Zombie D.O.A. (20 page)

The tank slowly swung its turret and as it did I could make out the message scrawled roughly on its
side
in black paint. It said, BC1, and next to the lettering was a childli
ke drawing of a skull-and-cross
bones.

At the barbed wire perimeter I saw a marine calmly executing those creatures caught in the wire, which was breached in several places. I figured I could use the chaos to make a sprint for one of those gaps and be out of here without anyone paying too much attention.

But there was something I had to do first. I headed towards the recreation centre, picking up the rifle of a dead soldier on my way there.

Inside it was deathly qui
et
compared to the chaos of the battlefield. There were a number o
f small fires and the corridors
were
slowly
filling with smoke. I crouched
down to avoid the worst of it
and sprinted towards Brady’s office
.

The door was open and I entered the room with the rifle tucked into my shoulder, ready to fire.

Dr Bra
dy s
at at her desk, her head thrown backward in her chair. Her mouth was unflatteringly wide open, and her blue eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.
A blackened bullet hole perforated her temple.
Her hand was still clutching the gun and I pried it from her fingers, put the safety on and stuck it in my waistband.

On
the
desk was her ashtray, full to overflowing with
ash and
cigarette butts. There were several manila files and I flicked through them. All were empty, save for blank sheets of lined A4 writing paper. One of the files had my name and blood type written on the cover.
Like the others, it was empty.

I walked to the file cabinet
and opened some of the drawers. A
ll contained the same manila folders, names and blood types on the covers, blank sheets within. There was no folder for Ruby Collins.

I had hoped to
find some indication of where t
hey’d taken my daughter but there was nothing to give me even the slightest clue.

For some
reason, the ashtray
caught my attention and I walke
d
and emptied its contents onto the desk. Under the ash and cigarette butts wa
s an
insignia in red, blue and gold, with the words, US Marine Corps, Quantico, VA, inscribed on it.
It wasn’t much but hadn’t Valerie said they were being taken to Virginia?

I was about to leave when I heard a sound from under the desk, the sickening sound of ripping flesh. Brady’s body started to shudder
and then her chair began to
roll slowly
back.

As her legs came into view I could see that her skirt was pushed up and that chunks of flesh had been ripped from her thighs. Then the creature emerged from beneath the desk, his face bloodied and a chunk of flesh still hanging from his mouth.

He was a skinny kid of 12
or 13, his t
h
roa
t ripped open and one of his arms
a bloody stump. He looked at me
with his head cocked to one side, the way
a visitor to the zoo might look
at
a
curious animal
.

I lifted the rifle and
lined it up at his head
, but he showed no reaction. Then he took the chunk of flesh from his mouth and extended it towards me. I felt my finger tightening on the trigger, but I couldn’t squeeze it. This kid hadn’t chosen to become what he’d become and killing one more of them didn’t make a whole lot of difference in the grand scheme of things.

I turned
and walked quickly from the room and had just made it to the corridor when I threw up violently.

Outside, the battl
e was all but over. The base had
been overrun and hundreds of the creatures stumbled through the debris, chewing on corpses, fighting each other for the choices tidbits. In the midst of it all, Bronson Chavez stood on the turret of his Abrams tank, one hand clutching the mounted machine gun, the other raised in a clenched fist victory salute. The tank was doing
tight
circles, whipping up a storm of dust.

I headed south, found a gap in the wire along
the
97
^th
S
treet
T
raverse
then crossed the road into the trees. I skirted the reservoir and planned to exit the park near Columbus Circle.
But there were too of many
of the
creatures on the street
s
and I decided it would be better to lay low until nightfall.

I may have dozed for
a while and at one point I heard
the sound of a tank rumbling along Central Park West towards downtown. I imagined Chavez sitting in the turret the wind in his hair, the skyscrapers of which he was now lord and master reflected in his designer shades.

After dark I worked my way west and south towards Hell’s Kitchen.
I had to use the rifle twice and after the second time, the hammer fell on an empty chamber.

I judged it to be after midnight by the time I reached the
clogged roads leading to the
Lincoln Tunnel.
Some of the vehicles stood empty, their doors thrown open by fleeing occupants. Some had been raked by gunfire and a few were burnt out
frames
. In others I saw bodies, some half consumed, some burnt, some remarkably intact. 

I approached the tunnel with i
ts three tubes opened up in front of me like the gaping mouths a three-headed mythological beast, dark and dank and hungry.

I stared into the darkness and was sure I saw movement
. I
heard
noises in the dark
too
, scu
rrying noises, snapping,
low-
pitched growls
and the sickening sound of flesh being torn fro
m bone
.
But then it was silent again
and I
wasn’t sure if what I’d heard was real or
just my imagination.

A
faint breeze drifted out of the tunnel, bringing with it
the stench
of
a charnel house, of congealed blood, putrid, rotting flesh and the aftermath of a deadly fire.

If I wavered, it was only for a moment.
At the other end of this
tube
lay New Jersey and the way south, towards
my daughter. I had made a promise to her, a promise I intended keeping.

I
removed the pistol fr
om my waistband,
slid the safety back, checked the magazine, and cocked the weapon, the way Joe had shown me.
Then I ent
ered the blackness of the tunnel
.

____________________________________________

Dead On My Feet

(Book
Two
of the Zombie D.O.A. Series)

by

J.J. Zep

PUBLISHED BY:

JJ Zep

Copyright © 2012

www.jjzep.com

The city shimmering in the heat on the horizon was Tulsa, Oklahoma. Not that it mattered, it could have been Beijing, China for all I cared. I wasn’t going there.

In the three years since I’d left New York to look for Ruby I’d learned some things. The first was that cities were to be avoided.  Cities were the domain of the Zombies, or the Z’s or Grunts, or whatever you chose to call them.

The only ones brave enough, or stupid enough to go into the cities were the Resurrection Men. And while the rewards were great, and there were plenty of takers, that particular career was normally a short one.  

Not that life outside the cities was that much safer. There were Zombies here too. But you stood a much greater chance of being mobbed, or cornered and eaten alive, in a city.

So you took your chances with the road crews and the cutthroats and the cannibals. Or you took refuge in one of the armed compounds or fortified towns.

That wasn’t an option for me. After I’d left New York, I’d made my way south to Quantico, Virginia, then to Washington DC.

I hadn’t found Ruby in those places.

So I’d headed into West Virginia and from there, south into Kentucky, not knowing what I was looking for. Just knowing, hoping, believing, praying, that somewhere, somehow, I would find my daughter.

Little did I know that while I was looking for Ruby, someone was looking for me, too. It was in Kentucky that The Corporation first found me.

The car I’d bee
n driving had gotten stuck in the mud
while I was trying to round a burnt out tanker. I’d spotted a gas station a few hundred yards down the road and set off in that direction. I found a truck, fitted it with a new battery, siphoned some gas into it and then walked to a diner attached to the gas station to look for some provisions.

I was just about to leave when two men walked in. I’ve since learned that standard attire for Corporation agents is black suits, skinny ties and shades. Back then it was kind of surreal to see two guys, looking like Jake and Elwood Blues walking into a de
serted diner after the world had
ended.