ZOMBIE'S DOOM? "Chronicles of Jack Doom" (33 page)

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THE BADLANDS OF INDIANA

"Okay Jack, we're coming up on Indianapolis, on the other side of that is the Badlands," Derek informed me, his traveling companion.

"If that's the case, I guess it's time that you decide if you're going to join me in my little jaunt through that scenic wonderland," I noted, looking Derek in the eye.

"Well, you know you've yet to tell me what your real reason for going into the Badlands is.

I know you told that fool Tony and his idiot friend Danny that you were going in looking for the Caucasian, but you never told them why.

They assumed that you were somehow connected to his group in some way, and you just let them think that. That's when they both about shit their pants," Derek declared.

"So you noticed that too?" I said smiling.

"I certainly did. So before I decide whether or not I want to risk my pathetic life by going deep into the Badlands in search of someone known to be a little on the crazy side of town.

Someone that is rumored to have a small army at his disposal.

Someone that has the ability to make a couple of hardcore Kentucky hillbillies about shit their pants at the mere mention of his name.

I think you can tell me the real reason that you are so hell bent on risking life and limb by trudging through the infamous Badlands of Indiana to search out this Caucasian character."

Having no intention of telling him, or anybody else for that matter, the real reason that I was willing to walk straight into a fiery inferno deep in the lower depths of hell itself, stark raving naked if I had to, I chose to tell Derek a convincing half-truth, and let the chips fall where they may. He would find out the
real
truth soon enough when I found the Sarge.

"That's fair enough," I said, nodding my head as if I really believed the line of bullshit I was about to ask him to swallow whole.

Knowing what I was about to do, I
almost
felt sorry for my
friend
, as I looked into his trusting eyes.

"It's like this; I'm looking for an old Marine Corps buddy of mine, we served overseas in the sandbox, and then again fighting eaters down in Texas.

We were separated when a huge horde of eaters attacked us, and I've been looking for him every since.

I ran into a guy at a gun shop in Amarillo a few weeks ago, and he told me that he'd seen a man in Oklahoma that matched the description of my buddy, and he was traveling with a blonde girl named Beth.

When we were separated, my buddy was with a girl named Beth, so I figured it had to be my old sergeant.

I trailed them through Oklahoma and heard that the Sarge was headed for Indiana, and well... you know the rest," I told him as convincingly as I could.

Every good lie has a little of the truth attached to it, it adds cohesion if some of the facts are checked, and it makes it easier for the teller (liar) to remember what was said later on.

"This Sarge must be quite a guy for you to risk going into the Badlands looking for him," Derek stated.

"He saved my life almost as many times as I saved his," I answered, not mentioning that the next time I see him I was going to take one of those lives back. "So going into the Badlands for a person like the Sarge, well let's just say I owe him a lot, and I intend to pay my debt, every bit of it."

"What... are... you going to do if he has joined the Caucasian's band?" Derek asked hesitantly.

"This Caucasian can't be that bad, I know he seems to have everybody dropping dual deuces in their draws at the mention of his name, but he's not the reason that they call where he lives the Badlands! Is it?" I asked.

"No, the fact that the region got the name Indiana Badlands doesn't have anything to do with the Caucasian, although he certainly benefits from it having that moniker, because nowadays most people associate the name with him," Derek explained.

"If it's not the Caucasian's reputation, what is it then?" I asked him, genuinely curious.

"When the dead began to rise and the world, or at least this part of the world went nipples up, the population of Chicago, Detroit, and Fort Wayne panicked and scattered south into northern Indiana, people from Cincinnati, Louisville, Indianapolis, and the surrounding areas south of here, headed north hearing that there was a sanctuary somewhere near Chicago.

In a small town of about sixteen thousand, give or take a couple dozen zombies, is where five million frightened, panicked, disease ridden, and heavily armed people merged. Slammed into each other is more like it," Derek continued.

"Anyway, between the brutality of the panicked live population, and the hunger of the undead that they left in their wake, mass-murder, and carnage on a grand scale took place throughout the northern half of Indiana."

What was left of the armed forces cordoned off the whole region to try to contain the disease and keep the violence from spreading even more over an already steadily increasing area.

I'm telling you Jack, they had the top half of Indiana sealed up tighter than a nun's cunt, but it was no use.

The more the humans tried to defend themselves the more humans were killed without head trauma, and of course the result of such sloppy executions was just more of the dead coming to life and causing even more panic among the living. This continued until it was common knowledge that a bullet to the head or some other devastating impact to the brain was needed to stop the plague from advancing, and by then it was too late.

Seeing that the horrendous slaughter was widespread and seemingly impossible to prevent or contain, in a last ditch effort to stop the unprecedented bloodbath, the military launched what was to be their last coordinated mission before it was summarily disbanded due to desertions, deaths, and turncoats (soldiers turning into zombies).

They called in a massive air strike beginning at the circumference of the boundary of what would later be called the Badlands, and inward until they reached the epicenter of the massacre, that little town of sixteen thousand that's about 45 miles northwest of here."

"And let me guess. In that little town is where the Caucasian has made his headquarters. Right?" I asked, already figuring that I knew the answer.

"Right, but it gets better," Derek continued. "This is the part that you're not going to believe, because it's unbelievable, I'm not sure that I believe it myself."

"Oh, I don't know, since this whole dead people coming to life thing came about, I've come to believe a lot of things that a couple of years ago I would have told you were completely impossible. You know like people trying to eat your brain while it's still in your head," I assured him, as I narrowly missed a mound of twitching zombie parts that someone had piled in the middle of the road. And by narrowly missing, I mean that I only ran over two of the snappers as we whizzed by at the break-neck speed (no pun intended) of 31 mph.

"Okay, let's see if you believe this shit that I'm about to tell you," Derek asked, almost boasting. "I almost told you this back at the roadblock, but I thought you'd think I was insane."

"
Okay
," I thought. "
You believed the shit that I just spoon fed you about the Sarge, and you lapped it up like a kitty drinking milk
.
So hit me with it, it can't be much more of a fantasy than what I told you, even though I did add some truth to my lie
."

"Well, I already think you're insane," I said, sarcastically smiling. "So I'm ready, hit me with it, metaphorically speaking of course."

"Well first of all Jack, I would like to thank you for another emotional scar from that
insane
comment. But as I was saying, as the bombing raid was taking place, body parts of the living and of the undead, even the totally dead were being blown all over the place.

A few of the zombie's parts were beginning to twitch, snappers, as you call them were snapping, zombies were staggering all around lunging on folks, and people were running all over hell screaming and yelling, shooting and getting bit, and being eaten alive. You know the usual "Zombie Armageddon" type stuff.

It was early on in the zombie invasion so there weren't a lot of maggots and flies being tossed around like there would be if it happened today."

"Thank the
Eater Gods
for that," I interrupted.

"Yes, definitely thank someone for that," Derek agreed. "So amid the flying limbs and intestines zooming through the air spewing their soon to be fermented juices all over fuck, the people that were still alive and hadn't turned into the undead, began to see dinosaurs running amuck in the crowd, and tearing the zombies limb from limb."

"Bullshit!" I said loudly, believing every word. "Do you expect me to believe that horseshit?"

"I told you that you wouldn't believe it!" Derek exclaimed, almost proud that he had been right, or so he thought anyway.

"All right, finish your story of the mass optical delusion, and then I'll tell you about a giant bunny that hides eggs on one Sunday out of the year," I said, laughing in his face. "Oh, and I know another story about a fat-ass slob in a red suit that does home invasions while a herd of reindeer wait for him on the roof. One of the deer's has a red nose, probably from drinking too much."

"Very funny Jack, I'm laughing on the inside," Derek retorted sarcastically.

"All right, quit whining like the little girl that you are, and tell me what happened," I responded, also laughing on the inside.

"Well like I said before, people were starting to see dinosaurs killing off the zombies, and they weren't just any prehistoric beasts, they were the worst of the worst. I mean as far as
dinosaurs
go.

T-Rex's and velociraptors, no shit Jack, hundreds of them busting through the crowds of now even more panicked citizens, flinging pieces of zombies into the air and all over everybody."

"Okay, I believe you now," I said smiling. "But there's one thing that you haven't told me."

"What's that Jack?" Derek asked, still trying to convince me.

"Who told you this yarn about the end of the world and all of the dinosaurs anyway?" I asked sincerely, all the while knowing that Derek was telling me the truth.

"I saw it, I was there Jack!

You see, I was a corporal in the Army before
it
went to shit too.

We herded the civilian stragglers into what unbeknownst to us frontline soldiers at the time, was to become the kill zone. Even though we had strict orders to shoot anyone that resisted being funneled into that area, or that tried to run away.

We killed quite a few ourselves before the first planes came over and the bombs started falling. But like I said, we had our orders.

First the bombs started dropping, and then the body parts started falling out of the sky with the bombs as the bodies were blown apart, then when the bombs stopped dropping, that's when the dinosaurs came," Derek insisted, as his demeanor turned solemn. "However, the dino's just attacked the zombies, ripped them to pieces but not one of them even so much as touched any of the living people, at least not that I know of. Even after some of the soldiers and civilians shot at them and I think killed one or two of them."

"But you managed to get out alive?" I asked suspiciously. "How convenient for you."

"Yeah, I got out alive all right, but I wasn't the only one," Derek answered, as his voice lowered. "Almost everyone that was still alive, military and civilian alike figured it was time to get the fuck out of Dodge when the T-Rex's showed up, and I didn't see any reason to be the only one sticking around to see what would happen after the gigantic animals were finished ripping the zombies to shreds."

"Calm down dick-head," I said to Derek, as I laughed. "I had my own run in with the dinosaur population that was very similar to your account. As a matter of fact, that's how me and the Sarge got separated. T-Rex's and velociraptors came busting ass into the horde and chewing up the eaters, and we all started pissing down both legs and headed for the hills in every direction."

I figured I could kill two birds with one stone by telling Derek about my first experiences with the dinosaurs. I could convince him that I believed him, and at the same time further add credence to my half-truth about the Sarge.

However, I would hold back the information about my second encounter with the vicious prehistoric beasts as not to betray my true intentions for hunting down my old
friend
the Sarge.

Derek looked at me, nodded his head, and after squinting his eyes slightly, he explained.

"The reason they call it the Badlands, is because the military devastated the whole region with its air campaign and left so much destruction, so much carnage, and so many dead bodies in its wake, and then the airplanes left, they just kind of evaporated, vanished,
poof
, they were gone.

Nobody stayed to clean up the mess, I certainly wasn't going to.