Among the Roaring Dead

by Christopher Sword

  When the kid let go and exposed the wound, the driver stepped in and aimed his gun at the kid’s head.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Jess said.

  “He’s been bitten, which means he’s infected. Stay back.”

  “How do you know he’s been infected? You have a group of scientists who have determined that this is some disease that needs to be treated with a bullet?”

  Jess put his arm under the barrel of the gun and pushed it upwards so that at least it wasn’t aimed at the kid.

  Roscoe stepped up behind Jess and trained his gun at Jess’s head.

  “Back away or you’ll join him. I don’t have a lot of patience.”

  Roscoe was so close Jess thought he could feel the breeze from his voice on his neck.

  There was a terrible amount of blood but the kid seemed more bothered by the gun than anything else.

  “I’ve seen this before,” the driver said. “We had a guy in our first trip who was bitten twice by those things. It took him five hours to die and we left him in an empty room so we could decide what to do with him. In the meantime, he woke up like one of those monsters and killed four of our people with nothing but his hands and teeth.”

  The driver brought his gun’s aim back down and had his elbows out to block any kind of resistance Jess might have felt like trying again.

  None of them saw how close the creatures were.

  Roscoe issued a startled yell as the things pounced on him. The driver turned and blew off the thing’s head. He then took aim at the ones in the front. He dropped about six of them and was making his way to the door of the van when one of them got hold of his jacket. Several more applied their weight and desperate fingers upon his body and dragged him down to the ground. It was like they were all coming from everywhere, not just the store.

  The gun went off on a pile of bodies where Roscoe had stood and was then silent. One of them in the pile had been shot, and now they all shook, little blue streaks of lightning passed around the group

  Jess threw open the back doors to the van and motioned to the kid to get up. The kid refused.

  The kid seemed in shock, perhaps because of what had been said about his prognosis. Jess grabbed him by the back of the jacket and pulled him into the van.

  He slammed the doors shut behind the kid and ran up to the driver’s seat, side-stepping the twitching group and hopped in, looking at the controls.

  The device still sat in the dashboard.

  “Orson?”

  “Yes, I am here.”

  “Can you drive this thing?”

  “I can drive the car but without access to the transportation grid, I would effectively be driving blind. It wouldn’t be something I would advise.”

  There was a loud thud against the driver’s window. Jess turned and saw one of the creatures, slapping his palm against the window.

  “Alright, let’s see if I can figure this out.”

  He got the car into gear and pushed down on the accelerator pedal. It screeched away, faster and more wildly than he had ever seen a car move before.

  “How are you Orson?”

  “I’m happy to know that you’re not dead.”

  “No, I’m not, and I can’t let that happen until we find out how the boys are.”

  Chapter 13

  A single streetlight, about twenty feet up in the air, blinked randomly, as if it was struggling to come back to life.

  Roscoe’s thumb and forefinger tapped together when he was bothered by something. His wristwatch rang without answer.

  He cursed to himself – the idiot in the tower had told him that the store was within range.

  He tried again.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Roscoe, what’s going on?”

  “Oh, the usual, nothing but bills in the mail and the same old crap on the boob tube.”

  “Stop joking around! I’m stuck out at the destination point without a vehicle!”

  “What happened.”

  “We had an attack. One of the workers took off with the van.”

  “Christ.”

  "What's the status outside?"

  Their security office, as they called it, was a room on the second floor. It gave a full view of the surrounding land, and most importantly, what was happening at the fence that surrounded their lot. On a normal day, there would be a small handful of zombies out there. Maybe they were attracted by the smell of cooking food, or perhaps one of them saw something and called others, however they might achieve that.

  At first thought, the growl or moan that came from their rotting throats seemed a simple primitive sound that any wounded animal might make at the sight of salvation. But the more Roscoe heard it, the more he thought those things were communicating. Simple communication perhaps, just a "I found something", but the way that moan carried on the wind and seemed to grab the attention of more of them seemed more than just coincidence.

  He heard the sound behind him, another body trying to get to its feet. Roscoe shot it in the head.

  The fuckers were dumb, that much he never doubted. He had walked up to plenty of them before and held an axe or sword before their melons for a few seconds before splitting their brains open. Not a single one of them ever registered any hint of realization regarding what was about to happen. But they made up for their lack of smarts by hunting in numbers and pack animals always send each other messages, no matter how simply.

  "We're counting about fifteen of them at the perimeter. It might have been the van that made them interested," said the voice at the other end of the line. The building had been installed with a shortwave radio system with devices that could integrate with their smartcards.

  Or the things can fucking smell us, Roscoe thought.

  "Take care of them," Roscoe said, "and get a vehicle over here within twenty minutes. I want my van back."

  The van came roaring down the street about 10 minutes later, licking up a storm of dust and ash in its wake.

  It was the tech guy from the tower.

  “You’re my man today, Eddie?”

  “If you’re okay with that.”

  “Yeah, let’s go. You know where we’re headed?”

  “Yep. The Eagle said you might find another PAL handy so he gave me this one. Said it’s an older model but the maps are working offline so it should be good enough.”

  Roscoe snatched the smartcard away from him.

  “We know where the fucking grocery store is. Let’s go.”

  “It also says whoever’s holding the other one didn’t turn off their GPS.”

  “Say what?” Roscoe said.

  “We can track them,” he said. “The PAL is tracking them.”

  Roscoe activated the screen with his finger. The face of a young blonde woman appeared

  “What the hell is this?”

  “You like that?” Eddie said. “I set that up for you.”

  “Yeah, great. What am I going to do, kiss her?”

  The bench seat in the front squeaked when they got in.

  “Is that a wallet in your pocket?”

  Eddie nodded.

  “Where’s your smartcard?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You telling me you actually have cash in your wallet?”

  Eddie nodded. “It’s safer than an e-purse. Can’t be tracked as easy.”

  “How much?”

  Eddie took a long look at Roscoe, trying to determine if he was serious.

  “Just pull out a fucking bill and show me,” Roscoe said. “I haven’t seen money in ages.”

  Eddie pulled out a red hundred dollar bill. It was translucent in parts, less paper than plastic. Roscoe slipped it out the slit of his side window.

  “Hey!” Eddie yelled.

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t realize it until now, but you actually believe that society is going to go back to normal at some point and money is going to mean something again, don’t you?�
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  “I think most of us are hoping.”

  “When’s the last time you saw a cop, or a person walking around outside our fence who didn’t want to have you as lunch?”

  Eddie shrugged his shoulders.

  “Idiot. Start driving.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Where’s my fucking van?”

  Eddie cleared his throat.

  “What?”

  “Check the fucking GPS! Make yourself useful!”

  Eddie just shrugged his shoulders.

  “Okay, okay.”

  Eddie cursed to himself and tapped the smartcard. The blonde on the screen located the GPS tracker and pulled up the location of the first device. It was moving, already about 10 kilometres away, heading back into the city core.

  “Start the vehicle. We’re going after them.”

  “I didn’t bring any extra gas. How far are we going to have to go? Maybe we should go back and get some supplies for a trip like this. Bring a couple other guys so we can take turns driving if this turns into a big trip?”

  “Hold on,” Roscoe said, and pointed at the smartcard screen to Eddie. “You see that?”

  “What?” Edie stared at the screen.

  “You see their location?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t have to worry, you’re not going there.”

  “I’m not?”

  “No,” Roscoe said. He put his gun against the man’s head and pulled the trigger, using up the last bullet in his gun.

  “I am.”

  Chapter 14

  The kid was in the back seat sniffling and moaning. Jess stopped the car after a number of minutes to check on him.

  He suddenly didn’t look much like a kid anymore. There were coloured patches under his eyes and a general weariness that seemed to make him look much older than he really was. He had been holding his wrist tightly to his shirt, which was now saturated with a small circle of blood about the size of an apple.

  “Let me see,” Jess said.

  The kid fought having his arm removed from his shirt.

  When Jess got a look, he found that most of the bleeding had stopped. There was a definite gash – mangled and ugly but it looked entirely possible that the kid would survive.

  Jess was on his knees before the kid. His knees hurt. He squeezed them with his hands, which still wouldn’t stop shaking. Jess spotted the flask that was passed around earlier, under one of the seats. He gave it a shake and the sound of liquid could be heard inside.

  “Thank God,” he said.

  “What?”

  The kid was half lying down and couldn’t see what Jess was doing.

  “Oh, nothing kid. I’m just happy we got away from that Roscoe guy. What a nut.”

  Once back in the driver seat, Jess started the van and unscrewed the lid of the flask. There wasn’t much in there but it was enough to calm his nerves.

  The road behind them was barren, although he knew it probably wouldn’t stay that way for long. He drove looking in the rear-view as much as he did the front windshield. The kid moaned constantly, almost like a quiet cry - trying to stifle it.

  Jess found a checkered shirt among other things behind his chair and tied it around the kid’s wrist.

  “What’s your name?”

  “What’s it matter? I’m dead.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re breathing. You’ve almost stopped bleeding.”

  “Probably because I don’t have any blood left.”

  “Oh sure you do. You’ve got something like six litres in your body. I don’t even think you’ve lost one.”

  “Then why do I feel so cold? Don’t you feel cold when you’re dying?”

  “Only in the movies, kid. It’s freezing outside. You’re probably in shock. You were just attacked. We were almost shot!”

  The kid still looked nervous and stared at the roof of the van while trying to control his breathing.

  “You’re going to be okay kid, I’ve seen lots of people in worse shape than you make it out okay.”

  “You have?”

  “Oh, sure,” Jess said. The fabric that he had tied around the kid’s wound wasn’t yet saturated with blood - a good sign, Jess thought.

  There were large blades of grass off to the side of the road, almost four feet tall by the looks of it. The grass and swaying cattails further in were all coated in a light layer of ash. The wind was whipping everything around, blowing the ash like whirlwinds of snow until a calm period came and the ash again floated down, making the scene outside their window look all too Christmas-like.

  The kid just stared – fear frozen on his face.

  “This was a long time ago, but I was driving a subway car one day when I saw a kid on the tracks in front of me. When I say a kid of course, I mean someone just a bit younger than you. Every once in a while we’d hear about teenagers who would break into the tunnels and go spelunking their way down dangerous subway tunnels for a kick.”

  The kid sat up a little, listening to the story.

  “So just like most days back then, I would start around 6 am, gunning the train as fast as I could for about a kilometre at a time. It was like a game to a lot of drivers. See how fast you can push it for that minute, try breaking your own record, and compete with your colleagues – anything to break up the boredom. I pull out of one of the stations in the east end and I see the kid in front of me, in the middle of the tunnel with his hands out, as if he can stop the train from smashing into him.

  “I couldn’t stop in time. I pressed down as hard as I could on the brakes, and sent all the passengers flying off their feet. I ran down to the back-end of the train, and went out the back door. There was screaming under the train. Horrible screaming, but at least I knew he wasn’t dead yet. All I could picture was the blond hair and red cheeks of a kid who was in a spot he shouldn’t have been. So I crawled under the train for about three dozen meters until I came upon him. He was on his back, screaming in pain. His shirt was covered in blood and I thought he was going to die in my arms. But then I noticed that the fingers on his one hand were severed at the knuckle.

  “He had ducked just in time but his hand went under the wheels of the train. It was a horrible scene, and something I will never forget, but the kid made it out alive and is doing fine today.

  “And you? You’ve just had a little accident yourself. You’ll make it out okay, you’ll see!”

  The kid flicked his hair from out of his face and looked at his nails, seeing how long they had become.

  “That was a good story,” he said. “But at least that kid had hospitals with doctors in them. You and me, we’re just driving until we run out of gas.”

  “Nah, we’re gonna make it kid.”

  “I don’t know, I don’t feel so good. Hey Jess, can you do me a solid?”

  “”What?” He was trying to clean the windshield with the wipers but there was no cleaning fluid to help. The wipers stuck in places as ice built up on the glass. The temperature seemed to be dropping rapidly.

  “Kill me if I die?”

  “What do you mean kid? You’re not going to die.”

  Jess looked back through the little window and saw that Daniel had mustered a weak smile.

  “I know, I know. You’re very confident even though the world has gone to hell. But you know what I mean. I don’t want to come back as one of those monsters.”

  “Alright kid. If it comes to that, I’ll take care of it.”

  The darkness of the night was so thick that it swallowed everything up and he had to drive slowly. He came across an abandoned vehicle every so often and even if he was proceeding slowly it came upon his vision without much warning. They weren’t far from the apartment now. Another hour maybe, at the rate they were going,

  There were two half-filled water bottles in the holding areas between the seats. He unscrewed the cap of each and brought the opening to his nose. They smelled like plastic worried that the bottles had long ago begun to brea
k down, contaminating the water inside. He put them back in the cup holders, thinking that at minimum they might be useful for cleaning in the future. The flask of vodka sat in the now vacant seat beside him, but he decided that he would wait until he checked the apartment before succumbing to that temptation.

  Just another hour.

  There was a thin black wire coming from below the temperature console that housed the radio and temperature gauges. He picked it up and found that it was a charger for a smartcard. After all this time, he had Orson in his jacket but let him sleep, thinking that like everything else it too was probably out of power and his solar chargers weren’t going to recharge it without the sun. His jacket had an inner pocket that was a snug fit for the smartcard. He pulled it out and tried to insert the end of the wire, which was shaped like a small prong. It fit and made a beep before lighting up.

  “Hi Orson.”

  “I was beginning to get worried.”

  “Or as well as you could manage.”

  “I humbly thank you sir, a truth’s a truth.”

  “Alright pal. Can you try calling the kids and Toni?”

  The speaker beeped angrily, rejecting the attempt.

  “I’m having very little success dialling anything. I’ve even tried the RCMP and the local police.”

  “We’re not far away now. Why don’t you take a nap?”

  “Yes – I’ll reserve power for when you might need me next. I’m happy to be back working with you.”

  There was a large bus turned on its side up ahead. It was a greyhound – one of those luxury-type behemoth vehicles that escorted people from one side of the country to the other. It had overturned at a bend in the road. Jess had to maneuver into the gravel by the ditch to make his way around.

  Creatures were on the other side of the bus, eating away at carcasses that seemed nothing more than unidentifiable skeletons with very little meat or flesh left to pick at.

  The monsters perked up at the sound of their approaching van and stood up. Their movements were uneasy, and they swayed towards him like an inebriated fool in need of help. There were at least four of them, the nearest a heavy-set man with a thick brown moustache. He was also missing an eye – just a thick dark red mess where the orb should have been.

  Jess had a solid plate of metal and glass between him and the creatures advancing but he still stepped on the gas, racing away from the scene before letting them get within arm’s reach.