A New Death (Savannah's Only Zombie Novel) (16 page)

I must admit, that even I have taken many notes from them.
Their knowledge of the word is extensive, even more extensive than my own
church training. They have recommended and gifted books to me by men named
Piper and MacArthur. MacArthur’s commentaries on the New Testament have proved to
be invaluable in my teaching Mass. Piper’s are weighty, and at times, it seems
that there are more footnotes than actual writing. But they are still ripe with
information.

I feel as if the Father has sent these two missionaries here
to us. May He be praised. When Rome abandoned us, the Father did not.

August 13
^th
, 2012

Our two friends are leaving tomorrow to head back to their
home in the States. It has been a great blessing having them here with us. The
people and I are greatly excited to get to work in spreading the Gospel
throughout México. A true revival has happened here and in the neighboring
villages.

Travis and Daniel, who the locals have taken to calling
‘Paul and Barnabas’, have invited me to come visit them in their hometown of
Savannah, Georgia sometime, and to be a missionary there. Ha! Me? A missionary
to the United States? I asked them if that was even needed and they said, “Yes.
Sadly so.”

Maybe. Maybe one day I will journey to America.

November 3
^rd
, 2012

My bags are packed and I am ready to head north to Savannah,
Georgia! Since our missionary friends have left, I have had many men step up in
the church who are helping me lead our ever growing flock. I am confident in
them that they will take care of things while I am gone.

I am lucky to have been practicing my English for so long,
that hopefully I will not need a translator! The journey will be long and it
will take me a few weeks to reach my destination, but by God’s grace, I will
get there!

Jeremy closed the journal after reading the last entry. His
mind raced with the Padre’s story. How the church abandoned him and how God
provided two missionaries to fill the hole. Some of what the Padre said seemed
to make more sense now. That God knew what he was doing, even when it seemed
like he was not there. Jeremy didn’t feel the comfort like he wanted, but he
did feel a peace about things. Not that things were great, but that maybe
everything would eventually be okay. Maybe they would be alright. The thoughts
continued to swirl around in his head until he felt his eyes begin to grow
heavy and soon he was fast asleep.

***

It was not long into their journey before Tori had Lexx
pressed up against the wall. She was definitely the more aggressive one, which
she liked. The fact that he wasn’t pushing her, made her only want him more.
Even when her hand would move a little too far south, he would grab it firmly,
and place it back on his chest. These small gestures made her want him even
more.

“Hey, hey” Lexx said, pushing her back so he could get some
oxygen. “Let’s slow down just a little.”

“Said no guy ever,” she responded somewhat annoyed.

“I said just a little.”

His hand slid down her back, ending with him grabbing a
cheekful. She went back to push him against the wall, but he sidestepped her.

“For real though,” he continued. “Let’s at least go check on
LJ first.”

“I do not get you Lexx,” she said as she began to walk away
from him down the hall. “Here I am practically throwing myself on you and you
want to take it slow.”  

“And I appreciate that Victoria, but I would rather go check
on the man first, and then give you my undivided attention. Plus, I’m enjoying
the anticipation that’s building up here between us.”

“Are you stringing me along, Lexington?”

“Maybe,” he said with a coy smile.

“You rat bastard.”

She playfully punched him in the arm.

Fine
, she thought.
If that’s the game he wants to
play, then two can play that game.

She walked away, slightly shaking her hips as she went. She
knew he was watching her because he lingered a minute before catching up to
her.

When they got to the office where LJ was staying, they
paused for a moment at the door. LJ could be heard through the door mumbling to
himself. Lexx leaned in to try and get a better listen, but he shook his head.
He couldn’t make out what the man was saying.

“Here we go,” Lexx said as he reached for the door handle.

LJ was tucked into the corner of the room, asleep in the
fetal position. He was drenched in sweat and shivering. The fever must have
grown worse since they left him. The shivering was borderline convulsions. He
had been talking in his sleep and his mumbling was much more intelligible now.

“Killed them. Killed them all. I did it. I did it. I killed
them all.”

Tori looked at Lexx.

“He must be talking about the zombies at the port,” Lexx
said.

Tori nodded as she leaned in to feel the man’s forehead. It
was burning up, but slick with perspiration. She wiped her hand on the back of
Lexx’s leg. He turned and gave her a disgusted look. She giggled. This caused
LJ to stir and turn over to his other side, so he was facing away from them.

“Alright, let’s go. There’s not much we can do for him. We’ll
come back and check on him in the morning,” Tori said, standing up.

Lexx nodded and they retreated to the doorway. LJ began to
mumble again. They stopped to listen to the man sleep talk.

“I did it. I did it. Killed them. Killed Burton. Killed the
girls. Killed everyone. I did it. I did it.”

Horror crept up on their faces as LJ began to rant about
having killed his friend and everyone there with him at the port. The man went
on for a few moments before finally relaxing and falling into a deep sleep.
Tori grabbed Lexx by the arm and pulled him outside. She closed the door and
pushed a nearby large trash can in front of it.

“What. The. Fuck,” she said. “That’s what happened? He
killed everyone? That’s what he doesn’t remember? How do you forget that?”

Lexx shook his head. He was trying to wrap his head around
the situation.

“I knew this guy was bad news. I fucking knew it,” she
continued. “We gotta go tell Jeremy and Ben.”

“Hold on,” Lexx finally said. “We’ll tell them in the
morning. He’s not going anywhere and he’s not much of a threat now. You saw
him. The guy’s on the verge of death. We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

She seemed hesitant to his response, but he watched as it
slowly sunk in. She nodded. She didn’t like it, but she nodded. She knew Lexx
had a point. The guy was not going anywhere. And the important thing was: She
was right.

“How do you just block killing everyone around you from your
memory though?” she asked as they walked back to the theater.

“He must have freaked out when he got the call from his wife.
What did Jeremy call it, “the rage?” Maybe that’s what happened.”

He shrugged. She knew that Jeremy had mentioned the whole
“rage” thing, but she didn’t know what to think of it. She hadn’t experienced
it, neither had Ben or Lexx. Maybe it only happens in time of extreme grief.
She just didn’t know. And she did not like that.

When they reached the theater, they decided they didn’t
really feel much like fooling around after that. They picked out seats close to
each other and got comfortable. Both Ben and Jeremy were long gone to
slumber-land. Tori began to close her eyes and drift away, when she felt
something touch her hand. It was Lexx. He set his hand down on top of hers and
they both fell asleep.

Ben opened his eyes. He’d grown accustomed to waking up in
strange places the past few days, so the fact that he was in a theater didn’t
alarm him at all. He sat up and stretched his arms toward the ceiling. The
theater chairs were the comfiest thing he’d slept on recently, but they still
left him a little stiff and sore. He missed his bed. He’d even settle for his
old bed at his parent’s. Hopefully, he’d be sleeping in that by tonight.

No one else was awake yet. He didn’t even remember Lexx and
Tori coming back in last night. The last thing he remembered was asking Jeremy
if they were together. He smiled at the thought of those two hitting it off.
With everything that was going on in the world right now, it was nice to know
that people can still fall in love. It gave Ben hope.

He quietly got up from his seat and made his way to the Coke
machine. He winced at the noise of it filling the cup. It was a little louder
than he expected. Or maybe because it was so quiet, that only made it seem
louder. He filled the cup and took a sip. Delicious.

Ben decided to go check on LJ while the others slept in.
They needed their rest. Ben on the other hand knew that he didn’t need much
sleep to recharge. Four- six hours at the most. Any more than that and he’d be
groggy. His sleep patterns were probably developed during college and set in
stone when he started working for “The Lady.” Being her social media manager
was a lot harder than what some might think. She can be quiet demanding on when
she wanted her tweets to go out. A lot of the locals didn’t care for her, but
Ben admired her. She made herself into something. You have to give her credit
for that.

As he walked down the hallways of the massive building, he
wondered what the place was like before the dead started coming back to life.
Would it have been bustling with workers and office drones right now? Were they
busy this time of year or slow? He wiped sleep from his eyes as he turned the
corner to the hallway where LJ was located. He stopped dead in his tracks.

The door was missing from its hinges. Missing was an
understatement. It looked like it had been ripped off. There was still wood
from the door attached to the hinges, but the door was sitting out in the
hallway.

This is not good
, Ben thought.

He ran up to the door and held his hand up to his mouth in
shock. The room was covered in blood. A huge puddle of fresh, crimson blood
covered the floor, and handprints were all over the walls. Footprints led from
the puddle and out into the hallway. LJ was nowhere to be found.

“Oh shit,” Ben muttered.

He had to go wake the others and tell them. He turned and
ran back the way he came. His mind was racing.

Did zombies get in? Did they eat LJ? Did he turn into one
of them?

The thoughts kept jumping into his mind. Then, he heard the
roar.

It wasn’t a moan. And it wasn’t like the runners’ shrieks.
It was a roar. A scary-as-hell roar. It came from somewhere in the building,
but Ben couldn’t pinpoint it, because it seemed to bounce off all the walls.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” he began to recite over and
over to himself.

Could it be something new? First the zombies, and then the
runners, and now something new? Ben shivered at the thought. The crazies were
bad enough. Hell, they haven’t even really fought any of those! They always ran
from them! If there’s something worse than those…

Ben ran like hell.

He came flying around the corner into the main foyer area.

Almost there
, he thought.

And there it was.

The thing that made the sound. It was huge. Seven-eight feet
tall, massive build, grotesque muscles that shredded the skin upon growing. The
skin hanging off its frame like loose rags. The muscles themselves seemed to be
pulsating. Possibly even still growing. Its left shoulder almost looked like it
had a tumor growing from it, but it was all grotesque muscle. The thing’s neck
was probably as big as Ben’s waist. It stood there like a ‘roided-out monument
to all that was evil.

But then Ben realized something. This was no new creature.
It wasn’t some evolution of the dead infection or some demon from the abyss.
Ben shuddered.

It was LJ.

The man must have turned during the night and when he did,
he turned into something really, really nasty. The infection, or whatever it is
that is doing all this, must have affected him differently somehow, causing the
man to mutate into this monster.

Monster.

The word echoed in Ben’s head. Ben began to back away slowly
from the infected LJ, but the thing had already seen him. It let out a
deafening bellow. Ben was unarmed and he cursed himself for not grabbing
something. He took off running for the auditorium.

He ran as fast as he could, but could feel the beast gaining
behind him. With each step the thing took, the floor shook. Ben never turned to
see how close it was getting. He could smell it getting closer.

“Guys! Guys! Wake up!” Ben yelled.

And the next thing he knew, he was flying through the air.
It had picked Ben off the ground and thrown him back in the direction of the
main entrance. He hit the ground with tremendous force. He was sure that he
cracked a rib. Wincing at the pain, he tried to get to his feet, but the thing
was already back on top of him.

It began to pummel him, over and over, with its giant fists.
He tried to hold his hands up to deflect the blows, but his arms snapped
against the pressure. It seemed to have no desire to eat Ben. It only wanted to
kill him. And it was succeeding.

His vision began to go blurry, but at this point, he didn’t
really care. He just wanted it to be over. This was it for him. He just hoped
the others are able to get away. He hoped his shouting was enough warning. The
monster lifted him up by the leg, staring into Ben’s face with its black eyes
and then tore the man in two, splitting him at the waist.

***

Jeremy snapped awake when he heard Ben’s yelling. Something
was wrong. He jumped up out of his seat and grabbed the Beretta from his bag.
Tori and Lexx were right behind him, each armed with the rifle and shotgun,
respectively.

“It sounded like it came from the hall,” Jeremy yelled, as
he ran to the hallway.

There was no one there. He continued moving down the hall.

Maybe Ben ran away from something
, he thought.

There could be z’s in the building and Ben had to get away
quick. He yelled to warn them. Jeremy ran into the main room and came to an
abrupt stop.

“No!” he yelled.

There was Ben. What was left of him. Pieces of his body lay
in a bloody pool of carnage. Something had torn Ben limb from limb. Jeremy
couldn’t believe it.

“No, no, no,” he cried. “Ben… no…”

The others came up behind him and put their hands on his
shoulders, to try and hold him steady. Jeremy fell to his knees and just stared
into the mess of what was once Ben. He felt anger began to surge through his
veins again. The rage was building. His body trembled, and his fists clenched,
as the adrenaline skyrocketed throughout him.

“What did this?” he asked. “There aren’t even any bite
marks.”

Tori looked at Lexx.

“It must have been LJ,” she said.

“LJ? A zombie wouldn’t do this. A zombie would still be
here, eating him.”

“We think LJ had some issues.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, turning to look at the couple.
His face was red.

“We overheard him talking in his sleep. He was talking about
how he killed everyone that was with him at the ports, even his friend. That’s
why he doesn’t remember, because he got the rage and killed everyone,” she said
calmly.

When Jeremy heard her say something about the rage, he tried
to calm himself down. He wouldn’t lose control of himself like LJ had. He
wouldn’t kill his friends. But, he might kill LJ.

“But why this with Ben?” Jeremy asked, confused why it only
killed Ben and did not eat him.

“Maybe the combination of the rage and the infection made
him something worse, man,” Lexx said. He knelt down to Jeremy’s eye level. The
look on his face was one of sympathy and concern.

“We need to get going now, Jeremy. There’s nothing we can do
for Ben now,” Tori said. She looked around, making sure the coast was still
clear. Jeremy nodded, but he couldn’t feel the strength in his legs to stand up
yet.

“Ben was a good man. For the short time I knew him, I’m glad
I did,” she added. “But there is nothing we can do-”

She was interrupted when they heard a faint moan. Their
heads all turned slowly and looked towards the source of the moan.

It was Ben.

His head moved around, jaws snapping up and down. His eyes
caught sight of the group and it began to try and move towards them. Only the
head moved. It seemed agitated that it was not getting nearer to its food.
Jeremy stood up and wiped the tears from his eyes.

“There is one last thing we can do for him,” he said.

Jeremy pointed the pistol’s barrel at what was once Ben’s
head and pulled the trigger. The gunshot was answered by a roar in the distance.