Wake the Dead (4 page)

He wondered about the adverse effects of such a thing, watched, and waited as the sun moved considerably to the west, axe in hand, waiting and pondering the notion. With that, he recalled his own attack and subsequent bite he suffered at the hands of one of the living dead. He never got the fever or suffered any adverse effects from it, and so why should Shadow? He rolled up his pant leg and inspected the wound on his left leg, the scar still clearly visible, even after a few months had passed since he was bitten. He looked to Shadow and pondered the ramifications. He hoped he would not have to put the wolf down. Only time would tell, he thought, as he stroked his beard, hoping that would not be the case.

 “I can’t take another loss right now if you don’t mind,” Alex stated angrily to the open air.

He built a fire outside in a clearing, pulled on a pair of gloves, and dragged the bodies toward the fire once Shadow had his fill, flesh missing from several areas along its body. It had been half a day since Alex had eaten, but this experience had wholly deprived him of his appetite.

Shadow remained lying prone the entire time as Alex hoisted and tossed the remains into the fire. He watched them burn and pondered his next move.

Since summer was approaching, he decided that planting seed to grow fruit or vegetables might be something for which to strive. So, as he watched the bodies burn, he gave thought to just how he would go about something like that.

An hour later, he also realized that burning bodies haphazardly was not a smart idea either. He needed a pit to contain the fires for one, if he had to make one at all. So, he grabbed his shovel and began digging a pit to the west, twenty paces from the cabin.

By the time the fire died down, the pit was shaped out nicely, approximately six inches deep and three feet in diameter. He spent the remainder of the day gathering every stone, rock, and brick he could find, and carefully set a ring of stones around the pit.

He was more than exhausted.

“Tomorrow, we do an inventory on the cabin, okay Shadow?” he asked rhetorically. Shadow looked at him and panted. “My thoughts exactly. Let’s get some water.” Then he looked back to Shadow and laughed. “What’s that buddy? I don’t need to work out tonight? You got it.” He continued to laugh freely as he used the last of his energy to pump fresh water from the well into a pitcher.

The next few days began the same, under the light of a sunny day, Alex exercised and then scoured the cabin, turning it upside down, pulling everything out of the cabinets thoroughly. Each day he found he had even more canned food than he’d imagined and not much else. One thing of note that he did find, buried in the back of a drawer, was a package of cucumber seeds with no expiration date visible, so he believed they might be good.

“Why not give it a shot?” he mentioned cheerfully to Shadow, who lay quietly beside the pot that held his water.

Alex spent the next few weeks preparing the soil for what he hoped would be a bountiful harvest of cucumbers. It also helped that the rains came down in bunches.

It has to be April,
he thought, as he watched the skies open up with a major downpour. He waited it out patiently, exercising and looking through some of the books he found inside the cabin. Ultimately, none held his interest and he found and began reading a dictionary.

Finally, one fine and warm day, he began laying down seed, watering them, and trying to soften the soil as much as possible. He was careful to set up his garden where the sun shone brightly along the ground for a good portion of the day. And it wasn’t more than forty paces east of the cabin.

He set up a crude barrier using four sticks as posts, and twine to rope it all off. Alex continued to till the soil as the weather changed to warm. He had no idea how long had passed, but the rains came and went and the sun began to bring its heat more fully.

It must have been a month or more that passed before he saw sprouts, and then full-scale plants, that arose from the vines. He did nothing much other than exercise and tend his garden during that time until finally he had something.

That day, he confirmed his first fully grown fruit.

Alex was never more satisfied than when he picked and ate that cucumber.

Shadow came up the hill with something in his mouth that afternoon. He’d been gone for a while, but it hadn’t even fazed Alex as he meticulously tilled the soil and enjoyed his day of gardening.

He regarded the wolf and did take note that the beast had almost doubled in size recently. It was a bit peculiar and he had no way of knowing what to expect from Shadow. He had grown from a pup to what appeared to be a full-grown wolf in only a few months.

Alex considered that he knew nothing much about wolves other than their pack mentality as he filled a bucket with water, intending to wash his clothes for the first time in a long time. He considered the fact that he had no idea how big wolves got, either, supposing they might be bigger than dogs.

As he removed his clothing, he hadn’t even realized his own stench until removing his shirt and revealing his own scent fully. Washing the clothes as best he could by hand, he then soaked the garments in water and hung them to dry. He had a few pairs of jeans that the former owner of the cabin had left behind, which were a bit loose on him, but that was easily remedied with a belt, of which there were many inside.

It also struck Alex as odd that the cabin’s prior resident was never discovered on any item in the cabin. There were no photographs, albums, or any personal effects at all.

He must have really been a hermit out here. Maybe he was crazy,
Alex thought as he observed Shadow approach. The wolf dropped a shoe at Alex’s feet.

“Where the hell did you find this?” he asked, picking it up and inspecting it. It was warm, but had no blood on it. “A size ten or more from the looks of it.” He stared at Shadow for a few moments before heading into the cabin to retrieve his shotgun, bow and quiver. He closed the door behind him and made his way slowly and carefully down the hill.

On his way down, an hour or so into his descent, he happened across a newspaper that seemed to be in relatively good condition.

“That’s odd, eh, Shadow?” he said as he bent low and picked it up. He paged through it, and it was from months ago—last November the 11
^th
, to be precise—but it wasn’t weather-beaten at all. It had to have been recently discarded, he guessed, scanning the condition of it thoroughly and then looking around. He noted sale ads for SuperMart, a few odd car sales, and a half page add about a castle structure or some such at the local Renaissance Faire this coming spring.

Even more interesting was that the crossword puzzle had been started, but never finished. He slipped the newspaper into his back pocket and shooed Shadow away.

“You head on back or stay here. I don’t need you causing a scene, got it?” the wolf looked at him queerly, tilting his head, and then he simply lay down in the shade, watching Alex trot off.

A short distance later, off the trail and in the thickets to his left, he heard the faint sound of human voices. He crept closer and noted two men and a woman sitting in a circle, eating something that looked like a squirrel or raccoon or some kind of smallish animal. He couldn’t tell what it was from this far away, nor could he make out any details other than one of the men wore a hat. He wanted to get closer, but could not as they would most certainly catch sight of him.

He circled around and got close enough to hear, but could not see them from his vantage point behind a crowd of bushes. He heard the woman excuse herself to go to the bathroom and he listened in as the other two men chatted about ‘fucking her’, as they so crudely put it. He also heard one of them complaining about a missing boot as they shared stories about their sexual prowess, which had him shaking his head.

 “Typical dudes, still measuring their dicks in this shitty world,” he whispered with a sarcastic huff and a shake of his head. “And I guess I know where this came from now,” he added, looking back to see if Shadow was near and subsequently tossing aside the boot he carried. Alex was both pleased and a bit surprised that Shadow had listened to him to this point, staying far away. However, Alex’s smile disappeared quickly as the dialogue shifted to something more malevolent.

Their words turned their tone to more than just idle desire, as they debated forcing themselves on the woman. He took a deep breath and sighed, hoping they were not serious, but he could not tell. He also heard mention of others, citing multiple male and female names, and he wasn’t sure exactly how many were in their group. He was also unaware if they were nearby or not.

“Dammit,” he mumbled, uncertain of what to do next. If he were to act, unsure of the group’s size or tendencies, it might be a suicide mission for him if he were to intrude on them.

He heard Shadow approaching and decided to get out of there before the wolf gave away their location, or started something that he wasn’t prepared to finish. They were far enough away that they probably wouldn’t stumble upon the cabin being this far away. From the distant looks of their camp and the sounds of their conversation, they’d probably been here a while. It included a pair of tents that he could make out from this distance, which were at least a hundred paces away.

“None of my business, right?” he asked the wolf as he made his way quietly away from them and back up the trail. “I don’t need any fucking drama,” he added angrily, clearly wrestling with his own ethical questions of wanting to get involved. He continued giving it consideration with each step he took.

He argued both for and against it at least a dozen times along the trail home, and when he finally made it back, he figured it was wisest to leave it well enough alone.

He pulled out the paper and gave it a closer look. Again, he read the ads, all about the Renaissance Faire, and the sale at the SuperMart, and he read a story about soldiers being killed overseas. “I guess that won’t be happening anymore.”

As he turned the page, he stopped at the crossword puzzle once more and tried to answer a few of them before reading the comics to provide him some much-needed levity. It was short-lived at best, as he gave consideration to the woman in that camp yet again.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he mentioned to Shadow, who drank thirstily from a bowl of water. He retrieved his bow from inside and the duffle bag with the extra arrows he brought from home. He had a generous portion of field tip rounds and decided that he might need the practice. He went about setting up a target, made up of some wooden paneling as the base. He duct-taped a pillow to it, and propped it up against the wood he’d recently cut.

He spent the next few hours angrily hitting and missing the target. Overall, he was pleased with himself and had only broken one arrow. He retrieved his quiver with the broad heads and dumped it out. He was pleasantly surprised to see that he had put several dozen more in the bottom of the quiver.

The next hour or so was spent changing the heads so that he was ready for anything. His thoughts shifted back to the woman and he re-read the paper again, trying hard to focus on the words, but failing miserably. He grabbed his gear on more than one occasion and started down the hill, only to reason that he could not do it. He kept telling himself that if was a fool’s errand.

He realized suddenly that he could work on the solar panels to try to generate some electricity. It would at least provide a diversion from his agonizing moral dilemma. And a hot shower would be amazing right now, he confirmed, trying to remember the sensation of hot water on his skin.

With that motivation as a distraction, he used the remainder of that day, until darkness stole away his light entirely, trying to figure out how the solar panels worked and how to get them fixed. All of the wires running inside appeared fine, but he did find an exposed wire that he fixed inside behind the wall paneling.

His next step led to the unit itself and it appeared that the battery that ran the thing was in good condition. As he pulled out the inner workings, he reconnected everything that he could find tightly enough and refitted every wire and screw that he could turn.

As the night came, he lit a fire in the fireplace again and called it a night. He moved the sofa away from the wall, plugged a lamp into the outlet behind it, turned the switch and the bulb exploded from an apparent surge.

“I’ll call that progress,” he said absently.

He put his head down on the sofa, let Shadow outside to do whatever it was that he did, and closed his eyes feeling he’d accomplished something today.

But, try as he might, he could not fall asleep. He lay awake several more hours, as thoughts of his self-confessed cowardice plagued him. The rhythmic smattering of raindrops sounding on the roof were so hypnotic that their melody eventually allowed him to drown out his own thoughts enough so that sleep finally came calling.