The Undead World (Book 1): The Apocalypse (6 page)

Food for most of America was fast becoming a problem. With travel restricted, stores sat empty, gas stations ran dry, and people's cabinets grew more barren with each passing day. The elderly and inner city residents ran out first and they took to begging at their neighbor's doors or at city hall, or fire stations. Thousands dared the zombie infested streets because they were without a choice, and when begging proved useless, some moved on to stealing, and then to mugging and then to murder, but mostly they took to dying.

The undead feasted.

And when the dead came back as the undead, it created a ripple effect that turned into a wave, which then turned into a tidal wave. It wasn't a pebble tossed into a pond sending out its gentle little waves, it was like boulder tossed into a puddle.

To combat this was the US military and they proved worse than useless. The quarantine zones kept otherwise healthy people caged up with monsters and each zone became a breeding ground for vast zombie hordes. Yet what was worse was that the zones kept the soldiers pinned in locations, waiting, sometimes doing nothing for days on end and sometimes killing civilians who tried to fight their way out, and sometimes
the soldiers fought and died beneath the onrushing hordes.

Unexpectedly, at least to the morons in Washington, where the war was being fought by people with full bellies and who slept in warm safe beds, the Army
's casualty rate was far greater than they could have dreamed, especially among the medics and hospital staff, which were decimated in the early days. What was worse was the desertion rate among the soldiers. In some zones it was over fifty percent and this led to disasters.

Fort Bliss on the Mexican border ceased to exist altogether.

At that poor facility, endless waves of illegal zombies crossed the muddy Rio Grande and raged up against the wire emplacements, surrounding the base. A less politically motivated commanding officer probably would have ignored the rules of engagement, however General Lewinski let the Abrams tanks and Stryker armored personnel carriers sit in their perfectly lined rows and tried to fight off the horde with fewer and fewer soldiers.

The men were burdened with
a sense of futility that was magnified by the psychological horror of fighting the undead, and over the course of a few wild nights nearly as many simply ran away as died fighting. Those who stayed fought until the last bullets were fired, and then they died like heroes swinging their guns like clubs and roaring out battle cries.

With his army being decimated, the President called up the Army Reserve and the National Guard. Tragically, what few men did answer the call to arms soon became more of a hindrance as most took up their M16s and as much ammo and food as they could carry and then left again at the first available opportunity. They had their own families to defend
and it was clear if they didn't do it no one would.

Thus the army was being bled from the inside as well as from the outside and everyday they were called upon to man ever lengthening lines. And of course this meant that the quarantine zones failed to quarantine anything.

On the nineteenth of October, Santa Fe, New Mexico suddenly flared up with massive numbers of undead. This required thirty-thousand soldiers to man a two-hundred mile perimeter, which wasn't near enough. It broke down to hundred and fifty men per mile, standing watch day and night. On the twentieth, a horde of zombies estimated at twenty thousand came surging down Route 77, which was being guarded over by less than forty soldiers.

These men fired their weapons and then fled, leaving their fellows alone in their foxholes as the zombies changed direction like a flight of swallows. To the zombies, the strung out lines of men seemed a buffet and they rolled up the army lines, curling around them where the burrowed men in their holes were nearly defenseless.

On the twentieth the Q-zone of Houston was overran.

The remaining citizens in the city gathered together and out of desperation
battled the soldiers in a bloody gunfight in order to free themselves. This left a glaring hole in the Q-zone and a horde estimated at quarter of a million broke free. This occurred just as the thin line of men trying to hold San Antonio disintegrated from lack of support. With their numbers swollen by zombies sweeping up out of Mexico this vast undead army moved east, trapping the soldiers of the 1
st
Cavalry Division between two great masses. By the twenty-second all communication had ceased.

Still the President stuck to his
ill thought out plan, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent men back and forth across the country, wasting precious fuel and thinning lines that were already dangerously thin. And all the while tanks and planes and attack helicopters sat rusting as their operators were handed rifles.

By the end of October, many communities in the interior began to consider looking to themselves for protection. Danville, Illinois was one of these. They knew of the zombies, however their main problem was other humans. Refugees from the nightmare that was Chicago came streaming south by the tens of thousands and they were like locusts: eating everything in their path.

When food and shelter wasn't freely given, it was taken.

On that morning, Sarah Rivers left through her kitchen door, making sure to lock it both inside and out. With her father
's help, she had added a hasp and a padlock to her two doors. She walked north on Jackson Street heading for her parent's place. There were a number of people walking about, and like her they carried weapons openly.

She had only a baseball bat and a kitchen knife in her back pocket.
“Morning,” she said and smiled to the other people of Danville. She didn't know everyone in the town of thirty-thousand, however it was safe to say she knew everyone once removed. A friend of a friend, or an acquaintance of a distant relative.

Mostly she knew people through her parents, who were social at their church and in the various clubs they belonged to. So it wasn
't really a surprise to see they had visitors: older men toting shotguns and older ladies sipping her mother's tea. Denise Rivers loved her tea, while her pantry had always been stocked as though she expected to have to throw a dinner party for twenty at a moment's notice.

“
Did you hear?” she asked her daughter as soon as Sarah set her bat beside the door. Sarah had 'heard' much though what was true and what wasn't she had no idea. She gave a shrug and her mother said in a whisper, “Rossville was burned to the ground last night. It was looters out of Chicago.”

Sarah
's anxiety, a thing that she had lived with for the last couple of weeks, grew inside of her. Rossville was only twenty miles north of them. “Looters? As if we don't have enough problems. Have you heard anything from out east?”

The main of her anxiety stemmed from the fact that her daughter was in the New York
Q-zone and no one had heard thing one about it for days. Truly no one had heard much of anything for days. To keep panic in check the President had ordered the phone companies “Nationalized”, meaning they were shut down until further notice. The same was true with the internet, newspapers, radio, and television stations. The people were in the dark, both figuratively and in most cases literally.

The power in Danville went out on the seventeenth—to preserve precious recourses it was said and the people demurred, because this was understandable and reasonable, and people in small towns were generally both.

“I've hear nothing same as you,” Denise replied. “Same as everybody.”

“
Not me,” Mrs. Farnsworth said, from her seat at the table. She had pudgy, wrinkled hands and these she had folded daintily on her lap. “My boy, Henry told me that some refugees from Indianapolis came west yesterday. You know Henry volunteered to stand out east at the Lynch Spur road, which is fast becoming dangerous work.” Mrs. Farnsworth took a long breath; she liked to be the center of attention and frequently dragged out stories if no one spoke over her. “Anyway, the refugees coming this way tells him that Indianapolis doesn't have a human left in it.”

“
And the perimeter?” Sarah asked. She hated the idea of zombies wandering around autumnal farmlands of Illinois. To the west of Danville was the North Fork River, and to the south was the Middle Fork Vermilion River, however to the east the land was wide-open farm country.

“
Gone,” Mrs. Farnsworth answered importantly. “No one knows what happened to the army there. Killed or run off I suppose.”

Denise raised her brows to her daughter, but Sarah ignored the look and asked,
“What about south of the city? Why didn't the refugees head that way?”

“
They didn't say. Why do you ask?”

Sarah only shrugged but her mother replied,
“Because my daughter has a fool idea about going east to find Brittany.”

All the women traded looks and Mrs. Farnsworth said,
“She's in New York. You have to know what that means.”

More than anybody, Sarah knew.
“It doesn't mean anything. She's actually on Long Island and would it really matter where she is? What sort of mother would I be if I didn't do anything?”

“
A smart mother!” Denise said, banging the table lightly. “If you go out there it'll be the same as if you killed your...” Denise bit back her words suddenly and licked her lips. One of the ladies in the room, Mrs. Allen, had lost her son to suicide a few days before—there had been a rash of them in town. “I mean it would be very dangerous,” Denise finished, lamely.

The near mention of the word suicide, coupled with Sarah
's apparent death wish left a pall on the room and in the silence a bell could be heard. “Gary!” Denise yelled as she hurried to the doorway that lead to the hall. “It's the emergency bell. It's coming from the north.” This she added to reassure Mrs. Farnsworth who had turned white at the news.

“
Sweet Jesus,” Gary muttered, heading out the door with the other men. They weren't the only ones. All over the neighborhood, men grabbed their hunting rifles or their shotguns and went quickly toward the sound of the incessant ringing.

The women sat around pensively, their ears perked, listening for
gunfire. Sarah didn't. After a minute she was too anxious to sit still any longer and she got up and hurried after the men and tried to ignore the derisive looks many of them gave her and her baseball bat. She knew it was practically useless, still it was all she had.

Before the crowd got to the cars that had been pushed across the road as a makeshift barrier the bell had ceased it
's ringing, and yet the men hurried forward excitedly.

The army had finally come to Danville!

“Reinforcements!” a man cried, which had the crowd grinning happily. The last of the cars were pushed aside and through the gap poured a long train of humvees and five-ton trucks all painted in swirled greens.

A colonel in the lead vehicle smiled sadly at the people and shook his head at the rumor going around.
“I'm sorry, but we aren't reinforcements. We're here for supplies. Food mostly, but also gasoline and medicine. It'll be temporary only, and I can assure you that the army will reimburse each of you fully.”

“
No reinforcements?” an older gentleman asked appearing befuddled at the idea.

“
Can't spare them,” the officer replied, looking down the street at Danville proper. “Besides, this town seems to be pretty well off compared to the rest of the country. There's not a stiff in sight.”

“
What about New York?” Sarah asked, shyly. “Have you heard anything?”

The officer was tall and tan; at his hip he wore a holstered Beretta and he rested his hand on it easily as he gave Sarah a long once over.
“I'm sorry; New York isn't such a great place to live these days. It had been classified as
Red
, but as of yesterday they've changed that to
Black
. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news Mrs...”

“
It's Ms Rivers. And...and what do you mean by Black?”

The colonel breathed out loudly before saying,
“It means there's no sign of human activity. The Air Force has been sending recon planes over the different Red zones, and in New York there ain't any more people. It's only stiffs now. Again, I'm sorry.”

Sarah
's body went numb and her mind switched to off mode at the word
stiff
, and she was slow to catch up to what was going on around her. Her darling daughter was dead. She had failed as a mother. And as a wife. If she had somehow kept Stewart from cheating. Or maybe she could have learned to accept it. If she had, Brit would still be here in Danville and she would be safe and whole and...

Someone jostled her and she blinked stupidly.
“Sorry,” she said, though she had done nothing wrong. Only then did she realize that the crowd had grown angry around her.

“
How can you ask that?” the colonel stormed. “Where have you been living for the last couple of weeks? My authority rests in executive order 7239. The United States has been placed under Martial Law! And as stated in the order,
all
US citizens must acknowledge the authority of military personnel and comply with
all
orders, whether you find them reasonable or not. Now my men will be going door to door commandeering any excess food.”