Rise of the Dead (24 page)
We check the bodies on the ground as we pass them, but Amanda isn’t among them. I don’t know if I could handle seeing her like that. Every time we turn over a body with long dark hair, I breathe a sigh of relief.
“She might still be alive,” Danielle tells me.
“Maybe,” I shrug. I try to sound optimistic, but after seeing the car, I can’t convince myself that such a thing is possible.
As we continue our slow approach into town, we find the dark streets are all clear of the dead. There is a faint odor in the air of meat cooking that seems to come and go with the breeze. Just outside of downtown, a pickup is parked on the top of a hill, and there is a heaping pile of bodies in the truck bed.
“I’m getting a bad feeling about this place,” Quentin says.
Fletcher takes a moment to pull out the binoculars and look down the long hill into town. “Looks clear,” he reports.
The school is on the opposite side of the downtown district, which is really just a couple miles of Victorian-style houses and the small-town shops that look exactly as they did sixty years ago. Seeing the town deserted is unsettling. We reach the main intersection, and there is still no sign of anyone alive. I still can’t shake the feeling someone is watching every move we make.
The train station where I got on the train just before this all started is across the street. When I see it, it makes me wish I could go back and do so many things differently that day and every day since. The thought makes me lose focus, and I’m the last to notice the bullet that cracks off the concrete.
Fletcher grabs my arm and drags me into a doorway just as another bullet shatters the window I was standing in front of a moment before. I have no idea where the shots are coming from. Fletcher slowly looks around the brick corner of the doorway and tries to establish the location of the shooter. He makes a gesture that I don’t understand to Quentin, who ducks behind a parked car in the street.
Quentin nods and then jumps up firing wildly and dives back down just before a bullet pierces the hood of the car parked behind him.
“I see you,” Fletcher growls. He points up to the roof of the movie theater at the next intersection. He swings around the corner and fires off a grenade round then jumps back behind the bricks as a bullet strikes the pavement beside me. A few seconds later there is an explosion on the top of the building and bricks rain down on the sidewalk below.
Fletcher pokes his head out cautiously, then steps back out onto the sidewalk. “You messed with the wrong fucking hombre,” he boasts. He slides the action on the rifle loading another grenade in place.
Quentin gets up off the ground and scans up and down the road. He signals Danielle and she leads the others out of the alley.
“You think that’s all of them?” I ask Fletcher. I still don’t feel like leaving the cover of the doorway is a safe bet, but I step out onto the sidewalk anyway and look around.
“Don’t know,” says Fletcher. “But if there’s more, that’ll give them something to think about.” The smirk on his face disappears when we hear the sound of a large engine turning over somewhere close. A second automobile starts, and then the engines rev as the vehicles begin to move.
The dark alley seems like the best option, so we run between the buildings. We cut over to the next street, and we take that in the direction of the school. By the time we cross over the train tracks at the next block, we can hear the trucks getting close and see the headlights sweeping across the building behind us. It’s just a matter of time before they’ll find us on the road. We cut through a church parking lot and make our way down a residential side street.
The thought crosses my mind that we could try to hide out in one of these houses until they give up looking for us, but it seems like our best bet is to get as far away from here as we can and fast. We have no idea what we’re up against, but we do know that we don’t have a whole lot of firepower left.
A pair of headlights turn a corner several blocks behind us. We head up the next driveway and duck around the back of the home and hope to God they didn’t spot us. The truck slowly rolls down the street. I take a look around the corner of the house as they pass and see it is a large blue pickup with track lights on the roof and several guys with shotguns riding in the bed of the truck. I duck back as they sweep a spotlight across the houses and wait until I am sure they have turned at the end of the block.
“We got to get off the street,” Fletcher seethes.
“It’s just a half a mile,” I tell him. “We can make it.”
Since they just patrolled this street, I guess we will have a few minutes at the very least before the vehicles come back around. We run back out to the sidewalk and keep going down the street. Up ahead the lane ends at an old newspaper printing warehouse. We reach the end and cut back toward Main Street. There is no sign of the pickup, but I can still hear them driving somewhere close by. We get to Main Street and find a barricade with dumpsters lined across the intersection. That must be how they are keeping more corpses from coming into downtown. If we can get past those containers the only way they can come after us is on foot.
“We have to go over those dumpsters,” I gasp. I take a couple of deep breaths to try and finish my thought. “It’s the only way out of town.”
The headlights appear again several blocks behind us. The only thing to do is make a run for it now.
“Go on then,” Fletcher urges us. He takes up a position behind a parked car and takes aim at the pickup that is creeping down the block. We make it halfway to the barricade before the truck tires squeal and the engine roars. I guess they have spotted us. I glance back to see what Fletcher is doing. He fires a round through the windshield of the truck. The vehicle swerves wildly and Fletcher springs up and starts running towards us. He doesn’t even wait to see what happens next. The pickup strikes a sports car on the side of the road and flips over, throwing the passengers from the truck bed. The truck slides along the street upside down for a couple of seconds then grinds to a stop and lays smoking in the night.
In the aftermath of the wreck, the night is suddenly quiet, and now I hear the corpses moaning beyond the dumpsters. Quentin climbs onto the container and crouches on top of the noisy bags of trash. I hear him curse and know that we have another problem to deal with now.
“How many?” I ask.
His head appears over the edge of the container, and he drops back down to the ground. “About twenty,” he reports. “And they know we’re here.”
The headlights of the second truck appear up the road, but the wreck is now blocking it from coming further. Still, we don’t have much time. I remember the grenade in my pack and how Fletcher got us across the highway earlier. Without time to think it through I climb onto the dumpster and dig through my supplies.
“Move back,” I yell.
I find the heavy grenade and pull the pin out of it and toss it into the middle of a group of corpses then cover my head and wait. The explosion rattles the steel container and a split second later an arm rains down on me followed by a spray of black, coagulated blood. I lift my head up and peer over the edge and see the immediate area is clear, but the noise is attracting every walking corpse for miles.
“Hurry up,” I call out. I swing over the other side of the dumpster and start shooting at the partially dismembered corpses on the ground that are dragging what remains of their bodies towards me. Quentin drops down next to me and helps me cover the area while the others get over the dumpster. I have no idea how much ammunition I have left, but I know it’s not enough to stay here very long. Finally, Fletcher makes his way over the dumpsters, and we push forward down the road.
There are walking dead all over the road, and all we can do is make a run for the school straight through an oncoming current of them. I shoot as many as I can until the magazine is empty and then I just shove them aside and try to keep moving and avoid getting surrounded. I’m so close now. The school is just down the road. I can’t believe I made it all the way back. It had to be for a reason. She must be alive. My thoughts give me a surge of adrenaline, and I run faster than I ever have in my life. I don’t even look back to see if the rest of the group makes it. Nothing matters right now but finding the only part of my old life that remains.
At the top of the hill, the dark outline of the school comes into view and the sight of it almost makes me forget that I have to keep moving. There is a large playing field that sets the school back from the busy street, and we gain some ground on the corpses trailing us from the road. My heart is pounding in my chest from running and the fear of what lies ahead at the school. As we move closer, I can make out shapes of children shuffling around on the playground outside. Some of them spot us coming through the parking lot, and they begin to gather at the iron fence. Their tiny arms reach through the bars, and their mouths release rasping moans. It’s the most horrible scene I’ve ever witnessed. I force myself to walk over to the fence and look at their ashen faces until I come to a sight that pushes me to my limit.
“No,” I plead.
“Do you see her?” Danielle asks. “Blake.”
My little girl. The side of her face is ripped away. Crusted blood and grime coats her hair. Her milky eyes no longer recognize me, but I have no doubt it’s her. Though I knew the odds were that I’d find her like this, the sight is too much to bear. I forget to breathe and have to sit down in the grass while I take it in.
“Damn,” sighs Quentin.
“Well, what’d you all expect?” complains Fletcher. “This ain’t no goddamn fairytale. I told you this was a bad idea.”
“Blake…” Danielle calls to me.
“What do we do?” Quentin asks.
“We need to go,” Fletcher urges. “Two minutes those things are going to be all over us.”
In the back of my mind, I know there isn’t time to stop, even for this, but I can’t find the will to stand back up. I look up into her face again as she reaches out to grab me. I stare at her hand, trying to hold me, and I can’t resist the urge to touch her one more time. I extend my arm, and she wraps her cold little fingers around mine. She opens her mouth and presses her face against the bars of the fence as she tries to pull me towards her. I pry my fingers loose, and then I reach into my pack, and I take out the stuffed animal I brought for her. I put it into her hands, and she closes her fingers around it and stares at it blankly. Then her dead eyes find me again, and the monkey falls from her fingers as they reach out for me once again.
“Blake,” Danielle pleads. Her hands grip my shoulders. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but we have to go.” Danielle helps me to my feet, and I step back.
“Wait,” I insist. I pull my arm free and remove the last magazine from my pocket and load the handgun. I try to look at Abby’s face once more, try to see her as she used to be. I search my mind for some good memory from before all this, but it’s too hard to block out what’s right in front of me. I raise the gun, but I can’t handle seeing what I am about to do. I look down, and my eyes settle on the stuffed animal that she had no reaction to at all. It all means nothing now. I’m all out of time, so, I pull the trigger.
I forget to breathe and stagger backward. Danielle puts an arm around me to help keep me on my feet. I just want her to leave me here. Let me sit down in the soft, cool grass and be done with everything.
“Don’t you give up on me now, Blake,” Danielle whispers. “I need you.”
Stitch appears beside me too, wagging his tail and licking my hand. He barks and picks up the stuffed animal off the ground and runs off, oblivious. “Stupid dog,” I mutter, but he doesn’t know how much I envy him.
“Give me a hand,” Danielle says.
A moment later, Quentin appears on the other side of me. “C’mon, boss,” he says. He puts an arm on my shoulder and turns me away from the fence. My legs still tremble, but I know it’s time to go. I turn my back on the last connection to my life and walk with them into the darkness.
I awake to the smell of fresh dew on the grass and lay beneath a blanket listening to the morning chatter of birds. The spring is almost over now and the farther we travel, the warmer the days get. I hear a faint rumble of thunder in the distance and decide to get up and get some chow ready in case it rains. I sit up and the nylon fabric of the tent rustles. Danielle murmurs softly beside me, but I pull the blanket up to cover her bare shoulder and she falls back asleep. I locate my shirt and pants and quietly unzip the tent and step out. Stitch emerges behind me, yawning and stretching his legs.
Fletcher sits watch at the base of an oak tree and nods to say good morning. I smile, then walk off to find a spot in the woods to take a piss and gather some kindling to start a fire. This has become my new morning routine.
I thought about ending everything the night I found Abby. No one would have blamed me, probably. In a sense, the person I was died that night anyway. I’m not that person anymore. None of us are. There’s no point living in the past when that life doesn’t exist anymore.
So we don’t talk about it. We give ourselves nicknames to help us forget who we were. It just makes things easier when you compartmentalize everything. That’s how you survive when you keep on losing people around you every day. Nothing is certain anymore, you just have to take your chances. And even then, it might not work out the way you thought it would.
The one thing I know how to do now that I never figured out before is to wake up each day and fight to hold on to what you’ve got. It might not be there tomorrow, and once it’s gone, you might never have it again.
I zip my pants up and wander through the trees. We stopped last night at this rundown campground across the road from an abandoned airfield in the middle of nowhere, Iowa. I pick up a couple of twigs for the fire, then I notice the campground office building and decide to check it out. There might be something useful, maybe some old instant coffee if I’m lucky.
“C’mon boy,” I call Stitch. He leaves a rock he was inspecting and runs to follow me through the woods.
A brass bell jingles over my head when I open the door, and I wait for any sounds or movement inside. Stitch sniffs at the air before he wanders inside. I step inside and stare at the empty shelves. Somebody cleaned this place out already. I check each aisle but whoever was here before was pretty thorough. I’m about to leave when I notice a couple of skinny cigarette butts on the floor. I squat down and get a closer look at the slim filters that are squished and flattened.
“It can’t be,” I shake my head. It has to be a coincidence. “What are the odds?” Dom might have made it out of the city alive. If she did, I’m not sure how I feel about that, or what I’d do if our paths cross again.
I step back outside and turn to walk back to our camp, but pause when I notice a couple of posts in the ground surrounded by beds of sand. I walk over to one of the posts and step on something hard buried just beneath the surface. I bend down and uncover a metal horseshoe. I pick it up and brush away the grains of sand. Maybe I will take it back to give to Danielle. It might bring us some luck.
Stitch whimpers behind me. He must be getting impatient for his breakfast.
“Alright, I’m coming, you stupid dog,” I mutter. I stand up and turn around to find Stitch staring in the direction of the airfield. He sniffs the air. The scruff bristles below his collar. He growls, low and steady, at the danger beyond the trees.
