The Fall of Society (The Fall of Society Series, Book 1) (11 page)

           
He
got to the stack of supplies and very gently grabbed a cardboard case of
Coleman cooking fuel. His father used the shotgun strap and put his weapon over
his shoulder as his son gave him the case. He left with the fuel, and the son
returned for the second one. He got there undetected and picked up the second
box. He turned to leave, took two steps and stopped suddenly at the sound of a
walker that came upon the garage door.

           
It
was seriously interested in the door.

           
It
tried to look through the cracks, and the son could see part of its foul eyes
as it looked inside but didn’t see him. He was only several feet from the door,
but he dared not move, especially when the thing dropped to its knees and stuck
it face in the hole at the bottom of the door.

           
It
was the scalped creature…

           
The
father got to the basement and gave the case to his wife; he watched her take
it downstairs, and when she came back, he headed back to the garage but decided
to look through the front door peephole again…

           
The
son didn’t move a muscle, except for his low breathing and his eyes; he fearfully
watched the scalped corpse stick its rotten face into the hole of the garage
door. It looked for something, anything, and it sniffed, constantly smelling
the air in the garage. Most of the young man’s body was hidden behind a stack
of tall boxes, but he began to sweat. Beads of perspiration formed on his
forehead as his glands went into overdrive, they began to track down his face.

           
The
thing could smell it, and it became agitated, but it was still only the one, and
it didn’t growl yet, alerting others. The son looked at the house door, which
was in the creature’s sight, and his father wasn’t back yet, but the moment
that he returned—the corpse would see him immediately.

           
He
didn’t know what to do.

           
And
then a second walker came to the garage door.

           
Sniffing
…

           
Scratching
…

           
The
father headed back to the garage, unaware of what he was about to walk into…

           
The
son was scared stiff, but he forced himself to slowly step toward the house door.

           
But
three steps and it would see him.

           
A
third one joined…

           
The
scalped one almost had its entire head in the garage, and then it began to
growl.

           
The
son’s eyes darted to the house door, and he saw the preceding shadow of his approaching
father.

           
Scratching
…

           
Clawing
…

           
He
looked back at the garage door, and they still hadn’t seen him.

           
The
father appeared at the door and the son tried to stop him. “Dad?” he whispered
intensely.

           
But
the scalped one heard him, and it squealed loudly, setting off the others.

           
“Dad!”
his son screamed as he dropped the box and ran for the house door.

           
Dozens
of the undead rushed the garage door and broke through it in a hail of plastic
panels and metal framing. The son got in the door, and they both slammed it
shut, but dead arms reached in and blocked them from locking it.

           
They
both pushed with all their might, but by now, dozens of them were in the garage,
and they pushed back with rage to get in.

           
The
father knew it was hopeless. “Get back to the basement and lock the door, I’ll
hold them off!”

           
“I’m
not leaving you!” his son answered.

           
They
were giving it everything that they had, but they couldn’t close the door, and
the undead were starting to win the battle to get in.

           
Inch by inch
…

           
The
son fired his weapon through the door crack, killing one, two, three of the
stenches, but they were replaced by many more. The wife appeared in the living
room behind them with her gun in hand. “Run back to the basement!” she shouted
at them.

           
But
they knew that they wouldn’t make it there if the things got in.

           
“Christina,
get back with the girls and get ready to lock the door!” he shouted at his wife
in a strained voice.

           
She
reluctantly went back and the father looked at his son with desperate eyes.
“You have to protect your mother and sisters, go!” he shouted.

           
He
didn’t want to leave.

           
“Go!”
his father repeated louder.

           
The
son went against his will and a couple seconds after he took his weight off the
door and left his father alone—they broke in—his father was thrown
back and fell on his ass.

           
From
the ground, he fired his shotgun at them, worked the pump and loaded another
shell.

           
BLAST!

           
PUMP.

           
BLAST!

           
The
son turned to help his father just in time to see several of them jump on him.
He managed to fire the shotgun two more times from under the pile of cannibals,
buckshot splattered through and impacted into the ceiling.

           
“Dad!”
He fired at them but his father was gone.

           
He
continued to fire in anger, and then his mother came behind him. “Carl!” she
yelled to her son. “Run!”

           
The
boy turned to run but they were already on top of him and took him down.

           
“Carl!
No!” his mother yelled.

           
She
fired in hatred at the dead ones eating her son, but there were too many and
more of them came after her. She ran for her life, got to the basement door and
pulled it in.

           
They
got their decayed arms inside the door
…

           
She
couldn’t close it and they ripped the door open out of her hands.

           
Pointblank,
she fired in the faces of two of them, but more stomped on the falling corpses
to get at her.

           
She
staggered back and tripped…

           
She
tumbled down the flight of stairs and fell onto the screams of her two daughters.

           
With
a bloody face from a broken nose and her pistol still in her hands—she
fired at the waterfall of death that swelled over her.

           
Her
gun went empty, and they smothered her.

           
Her
daughters tried to run but there was nowhere to go.

           
They
got the oldest one first.

           
The
mother’s laptop was knocked to the floor and the news site that she was looking
at showed the rate and extent of the infection on a global map.

           
It
had touched every continent on the planet.

           
The
youngest girl had two seconds to watch her sister’s face being bit off by a
large ghoul and then others attacked her small body.

           
She
was struck to the floor and her ear buds were yanked out of her laptop, some
teenage pop song blasted through the laptop speakers, but the dead ignored it.
They were busy listening to the screams of agony music from the girls as they
devoured them.

           
Her
laptop was tossed to the floor and the music player skipped in distortion and
then another song started to play.

           
It
was soothing jazz music that didn’t fit this scene of the macabre.

           
Mr.
Armstrong’s voice was an insult to the death at hand—

           
“I
see trees of green
…
”

           
Blood
splattered the walls of the basement…

           
“Red
roses, too
…
”

           
Blood
dripped down the laptop screen displaying the global infection map…

           
“
I see them bloom for me and you
…
”

           
The girls’ screams became guttural death
moans and then went silent…

           
“And I think to myself
…
”

           
All that was heard were them
eating
and the song…

           
“What a wonderful world
…
”

DAY
200:

THE
FALL
of
 
SOCIETY

T
he Los Angeles sky had a red pall,
what little blue there was among the
gray clouds, fought against the abundant pollution to breathe. The dark
building skyline was police tape that outlined this murdered place.

           
L.A.
was
gone
.

           
Buildings
that once stood tall and shimmered in the sun at the peak of humanity’s
brilliance were now dilapidated slivers of nightmares. They rotted in squalor
and the insects of this great, dusty hive were the walking corpses—many
walked the streets and alleys without direction, some lingered at bus stops as if
they waited for buses that would never come. There were dormant buses here and
there, abandoned in the heat of the infection, some of the dead sat in them,
content on a motionless commute. Some of them walked in and out of building
lobbies repeatedly, a few even carried briefcases as they went to the echo of a
job that they once had. Others tried to enter buildings with blocked-off entryways
that had been sealed by the living, a last ditch effort to survive. Those
buildings had no signs of life now.

           
The
city of the dead was without power as it slowly crumbled in darkness.

           
In
an alley behind a high-rise, muted gunshots broke the silence, and then a back
door suddenly burst open as a lone man kicked it out and ran at a breakneck
speed, which wasn’t fast because he was emaciated from starvation. Several
undead came out after him; he fired back at them and hit nothing in his blind panic
trigger pulls of his handgun, but the gunshots cracked loud and echoed
throughout the area.

           
And
the city
…

           
Every
dead thing close by snapped out of their snail-paced walks and
sprang
into runs after the man. Long
howls and squeals filled the desolate, empty air, and right away, sixty chased
after him.

           
Ninety
…

           
Two
hundred
…

           
The
man disappeared into a building-parking garage with a ravenous avalanche
chasing after him.

           
He
had no chance.

           
And
a moment later—

           
His
short scream of agony wailed and was gone in the squall of the dead.

           
And
more kept coming.

           
About
thirty miles south of L.A., which was several miles past Long Beach, was the
same scenery—everything was in ashes and destruction. The walking corpses
didn’t have as many numbers as they did in the big city, they were few here,
but still just as eager to kill anything that crossed their path. Most of the
ones in this area were slow movers that consisted of different types, like the
elderly and ones with missing limbs that had to crawl or drag themselves to get
around.

           
It
was quiet here, except for the intermittent undead screech, there was nothing.

           
And
then a distant sound made itself known as it grew in definition—the low
rumble became distinctive and unmistakable—the sound of a car motor.

           
Two
of them came rolling down the boulevard at about 30 miles an hour, not too fast
so their engines would make more noise and not too slow so they would be open
to attack by any fast movers. The vehicle leading the way was a standard military
Humvee with a topside mounted .50 caliber machine gun, and bringing up the rear
was a big Chevy Silverado 3500 truck that had four rear wheels, a dually, which
wasn’t a girly-girl’s kind of truck, but a woman was driving it.

           
In
the Humvee were two men; the driver was a black man that looked to be in his
fifties, but he was in great shape, short military-style haircut with the chiseled
facial features of a man in charge of this group of survivors. His name was
Ardent Keller.

           
“We’re
getting close to the shipyard, Ardent,” the passenger said and he was a Caucasian
man in his forties, a big guy that looked like he had some Spanish ancestral
background. He was also clean-cut with short black hair. Ben Reyes was his
name.

           
Ardent
slowed the Humvee a little. “Yeah, just a few miles in that direction.” He
pointed.

           
They
reached an intersection and Ardent stopped, the Chevy truck came to a halt
behind it in line. There were a few undead in the area, but they were all slow
movers. The closest one was about forty feet away—it crawled on its belly
because one of it legs was gone, and the other was smashed up—which each
pull of its decaying arm, its destroyed leg was pulled along, literal dead
weight that was held in tow at the knee by a couple inches of leathery, stringy
flesh. The gender of the creature was unrecognizable because it was so battered,
and the clothes on it were no indicator either because they were withered rags.
It was crawling around a corner, away from the caravan, but turned around when
it heard the motors. It scraped and pulled itself toward the truck.

           
Lauren
Mobley was the driver of the truck; she was in her thirties with long brown
hair. She was beautiful but had that tough, tomboy look, as if she was raised
on a ranch. The truck was definitely hers because she handled it better than any
cowboy. She picked up a radio. “Bear, whatta we got going on? Over,” she said
and spied the dead crawler coming her way.

           
“Bear”
was Ben’s nickname, and it was size proportionate. “Just getting our bearings,
give us a minute. Over,” he answered.

           
Lauren
looked at her low gas indicator light that had been on for a while now. “Okay, but
look for gas stations again, I’m on fumes here. Over.”

           
“Same
for us, too. Out,” he answered.

           
In
the truck with her, were two other people—one was a woman in her early
forties, a hard, but gorgeous looking Pacific Islander with jet-black hair, named
Milla Siln. The other was a Hawaiian looking guy in his thirties, had the
stoner thing going on—well, he used to, since the apocalypse had put a
strain on the supply of pot these days, but he’d adjusted. His light brown hair
was a little too long, which he usually tied up in a bun or a tail, he had a
couple random tattoos. He was Derek Montgomery. He sat in the back of the truck
and Milla was in the front passenger seat.

           
All
of them were dressed in battle gear to protect their bodies from attacks by the
dead. Besides military, rugged hiking clothes, or sports gear, they had on body
armor, but the exteriors of their clothing was what made it interesting—it
was plastic PVC plumbing pipe that they had cut in halves, thirds, or quarters
and sewed them together with wire to assemble a low-tech, corpse bite-proof
outer shell. They wore it around their biceps, forearms, thighs, calves, and
ankles. Complete with a PVC pipe neck-guard and spray painted all in black or
camouflage. They had helmets, too.

           
This
group was the definition of hardcore
survivors
.

           
“I’m
sure you see that crawler on your side, right?” Milla said.

           
“Yup,”
Lauren responded.

           
A
slow walker came out of a store and stumbled toward the Humvee much faster than
the crawler. “I got it,” Derek said as he picked up a sniper rifle with a
silencer on the barrel.

           
He
took aim out the window and pulled the trigger, hitting it in the head; it fell
backwards onto the pavement in a
thud
.
“Bingo, bitch.” he said to it.

           
“Thanks,”
Bear said through the radio.

           
Derek
saw Bear in the side mirror of the Humvee and gave him a
thumb up
with a grin.

           
“Okay,
Bear, take a look for any gas stations,” Ardent said.

           
“Yeah,
okay.” He grabbed a pair of binoculars and stepped out of the Humvee.

           
Ardent
saw the dead crawler in his side mirror getting to Lauren’s door; he didn’t say
anything because he knew her routine and her hate for them.

           
The
crawler got to the truck and reached up at the door, it scratched and clawed to
get a hold of something to pull itself up. Lauren rolled down her window and glanced
down at it. Milla didn’t like what was going on with her, but she kept quiet.
Lauren stared at it in morbid fascination. “Come on, you can do it,” she
whispered to it.

           
The
thing responded to her with a low
hiss-growl
;
its throat was torn open and its larynx damaged. It pushed itself up on its one
stub of a knee and grabbed onto the door handle.

           
“That’s
it, fucker,” she said hatefully.

           
It
reached with its other hand and grabbed hold of the bottom of the door window,
it pulled with everything it had and its head came up over the window opening.

           
“Lauren?”
Milla said.

           
The
thing’s blistered, discolored eyes saw Lauren, and she looked right back into
its empty pupils.

           
It
was two feet away and began to reach for her—most of the skin on its arm
was loose and so dry, that it moved with the wind like old paper.

           
“Lauren!”
Milla said in urgency.

           
Before
it got any closer, Lauren opened her door and knocked it off. Once it was back
on the pavement, Lauren put the truck in reverse, looked down at the thing and
backed her truck onto it. She pinned it to the street with a dry
crunch-crackle
sound. She stopped the
truck and put it in park before the wheel ran over its head, she wanted it
pinned alive.

           
“Jesus,
woman,” Derek said under his breath.

           
Lauren
heard and glanced back at him. “Bingo, bitch,” she said with a satisfied smile.

           
Bear
adjusted the focus on the binoculars and looked down the road ahead of him—

           
There
was nothing.

           
He
looked left toward the ocean and scanned the streets. Nothing in that direction
either, only burned out and destroyed buildings, but no gas stations.

           
He
turned around and looked down the street toward the east, it was the same
picture for miles.

           
“Anything?’
Ardent asked.

           
“No.”
He continued to scan. Then he saw something a distance away. “Wait…” he
adjusted the focus on the movement that he saw—it was the dead, a couple
dozen rounded a corner of an intersection less than a mile from them. “Walkers.”

           
Ardent
looked. “How many?”

           
Bear
realized something. “Not walkers, they’re runners.”

           
“How
many, Bear?”

           
“At
least 150.”

           
The
two vehicles were in the middle of the intersection fully exposed.

           
“Have
they seen us?” Ardent asked.

           
“No,
but they’re heading in our direction.”

           
Bear
continued to watch them as he got back into the Humvee, and then saw something
disturbing—it was more than a couple hundred, it was just the tip of a
massive horde that came around the corner, hundreds of them filled the
intersection as they moved along in a fast pace in search of something to kill
and eat,
anything
.

           
“Oh
shit,” Bear said.

           
“What
is it?” Ardent asked.

           
“It’s
a horde.”

           
“How
big?”

           
“I’m
not sure, they’re still coming around the corner. Maybe a couple thousand.”

           
Ardent
got his radio. “Listen up, we got a horde coming our way a mile down the road. They
haven’t seen us yet, so were gonna move away slowly. Over.”

           
“Copy
that, over,” Lauren answered and turned to Milla and Derek. “We got a horde.”