“God, I hate politics.”
***
Great Smoky Mountains
July 2027
Area 51 – Underground Bunker
“Sir?” Genesis asked, her electronic voice echoing off the walls of the bunker.
Caesar sat in front of the computer monitors, ever vigilant as always in hopes that something would finally come out of watching the outdoors all day long instead of experimenting. The experiments seemed to get him nowhere. All except for one, but his time watching and tracking the roaming habits of those creatures outside was something he felt could truly help him when it came time to move onto something more productive. He just had no idea what that was.
“Sir?” she asked again.
“Yes, Genesis? Something I should know about?” He was frustrated, irritated, and exhausted, not sure what to do with the tangle of emotions at the moment. He leaned forward and scrubbed his hand over his face, the stubble along his jaw scratching his palm as he closed his eyes and sighed. “And what did we say about calling me ‘sir?’”
The robotic voice stuttered and said, “Sorry, s—si—Caesar. I thought you should know that the migrating pattern of Crankers and Shadows has shifted. There are more of them than usual moving toward Station Four. What would you like to do, sir?”
Caesar picked up the empty paper cup in front of him, turned, and threw it as hard as he could toward where he perceived the voice to be coming from. It hit the far wall and landed on the floor, rolling across the linoleum.
“Genesis, please,” Caesar pleaded. He hated it when she called him ‘sir,’ and he knew it would be a hard habit for the robot to break, but it was frustrating. Even during his time in the military and working for Area 51, he had detested it. Silence greeted him, and he moaned. “I’m sorry. You know how I feel about that.”
“I do apologize.”
“No need. I’m the jerk.” He turned back to the computer screens on the module and watched them, scanning each one so he could spot the new migration of living dead. “What is their location?”
“Sector Seven, nearing the tree line that leads out into the desert area of the Dead Zone.”
“Thank you,” he replied.
Sector Seven was just as Genesis stated. When he had taken residence in the bunker, he sectioned off different areas so he could better monitor them and keep track of the movement of the creatures that the meteorite strike and the fog had created. Not too long after that, he had so many other things to worry about. The Barbarians and the Revs weren’t the only ones, and he hadn’t seen a Barbarian in three years. Then G.O.D. created the Shadows and everything changed. Because of their capacity for memory, they could convince the Crankers to migrate in different patterns, moving toward the Stations that they remembered existed. Before, the Crankers would wonder around aimlessly and sometimes happen upon a human being, but with the Shadows as their guides, attacks on the Stations were becoming more frequent. The sectors he had partitioned made it easier for him to find them and kill them before they made their way to the Station closest to his location because he knew that, if he didn’t, no one else would. Not until they had reached them anyways. And there were small cities and towns near the Stations that didn’t have the same protections as the Stations themselves, even though some were very well prepared.
He pressed a button that would switch one of his screens to show the feed from one of the cameras in Sector Seven, staring at the black and white images that moved across it. And there they were. Three or four Crankers and a Shadow. You could always tell the difference between the two. Crankers rotted very quickly while Shadows did so a little more slowly, and the Shadows had a gleam in their eye of their former life. Just a small one, but there nonetheless. And there could always be more that he couldn’t see on the camera so, in the interest of keeping them away from the Station altogether, he decided to do what needed to be done.
He swirled around in the chair and pushed up from it, making his way out of the computer room and into the hallway to the small but well-stocked armory inside its walls.
“The ones with the collars? Have they remained in the area since the collars were put in place?” he asked.
“Yes, they are still located just at the entrance in Sector One,” she replied, cold and robotic, but the only voice he had had to listen to for the last seven years to keep his sanity.
“All right, Genesis. Thank you.”
He had separated himself from the rest of humanity after the deaths of his family and couldn’t bring himself to rejoin what was left of them. So this was his life. Experimenting on the creatures that took their world over, killing any of them that posed a threat, and keeping to himself. He had been approached shortly after Area 51 became G.O.D., but he refused any involvement in what they planned to do about the problem the Earth faced. As far as he could tell, that was the best decision he had ever made. The Shadows were the first part of their plan, and it had failed miserably. The thought made him smile. After all, Area 51 themselves were responsible for all that had happened. They had known this was coming and didn’t do anything to stop it, and Caesar felt no love lost as far as they were concerned.
He passed door upon door until he came to one that needed a palm print to open, the touch pad green and glowing against the pure and slick white walls. The material was made from an extremely sturdy composite so strong that he would never have to worry about a cave in or a bomb, for that matter. It could stand up against anything anyone could throw at it and still keep the underground bunker he lived in intact.
Caesar placed his hand on the touch pad, the gel it was made of enveloping his hand as a light flashed green underneath it, showing him that it read his handprint. He removed it from the gel and waited for the signal that he was approved to go inside. The small electric beep and the metallic clicks inside the wall to the left of the door sounded, signaling that he was approved to enter the armory. The door swung open and Caesar stepped inside, hands joined behind his back as he quickly scanned the room filled to the brim with all sorts of weapons he could use to dispatch the Crankers and Shadow outside. Without hesitation, he moved to the back of the store room and came upon the wall covered in bladed weapons that he knew he could use so as not to draw any unwanted attention from anything nearby. In this world you never knew what you would encounter and, even though he hadn’t seen one in years, a Barbarian could always be just up above.
Caesar’s eyes settled on a pair of machetes with scabbards that crisscrossed at his back, their black and red handles peeking out at him. He made certain to keep all of his blades sharp, and each gun loaded just in case, but he wouldn’t have any need for the guns this time. He took them from their place on the wall and put them in their rightful place, removing a smaller blade from the wall as well for anything that required a close-contact kill.
“Will you be taking one of the vehicles?” Genesis asked.
“How far from the tree line are they?”
“At their current rate, it will be two hours until they have reached the forest’s edge.”
“Then no. I can make it to them long before they reach the Dead Zone. Genesis, I will be back shortly. If I don’t come back, you know what to do.”
“Yes, Caesar. I know what to do.”
In the event of his death, Genesis was to initiate the Extinction Protocol. The Extinction Protocol was designed and programmed into Genesis and, once activated by her, all the doors to the bunker would lock and wouldn’t be able to be opened, and all the oxygen would be sucked through vents and out into the atmosphere to kill anything inside. All of his experiments would be gone and all progress lost. He couldn’t risk G.O.D. getting their hands on anything he had within these walls.
Swiftly, he moved to the exit door and stepped outside, each door he walked through shutting silently behind him as soon as his feet crossed the threshold. The ground just outside the exit was covered in leaves and pine needles, the plant life within the forest still thriving despite the imp
act of what had happened seven years prior. It was as if it had never happened at all except for the lack of a human footprint, as well as so many other missing creatures that the fog killed off. The fog seemed to mostly seek out human hosts, but affected small game in the way of suffocation. Larger game animals seemed to be less affected by it, but he had seen a few creatures stumbling through the stages of Syc infection before dying.
He made it to Sector Seven in record time, spotting the small hoard of monsters quickly. There were exactly three Crankers following a Shadow, the Shadow taking them in the direction he assumed which was toward Station Four far off in the distance. The two stragglers would be easiest to dispatch. He would then contend with the Cranker closest to the Shadow, only a few feet separating them. And the Shadow would be last. They were quicker than the Crankers, making them harder to kill, and their lingering memories didn’t make it any easier. Caesar hunched down behind a large rock and removed the machetes from their homes, the metal hissing against the fabric scabbards.
What had him at a slight advantage to the creatures was the change the ‘Faith’ serum had produced in him, and it had taken him a while to get used to the speed and agility so new to his muscles. But he was nearly unstoppable seven years later, which was one reason G.O.D. would occasionally show up on his doorstep to try to bring him into the fold. Even then he still refused, preferring to keep to himself regardless of what they offered to him for his service. That part of his life was over, and he would no longer be a government peon who did as ordered. He was a free agent, and that wasn’t about to change.
One Cranker, the closest to his position, sniffed the air, no doubt catching his scent on the breeze. It turned, the others following quickly as they registered the actions of the other. The Shadow followed suit, but the intelligence in its eyes told Caesar that this one was going to be a lot tougher to take on than any before. The Shadow had been a woman once, beautiful even as her flesh rotted away to reveal muscle and gleaming bone. The Crankers were all male, two of them well-built men in life, but the one that had sniffed him out scrawny and not intimidating in the least.
Caesar emerged from his hiding place and twirled the machetes in his hands, coming to the Cranker that had first realized he was among them. With everything he had, he lifted the blades above his head and brought them down, the blades slicing into the head of the Cranker. The skull cracked beneath his blades, the feel of it reverberating through his arms and into his shoulder blades. Each half separated as he pulled the blades free and approached the other two Crankers, the Shadow holding back and watching his movements with an incredulous eye. It was something he had not seen in Shadows previously. Maybe they were evolving again, which could mean even more trouble for the human race.
He lashed out with the blades again, bringing them down and severing both arms off the second Cranker. One blade sliced the air and then met rotting flesh and bone, cutting the head off the other. With a grunt, he turned the machete back toward the one with no arms, taking its head as well. Both rolled across the ground on the slight incline where they stood, moving past the Shadow that waited for his approach. Before Caesar could catch his balance to take her on, she ran toward him and tackled him to the ground. His machetes clattered to the ground and bounced out of his reach, meaning he needed to use the smaller knife he had brought with him to kill her. No, to kill it. It. The monster above him still had memories, vague at best, but he still had to remember that there was no soul left within that body as it slowly returned itself to the Earth.
A scream left his throat as the Shadow attempted to latch onto his neck, its breath rotten and sour as its jaws snapped shut over and over. Drool ran from the corner of its mouth, green and sticky as it covered his skin. He placed one hand on the underside of its jaw and pushed up, moving its snapping teeth away from anything vital. With his free hand, he reached down to his hip where the smaller knife was and gripped the handle, pulling it free in one swift movement.
Something registered in the Shadow’s eyes that he had never seen before. Along with that level of intelligence he had just observed, fear wasn’t something anyone had seen them exhibit, making him hesitate for just a second as he raised the blade. That moment of humanity didn’t change what it was. Not in the slightest even though its eyes, nearly blind with cataracts already which hinted that it was one of the originals from G.O.D., were wide with terror. It knew what the knife was for and now, even though the hunger for his flesh was still present, the knowledge that its life was about to end registered there. With one final burst of energy, Caesar brought the knife down. The metal penetrated its skull with a wet cracking sound as it slipped inside of the bone and made contact with the creature’s brain. But not only with the brain. It made contact with the Syc that inhabited it. Each creature, no matter if it were a Shadow or a Rev or a Barbarian, contained one of them, but infection was in different areas of the body. This was what differentiated them from the other forms the infection had taken. He felt the Syc squirm inside of its bone prison around the blade and then fall still.
The body went slack and, without removing the knife, he rolled it off him, taking one deep breath as his heart worked to slow its beating. He lay there for he didn’t know how long, his arm pinned beneath the body of the Shadow he had just slain, staring up into what little sky he could see past the tree branches above him.
He closed his eyes and prayed.
***
Near the Kentucky Dam
July 2027
Station 4 – Armory and Supply Storage
Mark, Joshua, Misty, and Jenny filed into the armory that doubled as a storeroom for Station Four. The line before them had dwindled quickly as uniforms, badges, and weaponry were issued and assigned. Now all four of them were in the room standing in front of a row of tables with the Teachers standing in the background, arms crossed over their chests as low-ranking G.O.D. soldiers issued guns to each person within the Station who could be of service.
Mark stood in front of a man with dark, cold eyes, causing him to shiver just looking into them in the exchange of numbers and words. Joshua was to his right, and the girls were on the other side of him, each of them being shown how to use their gun even though, at this point in their existence, everyone knew how because they had been forced to learn. Even some of the newer G.O.D. weaponry was easy enough to learn. Mark had zoned out at the official before him showed him how to load it and turn off the safety, all basic stuff. He hadn’t even noticed that Joshua asked him a question.
“Mark, man, when are ya going to show the girls the stilts? I think they’d get a kick outta them,” Joshua asked, pointing a thumb down to the girls beside him.
Mark cringed. “I don’t know.”
“What do ya mean, you don’t know?”
“Dude, it’s not like there is such thing as down time around here, really. Can’t show someone something if you have no time to do it.”
And it was the truth. Station Four was known for not allowing downtime to those who worked within their walls except to sleep, eat, and bathe. There was no room in there to show Jenny and Misty what he could do on the stilts he loved so much. And what if they laughed and thought it wasn’t worth their time? That would put him in the worst mood imaginable. The laughter at the revelation was enough to make him want to climb into a dark hole and never come out again.
Joshua glanced at the girls and turned back to Mark. “I’m sure we can find some free time somewhere. They’d love it. Plus, couldn’t we all use a laugh or two?”
Mark shrugged and took a clip in his hand, sliding it into the gun with ease until he heard it click. “Well, yeah, but you know the only place to find time like that?”
Joshua looked confused for a moment, his brow furrowing as Mark saw the gears turning in his head.
“The Dead Zone,” he stated as he then removed the clip from the gun and set it on the table along with the weapon. Joshua’s eyes widened and his face fell, and it made Mark wish it wasn’t the truth, b
ut everyone knew it was. And even out there, you were fighting for your life against all the odds, and the monsters never stopped.
Chapter 12
Near the Kentucky Dam
July 2027
Station 4 – Jenny’s Living Quarters
Jenny lay in her bed in the living quarters that had been assigned to her when she first moved into Station Four. The labor in the orchard, as well as the news of the other Stations falling to those who would kill a human in an instant, plagued her mind and her body. Exhaustion had pulled at her, and she knew that Mark and Joshua were the first of their group to be assigned to guard duty along the wall of the Station, since they both had been assigned there and were knowledgeable of the system. She and Misty would be joining them tomorrow once G.O.D. was certain the threat might not be imminent. G.O.D. officials weren’t certain who the Stations had fallen to, but they knew when it was a threat to be taken seriously. Especially since everything on the planet wanted to kill those who lived within the Stations and the small towns surrounding them. Unfortunately this included other humans, but the humans who felt the need to harm others were those who had been banished to the Dead Zone after breaking the law, whether it be murderers or repeat offenders of other crimes.
The darkness of sleep shrouded her in heat even as the climate control pushed cold air out into the room. The blackness had been overwhelmed by nightmares quickly, her tragedy-ridden memories pushing through to remind her of what had happened all those years ago.
She was in the parking lot of the mall with her parents, her father having fallen behind as he strolled after her and her mother. They both turned to see that he was staring up at the sky, their eyes rising to where his stare penetrated the darkening sky.
“Dad?” she asked.
A blazing ball of fire sped down toward the Earth, small pieces of it breaking off into the atmosphere as it hurtled to the surface. And there were others. A multitude of meteors threatened to strike.
Zombified (Book 1): The Head Hunter Page 15
