2061: The Undead Read online

  2061: The Undead

  By C.J. Richards

  Copyright © 2013 by CED Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below.

  CED Publishing

  [email protected]

  www.cedpublishing.com

  First Edition

  “In the future, you'll simply jump into your car, turn on the Internet, turn on a movie and sit back and relax and turn on the automatic pilot, and the car will drive itself.”

  – Michio Kaku

  Table of Contents

  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 1

  Year 2061, May 14th – Time before the end of the worlds: 2 days ago …

  Like most people in the year 2061, Erick was a programmer. Many jobs were performed by robots, but programming was still something humans had to do. The pay was good, good enough to sustain his entire family. Speaking of family, Erick hadn’t heard from his brother Jake in two days. This was weird because Jake usually veeded almost every other hour, which Erick could see instantly on his contact lens. Much like tweeting of the early 2000’s, veeding was the posting of a short video to your list of friends, except in the form of a video and however long you wanted.

  Other than his brother, Erick didn’t hang out with many people. When he was programming, he needed to focus and would often stay in his house for weeks without leaving. He would even turn off the news feed on his contact lens because it was too distracting. The only one he kept on was the feed from his brother because, well, it was the only person he knew and he liked to keep in touch with him. At least Jake didn’t veed every other minute like a lot of people did.

  He tried calling, but there was no answer. He decided to leave the house for a change and go to his brother’s apartment to see if everything was fine. They lived only a 20 minute walk from each other, in a small town outside of Myrtle Beach.

  As Erick stepped onto the front porch, he noticed the town was very quiet. It was a nice change from the computer fans running in his house. He probably had the biggest computers in town because he needed the most powerful processors that existed to do his programming. He had three computers, each with 168 gigahertz and 50 cores. They were still about the same size as a standard desktop from the early 2000’s, but this was pretty big considering most people simply had contact lenses and an Esheet.

  He hadn’t smelled fresh air in weeks and it felt great. He decided to walk to his brother’s place because he really needed the exercise.

  Jake lived on the second floor of a big apartment building. As Erick arrived in front of the apartment’s door, he knocked, but there was no answer. He knocked again even louder, so loud that the entire floor could hear it.

  “Oops, guess I knocked a little too hard,” he told himself.

  There was still no answer, but someone at the other end of the hallway popped up and started walking slowly towards him. The guy looked really strange and he was walking very slowly with one leg dragging on the floor. Erick could hear the guy moaning and it was really creeping him out. He just remembered he had his brother’s key in his wrist’s chip. The door had been unlocked ever since he approached it. He stepped inside and closed the door, which locked itself automatically.

  “Phew, that guy was really weird.”

  Maybe it was nothing, after all Erick was easily paranoid as he rarely got out of the house. He was overly cautious about things. He didn’t trust anyone and didn’t like to talk to strangers.

  “Jake are you here?” he shouted.

  Nothing. Not a sound actually. It was extremely hot in the apartment, the air conditioning wasn’t on. It looked like his brother hadn’t been there for days. He looked on his contact lens to see Jake’s last veed. It was just a comment about the Giant’s last game two days ago, complaining that they lost.

  He remembered that he also had Jake’s GPS location in his contact, so he checked. The contact lens worked with thoughts, he only had to think about what he wanted and it appeared.

  It showed “GPS Location Unavailable”

  He rarely checked his brother’s GPS, so he didn’t know if that was normal or not. It was weird though, that his brother would just disappear. No call, no veed, no sign of him anywhere. His brother was the only person he knew in the world. He was starting to get a little worried. It wasn’t like Jake to just leave town without letting him know.

  As he was wondered what to do, he thought he heard little knocks on the front door. He stopped and listened for a while, but the knocks seemed to stop. His feet were tired from the short walk to Jake’s apartment, so he decided to call his car to pick him up. Walking was not something he did often. He realized it wasn’t very good for his health, but it didn’t matter because he made so much money doctors could fix pretty much anything. People lived for so long that scientists weren’t even able to estimate a life expectancy anymore. Last he saw on the news, the oldest person was 160 years old and in great shape. While waiting for his car he heard knocking on the door again, at least that’s what it sounded like. He walked towards the door and looked through the peep hole.

  “Oh my god!”

  He backed away from the door, tripped and fell on the floor.

  It was the old, creepy man standing and moaning right in front of the door. The guy must have been at least 125 years old and he looked ugly as hell. Erick got back up and slowly walked towards the door. He calmly approached the peep hole and looked in it again. The old man was still there, moaning and knocking on the door with his head like a mentally ill person.

  “What do you want?!” Erick yelled.

  The old man didn’t respond.

  “Go away or I’m going to call the police!” Erick yelled again.

  The old creepy man didn’t seem to care what Erick shouted. He just lingered and kept trying to walk through the door like it was open. Erick decided he had enough and he called the police. The phone rang, but there was no answer.

  “How can the police not answer the phone?” he wondered.

  Erick really didn’t know his best option. Should he confront the old man or try to get out of the apartment through the balcony? It was the second floor, so quite high, but still feasible to climb down using the balcony barriers.

  After a short reflection, Erick opened the door, pushed the old man and ran outside. Fortunately his car arrived in the driveway. He got in as quickly as possible and shouted, “Home!”

  Once home, he sat in his couch and took some time to digest what had just happened.

  “Where the hell is my brother?”

  “What is going on?”

  CHAPTER 2

  Erick was disturbed by his brother’s disappearance, but he didn’t let it stop him from working. He had a deadline for his latest program and he wasn’t the kind of guy to deliver late. He always worried for nothing, so he figured it was probably nothing. Besides, his brother was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. After all, Jake was 25 years old. He got back to work on his computer, hoping Jake was fine and would probably contact him soon enough. His program
was almost done, only a few more hours of work.

  After a long day of work and his program finally finished, Erick made himself some supper. There were robots available for cooking, but they didn’t do a good job and he liked to cook anyway. He made himself some fish and chips, sat at the table and turned on the TV. He had been so busy with work that he hadn’t turned on the TV in two days. The television was part of the wall and took up the entire dining room’s back wall.

  “This is an emergency broadcast message. This is not test. If you are at home, stay there and lock all the doors. A virus is spreading across the nation. We believe the virus is contagious. If you are not at home, go home or to a friend’s home, stay there until further notice. We recommend citizens to wash their hands thoroughly as often as possible. Pease check the government’s website for the latest updates. Message recorded on May 12th. This is an emergency broadcast …”

  Erick’s jaw dropped. A wad of chewed fries tumbled out of his open mouth as he sat staring at the screen for about 5 minutes, with the message repeating. He couldn’t believe what he just heard. It seemed like this wasn’t a joke. He went through all the channels and the same message was broadcasting. Then he realized the creepy, old man he pushed must had been infected! He also realized that he ate some fries with his bare hands!

  “HOLY SHIT!” he exclaimed as he ran to the bathroom, washed his hands thoroughly and put a finger in the back of his throat to make himself puke. He then took off all of his clothes and hopped in the shower.

  He washed his body like never before, almost emptying the entire bottle of soap. The water was so hot it was scorching his skin, but it didn’t matter because he wanted to remove all traces of anything he had touched outside.

  After his shower, he didn’t want to leave his bathroom or touch anything in his house. Not until the Roomba cleaned everything, but it was downstairs. Though it operated every day at 9 a.m., it could also activate with voice command. He screamed as loud as he could, “Roomba, wash!” He waited a few seconds, to see if he could hear it exit the charging station. It didn’t. He tried again, “Roomba, wash!” Nothing …

  Still in the shower, he wondered how bad that virus was. Was it really worth all this trouble? He browsed the Internet through his contact lens, looking for more information. What he found was quite disturbing. There were dozens of veeds of people running everywhere, getting bitten and eaten by these other slow walking people. One video showed the city of New York in total chaos, everybody running everywhere, police shooting these undead people. It looked like doomsday. What was strange though, was that almost all the videos were from two days ago, on May 12th. There were no veeds from May 14th or even the day before. He decided to stay in the bathroom until the next day. Until the Roomba would finish cleaning the house.

  After a long night trying to sleep in the bathtub, Erick finally heard the Roomba doing its work downstairs. It took the robot about one hour to clean the entire house. It could climb the stairs. It was a sophisticated robot. Erick’s stomach was rumbling, he was so hungry. He made himself throw up and hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before. He waited impatiently for the robot to finish its job …

  After the Roomba finished cleaning the house, Erick went to his bedroom to get some fresh clothes and then downstairs for breakfast. It felt so good to finally eat something. As he ate, he browsed the Internet in the hope of finding more recent updates on the virus outbreak. He browsed through hundreds of videos and news feeds until he finally found a veed that was taken the night before. It was a video of a girl talking to the camera:

  “If anybody else is out there, please contact me. My dad, my mom and my two sisters are dead, or at least they look dead. I was doing homework in my bedroom two days ago when my mom burst in my room and jumped on me. She was trying to bite me, but I pushed her in the closet and closed the door. It seems like she is still alive in there, but I’m scared. Please help, I don’t know what to do. I can see other undead people walking in the streets, I’m scared they will see me and try to come and bite me. Tell me I’m not the only survivor, there must be other people alive out there! Please contact me if you are still alive.”

  The veed indicated she was from Richmond, Virginia. Not too far from Erick’s home, maybe a 3 to 4 hour drive, but it was too late to go there that afternoon. Especially since the girl mentioned there were these undead people walking everywhere in the streets. From the videos he saw of New York, it seemed like big cities were hit pretty hard. They looked crowded with undead. This could be a dangerous road trip to take.

  Erick hadn’t had a girlfriend in five years, he was 26 back then. He’d always been pretty shy with girls, but it looked like that girl was in danger. He decided to reply:

  “Hi, my name is Erick and I am alive here in South Carolina. Are you still doing ok out there? Is there a lot of undead people where you are?”

  It took 5 minutes for her to reply back:

  “Hi Erick, my name is Hannah. I’m fine for now, but I don’t know how long it’s going to take until one of these undead come in my house. There are now hundreds of them in the streets outside my house. It seems like they may be attracted by my family making noise. My mom is in my closet and the rest of my family is in the basement and they are making a lot of noise. I really don’t know what to do, I’m scared. What should I do?”

  It looked like she was in trouble. What should she do with her undead family? He couldn’t possibly tell her to try and kill them. That would be too dangerous. Who knew how to actually kill them anyway? From the veeds he saw, there were some of these undead with their arms missing and they were still walking. Some of them had their guts hanging out of their chest and others had no legs, but were still trying to crawl on the ground. It didn’t look like there was any easy way to kill them. Maybe if they had no head anymore they would die. After all, he hadn’t seen any of them walking around with no head. Still, telling this girl to try and kill her family all on her own seemed like a very dangerous plan. What if they found a cure? However, if she didn’t kill them, it could potentially attract hundreds of undead outside her house. Erick’s parents died a long time ago and he remembered how much it hurt. He didn’t want to put her in that situation. He didn’t even know where his own brother was. Erick was puzzled. He had no idea how to help this girl.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Why didn’t I catch the virus? Where is my brother? Is he alive? Where is everyone in town? Should I go help that girl?” The more questions Erick asked himself, the more puzzled he became.

  It seemed like pretty much everyone was dead, or actually undead. Maybe he was immune or something. If there were still lots of people alive, why wouldn’t they veed anything? It couldn’t possibly be just him and Hannah alive. Or could it?

  After much reflection, Erick decided to try and find his brother before saving a stranger. He went upstairs in his bedroom and grabbed his 9mm from his closet. He had a box of about 100 bullets and 2 clips. Even though Erick didn’t like guns, he still was a very cautious person and always kept one in the house. It had been a while since he fired it, but he was confident he would be able to use it if the need arose. After all, it was simple, he just had to shoot and the bullet would aim automatically. He also grabbed a box of energy bars. He liked those bars because they were a quick meal replacement while programming, so he always had a couple of boxes in the house. He finally grabbed his Life Saver water bottle and put everything in a backpack. He then sent a quick veed to Hannah:

  “Hang in there Hannah. I am on my way to help you, just as soon as I find my brother.”

  Erick hopped on his car and said, “2546 Barnett Street.” If there was one place where his brother could be, it was his girlfriend’s house. Jake had a new girlfriend and they had been together only a couple of weeks. The thought hadn’t come to him before, being traumatized by the undead old man. The car started and was on his way to his brother’s girlfriend, it was only a 7 minute drive.

  As the car was driving, Erick n
oticed a few undead people walking around here and there. He probably just didn’t notice them before when he went to his brother’s apartment. There was no sign of any live people anywhere. He wondered if his brother made it. If so, how come he didn’t attempt to contact him?

  “Arriving at destination, on your right,” the car said as it parked itself.

  Before exiting the car, he looked carefully all around to make sure there were no undead people. It looked completely deserted. He grabbed his gun, got out of the car and started walking towards the house. It was a relatively small house, probably a couple of bedrooms. As he approached the front door he wondered if he should knock. He put his ear on the door to see if he could hear anything. There was absolutely no sound. He tried to open the door, but it was obviously locked.

  “You are not authorized to open this door,” said the alarm system.

  “Damn it!” he yelled.

  “How am I supposed to get in the house with this alarm system?! My brother is probably dead …” he collapsed on the ground and started crying.

  “Jake!” he screamed.

  “JAAAKKKEEE!!!” he screamed even louder.

  His brother didn’t seem to be there, but other people were attracted to his yelling. There were three undead that appeared out of nowhere and were walking toward him. They were about 20 feet away and closing in relatively fast.

  Erick grabbed his gun, set the aim function to “head”, and shot three bullets without hesitation. Two of the undead collapsed on the ground, with bits of their head and parts of their brain spilling all over the place. It seemed aiming for the head was successful. However, the third undead was still walking at the same pace towards Erick. The bullet had caught its eye and exited on the side of the head. The automatic aiming was not perfect, you still had to aim in the direction of your target and aim relatively well. Otherwise the bullet didn’t have time to redirect itself to hit its objective. The closer you were to your target, the better you had to aim. The undead was about 10 feet away when Erick aimed for the head as best he could and shot four times in its direction. Only a bullet to the head was required to completely explode it. Pieces of its brain flew everywhere and a small chunk landed on Erick’s shirt. It seemed like these walking corpses were in decomposition.