Zombie Dawn II: A Zombie Apocalypse Sequel (3 page)

Now I heard more shuffling, followed
by sobbing sounds.  I’d never heard a zombie cry, and the only crying looters
or bad guys I’d seen were ones that I’d personally made cry, so I relaxed a
bit.  “Come on out, I won’t hurt you. Don’t be afraid.”  I figured it was a
kid.  I was wrong.

After a bit, Micah shuffled out. 
He’s one of those tall, skinny guys with a huge Adam ’s apple.  Kind of like
Barney Fife.  Probably fifty years old, six three but kind of hunched, maybe a
hundred and thirty pounds.  A real string bean.  Wearing a mechanic’s pullover,
some type of leather flying helmet, and a huge pair of mirrored sunglasses.

Kind of funny, really, but between
the toothache and the apocalypse my sense of humor was a bit sketchy.  His idea
of a weapon was a huge monkey wrench, which he held out at me with shaking
hands.

“Down on the floor. Do it now!  Now!”

He dropped so hard and so fast that
he broke his nose on the floor.   This beak had been busted before.  Many
times, apparently.  But now he’s really crying, with the blood, the snot and
the tears running down his face.  He pissed himself, too, maybe.  I started to
feel bad, then remembered that this is the type of shit that gets people
killed.  That takes some of the empathy and all of the humor out pretty
quickly.  Kept the 9 right on center mass the whole time.  Trying to
concentrate between lightning zings of pain from the tooth.

After a bit, I told him to get up and
sit in the corner.  He got himself under control, and pulled a rickety old stool
into the corner.  I asked him to tell me his story. 

“Muh name’s Micah.  Uh live with muh
daddy over at the “Use It Up Shop.”  Very proud of this.  This guy’s gotta be fifty
or sixty, how old is the old man?

“What the hell is that?”

“Well, we fix stuff no one wants. 
Old cars, bikes, tools, appliances, stuff like that.  They give it to us, or we
trade for it, then we fix it and sell it or trade it.  Me and muh daddy can fix
anything.  I do the bikes.

The shop is under and our rooms are
up top.  Muh dad’s name is Micah, too, and his dad’s name was Micah.  I had a
mom, for awhile, but she left when I was a kid.  She thought I was an idjit. 
So did dad, sort of.  We have chickens, though.

Anyway, all of this started to
happen.  Dad went crazy or something. He killed an’ ate Otis, the old guy who
hangs around.  I hid inside a old truck.  He tried to eat me, too but he
couldn’t get at me.  Another customer came in, and daddy ate him too, I guess. 
I ran out and came here for the food.  I’ve lived under the back storeroom ever
since.  Kept the place locked up.  Hid.  You’re the first person I talked to in
a long, long time.”

“How far is the shop?”

“A mile or so.”

“Any tools over there?”

“You bet.  I locked it up tight
before I left.  Daddy’s still in there, though.  And Otis and the other guy. 
All just moaning and walking around.  But all our tools are still there.”

“Will you bring me there?”

Micah regarded me carefully, almost
skeptically.  He seemed to make a decision.

“Sure, mister, just don’t hurt me.”

“Call me Jack.  Can I call you
Michah?  I won’t hurt you.”

I held my open hands up to Micah,
sort of a universal symbol of non-aggression.  Of course, Micah was unarmed and
my nine was in my lap, but he saw it for what it was, with a look of profound
relief.

“OK, Jack, I will bring you there. 
But please don’t hurt me.”

“Don’t worry, Micah.  I’ll protect
you.”

This followed by a grateful look with
his big brown eyes.

“Well thanks, Jack.  By the way, what’s
wrong with your face?  It’s all swollen and blue.”

I hadn’t realized how bad this tooth
ache was looking on the outside.  Michah had taken my mind off it for a
moment.  Now the throbbing returned like a motherfucker.

“It’s a toothache, Micah.  Ever had
one?”

“Sure, I had ‘em when I was a kid. 
My daddy took care of it with some pliers.”  This followed with a proud display
of a mouthful of missing teeth.

“You know how to do it?”

“Yeah, once I had to do one for
Daddy.  But he got real mad, cause I didn’t pull hard enough.”

“Do you think you can do this for me,
Michah?”

“I’ll do muh best, Jack.  We have the
pulling tools at the shop.”

Chapter 7:      Mike’s
Journal—Mike and Ian

This is my fourth entry.  I wonder if
anyone is seeing these.  Is it worth it?  Who knows and who cares?  I really
can’t see any hope, and I’m just waiting for a chance to kill Mariana.  If I
get her, sissy-boy will be easy.  Although they’ll get me if I do.  I don’t
give a shit about that, except that I’ll make sure I don’t turn into one of
them.

But they take my rifle away anytime
I’m anywhere near her.  I have attendants, one human and one brain, who
constantly watch me.  That fucking ginger Marvel is the human.  I would hate
him even in the old days.  Those watery eyes, pale skin, the underbite.  He
stinks and has horrible breath.  I plan to feed him his own kidneys some day. 
The brain would be a total hottie if she was human, but she is a reeking
monster with red eyes and worse breath than Marvel.  I think of her as
Brittany, just because I hate that fucking name.  But even she’s not as bad as
Marvel, that inbred shitstain.  She’s too smart to eat me but I can tell she
wants to.

I don’t have any other weapons, just
the Lapua .338 sniper gun that Uncle Jim gave me.  I’m getting even better with
it.  Santos uses me to pick off the leaders of the bands of humans that he
captures.  Also, to identify any shooters in the groups, and to train them. 
For the attack on the Farm—and my Dad. 

Santos puts me with a guy, Ian, to
improve my sniping skills.  This guy Ian is a real prick. Big faggy English
accent, and claims to be a former SAS man.

“We are the best bleedin’ fighters in
the whole world, bar none.”

Some of the guys would want to take
him on.  One guy was a former US Army Ranger.  Very tough guy, I thought.  But
Ian tuned him up without mercy.  First of all, he was huge.  But he also
cheated.  Eye gouge, ball grab, knee kick, all kinds of cheap shit.  All in
about one second.  The guy hadn’t even felt one before Ian slammed him with
another.  He ended with his evil, filthy knife against the Ranger’s throat.  I
was surprised that he didn’t finish it.

“That’s how it’s done, guv’nor.”  He
knew his fake Cockney accept would piss us off even more.

Anyway, he’d scored a few bottles of
rum that day from an RV and decided to share with us as he regaled us with
stories of his SAS exploits.

“Did you know that the Brits were
there when you Yanks got Saddam?”

“How about when your Seals got
Osama?  We were there, too, and that was our mission.  Your Seals are nice
lads, but nothing compared to us SAS lads.”

“SAS killed Hitler in WWII, don’t you
know.  It was in late 1944 in the Alps.  Not in Berlin, like you wankers
imagine.”

“SAS are the first special forces in
the world.  We train harder, we are smarter, and we fight for the best country
in the world.”

After a bit, the strong rum got to my
head.  Enough of the bullshit.

“First of all, you sound like a sissy
with that accent.  Second, our Seals could kick your ass.  They are better
trained and better equipped and better supported than you’ll ever be.  Third,
none of that matters any more, you douche bag.  You now fight for a crazy
zombie psycho.  He’s way better looking than your Queen, though.  In fact, I
would not fuck your Queen with Santos’ cock.  What a pig!”

That did it, and my night ended with
me puking in the ditch after Ian kicked me in the solar plexus with his super
duper English SAS killer boots.  I was lucky he took it easy on me.

After a while, though, I got to know
Ian a bit.  He was British Special Forces, SAS, stationed in Canada at the time
of the outbreak on a training exercise.  He had no news of his home, which ate
at him constantly.  He was always looking through old newspapers and magazines,
hoping to discover that England had survived, or rebounded, or whatever.  He
never found any, but he got just as pissed off every single time.  Then the
beatings would begin.  Whoever was closest, and believe me, we did our best to
be away by then.  But everyone had a turn.

Ian was a nasty bit of work.  He was
missing the lobe of his right ear, which had been shot off in Iraq by Syrian sniper
employed by Al Qaeda.  He was very proud of the fact that his own shot had been
a hit and kill.  No more Syrian sniper.  Ian had been captured and tortured by
Afghani tribesmen in Kandahar, and he had the scars—and the missing toes—to
prove it.  His SAS brothers had rescued him, killed everyone in that village,
and threw a few Taliban corpses in there to mess up the investigation.

Ian had a classic dueling scar, too,
running up his jaw to his eye, but that was just from a plate that his “Mum”
had thrown at his “Da.”  Apparently they had some interesting times back in the
day.  I never knew his last name, or exactly where in England he came from, but
he was the toughest bastard I ever met.

Ian used a Brit AWM .338 Lapua sniper
rifle.  When he saw mine, he snorted derisively.  The Brits, naturally, thought
their weapons and their soldiers were the best.  The best way to taunt old Ian
was to point out that the U.S. was 2 and 0 against them, and had saved their
ass in WWI and WWII.  And that whatever military we had in say, California,
could quite easily kick ass on the entire Brit military.  Naturally, I have no
idea if that’s true, but I said it just to piss him off.

He knew I was Santos’ designated ace,
and he didn’t like it.   Ian was easily  six three, two twenty, an experienced Special
Forces fighter.  He would frequently kick the shit out of me. I was pretty much
helpless.  Bigger, stronger, faster, meaner, and better means an ass whipping
every single time.  I was down a couple of teeth, and my nose never stopped
bleeding, because I just could not refrain from taunting him whenever I had a
chance.

One notable time happened after Ian
had mentioned having sex with a whore in Ireland.  I told him that I had
assumed he was gay because of his supergay British accent.  I knew he would
beat me, but I didn’t give a shit.  Neither of us cared if someone was gay,
either, but Ian had to take me out for mouthing off. 

My entire battle plan was to try to
kick him in the balls, but he caught my boot and made me dance around on one
leg until my face was close enough to his fist.  That was it.  Knockout.

I was able to last a bit longer each
time, though.  One time, I even nailed him in the balls.  Knowing that was my
plan, he’d found a cup and was wearing it.  I expected him to go down, but as I
stood there preparing to taunt him, he kicked me in the balls instead.  I had
also worn a cup, which surprised him, so I got a kick in on his knee before he
knocked me out.  But I think I got a bit of respect from him that day.  He even
gave me a nickname—“Fuckface.”  He never used anyone’s name, so even that was a
breakthrough.  I enjoyed watching him limp for a day or so.

Luckily, after Ian knifed another
sniper in a fight over ammunition, Santos made clear that there would be no
more violence against me.  I might not be the best in a fistfight, but I could
still shoot.

Chapter 8:      Kate’s
Diary—The Inner Core

Not sure why he delayed going after
Jack so long, but it’s been about a month since I was captured.  I can’t really
tell, since I’m often locked in rooms with no light. This is not something that
ever happened to me before the Change.  I always had complete freedom, access
to light, plenty of food, transportation, everything.  It’s impossible not to
take it for granted.  I sure did.  In any event, not having light throws off
your internal clock.  You can’t sleep and you get totally disoriented.

I’m lucky that Santos is gay (but can
you ever really tell?), because he definitely has a kinky sadistic vibe going
on.  Mariana is lucky, too.  I least I hoped so at first, anyway.  That is not
a typical brother sister deal going on there.  Even with him gay (or gayish) and
her a zombie they sort of have something going on.  Too much touching.  Too
many meaningful glances.  Way beyond a healthy sibling relationship.  Even
worse because the expression on her face never changes.  She is absolutely
blank.

Even under the circumstances I felt
bad for her.  Not enough to ever make me hesitate if I got a chance to kill
her, though.  I don’t know who I’d kill first, him or her.  That would be a
good problem to have.

Luckily, he left me alone.  One guy,
a human, came in one night thinking he was going to rape me, but I’d sharpened
a bit of wood on the floor and jammed it in his eye then kicked him in the
balls, again and again, while he screamed like a bitch.  By the time they
pulled him out, his balls were jelly.  Santos threw him to the Zs and told the
others that I was “his.”  No fucking way, but I’d rather have a gay zombie
psycho protector than be fair game for everyone.