The Undead World (Book 2): The Apocalypse Survivors Read online

  The Apocalypse Survivors

  The Undead World Novel 2

  By Peter Meredith

  Copyright 2014

  Kindle Edition

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Fictional works by Peter Meredith:

  A Perfect America

  The Sacrificial Daughter

  The Horror of the Shade

  An Illusion of Hell

  Hell Blade

  The Punished

  Sprite

  Feylands: A Hidden Lands Novel

  The Sun King: A Hidden Lands Novel

  The Sun Queen: A Hidden Lands Novel

  The Apocalypse: The Undead World Novel 1

  The Apocalypse Survivors: The Undead World Novel 2

  Pen(Novella)

  A Sliver of Perfection (Novella)

  The Haunting At Red Feathers(Short Story)

  The Haunting On Colonel's Row(Short Story)

  The Drawer(Short Story)

  The Eyes in the Storm(Short Story)

  Cast of Characters:

  Yuri Petrovich: One time Chief Biologist of the Stepnagorsk Scientific and Technical Institute for Microbiology—a secret biological weapons manufacturing facility. Afraid that he would soon be out of a job due to budget cuts, Yuri sells the Soviet concocted Super Soldier virus to North Korean operatives who in turn sell it to an extreme Al-Qaeda linked faction, who ultimately release it. The virus destroys the cognition centers (i.e. the thinking portion) of the brain while simultaneously arousing the aggression centers of the brain and greatly increasing the production of adrenaline. The end result is the creation of real life zombies.

  Victor Ramirez: Once a DEA agent, Ram is smart, skilled and highly trained. He’s a formidable person, yet still only a man and thus subject to all the fears and stresses that affect the rest of us. Haunted by the murder of the woman he loved, Ram is on a quest for vengeance and little will stand in his way.

  Jillian Shaw—AKA: Jillybean. Six year old Jillybean has been on her own for the last four months with only a stuffed animal for companionship. She relies on the subconscious manifestation of her father in the form of “Ipes” the zebra, as well as nature’s wisdom to survive—imitating rabbit, squirrel, or fox as the need arises.

  Neil Martin: Once a soft Wall Street raider with the heart of a mouse, Neil has grown during the Apocalypse—not in size. He is as small and thin as always. Instead he has grown as a man, finding courage in the face of death.

  Sadie Walcott—Seventeen-year-old Sadie has flowered during the Apocalypse, becoming, for the first time in her life a member of a real family—a family she would kill for.

  Sarah Rivers—With the disappearance of her daughter in the hell of New York City, Sarah saw herself as failure of a mother, however now she is a mother again twice over: Eve age seven months and Sadie age seventeen. Still Sarah dreams of Brit and retains a mother’s fierce love for her first born.

  Cassandra Mason—Cassie sees the world through the prism of racial hatred, causing her to imagine enemies where none exists. Her hatred breeds evil all around her, turning man against man. She is the murderer of Julia, Ram's love.

  Prologue

  Since the Apocalypse, the world had become quiet in a manner most of the few remaining humans could not quite rap their minds around. No longer did jets ply the air at unheard of speeds, nor did boats in the tens of thousands split the waves of the oceans, and no longer were the highways a buzz with what everyone had always assumed would be infinite and insufferable traffic.

  Man, in his conceit, had figured that he would always be. The universe had other plans.

  Now, the Earth demonstrates its own power through the use of eternal silence. The quiet isn’t just oppressive, frequently it verges on the maddening and untold numbers of survivors draw death to them in their need to hear and be heard. Those unfortunate enough to find themselves alone for too long will invariably pick up the habit of singing or humming to keep the quiet at bay. Eventually, these loners will begin to talk to themselves.

  And the zombies will hear and come for the feast.

  Yuri Petrovich was not like these weak individuals. He liked to be alone, but he rarely was; in fact no one aboard the Nordic Star, a 50’s era cruise ship, could say they were ever really alone. Built to house just above four-hundred passengers and crew, the Nordic Star was now crammed with three times that many people. And were it not for the fact that the boat was also loaded top to bottom with fuel and food it could have held more.

  Every square inch of the boat was being utilized. The sky bar, what once had been aglow with gleaming brass and polished wood and women in fancy dresses, now only held hundreds of barrels of diesel oil, while the ship’s main restaurant was a maze of boxes from ceiling to floor that only the ship’s logistics officer could truly fathom. Even the six life boats, hanging from their stanchions, practically over-flowed with canned goods.

  It wasn’t likely the lifeboats would be needed. There wasn’t much chance that the Nordic Star would sink, not snugged just up the East River as it was. It had been moored in the shallow tidal straight that separated Manhattan from the Bronx since January and for two reasons: first, to hide from the remains of the US Navy which had turned into little more than a grasping gaggle of pirates, bent on plundering what was left of the world. And second, to preserve fuel.

  The Nordic Star went through diesel oil at a prodigious rate—an alarming rate even. Just holding her bow into the Atlantic wind had sucked down hundreds of liters a day. Now they used only enough to power the generators, and even that was being rationed since the weather had turned fair.

  There was one area on the ship that demanded and received as much power as it needed: Yuri’s lab.

  Everyone aboard knew how important that laboratory was to their survival. It was where a cure was being fabricated from glass tubes and stainless steel machinery. At least that was what they had been led to believe. That Yuri was a scientific genius had been well established as fact through the careful use of propaganda.

  All the old hands—those who had been hired on to crew the vessel before the zombie virus had even been known in America—were the chief propagandists and they spread their tales with the ardor of zealots for that was exactly what they were.

  They looked upon Yuri as savior—part seer, part savant. Only he had foreseen the coming apocalypse and only he had prepared in a meaningful way. The truth of course was that after selling the virus to the North Koreans he had kept a close eye out for oddities that would point to a looming catastrophe. They were not long in coming, and as most of the world’s scientists marveled at the new breed of hardy and vicious rats springing up around the Mediterranean, Yuri had flown into action.

  He chartered the largest boat he could afford and then, like some modern day Noah, had begun filling it with people, each carefully chosen for their special abilities or training. Electricians, mechanics, metal workers, engineers, surgeons, architects, nurses…the list went on and on.

  Each person he accepted was given a stipend to simply be “ready” when the time came.

  Most had taken the money, never expecting to see the mad Russian again, however when the Apocalypse hit and the quarantine zones began to expand and multiply, Yuri’s boat had filled rapidly.

  It wasn’t long before the “mad” Russian was being spoken of with tones that bordered on a religious awe. This was wholly une
xpected, yet Yuri took full advantage of it, using it to dominate the stronger personalities around him and thus securing his hold as leader.

  And when the religious awe began to slip, Yuri turned to what Russian leaders had historically relied upon: violence and .

  On the one hand, any who even rolled their eyes at an order were severely dealt with—broken bones, split skulls, missing fingers—in other words, routine stuff for what he was fast becoming: a mob boss. On the other hand, Yuri made promises of a new start with a cure to the zombie plague as the means to a glorious future.

  At the time Yuri wasn’t in the least worried that he would be able to follow through since he had the antigen already. All that was required was to mass produce it by entering a small portion of it into a cell culture where it would multiply. Now he wasn’t sure at all.

  The virus had “jumped” as the Americans put it. It had mutated, rendering the antigen, and thus the vaccine partially useless. “At least it was the good part of useless,” he reminded himself.

  The vaccine was just effective enough to keep the fever at bay, meaning a person could be bit or scratched and still live. However not only would the person be a carrier of the disease for the rest of their lives, and thus a danger to everyone around him, he would also turn into a zombie if he was ever killed in a normal manner.

  This just wasn’t good enough, not for someone who had allowed claims of divine providence to swirl around him without saying a word to stop it. If it got out not only would his position as Boss be in jeopardy, his life would be as well.

  “Maybe we should switch adjuvants,” Dr Wellsmith suggested. “Like I’ve said before, we should at least try using the paraffin. Studies show its effectiveness in the rat population.”

  Yuri said nothing. He only watched as a newly killed rat began to twitch. It had been bled just to the point of death and now it was coming alive again as the virus gained control. The virus was indeed a wonder. Somehow it took over the rat’s brain, forcing the dead body to release epinephrine, which in turn constricted vessels to get the maximum out of its remaining blood.

  In a minute it was on its feet and hissing at the glass, eager to get at Yuri, eager to kill.

  When Yuri didn’t answer him, Wellsmith cleared his throat loudly and tried again, “I don’t see why we don’t at least give the paraffin a try,” Wellsmith said obstinately. “Nothing else is working.”

  Wellsmith had been Yuri’s biggest mistake. Holding a doctorate in microbiology meant Wellsmith was the single person on board the Nordic Star who could undermine him. The one person that an opposition group could coalesce around. Yuri couldn’t have that.

  “No paraffin,” Yuri said in his accented English. Adjuvants such as paraffin and aluminum hydroxide were additives designed to maximize the immune response of the vaccine, which in the case of a jumped antigen was useless. “Do they teach you nothing? It is waste and we have only little. The samples hold enough of antigens to keep rat healthy.”

  “Then it’s the antigens that are the problem,” Wellsmith said.

  An angry sound escaped the Russian. Promises of a golden future weren’t something one just took back. “Antigen is good enough. Maybe we do not speak of side effect is all,” he ventured aloud, speaking more to himself than to Wellsmith.

  “You mean the side effect of not really being vaccinated?” the American scientist shot back. “I can’t believe you’d lie to everyone just so you can claim some glory. They’ll find out eventually and when they do there’ll be hell to pay, and it’ll be your head on the line, not mine.”

  “You make big issue out of little thing,” Yuri growled. “The antigen is good, just not perfect.”

  “Science is about truth,” Wellsmith replied haughtily. “There is no room for falsehood in science.”

  Yuri didn’t care for the tone of the man’s voice or the suspicious look in his eyes. He had known for quite some time that Wellsmith would be trouble, the sort of trouble that would end badly. The Russian had seen plenty of this sort of trouble back in the days when he wouldn’t even dare to claim being a Russian, back when he had been a proud and very fearful Soviet citizen. The thought gave him an idea.

  He could fix this little problem of the ineffective vaccine and his issue with Wellsmith by using the old tried and true Soviet method of overcoming internal department issues. He would denounce Wellsmith as a sabateur and have him killed. Simple.

  Yuri was just imagining the show trial and how it would unfold—a headache for sure since the man was an American and would demand rights that were clearly now nonexistent—when he had a better idea. Yuri could “catch” Wellsmith in the act of sabotage. There would be a struggle, a fight to the death, and then the sad news that the cure was delayed. Though to be sure it couldn't be too long of a delay since he had already begun to advertise. All he needed was a few more weeks to isolate the issue and fix his antigen.

  “I suppose you are correct,” Yuri said with a sudden easy grin. “We try it your way first, before we give up. Could you hand me paraffin in bottle?”

  “Sure. It could work. You never know,” Wellsmith said, turning.

  Yuri knew it wouldn’t work. The rats were already getting triple the dose needed to fight the virus; the paraffin would only amount to overkill. With that thought in mind, Yuri took a fire extinguisher from the wall and used it to cave in Wellsmith’s skull.

  Chapter 1

  Jillybean

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  Jillybean now lived in a chalk world where everything was black and white and gritty, and where nothing lasted. Nothing good at least.

  The first grade had been good, though for her it had been only six weeks long and then the monsters had come and ruined it. Despite that, she smiled when she thought of those six weeks—they had been a golden time of sleepovers and soccer and chase on the playground at recess. And friends. She had so many best friends: Janice and Becca and Paula and even Billy from across the street, though he wasn't a best friend, just an old friend, since she knew him for like, forever.

  And it was a time of parents. The right kind of parents. The kind where the mommy made breakfast in the morning and daddy went to the work every day except for leaf-raking day and football day, and every night there was a bedtime story, and cuddling, and usually tickling, and always a kiss good night.

  But then the monsters came and made it all wrong.

  Jillybean's daddy was a fighter...or maybe he was a warrior. She thought the words were similar yet could never make the connection between the two beyond the fact that he was very brave. He dared the streets to get them food, only always he was gone longer and longer and always he came back with less food than before. Once daddy came back all scratched up and bitten, and his eyes were no longer daddy's. They were eyes that were ascared.

  "I got bit, Jillybean." Her name was Jillian, but he and Ipes called her Jillybean and she liked it better. Though just then, with him shaking and crying, she ignored her special name and tried to hug him because that's what he always liked if he got hurt somehow. Only this time he pulled away. "No, don't touch me. I can't risk getting you infected too."

  "What are going to do?" her mommy asked. She looked almost as pale as he did. "You know I can't do this alone."

  He slumped at this, resting his cheek on the cool wood of their kitchen table, and said, "You have to try."

  But she didn't. Daddy left, crying and groaning in pain and mommy went to bed and never left it. Even when the snow came and Jillybean could see her breath right there in the house, mommy just laid in bed and stared at the ceiling, and didn't even eat.

  At first Jillybean scooped water out of the toilet tank and dribbled it into her mommy's mouth but that ran out quickly. Then she used snow that she let melt. It didn't seem to help. Her mommy died in her bed. She was alive one second, her skin like white paint over the bones of her face and her eyes wet blue gems that sat deep in her head, and then she was dead.

  Jillybean didn't g
o into that room anymore. She spent her nights in the attic, within the walls of a pillow fort she had constructed, curled up in a nest of blankets. In the days of winter she nibbled her way through the last of the food and, fortunately for her, the early winter turned into an early spring so that when necessity forced her out of her home to scavenge she didn't have to add the element of freezing to death to the rest of her fears.

  That first time she stepped foot across the threshold of her front door had been an absolute horror. Her gnawing hunger had overridden her native wisdom and she had gone too fast, drawing a monster to her when she was barely forty feet from her front door. She had hid under a car and when it came shuffling by, moaning like a dead wind, she had peed herself.

  Now four months later she had a way of doing things that Ipes called the "Rabbit" system.

  That morning she began it as usual, slinking up to the edge of each of the windows in her home and slowly, ever so slowly peering out to check to see if the streets were clear. The monsters didn't like the sun so much. They hid from it—all except Mrs. Bennet. No, she came out in the daytime and stood in the street or poked about in the remains of her flower garden as though she was looking for something lost.

  "I didn't like her none before," Jillybean said to Ipes, giving him a quick glance as she did. The zebra caught the look and smartly kept his lips shut tight; he was in time out and as everyone knew, you didn't get to talk in time out.

  He had been too...what was the word? "Eager," she answered herself. "That's it. We can't be too eager even if we are hungry." And Jillybean was very hungry. "I hope the soup is going to be done soon."

  "Ahem," the zebra murmured.

  "What? You aren't apose to even make noise when you're in..." She stopped suddenly and blinked, remembering that she had forgotten to move the soup. In the afternoon it sat in the dining room where the sun could get at it and in the morning it was supposed to be in the kitchen catching the early rays. "Oh poop! You should have said something."