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  Praise for Exit Zero

  “In a genre filled with flesh-and-brain eating ghouls, Neil Cohen has carved out a niche for himself. Exit 0 pays homage to the stories that came before it, while deftly adding a flourish to the mythos!”

  - Mike Zapcic of AMC's Comic Book Men and Jay & Silent Bobs Secret Stash

  “Exit Zero is a quick read, and genuinely tries to tell a different tale using some of our traditional zombie lore and modern conspiracy stories. I'd recommend it to folks looking for something a little strange who believe the zombie tale is a vehicle for satire and social critique.”

  -Doc Terror http://www.docterror.com/

  “As a scientist working to protect germs from people I found the story smart and its killer twist quite riveting. Neil Cohen takes the reader on the wild side of the dual use dilemma in biotechnology and into the dark side of science experimentation.”

  Dr. Dana Perkins, UN Security Council Committee 1540, Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Weapons Group of Experts.

  “A must read for any fan of the Zombie Genre. It epitomizes everything an account of a Zombie outbreak needs to be.”

  - Graeme Martin of the Horror themed website Beyond The Gore

  A PERMUTED PRESS book

  Published at Smashwords

  ISBN (Trade Paperback): 978-1-61868-455-4

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-454-7

  Exit Zero copyright © 2014

  by Neil A. Cohen

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by David Walker

  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.

  DEDICATION

  America has always had a love/hate relationship with New Jersey, just as people have had a fascination/fear relationship with zombies. I hope that whether you love zombies or fear them, and whether you love New Jersey or hate it, you will love Exit Zero.

  I would like to thank my childhood friends from NJ for being the driving force behind this book. Had it not been for their relentless ridicule, discouraging insults, immature ball-busting, and utter indifference towards the project, I would have never become annoyed enough to actually write this book in order to spite them. May they all be torn limb from limb during the zombie apocalypse.

  I would like to thank my wife Vicki, whom I neglected for weeks on end to write this book and how she pretended to not even notice my absence. What a trouper.

  I would like to thank my young daughters Sasha and Hannah, who do not know it yet, but I have spent all the money we had saved for their college fund to pay for the illustrations for this book. I also dipped into the dental fund to cover the marketing. Sorry girls, no orthodontics or higher education for you, but the world needs buck toothed ditch diggers also, so I am sure you will do fine. Daddy loves you.

  I would like to thank our nation’s First Responders, who will be the ones that must run towards, rather than away, from the zombie hordes.

  And finally, I would like to thank those writers, illustrators, authors and zombie fans who helped me dip my toe into an industry I still know nothing about.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead (or undead), actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  DEDICATION

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Bride of Christ

  Holy Friends Catholic High School, located in central New Jersey, was your traditional red brick building, most likely built in the early 1970s and lacking any creativity in design.

  The banner that hung across the front entrance read ‘Congratulations Graduates’, and behind the school, families sat on metal bleachers surrounding the multipurpose athletic field. Rows of empty chairs that were awaiting students to parade in and occupy were positioned in front of a stage with a podium.

  Inside the school auditorium, Sister Puglia, a cast-iron nun in her 50s, stood on the stage in front of rows of seated students all wearing black caps and gowns, delivering her final speech to the graduating seniors.

  “And so, once your name is called, you will proceed to the stage, accept your diploma with your right hand, proceed down the left side of the stage, and return to your seats. You are not to yell out to the audience, cheer, throw your hat, or perform any other foolish stunt you were thinking of. In the past, I have heard people screech from the stage things like ‘This is for you, Grandma!’” Sister Puglia held up her hand holding an invisible diploma, mocking the behavior. “There is no need to share that thought with the entire school. We do not know your grandmother, and we do not care, so keep those testimonials to yourself. I expect all of you to behave like the proper ladies and gentlemen that we at Holy Friends have prepared you to be. Now go with peace, go with God, but please…just GO!”

  This attempt at humor came across as less of a joke and more as a manifestation of Sister Puglia’s barely restrained desire to have this class of students gone, banished, never to return. The comment was met with polite but muted laughter from the audience.

  The students started to shuffle out the doors to their awaiting graduation ceremonies, and Sister Puglia made one last announcement to the class.

  “Will the following students remain behind: Mr. Virgil Ganado, Mr. Daniel Sullivan, Mr. Gerald Sullivan, Mr. Patrick Callahan, Mr. Ivan Gold, Mr. Woodrow Coleman, and Mr. Sean McGreevy.”

  The rest of the students filed out in an orderly manner, casting quick glances at the doomed group of boys that had been called out to remain.

  When Mike Antonio passed them, he comm
ented under his breath, “That’s what you guys get for hanging out with a Jew!” He cast a sneering look at Ivan Gold, the only non-Catholic in the school.

  “We prefer the term non-Goyim,” Ivan countered, “and shouldn’t you be with the other Mario brothers chasing Donkey Kong?”

  Antonio, superior in size and strength to Gold, stopped and postured as if he were going to physically respond to the insult, but knew he would be beaten to a pulp by the Sullivan brothers before he got in the first punch. A verbal assault would have to do.

  “Hey Jew boy, you’re lucky you got your two drunken mick retards to protect you.”

  “Oh, and Mike?” Ivan continued. “I forgot to tell you, your mom’s a filthy WOP whore.”

  Gasps and chuckles came from the students within earshot, and the verbally vanquished bully filed out with the rest of the class.

  The seven boys that had been requested to remain behind stood in the silent gymnasium amidst the muffled sounds of graduation proceedings. They could hear music and cheering, though it was as if it were taking place a thousand miles away. Why had they been called out of the graduation ceremony as it was about to begin? Had a long ago prank been discovered?

  After a few minutes that felt like hours, left alone to ponder these questions, the door opened and Sister Puglia entered. Her steps echoed across the silent room with a quick and determined walk, one with purpose and anger. The boys had each, individually and collectively, been a thorn in her side for the past four years.

  For the next fifteen minutes, she paced back and forth in front of the boys, letting loose four years of repressed frustration in a single hate filled diatribe. What she hurled at them would have been more appropriate coming from a Marine Corps drill instructor to a batch of new recruits he’d found drunk in their barracks. But this was a Bride of Christ spewing her rage towards a bunch of seventeen-year-old kids whose only offense was being obnoxious.

  “Your future looks very bleak,” Sister Puglia concluded. “I have been an educator for more than twenty years. I know when young men and women develop the necessary sense of responsibility and maturity to be successful in life…and that has not happened with any of you. Instead, you have developed a character marked by a pattern of negative behavior which is counterproductive and destructive to any collective effort for good. It will not work anywhere. Not in college, and certainly not in the workplace. You will not succeed in life. You will only find unhappiness, hardship, and misery, and you will bring about nothing but disaster to those around you.”

  Under her breath she muttered, “I only hope the State of New Jersey can survive you.”

  The boys listened intently, waiting for some chance of redemption in her speech, some words of hope, opportunity, or encouragement to change, like Marley’s ghost providing an opportunity to escape their terrible fate. It never came.

  Sister Puglia had determined there was no course correction, no redemption, only disaster awaiting this bunch. They had actually made her question her faith. For what purpose, what plan, would God create such children and then bring them together as a group? It was like mixing together the ingredients for a dirty bomb. When she had finished her rant, she instructed them to join the rest of the class outside.

  They walked down the hall glancing at each other in disbelief. Sure, they were ball-busters, but were they really that bad to make a nun hate them?

  Tonight they would return and drink beer in the woods behind the school, as they had done most every weekend since they were freshmen, however, this would be one of their last times together as a group for many years.

  In this region of New Jersey, people never strayed too far from their original orbit, and it was the rare child that did not fall into the well-worn paths of his or her parents. Electricians begat electricians, plumbers begat plumbers, hairdressers begat hairdressers.

  It could be described as a crab barrel culture. When live crabs are thrown in a bucket, they will try to climb out. But inevitably, there will be another crab that will reach up and pull a rising crab right back down with the rest of them. That is, unless someone reaches in from the outside and lifts the crabs out.

  Even then, the crabs’ newfound freedom was short lived, as the person lifting them out of the bucket had his own ideas for the creatures, and the crabs’ next location could be considerably worse than the bucket.

  Holy Friends High School had your typical cliques, each with a stereotypical nickname that delineated membership. There were the Jocks— those that excelled at sports and would most likely remember their school years fondly, but who quite often peaked in life during those four years. There were the Mean Girls, whose job it was to ensure others did not remember school fondly. There were the VoTechs— those that had already been determined to be not college-worthy and were pre-ordained as blue collar worker bees. They would spend their days learning how to repair engines and fix appliances rather than being burdened with subjects like math and science. And then there were the Grays. The Grays were the bland, middle-of-the-road kids that make up the vast majority of every population, and simply become the indistinguishable backdrop of faces that pass by but never become more than scenery.

  The selected group that had been called out to remain behind the rest of the class was not falling into any of these categories. Each was an outsider, an outlier. Each was going to forge his own path in life, or so each of them thought. And that was what frustrated Sister Puglia most about these boys; they would not fit the script, could not be put into a box, a category, or to coin a phrase from the band Rush—a subdivision.

  * * *

  After graduation, the boys drifted apart to find their way in the world, taking with them nothing from their “official” education that would help them in any way, unaware of the paths that had already been chosen for them.

  Chapter 2

  Modified Embryonic Animal Tissue (M.E.A.T)

  Fifteen years had passed since their final encounter with Sister Puglia.

  Woodrow Coleman, or Dr. Woody as he had become known in the media and to his adoring fans, was attending one of his latest new-age bookstore signings. Sitting at a table piled high with his latest self-help release, he observed that the line of people waiting for his signature snaked out the door and onto the sidewalk. A mixture of vegans, Earth First’ers, hippies, hipsters, and diet enthusiasts stood in queue for hours eager to meet their latest author slash guru.

  Dr. Woody ogled a very attractive twenty-something blonde girl who was next in line. She was wearing a PETA crop top displaying her toned abs and peace sign belly-button ring. It was her turn to get his coveted signature on her newly purchased, but probably never to be read, copy of Woodrow’s latest book. She pressed her ripped jeans against the table and leaned over seductively to hand the author her copy of the book.

  “What you are doing to save the animals is so awesome,” she purred.

  “Well, I envision a world where meat can be produced for the food supply safely and abundantly without the need to raise and slaughter cattle,” Woodrow replied, making sure to speak loud enough that all his fans within earshot could hear his pontification. “And that is hopefully how my Modified Embryonic Animal Tissue— or M.E.A.T theory— will be put into practice someday. I just hope we will see it in our lifetime.”

  The girl glowed with his attention. “You know, that would be awesome. I have been a vegetarian for so long, I honestly hope I can taste your meat someday,” she said with a knowing giggle.

  Woodrow replied that he, as well, would like for that to happen very soon.

  Woodrow Coleman was known in high school as a science geek, with the emphasis on ‘geek’. It was during his years of higher education when he found his true calling in the fields of stem cell research and genetics.

  A strict vegan, much to the chagrin of his blue collar, meat and potatoes father, he’d succeeded in achieving grants, scholarships, and generous corporate funding to pursue his graduate work in the field of in vitro meat.

>   The in vitro meat process involved the production of a pork or beef product that had never been part of a complete, living animal. His work in this arena led him to become quite popular in the eco-warrior/PETA crowd, as well as with business leaders eager to fund his research in exchange for a stake in the possible future industry this could create.

  He’d published his seminal work, a book titled M.E.A.T.: Modified Embryonic Animal Tissue, before he had even completed graduate school. M.E.A.T Theory, as it became known, laid out his detailed, yet controversial and unproven, path to achieving “cruelty free” meat. The process involved mass production and growth of genetically modified animal stem cells, which could be harvested and formed into an endless food source, not only feeding the world’s poor, but eliminating the need to raise animals for slaughter.

  He gained rock star status in the world of pseudoscience nutrition by appearing on television talk shows, book tours, infomercials, and other speaking engagements with the catch phrase “It can be done!”, ironically while never actually doing anything. Real world attempts at growing pork and beef via stem cells using his methods resulted in what could be best described as equivalent to eating a slug on a bun. Still, the hype kept the gravy train rolling.

  Chapter 3

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