ZOMBIES: Chronicles of the Dead : A Zombie Novel

by Will Lemen

  We now looked like a rag tag bunch of third world rebel soldiers, fighting against some oppressive banana republic government. But the reality of the situation was. We were one of many small oppressive governments across the nation, and probably across the world, fighting for our lives on a daily basis against a cannibalistic rebel enemy of unknown origin, unknown numbers, and unknown locations, which at times, unwittingly collaborated with other small oppressive governments just like us, in their effort to defeat us.

  "You two look very paramilitary," I told Mary and Gin. "I'm proud to have you in my unit."

  The girls giggled at my remark, and did their best to do a proper salute.

  "Ok, enough messing around, we can't take any chances remember," Billy reminded, picking up his share of the supplies and ammo.

  I bent down, reached for the items that I had been allocated to carry, and restated his comment.

  "He's right; we need to get moving right now."

  Walking in single file, for what seemed like miles, I kept looking back over my shoulder, checking for the bushwhackers that might be following us. After several hours of walking, we found ourselves far from the freeway, and far from any vegetation that vaguely matched any of our uniforms. We were in the heart of what you might call the uptown area. Small business storefronts, parking lots, drive thru banks, and numerous other buildings ripe for the picking. However, with no means of transportation, we were already carrying as much as possible, and the load was wearing us down.

  "Nothing but good news people, looks like we've found plenty of places to sleep tonight. Vehicles are starting to become abundant again," I said, pointing at the buildings ahead.

  Just then, a very tall zombie appeared from an alleyway.

  "I spoke too soon; there is some bad new right in front of us."

  I pulled my tomahawk from my tactical vest.

  "Be ready, you know there's always more than one," I warned, while approaching the giant stumbling menace.

  I timed my swipe at the zombie so that the tomahawk impacted its skull in between its off balance lurches. As the small ax dug a thin hole in the cranium of the zombie, two more appeared from the same alleyway.

  These two new zombies were children, girls, one about eight, and the smaller one looked like it was barely old enough to be able to walk, maybe one and a half, or two years old at the most.

  Mary had run up beside me ready to slay any zombies that might pose a threat, but seeing the baby zombie, she stopped dead in her tracks.

  Jacob stepped forward; leaped over the once towering zombie I had just put down, and stuck his sickle into the side of the eight year olds head.

  The horizontal swing was powerful, but not well placed. Jacob's weapon had embedded itself directly behind the little girls jaw, and the point of the blade had exited out the other side of her face directly behind her jaw, and right below her ear on the opposite side, completely missing her brain and leaving her a fully functioning pissed-off zombie.

  Jacob was able to hold her at a distance, by maintaining a firm grip on his sickle's handle, and keeping his arm straight.

  Mary was still self-immobilized, frozen in some kind of panic, or fear, or disbelief, or something, whatever was holding her back from defending herself against the attack was irrelevant at that moment, although the baby was sickeningly freaky looking, and small, it was still dangerous, and it was about to reach Mary.

  Jacob, my son, was struggling with his zombie, and losing ground. Billy and Gin were nowhere in sight, and Mary was about to die at the hand of a two year old. I had to make a decision, I had to choose between saving my son I'd known and loved for sixteen years, or saving Mary, a girl I had met only a few days ago.

  This is the kind of situation that induces a phenomenon, called Tacky Psyche. I had experienced this phenomenon fully on two other occasions in my life. Once, when I pulled out in front of a car that was going about forty miles an hour, and another time, during a sparring match at a karate class I was attending.

  Tacky Psyche gives you the sensation or illusion of time slowing down. Everything around you begins to move in slow motion, some people say that time really does slow down; others say that it's an illusion, and that your brain just makes you think everything is slowing down.

  I personally think that sometimes, during times of extreme stress, or impending bodily harm, your brain speeds up its thought process so much in an effort to avoid the danger, that everything around you seems to slow down, and you seem to be watching the action, and reacting to the action, but you're detached from the actual time involved in performing the action.

  In any case, when it does happen, Tacky Psyche allows you to do phenomenal things, things that you would not normally be able to do. It allows you to be in the "Zone" so to speak.

  In an instant, I drifted into the realm of Tacky Psyche for the third time in my life; my choice was clear as I bolted toward Jacob. I seemed to be watching from a different dimension, as my tomahawk smashed into the eight year olds skull with astonishing speed and gargantuan force.

  Then I turned to the baby and watched her in slow motion fall onto Mary's leg and bury her teeth into Mary's shin. The pain of the bite quickly awakened Mary from her trance, and with her left hand, she slapped the little girl as hard as she could in the side of the face, knocking her to the sidewalk face down.

  Mary raised her left foot and stomped down hard on the back of the baby's head, slamming her teeth into the concrete and flattening her nose. As Mary raised her foot again to give the baby zombie a second blow, I buried my tomahawk into the top of Mary's head, killing her instantly.

  Then, just as sudden as it had begun, the Tacky Psyche phenomenon was gone. Mary's body dropped down across the two year old, in real time, and pinned her to the ground. I lifted my foot and delivered the second blow that I had denied Mary, to the head of the little zombie toddler, crushing both the front and the back of the baby's skull, and putting an end to the macabre scene.

  Don't misunderstand, Tacky Psyche doesn't turn you into a stone cold killing machine, killing Mary was my choice, and my choice alone.

  Tacky Psyche is more of a state of mind. Your body reacts faster than usual because your brain is reacting faster than usual. The information that your brain is taking in is processed many times faster than normal, which kind of gives you a sense of having an out of the body experience, or like watching the action as if you were watching a television show close up and in 3D. However, you still have complete control over your movements.

  I then turned my attention toward finding Billy and Gin.

  "Billy, Gin?" I called out in a loud whisper that received no reply.

  I called again.

  "Billy, Gin?"

  "We're right here honey," Gin answered, stepping out of a doorway two storefronts behind me.

  Relieved to see my wife, but concerned about my older son, I asked. "Where's Billy?"

  "Right here dad," Billy answered, as he too stepped out of the same doorway. "We had to deal with a couple of eaters that came out of this store."

  "What's wrong with Jacob? Is he all right, why is he kneeling down, is he hurt?" Gin asked looking back and forth at Jacob and me.

  Jacob had watched while I put down the eight-year-old zombie and then planted my tomahawk into Mary's head, and finally ending the battle by finishing off the maniacal baby. He was now kneeling at Mary's side.

  As we approached, Jacob asked. "Why did you kill Mary dad?"

  "She got bit son, you saw her get bit," I answered.

  Jacob pulled Mary's pant leg up, exposing her leg.

  "But, the bite didn't break the skin, see," Jacob answered sharply, pointing to Mary's unmarked bare leg.

  "I saw the eater bite her; I thought she was infected, sorry. If she hadn't froze, she'd still be alive, she almost cost you your life. Better her, than one of us, and if she was still with us, the next time it might have been one of us," I said in my own defense, feeling no remorse for what I'd just d
one.

  Jacob looked up at me, obviously not pleased with my decision.

  "You could have waited, and checked her wound before you killed her," he said.

  "You know how fast they can change, and Mary was quite a good fighter, it was her or us, I chose us, it's that simple," I responded, starting to get annoyed. "She's dead now, there's nothing we can do about it, we'll just have to get over it."

  "You two stop arguing, we need to find a place to sleep tonight, it'll be dark soon, we need to find someplace safe," Gin said, asserting her authority.

  We decided that one of the stores in this neighborhood would have to do, so we started looking for a shop that had a door that was still intact, and wasn't locked.

  "Here, what about this one," Billy said in a low voice. "It's open and the door looks good."

  Billy had found a shop that was just what we were looking for, it had a good unbroken door, and it wasn't locked. Plus, the shop had one more thing, transportation, it was a bicycle shop.

  "This is perfect," Jacob said, already getting over Mary's premature death. "I miss my bicycle, are we going to ride bikes the rest of the way to Galveston?"

  Looking at the large selection of two-wheeled transportation in front of us, I answered in the affirmative.

  "I think we should give it a try, at least until we can find another car or truck. But first we need to make sure there aren't any eaters in here."

  After searching the shop and finding no zombies inside, we secured the front and back doors, and using what little sunlight that was left, we examined the assortment of bicycles that was now available to us. We each found a suitable bike that we thought would serve our purpose, and pulled it off the rack. Darkness fell as we separated our choice of new bicycles from the others and prepared an area to sleep.

  The night passed, and we all got a good night's sleep for a change, no zombies came knocking, no one in the group died, well, not counting Mary, and no humans tried to kill or capture us.

  The next morning, we woke up refreshed and ready to travel.

  "My bike has a flat tire, no wait, two flat tires," Gin whined.

  "They probably all do, there'll be a bicycle pump around here someplace," Jacob said confidently.

  He looked around the room.

  "Over there on the wall, there's a bunch of them."

  We all walked over to the display wall and helped ourselves to one pump each, we retrieved the bike of our choice and began to inflate the tires.

  "To bad we're not in a motorcycle shop," Billy remarked. "That would be really cool if we all had choppers."

  "Personally, I think, except for extreme emergencies, you would have to be out of your mind to try to traverse a zombie apocalypse on a motorcycle, especially riding single on one. It's true you can go places that you couldn't go in a car or truck, you can maneuver through tight spots that you can't in a larger vehicle. There are several advantages that you would have riding a motorcycle, but there are a couple of huge disadvantages you would face while riding one.

  First, you have absolutely no protection around you, no doors, no windows, no nothing, second, it is very difficult to handle a weapon of any kind while trying to maintain control of a motorcycle, unless you're only going in a straight line and maintaining the same speed," I informed them, having owned a motorcycle before the plague devastated our world.

  "So, you want us to ride a bicycle?" Gin interjected, rolling her eyes.

  "A bicycle is a different story. A bike is not nearly as heavy as motorcycle, you're able to ride a bicycle easily with one hand on the handlebars, and you can stop a bicycle faster, and either hold it up with your legs, or just jump off and fight on your feet if you need to, without getting hurt. A bicycle can carry a small amount of your supplies, strapped either to the handlebars, or on the back fender, or both. The only disadvantages that a bicycle has compared to a motorcycle, is speed, and of course, you have to pedal it. So when there's a choice between riding a bicycle, or riding a motorcycle, in my opinion the bike is the better choice. However in this case, the choice is between riding a bicycle and walking, I say we ride," I explained at length. "I'm tired of carrying all this stuff."

  "I'm with you," Gin agreed.

  "Me too," said Jacob, excited to get to ride a bike.

  With the bikes packed and ready to go, we ate a small breakfast and checked the map.

  "I think going that way is our best bet, what do you think?" I asked Gin.

  "Looks good to me, considering I have no idea what the roads are like, or how many hills we'll have to ride up, or any of that stuff, so of course it looks good to me," Gin said in a comical sarcastic tone.

  I hoped she would be in the same good mood after the first hill we'd have to pedal up.

  A quick check of the street, and the all clear was sounded; we wheeled our new rides out of the bicycle shop and onto the street.

  "I haven't been on a bicycle in quite awhile, I'm a little rickety, Gin admitted as she rode along in a serpentine motion.

  It wasn't long before we got to test my theory on how much easier it is to fight off zombies on a bicycle, as opposed to a motorcycle.

  Three blocks from the bike shop, we ran into a rabble of the undead killers, probably twenty or so, I'm not sure of the exact number, we didn't bother to count them.

  We stopped at first to assess the situation, and then decided that the best course of action was to ride through the thinnest part of the horde as fast as possible and dodge as many as we could.

  "Get your cutting weapons ready, dodge them if you can, but don't take any chances, this isn't a game, if they get to close, slice them," I warned. "Stay together and pedal hard, let's go."

  The zombies were scattered, not clumped in a tight group, which allowed us to maneuver through them at a fairly high rate of speed. As usual, are first weapon of choice was our silent edged weapons, saving the loud zombie attracting firearms for absolute emergencies.

  This time I didn't lead the way, I wanted to bring up the rear so I could keep an eye on everyone else, and be there to help if needed.

  Jacob went into the crowd first, and then Gin and Billy, followed by me.

  Jacob weaved his way through the zombies quickly and without a problem. Gin's prowess on a bicycle left much more to be desired. She made it passed the first few zombies without putting herself in any danger; however, about a third of the way through, her lack of riding skill became apparent. She was starting to make some bad decisions on the best route to take to avoid the onslaught of assaulting zombies.

  As I watched her ride closer and closer to the menacing killers, I wasted no time in an effort to close the gap between us and keep from becoming a victim myself. I pulled up behind her, not daring to pull alongside her because of her wobbly movements. To collide with her in the middle of a zombie horde would mean certain death for us both.

  However, riding behind her, all I could do was watch, so I decided to quickly go around her and fend off any zombies that were close.

  As I rode by her, I yelled. "Follow me!

  Hoping that she could maintain her balance and I could lead her through the mob to safety. I aimed for a gap in the group of savage beasts, but to get to that gap, first I had to eliminate one of the zombies that blocked my way.

  "Go around me!" I yelled to Gin, as I rode my bike directly into the zombie, planting my front wheel into the dead man's crotch.

  Timing was critical; the impact caused the zombie to bend at the waist, forcing its slobbering mouth and snapping teeth over the handlebars directly at my face.

  At the moment of the collision, I jumped off the back of my bike, pushing it farther into the dead man's body, I swung my tomahawk diagonally across his head at the same time, chipping off the top of his skull and exposing the maniac's now partially dissected brain.

  The zombie fell on top of my bicycle, pinning it to the street, leaving me without transportation.

  Now on foot, I saw that my family had all made it to safety bey
ond the horde, and had stopped to wait for me.

  "Hurry honey," I heard Gin scream, as the ferocious cannibals encircle me.

  "There's too many of them dad, use your gun," Jacob shouted, just before I heard his carbine's violent report.

  Taking his advice, I reached for my pistol as the two zombies closest to me fell to the ground; Jacob's aim had been true.

  I fired my pistol, dropping another zombie in its tracks.

  Gin and Billy had now joined in the fight, and the sound of gunfire echoed through the streets bouncing off the hard surfaces of the buildings, and announcing our location to the world, while numerous zombies fell around me.

  With the now dead, undead scattered about, I pulled my bicycle from underneath the slain zombie that had trapped it there, and quickly rode to join my family.

  Reaching my family, I said. "We need to find another way to travel, this isn't working for me."

  "It sure isn't working for me," Gin said, frowning and shaking her head.

  Billy mounted his bike and added. "All that noise is going to attract more eaters, let's go."

  Billy was right, the noise did attract more zombies, and it attracted something else.

  The ambushers hadn't given up, they were still tracking us. Our bloody misdirection ruse had only served to delay the inevitable, and they were able to find our true direction of travel despite our best efforts.

  Because the ambushers hadn't caught up to us yet, we had naively thought that our deception had worked and they had no idea where we had gone. That wrong assumption could have been our ultimate undoing.