ZOMBIE'S DOOM? "Chronicles of Jack Doom" (5 page)

As we rode along the freeway dodging the undead and abandon cars, I began to wonder if traveling in separate vehicles was such a good idea.

If the people in the other Hummer were just a group of guys we had met along the way there wouldn't be a problem. If we got separated, we could always find them later and get back together, and if we never saw them again, so what, nobody would really give a shit.

Since this zombie apocalypse began, there had been many people and many things that we were never going to see again, we'd get over it.

But they weren't just a group of guys we happened to run into, they were family, they were our children, and we didn't want to get separated. If those dinosaurs had finished off those zombies back there and then came after us, how hard would it have been to stay together with a bunch of giant man-eating beasts chasing after us?

"Honey, I think it might be a good idea to ditch the other Hummer and have the boys ride with us, if we get separated somehow, we may not be able to find each other again," I recommended.

"That sounds like a good idea to me," Gin concluded. "Besides, we can cover each other better if we're all in the same place, and less chance of one of us being hit in a crossfire."

"Yes, that's all we need, to get hit by friendly-fire," I responded as I pulled our Hummer to the side of the road.

The boys pulled their vehicle up behind us, and after checking to make sure that no threats were in the vicinity, they got out of their truck to see why I had stopped.

"Boys, we decided that we should probably all travel in the same vehicle, less chance of being separated or catching friendly-fire," I explained.

"Oh man, now I'll never get to drive," Jacob said with a frown.

"You'll get to drive," I told him. "And you just might end up breaking the record for the most felony hit and runs."

"That's never going to happen, not after the mass quantity of eaters that Dave mowed down with the bus." Jacob asserted. "Not unless I'm driving something just as big."

"Most of my
accidents
were accrued in civilian vehicles. The old school bus that Dave used to plow down hundreds of the undead is in another class, it falls into the super-modified public transportation category, so it doesn't count."

"Cool!" Jacob exclaimed as he stepped toward the driver's seat.

"You're not going to let him drive now are you dad?" Billy asked, not happy with the prospect of his younger brother driving him through a world filled with ravenous zombies and other heinous nemeses.

"No, not right this second," I said. "First we have to transfer what we can to this vehicle, and then he'll drive. He's going to have to sooner or later, it might as well be now.

"That's just great, first eaters, then dinosaurs, now this, we're doomed for sure," Billy said, shaking his head in disgust.

What's that old Indian saying? I asked rhetorically, and then answered my own question. "It's a good day to die."

Gin never did get my sense of humor, and this time was no exception.

"That's not very funny, we've almost died about a thousand times since this whole thing started, and now you're making jokes about being killed," she said, glaring at me.

"Sorry honey, it's a gift," I insisted, still trying to be funny and not being too successful at it.

We transferred as much ammo as we could fit into our one Hummer, there wasn't much room to carry anything else, as we had loaded up both vehicles to near full capacity before we left the armory.

"Jump in the vehicle, I'll grab one more case of ammo, I think we can fit it in somewhere," I said to my family, as I leaned far into the Hummer to drag the last case of ammo to the back of the truck, not knowing that it would be the last thing that I would ever say to them.

Suddenly I heard Gin scream. It was a loud but short scream, as if she had stopped in the middle of her yell. Then one shot from Jacob's carbine sounded as I saw the flash from his rifle's muzzle reflect off a velociraptor's body.

Then I watched in horror as my wife and two sons were literally torn apart right before my eyes.

The last thing I remember, I pulled my M-4 from my shoulder and began walking toward the lead truck firing at the raptor that was halfway inside the Hummer and still clawing at my family.

In a torrent of rage I blacked out, when I regained consciousness I found the remains of Gin, Billy, and Jacob still inside the Hummer along with the bullet riddled raptor still clutching one of Gin's severed arms in its blood stained jaws.

Another raptor was lying across the hood of the Hummer with several gunshot wounds to its head and body.

Various empty M-4 magazines were scattered around the vehicle, and the bolt on my rifle was locked to the rear displaying the empty magazine in my gun through the ejection port.

Tears welled up in my eyes and my knees grew weak as I stood there helpless, surveying the hideous scene of my families death.

Rage began to overtake me as I watched a group of ten zombies approach, intending on having my dead family and me for brunch.

Feelings of hopelessness along with the anger swept over me. I knew it was too late to help my family now, but I could take out my wrath on the small advancing zombie troop, and that's exactly what I did.

Without a moment of hesitation, I tossed my rifle onto the hard concrete road and pulled my tomahawk from my tactical vest.

I waded into the slobbering mass of ravenous cannibalistic undead with a vengeance.

Hacking wildly at them, I made my way to the back of the mob, hewing off their limbs and cleaving their heads as I went. Then I turned around and marched back through the ones that had been spared in my first assault, and decimated the remaining zombies one by one, as they approached me.

As I killed the zombies, visions of Gin and the boys flooded my mind, and a bizarre and gruesome phenomenon began to play out.

As I zealously attacked a female zombie, I saw Gin's eyes staring back at me through the murderous rage on the face of the undead woman.

At that moment in time something inside me snapped.

I grabbed the female zombie (which in my mind had chosen to impersonate my now dead wife), by the back of her long dark and matted hair, and plucked out her left eyeball with the pointed end of my weapon.

As the gelatinous bulb quivered on the end of my tomahawk, dripping blood from the ripped out veins that dangled below it, I showed the extracted left eye to her still attached right one seconds before cramming it back into the eye socket from which it had came.

By driving the eyeball and the spiked end of my bloody tomahawk back into the socket and deep into her brain, I finally put her out of everybody's misery.

Billy was next in my mind's eye, as a zombie wearing the same type army shirt as my dead son stumbled toward me.

With all of the power that my adrenalin-filled muscles could muster, I swung the blade of my razor sharp tomahawk down vertically so hard into the middle of the young zombie's forehead, that it violently split the younger looking monster's face and skull open. Flinging each side of its head several inches apart and exposed his throbbing greenish maggot infested brain without destroying it.

After splitting its skull, the downward thrust of my weapon was hard enough to sink the
hawk
deep into the bone of the upper portion of the zombie's rib cage.

With my edged weapon stuck in the undead cannibal's chest, and with its brain still active, this Billy look-a-like proceeded to claw at me in an attempt to grab my arms and pull me to his malfunctioning disjointed mouth.

My tomahawk had barely scraped the zombie's brain so its hunger for human flesh was still its only priority.

Even though its face was in two distinct pieces and it was unable to bite me, it was obvious that the zombie didn't see it that way.

With my life still in grave danger because of the other, yet to be fed zombies approaching me with the intention to feast. I pulled my Glock 19 from its holster and shoved it into the facial gap my tomahawk had made, and fired six or seven shots with the muzzle of the gun touching the frontal lobes of the zombie's pulsating brain.

The first two shots sounded muffled, however the blasts from the gun and the bullets that preceded them quickly opened a hole the size of a baseball in the back of the monsters head, and it fell to the ground as I continued to pull the trigger and pump lead into its throbbing gray matter.

As for the zombie that my mind's eye saw as Jacob, my youngest son?

Well, what I did to it is too nauseating, too disgusting, and too abhorrent to share with one who has such a delicate stomach as yours.

Therefore, for the sake of your mental stability and well-being, I will do you a favor and forgo the lurid tale of that particular zombie's ultimate demise, and go on with the story.

After I regained my sanity, or what was left of it, I harvested the remaining zombies as brutally as time would allow, and then returned to the truck that housed my dead family.

Never in my life had I felt as sad as I felt that day while burying my wife and sons.

I slept in the clean Hummer that night, and stayed in that place probably longer than was prudent, watching over the graves of my family. I was determined to make sure that no rogue zombies would claw at the freshly dug graves, and end up digging them up in the middle of the night to quench their bloodthirsty desire to have a midnight snack.

Early the next morning with a host of zombies on the horizon and heading in my direction, I pulled the "
Death Hummer
" over the graves of my family, took Jacob's 9mm folding carbine and machete out of the doomed truck, dowsed it with gasoline, and set it on fire as a finally safeguard against any of the undead attempting to rob the graves of my beloved family.

As I broke the mesmerizing trance of the burning vehicle in front of me, I turned the key and started my vehicle, put it in gear, and I began my quest to find the Sarge.

Then as fate would have it, a couple hundred yards down the road, and to their chagrin, I encountered the first of many zombies that would be added to my ongoing total of felony hit and runs.

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MEANWHILE BACK ABOARD THE MOTHER SHIP

"Lieutenant Jol!"

"Yes Captain Xarr?"

"It has been brought to my attention that test subject group 32452013 has been attacked by some of the pre-extinction bipedal carnivorous creatures that
you
released onto the planet to save test subject group 32452013 from the overwhelming numbers of the control group that had them surrounded," the captain stated, raising his voice with every word spoken.

******

Lieutenant Jol had not been informed by his
underling
of this new development in the current events concerning the test subject group 32452013.

The underling that was responsible for relaying such news to his superior.

The underling that was scheming to be promoted and replace Lieutenant Jol at his station as second in command.

The underling that would resort to do this by any means that he deemed necessary to accomplish his nefarious goals.

That underling was.

******

"My subordinate officer, 2nd Under Prime Lieutenant Zeem has informed me of no such event Captain Xarr!" Lieutenant Jol passionately insisted.

"Informed or not, test subject group 32452013 has been attacked by one of
your
pre-extinction bipedal carnivorous creatures.

I can only surmise that you failed to have the genetic differentiation microchip properly adjusted to insure the success of this particular part of our mission," Captain Xarr barked loudly at Lieutenant Jol.

"No Captain Xarr, I made all of the proper checks and followed proper protocol to the letter to insure the success of that portion of this mission."

"So am I to understand that you adhered to all of the checks and balances, followed all of the proper protocol to the letter Lieutenant Jol," the Captain barked again.