Zombie Lake: Still Alive Book One

by Javan Bonds

  Even considering my passionate hatred for Piers Morgan’s worthless news anchoring, I have to give credit where credit is due: he was the first to name the afflicted "peevies." He was one of the first media retards to demand that the undead be called "plague victims," rather than pop-culture names like zombies, walkers, undead, etc. His suggestion was quickly shortened to "PV," and ultimately became "peevie." Ironically, the father of this nickname would probably say it was a racial slur and even though he, hopefully, died a horrible death at the hands of these nudist cannibals, he deserves a nod for coining a new term to insult these mindless monsters.

  I know this sounds like complete fiction—hell, I know I wouldn’t believe it if they weren’t walking around right outside my dock after dark, but if you are reading this and there are no peevies, then you are obviously from the distant future when they finally came up with a way to stop this plague, or virus, or whatever it is; either that or you’re what humanity became post-apocalypse. Now that I think about it...you could even be a space alien that happened to stumble upon this...but if that’s the case, then how the hell are you reading English? Okay, never mind. I tend to over-think shit.

  And the virus spread a lot quicker than we expected it to. Four days...it literally took only four damn days for the plague to surge across the state! Apparently, Patient Zero was a chimpanzee in Mobile that had been shipped over here to be a guest of the Birmingham Zoo. It had been deliberately infected with a mutant virus—a perfectly delivered bio-weapon; but no one has claimed responsibility for it yet. Of course, the adorable rabid primate bit the zoologist caregiver that received him like he was some kind of big-eyed orphan. You can guess how it spread from there. Johnny comes home with a chunk out of his arm, saying that a crazy monkey bit him, but, yeah, not the poor monkey’s fault. Just like in movies, his mom keeps him in bed to rest and recover from the fever the bite gives him. She comes quietly into his room to give him some soup, and Bam! He bites her. She turns, runs outside, bites the neighbor who was just standing there, ready to help the sweet old lady next door. He turns and bites his wife and kids, then the damn kids go to school and the scene repeats itself and multiplies exponentially. The rest is history...the story plays out exactly like in a horror movie; the virus does what it was made to do: becomes epidemic before people even know what’s going on. The monkey? He’s gone, man. Preying on whatever creatures Alabama can offer up.

  The Viva Ancora arrived in Guntersville on May 1, the day the zombie virus first struck Mobile, so my apocalypse code word is May Day, now that’s funny. Just another reason to hate Communism. And by the fifth of May, it was all over Alabama. I seriously doubt any of our local Mexicans will ever celebrate Cinco de Mayo again. That reminds me...I wonder if Bob made it.

  With the excessive media coverage and super-popular series "The Walking Dead" suddenly becoming a reality, you would think people would have reacted more quickly. It took them a whole fucking day just to quarantine Mobile, and by then, hundreds of bitten, but as yet unturned, PVs had gotten on trains, busses, international and transcontinental planes…just trying to be helpful in spreading the virus across the entire world quicker. It was worse than Pandemic II on "Addicting Games." Bitten people went nuts—unbitten folks didn’t know how to react. I kinda wish I was in Madagascar right now—they don’t even have an airport and have surely closed their single seaport by now. Oh come on, you know what I’m talking about especially if you wasted hours of your life playing shitty flash games.

  In 28 Days Later, I Am Legend, Night of the Living Dead...basically any zombie movie you can think of, infection takes weeks, if not months, to spread across the globe. Maybe it was just Alabama, but everyone seemed to be in a state of fucking insane denial. Despite decades of literary prediction and warning, they still refused to accept that they were just speeding up the fall of mankind by going about their business as if everything was normal and under control. They chose to completely ignore the ravenous blue nudists sweeping northward, like, "If you just ignore them they’ll go away," or some shit. The fact that the light-sensitive peevies only traveled in the open at night should have given people time to prepare, make a plan at least. It was almost as if God was saying, "Hey! Dumbasses. I’m giving you nearly fourteen hours every day to figure out how to save yourselves. Get a move on!" But no. Everybody ignored the apocalyptic signs, their messed up neighbors, even the TV coverage of mayhem and destruction. Just more nightly entertainment streaming into their safe little homes.

  The city government of Guntersville did get some kind of clue a few hours before the zombie horde overwhelmed the chokepoints of the causeways and invaded the island, but, yeah, too little, too late. Again, this nearly seemed choreographed for a really bad cult film. The unimaginably gormless law enforcement officers believed they could hold back the insane cannibals with tear gas, rubber bullets, and riot shields. You can guess how long they lasted against the starving, crazed animals they fought back. Seems only primates (humans included, unfortunately) can actually get the infection, and then they will completely devour any animal they can catch…except other humans. It’s complicated. What happens is they never get more than a single bite from a person before the virus "sours the milk." I guess that just irritates them and drives the hunger for long pig beyond Hannibal Lector himself.

  It was almost comical watching someone turn during daylight hours, at least from a safe distance, that is. First, there is a slow color change in an infected’s skin to this crazy bright blue. Then he or she rips their clothes off, covers their eyes and stumbles around like a drunk, biting every human within reach. It doesn’t have to be a bite; the infection is nearly instantaneous upon the transfer of any bodily fluid. It can take nothing worse than a scratch, any break in the human’s skin and a little zombie saliva. There have even been reports of people catching the plague just by being downwind and close by when one of the monsters sprayed its putrid, mustard gas-style shit into the air...fuck, I hope that’s not true—that’s gotta be the worst way to go. The peevies’ eyes are the main reason they stay nocturnal. UV light doesn’t actually burn their skin, like vampires or I Am Legend-type zombies. I think they just have a problem with permanent pupil dilation or with weak corneas or some other medical ailment that I can’t even pronounce...I got a C- in Anatomy class. So sue me. Anyway, they seem to tolerate being in heavy shade and I’ve even seen them wandering around on extremely cloudy days. They’ll come out just before dusk if you piss them off or entice them well enough. But so far it looks like they pretty much stay hidden during the bright daylight. Of course, I’m not taking any chances. I haven’t been stupid enough to be anywhere but safe on the boat after four in the afternoon. I stayed informed using the TV and the radio, until the electricity went out. Crow makes runs whenever she wants to…sometimes she brings reports.

  I know the question has already crossed your mind. You’re wondering if any were immune to the disease. I can’t say for sure; I never saw anyone like that interviewed on TV. But I’m thinking having immunity to the zombie plague would be fucking terrible. Think about it: bodily fluids transfer the virus, right? So these rabid, starving animals would bite you, you’d be suicidal. You wouldn’t discover your immunity until you got bit—about the same time the peevie figured it out. When your tasty meat didn’t instantly become nasty, the monster, over-joyed, would proceed to eviscerated and gnaw you to the bone while alive. I wouldn’t doubt that my perfect brother has some type of immunity and can save the world with a sample of his blood...but me? I will probably die a slow and painful death; hell, might even just starve before I could even find him.

  Things got a lot quieter after the first few days of chaos, and since then we’ve heard no vehicles and we have seen absolutely no one living. It’s become so quiet that the only sound is waves splashing against the boat or shore, and the noise of some random animals looking through trash, which is usually followed by screeches, moans, and the clumsy footfalls of the peevies catching them. Oddly, there a
re no bird noises.

  Despite what we’ve all been told, zombies do not constantly moan. They make noise when they see something that might be tasty, just like any other wild animal. Only the occasional howl or grunt can be heard at night, sometimes a random car alarm sets off. I remember watching specials about great apes on the Discovery channel and how they communicate mostly verbally. Maybe these damn murderous nudists have some form of guttural language. They just ain’t loud about it. Yeah, I call them "nudists." Like I mentioned, this particular virus makes them frantically strip naked upon turning, like they can’t stand having anything touching their skin. Just think about the horror of being torn into while staring at a blue penis that is probably covered in excrement. Yeah, that too. They splatter rotten baby diarrhea with nearly every step. But I’ll detail that pretty fact later; I don’t want to rile up the fish in my stomach.

  So, once you are bitten the virus disseminates into your bloodstream, and immediately the Peevies see you as a fellow undead and summarily ignore you. Great, only you’re still scared shitless because you don’t turn immediately. They walk away, and you run like hell...until you start to turn blue and get very, very hungry. No, I’m not speaking from personal experience, dumbass. We’ve seen it happen dozens of times from out here. Everyone on the dock was bitten, begged for mercy, prayed to their God, and then turned.

  So anyway, once things quieted down, Crow and I decided to do a little scavenging for weapons and supplies within close distance of the ship. When I joined the crew, the contract I signed mentioned something about weapons being forbidden onboard. I debated stowing away a little pistol, but I was afraid I would get caught and thrown off the boat. Now, I seriously wish I had hidden my gun. Dammit, I should have at least snuck a hunting knife into my footlocker...forgive me, fellow country boys; first decent job...couldn’t afford to lose it. But now that I think about it, what good would a fucking hunting knife do versus a zombie? I’m not stupid enough to get that close to one. Since we were basically unarmed, save some fish gutting equipment and a couple of kitchen utensils, our only defense was to run back to the ship and not make a sound until the damn zombie got bored and walked away—which we have done more than once. That made staying within a block of the boat a pretty easy decision.

  Okay, I believe I’m fairly intelligent, but I had no fucking clue what a city "block" was until a few years ago. I spent my entire life in rural Alabama (well, we took a few out-of-state trips), and no one I know has ever used the term "block." I know now that this is the developed area on either side of a road between two intersections. And though there are many instances of this in cities, even in the cities of Marshall County, I do not recall a single person ever referring to these spaces as such. Maybe that’s because I’ve always resided on back roads. Where I grew up, a "block" could have been anywhere from half a mile to three miles of possibly nothing but cattle pasture. Yeah, I’d heard the term used in movies, but didn’t really comprehend the space. I now do.

  I don’t know why, but when Crow ordered me to "stay within a block," I grinned. It’s amusing to me when people assume words are common to everyone. Like, in my vernacular, we call all soda pop "Coke." Doesn’t matter if it’s Pepsi, a root beer, or a fucking Dr. Pepper. It cracks me up to hear anyone call an eighteen-wheeler a "semi." And Yankees, yep, our word for East Coasters, actually say "youse" instead of y’all. In fact it makes me laugh just to hear anyone speak the name "Matt Damon." While I was laughing about this stupid shit, I realized: Crow had given me an order. I’m the fucking acting Captain! Ah, forget it. I don’t give a shit…pretty sure the world doesn’t need another dictator. Speaking of "dictator," isn’t there supposed to be a fascist nut case in every zombie story? I’ll be sure to look for Hitler Jr. while scavenging the city, or at least my own block.

  Dammit, enough rambling. I need to move forward with this entry. So we were tasked with searching the nearby surrounding area for weapons. We decided to remain close enough to watch each other’s backs. The storefronts closest to the dockside were an antique store, a Salvation Army, and a stockbroker’s office. Didn’t seem likely to procure anything better than an old flannel shirt and a couple of pens. We needed a car, if we had no luck with securing one, we would try those shops anyway, though we both agreed they were most likely empty of firearms. If all else failed, we could creep to the police station a little farther down the road; pretty sure we’d find some weaponry there. We spent most of the day searching the block with, surprisingly, no zombie encounters. When we met up and showed our treasures, I was disappointed to discover that our booty consisted of three pocket-knives, a pair of brass knuckles, a hammer, and a crowbar between us.

  Obviously, almost no one around here prepared for fallout from Mobile. It claimed Guntersville simply because everyone thought they had more time. After all, the problems were happening hundreds of miles away, and our sadly over-confident citizenry figured that their "island" was pretty defensible. Boy, were they fucking wrong. So, since the population had just been driving around like it was any other day, like there weren’t people biting other people and shitting themselves just a few hours down the road, there was very little weaponry of any kind to be found in their cars. There was one car abandoned on our block. All the rest were neatly parked and completely empty of firearms.

  As we began our long, sad, walk back to the ship, an idea came to me and I was pretty excited about it. "We should search the other boats in the dock!" I told Crow.

  I’m not sure why, but until then neither of us super-geniuses had paid attention to the boats moored all around our new home. Crow made it seem like she’d already thought of it but just failed to mention it. She sarcastically congratulated me upon my suggestion, "Good thinking, white boy." I managed to hold my tongue and not cuss at her like the bitch she was being and instead, calmly discussed our method of searching.

  "So you wanna use the buddy system again?" I asked.

  I don’t think either of us considered the other a "buddy." We were only staying together out of necessity. But she agreed that it was a good enough plan by simply nodding her head. We began with the small yacht farthest from our ship, each searching different rooms simultaneously. Besides a few expensive fishing rods and a decently stocked tackle box, the first three boats contained nothing useful except a couple of flare guns. I couldn’t see us fighting off hordes of zombies with flare guns, regardless of the box of extra flares that came with each loaded gun, but ok, at least we could send a signal if a larger ship passed by. The fourth vessel was a pontoon boat. I’d hoped to find at least some beer in a cooler, but there was nothing on it other than a crappy fishing rod that wasn’t worth taking and some life jackets. The fifth and final yacht—the closest to our ship, naturally, contained something that almost made Crow squeal with delight. Hell, I almost squealed myself. A beautiful looking compound bow with an accompanying quiver of arrows was carefully displayed above a leather sofa. This bounty was literally next-door to where we had been living and neither of us had bothered to look for the justifiable stock of projectile weapons kept aboard boats.

  I figured when I noticed the spool of fishing line sitting beside the quiver that this had been used for bow fishing. I had never participated in this sport but had friends that tried it out and said it was fun. Hell, I don’t even find traditional fishing that enjoyable. I only started fishing a lot when I joined the crew because there wasn’t anything else to do. Now I do it for survival. I had never used a bow for any type of sport. I’d only been deer hunting with a rifle, and I can’t even remember the last time I shot a bow and arrow…high school, maybe.

  After we got our new weapons back on the ship, I spent the next couple of days practicing my aim, and before you think it—no, I’m not fucking retarded enough to waste arrowheads. I made sure to take them off. I faced the bow of the ship from the poop deck as that would give me more area to screw up and not lose a precious arrow. I know you are laughing at the mention of "poop deck," but get over it, i
t’s not that funny. I will admit that at one time I had no clue why it was called that, but apparently it has something to do with a "Poopa," a doll in the form of some ancient Roman god that sailors put in the back of the ship to watch over them. Either that, or something about the French word for "rear." I guess I didn't give enough of a shit (pun intended) to listen when Captain Barr droned endlessly on about his beloved nautical trivia, God knows he had enough of it. Now, I do enjoy history, and social studies was my favorite class in school. But his stuff was beyond useless, and really, I was only there for the money, so don’t expect a lot of knowledge about sailing ships from this journal.

  Even though I would not be winning any archery contests, practice paid off. This morning I hit something the size of a shoe about ten yards away. I was pretty satisfied with that, actually, and I was fairly certain that I wasn’t going to get any better. I began wearing the bow and quiver of arrows slung over my shoulder. I don’t know who I was trying to impress with my badass sense of style; since we stayed on the boat for days at a time it’s not like there were any chicks checking me out. So unless a deer decided to wander slowly (very slowly) across the bridge, the bow and arrows weren’t going to do jack shit for us.

  Mo Journal Entry 2

  I’m going to guess that lesbians enjoy fishing because whenever she wasn’t sleeping or cooking, Crow was casting at least one fishing line into the water. I know she would call me a "sexist white boy" for ever having that thought (like she does every day), so I’ll just hold my tongue and let the girl fish. I was walking along the poop deck (she was sitting on the bow) and I was trying to think of anyone I knew that lived close by who might have some guns. I had no hope that they’d be alive; I just thought maybe they would have left a couple of rifles or a shotgun on the rack. During my routine patrol I heard a noise distinctly like the sound of an elbow or a knee smacking into a car exterior hard enough to dent the paneling. I froze. This was immediately followed by a harshly whispered, "Mo’ fuckin’ piece a bitch!"