Zombies! Episode 9: The Changing of the Guard

By Ivan Turner

Back at work, Lieutenant Heron begins an investigation sparked by the results of Captain Naughton's operation against the Zombie Rights Association. Throughout the course of his investigation, he must face some difficult realizations and the ultimate consequences of the choices he has made.

Meanwhile, Naughton himself must play chaperone to a Homeland Security agent bent on finding culpability and shaking up New York City's zombie protection.

Zombies! is currently under development as a television series. Find us on facebook for the latest updates on this exciting development!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ivan Turner
• Release date: May 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458188205

Ivan Turner

A child of the movies, I was always consumed by fantastic stories told by others and translated into adventures to be retold by me through the action figure medium. As I grew older, I put the action figures away and moved into the realm of role playing. Though I never outgrew role playing, I certainly don't have the time for it anymore. Since I was eleven years old, I've been pouring almost every ounce of creative energy I have into writing.I graduated college in 1993 with a degree in computer science. I tried my hand at programming for a couple of years and found it pretty unsatisfying. I later became a partner at a comic book store, where I spent several years. Though it wasn't a financial success, the experience I gained from running the store and the people that I met (many of whom I'm still in touch with today) was priceless. After leaving the store, I settled into a career of teaching. I still teach at a public high school in New York. Ironically, I've picked up computer programming again, which is what I mostly teach.I've been writing the whole time.I released my first book electronically in 2010. Forty Leap was a turning point for me in both style and story building. The Book of Revelations, which was written earlier but released later, was sort of a midway point between the writer I was and the writer I've become. I experimented with a very odd style and a story that employed diverse characters and controversial situations.In September 2010, I released the first installment of Zombies! Zombies! has been a tremendous success for me that came very close to being made into a television series. Since Zombies!, I have written a five part miniseries called Castes and have been working on developing tabletops games, the first of which, ApocalypZe, was published in early 2014.Now, 6 years later, a 3rd Zombies! series is due to be released in September of 2016.

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Zombies! Episode 9 - The Changing of the Guard

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Copyright 2011 by Ivan Turner

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***

What has come before.

After the zombie infestation of the ER at Sisters of Charity hospital, the world changed. With the news of zombies having gone public, people panicked, fled, and waited. But nothing happened. The zombies did not multiply at an exponential rate. The governments of the world did not collapse. Civilization did not end. Slowly but surely, people returned to their homes, their jobs, and their lives. But nothing would ever be the same.

The plague that spread the zombie infection was beyond containment. Dr. Denise Luco worked day and night trying to find a cure. Lieutenant Anthony Heron and his unit of zombie fighting police officers tried to keep New York safe. But zombies began to pop up everywhere. Heron's efforts were thwarted at every turn. Eventually, he lost himself in the world of the undead and was pulled back from the brink by his friend Captain Lance Naughton and his trusted colleague Gregory Smith.

Dr. Rudolph Ludlow, a British geneticist, revealed himself as the creator of the bacterium that caused the plague. After coming to work with Dr. Luco in the United States, he was introduced to Zoe Koplowitz, their very first live zombie specimen. At that moment, Ludlow knew what had caused the plague. Though he had shut down his experiments and destroyed his samples, some of the bacterium had remained alive and dormant in his body. Ludlow's short affair with Lucy Koplowitz, Zoe's mother, had released the zombie bacteria into the world.

Though the world grew complacent with the existence of zombies, their numbers grew. People began to have their own ideas about how alive they were. A group called the Zombie Rights Association gained sway over time, complaining that no one was trying to help the zombies. They gathered zombies into safe houses so that they could be saved when a cure was found. When the information regarding the locations of these safe houses became known, Captain Naughton launched a simultaneous attack on all of them, intent on destroying every last zombie. But two of the operations went bad and many good people were lost. Among them was Gregory Smith.

***

They met in a pub in London about a block away from the hotel where she was staying. She came in with others from work that evening looking to relax and forget about her troubles. Troubles that just seemed to be piling up one on top of the other. Work was trouble. As a corporate liaison, she found herself traveling all over the world. She had very little time for her family, which was destroying her marriage. Her husband was a decent, if not spectacular, man but he resented her being away so much. He took it out on their daughter. He wasn't abusive per se. He would never hit her and he hardly ever yelled. But she knew that while she was overseas, he was being stingy with his attention when their daughter needed it the most. In his mind, it was only fair, seeing as how his wife was hardly ever around to do her share. This laid on her a tremendous amount of guilt that she couldn't well reconcile.

The job itself was starting to wear on her as well. No matter where she went or what executives she met, she found that the whole thing was becoming more and more mundane. At first, it had been glamorous and exciting for her and her husband both. She flew away for a few days at a time and when she returned, their excitement was immeasurable. They would devour each other both physically and emotionally. But then she'd become pregnant. They'd planned the child and the pregnancy itself was a great time. For the first few months she still worked, still flew. When she had to stop, they planned for the arrival of the baby. They built a room in their Brooklyn apartment and played with names and planned the accompanying festivities. They were a young couple with a baby on the way. It was that way until several months after their daughter arrived. Then she wanted to go back to work and he wanted to recapture the excitement of their relationship. But flying away from a family who needs you every few weeks is different than flying away from a spouse who can't wait until you get back.

He was cheating on her. She was sure of it. Their daughter spent extended hours at the daycare even though his job ended in the early afternoon. He'd been going to the gym a lot. She'd noticed the improvement in his physique over the last few months. But he wasn't doing it for her. Even when she wasn't away, she was sure he was meeting his lover. She couldn't stand it. It made her so angry and so sad and so guilty all at once. In her mind, she couldn't reconcile it. How could he do that to her? Of course, how could he not? It was her fault. She was a terrible wife and a neglectful mother. Somewhere along the way, her priorities had shifted. Unfortunately, the revelation of her mistakes hadn't come in time for her to fix her marriage. Divorce was on the horizon. All that she could do now was batten down the hatches and ride out the storm.

Her sociability had declined in recent weeks. Several of her coworkers, the people she traveled with, had commented on her demeanor. Over the past several trips, she'd been mostly reclusive. When she had bothered to socialize, and even in meetings with executives, she'd been short tempered. Her words were cut with a hard edge. So going to the pub really hadn't seemed like such a good idea. It was filled with strange people from a strange country but the strangest