Rise (Book 3): Dead Inside

by Gareth Wood

  "Dr. Laslo! It's me, Elena Girenko," she said, watching him raise his badly wounded arms, lurching like a drunk around a shopping cart that had fallen on its side. "Do you remember me?"

  The thing that had once been Laslo didn't respond other than to moan, a horrible gurgling cry that chilled her. Still, there was no escape for her now. She raised her hands toward him, whether to welcome him or defend herself she never knew. Laslo grasped her outstretched right hand and pulled her toward him, then bit off two of her fingers.

  Elena screamed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  Mission Safe Zone, September 12, 2013

  Alexander watched from the house across the street as the Sheriff shot one of his own deputies in the head from less than five feet away. The woman's body flopped over from where she sat with her back to one of the small cedars in the front yard and lay still, her torso and neck covered in blood, and the new bullet wound to her skull glistening wetly. Very little blood leaked out; most of it was already all over her clothes, the Sheriff's jacket and hands, and the ground around them. The Sheriff reloaded his handgun with shaking hands.

  Another deputy was throwing up in the bushes of Alexander's front yard, making a mess of the wildflowers. The deputy flinched a little when the Sheriff called to him angrily, but hidden as he was inside the empty home across the street from his own house, Alexander couldn't make out the words clearly. He'd been hiding in here since yesterday morning, when he had spotted a Sheriff's deputy, the same one vomiting in his flowers right now, sitting on a porch across the street watching his home. He'd backed the Essential Supplies truck away and parked it in an alley behind a street that was mainly uninhabited, then doubled back and sneaked into the back door of this house, all the better to watch the situation develop.

  So, he thought, they know. From the look of things they had found his trophies. The Asian deputy hadn't come out of the house yet, and Alexander suspected he wouldn't, except on a stretcher. Reilly was still staring at the woman he'd just shot. The young red-headed deputy who had run outside to be sick was still panting and spitting. Both were completely distracted, and Alexander realised he had an opportunity like no other.

  He pulled his revolver out of his pocket and pulled the hammer back, then went through the house to the back door where he had left his pack of food and water. He stepped outside, looked briefly at the early afternoon sky. Clouds were gathering more and more to the south. Could be time for some summer rain, the kind that came and went and lasted only minutes.

  If he killed the Sheriff and his remaining deputy right away, he'd have hours to get clear of the Safe Zone and pick up his supplies. Then he could head south, perhaps to Seattle or down to Oregon. He'd heard that there was a seaside community thriving in the ruins of Lincoln City, in much the same way that Mission was. It was annoying to have to travel so far to begin again, but he was sure that his talents could be put to use there. Soon enough he would be invaluable to the community. His talent would be recognised, and he'd be someone important.

  Crossing the street behind the deputy and Sheriff, Alexander decided that the two men before him should be grateful for the favour he was about to grant them. They should properly thank him for sparing them from the suffering of life. In his mind Alexander was convinced that the Sheriff was to blame for everything. It had been the Sheriff's office that had been sniffing around Essential Supplies. The Sheriff himself had just raided Alexander's own home, destroying his trophies. The Sheriff clearly was to blame for this entire mess. It was Reilly's fault that Alexander would have to run south now, just when he was so close to attaining the seat on the Council.

  Reaching the sidewalk, Alexander looked up and down the street. There was nobody in sight, and he expected that everyone who lived nearby was at work, doing their sheep jobs and hoping that enough supplies came in over the next several weeks to last them through the winter. As day shift foreman he knew just how close it came sometimes. There was just enough to go around, most of the time. Sometimes there wasn't, and then the Council and Mayor would make speeches about tightening belts and sacrificing for the common good. Alexander paid no attention. He wasn't going to starve. He thought the Mayor and Council members probably weren't going to either, no matter what they said publicly.

  Alexander raised the revolver as he walked forward, stepping around the shrubs at the corner of his yard. The deputy was right in front of him, facing the other way, about to walk to where the Sheriff stood. Alexander put the handgun to the back of the deputy’s head and pulled the trigger. Blood splashed and the body flopped forward, landing on the grass.

  Alexander switched targets, aimed at the Sheriff, and in a moment of whimsy changed his aim from the Sheriff's surprised face to his chest, right at the Mission Sheriff's Office embroidery, and fired twice. Reilly fell, twisting and bloody, to land across the body of the woman he'd shot minutes before.

  Smiling with only his mouth and sure that things were going his way again, Alexander walked to his yard gate and stepped through. The Sheriff's gun had dropped a few feet away, and Alexander walked calmly forward and kicked it aside. The Sheriff was lying face down, arms twisted beneath him, but Alexander knew he'd hit the man twice. He poked at the Sheriff with his revolver, but got no response. He raised his gun to shoot the man in the head, but then stopped and thought better of it. Maybe the Sheriff would reanimate, and go on a killing spree like Deputy Hothi had. That thought gave him a certain satisfaction, an ironic rightness, and he almost wished to be around to see how many the undead Sheriff would take down or infect.

  He stood and walked to the gate, casually glancing at the deputy lying dead in his wildflowers, blood and vomit decorating the plants. It was the deputy’s own fault for ruining Alexander's flowers. He pulled the gate open.

  BLAM!

  Alexander lurched when a bullet struck him high on the left shoulder, and he fell forward to land on his face on the sidewalk in front of his house. Stars exploded in his vision, and he tasted blood. He cried out in pain and flopped over onto his back, pushing only with his right arm.

  "Coming for you, fucker!" Sheriff Reilly called out, though it sounded like it was hurting him to talk. Alexander lifted his gun, aimed at where he thought the voice was coming from, and fired two shots. Each recoil made his other shoulder flare in agony. He could feel his own hot blood running down his arm. He staggered to his feet and ran in the direction of the truck he had left in an alley, and heard another gunshot behind him. The bullet whined past his head, and when he ducked, another grazed his ear.

  To hell with this, he thought, and sprinted along the sidewalk. No more gunshots chased him, though he thought he could hear Reilly in pursuit. Why isn't he dead? I hit him twice!

  Turning down the alley, Alexander paused to reload, then ran over gravel and weeds to where the truck waited. He collided with the driver's side in his haste, banging his shins painfully on the foot step. He ignored the new pain, so much more bearable than the gunshot to his shoulder. Reilly appeared at the end of the alley, still not dead. Alexander fired more shots in the Sheriff's direction, forcing Reilly to duck back behind a fence.

  His gun clicked empty, and he pulled the door open and climbed in. He wasn't sure he'd even hit anything, just wanted to buy time. Precious time. As he dug his keys out bullets struck the windshield and front of the truck. Alexander threw himself down on the seat, waiting for the shooting to stop. When it did he sat up and inserted the key, turned it and heard the engine rumble to life. He could see Sheriff Reilly, reloading and walking painfully toward him.

  Shifting into reverse, he pressed the accelerator and stayed crouched as low as he could while he sped backward down the alley. After several seconds he sat up again. There was the Sheriff, holding a gun with one hand and his side with the other, still annoyingly alive. More bullets starred the windshield, and tiny chips of glass flew around the cab. Alexander flinched as each bullet struck the glass, but none struck him.

  The truck emerged from
the alleyway like a runaway train, struck the curb on the far side of the street and bounced upward and into the yard. Alexander hit the brakes before the truck hit the house, sliding to a stop on the grass and weeds. He shifted the transmission into drive and turned left, keeping as much of the truck between himself and the Sheriff's bullets as possible.

  The truck made a grinding sound he had never heard before, and lurched to the right.

  Damn, that imbecile damaged the truck. In the rear view he saw a tiny Sheriff Reilly emerge from the alley, unable to keep up now that Alexander was in a vehicle. Good riddance.

  He wove through the empty streets until he reached the Wall, then followed that northeast to its end. There was a Guard post here, only a small barrier across the street, a pair of wooden sawhorses and a two-by-four. Alexander drove right through it, reducing it to kindling while the men and women watching for the undead scrambled out of his way. The Guard stations farther along the Wall were more heavily manned, to draw any undead to where the Wall was strongest. It was a situation Alexander took advantage of.

  A thought came to his mind of having revenge, of laying low in one of the nearby safe houses or communities until he recovered from his injuries, then coming back for the Sheriff. The more he explored the idea, the less he thought of it. Now that he'd fled he just didn't care anymore. Nothing back in Mission was important any longer. He had moved on, and his own survival was paramount to any plans of revenge or risk of capture.

  A few kilometers later his shoulder was in renewed agony, and he realised he needed to stop to deal with it. He pulled over, made sure the doors were locked, and pulled out his first aid kit. With only one good arm it took time and more effort than he liked to clean and bandage the wounds on his shoulder and face, and his medical skills were basic at best. Constantly checking the rear mirror for any sign of pursuit distracted him as well. He now had blood on his clothing, a crude bandage around his shoulder, and his face had been wiped with antiseptics where he'd split his lip and forehead on the sidewalk. The good news was that he could use his left hand a little, and so was able to reload his revolver. He pulled out a bottle of water and some painkillers, carefully hoarded for years, and swallowed two of the little red pills.

  Shifting back into drive, he turned out onto the highway. He reached for the radio, turning it on to the Mission Council frequency, the one for announcements and weather news. An announcement was partway through playing:

  "…name is Alexander Corrone. He is wanted for theft and murder, and is injured and considered to be armed and extremely dangerous. He is the day shift foreman for Essential Supplies. He is five foot eight—"

  Alexander turned the radio back off. "Well," he said to the empty cab, "no going back now."

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  Outside the Wall, September 12, 2103

  "Sorry," Shakey said as his truck bounced over branches and rocks, tossing the driver and two passengers about in the cab.

  "Just keep it on the road, okay?" Robyn replied, her hands on the dash. Shakey was uncomfortably aware of the steep slope on the left as they drove up the old forestry road. He was keeping his speed low, but ruts and washouts, not to mention fallen branches and rocks, dotted the trails that wound through the mountains east of the Mission Safe Zone. On his right the mountain rose higher, thickly covered in evergreens and cedar, to a peak that was currently hidden in clouds.

  Amanda sat grinning in the passenger seat to Robyn's right, apparently delighted to be tossed around as Shakey navigated around the obstacles. Looking in the rear mirror she was also able to see Feynman, secured in her travel cage in the bed of the truck. The dog's tongue lolled out of her mouth while she watched the scenery pass by.

  It was shortly after sunrise, though the thick clouds kept it dim. Shakey had the headlights on, the beams shining on wet branches and slippery boulders, long growths of moss and clinging plants. Sometimes the road was level and clear, and at others covered in loose rocks and nearly invisible.

  A few kilometers along and higher up, past the cliff side, the path split, forestry roads going off to the left and right. Shakey stopped the vehicle just shy of the intersection and looked at his passengers.

  "Which way, do you think?"

  The rain had stopped, and the clouds were closer than ever above their heads. Amanda opened the passenger door and got out to look around. She walked to the intersection, inspecting each road. While Amanda stared at the ruts on the roads Shakey turned to Robyn.

  "Bet you a dollar she has no idea which way to go," he said, making Robyn smile.

  "You're on," Robyn said quietly, then turned to face Amanda as she returned to the truck. "So, which way?"

  "Left, I think," Amanda said, not sounding too sure of herself to Shakey. He waited until she climbed in, then turned left. The road climbed again, and Shakey shifted gears carefully. The roads were wet, and gravel slid beneath his tires. The trees were getting shorter at this altitude as well. Shapes moved ahead of the truck, and Shakey braked hard. A family of mountain goats stood in the road, watching the truck. They walked off the road like they had all the time in the world, their fear of humans long ago displaced. There were not enough living people to be much of a threat to the wildlife anymore.

  "If we were wolves, they'd move a sight quicker," Shakey observed.

  "It's their world again," Robyn said thoughtfully, "now that people are mostly gone."

  “If the dead are coming back faster now,” Shakey said, “we might be gone even sooner.”

  “I’ll tell you something,” Amanda replied, staring out the window as they passed by the mountain goats, “years ago, on a run out of Cold Lake, my team ran into a zombie that didn’t attack us. The stinking pusbag just stood there, staring at us like he wanted to eat us for dinner. He never moved, though. We stayed around for days just to get as much info on it as we could. Eventually the undead fucker fell over, seemingly dead for real.”

  “Did you see any more like that?” Robyn asked.

  “Several, but only for a year or so. I dunno,” Amanda went on, “it was like the circuits were shorted out in their heads.”

  “Do you think perhaps that the fast reanimation is like that?” Shakey pondered.

  “Maybe it’s just a change? Maybe whatever it is that caused this just changes periodically?” Robyn ran her hands through her hair. “The thing is, until we see if this is happening all over, in other communities or just locally, we won’t really know anything.”

  They were silent for a few moments, until Amanda said, “Maybe it’s trying to evolve?”

  Robyn shook her head firmly. “No way. There’s nothing that indicates any kind of direction to this other than disease vectors. It spreads through blood and bodily fluids mainly, and even old dried tissue samples can remain infective. There’s nothing to indicate any kind of plan. Shit, no one has even seen whatever the contagion is.”

  “That’s… not entirely true,” Amanda said, looking back out the window.

  “What?” Both Robyn and Shakey spoke at the same time.

  “Cold Lake had some results, after years of looking,” Amanda told them. “The vector is small, from what I heard. Smaller than a virus. Tiny, and they had to look with a big machine that can see all the way down to, like, molecules and stuff.”

  “An electron microscope?” Robyn asked, staring hard.

  “Yeah, I think that’s it. Anyway, from what I heard secondhand, they didn’t even have a name for what it was. They’d actually seen it once and thought it was just some kind of interference or something.”

  “Why the fuck didn’t we hear about this!” Robyn cried.

  “I heard all this a few weeks before the disaster up there. It really just slipped my mind during the last few years.” Amanda looked sheepish. “Sorry.”

  “It wouldn’t matter much here,” Shakey said. “We don’t have the facilities to research anything like that. None of the communities we know about do either.”

  “But still…
shit,” Robyn muttered. Her mind took her back to UBC, and what Dr. Girenko would have thought of this revelation.

  A few minutes later Shakey stomped on the brakes, bringing the truck to a sudden halt. Ahead of them the road was gone, swept down into the valley to the left in a washout. Debris left a visible trail down the slope all the way to the valley floor. Shakey rolled his window down and leaned out to look, then pulled his head back in when the cold air gave him chills.

  "Nobody is getting past that mess," he said, and the two women nodded in agreement. He began to turn the truck around, a nerve-wracking process on the narrow road, then drove back the way they had come. At the intersection he turned right, onto the unexplored path. It curved to the left out of sight, but appeared to be in better condition than the other road. Shakey followed along until the way ran straight before them, a long slope gradually heading downhill. Trees encroached all along the way on both sides of the graveled surface, but hadn't broken through yet in many places. This road was still passable.

  Driving for another quarter hour brought them to the end of the road, a switchback where the path doubled back on itself and began to climb again. Several tall trees had fallen here, landing across the road. It had happened long enough ago that debris had built up where water and time had loosened other things from the uphill slopes. The way forward was blocked once again. Shakey stared at the blockage for a moment, then reversed the truck out to a clear spot and turned around.

  "Back to the highway, I suppose," he said.

  Robyn took out her map, carefully folded and sealed in a heavy plastic bag. "According to this there's another forestry access road a few kilometers east, on the north side."