Wake the Dead

by Vanucci, Gary F.

  “Don’t think I’m in the mood to eat after…all of that,” she called after him.

  Alex stopped and yelled back to her. “Who were those assholes with you?”

  “Well, they kept me alive after our group was overrun by a zombie mob,” she said, brushing a strand of her blonde hair out of her face. “They treated me pretty good at first and hadn’t really done anything to me. But I heard them talking earlier today that they were gonna…you know…’have their way with me’,” she said, using air quotes and almost losing her balance from her perch on the bough. ”I was contemplating killing them before they had the chance, but…I don’t know.”

  “Real nice guys,” Alex quipped, not offering any information on the subject. “And there aren’t any more in your group?”

  “My sister was…and so was my husband up until a few weeks ago. He was one of the ones who were killed in that last attack. And these two promised to keep me safe. At least I think it was weeks ago. Maybe even a month by now, I can’t really remember. I think my sister might still be alive out there somewhere, too….”

  She appeared to Alex as if she was going to divulge more of that story, but no more words passed her lips. He did not pursue it.

  “And these two were the only ones left?”

  “Yep. And I guess they were getting tired of what little chivalry they had left.”

  “Well, they didn’t do a great job,” Alex said sarcastically. “Protecting you, that is.” She turned a pained expression upon him then, and he realized that whatever had happened to her in the recent past was all too fresh for him to make light of it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—“

  “It’s okay,” she said. A moment of silence passed uncomfortably. “Is that blood from you?”

  “No. It’s from that jackass over there. The one with the gun,” he added moving to stand before the deceased man. “So, they were going to…?”

  “According to what I overheard. Tonight probably would have been—”

  “Why didn’t you run?” he barked angrily and with much more ire than he’d intended.

  “Run where, man?! Into the arms of one the fucking zombies?! In case you hadn’t noticed—“

  “All right, I’m sorry. You’re right.” He stared at her as she hung there in the tree branch, and she was clearly upset. “Really, I get it.” She nodded and looked around, her eyes landing on the wolf.

  “He won’t hurt me?” she asked him nervously.

  “I don’t think so. He hasn’t hurt me yet.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  “It’s either that or you can stay up there in that tree the rest of your life,” Alex said matter-of-factly as he turned and walked away.

  “Can you put him on a leash or something?” she called after him as the distance between them grew.

  “No. He’s as free to come and go as you are,” he was quick to reply as he made his way inside, Shadow following right behind. He closed the door and watched out the window as the woman climbed down hesitantly, dropping her back, and then losing her footing. She fell rather unceremoniously to the hard ground.

  Alex flung the cabin door wide and ran out to check on her and when she got to her feet, she was laughing.

  “I guess you are fine?”

  She fell to her knees again and waited as the wolf emerged from behind him and approached her.

  “Get up, stand your ground, and don’t be submissive to him and you’ll be fine.”

  “Easy for you to say,” she said as she regained her footing. She removed her hands from her jacket pockets and brushed dirt from her jeans as Shadow approached her. He growled at her initially until Alex stepped in front and helped her to her feet. After that, Shadow trotted back toward the cabin door and lay down.

  “I gotta bury these bodies. Can’t keep risking a huge fire like before,” he mentioned, as if she had some kind of frame of reference as to what he was referring. Then, realizing his mistake in that, made another guess. “It’s probably how you guys found me, am I right?”

  “No,” she stated frankly. “It was dumb luck.”

  “Dumb luck,” he repeated with a wide smile. “Dumb luck, indeed. Got any weapons in that pack?”

  “No,” she said, unzipping it and holding it open for him. “Just some odds and ends. You wanna check it? You gonna frisk me next?” Alex walked over, leaned over the pack and gave it a glance, not seeing any weapons visible inside. He gave her a once over and with the jeans and shirt she wore, there wasn’t many hiding places for a weapon. Besides, if she wanted him dead, she’d have helped the other two instead of running, he decided.

  “No, I don’t think you want to kill me. You’d have already tried,” he said, confident of that reasoning. “Time to get to work then,” Alex said, moving to grab his discarded shovel.

  He began digging a pit large enough for two bodies.

  ***

  After an hour or so of digging a makeshift grave for the two attackers, and the as-yet-unnamed woman sitting on the ground watching him, he tossed the gruesome remains of Joe inside. As Alex dragged the body of Todd toward the pit, he flinched suddenly as the body twitched.

  Alex reflexively dropped him.

  “What the?” he said, running off and returning with his axe. He waited to see what would happen and had no idea what to expect. Another twitching spasm happened, more visible this time. As he held the axe on high, the thing that was Todd opened its grey, dead eyes and Alex’s heart skipped a beat. He brought the axe to bear and split the thing’s head just as it sat up.

  “Holy shit!” the woman yelled, seeing it happen as she stood a good distance away, not comfortable getting near the wolf yet, either. Alex fell back onto his rear end and crawled backward away from it. Shadow snarled at the zombie and then at the woman. Alex was quick to get to his feet and moved between Shadow and her again.

  “No, boy. She is not the enemy.” Shadow ceased his growling and stalked away.

  “Ya gotta take out the brain,” she said with a swallow, clearly relieved that the wolf had let her be. “All of the ones who die come back from the dead. It takes a good half an hour or more in all that I’ve seen, but they turn. I’ve seen it up close,” she said matter-of-factly as she stared into his eyes. She smiled politely and put her hands on her hips. “Looks like we’re all fucked.”

  “Good to know,” Alex remarked with great cynicism.

  A short while later, as Alex comprehended the severity of this most recent information while the two of them sat at the lone table inside the cabin and shared a meal. He considered the fact that if he or she died, they’d become one of…them.

  “So, where did you find the wolf?” she asked as she pulled him from his melancholy contemplation. She stared directly at him, hungrily devouring a can of beans with her fingers and then turned an anxious eye toward the wolf, as he lay idly beside Alex.

  “I found him not long after I left my house—before I even found this place. He was still an adolescent. One of the living dead was chasing him and Shadow was fighting back as best he could. I put an arrow in the zombie’s brain,” he said, staring back at her. “Ya’ gotta take out their brain, right?”

  She regarded him with a smile and nodded her agreement, still scooping handfuls of beans into her mouth ravenously. “And?”

  “The wolf took off at first,” Alex explained, scooping a spoonful of recently heated corn from a can. He offered her some with a gesture, but she shook her head and swallowed a mouthful of beans.

  “So, I made camp in the area, backed myself against a tree and started a fire with some dried wood. A little while later, he came back. I tossed him some tuna from my can and soon after, he was lying near me, moving closer as the fire dimmed. He followed me here and we’ve been together ever since. Kinda’ weird, I know.”

  “Pretty cool, actually,” she admitted with a heartfelt smile in between gulps. Alex tossed her a canteen and she drank from it heartily. “Where are you getting your water?”

&n
bsp; “There is a well over there,” he said, gesturing to the covered well. “It was complete with an old fashioned hand pump to get the water out. So far, it seems to be unaffected by anything going on here. Been drinking it for months now.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out …?”

  “Alex is my name,” he said. “And you might be?”

  “I might be Olivia,” she said with a warm smile. “Friends used to call me Liv…when they were alive.”

  “I understand your pain,” Alex offered. “I’ve lost loved ones, too.” After that statement, they mutually remained in silence and finished eating their respective meals.

  As the day passed into night, Alex shared with Olivia the story of how he ended up here, how his wife became infected, but did not mention the loss of his unborn child. It was harder for him to talk about then he’d even realized because he’d never spoken to another human being since the zombie plague occurred. Simply trying to open up to this stranger about his wife was extremely challenging. It tugged at a thread of emotions that he could neither discuss, nor which he had come to grips with himself as of yet.

  “My sister is out there still, Olivia reiterated, bringing Alex’s focus back to his current conversation. “She and a small group made a supply run to the stores along the highway up north. They left a few weeks ago,” Olivia explained, choking up a bit as she continued. “We haven’t seen any of them since. I told her before she left that I’d meet her at our rendezvous spot, which was a designated place that our camp had in case someone went missing for more than a day.”

  “I’m sorry,” was all Alex could muster in response. He felt bad for this woman indeed, and hoped that he could get to know her more over the coming weeks, but he was tired of talking right now.

  “You can have the sofa. There’s no bed here unfortunately.”

  “What happened to the bed?” Olivia asked, loosing and retying her hair back into a pony tail once again.

  “I’m not sure, but my guess is that whoever the guy was who lived here before me, died in it. It was covered in blood when I got here and so I burned it. I’ll take the floor over there,” Alex offered, moving to lay on a tattered sleeping bag and a few blankets he had rounded up from the bedroom closet.

  Alex tried and failed to get another lamp to work in that outlet behind the couch as it too, burnt out immediately.

  It’s getting too much voltage still, he confirmed irritably while Shadow padded over and sat before the door. Alex blew out the lone candle that flickered in the cabin, trying to conserve it, as it was the last one he had. The only light that came in now was from the moonlight from the window behind him.

  He opened the door and allowed Shadow outside. It had become customary these days for the wolf to prowl outside in the evening, and since he hadn’t been eating much of the canned food, perhaps he was successfully hunting and eating small game animals.

  “I guess he is more at home out there, huh?” Olivia offered insightfully. Alex merely nodded as he closed the door. After a lengthy pause and stare after the wolf, Alex spun on her.

  “He always comes back, but yeah. That’s his home more so than this will ever be.”

  Another lengthy silence ensued as he found his place on the floor and got comfortable.

  “Hey, thanks, Alex. I appreciate you being a kind man. Chivalry is not dead after all.” Alex said nothing, but smiled at that. He was not entirely chivalrous, he decided, as he closed his eyes and eventually fell asleep.

  Chapter 5

  The sun was coming in through the window and he heard Shadow pawing at the door outside. He coughed and cleared his throat, squinting against the light.

  “All right!” he yelled, standing and pulling the blankets around him tighter to stave off the morning cold, He was shirtless, he realized quickly enough, as he grabbed the door handle and held it.

  “You okay if I let him in, Liv?” He looked around but did not see her, or any of her clothing.

  “Liv?”

  He opened the door, looked around and saw no trace of her. “Liv!” he called to the open air. Shadow growled at him, evidently not fond of the yelling, sensing that Alex was agitated.

  “Sorry, buddy.” Alex ran back inside, pulled on his shirt and boots, and went back outside. “You’re fine, Shadow. I’ll be back.

  He spent the next few hours wandering around looking for her, calling her name. But, as the sun waned in the sky in the west, and his stomach began to rumble more loudly, he realized that she was gone.

  She’d left him in the night.

  He went back inside, and after a thorough inventory, he did notice that his pistol was missing.

  “Dammit,” he mumbled under his breath, lamenting that he might never be able to trust another human being again. More importantly, he may also never have someone else with which to share stories, create memories, or otherwise share the state of the human condition.

  He enjoyed the company of Shadow, but this woman infused a humanizing facet in his day that the wolf could never offer. He came to tears regretfully as he half-heartedly gathered a pale of water from the well and soaked his cucumber patch. He realized that some of the leaves and vines had been chewed and he looked to Shadow with a spiteful stare.

  “You’re letting rabbits in here? C’mon, buddy!” Then he laughed, softly at first after hearing the absurdity of his accusation, and then he laughed some more. The complete irrationality of the past day’s events was wearing on him for sure, but he simply shook his head, steeled his resolve and pushed Olivia out of his mind.

  He had to if he wanted to survive.

  If she wants to go it alone, who am I to judge? he thought, as he picked a few more cucumbers that were unharmed.

  He lit a fire in the hearth that night and watched the flames flicker as he sliced a piece of cucumber and chewed on it. He tossed one to Shadow who snubbed the offering and lay back down near the door, and away from the fire. It still seemed to spook the wolf, and rightfully so, he supposed. He found himself dozing off as he stared at the fire intently.

  Alex awoke some time later to the sound of snarling in the cabin. Shadow was up and looking out the window toward the east where the cucumber garden was located and he saw a deer, or rather it was a doe, as it had no antlers. Alex grabbed his bow and slapped Shadow on the snout.

  “Quiet, you,” he said as he silently slid open the window and nocked an arrow. He fired and hit the deer solidly in the side. It was wounded for sure.

  He kicked open the door and Shadow tore off after the deer while Alex nocked another arrow. He breathed deeply and slowly and let the arrow fly. It arrived just ahead of Shadow and hit the opposite flank of the doe, as she tried ineffectively to run away. Shadow easily overtook the wounded animal in its wounded state, and soon enough, it was in Shadow’s jaws.

  By the time Alex got to it, Shadow had taken a good portion of its side away and was eating it further still. Alex retrieved his arrows, nocked another, and finished the deer off. He yanked that one free, dragged the carcass back slowly but surely to the cabin, and began carving away the skin and fur on the leg and rump and began using his serrated knife to carve a few more sections off to cook. He started a fire outside in the pit, gutted the doe, tossing aside the entrails beside the fire, and then cooked a good many pieces.

  It had been so long that he forgot how much he enjoyed consuming meat of any kind. He tossed scraps to Shadow and watched the wolf as he ate his fill. He left the fading fire burning in the deep pit and tossed the remains of the deer into the blaze, skewered the rest of the carcass to a sharpened stick and laid it over the fire. He carefully rested the remains on a pair of supports embedded in the ground around the rocks to help stabilize them.

  He figured by tomorrow, he could bury the remains as he doused the fire. Alex strode toward the garden, bent low to inspect the cucumbers, and noticed that insects had chewed most of the leaves.

  “Shit.”

  And so, he picked the remainder of
whole cucumbers, painstakingly scrutinized them, and brought the good ones back into the cabin, unsure of how to stem this particular problem. “If it isn’t the animals, it’ll be the goddamned insects.”

  ***

  The sound of cracking branches awoke Alex from his sleep. He then heard the distinct sound of glass breaking. He shot up from the sofa and ran to the source of the sound, thinking it to be Olivia. He stood staring out the window and was sickened to find that it was one of the undead trying to get inside, shattering the windowpane in the process.

  They were aggressive—more so than he recalled, and each time he encountered them, it was as frightening as the last, he admitted as his heart thundered in his chest.

  Shadow was instantly snapping at the hands and limbs that presented through the broken glass.

  Alex ran frantically to an adjacent window and observed that the front side of the cabin area was swarming with zombies. Most of them were feasting on the remnants of the deer and its entrails, huddled in a pack around it.

  Had they smelled it? he wondered.

  “Dammit Alex, think!” he said, scolding himself. He quickly retrieved his bow, quiver, the duffle bag with extra arrows, his shotgun, and strapped them onto his back. He belted his knife quickly, climbed out the rear side window, and was thankful in this instance for the bout of laziness that caused him to leave behind the ladder. He quickly scaled it and then grabbed firmly the edge of the roof. He began pulling himself up when he felt a heavy tug on his left leg.

  Not again.

  Memories of the first zombie bite suddenly flooded his mind and he winced.

  He looked down in fear to witness as one of them had grabbed his leg and held him fast, trying to pull him back down. It tugged hard on his leg, but he was able to wriggle free, allowing it to pull his boot off as he dragged himself up and onto the roof with great effort.

  One thing that he noted immediately was that the zombies were not as strong or as fast in comparison with that first one he’d encountered a few months ago. But, even in this state, they were extremely dangerous, he admitted regretfully as he made it to his feet, knowing that to underestimate them would be his death. As a matter of fact, the ones he tussled with right after the virus hit, might have pulled his whole damn leg off along with the boot.