[HGB] Humanity Gone Bad: The Dead Chronicles

by Watkins, Charles

  “Let’s get inside and get what we need and then get going; as I’ve said before—we can’t stay in one place for too long.” I stated as I led the way up to the glass doors of the store with my M16 ready.

  My ankle had healed almost completely and just about the only scar from that night that was left was my sorrow from losing Angie that would overwhelm me every now and then, having Jennifer and Sheila at my side and in my life helped me move forward though and they were both very good with Remy, Mace and Ember—who were all still too young to know that something bad had happened to their mother. Noah and Melvin worked on gathering the supplies from the canned goods isle while most of the rest of the group gathered non-perishables and other essential stuff that we would need to survive. After we were done, we got back into the lab truck and the others got into their vehicles and we left as the sounds of zombies could be heard not far off; we wasted little time heading north passing through many small to moderate sized towns along the highway. By nightfall of that same day we were passing by Morgantown and it seemed that we would be crossing into Pennsylvania before midnight.

  I stopped along the side of the road and turned to the others who were looking at me questioningly.

  “I’m gonna get a little sleep—Noah you can take over driving.” I stated as I got up from the driver’s seat and started heading toward the back with Jennifer and Sheila.

  “Okay—how far do I need to drive?” Noah asked as he and Christina walked past us toward the front.

  “Drive until you hit Pittsburg and then head east…hopefully the city isn’t too bad.” I answered turning to glance at him briefly.

  “Gotcha.” Noah answered as he plopped down into the driver’s seat with Christina beside of him holding the road atlas.

  I chose a corner in the back and piled my gear and made a comfortable pallet on the floor—Jennifer and Sheila put Remy, Mace and Ember to sleep and soon after joined me; soon we were fast asleep as the others around us continued along the way. Several hours later I awoke to see that the bright morning sun was shining in my eyes, I woke Jennifer and Sheila and we got up stretching.

  “Morning you guys—sleep well?” Melody asked as she and Ella sat nearby watching out one of the half-open windows.

  “About as well as you can sleep on a hard metal floor…where are we right now?” I asked looking first out the window and then around the inside of the lab truck.

  “I think that we’re somewhere past Harrisburg.” Melody answered as she glanced toward the front of the truck where Noah and Christina were still sitting.

  “Damn, Noah—you’ve gotten us pretty far.” I stated as I walked to the front and leaned down between the seats.

  “Yeah—pretty much every single place that I’ve tried to slow down to stop has been overrun by those damned dead-heads so I just kept going; we’re almost out of fuel though so we’re going to have to stop here shortly to either put what we have in the fuel cans in the back into the tank or see if we can’t find a working set of diesel pumps.” Noah answered as he sipped at his coffee mug.

  “We should be in New Jersey by late tonight and New York City sometime after that; we’re making good progress.” I stated in deep thought.

  “Yeah…I just hope that we can find some scientists and doctors left alive so that antitoxin sample can go to some use.” Jennifer stated as she and Sheila wrapped their arms around me.

  “It looks like Jonestown is the next small town that we’ll be passing—pull this thing off the road there and we’ll tend to refueling.” I instructed as I opened a nearby window and poked my head out to look back at the others who were still following us in the rear.

  “Okay—your dad checked in about an hour ago and it sounded like everything is okay back there; Kira and Melvin almost got swarmed by those things a few miles back but they were able to get away without injury or infection.” Cedric stated as he glanced my way.

  Soon after Noah spotted a large service station and pulled off the road into the lot, I got out followed by Jennifer and Sheila who both stayed close to me while my mom watched the kids inside of the lab truck; Kira and Melvin pulled up on their motorcycles and checked the regular fuel pumps—which were dead as my dad and mom parked their truck and started searching around for fuel.

  “Let me check the inside of the store to see if there’s any way for us to turn the pumps on—it doesn’t look like there are too many of those things around at the moment but we need to hurry—it won’t take them long to discover us.” I stated as I walked past Noah and Christina who stood nearby with their weapons in hand.

  I opened the door of the nearby store and stepped inside—the room was in shambles and there were skeletons as well as bodies that were still decaying here and there and half of the ceiling had collapsed toward the back near the coolers; there was suddenly a loud screaming as a zombie sprinted toward us from back toward where the restrooms were—I quickly drew my magnum and fired a single round that blew off the left side of its skull spilling thick blood and brains all over the floor as it fell on its face and ceased to move.

  “Damn…that thing came out of nowhere.” Sheila exclaimed as she clung to me.

  “Yeah—it startled me too; good shooting baby.” Jennifer added as she kissed the left side of my face.

  “Thanks—let’s see if there is anything in here that we can use and leave before more dead-heads arrive.” I answered as I went to the front countertop and started rummaging through displays of various junk before checking the switch to the pumps which turned out to have been left on.

  Sheila joined me in my search as Jennifer stood guard with her AK-74 ready—Noah and Christina came inside and worked their way back toward the areas where snack food and beverages had been kept; there wasn’t much left that was any good so we didn’t gather but a few small items—mainly a few scattered cans of pasta and a few sticks of beef jerky that surprisingly hadn’t went bad yet. I led the way out of the store and we met up with everyone else out in front of the pumps next to the lab truck.

  “What happened in there—we heard gunfire.” My dad stated as he glanced from me to the store behind us.

  “We encountered a dead-head inside—luckily it was the only one…has the lab truck been fueled up?” I answered as I nervously glanced around at the area.

  “Yeah—but we haven’t been able to find any regular gas for the motorcycles or your parents’ truck.” Beau answered as he finished refueling the lab truck and slung his assault rifle back over his shoulder.

  “I’m taking care of that right now.” Melvin answered strolling toward us from off to the side of the station with a long, green garden hose in his hand.

  He proceeded to use his knife to cut the hose in half and remove the fuel cap from a nearby abandoned SUV and feed the hose down into the tank; after sucking on it for several seconds and getting a small amount of gasoline into his mouth causing him to have to spit it out quickly—he started siphoning the gas out into a large metal gas can that he had sitting nearby. As Melvin continued with that Billy helped my dad do the same with another vehicle in order to get gas for their truck and after another ten or fifteen minutes they had siphoned enough gas out to fill both of the tall, metal gas cans and they used funnels to put the gas into the tanks of the motorcycles and the truck; finally after it was done we were ready to leave.

  “Okay—we’ve only got a little further to go now before we get to New York City…let’s hope that once we get there we can not only find a secure location to hole up but also some doctors and scientists left alive who can create a cure out of the antitoxin sample.” I answered with a hopeful tone.

  “Right—let’s hit it.” Noah stated as he and Christina led the way inside of the lab truck.

  Everyone else followed and Kira and Melvin got on their motorcycles as my dad and mom got into their truck behind us—I got into the driver’s seat of the lab truck while Jennif
er and Sheila sat near me, one in the passenger side seat and the other in the seat behind me; I started the engine and led the way out of the lot getting back on interstate 78 heading east toward New Jersey. By nightfall later that day I had gotten us past the New Jersey state line and that was when I started to notice that there were a lot of wrecked vehicles in the roadway—the undead were getting thicker as well and within seconds we could all hear the horrible screams and the banging on the sides of the truck, my mind immediately went to Kira and Melvin who were behind us; I could hear their guns firing and I turned to Noah and the others behind me who seemed to know what I was thinking.

  “Shit—get that rear trailer door open and get them in here!” I shouted as one of the creatures in front of us struck the thick windshield of the lab truck with its fist making a large bloody splotch.

  Noah, Cedric, Beau and several others ran back into the trailer and quickly unlocked the rear door opening it—once it was open I stopped the truck and ran back there as well with Jennifer and Sheila at my side; Kira and Melvin were firing at swarms of zombies that were racing toward them—dozens of the creatures fell to the ground dead but there were so many of them that things looked grim.

  “Get in here—all of you!” I shouted getting their attention as my dad and mom pulled their truck up on the side creating a temporary barrier against the undead swarms.

  I aimed my M16 and opened fire on the creatures for over a minute until Kira and Melvin as well as my parents were inside of the trailer with us.

  “Noah—get us the fuck out of here!” I shouted back toward the front as he ran toward the driver’s seat.

  I could see the hundreds of hands pressed against the windshield in the front and more and more of them were piling up against the sides—Noah put his foot to the pedal and ran over many of the ones that were in the front; as we plowed forward many of the creatures dashed toward the rear doors of the trailer and Billy, Jennifer and Sheila were shooting constantly before we finally got the doors closed and locked again.

  “I kind of had a feeling that everyone would end up in here sooner or later.” Cedric stated with a dark look as he ran to one of the side windows and glanced out back toward where the horde of undead were still chasing us but from a good ways back.

  “We had no other choice—it was either get them inside of here or lose them to those dead, decaying bastards.” I answered looking toward him briefly.

  “We got what we needed from the truck…the rest of it is gone.” My dad stated as he and my mom sat down on one of the seats nearby.

  “Shit—Chaz, dude…get up here!” Noah called from the front as I turned to glance toward him.

  I ran to the front followed by Jennifer and Sheila and we saw what he was shouting about—ahead was the ruins of a bridge that had formally went across a fairly wide river.

  “Shit…how are we going to get across the damned river?” Melvin asked with an annoyed look.

  “I wonder how and the hell that bridge got destroyed…” Kira stated with a distant look.

  “Who knows…we’re going to have to take a detour to see if there are any other ways across this damned river.” I stated as I turned and glanced out the side window toward the north.

  “Do you wanna drive?” Noah asked looking up at me.

  “Yeah—let me see if I can’t get us around this mess.” I answered as I exchanged seats with him.

  Everyone settled in as I turned the lab truck to the north and left the interstate heading into the woods on what seemed like an auxiliary road, as we got farther and farther off from the interstate I started to notice that the road was getting closer and closer to the river and there was one point where the entire area was torn to pieces as if something huge had descended down into the area—that was when we saw it; there before us down in the rushing waters of the river was the remains of a massive 747 airliner, its massive tail and part of the ruined body of the plane was sticking up out of the water and the rest was crumbled and smashed around the rocks.

  “Holy shit…look!” Jennifer shouted pointing ahead.

  We all looked to where she was pointing and there on the side of the plane was the words “Air Force One”—this aircraft had no doubt been transporting the president to what was thought at the time to have been a secure location but it had crashed in this river for some unknown reason.

  “Well…guess we all have our answers regarding that topic—there’s a chance I guess that that airliner was what destroyed that bridge back there.” Beau stated with a distant look.

  “It’s all part of the dead past now—we have to keep going to try and find a way across the river…it looks like there’s something up that way.” I answered as I motioned upriver toward what looked like the dark outline of another bridge and possibly a small town.

  “That sign over there says that we’re getting close to High Bridge so there should be a way across the river.” Christina answered as she glanced out the side window.

  I needed nothing else to convince me to start driving again and after several long minutes we arrived in the small town of High Bridge were it looked like things were just as bad as everywhere else—the undead were here and there as we passed through the center of town heading toward the river where we were hoping that we would find a bridge. Once we arrived at the bridge we seen that there was what appeared to be a wrecked pickup truck blocking the road across the bridge and it looked like it had smashed into a military vehicle.

  “Shit…we’re gonna have to move that damn truck before we can get through.” I stated in deep thought as I stared ahead at the obstacle.

  “Let’s go out and move it really quick.” Noah said in an eager voice as he gripped his shotgun in his hands going to the steps leading down to the door.

  I put the lab truck into park and grabbed my assault rifle following him out the door as the rest of the group waited and watched out the windows—once the two of us arrived at the wreckage we found several corpses that looked like they weren’t very old.

  “Damn dude…it’s almost strange to still be finding bodies this fresh after nearly a decade of this shit.” Noah stated with a shocked expression.

  “It just means that there are still people out there surviving this shit—just like us.” I answered with a distant look as I looked up at the full moon that was shining down on us.

  “Chaz—Noah, you guys better get back in here—there’s something huge showing up on the radar!” Melvin shouted from the open door of the lab truck behind us.

  “Shit…” I muttered as we were both forced to run back inside of the lab truck and seal the doors as everyone else gathered around the computer console toward the back of the truck.

  “What is it?” I asked as I met Jennifer and Sheila with hugs and kisses.

  “I don’t know yet but it’s big whatever it is.” Melvin answered as he gazed at a moving signature on the radar screen that was approaching us from the southwest.

  “Fuck—I hope it’s not that damn Entity EX thing again!” Beau shouted as he gripped his assault rifle and ran to one of the side windows.

  That was when something huge hit the top of the lab truck and damn near knocked it over onto its side—whatever it was it was heavy because the ceiling of the lab truck was starting to crunch inward; I grabbed Jennifer and Sheila as they gathered my three daughters and we hit the floor as whatever was on the top of the truck struck the side of it violently.

  “It’s that damned creature again—the plane crash didn’t kill it as I had hoped it had!” Beau shouted in anger as he clung to a nearby seat trying to regain his footing.

  “What are we going to do—we can’t fight that thing out in the open and it is trying to crush us inside of here!” Kira shouted in panic.

  “The trailer has a floor hatch and I think that I parked over a manhole…we might be able to escape into the sewers—it’ll buy us enough time to
get away from the damned thing at least.” I answered as I grabbed all of my weapons and gear.

  “Whatever we’re doing—let’s do it fast, the ceiling is getting more and more crunched in and by the look of it the creature is starting to tear into the steel with its claws.” My dad stated looking up as we could now hear the Entity EX roaring in rage as it continued to crush the top of the lab truck in on us.

  We all gathered our weapons and gear and I led the way toward the doorway to the rear trailer when suddenly a violent impact struck the outside of the trailer and ripped it off of the lab truck where it flew through the air about fifty feet and smashed against the side of a building—it was at that moment when the horrible face of the Entity EX peered into the doorway of the lab truck at us hatefully; I backed up leading the others toward the front of the truck as the creature tore the doorframe apart enough to force its massive head into the rear of the lab truck.

  “Let’s go—now!” I shouted opening the front side door and hustling everyone out as the thing looked like it was getting stuck.

  Everyone fled out the door and only Jennifer and Sheila waited outside of it as I pulled the pins from several grenades and tossed them over toward the creature—I fled the ruins of the lab truck with Jennifer and Sheila who carried Remy, Mace and Ember in their arms.

  We could hear the Entity EX roar in rage as it actually lifted the ruins of the lab truck up off the road and gripped the sides of it trying to pull its stuck head and upper body free—that was when the grenades exploded sending pieces of what was left of our lab truck in all directions as fire and smoke filled the air around the creature; when I looked again I seen that its’ head had been freed but its’ left limb had been completely blown off and almost all of its’ right one as well. Black blood poured out of the grievous wounds that the explosion had inflicted on the Entity EX and it tore around the area in confusion—I could tell that it was badly injured but if we didn’t either get away or fight it one that it would easily kill us all; that was when rockets soared out of an area off to my left and hit the Entity EX exploding against its’ body and gunfire erupted as several strangers appeared out of a nearby dark alleyway and continued to advance toward the creature that was now on its chest roaring in both anger and pain.