by Daniel White
Chapter 1
Present day
Cover was precious.
As Eric Bayne rested his back against the abandoned car, he was very aware of how lucky he was. There was a row of abandoned cars just like it and they were perfect for him to leap over and gain a precious few moments of rest. Those moments he knew would be needed if he planned to escape his latest group of zombie attackers and get out of town. It also allowed him to reload. He finished reloading his nine-millimeter handgun and inhaled a humid breath.
He could hear the animal like creatures crawling quickly over the row of cars now and knew from experience just about how long it would take before he was road kill. A few months ago, he would have panicked and turned too quickly. Now he knew that would lead only to them viciously surging forward. A long few seconds later and he was in motion. Standing, turning and firing in a blur, three zombies fell dead, their bodies perforated. Eric stepped carefully backwards as he continued to fire across the front of the line of zombies. The key he knew was to create obstacles for the line to have to get over. They were quick and very powerful, but they didn’t have the advantage of creative thought.
A simple box, a car or even other dead zombies would buy time for either an escape or time to finish the rest off. In this case he was in execution mode because it was a small group of only a dozen or so. Five tumbled over the three that were dead already. Eric planted his feet some three yards away and fired several rounds that took care of them. The four that were left were more slowly piling over the fallen dead, but Eric was firing quickly because he knew it wouldn’t be a slow attack for long. The space that had been put between himself and his attackers would give them the room they needed to sprint towards him. He simply took careful aim and four shots to their hearts stopped them cold. “They aren’t human,” he reminded himself.
The smaller groups were easier to deal with now that he had picked up a few choice weapons. As he walked towards his rusted truck, careful to listen and watch for any other zombie attackers, he thought back to when Captain Sage Thorn had saved his ass back at the office building where it all started. It was where Eric had first shockingly seen zombies and where he was nearly taken out by them. The last few of a large group had him dead to rights when the good captain chose to eliminate the balance of them with a sawed off shotgun blast or twelve. He had then tossed the weapon to Eric and announced that he would need more than a few simple weapons to fight. Eric never was really the firearm carrying type, but he had to admit that with these things crawling all over, they certainly made a welcome addition to his arsenal.
He had taken the liberty of looking over several of the dead government agents that were in that building that day. It proved to be a great place to stock up on handguns and all the ammo anyone could want. Some probably would feel bad about looting the dead for their weapons and ammo, but not Eric. He knew now beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had to do whatever it took if he hoped to survive this mess. If that meant looting a few victims that weren’t quite as lucky or prepared as he was, then so be it.
He often found his thoughts returning to the good times spent with his family, before this cluster fuck. He remembered seeing his Mom’s smiling face and obnoxious bright red lipstick at his college graduation, his sweaty brother getting angry with him for beating him when they sparred, his father coming home from work with farm ice cream. It was all a memory. Memories were keeping him human. With each execution of his infected fellow man, he felt a part of himself die. This is survival. Kill or be killed. He half smiled to himself for living another day.
He was almost to his truck now and it never looked more beautiful. At the start of this dreary afternoon he simply was following a lead that promised more ammo, and possibly armor that could help against these pseudo humans. It turned out to only be one lightweight armored vest, but he grabbed it just the same. No sooner had he snatched the protecting vest than the zombies found him. Knowing how best to deal with any group at first, he ran until he thought of a good plan. When he saw the row of closely parked abandoned cars he knew it was the perfect place to take cover, reload and end it. At that time he was hoping, like always that he would be successful enough to walk or run away, hop into his truck and leave.
When he got there, he opened the door and hopped up into the cab, shut the door and sighed wearily. He had never been one to just sit around and do nothing, but everything was different now. Just a little over a month ago they had been spotted for the very first time. All in a day things changed from everyday stress, to an all out zombie apocalypse. As crazy as it still sounded, a huge section of the human race had been somehow infected with a rogue strain of a failed government project called the ZMB Virus. From what he had gathered at the government office building, before he was nearly killed for his trouble, it appeared someone lost, or perhaps stole a strain of the virus that was extremely dangerous. Where it went from there was as cold of a trail as he ever saw on one of the old detective television shows. He knew he was never cut out to a detective though.
Right now it was hard enough just to stay alive, much less find out what happened. So for the time being, seeing that he had very little options, Eric chose to forget about the trail of the virus. There was this one thing that made it extremely difficult. One of the first families that Eric knew about being slaughtered by zombies was his own. There was only one Bayne family member left now, and it was little brother Eric. It felt strange to him being all alone, but then again he knew being alone was the best way to survive. If he cared too much for others or even tried to save half of the people he saw getting attacked, he would not only fail but also would most likely die in the process. That wouldn’t accomplish anything seeing as the only three things he actually wanted were first to survive, second to find out more about what happened if he could, and three a cold beer. Nothing would come from him getting himself killed saving someone that would only die some other.
A bark from the bed reminded him that while he wasn’t attached to anyone, the dog that hung around him, Bart, was. This time Bart hadn’t followed where Eric was searching but instead just lay down in the bed. When Eric looked in the mirror to see the big dog eyeing him, he saw someone else looking back instead. His once buzz cut hair was now roughly strewn about his head and was about four inches long. The front weaved down just above his eyes and the side came midway down on his ears. Life hadn’t exactly been a picnic before the zombie outbreak, so his mildly tanned face showed more lines than his years suggested there should be. Just a touch of lighter strands here and there told him that he might grey early like his dad did, becoming completely grey by his fortieth birthday. There were two scars on his face, an old military wound just missed the outside of his left eye and a brand new one about two inches long down his right cheek. He didn’t look the way he remembered he should have, needless to say, he looked more haggard and battle tested than he actually was. For a young veteran with lots of battle experience, that was saying something.
His breath was strong and true by the time he shifted the truck into drive and loudly sped away. It never took too long to gather himself and recover. Eric was a master in several types of martial arts, and his lean strong muscle tone displayed the results. That good lean physique had only suffered slightly so far as he had been able to pick meals up here and there. Sometimes that meant digging something out of a pantry or refrigerator that no longer had an owner. Sometimes it meant grabbing an actual meal with another person he might come across for a minute or two here and there.
Not everyone was a zombie, though it sure seemed that way a lot of the time. Those who w
ere still around, showed an incredible sense of solidarity. Everyone did what they could to help each other. Well not everyone, Eric thought. He didn’t do anything to help someone else that wouldn’t get him something in return. He made sure that any bartering deal he agreed to included him getting the better of the deal in the way of surviving. That was all that mattered now. At first, he wanted to find out as much as he could about the virus outbreak and what caused it. It hadn’t taken long for that to get old and to become a distraction. Anything that threatened his survival was cut immediately from his thoughts, and that meant anyone as well. Bart was lucky he hadn’t become a liability as well, or he would have bought the farm too.
A thin, natural smile crept across his face when thinking of the pooch. He had always wanted a badass dog. Now he had one that actually had a couple of zombie kills on his belt. That was a pretty good deal so far. Bart seemed to know when to be in action to help and when to stay away so as not to be a distraction. It seemed the dog was a survivor as well. With a smirk, Eric wondered if Bart would go for his throat if it meant the dog’s survival. The bastard probably would.
All of those thoughts behind him, Eric drove as fast as the old truck would take him towards the edge of the city. This was something he was planning to do for the past week. He already knew how bad things were here. There were zombies taking over literally everywhere and there was the memory of his family. Every time he so much as saw a place they had been he relived the last time he saw them. It wasn’t something he couldn’t deal with, but it was something he certainly would like to avoid if he could. There was also a small chance that things weren’t so bad in the next neighboring city. According to the gas gauge he should have plenty enough left to get there. He relaxed as he listened to the rumble of the engine in silence.
On the way he wondered what would have happened if he had been able to find out more about the virus that apparently started this whole thing. He had searched long enough to find out that the government was working on some strange bio-weapon called the ZMB Virus. It was supposed to render guerrilla fighters, notoriously harder to defeat than a standard soldier, mentally unable to do any type of calculated planning. If it had worked the enemy would be little more than a groveling child compared to what they normally would have been.
It didn’t work. Not the way they wanted. It worked too well with one strain in particular called ZMB strain zxt 1.2b. It rendered the victim nearly unable to do anything at all, basically one step above walking brainless zombies. That wasn’t the main problem with the strain however. The real issue was when a sample of the zxt 1.2b strain was lost or stolen. Eric’s money was on it being stolen, considering the current state of the world around him.
Why someone would want the entire nation or possibly the world, to be plagued by shells of men, he could never guess. Perhaps he thought, they hadn’t meant for it to get to this point. Either way it was a moot point now.
Any other information that might have been in that room was either taken out before Eric looked there, or was destroyed in the terrible struggle with the zombies that swarmed him. As much as he would like to know exactly what had happened and who was to blame, he wanted to stay alive more. He was leaving. There was the chance that where he was going was going to be worse, or at least just as bad, but it was a chance he was more than willing to take.
Lightning flashed in the distance and highlighted rough looking clouds on the horizon as he left town. What had been another dreary day had turned into a muggy, nasty night. There wasn’t but a few miles between his home town and the neighboring city, but what was between them was nothing but corn fields and hay bales. The only light in view was a blinking light at an old service station that appeared to have been out of business long before the virus outbreak. Something about the way the lightning and thunder coincided with the blinking of the old sign gave Eric chills. He pushed the pedal harder towards the floor and wished himself miles further down the road.
Suddenly the engine coughed. Eric squinted at the dash and saw no warning lights. The engine picked up for a second then spurted out once again. The service engine light came on as the coughing grew worse and the truck slowed even more. At last he knew what it had to be. Only once before had he run out of gas in a vehicle but it wasn’t something that was easily forgettable. The gauge still showed that he had a quarter of a tank left, but clearly it was wrong. The truck rolled to a stop about a hundred yards from the old blinking sign. Eric sighed angrily and gathered his composure. Now he was in the middle of nowhere and out of gas. The sign blinked again and he noticed it did say self serve. He knew that wasn’t quite what the sign had in mind, but he wondered if he might be able to find a gas can and serve himself a few gallons that hadn’t been ransacked. He prayed that there was gas left in the old underground tanks.
He stepped out of the truck and ducked in a panic as a black object flew over his head. His hands went from clinched to lax when he heard Bart barking off into the distance. The storm must have spooked him. Eric shrugged and began walking slowly to the station. There was no reason to hurry after all. He thought it strange how the storm seemed to make a cold wind cut through the middle of a muggy night. It wasn’t even raining after all. He was glad that he wore an armored vest just because it protected him from the wind a little.
The closer he got to the station, the more the air chilled around him. Now he could hear that the sign was making a low humming sound when it flashed on. Besides the wind that was the only sound to be heard. As his feet touched the cracked, weed overgrown pavement he heard Bart barking in the distance. There was a slight twinge of regret that Bart got spooked here of all places, since he might not find his way back. In their month together Bart had run off and returned later more than a few times. It was almost like he had his own agenda and was hanging around Eric as long as he didn’t get in the way.
Now that he was close enough to see the store he knew that it had been out of service for months, at the very least. At the door he paused for a moment to observe and listen, while holding his breath to maximize his hearing. This wasn’t exactly the type of place that would instill confidence in one’s surroundings, zombies or not. Now it certainly was an extra creepy place to have to visit. A little fear had never stopped Eric before. Another gem of knowledge his father had once taught him emerged in his mind.
Everyone is afraid of something, Eric. A man with nothing to fear has no reason to live.
It was good advice, as with most of the wisdom his parents imparted, it made more sense as Eric grew older.
He heard nothing but the impending storm around him and Bart’s occasional barking. He saw nothing strange but the flashing light of the sign. The door was mostly glass and had already been unsurprisingly broken in. The door was opened just a crack so Eric let himself in. The place clearly had been looted, but he wasn’t after a drink and a piece of candy. Quickly he located the switch for the pumps behind the register, and was over counter to switch it on when things got interesting.
The instant he flipped the switch that he hoped would allow the gas pumps to actually work, the glass door shattered at the front of the store. More than a dozen zombies poured through the broken glass and within a minute nearly filled the old musty store. If Eric hadn’t known they couldn’t plan an ambush, this would certainly have made a great one.
For a moment he stared at one in particular and time seemed to slow. All of their symptoms seemed to look the same with only slight differences. The one constant was that they seemed to be decaying from the outside in.
He took in the face of one that had one eye that looked fairly normal, while the other was actually dangling out of its socket. His skin had turned to an ashy gray. His hair was a slimy, dark mess on the half of his head where it remained. His shirt was a random rock band that Eric hadn’t heard of.
Another shirt in the room caught his eye because it was a Rob Zombie shirt, “oh that’s fucking funny” Eric said aloud. It looked like each of them had died the
moment the virus took effect and were continuing to decay and die as it evolved inside of them.
That moment passed when they attacked and Eric snapped out of his trance.
Acting on instinct alone, Eric jumped onto the countertop and pulled out the sawed off shotgun that Captain Sage had tossed his way over a month ago. They were already clawing at his feet but he pumped and fired. The weapon was so powerful that it actually took out more than one at a time because they were so close together. Within another minute fear was surging through Eric’s veins. At least he knew he had something to live for. If he was planning on giving up this would be a perfect chance to go down and appear to have been fighting.
Kick, pump, shoot was the rhythm that he had working for him. He would kick out to try and gain some separation while he pumped the shotgun then shoot and try to take at least two down at a time. It was going well but more were pilling in. He was getting better and better at taking these things down but there seemed to be a near infinite supply. It was as if they were waiting in the fields behind the store for anyone who might come to call. He kept his rhythm up, but it was clear that they were winning by sheer numbers alone. Then an idea struck him as he saw the pumps outside. Maybe the pumps did still work. Glancing down he saw where a group of lighters had sat on the counter. Thank god there was still a few lying around the container. Bending down might be costly he knew, but he also remembered the last time they got the jump on him at the government building. The numbers game almost killed him then, and he had no plans to play it now. “A man that doesn’t learn from his mistakes deserves to die,” he thought grimly.
