Season of the Dead

by Adams, Lucia

  I shrugged and gave her the laptop, “Be my guest.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard, and I had to admit, I was impressed.

  “Here, enter your code,” she said, handing me the laptop. I typed in my access code, the screen changed, and there it was, North America as seen from space.

  “That’s fantastic!” I said, smiling at her. “If we can have some idea of what weather to expect, that will save us a lot of trouble.” And suddenly the dark ages got a little brighter.

  A light in the corner of the screen began to blink. “Looks like you’ve got some messages waiting,” she said, indicating the light. “Are you gonna answer them?”

  “What’s the point?” I asked. “Whoever sent it is probably dead.” She nodded and wandered off. I squinted at the little light and clicked on it. It was a message center, not e-mail, but direct computer communication. I shivered and remembered my dream. I had left Omaha for a reason. I didn’t want to be anyone’s pet biologist. And I figured I was so far down on the totem pole no one would miss me.

  The message was sent three days ago from General Daniel’s office and requested that I submit a report. I stared at it for a second before leaning back in my chair. I watched as water dripped off the roof from the melting snow and considered what I should do. “I’m not going to be hauled in to die,” I said, and hit the delete button. I then went in and changed the laptop’s privacy features and turned off the tracking function. The world that I had left was dead and gone. I had no plans to return to it.

  Parker came in and threw his arms around my neck. “Aunt Sharon!” he yelled into my ear. I grimaced and hugged him back. “Chuck is gonna be a mom!" he shouted, jumping up and down with excitement.

  “Well, congratulations,” I said, and closed the laptop. As he led me down to the cellar to see Chuck’s baby, I realized that all that mattered was this little group clinging to life in the wilds of Canada.

  CHAPTER 38

  Lucia

  I sat back on my haunches and drew a stick figure in the snow with my index finger. It didn’t seem right without some of its limbs missing. Arms and legs on the zombies weren’t severed—they rotted off. Sometimes it reminded me of a pig roast I went to when I was a kid—how the meat fell from of the bones—but zombie flesh was cooked off with bacterial decay. Sharon and I prepared to scout. I squinted in the sunlight as she walked around the side of the lodge, snapping the rubber strap on a slingshot.

  “Where’d ya find that thing?” I yelled.

  “Inside the gardening shed. Maybe it’ll help us catch something for dinner.”

  “I refuse to eat roasted squirrel,” I called as I smoothed out the snow, erasing the stick figure I’d drawn. Sharon’s one eyebrow raised and she gave me a knowing look. “Okay, but if it’s all we have, I’ll eat the squirrel… not that I’ve seen a squirrel in a few months.”

  “We aren’t that desperate yet, but it will probably come to that.”

  “Maybe we should make a net and drag it through the lake for fish. Couldn’t we salt them or something so they’d keep over winter? Didn’t the Indians do that?”

  “We could make a net if we find enough rope, and yeah, we can salt them.”

  “Maybe Gerry was a Boy Scout. We could use some knotty fingers for that job. Hahaha… naughty fingers… get it?”

  Sharon rolled her eyes at me and smiled, “Let’s get going, I’m already cold.”

  I stood up and wiped my fingers off onto my squirrel suit. “Which way should we head?”

  “I found a trail map inside the lodge office. I have a route charted out for us already and I left a copy for Gerry so he’d know which way we went.”

  “Cool, I’ll follow you.” Sharon started walking around the side of the lodge and we soon saw markers for the trail peeking out of the snow drifts. “Do you think Parker will be okay with Kitty and Gerry?”

  “Yeah, he seems to like both of them, plus I asked him first and he seemed fine with it.”

  “I’m glad.”

  We were well into the woods when Sharon pointed at a white bird perched on a bough on a pine tree, pecking beneath its wing. “That’s aPatagioenas fasciata,and it should have migrated south by now.”

  “Maybe it can sense the zombies are in the south.”

  “Yes, it’s odd.”

  “I never liked birds,” I said, and Sharon glanced at me quizzically. “But you learn to love what you have, especially if it’s tasty.” We both laughed.

  The forest was quiet except for our feet crunching in the snow and the occasional chirping.

  “That’s a Falcipennis canadensis.”

  “You can tell from the song?”

  “Yes, it’s a call to warn of predators.”

  “You’re good.”

  “Thanks.”

  There weren’t many targets Sharon missed with her slingshot, so she turned out to be quite the huntress. “Is there anything you aren’t good at?” Sharon laughed at my remark. “I feel a kinship with all squirrels. Maybe if you keep hunting and kill enough birds, we can skip the squirrel soup this week. If we find a nice fat goose that forgot to fly south, that would be even better.”

  “Ah, goose would be nice.” We paused. The trail’s incline had been a steady climb up one of the nearby mountain sides. Sharon pulled out her binoculars and scanned the area.

  “Thank you for letting all of us live with you.”

  “There’s strength in numbers.” Sharon arched her head around, looking for life in the trees.

  “And weakness in the resource drain.”

  “I didn’t think about that.”

  “I’m glad.”

  Sharon smiled at me. “We should be quiet.”

  “Oh, yeah… right.”

  Our sack held six pheasant-like birds I’d forget the name of by the time I would finish de-feathering them later that afternoon. We had found honey in the pantry that morning, so I renamed themHoneitus tastyusin my head as we quietly trekked up the trail while fantasizing about roasting them. One more night of tiny bones, I thought, when I heard a queer noise becoming louder as something mechanical approached in the sky. “Is that a plane?” I asked.

  “If it is, it’s going down.” Sharon scanned the sky with the binoculars. “It’s coming this way.”

  Soon, I was able to see it. Sharon lowered her binoculars and shielded the top of her eyes with her hand. “Can you see it?” I asked.

  “Yes. It’s smoking.”

  The plane almost looked as though it could hit us, but it fell with a groaning whistle and crashed at the base of the mountain. We looked at each other and began running down the trail.

  When we reached the bottom, I stopped. “Shouldn’t we go tell the others?”

  “There’s no time. What if someone’s dying and we can save them? Let’s stop and grab the quad and cart when we pass camp. It’ll be faster.”

  Sharon paused for a second to look at the trail map, and then continued running until we reached the quad. I was still panting and sweating under my squirrel suit when we spotted the smoldering remains of the plane. We briefly scanned the wreckage, but only foundparts of people—no one was whole or alive.Sharon drove farther out into the field, towards a whole body.Surely this person’s dead, I thought.

  It was a man, and he wasn’t conscious. Sharon dropped to her knees on one side of him. She felt for a pulse and looked at me. “Holy Hell! He’s still alive.”

  CHAPTER 39

  Paul

  When I opened my eyes, I was looking into the face of a girl. She was beautiful; long red hair hung loose as she examined me with blue eyes. I thought I was dreaming again; I thought the girl from my dream had come down from the hill, after all, to rescue me. No, the girl in my dream had dark hair.

  “Holy Hell! He’s still alive.” She sounded different—American, I thought. Then I remembered the plane. Maybe I was dead; was this the face of an angel? It could well have been. Then I spotted the red dot hovering over my chest.

  “If you
are going to shoot him, shoot him in the head,” another girl’s voice said.

  Maybe not Heaven so.

  The pain came at me in waves, starting at the base of my skull and shooting darts all the way to my toes. I knew I wasn’t dead for sure then. Dead couldn’t hurt this much.

  “I can’t shoot him, Lucia; he might not be infected.” A giant squirrel appeared over her shoulder. Maybe not dead, but transported to some seriously fucked up world where giant squirrels and angels hunted men. I began to wonder, had the bastards drugged my soup on the plane?

  “He fell out of the sky, Sharon. No one could survive that unless they were infected.” The squirrel was wary of strangers falling from the sky. I didn’t blame her.

  “I’ve seen too many people die. For once, just once, I’d like to try and save one.” I could see the redhead’s eyes moisten. I had no idea what that was all about, but it made her lower a big fuck-off rifle she had pointed at me. “Besides, what the hell was he doing in a plane in the first place?”

  I tried to say something like, “please don’t fucking shoot me,” but no words would form; all that came out was a sort of low groan. Judging by the reaction from the redhead, who jumped back, swinging the rifle up again, it may have been ill-judged to make a zombie-like moan.

  “I dropped my axe,” I said, don’t ask me why or where those words came from.

  “What?” she asked, turning the gun back on me.

  “I had an axe; I dropped it when I fell out of the plane.”

  “Where are you from? You don’t sound like you’re from around here.”

  “Dublin,” I answered. I could do without the interrogation, but if it meant they weren’t going to shoot me, I would play along.

  “Ohio?”

  “What?” It was my turn to look incredulous.

  “Are you from Dublin, Ohio?” Sharon asked, as if she were talking to a five year old.

  “No, Dublin, Dublin.”

  “He’s from Ireland,” the squirrel said, as she took off her head and shook loose long, dark hair. “You know? Shamrocks and shillelaghs?”

  Sharon blushed then and looked down in embarrassment. “I… oh, yes, of course,” she stuttered.

  “Could I get a little help here? I think I might have broken something.”

  “Where are you hurt?” Sharon asked. “If you broke your back falling from that plane, we aren’t going to be able to help you.” Under her breath, she added, “We can barely help ourselves.”

  “Trust me, if my back is broken, it will be a kindness to put a bullet in my brain,” I answered. I meant it, too. Life had become barely tolerable as it was.

  “Maybe you should look at him, Lucia. You’re the only one with any medical experience among us.”

  Lucia? I thought, that’s a funny name for a squirrel.

  “Alright, we can use the cart to bring him back to the lodge.”

  Sharon turned back to me, pointing the gun in my direction. “But so help me God, if you have so much as a nick or scratch, I will shoot you. I’ll not put anyone in any unnecessary danger.”

  I nodded. I could tell she meant it by her unflinching glare.

  I yelled as they bundled me onto the cart.

  “Could you keep it down?” Lucia said as they heaved me up. “Do you want to alert every zombie from here to Golden?”

  “Where are you hurt?” Sharon asked more gently.

  “Everywhere,” I answered, and meant it, too.

  “You know, we probably shouldn’t have moved him; we could make his injuries worse,” Sharon said.

  “You’re right,” Lucia answered. “But what other choice do we have?”

  “Good Jaysus! There’s a right bang off o’ this cart. What where you using it for?”

  “Collecting bodies,” Lucia grinned. Sharon shrugged apologetically.

  Then I heard a familiar groan and a ripping noise. Sharon turned, pointing the rifle left and right. I looked up.

  Boland was hanging from the trees, suspended by the parachute. The silk ripped and he came crashing down.

  “The fucking trees!” I roared, suddenly finding enough power in my arms to point.

  Lucia dropped the cart with a jolt and swung towards the forest.

  Bam! Bam! Bam! Boland’s head exploded in a spray of blood.

  “Have you got anything else to tell us?” They both rounded on me, furious expressions on their faces.

  “Don’t shoot me,” I said. “It’s been a really, really bad day.”

  *

  Lucia, it turned out, was another looker when she stripped off the squirrel suit. I could have landed in a worse spot, I supposed. I felt I should ask for an explanation about the suit, but at that moment, I just could not bring myself around to it.

  “What’s going on?” A male voice asked, as he rushed down the steps of a holiday lodge to help with the cart.

  He was given the highlights of my spectacular entrance and what had happened since.

  “I’m not a doctor, you know?” Lucia protested as she craned her neck this way and that, looking me over.

  “You’re the closest we have to one,” Gerry said. I wasn’t sure I liked the grim line of his mouth.

  “I better check him for any bite marks as well. I’m not too keen on waking up in the middle of the night with someone we brought into the lodge trying to eat me,” she said. “Have you been in close proximity to any infected recently?”

  “Eh… one or two,” I admitted. I thought about lying, but fuck it, what was the point?

  They had set up home in some sort of holiday lodge on a lake. The scenery was breathtaking, even if I didn’t fully appreciate it at the time.

  They brought me into their shelter and lay me on a sofa by the fire. The bedrooms were up a wooden flight of stairs and looked a step too far to carry a broken Irishman they’d found in the woods.

  Night fell over the mountains, for me, it seemed blacker than ever.

  CHAPTER 40

  Lucia

  Kitty was flashing her protective claws when we brought Paul back to the lodge. She told Parker to go to his room and lock the door, then made Gerry and I promise that we’d keep a watch over the newcomer all night, in case he spontaneously showed signs of infection. Later, after she dragged Parker into her room for bedtime, I could hear her sliding a dresser in front of her bedroom door.

  Sharon sighed, “Teenagers… at least she’s taken to him.”

  Gerry and I nodded.

  “We’ll be fine with him all night,” I said to her. “Get some sleep.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to watch over him tonight?” she asked.

  “No, we’ll be good.” Gerry placed a hand on the gun in his holster.

  “It’s best if I’m here in case he wakes up. I have a pharmacy of drugs for his every ailment, and besides, I feel safer with Gerry than I do you.” I tried to hide my laugh.

  Sharon smacked my arm, “Hey!”

  “I’m kidding!” I giggled.

  Gerry started towards the kitchen as he bid Sharon goodnight. Halfway up the stairs, a muffled, “Goodnight, Sharon,” came from behind Kitty’s bedroom door.

  I stood over the stranger. He kept slipping in and out of consciousness, mumbling words I couldn’t understand. Gerry returned with two cups of coffee.

  “Is there anything we can do for him?”

  I shook my head. “Only time will tell us if he’ll live or not.”

  “He could die?”

  “Yes. There’s no telling if he has internal bleeding or how bad his head injury is.”

  “Maybe we should move him to the other couch—it’s not as comfortable. I like the one he’s laying on. I’d hate for it to get the death taint on it.”

  I scrunched my face up in confusion. “What do you mean, ‘death taint’?”

  “Well, what if he dies and his bowels let loose? Or consider the bad mojo a dead leprechaun would bring.”

  I stared at Gerry and his stoic expression broke as he
laughed.

  “You fucker! I fell for that.”

  “Here, drink your coffee…it’s going to be a long night.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Paul

  I woke to the aroma of food cooking; it filled the air around me, making my stomach rumble and mouth water. I opened my eyes one at a time. I was confused, disoriented, and really sore. It took a while for the events of the previous day to come back to me. Apparently I had not broken my neck in the fall, nor had I died and gone to Heaven. I wasn’t sure if some higher being was looking out for me, or just taking the piss and having a really good laugh.

  “Good morning. I’m making breakfast. Do you want some pancakes?” Sharon said. She was smiling, more of a sympathetic smile than an all-out happy-to-see-me-still-alive smile. She was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes after the plane crash. And it had crashed, it had not registered with me the previous day, but the memory of it came back clearly. I thought she was an angel then… until she pointed a gun at my chest. Now she was making me fluffy American pancakes.

  “Sure.” My voice cracked as I answered.

  I pushed myself into a sitting position; everywhere ached. I noticed some clean clothes had been left out for me. I held up a red plaid shirt.

  “We going to cut down some trees?” I joked.

  “Ha ha, very funny,” she said. She did smile though, and it lit up her whole face. She disappeared then, back to the kitchen I supposed.

  I dressed slowly and carefully; by the time I was done, she was back.

  “There are pancakes with maple syrup and coffee in the dining room, or I can bring it in here to you if you prefer.”

  “No.” I shook my head. Everything had turned to shit, there was nothing I could do about that, but I refused to be helpless in a fucked up world.

  My head spun as I stood on shaky legs; I staggered and started to fall. Suddenly, Sharon was by my side, propping me up with her shoulder. She smelled really good up close. It occurred to me, as I stood there inhaling the scent of oranges and jasmine from her hair, how much of an idiot I must look. I was new here and didn’t know what was what and who belonged to whom. There were five of them: one man, two women, and two kids. I wondered where they were and asked her as much.