by Nick Harland
Zed Days - Book One
By Nick Harland
Kindle Edition 2018
Copyright © 2018 by Nick Harland
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in relevant and critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination. Whilst based loosely in a real life locale all specific locations such as houses, shops, or businesses are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, places or events is entirely coincidental.
Other Titles
The Last Alchemist: The Great Bear
The Last Alchemist: Smugglers Cave
The Last Alchemist: War
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One – Day One - Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition Zombie Apocalypse.
Chapter Two – Seven
Chapter Three – “If it wasn’t for those pesky kids.”
Chapter Four – Bastard Base Security
Chapter Five – Ram Raiding
Chapter Six – Shit Stinks.
Chapter Seven – Lara Croft
Chapter Eight – Fear of the Unknown
Chapter Nine – I Fucking Hate Shopping
Chapter Ten – Honeymoon’s over
Chapter Eleven – Shit
Chapter Twelve – Second Base
Chapter Thirteen – Bill
Chapter Fourteen – Down the Pub
Chapter Fifteen – Cars, Cars and More Cars.
Chapter Sixteen – Science
Chapter Seventeen – Old Friends
Chapter Eighteen – Aliens!
Chapter Nineteen – Peeping Tom
Chapter Twenty – Back to Base
Chapter Twenty One – Unwelcome Guests
Chapter Twenty Two – Shopping Again
Chapter Twenty Three - Aftermath
Chapter Twenty Four – Party
Chapter Twenty Five – Present
Chapter Twenty Six – Defence of the Realm
Chapter Twenty Seven – “Hi”
Prologue
Call me Brad. Is that a cool way to start this book, diary, whatever? My ex-girlfriend used to read to me sometimes. She thought reading highbrow books made her smart and read Moby Dick one time. It started with ‘Call me Ishmael’.
I’m not sure there is anyone else left alive so I guess it doesn’t matter, but perhaps rather than going highbrow I should stay with my roots and start with; ‘This is the story of how I died.’ I’m not dead yet, obviously, but it can only be a matter of time before one of them takes me down or I get sick. That line, ‘This is the story of how I died’, comes from a computer game. That’s my roots, computer games. I’m not a games designer or anything fancy, just an addict player and low level modder. I love them, strategy games mostly, RPG survival stuff, they keep my mind active. Let’s face it, they can’t be worse than TV. Zombie games are my favourite.
That’s the fucked up thing about this whole situation. I am, as far as I can tell, the only person left alive in a Zombie apocalypse. That’s not what’s fucked up though, or ironic if you do want the highbrow version. The real kicker is that I seem to be alive because I did a 24 hour session playing Project Zomboid, my favourite Zombie survival game. I locked myself in my flat, closed the curtains, turned off my phone, turned off the lights, put my headphones on, and played. Apart from a few toilet brakes, eating a stack of junk food, and keeping a buzz going with a crate of alcopops, I played. I didn’t have a damn clue about anything happening outside for well over 24 hours.
So I’m writing this book, diary thing, because like I said, so far I haven’t seen any other survivors. I guess there must be others somewhere, but fuck knows where. I can’t possibly be the only person left alive in the whole world. Now that would be fucked up! So, I’m writing this so there is some kind of record of what happened, of how I survived, for a while at least.
Maybe I’ll be famous one day if this thing ever ends and mankind comes back. Maybe the army will march in tomorrow and it will all be ok. For now I’m going write, as much to stay sane as anything else. I’m kind of old fashioned for a 22 year old gamer. I like a keyboard in front of me, it’s comforting. When the electricity goes down and my battery and spare run out I’ll find a way to keep writing. Perhaps it’ll give me a purpose. For now, I’ll just set my little ultra-book on low power usage, delete almost every program, turn the screen brightness right down, and see how long my batteries last.
I remember that movie, shit, I’m so bad at movie and actor names, that movie with…yup, Tom Hanks. He gets stranded on some tiny island and talks to a basketball with a face on or something. This is my basketball, I’m taking to you, even though you probably don’t exist. I’m talking to you to keep it real. And yea, just in case this makes me famous one day.
But I think I’m in danger of boring you, and you’re probably wanting some gory details, or at least some decent Zed information. Fucked if I’m writing Zombie all the time so I’m going with Zed mainly. I’m not going to apologise for the swearing. You try surviving a Zombie apocalypse and see how clean your mouth is! I’m also going with capitals for’ Zed’ because, well, if you’d seen and killed one you would too. I suppose I should start at the beginning with day one. Lest make it official….
Chapter One – Day One - Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition Zombie Apocalypse.
So picture the scene, 24 hours of gaming, shite food, a crate of alcopops, and a massive headache to finally go to bed with. I flopped sideways from my office chair onto my bed, took a couple of decent painkillers left over from a broken ankle last year, and that was that. I didn’t set my alarm and woke up with sticky eyes and a bursting bladder at 9.30am, 35 hours after beginning the session. I crimped off a long satisfying line, that’s sailor talk I heard somewhere for taking a piss, and turned on the radio. I like a bit of music in the background. There was a repeating message;
Stay calm and stay in your homes. Lock your doors, barricade your doors and windows if you can. Stay indoors and wait for help. There is still no information about the infection but the infected are very dangerous and will attack anything living they see. STAY IN YOUR HOMES.
I smiled and assumed it was some kind of joke. I tuned to a few different channels and turned on my phone, which didn’t show a signal or any Wi-Fi access. Most of the radio channels didn’t work but the few that did had the same message on repeat. So… what’s the next logical step, open the curtains and have a peek? I should say at this stage I live, or lived, in a small flat above a pizza shop on the outskirts of town. My parents had me when they were older and died when I was nineteen. I used most of the inheritance to buy the flat, knowing I would only piss it up the wall otherwise. I’m an only child so didn’t really have anyone else to think about when it happened. Maybe that also helped keep me alive. Maybe if there were other survivors they tried to reach their loved ones and well…. didn’t manage it.
The unassuming door from the street right next to the pizza shop leads to a hall with a door to the back of the pizza shop, then straight on up some stairs to my flat. The door to the street and my flat are both pretty solid, that’s another reason I’m still alive.
So anyway, gory details, here we go, and my first mistake. I stood by the window and threw open the curtains, well yanked them hard as they’re really catchy. I fucking hate curtain rails. I had some stained old nets, or rather the nets were there when I brought the place and I never got round to changing them for blinds like I intended to. The nets didn’t stop them seeing me though, because the curtains moved. One thing you need to know abou
t Zeds is that they almost seem psychically linked, or like sheep at least. When one notices something and turns to look, the others do the same.
There were about twenty of them stood around amongst the parked, crashed, and abandoned cars. I could also clearly see a couple of partially eaten corpses on the ground. In a moment of fascination before I bent double and wretched, barely managing not to vomit, I looked to see where they’d been eaten; was it mainly their brains like in some of the older movies? No, it wasn’t, there was flesh missing everywhere, including the face, and it was horrific. You hear the term ‘blood and guts’ but until you see it, blood literally all over a person and their guts strewn over them and on the ground next to them, you can’t really imagine it and trust me, you shouldn’t try to.
One of the corpses was a woman and her top had been ripped open. One of her breasts hadn’t been bitten and was just there, in the street, on show. It looked like it would have been a nice breast when she was alive. It wasn’t right. It’s funny, though not funny ha ha obviously, what stays with you, what images affect you the most. The image of that half eaten woman stays with me, she was the first dead person I ever saw. But it wasn’t the horror of the scene, the gore of flesh and bone, it was the indignity of her lying there out in the open, top ripped open, one boob showing. It was that image as much as any other that really brought it home for me, that the world I knew was gone and that the new world was an ugly, brutal, merciless hell hole.
After retching but managing to keep the junk I had eaten inside I looked out again and a couple of the Zed’s had caught me opening the curtains. Within a few seconds they all looked up and started shambling towards me, or rather the pizza shop. Is it too unoriginal to use the word shambling? They weren’t fast, but one or two were faster than the others, like a brisk walk. How I wish that was as fast as any of them were.
There was nothing obviously Zed about them, no rotting skin and flesh falling off their bones, no greenish brown skin colour, but the groaning and vacant expression Zombie lore has led us to expect was pretty much dead on. I guess they did look a bit pale as well, particularly their eye’s. Within a minute they had all gathered in front of the shop and were banging on the metal roll-down shopfront, and some on the door downstairs. I couldn’t see the ones banging on the door because it was slightly recessed, but I could hear them.
At first I was frozen in disbelief but it didn’t take long for me to get it together and close the curtains again, leaving a small gap to peek through. Then I had a simple choice; panic, piss myself, and probably die, or deal with it. Having been totally immersed in a Zed survival game until only hours before the easy option was just to load up a new game and get on with it; the excitement of a new start. Admittedly it was a screwed up, freaky, advanced VR, Iron man, survival difficulty kind of game, but a game none the less. For non-gamers Iron man is where you can’t save the game unless you quit out, so if you die, that’s it. Twenty hours in and only just finished your base when you die, fuck you, start again. Finally found that weapon you really needed but died getting it, fuck you, start again. 100 hours in and becoming a legend, sweaty finger slips off a key and you die, fuck you start again. At this point I should probably have some quote about life is a game but right now I might be the smartest person left alive, and I don’t, so suck it….
There is no keyboard control on any game I know of that allows you to sit down on your bed and cry, so I did what any experienced gamer would do, I strapped my extra-large balls on and went downstairs. I guess I planned to take the advice of the person on the radio. I didn’t plan on going anywhere. I planned, for the time being at least, to barricaded myself in. There was only my flat above the pizza shop, which was a good start. Starting above somewhere that has lots of food was also a really useful bonus. The stairs down from the flat are a straight run to the door to the street and like I’ve said, there was a door into the back of the pizza shop on the right as you come in, just before the stairs.
I opened my door and peeped through in case there were Zeds in the corridor, but there weren’t. I’m not exactly gifted at DIY but I did have a hammer, a few screwdrivers, mainly tiny ones for the computer, and a packet of medium sized nails. With hammer in hand I stood at the top of the stairs and listened. The banging was pretty loud but I avoided the strong urge to run back inside, or again, piss myself. I had fuck all in the flat I could barricade the door with and if some moving curtains attracted them I didn’t want to be hammering anyway. The hammer, if you are not familiar with surviving a Zombie apocalypse, virtually at least, is a pretty good starter weapon. Short range which is bad, but sturdy as hell and can crack skulls which is good. On Project Zomboid, half the time at least, you start with a frying pan. A frying pan is ok but breaks after a few hits. Hammers don’t break, hammers are good. Mine was a modern all in one forged job with rubber handle for shock absorption and better grip. A lump of metal loosely stuck on an old bit of wood like my dad used to use wouldn’t have been as good.
So I walked down the stairs and put my ear against the door to the back of the Pizza shop. The door to the street was old fashioned wood with a tiny frosted window so the Zed’s banging on it couldn’t see me. Being a good customer, their neighbour, and occasionally an unwilling employee if someone was off sick, I had a spare key. I listened at the door, nothing. Then I tapped it gently with the hammer and listened again. What went through my head when I heard groaning and then a banging against the other side of the door was simple, fuck, fuckity fuck fuck.
Again, bladder control a priority; done. You would think after pissing so recently you wouldn’t be so aware of your bladder but you’d be wrong, again, you’ll have to trust me on this one. Choice time, wimp out or go for it. You don’t start a game you don’t intent to master, no matter how long it takes, or at least I don’t, so I swung the hammer a few times experimentally and carefully unlocked the door. It opened inwards which was good, so taking a few breaths like I was about to dive for pearls I shoved it forwards as hard as I could and lifted the hammer, ready for whatever.
As it turned out I wasn’t ready for whatever, but instincts took over and I swung the hammer and skulled the Zed in front of me which had been pushed backwards by my explosive entrance. Except it wasn’t a Zed, or it was, but last time I looked her name was Lucy. I liked Lucy quite a lot. We even fucked a few times a year ago, hence the ex-girlfriend I mentioned earlier, she didn’t appreciate that, me fucking Lucy I mean. I knew it wasn’t working out between us and I think Lucy was a way of breaking us up. I don’t know if that makes me more or less of a jerk. Lucy was one of the older and longer standing pizza shop employees, e.g. she was 20 and had worked there for more than three months. They used to trust her with coming into the shop around lunchtime to set up before it opened, or to lock up sometimes at night.
I used to listen at my door after the shop had shut and then I would happen to come out with a glass of something strong in my hand when she was leaving. I’m sure she knew I was waiting for her but I guess she didn’t mind; she was nice like that. She had smallish tits that weren’t my usual type, but she had a really pretty face, big brown eyes, and a step machine bum which made up for the tits. She also used her awesome bum to maximum effect and liked to be on top, which I loved. She must have been setting up the shop when it happened so it must have been around lunchtime.
So yea, that was kill number one, and the one I’m least proud of. My reaction wasn’t exactly what a dude in a game would do, but it was all I had. I couldn’t hold in the junk I’d eaten anymore and I collapsed onto my knees and threw up all over the floor. If there had been another Zed that would have been it, but there wasn’t, apparently my lucky streak wasn’t over.
I knelt there for a while staring at the body. Thankfully she went down face first so I didn’t have to look at her. Often in the movies and various Zombie TV series when hammer hits skull it goes in and there is splatter, blood and whatnot. That didn’t happen. Skulls are tough things when they haven’t be
en dead long and although her head certainly wasn’t the shape it was supposed to be, ‘caved in’ would be bit of an exaggeration. Either way Zombie lore had saved me because as it turns out a decent headshot is what you need.
It took a while to get myself back to the business of surviving and I had to move her body out of the way. It wasn’t pleasant or easy moving the body, but I did it. They say a completely limp body is harder to move, let me confirm, they’re right. As I moved her my early 20’s brain and an eon of evolution kicked in; my hand grabbed her breast when I was trying to get hold of her and I was transported to one of our nights together. I won’t admit to any physical reaction but that’s when it occurred to me, I would probably never have sex again; Fuck!
After moving Lucy into the corner of the front of the shop I had to get on with the business of survival; food, water, toilet paper etc. That’s right, you read correctly, toilet paper. Imagine the scene if you will; a flat full of food and water for at least a couple of weeks of survival but on day three you run out toilet paper and the water is off. It might be a Zed apocalypse but I’m not an animal and I only had so many clothes and no decent way of washing them. I used to go to a laundrette in town.
So on Project Zomboid, at some point in the first month or two, electricity, gas, and water will stop working. In real life this happens much more quickly but it’s nice for a beginner to have the game options, particularly with the water. The loss of basic services requires a game strategy of running around finding lots of containers and filling them with water. It also requires finding a way to cook that isn’t an oven. Firstly I needed a way to barricade, or more correctly, block the outside door. It was holding well but the banging didn’t stop and although I figured it would take a while, I thought that eventually the door might give out. The back door to the small concrete yard behind the pizza shop had a metal shutter and there was no banging from it, so I wasn’t too worried about that one.
