Pandora: A Novel of the Zombie Apocalypse Read online

  Finally they were ready. Although the weather was nice now, the three wore leather or heavy wool jackets and work gloves to protect themselves against bites. Sean had found a crowbar in the basement to use; Malik had a hatchet; and Jack chose his favorite wooden bat.

  Sean looked out the window in the back of the house and didn’t see any zombies. He looked back at the rest of the household, especially Linda, who looked teary eyed. Then, his gaze taking in Malik and Jack, he said, “Now or never, guys.”

  The three went out the back and locked the door behind them; Henry stayed by the window to wait for their return. Running low to the ground, they headed for the right side of the fence. It was five feet tall, and Sean peered over.

  “All right. Coast is clear.”

  The three nimbly hopped over and approached the back door of the next house. Sean peeked through the back-door window into the mud room. Seeing no movement, he tried the doorknob. As he suspected, it was unlocked. Smiling, Sean looked back at the other two raiders. “Mrs. Schoenbart always forgets to lock the back door.”

  As they crept in, the smell immediately overwhelmed them. The three men gagged from the heavy, sickly odor of putrefying flesh. They peered into the kitchen and instantly saw the devastation. The heavy kitchen table was pushed off center. Chairs were strewn on their sides, and a broken plate and moldy sandwich lay on the floor. The worst was the blood. Lots and lots of blood. Dried to a rusty-brown color, it was spattered all over the kitchen like a sick Jackson Pollock painting.

  “This isn’t good,” Jack choked out through his teeth.

  “What was Mike saying about Edith a couple weeks ago?” Sean whispered. “Something about her niece coming over?”

  “We’d better check out the rest of the house,” said Malik. “I don’t want to be surprised while I’m on my knees looking through cabinets.”

  The three skulked their way through the kitchen and into the dining room. No one was there, but from the horrible stench, they knew they weren’t alone. As they entered the large living room, they ran into Edith. The old woman looked as if she had been shambling around the first floor for weeks. Her head hung almost to her shoulder; the flesh of her neck was ripped and chewed off. Dried blood had completely drenched her upper body. The strand of pearls that she habitually wore was now streaked a dull red.

  The three stopped short, taken so unexpectedly. As Edith moaned, taking a step toward them, Jack stepped forward as well. “Sorry, Edith,” he said, swinging the Louisville Slugger at her skewed head. As the bat connected, she made a caterwauling sound and flew over to bounce off the chintz sofa and land in a heap on the Persian rug. Just then they heard a hiss as the niece came staggering in from the parlor. Her hands were shaped into claws in front of her, and her mottled skin showed signs of decay. Sean went to meet her; swinging the crowbar with two hands, he caved her skull in. She fell to the side and lay still on the floor. Sean looked down and saw a piece of flesh with long hair attached clinging to the end of his weapon. He shook it and, disgusted, wiped it on the rug. The three raiders went back into the kitchen and looked through every drawer and cupboard, filling two bags. The pantry yielded another full bag. They knew Edith had been a prolific cook and prided herself on always being well stocked.

  Leaving the house, they put the three bags over the fence on their side. Then, making their way across Edith’s backyard, they hopped to the next house. This house was fortunately empty of any undead. Unfortunately it also was almost empty of food. The canned goods were gone, but they found a loaf of bread in the refrigerator and a lone case of water sitting in the middle of the dining room, apparently forgotten in the former residents’ rush to leave. After putting those two things—plus a bag of matches, toilet paper, and other essentials, on Edith’s side of the fence—they decided to try one more house.

  Continuing on their charted course, they clambered over the fence to their last objective. Malik broke the glass with his elbow then reached in and unlocked the door. The three went in and sniffed the air. There was a faint sniff of death but nothing like what was in the first house. They went through the kitchen and into the living room. There they froze. The front door was wide open. A smear of blood was on the door, and a trail of drops led to the wooden staircase. A bloody palm print was on the newel of the banister leading to the second floor. The three men looked at one another. Sean turned to Jack. “Go back to the kitchen and start filling bags,” he told him. “Malik and I will go and see who’s up there.”

  Jack went back and quietly raided the cabinets. Sean and Malik silently ascended the stairs.

  Sean knew the house belonged to Old Man Fischer, a widower who lived by himself. They quietly entered the master bedroom. The bed was unmade, and there were bloody bandages on the floor. A bottle of disinfectant was on the night table along with a pile of bloody tissues. They walked over and looked around.

  “It looks like someone was bitten here,” Malik stated.

  “Yeah,” Sean agreed. “He must have tried to get out and was attacked. Then he ran back here and tried to bandage up his bites.”

  Just as he finished speaking, a noise sounded from the adjoining bathroom off to the side. The bathroom door was closed, and they heard someone bang on the other side. The sound of shuffling footsteps and fists on the door grew more urgent.

  “He can’t get out,” Sean whispered. “I guess doorknobs are beyond their comprehension.”

  “Leave him!” said Malik.

  They quietly walked out and closed the bedroom door behind them, just in case.

  Meanwhile, Jack was in the kitchen, loading the few meager supplies he had found into a garbage bag. He heard a noise and looked toward the entrance. With everyone focused on who was upstairs, no one had thought to close the front door.

  Now standing in the foyer was a zombie. He looked to be about fifteen years old and was naked to the waist. A pair of filthy jeans hung on his bony frame. A large chunk of his shoulder was gone, and his pale, dark-veined body was smeared with blood. The undead teen took two steps into the living room and stopped. His milky eyes looked around dumbly as he stood there with a strand of saliva hanging from his lip.

  Jack reached for his bat and, not finding it, realized he had left it leaning against the doorframe. Slowly he got up and tiptoed over to it. Just as he reached it and stuck out his hand, the wooden bat slid down the wall and clattered to the floor. The creature turned toward the noise and, seeing Jack, snarled. As Jack grabbed the bat, the teen rushed across the living room toward him. When the snarling zombie came through the doorway, Jack put the bat to his shoulder and, misjudging the width of the kitchen, swung with all his might. Swinging fast in a long arc, the bat connected with the side of the refrigerator. With a loud crack, the wooden shaft split in two. As Jack gaped at the pointy stub in his hand, the ghoul pounced.

  Jack was driven back, his left arm straight out, holding his flailing attacker back. They collided with the far counter. Jack brought his right hand back and thrust the pointed bat handle into the undead teen’s eye. He pushed it all the way in, until his hand touched the eye socket. As if a switch suddenly had been shut off, the zombie collapsed.

  Hearing the commotion, Sean and Malik ran downstairs and into the kitchen. They stopped short when they saw Jack, panting and leaning back with his hands on the counter behind him, as the now-motionless cadaver lay at his feet.

  Malik said to Jack, “I guess you never know who’ll be stopping by.”

  Jack looked back and, with a brief, sarcastic smile, said wearily, “Let’s just get the fuck out of here.”

  They gathered the last bag, left the house, and headed for home. Hopping the fences, they gathered their foraged goods along the way and finally reached their backyard. Henry saw them come over the fence and went out to help them carry the supplies inside.

  13

  After the newly acquired supplies were inventoried and put away, everyone had dinner. The new food wasn’t plentiful, but the items from Edit
h’s fridge helped this meal greatly. When dinner was over and cleanup was done, everyone settled down with the curtains drawn tightly and the lights turned down low.

  Jack was sitting in an easy chair in the parlor area, sipping the last of his favorite scotch. Naomi walked over and, after pulling up an ottoman, sat next to him.

  “Great meal,” said Jack, saluting her with his glass. “Kudos to the chef.”

  Naomi smiled and leaned toward him. “So,” she started softly, “how was it out there? Scary?”

  Jack took a sip, eyeing her over the rim. “Other than the fact that I almost shit my pants, no, not bad.”

  She snorted out a suppressed laugh and said, “Seriously. It’s bad out there now, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he said softly. “It’s bad.”

  “What are we going to?”

  Jack took another sip and paused thoughtfully. “What I think, my dear Nurse Washington, is that we’re going to have to leave here at some point.”

  She looked at him, the fear now showing on her face.

  “It’s only a matter of time before something happens or someone fucks up and these zombie bastards find out we’re here. When that happens, we’re going to have to run out the back and keep on running. We’ll be split up, with no supplies, no transportation, and just the shirts on our backs. Even if we grab all the guns when we flee, we’ll inevitably be picked off one by one till we’re all gone.” He stared into her brown eyes. “We can’t stay here.”

  “I thought that too,” she said, rising. With a nod she walked away.

  Jack had just finished his scotch when his cell phone rang. He looked at the caller ID then excitedly answered, “Tommy!”

  “Hey, bro” came the response.

  “Are you in Florida?”

  “Yes,” Tommy said. “We got here not long after you and I last spoke. My company was assigned Hurlburt Field, and from there we headed to Pensacola. We were on the peninsula, crossing the Pensacola Bay Bridge, when we ran smack into a huge horde of zombies coming across the bridge from Pensacola. There must have been a thousand of them. We opened fire and probably killed hundreds of them. The din we were making attracted more from behind us. We had to fight our way off that fucking bridge to try and get back. My squad got separated, along with two others. There were so many Zs coming from all directions that we all wound up miles away.”

  “Zs?” interrupted Jack.

  “Yeah,” continued Tommy, “Zs. Zombies. That’s what the military is calling them. When we found our way back, the whole company was dead. Every last fucking one of them. I contacted Eglin AFB, and they said the base was surrounded by zombies, so we shouldn’t try to get through.

  “We finally holed up in this warehouse. Every base we tried to contact was either abandoned or under siege. We all talked about what to do and couldn’t decide, so we split up. Some are going to try and get back anyway. I remembered Dad’s mansion in Boca. The gated community he was in was like a fucking fortress. High walls, only two entrances in and out, and that clubhouse—remember the huge dining room? The kitchen there must be awesome. Anyway, my whole platoon is going to try and make it there. I think we could fortify it. We’re heading there now. I’ll call you when we get there. If it turns out like I hope, maybe you all can get there with us.”

  “Wow, Tom!” exclaimed Jack. “I remember that the community was hit hard by Pandora. There should be a good number of empty houses. And they all had their own generators.”

  “Good thinking, Jack. After we get down there, I’ll let you know what we find. Stay safe, man.”

  “You too, Tommy. I love ya.”

  The rest of the night and the next day, Jack couldn’t stop thinking about their conversation and its possibilities.

  The next morning they made another food run in the other direction. Mike took Jack’s place, and the trip was uneventful. The quarantine had finished on their street before the shit really hit the fan, so they had no more surprises.

  Malik had been taking everyone up to the roof, one person each day. There he taught them how to fire the M15s. He let them take only two shots apiece; any more and they feared the zombies might be able to pinpoint their house as the source. This exercise wasn’t so much intended as target practice (though they did use the dead as their mark) as to familiarize everyone with the weapon. Knowing how to fire a rifle could save their lives one day.

  Two days later the inevitable happened. Sean was on the roof with Linda. It was night, and he had wanted to take a look around with the binoculars. He thought it would be easier to track the fires at night, when they would stand out. Linda was keeping him company.

  Sean had just lowered the glasses and was pointing something out to her when all the surrounding lights went off. They both stood there, stunned. Knowing it had to happen and actually seeing it happen were two different things.

  “Oh, shit,” whispered Sean.

  Afraid, Linda clung to him. “Oh, Sean, what are we going to do now?”

  He looked around and marveled at how completely black it was. He shook his head slowly and thought, Well, it’s easy to spot the fires now. They’re the only things glowing out there.

  They slowly and carefully made their way down the ladder to the second floor. As they came down the staircase, they heard the urgently murmured conversation. Several people were lighting candles.

  “Not too many,” cautioned Malik. “The flickering lights on the shades might attract them. Keep them at the center of the house.”

  Everyone gathered around and sat close. Helen started to sniffle.

  Sean went over to them and said, “I was on the roof. This time the lights are out all over. As far as I could see, there was nothing.”

  “I think this time they’re out for good,” surmised Henry.

  Mariam looked around and said, “We should eat everything in the fridge first. Once it gets warm in there, it’ll start to go moldy.”

  “Good thinking, Mariam,” remarked Sue.

  “Now it is the end of the world,” murmured Helen, head hung low.

  “You know,” Mike piped up, “we should be starting the cars and letting them run for a few minutes. If we don’t, the batteries may die. If we have to make a getaway and the SUVs don’t start, we’re fucked.”

  “Getting out to do that is going to be tricky,” said Sean.

  “I don’t think we have any choice,” answered Mike.

  Everyone started talking at once and adding suggestions. Sean sidled up to Malik. “Hey, Malik,” he said. “Can you convert the M15s to fully automatic?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” replied Malik, looking at him.

  “Why not?”

  “Unless you’re very familiar with the weapon and know fire control, the tendency for beginners is to just hold down the trigger instead of doing short three-round bursts. With the barrel rise, you’ll wind up firing the full clip into the ceiling.”

  Jack put his hands out, and everyone quieted down. “My brother Tommy is in the army. He’s down in Florida, and he and the rest of the men are going to my dad’s house in Boca. It’s in a small gated community, and it’s walled in. I think we should give some serious thought to heading down there.”

  “No, I don’t want to leave here,” cried Helen.

  “Yeah, it’s too soon for that,” agreed Sue.

  Henry nodded. “We won’t make it. Hell, we’re afraid to go out and start our cars in the driveway. What are we going to do about gas and food?”

  “There are gas stations along the way,” said Jack, a little hurt at the negativity.

  “If the power is off all over, the pumps will be shut down. No gas,” Mike said.

  “Besides,” chimed in Naomi, hoping to disarm the growing tensions, “we’re from Jersey. We don’t pump our own gas!”

  Everyone chuckled at that, and the intensity dissipated. There were a few quiet individual conversations, but people mostly settled into their own contemplation of the situation.


  Jack, a little miffed, went back to his chair. Mike got up and walked over to him.

  “Is Tommy there now?”

  “No,” Jack said softly. “He should be there in a few days.”

  “Let’s wait and see what his evaluation of the situation is. If it’s good, he and his men could secure the compound and make sure it’s a hundred percent safe. Then we can talk about it again, okay?”

  “Okay,” Jack said with a sigh. He smiled as they bumped fists, and Mike walked away.

  Mike knew Jack really wanted to see his brother again. He thought if it worked out, it might not be a bad idea. But right now it didn’t warrant getting worked up about. Too soon, he thought.

  The next couple of days went by slowly. Linda found a battery-operated radio the boys didn’t even know they had. They listened to the very few stations still broadcasting, every afternoon at three; they did this to extend the battery life.

  With the shades always closed and no lights, the house became very gloomy. A pall settled over everyone.

  14

  The world had settled into a new way of life. Civilization was hunkered down in a number of almost-isolated settlements. Having no communications, and with its nuclear-power plants experiencing meltdowns, Asia’s civilization was reduced to a nonsustainable level. The few survivors left now were hit with other, more earthly catastrophes. Lack of potable water and poor sanitation led to massive outbreaks of cholera, dysentery, and other plagues. An outbreak of Ebola hit the Congo and Uganda in Africa. It soon spread to the surrounding countries of Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, and Angola. Between Pandora and Ebola, the Dark Continent was a no-man’s-land of death and zombies.

  Russia went dark. Eastern Europe and the Balkans were almost sans life. What little there was mainly consisted of small paramilitary groups crisscrossing the region, looking for refuge; meanwhile the undead were whittling their numbers down.