Category: Kingsboro Journal

The first indication that you are approaching a zombie-infested area in the city is not the smell but the birds.  The monstrous,  black vultures hover over the city like guards patrolling a prison.  Kingboro always had these birds.  You could catch one or two circling around above the tall office buildings but they never did a thing but circle.  The city did a pretty good job of cleaning up after itself when something died.

November 11th changed everything.  The city of Kingsboro, a large metropolis of life, wouldn’t but knocked to its knees it would be destroyed by the very people that used to live in it.  The city known for its Indian casinos, sports stadiums and medical research firms would be left to rot while the rest of the world ran from it.  It began in a small research facility.  Rising from the epic center of the event the undead multiplied at an overwhelming rate.  They took over the small research firm within hours.  The doors of the firm were locked down but the windows were not.  The undead threw themselves out the windows and wandered outward toward the city.  An unsuspecting delivery man was the next victim while also leaving the gate to the compound open.  In the next 24 hours the population of the city shrank as people fled the city.  The undead population grew until only the unfortunate were left.  The city itself, the office buildings and local restaurants contained only 25% of the city population but the casualties were high.  Nearly 5,000 people lost their lives and another several hundred were trapped and hiding.

Two years later the city is surrounded by two 8 foot razor-wire fences and guards posted at every entrance.  Staked every 20  feet is a remote controlled machine gun that can cut a man in half in a second.  It took the federal government 2 weeks to build and guard the fence around the city of Kingsboro.  An amazing feat of muscle from a government known to delay everything.  While the fence went up the remaining residents outside the city pulled all night vigils to keep the undead within the proposed border and away from the rest of the city.  All that time residents were fighting for their lives as undead residents fought to take their life.

The city counsel split the city in two naming the fenced-in part of the city New Kingsboro.  Due to chaos in other parts of the country Kingsboro and its new neighbor were left to fend for itself and developed new rules to take advantage of less space and more crime.  New Kingsboro became a prison and habitat for the unwanted residents.  Deputized and updeputized crews of men patrolled the city for undesirables and threw them into the gates of New Kingsboro. Any sort of advances in human rights disappeared.  Thousands of people dealing with the pain of losing whole family’s took it out on those that fell too the bottom rungs of society.

The banging eventually stopped when the zombies outside finally realized that a midmight snack was not going to be easy to gobble up.  Kali sat quietly against the cold aluminun garage door while Erik snored loudly in the corner next to her.  She was sure several of the nasal fits from Erik would of alerted the zombies outside but they didn’t.  The zombie nurse lay in the center of the garage the moonlight lit her face in an earie glow so that it looked as if her glazed over eyes were peering right at Kali.  At this point though, she was too frightened to move.  As bad, as her parents had been she missed them terribly.  The constant battles with the law, the excitement of the next big scam.  It was a life that left little time for reflection and Kali was often the one that was left to move quickly without thinking.  She being the youngest of the family she was told last and at the very worst moment.  She knew how to deal with a crisis and this one was no different. 

The last thing her parents choose to do was the most exciting of all the things they had done in the past.  They stole a small stone from a house on Mccain Rd, in downtown Kingsboro.  Apparently, it was the very thing that started the problem with the zombies.  From what she was told the stone had mystical properties it could create life or destroy it apparently.  The story, as told by her late sister was that a soldier found the stone in Iraq.  When he returned from Iraq he found his wife had been murdered only two hours before he arrived back in the city.  He took the stone with him to the viewing of the body and woke her from the dead.  After that the infection spread through the morgue then the hospital around it.  The rumors stated it was a research mistake but they were wrong. 

Outside, Kali suddenly heard movement.  This was not the shuffle-shuffle of zombies.  It was a single individual with quiet steps.

Erik ran over to the open door and noticed four zombies all wandering toward the garage.  He closed the door hard and luckily it had a lock that worked.  With the door shut and the evening light fading it was difficult to see anything inside the garage.  “They are going to bust they door down,” Eric said to noone in particular, “I need to find something to brace the door so we can at least be safe for the night.  He looked at Kali, who stood unmoving against the garage door.  He followed her gaze back to the zombie nurse who laid dead on the concrete floor.  “I’m afraid we are stuck with nurse Betty for the night.”  He smiled and Kali smiled back for a short while then walked toward the far end of the garage door. 

“There has got to be some tools in here and something to block the door.”  Erik started at the back of the garage and moved toward the garage door.  He could only see faint shadows but he managed to find a hammer and a large sheet of plywood.  While searching for a box of nails Erik found a half empty bottle of Kentucky whiskey.  He picked up the bottle and opened it, took a swallow and shook of the sting as it slide down his parched throat.  Behind the bottle he found the box of nails.  “Alright kid we are going to be alright, tonight,” he said confidently as he walked over to the garage door and laid the plywood against it.  He jumped back, almost lossing his new bottle of whiskey when the door knob began to move but the door held tight.  “We have to do better then this,” Erik thought and remembered the ax buried in the nurse zombie.  Kali cringed as Erik wriggled the ax from the zombies shoulder till finally freeing it with a stomach churning pop.  Erik cleaned off the ax, on what was left of the nurses blouse, and picked up the plywood against the door. 

After a few swings and a few more swigs of whiskey Erik slid the plywood behind the door handle and nailed it down.  The whiskey began to take hold of his motor functions after about 30 minutes and Kali watched as he struggled to smash in the last few nails.  Kali had seen all this before.  Her father was no saint.  Twice convicted of driving under the influence her father had a reputation of being the worse of the worse.  “He had robbed every bank in Kingsboro twice,” he bragged once to her.  The problem was her father was a good father but a terrible person.  She knew that her rescuer was just as out of touch with reality as her father.  An alchoholic, completely obvious with how quickly he finished off the whiskey, but also not a bad guy when it came to protecting her.  Erik finished nailing up the door, while zombies continued to try and open the door.  He walked, with a slight kant over to her and sat on the floor next to a broom which promptly hit him in the head.  Kali smiled a bit larger then before and slid to the floor. 

“So, little girl,” said Erik, “What is your name?”

“Kali,” she said quietly.

“Nice name, My name is Erik…sorry you have to be stuck with an old drunk in a garage surrounded by zombies.”

“Its ok,” Kali said then jumped when the zombie’s began pounding on the door.

“Stomp pounding on the door you idiots,” shouted Erik, the whiskey bending each sylable so that it sounded like he spoke in a bubble.

“You can’t get in..when Erik Sears makes a door he frickn makes a door that you can’t use.”  Erik laughed and Kali smiled politely still uneasy with her new companion but glad to be alive.

–“Shit,” Erik said as Kali began to scream.  Erik quickly freed his arm and covered her mouth but one of the winged creatures had heard her shorten cry and began to approach the Prius.  Luckily, a zombie breached the perimeter and distracted him.  “We have to get out of here,”  Eric said quietly.–

Beginning of Chapter 2 —

Erik watched as the winged creature fought with the zombie.  The zombie, a large pale man, (likely a steel worker of someone of a simular occupation) actually seemed to have the upper-hand.  With all the over-powering strength the winged creatures seemed to have over the zombies this zombie seemed to have it matched.  The zombie managed to perry a swing from the winged creature and grab ahold of the thin membrane that allowed it to fly.  The steel worker zombie tore the thin membrane and then grabbed hold of the winged creatures hand when it was slow to fight back.  The steel worker zombie bit hard on the forearm and the winged creature screamed in pain.   The other winged creatures, seeing that one of them had been attacked,  left the zombie victims wriggling on the concrete and collected around the large steel worker zombie. Collectively, their combined strength overwhelmed the zombie and he fell away from the Prius.   

“Let’s go now!” Erik said as he pushed Kali to the door.  Kali fumbled with the door handle and Erik reached over her and opened the door for her.  He pushed the door outward and both crawled slowly out of the Prius.  The commotion out in front of the car seemed to keep the creatures distracted.  A few zombies stumbled past Erik and Kali but they seemed too focused on the commotion to notice.  Ahead of them was a patch of green grass, a fence and then a house.  

Erik and Kali ran from the Prius, leaving the commotion and death behind.  The fence in front of them was up but to the right it had been knocked over.  They headed that way.  A zombie, frail and old stood in their way.  Erik planted his foot on the zombie’s chest and pushed knocking it down a small incline into a drainage ditch.  He and Kali began over the fence when he looked back.

“My beer, I frigg’n left my beer in the Mustang,” the thought of going back that way was fleeting though and he climbed over the fallen fence after Kali.  On the other side of the fence they both stopped and took a breath.  A few zombies roamed around oblivious to the new meal staring at them.  They seemed to be blind for the most part using the other senses to find food.  Erik took Kali by the hand and they walked quietly toward the two story house across the street. 

The house was a small duplex.  It had dirty, white shingles and an over-grown lawn but the first-floor windows and doors were boarded up.  It was a sure sign that someone had at least lived there recently.  Maybe they still lived there.  Erik and Kali approached the house cautiously, aware that a zombie could appear from behind any corner.  Erik tugged at the large piece of plywood covering the front doors and windows but they didn’t budge.  “Whoever put these up put them up well,” he said to himself.  Erik took Kali by the hand and lead her toward the back of the house looking for a way to enter.  Every window was covered but the windows on the second floor and the basement windows.  The second floor windows were too high and the basement windows were too small.  “You think you could fit in those windows?”  Erik asked quietly.  Kali quietly shrugged and Erik dropped the subject.  A garage, with an open side door stood beside the house.  “Maybe we can find a ladder,” Erik said.  Erik kept Kali behind him ready for any zombie to met them at the door but nothing happened.  The garage was dark and the lights did not work.  A zombie or two could still be hiding somewhere inside but in order to get into the house they needed a ladder.  A ladder tall enough to reach the roof of the front porch stood against a dark wall.  Erik warned Kali to stay against the large metal garage door and tell him if she saw anything.  She did as she was told and Erik approached the ladder.  An ax stood in front of the ladder and Erik moved it quietly, taking note so he would remember to come back for it.  The ladder seemed to be attached to the wall by bungie so Erik unhooked one then the other.  The ladder jerked forward and fell hard to the ground.  Erik jumped back and cringed when the aluminum crashed onto the concrete floor of the garage. 

“Son of a bitch,” Erik swore as he picked it up and set it back against the wall.  Once he placed it on the wall Kali screamed and Erik’s knees fell out from under him.  “Damnit,” Erik looked and a zombie shuffled from the opposite side of the garage.  It headed right for Kali.  Erik grabbed the ax and stood in front of Kali ready to strike.  Through the dim light of the garage door windows Erik could see that this zombie was dressed as a nurse.  It’s blue blouse tore around the breast.  “An attractive sight if it were alive,” thought Erik but of course it wasn’t and Erik had to kill it to protect himself and his new kid.  Erik heaved the ax and brought it down right across the right shoulder and into the spine severing several important arteries to the brain.  The zombie fell dead in the center of the garage and Erik quickly heard shuffling from outside the garage.

This situation was perfect.  Erik stood with a bootful of zombie blood below him, more zombies strolling in and a crying kid in a locked car.  His plan to end his life quickly and violently disappeared with every second he spent rescuing this kid.

“Just my typical screwed up life-story,” he said to himself as he stepped from the broken zombie’s body and tried to stomp some of the blood off his boot.

Kali watched from inside the car as Erik stomped the ground.  A crowd of zombies appeared miraculously from around the cars stuck on the street.  They began to march toward Erik but he was too distracted to notice.  She had to warn him so she began banging on the passenger window.  Erik looked at her then behind him and noticed the gang of the dead gaining on him quickly.

“Unlock the door,” Erik screamed, in a panic.  “I can’t,” Kali screamed back as she tried to open the back door.

“Crap,” Erik unlocked the front door by reaching into the door and pulling open the door handle.  He attempted to unlock Kali’s door but couldn’t reach it.  He then climbed into the front seat and closed the passenger door behind him.  The zombies hit the door hard as they desperately tried to reach him.  They clustered around the busted passenger window which made grabbing Erik difficult.  As the hungry fingers clawed at him he realized Kali and he had an opportunity to run out the other side of the Prius.  They likely had only a few seconds but it would be enough to get into Erik’s Mustang and drive away.  He would have to plead with the guards to let her go free.

“Let’s go,” Erik shouted.  “Out this door.”  Kali crawled from the back seat to the front driver’s seat.  Erik scanned the escape route and found only two zombies had realized that they had easier access from the other side.  “We can take them,” Erik assured her but Kali wouldn’t move.  Her lightly tanned skin had paled to match the zombies outside.  She was also shaking like Erik had never seen anyone do before.  Outside the Prius several tall figures stood, arms outstretched.  Under the arms were attached a thin veil of skin from shoulder to waist.  The skin was littered with smaller bone-like features which patched the skin together like stained glass windows.  The figures stood among the zombies like suicidal heroes but they weren’t here to save anyone.  They began to throw the zombies around like children’s toys.  They quickly cleared a six-foot perimeter and waited till three more veiled creatures landed from above.  One of the three then ripped a zombie from the crowd, that surrounded them, and threw it to the ground.  A second wing creature placed both fists together then began to beat the zombie.  Erik and Kali watched the scene unfold astonished at the speed and strength of these new creatures.  They had forgotten about the crowd of zombies still struggling to reach them from the passenger-side window.  The commotion had lessened the amount attempting to get inside which allowed one zombie to reach in quite a bit farther and grab Erik by the arm.

“Shit,” Erik said as Kali began to scream.  Erik quickly freed his arm and covered her mouth but one of the winged creatures had heard her shorten cry and began to approach the Prius.  Luckily, a zombie breached the perimeter and distracted him.  “We have to get out of here,”  Eric said quietly.

“Damnit…damnit…,” Erik paced behind a large pick-up truck.  The baseball bat held tightly in his right hand.  Every time he walked near the truck hood he could see Kali crying.  She sat back against the rear passenger door watching as the blind zombie reached for her.  Erik felt the terror the small girl felt and the fear of dying a gruesome, painful death.  It frightened him.  He turned away and sat against the truck door.  He stared ahead into what used to be a bustling, mid-sized city.  Windows in 2-story houses were busted.  The zombies stumbled up and down the streets like warm-blooded human beings.  The memories of failure and bad luck flooded Erik’s head.  The disappointing look, in his ex-wife’s eyes, when he picked up that beer after 5 years sober.  His father, forever an alcoholic and the black sheep of the family, lying in the hospital dying from a poisoned liver.  All this lead up to now.  Erik’s end-of-days mission stood just 300 yards away but he couldn’t leave her.  Kali needed his help.

“Fine,” he told himself.

Erik tightened his grip on the bat and walked around the back of the truck.  He neared the Mustang’s passenger-side window and reached in for a beer.  He heard the slide-stomp of the first zombie approach as he grasp the can.  He slid out of the side window and stepped back and the zombie stood staring at him.  It’s jaw slacked, muscles tight against its face.  Erik drank the beer quickly then grabbed the bat with both hands.  He swung with everything and smashed the wooden bat into the zombie’s long face.  Its face shattered and it stumbled and fell.  High with adrenaline Erik squared up behind the next zombie.  It was half in the window groping for Kali.  Erik swung and left-ed both the zombies knees.  The zombie moaned, stopped for a moment, then continued using its arms.  It grasp the head-rest in front on Kali and pulled himself into the Prius.  Erik swore and began to run around the car but tripped over the brown-haired zombie he had killed earlier.  He hit the ground hard covering his face just before slamming it into the asphalt.  He stood moments later bloodied but ok.  He ran around the Prius, grabbed the bat, which had rolled under the back bumper and checked to see if the Kali was still alive.  She was wedged against the seat and the back door.  “Heavens knows why she didn’t just get out,” Erik thought.  He attempted to open the door but it was locked.  He banged on the window and shouted but the little girl almost leapt into the zombies arms.  He tried the front passenger door but it was locked too.

“Unlock the door!” He shouted as he tried to open one door then the other.  He then stepped back and smashed the passenger-side window causing Kali to scream.  He quickly unlocked the door and opened it.  He then grabbed the zombie and yanked it from the car.  The zombie fought back clawing at Erik’s arms and grabbing hold of his ankle.  Erik lifted his foot then drilled down onto the zombies skull.  The zombie fought but made a fatal mistake when it tried to bite Erik’s large leather work boot.  The crunch from the broken jaw and neck chilled Eric to the bone let alone what it did to Kali being the zombie used to be her father.

Kali laid shaking in the back seat of her family’s red Prius.  The interior was covered in blood and horror but it seemed to be the only safe place.  The heat of the sun was magnified through the glass surrounding her but if they didn’t know she was in the car they left her alone.  Kali watched as the red Mustang convertible shot toward her quickly, occasionally wandering left till the driver corrected it.  She didn’t think it was going to stop and was frozen with fear till it slowed then stopped.  The driver, a gruff old man with a short, unkept beard, stared at her but Kali really didn’t think he saw her.

Kali’s trip into Kingboro was no suicide and definitely no vacation.  It was going to be an escape but turned into a disaster.  Her father and mother were criminals and the law was knocking on the back door.  They left through the front door.  With no where to go Kali, her younger sister Alison, and her mother and father headed to Kingboro.  The guards tried to stop them but never fired a shot.  Once inside Kingsboro no one was going to follow.  Within a day, her family had began turning one at a time.  Her father, bitten when trying to steal food from a house.  He left the car, on his own.  He died soon after and then wondered off a zombie.  Her sister turned next after ingesting some food given to her by their father.  She turned while they slept, bit Kali’s mother, then went after her.  By some miracle Kali survived while forcing her sister from the car then watched her mother leave out the passenger door before she could turn.  Kali watched as her mother grabbed the deer, mid jump, like a skilled predator.  She slammed into onto the hood of the Mustang then began to eat it.  Kali watched as Erik broke her mother’s neck with the bat but terrified she still stayed quiet.  Erik seemed to be a crazed killer willing to kill a small 8 year old with his gnarled hands.   When the deer leapt from the hood and into Erik Kali screamed.  It was a small scream  and scream of surprise.  She didn’t think anyone heard that one but minutes later when her father stared.  That hollow pale good eye tore the scream from her.  The terror from the last 2 days crawled up from her chest and she let loose.  Her father paused and Erik scrambled away.  Erik disappeared behind a large truck parked near the other side of Michigan Avenue.  Kali’s father, as if the thought of her had passed, began beating on the driver’s side window.  With the velocity of the fisted throws he would bust the window shortly.

The deer stood above Erik, its guts dangling over him like a chandelier in an expensive house.  Its blood poured over Erik’s T-shirt and jeans.  It bayed, took a heavy breath, then walked slowly over him.  Erik laid staring upward at the blue, empty sky.  His beer buzz was gone and so was all the bravado he had built up.  He was second-guessing this whole zombie suicide affair.  Problem was he was in a deep load of crap now.  A zombie, that had been hiding behind a car above his head, grabbed the deer and bit into the softer flesh just behind its ears.  A second zombie appeared near Erik’s legs and Erik managed to move them before the zombie grabbed them.  Erik scuttled back against the passenger door of the Red Prius.  The zombie, that had tried to grab him, stumbled forward toward Erik.  It’s face was mangled and bruised like it has been pummelled by a bat.  Within the one eye, that was not swollen, Erik noticed that it was white.  The zombie was blind and Erik took full advantage of that.  He quietly moved toward the rear wheel of the Prius while the zombie stepped forward and groped for him.  He watched as the zombie searched with his hands.  Erik’s heart beat loudly and his breath was shallow.  Fear rippled through him.  Being this close to death was not as satisfying as he initially thought.  What he really needed was a little whiskey and Coke to calm his nerves.

Erik jumped when he heard the noise.  It was the stomp..slide of another zombie approaching from behind the Prius.  He had to stand and run but that would alert the zombie that stood only a foot from him.  “Could he crawl away?  Possibly,” he thought as he slowly moved to his knees.  When he was in a squat position and about to fall to his knees a little girl screamed from within the Prius.  That small scream surprised Erik and the hungry zombie beside him.  Erik stood motionless, afraid to make the slightest gesture, but the zombie straightened up and paused for a minute.  It then began to slam its big, meaty hands against the glass on the Prius.  The screaming continued and Erik knew he had to move now.  He stood and ran.  He headed straight for his baseball bat lying in the road and turned around.  The zombie had busted the glass protecting a small blond-headed girl in the back seat of the Prius.

Erik’s Mustang, a red 1969 Fastback, was given to him by his father.  The car rumbled loudly as it approached Kingsboro’s Michigan Avenue.  The 4-lane major city artery was littered with cars but most were pushed out of the way, likely due to the military heavies that had pushed into the city.  Erik drove the car through the chaos.  He tossed his third beer out the car window and opened a fourth.  Something moved outside.  It disappeared behind an Oldsmobile before Erik could identify it.  His gut tighten and the hair on his arms stood.  His moment was quickly approaching.

A beer buzz swirled in his head.  An abandoned Prius sat in his way.  He could plow through it but it would destroy his father’s Mustang.  Erik was not willing to destroy the only physical piece of his father left.  “This is where he would make his stand”, he said to himself as he let the Mustang idle.  The wooden baseball bat sat on the seat beside him and the hooked chains sat behind the passenger seat.  Erik reached back and pulled the first set of chains then searched for the second.  The second set had settled farther toward the passenger side door forcing him to stretch.  As he stretched he failed to notice the panicked deer racing toward him.  Erik grabbed the chain and began to pull it forward when the deer crashed onto the hood of his Mustang.  The windshield cracked and spidered-out, the hood bowed downward.  Erik sat, pale-faced, in the drivers seat.  His father’s car wrecked.  The deer’s head lay near the drivers-side and feet hanging off the passenger-side.  It was almost if it was picked up and slammed into the hood of the car.  It struggled to stand but something held it down.

Erik sat in the car, fuming.  He had protected this car from dents, dings, and vandalism.  His father had protected this car but now 10 minutes into a drive into Kingsboro and it was trashed by this stupid deer.

Erik opened his driver door and grabbed the baseball bat.  He was going to end the poor deer’s life.  He stepped away from the driver’s door and closed it.  The deer bayed loudly, struggled, but still couldn’t move.  Curiosity pushed Erik to walk around the front of the Mustang.  Holding tightly to the legs and abdomen was a dark-haired zombie.  Once a beautiful 40 year old cougar.  She still wore a pair of strappy pumps with the heels broke off.  The zombie had her face buried inside the deer’s gut chewing through the warm meat.  The strength of these dead creatures was shocking even after the news articles stating the fact.  Erik squared up over the brunette zombie and swung the bat so that it struck the neck.  The zombie’s neck popped loudly and the she released the deer.  The zombie fell to the concrete and stopped moving forever.  The deer jumped up immediately, bolted forward, and knocked Erik on his back.  The bat flew from his hand and landed in the center of the avenue.