Industry of Death

By Jason Thornton

After the zombie apocalypse people learned how to harness zombies for power. Zombies became their own unit of energy, providing power and electricity for a recovering world. The D-Tec Corporation builds, powers, and services zombie-powered devices; from power plants, to factories, to ‘single-zombie’ portable generators. They are rebuilding that which was lost in the zombie apocalypse with the very agents that destroyed it.

Tired of the isolation of living in the wilds, Tyler allowed himself to be recruited by the Corporation. Bringing a lifetime of knowledge in dealing with the undead, he became a star employee as a stoker in the Corporation's Fargo power plant. A stoker's job was to maintain the proper level of zombie aggression. Too little anger and the city's lights would dim. Too much anger and the zombies would fall apart too quickly, a costly resource. Tyler was good at his work and life was good in Fargo, until he became bored and asked for change.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jason Thornton
• Release date: Dec 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310583919

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Industry of Death

by Jason R. Thornton

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 JASON R. THORNTON

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

INDUSTRY OF DEATH

Copyright © 2013 JASON R. THORNTON

Prologue

Tyler knelt among the trees just outside of Fairfield, Idaho. The town was nothing more than an intersection of two minor and remote mountain highways. Before the coming of the zombies, the town’s industry had been a gas station with an adjoining diner that had catered to travelers vacationing in the nearby mountains and wild rivers of the region. The gas station had long since been abandoned, but the diner was in full operation. White smoke billowed from a newly built chimney and a light breeze carried the smell of frying bacon to Tyler.

The breeze also brought the scent of zombies, but they were safely harnessed and secured to the vehicles they were meant to power. Zombie power, once it had been discovered, had fueled the redemption of the human race from the brink of extinction. Zombies provided power for personal vehicles, homes, communities, and the new post-apocalypse industries. Zombie power was also the reason that Tyler knelt among the trees just outside of Fairfield, Idaho.

****

Zombie power had been discovered, quite by accident, by Chuck and Margette Smith when they were fleeing from Reno, Nevada in Chuck’s old Ford F100 Ranger pickup truck. The truck was solidly built and the ‘straight-6’ engine was as reliable as the day he bought the truck in 1968. Unfortunately, the gas they had siphoned forty miles ago wasn’t as dependable. Just outside of Reno, the contaminated fuel clogged the jets of the truck’s carburetor and the engine died. Margette pushed in the pedal of the old truck’s clutch and slipped the transmission into neutral, allowing it to continue coasting forward at highway speeds. Chuck climbed out the passenger window and wormed his way into the truck’s bed. Crouching within the bed, while the truck moved, he found a hefty three foot section of metal pipe that he kept there and prepared to make his final stand.

The truck coasted for a full minute, before finally coming to rest on a long stretch of open highway. Margette didn’t bother setting the parking brake when she exited the cab. She was carrying a small twenty gauge shotgun. She would have preferred to have been armed with a heavier twelve gauge shotgun, but all the stocks of larger caliber ammunition had been used up quickly in the early days of the zombie apocalypse. She shut the door to the pickup and climbed into the bed.

They had at least one hundred rounds of ammunition for the shotgun, but Margette could see that the horde following them numbered over five hundred. They could run, but a small horde like the one coming would exhaust and overtake them within eight hours, or quickly tear through any fortifications they could erect if they found shelter. No, she thought. This is where I will make my stand. This is where I will die, and if God is cruel, the only zombies to leave this massacre will be those of myself and Chuck. If God is kind, I’ll have two bullets left.

Chuck and Margette had a few minutes before the zombies would catch up. Zombies couldn’t run, but that didn’t mean they were slow. Fresh zombies could manage an awkward stiff-legged gait, effectively moving at a slow jog. While they waited, they opened each box of shotgun shells and carefully set them on top of their other supplies in the bed of the pickup. The shotgun held seven rounds in the tube, but required manually reloading new rounds into the tube once it was emptied. She was quick at reloading, but she would lose precious seconds if she had to fumble for rounds and open new boxes.

Their plan was simple, Chuck would kill zombies on the right side of the truck, and Margette would kill zombies on the left. If either died, the other would continue to fight until he or she couldn’t fight any more. So far their plans had worked. They always killed all of the zombies they had encountered in the past, but they had never been caught in the open before or faced a horde of more than several dozen.

Just before the first of the horde slammed into the back of the truck, Margette leaned over and kissed Chuck on the cheek. Love you, Babe, she said, then took up a ready stance with the shotgun to cover the left.

The horde from Reno contained a large number of ‘fresher’ zombies, and they reached the truck at nearly the same time. They gave no cries, or bellowing calls, the only sound was the scraping and padding of feet upon the pavement. They hit the back of the truck hard, causing both Chuck and Margette to stumble forward. A second wave was immediately behind the first, and they slammed into the backs of the first group, almost as hard as the first group had slammed into the pickup truck. The first group had been trying to climb up, but they were caught by the press of the second group and pinned to the back of the truck. More zombies quickly swarmed in and forced the first rows of zombies tighter and tighter to the back of the truck. Chuck and Margette found themselves focusing their efforts on the side of the truck, where the zombies were still free to move.

They didn’t notice that they were rolling forward until they saw that the zombies, the ones trying to climb up the sides of the truck, had to continue walking forward while their ragged fingers reached for the sides of the bed. Chuck took a moment to glance forward, confirming that they were indeed moving, and also saw that they were drifting towards the shoulder of the road. After smashing a zombie’s face as it reached for the truck, he looked at Margette and said, We’re moving forward, get up front and keep us on the road. I can hold them off from here.

Surprised, Margette looked around and saw that they were moving. Instead of jumping down and entering the cab through the driver’s door, which would put her within reach of the zombies alongside the truck, she knelt down and blasted the back window with the shotgun several times. Then she kicked at it until she had forced open a jagged hole large enough for her petite body to squeeze through. She was careful as she wiggled through and managed to only get a few scratches in passing. Her thick jeans protected her backside and legs from the shards of glass as she sat down behind the wheel and began guiding the truck down the center of the highway.

They traveled for another twelve hours as the zombies behind continued to push the truck forward. Chuck smashed their undead skulls the entire time. The end of the pipe he was using snapped off twice and he was forced to quit using it when it placed him too close to the reaching zombie hands. By that point the horde numbered less than fifty and he began using the shotgun. When Margette spotted a gas station ahead on a remote section of the highway, and after they verified that there were no zombies lurking within its shadows, Chuck quickly dispatched the final twenty zombies with the shotgun.

They fixed the truck and refilled it at the station, but they had learned how to harness zombies for rudimentary power, and as they travelled in the future, they began to use zombie power more often. Others saw, and learned, and adapted, and improved. Eventually, zombies became their own unit of energy measurement. No one knew what gave them their strength or their energy, but whole hordes of stinking, rotting zombie flesh were used to turn massive generators, providing power and electricity for a recovering world.

****

Tyler had been part of that recovering world.

He surveyed the vehicles outside the cafe again. There was only one ‘zombie-powered’ rig, an old RV-styled vehicle, good for traveling long distances and keeping the owner safe as he slept at night. There were several saddles horses and also two horse-drawn wagons. Tyler couldn’t tell what was piled in the wagons, but it was most likely basic trade goods, harvested from the mountains. There was only one gas-powered vehicle in the group that appeared to be in working order, and it was a menagerie of repairs, welded armor, and stacked crates that were nothing like the corporate vans or mercenary rigs that he was watching for.

He sat quietly for another minute, before the smell of bacon and a hint of coffee emboldened him. He left his pack and rifle hidden in the tall grass and casually walked across the road with nothing but his good luck charm and a small pistol holstered at his side. Confidently, he opened the door to the café and stepped inside.

****

Tyler stood in the entrance of the café and surveyed the room within. It was dark, the only illumination provided by poorly designed sky lights and narrow slats in the boarded up windows. A few LEDs, probably jerry-rigged to cheap solar cells on the roof, were placed at strategic locations within the café to provide meager lighting at each of the tables and on the counter. Seated at about half of the tables were dour, stone-faced men and women. They watched Tyler with the hardened eyes of survivors. The alien light of the LEDs, intensified that look, creating sharp and sinister shadows upon their faces.

Tyler ignored them. They were mountain people, wary and irritated by rabble such as himself, even before the zombie times. Eventually, though, they would move closer and the look upon their faces would change to one of deep interest. It always did when he told his story. The story of why he was ‘then and there’ sitting among them.

He walked to the counter and sat down on a barstool in front of the café’s patron. Tyler didn’t know if the man in front of him was the owner, the head cook, or simply an order taker, but the wide welcoming smile on the man’s face said that Tyler was a welcome guest. He was rather well dressed for a restaurateur, but a person could dress in whatever clothes he wanted to in the post-apocalypse times. The clothes weren’t fancy, with ruffled lace or made of silk, but they were in a newer condition and made with quality materials. The man’s face wasn’t clean shaven, having a full day’s growth of stubble, but neither was Tyler clean shaven. It had been well over two weeks since he had taken the opportunity to trim his beard to more manageable lengths and it gave him a wild look.

The man leaned forward and placed his hands upon the counter in front of Tyler. He said, Welcome to Fairfield, Idaho and to the Fairfield Café. I’m Tom, ’the owner, manager, and head chef of this fine establishment. He stood back up, with pad and pen in hand and said, "You’re obviously new to our fine region, so I suggest a basic beef steak with grilled potatoes and onions. We also have deer and elk, but unless you’re accustomed to it you won’t enjoy it