Forest Park: A Zombie Novel

by Jamie Marks

  “And what’s really happening? Thomas, please tell us all,” Lieberman said with an air of confidence. “We’re under attack, and it won’t take too long for the sharks to begin to circle.”

  “Oh, get a grip,” Lieberman said.

  “Once we’re on our knees, the sharks will circle. Every nation that has considered the US a threat for the last thirty years, will take full advantage of the situation. Do you think Red China’s concerned about the human rights of their infected? They never gave a damn before now, so why would that change? If they can gain control of the situation before we do, we’ll pay a toll heavier than anyone of us could ever comprehend.”

  “You forget, Thomas, this is still the United States of America,” Lieberman said.

  “Yes it is, and I wish it to stay that way. Outside in the real world, families are being literally torn apart, our armed forces are losing the fight against brain dead automatons, and I don’t see things getting any better. I can only see the situation becoming worse. My point is this, if we can’t control our own cities, how can we expect to maintain control over the rest of the world?” Holtz said.

  “Is that what you’re worried about, Thomas,” President Walker said, sounding disgusted. “Is this your main fear; the loss of a make believe empire?”

  “I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t play a part, Joseph, but it’s more than that. Each delayed step is a step backward. If we don’t act soon we’ll cease being relevant.”

  President Walker sighed and then said, “Harris, you’re our man who deals with all things unusual. What’s your opinion on what we’ve discussed so far?”

  “I have nothing to add,” Harris said.

  “Great...” Lieberman added.

  Carnegie glanced at his watch. It had been nearly three hours. He’s kept me waiting three hours, who the hell does he think he is? Carnegie paced the corridor, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. Ignorant son-of-a-bitch, he needs men like me.

  “Ask him,” someone said.

  That fucking Jew has nothing on me, threats, idle fucking threats. His time is about done, their time is over, not mine!

  “You ask. He looks pretty pissed,” someone else said.

  “Sir!”

  The clock’s ticking, boys --- it’s fucking ticking.

  “General, sir!”

  Carnegie ignored whomever it was speaking to him, while he paced the hall and vented his anger to the other half that resided inside of him. I’ve given my time; I’ve worked hard... I deserve better.

  “General!”

  “Fucking what! What do you want? Can’t you see I am busy here?” The White House intern recoiled.

  “Well!”

  “Is it true we’re moving to Camp David, are we really abandoning ---”

  The Situation room doors suddenly flung open.

  President Walker stormed out of the Situation room, ignoring Carnegie, followed by Lieberman and Schwartz, who exited after the President without muttering a word to Carnegie either. Fucking run, you rats, run.

  “General,” called Holtz, who was standing with Harris and Ambrose and chatting with Air Force General William Anderson and Admiral Scott Gardner, who wished everyone the best of luck before they departed.

  “I don’t know about you guys, but I need a drink,” Carnegie said.

  “I second that motion,” said Holtz.

  “I thought you would have gone with the President,” Carnegie said to Harris.

  “To Camp David --- I don’t think so,” Harris answered.

  “So it’s true. DC is being abandoned?” Carnegie asked Harris.

  “Apparently so.”

  “Are you going, Holtz?” Carnegie asked.

  He shook his head, and then said upon consideration, “I’d prefer to go down with the ship.”

  “Why aren’t you going, Harris?”

  “I think I will be of more use here,” he answered as all four men wandered off toward the lounge for a drink, while the city choked on the smoke of unconstrained fires.

  The four men entered the bar at a dull roar, and much to their surprise, they found it unattended and began to make themselves at home.

  Harris gave Ambrose the nod to become the barman for a day, which Ambrose happily obliged --- just like everyone else; he needed a drink too.

  “I wonder where Frank is.” Holtz said as they made themselves comfortable sitting at a small oak table.

  “Frank?” asked Ambrose.

  “He’s a retired sergeant --- a Marine. Nice guy too, he runs the bar during office hours,” Holtz answered.

  “Maybe the traffic was murder today?” Carnegie said.

  Holtz didn’t laugh out loud, but he smiled at Carnegie’s poor attempt at levity.

  “What shall we drink to?” Holtz asked everyone.

  “How about we drink to new beginnings, gentlemen?” Harris said.

  “Okay. To new beginnings, it is. Oh, and to our President, long may he reign.”

  All four raised their glasses and took a sip as they turned their attentions to the television and watched the President as he boarded Marine One, the President’s official helicopter. Following him, were his civilian aides and a small contingent of military officers --- one of the officers carried the nuclear football, a briefcase which contained the National Security Agencies Gold Codes, better known as the Play book --- atomic launch codes for the day --- which would allow the President to have access to the US nuclear arsenal wherever he was.

  Following the President and his aides was Alan Lieberman and Kurt Schwartz.

  The massive Augusta Westland EH101 lifted itself into the air and banked to the south, with its long rotor blades chopping through the smoky air with a whoop-whoop.

  “Well, there they go,” Holtz said, “leaving us here to hold the bag.”

  “At least that Jew Lieberman won’t be yapping in our ears all day,” Carnegie said.

  “I didn’t know you were anti-Semitic, Tex?” Holtz said.

  “I am when it suits me,” he answered and then laughed.

  “I think a little more than that, General,” Harris added.

  “Well, the way things are, gentlemen, it won’t matter either way, not even the Kikes can buy their way out of this,” Carnegie said while watching Marine One fly into the distance.

  It was then it happened --- something had gone terribly wrong.

  Before anyone could comprehend what was happening, Marine One began to spin out of control. An instant later a massive fireball climbed high into the sky, creating an orange and charcoal gray mushroom cloud.

  “Holy shit!” Holtz said. “What now?”

  FOREST PARK

  “Well, maybe the power will come back on.”

  “Yeah and maybe it won’t either. We have to consider that too.”

  “We’ve got to consider a lot of things now.”

  “Really, and who voted you Einstein for the day.”

  “Nice one, Kathy,” Steve said.

  “Well, pointing out the obvious isn’t going to get us anywhere. It certainly hasn’t so far.”

  “Yeah, and neither is that crowd waiting out by the front door, nor the other one out there.” Steve signaled that he meant the back yard.

  “You’ll get a crowd, Steve... if you make too much damn noise.”

  “I didn’t know the fence was going to collapse,” he answered Kathy with some surprise in his voice.

  Kathy shook her head in frustration, and not for the first time.

  “How could I have known?”

  “You’re a carpenter, Steve, and obviously not a very good one.”

  Steve smiled and said, “Yeah, point taken.”

  “Sorry about that,” Kathy said, “that was a bit rough.”

  SIX HOURS EARLIER.

  “The power’s out.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Well that’s the end of dinner…” Steve said looking at the two steaks sitting in the frying pan. The electric stovetop was dead
.

  “And that’s the end of the television too.”

  “We have a radio,” Kathy said.

  “We don’t have any fresh batteries. I’ve been meaning to get some for a while; we have a few things about the house that needed a couple. I just never got around to it. However, who would have thought this shit was going to happen?”

  “What about the MP3 player, it has an FM radio,” Kathy said.

  “Yeah, about that --- I didn’t recharge it. I meant to, but just plain forgot about it,” Steve said.

  “Jesus, Steve, you know if you had continued walking a few miles a day, like you promised you would to help lower your cholesterol, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Why can’t you follow through with things? Seriously! “

  “You know I don’t like walking for the sake of it. I need something to aim for.”

  “The aim was to lose weight.”

  “I didn’t mean that exactly.”

  Kathy sighed. “Walking a few miles a day never hurt anyone. Is your time really so precious?”

  “No, but is this really the time to dredge all this shit up?”

  “We don’t have a working television or radio, and nothing is going to cook in that pan, so I don’t see why not...” Then it hit her…

  The BBQ, they could use the BBQ.

  “What about the BBQ,” Kathy asked.

  Steve grumbled to himself, and closed his eyes.

  This is a fucking nightmare!

  “You didn’t replace the propane tank, did you?” Kathy said. Her tone was now moving beyond simple anger; she was Saint Helen’s waiting to erupt.

  “I was on my way to do just that the other day, but then I thought it was getting colder. We’re not going to BBQ in winter. I got distracted; the car alarm was acting up and...”

  “Got distracted?”

  “Yeah, it happens. Like I said the car alarm was...”

  “That seems to happen a lot around here. You’re getting distracted.”

  Steve stood up; the house was beginning to feel very small after being trapped inside for what was probably a week --- if it wasn’t it felt like it.

  “I’m going to look for some batteries,” Steve said as he left the kitchen, “feel free to help.”

  “Good and no thank you. Oh, try not to get distracted by something shiny while you’re at it, Steve!”

  FIVE HOURS EARLIER.

  “Honey, we must have some batteries somewhere for Christ’s sake?” Steve said, yelling from their bedroom.

  “Steve, try to keep it down!”

  “Yeah, well.” He paused for a second. “There must be some somewhere. Why in hell do they have to make so many different sizes? Why must they make everything so difficult?”

  “They didn’t make it difficult, Steve. You make things hard by putting what needs to be done off. I’ll do it tomorrow is the story of your life, seriously, it is. If I had a dollar for every time you’ve put something off, that you could have dealt with, then and there, I’d be a Millionaire. And it’s no different with the batteries. You drive me crazy. You really do.”

  “I didn’t know the Dead were going to walk this time next week, last week, did I? If I did, the very first thing I would have done was go for a walk to lower my cholesterol and buy some batteries!” he said with an ever-increasing volume from the other room.

  “Shhh.” She held a finger to her lips. “Use your inside voice.”

  Steve stormed back into the kitchen and slumped down into a chair. “And don’t get me started on having anything made after 1995 repaired.”

  “How about if you don’t start on that,” Kathy said.

  “Because they can’t fix a fucking thing these days,” he continued, “Everything is made to break!”

  “What?” Kathy said as a dismayed look came over her face. “Why get started on this?”

  Steve glanced at Kathy and laughed. “I don’t know.”

  Kathy sat down beside her husband and placed her hand in his. “You’re an idiot,” she said and then laughed along with him.

  “I think we might both go mad if we stay here much longer.”

  FOUR HOURS EARLIER

  “So you’re not joking then,” Steve said. “We truthfully only have an electric can opener, are you really serious!”

  “My bad, the funny thing is, even if we had power the damn thing won’t work, it broke a while back.”

  “That’s what I was saying.”

  “Don’t start, Steve.”

  THREE HOURS AND FORTY-FIVE MINUTES EARLIER.

  “There’s always next door,” Steve unexpectedly said after a long silence.

  “They have power next door?” Kathy responded with a smile.

  “Smartass… No, they have a BBQ though, propane too. It wouldn’t hurt to look anyhow.”

  “You can’t go outside, not with those things out there.”

  “They’re on the street in front of the house, and they can’t get out back because of the garage. All I have to do is climb over the fence.”

  “You think you can climb over the fence?”

  “Yeah. I’ll use a chair to boost myself up, and then I’ll grab their propane tank and climb back over; it’s a fool-proof plan.”

  Kathy thought about it for minute. “Do we really need a steak that bad?”

  He was about to agree with her, until he glanced over at the pair of raw steaks. He shrugged and then said, “It’s better we eat the food that could spoil first, and not the stuff which will keep. Maybe we don’t really need the propane just yet, but if this keeps going on and on and more of those things come around, we might find ourselves in a bit of trouble, and then what?”

  “The power might come back on,” Kathy said, feeling the need to sound positive.

  Steve glanced at the steaks again. “Perhaps the power won’t come back on. It may take days or weeks for it to return. Who knows how many power lines are down or even if the grid is still capable of working at all. Both of us can smell the smoke. God knows how much damage has been done, and I don’t remember the last time I heard a fire truck, or even a cop car. I think we have to assume that we’re going to have to rely on ourselves, at least for a while, and to do that we need the propane.”

  Kathy put her hands to her mouth and thought about it. “Do you really think that?”

  “Maybe, I didn’t want to worry you, babe,” Steve said.

  “I don’t know...”

  “I’ll be a few minutes at most --- seriously. I’ll be there, then gone. Don’t worry.”

  Kathy searched Steve’s eyes. “Perhaps we should leave. Maybe we should jump in the car and go. We could head for Macon or to the army base here, the refuge. We have options; we don’t need to sit this out alone.”

  Steve wobbled his head with an emphatic no. “The first thing they said was to stay at home. And that’s what we’re going to do, we’ll tough it out. Anyhow, what would happen if we couldn’t get through to Macon, and we get stuck somewhere? All we have for protection is a baseball bat.”

  “I think I want to leave, Steve. I want to take that chance. I want to go to my sister’s.”

  Steve stood up and walked away from his wife, and stared out into the backyard from the window above the sink. The yard was clear, but hazy from smoke --- but clear of those things. Thank God, he thought.

  He turned back to Kathy. “I know those things are out there, but they come and go. Every time something else goes bang or boom they leave, and each time they go away only a few come back again and sometimes none. Gee-whiz, there have been times when there hasn’t even been one out there at all! I just worry that if we leave now we could be making a big mistake. As I said before, we could become stranded, and after that, what?”

  “I’ll get the propane, and I’ll be right back. You just wait and see. I won’t be long,” he said and then kissed her cheek. “What could go wrong?”

  “If I had to write a list, you’d never leave.”

  THREE HOURS AND THIRTY MINUTES EARLIER


  Steve stepped outside into the smoky air and shut the screen door behind him.

  From behind the screen door, Kathy watched her husband with petrified eyes as he stepped out into the yard, and beyond her grasp.

  She wasn’t afraid for herself; she had always been stronger than that.

  She was afraid for him, her sometimes slow-witted, infuriating and undependable husband, and the kindest man she had ever known. What worried Kathy was the simple biological truth --- biology doesn’t give you a rubber stamp for courage. Courage can only be found by being able to push through the fear, but without the fear, there wasn’t any such thing as courage, only foolish stunts.

  She wanted him, and needed him scared.

  Steve could feel the smoke as it entered his lungs --- he coughed; he hoped that wherever the smoke came from was far away from home. There is a breeze, he considered, as he watched the smaller smoke clouds dip and roll in the air currents, and he thought he could hear the crackle of flames, but hoped it was only his imagination.

  Far into the distance, he heard the odd shot, but nothing else. The skies were also empty ever since. He didn’t really want to think about why though, not after what he saw on the television.

  Steve placed a bench seat by his neighbor’s fence and looked over the top to have a peek at what waited for him on the other side. Everything looked clear. There were none of those things in the neighbor’s yard either. “That’s a good start.”

  He placed both his hands on the top of the fence and gave it a little shake. He felt it move a little and heard some creaks, but it should hold me, right?

  With that thought still hovering in his mind, he heaved himself on top of the fence and with great effort; he lifted his right leg into the air and paused for a second halfway over the fence. Then he lifted his other leg up from the bench, and for a moment, he thought he was going to tear his jeans...

  Steve then overbalanced and fell into his neighbor’s yard with a thud. “Man, I need some practice.”