Season of the Dead

by Adams, Lucia

  “I—I don’t know…”

  A sickening groan was muffled, but distinctly came from outside. I ran to the window and peered out. Below, near the barn, a zombie slowly shuffled. A tree was blocking my shot. I had to go outside. “I'm going out to kill it.”

  “I'm coming with you.” Kitty grabbed a boat oar with several knives fastened to the end.

  “The hell you are. Stay here; lock the door.”

  “I’m not some fucking kid. I can kill zombies.”

  “I know. You told me, remember? It’s just safer if one of us stays here. If I don't come back, make a run for the truck—extra keys are under the passenger seat. Can you fire a gun?”

  “I haven’t tried yet.”

  I rolled my eyes. I unsnapped a Glock nesting in my holster and laid it on the bed. “Just aim for the head and pull the trigger.”Great, a fucking pyro, mouthy teenager who can’t shoot.

  I ran down the steps and slid part of the way because of my suit. I bolted through the front door and faced the barn. The moaner moved slowly. The air was cold and I figured between that and the hunger, it was impeding his gimp limp. Maybe it was the desire to live for someone else, but I boldly got closer to the zombie than I normally did, and fired. The shots were precise and he dropped, motionless.

  Kitty slid the bedroom window open and yelled, “Lucia, there are three more coming around the side of the barn!”

  Instinctively, I ran towards the house, but stopped when I remembered we'd have to leave eventually. I saw a shed with an old wooden ladder propped against the side. Three decaying adults moved in shrugs and shuffles around the south side of the barn. I skirmished up the ladder and pulled it onto the roof with me. Moving in my squirrel suit made every agile feat much more difficult.

  After I had dropped those three and four more appeared, I regretted leaving the Glock with Kitty. Counting bullets in my head wasn't helping my aim and I kept missing, firing off into the field or hitting the side of the barn.

  Between waves of the dead, I'd steal glances up at Kitty hanging from her bedroom window and shout things to her that she probably couldn't understand through the muffle of my squirrel head. I quickly unzipped my suit and pulled my last gun from my holster. I did the math—the number of bullets divided by the number of zombies...I'd have to be a near-perfect shot and hope more did not come.

  They must have heard me, or saw me standing on the shed roof. A yellow school bus followed by a man on a motorcycle sped down the driveway. The man on the motorcycle aimed and took down three zombies before he even dismounted. A woman with a rifle exited the bus and thinned the rotting heard with her impressive aim. I saw a little boy in the bus window, jumping in delight over the giant squirrel standing on a shed roof. I could almost smell my own hope.

  We finished killing the zombies and paused as if all synchronized in our wait to see if more came. When they didn't, I removed my squirrel head and smiled at all of them. No one smiled back. They had tired eyes and old eyes—like they had already seen too much.

  “Hi, I’m Lucia, and I’m definitely not infected.”

  CHAPTER 32

  The Dailey Farm, British Columbia, Canada

  Sharon

  The Canadian Rockies rose up around me. I could feel the chill in the air as the day began its descent into evening. The taste of gravel dust coated my tongue as I followed the cloud stirred up by Gerry’s motorcycle down the dirt road, towards the sound of gunfire.

  Normally, it was a good idea to head away from gunshots, but things were far from normal. When we heard the shots, neither of us questioned it, we just went. We went for the sake of the living that those bullets promised. Nothing else mattered— that was my new normal.

  A tree had fallen, blocking the road. Gerry could get past it, but I wasn’t sure the bus would. The log was old, cracked, and jagged on one end. With a mighty tug, he moved it a few feet, allowing me to get by. Up ahead, a depression in the road had filled with mud and water, and in the middle floated a zombie. He hadn’t died when the virus ran its course. This one had been shot, several times by the look of it.

  I crept the bus along the edge of the small pond with Gerry following behind me. Gunshots fired again; I sped up, hoping that we would be in time. The road curved, and there before me was a farm: big white Victorian farmhouse, barn, shed, squirrel. I blinked at the apparition. A giant squirrel stood on the roof of the shed shooting into a crowd of zombies.

  A thousand questions flew through my mind, but my new normal allowed me to suspend all of that. Whoever was in that suit needed help. And for once, I was able to offer it.

  “Stay here, Parker,” I said as I grabbed the rifle and opened the door. Gerry rode up behind me, firing into the crowd as he drove past. I was about fifteen feet away from the herd and paused a moment until he passed in front of me. They heard the noise of the bike and the bus and turned as one. I took aim and fired. The scope on the rifle made it easy. Line them up, pull the trigger, and drop the bastards.

  A few moments later, it was over save the sound of gunfire echoing in the mountains. When the smoke cleared, the three of us stood there for a second to make sure that was all of them. Nothing moved, even the birds had fallen quiet. I lowered the rifle and looked at the squirrel.

  “Hi, I’m Lucia, and I’m definitelynot infected,” the woman said after yanking the head off her squirrel costume. I wasn’t surprised to discover it was a women. I just couldn’t see a grown man dressed like that, but then… I let the thought go as useless, and looked up at her.

  “How do we know you aren’t infected?” I asked. She could be hiding anything under that costume.

  “The suit is bite-proof, and see, no snot,” she said, tilting her head back. Gerry snorted and walked over to the ladder that had fallen down. He propped it back up so that she could climb off the roof.

  “Are you the only one here?” I asked, taking a moment to truly look around. Zombies littered the ground, the stench of them growing by the minute.

  “No, there’s a girl,” Lucia said. “Her name is Katrina. She’s not infected either,” she finished, anticipating my next question.

  “Where is she?” I asked, popping the magazine on the rifle. I hadn’t been able to count my bullets and wanted to make sure I wasn’t running low. Satisfied I had enough left, I snapped it back in and looked up at the woman who called herself Lucia. She was looking at the rifle and then blinked at me. I shrugged. It was a big ass rifle, what was there to say?

  “She’s in the house,” she said, answering my question.

  “Gerry, you want to stay out here, guard the bus, and watch for us while we go look for the girl?”

  “Yeah, I’ll go check on the kid,” he said, and wandered off towards the bus. The fact that I felt comfortable leaving him alone with Parker made me pause.What was it about him that let me trust him, I wondered, sparing him a glance over my shoulder. I had found him hip-deep in a freezing river. I knew nothing about him, where he came from, or who he had been.

  In the end, we were survivors in a world that had gone to hell. I shrugged again and walked up the wooden steps to the front porch, my boots sounding on the planks. I hadn’t decided what I was going do about Gerry. Up until this morning, it had been just Parker and I. Now it seemed I was acquiring more people as the minutes wore on.

  I grabbed the old screen door; it opened with a creak. I stopped and looked at the woman. “You want to call for her?”

  “Katrina!” she shouted up the stairs. I heard a door open, the sound of footsteps, and then a girl appeared. She had a

  gun and was aiming it at me.

  “You plan on shooting me?” I asked, more than a little annoyed.

  “That depends,” she said. I eyed her, looking for any signs of the virus. I didn’t see any. She was holding a Glock, and I could see the indicator sticking out a little, telling me she didn’t have a round chambered. I was willing to bet it wasn’t loaded either.

  “Pointing an empty gun at someone is
a good way to get yourself shot,” I said. She didn’t react much beyond a widening of her eyes, but it was enough to give her away. She was bluffing. She lowered the gun and blinked at me.

  “It’s okay. You can come down,” Lucia said, talking to her like you would a frightened animal.

  “I’m not staying. But if you are, we can help you burn the bodies. You don’t want them out there rotting. There are other diseases that are just as deadly as the Hauksson,” I said as I turned and walked out onto the porch.

  Gerry was wiping down his guns while Parker sat on his motorcycle pretending to drive it and making sound effects as he did so. I grinned and walked towards them with the squirrel and Katrina following along behind me.

  “I’m heading back up to the lodge. I have food, supplies, and clean beds. You are all welcome to come up there. But we need to leave soon if we do. And we need to find some food.

  “Um… there’s all kinds of food in the cellar,” Katrina said. “Mrs. Dailey was a Quaker or something. She liked to can what she grew in her garden.”

  “Gerry, are you coming?” I asked, squinting up at him. I probably wouldn’t have asked if it had just been he and I, but with the addition of Lucia and the girl, I felt much more at ease with the idea.

  “Got nowhere else to be,” he said as he snapped his rifle shut.

  “Okay, Katrina—”

  “Kitty,” she said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “People call me Kitty.”

  “Okay, Kitty, why don’t you show us this cellar, and let’s load up what we can.”

  “I’ve got some supplies in the truck over there.” Lucia indicated a UPS truck that was parked on the side of the house.

  “Do you have any more room in there?” I asked.

  “Yes, there is room.”

  “Great,” I said. “The bus is getting full. Let’s load up Lucia’s truck with as much as we can. What doesn’t fit we’ll cram in the bus.”

  “There’s a tack shed on the side of the barn. Mr. Dailey kept his guns in there,” Kitty said, pointing to the far side of the barn.

  “Come on, kid,” Gerry said to Parker. “Let’s go see what we can find.” I watched them walk over to the shed and yank the doors opened. A couple of chickens wandered out; Parker squealed with delight.

  “Hey, Gerry,” I shouted. “Why don’t you catch those birds and bring them along? Fresh eggs will be pretty nice once it starts getting cold.” He had pulled his sunglasses down so that I couldn’t see the look in his eyes or what he was thinking, but I could imagine. I grinned and wandered into the house as Parker gave an excited whoop and ran after a brown chicken that squawked loudly in protest.

  Kitty giggled, but when I looked at her, she quickly stopped. I guess there was a rule about giggling during the zombie apocalypse.

  Hours later, we had Lucia’s truck filled, wall to wall, with boxes of glass jars. Mrs. Dailey was a very industrious woman. Thanks to her efforts, we had enough fruits and vegetables to last us the winter, if we were careful.

  One last pass-through of the house confirmed that we had stripped it of anything that we thought might be useful. As we left, I pulled the door shut behind me and then paused. It seemed silly to lock the door, but habits die hard. This had been someone’s home and, I hoped, there had been love here. There would be no funeral for the Daileys. No mourners or anyone to tend to their graves. This was all I had to offer. I clicked the door softly shut behind me.

  Lucia and Kitty climbed inside the UPS truck as I wandered over to the bus. What hadn’t fit in the truck went in the bus. Boxes of ammunition along with several rifles and shotguns were stacked in one of the back seats.

  “Did you find any slugs, or do we only have cartridges for the shotguns?” I asked Gerry.

  “A little of both,” he said.

  “Buckshot won’t kill a zombie,” I said, though I was sure he knew that.

  “Yeah,” he nodded.

  “Then why take them?” I asked.

  “Because I can’t bring myself to leave them behind,” he said.

  It was a logical answer, so I let it go.

  “I found some fishing gear and decided to take that too.”

  “That’s good. There’s a lake up there, I’m sure it’s well stocked. And the virus doesn’t affect fish. It should be safe to eat what we catch,” I said, running a hand through my hair.

  The sun was starting to set, bringing the already chilly temperature down a few degrees. I heard the rumble of the truck as it started, nodded once at Gerry, and climbed aboard the bus.

  Parker hopped over the seat and sat next to a cage with the brown chicken in it. “Can I name it, Aunt Sharon?” he asked, grinning at the bird who was poking at the vinyl seat through the wires of her cage.

  “I don’t see why not,” I said as I started the bus. There were two other cages in the seat behind him, one with a white hen, the other with a black rooster. As the bus rumbled to life, they squawked and complained. It struck me as funny, and I laughed. Parker grinned from ear to ear as the bus bounced its way back down the dirt road before a UPS truck driven by a squirrel and a girl named Kitty, followed by the throaty growl of a Harley.

  I laughed again. This was my new normal, and I was glad to have it.

  CHAPTER 33

  Gerry

  I’d never been what anyone would consider vigilant or gung-ho, but recent events had changed me in many ways. Maybe it was playing protector to a bunch of pubescent Rambos for over a month, but I immediately took to these people, felt responsible for them.

  Then again, this could be my subconscious attempt at atonement for what I’d done to those cultists. Either way, I was here and had made the choice to stay with them. Another thing I’d never been was much of a thinker. I decided to not over think this… whatever this was… too much, and stay with them until I felt the need to move on.

  While rummaging through the kitchen drawers, looking for batteries or bandages, or anything we might find useful, I found a pair of walkie-talkies and docking charger on the kitchen counter. I checked them and they worked, so I loaded it all into a garbage bag to take with us. Parker was with me when I found them, and before taking off for ‘The Lake’, as the redhead called it, he asked for one so we could keep in contact during the ride.

  I’d showed him how to press the button to talk, then let it go to listen, and to not mix them up or he’d get nothing but static. The ‘thumbs-up’ and big grin he displayed brought tears to my eyes, and I couldn’t explain why.

  When I handed the receiver to him, he immediately clipped it to the front of his coat, keyed the mic, and said, “All’s clear here, Gerry. I’m movin’ out.”

  “Oh no,” I’d told him. “You can never use real names over the air. That’s how the bad guys know who’s who.”

  “So what should we call each other?”

  “Let me think on that and I’ll get back to you before we take off for your mom’s lake.”

  “Gross. She’s not my mom. She’s my aunt—aunt Sharon.”

  My heart sank. I didn’t want to think about what might’ve happened to his parents. I shooed him off to help the teenager—Kat or Kitty, or something like that—with the boxes of preserves from the basement.

  He’d nodded. “She’s funny. She swears a lot.” He keyed the mic, winked and whispered, “Ten-four, good buddy.”

  And then he was gone, racing like only a kid can, over to the girl. He’d arrived at her side in time for her to drop a box on her foot, kick the box, then scream, “Fuck this shit! Fuck it all to Hell!”

  *

  “This is the Big Ragoo, calling the Fonz, over.”

  I grinned and looked up at the rear window of the bus in front of me. Parker’s nose was pressed up against it, fogging it over. He probably couldn’t see me through the film, but I waved all the same.

  Since leaving the farm—Kitty and the squirrel in the UPS truck, Sharon and ‘the Big Ragoo’ in the bus, and me on Old Faithful—Parke
r had kept me apprised of the situation as he saw it from inside the bus. His chicken was apparently in the middle of some sort of coup, trying to escape its cage by eating its way through the vinyl seat.

  I keyed my mic, “This is Fonzie, over. What is it this time, Big Ragoo? Did one of the birds lay an egg? Over.”

  “Uh-uh, over. My chicken’s a guy chicken. Over”

  “Then what is it?”

  “You didn’t say over. Over.”

  When he said that, I thought of Justin and his comrades. One of them had said that same thing as they stood in the driveway in their coveralls. I spared a thought for them as I throttled to catch up to the bus. I honked, and Parker drew a lopsided smiley face in the steam on the window.

  I keyed my mic, “Sorry. What’s up? Over.”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah. You said to let you know if I saw anything, over.”

  “OK,” I said. “What did you see?”

  He didn’t answer, and I grew alarmed. “Parker? Are you there, little buddy?”

  “You still didn’t say over. Over.”

  I chuckled. “OK, you got me there. What is it? Over.”

  “Doggies. I saw doggies. Over.”

  My heart raced but I fought to remain calm. It would do me no good spooking the kid. I checked my mirrors, saw nothing right away, but then a blur shot across the dirt road about five-hundred yards back.

  “There,” Parker screamed gleefully into the walkie-talkie. “Did you see it?”

  “Big Ragoo,” I said, remaining as calm as possible, knowing that any second a dog might dive from the trees and attack. “I need you to keep your cool and do something for me… something important. Over.”

  “Sure. What?”