About this author
Shana Festa was born in Lincoln, Nebraska on October 17, 1976 and grew up in Northboro, Massachusetts. She currently lives in Cape Coral, Florida with her husband and two dogs, Daphne & Casey.
Shana is a registered nurse with clinical experience in mental health, geriatrics, HIV and substance abuse. In addition to her clinical background, Shana possesses over 15 years of experience with project management and data analytics.
She has been heavily involved in the collection and dissemination of the ICD-10 clinical and coding analytics across multiple projects including the NCHICA ICD-10 Pilot, the HIMSS WEDI ICD-10 Pilot and commercial testing programs.
Under her alter ego, The Bookie Monster, Shana reviews horror and paranormal books, with an emphasis on (but not limited to) zombie fiction. With a background in Psych Nursing, Shay brings her unique perspective to the online reading community.
Introducing her own zompoc story to the genre, Shana’s debut novel, Time of Death, is the first in a planned trilogy and is scheduled was released May, 2014.
Chapter
05: Buried Treasure
“In the midst of what is surely the worst storm Floridians have
seen all year, we are getting reports of extreme violence throughout the
community. Law enforcement officials recommend all non-essential personnel
remain in their homes until what they are calling ‘civil disobedience’ has been
contained. We have received news that St. Vincent’s hospital has been overrun
with crazed citizens. Reports state that there has been an outbreak of what
medical professionals have determined is a form of the rabies virus. Highly
contagious through transmission of saliva and blood, this pathogen has a 100%
infection rate and is believed to have originated from a female patient at St.
Vincent’s Hospital. The hospital has been placed under quarantine and we have
been asked to direct anyone exhibiting symptoms of the infection to St. Mary’s
Hospital on Metro Parkway in Fort Myers.
“We have received reports of similar activity from hospitals
along the east coast, reaching as far north as Delaware.
“Early warning signs include fever, lethargy, and respiratory
distress following contact with an infected individual. Those in the late
stages of infection exhibit tonic-clonic seizures, and a catatonic state,
followed by severe violent episodes after waking. Folks, I realize this is
going to sound crazy, but I have been instructed to tell you that these
infected individuals are biting, and subsequently eating, victims. This is not
a hoax. Once bitten, victims will become ill, and the infection will consume
them within a matter of hours. If you come into contact with someone infected,
make all attempts to isolate yourself and contact the authorities.”
~*~
We sat
in stunned silence for minutes until Jake broke it. “Um…did he just tell us there is a zombie outbreak going on?” He
stared at me and I watched his face go through a litany of emotions from shock
to disbelief.
“I think so,” I replied, unsure even as I
spoke the words. “This is a joke, right?” Daphne had moved to the front door
and began sniffing at the bottom corner. She backed away growling as a loud
bang on the front door jolted us off the sofa and began barking wildly. “Jake,”
I whispered. “I’m scared.”
I snatched Daphne into my arms and
continued to back away from the door. My heart was pounding in my chest. The
fear gripped me and I suddenly found it difficult to breathe. Over the years,
Jake had played tricks on me and joked about my irrational fear of zombies. Was
this it? Had my worst nightmare come to fruition? I remember hearing the news
last year when a guy in Miami got hopped up on bath salts and ate some other
guy’s face. Was this a street drug gone bad?
It was then that we heard it. Above the
droning of the wind and rain and the banging on the door, we heard a siren
growing louder until it became so loud we were certain that it was nearby. The
siren and the banging stopped all at once, and I beat Jake to the peephole in
the door. A cruiser had pulled onto the front lawn, its door stood open, and a
uniformed officer was standing in front of the car. He was shouting at
something I couldn’t see through the tiny hole and raised his gun.
“What is it?” Jake asked me.
“It’s a cop. I think there’s someone out
there with him. He’s got his weapon pointed at something or someone and he’s
yelling at them. I can’t make out what he’s saying.”
Jake nudged me out of the way to get a
glimpse at the events outside. “This is ridiculous, I can’t see anything. I’m
going out there.”
I grabbed for him before he could unlock
the dead bolt. “Don’t you dare open that door,” I snapped at him. An
overpowering feeling of fear and anxiety came over me and I felt myself start
to panic. My voice increased to an octave so shrill that I sounded like I’d
been sucking helium. “Someone is pointing a gun at us. Why would you give him
an easy target? Don’t be an idiot.”
“Because,” Jake said, “I want to know what
the hell is going on. This is still my house and I want to know why he’s
pointing a gun at it.” Jake yanked open the front door, the wind picking up the
momentum and slamming it against the wall as it opened outward. The opening
granted us a full view of the lawn, the cop, and the man approaching him.
Daphne was squirming under my arm, growling with a ferocity I’d never seen.
“Stop right there, or I’ll shoot!” yelled
the officer. For a minute, I thought he was talking to us. We both froze. But
the man walking towards him kept moving, and I realized the gun was trained on
him. The officer was visibly shaking. I could see the panic in his eyes all the
way across the lawn.
I squeezed past Jake to get a better view
of the scene. I hadn’t noticed while looking through the peep-hole, but there
were chunks of something stuck in the cars radiator. I realized it was hair and
flesh. The rain caused blood to trail down the grill and end in a pink puddle
on the lawn. I let loose a gasp of horror, my hand flying up to cover my mouth
and muffle the sound while my eyes strained to take in the detail.
The man was still walking toward the cop.
Not really walking, but sort of shuffled along like he was a baby taking his first
steps. His arms outstretched, he shambled closer. His back was to Jake and I
and his white polo shirt and jeans were smeared in mud. The gunshot snapped me
out of my shock and I screamed. The man stumbled back but regained his balance
and kept going. Three more shots rang out in succession and the man’s head
snapped back as he went limp and fell onto the muddy lawn.
The officer lowered his gun, hand
trembling, and walked closer to the man lying dead in our yard. He stared down
at the body, emotion unreadable, as Jake and I crept closer.
The body lay still, creating a barrier
between us and the cop. The top of his head was a mess of bone and shredded
brain matter. The eyes, forever open, were clouded white, pupils radiating out
with red spider-like blood vessels, and the skin surrounding them was nearly
black and sunken. His skin was taut and mottled with death. His torso though,
that was where I saw the real carnage.
The man’s shirt had been torn nearly the
entire length of its flimsy cotton, together only at the neck band, and was
saturated with blood. His chest cavity had been ravaged and was empty of what
one would consider vital organs. Flesh was flayed from bone and left his ribs
exposed.
I backed away, feeling sick to my stomach,
and couldn’t hold back the vomit. I threw up until I was kneeling on the grass
dry heaving stomach acid, one hand pushed into the wet earth to hold me up and
the other clutching the dog.
Jake and the cop stood motionless, staring
down in disbelief at what had once been a man. “What is going on?” Jake asked
the cop.
Officer Donnelly, according to the name
badge located over his left breast pocket, pulled himself together and said,
“You need to get somewhere safe. The main parts of town have been overrun
with…whatever this is.” He waved his gun hand in the direction of the dead
body. “Stay inside, lock your doors and do not open them for anyone. And if you
can’t stay hidden, if they get in, get in your car and drive.”
“Where? If town isn’t safe, where can we go?” I
was shaking all over as Jake helped me to my feet, and my words came out as a
stutter.
The cop looked up at me sullenly. “I don’t
know.”
He walked back towards his car and was
about to say something when we heard the sound of a blood-curdling scream
coming from down the street. We all whipped around to face the noise and
scanned the neighborhood. The screams continued for a few seconds, then
nothing. I squinted to see in the distance and could make out a group of three
people huddled on the ground in front of a house at the end of the street. I
wiped the rain from my eyes and squinted as the scene came into focus. They
were eating someone. Possibly someone we knew. They ripped at their victim like
they were digging for buried treasure.
A scream escaped me as I raised my hands to
cover my mouth. One of the huddled group snapped its head in the air, cocked it
to one side and listened. It angled its neck back, and lifted its nose in the
air. A short scream sounded further down the street and the head snapped to the
left like a bird seeking prey. The zombie lumbered awkwardly to its feet, and
began moving in the direction of the new noise.
The radio squawked from the police car,
pulling us all from our rubbernecking trance, and I turned back to Officer
Donnelly.
“Watch out!” I screamed.
Four figures had crested the embankment
behind him. They were close enough to him that they would be on him in seconds.
The first-a female-looked as if she had lost a battle with a wild animal.
Wearing nothing but what once had been a pink negligee; her lower jaw had been
torn right from her face. Blood dripped down her neck, staining the negligee,
and her tongue, now black, was matted to the side of her neck. She emitted a
dry rasping moan as she reached for him. He managed to get one shot off, taking
her down, before the other three were on him.
He turned, only to land on the hood of his
car and plead for help as he attempted to scratch his way over the hood to
safety. His grip on the gun failed. It fell to the hood like a brick and slid
off the front of the car into the mud. One of the monsters managed to get hold
of his kicking legs and dragged him back. Officer Donnelly let out a howl of
pain as its teeth sunk into the meaty skin of his calf. I saw his eyes then,
staring straight into mine. Begging with an unspoken appeal to for help. Nails
digging into the paint of the hood, he disappeared from view as they yanked him
off the hood and began to feast.
I stumbled back and nearly fell over Jake
as I backed away from the grisly scene. My head moved side to side like a yo-yo
and I heard the splash of feet in a puddle to my right. Coming around the house
was another one; it was leaning on the house as it walked towards me. One of
its arms had been torn off at the elbow and its face was so mangled that I
couldn’t decipher gender.
I grabbed Jake’s arm and ran to the front
door. Slamming it hard and locking the dead bolt, I slid down to the ground
with my back to the door. I was hyperventilating. My vision was blurry and I
saw spots. I realized I was sobbing, and Jake had his arms around me making
soft cooing noises to calm me down. He held me close and told me everything
would be okay.
I shoved him away, fueled by a panicked
rage. “Nothing is okay Jake. A man just got eaten on our front lawn. There are zombies running around eating people. So
tell me, how the fuck will this be okay?”
Pushing him aside, I stood up and looked
through the peephole. “Oh, God, no,” I whispered. A pack of them were heading
straight for the door, trailed by a reanimated Officer Donnelly. The lower half
of his leg had been ripped off, and the bone was jutting out from below his
knee like someone had picked it clean. Daphne started to bark again, this time
focused on the back of the house. I picked her up and turned to see a man
standing at the sliding glass door. He didn’t try to open it with the handle.
He just kept hitting the glass with his head; leaving smears of blood across
the clean glass.
Spider web cracks were appearing in the
glass and were spreading with each impact. At the same time, the group at the
front door was causing the door frame to bow with the sheer force of their
weight. “The doors won’t hold. We need to get to the garage!” As he said it, he
grabbed me and looked me in the eyes. “Emma, we need to get out of here.”
We ran toward the garage, and made it to
the kitchen before the glass door shattered. The zombie was in the house. Mere
feet away, I could smell its decaying flesh as we ran for our lives. Blood
oozed from a neck wound and it let out a wet gurgle.
“Jake! The Keys!”
“Go,” Jake said. “Get in the car. I’m right
behind you.” He shoved me through the door and closed it behind me.
“JAKE!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. I
could hear muffled struggles from the other side of the door as I panicked from
the thought of losing him. At once, I knew what I needed to do. I ran to the car and opened the
door. Dropping Daphne on the driver’s seat I reached under it and groped around
for the crowbar I always kept handy. My father grew up on the outskirts of
Boston, and it had been ingrained into me at an early age to always be able to
defend myself in a carjacking.
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