Z Fever Read online

  Z Fever

  A Novella

  By Jay Mouton

  Copyright 2017 Jay Mouton

  Jay Mouton Distributed Edition

  Z Fever

  A Novella

  By

  Jay Mouton

  Glen Saint Mary, Florida was the most unlikely place on Earth to end up as ground zero for a zombie apocalypse.

  The quiet, little town, less than an hour-long drive from Jacksonville, was about as sleepy as they come. Nothing much more than the day to day of living life ever happened in Glen Saint Mary, or as old man Kingsley, up in Taylor, called it— the glen.

  Still, it’s crazy world, and it would get a whole lot crazier in the glen.

  * * * * *

  Gavin Kingsley, an eleven-year-old that old man Kingsley, Gavin’s grandfather, called ancient aged due to the boy’s uncanny trait for understanding much of life from a, more or less, adult point of view, was fidgeting at his school desk. His legs bounced beneath the desk, as his eyes peered outside the classroom windows at the big world, just outside of the Westside Elementary School, that constantly beckoned to the boy. It was a cool, bright Tuesday morning in the glen, and every fiber of Gavin’s body yearned to leap up from his seat, rush through the classroom door, and escape the confines of the schoolhouse.

  Gavin’s mind raced with images of what had occurred the night before. As it was, he woke up several times over the course of the evening, silently crept through the shadows of his home, and carefully slipped out of the warm house and onto the front porch to stare, wide-eyed, up at vast expanse of the star filled sky above him.

  Unexpected and unannounced, a terrific meteor shower had bathed the southern sky above Gavin’s little corner of the world, just north of Glen Saint Mary. The same shower of wayward, broken parts of the universe above the boy’s home were, indeed, showering the rest of the world as well.

  Young Gavin only knew that it was exciting to watch the brilliant display above him rushing across the dark and vast endlessness of the sky.

  The boy heard the sound of the aged door behind him squeak on its hinges.

  He started, and mentally captured a momentary picture of his daddy giving him a quick, sharp hand to his bottom side for being out of the house so late on a school night. Then, he let out a gentle sigh of relief when he heard a small, soft voice break the silence.

  “What are you doing, Gavin?”

  His eight-year-old sister, Ariel, asked him, her whispered question still groggy and mixed with her broken sleep.

  “Shush,” he said, the index finger of his right hand moving up to his lips. Almost as quickly, he realized that Ariel could not see his adamant finger pressing against his lips. He smiled, at his own foolish movement.

  Ariel shuffled up next to her big brother, and leaned into him as she felt the chill of night air closing in upon her.

  Gavin placed an arm around his little sister, and quietly told her to look up into the sky.

  The little girl, now slightly warmer, and feeling much safer now that her big brother was close by, tilted her head up.

  She gasped at the spectacle.

  Gavin could feel her little body tense up in excitement next to him.

  “What is that, Gavin?” She asked, her voice full of wonderment.

  “It’s pretty, huh,” he said to her, forgetting to whisper in the moment. He looked down at Ariel to see if he could see her face under the rapid flights of light above them.

  “It is!”

  Gavin peered down at her, finally able to catch a flash of meteor color reflecting from her brown eyes.

  The light show above them intensified enough that Gavin could now make out the smile spreading across his little sister’s face.

  He, too, looked back toward the heavens, again.

  He pulled Ariel a little closer to his skinny frame, when he felt his little sister shudder against him, as they tried to keep each other a little warmer.

  They stood, side by side, silent and observant of the miracle expanding across the sky above their home, and their little patch of pine woods in north Florida.

  Nearly half an hour passed, before both children crept back into the quiet of the house and crawled back into their beds.

  * * * * *

  “Gavin!” the authoritative voice of Mrs. Gelfie, Gavin’s teacher, called out to him, thus breaking his daydream about the previous night’s marvels.

  “Gavin Kingsley! Please point those little, blue eyes of yours’ up to the front of the room,” she said, admonishing the child.

  Gavin quickly shifted his eyes away from the window panes and, once again, made another vain attempt to provide Mrs. Gelfie his full attention.

  The teacher, long experienced in the ways of the meandering minds of her young charges, jumped right back into her explanation of the importance of the current subject at hand.

  At nearly the exact moment that Gavin’s attention span, already loosely connected to the drone that Mrs. Gelfie’s voice often became, the crackle of the school’s, long outdated, intercom system cut her off to the backdrop of exasperated sighs of relief from Gavin and several of his classmates.

  “All Westside Elementary students are to, immediately, report to their school bus stations,” the voice of Jerry Jenkins, Westside Elementary School’s Principle, barked out with a pitch in his voice that Gavin had never heard from the man before.

  “All classes are cancelled, and all students are to report to their busses for immediate departure for their homes,” he said. As his voice jumped another octave, he nearly yelled out, in a tone that Gavin thought sounded very frightened, “AND HURRY!”

  The intercom squealed in response to the frantic directive from Mr. Jenkins.

  Gavin’s hand’s shot up to his ears to try to shut out the loud, painful electronic static now sounding from the decrepit equipment.

  At the same time Gavin brought his hands up to his ears, he looked around the room and immediately sensed, then saw, the fear already forming on the faces of many of his classmates.

  “Students!” Mrs. Gelfie called out, her voice immediately swallowed up by the growing murmur and movement coming from the young children now squirming in the seats before her. “Quiet down, now. Remember what we’ve practiced about exiting the room in a calm and orderly fashion,” she told her class.

  Gavin, hearing the hustle of nervous students all around him, tried to retain his own composure, but it was getting difficult. One of the girls sitting next to him, started to softly cry.

  It was Sally Minter, one of the girls that Gavin had one of his many crushes on. Sally glanced over at Gavin, her shining tears slowly slipping down and over her pretty cheeks. Gavin, long practiced in the art of calming those that made up what Granddaddy Kingsley called, the fairer sex, from years of caring for his own little sister, reached over and took Sally’s slightly trembling hand in his.

  Sally’s green eyes locked on the young boy’s gaze. For the cost of a fraction, of a moment’s worth, of his time, Gavin felt her warm hand stop trembling. She offered him the beginning of one of her always friendly smiles. He smiled back, hoping he was reassuring her at least a little bit. He watched as she, in what seemed like slow motion in the world that was quickly spinning around them at an ever-faster rate, brought her free hand up to her face. Then, softly and carefully, her fingers brushed away a single tear before it fell and hit a page of the open book resting on the surface of her desk.

  At the same moment that Sally’s tear stained the bottom of page 37 of her book, the door to Mrs. Gelfie’s room burst open. It boomed and echoed loudly, as it slammed against the wall.

  Ben Stuart, Gavin’s favorite person in the small circumference of his world, balanced between home and school, yelled from the now wide open doorway.


  “My kids, get on out to the bus, right here and now!” he yelled into the room.

  His brown eyes caught Gavin’s stare. “Young Kingsley! Y’all go on now, and fetch little Ariel! Make sure you get her out to that bus!” he said to the boy. He wasn’t yelling, now, but speaking quickly and with an authority that masked his, usually, friendly drawl.

  “Quick, now, boy!” he spat out, yelling again.

  The bus driver disappeared from Gavin’s sight, but the boy could hear the old black man’s voice still echoing out with alarm in the hallway just outside Mrs. Gelfie’s room.

  “Students!” Mrs. Gelfie called out, her voice, again, lost in the continually growing chaos unfolding around her. A voice lost in a classroom full of students that were, less than a minute before, calm and controlled.

  A scream flooded into the room from somewhere in the school building.

  Gavin couldn’t tell if it came from a man or a woman, only that it was a kind of scream that he’d heard only in some of the horror movies that his mama didn’t know he had watched over at Granddaddy Kingsley’s on weekend nights when his grandad would fall asleep on the living room sofa.

  Sally Minter jerked her hand out of Gavin’s, jumped up, and simply ran out the open door of their classroom.

  Gavin didn’t even have time to call out to her, but he did manage to hear her screaming and crying all the way down the hall as she made her exit.

  Gavin, still sitting at his desk, was, finally, moved to action, after he heard Mrs. Gelfie’s own scream from the front of the room.

  The boy spun his head around toward the teacher’s plaintive yell.

  There, in front of Gavin and two of his classmates, Buster Tooley, and Ricky Strome, Mrs. Gelfie was being torn apart by the school principle.

  The boys, all three of them frozen in place, watched in horror as Westside Elementary School principle, Mr. Jerry Jenkins, sank his teeth into Mrs. Gelfie’s slender throat. She screamed, again, although this time her scream was quickly cut short by Mr. Jenkins’ pearly whites. As the, seemingly, crazed man’s jaws chomped down on the squirming woman’s neck, a torrent of dark blood burst forth and almost covered the length of the distance between the boys and the horrendous scene before them.

  Mrs. Gelfie was no longer making any noise, nor was she moving of her own accord. Although none of the young students had ever witnessed an actual, true to life, death before. It was soon clear, by witnessing the horrific scene at the front of their classroom, that they were no longer strangers to the age-old mystery any longer. Mr. Jenkins was now leaning over the woman’s inert body, as he continued to tear at what was once a human being’s throat.

  The boys watched, immobilized by the terror strewn across the floor in front of them, as Mr. Jenkins’ teeth continued to rip and tear at Mrs. Gelfie’s lifeless form. The sounds emanating from the crazed man’s gluttonous frenzy sounded more like some ravenous dog than that of any kind of man ever known to any of the boys. Mr. Jenkin’s mouth chewed and ripped at the now dead flesh of the woman splayed out below him. Still, he ravaged her lifeless form as he bit into Mrs. Gelfie’s face and tore away the flesh that had been her right cheek. Her dead eyes, now filming over with the vacant emptiness of death, still reflected apparent fear and miscomprehension, as they stared up at the human animal chewing, madly. Her exposed right cheekbone, white and spritzed from a steady spray and drool from the ravenous Mr. Jenkins.

  “RUN!”

  It was Buster Tooley yelling. It was enough to bring the two boys back to their senses. Buster, as if in a moment of epiphany, made a mad dash toward the door near the front of the room.

  Mr. Jenkins had just ripped Mrs. Gelfie’s left eye out of its socket, plopped it into his mouth, and was chewing on it for all he was worth.

  Gavin, standing side by side with Ricky Strome, after being jolted back to reality from the hasty advice yelled out to him from Buster Tooley, glanced over and watched his classmate disappear through the door.

  Gavin, still horrified, but now fully aware of his surroundings, nudged Ricky Strome in the boy’s ribs, bringing him back from the edge of his sanity, too.

  Mr. Jenkin’s, cheeks bulging with what might have been some of Mrs. Gelfie’s left breast, was still completely oblivious to the two boys standing just a few feet behind him and his meal.

  “What should we do?” yelled Ricky, more at Mr. Jenkins than to Gavin, still standing next to him.

  “Run to your bus, Ricky!” Gavin yelled, finally collecting enough of his thoughts to remember he still had to find Ariel and, then, get the two of them to their own bus.

  “Right!” Ricky yelled, suddenly aware of his own surrounding now, and turning toward the door.

  The young boy made three quick steps, and then made the mistake of stepping into a slick pool of Mrs. Gelfie’s blood that had sprayed across the room.

  Gavin watched his classmate’s body fly up into the air, fall toward the floor like a sack of cement, and smack down into the mess below him. Gavin heard another sound that he’d never heard before, as Ricky’s right leg landed under the full weight of his body slamming down to the hard-tiled floor and snapped. The force of his fall, along with the weight of his body, broke the boy’s right leg tibia, tearing through his flesh, his jeans, and opened his wound to the world.

  Gavin’s stomach heaved, and he was sure, for just a moment, that the contents of what he’d had for breakfast, only a couple hours earlier that morning, were going to come flying back up from his gut and add even more to the gore that surrounded them.

  “AAAHH!” Ricky yelled in pain. Gavin heard the echo made from the panic and volume of his classmate’s yell. Somehow, the sound quelled Gavin’s urge to vomit, and the boy started toward his friend.

  At the same moment that Gavin made his move towards the direction of Ricky, Mr. Jenkins looked up from the unfinished meal that was what remained of Mrs. Gelfie. Taking a quick look at Mrs. Gelfie’s corpse, Gavin, tasting a moment of what might have been madness, heard himself chuckle at a passing thought concerning just where was it that Mr. Jenkins was putting it all.

  Mr. Jenkin’s eyes, or at least what once were the eyes of a living man, moved toward the sound of Ricky Strome’s yells and screams; his dead eyes now focusing upon the boy, as blood, drool, flesh, and fragments of bone spilled and spit forth from his still gaping and still chewing mouth.

  The man, or whatever he now was, stopped chewing. In what appeared a moment of deep reflection, Mr. Jenkins tilted his head to the side. He seemed to decide in that very moment that the young boy, screaming and sliding about on the blood coated tiles, was an even better choice for a meal than were the remains of the recently deceased Mrs. Gelfie.

  At the same time, Gavin reached out and took hold of Ricky Strome’s, blood coated, right hand. The boy was writhing in pain and fear as Mr. Jenkin’s leaped across three desk tops, teeth bared and already chomping into the few centimeters of air that, for only a second, separated him from Ricky, and landed on top of the child.

  Gavin, who had already turned toward the door, and was pulling up on Ricky’s hand, felt his friend’s fingers tugged away from his grasp.

  The boy screamed one last time as Mr. Jenkin’s teeth, once again, found the tender flesh of a human neck and tore into it. Ricky’s scream abruptly ended, as Mr. Jenkin’s hungry jaws ripped the boys throat out.

  Gavin bolted toward the door, knowing he could not help his friend anymore. He stole one more rapid glance at the scene less than three feet from his own escape.

  The last time Gavin saw Mr. Jenkins, the Westside Elementary School’s, one time, teacher of the year, and longtime principle, the man was gnawing at the opening at the top of Ricky Strome’s gaping neck. The monster he’d become, as he was munching away, was staring at the boy’s dead eyes while he held Ricky’s head just inches away from his own, blood soaked face.

  * * * * *

  Ariel!

  Gavin’s sister’s name flashed across the fear clouded front o
f his mind, and he beelined down the hall to the girl’s room.

  The hallway of the school was a nightmarish glimpse of hellish proportions, one of which Gavin had trouble comprehending at all.

  Behind him, and in front of him, he could hear the screams of children and adults alike. As he ran towards his sister’s classroom, terrified children bounced off each other, and off the walls, yelling and screaming for help that would never come.

  Through the cacophony of horrified screams and yells, he recognized the tiny sound of his little sister’s crying; he knew her sound.

  He glanced toward the direction of Ariel’s sobbing, and caught sight of her little body, curled up tight in a tiny ball, leaning against the wall of her classroom just outside the closed door of the room.

  Gavin forgot all else, and ran swiftly to his sister.

  He leaned down, and carefully placed a hand upon her shoulder trying not to startle her further.

  The little girl looked up, her eyes wide with fright and still sobbing, and peered into the eyes that she knew better than anyone else’s in her young world.

  “Gavin!” Ariel yelled up at her big brother.

  He took hold of Ariel’s right hand, and swiftly helped her stand up, while at the same time quickly visually inspecting her body looking for the blood that surely meant that she had been attacked by another thing just like Mr. Jenkins.

  Seeing no outward sign of trauma, Ariel’s big brother pulled her next to his body and gave her the hardest hug she had ever remembered getting from him.

  “Ariel, little sister,” Gavin was whispering down into her ear, “Ariel, are you okay? I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I wasn’t here to get you!”

  He held her tight, trying to sooth the girl, but found that it was he who seemed in need of soothing from his little sister.

  Gavin could feel the very weight of the blur of tears forming at the corners of his eyes, but did not give in to them; his sister needed him, more than he needed to cry, now.