This Dying World (Book 2): Abandon All Hope

by James D. Dean

  “Do you want daddy to play with you too?” I asked, watching as she set another block on top of her multi-colored two floor building.

  Katie simply shook her head no as she set her creation on the floor and picked up her doll.

  “I’m going out to see–” I started to say mommy, but I thought better of it. “I’m going to the willow tree. Do you want to come?”

  This time she looked at me, her tiny brown eyes misting over. She opened her mouth, but closed it again before shaking her head no.

  “Okay, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” I said.

  Without a word she got to her feet, walking past me with her head hanging low. With heavy clomps, she made her way up the stairs. The next thing I heard was the door of our room closing and the telltale sound of the door lock clicking.

  “Is Katie mad?” Jane asked, looking up from her own Lego creation.

  “No,” I replied. “She’s not mad at you. She’s just very sad right now.”

  “Katie should be happy,” Jane smiled.

  “Oh? Why’s that?”

  “Because Miss Abby gets to meet my mommy and daddy in Heaven.” She smiled brightly and went back to her colorful blocks. “They’ll all be waiting for us when we get there!”

  Jane’s words punched me square in the gut. I couldn’t get away fast enough. I bolted away from the kids and out the door into the bright sunny morning. As soon as I hit the porch I doubled over and fought back the rising bile. I put my hands on the railings and leaned in to steady myself while I gulped the frigid air.

  “Dan?” Joe called out. “Buddy, you okay?”

  Through a haze of tears I tried desperately to hold back, I looked up to see Joe stepping out of the bus. He kept his arm pressed against his body, wincing as his feet hit the gravel driveway.

  “Define okay,” I answered, hoping he assumed my trembling was due to the bitterly cold air.

  “You need some help? Should I get Rosa?”

  “No. I just need some air. I’m going to the willow tree.”

  “Alright. You need anything, you just holler.”

  I nodded and started toward Abby’s grave, looking over the bus as I walked by. I passed by the carport, trying in vain to avoid looking at the vehicles. The gleaming red and white ambulance and Abby’s Honda sat next to each other, stripped of anything Joe thought would be useful. I wanted to burn the damn things, to reduce them and the memories they held to ash. But the others wouldn’t allow it, at least until everything useful had been salvaged.

  I suddenly noticed a small trailer sitting off to the side of the barn. The two bikes that had chased us onto the farm were secured to it with heavy chains. Chris never mentioned a desire to bring the bikes with us, but it didn’t surprise me. Honestly, I would have burned them too if given half a chance.

  I shook my head, a heavy weight pressing down on my chest as grief welled up in me yet again. No matter how many times I walked across the drive, I couldn’t stop replaying that day in my head, looking for something I could have done differently. But with every scenario I came up with, the result was always the same. In the end, Abby died.

  Never again, I thought, running my fingers along the grip of my pistol.

  I trudged through the deepening snow, plodding along until I could feel the ground start to rise. I continued on until I stood beside the giant weeping willow atop the hill. Snow clung to the tree, its long barren branches coated in white ice that stretched down until their tips raked against the pristine powder on the ground. Sunlight danced through the icy crystals, glittering like rows of gems as a light breeze swirled along the long thin branches.

  A small mound sat at the base of the old tree, a handmade cross protruding from the cold snow where my wife was buried. I ran my fingers across the message I had carved into the tree, whispering to myself as memories of her flooded my mind.

  I turned away from the tree and faced the grave, leaning against the trunk and allowing myself to slide down until I sat on the ground. The cold bit at my face and uncovered hands. The weight on my chest had grown until it started to crush the air from my lungs. I closed my eyes, doing what little I could to calm myself and not give in to my immense desire to flee from what I still could not bring myself to accept.

  But I needed to be there. I needed to say the words I should have said in the last moments before she died. I took a deep breath, exhaling slowly through the pain and guilt that was slowing strangling what was left of my soul.

  “Hey Abby.”

  Chapter 6

  Chris was worried.

  He walked the tree line by the road, finding another section of his razor wire traps snapped under the press of the growing numbers of zeds. Every night there were more, and every day more sections of wire were breached, and soon they would all fail completely. With the constant stream of dead invading his farm, he couldn’t afford the time or the manpower to go on a scavenging trip for material to mend the damaged sections.

  Fortunately, the tiger traps were still effective for the time being. The dead that had gotten through the wire found themselves impaled in deep pits of sharpened rebar spikes. Most of those creatures were dead, the rest Chris killed using Dan’s hammer. But even those traps wouldn’t last forever. Eventually they would fill to capacity, leaving very little between the zeds and his home.

  It had become a daily ritual to gather the bodies into a pile away from the house and burn them. But it had been days since their last pyre. Even that chore had become too dangerous to continue, forcing them to leave the bodies where they fell. The stench of dissolving brain matter hung like a blanket of heavy humidity in the air.

  Chris looked to the house when he heard the front door slam shut. Dan stood on the porch, looking as if he was trying to catch his breath. He was about to walk over to check on him when he heard Joe’s voice. He saw the large man step out of the bus, his face twisting in pain from his still healing gunshot wounds. Dan said a few words Chris couldn’t make out before he walked away. Joe stood still, watching Dan go before he shrugged and climbed back into the bus.

  Chris shook his head and went back to the task at hand. A teen girl ensnared in one of the remaining sections of razor wire glared at him through a single milky eye. The socket of her left eye had been scooped clean, tracks of teeth marks dug deep into the flesh above and below where her eye should have been. Her teeth clacked together, blood staining the foamy froth that dribbled from her lips. She hissed as he drew near, her mouth opening wide in anticipation of a warm meal.

  He brought the hammer across her temple, silencing her protests forever. The corpse crashed down to the ground, her ashen flesh tore as it ripped free of the sharp razor barbs. Blackened blood oozed from the wounds into the filth stained snow. The crackling sound of dissolving brain came from within the damaged skull as the viscous ooze bubbled through her empty eye socket.

  He backed away quickly before the smell hit him. No matter how many times he had smelled the rotting abominations, the odor of brain as it dissolved in open air continued to churn his stomach.

  As he moved on to the last moving zed, a high pitched buzz filled his ears. He had hoped to finish before Joe sent the toy drone up on its maiden voyage, but he had not counted on the number of creatures he had to put down that morning.

  Despite the risk, he insisted on performing the morbid task by himself. As unpleasant as it was, he looked forward to the few moments he could be alone with his own thoughts, even if that time was spent killing the walking remains of the local populace. Even that was about to end for him. The job was simply getting too big for one person to bear alone.

  His arm ached as he brought the hammer down one last time. In a flash of orange, a very old woman that forgot how to lay down and play dead fell silent. He walked away as he tried to massage the burning ache from his arm. His cramped fingers cracked as he loosened his grip on the hammer.

  He watched the drone lift over the barn as he made his way back to the house. I
t hovered for a moment before shooting out over the field and toward the dense woods on the other side. By the time he finally made it over to the bus, the drone was no more than a dot on the horizon.

  “I saw Dan talking to you,” Chris said as he climbed into the bus. “How is he?”

  “About the same. I don’t know what happened inside, but he’s pretty shook up about it,” Joe said from the driver’s seat. He flipped a switch on the console and both of the large monitors in front of him came to life. “He went to visit Abby.”

  “Did you get the live feed on the drone to work?” Chris changed the subject, taking a seat just behind Joe.

  “I wish,” he replied. “It’s like Dan said, it’s busted. I went with plan B and taped my smartphone to the bottom and turned the camera on. It’s not real time, but we’ll know what’s out there in a few minutes.”

  “You’re not watching it?” Chris raised an eyebrow.

  “No need,” Joe answered. “Lexi’s flying it. She’s on top of the barn with the controls. I figured the higher up the signal was, the better off we’d be. The controls aren’t that hard, and I’m guessin’ she has more experience at video games than I do, so she’ll take to it pretty quick.”

  “Not a bad idea. What are you up to then? We’ve tested these screens to death already.” Chris leaned back in the seat, dropping the hammer to the floor. He flexed his arm again, working the stiffness from his muscles.

  “Can never be too prepared,” Joe said, glancing back at him. “Besides, there’s a new feature.”

  Joe flipped a toggle switch on the dash. The side monitor flickered and went dark. A second later, the field behind the bus came into view.

  “Thought it would be a good idea to see behind us too,” Joe beamed with pride. “Plus, it zooms!” Joe smiled, pressing a small button next to the toggle. The trees behind the house came into clear view as the camera zoomed in. Joe’s hand flew from the button when Dan suddenly appeared on the screen. He sat cross legged at Abby’s grave, head down and hands clasped together in his lap.

  “Whoa,” Joe gasped, quickly toggling the screen back to the front view. “I didn’t know it was pointed that way. A man deserves his privacy.”

  “It was an accident, no harm done.” Chris tilted his head, cocking his ear toward the open door. “Besides, I think I hear our flight.”

  The two stepped out of the vehicle as the drone set down, its powerful rotors throwing a cloud of glittering snow high into the air.

  Chris shielded his eyes, looking up to the roof where Lexi stood. She waved back at him, a small radio controller in her hand. Chris gave her a quick thumbs up before turning his attention back to the aircraft. Joe had already begun to tear away the silvery duct tape that held his phone to the underside of the drone.

  “Well, let’s have a look,” Joe said as he sauntered back to the bus. “Dan ran your laptop through to one of the monitors. Thought it would be a good idea to keep the kids distracted when we hit the road. We can run the phone camera through that.” Joe stepped inside, sliding back into the cushioned driver’s seat.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Chris replied. He sat behind Joe again, resting his elbows on his knees. “But why my laptop?”

  “Well,” Joe started. “Yours is newer and the battery has a longer life then Anna’s. Don’t worry, Dan cleaned all the porn from it.”

  “There wasn’t any–” Chris huffed. He looked out the open door toward the house before lowering his voice. “You, uh, got all of it?”

  “No worries, friend,” Joe laughed. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  “Dan helped with that?” Chris changed the subject. “Did he talk to you?”

  “Not really.” Joe connected the laptop to a cable stretched along the dash. He flipped another toggle switch and the monitor switched from the outside view to the laptop’s desktop screen. “He set this up, gave me some instructions, and headed back out to your slaughterhouse.”

  From the barn’s roof, Lexi fired her bolt action rifle, her trigger pulls spaced out and steady. Chris nodded, appreciating the fact that the girl knew how to take her time and conserve ammunition. She was more of an asset then he could have ever imagined when he first saw her climb out of Abby’s car.

  He was about to speak when more gunfire broke the silence. The shots came from the house and the barn’s roof. Another rifle joined in from the house, firing rapidly from one of the windows. He was about to run out to see what was happening when all the shooting abruptly stopped. A feeling of dread began to crawl up his spine as the air grew still and quiet. He glanced over at Joe who was staring back at him with concern written across his features.

  “Let’s take a look at the video,” Chris said.

  “Yeah, good idea,” Joe said as he connected his smartphone to the USB port. He navigated through the phone’s menu until he found the saved video file. Double tapping the touch pad, he opened the file and turned to the monitor and waited.

  Chris sat forward on the edge of his seat, watching the first images play out on the large screen. The annoying buzz of the rotors suddenly filled the speakers as the drone shot up through a cloud of snow. The top of bus came into view as the aircraft soared higher, the dark solar panels shining in the sunlight against the matte black surface. The serration of the plow edges glinted in the morning rays.

  “Damn!” Joe smiled. “This beast looks mean even from the air!”

  “Let’s hope she’s got a mean bite too,” Chris replied, staring intently at the screen. “This isn’t a tour bus.”

  The drone leveled off, hovering for a moment before creeping over toward the barn. The video suddenly spun in quick circles before wobbling and righting itself. It crept along again, hovering just a few feet above the barn roof.

  “Boo!” Lexi shouted as her face suddenly jumped into frame. Both men jumped, swearing at the screen as a giggling Lexi disappeared from view.

  “Alright,” Joe started, turning the volume down. “That’s enough sound I think.”

  “Pause that for a minute!” Chris stood and stormed outside. Blocking the sun from his eyes, he scanned the roof for the teen girl. Slowly and cautiously she walked the peak, her eyes locked on the woods beyond the open fields.

  “Hey! Lexi!” Chris shouted.

  “Yeah?” Lexi turned her attention to Chris.

  “Right here!” Chris shot his hand up, middle finger fully extended. He climbed back inside as he heard Lexi break into laughter.

  “Feel better?” Joe asked.

  “A bit,” he answered. “Lexi’s got me worried though. She’s looking really nervous up there. She’s got her eyes on that tree line and I want to know why.”

  Joe nodded, and pressed play.

  The drone lifted again, circling the barn before tilting and heading out over the field. In the upper right corner of the screen, Chris saw himself as he killed the emaciated woman trapped in the razor wire. He shuddered, rubbing his still aching arm. It was one thing to do the deed, but it was something entirely different to watch himself kill the thing with as much emotion as he put into taking out the trash.

  The snow covered field rolled across the screen as the aircraft raced toward the dense woods. A body sprawled out in the snow scrolled by, a dark stain spreading out in a pool from its head. Two more corpses appeared seconds later, laying atop each other and oozing blackened fluids from their skulls.

  “I didn’t know there were so many,” Joe mumbled as more bodies filled the screen. “How are we doing with ammo?”

  “Don’t ask,” Chris replied dryly. “I’m trying not to think about it.”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Right now,” Chris turned his eyes to Joe. “I’m thinking I need to know exactly what’s in those woods. I’m really not happy with what I’m seeing.”

  “Too many of ‘em,” Joe mumbled. “I had no idea we’d killed so many.”

  “That’s what’s worrying me. We burned them every day up until a few days ago.
Each pile had at least ten zeds, if not more. There’s four times as many on the ground out there now.”

  The two watched the screen intently as the snow packed field suddenly vanished into a dense canopy of dead branches and evergreens. Several zombies moved within the trees, shuffling along in the direction of the farm. Their eyes turned upward, tracking the small aircraft as it made its way over the trees.

  “Probably the one’s Lexi and Anna just took down,” Joe guessed.

  “Probably,” Chris replied simply. “See how they’re watching the drone? I bet when it came back here those things followed it. We drew them out,” he finished.

  He started to feel something he had not felt since the first days of the infection. It was the same feeling he got during his deployment. A heavy weight in his gut he would get when the shit was about to hit the fan in a major way. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as goose bumps spread across his arms. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but something in the air was deadly wrong.

  The drone’s speed began to slow, creeping over the trees until coming to a stop. It lifted higher into the air until the hibernating forest filled the entire screen. The image tilted back toward the farm as the drone’s return home function kicked in. A sliver of deep blue sky cut across the screen as the horizon came into momentary view. The aircraft then leveled off and began its journey back to the farm.

  “Stop!” Chris shot up from his seat. “Rewind that! Go back to just before it came back.”

  “No problem bud. What did you see?”

  “I don’t know. Something. Go frame by frame if you can.”

  “I can do slow motion,” Joe replied. He set the viewer to half speed and hit play. The images moved painfully slow, the forest stretching across the screen as the drone hovered. The video suddenly panned upwards as the blue horizon came into view once more. The sky started to disappear again as the drone began to level off.