“I have to say that I am impressed, not many people still living in these days can make those kind of claims…to have went toe to toe with the man responsible for the entire zombie apocalypse and lived; I welcome you to our humble abode here—you’re all welcome to pick out living quarters and settle in…we need as much help as we can get—we send scouting parties out every few days on supply runs and some of them have been known to travel as far as Yukon Territory and even Alaska.” Josiah stated as he turned and led us up a nearby wooden ramp into the ramparts of the structure.
We followed him into the structure noticing that there were an abundance of other people who looked like regular survivors—they stared us down as we passed, some greeting us, others not saying a word; we continued following Josiah until we reached what looked like the living area and he motioned to the entire section before him.
“You guys will be staying on this floor—there are over seventeen rooms here and a small kitchen and a lounge area…there is also a room where you can store your supplies that you brought with you; you’re welcome to keep what you brought, both food, supplies, ammo, weapons etc., but I ask that when the opportunity presents itself for you to help us on our supply runs that you do so.” Josiah stated turning to face us—me mainly.
“That’s not a problem…it’s your place after all.” I answered folding my arms across my chest.
“Who built this place?” Noah asked as he and Christina glanced inside of one of the nearby rooms.
“Myself and a number of others started building this fortress back in the middle of 2003—it took us a decade to get the majority of it built up to what it is now…we used stone from a quarry that’s to the west and with cement we were able to build it up on this island in hopes that it would one day be a bastion for other survivors of this zombie apocalypse that we’ve all been forced to endure.” Josiah answered with a distant stare.
“How many people are there here right now?” Chloe asked curiously.
“27 to be exact…myself included, there used to be a lot more but we’ve lost people—every time I send out a scouting party to gather supplies we end up losing someone…sometimes more than a few; those creatures out there in the wastelands are getting extremely dangerous and as fortified as we are here I know that it’s only a matter of time before a horde of staggering proportions finds its way here and we’ll be forced to fight.” Josiah answered with a troubled look as he began to pace back and forth.
“How often do you get groups of survivors come through?” Hugo asked raising his right eyebrow.
“Before you guys…the last one was over three months ago—small group that said that they had come from Anchorage…they seemed like they were going to be strong assets for our community and they volunteered to head west toward Fort Good Hope to try and gather enough supplies to help restock what has been dwindling but they never came back…” Josiah answered turning to glance at Hugo with a troubled look.
“Hmm…was there ever another group arrive here from the same area as us?” Billy asked as he leaned against the nearby wall.
“That’s right—we found this place that was fortified but abandoned, we stopped there thinking that we might be able to hole up there but were forced to flee not long after when a horde of dead-heads tore through—it was the same place where we first heard your radio transmission…it looked like there had been another group of survivors there prior to our arrival and when we heard the message we assumed that they had left out for this place as well.” I explained as I thought back on when we had first heard of Echo Bay.
“I’m sorry, but there hasn’t been anyone else come here from your part of the former United States—you guys are actually the first ones we’ve gotten from that neck of the woods.” Josiah answered in deep thought.
“Hmm…that’s not really surprising…they probably fell to those dead-heads and other mutations along the way—hell—we almost did ourselves.” Darrell stated casually.
“Well, I’ll let you guys get settled in—if there’s anything at all that you need or need to know then don’t hesitate to let me know.” Josiah stated as he turned and headed away down a nearby hallway.
I glanced after him with a lingering concern, I couldn’t put my finger on it but it was an odd feeling that seemed to only gnaw at the back of my mind for the time being—I turned and led my women into a nearby room that seemed to be large enough for us; there was a makeshift bed that looked like it was something that had been constructed out of 2x4’s and wooden slats, the bedding was quilts and blankets that looked like they had been brought from some hotel somewhere. A fireplace stood on the far wall and there was a large stack of firewood neatly stacked close to it, a small bathroom with a toilet and a small shower could be seen opposite from the bed and I turned to my women knowing that this was probably as good as it was going to get.
“Mind if I join you guys?” Angel asked smiling as she stood next to Sheila.
“Not at all—we’ve already accepted the idea that you want to be with Chaz and with us.” Jennifer answered smiling.
Angel looked to be blushing as her eyes fell on me and then she smiled biting her lower lip before she came over to stand close to me—the others of the group spread out shortly afterward choosing rooms around ours where we’d all be staying and not long after that we all headed back down to the entrance to bring our weapons, gear, supplies, food stocks and other things up from our vehicles; not completely trusting the other people that we’d seen on our way inside, we took our keys and made sure that we had gotten everything that was of any value out of the vehicles before returning to our chosen area of the massive structure. As nightfall approached, I found myself getting acquainted with Angel as she was telling me about herself and her past—she had at one time been an exotic dancer in Fort Worth, Texas and I couldn’t say that I was surprised much as she had the body for it.
“So, the women you’re with are all girlfriends?” She asked casually as my other women sat nearby near the fireplace eating rations from our supplies.
“Yeah, I’m not married to any of them as would have been suggested by the customs of the old world—I was married once though…” I answered in deep thought.
“She was killed in a car wreck…and then that damned piece of shit Nicolas Bowman dug up her grave and took her body to his Romanian lair where he experimented on it turning her into a bioweapon that we were forced to destroy…” I explained with a distant tone as the old memories still haunted me.
“I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have asked…” Angel answered hanging her head.
“It’s okay…her name was Angela—Angie for short—we were married back at the beginning when all this shit first started going down and we were together for several years after that; Jennifer was our girlfriend during that time but I hadn’t met any of the others yet at that point…I was blessed enough to have three daughters with Angie.” I explained smiling.
“Mace, Remy and Ember—right?” Angel asked smiling.
“Yeah, of course I’ve been blessed with other children from Jennifer, Sheila, Chloe and a woman named April who didn’t survive.” I answered looking up as my other women joined us on the makeshift bed.
I continued telling her about things that had happened, I told her about when Olivia had shot herself and when my mom had passed away as well as when my dad had chosen to stay behind—I still couldn’t help but wonder what had become of him.
Soon afterward, Angel and I made love for the first time and then I spent time doing the same with my other women and the night seemed to envelop us like a dark blanket—sometime during the night I was woken to a loud banging sound that was coming from outside; this was followed by loud chatter from the other occupants of the outpost and as much as the events intrigued me I couldn’t keep my eyes open, I soon after fell back asleep.
[Chapter Three: Savage Lands]
I stirred awake the ne
xt day to find that my women and Angel were already awake and gathered around me—it looked like they had been awake for a while.
“What’s going on?” I asked rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
“That Josiah guy was saying that a group of their scouts came in late last night and something happened—he’s been asking for us to assemble as soon as you awoke.” Jennifer answered kissing me briefly.
“I wonder what the hell this could be about…” I answered as I got up out of bed and got my clothes and gear on.
We grabbed our weapons slinging them over our shoulders as we left our room meeting up with the others of our group who were outside in the hallway and then we headed down to the entrance where Josiah could be seen talking to someone that we hadn’t seen before—this new person looked like they had been through the wringer, they were bruised and battered and it looked like they were bandaged up.
“Hello, as you might have already guessed—there was an incident late last night…” Josiah stated as he noticed all of us coming into the area.
“Yeah…I heard that you wanted to talk to us.” I answered folding my arms across my chest.
“This is one of our scouts from a scouting party that was sent to the areas around Fort Franklin several days back—according to him the others of his group were all killed and he barely made it back alive…I figured that since you guys have much experience with being out in the open that you might be able to make sense of what he’s been saying.” Josiah answered as he turned to the man at his side.
“What attacked you?” I asked as the man’s gaze fell on me.
“I d-don’t know what it was…son of a bitch was huge and it was followed by hordes of those things…we tried hiding in an abandoned house that had a cellar but that thing smashed through the ceiling and plucked my friends out like they were prawns and tore them to shreds…I picked myself up and ran for it—those fuckin’ things must have chased me for miles but I managed to make it back here…” The man answered in a paranoid tone of voice.
“Did this thing that attacked you have antlers?” Noah asked suddenly.
“No…it had bones and spines all over its arms and torso and a tiny head with a face that looked like a human skull…its body was a dark purplish color and its right hand and arm looked like it was melded into a huge blade—made of both bone and something else…its other hand looked like a three pronged claw and there was some sort of thick carapace kind of thing around the claw…” The man explained in a broken tone.
“That isn’t anything that I remember us encountering before…we’ve seen a lot of large bioweapons surfacing over the past several months—we couldn’t tell you where they’re coming from but it seems like there are more now than there were several years back.” I answered with a troubled look.
“Which doesn’t make any sense because we destroyed Darkbourne and his facilities where he was creating those things…the last one that we saw that was of his making was the Nephilim creature right before we destroyed Darkbourne himself…” Hugo added with a worried expression.
“Since then we’ve encountered the Blighter, Twins and the Wendigo creature…that’s not counting the regular dead-heads and other mutations mixed in.” Richard added.
“Let’s call this new creature ‘Executioner’ for reference…I’m guessing that you’re wanting us to head out that way and investigate what happened…” I stated turning to glance at Josiah.
“That would be helpful—if there’s something out there that not even you guys have encountered, we need to know what it is and how it can be brought down.” Josiah answered casually.
“I guess we don’t really have an option this time around—this creature, whatever it is could be part of a massing horde poised to attack here…let’s go guys.” I answered turning to look around at the others.
We all gathered our weapons and gear putting it back into our vehicles and we turned around heading back out the way we had come—it seemed strange to be leaving so soon after just having arrived there the previous day; as soon as we were back to the mainland we found a dirt road heading west along the banks of the lake and I led the way in that direction knowing that if we found out what was going on quickly we wouldn’t have to be out here for long. Hours later we started getting close to the area around Fort Franklin and we hadn’t seen so much as a single dead-head—that was when we came upon an area that looked like it had been attacked, vehicles were burning and some overturned completely; the area was thick with blood and dead-heads were here and there feasting on the remains of what we could tell had been survivors from the Echo Bay outpost. I quickly pulled our marauder up to the side of the area and rushed out with my AR-15 in hand and I gunned down the dead-heads that seen me and my women along with Angel as well as the others of the group spread out doing the same—several minutes later Hugo and Beau called our attention over to the corpse of a massive creature that fit the description of what the scout had told us back at the outpost, except this thing was unlike anything we had ever seen before in all the years we had been on the road and surviving.
“Look at that…it looks like something came out of its chest cavity…” Amy stated with a horrified yet intrigued expression on her face as she knelt down over the torso of the corpse.
As I stared at it, I could definitely see what she was talking about—it looked as though something had burst out of its torso and then disappeared as there was a slight blood trail that went off toward the waters of Great Bear Lake but ended without any further trace.
“This is too damned weird…what the hell could have come out of that thing and where the hell did it go…” Billy stated in a troubled tone as Kayla clung to him shivering.
I glanced up at the sky as it was starting to get dark—I knew that we needed to get back to the outpost and report what we had found; I had no more started to turn and head back toward our vehicles when we all stopped and turned toward the direction of east—toward the outpost as distant sounds of gunfire and explosions could be heard.
“Shit—that can’t be good…” Noah exclaimed as he nervously clutched his combat shotgun.
“Let’s get the hell back there and see what is going on!” I commanded as I ran to our marauder climbing into the driver’s seat.
My women and Angel followed as did the rest of the group and within seconds I was speeding back down the narrow dirt road that we had taken to get to where we had been in the direction of the outpost—we were almost back to the bridge when another vehicle suddenly appeared and I had to swerve to the side to avoid hitting them; the other vehicle was a heavily armored mobile home type of truck that was painted a dull military green and it pulled along the side of the dirt road as well and stopped. We watched in wonder as the driver got out and we saw that it was Josiah—he had a group of others that we hadn’t met yet who were all obviously from the Echo Bay outpost; there were ten of them altogether including Josiah, four were females and the rest men. They came up to the side of our marauder and I rolled the window down to greet them.
“Thank God that we found you guys—the outpost was attacked…something…something came out of Marlowe—the scout that we were talking to earlier…” Josiah stated in a shaky voice.
I got out of our marauder soon after followed by my women and Angel as the others of my group gathered around us.
“What the hell do you mean ‘something came out of him’?” I demanded in an almost irate tone.
“We don’t know—it all happened really sudden and really fast, the ten of us barely managed to get into our vehicle and get out of there before we succumbed to whatever it was too!” One of the other men answered with a horrified look.
This man had long dark hair and a beard and he wore a knitted sock cap on his head.
“That’s Peter Logan—he’s in charge of the night watch…” Josiah stated nodding at the man.
Josiah went on to introduce t
he rest of his group—the women were Lisa Finch, Hannah Delray, Roana Ipswitch and Sherry Culverson; the men aside from Peter Logan were Kevin Ray Sawakachi, Steele Davis, Zachary Collins and Michael Warwick. I briefly introduced myself, my women and the rest of my group before turning back to Josiah who started telling in detail about what they had seen before fleeing from the outpost.
“Something started happening to Marlowe—his body went into severe convulsions and then right in front of our eyes his fuckin’ body began to mutate…to twist and contort into something else, it attacked anyone who happened to be nearby and within seconds the whole entire courtyard was covered in blood and gore…we could still hear the screaming when we hightailed it out of there.” Josiah finished with a shiver.
“Could it have been…that thing that broke its way out of the body of that creature we found?” Marco asked all of a sudden.
“Now that you mention it, there’s a strong possibility…” I answered in deep thought as I brought my women and Angel close.
“But how the hell could it have taken the form of the scout?” Billy asked with a dumbfounded look.
“If this thing can replicate its victims through some sort of gestation then it’s unlike anything we have ever faced—these mutations are getting worse and worse; this is something that even Nicolas Bowman or Darkbourne didn’t seem capable of doing…it’s almost as if this viral strain has taken on a life of its own.” I answered with a troubled brow as I started pacing.
“How are we supposed to destroy this thing now?”
“Especially when it has attacked and possibly contaminated the only place we have to hide from those things?!” Sherry Culverson shouted in a frightened tone.
[HGB] Humanity Gone Bad: The Dead Chronicles Page 84
