Mortal: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse
Read Mortal: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Online
Authors: Shawn Chesser
Surviving
the Zombie Apocalypse
By
Shawn Chesser
***
Mortal:
Surviving the Zombie
Apocalypse
Shawn Chesser
Kindle Edition
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like
to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for
each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was
not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase
your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a
work of fiction. Any similarities to real persons, events, or places are purely
coincidental; any references to actual places, people, or brands are
fictitious. All rights reserved.
Shawn
Chesser Facebook Author Page
***
For Mo, Raven, and Caden, you three mean the world to me ...
love you. And thanks, Maureen Chesser, for all of the support you’ve given me
through this incredible journey called life. Love you. I owe everything to my
parents for bringing me up the right way. Mom, thanks for reading … although it
is not your genre. Dad, aka Mountain Man Dan, thanks for your ear and
influence. Cliff Kane, RIP. Daymon, thanks for introducing me to Grand Targhee
and
Jackson Hole! Thanks to all of the men and women in the military, past and
present, especially those of you in harm’s way. Thanks to all LE and first
responders for your service. To the people in the U.K. who have been in touch,
thanks for reading! Thanks to Mark Lyon for another awesome image ... you make
a great Cade Grayson! Lieutenant Colonel Michael Offe, thanks for your service
as well as your friendship. Larry Eckels, thank you for helping me with some of
the military technical stuff in Mortal. For answering my questions concerning
the Hercules: John O’Brien, Norman Meredith, James Wallace Holdstein, Robert
Kagel, Dennis Lyons, Michael Offe, Larry Eckels. Any missing facts or errors
are solely my fault. Beta readers, you rock, and you know who you are. Thanks
George Romero for introducing me to zombies. Steve H., thanks for listening.
All of my friends and fellows at S@N and Monday Old St. David’s, thanks as
well. Lastly, thanks to Bill W. and Dr. Bob … you helped make this possible. I
am going to sign up for another 24.
My idea for the cover was interpreted and designed by Craig
Overbey to perfection. Thank you sir!
Contact
Craig
Special thanks to Craig DiLouie, John O’Brien, and Mark Tufo
for continuing to provide me with invaluable advice when I come a’ knocking.
David P. Forsyth, thanks for including me in the Permuted Press published
anthology, Outbreak: Visions of the Apocalypse. Being published and all of the
proceeds going to charity = WIN+WIN. Also thanks for inviting me to ApocaCon2
in Long Beach. Had a blast and met some other cool folks ... Craig DiLouie,
Saul Tanpepper, Peter Clines, A. American, Julie Randolph, and Christopher J
Fennell, to name a few.
Once again, extra special thanks to Monique Happy for her
work editing “Mortal”. Mo, as always, you came through like a champ! Working
with you has been a seamless experience and nothing but a pleasure. If I have
accidentally left anyone out ... I am truly sorry.
***
Edited by Monique Happy
Editorial Services
Surviving
the Zombie Apocalypse
Edited by
Monique Happy Editorial Services
Outbreak - Day 16
Draper, South Dakota
Jasper heard the screams well
before he committed the left turn onto Cemetery Road, and as the springs
supporting the overburdened truck squeaked and crushed stone popped and
crunched beneath its balding tires, the shrill animal-like warble rose above it
all. Suddenly the volunteer undertaker longed for the old yellow earmuffs he usually
kept in the truck’s bed and without fail donned when weed whacking the church
grounds at Father O’Reilly’s behest.
But sadly, the hearing protection and the rest of his lawn
equipment had been supplanted by the Omega-ravaged bodies of the Vasquez
family—all six of them—mom, dad and their four girls, aged three to ten.
He braked fifty yards short of the wrought iron fence
surrounding the cemetery, pressed the tiny binoculars to his face, and focused
on the smoking wreckage.
From his vantage point, which was nearly straight on, he spied
the massive crater where the black helicopter had impacted the ground at the
far north end of the cemetery. The dark brown chasm it had plowed as it bled
airspeed ran through a hundred yards worth of dirt and grave markers, and also
a good number of his neighbors’ corpses, before finally coming to rest with its
angular nose partially buried under the tilled topsoil.
He removed the field glasses momentarily, squinted against
the sun’s harsh rays, and ran his forearm across his brow to wipe away the
beaded sweat. “Hell is getting hotter,” he said softly to himself. After
performing a thorough visual check of his surroundings and seeing none of the
walking corpses nearby, he replaced the binoculars and stole a longer peek at the
wreck.
The hubcap-shaped rotor disc atop the listing aircraft was in
one piece; however, it appeared that the initial contact with the ground had
reduced the whirring blades to nothing but stubs sprouting streamers of some
kind of high-tech wispy fiber. The violence of the crash had rent a gaping hole
in the craft’s upturned right-hand side and had compromised the cockpit glass,
leaving the screaming pilot pinned in his seat and fully exposed to the flesh-eaters.
He slammed the transmission into park, set the brake, and killed
the engine. Deciding against the shotgun, he fished the graphite-black .22
semi-auto pistol from the glove box, and retrieved his machete from the passenger
side footwell.
After taking a little more time to scan all four points of
the compass, he slid from behind the wheel, eased the door closed, and made off
in a crouch toward the cemetery’s easternmost edge.
The guttural pleas for help continued in earnest while he covered
the thirty yards between his truck and the graveyard at as close to a sprint as
his forty-five-year-old legs would propel him. Once he reached the far fence
line, winded and gasping for breath, he took a knee behind a large headstone denoting
the final resting place of one
August Piontek 1884-1941
.
Sweat dripping from his brow, he brought the binoculars to
bear on the crash site, and from the new and improved viewing angle saw that
both pilots were still strapped into their seats. The one suspended a dozen
feet off the ground appeared to be dead, head and arms hanging limply. The one
making the racket was at ground level, bucking and thrashing against his flight
harness.
Jasper turned the focus ring and held his arms steady,
trying to discern how badly the man was injured. He saw the man’s mouth
contorting under the smoked visor—a ghastly visual finally mated with the
nerve-jangling peals filling the air. Then he panned the binoculars down to
where the helicopter’s fuselage merged with the ground. Suddenly his blood ran
cold when he realized that a lone ghoul had beaten him to the crashed aircraft.
The shirtless creature worked its feet furiously, digging into the browned grass,
succeeding ever so slowly in squeezing its upper body through a jagged fissure
in the cockpit glass.
Through the Plexiglas, Jasper could clearly see the screamer’s
gloved hand performing a rapid sort of pageant wave as the pallid creature
shook its head and rent a mouthful of fabric and glistening meat from the man’s
forearm. Averting his eyes from the horrific sight, Jasper moved his pistol
over his chest, a makeshift sign of the cross.
After speaking with his God, he chambered a round,
snicked
the safety off and tapped the courage necessary to put the wailing pilot out of
his misery.
Breathing through his mouth in order to keep a rising tide
of bile at bay, he rose, skirted the weathered stone marker, and tiptoed
through the morass of Omega-infected bodies he’d been dumping there since the
plague began ravaging his corner of the world. And though the doomed pilot
wouldn’t be the first human he’d been forced to put down before reanimation, he
was certain nothing about this one was going to be easy—especially if the dying
man made eye contact. For it was that
knowing
twinkle, the spark only
present in the eyes of the living, that made the final act of compassion so
difficult for him to fulfill.
God give me the strength
, he thought as the keening continued
unabated. Head ducked, he flitted between headstones and approached the ghoul
from behind and to the right. He paused for a tick, long enough to bring the
binoculars to bear, and counted the trudging corpses he’d passed on Cemetery
Road a couple of minutes ago.
Twenty-two
. A far cry more than the small
manageable groups of twos and threes usually attracted to the graveyard by the noisy
carrion-feeding birds. And though the throng was still a good distance away, the
danger their large numbers presented meant he had to get a move on.
Should have
known the crash would draw a crowd
, he told himself as he fought off an
overwhelming urge to bolt for his pick-up and head for home.
But his upbringing wouldn’t allow it.
Country folk always
help their fellows
, had been his father’s mantra.
Put the dying one out of his misery first
, a little
voice in his head urged.
The simple act would take but a second and leave him with a
clear conscience when answering to St. Peter at the Pearly Gates—if he didn’t first
succumb to the ever-present apocalypse-induced urge to eat his shotgun—an act
that would surely resign him to eternal hellfire.
Damned if he did, and
damned if he didn’t
, he mused. But first he’d have to deal with the zombie.