by

K. W. Gering & L. A. Hendricks

PROLOGUE

The bay unknowingly conveyed the past, the present, and the future. The glistening full moon shimmered off the dark-green water of the bay as its shadow reluctantly bent towards the figure near the shore. He stood somber and still, while watching over the bay from behind the barbed wire prison fence that reflected the moonlight.

Across the water lay something that was only a dream to him. The lights from this memory city were so bright they burned his eyes, but he couldn’t turn away. At times, he raised his arms to shield his eyes. He had come here many times to see this sight. His left arm, disfigured from the day another zombie had eaten his flesh when he was a newcomer, did not spare him the pain from the brightness of the city. He lowered his arm and raised the other. It too, bore wounds and scars of battles and had the smell of rotting flesh, but not to him. Like all zombies, he was indifferent to his own smell and that of his fellow zombies. His attention turned to the slowly moving barge that approached the fence.

The barge was an amalgam of machinery. An old garbage scow, a floating platform for hauling refuse, and two semi-trailers on its deck made up most of the contraption. The semi-trailers were bolted on tight, steadied with guy-wires across theirtops, and anchored to the sides of the barge. An engine from a tugboat had been attached to the stern behind the trailers. Slow and cumbersome, it did its job. Worn from decades of use, it creaked and sputtered its way across the bay.

“What the hell?”

“Now what?”

“Something else just broke loose!” screamed the Captain, as he felt something give way underneath the barge. Limited resources and nonexistent replacement parts had made maintenance of this vessel virtually impossible.

“Goddamn it!” swore the Pilot. He didn’t know what had happened, but he wanted to show support.

“Piece of shit!” again screamed the Captain as he struggled with some piece of loose equipment.

The Captain had made this run a hundred times or more and every time it was the same. He was never sure if this floating disaster would actually make it across the bay, yet so far it had. He knew that one day it wouldn’t. Screaming made him feel better about it though, so he did, quite frequently. He did manage to tie the equipment down again during his rant.

He turned back to the pilot with a scowl on his grizzled face, “Keep ‘er goin!”

“Yes sir!” replied the ever-ready-to-please pilot. He too had made this run numerous times.

Towards the front of the barge, the two deckhands were listening to the Captain and Pilot argue about the state of the barge.

“I told you twenty minutes ago that we should dump these stiffs and head back to port,” said Murph, as he spit into the bay.

“I know, I know,” Lester replied. With a shudder, he looked over to the trailers bolted on of the barge. “They give me the creeps.”

Rubbing his unshaved chin, Murph said, “I have a mind to just dump them all in the water right now.”

“Yeah, but, that wouldn’t do any good anyway,” reminded Lester. “Why do webother doing this? This is a total fuckin’ waste of time!”

“Point! Point!” yelled the Pilot from the back of the barge.

“Shit,” said Murph, “I hate this part. I really, really hate this part.”

The barge slowly approached the fence’s docking section and its large, metal gate, known as the Zombie Gate. The men hated this gateway to the Zombie Nation because it trapped them next to the zombies.

The barge hit the dock with a loud thump. The two deckhands hurriedly tied the barge to the dock to secure it. The openings of the trailers were flush against the fence since the trailer doors had been modified to fit into the Zombie Gate. This made the trailer doors work in unison with the Zombie Gate. Access was then allowed to the trailers from the dock, but the high fencing blocked the zombies from making any effort to reach the rest of the barge. It also had the unfortunate side effect of locking the barge in place while the doors were open. Though the zombies were on the far side of the fence, there was no way to leave until the doors on the trailers were closed.

Once the barge was docked and the gate secured in place, the captain pushed the button that opened the trailers and the Zombie Gate. The gate slowly squealed open until they were spread wide. Inside the trailers were body bags. Squirming body bags.

“This is a fucking waste of time,” Murph said again.

“I know,” Lester replied, “Let’s just do it and get it over with.” Hearing some movement from in front of the trailers, he walked up that way getting close to the fence blocking the front of the barge.

“Did you hear that?”

Looking past the trailers into the darkness, he thought he heard something that sounded like water dripping. A disfigured body slammed violently into the fence, mouth open, teeth gnashing, trying desperately to bite him, flailing arms trying to tear down the fence in their struggle to get at the human on the other side. The water dripping at Lester’s feet was saliva from the frothing mouth of the zombie trying to eat him. His heart pounding, he jumped back and tried to draw his gun.

“Goddamn freak of nature, piece of shit!” Shaking, he could not get his gun out of his holster.

“I bid you do not shoot!” pleaded an unnatural, guttural voice from the dark. The humans stopped in their tracks. The man with his hand on his gun let it fall to his side. His partner came up beside him, put his hand on his shoulder, and nodded in agreement with the inhuman voice.

From that loathsome darkness, a lone figure shuffled towards them. He too was disfigured, with his left foot turned at a right angle from when he was thrown on to the barge on his journey to the Zombie Nation. His right hand was missing, eaten by a fellow barge mate who was not properly restrained back in the time before body bags were used to separate transported zombies. When he had made his journey to the Zombie Nation, zombies were simply thrown into a container and left to consume each other until they arrived at the Zombie Portal.

His face was sallow, as were all zombies; yet, Jiyaj was, for a zombie, wise, and respected by zombies and humans alike. It was he who had spoken. He spoke in an unclear voice, but those who heard it knew that it was important to listen.

“Forgive my brethren. He has not yet been...converted. We will have the barge unloaded soon.” His arm stump gestured in the air.

Out of the darkness, slowly, stiffly, zombies moved towards the body bags in the trailers on the barge. They removed them from the boat and loaded them onto a large wagon. Someone from two hundred years ago would have recognized it as an old Prairie Schooner, the ideal hauling vehicle from the 1800s. The men on the barge had no clue as to its origin. They just noted that it was tied behind an old car, obviously used to tow it.

Uneasily, the humans watched from the safety of the barge, mumbling amongst themselves. They huddled close to each other and stayed as far from the fence gate as possible. They were no fools. Accidents happened. The frothing zombie was still trying to get through the fence making high pitched squealing noises. With hands resting on their guns, they watched the proceedings with trepidation.

After all body bags had been removed from the barge, the zombies proceeded to remove the multiple crates stacked behind the bags and loaded them onto their wagon as well. When the zombies were finally done, the humans came to life.

“Let’s get the hell outta here,” said the captain pushing another button. With a loud crack, the doors on the barge began to close.

“Get your hands off of me!” came a loud yell from the shore. Two zombies appeared at the dock, holding a struggling form. The men on the barge looked towards the zombies and were shocked to see a human male in their captivity.

“Let me go!” yelled the man.

The zombies threw the man, none too gently, into the barge, rolling him like a pair of dice under the sliding barge doors just before they slammed closed.

The guttural voice declared, “He is not ours…yet.” The zombies turned to leave into the dark with their wagon. With the body bags squirming and the crates swayingback and forth, the wagon withdrew into the darkness, pulled by the jeep, its badly tuned motor sputtering as it struggled to haul the load.

The watching zombie at the fence just continued to stare at the barge as it undocked and proceeded slowly backwards across the bay.

Back across the past. Back across the present. Back across the future.