Rise (Book 3): Dead Inside

by Gareth Wood

  "We should go now. The shots will bring more of them," he said, aware that the decision was hers, not his to make.

  "Yeah, I think you're right. We got a lot of stuff, so let's call it a day."

  No more of the dead came looking for them, so after a few minutes she took out her earplugs and collected her spent brass casings, then cautiously approached the door and looked over the bodies. Three women and five men, all were naked or near to it, and filthy. Most of the undead were naked now, nearly nine years after they had first risen from death. Clothing just was not meant to last so long, and most clothes the undead were wearing had fallen apart within a few years.

  Nick and Robyn stepped over the bodies and went to retrieve the packs they had dropped at the far end of the hospital hallway. It was dark inside the Riverview Hospital, but enough light filtered in from windows in patient rooms and from the occasional hole in the wall that they could see fairly well. Both had a flashlight for especially dark places, but batteries were worth more than ammunition these days, so they used them sparingly.

  They found the packs where they had dropped them, on the floor beside a nursing station. Robyn quickly opened hers, but none of the supplies inside had been damaged. The dead had no interest in the bag or the medical supplies inside it, only in consuming any living flesh they could catch. She stood and listened for a few more moments, but heard nothing but her own breathing.

  Nine years ago Robyn had been an astrophysics student at the University of British Columbia, learning about the Big Bang, the particles that made up the cosmos, and the underlying theories that tied the universe together. Then in mid-May of 2004 the world ended. From May thirteenth of that year the grave no longer held the dead, and the things that had once been living people spread rapidly around the world, their sole aim to devour living flesh. Robyn found herself among strangers, part of a small group struggling to survive on the University Endowment Lands at the western end of the city of Vancouver. She learned to grow food in greenhouses, how to purify water from tainted sources, and also how to kill. The group survived behind the walls and fences for almost a year before the undead found a way in. In the aftermath of the carnage that followed, only Robyn and two others survived to flee into the interior. Thirty living people had died in a single night of slaughter and horrific feeding.

  Robyn hauled the heavy pack onto her back and moved to the stairwell she and Nick had climbed to get here. They descended quickly and quietly in the darkness, listening often for any sounds of shuffling feet or hungry moaning, but there was nothing. At the ground floor she edged the door open a hair and peeked outside. Nothing stirred, so Robyn slipped out. Nick followed and let the door swing shut. They stood in the parking lot between two wings of the hospital, a small area jammed with the rusting hulks of abandoned cars and trucks. Beside the emergency entrance, off to the right, was an ambulance resting on its rims, all of its doors wide open. She could see a wheeled stretcher lying on its side there, thankfully empty. She walked out between the cars until she came to the edge of the lot, and looked down a small hillside to the highway at the bottom. Nick followed like a puppy afraid of being left behind.

  The Lougheed Highway was a north to south connector road that linked the cities of Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam to the Trans-Canada Highway just a few kilometers to the south. It was four lanes of high speed traffic corridor, all of it at a standstill now. Cracks in the road were home to young trees, new saplings and weeds, and the grass on the lawns had been overgrown for years now, a thick green mat that stood hip-high. Beyond the road was a line of mature trees, mostly maple and ash, but some rainforest conifers were mixed in. Behind that, out of sight, was the small Coquitlam River, a tributary that fed the much larger Fraser River that flowed into the Pacific.

  They kept low as they approached the road. Robyn crouched beside a rusting Hyundai and pulled out a small set of binoculars to survey the highway. To the south the road was clogged with a wide assortment of commuter cars, delivery trucks and vans, and the occasional motorcycle. There was movement several hundred meters away, and Robyn trained the binoculars there with one hand while pushing hair away from her face with the other.

  A single figure walked between the vehicles, not looking into them as a scavenger would have done, but merely walking slowly in her direction. It was alone, as far as she could see, and far enough away to avoid easily. She focused and could make out the damage to the dead man's torso. It looked like the man had been run over by a lawn mower; strips of pallid grey flesh hung from his ribs and flapped as he walked. Robyn grimaced and looked away.

  Just to the north an eighteen wheeler had crashed and burned, completely blocking the northbound lanes. There were no vehicles on the road beyond it for nearly a kilometer. The road was also empty of the undead for as far as she could see. She sighed in relief, since she had been half expecting a swarm to be waiting for them after having to kill the eight upstairs. Noise and motion attracted the undead.

  "Looks like we got lucky," she said to Nick. "Let's get going."

  "Fine with me," he said.

  Nick was a tall and skinny young man of nineteen, just old enough to have adult height, but not old enough to have filled out as much as he eventually would. With his light hair and long limbs he reminded Robyn of musicians she had known or admired in her youth. He was nervous, though. He obviously didn't like being outside the Safe Zone. His choice of career was puzzling, then. Being a scavenger meant you were outside a lot. She hoped it was just nerves, since that could be dealt with and would fade over time as he got used to things outside the walls. If he was phobic, that was another matter.

  Robyn had lost whatever fear of the undead she had years ago. She regarded them with pity, they were a dangerous hazard to avoid, could be deadly in numbers, and were a severe health risk, but she didn't fear them. Many of the scavengers she knew and the work crews who ventured outside of the Safe Zone felt the same way. They respected the danger that the zombies presented, and were very careful whenever they ventured outside the walls, but the fear had long been pushed down by familiarity. Eight years of dealing with them had been a very long time to adapt to the conditions of life and death in this new world.

  Robyn stood and lifted the pack to her shoulders, stowed the binoculars, and picked up her rifle. The two of them slid down the slope toward the highway and passed a reasonably clean car window. Robyn caught a reflection of herself as she passed. She was a taller than the average woman, with long black hair, the heritage of a Cree grandmother. Not as tall as Nick, but still a decent height. She had brown eyes and a sharp nose, and features that might be called pretty, but she had never thought of herself as beautiful. She was dressed, as Nick was, in a combination of civilian and military gear. She wore a sweat stained blue shirt with long sleeves, a colour people told her looked good on her, with a military mesh vest that had hooks and straps in useful places. She wore a black baseball cap with a Nike logo on it, and thin leather gloves. Camouflage pants with many pockets and sturdy brown boots she had retrieved from a ruined Work Warehouse a few months ago completed her attire.

  They had left a pair of bicycles just north of the wrecked eighteen-wheeler, and it would be several hours ride to get back to the Safe Zone, nearly forty-five kilometers away. She glanced at her watch, a precious winding model from the time before the end of the world, and saw that they probably had enough time to get home if they left right away. If they didn't run into trouble, that was. Otherwise they might have to stay out overnight, in one of the safe houses established within a few kilometers of the walls for just that purpose. It was far better to be in shelter after dark, rather than wandering blindly where any dead thing might stumble into you. Certainly, using lights after dark was suicide if you were outside the walls. Light and noise drew the dead like moths to a flame.

  Maybe we should head to the river, she thought, but there was no guarantee that any river traffic would be by today for them to catch a ride. Riverboats moved up and down the
Fraser River between the Mission Safe Zone and the ruins of the big coastal cities, Vancouver on the north bank and Richmond on the south, ferrying salvagers and explorers, and maintaining contact with the surviving communities on the islands of the Georgia Straight, the ocean channel between Vancouver Island and the mainland. The boats didn't keep anything resembling a regular schedule.

  The bicycles were weathered mountain bikes with still-decent tires and good brakes. A small trailer was attached behind Robyn's, filled with some valuable medical devices they had scavenged earlier in the day. There were a few pressure cuffs, three unopened boxes of latex gloves, as well as a small autoclave, and she strapped the pack into the trailer beside it. In the pack were scalpels and suture kits, bottles of alcohol, bandages of many sizes, and nearly fifty bottles of medicines. Robyn didn't know what all the pills and liquids were, or even if they were still any good after so long, but there were several doctors back in the Safe Zone who would know, and they would be glad to have the drugs, whatever they were. Nick wore his pack on his back as he sat on his bike. His pack held more medicines and a valuable pair of books on surgical techniques.

  Robyn slid her rifle into its leather travelling sheath in front of the handlebars, climbed on, and led the way toward home.

  * * *

  Well shit, Robyn thought a few hours later, looks like we have to stay out tonight.

  She lay beside a ruined car, peeking around the twisted metal roof, which had been torn off the wreck and dropped on the ground. The older model Civic was peeled open like a can of sardines. It had slid underneath another trailer on the highway only ten kilometers from the Safe Zone, and a headless skeleton inside the passenger compartment was proof that the accident had ended badly for someone. Both the car and the wreckage of the semi-trailer had been pushed off the highway several years ago by one of the road crews, to rust in the ditch between the pavement and the river, which ran just to the south here. If she looked to the river she could see Crescent Island, an uninhabited sand bar with a few trees growing on it. Her attention was instead on the small swarm of the undead around three hundred meters ahead of her.

  The walking corpses hadn't been there this morning when she and Nick had ridden out. Robyn did a quick head count, and estimated over sixty. They were spread across the road where Highway 7 and 280th Street met, and up onto the embankment on the north side. There were even a few standing in the yard of a burned out house, near a stand of young trees.

  Where had they come from?

  It was an important question, and a group this size so near to the Safe Zone was a real hazard. A group of volunteers would have to be raised to remove them. To be done safely it would require a lot of vehicles and a lot of ammunition.

  Highway 7 was swept fairly often to keep it safe for travelers. A convoy of six or seven vehicles would drive west as far as Maple Ridge, and as far east as within sight of Chilliwack, killing any wandering zombies they encountered and burning the remains. In the last four years they hadn't found any group larger than twenty. The undead were fairly rare in this area, and it was uncommon to see a group of any size.

  Closer to the coast it was a very different story. The cities of Vancouver and Burnaby, as well as the satellite cities around them, were literally crawling with the undead. It was thought that the city of Vancouver itself held just over one hundred and forty thousand zombies. Burnaby held around ninety thousand, and the other cities in the Greater Vancouver region held another three or four hundred thousand between them. The estimates suggested that there could be nearly six hundred and fifty thousand zombies in the area.

  The land between Maple Ridge and the Mission Safe Zone was reasonably clear, but whether this was by good luck or good planning Robyn didn't know. 'Reasonably clear' could mean a lot of things.

  Robyn shook her head and crawled backward until the ruined car was between her and the swarm then checked her watch. Sunset was only an hour away. It had taken them too long to get this far. She considered their options.

  They could go back to 272nd Street and go north, cut east across the narrow and nearly overgrown residential roads toward the golf course that bordered Silvermere Lake, and try finding the right road back to Highway 7 on the other side, but that could take hours. So no, that wasn't an option. She looked at the river on her right, checking for boats, but there were none and probably wouldn't be until morning now.

  That left the safe house they had passed half an hour ago. The huge red painted sign had pointed to a house on the banks of the river, and other large signs had been placed all around it advertising it as a safe house for any salvager or wandering survivor to take advantage of in time of need. The requirements for a safe house were specific. It had to be easy to get to, have a wood burning fireplace, and be easy to flee from if it was breached. All the houses that Mission maintained were fenced in chain link, had all of the lower floor windows boarded up behind two sheets of weather resistant plywood, had a two week supply of firewood, food and water, and were provided with a radio that could be used to talk to someone in Mission.

  She stood up and walked back to where Nick was waiting. The two bikes were standing on kickstands, and he looked very serious as he watched the area around them. Part of his job was watching her back while she did things like scout ahead, or assess threats like the one just down the road. She told him what she had seen.

  "What do we do now?" Was that a little less nervousness in his voice? She thought he seemed fairly calm. Maybe he was getting some self-confidence now.

  "I think our safest bet is to head back to the safe house. We spend the night there, and go home in the morning." She didn't relish the idea, but it was probably the best option now.

  Robyn and Nick got back on their bicycles and turned around, pedaling fast to build up speed. She wanted to be there in less than half an hour, to take advantage of what daylight was left. She settled in to a quick pace and felt the pavement passing beneath her tires. Nick, with the stamina of youth, had no trouble keeping up.

  The safe houses had been the idea of the Mission Council about a year after the dead rose. Recognising that scavengers might be stuck outside the Safe Zone during salvage trips, and that incoming survivors might need to take advantage of a respite and be rescued, a series of these houses had been prepared all around Mission at great expense. There was some opposition to the use of resources, but enough people took advantage of the houses in the first three months of operation that almost everyone saw the value of them. People who would otherwise have died were able to survive because the safe houses were there.

  It took twenty-one minutes to ride back to the enormous sign that read 'SAFE HOUSE HERE' and had a large red arrow pointing at the two-story home. It had once been surrounded by trees and bushes, but these had been cut back and a tall chain link fence driven into the earth all around. Robyn got off her bike and pulled it through a gate, waited for Nick to do the same, and then closed the gate behind them. They approached the house on foot. She opened the front door a few inches and called out.

  "Hello, anyone home?" It was only polite to announce yourself if someone living was in here. If someone dead was inside it was doubly important. No one answered, and the house felt empty. They walked in, handguns drawn, and checked each room. Satisfied that they were alone, they brought the bicycles and cargo inside, bolted and barred the door, and started a small fire in the pot-bellied stove in the living room. Soon it was dark outside, there was hot food cooking, a few candles providing light, and they had a safe place to sleep for the night.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mission Safe Zone, September 5, 2013

  Shakey Waterson, owner and proprietor of Shakey's Guns and Ammo, closed the door of his shop and locked it. He whistled quietly through his teeth as he closed windows and pulled curtains, hummed a few bars of something he thought Dylan had written as he blew out the two lanterns he lit in the shop when the sun went down, and moved back into his private rooms behind the store. His dog, a black Labrador
retriever named Feynman, wagged her tail vigorously when he came into the room, and slipped off the chair she was curled up in to sniff his hand. Shakey was sixty-two, but looked like he was in his late forties, tall and still fairly muscular. He had a thick head of white hair, still long and tied back in a ponytail. He wore a black t-shirt with Jimi Hendrix' face on it, and a clean but worn pair of jogging pants. A pair of glasses constantly threatened to fall off his nose.

  "How's my girl tonight?" His hand scratched the dog’s head affectionately, and walked to the back door and let her out into the dark yard to do her business. He stood in the doorway for a moment and looked up at the starry sky, seeking out Betelgeuse and Orion's Belt. Other constellations were easy to pick out, and he counted a few satellites still orbiting, some of them maybe even still transmitting. When Feynman came back inside, he shook his head sadly and closed the door, automatically checking the locks and bolts.

  With the shop closed he could finally make some dinner. He looked through his supplies, choosing a chunk of frozen salmon from his icebox and some fresh carrots, a single potato, and a small red onion. The vegetables he cut up and set to fry in a pan on his wood-burning stove. The salmon he put in an old Pyrex baking dish, and let it thaw. Once the vegetables were done he poured them on top of the salmon, added some spices, mostly salt and some wild sage he had traded for, added some water and oil, and put the lid on the dish. The whole thing went into the oven, onto a rack he had fit himself a few years ago. Soon the house filled with the scent of cooking salmon and sage. Feynman sniffed around the kitchen and gazed at him hopefully, but he chuckled and shook his head.

  "You've already eaten, my girl," he said, pointing at the food dish in the corner.