by Sourav Deka
Dad nodded. “Let bygones be bygones.”
Tanner smiled. “Thank you. You are all welcome here. We are here to start over again, you know to restart human civilization.”
“Yeah, Ross told us,” mom said. “You are doing a great job. I hope the world heals.”
“It will,” he jammed his hands in his pockets. “We will populate the earth again by bringing back people from the dead.”
Dad raised his eyebrows trying to process what he said. “What?”
“Yes, we have Ambrose here. He is making the reanimation drink. We can bring back as many people we want.”
“What???” Dad’s eyes widened. “You have Ambrose?”
Tanner’s forehead furrowed. “Didn’t Ross tell you?”
“I was going to tell you about him, dad,” I said.
Dad’s face reddened. “Where is he? I am going to kill him.”
“No, dad, we need him.”
A line etched between his eyebrows. “What?”
“Yes, he is the one who knows how to make the reanimation drink. We need him, for now.”
“He tortured us,” mom said, clenching her fists. “Killed us.”
“I know, mom, I know,” I gulped and grabbed her shoulders trying to calm her down. “I want to kill him too, but it’s bigger than that. We need to save the world, start over, bring back people from death and for that to happen we need Ambrose.”
“He is right,” Tanner said. “I would have killed him till now. He started this apocalypse. But his survival is important.”
“Why don’t you get the recipe for the reanimation drink from him?” dad said. “Torture him. He will give it to you.”
“No, we can’t risk that,” Tanner said. “If he dies somehow, we would lose our hope to fix the world forever.”
“Yes, dad. I know you are angry,” I put my hand on his shoulder. “But he has to survive. He has to fix the mess he made in this world.”
Dad pressed his lips. “I just…………………”
Mom grabbed dad’s hand. “Let it go, Richard,” she said.
“But he killed us…………”
“I know,” mom said softly. “But they are right, we need him for now. It’s bigger than us. We have to control our feelings. It’s about fixing everything he messed up.”
Aaron was inside his home with Rowena. He heard us talking and came outside. His face glowed when he saw mom and dad. Tears shimmered in his eyes as he smiled. He ran towards them and hugged them. It was a beautiful moment. Our family was reunited once again.
“You two must be hungry,” Michael said.
Dad nodded. “Yeah, we have been dead.”
Tanner chuckled. “Come, we will have dinner.”
After a long time I got to have dinner with my family. It felt like the old days came back. We were happy. Our parents were back and we were a family again. Ambrose didn’t show up. He hid in his house, ashamed and scared of what mom and dad would do if he shows up.
Luke’s parents thanked me for looking after their kid. It felt good to see the kid smile. He has been through a lot. Now he could feel safe, feel loved with his parents.
***********************
We planned to bring back more people from the dead, but we couldn’t trust anyone. How would we choose whom to bring back from dead? What if the person turns out to be evil? He may destroy everything we have in the camp. So we had to think about that. Michael, Tanner and I gathered at Tanner’s house to discuss on that matter.
“So, how about we make a separate place for the new ones?” Michael suggested.
I bit my lower lip. “That’s a good idea. We can do that,” I looked at Tanner. “Right, Tanner?”
Tanner nodded. “Yeah, we can build some houses outside our territory and make them live there.”
“That way they won’t be able to enter our camp and live there until we are sure that they are good.”
“Yes, they have to earn our trust first,” Michael said. “We can’t trust anyone. Before this, a lot of people went crazy. Everyone was fighting each other for resources. If that starts happening here, we will be back to square one,” he sighed. “Everything we have worked for will be gone.”
I nodded. “Yeah, let’s start with building houses outside our camp.”
We gathered some woods and started building houses outside our camp territory. In a week, we built ten of them enough to support about fifty people. It was now time to bring back dead people, so we went to my hometown and started from there.
We went to the first home we saw and started reanimating dead bodies.
A skinny guy with blonde hair was formed. “Who are you? What happened?” he shivered.
“It’s okay. We brought you back,” I said.
His forehead creased. “Brought me back?”
“You were dead?”
His eyes widened. “What?????”
“Yes, we brought you back from the dead. What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I………………I………” he scratched his head. “I was watching television, some show, ah………….I don’t remember…..which one. Then some people broke into my home and……………..yeah, and they attacked me. Hit me with a baseball bat on my head.”
I patted his back. “You are fine now. We are here to help you.”
“Help me???”
“Yes, you are going to live. We are bringing people back from the dead, trying to restart human civilization. We also have a camp.”
“Camp?”
“Yes,” I put my hand over his shoulder. “We will take you there. They have food, water, shelter every necessary thing you would need.”
Michael gave him a blanket to cover his body.
“Let’s go,” he said, wrapping the blanket around his body.
“No, we have to reanimate some more dead people like you first. Then we will head towards our camp.”
He nodded and stood up.
Michael and I brought a lot of people back from dead. Everyone was confused when they came back, but I explained everything to them. We didn’t have enough blankets to provide them so we started giving old clothes that we found in some shops which weren’t fully destroyed. Till evening, we brought about forty people back from the dead. It was a good start. We took them all back to our camp. Tanner was eagerly waiting for us at the gate.
“Who is he?” one of the people asked pointing his finger towards Tanner.
“He is the guy who runs this place,” I said.
“Oh.”
“Hello everyone,” Tanner said, clasping his hands. “I am Roland Tanner. I run this place. Congratulations on coming back from dead,” he gave a smile. “We have made houses for you. You can stay there, grow crops, harvest water, we will help you.”
“What happened to the world? Is everyone dead?” One of the girls asked.
“Most of the people, yeah, that’s why we are trying to rebuild everything. This is the start of a new civilization and you are a part of it.”
“Why are our houses outside your camp?” one of them asked.
“You are new. We have to know each other first. So it is best that you all live outside our camp. It’s just for the safety of my people, no offence.”
“But we are harmless,” another one said.
Tanner nodded lightly. “Yes, maybe you are. But we need time. As I said we have to get to know each other first. Later we will expand our camp territory. This is just a precaution guys, nothing else,” he widened his hands. “Welcome to Tanner’s camp.”
All of them agreed to live outside the camp. We helped them settle there and gave them enough resources. They worked on our farms, helped us gather woods and all the camp related works. It was going well. They were doing their part and were living peacefully.
We wanted to bring more people from the dead but we decided to wait as we needed more resources. So we planned to increase our productivity. Within a couple of weeks we were going to produce more resources to suppo
rt more people. After that we would go to bring more people from the dead.
****************************
A few days passed. I was resting in my wooden house. Tanner knocked on the door.
“Who?” I said.
“Tanner,” he replied.
“Come in.”
Tanner opened the door and entered the room.
“What’s up?”
He pressed his lips. “Ross, I think we have a problem.”
“What happened?”
“My people that I sent to Jonas’s camp didn't come back,” he rubbed his temples. “It’s been over a month. They should have returned till now.”
“They didn’t?”
He shook his head and put his hands on his waist. “Something is wrong.”
“Then we should go check it out.”
“Yeah, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. We are leaving in an hour. I told Michael to gather some people from the camp.”
“Okay, see you in an hour.”
Michael gathered some people from the camp who wanted to join us. We all gathered at the gate after an hour. Aaron also joined me, this time he wanted to go. After all these days Rowena was feeling better. Mom talked to her and helped her grieve. Aaron hasn’t left the camp for days, so he thought he should go on this.
We all left for Jonas’s camp in our vehicles. I was worried. What happened to those people? Why Tanner’s people didn’t come back? Was Jonas alive? No, that can’t happen. I saw Tanner kill him. There was no chance that he would survive that. What about his guards? Did they come back? All the way, many questions were roaming in my mind.
***************************
We reached the camp after an hour. It was all quiet. All the workers and Tanner’s people were lying dead. It was a massacre. There was blood everywhere. It looked like they died a few days ago. Their bodies stank, it was so bad that I covered my mouth with my handkerchief. Crows were feeding on the dead bodies.
“They are all dead,” Tanner said tonelessly looking at the dead bodies.
“It’s Jonas, he isn’t dead,” I said.
He shook his head. “No, he died.”
“Then who would do this?”
“It should be Stan, that muscular guy. You told me he was a warlock, right? He might have done the body protection spell before he died. He might have come back.”
I nodded. “Yeah. It’s possible.”
Tanner looked at his people. “Search the area, take whatever you can.”
I was surprised by what he said. “That’s it?” I said.
“What do you want me to do?” he shrugged. “They are all dead. We can’t do anything for them now. Let’s grab what we can and leave.”
“We should take over this camp?” Michael said.
Tanner raised his eyebrows. “What? That’s why I sent these people here. Look what happened. We can’t do it again until we find who killed them, maybe it’s Stan, maybe it’s Jonas’s ghost or whatever. We have to first deal with the person who did this.”
“But we don’t really know who did this. If we bring more people here, increase the security, then…….”
“No,” Tanner interrupted Michael. “They are dead. I can’t lose more people. We are not taking over this camp,” he sighed. “We have to be careful. Whoever did this may attack our camp too.”
I nodded. “Tanner is right.”
We all searched around and gathered everything we could. There was some food, clothes and some tools. I checked the armory. The weapons were gone. Whoever killed all those people knew about the armory. It was definitely someone from there, someone who came back from dead. I wanted to suggest the idea of bringing the workers back, but we didn’t have enough resources and we wouldn’t be able to help them live. It wasn’t the right time, but we needed to know who killed them. I had some reanimation drinks on my bag. I thought I should bring back at least one of the workers. He can tell us who did this. So I took out a reanimation drink and poured over one dead worker lying on the ground.
“What the hell are you doing?” Tanner said, coming towards me.
“I am bringing some of them back,” I said.
“But we don’t have enough resources.”
“We have some to support about five people. We can do it.”
The dead worker healed in a couple of seconds. He stared at me. “Ross,” he said as his lips trembled.
“Hey, what happened here?” I grabbed his arm. “Who killed you?”
He scratched his head. “It was…………………….”
A bullet went through his head and he died before he could speak. His blood splashed into my face. I turned around to see who it was. Another bullet was fired and it hit my arm.
“Ambush!” Tanner shouted. “Hide!”
Everyone ran towards the house to hide, but Tanner stayed as he had the watch. He looked around to find out who fired the shot but before he could notice anyone, three grenades were thrown near him, it blew up and Tanner fainted. The grenades’ force made him crash into the wall. It didn’t kill him but it knocked him out as he was wearing the magical watch. His clothes were torn apart a bit. I was lying on the ground holding my wounded arm applying pressure trying to stop the blood. Michael and Aaron came running towards me to help. But before they could reach me they were shot in their back. Both of them fell and groaned as sand got in their eyes.
“No!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I yelled and ran towards them.
I was shot in the chest and fell gasping for breath. Michael was also struggling, groaning on the ground. Aaron was trying to crawl towards me panting. I looked at the gate, it was Jonas. He was standing at a distance aiming his gun at me. All of his guards were alive, standing behind him. He walked towards me and half smiled. “Hello Ross, this game is not over yet,” he kicked me on the head.
I groaned, trying to crawl out of there. Michael and Aaron were also doing the same, but we were hurt. We could barely move. We were bleeding.
“Goodbye Ross, it was nice knowing you,” Jonas reloaded his gun and pointed it at me. Just then someone shot one of Jonas’s men. Jonas was startled. He looked around. “Who is it?” he shouted. Another shot was fired and one of his men died. We saw a large group of people entering the camp. There were dozens of them. I recognized two of them. It was Nathan and Ethan from school. They survived this crisis. All of them had guns and were shooting at Jonas’s men. Jonas knew there were a lot of them, he and his men couldn’t take out all of them. So he and his men ran away. After they left, our people who were hiding came out of the house. Tanner also gained consciousness.
Tanner rushed towards me. “Oh god! Don’t worry, we have doctors in my camp,” he said.
I was feeling weak and cold. I tried to stay awake, but my arms and chest were hurting. It was too much. I bled a lot. Ethan, Nathan and their people came running towards me to help. My vision became blurry and I passed out.
CHAPTER 14
I woke up at my house in the camp. Mom, dad and Luke were sitting beside me. I was stitched up in my chest and arms.
“Thank god!” mom said. Her face lit up with a smile and she wiped her tears.
I tried to get up but it hurt.
“No, no, don’t get up,” dad said. “The doc said that you should rest.”
“You are okay,” Luke said. “I knew you would survive.”
I tried to smile.
Luke went outside to call Tanner, to tell him that I woke up. I bent my head. Aaron was lying unconscious on the next bed and Michael on another bed next to him. They were also patched up like me. I guess I woke up first.
“They haven’t gained consciousness,” Dad said. “I am worried…………………..”
“They are strong dad,” I interrupted him. “Nothing will happen to them. They will wake up.”
Tanner entered the room. He was relieved to see me awake. “Oh Ross! Thank god!” he sat beside my bed.
“What happened after I was knocked out?” I asked.
“Courgers?”
He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what they call themselves. I mean their camp, I guess.”
“Who?”
“Those people who saved us, who made Jonas and his men run away,” he sighed and looked down. “If they wouldn’t have been there we all could have died.”
“I saw two guys from my school, Nathan and Ethan.”
“Yeah they are from courgers. They have a camp seven miles away.”
Nathan and Ethan entered the room. I guess Luke told them too. Their appearance hasn’t changed, they looked the same like the last time I have seen them in school.
“Hey man,” Nathan sat beside me.
“Thank god, you are okay,” Ethan said.
I nodded lightly. “Thanks to you. If you wouldn’t have been there we could have died. How did you find us?”
“We were scavenging for food. We do it every Friday.”
“Scavenging?”
“Yeah, we have farms and all but it’s better to have some more food.”
I smiled. “It was nice to see you guys again, I thought you were…………………..”
“Dead?” Nathan chuckled. “We were lucky that Courgers found us. They saved us,” he pressed his lips. “But unfortunately our parents couldn’t make it.”
“Yeah,” Ethan jammed his hands in his pockets. “If Courgers would have found us sooner our parents would have been alive.”
“It’s okay, you can get them back,” I said.
“What?” Nathan’s eyes widened.
“Yeah, we have reanimation drinks.”
His face glowed. “Really?”
“Yes, you can bring them back. I even brought my parents back, look,” I gestured my head towards my parents sitting beside me.
“That’s great man!” he exclaimed. “Where are those drinks?”
“I will get you the drinks, don’t worry,” Tanner said.
Nathan and Ethan were very happy to know that we had reanimation drinks. They would see their parents again.
“Thank god, we met you today man,” Nathan patted my shoulder.
