by Gareth Wood
Sanji and Amanda had given me my space, and were hanging back about fifty feet. Darren was closer, only half that distance. He regarded me cautiously, and I didn’t blame him. Amanda was still glaring at me, I noticed. I must have really offended her earlier when I told her to piss off.
Suddenly, standing there with a gun in my hand, a reeking corpse only a few feet away, and my well armed and hungry team staring at me like I was something unpleasant they had stepped in, I started to laugh. It was quiet at first, but it got louder as I pondered the situation. We were fucked! In a way it was hilarious.
I snorted, and that sounded so funny that I laughed even harder. Darren stared, and Amanda glared at me so hard I was sure she was going to pop a vein. That image was so funny that I had to sit down. Grasping my Browning tightly, I sank to the pavement. Here we were, in the middle of nowhere, and dead people—I laughed even harder—dead people were trying to eat us!
Tears rolled down my face, and I laughed so hard I thought I might have to lie down and curl into a little ball. Dead people! I gasped for breath. Trying to eat us!
I had a sudden vision of a cartoon rabbit sitting in a big cauldron thinking he was having a bath, while some hunter diced vegetables into the pot with him, and I completely lost it. Every breath was an effort as I laughed and cried. Dead people! Walking, killing, eating!
Amanda was holding me. I hadn’t noticed, but she was there. I clung to her like an anchor while I laughed and cried like a madman. It rolled through me in waves, and when it was over I felt drained. When I could breathe normally again I apologized to Amanda.
“I’m sorry,” I said to her, “I was an asshole earlier.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she told me. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I said, wiping tears from my face, “I don’t think any of us are.”
She was still looking at me patiently. I sighed and said “I’ll be okay.”
“Good,” she said.
When I felt better, and was able to continue on towards Golden without my legs shaking, we set out again. We snuck the rest of the way back, and I thought about what had just happened. It was a reaction to Eric’s death, I was certain. I felt relieved, like a burden had been lifted off me. That sounded cliché, but it was how I felt. I wasn’t surprised that something like that happened to me. The stress on everyone was enormous. What really did surprise me wasn’t that I had had a hysterical fit of laughter; it was that it had taken so long to happen.
I stopped dwelling on that once Golden was close by. We cut northeast towards the Kicking Horse River, a smaller stream than the Columbia River which ran to our west. We followed the banks along until we were less than half a kilometer from the bridge. Sanji and I climbed on top of a detached two car garage, and lay atop the sloped roof tiles looking towards the large group of undead with my binoculars. I passed them to Sanji and he took a good look. We had to keep our heads down because there were a few undead between us and the bridge, standing in yards or walking aimlessly along the street.
“We’ll never get to the vehicles from this side,” he whispered.
I agreed. There were too many of the walking dead surrounding our trucks. We needed to draw them off somehow, and to do that we needed to be on the other side of the river. If they saw us on this side they would all bunch up at the barricade end of the bridge, so the other side it would have to be.
Sanji and I looked around and tried to think of how to get all of us to the other side of the Kicking Horse River. I had no idea how deep it was, but the current was flowing swiftly. There was no ice along the banks, or in the water, but it was October so I doubted the water temperature was much above freezing. I guessed it was about seventy or eighty feet to the far bank, and the water was clear and had a glacial blue tinge to it. I could see the rocks at the bottom even from our place atop the garage roof.
“We need a raft or a boat,” I told Sanji, and he nodded his agreement.
We climbed down and rejoined Darren and Amanda. Darren looked skeptical when we mentioned looking for a raft or a boat of some kind, but Amanda spoke up right away.
“I went rafting here about five years ago,” she told us. “There is, or was, a rafting company in town here. I don’t know the address, but I know where they were.”
“Could you find it again?” I asked.
“Definitely. What kind of shape the rafts will be in, I can’t say.”
“And they’re on this side of the bridge?”
“They operated out of an old gas station about eight or nine blocks from here,” she said. “Five years ago when I was here they were doing great business. Hopefully they didn’t go under since that time.”
I hoped not. If they were still there they were definitely out of business now, but maybe we could find a raft that was in good enough shape that we could cross the river with it.
“What do you think?” I asked Darren and Sanji.
They both said it was a good idea to look. “Okay, Amanda,” I waved my hand in the direction of the town, “lead us to salvation.”
We set off with Amanda leading us. We backtracked a little and cut westward between some houses. Every step of the way we watched for the walking dead. At corners we paused and snuck looks around, and we used cover as much as possible. Crossing the streets between rows of houses was nerve-wracking, since the undead could be lurking in the houses, in yards, or even in the cars parked on the streets.
We had gone two blocks when a zombie spotted us. We were crossing the street towards the overgrown lawn on the far side when the reeking, walking remains of what I assumed to be one of the former residents of Golden lurched around the corner of the house ahead of us and stopped. His bloated and discoloured head lifted, and he looked right at us. We froze in place, and his eyes narrowed slightly as he began to stagger forwards. His progress was impeded by physical trauma. One of his feet was bent nearly backwards, and leg bones scraped on the ground as he walked awkwardly. He was covered in dirt and leaves as well, making it hard to see what other injuries he might have had.
Amanda raised her shotgun, but I stepped beside her and put my hand on the barrel, pushing it down, “No, we have to keep quiet.”
So instead she drew her Browning and I handed her my silencer, while the dead man walked closer and closer. The sound of bones scraping on the ground grew louder, and I raised the C7, just in case.
Amanda got the silencer on, and took aim. The walking corpse was no more than twelve feet from us when she fired. Her first shot missed, grazing its left ear, but her second shot struck its left eye. The walking corpse fell face first onto the sidewalk, its head smacking wetly on the ground. The horrible stench wafted over us again, and I turned away for a second, gagging.
We all looked around quickly, hoping that no more of the undead had heard those two silenced shots. Maybe they had, or maybe something else led them to us, because as we waited, a group of four of them walked out of a house two doors to our right. They came out the front door, a screen door hanging off one hinge, and stumbled over each other on the way down the front steps, like some hell-spawned Abbot and Costello routine.
“Spread out,” I told the others. Amanda went about eight feet to my left, and Darren and Sanji to my right, with Sanji on the end.
The four, gaunt and hideous, were stumbling to their feet.
“Darren,” I said, “silencer.” He immediately shouldered his rifle and drew his handgun, screwing his silencer onto the barrel.
“Ready,” he said. Not a hint of fear in his voice, either. I was instantly proud of him.
“Listen, Amanda,” I said to her as the four creatures approached us, “this is on you and Darren.”
She looked less than happy about that. Too bad.
“Sanji and I won’t fire unless we have to. The noise will draw a lot more of them. Once they get to ten feet away, you shoot the ones on the left, and Darren will shoot the two on the right. Got that?” The creatures were stumbling through the uncut grass now, g
etting closer.
“Yeah,” she replied. She looked green, probably remembering our escape from the bridge. Thankfully, there were nowhere near as many of them on this street with us now. We knew what to do.
The first undead to get close enough was on Darren’s side. It was a very thin female, just skin over bones. I could not imagine how it was functioning. It wore the tattered remains of a black sweater and khakis. Darren fired once, and a single round entered high on the left side of its forehead. I heard the cough of the silencer at the same time, and it took one more step and crumpled to the ground like a house of cards falling.
Behind that one was a male, possibly a teenager, wearing a torn Iron Maiden t-shirt and missing both arms at the elbows, the stumps ending in horrible torn wounds that were coated in the black remnants of blood. To its left was one in a lab coat that had once been white, but was now a filthy rag. It wore a name tag that said ‘Daniel’. Finally, there was one whose gender I could not guess. It was barely held together by bloated, rubbery grey flesh, swelling inside filthy clothing that was seemingly about to burst. Small black eyes stared out at us from between puffed lids.
Darren and Amanda took careful aim while Sanji and I covered them. She opened fire on the lab coat wearing zombie, and shot it twice in the face. It rocked back a little, but didn’t drop, so she fired again. This time she struck true, and the walking remains of Daniel fell unmoving to the ground. By this time Darren was shooting at the teen wearing the Iron Maiden shirt, and I was taking a step backwards as Amanda shifted her aim to the bloated thing. It was too close, and she took a step backwards as well, tripping on a loose rock in the road. She fell backwards, her finger pulling the trigger convulsively as she landed on her backside. The bullet went through a plate window in the front of the house closest to us, and shattering glass fell loudly to the ground.
Amanda scrambled backwards as the bloated thing leaned towards her, and I had only seconds to act. I flipped the C7 around, and drove the stock down on top of the corpse’s head as it grabbed for her. Amanda shrieked as it clawed at her ankle, and I smashed the back of its head again, and again. It finally let go of her as its head burst like a melon being struck with a hammer. My stomach churned again, but there was nothing in it to throw up.
Amanda scrambled back a few feet and stood up. She looked embarrassed.
“Sorry, I—”
“Quiet!” snapped Sanji. He and Darren were now facing north, heads turned to listen. As soon as I paused to listen I could hear what had caught their attention. The moans of the undead. Damn it!
Stealth was no longer an option. With more of the undead coming for us we needed speed now more than quiet. That damned window shattering was going to draw every undead within three blocks. That could be an awful lot of walking corpses.
“Well,” I said, “the shit just hit the fan. We’ll try to avoid as many as we can, but if we have to shoot any, we’ll just have to deal with it.”
I pointed to Amanda. “You’re on point. I’ll bring up the rear.”
We had five or six blocks to go, and we didn’t have the time to be subtle. We each checked our weapons, and set off after Amanda’s red hair. We were still careful to avoid corners, and to stay at least ten feet from the sides of cars. We crossed the next few alleys and streets at a run, passing the few zombies staggering around without interacting with them. They grasped at us and started to follow. At the next alley Amanda stopped, raised her shotgun, and fired off to her left at something I couldn’t see. She kept going after that, and as I followed I looked to see a nearly headless corpse lying on its back in the gravel of the alleyway.
Events passed quickly then. We ran across streets, ducked around corners, and jogged down alleyways. Amanda raised a hand to stop us as she came up to an alley, and leaned wide around the corner to look. It was a good thing she did. Rotten hands reached for her from around the corner, and she ducked and ran back towards us as a lone zombie turned the corner and followed her. Darren shot it from three feet away, and it fell twitching to the ground. After that Sanji went on point, and Amanda came to walk beside me. She was shaking and seemed more pissed off than anything else. A block later a crowd of six or seven dead things began to follow us, and we had to duck through a yard and close a chain-link gate in the fence to lose them. Literally dozens came out to find us, and by the time we were on the last block with the rafting company in sight there were upwards of thirty-five zombies following our path.
Amanda stopped across the street from the former gas station, and I looked over to see the signs. “Kicking Horse Rafting Adventures!” read one sign, and “White Water Family Fun,” said another. About half of the glass windows were intact, and the door was wide open. Nothing looked to be moving inside, and we ran across the street and into the building. Sanji slammed the door behind us, and threw down a hasty barricade of old shelves and chairs. It didn’t have to hold long. If we were lucky we could get out the back door in just a few minutes. I turned to look at the shop.
It was dark inside, but there was enough light coming in the broken windows that we could see. A deflated big yellow raft hung from the ceiling, and a cashier’s desk stood by the north wall. There were a few chairs in that corner, and piles of pamphlets were scattered about on the floor. Life vests and oars were set aside in neat piles, and a door on the west side led to a maintenance shop and small office. A quick search confirmed that we were alone inside.
“Where are the fucking rafts?” Darren called. I grabbed two oars, bright yellow plastic with black rubberized handles.
“Through here,” Amanda said, and led the way into the shop. We followed, and I could hear the moaning outside as the undead closed on the front of the building. We looked around, and beside the rear door we found a number of deflated rafts packed into large carrying cases. Each was labeled with the number of people it could carry, and whether it was self bailing or not. We grabbed the first six person raft we saw, and Darren took a battery operated air pump and a handful of batteries, still in the cases. Sanji came in with four life vests, and passed one to each of us. I slipped mine on, and could hear crashing glass sounding from out front. A thump followed, and I knew the undead were inside the building now. Sanji and I grabbed a side of the raft case each, and lifted it towards the rear door. Amanda pushed shut the door to the shop, and slid the bolt home. I motioned Darren to open the rear door, and he did so. There were half a dozen undead just outside.
I dropped my side of the case, and raised the C7 as Darren backed hastily away from the doorway. My thumb switched the action to automatic, and I pulled the trigger just as the first of the six outside was pushing into the building. My aim was a bit off. The bullets kicked into the creature mid-stomach, and I just raised my aim as the rounds counted off. The deafening roar of the rifle continued as I fired three rounds into the thing’s skull, and then moved to the next one. This was the most inefficient way to shoot, but we had no time. I sprayed the group coming in the door, and when my clip ran out four of them had been destroyed. Sanji fired his shotgun at the next one in, and I could dimly hear pounding on the door behind us. Fortunately it was a steel door, so I didn’t expect it to break. Sanji fired three times, and the way out was clear. I hastily swapped out the empty clip for a new one, and picked up the raft case again.
We stepped outside and looked around. There were a few more undead scattered about, no more than eight within sight, and none closer than about twenty paces at the moment. They were all moving towards us with arms outstretched. Darren led, and he picked a path for us between the wrecked cars, the walking corpses, and buildings. If one of the walking corpses got too close, either he or Amanda would shoot it, but otherwise he led us back to the river as fast as he could. We passed dozens of the things, many staggering about as we passed, some standing until we were in their line of sight, and others that were facing the other way and didn’t even notice us. We arrived at the river nearly out of breath, and with a small swarm of the undead following behind
us. They were not that far off.
“Sanji, you and Amanda inflate the raft! Darren and I will hold them off!” I switched to single fire on the C7, and knelt behind a small boulder on the grass above the shore of the river. Darren stopped ten feet to my left, and we picked targets. We waited until the group approaching us, numbering about forty at the moment, was close enough for decent accuracy, and then opened fire. My breathing had settled down by then, and the adrenaline of the fight at the rafting shop was leaving my system. I was suddenly very hungry.
Behind me, at the river’s edge, I heard the battery powered air pump start to whine, a loud and shrill sound that would carry a long way. I focused on the threat ahead of me instead. Fifteen meters away the closest of the undead were walking towards me with blank expressions. Darren and I fired, and began to thin the ranks of the enemy with carefully aimed headshots. We kept shooting until Darren ran out, and he traded empty for new clips while I started shooting at the ones closest to him. More of the creatures were coming from the town, and a larger group was gathering about sixty meters away.
“Hurry!” I called.
“We know,” Sanji replied.
Amanda was suddenly at my side, firing her shotgun twice. I ran out of bullets, and switched to my Browning. Darren was shooting again. Three more shots and we had no more targets in range. The next group was still about thirty meters away except for one, slightly faster than the others, who was a few steps ahead.
“Hurry!” I called again.
“I know!” yelled Sanji. The shrill whine of the air pump was still droning away, filling the raft with air. Amanda was reloading her shotgun, and I checked the clip on my Browning. Six rounds left, then one more clip. The C7 was out, but Darren still had a full clip for his.
They were in range. Darren took out the leader with a single round that struck to the left of its nose. I didn’t see an exit, so perhaps the bullet bounced around inside the skull. He started on his side again, and Amanda and I waited for the nearest to get a little closer. Shotguns and pistols are less accurate at longer ranges. My skin crawled as the undead got to twenty-five feet away, and I decided that was close enough. We opened fire again, and they started dropping. The adrenaline was back in my system again, and my aim was starting to suffer. I missed three times before striking one in the face. I killed two more before my clip ran out. I hastily replaced it, and then we had to back up. We came down the slope to the water’s edge and the whine suddenly cut off. There was a hissing sound, and then that went quiet. I looked back and saw that Sanji was pushing the mostly-inflated raft into the river.
