Battlefield Z Read online

  BATTLEFIELD

  Z

  By

  Chris Lowry

  Copyright 2016 by Lowry Publishing

  Orlando FL

  All Rights Reserved

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  Visit www.ChrisLowrybooks.com

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  BATTLEFIELD Z

  CHAPTER ONE

  A lot of heroes in books and movies are glib, sarcastic cynics who try to save the world despite knowing all about things that go bump in the night. I am rarely glib, fight cynicism like a bad head cold and like to think I make the things that go bump in the night check the closet before they go to sleep.

  I am a world class bad ass in my own mind.

  No one else sees me like this.

  It could be the dad bod. I hate that the media picked it up and made it a big joke. Formerly athletic men gone a little soft in the middle. That's me. Big arms, big shoulders, big thick torso. I hit the gym and drink beer.

  Sue me.

  Actually don't cause I'm two ex-wives and three kids into child support so there really wouldn't be much you could get. Blood from stone and all that rot.

  Still, I like my life.

  Most of the time.

  I live in a small subdivision north of Orlando, forty five minutes from the Atlantic Ocean to the East, and an hour and a half from the Gulf to the West. I run. I work, probably too much, and I have children who live out of state with my first ex.

  Any money I don't have earmarked for living here goes to travel to see them. I do it once a month.

  Or I did.

  Til the ZomBggedon came. Or the Z files. Or the Z war's, whatever you want to call them.

  I'm talking Zombies.

  Capital Z.

  No glib remarks here.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I'm a big fan of Zombie movies. I watched every season of The Walking Dead, sat through a couple of dozen showings of Day of the Dead, and even liked the new PR campaigns by Zombie advocates that made them soft and cuddly brain eaters in iZombie. Like a million other comic book loving Americans who grew up knowing about the Z menace, I was pretty sure I could handle any outbreak.

  Ha.

  Yes, that was me laughing out loud. I can even affect a British accent. Ha, I say.

  When we first heard about it on the news, everyone said it was FLAKKA. Flakka is a drug made from smoking bath salts. Now who was the first idiot who took a look at the bath salts in crystal bottles and said, "Hey Dude, let's smoke that up?"

  Seriously, it's no wonder we lost 6 Billion people in a year. People are stupid.

  There was the case in Miami where the guy ate someone's face. The cops shot him.

  Then folks got mad at cops shooting too many people, so they stopped using their weapons. That's when the guy in Tampa lost his mind.

  I'm speculating here, because no one is really sure how it spread. Pockets of Z population popped up all over. News teams reported it. Cops and first responders got exposed to blood or the virus or bit.

  Then the movies got it right.

  Or maybe we've seen so many movies that the collective unconscious of the world created the symptoms and foregone conclusions.

  Like I said, big dumb dad here, not rocket scientist. Miami. Tampa. By the time it spread to Orlando, reports were rolling in from all over the world. New York got hit hard. Atlanta. Los Angeles.

  Texas was the worst due to three huge population centers. Dallas. San Antonio. Houston. Battlefield Z. Texas sized.

  Big cities were nasty and fell quickly. Smaller towns emptied out as a scared populace fled for big cities. They were met by the waiting dead, so the infection spread.

  It could have been life imitating art.

  If it wasn't so damn ugly.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The change happened slowly. There is a moment when things are occurring, a short window in time where events happen that seem to be random, but in hindsight it's easy to see they are connected. A cop shoots a guy in Dallas, a husband kills and eats his wife and kids in Tampa, thirty three homeless people are found slaughtered in an encampment in Baltimore. Just normal random acts of violence across the United States on any given day.

  Until you connect the dots.

  Cop shoots zombie. Zombie dad kills family. Zombie rampage kills homeless.

  Now it's quiet and the electricity is gone, we're reduced to reading by firelight. Or thinking, which I do a lot of, not glibly I might add.

  But I miss television.

  "I wish we had TV," said Peggy.

  It wasn't the first time I thought she was psychic.

  "Ugh," I grunted.

  I could grunt with the best of them.

  "What did you used to watch?"

  Peggy sat across the fire beside Brian. They weren't quite shoulder to shoulder but close enough that they could lean their heads together to talk softly.

  That was my rule if you were going to stay with me.

  "Talk softly. Carry a sharp stick."

  The soft talk was because noise seemed to attract them. The sharp stick was for when it did.

  "Full House," Peggy said just above a whisper. "Gilmore Girls. The Walking Dead."

  She giggled at the last one.

  Brian and I snorted at the same time.

  Way back in the before time, I was a self help fan. I read a lot of books about the law of attraction and how strong the power of thought could be. Some nights I wondered if we willed the Z's into existence, or if George Romero and Haitian VooDoo Priestesses just worked on some premonition level that tapped into our communal fears. The Walking Dead got a lot of it right, especially the human reaction. I thanked God that we didn't get 28 Days Later, or the human race was screwed.

  I looked around the living room where we were camped and thought "We might be screwed anyway."

  "I'm going to patrol," I said.

  I stood up and gently set two logs into the metal fire pit we had dragged in from the back patio. Every move was slow and deliberate, calculated to be quiet.

  We were on the bottom floor of a giant Victorian home, set back from the road in what once had been a nicer part of town. Brian stumbled across it as he was foraging and brought it back to the group as a place to camp for a night or two.

  He didn't go in to check it. We never went into a house alone.

  I walked around the bottom rooms. We had made camp in the living room which took up an entire half of the bottom floor and connected to the worthless kitchen. There was a fireplace on one wall we didn't dare use, since the smoke would draw attention from Marauders or Bandits.

  The first thing we did was clear all the rooms to make sure we were alone.

  A lot of people had locked loved ones in bathrooms or bedrooms or even attics as the virus took hold. I guess they just weren't thinking that mom or pop or little Suzy would be a danger to anyone who decided to pillage their home after they were gone. Or maybe they did and it was a punishment for raiding.

  Either way this home had been clear. No Z's, no humans.

  We took the day's haul and piled it up in the middle of the living room then went to work preparing the house for the night.

  First we pushed all the furniture up against the windows and doors. We took blankets and sheets and covered the windows in thick layers. We took mattresses off the beds if we could, and cushions and pillows to build little nests for sleeping.

  Once the house was secure, we divided up the food, and set aside rations for tomorrow before we started to settle in.

  We set watch to patrol the windows and doors so we would alwa
ys have someone awake to shout a warning.

  This house still had food in the cabinets, so we were lucky. Brian dragged the fire pit inside while Mario and I gathered firewood for the night.

  We locked ourselves in before twilight.

  We needed sleep, the Z's did not.

  And worse, a lot of Humans roamed the night too.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "All clear," I said and settled back on the cushions on the floor.

  "We're not putting out much light," said Brian. "We should be good."

  In the corner, Deb, Julie and Scott sat in front of a nylon three man tent. No one was sure if they were a threesome, or a couple with a third wheel, but we ran across them a day ago and they threw in with us.

  Melissa, Harriet, Hannah and Anna occupied a queen size mattress on the floor just beside them.

  "What is the plan for tomorrow?" asked Deb. She was in her forties, sliding down the back slope of attractive. But she had to be tough. She was still alive.

  "I just want to say we need to make a plan that extends beyond tomorrow," Brian looked me in the eye then glanced away.

  "I know you probably don't want to go over this again, but we need to find a place and make it our own. A base. A fort."

  The others nodded.

  "You're all free to stay here or do that," I said. "I'm going North."

  There were ten of us total and I had never declared myself leader or dictator or anything. Truth be told I could probably move faster and do better on my own.

  That's how dangerous the world was now.

  "I think we should stay here," continued Brian. "This is a good neighborhood, it doesn't look like it was impacted much. We had a good raid today, and we could build up our supplies here."

  He leaned forward and held up his hand to tick off his reasons.

  I watched him because he had done this before.

  "This house is secure. We can fortify it. The lake is two blocks from away, so we could fish for food. We could make the fence around the backyard stronger. There are untouched resources in the houses around. We could last for months."

  I nodded. I made a mental note to ask Brian what he had been in the past life. He was pretty good are persuasion and negotiation. I bet he was one of those managers who did the “power of the team” speeches. I bet I would have hired him or worked for him.

  "It's too close to the City," I said.

  Orlando was forty miles away, but the suburbs and bedroom communities extended to within fifteen miles of Mt. Dora. We had the National Forest between us and the two point five million population of Z's.

  Okay maybe they weren't all Z's. I wasn't going to make a statistical calculation for any projection. Here's what I knew.

  There were too damn many of them, and too few of us, and every day those numbers changed.

  "But we can rest here," said Brian. "Recover and move on."

  "I'm going to keep moving," I said.

  That effectively ended the argument. Brian settled back on the mattress and curled up next to Peggy.

  "Can you at least tell us where we're going to stop?" he asked.

  "Arkansas."

  "That's a thousand miles away."

  "Yes. But my kids are there."

  "Are you sure they're still there?" Julie called from their corner. She was in her thirties, sharp and outspoken. I pegged her for a lawyer once, a skill wasted now. Z's didn't give good depositions, what with the biting and all.

  "I'm going to go check."

  "Then what?" asked Brain.

  "There are lakes in Arkansas," I answered. "And a couple million less Z's."

  "Do you think it's safer?" Peggy asked, her eyes wide circles of fear.

  "It could be. Or it could be more of the same."

  "It's all the same," said Brian. "All of us are just waiting to die."

  "Then that's the plan tomorrow," I looked at Deb. "We fight for one more day."

  She nodded and I looked around at the rest of them. They nodded too, which is why I guessed they followed me.

  I was pretty damn good at fighting for one more day.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  We made it through the night without incidence, which meant two nights in a row. I didn't like it.

  Not that I wanted the incidents to happen. I just didn't think we needed to feel safe. Safe meant sloppy.

  Usually something happened to keep us from getting sloppy. A Z bumped against the door, or a giant flock of them moaned and limped down the street.

  Or a truck rumbled by.

  That noise was almost scarier than the Z's.

  Like I said Humans came out of this plague worse than they went in.

  I had a theory about that too. Most of the good people died, which made me wonder for a moment about myself and the company I was currently keeping.

  Cops dead. Firefighters dead. Doctor's and Nurses dead. They were on the front line of the plague and it was their duty, their nature to help. What they got for their effort was bit.

  That left a lot of bad people to fill the vacuum and they did not survive by helping. They survived by killing. By taking. By being some real tough son's of bitches.

  I fit right in.

  I wasn't a cop, or a soldier, or anything out of the ordinary. I was a mid level manager hiding an anger issue that I delved into "personal development" to help. It worked for awhile, and when it didn't I jumped into running. It's tough to be pissed when you're exhausted.

  Then this happened.

  Suddenly it didn't matter if I was angry or pissed. I just had to be tough.

  I remember watching a hippie talk on television about showing the Z's love. They blurred out the part where his throat was ripped out.

  I remember politicians argued for calm and ordered everyone to the refugee centers as the cities were overrun.

  I remember calling my second ex to get her, my daughter and even her husband to join me. She hung up and by the time I drove over, they were gone.

  Not dead, just missing. Maybe they went to the refugee camp. Maybe she went to her parent's house or her sister's.

  I went back to get on the internet to start looking up addresses and phone numbers but the internet dropped before I got home. The roads were bumper to bumper, and the nine miles from their home to mine took four hours.

  That was easy compared to what came after.

  There were runs on gas. Runs on stores. Near riots breaking out in parking lots, and in streets where cars ran out of gas and were abandoned.

  I locked the doors and hunkered down. TV stations went off the air, radio stopped broadcasting, the lights went out. It was a cascade of events that happened in a cavalcade of frustration and rage.

  I couldn't check on any of the kids, and even if I could there was no way to help anyone.

  Except the neighbors who kicked in my front door and racked a shotgun in my face.

  I guess I should have returned those hedge clippers I borrowed.

  I let them take all my food, my water, everything he demanded, and when they weren’t looking, I ran away.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THEN

  Six days on the road but I wasn't gonna make it home tonight. Or any other night after that. I lived in a small neighborhood built in the 80's with two styles of home that the developer flip flopped up and down the blocks to give it a sense of uniqueness. It wasn't gated, but there were only two roads in forming a giant deep half circle, with a couple of smaller roads that criss crossed to add even more homes.

  It was probably a great setup for the builder and as it turned out, not so bad for holing up for a Z infestation.

  When I bolted from my house and left the neighbor to his robbery, I headed straight for a house four doors down. It had been caught up in the foreclosure storm that swept across the nation in 2010 and had sat empty since.

  I did not want to be outside after dark. The streetlights were out, and there was only a quarter moon. I used the dim glow to stay on the sidewalk and rushed.
<
br />   It wasn't enough. The tell tale moan of a Z cut through the darkness, and I heard shambling footsteps coming my way.

  I didn't have a weapon.

  I didn't have a light.

  I had left the house in nothing but some shorts.

  I stubbed my toe on a concrete piece of edging and bit back a yelp. Then I reached down and worked the concrete loose.

  It was a six by eight by two inch with a rounded edge and as the Z grabbed my arm, I swung it up and around where the head was supposed to be.

  The edging hit with a wet crack and the Z fell.

  I scurried away and listened. This one sounded alone.

  I tripped on overgrown grass and went around to the back of the house. It took just a second to break a pane in the back door, and lock it behind me.

  The house was pitch black with that stale smell of mildew and abandonment. I pressed against the wall and waited.

  After ten minutes of not hearing anything, I started to explore.

  If you've never explored an abandoned house in the dark with a Z plague going on outside the front door, I don't recommend it. After a thirty minute trip across the room, I found a closet door and shut myself inside to wait for dawn.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  NOW

  I thought we'd be okay until the Bandit's showed up. The main difference between Bandits and Marauders, besides the names our little group gave them, was leadership. Marauders had none, and Bandits had structure.

  I told Brian I thought Bandits were probably former military, because they still had weapons, mostly working vehicles and a structure with a central command.

  Plus, Bandit's tended to take prisoners before deciding what to do with them. Marauders usually killed everybody, raped the women sometimes even before they killed them and stole everything.

  I'm not sure how they found us.

  I bet one of the others was followed back to the house, and we were watched.