Apoc Series (Vol. 2): Silence of the Apoc [Tales From The Zombie Apocalypse] Read online

  Silence

  of the

  Apoc

  Silence of the Apoc

  Apoc Series Volume 2

  Copyright © 2018 by Tannhauser Press

  ISBN-13: 978-1-945994-16-6

  ISBN-10: 1-945994-16-9

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including rights to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  Cover design by Martin Wilsey

  Edited by Donna Royston and Martin Wilsey

  Published by Tannhauser Press

  Quarantine, Copyright © 2017 by Vincent L. Scarsella

  Church of the Walking Dead, Copyright © 2017 by Chris Louie

  The Skeleton People, Copyright © 2017 by Matthieu Cartron

  The Jilted Loser, Copyright © 2017 by A. P. Sessler

  Swords and Cups, Copyright © 2017 by Edward J. Charlonis

  The Dead Walk, Copyright © 2017 by J. L. Smith

  The Order of the Second Death, Copyright © 2018 by Darren Todd

  Yakuza Dead, Copyright © 2018 by T. S. Alan

  The Door, Copyright © 2018 by Martin Wilsey

  Contents

  Dedication

  Foreword

  1 Quarantine by Vincent L. Scarsella

  2 Church of the Walking Dead by Chris Louie

  3 The Skeleton People by Matthieu Cartron

  4 The Jilted Loser by A. P. Sessler

  5 Swords and Cups by Edward J. Charlonis

  6 The Dead Walk by J. L. Smith

  7 Order of the Second Death by Darren Todd

  8 Yakuza Dead by T. S. Alan

  9 The Door by Martin Wilsey

  About the Authors

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  For Tom Richter, Ray Clark, Keith Plough,

  Eric Wilsey, Tom Bilodeau, Kevin Peck and

  Carl Wilsey.

  My favorite dead guys.

  Foreword

  Ever since I watched the original Night of the Living Dead, I have loved stories about the Zombie Apocalypse. Dawn of the Dead ramped it up a notch soon after.

  The survival stories by using your brains before you get eaten was the key. Maybe that and the fact that it is a guilt-free way to shoot some assholes in the face that always deserved it.

  When I put the call out for submissions, I was buried in them. It took no time to put together WHISPERS OF THE APOC. I decided to do a second volume.

  Silence

  of the

  Apoc

  I picked stories I liked to share with you. Some are from established authors, some are from people just beginning their work as published authors.

  All of them are fun.

  A few authors that I know had intended to submit a short story for this anthology, and it got away from them. The stories grew and are now approaching novel length. Keep an eye out, because I think Tannhauser Press may be offering them in the future.

  I may even use the seed of my short story for a novel set in that same world. The possibilities are endless. Each of these stories and authors have been great to work with.

  I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did assembling this anthology.

  Martin Wilsey

  Managing Editor

  Tannhauser Press

  www.tannhauserpress.com

  1 Quarantine by Vincent L. Scarsella

  We were taxiing out to the runway when the pilot’s soothing, southern drawl came over the intercom telling us that we’d been called back to the terminal. A collective groan went up from the full plane. But we all knew why: Z.

  Everyone deplaned and gathered outside Gate 113 where an airline rep, a frumpy lady in a navy-blue uniform, confirmed it. Because of Z, the city had been quarantined. All flights in and out were cancelled. She directed us to ticketing for free room and meal vouchers at one of the hotels near the airport. FEMA was paying for it. Shuttles would take us to our assigned hotel.

  I had flown into the city yesterday morning for a two-day law seminar at a hotel conference center downtown. I had taken only a carry-on packed with a change of an extra polo shirt, dress pants, underwear, toiletries, and my laptop. The seminar ended by three that afternoon and I had hustled out of there and grabbed a cab to catch the four-thirty flight for a mere hour and fifteen-minute jump home. Instead, here I was, stuck in the city.

  On the way to ticketing, I stopped at a bar near the main concourse and tried to catch the latest news about the quarantine on the small TV above the bar. I couldn’t hear much above the chatter of the bar crowd and clinking of glasses and ice. I wondered why everyone was drinking and laughing as if nothing mattered. As if we weren’t stuck in the city and Z wasn’t happening.

  I finally backed out of there and took an escalator ride up to ticketing. There, I joined an already-long line of grumpy stranded passengers waiting to get their hotel and food vouchers. In line, I called my office. Jenna answered, said she was sorry I hadn’t gotten out.

  “What’re they saying?” I asked. “How long?”

  “Nobody’s sure,” she said. “Few days, I guess.”

  I gave her instructions for the next couple of days, what to adjourn, reschedule. Then, I had her patch me into my partner, Chris Brewer.

  “It’s like being stuck in a third-world country during a revolution or something,” I told him.

  “Well, at least you won’t be on the street,” he said and assured me he’d take care of things back at the office.

  After the call, it took another half hour to get to the harried ticketing agent. She was a fortyish, attractive blonde wearing the airline’s navy-blue uniform that was long past crisp. After taking my boarding pass, she furiously clicked on her keyboard, and a moment later, her printer was churning out my vouchers. Without comment or smile, she handed them to me, and I went outside the terminal to stand in another line for the hotel shuttle.

  Twenty minutes later, I entered the lobby of my assigned hotel along the main highway straddling the airport just as the mayor’s news conference was being broadcast on a large flat-screen TV just beyond the reception counter. People were sitting on couches and chairs or standing shoulder to shoulder, anxious to get the latest news.

  The mayor started off by assuring everyone that there was no cause for panic. The quarantine had been imposed only due to an abundance of caution. He then denied that Z had spread outside the districts where it had previously been reported and chastised the media for saying otherwise. “Let’s be responsible, people,” he scolded.

  The mayor announced that the governor couldn’t get into town before the quarantine was imposed but thanked him for his complete support in this crisis. He then took questions from the reporters in the crowded conference room.

  “How long do you expect the quarantine to last?” was the first.

  “Two days,” he said flatly. “Three at the most.”

  “And it’s your position that the stories about Z spreading to the northern districts are false?” the same reporter asked.

  “Absolutely false,” the mayor snapped, glaring at the questioner.

  “Bullshit!” some guy shouted from the other side of the nook.

  That was all I could take. I walked over to the registration line that snaked out from the front counter. Ten minutes later, I handed my vouchers to a desk clerk. After checking my name on his computer screen, he nodded and pulled my room key-card and meal ticket from a rec
tangular, cardboard box. Handing them to me, the clerk told me that there weren’t enough rooms to accommodate everyone, so I had a roommate. Skipping the crowded elevators, I took the back stairwell four flights up to Room 413. I used the keycard to open the door and found the room empty. My roommate had not yet arrived, and that was all right with me. I had the bathroom to myself.

  After a shower, I stretched out on the queen-sized bed nearest the window and clicked on the TV on top of a dresser. Nothing new was being reported, just the same loops of what appeared to be Zs roaming dark streets exhibiting the horrific symptoms of the disease – the wild, bug-eyed look, the idiotic screeching and, of course, the frightening, clichéd desire for human flesh.

  After a time, I got off the bed, went over to the window, spread apart the heavy curtains and looked down at the parking lot. Beyond it was an expanse of high grass and beyond that, the airport terminal and a runway. Silent and dark. No planes in, no planes out.

  I fetched the remote and started scrolling through the channels. CNN and Fox News had continuous coverage of the quarantine with names like “No Way Out!” and “Q-Day 1,” while the major networks had resumed regular programming. Not much new was being reported, and I soon grew tired of the talking head experts. The human-interest stories, such as a dad trying to get home for his sick daughter’s birthday (she was in a cancer ward of a children’s hospital somewhere), a bridegroom unable to get to his wedding, and an Army guy returning from Afghanistan whose wife was expecting. Finally, I clicked off the TV and decided to get down to the Lassiter Ballroom for my meal, a turkey sandwich and chips in a white cardboard box.

  I took the stairs and walked down a long corridor to the lobby. Toward the back of it was another hallway leading to the hotel bar from which wafted voices and the thump of music. Halleluiah! I thought, and headed in that direction, feeling the need for a drink more than a bland sandwich.

  I wasn’t surprised to find the Take-Off Lounge wall-to-wall with my fellow stranded guests. I edged through them to the wrap-around bar with two overwhelmed bartenders and one barmaid trying to keep pace with the orders. After a minute or so, the barmaid acknowledged my raised arm, came over and took my order for a double seven and seven. She was back within moments, and when I asked for a bill, she told me it was on the house, courtesy of Uncle Sam. I liked the government more and more.

  I left her a five-dollar tip and drifted over to the far corner of the bar where a morose-looking guy was staring into his drink on the last barstool next to the wall. I backed against the wall behind him and scanned the crowd, scouting for a decent looking woman.

  “Fuck it,” the morose guy blurted, and I turned to him.

  “Excuse me?”

  He swiveled around and lifted his drink as if toasting something. He was in his late fifties, a gangly, long-faced man with short, gray hair and a devious glint in his eyes. “To the end of the world,” he said.

  I lifted my glass and with a shrug, said, “Sure, to the end of the world. And getting laid.”

  The guy took a healthy sip of the dark brown liquid in his glass, pure liquor, I suspected. After a wince, he glared at me.

  A moment later, a dark-haired woman, about thirty-five, slightly overweight, on the tall side, squeezed in toward the bar between me and him and bumped my arm, spilling my drink on my wrist in the process. “Oh, sorry,” she said.

  I looked at her and was immediately struck by dark, intense eyes. She had a pretty face, with reddish freckles spread along her nose and forehead. “No problem,” I told her. “Can I help you get in there?”

  “That would be great,” she said.

  “What’s your poison?” I asked her.

  “Gin and tonic,” she said.

  I moved toward the bar, and after a time, a bartender came over and took my order. Next to me, the morose guy was mumbling to himself. Finally, the bartender brought the gin and tonic. As I squeezed back out and handed her the drink, I leaned into her and said, “Name’s Paul. What’s yours?”

  “Cindi,” she said. “With an i.”

  “Nice to meet you, Cindi, with an i,” I said and shook her hand.

  “Pleasure’s mine,” she said and smiled, which got me to thinking that this certainly was starting off well.

  From behind us, we heard the morose guy say, “Fuck it.” He called the bartender over for another drink. Cindi nodded at the guy and smiled at me as if to say, what’s with him? I shrugged and asked her what got her stranded in the city. She was a real estate agent, she said, here for a conference.

  The morose guy swiveled around. “You wanna know why I’m here?” He shifted on the barstool and looked me straight in the eye. “I’m CIA.”

  “CIA?” I said and smiled. “Okay.”

  But now somebody at the bar looking up at the TV was shouting for all of us to shut the fuck up. Then everyone was looking up at the four flat-screen TVs hanging above the bar. The basketball game that had been playing was interrupted by a banner blaring, “Breaking News!” “Turn it up!” someone shouted, and a moment later, the barmaid was aiming a remote at the TV and pressing the volume button. The voice of an anchor boomed through the bar that had quieted suddenly to silence.

  “And there you have it,” he said. “The head of the CDC has just confirmed that Z has mutated and can be spread by airborne transmission. I repeat, Z can be spread by airborne transmission. That means Z germs can be spread from an infected person through the medium of the air, like the common cold. Previously, it was thought that Z could be spread only by an exchange of bodily fluids—sweat and saliva, for instance, and, of course, through Z bites. Now, it appears that it is a lot easier to catch, and therefore spread.”

  A collective groan went up from the bar crowd like hearing someone famous had died.

  “Well, that’s fucking it,” whispered the morose, self-proclaimed CIA guy.

  “What’s it?” I asked.

  “It,” he said. “The end. The plan.”

  “What plan?”

  He looked at me with heavy eyelids and a smirk. “What do you think, what plan,” he said. “Nuke us. That plan. Take care of Z.”

  “What?” I gave him a dubious frown. “Sure, pal. I think you need a break from that.” I nodded to his drink.

  “I don’t care what you fucking think.”

  I shrugged and turned away from him. Cindi was looking up at the TV, more reporting on this bad new turn of events. Z could be spread easier. Fucking great. Finally, the bulletin was over, and the station resumed coverage of the basketball game. When I looked back at the purported CIA guy, his barstool was empty.

  “Where’d he go?” I asked Cindi.

  “No idea,” she said. “Good riddance.”

  I tipped my drink to that and drank down the rest of it. Seeing that she had already finished hers, I said, “I think we should eat. Another one of these, and I’ll be CIA.”

  She smiled and said, “Yeah, me too.”

  We left the bar and made our way to the Lassiter Ballroom. Naturally, there was a line to the long table where a couple of bored hotel clerks were handing out box dinners. As we inched forward, my cell phone rang. It was Susie, my ex.

  “Why didn’t you get the girls?”

  It was her demanding, snarky voice, the one I had to listen to for eighteen years until I couldn’t take it anymore. It was almost a good thing that I was stuck in the city, because, in truth, I had forgotten my promise made a week ago to take Ciara and Morgan off her hands for the night. She had a book club meeting or something. After telling her I was caught up in the quarantine, she softened a bit, said she didn’t know. Though still sounding annoyed, she told me to take care of myself and hung up.

  “That was pleasant,” Cindi remarked.

  “My ex,” I told her.

  “I’ve got one of those, too,” she said, and winked. “Two, in fact.”

  We laughed and finally reached the front of the line where a tired-looking clerk handed us boxes containing bland turkey sandw
iches with a small bag of chips and a bottled water. We took them to the lobby and, as all the chairs were taken, we sat on the floor and watched TV. The throb and general din from far down the hall off the lobby told us that the Take-off Lounge was still hopping.

  “After this, I want a nightcap,” I said and nodded in the direction of the bar. “Lot more fun than sitting here, watching that.”

  “Sure,” she said. “I could use another.”

  In the next moment, the anchor was breaking away from her talking head guest to a young, pretty female reporter who was interviewing some guy in the Hanover District, wherever that was. “I’m standing on the corner of Geddes Avenue and Swan Street,” the reporter said into her microphone. “With me is Douglas Keane. An hour ago, Mister Keane took some extraordinary video on his cell phone of a Z attack from his third-floor apartment, and we’ve been able to patch that video into our studios.” She looked to the cameraman. “Is it uploaded?” Now, she looked out at us. “I warn you that the images are quite graphic.”

  After a moment, the screen morphed from a picture of her standing before us to a bouncy series of frames. The guy taking the video, Douglas Keane, added narration from time to time, his voice rushed, panicky.

  On the street below was a group of fifteen, twenty Zs, hunched over as they edged forward down the street below Douglas Keane’s apartment, with one or more of them emitting that annoying screech like a bird caw every now and then. They were closing in on a small group of civilians who had somehow become cornered by these Z scavengers.

  “Run,” the Keane guy kept whispering to himself. “Run.”

  But the people below him seemed confused, rudderless. Or maybe, they had nowhere to run. The Z approach was relentless and deliberate. Some of the people were shouting, taking up defensive stances, waving at them, and finally, pushing them back. A few screamed. Others just stood there mesmerized.