Infectious (Book 1): Death is Just the Beginning Read online

  “Well, I sort of am. I’m not like these guys though” I nodded towards the bodies, as if an explanation was needed, “I don’t randomly chew peoples feet or anything”

  “Yeah, I know you don’t. Like I said, I’ve met your kind before. Where are you going anyway? I’d stay away from the Northwood settlement if I were you; they won’t be as understanding as me”

  “Northwood?” I wasn’t familiar with the name, and was she saying there are more like me? I decided not to let her know of my ignorance of other hybrids like me.

  “Yes, Northwood! Are you getting hungry for meat or just staring at my tits for fun?”

  I didn’t even realise I was looking, but now she had said it all I could think about was her chest! It was pretty impressive I must admit, but she was right; I was getting hungry and this gun toting hottie was starting to look like prime steak.

  “OK buddy, that’s enough”. With a dead chicken in one hand, and the biggest handgun I had ever seen in the other, a skinny Asian guy sauntered through the rusting cars to stand at the edge of the ‘clearing’.

  “Take this and let’s go”. Throwing the chicken to me the Asian turned to the woman, “come on Tanith, we’ll take him back with us. Just don’t turn your back on him ’til that chicken’s gone!”

  I caught the dead offering in my right hand and, taking a tentative sniff at it, said “Thanks pal, but I would rather not. I need freshly dead or living – this thing is useless”

  “Fair enough Shambles, I won’t keep you then” he raised the pistol to point it at the centre of my head.

  “Woah! Malik hold on a second, if Zomchops can hold off ’til we get back then he will be Okay. Shambles, follow Malik and stay in front of me where I can see you”

  I tossed the chicken aside and, stepping over corpses, walked toward Malik who was starting to walk away but still glaring over his shoulder at Tanith. The three of us left the road behind as we moved into the trees, the bushes giving way to a pleasant and spacious wood. The acid rain had not done very much harm in large parts of the country, though large downpours could still be extremely harmful.

  The effects of past showers could be seen all around us; one tree was dead down one side, the trunk had been poisoned by its own roots that had, unwittingly, carried the contaminated water to the tree. Everywhere, the ground was littered with the skeletons of small animals, as well as the occasional human skeleton or partially decomposed corpse.We continued on through the wood, with me silent in the middle and wondering what the Hell was going on and how I could get out of this. The sounds of camp could be heard drifting through the trees after a while; chatter, pots and pans and the unmistakable smell of a fire burning were starting to get me even more worried.

  If these guys were zombie hunters, then why were they keeping me around instead of playing it safe and dropping me? If they were just scavengers, or traders, why not take the same precaution? I knew that whatever was going on, it could not be good and I had to get away from these people.

  As I thought about all of this, we were already upon the camp. The first thing I noticed were the two infected with chains around their necks, looped around pegs in the ground near the edge of the camp. When I managed to tear my eyes away from that spectacle, I looked around the place properly.

  Half a dozen people, of various sizes and ages but all armed, were sat around a campfire eating from metal plates. Two women, who were clearly not long for this world, were serving those seated with food and drink. Off to one side, on the edge of the camp, it seemed everyone had piled their bags and equipment. This camp was obviously temporary, but whether or not that was good for me remained to be seen.

  “Welcome to the group Shambles. You will find some live rats in a cage near our gear over there, go and eat” Tanith put the muzzle of her gun to the back of my head as she added “Now”. Obviously I was not the only one to notice the lack of infection in our small rodent friends.

  I sat and watched the two chained infected as I bit into the soft neck of my squirming rat. They seemed docile, they were just kind of stood around staring vacantly into the middle distance, indifferent to the humans around them. I had to wonder how much of their minds these creatures had, whether there was any humanity left at all or even any sentience. I had never been this close to any infected that wasn’t trying to tear my face off or didn’t look baffled that I was even possible. I would, in any other situation have felt fear and loathing for these things, but now there was just pity.

  How close had I come to being just like them, to being a brain dead and slavering husk?

  “They’re well fed, in case you wondered. That’s why they are not attacking” Tanith sat down next to me, gesturing to the two captive Infected ith a half-eaten apple.

  “But I’ve been attacked by infected that were in the middle of feeding, so what gives with these two?”

  “It took a while Shambles, but we trained them. Sort of anyway; you see, they are all about instinct. We just provide them with suitable outlets and take care of their food”

  “Outlets?” I looked at her like you would look at a kid eating glue, “You mean like… Sports and stuff to channel their aggression?”

  “Are you really that fucking stupid, or is it the virus talking? They fight and kill for food. When they have food, they fight to protect it. That is pretty much all they have, so that’s what we give them. Take away the need for conflict, and the conflict stops. We should be as lucky” Tanith looked over at the infected, chewing her apple as she watched them lie down in the grass.

  “But you said outlets, what other needs do they have that need to be channelled?”

  Tanith looked at me, a smile threatening to crease her mouth “They have energy to spare, and they get antsy and aggressive if they aren’t active enough. To combat that, we put them to work”

  “Yeah? Doing what?”

  Tanith answered around the beaming smile that now dominated her grubby, but still beautiful face “You’ll see George, you’ll see”

  Chapter Three

  I wandered around the camp relatively unhindered, the others keeping a wary eye on me, especially when I ventured near the Infected, but they made no move to restrict my movement. In fact, they didn’t seem to mind what I did so long as I stayed inside the camp.

  The chained up zombies still puzzled me, they were tied up like pets or horses. They really did seem quite content to just sit there in the sun, gazing around and scratching themselves. Occasionally they would swat each other, apparently for amusement, with the flats of their hands. Once in a while somebody would toss a live chicken or rat to them; such tidbits were torn apart by the pair with bare hands and teeth. Something else that I found curious: With a reassurance of regular meals, the zombies had no problem sharing the food they were given. The smaller of the two, and the one nearest me, reached out with his hand to me. In its grip was a chunk of meat from the chicken.

  I looked at him and shook my head, the zombie promptly sank its own rotten teeth into the meat. I wondered if this gesture was indicative of intelligence, or whether it was just a primal instinct to share plentiful food with other members of the group for the good of the whole. Whatever was going on in the heads of the undead, it clearly wasn’t out of the ordinary; this little band of humans didn’t seem in the least bit surprised.

  Craig, an elderly man I had spoken to had tried to explain; “They all do it, son. I’ve seen groups of these freaks in the wild do the same thing. They seem happier doing it after they have been tamed though, because they sometimes offer us some grub too. They know they will get fed you see, so they don’t get defensive over it. Dogs were the same, remember those? I bet every animal is like that to one degree or another. We ain’t any different kid”

  “What? How in Hell do you tame a zombie? Every single one of these things that I have seen has one thing in common: They all wanted to people and animals apart with their bare hands!”

  “Look son”, Craig replied rubbing his eyes, “In
the beginning they were all just filled with this white hot hunger, they would eat ‘til they threw up and then they would just carry on eating. Their bodies were burning calories almost as fast as they were taking them in, that’s why the conversion rate was so low; most of the infected were just killed outright because their bodies couldn’t take the punishment.

  The ones that survived eventually settled down and became like those two chained up over there. Trouble is, with the uninfected living in walled off cities now, and most of the wildlife either dead or infected, food is running out for these guys.”

  I took a moment to think about this before answering, “So, all we have to do is wait for these things to starve to death or fall apart? We don’t need a cure?”

  “It would look that way kid, but consider this: They know they are in trouble, their brains may have been put back to their ‘factory settings’ but they know. And they also know where they can find lots of food. If they ever get organised, and there is no reason why they couldn’t, then we are seriously fucked.

  The way we see it, we got three options: One, we hope and pray that there is someone left alive that can figure out a cure and save all of us. Two, we gear up and wipe them all out before they do the same to us. Or three, we breed rats to feed them all.

  I don’t know about you, but I reckon only one of those three can actually be done. Which is why we are trying to train captured infected to fight for us”

  “So you’re actually going to war with zombies….. Using zombies? That has to be the dumbest idea I ever heard. Me, I’m trying to get to the HPA. I reckon that if my blood is infected but I’m basically OK, then maybe they can test it. Rats seem completely immune to the virus, there has to be something in mine and the rats blood that they can use. Right?”

  “I don’t know kid, you better speak to Church. Right now there is some debate on whether or not you are one of us, or one of them. Either way son, don’t try to run”

  John Church was sat at the furthest edge of the camp, perched on top of a crate with a large machete across his knees. Never taking his eyes from the blade that he was busy sharpening, Church spoke up just as I was about to open my mouth.

  “Do I need to worry about you George? Are you one missed snack away from turning native?”

  “I need raw, fresh meat or I do tend to get bitey if that’s what you mean? If you’re asking if I am able to control it then all I can say is, I’m getting better at it. As long as I am not left to go hungry then I’m just like you. I just have an odd diet, that’s all”

  I looked at him straight in the eye, trying to ignore the urge rip his face off and stomp it into the dirt. I had every reason to be afraid of these people, but they were beginning to piss me off.

  “Odd? Ha! You ain’t wrong there George. You may be different from the other Shamblers, but don’t think we won’t bury you next to them if you so much as look at us funny”

  Church laid the machete on the ground next to him, never taking his eyes off of me as he did so.

  “We think we have a way to stop the zombies from taking over completely George. Sooner or later they are going to attack the settlements, in force, and right now we couldn’t do anything about it.

  Those two poor bastards over there though, they have shown us a way forward. If we can train more of their kind then we will have the best defence possible against these freaks. A hundred or so trained zombies around the perimeter of each town to begin with; their numbers can be added to if needs be. Nothing, alive or otherwise, would be able to get through no matter how many bodies they throw at our lines.

  When the attacks stop, we can just leave them chained up to either rip each other apart, or just run out of steam”

  Church stood and looked me up and down saying, “You probably think I’m nuts, but if we can do it with two of them then we can do it with a thousand. We will have our army George, or we will die”

  I watched Church walk off toward the fire, picking a corn cob from a spit as he got there. The more I thought about the plan that Church had just outlined, the more I thought that these people were just plain crazy. A zombie army? Even if these crazy bastards did manage to train some of them, how would they be able to manage larger numbers? There wasn’t enough meat to go around and when that run out all they would have left was a shit load of pissed off and hungry Shamblers to deal with.

  No, as far as I was concerned the only sensible option was to get myself to the HPA. It had to be staffed, it just had to be; otherwise what was the point? A life without hope was no life at all, and it was the only thing that was keeping me going.

  Ignoring the fact that I, if I’m completely honest with myself, actually enjoy ripping and tearing human flesh with my teeth, wanted to return to ‘normal’ as quickly as I could. I had to get away from these freaks, and for once I wasn’t talking about the infected. These people were dangerous and if it wasn’t a zombie apocalypse then it would have been something else; extremists are dangerous no matter the cause or situation.

  I just hope the infected are not also being used as alarms, because as soon as it gets dark I am out of here!

  Chapter Four

  Keeping my eyes on the people around the fire, I started to slowly back up toward the treeline. It had gotten dark quite quickly, it usually does these days with no electric light to fool the senses. This lack of light pollution also made the night sky an unbelievably different scene to gaze at; it seemed as though the cosmos was putting on a free show every night, all you had to do was look up.

  As beautiful as it is, I can’t look at it without an immense feeling of loss and sorrow because it is a constant reminder of everything that we, humanity, have lost.

  Eyes still on the fire, and the madmen around it, my back finally made contact with one of the trees. Slowly, carefully, I turned as I began to rise and stand by the trunk. My usually keen eyesight was practically useless after looking at the campfire, I couldn’t even see the tree trunk that was now inches from my nose. Reaching forward, I placed both hands on the surprisingly soft bark, involuntarily giving the two mounds that were now in my palms a gentle squeeze.

  The tree responded by putting a gun to the side of my head, my night-vision restored I could now see the most beautiful tree that I had ever wanted to climb.

  “One word, just one sound Shambles, and I’ll ventilate your head”. Is it wrong that I find this woman even more attractive when she is threatening to kill me? She had moved closer so that our noses were almost touching, and to my embarrassment I had a weapon of my own digging into her hip threatening to go off. Either Tanith didn’t notice, or she just chose to ignore it. I just wish that I could have.

  I slowly let go of her breasts and let my hands dangle down by my sides, trying hard not to even breath loudly.

  “Hold on to my belt, Shambles, and walk with me”. Tanith lowered her weapon and turned her back to me, doing as she instructed I took her belt in one hand and tried my best not to step on her heel as I followed her. To say that I was surprised when she led me into the woods and away from the camp would be a major understatement. I tried to think of why she would lead me away from the camp but my mind was totally blank. She obviously didn’t want to kill me; she could very easily just shoot me, and tell Church I was trying to escape and it wouldn’t even be a lie.

  Several ‘romantic’ notions barged their way into my head, and I pushed them back out again just as quickly – there was no way that Tanith would be interested in me. She was a dead ringer for an actress, back in the old days, named Michelle Rodriguez. I was just a dead ringer. Stunningly beautiful Vs technically dead guy? Yeah right. There was only one option left, but that didn’t make sense either, unless I was not the only one to notice that Church is a fucking lunatic.

  As we moved deeper into the woods a more immediate concern began to form in my mind. The infected are usually more active at night, the time that potential food is either asleep or too tired to run. Being in the woods was always risky, but being in
the woods at night was just downright stupid.

  As images of all the gruesome things that could go wrong began to fill my mind, the shadows around us started taking on sinister shapes. Branches were grabbing hands with long taloned fingers, rocks on the ground were skulls and bodies trying to trip. The further we went, the darker it seemed to get, and although I realised that it was just my imagination it didn’t seem to help.

  My nerves were already frayed, my eyes darting everywhere, ears sensitive to every single sound in the trees and my breath was catching in my throat at every sight and sound. So when Tanith suddenly flew to the side and her belt was ripped out of my hand I nearly died. Again.

  I stood there, frozen with fear and fighting to keep the scream inside of me when I heard one anyway – Tanith!

  “HELP ME! GET THIS FUCKING THING OFF ME, GEOOOOOORGE!!”

  Despite the better judgement of my brain, I lurched toward her voice. Her laboured breathing punctuated with the sounds of a fierce struggle, snarling and screaming mingling together in a horrifying chorus of noise. Clearing my head as best I could I concentrated on moving my legs and arms in proper order, powering myself forward and falling over on to the thrashing mass on the ground before me.

  As soon as my hands touched the fur I knew what was happening, and I knew that Tanith was almost certainly dead no matter what happened next. Not knowing exactly what part of the Hound I was holding, I gripped with both hands, taking as much of its flesh into my fists as I could manage and pulling my hands apart from each other with all the strength that I could muster.

  The creature underneath me turned its attention to me, the feeling of its body being pulled open proving to be enough to distract it from its meal. A huge head turned to me, eyes glowing red in the darkness fixing me with an anger that only a ravenous beast could summon.

  Blood was pouring over my hands and between my fingers, a hot stinking river of infected blood was pumping out of the massive wound I was creating in the creatures flank. A massive jaw snapped at my face as the Hound heaved its body around to attack me, its furious eyes never leaving my own.