“Javan Bonds comes to zombie fiction as a fan of great writers in the genre today. His Still Alive series carries the torch for the next generation of the genre and his love for it shows through on every page.” — Jay Wilburn
Teaser from Zombie River Run
Still Alive Book 5
“The Boss”
by Javan Bonds
ELMO “MO” COLLINS, The Hero, and his brother, Ezekiel “Easy” Collins, The Protector, slashed and slammed every naked, blue, cannibalistic, yellow-eyed, starving, undead monster he could find. The former humans were infected with some sort of bioengineered sickness that turned them into rabid apes. These bloodthirsty animals had no bowel control and a craving for human flesh. One bite resulted in immediate infection every single time. Though the casually coined “peevies” would ignore a newly bitten human, the person could expect to become a zombie, craving and chomping all uninfected persons, roughly within eight hours. Primates and humans were the only known species susceptible to the virus. The Medicine Man was currently investigating a possible avian connection.
The pair of main protagonists weren’t all that worried about being bitten at this particular moment. Mo and his bodybuilder brother were armored and in Battle Star Galactica Cylon armor and Iron Man suits, respectively. Mo wielded a Klingon bat’leth while his massive sibling carried a giant Warhammer 40,000, Thunder Hammer. The endless wave of revenants swarmed the brothers. They had switched from rifles to melee combat when the departed drew too close for projectile weapons to be safe and effective. The monsters paid no attention to the fact that they couldn’t bite through reinforced plate armor or to the piles of bloody, eviscerated, dead and dying zombies all around the brothers. They only wanted the taste of succulent, raw meat!
The brothers were defending Akambiya Ngona Collins, the only crew member of the Viva Ancora with the knowledge to successfully operate a hydroelectric dam. The replica pirate ship had passed through the locks and they were now returning from the control room. Easy and Aka had recently married back in Guntersville and the newlyweds had spent most of their honeymoon slaughtering peevies. She stood behind them wearing her Storm outfit, ready with her demonic-looking, onyx halberd. She was prepared to slice the creatures with her razor-sharp blade, but they seemed only to be seeking out her husband and brother-in-law, never once attempting to attack the ebony goddess behind them.
The group moved at a snail’s pace, gaining no more than a few inches with each defeated enemy. The Hero thrust one end of his blade into the face of a former middle-aged man with a receding hairline. “This doesn’t make any sense! Why are there so many?”
“Damn right it doesn’t.”
Iron Man chose to blame his older brother for the horde. “There’s never this many of them unless I’m with you!”
Mo tried to shake a yellow eyeball from the end of his bat’leth. “What? It’s not my fault. They must come after some of the others. The script wouldn’t be entertaining otherwise.”
“The fuck it ain’t! You just don’t know how few of them there are when you’re not here, because there’s a shitload at every dam you go into.” The Protector slammed the head of his hammer into the back of one of the creatures, shattering the spine and ripping all the way through the ribs. “I’m not coming with you anymore!”
Mo acted insulted. “Fine! Fuck you, too.” He spoke solemnly, remembering the words of The Oracle. “We were paired randomly. I had nothing to do with it!” He lowered his voice and said, “Do you really think I want to smell your fucking cologne?” He continued at his earlier volume. “Besides, this is just how it’s ‘post to be.’”
After destroying a zombie’s legs with his mallet and stomping its head into a paste, Easy turn to his brother and scoffed condescendingly, “Well, I ain’t ‘post-to come off the boat with you anymore.” He tacked on to respond to the insult in an equally low tone, “It’s Neiman Marcus. Eat shit.”
The Hero shot back stubbornly, “Good. I don’t want to be with you anymore, either!” He dropped his volume once more. “And I don’t care what it is. I would rather bathe in the ass batter of peevies than wear that stuff.”
Uncountable numbers of shit-covered nudists littered the ground around them. Reeking diarrhea masked the scent of everything beyond the coppery blood at their feet. They were relieved to finally see the exit door. Peevies had been nocturnal until around a month after May Day when they suddenly became tolerant of sunlight. The undead’s eyes had evolved to be able to withstand UV rays, but they still were not fans of the bright afternoon. They normally preferred to hide in dark, damp, musky enclosures soaked in a wet coating of feces with the color and consistency of boiling asphalt. Stepping into the midday sun would hopefully end the majority of the undead assault.
Finally, there was peace; but not without the pain. The burning muscles and near exhaustion was an ever-present reminder of today’s battle. The onslaught had immediately ceased as if it never happened at all. Perhaps it’s all a figment of my imagination, thought The Hero.
Slinging the bloody filth from his two-handed blade, The Hero let out a weak chuckle. Met with sunny warmth and sweet silence, Mo mangled an old Bruce Springsteen song, “I guess they were revved up like a deuce. Cannibals are just runners in the night. Thank God peevies are blinded by the LIGHT.”
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