Year Of The Dead: A Zombie Novel

by Ray Wallace

  I'm still no killer.

  A collective groan went up when Deandra won another hand.

  Jenkins shook his head. "I should have never let you in on that tell of yours."

  She let him see it for a moment as she pulled another pile of cigarettes her way.

  Friday, August 21st

  Dear Diary,

  Since I haven't written in a few days, I figured I'd better take a little time and get you caught up.

  By tomorrow, we should reach the Michigan border. The very idea of it gives me an excited, nervous feeling in my stomach. Excited about the lives we might be able to have within the zone, as everyone calls it. Nervous about the possibility that they won't let us in. According to the radio broadcasts and the people we've met along the way, they're not real big on welcoming outsiders.

  Aaron says that when we get there, under no circumstances are we to mention our apparent immunity to the plague.

  “We'll just end up as prisoners once again, spending our days giving blood and urine. No way. I'm not going through that again.”

  And I have to say, Diary, I agree with him.

  Hopefully, it won't be an issue and we'll be able to talk our way in. Although, I can't help but think that sooner or later something bad is bound to happen. Ever since we began this journey, things have gone as well as can be expected, maybe even more so. For starters, the guards in Atlanta told us we were free to go. They were no longer under orders to keep us there, and so they just stood back and watched us leave.

  Of course, I can’t help but wonder about Aaron's big escape plan since he refuses to tell us what he'd come up with. Luke says he probably never really had a plan at all. I think he did and realizes it would have never worked. Not that it makes any difference now.

  After we left the building where they were keeping us, we found an SUV in the parking lot with the keys lying on the ground next to it. A relatively zombie free parking lot, as it turned out. Since then, we've stuck mostly to the back roads, made our way across several states with little trouble.

  We're all still here, all six of us, having managed to avoid any sort of major catastrophe. Luke says that if we'd been in Florida or California or Texas, the areas where the outbreak had first taken hold, things would have been a lot more difficult for us.

  "It's only a matter of time before the entire country's overrun," he said when we talked last night. “Except for the zone… some small towns, maybe… the more out of the way places. Unless they find a cure, that is, along with a way to distribute it to everyone who needs it. And I don't see that happening. Not soon enough to do any good."

  We scan the radio for news of what's going on in the world. None of it sounds very reassuring. There are reports of major outbreaks on several continents, refugees being slaughtered, armed conflicts breaking out between neighboring countries.

  I'm just happy I found Luke in the middle of all that's going on. And the others, too. Yes, even Aaron. Since we got out of Atlanta, he's calmed down a bit, has made an effort to be nicer. He can still be a major pain in the butt at times. But he's one of us. One of the family. That's what it's starting to feel like. A family. Or maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part. I guess I can't be blamed for that, though, can I, Diary? After all that's taken place. After all that I've lost.

  Roger, who's been doing most of the driving, says we need to stop for gas. Which means we'll be siphoning it. Even out here in the middle of BFE (one of those terms Aaron likes to use) you don't have to go far until you find a car along the side of the road with the doors left hanging open. Or a parking lot filled with cars no one will be coming back for.

  “America, the land of opportunity,” Aaron joked the last time we stopped to do some siphoning.

  I just hope Michigan (or the zone, I guess I should say) really is the land of opportunity.

  It won't be long now before we find out.

  Saturday, August 22nd

  Of all the weapons at his disposal, Simon had decided he enjoyed the aluminum baseball bat most of all. He'd found it in a house where a family of four once lived, judging by the framed photos hanging on the living room wall. He could feel the tension flowing out of him whenever he used it, when he made solid contact with his target, crushing bone and brain, ending the un-life of the creature on the receiving end of one of his attacks. And he'd been feeling unusually tense in recent days. It hadn't been difficult to figure out why.

  Eric.

  Each time the name popped into his head a question would follow:

  Why haven't I killed him yet?

  The old Simon, pre-Amanda Simon, wouldn't have hesitated in finding a suitable time and place to take Eric out of the picture. Permanently. He would have killed the guy simply for the pleasure of the act itself. Add to that the extra motivation of knowing what was going on between Eric and Amanda...

  So just go ahead and kill him already.

  He wanted to, he really did. As much as he'd ever wanted anything in his entire life. But something prevented him from doing so.

  Fear.

  Initially, he hadn't been able to identify—let alone accept—the strange, foreign emotion. The longer he analyzed it, though, the more he had to recognize the basic truth of it. He was afraid Amanda would hate him if he killed Eric.

  For about as far back as he could remember, the extent of his concern regarding what others may have thought of him had been limited to whether or not they found him suspicious, if they regarded him as one of their own. As a young child, he may have felt some need to please his parents, to be loved by them, a need that had faded as he grew older, as he had suffered under his father's tyranny. Something dark and dangerous had taken hold within him during those formative years, something no one else his age seemed to possess. Eventually, it had led him to kill for the first time and all the times that had followed. As he’d moved from adolescence into adulthood, he’d no longer experienced many of the emotions he knew motivated the people around him: empathy, grief, fear...

  Love.

  Until Amanda.

  With her, it had been love at first sight.

  He laughed as he knelt beside the stream in a stretch of woods near the house where they'd been staying, using the water to rinse away the blood and bits of brain stuck to the baseball bat.

  What a silly concept.

  But there it was, nonetheless.

  That day, after seeing movement in an upstairs apartment window—he’d had no idea it was her apartment window—he’d gone into the building with murder in his heart. Only to be caught off guard when she answered the door and he realized right then, right there he had no desire to kill her or harm her in any way. Quite the contrary. He’d wanted to protect her. At first, he hadn't realized the full extent of his feelings for her. How could he have? The entire experience was like nothing he'd ever known before. He still had no idea how she'd affected him in that way, why she should matter so much to him. That was the funny thing about love, he figured.

  There's no explaining it.

  As for her son, Mitchell... The boy meant nothing to Simon. The only reason he'd decided to protect him, too, was because he knew it would make Amanda happy.

  After he finished cleaning the baseball bat, he used the water to wash away the blood that had spattered his arms and face. The weapon had been put to good use this evening. Most days, he went out morning, noon, and night, putting down as many of the undead creatures as he could safely get away with. Killing zombies served as a decidedly inferior substitute for actual murder. But it did allow him to control his urges, to alleviate—albeit in a limited fashion—the constant burn of the desire within him. On a good day, he'd kill a dozen or more of the red-eyed fiends before calling it quits.

  "Still plenty of activity out there," he'd told Amanda and Eric the night before upon returning to the house. "We should probably stay put a little while longer, see if things calm down."

  He knew it was what they wanted to hear, even though they acted like they were
eager to get moving once again. Because...

  Yeah, go ahead and say it.

  "They're fucking."

  So kill him already. Make it look like an accident.

  He'd considered and rejected the idea on a hundred or more occasions.

  If Amanda found out, if she were to even suspect...

  Although, ever since he'd stood outside the house and looked in through the window, saw them in bed together, his feelings for her had changed. His love—if that's what it really was—had begun to fade. Enough of it remained, however, to keep him from giving in to the urge that had controlled him for so long, from listening to the voice inside his head.

  Kill him now.

  As he walked away from the stream, baseball bat swinging loosely at his side, the voice continued to speak to him, suggesting for the first time:

  Maybe you should kill her too.

  Sunday, August 23rd

  According to Howard, it was probably Rachel's fault that Alex had died along with everyone else in Castle Creek.

  "So, I'm some sort of... mass murderer?"

  "I don't think I'd put it like that. The word 'murder' implies that you killed those people intentionally which, obviously, you did not. If it makes you feel any better, I believe that I, too, have been responsible for a good number of deaths. All brought about quite by accident, I assure you."

  It didn't make her feel any better. In fact, his seemingly flippant attitude regarding the issue only served to make her angry on top of the guilt she felt.

  "How can you be so blasé about it?"

  They'd been driving away from Castle Creek the first time they’d had this conversation. She'd looked over to where he sat in the passenger seat of the car, watched as he lifted his hands in a “what are you gonna do?” gesture.

  "I've always been a fairly pragmatic fellow. The way I see it, this is just one of those 'it is what it is' types of situations. Nothing we can do about it now except steer clear of any populated areas. You know, so we don't kill anybody else."

  Like Rachel, Howard had gotten sick, had thought for sure he was going to die and come back to life—or some semblance of it—possessed with a powerful hunger for human flesh. But that wasn't the way it had worked out. He'd gotten better. And before long, he'd been back on his feet again.

  “It took me a while to get my strength back. I'm not a young man anymore, in case you haven't noticed.” When he told her he'd recently turned sixty-two, she'd been surprised, having assumed he was about ten years older than that. No doubt, the illness had taken something out of him. And, if everything he said was true, it had given him something in return.

  "Like you, I'm a carrier now. Wherever I go, I bring the sickness with me. I spread it around with every breath I exhale, I end up killing anyone I come into contact with. Unless they're resistant. It took me a while to see the truth of it, to understand what I'd become.” He’d let out a sigh. “If only I could have figured it out sooner...”

  They'd fallen silent for a while, each lost in his or her thoughts. After a minute or so of nothing but the sound of the wheels on the road, Howard had spoken again:

  “There is a bright side to all of this, you know.”

  “Really? And what could that possibly be?”

  “The zombies. They think we're one of them now.”

  During the days that followed, she'd come to accept the truth of this statement. Wherever they went, the zombies left them alone. At most, Howard and Rachel would receive nothing more than passing glances from the living dead. Then the zombies would ignore them, let them pass or walk among them as if they weren't even there.

  They had made their way east with no particular destination in mind. It had been a meandering trek out of Utah, much of it spent driving around aimlessly, turning back every so often as they encountered blockades, stalled traffic, and the occasional terrified mob. They did what they could to avoid contact with people lest they infect them, all the while trying to decide on some long-term course of action.

  "Florida," Howard had suggested at some point. "The plague's burned through the whole state by now. Odds are anyone still alive down there is resistant to the disease. Which means we don't have to worry about killing them."

  To Rachel, it sounded like as good a plan as any.

  A few hours earlier, they'd crossed the border into the Sunshine State. After passing a long line of abandoned military vehicles at what had to be the scene of some major conflict, they came to a bridge strewn with so much debris that traversing it by car proved impossible.

  "Let's walk," Howard suggested.

  Rachel gave him a questioning look.

  "At least for a little while. I'm tired of all this turning around, driving in circles. Let's keep moving forward, look for a usable vehicle on the other side."

  And so they walked. The afternoon heat had started to fade with the approach of evening. It was still hot, though, seemingly humid enough to extinguish a lit match. Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance. Looking around, Rachel saw a dark bank of clouds off to the east.

  Halfway across the bridge, they encountered their first zombie. It paid them no attention whatsoever. The further they walked, the more zombies they encountered, all of them headed in the same direction, north, as though part of an exodus of the undead.

  Rachel's heart beat heavily in her chest even though she knew she was in no imminent danger. She had to fight to control the panic welling up inside of her, the certainty that at any moment the zombies would take notice of her, turn on her, and start to feed...

  “Relax,” said Howard, reaching out and taking her hand. “We're okay here.”

  “I know,” she said, trying to make herself believe it.

  Howard gave her hand a squeeze and together they continued onward amid the growling and the moaning and the smell of rot, past the empty, crimson gazes of the living dead.

  Monday, August 24th

  The man stood on top of the hill and watched the houses burn.

  The town lay spread out before him in the valley below, having grown roots and flourished there for most of a century, beginning as nothing more than a general store, a dirt road, and a handful of hunters' cabins before expanding into a community of more than five thousand souls. A community that had withered and died thanks to the plague and the flesh hungry creatures it brought in its wake, creatures that had once been loving mothers and fathers, children and neighbors who, for the most part, would have been hard pressed to ever raise a hand against another person let alone...

  The man shook his head, trying to clear it of the images threatening to form in his mind, to dislodge them before they could drag him down into the despair they inevitably conjured. As time had passed, he'd gotten better at suppressing the unwelcome memories. But they would inevitably sneak up on him whenever he was distracted, or too filled with self-pity to keep them at bay. He often wondered when, not if, he'd be overwhelmed by the dark impulse that haunted him, the one that had taken up residence inside of him the moment he put a bullet between the blood red eyes of the woman he had loved. That had been the day he'd walked away from the home he and his wife had made, accompanied by the dog he'd bought for her as a puppy three years earlier. The same day he'd headed into the woods at the edge of town where he had lived ever since.

  He heard gunshots from down in the valley, at this distance nothing more than ineffective popping sounds. Then a shout, high pitched and hysterical, carried on the breeze.

  "Sounds like someone's having a good time."

  The man spoke the words aloud even though there was nothing but the night, the trees at his back, and the dog at his side to hear him.

  More than two dozen fires burned throughout the town where houses had been set ablaze, apparently by the person or persons doing all the shouting and the shooting down there. He wondered if one of those fires consumed the house where he and Donna used to live.

  "One can hope," he mumbled, finding some comfort in the image of the place where he'
d learned the meaning of real horror reduced to ash and a blackened skeleton of wood. "Should have done it myself."

  A low whine drew his gaze to the dog standing next to him.

  “It's okay, girl,” he told the dog, a pure breed golden retriever they'd named—creatively enough—Goldie. “We're safe up here.”

  She looked at him in that way she had, her eyes, visible in the moonlight, seeming to say, Are you sure about that? Donna had always considered the dog more intelligent and capable of a wider range of emotions than he had.

  “You're anthropomorphizing it,” he remembered telling her.

  “Someone's been reading the dictionary,” she'd teased him.

  Recently, after all the time he and Goldie had spent together, he'd come around to the idea that his wife may have been on to something.

  More gunshots from down below. More shouting. As he watched, another fire erupted in the darkness.

  A few more minutes passed before the man turned and, with a "Come on, girl," wandered back into the woods. He'd seen enough. It was time, once again, to remove himself from the world he used to know, from the dangers it presented, the memories it attempted to revive within him.

  “There's nothing for us out there, Goldie,” he said as they made their way among the trees in the direction of the place he called home these days. “Nothing at all.”

  Tuesday, August 25th

  It wasn't enough. Not anymore.

  He looked at what was left of the body lying at his feet, consisting of nothing but a torso and a single arm. The head lay over near the wall where it had come to a stop after he'd kicked it and sent it rolling. The legs and the second arm lay scattered across the garage floor, intermixed with other mismatched body parts from previous kills. The heavy, cloying smell of decomposition permeated the place, an odor sure to send most people running for the nearest exit. The smell didn't bother Simon, though. He'd long since gotten used to it.