[HGB] Humanity Gone Bad: The Dead Chronicles

by Watkins, Charles

  “I know…there’s got to be a generator or something that we can use to supply power—at least for this area of the building; let’s find what we’re here for first and then we’ll figure out the issue about the power.” I answered briefly glancing back at him.

  I led the way through the dark areas of the room until we arrived in a larger room where all sort of equipment was sitting around—in the center of the room was a large machine that looked important; as everyone clustered into the room behind me I read from the panel on the machine that it was used to synthesize vaccines for various diseases.

  “This is it everyone—we’ve found it; now all we need is electricity to get this thing working so we can get what we came here for done.” I stated as I took Jennifer and Sheila into my arms.

  “Any idea one where the generator systems could be?” My dad asked as he and my mom stood nearby.

  “Most likely in the sublevels of this building—I hate to even suggest that we split up but maybe a small team should head back down and try to locate the generator while the rest stay here and guard this position.” I answered with a serious expression.

  “We’ll go—the rest of you guys stay here and guard this equipment in case there is trouble; we’re used to this sort of thing.” Hugo answered as he stepped forward with Amy and Desiree behind him.

  “I’ll go along as well, there’s no telling what sorts of things may start to come out of the woodwork once those lights come back on.” Beau stated as he slapped a fresh ammo clip into his assault rifle.

  “Alright—good luck and watch your asses down there.” I answered as I patted Beau on the shoulder and nodded at the others.

  The Covenant One members departed and headed back toward the stairwell and the rest of us settled in with our weapons and gear and waited; the entire second level was silent and it was an eerie silence that sent a chill down my neck—I noticed that several of the others looked uneasy as well.

  “I hope that there’s not something worse than those dead-heads outside lurking around in this place.” Noah stated in a nervous tone.

  “I hope not either…we can only hope that they restore the power successfully.” I answered as I cuddled with Jennifer and Sheila.

  We quietly waited and listened for sounds that might be coming from the rooms around us and the floors both above and beneath us but we heard nothing—not even the dripping of a sink or the rustling of papers on the floor; this place was dead and the longer we were in there the more uneasy I got. It was then that the lights came on in the room that we were in and mechanical objects as well as the vaccine synthesizer came to life with slight humming sounds; I heard a sound and looked over toward the source and I noticed that the Covenant One members were coming up the stairs to rejoin us—that was when both Noah and Billy’s shouts as well as a horrific roar brought my attention to a horribly mutated creature that was stalking down the corridor toward us from the opposite direction.

  “Holy fuck—what is that thing?” Billy shouted as he pushed Kayla behind him protectively and drew his large caliber revolver and pointed it toward the creature.

  Beau and the others arrived and they quickly shut and sealed the door to the room where we were all huddled as the outline of the thing could be seen moving around past the thick shock-resistant windows of the room which were covered by blinds; the thing moved to the door of the room and for several long seconds we didn’t hear anything at all and then a brute force struck the outside of the door causing it to shake violently—a large place on our side of the door had been dented inward from the outside.

  “Shit—that door isn’t going to keep that thing out for much longer!” I shouted as I gripped my assault rifle tightly.

  “What did you guys find?” Noah asked as he turned to the Covenant One members who had just gotten back.

  “Other than the generator—nothing; this place seemed to be dead up until that creature outside appeared.” Hugo answered as his gaze fell upon the door as the thing outside struck it again.

  “Let’s get this damned thing going—we need to synthesize a cure from the sample while we still have a chance!” I shouted as I turned to the machine and started typing on the keyboard.

  Seconds later a panel opened up where I could place the sample for analysis so I did and we all watched as a schematic of the chemical matrix that made up the antitoxin sample came up on the screen—after several more seconds of thousands of components scrolling down the screen an option appeared on the screen that asked if I wanted to copy and synthesize a vaccine; I hit the yes button and a somewhat loud hum began as the machine started working—that was when part of the door behind us broke open as the creature’s huge clawed hand could be seen as it gripped the inside of the doorframe. Hugo and the others including Beau opened fire on the creature sending a hail of bullets through the hole hitting the creature causing it to stumble back and roar in anger, its blood was a blackish color and it was all over the inside of the door—Melvin grabbed a test tube and ran forward collecting a moderate amount of the blood and then running back to an analysis computer nearby and I could tell what he had in mind.

  “We need to know what the hell we are up against.” He stated as he typed on the keyboard and waited for the computer to start working.

  That was when the creature returned outside of the door and smashed its limb almost completely through the hole that it had made and the others once again opened fire on it spilling more of its blackish blood—the force of the bullets tearing into its arm didn’t seem to be stopping it this time and it howled and roared in rage as it continued to try and tear the door apart; I took out my magnum and carefully aimed through the hole where I could see glaring red eyes and I fired—the powerful bullet from my gun hit it square in the head and it flew backward tearing the door off of its hinges at the same time.

  “The computer says that it’s a bio-weapon…code name Bishop.” Melvin read from the analysis computer.

  “What else does it say?” I asked as Jennifer and Sheila wrapped their arms around me as I walked over to stand behind him.

  Some of the others went to the ruined doorframe and pointed their weapons at the monster which now looked like it was dead.

  “It says that it was created in this facility via instructions from an N. Bowman—it also says that this creature has two other counterparts; one called a Pollinator and the other a Rook.” Melvin answered as he skimmed over the details of the blood sample analysis.

  “We’ve got a problem.” Beau stated as he came running up to us.

  “What is it?” I asked turning to him.

  “There are sounds coming from the first level below us—screams and such and it sounds like a mass of those dead-heads have broken through the front doors of this building; they’ll be on us in a matter of minutes!” Beau answered with a look of dread.

  That was when the vaccine synthesizer made a loud beeping and I quickly walked over to the screen and read the words that read copy and synthesizing process complete and then it asked me how much quantity of the vaccine that I wanted to create—there was an option for the small amount of 10 bottles, a medium amount of 50 and a large amount of 100; I chose the 100 option and we all waited as more humming noises came from the machine as small bottles began to be released from an area on the machine that seemed like it was meant to distribute objects, Jennifer and Sheila collected each one that was prepared and put them into our traveling bag. I could hear the undead screaming and entering the stairwell now and I saw that several of the others had dashed outside into the front room of the second floor and barred the doors to the stairwell shut—within the next few minutes we had collected all of the vaccine and we met up with the others outside in the main room as they were waiting with their weapons ready.

  “That’s not going to hold for long…we’re cut off from the lab truck—we have no other choice but to go up and hope that we can find a way
to escape.” Noah stated as he stared upon the horde of zombies through the small glass window of the doors that were now pounding on the other side of them.

  “That’s not an option either—with those other two bio-weapons on the loose in here we can’t risk running into unknown areas of this building; it could cost us our lives!” I answered as I slapped a new ammo clip into my rifle.

  “What do you suggest then?” Billy asked turning to me.

  “Form a firing line—we’re going to wipe these dead and rotting sons of bitches from existence.” I answered as I pointed my M16 toward the doors of the stairwell.

  “Alright—be ready, they’ll break through at any second.” Hugo stated as he and the other Covenant One members prepared their weapons.

  “A few of you cover our backs—we’ll be in a world of hurt if those other two bio-weapons appear behind us.” I commanded as Noah, Christina, Billy, Kayla and Morgana all stood watching the empty hallway behind us.

  Seconds later the doors to the stairwell splintered and the zombies started rushing in toward us—I opened fire hitting several of the ones in the front in the heads multiple times while the others opened fire as well; wave after wave of them fell to the floor dead and after several minutes it seemed like the stairwell was clear.

  “Let’s go—get back to the lab truck before more of them show up!” I commanded as I led the way forward with my weapons ready.

  The others followed and stayed close as we descended down to the first floor—as soon as I pushed the doors open I heard several screams to the right as three more dead-heads noticed us and came sprinting toward us; Noah and Billy gunned them down hitting them in the upper chest and neck area sending them to the floor where they twitched violently.

  “Shoot them again or else they’ll come back after you.” I stated as I pulled out my magnum and put rounds in each of their heads.

  “Let’s get the hell out of this place before more of those assholes show up.” Kayla stated as she clung to Billy.

  “I think that we owe the ones who created these bio-weapons here in this place; they deserve a reward.” Hugo stated as he took out several large clusters of military-grade plastic explosives and handed them to his team mates of Covenant One.

  “Yeah—especially since it’s now obvious that they were working for Bowman.” Noah stated folding his arms.

  We waited as they planted the explosives all around the front room of the first floor and when they were done there were enough high explosives to bring the entire building crashing down—that was when a horrific scream sounded from behind us toward the doors to the stairwell that we had used only minutes before; turning we locked eyes with a horrible creature that was no doubt another of the bio-weapons that were on the loose. This one’s face was horribly disfigured and the middle of its forehead was stitched up in two places—the most noticeable of the creature’s features was that it had large pods attached to its shoulders; these pods glowed a sickly green color and there was no doubt in our minds that these pods were full of some sort of venom derived from the T.H.C.A.I.A Toxin. We all fell back toward the front doors of the building careful to watch where we were going and I watched in horror as the thing hobbled over to the corpses of the three zombies that we had killed and sprayed the foul green shit all over them—seconds later the zombies sat up in sitting positions and turned to glare at us with now glowing green eyes.

  “Time to fucking leave—now!” I shouted as I led everyone out the doors and into the lab truck where everyone settled in.

  Noah and several others done a sweep of the trailers to make sure that nothing had gotten inside of the truck as I got into the driver’s seat and started the engine—Jennifer sat down in the seat beside of me and Sheila between us as I put my foot to the pedal getting us away from the front of the building.

  “Shit!” Hugo shouted as he glanced back out of one of the side windows before pressing the button for the roof hatch to open and the gun torrent to activate.

  There coming out of the front of the building where we had just fled from were the revived zombies and the bio-weapon creature that was now being joined by another one that looked sort of like a pumped up mutant on steroids; Hugo climbed into the gun torrent above us and he opened fire splattering the three revived zombies into clouds of blood and pus with the powerful bullets—he then fired several rockets from the launchers on the top sides of our truck that hit the two approaching bio-weapons exploding in a fiery explosion that blew them both to pieces. I got us clear from the building and Desiree pressed the button on the detonator she had and we could hear a massive explosion and a loud rumbling not far behind us and as we got further and further away there was no doubt that the building had fallen to the street; I continued driving until we arrived outside of a massive luxury hotel not far from the ruins of Central Park.

  “What’s the plan Chaz?” Noah asked as everyone gathered around in a circle.

  “I guess we might as well find a place to hole up for a bit to rest as well as administer the vaccine to everyone in the group—that should prevent us from ever being infected even if we are injured…at least for a few years and by then hopefully we can put an end to this chaos.” I answered as I wrapped my arms around Jennifer and Sheila.

  “Alright—sounds like a good plan; we should still be careful in case we meet dead-heads inside.” Beau stated as he restocked his ammo supply.

  “This hotel actually has a sublevel parking garage—we’ll park this truck inside of there and from there we’ll set up parameters around the building.” I instructed as I got back into the driver’s seat and drove us down into the sublevel parking area.

  There were wrecked cars and other vehicles around and inside of the parking garage and bodies were here and there but there didn’t seem to be any undead around at the moment which seemed like a nice surprise—I identified the elevators that went to the upper levels of the hotel and I parked close to them as everyone waited with their weapons in hand to exit the lab truck. Once I parked I gathered my gear and weapons while Jennifer and Sheila did theirs as well as gathering Remy, Mace and Ember and I led the way out of the lab truck with my M16 ready; the lights on the ceiling of the garage were on and I was glad to see that as it meant that the hotel was most likely still tapped into a power grid.

  “There must be survivors in this city somewhere who have been keeping the power grid running…there’s no other way that it would still be active after all this time.” I stated in deep thought.

  “If there are other survivors—shouldn’t we try to find them?” Christina asked with a skeptical expression.

  “It would be too dangerous to blindly venture out into the city not knowing what’s out there; we have enough to worry about keeping our own group safe.” I answered glancing her way.

  There were military vehicles here and there that were deserted and a few of them even had corpses of long dead soldiers that were now nothing but skeletons—I glanced around the area and at the opening that we had come down from; it seemed like the undead masses could be heard not far off.

  “We’re going to have to close that entrance up or else this position will be overrun—what do you guys think?” I asked turning to everyone as we all got into a circle.

  “There are several of these vehicles that look like they will still run—our best bet would be to use them to form a protective barrier in front of the exit.” Billy stated as he stepped forward gazing around at the various vehicles that were around.

  “Whatever we’re doing let’s do it fast because those sounds are getting closer.” Richard stated as he nervously reloaded his weapon.

  Several of the guys gathered up the nearby vehicles and drove them over parking them not far from the front of the exit to the sublevel garage and then they found a semi that had been abandoned inside of the garage and they pulled it up to the front of the exit where it completely blocked the top of the
exit; they then pulled the cars and other vehicles up to the side of the semi blocking the bottom—after they were finished the exit was completely blocked.

  “That should keep those dead-heads and anything else that might be roaming around out there out of here—now we just have to go up into the hotel and assess the numbers that are possibly up above.” I stated in deep thought as I turned and wrapped my arms around Jennifer and Sheila meeting both of them with wet kisses.

  “Check this out.” Billy stated as he climbed up into a nearby military hummer that was sitting nearby.

  He climbed up into the back and stood behind a massive mini-gun that was attached to the top of the vehicle.

  “That looks like it might come in handy in case the barrier is breeched—hopefully it won’t be but you never know.” I answered as I walked over and looked over the weapon.

  That was when there was a screaming from behind us off to the far left and we all whirled around to see several dark figures running toward us that were no doubt zombies—I quickly aimed my assault rifle at them and opened fire as did several of the others and the bullets tore into their upper bodies and heads sending them to the concrete floor dead.

  “Shit…where the hell did those assholes come from?” Cedric stated out loud in a shocked tone as he stood around the rest of the McBride family.

  “There must be additional entrances and exits somewhere around—we better find them and seal them up or this position will be lost quickly.” I answered as I led the way around the area with some of the others close behind.

  The other half of the group went the opposite way to check on the other side and the only thing that we could hear was the sound of our feet on the concrete floor; as we got closer to the far end of the parking garage we started hearing a slight banging sound and we soon came to a service door that led up to street level—it was lightly banging against the side of the building in the wind that had come up outside and I quickly poked my head out of the doorway to take a quick look at the outside; it was almost dusk and a powerful wind had started to blow through the vacant streets around us and as I searched for signs of threats I didn’t see any so I ducked back inside pulling the door closed and locking it.