Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 4): Resolution

by Schubert, Sean

  William agreed with a nod. “We’ll head back over there in just a little bit...before it gets dark. I think we should sit down and talk first.”

  So talk they did while Gordon and Betsy ate their meal. There was ample food for everyone, but no one else had much of an appetite. Gordon ate, though he only nibbled so as not to offend his wife.

  Neil started with a warning. “No one should go into Tom’s room alone and no one should go in unarmed.”

  The stern militancy of Neil’s tone and his words caught everyone off guard. He was a stranger after all. Who was he to tell them what they should do or how they should care for one of their own? Betsy was visibly stunned.

  She was about to tell Neil what she thought but was cut off by Mia saying, “He’s probably right.”

  All eyes were suddenly on her. No one expected her to say that. William was afraid they were going to have to force her to take part in the conversation. To be truthful, Mia surprised herself with the comment as well. She reached into the middle of the table and grabbed a fresh dinner roll and a napkin.

  “When they brought Nakissha into the lodge,” Mia said, “she was half crazed. She wouldn’t stop crying and going on about the people who attacked her and the others. She called them murderers, butchers, and cannibals. Most of what she said I couldn’t understand because she was crying so much.

  “Nakissha was always so dramatic. It was hard to know what to believe and what to chalk up to just coming from her, you know? Like that time she was tellin’ everyone about almost being eaten by that shark down out of Yakutat. I mean, really.

  “Ole Doc Brewster, he gave her something to calm her down. That was about when those things who had chased her showed up. That was awful. I stayed inside but watched most of it through the window. It was like watching a horror movie or something. Did any of you ever see that movie 28 Days Later? It was kind of like that. They just kept coming no matter how many times they were shot. I never seen no one shot before, but I didn’t imagine it was anything like that.

  “They finally brought those things down but not before they’d bit another couple guys. They took Nakissha to the front room and put her on the couch. The bite didn’t look that bad, but she went from bad to worse really quick. The skin on her face and arms...it was like it lost all its color. Her veins started to show through like they were trying to come through the surface or something.

  “We took turns watching her and Doc Brewster gave her a couple of shots to try and help her sleep but nothing worked. She was having a hard time breathing and she got really restless, jerking and shaking.

  “I don’t know what happened, but sometime early in the night after most everyone had gone to bed, we all got woken up by a scream. I started to go downstairs when I heard another scream. It wasn’t a woman’s scream though. Like I said, I don’t know what happened. I thought maybe it was Nakissha...maybe something had happened. Maybe she had died or was having some kind of a fit or something. I don’t know. For as many people as were staying at the lodge, it sure seemed empty when I started going down the stairs. I heard some footsteps running and then a door slamming shut.

  “From the top of the stairs I saw someone run by being chased by someone else. It was still too dark for me to see who it was though. There was some fighting or something happening in the kitchen. I heard dishes breaking and the sound of pans getting banged around. Then Melinda screamed. She ran by me up the stairs and shut the door to her sewing room. I don’t think she even saw me. She was just running to get away from something. That’s when I got scared.

  “I walked down the stairs real slow. There was still an awful lot of activity in other rooms. It sounded like fights or something. When I got into the main room, Nakissha wasn’t on the couch. She just wasn’t there…” Mia became quiet as she remembered that terrifying moment. “I looked around but it was so dark.” Mia started to choke up as the memory hit her.

  Breathing deeply and trying to control her emotions she picked up her tale. “I just wandered for a few seconds and ended up in another room. I found Nakissha. She was sitting on Norman’s chest and had her head down on his neck like they were making out or something. No wonder Melinda was so upset. I thought that maybe she had walked in on the two of them going at it or something. But then Nakissha pulled away from Norman and I saw what she was doing. She wasn’t kissing him. She was...she was...and Norman, he looked...he looked… dead.” Mia’s voice was cracking with emotion and her breathing was shallow and labored, as if she might hyperventilate at any moment.

  “And then Tom was there next to me. He touched my shoulder and I about jumped outta my skin. He whispered something but I didn’t catch it. Nakissha did though. She stopped eating on Norman and looked up like a wild animal. Tom pushed me out of the doorway and was running before I could even move. She chased him up the stairs and didn’t even see me. He saved my life. When he pushed me outta the way, he saved my life.”

  With that, Neil understood why she was so adamant about bringing Tom back with them despite what she knew to be true about his wound. He asked her, “Then what happened?”

  “I really don’t know how much time passed. I heard Nakissha pounding on a wall or something. I guess it must have been the bathroom door where Tom was hiding. I saw some other people run through the room and heard them go out the back. I don’t know who all made it out or who was bitten or not. I would guess that there were at least a few who were probably like Nakissha. I don’t know about the others.

  “I decided maybe I just should get outta there too. When I crossed the doorway to the room where Norman was laying though, I looked in and saw that he wasn’t there anymore. Well, he wasn’t laying on the floor anyway. I still didn’t know about the bites. He was standing at the window. I remember hearing a dripping sound and wondering what it was. It was blood, wasn’t it? I think I knew it even then. There was something about him that was…off. He was too stiff everywhere but his neck. He had a hard time controlling his neck and his head. He looked like a person with that disease that guy had in that movie...Parkinson’s or something like that. Then his arms started to do it too. It was the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. It made me sick to my stomach to watch.

  “When I turned to run, he must’ve heard me. He was on my heels almost immediately. I ran through the kitchen and then back around to the other hallway that comes out by the stairs. He slipped on a pan on the floor in the kitchen, so I got away. The front door was too far away and I could still hear Nakissha upstairs pounding on the door. The only option I had was that equipment closet under the stairs. I climbed in and held my breath just a second before Norman was standing there. I think he knew that I was still there. I don’t know if he heard me or maybe smelled me, but he knew.”

  Mia was crying again. Betsy too had begun to tear up. She reached over and grabbed Gordon’s hand, who then laid his other hand over hers. William stepped away from the table and looked out the window.

  Gordon asked, “What is going on? None of this seems real. How could it be?”

  “The only thing that matters is this is how it is,” Neil said. “I don’t want to sound cold, because I was just like you not that long ago. We came from Anchorage where I think this all started. You wouldn’t believe what we’ve seen.” He paused as he too remembered those early days. He recalled the carnage, the fear, and the doubt. Then he remembered the faces of those first days and found himself remembering two he missed terribly: his friend Dr. Jonathan Caldwell and his love Meghan Taylor, both of whom were lost on their journey to Whittier. His eyes were dry though. The pain was still there, stabbing at his chest as if he had swallowed shards of glass, but the tears refused to come.

  Neil stood. “I think we are in a good spot here. And not just here in Shotgun Cove. Whittier is an ideal spot. With that tunnel closed off, there isn’t an infinite supply of zombies. We can clean the city up, if we’re careful about it. We can make this place work, but we have to start here...in Shotgun Cove.”

&nb
sp; William asked, “So what next?”

  Chapter 35

  Emma and Jerry were sitting on the large balcony on the front of William’s lodge. The front porch, completely screened in to ward off mosquitoes, was directly below them. It was chilly but not yet truly cold. They had a fire burning in a stone fire pit radiating heat between the two of them. The sky was still gray, but there was no more snow. It was just a matter of time before the real winter storms hit. The evergreen trees, the only ones with any hint of green left on them, were covered in a thin coat of white, which clung to the individual needles. The path leading to the lodge from the main road was covered in snow, except for Neil’s, William’s, and Gordon’s footprints, but the leaf and foliage covered ground below the trees was free of snow. The air was moist and cool, threatening more snow at any moment.

  Emma was smoking another cigarette she had pilfered a couple of days earlier. She said, “You know, I quit. Well, I liked to tell myself that I quit. Every now and again I would fall off the wagon and have a cigarette when I was out, but I didn’t keep them in my apartment anymore. I guess that was an accomplishment, wasn’t it? Now, I can’t think of anything that I’d rather have than a good cigarette.”

  “I quit a few years back,” Jerry said.

  “Are you okay?” Emma asked him. “What I mean is, how are you doing?”

  Emma knew that both Jerry and Neil were stinging from recent losses as much as she was. All three of them had lost someone close to them over the past few days. Emma considered herself the luckiest of the three because she’d had an opportunity to tell Dr. Caldwell goodbye. Meghan had fallen prey to a zombie on the Portage Highway while Neil was away and Claire had been abducted and tortured to death by a lunatic with that militia down in Soldotna. Neither Neil nor Jerry had been afforded a last moment with their loves, which likely made it much more painful and harder to let go.

  Jerry lifted the binoculars around his neck to look again at the forest in front of them. Still looking through the twin lenses, he said, “I can’t get the image of her lying on that table out of my mind. What did they do to her? Why? She didn’t deserve that. Why did it have to be her? I sit here looking through these damned glasses and all I see is her.”

  Emma just let him speak. He hadn’t had an opportunity to let it out yet, so she got out of the way of his emotions and let it come.

  “What kind of people do things like that? Especially now? Ya know, the zombies...zekes...whatever we’re calling them now, they don’t do things like that. They don’t torture and don’t take pleasure in what they do. They are just acting on instinct and impulse. It’s not personal. But when people do things like that to other people, I just wonder if maybe it would just be better if humans went away completely.”

  “Then why keep trying?” Emma asked.

  “I don’t know if I can anymore.”

  Emma, her voice full of empathy, said, “Jerry, I know how you’re feeling and I hope you understand that. I’m hurting too, and so is Neil. We’ve all been through so much in such a short stretch of time. But I figure, if those two kids, Danny and especially Jules, can get through all of this with what they’ve been through, then I don’t have much of an excuse to not be able to cut it too. Those two aren’t even teenagers yet and they keep going. They don’t have the coping skills or the experience that any of us have and they haven’t given up yet. So what gives me the right to think that it’s okay that I do? That’s what I ask myself every day and that’s what keeps me going.”

  Jerry started crying and had to take the binoculars away from his eyes. He said through a chest-constricting sob, “It’s just so hard. I’d never felt like that before and never had any girl show that kind of interest in me. She loved me. That was a first for me. And now she’s just gone. I couldn’t do anything to protect her or save her. What does that say about me? She’s just... gone.”

  Their conversation was cut short when Neil and William came walking up the driveway. They had the walk of men who had recently seen battle, with heavily hanging arms and slung rifles. The men weren’t talking with one another or looking around.

  Danielle, on the porch below, asked, “How is the Cove?”

  Emma heard William answer somberly but couldn’t make out what he said.

  Jerry could feel Emma’s agitation, so he said, “Go on down there and find out what happened. I’ll stay up here and keep an eye on things.”

  Emma touched his shoulder and then hugged him warmly. She could still sense Jerry’s sadness and understood that he wanted some time to grieve quietly, in private.

  Chapter 36

  “What happened?” Emma asked, coming down the stairs.

  Neil sat down in a big, padded chair, looked down at this boots and said to William, “Sorry about the floor.”

  “That’s okay,” William said. “It happens.”

  Feeling a little anxious, Emma asked again, “So? What happened?”

  Neil related to all of them what had happened at Norman’s lodge but kept his tale to the facts, avoiding the grisly details. He explained that they had left Mia with Gordon and Betsy but mentioned nothing about Tom.

  Before the two men left Gordon’s home, Mia, Neil and William went upstairs. Mia sat next to Tom, who was still unconscious, thanked him for saving her life, and promised to honor his sacrifice in whatever way she could. She shed some tears for her friend while Neil and William sat and watched. They tried to give her room but kept a steady eye on the rising and falling of Tom’s chest.

  After a few minutes, Mia left the room in tears, leaving only Neil and William standing over her stricken friend. William asked if there was a good way to do it to which Neil responded, “There’s never a good way to kill someone.”

  That’s when it hit William. Never in a million years did he ever think he would be contemplating actually killing someone. This was unknown territory for him. Neil wrapped Tom’s head in a white cotton pillowcase and shot him, using the pillow to both mute the sound and shield the two of them from any potential splatter.

  They came back downstairs and left with barely a word more to Gordon, Betsy, or Mia. Gordon assured them both that he and his wife would look after Mia. The short walk back to William’s was spent silently, with only their footsteps to keep them company.

  Back at home, William could only think about eating. He and Jess went to the kitchen and started to peel and slice potatoes and vegetables, adding them to a stew pot with a hunk of moose roast. That meal would take a bit to finish, so William put together a snack of Pilot Bread peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chips to hold everyone over. The room was filled with the sound of satisfied crunching and munching, as they quickly devoured the hardtack-like bread slathered with the sweet and salty goodness.

  While this was happening, a despondent Danielle found Jerry still on the balcony. She asked, trying to fake a smile, “Is this the grieving room?”

  Jerry wiped his eyes but felt no tears or other evidence of his grief. He had no idea he wore it on his face like a mask. Danielle sat in the chair vacated by Emma only moments before and looked out absently into the forest.

  “This is the kind of place my dad would have liked to have brought us for a family vacation,” Jerry said. “It’s so peaceful here and quiet. He worked for years at the Wonder Bakery on Spenard until he hurt his back and couldn’t work there anymore. That was pretty much it for us and any family vacations.”

  “Maybe I’ve got something in here that might be able to help a little.” Danielle fished around in her backpack and pulled out an ornate bottle filled with alcohol. “I grabbed this for Gus, but he didn’t make it back sooooo...” She handed the bottle to Jerry.

  He considered it for a moment, then twisted off the lid. Jerry had never been much of a hard liquor drinker, but he was willing to make an exception today. He sniffed the opening and recoiled for a moment. He was about to hand the bottle back but then looked over at the pretty woman who was smiling at him coyly. He grinned back and took a
drink without thinking about it.

  The fiery liquid scorched his throat and burned his nose. His belly warmed immediately and his fingertips felt more distant than normal for a second or two. He handed the bottle back to Danielle.

  “I really shouldn’t. Alcohol wreaks havoc on diabetics, but...” Danielle tipped the bottle forward and filled her mouth, wincing as she swallowed it down. “I guess exceptions can be made under the circumstances.”

  Jerry reached over to take the bottle again. After several drinks back and forth, Danielle said, “Gus only went along because I needed my medicine. He was a good man. He said that he came along to get booze, but that wasn’t it. He reminded me of my brother in a lot of ways.”

  Jerry held the bottle up to the woods in a toast and then poured another mouthful down his throat. “That’s for Gus...the good man.”

  Danielle sat quietly for several moments and then said, “I probably should’ve taken some insulin before this little session, but it was worth it. Thank you.” She kissed Jerry’s forehead warmly and went back inside.

  Jerry had another couple of drinks until only a few mouthfuls remained in the bottle. By the time he wandered inside and joined everyone for dinner, he was well on his way toward being drunk. The meal was lively though and raised his spirits. They shared laughs and stories, as well as the most satisfying meal most of them had eaten for months.

  In the middle of it, Jules asked innocently, “Is this Thanksgiving?”

  Her question brought all conversations to a profound and very loud stop. They all looked at one another for a long moment, no one quite sure how to answer her question.

  Jess, the only mother in their group, answered for all of them, “Does it feel like Thanksgiving?”

  Jules thought for a second while she chewed on a red potato on the end of her fork. She nodded. “Kind of. There was always more food than we could eat and lots of talking and tellin’ stories. Just like today. Only, Mommy and Daddy and Martin and Alec would be here too. It wouldn’t be just me. Mommy would cook all day and people would come over and bring food and stuff. There would be lots of visitors...this time I guess I’m the visitor.”