Seven Days Dead

by Christopher Johnson

  "France, America, and Africa? Shit. That's all three major continents. Shit, shit, shit. There's probably not many places left to get to. Australia, maybe. The islands. Greenland. Assuming all this didn't hit there too. But how the hell can we get to any of those places now?" This was bad news. Real bad. The plan Tal had been forming in his head to get out of the area was pretty much crap now. There was nowhere to go if all those places had…this…going on.

  "I do not have that answer, Tal. Perhaps just staying put is best? We do not know how long they last. They do not die, but they do not seem to heal either, from what we have seen. Maybe, in time, they will just…fall apart." Alexius' eyes said he didn't really believe what he was saying, but he had not given up on hope.

  Hope, Tal thought, can get you killed just a little slower than stupid.

  "I'm not staying here, I can tell you that" Levi interjected. "Not with…them here anyway. You can't trust the Arabs, Tal." He leaned in close and whispered conspiratorially, “Listen, you gotta watch them…I think one of them stole my bootlace." He shot one last derisive glance toward the others and stalked away, muttering something about trust.

  Tal and the two priests watched Levi walk away, silent until he walked through the church doors and out to the courtyard.

  "That's not good", said Tal. "He's lost his fucking mind."

  "It's the impact he took", Sergius

  explained. "He is not right from the trauma to his skull, some sort of concussion or brain injury. It may yet resolve itself…we can pray it will, at least."

  "Ok, you pray. I'm gonna set a watch on him. Where are Christine and John?"

  "John has been gathering the food and herbs we need. He was a farmer where he came from, and Christine has been keeping watch out on the wadi. She has been very serious about the security of the monastery." Alexius nodded behind him toward the garden area Tal had seen when he first checked the perimeter.

  "Thanks. I'm gonna try and mend the bridges for now, then I'll go see the others." Tal walked towards the Arabs in the church proper.

  "Assalāmuʿ alaykum", he said, addressing the older man first. Peace be upon you.

  "Waʿ alaykumu salām" the older man replied. And upon you, peace.

  Having been from Lebanese parents, and due to his work in the IDF, Tal was well versed in the languages of the area, and so began his apology in Farsi.

  "Ah…listen, I'm sorry about that. He's apparently been a little…off…since he got hit in the head. I'm going to keep a watch on him until he settles, but I wanted to apologize for his behavior."

  "No need. Father Alexius has told us of his injury, which is obvious enough anyway. And our peoples do not have the best track record of being able to get along. I am Omar. This is my nephew Nasir. The ladies are Salma and Lydia…they were all we could save when the undead hit Aqabat Jabr." Omar spoke in English, presumably for the sake of the others. Once again, in a land of disparate languages, English proved a common tongue.

  "Aqabat Jabr? The refugee camp near Jericho? So you’re Palestinian then."

  "Yes. Or we were, when there were still borders and countries. Now, as you said, we are 'just folk'. Thank you for your defense of us. It is a shame that the world had to die in order for our differences to die with it." Omar seemed to be a decent man and had an easy going way about him. Not like his nephew, who was looking at Tal with tightly controlled hatred.

  Omar saw Tal look out the corner of his eye at Nasir and linger for a moment, guessing the reason for his interest.

  "Forgive my nephew. He does not speak English well and feels uncomfortable when he doesn't understand what people are saying around him. His father, my brother, was less…accepting of reconciliation between Palestine and Israel. He martyred himself two years ago in a suicide bombing in Ma'ale Adumim. He felt he was a soldier of Allah doing His will. Now he is dead, his act having done nothing beyond placing his son is in my care."

  Tal let out a sigh, "Well. Great. Hopefully we can all just get along for a while and figure out some way out of this without anybody killing anybody else. All this garbage was foolish before, but now that people are coming back from the dead and eating everyone left, the fact that it's even a thing right now is just insane. I'm going to go check on the rest of my people." And with that, Tal walked back down the church aisle, into the narthex, and out the door opposite the one the captain had left by to find John and Christine.

  ************* "And…you…are…dead."

  Click

  Christine raised her head from the rear

  aperture of her scope to gaze out over the low wall at the lone undead figure stumbling across the wadi. Of course, she'd removed the bullets from the clip of the bull pup and inserted the empty magazine to keep the weight as close to accurate as possible. It wouldn't do at all to fire an actual round at the thing, if there were any others about the sound would certainly alert them. It also wasn't a great idea to dry fire the weapon too much and risk damaging the firing pin, but she really wanted to get used to the weapon's trigger pull.

  "That was good, but remember to pull the trigger in that natural pause between breaths." Tal's voice caused Christine to start; he'd walked up so silently to watch her practice. He'd passed John in the garden and nodded to him as he was gathering string beans for their food. There wasn't a lot of real estate back here, which limited the ability to grow food. Tal made a mental note to discuss supply runs with Father Alexius. The Russian said he'd been here for years, surely he'd know of surrounding settlements that might have vehicles.

  "Jesus, Tal! Don't sneak up on a body like that. Especially not now. It's considered rude in the best of times…" she replied after having regained her composure, rolling from her stomach to her backside to sit on the grass.

  "Sorry. You're good with that weapon. I was worried when we got here. You

  seemed…much less sure of yourself with it, to say the least." He said it with a smirk intended to lessen the sting of the comment.

  "Yeah, well. I'm getting into the swing of it. My dad was one of those survival guys. You know, would go out in the woods for a week and eat bugs, build a hut with sticks and stuff. When I was young, he insisted my brothers and I at least know how to handle a rifle. You know for when 'the end of the world as we know it' happened. We always thought he was a bit nuts for it. Guess I'm eating crow now, huh? I'd forgotten most of it, never needed it much on mine and John's farm. And to be honest, John was never a fan of guns, he’s always felt shooting something from a distance was distasteful. Plus it was, like a decade ago. This is different than a thirty-aught-six Springfield by a lot, but the basics are the same. The rest is just bells and whistles."

  "Yeah, but what 'bells and whistles' they are! Recoil is better, though you lose some distance. More rounds by far though, and the action is better, military grade sights. I don't think you'd rather have a bolt action now a days, what with all the…." Tal waived his hand toward the shambling figure in the distance, but thought better of continuing the thought "anyway, I wanted to tell you that I'm glad I ran into you. I'm going to count on you to help me with Ben and Isabella. And Levi." He said that last with a knowing raise of an eyebrow.

  "Yeah…that knock to the head back in Jerusalem must have done something. He's been anxious since he woke up. Confused. And pissed."

  "I picked up on that. The others that are here, they’re Palestinian, and it doesn't seem like he's caught up to the fact that that doesn't mean a damn thing anymore. I want you to help me keep an eye on him, you and John. I figure we'll break it up into about six or so hours between me, you, John, and Alexius. You and I have the rifles, and John and Alexius are big boys, they can man-handle him if need be." Tal knelt down and picked up a stray blade of browned grass and twirled it between his fingers. He was feeling much better since he'd detoxed but he'd been feeling a need to do something with his hands to take the focus off the mental want that was still there.

  "Will do. You want me to go first?" she asked.

 
"Yeah. I want to talk to John about the food situation and based on that, Alexius and I will probably have to figure out supply runs."

  Christine nodded and began reloading her magazine, while Tal got up and walked across the thin strip of grass to where the garden area began. John, though engrossed in his work, heard Tal's footsteps and looked up as he walked up.

  "John."

  "Tal."

  "How's the food situation? This garden doesn't seem like it's gonna support us for long."

  "That's the truth", John replied, looking down at the string beans he'd gathered in one of the church collection baskets. Judging by the location of the monastery, this was probably more use than that basket had seen in a while. "I figure we're going to be in trouble inside of a week with all the folk we have here. Maybe they got supplied or something before, or had only a few monks, but this wasn't intended to support this many people for long."

  Figured as much. Damn.

  "I'm going to talk with Alexius and see about some plans for supply runs. Talked to Christine about Levi. We're going to watch him for a while. Sergius at lest thinks there's a chance this could resolve itself, but until then I don't want him doing something stupid without one of us there to slap the stupid back out of him."

  "Ben and Isabella, too?" John asked. "Nah. An old man and a little girl won't be much help. But I trust you and Christine, and Alexius is a big bastard, so he'll at least be able to restrain him." John seemed to brighten up at that. He knew he wasn't familiar with this type of life, and Tal seemed to work best with a mission, and he was good at what he was doing, so to be complimented by him was a source of no small amount of pride.

  "Sure thing. Just let me know when my turn comes up. Unobtrusive-like, I take it? He'd probably get angry if he knew we were looking after him."

  Tal decided he liked John, and rethought the opinion he started to form of him back at Almon.

  "Exactly." he replied, clapping John on his broad shoulder."I'm gonna go find Alexius. Hopefully he's got a map somewhere with nearby towns. Omar, the…leader, I guess, of the others is from near here. He'll have some good intel on the area, too."

  Tal gave John one last pat before turning and walking toward the church. It wasn't far, but Tal took his time, feeling for the first time in a long while clear headed enough to enjoy the sun and fresh air. Plus, when you're out on a mission, it was important to keep your spirits up with the little things. Funny, he was starting to feel like his old self, and all it took to get him there was the end of the world.

  There's irony for you.

  He'd nearly gotten to the narthex door, when Brother Kushka came around the front of the building at a brisk walk, motioning for Tal to come close. Tal started over and opened his mouth to ask what he wanted, when Kushka put his finger to his lips and mouthed there's one at the gate.

  Tal nodded and followed Kushka around the front of the church. He wondered why Kushka would come get him for this, the gate was solid and as long as they were quiet, there shouldn't be an issue. As he cleared the church's stone wall, he understood Kushka's urgency. Levi was standing about fifteen feet from the gate, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, staring at the gate. Christine was leaning up against the church wall, appearing to be nonchalant, but Tal could see her finger was resting along the trigger guard of her weapon and if he had to bet, he'd bet the safety was off. The barrel was pointing at the dirt, but Tal had no doubt if Levi went crazy, she'd have a bead on him in an instant.

  Tal walked quietly up, closing the distance between himself and Levi, just in case. A hand over his mouth was preferable to the sound of a bullet; one creature was enough for the moment. Tal could hear the thing clawing slowly at the outside of the gate, its fingernails scraping and skipping over the grain of the wood. It wasn't howling that sound, but Tal could hear a light snuffling coming from the beast's side of the gate.

  It's not sure we're here…as long as Levi doesn't fuck this up, we'll be ok.

  The scratching ceased, and Tal could hear the sound of shuffling footsteps receding from the gate. The creature hadn't smelled them, and had apparently lost interest. Levi stood still for a moment longer, breathing heavier than normal, before snapping out of his malaise and walked away toward the monk’s quarters.

  That was just too goddamn close.

  Chapter Ten

  The night passed uneventfully. Levi hadn’t gone near the gate again and only reappeared to hastily eat dinner with them, which he spent mostly in silence and casting the occasional baleful glare at Nasir, who glared back. The walk back to the cells was a little tense. They had to go as a group since the electric lights were non functional, and they only used the small hooded oil lanterns the monks kept in order to avoid attracting the undead. Tal felt refreshed despite the fact that he’d drawn the middle watch on Levi’s room, somewhere around midnight. After waking, Tal made his daily ablutions, though the task was made difficult by the fact that the monastery’s well was back in the garden area, and he had to haul whatever water he was going to use across the courtyard to his room. Still, Levi seemed to have lapsed into a sullen silence since last night, which was a damn sight better than trying to resurrect the old wounds he still believed existed between the Palestinian and Israeli survivors. Today, he felt, was going to be a good day. They’d even given him his guns back, though he’d given his rifle to John and the other pistol to Ben. He still retained the Jericho, but even that couldn’t put a damper on his mood.

  As soon as he was done washing, he dressed in the clothing the monks had given him, now his only real set except the spare clothes he kept in his bag (though those really just consisted of gym shorts and a t shirt), and set out for the church for breakfast. The group sat mostly together, except of course for Levi, and John whose turn it was to shadow him, and ate their meager meal in silence. Tal made his usual rounds to inspect the walls and gate for any sign of danger, and was amazed to find Omar and Nadir performing salah despite all they had gone through. Salma and Lydia were no doubt also in prayer, though probably in their cells as it was a longstanding tradition for men and women to pray separately.

  After they were finished in prayer and rolling up the small rugs that Father Alexius had given them for the purpose, Tal had to ask Omar why he still prayed.

  “If Allah helps you, none can overcome you. If He forsakes you, who then can help you after Him? Therefore, in Allah let the believers put all their trust.” he replied.

  “Third Sura Al -E-Imran” said Tal to the visible approval of Omar. The Quran was well known to him, his old life required it.

  “Indeed. Tal, there must be a reason to all this. The dead. You, me, Nasir, the others. Even Levi. I trust that Allah will deliver me, and if it is His will that I perish, I trust that it will be my time to depart.”

  “I don’t know from Allah, God, Yahweh, or anything else. I tend to trust myself, my weapon, and the soldier next to me. But you can trust that I’ll look out for all of us, until we are all safe. If God is still watching, maybe He’ll keep us safe too. Or maybe He’s just giving us everything we’ve given each other since the dawn of time, in one big punch.”

  “Perhaps, my friend, perhaps. Or maybe, after all the death we’ve wrought, He’s giving us the opportunity to show Him that we can choose life.” Omar’s eyes were sad, but the hope he felt could not be kept from his voice.

  Lunch followed his rounds, and then checking on all of his people after that, and it was close to evening by the time he felt it would be necessary to gather all the players together and plan their first supply run. He found Alexius first, who assured him that he had a map, albeit a decade old or so, of the area, then he asked Omar, John, brother Kushka and Christine to join them in one of the offices off of the sanctuary.

  “Alright”, Tal began once everyone was there, “we need to do a supply run. Truth is that the garden isn’t going to feed us much longer, and whatever we each brought isn’t going to keep stretching. We need to get this done while we still have th
e strength to do it.”

  “Who’s on Levi?” asked Christine. “Sergius is watching him for right now, but I need all of you here because everyone but Father Alexius is going to go. Kushka is going to wait hidden at the mouth of the wadi to guide us home once we are on our way back. Levi’s been quiet since yesterday, but I still don’t know how far I trust him not to go squirrelly again, so we’re probably going to lock him in his room while we are gone. He’ll be pissed, but screw him.”

  Father Alexius spread the map out on the desk in the center of the room and everyone crowded around to see.

  “I think our best bet for supplies is going to be Geva Binyamin”, Alexius said as he placed his thick finger on the map. “There are other towns that are closer, but more danger. Hizma is not far from us, but too close also to Dahiat Al’Barid which is too large a city to not have undead roving about. Geva Binyamin has a large supermarket, but is also a small town, so perhaps it was not cleaned out or looted. Plus the Separation Wall at Hizma may keep the dead back, but perhaps not if they come out of Dahiat Al’Barid because they smell you so close.”

  “What about this place? No..No fee Prat? It’s pretty close.” asked John.

  “Nofei Prat,” corrected Omar, “Nofei Prat is a small town adjacent to Kfar Adumim. There are a few entertainment clubs and some more expensive houses, but not much in the way of food stuffs.”

  “Besides which, the terrain between here and there is not easy.” added Kushka.

  That settled the question for Tal.

  “So, Geva Binyamin it is. There will be four of us going into town. Two of us will go in to the supermarket, assuming there aren’t enough dead to keep us out of the town altogether, and two will guard. Once the inside team is done, we’ll switch. Do we have any bags?”

  “We have a few large bags, mostly clothing bags and a few military style duffels. We use them to store vestments and other items.” Alexius offered.

  “Good, ok…”, Tal looked out the office’s small window to see the sun had already dipped below the horizon and night was upon them. “Get some rest tonight. Tomorrow we’ll set out in the late afternoon for visibility, and to locate a good hide for Kushka. We enter Geva Binyamin by dusk. The dead don’t seem to see so much as smell us so the dark can only help our chances.”