The Dead Rise

by David Thompson

  “No, definitely not,” Michael said, still frozen in place. “But...what did it mean?”

  “It was a warning,” Jeremy said flatly. “I don’t know what it was warning us about, but that was its way of telling us that something is horribly wrong.”

  “You think so?” Tanya said with half-hearted laughter. “Things have been horribly wrong for a while now. I don’t think I needed some creepy demon-serpent rising from the depths to tell me that. I was kind of clued in by the death of everyone I know and love, and their corpses coming back to life with the intent of eating me!”

  “More than that,” Jeremy said. His voice was quiet, still, and self-assured. “Something else is wrong. That thing was an engine of destruction, every bit as much as those tanks over there, and yet it didn’t touch us. It’s like it knew who we are...like it as expecting us, and we didn’t quite live up to its expectations.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint it,” Luna spat on the ground. “But frankly, I don’t care. We’re alive. Whatever that thing was, whatever it thinks the proper state of affairs is, doesn’t matter. We’re still here, and it didn’t touch us. We need to move on.”

  “What if it was warning us about the base?” Tanya asked. “Back in Estevan, the army guys we saw...they weren’t so friendly. Tried to kill us, in fact. What if it’s warning us that we’re walking into a trap?”

  “Would it matter?” Luna asked. “Even if it was a warning, would it make sense to trust it given that it was delivered by some sort of sea serpent?”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Jeremy said, stepping forward to the edge of the water. “That base over there is our only hope of finding human life in this city. I don’t know whether we’re here to help them, or they’re here to help us, or whether something really is horribly wrong, or whether they were overrun with zombies while we were trying to get here. There are a lot of unknowns here, but the one thing that we do know is that if we don’t press on, we don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “Well, when you put it that way,” Michael clapped his hand on Jeremy’s shoulder, “I can’t really resist. Lead on!”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Tanya said, her last outburst fading.

  “OK, here we go,” Jeremy said, a smile creeping back over his face. He raised his arms over his head and spread them out in a wide V shape. “I’ve always wanted to do this. LET MY PEOPLE GO!”

  A frigid burst of telekinetic force erupted from his entire body, forcing the waters of the lake to part. A clear path appeared across the entire lake, the water on both sides held at bay by a telekinetic wall of force. Michael shook his head in disbelief.

  “A little dramatic, isn’t it?”

  “Drama is good for the soul,” Jeremy said with a wink. “Let’s go.”

  Crossing the lake bed was easier than it looked; Jeremy maintained a wall of force parallel with the ground at the same time as the walls holding back the water on either side, allowing them to walk over the muddy surface quickly and easily. Even so, the walk took almost ten minutes, and when they finally stepped up on shore and the walls of force came crashing down, he nearly collapsed from the exertion. Accepting a hand from Tanya, he steadied himself, and they cautiously approached the sandbag wall separating them from their destination.

  The wall of sandbags was thick and solid, but compared to the physical exertions that everyone in the group had recently subjected themselves to, clambering over it was relatively simple. Inside the barricade things were as quiet as outside - everywhere were signs that this had once been a bustling armed forces encampment, but although there were no signs that the security had been breached, it was entirely deserted.

  The spot where they had ascended over the barrier used to be an open lawn covered in flower beds and surrounded by trees. The trees were gone, cut down to allow for greater visibility and space. The twin roads that ran south, flanking either side of the flower beds, were guarded by a pair of tanks that sat silent. At regular intervals, the sandbag wall was broken by machine-gun emplacements, all unoccupied. The flower beds had been crushed and trampled under boots and treads, leaving only a strip of dirt leading towards the Legislature. They walked this path slowly, searching for any sign of life – or unlife – and were greeted with none. The flower beds had once stretched out for nearly half a kilometer, ending at a wide road that ran east-west, allowing access from Albert Street to the Legislature, and to paths running around the boundaries of Wascana Lake on the other side. This road was also flanked by a pair of abandoned tanks, and the intersection where the road met the paths leading down to the flower beds held four artillery emplacements – each facing in one of the cardinal directions. Machine-gun emplacements could also be seen in the distance at the edges of the sandbag wall which they could now see encircled the entire Legislature. They continued their slow, cautious walk towards the entrance of the massive stone building. Posters had been taped all over the doors and nearby light-posts proclaiming that this was Fort Majesty, a safe haven established by the Armed Forces to provide sanctuary for any surviving civilians. I'd feel a lot better about this sanctuary, Jeremy reflected, if it looked like there was anyone left alive guarding it. Hell, I'd probably feel a little more comfortable if I could even see corpses – at least then I'd know what I'm walking in to.

  With every step they took towards the massive doors to the Legislature, Jeremy half-expected a team of commandos to leap out of nowhere and surround them. They were unobstructed, however, and even opening the Legislature’s doors was simple; they pushed open easily, creaking with the weight of age, but revealing an empty room beyond.

  Papers and books were scattered throughout the reception area; sunlight filtering in through the high windows provided dim illumination that assured them that nobody was there. As they stepped inside, the door creaked closed of its own accord. A sudden clink of metal against the the marble floor was the only warning they had that they were not alone - a small metal cylinder landed at their feet, and began hissing and spewing out greyish vapour. Michael whirled and attempted to pull open the door, but the gas overtook them all so quickly he had no chance to do anything more than grasp the door handle before darkness overtook him and they all fell to the ground unconscious.

  ***

  Cold was all that Jeremy could feel as consciousness returned to his body. He was vaguely aware of the fact that he was not wearing any clothing, and was laying on some sort of cold stone. As he slowly shook the grogginess from his head and forced his eyes open, understanding slowly dawned upon him. He was laying on his back in what appeared to be a prison cell - small and cramped, surrounded on all sides by bars. He could see a row of similar cells stretching through a dark, dank room that he could only assume was located somewhere below the Legislature. The nearby cells held his companions, all of whom had also been stripped of clothes and thrown in the bare cells. Michael’s cell was directly adjacent to him; Tanya and Luna were in cells opposite him, separated by a narrow walkway. Up until that moment, he had expected that seeing Tanya naked would be the high point of his young life; under the circumstances, he tried to preserve her dignity by not looking any more than was necessary to ascertain her location. Sexual arousal was not likely under the circumstances, at any rate. Everyone else was still unconscious; even he was barely awake, and it took monumental effort to force himself up to his hands and knees. Vertigo was overwhelming him, making it impossible to stand up. He called out, his voice hoarse and croaking.

  “Hello,” he called. His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “Is anyone there? You need to let us out! There’s been a mistake!”

  After repeating his calls twice, he decided to save his breath. Fortunately, it appeared that someone had heard him; a reinforced iron door that opened on to the walkway unlocked with a loud clang and slid open. A short, slim man dressed in the neatly-pressed uniform of an army officer stepped through, walked to the front of Jeremy’s cell, and stood there, looking down at him. When he spoke, his voic
e was carefully measured and controlled, not betraying any trace of emotion.

  “Who are you, and how did you get here?”

  “There’s been a mistake,” Jeremy said. “We’re -”

  “That’s not what I asked,” the officer interrupted. “Give me your names, and detailed information about how you got here.”

  “Not exactly the hospitable approach,” Jeremy said, managing to muster up a sneer. “How about you go fuck yourself, and let me out of here?”

  “Four apparent civilians,” the officer said, turning to survey the entire group in turn, “in a city that’s in ruins show up unarmed despite a hostile incursion into the city. A hostile incursion that has claimed the lives of - as far as we’re aware - the city’s entire civilian population, and a significant number of the military forces that have been deployed to secure and safeguard it. So you’ll excuse me if I’m not exactly hospitable, but you can see why I’m going to need to know how four unarmed and untrained civilians were able to survive and reach my base. This is the last time I’m going to ask: give me your names, and detailed information about how you got here.”

  “We walked,” Jeremy considered the wisdom of revealing the full truth to the officer. It wasn’t a hard decision - he’d been drugged, stripped, and thrown in a cell, and was now being interrogated. Full cooperation was not in his best interests, particularly given the nature of the whole truth. He pointed at Tanya, still unconscious. “She and I are from Estevan. Some soldiers down there told us that there was sanctuary here, so we made our way up. We drove as far as we could, and met her - “ he gestured to Luna, “on the way up here. We met the other guy on our way through the city.”

  “You walked,” the officer chewed the words over, his voice seething with barely-controlled rage. “My own men can’t go more than a kilometer without running into random wandering groups of hostiles that are extraordinarily tough and deadly, but you expect me to believe that you made it all the way from Estevan just as easy as you please?”

  “I never said it was easy,” Jeremy said. He was finally starting to breathe normally, and regained enough composure to grasp the bars in the front of the cell and pull himself up to standing. “And I never said we never encountered any hostiles. Is that really what you’re calling them? It sounds so...neutral. You know what they really are.”

  “I don’t officially know anything that hasn’t arrived in a briefing manual for me,” the officer huffed. “So why don’t you tell me what the hostiles really are, smart guy?”

  “Zombies,” Jeremy spat the word out vehemently. “The goddamned undead. They’re our friends, our family, our neighbours, dead and risen to slaughter us all.”

  Although he had been expecting to garner at least some sort of reaction from the officer with his assessment of the zombie threat, Jeremy was pleasantly surprised to see him merely smile instead.

  “Zombies, eh?” The officer stepped to the side and hammered his fist against the iron door. It creaked open, and the officer gestured in the direction of Jeremy’s cell. A squat older man with a scruffy beard and a dishevelled uniform dragged in a homemade apparatus that consisted of a pair of car batteries, a tangled mass of wires, and a series of small devices that Jeremy couldn’t immediately identify. The officer withdrew a key from his pocket and opened the cell. The bearded man, moving with a swiftness that seemed unnatural for someone of his stature, stepped inside the cell and struck Jeremy with a small black club that he pulled from a hidden pocket as he entered. The blow knocked Jeremy on to his back, reeling and trying to retain his grip on consciousness. The bearded man quickly slapped shackles on Jeremy’s arms, hooking them through a loop in the cement wall, and then stepped outside so that he could wheel his apparatus inside the cell. When the bearded man began to untangle a set of electrodes from the apparatus and attach them to Jeremy’s chest, he realized with horror exactly what the apparatus was - a torture machine. The officer withdrew a small remote control from his jacket pocket and held it out for Jeremy to see. “Do you see this, smart guy? A bright fellow like yourself must have figured out what it’s for by now. I press this button,” he gently tapped a small red button on the remote, and Jeremy’s entire body convulsed, wracked by the agony of powerful electrical current surging through his entire body. The officer’s scowl was replaced by a grin as he watched the results of his work. “Ah, yes. That’s what happens. I don’t think I need to say more on that matter, so let’s get right down to it again. I’ve asked nicely, and now you’ve made me do this. How exactly did you manage to elude or defeat the hostiles and find this base?”

  “Go to hell,” Jeremy spat a mixture of spittle and blood on the ground at the officer’s feet. His defiance was rewarded with another bout of incredible, spasmodic pain. When the pain finally subsided, the officer resumed his interrogation.

  “Not the answer I was looking for. One more time. How. Did. You. Elude. Capture.”

  “I brought the power of death and destruction upon the hordes of undead who stood in my way,” Jeremy grinned a mouthful of teeth that were now stained with blood. “And now it’s your turn.”

  With all his might, with every fibre of his being, he reached deep inside himself to summon the full power of his telekinetic abilities to tear away the electrodes, crush the bearded man, and pin the officer against the cell wall. The pain of the repeated electrical assaults, coupled with the disorientation from being drugged was enough that his attempt failed. As dramatic as the moment had become, absolutely nothing happened - not even another jolt of pain.

  “That’s so unfortunate,” the officer remarked. He nodded to the bearded man, who disappeared behind the iron door. “I was hoping that we wouldn’t need to escalate to these sort of measures, but I’m afraid that times are desperate. Just remember that you forced my hand on this. There is nobody to blame but yourself.”

  The bearded man reappeared in the doorway, dragging a shackled and muzzled zombie, who thrashed and twisted with all its might in a vain attempt to attack its captor. With remarkable calm, the bearded man shoved the creature inside the cell, cuffing both of its hands to the bars of the cell, pinning it several feet away from Jeremy, restrained only by the steel handcuffs which it strained against. Once he was satisfied that the creature was secured, he removed the leather muzzle and mask, revealing a face full of rotted flesh and muscle and yellow-stained teeth that gnashed and chomped, frantically seeking any available source of food. Jeremy did what he could to remain calm in the face of the new threat.

  “So now that we’ve upped the stakes a bit,” the officer resumed with a toothy grin, “maybe you’ll be a little more willing to cooperate? If not, I’d be willing to bet that our hungry friend here would be more than willing to make an example of you for when your friends wake up.”

  “Speaking of his friends, sir,” the bearded man’s voice was rough and gravelly, “me and the boys were wondering if...well, it’s been a while since we’ve actually had female companionship.”

  Braving vertigo and his still barely-working muscles, Jeremy leapt to his feet and rattled his chains trying to pull himself free to protect Tanya from even the hint of what the bearded man had suggested. His indignation was not lost on the officer, whose grin widened until it seemed likely to split his face in two.

  “Now, Sergeant, that would violate too many regulations to count. That’s not how we treat our prisoners...unless they refuse to cooperate. Tell me, smart guy, are you ready to talk?”

  The only response that Jeremy could formulate was a growl of unfettered rage. With a resigned shrug, the officer reached out and twisted a key in the lock of one of the zombie’s handcuffs. The hand was free and outstretched towards Jeremy in an instant, the zombie still struggling against the other handcuff with enough force that his rotten arm seemed likely to pull itself apart. The officer handed a different key to the bearded man, who grinned lasciviously and unlocked the door to Tanya’s cell. He stepped inside and knelt beside her unconscious body, running his grubby
hands across her naked back.

  “Still feel like keeping quiet, smart guy?”

  Jeremy’s snarls of rage rose to a volume and intensity that overwhelmed even the similar sounds coming from his undead cellmate. The officer laughed heartily as he twisted his key in the handcuff on the zombie’s still-shackled left hand. As the creature freed itself and made a beeline across the cell for Jeremy, the officer also pressed and held the red button on his remote. Time slowed to a standstill, until his every heartbeat sounded in his ears like a thunderous drum, and his rage and agony melded into something entirely new. Pain turned to power, and rage to freedom; he felt his grip on his telekinetic powers return, escalating to a newfound level that he had never before imagined, not even during their barroom escape after meeting Luna. He was able to perceive every atomic bond, every molecular structure of the chains that held him, and with a glorious burst of energy, he disassembled those bonds, dissolving the manacles and chains to a fine powder. As the zombie closed in on him, his hand shot out to meet the creature’s face, his fingers blazing with visible power. They pierced the creature’s skin and bones, two fingers popping its eyeballs like grapes beneath the blow of a sledge hammer. He felt his fingers penetrate the rotten remains of what had once been a brain, and the electrical connectivity between its remaining synapses connected with the energetic field extending from his fingertips. A massive flood of information rushed through that link, as if a powerful supercomputer spontaneously decided to push out all of its stored data through a network connection. The flood of information was too much to dissemble at once, but clearly contained far more information than the simple memories of the man the zombie had once been. He could see and sense the memories as if they were his own, and he saw ancient battlefields, wars raging across devastated cities and continents that bore no resemblance to their own; he saw himself hunting and killing men, women, and children, and feasting on their flesh and bones, and he saw people fighting back with all their might. He felt like a droplet amongst a terrible wave, an undead tsunami that raged across the planet to scourge it of all life.