Zombified (Book 1): The Head Hunter

by Sowder, Kindra

  “Misty,” she heard the familiar voice. “Misty, darlin’. Open your eyes, baby.”

  Her eyes snapped open, and she turned her head to the right where the voice came from. As soon as the first syllable was uttered, she knew she was hallucinating and was confident this wasn’t a direct result of the infection running rampant through her body, but a quirk of her genetics coupled with the parasite. Misty’s eyes met the same blue she had seen in the mirror every day until recently, her mother sitting on the floor next to the cot facing her as she lay there helpless to stop the inevitable changes. And that was when Misty realized that there wasn’t only one transformation she couldn’t stop, but two.

  “Mama?”

  She still doubted what she saw, but she couldn’t help but speak to her long-lost mother, whose mental illness had driven her to give herself over to the crimson fog some seven years ago.

  “Yes, dear. I’m here,” her mother responded with a weak smile. Her eyes crinkled at the corners just as Misty remembered. A white nightgown sheathed her body and flowed down around her legs to the floor.

  “You’re dead,” Misty whispered as she closed her eyes again. “You left me alone.”

  Warm fingertips touched her arms, causing her to jerk herself away as her eyes popped open again. Her body moved as if she had no control over its actions and pressed itself against the wall, her back scraping the concrete under her thin clothing. Her mother wasn’t real, but she still felt her as if she was. Her mind had cooked this up but couldn’t differentiate it from reality. Her mother pulled her hand away and placed it on her lap as sadness caused her eyes to brim with shimmering tears.

  “You’re dead,” Misty repeated, more to herself than her mother’s specter. With one finger extended toward her deceased mother, she said again, “You are dead.”

  Her mother’s eyebrows furrowed, and her eyes narrowed at her daughter. “Are ya sure? Or is that what they want ya to think?” she asked.

  Her eyes shifted to the two-way mirror on the other side of the room, muscles tensing with agitation coiled right underneath the surface of her pale flesh. Misty shook her head in denial.

  “No. You . . . are . . . dead.” She covered her ears with her hands and curled her knees against her chest, rocking back and forth. “You’re dead. You’re dead.”

  Her mother stood with a jerk as if she had been slapped, taking a step away from her daughter on bare feet. Misty repeated the words over and over again, but she still remained as she shook her head and said the words.

  “They are against you. Your friends will be too late. That’s if they wanna save you at all. Why would they wanna be friends with a blood-sucking Revenant? Huh? Why, Misty? Why?” She pointed at the two-way mirror again. “Those people will lay ya out on a table and cut ya wide open. Dissect you. You won’t survive this. They always get what they want. Always.”

  “No. No, no, no,” Misty reiterated to herself, the words coming out in a moan.

  She clamped her palms against her ears even tighter as she rocked back and forth, squeezing her eyes shut against the light and her mom’s ghost in the room.

  “You’ll die here. Station Four will be your grave forever, and no one will ever know.”

  Misty closed her hands into fists and slammed them against the material of her makeshift bed, pulling in a deep breath as she glared at what her mind wanted her to believe was her mother.

  “No!” she screamed into the nothingness. “Go away. You’re not real!”

  Her words were shrill and clipped with frustration, fear, and rage. Tears escaped and streamed down her reddened cheeks, dripping crimson onto the white clothes that Xavier had given her after they spoke to one another. She had wanted to kill him. Snap his neck and drain him dry, but she had resisted. Now her bloody tears stained the purity that covered her.

  “But I am, Misty. I’m as real as the room they locked ya in. And soon they’ll know that you left me to the fog, and they’ll punish ya for it. If this isn’t punishment enough.” Her mother laughed, throwing her head back in excited glee.

  Misty shook her head again, pushing the specter of her mother as far into the recesses of her mind as she could, despite the nearly physical manifestation of her that her dopamine crazed state produced.

  “Stop it,” she sobbed in a whisper. “Stop. I can’t—” She trailed off.

  “You can’t what?” her mother asked as she stood and leaned over Misty’s meager bed. “You can’t what?”

  “Please,” she begged, refusing to look at her mother in any capacity.

  Warm hands that felt as real as the coarse blankets on her flesh came over her hands, holding them against her ears as if intending to help her block out the taunts of the woman who had given birth to her. The same woman who had walked willingly into the crimson fog that stole her life from her and left her daughter to fight for her life alone at the tender age of eighteen. It had changed her life forever, and she would never be the same again. She was no longer the nearly carefree girl whose mother was a little strange. She was a broken person who was changed into a monster because of the circumstances of the life that her mother had left her to live without her. Now she was locked away in the room with no color to offer her solitude except for the bloody tears that streamed down her face and ruined the cleanliness of it all.

  Everything fell silent and, as she opened her eyes and looked up, she at first saw nothing. Nothing except the gray walls made of concrete and the two-way mirror on the other side of the space.

  Well, nothing until those same baby blues she had seen in the mirror before her transformation came into view directly in front of her, stealing the warmth from her body as chills of terror racked her. She had to keep herself from jerking back on instinct as the anger distorted her mother’s features nearly beyond recognition.

  “What do ya want?” Misty screamed, finally letting her hands fall away from her ears as she shouted in such a shrill cry that she barely recognized the voice as her own.

  A smile made her mother’s lips curl up at the corners.

  “I just want my baby back, darlin’. And, soon, you’ll be with me again because of what ya are now. There’s no changing that. You’ll be dead,” she paused, the smile broadening, “and you’ll never be able to leave me again.”

  “I didn’t leave you. You left me!” Misty shouted. Her voice echoed off the walls and bounced back toward her as she screamed, “Mama, ya left me alone! You left me,” she whimpered.

  Sadness filled her mother’s eyes as she took a step back, standing erect as she backed away and disappeared into the nothingness. That was the only word Misty could think of for what had just happened. She faded into the background, her frightened and saddened face drifting away from her in death just as she had in life.

  The moment that followed was filled with the steady but speedy heartbeat of someone beyond the two-way mirror. She looked at it and couldn’t see through it no matter how desperately she wanted to. But as she sniffed the air, she could pick out the distinct spicy smell of Xavier Jackson on the other side of the glass among the sterile, chemical smells of the room.

  It was in that moment that her humanity left her, leaving her an empty husk of what used to be a human being now filled to the brim with the infection that would change her life forever.

  ***

  Great Smoky Mountains

  July 2027

  Near the Area 51 Underground Bunker

  Caesar had decided quickly that the two boys needed to go back with him to the bunker. Seven years as a recluse within the confines of it hadn’t done much for his social skills, but did that truly matter? The Government of Defense didn’t send its remaining citizens outside the relative safety of its Stations for reasons with low importance. They were sent to him for a good reason, and he wasn’t going to send them away until he heard what they had to say. Only then would he decide if he would help them or not. For all he knew, this was a clever rouse formulated by the Government of Defense to fish him
out. They had been after him for quite some time, and he couldn’t stop the flood of incredulity that washed over him as he glanced back at the two soldiers following him.

  The two had introduced themselves as Mark and Joshua, but had not offered a last name or rank within the Stations. Not that they truly mattered to Caesar, but he had hoped to have more information on the pair since they seemed to be the only remaining members of the team sent out to him. As a rule—and Caesar knew this because Area 51 before it became G.O.D. had functioned the same way—officials would send out a team that functioned in three parts so as to spread out to cover more ground. They would rendezvous after each mission and, seeing that these two were all he found, he could easily deduce that Mark and Joshua were all that were left.

  “Mister Head Hunter, sir, we need your help,” Joshua said from behind him.

  “Mister Head Hunter, sir? They even bother to tell you what my name was before they sent you out here to die?” Caesar shook his head and suppressed a chuckle. “I don’t know if your Teachers over at Station Four told you, but I don’t do help.”

  “Our friend was taken by the Revs. What’s left of the human race could be at stake, sir,” Joshua insisted. His tone had raised an octave as he explained very little to Caesar at all.

  Caesar rolled his eyes. “Like I haven’t heard that one before,” he muttered under his breath.

  There had been instances before where Government of Defense officials had shown up in the forest of the Smokies, nearly getting themselves lost looking for him to tell him how humanity was in danger. And when was it not, now that human beings were no longer the dominant race on the planet?

  “If we don’t bring you to them, the Revenants will come back and kill everyone left at Station Four and the neighboring town. They will kill people and turn them. Is that what you want?” Mark interjected with short breaths. “They already infected one person.”

  “That’s a new one,” Caesar admitted. “First things first, why me?” he asked as they continued to walk. Once they reached the halfway point up the mountain, they would reach the tunneled elevator that would take them the rest of the way to the bunker.

  “Their leader asked specifically for ya,” Joshua answered.

  “Simple remedy for that, son. Go back to Station Four and tell them I don’t exist,” Caesar said as he scaled the thick trunk of a fallen tree.

  The other two followed his moves exactly. Joshua jumped to the ground and landed flawlessly, but Mark stumbled and groaned while placing a hand on his ribs. He had to give them credit. They seemed to know their way around, but that didn’t change anything. He was not in the mental space to be helpful to anyone. For any reason.

  As if he completely ignored Caesar’s words, Joshua continued, “He even picked out our friend Jenny to make sure you’d come.”

  “Wait,” Caesar said as he stopped and turned toward them. He tried not to assume that the Jenny they spoke of was the daughter he knew was dead, but he still had to stifle the shock of recognition. “You said the Revs did this, right?”

  Both Mark and Joshua seemed to be caught off guard by his question. To be honest, he had barely paid any attention to what they were saying. The words barely skimmed the surface of his awareness, but the Revs stood out as always. And for one reason only.

  “Colonel Jenkins and his bloodsuckers,” Caesar continued when they didn’t say a word. They looked at each other and back at Caesar with brows furrowed. “Right?”

  “Ya know them?” Joshua asked as he shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

  “Yeah, at one time.” Caesar nodded along with the admission. “I don’t know about your friend or how my presence will help her.”

  A twig snapped in the distance, subtle and soft, evading detection by his new companions. Caesar strained to listen, hearing the shuffling feet and dead moans of Crankers not too far from their position.

  “You know what? This conversation will have to continue at the bunker, and you’ll tell me everything. We’ve got company.”

  ***

  Joshua wasn’t certain how long they had been trekking through the forest, but he knew they had hit a stopping point when they came upon a steep incline. He looked up at it and frowned, Mark looking up with him at the rocks above them. Tree roots worked through the rock face, holding everything together. Not a single stone was out of place or even dangerously close to falling from its home among the roots. Soil was packed tight among the stones that made up the mountain, being held in place by the tree roots as well.

  “We can’t climb this. We don’t have the equipment,” Joshua pointed out as he stared up at the incline. “And Mark can’t climb like this.”

  Mark leaned over at the waist and placed one hand on his thigh with the other still holding his ribcage.

  “Who said anything about climbing?” Caesar retorted with a smirk on his face.

  Joshua looked at him then as confusion bloomed in his mind, unfurling like a sprouting plant. Even Mark looked confounded by what the man had said. Caesar chuckled and shook his head, amusement alight in his gray eyes as he gazed at them both.

  “You two have so much to learn,” Caesar said as he moved forward, tapping a place on the rock face.

  A square-shaped sliver of rock folded into the wall, exposing a sleek metal faceplate with a green button in the very center and what Joshua could only assume was a fingerprint scanner to the right of it.

  “What the . . .?” Mark exclaimed with wide eyes.

  The Head Hunter then placed his index finger on the scanner, a bright green light moving just underneath the black surface of it. There was a small electronic beep and the button next to it lit up. He pressed it, and a mechanical whirr came from within the wall of rock before them.

  “Like I said,” Caesar said, and laughed.

  When Joshua looked at him, he could tell he hadn’t laughed in a long time. He was confident the man was in his forties, but the lines of a long life full of laughter at the corner of his eyes were almost absent.

  The stopping of the mechanical sound drew Joshua’s attention back to the stone wall. Opening with a quick slide of metal and rock, an elevator was revealed to them, all white walls and soft red LED lights that stood out starkly against the fluorescent bulbs inside.

  “Wow,” was all Joshua knew to say. The only word that he could force from between his lips as his breath left him in awe.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure the Government of Defense keeps this stuff out of the Stations, huh?” Caesar probed.

  “Umm . . . yeah,” Joshua answered without even thinking.

  “That figures.” Caesar took a step into the elevator, but both Mark and Joshua hesitated, too unsure of where the elevator led to walk in without thinking about it. “Come on, or I’ll leave you out here for the real monsters.”

  His words startled them. Joshua didn’t believe he actually would but, to be on the safe side, he took a brazen step into the elevator followed by Mark. Mud that had stuck to Joshua’s boots clumped on the clean floor, a mucky brown turning the sterile white the same disgusting shade. Joshua’s eyes shot up to meet those of this Head Hunter, the man’s stare cynical at best.

  “Sorry,” Joshua said with a shrug.

  “I’m not so worried about a clean floor anymore, son. Don’t sweat it,” Caesar assured him as he reached past Joshua and pressed a button.

  The doors closed silently behind Joshua, making him feel as if something could reach through them and grab him at any moment even though he was certain that was impossible as he felt the elevator shift slightly below his feet. He moved to stand behind the Head Hunter anyways, and stood to face the closed metal doors instead.

  “I am glad to see you are back in one piece, sir,” a feminine robotic voice said, moving through the small space of the elevator.

  “Thank you, Genesis. Glad to be back,” the Head Hunter replied.

  “Who are your two associates?”

  Caesar smirked. “Never you mind that
. Please take us to the main floor, and we’ll discuss it then.”

  “Yes, Caesar,” Genesis relented.

  Mark’s eyebrows shot up in amusement as he grinned at Joshua. Joshua had no idea what Mark was smiling about, but he had a feeling it had to do with the female voice that had spoken to the head Hunter over the intercom.

  “Is that your wife?” he probed, the words spewing from his mouth without a second thought.

  Joshua only shook his head. His friend had no filter between his brain and his mouth.

  “No,” was Caesar’s only response.

  “Oh,” Mark whispered. “My bad.”

  Before speaking again Caesar took a deep breath, letting it out in a huff.

  “You know those chips they inserted into your arms when you first came to live in the Stations? Right after they built them and brought the survivors in?” he questioned, turning only slightly to look back at them both in turn.

  “Yeah, what about ‘em?” Joshua questioned.

  “When you walked into the elevator, unnoticeable to you, she scanned your chips and has all of your information from the Government of Defense systems, including what you are armed with and any equipment they gave you. We now know everything about you two,” the Head Hunter said, sneering.

  “Wow,” Joshua exclaimed. He was thoroughly impressed with their capabilities for not having G.O.D. technology. “Who is this woman?”

  “Genesis is a computer program that was used by Area 51 before the meteorite shower to spy on every known threat and hack into their systems for information. I reprogrammed her to assess threats on the mountain and to tap into what remains of our satellites to keep track of our new government, as well as everything else. Well, anything I feel I need to check in on, anyways.”

  After a smooth ride that Joshua barely felt, the elevator doors glided open to a wide expanse of what looked to be a common room of sorts. The place was spotless, which made Joshua look down with a grimace at his filthy boots.