Death Sense: Century Z, #1

By Brett Fitzpatrick

At the start of the zombie apocalypse you can watch what’s happening on TV. But very soon your food runs out, the TV networks go off air, your power and water drop out, and you have to leave the safety of your own home and go out into the chaos.

Death Sense is a story about people who do just that, either in small groups, alone, or in large communities, and what happens to them as the world continues to crumble under the weight of the zombie onslaught.

Each group struggles to survive and adapt in a post-apocalyptic world filled with zombies and other bands of survivors – some friendly, some adversarial – and not every group will make it.

The cities are first to fall, huge urban centers like San Francisco falling in just a few days, so the book takes place in the coastal redwood forests of northern California. As each last bastion of society crumbles, the people of the area must more and more confront the possibility that they – and other small groups in the hinterlands around the globe – are the last humans in the world.

Death Sense is a novel about the constant battle against the end of the world brought on a tide of zombies, but there is also space for human relationships. People who would never otherwise meet are forced together, and their feelings are felt intensely, sometimes hate and sometimes love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brett Fitzpatrick
• Release date: Jul 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386404750

Brett Fitzpatrick

I am an author living and working in Venice. I love the flexibility that epublishing gives me to live where I want and get my books to people all over the world. I like to read sci-fi and fantasy, and allow my imagination to create the amazing visuals that the writer describes. I'm a child of the 70s and so Star Wars type space opera will always find a warm welcome in my reading stack. I grew up in the UK and this has given my sci-fi a very British taste. It is more Doctor Who than Battlestar Galactica. It also means that my political consciousness was forged in the battles of 80s British political life, like a few other, more famous, British sci-fi writers. For example, I try to make sure every book passes the Bechdel test. The greatest joy of writing for me is to be able to dive into a world of the imagination and come back up to the surface with something to show for it. I love feedback, even of the "This book sucks!" type. If somebody is interested enough to want to influence my work, I am interested enough to want to include their feedback.

Book preview

Prologue

JOHN FRANKLIN WOKE with sweat on his brow, gasping for air. His head lifted from his desk and his eyes opened and focused on the room’s one small curtainless window, which looked out onto a scene of primal beauty. There was a grass expanse, dotted with low temporary-looking buildings surrounded by a chain-link fence, but beyond that was redwood forest. He could see an entire California hillside, thick with redwoods, scotch broom, and poison oak. A ragged blanket of coastal fog was trapped among the trunks of the giant old trees. He saw movement among the upper branches, perhaps a spotted owl returning to its nest to sleep, just as he was waking.

It was a stark contrast to the images that had been filling his dreams. He was exhausted, had nodded off at his desk, and that was when the dreams were worst. Human figures, distorted and emaciated, with flames licking around them. He shook his head to try and shake the last of the demons of sleep away and focused on the secret report he had been reading. It was the last thing he had been able to print out before the Internet went down. He had read it before of course, many times, so it was dogeared and discolored, but he kept coming back to it, not quite able to believe what it contained.

The disease is brutal in its simplicity, he read. There is only one way it can be passed on, by contact with the infected. The incubation period has not yet been established, and seems to vary from seconds to days. Needless to say, individuals who have been infected but have not yet been taken by the disease are, like everyone else, trying to get as far away from areas of heavy infection as possible. They can sometimes travel huge distances, including internationally, making outbreak sites of new contagion very unpredictable. The contamination can not be kept out of the cities. This report recommends relocating all government functions to secure facilities and concentrating efforts on research and development. The survival of humanity now depends on discovering a cure.

At the bottom was written, in his own hand, They don’t burn.

Chapter 1

CALEB FENTON WAS IN the kitchen, his favorite room because it had a good view of the front gate. The gate was directly across the yard from the house, with no obstructions to the view. There was a barn to his left, as he looked out the window, which was a modern structure made out of sheet metal, and there were garages on the right, big enough to park a tractor. Caleb liked to be able to glance up from whatever he was doing and make sure that the gate was securely locked. Not that he was doing much of anything at that moment.

It was midday and he was hungry, so he was eating peaches in syrup, straight out of the can. It was early spring and it was cold, even inside in the kitchen, so Caleb hadn’t bothered to take off his waterproof jacket. The arm of the jacket swished and squeaked every time he lifted a piece of fruit to his mouth. He smiled at the sweet taste and then dug his battered old fork back into the tin, where he chopped off another piece of fruit with it.

He was onto the last piece of fruit, and had slowed his eating, trying to savor the experience, when his eyes wandered to the gate again. It was a tall structure and sturdy, with a looping run of razor wire along the top. Caleb knew the razor wire was there but it was hard to make out in the gray light and pouring rain. The sweet taste of syrup was on his tongue, as he froze. There had been movement at the gate. He squinted into the bad weather again and made out the shape of a large dog between the runnels of water left on the window by the rain. Caleb felt an upwelling of relief, but he didn’t move, he didn't want to attract even a dumb animal’s attention. He just sat there and watched the dog. He couldn’t yet tell if it was alone. There could be a whole feral pack out there, or worse, it might have an owner.

The dog moved on down the road, disappearing from sight, without being joined by other dogs, or a human owner. Caleb finally relaxed, extracting the fork from his mouth and putting it on the little Formica kitchen table. Then he lifted the can and drank down the rest of the contents, the raggedy remains of a peach half that he had been chopping at with his fork and a mouthful of syrup, in one long gulp. The gate was deserted again, no sign of the dog coming back.

It looks like you were on your own, right boy, Caleb said.

He had been talking to himself for some time now. But, like his dad used to say, talking to yourself is okay, it’s when you start answering yourself back that you’ve got problems. Caleb hadn't taken his eyes off the gate, the unease at the dog’s visit still lingering. He knew he wouldn’t feel relaxed again until he had checked the perimeter. He always checked it when guests had been sniffing around, even if they were just a mangy cur, looking for the next meal.

A mangy cur like me, he thought to himself.

He got up from the kitchen table, the legs of his chair silent on the room’s linoleum floor, and picked up his shotgun and lamp from where he had left them on the sideboard when he checked the farm perimeter that morning. He went to the front door and opened it. He didn't venture out though, just stood there watching the rain come down. It would stop eventually, and he had all day to wait.

No sense getting wet, he muttered.

He just stood there, with the shotgun resting over one arm. The pouring rain gradually relented, turning first into drizzle, and then, when it was just spitting, Caleb went outside and locked the door behind him. It wasn’t a security door or anything, but if anyone wanted to bash it in they would have to make quite a noise.

He always chose randomly whether to do the rounds clockwise or counterclockwise, which caused him to pause for a moment to make up his mind, and then he was off on the patrol of the perimeter. He paid special attention to the fence, making sure that every post looked secure and in place. He also looked at the razor wire spiraling along the top, looking for any indication that a carpet had been thrown over it to allow somebody to get in. It all looked okay but, even so, he walked slowly and quietly, ears straining to catch any noise that was out of place.

When he arrived back at the house he checked how long the patrol had taken, a pretty good indication of how thorough he had been. Anything less than half an hour and he went round again, but he saw that he had taken a good forty-five minutes, so he let himself in. He locked the door behind himself again and went back into the kitchen. His empty can of peaches and fork were right where he had left them on the kitchen table. He put the can in the trash, rinsed the fork and placed it back in the cutlery drawer. Then he went into the pantry, grabbed half a packet of biscuits and went back to the kitchen. He gathered his book from the windowsill, opened it and took a bite of one of the biscuits.

The book was First Love by James Patterson, a book he had found on a bookshelf. It wasn’t one he would have picked for himself, but there weren't many others in the house. It wasn’t the usual action story he read, more a road trip mixed with a love story, but he was enjoying it. Like any good story, it took his mind off the world around him, and the state it was in. He read until there wasn't enough light coming in the window to ready by, then gave up. On the way up to bed, he caught sight of himself in the mirror at the bottom of the stairs. He was scrawny, except from round his middle, where he was carrying a little weight. His hair was a very light shade of brown, almost blonde but not quite, and he had a lot of stubble on his face threatening to turn into a bushy beard any day now.

Zoe wouldn't have liked the way he looked. She was always complaining at the first sign of even a little stubble, but Zoe wasn't here. He wasn't a pretty sight, but Caleb didn't care. Appearances had never meant much to him, and what he looked like counted for even less now.

HE WAS WOKEN NEXT DAY by a sound, a sound he hadn’t heard in a while. It was an engine, a big one, a van perhaps or maybe an SUV.

Shit, he hissed.

He threw the duvet aside to reveal that he had gone to bed in his clothes. His only concession to the bedding had been to take off his jacket and boots. He gathered up his shotgun from the bedside table and went to the bedroom window. There was movement at the gate. A delivery truck was standing there, its engine idling. The driver's side door was closed and the passenger door was open. That meant there were at least two people, a driver and a passenger. A man was standing at the gate and he yanked on the chain holding it shut.

Guess what, Caleb said, secure in the knowledge that the man couldn’t hear him, That’s right. They’re locked. See that big chain and padlock? That means get lost.

The man at the gates was short and stocky, a balding white man with a mustache, wearing a maroon bodywarmer. Caleb didn't recognize him, and he didn’t like the look of the man at all. He heard the man yelling at the driver, still out of sight in the truck, but he couldn’t make out the answers.

Probably nobody home, the man at the gate yelled.

Caleb congratulated himself on moving the lock so it looked like the gates had been padlocked from the outside, to make it look like they had been locked by somebody going out, to go hunting maybe. He strained to make out the answer from the driver of the truck, but he couldn't. Just a few sounds here and there.

Or they never did come home, the man at the gate yelled back.

The driver said something unintelligible in reply, it was a male voice, Caleb decided, harsh.

Could be some nice stuff in here, the man at the gate yelled. A farm like this could have fuel, food, guns even... all kinds of goodies.

Another reply from the driver.

Okay, the man yelled and climbed reluctantly back into the truck.

They drove off and Caleb watched them go down the road until the truck was out of sight.

Shit! he yelled.

He now had no idea if they were going to get a gang of friends, or if they were going to get some tool to bite through the chain, or numerous other scenarios that started playing out in his mind. None of them ended well for him. Or maybe they would just forget about him. No there was no way they were going to forget about a nice little farm like his, not a couple of assholes like that. And it’d be better for him if he wasn’t around when they came back.

Caleb threw on his jacket, laced his boots and grabbed his lamp and his shotgun. He left as quickly as he could, locking the gate behind him and making sure the lock and chains were in the same place. He went across the road to a field bounded by a wooden fence. On the other side of the fence, the primeval Californian woods started, like a wall of vegetation. He entered, forded a stream and climbed the hillside, tiptoeing through thickets of fern and willow that made up the understory of the towering forest, trying not to snap twigs or shake saplings. He picked out a hidden spot where he could see what was going on at his farm without, hopefully, being spotted in return. His pockets were full of cartridges, and he was feeling scared but confident. All he had to do now was wait.

Two hours later, the truck came back, accompanied by a much bigger vehicle, like something people moving house might use. Caleb felt waves of cold adrenaline washing through his system at the sight. They were going to clean him out, to take everything.

Caleb hissed a lot of insults at them, but there was no way he was going to try to stop them. There were five men, all knuckle-dragging bruisers. Caleb watched them snip the chain on his gate with a big bolt cutter. Then the two trucks drove into his yard and parked up. He heard the crash as the front door to the farmhouse was kicked in. Caleb cursed them all again, all five of them, straight to hell. He gradually gained control of himself and pulled out a pair of binoculars to get a closer look. One guy was left out in the cab of the bigger of the two trucks, on lookout Caleb guessed, while the rest trashed his home and took all his stuff. After about ten minutes, one of the gang came out and exchanged a few words with the guy on guard in the cab. Caleb was too far away to hear what they said, but he noticed the guy toss a book to the lookout in the cab of the truck, and he instantly knew it was the book he had been reading.

God damn, Caleb muttered – but not too loud, in case he was heard – he’d forgotten the book. Now he would never know how it ended.

The guy went back into the house and the guard in the truck opened the book and started to read. Caleb focused in on the cover, turning the adjuster on the binoculars this way and that, then let out a tut of recognition at the cover. It was definitely his book.

Son of a... he said, a little too loud, but the man in the cab mustn’t have heard because he didn’t react.

More than any other piece of gear he had left behind, gas bottles, cans of peaches, his knife, he would miss that book. His thoughts darkened, as he heard glass smash and saw a chair come sailing out from an upstairs window, out into the yard. The place was going to be uninhabitable by the time these bruisers were finished. Then he was distracted by something else. There was movement down the road, a small group of people.

Oh shit, Caleb muttered as he realized it wasn’t people he was looking at. They were too thin for that, and moving too stiffly. He was looking at a group of the infected, a family of them, coming along the road. They were strung out a little, forming a line rather than a group, but still surprisingly close together. There was a father, a mother and two children, but they were warped, their flesh stretched and leathery, teeth protruding, eyes blank.

The man in the cab didn't notice them until they were almost on him. He screamed, tossed his book and reached for his gun. He had left the passenger-side door open and the father was trying, so far unsuccessfully, to climb in. The lookout shot the infected man, point blank in the chest, then in the shoulder, then again in the chest. And then the infected man, ignoring the shots entirely, grabbed the lookout by the ankle.

Caleb didn't stop to see any more. He turned and made his way through the woods, directly away from the place he had called home for weeks now. Nothing on earth would ever persuade him to go back either. He didn't know how the infection was spread, but he wasn't about to take any chances. He would just have to find somewhere new to live and wait for the outbreak of the disease to be over. 

MEERA WAS STANDING by the window that looked out onto the street. She had a small chin, but a determined set to her jaw. It was her eyes however that she always thought were her best feature. One of the nice things about being Indian, in her opinion, was that it meant she had deep, expressive eyes. A big patch of light was coming in through the window, catching ornaments, the edges of bookshelves and polished furniture, and it picked out the contours of her face in gold. A few steps behind her stood the owner of the house, Karen.

We have to go today, Karen said.

Karen was a woman of color, older than Meera, with hair that was a cascade of corkscrew curls, a natural hairdo, slightly straightened with a mild relaxer. There were, however, a few touches of gray near the temples.

Today? Meera said, Why?

I've been watching them, she replied, carefully. Hoping their numbers would go down, but it's not happening, their numbers are only increasing. If we wait any longer we won’t be able to go.

Okay, Meera said, I get that. But where are we going to go? There’s no TV, power or even water any more. This is happening all across the country. There is nowhere else to go.

That’s not true, Karen said, I have somewhere remote we can go. We have to head out into the woods, I think, if we’re going to survive, and I have a little place there.

Meera wasn’t enthusiastic about Karen’s suggestion. She felt something akin to security within the house, a big house in an exclusive suburb near the university. The house was stone with a high, stone garden wall. They could only see over the wall because the big garden sloped downhill from their window. The suburban road outside was empty.

I haven’t seen any of the infected today, Meera said.

Karen just pointed, off down the road. There was a tree in one of the neighborhood gardens that spread over the wall, making a shady spot right where the wall turned a corner. There was a man standing there, at the corner, in the shade, where someone coming along the street would be less likely to see him. And there was something else about the man, even at a distance they could see that he was terribly thin, and he was standing so immobile, almost like a statue.

I stand corrected, Meera said.

You can stay, if you want, Karen said, her voice dropping to little more than a whisper, even though there was no chance the figure could possibly hear her. I'm not forcing you to come with me. I just-

Meera put her hand on Karen’s arm.

I'm coming, she said, of course, and reached down for a baseball bat that was propped up below the window.

Great, Karen said, though her face fell at the sight of the improvised weapon. I am fervently hoping that we won’t need that. If we don’t get out of the car, I don’t think they we will be in danger of being infected.

A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER, after filling the car with a few essentials, Karen got in the driving seat and Meera climbed in the passenger side. They drove away from the house while Meera threw the baseball bat on the back seat. Karen very lightly pushed the accelerator and rolled quietly down the driveway, letting gravity pull them out instead of the car’s noisy engine. It didn’t help them remain undetected. The figure under the tree immediately turned its head to look in their direction.

Meera had a good view of the creature now, and saw that it had been a man, dressed in the smart casual clothes of an executive taking a day off work to be with his family. Before becoming infected he had undoubtedly, she thought, lived in one of the surrounding upscale houses. Karen was glancing in her driver’s mirror, and she sped up a little bit, but she was still well within the speed limit for the small suburban road. The infected man was coming after them, but neither Karen nor Meera felt particularly worried that its shuffling steps would be fast enough to catch them. Meera was still nervous though, glancing over her shoulder repeatedly at the receding figure.

What are you doing, Meera hissed, There are no police anymore. You can gun the engine.

I'm conserving fuel, Karen said, I don't know if we will be able to refill the tank. But that's okay, we can get to my country place on just one tank, if we are careful with the gas.

Okay, Meera said, her voice still a little stressed, But that infected guy is still following us.

I'm not worried, Karen said, glancing in her driver's mirror again, They don't run.

Meera was turned around now, elbow over the back of her seat, as she stared at their shambling pursuer. The infected man was soon left behind, even though they were driving at a sensible speed through the streets. It took a few minutes to get out of Karen's upmarket district, and into an area of town more popular with university students. Among the housing they saw a very short row of small businesses. There was a general store, a laundromat full of giant, orange, coin-operated washing machines and dryers, and a place that stayed open late to sell alcohol and snacks. All three buildings had their display windows bashed in.

I can understand the place that sells booze and snacks, Meera said, but why loot a laundromat?

I've got a terrible craving to stop and see if that place has any cigarettes, Karen muttered.

No way, Meera said, rolling her eyes, There might be infected inside. We said we weren’t going to get out of the car.

Okay, okay, Karen said, with a sigh, No unnecessary risks, we’ll just keep driving till we get to my place in the woods.

They had come to a slightly bigger road, a thruway built on concrete columns to carry it over any obstructions and out of town. Karen dropped down a gear and drove up the on-ramp. This road was the route she used to take to her job, lecturing at the university, and she remembered hating having to merge with the heavy morning traffic. That wasn’t a problem any more. The only vehicle moving on this elevated road was them, but that didn’t mean they were alone.

What a mess, Karen said.

What the hell happened here? Meera asked.

There were cars all along the right and left side of the road, some of them parked but most looking like they had been shoved aside and left at any old angle. There was a single clear track through the chaos of metal and Karen headed down it, in the direction that would take them to her country retreat.

This does not look good, Meera said, as they cruised slowly between the cars on their left and right.

Don’t worry, Karen said, There’s plenty of room for us to squeeze through, and we only have to go a couple of junctions before we’ll be out by the coast.

All right, I guess, Meera said, but the tone of her voice sounded far from convinced. Do you think there might be infected among the cars?

Karen didn’t answer but she sped up a little. With so little clearance either side of her car, because of all the abandoned vehicles to left and right, there was a limit to how fast she could drive. The clear lane was only just wide enough for their car to pass in places. Then, up ahead, it was cut off completely. Karen slowed to a gentle stop, accompanied by some hissed curses, while Meera swore loudly beside her. There was a military vehicle up ahead, parked directly across the road, and the clear lane had disappeared, becoming just a jumble of parked and abandoned vehicles.

Can you see a way round? Meera asked.

Nope, Karen replied, sharply, and I doubt we could successfully reverse back through all that mess.

We said we weren’t going to get out of the car, Meera reminded her.

Karen didn’t reply, instead she warily got out. Meera followed, climbing over the gear stick to get out the same door as Karen because there wasn’t enough room on her side. She glanced over her shoulder, looking for any sign of the infected between the cars.

Look at all this, Meera said. So many cars, all deserted now.

They made their way through the cars to the military truck that was blocking the road. It wasn’t much different from a normal truck, at least to Meera’s untrained eye, except for the green color scheme and bigger wheels. Meera moved her hands on the grip of her baseball bat, making sure it was secure, then she went to the cab. All her attention was now on the truck in front of her as she reached up for the door handle and yanked on it. It came open and she jumped back.

The cab was empty, and she let out a sigh of relief, then climbed in.

Can you see the road ahead? Karen asked. Is it clear?

From her vantage point up in the cab, Meera now had a good view of the road on the other side of the truck, Yeah, it's pretty clear.

Karen climbed up into the truck’s cab with Meera and saw for herself that the road ahead was clear enough for them to continue. Except for the small fact that their car was stuck on the wrong side of the barrier.

I guess the army must have set up some kind of road block, Meera said.

I wonder why they abandoned this truck, Karen said, her eyes going to the back of the cab. There was no window to the rest of the truck from inside the cab.

Do you think there are zombie soldiers back there? Meera asked, as she noticed where Karen’s eyes were looking.

What? No. We would have heard them, Karen said, and looked under the steering wheel. No keys... Doesn't matter, though. I don't think I can drive something this size. Can you?

Drive a truck? No, Meera looked longingly over her shoulder at their car.

I guess it’s obvious what we have to do, Karen said.

Meera nodded, her face suddenly determined, We’ll have to walk, at least a little way.

KAREN AND MEERA HAD been walking now for twenty minutes, after leaving their car behind at the checkpoint. Karen knew the route well, and the town they lived in wasn’t big. Even so, she judged it would take them a good forty-five minutes more to get through the suburbs to open country, but how long it would then take to reach her house in the country she wasn’t sure.

Damn, Meera said, I was really hoping we would be able to drive all the way to your place. How long is this going to take on foot?

I don’t know, Karen told her, it doesn’t take long in the car, less than an hour. I’m pretty sure we can do it in a day, and I have stuff there. Some food and there’s a bottle of gas for cooking and heating.

That sounds good, Meera said, looking apprehensively around the empty streets of the town.

Whatever we do, Karen said, we have to be out of here before nightfall.

There was a long road ahead of them, a long straight road with four lanes for traffic and a central reservation. There were boxy developments at each side of the road, a mall here, a small office suite there, and the sky was overcast. Ordinarily it would be just another vista of North American urban sprawl, but today it looked different. Usually the road they were walking along would have fast moving traffic going in both directions, but today it was completely still. There were a lot of cars, but they were all bunched up in the direction leading out of town. Some were overturned, one was burnt out and still smoking and another was smashed into the wall of a convenience store and buried in the rubble it had brought down on itself. The road was completely blocked and impossible to drive down, in some places it was blocked both heading into town and leaving town. In one place a bulldozer had been used to clear a wide path through the cars, and the huge yellow machine was still waiting at the side of the road, ready to be used again.

There would be no way through here in a car, anyway, Meera said.

I don’t know, Karen said, casting her expert eye over the destruction. I might have been able to pick a way through.

Okay, Meera said, it’s kind of an academic question. We’re on foot now, and we’ve got to keep moving.

Karen didn’t have to reply, her actions were the only answer she needed to give. She was already striding ahead, along the long, wide stretch of road, and Meera had to scamper to keep up. They saw dead bodies, here and there, slowly putrefying in the open air, but surprisingly few of them. There were nowhere near enough corpses to account for the drivers of all the cars.

There aren’t many people lying around, Meera said, considering. Do you think that means the others got away?

Not necessarily- Karen started to answer, before shrieking and jumping to the side.

There was a driver in one of the cars, and her head had moved. She had a beautiful, auburn head of hair, sculpted into one of the latest styles, but the face below was ruined, the skin dry and sagging, the teeth elongated and protruding at the same time as the flesh of her gums had shrunk back. One of the most hideous aspects of her face was that there was still a dab of makeup to be seen here and there. There was some eyeshadow, some eyeliner, and worst of all, lip gloss. Her window was open, and she reached an arm out, her nails had grown to the length of talons, each still with a dab of mauve varnish on it. Her reach was long and Karen had to dance to the side to avoid it, so far and so fast that she stumbled to the asphalt, grazing her knee. The woman in the car groaned in frustration, a terrible sound from a desiccated and ruined voice box. There was no seat belt and her car didn’t look damaged, but somehow she couldn’t get out to continue her