I Zombie I [Omnibus Edition]

by Jack Wallen

  I led the man back into the holding car and returned to the command center. Rondo stood, front and center, and offered up a clichéd slow clap. “You had to steal my thunder.”

  The whole of the group held their breath, unsure if Rondo was about to go ballistic on me. He broke into a boisterous laugh. “I’m just fucking with you, Nitshimi. Whatever it takes.”

  Rondo reached out a hand. I grabbed it and gave it a shake before Jamal rushed me.

  “Do you understand the risks you were taking? First and foremost, riding in the same vehicle as that…”

  I stopped him before he got a full head of steam and cut straight to a very curious chase. “What do we do with Faddig?”

  “We can’t take the prick with us,” Josh bellowed.

  “I say he’s nothing more than a casualty of war,” answered Rondo.

  Morgan stared sharply at me. She fully understood my dilemma. Kill or be killed was never the most humane mantra. Besides, the reciprocity of such an act could initiate the demise of the human race.

  Jamal pointed toward the monitors. “I’d say our only option at this point would be to watch him drive off into the sunset.”

  Everyone turned to the monitors to see the transport racing away from the train.

  “Son of a bitch,” Morgan shouted. “He knows where we are.” Without another word, she pulled out her phone and dialed a number. “Dominique, this is Morgan. I need every available team on the lookout for a military troop transport traveling out of New Salt Lake City with a single occupant.”

  Jamal caught Morgan’s attention. “He had a passenger.”

  “Make that two passengers. I have no idea where they’re heading, but consider them dangerous and top priority. Capture first, kill if necessary. Send this order to every North American team. Thank you.”

  She disconnected the call and looked up to us. “Problem solved?”

  Josh raised his hand. “Who in the hell was with the dude?”

  All heads turned to me. “Who knows? We swept the train and only found Faddig.”

  Rondo spoke up. “There were a few restricted cars secured with biometric pads. I assumed everyone and everything of interest was locked behind those doors. We were working on gaining entry when all hell broke loose. Knowing that, it could have been anyone.”

  Morgan slipped her phone back into her pocket. “It wasn’t one of us, that’s all I care about at the moment.”

  I nodded.

  Jamal grabbed my hand. The grip was tender. My heart dropped. I knew what was coming.

  “There’s one other issue,” Jamal started.

  …as did the tears.

  Everyone in the car stared at me with too-kind eyes. It was Gerrand who broke the silent spell. “What remains is not your son. It is nothing more than a repository of information for the ZDC. I promise you, if there was anything I could do…I would.” Gerrand shook his head slowly. “There isn’t.”

  I gave Jamal’s hand a tight squeeze and sucked in a deep breath. “We gut this train of anything usable…and then we destroy it. Rondo, can you and your men serve as demolition?”

  Rondo nodded. “Yes, ma’am. It’ll take some time, but we’re up for the task.”

  “Morgan, can you and Josh lead your team in stripping this monstrosity of anything we might need?”

  Morgan nodded and then wrapped her arms around me. She whispered, “I’m so sorry, Bethany.”

  I returned the embrace.

  “Jamal and I are going to return to headquarters. I need to reconnect with my baby.”

  twenty-seven | the send-off

  Echo and Rizzo greeted us at the door with smiles and outstretched arms. Their beautiful faces brought new life to my heart and mind. We hugged, we chatted, we cried. They’d tucked themselves away in the attic of the HQ, played with Jacob, and enjoyed a brief period of peace.

  Peace. A single word, so foreign to me at this point. I wanted to reacquaint myself with those five letters…but now was not the time.

  Now was the winter of a desperate discontent, made glorious summer by that son of a bitch…

  Faddig.

  He would bring them back. He knew too much.

  Jamal leaned into me and whispered. “B, there’s something we need to do.”

  I assumed he meant make use of the boudoir. How wrong I was. Jamal looked at me, fear deeply entrenched in the lines and folds of his face.

  “Remember that transponder?”

  “Fuck,” I hissed low and slow.

  I had completely forgotten we’d left our bat signal in the middle of town. The tiny device called out around the world for the Zero Day Collective to come play with the little group that could.

  “We have to get that bastard and…”

  I interrupted Jamal’s regularly scheduled logic. “Son of a bitch, Jamal. What we need to do is retrieve it, put it on the train, and send it off into the heart of North America.”

  Jamal’s eyes went pie-wide. “That’s brilliant! The ZDC will assume it’s us on the run with Jacob.”

  “We have to hurry, before they take the train to its knees.”

  After informing Echo and Rizzo they were back on baby duty, Jamal and I raced out of the house and sprinted down the street. There were no bikes and no truck…there was only pavement to pound.

  Thankfully, the race to freedom was only a mile or so.

  We reached the alley and stopped to catch a quick breath. I bent over, placed my elbows on my knees, and gasped.

  Jamal dropped to the ground, clutching his chest. “It’s the big one, Elizabeth. I’m comin’, honey.”

  “You big dummy,” I said between gulps of air.

  “No seriously, Bethany, my heart is moshing in my chest and I swear my leg is threatening to snap in half. I’m not made for this level of pain.” Jamal finally stood and walked into the alley. He stopped at the pile of trash and reached his arm under the grimy mattress. Confusion painted itself across his face. He dug his arm in deeper and then slid it side to side. When he finally pulled his hand out from under the mess, it clasped a small sheet of paper.

  Jamal’s face grew pale and he swallowed hard.

  “What?” I demanded, and snatched the paper from his hand.

  Pleasuredome, was all it said.

  “I don’t understand, Jamal.”

  Tears streaked down the dry flesh of his cheeks. “We didn’t kill them all.”

  “Who, Jamal?”

  “Thelemites. They have the transponder.”

  I shredded the paper into the tiniest pieces and tossed it into the air. The wind picked each bit up and carried it away from the two of us.

  “Consider it lost then, Jamal. We will not engage with those inbred beasts again.”

  Jamal was frozen with fear. Instead of talking him down from the ledge, I wrapped my arms around him and whispered, “I love you.”

  He held me tighter than ever before.

  As we held one another, a most unfortunate sound rose from behind.

  A moan.

  A single moan.

  I wanted to kick fate in the junk, throat-punch it, give it a swirly, and flip it every bird in the phylum.

  Instead, I pulled away from Jamal to see a frail female Moaner. She swayed in a slow, steady rhythm. Dressed in blood-soaked scrubs with one foot covered in a patent leather Dansko clog, her sour-milk eyes stared into the great undead beyond.

  Slowly, silently, I made my way to her. I reached to my lower back and grabbed for cold comfort. The gun slid away and I brought the weapon to bear on the zombie. When I was finally within kissing range, I read her name tag.

  Sara Peace, RN.

  I soaked in the irony of the name, the title, and her undead state.

  As soon as the barrel of the weapon touched down on her forehead, Sara took a great sniff of air and immediately recognized the scent of living flesh. She opened her mouth to reveal bloodied teeth and chunks of meat and unleashed a pre-meal moan. The sound wormed its way under my skin and mad
e me want to rail against the machine of hopelessness. I whispered, “Rest in…” and pulled the trigger.

  Peace dropped. Thick, brownish-red blood formed an artistic pool around her head—a devil’s halo. There was a sadness to the moment. She was there and then she wasn’t. No story, no history, just a binary existence and a fragile veil between life and death.

  Jamal grabbed my hand and, without speaking a word, pulled me away from the alley. “We can make another. This time we don’t have to bother with the housing, so it won’t take nearly as long. You make your way to the train and fill them in on Plan 2.0. I’ll race back to HQ and build another transponder.”

  I spun Jamal to face me. In that moment, I fell in love with him all over again. It didn’t seem possible, but there it was. He drew me in for a kiss. I melted.

  “I love you, Bethany.”

  “I love you, Jamal.”

  Before another word could ruin the moment, I turned and sprinted off toward the train.

  *

  Jamal arrived, transponder in hand, faster than I’d expected. Rondo and his team had extracted more equipment and provisions than I’d expected to see. A quick glance through the tech had my head spinning. I stopped next to Gerrand, who was inspecting a particular device of a nature I couldn’t place.

  “This,” he pointed to the stainless steel machine. “This will come in handy.”

  I took in the whole collection. “I would imagine every single piece of technology here will serve some purpose, eventually.”

  Gerrand laughed. “But you don’t understand, Bethany. With this particular tool, I’ll be able to produce Fry at a much faster rate. With enough work, I might very well be able to weaponize it. This changes everything.”

  Morgan interrupted. “Train’s all set. Jamal’s transponder is on-line.”

  Jamal appeared next to Morgan, a Cheshire grin across his face. “I connected the transponder to the train’s communication system to boost the signal. The Zero Day Collective would have to be completely off the grid to miss this baby.”

  Rondo hopped down off the train. “She’s ready to roll, with fuel enough to get her halfway across the country.”

  “And when it runs out, I have a team on standby to refuel it and send it off to the east coast. At some point, the ZDC will pick up on the signal and get out of our hair.”

  Rondo shook his head slowly and grinned. “I have to admit, that was one hell of a plan.”

  “It’s what we do best,” Jamal said with pride.

  The engine roared to life and slowly rolled away. Like a bad sitcom, we watched…half expecting to see a line of the undead on the other side of the tracks when the giant metal centipede slipped by. By the time the last car passed us, it was cruising at a quick clip. One by one, we each raised a single hand and flipped off the one-time headquarters for the Zero Day Collective, giving it the send-off it deserved.

  As far as the ZDC was concerned, the baby Jacob clone was on board—which most likely meant an unknowing Bethany would be along for the ride, as well.

  Little did they know.

  Gerrand wrapped his arm around my waist and leaned into me for a stolen moment of secrecy. “It’s done. The infant faded into darkness immediately. There was no pain, no suffering.”

  I leaned my head on Gerrand’s shoulder, not oblivious to the irony of the action. The man who had helped bring the human race down, was now fighting to save its very soul. The mother in me wanted to fold inside out with weeping at the loss. The realist in me, however, understood the only Jacob that mattered now was lying safe in a crib in a house protected by love and bullets. “Thank you, Richard. Thank you.”

  He kissed the top of my head and stepped away.

  Jamal took Gerrand’s place beside me. I intertwined our fingers. “We still have that first transponder to deal with. We leave it out there, the ZDC will eventually locate us.”

  He shrugged. “I made it, I can track it. All in a day’s work.” Jamal looked around at the collection of survivors. “Now, how do we transport all of these toys to and over the wall?”

  “Fuck,” everyone seemed to whisper.

  Epilogue

  The desert sky glared down on the collection of people—friends, loved ones, family. It never dawned on me, once the Mengele Virus bent the human race over and had its way with us, that a tender moment might ever happen again.

  Yet here we were.

  “Dearly beloved,” I started. I wasn’t really wired for this kind of stuff. I certainly wasn’t ordained in any known (or unknown) theology, nor was I the holder of any permits or papers that rendered me legal tender for this purpose. But Morgan had asked, and I couldn’t possibly say no. “We are gathered together among friends to behold the joining of two souls to create an even greater truth.”

  I’d promised Morgan I’d not make mention of the apocalypse, zombies, the ZDC, or the Mengele Virus. She wanted sweet and tasteful. For her, I’d do just about anything.

  “It is said that love knows no boundaries, that it is the glue that fetters the spirit to the mortal plane. I cannot imagine any stronger bond than between these two beautiful souls.”

  I glanced at Morgan. She looked stunning. We’d returned to J&T’s Clothiers and managed to luck into a dress that suited the occasion, and her body, to perfection. When she stepped out of the headquarters and Josh first laid eyes on his wife-to-be, I was certain he’d either faint or cry. Fortunately, it was the latter.

  In the background, I heard the fwipping sound of an arrow and the dropping of a lifeless body. I’d placed Echo and Rizzo on guard duty. Their only task was to make sure no zombies managed to crash the party. I relegated them to bows and arrow to keep the noise to a minimum.

  Another fwip, another drop.

  “Do you, Morgan Barnhart, take Joshua Garcia to be your husband?”

  I opted to omit the whole ‘till death do you part thing. We’d had enough death to last a few partings.

  Morgan’s cheeks reddened as tears trickled down. She nodded and said softly, “Yes.”

  Fwip. Drop.

  “Do you, Joshua Garcia, take Morgan Barnhart to be your wife?”

  Josh nodded and then said with his normally booming voice, “Yes. I mean…I do.” He blushed. “Whatever it is I’m supposed to say.”

  “By the power vested in me by…the state of survival, hope, and…us, I now pronounce you, husband and wife.”

  Josh pulled Morgan in tight for a deep, passionate kiss. Everyone cheered as Jamal took his cue and turned on the radio.

  You’re listening to WZMB, Zombie Radio; your personal sound…track, to the end of the world. I have been tasked with a very special request from a very special gal. It seems two of the more important survivors on the planet just managed to get married, get hitched, ball and chain themselves, tie the knot, get spliced, tie themselves down, jump the broom…you get the idea. So what in the fuck am I doing in the picture? Well, ladies and gentlemen of the Zombie Radio Nation, it is my responsibility to play a song so that Josh and Morgan might have their first dance as husband and wife. There’s only one song I can think of to perfectly fit this oh-kay-zeeawn. That song? David Bowie’s “Wedding Song”. To Josh and Morgan, I wish the two of you a beautiful and prosperous life together. And to everyone out there in the Zombie Radio Nation, grab your spouse, your partner, your bff, or a stranger…pull them in tight and dance like everybody’s watching.

  The sound of wedding bells spilled from the speaker. Josh and Morgan stood center stage, wrapped tight in one another’s arms. Jamal held his arm out for me and grinned like he held the very secret to life in his heart and wanted nothing more than to share it with me.

  In that moment, all the horror, all the hate and the fear vanished. There was nothing but magic, and I believed in it…fully and completely.

  Buy Zombie Buy

  By Jack Wallen

  Copyright © 2016

  This book is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise noted, names, characters, places, a
nd incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously (unless otherwise noted). Any resemblance to actual locales, events or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without express permission from the author. Please do not participate or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Edited by

  Sara Marian

  Beta Reader

  Karen Dziegiel

  Proof Readers

  Pheebz Jackson

  Karen Dziegiel

  A very special thank you goes to Karen Dziegiel for her never-ending support of all indie authors and her unbelievable input that helped to make this book what it is.

  I remember, back in the nineties, first hearing the song, “How Much Is Enough”, by The Fixx. I never would have dreamed that tune would help to inspire a book. When I set out to write “Buy Zombie Buy”, I did what I always do and imagine life in the apocalypse. This time around, I held fast to the idea that the one thing chaos and entropy could not empty me of is my soul…no matter the price.

  Going once. Going twice.

  Sold to the highest bidder.

  one | just run

  “Go.”

  The voice was a mixture of static and nerves. Truth be told, the nerves were all me. My heart thumped in my ears, skewing the pitch and rhythm of every sound. Muscles vibrated and twitched under my skin. Another second and I’d certainly come undone.

  “Bethany,” the voice called out from beyond. “You there?”

  I tapped the talk button on the walkie. “Here. Sorry.”

  “Any luck?”

  “Negative,” I responded to the curious Jamal. “Not a damn…”