Zombies! Rising from the Dead (6 page)

She kept hanging on this one single line of dialogue. By the quiver in her
voice it was easy to discern that she was shaken,
s
tressed and exhausted. It was unusual for a
government official to
show that level of panic, especially during a press briefing, generally

they
are reserved and resolute; not this time.

“
One of the unique attributes of this radioactive substance at the present
time,
appears to
include the propensity of, to...re...e-energize narcotized tissue.”
There was a long pause yet
again.

You could hear flashbulbs and chatter in the background as the reporters began to
process what she had just eluded too. Rick and I had already pulled off to the side of the road,
I don't even remember exactly when, only that one moment we were driving along as usual and
then the next we were sitting on the side of the road straining to hear every word.

A moment later we heard a reporter ask what we were already wondering,
“Excuse me
Ms. Richardson, what exactly are you saying?”

“By all accounts it appears that the radioactive mat
erial can reanimate dead tissue;
and
from everything we can currently determine that the phenomenon IS spreading
,
”
she reiterated.

We couldn't see what was happening in the room
, all we knew is that for
what seemed
like several minutes the radio was virtually silent.

Ms. Richardson spoke again.
“The cause for the widespread condition stems from the
fact that the meteor was composed of a soft materia
l
unlike anything we have seen in
asteroids before. As it hit the atmosphere it began to break up almost immediately distributing

radioactive
debris in Earth's higher atmosphere. As the material descended it dispersed and
was further spread by wind and natural weather patterns. The material as far as we can
determine poses no immediate threat to living organisms, but causes artificial
metabolism in
dead and decaying organic matter. We have yet to determine what other affects this radiation
has on this material or otherwise, but we can confirm that the phenomenon to be spreading as
the radioactive components disperse into the lower atmosphere. For this reason the Center for
Disease Control is issuing the highest possible alert.”

I remember looking at Rick sitting across from me in the truck. We were both hunched
over listening to the radio, completely unaware of the other. H
is eyes as wide as half dollars;
all the color drained from his face. It was a look of astonishment; not terror or
dread, but the
perfect state of shock which left him unable to speak, move or think; for that matter I wasn't
any better off.

All we could really do is continue listening.
“The Center for Disease Control is
encouraging individuals to stay where they are and avoid any sort of travel at this time. Should anyone en....en....”
once again she stuttered.
“Should anyone encounter re...”
she
coughed and cleared her throat.
“Should anyone encounter reanimated matter avoid it at all
costs. Do not contact or attempt to make contact. Re-energized material may carry disease
and infection which may be harmful. Remain where you are, secure your location and please
do not travel unless absolutely necessary. The National Guard and sources within the military
have been mobilized to assist. We will have more information as it becomes available
.”
W
ith
that the local news channel picked up and began to reiterate what had already been said.

After a moment I reached
over and turned the radio down
, Rick and I looked at
each other again in dismay. We sat there for what seemed like hours with our eyes wide, palms
sweating and hearts racing. After a while we somehow found the capacity to speak.

“What, what is she saying man, what the fuck is she saying?”
Rick began to panic
“WHA
T THE FUCK IS SHE TALKING ABOUT?
M
etabolized,
necrotic
tissue
?
GODDAMMIT
IS SHE TALKING ABOUT DEAD PEOPLE?”

He was incoherent
;
making
little sense, but I knew him and knew what was
going through his head.

“OKAY, OKAY, DAMNIT...STOP! STOP GODDAMMIT, JUST GET AHOLD OF
YOURSELF”
I screamed
at
him,
“JUST STOP IT, WE CAN'T FUCKING DO THIS.”

Taking a deep breath I tried to lower the tone,
“Listen, bring it down,
take
a breath and just listen to me, okay”
Rick did as I asked, not that he seemed
much
calmer
,
but he
did stop ranting long enough for me to get in a few words and in a slow, almost whispering
tone I tried to talk him down,
“Listen, we don't know all the details, okay? We can't jump to
conclusions;
we don't know ANYTHING yet...
”
“yeah, but...”
He cut in, but I cut him off.
“NO,
listen, we don't know anything yet, not really, we just have to chill till we find out more, we
can't go jumping to conclusions, just chill out, we will figure out
what’s
going on, just take a big
deep breath; can you do that for me man?”

“Yeah....yeah....I can do that”
He replied, more calmly than before.

Taking a deep breath and composing himself he asked,
“What do we do? Should we just
head home or what? What do we do?”
Rick ranted.

“Listen”
I said, taking a deep breath. “
We're already here,
let’s
get to the store get what
we need and get the hell out”
.
Looking
b
ack years later I realize it was one of the smartest
decisions we made throughout the whole ordeal.

“OK”
Is the only response Rick could muster.
I told him to take another deep breath,
he was hyperventilating, and as he drew in another deep breath he seemed to calm down and
regain his senses.

We got moving again
,
quickly making our way through the little town of Libbetsville
which was just on the outskirts of Panatauk, making our way through the little intersection
there virtually
i
gnoring everything else along the route. We arrived in Panatauk only moments
later.

The scene in Panatauk was one of confusion and unrest but it had not reached the state
of pure panic yet. We were lucky in two respects, in that we were basically already in town
w
hen the announcement was made, and also that it was still relatively early and most people
were at work and the news had not reached everyone yet and if it had people were still trying to
make sense of it.

The grocery stores, gas stations and other local
businesses
were still packed even as it
was. People hurriedly filtered in and out gathering groceries and supplies in expectation of all
sorts of varied outages and shortages.

If there were any words to describe what we saw it would that of controlled chaos, but as
news reached the people the situation got worse by the minute; if not by the very second.
People
did
not
understand the true nature of what was happening. It seemed as if people
were preparing for some kind of natural weather phenomenon, not much unlike the ice storm
that hit our region several years earlier, only the level of activity was much greater. People
crammed into the stores to stock pile in preparation for the impending disaster. All around us
people scrambling past each other, some yelling, others crying.

As we walked past the entrance Rick asked,
“What do we get? What should we go
after first?”

“Doesn't matter, doesn't matter, you get whatever you can get your fucking hands on,
at some point it's ALL going to be useful”
I told him.

We swerved up and down the aisles walking as fast as we
c
ould, just short of running.
We did not want to insight panic as things were already getting close to riot levels, so we tried
to
keep our pace in check. In and out of the aisles we dodged avoiding the other shoppers all we
could, dumping anything and everything we could into our cart. Some things were already hard
to get, and the supplies of perishables like bread and milk were long since gone. Remembering
our experience from the ice storm Rick and I knew that bread and milk would be of little use
anyway, milk spoils and bread gets moldy quick; no, instead we grabbed those things that

others
were overlooking, things that would last. Soda, drink mixes, canned goods, cupcakes,
pop tarts, in most cases
it’s
recommended to stay away from processed foods. In this situation
processed foods had one distinct advantage...they are so refined and loaded with chemicals that
they will potentially last forever if left unopened.