Rise (11 page)

We wrapped up the whole thing and put it in Jess’ pack, then returned to Dave and saw that there were a few walking dead outside, moving past the building. Dave pointed at the girl on the floor and asked us if we noticed anything about her that was unusual. We both looked at her, and it took a few minutes before Jess pointed out that she didn’t have any injuries other than the headshot. I honestly hadn’t noticed, but I could see it was true now. Other than the bullet wound she was whole. None of us knew what to make of it, but thinking about it gave us some disturbing things to ponder.

Eventually the zombies moved on. We waited for half an hour and then went back out. It was getting dark by now, and this was not an area where the lights were on. We made our slow way back towards where the others waited, taking a long time to move from place to place, always waiting, watching and listening. It was almost easier in the dark. There was less chance they would see us, and the smell always got stronger when they were nearer. At least the temperature lowered as it got dark.

We reached the intersection where we’d shot the three zombies earlier in the day when it all went to shit. The sky was lightening with impending dawn. Three blocks from safety, and about 4:30 in the morning, and Jess stepped on a rock in the darkness and twisted her ankle. She went down hard, and cried out before she had a chance to muffle it. Dave and I were at her side instantly, and as we crouched down to help her up we heard the moans. All around us, probably all the ones from earlier, plus a few more. We were in it now. I hauled Jess up and she put her arm around my shoulders. The first of them loomed into view. Dave raised the shotgun and fired point blank, and I turned and pulled Jess towards the warehouse, feeling in my gut that we were fucked. I raised the carbine and shot a looming figure one-handed, then heard Dave fire again behind me. The muzzle flash showed me about ten walking corpses within twenty-five feet, and I shot the nearest with the carbine, then slung it and pulled out the Glock. Three of them stepped forward, reaching for us, and Dave was there beside me, firing. I fired the Glock, missed, and fired again. Jess managed a shot with the rifle, but I couldn’t tell the result. Then they were in hand-to-hand range, and it got really interesting.

I heard Dave get another shot off, and then he started swinging. One of the damned things grabbed my arm, and I just raised the Glock and shot it in the face. Another was right behind it, and I had to let go of Jess to evade its grasp. It swung its arms at me, I ducked, and as I came up I shoved it in the chest hard. It went over, and toppled two of its fellows. Dave was swinging the shotgun like a club when I turned, and I shot the one he was fighting through the temple, then turned to Jess. She had turned around and was using her rifle like a spear, stabbing at faces and firing. She ran out of ammo after the fifth shot. I grabbed her around the chest with my left arm and pulled her away from one that got too close, and used the elbow of my right arm to smoke another one in the head. It grabbed on and was trying to get its mouth to my arm when I hooked its legs out from under it, and it dropped like a wet sack of potatoes. I stepped on its neck and heard a pop, then pulled Jess away towards the warehouse again, shooting another one in the face as it stepped into my path. I heard a shriek, and when I looked back, I saw that Dave had one of the things by the throat and was pulling it away from his left leg. He dropped it and fired his shotgun at its head, and then looked at me with eyes suddenly very bright in the dark. He said, “Run! I’m fucked!” We ran. I pushed a few down, pulling Jess along behind me, and then we were suddenly clear of the horde.

We’d talked about this seriously. If one of us got bitten, we were as good as dead, and the others would leave them. It hurt to do it, but it was our only chance. If we stayed, we all died. I dragged Jess away, and heard the shotgun roar again, and I shot at one more as I helped her limp along as fast as she could. She reached in her coat for a new clip out, and fumbled it into her rifle while we staggered along. I could hear Dave yelling in the background, damning them all, and making as much noise as he could. One last blast he managed to fire, and then he started screaming. I will never in my life forget that sound, if I live to be two hundred. We were probably seventy feet from him, and the nearest zombie to us was about forty feet away. Jess stopped, turned, aimed, and fired, and Dave’s screaming cut off like that. The zombies nearest us were getting too close, so we kept going. Ahead of us we suddenly saw lights! The van! I pulled her towards it, and waved as the van pulled up. Sarah was driving, Michael was in the back, Darren was riding shotgun, and I pushed Jess in and climbed in the back on top of her. Sarah hit the gas before we even had the door closed, and we spun around in the street, hitting a walking corpse that got too close. “Where’s Dave?” she asked. “Dead. Dave’s dead,” I said. “Let’s get the fuck away from here.” So we ran. Drove. Whatever. We fled and left Dave’s body there on the street, to become food. The only comfort was that Jess hit him in the head with her last shot. He wasn’t going to rise.

We held a brief ceremony for Dave earlier. None of us is a priest, so it was non-denominational. Heck, we didn’t even know if he went to church. We stopped by a river north of the city, stood in a circle, and I said a few words about Dave. I didn’t know him long, but he was a great guy. Funny, smart, and good to have at your back. The others said a few words too, and then we stood there and stood there. Finally we left.

The bad news is that we are down a vehicle and about half of our transportable food and water, two guns (shotgun and handgun), and one man. The only thing good I can see in this is we have the plans to the complex. Jess’ ankle swelled up pretty bad, but Sarah says nothing is broken. Michael got mad at me for letting his mom get hurt, and I nearly lost it. I could feel the strain breaking through, and rather than break down crying in front of a four year old, I walked away to sit in the van. Sarah came and talked to me after a while. Then Jess. She said that Michael didn’t understand what had happened, and she had told him, and he was sorry. He came over a few minutes later and sat on my lap, and I told him it was okay. We had a good hug, and I managed to have a laugh.

We’ve been looking over the plans now. I think we can do this. I really think we can. I just made myself a promise. If there are survivors inside the store, we will get ALL of them out alive. Every fucking one. I promise this to myself. I promise this to Dave.

We spent the last day and a half gathering supplies and making contact with the survivors in the grocery store. Most of yesterday we raided houses and vehicles much more carefully and thoroughly than we had been. We have replaced the food, mostly, and the water, but we need to purify a few more gallons before we risk this rescue. We emptied a few gas tanks into several jerry cans which are now strapped to the back of the van. The gas tank is full, and late last evening we salvaged a Ford Bronco. Darren and I got it to start, and it blew a big black cloud out of the pipe for a few seconds, and then settled into a nice purr. I drove it to the next abandoned car and we drained out the tank into the Bronco. I wanted a larger vehicle, but this will have to do. We tried a Caravan earlier, but it wouldn’t even turn over once. I think as time passes more and more vehicles won’t respond to salvage attempts.

We drove towards the shopping center this morning and stopped a few kilometers away, on a road more north of it than the one we had taken previously. We checked a city map and decided to try to find a high point to view the area from, and finally settled on a water tower on a farm just west of where we had stopped. We cleared the house and barn, finding no undead, just five really dead people, four dead horses, and a shotgun in the house. Another 12 gauge, with a box of 25 shells. It’s a double barreled breech-loading weapon, not a pump action like the one Dave was using, but a gun is a gun. Jess and I climbed the tower (Jess being careful of her ankle, still tender) while Sarah and Darren watched Michael. Once on top we looked through binoculars to see if our view of the center was good enough to serve our purposes. It was close. There were trees blocking part of the view, but we could see the roof, part of the doors and windows, and
just
see the tops of the zombies’ heads milling around out front. Part of the roof was blocked from us by the front facing sign, and trees made seeing the entire front of the building impossible, but the armoured cars and the trucks and vans were still there. We hoped to see survivors, but there was only the undead. We waited.

Finally, Jess had to go down and take care of Michael. Darren came up and kept me company. Around lunchtime I went down and helped make lunch and Sarah took some up to Darren and kept him company for a while. We went on trading off until about an hour ago. Sarah and Jess were up in the tower while Darren played tag with Michael in the yard, and I kept lookout. Sparkle was sitting on a fence nearby watching, and meowing once in a while. He never went far from us, even when we let him outside, and slept on Michael’s or Darren’s bed most nights. He was also a great guard cat. If an undead came within fifty feet he started hissing and ran for cover. Anyways, Sarah called down that there were three people on the roof now. I climbed up with a mirror when she came down, and found Jess peering through her scope. I looked through the binoculars, and found three people, alive and apparently healthy, on the roof of the store. They were nowhere near the edge, and I doubt the undead knew they were there. There was a young man, possibly a teenager, with longish dark hair and wearing a black Danzig shirt. There was a young woman, mid-twenties, with a severe burn scar on the side of her face, dressed all in black, dress, boots, and leather jacket. The Goth look, I guess. These two appeared to be arguing with another man, older, maybe late thirties, short military-style haircut, farmer’s tan, and wearing a Country 105 FM t-shirt. God, a country fan from Calgary! No wonder the punk guy and Goth girl were arguing with him! I lifted the mirror and flashed sunlight at them, but they didn’t appear to notice. Maybe it was a bad angle, or we were just too far away, but they didn’t see it. I didn’t care if they could see it or not at this point, I was just happy to see other living people. Eventually they stopped talking to each other and went back inside.

So now we know there are at least three survivors. We are staying here until the light fails, and hoping someone comes out again so we can try flashing them. This farm is far enough away that if the undead swarm notices us we can flee easily, and it’s a nice house with a lot of canned foodstuffs inside. We are going to have a hot meal tonight, and if we can get this woodstove to light we’ll try to heat up water for baths.

I just noticed something. When the wind is right we can hear, dimly and distantly, the moaning and gasping of the walking dead. The noise inside the food store must be terrible, not to mention the smell on the roof, in this summer heat.

Nobody showed up on the roof today, and we’ve kept a constant lookout. Perhaps tomorrow we’ll see someone, and can get a flash off to them. All that’s needed is a way to communicate. We are close enough that radios would work, but getting one to them could be problematic, unless they have a CB. A big sheet of paper and some markers would work if they had binoculars or a telescope, but we don’t have either. Morse code? None of us know it. It’ll have to be flashes until they or we can figure something out.

The undead in this area all appear to have congregated at the shopping center. We haven’t seen any here in any direction. We think the noise has drawn them all together down there, like moths drawn to light. Sarah and I talked about the implications of the zombie we found in Can-Pro’s office. She thinks, and I agree with her, that it means that the agent that causes us to reanimate after we die is present in the environment now. It’s no longer necessary for a zombie to kill its victim via a bite or scratch. The long-term implications are scary. We probably all have this virus, or bacteria, or whatever it is. Why it hasn’t killed us yet and reanimated us, I have no idea. I would love to run these thoughts by a biologist or a geneticist to see what they think, but where I am going to meet one now, I have no idea.

Time to go. Jess and I have a dinner planned for the others, and I have to go help out. Darren is up in the tower right now, keeping watch, and Sarah is keeping Michael distracted so Jess can cook. She’s also decided to teach us all First Aid so we can be more helpful if/when we meet other survivors. First lesson is after supper.

We made contact about 4 p.m. The Goth girl came out onto the roof alone around 3:45 and lit up a cigarette. She stood in the center of the roof and looked away to the south for a while, until her cigarette was gone. Then she walked along the paving stones on the roof, and did this little dance thing. When she turned around I was ready with the mirror, and I flashed it three times at her. She didn’t appear to notice at first, so I did it again, and she was turning to look another way then, so I thought I’d lost that chance, but she stopped and turned back towards us. I flashed three times again, and Jess laughed as she saw the expression on Goth Girl’s face. She nearly had to pick her jaw up off the ground. She ran towards the roof hatch while trying to keep an eye on our location, and nearly fell once. She reached the hatch and appeared to call down, and a minute later the country fan came up with a pair of binoculars. She pointed in our direction, and I flashed again. Country Fan trained the binoculars on us, so I waved. So did Jess. He must have seen her looking through the rifle scope at him, since he flinched, but he waved back after a second.