Zombologist Book 1 Zombie Hunters (Zomboligist Series) (15 page)

Well, at least something exciting is happening tonight
instead of the usual boring night among the dead
. Bob thought as he shook
his head in utter confusion.

Bob had no idea how ‘
exciting
’ this was about to
get.

He headed downstairs to find Dr. Davis just as the
ambulance arrived to bring in more dead from the hospital.

****

Samuel Bentley’s eyes were wide open as he watched the
movie he wasn’t allowed to watch.

Maybe this
was
a little too much for his 7 year old
mind to comprehend like his mom said. But man was it cool! Even though Sammie
was a little afraid, he was old enough to know that it was make believe.

Wasn’t it?

But still, knowing this bit of information his little mind
tried to see past the blood and good and see the ‘stage effects’ and make up as
his dad taught him. His dad was a big horror movie fan and had taught Sammie how
not to be afraid at the gory scenes. It was all just theatrics he used to say.

But… what if it really happened?

Sammie snuggled deeper into his bed sneaking a peek to his
closet door.

Things were much better when his Dad was alive. They used
to have fun together. Mom wasn’t crying all the time and he at least had one of
them home while the other worked. He was hardly ever stuck with a babysitter,
like he was now.
 

Now the zombie show was becoming boring. The men were just
talking quietly among themselves. With the volume already down he could barely
hear what they were saying. He knew Dottie wouldn’t hear it anyway. She didn’t
care what he did. As long as he wasn’t messing up the house or bother her as she
talked on her cell phone or surfed the internet, then he could do ‘whatever’.

Luke Kemah was the name of the man that hurt his Dad, took
him away to a place where he could never come back. Mom said he was a disease
but Sammie knew better. He wondered why his Daddy didn’t hunt-him-down and
arrest him before he killed him. After all, Luke Kemah was a criminal and his
daddy
was
a cop. Well, he used to be a cop. Before he died that was.

His dad used to be the best cop on the planet and he used
to arrest bad people all the time. Sammie knew that if he ever met Luke Kemah he
wouldn’t just stand by like Daddy did. He would cut off his head just like the
men just did to the zombies in the movie.

Pulling the blanket behind him Sammie bounced off his bed.
He had drunk too much soda, which he wasn’t allowed to do. But who would know?
His babysitter was chatting away and didn’t even notice him sneaking into the
fridge earlier. He stowed the empty can deep under the tissues and paper in his
trash can, so his bases were covered.

He pulled the door open and peeked into the hallway.

The coast was clear.

Sammie scuffled into the bathroom and quietly closed the
door.  He needed to get this over quickly so he didn’t miss anymore of the
zombie movie. He began bouncing on the balls of his feet cuz he had to pee
really bad
, he lifted the seat and felt a huge relief as he emptied his
bladder. He flushed, wincing as the toilet roared into life, old pipes banging
loudly.

Sammie bit his lip and peeked out the bathroom door. He
could hear his babysitter chatting away. Safe. Sammie climbed on the stool to
wash his hands. If Mom found out that he had NOT washed his hands he would be in
big trouble.

Someone screamed.

Sammie’s eyes flew opened wide. He shut off the squeaky
faucet and wiped his hands on his pajamas.

He listened.

Did he just imagine that?

There is was again. Someone did scream. It was coming from
the street below.

Sammie held his breath, opened the door and heard Dottie
downstairs laughing hysterically. Good, still on the phone. He shut the door,
put down the lid and climbed on it.

He jumped when he saw his reflection stare back at him in
the window.

Remembering that you could see outside better at night with
the light off, he climbed back down, turned off the light, and stepped back onto
the toilet.

He blinked several times until his eyes adjusted, then
several more as his eyes widened in unbelief at what he saw on the street just
below.

A naked lady was hissing and snarling at some elderly
people. The old lady was screaming and the man was trying to keep the growling
woman back with his cane. He wasn’t doing a very good job of it as the woman
just kept moving closer.

The naked lady pounces on the man and knocks him to the
ground. His hand and the cane fly through the air and hit the old lady on the
head. She crumples to the ground.

The naked lady has just bitten the older man and he begins
to scream.

Sammie stares out the window. His little mind is scrambling
to make sense of this. He is both willing himself to run for help but he is
unable to stop watching.

The old woman is now sitting up and yelling Help, Help Me,
Help.

The naked lady was now pulling something out of the old man
and thrusting it in her mouth. Something black ran down her arms. Sammie
realized suddenly that it was blood. It just looked black under the street
light.

The woman still screaming began to back up, turned and
started to crawl into the yard, Sammie’s yard he realized in horror. He needed
to DO something! His dad would. But he couldn’t move.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the scene below.

The old man’s legs were beginning to shake rapidly.

The naked lady rose and turned toward the crawling woman.
Her voice had gone hoarse she was screaming but now it was only croaks.

Lights came on across the street and a man opened his door
and shouted into the night, “Shut the hell up!” before slamming his door.

The old woman was no challenge for the naked lady and she
took her down easy. Sammie stared in shock as the naked lady began to chew on
the older woman, her blood spurting like a fountain.

This was not ‘theatrics’, this was real.

Sammie knew exactly who that naked woman was.

She was a Zombie.

*****

One block over the dead body of a lone jogger begins to
stir. A carnivorous hunger propels him off the ground. The fact that the left
side of his neck is gone or the lower right half of his body is hanging in blood
dripping tattered shreds has no effect on him. His once graceful step is now a
lurching hideous stride, but that does not faze him either. He hears shouts less
than a block away. He smells blood; his instincts are kicked into high gear. He
no longer feels his body, he’s mind holds only has a trace of a woman standing
over a stove preparing fried rice. She can wait; his next meal is waiting in the
screaming crowd. He will get to her later. Suddenly she is gone, no longer in
his thoughts. The last electron in his mind is dying and craving for flesh of
the living. 

****

Curt climbed out of the cab of his pickup and headed
towards the entrance to the nursing home. The feeble light barely lit the
sidewalk and cast deep shadows into the shrubs that lined the walk. He took off
his cowboy hat and climbed the stairs. Suddenly he felt ashamed. He had left his
mother long ago and headed west. The last time he had seen her, she was being
admitted into this very nursing home. She hugged him tight before she fell
asleep in the worn rocker they had brought from her home.

Behind him he could hear shouts and screams about a block
over. Some things never change. The city that he had left long ago hadn’t
changed one bit.

Curt heard shuffling footsteps behind him and turned toward
the sound. A man, blood dripping down his polyester jogging shirt and blood
soaked jogging shorts was slowly making his way toward him.

The blood was from an obvious gouged wound on his neck that
sent his head bobbling at all angles. Another wound that ran from his right hip
down to his thighs looked fresh and raw. His right foot was dragging behind him
as he made slow but steady progress toward Curt.

Curt took this all in at once. He also realized that the
man seemed oblivious to his wounds.

“Hey man, you alright?” Curt called out.

No answer.

There was something not quite right about this whole
situation. Next door at the coroner’s office he heard a woman shout, “5
^th
and 12
^th
Dillon, step on it.”

5
^th
and 12
^th
was the very next block
over, where he had heard the screams. What was going on around here? In the
distance he heard sirens, but they sounded like they were growing fainter and
not closer.

Curt took one step towards the blooded jogger before
stopping cold in his tracks.

His eyes.

His eyes were vacant, devoid of emotion, no pain
registering, crazed.

The man’s lips moved but the sound that registered to Curt
was not one of pleading but one of conquest. The man hissed. Of course he did.
Curt could see that his vocal cords were gone as the man came closer.

Curt was suddenly feeling that something was
very, very
wrong here, and he wanted to avoid this man at all costs. He reached behind him,
grabbed the handle, pulled the door open and slammed it behind him. He never
took his eyes off the man. The sudden quietness of the building set his nerves
on edge for just a moment before he walked over to the empty receptionist desk
on the far corner.

Behind him the lone jogger thudded on the door, once,
twice, three times. Curt glanced behind him. The man wasn’t knocking; he was
slamming his hands against the glass. He stopped and crushed his face against
it. Foam and saliva slid down the glass mixing with the bloodied handprints.

He began snarling, staring directly at Curt. The slamming
started again, the man alternated from slamming his hands to slamming his body
against the glass. Thud. Thud Thud. The thudding began to swell with intensity
and speed as the man snarling increased. Curt’s nerves were set on edge.

Curt picked up the phone on the desk and called 911.

Busy

Curt slammed the phone down and began shouting, “Hello?”

He backed away from the desk and ran to the front door
where the injured jogger was still throwing his weight against the glass,
snarling madly. Curt turned the lock and leaped back just as the glass cracked.

He backed away, turned and ran for the stairs that led to
his mother’s room on the 2
^nd
floor.

****

Reporter Kelsey Rains knew something was up. She had been
in the ER for over three hours now waiting for a doctor. Her throat was sore and
she had chills. Her son had just gotten over strep throat and she knew damn well
she had it.

Trying to get amoxicillin was like trying to sign out the
Declaration of Independence for a weekend. Impossible. She couldn’t believe she
had to go through all of this just for amoxicillin. She knew what she had.

She was beginning to get pissed.

And she knew just what she was going to do. Write a story
on the horrors of waiting in the ER. Yeah, she’d make it hurt; embarrass the
hospital enough that possibly they would hire more staff.

Yeah, right.

Just as she was reaching into her bag a nurse entered the
room. Nurse Bentley was the name on her tag.

“Hey, how much longer do I have to wait?” the foxy blond
reporter asked with a shake of her head, a fake smile planted on her face.

“Sorry, we are, uh, sort of busy tonight.” The nurse fired
back.

Kelsey watched as the nurse stooped and looked under the
rows of seats then headed to the back of the room to look into the bathroom.

“Uh, loose something?”

“Well, yes. A patient. A young boy.”

“The one bite at the BBQ today?” Kelsey chimed hinting a
story. She had been home sick all day and that was the first story that popped
into her brain. What she heard next delighted her to the core.

Nurse Bentley bent her head and looked absently at her
fingers. She nodded her head briefly. “I have a hot date tonight and that little
brat, er, I mean patient took off on my shift.”

“Well, come on then, I can help you find him.” With that
Kelsey picked up her bag and started for the door.

Nurse Bentley hung back for just a moment before following
her into the corridor. “I don’t want to lose my job, but I really appreciate
your help.”

“Hey, no problem. We girls got to stick together sometimes,
you know.” The reporters’ wheels were turning faster than ever. No way did Nurse
Bentley realize she was a reporter. This story would be sensational!