Season of the Dead

by Adams, Lucia

  His eyes were round with fear, but he spoke evenly. “You’ll die for this.”

  “Maybe,” I said, as I slid a gun from my shoulder rig, “but I’m content with the knowledge that you won’t be there when it happens.” Then I placed the gun under his chin and blew his brains out through the top of his head.

  Everyone screamed. The two guards ran into the tent with their guns raised, and the fat man in the soiled suit held his hands out to me, palms out, and pleaded with me to put the gun away. All this happened in the few seconds it took for the corpse to stop jerking after it hit the floor.

  The fat man waved the guards back outside, then turned to me. “Please. Hasn’t there been enough violence? How many more need to die before this madness ends?”

  “About twelve,” I said. “Give or take.” I pointed the gun at his chest and told him to take his people and go.

  The man’s jowls jiggled as he shook his head. “I won’t stand for this.”

  “Then you’ll die for it,” I said. “These animals aren’t leaving this tent alive.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. Get out.”

  Kyle stepped between us, and I lowered my gun. “C’mon, Gerry. We’re gonna have a meeting to see what to do with them. Killing thosethings is one thing, but this, this is…”

  “Murder?” I said.

  “Yeah, and maybe one day they’ll be OK to leave the cage.” The look in his eyes told me he didn’t believe it, but what else was he supposed to say? He was only human.

  Most of the rest of the people had already run from the tent. All that remained were Kyle, a couple more kids I hadn’t seen in the tent ’til then, and the ad hoc mayor fat man.

  Kyle bowed his head, then turned and ushered the last few people out of the tent. The fat man shook his head as tears streaked his face, but he didn’t say another word. Once the tent flap fell I turned to the captives in the cage and pulled a second gun. They huddled at the rear, crying and pushing each other out of the way as they pressed themselves up against the bars. It was then that I hesitated. This was wrong. What they did was wrong, but didn’t change the fact that what I was about to do was kill twelve unarmed people.

  I turned to leave and Jenks, the cop I’d last seen out in the forest before we attacked, stepped into the tent, an assault rifle in his hands.

  “It’s OK,” I mumbled, defeated. “I’m not gonna do it.”

  He stepped forward and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I didn’t come here to stop you.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No. Some of them may not get it, but I do. This is righteous. There’s no place for the Coven’s people here. They gave up that right.”

  He spoke the truth. I took a deep breath, nodded, and then we raised our weapons, took aim and fired. The cultists screamed as bullets tore into their flesh, but I screamed louder as their dying image seared itself onto my soul twelve times over. This was the new world order.

  Once he’d spent all of his rounds, Jenks stumbled a few feet away, doubled over and vomited. My stomach churned, my throat was raw from screaming, my heart raced, and a cold sweat sent shivers through my body. On unsteady legs, I turned from him, from the tangle of blood-drenched corpses within the cage, and left the tent without uttering a word.

  The camp was deathly quiet. People milled about, but no one looked my way, and the very forest seemed to be holding its breath. Kyle, Justin, and a few of ‘my boys’ stood near the building where I’d found Micah earlier, their expressions bleak but stoic.

  Before I could speak, Kelly, the kid I formerly thought was a boy but was actually a girl, ran forward and hugged me. I waited a few seconds, then untangled myself from her and stepped back. A large X had been branded into the back of her right hand. I instantly hated myself a little less for what I’d just done.

  Kyle pulled Kelly away and told her to go help at the gate. After she was out of earshot, he said, “Look, I’m sorry. We all are.”

  “Save it,” I said. “I’m leaving.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to go get my bike, then go after Micah.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I don’t know. Maybe I’ll head out west… go to California or fucking Disneyland. I dunno.”

  “They’ll get over it, Gerry. It’ll just take some time, that’s all.”

  “I know, kid. You take care of these little bastards.”

  Before leaving, I turned to Justin, who was hunched over, staring at his own feet. “You were a shitty paperboy.”

  He wiped his nose and smiled up at me. “Yeah, and you never gave me a Christmas tip, you cheap prick.”

  For a brief moment I forgot about the blood, the killing, the pain, and saw what we’d accomplished. I smiled back. “You killed a giant.”

  He looked past me, at the tent where the cultists had died. “So did you.”

  *

  Hope was a word I thought to be dead. After more than a month of seeing nothing but the dead and dying, then the evils of the Coven of the Lamb, I dared to think we had a chance to survive. Well, not ‘we’ in the sense that I’d be included, but I chose my path knowing full well what the consequences would be.

  Jenks had been right: there was no room for the cultists if those people hoped to stand a chance at surviving. I also knew there was no place for me there after doing what I did.

  The walk back to the boat seemed to take no time at all. I pulled my motorcycle from the bushes, and loaded it down with as much food and ammo as I could carry. Then I went back for a couple of tightly packed bricks of weed. Given the nightmares that lay ahead, I’d need something to take the edge off.

  As I was stuffing the bricks into the already overstuffed saddlebags, a sound from the forest jolted me to attention. In one fluid motion, I turned, kneeled and had both .45s in my hands. I held my breath and waited for the sound to come again so I’d know where to aim.

  “If you’re alive,” I called out, “you better speak the fuck up or I’m gonna shoot your ass.”

  Still a ways off in the woods, Jenks’s voice reached me. “It’s me. I’m alone.”

  I relaxed and slid both guns back into their holsters. When he stepped out into the light, I was immediately struck by how pale he was.

  “You look like shit, Jenks.”

  “Thanks.”

  I threw my leg over my bike and thumbed the starter. “If you’re here to talk me into going back, you’re wasting your time.”

  “No. I came because I don’t want to be around them when it happens.”

  “Uh-uh. They need you. You’re a cop. Wait… whenwhat happens?”

  He shook his head as he rolled up his shirt sleeve. A chunk of flesh had been torn from his forearm, and the surrounding area was black and swollen.

  I didn’t have much time to think about it when he came to the tent, but it all made sense as I watched him on the beach. Killing those cultists was his final act of bravery.

  When I pulled my eyes away from the wound, I searched his face for tell-tale signs of infection. He was pale and his eyes were blood-shot, but his nose hadn’t started running like the others I’d seen.

  “When?” I said.

  “Not long after we separated during the assault on the compound.”

  “So, what, you came here for me to kill you? I mean, it’s shitty what happened to you, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t see what I can do for you.”

  “You can get me away from here so I don’t end up hurting any of those people, and we can finish what we started. There are still a couple of those cultists left, right?”

  As much as I cringed at the idea of having him behind me on the bike, I owed him. “Fine,” I said. “Get on. But if you so much as sneeze in my ear, I’m dumping you.”

  I followed the beach to the path leading to the compound, then skirted around and took the fork heading west. With the added gear and an extra body, the bike was as easy to wrangle as a T-Rex, but I kept it between
the lines.

  We spotted a rusted, yellow school bus about fifteen kilometers from the compound. From the looks of it, whoever was driving had lost control, jumped the shallow ditch alongside the road, and struck a tree. The windshield had been broken outward, with most of the shatterproof glass lying on the smoking remains of the hood. Copious amounts of blood covered the driver’s seat and the side window, and a trail of gore ran up the aisle where something—likely the driver—had been dragged toward the rear of the bus.

  “Keep an eye outside,” I said to Jenks. “I’m gonna see what’s back there.”

  When I reached the back of the bus the rear emergency door swung freely. The trail led from the bus and back up the road in the direction we’d come. Funny I didn’t notice the blood on the road until right then.

  “Gerry!”

  I jumped down and circled around the bus. “Yeah?”

  Jenks stood in the center of the road, binoculars to his eyes. “We’ve got company… a lot of it.”

  “Infected?”

  “Yeah.” He spit on the ground at his feet, then swiped his arm across his nose. “And they’re chasing a friend of ours. Have a look.”

  He held out the binoculars, but I shook my head. “No thanks. I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “The infection. Sorry.”

  I cupped my hands against the sun, but could only make out a slender shape, followed by numerous others, heading right up the center of the road.

  “How many?” I said, unable to discern one shape from another at such a distance without binoculars.

  “About thirty, but guess what?”

  “What?”

  “They’re all wearing robes.”

  “And you’re sure they’re dead?”

  Jenks sniffed in and then spat out a chunk of phlegm. “Pretty sure, yeah. When they get here, I’ll ask them.”

  “What about the old guy, Micah?”

  “No, he looks alive, at least for now.”

  “Good. With any luck they won’t kill him until I get a chance to.”

  And then it hit me. Back in the compound I’d noticed a few of the bodies being dragged away were wearing robes, but were among the infected that had attacked the west wall.

  “Jenks, you said before that the cultists had another compound to the west. Is it on this road?”

  “Yeah. Up ahead about two klicks. Why?”

  “Because we gotta lead them back to their compound, away from the survivors.”

  “Yeah, but they’re already headed this way.”

  “For how long, Jenks? Think about it. Once they eat that old man, there’s nothing except us in this direction. I don’t know if they can sniff us out or not, but I can’t take the chance that they’ll turn around again, not when all those people back there are sitting ducks. We need to give them time to at least repair the walls.”

  “Fine,” Jenks said. “But whatever you’re planning, let’s get to it. I’m not sure how much time I’ve got.”

  His eyes were red-rimmed, and pus leaked in twin trails down each cheek. I’d only ever been present once while a person went through what Jenks was dealing with, but instinct told me that the infection had nearly run its course. I wasn’t 100% sure, but I gave him an hour, tops.

  “Hold it together, buddy. I got a plan. All we need to do is get their attention. Then we can pick them off a few at a time as they come after us.”

  “Seriously?” Jenks turned away and coughed, then came up holding his head. “Jesus, my head feels like it’s going to explode.”

  “You don’t look so good. Maybe you should sit down. And what the hell do mean by ‘Seriously’? It’s a simple plan that can’t fail.”

  “No. Too much can go wrong. What if I turn before we get most of them? What if the bike dies? What if more of them come at us from the other direction?”

  “And you have a better idea?”

  “Yeah,” he said, as he shrugged out of his backpack and unzipped it. He set it on the ground for me to see the contents. Inside were six or seven paper-wrapped bricks, and what looked to my untrained, television-watching eyes as detonators.

  I stepped back. “Is that what I think it is?”

  He nodded. “Yep, there’s enough C-4 to send a square mile of road into orbit.”

  “Shit,” I said. “All I brought was a couple chunks of weed.”

  “You brought weed?”

  “Never mind that. How do we set up the charges and get away before they go boom?”

  “That’s the part that sucks for me.”

  “Oh. What about me?”

  Jenks favoured me with a sour grin. “What about you? You get on your horse and ride as far as possible before the weenie roast.”

  Instead of arguing, I asked him what he needed.

  “All I need is something to spark a wire. One of the batteries from the bus will work.”

  While I salvaged a battery, Jenks plugged all of the detonators into the bundled C-4, then stuffed all but one wire back into the backpack. By the time we were all set to go, the herd of dead, still lumbering after the wily old man, were no more than a thousand yards off.

  Before setting off, I twisted in my seat and smiled. “Jenks, I just want you to know it’s been an honour—”

  “Hurry. I’m dying.”

  His words hit me like a bolt of lightning. In my panicked state, I nearly dumped the bike, but righted it and sped off toward the approaching herd.

  I stopped and let him off about 100 yards from the cluster of infected, then passed him the battery. He took it from me, set it and the backpack on the road, and then sat down to wait.

  Instead of turning and riding away, I sped forward and skidded to a stop before Micah. He must’ve thought I’d come to save him, because there was a big ugly grin stretched across his wrinkled face. That was good.

  “Thank you, oh thank you,” he wheezed, now only a few scant steps ahead of the herd.

  I smiled grimly. “My pleasure,” I said. Then I pulled a gun from my waistband, aimed carefully, and shot him in the leg.

  “Remember that tide you were talking about the first time we spoke? Well, get ready, ’cause it’s about to wash over you and dig into spots you never knew you had. Fuck you and die.”

  I turned and sped away before his screams deafened me. I slowed as I passed Jenks, who stared blindly in my direction. He wasn’t dead yet, but any second he would be.

  “Goodbye, Jenks.”

  “Go!” he yelled, then erupted in a coughing fit.

  I didn’t need to be told twice. As I passed the abandoned compound to the west, an explosion rocked the eastern sky, followed by a blast of hot air on the back of my neck. I didn’t look back. There was nothing left for me.

  *

  Manitoba, on through Saskatchewan, then Alberta and the Rockies: I rode until I couldn’t stay awake, slept fitfully until the nightmares woke me, then I hit the road again. No matter how far or fast I went, there was no way I could outrun the faces of the cultists I’d butchered; or Jenks, the poor doomed bastard, who traded the last few seconds of his life for the lives of strangers who’d never know of his bravery.

  All along the Trans-Canada Highway entire cities lay in smoking ruins, their streets choked with charred remains and refuse. An army of the undead spread their disease unchecked, one bite at a time, and moved on.

  Soon, winter would come and I’d need to trade Carmen in for something with doors and a roof. I’d scavenged a snowsuit and full face helmet from a sporting goods shop in Saskatchewan, but not even they would keep the chill out once the snow fell.

  At first, if I came across any infected, I’d stop, shoot them, and move on to another place to seek shelter. But each day it seemed less and less important to kill them, and easier to simply go around and circle back to the highway. I paused occasionally and watched from afar as they swarmed unchallenged through city streets. They were a force of nature.

  I passed into British Columbia on a w
indy, sunless morning pregnant with the promise of an early snow. Low on fuel and food, I exited the highway at a town called ‘Field’. I paused at the town limits and scanned the road ahead. The Welcome sign boasted a population of 700, but I’d wager that had changed to one—me. After sitting, waiting, watching for over five minutes, I saw a dog run across the road and dart into the bushes. Seconds later, three more dogs of varying sizes followed and disappeared into the same bushes. Close on their heels, but likely not quick enough to catch up, a lone zombie, moving slightly quicker than I’d seen any move yet, jogged after them.

  Shit. The walking dead were one thing, but add a pack of hungry dogs to the mix and that equaled me getting the fuck out of town beforeany of them caught my scent. My fuel was low, but not so low that I couldn’t make the next town or a nearby farm. I turned the bike around and headed toward the highway. As I rounded the last bend before the onramp, just above the throaty purr of my bike’s engine, I heard dogs barking. I checked my mirrors to find that all four dogs were chasing me down the road, and had almost caught up. I stroked down a gear and punched the throttle, leaving them behind. After passing an abandoned car, I checked my mirrors and saw that they were gone—not just far behind, but gone altogether from the road. I twisted around in my seat to look, just in case they might’ve been somewhere the mirrors didn’t reach, but saw nothing.

  I faced forward just in time to spot a pair of zombies not more than ten feet ahead, one facing me and the other pointed in the direction of the lake that ran alongside the road. With no time to stop or dodge, I tucked my head down and throttled up. The first one struck the bike a glancing blow on the left, twisting the handlebars slightly, but I was able to hold on. For a brief instant I thought I’d miss the second one entirely, but then it turned into me as I dipped to slide past. When we collided, the top half of its body ripped free and hit my chest, knocking me off the bike.

  I met the road with a bone jarring crunch, and my helmet cracked when it struck the pavement. All the while as I slid, the now legless zombie held on and slid with me, its teeth gnashing ineffectually at the snowsuit.