The Dead Series (Book 1): Tell Me When I'm Dead

by Steven Ramirez

  “Look,” Aaron said. “She sees us. I don’t think it’s too late.”

  “Aaron,” I said. I took Ben’s shotgun from him and ran up next to Aaron. “Get back,” I said. “She’s dead.”

  “No, she’s injured and in shock! Please, we can help her!”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Please don’t do this! Please!”

  He tried to take the shotgun from me, but I pushed him away. The girl was whipping her arms violently and mewling, trying to get hold of Aaron’s arm. She looked ravenous.

  “Get back,” I said.

  “No! Please! God no, please don’t shoot her!”

  Aaron was hysterical. I hit him in the gut with the butt of the gun. As he doubled over, Ben took hold of his son and dragged him out of the way. I raised the shotgun and pumped it once.

  For an instant I saw before me the young girl this used to be. Her soft blonde locks falling gently around her sweet face. Her trembling lips. Her hurt green eyes staring into mine, begging to know why it had to end this way. I must’ve been feverish, because they became Holly’s eyes looking at me with tears, wondering why I’d brought this down on us all.

  Snapping out of it, I looked into the creature’s cold, dead eyes. “I’m so sorry,” I said as I squeezed the trigger.

  The blast sent her to heaven. Her head half blown off, she shook like a mechanical doll whose springs had exploded, then lay still in the road.

  Aaron buried his head against his father’s shoulder. When I looked at Ben, he faced me with an expression of sheer and utter hatred.

  “She was already dead,” I said, and handing Ben the shotgun, I went back to the truck.

  We found Ben’s motor home untouched. There were a number of human tracks in the pine needles in the surrounding area. We guessed a horde had passed through, seen there was no life inside the motor home and continued on.

  Ben pulled out three beers from the little refrigerator inside the tiny kitchen, handed one to his son and tried to give me one. I almost took it, then waved it away.

  “Got anything else?” I said.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  He came back with a Red Bull, for which I was grateful. We sat around the little dining table.

  “You don’t drink, do you?” Ben said.

  “Used to. Back in the day.”

  “Yeah, I figured. Good for you. Sorry I kept offering.”

  “It’s fine.”

  Aaron took a sip of his beer, made a face and, pushing it aside, grabbed a Diet Coke from the fridge. “Sorry about back there,” he said, his voice cracking. “I can’t get used to this. Those things not being alive, I mean.”

  “Sorry I hurt you,” I said. “You feeling okay?”

  “I’m a little sore.” He massaged his abdomen and winced.

  “Listen,” I said. “You did what anybody would’ve done under normal circumstances. You’re a good person, Aaron.”

  “How do you know?” Aaron said. “That they’re dead, I mean.”

  “Not sure. Instinct?”

  “But what if you’re wrong?” Ben said.

  “There’s no time for right or wrong,” I said.

  “That kind of thinking leads to anarchy.”

  “The thing is, when you’re in that situation, you don’t have time to look at all the facts. I know it sucks, but that’s the way it is. I don’t know what’s going on, but one thing I do know? If you get bitten, you become one of them. And I will do whatever I have to do to keep that from happening to me.”

  “That poor child,” Aaron said.

  “This is what I’ve observed,” I said. “When you’re bit, it’s only a short time till you become one of the undead. At first it was days, then hours. Now I don’t know how long it takes.”

  “Is that what you’re calling them?” Ben said. I heard the disgust in his voice. “Undead?”

  “What would you call them, Ben? Poor sinners?”

  “Look, forget it.”

  “It’s like you die. You stop breathing, you smell like all hell and you look really, really bad. And all you want to do is feed on living things. You saw it yourself in the lake.”

  “So the little girl …” Aaron said.

  “Would have gored you in seconds.”

  “We need to get out of this forest,” Ben said.

  “Agreed,” I said.

  Outside, we heard a pounding on the ground. It sounded like a stampede in a Western movie. We rushed to the front of the motor home. Looking out the front windows, we saw them—hundreds of animals running towards us in terror. Deer, raccoons, squirrels. It was insane. Then we saw what they were running from.

  A horde of undead poured out of the forest and into the clearing. Where had they all come from?

  “Dear God,” Ben said.

  “I need to get to my truck,” I said.

  “What if I circle around and drive you next to it?”

  “Sure, but you need to hit as many of them as you can on the way.”

  He looked at me without comprehension, still not clear we were talking about actual dead people. “Can’t we wait for them to—”

  “To run past? And what if they decide to attack? Ben, you have to take them out. Can you do it?”

  “Yeah.”

  I looked at Aaron. He was withdrawing again. I saw my younger self in him. How could I have ever dealt with something like this at that age? I went over to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. I spoke calmly while Ben fired up the motor home.

  “Aaron, listen,” I said. “Are you listening? You need to take the shotgun while your dad drives, okay?” I knew there was no way in hell he could ever use the axe—I wasn’t sure I could use it on one of those sorry creatures. “Aaron?”

  Ben pulled forward, as the horde milled around the vehicle hungrily. “Run them over, Ben,” I said.

  We watched through the large windshield as Ben found his nerve and hit the gas. He swung around sharply in the clearing, catching men, women and teenagers. They groaned as the motor home rolled over them, crushing their chests, arms and legs. A front wheel found a woman’s head and flattened it like a huge grape filled with dark, infectious blood. This went on for several minutes, as more of them came into the clearing. Some of them shrieked—the sound was unbearable.

  More of them attacked from the sides. Ben turned into them hard, dragging them under the wheels. One of them got stuck in the right front wheel well, and we came to a sudden halt.

  “We’re close to my truck,” I said, digging in my pocket for my keys. “Aaron, get over here. Anything gets near me, you shoot, okay?”

  He nodded and followed me to the door.

  “On the count of three,” I said. “One … two … three.”

  I opened the door and started out. Some messed-up freak in a bloody Dodgers jersey came at me from the side. I brought down the axe and whacked his arm off in mid-grab. As if this were a minor inconvenience, he came at me with the other arm. I half expected him to say, “It’s just a flesh wound.”

  I tried using the axe again and dropped my damned keys. Shoving the creature away, I was bending down to get them when an explosion ripped the air above my head. When I came back up, the thing no longer had a head and Aaron’s shotgun was smoking. The infected body teetered and fell backwards. Seeing my chance, I chopped away at the body stuck in the wheel well, dragged away what was left and jumped into my truck.

  “Follow me,” I said.

  My plan was to return to Tres Marias. I didn’t know where Holly and her mother were. I needed to contact Black Dragon to see if they’d been picked up.

  As we drove out of the clearing towards the road, I saw something disturbing and unbelievable in a distant grassy field. I signaled to Ben to pull over. As I got out, I shielded my eyes from the hot sun and peered out at the lone figure wandering directionless in the distance.

  It was Holly’s mother.

  I KNEW IT WAS IRENE when I ran across the field, carrying my axe. She was dressed i
n her favorite housecoat, a turquoise one with little yellow ducks, lurching forward, a fazed expression on her careworn face. As I got closer, I recognized the greyish skin and knew she was infected. Fear gripped me as I imagined Holly wandering somewhere close by in the same ghastly state.

  Ben, Aaron and I stopped a good twenty yards from her, and from out of the trees a man dressed in silver, wearing a helmet with a black visor and carrying a long catch pole, the kind they use on zoo animals, gamboled after Irene. I thought for sure he was going to end up dead. There was a childlike joy in the way he bounced across the field, pursuing his dark prey.

  Ben raised the shotgun. I took hold of the barrel and pushed it down as the man in silver got the noose over Irene’s head, tightened it and pulled her down like he was in a calf-roping contest.

  “He’s crazy,” Ben said.

  Irene lay face down on the ground as the silver man removed his protective gloves and bound her hands behind her back with white plastic ties. Next he wrapped red duct tape around her head at the mouth, to keep her from biting.

  “What are you doing?” I said, approaching the man.

  “Capturing a specimen,” a familiar voice said.

  By now two more undead—a man and a woman—were on us. Both were naked and looked to be Aaron’s age. Ben tried raising the shotgun, but he wasn’t quick enough. I pulled back my axe and swung, taking the dead man’s head most of the way off with the first strike. The creature spun in circles, uncomprehending as it tried to right itself. I kicked it to the ground and split its head open, then I went for the female, but it was already tearing at the silver man’s back. He seemed not to notice, and I realized that he was wearing a shark suit.

  I was afraid to swing the axe again for fear of hitting that crazy dude. And the creature was too close to him for Ben to fire his weapon. So I drove the axe handle into the back of its head, which caved in like a rotten cantaloupe. Then I pulled the limp creature off by the hair, and the silver man got to his feet as if nothing had happened.

  Ben and Aaron stared at me in silence. I looked down and found I was covered in blood. We didn’t see anyone else coming. Irene was hog-tied on the ground, grunting like a sow through the duct tape and trying uselessly to roll away.

  The silver man pulled his helmet off to get some fresh air, and I laughed.

  “Wait,” I said. “Mr. Landry?”

  “Dave Pulaski! How the devil are you?”

  “You know this guy?” Aaron said.

  “My old science teacher.”

  “Say, Dave. Good thing you’re here. My truck broke down, and I could sure use a lift.”

  We stared at him, then at Irene screaming at the ground. Landry grinned, obviously pleased with himself.

  Now in his sixties, Irwin Landry looked healthy, with a lean body, a white shock of hair, squirrel-like teeth, a hawk nose and steely blue eyes—the way I remembered him from high school. He retired from teaching at the end of the last school year. He described how he had bought a small cabin in Mt. Shasta and proceeded to go insane from boredom. When the outbreak hit, he had a purpose in life once again.

  We parked our vehicles outside his cabin and gathered in the rear, looking through a chain-link-fenced enclosure. Eight undead—including Irene—milled in circles, groaning and swatting at imaginary flies. Some looked fresher than others. Landry had removed the duct tape and plastic ties, and they wandered freely inside the enclosure.

  I spotted a ninth creature towards the back, lying on the ground and barely moving. It looked pretty far gone—almost mummified—and I assumed it had decayed to the point of being almost harmless.

  “Everything dies,” Landry said. “Even these monstrosities.” He sounded like a kid at Comic-Con as he spoke to us. “Ever since this business started, I’ve been studying these creatures. I call them creatures, of course, because they’re no longer human.”

  His cat, Hawking, which had a sizeable rip in the skin of her back crusted over with dried blood, sidled up to Landry. He eased her away with his boot.

  “What happened to the cat?” I said.

  “One of those things bit her. She was lucky to get away.”

  Collectively we backed off. “Aren’t you worried about infection?” I said.

  “That’s the interesting part,” Landry said. “This happened a couple of weeks ago. She hasn’t exhibited any signs of the disease. For her, it’s a wound. No worse than any animal bite. And it’s healing. This virus—or whatever it is—doesn’t appear to jump species.”

  “Then it’s not a form of rabies?”

  “Doesn’t appear to be.”

  “You remember Jim Stanley?”

  “Sure I do.”

  “I think he was bit by his rabid dog before he turned.”

  “I don’t think there’s a link, Dave. You know rabies is common in these parts.”

  “Then what in hell is causing this?”

  The cat sidled up to me, purring. I bent down to pet her.

  “Careful,” Landry said. “She could still be a carrier, which is why I don’t let her get too close.”

  “Why do you study them?” Ben said.

  “Because I have a curious mind, Ben. I want to see if I can learn something that might help to stop this.”

  “And for that you had to remove their restraints?” I said. “You always were a little off, Irwin.”

  “I like to think of myself as open to possibilities.”

  “I did enjoy your class the best, though.”

  “Interesting. I always thought Ms. Ireland’s class was your favorite,” he said, winking. Then to Ben and Aaron, “She was pretty formidable in the chest department.”

  “Uh-huh,” Aaron said, grinning at me.

  “So how’ve you been, Dave?” Landry said, punching me in the arm. That was one thing I did not miss.

  “Not too good. My wife and I …”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  When the dead things rushed the fence, we jumped back—all except Landry—even though it was impossible for them to grab us. The cat bared her teeth and hissed. Then one of them shrieked in frustration.

  “We’d better get inside,” Landry said. “Once they start going at it, the sound will attract others.”

  Over a dinner of ham-and-cheese sandwiches and root beer, Landry explained what he was doing. I noticed he didn’t have a television set, which irritated me because I wanted to check in with Evie Champagne on the latest. But he did have a generator and a cell phone that he used to provide Internet access to his laptop.

  “We don’t know what’s causing the dead to return to life, of course,” he said. “But we do know a few things. One, there was some kind of event. Maybe an animal virus did jump species—though I still don’t think it was rabies.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because rabies has been around since the Egyptians and it’s never been known to do what we’re seeing now. But it is highly contagious. Decomposition doesn’t cease, as you observed outside. Eventually these things will rot away.”

  “But not before doing a lot of damage,” Ben said.

  “Right. And to Dave’s point, very similar to rabies in that regard.”

  “Why do they want to eat us?” Aaron said.

  “Oh, yes.” Landry’s eyes twinkled the way they used to in science class. “Clearly they’re getting no nutrition from the flesh. They could be doing it because it’s one of the most basic instincts—to stay alive. You see, all life forms have fundamental needs. Maslow talked about a hierarchy. You remember this, right, Dave?”

  “Oh, sure,” I said. “Who could forget Maslow?”

  “You can disregard the rest of the hierarchy. For these things, all that’s important is the physiological needs. Air, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis and excretion. From what I’ve observed, they don’t need water, sex or even sleep.”

  “And they don’t appear to need air,” I said.

  “Really?”

  “Trust me.” I looked at Ben and
Aaron.

  “Okay,” Landry said. “And they don’t excrete, as far as I can tell. They eat and eat and nothing comes out.”

  “Where does it go?” I said.

  “Well, there doesn’t appear to be any kind of digestion. Though I haven’t observed it myself, my guess is they fill up and can no longer eat.”

  “Like Thanksgiving,” I said.

  “Maybe they explode,” Ben said.

  “I wouldn’t mind seeing that,” I said.

  “What’s homeo …” Aaron said.

  “Homeostasis. It’s the ability of an organism to regulate or stabilize itself. You know, like temperature and so on. Well, these things are always cold, so I don’t think they’re doing that very well either.”

  “So all that’s left …” Ben said.

  “Is hunger,” I said.

  “Right,” Landry said. “And they are laser-focused on it.”

  “What else have you found out?” Ben said.

  “Well, because most of the higher brain functions appear to be nonexistent, they can’t speak. And I’m assuming they can’t reason either.”

  “No,” I said. “But they can communicate with each other. I’ve seen it.”

  “What about their other senses?” Ben said. “Sight, hearing?”

  “We know they can see. Not well, but they get around just fine. I think they can hear too, because the sound of humans in distress seems to attract them. In order to confirm, I’d have to conduct all kinds of experiments that I don’t have the equipment for.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Aaron said. “Are they, in fact, clinically dead?”

  “That’s the interesting part. They don’t appear to have any of the normal life signs. No beating heart, no breath. Yet somehow they live. I guess they really are the undead.”

  “But how?” Aaron said.

  “We don’t know. There are documented cases of yogis who can put themselves into a state of samadhi, consciously lower their respiration and heart rate to almost-undetectable levels. My guess is, somehow a brain in this state is leveraging some unique ability of the body that we are currently unaware of. Something that allows it to operate in this minimalist fashion.”