The Dead Rise

by David Thompson

  Jeremy sank bank into his seat, flushed red with embarrassment, hoping to escape everyone's notice for the remainder of the class. He covered his textbook with his notebook, and tried to forget about what had just happened.

  ***

  Jeremy's life followed a fairly straightforward routine - wake up, go to school, then hang out with friends before heading home for the night. Usually this involved driving to his friend Adam's house and playing video or role-playing games with several other friends. Adam was a medium-height, stocky boy a year younger than Jeremy, but whose parents took a very laissez-faire approach to his upbringing. This generally meant that Adam and his friends were free to do as they pleased, with free reign over Adam's basement (although this was shared with his brother Steve). Today, Jeremy walked downstairs to see Adam and Jason - another friend, short and wiry with the sort of nasally grating voice that only a high school nerd could seem to possess - huddled over the glowing screen of Jason's laptop. This wasn't an entirely uncommon sight, as it could be hard to tear Jason away from his laptop. Jeremy had once suggested that Jason wouldn't be at home until he'd managed to turn himself into a machine - a comment that was joking, but received by Jason with a wondering look that seemed to say that he would love nothing more than to do exactly that.

  "Hey man, you've got to check this out," Jason blurted as soon as Jeremy had entered the room. "This is unlike anything I've ever seen before."

  "What's up?" Jeremy was less than enthused. Jason's excitement levels peaked easily - this level of vigor could stem from something as simple as a sequel to a popular video game being announced to something as complex as the discovery of a new data compression algorithm that provided a single-percent greater efficiency than before. Despite knowing this, he glanced at the laptop screen - a web browser was open to a popular streaming video site. The video that they were about to play was entitled 'OMG TOTALLY FUCKING ZOMBIES!!!'. Jeremy cleared his throat. "Seriously, Jason, I don't think I can summon the enthusiasm for movie trailers right now. It's been a really long day."

  "It's not a movie trailer," Adam broke in. He sounded more serious than Jason, almost worried. "You've really got to see this. Trust me, it's worth your time."

  "Fine," Jeremy said with a sigh as he huddled around the monitor with his friends. Adam wasn't as excitable as Jason, and Jeremy generally trusted his judgement - if he thought that this would be a good use of time, then it would probably be worth watching. Jason clicked the mouse and started the video playback.

  An amateur-looking video of an attractive young couple sitting on the grass in a park began to play. Underbrush obscured the camera lens, as if it were being filmed by an unseen voyeur in the bushes. Shaking video, heavy breathing and a quietly muttered 'oh yeah, show me what you've got' as the couple kissed and fondled each other confirmed this. Not wanting to waste his time with a creepy voyeur video, Jeremy opened his mouth to protest, but Adam held up a hand for silence. Jeremy understood why almost immediately - a dark shape shambled into the background, blurry and out of focus. As the cameraman adjusted the focus to account for the slow-moving shape, it came into focus, taking form into what appeared to be a dishevelled old man dressed in torn and stained clothing. The young couple didn't seem to notice the ragged figure stumbling towards them until it was right behind them. The figure grabbed the young man from behind, pulling him to his feet; his companion let out a blood-curdling scream and ran out of sight of the camera as the dishevelled man bit and tore a large chunk of flesh from the boy's neck. Blood spurted from the wound, but that didn't stop the figure from biting and tearing at more of the boy's flesh. The unseen cameraman seemed to finally understand what he was seeing; the camera spun around to the sound of the cameraman cursing, and gurgling cries coming from the unfortunate young man. The camera bounced and jostled as the cameraman ran away, and the video cut off while he was still running. More screams could be heard, and then the video cut to black.

  Adam and Jason were staring at Jeremy, waiting for his reaction. Jeremy disappointed them by rolling his eyes.

  "You were excited over that? Looks like something a couple of stoned college students threw together in half an hour. It's pathetic. Don't tell me you got all excited about some low-budget horror movie, and mistook a trailer for reality."

  "It's not a fake," Jason half-pouted, half-squealed defensively.

  "He's right," Adam said. "It's all over the Internet. This isn't the only video, either - and people are talking about entire cities being put in lock-down in the U.S.. No communication in or out - they've just suddenly gone quiet, like nothing was ever there. News sites, blogs, social networking profiles - nothing. No updates, no changes, no news. Something big is going on, and whatever it is, it isn't good."

  "Don't tell me you actually buy into this bullshit," Jeremy said with a snort. "Somewhere there are a few stoned bloggers, making stories up and laughing their asses off at the thought that some backwoods geeks actually believe some hackneyed video showing a 'zombie'. You've been watching too many horror movies. Hell, I'm probably the biggest zombie movie buff around, and even I know that they're fiction. Think about it - do you really, truly, deep down, think that it's more likely that some stoners are having a giggle, or that the undead have arisen and are attacking major urban centers, and the only trace of it is some viral video?"

  Jason and Adam stared at the floor, trying to think of a way to rebuff Jeremy's argument. However, try as they might, they just couldn't come up with a justification for seeming to be gullible enough to actually believe an amateur film would reflect reality.

  "Not only that, but what makes you think these reports could possibly be true? Someone says that all communication has been lost with New York city, for instance, and unless you know somebody in New York, there's no way of telling if it's true. You want to believe that it is, especially after falling for a video like that, so you jump to the sudden and dramatic conclusion that we're on the cusp of a massive zombie invasion. Does that sound about right?"

  "What the hell are you little fags bitching about now?" A voice called out from the basement stairs. All three boys whirled around at once to see Chris Johnson and Steve staring at them. There was no telling how long they'd been standing there, but it had obviously been long enough that they'd overheard some of the conversation.

  Great, thought Jeremy. Just great. This is exactly what I needed.

  Chris and Steve advanced towards the trio. Steve looked slightly embarrassed - although he was friends with Chris, he obviously didn't approve of the bullying. Still, he remained complicit with it, just as he normally did.

  "Take it easy on them," Steve said, motioning towards the pool table that dominated the rest of the basement. "We're here to play a few games, not make fun of my brother and his friends. Besides, I'm sure they were just leaving."

  "Sure they were," Chris laughed as Adam nodded his assent. Chris turned away, as if he was really going to play some pool with Steve. Just as Jeremy let his guard down, Chris whirled around and shoved him backwards hard enough that he fell to the ground. Chris laughed in the braying way that only halfwit adolescents could seem to do, then turned back to the pool table.

  Jeremy's eyes narrowed into slits and he glared at the back of his tormentor's head. The same pressure he'd felt build up in his skull earlier in the day returned with a ferocious intensity, and he once again felt it burst through his skull, accompanied by the arms-plunging-into-icy-water sensation. Chris was knocked forward as if struck from behind with a heavy object. He stumbled and fell, but regained his footing quickly. He glanced back at everyone in the room, as if to assure himself that he had not been pushed. Satisfied, he brushed himself off and smirked, as if daring the boys to say anything about the incident. Nobody did, and Adam, Jason, and Jeremy retreated to Adam's bedroom. Once the door was closed, they all burst into peals of laughter.

  ***

  Jeremy arrived home that night to see his mother, father, and younger sister clustered around the tele
vision. Oddly enough, a news program was playing - certainly not the sort of programming they would normally watch together - and had their attention held so intently that they didn't appear to even notice that he'd entered the house.

  "Hi guys," he said wryly. "Nice to see all of you, too."

  "What?" His father muttered distractedly. "Just watching the..." His voice trailed off indistinctly. Puzzled, Jeremy shifted his attention to the newscast, curious about what could be holding their attention like that.

  "To recap," a trepidacious newscaster voice announced over top of aerial footage of a large city, "Los Angeles, New York City, and Seattle have all closed their borders and declared martial law. All communication to these cities has been severed, but a few unconfirmed reports have been circulating that a bio-terror attack may be responsible for these actions. We have also been hearing reports from our Canadian affiliates that similar measures have been taken in Vancouver and Toronto, and we'd like to encourage anyone in any of these five cities who might be able to shed some light on the situation to give us a call. That number is 1-800-"

  Jeremy's mind reeled. Five major North American cities shut down in one day? The video he'd watched earlier with his friends nagged at him. Was it actually real? Could it possibly be? Combined with the strange occurrences that he was trying to insist to himself couldn't possibly be telekinetic manifestations, everything seemed to point to something unbelievable underway. It didn't seem possible that any of this could be real, but at the same time, it was hard to deny the facts of the matter. However, he pushed these thoughts out of his mind. Even if the video had been real, and that was the cause of the declaration of martial law, it didn't explain the strange phenomenon he'd experienced. He was falling victim to the same faulty logic that his friends had - connecting unrelated bizarre news pieces to one another and then jumping to wild conclusions. It was far more sane, far more normal, far more rational to think that he'd completely imagined the apparent telekinetic incidents, and that the video was just a fake.

  "What could possibly be happening that's so severe as to justify the declaration of martial law?" Jeremy's mother's lower lip quivered as she half-asked, half-muttered the obvious question. His father was too glued to the news coverage to respond, so Jeremy silenced his thoughts and grunted noncommittally.

  "Probably a huge overreaction to some nasty event. A couple of people in New York show up at the hospital with food poisoning, nurses gossip, and before you know it, rumours of bio-terror attacks are spreading rampant and starting riots in the streets." He considered telling his family about the video he'd seen, and what had happened to him already, but given their state of mind, it was likely to only cause them to panic more than they already had. Besides, he didn't really know what had happened, and causing his parents to panic would only confuse matters even more. There was no answer to his proffered explanation. Jeremy rolled his eyes and continued on to his bedroom. He tried to shake the nagging thought that all of the things that he’d seen and heard that day were really true, and the implications that would carry.

  He tossed his backpack in the center of the floor and stood quietly in the cluttered room, trying to sort out the day's bizarre and stupefyingly improbably events in his head. He breathed slowly, softly. His eyes gently drifted shut, and he stood, listening to his own breath in a quiet proto-meditation. He stretched his arms out to his sides and inhaled deeply. As his mind cleared away all of the thoughts which threatened to overwhelm him, he felt a now-familiar pressure building inside his skull. He continued to breathe calm, slow, deep breaths, and the pressure gradually migrated from his head down to the tips of his fingers. Consciously trying to avoid the excitement which had lead to such unpredictable outcomes earlier in the day, he instead let his mind focus on a cup filled with pens and pencils which rested on his desk. Without moving a muscle, he thought about picking up the handful of writing implements. Although he did not budge from the center of the room, and the cup was well beyond his arm's length, he felt as if cold, numb limbs extruded from his body and reached towards his desk. Incredibly thin silver strands marked the presence of the otherwise invisible projections of mental force. Despite the numbness, he felt the small cylindrical objects in the grasp of these phantom limbs, and felt them rise out of the cup. The implements separated, but he did not lose his grip on any of them. Cautiously, Jeremy opened his eyes. Although he could scarcely believe his eyes, half a dozen pens and pencils were rotating around his body in a clumsy orbit. Disbelieving, he reached out and grasped a pen as it floated past his chest. The movement broke his concentration, and the numb phantom limbs vanished; the other pens and pencils clattered to the floor, leaving a dumbfounded Jeremy standing there, staring at the pen in his hand.

  “Well, shit.” He threw himself to his bed, staring up at his ceiling in disbelief, trying to reconcile his otherwise solidly empirical conception of the world with the suddenly all-too real possibility that it was all true.

  Chapter 2

  Day 2 - 09:00:00 CST

  Estevan, Saskatchewan, Canada

  The night was a sleepless one for Jeremy. He had alternated between being consumed by worry about the day's events and news, surfing the Internet for any sign that this all might be one giant hoax or mistake, and attempting to control his apparent new-found telekinetic abilities. The latter consumed most of his time, as his natural curiosity got the better of him far more easily than any compassion for his fellow man - although he worried about what might be happening in those other cities, they were in fact other cities, and something that apparently defied the laws of physics was happening right in his very bedroom. At the end of his sleepless night, Jeremy found that he was no closer to understanding what was happening to him than he had been when he started; every time he started to think that he had the ability to consciously control the telekinetic phenomena, the control vanished just as quickly as it had come. As best he could tell, he had no real control over when the power manifested or vanished, although he had gained some experience in controlling it when it did appear. Although it would not manifest at will, it did seem to respond in a more controlled fashion to him when he was calm and logical than when he became frustrated or excited; however, in the latter states of mind, he did find that although his control was diminished, the actual strength of the phenomenon was much greater. This was confirmed when, in his frustration at being unable to levitate a baseball off of his bed, he suddenly hurled the ball out his open window and far into the street beyond - this happened before he was even aware that anything was happening.

  It was with great reluctance that he even went to school the next day. Still too excited to sleep, he wanted to spend more time experimenting rather than wasting time with school. However, his parents were in no mood to deal with any perceived misbehaviour from him - they had also been up all night, although their preoccupation was with watching the constant news coverage of the declarations of martial law. They were desperately hoping for any sign of contact from his grandmother, who lived in Vancouver. However, their repeated phone calls were met only with recorded "all circuits are down" messages, and no news seemed to be coming from the reporters, either. One particularly bold news station did attempt to fly a news helicopter to Vancouver from Victoria, but was intercepted by fighter jets before it even reached the edge of the city. Whatever was happening, the powers that be were obviously determined to keep it out of the public eye. When he arrived at school, Jeremy found that his classmates were abuzz with a thousand different theories about what could possibly be happening. Most revolved around severe outbreaks of highly contagious diseases, terrorist attacks, or simple mass hysteria. Despite the proliferation of theories, however, facts were extremely scarce, and Jeremy tried to conceal his contempt for their endless theorizing when they had no basis for any sort of notion of what may or may not actually be going on. He did carefully watch everyone around him, scrutinizing them in detail and wondering if any of them had been experiencing anything similar to the bizarre ev
ents that he had been privy to since the previous day. Nobody showed any sign of unusual behaviour, however, and he came to the conclusion that he was an oddball, a statistical anomaly that he couldn’t yet explain.

  The early morning passed much too slowly for Jeremy's taste; he spent all of his time restraining himself from attempting to exercise his new-found ability, not wanting the unnecessary attention that it would bring. It wasn't until the middle of his pre-lunch Shop class that his excitement stopped, and life quickly became serious. Although Jeremy and his friends were not fans of Shop class, the alternative was a Home Economics course that promised to be even worse. Adjusting to the unfamiliar environment, Jeremy, Adam, and Jason had all become used to clustering in a quiet corner of the shop and working clumsily on whatever project happened to be assigned that week. This week was a carburetor rebuild, a task which none of the mechanically disinclined trio were particularly well-equipped to perform. While they were discussing the best way to approach this mysterious task, their work was interrupted by the shop doors slamming shut loudly. Even over the noise of the various machining instruments that were in use, all eyes turned to see what was going on. A freshman whose name Jeremy didn't know was doubled over in front of the door, red-faced and breathing hard. Mr. Gorsky, the Shop teacher, turned a deeper shade of red as he screamed at the student.