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    Zombies! Episode 2.6: The Many Deaths of John Arrick
    Zombies! Episode 2.6: The Many Deaths of John Arrick
    Zombies! Episode 2.6: The Many Deaths of John Arrick
    Ebook110 pages1 hour

    Zombies! Episode 2.6: The Many Deaths of John Arrick

    By Ivan Turner

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    About this ebook

    John Arrick was a special man. He was the only recorded person to have contracted the zombie plague, gone to the brink of death, and recovered. But the plague did not leave him unchanged. No longer did the zombies see him as food. Whether they considered him one of their own or just below their tastes, he never figured out. But he could walk among them without fear of harm.

    This ability led him to Marcus and the zombie fights. When Arrick would not fight, Marcus gave him a job keeping the zombies in line. When Arrick got out of line, Marcus shot him to death. Only then did Arrick finally rise as one of the undead. But was this end for John Arrick?

    This episode of Zombies! takes you through Arrick's adventures starting on the very day of his death.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIvan Turner
    Release dateApr 2, 2012
    ISBN9781476089461
    Zombies! Episode 2.6: The Many Deaths of John Arrick
    Author

    Ivan Turner

    A child of the movies, I was always consumed by fantastic stories told by others and translated into adventures to be retold by me through the action figure medium. As I grew older, I put the action figures away and moved into the realm of role playing. Though I never outgrew role playing, I certainly don't have the time for it anymore. Since I was eleven years old, I've been pouring almost every ounce of creative energy I have into writing.I graduated college in 1993 with a degree in computer science. I tried my hand at programming for a couple of years and found it pretty unsatisfying. I later became a partner at a comic book store, where I spent several years. Though it wasn't a financial success, the experience I gained from running the store and the people that I met (many of whom I'm still in touch with today) was priceless. After leaving the store, I settled into a career of teaching. I still teach at a public high school in New York. Ironically, I've picked up computer programming again, which is what I mostly teach.I've been writing the whole time.I released my first book electronically in 2010. Forty Leap was a turning point for me in both style and story building. The Book of Revelations, which was written earlier but released later, was sort of a midway point between the writer I was and the writer I've become. I experimented with a very odd style and a story that employed diverse characters and controversial situations.In September 2010, I released the first installment of Zombies! Zombies! has been a tremendous success for me that came very close to being made into a television series. Since Zombies!, I have written a five part miniseries called Castes and have been working on developing tabletops games, the first of which, ApocalypZe, was published in early 2014.Now, 6 years later, a 3rd Zombies! series is due to be released in September of 2016.

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      Book preview

      Zombies! Episode 2.6 - Ivan Turner

      Zombies! Episode 2.6: The Many Deaths of John Arrick

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2011 by Ivan Turner

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      The people and events in this book are fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental.

      ***

      What has come before…

      When the zombie plague was new, there was an English teacher named John Arrick and his girlfriend, Suzanna. While Suzanna died from the plague, Arrick comforted her. Then she turned and attacked him. Though he managed to kill her, he too contracted the plague. But John Arrick did not die and he did not turn. When the disease was at its worst, when he thought the end was about to come, his body turned itself around and he recovered. This miracle brought with it a startling change in his biology. Arrick was no longer of interest to the zombies that roamed New York. This unique quality led him to enter the ring and fight them. But, in the end, though they would not hurt him, he could not bring himself to hurt them. So, instead, he was hired to keep them under control. When the police raided the fights, Arrick was caught up in the escape and was shot to death.

      This is where his real story begins…

      ***

      The warehouse door burst open and Detective Heron appeared, gun in hand. Marcus was confused. He didn't know who to shoot. Batting Arrick aside with his gun hand, he took one wild shot toward the lieutenant. It ricocheted off of the building behind him. Arrick struck out with his leg in an attempt to trip Marcus up but was unsuccessful. Marcus turned on him and fired again. The close sound of the weapon sent Arrick into a panic and he ran, covering the back of his head with his arms.

      What brought John Arrick’s mind back into focus was a sharp pain in the right side of his back. He cried out and lost his footing, tumbling forward and skinning both of his knees and the palms of his hands. The pain in his back disappeared and he got to his feet. As soon as he put one leg in front of the other, his back cried out in agony once again. When he grabbed it with his hand, he felt a slick wetness there. Tracing back the last few moments in his head, he realized that he’d been shot.

      He’d been shot.

      Marcus blamed him for bringing the police to the arena, for spoiling the fights. Marcus must have fired into the darkness and gotten a lucky hit. Lucky!

      He tried to take a deep breath to calm himself but that sent a fresh wave of torture shooting through his entire middle. He coughed once and tasted something thick and metallic. Not saliva but blood. He’d coughed up blood. Thinking to get help from the policeman, Heron, he tried to turn around, but he’d lost his bearings. It was a dark and wide open space and there was no way for him to know which way was which. The warehouse was on one side of him, or in front, or behind. He couldn’t tell. He was dizzy and something was drizzling out of the corners of his mouth.

      All at once, he became aware of the sounds of footsteps. There were people here. Maybe they could help him. There was a funny smell to them, but it didn’t smell bad. Just funny.

      Grabbing the first of the people (there were an awful lot of them), he pulled her face close. Please help me. I’ve been shot.

      She didn’t respond. There was something wrong with her mouth. Her lips were all swollen. Or maybe that was just his perception. At first she tried to keep walking, but he held on as tightly as he could. Finally, she’d had enough of him and shoved him. His grip fell away and he stumbled into another person, pleading for help as he did. The second person shoved him away as well. In fact, every person with whom he came into contact brushed past him either gently or forcibly. When the last of them had passed, he was left standing on his own in the open space watching their retreating forms.

      Won’t anyone help me? he shouted. Actually, he thought he was shouting, but he was barely whispering. His lung had been punctured and he could hardly draw air to speak. What’s wrong with you people?

      He stood there for a moment, swaying on his feet. Then he went to his knees, the thoughts in his head turning fuzzy from loss of blood.

      God damned Americans, he thought. They only think about themselves.

      Oh, God, I’m sorry… he mouthed, barely any sound coming from his throat now. I’m sorry, dad. I’m sorry, mum.

      He fell forward onto his elbows and spit a wad of phlegm and blood onto the ground. Malcolm, he gurgled. Tell me that you forgive me. Forgive me, Malcolm. I’ve failed you. But somehow he knew that, though Malcolm might mourn him, he would never forgive him.

      And so it was a fitting death for John Arrick, who, let’s be honest, was living on borrowed time anyway. As his last breaths issued forth with less and less push, he saw the white light of thoughtlessness and simply died there on the dirty ground…all by himself.

      At some point during the night, while the police were cleaning out the inside of the warehouse and taking statements from the remnants of the crowd, the body of John Arrick jerked once and came to life. Mindless, driven by nothing more than a need to feed, it lurched to its feet, swayed for a moment, and then wandered away in search of its first meal of human flesh.

      ***

      Few people appreciate the tremendous difference between being dead and being unconscious. But John Arrick, who had experienced both in a relatively short period of time, was cognizant of their stark contrast. His last memories of life were of him struggling through a crowd of people, trying to get someone to help him. He’d been shot in the back. He remembered Shawn and Marcus and Detective Heron. He remembered that final confrontation between the three of them. In that confrontation, Arrick had been an incidental and unwilling participant. When things had become too dangerous, he’d fled. But Marcus had shot him. And he had died.

      He was dead for almost a week.

      The thing about being shot in the back was that his brain was completely undamaged. While this allowed the bacteria inside of him to take over and convert him into a zombie, his unique reaction to the bacteria allowed him to remain aware of himself to a certain extent. He was neither able to control his actions nor was he able to keep an organized record of events as they transpired. He was a aware of this burning hunger. At least, he defined it as a hunger. It wasn’t a feeling that originated in his stomach. It was all over his body. It gave new definition to the expression weak from hunger. He felt it in his arms and his legs and his head. He felt it in his belly and his fingers and his toes. It was an emptiness that consumed him. Since the human part of his brain defined it as hunger, he insisted to himself that it could only be satisfied by consuming something through his mouth.

      Flesh.

      In his unique position, John Arrick had no way of knowing whether or not this is what other zombies felt. All of these recognitions and definitions occurred without any real conscious thought. But, unlike with other zombies, they were accompanied by recognition. He not only identified these feelings, but he pondered them. While his body straggled along the streets of the Bronx, his mind worked and worked and worked on analyzing his current state of being.

      It was a truly odd sensation, to be sort of half conscious and yet be aware of the body moving. He was well and truly trapped. So much so, in fact, that when he claimed his first victim he was able to, after much self counseling, absolve himself of guilt. Attacking the dog and killing it by biting into the flesh of belly was not a decision made by John Arrick, but rather an instinct carried out by his corporeal zombie self.

      It was a nightmare to watch.

      His body tore into the poor animal with such ferocity that he was stunned that any part of him could participate in such behavior. When it was over, the hunger had eased up a bit. Just a bit. But the trauma lasted. Arrick found that he was able to shut out some of the input from the eyes and the ears. The

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