Zombie Island
© 2012 by Samantha Hoffman.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permissions of the author.
Chapter One
I lift the metal baseball bat higher, feeling much better with a heavy weapon in my hands. They twist nervously around the rubber grip, and I step silently from behind the building, careful to avoid stepping on anything that will make noise and give away my position.
He’s shuffling along a few yards ahead of me, right in front of the alley I need to get to. His left arm is dislocated, and it’s hanging at his side. His ankle is broken; the skin is tattered and bloody, and the bone is poking out.
He’s walking on it anyway, oblivious to any pain he might be in. Upon closer inspection, I notice that three of the fingers on his right hand are missing, probably bitten off. His skin looks soft; the infection’s been in his body for a while, and he’s started to melt. At first, they look like deranged humans that can move fast and gracefully, until after a few weeks and they start to decompose.
I move forward another couple of steps, and stop when a can goes skittering loudly across the ground, eventually coming to a rest against the leg of a dumpster.
He stops his mindless shuffling, and turns slowly to face me. Like the rest of them, he’s absolutely disgusting. His nose is gone, ripped entirely from his face; only a jagged crater remains. One eye is missing, probably gouged out by one of the others, and the bottom part of his jaw is missing entirely.
He moans once, and begins walking toward me, limping along on his twisted foot. I grip the bat tighter and raise my arm. When he steps within my range, I swing the bat, connecting solidly with his head.
He falls to the ground, moaning louder. I bring the bat down again and again on his head. On the third, his skull cracks, and on the fourth, the head splits open with a wet, squishing sound, almost as if someone had burst open a watermelon.
I quickly look around, hoping that his dying moans haven’t attracted others. That’s what draws them to an area: noise. One dying zombie always attracts others with their death moans, and that’s how people get swarmed in a massive zombie horde.
Sure enough, there are half a dozen of them wandering aimlessly around in the nearby street, moving around the obstacles left during the destruction of the world. Burned shells of cars, broken windows, dead bodies, and other zombies litter the street I’m currently on, just as they do everywhere else.
I lift my backpack higher over my shoulder, fastening the straps tighter, before starting off at a jog down the alley I’m currently nestled in. It’s a dead-end, which gives the zombies only one point of entry. If it comes down to a fight, it will be easier to kill them if they’re bunched together.
I reach the fire escape of the apartment building I’m holed up in, and I begin to climb. I’ve left it down in case I ever need to make a quick getaway, and I pull the ladder up behind me now. I pass the second story windows and keep climbing.
When I reach the third story, I climb in through an open window, and close it shut tightly behind me. It’s the only safe way into the apartment, because zombies aren’t capable of working elevators or climbing ladders. Unfortunately, this access point isn’t as close to my room as I’d like it to be. I have to run through the halls, to the far end of the floor, just to get back to my safe zone.
Since the initial outbreak I’d blocked the doors to the apartment complex as best as I could, but there was always a chance that a zombie could find it’s way in, and I couldn’t afford to take any chances. One bite would undo every measure I’d taken to stay safe, and it would make all of my hard work be for nothing.
The room I step into bares the obvious marks of an attack. Bloody handprints stain the walls, and splashes of gore litter the overturned furniture, the carpet, and even the ceiling. I hurry into the next room, which isn’t as bad, and find my way to the front door.
I look out through the peephole, checking as much of the hallways as I can, before opening the door. You could never be too careful nowadays. A cautious person was a live person. And when there are so few live people left, caution is always a must.
I grip the metal baseball bat in my hands and look down the hallway both ways, checking once again to make sure that the coast is clear. Satisfied that I’m alone, I edge my way five doors down, stopping at the final door in the hallway.
I open the door and close it behind me, turning the lock and dropping the bat by the doorway. Zombies couldn’t turn doorknobs, but bandits or thieves could, so it was best to always be prepared. Zombies were thoughtless monsters, but monsters of the human kind were much harder to deal with.
Killing a brainless death machine is easy, killing someone that’s still human isn’t.
I turn into the kitchen area beside the front door and open the nearest cupboard. Inside are stacks of different canned goods, and I grab a thing of pear halves. The can opening is on the counter, and I grab that too.
When the pears are open, I drain the juice into a half-filled water bottle, grab a fork, and start eating. The pears are warm and soft, but they’ll have to do because I don’t have much else to eat at the moment. The only food I have is canned beans and fruit, along with what vegetables I can grow in my little rooftop garden.
After I finish off the pears, I quietly sip at the watered down pear juice. It has a sweet taste to it, and it calms my nerves as I think about everything else I have to do before nightfall, when the zombies are at their most active. They tended to just wander around aimlessly during the day, and at night they formed groups and walked the streets, searching for prey.
They’d eat anything with a pulse: dogs, cats, cows, horses, people, and even birds if they could catch them. Nothing was safe from the masses of zombie killers and, just four months after the appearance of the first zombie, there was very little life left on the planet.
I take another sip from the bottle of pear water and head over to the front door again. With the bat in my hands, I feel instantly safer. Being weaponless was the fastest way to get yourself killed, aside from just being plain stupid. Thankfully I wasn’t stupid, and I certainly wasn’t planning to die anytime soon.
A small, blue water cooler sits on the nearby couch, and I quickly grab it. Inside are three large, empty milk jugs and a funnel. It’s what I use to purify the water I catch on the rooftop. The water isn’t one hundred percent safe, but I have to risk it. My body needs the water to keep going; dehydration can kill you just as fast as a zombie.
Once again, I peer out into the hallway through the peephole. When I’m satisfied that the halls are still clear, I unlock the door and quietly slip out the door. When I close it behind me, I cautiously make my way over to the nearest flight of stairs. My apartment is on the third floor, and there are five floors in total. Access to the roof is easy, only one extra flight of stairs, and in no time I’ve reached the door to the roof.
Scattered around the empty rooftop are ten large, plastic, five gallon buckets. Each is almost full to the top with rainwater. Some of it will be purified into drinking water, some of it will be used to wash myself and my clothes with, and the rest will go to watering the six large vegetable boxes nearby.
In two of the boxes are a few tomato plants, each with a small to medium-sized reddish fruit. The next two boxes hold cucumber plants, and the final ones are planted with green bell peppers. I would have liked a few other types of vegetables, but those were the only seeds I could get my hand on.
I place the cooler on the ground and sit beside the nearest bucket, and I
open the cooler’s lid. I grab the first empty milk jug, and place the funnel in the opening. Bracing myself, I grab the black bucket, and lift it as high as I can, before dumping the water into the funnel, careful not to spill any of it.
The jug quickly fills up, and I switch it out for another one. When the second and third ones are filled up, I dump the rest of the water into the nearest vegetable patch. I use water from another one to water the rest of the vegetables and, when I’m done, I look them over carefully, noticing that there are two cucumbers ready to be picked.
I carefully twist them away from the plant and tuck them gently into the cooler with the three full water jugs. Then I grab my baseball bat and tuck it into my belt. Grabbing one of the buckets and the cooler, I head back down to my apartment. The sun would be going down in a little while and, even though there aren’t any zombies in the apartment building, I still feel exposed and vulnerable outside at nighttime.
When I’m safely hidden for the night in my apartment, I place the cooler on the counter and take out the three water jugs. I open my fridge where, even though it doesn’t work anymore, I keep three water pitchers with built in filters.
I empty the contents of the jugs into the pitchers and leave them on the counter to fill up. Next, I grab the bucket by my feet and head into the bathroom to wash. After brushing my teeth with some of the water, I use the rest to wash my hair and scrub my body clean of a week’s worth of dirt, grime, and blood.
After I’m done, I slice one of the cucumbers and finish the rest of the pear water. With a full stomach and a clean body, I climb into bed for the night. I’d need a full night of rest for my venture into town tomorrow. I was running low on toiletries and some basic food supplies.
My eyes finally close, and I slip into a fitful sleep, complete with nightmarish creatures, fire, and dying people.