Rise (2 page)

Sarah and I watched CNN in horror as video from New York showed what looked like a group of people dragging someone from their car on a bridge, and killing him and then eating him. The video cut off right then, and the shocked faces of the anchorman and sports guy were left to talk. They didn't know what to say, so they repeated the CDC report. A military officer came on to assure the American people that the president was safe, and that steps were being taken to ensure the security of that great nation, blah blah blah.

That doesn't help us much here...

Sarah and I loaded what we could into the Explorer and decided to make one last run into the condo for anything useful. We took her digital camera, her stun gun, the baseball bat I leave there for when I play ball with her and her neighbors, canned food, candles and a lighter, and a few more bottles of water that were in the fridge. I think we were both kind of in shock, but it didn't feel that way at the time. We left her condo locked and set the alarm, like we'd be back later.

I got us northbound onto Crowchild Trail at 7:43 a.m., and it was already a parking lot. We crawled for ten more minutes until I realised that there was nobody at all going southbound. There was a concrete divider between the north and southbound lanes though, and even my Explorer wasn't getting over that, but there was one of those big 18-wheeler tow trucks three cars back behind me. I stopped the truck, hopped out and walked back to the tow truck. It took only a minute to convince the driver to push a few concrete blocks aside, and he started to turn his truck as I walked back to the Explorer. Then I heard the most awful noise I have ever heard in my life. I turned to look back south as I heard this awful groaning wailing moan. From the Shaganappi overpass there came dozens of people on foot, walking, limping, or shuffling like drunks towards the traffic jam. I thought at first that some of them were injured, and then the people on foot started attacking the people in the cars, pulling the doors open and mauling the drivers and passengers. I could see a few of the attackers looked like they'd been burned badly, and I remembered the jet. I could still see the smoke from where it had crashed on the University grounds.

The road turned into chaos. People started abandoning their cars and running to get away from the infected (that's what I was sure they were now), and it looked like Mr. Tow Truck Driver was going to bail as well, but I waved him on and he took the hint. He slid up against a barrier, and shifted down, pushing the concrete out into the southbound lane. Once he had a clear access he took off, roaring away to the north. I hopped back in the Explorer just as the nearest infected were attacking cars about five back from us. I slipped into reverse, rammed backwards into a cheap Toyota that was trying to get into the gap too, and turned into the southbound lanes. It was clear sailing then, and I saw several other cars behind me with the same idea, including the Toyota I had hit. It was really weird driving the wrong way up Crowchild, but with no oncoming traffic I wasn't worried.

My plan at this point was to just get us to the city limit. I guess I figured that by then traffic would clear up. It didn't. Up around Arbour Lake, a few kilometers from where we had turned into them, I was still in the southbound lanes, but traffic was at a standstill there too. I checked to make sure Sarah was still buckled in and went cross country there, right into the ditch. The Explorer handled that pretty well, and I got us around as many of the cars as I could. About that time I ran over something in the ditch, a bottle or can or something, and blew my passenger front tire. The Explorer swerved, and the airbags deployed as we came to a sudden jarring halt, nose first into the ditch. The truck’s engine was stalled, so I started it again and tried to back us away from the ditch. Once we were up on the shoulder I straightened us out and stopped. We had to fix that tire. We couldn't get far without it. Fortunately I carry a spare in the back, so I jumped out and grabbed the baseball bat. I could hear sirens, and I paused for a second to look at the city. Smoke from several fires was visible to the south. I could see downtown in the distance, and there was more smoke there, but I couldn't tell where it was coming from. Crowchild at this point was chaos. Many cars and trucks were all trying to get out of the city here, and the road was crowded, but it appeared the cars were at least moving steadily. I opened the back and started moving supplies aside to get at the spare, and within a few minutes I had it and the jack out and started to change the tire. Then it started to rain.

How has this happened so quickly? Was the virus already here before the plane crashed? Were the reanimated dead already walking about in Calgary when I got up this morning? How were people getting infected all over the world? I have the feeling I might have left things a little too late.

Once the flat tire was in the back and we were down off the jack we reloaded the supplies and got back on the road. I turned on the radio to see if I could get a signal, and I did easily. Several stations were playing music! One station had an announcer on who was trying to explain that it was best if citizens returned to their homes and locked the doors and allowed the police to deal with the emergency. I kept scanning, and found a station where the DJ, one of the morning show regulars, was telling people what the situation was. He didn't know much, but he did know that the plane that crashed at the University was from Vancouver, and apparently had a bunch of infected on board. Many of them were killed when it crashed, but enough got out to attack rescuers, students, and workers at a new construction site on campus. He claimed that many of those attacked and killed were now zombies, attacking the living and making more of the living dead. He was the first one I heard use the term ‘zombie’.

We finally made it out of the city by about 10:15 that morning. Traffic was heavy but moving. I guess a lot of people had the idea to bug out. We headed northwest on the highway until we found a turn-off south towards the Trans-Canada, and I tried that. Heading towards the mountains sounded good at the time. We drove south until the Trans-Canada Highway sign said to turn west, and I followed that into steady traffic. There must have been thousands of people fleeing the city now, but still there were cars heading towards the populated areas.

After a while we made it to Canmore, a large town just inside the mountains on the way to Banff National Park. The town looked alright, it was quiet, but there wasn't a gas station open. I guess the staff decided not to show up that day. We pulled into a gas station just off the highway, since Sarah had to use a bathroom and I needed some air and a walk around to let the adrenaline clear out of my system. Plenty of cars were heading through town so I wasn't worried. Sarah walked towards the back of the station, and I got out and walked around. I was looking at the line of cars passing when I heard Sarah scream. I ran towards the bathroom, and Sarah came out followed by a bloody woman. The other woman was about thirty, I guess, wearing jeans and a black tank top, and covered head to toe in gore. She had a huge gash in her neck, and her hands were cut and I could see bone through the skin in places. She had a bloody mark on her arm, and a fair bit of tissue was missing.

I shouted to Sarah to ‘watch out!’.

She was nearly on top of Sarah when I tackled her, and we landed hard on the concrete. She immediately tried to bite me, but I managed to get my hand under her chin and push her head to the side, a wrestling move I learned in judo class a few years ago. Her skin was cold! She wasn't any stronger than a normal person, for which I am thankful. I managed to pin her arms, but she was still trying to bite me, and it was a struggle for several seconds to keep my neck away from her teeth until Sarah came back with the bat I had forgotten to take from the truck. Sarah's not a petite woman; she works out and she plays softball, and she works as a paramedic. One swing of the bat broke the woman's neck and threw her away from me. I got up and was shocked to see that the woman was still trying to move. Sarah and I approached cautiously, once it was clear the woman couldn't reach us. Her broken neck took care of that, but her head was still trying to snap at us. I remembered what the radio announcer had said about destroying the brain to kill the infected persons, but neither Sarah nor I could do it. We just got back in the Explorer and drove off to the west along the highway.

We left the town behind and within a few kilometers we passed the park gates for Banff National Park without stopping. There were no staff at the park gates, and we cruised on with the many other cars and trucks. We passed a few vehicles on the highway that had run out of gas or had mechanical problems. The drivers and passengers were trying to flag down help, but no one stopped. I didn’t stop.

Later we came to a rest stop about 40 km past Banff. I wanted to look at the tire, see if it could be fixed. It could be, if we could get to a shop. The temperature is alright for now, but it won't stay this warm forever. We stopped here for lunch and decided to stay until morning; it's off the road and can't be seen from the highway. There are several other cars here, a few families and a road crew, about 14 people including us. No one has a weapon other than a few baseball bats, some knives, and a fire-axe the road crew carried in their truck. We're hoping to last the night without being found, and then carry on in the morning. The line of cars on the highway continues, endlessly.

We made it to Jasper, but the town had been overrun by the living dead. We stopped on the highway just short of town and took a good look. There were three other cars and a truck with us. We could see a large group of the dead in front of a store, trying to force their way in. There were about fifty of them, bloody and horrible looking. How did this virus get here ahead of us? We could only assume there were living survivors inside the store. A few of the dead noticed us and turned towards us, gurgling and moaning. They started to almost run down the road, a sort of limping, shuffling jog, so we got back in the Explorer and backed away. The other vehicles fled ahead of us, passing still more cars coming north from Calgary or Canmore, and I turned around and drove us back to an exit road I had seen earlier, and took it. We ended up here, at this house about 6 km from the highway, well back in the woods. There's no one here, but the door was open when we drove up. It's a 2-story cabin and

I was interrupted yesterday while updating this file. What I can only assume was the original owner of the house we are now in returned and broke the window on the front door while I was typing on my laptop. He looked about 50, and was fit, wearing a light coat over a sweater and expensive pants. His stomach was opened up and his internal organs were mostly missing. A huge amount of blood had washed his legs, and he was definitely dead. The smell alone was so bad I gagged and nearly heaved my dinner all over the floor. I grabbed the bat and ran towards him while Sarah grabbed a knife from the kitchen. His dead arms flailed towards me, and I watched in nauseous horror as he fell over the broken glass from the window. He started to get up immediately, and with Sarah yelling at me I smacked him hard on the back of the head with the bat. He went down, and then tried to get up again. I swung again, harder this time, and heard a wet smack. The side of his head caved in, and a little blood splattered about. He didn't move again after that. I stepped over the body and looked outside, but I didn't see any more walking dead. We dragged the corpse outside and dumped him in the back of the garage.

I have repaired the window as well as I can. Found some tools and a few nails in the garage, as well as some plywood, but the big find was a rifle and some bullets. It's a .22, I think, and there are about 100 bullets for it. Lever action. Must have been the old guy's hunting rifle or for scaring off cats or something. Both Sarah and I feel better now that we found it.

We’ve spent the last while watching TV. The electricity is still on, amazingly, and there are a few satellite channels running. There's a CNN feed from Baltimore. A local station in Calgary is showing live camera shots from around the city with a live voice-over from a couple of reporters, saying they'll hold on as long as they can and keep reporting the situation. Mostly they just give commentary on what's shown on the camera. I swear at one point Steven Tyler from Aerosmith walked by the camera, as dead as the several hundred other zombies on the screen. The shot was from 8th Avenue Mall, which looked to be home now only to wreckage and dead things. Another view is from a street level camera in a window, I think in Kensington. The dead are shuffling by there too, but a police car is parked outside on the street right in front of the camera, and I can see a shotgun in the car. It might as well be on the moon.

The CNN feed I mentioned earlier is a source of good information. Apparently the CDC has identified the virus and is trying to produce an immunization program. Most of the major cities in the US and Canada have suffered major outbreaks, with the notable exception of Boulder. Apparently they had a small outbreak there, but it was contained quickly. There have been no transmissions from Seattle, Vancouver, Los Angeles, or New York in the last 24 hours. No phone or cell calls, no internet, nothing. CNN reports that the US President is alive in an undisclosed location and is trying to get things in order. No word about our Prime Minister. The last thing we watched before we shut it off for a while was footage from Toronto, showing about a hundred zombies straining to get into a pet store. There were about a dozen survivors inside and they had barricaded the entrance with anything they could find. The video was uploaded to CNN a few minutes before they thought the barrier was about to fail. All the survivors, including a few children, the teenage-looking staff, and a few adults, were arming themselves with whatever they could find. Sarah asked me to shut it off then. I happily did.