Victors: A Zombie Chronicle Ch.1

2018
CHAPTER 1
Chris POV


I drove the H2 stretch Hummer across the Urban Wasteland that had been Houston. Now that the only speck of humanity in the city was being pursued by a swarm of the infected, It seemed impossible to imagine that it had once been a proud, developed area.
Daryl was on hatch gunner duty, keeping watch for survivors or gangs. The two U.S. Marines we had met up with in Atlanta were intently watching the chaos outside. Serena and Katya, our compatriots, tried to reach anybody human on the radio, and Brandon tried to direct me to Las Vegas. Gerard, Sage, Nestor, Tyler, and Jordan were attempting to get as much sleep as they could to relieve us in the morning.
It was hard to believe we had already survived for this long. Our group had been through hell and back, lost so many people, the fact that we were still on this earth almost seemed more of a curse than a miracle.
Two days previously, we heard rumors of some sort of survivor resistance forming at the Pentagon. Most rumors like that turned out to be false, but our crew would take any bit of hope it could get that would help us to see our folks, who mostly evacuated to England during the first stages of the scourge. Before that though, we needed to pick up a few survivors we had made radio contact with a few nights before. Twelve people barricaded in Caesars Palace. There aren’t many Homo Sapiens left in America, so we need to gather all we can.
The first brilliant cracks of dawn appeared on the horizon. Sun. Sun is good, it slows down the hordes, or at least seems too, which will allow us to refill on gas. Once we make sure the infected were far off in the distance, we pulled over at a gas station, Brandon, Daryl, and I got out. Brandon and I had shotguns; Daryl had his loyal baseball bat.
I shoved open the door to turn on the pump, expecting anything, but not the poor man hiding behind the counter. Startled, Brandon cut him down.
“Brandon!” I reprimand, “Think before you shoot!”
“Thinking could get us all killed,” Daryl returned. “Damn Asian, this is why I don’t want you as our group leader. I keep telling you, we should use guerrilla tactics.”
“Military strategies are the only way to survive,” I countered. “A wolf needs its pack, and we need to join a larger force.”
“Guys, stop! We’ve gotta’ hurry, or none of us will left to argue,” Brandon shouted.
“Fine, fine,” Daryl said, shooting me a despicable look.



We were back on the road, and headed towards Las Vegas when the others woke, and relieved us of our positions.
I fidgeted with the prototype of the Electrical Charge Emitter (ECE), which should cut off the disease from the brain of anyone infected. I invented the device in an attempt to develop an effective weapon against the swarm. If functional, it may just be humanity’s last defense.
The ECE couldn’t currently be used, because the frequency isn’t perfected. For all I knew, it might just fry every brain in the world. Even if it just fries a few human brains, that’s collateral damage. And any collateral damage isn’t good when attempting to ensure the survival of an endangered species.
As I tinkered with my creations, I remembered how bad I thought my life had been. These last few years had been a nightmare, but at least I had a family again, we looked out for each other, and that’s how it should be. I can’t help but remember all those lost to us. Those we were separated from at the Great Scourge at Bak. I never found out what there fate was. With any luck, they were evacuated with the others, and those who were lost since then, most of the survivors who were with us were turned, some left, several committed suicide once we reached mainland again. As those thoughts raced through my head, I slowly drifted off to sleep, until everything faded to black.
When I woke, around 5:00 PM, the sun faded over the distant horizon. I browsed through my collection of Zombie books. The Zombie Survival Guide and WWZ, both by Max Brooks, as well as books on the typical Hollywood zombie invasion, and West Points Guide to Military Tactics headlined my collection, but I had several others as well. I flipped through the pages of Zombie Survival Guide, an came across a particularly interesting tactic, the Scythe fire, if everyone shoots at head level, its bound to get more headshots. I made a mental note to look into that as I looked out the window.
We were there. Sin City. Caesar’s Palace, here we come.

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