Generation Dead - 07 (4 page)

“Thanks!” she panted, taking off again.  She looked at me kind of funny when I ran with her,
as if
she was
surprised,
I carried her so easily. Truth was she didn’t weigh that
much,
and I was fairly strong, so I didn’t think anything of it.

“Come on, it’s just a bit
farther
!” Jake said, ducking under an outstretched arm.  Julia and I ran around the same zombie on the other side, causing that
former woman
to spin in place and fall on her butt.

We reached the edge of the river, but we weren’t out of the woods yet.  We still had to get down to the riverside and launch our boat.  Behind us, about two thousand zombies were lurching along the street, with more pouring out of buildings and shops.  We had to get moving
in the boat
and get moving fast.  Add to
that, the
darkness had seriously fallen, and the shadows of the skyscrapers made things darker than they normally would have been out in the open.

We raced down a flight of stairs,
passing
the restaurant that was normally our landing point for excursions into this part of the city.  Back in the
day,
it would have been a neat place to eat,
but now it was just a memory with
faded tables and broken windows.

At the landing, Julia climbed into the boat and secured the duffle bag while Jake worked at the rope.  I stood at the top of the stairs leading down to the landing, and I had the great job of watching the hordes tumble down the stairs and groan with rare enthusiasm.  I wouldn’t doubt some of these zombies were original leftovers from the very beginning of the apocalypse.

As I stood there, I waited for Jake to get the rope untied.  I could see him struggling, and
I
called down to see what
the matter was
.  In a
minute,
I was going to have my hands very full.

“Come on, Jake!  They’re almost here!”  I
shifted,
but I couldn’t move just yet.

“I’m trying,
but
the damn thing got pulled tight somehow and it’s not letting go!”  Jake sounded genuinely panicked, so I knew he wasn’t horsing around.  I could hear Julia adding her two cents to hurry as well.

Seven zombies, the advance guard of the Chicago Horde, came stumbling through the riverside patio portion of the restaurant.  I had just a few seconds before it was over.

“Jake!”

“Trying!
  One minute!”

“I haven’t got a minute. 
Aw, hell.”

Chapter 7

“Aaron!”  Julia could see what was coming and could do nothing to help. 

Jake looked up and he was about to let go of the rope when I called down.

“Stay there!”  Suddenly I was calm.
While
I had been panicky before, I was deadly calm now.  I put my tomahawk away and sheathed my knife.  I reached a hand back and pulled out my heavy fighting weapon.  It was a single
-
edged sword with a wide blade and a half-inch thick spine.  The edge swept up to a point that could punch through a piece of sheet metal with ease.  The hilt was designed for using with a single hand, but a second could be employed easily for increased cutting power.  My
Uncle
Duncan had given it to me a couple of years ago, calling it a ‘falchion’, but it was
a
butcher’s blade and little else.  He spent hours training me with it, telling me that the odds of me fighting someone else with a sword was really rare, so we focused on cutting, proper stance, and effective follow-through.

The first hands that reached for
me,
I cut off at the wrist, pivoting to the side and delivering a horizontal cut that removed the head of the zombie as well.  I stepped forward and delivered a low cut that swept through the knees of two zombies, dropping them to the ground.  They still tried to get up, but failed badly.  I brought the sword up in a high arc, cutting through a zombie’s neck and torso, removing the shoulder and arm as well.  I swung the sword around and cut the top two inches off the next one in line, killing him instantly.  The next three charged and I just went to town, slashing as quickly as I could, tossing zombie parts all over the place.  In a few short seconds, I was alone again, although there were more
of them
coming down the stairs.

“How’s it
going,
Jake?” I asked, stepping down the stairs to the landing.  My big blade was in my hand, dripping zombie gore.  Both Julia and Jake looked at me
as if
I was some sort of medieval nightmare, although Julia had that same odd kind of look on her face.

“Jesus,
Aaron,
” Jake said.  “You just killed seven zombies in like, what, five seconds?”

“That long?”  I tried to be funny, but I was still jacked on adrenaline. I stepped into the boat and flicked the blade at the rope, cutting it neatly below the
knot
that Jake had so much trouble with.  The boat slid away into the water and Jake didn’t bring up the point that
technically,
I should be paddling.

I took out a small bottle of kerosene from my
pack,
and squirted a decent amount of the fluid on the
blade,
I still held unsheathed.  Julia had a lighter handy, and she lit my sword
.
  Red flames burned brightly, illuminating the tall, dead buildings that flanked us as we rode down the river.  I held my sword aloft as a reminder to the dead that they still had a master.

The flames sputtered and slowly died out, and I stuck my sword into the water to quench any leftover flames.  After letting it dry, I sheathed it and picked up a paddle, adding to Jake’s strokes and getting us away from the city one more time. 

The river’s edge was lined with dead people, and they stared with a curious intensity as we passed. 
The virus had affected some
in the weird way that made their eyes glow in the dark, and it was always creepy to see floating lights move in the dark areas and know they were attached to some dead thing. Groans echoed
around the building canyons and I always listened to see if there was ever any change on pitch that indicated a zombie on the hunt.  Low groans meant they were just making noise.  Higher pitched groans meant they had spotted their prey, and groans bordering on snarls meant they were closing in and about to kill. 

I don’t know why I bothered.  It wasn’t like we were going to stop and help anyway.  Too many people had been killed
helping
like that, and we had learned our lessons at the feet of the masters.  We can’t save them all was the first lesson we learned after gaining some skill as fighters.  Don’t bother
trying
.

After a
while,
we passed the outer edges and started to see the buildings start to lose some height.  It was the first sign
that
we were passing out of the city.  We passed by a burned out hospital, and Jake always looked up to the building,
as if
he was seeking something, or something was calling him.  I never asked, and he never explained.  This
time,
I wondered if it had something to do with the mood he was in, why he was angry all the time. 
I would
have to ask him once we were home and
then
pick a time when he was far away from pointy things.

Chapter 8

We spent the night in an abandoned house on the other side of the Wall.  When the end of the world happened, my father and several others realized the threat from the zombies in the city would never stop causing problems unless they were contained.  Over the course of several months and the loss of a lot of lives, a barrier was erected around the city.  It wasn’t anythi
ng fancy, just cargo containers, boxcars, and sheet metal
welded together, but it worked
at
keeping the zombies in and the curious out.

People still went in, danger seekers who got tired of living, or teenagers daring each other to make a zombie run.  It didn’t matter the reason, it was dangerous as hell.  Once upon a time, there was a fad of proving oneself by spending a night in the city.  Julia’s father put an end to that in a hurry.  He told the kids that if they wanted to prove themselves, pick up a knife and come at him.  If they lived, they were proven.  No one took him up on the offer.

In the suburbs, on the south side of the wall, there were still thousands of uninhabited houses.  Most of them had been systematically looted of anything useful or valuable, but they were free of zombies and kept you out of the rain and wind.

A few minutes before dawn,
I woke up on the floor in the bedroom. It was something I had done for years, and my dad always told me it was lucky to be able to do it.  Jake, on the other hand, slept
as if
he just discovered it, and it took a lot to get that man out of bed.

I got up off the floor and looked out the window, down the empty street and across the sea of empty homes.  It would have been a decent thing to burn the whole area down, but this close to the Wall meant a breach might occur, and then we would be right back where we started.

I spent a moment running a whetstone over the edge of my sword and knife,
and then
put my gear on in practiced moves.  I thought about heading home today, and found myself to be impatient to get there.  Not sure why, since there wasn’t anything for me there outside of my relatives and cousins, but it was home, none the less.

Julia surprised me by being awake early.  She was in the kitchen area using a small bowl she had found and was washing her face and arms, trying to clean up as best she could.  She could have turned on a faucet, but guessing what might come out would stump even the best of psychics.

“Oh! Aaron!  You startled me!” Julia jumped slightly when she opened her eyes after drying out the water.

‘Sorry.” I said, noting a drop of water hung tenaciously to her chin.  It was a nice chin, I decided.  I wasn’t really sure why I noticed, I had known Julia my entire life and basically she was my sister, but I did notice, anyway.  “How did you sleep?”

“As well as usual, when I’m not at
home,
” Julia
replied.  “Too many noises I’m not used to.”

“That’s for
sure,
” I said.  I changed the subject.
“Anything for breakfast?”
I asked, opening up a couple of cabinet drawers and peering in.

“You can try your luck with the unlabeled cans in the pantry.”  Julia suggested, with a slight twinkle in her eyes.

I
laughed, because
that
was another game we used to play growing up.  Someone would find a can, and we would first lay bets on what might be inside, then lay bets as to who would try and eat a bite.  Afterwards, we would quietly lay bets as to whether the taster would actually survive.  If you were a good guesser, you could make some decent money.  You might lose a friend or two, but you’d have money.

“No thanks.  Anytime I think about that or am tempted to give it a try, I remember Bill Tract and the chili.” I said, smiling.

Julia laughed.
“Oh, God!
I remember that!  He was lucky to survive at all.”

I nodded.  Bill Tract took a single bite of what amounted to
eighteen-year-old
chili in a can.  In one minute, he was puking his guts out.  While he was bending over retching, his bowels let go and he
shit
himself sideways.  Two weeks and twenty pounds later, he was finally able to stand on his own.

“I’ll stick with the corn biscuits.” I said, digging through my pack.  Corn biscuits were homemade corn meal balls compressed and dried, then packed dry.  You typically broke them up and dropped them in a cup of water, and ate the resulting mush. With a little
salt,
they were actually pretty decent.  If you didn’t have any water, you could put some in your mouth and gnaw on it for about three hours.

Julia finished her
washing,
and
after ordering me to turn around,
put on a fresh t-shirt. She packed up her stuff,
and then
put her gear on, too.  When she finished, she came over and stood by me, staring intently at me with big blue eyes until I relented and gave her a biscuit.  Some things never changed.  She used to do this when we were kids, too.

Julia and I enjoyed a quiet moment, just eating and looking out the windows when a loud thumping came from the upstairs.  My adrenaline rushed slightly before I realized we were on the outside of the Wall, and the thumping wasn’t a zombie, it was Jake.

Julia and I shared a look, and said the same thing together.

“Jake’s up.”

Jake was a grumpy riser, and if he slept hard enough, he might forget where he was.  If that was the case, things might get very interesting, very soon. Julia must have been reading my mind, because she suddenly clapped a hand to her mouth.