Mountain Sickness: A Zombie Novel

by Frank Martin

  Faced with a professional level of passive aggression, Peter felt his blood pressure rising. He knew he should’ve kept his anger down or at the very least hidden it. The situation, both with the zombies and his former neighbor, wouldn’t benefit from him losing his temper.

  But Peter just couldn’t stop his frustration from showing. “You’re seriously going to argue with me about this? Right now?”

  “Hey, this truck was promised to me, and I’ll be damned if I let some…”

  Peter could see the needless argument starting to heat up, but to his surprise, Beth suddenly stepped up and cut off the brewing tension in its tracks. “Guys, come on. We’re all going to the same place, right? What’s the difference?”

  Peter was glad Beth came to his aide. It was an unexpected surprise that bringing her along had the added benefit of diffusing standoffs like this in his favor. But when he turned to look at her, Peter noticed that Beth wasn’t looking at Scott. She was looking at him, almost as if she was pleading for him to be the one to stand down.

  He didn’t know why Beth wouldn’t take his side. He was her boss. It was her job to have his back. Maybe she didn’t want to insult a stranger. Maybe she was compensating while trying not to play favorites. Whatever the reason, the situation wasn’t really ideal for him to stay and analyze her decision.

  In the background, Peter could see the zombie horde starting to lose interest in the giant fire that had nothing for them to kill. They were starting to become restless (at least as restless as a lethargic mob of zombies could be). And Scott Brooks knew it too. Peter could see it in his eyes.

  The savvy man was playing a game of chicken, trying to assert his dominance in their relationship over something as trivial as driving a car. And judging by the cocky smile still lingering on his face, Peter knew Scott was willing to let their entire plan fall apart to accomplish it.

  Realizing the importance of picking his battles, Peter released his hand from the side of the truck with an annoyed smirk. “Enjoy your ride.”

  He then casually walked around the hood to the passenger seat.

  ***

  For anyone else the situation might’ve seemed awkward, but Nellie preferred being left out of her companions’ conversation. Ever since they left her cabin, Chris and Stephanie had been chatting non-stop, exchanging impressions of the fellow survivors they just met. They never bothered to ask Mrs. Sheridan her opinion, and she never bothered to give it. All she cared about was making sure their voices weren’t loud enough to attract any unwanted attention from the zombie horde on the street.

  Sneaking through the backyards of adjacent houses, the group roughly backtracked parallel to the route they had taken in the truck. Nellie didn’t think it was possible, but the streets they had driven through were even more packed with zombies than they had been only hours earlier.

  She was able to catch glances of the moonlit crowd through breaks between the houses and saw that their movements were noticeably different than before. They walked slower, more rigid and awkward. Even though their skin and faces were hidden in darkness, the zombies’ body language alone was a far cry from the ferocious fiends who first appeared that morning. But given the change in their behavior after the storm disappeared, Nellie figured the creatures’ evolution wasn’t quite over yet.

  Caught up in their conversation, Nellie’s two comrades were too preoccupied to notice that their foe had once again transformed, and she wasn’t about to tell them. The old rancher was content listening in to their chat as a cautious observer.

  One might’ve called it gossip, but the information allowed her the chance to get a little insight into her allies’ minds. If it were up to her, Nellie would’ve preferred to do this mission alone. But she knew she was going to need their help. The key was just making sure they provided the right amount of assistance without allowing them an opportunity to get in her way.

  After a couple of blocks, Nellie began to notice the zombie procession was finally gaining ground in the direction of the house fire. The group transitioned their path over to the street, and Stephanie changed the topic to something Nellie found a bit more interesting. “Why did Peter pull you aside?”

  The ski patroller responded with a comment that was more of a statement than a question. “Why do you think?”

  “Ryan?”

  Although monotone, Chris’s answer held a slight hint of regret. “He asked me to put him out of his misery.”

  Stephanie took a deep breath of sad acceptance before asking a follow-up. “You think that’s why he chose to blow up the mine instead? He wouldn’t be able to kill his son?”

  “Maybe. And in a way Mountain Village is like his child, too. He just doesn’t have it in him to end them both.”

  “But once that doctor showed up with a cure you think he would’ve changed jobs.”

  Chris nodded in agreement before shifting the conversation’s tone. “There’s something else going on with him, though. I don’t know why, but he didn’t want to let that Brooks guy out of his sight.”

  He could’ve elaborated but chose not to. Probably because he sensed his fellow travel-mates knew exactly what he meant. She couldn’t speak for Stephanie, but Nellie understood. You don’t run a tourism business without learning to size people up on the fly. And something didn’t sit right with Nellie about that Brooks character. From the moment they picked him up in that wreckage by the airport, she knew he was bad news. And now she had to rely on him to close up that mine for good.

  She wasn’t too concerned about it, though. Peter Hayden was with him, and despite their differences, Nellie knew she could count on him to get the job done. And hell, if they failed they failed. It was out of her control, which was why she left the more important task to herself.

  A few more minutes passed before the gondola, still on and bringing cars up the mountain, came into view. Once it did, the teenage girl removed the handheld radio strapped to her belt and clicked it on. “We should tell the others we’re about to get on board.”

  She then held down the receiver while talking into the speaker. “Hello? You guys there? It’s Stephanie. We’re about to jump on the gondola.”

  She continued walking alongside the others while waiting for a response. When one didn’t come she tried again. “Hello? Did anybody get that?”

  Slightly frustrated, the girl turned to Nellie, the one who supplied the devices from inside her cabin, looking for an explanation. “Do these things even work?”

  Chris sighed, either from frustration or disappointment, before grabbing the radio from Stephanie and stuffing it in his jacket. “We should’ve checked them before we left.”

  Nellie was quick to reassure them, though. “The others probably still have theirs off. Don’t worry. It’s early. They’ll turn them on when they get closer to their objectives.”

  She prepared herself to go into more depth if they probed further, but her simple excuse seemed to suffice…for now.

  Quiet filled the air between them for the first time since their journey began. The faint light coming from inside the gondola station kept the group focused enough that they didn’t need chatter to pass the time. Nellie used these last couple of steps to make sure her partners still had their side arms and the strap of her rifle was still firm around her shoulder. With their weapons confirmed, Nellie kept moving forward towards the station door.

  It was only when she was about to cross the threshold inside that Chris stopped short, halting her movements as well. “Oh. I almost forgot.”

  Nellie turned to him perturbed that he waited until the last possible second to bring up something new. “Forgot what?”

  “We ran into some trouble at the mid-mountain station on our way here.”

  The old rancher took the revelation in stride as she bluntly asked the next logical question. “What kind of trouble?

  “The zombie kind.”

  Just moving her eyes, Nellie shifted her gaze over to the girl, whose grim expression confirm
ed the seriousness of the threat above them. Mrs. Sheridan then dropped her head down and sighed. It was a momentary show of frustration and discouragement that she quickly categorized as weakness.

  So Nellie shot her head up with an eager smile instead. “Well, let’s go say ‘hello’ then.”

  They all entered the station and hopped in the closest gondola car as it slowly completed its turn around the building. After gradually lurching towards the exit, the doors shut and the cab began to climb up the mountain, quietly approaching whatever horrors were waiting for its passengers at the mid-mountain station.

  24

  The pain was so great that Hunter could barely hear the voices outside the back door.

  There’d been a lot of commotion in the cabin’s main living room when the group first arrived, and he was coherent enough to understand most of it…during the beginning at least. They all muttered away about causes of the outbreak and various courses of action. His main concern, though, was not bleeding to death. That and turning into a zombie, of course.

  Little by little he lost interest in the group’s conversation until their words started blending together. Rather than fight the pain radiating from his neck, Hunter just rode it like a roller coaster, allowing the aches to flow through him and out the other side. This technique allowed his old body a chance to relax and not strain under the pressure. The downside to this was that the excruciating agony wreaked havoc on his senses. Unless he focused a great deal, Hunter couldn’t really differentiate the shapes in front of his eyes. The same went for the rather intense discussion going on around him.

  For a quick instant, he heard his name thrown out amidst the vocal noise, which briefly spiked his enthusiasm. Hunter didn’t know exactly why his name was brought up but assumed it was because they were contemplating what to do with him. So without ever hearing a question or topic of discussion, the old man offered up an unsolicited response.

  The folks around him quieted down a bit, enough for him to realize they acknowledged his remark, and then went on, once again, chatting amongst themselves. He might’ve never gone to college, but Hunter considered himself sharp enough to know that they’d already ruled him out of the fight. Nothing more than an old mountain dog limping along on the last leg of his life. Which he was actually fine with. After all, a grown man did just bite a huge chunk out of his neck.

  Chris did a good job bandaging up the wound, but he could already feel the dressing completely soaked through. The ski patroller slowed down the bleeding a great deal. Didn’t stop it, though. And now his patient began to sense the slow stream of blood trickle down his shoulder.

  Focusing in on the injury had taken more effort than Hunter realized his attention span would allow. For an instant, his perception of time ran away from him. That’s when he realized the room was empty and all of the distant voices were now emanating from the back door.

  The group must have taken his proclamation quite literally and decided to leave him be. It was for the best. Hunter didn’t know what the next ten minutes had in store for him. Hell, he didn’t even know if he could last the next ten seconds. But at least he was alone.

  The old, tired man closed his eyes, ready to drift off into either a temporary or eternal sleep. Either one would’ve been fine by him. But instead, his focus into nothingness was interrupted by creaky footsteps walking against the cabin’s old wooden floor.

  It was just one pair of shoes. Not a whole bunch that would’ve accompanied the entire group. Hunter’s eyes remained closed (not that he had much confidence he could see if he opened them anyway), but the old man assumed one of his fellow survivors opted to stay behind and keep watch over him. He thought it might’ve been Molly. After all, besides him she was the only remaining member of the Marshal’s ill-fated posse.

  But that theory went out the window when a soft voice spoke into Hunter’s ear. “It’s going to be OK. I’m a doctor, and I’m here to help.”

  The voice wasn’t strange. But it wasn’t necessarily familiar either. Almost as if he had heard it at some point in time during his life. It could’ve been only once decades ago. And the curiosity still drove him to open his eyes.

  A middle-aged woman had her head down in front of him and was toying with something in her hands. Hunter’s eyes, the one part of his body that wasn’t a struggle to move, followed her arms down to a spot where the woman prepared a syringe from a small vial. “It’s a painkiller, so it’ll make you feel better right away. The chances of you having an allergic reaction are slim.”

  The woman looked up, but Hunter’s blurry vision could only make out the contours of what appeared to be a smile next to the needle she held by her face. “But don’t worry. After this…”

  She then moved in closer to Hunter’s view and the distorted image slowly came into focus. “…you’ll be cured.”

  It took a few seconds for her features to register, but as the woman moved the sharp tip closer to Hunter’s arm, he immediately recognized her and desperately tried to squirm his deadened body away from her grasp. “Don’t stick me with that, you crazy bitch!”

  But the old man was too weak to fight. The syringe entered his arm and the medication’s effects were instantaneous. His dulled senses drooped even further into a haze as the pain echoing through his body quickly faded. Another second or two passed by, and even the strong tormenting pulse from the gash in his neck was gone.

  The drug swirled around Hunter’s thoughts, and he could no longer remember why he protested it in the first place. He had some vague recollection that the woman who gave it to him shouldn’t be trusted, but he couldn’t remember a reason. Not that it mattered much anyway. He was still going to die. At least now he was going to die high out of his mind.

  ***

  For the last couple hours, Austin sat both patiently and cautiously by his young fan's side. It became obvious when they set up shop in the village offices that he and the young boy's father were cut from different cloths. Austin had played many men of action in his movies but found the role much more difficult when it wasn't scripted for him ahead of time.

  Peter Hayden, on the other hand, took charge like a natural born leader. Austin tried to keep up with him while they assembled their small caravan of survivors through the village, but the movie star struggled to match Peter's pace, determination, and fearlessness. Which wasn't all that surprising when he thought about it. The man did run the community's government, after all.

  Austin wanted to help, though. He knew as well as anybody the responsibility that came with having a famous face. People were looking to him for guidance, if not some form of leadership. So he stepped up as the captain of the group when Peter made off for the gondola.

  Not that he thought there was much to the job anyway. They had plenty of food and were fairly isolated up in the empty offices. All Austin had to do was keep the group calm until Peter got back. And if he never returned, which was always a possibility, then at least until the National Guard arrived, which Mr. Hayden assured was on its way.

  At first, Austin was fine with his role. People tended to associate the actor with his characters rather than himself. And so they felt perfectly safe with a man they thought was more than capable of handling the situation.

  But the reality was that the more time passed, the more Austin could feel himself growing anxious among the survivors. That was why he spent the majority of the afternoon at Ryan's side. Because a part of him still felt obligated to his fans. And even under the circumstances, with the boy never knowing who was next to him, the movie star sensed he was doing the right thing.

  A part of him did feel ashamed for leaving the others, but he consciously rationalized to himself that the group was fine on their own. Things were quiet and help was on its way. What more could he do?

  Ryan, on the other hand, needed to be looked after. The boy could wake up at any moment, and even with the chains restraining him to the wall, who knew what he would be like when he did. For the first hour or so,
Austin assumed the kid would've shot up like the ravenous creature he was before he was knocked out. But he slowly began to notice a terrifying change in the unconscious boy's features.

  It was around dusk when Austin first noticed Ryan’s skin had somehow grown paler than it already was. It continued to do so until his face became abnormally veiny. Strange blotches soon rose to the surface under the boy’s flesh, and it quickly became apparent to his caretaker that he was undergoing some type of transformation.

  Still unsure about the child’s condition, Austin tried to keep his distance. However, his curiosity was certainly getting the better of him. Inch by inch he crept closer, fascinated by the bizarre creature Ryan was becoming. Austin tried to stay on guard, to remember what kind of monster this boy had been. But hours of uneventful watching over an unconscious child had lulled the celebrity into a false sense of security.

  He inched closer to his fan’s seemingly peaceful face and noticed a small, dark pool in the corner of his orbits. Austin moved in even closer and could see a crimson tinge to the strange liquid. The substance continued to build until it flowed down his cheekbones, confirming Austin’s suspicions that the boy was indeed bleeding from his eyes.

  The movie star’s face scrunched with a kind of perturbed disgust, but he remained intently intrigued by Ryan’s physical changes. His continued observations then caught sight of a similar red streak flowing down the boy’s neck. Tilting his head downward, Austin followed the trail to its source and discovered that the Hayden boy was also bleeding from his ear.

  With his curiosity at its peak, Mr. Cage continued to stare deeply into the earlobe, trying to find the exact source of the bleed. And that’s when Ryan’s eyes shot open alongside a loud, monotone grunt of pain. The boy instantly leaned over in Austin’s direction, but the action star was caught off guard, too close to evade the lumbering attack.

  Ryan rolled right onto his surprised victim while carrying the same solitary moan the whole way. And in one fluid movement, sunk his teeth right into Austin’s cheek. With the boy’s mouth digging deep into his face, Austin unleashed a horrific scream of pain that echoed out of the office. Blood oozed from the wound and covered every surface in the vicinity until the actor finally tossed the small, lightweight child off of him.