Dawn of the Rage Apocalypse Read online

  Dawn of the Rage Apocalypse

  Timothy W. Long

  “DAWN OF THE RAGE APOCALYPSE”

  By Timothy W. Long

  Copyright 2018. Timothy W. Long

  All Rights Reserved

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotations embodied within critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  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 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Afterword

  Chicken Dinner Sample

  About the Author

  Also by Timothy W. Long

  In memory of George Romero

  1

  Have you ever read a book about the end of the world, or watched a movie in which the creator didn’t bother to tell you how it all began? Well, I’m here to tell you how the rage apocalypse got underway, and every word of this is true.

  How do I know? Because my name is Jake Turner, and I’m the guy who started it.

  I’m not talking your garden variety end of the world here, I’m talking the real deal. The grand tamale. The last round in the chamber. Boom, fucker. It’s here, and everyone you know and love is going to die.

  These things don’t just happen overnight, unless it’s an asteroid strike. Then it’s more of an ‘over in a second’ kind of deal. You’re safe and sound in bed, then a few million tons of explosives blow up thanks to the impact, and you wake up dead, or worse, suffocating in a wave of dirt and dust that was swirled up by said strike.

  Speaking of bed, I wish I would have stayed in mine the night this had all started.

  I have a job through The Stafford Staffing temp agency that expects me to work hard but honestly, I do just enough not to get fired. The way I see it, they need me more than I need them. I’ve already been through their orientation, taken the drug tests, and watched all of the training videos. If they got rid of me they would have to bring someone else in and train them, and that costs money.

  Having this job is good because it makes me just enough money to stay afloat. I share an apartment my friend Mitch. His girlfriend, Mindy, spends a lot of time there even though she has a place of her own, and by place of her own, I mean a little shed-looking thing with a single window located in her parents’ back yard.

  Mitch stands nearly six foot tall and for as long as I’ve known him he’s said he’s going to lose twenty pounds. It was always twenty pounds, but I thought he had put on twenty since he’d started dating Mindy. He has a mop of light red, curly hair that moves in a light breeze. Freckles, green eyes, and a stocky build make him one Irish-looking son of a bitch. He drinks like it, too. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not down on the Irish, but you can’t deny that those genes were made for loving liquor.

  Mindy, on the other hand, is all of five foot two and she’s slim and trim compared to my pal. She orders all of her clothing online and non-stop bitches about everything she receives.

  When I moved in a few years ago he didn’t even know Mindy. Now she lives there most of the time. We all try to stay out of each other’s hair, but I know those looks Mindy directs my way when she thinks I’m not watching. She wants me to move out so her and Mitch can have the apartment to themselves. That’s not likely to happen until I figure out how to get my shit together.

  I’m sure Jessica would appreciate that, too.

  Jessica is my girlfriend, sort of, and I had completely forgotten to call her today. The last time we talked she had been plastered and complaining, in slurred speech, about how I didn’t pay her enough attention, or something like that. We were in that sort of purgatory that we often found ourselves in over the year we’d been seeing each other.

  She’s a firecracker, but she says she really likes me; what she doesn’t like is that I’m not all that ambitious. I’ve tried to explain to Jessica that I’m biding my time. See, I make enough money to stay afloat, barely. She wants to have kids, a dog or two, and me in an office every day and then at home every night. I’m not ready for that just yet.

  Jessica’s cute; she has pink hair tips and a Zelda triforce tattoo on her lower back, complete with three full hearts on the left, and one and a half full ones on the right. My right, if I’m looking at her back. Uh… you know what I mean.

  I have to admit that she had me pegged (I don’t mean that literally, but if that’s your thing it’s no skin off my ass). I’m always short of money because I don’t like to cook, so I eat a lot of fast food and frozen meals. I tend to buy energy drinks by the case, and I have a mild addiction to video games, so that means I spend my “extra” money on new releases every month. If a new zombie game is coming out, forget about it, I’ll sell my left nut so I can purchase the damn thing.

  All of this adds up to a bank account that is frequently in the red a day, or week, before payday, and Jessica wants more from our relationship, instead of me sitting around playing video games all evening before the night shift at work.

  My job sucks but it’s a job. I make a little more than minimum wage and I once got a twenty-five cents an hour raise because I fooled my boss into thinking that I had figured out a way to save on cleaning chemicals. Hopefully they’ll never find out that all I did was add a little water.

  One of the nice things about Abraxin is that they bring in teams to do all of the shit work at night, and I was in one of those groups. None of that skulking around in the daytime hoping that no one kept tabs on me. At night I had what was called ‘autonomy’, a fancy word for the ability to work without someone breathing down my neck.

  Abraxin also has some pretty awesome vending machines that are subsidized by the company. Let’s say you want a coke. Well, that will be a quarter, thank you very much. The company picks up the rest. I don’t know why they don’t give the nerds free soda. Shit, wasn’t that the way it was done in the tech industry? You get out of nerd computer school, with your nerd computer degree, and you never have to pay for another soda for the rest of your nerd life.

  Guys like me aren’t supposed to use the vending machines, but who’s going to know? Some nights I come home with a six pack of soda, and stash them under my bed so Mitch doesn’t drink them before I get up the next day.

  I have a bad habit of leaving the apartment late because I have another bad habit of leaving something behind. Either that or I’m out of smokes and have to stop at a convenience store. This means I’m constantly late to work. But tonight I am going to be on time, because they said if I kept clocking in late they were going to start docking my pay. I didn’t think they could do that, legally, but my boss at the site doesn’t like me much, and I had no doubt he would do it just to get under my skin. Plus if I kee
p it up they’re bound to terminate me. If I get fired from one more place, I’m going to have to move out of my apartment, and where will that leave me? Jessica certainly won’t let me stay with her, and the thought of sleeping in my car in the Atlanta heat isn’t something I want to even contemplate.

  I left five minutes early so I could pick up a pack of cigarettes. I would have left sooner, but I couldn’t tear myself away from a live stream of the latest Call of Duty game.

  There’s a little store a few blocks from work run by two brothers. Ernie and Eddie are old as shit, black as night, and they don’t give a damn about anything unless you let money talk. Seriously. One night I saw a dude pull a gun on Ernie and demand money. Ernie had turned to his brother, pointed at the gun wielding punk, and said, “You think his balls have dropped yet?”

  Then Eddie had casually pulled out a double-barrel shotgun and cocked it while staring at the kid. I can tell you that the kid had shit his pants while he ran back to his mommy. I had almost needed a change of shorts as well.

  Ed and Ernie also cook barbecue in a little smoker out back. Nothing fancy, mind you. Chicken quarters that have been bathing in alder for hours. Meat falling off the bones. Skin crispy and flesh tasting like it was brined in heaven-sauce. I would have gotten one tonight, but I had less than fifteen dollars in my account, and I wasn’t getting paid for another week. I’d be at a payday loan place before Saturday was over.

  “How are you, young man?” Ernie asked as I strolled into the store.

  “I’m living the dream.” I pointed at my janitor overalls.

  “Ain’t nothing wrong with hard work. Someone’s gotta do it.” Ernie plucked a pack of American Spirit off the rack behind him and slapped it on the counter. “Just glad it ain’t me.”

  I handed over my debit card and prayed that I was right about my balance.

  After a few seconds the machine burped up my receipt. Meanwhile I stood there, slack jawed, with drool filling my mouth thanks to the smell of the food in the back.

  “Want some chicken?” Eddie poked his head in from the back room. “Gotta fresh batch coming up.”

  “Can’t. I’m strapped for cash.” I groaned.

  I half-hoped they would take pity on me and front me a half a chicken, but I knew better. It was cash or a sad face and empty stomach when it came to Ed and Ernie’s cooking.

  Ernie gave me an unreadable look as he handed over my smokes.

  “You don’t even have to say it,” I said as I slipped the cigarettes into my top pocket.

  “I’ll say it anyway. Young guy like you shouldn’t smoke. Why don’t you try one of those vape things.? You might look like an asshole, but at least you won’t be sucking down tar and a hundred other chemicals.”

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out my vape pen.

  “Way ahead of you, dude,” I said and shoved the device back into my pocket before leaving the store.

  Back in my car, I lit up a smoke as I pulled into the main road, and pushed the pedal to the floor in the vain hope my car would suddenly grow a pair and actually get me to me to work on time. But it nearly stalled, because the carburetor needed to be rebuilt, and who had time for that? If I got too anxious there was a fifty percent chance the damn thing would flood and the engine would die.

  Abraxin Corp sat a couple of blocks from the main CDC building. From what I could tell, they had probably started as a pharmaceutical company, or that’s all the temp agency said I needed to know.

  See, I would just come in, clean the floors, the shitter, and whatever else looked dirty, and get out. I could do it in a few hours and out of a full eight-hour shift that left me a lot of time to screw around, provided the boss didn’t come looking for me. He preferred to sit at his desk with his ten-year-old computer and surf the web. He was probably looking at porn, but I didn’t care as long as he left me alone.

  It’s hard to put my finger on it, but there was something different that night. While most of the ‘sciency’ nerds were gone by the time I arrived, a few hung around in the hallway and chatted in low voices. One of them got in another guy’s face and I thought they were going to throw down. I hoped my phone had enough juice to catch a nerd fight. I’d have that shit on YouTube before the night was over.

  I’m a man of habit. I like it when things are the same. I enjoy coming into an office building that is practically empty so I can keep my head down and concentrate on whatever strain of weed I’d smoked as I roared into the parking lot. Not that I smoked it every night. I couldn’t show up to work baked every night. I had to at least do a little work before I hit the pipe.

  No pot tonight, though. I was out, and even my friend Roger, who funded his weird habits by selling drugs on the side, was unlikely to front me an eighth. Mitch said he was also out, but I had a feeling his girlfriend, Mindy, was holding.

  Roger Dramas (we jokingly call him ‘Dumbass’) is a prepper. That’s a guy who is obsessed with preparing for the end of the world. Roger built his own bunker in his backyard. He’s always going on about some second civil war, plague, asteroids; he said he was ready even if we got nuked, which I had a problem with. I don’t care how strong your bunker is. A nuke’s gonna flatten you like a bug if you’re in the detonation radius.

  But you can’t tell that to Roger; he’ll argue all day that he’s read every book on the subject and his bunker will survive. He has it stocked with a year’s worth of supplies, guns, ammo, water, the whole deal. He showed me pictures of his Faraday cage, which was a room the size of a storage closet, that was protected from an electromagnetic pulse.

  I had once asked Roger if it worked, and how he tested it.

  “Man. There ain’t no way to test it. I’m not an engineer, or even a scientist, but I can watch videos on YouTube. I took all of the best ones and used them to create my Faraday cage.” Roger had shot back.

  Cool story, bro, and good luck with your tin-foil-hat closet.

  I roared into the parking lot and found a space near the front because it was after hours, and who the hell cares where the janitor parks. I sucked down half of a warm Red Bull, and a cigarette fresh out of my pack. I do enjoy vaping, and I carry a vape pen around work so I can get a few puffs in when no one’s around, but nothing beats the taste of a real cigarette.

  “Shit!” I exclaimed as I caught a glimpse of the digital dash clock.

  I kicked the car door open, piled out, grabbed my lunch, which was a bowl of instant noodles, and closed the door with my hip as I launched myself at the back entrance. I was at the door, reaching for my badge, and still had almost a full minute to spare.

  “Come on,” I muttered.

  Except I didn’t have my badge on me. I patted down my clothes, hands delving into pockets, and came up blank. I looked up, and realized it was still in the car. By the time I had retrieved it from under the passenger side seat, where it must have slipped down yesterday morning as I had driven home in a daze, I was late.

  I got my badge, flat-out sprinted to the door, and buzzed in. I rushed to the time tracking machine and punched in my code. Made a mistake in my haste, and had to punch it in again.

  Out of breath, I leaned over as the machine flashed that I had been successfully logged in.

  It was three minutes past my start time.

  “Dammit!”

  Maybe they wouldn’t notice. It was Friday, and people were always in a good mood on Fridays. I’d be back to work on Monday, and I would login a few minutes early to make up for it.

  A stark white hallway that reeked of cleaning stuff stretched into the distance, and as I entered the lights flashed to life thanks to motion sensors. The second door on the right opened and the stern face of Frank Evans leaned out. His dark eyes met mine and his mouth, a perpetual frown, actually drooped farther than usual. Poor bastard already had the look of a stroke victim, all he needed was the blood clot to back it up. He had a black and gray goatee that had gone out of style a decade ago, and he never trimmed the mass. The hair on his chin
ran almost to his chest.

  “You’re late as fuck,” Frank stated in his grumbling voice.

  “Not that late. I have an excuse, see, I thought I had my badge on me, but it fell in between the seats in my car. I had to go back and get it. I would have been right on time, Frank, I swear to god,” I said and put my hand over my heart to sound more earnest.

  “Sure. And I’m the Pope.”

  “I’m serious. I would have been on time.” I whined just for the hell of it.

  “The agency said I can dock you if you’re late, so that’s an hour,” Frank said. “Oh, and today you’re working in Creepsville, so get your ass down to L-5 and start on the bathrooms. Don’t talk to anyone, don’t touch anything, and for god’s sake, don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “L-5. You got upgraded so do us both a favor and don’t screw it up.”

  “I heard they do strange stuff down there,” I said, and didn’t say what was really on my mind, that Frank could kiss my ass for docking me an hour’s pay. I hadn’t even been five minutes late tonight. Honestly, he should thank me, because it was the least late I had been in a few weeks.

  “Not any strange stuff a janitor will notice since a janitor’s job is to clean up and keep his nose out of where it don’t belong. You follow me, yeah?” Frank said. “Do your regular job. It’s not like you’re doing brain surgery.”

  “Ain’t that some shit,” I muttered under my breath. I’d never been past the third floor down, and that had been to retrieve a gallon of bleach because we had run out. Even then, I had been warned to get out of there and not to look at a single thing.