Rise of the Dead (4 page)

“…avoid all contact with affected persons,” a robotic voice states. “Seek shelter immediately. Martial law will remain in effect until further notice. Stay in your homes and await further updates. This is not a test. A national state of emergency has been declared by FEMA and the CDC. An unexplained occurrence is causing bodies of the recently deceased to reanimate and attack the living. Citizens are advised to” The same message repeats again and again, but it doesn’t provide any information as to what is causing this or how they plan to stop it.

Joey opens a refrigerator in the kitchenette and starts poking around the meager contents. “I would have brought something for lunch if I knew I’d be fucking trapped in here all day,” he says. He removes a brown bag from a shelf and reaches inside. “Frank just brought a little microwave burrito and a fuzzy avocado or something.” He holds up a kiwi then tosses it back into the brown paper sack.

I realize by his disappointed expression the security guard isn’t trying to be funny. Quentin glances up from messing with the tuner on the radio to look at Joey. He shakes his head and goes back to twisting the dial.

“Poor Frank,” Joey laments. The kid stares at the items left behind by his deceased partner with a sorrowful expression. It took a while, but the loss of his buddy Frank is hitting home. That’s what it seems like until he says, “He never had anything good to eat for lunch.”

I stare at the kid in amazement as he closes the fridge and slumps down in a chair at the desk. It’s hard to believe someone can be so oblivious. He swivels from side to side in the rotating seat of the chair and spins his pistol around his finger by the trigger guard as we look on in fear. The kid looks around and realizes everyone is staring at him and stops spinning the pistol.

“What?” he asks.

“Are you really that stupid?” asks Dom. “Seriously. I can’t believe someone actually gave you a gun.” She smashes another thin cigarette filter into a nub, then drops it on the floor and flattens it with her foot.

Joey calmly slides the weapon back into the holster on his hip and watches until Dom turns her head away. Then he mutters to her back, “Lesbian.” Her face tightens with anger, but she refuses to acknowledge the comment. She just reaches for another long, skinny cigarette from the pack on the table.

Quentin gives up finding a different station, and so we listen to the radio repeat the same message again. The radio tells us to stay off the streets. I guess it makes as much sense as anything for now. We can’t stay here forever, though. There’s essentially no food or water. Eventually, we have to come up with some sort of plan. Instead of putting my fear and anxiety aside long enough to think rationally, I fidget and twist the platinum wedding band around and around on my finger. When I sit back in the chair and put my hands in my pocket, I feel my phone and check it again. It still has no signal. My eyes gaze at the background photo of my wife and daughter once more and then set the phone down on the table. I force my eyes closed and try to put all of that out of my mind. I need to focus.

“Why do you keep looking at your phone?” Danielle asks. Her eyes glance down at the screen of my phone.

“Just seeing if I have a signal,” I lie. I immediately realize that she isn’t buying it.

“Are they okay?” she asks. “Your family. I just happened to see the picture,” she adds by way of explanation.

“I don’t know,” I admit. I hand my phone to her so she can see the picture if she wants to. She looks at it for a long moment as if she is studying their faces.

“They look sweet,” she smiles.

“Yeah,” I sigh. I realize I sound a little annoyed. I notice creases forming above her brow, and realize her genuine concern and my voice softens. “Sorry. I’m just trying to figure out what to do next.”

“No, it’s fine,” she says. “It’s not my business anyway.”

“Shhh,” I say. Over her shoulder, I notice a shadow passing across the outside of the window.

Quentin flips the radio off and for the next hour, we hardly make a sound. At first, it seems like just a couple of them have managed to find their way through the racetrack to the security office. As more time passes, more and more shadows fall on the windows. I can’t understand what is drawing them close to the building.

Without air conditioning, the temperature climbs inside the cramped security office. It’s getting pretty uncomfortable, but we don’t dare open a window. Maybe they can smell us in here. Maybe that is what draws them. Who knows.

Morning drags into the afternoon, and when I peer through blinds again, I see around twenty corpses walking around. I realize they are probably wandering towards the sound of the police siren, heading towards the noise until they reach the closed gates and have nowhere to go. Occasionally, one stumbles into the building, and then we wait in horror for more sounds that indicate they are trying to get inside. I wonder how much longer we should stay here now. If they keep coming there will be more than we can handle soon. It’s just a matter of time before they discover we are inside this building.

“We need to come up with a plan before they figure out we’re in here,” I whisper.

“The radio said to stay off the streets,” Dom reminds me.

“Yeah, I know,” I concede. “It’s a risk we have to take. There’s no food or water here, and if we so much as sneeze those things will be all over us.”

“Alright then,” Quentin agrees. “You got someplace in mind?”

“No,” I admit. “We’re just going to have to see what we find out there. Let’s think one move at a time,” I say. “The most important things are water and food. Two blocks from here over the expressway, there’s a gas station.”

“We don’t need gas for the truck,” says Joey. “It’s full.”

“Damn, boy,” says Quentin. He shakes his head in frustration.

“They have food and water there,” I repeat. “At least, enough to last us a few days.”

“Might be people there too,” Quentin says. His tone indicates that people could be more trouble than anything else.

“It won’t be any safer there,” Danielle points out. “I’m really not sure about this.”

“I’m not going to say it isn’t risky,” I concede. “If anyone has another idea, I’m listening.”

I wait to hear out any other opinions, but no one has a better option.

“If we do this, we’re going to need more guns,” adds Quentin. “We won’t be getting very far with what we got.”

I can’t think of any store nearby that would have guns, but I remember the courthouse is a block in the other direction. There are always county sheriff patrol cars parked in the garage there.

“I have an idea for that,” I whisper. “The courthouse. There’s lots of vehicles. We can probably find some guns there too. We’ll go there first.”

“That’s in the opposite direction. How many stops are we planning on making here? What about waiting for help?” Dom asks. “I thought that was the plan?”

“The gates are closed on this side of the park. They’re collecting outside like fish in the bottom of a net,” I say. I peer out the edge of the window and count about 40 corpses outside now. “There’s already twice as many as there was an hour ago. The longer we wait, the more there will be outside when we try to leave.”

“Unless we give them something to chase away from here,” Quentin rubs at the goatee on his chin as he thinks. He stands up and takes a look at the truck outside. “I think I have an idea.”

Four

The door to the security building flings open and Quentin steps out, firing off three rounds to the left. He whirls around to the right and fires three more quick shots, then moves to cover the back of the truck. I take a deep breath and charge out behind him, expecting the dead to be right on top of us. I glance around and realize Quentin has already dropped any corpse near the doorway. There are half a dozen bodies sprawled on the ground. The guy didn’t even waste a single bullet.

“Damn,” I gasp. For a moment, I lose focus and just watch him put down several more of the undead. The guy makes it look so easy.

“Watch my six,” Quentin barks between shots.

“What?” I scream.

Quentin stops shooting. “My back! Watch my back.”

I move to the front of the security vehicle and can feel the eyes of the approaching dead fix on me. Joey dashes between us and fumbles with the keys to open the door of the truck. I raise the gun and aim at a chubby Hispanic guy dressed in a uniform from a fast food burger joint. A greasy white apron smeared with wet blood hangs from his neck. My first shot misses the guy completely, but somehow takes out a corpse ten feet behind him. I aim for the stupid, pointy paper hat on his head and shoot again. The next shot tears a hole in his shoulder. As bad as I am shooting, I feel like I am getting the hang of handling a gun. I fire again and hit him right where his heart should be. Then I shoot him in the leg. The corpse collapses from the last shot, but it keeps crawling towards me. I finally put a round through the paper hat and it explodes like a packet of ketchup. The damn thing finally collapses on the pavement and stops moving.

I glance around at the other undead, realizing they are getting too close. My eyes keep returning to the body on the ground. With my aim, I don’t have time to waste. There are still dozens of corpses shuffling around the body of the cook. I point the gun at the closest of the dead, a redhead in a floral dress, but can’t pull the trigger for some reason. Now, I know damn well that cook was dead before I shot him, but putting a bullet in someone still feels so wrong. I never killed anything before, except a few houseflies or a spider. Maybe this isn’t any different, but it sure does bother me a whole lot more than squashing a bug. I try to steady my hand and take the shot, but before I do the head of the woman snaps back, and she collapses to the ground.

“What the fuck you doing?” Quentin roars. He stands next to me, loading a full magazine into his handgun, his eyes darting from left to right.

“My gun jammed,” I stammer. I can be such a liar sometimes. Especially when I don’t want to seem weak.

Quentin looks down at the gun in my hands and scowls. He pulls back the slide of his pistol and fires off several more rounds into the approaching dead. The truck engine roars to life as the mob of corpses close around us. I tap Quentin on the shoulder, then retreat inside the security office. He keeps firing as he backs through the doorway, then slams the door shut as the first corpse lunges at him. Quentin leans back against the door as the dead moan and pound away at the steel. The banging sounds cease after several seconds. The moans of the dead fade to a distant murmur.

After a few moments of silence, I peer through the blinds. Joey eases the truck away even though several corpses claw at the vehicle. A few stragglers remain in the vicinity of the security office until Joey honks the horn. The sound helps draw the rest of them away. Then I notice the dead body of the cook again. He might have been a bastard for all I know, but nobody deserves to go out like that. I don’t know why, but I imagine what his life was like. I always beat myself up with stupid thoughts like that when someone dies. Even someone I never met. It’s like I feel guilty for not giving a damn about anyone until it’s too late.

“What the hell was that all about?” Quentin asks me. His voice startles me, and I pull my hand away from the blinds. He scrutinizes me through narrowed eyes for a moment, then drops his gaze to the floor and shakes his head. “I thought you knew how to handle a gun.”

“Just want to figure out what it takes to stop those things,” I lie. “Now we know we have to go for the head.”

Quentin sighs and massages at the muscles on the back of his neck. “Next time do me a favor and let me know before you go and do something stupid like that,” he pleads. “You feel me?”

“Sure,” I agree. After his shooting display outside, this is not a guy I want to piss off.

Several long minutes pass. We wait and listen for the sound of the truck approaching.

“What’s taking him so long?” Dom complains.

“Something must have gone wrong,” Quentin whispers. “We should move while it’s still clear.”

“Shhh,” urges Danielle. She cocks her head to one side and listens.

I hear the distant squeal of tires, followed by the roar of the engine. The tires squeal again when Joey slams on the brakes and the truck skids to a stop outside the security office. I push through the door and move to cover the front of the truck. The plan worked better than I hoped. The area surrounding the office is entirely clear of the dead. Quentin slides around to cover the rear of the truck. Dom and Danielle heave a couple of duffel bags of supplies into the trunk. As soon as they close the hatch, Quentin hops in the passenger seat, and the rest of us crowd into the back. Joey floors the gas pedal, veers right and accelerates towards the fence. I clench the front seats and brace for the impact.

The security truck plows through the metal, tearing fence posts out of the ground. Once we clear the fence, Joey wheels the truck hard to the left to make for the road. The uneven ground of the field is full of holes and mounds of dirt. The truck bottoms out several times and I feel the undercarriage scrape against the ground. The violent movements toss us out of our seats. I grip the armrest on the door and hang on for dear life.

The truck hops over the curb and onto the street, and then Joey swerves left towards the courthouse. The rims start to grind against the pavement. At least one of the tires is flat, and we are half a mile to the courthouse. I think the truck can make it, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Somehow when we get to the parking garage, we have to find another car, or we’re screwed.

The undead alongside the road notice the noise of our vehicle approaching. They lurch into the street, reaching for the truck as we pass. Dead bodies lie strewn across the road like speed bumps. Some have tread marks on their clothes from vehicles crushing them once or twice. They drag their mangled bodies through the streets. Joey weaves between them when possible, but rolls over them when necessary. I cringe at the sound of their bones cracking beneath the vehicle.

Joey swerves to avoid an abandoned blue Volvo station wagon parked sideways in the middle of the road. As we pass, I notice someone sit up in the drivers seat. I turn and look back to see the window roll down enough for a hand to stick out and wave at us. Whoever that was in there, they were alive. I think about telling Joey to stop and go back, but I don’t. Our car is full, and one of our tires is flat. We can’t risk stopping, not for anything.

The courthouse is a few hundred yards ahead, but a long line of abandoned cars blocks the entrance. There are only a few wrecks in the opposite lane, so Joey cuts across, driving over broken glass and blood stains. Joey takes a hard right back through the cars and clips the front end of a cherry red Porsche to squeeze into the entrance.

Dead bodies in orange jumpsuits with their hands cuffed together wander around   outside the courthouse. Maybe this won’t be so difficult after all. Joey cuts a right turn into the first floor of the parking garage. There are plenty of parked cars up and down the aisles. Most of the owners never made it out to them.

“What now?” asks Quentin. “Should we just start checking doors?”

“Keep driving around,” I tell Joey. “Find a dead cop to run over.”

“Oh man,” Joey says. He turns the truck, following the signs on the ceiling toward the next level of parking. “Do you even realize how crazy that sounds?”

As we turn up the incline to the second level, the running lights of the truck shine on a corpse wearing a police uniform. The cop crouches over the body of a man in, what used to be, a nice suit. Joey puts his foot on the brake and stops the truck.

“Do it,” I urge him.

Joey punches the gas and I shut my eyes and wait for the inevitable sound of metal crushing bone. When I open my eyes, I see blood splattered across the windshield. Joey slams his foot on the brake. Quentin is the first one to jump out of the car. He walks over to a female corpse crawling between two parked cars alongside us and fires off two rounds. The sound is like explosives in the confines of the concrete parking structure. It won’t take long before we have a lot of company in here.

I get out and head back to the body of the cop. Danielle, Dom, and Joey start to get out of the truck, but I tell Joey to keep it running and stay behind the wheel. I don’t want to abandon the truck until I know we have another vehicle.

“Hurry up,” urges Quentin. He looks up and down the aisle of the parking garage, then reaches down and retrieves a purse from the ground and dumps the contents out on the cement.

I kneel down next to the uniformed body. The knees of my pants quickly soak in the puddle of blood. I try to ignore the bloody mess that used to be the head of a human being while I slide the gun from the holster. Then I start digging through his pockets. My hands close around a clump of hard plastic and ridged metal.

“Got them,” I say.

Bright yellow lights flash in my peripheral vision. I look up and see Quentin clicking the remote key that unlocks a silver Mercedes-Benz M-Class SUV parked a few feet away. I punch the buttons on the keys I took off the cop, and a squad car back down on the first level chirps in response. When I turn my head to look at Quentin, I notice half a dozen corpses are at the bottom of the ramp, making their way up towards us.

“We’ll take the Benz,” I tell Quentin. “We can get the squad car on the way out.”

Quentin gets behind the wheel, and I wave the others over from the security truck. Quentin steers the SUV up the incline, loops around the second level, then follows the signs back down to the first floor. The walking dead that pursued us are halfway up the adjacent incline. They turn when they see our car heading down the next row and follow us back down to the first level. I hit the remote start on the car keys I took from the cop.

“I see it,” Quentin points to a handful of squad cars parked in a row. Only one of the police units has illuminated taillights. He brings the SUV to a rolling stop. I hop out the door and dash the four or five steps to the cruiser. I reach for the handle but stop to duck when I hear a gunshot. I look back to see Quentin leaning out the SUV window and pointing the gun at a corpse that collapses in front of the Mercedes.

The dead are swarming toward the parking garage now. As soon as I open the door of the police cruiser, Quentin hits the gas again. The SUV barrels through a pair of dead cops that flail at the windows.

I throw the squad car in reverse and back it out of the garage. The crowd of walking dead proves too dense to weave the vehicle through, especially backward. I can only watch as several corpses vanish under the trunk. The wheels rumble over the bodies and jostle me in the seat. Once I am out in the entry drive, I throw the car in gear and press the gas pedal down to the floor. The powerful engine pushes me back in the seat. I catch up to the Mercedes as they reach the main street and hook a left.

We speed passed the gridlock of abandoned cars. My hands are slick with sweat and shaking as they hold the steering wheel. I try to take a deep breath to calm my nerves, but the adrenaline rush still has my heart pounding. When I pass by the blue Volvo, I remember the figure in the car. I glance at the rearview mirror, and I see the hand waving from a crack in the window. I take my foot off the gas and watch the Mercedes pulling farther away from me.

“Damn it,” I curse myself for deciding to do something stupid that could get me killed. I hit the brake and wheel the cruiser around and roll up beside the Volvo. There is a young girl alone in the car, maybe thirteen or fourteen. She ducks down beneath the window as I stop the car, but I can still see the dark brown on top of her head. There are not any walking dead close by, but I still don’t like the idea of getting out of the car here alone. I press the button to lower the passenger side window.

“Quick,” I tell her. “Get in.”

The girl peers over the frame of the door and scans the street with her frightened brown eyes. Then she looks at the letters on the side of the squad car. Without a word, she opens the door and steps out of the car. She pauses before touching the handle of the passenger door of the cruiser.

“Come on, kid,” I urge her.

The girl looks at my blood-soaked clothes and realizes I am definitely not a cop. She whirls away and darts back through the door of the Volvo. Damn it.

A couple of corpses in the middle of the road are starting to get a little too close. There is no time to try and reason with her. I fling open the door and run around the cruiser. Just before she slaps her hand on the lock, I rip open the door of the Volvo. The girl screams when I reach into the car and drag her out.

“Easy,” I sooth, but the girl howls at the top of her lungs.

I pull her by the arms until I can get her out of the car enough to put her over my shoulder. Her elbow smacks the back of my head as she flails. I know I am scaring the hell out of her right now, but it is either this or leaving her here to die.