Exit Zero (Book 2): Nuke Jersey Read online

  Praise for Nuke Jersey

  “The author’s sense of humor comes in the books. Many times I read a sentence and wondered how his mind came up with some of the ideas. I laughed often too. The nicknames!!! I find it very easy to suspend disbelief, even as a scientist. There is a little bit of everything in this book, political intrigue, calamity, eco-terrorism, WMDs, science, social issues, NJ mob families, military . . . and zombies, er . . . “the infected.” It’s almost like I can take every major movie/TV series growing up and put them all together, add zombies and creative writing skills and you get this series, making the series feel familiar and comforting, while still very fresh/new (which sounds impossible, but Neil Cohen did it).”

  - Dr. Terry Oroszi, Assistant Professor, Molecular Geneticist, Terrorist Researcher, CBRN Defense Director, and Strategic Planner

  “Neil Cohen’s book is a must read. As a survivor of ten military deployments and hurrican Katrina, I must say that I couldn’t put this book down. Those who love the end of the world type genre will love this book.”

  - Larry C. James, Colonel (retired) U.S. Army and Professor, School of Professional Psychology, Wright State University

  An interesting method of kicking off the zombie apocalypse that leads to an interesting twist in zombie anatomy.

  - DreadCentral.com

  Details long missing from zombie lore are sure to please the zombie fan who wants answers.

  - Zom-B.com

  One of the best books I’ve read in a while in regards to the zombie apocalypse. This is a total different take from your usual zombies biting and infecting people.

  - Anna Olvera, CREATORS.CO

  I can readily admit that Exit Zero has frightened me to the very core. Until now I’ve been a massive zombie fan and enjoyed the movies, books and TV shows for what they are; fiction.

  This book is disturbing because it demonstrates the ease of how a massive pandemic could be engineered and controlled by any number of large corporations, terrorist cells, or even our own governments.

  - ZWeapons.com

  “Neil Cohen is a tireless advocate, working to keep the zombie genre’ undead.”

  - Robin Justice, WalkerStalkerCon

  Guest Appearance by William Vitka

  A PERMUTED PRESS BOOK

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-68261-318-4

  Nuke Jersey

  Exit Zero Book 2

  © 2017 by Neil Cohen All Rights Reserved

  Cover art by Christian Bentulan

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  Permuted Press, LLC

  New York & Nashville

  permutedpress.com

  Published in the United States of America

  Author’s Note

  Introduction

  Chapter 1: Ernie

  Chapter 2: What the Hell Happened

  Chapter 3: Two Zombies Walk into a Bar

  Chapter 4: Network is Down

  Chapter 5: Hiding the Woody

  Chapter 6: 911

  Chapter 7: Man’s Best Friend

  Chapter 8: Swipe Right

  Chapter 9: Lost

  Chapter 10: Compartmentalization

  Chapter 11: The Base Formally Known as Prince

  Chapter 12: Skelfies

  Chapter 13: Conversations from the Beginning of the End

  Chapter 14: Go Fetch

  Chapter 15: The Sullivan Theory of Everything

  Chapter 16: Foaming

  Chapter 17: Egos and Silos

  Chapter 18: Blisters

  Chapter 19: One Last Favor

  Chapter 20: Repo Men

  Chapter 21: Lab Partners

  Chapter 22: Eight Ball Corner Pocket

  Chapter 23: Post-Traumatic Crap Syndrome

  Chapter 24: Laws of God and Man

  Chapter 25: False Idols

  Chapter 26: Sundown

  Chapter 27: Drive-Through

  Chapter 28: Gutless

  Chapter 29: #zombiediet

  Chapter 30: VINNI, Vidi, Vici

  Chapter 31: That Whole Brain Melting, Flesh Eating Thing

  Chapter 32: Pay the Soul Toll

  Chapter 33: Tweaking the Formula

  Chapter 34: Selling the Apocalypse

  Chapter 35: Vixens Scream

  Chapter 36: R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

  Chapter 37: Goodbye, Dr. Zed

  Chapter 38: Inshallah

  Chapter 39: Road Trip

  Chapter 40: Wandering Jew

  Chapter 41: Welcome to Nuke Jersey

  Chapter 42: Dead Lives Matter

  Chapter 43: Fingered

  Chapter 44: Every Man for Himself

  Chapter 45: Revanchist

  Chapter 46: The Hive

  Chapter 47: Hungry and the Hunted

  Chapter 48: After the End

  Chapter 49: Peer Pressure

  Chapter 50: Missionary’s Reentry

  The final time I recall the majority of my childhood friends together in one place was the early 1990s. The location was a beach house on the Jersey Shore. The wooden structure—overlooking a small, poorly maintained beachfront—was owned by one of the brothers I loosely based the characters known as the Sullivans, also known as The Mutants. I know it sounds like a clichéd, douchebag thing to say, but it really was a different time. There was none of the PC bullshit that exists today. The nonsense we got away with back then would have gotten us expelled from school, locked up, and sent off to sensitivity re-education camp today. I am not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing, it just was what it was.

  It was an era when Senator Patrick Moynihan was lamenting that our country was defining deviancy down—what was once considered abnormal was now normal—but we, my friends and I, were attempting to raise deviancy up to an all new level.

  It was a time when porn could only be found hidden in your dad’s closet, not in his browser history.

  There were no Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or other social media platforms to publicly document the debauchery.

  And with no evidence came no consequences. No consequences meant no inhibitions.

  There was freedom to screw up.

  No harm, no foul.

  No victim, no crime.

  No blood... Well, there was blood.

  It was the last weekend of the first summer post high school, yet there was not the feeling of melancholy most would experience at this time in one’s life. The core group had been together since they were allowed to play outside. Segregation only really began in grade school, where you were sent off to Catholic school or public school. Each had their pros and cons. Catholic school meant you had a good shot at college and a future. Public school was the mainly a place to kill time for four years till you began your union trade or married your first ex-wife.

  Those parents with the financial resources usually chose the private school route. My parents had the resources, they just did not give a shit, so I was dumped in public school, which is why you may catch a misspelling or five in this book.

  Now, just because you were lucky enough to get into the private school did not mean you were guaranteed to graduate from that same institution. God gave man free will, and many of my friends used that free will to fuck things up so bad that God kicked their asses to the curb, and thus, they ended up slumming it with the rest of us in public school.

  Yet the core group of my friends all remained close, those in public sc
hool and those in Catholic school.

  While individuals had drifted in and out of the group over the years—sometimes leaving for extended periods of time—there was no permanently escaping the orbit, for the gravity of the group compelled each of us back into the fold, whether we wanted to be there or not.

  By the time that final summer ended, there had already been a novel’s worth of nonsense. A story that will be written one day, once all the statutes of limitation have expired, and we are too old to care what our coworkers and children think of us. No one will ever look at us the same way once all of the tales are told. Sure, all kids have their growing up war stories of drinking beer in the woods, being chased by cops, and the inevitable, usually regrettable, loss of virginity. But again, I will pull the douchebag card and state for the record that our stories were different. Someday I may tell those stories, but not now.

  There is no real reason to share these tales. There are no lessons to be learned from reading about the events. We learned nothing from experiencing them.

  We did not know at the time it would be our final gathering. We assumed weddings and reunions were sure to follow, occasions where we would once again congeal. But it was never again to be. Something changed during those final days together, something subtle, invisible, yet powerful enough to fracture the bonds that were holing us together.

  It is analogous to a slow drip from a toilet tank above your dining room ceiling. Drip by drip, the water permeates the layers of drywall, weakens the fabric, and loosens the seams. A slow, silent, hidden leak. Each drip adds to the stagnant puddle. Drip by drip, until the structure can take no more and the ceiling collapses down onto a perfectly set dining table below. This is followed by a wave of putrid brown water that forever stains everything it touches.

  A similar such leak must have been growing inside us. For how long, nobody can say, and the amount of time this slow drip had been occurring was different for each of us.

  What that drip drip drip was building to was a final cymbal-crash crescendo of a party that took place on that final gathering on that final weekend together.

  If those walls could talk, they would puke.

  And later scream in agony as the entire house burned to the ground, forever erasing the location of the events that took place within from this earth—but not their memories.

  It was that weekend when I first realized Exit Zero was real. While I cannot yet reveal the true events of those days, as many involved are now moms and dads, bosses and employees, doctors, lawyers, and craftsmen, all of whom require some degree of anonymity and plausible deniability, I still knew these were real characters that were ripe for the page. I wanted to tell their stories, to share these characters, these friends of mine. And I wanted to have them fight zombies.

  Your life’s story is just that: a story.

  Horror, fantasy, comedy or love story.

  You won’t know till it’s over which one it is. And don’t bother trying to write it all out ahead of time, because like most life stories, there is no real set plot line, no theme, no universal truth or divine plan.

  Your life’s story will be nothing more than just a bunch of random shit that happens.

  So don’t worry if someone else’s life seems more important than yours. More planned out, more thought through, luckier than yours.

  It’s not.

  Their life’s story is as random as yours. So just enjoy the story of your life as it unfolds.

  Don’t nitpick, don’t criticize, don’t search for a plot or structure, and don’t get hung up on typos, misspellings, grammar, tensing, or punctuation errors in your life’s story.

  Just relax, have fun, and enjoy the fucking story.

  CHAPTER 1

  Ernie adjusted himself in the driver’s seat of the PCRC Containment truck as the morning sun flirted with the horizon. He shifted back and forth to ensure his butt felt right in the groove, fixed the side mirror, and reached down to do a quick ball adjustment before his ride-along passenger arrived.

  He had been driving an infected containment route for about two weeks and this would be his third ride-along candidate. He knew the other two weren’t going to return. This job was not for everyone. Really should not be for anyone, but times being what they were, he felt he was a necessary part of the solution.

  He looked in the rear view mirror and saw today’s guest walking up. A young woman. This is going to be different, he thought. The last two were men. Well, college boys, but close to being men.

  Since the PCRC had closed all the universities in the state for the purposes of setting up quarantine zones, the displaced students were eager to find any work they could until they were allowed to leave Jersey.

  As the blonde-haired twenty something made her way up to the cab and climbed up into the passenger side, Ernie wished he had dressed a little spiffier today. Could you blame him? She was more than a little attractive. He also hoped she held her puke till she was outside the cab, unlike two of the previous so-called men he had tried to train.

  “Hello,” she said. “My name is Juniper. I guess you’ll be my tour guide through the Jersey Apocalypse today.” Her demeanor was bright and bubbly.

  She’s not going to last past the first containment stop, Ernie thought.

  “Yes, ma’am” he replied. “I guess I am. My name’s Ernie and technically I’m one of the more seasoned professionals at this here brand new occupation. It’s my ninth day on the job.” He smiled. “You, young lady, are learning from an old pro.”

  “Am I your first trainee?

  “No, ma’am, you’re not. You’re my third. But you are the first of the female persuasion.”

  “Well, I’m glad I’m in good hands,” she replied with a grin to match Ernie’s.

  He started up the truck and drove out of secure perimeter surrounding the university that used to be Juniper’s school and was currently a Skell quarantine zone.

  She said, “So, how did you get this job?”

  “Call it fate, but the previous jobs I held afforded me the opportunity to attain the skill set that makes this a perfect fit. I am uniquely qualified for this profession. The stars certainly did align.”

  Juniper said, “What former jobs?”

  “Well, you see, my father was a professional man. A man of higher education—a doctor. But he did not see the educational path as being right for me. As I recall, he told me that college was not for everyone, and I was not all that bright, and that he was going to flush money down the toilet sending me to college.

  “So, after high school, I went into waste management. I was a garbage man to use less politically correct terminology. Later, I drove the recycling route. I enjoyed that job more so. Felt like I was helping the environment.

  “I did that for some years.”

  Juniper wrinkled her nose. “Your father sounds awful!”

  “Aw, he wasn’t that bad. He was just an unhappy man. I really don’t think he wanted a child, but as you should know better than me—women usually get what they want. Later on in life, my father became what I used to call ‘the most feared man in Newark prison.’”

  Juniper looked over at him with a raised eyebrow.

  Ernie gave her a sly smile. “He had gone to work for the state and became the Northern State Prison dentist in Newark. He then landed me a job as a prison guard. Or, as we were referred to, prison officers. But we were guards none the less. We moved men from one location to another. We restrained men. We kept men from hurting themselves and others.

  “So you can say, between the recycling route and the prison gig, I attained all the skills I needed for this particular endeavor.” Ernie looked over to Juniper as the truck cab bounced on cracked asphalt. “What about you, young lady, what was your course of study before all this ugliness befell our fair state.”

  “Cultural anthropology.”

  “Oh, Lord. That was an academic pursuit my father would definitely have considered flushing money down the toilet. I hope you do well
today, as this may be the best paying gig you’ll ever land.”

  They drove through the nearly empty streets and arrived at the first stop.

  They saw some of the Kraken Systems that had been deployed around New Jersey—sound machines that emitted a low-level hum to draw the infected towards them like moths to a flame. The Krakens then kept the Skells calm and docile, rather than the ravenous, flesh-seeking missiles they usually were.

  There weren’t any monsters around the first Kraken site.

  “Humpf,” Ernie said, confused and a bit disappointed. He stood there for a moment, looking around the immediate area to ensure no stragglers were on their way. “Okay, no pickups. On to stop two.” He started up the truck again and began driving.

  Juniper kept the conversation going with more questions. “I already asked how you fell into this job, but do you like it?”

  “It’s not so bad. I get to meet new people, like you. I spend most of the day outdoors, not in some gray cube like an office drone. Not behind prison walls. Independent. And, again, I feel like I’m helping people.”

  She nodded. Her eyes bobbed from the view out the front windshield to the side window. “What exactly are we doing here anyway? How are we supposed to contain and collect if there’s nothing to...contain and collect?”

  “This job entails enduring a lot of boredom followed by periods of absolutely pants shitting terror, if you’ll excuse my French. You see, if they are close enough to the hum from those Kraken boxes they got all around the state, then these things are as calm as can be. They are totally spaced out, like on opium. That sound is their opiate. The opiate of the masses. The infected just stand there and we gather them up, hustle them into the back of the trucks, and off we go.” Ernie shrugged, like it was no big deal. “But the ones we see that are not around the boxes, those mothers are dangerous. They’re fast, vicious, and fearless. We don’t go near them. We report them to the PCRC headquarters and the contractors come clean up.”