Sunrise

by Boye, Kody

  SUNRISE

  a novel by Kody Boye

  Sunrise

  By Kody Boye

  Copyright 2013. All Rights reserved

  Originally published in 2009 and 2011 under the same title.

  Kindle Edition

  Edited by Felicia A. Sullivan

  Cover art by Dan Galli

  Interior formatting by Kody Boye

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronically, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the proper written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events and situation are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  Also by Kody Boye

  Amorous Things

  The Diary of Dakota Hammell

  Love and Other Horrors

  The Midnight Spell (with Rhiannon Frater)

  The Tragedy of Louis Décor

  Wraethworld

  Fantasy Novels by Kody Boye

  Blood (The Brotherhood, #1)

  Sword (The Brotherhood, #2)

  For Rhiannon and Corey

  For giving me a place to call home.

  Because I could not stop for Death

  He kindly stopped for me

  The Carriage held but just Ourselves

  And Immortality

  Emily Dickinson

  CHAPTER 1

  There comes a point in everyone’s life in which they change. Be it their age, their person, their family, their friends or their world, things come about and, eventually, things go awry. It doesn’t necessarily matter who you are. You can be anyone you want to be in whichever frame of mind you exist. All that matters is that regardless of what happens or who it happens to, you stay true to yourself and be thankful for the things you have.

  Sometimes, if you’re not thankful for the things you have, they can disappear completely.

  That happened to Dakota Travis the day his neighbor, Steve Earnest, burst into the adoption center and pulled him toward his apartment.

  What’re you doing! Dakota had cried.

  They’re here! Steve had replied.

  Who’s here?

  The zombies from New York.

  Little more than a month later, not a whole lot had changed.

  Seated inside a nearly-abandoned apartment building in a heavily-fortified, one-bedroom flat, Dakota looked up just in time to see Steve saunter out of the bedroom, shirt stretched forward to hold the contents of the medicine cabinet. Pills, ointments, toothpastes, razors and other necessities—there wasn’t a whole lot they could use unless they wanted to shave or brush their teeth.

  “Is this it?” Dakota asked.

  “This is it,” Steve nodded, a sigh escaping his lips.

  Dakota closed his eyes.

  Great. Just great.

  It wouldn’t be long before they would have to run into town—on foot, no less.

  “Hey,” Steve said, clapping Dakota’s shoulder, “we’ll be fine for a few more days. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  “We still have cans,” Dakota said, pushing himself off the couch.

  “And we still have all that bagged shit.”

  “You always did eat too much junk food.”

  Steve laughed and brushed a hand through his hair. “I did.”

  Old habits didn’t necessarily matter anymore. They ate any and everything they could get their hands on, regardless of fat content or nutritional value. Distinguishing one thing from another based solely on a label was useless nowadays, especially when everything needed to be rationed to the point where it was nearly obsolete. They’d both slimmed down, based solely on what they’d been eating—cold canned beans, chips, pretzels and the occasional vegetable.

  Not sure what else to say or do, Dakota made his way toward the window. There, he sighed, took a deep breath, then looked back at Steve before parting the curtain.

  Outside, a lone figure shambled on.

  The zombie had not a care in the world.

  “I don’t like how there’s been so few of them,” Dakota whispered, shivering as Steve brushed up alongside him.

  “Neither do I,” Steve said.

  “Where do you think the rest of them went?”

  “I don’t know. I hate to say it, but I hope some sorry bastard lured them off. At least that’ll save us the trouble of having to dodge around them.”

  “I guess.” Dakota turned his head down, letting his long, stringy bangs shield his eyes from the waning light of the midafternoon sun. He traced the whispers of dust on the windowsill and tried not to think about how, were they not in their current situation, the window would be clean. Steve had always been a good home keeper, regardless of what some might’ve thought based on his scruffy, unkempt appearance.

  Dakota closed his eyes.

  Dust never shined on gloomy days. Then again, it didn’t shine at all.

  “Dakota,” Steve whispered, startling the younger man out of his trance.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m closing the window.”

  “Oh. Right.” He moved aside to allow Steve easy access to the curtains, then watched as his friend strung his fingers through the dark, maroon fabric and began to position them over the curtain—slowly, with a sense of patience like that of a snail crossing a hot highway on a busy day. Such a process became second nature over time. You watched for people watching you from across the street or the shadows of alleyways, for zombies cocking their heads to the skies; you drew the blinds over the looking glass into the outside world as though any and all movement could reveal your presence to others. If you didn’t, there might as well be a gun in your mouth and a finger on the trigger, a lone shell waiting to fire into your brain.

  “I’m gonna go shave,” Steve said after he finished closing the window, pressing a hand against Dakota’s shoulder as he made his way to the coffee table. He stopped in midstride, when Dakota didn’t respond.

  “Koda? You gonna be ok?”

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

  Nodding, but with a frown painting the curve of his mouth, Steve plucked a razor from the pile of toiletries and made his way toward the bathroom.

  Dakota turned, looked at the curtains, and closed his eyes.

  He never could’ve imagined how lonely being stuck in a dark room could be.

  That night, Dakota drew his knees to his chest and tried to drown out his thoughts, a process easier said than accomplished. He went to bed and almost immediately closed his eyes, then tried to get as comfortable as possible. Somehow, though, he couldn’t fall asleep. Counting sheep, drowning in a black void, forcing himself to realize how good it felt to lay in a warm, soft bed—he tried everything he could, yet to no avail.

  It took him only a few moments to realize what was wrong—he couldn’t count sheep because every time he tried to conjure one forward, it would disappear, he didn’t like the idea of falling into a place he couldn’t get out of, and Steve’s bed was too hard.

  In the midst of everything, Steve shifted, once again jarring Dakota from a failed attempt at sleep. The older man’s side of the blanket settled on top of him a moment later.

  Here we go again, he thought, tossing the blanket back.

  “I’m not cold,” Steve mumbled.

  “It’s cold,” Dakota said.

  “Maybe to you, but it isn’t to me.”

  Steve tossed the blanket back. More annoyed than anything, Dakota threw it right back at him.
<
br />   “Dakota,” Steve said, exasperated now.

  “Do you want me to sleep on the couch?”

  “Please, don’t. I already said I’m not cold, so don’t throw the blanket back to me.”

  “Whatever.” Dakota settled back into the bed, this time with the whole blanket. He drew it around his side and tucked it under him, rolling over so his back faced Steve.

  After a moment, Steve chuckled, then said, “I guess this means you can’t sleep either.”

  “I guess it does.”

  “You wouldn’t be worrying about me otherwise.”

  “Yeah right,” Dakota smirked, rolling onto his back. He stared at a poster on the ceiling, its edges long-since frayed and its corners curled. Men in capes, women in leotards, dogs with emblems on their chests—it didn’t take much to imagine the person that had once stood on this bed and pinned the poster to the ceiling. It was likely a teenager, possibly the only son of a single parent, or a middle-aged man without a girlfriend who preferred to inhabit a world of fantasy instead of reality. Steve said the poster had been there since the beginning and he hadn’t bothered to take it down. What is the point of removing something that once meant so much to someone? Steve had asked during one of their first conversations about it, right after it all had begun. You’re just taking a memory away.

  “It makes you wonder,” Dakota muttered, smiling when he saw the metal tack wink at him.

  Steve grunted and threw his legs over the side of the bed. “I have to take a leak. You coming?”

  “You need my help?”

  “Fuck you.”

  Chuckling, Dakota crawled out of bed and followed Steve out of the room and into the kitchen. Steve took an empty plastic bottle from a rack on the cupboard and slid behind the island to give himself some privacy.

  “Sucks the toilet doesn’t work,” Dakota commented.

  “No kidding,” Steve said, lifting the bottle a moment later. He carefully opened a nearby window and rolled the bottle off into the dumpster below. “You need to go?”

  “No.”

  “You hungry?”

  “For what?”

  “A pickle.”

  “I… guess.”

  “Hey,” Steve laughed, “I don’t like ‘em either, but it’s food, right?”

  Dakota nodded. No one needed to remind him of that.

  While Steve turned and started rummaging through their meager food stores, occasionally swearing but mostly mumbling, Dakota looked out the window Steve had just opened and tried to imagine what it would be like to not have a home. In this day in age, things could change by the minute, if not the second. It didn’t take much for someone to come in with a gun or a group of cannibalistic corpses to charge down the street and storm your house. In a world without law and a country without borders, it took little for something to happen. Dominoes fell constantly, especially when you were alone.

  “Here ya go,” Steve said, offering the pickle between two fingers.

  “Thanks.”

  “It’d be better with whatever, but we gotta save what we’ve got for tomorrow.”

  “What?” Dakota asked

  “We gotta go. We’re almost out of water.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you mention this earlier?”

  “Because I didn’t want you to argue with me.”

  “Steve,” Dakota sighed, setting his pickle on the counter. The audible crunch of Steve’s pickle between his teeth made him grimace. “I wouldn’t have argued with you.”

  “Yeah, you would’ve.”

  “Maybe for a little, but not for long.”

  “Look, Dakota.” Steve shoved the last bit of pickle in his mouth, chewed, then set his jaw. “We have to go out. I know you don’t want to, because I sure as hell don’t want to either, but we have no choice. If we’re going to stay in this apartment, we’re going to need water. As it stands, we haven’t taken a bath for nearly a week. We smell like shit.”

  You’re telling me. Dakota took a bite out of his pickle. “When?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow, before the sun comes up.”

  “Where’re we going?”

  “The supermarket. If we’re lucky, there’ll still be something left when we get there.”

  Where the hell is Steve? Dakota shoved a can of creamed corn into his backpack. Steve had run off to explore the rest of the store, while Dakota had busied himself with gathering food and any other necessities. Fruits, vegetables, the occasionally saucy soup and snack cake—what little he could find filled the bottom of his pack, but he already knew it wouldn’t last them more than a few days. They each needed to eat, and it wasn’t much.

  We need to eat more than we have been. As though it had a mind of his own, Dakota’s hand slid down his chest, lightly touching the now-visible bones. It doesn’t matter. This is why we came.

  Sliding forward, Dakota pushed himself in the small space between the two bottom shelves and reached for another can, desperate to grab it. They couldn’t risk going another week with only five cans of food.

  Or a half-week, he thought, grimacing. We can’t keep sharing one can a night.

  Something rolled past him.

  Dakota shot out of the small space, scraping his shoulders in the process.

  “Dammit!” he hissed, tears springing to his eyes. “What the hell was that?”

  A lone jar of mayonnaise continued down the aisle.

  “Steve?” he asked, standing. “Are you there?”

  Silence.

  “Steve? Come on—this isn’t funny. Stop screwing around.”

  Again, he was greeted only by silence. This time though, a figure stumbled into the aisle.

  A zombie, caked with dirt and dried blood, turned its head as it caught sight of Dakota, then stretched its arms out like a friend long since lost to time.

  Reaching down, Dakota grabbed his backpack off the floor, slid his hand down to his belt, and fingered for his holster.

  At that moment, he remembered he didn’t have the gun—Steve did.

  Great, he thought. Just fucking great.

  Turning, he ran down the aisle, not bothering to look back and see if the zombie gave chase. It obviously would—because like all predatory creatures, it would chase its prey to the death—but it wouldn’t run him down. An entire month of decay and exposure to the elements had ensured that most of them could no longer run, at least not in this lifetime.

  Rounding the corner, Dakota made for the entrance, all the while searching every aisle he could. At the front door, he stopped, looked toward the security lounge, then sighed. Steve stood behind the glass doors, rummaging through a desk.

  “Steve!” he hissed. “Steve!”

  “Dakota?” Steve called. “Why are you yelling?”

  “We gotta go. Now.”

  “Go? What?”

  “Zombies.”

  He didn’t need to explain further. Without another word, Steve grabbed the gun sitting on the corner of the desk and ran out of the office.

  It was their turn to play cat and mouse.

  They ran.

  Around street corners, between dead, idle cars, across wide stretches of road and through long, winding alleys, they stopped for nothing, not even when Steve’s pack dropped from his shoulder and spilled out nearly half its contents.

  “Come on!” Steve screamed, grabbing Dakota’s arm and dragging him along when he fell to gather the supplies. “We can’t stop!”

  “I know!”

  Something howled.

  The hairs on Dakota’s arms rose.

  No, there can’t be. The fast ones all rotted.

  They’d found a freshly-killed zombie. That could be the only explanation.

  “RUN!” Steve screamed, pushing Dakota ahead.

  “What are you doing?”

  A zombie burst into the open.

  It screamed.

  Steve shot. The bullet tore through the creature’s head and put it down for good. “We’re almost there,” he gasped, leading
Dakota through the last stretch of the alley. “We just gotta turn up here and jump onto the fire escape.”

  “The fire escape?”

  “It’s the only way back into the apartment building unless we want to run up ten flights of stairs.”

  “That’d be safer than jumping onto the fire escape!”

  “Not with the zombies chasing us it won’t.”

  He’s crazy if he thinks we’re going to be able to jump that high.

  Regardless, they had to get back into the apartment building—now.

  When they rounded the final corner, the metal skeleton of the fire escape came into view, complete with its hanging ladder of a tongue and its twisted face of support beams and wire flooring.

  “It’s too high, Steve. We’re gonna have to go another way.”

  “No we’re not.”

  Dakota cried out as Steve ran forward, wrapped his arms around his waist and pushed him into the air. Unable to think, Dakota grabbed onto one of the cold, steel bars and began to pull himself up, only barely managing to force his upper half over the safety rod once he cleared the ladder.

  Just as he stood up, the zombies came around the corner. “STEVE!” he screamed.

  “HURRY DAKOTA! HURRY!”

  He threw his upper body over the railing and grabbed Steve’s hands, digging his fingers into his friend’s wrists so hard it hurt. The muscles in his back caught fire as Steve’s weight pulled his arms forward, creating a pressure so unimagined he didn’t think it was possible. His back felt like it would snap at any minute, while his neck and collarbone screamed to be set free of his ribcage.

  Steve was too heavy. He couldn’t maintain his weight.

  “Come on, Koda,” Steve said, despite the howling zombies just feet below him. “You can do this buddy.”

  “You’re too heavy, Steve.”

  “No I’m not. You can do this. Come on. Just believe you can.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Listen to me Dakota.” Steve’s wrists slipped. The older man dug his fingernails into Dakota’s arms, nearly drawing blood. “On the count of three, you’re going to lunge back and pull me up, all right?”