The War On Horror II: Return Of The Undead Menace

By Nathan Allen

It’s now three years since Bernard Marlowe’s stunning election victory. Incidents involving the undead have fallen to an all-time low, and great strides have been made in the development of a groundbreaking treatment to reverse the devastating effects of the infection.

The new prime minister is still grappling with the realization that running the country isn’t quite the walk in the park he thought it might be. The one-time flavor of the month is now the most unpopular leader in recent memory. His scandal-plagued government has degenerated into a laughing stock and is hurtling head-first toward a humiliating electoral defeat. Regaining the public’s trust, or restoring their deepest fears, may be his only chance of winning – and there is nothing he won’t do to hold on to power.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nathan Allen
• Release date: May 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463181928

Nathan Allen

A purveyor of nonsense that occasionally vomits out something profound.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Jack Houston had just settled into his seat when an email alerted him to an unexpected windfall.

How about that? he said, his hirsute face breaking into a wide grin. It appears I may be eligible for a compensation payout due to a loss of earnings caused by undead beings. All I have to do to claim my entitlement is click on this link they sent me.

Miles sat opposite and said nothing. He wasn’t sure whether Houston expected a response, or if he was just thinking out loud. He opted to play it safe and go with a non-verbal reaction – a knowing smile and a slight raise of his eyebrows.

He rubbed his palm and opened and closed his hand a couple of times. His fingers were still smarting from the bone-pulverizing handshake he had been greeted with a minute earlier. The Z-Pro boss was the kind of guy who filled a room, in every sense. A bear of a man with a booming voice and a personality to match.

You think anyone ever falls for these scams? Houston said.

I guess a small percentage does, Miles said. If they send it out to a million people, they would only need a few responses for it to be worth their while.

Hey, you know what I should do? I should write back and string them along. Houston let out a wheezy laugh that grew to a sharp cackle. I’ll tell them my business has been running at a loss for the past five years due to all my undead-related expenses.

Miles laughed along, partly because the notion that the undead had adversely affected Jack Houston’s business interests was absurd – Z-Pro was the country’s only remaining undead management and control firm, and zombies had made Houston a millionaire – and partly because this was a job interview, and it would be unwise not to laugh at a potential employer’s jokes.

Houston’s finger jabbed at the keyboard to delete the email. His attention turned to Miles. Enough fun and games. Let’s get down to business, shall we?

He sifted through the jumble of papers and miscellaneous documents in front of him. The desk, like the rest of the office, was as messy and unkempt as the man whose name was on the door. Bins overflowed with a month’s worth of trash, shelves groaned under the weight of old manuals and files, and the remains of a half-eaten days-old sandwich sat neglected on the windowsill. A musty smell of dampness and body odor hung in the air. He was the opposite of Miles’ previous boss; Steve kept neither a hair nor a paperclip out of place.

Houston discovered the résumé beneath a racing guide and one of the many disposable coffee cups he had strewn across the desk. He shifted around in his seat until he was comfortable, then ran his index finger across the text as he speed-read the first page. He was doing what all employers did in job interviews – scanning through the key points as if he was so pressed for time he didn’t have a spare two minutes to read the whole thing prior to this moment.

An uncomfortable silence filled the room. The only sound now was the ticking of the wall clock and Jack Houston’s unusually loud breathing. He wheezed like he had just sprinted up ten flights of stairs.

The two bushy caterpillars resting above his eyes shot up. You ran your own business?

Uh, yes. That’s right, Miles said. Me and a friend. We ran it together for a few years, until we sold it.

Good for you, Houston said, in a tone Miles couldn’t decide was encouraging or patronizing. That shows real initiative.

Another silence. A draft brushed against the back of his neck. It came from a window that hadn’t been shut properly.

Ah. I see you were at Dead Rite prior to that?

He swallowed. I was there for about two years.

He hoped Jack Houston hadn’t detected the nervous tremor in his voice. He had fudged the timeline on his work history slightly by moving the end date forward by one year. The dissolution of Dead Rite had been a messy affair, and he thought it would be best to avoid the sorts of questions that would inevitably crop up if he told the truth. He gambled that Houston wouldn’t be making any follow-up phone calls to verify these dates. In any event, it was unlikely he could check even if he wanted to – the business no longer existed, so there was no one left to contact. He felt he was on safe ground with that lie.

Probably a smart decision to get out when you did, Houston said. The two guys running the joint, Steve and Adam. I don’t know how much you knew about them.

I didn’t really know them at all, Miles said. Another lie. He’d gone this far, so he may as well keep going.

Well, anyway. They were nice enough fellas I suppose, but pretty clueless when it came to running a business. Didn’t know the first thing about the UMC industry, either. Ran up huge debts, hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth. They got caught breaking the law, and then vanished off the face of the earth once it all got too much for them. They ended up owing money all over town.

Oh, really? Miles said. He spoke as if he was hearing this for the first time.

They weren’t an isolated case, either. Not by a long shot. The industry attracted its share of crooks, especially in those early days. A lot of people just out to make a quick buck. Things have changed a lot since then, though. Much better regulated, less of a free-for-all. At least compared with what it was. All the cowboys and shonky operators have been shut down.

He flipped over to the next page and read some more. Miles noticed a fat bead of sweat forging a path down the middle of his forehead. This was despite the cool weather outside, the lack of heating inside, and the fact that Houston was wearing nothing heavier than a short-sleeved polyester shirt.

It’s strange you and I never crossed paths before, he continued. A lot of my staff actually got their start at Dead Rite. You must have made your escape before I had the chance to recruit you.

Miles answered with a tight smile. This wasn’t actually his first face to face encounter with Jack Houston. They had met once before, in a pub a few years ago. That was the night Houston tried to lure him away from Dead Rite by offering him a job with Z-Pro. The night that Miles, fueled by the kind of bravado and certitude that only a half-dozen whiskey shots could provide, flatly and rudely turned him down. Fortunately for him, Houston was probably just as inebriated on that particular occasion, and he appeared to have no recollection of that night.

So tell me. Houston dropped the résumé onto the desk. He sized Miles up with his beady eyes. It’s obvious you have the experience, and just by looking at your work history I’m confident you’re more than qualified to do the job. But in your own words, tell me why you’re the applicant we should select for this position. Why would you be the best fit for Z-Pro?

As soon as he heard the question every synapse in his brain ceased to function, and all the answers he’d spent the past few days rehearsing disappeared. Why would he be the best fit for Z-Pro? More to the point, why did he even want to work for them at all? When he left the industry years ago he assumed it would be for good. As far as he was concerned, that chapter of his life was closed. He was grateful to have escaped relatively unscathed when he did. Others weren’t so lucky. But now here he was, doing something he never thought he’d do, attempting to return to a job and a life he had left behind long ago.

He silenced the doubting voices chipping away at the back of his mind, took a deep breath, and he rattled off an answer with as much forced enthusiasm as it was possible to fake. He spoke of his passion for the industry, and his unwavering belief in helping people and performing his civic duty. He emphasized his desire to work for a respected organization with the potential for long-term career advancement. All the usual hot air usually spouted in a job interview. Stuff that sounded good but was essentially meaningless.

It was exactly what Jack Houston wanted to hear, judging by the way he nodded along with everything that was said, but Miles could feel his soul slipping further and further away with every word that left his mouth.

Chapter 2

The title of the video was sk8r dude gets head krushed by zombie. It was accompanied by an extreme content warning. Devon Spooner debated whether that was something he really wanted to watch. His cousin had sent him the link. He clicked on the thumbnail and waited for it to load.

He viewed the first fifteen seconds before shutting it down. He immediately regretted doing that. There was once a time when he would scour the web for the goriest and most depraved zombie videos he could find, but not any more. He’d had some bad undead experiences since then. After seeing some of the things he had seen, they weren’t so funny anymore.

The clip delivered on what the title promised. Some idiot had ventured too close to a rabid zombie and had his skull opened up like an Easter egg. He should have known better than to click on anything his cousin had sent him. That guy wasn’t right in the head.

There was a knock at the door. He closed the laptop and pulled on a t-shirt.

He wasn’t expecting visitors today, and his customers knew never to turn up unannounced. He checked to make sure his baseball bat was within reach. He didn’t think he’d need it, but he felt safer knowing it was there.

He pressed his eye to the peep hole. A young girl, probably mid- to late-teens, waited on his doorstep. It was no one he knew, although she did look vaguely familiar.

Yeah? he said. He tried to convey a kind of belligerent toughness.

Um ... I’m looking for Devon? the girl said. Devon Spooner. Is that you?

That depends on who’s asking.

M-my name’s Brianna. Her voice was shaky, her words coming with reluctance. Brianna Goodman. I live a few blocks over. On Fountaineer Parade. Opposite the park.

The name wasn’t ringing any bells. He still didn’t know what to make of this. Is that right? he said.

He studied the girl through the peep hole. She didn’t appear to be particularly threatening, and if someone was planning on ripping him off it’s unlikely they would knock first. But he also knew he could never be too careful, especially with the amount of cash he kept around the house. The moment you let your guard down, that was the moment you found yourself face down on the floor with someone’s foot pressing against the back of your neck. And if he was thinking about robbing someone, sending a pretty young girl to get inside and lower your defenses would be one way of doing it.

But something told him this girl was genuine. She seemed especially nervous and upset. Her eyes pinballed from side to side, and her face twitched with involuntary tremors. If this was all an act, it was an impressive performance.

Please ... can you let me in? she said.

Alright. I’m opening the door. But don’t try anything. No sudden moves, and keep your hands where I can see ‘em at all times. Got it?

She gave a quick nod to show that she understood. Devon flicked open the deadbolts.

Brianna forced a smile of gratitude as she stepped inside and followed him into the lounge room.

So, Brianna Goodman. He lowered himself onto the sofa. What can I do for you?

The girl stood awkwardly near the lounge entrance. She looked for a place to sit. The chairs were covered in old pizza boxes and empty cans and other random junk. The only available seat was on the sofa, next to Devon. She chose to remain standing.

I’m here because –

She faltered when the words didn’t come. She cleared her throat and tried again.

It’s my father ... it happened last week ... we, we noticed he had this nasty cut on his arm ... it looked really bad, like it had become infected ... he told us he came off his motorbike, I don’t know why he said that ... maybe he was embarrassed, or in denial ... we told him he needed to get it checked out, but ... you know ... I think he thought maybe if he ignored it, it might go away ...

Devon nodded. I know what you mean. Some men won’t go to a doctor unless their toes are about to drop off.

Brianna was silent for a moment before continuing.

We woke up in the middle of the night to find out he was undead. Her voice cracked as she sniffed back tears. We’ve looked into treatment options, but it’s all so expensive. His insurance won’t cover it, and there’s no way we could ever afford it ourselves. We have nothing to sell. We live in a rented house, so we can’t take out a second mortgage. I don’t know what we’re going to do. You’re our only hope.

It’s okay, Devon said. He was doing his best impression of what he thought a compassionate person might look like. Maybe I can help. Wait here, I’ll be right back.

He considered offering some sort of comforting gesture, such as a light pat on the shoulder, or maybe even a hug, but he worried that might come across as too forward. Instead, he fetched her a can of Mountain Dew from the refrigerator before retreating to his bedroom.

He yanked off his t-shirt and tossed it on the floor. It had stopped being wearable at least four days ago. He drenched his chest in a liberal spraying of deodorant, and added another burst when he couldn’t remember if he’d showered that day or not. He slipped his gold chain around his neck, the one with the diamond-encrusted Uzi-shaped pendant, and he threw on a clean t-shirt. It was his new Metallica shirt, the one with the snake from The Black Album on it.

Who are you getting all dressed up for?

The voice startled him. He spun around. Oh, no. She was still here, in his bed. The psycho hose beast he had tried unsuccessfully to break up with for the past three months. He assumed she had left hours ago. This chick was harder to shake than a venereal disease.

Don’t you have somewhere to be? he said. It’s two in the afternoon.

A pile of dirty laundry sat in the corner of the room. Devon pushed it aside with his foot. He got down on his hands and knees and peeled back a section of carpet.

Who were you talking to out there? the woman said, speaking through a yawn.

No one. Jesus, she looked rough when she had just woken up and he was sober.

He lifted up a loose floorboard and reached into the floor. He pulled out a brown shoebox.

Doesn’t sound like no one, she said.

It’s no one you have to worry about, alright? Just a customer. Go back to sleep.

Make up your mind. Do you want me to leave, or do you want me to go back to sleep?

Either. Both. Whatever, just don’t bother me when I’m doing business.

He slotted the floorboard back into place and moved the carpet over the top. He pulled the bedroom door closed on his way out.

Brianna was where he had left her, standing rigid by his shelf of BluRays as if she was afraid to move. The can of Mountain Dew remained unopened in front of her.

Now, has your father been safely secured? Devon said, reverting back to his sympathetic voice.

Brianna nodded. We managed to tie him up. He’s in the tool shed, at the back of the yard.

That’s good. That’s the most important part. How long ago did this all happen?

He transitioned, um ... four, no, five days ago now.

Five days shouldn’t be a problem. His organic material will still be in fairly decent condition. There won’t be too much decay yet. If you leave it too long they sometimes need organ and tissue transplants, but he should be fine. He’ll probably require a blood transfusion, but that’s easily arranged.

He removed the lid from the shoebox. Inside were several smaller white boxes, each containing a dozen clear vials.

First thing you’ll need to do is set up an IV. You’ll have to give him a large dose of Nembutal to sedate him. That will put him in an induced coma. Once that happens, he’ll need to be injected with one vial of Zaracaine-9, three times a day.

He held up a single 10ml vial between his thumb and forefinger.

This is Zaracaine-9, and this is what destroys the infection. One of these, three times a day, and in about two weeks he’ll be ready to be brought back to life. You do that with a shot of adrenaline and a series of shocks with a defibrillator.

He searched around for a pen. He found one in between the sofa cushions. He tore off a piece from a takeaway food menu.

That’s usually done by a medical professional, but I know a guy who can do it for about a hundred bucks. He scrawled a number on the scrap of paper. He has his own homemade device. It’s basically a car battery hooked up to these two pads, but the end result is the same. The body gets shocked back to life and the organs start working again.

He wrote a second number below the first.

And this is the number for the guy who can do the transfusions. You’ll probably need three or four in those first two weeks. He keeps a small supply of blood on hand, all different types, so you can buy it from him. He charges less if you can find someone with a matching blood type who can supply it for you.

He handed the piece of paper to Brianna.

He should emerge from his coma within four to five days. After that, he’ll need to keep up a steady dose of Zaracaine-9. One injection in the morning, one at night, for the first three months, then one a day after that. This information is all available online, by the way. I’ll send you a link to this page that has all the dosages and step-by-step instructions, so you won’t need to memorize –

Devon’s mouth stopped working mid-sentence as he became lost in thought. There was something strangely familiar about Brianna. He didn’t know what it was, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He thought he recognized her when he first saw her. He assumed their paths must have crossed around the neighborhood at some point. But there was more to it than that. He didn’t just recognize her; he knew her. They had a shared history, somehow. It was her mannerisms, and the way she spoke. The way she twisted her hair around her middle finger and chewed on her lower lip between sentences. It gave him the weirdest feeling of déjà vu, as if they had met in a previous life.

Sorry, what did you say your name was? he said.

Um, Brianna? She spoke as if she wasn’t sure this was the correct answer. Brianna Goodman?

Goodman. A name he had heard before, but not for a long time. Distant memories were prodded somewhere in the recess of his brain. A bolt of lightning struck.

Are you related to Alison Goodman? he said.

Um, yeah? That’s my mother.

A wide smile appeared on Devon’s face. That was it. I thought I knew you from somewhere.

What, you know her?

Yeah, I actually ... yeah. I mean, I used to. Kinda. Haven’t seen her in ages, though.

Devon had known Brianna’s mother when he was younger. They had attended the same high school, although this was a fact he hesitated to divulge at this stage. He was trying to conceal his true age from Brianna for the time being.

Alison Goodman was two years ahead of him at Golden Hill High, as well as several rungs higher on the school’s social hierarchy. The last time he saw her was just before she dropped out, aged seventeen. No official reason was ever given for her sudden disappearance, but with her cravings for peanut butter and Cheetos sandwiches, multiple reported incidents of projectile vomiting in public, and a belly that was visibly expanding by the day, it wasn’t too hard for everyone to figure it out for themselves.

Seventeen and a half years later, Alison’s teenage mistake stood in his lounge room, fidgeting with her bracelet and compulsively tapping her foot. She was a near-replica of her mother at the same age, just with a nose ring, purple streaks in her hair, and a much slimmer waistline. He didn’t know who she was really buying the medication for, but it certainly wasn’t her father. Not her biological father, anyway. No one ever found out who knocked up Alison Goodman all those years ago. Even Alison was said to not be one hundred percent certain of the parentage. There were multiple rumored candidates, ranging from a married thirty-eight-year-old nightclub owner to the school’s art teacher to the bassist for a touring nu-metal band. In any case, the culprit hadn’t bothered to stick around to help out with the raising of his child. Brianna was probably buying the medication for whoever it was her mother had shacked up with. She would have told Devon it was for her father to play up the whole sympathy angle.

He chuckled to himself and shook his head. Small world, huh?

I guess so, she shrugged.

So anyway, I’ve had to raise my prices a bit. Devon switched back to business mode, speaking in his professional voice. It’s unfortunate, but unavoidable. Getting this stuff through customs has become a total ball-ache. They’re really coming down hard on it.

I understand, she said.

So with that in mind, I can offer this to you today for six-fifty.

Brianna’s mouth fell open an inch. She looked at Devon, trying to figure out if he was playing some sort of cruel prank on her. The regeneration process was prohibitively expensive. This medication would have cost close to thirty grand had she gone through the official channels. He was offering it to her for a small fraction of that price.

Six-fifty? You mean six hundred and fifty ... dollars?

Uh-huh.

Is that for ... does that ...?

That covers everything you’ll need for the initial regeneration, plus enough Zaracaine-9 to last three or four weeks after that. You can come back for more refills as you need them.

Brianna hurried to get the money. Her hands trembled as she counted out the bills. I honestly ... you don’t know what this means to us. I don’t know how we can ever thank you.

You don’t have to thank me. I’m happy to help out someone when they need a hand. It just infuriates me to see these huge corporations exploiting desperate and vulnerable people. That’s the main reason why I do this.

He kept a straight face as he said this. Devon was in it for the money and nothing else.

Brianna handed over the cash, and she shoved the package into her backpack. He gave her his phone number and told her to call if there were any problems. She thanked Devon several more times before leaving.

He returned to the lounge and opened his laptop. He logged on to an online poker site. He had promised he wouldn’t do this anymore after gambling away a sizable chunk of his savings a couple of months back, but he figured a few quick games couldn’t hurt. He was in a good mood, and he was feeling lucky. His hunch was justified fifteen minutes later when he found himself eight hundred dollars ahead.

Today’s transaction had netted only a small profit. The real money would come through repeat business. Brianna would have to keep coming back for refills, and his prices would gradually rise – unforeseen supply issues, danger money, inflation, or some other invented reason. She would have no choice but to keep on buying through him, over and over, for as long as the old man needed the meds. He was the only one in the area selling it, so it wasn’t as if she could take her business elsewhere. And if she had trouble coming up with the cash – well, he was sure they would be able to come to some sort of arrangement.

For years the devastating and apparently incurable contagion known as zombism had destroyed innocent lives and plunged the world into a state of chaos. The sheer magnitude of the epidemic was bewildering, tearing a path of destruction and inducing mass panic on a scale not seen since the Spanish flu a century earlier. More than sixty million people had been affected since it emerged, initially in Germany, before spreading throughout Europe and beyond in a matter of days. The threat subsided after the first few tumultuous weeks, but by then the world had been irreversibly altered.

Despite having some of the greatest scientific minds working together to study the contagion, no one really knew anything about it. It didn’t behave like a typical disease, or a virus, or a plague. It was unlike anything they had ever encountered; a mutant man-made strain that did not fit comfortably into any pre-existing category. Even though the existence of zombism and the potential for large-scale outbreaks had been known for decades, biologists and epidemiologists were still no closer to knowing what it was, let alone how to treat it. It was eventually given the official title of the BNBO-511:17 pathogen, although most continued to refer to it simply as the infection. Transmission occurred through blood and saliva, which typically came after one infected carrier sunk its teeth into the flesh of the uninfected. A short incubation period followed, after which the victim metamorphosed into a dangerous and ravenous savage.

Debate still raged as to whether infected humans should be categorized as alive or dead. Some of the characteristics exhibited were consistent with that of the deceased, primarily a lack of heartbeat and limited brain activity. But they also displayed several traits not commonly found in the dead, with aggressive movement and an insatiable appetite for human flesh being the most obvious examples. They were eventually classified as being undead – not alive, not dead, but caught in a state of limbo, inhabiting both states simultaneously.

The military were deployed in those first few weeks to round up the hordes of infected. Once that had been taken care of, they next had to figure out what to do with them. Many believed the undead should be euthanized, both for compassionate reasons and to prevent further spread of the infection, but this was met with strong opposition. Families and friends of undead beings objected to the slaughter of their loved ones, especially as they were still moving and behaving in something resembling a lifelike manner. A grass-roots movement formed that campaigned for their protection and demanded the undead be treated humanely.

The various governments and world bodies eventually reached a compromise whereby any infected humans would be quarantined and held for an indefinite period of time in the hope that a way of reversing the condition would soon be found. The National Law to End Violence Against the Dead Act (NEVADA) was introduced, prohibiting civilians from causing unnecessary harm toward any undead being.

While the public accepted these measures to begin with, support soon fell away once the spiraling costs associated with capturing and housing the undead mounted. There was a growing animosity, helped in no small part by a scaremongering media and opportunistic politicians, both of whom sought to exploit the tragedy for their own benefit. A significant number of people regarded the entire process as a waste of money, while others claimed that by not putting them out of their misery they were prolonging the undead’s suffering. The consensus was that a cure was unlikely to ever be found, and they were simply delaying the inevitable.

But against the odds, a stunning breakthrough came when Zaracaine-9 hit the market courtesy of Elixxia Pharmaceuticals. The drug was hailed as the greatest medical achievement of the twenty-first century, a scientific milestone comparable to DNA mapping, the cure for polio and the discovery of penicillin.

Zaracaine-9 was labeled by some as a miracle cure, but this was inaccurate as the medication did not completely rid the body of the infection. Instead, it worked to suppress the majority of the debilitating symptoms, and returned the patient to a state of health similar to what they