POW! (Book 1): The Zombie Days (18 page)

"C’mon Marcus," I said as I slapped my hand on my hip and continued on my way. I didn’t see a collar with a name tag around his neck and decided that Marcus would be as good as any other name for him. I felt much safer down here knowing that Marcus was able to survive in this place all on his own. I could tell he wasn't much of a fan of the deadites, either. Having a little morsel in my stomach didn't hurt either. We were now at the hatch that should open up near the control booth. I looked up with my light and it appeared as though it was in good working order. It was time to end this shit.

Alright, Pete. This is no time to be scared or nervous or any of that shit. There's no room for any emotion at a time such as this.
It was time to dethrone the queen of the zombies. It was time to rescue the doctor, who would in turn be able to save the rest of the world with his magic helmet. It all came down to right now.

With Marcus at my side, I knew that I was ready. Marcus was sitting next to me, staring at the hatch just as I was. I looked down at him. I think he was a German Shepherd. He licked his chops to get another taste of the scrap of pound cake that I’d fed him. He turned and gave me a look that told me it was time to stop procrastinating. Marcus was right, of course.

I walked up to the hatch. This one had stairs leading up to it, rather than the ladder I was met with at the hatch on the other end. I grabbed the handle, twisted it, and pushed the hatch up out of the ground. My new canine companion waited inside until I gave him the all clear. I didn't see any zombies around, so I slapped my hip once more to signal him and he lazily walked up the steps to my side. I quietly shut the hatch and double checked that I wasn't packing the POW shots in my rifle. I didn't want to get the doctor killed because of a small oversight on my part. Green tips on the rounds in the magazine meant that I was all set. I reinserted the magazine and pulled the charging handle back about a quarter of the way to make sure there was a round in the chamber. I saw the shine of the brass casing that let me know my rifle was ready for action. I released the charging handle and tapped the forward assist twice, just to be on the safe side.

That was enough stalling. Marcus was looking in the direction of the sounds of gunfire. I began to walk toward it. After making our way through a few trees, I could see inside of the control booth. The doctor was standing behind the queen, either mesmerized or frightened out of his mind. I couldn't tell which, but he was standing perfectly still. They couldn’t see me.

I lifted my rifle and put the head of the undead monarch in my sight. I was only about twenty five yards away, and her only movement was a slight back and forth sway. I squeezed the trigger and her head exploded, showering the doctor in red, gooey bits of cold brain stew along with chunks of skull and long, greasy black hair.

The doctor didn't budge one single inch. He didn’t even so much as blink once to get the blood out of his eyes. In the distance, I saw all of the zombies simultaneously cease their advance on my friends and turn in my direction. They began to charge at full speed toward my position. That was when I figured it all out. The queen had been little more than a pawn. The real puppet master was the doctor and his brain that had been tainted by his own device all along. In this, his greatest threat, he used all of his energy to draw out every single zombie within his grasp to attack me. This was no longer the father, husband, and doctor that the world had once known. This was now a man who had the mind of a merciless, killing, zombie-human hybrid. He was the God-King of the undead.

The zombies looked like they had taken on super speed and strength in their moment of ultimate desperation. Some of their muscles were being pushed so hard that I could see their individual muscle fibers tearing through their dried out, rotting skin.

My team, now behind the mega-horde, continued firing at it in an attempt to end it all in a flurry of rounds. But I knew it all came down to just one bullet.

In a rage, Marcus charged the wall of death looking down upon the two of us. I steadied myself and took aim at the doctor's head. I fired, striking him just below the device on his head, and watched him drop. Once I was positive he would not rise up as the savior of all zombie-kind, I turned to engage my next enraged foe.

And then I witnessed something wholly unexpected. All of the zombies were now simultaneously collapsing all around me. They had begun to pour out of the woods behind me as well as from the direction of the main bunch before I took the final shot. Each and every one of them fell down, as though God had grown tired of his undead experiment and pulled the plug.

Marcus lifted his leg and took a leak on the face of the nearest corpse after sniffing at it for a moment, making sure it would be safe for him to do so. The only figures left standing, I knew by name. They were all alive, with a sea of filth and rot between me and them. As the fear of imminent death subsided, the smell became intolerable, but it didn't stop me from stomping across the massive above ground cemetery to greet my friends.

Their faces were once more expressionless—carved out of stone. They had no idea what had just happened or why. They looked across this field of unholy nightmares over to me and Marcus as we were making our way toward them. They jumped up and down and cheered in excitement, but didn’t run through the corpse field to meet me. I was pretty sure I understood why as I did my best to keep those few bites of pound cake from climbing back up out of my stomach.

I emerged from the quicksand-like pit of decay and wiped off all that my shoes had collected in my journey. There were several shades of red entirely covering my pants from the knee down. My shoes looked like two poorly preserved placentas. I reached my friends, who had moved out of direct smelling range of the bodies, and was greeted with overwhelming joy and hugs and high fives. Bully jumped up and down and gave Marcus a giant hug. Marcus in turn showered the boy in licks. I knew they'd end up making great friends.

I saw the tears on Carolina's face and knew they were well aware that Marcus was no replacement for the Chad that they were expecting me to return with. I dropped my rifle, walked over to the girls, and wrapped my arms around them.

"I'm so sorry," I said.

"No, Peter,” Carolina said. “There’s no need for you to apologize for doing the right thing. You did what you had to do and saved all of our skins. And just in the nick of time, too. Your friends were on the last two magazines, and me and Evelyn weren't doin' too much good with these here pistols." She wiped the tears from her cheek.

"If I thought that there was any other possible way to-"

"Well, there wasn't. And you're a hero, Pete." Evelyn wrapped her arms around me and buried her face in my shoulder, sobbing softly.

Carolina stroked her hair in an attempt to soothe her daughter.

"I'm sorry, my little angel," she said. "I'd already said goodbye to your father and I wasn't sure if we'd ever see him again. Without you, Peter, we never would have gotten the chance. For that, I am very thankful."

"Does this mean I'm off the hook for that horse of yours that almost killed me?"

She let out a laugh through her tears, and I was very glad that none of her spit landed anywhere near my mouth. Even after the walk I’d just taken, that would have been disgusting. "Yes, I think we can call it even between us."

Everyone felt a great sense of accomplishment as we began to head back.

"Hey, Vincent. Was there more food at the researcher’s lair than just that loaf of bread you brought us?" I asked, feeling the emptiness in my stomach and thinking of my new furry friend. The stench of a thousand corpses wasn't enough to throw off my appetite with so little in my stomach.

"Oh, yeah. There's a whole bunch of food in there. It was meant to sustain a crew of forty-five men for at least three full months. The big brains that planned it out figured that if the problem wasn't resolved in three months we'd all be as good as dead, anyway. Of course, we've had casualties since then and we moved out to the camp for a while. So there’s still a heap of grub for us to chow down on. I only felt like bringing you guys a loaf of bread because of your relationship to the boss. Sorry about that."

"Then chow down we shall, my friends. Let's go set up the dining hall and prepare a feast fit for kings!"

Chapter Twenty Two

We arrived at the research base without seeing a single zombie still standing. There were myriad mutilated bodies that had come from every direction but fallen just a little bit short of their ultimate goal of killing me and everyone that I cared for. Vincent opened the secret door, led us down the stairs, through the hallway, past the dining tables in the cafeteria, and finally brought us into the kitchen storage room which looked like a giant grocery store. Those of us who had never been to the room stood in awe as we took in the beauty of it all. There were canned soups, chips, crackers, cookies, and a whole boatload of other junk food and goodies. We ignored the insects and vermin that had found their own personal heaven in the cafeteria.

We turned our heads in Andrew's direction when we heard a sound from our not too distant past—the opening of a refrigerator door. From within this refrigerator, he withdrew a loaf of bread.

"Everybody out," said Carolina. “My daughter and I are going to cook you boys a meal that you'll never forget! Lord knows you deserve it!"

"No really, it's okay, Carolina. I think we all just want to gra-"

"I'm not takin' no for an answer, sonny. Now get out of here and go relax. Us girls will handle this for you boys."

My stomach growled as I slowly turned along with the rest of the group. I snatched the bread loaf from Andrew, ripped off a chunk, and held the rest out for everyone else. I took a bite of the appetizer and then decided I'd pull a smaller chunk from my portion of bread and held it down for Marcus, but he didn’t come over to take it from my hand. I looked around for him to find that he was licking Bully's face as the boy was feeding him some of his own bread. I let out a small chuckle and a smile.

Since there was no dog to grab the bite of bread I was holding down below, it left a perfect opportunity for Kyle to swoop in and grab it for himself.

"Bro, I'm so hungry. We've walked like a bazillion miles this week, and the first chance we get to chow down they kick us out? This trip is
horse shit,"
he said, cramming the bread into his mouth.

"Good things come to those who wait, bud. Plus, we've been starving this whole time and haven't keeled over yet. I think the meal will be well worth it."

"She knows I'm going to eat about half of whatever she puts on this table, right?" asked Vincent as we all took our seats around the table in the great dining hall.

"Does it really matter? I'm probably going to sneak off into that pantry the second they serve us, anyway. I'll just sit in there and stuff myself until I yuck it all up. Then I'm gonna do it all over again," said Mac.

"Hell no. No one’s leaving and no one is going to be rude. They’re in there working their asses off to thank us. Let's all be as civilized as we can be and just enjoy a nice meal together, alright?" I said.

Mumbling and grumbling filled the room.

"Thank you. This would mean a lot to them. They just lost someone very close to them. So let's just all try to be on our best behavior."

***

After about an hour of preparation and cooking, Evelyn came out to the dining room. To everyone's disappointment, she was empty handed.

"If you could all wait in a different room for a couple of minutes, we'll begin to bring out the meal," she said in her hostess voice.

We all groaned and slowly got to our feet. The anticipation of a good meal was so high and the wait had been so long and quiet that everyone's hunger had increased exponentially. We were all lethargic and weak from the hunger. We exited the dining room and wandered around out in the main corridor.

"Guys, is there any cool shit around here anywhere? It's a research facility, right? Where's all the cool sciencey shit?" I asked curiously.

"We've been kind of short staffed and, as you may have been aware, the doctor sort of only had one goal in mind,” said Vincent. “Oh, yeah. That reminds me. I'm going to have to go and grab one of those brain hats to take with us so I can get it out to another science guy when we get up the hill."

"Speaking of other scientists, where is the rest of the research team? I thought you’d said there were like ten of them? I wonder if they'd be able to shed any light on the extent of the damage to the zombie population. How far could the doctor's influence really reach with that thing?" I wondered out loud.

"There
were
more of them, but I just saw each and every one of them out there while you were busy playing dog catcher," Vincent answered.

"Well, shit. I must be either really good luck, or really bad luck. Every place I've been to on this trip I’ve left with no survivors behind. The only ones who’ve lived are the ones who would stand beside me. Back at the camp, they’re all dead, except for Mac who came with us. In the town where we found Bully, they’re all dead, too. Even here, everyone is dead except for the two of you . . ."

"Let's just hope we still have a home to return to, alright, Pete?" asked Kyle.

"No kidding. I can't help but feeling like one of the riders of the apocalypse right now."

"That's a pretty badass thought, homie. Can that be our team name? 'Riders of the Apocalypse' is pretty fucking fitting, if you ask me. You even killed a horse!"

"Kyle, I didn't kill the damn horse. The explosion did."

"An explosion caused by . . . ? That's right, it was you, bro."

"Are you trying to make me feel bad right now, man? 'Caus-"

"Come and get it, boys! Dinner is on!" Evelyn saved us from the horror of having any kind of conversation and feeling any of our girly emotions. I followed the pack to the kitchen table, but stopped to give Evelyn a kiss before entering.

"Everything smells so good. Thank you so much! The guys have been talking nonstop about how excited they are for a nice sit down meal," I lied.

"Really? I'm excited for all of you! There wasn't a lot to work with, but I think you’ll all be quite satisfied by the end of it all!" she said.

"Well then, I guess we should wait no more."

"After you, my hero."