A Day in the Life of the Zombie Apocalypse 
By Littlesilverstar
More of Maricar's adventures in the Age of Zombies


AUTHOR'S NOTE: After receiving several comments from fans about how they liked
the character of Maricar from my Duo of Short Stories, I decided to write a
longer story starring her and describing her adventures in her brave new
world. The timing seems right for the theme, too.

Enjoy the story!

* * *

MARCH 24, YEAR 3 A.A. (After the Apocalypse) - Corresponds to Year 2023 A.D.

The three-vehicle convoy moved cautiously along the deserted road, slowing as
it neared its target. The front and rear vehicles were small pickups, each
with a soldier manning a 7.62mm machine gun in the bed. A converted moving
truck was in the middle.

Riding shotgun in the front pickup, although currently holding a crossbow
rather than a shotgun, Maricar looked out the window, studying the
surroundings, then pointed to a spot by the side of the road about a hundred
yards ahead. "Pull over there, Corporal," she instructed the young man who was
driving.

"Yes, ma'am." The driver began pulling the pickup off to the side, the other
vehicles following it. As they drew closer, three shuffling zombies appeared
in front of them. The driver sped up, hitting two of the undead and sending
them splattering. Maricar opened the window and sent a steel bolt from her
crossbow into the third zombie's forehead, splattering more red and brown goo.
The convoy came to a stop and a squadron of soldiers jumped out from the big
truck, weapons at the ready, carefully scanning for more zombies. But there
was only the buzzing of flies and the faint sound of the wind whistling.

A young man in a peaked officer's cap walked up to her. "Looks all clear,
Captain."

"Thank you, Lieutenant." Maricar retrieved the bolt from the remnants of the
zombie's head and put it back in the quiver with the others. Holding her
crossbow in her right hand, she patted her other weapons - a .45 pistol
holstered on one hip and a long, wickedly sharp 10-inch knife sheathed on the
other - and nodded.

Along with her weapons, her physicality definitely helped her look the part of
a leader of warriors in this brave new world. At 5'9", she was very tall for a
woman of her Filipina heritage, and her body was powerful and muscular, while
still remaining feminine with a wasp waist and round dancer's ass. She had
long silky black hair, the high-cheekboned face of a model, and the
archetypical dark brown Filipina skin. The skintight black leather catsuit she
was wearing was both sexy and practical for combat. Knee-high, steel-toed
black leather boots and black leather gloves completed her outfit.

She looked over the assembled group of men and women and began the briefing.
"That's our target right there." She pointed to a red brick building. "Our
intel indicates it's a warehouse that hasn't been looted. We'll clear any
lurking zombies and check it out. If we find anything useful we'll bring in
the truck. Stay sharp, boys and girls. Drivers and machine gunners, guard the
vehicles. Civilians, stay with them too. Everyone else, with me."

The motley crew began making its way toward the target building, constantly on
the alert for zombies. But everything seemed quiet. When they were about a
hundred feet way, Maricar motioned for the troops to halt.

"Lieutenant, take eight men to the other side of the building," she
instructed. "I'll keep eight here. If everything looks clear, four men from
each side will go in. The others will stand guard outside."

"Yes, ma'am." The young officer motioned for half the group to follow him. As
she waited for the other squardon to get into positon, Maricar thought about
how the world had come to this...

In the spring of 2021 (under the old year numbering system of A.D.),
unconfirmed rumors began spreading of corpses risen from the dead among the
tribes living in the mountains of Papua New Guinea. Only a few people took the
rumors seriously, most dismissing them as tabloid superstitions or "fake
news."

Unfortunately, the rumors turned out to be very real. In June, an outbreak of
undead humans, attacking and biting the living and turning them into zombies
in turn, was captured on camera in the Papuan capital of Port Moresby. Fear
and panic spread and a quarantine was implemented, but it was too late. Before
the protections were in place the zombie plague had already spread to the
neighboring countries of Indonesia and Australia. And before flights could be
shut down, international air travel had spread the infection to all
continents.

July 2021 would become forever known in history as the infamous July Days,
when the governments of the world fought a desperate war against the
ever-swelling and expanding zombie hordes. Legendary battles all across the
world entered lore, named for the cities they were fought near. Fresno. Belo
Horizonte. Zagreb. Durban. Brisbane. Agra. Beirut. Heroic last stands and
Medal of Honor-worthy exploits became too numerous to count.

Maricar, a registered nurse, had initially joined the anti-zombie army
intending to use her medical skills, but she had soon realized that there
wasn't anything for medicine to treat when it came to battling the undead. The
only "cure" for a bite was killing the patient before he turned into one of
them. So she had become a warrior, putting her athleticism, martial arts
skills, and weapons training (something a modern, empowered woman like her had
made sure to be trained in from a young age) to good use.

It soon became apparent that humanity could only delay the zombies, not stop
them, and even that only for a few weeks. Every "victory" for the humans was a
Pyrrhic one, and every loss resulted in the total annihilation of yet another
group of the living. Though humans had machine guns, tanks, bombs, missiles,
and heavy artillery, zombies were fearless. No matter how many casualties they
took, they kept coming. And their only weapon - the bite - was more powerful
than any of humanity's. The infection simply spread too fast. On the first of
July, a million people in the world were infected. By the tenth of July, the
number was 100 million. And by the twentieth, 99% of the world's population
had become zombies. Human weapons killed hundreds of thousands of zombies, but
there were billions of them.

One by one, the governments of the world crumbled into dust. By the beginning
of August, all that was left of humanity were isolated bands of people
scattered throughout the world, outnumbered by zombies by a ratio of at least
7000 to 1. The old numbering system for the years disappeared along with the
civilization that had created it. A.D. was replaced by A.A. - After the
Apocalypse, with 2021, A.D. becoming Year 1, A.A.

Eventually, Maricar had found sanctuary in an underground facility operated by
a pharmaceutical company. With her medical skills as a nurse combined with her
combat skills as a soldier, she and her abilities were welcomed by the
operators. She found a new life, safe (for now), alternating between assisting
with medical research and leading operations on the surface as needed. With
the ratio of zombies to humans making military victory impossible, a cure -
something that would turn zombies human again - was humanity's only hope.
Otherwise, it was doomed to die a slow death as slowly but steadily, more of
them in the world were turned into zombies each day. For almost two years,
they had been trying to find a cure. But no miracle seemed to be forthcoming.

"We're in position," came the lieutenant's voice over the radio, bringing her
mind back to the present. "Looks all clear on this side."

"Looks clear here too. All right, prepare to enter the building. We kick the
doors in in thirty seconds. Mark time now."

"Roger. Mark time. Over and out. See you inside."

Maricar motioned for three soldiers to follow her. She kept her eye on her
watch as they all moved towards the entrance.

"Now!" With her big black size 10 boot, Maricar destroyed the wooden door with
a powerful kick, shattering it into dozens of pieces. The soldiers stormed in
and took up defensive positions. A few small groups of zombies stared back at
them.

The sound of rifle shots and the whoosh of arrows rang out as the soldiers
began taking out the zombies. Maricar took aim with her crossbow, seeing a
zombie coming at her with another right behind it. She waited until just the
right moment, then fired. The bolt went completely through the first zombie's
head and embedded itself in the skull of the second zombie.

She looked around at the scene. Most of the undead were dead again, but she
saw one more shuffling towards her. Motioning with her hand to indicate that
she had it, she shouldered her crossbow and drew her knife. As it neared her,
she thrust the blade forward, impaling the zombie in its forehead. She
withdrew it with a squishing sound as the body fell, then retrieved her
crossbow bolt that was currently connecting two zombie skulls together, or
what remained of them.

The lieutenant and his men appeared from the other side. "All clear on our
end. You?"

"All clear. Okay, boys and girls, let's pair up and start searching this
place." Maricar motioned to a young blonde woman with a slender but muscular
body in a sergeant's uniform. "You're with me."

"Yes, Captain." The blonde shouldered the AR-15 rifle she had been carrying,
patted the short sword sheathed on her hip to make sure it was secure, and
hurried over to join her.

"You can call me Maricar. Or Mari." She smiled at the smaller woman. "No need
for formalities in this day and age."

The sergeant smiled back. "And please call me Isabella, or Bella."

"Okay, Bella. Let's go."

They searched through a couple of empty rooms, then came to one with a large
cabinet against the far wall. Maricar opened it and both women's faces lit up
as the contents inside were revealed. "Look at all this great stuff! Bottled
water, hand sanitizer, cold medicine, Kleenex..."

"Paper towels, crackers, canned food..." Isabella let out a shriek as she
noticed something else. "Toilet paper!" She counted. "Six whole boxes,
eighteen rolls per box. Over a hundred rolls! Cha-ching!" She shook her head,
amused. "Humble toilet paper. The preferred currency in the post-apocalyptic
world."

"It makes sense, though," said Maricar. "Gold and silver are impractical. What
the hell will people do with those now? Cigarettes - most people don't smoke.
Water is too heavy. Food, most of it is too perishable. Ammo, too many
different calibers. Alcohol is definitely useful, but there are so many
different types, sizes, and levels of quality. Toilet paper is perfect. It's
something that everyone needs, it's light and non-perishable, it comes in
uniform-sized rolls, and it's not dependent on other technology for use."

"Although we probably should have guessed that toilet paper would end up like
this," said Isabella. "Remember the Great Coronavirus Crisis of 2020, Old
Calendar? Toilet paper was the first thing that the stores ran out of."

Maricar smiled wistfully. "Ah, the coronavirus. Now, in the zombie apocalypse,
coronavirus seems so insignificant. Quarantines? Long lines at the grocery
store? At least there WERE grocery stores. At least we could get supplies
without having to worry about getting eaten. I was a nurse and my memories of
all those long hours at the hospital during the virus epidemic almost seem
like they've been written over by the war against the zombies. Really puts
things in perspective, doesn't it?"

"It sure does, Mari. Especially since zombies have no respect for social
distancing." The blonde sergeant forced a smile at her own attempt at humor in
this grim new world, then cleared her throat. "Shall we call for the truck?"

"Yes." Maricar reached for her radio. "Even if the others haven't found
anything, this alone is worth it." She pressed a button. "All right, Corporal.
Bring the truck in."

As they waited for the truck, the two young women continued chatting. "I
thought I could go into this as my chosen career, as a nurse," said Maricar.
"But after Fresno, all that went out the window real quick."

"Oh my God. You're a survivor of the battle of Fresno? I've never met one
before."

"Well, it's not surprising, considering that 40,000 soldiers went into battle
there and 200 of us came out."

Isabella nodded, having heard the statistics before. But not the firsthand
story. "So how did it all go down, Mari?"

The dark-skinned woman took a deep breath as she began the story, flashbacks
flying through her mind. "They deployed us like we would be facing a
conventional army. The grunts who had experience fighting zombies warned their
superiors that that wouldn't work, but the people in the ivory towers refused
to listen. They started with the cruise missiles, the B-52 bombers, the F-16
fighters, the long-range artillery. Would soften the zombies up, they said.
Well, they killed about 10,000 of them, but there were 500,000 zombies coming
at us. That's 2 percent."

"We had field artillery pieces, tanks, heavy machine guns, grenade launchers,
and small arms," Maricar continued. "Looked very impressive on paper. I was in
an infantry squadron in the second line of defenses. About fifteen minutes
after the first line made contact with the enemy, we saw this horde of
soldiers running at us, screaming, fleeing the zombies that were chasing them.
Because of all the people, we didn't have a clear line of fire on the zombies.
We were trying to take what shots we could...Finally, our officers ordered us
to fire at will, humans in the way be damned. In my dreams I can sometimes
still hear them screaming as they were cut down by that very un-friendly
fire."

"I had a submachine gun in each hand. I mostly kept them on semi-auto, didn't
want to waste ammo. Still, I must have fired over a thousand rounds that day.
Thank God I have freakishly strong wrists, most women - and men - would have
been hurting after the first few mags." She brushed a stray strand of black
hair out of her face. "But nothing could stop the horde. We had .50 caliber
machine guns lined along the trench blasting the zombies to pieces, but more
kept coming. Our artillery would blast big holes into the ranks of zombies.
Two seconds later, they would be refilled with more undead."

"The tank commanders were some of the biggest heroes that day. After they ran
out of ammo, they started driving over the zombies, squashing as many as they
could until they ran out of fuel. They were trapped out there, surrounded by
zombies. Most of them didn't even try to escape through the horde, knowing
they would never make it. They opened their hatches, started shooting zombies
with their pistols, and saved the last bullet for themselves."

"Soon after the .50 cals had run out of ammo, the zombies overran our line of
trenches. My submachine guns were out of ammo too by that point. Luckily, I
had listened to the advice of a grizzled old zombie-slayer before the battle,
and brought a weapon that didn't need bullets." Maricar patted the 10-inch
knife sheathed on her hip. "Chopped off several dozen zombie heads with this
baby. Most of the other soldiers weren't so lucky. They had no hand-to-hand
weapons and were trying to club zombies with their empty rifles. The
effectiveness of that was limited at best."

"And then came the inglorious retreat. At that point we were just trying to
stay alive. The worst part was having to kill our comrades who had been bitten
before they turned. At least ten of the heads I chopped off that day belonged
to men and women who had been fighting alongside me a few minutes earlier."
She closed her eyes at the memory, and Isabella squeezed her hand.

"A couple of other soldiers and I found a jeep that still had fuel, and we
bugged out of there. When we got to the brass's headquarters, we found that it
had been overrun too. Most of the zombie horde had moved on, there were just a
few left chowing down on what remained of the generals and their staff
members. So we drove off again, running low on fuel, until we finally found a
relatively safe place in the Sierra foothills. Eventually, the highest-ranking
survivor of that army, a lieutenant colonel, gathered us remnants up, a couple
hundred in total, and we retreated northwest. Because of the massive
casualties, I was immediately promoted from sergeant to captain."

"40,000 humans went in. 200 came out. It was later estimated that we took out
100,000 zombies. 20 percent of the zombie horde. By biting people and turning
them the zombies replaced those losses in a few hours. But the humans...they
were lost forever."

Isabella shook her head. "Wow. I thought I'd seen some rough combat, but I
can't even imagine what that must have been like."

"Hard as fuck to deal with, not going to lie. That night, I drank enough to
pass out in the grass outside camp. Some of the survivors ended up committing
suicide. But as rough as it was, I told myself that I had to go on, that I had
to do something to make life meaningful again. To end this zombie plague and
go back to a world where coronavirus epidemics are the worst thing we have to
worry about." Maricar squeezed Isabella's shoulder. "That's what we're working
on. That's why we're here today, to get supplies for the cause. We're still
alive, and as long as we are we'll do whatever we can." She tilted her head,
listening. "Now come on, I think I hear the truck coming."

Isabella peeked out a grimy window. "Yep, it's pulling in."

Maricar took out her radio. "Anything good on your side, Lieutenant?"

"Some ammo, bottled watter, canned food."

"Okay. I'll send it over there first, then it can swing back to pick up the
stuff here. Over and out." She hurried out to meet the truck and addressed the
driver. "I need three guys to help move the stuff on this side out to the
entrance. The rest of you, stay with the truck. Go around to the other side
and pick up the stuff there first, then come back here."

"Yes, Captain." The driver motioned for three of the civilians to jump off,
then headed off to the other side of the building.

The three civilians introduced themselves as Ollie, Sal, and Stevie. All were
young men, clearly not used to combat and nervous about being out of the
safety of the compound. They were also clearly attracted to the sight of
Maricar and Isabella in their tight-fitting uniforms adorned with weapons. The
men's pale skin contrasted sharply with Maricar's dark brown tan, and
Isabella, although she wasn't as dark as Maricar, still looked quite brown
next to the guys. All three guys were also obviously attracted to the girls'
athleticism and muscularity, schmoe-style, being clearly unathletic
themselves, Sal and Ollie being short and skinny and Stevie being portly with
a prominent beer gut. As they all got to work moving the boxes, Maricar and
Isabella winked at each other at the sight of the guys' crotch bulges.

The attack happened suddenly. Very suddenly. One moment, everything was quiet.
Then, a door on one of the neighboring buildings flew off its hinges and a
horde of zombies poured out. At the sound of the three high-pitched male
screams, the two girls rushed outside, drawing their weapons. Seeing what was
happening, they simply nodded to one another and got to work.

Maricar fired steel bolts in rapid succession, but with deadly accuracy, from
her crossbow, making double shots when the zombies were in the right position.
Twelve shots, seventeen kills. Isabella fired rapid but well-aimed
semi-automatic shots from her AR-15, each of her bullets finding an undead
skull.

Her quiver empty, Maricar drew her .45 pistol and began splattering zombie
heads as Isabella slapped a fresh magazine into her rifle. Then things got
worse. The entire side of the nearby building burst open, bricks flying
everywhere, and a more massive horde of zombies attacked.

"Fuck!" Maricar used her radio in one hand while continuing to fire her pistol
with the other, her strong wrist easily absorbing the recoil from the
large-caliber weapon. "We're under heavy attack! We need reinforcements!"

"We're under attack here too!" came the lieutenant's voice. In the distance,
more gunfire could be heard.

"Bring the pickups with the machine guns!" Maricar ordered. "One front, one
back!" She emptied the rest of her magazine as she put the radio away, then
swiftly and expertly reloaded the pistol. Next to her, Isabella was blasting
away with her rifle. Despite the size of the growing pile of dead zombies in
front of the girls, more kept coming.

Meanwhile, Ollie and Sal were trying their best with their limited abilities.
They were picking up rocks and throwing them at the zombies, but because they
threw like girls, the rocks missed or bounced harmlessly off the zombies.
Stevie, for his part, decided that running was the best option, but tripped
over a fallen branch and hit the ground with a THUD, yelling in pain and
holding his ankle.

Maricar and Isabella continued blasting zombie skulls, coordinating their
reloads so that one girl was always firing. Maricar frowned as she ejected
another empty magazine. "Only one mag left."

"Shit, they're almost on us now," said Isabella. Both girls fired several more
shots, then drew their blades. As a zombie leaped at each of them, Maricar did
a one-armed cartwheel and Isabella performed a standing layout backflip. Both
gymnastic kicks destroyed the skulls of the attacking zombies. The young women
then each decapitated several zombies with their razor-sharp weapons,
neutralizing the advance group. But there were still dozens of zombies in the
distance, still coming at them.

"How many rounds do you have left, Bella?"

"This mag's more than half gone, plus one spare, so about forty total."

"All right." Maricar held up her bloodsoaked long knife. "I'm going in. Stay
here and keep blasting them. Just don't shoot me by accident."

"Here, take this too." Isabella held up her short sword.

"No. You'll need it if they get close to you and you run out of ammo." Maricar
fired the last three rounds in her pistol, blowing up three zombie heads, then
threw the empty gun with the strength and skill of a Division I softball
player, destroying a fourth undead skull.

"All right. Good luck, Mari. Kick some ass."

"You too, Bella." With that, Maricar let out a shrill scream, performing a
roundoff followed by a series of back handsprings straight at the horde of
zombies, elegantly backflipping like a pro-gymnast. Isabella opened fire with
her rifle, alternating between left and right, gradually splitting the
surviving zombies into three groups. Maricar tumbled straight into the middle
group, trampling zombies to death under her lightning-fast, ultra-powerful
back handsprings. She finished her tumbling run with a whipback followed by a
full twist, landing hard on the last zombie in the row and squashing its skull
completely flat underneath her 160 pounds of muscle.

There came the screech of tires. The machine gunner on the pickup truck began
mowing down one of the remaining groups of zombies. Maricar began slicing and
dicing her way through the last group with her large and lethal knife.
Isabella, now on her last magazine, headshotted zombies that got too close to
Maricar from behind.

Maricar looked around as she sliced off the top half of a zombie's head. Only
half a dozen undead left. She motioned for the others to stop firing. Three of
the zombies were close to her. She let them surround her, then suddenly
flipped her body upside down, splitting her legs a full 180 degrees apart in
midair, spinning around and around, her legs acting like the blades of a
helicopter. Her booted feet impacted the three zombies' skulls dozens of times
each within a few seconds, completely destroying them and sending red and
brown goo flying everywhere. She elegantly rotated back to her feet, then
leapt high into the air while holding her knife above her head in her
leather-gloved right hand. She brought it down onto the fourth zombie's head
with tremendous force, splitting it in half vertically from skull to crotch.

The penultimate zombie approached her. She simply performed a dancer-style
high kick to its jaw, snapping the creature's neck back with a sickening CRACK
and turning the undead dead again. The last one was shuffling away from her.
Drawing her knife, she threw it with a flick of her muscular wrist, embedding
the blade in the back of its head. She looked around at the scene and nodded
in satisfaction. "Good timing," she called out to the machine gunner on the
pickup.

"Looks like you could have taken them out yourself, with the skills you just
displayed, ma'am," he responded.

She smiled. "Probably. But thanks anyway. Now come on, let's check on the
others." She took out her radio. "What's the situation over there,
Lieutenant?"

"We took 'em all down on this side. Couple of our guys have bumps and bruises
from being knocked down during the fight, but no bites, thank God. How about
you?"

"I think we're all okay. It was a near run thing, though." She let out a sigh
of relief. "We still have a mission to complete. Finish loading the truck over
there, then bring it over here. Keep a sharp lookout for any more zombies.
Over and out."

Maricar looked over at Isabella, Ollie, and Sal. "You guys okay?"

"Good here, Mari," replied Isabella. Her rifle was still smoking.

"We're fine," said Ollie. "That was an...impressive performance from you
girls, to say the least." Maricar and Isabella both smiled knowingly.

"Hey, where's Stevie?" asked Sal.

A load moan made them all look towards the sound. Stevie was still sitting on
the ground, one hand clutching his ankle - and the other clutching a bite mark
on his shoulder. He looked up in fear at the others, sweating like a whore in
church.

"No, please, it's just a scratch...no, please don't kill me..." In
desperation, he began crawling away. Isabella raised her rifle, but Maricar
waved her off.

"Save a bullet, Bella. I've got this." She picked up her crossbow and yanked a
bolt out of the remnants of a zombie's head. Inserting the bolt into her
weapon, she took careful aim at the back of the crawling fat man's skull.

"Sorry about this, Stevie." With that, Maricar fired. The steel bolt,
propelled by the powerful weapon, impacted the back of Stevie's head with
devastating force, annihilating his skull and sending blood, brain matter, and
pieces of bone flying everywhere.

Maricar began retrieving her bolts, looking over at Ollie and Sal as she put
them back into her quiver. "Thanks for at least trying with those rocks, guys.
I never enjoy killing people but when they run like that, I gotta admit it
makes it easier." Sal and Ollie looked at the gory remnants of Stevie's
brains, then at each other, and gulped nervously, wondering if their next
encounter with zombies would end with Maricar doing something similar to them.

The truck pulled up. The group worked together to quickly load the remaining
supplies, several soldiers standing ready with their weapons, keeping a sharp
eye out for undead. Then the little convoy began making its way back to the
compound.

Maricar, again riding shotgun in the first pickup, had a gloomy look on her
face as she stared out the window at the abandoned remnants of civilization.
The driver looked over at her. "Why so glum, Mari? We accomplished our
mission. We got a good load of supplies, and we probably took out 250
zombies."

"We also lost a man. Sure, we may have taken out 250 of them, but they
outnumber us 7000 to 1. You do the math."

"Yeah, um...I guess you have a point there..." He trailed off.

"Well, it'll all be over, eventually, one way or another. Either we'll find a
cure, or..." This time she trailed off. They drove the rest of the way in
silence.

THE END (for now)

Send me a message at silverstar222b@yahoo.com if you liked this story, or even
if you didn't like it (but mostly if you liked it). Stay safe out there, dear
readers, and remember that as bad as things are right now, they could be a lot
worse.