HVZA (Book 2): Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse 2

by Zimmermann, Linda

  About to give up, she glimpsed something odd. At first glance it just looked like a rock wall to the southwest, maybe less than three-quarters of a mile away. Leaning up against the turret and holding her breath to steady the image, she stared between the treetops at the small section of rocks that were visible. It was definitely a manmade wall, as it was flat on the top and sides, but there was something strange about the way it was constructed—strangely familiar.

  A breeze blew the trees back and forth, giving her brief extended views, and it finally dawned on her—this was one of those rock-filled, metal mesh barricades used on highways to block the noise from disturbing residential neighborhoods. Becks remembered seeing walls such as this on 287! If it had been an oasis in the desert she couldn’t have been more excited. After all these long months, the end of her journey was literally in sight.

  On the other hand, the end of her life was also in sight if she didn’t figure out how to traverse that distance through hundreds, if not thousands, of zombies. It would take a lot of smoke and flames to draw these crowds from her path, and there was still the small matter of safely getting around in order to set the fires. She also had the option of using sound, but if she had to listen to another disco tape, she would start turning zombie herself.

  All of that could be decided after she got some rest, as she suddenly began to feel very sluggish. What goes up with sugar and caffeine, must come down, and Becks was rapidly bottoming out. And as there didn’t appear to be a lock on the turret room door, she decided for now to just stretch out face down, straddling the peak of the roof—as she had so often seen squirrels do at her home in Nyack—and enjoy the warm spring sunshine as she “rested her eyes” for a few minutes.

  The next thing she knew, a rumbling explosion almost rocked her right off the roof. She had fallen fast asleep and hadn’t been aware that dark thunderclouds were rapidly rolling in. Big, cold drops of rain began to fall and a flash of lightning appeared to strike just a few blocks away. Being exposed at the top of one of the tallest buildings around—wearing pants and a jacket covered in silverware—was not the wisest position to be in during an electrical storm. Not trusting her footing on the slick roof, Becks instead slid on her belly to the gutters, where she was able to drop down and swing back over to the mini porch.

  The French doors were unlocked, so she was spared the noise of having to break glass. The plush carpet silenced her footsteps as she approached the bed and used her hockey stick to poke the bodies to make sure they were really dead. It was a man and a woman with gray hair, and they were holding hands when they died. A sweet picture of the loving couple was on a bed stand, next to several more frames of their large family of kids, grandkids, and even great-grandchildren. As touching as this scene was, it was also quite disturbing.

  First, there were no obvious signs of trauma or weapons, so the couple most likely voluntarily took an overdose of something like sleeping pills—just as Becks’ parents had done. She didn’t know where in the house they had OD’ed, but imagining her own parents in a scene like this got her all choked up. Secondly, if all these people in the photos had taken refuge in this house, she was in for a hell of a time trying to clear it out.

  Checking the bathroom and walk-in closet and finding no one else, Becks locked the bedroom door and slid a heavy dresser in front of it. She only needed a roof over her head right now, not an entire house, so as long as she was safe and dry—and not a prime target for lightning—she was content.

  She could have rolled the corpses off the bed, but they looked so peaceful. They had also both been rather corpulent, and as the mattress must have absorbed a lot of decomp juices, she decided to curl up on the couch to catch a few hours of sleep. Her intention was to leave after dark and make a final push for the highway, but when she awoke, she found there was still a steady rain, so she turned over and went back to sleep.

  Morning didn’t present a much brighter picture, with a chilly, dense fog blanketing the area, and there were still occasional showers. Tiptoeing out onto the mini porch, she was pleased to see the crowd of zombies had dispersed, or so she thought at first. Leaning over the railing, she found that most of them were now crowded onto the porch for shelter and warmth.

  So much for leaving through the front door, she thought.

  She could spend the day twiddling her thumbs, sitting with two corpses, or she could clear the house and search for anything useful. Ten minutes later, after moving the dresser away from the door, she stood with pistols drawn, obviously opting for the latter. Her plan was to open the door to the hall, make a racket, and then pick off the zombies one by one as they came up the stairs. If there were more on the second or third floor, and things got too dicey, she could retreat to the master bedroom and abandon the plan, or try something else. Giving herself a three-count, she yanked open the door and came face to face with…an enormous piece of furniture.

  That explained why the couple had not been eaten. When they had made the decision to end their lives, family members had the foresight to push a huge, oak, chifferobe in front of their door. Perhaps their children and grandchildren already knew they were infected, and couldn’t bear the thought of switching and eating the beloved matriarch and patriarch of the family. In any event, Becks wasn’t sure whether this would help or hinder her operation. Holstering her weapons, she gave the chifferobe a powerful shove, and it barely tipped an inch.

  Son of a bitch…

  Turning around, she braced her back against the stubborn piece of furniture and pushed for all she was worth. It leaned forward, almost to the tipping point, but she slipped on the carpet and it slammed back into the doorframe, which drew unwanted attention before she was in position. Sounds of footsteps came from both the left and right ends of the hallway. As the chifferobe was over six feet high, and was wide enough to cover the door from side to side, the only way for her to see what was going on was to drop down and look underneath, where seven-inch legs provided some viewing space. There were three adults, two males in sneakers and shorts—or maybe they weren’t wearing any pants?—and a female in sweat pants, but barefoot.

  “I suppose I could shoot you all in the ankles,” Becks said, but then had a better idea that would conserve ammunition.

  A spear she hadn’t yet used—in fact, had almost not even made—contained a vicious-looking, serrated, Bowie knife with a twelve-inch blade, ordered by Charles somebody-or-other, she tried to recall, on Patterson Road. It took half a roll of duct tape to secure the beast to a wooden mop handle, and Becks had yet to use it, as it was too wide to thrust into an eye socket, and its weight made it cumbersome to wield. Still, she had brought it along, in case she needed to saw through anything. At the time, she envisioned that being a rope or branch. Now, she envisioned it tearing through at least six Achilles tendons.

  The female was the easiest victim on which to start the process, as she was standing sideways at just the perfect angle. Positioning the wicked, razor sharp, stainless steel teeth perpendicular to the tendon, Becks started to saw away. Oblivious to pain, the zombie just stood there as the knife ripped into her like a shark. It only took a handful of back and forth motions until Becks heard that distinctive pop, as she had cut deep enough for the tendon to completely rupture. About a minute later, she had sawed through the female’s other Achilles tendon, and the thick carpeting drank in the gushing blood.

  Her next victim was the largest male. Becks thought she was in for a workout with him, but shortly after cutting into the tendon, it popped with no more provocation. The weight of the male apparently put more strain on the tendon, making it more susceptible to rupturing.

  His other ankle was a little trickier, as he kept shifting positions as he tried to beat his way through the chifferobe. Becks missed the tendon three times, but was able to cut through muscles and blood vessels down to the bone on two sides of his leg. The third male was also shifty, but by the time she was done, Becks was able to saw through one Achilles tendon, hunks of muscle,
many blood vessels, and a total of six toes. There was no way any of these zombies would be chasing her around the house.

  As the saturated carpeting started pooling with blood, five more adult zombies and three zombie children began making their way upstairs. Sawing legs might incapacitate them all, but at some point she needed to put them down permanently. Using the revolver from the Volkswagen—which was a .22, for which she didn’t have any more ammunition—she was able to use the last two rounds to eliminate the first pair of zombies trying to reach the second floor. It was a sweet piece of marksmanship, as Becks pointed the pistol under the chifferobe, between several bleeding ankles, and waited until the tops of their heads were just visible above floor level.

  The first headshot sent the young female zombie tumbling to her left, plummeting over the railing, and slamming down onto the marble entryway. The second was a male with an enormous head —They grow them big in this family, Becks thought—who fortuitously fell backward onto the other six zombies, knocking them all down the staircase like undead dominoes. In the crush of bodies, one of the children had his neck snapped, another suffered a broken leg, and an adult female sustained a compound fracture in her arm.

  The two fresh kills of family members drew the attention away from Becks and to a long-awaited dinnertime. Those who were able to stand and walk went either to the dead child on the floor, or stayed by the staircase and began tearing into Bighead. The Achilles triplets attempted to descend the staircase, which they all did, although it was face-first, causing a few more broken bones.

  “Now if I can just move this monster out of the way,” she said, getting to her feet and trying to think smarter, not harder. “Ah yes, we can go from Achilles to Archimedes.”

  Becks was quite pleased with herself as she recalled the famous quote from the brilliant ancient Greek, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” Perhaps it was a sound principle for moving a planet, but she wondered if Archimedes had ever tried to move an oak chifferobe?

  Pulling all the plus-size blouses off of one of the heavy-duty, metal closet rods, Becks then placed one end of the rod under the chifferobe at a low angle. Using a footstool as a fulcrum, she let her rear end do the rest of the work. By sitting on the other end of the closet rod, the lever dutifully tipped over the chifferobe. As an added bonus, the massive piece of furniture teetered briefly at the top of the stairs, and with a little kick of encouragement, it slid down the staircase, crushing two of the adults feasting on Bighead. Her hockey stick spear easily finished off the remaining zombies, who were either already badly wounded or occupied eating, leaving Becks free to scavenge the entire house.

  At first, Becks was surprised that there wasn’t much food left, but then she remembered the average size of the family members, as well as the number of mouths to feed, and it made perfect sense. Some canned peaches and granola bars were real treats, as were the canned green beans and carrots. Apparently, the family had consumed all the junk food first, and left the healthy items as a last resort. Becks was more than happy to eat their castoffs.

  Next was a weapons search, which turned up lots of knives (which she didn’t need), a tire iron, and not a single gun! Becks had to keep reminding herself that suburban New Jersey was not rural New York, where the per capita firearms ratio made life much easier for survivors. She also noticed one of the older males—who had probably been a teenager in the 1960s—was wearing a T-shirt with a peace symbol on one side, and on the other was a red circle with a line—the “No” symbol—over the NRA logo.

  “And how did that work out for you?” Becks asked derisively to the corpse.

  What would be of great help, were the four emergency radios she found, the type that could be powered by cranking a handle, or with the inset solar panels. These radios also had bright LED lights and a siren, making them ideal for distracting the herds.

  Just out of curiosity, Becks checked the AM and FM bands to see if anyone was broadcasting anything. There was nothing but static on the FM band, and she was about to give up on AM until the dial reached down to 640. It was one of the old Emergency Broadcast System frequencies, Becks had learned, from some of the antique radios in her parents’ store, which had the Civil Defense logo at 640 and 1240 AM, where the special stations could be found in a crisis situation. Apparently, some government agency in the area had chosen 640 to broadcast the ZAP ads—Zombie Action Program—that spouted endless propaganda about how everything would be fine, even as the world collapsed into chaos.

  The station must still be functioning on solar power, as Becks spent the better part of an hour listening to all the bullshit about the “Military and civilian defense forces standing steadfast as a shield between citizens and danger.” Then there was the one about the CDC assuring everyone that the infection was no worse than a “bad case of the flu.” And she really got a laugh out of the piece played most often, recorded by the president himself, who promised that “no one’s lives would be disrupted” if we just remained calm and went about our business.

  “I got your business right here, Mr. President,” Becks said, grabbing her crotch in an uncharacteristically crude gesture.

  By late afternoon, more dark clouds blanketed the sky and it began to rain again. Becks was terribly frustrated that she would most likely be stuck here another night, but she resigned herself to make the best of it. Lighting some scented candles in the turret room, she snuggled into the comfy chair, draped the afghan around her shoulders, and dined on a surprisingly good beef with mushrooms MRE.

  Her chair just happened to be positioned facing the direction of the rock wall on the highway, and as she was sucking down the last few grains of rice covered in gravy, she could have sworn she saw flashes of light coming from the other side of the wall. The headlights of a convoy? she hoped, and prayed.

  Running back downstairs, she grabbed all of the emergency radios and raced back up to the turret. Cranking like mad, she charged them all enough for their flashlights to shine brightly. Positioning the tea table in front of an open window, she set down three of the lights at different angles, all roughly in directions where she supposed the highway was located. With the fourth, she flashed it on and off and waved it back and forth.

  “One if by land, two if by sea, four if surrounded by zombies,” Becks said, laughing at her own little joke.

  It was a long shot that anyone would see her beacons, but if there was even a one in a million chance, it was worth a try. The friend of a friend’s uncle had won the lottery when Becks was a child, and it had made a great impression on her young mind—longshots can pay off. With that thought, she cranked, and waved, and flashed the lights deep into the night, until with arms and legs weary, she just curled up on the floor, wrapped in the afghan. As she faded, so, too, did her beacons, slowly going dim and dark.

  Awakening mid-morning, Becks actually screamed and stomped her feet when she saw that it was still raining. She spent a restless day pacing, ranting, and looking out the windows to see if the sky was ever going to clear. She had to close the front drapes over the bay window, as every time she passed by, the natives on the porch grew restless, too. The kids in the family had a few handheld video games for which she found fresh batteries, but they were more frustrating than fun, so she went back to pacing and rummaging around the house until nightfall. Then it was back to the turret to use her signal beacons again, until she was too tired to stand or crank.

  Hours later, somewhere in the fog of half-sleep, Becks thought one of the flashlights was shining in her eyes, so she waved her arms in front of her, trying to bat it away, but found nothing but air. Turning over to avoid the light, the back of her head heated up quickly. Sitting bolt upright, she finally realized what was happening—sunshine, glorious sunshine, and not a cloud in the sky! Seizing the binoculars, she scanned the level of the rock wall from side to side for any sign of activity, but there were only trees.

  What did I expect, a “Welcome Ho
me” banner flapping in the breeze?

  Turning her sights to the surrounding streets, her heart sank even further when she saw packs and herds of zombies still filling the streets and yards. Taking a closer look, however, she noticed something odd. Many of them, if not most, were not standing there on the pavement and grass, they were lying down. Unless this was some type of behavior Becks had never before witnessed, these zombies were dead!

  Risking daylight movement, Becks was geared up and ready to go in minutes. The zombie convention was still in full swing on the front porch, but the back yard only had a couple of stragglers. Quietly dispatching them, she then used a lawn chair to help hoist herself over the stockade fence into the next yard. No one was in sight as she wended her way through several more yards to the next street over, and was amazed at what she found.

  At least fifty bodies were sprawled across the road and amongst the tall weeds of a couple of lawns. About a dozen mobile zombies were chowing down on some of the juiciest corpses, and they paid no attention to Becks as she approached the nearest body. Having brought along the tire iron, she raised it and brought it down on the corpse’s forehead in a shattering blow. Then using the prying end, she popped off the top of the skull like the shell of a hardboiled egg. Becks had not lost her mind, she needed to examine the ZIPs membrane that encased the brain. It was one of the prettiest sights she had ever seen.

  Back when she was working at ParGenTech with Phil, as the infection was just beginning in the Hudson Valley, she had come upon the idea of introducing different strains of ZIPs to the zombies. This “competitive suppression” program worked, and it killed the zombies because the competing ZIPs fought one another to the death—leaving telltale dark lesions on the thick, white membrane that the parasites formed around the brain.