Dead World Rising (Book 1): Staying Human

by Petrova, Katerina

  After spending two days with Emma she finally turned, I held her in my arms as she fell asleep and within moments she started to convulse. I did not hesitate as I ended her undead state, before she passed she had one request which was to be buried with her parents. I could not deny her last request, with her last living breath she thanked me for taking care of her. Despite having seen countless people turn including my own family, this ranked as one of the hardest ones to end. I had seen children biters but never seen one turn. I did not care that I cried as I continued on my journey, one thing my parents had told me before they died was to never lose my humanity.

  I often thought about my family, what would they think if they could see me now? My parents were quite old when this started, my dad was disabled and could barely walk and my mother would not leave him. They chose to 'opt out' of this nightmare but begged me to carry on. It was not easy, I had seen everyone I knew either turn or commit suicide. But I would keep my promise to them, I would survive but more than that I would not lose my compassion for the human race.

  I remembered their deaths as if it were yesterday, they had lived for three months in this nightmare and as the world became more cruel and people started looting places and killing people my parents couldn't cope. This was before we knew that if you died you came back, I sat with them as they swallowed boxes of pills. I watched them fall asleep in each others arms with me holding their hands, I did not cry for them them as they slept. I did not want them to see me distraught nor have their last memory of me be horrible. I had noticed that shortly after their last breath their veins turned black, I sat confused as I watched the infection spread fiercely through their bodies. I jumped off the bed as they started to convulse, I grabbed one of my mums thick heavy ornaments and smashed their heads in before they could fully turn.

  I sat for days covered in their blood unable to comprehend what had happened, I'd killed my parents, my sweet, loving parents. I shook with grief as the realisation of what I'd done hit me, I stayed in my house for as long as I could before my area became overrun. I buried my parents in our backyard and said my goodbye's, I hoped that they would find peace in death and took some solace in the fact that they were together.

  Knowing that all they remembered was falling asleep in their bed with me by their side allowed me grieve in a more normal way, I kept my parents close to my heart and tried to be someone they would be proud of.

  Chapter 5

  Tom

  As I sat in the garden watching the sun rise on a rare, quiet morning in 2015, the images of my past flew through my mind as if I were viewing a film of my life. Born May 2nd of 1970 I grew up in the small village of Cray in North Yorkshire, my mother who was heavily religious would often be found sitting in her favourite cream chair reading her bible. She was a small, slender, almost skeletal looking woman who's grey eyes often made her look as though she were in a trance. I could still remember that plaited, mousy brown hair that hung just past her shoulders. It would swing from side to side as she walked about our tiny house, my mother was not one for being attentive so I received almost no warmth or affection growing up.

  At least there were times when I could hold a semi-normal conversation with my mother, unlike my father who I avoided at all costs. He was a large, surly man with bulging brown eyes and a mop of long, greasy black hair. Even before I heard him, I always knew when he was home because I could smell that overwhelmingly strong, putrid stench of shit. My dad worked in the sewage treatment plant, I felt thankful for the long hours he worked. He was a man with a fierce temper and an iron fist, I felt my hairs stand on end, my hands shook from fear when he walked in the door. I would try to avoid him by going to my room, but each and every dinner time I was forced to sit across from him. I felt shivers down my spine as his thin lips formed a crocodile smile, it was his way of reinforcing his dominance over us.

  By the age of eight I had endured years of my father's abuse, there were too few happy memories from that time. The thing I found strange was his temper always erupted in the same way, we would be sat at the table eating dinner and it would be the small things like me spilling a glass of milk or my mother not getting his steak right.

  Each dinner time was the same, but in the weeks leading up to my dad's death I felt as though his abuse was becoming somewhat worse.

  I sat frozen in my place as I watched unable to help my he grabbed my mam by her plait and flung her into the wall, she slumped to the floor not daring to look at him.

  'Can't you do anything right woman?' He spat.

  'I-I'm sorry,' she babbled nervously. She shakily got to her feet still not daring to look at him, my dad sat back down at the table barking orders at her as she tried desperately to make his dinner right. One of his rules was that we were not to eat before him, despite my stomach growling fiercely I dared not touch my food. 'Is this better?' My mum asked as she placed the food back on to his plate.

  We both sat quietly waiting as he put the lamb chop into his mouth, I could see his blackened teeth as he chewed. I kept my face straight as I knew one wrong look could land me a beating, I placed my hands on my lap so he could not see them shaking.

  'It'll do,' he grumbled. We both sighed with relief as he ate his dinner, I reached to grab my knife and fork but as my hands were still shaking I accidentally knocked over my plate. My mum shot me a fearful look, we both knew what was coming next.

  'You stupid bastard!' He shouted.

  'It's alright I'll clean it it up, you just enjoy your dinner dear,' my mum said nervously.

  He stood up and flung his dinner across the room, he looked at her with such hatred I could never understand why he loathed her so much.

  'Don't tell me what to do!' He screamed.

  'I'm sorry,' she cried.

  'No one gives me any respect around here, Tom's only like that because you mollycoddle him. It's time he was taught a lesson,' he shouted.

  'No, please,' my mum begged. I saw the fear in her eyes as he took his black leather belt from around his waist and walloped her round the face, her face whipped sideways as her nose poured with blood. She sat not even daring to cry, I got up and tried to back away but only ended up being cornered. I cowered in the corner as I slumped to the floor, I flung my hands in front of my face as he beat me with the belt. I did not cry or scream, I would not give him the satisfaction of knowing he was getting to me.

  I saw my mother sitting on the floor not moving, we both knew that if she tried to stop him he would only terrorise us more. By the time he was finished my arms were covered in welts that were bleeding furiously, I stared blankly at him as he walked out of the room. I went over to my mam and helped her clean up, her face was bleeding so I got the first aid kit out of the cupboard and cleaned her up.

  'Why must you antagonise him?' She asked annoyed. I said nothing as I cleaned her up and went to my room, she was so afraid of him that she actually believed the fault lay with us.

  That was how our dinner times usually went, if we got through one without incident it was a rarity. After so many years of his abuse, I began to feel numb whenever he beat me almost like I couldn't feel the physical pain of it any more. The only thing that still stung me was his words, 'You destroy everything you touch.'

  As I fell asleep in my bed, almost every night my father's words would swim round my head. I never made friends at school nor did we have any family, except my father's mother. The night my father died should have been the happiest day of my life, but I was so overcome with guilt that with my mother's words I feared God's wrath. It was like any other night except he was even more horrid, as usual my mother hadn't got his dinner quite right and of course in my bout of nerves I had tripped over on my way into the kitchen and had somehow managed to knock over the entire table.

  I watched in horror as he beat my mam to a bloody pulp, her eyes were black, her nose bleeding and her mousy plait had been cut from her head. Yet despite her injuries he did not stop, without thinking I raced upstairs to get his gun
. He had a licence and kept it under his bed, I stood in the doorway and shouted for him to stop.

  'You won't use it, you don't have the guts,' he laughed.

  'Get away from her,' I shouted.

  He stood with one hand gripping what was left of my mother's hair, while he held his belt in the other. I levelled the gun, pointing it at him and shouted at him again to leave her alone.

  'You destroy everything you touch, you'll never amount to anything,' he spat.

  'I said leave her alone!' I screamed.

  'If you don't put that down, I'll make you both sorry,' he said sadistically. My mother looked at me with such fear that I couldn't tell if it was directed at me or him. My hands shook as I raised the gun so that it pointed to his chest, I stared at him fiercely as if I were trying to tell him I was serious.

  'Get out,' I said fiercely. 'You little shit,' he snarled as he let go of my mother and came towards me. Without really thinking I pulled the trigger, time seemed to slow down at that moment. As the recoil of the gun threw me one way, I watched in horror as the bullet flew through the air and hit him in the chest. He went smack into the kitchen side and slumped to the floor, his last words haunted me as I dropped the gun and ran to my mother's side.

  'You destroy everything you touch.' My mam ran to his side as he took his last breath, I felt nothing as I saw his body go limb and his eyes close for the final time. My mother on the other hand wept for her husband, as the tears spilled down her bloody, bruised face she turned to look at me with such fear.

  'What have you done? God is going to punish you,' she told me tearfully.

  I stood there not knowing what to do, I did not cry or speak. As I sat outside, I still even now could not weep for my father's death. He had been such a cruel, capricious man that after I had come to terms with what I'd done I had not felt guilty. It was lucky for me that when it got to court my mother had stood up for me and told them about the years of abuse, they had taken photo's of her that night so that the judge could see the damage my father had inflicted. The only thing I felt guilty about was the fact that my mother was never the same, she fell into a pit of depression and committed suicide when I was twelve. I was then sent to live with my father's mother, she was a kind old woman who lived in the countryside.

  I could still remember my father's funeral, my grandmother stood next to me. Unlike my mother she did not shed a single tear, she wrapped her arm around me as his coffin was lowered into the ground.

  'Don't worry son, I don't blame you. Your father was an awful man, I know you will be much better than he was.' Her soft, comforting words was more kindness than I had received in my life. I wished she could have seen the man I would become, when I was a teenager I went off the rails. I drank to take the guilt of my mother's death away, I took drugs almost daily, I pushed my kind, loving grandmother away. It was not until after she passed away when I was twenty that I began to piece my life together, my loving wife Carol was the one who raised me from my pit of loneliness and depression and gave me the best life I could have ever wished for.

  I felt the tears cascade down my face as I thought of her, my wife had died from cancer a year before the outbreak. My sadness of her passing was overshadowed by the fact that she never had to live in this world. She was the light of my life, but thanks to Jade I had found a friend when I needed one most. I could never thank Jade enough for all she had done for me.

  Chapter 6

  Frankie

  Over the years I had met many survivors, many were harsh and unfeeling, there were few decent people left. Those that were still good didn't last long as the other people would steal from them and often murder them, I either fled from them when they attacked the people I was with or were taken in by them until I found a way to escape. It was through a fellow survivor I had heard about a group of people in Greenfield who were still decent, the man I met was from there. Sadly he didn't make it, before he died he asked me to take his wedding ring back to his wife who was still in the cellar. So I made it my mission to find these people and judge for myself whether or not they were good.

  The weather was cold and icy and it showed no sign of warming up, though I knew that our weather could change at any moment. As I followed the long road down to Greenfield, I could not help but think of my lost love. She was in Scotland when the outbreak happened, before the telephone towers went out she sent me a text message to say that she was trying to find a way back to me as her father was dead. That was two years ago, I'd heard nothing since.

  Her name was Nikkita, she was the Superman to my Clark Kent. Where I was quite reserved and quiet, she was wild and outgoing and was always looking for the next big adventure. I often looked at her and thought of her as a tribeswoman, she was tall and curvy with long flaming red dread locked hair.

  Her eyes were like emeralds shining in the moonlight, with milky skin and tattoo's everywhere she was a wild thing that no one could tame. I often felt plain next to her with my boring golden blonde hair, blue eyes and pale skin. Though I was five foot eleven she was a good six inches taller than me. As I thought of her many memories came to me, all the times we lay on my bed kissing, the many times we fought and made up. I can still remember how she smelled, she always smelled as if she had just walked through a field of lavender. Thinking of her seemed to cause me more upset than thinking of my parents did, I never knew what happened to her and it was the uncertainty of it all that effected me.

  There was not a dead head in sight as I walked along the lonely road to Greenfield, though the snow had melted it was still freezing. Wearing ripped jeans a thin woolly jumper, camouflage jacket and leather gloves I was hardly dressed for the cold.

  I stopped at the stone wall which ran alongside the road, it protected the people from falling down the valley, the view was amazing. Though it would have been more beautiful before the village below had not been destroyed, now all you could see were burned out buildings and leftover smoke from people's camp fires. The smoke was so near that it made my nose itch, as I looked down I could not help but feel sad for all that had been lost.

  As I reached the top of the hill I could hear screams coming from nearby, I stopped for a moment to listen to where they were coming from. I couldn't see anything but I could hear it clear as day. It must be coming from one the houses, I raced up to the row of houses. and readied my hammer as I looked into each window, I saw nothing in the first two windows.

  When I reached the third window, I could see two survivors pinned to the floor by biters. They each had a dead one pinning them down, while two other biters tried to get to them. I opened the door and ran to the standing walkers, I caved one of their heads in while the other lunged for me. I jumped out of its way, smashing it on the back of the head as I did. The survivors were franticly trying to reach for a weapon but neither of them could do it without letting the biters get at them, I ran over to the woman and caved in the corpses head so I could free her.

  She looked at me with gratitude as she helped me to free her friend, I held the biter back while she picked up her machete and sliced its head off. I helped her friend off the floor, he was struggling to get up and I saw that he had an injured leg. I was unsure as to whether or not it was a bite it looked like a small hole that could of been a bite or he could've been shot.

  As he got to his feet he winced in pain and looked down at his leg. He shook my hand and thanked me for my aid, he noticed my alarm at the wound on his leg. 'Its not a bite, I got shot by some angry farmers for killing their last chicken. Bloody bastards got me good, took Andi ages to get the bullet out. Didn't have anything to stitch me up with though, I could only wrap it up but my bandage came undone when we got attacked,' his voice was gruff with a heavy Yorkshire accent.

  'I have some stuff in my bag you can use to stitch it up if you want.' Following my parents wishes I was always nice to survivors, though I remained sceptical and wary of them.

  'Thanks luv, that would be most appreciated,' he had a crooked smile, that was
probably the result from his bucked, yellow teeth. I took out my needle and thread that I got from Tameside hospital years ago, I picked it up just before the outbreak got bad. Thinking of that place made me think of my friends Natalie, Martin and James they all died helping me get supplies I was the only one to make it out of the hospital alive.

  As I helped stitch the guy up, they told me that they had come from Ripon in North Yorkshire and were travelling south to Leicester in search of family that might still be alive. The north was as overrun with walkers just as here was. We traded war stories of people we had lost, I told them about how I was on my way to Greenfield as there were supposed to be survivors in a cellar. I learned that their names were Andi and Bob, they were siblings.

  Bob was a large man with a small tuft of grey hair on the very top of his head and pale blue eyes, with his crooked smile thick, grey, fuzzy beard and pale skin he reminded me off a typical biker. He towered over me and while I was tall for a woman he looked like a giant next to me. Wearing a large leather jacket and rather tight trousers, seemed to reinforced my earlier my thought that he resembled a biker.

  Andi reminded me of a hobbit, she was barely five feet tall with long wispy red hair that had started to turn grey. Her eyes were the same pale blue as Bob's, her face showed many ages lines that made her look older than she was. I could see faint freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her skin was a ruddy complexion that made me think she's spent her life working outside.

  She wore a tight yellow woolly jumper that showed what a round woman she was, her faded jeans like Bob's were too tight-fitting.

  They both looked to be in their early fifties. 'You'd be better off coming with us, while round here may be safer the further north you go the more of those things there are,' Andi's accent was not a Yorkshire one like Bob's, I detected a hint of Scottish in her voice.