Mortal: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Read online

  Mortal:

  Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

  By

  Shawn Chesser

  KINDLE EDITION

  ***

  Mortal:

  Surviving the Zombie

  Apocalypse

  Copyright 2013

  Shawn Chesser

  Kindle Edition

  Kindle Edition, License

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real persons, events, or places are purely coincidental; any references to actual places, people, or brands are fictitious. All rights reserved.

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  ***

  Acknowledgements

  For Mo, Raven, and Caden, you three mean the world to me ... love you. And thanks, Maureen Chesser, for all of the support you’ve given me through this incredible journey called life. Love you. I owe everything to my parents for bringing me up the right way. Mom, thanks for reading … although it is not your genre. Dad, aka Mountain Man Dan, thanks for your ear and influence. Cliff Kane, RIP. Daymon, thanks for introducing me to Grand Targhee and Jackson Hole! Thanks to all of the men and women in the military, past and present, especially those of you in harm’s way. Thanks to all LE and first responders for your service. To the people in the U.K. who have been in touch, thanks for reading! Thanks to Mark Lyon for another awesome image ... you make a great Cade Grayson! Lieutenant Colonel Michael Offe, thanks for your service as well as your friendship. Larry Eckels, thank you for helping me with some of the military technical stuff in Mortal. For answering my questions concerning the Hercules: John O’Brien, Norman Meredith, James Wallace Holdstein, Robert Kagel, Dennis Lyons, Michael Offe, Larry Eckels. Any missing facts or errors are solely my fault. Beta readers, you rock, and you know who you are. Thanks George Romero for introducing me to zombies. Steve H., thanks for listening. All of my friends and fellows at S@N and Monday Old St. David’s, thanks as well. Lastly, thanks to Bill W. and Dr. Bob … you helped make this possible. I am going to sign up for another 24.

  My idea for the cover was interpreted and designed by Craig Overbey to perfection. Thank you sir! Contact Craig

  Special thanks to Craig DiLouie, John O’Brien, and Mark Tufo for continuing to provide me with invaluable advice when I come a’ knocking. David P. Forsyth, thanks for including me in the Permuted Press published anthology, Outbreak: Visions of the Apocalypse. Being published and all of the proceeds going to charity = WIN+WIN. Also thanks for inviting me to ApocaCon2 in Long Beach. Had a blast and met some other cool folks ... Craig DiLouie, Saul Tanpepper, Peter Clines, A. American, Julie Randolph, and Christopher J Fennell, to name a few.

  Once again, extra special thanks to Monique Happy for her work editing “Mortal”. Mo, as always, you came through like a champ! Working with you has been a seamless experience and nothing but a pleasure. If I have accidentally left anyone out ... I am truly sorry.

  ***

  Edited by Monique Happy Editorial Services

  http://www.moniquehappy.com

  Table of Contents

  Mortal:

  Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

  KINDLE EDITION

  Copyright 2013

  Kindle Edition, License

  Shawn Chesser on Facebook

  Acknowledgements

  Edited by Monique Happy Editorial Services

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Outbreak - Day 16

  Draper, South Dakota

  Jasper heard the screams well before he committed the left turn onto Cemetery Road, and as the springs supporting the overburdened truck squeaked and crushed stone popped and crunched beneath its balding tires, the shrill animal-like warble rose above it all. Suddenly the volunteer undertaker longed for the old yellow earmuffs he usually kept in the truck’s bed and without fail donned when weed whacking the church grounds at Father O’Reilly’s behest.

  But sadly, the hearing protection and the rest of his lawn equipment had been supplanted by the Omega-ravaged bodies of the Vasquez family—all six of them—mom, dad and their four girls, aged three to ten.

  He braked fifty yards short of the wrought iron fence surrounding the cemetery, pressed the tiny binoculars to his face, and focused on the smoking wreckage.

  From his vantage point, which was nearly straight on, he spied the massive crater where the black helicopter had impacted the ground at the far north end of the cemetery. The dark brown chasm it had plowed as it bled airspeed ran through a hundred yards worth of dirt and grave markers, and also a good number of his neighbors’ corpses, before finally coming to rest with its angular nose partially buried under the tilled topsoil.

  He removed the field glasses momentarily, squinted against the sun’s harsh rays, and ran his forearm across his brow to wipe away the beaded sweat. “Hell is getting hotter,” he said softly to himself. After performing a thorough visual check of his surroundings and seeing none of the walking corpses nearby, he replaced the binoculars and stole a longer peek at the wreck.

  The hubcap-shaped rotor disc atop the listing aircraft was in one piece; ho
wever, it appeared that the initial contact with the ground had reduced the whirring blades to nothing but stubs sprouting streamers of some kind of high-tech wispy fiber. The violence of the crash had rent a gaping hole in the craft’s upturned right-hand side and had compromised the cockpit glass, leaving the screaming pilot pinned in his seat and fully exposed to the flesh-eaters.

  He slammed the transmission into park, set the brake, and killed the engine. Deciding against the shotgun, he fished the graphite-black .22 semi-auto pistol from the glove box, and retrieved his machete from the passenger side footwell.

  After taking a little more time to scan all four points of the compass, he slid from behind the wheel, eased the door closed, and made off in a crouch toward the cemetery’s easternmost edge.

  The guttural pleas for help continued in earnest while he covered the thirty yards between his truck and the graveyard at as close to a sprint as his forty-five-year-old legs would propel him. Once he reached the far fence line, winded and gasping for breath, he took a knee behind a large headstone denoting the final resting place of one August Piontek 1884-1941.

  Sweat dripping from his brow, he brought the binoculars to bear on the crash site, and from the new and improved viewing angle saw that both pilots were still strapped into their seats. The one suspended a dozen feet off the ground appeared to be dead, head and arms hanging limply. The one making the racket was at ground level, bucking and thrashing against his flight harness.

  Jasper turned the focus ring and held his arms steady, trying to discern how badly the man was injured. He saw the man’s mouth contorting under the smoked visor—a ghastly visual finally mated with the nerve-jangling peals filling the air. Then he panned the binoculars down to where the helicopter’s fuselage merged with the ground. Suddenly his blood ran cold when he realized that a lone ghoul had beaten him to the crashed aircraft. The shirtless creature worked its feet furiously, digging into the browned grass, succeeding ever so slowly in squeezing its upper body through a jagged fissure in the cockpit glass.

  Through the Plexiglas, Jasper could clearly see the screamer’s gloved hand performing a rapid sort of pageant wave as the pallid creature shook its head and rent a mouthful of fabric and glistening meat from the man’s forearm. Averting his eyes from the horrific sight, Jasper moved his pistol over his chest, a makeshift sign of the cross.

  After speaking with his God, he chambered a round, snicked the safety off and tapped the courage necessary to put the wailing pilot out of his misery.

  Breathing through his mouth in order to keep a rising tide of bile at bay, he rose, skirted the weathered stone marker, and tiptoed through the morass of Omega-infected bodies he’d been dumping there since the plague began ravaging his corner of the world. And though the doomed pilot wouldn’t be the first human he’d been forced to put down before reanimation, he was certain nothing about this one was going to be easy—especially if the dying man made eye contact. For it was that knowing twinkle, the spark only present in the eyes of the living, that made the final act of compassion so difficult for him to fulfill.

  God give me the strength, he thought as the keening continued unabated. Head ducked, he flitted between headstones and approached the ghoul from behind and to the right. He paused for a tick, long enough to bring the binoculars to bear, and counted the trudging corpses he’d passed on Cemetery Road a couple of minutes ago. Twenty-two. A far cry more than the small manageable groups of twos and threes usually attracted to the graveyard by the noisy carrion-feeding birds. And though the throng was still a good distance away, the danger their large numbers presented meant he had to get a move on. Should have known the crash would draw a crowd, he told himself as he fought off an overwhelming urge to bolt for his pick-up and head for home.

  But his upbringing wouldn’t allow it. Country folk always help their fellows, had been his father’s mantra.

  Put the dying one out of his misery first, a little voice in his head urged.

  The simple act would take but a second and leave him with a clear conscience when answering to St. Peter at the Pearly Gates—if he didn’t first succumb to the ever-present apocalypse-induced urge to eat his shotgun—an act that would surely resign him to eternal hellfire. Damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t, he mused. But first he’d have to deal with the zombie.

  Shifting his gaze back to the helicopter, he saw his hopes of an easy out dashed when the other pilot, who he’d thought was dead, brought his gloved hands up and began batting away the tangle of wires hanging in front of his face. Then, obviously fighting both gravity and the weight of his bulky flight helmet, the pilot lifted his head to horizontal and held it there for a tick before once again going limp in his harness.

  “Your mercy mission just got more complicated,” Jasper said to himself, as he silently picked his way through jagged wreckage resembling pieces of honeycomb ripped from a scorched beehive. His approach undetected, he stood over the lower half of the prostrate creature’s squirming body, feet a shoulder width apart, and thrust his pistol through a crack in the cockpit glass. Heart racing crazily, he took a deep breath and aimed for the rear of the abomination’s skull—just above the base of the neck where the pencil eraser-sized .22 caliber bullet had the best chance of penetration. And as he said a silent prayer and drew back the final half-pound of trigger pull two things happened simultaneously. First, the pilot went deathly quiet, all of the fight leaving his body. Then, from somewhere deep inside the helicopter, someone bellowed, “Hold your fire!”

  Complying with the barked order, Jasper eased off the trigger, and put his pistol in a back pocket.

  Then the disembodied male voice calmly added, “There is a fuel leak. You smelling it?”

  Jasper clamped his mouth shut and breathed in through his nose. Sure enough, barely perceptible, under the oppressive carrion pong, was a hint of kerosene. “Yeah. But just barely,” he replied.

  “Your gunfire would have ignited the vapors, killing us all.”

  Stunned into silence by the revelation of just how close he’d come to finally making St. Peter’s acquaintance, Jasper shifted his weary gaze to the lurching troop, still half a football field away, and vectoring unwaveringly towards the wreckage.

  With a calm air of authority, the male voice asked, “What’s your name?”

  Dividing his attention between keeping a tab on the deadly creature near his feet and probing the chopper’s gloomy interior for the source of the voice, he answered, “Jasper ... Jasper Hasp.”

  “OK, Jasper Hasp,” said the voice. “Do you have a knife?”

  “A machete,” answered Jasper.

  “Then kill the thing,” the male voice stated calmly.

  Chapter 2

  Jasper hinged at the waist, looked under the pilot’s visor. He noticed the man’s eyeballs darting around behind closed ashen lids. “Sorry friend,” he said softly. “You’re going to turn and there’s nothing anyone can do for you now.” Then the big-boned undertaker regarded the zombie. He shuddered at the sight as the thing continued burrowing—pulling its emaciated body forward—inch by inch past the broken glass and twisted metal of the shattered cockpit. Finally he bent down and wrapped his calloused hands around the zombie’s cold, clammy ankles. He hauled back and straightened his legs, and tugged the soulless monster through the jagged glass, inflicting deep half-moon shaped lacerations along both sides of its ribcage. Then, after dragging the writhing abomination clear of the pooled fuel, he crushed his knee against its knobby spine, took a handful of matted hair, and behind a short economical swing, buried the machete inches deep into its exposed temple. “It’s done,” he said as gray matter and brackish blood bubbled around the blade.

  “Good job,” called the person from inside the helicopter. “What kind of shape are the pilots in?”

  “The one who was screaming nearly lost his arm to one of those things,” Jasper said. He crouched down and peered through the glass and the space between the two pilots and finally caught sight of
a man-shaped silhouette deep in the bowels of the aircraft. “I’m sorry ... it’ll only be a matter of time before he turns.”

  Save for the moaning and hisses of the nearby dead, there was a short silence. Jasper felt very alone. He wanted the stranger to keep talking. To tell him what to do. He stood up and looked the length of the wreckage, walked a half dozen feet to his right, and regarded the underbelly of the aircraft. Weeds and grass hung in clumps where they had been worked into panels split presumably upon impact. That Jasper could see no markings on the craft’s fuselage, and the fact the man inside of it was wearing some sort of camouflage uniform that he didn’t recognize, left a whole lot up to his imagination—most of which made him wish he’d followed his gut instinct and hadn’t gotten involved. Ignoring the flight impulse, he took a sidelong glance towards the advancing flesh-eaters and said, “What are you going to do about the infected pilot?”

  “Unless you’ve been under a rock the past three weeks,” the shadowy form said, “you know what must be done. But first things first. My foot is trapped, so I’m going to need your help in here. Then I’ll see to Durant’s condition and do what’s necessary.”

  “He could turn any second,” said Jasper excitedly. “His fingers are beginning to twitch.”

  Hearing this, Ari’s head again levered sideways and his entire body went rigid. He mumbled something indecipherable and shot his gloved hands to the safety harness suspending him at a precarious angle mere feet from harm’s way. “Durant’s hurt ...” he called out frantically, eyes fixed on his good friend to his left. “I need to help him. I think he’s bleeding out ...”

  “Ari, stand down,” the shadowy form bellowed. “Durant is gone. He’s infected, and if you unbuckle yourself now you will be too.”

  “Do something then,” Ari said sharply.

  “He’s beyond our help,” answered the voice from within the helicopter.