The Dead Saga (Novella Part 1): Odium Origins

by Claire C. Riley

  Half of the fear I felt before was for Amy and Ben, and because I had no clue what was going on. I felt like an unarmed soldier going into battle without any knowledge of the area or who the enemy actually was, and all the while having the two most precious things in the world with me. Without them, and a gun in my hand, I feel no fear. The only concern I have is to help these men survive. That’s my training and is as instinctual as breathing, even if I haven’t been welcomed with open arms by every one of them in the group. We have managed to get some prisoners out from solitary and lock them down in cells, and another ten or so from Ad-Seg. It was a battle to convince everyone to get these guys, but for me it wasn’t a choice. These are bad men, but I won’t leave anyone to rot.

  But back to what we heard on the radio: at first, nothing—static, plain and simple. But as we tuned to different stations, we finally heard news of other attacks happening all over the country. The world has gone insane. The dead have risen and have killed some of the most important people in the country. City after city is falling. Death is closing in on everyone.

  A growl up ahead brings me out of my thoughts. We hear it again, coming from one of the cells. We speed up, checking inside each cell on the way with greater speed. As we reach the cell in question, a guard steps out, clutching a hand to his neck. Blood spurts from between his fingers. He turns and sees us, relief washing over him.

  “Thank God,” he yells.

  A zombie in a prisoner’s uniform steps out of the cell in front of him. It shambles toward him, arms reaching, teeth snapping. I whistle to get its attention, and it glances in my direction. I pull the trigger, feeling the force up my arms and shoulders and hearing the bang-smack as the bullet penetrates his chest. I fire once more, raising my aim a little higher, and this time I hit him in the head.

  The guard runs over to us, blood still pumping, eyes wide and face pale. He smiles, and goes to speak, but Lance puts a bullet in his head before he can utter any words. I don’t flinch, though I do feel remorse for this man. He was too badly injured to survive, anyway, and we all know what happens when you die now. Perhaps he even had a better way out of this world; maybe we saved him the agony of a slow death and reanimation. I hope so.

  Lance grabs the scruff of the dead man’s clothes and drags the body out of the way, and we continue down the row, checking each cell as we go.

  *

  The day so far has been spent clearing out parts of the prison, both of zombies and of prisoners. We’ve managed to contain the living prisoners in a cleared-out wing and have locked them inside. However, we’re still unsure of what to do with them. Especially since many of these prisoners, under normal circumstances, wouldn’t be housed together.

  We clear two more rows like the previous, finding another guard and two more prisoners, all unharmed. The guard doesn’t take too kindly to me having a gun and voices his feelings, but Aaron shuts him down right away. I make a mental note that there are now two people who don’t trust me and don’t want me in the group. Two I can handle, though.

  I realize as we’re moving around the prison how fucking lucky I was that I didn’t encounter more of the dead before finding Aaron and getting us to safety. These things are everywhere, or perhaps more people are dying and turning now, which leads to the question: what is making them turn? Death, yeah, but why now? What’s bringing them back all of a sudden?

  My gut is gnawing at me as we arrive at the civilian visiting room. I know there’s at least one zombie in there to contend with, not including my own son—though what harm can a gummy baby boy really do to a grown man?

  At that thought I promptly stop and heave, forcibly throwing out the contents of my stomach until I can catch my breath. I crouch on the ground, my mouth hanging agape, letting the spit trail out as tears build in my eyes again. I catch my breath, wipe my face with the sleeve of my shirt, and look up. All three men are looking at me. I can tell that they’re wondering if I’m about to change, not just from their concerned expressions, but by the amount of guns aimed at me.

  I wave them away. “I’m okay, it’s just,” I gesture to the door, “he’s in there.”

  Aaron looks at Lance and they both nod and lower their weapons. “We can do this for you,” Aaron offers.

  I shake my head. “No. He’s my son.” I stand back up and take another calming breath and continue walking.

  As we reach the door, I tell them what I remember from being inside.

  “There could be more, but I only remember one. He was at the back of the room, but obviously he could be anywhere now. Ben—my son—was near the door. Do not touch him,” I warn.

  They nod and open the door, and I wait as shots sound out, echoing loudly in the small space. A minute or two passes and Aaron comes out. Tears trail down his cheeks and his hand touches my shoulder. I look at him in confusion.

  “You never said he was a baby.” He shakes his head and walks to the balcony to look down.

  I gulp almost comically loud, but nothing is funny at this moment. I step into the room, the stench of death clinging in the air, and look up as Lance comes toward me. I see the same pity on his face that had been on Aaron’s. He doesn’t say anything, though, but walks on by me. I listen to the murmuring in the hallway for a few seconds before finally building up the courage to look around the room.

  Bodies are scattered everywhere, limbs hanging from slack jaws, blood congealed and crusting on the cold hard floor. My eyes see Amy and I go to her, kneeling by her side as I take her hand and kiss the back of it. I drag a hand over her eyes and close her lids before kissing her forehead.

  “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

  I hear the soft murmur of a child behind me. A small growl mixed in with the mewling sounds only babies make. I turn and see Ben’s small body on the floor, his little limbs writhing around in bloody body parts. A sob erupts from me as I move toward him, the sound bringing me to his attention.

  His once baby blues are now cold and dead as they fix on me, and his little cherub cheeks are encrusted with blood. I see the damage the monster has done to him: one of his little legs from his tiny body is missing. I shrug out of my jacket and drop it over the top of him, trapping his arms underneath it but leaving his face free, and then I carefully lift him off the floor and away from the death around him.

  I stare into my son’s dead eyes, his small body wriggling in my arms. Tears sting my eyes as I run a hand through his soft blond hair, so like his beautiful mother’s. His face turns upwards to catch my hand in his mouth. He gums my palm in his mouth, trying to bite through, and I sob louder and pray for his soul, and then I pray for mine as I pull the jacket over his face and put the muzzle of my pistol to his head.

  Eight.

  Weeks have turned into months, and there is still no sign of help from anywhere. The radio is silent now, with no news broadcasting from anywhere in the country. Perhaps this thing is even global, I have no idea. All I know is that demons have crawled up from the pits of hell and now freely roam the earth, eating and destroying everything in their wake.

  Food is becoming scarce and the surviving prisoners are getting more irate with every passing day. They want out. Twice, prisoners have died and turned in their cells—one from an asthma attack and another from an injury he didn’t tell anyone about. The bite eventually became infected. The sad thing is we could have saved him, given him antibiotics or something, if he’d told us, but he was too scared we’d shoot him first and ask questions later. Stupid son of a bitch. We know that we’re going to have to leave here; it may be secure, but there’s no food—certainly not enough for the amount of people we have—and parts of the prison are still too overrun to go into.

  The outside of the prison is swarming with the undead, as if they know that the living are inside. Maybe it’s instinctual of them to go toward buildings, or maybe they can sense us. In the months that have passed, we haven’t learned a great deal about them—just that the only way to stop them is to destroy the brain.


  Today is the day that we get out of here. But where we go is another story.

  *

  “I say we just drive. Anywhere has to be better than here,” says Andrew, another tower guard.

  I roll my eyes. “That’s a damn sure way to get us all killed.”

  “Who asked you?” he spits back. I’ve added him to my ever-growing list of guards who will drop me in a heartbeat. I think my tally is at six now. That’s three more than who actually do like me. The odds aren’t good.

  I take a deep breath and bite my tongue. I could lash out, but that’s proved unhelpful in previous altercations, and does nothing to calm the situation.

  I look at Lance and he nods. “He’s right, that’s a stupid mistake. We need to find somewhere that’s safe,” he says.

  “Safer than a prison?” Marcus smirks.

  He’s an asshole, but he has a valid point, so I add in another of my two cents for what it may be worth. “Maybe we could do a food run? Send out a group of us to scavenge some supplies, see how the world is holding up, and come back. We can’t take these prisoners with us. They’re too dangerous, and the risk that they could escape is too high.”

  Aaron nods, and when I look at Andrew he nods, too, though his expression is still of grim annoyance at me being here.

  “Maybe we could just leave them to rot?” he sneers, to which he receives several glares of annoyance. “Fine. So who goes?” he asks darkly.

  I shrug. “We could vote, draw straws, who the fuck really cares? Hell, I’ll even volunteer.”

  “We’ll vote,” Aaron says, staring Andrew down.

  “I’m going,” I say with a deep frown. “So whoever else is going, you’ll be teaming with me. You have a problem with that, then walk away now,” I snap. I’m tired of this shit, and I’m tired of keeping the peace. I’ve more than earned my keep and proved my worth. I don’t need Aaron or anyone else holding my hand for me.

  “I’ll volunteer too,” Andrew sneers.

  “I’ll go,” Marcus volunteers.

  This is going to be one hell of a journey, I can’t help but think as Danny another tower guard and enemy offers to go to. Three sets of eyes stare me down. It’s pathetic, really: I could have killed these guys at any time, but didn’t, yet I know that they’ll be gunning for me out there. I decide to make my peace with that fact and prepare myself to run when we hit the outside. I’m no chicken shit, but I also know when I’m outnumbered and outgunned.

  “I’ll go too,” Aaron says, his eyes catching mine. He obviously has the same thought as me, but I’ll be damned if I let him walk to his death.

  “No, four of us should do it.” I look at the other men, knowing they all intend on leaving me for dead out there. “We’ll all be back before you know it.” And I’ll make sure of it too. The more men that make it back here, the more chance my new friends have of surviving. Despite the fact that I hate these men and can read them like an open book, I’m a man of honor, and I’m willing to sacrifice myself for the greater good.

  Well, I’m certainly willing to help them get food and then run for my life.

  *

  We haul ass to a prisoner transport van, a Ford Econoline with no side windows and only small ones on the very back of the doors. It was most likely the one that brought me in here, I can’t help but realize grimly. The dead are shambling toward us slowly, their mass a greater threat than their speed. I charge at one using a riot shield as a battering ram and bounce his dead ass away from me. It’s times like these that I wish I had tried out for my college football team. Alas, that was many a year ago now, so instead I think of my army training and aim and fire at another particularly nasty-looking zombie—previously a riot guard, judging by the uniform he’s wearing. I miss my mark as it stumbles forward, tripping on its own feet. Marcus is closer to it than I am and he fires his Remington, spraying the guard’s chest with buckshot and sending gore up around him in a cloud of red. The zombie continues to move forward, unhindered by the bullets peppering its bleeding torso, and I take aim and shoot a fraction of a second after it steps, finally hitting my mark and taking it out with a head shot.

  More surround us as we fumble with the keys to the van, finally getting it open. The gates are wide open, with several burnt-out cars twisted together in a mangle of steel. Human bones are scattered by the pileup, indicating a possible source of the outbreak.

  I jump into the cage in the back of the van along with Danny and we slam the doors shut behind us, sitting along the bench inside the enclosure. It’s an eerily familiar feeling being back here, and I wish I’d volunteered to sit up front instead. There’s plenty more gunfire coming from the guys up front, though I presume that since Marcus is driving, Andrew is doing most of the shooting. We must pull free of the carnage as the gunfire silences. I can hear the other two talking up front—probably planning my death—but I try not to think about what they could be saying, instead aiming to get food for my friends and hopefully still having time to make a run for it before they can put a bullet in my back.

  I hate being a pussy and running, but there really is no choice. I can’t kill them and risk compromising my friends, and I can’t put enough trust in them to think that they won’t kill me. Just the look that Danny is giving me now indicates his deep hatred for me.

  “Must feel like home being back here, huh?” he sneers, as if he read my mind.

  I lift an eyebrow but don’t rise to the bait. Instead I make use of the time to check my weapon over and reload it, keeping a cautious eye on him as I do, though I don’t think they’ll try anything until after we have supplies to take back with us. Danny takes the hint and does the same, sniggering to himself. Yeah, he’s a real funny fucker.

  Several miles go by with only the occasional sound of gunfire, until we eventually stop and the back doors swing open. Both Danny and I climb out, adjusting to our surroundings.

  Marcus has brought us to a large Wal-Mart, and I can’t help but think it’s a bad idea. This is one of the first places other survivors will have headed for. I don’t want to presume that the human race would turn on itself so quickly, but history tells me otherwise—that and there’s already a huge pile of burning bodies outside. I presume—hell, I hope—that they’re the bodies of the dead and not the living. People turn crazy in times like this, and the last thing we need is to run into a gang of hotheads. I’m just glad that Aaron managed to find me some plain clothes. At least now I’m not running around in a prison-issued jumpsuit covered in blood and gore. That would not look good to potential survivors.

  “Lock and load, boys,” Marcus says with a devilish grin, before leading us all to the large double doors.

  We follow, weapons raised, heartbeats thudding in our chests. I scan the area, seeing only the occasional zombie in the distance, but nothing troubling so far.

  As we pass the pile of bodies, I’m grateful to see that they were clearly zombies and not humans. I keep my eyes forward as we reach the glass doors, and see most of the large shopping carts are piled up in front of them. Several zombies are trapped between the metal but don’t seem to be moving, so I assume that they’re already dead. Again. I shake my head; I’ll never get used to this shit.

  “Around the back?” Danny whispers.

  Andrew and Marcus look at each other, and after some unspoken correspondence, Marcus shakes his head no. “The back will be more secure than the front.” He gestures to the carts, standing guard, and Andrew and Danny begin pulling apart the blockade.

  “Move it, fucker,” Andrew whispers back to me.

  The situation feels off; there’s something unsettling about doing this, but I don’t have much choice since there’s no other way in and we need supplies to take back. I lower my gun, careful to keep the others to my front so I can always see them, and begin dismantling the structure piece by piece. We stumble across some of the zombies and, as I figured, they’re dead.

  We make a pathway to the door. The main automatic doors are sealed t
ight, so Andrew tries a separate side door to the left of the main entrance. He pushes on the handle but Andrew tries the handle; of course, it’s locked. Andrew raises his pistol and shoots out the lock. The sound is deafening, and we’re lucky that the glass didn’t break. If nothing else, at least everyone inside knows we’re coming now.

  I look behind us as one by one we enter. More zombies are on their way now, brought by the noise that we’re making. With no barricades and no lock, I’m worried about how the hell we’ll stop them from getting inside and am about to voice my concern when Marcus speaks next to me.

  “Move.”

  I look at him holding up a large shovel. I step out of his way and he threads it through the handlebars.

  “Should hold them until we need to get out of here,” he says as he follows the others into the darkness.

  I don’t feel good about any of this—not the zombies outside, the people I’m with and what they’re willing to do, or what the hell we might find in here. Regardless, I raise my gun and follow them. We’re here, and hopefully I can try and be damage control for these assholes. We only need some supplies, and this place is huge. There should be more than enough to go around. If whoever is here wants to share.

  Nine.

  The place is quiet and dark, but the smell of burning candles hanging in the air is unmistakable. Someone is hiding here, someone living. This makes me feel a little better; there aren’t zombies inside—or if there were, they’re gone now.

  We move as one unit, checking front, back, and all sides, until we stumble upon what must be the sleeping quarters. Several wooden units have been constructed and placed around in a small circle with a meeting point of benches in the center of them all, like a small village of garden sheds—or they were, at one point. Now they’re people’s homes.

  Marcus opens the door of one of them, poking his gun inside and scanning the small room. A mattress is on the floor with sleeping bags on top, and pictures even hang on the walls, making it look like a little hobbit home. Shelves are filled with trinkets and clothes neatly folded, and I try to refrain from smiling, but after everything I’ve lived through, it’s nice to see people making the best of things. Making homes for themselves.