This was enough for Greist. “Get back behind the barricades!” The three officers ran for it, leaving the punctured bodies of the maniacs lying in the street. As the officers returned to safety, more of the maniacs began pouring out of the hospital. Some of them carried body parts, others were hideously mutilated. There was no link to the way the maniacs looked. Some were in hospital gowns, obviously patients. Some were dressed in scrubs, others in civilian clothing.

  Greist took a deep breath. “FIRE!”

  A fusillade of submachine and pistol fire smashed into the maniacs. Some lost limbs; others were smashed to the ground only to get up. But they kept coming. Braun, bringing up his rifle, sighted on one and fired. The bullet smashed into the maniac’s forehead and he went down, all movement stopped. Quickly he sighted and fired again. Another went down, a gaping hole in its forehead. “The head,” Braun shouted, “Fire for the head!”

  From behind their barricade, for the next hour, the police fought a battle against what they thought were simply drug-addled lunatics. If they knew the truth, not one of them would have remained. In the end, at the cost of one police officer dead, they killed seventy-five staff and patients. Once the battle was over, a recon team entered the devastated hospital. There, they found the remnants, some still moving, of forty more people, all of them devoured.

  In other parts of the world, not everything was going as well.

  7 September 2031

  La Paz, Argentina

  La Paz, Argentina. The slums of this South American city were among the worst in the western hemisphere. Cluttered with the forgotten of humanity, when the virus was released there, it spread like a wild fire. Within a week, nearly half the inhabitants were either dead or converted. The nights were filled with gunshots and screams as the army of the dead spread through an area the more well off rarely thought of. Police who were sent into the maelstrom never came out, their empty police cruisers blood stained and abandoned as those officers who could escape, did.

  Slowly but surely, from around the world came reports of ‘insane-looking’ people attacking others. Worst of all, they were leaving terrible wounds on the survivors, wounds made from human teeth and fingernails. It was only after the first survivors died and were reborn, that medical professionals began to realize how deadly the infection these ‘insane’ people carried. Limited to outlying areas at first, these reports were at first ignored, but as they became more frequent, local and then higher governments began to react. Three months into the outbreak, a vital piece of information finally fell into the hands of the United States Government.

  Chapter 5 - Discovery

  23 September 2031

  Horace Benton’s Penthouse

  Over the years of its existence, the FBI became experts at counter-intelligence and hostage rescue. Along with these skills, they made home invasion an art form. Now an eight-man team was creeping up the stairwell of Horace Benton’s secret penthouse, hopefully to take the reclusive billionaire alive. The agents had searched everyplace Benton was known to have a home before discovering his ‘special’ penthouse listed in a book in his Kennebunkport bungalow. This was his inner sanctum, a place he kept secret from everyone. If it hadn’t been for a cryptology specialist, it might never have been discovered. Special agent Tom DeLaurio, part of the HRT for a decade, stopped at the top of one landing and held up a hand. All the men and women in his command were dressed alike, black fatigues and body armor. Unlike in the past, when a bulletproof vest was considered enough, the assault team wore arm and shin guards, a neck guard, and helmet with integrated night vision. The building they were creeping into, as silently as they could, was dark, the only illumination the emergency lighting. No one had seen Benton in weeks and calls were met with silence. With the information Castillo had received from the long dead Forester, the FBI went into overdrive. They searched all
of Benton’s known locations. This penthouse was the last and took the longest to secure a warrant to search. Apparently, it was used only for sex or very exclusive meetings. DeLaurio sweated while his superiors found a judge who was not in Benton’s pocket. It that seemed ninety percent of Washington owed the old man a favor.

  Peering around the corner, DeLaurio stared up at the next and last landing. The door was open slightly, an open invitation for an ambush. Reaching into his vest, he removed a canister and raised it up. Looking back over his shoulder, he held up the device, marked with a blue fluorescent stripe. He could see heads bobbing as his people nodded in reply; they knew he was about to throw a stun grenade and would be prepared.

  Created to disorient and disable both victims and hostage takers, the stun grenade would explode in a dazzling burst of light and noise. A few people suffered heart attacks when exposed to one, but that was a small percentage. If (thought DeLaurio), Benton was in there and he was responsible, at least partly, for the terror now creeping across the world, a stun grenade heart attack was less than he deserved.

  Lobbing the grenade up and away, DeLaurio was satisfied as it arched directly through the crack in the door. He and his people turned their eyes away as a brilliant flash and roar of sound filled the room above. Holding their weapons tight, the agents stampeded up the stairs, through the door, and into the room.