The Big Bloody, This Undead Island Earth, Book 1

By Van Poe

James Lincoln is a risk averse jewel thief who takes part in the world's biggest, richest heist, unfortunately, the getaway is interrupted by the zombie apocalypse.

As New York is eaten alive, Lincoln joins forces with his half-brother and angry uncle, a vampire fetishist, a billionaire, a beautiful Buddhist author/activist and her assistant, and a Fuji-Apple Store manager.

Together, they kick back against extinction.

Surviving The Big Bloody? Big whoop. Staying alive in its aftermath? Yeah, probably not going to happen. But you never know...

- - - -

ABOUT THE SERIES

The world takes less than 24 hours to end.

99 percent of the human race is infected, undead and keen to eat the remaining one percent. In a fit of spectacular violence global civilization topples, governments vanish, armies are vanquished, and the wicked flourish.

Survivors call it The Big Bloody.

A dark and brutal survivor archipelago now runs through the undeadlands: hundreds of camps are scattered across the former United States, each on the edge of extinction, living off the fumes of the fallen world. The camps are run by good men, bad men, and madmen. Flesh is currency; human suffering a collective entertainment. No one survives intact. The audacious act of surviving has left scars.

THIS UNDEAD ISLAND EARTH tells the stories of this new and sinister age.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Van Poe
• Release date: Sep 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311429452

Van Poe

Indie Author. Horror. Sci-Fi. Thriller.

Book preview

Chapter 1

To survive is glorious! — Matthew Chester, The Sweet Smell of Survival

Many years later, as I hung from a hook facing live dismemberment in a Lillyville kitchen, I remembered that distant Thanksgiving meal we celebrated just before embarking on what would be the biggest jewel heist in world history—the big score that would make up for life's endless river of bullshit.

At that time the whole crew was at Uncle Potter's library-like Brooklyn apartment: me (James Lincoln), Uncle Dak, Dak the Barber, Fangs, Furious, and Uncle Potter.

Thanksgiving is two days early on account of the thing.

That meant no football on TV. A hardship, to be sure, but not enough to prevent Uncle, Uncle, Fangs, Furious and Dak from arranging themselves around the 65". I am in the kitchen because I am the only one of the bunch who has ever shown any talent that way concerned, but mostly because I'm the youngest. They are arguing and frustrated. Who wouldn't be? Uncle Potter (who has a dozen aliases, the most colorful and accurate of which is Flat-Face McGurk) has them trapped in one of his perpetual loops, hunting for something on TV worthy of this time.

The only way they land on the news is Uncle Potter's popcorn butter-slick fingers slip off the up-channel button and his last few clicks only raise the volume. I couldn't see the news lady, but I can picture her gigantic toothed-smile. A helium-squeaky voice makes her sound like she is making a joke out of even the serious stuff. 'In Beijing, an outbreak of—'

Uncle Potter's clicker-finger relocates and he is off on his infinite loop.

'Vhat vrong with that?' Fangs asks. 'Let see some news.'

'N-no can do, Rudolph.' Uncle Potter and Rudolph Fangs Allanovich met in prison. As a rule, Fangs Allan does not respond to Rudolph; Rudy elicits a punch; Red Nose a beating. He likes being called Fangs because he has fangs, literally—surgically implanted fangs. He has a vampire fetish, or his girlfriend/girlfriends did, if that matters. I never see him in anything that isn't black. He sports long black hair (a bit thin on top), which he has to constantly flip out of his eyes and which Dak (the younger) keeps offering to cut. Only Uncle Potter gets away with any shit, far as Fangs is concerned. I despise the Russian but hide it well—I have my reasons.

'I do n-not watch the n-news.'

'What? Since when?' Uncle Dak is clearly astonished. He cuts a dashing figure for a five footer. It's our Thanksgiving, so of course he's in his double-breasted pinstriped suit, which he thinks makes him look a bit like his old TV jockey-hero David Letterman.

Dak Ho Lee Junior, a.k.a. Dak the Barber, son of Uncle Dak, is my half brother by blood (as all folks know). He's a year older. He is just out of the army. He didn't see any active duty. He was hoping to be an army barber. They told him he could, but once he was signed up, they told him they didn't need barbers and re-assigned him. 'All they taught me,' Dak says, 'is how to make a bed, drive a tank and hate authority.' He is delighted to be a free man. He has short hair like me, but I'm blond and blue-eyed like mom; he's got Uncle Dak's brown eyes and black hair, which Dak keeps dyed red. Tall and lanky, like me, like our mother.

Dak? He has his eyes on the prize. 'There's a bathing suit competition on 137.' Naughty.

'I am on a n-news f-fast.' Uncle Potter is in sweatpants and a t-shirt that reads Cream Corn. He looks nothing like my mom and me; he reminded mom of a wrinkly Robert Mitchum. He is seventy and stronger than a horse on steroids and smarter than a professor brand bag-of-brains. All those brains under his bald pate have not kept him out of prison. He has just finished a year for contempt of court. I was there when they threw the book at him.

The lady prosecutor pestered Uncle Potter with questions and statements masquerading as questions: on the evening of...you are a known associate of Rudolph Allanovich, correct...you were seen in the company of...you were found in possession of...you did this, you did that...on the tape we can see you clearly...and so on. Uncle Potter took a fist-full of pills before taking the stand—standard stuff to prevent anxiety and such. He is a nervous criminal, generally, but not always. To every question, Uncle Potter answered with a variant of I do not recall.

After an hour of this, the lady threw her hands in the air for the tenth time. 'Judge, please instruct the defendant to answer my questions.'

The judge was this extra-thin guy who looked physically taxed just pointing the gavel at Uncle Potter. Hell, the judge looked exhausted from just having to wear that stupid exasperated look on his face. 'The defendant has been told several times,' he gasped, 'to answer the questions. This is a court of law!'

Uncle Potter got that look he sometimes gets. I blame the drugs. He sat back and half turned towards the judge. 'Your aw-aw-honor, if it m-may p-please the court, s-suck my b-balls, you c-corrupt f-fuck!'

Judges don't like being called corrupt fucks, not even the corrupt ones.

Maybe that fistful of pills included a bit more than anti-anxiety medication.

'Vhat the fuck is a news fast?'

'And you p-pretend you're n-not one of us p-peasants.'

'Is that your answer?'

'Studies have sh-shhhhh-shown that exposure t-to images of violence and m-mayhem can promote levels of d-depression, s-sad f-feelings, anxiety, and result in m-mood disorders.' The only good things about Uncle Potter's monologuing is that it momentarily disables his clicker finger. Channel roulette leaves them on a game show. I can hear something about prizes and the ooohhs of an audience. 'Henceforth, the n-need for a n-news fast. To s-survive, you m-must abstain from watching th-the news. Promotes wellness. Wha-whatever the world's got c-cooking? I d-don't wanna know.'

'137,' Dak says.

'I call bullshit!' Jefferson (Furious) Fuentes, our middle-aged wheelman, takes particular joy in calling bullshit on anything and anybody. Furious is a spindly African-American with arms that are—how do you say—out of place for his thin frame. The arms are remnants from a past life—spindly, no; like he stole them from an NFL linebacker. I can hear Furious pulling himself up straight in his wheelchair. 'There is no such thing as a news fast.'

'It's in th-the l-literature,' Uncle Potter says. 'R-read up.'

'137,' Dak says.

'First, if you're feeling mood-disordered, well, they got a pill for that.' Furious pauses as if he has offered up a tidy solution to the Hodge Conjecture. 'Second, the news doesn't make us more or less of anything; we live and die by our karma, as earned.'

'That second part is true,' Uncle Dak squeezes in. Uncle Dak is a Korean immigrant—brilliant; he's an angry professor at Columbia University, which is amusing because he's tenured in the Department of Religion, Buddhist Studies. Where's the Zen, Uncle Dak? He's lost it. And he has really, really, really had it with teaching and the morons (as he calls his students). He has been temporarily suspended for making a student cry—all he did was scrawl YOU ARE ILLITERATE across her essay and refuse to give her any grade at all. Uncle is punctilious about his intellectual property, even if he is just squatting like the rest of us. If he had ever said something, he wanted his contribution to that something's provenance to be duly noted. 'He's quoting me.'

'And, finally, you'll be telling me the Information Age is over.' Furious settles back. 'The Age of Bullshit is upon us! No need for anything so uncomfortable as the news.'

'G-google it.'

Furious is not one to steal thunder. I can hear him in an aside to Uncle Dak: 'I was quoting you, Dak. Credit where credit's due.'

The game show is interrupted by a news announcement. 'Rioting has broken out across the Middle East. We—' Then the news announcement is interrupted by Uncle Potter who begins his channel hunt anew. There are snippets of sound coming from the TV: plans to occupy Black Friday...when the boys you used to hate you date ....

'Vhat a perfect example. I vant to know what is happen in the Middle—'

'S-same thing t-today as any other d-day.' Uncle Potter sighs.

...but wait, if you order now, you'll also...

'Some New C-caliphate k-kiddies have earned their r-red badge of c-courage by ch-ch-chaw-cutting off the heads of a hundred or so innocent Yezidis.'

...with just a dollar a day you can change a child's...

'Bullshit,' says Furious. 'They killed the last of the Yezidis six years ago.'

'Fine. A hundred K-kurd heads. What I'm s-saying is n-not knowing isn't th-the end of th-the world.'

...I'm a doctor, damn you, not a magician...

'Maybe Kurd heads,' says Fangs. 'Kurds are crazy great fighters, but they can't out-crazy New Caliphate.'

'Koreans are great fighters,' Uncle Dak says. 'So on and so forth, no trouble with New Caliphate.'

...canned hysterical laugher...

'Bullshit,' says Furious. 'Koreans have no problems with New Caliphate as the result of auspicious geographic locationification.'

Uncle Dak sees red, I suppose. 'You saying Koreans aren't great fighters?'

...three hundred are missing or dead...

'Certainly not, professor.' Furious clears his throat. 'I'm just saying the great Korean peninsula is blessed to have a comfortable distance between itself and New Caliphate.'

'Uncle Potter?' asks Dak.

'Damn right,' Uncle Dak says. 'Koreans are crazy great fighters.'

'That is true,' Fangs says.

...ask Jeeeeessssus into your...

'I'll s-second that. But I just want to p-point out that there's b-been a lot of fucking conversational d-drift here.'

'Uncle Potter?' asks Dak.

'What is it, R-red!'

'Try channel 137.'

Uncle Potter must have punched in the wrong numbers.

The sound of bombs and rioting and screaming fill the living room. 'Issue! China! On a scale of—'

'M-more sad shit.' Uncle Potter clicks off the TV. 'H-how we doing in there?'

'137. Not 157.'

'We'll be eating soon,' I shout back. 'Come sit.'

They saunter in slowly, beers in hand, talking about what they will do with their share of the haul. Shocker: Uncle Potter is going to buy more books. Furious is going to buy bionic legs. Uncle Dak is going to get himself a summer house in South Korea. Dak is thinking about what cars to buy. Fangs says he will make no changes whatsoever, just retire in comfort. (I suspect the old Russian junky will get back on the white horse.) This is a discussion I have heard a dozen times already. Uncle Potter came in last, pushing Furious. He looks over. 'What are your plans for your share, Jimmy?'

I had dodged the question every time before. Not this time. They have me like a deer in the headlights.

'Nothing.' My voice is raised above the irregular hum of the microwave oven behind me. 'I'm gonna enjoy not having to do nothing.'

'Bullshit,' Furious says. 'You do not need a share to do nothing.'

'Of course, it helps,' I say.

'Smells good in here,' Dak says.

'I got a vhole family in Russia, do nothing,' Fangs says. 'Cost? Nothing.'

'I guess it depends on your definition of nothing,' I say. 'There's nothing the way they do it in Beverly Hills and there's nothing the way they do it deep in the Ozarks.'

'That makes sense,' Uncle Dak says.

'I've never been further out of New York than Jersey City,' I continue. 'I've heard there are warmer places. Maybe I'll see a bit more of the warmer world, in style of course, not like some Jack Kerouac bum. Retire old baldy, of course.'

'Th-thanks k-kid,' Uncle Potter says. 'But I'll b-be d-doing th-that for myself.'

'Come with, namdongsaeng?' the Barber asks.

'Most definitely,' I reply. 'We'll hit the Caribbean, Rio, Cannes, Hawaii—'

'Bora Bora'

'Exactly. We'll eat rainbows and shit stars.'

'And bang German tourist lady with hairy armpit,' Fangs suggests.

Uncle Potter glances up from his beer. 'M-m-mark Twain said: b-by seeing New York, I h-h-have seen as much of life as th-th-the w-world can show.'

I shrug. 'All the same, I'm getting out of New York.'

'Poor kid,' Fangs says, 'doesn't know the vorld ends at the Hudson.'

The microwave rattles to a halt and I toss the last of the TV dinners on the table.

'Plastic off,' I say. 'Don't burn your eyes on the steam.'

Dak reaches for one of the dinners.

Uncle Potter lets out a tut-tut. 'Grace b-before feasting. We're n-not heathens, a-after all.'

'Since vhen about, you find Christ?' Fangs asks Uncle.

'Please d-do not fuck with my belief s-sys-sys...superstitions, F-fangsie. It wouldn't b-b-be auspicious.'

Fangs shuts up. It's a rule of the life: never fuck with another man's superstitions and pre-job rituals.

'L-l-let rip with th-the grace, Furious,' Uncle Potter says.

'Pray avay.' Fangs gives Uncle Potter the finger. A quick conciliatory gesture. He must be hungry.

'Lord. If the Big Apple is a city that never sleeps, we would most definitely be fucked,' he prays with eyes squeezed shut. Furious is the only true believer amongst us. 'Fortunately, great swathes of the city sleeps like a baby. Lord, thank you for that tender mercy.' He waves a hand around the compass of his chest, kisses his thumbnail, and is done.

I add: 'And thank you, Lord, thank you in advance for all the fucking loot.'

There are amens and howls all round.

We feast, if TV dinners constitute feasting.

Like I said before, we sit down to Thursday's Thanksgiving dinner on Tuesday. Unlike most Americans, we are going to work through the Thanksgiving long weekend—starting tomorrow evening. There is no begrudging the lost weekend around the table, stacked as it is with beers, Roasted Carved White Meat Turkey TV dinners and pumpkin pie from Greanwalls. Spirits are high. No one is overly nervous. Uncle Potter's plan is that good—one of those good things that comes along once in a lifetime. Maybe we are too stupid to be nervous. We have rehearsed endlessly. There had been storming. There had been norming. Then, out of nowhere, performing. We are a crew. We are ready.

Well, just barely. We aren't full-time professional criminals or nothing like that. You know, except for Uncle Potter and Fangs. We are a family. The real bond holding us together is love. Not for money. Not for each other, per se. For a woman. The same woman: Eve.

Uncle Potter loved his sister.

Fangs still loved his ex-girlfriend.

Uncle Dak still loved his ex-wife.

Furious still loved his nurse.

Dak and me loved our mother.

The TV dinners are good. Our stomachs are happy. We have peace of mind. We are enraptured by the great promise of the heist. I do not believe any one of us had any premonition of violence, or a sense of impending doom.

Chapter 2

O, Survivors! Heroes live lives that shine like the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains. Cowards live lives that are swallowed by darkness, like greasy meat disappearing down the maw of a hungry ghost. — Robert Yellot, Hungry Ghosts: Coming to Terms With the Voracious Undead

'Superheroes are bullshit,' Furious says, 'especially Daredevil.'

On Wednesday evening—just before midnight—myself, Uncle Potter, Uncle Dak, Fangs, Fuentes and Dak are in a white panel van with Wilson's Commercial Construction emblazoned on the sides. We wear dirty white coveralls, yellow hard hats, and dust masks around our necks. No detail of this job is too small to have escaped Uncle Potter's attention. We even have steel-toed boots on our feet, as required by the New York State Department of Labor's Division of Safety and Health.

Furious is at the wheel; since he lacks functioning legs, the van is equipped with a hand accelerator and brakes. Furious is the best leg-less wheelman in the business, Uncle would say, but he wasn't fooling. Furious is a man of steel; he didn't get nervous, he didn't scare, he didn't run—or so Uncle says.

'I like Batman,' Uncle Dak says. 'No powers. Just the power of the mind and body.'

'Spider-Man, Part One, Two and Three and Part One and Two and that other rebooting,' Fangs says, flicking the hair from his eyes.

'Batman is bullshit. Spider-Man is bullshit. Fangs, did you know Dracula's a superhero?'

'If you call Dracula bullshit, I crack you skull.'

'Fair enough,' Furious says.

'How c-can you call D-daredevil bullshit?' Uncle Potter asks. 'W-we watched the whole s-series on Netflix t-together.'

'I am not opposed to simple fantasy wish fulfillment via superheroes,' Furious says. 'But moral and ethical problems do arise. Superfolk save the world, so we feel comfortable not even trying to do our bit to save the planet. They are our