Undead Genesis: Zombie

Undead Genesis: Zombie

Epidemic Origin

Published by Colten Steele -
[email protected]

Copyright 2014 Colten Steele

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Before you read…

This is the second short story in my Zombie series.
While it is fine to read this book first, I would recommend reading
Zombie Threat: The Undead Arise
before
delving into this one. It is available at most online
bookstores.

Table of Contents

Chapter I –
Arise

Chapter II –
Above All

Chapter III –
Who Am I

Chapter IV –
No Turning Back

Chapter V –
White Flag

Chapter VI –
Can Only Imagine

Chapter VII –
Lay Me Down

Chapter VIII –
10,000 Reasons

Chapter IX –
Revelation

Chapter X –
White Flag

Chapter XI –
How Great

Chapter XII –
Redeemed

Chapter XIII –
Awake my Soul

Chapter XIV –
Never Let Go

Chapter XV –
Save Me

Chapter XVI –
East to West

Chapter XVII –
Open the Eyes

Chapter XVIII –
Waiting Here For You

Epilogue

Author Notes

~ Chapter I
~

Marik slowly woke before the darkness started
to surrender to the coming day. He had been taught from his
earliest days to wake up just before sunrise for the express
purpose of experiencing the marvelous arrival of this day. He
carefully stretched each sore limb, one at a time, after an
uncomfortable night curled into a tight ball like an unborn fetus.
His handmade vine hammock was attached precariously to the tree
trunk above him. Both ends of the hammock were wrapped around a
wooden peg placed in a single diagonal shallow groove cut into the
tree. The boy’s cocoon of vines gently twisted and creaked loudly
with each subtle movement.

The night sky slowly lightened. With his
small fingers Marik widened a gap in the vine mesh and admired the
horizon as it gradually turned from light rose, into an alluring
pink, and finally into the dazzling orange of daybreak. From his
vantage over one hundred fifty feet in the air there was no ground
to be seen, only the rolling green of the rain forest canopy below.
A few feet above him the lowest limbs of a sacred cotton tree
spread over him like a monstrous hand reaching across the
brightening sky.

Marik was just over thirteen years old. This
was the third time he had seen the sunrise from above the canopy,
and he knew there was a chance he may never see it again. He had
been born and raised below, in a world covered by the jungle where
direct light only penetrated when the sun was overhead. His close
knit nomadic tribe never ventured out of the jungle’s safety, and
only this sacred ritual from the tops of cotton trees gave a member
of the tribe an excuse to see the sunrise. If he was able to
complete this portion of his rite of passage into manhood today, he
may never get an opportunity to see the sunrise again.

The boy had been carefully scaling this
particular tree for the last five days. Each step required a
shallow notch to be cautiously cut into the trunk of the tree with
a sharpened stone wedge and heavy rock tipped hammer. A long narrow
step was then inserted into the notch giving Marik enough room to
fit both feet and move up the tree. Previous attempts at scaling
this cotton tree by his ancestors had left frequent puckered scars
in the outer bark over the decades.

Looking down, Marik could see hundreds of
these flat steps in a meandering line, each one meticulously
created by his own hands over the last couple of years. He was only
strong enough to carry six of these platforms at a time upon his
back, so he repeatedly and carefully descended the steps again to
retrieve more.

He had reached the top of the previous two
trees and found the first of the sacred ingredients, the ransi
flower. A pouch full of these beautiful, but poisonous, red flowers
had been carefully collected and was presently hidden below with
his meager gear deep in the crevice of a nearby tree. However,
there was no trace of the final hallowed component he was required
to retrieve in either of the first two trees; the larvae of the
bondai fly.

In previous generations the larvae were found
abundantly at the top of every cotton tree, but before he was born
the larvae started to disappear and boys sometimes had to climb
more than one tree now to find it. Marik knew he would throw
himself from his precarious perch in frustration rather than to
sulk back to the tribe without finding the last ingredient.

He spent another few moments admiring the
rising sun and thanked his ancestors for keeping him safe. He
praised their bravery and asked for them to direct his life on this
day. Singing ancient songs of tribute to the spirits of the many
men who made this same climb before him, he unwrapped himself from
his hammock and started to ascend the final few feet to reach his
goal.

~ Chapter II
~

Marik was in the branches one hundred eighty
feet above the ground and was exhausted. The eagerness to reach the
top he felt hours ago had fled as he struggled to remain steadily
focused. His last meal had been consumed the previous day and had
consisted of a few mouthfuls of a hard dried porridge and the
second half of a slightly over-ripened pineapple. He sipped the
last of his water and knew he needed to start the long precarious
journey back down the tree soon to avoid dehydration.

The top of a cotton tree in the northern rain
forest of Brazil towered over the rest of the canopy and was unlike
any other environment in the jungle. Many species of plants and
insects lived here which were not found anywhere else in the world.
The large bondai fly was one of these species and had yet to be
discovered by the civilized world. Once the bondai fly emerged from
its cocoon, it flew off to the next cotton tree it could find where
it mated, laid eggs in the upper branches a few weeks later, and
then died. The larvae spent their lives at the tops of the trees.
They first consumed the carcass of their mother, and then fed on
the tree until pupating.

The adult fly was remarkable for its size and
aggressiveness. It could grow up to an inch and a half long and was
extremely territorial. The bite of the fly left a painful welt
which did not disappear for days. Marik had spread a thick mixture
over his entire body derived mainly from a single large pointy aloe
leaf crushed days ago. He had been told this would protect him from
the painful bite, but had also heard stories from men who said it
did not always work. He was cautious, but had not seen any of the
flies or larvae in the two previous trees, so he was less worried
than he had been previously.

Marik was shuffling along with his feet on a
low branch and his hands searching the leaves on the branch just
above him. The muscles in his neck and shoulders were sore from
looking up for hours in search of the elusive larvae in a tree
whose canopy covered more than half an acre.

When the heavy fly unexpectedly smacked into
the side of his neck and took a painful chuck of skin in its sharp
jaws, both hands came off of the branch he had been clinging to.
Thankfully the hammock from the night before was tied around the
branch above him and looped under one arm. One of his feet slipped
and for a moment he hung in the balance waving both arms
wildly.

He was vaguely aware he had wet himself as
one hand groped to regain a hold on the tree branch above and the
other beat frantically at the insect which still stubbornly clung
to his neck. He connected solidly with a slap that left its own
mark on his skin and the bondai fly fell weightily on his shoulder.
It teetered there a moment, before falling forward, rolling down
his chest. Marik quickly lost sight of the insect as it plummeted
towards the dark earth below.

The boy stood there breathing heavily while
his heart beat out of control. The lethargy he had been
experiencing minutes before was replaced with an adrenalin rush
which had set his senses on high alert. He could feel blood
dripping slowly from the fiery wound in his neck, and the steadier
drip of sweat as it poured from his brow. His skin tingled as if
thousands of insects crawled over every inch of him and he
franticly wiped at every prickle.

His feet itched the worst and he could not
bend over to reach them. He picked his left foot up and reached
behind him to scratch it. What he felt there was not his foot, but
something soft and gummy between his fingers. He kicked
instinctively and hysterically to get whatever was on his foot off,
once again nearly losing his balance, but it clung stubbornly. He
looked at his leg as it thrashed back and forth before realizing a
clinging soft body there was scuttling slowly up his calf. An inch
long white larva of the bondai fly crawled to his knee before he
was able to regain control. Lifting his leg, Marik plucked it off
and plopped it into a waiting pouch.

When he looked down he saw another larva was
climbing on his right foot, and many others could be seen further
along the branch.

~ Chapter
III ~

A week later Marik stared up at his father
Jarik as the older man applied black war paint to his son’s face.
They sat on a bench in the communal gathering hut located in the
center of the village. It was by far the largest building in the
tribe’s clearing. On a typical day, the women would be preparing
meals and scolding rambunctious young children here, but today
there were only men present.

Surrounding them were others performing
similar tasks in preparation for the coming war. All were decorated
with vibrant colored feathers and war paint. A group of seven young
men stayed together at one end of the hut. They were loud, often
jumping to their feet and yelling boastful guarantees of their
upcoming success. Marik would not be accepted into this group until
his rites of adulthood were fulfilled by participating in and
surviving the coming conflict.

The older men sat solemnly in a circle
discussing the possibility of losing their lives, or more
tragically, the lives of their arrogant, and ignorant, sons.

The previous evening Marik’s coming of age
ceremony had been performed. He was the only boy this year old
enough to earn this honor. The tribe had once had hundreds of
members dominating a vast area of the jungle. In those days dozens
of boys would have been a part of the ceremony each year. Things
had changed greatly between then and now. Many years ago, before
Marik’s father was born, outsiders had come. These strange light
skinned men, now only remembered in tribal lore, claimed to want to
provide help, but instead brought curses which wiped out entire
villages with sickness. The forty eight surviving members of the
once grand society now hid fearfully in the deepest jungle and
struggled to preserve the ways of their ancestors.

The upcoming yearly raid was an orchestrated
event with another tribe. They had also suffered the same
decimation from diseases. Both tribes required war and sacrifices
for their ancient traditions, yet two obstacles stood in the way of
achieving their goals. First, the distance between tribes was too
vast and the tribes moved too often for raids to happen by chance.
An agreed upon location had been set. Second, neither could afford
to lose many young men. Each tribe was only allowed to capture one
opposing warrior and kill another. The first tribe to accomplish
this was considered the victor and both tribes would withdraw
afterwards.

As a rule, no long range weapons were allowed
in the engagement. Excluded were arrows, thrown spears, and, most
importantly, witchcraft.

Any divergence from this arrangement would
result in a terrible curse being placed on the offending tribe.
Each tribe had a powerful shaman wielding remarkable, yet terrible
powers. Everyone respected and feared these men.