Apocalypse Z

188 Pages·2012·0.79 MB·English

by  Swanson G E

Apocalypse Z

Written by G. E. Swanson
Cover by Z. Schoeb
©2012 G. E. Swanson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be given away, reproduced,
distributed, or transmitted in any form by any means, or stored in a database or
retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author.
If you have a copy of this book and did not purchase it or it was not purchased
specifically for you, please check your favorite online bookseller to purchase a
copy for yourself. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction as are the characters in it. They are all products of
the author’s imagination and do not represent any real person, living or dead.
I
Steve Jacobs looked through the blinds of his window out onto the street. It
was a warm Saturday morning and normally there would be children outside
playing and neighbors working in their yards. However, today all he saw were
empty driveways and yards littered with suitcases and clothing tossed to the side
last minute as the residents left in haste. He just stared outside as he thought. It
took mankind thousands of years to achieve what we have, and less than a month
for it to all go to shit.
He was pulled from his thoughts when he heard his wife Joan. “Do you
think we waited too long before leaving?”
Steve shook his head. “No, we had to wait or we would have been detoured
east to the Medical Quarantine Compounds out in the desert like everyone else.
We need the roads clear so we can head north to Dad’s cabin.”
Nervously biting her lip, she asked, “Do you think its okay to leave now? I
know those damn things are out there and this waiting is driving me crazy. I’m
afraid if we stay any longer, they’re going to find us.”
Steve stepped away from the window. “Alright, have they boys get their
gear on and put their bags in the Expedition.”
Joan went to the back of the house to get their sons, Mark and Jeff. Steve
opened one of the black duffle bags sitting on the couch. He reached in, removed
several stacks of new $100 bills, and set them on the coffee table. He took out a
bag of gold coins and poured some of them into his hand. By this time, Joan
came back, saw the bills on the table and asked, “Why did you do that?”
Steve looked at the stacks, then back at Joan. “It’s worthless. Right now,
it’s just paper. Even this gold isn’t worth what it used to be. The best barter we
have is food and bullets.” Steve put a couple of the coins in his shirt pocket
before putting the rest back into the duffle bag. “I’ll hang onto these just in
case.”
Mark and Jeff came from the back of the house with their backpacks and
took them to the garage. Steve picked up two duffle bags and Joan grabbed the
other; then they headed to the Expedition parked in the garage. Mark stood on
the passenger side and Jeff on the driver side, each with a P90 rifle.
Steve stood between them and said, “Okay, boys, I want you to remember
that bullets are precious. I know we have a lot, but we don’t know how bad it is
out there. We’re going to have to make every one count so only shoot when you
have to.”
They nodded and raised their rifles up, ready to fire, as Steve raised the
garage door. They did a visual sweep of the area as their father started the
vehicle and drove forward. They both jumped in the back seat and pointed their
rifles out the open windows as they pulled onto the street and quickly
accelerated away.
As they drove through the neighborhoods, Mark zoned out while he stared
at the houses they passed. In another week he would have graduated from high
school and started preparing for college. That’s the way he expected to leave—
not like this. Everyone he knew was either a zombie or imprisoned in one of
those MQCs.
He didn’t like much of what his father had told him about them. Originally,
they had been set up to quarantine the infected, but the virus has spread so fast
that they were turned into housing for those that hadn’t been infected. Facilities
designed for 10,000 now housed over 30,000. But for now, the people inside
them were safer than those wandering the streets.
They approached the freeway and Mark was happy they hadn’t come across
any zombies yet. Once Steve had cleared the on-ramp, he kicked the truck up to
eighty mph. They saw a few broken down and abandoned cars on the side of the
road, but for the most part, the lanes were wide open and the road was clear as
far as they could see. Everyone closed their eyes and relaxed as Steve raced
down the freeway.
Joan felt a little more at ease, but they still had a long ways to go. She
didn’t know what lay ahead so she kept one hand on her shotgun just in case
trouble reared its ugly head. When the vehicle started to decelerate, she opened
her eyes. In front of them were three military vehicles blocking all the lanes.
Posted beside them were six armed soldiers. Steve whispered, “Son of a bitch!”
Joan looked over at him. “What are we going to do now?” Then she turned
to the back seat. “You boys cover your weapons.” And she tried to hide the
shotgun between her seat and the door.
Mark and Jeff put their rifles on the floorboard behind their feet as the
vehicle rolled to a stop. One of the soldiers told Steve to go down the off-ramp
where he would be escorted to MQC-147. Instead, he held up his Department of
Defense ID card and called out for the sergeant to come over. The sergeant
approached and looked at it. “That’s a civilian contractor ID. I’m sorry, sir, but
you’ll have to exit here.”
Steve paused before speaking. “Sergeant, I need to keep heading north.”
“What do you do for the DOD, sir?”
“Test and develop weapons and weapon systems.”
“Believe me, sir, we really appreciate everything you folks do, but I have
my orders.”
Steve reached into his pocket and held up a gold coin. “Do you know what
this is?”
The sergeant looked at it. “Yes, sir, I do. It’s a gold double eagle.”
He held it to where only the sergeant could see it. “Let us through and it’s
yours.”
The sergeant looked at it and thought. He slowly reached out and took it
before asking, “What if I keep it and don’t let you through?”
Steve smiled. “Then your men find out and you have to turn it in to your
superior or split it six ways. Or you can let me through and keep it all for
yourself.”
The sergeant smiled and casually put it in his shirt pocket. “Well, if you all
want to travel straight into zombie land and get yourselves killed, be my guest.
But I have to warn you, we’re no longer extracting people out of that area, and at
1600 hours tomorrow, we’re pulling out of here to help defend the compound.”
Steve nodded and said, “By that time, we’ll be halfway to our destination.”
The sergeant stepped back, stood at attention, and saluted. In a loud voice,
he said, “Sir! I’m sorry, sir! I didn’t realize who you were.”
Seeing this, the others followed by jumping to attention and saluting. Steve
looked them over then returned the salute. The sergeant turned and yelled,
“Corporal Dickens! Move this Humvee so the colonel can get through!”
One of the soldiers ran to it and quickly moved it out of the way. After they
had gone through the roadblock, everyone let out a sigh of relief. For the next
few miles, Steve kept checking his rearview mirror to make sure the sergeant
hadn’t changed his mind and sent someone after him. Almost an hour had passed
before he began to relax and the fear of pursuit subsided. As he looked at the gas
gauge, he realized they had another problem. “We have to pull off and get gas.”
Joan turned and in a panic asked, “What do you mean, we need gas? I
thought both tanks were full when we left?”
Steve reached over and put his hand on hers. “It’s okay. We’re not out. We
still have one full tank, but the other is at a quarter. I don’t think it will last us
until tomorrow morning and I don’t want to stop and fuel up when it’s dark. I
want to get it now while we still have daylight and can see what’s going on
around us.”
She relaxed a bit and set back in her seat. “Scare me to death—I thought
something was wrong.” She turned to Mark and Jeff. “Okay, boys, get ready to
cover me and your father while we do this.”
Mark and Jeff answered in unison, “Okay, Mom.” And they both readied
themselves to jump out as soon as they stopped.
Steve took the next off-ramp and began searching for a station. The first
one they found had a car sitting where the pumps should have been. The car had
been burned and the hull already had rust setting in. They slowed and passed
cautiously as they looked over the area.
All the windows had been broken out of the building, and dried blood had
been smeared all over the outer walls. Between the burned-out car and the front
door, they saw two arms and a part of a leg rotting on the ground. A few feet
from the leg was a head that looked like it had been opened up and hollowed out.
They pulled back onto the road and continued. Two blocks down the street,
they passed a grocery store with a large parking lot. In the center, there were
three bodies on the pavement. They were definitely zombies and it looked like
one was missing a head. All three were severely bloated and looked like they
would pop any second. They saw another one eating the fingers off a hand,
standing by a bus stop. As they passed, it pulled the hand closer to its chest and
hissed at them.
Steve drove another two blocks before finding a station. As soon as the
truck stopped moving, Mark and Jeff jumped out and did a sweep of the
immediate area. After checking the inside of the store and around the outside,
Mark signaled the all clear. Steve went to the back of the truck and took out
some bolt cutters. After he lifted the inlet cover, he went to work on cutting the
oversized lock.
Joan brought the pump over and stood next to Steve with her shotgun in
hand. Before he could get through the lock, Jeff heard movement from around
the side of the station. As he lifted his rifle, he said, “I have something over
here.”
A moment later, they heard a moan as a zombie came shuffling around the
corner of the building. Its face was drawn up and part of the left cheek was
missing. The eyes were blue-white and had started to shrivel in their sockets. It
had on a set of blue coveralls with the name ‘Bob’ stitched above the left pocket.
Jeff lined up the shot through the scope and fired a single round. Small
amounts of spatter flew from its forehead and even more from the back of its
head where the bullet exited. The zombie went limp and dropped to the ground
like an old rag doll. He turned toward his dad and yelled, “We have company
and probably more on the way.”
A few moments of silence went by before they heard moans coming from
all around them. Mark and Jeff backed up closer to their father, who was still
working on the lock. They stood with their backs to him, facing out. Steve
thought they must have heard the shot because there were a lot of them and they
were coming from every direction. They began firing shots and dropping them
as they drew closer. The numbers continued to grow quickly and they were
having trouble keeping up.
Mark and Jeff were becoming overwhelmed so they switched to full
automatic and continued to fire. It seemed for every zombie they killed, two
more would take its place. They each went through two magazines before they
started to feel like they were making any progress.
While they were focusing on those approaching from the streets, another
one came up from behind the station and jumped on Jeff’s back. He yelled and
tried to shake him off, but the grip was just too tight. Mark was still working on
full auto just to keep from getting over run.
Joan ran over, started to pound the zombie in the face with the butt of her
shotgun, and yelled at the same time. “Get… off… of… my… son… you…
prick!” And with the final blow, it let go and took a couple steps back. It looked
at her and hissed like a pissed off cat. Joan flipped the shotgun over and pulled
the trigger. The zombie’s head exploded and pieces of it flew in every direction.
Jeff looked over with a smile. “Thanks, Mom.”
She returned the smile and in a loving motherly voice, she said, “You’re
welcome, Jeffrey. Now go help your brother so your father and I can gas up the
truck.”
Jeff returned and opened fire until Steve yelled, “Hold your fire! The gas
tank is now open.” And he switched the pump on.
Mark and Jeff ran away from the vehicle and distracted them with
occasional fire as they yelled and drew the zombies toward them. Joan grabbed
an old piece of rebar from the ground and swung it like a bat on the few
remaining behind. Zombie heads caved in and bones snapped under her assault.
Once the tank was full, Steve put the pump back in an empty ammo box
and threw it in the back. Joan started the truck and as soon as Steve had jumped
in, she drove toward her boys. She ran down half a dozen of them as she pulled
up next to Mark and Jeff. They quickly jumped in the back seat and they were
off.
As the truck sped down the road back to the freeway, Steve said, “I had no
idea it was this bad out here. How many did you boys take out?”
Mark shrugged and said, “I lost count after forty.”
Jeff said, “Just a guess? I would say about ninety all together.”
Mark and Jeff looked at each other, smiled, then bumped fists. Steve
couldn’t help smiling too. When it came down to it, no one panicked and they all
worked well as a team. Joan shrieked as she hit the brakes hard and the truck
went into a skid. Everyone looked up and saw something blue to the right. They
heard the sound of crumpling metal and breaking glass as their world spun out of
control, and then everything went black.
~
Dedee and Jet ran along the shelves in the store, searching for canned food,
and sticking it in their bags. Lisa stood watch just inside the glass doors with her
shotgun. She turned to them and asked, “Are you two done yet?”