[HGB] Humanity Gone Bad: The Dead Chronicles

by Watkins, Charles

  “I’ve got to go into the surplus store and get some guns…I’m not going to make it otherwise.” Beau said to himself as he picked himself up off the bedroom floor.

  He got dressed and gathered ammo for his rifle heading out into the side yard to the garage where his old jeep was—he opened it and got inside starting it before driving out toward the city of Little Rock.

  “This is going to be risky…but I’ll do what I have to do to survive.” He said to himself.

  It took him longer to get to the store due to wrecked and overturned vehicles that were all over the roadways—the zombies were everywhere and several times during his daring trip across town to the surplus store the creatures took chase after his jeep and he had been forced to swerve to avoid a large mass of them about two blocks from the store which had caused him to wreck his jeep into a fire hydrant; he had made his way into the store and gathered a bagful of guns and ammunition and then he was forced to flee out the back as the undead started piling up outside the front of the store—staying down low he managed to find another vehicle which still had the keys in the ignition and he started it speeding away from the area.

  “I’ve got to get to Oklahoma City…something tells me that that damned man in black is going to be there—that black jackal is going to pay for this—I swear it.” Beau said to himself through clenched teeth as he kept his eyes on the road in front of him.

  Days had passed since he had left Little Rock and he had stumbled upon an abandoned hotel in Oklahoma City where he was now hiding—his arrival in the city had been met by hundreds, maybe thousands of hungry zombies and other undead creatures that resembled dogs and he had been lucky enough to avoid being bitten or scratched; he was looking around the interior of the hotel late that same day when he stumbled upon a group of what looked like a special ops team—they were dressed in black Kevlar gear and wore tactical vests loaded with combat gear. Having had a standoff with them for several minutes he had finally learned that they were a special ops team called Covenant One and that they had come to the city to try and infiltrate the Oklahoma City hospital.

  “My name is Timothy Atkins—I’ve led this group through several missions in the past but none such as this one…our superiors want us to infiltrate the hospital here in this city and recover something they weren’t even completely sure existed.” The man who seemed to be in charge stated as everyone stood around Beau.

  “What are you trying to recover?” Beau asked glancing around the group with a confused look.

  “First we need to know that you’ll cooperate and possibly aid us in this matter.” One of the female members of the group stated stepping up before Beau.

  “Beau Lewis—meet Amy Smith, she’s my second in command and one of my best soldiers.” Timothy Atkins introduced motioning to the woman in front of Beau.

  Beau listened as the rest of the team was introduced to him—there was the team medic Gretchen Davis, the weapons technician Hugo Rodriguez, computer specialist Mike Zimmerman, ballistics specialist Desiree Jordan, communications operative Dolph Gronnovich, weapon specialist Ahmed Sanders and explosives expert Mohammed Aziz. He listened as they went over detailed maps and floor plans of the hospital and then they offered Beau the chance to join their ranks—which he gladly took; it seemed good to him to have the companionship of people and he felt like with their added strength that he could possibly find the man in black and make him pay.

  “Take this and wear it with pride…I hope that you’re not another arrogant know-it-all like the last person we recruited.” Amy stated as she handed Beau a thick jacket and then a tactical vest that had the Covenant One insignia on both.

  “What last recruit?” Beau asked in a confused tone.

  “It hardly matters now, Amy.” Timothy started to say.

  “No, sir—he needs to know about her so we can know whether or not he’s going to be reliable and not a liability to us.” Amy countered as a stern look came across her face.

  The other members of the team looked lost for words—it was rare that anyone, even Amy stood up to Timothy.

  “Our last recruit was a promising young marksman named Simone Ashton—Atkins here found her as a survivor and learned that she had some training in her background, gave her a place on the team and then what did the bitch do?” Amy explained in a growing voice.

  Beau glanced at the others and they looked to be nervously avoiding the issue—even Timothy looked aggravated that this was going on.

  “She left the team claiming that we were too slack for her skill—just thinking about it still pisses me off!” Amy finished as she leaned against a nearby doorframe fuming with rage.

  “Well…you can trust me…I’ve lost my family and everything that I ever cared about in this shit and I just want to find the guy responsible for this and make him pay—you can believe that or not, it’s your choice.” Beau answered as he finished suiting up in the new gear.

  “Moving right along, we have information about the man who is believed to be responsible for this mutagenic outbreak—his name is Nicolas R. Bowman; he used to work for the CDC in Atlanta but charges were brought up against him and he was fired when his superiors discovered that he was working on mutagenic toxins instead of working to prevent outbreaks by all the other known viruses; he vanished before a search warrant could be issued by a court. That was three years ago…some believed that his work was due to the Cobb Incident that took place only a month and a half after his disappearance—since then he hasn’t been seen, heard from or anything else by his old contacts but 72 hours ago…before we lost contact with the Pentagon…we learned that there’s a strong possibility that Nicolas Bowman is here in Oklahoma City and that this outbreak—whatever it is—can be credited to him.” Timothy explained as everyone gathered around the maps and other documents.

  “The Cobb Incident…I’ve only heard sketchy details about that on the news…something about a woman being tortured and brutally murdered…what was that all about?” Beau asked raising his right eyebrow and looking at Atkins.

  “That is classified information…” Atkins answered as he was clearly avoiding the topic.

  “Sir…with all due respect, the world around us has most likely gone straight to hell since this shit started—if he’s going to be a member of our team, he deserves to know everything.” Hugo stated as he stepped toward Atkins.

  “Very well…the Cobb Incident took place at an undisclosed location in upstate New York a month and a half after Bowman’s disappearance—there were several groups of government officials and special ops teams involved; they had apprehended the alleged girlfriend of Bowman at a motel outside of Harrisville and taken her to this undisclosed location where they interrogated her for hours…” Atkins explained with a distant tone.

  “Go on.” Beau stated as he leaned against the nearby wall.

  “Things…got out of hand and the young woman—named Laura Cobb—was brutally murdered by the parties interrogating her when she refused to cooperate with them.” Atkins finished in a tone that made it seem to Beau like he was guilty in some way as having had something to do with the incident.

  “So—basically it was like a Gestapo snatch-and-grab…”

  “Were you there or something?” Beau asked in a curious tone.

  “No…but a friend of mine was and he told me all about the incident and the charges that were brought against those involved shortly after—not long after he told me about it, he put a pistol into his mouth and blew his own brains out.” Atkins answered as he looked to have been lost in thought.

  “An easy way out rather than accepting responsibility for the crime he took part in.” Amy stated with a dark look.

  “The past is the past—nothing will bring that woman back…we should get underway—we don’t have a window of time that this operation could take and we need to apprehend Bowman at all costs.” Hugo stated with an urgent, time-pr
essed look.

  “Right—let’s move out and head into the hospital; we’re moving in by cover formation…you see any of the infected individuals don’t hesitate to shoot them in the head, does everyone understand?” Timothy answered glancing around at the entire group.

  Everyone nodded and then geared up and they headed out of the abandoned hotel exiting out a side door to the street, Beau was a still hesitant about the whole issue of traveling down into the depths of the hospital where it sounded like to him that this plague had come from—he followed anyhow and clutched the assault rifle that he had been given tightly; not far off in another area of the city an old door creaked open and a young man named Allan Kline with medium length brown curly hair poked his head out looking around and seconds passed before he carelessly walked out into the front of the apartment building and then quickly ran back inside as a horrible scream off to his right caught his attention as a surge of zombies charged into the area and grabbed him by his left arm pulling him out of the doorway and biting him multiple times in the upper arm, shoulder and neck area. Seconds later he managed to fight them off enough to push the heavy steel door shut locking it before heading back up to his apartment where he carefully evaded his girlfriend Heather Baker who was sitting in their living room trying to use the internet on her computer and he went into the bathroom carefully cleaning off the blood to his wounds and covering them with thick gauze and bandages before finally grabbing a black cotton tee shirt from nearby and slipping it on—he then went into the living room and started kissing Heather’s neck and running his fingers through her long red hair—she turned with a confused look on her face.

  “I thought that we were through…you broke up with me last night and now you’re doing this?” She asked with a hurt expression on her face.

  “Well…I still love you and I thought that this might be our last chance to—you know—have a little fun.” He answered with a crooked grin.

  “Allan…I don’t know if I want to do that right now—you hurt me last night with the things that you said.” Heather answered looking away as he started to pull the bottom of her top up.

  “You know that I still want you though—can’t we put what happened last night behind us and start over?” Allan asked as she got up and walked over to the nearby picture window.

  “So, you’re telling me that you want me to forget everything mean that you said last night and be your girlfriend again—is that it?” Heather asked turning to face him as he came over before her.

  “Yes—that’s what I am asking.” Allan answered.

  “Fine…but the next time you do something like that I am gone—do you hear me?” Heather answered as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

  Within seconds she was down on their bed nude with her legs spread as he was over her thrusting—that was when Allan’s blood began to boil and his muscles stiffened; Heather had her hands on his shoulders and brought her hand down to look at it as something wet was seeping through the black shirt he was wearing. That was when she seen that her hand was covered with blood and she immediately sat up and pulled his shirt off of him as he was cumming inside of her and she seen the bandages and bite marks that he had concealed from her.

  “You went outside and you were bitten by those things—weren’t you?” Heather shouted as she tried to pull away from him.

  Allan didn’t respond for he was already too far gone—his head slumped forward and he actually fell down onto her bare chest pinning her underneath his weight as he seemed lifeless; she tried and tried to get out from underneath him but to no avail and within a few short minutes he started moving again—except when he looked down at her again his eyes and everything about him had changed, he screamed an inhuman scream and savagely sank his teeth into her right breast spraying the entire bedroom with blood as her screams could be heard from out on the street below. A few miles away the Covenant One team had arrived at the Oklahoma City Memorial Hospital and had went inside encountering hundreds—maybe thousands of zombies and other infected creatures along the way, most of the time they had been running and only stopping to shoot at the ones who got in their way or the ones who had chased them inside of the hospital; Timothy had gotten his team to a set of elevators and they had all piled into one and waited as the elevator descended down. Luckily the power in that section of the city was still operational and they were able to make it down to the sublevels of the hospital where they came into the first two areas of the lower levels which looked to be a cryogenic lab and a bio-chemical room—a toxic dumping area was next and it looked like something had actually caused the sewage from the pipes above to rupture and spill their vile out into this area.

  “Shit—we’ve got company!” Timothy shouted as he turned and opened fire with his assault rifle on several zombies who were rising out of the sewage.

  They took rounds in the head and fell back to the floor and the group opened their packs strapping on gasmasks to their faces and then they continued on through the next areas which didn’t seem all that important and they arrived at an elevator going down—after riding it down they arrived in a laboratory room filled with test tubes and Timothy turned to the rest of his team.

  “I’m setting up a command post here in this room—I want the rest of you to go forward through the next areas and clear them out if necessary; Beau—you and Amy remain here with me.” Timothy commanded as everyone got into a circle.

  The others nodded and continued on through the next set of rooms as Beau and Amy stood next to Timothy.

  “I wanted you to stay here in case things get dangerous up ahead—you’re our newest recruit and you haven’t quite got the hang of this type of combat yet…hell…I’m not even sure if we all have yet.” Timothy stated as he turned to face Beau.

  “I understand…it’s hard getting used to just gunning people down—people who used to be living and breathing human beings.” Beau stated in deep thought.

  “I know what you mean but we have a job to do—as soon as we locate Bowman and capture him, we will take him in for questioning and get to the bottom of this mess.” Timothy answered with a distant stare.

  “Those are our orders…aren’t they?” Amy asked in a peculiar tone all of a sudden.

  “Well…I was hoping to save this for when we got close to our objective but I guess I might as well tell you two—we’re also supposed to collect an antitoxin sample when we locate Bowman; our superiors seem to think that Bowman created a field-tested vaccine for this plague—it might be our only hope of stopping this thing before it turns into a global pandemic.” Timothy answered in a low voice.

  That was when the sound of gunfire and screams could be heard over the radio as Timothy quickly picked up his radio receiver and turned the volume up.

  “Atkins—come in, we’re under heavy attack!” Dolph Gronnovich’ voice shouted on the other end.

  “What’s your status?” Timothy answered speaking into the receiver quickly.

  “We’re being…arggh…” Gronnovich started to answer but was choked off by something as the sound of ricocheting bullets caused Timothy to hold the receiver away from his ear for a few seconds.

  Seconds later there was the sound of an explosion further into the structure and the three of them picked up their weapons and ran through the rooms after the group that they had sent ahead and they soon after came to a room that looked as though it was some sort of biohazard room—bodies of dead zombies were everywhere and the three of them were just about to continue forward when they noticed the lifeless body of Dolph laying against the wall; that was also when Hugo’s voice sounded on the radio and Timothy picked it up answering it setting the volume to high.

  “We just lost Gretchen as well as Mike—Gretchen was killed in an explosion in some kind of waste treatment room not far from where Dolph was killed and we had to put Mike down because he turned into one of those things.” Hugo answered on the other
end.

  “I sent you guys ahead to make sure things were safe—what the hell happened?” Timothy demanded as sweat started to beat up on his forehead.

  “Dolph was killed by friendly fire when those fuckers attacked Mike from behind—he lost control of his weapon and hit Dolph as he was radioing you guys for backup…Gretchen was killed in the waste treatment room when those things attacked her on a section of the steel walkway—as she was dying and being pulled off into the sewage below she pulled the pins from several grenades and that was the explosion you heard.” Hugo explained on the other end.

  “Where are the rest of you now?” Amy asked as she spoke into her own separate radio receiver.

  “We’re inside of some sort of cryogenics lab—we found a set of double doors that look like they head into a hallway further in; according to the layout of the plans we have it looks like the hallway leads to a room with a freight elevator going down.” Hugo answered after a few seconds had passed.

  “Stay there—we’re on our way.” Timothy commanded as he led the way through the next several rooms until they had found and rejoined the others in the cryogenics room outside of the set of double doors.

  Heading through them they soon came to a room that was filled with overturned metal tables, bookshelves and other obstructions and that was when something big suddenly tore into the right flank of the group grabbing hold of Ahmed and ripping through his tactical vest into his flesh—it looked like some kind of large mutated animal; within seconds he was dead and the creature turned toward the rest of the group roaring a savage roar. That was when they caught a glimpse of what it was—it was a gorilla or what had been a gorilla but as the group got a better look at the features they could tell that this creature had been human at one point in the past; it was that that point when Mohammed turned running out of the room the way that they had come in shutting the double doors at the end of the hall behind him, Beau could hear pounding that sounded like he had put something up against the door and it was just as the gorilla creature turned back to Beau and the others that another sound could be heard as a large creature of some sort crashed through several doors on the other side of the complex not far off.