by Adams, Lucia
The door swung open, and all the soldiers snapped to attention. I slowly stood up when I recognised the man who entered the room. Flanked by an older soldier who screamed authority in his every fibre was Patrick Ryan, The Taoiseach or Prime Minister of Ireland.
“So, this is the stray you picked up?”
“Yes, Taoiseach,” Sean answered.
“Lucky for you these men found you,” The Taoiseach addressed me.
“By all accounts, he was doing alright for himself.” The officer smiled before releasing the soldiers with a nod.
“Well, he’s stuck with us now, and we’re stuck with him. I just wish we could’ve rescued a whole lot more,” Ryan said. I was struck by the genuine remorse in his voice.
Another man entered the room, this time a civilian—at least he was dressed in a normal business suit.
“The plane is on the tarmac, Taoiseach, ready to go whenever you are,” the man said. He did a double take when he saw me, noticing me for the first time.
“Hmmm, we can’t go anywhere until Professor Tompkins gets here.” He tapped his chin nervously.
“Plane?” I asked. “Are we going somewhere?”
CHAPTER 29
Field, British Columbia, Canada
Sharon
Dawn broke through my window, finding me sprawled out on my narrow bed, with Parker snoring on his. I rose, stretched, closed the door behind me, and went to stand on the small balcony.
The new light shimmered off the clear waters of Lake McArthur and ignited a fire within the ice crystals that blanketed the ground with fine powder. It had been a week since our arrival at the lodge, and winter would be arriving soon. Once it started snowing in earnest, we would be stuck here until the thaw. This served to remind me that I needed to get some supplies.
The road to the lodge was limited access, closed to public traffic. Every time I had come to the lodge, I had parked in the town of Field and took the shuttle bus. Field was a small town of less than 200 people. I had spent many hours there playing tourist. I’d go there first. If I didn’t find what I needed, then I’d drive to Golden.
Hours later, Parker was coloring on the floor before the fire with all of his trains lined up around him, while I was in the kitchen cleaning up. I had found some yeast packets, and after several abysmal failures, I managed to get bread to rise. Now, the comforting smell of baking wafted through the lodge.
A few days ago, while searching the shed, I happened across a bin full of bird seed. I filled all the feeders near the garden and scattered some seed on the ground. Not long after, the first small birds appeared. From then on, the flock had grown, but I had not seen a single mammal since I arrived. A few random prints in the snow gave evidence that there were some around. In the middle of a national park, there should be a thriving population. Instead, much like my zoo, the mammals had been the hardest hit.
I sat at the old table and flipped through the book that I found with Rob’s rifle. Apparently, it was an AR-15. I was reading about the holographic scope when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.
A white-tailed rabbit burst from the densely packed trees of the forest into the clearing, scattering the birds that were pecking at the seed. A woman emerged from the same spot, running faster than her state of decomposition should allow. Two small children ran along after her. A young girl with long brown hair, now hopelessly snarled, was missing her left arm below the elbow. Her twin, a boy, followed after her at a slower pace. His shirt had once been bright yellow, and bore the smiling face of SpongeBob, but was now stained dark brown. His intestines flowed from beneath the shirt, leaving a rusty stain in the snow as they trailed behind him.
I swallowed hard and walked into the common room. “Parker, I am going to practice shooting the rifle, so just stay in here. Okay?”
He looked up, nodded, and went back to his illustration. I let the kitchen door swing shut behind me, walked over to the sink, and eased the window open. The lodge was elevated, so the window was about eight feet off the ground. The mother zombie was closing in on the rabbit. She lunged, caught him, and ripped him in half, spraying scarlet drops everywhere. His pained scream scattered the birds from their new perch in the trees with a rush of feathers and snow.
I took aim, flipped the switch to burst, and fired. A barrage of bullets left the gun in quick succession. I was not prepared for the force of the gun and grunted as it recoiled against my shoulder.
To my amazement, the mother’s head exploded in a shower of bone and brain. Her children didn’t even pause in their feeding frenzy. I then flipped the switch to single shot, looked through the scope at the girl, and fired again. She fell forward on top of her mother, while her brother snarled and gnawed on a rabbit ear. I took a deep breath, trying to swallow the taste of bile, and fired. The little boy, who couldn’t have been much older than Parker, joined his mother and sister in death for the final time.
With shaking hands, I closed the window and pulled the shade. The gruesome family was several hundred yards away. Now that I wasn’t looking through the scope, I was amazed at how far away they really were. I’d have to do something about them at some point. I didn’t want dead bodies around, but for right now, there was no way I was going near them.
*
“Well, Sharon, how hard can it be?” I asked myself the following morning as I inserted the key into the bus’s ignition. I needed supplies, and while I had grown deeply attached to the Mustang, it wasn’t the best vehicle for a supply run. I had in mind to clean out a store; I needed room to do that. The bus was my best bet.
Parker was seated behind me; I could see him peering at me in the big mirror overhead. “Ready?” I asked. He grinned and nodded; I smiled and turned the key. The bus had been sitting for a while and protested at the notion of having to move. But after some coaxing, the engine finally turned over and rumbled to life. With my map next to me, I trundled down the dirt road with the sound of overhanging branches scraping the roof.
The Trans-Canada highway was eerily quiet. A deer crossing sign warning drivers to use caution seemed like a cruel reminder of how much the world had changed.
When the outbreak began to spread, the press release that I had written said it was a new strain of rabies. No matter how virulent we warned them it was, it still seemed innocuous enough, so the citizenry remained calm. When the infected began to die, and resurrect rumors spread no matter how hard the government tried to squash them.
Not long after, the exodus began; people headed south, packing up their families and possessions. Unbeknownst to them, a violent stowaway had accompanied them—the Hauksson virus—and the epidemic spread.
Viruses are simple organisms. They cannot survive on their own, and so need a host. Its sole purpose is to replicate and spread. The Hauksson virus triggered hunger. That caused the resurrected to bite, which allowed the virus to spread via the infected saliva. The process is technically called shedding, and is the final stage in the viral life cycle.
I had no notion of what the lifecycle of this virus was. I had to believe that, like any other, it would follow that same stages: infect, replicate, spread, and die. My suspicion was confirmed as I drove. I passed zombies lying on the side of the road, dead—for good this time.
I needed to know how long the virus lived in a host, and wondered how I could manage to acquire such knowledge. Ideally, I could have kept Mindy in her cell until the virus ran its course, but even in the name of science I could not do it to her. She had been someone’s daughter, sister, lover. I had not known her well, but as a human being I owed her more consideration than that. Still, the scientist in me grumbled about it.
The Kicking Horse River meandered along the highway. When the spring thaw came, the river would swell and rafters would brave the white waters by the dozens. But for now, it was calm and docile, its fury restrained for the winter. I drove over the bridge and rumbled into town.
Field was quiet. Most of the cars were gone, but a few still lined the st
reets. I pulled the bus up on the curb before the Pig Truffle General Store.
“Parker, I am going to go check it out. You stay here. Keep the doors locked. If you see anyone, call me on the radio.” He nodded, his eyes huge, and his hands dug into my arm.
“I’ll be okay,” I said, hugging him to me. Reaching into my bag, I fished out one of the two-way radios that I had found in Rob’s closet. “You can talk to me whenever you want.”
“Okay,” he said, his lip trembling. I knew he was trying his best to be brave, and I lamented that fact that this was his new reality. I had grown up with two older brothers tormenting me, and no matter how much I had complained, it had been a good childhood. Would he spend his life running? What kind of life was that I wondered as I closed the door behind me, listening for him to pull the latch that locked it.
I had the rifle slung over my back and the Glock in a holster on my leg. I caught the reflection of myself in the store window and grimaced. I was a zoologist for crying out loud, and here I was, about to empty a store into a giant yellow bus amidst the zombie apocalypse. “How craptastic is that?” I muttered under my breath as I opened the door to the store.
A small silver bell chimed. I reached up and silenced it. I considered taking it down, but it would be a good warning should anything enter. There were four aisles. I walked across the front, aiming the rifle down each one as I passed. Once I was content that nothing lurked in the aisles, I made my way back to the storage room. Peering in, I switched on the overhead, flooding the room with light. It was one large room that served as an office, an employee break room, and a small stock room. A door to the back was the only exit. I made sure it was locked. I didn’t want anything sneaking up on me.
With a great sigh of relief, I allowed myself a small moment to rejoice that the store was empty and still fairly well stocked. Grabbing an armload of empty boxes, I made my way down the aisles that had the medicines in them. There were no prescriptions, but over the counter meds would always come in handy. I tossed in bandages, disinfectants, and every other kind of medicine that might be used.
Slinging the rifle over my back, I hauled the boxes to the bus. Parker opened the door, and I slid the box in. He grabbed it, closed and locked the door, and shoved the box to the back of the bus. I had him slide down a window, then I started throwing in bags of toilet paper, paper towels, and blankets. I found several stuffed animals and tossed them at him, just to see him smile.
Around noon, I paused to have lunch on the bus. I’d managed to make a huge dent in the store and was proud of my accomplishment. I didn’t realize until I sat down how foolish it was to stop. My aching muscles screamed in protest and rebelled when I tried to stand up.
I had to ignore the pain and work on. I wanted to be out of there by 5pm so that I could be back at the lodge by dark. I’d unload the next day.
I was packing canned goods into a box in the back of the store when I heard Parker on the radio.
“Sharon?”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, walking over to the window.
“I heard something. It sounded like an engine.”
I looked down the street and didn’t see anything. “What kind of engine?”
“It sounded like Rob’s motorcycle.” Rob was a pilot; he liked fast cars, fast women, and motorcycles. I knew he had a massive Harley that he’d take Parker for a ride on, but he also had a faster Ducati that was basically an engine with a seat on it.
I had grown used to handling the dead; I wasn’t prepared to deal with the living. I was a lone woman with a child. I didn’t know who the owner of the engine was; I planned to keep it that way.
“Okay, I’m almost finished. I think it’s time to go.” I had several boxes of clothes waiting to be loaded on to the bus. Most were tourist items bearing the logo of Yoho National Park and ‘Welcome to Canada’. It would be cold this winter. I wasn’t going to leave them behind. I could care less if they fit. This was no time to be particular.
I had just loaded the last box and was shutting the emergency door on the back of the bus when I heard the sound of gunfire ricocheting in the mountains. I ducked and hid next to the bus’s wheel, waiting. With my heart beating fast, I ran to the front door and jumped in; I cursed under my breath as I tried to start the bus. When it finally roared to life, I released a shuddering breath. I hit the gas a little too hard and bounced off the curb, knocking over a quaint mailbox carved to look just like the store.
On the way out of town, I saw two zombies dead on the road. They had not been there before, and judging by the spray of blood and muck, these were newly killed.
“That man is naked, Sharon,” Parker said, pulling my attention from the zombies. He pointed towards the river. Along the bank sat a motorcycle, but that is not what dropped my jaw and had my foot hitting the brake. There was a man, hip deep in the water, furiously scrubbing himself.
CHAPTER 30
Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
Gerry
With very few exceptions, Man is a social animal, and during dark times there is strength to be had in numbers. I don’t mean strength of arms, or even the strong versus the weak. Strength is found in setting aside former petty prejudices, fears and hatred, and standing shoulder-to-shoulder to preserve a humanity that doesn’t see colour, station, or religion as a means of entrance into the club. We need each other. We nourish each other.
When Kyle told me there was something wonderful, something I justhad to see, there were tears in his eyes. In the center of the cultists’ compound there was a large forest-green tent, similar in size and shape to a three-ring circus tent. That, he said, was our destination. Even before arriving I saw them. Aside from the boys and the small group of police officers, several men and women bustled back and forth. Some tended to the wounded, while others carried weapons or dragged robed prisoners toward the circus tent.
Call me a pessimist, but my hands never strayed far from my shoulder rig.
“Where did all these people come from? Did some of the cultists switch sides when they saw they were gonna lose?”
Kyle grinned and shook his head. “No, man. Everyone you see right now was a prisoner. If I hadn’t stumbled upon them in that tent, we’d all be puddles of maggot soup right now. The deadies would’ve totally kicked our shit in.”
Two unfamiliar men flanked the tent’s opening, both armed with rifles. I stopped Kyle and pulled him aside before nearing the tent. “How can you tell the difference?”
“Check out their right hands. The prisoners were all branded when they were picked up.”
“Like cattle? Holy fuck.” Then it struck me.Cattle is exactly what these people had been in the eyes of the Coven.
I nodded to the pair on the way into the tent. “Fellas. How’s it going?”
Neither answered, but their eyes had a certain look; they were alive with questions, with anguish, with fear. I remembered the look well. At first, back when this all started, I used to see it each time I looked in the mirror. Not so much anymore, though.
I’d found a way to eat the pain, but my solution wasn’t theirs. As much as I wished I could say something uplifting, maybe pat ’em on the back or whatnot, I couldn’t. That’s not me. I had no answers for them.
Not everyone was like that. Inside the tent there were groups of people, some smiling, some huddled in whispered conversation, and some who simply wandered about in a daze. At the center of the tent, where the ring would be if it were a circus tent, was a twenty-by-twenty cage. Inside the cage sat thirteen robed men and women, hands tied behind their backs.
I pointed to the cage. “Is that all of ’em?”
“Yeah, ’cept for that old guy you stuck to the table up in that radio tower.”
“That old guy was Micah, the asshole who lured us here. There was a girl too. Justin tied her up beside the pit with their leader in it.”
Kyle spit on the ground. “You should’ve killed him.”
“The thought crossed my mind.” And it stil
l did. Whatever fate had in store for the rest of them, Micah was a dead man.
Kyle pointed out a portly, balding man in a soiled business suit. “That dude over there seems to be calling the shots for these people. Says he’s been here for almost a month. And get this: he’s putting a meeting together to see what to do with them.”
“Already? Shit, they’ve only been free for, what, an hour?”
“Yup, everybody not fixing the walls or watching the gates is going to be there.”
As Kyle spoke, I watched a man run in from outside the tent, then head for the old, bald guy Kyle said was running the show. I joined them so I could hear what the man had to say.
“What’s up?” I said.
The man who’d run in turned to me and nodded. “They got away in a school bus.”
“Who did?”
I didn’t realize how close we were to the cage until a voice from behind me spoke up. One of the cultists stood no more than three feet from me, glaring at us.
He said, “Randall. He has risen, and he shall rain down his anger upon you.”
“Shit,” I said, then turned to the man who’d seen the bus. “What did the people look like? Can you describe them?”
He got as far as “One was a skinny old guy,” when I stopped him.
At my back, the cultist spoke again, this time loud enough for all to hear. “Micah delivers Randall into the arms of our brothers and sisters. Your day of atonement will come soon.”
I turned, a return quip already primed to deliver, when my eyes fell to a necklace dangling between the open flaps of his robe. I was prepared for the fingers, the toes, the ears, but at the very center—a sort of jewel to set any necklace off—was a tiny severed hand. Words turned to ash in my throat and rage froze my heart.
The cultist followed my gaze to his chest. He plucked at the tiny hand and chuckled. “The little ones are so very tender,” he said, and the group within the cell roared with laughter.
My stomach churned, but when it subsided enough that I could speak without puking, I reached through the bars and grabbed a handful of the man’s robe. He shrieked when I yanked him close.