Dead World Rising (Book 1): Staying Human

by Petrova, Katerina

  'Sorry for your loss lass,' Andi said comfortingly.

  'Thanks,' I replied quietly. I spent some weeks with Andi and Bob, they were funny and light-hearted people. They even managed to make me laugh, I told them about my girlfriend and how I was trying to get back to her. We had agreed to stay together until we got to my home town, it had been a long time since I'd stayed with anyone. Yet my gut told me that they were good people so I chose to travel with them.

  After four weeks with Andi and Bob we were still in Leeds as the large group of people had barricaded most of the exits to the city, we were on the outskirts of the city trying to find a way out. We wandered down the road towards what looked like an industrial estate, as it was getting late on in the day we decided to find somewhere to stay for the night. We came to a large factory that overlooked a river, there didn't seem to be many dead around here so we figured it would be safe. I told Andi and Bob to cover themselves in blood so that we could easily walk past the biters without having to engage them.

  'This really works?' Andi asked quietly. 'Yeah, I've done it loads of times,' I replied smiling.

  'I never would have thought of it,' Bob said in shock.

  'It has come in handy more than once I'll tell you that,' I laughed. We quietly walked past the corpses but found that the nearer to the factory we got the more of the biters there were, I was lucky that Andi and Bob were smart enough to keep quiet. We walked round the back of the factory before going in, we needed to see just how many were on each level before going inside. On the ground floor there was only about six inside, but outside there was well over twenty. We exchanged fearful looks as we weren't sure if going inside was such a good idea, yet as we looked around we saw that this was the only reasonably sturdy place nearby. All the other buildings had either been burned down or been vandalised by having the windows smashed in and we were miles away from anywhere else.

  We opened the door to the ground floor as quietly as we could, it was fortunate that there were no corpses near the door otherwise we would have been screwed. I went up the stairs as carefully as I could, the rickety, cold, metal, spiral staircase creaked as we walked. My hands shook with trepidation as I neared the top, I could only hope that the next floor was a little safer.

  To my dismay the first floor was home to over a dozen walkers, I glanced to see the panic on their faces. We had made a bad move in coming inside, but as the corpses had gathered near to the door downstairs there was no turning back. I scolded myself for being so damn stupid, I was usually smarter than this. This was one of the other reasons I generally stuck to travelling alone, even when I saved people I pretty much left them straight away.

  I thanked my lucky stars that most of the dead heads were near the other side of the second floor, the stairs to this floor had been just as rickety and rusty as the last one. I could see somewhat less biters on this floor than the last, though there were still too many for us to deal with. There was one more floor to this factory, we couldn't go back down but we could hope for there to be less walkers on the last floor. If we could deal with them quickly and quietly we could barricade ourselves until the morning, but as my hands shook and heart raced with fear something inside me told me that this was not a place I was going to get out of.

  As we climbed the last set of stairs I had almost reached the top when Andi made a grave error, her hands were trembling so much from the anxiety we all felt that she dropped her long curved knife on to the cold, hard stairs. As she reached to grab it the dead realised that neither she nor us were one of them, our mistake was trying to race to the top. The rusty stairs caved in under our weight, I felt them fall but couldn't grab Bob's hand to help him up. I watched helplessly as they fell into the room full of dead, I looked up to find my own situation equally as dire.

  The empty yet hungry eyes of the twenty-something corpses I now faced alone, filled me with a terror that threatened to paralyse me. I couldn't jump out of a window this high, nor could I see another door. Even if I jumped down to the other floor there was still too much of a risk of injuring myself badly, I readied my knife as I prepared to fight for my life.

  Chapter 4

  Frankie

  It was a few days later when I finally decided to leave the farmhouse, the snow had started to melt and I knew it would not be long before the dead found me. It seemed strange that while they had no thoughts or feelings they could sense us, I had learned through trial and error that if you could disguise your smell then they wouldn't recognise you. Though rubbing blood and guts all over me was not something I wanted to do regularly, I had only managed it a few times when I was in dire need.

  Though there was a tinge of sadness in leaving the farm house, it had been my home for longer than anywhere else had in recent times, I loathed leaving places of safety but I had no choice, I needed to continue with my mission.

  I shivered as I walked along the icy country road in freezing January weather. I was on my way to a place called Greenfield where there was supposed to be a small group of survivors in a cellar near the lake. I was wary of the quiet as I knew that silence was never a good thing, it usually meant that the wildlife had either been eaten or fled to a safer area. As I walked up the snow covered hill I noticed that most of the houses in this row had been burnt down, when the country had become over run, the army had been sent to burn down the most dangerous places.

  Despite the early hour of the day it was already getting dark, I needed shelter before it got dark. For some reason the dead were more active after dark and while the freezing temperature's and snow kept them at bay I didn't want to risk being out at night. Feeling tired and hungry I approached one of the few remaining houses in the row.

  As I approached the house, before I could even think of knocking I heard a loud growling coming from inside. I contemplated leaving this house for a moment, but then I thought of my vow. I would kill every walker I could, because you never knew which one was going to get you or someone you loved. I opened the door to see that the house had been ransacked, it was an absolute mess. Furniture had been thrown everywhere, and new blood flowed along the rotting wooden floor. Getting out my heavy metal hammer, I readied myself as I turned to walk into what was once the living room.

  A newly turned corpse was biting a small child, the little kid was still alive and shrieking in pain. The girl could not have been more than five years old, it was always hard to know you would have to kill an infected child.

  The little girl was kicking and screaming but she was so small and weak that her blows weren't having much impact. The biter must of heard me coming up behind it, it turned around and lunged for me but I was ready for it.

  I could see that the walker was once a young woman, she looked to be about twenty-five. I wondered if the little girl had any relation to the corpse, I jumped out of the way before it could get to me.

  As I had my thick leather gloves on, I knew it could not easily bite through it. I pushed it away with as much force as I could muster causing it to fall over, I held my hammer tightly with both hands and proceeded to strike it repeatedly until the biter lay still on the floor. I wiped the blood from my face with a cloth as I got off the floor, I didn't want the little girl to be afraid of me and I figured that being covered in blood would make me look frightening to her.

  The child lay curled up in a ball crying in the corner, I knew what had to be done but for now I would offer the child comfort. I approached the child with caution, not knowing how long she would be a child for. I put my arm around her and told her it would be okay. I examined the bite on her lower arm, I could already see the black veins spreading from her wound, though the bite itself was not enough to kill her so she still had some time left.

  'That was my mummy, one minute she was singing me a lullaby the next moment she fell on the floor. I tried to wake her up but she started wriggling, when she got up she started trying to bite me. I tried to stop her but I wasn't strong enough,' She said in-between tears in her hushed child-like voice.<
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  'Did she tell you what happens when you get bitten by one of those things?' I hoped she knew as I did not want to explain her fate to her. 'No, whenever we came across one of those things she just told me they were poorly people and we had to run from them,' I could not believe her mother had not told her, how on earth had they survived so long?

  Tears welled in my eyes, how could I explain to this innocent girl that I had to kill her? I turned away from her to wipe the tears from my eyes, she did not need to see me cry.

  'Why did my mummy hurt me?' She asked with such innocence that made me unable to hold back the tears.

  'When you get bitten by one of those things, it turns you into one and you forget who you are and your family,' I said as I got out some bandages from my gothic backpack.

  'Does that mean I will end up like my mummy?' I did not want to tell her, but I knew I had to.

  'Yes,' I replied wiping away my tears once more.

  'Do you have any food?' I could not just leave her here, I had to take care of her until she turned. It was the decent thing to do.

  'There's some in the cupboard, mummy had just come back from getting some.' 'That's good, by the way my name is Frankie, what's your name?'

  'My name is Emma,' she smiled weakly holding her arm. I wrapped a bandage round her arm and tied it up as best I could, though for a moment I contemplated not wasting my bandages as she would die soon. I shook the thought away, I would not be cruel to this poor girl.

  I looked at her tear stained, pale face and wiped away her tears, her pale blonde hair was a matted mess and her jade coloured eyes were filled sadness. She was small for her age but looked like she'd been well fed, I took out a brush and a pair scissors from my bag and told her that I was going to make her hair look nice.

  I saw no reason that I shouldn't show her kindness, I would ensure that her last few days would be as happy as I could make them. Her hair was quite badly matted so I had to cut a lot of it off, I was no hairdresser but it didn't look too bad. When I'd started it hung to her bottom, now it came to just below her chin. I admired my handy work and thought I'd done an good job, I brushed her hair taking care not pull on her head too much. There was a half broken mirror on the floor, I picked it up so that she could see.

  'I like it,' she said sounding both happy and solemn.

  Her smile melted my heart, she was so innocent she didn't deserve to die. If I could have swapped places with her I would have, I wanted more than anything to stop the inevitable. I told her to stay in the living room while I fixed the house, I covered the windows in dark bed sheets that I found on the floor. As I covered the windows in the living room I noticed that there were still childlike drawings that decorated the walls, she must have lived here for some time.

  I took her mother's body out and buried her in the back garden using a shovel I found. It took hours for me to even penetrate the rock hard soil, I felt exhausted afterwards but I still had work to do. I then explored the rest of the house, as I walked up the dark wooden stairs I heard moaning coming from the bedroom at the end of the hall.

  I readied my hammer as I opened the door, to my surprise I found a biter tied to the bed. It was a man, he could not have been more than thirty, he was newly turned I could tell as his skin had not yet started to decay.

  I ran over to the bed and for the second time that day I put a biter out of their misery. It was no wonder the mother had got bitten, how on earth she could of left her daughter in the house alone with this thing was beyond me. I felt overwhelmed with rage, what irresponsible parent could be so stupid? I had to compose myself, I could not go downstairs looking angry. I untied the body and dragged it out to the garden.

  It took another few hours for me to dig through the hard icy soil, just like it had done when I buried Emma's mother. After I had finished burying it the sky was completely black, I went back upstairs to check out the other rooms, the other bedroom was clear and so was the bathroom.

  I could not help but stand in Emma's bedroom for a moment. It was decorated like any other five year olds bedroom should have been, with pink walls, carpets and bed covers. It even had a big wooden sign on the wall that said 'Emma's room.' I felt sorry for her and wished I could do something to ease her pain.

  How had they managed to stay in this place for so long? No one I knew had been able to stay somewhere for more than a few weeks.

  As I sat down next to Emma on the living room floor I asked her about the man upstairs.

  'That was my daddy, mum told me that he was poorly and not to go near him. Did he change like my mummy did?' I did not need to answer as she could tell by my troubled expression.

  'At least they are together now, but what will happen to me?' She clearly did not understand what I had to do.

  'I can either let you become one of those things or I can let you fall asleep then give you mercy,' I hoped she understood because I did not want to be blunt with her.

  'When I go to sleep will you let me be with my mummy and daddy?' Her darkened expression did match the darkness of this world.

  'Of course I will, do you want me to stay with you until then?' I looked at her in awe, I had never met such a young child that could adjust to such dire news.

  'Please if you don't mind.'

  Her tiny pale face smiled at me, my heart could not help but melt. I put Emma to sleep in her bed and used a dressing gown rope to tie her hands to the bed post, I explained to her why I had to do this and although she wasn't happy she understood. I tucked her in and took some quilt covers from the room her father had been in and went to sleep on floor in the living room. I didn't want to sleep in the room her dad had been in, it felt too weird.

  I lay awake that night thinking about how cruel this world had become, in my old life I would never in a million years thought of killing a child. Nor would I have killed anyone, I detested violence of any kind.

  I woke early the next morning and went to check on Emma, she was still alive and her breathing was still quite normal. She was still fast asleep though I could see the infection spreading up her arm. It looked awful, but there was nothing I could about it I thought sadly.

  I went downstairs and got Emma and I some food. It was only cold sausages in a tin but it would do, some of the horrible people I had come across would argue that as she was dying it was a waste of food.

  Even though she was dying I would not treat her as a burden or abandon her in her hour of need. She was for the moment a little girl and needed her final days on this earth to be as normal as possible. I ate mine first as I wanted to let her sleep, I threw the empty can in the overly full bin in the kitchen. I sat looking out the window the snow had almost completely melted, though it still looked ice cold. I knew that it would not be too long before she passed, you could tell when some one's time was near because you could see the infection spread. The infection seemed to turn your veins black, once it reached your brain you would be dead within minutes.

  Every corpse I had seen had very visible black veins, even if they didn't die from being bitten. It seemed to me that once you died from another cause it would activate the virus which would then reanimate your corpse, though I had noticed that if you didn't die from being bitten it would take longer for you to come back.

  Emma called to me and I went to her room, she looked pale and ill. It wouldn't be too long before she turned, I sat on her bed and gave her the food. We talked in depth about her parents, her mother had looked after her while her father went out to look for food.

  I looked at the black veins, they had reached the top of her arm and had started to show on her chest. She told me how her father had come back one day with a bite on his shoulder, her mother had told her that he was sick. Emma relived her fathers final moments, she said goodbye to him and he kissed her.

  It had been two weeks after that, that her mother came downstairs with a bite on her arm. Her mother told her not to worry, that everything would be okay. I wanted to cry at her story, she was so innocent it was
hard to believe that this world was all she had ever known. I could remember a time when the world was more at rest, when the greatest of problems was fighting terrorists.

  My dad always complained about them, he wasn't religious at all and hated it when people used their faith as an excuse to to hurt and kill other people. I was Pagan and Pagan's did not believe in violence, I hated the fact that living in this world as it was now meant I had to hurt people. Religion didn't fit into the world now and it seemed a shame that it had taken over the old world, though there were many religious people who would claim that God had brought the dead upon humanity because we were tainted and flawed.

  Emma told me of what her life was like before her mother and father had turned, it seemed strange to me but she'd had a relatively normal life. She had been born in Tameside hospital just before things went bad, her parents had brought her home only to find weeks later that their lives would change forever. This house had been theirs from the start, though they hadn't always stayed here.

  She told me how her mother used to sing her to sleep with nursery rhymes that she otherwise would not have known, I could feel the tears welling up inside me. Emma would never know what it was like to go to school or ride a bike or the feel of a first kiss.

  I thought for a moment what would have happened if I'd found her just moments before, would I have taken her with me? I knew in my heart that I would have done, I could never leave a child to survive this world alone, even though it would've made my journey that much more difficult.

  'Will you do my hair again?' She asked innocently, looking up at me.

  'Sure,' I replied quietly. I brushed her hair for hours as she sat on my lap, after a while I could hear that her breathing had quietened down. I laid her on the bed and tied hands to the posts so that if she turned while she was asleep, she wouldn't be able to get anywhere. I sat and watched her sleep for a while, she looked so peaceful there was no sign of the inevitable doom she was facing anywhere on her face. I moved her hair out of her eyes before going downstairs, I made sure all the doors and windows were locked up tight before retiring for the night.