The Age of Zombies: Sergeant Jones (17 page)

Lenin pulled back from the giant. He was suddenly frightened by the monster, whose face did look like a deformed dog. Grantha’s fire red hair was menacing. His black, beady eyes were horrifying. His skin was worn down and lined with deep crevices, a reminder that the time rules all. Lenin thought back to that night when the woman was cannibalized by one of these giant fiends. The violence of the attack contradicted everything Grantha said about the Orobu. The Orobu were a brutal race.

From Lenin’s vantage point, nothing was stopping them from completely decimating the human race, besides the fact that human flesh was the Orobu’s main food source. If it wasn’t for this dependence, humanity would have been eradicated long ago.

Lenin contemplated this fact. He speculated about the human empires that have reigned around the world. All of them were founded on violence, war, conquest. Hundreds of millions were sacrificed so that those who survived could progress into new lands and invention.

But what about the future? Did humanity have any hope for surviving? Was all that came before, all that bloodshed and war and sacrifice, was it all for naught?

Humanity had its own internal conflicts, to be sure. But much of what Lenin saw transpiring around the globe, from the insurgency of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, to the narcocartels in Mexico, to the tribal violence in Africa, even the attack on the bus in Kansas, it was all being orchestrated by humans who were in the pockets of the Orobu.

The Orobu lusted after human meat and brains, but humans were the real zombies. The world was asleep, dead, walking around in a stupor, while the Orobu slowly gained power.

Humans were to blame for letting this all happen.

Including himself. Lenin was an instrument in this conflict. He took another sip from his gin and tonic with thoughts of the future. He gazed out the window of the cabin, as the plane soared high above the Pacific ocean, its waters so calm and blue from his perspective. He realized that he was bringing in a new age. Like Grantha said, actions on this scale hadn’t been performed by the Orobu since the Mongol invasions.

Lenin settled deeper into his own thoughts.

His career as a businessman had divorced him from the idealism of his youth. The lofty world of literature meant nothing in the real world. As he looked out over the naked blue ocean, he thought about how deluded most of humanity really was. He thought about how most people go about their daily lives completely oblivious to the major changes happening around them. He laughed inside as he realized that billions of people had no idea that giant cannibals have lived among them for thousands of years. Let alone the fact that they were behind some of the most savage events in recent times.

How preposterous that idea would seem to the self-righteous stewards of human knowledge. The academics of every stripe. The archaeologists who deny the forbidden findings of their peers, ridiculing them into obscurity. The historians who willfully obfuscate the legends that had been passed down for generations by people who did know the truth that zombies were real.

But business didn’t lie. At the highest level of human commerce, true pragmatism shines. Ideology doesn’t mean much when multibillion dollar deals are brokered. All that matters is the reality, the true survey of the field and all known factors. Lenin felt blessed that he found his way into the fold of Joru Logistics. This was a company that dealt with the truth. An outsider would say that the company was corrupt, a rotten example of greed. They would say that Joru Logistics enabled the deaths of hundreds of thousands around the world. And for what? Money? Pieces of paper, numbers in a bank account?

No, Joru Logistics, at its core, hankered after the truth. Profits simply followed.

Lenin admired the majesty of the Pacific Ocean. It was easily the greatest physical attribute that the planet possessed. Its sheer size was incomprehensible. Its depths held secrets that humanity would never know.

Lenin turned from his view of the Pacific and sat back down with Grantha. Lenin had no desire to continue the conversation. He was tired. And deep down he knew what this flight was all about. It was just one more piece of the puzzle in a plan to subject the human race to Orobu rule. From Lenin’s perspective, the giants would be successful this time. He was too close to the truth to deny that fact. Sitting up in this plane thirty thousand feet above the ocean, above the surface of a globe that was totally unaware of its fate, Lenin realized that human civilization had reached its twilight. And the sun was setting rapidly.

“Twenty minutes until we land in Hawaii,” the pilot said over the intercom. “We are going to prepare for our descent. The weather’s fine. Eighty seven and sunny. We don’t expect turbulence.”

Lenin stood up and walked back to the coach section of the plane. Most of the kids had fallen asleep. Some were just waking up as the plane started its descent. Lenin wondered how the Orobu got these kids to behave so well. He knew that they witnessed an atrocity back in Kansas. None of them seemed phased by their current captivity.

The plane landed and the passengers were split up between two smaller passenger jets. There were still two more legs to the journey. They would land again in Beijing to refuel, and finish the trip to Inner Mongolia.

The suits from Joru Logistics were asked to stay behind once in Beijing. Their services would be rewarded with a $500 million dollar bank transfer within twenty four hours. Contracts were being drafted and Joru Logistics would be continue to be rewarded handsomely for future work.

Lenin and Grantha shook hands to say goodbye.

“We’ll see you soon,” Lenin said. “And I wish you well on all your endeavors.”

Grantha gave a polite nod. “And to you as well, Lenin. You are a gem among the sands of your race. We will speak again soon.”

With that the giants took the kids off to Inner Mongolia. Their fate was uncertain, but their new identity was becoming clear. By the time they had arrived in China, something inside the kids had started to turn.

They were hungry. Their appetites were fiendish.

And there was only one thing that could satisfy them now.

Chapter Nine

The Deep Web

“Hey Billy, what you reading?” Carlos bit into his Hot Pocket. It just came out of the microwave, and it was piping hot. “I wanna see.”

Billy lay spread out on the carpeted floor of the living room. He was in Pasadena for the summer visiting his father and stepmother. Billy and Carlos were both sixteen years old. They met each other while skateboarding down around an abandoned warehouse. “Nothing you’d be into,” Billy said. He picked up his laptop and tucked it in closer so Carlos couldn’t see.

“You pervert,” Carlos said. “You’re looking up porn. Not when I’m around man. Not when I’m around. Save it for later.”

Billy shook his head. “Porn? This shit’s ten times better than porn.”

“Hobo fights? High school girls pulling hair? Man eating alligators?” Carlos plopped down next to Billy. He tried to peek at the screen to no avail.

Billy jerked the laptop away and slammed it shut. “Before I reveal the secret, you’ve gotta make a promise.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Carlos said. “I promise.”

“No, really,” Billy said. He was serious. The flesh on his face hung heavy and grim. “You’ve got to promise that you don’t tell anybody what you’re about to see. I’m dead serious.”

“Man, you’re tripping,” Carlos said. “But I promise. I swear. I swear on my mama’s right titty.”

“Make it both titties,” Billy said.

Carlos laughed. He sat up straight and raised his right hand. “I, Carlos Salamanca, swear on both of my mama’s titties, that I will not say a single word about what Billy is about to show me. Amen.”

Billy studied his friend’s features. They were youthful and light. He wondered if his friend could handle the truth. It was probably a bad idea to show his friend what he had been studying intently, in secret, for the last couple days. He trusted Carlos not to snitch on him. But he also fully expected Carlos to react strongly to the findings. It could ruin their friendship.

“Alright, listen up Carlos,” Billy said. “We’re going into some dark spaces here. You ready for this?”

Carlos couldn’t wait. “Yeah man. Let’s do it.”

Billy opened up his laptop and launched his TOR Browser. He clicked on the bookmarks and pulled up a website with a black background and a header that looked like it belonged on a Geocities website circa 1995. The website banner read “Deep Web Productions: Home of All Your Internetz.” Beneath the banner, a GIF showed an alien doing a disco dance.

Carlos wasn’t impressed. “This looks dumb man,” he said. “What’s with the hype?”

Billy’s arms tingled and broke out in goosebumps. Tears welled in his eyes. “Listen Carlos,” he said. “I want you to promise me right now that you don’t say a word about any of this.”

Carlos scoffed. “Dude, this site is bullshit. It’s just a bunch of whackos. I mean look here, this thread is about how President Angus is a cross dresser. This one is about how aliens cut up cows. I thought you were smarter than that Billy.”

A tear fell from the corner of Billy’s eye and landed on the laptop’s keyboard. “This site is dumb,” he said. “You’re right. I don’t know how I got here. It was a total accident. Listen man. I’m about to show you something real. There’s pictures and everything.” A shiver went up Billy’s spine. His eyes couldn’t hold back the tears. They were the kind of tears that come when confronting something greater than oneself. Tears of profundity, rather than of sadness.

Carlos became empathetic to his friend’s concern. He could see that Billy was being genuine and open and real. “Alright man,” he said. “I’m ready to see this.”

Billy started typing into the website’s search bar. “I found this thread on accident,” he said. “I stumbled on it. The other day I was just messing around and found a news article about that stuff that happened out in Kansas.”

“The stuff with the bus and the kids?”

“Yeah, that thing.”

“That was messed up. I heard they haven’t found the kids yet.”

The hairs of Billy’s neck stood up straight. “There are pictures man,” he said with a shaky voice. “I’ve seen pictures of what happened. They’re blurry, but man, they’re the real deal.”

“What? You’re shitting me. There weren’t any witnesses.”

Billy clicked on a link titled “Mexican illegal gets pictures of Kansas bus massacre.” A brief paragraph explained the pictures. It said that there was a witness to the massacre, and that the photos below were taken by an illegal immigrant who worked on a corn farm down the road. The photos were taken on his cell phone, an old smartphone, and thus the quality was subpar and grainy.

Carlos took the laptop from Billy. He settled it on his thighs and scrolled slowly down the page. There were about a dozen photos. The first couple just showed a bus in the background, with a few blurry figures standing in front of it. Each successive photo was a bit clearer and closer. Each one captured a bit more of the scene.

The last two photos brought Carlos into Billy’s paranoia. One was a close up shot of the bus. All the kids were standing up, perched at the windows, staring out onto the road. The next photo showed what the kids were looking at. A group of giants dressed in black fatigues, their faces coated in blood. One huge man with the head of a bull. And three half eaten bodies, guts and brains and bones sprawled all over the pavement.

Carlos puked a little. The half regurgitated Hot Pocket he was eating came up and was quickly swallowed. He ran off to the kitchen and let it all go into the wastebasket. He told Billy that he had to leave. He promised that he wouldn’t say anything. He just had to go. He had to go some place where he could forget what he just saw. But there was no forgetting. The image of three people splayed open before a bus full of children, presumably victims of a group of giant zombies, was too much.

Billy bid his friend goodbye. He didn’t expect to see Carlos again that summer. And he happened to be right. The two boys never met up again that summer. Not in Pasadena, anyway. And not by choice. But circumstances that they would both eventually get caught up in would bring them together in the most unlikely of places.

It’d only be a matter of time before the Orobu reached them.

Chapter Ten

City of Angels

Los Angeles was perfect this time of year. The women were all out in their strapless dresses and the men were dressed to impress. Everybody wore their shades. There’s something in the air that’s unique to the city of Los Angeles. It has nothing to do with the smog, or the beautiful weather, or even the gorgeous people. No matter who you are, no matter where you come from or where you’re going, it’s hard to not feel like a million bucks while driving down a boulevard lined with palm trees with the windows down and the sun setting. People who’ve never been to Los Angeles could never know that feeling. It’s what keeps people in that rat hole of a city, where millions crowd each other out for crumbs and pay top dollar for the privilege.

Jones didn’t have a strong opinion one way or the other about Los Angeles. He never had time for the good vibes, the plastic faces, or that something in the air that glued people to the greatest city west of the Mississippi. He was willing to accept the city, though. Los Angeles was important to him now. He was there on a mission to save his wife, Emma Jo, and his unborn son.