Zombie Zoology: An Unnatural History Read online

  ***

  Still pawing rancid bits of baboon from her, Emma crawled off.

  She got to her feet, stumbling.

  As she got clear of the tree, a male baboon came loping in her direction on all fours. It had a silver-gray mane and trailing beard that was fouled with dried blood and curdled marrow.

  The females screeched with excitement.

  Emma stared at the dead thing coming at her.

  The fur and flesh at its back had been peeled to pink muscle, as had the flesh of its face. Jutting from the surrounding orbits, it eyes were like eggs translucent with fresh blood.

  It snarled at her.

  Emma tensed.

  It attacked.

  She aimed kicks at it, trying to keep it off her so she could at least make the door. Her defense worked at first—her boots struck it in the mouth, alongside the head, driving it back. The baboon was enraged, spinning in circles, growling and barking while froths of pink saliva rained from its mouth like vomit.

  Emma knew how powerful the creature must be, resurrected or not. If it got hold of her, she’d never escape its iron embrace or those gleaming fangs.

  She had to keep it off her as she backed towards Gus and the door.

  Several females had dropped from the trees and were yipping with delight. They went down on their bellies and offered their hairless, callused, maggot-infested asses to the male.

  Emma kept kicking at the baboon.

  But it began to second-guess her, began to anticipate her moves. It ducked away from a flurry of kicks and came right in, seizing her right calf in its bloody jaws and putting her down.

  Emma was screaming and fighting, kicking out with her left leg while pain threaded through her right in white-hot waves. The baboon wasn’t just biting her…it was chewing, tearing, rending. Her pantleg was shredded, her calf muscle punctured…as those teeth came down again and again and again.

  Screaming, crying, Emma engaged in one last act of defiance.

  Instead of trying to kick out, she brought her leg closer to her body, dragging the baboon in with it by its teeth. And by that point it had worked a great flap of meat from her calf and it dangled from the baboon’s jaws like a bloody cutlet.

  Her mind erupting with blades of white-hot pain, Emma took hold of the animal by the ears and yanked down with everything she had, snapping its head sideways. The agony of its teeth being ripped so crudely from her leg was enough to make black dots parade before her eyes, but something in her—some primal, instinctive barbarism—fought on.

  Acting instinctively, she jammed her thumb into its eye.

  She buried it right to the second knuckle and the eye went to a soft mush like a rotten grape.

  The baboon went wild.

  It whimpered and howled, contorting and thrashing, tossing her onto her back and then jumping up on top of her, growling and snapping its jaws.

  An inky fluid dripped from the ruined eye and the stench was like rotting fish.

  It held her down and she could feel its blunt, stubby penis pressing against her thigh.

  On the ground as she was with the beast hovering above her, she could see beneath its shaggy beard. There was a perfectly symmetrical bald patch circling its throat. She could see the gray flesh beneath and it had been sutured…as if the creature’s head had been removed, then sewn back on.

  With a scream she grabbed hold of its shaggy head mainly to keep those teeth from her. The baboon was extremely powerful, but she held on. Beneath the dirty fur, the flesh of its skull was spongy and soft. Emma dug her fingers in and they slid through meat and tissue soft with putrid decay.

  The baboon cried out.

  It trembled spasmodically.

  She dug her fingers in deeper, a black sap running down her arms. Her fingertips scraped along the inside of its skull and she squeezed gray matter to mush in her fists, yanking out clods of brain that spurted between her fingers like oatmeal. Gouts of black blood fell into her face.

  The baboon dropped away, whining and hissing, the top of its cranium crushed to a globby slush. It crawled in gyrating circles on the ground, leaving a slime trail of mucus behind it, its entire body contorting madly as if every neuron was misfiring and they probably were.

  Emma pulled herself away, wet and stinking with the male’s drainage.

  The females hopped and shrieked and beat the ground with their skeletal fists. One of them had no eyes. In fact, the sockets had been stitched closed.

  What the hell is this about?

  Bloody, agonized, bile spewing from her mouth, Emma dragged herself towards the doorway. Blood, oh so much blood everywhere. In the grass. On the concrete. Sprayed in loops up the siding.

  She looked for Gus.

  But he was gone.

  Piecemeal, he had been dragged off.

  ***

  Emma crab-crawled up the steps onto the porch, trying to work the doorknob with blood-greased fingers.

  The Primate Research Center, that’s what this was about.

  It stood just outside the city. Animal rights activists were always protesting there. In the chaos of Necros-3, it had been forgotten. But the virus must have jumped species and reanimated these…things.

  She could hear the yelping and barking of the baboons.

  They were coming for her.

  Her fingers kept slipping on the knob. She pulled herself to her knees, her damaged calf sending fingers of agony right up into her chest.

  She got the door open.

  She pushed herself through, leaving a trail of blood behind her that marked her progress from the yard to the porch.

  The baboons yammered hungrily behind her.

  A gun. There were many and she had to get one.

  She slammed the door shut behind her, throwing her weight against it and the baboons hit it from the other side, one after the other. She jerked with each impact, her back against the door, trying to keep it closed with all her strength as her fingers reached shaking for the lock.

  The door burst in and she went down.

  She scrambled across the floor, nearly blacking out from the pain. She could smell the hot green wave of putrefaction the zombie baboons pushed before them. It was moist and heady and repulsive.

  Gnarled fingers scraped against her ankle.

  The sound of them squealing and piping was cacophonous echoing through the house.

  One of them grabbed her ankle and she kicked back, freeing herself.

  More fingers raked her leg.

  She grabbed wildly at the rifles in the case and they fell over like dominoes from her searching fingers, a .12 gauge pump coming free, bouncing off her head, and then she had it just as the baboons seized her and began to drag her back to their voracious waiting mouths.

  She swung around, the shotgun in her hands.

  There were three baboons gripping her legs.

  One of them was missing the top of its head, just a gleaming dome of exposed skull that was punctured with holes as if from primitive trepanning. Another’s face was pitted from probes and cutting.

  They opened their mouths, howling, diving in for the attack and Emma fired, pumped, and fired again.

  .12 gauge buckshot at such close range is devastating.

  The faces of two of the baboons literally splashed off the skulls beneath, the third riddled with blazing holes that lit its fur on fire. It hobbled away, smoldering.

  Emma cut another in half and blew the head off yet another.

  The one that was cut in half did not die.

  It pulled itself forward, its legs and lower torso forgotten, dragging ribbons of flesh behind it. It made a sharp hissing sound in its throat, its eyes lit with a crimson blaze, mouth open and ready to bite.

  “C’mon,” Emma panted, tears running down her face. “COME AND GET IT! C’MON, YOU MOTHERFUCKER! LET ME SEE WHAT YOU’RE MADE OF!”

  The baboon, of course, needed no prompting.

  It slithered forward and Emma blew its head to confetti. That stopped
the others. With all that meat sprayed around, they lost interest in her. They began to feed on the remains of the others, slurping up blood and nibbling on brains and gnawing on bloody bones.

  They were occupied.

  Now was the time.

  She looked down at her torn calf, the blood pooling around her leg. God, she needed to do something with it before she got woozy from the loss of blood.

  The baboons were ignoring her.

  Very slowly, she moved towards the first aid kit near the gun rack. Calmly, she took hold of the plastic box, opened it. With shaking fingers she wrapped her calf and then taped it up.

  Now and again, a baboon would look up at her with a blood-stained muzzle and snarl, but that was about it.

  Next, she had to get out of there.

  But Gus, oh Jesus, what about Gus?

  No time for that. She shut her mind down. Went cold. Emotionless. This was survival now, it was war to the teeth. The easiest way out would be through the dining room and into the kitchen. If she could make that, then she could slip out the back door and hobble to the garage. The keys to it and the Jeep inside were in her pocket. Then a quick spin out to Fort Kendrix.

  Swallowing, she began to move towards the archway that led into the dining room.

  She scooted herself along on her ass.

  The baboons still ignored her.

  She got to the archway, took one long last look at them to satisfy herself that they had no interest in her. They didn’t. There was plenty to eat and that seemed to be the primary motivating force: hunger.

  The shortwave radio was in the dining room.

  But she didn’t dare send a message.

  That would mean speaking at full volume.

  She pushed herself into the kitchen. Almost there, by God, almost there.

  Into the kitchen.

  More of a warehouse now with stacked crates of MREs and purified water and flares and radio parts and—

  Emma heard a scuttling noise.

  A ragged breathing.

  She swung around on her ass and an especially large ape was waiting there, puffing out its chest.

  A Mandrill.

  It was a large shaggy baboon-like beast with an olive pelt, its nose a brilliant bright red, vivid blue spokes fanning out over the cheeks. Emma found herself staring into its eyes. They were a cool, watery scarlet. The top of its head had been cut away, its brain exposed.

  She did not want to think about what they had been doing to this animal just like she did not want to think about what it could do to her.

  It stepped forward on all fours with an almost swaggering, arrogant stride.

  It bared its teeth, yawned its mouth wide and let loose with a high-pitched screaming noise that was instantly answered by a dozen other screeching voices.

  Emma licked her lips.

  There was a gaping hole in the beast’s midsection and you could see right through it, nothing but bones in there. It couldn’t possibly be moving, but it was.

  She brought up the shotgun.

  The Mandrill charged.

  She pulled the trigger.

  Nothing.

  She worked the pump, pulled the trigger again, and in the back of her mind a small voice counted off the five rounds she had already fired.

  Five.

  Here’s what you need to remember about the Mossberg 500, she could hear Gus saying to her. It has a five-round magazine so if you’re going to use it, carry a back-up. It’s a devastating weapon, Emma, but not if you run out of shells.

  Shit.

  Hopelessly, Emma tried firing it again.

  Then the Mandrill was on her.

  It took hold of her with great strength, pushing her down and bouncing her head off the floor to take the fight out of her. Then it grabbed her by the hair and swung her like a Barbie doll, smashing her into cupboards, the kitchen table, a green metal cartridge box.

  By then she was barely conscious.

  The Mandrill seemed pleased.

  For alive or dead, it liked its females submissive.

  Emma looked up with bleary eyes.

  She saw the Mandrill’s bright red penis squirt cold urine into her face, marking her. It gushed over her cheeks, burning her eyes, bringing an acidic, nauseating taste to her lips.

  The stench more than anything made her pass out.

  The Mandrill, grunting happily, dragged her from the room.

  ***

  When Emma came to she was in the cellar.

  She was sore, threaded with pain, but the worst part—

  What the hell?

  She was face-down and something was humping her from behind. Her first instinct was to fight, to scramble free. But she was still dressed so it wasn’t like she was being penetrated.

  Wait.

  There were several baboons gathered around, but keeping a respectful distance and that was because the Mandrill had her. Mandrills were not baboons, she knew, just close relatives, the largest species of monkey in the world and this one was the alpha male of a pack of baboons.

  It was humping her to show its dominance.

  It screeched.

  The baboons yelped and barked.

  The females were busy picking maggots from each other’s hides and eating them.

  Emma knew she could not panic.

  A lot depended on what she did now.

  She cast an eye around. There was the woodstove, the carefully stacked kindling. The axe. Double-bladed, kept very sharp by Gus. You could slit paper with it.

  The Mandrill leaped off her.

  The baboons growled at him and he snarled and shrieked, driving them off and up the stairs. He sat back on his haunches. There were insects crawling in his fur. He studied the females.

  His harem.

  And Emma was now one of them.

  She gathered her strength. It was now or never. She had to reach that axe and if she couldn’t, that would be it.

  The Mandrill was turned away from her.

  Now!

  Emma dove to her knees, ignoring the pain it brought. She scrambled over to the woodpile. The females made baying sounds. The Mandrill roared and came after her.

  Emma grabbed the axe in both hands and swung it with everything she had and such was her state of rage and violation and hate, it was considerable.

  The Mandrill came at her with jaws wide.

  The axe came down.

  It cleaved the beast’s exposed brain, slicing deep into the cerebral fissure which separated the right and left hemispheres. The reaction was not one of pain. The Mandrill hopped this way and that, clutching at the axe buried in its head. It shook. It convulsed. It vomited out a bubbling black jelly and then it pitched forward, dead once again.

  Two of the females ran.

  A third turned to fight.

  It dove at Emma.

  She never had time to get the axe free from the Mandrill. The female knocked her down and then they were fighting and scratching. The female was powerful, but Emma fought with a manic frenzy. She clambered onto the female’s back and did the only thing she could do to win.

  She bit into its throat.

  Bit deep until blood that was black and tarry filled her mouth.

  The female squealed and shook, but finally went down under Emma’s weight.

  Covered in baboon blood and drainage, she pulled the axe free and chopped off the female’s head.

  Then she sank to her knees and vomited.

  ***

  When she came upstairs, she braced for battle.

  Her shirt and pants were blackened with baboon discharges, blood encrusted over her face and neck. Tissue caught in her nails.

  The other baboons did not attack.

  They kept well away from her.

  They grunted and yelped and whined when she passed them.

  Emma stank of decay and corpse slime and baboon piss, maybe this is what drove them back. Maybe they smelled the Mandrill on her and the blood of their own kind.

  Outside
, there was a rumbling.

  Gunfire.

  The Army had returned.

  Thank God.

  Emma moved past the cowering zombie baboons and to the door, still clutching the gore-streaked axe in one hand. She was limping, beaten, scratched, bitten and bruised, but still standing.

  You’re not a survivor type and you know it.

  You just don’t have what it takes, Emma.

  The hell I don’t, she thought as she stepped out onto the porch and saw the dead baboons laying everywhere, several dangling from tree limbs.

  She waved the axe to the soldiers in the APC.

  One of them put the minigun on her.

  “Wait…” Emma started to say.

  The minigun could lay down something like 6000 rounds per minute and in the scant few seconds between when Emma was first hit to when she pitched over dead, some two hundreds chewed through her, literally pulverizing her.

  What hit the ground were fragments.

  Emma was gone.

  “Never seen a zombie with an axe before,” the soldier on the minigun said.

  Captain McFree laughed. “You see it all in this business, son.”