"Isn't that how most of our teachers used to describe both of us?"
Jeremy laughed. He didn't expect jokes from Tanya - in fact, he was never quite sure what to expect from her. Less than a week before that day, he was only vaguely aware of who she was. He had, of course, taken notice of her in classes, and the halls of their school; he had spent at least as many hours staring at the back of her head in English class as he had spent reading Shakespeare. And although his attention generally wandered from girl to girl wherever he went, he could not deny that he had happy memories of letting his eyes wander from her auburn hair to the nape of her neck, and as she stood up at the end of class, letting his gaze wander down from her shoulders to the gentle slope of her hips, and back up to the curves of her breasts as she turned around...
"Speaking of your mind being somewhere else," Tanya seemed bemused at his sudden distraction.
"What? Oh," Jeremy snapped out of his reverie, "sorry. I was just..." He tried to think of a way to tell her that, despite having never held a particularly high opinion of her theological viewpoints, he was suddenly finding himself utterly entranced with her.
"I know," Tanya said sympathetically. She reached out and rested her hand on Jeremy's knee. Her touch was electric, and his stomach flopped over on itself, leaving him excited and nearly nauseous at the same time. She smiled at him, and his heart skipped a beat in his chest. It may have been the remnants of adrenaline that had been pushing them both for so long, or it may have been something else that had been welling up in him for far longer, but that simple touch of her hand was enough to energize him in ways he hadn't realized were possible. "It's been a long couple of days. We're all tired, and a little confused. It'll be OK."
“No," Jeremy protested weakly. "It's not that. It's just...I was thinking about something."
"What could you have been thinking about that had you so distracted in this situation?"
He wanted to tell her the truth. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shout that, despite the hordes of undead that had chased them out of their hometown, and the horrifying things that they had seen in the last two days, he was falling for her. He wanted to scream that he loved her. He wanted to reassure her, to tell her that he would always be there for her, and protect her, even if it meant vanquishing every single zombie on the face of the planet. The sum total of this tsunami of emotion manifested itself as a quiet whimper.
"Nothing," he mumbled.
"Oh, give it up," Luna's voice was animated and lively for the first time since they had met her. "Why don't the two of you just get a room, already? We're on top of a hotel, you know. It'd be easy. I could watch the door for you."
"What?" Tanya sounded shocked, and possibly a little excited - although Jeremy couldn't be sure that it wasn't just wishful thinking causing him to read in emotions that weren't actually there.
"Yeah, that's not...I mean..." Jeremy couldn't quite put words to the sentiment. He flushed deep red, and was thankful that the sun was rapidly falling in the background to help hide his embarrassment in the welcoming embrace of twilight. He didn't know why he didn't want to admit that he would like nothing more than to take Tanya to a private room, but he thought it may have been a subconscious way of protecting her from his impure intentions. He shook his head and tried to dodge the unexpected line of conversation. "So anyway, that's basically what it's like for me. What about you?"
"It's really no different than it was before," the blush that painted Tanya's cheeks was gradually fading. "I don't feel superhuman at all, and it just feels totally normal to be able to pick up something that weighs hundreds of pounds, swing it around, and toss it around like a baseball."
"That must make it hard to judge your own strength," Luna said, still grinning at the embarrassment of the younger pair. "You'd better go easy on the boy."
"And how about you, Luna?" Jeremy tried to pretend he hadn't heard her last comment.
"Oh, don't worry - you're not getting in my pants, so I won't need to go easy on you."
"That's not what I meant, and you know it."
"I'm just teasing, sweetie." Luna's expression darkened as she considered how to put her experiences into words. "I feel numb. Not from the cold, which is pretty strange, all things considered. One minute I'm feeling normal, and the next, when I'm in danger, and waiting for something to put me out of my misery, my entire body goes numb, and...well, you've seen what happens."
"So you can't control it?"
"Not as far as I can tell. I haven't really tried, though."
"You should. Once you're rested, that is. We've got a long trip to make, and I'm not entirely sure how we're going to get where we're going."
"Now that you mention it," said Luna with the sheepishness of a woman who had just realized she'd forgotten to ask a very important question, "where are you going?"
"To Regina," Tanya piped up. Her voice rang with a distant, almost idolatrous hope. "An army base has been established to provide shelter and safety for survivors. It seems like the safest place to be right now. We're hoping to find other survivors, see what sort of progress the Army has been making in their research and fight against the zombies, and hopefully lend a hand."
"Regina, eh? It's been a while for me, but I guess the Queen City is better than here right about now."
"I'm glad to hear that. We'll leave first thing in the morning. Try to get some rest, and in the morning we'll see if we can find a car."
The trio laid down around the fire, huddling as close to it as they safely could for safety. Their adrenaline had faded, and they were quickly lulled to sleep by the silence of the night.
***
Jeremy awoke to the faint smell of flowers, and the rustle of hair across his face. His eyes fluttered open to see Tanya curled up against him. At some point in the night, she had moved close enough to spoon with him, and his face was pressed against the back of her head. Somewhat reluctantly, he lifted his head and saw the dead ashes of their fire; Luna still slept on the other side of the former fire pit. The bright light of dawn shone gently, filtered through the branches of the towering trees that surrounded their perch.
Wait, what? His mental gears struggled to start moving. Trees? There were no trees around here when we fell asleep...
He bolted upright and spun himself around. In every direction that he looked, a vast forest extended to the edges of his line of sight. The trees had woven themselves around, and in several cases through, the buildings of the town. Bright green leaves - an oddity for the time of year - adorned all of the branches, providing shade that was as welcome as it was perplexing.
His sudden motion had awoken Tanya. She slowly propped herself up on one elbow, looking around through groggy squinting eyes. The sight of the scenery took a moment to sink in, but once it had, her eyes widened and she gazed up at Jeremy with a confused look. He shrugged and shook his head.
"Were those here yesterday?" Although Tanya had been shocked awake, her voice still croaked with exhaustion.
"No," Jeremy said. "They definitely were not here yesterday. I'm kind of curious about how an entire damned forest can just spring up overnight without waking us up."
A groan could be heard from the other side of the fire pit. Luna turned over, trying to ignore the noise that Jeremy and Tanya were making and stay asleep. The effort was futile, as she opened her eyes and was greeted with the same sight that her companions had been. Her eyes widened in amazement until they were the size of quarters, and she pushed herself into a cross-legged sitting position.
"I've lived here for a long time," she said as she looked around in every direction, "and I don't think I've ever seen more than a handful of trees in this town. Where did these come from?"
“Your guess is as good as mine," Jeremy said. "When I got up they were just sort of...here."
"First zombies," Tanya muttered, "then superpowers. Then earthquakes in a town that's hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest fault lines. Now a forest springs up out of
nowhere. I never thought I'd actually use this phrase, but...well...this is fucked up."
It took a moment for Jeremy's brain to actually process the words that he'd just heard come out of Tanya's mouth. He had never before heard her utter a single profane word, and it seemed like it would not have been possible for her to even pronounce those syllables. When he finally realized just what she'd said, he chuckled. The chuckle built into a laugh, which turned into roaring peals of laughter until he was doubled over, unable to stop laughing. The laughter was contagious, and both Tanya and Luna joined in.
"If you think that's funny," Luna gasped between laughs, "you'll probably have a heart attack when you see what's behind you."
Both Jeremy and Tanya turned to face the direction that Luna had indicated, and their frenzied laughter tapered off into fits of nervous giggles, then silence. Towering above the canopy of the new forest was a mountain that stretched up towards the sky. Jeremy's mouth hung open in shock.
"That...that wasn't there five minutes ago," he stuttered. "When I woke up, I looked everywhere. All I saw were trees."
"That can't be right," said Tanya. "How could you miss an entire mountain?"
"I didn't," Jeremy snapped defensively. "It wasn't there. I may be a little scatterbrained from time to time, but I'd definitely remember a damned mountain right in front of my face."
"It's OK," Tanya said, trying to calm Jeremy down. "I'm not accusing you of anything. But if it wasn't there just a minute ago, when did it appear? Did it just pop up out of nowhere?"
"That's an idea that would seem far-fetched," Jeremy remarked dryly, "if not for the fact that we're surrounded by a forest that apparently did the same thing. Either way, this doesn't exactly bode well for our plans. That mountain is right between us and Regina, and between it and all these trees, I can't imagine that the road will be passable by car, either."
"So what do we do now?" Luna's voice dripped with disappointment.
"We're not going to get anywhere standing around up here," Tanya said. "We need to get out to the street - or what used to be the street - and see what things look like from down there. Maybe it won't be as bad as it seems."
Nobody objected to the plan. Luna stood and stretched gracefully, and Jeremy reached his hand out to help Tanya to her feet. She grasped his hand and pulled herself up, but the sheer force of her pull yanked Jeremy to the ground. The two giggled, and Tanya stood and helped Jeremy to his feet. Luna rolled her eyes playfully.
The walk through the hotel was as uneventful as it had been going up the night before. The lobby appeared entirely untouched by the encroaching forest, and there was no sign that it had been invaded by zombies overnight. Jeremy heaved a sigh of relief at the latter realization - although he'd been confident that their fortifications were enough to make the rooftop safe for them overnight, he had been almost certain that their presence would be enough to attract any undead in the area to the hotel for a morning ambush. When they stepped out the front doors, they were greeted by a serene scene; the overhead canopy of trees provided protective shade, and despite it being a normally cool autumn morning, the air was warm and moist. The surreal scene was a stark counterpoint to their experiences over the last several days, providing them with inexplicable shelter and calm amidst a storm of destruction and death that had rained down over everything that they had ever known.
The forest had overtaken much of the town of Stoughton; many buildings were little more than crumbled shells surrounding a tree that had apparently erupted through the floor, and the already worn pavement of Main Street was shattered and broken in pieces around each piece of vegetation. Looking at the destruction that had been wrought upon the town, Jeremy wondered how it was possible that it had all happened while they slept; no matter how tired he had been, he was always a light sleeper. A forest rising up out of nowhere overnight and breaking through wood and stone seemed like the sort of thing that would have woken him up. He saw the look of confusion on his companions' faces, and knew that they were feeling the same thing. With a flourish of his hand, he pointed in the direction of the mountain.
"That's where we need to go," he said. "Doesn't look like we're going to have an easy path, so the best thing to do is start walking. We need to make the best use we can out of the daylight, and try to find some sort of shelter before nightfall. Preferably the sort of shelter that isn't going to mysteriously turn into a forest or sprout a mountain."
"How far do you think we'll need to walk?" Tanya asked.
"I'm not quite sure," he answered honestly. "Regina would have been another hour or so away by car, so that makes it...what? About a hundred kilometers? The highways weren't a very direct route, either, so we should be able to shave off some distance by walking directly there. If my guess is right, we should be able to skirt around the base of the mountain to reach the city, so we're probably looking at about 80 clicks. Depending on how bad the terrain is, we may not make it by nightfall, but we should be able to get pretty close."
"Let's get going, then," Tanya said. She tried tightening her expression into one of grim resolve, but couldn't quite muster the unfamiliar expression. Jeremy didn't quite dare to tell her that she looked constipated rather than focused. "It looks like there's even a path for us to follow - over that bridge and into the woods."
"There's no bridge in -" Luna's emphatic statement was interrupted when she saw that, in fact, a bridge did stand a few hundred meters from where they stood. It was small, much too narrow to be navigated by car, and as they approached they could see that it was made from rough-hewn pieces of grey stone. It looked like something out of a medieval painting. As they finally reached the edge of the bridge, they could see that it spanned across a babbling brook - another feature of the terrain which they all knew had not been there the night before.
"This just keeps getting weirder and weirder," Jeremy muttered. Both Tanya and Luna nodded their agreement. He was not prepared for the realization which was about to hit him - that he had just made an incredible understatement. As his foot brushed against the first cobblestone of the bridge, a booming laugh echoed out from underneath it. Faster than any of them could react, a great greenish blur swung out from the underside of the bridge, flipped into the air, and landed in the middle of the bridge. The blur, once it had stopped moving, was a massive humanoid creature, nearly ten feet tall and covered in greenish-grey scaly skin. Warts dotted its face, though much of its features were obscured by long strands of greasy black hair that fell across its face. It grinned, showing a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs, and peered out at the trio through malicious burning-red eyes. When it spoke, its voice rasped as if it had swallowed a mouth full of gravel.
"Who dares approach *my* bridge?" It sized up each of the trio standing before it, silently awaiting a response.
"We...uhhh...we do, I guess. We didn't know -"
"Silence!" The create roared, interrupting Jeremy's stuttering defense of their actions. "It has been many years, human," it spat the word out distastefully, "since I have seen one of your kind. A great many years indeed. Tell me - why should I spare your lives, let alone allow you to cross my bridge?"
"What are you, creature?" Jeremy called out to the mighty beast.
"Nothing you need concern yourself with, mortal. I am merely a bridge-keeper, a guardian of the path who ensures that only the worthy proceed."
"You'll understand that I don't just take your word for it. Where do you come from, and what are you guarding?"
"The question of where I am from is not one your mind could comprehend, mortal. What I guard is the Grim Forest, a land of ancient mystery and depth that defies your understanding."
With a deft flick of his wrist, Jeremy gestured to his left. A single blade of grass lifted into the air, hovering just above his shoulder.
"I tire of these games. Creature, if you have not seen humans in as long as you claim, there are many things about us you do not know." His voice dripped with a smug self-confidence that had never been heard
from his mouth before. "For instance, we have developed weapons which we call 'atomic bombs'. When detonated, these bombs produce such a powerful concussive force that they are able to propel a blade of grass with enough force that it can tear through stone. A single blade of grass can become such a potent weapon that no living creature - not even one as impressive as you appear to be - can withstand it. We truly bring to bear all of the might of the elements against our enemies." He flicked his wrist in the direction of the creature, and the blade of grass shot through the air with incredible speed. It flew like a spear through the air, and impacted with the creature at a tremendous velocity. For all the incredible speed and the drama of the impact, the blade of grass flattened itself into a small pile of greenish paste against the creature's skin. It brushed the mess aside absent-mindedly.
"An impressive weapon," the creature said with a booming laugh, "but I believe that it could use some refinement."
"Yeah," Jeremy muttered. His face flushed bright red. "That wasn't quite...well, not what I was expecting, anyway."
"Please step aside," Tanya uttered meekly. She stepped in front of the creature, looking up into its baleful eyes with quiet confidence. "I do not know what you are, but I do know that you are in our way. I do not wish to hurt you, so please...step aside."
"You speak boldly," the creature growled, "for a human. You shall learn respect as I tear your flesh from your bones!"
With that bold declaration, the creature lashed out at Tanya with one heavy, scaly fist. The blow landed with what looked like enough force to crush a concrete wall, but she did not budge under the assault. She grabbed the creature's wrist with both hands, although even both hands together were not enough to clamp over the thick appendage, and twisted it viciously to the side. A sickening snap-pop echoed through the air as the creature's arm tore free of its shoulder. The gaping wound left behind spurted black ichor which splashed over all three companions. It bellowed in agony as it crashed to the ground. The creature thrashed and twisted momentarily, then fell still.
The Dead Rise Page 11
