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  Feasters

  An Apocalyptic Tale

  Solomon Petchers

  Contents

  Foreword

  Poem

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Follow Solomon Petchers

  If You Loved This Book

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Feasters: An Apocalyptic Tale

  COPYRIGHT 2020 by Solomon Petchers

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author.

  ISBN 9798619132458

  Dedication

  To my brother, Guy, who always had an affinity for books

  and was always the best-read man in any room.

  Foreword

  As a child I watched George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. I remembered being so intrigued, not only with the idea of zombies walking the Earth, but with the story of survival. The thought of zombies is incredibly scary, but survival didn’t solely mean the avoidance of becoming a meal, but surviving against your fellow survivors. My favorite movies featuring the undead cultivate this man versus man battle as zombies become that continuous thread throughout the storyline. Just when the casual viewer gets engrossed in the plot conflict between human characters, the zombies are there to remind them who is really in control.

  Vampires have always been exciting and a fan favorite. Whether it’s Bela Lugosi’s classic role of the vampire standard, Dracula, or Kiefer Sutherland’s David, leader of a band of vampires in The Lost Boys, the supernatural powers of conditional immortality and ability to either shapeshift, hypnotize, or possess incredible strength makes the vampire a formidable foe.

  Both of these mythical beings have gone through a bit of a Renaissance at different times in the last couple of decades. Both have seen a variety of portrayals from monsters to heartthrobs and everything in between. So when I was wrestling with the idea of Feasters, I thought it would be fun to have both. I wanted to pay homage to the genre while attempting a different approach. As Feasters started to take on a life of its own, social issues confronting people today reared up and took control. Issues like equality, acceptance, bullying, and entitlement settled comfortably into the plot and added depth to this survival story.

  As you hang out with Kieran, Emily, and Andrew in their search for hope and life in this apocalyptic tale, I hope you appreciate the family bonds that hold them together and their primal instincts that help them survive.

  My window is my tunnel of hope.

  I am drawn to the crisp air and goosebumps that contours.

  For the breeze that blows through, through as I scope

  Is a constant reminder that I still have hope.

  I search for life because life is my light,

  And one day soon, my light will shine bright, bright through my tunnel, my tunnel of hope,

  But it is the stillness of these past dark nights that give me fear as I search for life.

  My tunnel of hope I continue to visit,

  Until one day that light shines in it.

  Sierra Barker, Tunnel of Hope

  Prologue

  It's been nearly two years since the outbreak. Hunger. Fear. Two words our kind usually doesn’t associate with. Hunger because our food sources, livestock and wildlife, have all been mostly consumed. In the time before we learned to assimilate, humans were a source of food, but it’s been generations since then. Many of us had never really tasted a human. Instead, we nourished ourselves on the same meats that humans ate – rare or uncooked, of course. The fresher the better. Behind closed doors, my grandparents often talked about how they missed the good old days of tasting human blood or converting a human they took a liking to. Actions such as these are considered barbaric now. But no matter how much we tried to fit in, it wasn't enough for some humans. With most, we never lost the labels society gave us. Bloodsuckers. Parasites. Night Crawlers. Regardless of how many changes we made to be part of a world that didn’t want us, our grandparents would tell us stories of the hunts for our kind and how we were driven into the shadows, blending into the unseen. Eventually, we managed to blend in with humans so seamlessly that most couldn’t tell the difference. Assimilate. It hasn’t been all bad. Many humans have befriended us. They see us as equal even though physically we are far superior. Assimilate. Keep our gifts, like us, in the shadows where we can be ourselves. We are a long way from folklore or gross exaggeration. Our skin isn't pale or pasty. Our fangs don't drop down whenever we open our mouths. But with direct sunlight, our skin burns nearly instantaneously. It doesn’t take long before we collapse and die. We can go out during overcast days that promise rain or when we are covered from head to toe. It's a risk, but we manage.

  We didn't think much of it when it happened. Who would believe it? It didn’t seem real. I don't think anyone thought it was. One day, the local news broke reports about how the dead were coming back to life and attacking the living. The authorities were all over it from the get-go – or so it appeared. When it began to grow out of control, the government sent in troops, but they were ineffective. For two days, we were glued to our televisions, until all programming including the news was off the air, leaving us to wonder how real the dangers were. It wasn't long before we received our answer.

  We first heard screams in the streets. When we looked outside our windows, we witnessed neighbors, changed into something else, attacking neighbors. Before we knew it, we were soon overrun. By the time we realized what was happening, it was too late. The dead didn't discriminate either. Both humans and our kind fell victim. Fear. Our fear wasn't rooted solely in the fact that people around us were either dying or walking with the enemy shortly after being bitten. Our fear became the shocking truth that the things that made us superior were rendered ineffective. As much as we've assimilated, we never lost the things that made us different than humans. Strength. Speed. Conditional immortality. We would survive the early rush. When waves of us decided it was time to help, we were not prepared for what would happen. Fear. In the early evening of the third night, after all communication was lost with the outside world, and we were convinced that help wasn't coming, many of our elders and our parents decided to do something. We were in for some surprises. As we finally had the chance to bare our teeth and sink them into the dead, it didn't affect them. Instead of falling, they moved more aggressively regardless of how much flesh they had lost. This was our first surprise. Outnumbered, many of our family members were taken to the ground. Some of our kind who were defeated lay on our streets, our lawns, and our sidewalks. Others who were injured made it back to their homes. This was our second surprise. Our kind changed into the dead. We tried to help those injured who made it back inside the presumed safety of our homes. Bites were the dominant injury. As they sought to rest and recover from their wounds, they woke in the middle of the night not as themselves, but as the dead looking for flesh to feast upon. I remember watching in horror as my eldest cousin, Stevie, opened his eyes. They were absent, glossed over. My Aunt Gigi, who hadn't left his side the entire time, leaned over his face as if she was listening to something he was trying to say. Stevie's arms slowly crept around Aunt Gigi’s head and that was it. His mouth found her neck. The blood. So much blood. Normally, our kind would g
et excited at the prospect of that much blood. This was different. As if the attack was coordinated, we watched our own injured or deceased family members attack us, causing nothing but panic. My cousin Emily and I clutched each other in fear as her mother shouted for us to get upstairs. Fear. Those out in the streets who had converted into the dead walked along the sidewalks until the sun came up. It was then that their Vamp bodies, even though they had changed into something else, grew weak, and in the brightness of the sun collapsed and disintegrated into dust.

  Hunger. Fear. In the past, these are things that we never had to worry about. However, now, alone, we have different enemies. The dead that seeks to feast indiscriminately on whatever flesh they can; animal, human, and even vampire. In this battle to survive, the Feasters aren’t the only things we have to keep a lookout for.

  Chapter One

  Rescue Run

  I spend most nights peeling back the old, yellowing newspaper we use to cover the windows and looking out of a second story window of a house that isn’t ours. With limited resources, newspapers provide enough blockage of the sun and helps us to sleep during the day. The newspaper reminds us of a past that is no longer important in this new world: Local Student Wins Water District Art Contest. Police Dept. Rescues Kitten From Storm Drain. Sebastian Labs Donates $100K to Centre Square. This is the way things are and our only source of entertainment is looking out of these windows each night. Deep down, I hope. I hope for something different. Life. It's funny how hoping for life is something different. It’s hope that drives me to the window every night, watching the dead meander about without any purpose other than to feed. They listen. They move. They feast. It’s here I fantasize about a world where I can be out there on the streets in a place where we can freely move about without fear.

  I don't only assess how many dead are gathering. I scan the landscape looking for opportunities to nourish ourselves. We are hungry. We are always searching for new sources of food. In the basement, we have some animals. Two dogs; one runt-sized German Shepherd named Starsky and a mutt, probably some kind of retriever mix with a bend in his tail named Hutch. Their names come from an old show our fathers loved. We found them early while on a run and figured they'd provide us some food and companionship as well. There's a cat, too. Ms. Pickles. When we found her, her head was stuck in an empty jar of pickles in the back storeroom of a local deli. Naturally, we started calling her Ms. Pickles. Somehow, she survived a full year on her own in a world that just wanted to eat her. Talk about nine lives. Believe it or not, we also have a goat. There was a small farm up the road. When we arrived, we saw a chicken coop, however, no sign of the chickens. I'm guessing some were eaten and others escaped. Someone must have been looking out for the goat because she was safely locked away in a shed. We never got around to naming her. Our animals provide some limited nourishment, but I wish we had some beef. Before everything went awry, beef was our primary source of food. Pigs too. Now, we’d consider them a rare delicacy. When I'm hungry, I long for cow's blood. Where we live, there aren't many big animals, but there are bigger farms short distances away. We haven't ventured out that far, but I can't imagine there are too many big animals left. They're too slow and dumb. They were probably devoured first, along with the humans who decided to stick around and watch things play out instead of seeking shelter. So, we're left with what we have. One of the problems we're facing is that our dogs are running out of food. During one of our early runs, we ventured to the pet store. When people decided to run for their lives, they emptied the grocery stores, but not many thought about grabbing food for animals. So, we stocked up on all sorts of dog food. After finding Ms. Pickles, we managed to find cat food left over at grocery stores as well. The goat? She'll eat anything, and the grass and bushes in the backyard and occasionally the arm of our couch are enough to keep her going.

  The three of us take turns clamping down on a vein and drink enough blood to satiate us, but not enough to kill them. That's the thing about animals. We can bite and drink as much blood as we want, and they don't convert. Humans are a totally different story. The simplest of bites starts the conversion process as long as a Vamp doesn't get greedy and empty a human of his blood, which in turn would kill him. Besides, our kind doesn't resort to that anymore and don't know anyone who's ever done it. We were faced, however, with that decision when Andrew came into our lives. Emily brought him to the house when she ventured out one evening. We only had two options. One, let him die or, two, convert him. Converting him would mean another mouth to feed, but life was still life, and we couldn't let him die. A common myth is that Vamps aren't really living. We’re living fine, just differently.

  Tonight, like most nights, there isn’t much living on the streets. When I assess what’s happening in the neighborhood, I think about where to go next on our runs and places we could get the supplies we need. Whenever we go on a run, it’s always at night. One obvious reason is the effect the sun has on us. Secondly, we sleep during the day. And finally, Flesh Feasters, Feasters for short, have horrible eyesight. Their eyes have this glossed overlook to them – like Stevie's, except his were fresher. They aren't completely blind because, you know, that would make things too easy on us. I'm convinced they “see” with their sense of hearing and smell and only see shadows with their eyes.

  On the wall next to the window is a map of the area. It's a residential development map we found in the basement that we were able to salvage after our goat devoured the bottom right-hand corner of it. It shows what the land around us looked like before it was fully developed, dotted with the housing development we live in now. We do our best to add houses and landmarks to it as we foraged through areas, but we've never gone more than two miles or so in either direction.

  The house we live in is perched on a hill near the end of a cul-de-sac and has a clear view of our surroundings. From here we can scan the neighborhood and plan runs for supplies and other spoils like the one two days ago that yielded some batteries from smoke detectors that weren't already chirping from low power. It's a good thing the ones that chirp are loud because it keeps the Feasters busy, and we can usually slip past them. We’ve also got some other provisions like toilet paper and some canned meats and vegetables, which are edible, but don’t sustain us the way blood does. Truth be told, some of it runs right through us, but we can survive on it for several months if needed. Our two dogs will eat it too, so when their food dries up, there's always that.

  Since we just returned from one a couple of days ago, we weren't planning on going on a run tonight until I see it. "Hey, Emily," I whisper in a hurried breath. "Emily! Come here. Check this out!"

  "What's the rush? Are aliens coming to save us?" she says using sing-songy noises and waving her hand like an imitation spacecraft.

  My eyes are fixed out of the window. "It could be. Just come over here."

  Both of us sit at the window in the dimly lit room, spanning the landscape, "What am I supposed to be looking at?"

  I search the horizon trying to find it again. "Where is it? C'mon, I just saw it."

  "Am I supposed to be watching those zombies? It's the same rerun every night." Then she shifts her voice like she's doing a commercial. "Tonight, on Feasters, Zombies shamble around aimlessly looking for food. They grunt. They groan. They feast. But, will they ever find love? No, because they are mindless eating machines. Look out. Here they come." In the reflection of the window, I see Emily walking around like one of them; shoulders hunched forward, arms outstretched, fingers curled as if clutching something that isn’t there and groaning until finally her own stomach echoes. "Oh great," she says. "I'm really turning into one of them. Man, I am so hungry!"

  "There! Look, there it is." Emily zombie walks over to me pretending to take a bite out of my neck. I shrug her off, annoyed. "Quit messing around. Just look."

  "God, Kieran. You don't have to be so serious."

  My eyes still fixed outside, I whisper in curiosity, "Just look."

  She sees it. W
e both watch, trying to assess what it is and how far away it could be. Emily whispers, "What do you think it is?"

  "Do you think it could be someone flashing a light out of the windows?" It stops again for a moment.

  "Where did it go?"

  "There it is again! It's flashing through another window of the house!" I shout excitedly.

  "I see it. Who could be doing that?" Then, just like that, it’s gone again. We sit glued to the window waiting for it. Sure enough, it happens again in another location. Our noses press against the cool glass.

  "I'm thinking whoever is flashing that light is trying to send out a signal. That's why we see it moving to different windows. They’re probably trying to shine the light out of each window hoping someone will see it."

  Without lifting her nose from the window, Emily says, "It could be. Or, it could be a trap."

  My mind immediately pulls forward a memory of a time several months after the Feasters took over, when we were just learning how to survive. Doing our best to avoid them and any other dangers, we usually ducked behind cars and dodged around corners to get anywhere. While on a run at a strip mall with a convenience store, a frozen yogurt place, and a secondhand store cleverly called The Second Chance, we came face-to-face with six weapon wielding humans. As we exited The Second Chance with a wagon filled with clothing, boots, and some weapons including knives and the machete I’ve grown close to, they were waiting for us, attempting to blind us with flashlights. It was immediately obvious they weren’t interested in becoming besties. “Well, look here. It looks like dees two have done some shoppin’ fo’ us,” the leader of the group said with a twang unfamiliar to my ears.