Zed's World (Book 1): The Gathering Horde

by Rich Baker

  Kyle smiles at Danny Harris, who lives two doors north of Kyle. The two men have differing styles. Where Kyle wears a golf shirt and a pair of pleated tan shorts, Danny wears camouflage cargo shorts and a black t-shirt with a white silhouette of an AR-15 on it; above the rifle, the shirt says “This is a tool” and below the rifle “I AM THE WEAPON.”

  “Danny, one of these days I’m going drop you on your ass,” Kyle says with a grin.

  “You’re welcome to try. What are you gonna do, project manage me to the ground?” he asks, poking fun at Kyle’s job. “Here,” he says as he extends a red plastic cup full of beer to Kyle. “It’s my latest IPA. Super hoppy with a citrus finish. You’ll love it.”

  Kyle takes a drink and can’t help making a Homer Simpson-esque “mmmm” noise. It’s that fantastic. Danny nods and smiles at the compliment, then nods in Marc’s direction.

  “Why are you guys staring at Marc Dotcom?”

  “Don’t call him that; it’s rude,” Naomi says. “And we’re not staring at him.”

  “Whatever,” he says, throwing a look at Naomi. “He doesn’t care. You know he’s not an egg, right? He won’t break if you treat him like a normal person. His wife died; he didn’t. All I know is that dude has some freaky connections. I used to joke that he was part of Anonymous or something, but I don’t know how much of a joke that is any more. Remember when I had that issue with my bank accounts a couple of months ago?”

  Kyle remembers. Danny works as a gunsmith out of his basement and garage, building, repairing, and restoring all manner of guns. He also makes and sells holsters and other gun-related tactical gear, and with his ATF license he buys, reloads, and sells ammunition and a few other licensed firearm accessories. He sometimes deals in a few things that aren’t exactly on the up and up, but those he keeps off the books and reserved for special clientele.

  During the fierce gun control debate in the winter and early spring of 2013, his bank accounts got hacked and his funds were drained. He had a hell of a time trying to get the bank to do anything about it. He told the group about it at one of the dinners Naomi had forced Marc to attend. Marc whipped out his iPad and started an online conversation with someone. Within fifteen minutes, everything had been restored to Danny’s accounts. All Marc said was he “knew someone who knew someone who knew someone” who could get it fixed.

  “Dude is a wizard on the web, man, and I still owe him big for fixing that deal,” Danny continues. “All I’m saying is I’m staying on his good side. He’s not in the best physical shape, but when the shit hits the fan, we’re going to need people with his skills.”

  Danny always works the “shit hitting the fan” into a conversation. He’s even convinced Kyle to put together a BOB or “bug out bag.” Danny has a way of making people feel like society is one step from anarchy; and truth be told, it does make Kyle feel better knowing that he has enough food and supplies in the house for he and Naomi to weather a two to three week storm, be it an actual storm or an extended period of social unrest. His modest arsenal of weapons isn’t like the hardware that Danny has access to, but it is sufficient for home protection.

  “The kids coming down soon?” Danny asks, taking a drink of his beer.

  Kyle’s son, Ben, and Marc’s boy, Keith, both go to Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Keith is a year and a half older than Ben and is a junior; Ben is a sophomore. They’ve been close friends for the better part of a decade, going back to elementary school. Until Keith left for CSU when Ben was a high school senior, it was unusual to see one without the other.

  “They’ve got finals next week and then they’re done. I think they’re coming down for a few days starting Saturday,” Kyle says.

  “Too bad, we’ll just miss ’em. We’re heading up to the Preserve for a couple of weeks, leaving Saturday mid-morning, and I’m sure they won’t be down until they recover from their hangovers.” At this, Naomi throws Danny a disapproving look, but he ignores it. “Hey, by the way, would you mind watching the place, getting the ads off my lawn and shit like that? I’ll help you finally get an AR put together!”

  The Preserve is what Danny calls his land in the mountains. He’s only taken a few people up there, and Kyle’s never been invited. It’s hard to get to, and according to Danny, he can be completely self-sufficient, off the grid, and completely secure for extended periods of time. Only a bunker buster “like they use in the ’Stan” can get them out once they’re dug in, he says. Based on Danny’s descriptions, Kyle imagines it to be a cave dug into the hillside somewhere near Estes Park.

  They spend a couple of weeks at the Preserve every few months to refresh their supplies, do work on their living quarters, or just to get away for a short time. While his house in Longview is highly customized for added protection of his wares, and features a high-tech security system, that doesn’t stop people from hanging flyers on his front door or throwing rolled up ads masquerading as newspapers on his lawn while he’s out. Nothing says ‘we’re not home’ like a yard full of ads and flyers.

  “Sure, no problem,” Kyle says. “And I don’t need an AR.”

  “I hope you never NEED one, but when the shit hits the fan, you’re going to want one. Your .22 ain’t going to get the job done at a distance, man. Anyway, thanks for watching the place,” Danny says, his eyes diverting to a shapely woman in tight khaki shorts and a sleeveless top walking up the driveway with two tall glasses of a dark red liquid.

  “Naomi, I brought you some of my special sangria!” she exclaims. Elaine Harris is Danny’s wife. She’s equal parts athlete, tomboy, and suburban chic, and she and Naomi are good friends. Elaine dresses to flaunt her fitness level and, according to Danny, she shoots any of their guns with a high degree of accuracy. That’s always his measure of someone’s worth—how well they can handle a gun. Kyle figures he ranks low on the list, but since the two wives are close friends, he and Danny, by proxy, have to be as well. Though Danny can be rough around the edges, Kyle enjoys his antics to a point. It’s a good thing, too, because his tolerance of Danny is higher than Naomi’s.

  Over the fence to the south, a whirring noise catches their attention, and a remote helicopter of some sort lifts off from Marc Wallace’s backyard and soars to about fifty feet over the alley. As if acknowledging Kyle’s thoughts, Danny says, “What the balls is that thing?”

  He and Kyle leave the women talking to each other and mosey over to the fence where Marc stands with his iPad, beaming a big smile.

  “What the hell is that, Marc?” Danny asks him.

  “Fellas, meet the eye in the sky: the Parrot!” Marc says proudly, fiddling with the iPad. “It has a range of about 150 feet, on-board HD camera, and records directly on the ’Pad. It’s going to take our neighborhood watch to a new level!” He turns the iPad around and Kyle and Danny see themselves on the screen, as viewed from 50 feet overhead. Danny waves an arm up and down and watches his on-screen self do the same.

  “Bad ass, buddy,” he says. “You come up with the coolest shit.”

  Marc is beaming a giant smile. It’s good to see him smiling, Kyle thinks. Maybe he’s turned a corner and is coming back out of his shell, like his world is back on its proper axis again.

  As he thinks this last thought, he is completely unaware that by this time next week their world—everyone’s world—will never be the same.

  * * *

  Saturday, May 11, 2013 – Fort Collins, CO

  “I don’t know, man. I’m telling you, she’s acting weird.” Keith Wallace is complaining to his roommate, Ben Puckett. “She graduates next week and she’s going back to Cali to her folks’ place. I don’t think she’s coming back here, and every time I bring it up, she changes the subject or says ‘can we talk about this later?’ Like I can’t read the signs.”

  Ben considers his friend for a moment. “She’s practically living here, man. And she goes home every year after school’s out so that’s not anything new. I get it, she’s graduating, but it’s not like she ha
s a job lined up, right? I mean, she could end up going anywhere, so it’s not like Cali is end of the world.”

  “I’m telling you, something’s off,” Keith says. “I should break up with her first, as a pre-emptive strike.”

  “That’s why she’s going to end it with you. You always jump to conclusions without knowing the facts. Remember Kim?”

  “Kim cheated on me, dude. I knew it was happening and I called her on it.”

  “Yeah,” Ben says. “She cheated on you after you accused her of it and slept with that blonde from Pi Beta Phi.”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot about the Pi Phi,” Keith says. “But seriously, I would have been crazy to pass that one up! You have to give me that.”

  “Yeah, she was hot, but that’s not the point,” Ben says. “After Kim broke up with you, you moped for a month. And the Pi Phi almost had you arrested for stalking when you broke into their house to see her. All I’m saying is you need to just have a talk with Danielle. If she says ‘let’s talk later’ then you need to pin her to a time so you can focus on ending the semester before you end your relationship.”

  “I hear you, man. I think I’ll wait until after finals,” Keith says. “I don’t need that distraction when my semester’s on the line. Dad’s gonna flip if I don’t get at least a 2.5 this semester, and I need B’s or better across the board to make that happen.”

  “And yet I haven’t seen you crack a book this week,” Ben says.

  “Pacing myself, dude. If I cram too early, I’ll forget it all on test day. I know my mind; I just have to outsmart myself.”

  “Sounds like a real clash of the mental titans.” The voice makes them both jump. They look at the doorway and Toni Glass, Ben’s girlfriend, is standing there, smiling about her jab at Keith’s wits, or lack thereof.

  “Jesus, Toni,” Keith says. “Your damn Indian feet creep up all quiet like.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment to my ancestral people, Keith,” she replies. “Now scoot, before I scalp you. You’ve taken enough of my man’s time.”

  Keith gets up and sidesteps around her, putting his hands on his head to protect his scalp as he walks past. She shuts the door and dives onto Ben’s bed.

  “Danielle’s breaking up with him, isn’t she?” Ben asks.

  “Yep. As soon as she graduates. She’s sworn us to secrecy,” Toni says. “She won’t shut up about graduation, going back to San Diego, getting a real job, and saying goodbye to Colorado forever. Natalie and I are getting sick of it.”

  “And you guys are supposed to be her friends,” Ben says. “Nice way for her to bag on you guys.”

  Toni shrugs. “We’re used to it. She’s a real user. If she weren’t dating Keith, I don’t think we’d ever hang out with her.”

  “That sucks,” Ben says.

  “Enough about her and Keith. I’m more concerned about how overdressed you are,” she says with a wicked smile spread across her face.

  “Easy fix,” Ben says, taking off his shirt.

  Chapter 3: Betrayed

  Thursday, May 16, 2013 – Z-poc minus 1

  After Khaleed Farouk, or at least his undead corpse, attacked and killed Najm al Din Abdul-Malik, Almahdi Maloof knew they were not going down a righteous path. Unknown to Maloof, the terror group, which would be known as the Undying Jihad had cells like this one in every city of more than 150,000 people in the United States, Europe, Australia, and India. It was the most ambitious undertaking in the history of mankind, and somehow, miraculously, the great secret had been kept.

  Some parts of their network had been taken out, but the organization was so loose that there was virtually nothing connecting one cell to another, at least as far as the various law enforcement agencies were concerned, and the government intelligence agencies hadn’t put together what they were really up to. The distribution of the serum was the hardest part, but even that had been solved with some staged eBay transactions. They hadn’t even decided on the name of the group until this last week, and really the name was unimportant as long as the message got out before the end came. For his part, Maloof was unaware of these things because he was not far enough up the chain of command to be privy to that level of detail.

  Maloof’s thoughts drift back to two weeks ago. On that day, May 3rd—specifically the five minutes that Maloof sees in his mind every time he closes his eyes—Maloof watched as Farouk attacked Abdul-Malik, his fingers tearing at Abdul-Malik’s neck and chest, ripping his shirt and exposing the flesh of his neck and shoulder. Abdul-Malik had tried to open the door, to no avail, and when the revenant sank its teeth into his shoulder, he screamed so hard he tore his vocal chords. He pulled away from the creature that was Khaleed Farouk, leaving flesh and blood vessels dangling from its mouth as he did so. Blood was spurting from the massive wound, staining his tattered shirt a deep crimson. Abdul-Malik didn’t know it, but he was already dead.

  Still, he fought for every second he had left. The creature was surprisingly fast though, and it caught hold of Abdul-Malik’s left arm, tearing open new wounds as it spun him around. It bit Abdul-Malik’s hand, taking his pinky and ring fingers off at the base. More blood flowed from the new wounds. With his vocal chords damaged, Abdul-Malik’s screams no longer sounded human. He tried in vain again to get away from the grasp of the creature, but it was no use. He died while the creature was chewing on his arm. Within seconds of Abdul-Malik’s heart stopping, the re-animated Farouk dropped the arm it was feeding on and slowly stood erect, its head moving from side to side now and then, like it was scanning for something.

  A couple of minutes later, Najm al Din Abdul-Malik’s bloody corpse began to twitch and move, until it too stood up. Ragged wounds were leaking a blackish fluid that was no longer entirely blood, but it was gravity rather than a heartbeat that emptied the vessels. The left arm hung limp, the muscles rent to the bone in several places.

  As he watched this, Maloof knew he was not going to be able to go through with the plan. He also knew that if he was not careful, his fate would be the same as that of Abdul-Malik; he would be turned into a ghoul with gray flesh, sunken, black eyes and a hunger for living tissue.

  The Scientist speaks, startling Maloof.

  “They are much faster than we had anticipated,” he says, breaking Maloof out of his reverie. “We will have to put the rest of the martyrs in there in groups numbering at least as high as that of our soldiers or they will be torn apart to the point of being useless.” He says this as though speaking of a lesson learned from a failed project at a software company.

  That The Scientist referred to the undead as “soldiers” is not lost on Maloof. He decides he should ask a question so he can appear to be engaged in the process.

  “Why don’t you use the serum like you did with Khaleed? Wouldn’t that be…cleaner?” he asks.

  “Indeed, yes Almahdi, yes it would. The serum is valuable though, and there isn’t an unlimited supply. We need it for contingency, in case things don’t go as planned,” The Scientist replies. “No, this is the way to go. It’s more … savage, but effective for building Allah’s army.”

  What The Scientist doesn’t tell Maloof is that he received that direction from someone else; the master cell in Bangalore, India, had perfected that technique a week ago in their warehouse off of MG Road. The superior speed and strength of the revenants only lasts as long as they don’t sustain torn muscles in their all-out attacks or broken bones as they charge headlong in to objects while chasing their prey. The team in Bangalore has done a lot of work in that warehouse, so the field teams like The Scientist’s have some idea of what to expect.

  Even with this advanced knowledge, The Scientist was still surprised by Farouk’s speed. The thought of a thousand, ten thousand of these creatures running through the streets and tearing Americans apart, creating hundreds of thousands just like them within minutes makes him smile.

  Two days later, on May 5th, Maloof stood with The Scientist as they watched the two soldiers tear into the next
round of martyrs. The Scientist had, moments before, ushered two men and a woman into the room and locked the door behind them. By the time he made it to the observation room the woman’s carotid artery had been torn open, sending arterial spray in a red stripe eight feet up the wall. She dropped dead not long after that and the soldier—Abdul-Malik—moved to the second man, the first one having been dispatched by the corpse of Khaleed Farouk. Nine minutes later, there were five soldiers standing the in the room.

  * * *

  Maloof shakes his head, as if to drive those memories out of his mind, and brings his thoughts back to the present. The plans have moved forward over the ensuing two weeks and now there are two dozen reanimates in the room below. Maloof has been mentally torn in two for the last fortnight. He knows why he’s been placed here, why he’s been set up in such a cozy lifestyle. The destruction of western society is the ultimate goal of the jihad; but at the same time, he has become certain that what they are doing now is wrong. He’s reached a decision that he has to take a stand. He actually feels guilty for taking so long to reach this decision, but he soothes that guilt by reminding himself he has a lifetime of programming to overcome.

  He knows he can’t do anything from the office. The Scientist lurks around every corner, it seems, and Maloof suspects that he has the phone lines bugged. The Scientist has become increasingly more paranoid and controlling as time has progressed. No, Maloof thinks, it will have to wait until I go home tonight. His family is supposed to prepare for their exodus in the morning, so as he makes ready to leave, nothing will seem out of place even if he’s being watched.

  He’ll have to move quickly and he doubts the FBI will listen to something as seemingly outlandish as what the Undying Jihad is planning. Maloof winces as he thinks of the name they’re going to release to the media. He decides that a call to Homeland Security will get better results. No matter what, he cannot let this plan go through, and there’s not much time left so he has to act now. If he knew the full scope of the plan, he would not have had any illusions about his ability to stop it. But as it is, his choice of action has been made. He’s not turning back now.