Southern Haven: A Zombie Story

SOUTHERN HAVEN

"Las gallinas estan locas," the man yelled, barging through the doors of the local cantina. His hands and arms were covered in blood where his chickens had pecked him while he was trying to feed them this afternoon.

That phrase, the chickens are crazy, was said to five people gathered inside a cantina located in a remote Mexican village, but they would come to be known as the words heard around Latin America. Because this was the first sign that the zombie virus infecting the US was making its way southward.

**

Word of Don Luis' chickens attacking him had spread within an hour, and the whole village was gathered around their television sets. They watched the news channels with a newfound terror, knowing that the z-virus was ever closer to them.

The helicopter footage showed Broad Street in Philadelphia overrun by flesh-eating zombies wandering around searching for their next meal. The city itself sat in ruination, because when the z-virus first started spreading in the US, people began looting. Doors were kicked down, windows were smashed, security lights flashed red. Cars were piled-up at the major intersections, pointing in every which way, left abandoned by panicked drivers trying to get away from the monsters their fellow residents had become.

The camera zoomed in on six zombies gathered around a taxi that had crashed into a streetlamp on the sidewalk. Plumes of smoke came out from its hood, but it wasn't enough to obscure what was about to happen.

One of the zombies, whose intestines were sticking out from a gash in its stomach and leaking green fluid, got down on its knees. It reached underneath the taxi, grabbed the man that was hiding underneath it, and pulled him out. The man tried to break-free, but it was pointless, because the other zombies jumped on him—the ones on the other side of the car leapt over the vehicle. The mob ripped him into pieces.

Some using their bare hands, others not wasting time and biting chunks of flesh out of him. The choppers were too high in the air to capture the man screaming, but the scene was brutal enough that the imagination could fill in the missing sounds of agony.

The news channel cut away, but it wasn't quick enough. Viewers saw the man's organs and intestines being pulled out as blood sprayed everywhere. Not like it mattered, anyhow. Anywhere in the world the camera changed to would show similar scenes of havoc.

The z-virus had been spread by American tourists stuck in foreign countries after flights to and from the US had been canceled. The first reports were in England, Poland, and as far east as Russia. By the end of that week, it was found all over Asia, Africa, and had even gone down as far as Australia.

By some miracle, Latin America had been spared. But as they watched the z-virus overtake the developed nations of the world day by day, they knew their days were numbered.

You see, to a communicable disease—wall or no wall—a border isn't a thing.

**

Several months later...

El Paso County, Texas

Josh Buxton watched the man in riot gear slam the door shut behind his wife and two kids. They were the last to be loaded into the rescue van.

Loaded. Like damn cattle. He thought. It was a bitter-sweet feeling, because it meant they would be safe but also that he might never see his family again.

There was a groan of despair from the line of people in front of the van because the closing of the doors signified that the van was full, and they'd have to wait for the next one. If there was going to be a next one.

The women that would've been next to be rescued began to cry. A man standing a few people in front of Josh, who must've been related to the women, stormed out of line toward the riot gear men.