The Reawakening (The Living Dead Trilogy, Book 1)

by Joseph Souza

  “I couldn’t sleep. Had some bad nightmares so I figured I’d come down here and keep you company.”

  “What about Dar?”

  “She’s been out cold since her head hit the pillow. She’s proven to be a lot more resilient than I thought.”

  “That girl of yours is a real tiger. Didn’t think she had it in her, especially after she tried to off herself. I think I like this version far better than the moodier, depressed one.”

  “I’ve never seen her this animated. Maybe she’s still in a state of shock or suffering from post-traumatic stress.”

  “No, you’re over-analyzing the girl. She’s a natural-born fighter, Thom, you just didn’t realize it because of all the finishing schools, recitals and ballet lessons you forced her to attend. Every society needs warriors.”

  “I might as well tell you this now, Rick, not that it makes any difference, but that suicide attempt wasn’t an isolated event. She’s been seeing a therapist for depression and bi-polar disorder. We also learned that she’s been cutting herself.”

  “Christ, I didn’t know it was that serious. I suspected something was out of whack, but never realized it was that bad,” Rick said, sitting down next to me.

  “It’s been pretty rough on us the last few years. There were times we weren’t even sure she was going to make it. Days went by where she wouldn’t even get out of bed or talk to anyone. That’s why I thought it would be a good idea to come up here and let her hang out with you and Susan for a couple of days.”

  “Yeah, she and Susan were good buddies. Things would have been a lot better under normal circumstances.” He looked away. “I miss Susan terribly.”

  “We all do, Rick, especially Dar.”

  “Dar will survive this thing and become stronger for it. Her problem is that her brain functions on a different level than everyone else.” He tapped his temple. “That’s why all these quacks prescribe drugs for every ailment. This culture we live in leaves no outlet for the primitive aspects of our natures. Everyone is expected to go to college and get a degree, and major in art history, modern literature or women’s studies.”

  “That’s the crazy thing about this whole situation. As bad as it’s been, I’ve never seen her so alive and passionate about something as she is right now. Isn’t that the damnedest thing? Took bringing back the dead to bring my troubled girl back to life.”

  “Greatness often rises to the occasion,” he said, standing. “Okay, brother, it’s time I show you what I’ve got downstairs. Might as well do it now while everyone is asleep. Follow me and be very quiet.”

  I followed Rick into the living room and through the door he’d emerged from. We took a steep set of stairs down to the basement. I held onto the rail for support, hobbling down one step at a time. The exposed foundation was composed of various-sized rocks held together with mortar. Once downstairs, we walked through a dusty old room until Rick led me to another door. He opened it, and what I saw inside surprised me. It was new, sanitized and scrubbed. He’d outfitted it with state-of-the-art computers and sleek microscopes, and had turned it into some kind of a high-tech lab. Bright lights lit up the room, and it looked sterile and pristine. On the benches sat sophisticated measuring equipment. Technical books on DNA, chemistry, and microbiology filled the shelves. I had no idea what all this was for, but considering that Rick had once been one of the top genetic scientists in the world, I figured the lab had something to do with his field of expertise.

  “What do you think?” he said, looking around proudly.

  “Nice, if you’re creating Frankenstein’s bride.”

  “Just because I quit academia doesn’t mean that I quit doing research and studying biology and genetics. I just hated being stuck in that ivory tower. It was incredibly stifling to my intellectual development. Did you know that Albert Einstein did his finest work while working at a patent office?”

  “So what’s your point, Rick?”

  He opened a small box on the floor that looked like a mini-refrigerator. A whorl of smoke gushed out of it. He reached inside and pulled out a package and held it up to me.

  “I’ve taken samples from every one of these dead creatures. I’m going to analyze their DNA to see if I can find any clues to this puzzling situation. That computer over there is worth over twenty thousand dollars. It can sequence millions of DNA strands, as fast as any machine in the world. If I can manage to isolate the strand of DNA responsible for this event, then I might also be able to find a way to shut it down.”

  “But why would you think it’s a strand of DNA? It could be a virus, a bacterial agent or any number of other causes.”

  “It’s just a hunch I have. That’s why I’ve been examining these tissue samples for a clue. I’ve started entering the data into the machine. Hopefully, it will produce some results in the near future.”

  “Was that your master plan? To conduct genetic research once you moved up here?”

  “You could say that. I’ve discovered an amazing number of things since I built this lab, Thom, things that will someday revolutionize the food chain and eliminate the need for pesticides, manure, and polluted runoff into our streams and oceans.” He sat back in the chair and stared at me. “I’ve managed to genetically alter certain strains of my own crops and make them hardier, stronger, better able to withstand the vicissitudes of Maine’s climate.”

  “Jesus, Rick. Don’t you think that’s a dangerous thing to do? To mess with the food chain like that?”

  “DNA sequencing is the greatest discovery in the history of science and has been going on for years, brother. The promise it holds for mankind is remarkable. It will revolutionize everything from fighting lethal diseases like cancer and heart disease to making citizens better able to resist killer viruses and bacteria. The enormity of this discovery will extend to making our animals and food better equipped for survival. The end result of all this research will be to help end world hunger, and consequently wars, famine and human misery.”

  A scream suddenly erupted on the first floor. We bolted up the stairs and emerged into the darkened living room. I saw Gunner leaning over the couch and attending to Emily, who was writhing in agony, her face dripping with sweat. I flipped the switch, and the room lit up. Gunner’s wife, on the opposite couch, stared lethargically over at her afflicted daughter. On the floor below her slept the baby, Amber, stretched out on a blanket, with her arms raised above her head. Rick took a thermometer out of the desk drawer and checked Emily’s temperature.

  “It’s too high, Gunner. Go get some Tylenol, and bring it over. Thom, go fill the bath with ice water.”

  I ran to the bathroom, started the water, and shuffled back and forth with a steel bowl filled with ice. When I returned to the living room, I saw Rick force-feeding the girl cups of pink, syrupy Tylenol. Sweat poured down the girl’s face, and her eyes seemed to roll back in her bruised sockets. Delia appeared so sapped of energy that she couldn’t even get off the couch. Rick removed a hypodermic needle from his case and shot the girl full of anti-viral medication.

  “Put her in the tub, Gunner, and hurry. Take all of her clothes off and keep wiping her down with a wet cloth.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gunner nodded, picked up Emily, and ran with her into the bathroom. Rick followed behind him. The two men had barely left the room when Gunner’s wife started to go into a convulsive fit. At first I assumed she was sobbing, but upon closer examination, I noticed that she had entered into a state of shock. Her entire body shook with tremors. Sweat coursed down her forehead, and her face was now as red as a tomato. I could almost feel the waves of heat radiating off her body. I shouted out for Rick, and he rushed back into the living room.

  “What now?”

  “It’s Delia. She’s started convulsing.”

  “Christ, this is just great. Get some more ice and apply it to her forehead, then go upstairs and fill the bathtub with cold water. Let’s hope these are the only two victims because I only have two bath
rooms.”

  “Right.”

  I ran upstairs, turned on the cold water, and then hustled back down to fill it with ice cubes. I filled the bowl with the remaining ice, ran back upstairs, and dumped it into the cold water. Pain hammered my body. With each breath, it felt as if someone was stabbing me in the lungs with a screwdriver. When I felt I could move again, I limped gingerly down the stairs and into the living room. Rick lifted the syringe needle skyward, squirted some of the medication out of the tip, and then plunged it into Delia’s exposed abdomen.

  “She’s in much worse shape than I thought,” Rick said.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It came on fast. I think all her organs are shutting down because of the high fever.”

  He reached under Delia’s body, lifted her up, and carried her up the stairs and into the bathroom. He placed her in the tub, clothes and all. Removing a blue towel from the cabinet, he dampened it and started wiping it across her body. It was happening all over again.

  “Look, it’s working,” I said. “The tremors stopped, and her breathing is slowing down.”

  “She’s dying, Thom.” He felt her pulse. “Her breathing is becoming shallower, and her heart is weakening.”

  Rick ripped open her shirt. He clasped his hands together over the top of her bra and began CPR. He did this for the next ten minutes before he finally stopped and pulled his raw hands out of the icy water. He turned in exhaustion and stared at me, shaking his head.

  “It’s no use.”

  “She’s dead?”

  “What do you think?”

  “There’s not much time, Rick. She’s going to change into one of those things very shortly.”

  “Damn! What are we going to tell Gunner?”

  He reached down into the icy bathwater and lifted her body out. Water dripped over the floor and onto his shoes. I followed behind him as he carried her down the stairs. At the bottom, he made a beeline towards the basement.

  “Where you taking her?”

  “Down into my lab, where her husband and kids won’t see her change into one of those nasty things. Better to let them remember her the way she was rather than what she’ll turn into.”

  “Good idea. But what should I tell Gunner?”

  “He’ll be too busy dealing with his daughter, assuming the poor girl survives her fever.”

  I rushed over to the first floor bathroom and saw Gunner wiping down his daughter with the cold cloth and splashing water over her face. Emily looked weak and exhausted, but she appeared to be conscious and holding on.

  “Seems to be working, Gunner. Good job. It looks like the medicine and the cold water are doing the trick. Keep at it.”

  “Thank God,” Gunner said. “Can you get me some more ice?”

  “There’s none left. I need to set the machine up and make some more.”

  “There has to be more. That goddamn tray was half-filled the last time I looked inside.”

  I wondered whether I should tell him or not. I remained silent for a second while he continued to splash cold water along Emily’s body and wipe her down with the towel.

  “Where’d the damned ice go? My goddamn daughter is sick here!”

  “Take it easy, Gunner. Your wife fell ill while you were taking care of Emily. I had to use some of the ice in order to help get her temperature down.”

  He looked up at me. “How’s she doing?”

  I shook my head.

  “Shit!” he punched his hand in the water, causing it to splash up in his face. “Goddamnit!”

  “You okay, Daddy?” Emily whimpered.

  “Yeah, baby, Daddy’s fine.”

  “We did the best we could, Gunner,” I whispered.

  “I know, man, I know.” He covered his reddened eyes and sobbed. “I ain’t mad at you guys. It’s this shit we’re dealing with. This crazy situation.”

  “Take care of Emily, Gunner. We’ll talk about it later.”

  Tears streamed from his eyes.

  I turned to leave but stopped when I heard him call out my name.

  “Do me a favor, Thom. Don’t let her become one of them things. Take her out back and do her right, with dignity and shit. Set the torch to her. I couldn’t bear to see her end up like Swiftley’s wife.”

  “Sure, Gunner.” I patted his shoulder, assuring him that we would respectfully dispose of his wife’s body.

  I walked back into the dining room and contemplated my next move. I looked up and saw Dar coming down the stairs, the strip of cloth still wrapped around her forehead. She’d cut chunks out of her hair so that it stuck up at all angles, exposing patches of her scalp. Her black T-shirt came halfway up her stomach and exposed her navel, and she’d scrawled various symbols on her abdomen with red and black markers. Tucked inside her waistband was a gun. She’d darkened her eyes with black mascara and now looked like some impoverished urchin out of a Dickens novel.

  “Is that gun loaded?”

  “Locked too. No sense taking a chance with all these fuckers stumbling around.”

  “Nice hairdo, Dar. Not exactly the style you used to get at that fancy Newbury salon.”

  “Can’t believe you paid that drag queen two bills to cut it,” she said, stopping near the bottom.

  “Why don’t you go back upstairs and change into something less revealing.”

  “Why don’t you for once stop telling me how to live my life? I’m nearly eighteen years old and can do as I want.”

  “Fine. Can you at least watch Amber for a few minutes while I go downstairs?”

  “Where’s Gunner and the rest of his hillbilly clan?”

  “Delia passed away from the fever,” I whispered. “And Emily is sick too. Gunner’s got her in the bathtub and is trying to get her temperature down.”

  “Delia turn into one of those things yet?”

  “Rick took her body downstairs into the basement. He’s going to take care of the matter before it reaches that stage.”

  “Okay, I’ll keep an eye on the little rug rat.”

  Dar looked possessed, but I had other things to worry about now. I went downstairs and knocked on Rick’s lab door, and after a few moments he let me in. What I saw inside his lab shocked me. He’d placed a cot inside the lab and had strapped Delia’s body to it. Delia lay on her back, deathly still, her hands resting down by her sides. The color in her face had begun to drain, and she looked as white as a sheet of paper.

  Upon noticing my uneasiness, he said, “Look, Thom, she’s dying and not coming back. It’s an amazing opportunity.”

  “Opportunity for what?”

  “Advancement, study.”

  “But I thought you said she was already dead?”

  “I lied. She’s still breathing—barely, but it’s only a matter of time before she passes away.”

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing? This is completely unethical.”

  “There is no saving her, do you understand me? Her brain has shut down, and her body temperature is up to 106 degrees. Look, Thom, I know you’re upset, but by studying her I might be able to get a better understanding of the biological underpinnings of this phenomenon. This way, I’ll be able to track the physiological changes in her body and learn what’s causing this thing, maybe even discover how to reverse the process.”

  “What you’re doing is wrong and inhumane. It defies every ethical and moral fiber in my being.”

  “That’s why you’re a novelist and I’m a scientist. You have any qualms, then go write a goddamn novel about it.”

  I tried to get my head around the idea of him studying one of these dead things.

  “I just promised Gunner that we would dispose of her body with dignity and respect. He made me swear that we would not let her turn into one of those creatures.”

  “I’m sorry, Thom, but you misspoke. She’s gone and has more value to society dead than alive,” he said. “I have a responsibility to help other potential victims and protect the rest of us from this contag
ion. If I can learn something from her and save other lives in the process, don’t you think that’s the responsible thing to do?”

  “I suppose,” I said, confused. “But a voice inside me is screaming that there are certain lines you should never cross, and this is one of them.”

  “You shouldn’t listen to that voice, Thom, unless you’re sitting at your desk and narrating one of your highbrow novels. This is real life, pal, not fiction.”

  “Okay, Rick, I get your point. Your work is way more important than mine. It always has been, right?”

  “Look, I understand your objections, and they are completely valid, just not relevant in this case. I only ask that you don’t tell Gunner what I’m doing, and that way he’ll never even know the difference.”

  “You mean you’re going to let her turn into one of those things right here in this room?”

  “That’s the plan. She’s all tied up with nowhere to go. These things are weak and appear to have the brains of a two-year-old. This way I can take as many tissue samples as I want, and I can monitor her vitals and brain activity the entire time.”

  “How long before she succumbs to the illness?”

  “Within the hour, I’m guessing. Hell, I’m as knowledgeable about this outbreak as you are. But with all her organs shutting down, it shouldn’t take long.”

  I walked over to the dying woman and stared at her. It amazed me how much everything had changed in the short time since Dar and I had taken our leisurely drive up to my brother’s farm. We were now embroiled in an epidemic of global proportions. The world economies were failing at a crucial time in the planet’s history. Worse, my daughter had morphed into a deranged, crazed person I didn’t even know. My mind reeled, and suddenly I became dizzy. The only silver lining, if it could be called that, was that Dar had emerged from this crisis stronger than expected. Of anyone here, I thought she’d be the first to suffer an emotional breakdown. Instead, she seemed to have gone completely in the opposite direction.

  I stared numbly at the corpse, praying to God for the redemption of her soul. I felt exhausted, sore and thirsty. We sat for maybe fifteen minutes before Delia gasped and inhaled deeply. Her eyes opened, and her hands tightened into fists before relaxing again. She took one last deep breath, looked helplessly at us, and that was it. Rick felt for a pulse. He glanced at me and shook his head. Delia had passed to the next realm.