Survivor Radio

By Magdalene Wrobleski

The zombie apocalypse has arrived, and it isn't pretty. Before long, the line starts to blur between human and zombie as people forget what makes them human in favor of staying alive. Nat Scott, a slacker whose life is going nowhere fast, is suddenly thrown headfirst into the madness. Can he keep his humanity and find himself when the world's been turned into a bloody mess of roving flesh-eaters and empty-eyed survivors?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Magdalene Wrobleski
• Release date: Sep 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465829801

Magdalene Wrobleski

"Survivor Radio," a zombie apocalypse novel, is debuting on Smashwords and other ebook sellers on September 24, 2011. Its author, Magdalene Wrobleski, is a student and writer. For updates on the book, check out survivorradio on Tumblr or survivorradiobook on YouTube.

Book preview

Survivor Radio

By Magdalene Wrobleski

Copyright 2011 Magdalene Wrobleski

Smashwords Edition

Cover Art: Copyright 2011 Heather Bower

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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 Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Room 479

Chapter 2: Don’t They Play Music on the Radio Anymore?

Chapter 3: Gun Show

Chapter 4: Home Sweet Suburbia

Chapter 5: Worst-Case Scenario

Chapter 6: Diesel

Chapter 7: Day One

Chapter 8: The Answer

Chapter 9: Ninety-Nine Cent Pen

Chapter 10: Old Habits

Chapter 11: Close Your Eyes

Chapter 12: Supply Run

Chapter 13: News

Chapter 14: Interim

Chapter 15: Sorry

Chapter 16: Split Lip

Chapter 17: Runaway Scars

Chapter 18: Call to Action

Chapter 19: Dead Men Walking

Chapter 20: We need you.

Chapter 21: Aftermath

Chapter 1: Room 479

It was a warm evening for April. A balmy breeze drifted through well-tended gardens and breathed between blades of pristine grass on the lawns. Neatness was important here. Even the staff at Saint Clare’s Hospital found time to weed the beds of flowers outside the glass double doors when they weren’t tending to patients. But it was late, very late, and the night shift was in full swing. One occupied room attracted all their attention, and no one paid a thought to the nasty crabgrass springing up in the begonia patch.

The heart monitor was beginning to falter in room 479. The sheets beneath the man stretched upon the bed were dingy; his condition was far too delicate for him to be moved even to have the bedclothes changed.

Sitting alert by the man’s bedside was a woman. Her cheeks were lined with tear streaks, but she was silent. The only sounds in the room were the monitor and the soft sound of the woman’s high heeled shoe scraping the linoleum floor.

Presently, a doctor crossed the room and gave the patient a sad look. To his companion, the doctor frowned with concern.

His condition’s not good, the doctor told her gently.

She stared up at him with dark, empty eyes for a moment, and then returned her gaze to the bed.

Mr. Raleigh probably won’t make it through the night. There’s nothing we can do. I’m sorry, Miss Kortright.

But you still don’t know what’s wrong with him? questioned Miss Kortright, her voice controlled but her stare scathing.

The doctor shifted his weight uncomfortably. We’ve tried all we can, miss. I’ve never seen anything like it…it’s likely a very advanced case of another illness. You know he’s resisted all treatment.

Kortright sighed heavily and inched her chair closer to the bedside. She stared into the pallid, deathly face and took Raleigh’s sweaty hand. He made no recognition of her touch; he hadn’t responded to anything for a week now.

The moments slid by in a silence laced with anticipation. Everyone in the room, Kortright included, knew death was imminent. It was only a question of when.

And finally, just as the minutes slipped away into the void of the past, Mr. Charles Raleigh slipped away into the embrace of the grave.

The monitor’s beeping morphed into a shrill, constant cry, and someone murmured, He’s gone.

Miss Kortright bowed her head and collapsed into tears, letting Raleigh’s hand fall so it was draped over the metal sidebars on his bed. The doctors made sympathetic noises and began to file out. Word spread across the hospital quickly, and all of the staff gathered outside the door under the guise of compassion, when really they wanted all the details. Raleigh’s odd illness had attracted much attention over the week he had hovered between life and death.

Before long, Kortright was alone in the room with the body. She could hear the murmurs outside the door and felt a surge of anger. She fought her desire to tell them all they could go to hell and that they should shut up and leave her in peace, but she simply didn’t have the energy.

She wiped her tears and took Raleigh’s unmoving hand again while the heart monitor continued to surge its electronic death toll. She closed her eyes, tired and worn out, and she whispered, Please come back…I’m sorry, I’m sorry…please…

Suddenly, she felt a muscle in the hand jerk and her head snapped up.

Charlie? she breathed, eyes wide.

There was no question now; he had moved. He was shifting where he lay, his motions completely uncoordinated, but he was definitely moving.

She jumped up, knocking over the chair, and called out joyously, He’s alive! He’s alive!

The murmuring outside stopped for a moment, and then continued with a renewed vigor. Raleigh’s doctor hurried back into the room and gave Kortright another sad frown.

Miss, I know losing him is hard, but he’s gone. I’m sorry, he told her.

No! No! He’s not gone! I felt him move, I swear I did! she cried, pointing at the body.

That’s impossible, the doctor told her patiently. See, the monitor is not picking up any signs of life. He has no pulse. He’s dead.

"But he moved!" she shrieked.

The bed creaked and Raleigh issued a strangled grunt. Kortright screamed with glee. See! See! He’s alive!

What in the… The doctor ran to the patient’s bedside, where he was indeed moving. He was twitching and shaking, with broken noises emitting from his mouth.

The doctor grabbed Raleigh’s wrist and felt it, but found no pulse. In fact, Raleigh didn’t seem to be inhaling. Staff members peered around the doorframe curiously, their other patients forgotten.

I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am, he’s certainly dead and yet--

Suddenly, Raleigh lunged and bit the doctor’s arm, tearing off a chunk of tissue.

Blood was spurting all over the clean linoleum floor, printed with faded flowers. Everyone was screaming and Raleigh jerkily got up from the bed, mouth stained with blood. The doctor was yelling in agony as his wound began to fester and foam, as if his arm was the mouth of a rabid raccoon. Staffers went to restrain Raleigh as others dragged the doctor out of the room. Raleigh was snarling, seemingly incapable of normal speech, biting at the air. The entire scene moved out into the hallway as Raleigh, his face pale but his eyes bloodshot and his irises a vivid, mottled yellow, latched on to flesh again.

Those bitten suffered unusual side effects almost immediately; their wounds looked poisoned and angry, as though they had been left untreated for weeks, and the victims were attacked further until, spurting blood and sporting wounds, they died on the hospital floor.

But, as Raleigh, though they had no pulse and were not compelled to breathe, they rose up from where they were sprawled with demonic eyes and skin devoid of color, hell-bent on a mission for human flesh.

Saint Clare’s Hospital was once orderly, neat, and precise. Now, the glass doors were marked with the stains of carnage and the crabgrass amongst the flowers were the least of anyone’s worries.

A neon red exit sign hung over a door left ajar during a staffer’s smoking break. The hospital was small, and most of its rooms were empty that April night. Slowly, those poor souls remaining who weren’t too horribly mangled to walk on went out into the night.

Chapter 2: Don’t They Play Music on the Radio Anymore?

The city was bustling as it always was; the saying was that New York City never stopped moving, not even to sleep. Commuters hurried to work on buses and subways, attentive to incoming emails on their cell phones and nothing else, but yet became extremely angry if they bumped into someone else. It was the way the city worked.

The express buses, which traveled down highways and over bridges from the suburbs into the city, were never too packed. Fares were astronomical, after all, and it was cheaper to drive even with the tolls. But while most of the passengers looked clean-cut and professional, one traveler in particular stood out.

This could have been explained any number of ways, ranging from the messy hair and clothes that smelled like cigarette smoke to the worn cardboard box balancing in the man’s lap. The box was filled with a number of knickknacks and looked like it had been thrown from a second story window; oddly enough, it had.

He had an old make of an iPod with him, and was flipping through radio stations, looking very focused on the task at hand.

"--resulting in a massive recall of peanut butter, although no word as to why the--"

"--still no leads on the gory attacks in the suburbs. Residents are extremely--"

"--Hospital, the site of the horrifying crime, has been closed off to all--"

With a frustrated sigh, he yanked the headphones out of his ears.

"Don’t radio stations play music anymore?" he complained to the man sitting next to him.

Excuse me? replied the lawyer in the adjourning seat stiffly. He was already slightly offended simply because this unkempt stranger was near him, and now said stranger was talking to him as though they knew each other.

You know, radio. On the airwaves, he said, making wavy motions with his arms.

I don’t believe we’ve met, the lawyer said, choosing to ignore this assumption of ignorance.

Oh. Nathaniel Scott, he said, offering his hand. But you can call me Nat.

The lawyer got up and moved to another seat.

You don’t have to call me Nat, okay? Nathaniel’s fine! he called after the man, who ignored him.

Nat sunk back into his chair and tossed his iPod into the cardboard box. The departure of the man had reminded him forcibly of his last relationship, except she had kicked him out because, after all, it was her apartment.

In fact, that was the reason he was sitting on an express bus with a cardboard box of his possessions looking like shit. Technically, Denise had kicked him out three days ago, but this morning he had realized he was missing a chunk of his music collection and she had another thing coming if she thought she was keeping his LPs. That was exactly what he told her, too, which wasn’t the wisest choice considering she caught him trying to squeeze through the bathroom window while she was at work. So she had gathered all his things, stuffed them into a box, and thrown it out her window to the street below. He was fairly certain she would have thrown him out the window as well if he hadn’t run out as she screamed her head off at him.

So there he sat after deciding on a whim to go into the city. He really didn’t want to go back home, considering home was his parents’ house now. His mom would hug him with that pitying look she had, and then gently suggest that he should clean his room, and his father would yell at him to be a man and go to medical school or at least get a job because, dammit, he was twenty-four years old and this would never have been tolerated during The War. His father was always going on about The War. Even after all these years, Nat wasn’t entirely sure which war the elderly Scott was always referring to.

Nat had considered moving out many, many times, but he truly had nowhere else to go. His sister Cassie was off being a successful surgeon with her own house and her nice life, and in Europe, no less, and girlfriends kept kicking him out. And now the radios weren’t even playing music.

Everyone had been discussing the news lately, it seemed. His father only ever emerged from behind his newspaper to complain and state that the world was going to the dogs these days. But none of it really captured Nat’s attention. He knew there was some sort of peanut butter scare, which didn’t affect him because of his nut allergy, and that there were a lot of weird attacks upstate and in New England. But nothing of the sort had happened in the city, so this didn’t really capture him, either. Then there was something about a hospital upstate, about how some people had died, but people died in hospitals all the time. It didn’t seem all that special, really, but it was all over the news.

Nat’s own personal dramas had been diverting his attention as well. Moving back with his parents was humiliating, and he was pretty sure Denise fractured at least three of his LPs. Living at home meant putting up with his dad’s loudly-declared opinions, most of them relating to Nat’s imminent future as a hobo, and constant comparisons to his sister in every aspect of his life from his unemployment to his personal appearance. Plus, this one level in the video game he was currently playing was decidedly impossible and in-game monsters and online co-op partners kept murdering him. He simply didn’t have the time to worry about other people’s problems.

He dug through the box on his lap half-heartedly, more for something to do than genuine interest. Shiny and scratched CDs were tossed about within the box, scattered around the stack of records. A couple of bent photographs were strewn about; an old hoodie he thought he threw out was sloppily folded within; and here and there were various items he forgot he even owned. Typical; half the time he couldn’t remember if he constantly lost things or just imagined having them.

As Nat poked around in his box, the bus screeched to a stop. The doors opened, letting in a breeze tainted with the scent of roadkill and trash on the highway. The elderly woman waiting by the bus stop stumbled up the stairs.

Nat glanced up, wondering who would be waiting for a bus by the highway. The new passenger looked rather ill; she was pale and coughed feebly as the driver asked her to pay the fare.

Hey, lady, you gotta pay to ride, the driver said, gesturing at the payment slot.

She said nothing, merely shuddered and then collapsed onto the floor. A cracking sound indicated the glasses hanging from a string around her neck had shattered.

The passengers all gasped and focused their attention on the fallen figure. The driver got up from his seat and bent over the body.

Someone call 911! he called out. The lawyer who had snubbed Nat earlier pulled out his phone and began to dial.

Hello? Yes, I’m on a bus and someone’s collapsed. No, no, we don’t know what’s the matter, she just collapsed. She’s very old, the lawyer said as murmurs began to circulate around the stationary bus.

Nat didn’t get up or attempt to get closer to the scene. He returned to rooting around in the box and his search yielded a little bronze statue of a horse.

The hell is this? he wondered aloud, but no one was paying attention to him.

Suddenly, the woman on the floor began to twitch. She raised her head, emitting rasping noises as though she was breathing through a filter.

The crowd around the body jumped back, and Nat heard the lawyer say, Wait, wait…she’s getting up. What? No, she’s not saying anything.

At this, Nat set his box down on the seat beside him and, still clutching the statue, got up as well. Before his eyes, the woman began to snarl and claw at the people around her.

The shocked murmurs were replaced by panicked cries as the old woman, moments ago feeble and near death, got up with a jerky vigor and pounced on the driver, taking massive bites out of his back.

She’s attacking him! She’s biting him! I…I don’t know! the lawyer was screaming. The little old lady finished with the driver, who was now missing a brain, and attacked the next nearest person.

Blood was spattered all over the seats and the windows as people stuck behind the bus honked their horns impatiently.

Nat ducked down as the insane woman now covered in entrails started on the lawyer. He huddled himself in between the seats, watching the lawyer’s BlackBerry and then his arm fall to the ground.

What the hell is going on?! This is crazy, he thought to himself, panicked. Suddenly, a film he had watched two weeks ago flooded his memory. Within it, undead beings ate human flesh and slowly took over the world.

Don’t think that! That’s stupid, he admonished himself. It was only a movie. This is real life.

These thoughts were driven out as he heard the horrifying sounds of squishy chewing stop. The monster on the bus growled ominously, and Nat heard halting footsteps begin to head his way.

He needed a plan, and glanced at the statue in his hand. He weighed it lightly; it was heavy enough to do some damage, wasn’t it?

Wait a minute, said a voice within his head. What do you think you’re doing? This is stupid. Like you could take on some undead cannibal…just lay low and try not to get eaten…

However, the footsteps were inching closer and his panic was increasing, so he banished the voice of reason within him and prepared to strike.

The creature stopped at his seat, and he met its angry, bloodshot eyes. It leered at him for a moment, and then lunged.

He yelled and kicked it in the face and heard a cracking sound as though every bone in the creature’s face had shattered. It hissed but made for another attack. Nat bashed it with the statue, which dazed it long enough for him to get up into the aisle.

It was unstoppable. Its head was bleeding and an eye was swollen, but again it grabbed at him with cold hands. He threw the statue at it so that a wound opened up, exposing the bone beneath, but it would not stop.

He slid on pools of blood as he backed away, his ears pounding as the creature stared at him with evil eyes. He stared around at the other dead passengers, all of whom were missing limbs, chunks of flesh, and their gray matter. His mind was working furiously. He needed a weapon, and he needed a means of transportation to get to a location with weapons for him to use. He also had to take care of the monster that was stumbling towards him.

The morning sunlight glinted in the keys still in the ignition