Zombie Outbreak (2 page)

“I think this person was sick. Maybe Infected Human Corpses can’t eat people with a specific illness. I wonder what they had…” She said leaning over the arm to get a closer look. Suddenly, the arm jerked and wiggled on the ground. In a snake like motion it squirmed over to Sue Ann’s leg. They all screamed and ran back towards the parking lot. When they ran past the place where they had found the leg, they noticed that it was gone.

When they reached the parking lot the stood in a circle in an open area. After they huffed and puffed from the running, Sue Ann stood upright. “I think the person who was eaten was already infected with the IHC virus. Maybe, they were somehow immune to it turning them into a zombie but when the zombie tried to eat them, their limbs reacted to the virus.”

“And this matters how?” Todd said through his gasps. “Knowing what it is eating doesn’t help us. We just need to find it and kill it.”

“Well I know one thing for sure. I am not going back in that way.” Said Joe. Bobby turned back to look at the forest.

“Fine we can go around from the road. But we gotta go now. It looks like a storm is rolling in.” He said pointing to the dark sky. The group of friends walked down the dirt road they had driven in on and turned right at the fork in the road. After a half an hour walk, they found a walking path that jutted into the forest. Bobby headed in first again and the others followed keeping an eye out for body parts. They didn’t find any but they did see bloody handprints on the trees that lined the path. They pressed on. After seeing an increasing number of bloody hand prints and trails of blood droplets in the dirt, Mary Beth was thoroughly creeped out. That is when she noticed that the wind had stopped. The trees were perfectly still and the air grew stale.

“Guys…” She said quietly. But before she could point out the change in weather she saw a dark blurry figure tackle Bobby and drag him into the trees. He screamed for only a matter of seconds as his friends listened in horror. The screams turned to the sound of him choking on blood. Todd screamed and ran back the other direction and the same blur grabbed him and dragged him off into the dense greenery. The remaining three friends ran deeper into the woods as fast as they could. Joe was in the lead and ran faster than he ever had in his life. Soon he happened upon a small cottage that was used to store the park equipment. Luckily, he found that the door was unlocked and he jumped inside. He watched through a crack in the door until he say Mary Beth and Sue Ann run by. Quickly he grabbed them and pulled them into the cottage.

They stood in the dark room breathing hard. Joe locked the door from the inside and made sure that they were away from the windows. No one knew what to say. Mary Beth was crying and Sue Ann just stared at the floor. Mary Beth’s sobs grew louder and louder. Joe stepped forward and put his hand over her mouth. “Shshhhhhhh” he said quietly.

She blinked hard then looked at him and nodded. She tried to calm herself as best she could. The horror of the rapid attack replayed in her mind over and over. “They were just gone. They were just gone.” She repeated quietly over and over.

Joe looked at her then at Sue Ann. “I guess he was still hungry.” He said. Mary Beth looked at him in shock.

“Do you think this is funny?” She hissed.

He shook his head. “No, not at all. I only said that because it doesn’t make sense. Every single zombie attack we know about, the Zombies attack enough to kill one person. Feeding off one person usually lasts them for a few days. They only attack out of hunger. But this one is attacking for another reason.” He trailed off.

Sue Ann turned toward him. “They don’t have reasons. It’s their base instinct to attack for food. They don’t think about it or anything.” She spat.

“This one might.” He said. Mary Beth’s eyes grew wide. Sue Ann shook her head refusing to believe him.

“No, no. Maybe they are more like animals than we thought. Animals kill for two reasons, they are hungry or they feel threatened.” She hypothesized. Before Joe could make another argument he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He turned toward the window to see a bloody corpse staring at him. He stopped cold. The girls turned to the window and froze in fear. Slowly the Zombie backed away from the window and walked around the cottage toward the door. Joe immediately turned his eyes to the door knob. The girls gasped as they watch the knob twist. Zombies didn’t have reasoning skills. They shouldn’t know how to open a door. Joe was glad he had been extra cautious in locking it behind him.

When the door didn’t budge the zombie pushed harder. Soon, the cottage was filled with the sounds of the zombie screaming and wailing in frustration. Then the wailing stopped and it got quiet. The three friends could hear each other breathing. They looked at each other and then looked toward the window. Joe slowly made his way over to look out. When he got close enough, he peered out through the glass window to see the zombie standing 4 feet from the door staring at it. Then, with one quick step, the zombie threw itself at the locked door creating a crack in the wood.

“Quickly!” Sue Ann screamed as she began piling the park equipment in front of the door. They put shelves, tables and large metal tools at the base of the door. The pile rattled each time the zombie threw itself at the other side of the door. The three friends sat with their backs to the pile in order to add extra support to their barricade. The screeching sounds coming from the hysterical zombie flooded the cottage and the three covered their ears.

After what seemed to be an hour, the screeching stopped and so did the banging.

“Is it gone?” Mary Beth asked as she shook in fear. Sue Ann just looked at her. The blood had drained from her face and she looked paler than the moon.

“I don’t know. But something is different. He tried to open the door with the handle. They shouldn’t be able to do that.” Joe said.

“If there is something different with this one… if he is able to use reasoning then what happens next?” Sue Ann asked. She looked at Mary Beth and Joe. They seemed equally lost. “What if it didn’t kill Todd and Bobby for food or out of fear?” Sue said after a while. Joe and Mary Beth looked up at her not knowing where she was going with this.

“What other reasons could it have?” Joe asked. Sue Ann shrugged. Just then a rustling noise came from outside the front of the cabin. All three immediately turned toward the noise. Then another sound came from behind the back of the cabin and they flipped their heads around.
Thump!
A sound came from the roof. They all looked up. Then Sue Ann grabbed Joe’s arm.

“What if it knew that it was the last one… and it’s… recruiting…” She said slowly. The other two looked at her with new terror in their eyes. Just then they saw Todd in the window with blood dripping from his mouth and a dead look in his eyes. At the other window they saw a flash of movement and then saw Bobby’s eyes piercing through the glass as he gnashed his teeth.
Crack!
The roof gave in and the zombie was standing in front of them. Slowly, he walked over to the pile of stuff in front of the door. With incredible strength, he pushed it aside and opened the door for the other two fresh zombies. They slowly entered the cottage and cornered Joe, Sue Ann and Mary Beth.

Before he felt the sting of the bite, Joe whispered, “but it was almost over.” The three died to the sound of teeth on their bones. They were spotted in town three weeks later. They were the start of the second epidemic.

BONUS STORY:

ZOMBIE TRAIL

Jenny sat at the stool near the kitchen counter, uncharacteristically silent. She had felt shitty most of the week. After the buzz she got from drinking a bottle of Jack, she had a two-day flu or something. Now she had a headache. And depression. It just came. Like a freight train and there was nothing she could do about it.

              She had a tall and thin physique, and took Cross-fit classes long before they were cool. She wore her long blonde hair pulled back. She had red rims around her eyes for the longest time now.

              Jenny cried herself to sleep at night.

              She couldn't help it.

              Her grandfather's house had a musty, uncared-for feel to it. Maybe that was the way it was supposed to be. A thin layer of dust covered the tables and desks.  She looked up and saw that a large spider was making a web in the corner of the wall. 

              She turned the knob on the old transistor radio. Just looking at the old thing gave her a tinge of nostalgia as she remembered her grandfather taking it with him wherever he went. She thought hearing voices, any kind of voice, kept him company.

              Jenny sipped gingerly at her hot coffee and idly looked up as Megan walked sleepily into the kitchen.  Her straight, raven black hair shined  as she stood against the sunlight from the window. And despite the sleep rocks in the corner of her eyes, she had a face that sparkled with a devil may care attitude.

              “This is way too early to be awake,” Megan complained. “I can't believe I agreed to this.”

              “Yeah, well, I can't sleep much anyway,” Jenny returned her attention to the radio, noodling around and getting only noise.

              “Sleep,” Megan yawned as she poured some coffee into a tall glass. “How I love thee.”

              “There are some eggs ready to go.”

              “They're sunny side up,” Megan said, looking at the eggs laying on the frying pan.

              “So?”

              “So I only eat scrambled.”

              Jenny rolled her eyes and continued to fiddle with the radio.

              “What are you doing?”

              “I can't get it to work this morning. I know reception is bad around here but there's nothing, just a bit of crackling.”

              “Let me try,” Megan leaned over Jenny and twisted the tuner on the old radio.

              White noise.

              “What you think that you have the magic touch that I don't?”

              “Of course,” Megan said. “Everything around here is so ancient, the place has been deserted for so long. I'm sure it'll pick up later, it was like that on the day we got here.”

              “Yeah, I suppose so.” Jenny pushed the radio away and stared into her coffee cup. Her mind going elsewhere.              

              “Anyway, that was the whole point of it, wasn't it? Volunteer for the field trip, escape from the world for a long weekend, give you some space after what happened with your parents and everything?”

              Jenny shrugged her shoulders. She stared into her coffee cup, eyes welling with tears.

              “I'm sorry,” Megan said. “I shouldn't even go there. Are you doing okay?”

              “I'm fine,” Jenny said, not looking Megan in the eye.

              “You're so not fine, talk to me.”

              “I told you already, I didn't sleep well, dreams and all that.”

              “I'm an insensitive bitch, okay,” Megan put her finger into a shape of a gun and pointed it at her head. “Maybe talking about it isn't the right thing to do, you know? How long has it been? Four months?”
              “Six. I still can't believe they're gone,” Jenny blinked her eyes hard and pounded her cup against the table. “Stupid idiot!”

              “Who me?”

              “Not you. The guy who fell asleep at the wheel in his ten ton truck. My Dad didn't even have a chance to react. The police said he and Mom died instantly. But I'm not so sure.”

              Megan walked over and hugged Jenny. “Don't torture yourself, Jen. Look, let's finish this coffee and head off to the trails. Maybe we'll even find some more slimy stuff today. Remember when we were kids and we used to look for bugs?”

              Jenny laughed. “Mom would have been so proud. And my Dad. He would have declared that thing to be a whole new species.”

              Megan rolled her eyes. “It was so gross, looked like some mutant grub. We're supposed to be bird-watching and all we're going to be famous for is discovering a mutant slug.”

              “It could be worse,” Jenny smiled. “What time do we have to leave today?”

              “By mid-day. We get picked up not far from the freeway and its about an hour or so walk to the nearest side  road to get a bus. And don't forget we've got to 'leave everything as we found it.'” Megan mimicked a British accent. “So let's get out there and get to it.”

              Jenny smiled again. “That sounds exactly like Miss Brown. She is so very English.”

              Megan kept her arm around Jenny. “Your Mom would have been so proud. You are so right.”

              “Sorry Megan, its been well, you know. Thanks for being such a great friend. It couldn't have been easy for you, four days of of isolation with a party pooper like me.”