Rise (Book 2): Age of the Dead

by Gareth Wood

  At the bottom of the hill, a four way intersection was crowded with several abandoned and burned vehicles. A line of more empty vehicles could be seen stretching east. We skirted the debris and continued south. The town was on either side of us, subdivisions behind fences whose paint had peeled, and in some places had fallen. Quiet homes with black windows watched us pass. The place didn’t look too bad, really. It would take a few hundred soldiers about a week to secure this town, if the need ever became great enough. There was probably a great amount of supplies still in the stores here, and the farming country around this area was pretty good, as far as I knew. We came to another intersection, this one not blocked at all, and drove through slowly, keeping a watchful eye out. I saw a stain on a fence, and turned my head. I could make out a distinct handprint, and a great swath of something that was probably blood, blackened now with age. Next, a fallen fence allowed a brief look into the streets, and I saw several distinct figures standing. My skin chilled, and I looked back at the road.

  We came to the bridge over the Bow River, and I slowed to check it out. The Bow had flooded in the spring, and the bridge here might be damaged. I realised I had no way to tell if it was safe or not, so I kept going. The Highlander behind us followed without hesitation. On the other side we began the long climb up into the prairie level, out of the river valley. At the top I stopped and pulled off the road onto the shoulder above some trees that lined the slope below. To the east was a grand view of the Bow River wandering towards Calgary. There were no undead within sight, so we decided to stretch our legs and have a quick bite to eat, some trail mix and tea or water. I wandered off to the opposite side of the road for a piss, and found myself looking at the Rocky Mountains. They stretched north to south as far as I could see, and somewhere behind them was Golden. Up until that moment I hadn’t thought about it much, but now I really hoped the town was alive and thriving. I hoped they had fresh water, a good and steady supply of food, and strong barricades. I hoped they were receptive to the idea of cooperating with us. I really hoped they were all alive, but I had this gnawing feeling that that might not be what we’d find when we got there.

  After our break we started off again, still southwards, until we reached the Trans-Canada Highway. It was here that my journey began to repeat itself. We turned west, and pulled over right away into a service station parking lot, our first planned stop. The windows of the station were all broken, but wood sheeting had been placed over the frames. There were several cars and trucks in the parking area, all with flat tires. There were no undead to be seen, but that meant nothing. Fuel had been left here by a previous salvage team in a wooden shed behind the station. We got out with weapons drawn and checked the area, finding the station locked and secure, and a fuel checkout sheet on the pile of gas cans. I filled out how many liters of gas we were taking and closed the fuel shed. The next time this depot was checked there would be a record of what we used. I saw that Salvage Team 203 used this depot a lot, but that they refilled it too. It was probably the central depot of the area they searched for supplies. They hadn’t been here in about three weeks, and I wondered if they were one of the teams that had vanished.

  We went on our way, driving westward towards the mountains. The terrain became steadily rougher as we approached and entered the foothills that spread out from the base of the Rockies. There were many abandoned vehicles along the highway, and we often had to slow down to navigate around a van or car turned sideways. We passed a sign advertising the Canmore Trade Show, May 22nd and 23rd of 2004. It was faded and stained, and I bet that the trade show had never happened.

  We passed ponds beside the road, leftovers from snow or rain that had never drained away. In a few of them were cars, left to rust and mildew. The plant life here was mostly low scrub and brush, with only a few stands of leafless trees on the slopes of small hills. Grasses long unattended grew wild and high, and the slight breeze made the hillsides ripple. We drove along the Trans Canada, here two lanes west, two lanes east, separated by an overgrown ditch divider about forty feet across. The Rockies loomed ahead, a high wall of jagged rock and snow. The trees became thicker and larger as we got nearer the mountains, covering hillsides in alternating patches of evergreen and other deciduous trees. The grasses were left behind, and forested hills truly began.

  We passed many homes, but stopped at none of them. I was sure no one lived here. We passed ruins. One home to our left was perched on a high hilltop, with all of its windows shattered and the entire left side of its roof burned out. There was a van parked near the house that had burned as well. Shortly after that we passed a large truck, faded green with tinted windows, parked in the ditch north of the highway. It had been towing a horse trailer, which was lying on its side in the ditch. I saw a gleam of ivory bones as we passed.

  We drove in silence all this way. Darren and Amanda were riding with me, and didn’t seem inclined to break the silence with questions. They knew my story, knew that I had come through here when the dead first rose. This was strange for me, seeing as ruins the places that were intact when I fled. It wasn’t as bad as going to Calgary, but it was bad enough. I was tense and had a headache, so I pulled over a little less than 60 km from Banff, in the parking lot of a ruined restaurant, the Fort Chiniki. It had the look of a former gas station. It had been converted some years ago into a small family style restaurant, but hadn’t fared well once the dead rose up. The windows were all shattered, and the signs were torn down. The front door was hanging by a single hinge, and something moved inside the dark building. I opened my door, stepped out into the fresh air, and immediately caught the stench of decaying flesh. Darren and Amanda climbed out too, drawing their sidearms. Mine was in my hand as the zombies came out into the daylight. Three of them staggered outside, and I raised my hands and aimed. I heard car doors slam and knew that Eric and Sanji had arrived to help. Darren, leaning on the far side of the hood of the Highlander, fired first, and his shot was good. The lead walking corpse, a tall and very fat man, wearing only underwear and a tank top covered in old, dried blood, collapsed with a small hole in his head. He sighed as he fell, like he was finally letting go of something. The other two ignored him, and came at us. The first was a young boy, maybe twelve, with both his arms broken and hanging uselessly at his sides, bones poking through his skin. I fired twice at his head; he fell backwards and twitched once. The last one was female, I think. It was hard to tell anymore. Most of its skin was missing, and it was naked and black like it had been burned very badly. It had no hair, and only one remaining eye. Five guns fired, and its skull vanished. What remained toppled to its knees, where it balanced for a moment before sliding down sideways.

  “What are we stopping for?” Eric asked me, as he scanned around the area for any more of the undead.

  “I have a headache,” I replied, “I want some pills.”

  Eric raised an eyebrow at me, but didn’t say anything more.

  I took the pills with a little water while the others looked around and through the building to be sure we were alone. They came back and I handed Amanda the keys then climbed into the passenger seat to let the painkillers take effect. My headache dulled, but I was left with the tension. I really was not looking forward to this at all, I had to admit. We pulled out onto the highway again, and I rolled the window down a little for the fresh air. It helped a bit, and the pain behind my eyes slowly faded away. I closed my eyes for a while, and tried to remember what my old judo instructor used to teach us about meditation. It was no good though, so I gave up after a few minutes. I realised I could no longer even remember his name.

  * * *

  When I opened my eyes again we were in the mountains nearing the gates of Banff National Park. I must have dozed off. I felt much better, and the headache was totally gone. Afternoon sunlight shone down on the road, making the clumps of snow shine brightly. Ahead of us was a nightmare of wrecked and abandoned vehicles. The highway here widened into six or seven lanes and passed through the gates b
etween small houses where park employees sat to offer information and take user fees for camp sites and picnic areas. There were about a hundred cars, trucks, minivans and utility vehicles parked in front of the gates, plus one Greyhound bus at the back of the crowd. We stopped a few hundred feet away and looked at the mess. I took up my binoculars and looked for movement. I spotted about a dozen skeletons but there was nothing moving down there that I could see. I got out and walked to the Ford, and Eric rolled his window down.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “Looks like every lane here is blocked,” he said, peering through his own binoculars.

  Sanji pointed to the left. “What about there,” he said, “where the oncoming lanes are?”

  I looked, and saw that the two oncoming lanes that exited the park were nearly empty. We would have to shove and push a few wrecks out of the way, but it was far better to go that way than try to deal with the disaster in front of us. We drove over to the left, and moved forward towards the wreckage. Sanji, Eric and I got out, while Darren and Amanda watched our asses, C7’s at the ready, canvassing the area for walking dead.

  We pushed and shoved and grunted, and it took some time and a lot of sweat, but we managed to move five cars, two minivans, and a pickup truck out of the way, shoving them off the road. Exhausted, we climbed back into the vehicles and drove through onto the parkway. The sun was just about to vanish behind the mountain ridges to the west, and I wanted to get a few more kilometers into the park before we stopped to camp for the night.

  We eventually chose to stop right on the highway, about halfway between the park gates and the town of Banff itself. We pulled over onto the shoulder, and everyone prepared to spend a cold night huddled in the cars. We made a hot meal, tea and hot chocolate, preparing the food on a small portable propane stove we set up on the tailgate of the F-250. It was full dark by the time we finished eating. We observed blackout rules, not wanting the undead to be drawn to us by lights. I took first watch, sitting on the roof of the Highlander with a flashlight, my C7A1, and a warm blanket. I sat and listened, dreading and expecting to hear the shuffling steps that would mean we had been found by the hungry dead, but all I heard was the wind blowing through the trees. There were a few animal sounds, some rustling and twittering, but the walking corpses of our former countrymen didn’t disturb us that night. I sat and looked at the stars, and wondered, again, why this had happened. I had stopped believing in God, so I didn’t wonder if God was pissed at us. I didn’t see the point, really. I wondered if this was science gone astray, but that made no sense either. I wondered if it was black magic, but that implied that there was a devil, and if I didn’t believe in one, I could hardly believe in the other, right? In the end, I had no idea what the reason was that the grave no longer held the dead.

  In truth, the reasons don’t matter. The situation is what matters, and how we deal with it. Asking of each other and ourselves, ‘How is this possible?’ is pointless. Fact; the dead walk again and try to consume us. Question; what are we going to do about it?

  Eventually, I woke Amanda, and passed the blanket on to her. She climbed onto the roof and I got into the Highlander passenger seat. Eventually, I slept.

  * * *

  Breakfast was brief. We had oatmeal, dried fruit, and water. I shaved with some hot water and felt much better for it. We drove west as the sun rose, all of us stiff and sore from sleeping in the car seats. We would have to get used to this, since sleeping in a bed was going to be a rare luxury until we got back to Cold Lake.

  It really wasn’t all that far from Banff to Golden, maybe 140 kilometers, but the roads were hazardous. We made good time right up to the BC border. There were cars and trucks abandoned all along the road for many kilometers. We saw many corpses, almost all of them the truly dead kind. There were a few undead sitting in vehicles, staring at us as we passed them by, walking along the highway, or just standing there until they noticed us. We easily avoided as many of them as we could, and only had to shoot one that actually tried to jump on the hood of the Highlander as we passed. Sanji shot it after slamming on the brakes, making it flop off the hood and roll on the ground. We drove past it, and kept on going. Moving west along the Trans-Canada there was a drop of hundreds of feet into the river valley where the town lay. The road dog-legged back and forth along the cliff sides of the mountains, with loose boulders to the north above and a steep fall below to the south.

  We came to a road sign that had Golden listed at 12 km distance. Underneath it was a hand painted sign that read:

  WARNING:

  You are approaching GOLDEN.

  You will be stopped and searched!

  If you’ve been bitten, Turn Back Now!

  A stern warning, to be sure. As we drove closer we saw that the wrecked cars had been pushed off the sides of the road. That was a good sign. They were keeping the path clear so that people approaching would have an easier time getting down the long slope to the town. With trucks and cars blocking the highway there would have been problems staying on the road, and the cliff on the south side was a steep one. Darren and I were together for this part of the trip. I was driving. Darren was scanning the radio frequencies hoping to hear a signal, either from the town or some other community. The radio was a long shot, but he did it anyway. Not too many places had the power available to keep a transmitter on the air.

  The sun emerged from behind the thin cloud cover, and warm light fell onto our vehicles. The colours of the rocks on our right leapt to life, no longer the dull greys of an overcast day, but the sharp whites, blacks, and blues of mountain rock in the sunlight. The green pine trees in the valley to our left glowed as well, and the sun was reflected off the surface of the river far below. I suddenly felt very good about this mission. We were fast approaching the last of the turns before the town would come into view, and I slowed, preparing to stop. The last time we were here there had been a barricade across the highway just east of the town, and armed men and women had intercepted us there, then passed us through to the other side. We had been detained long enough to be questioned politely, then told that Golden was closed to outsiders. They had escorted us to the far side, and sent us on our way. They had been firm about that, but respectful enough. Now, as we approached again, I wondered how they would react. Hopefully we would be able to talk about combining our resources.

  We saw another sign beside the road, looking to be hand painted in the same hand as the last one. This one read:

  We shoot raiders and thieves.

  Well, so did we. It was nice of them to give fair warning. Since we didn’t plan to loot their houses or steal their food, I kept driving. We came to the last turn, and the town came into view ahead of us.

  ”Oh, fuck!” said Darren.

  The barricade was destroyed. Scattered across the highway ahead of us were pieces of telephone poles, bricks, plywood sheets broken into many large and small bits, rocks from fist size to head size, tires, and what looked like the charred remains of a fuel tanker truck buried nose first into the wreckage. I slammed on the brakes, and we stopped just shy of a large bit of debris, a six foot section of railway tie that was leaning on a tire. The Highlander behind us slowed and stopped, and we all took in the view.

  The road descended into the valley ahead of us. On the left there was a gas station and restaurant surrounded by a parking lot. There were bodies in the parking area, and old cars now rusted and filthy. The visible corpses were nearly skeletal and totally inanimate, and I could see seven from where we stopped. There were visible signs of violence everywhere, from the broken windows to the smashed gas pumps. Several of the bodies looked dismembered, their bones scattered about a wide area. I was sure that if we checked, we would find tooth marks and signs of gnawing on those parts.

  The Trans-Canada continued on past that, turning north. The bulk of the town was visible on the other side of a bridge that spanned the river that ran through the center of this valley. On this side there was a group of old res
taurants and gas bars, and a trailer park nestled in right under the mountainside. On the other side, surrounded by trees, were the hospital, city hall, and fire station, surrounded by homes and shops and a few small offices and professional buildings.

  I got out and took my binoculars with me. I needed to see what was left. I stepped forward, climbed until I was standing on top of what remained of the barricade, and looked down into the ruins of Golden. A moment later I knew the worst of it: Golden was dead.

  I heard vehicle doors open and close, and soon Eric was standing beside me. I looked behind, and the others were there, waiting.

  “What’s the word, Brian?”

  “Have a look,” I suggested, gesturing in the direction of the town. Eric raised his binoculars, sweeping left and right, focusing on distant ruins and the motion of dead things walking about. I knew exactly what he was seeing, so I climbed down and walked back to the truck. My mood had blackened, and I swore. I climbed into the drivers’ seat and leaned my head against the steering wheel, closing my eyes. The headache was coming back.

  I looked back up at the barricade where the rest of the team was now standing, pointing and talking. Eric was still looking through his binoculars, and talking to Sanji, who was looking in the same direction with his hand up to shield his eyes. Had they spotted something interesting? A moment later Darren turned and waved at me to come back, so I got out of the truck and walked back over to them. I didn’t rush. What would be the point? I climbed up beside Amanda and Darren, and they pointed to the far side of the bridge. There was something there, but I couldn’t see it clearly. I raised my binoculars and focused them on the far side.