What Lies Beneath: Z is for Zombie Book 6

by catt dahman

  Despite being full, several licked their lips in anticipation.

  Henry slept fairly well since they had been there, but this night, he slept much better after the good dinner.

  Suddenly, he awoke after hearing moaning, and he knew that the zombies had breached security, but where? He and several others jumped up and looked around, quickly lighting candles and a lantern. Nothing moved, but they heard the moaning. The two guards outside the common sleeping room hadn’t sounded an alarm that zombies had gotten in.

  What was happening?

  In the corner. Movement.

  Henry strode over with a baseball bat in hand.

  The last thing he expected was to see Clay and Shelly kneeling over their little son, Payton, feeding on his legs and belly. Blood was all over the floor, the child, and their faces. They were such loving, attentive parents and would have been horrified to know they killed their child and were feeding on his little body. It made Henry feel very sad to imagine the terror the child must have felt.

  Henry hit Clay in his head, knocking him back; Clay moaned and came towards Henry. Randy swung a board at Shelly, crushing her nose and pushing her away from the child; he began to beat at her head. The infection took all the love and humanity and left only hunger.

  Mia saw the horror and ran to scoop up the pitiful child into her arms. He was barely moving, only making a groaning, whining noise. She couldn’t imagine the pain he was in and the confusion and sadness he must feel. “Poor baby, it’s okay.”

  “Mia, put him down; he’s infected,” her friend, Rose yelled.

  Henry and another man beat at Clay’s head. Randy and a woman finished off Shelly.

  Mia looked at Payton and saw that his little legs were gnawed to the bones, leaving only bits of flesh clinging. His stomach was torn open, and intestines poured out like fat, grey snakes. His eyes were like those of his parents’: filmy. He was moaning, not because of pain, but because he had turned. As she began to drop him to the floor, he snapped at her arm, snagging a dime-sized bit of skin, but thankfully, the bite wasn’t deep.

  Rose grabbed Mia: scrubbed the bite with alcohol and began to bandage the wound.

  Several people converged on the child to finish him off, vomiting as they did so. Some sobbed.

  That was how they gained and lost a doctor and a nurse who could cook and how Mia was infected.

  In the morning, Kim, Len, Conner, Johnny, and Earl went to the school, killed many zombies, and then met Mia; they told her that she was infected and couldn’t go with the rescue team. The school was over run.

  Henry lost many of his group and left Mia and Rose behind with a pistol, but they would join the US Militia under the leadership of Len Bernhart and build a new life in Popetown, renamed Hopetown.

  19

  Gabe’s Silence

  Gabe always went with Zane, the boy who liked wolves. On their travels, the child sometimes did magic, and he often sat and petted wild wolves, which came to him like puppies to be tickled and scratched lovingly.

  When Zane’s parents, Leandra and Danny were killed, along with the other adults who protected him, only Gabe was left to care for the child. He made sure the boy ate, drank clean water, and stayed safe. He killed many zombies. The wolves killed more of them to protect the child. Gabe’s entire role in life was to protect the child.

  In time, they traveled with interesting people: men and women, a man said to be the brother of the President of the United States, and teenagers, all of whom read Leandra’s diary that said Zane was a special child with special abilities, the one they dreamed of.

  Eventually, they lived safely with other, hard-working people in a commune called Hopetown, and once Zane used his magic to clean out some very bad men, but, oh, that was much later in their adventures.

  Gabe never talked. He followed instructions people gave him, he guarded Zane, but he never spoke. That didn’t mean he was stupid or deaf; he was neither. He took in everything that was said. He knew more was to be learned by listening than in talking.

  Years before, when Gabe was a child, a very bad man took him from his home. He was only taken because he was sleeping in his cousin Val’s bedroom; the bad man slipped in, grabbed both children by covering their faces with a cloth with a terrible smelling liquid, and burned the home. The crime frightened the entire town, and no one knew who had done such a violent thing.

  In the man’s house, the children awoke in the basement in handcuffs; several other children were there with them but were locked in dog cages. Gabe felt they would be killed and that no one would ever know what became of them.

  The man gave them small cups of water but no food. He used a water hose with cold water to clean them and their cages. When he came for one of the little girls, he scrubbed her in the bathtub where she screamed for help, but no one heard her down in the basement. After he had a clean victim, he made movies.

  The movies were of the man, in a mask, sexually molesting the little girls, including Val. In one, the man raped a girl so brutally that she bled. Gabe was forced to watch. Sometimes the man filmed Gabe watching, no expression on his face. The bad man might have been making the films to sell for money, but he enjoyed what he did.

  The first time Gabe saw a little girl tortured that way and saw the children in dog cages, he decided he would never speak again because if he did, he would scream forever. His emotions shut down, and he became nothing. If he had still been something, he would have gone out of his mind with fear and horror.

  The girl who bled didn’t stop bleeding or crying, and finally, she died, curled up in the fetal position in a bare dog cage that stank of her own waste. The man made Gabe dig a hole in the basement where the man buried her after he chopped her up.

  In one film, the man wore a hockey mask and pretended he was the bad man from a movie who was stalking a girl. He molested her; then, he slashed her with a machete; finally, they buried her.

  The man beat Gabe, sometimes for not speaking when he was spoken to, but other than the probability that the man would kill him one day, nothing else would change. Gabe didn’t think, he didn’t react, and he didn’t speak. He was less than nothing. He waited to be killed as well.

  For a very long time, the third girl was tortured on film with a wood burning tool and a knife. Gabe never blinked. She also went into the basement in a grave.

  Only Val was left.

  And him.

  The man tried to get Gabe, three years older than his cousin, to engage in sex with Val, who was five, but he showed no emotion, no fear, or disgust. He stood like a manikin, and when the man moved Gabe’s arm, it would hang there until the man moved it again. It took a lot of moving and effort for the man to get any good pictures, but even then, Gabe and Val looked dead and fake. He beat Gabe, but he didn’t cry or try to cover spots where he was beaten.

  Val screamed and tried to fight the man, but Gabe knew it was hopeless to fight back which made him sad. He knew that the next body they buried would be little Val. Next, the man might grab more little girls, or he might do bad things to Gabe.

  A neighbor saw something strange going on at the house next door, so he reported it, and the police finally came to investigate; frantically, they looked for the children. The man, when he saw the police, panicked, tried to shoot his way out, but was killed.

  The police were glad he was dead when they saw what he had done to the children; also, the man’s death saved an expensive trial. Several policemen vomited when they saw the children and the buried bodies. The case made national headlines not only because of the violence and death count of fourteen girls in the basement, but also because several buyers of the films were well known men.

  Val was dehydrated and starved, torn and bruised. On a score of one to ten, ten being the best condition and zero being dead, she was given a three. Val was vocal about what happened, expressing emotions and feelings; she was in and out of hospitals for years.

  The buyers were systematically arrested and charged
with crimes

  Over the next nine years, every time Val saw Gabe, it brought back her memories; she even tried to kill herself numerous times. Then, when she was fourteen, she over dosed and died.

  He was somehow relieved that she was finally at peace.

  Gabe didn’t speak. He was in and out of hospitals, as well. His parents tried to repair the damage done during his eight days of captivity, but he didn’t show any thoughts and emotions; he didn’t speak. The doctors claimed unless Gabe spoke and worked out the emotional destruction, he would never be well, but his parents didn’t agree. He simply needed a quiet, calm environment, and besides he was fine, except for not speaking.

  When Gabe’s parents joined a hippie commune where Leandra and Danny were, he found some peace in the daily chores of hard work: growing food, simple religion, or spirituality, and no outside activity. He didn’t miss television or the radio. In fact, with the close living, he felt safe for the first time in years. The isolation felt comfortable to him.

  When Red came, he understood what it was and that the world as he knew it was ending. When the bombs fell, he understood the fire and the destruction were cleansing the zombies from the cities.

  When the crazy boys killed the rest of the group, except for Zane and Gabe, Gabe understood that was another torture like he had already seen. He saw Zane fight back and destroy them, and he envied that power, wishing he had it to hurt the man who killed so many. But that was Zane’s power.

  Gabe knew he survived for one reason: to protect the child, keeping him healthy and safe, and sane. He didn’t speak, but he could have if he thought it was important. As it was, Zane and he communicated just fine.

  People were curious about Gabe. They never would have understood that he saw hell, closed himself down, and stayed in a safe place within himself so the demons never could reach him. What he went through was to purify himself and to take everything from him, leaving only his mission. He was burned in a blaze of white fire when he watched the torture, and for years, he waited and wondered what his mission was.

  When it came, he recognized it: Save the child at any cost.

  That was all.

  Gabe was chosen, even purified for this, and he didn’t need to talk to do it; he did his job. They went to Hopetown, too, and Gabe found a great peace there. Zane found new parents to raise him, and Zane’s happy giggles were the first and only happiness Gabe felt in fifteen years.

  20

  Casualties of War

  With a lot of hard work, they managed to destroy the bridge over the wide, deep stream, so the way was blocked to anyone who was curious and/or was a zombie. On one of their trips into town for supplies, they met a small group from down South who were searching for the boy with the wolves.

  Chase and Adam already decided that people searching for the boy with the wolves were okay and that the ones seeking the boy with the withered face were bad. The dreams might be symbolic, but sometimes they thought both boys might be real people although they couldn’t explain why they dreamed of them.

  A man and woman spent the night with them, telling them they heard of a safe place called Hopetown: the people there grew food, raised animals, had supplies, and developed a good security. The people had a Governor and were rebuilding a real life. The man and woman said they were headed to Hopetown and that the boy who loves wolves was rumored to be there.

  They also told about the Reconstruction Army, which sounded chillingly horrible, but told the group that the people of Hopetown, the US Militia, fought back and destroyed the crazy, evil men of the RA. The situation there was much safer.

  Chase took in all of that information. Another world was out there.

  Raul and Neal came back one day to the group, excited and talking at the same time. All they could understand was Humvee and cure, but what they wanted to know was where Greg, Jake, and Jamal were.

  Chase didn’t know a thing about military vehicles, but what rolled into her yard was a tan Humvee with four doors, all hard armored, and a shielded area at the top where she saw a big gun and windows. It looked massive.

  The three men jumped out once the gate was locked again and waved at those who stood speechless.

  “Ummm…where did this come from?”

  “It was just sitting there close to the State Line; something big had happened there because some military men were torn up by zombies and left to rot.”

  “We almost missed it but then saw it hidden.”

  “Recent battle?”

  “No. I would say weeks ago.”

  “We can travel in style now,” Jamal said as he high-fived his brother.

  “What were Raul and Neal blubbering insanely about? A cure?” Adam asked, jealous that they had found the vehicle without him.

  “There was a bunch of medical supplies and notes; some of that was way over our heads, but they had some kind of inoculation.”

  “Oh, my God,” Jenny breathed “we’re saved?”

  “Dunno. Have to read about it and see,” Greg said.

  Yuki shivered. “That reminds me of my nightmares.”

  “It’s okay, Kee Kee, we’re here…no worries,” Sarah told her.

  They took the rest of the day off, taking turns reading, summarizing the notes, and looking over the supplies. Some were bored and drifted in and out, but all gathered that evening to find out the results.

  “From what we can tell, it’s what we guessed about Kee Kee, ” Greg told them.

  “Which is?”

  Chase shrugged. “On one hand, there is an inoculation that will give total immunity from the infection. One shot and the person can’t be infected through a bite or in any way. Period.”

  They had seen up close what people who were infected became.

  “So, we wouldn’t become one of those things if we were bitten; that’s good,” Adam said, “right?”

  “She said ‘on one hand’, so I know there’s more.”

  “We guessed most of it,” Chase said, “there is the possibility of infection to someone else such as if one who is inoculated bites someone, or well, like Yuki did…have sex with him or exchange bodily fluids.”

  “Then, I did have the shot?” Yuki cried out.

  “Yes, but you didn’t know. You can either not have sex or do it with another one who is immune. And you watch out for blood or spit or shit.”

  “It’s in shit, too? The contagion?” Jamal asked. They laughed at him.

  Chase rolled her eyes. “Okay…and one who is immune will crave the red meat…raw, but eating iron rich food can stall the cravings.”

  “Spinach?”

  Chase smiled. “Yes, Adam. Spinach. They tattooed numbers on the backs of people’s necks to keep track, but no one has to do that. The main thing is that a person will have cravings and be able to spread the infection. When the change is going on, it sounds like a person has some Red symptoms as in the stomach pain, some bleeding, vomiting, and fever, and they treated that with pain meds, knock out drugs, IV for hydration, and so forth.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “I don’t know. Not pleasant for sure, but they don’t have anyone marked as having died of the change. I think the drugs to knock people out were mostly so they didn’t recall all the details. With some, they just strapped them down…didn’t care if they remembered.”

  “How many?”

  “Over a hundred in this area,” Greg said, “they looked for strong, healthy people who…now this is them speaking…would be Angels, avengers of this disease, and take over the world as a new species, so to speak. Two immunes can have immune children.”

  “Are there personality and emotional changes?”

  “Not that they reported, but then how long did they have to test it?” Chase pointed out. “The only thing we saw was that it had a calming effect on nerves, and the person did have a much higher tolerance for pain.”

  Sarah and Jake traded glances.

  “You won’t be a super hero,” Adam said.

&nb
sp; “I wouldn’t be scared of becoming one of those things either.”

  Adam agreed, “But they could eat you, anyway.”

  “But my biggest fear is being bitten and having to kill myself, letting one of you kill me, or turning, then biting people, and eating them. I don’t wanna be like that. There’s nothing worse than losing who I am and being a monster,” Jamal said.

  “And we could do a lot of good,” Sarah added.

  “But no sex unless with one of us or another immune person out there if you can find one,” Neal said.

  “Are we seriously considering this?” Greg asked, “no way.”

  “I think we at least have to discuss it, or we’ll be avoiding the big pink elephant in the room,” Chase said.

  “Count me out,” Jeanette said, “no way do I wanna become a half zombie…that’s what it is…spreading it and eating raw meat; those are the two things that make them zombies.”

  “You’d keep you identity though…your feelings and memories. And you wouldn’t attack people,” Raul protested.

  “I don’t care. I’d rather be me or dead.”

  “And if one bites you and you turn, then you are neither; you lose it all and hunt people,” Sarah said, making her point.

  “We can read more, or you can read it yourselves and think about both sides; we don’t have to decide anything right now. Let’s give it forty-eight hours and then see how we feel, ” Chase suggested. She hasn’t even had time to think it over.

  They talked to one another privately: read, prayed, thought, and wavered back and forth.

  “Okay, each says how he feels so far and what he plans to do and why; that way we all know why we feel is the best reason,” Sarah suggested.

  “I say yes because Sarah wants to and so I won’t ever be one of those things,” Jake said.

  “Yes for me. We’re going to fight those bastards, and this will give us a real chance,” Sarah added.