[HGB] Humanity Gone Bad: The Dead Chronicles

by Watkins, Charles

  “Open the gates!” I shouted as I hobbled over to the patio that was only a few hundred feet from the front of the wall and the gate.

  Beau and Richard nodded and opened the gate allowing the small group of people inside as a mob of dead-heads and other mutations mixed in could be seen steadily approaching from the northeast—once the gate was sealed Beau, Richard and several of the others climbed up onto the watch tower and opened fire on the zombies and other creatures that were massing at the gate as the rest of us gathered before the newcomers.

  “Who are you people and how did you manage to find our homestead here?” I asked raising my eyebrow inquisitively as I looked over the survivors.

  “We’ve been on the run now for several weeks—the place where we were staying was overrun by those creatures and we had no other choice but to flee.” One of the male survivors answered in a thick German accent.

  This guy was rather large and well built—he looked like he had been in a band or something in the past because he wore various ‘black metal’ themed items; he had long ash-brown hair and a long beard of the same color. I glanced at the other three survivors with him and noticed that there was another man and two women—one of the women and the other man were Korean and they stared at us coldly and I felt a gnawing in the pit of my stomach that told me that there was something sinister about them; the last female was a young gothic woman with medium length black hair who looked like she was bored or couldn’t have cared less if we had opened the gate one way or another.

  “My name is Hans Bornheimer…from Munich…I survived on sheer wits and have since come to understand and seek knowledge on biological engineering.” The big man stated in the same thick German accent as he folded his arms across his chest.

  “Name’s Eric Hwang…this is my girlfriend Mei San Chi…” The Korean man stated in almost perfect English.

  “Lisa…Lisa Carlon…” The gothic woman stated with a distant stare.

  I introduced myself, my family and the rest of my group despite the growing sense of unease and then I noticed that the group had camping gear with them and I pointed off to my left over toward the patio where there was adequate space for anyone to set up camp.

  “You’re all welcome to stay over there…we don’t have space in the buildings…so this is the best we can offer.” I stated as I leaned on my crutch.

  “Much obliged…we accept your offer.” Hans answered nodding as he and the others departed and went over to the area I had indicated.

  “I don’t trust them—there’s just something very off about them.” Hugo stated in a low voice as the others gathered around Jennifer, Sheila, Chloe and I.

  “I don’t either—we need to keep a close eye on them, they could be trouble.” I answered in a low voice as my women wrapped their arms around me.

  Everyone settled in and the evening dragged on, the newcomers mostly stayed to themselves and I found myself watching their camp from the upstairs window of our bedroom where Jennifer, Sheila and Chloe rested—my leg was steadily healing and I was actually starting to be able to put my weight back on it; I turned away from the window and lay down with my women and soon fell asleep with them in my arms. It was sometime around midnight that we were woken by a commotion coming from outside and I opened my eyes to see a large fist coming toward my face, I instinctively dodged the attacker’s effort and rolled out of the way waking Jennifer, Sheila and Chloe in the process but then the attacker kicked me in my injured leg causing me to keel over on the floor in pain; they then ran into the moonlight by the window long enough to grab the bag where the vaccine vials were kept and I caught a glimpse of who my attacker was—it was the large German newcomer Hans Bornheimer and he smirked at me before smashing the window and climbing out onto the eves of the roof before jumping to the ground below. I forced myself up and through the pain I grabbed my M16 and hobbled to the window and set my weapon’s sights on the dark figure I seen running away from our house toward the camp near the patio—I opened fire hitting Hans in the back of his right leg causing him to fall forward to his knees; my gunfire alerted the others and they quickly ran out into the yard and that was when it looked like two others at the camp opened fire with their various weapons and I caught sight of a single figure running toward them with a large bag full of our food and other supplies and I shouted from the window directing Beau and the others’ attention to the runner as I turned and headed downstairs with the help of my women. By the time we arrived in the yard I could tell that Hugo and Desiree had recovered the bag that held the vaccine vials and they handed it to me and I checked to make sure that they were unharmed—Richard, Kira, Marco and Emily had pinned the four newcomers down behind one of the vehicles and they were shooting back at us; I ducked as a bullet from one of their weapons ricocheted off of the brick side of the nearby well house and I pointed my assault rifle at them and opened fire hitting the Korean male Eric Hwang in the head killing him. The female Korean that was his girlfriend screamed in rage and rose up firing at me as she, the other gothic woman named Lisa Carlon ran for the gate followed by Hans Bornheimer who was limping after them.

  “Motherfuckers!” Billy shouted as he grabbed an RPG launcher from nearby and aimed it at them.

  He fired and the rocket soared across the span of the yard and field hitting an area off from their right flank exploding—the explosion killed Hans Bornheimer and Mei San Chi instantly and looked to have blown a large hole through the parameter wall; I watched as Lisa Carlon escaped out of the hole which moments later was being swarmed by dozens of dead-heads that were screaming and coming straight for us.

  “Shit—we’ve got to kill those fucking things and get that hole in the wall patched up!” Hugo shouted in a frantic tone as he opened fire on the dead-heads and other mutations that were surging toward us.

  There were several jumper zombies and a few Necronids but the mass of them were mostly regular zombies and after several long minutes of heated battle we had killed them all and Hugo drove the Eco-roamer up beside of the hole in the wall as Beau, Emily and Desiree used fire extinguishers to put out what was left of the fires from the explosion; by the next morning we had cleared the yard and surrounding area of the corpses of the infected and dumped them outside the gate—Beau, Richard and a few others were working to repair the walls and I led the rest of my group up to the bodies of the traitors and examined them.

  “Look at this…” Chloe stated as she knelt down and retrieved what looked like a detailed memo from the body of Hans Bornheimer and handed it to me.

  “Infiltrate the hideout of the Watkins group and retrieve the T.H.C.A.I.A Toxin vaccine that they created as well as the vaccine for the M.I.M.T.W.B.C.A strain that they stole and bring them back to us; also take their weapons and a large amount of their food stock—report back when your task is completed…do not fail us…Darkbourne is watching you.” I read aloud as the others gathered around me.

  “Who the hell is Darkbourne?” Kira asked with a confused look on her face.

  “I don’t know…but it’s clear now that these assholes were marauder spies sent in to steal our vaccine supplies as well as whatever else they could—our safe haven has been infiltrated and it greatly concerns me.” I answered in deep thought as I tossed the memo back onto the body of Bornheimer.

  “We better beef up our defenses and be ready—those assholes will more than likely attack us here soon…as if those dead-heads and other mutations outside weren’t enough to have to worry about.” Billy stated as he brought Kayla into his arms.

  “We better figure out who this Darkbourne character is and soon before something terrible happens…just when we all thought that we could relax and live in relative peace after that ordeal with Bowman…now this…I have a feeling that things are going to get complicated from here on out.” I answered with a distant stare as I watched the sun rise in the eastern sky over the trees.

  [Chapter Nine: Darkbo
urne]

  The date was now May 17, 2016—we had spent several years after returning from the ordeal with Bowman investigating the few leads that we had concerning the attack that we had faced on our homestead from the invaders that had posed as survivors; the mysterious Darkbourne figure still remained just a name in the backs of all of our minds and we had been unsuccessful in learning anything concerning the identity behind the strange name. Several things had changed around the homestead and Chloe had given birth to our first child in the summer of 2013—it was a little girl that we had named Scarlet and she already had light blonde hair and was very healthy which was a blessing to see; my other children were growing steadily and Remy, Mace and Ember were now teenagers. Darc Aiden and Xavier were also growing and Jennifer and Sheila had been teaching them the basics of life and the truth on what was going on in the world around them as of late. The undead had been somewhat quiet as of late since the night when the enemy infiltrators had attacked us and tried to steal the vaccine along with our food and weapons stock and there had only been a few of them around the gate as of late—I knew that the question on everyone’s mind was who this Darkbourne person was and why he was causing trouble for us at this point.

  “Those marauder forces are sure to come and attack us again soon—we need to be ready in case the walls don’t hold.” I stated late that same evening as we all sat around the picnic table in the front yard not far from the well house.

  “I agree…luckily we were able to repair the wall from where that RPG round hit—we’ll be in trouble though if a dozer or one of the other large abominations attacks the walls.” Hugo stated in deep thought.

  That was when we were suddenly alerted by gunfire from the tower on the northern section of our wall—I glanced over and seen Richard pointing his assault rifle at something shooting, he then glanced our way and started shouting and waving his arms wildly.

  “What the hell…?” Jennifer asked as she, Sheila and Chloe came to my side quickly.

  I led the way over to the ladder and Richard glanced down meeting our concerned expressions.

  “I spotted a figure running through the trees—it wasn’t a dead-head or any other mutation; looked like they were dressed like those marauders.” Richard stated as he climbed down and stood before us.

  “Did you kill them?” Billy asked curiously.

  “I don’t think I hit them—they were using the trees as cover, ducking in and out of them.” Richard answered as he turned to face Billy.

  “Let’s go—sounds like an enemy spy, the last thing we need is more of those assholes snooping around here!” I shouted as I checked the ammo clip in my M16 and led the way to the front gate.

  A few of us went out into the nearby woods while Jennifer, Sheila, Chloe and several of the others waited inside, after several minutes of crashing through brush and getting cut up by briars we came upon the area where the tower that Richard had been in looked down on and I knelt down noticing something red on the grass.

  “We’ve got blood—not dead blood either, that proves it that the figure you seen was a living person.” I stated as I stood back up and glanced at Richard.

  “Where did they go from here?” Beau asked as he examined the blood for himself.

  “They ran off into those trees.” Richard answered pointing off to the west.

  I led the way through the brush and trees following the blood trail and that was when we stumbled upon a young man with shoulder-length brown hair—he quickly pointed a .45 handgun at us and looked to be scared out of his mind; as I examined him I noticed that he was dressed in the same gear that I had seen many of the marauders that I had killed wear and that was when I pointed my M16 at the man and demanded who he was and why he was near our homestead.

  “I-I was just curious…I know that I’m dressed like those marauders but I’m not with them anymore!” The young man answered as he nervously lowered his weapon when he seen that all of us had ours on him.

  “Who the hell are you anyway?” I demanded as I continued to aim my assault rifle at him.

  “My name is Zaine Carpenter…I was with a marauder detachment that went through an area a few miles north of here several days ago—I slipped away and ran for it…I’m just tired of doing bad things…I’ve lost everything to those damned zombies and I’m just tired of being a tool for them.” The young man answered in a frustrated tone.

  “Is that right?” I asked raising my right eyebrow as I temporarily lowered the barrel of my assault rifle to the ground.

  “Maybe you can give us a little information…” Hugo stated as he stepped forward.

  “What do you want to know?” The young man asked in a hesitant tone.

  “We want to know who Darkbourne is.” I stated before Hugo could speak.

  “I have heard the name and all of the squad leaders are required to report to him…but I have never met or even seen him before, so I can’t help you on who he is or what he looks like…I have heard stories though…stories that would make your skin crawl.” The young man answered with a distant tone.

  “Really?”

  “What kind of stories?” Beau asked as he knelt down and examined the young man’s injury where he had been hit by one of Richard’s bullets in his left leg.

  “Yeah…I don’t know much about what those egg-head scientists do or talk about but I heard that Darkbourne was some kind of experiment that they brought back from Romania.” The young man answered in the same distant tone.

  “Romania…I have a bad feeling about this…let’s get him inside and question him there—it’s a lot safer inside than it is out here.” I stated as I turned and led the way back toward the front gate as Beau and Hugo helped the young man up and the others followed.

  Once we were all back inside of the walls I pointed over at a tree not far from the well house where a thick chain attached to a pair of manacles was—we had set this up in the weeks prior to this time in case we ever had to interrogate anyone; Beau and Hugo nodded and helped the young man hobble over to the area and they placed the manacles on the young man’s wrists as the rest of the group gathered around.

  “Who is he baby?” Jennifer asked as she, Sheila and Chloe wrapped their arms around my waist.

  “He is a marauder turn-coat…we’re going to keep him chained for a bit until we figure out whether or not he’s a threat to us.” I answered as I quickly kissed the three of them.

  “I’m not a threat to you people, but I understand why you need to do this…I was with your enemies after all.” The young man stated with a solemn expression.

  “His name is Zaine Carpenter so he says; he told us that he has heard things about this Darkbourne character.” Beau stated as he leaned against the same tree that the chain was attached to.

  “You said that you had heard that he was an experiment brought back from Romania…?” I asked as I stepped forward getting the young man’s full attention.

  “Yes…you guys were there not too long ago too weren’t you?” He asked looking up into my eyes with a look of fear.

  “That’s right…although now I am starting to doubt that our task was even completed.” I answered with a dark look as I began to pace back and forth.

  “There’s no way in hell that Bowman could have survived that explosion—even being the mutation that he was…it had to have been someone else.” Beau stated folding his arms across his chest with a look of denial.

  “Bowman employed us…he had a lot of strange projects in that place…there was a rumor that he was working on a secret project that not even we knew the details of.” The young man stated in deep thought.

  “If that is true then this experiment could be just about anything—we need to find out what your former comrades are hiding.” Hugo stated as he turned to the rest of us.

  “I’m not sure that we can trust you yet…you’re going to have to prove that you’re not
just here to sabotage us like the last group of assholes were that we let in here.” I stated in what probably seemed like a cold tone to the others.

  “That’s understandable…all I wanted was to get away from them…they are seeking to continue Bowman’s work and now that this Darkbourne figure has appeared it’s even worse.” The young man answered as he glanced off into the distance toward the trees.

  “We’ll tend that wound of yours and give you food but you’re going to have to prove to us that you are being truthful.” I stated as I turned and headed toward the house with Jennifer, Sheila and Chloe at my side.

  Desiree and Melody started tending to his leg as the rest of us returned to what we had been doing and over the next several hours we watched him to make sure that he wasn’t going to try and escape or anything—during that time the Covenant One members questioned him extensively and by the next morning I personally unlocked his manacles and allowed him to come into the center of the group as everyone gathered in the yard in front of our house.