Beyond the Barriers (Novella): Ghouls

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W
ithout limiting
the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotations embodied within critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

I
n 2011 I
completed a book called
Beyond the Barriers
. I had wanted to write an epic zombie series and was inspired by the works of JL Bourne and Max Brooks. I have always been a fan of post apocalyptic work and had written a book called
Among the Living
, which I called a kitchen sink zombie book, because I threw everything under the sun into it.
Among the Living
was my first novel and it was written in 6 weeks. Beyond the Barriers was my 4
^th
novel and it was written over the course of 6 months.

BtB was to be a different kind of zombie book. I’m a fan of slow and fast zombies. Slow zombies scare the crap out of me because of their mass. Getting stuck in a building, while hundreds of flesh eating maniacs try to eat me, is the stuff of nightmares.

Fast zombies are just freaking terrifying. A foe who doesn’t feel pain, and wants to run you down like a rabid school bus, isn’t how I plan to go out. The genre has long been filled with both takes on zombies so I wanted to figure out a way to combine the two.

Also, what if the creatures we knew and feared became somehow smarter? The idea of green eyed smart ghouls developed from there and were later referred to in
Z-Risen
as “shufflers”.

In the process of getting a publishing deal I also landed a literary agent. She negotiated a multi book deal for the Barriers books, however, the process fell apart at some point. When a third party purchased my publisher, they decided to change their publishing focus and move away from the zombie genre. The
Barriers
sequels were not something they were interested in pursing so the second book languished. A few months ago I stumbled across what I had written in 2012 and decided to tell the rest of Erik’s tale and bring it current with the events of the Z-Risen series.

My intention has always been to bring the two worlds together but what I didn’t count on was the popularity of the
Z-Risen
books. As I wrote them I found that the story of Jackson Creed and Joel Kelly was hard to stop writing. Before I knew it there were four novels in the series and a fifth book in the works.

What you are reading is not a full novel. This is a novella that brings together the two worlds. So if you’re expecting a huge zombie read, like
Beyond the Barriers
, I apologize. However, this novella answers questions left hanging in the
Barriers
book and also paves the way forward.

N
ight arrived
with a burst of comets that reminded me of a time not so long ago when airplanes plied the skies for passage. It elicited cries of dismay from a man at the turret of the striker vehicle. Edward had been a banker at one time. Now he was an emaciated stick figure who had endured the worst the world could throw at him and had come out a spitting viper; but instead of venom, his weapon was flame.

Then it thundered and rained like the devil himself decided to piss on the earth. We left the road, pulled down the long driveway of a home set back in the woods, and parked the vehicle. We remained there for a few hours while the storm blew over. Sounded like howling banshees out there. It put me and our passengers on edge.

Later the rain let up and we moved on but lightning still arced across the sky for the rest of the night while thunder barked in the distance.

Next to me perched Scott, who peered out the front turret as the sky lit up. It was possible to drive with it open but, with the rain, he used the thick glass to pick our way across the dilapidated roads.

I had seen a meteor show once a few years ago. Allison and I had traveled to Eugene Oregon and, along the way, the sky had become a silent staccato of racing fireflies just as we were witnessing today.

Years. Was that all it was? It seemed like decades, a lifetime or three ago.

The last four or five months alone had felt like a slow motion nightmare. One I had been inexorably drawn into.

One of the survivors was a child. A boy of no more than twelve. He lay on his side, his knees drawn up to his chest. He had his thumb in his mouth and I felt pity for him. It radiated from me like a furnace. What had this child endured? Surely something as horrendous as Haley, the girl we had witnessed murdered by the side of the road by a madman named Lee. I had put an end to him just a day ago. I had taken him to the ground and damaged him so badly that, when the ghouls and zombies arrived, he could not have lasted long. I hoped they had taken their time in feasting on his flesh while he screamed in pain.

After the assault on the ghoul camp, we’d managed to free as many of the prisoners as possible. The ghouls had collected us to add to their ranks. As I’d come to learn, they were able to turn people by force feeding them the rotted flesh of the undead. Just a few bites and a day or two later the change took place. Whatever had created the zombie epidemic had also created the green-eyed bastards. From the first days when they were semi-mindless automatons, until today, when they were thinking and talking plotters of humanities demise and we fought them tooth and nail.

I’d missed a lot of the end of the world due to my self-imposed exile up in the mountains. My friend’s cabin had sustained me until I’d been forced to come back to the real world and confront the truth. You can only run for so long before you have to stop and make a stand. I’d made that stand with new friends and learned to hate the ghouls and everything they stood for.

I’d learned to kill both the living and the dead. Now I was an expert at the art of imparting death on those who stood in my way.

We had taken Lee’s Stryker vehicle and loaded the survivors from the camp in the back. After sorting out all of the gear, I had been happy to find a full set of clothing sporting the United States Army’s universal camouflage pattern (UCP) well as a tactical vest to match. It was lined with pockets for magazines. I’d done my best to fill them but, as far as weapons and extra rounds went, the vehicle was light.

I’d dug out a few mags for a Beretta 92F and filled them, too. The desert eagle still rode my hip but I wasn’t going to get far with it because there were only about fifteen rounds of .44 ammo.

Scott whistled as I pulled the big vehicle to a stop. The turret let in a fresh whisper of breeze that carried the stench of the refugees. I would have crinkled it at one time, probably turned away or cast my eyes on them with disdain. Now I inhaled it and felt glad to be among my fellow survivors no matter the circumstances.

I caught Scott’s eye as he turned to regard me.

“Big voodoo magic up there,” I said.

“Yeah. For a minute I thought it was nukes. Remember back in the day when they kept us scared of the Russians all the time? I half expected a hundred bombs to destroy my city at any given moment.”

“Instead we got the dead. I wish we had a smart nuke that could destroy them.” I turned back to the show in the sky.

“Then what would we do for fun?”

“I don’t know. Rebuild, drink, and chase girls. Unless you got a better idea,” I said.

“Beer. Lots of beer.”

“Tequila?” I arched my eyebrows up.

“I’m Mexican. What do you think?” He half-smiled.

“They aren’t that high up. I wonder if they’re planes.”

“Doubtful. Have you seen a plane in the last few weeks?” He asked.

“Now that you mention it. I did see a plane at the ghoul’s camp. One shot over the base and even shook it’s wings at me. I wondered who was in it,” I said.

Scott was all the way forward at the controls of the vehicle. I was still surprised at how similar to a regular car it was. Then again, what had I expected? Something like a tank?

“Must have been a fan.” He grinned over his shoulder.

“I don’t have many of those.” I thought of Lee. Fuck him and the monstrous company he had kept. They were worse than the ghouls as far as I was concerned. They had turned their back on their humanity and abandoned people to the dead. How many of those had joined the army of the dumb and slow. How many lay at his feet?

“You got that right,
gringo
. For better or for worse. I got your back, and you got my wetback,” he said.

It was a worth a chuckle. From the beginning, Scott with his Latino background had become the butt of a few jokes. But he called me white boy once even though his complexion was almost as fair as mine. Since then, the friendly banter had not stopped. It was an escape from our horrible world and we both recognized it as such. The truth of the matter was, there was no one else I would rather have at my back than him, except Katherine.

I sighed and tried to mentally urge the vehicle to roll faster.

The switch on the radio had to be close to falling off. I had been clicking it through channels all day and most of the night. Whenever I tossed in the little seat, dreams interrupted by how damned uncomfortable I was on the plastic monstrosity, the first thing I did was scan channels on the radio.

Three days and still no word. I thought I was going to climb out of my skin.

Not that long ago, I would have picked up a cell phone and made a call, sent a message or even an email from it. Now I was stuck hoping to get a signal from a group that was still thirty or so miles from us. Might as well be all the way across the country.

Our passengers were stuffed in the back of the tiny truck and they were a sorry lot. They had been in cages for days and some for weeks. The stench of unwashed bodies, too long on the ground, hung like a pallor over the inside of the vehicle. Eyes downcast every time I glanced back at them. Few of them would engage with us no matter how long we peppered them with questions.

Except for Chris.

From the start his eyes followed me wherever I went. If I was in the back cleaning a gun, I was sure he had daggers pointed at me. He was a short man, built like an Auschwitz survivor, which sadly, was how a lot of the others looked. He had a full ragged beard that reminded me of an extremist. Hell, we were all extremists now. I didn’t even want to think about how bad I looked. But with his eyes full of fervor, or hate, he reminded me more of the Unabomber.

I didn’t understand the dirty looks. It was just a day ago that I had rescued all of the survivors. After being captured by the ghouls, Scott, Haley, and I had sat in a cramped cage for almost a week. It was the girl who got us out. She had been slim and we managed to lift the cage far enough for her to slither out. I had encouraged her to run but she hadn’t listened and, instead, helped to break us out.

It was into the woods, and then an escape that saw Haley killed by Lee. He put a gun to her head and blew her brains all over the side of the road. Just the thought of it, of her pleading eyes, sent me reeling. I couldn’t get the scared look out of my mind. There had been no acceptance of her fate. At the time I thought I caught a hint of anger but it was gone in a flash as her head hit the ground.

But I’d taken care of Lee. We’d shot at each other, resorted to fists, and then, when I’d rendered him nearly unconscious and broken some of his bones, I’d left his sorry ass for the zombies. Good riddance, Lee. You were an asshole.

Whatever the problem with Chris, I was planning to sort it out the next time we stopped. I ached, everywhere, from our ordeal and the fight with Lee, but some little pissant wasn’t going to deter me from my goal to find Katherine. I’d beat him senseless, too, if I had to, and leave him to the dead. No one, and I mean no one, was going to stop me.

The other survivors with us were an assorted group of misery. It took a few tries to get everyone’s name correct, I had never been good with names and this was no exception. It didn’t help that everyone wore rags and were covered in filth. Even with the water at the barn they were pitiful. As much as I felt for them, I had no intention of taking them any farther than I had to. The first chance we had to drop them off, they were gone.

Maybe sensing my intentions, some had deserted us at the farmhouse and now our miserable lot was down to six.

My goal was to make contact with Lizbeth back at the base and find out where Katherine had gone missing. Then I was going there and, if I had to abandon this truck to do it, so be it.

Sam was the most bright-eyed. She was in her early thirties, if I had to guess, and had a shock of purple hair that hung over her shoulders. More than once, I had caught a glance of some sort of colorful tattoo on her neck.

Jon and Janet were a couple. About a decade of years separated them with her on the older end. They clung to each other whenever we hit a large bump. I suspected they had met in the cage and sought each other for comfort.

Our first night together was tentative at best. We sought shelter in the old farm we had used the day before. We’d holed up in the old slaughterhouse because we had supplies and blankets there. Funny how fast we became accustomed to the smell of blood and guts. The sheer horror of the dead around made the minor horrors seem insignificant by comparison.

No one in our new group grimaced or said a word against our stop. We simply ate what was left of the supplies and passed out. It didn’t make sense to attempt rationing the food. They had been too long without rations for us to stop them. And so had we, for that matter. The whole horrible week I was stuck in that cursed cage with Scott and Haley was like a bad dream now. I looked back on it in dread. I looked back on it with a lot of anger, too. I felt despair wash over me at times and, when I met the eye of another survivor, I saw the same sense of loss. How much of our humanity had we lost while being subject to the will of the dead?

That night, a few of the survivors slipped away. I never saw them again. We’d rescued them but it wasn’t like I was responsible for them. Besides, the less people we had to care for, the better.