Zombies Don't Ride Motorcycles Read online

  Copyright © 2014 by Matthew Leo and Melissa Leo-Pahl

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Matthew Leo and Melissa Leo-Pahl, except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.

  First Edition Published December 2014

  Published by Graveside Publishing at Smashwords

  Cover Design by Jen Donaldson of Imajen Creative

  Photography by Crystal Rose

  Cover Model: Brianna Owens

  Edited by: Matthew Leo and Melissa Leo-Pahl

  Formatted by: IndieVention Designs

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  Zombies Don’t Ride Motorcycles is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book can be reproduced in any form by electronic or mechanical means, including storage or retrieval systems, without the express permission in writing from the authors. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue Dodge City, Kansas – Meet Byron

  Chapter One Waking up Alone – Patient “Zero”

  Chapter Two Fort Riley, Kansas – Charlie

  Chapter Three Junction City, Kansas –The Junction City Boys

  Chapter Four Fordland, Missouri – Jace and Ellie

  Chapter Five Osawatomie, Kansas – The Asylum Twins

  Chapter Six Patient “Zero” Walks On

  Chapter Seven Birds...Birds...Birds

  Chapter Eight In the event of a Zombie Apocalypse…

  Chapter Nine Common Ground

  Chapter Ten How Do You Take Your Rat?

  Chapter Eleven Escape from Mercy Hospital

  Chapter Twelve Independence, Kansas – Finding Fayte

  Chapter Thirteen And then they were five

  Chapter Fourteen The Morning After

  Chapter Fifteen Regrets….And The Double-Mint Twins

  Chapter Sixteen Tomorrow is Never Promised

  Chapter Seventeen And then there were….

  Chapter Eighteen Welcome to Wally World

  Chapter Nineteen Jace, Charlie, and Zombie Bait

  Chapter Twenty “Watcha gonna do little boy? Arrest me?”

  Chapter Twenty One …Another Left Turn

  Chapter Twenty Two Boot Camp

  Chapter Twenty Three One Big Happy Family

  Chapter Twenty Four Looking for Superman

  Chapter Twenty Five The Secrets We Shall Keep

  Chapter Twenty Six Dinner with A King

  Chapter Twenty Seven The More the Merrier

  Chapter Twenty Eight Solidarity

  Chapter Twenty Nine A Family for Fayte

  Chapter Thirty The Death of a Phoenix and the Rise of Her Twin

  Chapter Thirty One His Royal Subjects

  Chapter Thirty Two Love Bites

  Chapter Thirty Three Preparing for Battle

  Chapter Thirty Four Meet Your End

  Chapter Thirty Five Who invited Death to the party?

  Epilogue REVELATION 12:9

  ZDRM Playlist

  Acknowledgements

  About the Authors

  Excerpts from Daryl Banner and M.S. Brannon

  Tuesday 5:45 A.M. April 6, 2015

  The sun finally broke over the horizon and a few birds were seen in the sky. It was a new day but the same old routine. The red light flashed 5:45 A.M. and the alarm rang loud enough to wake the dead. A young man rolled over in his bed and quickly shut it off. He stretched out all of his tightened muscles, still weary from yesterday’s shift. He popped himself out of his bed to make it, not wasting any time burning sunlight. He grabbed his uniform in his fists and headed for the shower, as per his usual routine.

  Breakfast was quick and easy. Time was not his ally on the daylight side, so he kept to his staples: a bowl of plain oatmeal with a glass of milk. Placing the oatmeal container back into the pantry, he realized he was down to his last cylinder of oats, and at that, he was close to empty. He made a mental note to pick some more up in a day or so. Bottles of medication lined his counter, organized first by size, then the symptoms they subdued. Byron sighed. It had been a great few days and even though he was pleased with the results of the new medication, its process was still just as taxing as before. The muted voices forced their presence on his conscience again as the flashes of light he had come to know were centered on their tone. And that tone was not a happy one. No, if he was honest with himself, they were pissed off. In his peripheral, streaks of red and black danced violently with each pill he popped into mouth. Forcing them to behave yet again. “Shut up Carlos,” he spoke at the mirror.

  After rinsing and placing his dishes in the sink, he grabbed his store keys and ventured out into the blinding sunshine. Like clockwork, his OCD kicked in, and the double-checking of all the windows and doors began, ensuring that each one was secured. Once outside, he sighed and began his two-block walk to work. Bryon was definitely not the driving type.

  He did not seem to notice the deserted streets or the eerie silence that followed him. He gave it about as much attention as he did on most other days, slim to none. His focus was laser spot-on, mostly with his head down watching his feet. His pace, his gait, even the placement of his feet between the gaps in the sidewalk where they were divided was lining up measured with such fanatical precision. He was confident he had lined up with his footfalls from the day before and the day before that.

  A few garbage cans laid on their sides, spilled over at the end of a neighbor’s driveway. Put a small pause in his obsessive routine. He quickly righted them and continued on his way without missing a beat. He half-sprinted, half-skipped, catching himself up to where he would have been if he had not stopped. Rounding the last corner, his destination loomed off in the distance, just across the silent street. Various newspaper and circulars flew across his path. He made a mental note to come hit the curbs around the restaurant with his broom and dustpan to get it back up to his level of acceptance.

  He approached the door, keys in hand. His awareness kicked into high gear when he reached for the doorknob. The door had been left slightly ajar. He realized he must have done it himself. He was not an extremely forgetful person, but every sixth or seventh time he worked, he would forget to lock up the door behind him. It felt familiar to him, so he felt no trepidation when he reached to push the door open. He stopped only long enough to let it register, more likely to mentally kick himself to not do it again. He walked in secure in his belief that everything was status quo.

  His entry was uneventful.

  Byron headed to the time clock, and punched in, 6:30 A.M. on the dot. In the four years since his sixteenth birthday when he began working at Nana's Cafe, he has never once been late. Come rain, shine, snow or lightning. Somehow, he always adjusted and just trudged through it. Without fail he would cross the threshold, none the worse for wear.

  He gathered up his cleaning supplies, and headed straight to work. “If you got time to lean, you got time to clean.” Nana used to chant. Byron eventually got sick of hearing it, so he filled every second of his shift on the clock doing his humdrum routine. He made little games out of it, always trying to get that one spot just one degree cleaner than last time or maybe he would work on how fast he did it. Instead of something taking ten minutes, he would push himself to do it in nine, and so on and so on. Bathrooms are always first and luckily, they were in fair shape. In fact, curiously
enough, they were about as clean as he had left them last the night before. Hmmm…very lucky. As it turns out, he was almost never, ever, lucky.

  He turned and headed to the dining area and noticed the disarray. He sighed to himself thinking that the night shift forgot to clean up before they left. Once that was done, he headed over to the main kitchen and finished getting the coffee pots ready, placing all the cups' handles facing to the right. They were lined up perfectly as if the very cups themselves were for sale.

  After a quick check of the time on his watch, 7:59 A.M., he walked over to the main window and flipped over the open sign. The small buzzing sound from his watch alerted him to the time. It was 8:00 A.M., he scanned outward to the barren streets wondering where his co-workers were. They were late.

  A soft breeze picked up accented by some newspapers seen tumbling down the road. The faint outline of the heading was still visible "Outbreak Spre-".

  He took his breaks on time; he even made himself a small lunch not wanting too much to be taken out of his paycheck. The day was the slowest it has ever been in the history of the café.

  No customers.

  No one came into work.

  No one was out on the streets of the town.

  No cars passed by.

  Not even the garbage truck, which was late for Tuesday's pick up as well.

  He was alone.

  His shift ended at 4:00 P.M.; he clocked out, remembering to keep his promise to himself to lock the door behind him and began his trek home. Deciding to stray away from the sidewalk for the first time, he kept to the center of the street, with his shadow cast behind him as he disappeared around the last corner to his home. His routine would not change the next day or even the next day after that. Despite several days of this, he failed to realize his routine remained the only meaning in his life he had left.

  This is Byron.

  This is his home town of Dodge City, Kansas.

  Population: 1.

  (April 13, 2015)

  The air was cold and dry as the figure lurched painfully slow across the freshly blacktopped street. The soles of the boots it wore were scraped even to the ground, its foremost edge sculpted to a harsh, sharpened point. After weeks at this incredible angle, his ankle had worn through. Tendons and bits of gray flesh lay exposed as the splintered, frayed bone indelicately split the skin and had torturously stabbed outward into the open air. It was black and infected, exposed to the elements, as his unconventional sliding tattered the cuffs of his pants at the ends. The air surrounding the non-being was a miasma of putrid stench. Like month old rain water neglected to sit in the bottom of a trash can.

  It had not fed in weeks. It was certainly starting to show. Ribs slid to and fro as he rasped in each breath, like serpents sliding beneath a blanket of loose gray skin. Its flannel hoodie was splayed open. The blue and black checkered design pronounced the only splashes of color that remained on his being.

  The figure slowed his lurch to a standstill, nearly falling over. A conveniently placed stop sign interrupted his free-fall. It relaxed its remaining emaciated muscles and surveyed the scene before it.

  It was a four-way stop. There were no lights to help corral cars to their destinations, nor were they needed. Its eyes blinked wearily. Each of his orbs looked like swollen black olives, with pimentos at their center. The ‘skin’ of both eyes were cracked and separated, looking much like broken colored glass submerged in water. The pupils behaved as couples in the throes of a divorce, separated and appeared to be free spinning beneath the jelly-like remains. The hunger in its emaciated frame forced it to take a deep breath, the first in so many hours.

  The man pushed itself off the sign, grunted unintelligibly, and staggered through the intersection. It looked up at the power lines, but no birds made their perch there. Some birds craved the carrion stench these monsters produced, making them an easy prey when they drew down from their settlements on the wires. When the occasional group of vultures swoop in, you might as well call it a Thanksgiving feast. Its neck dropped southward, and its eyes scanned the ditch line for a possible meal. No dice.

  No coherent thought rose into the monsters brain as it trudged forward in a somewhat straight line. Its hands shook uncontrollably, as if he had Parkinson’s disease. Occasionally he would swat at the mosquitoes that had swarmed around him. He would catch a handful, and slap them clumsily into his waiting mouth, squashing them against the roof of his palate with his swollen tongue. Hunger had invaded its mind and conquered it. Hunger was its dictator and hunger claimed dictatorship for eternity. The man stopped, and a hopeful grin peeked through the folds of empty skin on his face.

  A hand rose up from the ditch line. It was attached to a much bloodied arm.

  The hooded man quickened his pace, and the scrapes of its boots echoed across the street and reverberated between the tree lines. Only six feet away, the stench hit it. It was the same putrid rain-water-gone-bad stench. He had invaded another undead’s personal bubble.

  The figure clicked its tongue, tasting the air, and leaned in to bring the ditch line into focus. A small sized Dodge pickup was on its side, mired in the muck of the last rain. The body of a dead man laid in front of the truck. It appeared to have taken a running leap and face-planted itself into the vehicle while it was bearing down on him. Bits of flesh and blood had landed and dried around the perimeter. All of the grass that was in or around the body was dead or dying. Being coated in infected blood did little for the exchange of nutrients it needed to survive. Even the nearby trees had grown dark, with black viscous sap oozing in thick waterfalls all over their trunks. Whatever leaves that remained untouched by whomever dragged itself from the wreckage onto its limbs, were now all dotted with dark dots and white splotches resembling bird feces. It seemed that no living cell would be able escape the greedy and relentless virus that was destined to overtake all.

  A corpse remained sandwiched into the front of the truck, as it had wrapped itself around it. Despite the severity of the wreck, undead it remained. Using its one undamaged appendage, it swatted at the flies, gnats, and maggots that had made a home in the exposed back of its skull. Its brain pulsed with movement, not from any blood flow, but from insects and other creatures that had burrowed and were stirring within. The walker’s hunger turned to revulsion as he stood within the zombie sphere of stench. Zombie flesh served to do the opposite of living flesh. It turned most of the ‘walkers’, ‘crawlers’, and ‘runners’ into solo stalkers, only coming together in groups by coincidence, when the taint of fresh, living meat was in the air to drive them so. They never hunted communally. No coherent thought would ever bring them together collectively to catch their prey. Only the instincts to chase, to catch, to bite, tear, rend, to swallow and drink remained in the hollows of their brains. Reduced to the infinitesimal mentality of a baby.

  The walker snorted hard at the mess in front of him, and attempted to pivot with its last good ankle. He spun himself into a completely random direction away from the crash. Hunger pangs again ripped through him. Its appetite for live meat gnawed at him, like delirium tremens for a junkie quitting his fix. Hunger declared war on the stench invading its nostrils. The clutches of his famine overpowered his sense of loathing, and he mindlessly spun around again and stomped back toward the front end of the truck. The raised hand gestured more urgently, spastically, as the footfalls of this new intruder reverberated up into the truck’s grill. The walker spat derisively. Hunger had won this battle.

  It pitched forward and nose-dived into the back of its victim’s open cranium. It mercilessly bit and crunched through the already shattered skull. The swatting-arm seized on itself, pumping its fists open and closed. After several moments, its fingers splayed out, giving one final reach for the sky, and shook fiercely. The arm dropped heavy on the fender with a thud. The “walker” swallowed. Euphoria rushed in and displaced the hunger for just a moment. Ecstasy filled his body and he looked back into the shallows of the mutilated brain matter in realiz
ation. With renewed vigor, it dived back into its meal, slurping and crunching. It rose up from its ‘bowl’ satisfied. Finally sated!

  The gourmand fell back onto its ass, dizzy and high from this repast. Small tremors began rippling through its body, starting from the bottom of its spine, spreading out in all directions. A dull throb started drumming from deep inside its own brain, and rose in crescendo into a full-blown migraine.

  “Owww!” the walker said, gripping his head with both hands. It howled in pain as the tips of its fingers felt as if a thousand needles were piercing their way out of them. Then the needles caught fire, and spread all over its waking body. It screamed horribly, casting irrepressible swatches of saliva to fling from its agape mouth. It wasn’t enough. It screamed again, retching and wrenching its mouth open wide enough for its jaw to pop out of place. It felt that too. The monster gripped its face and curled into a ball. It rocked itself back and forth, failing to coax the pain away. Unable to maintain his position on the steep ditch, he rolled down into it, smacking his head on the cement outcrop of the drain. He screamed once more. The fiery needles came alive again, causing him to convulse. He vomited all over himself, but up came only black putrid bile. For several hours, he repeated this, until the fires in his nerve endings finally subsided. His screams melted down into sobs, his sobs trailing into hiccups, as he rocked himself between the ditch banks.

  By 4:37 in the evening, Patient Zero had rocked himself to sleep like a scorned child.

  ***

  Groaning, he pushed himself off his palms and onto his knees. He sat on his ankles, allowing his arms to free fall and land with a muted thud behind him back into the mud. He stretched back and arched himself, feeling the muscles twinge and warm in response.

  The man stretched back his neck, and rotated it around a bit, deeply enjoying the release of tension. He threw his head back and let out a moan. His fingers pushed down hard into the sand as he flexed out his arms, feeling the pressure subside in his joints. He felt his elbows and shoulders thank him.