The ZWD Trilogy (Book 1): Zombie World Dominance [The Destruction Begins] (9 page)

When
he was dead, the creature stood to find its next prey. By now, the tourists had
started to panic. Many ran back to the ship, pushing and shoving their way up
the boarding ramp. Other tourists
ran down the pier. Many were able to
escape their attackers with only a scratch or a scrape before they got back to
the ship. Because of the shoving and pushing, the ship’s security personnel
could not scan each passenger’s ID as they boarded, which was the proper procedure.
Security was able to pull the passengers with injuries to one side to take them
to the infirmary. Other passengers that only had scrapes or scratches were allowed
to board routinely. They were allowed to come on board with their minor injuries.

The
ship’s captain was watching from the bridge. He saw the creatures attacking the
tourists on the pier. He radioed for more security personnel to the gangway and
dispatched the ship’s security detail to get the tourists back on board. The
captain ordered the crew to secure the vessel and see that everyone got back on
board safely.

The
tugboats that had guided the ship to the dock were now tasked with returning to
the ship, to rapidly move it away from the pier. By the time all the tourists
were back on board with the gangway secured, there were 45 to 50 tourists lying
dead on the pier.

There
were a total of nine tourists that had received deeper gouges or had been
clawed that security took aside who were taken to the ship’s infirmary for
treatment. The ship’s doctor, Dr. Noble Hajjar, and his staff of two Registered
Nurses, Deborah Martin and Sandy McTeuge, along with nurse’s aide Daniel
Betterman, did what they could to help the injured.

The
injured passengers in the infirmary were growing worse by the minute. The
infirmary was too small to make all of the wounded comfortable. It contained four
separate rooms: a small office for Dr. Hajjar, a small room for medical
supplies, an exam room with two exam tables and a room with two medical beds in
it.

There
were four injured passengers on the two exam tables, and the two medical beds
were full. The remainder of the injured passengers were placed on the floor, on
the stretchers on which they had been carried in.

Nurse
Martin told the doctor, “Dr. Hajjar, this passenger is getting worse. His
wounds look as though they are beginning to decay. They’re beginning to smell
of rot. The skin around the wound is turning dark. It’s getting taut and rough,
like leather. From everything we can tell the patient appears to be
experiencing massive organ failure. His corneas are beginning to turn opaque,
like he has cataracts that are forming in just minutes. He can’t seem to focus
on anything and he’s becoming sensitive to the lights in the room. I’ve never
seen a patient go downhill so quickly. They’re all dying right in front of us.
No matter what we do, it’s not helping! What more can we do for them?”

“Deborah,
I have never seen these kind of injuries before in all of my years as a doctor.
In less than fifteen minutes, we received nine patients, and three of them were
nearly dead by the time they got to us. It looks as if we are going to lose this
one as well. That will make four dead. The other five remaining passengers are
not going to make it either, I suspect. All we can do is treat their pain with
the medication we have on hand and try to make their last moments on Earth as
comfortable as we can. Could someone get Captain Wasem on the phone for me,
please?”

This
was the seventh year that Captain Tarek Wasem and the doctor had worked together
on the same cruise line. The crew was mostly from British-owned islands in the Caribbean.
If nothing else, they were British to the end, sharing the sense of decorum that
all British subjects seemed to have. Everything they did was performed to British
standards, including their communication. They had spent all of those seven
years on the same ship. Dr. Hajjar was handed the phone.

“Dr.
Hajjar, Captain Wasem here. What can you tell me, my friend?”

“Tarek,
we received nine passengers from the attack on the pier. Four of them have died
in our office.”

“My
God!” muttered the Captain.

“We
only have four beds we can put the injured on,” continued Dr. Hajjar. “The rest
are on stretchers on the floor. We are trying to treat them to the best of our
ability, but I would say the other five will be dead within the next thirty
minutes. I am afraid there’s nothing that we can do to save them. We are nearly
out of any medicine that we have been using to try to treat them. No matter
what we do, they are still dying. I don’t know what is killing them. The no
matter how slight their injuries, even if it is only a scratch, they are still dying.”

“I
don’t understand how this could happen,” said Captain Wasem.

“The
bodies are starting to pile up. We have wrapped them in sheets and placed them
on stretchers on the floor of the hallway. We do not have any body bags. We
need someplace cold to hold them. My infirmary was not designed to keep
one
dead body, let alone nine. I recommend that we use one of the refrigeration
units in the galley to store the bodies. They can remain there until we can get
back home to Los Angeles.”

“Noble,
how can this be happening? I saw the creatures that attacked our passengers.
They were bent on killing. It was like a blood feast. They killed 45 to 50 of
our passengers. Their bodies are still lying on the pier.”

“I
have no idea. I’ve never seen the like of it.”

“Let
me call the chief to let him know that you will be sending the bodies to him.
He will need to clean out a refrigeration unit for them. We can’t place human
remains and food in the same unit. We are charting a course back to Los Angeles
at the best speed we can make. We should be there within 36 to 40 hours
depending upon the weather.”

“Tarek,
I have spoken to the crew who brought the nine passengers in to my infirmary.
They told me they believe that there were more than just nine passengers who
have been attacked. The nine we received are the ones that could not walk
without assistance. The crew thinks there might be as many as 20 to 25
passengers, or even more, that received injuries. They’re on board somewhere.
We need to find those passengers as soon as possible. They must be segregated
from the others. They need to be brought down to my infirmary where we can
place them in quarantine. Can your staff help us with this? We’re swamped. We
cannot leave the infirmary. I am afraid that my staff will have to be
quarantined as well. We undoubtedly have been exposed to whatever is killing
the passengers. Quarantine, for now, is the only safe way to proceed.”

The
ship was pulling away from the pier and heading out to sea. Esperana was the
only adult left of the Ortegas and the Castillos. She got the children together
and spoke to them.

“Children,
listen to me, please. Your father and Señora Rosamelia have been killed by
those creatures in the warehouse. Now the creatures are attacking the tourists and
trying to kill them. We must get to the truck as quickly as we can. The key is
under the front seat. Leave everything except the money. Run to the truck as
fast as possible. We will all be killed if we stay here any longer. There is
nothing we can do for the other owners or the tourists.”

They
all ran toward the parking lot, around the corner of the warehouse. Esperana
was the first to get to the truck. She stood waiting for everyone to get inside.
As Maurico got there, Esperana told him to unhook the trailer. Once he had done
that, he jumped into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

“Is
everyone here ready to go?”

“Yes,
Maurico, they are all here. Please, let’s get out of here.

“We
cannot go to the guard gate. They will have it secured to keep the creatures
from leaving the pier. They will not allow us to leave, either, but I know a
back gate that is usually unlocked. It’s down the pier, behind the last
warehouse. If it’s closed, I will ram it open.”

“All
right, Mauricio. Please, let’s just go.”

“Look,
there are more of the creatures coming from the back of the warehouse. I can’t
see a way around them. Should I hit them?”

“Yes! Do
whatever you need to do to keep this pickup moving. I do not know where to go
from here. You know the way to get us out of here. This city is not a safe
place to be now.”

“Mama,
let’s drive towards Puerto Vallarta,” said Lucinda. “We have family there. I’m sure
they will take the Castillos in with us.”

“That’s
a good idea, Lucinda. We’ll need to get as much gas as we can. If this is
happening elsewhere, we’re in trouble. It might only be happening here in
Mazatlan. We will deal with that issue when we have to. Right now we need to
get off this pier and find a place to buy gas. We need some food and water as
well. We need to go back to our homes to get our passports and our travel
visas. We must have our IDs on us. Let’s get moving.”

And so
they ran.

Luxor, Egypt

It was
Friday, August 15. Today was the beginning of the ancient two-week holiday of
the Flooding of the Nile. Starting every second Friday of August, everyone in
Egypt celebrated the holiday. Prior to the building of the Aswan Dam from 1898
to 1902, the Nile would flood its banks every year, covering much of the land
in flood waters over 13 meters deep.

Saad
Halabi was the Head Master of the Luxor Associated School District. Today was
the last day of his meeting with all of the elementary school principals. They
had been meeting all week about improving their student’s grades. They were in
Mr. Halabi’s office on the fourth floor of
the El Bayadeya Educational
Administration building. Even though it was the first day of the holiday, Mr.
Halabi insisted that they all come in to finish the week-long series of meetings.

Attending
today’s meeting were seven principals including Karim Baz. Mr. Halabi’s
secretary, Nada Tannous, and her assistant, Fatma Botros, were also instructed
to come in today.

The
day before, Mr. Halabi had told everyone that he would start the Friday meeting
at 9:00 AM. It was now 9:15. Mr. Halabi looked around the room and saw that six
of his principals were absent. He called Nada to come into the meeting room.
Saad gave her a list of names as he spoke to her.

“Mrs.
Tannous. On this list are the names of the eight principals that are absent. Would
you please call each one of them and ask them why they are not here? Do this
for me now, please. When you are done, return the list to me with each principal’s
reason for not being here.”

“Yes, Mr.
Halabi. I will do this for you immediately.”

Taking
the list, she returned to the outer office. She gave the list to her assistant,
Fatma Botros, and told her, “Fatma, I need you to look up the phone numbers of
these principals for me, please. When you have done that, I will need to call
them to see why they are not here. They have been here all week, but today they
did not come in. Mr. Halabi is displeased with them.”

“Surely.
I will get the numbers for you right now,” said Fatma. “Mr. Halabi is in a bad
mood. It will only get worse as the day goes on.”

Once
she was done, Nada took the list of numbers and began making phone calls. She
wrote down the results of each call. When she had finished, she took the
results in to Mr. Halabi.

“Excuse
me, Mr. Halabi. I have called everyone on this list. Not a single one answered.
I went through the list three times to give them every opportunity to answer,
but no one did. Is there anything else that you would like me to do for you?”

“Thank
you, Mrs. Tannous. I am not pleased that they are not here, and that no one
answered your calls, but I have nothing else for you at this point. You are
free to go back to your other tasks.”

In the
outer office, Nada was talking to Fatma in whispers so as not to be heard by
the people in the other room.

“Fatma,
are you as unhappy as I am about this meeting today? Mr. Halabi could just as
well have let all of us enjoy our holiday. We could have returned in two weeks
to pick up where they left off. But no, not him. He decides when we come and go.
Sometimes I get so angry at him, but I keep my mouth shut because this is a
good job that pays well. It would be hard to find another job like this.”

“Yes, I
understand, Nada. Being here today is not making me happy, either. But I am
stuck here with you. That makes it a little better. They have been meeting all
week. I heard that today should be the last day of the meeting, so here we are.
I did not realize that there were six principals absent today. I thought it was
a few, but not that many. Wow, Mr. Halabi must be furious with them.”

“My
family is celebrating without me,” said Nada. “I just want this day to be over
so we can go home. They could have met without us. All we’re doing is sitting
out here, waiting like servants for them to tell us to do something for them.
‘Bring us tea, bring us coffee, bring us water.’ This is all we are good for to
them.”

The El
Bayadeya Educational Administration building was four stories tall, with two
basement levels beneath. It was an older building, built after World War II, with
no elevator.

The
Luxor School District was so cheap that they would rather spend money on their
maintenance staff to keep the building running rather than buy new equipment
for the building. As such, the place required constant maintenance.

The
maintenance staff consisted of eleven men who kept the ancient equipment
running. Their office was in the lower basement where the building’s equipment
was. Along with all of their other duties, at times they were required to run
errands for the office staff upstairs.

The
members of the maintenance staff that were on duty that day were lead
maintenance man Zeyad Sarraf, along with four of his ten-man crew: Assem
Qureshi, Sheref Essa, Mohab Tahan and Mahmoud Antoun. For the most part, they sat
in their office, waiting for something to break down or performing some sort of
maintenance on the cooling unit, preparing to shut it down in a few weeks for
the rest of the year.

Zeyad Sarraf
was born in Luxor. His boyhood friend, Mohab Tahan, was born there as well.
They grew up together.

Sheref
Essa’s family had moved from Cairo to Luxor when he was twelve years old. Their
families lived in the same neighborhood and they had shared many of the same
classes in school.

Zeyad
was an imposing man. He was a
big
man. When he entered a room he
commanded attention. He had been a star football player in school. He was the
team’s striker. Zeyad could score a goal when no one else could. To everyone’s
amazement, he was more than a jock. He was also on the debate team in high
school. He was unique in that he had a brain as well as a fit, trim and
well-muscled body.

As the
school’s leading football player, Zeyad was the team captain. At any time, he could
have his choice of any girl in the school, but throughout high school he dated
one girl. Her name was Sekhet Ghannam. She had been on the debate team as well. 

Mohab had
played on the high school’s basketball team and fancied himself a lady’s man. He
had never married. Sheref had joined the debate team as well. His team won many
debate tournaments throughout Egypt. Like his friend Mohab, Sheref had never
married. He always told his friends that women were too much trouble for him to
be tied down to one woman his entire life.

After
they graduated, they had seen an ad looking for apprentices for the maintenance
program for the Luxor School District. All three applied for the program, and as
luck would have it, all three were accepted.

The
school district’s apprentice program was nine months in length and had nine or
ten candidates in it at any given time. It was held once a year. The three friends
started on the same day, along with six others. At the end of the program, the
three of them were offered full-time jobs, which they happily accepted. The
other six men either dropped out before the end of the program or did not
receive a job offer.

The
three worked at various jobs throughout the school district, and over the next
few years, one by one, they moved up the ladder. Eventually, all three ended up
assigned to work at the El Bayadeya Educational Administration building.

Working
at the administration building was about as high as they could go in their
career paths. Zeyad was the only one of the three original team of apprentices
that was promoted to Building Maintenance Manager, overseeing a crew of four
maintenance employees.

Zeyad married
his high school sweetheart, Sekhet Ghannam, right after graduation. Of the
three of them, he was the only one that was married. Now, five years later, they
had two beautiful daughters. Zeyad was a devoted family man.

He
worked hard, taking as much overtime as he could get to provide for his family.
Zeyad had been offered overtime today, the first day of the holiday. For this
reason alone, Zeyad was in the building with his maintenance staff. They were
there to ensure that the 60-year old building equipment was working while the
Head Master’s meeting was being held. If not for the overtime he had to work,
he would have been celebrating the Flooding of the Nile holiday with his
family.

After the
meeting had been grinding on without an end in sight, Masjh, one of the
elementary school principals, asked the Head Master, “Mr. Halabi, we have been here
for three hours. Is there a chance that we could have our midday meal brought
in? If we had food delivered, we could eat it here and not lose any time taking
a break. This way we could finish our business sooner.”

“Masjh,
thank you. That is an excellent idea. Let me call my secretary. I will ask her
to order out for our meal. There is a restaurant that is not far away.” He
pressed the intercom button.

“Mrs.
Tannous, would you call in an order for midday meals for everyone in the
building, including our maintenance staff? And if you would, call downstairs
and ask one of the maintenance staff to go and pick it up, please?”

“Yes,
Head Master, I will call it in right now. Do you want to have it brought to the
meeting room, or to the break room downstairs?”

“I
believe that we will take our meal during our meeting. It should shorten the
meeting if we talk while we eat.”

Mrs.
Tannous called the restaurant that they frequently ordered from. She requested their
standard midday meal order for sixteen servings. Then she called the maintenance
staff’s office.

“Maintenance,
this is Zeyad Sarraf. How can I help you?”

“Mr.
Sarraf, this is Mrs. Tannous from the Head Master’s office. Mr. Halabi would
like you to send one of your staff to pick up sixteen midday meals for us,
please. The usual restaurant has our order, and it will be ready when you get
there. We have ordered meals for your staff as well. We will take our meal in
our offices up here. As usual, please have the restaurant send us a bill.”

“I
will have two of my men go to pick it up, Mrs. Tannous. Thank you for thinking of
my staff.” He hung up the phone. “Mohab, Mahmoud, the Headmaster has ordered a
midday meal. He wants us to pick it up. Please go to the restaurant on
Al-Madina Almnora Street and make the pickup. There will be sixteen total meals;
five are for us. The rest go to the Head Master’s office. Have the restaurant
bill the Head Master’s office.”

“We
are on our way!” said Mahmoud. “Come, Mohab, let’s go.”

“By
the way,” said Mrs. Tannous. “The building is locked because of the holiday;
please remember to secure the door behind you on your way out.”

Mohab and
Mahmoud walked up the two flights of stairs to the main floor of the building
and went down the hallway to the back door where the school district’s vehicles
were parked. The back of the facility had a wide, covered loading dock, with
the door placed in the center of the dock.

“Mahmoud,
you know the trouble with the damned lock on this door. It is difficult to unlock
from the outside and they are too cheap to replace it. This is why every day
one of us must be the first to arrive, before anyone else. We get to fight with
the old lock to get it open, then wait for everyone else to arrive. The Head
Master will not allow Zeyad to replace the lock.”

“We’ll
only be gone for a few minutes to pick up the food. It won’t hurt to leave the
door unlocked for that short time.”

“All
right, Mohab,” said Mahmoud, “We can do that, but if there are any problems, it
will be on your head.”

As
Mohab unlocked the door, neither of them saw the six creatures standing in the
shadows outside the door. Dealing with the difficult lock, Mohab was making quite
a racket getting it open. When the door finally was open, he stepped outside
and came face to face with the nearest creature, standing just outside the
door. As Mohab stood staring at the horrible thing, it stretched out its bony
arms, grabbing him around his chest and neck, dragging him out the door to the ground.
It knelt down and started to claw at Mohab’s body. His dying screams were brief.
He died on the landing, looking into the ripped-open chest of the creature.

Mahmoud
had been looking back down the hall and was startled by Mohab’s screams. He
turned to look to see what was wrong with his friend, and as Mahmoud stepped out
the door, he stumbled over his dead friend’s foot, causing him to trip and fall
onto the landing. Another of the creatures was standing next to the door and fell
to its knees next to Mahmoud. He began to scream, kicking and squirming and
trying to wrestle his way out from beneath the creature, but it was to no
avail; he could not get out of the creature’s grip. It drew its clawed
appendages across his belly, ripping it open and allowing his intestines to
spill onto the landing.

Another
creature joined the creature kneeling next to Mahmoud, joining in on the kill. In
just a few moments, Mahmoud lay dead next to Mohab. The contents of their
bodies flowed onto the loading dock, mixing together, their blood dripping onto
the dirt below the landing.