Season of the Dead

by Adams, Lucia

  From the front hall closet, I pulled my old hockey bag down from a shelf. I dumped the contents onto the floor so I could load up supplies and strap it to Carmen for the ride back to the boat. As an afterthought, I tossed the gloves, elbow pads, shin guards, and five rolls of hockey tape back into the bag. You never know, right? I hoisted the bag and headed for the garage.

  Because it looked cool, and for no other reason, I kept a machete on a hook beside the door leading from the kitchen to the garage. I transferred the .45 to my left hand, snatched the machete from its hook, and switched on the garage light. I expected to see her gone, stolen by someone before I got here, but no. She was there, and my leathers were draped over the saddle seat.

  I stepped into the garage, but faltered at a thump from behind me, somewhere at the back of the house. No thought required here:get the fuck out didn’t need to be translated for me. I rushed over to Carmen and sped through suiting up, leaving the chaps hanging off me instead of taking the time to zip them up, then threw my jacket on. From the bottom of one saddlebag, I pulled a bungee strap, wrapped it around the hockey bag, and hooked it to the back rest on the ‘bitch’ seat.

  Another thump and groan from inside the house told me I should hurry the fuck up and get gone. Without knowing what I’d find when I raised the garage door, I took the time to walk the bike through a five-point turn so it was facing out, then fired it up.

  Stupid idea, really. I still had to get off the bike and open the door, so all I did was announce myself to whatever was inside the house. Also, the automatic door opener was beside the door to the kitchen. Yeah. It was pretty fucking dumb. I slid off the bike and ran for the garage door button. I was still halfway across the garage from the switch when a man lurched through the kitchen door. I think it might’ve been my neighbor, Randy, but there was too much of the face missing to say for sure. One arm was outstretched, fingers clutching the air before him, the other hung from his shoulder by a few tendons and torn muscle. Then it came for me.

  I can’t say what came over me right then. Maybe it was the fact that it had defiled my house. It might have been because I finally snapped and found insanity easier to deal with. Or maybe I was just tired of running—of being afraid—but I screamed and charged at it with my machete raised. My first swipe took the outstretched hand off at the wrist, and the backhand stroke buried the machete three-quarters of the way through its throat. I pulled, but couldn’t dislodge the blade, so I kicked the body away from me and pulled both .45s. Standing above the… I don’t know what, but no longer human… I stood unafraid for the first time since the week before. The creature wriggled and tried to reach me, but I stepped forward and pinned it under my boot.

  I took a deep breath and pointed both guns at its head. The sickly-sweet, coppery aroma of gore and fetid flesh from the body at my feet filled my lungs, and I retched, but held onto my lunch long enough to finish him off. Looking back, I’d have to say this was a defining moment for me. It was the moment I stopped pitying them for what they lost, for what they were in life, and began to hate them for the virus they’d become. Without remorse, I fired twice—once from each gun, one bullet for each eye—and it stopped struggling.

  I moved both guns to my left hand as I pried my machete from its throat. Once freed, I wiped it on the creature’s pant leg and slid it through my belt.

  I felt liberated, like I’d passed some sort of test. I strolled over and punched the garage door opener. Above the whine of the opener’s motor, a chorus of groans reached me from out on the driveway. No wonder I had the feeling earlier that I wasn’t alone.

  “Fuck.” I turned to the body on the floor and shook my head. “Why didn’t you tell me you brought friends?”

  Because I had to keep my hands free to shift and throttle, I wouldn’t be able to shoot while riding. Whatever I was going to do, I had to do it fast. The door was rising, and a few had already turned toward the noise. I walked over and settled into Carmen’s seat, her rumbling purr soothing me as I braced my forearms on the handlebar, both .45s trained on the closest of the infected. I tensed as I silently counted the roaming band of infected: one, two, three, four… twelve in all. By the time the door chugged to a stop at its zenith, all twelve had turned and were lurching, stumbling or crawling in my direction.

  I wasn’t much of a praying sort, never really put much stock in any sort of faith, but I was quickly finding a reason to toss a Hail Mary to the man upstairs. Hypocrite that I am, with a prayer on my lips, I dropped the closest gurgler and shifted my aim to the next before the body hit the concrete. The second one fell before I could shoot it, a fibreglass, feather-tipped arrow protruding from its forehead. Then another was felled by an arrow. And another, and another, until all twelve lay bleeding out the small amount of blood left in their bodies.

  ‘Dumbfounded’ was a pretty light word to describe the utterly fucked-up nature of my current situation, but I was speechless. A pear-shaped wedge of shrubbery separated itself from my evergreen hedge and moved up my driveway. Once it was closer, I noticed its sneakers. I lowered my guns and squinted in an attempt to see who it was under the mesh camouflage.

  The shrub waved a crossbow at me as it approached, and said, “Hi, Mr. Johnston. Are you bitten or anything?”

  “Justin? Is that you?”

  The camo shrub raised the crossbow. “I said, ‘Are you bitten?’ ”

  Sure, his voice may have cracked when he said it, but the crossbow pointed at my head caused me to bench any attitude. Before I could answer, four more bush-people materialized from elsewhere in the yard, all of them holding a crossbow, and every one of them trained on me.

  A bundle of branches from near the foot of the driveway loosed a bolt that shattered a beer bottle on the work bench to my left, then yelled, “You better answer his fucking question, mister. We got places to be and they don’t include pissing around with your wannabe biker ass.”

  “No!” I said, raising my arms. “No bites, no blood, no snotty nose. I just came for my bike and I’m gone.” I turned to the pear-shaped one again. “Justin? Where’s your mom ’n dad?”

  Justin pulled the leafy hood from his head and tucked it into his belt. “Don’t know where my dad is, Mr. Johnston, but my mom is… well, she’s just gone.”

  Another shrub spoke up, “He means she had to be put down.”

  “Total fucking zombie,” chimed in another evergreen.

  Justin spun around. “Shut up, dicksmack.”

  “Yeah, fucker. That was his mom.” said the fourth bush, who’d been plucking the bolts from the corpses and wiping them down with a cloth.

  The one who leveled the insult yanked his head covering off and threw it at Justin. “And how’s that different than my mom? Or his,” he pointed at shrub number two. “Or his?” he nodded toward the arrow cleaner. “Fuck you, Justin. You’re only in charge ’cuz Tagger made you patrol leader.”

  “Justin,” I said. “How long have you guys been out here?”

  Justin stuck a finger in the air. “Hang on.” He produced a walkie talkie from beneath his green smock and keyed the mic. “Unit Three checking in. Over.”

  The walkie crackled, then a voice came through. “Go ahead, Three. Over.”

  Justin nodded reassuringly in my direction. Into the mic, he said, “Section Four clear: no casualties, twelve enemy re-kills. We’ll be returning one heavy. Over.”

  “One heavy?” came the reply. “You mean that douchebag who stole my fucking bike? Over.”

  Justin shrugged. “Come on, Tagger. He didn’t know it was yours. Over.”

  “I don’t give a fuck. Let him fend for his fucking self. Over.”

  “Tagger, don’t be a dick. I deliver his paper. Over”

  “Not anymore, you don’t. Leave him there. Over.

  “He’s the only one who knows how to start that boat. Over.” Justin wiped his brow and winked at me, his face pink and soaked with sweat.

  Boat? I thought. “Hey! You guys aren’t planning on
stealing my boat, are you?” I wasn’t even going to mention the crossbows or their Marine-like stealth killing. If I tried to understand it, my head might have exploded.

  Justin snorted. “It’s a police boat, Mister…”

  “Gerry. Call me Gerry.”

  “Fine,” he said. “It’s a police boat, Gerry. Last time I checked, you weren’t a cop.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but I got the keys. That makes it mine. If you kids wanna come with, you better get your shit and meet me at the dock.”

  “What’s the hurry?” Justin said. “We’ve cleared the whole town.”

  “Apparently you haven’t taken a look downriver. If that horde heading this way doesn’t mow you down, the Valley’s gonna go up any time now.”

  “Go up?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “As in blow up. There’ll be a crater big enough to park the moon in.”

  “No shit?”

  I nodded and started weaving Carmen around the scattered bodies in the driveway. Before taking off, I stopped at the foot of the driveway. “I’m getting out of here. You wanna come? Get your asses down to the dock by noon.” I checked my watch. “That’s an hour from now. I’m not waiting, so don’t think about it for too long.”

  I dropped Carmen into first and peeled away from the curb. Justin was already shouting evacuation orders before I turned the corner.

  Totally fucking surreal. I was saved from certain death by a pack of kids with crossbows. All I have to say right about here is one thing: Thank God for first-person shooter games and the crazy little bastards who spent days at a time playing them. It seemed the children really are our future. Well, at least my future.

  Tagger was waiting for me when I got to the boat. My shotgun lay across his lap and the keys for the boat swung from his finger.

  Tagger was a kid named Kyle who worked the midnight shift at Tim Horton’s. I sure hope he was better at shooting than he was at making coffee. I remember always thinking they’d hired a retard at Timmy’s to cover some sort of hiring spread. Who knew?

  I rolled Carmen out onto the dock and dropped the kickstand. By the time I slid off, he had the shotgun pointed at my chest. It wasn’t loaded. The only shells for it were in a pouch on my belt.

  “Let me guess,” I said, pulling one of the .45s from my belt. “You must be Tagger.”

  “I’ll blow your head off, mister! Stop and put that gun down.” He backed up and stumbled over one of the cabin chairs.

  I stepped aboard and strode over and slapped him. With the .45 nudging his forehead, I leaned into his face and said, “Gimme my fucking keys, dickhead.”

  “You’ll take off on us! I wasn’t gonna shoot you.”

  “Yeah, I know. The gun you have isn’t loaded.”

  “Huh? Yes it is. I loaded it myself.”

  “With what? I have the shells for it in my pocket.”

  “Mister, I brought that gun with me. Your shotgun is over there.”

  I followed his finger to the spot I’d left my shotgun. It was still there. My heart skipped a beat and dizziness swept through me like a fever. He could’ve shot me!

  Fuck!

  I lowered the .45 and held out my hand for him to shake it. “Sorry, kid. Calm down now. I won’t leave anybody behind. Honest.”

  He hesitated, but took my hand. “You stole my bike.”

  “Get over it, kid. There’s a whole world of bikes out there for you now.”

  “Yeah, I suppose. I’m gonna check on the guys.” Tagger turned and keyed the walkie’s mic: “All units, sound off ETA.”

  “Unit One: On schedule and nearing the final stop before heading back to the dock. ETA three minutes. Over.”

  “Unit Two. We had to fall back to second rally point. That dude wasn’t kidding about the zombies heading our way. They’re fucking legion, man. New orders? Over.”

  Tagger keyed before Unit Three could check in. “Unit Two, scrub your objective and get back here. We got a hog to load.” He grinned up at me, hoping for a smile at his play on words. I humoured him with a grin. “Unit Three?”

  “Unit Three: all packages en route. Leaving the grocery store and heading for the dock. ETA six minutes. Over.”

  I checked my watch. I was impressed. These kids had rounded up supplies in less than forty minutes. Now all we had to do was load them and Carmen onto the boat, load the extra fuel, and then get the hell out of Dodge before the cattle came charging through.

  Altogether, there were sixteen warm bodies (and one Carmen) with me to push-off from Corunna’s dock. Our plan was simple: we’d set out for an island not touched by the disease and hide out there until things settled down… if they ever settled down. Until then, I was Lord High Fucking Commander. I’d made that fact glaringly clear by telling them that anyone who thought differently could stay there and wait for the next boat.

  I throttled the boat up to a nice cruising speed and headed north toward open water. To the west, a bloated orange sun sunk obliviously toward the horizon, and to the east my home town, a polarized mask of calm and chaos, lay dead.

  CHAPTER 11

  Anaconda, Montana, USA

  Lucia

  There were natural things, and there were unnatural things. Zombies chasing us had become a natural thing; the vibration of terror was normal, and bullet rationing was a necessity. A zombie in a wheelchair was an unnatural thing. Somehow, it still knew how to wheel towards me, but it couldn’t figure out how to get up on the curb.

  Smelling something besides the rot of cadavers as flesh sloughed off of bones became a rarity, and the luminescence of an albino zombie I saw in Bismuth was like watching the aurora borealis of zombies lurching towards me. I was so consumed by the color that I almost didn’t see one of the fast zombies barreling towards me. One shot knocked his head back, and he dropped. I returned to watch the albino zombie coming closer to me. He walked heel to toe, with his hips popping foreword with each step. I had learned my lesson—I didn’t let him get too close. I blew his brushstroke purpleness into a million blood stars.

  We collided with the red zone when we reached Montana. It folded in on us from the south long enough to slow us down until it waved over us from the west as well. If the population hadn’t been so sparse to begin with, we would have been dead. Fred and I had all but stopped looting homes and businesses—it was just too risky. Hunger made me change my mind after I was on my third day of eating canned mushrooms. I had already inventoried all of the food I failed to pick up along the way, and was starting down my wish list of dinners my mum would never cook for me again. When I got too hungry, I’d ask Fred to tell me about his life, even though I was breaking one of our rules. He had season Penguin tickets and I made him promise that if life ever returned to normal, he’d take me to some of the games.

  “I’ll take you, Giuseppe.”

  “If your seats are shitty, I’m warning you, I’ll just drink the whole time.”

  “My seats aren’t shitty,” he smiled at me.

  “Yeah? That’s what all the guys say.” I winked at him. “Don’t worry, I’m a cheap date—two beers and I’m drunk.”

  “That’s not cheap there…it’ll still cost me almost twenty bucks.”

  “Hey, this squirrel’s worth it.”

  “Oh yeah? Do I have to own a furry suit to hang out with you?”

  “Nah, I’m not one of them. I was just going to observe the freak parade.”

  “Suuure.” Fred winked at me and I rolled my eyes.

  *

  We scouted out a gas station that sat along a deserted road without much around it. Three zombies paced the lot, but we didn’t see signs of others. We decided we would shoot the three shufflers and grab what we needed. Fred was a better shot than I was, but I hesitated less. He would serve as lookout as I donned my squirrel costume and went in search of food. I had kept the costume because it was bite-proof, as far as I could tell, but it wasn’t tested after the incident in Pittsburgh. I moved so slowly in it, but if surprised, my chances
of survival were increased.

  Fred picked the three zombies off and we remained locked in the truck, waiting for signs of more of them. We didn’t have a silencer, so the shot echoed far. There was no movement. We both emerged from the truck—Fred with his rifle poised up, ready to shoot, and me in my squirrel costume. We walked into the store together and I took my squirrel head off and started gathering things—chips, soda and crackers. There wasn’t any water left, but plenty of gum and beef jerky. The loaves of bread were green with mold, but juice waited for my eager hands in sealed containers.

  Fred lowered his rifle as I collected items. He leaned against the counter, “Well, this is turning out better than I expected.”

  A glass bottle of grape juice slipped from my paws as a zombie stood up from behind the counter and grabbed for Fred. He scurried out of the way, but dropped the rifle and fell as the zombie climbed over the countertop and rolled beside him. I ran for the gun, but a zombie emerged out of the back and came after me. He was dragging his mangled right leg behind him, and it slowed him down. I slipped in the grape juice and fell to the floor. I scrambled to get up as the zombie opened his toothless mouth and emitted a rabid growl from deep within his decaying lungs.

  Fred fended the other zombie off with the butt of his rifle, now secure in his hands, as he tried to maneuver into a position so he could fire it. I pulled my paw gloves off and pulled myself along the tile floor with my hands. The zombie reached for my legs as my fingernails grated the tile, desperate for traction. We were like writhing worms drying in the sun—two zombies, a man, and a she-squirrel—frantic for what evaded us.

  I didn’t yell for Fred. I didn’t want to distract him. He had to get the gun faced in the right direction. I kicked at the zombie’s snapping jaws, but the blows were softened by my plush feet. I started throwing anything I could reach at him—donuts, bags of chips, and the moldy bread. The zombie clamped down on my pleather toe and bit, nearly crushing my bones. I heard the rifle shoot and saw that Fred had been able to stand up and kill the zombie he was fighting.