Zombie Extinction Event Novel # 1
SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN
BY
C.S ANDERSON
Alucard Press 2014
Cover photo by Chris Harris
Prologue
They sat next to each other, slumped against the brightly colored wall with their heads bowed down in terrified exhaustion. In the distance, they could hear sirens, they had been trying to call for ambulances for a couple of hours now but the lines had been jammed. Apparently, whatever was going on in their little corner of hell was affecting the entire city. They stared at the floor, unable to look at either each other or at the twenty four small bodies lying covered by their naptime blankets in the makeshift morgue that before this horrible morning had been known as the Duckling Room at the Happy Mornings Day Care Center.
He coughed and leaned away from his co teacher and spit. The weird dust that had rained down after the equally weird sonic boom a few hours ago had all the grownups coughing and trying to spit the awful taste out of their mouths. That’s what it had done to the grownups, they were looking at what it had done to the children. Within an hour or so the children had started to fall down where they stood, convulse wildly and proceed to more or less vomit out their internal organs. They had done what they could, put the poor things on their nap mats, comfort them, in the end attempt CPR but they had then watched all of their little charges die. The boss was in her office sobbing and trying repeatedly to reach someone, anyone on the phone. The blanket wrapped bodies of three other students were sharing the office with her.
All of the other teachers had bailed, some to go home and check on their own kids, some just so freaked out that they had simply run away. Some of them had thought that it was terrorists, some had thought that it was the work of hostile space aliens, some thought that it had to be some kind of chemical spill and some had thought that it was the opening notes of Armageddon. None of them had wanted to hang out in a building full of dead kids and wait to find out just what the hell was happening. None of them had wanted to wait for the grim task of telling the parents what had happened when they began to show up.
The woman next to him moaned softly and he patted her back awkwardly. He had never felt so helpless or useless in his entire life as he had felt this whole damn fucked up morning. Watching the kids he had cared for every day that he had been working here, die one by one had been gut wrenchingly horrible, having some of the other teachers look to him as the only man here and hoping that he could do something, anything had been even worse. Lord knows he had tried, they all had. Even the teachers who had run away had not done so until the last child had died. They all had performed CPR over and over, giving mouth to mouth to writhing little bodies that spit bile and blood and specks of things better left unnamed. He looked down at his clothes and winced at the dark stains he saw, as he patted his friend’s back he noticed flecks of unidentified slime in her pretty blonde hair.
He coughed and spit again, God whatever it was tasted vile. It had not killed him though or even really made him all that sick. Some of the younger teachers had thrown up and complained briefly of headaches, but that was it. The older teachers had not seemed to be affected at all. The dust had swirled through the air looking like tiny dandelion fluff and had seemed to melt away as soon as it touched the ground leaving nothing behind but a faint sickly sweet chemical smell. After the sonic boom the power had flickered oddly for a few minutes and all of the computers and phones had crashed, then came back on.
“Oh my God! Jake, did Becky just move?”
Her panicked voice snapped him out of his thoughts. He looked over at the rows of blanket covered bodies and shook his head sadly. Dead was dead. Poor little Becky would never move again and as soon as her mother got here he would get to explain that awful fact to her.
“Calm down Sandra. This is all really freaky but it is over. Face it, Becky is dead. All of them are dead. It is horrible, but it is reality.” He told her as he gave her hand a little squeeze.
Sandra started crying, he held out for a moment but then he was sobbing as well. It wasn’t the first time this morning, he had sobbed after the first, second and third child had died but then he had seemed to go numb. Numb had been good, he had appreciated numb, numb had been his friend. He should have known that it was too good to last. He wiped the tears away roughly with the back of his hands and listened to the sounds of the sirens. They sounded a bit closer now and he was almost sure he could smell smoke off in the distance somewhere. As he listened a helicopter roared by the building.
Suddenly the boss screamed and he almost jumped out of his skin. She kept on screaming as he pulled himself to his feet, panic making a rushing sound in his ears. Abruptly the screaming stopped and for a long moment he was frozen in place. Then he felt Sandra’s hand tugging urgently on his wrist. He looked down at her and saw her shocked wide eyed pale face and her trembling finger pointing into the classroom.
First Becky and then Pavel rose unsteadily to their little feet. Then Joseph, Miguel and Shayla also stood up. One by one all of the children rose up from their nap mats and stood there staring.
It wasn’t possible. He had watched them all die. He had wept over their little bodies. But, here they were nonetheless. As they began to shuffle towards him the teacher in him took over and he began to call out reassurances.
“Don’t be scared! Listen to Mr. Jake kids, it is going to be ok. Help will come and we will figure all of this out. Please children, don’t be afraid!”
But as he watched them shamble towards him, all of them, each and every one of them staring right at him as they came. As he watched them approach he could read the cold lights dancing in their glassy eyes and even as the echo of his voice died out he could tell that the teacher in him had been horribly wrong.
The children slowly yet relentlessly moving towards him weren’t afraid. Oh no, they weren’t afraid at all.
They were hungry.
One year later…..
Chapter One
I wake up from the usual nightmares with an unspoken scream still lodged in my throat, my hand immediately seeking the loaded 45 under the bed. Sitting bolt upright in bed I slowly calmed down as I look around my dump of a room.
Just a dream.
I am not back in my classroom at Happy Mornings watching my co teacher being torn apart and eaten by ravenous undead children.
I forced myself to get up from the rickety army cot I sleep on and stagger over to the sink to splash cold water on my face, my haggard reflection with spiky black hair stares back at me from the cracked and dirty mirror. The nightmare was old news, I shrug it off and get ready to start another day.
Just another day in paradise.
If your idea of paradise was trying to survive another day in a post-apocalyptic world over run with zombies starving for human flesh that is.
I am scheduled to go out on a supply run today which meant that it is time to gear up, so I get down to business.
The gun goes into a holster on my right hip and I slide a few extra magazines into the front pocket of the heavy canvas pants I am wearing. A long very sharp well-worn machete hangs on a sheath on my left hip. I tucked another pistol into my waistband, this one is a 22 magnum revolver that is my personal favorite for up close zombie kills. The jacketed hollow points rattle around zombie skulls instantly scrambling their undead brains.
I pull on leather gloves and then put on a heavy leather jacket that has seen better days and then I pick up a wooden baseball bat. Shoving it into an improvised sling that puts the handle of it just over my shoulder where
I can instantly grab it. I sit down on the bed to put on my steel toed work boots.
Standing in front of the mirror again I pull a black watch cap down over my ears, fucking zombies go for the ears sometimes so it was best to keep them covered. Same thing with my hair, I have lost more than one friend to zombies getting a good grip on their hair and then pulling them down to where they could get a good bite.
In this new world you lived and learned or just plain died.
Screaming usually.
Time to grab a quick breakfast of whatever slop they were serving today and then check the roster to see what I am doing today and who I am doing it with.
I really hope it isn’t a hospital run, I know us survivors need drugs and supplies but the hospital runs suck. The hospital was close which made it seem like a better risk but no matter how many times we cleared the damn place out it would always be over run again in a few days. Little bastards seemed drawn to the place, fuck if we can figure out why.
A run to one of the supermarkets would be better, on the minus side we have pretty much cleared out all the closer ones so we are now forced to range further afield these days. Nothing like a long walk in heavy gear through zombie infested streets each way to make things fun.
No point bitching, things are what they are. I would read the roster that Big Al put up and like usual I would go where it told me I was going. Everybody pulled their own weight here and everyone took the same risks. We all depended on each other to stay alive, lone wolves and prima donnas didn’t last long these days.
I walked down the hall nodding a curt good morning to the other survivors that I passed as I headed to the mess hall. One or two were already geared up so I knew that they had pulled outside duty as well. I grabbed a bowl of thin oatmeal with what I truly hoped were raisins, it sometimes didn’t pay to look too closely.
A meaty hand clapped down on my shoulder and the man in charge of this secured building sits down across from me.
“Morning Big Al.” I manage to grunt.
Big Al is, as his nickname would suggest a very big man, six seven and at least two hundred and sixty pounds, most of it muscle. He is a former US Marine and still has the buzz cut and attitude to prove it. Somebody had tagged him with the nickname too long ago for anyone to remember who it had been, hell whoever it was, was most likely dead now. He ran the place, he had gathered up a few survivors and taken over and fortified an abandoned three story apartment building that we all called home now. For some obscure reason the place has a sign that says we are the Narwhal House, something to do with someone once being in a high school or college drama group with the same damn name or some such shit.
He had led the first missions to get weapons and supplies and gather more people. Safety lay in numbers now, number of people, number of guns and so on. During the last run he led, he had been badly bitten on the leg and nearly lost it. He limped badly now so he no longer went on runs.
Unlike in the stupid movies the bitten didn’t turn into zombies, mostly they got very sick and died. Big Al had been an exception to that rule. Despite the fact that he no longer went on runs he was the undisputed leader of our merry little band.
“Want you to take a newbie with you today. Show them the ropes teach them what’s what.” He told me in his gruff no bull shit voice.
I put down my spoon and gave him a sour look.
“Save it. You were once a newbie and somebody had to show your green as fucking grass ass what to do. What goes around comes around. Suck it up and deal.”
“With a song in my heart and a spring in my step boss man. Where am I taking the guy? This future fucking Narwhal poster child.” I ask him with a sarcastic level of enthusiasm.
“Stay close, head for the pawn shops on Tower Avenue. Scrounge whatever weapons, ammo or whatever the fuck we can use in some way and haul it back. Whole thing should take you an hour tops.”
“You got it boss man. Where is this fine fellow and comrade in arms?” I continue being my usual charming self.
“Right behind you asshole.” A husky contralto voice says from behind me and to my left.
Big Al gives me a smirk as he sits across from me with his arms crossed over his massive chest. Jerk went and set me up.
Perfect.
I turn around and a thirty something slender bottle blonde stares back at me. She is geared up and is carrying a sharpened piece of rebar about the size of the javelin I threw back in high school track and field, about a million years ago. She is about my height and before all this happened she had probably been a secretary or something. She has the look.
Sighing I stand up and toss her my spare hat and I am encouraged when she catches it and immediately tucks her hair up under it.
“What’s your name?” I ask her ignoring the chuckles rumbling up from Big Al as he laughs at me.
“Joyce. Should I just keep calling you asshole or is there another name you want me to use?”
“You can call me Jake.” I tell her flatly.
“Actually Joyce, you can call him boss. The entire time you are with him out there his word is fucking law. You stop when he stops, you move when he moves and you do what he tells you. Understood?” Big Al barks at her.
“Yes sir.” She tells him calmly.
Oh yeah, this is going to be fun.
CHAPTER TWO
Big Al walks us down to one of the side exits, all of the guards there snap to attention as he walks up and he gives them a dismissive wave telling them to be at ease. He goes to a weapons locker and pulls out a small semi-automatic 9mm that he hands to Joyce.
“Follow Jake’s lead on using guns, the noise always brings more of the little fucks down on you.”
She nods and takes the gun like she maybe has fired one before and slips it into her jacket pocket. If she is nervous about what we are going to do next she isn’t showing any sign of it.
We use a system much like an airlock on a space craft, two guards follow us out one set of doors which is then firmly locked behind us. The guards unlock the outer doors and we hustle through them as quickly as we can out onto the streets.
Always cringe just a little at the sound of the doors being relocked behind us. It is not a happy sound.
Things are quiet, no movement anywhere around us. It isn’t just zombies we need to worry about, there are other survivors out here who don’t always play nice. Our rooftop snipers turned away an assault of raiders after our supplies just last month.
“Speak in whispers if at all, noise is the enemy. They seem to hunt by noise and scent.” I hiss at her.
She nods and we move out weaving our way around abandoned vehicles and assorted rubble, past derelict buildings full of broken windows and some burned out shells of once popular businesses. We are heading roughly northwest.
There is a stirring in the gutter and we have a crawler coming at us.
The wretched thing had once been a happy smiling child but now was a terrifying hellish thing. It had been about four or five when it died and turned and some accident or fight had crushed its legs so it came at us now crawling and dragging its useless legs behind it. It was filthy from crawling through the gutter and it snarled at us through a blood stained mouth full of teeth darkened by whatever or whoever it had been feeding on.
It was still wearing fucking Winnie the Pooh pajamas.
We have learned that we have to call them it now, not he or she. They aren’t human anymore just rotting shells that want to kill us. We survivors have learned to harden our hearts and not think of them as children anymore because we have to be able to kill them before they kill us.
Lots of people died in the first days of the outbreak because they couldn’t bring themselves to do that.
Time to find out if Joyce has it in her.
“Do it. With the spear, no guns.” I mouth at her pointing at the thing crawling all too quickly at us.
She hesitates for a long second and then steps forward and plunges the sharp end of the rebar into the z
ombie’s little skull which makes the sound like stomping on an over ripe melon.
Then she vomits into the gutter.
Wiping her mouth with the back of her glove she shoots me a questioning glare and without a word I wave us forward and we move out again.
She has passed the first test.
I don’t look at the sad little corpse we are walking away from, I have learned not to.
A couple of minutes later we are hunkered down behind a UPS truck with a caved in drivers side watching a half dozen zombies, bigger ones this time, they look about ten or eleven years old, lurch by making the low pitched warbling drone they make when there is no prey to growl at.
They haven’t noticed us and there is no point getting in scrapes we can avoid and might possibly lose. We are here to get supplies not wipe out the zombie hordes. The army has already failed at that particular task. That ship has sailed already.
It had been amazing how fast the world had fallen apart since the day the dust fell from the sky. One year later and mankind is reduced to clumps of survivors eeking out an existence in the rubble of civilization. No government or infrastructure left, just folks trying not to die.
The only reason that I am one of those folks, the only reason that I am still alive is that my co teacher Sharon didn’t get up off of the floor fast enough. The children had reached her fast and torn her to pieces right in front of me. They had settled into devouring her, which had given me the time to make a non-heroic decision and run like fucking hell.
A fact that still haunts by dreams. Every single night.
We move out slow and careful, so far she has exceeded my expectations. Another crawler gets in our way and I use my bat to send it to hell as quickly and quietly as possible. Once we reach the first pawn shop she use the rebar to force the lock on the door and we are in.
I stand just in the doorway listening hard, we have been here before, so have others by the looks of it. Place is picked pretty clean but still worth a quick look see. Nothing alive or undead seems to be in here with us so I risk a little whispered conversation.
Zombie Extinction Event (Book 1): Suffer The Little Children Page 1
