ZOMBIES: Chronicles of the Dead : A Zombie Novel

by Will Lemen

  Maybe the zombie attack that took a turn in a southerly direction was a blessing in disguise. It forced us almost immediately to realize that I had been wrong about traveling by bicycle, and compelled us to look urgently for a motorized form of transportation.

  Setting out again, we pedaled hard to depart the area and distance ourselves from the epicenter of noise we had created during our most recent zombie encounter. Not realizing that we were also running for our lives from a group of men that were determined to catch us and get even for what, in their minds was the mass murder of their fellow comrades. Even though it was their effort to dry-gulch us at their roadblock, that had started the whole fiasco in the first place.

  It's funny how that always seems to be the case, when it comes to revenge.

  Our sprint to leave the area afforded us enough of a gap between both groups of killers. The group of homicidal maniacal zombies that were meandering around and following the sounds that their food was making. And the group of homicidal maniacal humans that were trailing us bent on justifying their misplaced vengeance. It was due to that gap that we were able to stop frequently and check for a suitable vehicle to replace our bicycles.

  "We need to find a company that used a fleet of vehicles, like a taxi company, or a delivery service," I said, hoping we would find something before we ran into another large group of zombies.

  We rode along for a while longer, checking cars and trucks to no avail. Then Gin announced she had solved our problem.

  "I've found the answer to our vehicle quest," she said, pointing to a post office a half a block away.

  "That should do the trick honey, plenty of trucks, plenty of gas, and most important, plenty of keys," I contended.

  Arriving at the post office, we rode to the back of the building where the mail trucks were parked.

  "Jackpot," Jacob yelled, pointing to a tractor-trailer rig.

  "Keep your voice down," Gin scolded. "Eaters will hear you."

  "Sorry, Jackpot!" Jacob said, this time whispering.

  Jackpot it was, not only did the truck have a half-full tank of fuel; it also had the keys in the ignition and a charged battery.

  "We're not going to get any luckier than this," Billy said, climbing behind the driver's seat. "No sleeper unit, but it's got an area back here, one or maybe two of us can sleep in."

  "Gin, grab our stuff off of the bike's and put it in the truck, Jacob, come with me and I'll show you how to release the trailer from the fifth wheel," I directed, as I walked to the trailer.

  I pointed out the crank on the trailer that raises and lowers the small steel wheels that allows the trailer to stand when you pull the tractor away.

  "Crank this and lower these little wheels," I told Jacob. "They need to be lowered far enough to slightly raise the front of the trailer; that takes the pressure off of the fifth wheel."

  "Are you the new drivers?" A voice blurted out from the loading dock. "I've been waiting for you to get here; we've got a lot of mail that has to go out."

  A short rotund woman stepped close to the edge of the dock. She was dressed in an oversized letter carriers uniform that was obviously not issued to her. Her dirty brown hair hung down across half of her greasy pimple covered face. She swept it aside with her ink stained hand, only to have it fall back again impairing her vision on the right side.

  "You need to get out of those civilian clothes and into your uniforms, you can't deliver the mail looking like that," she insisted, pushing her hair back again.

  Billy and Gin stayed in the truck and said nothing, while Jacob and I walked slowly toward the woman.

  "Yeah, we're going to get right on that," I answered.

  "Well you need to hurry, the mails already late going out," she responded.

  "She's crazy, just like that freak on the boat," Jacob whispered, trying not to move his lips.

  "Indeed," I called to her, answering her and Jacob at the same time.

  "Did they leave you to cover this shift by yourself?" I asked her, trying to see if she was alone.

  "Yes they did, they let all of the slacker leave and told me to take care of everything, so now that you drivers are finally here, we'll get the mail moving. But you can't take those guns with you on your route, that's against the rules, you'll have to leave them here," she said, pulling her hair away from her eyes once more.

  My tolerance for these roving nut-cases had reached its limit. I smiled, and walked over to the edge of the four-foot high loading dock, and as I climb up, I asked the obviously fake postal worker.

  "Where do you keep the uniforms?"

  "This way," she said, turning toward the door.

  At that moment, I pulled my pistol from its holster, and stuck the barrel of the gun against the back of her head and pulled the trigger, firing one shot into the obese woman's brain execution style. Her dense oily hair blew away from her scalp as the blaze from the muzzle blast of my gun pushed it aside, and ignited the outer layers of her unwashed hair. The corpulent postal imposter fell forward, her arms at her side, and her hair now on fire.

  "I didn't know that you could do that, must have been because of all the oil in her hair," I said, rejoining Jacob.

  Gin and Billy had witnessed my impromptu execution of the woman and chose to mostly ignore it. The only comment made, was by Gin, who said. "Did you have to use your gun? Now we need to hurry and get away from here."

  Jacob had also watched the demise of the fat lady, and as usual added his two cents.

  "Wow dad, that reminded me of Mary," he said, shaking his head to show his disapproval.

  Not of me killing the fat girl at the post office, and setting her hair on fire, but as a reminder of what I had done to Mary.

  "Killing Mary was an accident, Jake, I told you, I was sure she had been bitten," I responded. "What I just did here was a mercy killing, partly for her, and partly for us.

  I'm tired of dealing with these people that have gone insane, and having to wonder when they're going to completely snap, or if they already have snapped and are hiding some grisly secret that they've decided to share with us just before they make us their next victims."

  "I get it dad, mister nice guy has left the building," Jacob mumbled, as he stopped turning the trailer's crank and stated. "That should be high enough."

  I finished the lesson on unhooking a trailer from a tractor by showing him the latch handle on the fifth wheel.

  "Now all you have to do is pull this, and drive away," I instructed.

  With the truck packed and the trailer released, we pulled away from the post office.

  The woman I had killed was now totally engulfed in flames, her burning hair had caught her uniform on fire, and as it burned, it was acting as a candlewick. As the heat from the fire melted the copious amounts of blubber on her body, the cotton strands in her outfit absorbed the melted lard, which continued to feed the flames. A column of black sooty smoke rose into the air from her burning body and unknown to us, signaling our whereabouts to the trailing ambushers.

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  AMBUSHERS

  Their flatbed truck was parked in the middle of twenty or so dead zombies that were being consumed by six other undead zombies that had been drawn to them by the sound of the gunfire that had put them down.

  "Take care of these zombs!" A man ordered.

  Several men immediately jumped from the truck and engaged the feasting zombies, prematurely ending their ghastly dining experience.

  "These punks aren't too hard to track; they leave dead bodies everywhere they go. I bet if we follow that pillar of smoke in the distance, we'll find more of their handy work," said Russell, the leader of the group of trailing ambushers.

  "Make sure all of these things are brain dead before we leave. Never forget Al." Russell reminded his men.

  Al was a lifelong friend of Russell's; they had met in the fourth grade, and became close friends, and they maintained their friendship all through school and beyond.

  After the
outbreak, Al and Russell were killing zombies and trying to survive just like everyone else. They were forced out of their hometown by large drove zombies, and had found themselves in a small one-horse town looking for a place to spend the night.

  A local church was a prime candidate for their needs, but it was infested with victims of the virus. They decided to rid the church of its unholy visitors, and use it for their own safe refuge.

  However, in the process of clearing out the covey of the dead, Al put down one without a clean head shot, only stunning the beast. The two of them dragged all of the bodies out of the church, and stacked them at the side of the building.

  The next morning, while Al was enjoying his breakfast while sitting on the church steps, he was attacked and bitten by the same stunned zombie he thought he had killed the day before.

  When Al turned, Russell was forced to stick a butcher knife through his best friends eye socket to destroy his brain, and since then, Russell had become anal retentive about making sure every dead body was truly dead. So he always reminded his men of Al.

  "All done boss, one of them, a girl, never was infected, someone just killed her," one of Russell's trusted minions reported.

  "These people are a real class act," Russell replied.

  "I saw another shadow, well, I didn't really see it, you know, when I turned my head it wasn't there anymore," the man reporting added.

  "Just like the night lights, they're there when your eyes are closed, but seem to disappear as soon as you open your eyes, we've all seen them, well almost seen them," Russell acknowledged. "Everybody on the truck!" he yelled.

  Once his men were on the truck, Russell tapped on the roof, leaned over to the driver's window and said. "Let's go find out what that smoke is all about."

  "We've been tracking them for quite some time, Russell. What are you going to do to them when we catch up to them?" asked Lonnie, Russell's right hand man.

  "I'm not sure yet, but if you have a weak stomach you might not want to watch," Russell warned, staring hard into Lonnie's eyes. "Those people, whoever they are, killed my cousin Bobby. That was Bobby's first time out on a retrieval run, and they killed him," Russell stated, as tears began to flood his eyes. "I loved my cousin Bobby, and they're going to pay dearly for what they did."

  The ambushers, guided by the rising smoke from the burning carcass of the fake postal worker, found their way to the post office quickly, and seeing the source of the smoke, Russell's blank expression turned to a scowl.

  "Here we go again, was this one a zomb? Or did they just kill another citizen?" Russell asked, his body language showing his displeasure.

  Lonnie jumped from the truck to check on the burning body.

  "It's too burnt to tell boss, could have been a zomb, or maybe not," Lonnie answered, as he dodged the smoke changing directions in the wind.

  "Doesn't matter, the same people did this, and we're getting close," Russell said, determined to catch the people that killed his cousin.

  "Look at those bicycle's over there, one has blood all over it, I'd say they rode them here after killing the girl we found in the street back there," Lonnie surmised.

  "If you're right, then we need to be looking for a post office vehicle, probably one that's big enough to transport at least four or five people," Russell speculated.

  "Which way now boss?" Lonnie asked. "They could have gone in any direction; we can't follow tire tracks on the pavement."

  "We keep going south, that's the main direction they've been traveling since they massacred my men and murdered my cousin," Russell answered, with a stern look on his face.

  "There's nothing we need here, get back up here and let's get after them," Russell ordered.

  They left the post office with the crazy woman still on fire, and drove south checking their surroundings hopeful that one of them would get a glimpse of their elusive quarry.

  "Everyone keep your eyes peeled, I want to catch these killers before nightfall," Russell barked, persistent in his determination to capture the people that had ended his cousin's life.

  Catching their quarry before nightfall might be easier said than done. The ambushers could travel only as fast as the road conditions allowed, for like their elusive prey, they too had to deal with the occasional zombie or two, or three, and the wrecked vehicles that cluttered the roadway, both of which limited their speed and agility.

  Russell had always been somewhat of a lucky guy, once before the end of days arrived, he had won a small but substantial jackpot in one of the state lotteries. He was a pretty good poker player, though he didn't play on a regular basis, and standing over six feet tall, the ladies didn't find him hard to look at, so he did all right in that department too.

  So, as luck would have it, one of the men in his bunch, just by chance, as he turned to the side and sat down to tie his shoelace, spotted a large postal truck.

  "Over there, look over there, just beyond that gas station, that's got to be them," he said.

  "That's them all right, it's got to be them, stop the truck," Russell ordered loudly, pounding on the roof.

  "Give me those binoculars," he said, pulling the dangling field glasses away from the chest of one of his companions, jerking the man's head up against his body, pulled by the leather strap around his neck.

  The sun was beginning to set, and it would be dark soon.

  "It looks like they've stopped," Russell said, staring into the binoculars. "I see two of them standing by their truck, these guys look like they're military."

  "How many of them are there?" Lonnie asked.

  "I can only see two of them and they're wearing two different uniforms," Russell replied, intently looking through the field glasses.

  "Maybe they're what's left of two units that fought the zombs in the beginning," Lonnie suggested apprehensively, feeling a little uneasy about attacking trained soldiers.

  "It doesn't matter to me who they are or where they came from, we're going to kill them," Russell said, sounding more determined than ever.

  "This looks like a good spot to bed down for the night, if there's no eaters in there," Billy said. "Dad, let's check the inside, if we can't stay here we'll need to find another place before it gets too dark to see."

  "Okay, let's go in, honey the same formation as always," I said to Gin.

  After our experience with Clyde we had adopted the swat style of entry, guns at our shoulders and looking down the sights. That way no time was wasted raising our weapons and finding a sight picture.

  We entered the building, which in its former life was the city jail, which sounded like a great place to spend the night until we got inside.

  The suburban jail stood alone in the middle of a small courtyard, and backed up to a large garage where the police cars had been stored and maintained, giving us the advantage of being able to see in a 270 degree span around the building, depending on our location within it. It also had a stairway that led to a roof hatch. Probably used to watch prisoner trustee's in the courtyard.

  As soon as we cleared the threshold of the jail, we began to hear moans and groans coming from the hallway where the prisoners were housed. The entry way and the main office was zombie free, but as we continued on, the smell of rotting flesh became stronger, and the groaning gave way to the usual growling, snarling, and snapping.

  Opening the heavy steel door that led into the actual jail area, the squeaking hinges on the door alerted the still incarcerated prisoners to our presents. Some of the prisoners had caught the virus and turned into zombies, just as millions worldwide had done at the start of the outbreak.

  The outbreak of the virus was so sudden and overwhelming that most people including military and police, abandon their posts in search of their loved ones. Very few jailers had the opportunity or the inclination to risk their lives taking the time to release their prisoners, so they were left in their cells, and with nobody to feed them, the prisoners that weren't affected by the virus slowly starved to death, died of thirst,
or killed themselves.

  In the end, all of the prisoners fell prey to the disease and were now extremely hungry for human flesh. In fact, most of them were so hungry that they had begun to gnaw on parts of their own bodies to satisfy their cravings.

  Except for the ones that had used bed sheets or some other means to hang themselves in their cells. They would have fed on their own body parts had it not been for their method of self-execution. The weight of their bodies pulling down on the vertebra in their necks and spines for such an extended length (no pun intended) of time, had stretched their necks and backbone to the point that their head was separated so far from their torso that they could no longer reach their mouth with any part of their body except their finger tips. Their rotting muscles having been deprived of any nutrients during their incarceration were too weak to even raise their pathetically scrawny arms. However, the muscles in their jaws seemed to be working just fine as they continued to snap and snarl at us the whole time we were in the cellblock.

  "Well, sleeping in the cells is out of the question," Gin said.

  "The smell is too much to deal with, even if we did remove them from their cells," Jacob added, holding his nose.

  "Not to mention these incessant flies," Gin added, waving her hand in front of her face to shoo away the annoying insects.

  "We'll have to look elsewhere," I said. "Billy, go get those weak excuses for binoculars we have, we'll go up on the roof and see if we can see a better place to go from there. Jake, you go with your brother."

  Soon Billy and Jacob returned with the binoculars and we all headed up the steps to the roof.

  The sun was nearly down as we scanned the area around the jail.

  "All I see that's even worth checking is that gas station over there, it's small enough that we can clear it out in no time, that's if there are any eaters even in it," I said.

  "What's that over there?" Gin asked. "Past the gas station a few hundred yards, you see it?"

  I focused the spyglasses on the small bump on the horizon, and saw that it was a flatbed truck.