HVZA (Book 1): Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse Read online

  H.V.Z.A.

  Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse

  Linda Zimmermann

  Eagle Press

  New York

  For more information, or to contact the author, go to:

  hvzombie.com

  Or write to:

  Linda Zimmermann

  P.O. Box 192

  Blooming Grove, NY 10914

  HVZA: Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse

  Copyright © 2012 Linda Zimmermann

  All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission.

  ISBN: 978-1-937174-16-3

  Chapter 1

  Phase 1: The First Signs: I really don’t have anything against zombies—some of my best friends are zombies. Literally. But I don’t need to tell that to anyone who’s not craving brain sushi, as everyone has friends and family members ranking among the countless undead these days.

  Not that what was left of the government didn’t try counting them. It’s just that the Official Zombie Census didn’t go too well—half the census-takers were eaten.

  But let me get to the point of this report: to leave some coherent account for future generations—if there are any—as to how this whole mess started and what the human race can do to avoid another zombie apocalypse.

  It all began in 2011, when a massive earthquake created a terrible tsunami that devastated Japan and triggered a nuclear disaster at the Fukushima power plant. Amidst the subsequent hysteria, someone asked that now famous question, “Would the leaking nuclear reactors create zombies?” Everyone laughed. Even the staff at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta had a good chuckle out of it. Then the CDC did something that surprised and delighted the public even further.

  Assistant Surgeon General Ali Khan saw that the stupid zombie question was getting more attention on the Internet than legitimate concerns about radiation, so he posted an article on his health blog, entitled, “Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse” which began with the following:

  “There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency.”

  Instead of the usual thousand or two hits for such preparedness guidelines, over one million people flooded the CDC website, causing it to temporarily crash. It was a brilliant way to inform the general public how to prepare for disasters such as floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc., and everyone congratulated the Assistant Surgeon General for being so clever and imaginative.

  Or was he?

  The truth was (as we found out after it was too late) that the CDC was well aware of several confidential Japanese reports of aberrant and violent behavior exhibited by people in eleven different countries who had eaten seafood contaminated by the radiation. The exportation of the tainted seafood was quickly halted and the reports referred to the victims as being “contained,” but there was some disturbingly ambivalent language as to whether these people had been deceased before or after the violent behavior. No other details were offered, but it was enough to raise a lot of red flags.

  Through unofficial channels, rumors leaked out that 23 people who had been pronounced dead, made seemingly miraculous comebacks, only they weren’t themselves after regaining consciousness. Actually, it was debatable whether or not they were truly conscious at all, as they were like automatons that did nothing but try to bite and claw anyone and everyone in reach. They were acting just like, well, like zombies.

  Everything was then quiet on the zombie front for almost a year, until the first cases surfaced in the United States, in Peekskill, New York, to be exact, although no one knew what to make of them at first. But before I chronicle the events of the worldwide apocalypse that brought civilization to its knees, I should let you know something about the chronicler—me, Rebecca Truesdale, a.k.a. “Becks” or “Trues” depending upon who you ask, although there are far too few people left these days to ask.

  “Shooting Roosevelts”: People today talk about their lives in terms of BZA and AZA—before and after the zombie apocalypse. There’s not a lot worth telling about my life BZA, but there are four things worth noting, things that helped keep me alive when the worst hit.

  I grew up in Nyack, New York, overlooking the beautiful Hudson River about 20 miles north of Manhattan. My parents, Grace and Harry Truesdale, adopted me when I was a baby. My birth parents were their best friends; importers who lived in California, who were killed in a car accident.

  Grace and Harry were antiques dealers with a shop just off Main Street, and some of my earliest memories are of buying trips. Several times a month we went down to the city and up to every small town on both sides of the river as far north as Albany. By the time I was in the fifth grade, I could probably have drawn a map of all of the highways and byways in the Hudson Valley that would have rivaled anything Rand McNally produced.

  We also had a small boat and would take excursions up and down the river on lazy, hot summer days, as well as crisp, autumn weekends when the rich foliage framed the river in brilliant colors. When I was in high school, I used to load my bicycle onto the boat, find some shoreline upriver near a road, then cycle through quaint villages, past stately mansions, and through rambling parks.

  In other words, I knew the river and the river towns like the back of my hand—knowledge which I’m sure must have saved my life more times than I can remember.

  The second thing that saved my bacon from being eaten by zombies was my medical training. I was a nurse at the hospital in Nyack, but had been attending medical school part time. In fact, I was within just a few months of graduating when the undead excrement hit the fan. Just my luck.

  As fate would also have it, I was particularly interested in tropical diseases and parasites. The interest arose after a spring break trip to Mexico, when I was in college. At the time, my agonizing bout with Montezuma’s Revenge did not seem fortuitous, but it did spark my research into those insidious little organisms that invade people’s intestines, lungs, eyes, nervous systems, and anything else they can sink their tiny teeth into.

  I became so fascinated by parasites that I took a second job in Westchester at a private research facility. It was a state-of-the-art lab called ParGenTech, and among its many projects was one trying to genetically alter certain parasites so they would lose their ability to infect human hosts.

  It’s hard to believe that after working my shift as a nurse, I would hop on the Tappan Zee Bridge to ParGenTech in Tarrytown, and somehow manage to fit in a class or two at Columbia medical school in Manhattan every semester. Where did I find the energy? Now, whenever I eliminate a few zombies, I am spent for the rest of the day, but I suppose I could chalk it up to stress—stress on an apocalyptic scale, that is.

  But I digress. The point is, working at ParGenTech was the second thing that helped keep me alive.

  The third thing was my ability to handle a gun. When I was 22, I went on one of my cycling excursions in the Saugerties area and met Cameron Everett. Tall, blond, deep blue eyes, and irresistible while shirtless and wearing a tool belt, the 24-year-old carpenter and part-time gunsmith fell for me as hard and fast as I fell for him. We were married just four months later, and it took only another nine months to realize that we had nothing in common.

  Our decision to divorce was as casual and amicable as if we were making dinner reservations. We parted as friends and were always there for one another to provide a shoulder to cry on during less amicable breakups with othe
r people. And at least once a year, we made a point of getting together again for a rousing session of “Shooting Roosevelts.”

  At least that’s what we called our shooting competitions, where instead of paper targets or tin cans, we used dimes. And yes, I do know that destroying U.S. currency is a crime, but given the almost complete lack of a federal government, I think it’s safe to make this confession now.

  When Cam and I met, I didn’t know a muzzle from a stock, but he wasn’t only a boy genius at building and repairing all manner of firearms, he boasted that he could shoot the eye out of FDR’s image on a dime at 50 paces. I took him at his word, dug a stray dime out of the dark recesses of my purse, and propped it up with a stone in front of a stump. We then counted out 50 paces and before I could say “now put up or shut up,” he quickly turned, raised his rifle to his cheek, and squeezed off a round in what all seemed like one impossibly fast, fluid motion.

  “You idiot,” I said to him. “You just lost a perfect chance to impress me by trying to show off. Nice job, Quickdraw.”

  “Are you so sure I missed?” he asked in that slow, paced cadence that I alternately found alluring and annoying. In this instance it was most definitely the latter.

  “Bet you dinner.”

  “Bet you anything you want,” he said with a smirk.

  “Okay, wise guy, let’s go see. I think I’ll have steak, lobster, and champagne for dinner.”

  As we approached the stump, I anxiously looked for a glint of sunlight off the dime, but as I got closer, a dark spot seemed to be in its place.

  “No freakin’ way…”

  My voice trailed off as I stuck my finger in the hole where the dime had been driven into the rotting wood. With Cam’s pocket knife and considerable effort I managed to pry out the mangled dime.

  “I think I’ll have steak, lobster, and champagne for dinner,” Cam said with his fists on his hips in a triumphant stance.

  “Well, technically you didn’t shoot out Roosevelt’s eye, but I suppose you deserve dinner for this. But there’s one condition.”

  “What’s that?” he asked with suspicion, thinking I would try to weasel out of the bet.

  “Teach me how to shoot like that!”

  It took a lot of practice, more than I care to admit, but in time I was shooting Roosevelts almost as good as Cam. And given the size comparison of a dime and a zombie’s head, my ability to ventilate a skull at great distances has literally been a lifesaver.

  The fourth and final thing to mention is that I was one of the million people who did read the Assistant Surgeon General’s “Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse,” and actually had enough food, water, fuel, and supplies stockpiled to survive the Great Quarantine.

  In the Beginning: I’ll never forget June 12, 2012 at 7:03pm. It was Tuesday, and I was working at ParGenTech after a long, tiring day at the hospital. The radio was on WFAN and I was waiting for the Mets game to start. My boss, Dr. Philip Masterson, (and yes, he hated being called Dr. Phil) came into my lab with an odd and troubled expression.

  “Oh hell, Phil, don’t tell me the layoffs are going down,” I said as my heart sank into my stomach. I needed every penny I made to pay for medical school.

  “What? No. No it isn’t that,” he replied in a complete state of distraction.

  “Then what—”

  “You have to go,” he blurted out before I could finish. “I mean, just for tonight. But don’t worry, you’ll get paid.”

  “What are you talking about? Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, it isn’t you. It’s…it’s a special project. Homeland Security, CDC, FEMA, very hush-hush,” he replied, bringing his index finger to his lips.

  “Now? Tonight? But I have all these samples to run—”

  “Please, Becks, just go. Now.”

  His expression was grave, and I feared the worst. Phil had a nervous tick that made his right eye blink when he was under extreme stress, and at that moment he was either flirting wildly with me or this was one major stress bomb that had just been detonated.

  “Is it bioterrorism?” I asked as a cold, sick feeling engulfed me.

  “No. I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know. They need our labs and some of our staff, and they want the rest of our personnel gone. You have five minutes to clean up and go. And please, you can’t say anything to anyone, or it will mean all of our jobs. ”

  There were several men in suits standing in the parking lot looking menacingly at the ParGenTech nightshift employees who were headed for their cars, as if to emphasize the point in no uncertain terms that the government would not appreciate anyone breathing a word about this. Of course, we wouldn’t have known what to say anyway, as we didn’t have any clue as to what was happening.

  I was scared. Scared of what, I didn’t know, but as I backed out of my parking spot, I caught a glimpse of two men in full biohazard suits pushing something onto the loading dock on the side of the building. I backed up a little further than I needed, to try to get a better look, but one of the suits trained his beady little eyes my way and I didn’t dare linger any longer. As I pulled forward, though, I shot another quick glance toward the loading dock.

  Was that a body bag on a stretcher they were wheeling in? My blood ran cold. I didn’t want to know. I turned on the Mets game on my radio and tried to forget what I had just seen.

  The Mets ended up beating the Phillies 7-4, so I was in a very good mood and had pretty much forgotten about the events at ParGenTech. Then just before going to bed, I made the mistake of switching on the local news channel.

  The lead story was about the murder spree that had been taking place in Peekskill. Eleven people had been brutally killed and their bodies had been savagely mutilated. Most of the victims had been from either Mexico or Guatemala, although one had been a mailman of Irish descent. The theory was that it was drug and gang related, with the poor mailman having been an innocent bystander caught at the wrong time in the wrong place. A suspect was supposedly in custody, although police wouldn’t release any details.

  A reporter was at the main crime scene, a deteriorating duplex in which an unspecified number of illegal aliens had been residing under deplorable conditions. The landlord wielded the threat of turning them over to the authorities, so the residents had no choice but to pay their rent and keep their mouths shut.

  I was just about to switch channels again when the reporter said that the terribly mutilated and decomposed state of the bodies posed a health risk, so the crime scene personnel were forced to wear biohazard suits to remove the remains.

  A brief video clip then showed several men in full biohazard gear pushing a stretcher with a body bag on it. My heart skipped a beat and a chill swept through me. Those were the men who had been at ParGenTech! These weren’t local crime scene investigators. Phil had said it was Homeland Security, FEMA, and the CDC.

  Why were the feds so interested in gang violence? Why was the CDC called in to remove murder victims? Was there an unknown pathogen involved? Was it bioterrorism? Could it be something else entirely, something for which no one was prepared?

  The First Wave: At work in the hospital the next day, I was tired from a restless night of frequently disturbed sleep. At first, I was relieved to see the text message from Phil that I would have the rest of the week off with pay, but then the realization hit home that whatever the situation was, it was serious—deadly serious.

  I immediately checked local news sites for other murders and was horrified to see that at least a dozen more remains had been found in Poughkeepsie and Haverstraw. They weren’t certain of the exact number yet as there weren’t much more than bones and hair left. Additionally, there were signs of teeth marks on the bones, and the official word was that ravenous packs of rats had scoured the flesh of the victims, leaving the true causes of death as yet unknown.

  In what was considered an unrelated event at the time, another headline was about a major accident involving a school bus and a SUV in Kingston. Many child
ren were injured, and the driver of the SUV (who had crossed two lanes of traffic and a double yellow line to collide head-on with the bus and drive it into a ditch) survived with just a few scrapes, but was incoherent and violent and had to be restrained at the scene. It was assumed that the man was driving under the influence. He most certainly was, as it turned out, but not under the influence of anything anyone had seen before.

  By Friday of that week, there were several dozen more reports of mutilated corpses, and nine more cases of “I&Vs” (incoherent and violent, as the media dubbed them) from Piermont up to Saratoga Springs. Authorities tried to blame a new illegal designer drug, like some super PCP, but most of the I&Vs didn’t fit the profile of exotic drug users. One woman in the small town of Catskill was a grandmother of six and a volunteer at a local museum. The only drug to touch her lips was the caffeine of her strong coffee she brewed for the church bake sales. Then there was the accountant from Marlboro, the architect from Kinderhook, and a 12-year-old Girl Scout from Albany.

  Another incident became a YouTube hit when someone at a supermarket in Yorktown took some video of a woman running amok in the dairy aisle. Witnesses claimed that one minute she was reading the labels of low-fat yogurts, the next she was sinking her teeth into the shoulder of the stock boy. National news channels such as Fox and CNN even ran a story about it, and the apparent epidemic of random violence sweeping the Hudson Valley.

  Subsequently, bottled water flew off the shelves, as did batteries, bread, milk, toilet paper, and ammunition of all calibers. Pop-Tarts were almost impossible to find; even the lame, generic store brands disappeared from supermarkets across the Hudson Valley. People started wearing surgical masks wherever they went. Gas stations ran dry and not a single generator could be found in any Lowe’s or Home Depot within 50 miles of the river. No one knew if the cause of the violence was drugs, bioterrorism, the water, the air, or Chinese or Russian mind control experiments, but they were going to make damn sure they were armed to the teeth and had a sufficient number of toaster pastries to make it through any crisis.