Zombies II: Inhuman
Eric S. Brown
What if in a world where the dead walk and the human race faces extinction evolution were to step in and bless a special few with powers far beyond normal man. Could someone who can run as fast as the speed of light or someone who can control energy and channel it through her body truly make a difference at the end of time? Does telepathy work on zombies? Would these powerful few seek to save the world or rule it and how would we normal humans feel about them? Will these super-beings be wiped out by the zombie hordes or save the human race? Plus tales of zombies in space, zombies in the old west, and some very hungry zombie animals- this one has it all.
Eric S. Brown
Zombies II: INHUMAN
Introduction
A lot of people ask me why I write zombie stories. The simple truth is that I am a zombie fan. From the moment I first watched Dawn of the Dead, I was hooked on the zombie genre of horror. I don’t care that many feel zombie tales are cliché. I have never cared that zombie tales are often more difficult to sale than straight horror stories. When other authors ask me if I am worried about being labeled as and known only as a zombie writer, I just smile.
Writing for me isn’t about money or fame. It’s about fun and the walking, flesh-eating dead. Aside from my family, zombies and comic books are my life. I devour every zombie film and book I can get my hands on and yet my wife still lets me live in the same house as her. She’s very supportive of my career and my addiction as long as my zombies never leave my study.
After writing zombie tales for a bit over five years, I started thinking about combining my two hobbies: Superheroes and the Undead. Pretty much any zombie tale worthy of being called one is about the end of the world and the extinction of the human race. In a world where the dead walk is it therefore so unlikely that God or nature or merely evolution would grant a select few the power to survive to carry on the species? That’s the concept behind several of the tales in this collection. “Evolution like Lightning” attempts to quickly answer the question of how normal survivors of an undead plague would respond to super-humans suddenly appearing among them while the tale “Ghost” is actually the origin story of one of the characters from the title tale “Inhuman.”
“Inhuman” itself attempts to take a look at what life could be like for meta-humans who can read thoughts, bend steel with their bare hands, or channel electricity as a weapon in a world where every day is a fight to stay alive. And if super-humans aren’t your thing, well, this book contains zombies in the old west, some very hungry animals, intergalactic zombies used as weapons of war, and traditional zombie tales too. So dear reader, I hope you enjoy reading these tales as much I did writing them and that you remain a fan of the dead. I know I will be a fan of all things zombie for the rest of my days and nothing will ever change that.
Evolution like Lightning
Michael blinked and looked around. They were gone. The pack of dead creatures which had nearly managed to surround him intent on making him their next meal was nowhere to be seen. His heart was thundering in his chest and he reached up to touch the fresh sweat dripping from his hair as it began to sink in. The dead weren’t the only thing that was missing. Everything around him had changed.
He’d been standing on his front porch trying desperately to get back inside his own barricaded house with the supplies he’d looted from what remained of the local grocery store. The dead had followed him home and had been closing in. All he could remember was thinking he’d never get the locks undone in time and that he needed to just drop everything and run. Now he stood in the middle of a city street as barren and dead as the ones in his hometown with skyscrapers looming above him.
A woman’s scream ripped him from his confusion as she rounded the street corner and came running into view. Her clothes were ragged and it was clear the end of humanity hadn’t been as kind to her as it had to him. Here in the city, or wherever the hell this was, it must be harder to survive than just being boarded up in your own house alone. Five of the dead creatures, two women and three men, came bounding around the corner after her. Blood and drool flew from their snarling mouths as they closed in on the woman.
Michael had no weapon. He’d dropped his .38 on his porch along with everything else as he’d fled still he couldn’t just stand by and watch her die. He screamed what he hoped sounded like a battle cry and charged the dead things, punching the lead creature in the face.
As his fist made contact, two things seemed to happen at once. The creature’s head exploded in a burst of bone and brain matter and time seemed to slow down. Michael watched in awe and horror as the blood appeared to float in the air until it finally began to feel gravity pulling it to the street. The other creatures and the woman were barely moving. Michael knew he must be going mad but stayed focused on the task at hand. By whatever miracle the lead creature was dead but there were still four more and only one of him. He spotted a tire rod lying amidst the litter covering the street and ran for it.
Snatching it up, he returned to the creatures. None had moved more than a few inches at best. Driven by an instinct to stay alive and a growing frustration at not understanding what was going on, he tore into them, pounding each in turn until the things were barely nothing more than standing piles of bloody pulp. When he stopped moving all five collapsed to the ground. The woman didn’t look relieved though. She stared at him as if he were a demon who had appeared out of thin air and screamed again.
“It’s okay I am not going to hurt you,” he said as he tried to calm her down.
“What the hell are you?” she gasped.
“My name is Michael,” he whispered moving closer to her. She stood there sobbing as she continued to stare at him. He took her in his arms both to comfort her and himself. It’d been so long since he’d seen another living person. He didn’t feel her knife slide up through his ribs until it was too late. He looked down at the growing red stain on the front of his t-shirt.
He heard her scream something like “die you freaking monster!” in slow motion for what felt like an eternity as she twisted the knife blade deeper and deeper until he fell and the darkness embraced him.
Inhuman
Something thumped in the darkness of the warehouse. Thorne awoke with a start his hand grabbing up the .38 that lay near his sleeping bag. Instinctively he closed his eyes once more and reached out with his mind scanning the building for the thoughts of others. A cold shudder ran through him and he grimaced with disgust as he felt the Holes. Thorne had labeled the Dead “holes” after the first time he’d scanned one of them. Their minds were just active enough for him to feel but barren of thought and terrible to touch as the emptiness in them seemed to go on forever. There were three of them close by and moving in his direction from where the warehouse’s main doors led out onto the docks.
Thorne breathed a sigh of relief. He could deal with three of them if it came to that but the warehouse was a huge place with more than one-way out. With luck, he’d be able to dodge them altogether. He got up and quietly gathered as much of his gear as he could with the hope of slipping away long before the dead stumbled onto him.
A burst of wind blew by him so powerful it nearly threw him from his feet. Thorne stood in the shadows wondering what had just happened. Wind didn’t blow indoors. He reached out again to discover the mind of someone else very much alive. It was full of rage at the holes yet there was an underlying sense of pleasure in its thoughts.
Somehow, the mind had just appeared near the holes. Wait… Now there were only two holes… No, all the holes had vanished. Thorne felt a gust of wind on his face and in front of him stood a young man dressed in street clothes holding a machete that dripped blood onto the wooden floor. Th
e man smiled offering him a hand. “Hi, I’m Nate. Couldn’t help but notice you on my way in. I thought maybe you could use some help.”
Thorne looked Nate in the eye and spoke a single word, “Sleep.”
Nate collapsed tumbling over as if struck by an invisible blow to the head. Yanking some rope out of his backpack, Thorne knelt by Nate and hurriedly tied the man’s hands and feet. It was a dangerous chance to take. More of the dead would surely be coming if the ones Nate had slaughtered could find this place yet Thorne didn’t see any other option. If he simply left Nate behind, the young man could prove far more deadly to him the shambling flesh-eaters if what Thorne suspected about him were even partially true. This man had to be dealt with now. There was no way around it.
Nate woke up and Thorne could tell without even touching his mind that the young man was trying to move.
“Don’t bother,” he whispered, “I’ve shut down selected portions of your brain. You’re not going anywhere soon. Oh and you’re also tied up,” Thorne added almost as an afterthought.
“What the hell are you?” Nate asked.
“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” Thorne laughed. “Are you a speedster?”
“A what?”
Thorne sighed. “That’s what they used to call characters in comic books that had superhuman speed. Are you like that? Is that how you got in here, killed the three dead, and got back to me so fast?”
“If I say yes, are you going to let me go?”
Nate’s eyes went wide. “What the hell are you doing man? I can feel you inside my head!”
“Getting ready to let you go,” Thorne told him.
Suddenly Nate could move. He sped up his atoms and vibrated through the ropes which held his hands and feet, snatched the blade he’d dropped, and froze in place as he swung it at Thorne. The blade stopped inches from Thorne’s throat. Nate couldn’t make himself finish the swing. He took a step back and glared at Thorne.
“I wouldn’t try to run off just yet either,” Thorne smiled. “I’d hate to see what happens to someone when they trip if they move as fast as you do.”
“What do you want?” Nate demanded.
“Other than your word that you’re honestly not going to try to kill me again? Let’s start with how you found me. Just what exactly are you doing here?”
“I like to get out and have some fun okay?” Nate waved the machete through the air finding he could move freely as long as he wasn’t thinking of harming Thorne. “Look dude, I just want to go home alright? Let me go and I swear I won’t chop off your head or come after you.”
“You live around here?” Thorne asked shocked that anyone could actually still have a home in the city.
“It ain’t the Ritz but we get by.”
“We?”
“Yeah, we, man. What did you think you were the last one left and all that crap?” Nate mocked him. “There are four of us. We took over one of the local hospitals. We live on the tops floors, made it where the deaders can’t get up. It’s about as safe as anywhere can be these days.”
Thorne caught a glimpse of Nate’s thoughts. “The people you’re staying with, they’re like us?”
“You mean freaks? Sure man, how the hell else do you think we’ve survived?”
Thorne felt more holes or deaders as Nate had called them making their way into the warehouse. “How far is this hospital?”
“Couple a miles north of here, deeper in the city. I can take you there if you think you can make it.”
“How? The city is overrun with those things. There’s no way we can make it by them all.”
“Speak for yourself. I can get by them easy. As for you, I spotted a national guard APC abandoned just a bit down the road. I bet it still works.”
“Fine,” Thorne answered. “Let’s move. You take the lead but don’t even think about darting off without me, understood?”
Thorne and Nate crept out of the warehouse through one of its street entrances. They stood in the shadow of the building with the sun rising behind them as Thorne took in the scene. The dead milled about. He could see the APC setting in the middle of the road. There were at least three dozen of the dead between him and it and he knew there would be a lot more as soon as they saw Nate and himself.
“Hang tight.” Nate told him. With a whoosh noise and gust of wind, Nate was gone. Thorne heard the APC crank up. Its engine roared to life and its massive wheels rolled over one of the dead as it backed its way into a position to get turned toward the warehouse. Nate must have kicked it into gear because the vehicle roared its way straight at where Thorne stood waiting.
The dead were becoming excited. Dozens upon dozens more of them came out of the surrounding buildings and alleyways pouring into the street. Thorne took aim and downed one of the closer ones with a head shot from his revolver as the APC pulled up to him. Nate leaned out and waved him over. Thorne darted for the cover of the vehicle slamming its heavy metal door into the face of the creatures as he jumped inside. Nate opened up with the anti-personal machine gun on its turret cutting down the deaders around them.
“Stop playing around, damn it!” Thorne yelled at him.
“Ain’t no cause to get riled man,” Nate joked. “Just hit it already.”
Thorne slid into the driver’s seat and the APC plowed through and over the dead as it headed north. Thorne cut the engine as they pulled up to the hospital Nate claimed was his home. There were thousands of deaders in the streets. The APC rocked from the pounding of fists against its armored hide.
“Now what?” Thorne asked.
“Dude, a little faith please,” Nate remarked. “Climb out on top of this thing and I’ll get you in. Trust me.”
Thorne had no choice. He climbed up through the gun turret out onto the APC’s roof looking down into the sea of hungry faces around him. He knew the things were going to flip the APC at any moment. Wind blew over him and he felt Nate’s arms around him. The world became a blur as he was hurled upwards. Nate had darted out of the APC running down the street, dodging the dead as he built up speed then headed back like a streak of lightning taking Thorne in his arms.
He carried him up the side of the hospital and in through a window on the eighth floor. The next thing Thorne knew he was bouncing across the hospital’s tile floor as Nate dropped him and fell to his own knees panting. Nate appeared on the verge of passing out. Sweat dripped from his black hair and he glared at Thorne.
“You weigh a freakin’ ton dude,” he commented.
“One hundred and seventy pounds, actually,” Thorne replied as he started to get to his feet as a hand fell onto his shoulder. He looked up into the face of a stunningly beautiful young woman. She had short brown hair cut well above her shoulders and wore a green dress that was breathtaking. She smiled at him as electricity shot through his body and his world went black.
Thorne awoke in a hospital bed. His hands and feet were bound to the bed by leather restraints. The young woman sat next to him with her hand placed open palmed on his chest.
“Nate told us what you do. Even think about getting into my head and I’ll fry you to a crisp,” she warned him.
Nate stood off in a corner of the room. A tall blond man stood at the foot of the bed looking down at Thorne.
“Welcome to our home,” he said in a voice which was anything but friendly. “I am sorry about the restraints but even such as us can’t take chances these days. You’ve met Nate. The young lady beside you goes by the name of Arc. You may call me Victor.”
“I thought there were supposed to be four of you,” Thorne commented.
“There are,” Victor assured him as the image of a man appeared in the room. His body was transparent and shimmered as it floated above Victor. The ghost-thing waved hello and vanished into the air as quickly as it had manifested.
“Yes,” Victor nodded, “As cliché as it is, his name is Apparition. He is only with us sometimes. As I understand it, he was once like you, Thorne, but upon his death he
evolved so to speak. It’s hard for us to communicate with him but I believe he claims his body is still out there on the streets somewhere, perhaps one of the creatures outside this very hospital. We do not know for sure nor does it matter. Obviously, the state he exists in keeps him from helping out much. But what of you Thorne? What you have become surely is rather pointless in a world filled with the dead.”
“I make do,” Thorne informed him coldly.
“Do your gifts work on the dead?” Victor asked. “Or are they truly mindless?”
Thorne remained silent. The girl called Arc glanced up at Victor. “Let me fry him. He’s too dangerous to keep around.”
Thorne stared at her. How could someone so beautiful be so cold? How could she think so little of life in a world where it was so rare?
Victor raised his hand. “You have two choices Mr. Thorne. You’re either one of us or you’re dead. Can you be of use to us? Do your powers work on the dead?”
Thorne frowned. “Kind of, I can sense the dead as well as I can sense the living. Knowing where and how many of them there are around me is what’s kept me alive.”
“Hmm... Like a radar sense for souls. Interesting,” Victor mumbled.
“And they are pretty much mindless. I can’t bend their wills and make them eat themselves or anything if that’s what you’re wondering. There simply isn’t enough left in them to work with that way. I have though on occasion with great effort been able to shut off the senses of one or two of them just enough for me to slip by unnoticed but it’s like trying to drive a car with your hands tied.”
“I see,” Victor announced. “You are better than the norms. You may stay with us if you like as long as you understand that if you touch our thoughts or scan us even passively without our direct consent I will personally rip you to shreds and feed you to the monsters in the streets below.”
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