1.

Higgins hears the deer approaching. A buck – five-pointer at least. He spent enough time canvassing the Allegheny’s to know the difference between the dainty sound of a doe and the lumbering sound a buck. But he can’t do anything about it, except hope the deer continues on into the shallow woods.

Higgins clears his throat to whisper into the headset, but Whitney’s voice crackles through his ear-piece before he has the chance.

We see him, Whitney says. (more…)

Sequel to SALVATION

Jeff Robinson sat in the chair and waited for his inevitable death. In fact he wasn’t as much sat in the chair, as strapped in. Think leather fastenings were secured tightly round his ankles, thighs, wrists, arms and waist. He looked around the empty room, moving only his eyes as his head was held firmly in place by the metal cap tightly fixed to it. It reminded him of a room where prisoners on TV shows were taken just before receiving several thousand volts in the electric chair. The irony wasn’t lost on him. (more…)

This is the second story of a series that began with 1ST OHIO VOLUNTEERS.

1.

Moonrise.

The darkened, almost pitch black landscape below began to shift into faint shadow as a nearly full moon climbed above the eastern horizon. The cold, white lunar light gave the entire forest surrounding the tiny compound of the 1st Ohio Volunteer Regiment an eerie, almost enchanted quality. The chorus of crickets was almost deafening in the cool night air, broken only by the occasional hoot of a solitary owl. (more…)

-Undisclosed location

I meet the interviewee, ‘John’, in an interstate diner. John had tracked me down a week previous, after hearing about my report ‘from some friends’, and requested to be interviewed.

John’s a lean, rangy man and he’s wearing mirrored aviators. He drinks his coffee and explains his request for confidentiality. (more…)

Sunrise.

Lou Raines, Gunnery Sergeant, USMC (retired),  scanned the crimson landscape below him through his binoculars from his vantage point on a high peak overlooking the eastern Ohio countryside.

Thick, white mist still clung in the gentle valleys. It enshrouded the small towns in a thick blanket, with only the tops of similar peaks to the one he was currently standing on visible through the otherwise clear morning air. (more…)

Jim Bramer, Minister of Special Circumstances, stood and gazed out of the grimy rain-slick window of The Houses of Parliament office that was his home. Casually he picked at the damp peeling paint on the window sill, and dropped the flakes onto the aging, stained carpet. The office was once opulent in the seat of government, now faded and ruined as the city around him. He looked out into the night, and the further he looked west, the more dread snatched at him. He could feel the rising panic in the city below, queues of shabby workers rushing down Abingdon Street towards Westminster Bridge and the Isle of Dogs. They moved together in the vain hope there was still a boat with a friendly Captain. In his office he could hear the murmurs and shouts of the crowd, people shoving and arguing, fear barely concealed as they hurried along. Bramer knew that all the boats were gone, and that Death was coming. He knew this because The Minister had phoned him and told him so. (more…)

Noon, The Next Day, I-35, North of Emporia, Kansas

We tend to drive slowly when we’re traveling with the kids. As they’ve gotten older, traveling has gotten easier, but we still take our time driving. Besides, it wasn’t like we were in a hurry. We stopped for the night in Wichita, just off the Kansas Turnpike. The match had ended at about 2:30 in the afternoon, so we drove for a few hours and pulled into a Holiday Inn to get a good night’s sleep. (more…)

1.

“Look,” Kathryn said, “this one has the keys in it.”

“It’s probably out of gas,” Maureen acknowledged, “most of the ones with the keys left in them are out of gas.”

“Well,” Kathryn stripped off her business suit jacket and searched the mercifully empty streets, “we’re gonna have to give it a try.” She climbed behind the wheel and unlocked the passenger door so that Maureen could climb in the other side. (more…)

Orange County, California, USA

[ I look down on the city of LA, from my perch on a balcony in the hills above the city. The sounds of reconstruction and clean up still echo even 10 years after the war. I’m waiting for the owner of this large, walled in compoud. It is definately a post war consturction. Part House, part shooting range, part bunker and storage facility. It’s owner, a very successful business man, gives lessons in shooting, and most importantly, the art of killing the undead. I’m here to get his story of what had happened when the day came, when the dead walked the Earth. ] (more…)

1. The Protector

As far as General Jamieson was concerned, 2012 represented the lowest point in the history of the once great United States of America. Things happened that year that he wouldn’t have believed possible.

Where the fuck could you even start? (more…)

Somewhere in the Middle of Kansas

[Before the Zombie War, mediums were considered con artists by the majority of society. Men and women who were the hosts of flashy Reality T.V. shows, playing up to an audience who tuned in for a quick thrill; sometimes the subject of television or film dramas, mediums have not earned much more than open skepticism and derision. I am speaking with a medium on a dirt patch somewhere in the heart of what used to be America’s bread basket in the state known as Kansas. In the days before the Panic, she was known as Tshilaba, a Romani name meaning “seeker of knowledge.” These days, she is known by something simpler: Mercy.] (more…)