Darkness and The Grave: A Zombie Novel

by John Tolliver

  The officer sighed. “Where is home?”

  “One Hundred Allenhurst Road, we can prove that’s where we belong,” Joel replied.

  “Keep quiet about this son. I am clearly violating the law,” the cop said quietly as he reached up and switched his dashboard camera off. “However, I also think I’m doing the right thing.”

  The squad car pulled to a stop in front of Katie’s house a few minutes later. As the cop let Katie and Joel out, he said, “Be careful. Barricade yourselves inside. We don’t know fully what’s happening, as the military won’t share much information with us, but we know people from the CDC have been called in. Don’t let anyone in your house, you understand?”

  Katie nodded.

  “Thank you, officer,” Joel said.

  They turned and walked up to the porch as the police officer drove away. When they reached the covered porch, Katie turned and hugged Joel tightly.

  “Katie, I don’t know what’s happening but I will protect you. No matter what,” Joel said solemnly. They stood out there for a long time embracing as the wind sprayed them with rainy mist. Finally, the front door creaked open. Katie opened her eyes and saw her roommates’ friend Megan standing there.

  “Kathryn Barnes!” she exclaimed and ran out to turn Katie and Joel’s embrace into a group hug. Soon Katie’s roommates Rachel and Michelle and another friend named Amber joined in.

  “Can we go inside? It’s kind of unpleasant out here,” Katie said.

  She walked up to her bedroom to change into dry clothes once they were inside. She grimaced when she saw her reflection in the mirror; mascara and blush were running down her face and made her look like a horror movie actress. As she changed out of her drenched clothing she removed her phone from her pocket. She was surprised to see it was still dry. She tried to call her Aunt Catherine, but was unable to get her phone to dial out.

  “I guess everyone is trying to make phone calls right now,” she mumbled. She sat down at her desk and turned her desktop PC on. She remembered that her shattered laptop was still in the library up in Amherst. She shook her head as she logged in to Skype. She tried video-calling her aunt.

  A grainy face popped up on screen. “Katie? Is that you?”

  “Yes Aunt Catherine.”

  “Oh, the image quality is horrid!”

  “It is. Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m at my hotel right now. They’ve asked us to stay put as quarantine has been enacted. So right now we are just biding our time.” Katie thought she saw a nervous smile flash on her aunt’s face. Catherine had been invited to an art conference in Paris. “At least I can see the Eiffel Tower from my hotel room.”

  “Good. It’s comforting to see you’re okay.”

  “Is everything okay Katie?”

  “No. We’re under quarantine too. And some psychopaths tried to kill me at the library tonight! I’m okay now, the police said they’d go investigate, but still.”

  Catherine’s face darkened. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I was in the library doing some research for a paper and suddenly I was being chased by several crazy people who I think were infected with Owasa Disease. I ran and got away, but it was still terrifying.”

  “I’d say! Are you okay?”

  Katie nodded. “Yeah, I think so. I have Joel, I have my roommates here at home and several of their friends are here too. I think we’ll be okay. We’ve got enough water to last a while and we have a bunch of canned goods in the basement.”

  “Katie, please be careful. I don’t know why such stringent quarantine measures have been enacted, but they make me feel unsettled, like something terrible is happening.”

  “You be careful too Aunt Catherine.”

  “I’m sure this will all blow over in a few days. But just know I love you Katie. I’ve loved you like a daughter ever since you came to live with us. You know Martin loved you like a daughter too.”

  “I know Aunt Catherine. I love you too! Be optimistic though, like you said, this will all blow over soon. At any rate, we are getting the remnants of a hurricane here, so we are stuck inside anyway.”

  The image quality degraded significantly and the audio became staticky. “-- -- love --,” was all Katie heard Catherine say before the call disconnected.

  “Aunt Catherine?” Katie asked. She tried calling her aunt back but the connection timed out. “I guess the internet is down now,” she muttered angrily. She thought about the last conversation they had. When Katie had returned from D.C., she had gone up to her room and Skyped Catherine.

  “Hey Katie! How are you?” Catherine had asked.

  Katie had quietly lifted her left hand as a grin spread across her face.

  “Oh my! Kathryn Marie! That’s marvelous! What a big diamond! Tell me all about it!”

  Katie had recounted the trip to D.C. to her aunt.

  “Oh Katie, I’m so happy for you and Joel! Keep me updated! You know, it’s been thirty years since I got married, but I know a thing or two about wedding planning,” Catherine had said.

  “Of course Aunt Catherine, I’ll keep you in the loop! When do you get back from Paris?”

  “November Twenty-Seventh. I leave tomorrow.”

  “Wow! They have a lot planned for you, don’t they?”

  “Yeah. At least it’s in Paris and not somewhere in the tundra.” Catherine had laughed.

  “We wrap up finals here in the first week of December. I’m going to try to talk Joel into coming home with me for at least part of Christmas Break. I know he’s never been to Toronto.”

  “That sounds great Katie. Let me know what he says. Don’t forget to tell him I make the best Christmas snicker doodles!”

  The rest of the conversation had already faded from Katie’s memory. Catherine was Katie’s mother’s sister. After Katie’s mother died, Catherine and her husband Martin had taken Katie in and practically raised her. They were the reason Katie had developed a faint Canadian accent.

  She had gone to live with them in Toronto when she was fifteen. It had been really tough at first, but she bonded with her aunt over a shared interest in art. Catherine worked at the Art Gallery of Ontario and did work as a photographer on the side. Martin was a marketing executive for Rogers Communications. He had become a father figure to Katie. He would take her on camping trips to the Ontario wilderness in the summer and take her to go Christmas shopping in Montréal and Vancouver. Katie missed him. He had suffered a heart attack and died right after Katie’s second semester at the University at Buffalo had started. It had been rough, but Martin had taught her how to be strong, so she had weathered the loss.

  Nevertheless, Katie missed their weekly phone calls, so she talked Catherine into weekly video calls. As she sat there reflecting on her relationship with her aunt, she recalled a text message she had received from Joel right after they had returned from D.C. She pulled her phone back out and looked at the message.

  “Austin is heading back home to Pittsburgh tonight. His folks called. His grandma has Owasa Disease.”

  Owasa Disease. In just a matter of weeks, a virus that had been intended to cure cancer had begun infecting people. Katie recalled the night her household had learned of Owasa Disease. She had just gotten home from school and everyone had been glued to the TV. The Federal Government had just announced a recall of a cancer treatment called the Noble Treatment. It had been developed from an exotic African virus known as N’zo Bat Lyssavirus (NBL). NBL was a genetic relative of rabies. An American scientist had isolated the virus from a cave in Côte d’Ivoire and it was quickly recognized as a leading candidate for a type of cancer treatment known as oncolytic virotherapy, a treatment that involved using viruses to attack cancer cells. It had been genetically manipulated to become a virus that could destroy all forms of cancer and it was deemed a modern day miracle.

  Early on, Katie believed it was what her family should have had when she was younger. Her younger brother had died from brain cancer when she was eight. He h
ad only been four years old! Then her mother died a few years later from bone cancer. Cancer had shattered her family.

  In spite of being hailed as the greatest medical accomplishment in history, NBL mutated somewhere along the way and began to cause rabies-like illness in those who had received it. It killed everyone who developed the illness that was eventually dubbed Owasa Disease after a researcher in Africa who had first isolated the N’zo Bat Lyssavirus.

  Katie thought about her father. She hadn’t talked to him in years, not since he had sent her to Canada to live with her mother’s sister. She shook her head; those thoughts would have to wait. She went downstairs to join everyone. They were watching the television intently as tropical storm force winds howled outside, lashing rain against the side of the house. She took note of who was in her living room. Joel sat alone on a love seat. Her roommates Rachel and Michelle sat on the couch alongside Megan. Rachel’s friend Amber sat on the floor next to her boyfriend Anthony.

  "Hey, so what happened in the World Series? Did the Sens end up winning?" she asked.

  "No, Donovan Granger died on the mound and then they pulled the broadcast, so we have no idea what happened. Something really bad must have happened because ESPN simply quit giving updates about five minutes after they pulled it," Michelle replied.

  "Oh," Katie said.

  "I saw on Twitter that supposedly Granger came back to life as a flesh eating monster and attacked his catcher and they had to shoot him," Anthony said darkly.

  "Shut up Anthony, how could you say something like that?" Amber glared at him.

  "Sorry Amb, I shouldn't have said that,” he replied.

  "Well guys, I guess we are stuck here for a while. Who wants to play poker?" Rachel asked.

  Gradually everyone grew tired. Joel and Anthony barricaded the front and back doors with some furniture and drew the shades on the windows. Anthony volunteered to keep watch and the others all went upstairs to sleep.

  Katie woke up around ten the next morning and saw that everyone else was still asleep. Anthony had dozed off at some point. He was asleep at the top of the stairs snoring softly. It was still pouring down rain outside and windy. She had assumed, based on the previous night’s events that she would have a fitful night of nightmares and tossing and turning. She had slept quite soundly, however.

  She showered and then went downstairs to see what the latest updates were. She turned the television on and discovered it was just looping a recording giving quarantine instructions. Every channel was like that, with each station having recorded its own message. She scratched her head.

  “Well, I guess I’ll watch it rain,” she muttered to herself. She walked over to the window, sat down on the couch and turned around to watch the rain fall. It was coming down in thick sheets outside. The streets were empty.

  “Hey early bird,” Joel said, walking down the stairs.

  “Hey.”

  “Did you put any coffee on yet?”

  “Not yet, I needed a hot shower more.”

  She heard Joel rummaging around in the kitchen. “Where do you guys keep the coffee filters?”

  “In the cabinet above the stove,” she replied distractedly. A tree in the neighbor’s yard across the street started to lean precariously over the neighbor’s car. “Hope they have good insurance,” she murmured quietly.

  Joel sat down next to her a moment later. "Katie, in the craziness last night, I never found out what happened exactly. I'm sorry I didn't try to listen better."

  "It's okay," she replied. "I'm in a better frame of mind to describe it now."

  "So what happened in the library?"

  "I heard a noise, like someone had knocked some books off a shelf right after the power went out. I couldn't tell what was causing it because I had been in the library by myself. I saw blood on the floor, and heard more crashing. I saw someone stumbling around among the bookshelves, but I couldn't make out who they were. I called to them but got no answer, except a creepy gurgling noise. A flash of lightning lit them up, and I saw that whoever this guy was, he was seriously ill, injured, and looked like he was dead. Those eyes. Those cold, lifeless eyes..." Katie trailed off and shuddered.

  "Did he attack you?"

  "Yeah, he came after me and chased me. So I hit him in the face with my laptop and ran. I started to run outside and saw there were more people outside just like him. Some appeared to be grievously injured. So I ran to the Law Library and hid in there. I thought I was alone until you called and then I guess they were alerted to my presence because suddenly there were a lot in the room with me."

  "I'm sorry," he said, putting his arm around her.

  "It's okay, you couldn't have known. So I ran, and miraculously an elevator was working, and I got away and ran to you."

  He hugged her tightly. "I'm glad you're okay. You know, after seeing them chasing after us last night, I believe you. What do you think was wrong with them?"

  "I don't know, maybe they were infected with Owasa Disease."

  "They sound more like zombies."

  "Yeah, they do. I don't know though, maybe they can be cured. I would hate to be called a zombie if I were just horribly ill."

  "Yeah, I guess zombie might be kind of demeaning."

  Katie heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

  "Hey guys,” Amber greeted them. "Is that coffee I smell?"

  "Yup," replied Joel. "The best part of waking up."

  "Ha, yeah," she replied.

  Joel hugged Katie again. "Look, no matter what happens, we are in this together."

  "Thanks Joel, that really means a lot."

  Everyone else woke up a little after noon. The night seemed to have taken its toll on everyone, as all were exhausted.

  At 1:00pm the power went out.

  "Ugh, really?" Michelle complained.

  "Well, don't forget we are in the midst of a tropical storm!" Anthony replied.

  "He does have a point you know Michelle," Megan said.

  "Yes! I know! I'm just upset that now I have to shower in the dark. At least we have a gas stove, so we can still cook."

  "I'll go down into the basement and take stock of how much food and water we actually have," Katie offered.

  "Why don't I go with you?" Anthony said.

  "Sure," Katie replied as she grabbed a flashlight and went into the basement. Fortunately, it didn't appear to be leaking much.

  "Man Katie, your basement is really creepy," he said.

  "Yeah, tell me about it," she said as she approached the shelves of canned goods.

  The house had been built in the early 1920s. The basement had a low ceiling and row after row of metal shelves stocked with mason jars when Katie, Michelle and Rachel had moved in. They had removed the mason jars and replaced them with canned goods and bottled water in the meantime.

  No one, however, could figure out why there was a toilet in the middle of the basement, connected to a water supply, without any walls around it. They just laughed about it usually.

  In the midst of counting cans, Katie realized she didn't know where Anthony had gone. "Anthony?" she asked, walking to the end of the shelf. She turned the corner.

  "Boo!" he yelled, jumping at her.

  "Ah!" she screamed and dropped the flashlight. "You jerk!" She punched him hard in his arm.

  "Hey, I just wanted to see how you reacted to the zombies last night!" he said, laughing.

  "That's not funny," Katie said angrily. "Go upstairs. I can count our food and water alone."

  He walked back upstairs, chuckling to himself.

  "What a jerk," she said out loud. She picked up the flashlight and went back to work.

  They had 25 gallons of drinking water, enough food to last a week and 3 additional flashlights. As she turned to go back upstairs, Katie saw something else sitting in the corner. "That could prove useful," she said, walking toward the bat.

  She had discovered the old wooden bat in the attic when they had moved into the house. She grabbed it and walk
ed back upstairs.

  "Ready to play baseball?" Joel asked when he saw her.

  She laughed. "Maybe. I figured this might make defending myself a bit easier."

  "Hey Katie, we are going to play a few rounds of Hold 'Em, you want in?" Megan asked.

  "Not for now, I might join in later," Katie replied as she walked over to the living room window and sat down. She laid the bat on the floor against the wall. The storm howled outside.

  Katie recalled when Hurricane Isabel hit Baltimore. It was a few months before her mom died. She was still in pretty good spirits then and Katie had watched the storm come through with her. Luckily their house was in a higher area of Baltimore, so they escaped most of the flooding. The basement did not, however, and Katie remembered her father and older brother Robby working hard to save valuables from the basement. She remembered her mother found the whole thing quite amusing.

  Katie had played outside after the storm while neighbors cleaned up their yards. The air had been thick with the aroma of sawdust and pine resin and abuzz with the sound of hundreds of chainsaws revving and cutting nearly simultaneously.

  Her reverie was interrupted when she saw a military Hummer driving down the street. A Buffalo Police truck followed it. The street appeared to be flooded with about half a foot of storm water.

  "I guess they're out making sure no one is violating the quarantine," Joel said as he sat down next to her.

  "Yeah, I'm sure that people are really considering skipping out in the middle of a hurricane," she replied sardonically.

  "Tropical storm," Joel corrected her. "It got downgraded right before you called me from the school."

  "Oh."

  Throughout the day Joel tried unsuccessfully to reach his family and Austin. He couldn't get through on his cell phone and the Internet was still out.

  "I hope they're okay," he said.

  "I'm sure they are," Katie said, hugging him.

  They joined in the poker game around 4:00pm and transitioned to playing poker by candlelight as it got dark outside. The storm gradually calmed outside.