DEAD: Onset: Book One of the New DEAD series

by TW Brown

  “On that we can absolutely agree.” I gave a nod as my eyes continued to scan the huddled and shivering masses.

  My eyes came to rest on a little boy. I figured him to be maybe five or six. He was wearing a jersey sporting the logo of the local pro basketball team. He also had a long sleeve shirt on, but I could see the outline of what I figured to be some serious bandaging on his right forearm.

  As I studied the boy, he had been just as focused on the floor as the woman holding his hand. His straight, blonde hair hung down in his face just a bit, but something prompted him to lift his chin. Maybe he’d sense me staring at him. Whatever the case, when he looked up, I wasn’t surprised to discover that he had the first showings of the black tracers snaking through the whites of his eyes.

  “Sooner than later,” I whispered to Carl.

  “What?” He shook like I’d just roused him from a dream.

  “I said the sooner we get out of here, the better. If we wait too long, we might not be going anywhere.”

  He followed my gaze and I heard him swallow audibly. Then he tapped my shoulder and pointed out three more people in just our immediate vicinity that showed the symptoms I now equated with the infection.

  “Why aren’t the soldiers doing anything?” I whispered.

  “Nobody has given them any orders. They are doing exactly what they were told to do,” Carl replied. “And I wouldn’t count on them much longer anyway. I heard one of the men saying that a quarter of the troops assigned here have already just up and left. Two entire sentry units never came back. Their reliefs went out and found the posts abandoned.”

  “How the hell is this happening so fast?” I breathed as my gaze returned to that little boy. I was staring intently when he suddenly stuck out his tongue at me, and I decided that maybe being this obvious was not the best idea.

  “Simple.” Carl looked me in the eyes, and his gaze softened. “How did you finally deal with your lady?”

  “I didn’t.” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I understood what he meant.

  “I will grant that I am sure a few people have watched the movies or whatever, but nobody believed this could happen. And seeing something on the big or little screen is not the same as real life. That person you love…that child you brought into the world…can you really just shoot it in the head or bust it open with a bat? Most of us probably can’t. Then we end up bit. We join the numbers.” Carl’s logic seemed ironclad.

  He had a point. Yeah, I’d taken down a couple of the walking dead, but in the hospital, I’d just run. The thought of putting Stephanie down for good never crossed my mind. I’d run…gotten away from her as fast as I could with no thought of ending her existence. If she’d gotten her hands on me, would I have been able to do anything to fight her?

  “My truck is just a couple of blocks over—” I started, but a soldier on a bullhorn cut me off.

  “Okay, ladies and gentlemen, you all can return inside to the gymnasium.” A trio of men in uniform stood in the double doors to the gym. They stepped out of the way and began ushering people inside.

  “You think they’ll just let us leave?” I asked.

  “Martial law is in effect, but last I heard, it was from sunset to sunrise,” Carl offered.

  “Then I say we get the hell out of here now.”

  We headed inside with the idea of grabbing a sandwich and heading out. I told Carl I would meet him at the doors, I wanted to go tell Barry that I was leaving and perhaps ask him if maybe he and his wife would like to join us.

  I reached my area and saw the man sitting beside his wife, he had her head on his shoulder and he was stroking her hair, whispering to her as tears trickled down his face. For just a moment, I considered simply ducking out. If his wife was this much of a basket case, did I really want them tagging along? I mentally slapped and scolded myself before taking a deep breath and approaching them.

  “Hey,” I said in greeting. Barry looked up, his free hand brushing away the tears. “So…me and this other guy are thinking about leaving. I was wondering if you’d want to join us.”

  The man glanced over at his wife, then at me again. He shook his head.

  “I don’t think we’re ready to do that just yet,” he said sadly. “I think I am going to hold onto my hope that things will right themselves for just a little while longer.”

  “Okay…” I leaned over to shake his hand. “Just don’t wait too long. You don’t want to be the band playing on the deck of the Titanic.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said with a laugh. “You watch out for yourself.”

  “Hey?” a voice said from behind me. “Is that cot open?”

  I turned to see the unlikely trio of a man holding the hand of a young Hispanic girl with a teenage girl at his side. The man had dark circles under his eyes and looked like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders like so many others in this room.

  “Yeah…I was just checking out of this hotel,” I said with a nod.

  “Steve?” the teenage girl hissed. The man turned his head, but I caught his eye roll. “Thalia needs a bathroom unless you want to have to mop the floor.”

  “The facilities are right over there,” Barry called from behind me.

  I watched the two girls hurry off. The man, Steve according to the impatient girl, watched them head over to the bathrooms. While I did not think he was their father…at least not the young Hispanic girl, there was something very protective in his gaze.

  “You can have my bunk,” I told the man as I started for the exit. I heard his muttered thanks and knew his eyes were still locked on the door that the girls had vanished through. I was very glad I didn’t have that kind of responsibility. I had a feeling it was going to be hard enough to take care of myself, much less a child.

  I grabbed my bag and was almost to the doors when I saw a group of people gathered around a television that was on one of those rollaway carts. I recognized Carl in the rear of the crowd and headed over to see what all the fuss was about.

  “I guess this ran last night…the station has had it on a loop,” a woman said, her voice straining as she fought not to cry. “One of the soldiers just pushed this in and told a few of us we should probably watch it. He had all his gear thrown over his shoulder…I think he was getting ready to leave.”

  I moved closer to hear what was being said.

  “…have been informed that the president’s plane is reported to have crashed. No further details are being made available at the moment. However, we have been instructed by representatives of the United States Army to issue the following statement that reads as follows…” The man seemed to lean forward at the desk for a moment and squint. He looked past the camera. “Are you serious?”

  A voice could be heard in the background, and the reply was loud enough to be heard clearly. “Read the teleprompter exactly as it is written.”

  “The dead are returning to life. The CDC has confirmed that a living person bitten by one of the undead, or zombies as pop culture would call them, will turn within seventy-two hours, but some have done so in as soon as just a few minutes. There is no way to determine how fast or why there is such a disparity in what are now called “turn” times. However, if a person has been bitten, you are required to either bring them to the nearest military-manned FEMA shelter or dispose of them yourself.

  “There is to be no mistake, these are not your friends or loved ones. They will not recognize you in any manner or for any reason. Dr. Linda Sing had this to say…”

  There was a flash on the screen and a poor-quality video showed a doctor’s office that looked like any that a person would walk into. There were shelves of books in the background and several certificates or diplomas adorning the walls. Seated behind a desk was Dr. Linda Sing, the same woman who had gone on camera earlier to discredit any reports that the dead were returning and attacking the living. She looked tired and her uniform was a blood-stained mess; she was wearing dark sunglasses.

/>   “Am I on?” the doctor asked whomever was operating the shaky, handheld video device.

  “Yeah.” It was one word, but the voice made it clear that whoever was holding the camera was agitated.

  “Good. To whomever is watching, I am Dr. Linda Sing of the CDC. I am here to reverse my earlier statement that these people that are instigating attacks are not the dead come back. After detailed observations of a specimen that had no vitals and had been declared dead, I was witness to that individual sitting up and attacking another person.

  “There can be no doubt that this individual was dead only moments before. However, after the specimen was restrained, numerous things were done that a living person could not endure, much less remain conscious during. Additionally, I can confirm that massive brain trauma seems to be the only method of dispatching these…individuals—”

  “They’re fuckin’ zombies, you stupid bitch!” somebody off-camera yelled.

  Dr. Sing glanced to the left and pursed her lips before continuing. “Simple decapitation is not entirely sufficient. While the body will become inert, the head still seems to function and a bite that transmits the infection can still occur.”

  With that last statement, the doctor removed her glasses and leaned forward. It was not a necessary gesture. The dark tracers in her eyes could be seen quite clearly.

  “One of the telltale symptoms is the appearance of the darkening of the capillaries in the eye. If you are infected, I suggest you turn yourself over to the nearest FEMA center or military checkpoint. The only chance we have to contain this rests in your swift response—”

  “That went out the window a long time ago while you fucking scientists sat on this information, you stupid bi—” another voice off camera hollered, but was cut off as the video ended abruptly.

  The man behind the desk appeared on the screen once more. He was still looking past the camera in the studio, a look of what could very well be fear was etched on his face.

  “Umm…yes, well.” The man on screen looked past the camera again and seemed to grow even paler. A commotion could be heard in the background that ended with a woman’s shriek and a nasty crash.

  “Read the teleprompter like you were told, or she endures more of the same,” a voice came over the broadcast clearly. The menace dripped from it with open hostility and no attempt to mask the threat.

  “The United States Army has been given permission to…detain any person who shows signs of this infection. All such persons are to be removed from the general population until a remedy can be found. Currently, there is no known cure and the mortality rate appears to be at one hundred percent. If you are known to be harboring somebody who is infected, you face detention and will be considered to have violated the tenets of the amended martial law.” The man gulped and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “The armed forces and law enforcement have been granted the right to execute any and all persons who show signs of infection…as well as those who harbor them.”

  A murmur rippled through the group gathered at the television. I saw a few spots where people distanced themselves from individuals. I didn’t even need to look into their eyes to know why.

  “Time to go, friend,” Carl said as he grabbed my arm and began to lead me to the door.

  We exited the gymnasium and found ourselves in a hallway bustling with activity. Several soldiers scrambled past with their gear. I watched as they hustled out the door.

  “Aren’t we gonna stop them?” I heard a voice from the stairwell to my left.

  I leaned forward far enough to see a small cluster of men in uniform standing around a guy who sported more than a few stripes on his arm. I took him to be the man in charge. Despite the situation, he was in a pressed uniform and his face was clean shaven.

  “I don’t think so,” the clean-shaven soldier replied. “In fact, I am telling you all now that your continued presence here is strictly voluntary. I know that many of you have families, and there is little confidence that we will see the relief promised us. The regular troops are in the wind. Nobody is answering at Fort Lewis, and while my last orders were that we maintain our presence here until troops from Lewis arrive, I now doubt that anybody is coming.”

  “Are you telling us to abandon our post?” one of the men asked hesitantly.

  “No, I am simply telling you that your staying here is a choice. It is no longer an order. That useless officer they sent us yesterday was one of the first to vanish, which effectively put me in charge. I am not going to make anybody stay who does not want to, and if this ship does right itself, I will take the heat.”

  “Are you staying, Sarge?” one of the female soldiers asked.

  “I will remain for the time being,” was the clipped response. “Who will stay with me?”

  One by one, I heard each of the young men and women gathered around all voice their desire to remain. Once again, I was in awe of the dedication these men and women had…despite the likelihood that the country they were sworn to “protect and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic” was about to dissolve. As a nation, we’d been pretty resilient. We’d endured all manner of wars and terrorist attacks in our short existence. I don’t know why, but something told me there would be no coming back from this one.

  6

  Day Two Begins

  “Jesus,” I gasped.

  In the less than twenty-four hours that I’d been inside Franklin High School, the world looked to have gone, for lack of a better term…to absolute crap. I could see plumes of smoke rising into the sky from almost every direction.

  What was missing were the sirens of emergency vehicles rushing to respond and put out the fires. The sounds of gunfire came from all around, as did screams. Some of them were just the garden variety type, but every so often, I heard what I now termed as the scream. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard until yesterday, but there was no mistaking it.

  Carl, Principal Gordon, and Betty Simms—I’d finally learned the name of the unpleasant woman that I’d met in the parking lot yesterday—all stood with me on the steps behind the school. This side of the campus was bordered by a massive open air mall. There was a multiplex, Walmart Superstore, a few restaurants, as well as a strip of several small shops and a military recruiting depot.

  The sky was a bit overcast which amplified the smell of smoke and something else…something rotten. I was pretty certain that I knew what that might be. Not having been too familiar with the smell of death, I had been surprised when Carl told me that this stench was something very different from just death. I would have to take his word for it.

  “So where do we go?” Julian Gordon asked. It felt strange not calling him Principal Gordon anymore, but he’d sort of insisted we drop that title.

  “My truck is just up the road,” I said.

  I didn’t want to think about the possibility that my beloved Chewie was now a monster. Maybe Carl was wrong. Maybe he just encountered a wounded animal that lashed out due to the pain or something.

  As I tried to rationalize away the possibility that my Newfoundland might be waiting for me in her undead form, the four of us started up what I now saw was 86th Avenue. It quickly became clear that the military had been hard at work. Not a single house remained without the spray-painted ‘X’ and a small stake with a streamer planted in the middle of the front yard. I now wondered if maybe those individuals I’d seen emptying out the residences were part of the group that had deserted earlier.

  The other thing that was impossible not to look at were the bodies scattered everywhere. Most had neat bullet holes in their foreheads, but some looked to have been crushed, a few blasted apart—most likely by a shotgun—and then there were the ones that were completely decapitated. And those were where we confirmed perhaps the most gruesome discovery so far.

  The first severed head that we came across had belonged to a woman. Her long, flowing hair was fluttering in wispy strands as the morning breeze kicked up and brought the smells of fire and undeath wafting to
our nostrils despite all of us having an arm slung across our faces to try and block some of it out. The filmed over, tracer riddled eyes were fixed on us. This was made extra creepy by the fact that the head was almost entirely upside-down. I most likely wouldn’t have noticed if those terrible eyes had not blinked.

  “You have got to be kidding,” Julian choked out around his sleeved forearm that was pressed to his face in what I was discovering to be a futile effort.

  The mouth began to open and close as I neared the head and knelt in front of it. I picked up a twig from the street and poked the thing. The mouth snapped in a harsh clicking of teeth.

  “That should not be possible,” Julian breathed as he stepped up beside me.

  “Actually, back in the days of the guillotine and the fall of the French aristocratic society, Marie Antoinette and that gang, it is said that the head remained cognizant for minutes after the decapitation. That is why the executioner often held it up and turned it to see the body so that it would presumably suffer just a few more seconds before death finally brought relief.” Carl took a spot between me and Julian and then toed the woman’s head with one booted foot.

  I glanced up at him expecting to see a smirk but saw that he was being totally serious. His grave expression and pressed lips were pinched tight as he examined the head. As soon as I stood and stepped away, he stomped repeatedly until there was an ugly, pulpy squish and crunch.

  We continued up the street and at last arrived where I’d parked my truck. From about a block away, I was able to see inside the cab. There was definite movement, and I felt the acidic juices in my belly start to multiply with each step until it felt as if a hole would burn through.

  A few paces away, I stopped and held up my hand. The group paused, all of them looking at me with varied degrees of concern, confusion, and, in one instance, pity.

  “Just wait here,” I managed around the massive lump growing in my throat.