Zombie Dawn II: A Zombie Apocalypse Sequel (2 page)

Chapter 4:      Mike’s
Journal—Captured at the Eagle’s Nest

I’m going to keep this journal so
that people know what happened to me.  I can’t be certain that it won’t be
found, so I’ll leave some pages behind whenever we stop.  Maybe someone will
find it.  I’ll leave them wrapped up in plastic bags.  This is #1.

A few months ago I was a regular kid
in a regular world.  My worries included school, sports, friends, girls, video
games, and avoiding getting a full time summer job.  It all changed in one
day.  The old world is gone forever.

My parents are Jack and Kate. They
kept our family alive when it happened. But we were lucky.  So many people are
dead.  All of my friends.  Most of my family.  My teachers and coaches. 
Everyone but the lucky few.

Mom and I were captured in Burlington
at the Eagle’s Nest.  I guess Mom fell asleep.  Can’t blame her for that.  I’d
fallen asleep on guard duty, too.  Survival in this world sometimes came down
to pure luck.  Try to do the right thing, the safe thing, all the time.  But
you’ll make a mistake from time to time.  Forget to reload.  Walk around a
corner.  Wade through a stream.  You wouldn’t  know it was a mistake until it
suddenly was a mistake.  Guaranteed that it would happen.  I went from a kid
who had to be told three times to empty the trash to a man with life and death
responsibility over others in about two days.  I did my best, it just wasn’t
good enough.

We fought back but there was no way. 
Too many of them, too much sleep-haze.  Too much panic.  Anyway, Dad and I fought
and ran.  We were getting good at killing, running, and fighting.  We almost
made it out, but a rope that I was using to climb down broke on me.  Like I
said, luck counts.  I could also say life sucks, but at least I’m alive.

I fell pretty far but landed on a
pile of zombies.  I was banged up but nothing broke.  The body I landed on was
crushed.  It felt like making a tackle on special teams.  A violent collision,
but you get right up.  Except that I was surrounded by brains and wolves and
had no gun.  I could see my Dad still dangling from a rope.  Looked like he was
going to shoot me to “end” me.  I shook my head, realizing I wasn’t ready to
die.  Maybe that’s why he didn’t shoot.  Or maybe he saw that they weren’t
eating me so he held off.

They made me put on handcuffs.  I
guess I should’ve fought to the death right there, but the thought of getting
eaten, then turning, is repellent.  Too gruesome to imagine.  I’d always
thought that I’d be able to end myself, or that someone would end me.  So,
given the choice, I gave up.  Dad didn’t shoot.  I gave him a look, asking him
to do it, but he was gone.  I let them put the fucking handcuffs on.  Wishing I
were dead.

After they got me, they brought me to
this zombie guy named Albert Miles.  One of the other enslaved humans told me
his name.  Albert was a zombie, but not like anything we’d seen before.  Very
tall, almost clean clothes.  Silent.  But for the whiff of rot, mostly covered
by, believe it or not, Brut cologne could almost pass for a human.  He’s a
total sissy, very effeminate.   Even as a zombie you could tell he was a girly
boy.  So is his zombie buddy, who they say is named Conrad Pitt.

This human told me that everyone in
his small town, which was called Plainville, knew Albert and Conrad.  They were
actually a couple, and both had full blown AIDS.  This guy had thought they
were dead, in fact, but ran into them after the Superflu struck.  Somehow the
Superflu saved these guys, made them stronger.  Made them leaders.  One virus,
or whatever, rolling right over another.  I guess I should have paid attention
in biology class.  I wonder if there’s anyone alive who can figure out this
virus stuff?

Like I said, they seem almost
normal.  Until feeding time.  Then, their slaves bring them babies.  Either
zombie or human, it doesn’t seem to matter.  Conrad crushes the skulls.  Albert
eats the brains.  Conrad gets the rest.  They make me watch sometimes.  I
cannot wait to get a shot at these guys.

After a day or two with Albert and Conrad,
who never laid a hand on me, I get brought to Santos.  This guy Santos is the
leader.  He’s the creep that my Dad threw to a horde of zombies back home.  I
remembered him from school, before he got thrown out.  He was some kind of
sicko.  I could tell by the look on my Dad’s face that Santos was bad news. 
Now I knew why.

He keeps human hostages and makes
their loved ones do his bidding.  He’s got a huge army of human slaves and
zombies.  He’s a freak and a creep.

His sister, Mariana, is some type of advanced
zombie superbitch.  That’s what I think of her as—the Superbitch.  She was
friends with my sister Bobbie but she always creeped me out.  Bobbie’s one of
those kids who tries to save baby squirrels, birds with broken wings, anything
in danger.  I guess that’s why she hung with Mariana.  Mariana sure isn’t
saving any squirrels these days.  She and Santos together are pure evil.

Mariana must control the zombies
through some type of mind control.  There seem to be several different levels
of them, from regular shufflers, to wolves, to brains, then guys like Conrad
and Albert, on up to Mariana.  She’s only about 14 or 15, since she’d stayed
back in school a couple times, but looks and acts way older now.

Anyway, Santos had seen me shoot a
bunch of his guys back at the Eagle’s Nest.  After they caught me, he told me
that I was his lead sniper now.  I told him to fuck himself and spit in his
face.  My hands were tied with zip strips or I would’ve punched him.

One of his goons, a ginger redneck,
knuckled me with a left that must have knocked me out.  The guy’s name was
Marvel.  Who names a guy that?   I decided that he was on the “A” list, in
second place.  Right after Santos.  What is it about gingers?  I do kind of
hate them.

I awoke, soaked with a bucket of piss
or something, based on how bad it stank, and saw my Mom.  She was crying. 
Santos was about to brand her with a red hot iron poker if I didn’t do what he
said.

I told her I’d do what he wanted,
just leave her alone.  That my father would kill him either way, but at least
he’d make it quick if he left us alone.  That he had a huge army.  I made that
part up.

Mom was wild, trying to kick and claw
him.  She told me to shut up.  She told me not to do it.  I figured I’d at
least listen to the asshole, buy some time, keep Mom safe.

Then I figured it out.  Without
thinking about it, I’d let Santos know that my father was the leader of the
Farm—and the guy who threw him to the zombies.  Big mistake.

You could see the realization sweep
over his face.  His eyes opened wide.  His mouth twisted and opened.  He howled
like a gutshot wolf.  I couldn’t tell if he was happy, sad, mad, or just
crazy.  But finally he shut it, and told me what I was going to do, if I wanted
to save Mom from torture and rape by humans and zombies alike.

My mission was to lead an attack on
the Farm, and to kill Dad.  I told him I’d think about it, if he left Mom
alone.  They knocked me out again.  Fucking Marvel.  Number one on my personal
list now.  My last memory was her screams.  I’ll kill this fucker before I ever
kill my Dad, that’s for sure.  What will I do if I have to kill Dad to save
Mom?  Haven’t figured that one out yet.

If anyone gets this, try to get word
by shortwave up to the Farm in Vermont.  I wouldn’t go there, though, if I were
you.  They probably aren’t accepting many visitors these days.  Have to stop
now.

Chapter 5:      Santos and Jack

Santos knew in his heart that the
apocalypse was the best thing that ever happened to him.  Until then, no one
understood him.  No one loved him.  He was an outcast, a nobody, a zitty freak. 
A loser.  What they called a “punk.”  Both his father and his step father had
abused him, physically, emotionally, and sexually.  A few “uncles.”  A couple
of “friends” of his mother.  They sort of abused him, because he welcomed any
adult contact.  He was open to it, even as he knew it was wrong.  In fact, he
liked the wrong.  But not being different.  Dead inside.  Outcast.

His mother was powerless to help. 
Right out of the psycho cook book.  Like Santos, she craved any affection.  She
would tolerate anything, even the beatings and abuse, even the rape of her son,
to receive any positive attention.

Santos had killed the worthless bitch
months before, before the Change, but had kept collecting her disability
checks.  She was buried deep in the local landfill.  His first kill.  Strangled
with her own bra.  No one cared.  None of the neighbors even noticed.  They
certainly didn’t care either way.

The only way to keep the perverts
away from Santos and his little sister was to kill the whore and keep the
boyfriends away.

Only Mariana cared for him.  Santos
was able to keep the adults away from her, and she knew he was her protector
and would never hurt her.

Santos had always hated Jack.  The
look on his face.  The sound of his voice.  Big shot.  Looking down at poor,
poor Santos.  Hated having his precious daughter in Santos’ house.  Knew
something was going wrong there.  Stupid Jack did not know that Santos knew how
he felt.

That slow ache became a pulsating ravenous
hate when Big Shot Jack came to “rescue” Santos and Mariana.  Jack knew immediately
that Santos had sacrificed his sister.  Knew that Santos was a coward, a fraud,
a failure.  Maybe knew more, somehow, about the truth of Santos’ relationship
with Mariana.  Santos tried to shoot Jack but hit Jack’s friend instead.  Too
bad.  Jack finally threw Santos to the mob, thinking that was the end of Santos.

Little did Big Shot Jack know that
Santos had survived, under Mariana’s protection.  She controlled the zombies,
and he controlled her.  Santos was no longer a punk, a loser.  He was King. 
King of the Zombies.  He could have whatever he wanted.  And now, Santos wanted
only to enslave Jack and his family.

Chapter 6:      Jack’s Journey—A New
Friend

Following the army seemed pretty
easy.  They left a constant string of dead and wounded behind, at least one or
two every mile.  I ended them all with my Ka-Bar fighting knife.  It should
have come with instructions:  “Insert through eye socket, twist, remove.  Boot on
the head.  Pull out.  Wipe the blade.”  Like another day at the office.  It’s hard
work, and it’s gross, but you don’t want them behind you.  No fucking way.

They didn’t set up any rear guard or
listening posts, which was odd.  I wished that I’d brought a force, or at least
a few shooters,  to attack them.  But I had rushed out on my own, and it was
too late to go back.  I was all alone.  Always making mistakes, always trying
to make up for them.

The army moved pretty quickly, but I
was able to keep right up.  They were still trying to move their military
equipment, much of it damaged in the Battle.  Hold the shamblers together. 
Keep them from eating the humans.  In fact, Keeping up was laughably easy.

Until the fourth day.  I guess karma
figured it wasn’t bad enough that the world had ended and half of my family had
been kidnapped by a psycho sex freak and his pack of zombies.  Now I had a
nightmarish toothache as well.  Way back there, an upper molar.  We actually
had a dentist, sort of, back at the Farm, but there was no time to go back. 
All the regular shit does not stop just because there’s an apocalypse going
on.  Quite the contrary.

This was a hot, throbbing, electrical
zapping mofo of a toothache.  I decided I had to yank it myself.  I can’t even
hack the dentist, never mind pulling my own teeth.  Busted into a small
drugstore and started poking around.  Got some amoxicillin, although I had to
figure out what it looked like and pick it out of a mess on the floor, and some
painkillers hidden in a secret compartment in the pharmacist’s desk.  A few
oxies matted into a carpet.  A couple of Viagra, which I decided to save for my
reunion with Kate.  You get pretty good at foraging after awhile.  People are
pretty predictable.  Looters are stupid and lazy, probably why they end up
looting.

Then I headed a couple doors down to
what looked like a country store.  It had been ransacked, but seemed clear, so
I started checking the tool section for some type of pliers to pull the fucking
thing.  I had no idea how that was going to work.  I was a total wimp even with
laughing gas and pain shots back in the old days.

There was a tool section but the only
tools left were paintbrushes and stuff like that.  Not much need to paint
anymore, other than signs and graffiti.

That’s when I found Micah.  I kept
hearing skittering sounds, which I figured was mice.  There were a lot more of
them now.  I’d seen rats eating dead people and even downed zombies, but I
assumed the population explosion with the mice was simply due to the absence of
people.

After a bit, I realized the noise sounded
like something larger.  I am done fucking around with any danger, so I got down
behind the wood stove and called out:  “Come out right now or I’ll shoot.”  I
really should have shot, since I could tell about where it was coming from, but
I was afraid it would be a kid or something.  Last thing I need on my
conscience is a dead survivor kid.