A Zombie Story
an excerpt

Chapter 1

"This isn't how I planned to start the day..." Parker spoke for the first time in an hour.

"I thought you knew," Mark remarked quietly.

"What gave you that idea?" David snapped back and seethed hard. The slippery wet gauze snapped over his arm, where a dusty-haired redhead was sitting next to him, trying to tighten it over the flow of blood coming from the wound in his arm. Mark didn't respond.

Parker slumped onto one of the crates in the dark room, leaning her shotgun up against the wall. They had spent the entire day trying to hunt down a spare generator after one of the farmers had lost power to his freezer, the fourth failed and considered reliable piece of machinery this year. Patrol parties such as theirs were only allowed out for two hours at a time, and always within radio distance. By the time they reached the radio's maximum limit, they'd come up with nothing. They were on their way back when they encountered the local dog pack, a group of feral dogs from Mapleville and a few surrounding towns that had been abandoned when many had fled to safer places. They'd always been careful to watch out for them, after they had gotten ahold of one of the local's dogs and had torn him to shreds. Parker wasn't sure if it had been because of the virus or whatever the hell they wanted to call it, or these dogs were just plain mean.

"Eh! Watch it there!" Parker jolted out of it to see David glaring at the redhead. It was strange to see such a small woman like Mary be completely unafraid of a man like David, maybe 6' 5", 6' 4", dark brown hair and eyes, and thick muscles that made several boys in this town jealous. Mary was the exact opposite: dusty-red hair, small frame, and skin that looked as pale as a cow's hide.

"Oh, stop yer whinin', David. It'll heal fine." Mary snerked back, giving the gauze around his arm a tug for good measure before getting up and making her way to the sink.

"I wasn't whining." David called back. When she didn't respond, David muttered under his breath, "Wouldn't have to if he didn't tell us earlier.."

Parker sighed.

"What the hell, David! I told you I thought you knew!" Mark almost-yelled back at the larger man. This time, all three of them looked at Mark, Mary with astonishment, Parker with suprise, and David with anger.

David stood up, knocking the crate he was sitting on back a few noisy inches. He cradled his arm, "What?! You're telling me I should've known we were being tailed by a group of fuckin' crazy ass dogs, when you fuckin' knew all along?"

"The scout group told you they had spotted the leader two days ago! You're supposed to be the god damn leader and protect us!" Mark growled back, hands clenched at his sides. "Or so says Henry." He scowled, looking away from David's now anger-contorted face.

David scoffed, and Parker shifted uncomfortably on the crate. Things were about to get ugly. "So thats what this is about, huh? You not gettin' picked to lead this group?" David took a few steps forward, and the burnished steel ends of his boots grating against the dirty floor. "You wanna lead then, Mister Kissass?"

"What the fuck --" Mark started, but David cut him off.

"No no no, don't think I don't know. I seen you sucking up to Henry and them, wantin' in on all the shit that they do. You think they're the leaders here? You think they give a shit about us? Well, they fuckin' don't, I can tell you that for sure. We're not from here, Mark. We're just another mouth to feed and they'd be better off without us. The only useful thing we do in their eyes is risk our asses off just to get them shit."

During his rant, David had pulled out the crushed and dead cell phone and threw it at the floor. "How many times have they sent us out of the safe zone to look for this shit? If there was a phone connection anywhere in this assbackwards town we would've found it by now!" He spat out, and glared at Mark. "You wanna be apart of that? You willin' to die for this?" He gestured to the crushed cell phone on the floor.

Mark had been known to make some rather inhuman-sounding noises, probably from his years from living on the farm and rounding up animals, but the hair on Parker's neck literally rose when Mark growled back at David, and began raising his fist. He didn't even make it past his shoulder before Mary had sprinted across to the room to stand between the two men, and Parker had leapt from the crate she was on to join her.

"Knock it off, both of you! You think fighting will solve anything?" Mary snapped at both of them, her arms outstretched between them. Parker was already inching towards Mark's side, although she was really unsure of whose side to go to.

"Mark seems to think so," David remarked, and Mark growled again.

"David, stop being such an asshole! Mark.. stop that creepy growling." Mary looked back and forth between them, and when she felt they had both finally stopped, she sighed and crossed her arms, chewing on her bottom lip. "If you guys have such a problem with who leads the groups or patrols or whatever, we'll take it back to town hall and figure it out there."

"I ain't trusting Henry or none of those old fools. None of them, you hear me?" David had already stepped away from the others, but he was still glaring.

"Who the hell do you trust?" Mark barked back, and David moved towards him again. This time Parker intervened, pushing David back.

"Hey what the fuck?"

"Shut up David and sit down." Parker said quietly, but with enough force in her voice to make David think twice. He didn't sit down, but he didn't try to push her away either. "Now, we gotta get out of here and head back anyways. They have to know we couldn't find a generator south of the safe zone, and that the dog pack is closer than they think."

"Good. You see, Parker has a head on her shoulders, why don't you two either? Weren't you all in the same class or something?" Mary asked, looking at them all one after the other. Mark uttered a small "Yeah," before wandering off to grab his rifle from the corner, while David merely grunted and walked off, probably to find something to make a sling out of for his arm. Mary and Parker's eyes met before Parker herself went to go grab her shotgun, not wanting to say anything. Four years was a long time, and for a while she had forgotten her ties to Mark or David, or really anyone in this town.

Mary sighed and shook her head. "Fine, be quiet. But she's right. We have to head back and tell them whats up. I don't want to treat any more wounds like yours," She nodded her head towards David, "than I have to."

As they all began packing up, which was not much other than their guns, ammo, some water and Mary's medical kit, Parker began to think of their trek up north, fleeing the massive slaughter that had consumed Winnipeg. How they had hauled everything they could into the back of Mark's pickup truck and fled the University of Manitoba's parking lot in three minutes flat. How they took turns sitting in the back and watching the stuff to sit in the cab to warm up. How she learned to fire a gun, how to shoot her first...

"Hey! Parker! Snap out of it, girl!" A hand began snapping its fingers in front of her face, and Parker followed the arm to Mary's face. "Are you with us here?" Mary offered a small smile, but Parker knew she had made a mistake, a bad mistake. Not paying attention could cost you your life, and there was no time for daydreaming now.

"Yeah, yeah.. I'm here." She nodded, and lifted her head up high, trying to get the most of the brisk wind. She hadn't even realized they had already left the small house-shack, a place that had now been abandoned that had probably held some tools and spare parts. The sky was a crisp, bright blue, and the sun was behind them, shining happily bright. Like it was ignorant of the world. And if she thought the sun cared, Parker would have screamed at it to go hide, to stop being so bright and sunny and ignorant of the world. She would've screamed at the sky and the wind for being so perfect, when the world wasn't perfect at all.

And thats when she noticed how quiet it was, how loudly David's steel-toed boots scratched against the worn pavement, Mark's boots thudding against the ground (angrily, she thought), and her's and Mary's sneakers scuffing. In fact, if it wasn't for their presence, one would think this was a ghost town. And maybe it is, Parker thought.

A bird took off from a tree in one of the backyards, its wide wings beating smacking loudly against the wind. Mark had whipped around at the first cracks of the tree, and by the time Parker had turned around, aiming her gun in every which direction, David sounded off, "Jesus Christ its just a bird..." But even he sounded winded.

The bird wheeled around a few times, cawing loudly (Or perhaps thats just because its so quiet... Parker mused) before being joined by another black bird, and then another. The three of them swarmed around in the air, almost looking like they were dancing mid-air. Parker kept looking back at them every so often as they made their way down the main road. A few leaves crumpled under her foot, and Parker startled and looked down at her feet, when the birds began shrieking, taking off in seperate directions. She went to cover her ears to block out their grating shrieks when she looked back down the road, maybe 80 feet away, was a young girl who came to a lurching halt. Parker would've thought that perhaps the kid was drunk, except that this girl couldn't be over twelve years old, and the dark stains running down the front of her bright pink windbreaker.

"Oh god.. ohshit oh shit.." She stood there for a moment, completely frozen in shock. The others had now stopped and turned to look, and Parker heard someone gasp and another let out a long winded swear. This couldn't be happening. But it was.

The little girl was watching back at them, and Parker was sure she even smirked, a bright red smile, before taking off a lurching run towards them, a hitching, gurgling growl coming from her throat. Parker fumbled for the trigger of the shotgun, her hands trembling madly. The girl was closing in, 70 feet, 60 feet, 55 feet, 40 feet... Before anyone had lifted up their guns, Parker had found the trigger, aimed and trying to keep her hand steady. The girl snarled and crouched, ready to leap, when Parker fired the shotgun. Her ears rang loudly, but it was the smattering squelch of brain matter and bone exploding that sounded the loudest. The corpse collapse to the ground, and blood began to pool around the small body.

Parker stood there in shock for a moment, before she heard someone throw up behind her. She fumbled around her waist, where a worker's belt had been buckled. She dove into the largest pocket, finding the object she wanted. A black, nondescript walkietalkie radio. She fumbled one-handedly with the buttons for a moment before finding the right one. The radio snapped to life and crackled through the air, and Parker cleared her voice before pressing one of the side buttons, and the static stopped. She had no idea what to even say, so she said the first thing that came to mind.

"G-Greg?" Come on Parker, keep it together, "Greg we got a problem." She let go of the button and static once again spurted out.

A few seconds later a young man's voice, still fresh yet having a soft country twang to it, flooded through. "Parker? Is that you? What'dya mean you got a problem?"

Click. "Its in... they got past. I don't know how but.. it got past."

"Are you sure Parker? I mean a hundred percent sure?" The voice almost barked back. But even Greg sounded wary.

"Yes, Greg, I'm sure." Parker paused, still holding the button. She was sure he could hear the wind, with Mary talking in the background with David on what they were going to do with the body.

"They're back."