savor the
terror
real
zombies
real
scare
Virus Z: Beginning of the End
a novel by Rodolphus
Chapter 1
A variety of birds flock along multiple lines of power cables above the beautiful green neighborhood of closely snuggled homes. Ravens perch close to sparrows, and orioles nearly touch wings with starlings. Several murders of crows watch from the branches of many trees. And many stray oddball birds that should not even be here, seagulls, pigeons, a stately hawk—all are grouped much closer together than birds of opposing feathers generally congregate. The birds make no noise. They hardly move. It almost seems that the fowl are intently watching just one of many dramas play out in this small backyard just below them.
A boy is flattened against a brick wall, hardly breathing, let alone moving. He has dived into shrouds of ivy spilling over the brick wall. The boy is pale, and his eyes are huge, and his lips are parted in what first appears a grin, but in reality is a rictus snarl of disbelieving terror.On the other side of the yard is an old man staring up at the sky. The old man is not looking at the birds, nor does he notice the sun departing the sky, or even the change of color in the oncoming evening.The boy holds his breath and presses his back as hard as he can against the brick wall, doing his best to merge and become one with the usually comforting warm red brickwork. His Papa always tells him, if there is a bad guy looking for you and he does not see you—does not know you are there—then keep it that way. Be invisible. Be quiet.Of course, Papa was talking about bad guys, you know, normal bad guys, not what is stumbling around on the other side of the yard.Dean nearly sprints for the back door, it is only twelve feet away, standing completely ajar, with the inviting safety of the family home right there, just a quick dash, and safety. Dean can slam and bolt the door before the it can react to his movement.He should not be out here, because the last thing Papa said when the reports began on TV was that he was to stay in the house and he was not to open the door, not for anyone, unless it was Mama, or Branna, or Wooly. But the power had gone off soon after Papa had screeched away on his motorcycle, gone into town to get Mama and Genie and bring them home.The television had only hinted at what was happening, and most of what the media said, almost everyone assumed was just more inflated hype. Glue more people to the screen, and the sponsors are tickled beyond pink. Keep people scared, and they shall watch.Dean wanted to know what was happening in the world and there was no TV to watch in the house, no lights, and it was getting just too plain dark in the house to stay there, and so Dean, deprived of his steady media feed, came out here, intending to stay out here in the fenced backyard, for just a few minutes; only when he came out here it was only a moment or two before the thing came staggering into the backyard—oh boy, his bad brother Wooly had left the gate open…again!Boy was that punk going to get in trouble!But this is no stray dog or rabid fox. This is something…Dean does not know exactly what it is. He has an idea of who it was, but not what is wrong with the thing, or what it intends to do.
Rodolphus
1962-1995
VERY COOL BOOK
"What I liked most about this novel, other than the zombies of course, is that the characters are very real, you really care about them, and this makes it much more real than any other zombie novel. And it is really cool to see resourceful children that take action, and not comic book kind of action, but the real genius action that kids are capable of. Sounds crazy, but this book, about zombies, will make you cry, and it will make you think. I can't think of a better combo. Great take on zombies, too! Very cool book."
- Internet reviewer
Coming Very Soon: Virus Z2: Rise of the Butcher
I might not have liked this book except that one thrill just rolls into the next. You just catch your breath and then you're off and running again...
-review©Copyright 1994
J. Rodolphus
©Copyright 1994
J. Rodolphus
N
Rodolphus Dark Fiction
A zombie novel with a message? Is that even possible? Or is it all just about exploding heads and screaming death, the horror of something rotting coming after you, pursuing you, and ultimately eating you, and even more ultimately, you becoming waht eat you?
You are what eats you. What eats you was once what it ate.
Society tells you that you do not have a choice. Even religion tells you that, prophesying that you will fail, that you will go down before the teeming dead, that you flesh will feed the rising tide of angry, voracious flesh-eaters, and that you too shall become one of them, the damned, the staggering, lurching, walking dead. The predestination of undeath.
An eternity of staggering and meating, mating with meat, meating with mate, eating, flesh in thy teeth, oh thou the damned, condemned to this horrific death of predestined hell, thou that doth eath and quake, delighting in the death of flesh in thy mouth, in thy throat, in thy gullet, oh thou the zombie, the semblance of life in the quenching rip and tear of flesh, the semi-life, the semi-death.
But we have a choice. We are not predestined to sickness and insanity and cannibalism. The preachers of such false gospels are themselves stained in the teeth and breath, gathering at their potlucks of the damned, drooling over great platters of meat, dead flesh strewn across a wasteland of rotting holocaust, lifting pious lips in prayer, intoning blessings over rotting pork and tumored chicken, moaning the zombie moan aaaaaameeeeeen!
Escape the zombie apocalypse, starting today, with every choice you make. Choose light over darkness, choose life over death. You are what you eat, and you are what you think, and you become what you love, and your life, your very soul, is built cell by cell upon the blueprint of your daily walk, which soon will become either a daily lurch and stagger, a mad-cow frothing of gnashing teeth, or it will become the walk of running feet, the flight of the living before the onrush of the dead, the walking dead, the frothy brains with cell phones to ear, the antibiotics rushing throughout the system, it is coming, it is coming, it is coming, oh, sorry, it is here, and possibly it is too late already. Perhaps you have taken one bite too many...
...and tomorrow, perhaps today, later today, the biting will begin, the biting of Virus Z: The Beginning of the End, perhaps it is today and watch out, because your loved one, the one standing next to you right now, can suddenly turn, and clench upon you, and partake of your flesh, imbibe your blood, and you will become that what eats you, the eater becomes the eaten and the eaten becomes the eater. The voracious cycle spins, growing, the perfect storm of zombie apocalypse, and you are there, right now, in the eye of the storm, there is peace, but to those who preach peace, and peace, and peace, oh, but suddenly destruction will come upon them, sudden destruction, crashing down like a tsunami, the volcanic eruption, the perfect caldera of brooding, building lava, titanic pressures, increasing, swelling, rising up and the explosion comes without warning.
It is here. Can you sense it, even now?
It is here, even now, can you sense it? The eater shall become the eaten, and the eaten shall eat. You are what you eat, and you eat what you are. It is happening, even now.
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