She opened it up and started rifling through it.
“I’m going to put together that bike I found in the attic and check out the map,” he said, swallowing the last of the cucumber. When he looked back at her, she was looking distraught, staring at one page in particular.
“Hey, what’s up?!” Alex asked with concern.
“This was my paper. I thought I lost it,” she whispered through a sob. She tried to hold tears back and turned to the obituaries. She then handed him the paper and he read a name that he did not recognize at first. Then as he read the description, specifically the names of the loved ones she’d left behind, he understood.
“That is your mother’s obituary,” he stated rather than asked. Again, she nodded. A long bout of silence passed as he tried to comfort her with a hand on her shoulder, which she grasped in return. He allowed her the time to cry once again, saying nothing as she did.
She grasped the paper and turned to the crossword puzzle, staring at it. “I started this puzzle, too. Couldn’t get three down! Drove me nuts,” she said with a laugh. Alex matched her smile and they sat again in silence a bit longer as she folded up the paper and placed it aside on the table next to her.
She looked at him with a furrowed brow suddenly. “Bike? What map?”
“Oh, yeah, I found a bunch of stuff up in an attic crawl space. Fishing gear, a bike, maps, some tools, stuff like that. I might even go fishing if I can find a river or lake around here,” he added excitedly.
“You do that. I’m going to go to the meeting point again today to try to find my sister.” He looked at her sympathetically and wondered if she would ever see her sister again—alive. He took a few steps away and turned to regard her once more.
“You sure you don’t want me to go with you?” She shook her head. “Then take the pistol again,” Alex offered, going into the cabin and retrieving his Beretta and a full magazine, and handing it over to her. “Be careful out there.”
“Thanks,” she said, tucking it in her belt at the small of her back. “What about you?”
“I’ve got a twelve gauge, Shadow, and my trusty bow. I’ll be fine. And if I get attacked, I’m on a bike,” he said with a laugh. “I should be able to outrun ‘em even if they just fed.”
“Just fed?” Olivia echoed.
“Yep. They are stronger and faster if they’ve recently…eaten. Did you not notice that?”
“Not really. I guess all of the ones we’ve run into, for the most part, seemed to be moving at a normal pace…until they caught sight of us…or smelled us. Once that happens, they run after you wildly. I’ve even seen a few of ‘em knock each other over trying to get at one of us.”
“Right, those would be the ones who…I guess they are starved, you know, ones that haven’t fed on flesh recently. I prefer ‘em that way,” Alex said with a grin and a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah, slow and weak, eh?” He nodded to her.
“Well, they aren’t weak, just strong and strong-er. You sure you wanna go this alone? Again? I don’t mind taking the trip with you.”
“As always, Alex, I appreciate the offer,” she said, and he realized that her snubbing was affecting him, as he evidently soured notably at her. He hadn’t even realized he was doing it.
“It’s okay, man. Really!” she added, trying to boost him back up. “You do your thing, I’ll be back later tonight,” she said with a smile. Alex meekly grinned back at her. He still couldn’t help but feel unwanted in that moment.
“Meetcha back here for a roll in the hay?” she added, smacking him on the ass. He nodded and let it go, not wanting to pursue it. He also became very much aware that, based on what she had divulged of her past, that she had something of a heightened sexual appetite. He shook all of that away, not wanting to analyze or judge her in any way and realized instead that he had other things to do.
He made his way inside the cabin with that lingering thought, climbed up into the crawl space, and retrieved the map and the fishing gear. Then he pulled down the bike parts and assembled it quite easily. He was pleased to discover that it even had a wicker basket behind the seat to carry items.
“This dude had to be ex-military,” Alex said aloud, pondering how the man who lived here had known so much about surviving alone. “It’s more than a bit ironic that the man who planned for everything could not survive the zombie virus.”
He paused at seeing the foot snares and pulled them all down. He set them up around the perimeter, seven in all, and spaced them out in plain view. A human would see them for sure, but for a zombie, it would make no difference. He quickly dismissed the thought of camouflaging them, as he wanted Shadow and Olivia to avoid them.
“Good idea?” he asked her as placed the last one. She glanced up at him as she checked the magazine and the chamber to make sure the gun was ready to be fired.
“I guess so. What about Shadow?”
“I don’t think he will get caught. Too smart,” he said pointing to his head. “I’m more worried about you.” She laughed at the joke as he went back inside, gathered his canteen and knife, and strapped the blade to the scabbard on his belt.
When he got back outside, she was gone. Only Shadow remained and he had a dead groundhog in his jaws as he stood by the garden. “Nice work, buddy.”
He opened the map next and it was indeed of the local area as he had guessed. He noted with delight that there was indeed a river running north and south about eight or so miles to the west. It snaked east and west a bit, but mostly was north and south in its gait. He immediately packed up his shotgun, bow and quiver. Then he put the fishing gear in a duffle bag, placed it inside the wicker basket on the back of the bike, and looked over to Shadow. “You stay here, all right? No sense coming with me today, boy.” Shadow lay down, shaking the groundhog in his jaws and letting it go, and then looked up to Alex for a long moment as if he understood. “Guard our cucumbers. I’ll be back tonight.”
He decided at the last minute that the shotgun would suffice. He placed the bow and quiver back inside the cabin, but put them in the attic for safekeeping, and gathered a few more shotgun rounds. He opened the box and stared inside, and then decided to take a plastic drop cloth for wrapping, just in case he caught any fish.
He ran back outside, jumped on the bike and pedaled off to the west, down the hill, quickly finding a worn bike trail and sticking to it. He encountered none of the living dead along this path and was relieved at that, as he had to take frequent stops to adjust the gear in the wicker basket as it kept shifting.
A few hours later, he was relieved to hear the familiar sound of a rushing river in the distance and smiled, excited to drink in the setting…and the fresh water.
As he arrived, it was even better than he’d imagined. He bent low where the river ran over rocks and fell into line again, flowing south. He scooped a canteen-full into the container, believing it to be somewhat clean, and tasted it, savoring the cold liquid. It seemed to be clean to the taste, but certainly different from the well water.
He found a nice area with a stone bridge overlooking the water and made his way up to that vantage that overlooked the river. He took out the line and a lure, dug up a few worms in the moist soil beside the river, and tossed the line in. He was happy to enjoy such a once-simple pleasure as this and relished the activity.
As Alex tossed his line into the water and waited for a nibble, he thought about his most recent confrontation with the zombies. He could use a stick, or a spear to keep the undead at a distance. Using the knife was allowing them to get too close, he admitted, especially those who had recently fed. He considered that idea for several hours and pulled in a lone trout, which he was more than happy to have caught. It was a decent size and he hoped he could return to catch a few more before too long now that he found a nice place to fish. He immediately gutted it, and could not wait to cook it, he thought, as he tossed the gutted trout into the duffle bag, after first wrapping it in the plastic drop cloth.
Have
to work with what we have, he thought as he used some of the insides as bait and tossed the line into the water again. He also removed the shotgun from his back, placing it beside him. His thoughts shifted from Sara to Olivia and back again, feeling very odd about the arrangement. He was even feeling as though, in some way, he was cheating on Sara. After a few more moments, he understood the absurdity of that sentiment. However, it also brought to mind that he had no closure with his once and former wife.
He considered for the next hour or more, how they met, how she seemed to do everything in her power to make him happy, and the complete and utter love with which she showered him. She was always willing to do what he wanted to do, even though the only reason she did it at all was to make him happy. She always put everyone’s needs above her own. It was the reason he loved her and the reason that she would make an excellent mother to their child.
Now they were gone, taken from him in an instant, leaving him to fend for himself in this terribly cold and violent world.
Perhaps she sent Olivia to him for companionship, he considered for a moment. The irrationality of that thought again brought him to a sincere laugh. Olivia was so different from Sara in so many ways. But, he had no idea what Olivia was like before the world became…this. Perhaps she was very different. He believed that she only sought the same thing he craved in this world: companionship.
He wasn’t even sure if he believed in a higher being anymore, not after what was taken from him. He angrily renounced any beliefs he had that fateful day when Sara died. He also questioned the existence of a supreme being after seeing what happened to these innocent people. Ultimately, he knew deep down, that it was humanity’s fault that this plague occurred. He was unsure of the details, but he knew it was man-made.
Alex was always a believer in karma. He believed that if you did good things, good things would happen to you…eventually. He stared out at the water and chuckled again. “I’m alive and surviving. I guess you can consider that ‘good’,” he mentioned absently to the air as he stared skyward. He decided at that point that moving forward was exactly what Sara would want for him. She would always encourage him to do the right thing and never quit. And so, he decided that, to honor her memory, he would never quit on himself or anyone else from then on.
He reeled in the line and had another fish there. He was thankful to have even caught one, let alone a second. In that moment again, he believed that Sara had sent him this blessing and that she was looking down on him, favoring him.
But, before he could finish removing the fish from the line, he heard a groan followed by the sound of something no living being could utter. He turned to see a handful of undead heading up the trail toward him. He quickly retrieved his shotgun and the duffle bag and then jumped on the bike.
His heart sank as he realized there were at least a half dozen of them. There was no way he could kill them all, and they were approaching quickly.
He pedaled away, leaving the tackle box, fishing pole, and his latest catch behind, but had managed to put the first trout safely away inside the duffle bag. He pedaled hard, barely outpacing them as the off-road bike sped off along the trail.
He pedaled furiously, riding in one direction, which he believed to be northerly, as he followed the riverbank. After what had to be miles of riding, and ultimately leaving the pursuing zombies behind, he came to a bluff overlooking more of the countryside.
What he saw next amazed him.
Below in the valley, he could see a mass of tents. Past those tents, in the distance, was a gated area with building and flags, decorated like a carnival or something.
Or a Renaissance Faire, he mused, scratching his beard. It made sense as he’d only recently read about that in the November newspaper.
He was more than intrigued by what he saw. Moreover, if the gates were intact and the place was home to the castle he’d read about in that newspaper, the idea of a true safe haven were a real possibility. He squinted to see, but was not certain if the castle was there or not. He certainly wanted to investigate the place and surrounding area. He spun about and in the distance below, he could see some zombies wandering about, but it seemed as though they had lost his trail.
He had to go back and tell Olivia so that they could investigate it further. He made his way along the trail back home with the fresh trout in the bag and all of his other gear except for what he had to leave behind, and which he desired to go back later to retrieve if at all possible. He encountered nothing and no one on the way back to the cabin. The sun began to dip in the skyline just as he made his way up the hill to arrive back at the cabin.
He was fatigued from biking that many miles that quickly. He brought his gear back inside and tossed it all down, leaning the bike against the side of the cabin.
“Liv! Shadow!” he called. No one answered or called back. He started a fire in the pit, tossed in the trout, and began cooking it in a pan. He heard something approaching in the distance through the brush and grabbed his shotgun, aiming it in that direction.
Shadow emerged through the brush with another squirrel in his mouth and dropped it by his tree where he often lay down, and he stopped and stared at Alex.
“Gonna eat well tonight, boy,” he called to the wolf. “Though I guess you already have your dinner. I prefer the fish.”
After a quick searing of the trout, he grabbed the newspaper from the cabin and went over the ad for the Ren Faire, stuffing pieces of trout into his mouth and savoring the taste. What he couldn’t finish he replaced and put the lid back on the pan. He left it near the fire for Olivia when she came back. The ad for the Renaissance Faire boasted a representation of a castle that was going up, ‘brick by brick’, it stated. It went on to say that construction had started the year previous, and was slated to be this year’s main attraction with a grand opening scheduled for this coming spring. It even boasted an operational drawbridge and a moat he went on to read.
If this had been built, it would be a proper defense against the undead, and anything else that might come along, Alex considered, excited at the prospect of investigating it.
He went about gathering his gear again and decided that a car would be beneficial to them. He decided that he did not want to leave any of his essentials behind in case something happened and he could not come back. There were a good amount of items he wanted to take when they did leave.
And if he wanted to take Shadow with him, along with all of the gear, it would be easier with a vehicle, he considered.
He spent the next few hours tinkering in the firelight with another outlet and the wiring inside the wall but could not find anything visibly wrong with it. That was when he heard something outside, Shadow was snarling.
He ran to the scene, shotgun in hand, to see that Shadow was growling at Olivia, unmoving, and she had the gun out leveled at Shadow.
“Easy…,” Alex said, waving his hands out before him.
“Sorry, he startled me,” she said, still not moving.
“Shadow, relax,” he said moving between them, Olivia finally lowering the weapon. The wolf trotted off again and lay down beside his tree once more, sniffing the air.
“No luck?” Alex asked, leaning low and staring at her, forcing her to meet his gaze. Olivia looked away and frowned, then shook her head. She was clearly holding back tears and so Alex quickly made his way to the pan with the fish and opened the lid, trying his best to distract her. “You like fish I hope.”
“Yes,” she admitted frankly. “And I haven’t eaten all day. It smells good.”
“It was pretty damn good,” he admitted. “And it should still be warm.” She sat down and started eating the fish right there out of the pan.
“So, you found the river? Or is this from somewhere else?”
“Like where? he asked, shrugging as if the notion were absurd.
“I don’t know—an abandoned grocery store or something?” she said, as if that were an obvious answer.
“It is certainly not from a
grocery store,” he said with a chuckle. “That boy is fresh! I fished it out of that river…a river where I was attacked by a mob of zombies. I had to leave my tackle box and pole behind, and pedaled my ass off to get away.”
She stared at him and he shook his head in disbelief again. “They were so fast….”
“Are you okay?”
“Sure. I got away. I followed the river north and, funny thing, I found that Renaissance Faire.”
“And?”
“And, it appears to be fenced in, for one thing. It did not look like it was overrun from the outside, but I was pretty far away. And, if the thing was finished, there’s supposed to be a bona fide castle inside.” He ran into the cabin and brought out the paper, showing her the advertisement.
“Well, I can’t go,” she said curtly.
“Why the hell not?! We can check it out and if it’s safe—“
“What about my sister? I promised I’d go back every day to find her!”
Alex sighed deeply, ignorantly forgetting about her promise she made to her sister. He sat behind her and rubbed her shoulders, trying to relax her. “We’ll find her, don’t worry. And I’m going with you tomorrow.” She nodded her consent as Shadow approached.
“Give him some fish and he’ll love you forever.” She tossed him some remnants of the fish and Shadow gobbled it up.
They stood, dumped the remainder of the fish out for Shadow to consume, and the two of them went inside and fell asleep on the couch together, each lost in their own thoughts.
Chapter 8
The next morning, Alex pumped fresh water into a pair of pales, undressed, and washed himself thoroughly. As he did so, he had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched. He grabbed the knife on his belt and stopped upon hearing a familiar voice.
“That’s quite a weapon you got there,” Liv said jokingly, wearing only an oversized robe. “You should know,” he quipped. Alex turned away from her bashfully and toweled himself dry, then pulled on his pants
Wake the Dead Page 8
