Rise (10 page)

When I woke up this morning there was an arm draped over my chest. This made me think I was back in college for a few sweet delirious seconds, but then I really woke up and remembered where I was. The arm belonged to Jessica, who was lying beside me. I guess we are a couple now. She made her intentions clear last night after I was relieved from sentry duty, and she spent the night here with me in one of the bedrooms. Michael is in here too, in a single bed, sleeping soundly, as Jess makes sure she’s always near where he is sleeping. When I got out of bed Jess woke up, and we had a few minutes of solitude. It’s nice, but it gives me one more reason to worry. And that list of things to worry about is getting pretty long now.

This morning we are setting out to retrieve some CB radio sets that are likely in two of the broken-down 18-wheelers we have seen here and there on the highway. We remembered at least three big trucks between here and the outskirts of Prince George, and we are going to top up the tanks on our vehicles and scavenge whatever else may be of interest. Our plan is to stop at the outskirts and find a way into the industrial park and the offices of Can-Pro. We will check the area carefully before entering the city again, but according to Dave we’ll be on the other side of the city from the horde.

Bright and early today Darren and I took a look at the tire that I blew out a few days ago. It’s wrecked. Bone chunks tore a large section out. The patch kit I have won’t help with this, so we need to look for another Rav4 someplace and see if it has a tire we can salvage. We also did oil changes on both vehicles, but that’s about the limit of what I think we can do. There’s just too much computerized stuff in each vehicle. Once they break down, that’ll be it.

Darren asked me if maybe we should head for Cold Lake, as there appears to be a military presence there. I reminded him that all we’d seen were some planes going over, with only a guess about where they came from. It could be CFB Cold Lake, but it could also be somewhere further east, and there might not be anyone there now. We really had no idea.

After some trouble we secured two working CB radio sets from two of the 18-wheeler cabs I mentioned earlier. The first was a straight removal. The set was built into the dash, secured on two brackets that ran from the floor of the cab to comfort height by the driver’s right hand. It took about ten minutes to remove the bolts, mostly because we had to find something to loosen them with. I finally remembered we had a toolkit in the van, and there was a set of pliers there with those adjustable pump handles. Worked like a charm. Then we had to remove the wiring. That was easier, and we got the unit out and into the Rav4. The whole time I was doing this, the others were on guard duty, keeping a watchful eye out for hungry dead things.

The second radio was a little harder. It was about ten kilometers down the road from the first one, and we had passed by there noting that the driver was still in the cab, but somewhat restless. When we pulled up he got pretty excited, but was firmly belted in, so all he could do was make a noise that drove slivers of ice up my spine, wave his arms at us, and sit there. This truck had not gone off the road. It had stopped by a traffic accident, and the semi driver had apparently been attacked even before he could get out of his truck. There was a corpse on the road by his door, and its head was mostly gone, but I suspected this had been a zombie that attacked the driver, only to have him kill it. The driver had then likely succumbed to a wound and rose, but was unable to get out of the seat belt. Dave and Darren handled this one. Sarah, Jess and I handled guard duty. Dave opened the passenger door while keeping the shotgun trained on the undead driver, and then backed away. Darren had lined up a shot from several dozen feet away, and took it once Dave was clear. He was using the hunting rifle that we had picked up from the house east of Prince George, and I saw Jess check out his form as he fired, and she nodded once he was done. She’s a good teacher. Darren’s single shot killed the undead driver, and we got to work. Dave had the radio out in about five minutes, and also found another handgun in the cab. It was a revolver, and Jess told us it was a classic, a .357 Magnum. It only had four unfired rounds left in it, and we searched but found no more ammo. Presumably the other two rounds were what destroyed the head of the zombie on the road.

Just as we were loading the last of us into the van, two walking dead stumbled out of the woods southwest of the road. They probably had heard the shot and were coming to see if there was a meal to be had. They started towards us, two males in what was left of business suits, both of them clean cut and young. I spotted a tag on the pocket of one of them, and it looked like those tags the Mormon missionaries wear. They fit the look, but I don’t think they wanted to share Jesus’ love with us right that second. They were ripe too. The stench was terrible, and we were all gagging as we drove away from them. No matter how long we are exposed to it, the smell is still just terrible. I wonder if disease will be a problem for us. This many corpses, walking or not, is sure to be a major health problem.

We got back here to the house without trouble, and now Jess is on watch, Dave and Darren have installed the first radio, and I have finished cleaning up after dinner. Michael is sleeping in mine and Jess’ room. Man, I like saying that. Sarah was giving me the talk about birth control earlier, and I agreed completely. It hasn’t actually gotten that far right now, but I think a good supply of prevention is in order. I’ll talk to Jess about that when she comes to bed. For now, I need some sleep. Tomorrow we are heading into Prince George to the offices of Can-Pro.

We drove into Prince George yesterday from the north, aiming for the industrial park. It was pretty easy to find, though the numbers of the walking dead increased the closer we got to the city. We passed most of them without trouble. They pursued for a while, and are probably still on our trail somewhere, but we made several turns in this largely uninhabited area, and found a warehouse on the outer rim of the area that we can operate from. It has steel doors front and back, concrete pre-cast walls, and two large rolling bay doors. One of these doors was open, so we drove in and stopped, and then sat and waited for several minutes to see if there were any zombies inside. When nothing came to dinner we got out and rolled the door down by hand. It was very dark inside, but we all had flashlights now, and searched the place carefully, opening all doors after knocking loudly first. All we found was empty offices, and it looked like whoever had been here left quickly. Molding cups of coffee were sitting around, and a box half filled with petrified donuts was still on the table in what I took to be a staff lunch room. There was a large front reception area with tinted windows, and the light there was bright enough that we could turn off the flashlights. There was a Coke cooler there too, and we pried it open to find maybe fifty cans of soda and juice. They should still be good, so we loaded them into the vehicles. We found a Yellow Pages and checked Can-Pro’s address, about 18 blocks away. We left the vehicles behind with Michael, Darren, and Sarah, and then Dave, Jessica and I all set out to retrieve the information we needed. Michael cried a little when Jess kissed him goodbye, but we all told him we’d be careful, and I promised I wouldn’t let anything happen to his mom.

The plan was that we’d stealth our way towards the address we had, and Dave would be our guide since he’d been there before. Once inside, we’d locate the plans for the shopping center and see if the sewer maps were helpful. From there, we’d sneak into the storm sewers and creep under the buildings, hopefully coming up under the grocery store and into its mechanical room.

No plan survives contact with the Enemy,
the old saying goes. That was as true for us as any military commander. We made it about three blocks before we ran into some undead. We were being as careful as we could, staying hidden in alleys, crouching and moving in ditches when we had to go in the open, and trying to keep big solid objects between us and open spaces. Jess was crossing a street ahead of me, with Dave covering and me about to follow her, when three walking dead literally burst out of a window about forty feet ahead of her. We had talked about just such an event, and Jess instantly moved at ninety degrees to her right, into the open street, and crouched down. Dave opened fire with the shotgun at the lead walker, and his shot took it in the chest, knocking it back and down. I took aim and shot the second one with the carbine, but it didn’t penetrate, just bounced off the high point of the skull. I took a step forward and fired again, this time hitting the same zombie in the neck. It fell over as a glob of flesh and bone blew out the far side, and then Jess shot the last one, right into the left eye socket. Its head simply vanished in the back, and it toppled over like a falling tree. The first one was getting up, and Jess was backing off now, towards me, and I took a second to check around us. There was nothing moving close by, but a look down the side street showed about half a dozen things walking towards us in the heat. The shimmer off the pavement distorted them, almost making them look alive. I turned back as Dave shot the first one again, closer range this time, and the blast destroyed its skull quite messily. The three of us regrouped in the center of the street, back-to-back, and had a quick look around. We spotted a few more approaching from another direction, but it looked like our way ahead was clear for now. We took off at a trot, and as soon as we were out of sight of both groups we detoured down a side street, and resumed the hide/sneak way of moving about.

In this fashion, it took another hour and a half to get ten more blocks, and we were constantly checking behind us to make sure the fifteen or so zombies back there hadn’t found a trail to follow. It was really getting hot out now, so we took a few minutes in some shade for a drink and a rest. We were in the shade at the side of a building, just behind a dumpster, with a clear view of the streets, when a zombie shambled past the front of the building, heading back the way we had come from. It was followed by three more, presumably drawn by the noise of the shooting earlier. Ten more minutes passed before we were willing to venture out again, and we hadn’t seen any more of them appear. The four that had passed were no longer in sight, so we cautiously made our way down the back of the building, and out onto the front again. In this leapfrogging manner (two covering, one moving) we made our way to the offices of Can-Pro. It took some time to find the actual offices once we arrived at the right building, since Unit 4 of Nondescript Industrial Park Building A looked an awful lot like Units 2, 7, and 8 through 12 of Nondescript Industrial Park Buildings A, B and C. Half an hour later Dave spotted a familiar sign on a door,
Can-Pro Constructs and Developments, LTD
with a phone number and business hours.

By that time, we were ready for a rest, water, and lunch. We approached the door, and I spotted motion inside the office. A split second later a corpse hit the door hard, making all of us jump back. The door held, and the once-attractive young woman’s animated shell inside the offices started pounding her black and blue fists on the glass to get at us. The door was obviously locked, I thought, since it would have opened under her onslaught otherwise. Dave and Jess and I went around the side of the building to the back doors, and remembering what unit it was, found the loading dock and man-door there. Both were locked. Both were metal doors, so we were not getting in that way, unless we could find a key, a prospect I held as slim at best. We snuck around front again, and sure enough, as soon as we were at the door the undead woman inside was there, smashing and clawing at the glass, frantically trying to get at us. If she’d had any brain power at all she would have just turned the lock. Looking at her I felt a sudden hope. These things were stupider than snails. Given time, we’d defeat them. Given time, they’d rot away and become moot.

We discussed what to do, and finally got a plan together. We needed to be quiet, not attract any more of the undead, and get in there. Jess had an idea. We each had brought a backpack with extra ammo, extra clothes, water and food, binoculars in mine, flashlights, and sunglasses. We each took out a spare shirt and wrapped it around my hand while I was holding the Glock, then used a few pins to hold them in place. This primitive silencer should quiet the Glock enough to get us in without detection. I walked to the door, held the hand up to the glass, aimed at her head while she was frantically scrabbling, and pulled the trigger.

Three things happened. First, the gun fired through the glass, and was far louder than any of us had expected. Second, the glass shattered and fell with a crash to the ground. Third, the zombie fell backwards like a prizefighter had just popped her one in the face. Her skull leaked a gooey brown and blue-grey fluid onto the carpet, and she didn’t move again. We all looked around frantically, realising at the same time that the many nearby undead would be trying to find the source of the gunshot now, and that our time was very limited. We all walked into the office. Having come so far we were willing to hide here for a while rather than run away with no information. Dave and I quickly took a large table and upended it to block the useless door, and pushed some heavy furniture behind it. It wouldn’t hold long if they attacked, but it might block us from sight. We knew there was another way out in back.

Before we searched, I reloaded the Glock since it was down to ten rounds. We had enough ammo for each of the other guns except the pistols. We then searched the offices carefully, always looking out for more undead, but found none. Only then did we search for the building plans we needed. It took hours, and we had to stop a few times when Dave (on sentry duty at the front) told us that there were zombies outside. They always moved on, and we were able to continue. Finally, near dusk, in a back office with a sign on the door reading “Charles Danforth, CFO”, we found the plans for the shopping center on top of a pile in one corner.