Chapter Six: Global Conflict Z/Shop ‘Till You Drop

 

“That’s impossible,” Jasmine reassured me. “You and Laura Kruse killed Hitler. He was staked, decapitated and his head was destroyed with acid. You ran the DNA test on his remains yourself!”

I closed my eyes for a moment and forced myself to calm down. I noticed the pain in my palms for the first time and released my balled fists. “No, he’s alive. I’m sure of it,” I said to my best friend. “He’s the only one with the ability and desire to unleash this biological weapon. I don’t understand how he survived either, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s him.”

“The zombie virus must have been the ultimate secret weapon that Connecticut Smith destroyed. Hitler’s team discovered the ancient virus hidden somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa and were trying to bring it back at the end of World War Two,” Anthony reasoned. “Hitler wanted to unleash the zombie virus on the Russian, American and British armies in order to turn the tide back in Germany’s favor in 1945. That was long before zombies became so prevalent in pop culture, so the Allies wouldn’t have known to shoot them in the head. After you turned him into a vampire, Hitler patiently developed a new plot that added the vampire virus’s healing ability to his ultimate weapon.”

“Yeah, everyone has already figured that out at this point,” Lara snapped. “But thanks for spelling it out for us.”

“It’s not his fault!” Jasmine jumped in to defend her boyfriend. “He wasn’t the one who developed and distributed a vaccine that Hitler used to piggyback his bio weapon on. The whole program was a waste of goddamn time and money! You and your idiotic pet project to ease the suffering of the world’s idiots and hypochondriacs who were worried about getting turned into vampires!”

Lara leapt out of her chair so quickly that it toppled over onto the ground. She walked with determination and got right in Jasmine’s face, but the former cop showed no sign that she was intimidated. “And how did Hitler’s minions manage to conduct such a massive operation? They must have had an impressive network of agents working inside the United States. Talk about an intelligence failure. Gee, who is responsible for not detecting the iNazi infiltration? Who dropped the ball? Could it be, I don’t know, the Secretary of Defense?” Lara screamed while pointing an accusing finger at Anthony. “And if you want to talk about failures, how about the bang up job you did investigating the murders of Lance Flowers and his two sluts? If you were half as good of a cop as you pretend to be you would have uncovered Hitler’s ‘army of iNazi vampires’ plot long before the shit hit the fan!”

“That’s why the aliens didn’t attack Starside even though they bombed every other major city!” Anthony declared. The atmosphere was tense, but he seemed more concerned with getting the facts straight than paying attention to the two angry women. “Hitler was the one who contacted Emperor Bort and asked for his assistance. He must have told Bort not to attack Starside since that is where the Vampire Research Institute is. The VRI was producing the vampire virus vaccine, and Hitler needed it intact so he could use it for his biological weapon!”

“We all already figured that out too!” Lara screamed. “Are there any more obvious loose ends you’d like to tie up? What are you, the goddamn narrator?”

“Why doesn’t anyone care that my wife is dead?” What’s His Face asked as he decided to finally join the conversation. “I know that I’m not an established member of this group, but you’re pretending like I’m not even here! Have you people no sympathy for my terrible loss?”

There had been some heated arguments in the past, but my friends had never been this awful to one another. They were the bravest, smartest and most dedicated individuals I had known in my close to seven centuries of existence, but even they had their breaking points. People were dying on a massive scale, but there was nothing that any of us could do about it. Hitler’s biological weapon attack had caught us off guard and completely changed our society in less than a day. We had come to the Bubble Pack plant to search for answers, but the truth we learned was devastating. There was no magic bullet for the outbreak. My group of heroes was used to fixing things, but now we all realized that there was no solution to be found. We had come to Pittsburgh seeking to stop a conflict that we had already lost. My friends lashed out at each other out of their frustration over Hitler’s victory. I was feeling the same emotions, but I knew that I had an important job to do. The zombie apocalypse could not be stopped, but I was still the leader of my small group. They were finding excuses to blame each other, but I knew who was really responsible for the end of civilization.

“Enough!” I bellowed. My friends, and What’s His Face, fell silent. “I’m the one to blame for this mess. I was the one who turned Hitler into a vampire in 1945. I alone am responsible.”

“To be fair, Hitler himself is probably most to blame,” Anthony muttered.

“Nick...” Jasmine started. “You couldn’t have known what your actions would—”

“Shut up!” I commanded. It pained me to snap at her like that, but I knew she needed a strong leader at the moment more than a friend. “We don’t have time for all this bullshit. The trail has gone cold, and there’s no easy solution to this crisis. Our only concern right now is survival. We need some place where we can hole up, catch our breath and figure out our next move.”

Lara took a step back, smiled apologetically at Jasmine and then turned towards me. “We should make our way to Starside. The VRI is there and we might—”

I raised a hand to silence my granddaughter. “Starside will be overrun just like every other major city. Besides, Illinois is way too far away. We need somewhere that’s close.”

“A high-rise building,” Jasmine suggested. “It would be easy to secure, but we’d have to go deep into the city and fight a mob of zombies to get to one.”

“I always thought an island would be the safest place,” Anthony said. He retrieved his cell phone from his pocket and swiped his finger across the screen. “Or a well-stocked ship that’s on the water so the zombies can’t get to us. The Atlantic Ocean or Lake Erie would be our best bets, but they’re hours away. I don’t see any lakes around Pittsburgh that are large enough either.”

What’s His Face sniffled and walked over to join us. “Any large state park would be a good idea as long as it’s away from an urban area, although it would be impossible to secure and there wouldn’t be any supplies. Where else do people go in the movies? Prisons? Old Civil War Forts? Malls? Gun stores... uh...”

“Malls!” Anthony interrupted. He flipped his phone around to show the rest of us the map program he was using. “The Monroeville Mall is less than ten miles away.”

Everyone agreed that the mall seemed like our best option. My friends and I were happy to have a goal in mind and a task to perform in order to distract us from the recent unpleasantness. We gave What’s His Face a moment alone with his wife’s body before we all piled into Lara’s SUV. It was much warmer than it had been in Baltimore that morning, but Oliver XLVIII still made his displeasure about being left alone in the car for so long known.

It was a short drive to our destination but not a pleasant one. The number of zombies on the roads increased as we approached Monroeville. The side streets that we took were littered with abandoned vehicles, and we had to slow down several times in order to maneuver through. Every time we did the zombies in the area would gather around and throw themselves against the vehicle. Several of the creatures who made the mistake of attacking the front of the SUV were crushed under its tires, but I knew that being squished would not be enough to put them down permanently. Several dozen zombies were in hot pursuit of us as I pulled the car into the mall’s parking lot. I parked the SUV sideways so that it was wedged between the zombies and one of the entrances. Jasmine rolled down her window to fire at the approaching undead with her crossbow, but I told her not to waste the ammunition.

The other members of the group stayed in the car while I exited and quickly dispatched all the zombies in the immediate vicinity. We entered the Monroeville Mall together and were pleased to find that the power was still working. It was a massive structure, but there were only four zombies in sight. They staggered towards our group but did not make it far. I ran over, staked them and then dashed back to the group in less than thirty seconds.

“I’ve never been to the Pittsburgh area before today, but this Monroeville Mall looks very familiar,” Lara started suspiciously as she looked up at the second level. “I just can’t put my finger on why... Well, anyway, at least it’s not overrun with zombies,” she continued. “Food, supplies, weapons... this place will have everything we need. I even saw an abandoned news helicopter on the roof. We shouldn’t have any trouble killing the handful of zombies that are inside, but we need to secure all the entrances first. There are plenty of vehicles in the parking lot that we can use. Do you know how to hotwire a car?”

My granddaughter had not directed the question to anyone in particular, but three of us took immediate offense. We responded simultaneously:

“Why, because I’m black?” Anthony and Jasmine asked.

“Why, because I’m a vampire?” I demanded indignantly.

“No, because...” Lara trailed off and cocked her head to the side. “How is that a stereotype about vampires? No, I meant because two of you are former cops and the third is an engineering genius who is skilled at all things technological. I thought at least one of you would know how to do it, but don’t worry about it. We can just check cars and find ones that have the keys hidden above the visors.”

“That only happens in the movies,” Anthony scoffed. “No one is stupid enough to do that in real life.”

“Yeah, that’s dumb,” Jasmine agreed. “I’d have to go out of the way to leave my car keys on top of my visor. It’s not like that would be convenient since I’d still have to remove the key to my apartment from my keychain and carry that around with me.”

“I can hot-wire a car,” What’s His Face sighed.

My three friends and I stared at him blankly for a moment. “Really?” I asked.

“Yes!” What’s His Face responded angrily. “I have lots of useful skills and a rich back story. You bastards are going to learn all about my life whether you want to or not! I refuse to be like one of those two-dimensional characters from the movies who dies to show how serious the situation is because he’s not a member of the core group!”

He was being irrational, but I could hardly blame him. Mental health was not my field of expertise, but it did not take a trained psychiatrist to see that the loss of his wife had caused him to tighten his grip on his delusional fantasies. His mind was struggling to comprehend the shocking new situation in which he found himself, and it made perfect sense that he would fall back on something familiar like movie clichés.

“It’s okay,” I humored him as I put my hand on his shoulder. “I promise I’ll get to know you better, What’s His Face.”

 

The Monroeville Mall was a massive facility. It was a prime example of America’s consumer culture. There was a large office complex in addition to the two shopping levels. It had a twelve-screen movie theatre, a Macy’s, a J.C. Penney and dozens of smaller shops. Securing our new home would have been a monumental task for most small groups, but we were better-suited than any of the other survivors of the zombie nightmare. With the exception of What’s His Face, the members of my group had been fighting together for years. We knew what to expect from each other, and we were good at working as a team. We secured all the entrances to the mall and brushed aside the zombies that were already inside. It only took six hours of work before my friends and I could rest easy. During our first night there we viewed the mall as merely a place to rest and regroup. I do not think that any of us expected that it would be our home for the next month.

While my clever group was able to adapt quickly, the rest of humanity was not so lucky. Hitler’s biological weapon could not have come at a worst time. My impeachment, Caleb’s murder and the assassination of the Speaker of the House had created quite the power vacuum. The President pro tempore of the Senate, who was next in line for the presidency, was found shortly after the initial outbreak at Georgetown. Unfortunately, that man was in no way qualified to lead the country. The President pro tempore of the Senate was a position that was traditionally held by the senator in the majority party who had served the longest. At the time of the outbreak, it was held by a ninety-seven-year-old senator from Georgia named Nathan Avery. More than one late night comedian had joked before the start of the zombie plague that Avery was almost as old as I was. The senile coot was outspoken in his beliefs, but he had been on the wrong side of history far more often than not over the years. His first order after ascending to the presidency at the start of the zombie outbreak was to nuke the “Yankee cities” in order to stop the “race riots”. That was the official end of democracy in the United States of America. General Savage announced that he would no longer be taking orders from the Executive Branch and thus became the de facto leader of the country. Given that most of the surviving Americans were worried about having their faces ripped off by ravenous zombies, there were no protests against the military coup.

As it turned out, General Savage was not in power for long. Society completely collapsed during the month my friends and I spent in the Monroeville Mall. By the time the word went out that wood in the heart was the only way to kill the zombies it was already too late. The infection had spread in every major population center on the planet. The world’s militaries had already taken a beating during the recent alien invasion. They rallied against the new threat as best they could, but there was simply not enough time. The American military was the most powerful the world had ever known, but even it could not adapt quickly enough. Most of our forces were deployed in the major cities to clean up alien bodies and assist the refugees from the invasion. They were in the thick of it when the outbreaks started, and military casualties on the first day were staggering. Those who survived were pulled out of the urban centers in a desperate attempt to regroup. All of the fancy equipment and weapons that the military had stockpiled were useless against the new enemy they faced. Ballistic missile submarines, jet fighters and cruise missiles were worthless. The solution to fighting the zombies was to use much older weaponry. The surviving soldiers and marines learned quickly to fight with wooden stakes and the small number of bows that they got their hands on, but by then it was too late. The zombies they managed to kill were just a drop in the bucket. Organized resistance ended after a few weeks. America, and the rest of the world, had been conquered.

General Savage’s last public broadcast told the surviving Americans to find locations that they could secure and to defend themselves as best as they could. Unlike the career politicians who had led the country before him, Savage was a man of honor. He did not lie to the survivors or give them false hope that the CDC had found a cure. He said that his position was being overrun, but he pledged that he and the other members of the Joint Chiefs would retreat to a secure location and attempt to regroup. After a few days it became clear that something had gone wrong with his plan. The Emergency Broadcast System played his final message over and over again, never to be replaced with an update.

The military and the government had been destroyed. Social media was rife with messages from survivors who were attempting to organize by themselves. It was a chaotic situation, and it was impossible to know if the information we heard was accurate. Anthony tried to spread the word for any survivors in the area that we had secured the Monroeville Mall, but there was no immediate response. We were cut off from the outside world shortly afterwards when we lost our internet signal. Anthony was confident that he had gotten the word out, but no other survivors ever joined us at our oasis.

As I read back over this section, it seems odd to me that describing the fall of civilization only took a few pages. I suppose I could have gone into much more detail about the end of society. Hell, someone probably could have written an entire book on the subject. They could have used vignettes from a number of different people that showed the larger story of the, as some called it, “world war against the zombies”. Combining a bunch of independent stories like that together would have made the book easy to write. I am not saying such a book would not be worthy of praise or fascinating to read, just that it would be comparatively simple to create. It would almost be as easy as writing a book from the first-person point of view.

 

It was the end of the world as we knew it. Unlike Michael Stipe from R.E.M., we did not feel fine. It took a few days for us to get situated in the mall, and the depression set in once we were confident that the location was secure. With no tasks to busy ourselves with, we had lots of spare time to lament our failures. We had not been able to stop Hitler’s ultimate secret weapon. Because of that, almost everyone we knew was dead. The people who I cared about most in the world were in the mall with me, but the rest of the gang knew that their loved ones were gone. My comrades had lost their parents, siblings and friends. What’s His Face suffered the worst of all since he had been there to witness his wife’s demise.

We were emotional wrecks, but at least we did not have to miss out on very many creature comforts. The zombie outbreak had spread too quickly for looters to pick it clean of supplies, so the Monroeville Mall was fully stocked with everything that we needed. We had food, water, weapons and even electricity thanks to some generators. After we tossed the corpses of the zombies we had killed off the roof and mopped up the blood, we could hardly tell that dozens of human beings had died there. We converted several of the shops into bedrooms and put up sheets and blankets for privacy. The gates that were designed to keep would-be robbers out added an extra layer of security against the zombies during the night. I was confident that the mall was secure, but my friends had seen too many movies to let their guards down while they slept. The only thing that I needed that the mall did not have was the SPF 1000 that allowed me to walk around in the sunlight. Luckily Lara had brought a three-month supply of that precious substance in her SUV.

We all dealt with the grief and survivor’s guilt in different ways. What’s His Face, despite his insistence that we get to know him better, mostly kept to himself. Anthony and Jasmine spent a lot of time in their “room” together. They had chosen to stay in the Payless shoe store which was located at the far end of the lower level of the mall near the Macy’s. The rest of us stayed in stores on the opposite end of the second level near the J.C. Penney. Despite the distance, my supernatural senses allowed me to occasionally hear the couple during quiet nights. They took comfort in each other, and I was happy that my friends both still had someone to help ease their suffering. Lara and I were not as lucky. The war was lost, but neither of us was willing to accept the new reality. We threw ourselves into our work and spent many long days researching the biological weapon. Lara and I were considered to be two of the best virologists in the world even before civilization crumbled and most of our colleagues were killed. The mall had all the supplies we needed for our studies, and there was no shortage of test subjects. After a month of tireless research and experiments, my granddaughter and I had a pretty good idea of what we were dealing with.

“It’s Nick!” I shouted even though I was still fifty yards from the Payless store.

I received no response as I walked slowly to close the distance. Anthony popped his head out of the store after a moment, shot me a curious look and then exited with his girlfriend in tow. They were both holding crossbows but had them pointed at the ground. We had not seen a zombie inside the mall in the month since the initial outbreak, but my friends never went anywhere without weapons just to be on the safe side.

“You don’t have to announce yourself like that,” Anthony scoffed as the three of us converged. “It’s not like we’re going to shoot without confirming that it’s a zombie first.”

“That wasn’t what I was worried about,” I said as I grinned at Jasmine. I had made the mistake of entering their room a week earlier without fair warning and caught them in a compromising situation. “Lara and I are ready to present our findings.”

“Great,” Jasmine declared. “Although it’s odd that you waited until now to tell us everything. It seems like it would have made more sense for you two to gradually reveal the details to us over the course of this last month. Come to think of it, you guys have been ridiculously and needlessly secretive about your project. I don’t even know where you set up your makeshift lab.”

I put my hand out to indicate the proper direction before I started walking. “We set up shop in the abandoned Barnes & Noble. There was plenty of space there,” I explained.

“Damn e-books,” Anthony joked. “They drove all the brick and mortar bookstores out of business. I miss being able to browse through physical books, and I curse any author who made a profit with the electronic format!”

“Yeah, ha, ha,” I started sarcastically. “E-books are cheaper to produce, easier to distribute and more convenient to readers. You remind me of the people who were pissed at Henry Ford when the Model T started to replace horses. Besides, it’s not like it matters now,” I sighed. “Civilization is gone and there is no economy. All the money that I made off of my books is worthless. Now I’m just another poor schmuck like the rest of you,” I joked.

“Hey, I was filthy rich before the apocalypse too,” Anthony said. “I made millions of dollars off of that social networking website that I created. It’s like you completely forgot that fact about me.”

“Yeah,” Jasmine agreed. “And how come you never call me ‘J.J.’ anymore? That was my nickname back when we were on the force together in Starside, but you haven’t used it in years.”

“Beats me,” I shrugged as we continued to walk. “I’ve known, and been writing about you two, for so long that I forgot some of the early details... of your lives.”

Jasmine and Anthony did not buy my argument. They criticized my attention to detail for a few more minutes until we reached the abandoned Barnes & Noble. What they discovered inside of the store made them both fall silent. Lara and I had cleared a large space near the checkout counter and filled it with a half dozen cots. All of them were occupied by a zombie corpse except for one. A living zombie was strapped to the sixth cot and struggling madly against the restraints. It was snapping and groaning at Lara, who was only a few feet away. My granddaughter was wearing an apron that had been white but was now covered in blood. She was bent over and staring into a microscope when we arrived. She smiled when she saw us, tossed the clipboard she was holding onto a table and moved out from behind the cots to greet us.

“I’m glad you’re here,” my granddaughter said to the young couple.

“Microscopes, beakers, scalpels... chemicals,” Jasmine listed as she looked around at our makeshift laboratory. “Where’d you get all this stuff?”

“We found everything we needed at stores here in the mall,” I explained. “It’s a disgusting commentary about our consumerist culture... but it was also incredibly convenient.”

“Should we wait for What’s His Face?” Lara asked me.

“What’s His Face won’t be joining us,” I explained. “He found a giant tub of chocolate frosting at the Mrs. Fields Cookies and challenged himself to finish the whole thing. I told him there’s no way that he could polish off a five gallon container by himself but...” I trailed off and put my hands up in a submissive gesture. “I guess it makes him happy, and at least he’s not crying all night anymore. He told me to ‘have fun’ and then carried the tub of frosting in the direction of the GameStop. I think he hooked a Playstation 5 up to one of our portable generators.”

“I’m starting to think that What’s His Face is the smartest one of all of us,” Anthony said. He gestured at all the zombies in the room and slowly shook his head. “I’d much rather be giving myself diabetes and playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 7.”

“This may look gruesome, but Nick and I have learned a lot about the zombies because of our efforts,” Lara started. “While the origin and science behind the zombies is always mysterious in the movies, we’ve discovered... that...”

Lara trailed off, sighed and turned around towards the restrained zombie who was still alive. The creature, irritated that delicious human blood was just out of his reach, was groaning constantly and shaking the cot. Lara retrieved a stake from the pocket of her pants and drove it through the zombie’s chest. She let out a pleased murmur and enjoyed the silence for a moment before remembering her lecture.

“As I was saying,” she continued. “Hitler’s biological weapon is a combination of the vampire virus and the previously unknown zombie virus. That is why the zombies display characteristics of both of those classic monsters... no offense,” she added with a nod towards me. “The vampire virus makes newly turned vampires into emotionless killing machines who are focused only on feeding. Something similar happens to the zombies, although the effect is permanent. Reasoning and free will are nonexistent, and the undead care only about drinking blood. That is to say, the blood of normal human beings,” she added. “As we have seen in the field, the zombies completely ignore all other species. Like Nick, the creatures have a specific diet. While uninfected blood sustains them and tastes delicious, the blood of any human that is infected with the virus is vile and disgusting. That is the reason that they refuse to attack traditional vampires, like Nick, or each other.”

“And werewolf blood is even more disgusting than blood infected with the virus that causes vampirism,” I added. “That’s why they ignored Reginald. The vampire virus strengthens the zombies’ sense of smell, so they’re able to pick up on the subtle differences between a normal person and anyone or anything else.”

“If they have both the viruses in their bodies, then why does wood in the heart kill them?” Anthony inquired. “The vampire virus heals them, but they’re still zombies. Shouldn’t we need to stake them and destroy their brains?”

“To be honest, we don’t really understand why it works like that,” I explained. “The zombies seem to be very susceptible to that weakness of the vampire virus but not another. The vampire virus is what caused the zombies to look like they have rotting flesh even if they were turned very recently. As soon as they are exposed to sunlight, their epidermis gets fried just like mine would if I wasn’t wearing SPF 1000. The difference is that the sunlight would kill me whereas the zombies are still out walking around even with the top layer of their flesh destroyed.”

“We’ve also learned more about how the plague started,” Lara said. “The bio weapon had two parts that were dependent on one another. We’ve determined that the vampire virus vaccine that was distributed worldwide was not the same thing that my team and I developed. Hitler’s spies must have infiltrated the Vampire Research Institute before the shipments started going out. It might have said ‘vaccine’ on the boxes, but it actually contained live virus. The vampire virus is too weak to take over a human being that hasn’t suffered severe blood loss, but the virus that was shipped was altered so that it could survive and hide from the host’s immune system. The dormant genetic material is only activated when it is exposed to the zombie virus. The two bugs basically join forces and then overwhelm the human’s immune system. Estimates before the outbreak were that about ten percent of the population got the shot for what they thought was the vampire virus vaccine. Any of those people who popped the special Bubble Pack were exposed to the zombie virus, which is airborne. They got sick, they died, they reanimated and then they spread the virus to everyone who didn’t get the vaccine.”

Jasmine walked to one of the nearby cots and stared down at the dead zombie. “How is that possible?” she asked me. “You’ve always said that you’re immune to all other viruses and bacteria because the vampire virus kills them.”

“Normally it does,” Lara answered excitedly before I had a chance to respond. “That’s why Nick wasn’t infected with the zombie virus even when he, quite stupidly, bit one at the Bubble Pack factory. Hitler, or his research scientists or whoever, had a lot of skill,” she said, too impressed to remember how furious she was. “The vampire virus is great at destroying foreign bugs that attempt to invade the body, but it doesn’t kill everything. Nick would be in quite a bit of trouble if it did. Like the vampire virus, there are other more common bugs that form symbiotic relationships with their human hosts. There are 100 trillion of those little guys living in each one of our digestive tracts. Hundreds of different species of gut flora help to break down the food we eat, process nutrients and synthesize vitamins.”

Anthony stared down at his stomach. “Yuck.”

Lara smiled. “We couldn’t survive without all that bacteria, and neither could vampires. The vampire virus ignores those species... which is something that Hitler’s team took advantage of. They genetically engineered the zombie virus to be a kind of bacteriophage. It infects and replicates inside of a species of gut flora so that the vampire virus doesn’t view it as a threat. It’s quite ingenious,” Lara beamed. “Disgusting and evil, of course, but ingenious. In addition to giving us more information about the zombie virus, it has also presented us with a very interesting—”

“Don’t,” I interrupted. “We all have bigger things to worry about. That’s not important right now.”

“The hell it isn’t,” Lara countered. “After all the shit we’ve been through during the last month I think they deserve some good news for once. We think we can cure Nick.”

Jasmine’s eyes went wide. She smiled and rubbed her hand over my arm. “Jesus, Nick, that’s wonderful! How?”

“We were never able to figure out why the cure that Nick developed worked for all the other vampires who took it but not him,” Lara explained. “We still don’t know why the problem exists, but this new research has given us a solution. Hitler’s team used good bacteria to hide the zombie virus. Theoretically, there’s no reason why we can’t do something similar with the cure to the vampire virus. I’m confident that Nick can now be cured, which is one of the reasons why we need to get back to Starside as soon as possible.”

“One of the reasons?” Anthony questioned. “What’s the other?”

“Let me make it absolutely clear that curing me of vampirism is not our top priority,” I explained. “We need to get to the Vampire Research Institute because it has everything that we need to create a new vaccine. Now that we know what we’re dealing with, we can inoculate the small number of humans who have survived the apocalypse against the zombie virus. Even with the resources at the VRI, it could take months for us to develop the zombie vaccine. I just hope there are still enough humans left alive at that point that the species can survive.”

“What good will a vaccine do at this point?” Anthony questioned. “The zombies will still attack and kill the living. Even if no one else reanimates from this point forward, there are still billions of undead out there.”

“If we can vaccinate them against the zombie virus, then we can use Hitler’s fake vaccine to save the survivors,” I explained. “The biological weapon is harmless without the zombie component. The fake vaccine contains the altered, dormant vampire virus. It won’t do any damage to a living person by itself, but it will replicate throughout the body and make their blood taste bad, and their bodies smell different, so that the zombies won’t be interested in attacking them anymore.”

To say my friends were enthusiastic about the new plan was an understatement. We had spent the last month wallowing in despair, but now we had a plan of action. We knew it was a long shot, and that we needed to catch a number of breaks if we were going to succeed. My friends were brave, and they had no interest in sitting around waiting for the end of humanity. Anthony and Jasmine suggested that we leave immediately, but I dissuaded them. On roads that were clear of debris and ravenous monsters it would take eight hours to get to Starside from Pittsburgh, and I knew that we would not be that lucky. We had a long and arduous journey ahead of us. Once we got there we would have to fight our way into the city and secure the Vampire Research Institute building. It was a monumental task, and I insisted that we be prepared. I suggested that we acquire three heavy vehicles, possibly buses, so that we could leave town in a convoy. This would make it easier to transport supplies and prevent us from being stranded if one of the vehicles broke down. Anthony suggested we take a few days to bolster the defenses of the vehicles as best we could.

The four of us discussed the idea as we left the laboratory and headed for the mall’s GameStop in order to tell What’s His Face the good news. Our voices were raised in excitement, and What’s His Face came out to investigate before we reached the store. He threw his hands up in the air, irritated that we had disturbed his afternoon plans. We quieted down immediately, but it was not because of What’s His Face’s annoyed look. My three friends and I screamed out warnings simultaneously as a zombie lumbered out from behind one of the tables in the food court behind him. Our companion turned around but it was too late. The zombie, who was an elderly woman wearing an elaborately decorated, pink hat, clamped down on his neck.

“Frakkin’ bitch! Flippin’ zombies!” What’s His Face screamed as his attacker drove him to the ground. “First my fudgin’ wife dies, and now this? Are you freakin’ kidding me?”

The four of us dashed towards What’s His Face. I was the first to arrive, and I quickly dispatched the zombie with a wooden stake. Blood was pouring freely from the wound in What’s His Face’s neck, and he had been knocked unconscious after hitting the back of his head against the floor. I slammed the stake into his chest, stood up and looked around the area to make sure that there were no other threats. My friends, seeing no other attackers in the area, expressed their concerns about a different matter.

“That zombie came out of nowhere. Poor guy. At least he can be with What’s Her Face now,” Anthony said. He stared down at What’s His Face’s corpse and shook his head. “Did it seem strange to anyone else that he was avoiding using the f-word? Seems like if there was ever a time to swear it would be when a zombie is tearing into your flesh. It’s like he was censoring himself so as not to offend a mainstream audience.”

Jasmine sneered at her boyfriend. “What audience? This isn’t a goddamn zombie movie! We’re the only ones here, and we just had to watch him get brutally murdered. That’s way worse than swearing.”

“Nah, you can show as much violence as you want,” Anthony countered. “Especially if the violence is against zombies since the MPAA doesn’t view zombie violence as being as bad as human violence. I saw an extremely bloody zombie flick on network television during the afternoon when kids were watching. The only things they edited out were the swearing. Oh, and a pair of boobs. Exploding zombie heads is fine, but I guess children would have been scarred for life if they saw some breasts.”

Lara glanced down at What’s His Face’s body. “Maybe he swore, but he only used the f-word sparingly,” she offered. “You know, so it seemed more meaningful when he did say it. If he cursed constantly it would never mean anything, but if he only used it now and then it would show how serious he thought the situation was.”

Anthony was eager to continue the argument, but he stopped himself and only a little yelp came out. I looked in the direction he was facing and saw the new zombie immediately at the other end of the food court. Jasmine raised her crossbow at the target, but I stopped her from firing with a wave of my hand. The four of us knelt down and remained quiet as we observed the zombie. The monster, who had been a fashionable teenage boy before the plague hit, had not seen us and was acting unusual. Instead of looking for potential meals, the zombie seemed to be focusing on the signs above the various stores that he passed. A small kiosk caught his eye and he shuffled towards it while groaning happily. He inspected the boxes that were on display for a moment before letting out a strange vocalization that I had never heard a zombie make before. It sounded to me like a delighted squeal. The teenage zombie picked up one of the boxes with a broad smile on his face. The expression melted away a moment later. The zombie groaned and threw the box down in disgust.

The unusual zombie noticed the four of us when he resumed his inspection of his surroundings. He grunted and headed directly for us. Jasmine did not wait for my approval. The four of us darted over to the fallen zombie after my best friend put an arrow through its heart. Anthony bent down and retrieved the box that the creature had tossed on the ground.

“It’s an iPhone,” Anthony said in confusion. “I wonder why he seemed so happy and then suddenly...” he trailed off as he inspected the box more closely. “My God, it’s last year’s model!”

“I’ve seen this before in zombie movies,” Lara began. “Sometimes the undead continue to do activities that they enjoyed while they were alive. They’re still mindless monsters, but suppressed memories drive them to do... oh, shit. Nick, do you know what today is?” she asked me.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said dismissively. “It’s Thanksgiving. I already told you I’d help you make a special dinner... even though I can’t eat any of it. We’ve got bigger things to worry about now though. We need to figure out how these two zombies got inside the—”

“No, you idiot,” Lara interrupted. “It’s the start of the holiday shopping season! Or at least it would be had the world not ended. The name doesn’t make sense since it starts the night before now, but it’s—”

“Black Friday!” Jasmine gasped. She grabbed onto my shoulder and stared into my eyes. “If even a fraction of the zombies are compelled by the activities they enjoyed when they were alive, we’re in the worst possible place on Earth. A horde of zombies will come looking for deals, but they’re going to find meals instead!”

All four of our heads whipped around when we heard glass shattering behind us. Several dozen zombies were staggering towards us from the far end of the food court. My friends reacted immediately and took aim at the mass of undead with their crossbows.

“No,” I ordered. “Jasmine, take Lara and check the rest of the mall. Make sure this is the only breach. Anthony, you’re with me.”

I respected all of my friends, but I knew that they were not equally skilled. Lara and Anthony had found some time to practice with the crossbows during our month of isolation. They were both decent with the weapons, but they were hardly what I would call skilled. I would have preferred to handle both of the tasks that needed to be done by myself, but I knew that was not possible. Jasmine and I were the warriors in the group, and I trusted my best friend to handle the job.

Anthony was unhappy that he had been separated from his lover, but he did not question my orders. He fired off an arrow and dropped one of the monsters in the front of the pack. It was a nice shot, but we both knew that I was the one who was going to kill the majority of the zombies who had infiltrated our new home. I told my young friend to focus on the right of the group so that he did not accidentally hit me, and then I dashed towards the left side and started my gruesome work. The undead picked up speed and staggered towards Anthony. They completely ignored me even after I started decimating their ranks. Anthony and I worked quickly, and the first wave of zombies were dead within a minute. More of the monsters were still trickling in from outside though. We went on the offensive and followed the cold air and the trail of zombies until we found the breach. I kept the attackers who were attempting to enter through the broken window at bay while Anthony dragged tables over from the food court. We piled several of them against the hole until we were confident that it was secure. I slid my back against the wall and collapsed onto the floor while breathing heavily. A zombie arm slid through a tiny hole in our defenses and inadvertently punched me in the side of the head. I glanced up at it in irritation, but I did not bother to move away as I sucked down oxygen.

“Are you okay?” Anthony asked as he looked down at me with concern.

“I’m fine,” I said dismissively. “Just need... to catch my... breath.”

“I’ve never seen you this winded before,” Anthony pressed. “That wasn’t very much physical activity for you. I’ve seen you do way more without even slowing down. I know you haven’t eaten anyone since Caleb, but I guess I didn’t realize how quickly you’d be affected by—”

I waved my hand at him before pushing off of the ground. “I’m fine,” I assured him. “It’s only been a month. I’ve gone much longer than that without food.”

Anthony seemed unconvinced, but he let the matter drop. We darted back through the food court and began our search for the other two members of our group. We found them as soon as we hit the mall’s main walkway. To our right, we saw Jasmine and Lara in front of the Hot Topic store. They were reloading their weapons frantically as a dozen zombies approached them. Unfortunately, another pack was staggering towards them from left of the intersection as well. I turned towards the latter threat as Anthony moved to reinforce the two women. The sound of groaning and wailing was overwhelming. The zombies seemed particularly excited, although I did not know if that was because they saw a source of food or because they were searching for doorbuster deals.

I killed the group that was approaching from the left quickly, but I was dismayed to see dozens more of the creatures trickling in from the far end of the mall. Lara’s scream told me that I did not have time to deal with them. I turned around and discovered that my three friends were being overrun. I dashed back towards them, but I knew that I would be too late. Six of the zombies were right on top of them. Lara, not having time to reload, swung her crossbow like a club as she panicked and stumbled backwards. Jasmine had also resorted to hand to hand combat. She jabbed at the nearest zombie with her left hand, but the creature barely noticed the blow. Since her right hand was wrapped tightly around a wooden stake, her follow-up punch managed to send the attacker’s head spinning. Jasmine took advantage of the opportunity and plunged her stake into the zombie’s chest. She extracted her weapon quickly, turned to her left and slammed it through the back of the zombie who was attacking Lara. My granddaughter had been mere inches away from being bitten. Jasmine had acted bravely and without hesitation, but the bold decision had left her right side undefended. One of the zombies, a teenage girl wearing a red tank top, slammed against Jasmine’s back. The zombie’s teeth were about to clamp down around her ear when the zombie was suddenly knocked to the floor. Anthony, who had tackled the attacker, and the zombie rolled over on the floor before coming to a stop. With his left arm wrapped around its throat and his right hand pressed against its forehead, Anthony pinned the struggling creature to the ground. The three remaining zombies leaned down towards the would-be meal, but they did not get a chance to bite my friend. I arrived and slammed my stake through their hearts. Jasmine shoved her heroic boyfriend off of the teenage girl zombie and effortlessly dispatched the threat.

“That was stupid!” Jasmine scolded her boyfriend as he picked himself off of the floor. “You shouldn’t have done that!” she continued. Her angry tone softened as the adrenaline ebbed and she realized how close they had both come to death. She put her hand on the back of his head, brought his face towards hers and kissed him. “Thank you.”

I paid little attention to the affectionate display. The immediate area was clear, but there were zombies approaching us from the far ends of both sides of the mall. The Black Friday zombies were pouring in from multiple breaches. There were too many of them, and we were barely holding our ground. The Monroeville Mall was lost.

“Bug out plan number two!” I yelled.

My friends and I had prepared for the sudden invasion of our happy home and developed several escape plans that we could use in the event of an emergency. The Black Friday pilgrimage had brought zombies to every entrance of the mall, so I knew that escaping by road would be next to impossible. Plan Two called for us to retreat to the roof and use the abandoned news helicopter that was there to flee. My friends and I climbed the stairs to the second level of the mall, which the zombies had not yet reached. They made their way to the back offices while I returned to the Victoria’s Secret, which I had been using as my bedroom. Oliver XLVIII mewed at me in annoyance about being left in his cage, but I ignored him for a moment. There were four duffel bags in the back of the store that we had prepared for just such an emergency. They were filled with supplies and, most importantly for me, the stockpile of SPF 1000. I slung the bags over my back, grabbed Oliver XLVIII’s cat carrier and ran back towards the office complex. The zombies who had entered through the lower level were now starting to climb the stairs. I was struggling to suck down oxygen, and I was very aware of how heavy the bags felt against my back. I knew there was no time to spare though, and I pushed my body to its limit. I navigated through the office complex and met my friends at the rendezvous point. It was a small supply room with only one way in or out. A ladder leading to the room’s skylight would allow us access to the roof. I barreled into the room and groaned in relief after dropping my heavy load onto the floor. I bent over and put my hands on my knees as I tried to catch my breath. Jasmine slammed the door shut and started piling boxes against the door with the help of my other two friends.

Lara grunted as she slid the final box into the barricade a minute later. “I always said that Black Friday is a disgusting holiday,” she joked. “It was consumerism run amuck, but I never would have guessed that I’d be the thing that the shoppers were trying to consume.”

“We’ve been here a month, and we’ve never seen the zombies act like that,” Jasmine agreed. “They usually just slam against our defenses and groan, but they seemed to tear down the barricades within minutes today. I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised. Every year people died during the sales, and that was back when the shoppers were alive! Thank God I had you here to prevent me from getting trampled,” she said to Anthony. She slugged her boyfriend on the shoulder playfully.

Anthony looked at her and attempted to smile, but his face was red and there were tears welling up in his eyes.

Jasmine’s forehead wrinkled in response to his strange reaction. “What?” she questioned.

Anthony swallowed hard before extending his left hand. He sniffled and slowly rolled up his sleeve as we all stared down at his appendage. Lara gasped when the sweater retracted far enough to show the three-inch gash below his thumb. The wound was not bleeding much, so it was easy to see the distinctive marks made by human teeth.

“No,” Jasmine said, breaking the silence. “No!” she screamed.

She shoved his chest with both of her hands and sent him stumbling back a foot. She repeated the action again with greater force and propelled him into the wall. Anthony did not even wince when his back slammed against the hard surface. The pain he felt as he watched Jasmine break down was far worse than any physical discomfort. My heart broke as I watched my best friend lose control. I stood there, frozen, as she started to pound her balled fists against his upper body. Anthony stood up straight, grabbed his girlfriend and pulled her head against his chest. He closed his eyes and bounced up and down as her muffled cries shook his body. Her emotional display was intense, but it only lasted thirty seconds. Jasmine’s wailing stopped suddenly. She pushed herself away from Anthony and stared at him with a look of anger and determination.

Jasmine reached into her pocket and retrieved a weapon. She continued to stare at her boyfriend and did not bother to wipe the tears off of her face. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered.

Anthony let out a startled yelp as she grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him face-first onto the floor. She climbed onto her lover’s back and held him in place with her powerful legs. Jasmine sniffled, raised the weapon high above her head with both hands and then plunged it downwards. Anthony bellowed in pain as her pocketknife pierced his forearm.

 

The small blade was, to say the least, not the best weapon with which to perform an amputation. Jasmine was highly motivated, but it still took her a few minutes to cut through the flesh and bone. Anthony had seen all the same movies as his girlfriend, and he knew that losing his hand and the bottom part of his arm was his only chance at survival. He grunted, screamed and did his best to hold still during the procedure, but the pain was just too much. After recovering from my recent exertion, I helped hold the young man down until he, mercifully, passed out from the pain. The medical professionals stepped in once the procedure was finished. Lara wrapped a tourniquet on her patient’s arm as I dug through the duffel bags until I found a butane torch. Jasmine was unquestionably one of the strongest people I had ever met. She had acted quickly and done what needed to be done, but even she had her limits. The smell of burning flesh was too much for her as I began to cauterize Anthony’s stump with the torch. She threw her hand to her mouth, gagged and ran to the far end of the supply room. She had seen lots of damaged and rotting bodies since the start of the zombie outbreak, but it was different now that the mutilation had happened to the man she loved.

With the procedure complete, there was nothing for the three of us to do but wait. It was silent for a few minutes until the familiar zombie vocalizations started up from outside the room. We heard them clawing at the door, but there was no immediate threat of them breaking through our defenses. Another groan was added to the chorus shortly afterwards as Anthony started coming around. Unfortunately, I had no morphine to give him. He did his best to pretend that he was not in pain for Jasmine’s benefit. His girlfriend held onto his remaining hand while Lara and I observed our patient. A single bead of sweat ran down Anthony’s forehead. Lara and I exchanged concerned looks but said nothing as Jasmine engaged him in small talk. Within a few minutes his face was soaked with moisture. Lara put the back of her hand against his forehead, glanced at me and shook her head.

“No!” Jasmine snapped as she observed the subtle gesture. “It’s probably just a little fever. You’d be sweating too if you had just gone through an amputation without any anesthetic!”

Lara looked up at Jasmine sadly. “He’s burning up,” she explained in a whisper. “It didn’t work. The infection has spread.”

Anthony confirmed our worst fears a second later. Jasmine had to jump back as he turned his head to the side and vomited onto the floor. He moved his wounded arm towards his mouth, chuckled to himself as he looked at where his hand should have been, and then wiped the vomit away with his other hand. He locked eyes with Jasmine and tried to smile as her breathing quickened.

“It’s okay,” he whispered to her. “Like I said, the black guy always dies,” he tried to joke.

Jasmine looked up at me and Lara desperately and then back down to her boyfriend. “You’re going to be fine,” she lied to herself. “Lara and Nick know how to get the cure now, so we’ll—”

“Vaccine,” Anthony clarified. “And that’s months away at best. I’ll be dead in less than an hour,” he concluded. He winced after seeing the effect that his statement had on Jasmine. “I’m sorry, babe. I don’t want to turn into a zombie. Nick,” he said to me. “You should drain me. You need to eat.”

I smirked and shook my head at my young friend. My nerdy neighbor from Starside had come a long way in the last five years. Back then it would have been hard to ever picture him with a girlfriend, let alone one who he would sacrifice himself to save. He knew that his time was short, and he had every right to wallow in despair and fear. Instead he was spending his last moments worrying his friends.

“I appreciate the offer,” I responded. I paused for a moment and cleared my throat after my voice cracked. “But it’s too late for that. The viruses are already in your bloodstream, and feeding from you would lower your blood volume and speed up the transformation anyway. That’s why the people who get attacked turn into zombies so quickly,” I explained. I pulled a wooden stake out of my pocket and nodded to him. “I’ll make it quick. I promise.”

Jasmine took a few deep breaths and shook her head. “No, I should be the one to do it,” she demanded.

Anthony swung his uninjured arm over and grabbed his lover’s hand. “I don’t want you to,” he said. He glanced up at me and Lara. “Could you guys give us a minute?”

My granddaughter and I walked to the other end of the supply room, but the area was too small to give the couple any privacy. We turned our backs towards them and faced the wall as Anthony and Jasmine said goodbye to each other. I did not need my superior senses to hear every word they said. I have thoroughly documented my life in these five books, but I will not write the details of their conversation here. Those words were just for them.

I heard Jasmine lean in for one last kiss. After some prompting from the love of her life, she reluctantly broke away, walked over to where Lara and I were standing and tapped me on the shoulder. She was too distraught to say anything. It was difficult to see my tough best friend in so much pain. The whimpering noises that she made felt like a dagger in my stomach. Lara threw her arms around Jasmine and held her close while I returned to Anthony.

“I have one last request,” Anthony said with a smile as I knelt down next to him.

“Anything,” I replied.

“Who was the third person who you turned into a vampire?” my friend asked. “What’s Perry’s modern alias?”

I laughed and ran a hand over my face to wipe the tears away. Anthony had been bugging me for years to tell him the identity of the man in question. I had told him the story of how I had turned Perry Cooper into a vampire at the Battle of Gettysburg. Perry and I had eventually gone our separate ways after spending more than a decade hunting together. I promised him that I would never reveal his true identity, but I had made the mistake of telling Anthony that Perry was famous.

“Well, I guess the secret doesn’t really matter anymore now that the world has ended,” I tried to joke. “He actually chose the first name of his modern alias as a tribute to me. Perry Cooper became Nicholas Cage.”

Anthony squeaked in delight despite the pain. The infection had spread quickly, and he was now too weak to lift his head. He stared up at the ceiling and smiled. “Oh yeah. I had forgotten that internet rumor I read about him until now. So that’s why it never looks like he ages. And why he was able to make so many movies. He only needed two hours of sleep a night. He’s a workaholic just like you! Wait,” he continued suspiciously. “I saw him in movies out in the daylight long before Lara invented SPF 1000.”

“That’s the magic of Hollywood,” I explained. “He was actually indoors in a sound stage for all those scenes,” I said. I glanced at Jasmine, who was still embracing Lara, and lowered my voice before continuing. “It won’t be long before you turn. Are you ready?”

Anthony attempted to nod his head but he did not have the strength to move. “Yes,” he said confidently before closing his eyes. “Take care of Jasmine.”

I drove the wooden stake through Anthony’s heart. Tears flowed freely from my eyes after I completed the terrible task. He had not made so much as a whimper at the end, but Jasmine could tell that he was gone even though she had not witnessed the act. The wail she let out was far more disturbing to me than anything I had heard from the zombies. The three of us hugged and cried for a few minutes until the zombie vocalizations from outside the room increased sharply. The boxes we had used as a barricade started to shake as the undead struggled to get inside. I lugged the duffel bags and Oliver’s cat carrier up the ladder and deposited them in the abandoned news helicopter that was on the roof. I looked over the side and realized the extent of the siege for the first time. Thousand of zombies were in the parking lot and pouring into the mall. I returned to the ladder with a new sense of urgency and ordered my companions to join me. Jasmine was devastated, but she allowed Lara to escort her into the vehicle. My best friend sat in the front passenger’s seat, leaned her head back and closed her eyes as I got the helicopter started. It had been a while since I had flown that type of aircraft, but it did not take me long to figure out the controls.

“How much fuel do we have?” Lara asked from the back seat. She did not want to disturb Jasmine, but she had to yell to be heard over the noise from the helicopter.

I glanced down at the instrument panel. “Not much,” I responded.

Lara nodded her head absentmindedly. “All right.”

We lifted off and headed west towards the setting sun. I did not glance back at the Monroeville Mall as I piloted the helicopter. I had no need for the sentimental gesture despite my attachment to the structure. For the Black Friday zombies it had just been a building with merchandise in it, but to me it was so much more. It was a port in the storm, a home and the final resting place for my dear friend.