Pandora: A Novel of the Zombie Apocalypse Read online

  Western Europe fared a little better. The military and NATO relentlessly bombed and strafed the undead in droves. The civilian population unfortunately suffered greatly for this. Sometimes it was impossible to discern zombie from human from the air, and both died in large numbers.

  South and Central America were almost lost. The only people who could protect themselves were those with a lot of money. They hired armed guards and retreated to their compounds in the mountains. The rest of the people were on their own. They did not last for long.

  The United States and Canada were having some success with the base-jumping tactic of cleansing small areas at a time and using them as jumping off points for the next operations, but not enough to render it a huge success. The more populated the area, the harder this was to accomplish. Sometimes the sheer number of the walking dead overwhelmed the soldiers.

  Australia was the only country that seemed to have any success. Because the interior, central region of the island continent was so unpopulated, the Aussies, like modern-day Pied Pipers, took to sending sound trucks to the outskirts of population centers and playing loud music to lead the masses of undead to the unpopulated areas. There they were bombed by the Royal Australian Air Force. This was a slow process but seemed to be working.

  15

  Sean put down the empty can of baked beans. He loved baked beans, even cold, but didn’t like how thirsty they made him. Now, as much as he wanted to chug down his bottle of water, he couldn’t. Everything was rationed closely. With more zombies around now, everyone dreaded making another supply run. Yesterday a group of them went over the fence to the house behind their yard. Then they tried the house on its right. There they ran into a whole zombie family: father, mother, and two daughters.

  Either someone had been bitten, or one of the family members who was previously infected had hid. Either way now the whole family was undead together. The raiders got lucky in that they smelled the zombies before they saw them. They retreated out the rear door just as the four ghouls entered the kitchen. After running across the yard, they hopped the fence just as two more came from around the side. Mike, watching from an upstairs window, saw them all moaning. Fortunately none of the zombies saw the raiders go over the fence. The yard was now crowded with zombies, but they were just standing there.

  As a safety precaution, they now kept most of their supplies stored near the back door. Also everyone had prepared a bug-out bag with essential medicines, toiletries, and extra clothes. In case they were detected, they wanted to be ready to leave in an instant. The guns were there too.

  Henry had brought along a bag from the hospital. Inside were antibiotics, a surgical kit, anesthetic, and gloves. He was sitting at the dining room table, organizing his instruments. It must have been the third time he had done this since he had arrived at the house, but the routine helped calm him.

  Squinting at his surgical tools, he realized that in the darkened room, he really couldn’t see clearly. Leaning over behind him, he lifted a corner of the shade. There were no zombies around the side of the house, so he raised the shade a quarter of the way up. Now he could at least see. He figured he needed only five more minutes.

  Linda and Carol were scouring the basement, looking for rubber hoses. Sean knew they would need tubing to siphon gas from other cars. They probably could use the hoses to access the storage tanks in the rear of the gas stations as well. Even if they did find any, they didn’t know if they’d be long enough. Still, knowing how important they were, they tore the basement apart looking.

  Sean was back up on the roof with Jack. Looking around, he said to his friend, “Seems like there are quite a bit more of these undead fucks around today.”

  Jack looked over at the big fire still raging, and in fact spreading, in Passaic. “Maybe they’re coming from there,” he said, pointing at the smoke and orange flames. “Maybe they’re trying to get away from that fire.”

  “Good possibility,” agreed Sean.

  Jack glanced down, observing that the zombies were not only in the street but also walking all over everyone’s lawn and trampling flower beds.

  “Hey, girls!” Naomi called down the basement stairs. “When you come up, bring a hammer.”

  “You aren’t going to hammer something and make noise, are you?” Malik said as he passed by.

  “Yeah, right,” said Naomi, annoyed. “Do you think I really look that dumb? It just dawned on me that we might need one for something if we wind up on the road.”

  “Um, good thinking,” he said.

  “Well, your approval just means sooo much to me,” she said, dripping sarcasm.

  The close quarters they were living in were starting to take a toll on everyone’s patience.

  Linda moved a box in an unused corner of the basement. A cloud of dust rose up, and she coughed, trying to wave it away. With her hand covering her nose and mouth, she looked into a wooden box underneath. There, lying at the bottom, was a collection of rubber hoses all tangled together. She was about to reach in and pull them out when a black spider crawled over the top.

  “Aaah,” she gasped. “I hate spiders.”

  Carol came over and looked inside the box. The spider raised up its two front legs at her. She stood up with a disgusted look on her face.

  “That’s so gross,” she stated. Then she stepped aside and kicked the box over.

  Out ran the spider, and she quickly stepped on it. She reached down and tipped the box upside down. Lightly jostling it, she lifted the box and threw it aside. The two women kicked the hoses around a little to make sure there were no more surprises. Then they grabbed them up and, grinning from ear to ear, ran upstairs to show everyone their find.

  Walking out of the basement and into the living room, Linda and Carol held out their jiggling rubber hoses and exclaimed, “Hey, look. We found them.”

  Mike, Naomi, and Malik looked on, smiling.

  “Great!” extolled Mike.

  “You two are lifesavers,” Malik said, smiling.

  The two momentary heroines basked in the glow.

  “Where’s Sean?” Linda asked, looking around.

  “He’s on the roo—” started Mike, but Linda already had turned around and headed for the dining room.

  “Sean, look what we found,” she said, walking in. She saw Henry sitting there, packing up his surgical kit. Her eyes traveled over his shoulder and focused on the window behind him. Involuntarily Linda let out a scream.

  Looking in were two zombies, a man and a woman.

  The male zombie had a beard and a large cut on his mottled forehead. The woman was naked, her hair bloody and matted. Her left breast was missing, and a gore-soaked hole remained. Upon seeing Linda scream, they both returned savage snarls at her. They then slapped their hands on the window, trying to get in. A rapidly accumulating smear of blood and bodily fluids formed on the pane.

  Henry jumped up, startled. In a belated effort to hide, he pulled down the shade just as Mike and the others ran in. “Are you fucking crazy?” Mike yelled.

  Sean and Jack heard the pounding and, seeing the other zombies stop and look, quickly left the roof and ran to the first floor. They got there just after Mariam and Sue ran in.

  Mike went over to the window and, peering through the side of the shade, gasped. “Oh, shit. Here come the rest of them.”

  16

  The pounding increased as more hands joined in the assault.

  “We have to leave,” Sean yelled. “We have to leave right fucking now!”

  Everyone was scrambling, grabbing gear and supplies. Jack and Malik went out the back door and sidled over to the parked SUVs. Looking around the corner, Jack saw the zombies on the street heading for the other side of the house.

  He turned to Malik and said, “Okay, the driveway is clear. We have a very small window of opportunity here. Let’s load the cars fast.”

  They ran back, and everyone started a bucket line, handing off the food, water, and supplies to Jack and Malik, who hur
riedly stuffed them into the back of the vehicles. They were moving swiftly when they heard the first zombie hit the front door. Knowing there wasn’t much time, they stepped up their pace even more. They finally succeeded in loading up all three SUVs. The pounding at the front grew as more and more zombies mounted the front porch.

  “All right,” shouted Sean, “everyone get into the cars, and let’s go.”

  As the group hurried down the back stairs and headed for the cars in the driveway, the first ghoul rounded their side of the house. Just then Mariam stopped and looked around. “Where’s Helen?” she asked, panicking.

  Puzzled, they all swiveled their heads around. Naomi’s eyes widened as she said, “Oh, no. Helen went up to her room earlier. She wanted to take something and go to sleep.”

  Malik called out, “I’ll go! Keep the zombies away from the cars.” He looked at Sean. “If you find you can’t wait any longer…just go.”

  Then he turned and ran back inside.

  Mike lifted his M15 and fired a shot at the zombie coming for them. The round hit it in the upper chest. The creature jerked then kept on coming. Mike took a deep breath, aimed, then fired again. This time he hit the zombie in the bridge of the nose, and the ghoul collapsed in a heap. Jack joined Mike as the next zombie came off the porch toward them.

  Malik raced to the staircase and, grabbing the banister, stopped his skid and pulled himself up the stairs. He ran down the second-floor hallway and burst into the room Helen shared with Carol.

  She was groggily sitting up. “Whaaa? Whazzat noise?”

  “Come on, Helen. We’re leaving,” grunted Malik, as he wrestled her up to her feet. “We have to go now.”

  “Go? No, I d’wanna go…” Helen tried to sit down again.

  This time he got her up and manhandled her to the door. “Don’t argue. There’s no time.”

  As Malik pulled her down the hallway, he heard the front window shatter. When he got to the head of the stairs, he was hugging Helen closely to him and had one of the Sig Sauers in his right hand.

  They had gotten halfway down the stairs when Malik saw a fat, shirtless zombie making his way toward them. Two more flopped through the broken picture window and onto the living-room rug. Malik remembered seeing this zombie on the street when he was giving firearm training on the roof. He was big and ugly, with an unshaven face and greasy hair pointing in all directions. A large wound in his abdomen was leaking a yellow-and-green fluid down his pants. With his mottled purplish skin, dark veins underneath, and a milky-eyed stare, it was all Malik could do just to look at him.

  As the obese creature put his hand on the banister, the good doctor raised his own hand and put a bullet through the center of the thing’s forehead. Helen suddenly came alive. Seeing the zombie fall onto his back and observing the other two, now risen and moving toward them, she started to scream. As if in concert, the din of the pounding and moaning rose with the volume of her screams. Malik had reached the bottom of the stairs when she struggled against him in earnest. Malik swiftly shot the two zombies that were about to grab them when another fell through the shattered window into the living room. Helen was hysterical, flailing her arms and screaming at the top of her lungs. As Malik grabbed her upper arm roughly and pulled her toward the kitchen, the other window shattered, and three more zombies came through.

  Out in the driveway, Mike and Jack were firing continually. For every ghoul they took down, another took its place. Just then Carol appeared at their side. The tall woman stood and looked at them with a deadpan expression, then, with a small, brief smile, turned and raised her arm. She had the Glock Gen4 9mm in her hand. With three rapid shots, Carol dropped the closest three zombies with accurate head shots.

  “Whoa, we have an Amazon badass here,” exclaimed Mike.

  Sean was between the driveway and the back door, trying to divide his attention between them. He exhorted everyone not shooting to get in the SUVs. Turning around he spotted the first zombie turn the opposite corner, into the yard. Sean ran up to the back door, put the M15 to his shoulder, and shot the creature between the eyes. Thank God for red-dot sights, he thought.

  He heard screaming coming from inside and yelled through the doorway, “Let’s go, Malik. We can’t hold them off for much longer.”

  Struggling with the squirming, frantic woman and trying to drag her away, Malik turned. Momentarily distracted by Sean’s call, Helen broke free of him. She ran to the foot of the stairs and, seeing the three newly arrived zombies getting up and coming for her, raised her hands to her face and ramped up her screams another octave.

  Malik shot a female zombie with wild white hair and took two steps back to retrieve Helen. One of the three undead in front of her had a large piece of broken glass sticking out of his eye. At the same time Malik went to reach for Helen, the zombie did also. Seeing this monstrosity in front of her face, she suddenly turned and ran up the stairs.

  “Helen, no!” Malik cried.

  He watched, frozen, as her feet disappeared up the risers. Running footfalls sounded on the second-floor hallway, and he heard her bedroom door slam shut.

  Hearing Sean again shout and two more shots come from the yard, Malik broke the spell. He fired at the closest zombie, a disheveled teenage girl. As the glass-impaled man started up the stairs, the front door splintered and burst open. Dozens of undead poured through the door, led by a dead utility worker with an orange vest and one arm just a bloody stump. Malik turned and raced through the kitchen and out the back door, taking a second to flip the lock before slamming it closed.

  Sean was standing with the rifle up to his shoulder, carefully picking off the walking dead as they rounded the far corner of the house. Seeing Malik exit, he said, “Where’s Helen?”

  Malik looked at Sean with a pained expression as he shook his head.

  “Shit.” Sean hesitated then said to him, “Let’s go.”

  They rounded the corner, and seeing the number of zombies coming up the drive, Sean yelled, “Get in the cars! Mike, Jack, you’re driving your own vehicles. Let’s move it.”

  Everyone quickly ran for the SUVs and piled in. Sean’s was the first in line, and he raced toward it. Henry, in the passenger seat, leaned over the console and opened the driver’s-side door for him. As Sean reached the open door, a male zombie with a bald head and ripped polo shirt grabbed him. The two hit the side of the house, wrestling with each other. Sean had his forearm up under the creature’s chin, trying to keep the snapping teeth away from his face. His M15 was trapped between them, so he couldn’t bring it up to bear.

  Linda was screaming from the backseat. Seeing all this happen, Henry opened his door and got out. Running around the hood of the car toward Sean, he collided with two of the undead. As he pushed them away, one grabbed his hand and bit it. Henry screamed but was able to pull his hand away.

  Mike stepped out of his Yukon and tried to aim his weapon. With so much movement and everyone so close to one another, he couldn’t get a clear shot.

  Henry had made his way to the two grappling forms. Grabbing the bald zombie by the shoulders, and with adrenaline-fueled strength, he yanked the creature off Sean. As he did, two things happened. First, the bald zombie turned and grabbed Henry’s shirt. Second, the two undead he originally encountered reached him, and one wrapped his arms around the oncologist and viciously sank his teeth into his shoulder.

  Henry again screamed and staggered unsteadily, dragging the three snarling zombies along with him. As Sean started forward, the four struggling figures fell against the side of the house and slid down the siding. Henry shouted in agony, “No, no! Just go, Sean. Leave me. I’m dead already.”

  Sean hesitated for a second, but as more zombies bent over Henry, hiding him from view, he jumped into his car and started it. He threw it in gear, and as he rolled down the drive, an undead woman began to climb into the wide-open passenger side of the vehicle. Trying not to run over any of the dead so they wouldn’t get caught under the wheels and stop the car
, he pointed the M15 at the woman’s head. She reached in, grabbed the barrel, and pulled it aside.

  Linda reached around and grabbed a can of peaches from behind her. Leaning forward between the two front seats, she pounded the zombie in the head with the can. This continued all the way down the long driveway, with the other two SUVs following close behind. As they reached the street, another zombie grabbed the now-half-closed door and started to open it. With one final swing, Linda succeeded in knocking the woman halfway out the door.

  Just then, as the wheels came into contact with the street, Sean gunned it. The woman, sliding out of the car, hit the legs of the undead man trying to get in, and they both went tumbling into the road.

  With a roar almost drowning out the moaning dead, the three cars sped away.

  Linda crawled into the front seat and slammed the passenger door shut. As Sean dodged approaching zombies, he turned the corner, and the three cars drove away from their neighborhood. The amount of un-dead immediately decreased. They took two more turns and pulled onto the ramp of the highway entrance.

  The number of crashed and abandoned vehicles increased greatly as they drove. Sean had to wind his way around several multicar accidents.

  “I took this route because the Garden State Parkway entrance is the next exit,” Sean said. “I figure we’ll head south. North will only take us closer to New York, and the number of walking dead there will be really huge.”

  “What then?” asked Linda.

  His attention was drawn away by a pair of waving arms. Sean looked over and saw a woman sitting in the passenger seat of a stalled car. It apparently had rammed the van in front of it. The grille was pushed in, and steam seeped from under the hood. The woman hadn’t had her seat belt on. The windshield was smashed outward, and cracks spider-webbed out from there.

  She was sitting there with the window open. Her face was a mask of blood and broken glass. As the sun hit the wet blood and shiny glass particles, her face sparkled in flashes of light. She was waving her arms out of the window at Sean.