Love Prevails: A Zombie Nightmare (7 page)

Screaming and thrashing about, Bob attempted to roll off his back and make a getaway. The monster showed no quarter as it fed in a carnivorous rage.

Repeatedly, Bob beat it with the flashlight and cried for help. Blood pooled around him from his torn flesh, and dripped from the mouth of the ghoul. Bob's bowels loosened, and he soiled himself as fear controlled his body.

A dull ringing started in his head and grew louder as muscle was ripped from his arm. The flashlight dropped from his useless grasp. Bob's vision clouded from his peripheral. The ringing turned into silence as the jaws of death gripped his neck. The salvation of unconsciousness overtook him as the remaining blood pumped out from his torn jugular.

Once inside, Lisa first had gone to the bathroom before checking out the drinks. She was no fan of public restrooms, but as close as home was, it was too far away for her to hold it any longer. Taking a few minutes to pee, a few minutes to adjust her clothing, and a few minutes to check her makeup, seemed like enough time for Bob to change the tire.

Leaving the bathroom and walking to the fountain drink dispenser, she realized no one else was in the store. No cashier, no patrons, and the office door that had been open when she had entered, was now shut.

Lisa peered through the Plexiglas door toward the car. The tire hadn’t been changed. Bob was nowhere to be seen.

She burst through the door, shouting, "Bob! Bob! Where are you? Let's get out of here—something's wrong!" She ran past the rear of the car and saw one man straddling another on the parking lot.

The old man at the gas pump was still inside his car, and laid on the horn when he saw Lisa approach, waving frantically as if trying to shoo her away.

Instinctively, she yelled Bob's name and ran toward the scuffle. "Get off him! Get off him!"

The zombie was devouring Bob as a hungry wild animal. Lisa grabbed her purse by the straps and slammed it against it
repeatedly.           

"Get off, motherfucker! Help! Someone help!" A cell phone, a tube of lipstick, and tissue flew out of the purse, spilling onto the parking lot.

With the speed of a striking rattlesnake, the zombie turned its head and snapped, leaving teeth marks in Lisa's right forearm. She screamed and stumbled backward, crashing into the rear of the car before landing hard on her side. Her arm burned where she was bitten.

A wailing siren approached in the distance, growing louder by the second. A black van with Z.M.A.T. printed in large white letters and an ambulance following close behind roared into the parking lot. Every door of the van flew open and eight armed men in black poured out. Zombie Medical and Tactical, a non-politically-correct name surviving the infancy of the outbreak, had arrived.

A burly combatant with 'Lt. Banes' neatly sewn above his right breast gave the orders. "Code D! Code D! Get into position and wait for my call." The men hurriedly formed a circle around the zombie.

 “That’s a well preserved specimen. Be careful with it. Go! Go! Go!" the lieutenant yelled.

 Ballistic cannons shot nets toward the zombie, draping it from four different directions. The beast twisted to free itself from the web-like cage.

"All right, take it down!"

One of the team members with a telescoping aluminum pole hit the zombie behind the knees, sending it to the ground.

"Juice it!" Banes ordered.

Another member sprayed the writhing undead in liquid shrink. The nets slowly contracted, becoming tighter and tighter until the zombie could barely move even a finger.

"Medical! The area is secure! Code Green!" The lieutenant relaxed, and pulled out a cigarette. The local police were on the scene as was the jail bus. He watched his team load up the zombie and check the area for any more strays.

Only two times in the past year had a call gone out for the lieutenant's squad. Campers and hikers were the usual victims of rogue zombies.

Death of a Living always made the papers. The story though would be buried somewhere in the back of the Metro section. Headlines of an attack were considered discriminatory. No media outlet wanted any trouble from the nation's Attorney General.

Lisa shivered as she lay on the hard asphalt, unresponsive, but with her eyes wide open. Two paramedics pushing a collapsible stretcher rushed to her side. One produced a large bright light to examine her body.

"She’s clean, except for the arm," the one holding the light said. The other focused a smaller light emitting a pale greenish beam. When her forearm was scanned, the alien virus glowed eerily within the teeth marks.

Putting the light away, the paramedic retrieved a foil pack, tore off the corner with his teeth, and removed a contraption resembling a sponge with a handle. He put it directly on the bite mark and applied pressure. It made a slight
click
, and liquid oozed through the sponge onto her skin. After swabbing the wound thoroughly, he discarded the sponge into a waste bag.

In unison, the two lifted Lisa onto the stretcher, and wheeled her to the ambulance. Once inside, three taps to the back window signaled the driver that it was time to move out.

One paramedic took a sample of her blood while the other readied an IV. A few drops of blood added into a graduated cylinder containing a clear liquid remained clear after a gentle shaking.

"We have the confirmation that the infection is still in the early stage. I can now legally give her RY."

The paramedic removed a vial from an ice chest big enough to hold two six-packs of drinks, and prepared a syringe. The IV went into the uninjured arm, and the syringe filled with the Resurrection Y treatment slowly injected.

With the drug dispensed, time was no longer of the essence, allowing the men to turn their attention toward the patient's comfort.

One paramedic moved Lisa's hair away from her face. "This is a crying shame. Looks like we lost a pretty one. I would have so
hit
this, but not now. Too bad her life will never be the same."

"Hey, quiet. She might still be able to hear you. Stop thinking with your dick," the other said.

Lisa opened her eyes. A teardrop slowly traveled down her cheek.

"Now now, don't be afraid," the paramedic said, squeezing her hand gently. "We got you in time. You're going to be just fine."

The RY drug traveled up her arm and began to circulate throughout her body.

"We’re going to have to put you to sleep now. You'll learn more when you wake up."

The paramedic injected another syringe into the
IV. The powerful embrace of the sedative ushered in the darkness.

Chapter 2

The Dark Times: The year 2013

“There you go—a dog with false teeth,” Private Andy Wells said, after giving much thought to the situation.

“What in the name of God are you rambling about now?” Private Steve Rogan asked.

Three members among America’s most honored fallen war heroes shambled down an empty street in Arlington Heights, Washington, DC. The bodies had been reanimated to life by a mutated alien virus that had rained upon the earth several months before.

Two wore the dress blues of a Class A Noncommissioned Officer. Each jacket was adorned with an overseas service bar, a combat service identification badge, and service stripes. The other was naked, resembling a walking skeleton stripped of most of its flesh. Each member of the living dead shared one simple common desire, to feed.

"The one on the right. That’s something I haven’t seen before. Look at it. How in the hell can it even walk?” Wells said, standing behind the cover of a SUV abandoned haphazardly on the street.

Rogan leaned forward for a better view. "The way I understand it, the virus builds on what it finds. If the corpse is in decent shape, it regenerates just what it needs to get the muscles working again. It then has the mobility to hunt for food. With the old and rotted ones, if the DNA is viable, it regenerates the minimum amount of hardware to get it going. That’s the case with
skeletor
over there. He's mostly bones, tendons, and the barest amount of muscle. It takes more energy for the virus to rebuild a rotted cadaver.

“The virus first transfers all of its energy into the host. The host replenishes that energy by converting human flesh using alien enzymes into food for the virus. The big problem for us, the damn things don’t seem to come with an off switch. These bastards are forever hungry."

"Vi-a-ble. That's a five dollar word. You a college boy, Rogan?"

"No. Just high school. Shut your trap and take out the one on the left. I'll take the one on the right. First kill gets to shoot the one in the middle."

“Wait a minute. There’s another thing I ain’t figured out yet. How is it that these zombies can break out of the wooden coffins and claw their way up from six feet of packed dirt? That's a lot like pussy to me,” Wells said.

"Pussy? How is that like pussy?"

"I don't get
it
," Wells said with a grin.

Rogan rolled his eyes. “There’s some evidence that the virus working its way down to the dead body strips away nutrients from the soil and casket, using it as energy to reanimate the dead bodies, ‘conditioning’ it to be soft enough to crawl out of.”

"I might have been born at night, but not last night.”

“I don’t really know how they got out. What if the dead buried above ground reanimated first and helped dig out the others in the ground?”

“I’d say yer just pissing in my pocket. That don’t make no sense to me none neither.”

“Maybe it’s a combination of both.”

“Sounds like bullshit to me. You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, and I’m one of the best,” Wells said with a nod.

“How about this: Little men from Mars swooped down in UFOs and shot the graves with a super ray-cannon, disintegrating the dirt, and bringing the dead back to life.”

“Now
that
could happen. That there theory at least is based in science,” Wells said, pointing a finger at Rogan.

“Andy, they were in the ground, and now they’re out. That’s really all that matters. That and the fact that," Rogan smiled evilly, and lowered the tone in his voice, "they're coming to
get
you, Andy.”

"Stop that! Yer scaring me. I was just saying . . . ."

“Shut up and shoot,” Rogan said.

Wells slapped a new magazine into his M16 and chambered a round. He leaped to the side of the SUV, and peppered the chest of his undead target in full auto.

Rogan steadied his rifle on the roof of the vehicle, took careful aim, and fired. The top of his target's skull peeled back like a pull-top can. The zombie fell backward onto the asphalt, his mouth no longer chewing empty air.

Repositioning slightly, Rogan shot the one in the middle dead center of its left eye. The head exploded, sending fragments of bone and black putrid goo in all directions.
Dead meat fireworks
, he thought.

Wells continued to spray his target in the chest. The bullets shot straight through, ripping chunks of meat out of the zombie's backside. Despite all the gunfire it was taking, the dead walker remained standing, shaking violently as each bullet tore through it, until the rifle spit out the last cartridge.

"Wells, what are you doing? You wasted a whole clip of ammo and it's still standing. You know the quickest way to bring it down is to blow the head off, not shoot it until there's nothing left." Rogan took aim and eliminated the zombie with a headshot.