Rise (Book 2): Age of the Dead

by Gareth Wood

  “I heard that one too, “ I told her, “except it was a corporation, not the military.”

  Thomas pondered this new information, but all he said was, “Fascinating.”

  * * *

  As we traveled east on the Trans-Canada Highway the weather cleared up and the temperature rose a few degrees, hovering just over freezing as we began to leave the mountains. As we drove down into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains the sun that was only hinted at earlier in the morning finally came out, and the heat of it was pleasant on my hands as I drove. The highway ahead was frosted with melting snow. Abandoned vehicles were intermittent here, but we still took it slow.

  “How long will it take to get to Cold Lake?”

  I looked to my right. Keiko’s English was carefully pronounced, and it was the first time she had spoken to anyone since breakfast this morning. I scratched my cheek as I thought. I needed to shave again.

  “Under normal circumstances, maybe six or seven hours, at highway speeds. A bit longer now.”

  “Why is that?” she asked.

  “We have to go slower,” I explained. “There are a lot of abandoned vehicles still on the roads, as you can see. The roads are also in poorer condition now, and you have to watch out for corpses.”

  “You mean the gaki? The zombies?”

  “Yeah, them too. But what I meant was the dead bodies. Really dead ones. Victims of car accidents, or starvation, or the ones the zombies killed and didn’t leave enough of to reanimate.”

  To illustrate the point, I slowed even further to wind between a few cars, one of which had a skeletal corpse sitting behind the wheel.

  “Trust me on this,” I continued, “you don’t want to accidentally drive over a corpse. Broken bones can puncture tires, and then you’re walking.” I looked around and shrugged. “This is no place to want to be walking.”

  She looked at the road again. “So then?”

  “If we’re lucky, two or three days.”

  “And if we are not lucky?”

  I just let that question hang, because it wasn’t hard to answer.

  * * *

  Fourteen kilometers or so outside Calgary we pulled into the fuel and supply depot beside the interchange at the meeting of the Trans Canada Highway and the #22 that ran north to Cochrane. The southerly route along the #22 eventually ran into the mountains, since the Rockies ran from northwest to southeast in a great curve through Alberta, down into the western States south of the border.

  We stopped at the fuel station and got out to stretch and refuel the vehicles. Ours was the last entry on the sheet, so no one else had been here since we had passed through on our way to Banff. It was only a few days ago, but it seemed like ages. Now we came back, minus one crew member and with other survivors. I sat down on a barrel and watched the road as Darren and Amanda fueled the truck and SUV, and Sanji walked a circular patrol around the area. Jaeger helped fill the gas cans, and both Thomas and Keiko stood around looking uncertain what to do.

  On the interchange, about half a kilometer from the depot, I could see a few staggering figures walking along on the overpass where the #22 crossed over the Trans Canada. I went back to the Highlander for binoculars, and trained them on the figures. Three undead leapt into view. They had seen us, and were trying to figure out how to get at us from where they were. As I watched, one of them, blackened and rotten, climbed the barrier at the side of the overpass, and tried walking on air towards us. It fell, arms and legs flailing, and landed with a bounce on the highway below. I looked at it for a minute, but it didn’t move again, so it must have done damage to its brain in the fall. Good. For some reason the whole thing made me feel very sad. I put the binoculars back, and wrote down on the sheet what we had taken from the fuel stores, locked the shed again, then got the maps out of the back of the Highlander.

  Everyone gathered around, and we had a hasty conference about our route. Our options were few. We could try to drive up to Cold Lake from here, avoiding Calgary and Edmonton and going across country, through small towns and along prairie highways in questionable condition, or we could drive back to the Calgary International Airport and hitch a ride up on a plane. Our original orders had specified ‘return to Cold Lake by any means available’ and the possibility of flying over zombie-infested lands rather than driving through them like meals in a box was fairly attractive, despite the fact that I had nearly been killed twice in Calgary already. We decided to go for the airport. Once we were in line-of-sight to the city again we’d be able to get good radio reception, so we could contact the teams working there and see what condition the area was in, and how thick with undead the roads were. We’d retrace our route up the #22 to Cochrane, go east on the #567 to the #2 Highway that connects Edmonton and Calgary, and past that to the turnoff for the International Airport, where hopefully a plane could be available to take us all to Cold Lake. If we were careful we could make it to the airport by nightfall.

  * * *

  North of the town of Cochrane, where the foothills finally gave way to prairie and the #2 was just a few kilometers away, we pulled over and stopped in an empty stretch of road. There were no undead to be seen, so I climbed out and went to the back of the Highlander to break out the radio. Everyone gathered around, my team facing outwards to watch, and the Banff survivors watching what I was doing with the radio.

  “Yankee Yankee Charlie, this is Sierra Tango one oh seven. Message, over.”

  And then we waited for the reply. I hoped they were still there. If they were not, it meant some disaster had befallen the airport teams, and we were stuck here, and would have to make our own way back. Not a happy thought.

  “Sierra Tango one oh seven, this is Yankee Yankee Charlie. Send, over.”

  We all breathed a sigh of relief. I grasped the radio with hands I realized were sweating, even in the cold breeze, and took a deep breath.

  “Yankee Yankee Charlie, we are inbound with survivors. Our numbers are seven. We have three survivors from Banff, and have suffered one team casualty. Over.”

  There was a pause, as the operator on the other end was undoubtedly calling his superior, and writing down what I said.

  “One oh seven, sorry to hear about your casualty. What is your position? Over.”

  “Yankee Yankee Charlie, we are about three kilometers west of the number two on highway five six seven. We planned to drive in, same route we took when we left. Over.”

  ”Negative, one oh seven, do not approach. The latest flyover showed the undead to be thick in that area. We advise you to hole up until we can find a path for you. Or you can try driving north to Cold Lake. Your choice. Over.”

  Well, crap.

  “One oh seven, what is the status of Golden? Over,” said the voice, crackling over the radio.

  “Golden was overrun, probably several months ago. No survivors that we could find, though we suspect some people escaped to the south. We’ll get back to you soon with our decision. Over”

  “One oh seven, let us know as soon as possible. Good to hear from you. Yankee Yankee Charlie out.”

  I turned and looked at the others. The expressions on the faces of my team were what I expected. Resigned to a long trip overland, but determined. They weren’t afraid, and neither was I, but they were worried. The Banff people, not used to this kind of travel and close contact with the undead, looked more upset. Jaeger handled it best. He wore a frown, but seemed only slightly apprehensive. Keiko and Thomas both looked scared, and Keiko kept looking around like she expected the walking dead to descend on us at any second.

  “It’ll be alright,” I assured her, and shut off the radio. To everyone I said, “We have to decide what to do. We can try for the airport, but we might run into a lot of undead.”

  “How many is a lot?” asked Thomas.

  “The other option is that we try to run overland to Cold Lake, grabbing supplies all the way. It’s riskier, and we could end up very horribly dead. But the airport might be inaccessible to us.”
>
  “How many is a lot?” Thomas asked again.

  “Thousands,” I said. “Maybe more.”

  Sanji spoke up, still facing away. “We should look, and see for ourselves how many are between us and the airport.”

  “Yeah, I gotta agree,” said Darren. “Driving and maybe walking home doesn’t sound like fun.”

  I looked at the others, and they all agreed we should see for ourselves. I thought so as well. I really doubted we’d get far if we tried going across country. We’d run out of gas after a few hundred kilometers and would have to end up abandoning the vehicles if we couldn’t find more. Locating food would be a real challenge, and ammunition would eventually run out. Darren and Sanji and Amanda and I had in fact made a cross country trip over a year ago, but the chances of finding enough supplies this time really made me want to try the airport.

  “Alright. Let’s take a look and see. If we can make it to the airport we will. But just so we all understand, if we come to a point where there is no chance of making it through, we are going to retreat and try going overland to Cold Lake. I don’t give us much chance of making that trip, but if it’s a choice between certain death and probable death I know what I’ll be doing.” I looked everyone in the eye to be certain they all understood me. When I was sure they did, I nodded. “Let’s get going then.”

  * * *

  “Holy motherfucking hell, look at them all!”

  I frowned at Amanda to my left as she swore. We lay on our bellies on the roof of a house that was empty and abandoned, peeking over the crest of the shingles. She held the binoculars up to her eyes, watching the swarm shamble about just a few kilometers away. We had come towards Balzac, a small town right between Calgary and Airdrie, and stopped when we thought we’d be able to see the #2 Highway, the north and south link between the cities of Calgary just to the south and Edmonton just over three hundred kilometers north of here. The farmhouse we stopped at was one of a pair set side-by-side just north of the #566. The other house, the one north of where we were perched, had collapsed, and it looked like a half-hearted fire had burned in the wreckage. The standing building was intact, but utterly empty. A pair of barns a few hundred meters away had proved to be empty as well except for the skeletal remains of a pair of horses and a rusted hulk that had once been a farm truck. Amanda and I had climbed up onto the roof with the aid of a ladder left in the barn while the others stayed with the vehicles in case we had to leave in a hurry.

  She passed me the binoculars, and I stared at the highway. Two kilometers was enough distance that I still couldn’t see too much detail, but close enough I could make out individual figures walking or standing. They were mostly within a few hundred meters of the highway, which was still clogged with stalled and abandoned vehicles, a condition I knew stretched far north of Airdrie from the city. There were enough closer to us that I wanted to get out of there soon, but we had to know what the situation was on the main road.

  It was very bad.

  There were possibly ten thousand walking dead within sight, a thick band of them walking slowly north near or on the road only a few kilometers away. The swarm lacked any actual cohesion, and many of the undead simply stood there until something attracted their attention. I watched quietly for a few minutes, my flesh crawling with revulsion. Fortunately the wind was blowing towards them. I hated to think what the stench would be like if it was blowing the other way.

  Amanda tapped my arm, and I looked over at her. She pointed to the line of small trees growing half a kilometer away to the east. They had been planted in a line growing north to south, and in a few decades they would make an excellent wind break. Twenty or so figures were walking our way between those trees.

  “Shit…”

  Amanda climbed down immediately to warn the others, and I stared at the advancing figures through the binoculars. The sight of rotten flesh and decaying clothing confirmed what they were, and I stood to turn in a circle, looking all around us to see what was coming. The fields south of us were empty but for breeze blown grass, and south of that a few kilometers away the city began. To the west were more fields that gave way to rolling hills, also empty of motion. North of us was another farm in the distance, a line of taller trees, and more grassy overgrown fields. From that way I could make out eight or nine more slow figures approaching. There were far too many for any hope of dealing with them quietly. I hastily climbed down off the roof to where we had parked.

  Everyone else was already getting back into the vehicles, the brief escape from the truck and SUV over. Thomas Dand looked up as I clambered down the ladder.

  “Do we fight them?” he asked me, half in the passenger door.

  “Hell no,” I said. “There’s about thirty of them coming at us from the east and north. We could kill them all, but we’re going to run instead.”

  “So why—?”

  “We don’t fight because gunshots would attract the attention of the ten thousand other zombies hanging around on the Number Two Highway!” Amanda interrupted him as she hustled Keiko into the F-250. She put her hand on the door and said, “Get in!”

  He glared at her, but climbed in, and she slammed the door.

  “You have an amazing way with people,” I told her.

  “Don’t I?” she grinned at me as she ran to the Highlander and climbed in beside Sanji. I got in the front passenger side of the F-250. Darren was driving.

  “Head back the way we came,” I told him, and he started the vehicle moving as I checked the action on first my Browning and then his. I turned, and in the seat behind me I saw Keiko check her own handgun carefully, and I smiled at her reassuringly. She looked quite nervous.

  Thomas Dand leaned forward. In his hands he held a pen and a small notebook. Apparently he was making notes of all this.

  “That woman is very rude,” he said to me.

  “Nah, that wasn’t rude,” Darren said from beside me. “She didn’t swear at you once!”

  “Check your weapon, Mister Dand,” I told him.

  “Doctor Dand,” he reminded me.

  The truck bumped as we drove over what I hoped were roots that had broken through the pavement. In the rear view mirror I could see the Highlander rolling out onto the road. Behind them I could see several staggering shapes getting closer to where we had been. Too late, I thought.

  “Fine. Doctor. Check your gun.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine,” he said, and looked back down at his notebook.

  I shared a look with Darren. I shook my head a little, and then reached over the seat and put my hand on the notebook. Thomas looked up at me in surprise.

  “Doctor,” I said, “that was not a request. There is a very good chance that we will have to defend ourselves from the undead quite soon. If you want to survive you will make this a habit. Check your weapon.”

  To his credit, he put his notebook away and started checking the action and barrel of his rifle. It was awkward to do in the back seat of a moving truck, but he managed to do it without whacking anyone with the barrel.

  Once I was satisfied I went back to checking the C7’s. It was amazing how fast dirt could accumulate in the barrels, so even though we had checked them this morning, I looked them over again as we drove.

  “Three on the left,” Darren reported, and I looked up. Sure enough, three of the undead were trying to climb out of a ditch on the left side of the road. They were rotten and nearly naked, their clothes having disintegrated over time. We shot past before they climbed out of the filthy water and ice in the ditch.

  Several kilometers later, heading northwest away from Calgary, I radioed the Highlander. After a discussion with the team and our passengers it was decided that we would continue northwest until we found a house that was empty so we could shelter for the coming night and try to get across the #2 Highway in the morning.

  We had about an hour of light left when we pulled off the #22 into the overgrown yard of a house, a few kilometers south of the town of Cremona. The drivewa
y to the house was half covered with weeds, grown around a battered farm truck parked half on the lawn. The bungalow style house was closed up, and all the windows we could see were intact. A horse trailer was parked beside the north side of the house, and a skidoo was slowly decaying in an open shed a dozen meters to the right of that. We sat and quietly looked at the place for a few minutes, and then Darren and I got out. We stood facing the house while the others got out of the Highlander, and Keiko and Dand joined them.

  “Here’s how we do this,” I explained. “Darren and I go inside and make sure the house is clear. We go room to room. Mr. Jaeger, if you would, sit in the drivers’ seat of the Highlander, and Amanda in the F-250, in case we need to get away fast. The rest of you watch around us. Keep your eyes open. Follow Sanji’s lead; he’s been doing this a long time now, and he’s good at it. Any questions?”

  There were none, so Darren and I raised our Brownings and walked up to the door. I tried the knob; it wasn’t locked, and turned stiffly in my hand. I took a deep breath and pushed, raising the handgun to aim between door and jamb as I stepped back, watching the door swing open.

  Silence.

  We stepped inside to a small, neatly kept living room. A large TV, a couch and several chairs dominated the room; pictures of smiling people and woodlands scenes decorated the walls. A grandfather clock stood against the far wall. I exhaled and took another breath, and the stench of rot and excrement came to me. Darren and I watched the hall and archway to the kitchen, just visible to our right. Creaking sounds came from that direction, and we both aimed at the shadows there. A corpse, tall and gangly, bare chest, with work jeans hanging off sharp hipbones, and ribs visible where a large area of flesh had been torn or eaten away, stepped into view. The dead thing raised its arms and opened a mouth filled with black teeth. I caught motion behind it as I pulled the trigger twice, and the forehead imploded. The thing fell, and another came up behind it, another behind that one. Darren opened fire, and the second zombie, wearing coveralls and a filthy flannel coat, jerked as one round went through its neck, another into its face just below the eye. It fell backwards into the third, this one a child sized undead perhaps four and a half feet tall. The falling body of the second pinned the third to the ground, and I took careful aim as it struggled to free itself. I shot it twice in the head, and Darren and I waited to see if more were coming. When a minute had passed, the ringing in my ears subsided a little and no more of the undead had come forward, so we continued. I went ahead, checked the rooms in the hall. They were empty, but the bloodstains, very old, on the floor of the master bedroom told me where the zombies had been lurking before we came in. The bathroom was empty, and so was the kitchen. We took in the many pictures on the walls without really seeing them, and finally found the door to the basement. It was closed, but bloodstained handprints warned us of potential occupants. Darren gripped the handle as I stood back across the kitchen, and I raised the Browning to point at the door.