THE
ZOMBIE
BOOK
2
The Zombie Book Series
By Diana Graves
Copyright © 2018 Diana Graves
All rights reserved.
Kindle Edition
♦
4
AS I pedaled away from the shore two things became painfully obvious to me. One, Gerald would never see me as anything but a monster now and two, I sure as hell wasn’t going to pedal clear around the entire fucking peninsula to reach Seattle. My legs were killing me and I was slowly taking in water, so however small it was, there was definitely a leak somewhere in the boat. Instead, I headed straight across the water toward Frenchman’s Cove. Racing toward the setting sun, soon to be hidden behind the silhouette of tall evergreens. If I was lucky I could find shelter before full dark.
About an hour into my journey, I saw a small family of otters in the distance splashing and playing, and the sight of them softened my hardened mind for a moment. The temptation to reminisce about a more innocent time was too great to push away and I soon found myself smiling dumbly at the memory of my late husband and I having a date at the Point Defiance Zoo. We were holding each other tight while we watched the otters play in their large outdoor tank. My smile turned into a deep frown. What happened to all those captive animals at the zoo? Starved to death most likely.
It was darker than I would have liked by the time I reached the cove and my legs were spent. I was hoping for some superhuman strength to go along with my zombie infection. You know, a little superhero bull shit would have been nice, like Spider-Man. No such luck. I got one plus, zombies didn’t eat zombies. I also didn’t feel as cold as I should have. It had to have been in the low fifties, but I felt comfortable in nothing but jeans and a t-shirt.
“Might as well make camp here and start fresh in the morning,” I said to myself after pulling the pedal boat onto the shore.
Eight hours later I watched the sunrise from across the water while drinking a cold cup of instant coffee. I was sitting with my back against a tree and my bare feet on the grass. I had a map laid out to my right and Karen’s zombie book in my lap. I’d read and reread the book throughout the night. I wanted, needed answers but for all she knew about the virus, she didn’t know shit really. She knew about the drug, its chemical structure, but she didn’t know how or why it became a virus or why it affected some people differently. God, I could only imagine how fucking excited and curious she would have been about my condition if she were still alive. Fuck.
I set my cup down beside me and grabbed a pen out of my bag. I needed to document myself. What do I call this, what I am now. Zombie 2.0? I wrote that at the top of the page in big bold letters. Underneath I wrote, “The first thinking, none rotting, none cannibalistic zombie”….but aren’t those the characteristics that make a zombie a zombie? Can I even call myself a zombie? I have the disease in me, but it’s not being expressed the same way. I decided to start with the facts. As they say, just the facts, mam. Time for some serious self-evaluation.
Erin Poe, entry 57. Day 782
Zombie 2.0: Despite a zombie infection, she has clear thoughts and human emotions. She has all the needs and desires that any none infected human would. Except, she doesn’t feel cold or sleep as much and other zombies ignore her. Her skin is almost translucent. All major veins and arteries are visible and her eyes are bloodshot.
I looked inside my bag at the apple Pane had packed for me and even though I hadn’t eaten since yesterday, I wasn’t hungry in the least. So, okay, reduced appetite was another side effect. Of course, these are all symptoms of stress and trauma so only time would tell if anything I was experiencing was permanent.
I shoved the zombie book back in my bag and with my pen, I traced the best possible route to the other side of the peninsula, where I hoped to find another boat to take across the water. I spared a thought for taking the pedal boat with me, but no. It was heavy and bulky and it would only slow me down.
Frenchman’s Cove led me to a nature reserve and Boyce Creek ran straight through it. I followed the creek until I reached a sharp southward bend. According to the map, that meant I was out of the reserve and needed to leave the creek and keep heading East. Not long after leaving the creek I found a large farmhouse. No one was inside it, just dusty furniture and empty cabinets. It was clearly cleaned out a long time ago. But I searched it all the same. I tried to avoid looking at the pictures on the walls and shelves. These people were probably dead and they probably died badly. When I came to the master bedroom I threw my bags on the king sized bed and went to the dresser. Clean socks and underwear were like gold to me. Precious things. I shoved as many pairs as I could in my bags before heading to the master bathroom and checking the medicine cabinets. I didn’t really expect to find anything useful. If someone cleared out all the nonperishable food they sure as shit cleaned the house out of all it’s first aid supplies, too.
When I opened the cabinet a bottle of baby powder fell out and landed on the counter in a giant fluff of baby scented white. My hands and front were covered with it and instinctively I reached for the sink’s faucet. I almost jumped with surprise when water came out.
“Fuck!”
Well water, I guess...I looked to the shower and smiled. After pedaling across the water and hiking through the nature reserve, I was beyond in need of a shower. Quickly, I tore my clothes off. Standing naked, I washed them in the sink using a bar of soap from my bag. I hung the clothes over the door to the master bathroom, giving zero shits that it would make the floor wet as they drip dry. I climbed into the tub, and using the same bar of soap, I took a freezing cold shower. Again, I could tell that the temperature should have bothered me, but it didn’t. I just didn’t feel cold the way I used to.
I was letting the water run down my body when I heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire. I turned the water off and walked swiftly out of the bathroom and across the bedroom to the window. At first, I didn’t see anything but trees and a neighboring house down the road, but I could still hear the gunfire. It didn’t sound far off. I had to get out of there. The last thing I needed was people. People are rarely good these days. More often than not, they are evil fucking bastards because rapists and murderers thrive in lawless brutal times.
My clothes weren’t dry yet. I didn’t expect them to be. I was planning on hanging around for a while. Not anymore. I left those jeans and the shirt behind, but I put on the bra as wet as it was and grabbed some cargo pants and a black tank top from my bags. I was dressed and packed and running out the door when a car raced down the road in front of the house. The Fuck?
The car screeched to a stop at the end of the road and five big men and a woman with long bright auburn hair jumped out with their guns pointed back down the road. I looked back the way they came and sure as shit, there was another vehicle coming up fast. It was a black truck, two men inside and three in the back of the pickup. As soon as they came in range they started shooting at the men and woman standing their ground. I should have bolted right then while everyone was good and distracted, but it was like watching a train wreck. I couldn’t look away.
Right off the bat one of the men in the back of the truck was shot in the head by one of the men standing by the car and using it’s opened doors as a shield. Two of the men by the car were shot down as the truck came to a stop a good distance from the car. I didn’t see who from the truck had made the kill but while I was looking at them I noticed a large solar panel on the top of the truck. They’d converted it to electric! The car was probably an electric as well. Smart.
The auburn haired woman took aim and shot the driver of the truck as he exited the driver’s side door with a shotgun in his hand. The passenger of the truck shot at her but missed and she ran for cover across the road. The remaining three men from the truck advanced on the car at a run. One of them was shot dead. Another one, a big guy wearing jeans tucked into cowboy boots, busted the man who shot his friend in the face with the butt of his rifle, then quickly grabbed him and used him as a human shield while he and the other only remaining truck man shot the last two car men. Then the cowboy threw his human shield to the grown and shot him dead, too.
“Diana!” the cowboy screamed out.
The other truck man, a hunched over tan guy with slicked black hair circled the car in search of Diana, the auburn-haired woman I guessed...
“Come out here. Your men are dead! They had to die, but you know our policy on women, Miss Thing.”
The hunchback looked back at the cowboy and smiled. “We’ll treat you real nice,” he said loudly and in a voice that matched his appearance, high pitched and weasley.
“I’m not going to be one of your fucking kept woman!” I heard Diana yell before she popped out from the side of the road and shot the hunchback in the chest.
The cowboy ran up on her before she could turn the gun on him, and he tackled her to the ground. She put up a good fight, but in the end, all she could do against his massive strength was scream angrily at him while he held her down. Was he going to rape her right then and there? I couldn’t stand by and I couldn’t walk away from that. I dropped my bags, pulled out my long knife and started at a run toward them.
“Get the fuck off of me, fucking bastard!” she screamed as he picked her up with her arms tied behind her back. He was forcing her back to his truck, but she was fighting every step.
“I’m not a fucking breeder. Kill me now, fuck face. Kill me!” Diana yelled in his face.
“Nah, I lost four good men on this run. I’m taking you and your supplies back with me.” He pushed her up against his truck and tore her jeans down with a quick jerk. “But, I think I’ll take it out on your ass right here and now.”
“Fuck you! You fucking small dicked ass-face. Fuck you! Don’t fucking touch me!” she screamed.
He slammed her head against the truck angrily, a hard hit for every word he said, “Shut-the-fuck-up, uppity-bitch.”
She fell on the ground, not unconscious, but not able to do or say much. The cowboy pulled her panties down, revealing her naked ass, which he tenderly pet and lightly slapped before standing up to unzip his own jeans. Diana was moaning her pain as she tried to turn and look up at the asshole standing over her. I saw blood on her forehead as I ran upon them. She turned her head my way, seeing me coming and smiled. He had his erect penis out and in his hands when he finally turned and saw me coming at him, but it was too late. I stabbed him in the stomach before he could say a word. I pulled the knife out and stabbed him again and again as he fell against his truck. His large blue eyes were fixed on me with confusion and pain. Blood erupted from his mouth and I stabbed him one last time for good measure. I could feel my blade hit something hard, probably his backbone. I watched him die and I had to admit, it was a rush. I was breathing heavily and staring at the man’s corpse when Diana interrupted my daze.
“Little help?” she asked in a quiet voice.
I shook my head. “Yeah.” I bent down and cut the thin rope that bound her wrists together and then backed up and gave her space. I was thinking about just walking away right then and there but I wanted to really meet this woman, Diana. There was something about her that drew me in. I watched her get up off the ground and pull her panties and pants up. She steadied herself with a hand on the truck and held her head.
“Thank you,” she said to me without looking up at me, but at the blood on her hands that came from her head wound.
“I hate rapists,” I said.
She did look up at me then. Her brown eye seemed almost a rich amber the way the sun hit them. Her face was a contradicting mess of features. She had a youthful face full of freckles and even skin, but her eyes gave her away as someone older. Her eyebrows were thin, arched and mischievous, but her lips were pale and pouty and just as freckled as the rest of her. All of this was perfectly framed by a long mess of rich auburn hair, which shined in the sun like an orange-gold thing.
“You, too,” was all she said, revealing a gap in her teeth and I felt instantly protective of this woman, who was both strong and fragile, young and old. Strange. She kicked the dead cowboy’s body and giggled when it fell over. “He died with his dick in his hands,” she laughed. I smiled.
AS I pedaled away from the shore two things became painfully obvious to me. One, Gerald would never see me as anything but a monster now and two, I sure as hell wasn’t going to pedal clear around the entire fucking peninsula to reach Seattle. My legs were killing me and I was slowly taking in water, so however small it was, there was definitely a leak somewhere in the boat. Instead, I headed straight across the water toward Frenchman’s Cove. Racing toward the setting sun, soon to be hidden behind the silhouette of tall evergreens. If I was lucky I could find shelter before full dark.
About an hour into my journey, I saw a small family of otters in the distance splashing and playing, and the sight of them softened my hardened mind for a moment. The temptation to reminisce about a more innocent time was too great to push away and I soon found myself smiling dumbly at the memory of my late husband and I having a date at the Point Defiance Zoo. We were holding each other tight while we watched the otters play in their large outdoor tank. My smile turned into a deep frown. What happened to all those captive animals at the zoo? Starved to death most likely.
It was darker than I would have liked by the time I reached the cove and my legs were spent. I was hoping for some superhuman strength to go along with my zombie infection. You know, a little superhero bull shit would have been nice, like Spider-Man. No such luck. I got one plus, zombies didn’t eat zombies. I also didn’t feel as cold as I should have. It had to have been in the low fifties, but I felt comfortable in nothing but jeans and a t-shirt.
“Might as well make camp here and start fresh in the morning,” I said to myself after pulling the pedal boat onto the shore.
Eight hours later I watched the sunrise from across the water while drinking a cold cup of instant coffee. I was sitting with my back against a tree and my bare feet on the grass. I had a map laid out to my right and Karen’s zombie book in my lap. I’d read and reread the book throughout the night. I wanted, needed answers but for all she knew about the virus, she didn’t know shit really. She knew about the drug, its chemical structure, but she didn’t know how or why it became a virus or why it affected some people differently. God, I could only imagine how fucking excited and curious she would have been about my condition if she were still alive. Fuck.
I set my cup down beside me and grabbed a pen out of my bag. I needed to document myself. What do I call this, what I am now. Zombie 2.0? I wrote that at the top of the page in big bold letters. Underneath I wrote, “The first thinking, none rotting, none cannibalistic zombie”….but aren’t those the characteristics that make a zombie a zombie? Can I even call myself a zombie? I have the disease in me, but it’s not being expressed the same way. I decided to start with the facts. As they say, just the facts, mam. Time for some serious self-evaluation.
Erin Poe, entry 57. Day 782
Zombie 2.0: Despite a zombie infection, she has clear thoughts and human emotions. She has all the needs and desires that any none infected human would. Except, she doesn’t feel cold or sleep as much and other zombies ignore her. Her skin is almost translucent. All major veins and arteries are visible and her eyes are bloodshot.
I looked inside my bag at the apple Pane had packed for me and even though I hadn’t eaten since yesterday, I wasn’t hungry in the least. So, okay, reduced appetite was another side effect. Of course, these are all symptoms of stress and trauma so only time would tell if anything I was experiencing was permanent.
I shoved the zombie book back in my bag and with my pen, I traced the best possible route to the other side of the peninsula, where I hoped to find another boat to take across the water. I spared a thought for taking the pedal boat with me, but no. It was heavy and bulky and it would only slow me down.
Frenchman’s Cove led me to a nature reserve and Boyce Creek ran straight through it. I followed the creek until I reached a sharp southward bend. According to the map, that meant I was out of the reserve and needed to leave the creek and keep heading East. Not long after leaving the creek I found a large farmhouse. No one was inside it, just dusty furniture and empty cabinets. It was clearly cleaned out a long time ago. But I searched it all the same. I tried to avoid looking at the pictures on the walls and shelves. These people were probably dead and they probably died badly. When I came to the master bedroom I threw my bags on the king sized bed and went to the dresser. Clean socks and underwear were like gold to me. Precious things. I shoved as many pairs as I could in my bags before heading to the master bathroom and checking the medicine cabinets. I didn’t really expect to find anything useful. If someone cleared out all the nonperishable food they sure as shit cleaned the house out of all it’s first aid supplies, too.
When I opened the cabinet a bottle of baby powder fell out and landed on the counter in a giant fluff of baby scented white. My hands and front were covered with it and instinctively I reached for the sink’s faucet. I almost jumped with surprise when water came out.
“Fuck!”
Well water, I guess...I looked to the shower and smiled. After pedaling across the water and hiking through the nature reserve, I was beyond in need of a shower. Quickly, I tore my clothes off. Standing naked, I washed them in the sink using a bar of soap from my bag. I hung the clothes over the door to the master bathroom, giving zero shits that it would make the floor wet as they drip dry. I climbed into the tub, and using the same bar of soap, I took a freezing cold shower. Again, I could tell that the temperature should have bothered me, but it didn’t. I just didn’t feel cold the way I used to.
I was letting the water run down my body when I heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire. I turned the water off and walked swiftly out of the bathroom and across the bedroom to the window. At first, I didn’t see anything but trees and a neighboring house down the road, but I could still hear the gunfire. It didn’t sound far off. I had to get out of there. The last thing I needed was people. People are rarely good these days. More often than not, they are evil fucking bastards because rapists and murderers thrive in lawless brutal times.
My clothes weren’t dry yet. I didn’t expect them to be. I was planning on hanging around for a while. Not anymore. I left those jeans and the shirt behind, but I put on the bra as wet as it was and grabbed some cargo pants and a black tank top from my bags. I was dressed and packed and running out the door when a car raced down the road in front of the house. The Fuck?
The car screeched to a stop at the end of the road and five big men and a woman with long bright auburn hair jumped out with their guns pointed back down the road. I looked back the way they came and sure as shit, there was another vehicle coming up fast. It was a black truck, two men inside and three in the back of the pickup. As soon as they came in range they started shooting at the men and woman standing their ground. I should have bolted right then while everyone was good and distracted, but it was like watching a train wreck. I couldn’t look away.
Right off the bat one of the men in the back of the truck was shot in the head by one of the men standing by the car and using it’s opened doors as a shield. Two of the men by the car were shot down as the truck came to a stop a good distance from the car. I didn’t see who from the truck had made the kill but while I was looking at them I noticed a large solar panel on the top of the truck. They’d converted it to electric! The car was probably an electric as well. Smart.
The auburn haired woman took aim and shot the driver of the truck as he exited the driver’s side door with a shotgun in his hand. The passenger of the truck shot at her but missed and she ran for cover across the road. The remaining three men from the truck advanced on the car at a run. One of them was shot dead. Another one, a big guy wearing jeans tucked into cowboy boots, busted the man who shot his friend in the face with the butt of his rifle, then quickly grabbed him and used him as a human shield while he and the other only remaining truck man shot the last two car men. Then the cowboy threw his human shield to the grown and shot him dead, too.
“Diana!” the cowboy screamed out.
The other truck man, a hunched over tan guy with slicked black hair circled the car in search of Diana, the auburn-haired woman I guessed...
“Come out here. Your men are dead! They had to die, but you know our policy on women, Miss Thing.”
The hunchback looked back at the cowboy and smiled. “We’ll treat you real nice,” he said loudly and in a voice that matched his appearance, high pitched and weasley.
“I’m not going to be one of your fucking kept woman!” I heard Diana yell before she popped out from the side of the road and shot the hunchback in the chest.
The cowboy ran up on her before she could turn the gun on him, and he tackled her to the ground. She put up a good fight, but in the end, all she could do against his massive strength was scream angrily at him while he held her down. Was he going to rape her right then and there? I couldn’t stand by and I couldn’t walk away from that. I dropped my bags, pulled out my long knife and started at a run toward them.
“Get the fuck off of me, fucking bastard!” she screamed as he picked her up with her arms tied behind her back. He was forcing her back to his truck, but she was fighting every step.
“I’m not a fucking breeder. Kill me now, fuck face. Kill me!” Diana yelled in his face.
“Nah, I lost four good men on this run. I’m taking you and your supplies back with me.” He pushed her up against his truck and tore her jeans down with a quick jerk. “But, I think I’ll take it out on your ass right here and now.”
“Fuck you! You fucking small dicked ass-face. Fuck you! Don’t fucking touch me!” she screamed.
He slammed her head against the truck angrily, a hard hit for every word he said, “Shut-the-fuck-up, uppity-bitch.”
She fell on the ground, not unconscious, but not able to do or say much. The cowboy pulled her panties down, revealing her naked ass, which he tenderly pet and lightly slapped before standing up to unzip his own jeans. Diana was moaning her pain as she tried to turn and look up at the asshole standing over her. I saw blood on her forehead as I ran upon them. She turned her head my way, seeing me coming and smiled. He had his erect penis out and in his hands when he finally turned and saw me coming at him, but it was too late. I stabbed him in the stomach before he could say a word. I pulled the knife out and stabbed him again and again as he fell against his truck. His large blue eyes were fixed on me with confusion and pain. Blood erupted from his mouth and I stabbed him one last time for good measure. I could feel my blade hit something hard, probably his backbone. I watched him die and I had to admit, it was a rush. I was breathing heavily and staring at the man’s corpse when Diana interrupted my daze.
“Little help?” she asked in a quiet voice.
I shook my head. “Yeah.” I bent down and cut the thin rope that bound her wrists together and then backed up and gave her space. I was thinking about just walking away right then and there but I wanted to really meet this woman, Diana. There was something about her that drew me in. I watched her get up off the ground and pull her panties and pants up. She steadied herself with a hand on the truck and held her head.
“Thank you,” she said to me without looking up at me, but at the blood on her hands that came from her head wound.
“I hate rapists,” I said.
She did look up at me then. Her brown eye seemed almost a rich amber the way the sun hit them. Her face was a contradicting mess of features. She had a youthful face full of freckles and even skin, but her eyes gave her away as someone older. Her eyebrows were thin, arched and mischievous, but her lips were pale and pouty and just as freckled as the rest of her. All of this was perfectly framed by a long mess of rich auburn hair, which shined in the sun like an orange-gold thing.
“You, too,” was all she said, revealing a gap in her teeth and I felt instantly protective of this woman, who was both strong and fragile, young and old. Strange. She kicked the dead cowboy’s body and giggled when it fell over. “He died with his dick in his hands,” she laughed. I smiled.
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