Endangered Species: Last Days, #2

By Joseph Sweet

Taking place five years after the beginning of the outbreak, humans have started a walled-off colony in the city square of Old Watertown New York.

Led by General William Tate, soldiers are exterminating the zombies by the hundreds. But they have seriously underestimated these walking dead, and failed to heed warnings made by the evolved ones, -known among their kind as The Ascended Ones- who wish to live out their existence in peace.

The real battle for human survival begins when The Ascended Ones decide that peace with the living may have never been an option to begin with. And they, along with the legions of lesser, mindless zombies under their control, set out to remove the last threat to their existence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph Sweet
• Release date: Oct 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310514180

Joseph Sweet

Joseph Sweet was born October 31 1976, and has been writing seriously since the age of sixteen. He currently lives in the upstate NY community of Watertown. Aside from writing he plays guitar and keyboard, writes and sings his own songs, and is an amateur photographer. He has worked in Television and radio doing voices and making and editing commercials, played in several bands, and acted in theater, but his greatest passion is and always has been his writing.

Book preview

PART THREE:

AMBUSH

No last wishes

No last words

Not a sound

Before we sleep

There are no prayers

Just darkness

As we drift

Within death’s reach

The Damnation Chronicles

PROLOGUE

0

Five years have passed since the outbreak and humanity is just barely clinging to life on the now barren, hostile, planet which it had once called home. A home whose bountiful gifts it had once taken for granted, grown accustomed to taking in excess from and abused needlessly for its own gain with no end in sight. But an end had come, whether by the hand of justice for such brazen cruelties to the environment, wildlife, and other humans, -or karma, or fate, or whatever name you gave it- or just by cruel chance. The tables had turned and humans were a dwindling minority in a wasteland which seemed perfectly engineered to destroy them.

But humans are resourceful and stubborn, and their intelligence has always given them an advantage over their environment and any predators they may encounter. Without these gifts, a man or woman alone in a frozen arctic tundra will freeze to death, but with the right knowledge, or perhaps the right amount of inventiveness and bravery, he or she can kill animals and make food, clothing, tools and build a shelter and fire. Survival is possible. A group can work together to accomplish even more. 

Small colonies have cropped up in the ruins, and some of them are beginning to thrive. In Upstate New York, for instance, in Old Watertown; a group led by General Tate have walled off the City Square and worked together for the last couple of years to make something they could call home.

There are fruits and vegetables grown during the warmer months on the roofs, and more and more buildings are repaired for living quarters. There are smoked meats, new clothing being made, and even a supply warehouse in the old Woolworth building where just about anything a person could need has been gathered by scouts from the ruins of surrounding cities and towns for hundreds of miles. None there now even know what the name Woolworth signifies, except that it must be the name of a person or business from some point in history to reside there. The history is not lost, though. The information on the old Woolworths store and much of the area's past is still actually intact. Anything that was found early on that looked even remotely important was archived. That was before this current group even arrived here. That original colony was wiped out, unfortunately, but their work was not for nothing. Though it has yet to be found by this group, and may not be discovered for some time, it has been preserved for future generations. If that is, there are any. 

The surrounding area is relatively clear of undead as the General’s men regularly patrol and kill any that they see. They’ve been vigilant in the preceding years in exterminating the walking dead with extreme prejudice.

But there are those on the other side who have taken notice. The evolved dead, -known amongst their kind as The Ascended- have come to loath the soldiers and other survivors. They have built colonies of their own and there are a few successful ones across the continent. They have never wished for a war with the humans. They understand the anger in the face of near annihilation at the hands of the lesser dead. They, after all, lived through -or died and rose again during- the same violence and chaos. It is impossible for many of them not to empathize with the humans to a certain degree. This understanding does not extend, however, to unprovoked violence towards their kind.

They have posted signs, sent survivors away with warnings, and done everything that they could to get a message across that things have changed. But most humans do not believe the stories of sentient dead. Most feel them to be just campfire stories to frighten people. All that they have personally seen with their own eyes are the roving bands of mindless cannibals that nearly wiped out their species. Those who knew the truth and attempted to speak it in the past were generally ridiculed and shunned by others to the point where they've since learned to keep their mouths shut. Maybe it’s easier for the average human to believe that once the person they knew died, they moved on to a better place. Easier to believe that the walking-dead were just empty shells of their former selves. Mindless monsters. Perhaps that is less frightening than the full weight of the truth.

The plague, or whatever people want to call it, turned out to be the greatest threat humankind had ever faced up until that point and may yet be the reason for its eventual downfall. And to think that these mindless, disease-carrying, extremely strong but half-rotted creatures might be growing smarter, healing, and becoming nearly impossible to kill; well, it’s too much for many to even contemplate. The idea that a steadily growing number of them no longer mean humans any harm is not even comprehensible to most. And why would it be? All most have known to expect of the dead from the beginning of this whole mess is relentless violence and constant killing.

Humans are justifiably angry. They need their vengeance. They are not ready to forgive and forget. Perhaps most never will be.

But the Ascended will only tolerate just so much. They have suffered their own losses. They have been through much of the same as the living.

And war has never been closer.

The Ascended will not stand by and watch their kind be exterminated. They are growing their numbers, converting the lesser dead, helping them evolve. They massively outnumber humans and they know it.

This is their world now.

And they are not above teaching the humans this fact in as violent a way as is necessary.

Among The Ascended, some factions consider themselves the new race. To them, humans are a fading reminder of a world that no longer exists. An endangered species that is more destructive than it is worth. And they’d just as soon hasten its extinction than stand by while their brethren are massacred.

It won’t take much more to push them into action.

And General Tate’s unyielding desire to see the undead wiped from existence is making war seem all the more inevitable by the day.

It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t believe.

Survivors have been sent to him with warnings. The undead have blended in with human colonies pretending to be traveling survivors, carrying the stories of sentient dead who wish no quarrel with the humans. But it is doing no good.

Warnings are going unheeded.

Violence against their kind continues.

And patience is wearing thin.

CHAPTER ONE:

PALE RIDER

FIVE YEARS AGO

SUSPECT FLEEING THROUGH alleyway toward Innocenté Avenue. Briggs panted into the walkie on his vest as he ran flat-out between the buildings. Pursuing on foot. Requesting backup.

The guy was fast. He knew backup would be at least ten minutes, most likely, but there was no guarantee even then. It had been a busy day.

He tried not to think about the stories going around about New York and how whatever the quarantine there had hoped to contain had failed. There probably wasn't a single person who watched television at all that hadn’t heard the word zombie thrown around freely amongst news anchors – sometimes in jest, but occasionally in the fearful, hushed tone of a believer. Online it was worse, but he still found it laughable.

Whatever was going on in New York City, it sure as fuck wasn’t zombies as far as he was concerned.

He rounded the next corner to find the suspect 10 yards or so away, pointing a gun directly at him, and ducked back into the alley just as several shots were fired.

The man had gunned down three people at a restaurant and Briggs was not going to let him get away if he could help it.

He pulled his sidearm.

Peeked around the corner.

The suspect was on the run again.

Despite this guy's actions thus far, those shots had gone far left of him. He had been close enough for a good shot, easily.

Obviously, he didn't want to shoot a cop, and Briggs thought that he might be able to use that to his advantage at some point. Though, not wanting to shoot a cop and not being willing to, if cornered, he reminded himself, were two different things entirely.

Briggs caught sight of him ducking between more buildings a half block down.

He picked up his pace.

He was suddenly thankful for all his time spent on the treadmill lately.

He closed in on the building rapidly, ducked to the side, and took a quick peek.

The suspect was standing in the backyard of the building, hands down, gun to his side, just staring ahead.

Suspect on Avalon, between 106 and 108, in the back. he breathed into his walkie, though the only reply he had heard thus far was static.

He aimed and slowly closed in on the man, Drop your weapon.

He didn’t even look back.

I said drop your weapon or I will be forced to open fire.

Still nothing.

Briggs took a few more steps and that was when he heard the noise. Off to his left, in the direction of the suspect's gaze.

Some sort of wet slurping sound, and groans.

What the... he started, inching forward, keeping the gun trained on the suspect. But he stopped dead when he cleared the back side of the building and saw what the man was looking at.

There were at least four bodies scattered across a back lawn that looked to have been mowed last nearly a year ago. They lay sprawled amidst torn-open garbage bags, used diapers that had been chewed apart by some animal, pizza boxes, broken bottles and beer cans, and other anonymous detritus too numerous to take in. The bodies were in pieces. It was hard to tell the damage, exactly, but he could see one body, lying face down with an arm missing that looked to have been torn right out of the socket. Another of the four was face down as well, sprawled amidst the tall grass and refuse and a third was face up, though it was difficult to make out whether it had been male or female from this distance, as the face had been ripped or chewed completely off. The fourth's exact position was impossible to tell. He figured it to be female by the painted fingernails of one hand which stuck defiantly upward from the tall grass at an odd angle, propped up somehow. Though, fingernail polish was not necessarily a reliable indicator of gender any longer, it still was, statistically, the safer bet, and it was a petite, very feminine-looking hand. Another leg, seemed to defy the arms' position, bent and twisted all out of proportion. There was blood everywhere. Blood and chunks of flesh.

In the middle of the mess were three men, all ripping at the carcasses of what had most likely been tenants of this building and shoving fists full of guts and flesh into their mouths.

No wonder the man was standing still, not speaking. He hadn’t disturbed them yet. They were so immersed in their gruesome meal that they hadn’t heard Briggs either.

He was probably trying to decide whether or not he could get away safely before they noticed and came at him.

For a brief moment, Briggs wondered if he should turn his focus on that same concern. One man could only do so much, after all.

This day had started like any other and then descended so rapidly into a nightmare. He had never been so frightened in his life.

Briggs had awoken to an alarm clock, he unknowingly -even right then- would never hear again, gone to work like any other day, concerned with paycheck amounts, vacation time, rent due dates, medical coverage, a date on the upcoming weekend with a girl he'd met online. A date he'd also never make it to. And then the world had shifted on its axis.

He was a cop. Violence happened. Violence towards cops happened regularly. Cops dealt with violent people daily, but a large number of police officers never -or very rarely- had to be in the action. When he'd heard the gunshot from his patrol car and seen the man shoot down what he'd assumed at the time to be three innocent bystanders, a sick feeling had begun to grow in his stomach. And it hadn't let up yet.

If anything, it was getting worse.

And then this. People eating other people. Fucking cannibals. And they looked to have been beaten three and a half quarters of the way to death and back. Yet there they were, seeming strong as ever.

The word zombie echoed through his mind and he shivered a bit involuntarily but held his composure the best he could. Zombies were the stuff of fiction, pure and simple. These were just some crazed individuals on too many consecutive days of Bath Salts or completely deranged for some other reason.

For a few moments, he had no idea whatsoever how to proceed. On one hand, he had an individual whom he'd pursued to this location after witnessing him shoot three people. Then there were these three cannibal freaks. ZOMBIES, a frightened voice at the back of his mind insisted. No, they weren't zombies. They couldn't be that, surely. But they were deranged, possibly very far out of touch with reality due to some kind of drug. There was also the possibility that they were complete psychos, aware of what they were doing, but that was too much to consider right now. The question was who posed more of a threat. He couldn't arrest them all. He was one man. And he hadn't heard from dispatch in far too long now.

His original quarry still had a gun. He struggled with it for a moment longer, then aimed his weapon in the general direction of the cannibals with one hand, pulling his walkie close with the other.

He attempted to speak as quietly as possible. Unit 23, still requesting backup at 106 Avalon Street. Four suspects now. At least four dead.

There was still no reply and his gut told him that there wasn't going to be.

Fuck it, he thought.

All of you lay down on the ground and put your hands on your heads. He remembered for a moment the guy who had needed to be shot six times to get him to stop eating a man just the year before. There had been a few such cases in previous years.

The closest one looked up at him, and for a second, he almost squeezed off a shot right then. The eyes were dead, and he looked to be trying to focus.  The face was covered in gore, bruised, and pale. Not possible, he thought. Then those glazed-over, milky, reddish-white eyes, locked on Briggs, and he let out the most horrifying cry of rage and lunged.

Briggs didn’t freeze as he might have imagined himself doing. Everything grew brighter and more surreal as the nightmare creature, covered in blood and bits of torn flesh and dirt rushed toward him.

It’s hard to imagine how someone will react until placed in such a situation.

The world slowed down and the subject before him even trailed a bit, making Briggs wonder - even as he aimed and pulled the trigger – if any of this was really happening.

He couldn’t help but notice the torn pant leg of the nearest one as it shuffled toward him and that drew his eyes, unfortunately, to something else that he would later wish he hadn't seen. The man's penis and scrotum were hanging out and it looked as though some animal had made lunch of his genitals because there was an exposed half testicle dangling from the ripped open sac and the penis kept bouncing off the partially exposed leg – which also had large chunks of missing flesh.  There was very little left at the base to keep it attached. No doubt at some point soon, it would fall off.

An empathetic cramp tore through Briggs's testicles, which traveled quickly up into his gut at the thought and he felt a little sick. He steadied his gun hand as best he could, but it was shaking far worse than he liked.

Briggs and his former suspect both opened fire.

The first one went down easy.

The word zombie kept running through his head.

The other two were running their way in the next instant. Both of them seemed to be concentrating on Briggs.

Briggs got one in the head on the fourth shot, the other one took several from the suspect and Briggs was able to put a couple in its chest. But in a moment, it was far too close and he lashed out with the weapon, using it as a club.

The creature, –was he thinking of it as human at this point? – staggered back and he hammered it in the head again, stomped its left kneecap, and heard the satisfying snap of bone. He punched it as it fell, and that should have been it.

But it wasn’t done yet. It didn’t even seem to be affected by the broken leg. It grabbed him as it fell and pulled one of his legs forward, opening its mouth.

Jesus. Briggs cried, yanking his leg back to no avail, the damned thing was moments from biting him. He stumbled backward –his calf mere millimeters from being bitten the whole time- kicked the thing in the face with his free leg, and it let go. But he lost his balance and fell backwards and it crawled up and over his body in a flash.

So fast, he thought.

It had him pinned, his gun hand gripped tightly and it was strong.

Nearby somewhere there was more gunfire and an explosion, but it hardly registered. He would absorb what he had heard later.

This freak was inches from his face, screaming that inhuman screech and drooling some sort of disgusting viscous liquid all over him. The thing’s eyes were so bloodshot, they were nearly all red, as though he had popped a bunch of blood vessels in both eyes and over that, a milky white, translucent layer had formed, which he had seen on at least a half-dozen dead bodies.

He pushed it back as far as he could, using all of his strength, hoping to get a leg between them and the momentum to push it back.

And then its head exploded with the roar of another handgun blast and it slumped onto his chest. Luckily most of the brains and blood went to the side, painting only his cheek and right shoulder red with gooey bits of something he didn’t quite want to think about.

The toasted chicken sandwich he’d eaten for lunch came back up so quickly he didn’t have time to think. All he could do was push the body off and turn as bits of half-digested meat and toast and coffee and god knew what else shot up his throat and out of his mouth and nose in a burning-hot, disgusting torrent. He composed himself as quickly as possible and reacted instinctively to the sound of slow-approaching footsteps in the grass by aiming his gun with the hand that wasn’t propping him up over the puddle of fresh vomit. The man he’d chased to this location; the very person to whom he now owed his life.

They remained like that for a full minute as the sounds of the nearby chaos finally started to sink in. There were explosions and screams and gunfire, screeching tires, groans, and shouts of rage. But he couldn’t think about all of that. There was a gun pointed at his head.

Really, man? the guy asked.

"I’m going to get