Dark Undead

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                                                                                            Dark Undead

Summary: The Hatcher siblings are lucky to have each other. They’re lucky to have their humanity. Hell, in the zombie apocalypse you’re lucky to be alive, and things are only getting worse. The military dominated camps funded by the superseded American government and the enclaves constructed by the leftovers of civilian society are clashing. Both want what the other has and neither are willing to compromise or relinquish power. Just when Regan decides it’s time to leave life on the road for one of the safe havens, her brother and sister are captured by each of the opposing forces and she’s thrust into a world in which she must confront the dark undead and much more sinister creatures. Who can she trust when everyone’s just looking out for number one? What will be her demise? The elaborate web of lies she spins to commission the help of two young men- a former gynecologist/marine and a Ford driving, jackass redneck? Or the teeth of a walking corpse? 
                                                                                           
                                                                                            Prologue

16 months ago…

It was a forty-five minute trip back and the inky black blanket of night had been pulled over the remains of a dying Tuesday. Lincoln had slipped into an easy slumber in the backseat and Kennedy rode shotgun. Her face was hid in the massive confines of her frizzy mop of chocolate brown curls, her ears were drowning in the hazardous sound waves of pumped up mp3 music. Reagan had just pulled off the highway and in her numbness forgotten to turn the Brights on. The dark pickup thundered obnoxiously as she guided it through the twists and turns of country back roads, trying her best to avoid the deep potholes and buckled areas of ancient pavement. The driver’s side window had come off its track and was rattling noisily inside the door. Needless to say, she just wanted to get home and go to bed. Her eyes were half lidded and her hair was matted against the front of the headrest. It started to drizzle.
   
She fumbled pointlessly with the radio; it had stopped working nearly a week after they had bought the truck. Reagan glared at the glowing yellow-orange check engine light in the dash with equal frustration. She vowed never to return to one of those cheap car lots again, they reeked of desperation and common lower middle class financial troubles. Her hand reached up to pat the plastic affectionately; the Dodge had character, she couldn’t hold Paul’s flaws against him, they were beyond his control. Yes, in spite of his defects she had assigned him both a name and gender.

Pasture and thick woods bordered the road. Reagan was fast approaching one of the tightest curves of the entire drive. She could see no opposing lights through the spattering of trees and detachedly gassed it around the corner. 

The next thirty seconds would prove to be the longest of her life.

She saw a form sprint out of the woods.

“Rea, watch out!” Kennedy’s warning was too late.

“Shit!” There was no time to break, and her hick parents had pounded it into her that ‘you never swerve for a deer’, then would jokingly add, ‘that’s dinner on the table’. It was her instinct to keep the wheel steady. She braced herself for impact.
She hit the animal with all the power of a 1500 Ram truck moving at a speed over fifty miles an hour. The kill grill in the front tore into the creature.

Blood sprayed the windshield and Kennedy screamed at the top of her lungs. She achieved a physically painful pitch and Reagan winced at the sound, her teeth grinding. Lincoln bolted upright. “What’s going on?”

Rea slammed on the breaks with both feet; the truck threw gravel as it skidded to a halt, its own weight carrying it almost twice distance of what a car’s would in the same situation.

Their heads jerked back and they were quiet for a moment, the engine humming comfortingly in the silence. Moments slithered by as tensed muscles relaxed.

“Is that blood?” Lincoln eyed the dash, horrified.

Reagan swallowed audibly and nodded. “I didn’t see it. It came out of nowhere.” Her pulse hammered a maniacal beat in her limbs. 

She looked over at Kennedy who was frozen in her seat, chest heaving; her mouth hung open in terror. “It was just a deer. Calm down.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and moved to open the door.

Kennedy clutched at Reagan’s arm suddenly, pulling her across the console. Her face was ridged, her lips pulled tightly over her gums. “That wasn’t a deer.” Her breathing had quickened considerably in pace.

Rea freed herself of her sister’s tight grip. “Yes it was. Maybe it was a buck.” Again, she reached for the handle.

“Don’t go out there!” Kennedy was shrieking now, and her ridiculous behavior was starting to piss Reagan off. “That was a person!”

Rea’s brows shot up into her hairline, her heart skipped a beat in her chest. “What?” Kennedy must have been joking. Strangely, it infuriated Reagan that her sibling would suggest something so heinous. As if she were incapable of committing such a crime be it her fault or not.

Lincoln launched himself into a full-fledged panic attack in the back. “What? No, it couldn’t have been. Oh my God. There’s no way. That couldn’t have been a person! Who in their right mind would run into the middle of the road like that? And at night! If they hadn’t seen the truck they should have at least heard it!” He pawed at his face anxiously. “Was it a person Reagan?”

She shook her head with the conviction of an innocent being prosecuted for murder. “Of course not!” She clutched at the steering wheel and stared out the dash, her mind reeling. “At least, I don’t think so.” Why did time seem like it was ticking by three times faster than usual?

“That’s a lot of blood.”

She snapped at him. “Thanks for pointing out the obvious Lincoln!”

Kennedy curled into her seat. “I swear that was a person.” She covered her eyes with her hands. “I swear it was.”

The blood began to run down the glass in rivulets, cutting miniscule rivers through a thin layer of dust as the rain beat down in heavier sheets. Mechanically, Reagan turned on the wipers, studying their hypnotic back and forth motion.

She started shaking and Reagan turned, searching through the back windshield. “I’ll go check on it.”

Both jumped at her. “No!” “You can’t go out there!” “Let’s just leave, please?”

Her gaze switched between the two, fear spoiling her soul. “Okay, just calm down. Please? You guys are making me nervous. If it’s still alive we need to put it out of its misery.” Because she knew it was a deer.

Yet, if she were so sure, why did she settle for rolling down the window? Which she would later deem a bad idea given it took forever to get the infernal thing back up. The wind rushed into the interior of the vehicle and Reagan thought the faintest scent of death rode on its back. She ignored the shivers that racked her body and leaned out into the night. She could hear the swell of a muddy stream in the distance.

“Hello?” She was greeted with silence. “Is someone there?” The droplets of water felt like ice on her hot skin.

Lincoln hovered. “If that was a person, I don’t think they’d be able to answer you now.”

Anger contorted her features and he shrank away. She pressed on the break and switched to reverse. They drove back about a hundred feet before Lincoln yelled for her to stop. They were all still for a minute or so before Reagan fumbled through the glove compartment for the flashlight and stepped out onto the road. The rain seeped into her clothes and wet her braid. She peered through the shower with her eyes squinted. The brake lights illuminated a pile of… something, in a ghoulish red hue. Her hands shook horribly and her skin began to secrete sweat despite the cool evening temperature. “Hello?”

She prayed there would be no reply. Her teeth gnawed at her bottom lip. Maybe she should be hoping for the opposite. She wasn’t so certain.

She turned her light onto the animal.

It was no animal. 

She stumbled back, whimpering. “Oh my God. Oh my God.” Her words jumbled together into incoherent gibberish.

What was left of the body was mangled and crooked. It was all wrong. There were extremities strewn about the place and she felt bile rise in her throat at the sight of a severed gray hand. God, the smell. It smelled like a rotting coon that one of the dogs had drug out of the woods, one that had been left in a clearing to boil in the sun for days. Reagan heard Lincoln freaking out in the truck, Kennedy would start screaming again any second.

The light danced about the road and something glowed in its rays. Eyes? Eyes. She felt the bumper of the pickup digging into the tops of her thighs. It was a head. It blinked. Reagan screamed her ass off. Lincoln screamed. Kennedy screamed.

If it hadn’t been so damn petrifying Reagan would have been laughing at the scene they had created.

Then it moved. No! It couldn’t have just done that. She was clawing her way backwards into the bed of the truck, hiding behind the tailgate like a soldier behind a barrier constructed of sand bags; the flashlight fell from her grasp. She hopped over the edge of the bed and hit the ground running. Of course her door had to be locked. She slammed her fist against the window, one eye on whatever the Hell that devil creature was. It was moaning now, and it freaked her the fuck out.

“KENNEDY! Open the damn door! Unlock it!”

Kennedy was groping at it, her fear making her movements stupid. “HURRY!”

“I’m trying!”

Lincoln crowded her, both grappling to loosen the door.

Rea heard the lock pop open and hurled herself into the cab. She leaned out to look at the head one last time. It considered her, mouth open, and then yowled like a jungle cat. She screamed. It screamed back. She pulled the door shut and accidently threw Paul into reverse, her lead foot sent them flying backward with the vehemence of the Dutchman’s ship on the heels of Jack Sparrow. Lincoln and Kennedy were still screaming their brains out while Reagan was probably smashing them out of whatever Hellish being had thrown itself onto her vehicle.

She felt a strange confidence build in her whenever she drove Paul. He was large and heavy, it made her feel like she was driving a tank; she was practically invincible at the wheel. Definitely untouchable. She wasn’t so cowardly now.

She heard the crunch of organs and bones, felt the truck lift as it ran over the fleshy speed bump.

“You just ran over him Reagan! What the Hell is wrong with you?” She had neither the time nor the patience to bite back at Lincoln’s protests. He wouldn’t understand anyway, clearly he hadn’t heard what she had.

They were now behind it, the front lights gleaming pink as they shone into the mist of blood. They were speechless as they watched the thing drag itself toward them. “What the fuck?” Rea breathed the words, her tone filled with wonder.

Kennedy was slapping at air, clawing at invisible molecules with her fingernails, words straining to escape. “G- ge- GO!”

Reagan’s fingers flexed around the wheel, her knuckles turning white as she jerked the gear shift into drive. Paul’s Magnum V8 engine roared as she put the gas pedal to the floor; tires screeched against the pavement, his RPMs climbed to three thousand at the sudden and cruel demand for so much acceleration.

This time she swerved around the body, putting so much distance between it and Paul that they ended up off the shoulder. Branches and twigs grabbed at the truck as she maneuvered it back onto 390 road.

“Oh my God,” Lincoln was squishing his face in between his hands. “Is that legal? Isn’t that a hit and run? You could go to jail! Should we call the cops? It’s not your fault though, he was- he was jay walking! And not to mention- alive, when he should have been dead!”

All of Reagan’s blood had drained into her butt. If driving weren’t partially occupying her mind she would be hyperventilating. She just killed someone. Or did she? He- or she- whatever it was, was still alive. She tried to help. Hadn’t she? She was going to! But it was coming at her, like a- like a-

“Was that a zombie?” Kennedy’s voice sounded meek, the cord to her headphones was tangled in her pale fingers.

Reagan’s eyes flew wide open, “That’s what I was just thinking. At least, I thought that was the way it was acting.” ‘He’ or ‘she’ had become an ‘it’. It couldn’t have been a zombie though. “Zombies aren’t real. Even if they were, wouldn’t there be like and epidemic or plague of some kind? It would be on national news. Besides, zombies are fiction; human biology wouldn’t allow someone who’s dead to keep walking. That’s just stupid.”

“How would we know about something like that even it was on the news? We watch cartoons and reruns of George Lopez! Not CNN!” Lincoln was practically sitting between his sisters on the center console, “Remember a while back some guy got high on flower juice? He attacked a homeless man and tried to eat him, everyone was talking about a zombie apocalypse. Do you think that’s what happened,” He looked back. “To that guy, I mean? Maybe he was on drugs too.”

Reagan scowled. “People don’t do that stuff around here, Lincoln. Good folks live in these parts. Farmers. Ranchers.”

“Maybe he was just some doped out party kid?”

Kennedy’s teeth chattered. “Why was it moving? Why was it making noises after what had happened to it?”

Rae zoomed through the trees and intersections and ran three stop signs, not a single pair of headlights confronting them the way back. She kept flicking her eyes up to the rear view mirror, expecting red and blue lights to come racing down one of the multiple hills. Her heart was beating in her neck, her blood felt thick like pudding.  Her head was pounding.

“Maybe it was like the reaction a chicken has when its head is popped off? You know, they can still run around and flap their wings and shit.”

“Oh my God, I need a minute.” Reagan slowed to a stop on the shoulder, half-parking it in the ditch. Her body was trembling from the aftershock of such a powerful adrenaline rush. Lincoln and Kennedy observed her mutely, waiting for her to console them. Despite the fact that she was the middle child, and that Lincoln was three years older than her, she was the most mature of the trio. She was the only one to graduate high school, the only one going to college. They admired her ambition and were often dependent upon her maternal nature. She knew that no matter what she decided, they would trust her judgment. 

She pressed her fingers to her temples, her left elbow resting on the padded arm rest. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly against the visions bombarding her.

“Okay,” Her shaky voice betrayed the confidence she was hoping to convey. “We’re not telling anyone.”

“What?” Kennedy’s eyes were wide in her skull, Lincoln hung his head.

Reagan’s tone sharpened, “No one saw us. It’s like one in the morning. If we can get home without anybody seeing the pickup we should be fine.” She chewed the inside of her cheek fearfully. “No one would believe us if we told them what happened.” She whispered that last part to herself.

“Reagan,” Lincoln tried to reason. “In every detective movie or TV crime show you’ve ever seen lying is what gets people in trouble.”

“It’s not lying!” She gently tapped Kennedy’s knee. “It’s not. If somebody says, ‘Hey, did you run over somebody with your truck last night?’ and you say ‘No, I certainly did not!’ then that’s a lie. As long as no one asks us that question then we’re simply… keeping a secret.” She didn’t believe herself. “It’s our burden to bear.”

Reagan’s siblings exchanged wary glances and then scrutinized her with doubtful expressions. She thought killing someone, or something rather, would have affected her more severely; the guilt was intense, but her fear had subsided and been replaced with unyielding fervor to protect her own interests. How could she have been so selfish?

“We didn’t kill anyone. Okay?” They nodded in understanding and she sensed the sincerity in their gestures. “We killed a something. Whatever that was, it chose to run into the middle of the road like a lunatic. It was an accident.”

Kennedy looked behind her, out the window. “Then why aren’t we telling anyone?”

Reagan didn’t have a decent answer for her sister, or for herself. “It’s- it just seems like the safe thing for now.”

Lincoln gulped and braced himself against the seats, his hands kneading the headrests. “What was it?”

Her head shook of its own accord. “I don’t know, but it wasn’t human.”

That thing had exploded against the grill like a water balloon. It was like a rock going through a sheet of wet generic toilet paper. Even though the truck was traveling at such a high velocity, should the state of that thing’s body been so weak? She’d never heard of such gore. It was something off a Hollywood film set.

Reagan leaned out the window and spewed half-digested popcorn and chocolate.

That night, the Hatcher siblings promised one another  they would never breath a word of their encounter with ‘it’ again; not to each other or anyone else. They drove home in silence; when they entered the house and their mom asked about the movie, they told her it was worth the money- that they might even go see it again. They slept in the living room together like they had when they were little kids. For months they would drown in their remorse. The truth would push against their lips, threatening to break loose of the feeble bonds they had ensnared it in. For months they would share knowing glances. They would think they were crazy. They would think it was the devil. They would consider the most absurd explanations for the accident. Was it a prank? Was it… a zombie? Their lie would prove an excusable negligence in the near future. In fact, Reagan’s actions would be considered heroic, necessary even. She would need all the experience she could get in the sport of killing the undead.

A/N: So this is a short prologue. My chapters usually range from 5,000 to 9,000 words long. Give me an idea of what kind of word count you like so I can moderate myself a bit!