A Regressive World: Book One Read online

  A Regressive World:

  Book One

  By

  Jason Baldasaro

  This book is dedicated to my grandmother. I want to thank her for reading my many different books before anyone else throughout the years.

  Love you Gram.

  After reading the book, visit the official A Regressive World website to go deeper into the book, www.aregressiveworld.com

  Regression

  When they spoke about the zombie apocalypse in the past it was something cool, fun, and even sometimes a bit corny. Of course, there were those zombie family stickers on the back of cars, which drove people crazy. People dressed up like the undead for holidays, and there were even those who took the apocalypse so seriously, they bought black Jeep Wranglers, that they customized with plows, gun racks, and spare fuel tanks. Jessica personally thought those people were out of their minds crazy, but she thought as she sat there in the dirt, peacefully playing with a dried up leaf in her hand, and thinking back, maybe they weren't the crazy ones after all.

  Still it had been five years since the most severe part of the apocalypse had ended, and nowhere in what used to be known as The United States. Across the world; each was in their own management phase. Five years was a long time ago for her; she was just a little girl when the virus hit. She remembered some things, good and bad, but really, as a newly turned teen-aged girl, the bad memories quickly choked out the good ones. It’s ironic how blackness can consume light so quickly, and without mercy.

  When Jessica was alone, she always tried to remember her mother’s face; it was gentle, beautiful, and had a soft glow about it. Her mother would call out to her from the kitchen while she was making dinner, “Jess!” of course it was short for Jessica. Her parents only used her formal name when she was in trouble, or when we were at church. Funny how when she went to church back then, she used to find herself being extremely bored, and couldn’t wait for the sermon to end. Although, after the apocalypse, she would have given anything to be back in church with her family and friends. The stained glass windows, the hardened wooden pews, and that smell, she knew it so well, but it’s been so long, she couldn’t put her finger on it. Finally the peace, the peace that it brought about, being there both physically and spiritually. That was what she missed the most.

  Her father wasn’t the one in the family that pushed for her and her sister to attend mass each Sunday; that responsibility fell solely upon her mother, and it was a responsibility that she didn’t mind accepting. Jessica had grown up Catholic, went to church every Sunday, prayed every night, and always carried her rosary beads. The only time she missed church, was when someone was sick. Now that her butt was beginning to go numb from sitting on the cold hard ground, it reminded her of those same pews.

  Then she felt something gently gliding across her hand. Without thinking, she looked down to the slithering of an orange, and white snake. You would think that would freak her out, or that she would scream, or jump up, but after you’ve been through what she’s been through, a snake really isn’t anything more than a butterfly coming to a rest on the top side of her hand. The snake didn’t have a vindictive agenda; it was just making its way to its destination, and her hand wasn’t much more to it than another obstacle to cross.

  She waited patiently for the snake to pass, and quickly it did. She crumpled up the dried leaf and tossed it into the wind. Then she took a moment to watch as the tiny pieces of the leaf danced around in the invisible breeze. The snake had gone, and so had the leaf. She thought it was time to get back to the Cluster before it got dark. Jessica stood up, brushed herself off, and headed back to her pod.

  Since the zombies had been all but eradicated five years ago, civilizations across the globe had broken down, almost to the point of survival of the fittest, everyone for themselves, family members turning on each other, friend killing friend, and the poor people that weren’t strong enough to handle the savageness going on around them, just offing themselves.

  No one could begin to tell of the horrors that she had witnessed growing up. At ten years old her parents sheltered her from as much of it as they could. Hiding her away in closets, car trunks, and makeshift forts, as the zombies attacked, Jessica's parents fended them off. As she grew older, and her parents grew more tired and weak, the more carnage she saw. A wooden bat eventually replaced her doll Molly, whom she had clutched tightly in her right hand for security for when things got bumpy. Jessica's father gave her the Louisville Slugger for protection. Later her father modified the bat, turning it into a spiked club by hammering nails through the wood. It was now more effective for clubbing flesh-eaters… Flesh-eaters were what the zombies became known as amongst the general public.

  Every so often when she needed a good laugh, she would think about the Hollywood zombies. If only those zombies were unleashed upon the world, then all of this death and destruction around her could've been avoided. The flesh-eaters were nothing like the zombies in the films or on TV. Movie zombies were mostly the product of the undead that came back to life. They moved at a snail's pace, ate juicy brains, and weren't too smart either. Most of them just stumbled around, walked into walls, and when a weapon was wielded, they walked right into it. Those zombies could have been easily wiped out in weeks, or even months; case closed.

  Flesh-eaters were the complete opposite in every way. They didn't come from the graves of the undead, nor did they saunter around trying to catch you. Flesh-eaters were fast… cheetah fast. If they spotted you, it was over; there was no sense in running unless you wanted to die out of breath. Chances are there wouldn't be just one of them either. Flesh-eaters didn't just aimlessly roam: they hunted them, and they hunted them in packs, like the velociraptors in the movie JURASSIC PARK. Flesh-eaters got their name because they wouldn't usually eat the brain due to the dense skull, so they prided themselves in devouring the fleshy tissue, and vital organs. This is how the virus spread in the beginning. With the brain intact the virus, which was transmitted through bodily fluids, would infect the brain, and unlike television, you turned pretty slowly. That same person that was just a buffet a few moments earlier became an eater too.

  Jessica knew that inside the Cluster, they were all safe, but she checked her sidearm just to be sure it's there. It wasn't anything fancy, a used beat up 40.cal Smith and Wesson pistol that she found locked in one of the dead's hand while her squad was out scavenging for parts, food, or really whatever they could find. The gun didn't just come out of the corpse's grip; she had to pry open the fingers one by one until the gun was free. This was one of her first run-ins with a dead body face to face that was not an eater. Now that she had a gun, next came finding bullets for it. She rummaged through the man's pockets, and found some extra clips; luckily they were fully packed. The squad called for a fallback, which meant basically to retreat to the Cluster.

  Jessica found herself thinking a lot about the firearm that was stashed in her backpack. What was I thinking, she thought to herself. She could barely use that baseball bat that her father had given her; She doubted herself, as she began thinking that she shouldn’t have possession of such a powerful weapon. Training… training was all she needed; but who could train her, and it had to be in secret. In the Clusters, females weren’t exactly used for battle, they were more used for repopulation, running households, and looking after the children. While the males trained for combat, and hunted, so she made sure her weapon was hidden very well.

  On her way to the center of the Cluster, she kicked some rocks along the dirt road to pass the time. She must have kicked one a little too hard, and too far because from the bushes came a male's voice, "Hey!”. Immediately she was on the defensive, as she checked the weapon on he
r hip. “Who’s there,” she asked, but there was no reply, “I have a weapon,” she threatened.

  Then she saw two hands came out of the brush held to the sky, "Don't hurt, me, I, was, just, gathering, berries," the voice said.

  Jessica knew that voice she heard, but she had to be sure, so she ordered, “Come show yourself.”

  Nervously he came from the bushes, hands raised. Her eyes widened when she saw who it was… “Jupiter,” she whispered to herself. Jessica couldn’t believe she almost shot one of her Cluster members.

  He looked back at her, and then once he was feeling safe, he lowered his arms. There he stood, a bit younger than her, dark skinned, curly black hair, dirty from rolling around in the brush all day scavenging for berries. She looked, and noticed that his satchel was almost full; he was one of the Cluster’s best scavengers. Everyone called him Jupiter because he was smaller than most members in the Cluster, and he didn’t mind the play on words, as it was something still funny in this dreary place they called home.

  He didn’t talk as fast as Jessica, and the rest of the Cluster members. When he was younger a bomb was set off near his house by rioters. The explosion rocked his tiny home, and ever since then his speech wasn’t right. If there wasn’t an apocalypse going on, and there were doctors readily available like there used to be, then he most likely could’ve been made better. Don’t let him fool you, just because he was a bit slow in the tongue, didn’t mean he was a bit slow in the head. Jupiter was as sharp as a tack, could hunt, gather, fight, and much more.

  “Jess,” he asked.

  “Jupiter what are you doing hiding in the brush like that I almost shot you,” she scolded. He was one of few that knew her secret on her hip.

  He held up his satchel, “It’s, full!”

  She walked towards him smiling, “Isn’t it always. Come on, let’s get back, it’s getting dark.”

  They made their way back to the Cluster, and she then said good-bye to Jupiter. He needed to go, and donate his berries to the food-bank. Everything in every Cluster is communal. That's how they were designed, and setup to work. Everyone had their own job to do from hunting, and gathering, to provided clothing from the animal pelts that the hunters bring back. Inside the Clusters, they don't waste anything. Even the elderly had their jobs to do; no one is immune from some good old fashion Cluster labor. It wasn't hard labor, but it was labor all the same.

  Jessica finally made her way, and stood in the middle of Cluster Two, that’s where she lived. No one knew exactly how many Clusters were out there, but it was rumored to be around twenty plus. While she stood there in the middle of Cluster Two, she took it all in. It was quite a scene for any outsiders that had never been inside a Cluster before.

  Not just here inside the Cluster, but all around the world, things were set so far back; it was like living in the early 1900's. When the zombie virus broke out and took over everything, there wasn't any humane way to deal with it. Although the governments of the world tried eradicating the flesh-eaters one by one, there were just too many, so that didn't work.

  The armed forces quickly became overwhelmed with urban fighting missions. In the U.S., they began to first see the numbers shift, from more uninfected, than infected. Some countries like Japan and Germany tried nukes, but that didn't work, it just wiped everything out. In the U.S., they thought about the nuke strike but decided to go with a more humane route. Just as the horrible impacts of the nukes were in the other countries, The United States' strikes were of equal caliber.

  First, they started off with just precise tactical airstrikes. That seemed to work, but not fast enough. The flesh-eaters were still outnumbering the non-infected population at an alarming rate. When the tactical strikes stopped being as effective as they liked, the government decided it was in the country's best interest to go with an all out blitzkrieg of missiles. The plan was simple for the non-infected people…run…dodge…hide. There would be no limit for collateral damage. The death toll wouldn't matter; it was an all-out annihilation. At least with the nukes it was all over at once, but there wouldn't be many survivors. The good thing about the nuke strikes was, no one would have to beg for their lives, cling to hope that each day it would end.

  In the end, what was lost in the bombings was more than three-quarters of the population, and the landscape was worse than a war torn area of the globe. Buildings burnt to the ground, cars melted, the earth was torn up, everywhere you looked, just a desolated wasteland. Nowhere was spared, not the everglades, mountains, large cities, there wasn't one thing that was sacred to their campaign. For the most part, it did what it was supposed to. It did eradicate most of the flesh-eaters, but not all of them.

  In the Cluster Jessica was safe, and her thoughts drifted away as she headed to her pod that she called home. The Clusters weren't much, something that the government built for the remaining civilization, along with the pods they lived in. The Cluster would best be described as larger stadium like creations made of cement, with only two front doors in or out on opposite ends of the Cluster, just in case of another outbreak or breach, it could lock down within minutes… So they were told. To date, this Cluster hasn't had to have a lock down, many that lived here thought that they really should have drills, just in case a breach should happen someday.

  As Jessica walked through the pods, she saw her pod mother outside sweeping dirt again. Jess knew she meant well, but Jessica looked around, the entire place was dirt. Once doomsday was over, and the Clusters were built, things settled down a bit, and what was left of the population; well they were assigned to the Clusters, and assigned to a pod family. Before she entered the pod, she gave her pod mother a gentle hug. The old lady didn't say anything, she accepted the embrace, and just kept sweeping. Jessica knew that her pod mother didn't talk much, if ever at all, but when she did, not to be cliché, but it was usually something she should listen to. Age was beginning to get the best of her, though, and now her long thin gray hair swayed in the wind with each motion she made with the broom. It had been both a blessing and curse to live as long as she has. Jessica knew she didn't want to live in this world that long.

  Once inside her pod, she noticed her Cluster sister Gracie sitting on a cot by the kettle that hung in the fireplace. Jessica liked to call her Gracie, and Gracie didn't mind. The fire from the fireplace flickered off her body, as the flames seemed to comfort her. She wasn't her real little sister; a flesh eater in the first wave of attacks killed her real sister. Over the years, Jessica had come to love and care for Gracie all the same.

  “Gracie,” she called out to her, but not too loud, she didn’t want to startle her.

  She looked up with a hopeful, and youthful shine about her. Then she smiled, and answered excitedly, “Jess! You’re home!”

  Jessica crouched down to Gracie's level and opened her arms to embrace her with a loving hug. Gracie slid off of the cot, and rushed into Jessica's embrace with a thud, almost knocking her over.

  “Where have you been all day,” she asked.

  “Out in the woods, just thinking,” Jessica replied.

  “Did you bring me anything?”

  Jessica reached into her pocket and pulled out some shiny red berries. She then held them up to show them to Gracie. "Here for you… You know the deal though—‘

  “Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered back as she finished her sentence. Gracie cupped her hands together, and Jessica dropped the berries into them. She quickly covered them, and then placed the berries in the front pouch of her apron.

  Then Gracie asked, “Where did they come from?”

  “I got them from Jupiter out in the woods, he had a whole satchel full.”

  “Thank you Jess, but you need to be careful going out that far away from the pods. There could be a breach,” Gracie said, as she worried about Jessica’s safety.

  "Relax Gracie, there hasn't been a breach since the Clusters have been built," Jessica assured her. Gracie gave her one last hug and then headed back to the warmth of th
e fire, and the deliciousness of the berries.

  Outside the Walls

  Outside the walls was a very different story than the inside of the Clusters. Danger could come from anywhere, and in many different forms, be it flesh-eaters, savaged outsiders, mangled cars, or crumbling buildings. The grass was a rarity, but there still were vines that climbed the buildings, trees with some leaves, although the pine trees still survived pretty well after the bombings. Dirt and upturned pavement were the only things to walk on if you ventured outside the Clusters. What used to be a beautiful backdrop for any postcard, now is scorched, and dilapidated.

  Two soldiers dressed in their mandated suits made their way across the dried earth. Each one has a standard infantry issued rifle slung over their shoulders. They reached the highway's edge and stopped. Cars that had ran out of gas, been caught in the missile strikes, or just abandoned lined both sides of the divided highway.

  “Hey Simmons,” Barry called out.

  “What’s up Barry boy,” Andrew answered into the microphone in his metal helmet.

  “This job sucks, these suits are hot, and we never see real action anymore,” Barry explained his frustrations.

  Andrew replied with a witty comment, “Looks like someone didn’t put on their big boy pants this morning.”

  “All I’m saying is that it wouldn’t hurt to liven things up a bit here, and there.”

  "You knew the deal when you signed up, protect the Clusters and the pods. Patrol the areas they say to patrol, and gather samples, of what needs to be sampled."

  "I know, it's just…" he paused mid-sentence.

  “It’s just what… Barry?”

  Barry shushed him, and then quietly whispered into his mic., “Be quiet,” he suggested. Andrew remained still, as he watched Barry readying his weapon. “Just be still. I think from behind those buildings, there was movement.”