The Nidus Initiative: Chapter 3

  Brewster Sutton woke up in a park about a block from where he lived.  He was sitting on a bench and there was the headless body of a man face down in a pool of blood in the dirt at his feet.  He recoiled at the sight and dry heaved a few times before getting control of himself.  He wiped spittle off his mouth, but gagged again when he saw that there was blood all over his hands.  He looked around the park for anyone or anything else.  The man's head was behind the bench.  Brewster recognized him as a homeless man who slept in the park.  He felt bad that he didn't even know his name.
  He pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.  There was no answer.  He dragged the body, weighing eight pounds lighter, behind a bush and put his jacket over it.  Brewster was still quite disoriented.  He had no recollection of how he came to be at the park.  He didn't know what happened to the homeless guy.  As a matter of fact, the last thing he remembered was putting his son to bed and lying down in his own bed.  Then something clicked into place inside him.  He had left little Oliver at home all alone.
  Brewster began to make his way out of the park.  As he made it to the street, he noticed smoke coming from a house down the road.  There were several cars on the road at odd angles.  Some had shattered windshields.  Some had blood all over them.  Off in the distance, he heard a dog bark.  He also noticed several dead bodies lying on sidewalks and in the street.  There was a growing sense of dread in the pit of his stomach.  He needed to get back home to his baby.
  He broke into a sprint and was about half-way there when he was attacked.  A crazed man ran from between two houses and tackled Brewster painfully on the asphalt.  It was the father of a classmate of Oliver's.  Brewster punched him in the side repeatedly until his grip loosened, then he grabbed his pants and offset his balance, causing him to fall face down.  When the man made to get up, Brewster kicked him in the side and the man stayed down.  Now the coast was clear.  Brewster ran into his front door and into his son's room.  The bloody mattress told him all he needed to know, except where his son's body was.

The Nidus Initiative: Chapter 2

  Schmidtke and Svetlana Dombrowski were watching television in their living room when they started hearing loud noises from outside.  There was the sound of people running.  People were screaming.  Somewhere in the distance there was a siren.  The closest sound was some screeching tires and the next thing they knew, a car came crashing through the living room wall.
  Svetlana was knocked off the couch by the motion of the car smashing into it.  Schmidtke jumped out of his seat and rushed to his wife's aid.  She was momentarily disoriented, but not physically damaged.  The person in the car opened his door and was immediately set upon by a deranged attacker.  Schmidtke shielded his wife's eyes as he witnessed in horror the bloody barrage of biting and clawing.  Within seconds, the unfortunate driver was reduced to a quivering mass of gore and torn flesh.
  Schmidtke grabbed a coffee table book full of photographs of nebulae and used it as a baseball bat to the head of the silent attacker.  This stunned him for a moment and he fell to the floor groggily.  Schmidtke  used this temporary upper hand to find a better weapon in the kitchen.  The carving knife was an excellent choice.  Just then, he heard a scuffle in the living room.
  He went back out there.  The attacker had regained full mobility and was attacking his wife.  Schmidtke went in for the kill, slashing at the attacker's exposed back.  One well-placed thrust sunk the blade between the ribs and into the heart.  Instant kill.  The attacker fell to the floor motionless.  Svetlana had her hands clenching her throat.  Even applying pressure, jettisons of blood were shooting out between her fingers.  Schmidtke grabbed the phone and dialed 911.  He got a busy signal.
  Meanwhile, the bleeding was slowing.  This was not a good thing.  It was not an indication that the wound was clotting, it was a sign that her heart was failing.  The large puddles of darkening liquid stood in silent testimony to his dying wife.  Schmidtke never got through to the police.  Whatever was going on out there was bigger than he knew.  In his den was a glass display containing a shotgun and several cases of shells.  He grabbed those and loaded up.  If the police weren't going to help him, it was time to take matters into his own hands.

The Nidus Initiative: Chapter 1

  It was a nightmare.  Brewster Sutton had put his child to bed only minutes before.  He had tucked his son Oliver into bed and was just sitting at his laptop to maintain his online import/export business when the boy charged him from out of nowhere.  Brewster was a single father and his relationship with his only child was a good one so this vicious attack seemed out of the ordinary.  Five-year-old Oliver was being truly savage.  He seemed as if he was really trying to hurt Brewster with his fingernails and teeth.
  Brewster had little trouble in neutralizing the threat by wrapping his son in a bear hug, but Oliver was still trying to scratch or bite anything in reach.  Brewster was able to see his son's eyes.  They were moving around rapidly.  Was this an indication that Oliver was asleep?  So was this just a particularly horrific episode of somnambulism?
  Oliver was allergic to bees and so he had an epinephrine kit.  Brewster made his way to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, dragging his son along kicking and screaming.  He lay his son down and straddled him, pinning him to the floor.  He prepared the hypodermic needle and carefully injected his son in the leg.  After a moment, the struggling abated and Brewster cautiously eased off his son.
  Oliver was now calm, though confused.  "Daddy, how did I get in the bathroom?"
  Brewster sighed.  "I don't know, Pooper.  You were sleep walking and daddy woke you up."  Oliver still didn't understand and neither did Brewster.
  Brewster was shaken up by the episode and knew he wouldn't get any work done that night.  He also knew Oliver wouldn't be able to sleep for a while after the injection so he set him up with a movie to watch in the living room and he went to his bedroom to get some sleep so that he could make up for lost work time in the morning.  Quickly, he drifted off to sleep.  It was a nightmare.

The Greater Number 3: The Simian Connection part 9

  All over the world, Sasquatch of all shapes, colors and sizes worked together to help rid the planet of the living dead.  Humanity, though not perfect, was capable of love.  The living dead were soulless and gave nothing while destroying everything in their paths.  There was no love or hate within the undead.  They merely killed and ate the flesh of human beings.  Humans, who were often destructive, nevertheless, were a part of Earth's ecology.  They did not deserve to die such meaningless and unnatural deaths.  The undead were an abomination.  Ironically, many of the Sasquatch had been called 'Abominable' by the humans.  The Sasquatch, being pure of heart, were not ones to hold a grudge.  In protecting humanity, they were protecting the planet.
  On top of having legendary big feet, they also have big hands.  They could palm an undead head like a basketball and remove it from undead shoulders like pulling weeds.  They could pull undead arms out of their sockets without the prerequisite loss of a chess game provocation.  They had strength, speed and agility on their side.  The undead were always the greater number.
  On occasion, a large group of the living dead was able to take down a Sasquatch, but he would usually take down a few of the dead with him even while they were ripping his flesh to shreds.  Fighting to the end is how they went out.  Not a single one died a coward.
  The Hand of Karma had grown in ranks to number in the thousands.  They had followed Hadji to Oregon.  They were expecting another improvised safe haven to lay siege to, but instead stood witness to a large scale war between creatures they had only read about in books and monsters they had only seen in nightmares.  What was the true prize to be won here?  Why had their leader brought them to this bloody battlefield?  He spoke of the evils of humanity, but not a single living human being was in sight.
  As the battle raged on all about them, many became fearful for their lives.  They were accustomed to having the upper hand in every situation.  Lately, their leader didn't seem to have any aim or direction.  It was every person for themselves.  Even with all the bloodshed going on, it was noticed that the large furry humanoids never attacked the living.  The living were very grateful for that.
  Once in Oregon, Hadji had his followers set up his usual podium and microphone.  He gave his usual spiel about how humanity was destroying this planet.  The only difference now was that no one was listening.  What humanity was he talking about?  All anyone could see were bigfoot and zombies.  His followers were the only living human beings to be seen anywhere.  That was about to change.
  One day, while Hadji was on his soap box, a man came with a microphone of his own.
  Darion brought the microphone to his mouth and addressed the crowd.  "Hand of Karma, I know you must be confused.  You were probably told that there was a military base full of people here for you to take your anger out on.  Where are those people?  I tell you, they are already dead.  The zombies took care of them days ago.  All you have here are and army of Sasquatch fighting a horde of the undead."
  Many from the crowd were nodding their heads.  This was what they were noticing.  This man seemed to know what he was talking about.
  Darion continued.  "Who I am is of no consequence.  I will tell you this, though.  This army of Sasquatch is fighting for you.  Up until now you have been fighting against an enemy that was not an enemy.  I will tell you who your true enemy is.  It is these hordes of the undead that you have been travelling with."
  He let that sink in for a moment and looked around at the crowd.  They seemed more scared than hateful or angry.  Most of them had probably lost friends and family to this cause they thought they were fighting for.  "I tell you now that some time tomorrow, the rays from a distant supernova will reach the earth.  The consequences of this will be that the zombies will become intelligent."
  He began to see fear in earnest in the eyes of a few at first, then more.  "Imagine with how dangerous they are as mindless, eating machines.  Now add to that a mind that can plan and make strategy.  How long do you think it will be before we are being bred like cattle?  They are the greater number."
  Darion could see that people were listening.  "While there are still friends and family out there, let us stand together.  While there is still love out there, let us fight together.  Let us unite against a soulless, flesh-hungry enemy who doesn't care if you are good or bad.  Who doesn't care if you go to church, get straight A's, pay your taxes or floss your teeth."
  Hadji in a rage, grabbed a sword and stood facing at Darion.  A nearby Sasquatch stopped its struggle with a zombie to see if he could help his king.  The zombie lurched over to where Hadji was holding the sword above his head.  It grabbed his arm and took a nice chunk out of his wrist, causing him to drop his sword.  Once Hadji had fallen to the ground in agony, the zombie crouched over him and ripped out his throat.
  The fake that they had been following was gone.  They had the same cause, but a new enemy to fight.  A cry rose up amongst the crowd.  Cheers arose and tears were shed.  Most already had weapons.  These very weapons had taken human lives.  They were used for this purpose no longer and were now utilized on the walking dead.  The fighting went well into the night.
  As the sun rose the next morning, there were not many undead left.  Battle weary, but proud from victory, the Sasquatch and the people destroyed what was left of the zombie masses.  Measures were taken to prevent another outbreak.  The Shangri helped in that effort, as well as in the rebuilding that took place in the wake of the worst destruction anyone had ever seen.
  Edger and Cyril Holts, Father Mucker and Liam Moor decided to move to Shangri La permanently.  Darion Morris, the 32nd king of Shangri La performed the ceremony to marry Julianne Davenport and Beau Ottoman.  All the bride's maids were blue.  A space craft whizzed them off to their honeymoon afterward.
  Yorren and his family moved back north to the Washington area.  Awoona is now pregnant again and Rahrah can't wait to have a brand new Sasquatch brother or sister!
  The Ng and Fen-Chang families moved back to Marble Cliffs, Arizona.  The first thing Hewlett did when he got back into town was to lay some flowers on the grave of Sierra Dophlet.

                                                                        THE END

The Greater Number 3: The Simian Connection part 8

  Mbu and Hewlett looked at the shiny spacecraft that had just landed in a clearing in the forest.  "Boy, where was this thing when Helen kept yammering on about how we were supposed to lead her to the heavens?  Now I've seen every...Holy Krizmak!  It's a blue guy!" exclaimed Mbu.
  Yorren stepped forward and greeted the Shangri that had flown Darion and the other humans to Oregon from Shangri La.  No one else on board the space craft was exiting.
  Father Ng called into the hovering shiny disc, "Father Fen-Chang.  There's someone out here I'm sure you'll be happy to see!"  Not even a fraction of a second elapsed before Father Fen-Chang stepped off the ramp and gave Hewlett a huge bear hug.  He greeted Father Ng and his family afterward.
  Cautiously, the rest of the humans got off the craft and there were introductions all around.
  Cyril walked up to Darion and looked him in the eye.  "The big guy over there is named Yorren.  He's the leader of a tribe of Sasquatch from this region.  He's asked me to talk to you."
  Darion looked from her to the Sasquatch and back to her.  "Sure, I'll talk to him."
  "Well, unless you speak Sasquatch, you'd best talk to me."
  "It's a long story, but I can hear him too.  No, I don't speak Sasquatch, but I understand his thoughts just as if they were my own."  Cyril shrugged and went to sit by her father.  Darion walked over to Yorren and communicated with him through his thoughts.
  "The girl said you wanted to talk to me," he opened with.
  "I am Yorren and I serve the king."
  "I appreciate that."
  "I have foot soldiers who tell me that the group of the dead is almost here.  Also, the man who leads them is on his way.  There are many humans with him."
  "You have an army?"
  "We are many and we serve the king."
  Darion knew that there would be fighting, but he recalled the words of Shwama Po.  He knew that there was a time for fighting and a time for loving.  He turned to Yorren.  "I need you to destroy the army of the dead.  Do not harm the humans."
  Yorren was able to communicate with his brave brothers and sisters around the world through his mind.  His orders were to kill the dead and leave the living unharmed.  With those words, began a massive worldwide ground battle between the Sasquatch and the hordes of the undead.
  The humans were led to the cave where they would be safe until the Hand of Karma arrived.

The Greater Number 3: The Simian Connection part 7

  On the third night, Darion wanted to know one thing: were there more than just two sixth days?  "Good evening, Alien Formerly Known As King."
  "Your majesty, this is the last night you will be here at Shangri La."
  "Oh yes, I remember.  Then it's off to defeat the bad guys."
  Shwama Po chuckled.  "But before you go, you must be properly armed."
  "Armed?!  What, you guys got a bunch of guns up in here?"
  "Knowledge is your first weapon.  You wanted to know if there were any other sixth days.  The answer to that is 'Not yet'.  As you may recall, on the first sixth day, my planet received intelligence.  On the second sixth day, your planet received intelligence.  Six days from now, the rays of a third supernova will reach us here.  What will happen then is that the zombies will gain intelligence."
  Darion's jaw dropped.  "An intelligent army of flesh-hungry undead.  My Lord."
  "These are very dark times.  There have been prophecies in every culture about this.  The third sixth day makes 666, the number of the beast.  It is also the number of man."
  "What can we do?"
  "As I said earlier, knowledge is your first weapon.  Now that you know, you must arm yourself fully.  Have you figured out the riddle of the gate?"
  "You mean the 'Love is all good people need'?  How does that help?"
  "Do you notice anything that seems to rankle or irk you about that statement?"
  Darion wrung his hands.  "I don't know.  The word 'good' in there seems to be a judgment, whereas true love is unconditional."
  "Your on the right track."
  "So what it should say is 'Love is all people need'."
  "And why is that?"
  "Because we are all equal in the eyes of God.  We are all one."
  "You have answered the riddle."
  "We are all one is the answer?  And now I'm ready to fight zombies?  And Hadji?  And Hand of Karma?"
  "If fighting will bring about love, then fight.  If loving will bring about love, then love."
  The next day, Darion, Father Fen-Chang, Father Mucker, Julianne, Beau and Liam got ready to travel to America where they would face off against the Hand of Karma.  The Shangri led them to what looked like a hangar for an airplane.  In the center of the hangar was a large silver disc.
  Liam tugged on Darion's sleeve.  "Your royaltiness.  That looks like a UFO to me."
  Darion turned to Liam.  "Yes, I had noticed that.  I guess since these are aliens from another planet, the assumption is that they had to get here somehow.  Most likely, it was not on foot, so this transportation we see before us seems the logical deduction."
  Liam let go of his sleeve.  "A simple 'No duh' would have sufficed."
  Darion led the procession up the on ramp to board the space craft.  The seats were spacious and comfy.  Inertial dampers kept them from feeling the movement of the flight.  Before they knew it, the doors opened up to reveal a forest in southern Oregon.  There was a welcoming committee there to greet them as well.

The Greater Number 3: The Simian Connection part 6

  "So you brought us here?" asked Hewlett.
  "No, in a way, you brought me here," intoned Cyril, acting as a translator between Sasquatch and human.
  "I was just trying to escape Hadji and the Hand of Karma."
  "He is not our greatest enemy right now."  Boy that was a hell of a bombshell to drop at this point in the game.  No one spoke for a while.
  Finally, after the news had some time to sink in, Father Ng asked, "So if Hadji isn't our greatest enemy right now, who is?  Why haven't we heard of any additional threat?"
  "I will tell you in good time.  For now, let me tell you about Hadji.  He has lost his lover and his daughter, but he has not properly grieved for them.  Grieving is a process with several stages.  He has not gotten past the stage of anger.  It is this anger which has attracted many other people who, for whatever reason, have a lot of anger in themselves as well.  He has been leading them like a pack.  The people follow him because he allows them to finally express their pent-up anger.  Zombies don't hate, they're just hungry.  The zombies follow him because he leads them to fresh meat."
  "If zombies don't hate, why do they always put on their mean mug when they're attacking?" asked Mbu.
  Cyril continued the story that Rahrah was relating to the group as if she hadn't heard Mbu's little remark.  "You see, so far, Hadji has been acting in the interest of his pack.  But recently, he has led the Hand of Karma into battles with my kind.  What you call, Sasquatch.  And we are quite adept and defeating them with our superior strength and agility."  Hewlett and Mbu high-fived each other.
  "What this is beginning to show the Hand of Karma is that Hadji is no longer acting in their best interests.  Perhaps he never was.  When they see that, they will stop following him.  These people are merely looking for relevance in this world.  They want an identity that is not solely based on negatives.  They will not find that through him.  There are only two emotions: love and fear.  Everything else is just an offshoot of one of those along a spectrum."
  "Hadji's anger is just his fear," interjected Enma.
  Cyril turned to face Enma.  "Yes.  Love and hate are both choices.  Affection, romance, infatuation are all emotions which will eventually pass. That's why love can be forever because our choices are the only things that change destiny."
  "So what's this greater enemy that you spoke of?" asked Father Ng.
  "There has been a supernova years before in a system very distant.  Its rays will be reaching us soon.  I can't explain to you how, but that will bring with it the power to give intelligence to the zombies."

The Greater Number 3: The Simian Connection part 5

  All day, Darion was seeing little shadows all over the place.  He also saw figures that were more humanoid in form, yet not quite human.  He took some time to fall asleep that night because he kept jumping at every shadow.  Eventually, when sleep did come, Shwama Po returned, just as Darion hoped he would.  He had some questions for the former king of Shangri La.
  "Mr. king, I've been wondering something," Darion came out with.
  "I am no longer king, you are.  With what have you been laden?"
  "Well, I've been seeing all kinds of shadows and shapes all day.  Is that just a part of the Shangri La experience?  The others don't seem to see what I see, so I guess not, but what's up?"
  "That is a part of the Guardian Heart experience.  You are now connected to the world of the wild.  The shadows you see are the spirits of members of your family."
  "My family?  My parents are both still alive.  Who are you talking about?"
  "Think on the larger scale.  Cro Magnon, Neanderthal, chimpanzee, Sasquatch, yeti."
  "Well I'll be a monkey's uncle.  I'm seeing cave man ghosts?  Bigfoot?  How come I never saw that stuff before?  What does this heart transplant have to do with this?"
  "Most humans do not see the spirits of the wild.  After childhood, most are pure enough of heart.  You have literally become more pure of heart with this transplant."
  "What do you mean pure?"
  "I mean in touch with the spirit world, like humans were before they gained intelligence.  As primates you were more pure of spirit and sensitive to the world of spirit and the divine, the unseen world. You've lost that because your minds took over in importance and messed up your priorities. You've lost touch with your hearts in favor of logic and reason.  This is not a judgment, but an observation."

  "Well, it sounds like a judgment to me!  You're saying that humans as a species are screwed up."
  "You do have much more in common with your simian counterparts than you may know.  After all, you were just like them before the second sixth day."
  "Yeah, I knew there'd be more to the story once you started talking about the first sixth day last night."
  "There's much more to the story than you know.  The second sixth day was when God gave intelligence to the Cro Magnon man.  A distant star had gone supernova and the effects on Earth were two-fold.  The first, as I said, was a rapid evolution of the human mind.  That is why a 'missing link' has never been found between the more primitive Neanderthals."
  "Whoa, so the first people, Adam and Eve, were cavemen?"
  "So to speak.  They did live in caves, but they weren't the first people in the way you may be thinking.  More accurately, they were the last."
  "You're floggin' my noggin!" exclaimed Darion.
  "I didn't mean to.  Is that a bad thing?  Anyway, as I said, the effects of the supernova were two-fold.  The second effect was that a disease that had affected the Neanderthals also mutated."
  "Disease?  What disease?" asked Darion.
  "Are you familiar with prions?"  Shwama Po answered Darion's question with a question of his own.
  "Uh yeah, like mad cow disease and stuff, right?"
  "There was an ice age coming and the Neanderthals had started to resort to cannibalism due to a lack of food sources.  This cannibalism led to a disease similar to Kuru.  Over in the eastern highlands of Papua, New Guinea, there was a tribe not too long ago who had a custom of showing respect for deceased family members by eating them.  This transmitted the disease from the organs and the flesh into the eaters."
  "Yeah, I heard about that.  So that's a prion disease?"
  "Yes.  Kuru means 'trembling with fear' in the language of the Fore people.  You see, trembling is a symptom of dying brain tissue.  Other symptoms include loss of balance, disrupted coordination, blindness and dementia.  The supernova caused the prion disease to mutate in such a way that the symptoms were more extreme and could be transmitted through bodily fluid. The victims became demented and bit others, spreading the disease at an alarming rate and wiping out the entire Neanderthal race quickly."
  "What's that got to do with Adam and Eve?"
  "I'm getting to that.  The Neanderthals were quickly wiping themselves out.  In a blind dementia-fueled rage, some of them even bit woolly mammoths.  Prion diseases, as you may know, generally do not transmit between species.  A bitten mammoth would become a nidus.  It could spread the disease, but not show any of the symptoms of it.  The newly intelligent Cro Magnon people were catching the disease by eating mammoth meat.  By the time they figured that out, there were not many left to carry on the species.  At the end there were only two who survived."

  "Adam and Eve," concluded Darion.
  "They had been living in Africa, but after that, they left to seek out new lands.  The ice age wiped out the rest of the Neanderthals.  Adam and Eve went on to propagate the human race as you know it now."

The Greater Number 3: The Simian Connection part 4

  The Centimator reached an area of the forest where a large rock formation stood, fairly hidden by dense foliage.  At the foot of the formation was an opening to a cave, partially obscured by hanging vines.  Father Ng stopped the vehicle and Yorren climbed down from the turret.
  "He wants us to wait here while he talks to his family," explained Cyril.  Yorren entered the cave and for a moment, the forest seemed suddenly lonely and foreboding.  When he was with them, they felt safer because he could kick some serious zombie buttocks!  The ominous tension in the air reminded Mbu of being six years old and listening to "Daddy" preach about fire and brimstone where you'd burn forever if you were bad.
  Forever was cut short when Yorren re-emerged from the cave.  He wasn't alone.  He had another adult Sasquatch with him and what looked to be a bigfoot child, both with lighter colored fur than Yorren.
  Cyril got out of the vehicle and turned to the group who was also starting to exit the cramped quarters of the Centimator.  "This is Awoona, Yorren's wife.  And this little girl here is Rahrah, their daughter."  The bigfoot family then entered the cave.  "They would like for you to come inside their home."
  "Is that like a phone booth that looks bigger on the outside than it really is on the inside, cuz I don't think we're all gonna fit into that little thang," jabbered Mbu.
  "I'm sorry, could you please phrase your questions in the form of questions?" ribbed Hewlett while bravely being the first to step inside the bigfoot abode.
  They had to walk down an incline because the opening led into a massive underground cavern.  "Holy banana schmacks!" exclaimed Mbu, still not making much sense, yet somehow giving voice to the very sentiment they were all feeling at the time.  Then they saw it.
  "Great googully moogully!"  Mbu's outburst repertoire was inundated with inanities.  But in this case, it was justified.  On one of the larger flat surfaces of the cave wall was a cave painting.  It clearly depicted an armed vehicle surrounded with humanoid figures.  There was a larger humanoid figure with its arms up in the air in a threatening gesture.  To everyone there, it looked like the the scene that had played out just hours before when the Centimator had been surrounded by zombies and Yorren came to the rescue.
  "Alright, animal whispering girl, time to spill the beans," said Hewlett.  All eyes fell to Cyril.
  Cyril blushed lightly, but turned to the group.  "Rahrah is asking Hewlett if he remembers Sierra Dophlet."
  "The uh, hospital.  The uh, girl."  The jibber jabber bug was apparently contagious.
  "Yeah, she's saying the girl, not the hospital.  She's saying that before this lifetime, she spent a lifetime in the body of a human girl named Sierra Dophlet."
  "You're talking reincarnation from a human to a Sasquatch?!" asked Hewlett incredulously.
  "I ain't saying shit.  I'm just the messenger.  She's saying she knew you were coming."
  Hewlett shuffled his feet a little bit and fumbled his fingers together.  "Well, I did have a dream about Sierra Dophlet when Mbu and me spent the night in Marble Cliffs."
  "She reached out to you then and the two of you made a connection," said Cyril.
  "Yeah, we did," sighed Hewlett.
  "This family of Sasquatch lived up in Washington at the time, but they moved down here to Oregon when she knew you were coming here.  She drew the cave mural to tell her father how he would find us.

The Greater Number 3: The Simian Connection part 3

  That night, as Darion slept, the spirit of Shwama Po visited him in his dreams.  He had died before he could impart all his wisdom to the 32nd king of Shangri La.  His appearance is what is known as a crisis apparition. His work was not done and he returned to tie up loose ends.
  Darion looked upon the deceased 31st king of Shangri La and wept.  "Why did you make me your king? I'm a doctor.  That's insufficient experience to be a royal majesty."
  The spirit of the dead king was able to stand since spirits do not suffer as the flesh suffers.  He clasped Darion's hand in his.  "Your Highness, you will stay here for three nights.  I shall help you by imparting my meager wisdom and knowledge, but you must come up with the answer."
  "The answer.  What answer?"
  "When you came into the gates of this city, what was written on the gate?"
  Darion closed his eyes in concentration to try and visualize the inscription on the gate.  "Uh, yeah.  I remember.  It said, 'Love is all good people need'."
  Shwama Po looked pleased.  "Good remembering, your majesty.  And by the end of your third night here, you will know the answer.  Then you will lead a mighty host against he who calls himself, Hadji."
  Darion snatched back his hand and chewed on the skin on his index finger.  It was a nervous habit from childhood.  "I'm gonna what?  I'm a doctor, not a super hero!"
  Shwama put his hand on Darion's shoulder.  "First I will give you knowledge, then I will share with you my wisdom, then we will see how heroic you can be.  Before anything else, you need a little history lesson."
  Darion rolled his eyes.  "Great.  I always sucked at History.  That's why I became a doctor.  I am a man of science.  If I can't see it with my eyes, I can't know it for sure."
  "Don't worry, as a scientist, I think you will appreciate what I am about to tell you.  Lots of science."
  "Oh good.  You were beginning to scare me with all that History talk."
  "Are you familiar with the story of the sixth day of creation?"
  "You mean from the Bible when God created Adam and Eve?"
  "That is the incident of which I speak.  Did you know that it was not the first sixth day?"
  Darion sat down.  "You got me there, partner.  You got some serious 'splainin' to do."
  "Well, you must know that in the creation of life, intelligence is always created on the sixth day."
  "Okay, but let's get back to the Bible not being the first sixth day."
  "Yes.  The first sixth day happened when life was created on my planet."
  Darion straightened up in his chair.  "Aha, I knew it!  Y'all are aliens.  You got your blue skin and those holes in the backs of your necks."
  "Yes, we are what your dolphins used to be.  But that's not the story I'm telling right now.  I'm telling you the story of how we were given intelligence.  God's chosen instrument of intelligence bearing is supernovas."
  "The science of which completely eludes me, but go ahead."
  "Humans have not figured out all of God's tricks.  But anyway, there was a supernova which brought with it the necessary ingredients for intelligence."
  "Now you just hold on a minute.  You said this was the sixth day.  How could there be a supernova?  A star lives millions, if not billions of years before it goes supernova."
  "Time doesn't work the same way in the spirit world as it does on the physical plane.  To God, a day could be a thousand years.  Here, time is linear.  On the Other Side, it's more circular, if you can grasp that."
  "Ehhh.  Just keep going with your story, please.  I wanna hear this."
  "So we, the Shangri were given the breath of life.  And that is all I will tell you tonight."
  "Holy crap, man.  There's more?"  Darion woke up and shared breakfast with his fellow human survivors.  All day, he thought about the things he had learned, wondering where this history lesson was heading.

The Greater Number 3: The Simian Connection part 2

  The large furry humanoid had appeared out of nowhere and was now battling the zombies.  He grabbed the heads of two and smashed them together.  With a single massive paw, he could snap a neck and, boy did he.
Within minutes, he had thinned out the herd.  He took the second-to-last one by the feet, swung him like a baseball bat and whacked the last one in the head like a tee ball extraordinaire.  Home run, mofo!
  The small crowd watching from the Centimator actually did go wild.  Even Cyril had roused from her fetal position to watch what had happened.  Now that the battle seemed to be over, she didn't cheer, but she also didn't go back into a fetal position.  Edger put an arm around her shoulder.
  "Yeah, you know.  I think that's a Sasquatch, a Bigfoot.  What else do they call those things?" asked Hewlett, like that was the most important matter at the moment.
  "How about a thesaurus?" suggested Mbu.
  "No, I don't think I've ever heard it called that," said Hewlett, which earned him a punch on the shoulder.
  The Bigfoot turned toward the Centimator.  "Uh, dad.  Does this thing go in reverse?" asked Yanluo.
  "His name is Yorren," said Cyril.
  "Sweety, don't start with that," Edger said.
  "Mom would have believed me," retorted Cyril.
  Edger turned to the rest of the people in the vehicle.  "Cyril says she can communicate with animals."
  "I don't say I can.  I can.  I've been able to all my life.  So could my mother," Cyril explained.
  "You said his name is Yorren?" asked Father Ng.
  "Yes, he says his home is not too far from here.  His family is there."
  "I thought we were gonna go to that camp," said Mbu.
  "Could you ask him about the camp?" said Father Ng.
  Cyril had opened her door and was standing face to face with the Sasquatch.  After a moment, she said, "He said the camp has been overrun."
  Father Ng reacted as if slapped.  "Lord have mercy."
  "All those people," said Enma.  The whole group was silent for several moments.
  Cyril broke the silence by saying, "Yorren says he smells more of those things in the area."
  "We've got to get moving," said Father Ng.
  "Yorren has a special request," said Cyril.
  "Bigfoot's making demands now?" asked Hewlett.
  "He'd just like to ride in the turret thingy.  What would that be called, shotgun?" asked Cyril.
  "Uh yeah, sure," responded Father Ng.
  Moments later, Yorren climbed up onto the top of the vehicle.  Cyril got back into the vehicle and Father Ng started it up.  Cyril relayed Yorren's directions and they were off.  The whole way to the forest, Yorren was waving his arm in the air like a cowboy in a rodeo.

The Greater Number: Index Patient

  Kojira DeSoto was the son of Jiro DeSoto, the founder of the Japanese Institute of Science and Microbiology, located in Tsukuba, Japan.  One day, Jiro died of heart complications.  Kojira was called into his father's office by Jiro's secretary, Hiranaka Ansadora.  Being a licensed helicopter pilot, Kojira flew in and landed on the helipad of the JISM building.
  "Choobinuptu, Hiranaka?" asked Kojira when he got to his father's office.
  "What did you say?" asked Hiranaka.
  "Did I stutter?  I said, 'What have you been up to, Hiranaka?'  I haven't seen you since the Christmas party. Although, I admit, I don't remember much about that night."
  "I've been really busy with the company since your father died, but I hope to be able to go see a Kabuki show this weekend.  That's why I called you here," explained Hiranaka.
  "How about Noh?"
  "Huh?" asked Hiranaka.
  "What about Noh?" repeated Kojira.
  "I don't know what you're talking about."
  "What part of Noh do you not understand?"
  "Anyway, Kojira.  I called you here today because your father has left the company to you to lead."
  "Holy shit, you for reals?"
  "Uh, yes.  But don't worry, you will have help."
  "Wait, why can't you do it?"
  "Your father's will specifically names you as the next CEO of JISM."
  "So what's this help you mentioned?"
  "Your father's trusted second man, Shavonte.  He's on his way up here right now."  Just then the double door opened and a man walked in.  "Ah, here he is now.  I'll leave the two of you now."
  "I'm Shavonte Nakamoto."
  "Shavonte?  Somehow I thought you'd be..."
  "Taller?"
  "Yeah, that too."
  Shavonte had worked for Jiro since the beginning.  He had watched him erect JISM from the ground up.  He secretly resented the fact that Kojira, who had no experience whatsoever, had been made CEO.  Behind his back, he called Kojira 'Tatami Boy'.  The biggest test for how JISM would stand after Jiro's untimely fate came in the form of an email from Russia.
  JISM was on the forefront of cloning technology.  Recently, the well-preserved remains of a woolly mammoth had been discovered in Russia.  The scientists in Russia wanted to bring some of the remains to Japan for possible cloning.  It was Shavonte's job to make sure Kojira didn't screw this up.  First things first, he had to call him from wherever the hell he was and get him into the office.
  After several attempts, Shavonte finally got through.  "There you are.  Haven't you heard my phone calls?"
  "No.  My phone's on vibrate mode."
  "Where is it?"
  "In my pocket."
  "Numb nuts, I've been trying to get a hold of you for an hour now!"
  "I've been flying around Tsukuba in my new helicopter.  I was just thinking about you too.  Do you think I'm too skinny to be a sumo wrestler?"
  "What?  That's not important right now."
  "Well it's important to me.  I've always wanted to be a sumo wrestler."
  Shavonte took a deep breath.  "Do you know what I just found out that I didn't know?"
  "You're gay?"
  "No!"
  "Oh, you already knew that?"
  Shavonte counted to ten in his head before resuming communication with Tatami Boy.  "Russia has the mummified remains of a woolly mammoth and they want to bring them here so that we can clone it."
  "You shitting me?  My dad wouldn't even let me have a dog growing up.  What the hell do you feed a woolly mammoth?  Do they like peanuts?  You're a scientist.  Where we gonna keep him?"
  Shavonte cracked his knuckles one finger at a time, letting his heart rate lower before addressing Tatami Boy.  "The cargo is already on its way.  Hiranaka is at the receiving bay awaiting their arrival.  The remains have been kept frozen so we'll have to thaw some of it so that we can try to extract DNA."
  "Hey, does my dad's computer get internet?"
  "He was the CEO of JISM.  Yes, his computer gets internet."
  "Cool, I'm gonna start pricing out peanuts in bulk."
  "Whatever.  I'll be downstairs with Hiranaka.  We'll call you if we need anything."
  Shavonte and Hiranaka signed all the paperwork for the mammoth remains, then it was off to the thawing room.  Hiranaka was so excited he wanted to stay in the room with the remains.
  "Hey man, a watched pot never boils," warned Shavonte.
  "Oh I know, but we're really doing it aren't we?"
  "Yes, we are.  I'm excited too.  Tatami Boy is upstairs buying peanuts for our little nest egg here."  The two of them shared a laugh over that one, then Shavonte left Hiranaka in the thawing room to go eat.
  When Shavonte got back from lunch, he went back into the thawing room.  Hiranaka was face down on the floor.  "Holy Krizmak!  Hiranaka, what happened?"  He turned Hiranaka's body over and lightly smacked him on each cheek in an attempt to rouse him.  The downed scientist wasn't breathing and his skin was cool to the touch.  Suddenly his eyes flew open.
  Shavonte was confused at the seemingly mixed signals he was getting from his fallen comrade.  Some signs of death, some signs of life.  In his head, he tried to make a tally of each.  He figured the the ratio of living attributes to dead attributes should tip the scales one way or the other.
  It seemed like a good idea until Hiranaka clamped his jaw solidly on Shavonte's wrist.  That still didn't answer the living or dead question for Shavonte, but it did hurt like hell.  He pulled his hand away from his friend's teeth and ran out of the room.
  In the meantime, Hiranaka ran around the building biting all the scientists.  Shavonte was cowering in the security room watching this horror unfold.  Every person that Hiranaka bit eventually became another not-quite-dead biter.  Luckily, Shavonte's wound wasn't very bad, but he knew that he'd become one of those things he was watching on the closed circuit television.
  He decided to call Kojira.  "Kojira, this is Shavonte.  We have a problem."
  "Me too, man.  My online search hasn't amounted to a hill of beans."
  Shavonte finally had no more patience.  "Will you shut up about your peanuts for one second!  Hiranaka's dead or something.  Anyway, he's biting people and making them almost dead too."
  "Or almost alive, depending on which way you wanna look at it."
  "So all these people are sick with this undeadness.  It's transmitted through bites and I've been bitten.  Hiranaka is the index patient and he bit me.  I figured you could medivac me to a nearby hospital in your helicopter before I turn into one of those things."
  "What's an index patient?" Kojira asked.
  "It's the first person to present with a disease."
  "Where are you now?"
  "I'm in the security room."
  "I'm on my way."
  "Be careful.  There are a lot of those things all over the building."
  "I'll be there as soon as I can be."
  "And, Kojira."
  "Yes?"
  "Thank you."  Shavonte pressed the button to disconnect.  Now it was just a matter of waiting for Kojira to make it from his father's office on the 27th floor to the security room on the first floor.  As time went by, he became more and more despondent.
  After twenty minutes, he knew he wouldn't make it to the hospital.  He wanted to make sure he wouldn't come back after he died.  He took a power cord and made a noose out of it.  He slipped it over his head and stood on a rolling chair.  It was while he was standing there that Kojira finally arrived.
  "Dude, what are you doing?  We have to go!"
  "I can't.  I'll be dead in a matter of minutes and I don't want to come back."
  "I'm sorry I took so long.  I had to kill several of those things on my way here.  I noticed you have to destroy the brain in order to silence them permanently."
  "Yeah, I know.  I saw you on the security monitors.  That's why I'm standing here with a noose around my neck.  Once I die, my body will become slack, separating my head from my spinal cord and preventing my return as one of the undead."
  "If I had just gotten here sooner, I would have been able to save you."
  "You could have just abandoned me and flown away to safety, but you risked your life to try to save mine."
  "But I've never finished anything in my life.  And now, when it matters the most, I've failed again."
  Shavonte was touched.  "I appreciate that I matter to you that much.  I know what you mean about never being able to finish anything.  When I was a kid, my parents put me in karate classes.  I got all the way to red belt, but I never went for the final test to make black belt.  That has defined my life.  I've spent my entire life as a red belt.  Which is why I resented you being made CEO of this company I've worked so hard to climb the ranks in.  I felt cheated out of my prize."
  "God, I'm so sorry.  I never even wanted to follow in my father's footsteps.  I didn't do very well in school.  The only way I was able to get through some of my classes in high school was by doing makeup work and extra credit.  I realize that I have taken on this whole attitude in life.  Makeup work is basically easy extra work that you do because you didn't do well at the prescribed objective.  For instance, to make up for having done poorly on a math test I would make up my grade by doing extra math problems as homework.  The problem lies in the fact that doing work at home with the book in no way gives you any indication of how well you know the material.  You're just doing it robotically like the book tells you to.  The real test would be to see how well you do with no one helping you and you have to know on your own how to solve a problem.
I would have no idea how to run this company."
  "I'm sure that if all this hadn't happened, you would have done a great job running this company.  I've seen what you can do when you set your mind to it.  You fought your way through a building full of the undead so that you could save my life.  You're also the one who successfully got your helicopter pilot license.  I wouldn't have been able to fly myself to a hospital."  Shavonte's body started to go into convulsions.  After a while, it went still and the wheeled chair rolled to the side.  Once his legs were suspended in the air, there was an audible crack as his neck broke.
  Kojira made his way past the undead and got to the roof of his father's building.  He boarded the helicopter and flew off, leaving his old life behind.

The Greater Number 3: The Simian Connection part 1

  "Alright, so there's a big old white furry ugly thang standing there staring at us.  Does that about sum up our current situation?" asked Liam Moor.
  No one else had anything to say.  They had been on the verge of cannibalism, but this new development had all of their attention.  Suddenly, Julianne said, "His name is Kohmos.  He is a Guardian of Shangri La.  He has taken care of the zombies in the area and he will now take us to the palace."
  "Lady, you're starting to freak me out, but since you're at it, why don't you ask if Cosmo here has any food at this palace of his so we don't have to eat Tom, Dick and Harry," remarked Liam.
  "There is food at the palace.  He is able to talk through me because I am pregnant and he is able to connect spiritually and psychically with my unborn child."
  Beau hadn't known yet about his wife's pregnancy.  He jumped in the air and let out a whoop of joy.  Of course, this was the weirdest thing any of them had ever seen.
  Darion asked, "Is this that Shangri La of legend, shaped like a lotus and hidden in the Himalayas?"
  "Naw, it's Shangri La, New Jersey, dumbass.  We're in the Himmies, yuh!  What I want to know is, how's he gonna get us to this magical city of blah blah blah," uttered Liam.
  In response, Kohmos picked up the back of the bus with his bare hands.
  "Wait, so this yeti dude is gonna drag us in this bus all the way there?" asked Liam.
  Again, in response to Liam's question, five other yeti appeared from the woods.  They took the bus, three to a side and carried it like pall bearers.  The six survivors loaded onto the bus and they were on their way.
  "All my life, I've always been the pall bearer, never the corpse.  Now I'm riding in style," said Liam.
  When the group got to the gates of the fabled city, the yeti put the bus down and opened the gate.  An ornately carved wood sign above the gate said, 'Love is all good people need'.  The survivors piled out and entered the walls of the city.  The first thing they noticed was that the people had bluish gray skin.
  The natives spoke through telepathy.  The six survivors were split up so that they could each have their individual needs.
  Julianne had been injured in the bus explosion.  She was taken to a room where there were three of the Shangri as she came to know them.  They had her lie down on a table.  The three Shangri began to sing.  They didn't sing through their mouths.  They had holes in the backs of their necks through which an airy whistling sound emitted.  As the three singers harmonized, Julianne could feel her wounds mending and soothing.  Before long, she was feeling stronger and was able to rise to a sitting position.
  In a different room, Darion was laid out on a table.  He had been shot by a guard at Xi'an.  He had lost a lot of blood and was not in good health.  The Shangri made a critical decision to transplant his heart with that of a yeti.  News of this caused quite a buzz among the Shangri.  They called the yeti, 'Guardians'.  Darion didn't know why the Shangri were so excited.  After the operation was completed, the three singers came into the room and before long, he was sitting up on the table.
  Suddenly, the double doors that led into the room opened and a table was wheeled in.  On the table was a Shangri who was dressed in elegant robes.  Through the language of the mind, Darion knew this was Shwama Po, the 31st king of Shangri La.
  Shwama Po reached out a hand and took Darion's hand in his.  "You are the one of whom the prophecy of Shambhala speaks.  You shall be known as Guardian Heart.  You are now the 32nd king of Shangri La and you shall save the world."  With that, Shwama Po withdrew his hand, exhaled, and never drew another breath.  Darion was left with a myriad of questions.

The Greater Number: Still As Death

  Hadji the Great was speaking to his followers.  "My brother's and sisters, will we allow the carelessness and negligence to continue destroying our environment?"
  The crowd answered, "No!"
  "Will we allow the love of money to continue ripping this world apart?"
  "No!"
  This had been going on periodically on the cross-country reign of terror that Hand of Karma had waged against the evils of humanity.  Roger Titian and his wife, Paula were shouting out their agreement with Hadji's tirades, but Paula was just a little less passionate.  The two of them had started following Hand of Karma immediately after their house had gone up in flames.  They didn't know who Hadji was, but they had nowhere else to go.  They had not yet participated in one of Hadji's raids.  Roger noticed Paula's expression of unhappiness.
  "Sweetie pie, is there something wrong?" he asked.
  "We've been following this guy since this morning, but he hasn't mentioned helping anybody or saving people's lives.  We've left our home town and I don't even know where we're going.  I thought the zombies were the problem these days, but we've got zombies all over the place within our group."
  "Yeah, I've noticed that too.  Maybe the zombies carry out his wishes," suggested Roger.
  "Zombies do one thing and that is kill and eat people.  If those are his wishes, I don't want to follow him."
  "But he does have a lot of good points."
  Paula shuddered.  "Yes, that's what makes it so easy for these people to follow him.  He does have many good things to say, but the solution isn't to kill the people we don't agree with."
  "We're not killing anybody, the zombies are."
  "But we're on the side of the zombies."
  Roger was bipolar and struggled with grandiosity.  "Don't think of it that way.  Think about the fact that we're on the side of righteousness.  When you're right, nothing else matters."
  Paula knew the signs when Roger was in a manic episode.  At those times, he had no access to the pre-frontal lobe of his brain which controls cognitive reasoning.  This meant that he was not able to process the consequences of his actions or words.  He had lost view of the big picture, so to say.  She knew that there was no reasoning with him.  His medication and perished when their house burned down earlier that day.
  The group was advancing toward Yuma, Arizona where there was a reported safe haven.  Paula had no idea what to expect whenever they would arrive at Code Gray.
  Up ahead, it looked like there was a military base of some sort.  Hadji was giving orders.  As per orders, various groups were storming the gates of the base and others were looking for other ways in.  As soon as the gates had been broken down, Hadji sent in the zombies.
  Paula stood back and watched in horror as she heard screams of agony emanating from within the walls.  She wanted to be able to stop the madness and help those who were in danger from being killed.  As she grew more and more hopeless, some of the zombies were beginning to pay attention to her.
  One of them grabbed her by the hair and sank his teeth deep into her jugular.  Roger had been holding a gate open for the zombies to enter the military base, but he started to come to help his wife when he saw what was happening.  He went over to the zombie, grabbed him and growled primally in his face.  Seeing that his prize kill had a stronger competitor contending for it, the zombie let go of Paula and stumbled toward the gates in search of fresh meat he wouldn't have to fight for.
  Roger collapsed to the ground, holding his wife in his lap.  "Sweetie pie, you can't leave me now.  We're supposed to grow old together.  Til death do us part."
  Paula's eyelids fluttered weakly as she tried to look her husband in the eyes one last time.  They locked eyes and then she let out one last breath.  After that she became still as death.  Roger just held her there, rocking back and forth in the sand and gently weeping.
  Moments later, focus came back into Paula's eyes.  She sat up and looked around.  Roger stood up as well.  By then his tears had been dried by the Arizona sun.  Together they approached Code Gray.  Now, as a couple they would follow Hadji everywhere he went.  Hand of Karma had two new devoted fighters in the battle against the evils of humanity.

The Greater Number: Days of Mayhem

  "Alright, so this trip we're making to Oregon to escape from zombies can either be called Oregon Entrails or the Organ Trail, eh?  What do you think?" I asked.
  "Or we can call it the shut the hell up or I'll kick you where the sun doesn't shine trail, mouth breather," suggested Mbu with a smirk.
  "Do not speak so lightly of hell, son," pleaded Father Ng.
  "Father dearest, my freedom of speech doesn't infringe upon your freedom of religion," retorted Mbu.
  "Please, Father, allow me to submit my rebuttal to your son's eloquent jibe against my lively and jocular attempts at lifting the mood in the car.  Mbu, my old buddy old pal, I only breathe through my mouth around you because you've go halitosis, so why don't you take your grumpy attitude and stick it right up your..."
  "Hey, there's some people out there!" shouted Yanluo.
  We all looked out the bullet proof windows and saw that, indeed, there was a scuffle going on between a small group of people and some zombies.
  Thinking quickly, Enma took out a bottle of hand sanitizer from her purse, unscrewed the top and stuffed a sheet of tissue paper halfway inside so that enough of it stuck out for her to light with a match.  She shouted out the window, "Any humans out there, scatter now!  Fire in the hole!"
  Two of the people backed up, leaving four still grouped up.  Enma lit the tissue and threw the bottle of hand sanitizer into the middle of the group.  The improvised Molotov cocktail didn't exactly explode, but it did cause a lot of fire.  All four of the figures lit up like a toasted marshmallow.
  The thing about zombies, which makes it kind of creepy to watch when they're on fire, is that since they don't feel pain, they don't flail and thrash about like a person in pain would.  They just stand there until either their brains boil or their muscles are no longer attached to their bones.  Three of them continued what they were doing.  The only problem was that the fourth started to thrash around wildly.  All four eventually fell to the ground and remained still.
  The two people had watched the entire scene unfold.  One of them, a teen aged girl fell to her knees in body wracking sobs.  The other, a grown man, suddenly ran at the vehicle and started beating on the passenger side, shouting, "You son of a bitch!  That was my wife!  That was my..."  His voice trailed off, as did the fists on metal and he too crumpled to the ground in tears.
  Enma was horrified.  She was going to exit the vehicle, but Father Ng put a hand on her shoulder.  "Give him a moment.  I'll go speak with him.  Enma wept while her husband went to comfort the mourning widower.  He whispered a prayer over him.
  The man got up weakly and put his hands up in protest.  "Please, mister, I'm an atheist."
  Father Ng backed up a bit, giving the man a respectful distance to honor his beliefs.  The man walked over to where the teen aged girl was crying and reached a hand out to her.  She took his hand and got to her feet.  Father Ng asked them if they would like to ride in the vehicle with them.  Reluctantly, they accepted.
  For a while, the Centimator drove on in silence.  The sobbing came in waves ebbing and flowing with cycling emotions.  Enma finally mustered the strength to attempt speech.  "I take full responsibility for what happened and I apologize from the bottom of my heart."  Having said all that can be said in such a situation, she gave the two newcomers time to process.  She expected no response and got none.
  After a long while, the man felt compelled to at least express appreciation for the ride.  "My name is Edger Holts and this is my daughter, Cyril.  I want to thank you for picking us up."  After that, it looked like he wanted to say more, but he restrained himself.
  "Oh Lord, there are so many of them!" Father Ng exclaimed as a wall of zombies came into view.  Just then he hit the brakes as a huge lumbering furry humanoid form stepped out of the bushes and into the road.

The Greater Number: Alive Again

  "Okay, so we're in the middle of the Himalayas in a bus with a few days worth of food, lots of gasoline, but a leaky gas tank and we're surrounded by zombies.  Sound about right?" asked Liam.
  Everyone on the bus was not paying attention to him.  Some nodded, some were in shock, some were in a panic mode.  The situation did look pretty dire.
  Eddie the bus driver raised his hand and spoke at the same time.  "I know how to patch up the gas tank and thankfully, most of you are good shooters since this is the wall duty bus."  So it was decided that Eddie would go fix the gas tank while three others would cover him with their rifles.
  To lighten the bus so they could jack it up, the gas canisters were off loaded and stacked by the tail end of the bus in the snow.  All non-essential personnel in the operation then got back onto the bus to await its successful completion.
  Inside the bus, a conversation started about Hand of Karma.  "I, for one, agree with Hadji.  No one on this planet cares about anything anymore.  In the old days, if a kid misbehaved, you smacked him.  Nowadays, you put him in time out.  What's that do?  Now you've got kids shooting each other at school and having sex and doing all kinds of drugs.  Well, the day for retribution has come.  Hand of Karma is going to weed out the wheat from the chaff."
  Beau Ottoman couldn't believe his ears.  "So your solution to people not loving each other is to kill them all? Is that any more loving than shooting up a classroom?  Hand of Karma is killing many innocent people."
  "Who's innocent?  No one's truly innocent.  I tell you it was human evil that brought these zombies."
  Darion Morris remembered something.  He turned to the Japanese scientist.  "Kojira, you seem to know a lot about these zombies.  How do you know so much?"
  Kojira put his face downward and said nothing.  Clark wanted answers and was getting frustrated by the scientist's silence.  He pointed his rifle at Kojira's chest.  "You have a choice.  This can either be a deathbed confession or a friendly conversation."
  Tears streamed down Kojira's face.  "It wasn't my fault.  There had been some well preserved remains of a woolly mammoth in Russia.  Some of the remains were brought to Japan because we wanted to clone a mammoth using DNA from the remains and splicing them into the DNA of a modern elephant.  I headed up the team that was working on this.  The only problem was that people who were exposed to the remains started getting sick.  I was somehow immune to whatever was going on.  People started dying, but that wasn't the worst part.  Then they started coming back to life.  That's when I fled Japan and came here."
  "You son of a bitch!  I knew it was human evil that brought these zombies to us!" Clark took aim, but then there was a commotion that started outside the bus.
  Several zombies had come, attracted by the smell of the small team of people outside working on the gas tank.  Miriam, Father Mucker and Shirah were shooting at each as it came.  Eddie was a trooper and single-mindedly kept at his task, trusting his team to keep him safe.
  Unfortunately, a stray shot hit one of the gas canisters behind the bus.  An enormous explosion rocked the area as the one canister started a chain reaction with all the others.  If they had been on board the bus, it would have been destroyed.  As it is, the rear of the bus was blown wide open.  Eddie was instantly killed.
  Inside the bus, the tour guide, Ling-Yu and the Smith sisters, Ravensong and Sythrain, who had been in the back of the bus were killed by the explosion.  Julianne and Kojira had been in the middle of the bus and were injured by flying debris.  Beau, Clark, Darion, Liam and Father Fen-Chang had only some minor scrapes and bruises.  The heat inside the bus was unbearable so those who were well enough helped the injured to exit the bus.
  Shirah had been hit in the head by a chunk of metal from one of the gas canisters.  Her body lay in the snow while Father Mucker and Miriam were searching for a pulse.  There was none.  Every one of the shooters was now carrying their weapon while the others tended to the injured.
  Julianne had bandaged her own wound and was helping Kojira who was in bad condition.  There were still zombies around, but the fire had scared most of them off.  The shooters took care of the few straggling zombies who were brave (or hungry) enough to ignore the fire.  After all the zombies they could see had been dispatched, it was time to stop the fire.
  "We should use snow balls," suggested Liam.  It was agreed and all the non-shooters started making snow balls and throwing them at the fire, which had already begun to die down on its own, having depleted its source of fuel.  Soon the fire was out.
  Julianne was cradling Kojira in her lap.  "He's lost so much blood.  I don't think he'll make it even another hour even though I've bandaged his wound."
  Father Fen-Chang considered the situation.  He had overheard the conversation between Kojira and Clark earlier.  He came up with a plan.  "When he dies, it won't be long before he comes back to life and attacks us."  He turned to Clark.  "Clark, here's your big chance to be the Hand of Karma."
  Clark froze.  "What are you saying?"
  "Come on.  You blame Kojira for bringing the zombies.  You want to rid the world of evil.  You want to be the Hand of Karma.  Well, this is your shot.  Kojira here is going to die and become a zombie.  What are you going to do about it?"
  Clark's hands were shaking.  "I was just talking.  I'm not a killer."
  "Well, the man you profess to admire is a killer and if you follow him, that makes you a killer too."  Father Fen-Chang motioned for Julianne to leave Kojira in the snow.  She stood up and stepped back several paces.  Father Fen-Chang calmly aimed his rifle at Kojira's head and pulled the trigger.  Following the explosion of brains and blood, Clark crumpled to the ground, sobbing hysterically.  Father Fen-Chang laid an hand on his shoulder.  "Now please, help us figure out what to do."  Clark nodded his head and got up. 
  Miriam had gone back inside the bus to investigate the damage.  She came back out.  "All the food was in the back of the bus, which was destroyed.  There's also a large hole that we'll have to cover up for both warmth and safety from the zombies."
  "We can use tools from Eddie's tool box to detach some of the chairs from the bus to use in patching up the hole in the back," suggested Liam.
  Miriam was still standing in the doorway of the bus and suddenly hands grabbed her from behind.  Those who had died on the bus had reanimated and were ravenous for living human flesh.  Immediately, Clark was in motion and he shot the newly undead Ravensong between the eyes.  She lost her grip on Miriam who was then able to exit the bus.
  She hugged him and burst out in tears at the same time.  Something in him had fallen into place, turning him from coward into hero within the span of moments.
  Ling-Yu and Sythrain awkwardly stumbled off the bus on a quest for flesh.  Father Mucker fired a shot straight into the ear canal of the former tour guide.  She went down like a chump.  Sythrain's entire right cheek had been ripped off in the explosion.  Beau shot her, but first got her in the throat.  She reached out for Miriam and was able to take a bite of her throat, matching wound for wound.  Unfortunately for Miriam, it was a wound that she could not sustain.
  Clark tried to free Miriam from the zombie's grip, but succeeded in getting bitten as well.  Sythrain took three of his fingers in one huge bite with her cheekless toothy mouth.  Miriam dropped to the snow where she bled out in less than a full minute.
  Beau lined up a second shot which hit its mark directly into Sythrain's left eye.  Her head became a pink mist.  Beau's shooting wasn't done yet.  He reloaded his weapon and shot Miriam's lifeless form in the head, then turned to Clark.  He paused a moment.  Clark was in shock and bleeding badly.
  Beau almost lost heart.  "Clark, I know we've had our differences, but I want you to know I consider you a friend now.  I hate to have to do this, but it's for the best.  I'm sure you don't want to be walking around as one of those things."  Clark nodded his head and looked Beau straight in the eyes.  It was with eyes locked in mutual respect that Beau pulled the trigger and Clark was no more.
  The fathers Fen-Chang and Mucker prayed over all the bodies of the deceased once they had been laid out in a row behind the bus.  In the mean time, Liam and Beau were detaching bus seats and fastening them to the back wall of the bus in as secure a way as possible, considering what they had to work with.
  Once everything was taken care of, everybody boarded the bus and closed the door.  There was nothing more that could be done.  There was no food, no gas, little ammunition and only a few more bottles of water left for all of them to share.  That night, they went to sleep with heavy hearts and empty stomachs.
  The next morning, there were more zombies outside, but they had left the bodies alone because they did not smell of fear.  The survivors used an emergency exit at the top of the bus to go up and relieve themselves over the side of the bus.
  Father Mucker had not slept much because he was pondering the thought of what to do about food.  They wouldn't last long without any and they couldn't stay there forever.
  Beau and Julianne, who were an engaged couple, were at the front of the bus.  Julianne was weak from her injuries sustained during yesterday's explosion.  Beau was looking after her.
  Father Mucker voiced his hard to swallow opinion.  "We're not going to make it without eating.  I've been thinking about our options."
  "What options?  We're screwed!" shouted Liam.
  Father Mucker put up his hands in a gesture that said, 'I understand your concerns'.  "We can gain sustenance from the meat laying out there in the snow.
  "I knew it, you old bastard, you're talking about cannibalism.  Aren't you a priest?  You're not supposed to be telling us to eat each other, man.  Whatever happened to love your neighbor?"
  Father Mucker nodded his head.  "Does anyone else have any thoughts?"
  Darion raised his hand.  "Those things out there are trying to kill us and eat us.  If we start eating each other, how are we any better than them?"
  Beau spoke up while holding his ailing wife.  "We're not killing each other to eat.  Anyone we've killed was to keep them from coming back and killing us.  Any of the bodies lying out there in the snow are not people anymore in the same way that those zombies aren't people anymore.  When you go to the supermarket, you buy a steak or a tenderloin.  You don't buy a cow."
  "Well, I don't know if I can live with myself if I know I've eaten somebody," said Liam.
  "I don't know if I can do it either," said Julianne.
  Beau brushed her hair off her cheek.  "Sweetie, you've got to.  You're weak as it is."
  Father Mucker said, "You know, Jesus could technically be called a zombie, but he had a different idea.  He told his followers to eat his flesh and drink his blood.  If we thought of this as communion, perhaps it will be easier.  Our friends out there have sacrificed themselves so that we can be saved.  We honor their lives by making sure their deaths were not meaningless."  He leaned over the bodies.  "Farewell, my sunward friends. You have died in pain, but you shall not have died in vain."  He raised a knife.
  Just then, a large and furry humanoid figure emerged from the trees.

The Greater Number: Showdown At Xi' an

  When the zombie outbreak started in China, many scientists were brought in from all over the world to study the cause.  A Japanese scientist, named Kojira DeSoto just kinda showed up unannounced.  He seemed to know an awful lot about the zombies.  He didn't want to talk about it though, so he volunteered for wall duty a lot.  The bus drove him the 200 miles from the walls of Xi' an to the Great Wall of China so that he could patrol the wall with a rifle and defend the city from zombies.
  This left the scientific team, led by Darion Morris, his assistant, Liam Moor and two other scientists named Jasmine Basmati and Thadduceus Horowitz to figure out what they could about the zombies.  All they could squeeze out of Kojira was that the zombies were attracted to the smell of fear.  That was how they knew the living from the dead.
  Jasmine was a beautiful young female scientist from India who specialized in animal behavior.  Thadduceus was a middle-aged Greek scientist who studied mental disorders.  Darion was an American scientist from Arizona who was familiar with many infectious diseases.  Liam was an Irish kid straight out of college who was really just an apprentice under Darion's tutelage.
  As usual, they were all gathered around a table for their daily brainstorm session.  Jasmine had come up with a brilliant idea of extracting the smell of fear from volunteers and using it to turn the terra cotta army into a distraction tactic against any potential zombie infiltration.  The only problem is, how the hell do you extract the smell of fear from somebody?
  Dirty chop sticks and empty plates sat around.  "How can these people eat Chinese food every day?" complained Liam, sitting with his feet up on the table.
  "To them, it's not Chinese food, it's just food.  Now will you stop thinking about the food and try to help us keep from becoming food for the recently reanimated deceased?" suggested Darion.
  "Look man, you wanna extract the smell of fear from people, why don't you just make them afraid and hot at the same time?  Collect their sweat and call it a day."
  Darion, Jasmine and Thadduceus exchanged glances with each other across the table.  None of them could come up with a suitable hole in his theory.  "That's actually pretty good," complemented Thadduceus.
  "Shit.  Y'all trying to be all scientific and shit.  I'll even be your guinea pig.  Bring it on."
  With that, the team devised a system that was crude, but workable.  They had five captured zombies chained to a wall in a room.  They turned off the air conditioning in the room and put Liam in with them.  He had been given a lot of water to drink.  As soon as he was near them, they were all reaching for him and trying to grab him.  The scientists watched with some measure of pleasure as he broke out into a sweat as he frantically avoided the reaching hands.  After fewer than ten minutes, he was let out of the room.
  Sweat was skimmed off his skin using special tools and it was collected into a vial.  His theory still needed to be tested so they asked him what he would do.
  "Do I have to do everything around here?  You just take two tennis balls.  Rub some of my sweat on one of them, then roll both of them into the room with the damn zombies.  Make sure you can tell the two apart visually.  If the zombies go after the one we know to have my sweat on it, we'll know my idea works."
  It was simple and decidedly unscientific, but it would work.  They did as he said and the zombies tore up the tennis ball with Liam's sweat on it while completely ignoring the other one.  They had a working theory on their hands and there was no time to waste in implementing it.
  Not to be outdone by a punk kid from America, Thadduceus volunteered to be next.  They put him into the room and, as expected, the zombies were reaching for him.  Unexpectedly, one of them was able to break free.  It grabbed Thadduceus and sank its disease infected teeth into his fleshy throat.  The scientists outside the room knew there was nothing they could do for him.  They could only watch in horror as he thrashed about.  His eyes were frantically pleading for help, though his vocal cords could no longer function.
  Seeing that the other scientists had abandoned him, Thadduceus flew into a rage.  Still spewing blood everywhere, he grabbed the key from his pocket and unlocked the other four zombies.  He used a length of chain to shatter the observation window.  This was his final act before he was overpowered and devoured.
  Darion and Liam ran out of the building.  Jasmine was lost in the shuffle of people trying to figure out what to do with five escaped zombies.  They were scientists, not soldiers.
  There were regular guards posted on the walls of Xi' an.  Liam was roommates with the current guard on watch over the gate to the city.  He wanted nothing but to get out because he thought the city was doomed. He and Darion approached the guard.  "What's up, roomie?"
  The guard pointed his rifle at them.  "What are you doing here, Liam.  You know you're not allowed to leave the city."
  Somehow, a fire had started at the laboratory, which set off the fire alarm.  The guard looked at the building to see what was happening.  Liam used this temporary distraction to make a break for it.  Darion followed him because he knew the danger of the escaped zombies.  The guard turned around and shot his rifle.  The shot went all the way through Darion's thigh.  He managed to duck behind a rock.  He and Liam were able to use the large rock as a blockage to disguise their escape.
  Back at the laboratory, the zombies had bitten several people on their way out of the building.  Jasmine was one of them.  Many of the people of the city had shown up to investigate the cause of the alarm.  The zombies were able to get them as well.
  By this time, Thadduceus had come back to life.  He was patient zero in a new outbreak.  This was the beginning of the end for a city that had been the safe haven for many.  As the numbers shrank on the one side, they grew on the other.  Many fought valiantly, but eventually they all joined the greater number.

The Greater Number: The Unflowered Grave

  Mbu turned toward me.  "Hey, mouth breather.  What's your brilliant plan now?"  It was getting dark.  We had run away from that crazy town.  We didn't even know it's name.  All of a sudden there was some commotion in the brush on the side of the road.
  "Holy Krizmak!" I yelled, hiding behind my best friend.  A figure emerged from the bushes.  This ugly creature only had one arm.  We looked at each other and then took off running down the road.
  "Shinies!  It's me!" came a voice from behind us.  We slowed down and slowly came to a halt and risked a glance behind us.  The one-armed figure was walking toward us, yelling.  Since it was talking, we thought maybe we could see if it was someone who needed our help.
  "Dude, it's that old lady from Crazy Town.  I thought she was dead, man!"
  "I most certainly am not dead, you chicken shit son's of bitches."  It was Helen Hiawatha.  She was alive!
  "How the hell did you survive that zombie chomping on your fingers?" I asked.
  "When I was in the Navy, I lost an arm in a skiing accident.  That got me a medical discharge and a lot of medical benefits.  I thought I was going to evade that damn zombie.  I guess I zigged when I shoulda zagged.  I've always been a learn things the hard way kinda gal.  You witnessed the unfortunate demise of my prosthetic arm.  That's why I look so silly right now.  That which doesn't kill you or make you stronger can sure make you look like an idiot."
  "This is all fun and interesting, but those zombies are still back there coming for us," mentioned Mbu.
  We continued our trek in the direction of Marble Cliffs.
  "Hey, mouth breather, remember when we were kids and you called me Mad Mud and you were Bad Bud?  We were weird back then," reminisced Mbu.
  "Yeah, we were weird.  The bullies sure thought so.  Remember that guy who was twisting my arm wanting me to say uncle?  You came and kicked him in the nuts?"
  Helen was impressed.  "That's a friend.  You know, someone wins when you say 'uncle' not by breaking your arm.  It's your will he wants to break, not your arm."
  "Well, I haven't always been innocent of childhood meanness.  Remember that day we had a picnic at Marble Cliffs Lake with all those Asian families after church?  There was that kid who thought he could catch 600 sharks with a twig and a piece of string."
  "Oh yeah, we were all making fun of him.  He didn't even have a hook or bait."
  "Well, I saw him crying later that day.  I thought it was because we were making fun of him.  My mom told me that he had an inoperable brain tumor.  He had less than six months to live.  He was crying because he had gotten a headache.  I felt so bad."
  "Oh my God.  I had no idea.  I feel terrible!" I said.
  "Yeah.  He was eight years old.  I wish I could go back and let him live his whole life believing he can catch sharks with a twig.  I think about that whenever I pass by the lake."
  I wanted to help cheer Mbu up, but I myself am socially inept so I opened up my mouth and, "Remember that one Halloween when you dressed like Anubis and I was Hermes.  We called it the Night of Anubis."
  Helen looked at me like I was Hermes.  "Uh, you lost me at hello."
  "Well, maybe that's cuz I wasn't talking to you," I said like a petulant two-year old.
  Mbu elbowed me in the ribs and pointed to a sign up ahead down the road.  It very clearly stated, 'Marble Cliffs 7 miles'.
  "Holy Krizmak!  We're almost there!"
  "Is that the god of the Shinies?" asked Helen.
  "What the?  No!  It started out as holy crap, then became holy crizzap, then somehow morphed into holy krizmak.  It's just something I say when I'm excited."
  "Again, you lost me at hello, and this time you were talking to me, you Shiny asshole."
  "Myeh myeh myeh.  You know, that's as funny as a two-legged moron," was my socially inept retort.
  "Will you two just keep walking?"
  We did.  And before long we started seeing familiar landmarks.  All in all though, the place was a ghost town.  Luckily we hadn't bumped into any zombies, but the occasional tumble weed had us cowering every time.  We decided we needed a place to sleep for the night.
  "How about McGee Cemetery?" asked Mbu.
  "What the?  Are you out of your mind?  It'll be a three dog night in hell before I sleep in a cemetery in the middle of a zombie outbreak."
  "Okay, did you put any thought into your response to my suggestion or are you just being chicken shit?"
  "D, none of the above."
  "Alright then, let me break it down so that even you can understand.  Imagine you're a dead guy looking for living human flesh to consume.  Do you think a cemetery is the first place you'd think of to go to so that you can scare up some grub?"
  I was beginning to see the logic in his plan, darn it.  "Yeah yeah, you wouldn't go to New Orleans for their sushi or to Korea for their banana splits."
  "And I wouldn't go to you for intelligent conversation," dug in Helen.
  So it was decided that we'd hole up at the local cemetery for the night.  We each picked a spot in the cemetery to lay our weary heads to rest.  I noticed that all the graves had flowers except for one.  Always rooting for the underdog, that's the spot I chose.  It was the grave of Sierra Dophlet.
  That night I had a dream in which I saw a young lady in black.  I approached her.  "Hello, my name is Hewlett Fen-Chang," I said.
  "I'm Sierra Dophlet."
  "Hey, wait a minute.  Didn't they name the hospital after you?"
  "What hospital?" Sierra asked.
  "Oh yeah, that too.  I guess that was after your time.  How did you die?  I mean is that a sensitive subject like asking a woman her age or a moron his IQ?"
  "No.  I'm okay telling you.  Years ago there was a guy named Brian Bexton who moved into a house by a field.  That house used to be my house and that field used to be my dad's.  I am the daughter of Clifford McGee.  He was one of the first settlers here in this town."
  Like a moron I was about to ask if he was the one they named the cemetery after, but I caught myself in time.  Asking the same stupid question twice in one night would just be embarrassing even for me.
  "The field was my father's farm land, but with no rain, the crops failed.  My mother left my father and moved me and her back to Tucson where we are originally from.  I ran away from my mother to come back here, but my father had died while we were gone.  I stayed in a small cabin by the field which had become known as the Field of Treachery.
  "Brian Bexton and I were friends because he used to work for my father.  Brian had always wanted to see cranes.  They always flew over head, but would never land because there was no water.  The townsfolk thought he was crazy to think a crane would ever come here to Marble Cliffs."
  I had a question.  "Why do they call this place Marble Cliffs anyway?"
  "I found out when I moved back to town that my father had discovered copper when he was digging in his field one day.  Him and a fellow named Chargood Johnson made a copper mill by the field.  My father's name was Clifford, but they called him Marble Cliff because he had a glass eye.  Apparently, the Johnson McGee Copper Mill brought enough prosperity to this town to put it on the map.  When he died, they named the town after him.
  "So anyway, I wanted to help Brian Bexton achieve his dream of seeing a crane up close.  I decided to flood the field.  Late one night I grabbed a bucket and went to the river.  I kept bringing buckets of water to the field in hopes of making a small pond for cranes to land in.  In the dark, I slipped in some mud, fell and hit my head on a rock.  That's how I died.
  "Brian saw what I was doing and was inspired to continue it.  The whole town was touched by my story and helped him.  The day of my funeral, there was an entire lake on what used to be a barren field.  Brian eulogized me and at the end of his speech, a crane landed in the water. That was my gift to him."
  "You're talking about Marble Cliff's Lake!  It's still there and so is the Johnson McGee Copper Mill.  Gosh, you know, you've got hospitals named after you and lakes that you've built.  I don't have anything to show for my life.  As a matter of fact, I always feel like everyone's smarter than I am.  I just want to help people feel good about themselves, you know?"
  "Well, do you know what you could do for me, Helwett?" Sierra asked.
  "Me?  No."
  "You see that headstone with my name on it?"
  "The unflowered grave?"
  "It doesn't have to stay that way.  I noticed how you chose this spot as a place to sleep."
  We hugged and I awoke.  It was morning and it was time for the three of us to leave.  We walked into a nearby neighborhood.  On a sidewalk, there was a sign that said, 'Found Mattress'.
  "Yeah, found mattress.  If you want to go reclaim your lost mattress, they'll return it to you but only if you can make it come to you.  'Here boy.  Come here, my good boy'," I said.  Nobody laughed.
  We found a house that was abandoned.  We went inside to see if we could find any food and hopefully a radio so that we could find out where the safe haven was.  Luckily, we found both.  Unluckily, the radio said the nearest safe haven was in Yuma.  We left the house with back packs full of as much food and as many supplies as we could carry.  On our way out of town, we happened upon a zombie walking around aimlessly holding a broomstick.
  Mbu shook his head.  "Miles to go before I sweep.  Yep.  I know how you feel, buddy."
  "Well you Shinies better take me to your mother ship soon.  I'm old.  I wanna see the heavens," said Helen.
  I wanted to tell her we weren't really aliens, but I remembered that little boy who thought he could catch sharks with a twig.  I decided I'd let her live the rest of her life believing she'd met aliens who were taking her to the mother ship so that she could see the heavens.

The Greater Number 2: Hand of Karma part 9

  Announcements went out over the loud speakers saying, "Emergency report, emergency report!  This is not a drill.  All hands not currently on watch must immediately report to the West Perimeter Road.  Muster with the Small Arms Supervisor at the West Gate Guard Shack."
  "Guess this shit's for real," was all I could come up with to say on such short notice.  Mbu was just as speechless watching all the citizens of Code Gray scramble about.
  Father Ng found us then.  "Your mother and I have decided we're not going to stay here any longer.  Hand of Karma is at the fence trying to get in.  We've heard about a safe haven in Ashland, Oregon.  We're going to escape from here and go there."
  "Dad, what's Hand of Karma?"
  "You haven't heard the radios?"
  "We've been on foot without a radio since we left that crazy town."
  "Well, apparently, there's a crazy monk who is leading the zombies to fresh kills.  He also has a cult following comprised of living people.  He believes that he has been chosen by God to wipe out all evil in the world.  He believes that anyone the zombies kill must have been evil in the eyes of God."
  "That sounds like Hadji!" I yelled.
  "Yes, that's the monk's name," said Father Ng.
  "This is all our fault.  We must have led him here.  He must have been following us this whole time!" Mbu said, slamming his fist on a wall.
  "You can't blame yourself, son.  They've been roaming all over.  They're a rather large group.  They would have come here anyway.  Right now, it's time to help your mother and me to keep your brother and sister safe from the attack on our refuge."
  Out the window of the mess hall, we could see that the perimeter had been breached.  Zombies were spilling in.  The six of us mad for the East Gate.  The Centimator was there as the sole guardian of the East entrance.
  Hadji had sent a contingent of the living to attack the East Gate because he had heard the announcements on the PA.  He knew it would be a weak point.
  The Ng family and I entered the guard shack and armed ourselves.  The small arms locker had been left open and unattended in all the confusion.  Father Ng, Mbu and I found all kinds of weapons from firearms to hand grenades.  We went out to help the Centimator defend the East Gate.
  The soldiers had their hands full using their machine guns to mow down the coming masses of people.  Luckily, Hadji had his zombie hordes concentrated at the West Gate.
  I pulled a pin from a grenade and threw it into the heart of the crowd.  The explosion seemed to disperse them all around.  From there, it was a simple matter of mop up for us.  It should've been smooth sailing from there, but then the zombies started coming.
  I tried the whole grenade tactic again, but that didn't send them scrambling like it did with the living.  As a matter of fact, even some of the fallen zombies were still crawling and clawing their way toward us.  The three of us sought shelter in the guard shack.
  The Centimator had a turret on top, manned by a soldier armed with a machine gun.  He tried his darndest to get the closest of the undead, but there were just too many of them.  The zombies surrounded the Centimator.  Higher math couldn't calculate how many pieces the machine gunner ended up in.
  The panicked soldiers inside tried to escape the assault vehicle.  They were immediately set upon by the zombies.  Within seconds there were intestines, blood, exposed bones and raw flesh everywhere.  The screams stopped then.  From the guard shack, where we were hiding, the three of us watched in horror as the bloodbath ensued in dramatic detail.
  At this point, there were only a dozen or so zombies.  They were temporarily distracted by their unholy feast.  We took this opportunity to take them out one by one from the safety of the guard shack window.  I felt like a sniper in some shooter video game.
  There was a huge din still coming from the base.  The three of us cautiously exited the guard shack and made our way to the Centimator.  We worked together to clear it of bodies both dead and re-dead.
  The Centimator comfortably seats six in the back, two up front and one on top.  We loaded the six of us up inside and made our way around to the West Gate to help with the fight there.  Unfortunately, it was fairly vacated.  The fight had moved inside the walls.  With heavy hearts, we decided it was time to head west.  Multitudes of people joined the greater number on this day at the Battle of Code Gray.