Day 312 - Untitled Zombie Story - Chapter 1 (1165 Words)

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Untitled Zombie story

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 1

“If we cover them in petrol and set them alight then …”

“Then we have a thousand human torches and we burn ourselves too! Come on that’s insane, we may as well douse ourselves in petrol!”

“No, no they’ll burn and burn and they won’t try and put it out, eventually they’ll either cook in which case their limbs will stop working or the bits that keep a zombie being a zombie will be destroyed, you know like cooking the brain might be as effective as putting a bullet in it. It could work!”

“We don’t really have the time to experiment now do we?”

“We could just light one and see how it goes?”

“There’s never just one.”

“There’s never just one, right.”

The view from the top of the building they were on was unimpeded by any others, it was the tallest in the block and had a clear line of sight across the town. It was not a big town, not by any means, but there was still a town center when it had been a functioning town, before the GZA, the thing that broke humanity in a few hard nights.

It was not the skill or the abilities of the Zombies that made the difference, it was the overwhelmingly stupid nature of people unwilling to believe in the Great Zombie Apocalypse. If one appeared and started threatening you, then ninety nine times out of a hundred you’d think it was a joke. The shooting people in the head, the decapitations and blowing up of Zombies? That came later when it was being taken seriously, one hundred percent of the time.

The damage had been done with the stupid masses, and then when the world fell apart, or at least the people in this country had fallen apart, the spread of Zombies was too high to stop the collapse of society.

They were easy to outrun, but if you were cornered by a pack there was no easy way out. You could get backed into a corner and overrun easily enough, even with an automatic weapon, you’d have to hit head shots consistently and accurately each time or you’d waste a load of bullets, and there was a limited supply of those.

So the best thing to do was avoid, but today James and Derek got trapped.

It was a silly mistake really, they were not paying attention and then from nowhere a zombie came within inches of biting into the back of James’s head. Derek had spotted the maneuver as the zombie shuffled and tripped on the way in, and he pulled, shot and killed it in record time.

He was very pleased with himself at first, his pride in the speed and accuracy of what was essentially a quick draw competition, guns versus biting, was palpable. Derek had been in shock for about ten minutes afterwards, saying nothing and letting the ringing in his ears die down before speaking.

“Did you have to shoot it?” He finally said, the shaking in his body betrayed in his voice.

“Gee, thanks James for saving my life! You’re welcome Derek, think nothing of it! Oh no, I insist James! I’d be dog food if you hadn’t shot it!” there was no doubt the played out conversation was in sarcasm, but Derek was looking over James shoulder and could see a rusting car down the block moving under the combined weight of the undead likely pushing at it.

They had made barriers to keep the town as safe as possible, it was not fool proof but they had grown lax in their personal security, that’s how the lone zombie that Derek had shot had snuck in, and they had not been on the lookout.

“They heard the shot.” James pointed at the car moving and Derek too understood that this was not a good sign.

“Shit, we need to get to cover.” Derek looked around for the best place to go, but James was already picking a place and pointing at it.

“Roof?”

“Roof.” Derek agreed and they picked up the bags of supplies and headed to the building in the middle of town, knowing that they could barricade themselves in it pretty easily, the windows were barred on the first two floors and the doors secured.  They had already been in the bank’s offices earlier that day from scouting the town’s resources, a job they had been at for the last three to four days.

They closed the front door behind them and made it to the roof, there were guns and ammo stashed in the building, they had put stashes in many of the buildings in the town center, knowing that if they ever got cut off or into trouble that a strategic point was not far away.

From the rooftop they could see that the rusted car that had been blocking the road into the square had given way and the horde was clambering over it in a larger stumbling group. A few of the undead creatures, whatever they were now, had perished in the exercise, stamped to death by hundreds of feet trampling on them as they climbed over the small obstacle.

The car was rusted and in bad shape but now it looked like the floor of an abattoir as well, it was not a pretty sight.  They could see that the zombies who were in the town, outside of the barricaded center and in the outskirts of the town were joining the horde.

Whenever the scent of the hunt was on, when the pack or the horde was congregating, there was a hive mind like activity that drew in the others, like some unknown signal that congregated them. When one of their own was freshly dead, they were drawn to the body, knowing perhaps that where the action had been was the place to start.

So not far from the base of the building they were in a few hundred zombies were milling about, winding themselves up and moaning in that throaty and terrifying gargling way they had.

That had been a day and a half ago when they had fled to the roof, and now it was time to think about a new strategy, they would only have enough food for a few more days until they needed to move to a new building and find a new stash.

That was easy enough in general terms, but once they were on the ground they would need to relocate fast, secure the new location and then the horde would know where they were. The was it was right now there were hundreds, maybe over a thousand of them below in the streets, surrounding the building they were in and the few close to it, they were well spread out. Once they committed to a new building then it would be concentrated and they would have to fight or flee undetected.

Neither option looked that attractive.