Chapter 1: Z

Today

                “Oh my god! Watch out!” The shrill squeal came from the passenger seat of the crowded Isuzu Trooper as the vehicle careens down the flaming and destroyed main street. Jolting from the scream, the driver rips hard on the wheel, his thick knuckles bleaching white from the strain of keeping control of the blue SUV. Tires scream in agony as the vehicle weaves around a ragged man in the street, waving his broken hands pleafully at the people inside. “Stop! He needs help!” The screaming passenger locks her eyes on the man in the road, twisting and scoping him through the other panicked bodies inside the truck.

Seeing the ride as one of salvation, the man struggles to chase after the Trooper, only failing in his pursuit as three bodies rush and tackle him from behind one of the many brick buildings framing the wreckage filled street. The foursome skid across the pavement, grinding to a stop. An eruption of glass, flame and smoke from a passing storefront cloud the woman’s view of the four bodies in the road. The billowing volume of the explosion coupled with the peeling heat of the fire rock the little SUV, sending the mass of crying, bleeding, wounded passengers rolling to one side of the vehicle. Some of the cluster upright themselves while others groan at the pain. One of the more coherent passengers in the far back of the ride yells in frustration, “Keep this damn rig steady” as he rolls a large woman onto her back and juts the fingers of one hand back into the gaping hole in her neck while ripping the sleeve off his plaid cotton shirt with the other.

The driver says nothing, his cheekbones beginning to match the absence of color in his hands. His breathing becomes rapid and miniscule while his eyelids pulse slightly before sweat begins to take form on the surface of his chilled skin.

The crusty man with the bloodied fingers barks again at the driver, “Why don’t you put a little speed on? She’s dying here!” He wads the cuff of the shirt sleeve up against the void in her soaked neck and wraps the remainder around her gurgling throat.

“Why don’t you back off?” Another backseater fires at the man, “He’s doing all he can!”

The crusty man opens his mouth to spill his anger and is thrown violently toward the front of the vehicle along with every person and object not bolted down. The tires howl and the Isuzu lurches to a halt, scarcely avoiding violent contact with a maroon Subaru Legacy barreling through the intersection on the cross street. The smaller vehicle drifts through the intersection at incredible speed, obviously trying to make the turn to a new street and failing. The tires trip over an unrecognizable piece of machinery, the car tips into its turn and flips into the air, rolling skyward into an unoccupied truck on the other side of the intersection. The impact throws the small car directly skyward and the force pushes the truck with the newly smashed cab backward into yet another abandoned vehicle. The Subaru lands nose first on the pavement, ejecting the driver head first with great anger out the front windshield and onto the pavement below then rolls end over end off the streets, through a metal fenced railing and down into a creek bed just off the sidewalk.

Three passengers howl in pain. The middle-aged woman defending the driver and the abrasive man in the back begin hollering at one another. The front seat passenger wails at the terror that just flew by her and the driver vomits on the steering wheel and into his lap. The driver’s wretching turns into a laborious dry heaving, his thick hands glued to the steering wheel. Grimy hands slap the passenger window causing the redhead up front to shriek again, then once more as she sees the half mulched face of the hands’ owner closing in on and trying to bite through the smooth glass surface. Teeth and fingernails slide impotently across the clear barrier and multiply as four other people in various states of damage attempt to pry open the sealed vehicle. The screaming up front spreads to the man woman and child huddling together in the center bench seat and even to the back cargo area of the van with the worn faced man and his obese patient along with a bruised man huddling against the seatback of the bench, clutching his stumped arm where a hand should be.

“Go! Go!” The redheaded passenger screams at the convulsing driver. He seems not to hear her wail so her fists pound on his awareness, “Come on! Please?” She pleads as she pummels, “Oh god, please just go!” One of the mutilated outsiders climbs atop the hood of the small SUV and drags herself closer to the windshield using the wiper blade. She follows the passenger’s lead and sends her own mud caked fists down against the glass barrier. The passenger shakes her driver out of his stupor, screaming in his ear, “Please just go! I don’t wanna die, oh god I don’t wanna die!”

Driver swallows a large volume of air and saliva, raises his head involuntarily and smashes the gas pedal of the Trooper lurching everyone backward and peeling most of the outsiders off the vehicle. The forward momentum slides the woman on the hood directly onto the windshield, sending her body across the wiper on her way up. The slender metal contraption pulls the woman’s tanktop down hard against her body and rips through the mid-section of the cloth, then digs into her abdomen and burrows deep down her torso. Oblivious to the intrusion, the woman still pounds and bites at the window, trying to get in to the wailing passengers.

The driver snakes through vehicle wreckage and the load of a spilled log truck as he forces his transport out of his small hometown of Weston Oregon. After a small stretch of straight road, driver banks hard right to the onramp of freedom. This change in direction tosses the impaled hood ornament, snapping off the wiper blade and ejecting the woman across the driver side of the vehicle and onto the gravel roadside. The parental passengers in the bench seat turn watching the crazed woman stand and run in a completely different direction, chasing after some other notion in the distance. Their burning eyes trail from their stowaway back to the smoke populated town they knew so well and watch the distance and the surrounding hills swallow their home.

The passenger rubs her chewed up shoulder gently, trying her best to avoid blanching from the thick scents of vomit, shit, and violence. She is startled by the abrupt demands from the cargo hold, “Now can we hurry up and get to the damned hospital? My wife is dying back here!”

Alternative Zombie Intro - Epic Win (unfinished rough draft)

                “Why did I even say yes to this?” Winston says to the table in front of him as he slumps down into the well-used chair. His right hand slaps down lazily onto the table top, causing a small rattle from the empty coffee can and the wobbly, hand-crafted, wooden sign which both rest on the uneven tabletop. He sighs heavily and looks around the common grounds of the college at the various people moving from one place to another, oblivious to each other as his hand picks and pulls at the name-filled paper in front of him.

                As the day meanders on, picking turns to penciling and Winston slowly, methodically tortures the paper on the table with inquisition precision and merciless persistence. He brushes a roll of raffle tickets away to dig in deeper to his torture as he administers the thumbscrews on the edge of the sheet. The little red tags of unwon prizes slides neglected to the cash box to pout unnoticed. Winston stretches and tears at the paper, grinding on it looking for any form of vocalization from the list of names but none comes.

                “Hey Win.” The melody floats through the air directly above Winston’s sandy blond faux hawk and beyond the realm of the cafeteria style table. The melody is repeated and finds the same lack of response. Again, the table claps, this time from a hand other than Winston’s, which causes his head to pop up like a startled meerkat.

                Standing before Winston on the opposite side of the table is a smaller woman with a very pleasing frame and yellow hair layering over her one-piece denim skirt-suit which clings tightly to her shape and accentuates her feminine curves. Winston’s startled face transitions to joy, “Hey Jennifer. What’s new?”

                “Just getting ready to go to class. What about you, what’s all of this?” She asks as she waves her hand like a game show hostess at the table and the various items scattered across it.

                “Oh. Well this is a fund raiser my business club is doing. Want to buy a ticket? They’re only a dollar.” He sets his hand on the reel of red tabs and smiles half-heartedly.

                “What do I win?”

                “Well, we aren’t really giving out prizes. The deal is you pick someone on this list,” he taps his pencil at the scarred paper, “and you buy tickets on them. The instructor with the most tickets bought on him or her has to kiss a pig on graduation day in front of everyone.”

                “Oh, how very interesting.” She feigns enthusiasm but her cynicism seeps through her glowing white teeth. “Have you been very successful today?”

                “No, it’s been pretty quite.” He points at the emptiness throughout the indoor courtyard. “No one wanted to show up to school today.”

“I am a little surprised to see you here today.” She motions around to the rest of the college.

                “Why.” Winston slides back into his chair, scratching at the edge of the tabletop.

                “Well with the bomb threat and all, I figured you might have stayed home.” She leans up against the table and Winston can’t help but notice how the table’s ledge presses against her hip flesh.

                “Oh that. That’s no big deal.” Winston flicks carelessly at the reel of tickets.

                “What do you mean, no big deal? Doesn’t this bomb threat cause you at least some concern? This is a big deal.” Jennifer tries hard to be genuine with her words but again, her biting condescension is more visible than she thinks it is. She is so confident in her intelligence that it doesn’t dawn on her that her belittlement is dead obvious.

                Winston sighs out his boredom with the conversation, “There is no bomb. It’s all just a hoax”

                “Oh?” She provides mock surprise. “How do you know this?”

                “Yeah.” Winston leans forward and props his forearms up on his knees, “Think about it for a minute. There are two reasons why this can’t be legitimate. First off; this threat was issued yesterday and the ‘terrorist’ said it would explode today. I sincerely doubt anyone in this town has the knowledge necessary to make a timer that will go off a day later.” Winston smiles and waves at the college president as the man in the suit walks toward the cafeteria. “Second, if this was legitimate, the ‘bomber’ would have a real reason for doing it and that reason would have been sent to the paper or TV station, not scrawled like a juvenile on a bathroom wall. I mean, if you were going to bomb something, wouldn’t you want people to know why they’re being punished?”

                Jennifer pushes off the table and resumes her power stance, “I guess that makes sense.”

                The ground shifts and chaos runs from the cafeteria in an earth shattering roar. The walls tremble at the sound, shaking off paint and mortar. School chairs and other normally stationary items escape from the sound in a flight and billows of dust, smoke, and debris chase after the errant items in a frenzied rage, spitting trash and cement in anger.

                Winston uprights himself in his seat, scooting his torso back onto the chair but cannot move. He rolls his head brokenly forward, stooping slightly before regaining equilibrium. The young student tries to stand but is stopped dead by the length of steel bar which has pierced his left knee and embedded into the concrete, putting him in his place like an insect on corkboard. Winston’s eyes focus for the first time since the explosion. They stare at the knee, trying to understand why it refuses to move and finally realizes the source of his immobility which causes a slight wave of nausea.

                Jennifer pulls her feet underneath her and stands on them a good four feet from where she was standing before the blast. She stabilizes herself by holding onto the floor with one hand and her curvy hip with the other before drawing herself up onto shaky knees and grabbing at nearby air to keep her upright. “Oh my god…” she stammers through a muzzle of disbelief as a cascade of ash and dirt pours from her straight blond hair.

                The fingers of his left hand gently investigate the spot where Win’s knee and the steel rod connect as he calls out to Jen, “Hey! Are you alright?” He tries pulling on the gigantic pin and when he does, his vision flees and beads of sweat form on his hairline.

                Jen orients herself and turns to let Win know she’s fine as she is blindsided by a blur of human mass. The force of this second battery throws the woman again and again she is tossed to the ground, this time, she is covered by a pair of ragged bodies. The mass of bodies slides to a halt next to part of the ceiling which has fallen and Jen finds herself pressed to the ground by the college president and a culinary student wearing a smoldering apron. The culinary student, lying on Jen’s legs and holding her right arm, pulls her hand to his torn face and drops his exposed jaw onto her fingers. She screeches in pain which causes the president to prop up on her shoulders and look down at her. He cocks his head to the side and allows a sound to fall from his bloodied mouth that sounds like a choking pig. His head twitches twice like a skipping record before he also descends upon the face of the screaming student, teeth exposed.

                “Oh shit!”  Win grabs the bar above his knee and jerks on it. Pain sails up his leg and into his stomach. The wave crashes in his belly and rolls to his throat, widening his eyes. The pain freezes his movement and Winston is paralyzed, eyes fixed on the two men attacking his classmate. The president pulls his perfectly styled head back from Jennifer’s face with all the force his strained and sliced neck muscles can muster. His mouth full of broken teeth drag Jen’s cheek like stretching bubble gum before the tension causes it to snap roughly mid way between faces, sending strings of skin slapping up at the president like spaghetti noodles and flecks of blood and fluid spurting into the air. This sight breaks the spell and Winston understands the need to move now! He jerks on the unmoving bar again which sends another wave up through his gut and into his throat, this time unstopped by his esophagus, the previous meal spills out from his face with sloppy splatters onto the table in front of him.

                The culinary student chewing through Jennifer’s hand raises his own into the air with his boney fingers pointed at her stomach. Without watching, he plunges his fleshless finger knives into her midsection, tearing through her tight denim outfit and her abdominal wall. He reaches elbow deep into the student and retracts with a handful of intestines. Sections of the meaty rope slips between the student’s jagged fingers and slap at the body below. The student rips at the new handful of organs with a clap of the teeth and gnashes at the rubbery meat. The sight forces another round of convulsion from Winston and the sound causes the feasting student to snap his head at Win and jolt forward. Win shakes the bar, fighting back the waves of pain, rocking the bar back and forth as the culinary student half crawl, half sprints at the pinned student. Knowing that his arm strength isn’t enough, Win begins kicking away from the bar with his trapped leg which begins pulling the impaled rod from the concrete. With a scream, he kicks away from the cannibal and the pole flips up. Winston tries to run from the crazed cook but his mangled knee doesn’t even try to support him and he slides away from the table as the other student leaps across it and crashes into the now vacant chair.

                Winston begins scrambling toward a set of nearby stairs while the sprinting student throws chair to the side and launches into another tackle. Knowing he can’t get away, Winston rolls onto his back and scoots backward to the stairs, keeping a frightened eye on the lunatic student as he jumps again. Winston grabs the rod and points the unoccupied end of it at the heart of the flying student. The pole punctures the landing person and protrudes from his back which stops his forward momentum. He shoots his bloodied hands at Winston and falls short of his target so he grabs the post and pulls his body closer to his prey.

                With the additional weight, Winston quits trying to pull the bar out of his leg and instead butts it up against the bottom stair and scoots closer to the stairs. This pushes the bar out of the wounded student’s knee along with meat and chips of bone. Once the pole gets too far through Winston’s knee to hold the weight of the advancing lunatic, it begins swaying off to the left and Win pushes it in encouragement before realizing that doing this tears at the remaining flesh connections between his body and his lower leg. With sound of splitting rope, the bar severs most of the ties keeping Win’s foot and the culinary student sprawls to the side clumsily sprawling backward. Winston bellows in agony.

                The college president’s head flips up, covered in crimson. He draws to attention like a meerkat hearing danger. His throat clicks a few times and his head cocks twice rapidly before tasting the air with his tongue. He draws in scent with fluttering eyelids and a slow gasp of wind before his head falls sideways, eyes landing directly on Winston’s soul. Without the assistance of his hands, the president rises from the corpse of the girl, knees buckled together and head not changing axis.      

                Winston is stricken with another wave of nausea and panic which is compounded by watching Jennifer’s body rise to a sitting position and then stand as well, faceless and with innards pouring from the hole in her midsection and dangling at the end of chords of tendon and artery from deep within her torso. He wheels about and scrambles up the stairs, dragging his nearly severed leg behind, not realizing how much it resembles a fish out of water flopping up each stair and spinning in the air or tumbling around itself.

                The college president and his recently undeceased classmate begin stalking the wounded student. As they close in on the stairs, the reset of the college erupts in a new chaos, bringing panicked students and staff out of the woodwork screaming for ambulances or nine one one. The door bursts open behind the college president and his hefty secretary charges out of the door straight to her boss with a box of Kleenexes in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. No sooner does the woman get her stubby fingers to the president’s mangled face is she beset upon by a pair of hungry dead and shortly joined by the third famished attacker.