Wake the Dead

by Vanucci, Gary F.

  His passengers nodded and were yelling back and forth to one another, but he could not make it out as the truck picked up speed. He hoped they had heard him well enough. The man with the glasses even went so far as to smile and give Alex the ‘thumbs up’ sign, followed by a ‘fuck you’ gesture, holding up his middle finger.

  More sarcasm, he thought. He also caught Selina’s gaze and could not tell if she held appreciation or contempt for him. The zombies bounded after them, but Alex put some distance between them and the vehicle hurriedly. He slowed it down around another thick cropping of trees and bushes and allowed the passengers to get out of the back, which they all did.

  He leaned out of the window and spoke. “Wait here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” They all nodded and disappeared into the tree line.

  “Good luck,” Selina said to him, blowing him a kiss and shaking her head while frowning in unison.

  “Christ, even more sarcasm,” Alex whispered to Shadow as he jammed on the pedal again. The horde of zombies chased after the vehicle as he zigzagged along for a good mile all the while he sounded the horn. He fished in the back and found a can of starter fluid and changed his plan right there. He wedged a screwdriver into the horn it to keep it going and slowed the vehicle to a halt at the top of a slight hill. The truck was about fifty paces from the tree line when he opened the passenger door, let shadow out and retrieved his bow and gun.

  He grabbed the can of starter fluid, lit a match while inside, the cab and sprayed the flammable liquid all over the seat coverings. It burst into flames and he ran into the trees, Shadow following him.

  The zombies continued to follow wildly up the hill toward the unmanned vehicle, which was now on fire and still sounding the horn, while Alex led Shadow into the shade of the trees. The tree line was on the same side as where he had let the others out, only his van was quite a distance southeast of where he was now, he guessed. He carefully picked his way through the trees and shrubbery, looking back to make sure they were not being followed. He saw nothing except the blaze against the horizon, growing brighter as time passed, accompanied by the waning sounds of the horn as the distance between them grew. He wondered how these people would come to treat him and, more importantly, how they would react to Shadow and vice versa.

  As he picked his way through the trees and shrubbery there, Shadow followed lazily behind. Alex tucked the gun back in his belt, adjusted the items to a more comfortable place over his shoulder, and removed his trusty bow and an arrow from the quiver, holding it in his right hand, ready to nock it. It was smooth going at first as no zombies followed them directly.

  A few hundred paces in however, he came across a pair of the undead, moving toward him, or rather toward the source of the sound in the distance behind him, which was still going. Shadow made for the first one, growling and then launching his body atop it, pinning it down and tearing at flesh as it tried to fight back.

  Alex could not get off a bowshot as it closed the distance too quickly.

  Stupid! Getting used to fighting the slow ones, he thought as he recognized in horror that this thing had recently fed. It charged toward him with incredible speed, slapped his bow away, and it as he backed further away from it, he stumbled to the ground. The zombie fell over him, spitting blood from its mouth and clawing at him, trying to get at his flesh.

  Alex instinctively grasped a fallen branch nearby and tried to work it into the zombie’s mouth as it scratched at him. Alex managed to maneuver it into the mouth and followed it up with an elbow to the throat, which was instinct…and useless.

  Of course, this thing had no vital organs to target, rendering a great deal of his martial arts knowledge impractical. The zombies had no nerves, felt no pain and pursued their victim even with a broken leg, which is something he had seen in the past. No advantages of his trained targeting would help against these inhuman abominations.

  As he tried to maneuver the powerful creature off him, he noted that the zombie’s fingers had claws at the end—something he had not noted on any of the previous ones. Perhaps it was unique to this particular zombie, or perhaps it was something altogether new.

  Are they evolving? he wondered, recoiling in unison as the zombie snapped the branch in two with its bite. Alex repositioned the remaining half and tried to use it to hold it off, pushing up and trying to put some distance between him and the zombie so that he could try to fish his knife out of the sheath. But it was taking all of his concentrated efforts just to keep the thing from tearing out portions of his own flesh.

  He recalled with a wince, the pain of the first bite he ever felt from one of these bastards on his left leg. Luckily, it had not torn away any flesh before Alex put a bullet in that one’s brain.

  He heard the sounds of snarling, inhuman sounds and the struggle that ensued out of his line of sight between Shadow and the other, presumably recently-fed, zombie and hoped the wolf fared well. He heard the sickening sound of something entering flesh and thought the worst, that maybe the zombie had stabbed the wolf….

  Alex could not give that much thought however over the sound and struggle of his own fight, which took every ounce of strength he simply had to keep this wicked zombie from making him its next meal.

  He was stricken with shock as the creature’s head suddenly flew from its body and portions of its fleshy neck fell over his face and eyes. He spat it away and shoved the body off him, wiping his eyes with his right sleeve until he could open them.

  “You all right?” asked a woman’s voice through his blurred vision.

  “Shit! That thing was—argh!” Alex could not finish the sentence. He opened his eyes and cleared his vision a bit more to see the four others he had dropped off standing a few feet from the wolf, who continued chewing on the zombie body, now dead with a branch jammed straight through its eye socket.

  Alex trod over to stand near the wolf and Shadow growled at him. “All right, leave him be for now,” Alex exclaimed excitedly, still feeling the adrenaline rush of his most recent confrontation with the undead. “And thanks for saving my life. My name is Alex.”

  “Well, Alex. You’ve created quite a mess for us here,” said the smallish man, wiping clean, then replacing and adjusting the glasses on his face. “We were trying to keep them contained within the fairgrounds as best we could.”

  “And why is that?”

  “They are easier to kill when they haven’t fed,” said the bald man with the goatee as he dragged his sword along the grass to clean whatever gore was on it. “We kept them contained and hunted a few of them at a time, whenever they were in small packs. Long story. I’ll let you explain it to Nick when we get back. Oh, and I’m Phil.”

  “Who the hell is Nick?” Alex asked with a furrowed brow.

  “He is kind of our—leader?—I guess,” said Phil, as he stroked his goatee, evidently not knowing how to answer that. The woman beside him chuckled at that description and Phil looked back at her with a smirk, clearly sharing a private joke between them.

  “This is Elizabeth,” Phil said, pausing and gesturing to the woman holding the axe. “Our stealthy, irritated, and diminutive friend here is named Ben.”

  “Fucking idiot,” reiterated Ben as he crouched and spat at the ground.

  “I’m Selina,” whispered the woman, now seated and leaning wearily against a tree, her pack slung over her right shoulder. “And I am famished. Haven’t eaten anything substantial in three days.”

  “C’mon. I’ve got some food in my van,” Alex said.

  “No need,” countered Ben, removing a pair of energy bars from his pocket. “Try these.” Selina snatched up the bars, tore open the wrappers, and then ravenously devoured the energy bars.

  “Speaking of starving, we better get going. There’s going to be plenty of ‘em sniffing around for a meal soon enough,” warned Elizabeth, refitting the heavy helm on her head.

  “Should we bring these two back? We’ve wasted most of the day now,” Ben spat angrily.

  “
Well, we can still go out for supplies, like we were about to do anyway. Besides, this young lady looks as though she could stand some first aid and a good meal,” said the man named Phil in an optimistic tone.

  “Like I said—I have a van. I can take you wherever you need to go, since I feel like I at least owe you that much.” They all nodded in unison.

  “What about the puppy?” asked Phil, seeming to have some kind of affinity for the wolf, as they all stared at Shadow. Alex made his way to stand in front of the wolf, leaning over him.

  “Shadow! Time to go,” he said, staring into the wolf’s eyes as Shadow growled at him for a long moment. “Shadow…now.” Alex stood again and began to walk away. “Come.” Shadow suddenly dropped the remains of the zombie flesh and padded silently after Alex, who began to pick his way through the brush. Alex stopped again and stared back after them.

  “Are you coming?” Phil laughed, helped Selina to her feet and followed them, Elizabeth, Ben and Selina following closely behind.

  Not long after, they arrived to where Alex had parked the van, the sound of the pickup truck’s horn still sounding faintly through the open area. As they arrived, Alex opened the passenger door for Shadow, who hopped right up and into the seat, and then he unlocked the back door for the others to climb inside the empty space. There were no seats, only sheets, Alex’s extra bags of supplies, and a quilted moving blanket balled up in a corner.

  “You do realize that you just made things for my group much more difficult?” asked Ben earnestly, glaring at him over his spectacles. Alex nodded, shrugged, and said nothing more.

  As soon as Alex closed the door, he witnessed another group of zombies charging the vehicle from the opposite direction.

  Alex had achieved his goal of rescuing Selina, he realized, but at what cost?

  He hopped into the driver’s seat, started the car and sped off along the highway. He had to maneuver around many broken down vehicles at first, but eventually there was clear road ahead. Zombies were everywhere, he mourned, knowing what he had done was extremely foolish.

  “At least some of them are roasting,” Phil said, gesturing to where the pickup truck was to their left in the distance. The cab and engine were engulfed in flames, the horn cutting out finally, and the pickup truck exploded violently, taking dozens of zombies along with it. Body parts and shrapnel rained down all around the explosion, and Alex was careful enough to stop the truck well before it reached the tree line. The only thing that would burn would be the soil beneath the vehicle. He did allow himself a smile at that as the scene unfolded.

  “Where to?” Alex asked the passengers in the back of the van.

  “Head up onto the overpass to your right. There is a gas station on the corner that still has gas if you are running low. We’ll need to be stopping there either way. If not, take the highway to the right again and there is a shopping center a few miles up that is still…mostly intact,” Ben instructed before folding his arms over his chest and mumbling what Alex knew to be curses under his breath. “I’m hoping that pumping station will have some leftover gas cans.”

  “We can get your girl here some food and we need medical supplies. And toilet paper!” Phil said jovially. It appeared that Ben and Phil were polar opposites from a personality standpoint.

  Alex stared at Shadow, who was still an adolescent wolf by his estimations, and who was beginning to show even more signs of his wild side. Alex wondered how long it would be before he had to set the wolf free. He had already grown attached to him, and Shadow was the one with whom he had spent most of his time after the zombie plague took away everything else that he held dear.

  And even when he let another get close to him—just as he began to give a shit about another human being!—she was taken away from him too.

  “It’s just up the road on your left,” called the voice of Elizabeth, pulling Alex from his lamentations and self-pity.

  As the van closed in on the parking lot, Alex noted a handful of zombies roaming aimlessly among the few cars and gore that stained the asphalt. It was mid-afternoon and the sun was hot this day, Alex was quick to understand as he opened the door slightly and was met unpleasantly by the humidity.

  “We got this,” stated Elizabeth with confidence as she smiled at Alex, as she turned the latch on the van door, kicked it open and stepped out into the open lot. It reeked of death, and the heat did not help the rancid stench. There was a slight breeze, but that did not help either, but rather might have made things worse.

  Alex stepped out of the van, now parked close to the first set of stores in the strip, and removed his bow. Phil followed Elizabeth out of the van and they proceeded to head in the direction of the half-dozen undead that now ran toward them.

  Shadow snarled as if sensing trepidation in Alex, and reacting to it. “It’s okay, boy,” Alex pacified, more addressing himself than the animal. He watched in appreciation as Phil and Elizabeth worked together, coordinating their shield and maneuvering zombies into position so that either of them could use the axe head or the sword edge to sever a head clean from the body.

  “I guess they do ‘got this’,” Alex reiterated. “Hadn’t even given thought to the fact that coordinated, predictable tactics against a small amount of ‘em would make for a nice advantage.”

  “Yeah, and if they screw up, the zombies bite down on steel. I’ve seen some of ‘em shatter their teeth right off. It’s kinda’ funny,” stated Ben, smiling impishly at Alex.

  “Okay then,” Alex said, thinking the image a little off-putting, but not addressing it. “And what do you do in this little band of raiders?”

  “Me?” Ben asked irritably, as if explaining himself to Alex was a waste of breath. “What I ‘do’, is lead them everywhere they need to go. I know the area pretty well, too…shopped in most of these stores for years. And, I can get into and out of tight spaces that most of my larger friends can’t. Not that I have to explain it to you.”

  “Makes good sense,” Alex admitted, nodding in agreement and ignoring that last comment.

  “Glad you approve,” Ben spat again as Alex frowned at him, then looked after the other two, who had quietly and brutally, taken down five of the six zombies, while that sixth was currently caught in between their shields.

  Seconds later, its head flew from its body, joining the others on the ground. Elizabeth and Phil let the body go from between their shield where it was previously pinned and it too, slumped to the asphalt.

  “That was impressive, Elizabeth,” Alex nodded.

  “Call me ‘Liz.” As soon as she said then name, Alex immediately gave thought to Olivia, and he sighed deeply.

  “You okay?” Phil asked, slapping his back heartily. The blow moved Alex forward somewhat, and he realized that Phil was probably pushing two-hundred fifty pounds. He was over six foot and was generally a bear of a man and clearly very strong, which Alex did not recognize right away as the man’s body was hidden away beneath the chainmail, padded jerkin, and loose fitting jeans.

  “I’m fine, thanks,” Alex answered. “You got protection for your legs, too?” Alex asked him out of curiosity.

  “Sure do.” Phil lifted his jeans slightly to reveal pads strapped on beneath them. “Pads from when I used to play hockey. Back when things weren’t so…you know…zombified.

  Alex laughed at the silliness of the word. “Well, I don’t want to leave her in the car with the wolf, so either she has to come with us…or….”

  “The wolf can come with us,” Phil said with finality, clearly unafraid of the animal.

  And why would he be, Alex considered, he is wearing chain mail armor and is carrying a sword. Alex locked his door, moved around to the back and peered in at the gaunt woman lying on the blankets.

  Selina’s right eye fluttered open and the left side of her mouth turned up as if she were attempting to smile. “You got me off that roof none too soon, Lancelot. If you people are leaving me here, please lock me in so your rescue wasn’t in vain. I can’t defen
d myself in this condition.” Alex crawled up beside her, felt her head and recognized that she was burning up. His memories flooded back to Sara, his wife, who had felt hot too before the zombie plague claimed her.

  “I’m not losing another one,” he vowed as he opened his pack in the back of the van, fished out some fever reducer, antibiotics and pain reliever and handed her the pills and Olivia’s thermos. “Take this for now. We’ll getcha’ better.”

  She smiled warmly at him, despite being quite sarcastic when they had first interacted an hour or so ago. “I’m glad that you are warming up to me.”

  “Is that fever-humor?” she asked with a blank look.

  “Actually, no. It’s just that when I first spoke to you, you were....”

  “Unpleasant, I know. Long story, Lancelot. Now go,” she said, shooing him away. “Just lock the van up.”

  “My name is—“

  “I know what your name is…, Alex,” she said with a wink as he shut the doors and locked them as instructed. He opened the door to the passenger side van and Shadow leaped out and began running around the open lot, sniffing and relieving himself all over the dead zombie carcasses.

  “Lovely,” Ben mentioned with what was fast becoming his standard sarcastic replies. Alex retrieved his usual weapons and began storing them on his person, but left the shotgun in the van in between the seats. “We are heading that way,” Ben added, pointing to a supermarket, whose sign was partially missing letters. What Alex could read was an ‘l-i-e-’-s’ at the end, but the rest of the letters were gone with only bright squares remaining where the lettering rested, unaffected by the sun’s rays for many years.

  “We need what’s on the list and the medical supplies for Tom. We’re running low on pain relievers, too,” Liz said. “And I need some ‘lady stuff’, and so might Selina, so I’ll be looking for some of that, too.” Phil, Ben and Alex nodded as they trotted off, Shadow following close behind. As they arrived at the entrance, Liz and Phil yanked open the automatic doors that were stuck, while Ben squeezed inside. Once in the foyer, Ben straightened his glasses and pushed the doors open from the inside, which Alex realized was one of the ‘tight spaces’ that Ben mentioned before. The others quickly made their way inside to join him.